Halcyon's Wake: Faith
Chapter 6

Voyages

Beth manned operations inside the station while I finished up my external, visual inspection of Sleepy, the last in the convoy bound for the moon. I disconnected the tether holding me to the floating condo, and pushed gently away. I’d been in the suit for almost six hours and was ready to get back inside the station; but I wanted a good view of the launch, and this was the best spot for that, no doubt. Another few minutes wouldn’t kill me.

“Gravy train, you are good to go for Luna Base. I’m clear. Let ’er rip, Colonel - and Godspeed. And don’t forget my moon-rock, Mouse. See you in a few weeks.”

“About damn time, ” said Jim over the scratchy comm-link, “Service around this place sucks. You take care of each other and keep your eyes on that sky-skin. Learn what you can, boys and girls. And play nice. Gravy train commencing launch sequence, - firing in 3, 2, 1… launch.”

The pylon-mounted ion engines on the Dwarves pulsed into life simultaneously and the convoy slowly snaked off into the deep, the computers gradually adjusting thrust and attitude on each vessel until the tethers became taut and the convoy moved forward as one. Liquid fueled boosters bloomed into life, and the floating subdivision quickly faded from view. Quite the show. Wish I had popcorn.

I soaked up the majesty around me, noting how much smaller the station appeared with the Dwarves gone. I tried to spot them in the void, but they had already gone way beyond my vision... but something else was out there, of that I no longer had any doubts.

I flew the jet-pack back to the airlock, looking like a pink marshmallow floating against the black of space, lit up by the purple glare of the sky-skin. Thirty minutes later I was happily relieving myself and contemplating a long nap, but Beth and I had a lot to talk about, and a lot of work to do.

She’d put some light classical music on over the PA, then joined me in the dining area for our first dinner together as sole occupants of the ISS. I grabbed two meals at random from the storage rack and threw them in the ‘oven’, then sipped on a pouch of coke, floating another to her.

“Thanks,” she said, “What’s for dinner, roomie?”

“I left it to the tangled twists of fate, I fear. Whatever the universe has in store.” The oven timer chimed, and I pulled out the individual platters, sticking them to the table top.

Beth peeled back the foil top, revealing a shrimp gumbo over rice - one of the better meal’s, and I unwrapped a salisbury steak. Fourth night in a freaking row, and unfortunately, not one of the better ones.

“Seems your universal path has something to do with cows,” she said, digging into her gumbo and slurping up an errant grain of rice trying to escape her jaws.

She’d lightened up considerably since her confession to Mouse and I. Even going so far as to give Jim a big hug before he boarded the convoy. Sharing her burden seemed to change everything, although the news had soured my attitude a bit. I still had a lot to sort through before I could make any decisions, one way or another.

I trusted Beth.

And I believed her.

But the stuff she was talking about was bat-shit crazy, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around it. The rational part of my mind still wanted more proof. Sure, I’d now seen aliens and there was a global, purple saran wrap outside my window - but now the person I’d been assigned to a life-long post with was claiming to play a role in the bigger scheme of things.

Beth told Mouse and I that she’d been in constant contact with an alien race since she was four years old.

And we were the first people she’d ever told.

And yet they still gave her a security clearance? How the hell could she keep something that bizarre a secret?

She told us the spaceship Mouse had photographed was ‘her’ aliens, trying to project outside of the sky-skin just long enough to communicate with her. They were trapped on the planet just like those at Luna Base, and could only emerge beyond the skin for seconds before the radiation folded them back into their previous space. Beth’s aliens were supposedly the good guys, and it was that determination I was struggling with; it bugged me to no end, but not half as bad as her belief that we were supposed to destroy the station and return to earth in the next couple days - that one was kind of a biggie.

“How long before we get to the eye and you ...we… ‘talk’ with them?” I asked.

“About twenty minutes. You sure you’re up for this?” She looked genuinely concerned, no doubt due to the lack of confidence my eyes conveyed.

“Beth - lets get this phone call between us and E.T. out of the way - then I might have a better feeling about what you’ve told me. Fair enough?”

She nodded, sipping the last of her coke. Her face conveyed a simple vulnerability - and perhaps a little bit of trust? It was a huge leap of faith for her to clue Mouse and I in on her ‘experiences’ - and I somehow wished she hadn’t. I liked my world the way it was before aliens entered the picture. I’d dreamed about meeting extraterrestrials as a kid, but there really is something to be said about getting what you wish for.

I ate the last of my salisbury steak and stabbed my fork into the reconstituted mashed potatoes and gravy. I really did like the gravy, but four days of it kind of dampened what little appetite I had left.

“Let’s get this over with, Beth - but you might want to change the music. Maybe the soundtrack from Close Encounters of the Third Kind would be more apropos.” I smiled as best as I could, and relief seemed to paint her complexion with a rosy glow.

“You cooked - I’ll do the dishes,” she said, peeling the trays from the table and scraping the leftover foodstuffs into a container for mulching in the arboretum; a task that was harder to accomplish than you think. It took a deft hand not to scatter food all over the galley and send green beans off on little quests throughout the station. It was always rather unpleasant to be drifting down a corridor and get smacked in the face with stray food, but it happened more often than not. One plus of having less mouths to feed on the station.

We floated our way up to Ops, and I felt an overwhelming sense of aloneness. Space is deathly quiet, and now with everyone heading off to Luna Base, the silence seemed deafening. I really don’t think I’d felt that alone since my wife passed away. A memory of sitting alone and sipping the last of her favorite wine while I stared at the walls came rushing to mind unbidden, and I had to fight back despondency with both fists. This ain’t the time to be melancholy, I thought and wiped away an errant tear that somehow made its way past my resolve. Suck it up, Marine - time to talk to E.T.

Beth was floating near the observation window, her face pressed close to the glass. The eye through the sky-skin loomed just ahead.

“Okay,” she breathed. “We need to get started. I have to relax completely - and so do you. You’ll need to hold my hands and quiet your mind in order to hear Lothar speak. I’ve been doing this my whole life and it’s still a bit disconcerting at times - just don’t let fear or discomfort addle you - this is simply a new way of communicating, Zack - try and remember that.”

I took a few deep breaths and futilely tried to calm myself - until Beth grabbed both my hands. That simple human connection made me breathe a little easier, and my heart-rate began to slow. She began the process of lulling me into a near-hypnotic state of deep relaxation. Her voice was soothing, liquid valium and I easily succumbed, in spite of my apprehension... I could really get used to this.

Little did I know that in the next five minutes life as I knew it would never be the same.

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