The Grip
H e had been alone for so long now that the sound of his own name had become a forgotten, dust-choked memory.
His eyes fell to his lap. The blood on his hands was still there; funny, all this time and he’d never washed it off. He raised a hand to his lips and let his tongue moisten a few of the dried flecks. Tasted real enough. But he knew better.
• • •
Cready punched the flashing button labeled comm. scan one. Outside, a small and battered dish poked its head up and into the churning sand storm. Three labored beeps sounded as it peered into the heavens, scanning the endless wastes for the tentative thread of a signal from home.
It searched for what seemed like forever before giving up. Cready’s heart sank as the dish retreated. He glanced around feeling cold and uneasy, feeling the very walls of the tiny habitat sliding in around him, twisting and snaking like the great muscular core of an anaconda.
He glanced down at the cramping pain at his side. The fingers of his left hand were curling, his nails pressing into the base of his palm, tattooing his flesh with tiny crescent moons. He straightened it, held his hand flat against his thigh until the muscles stopped fighting him.
Days bleeding into one another. He wondered, with no small amount of skepticism, whether this morning would be any different from the last.
Morning.
Was it even really morning? The computer’s soothing voice had told him so when it had nudged him awake, but what if it was wrong? What if it was lying?
The display before him blipped and chirped. A detached female voice spoke to him. “Proximity alert, Lieutenant Cready.”
“I’m a captain, goddammit,” he shouted back. He’d been promoted barely a month after arriving at the outpost. God only knew how long ago that was. The computer said they’d touched down a year and three months back, but it sure as hell felt a lot longer than that. Enough time one would think for the systems back home to have been updated. Truth be told, the promotion had probably done more to depress Cready than anything. It sure as hell said a lot about CENTCOM’S confidence in the mission. How many generals back on earth had promotions and praise heaped upon them when everyone knew they weren’t coming back?
There certainly wasn’t anything glamorous about setting up an early warning system—Earth’s meat shield really—but at the time, this being the farthest stretch from home, there had been an almost romantic quality to the mission.
“Proximity alert, Lieutenant Cready.”
Cready grit his teeth.
A tiny object, no larger than the chair on which he was sitting, was streaking by; 35,000 miles away. Odds were better than even it was heading for that black void between worlds, he thought with a chill. Certainly wasn’t a supply ship. Those were enormous and wonderful and a sight they hadn’t seen in a dog’s age. This cold shoulder from Earth was starting to become a problem. In a secret corner of his mind, Cready was beginning to wonder if something very bad had happened since they’d left. Something unthinkable.
A voice, non-synthetic, made Cready jump.
“What’ve we got?”
It was Chavez; his engineer and the only other human within a few billion miles. The compatibility tests back home had given them a Class 1 rating. Meaning: they should have been best friends, or brothers, and maybe back on Earth they might have been. But out here people changed.
At first, he blamed it on the subtle effects of the planet’s weak gravity. But he had come to realize it was something else entirely. Something you were hard pressed to experience back home on a planet bustling with nearly four trillion souls.
Inescapable isolation.
That was it.
To look outside one would think himself perched atop a billowing sand dune in North Africa or in the middle of the Arabian desert. He’d think it, but he’d be wrong. Dead wrong. And that’s where the problem stemmed from.
The tantalizing
H e had been alone for so long now that the sound of his own name had become a forgotten, dust-choked memory.
His eyes fell to his lap. The blood on his hands was still there; funny, all this time and he’d never washed it off. He raised a hand to his lips and let his tongue moisten a few of the dried flecks. Tasted real enough. But he knew better.
• • •
Cready punched the flashing button labeled comm. scan one. Outside, a small and battered dish poked its head up and into the churning sand storm. Three labored beeps sounded as it peered into the heavens, scanning the endless wastes for the tentative thread of a signal from home.
It searched for what seemed like forever before giving up. Cready’s heart sank as the dish retreated. He glanced around feeling cold and uneasy, feeling the very walls of the tiny habitat sliding in around him, twisting and snaking like the great muscular core of an anaconda.
He glanced down at the cramping pain at his side. The fingers of his left hand were curling, his nails pressing into the base of his palm, tattooing his flesh with tiny crescent moons. He straightened it, held his hand flat against his thigh until the muscles stopped fighting him.
Days bleeding into one another. He wondered, with no small amount of skepticism, whether this morning would be any different from the last.
Morning.
Was it even really morning? The computer’s soothing voice had told him so when it had nudged him awake, but what if it was wrong? What if it was lying?
The display before him blipped and chirped. A detached female voice spoke to him. “Proximity alert, Lieutenant Cready.”
“I’m a captain, goddammit,” he shouted back. He’d been promoted barely a month after arriving at the outpost. God only knew how long ago that was. The computer said they’d touched down a year and three months back, but it sure as hell felt a lot longer than that. Enough time one would think for the systems back home to have been updated. Truth be told, the promotion had probably done more to depress Cready than anything. It sure as hell said a lot about CENTCOM’S confidence in the mission. How many generals back on earth had promotions and praise heaped upon them when everyone knew they weren’t coming back?
There certainly wasn’t anything glamorous about setting up an early warning system—Earth’s meat shield really—but at the time, this being the farthest stretch from home, there had been an almost romantic quality to the mission.
“Proximity alert, Lieutenant Cready.”
Cready grit his teeth.
A tiny object, no larger than the chair on which he was sitting, was streaking by; 35,000 miles away. Odds were better than even it was heading for that black void between worlds, he thought with a chill. Certainly wasn’t a supply ship. Those were enormous and wonderful and a sight they hadn’t seen in a dog’s age. This cold shoulder from Earth was starting to become a problem. In a secret corner of his mind, Cready was beginning to wonder if something very bad had happened since they’d left. Something unthinkable.
A voice, non-synthetic, made Cready jump.
“What’ve we got?”
It was Chavez; his engineer and the only other human within a few billion miles. The compatibility tests back home had given them a Class 1 rating. Meaning: they should have been best friends, or brothers, and maybe back on Earth they might have been. But out here people changed.
At first, he blamed it on the subtle effects of the planet’s weak gravity. But he had come to realize it was something else entirely. Something you were hard pressed to experience back home on a planet bustling with nearly four trillion souls.
Inescapable isolation.
That was it.
To look outside one would think himself perched atop a billowing sand dune in North Africa or in the middle of the Arabian desert. He’d think it, but he’d be wrong. Dead wrong. And that’s where the problem stemmed from.
The tantalizing
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