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Synopsis

In the deepest reaches of space, on a ship that no longer exists, six travelers stare into the abyss... and the abyss stares back.

Man has finally mastered the art of space travel and in a few hours passengers can travel light years across the galaxy. But, there's a catch--the traveler must be asleep for the journey, and with sleep come the dreams. Only the sleeper can know what his dream entails, for each is tailored to his own mind, built from his fears, his secrets, his past... and sometimes his future.

That the dreams occasionally drive men mad is but the price of technological advance. But when a transport on a routine mission comes upon an abandoned ship, missing for more than a decade, six travelers--each with something to hide--discover that perhaps the dreams are more than just figments of their imagination. Indeed, they may be a window to a reality beyond their own where shadow has substance and the darkness is a thing unto itself, truly worthy of fear.

Excerpt

Prologue

June 18, 2159

The dreams will stop. That's what they tell us will happen, if we succeed, at least. That was enough for me, for all of us. Sometimes, I think everything in my life comes down to those impossible dreams. They never were dreams, though. Not really. Not to me. I call them that only because that's what the lab guys, the scientists and the psychologists called them. Just "resonance in neural circuits." I guess that is why I am making this entry in my log. I hope they end, but I do not want to forget. I do not want to believe the lies. They have not seen. They do not know.

The last one was the same as the first. It was the same as them all. A valley opens up before me. But it is unlike anything I have ever seen. There are no majestic cliffs, no free-flowing waters or forests clinging to its sides. No. Hell has come to this place. The ground is scorched and barren. There is no life there, nor will there ever be. I can see dimly; the pallid yellow of the cloudless sky bears down on me like coming twilight. Even though there is no sun. Even though this place lies between the darkness and the light. In shadow. Though what casts that shadow, I cannot know, nor do I wish to. But the light is enough that as I walk down that valley toward its end, toward the end, as it narrows to a point where I do not know if I can go on, I can see them.

They stand along the valley's edge on both sides. High above me. Silent and unmoving. Figures, black. Hooded and cloaked, perhaps. But I think not. They are the shadow itself. Their eyes are ever upon me, though they do not move. For they do have eyes. Great pools of emptiness where their faces should be. And they speak to me. In whispered words and phrases. In wisps of cool breeze that seem to surround me, though the air is still and hot. What do they say? Can I know? Somehow I do. But whatever that truth may be, I cannot bear to repeat it here. I cannot tell what cannot be denied.

For ten years, I have walked down that valley. Every endless night I have seen them. And they have haunted me, even in waking. I have told no one, and neither will I. Wouldn't they think me mad? If I told them how the shadow figures watch me? How I see them sometimes, reposing under the streetlight beside my home? How they stand and do not move? Their cold, never-blinking eyes?

How I have found them in photographs, even those from my childhood? Lurking in the distance? Nameless sentries on the edge of existence and the frame? How I can feel them, standing behind me, even now? Their cold breath on my neck? And if I turn? How I catch them in the corner of my eye, even if they vanish by the time I look fully upon them? Yes, they would think me mad. And a mad man is most unwelcome in the void.

Chapter 1

Ten years later

Aidan Connor woke to light. It was white and blinding and pure, but provided no heat. It held him, that light, and he wondered if he had died. He thought he had and that this place was Heaven. But his eyes cleared and the light sank into the steel ceiling above.

He tried to sit up, but felt pain burn through his body like molten lead. He winced and let his eyes veer down the white sheet that covered him to the robotic spider that crawled up and down his left leg. Then he noticed the hair on his face, the scratchy discomfort of a beard unkempt, one that he did not remember growing. For a second he thought it was a dream. No, not a dream, thedream, for no sleeping fantasy was ever so real as that. Then he remembered. The dream was always the same, and it was not this. No, this was no dream.

The world began to spin and he fell into blackness again.

He awoke to the sound of the door sliding open, and the first thing his gaze met was the image of a woman with chestnut-brown hair peering over him. She was dressed in white, as bright as the light above. She looked like his mother.

She had died when he was born, but Aidan had kept a photograph of her, taken when she was only nineteen. But something was off, something about this woman's eyes. They weren't right. Neither was her hair.

She smiled and tapped something on the paper-thin plastic sheet she held. It flickered and flashed a thousand different colors as she said, "Good, you're awake. My name is Dr. Jackson. I'm the medical officer on board."

"Where am I?" he asked. He caught a glimpse of the spider as it marched across the sheet to his other leg.

"Sick bay," she said as she turned and pressed a button on the wall. A glass screen retracted and she removed a vial of liquid from inside, placing it in the back of a long tube. "You don't remember anything?" she said, taking his arm.

"Nothing."

"This is going to sting."

He heard the whoosh as the medicine was injected, but did not feel it. He looked up at her and arched an eyebrow.

"Hmmm," she said. "Well, it's not to worry. A little sensory collapse is not unusual. All in all, you're pretty lucky."

"And what about that thing?" Aidan said, pointing to the mechanical arachnid now making its way to his toes.

"Charlotte? Well, you had some burns on your legs. She's just fixing you up. Are you up to talking some more? I think Lieutenant Oxford wants to speak with you."

"Lieutenant?"

She smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. "This is probably going to come as a shock," she said. "But this is a military ship. The USS Alabama. The medical ship attached to the Agamemnon carrier group. We found you three days ago in a capsule, floating between Neptune and Pluto. You're lucky we came across your escape pod. I don't think you would've made it much longer out there." She smiled again and the compassion in her eyes scared him. "Anyway, I'll tell her you're tired, alright? That should give you a few hours."

"No," he said. When he grabbed her arm, he saw a flicker of fear race across her face, even though military training taught their personnel never to show it. "No," he repeated more quietly, letting her go. "I'd rather go ahead and see her. I've got some questions too."

She looked at him for a long moment and then the smile returned. "All right. I'll send her in."

Forty-five minutes--maybe an hour--passed before the door opened again. In stepped a woman. Well, a girl really, but something about the way her hair was pulled back tight, severely against her scalp, or maybe the way her blue Navy uniform hung loosely around her body, made her appear older. She saw Aidan look up at her, and when he did she smiled perfunctorily and without guile.

"Good evening, Mr. Connor. My name is Lieutenant Oxford. I'm happy to see you're awake." She walked over to the side table, removing a thin, flexible plastic sheet--a computer--from the pad of such sheets that sat upon it. In an instant, it interfaced with the ship's main system, loading all the information she needed to access. As she tapped the middle of her screen, Aidan did not think she looked happy. Then she simply stood, staring down at the image, apparently reading whatever it displayed.

"Ma'am?"

"Yes?" she said without looking up.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"Well," she replied, sliding her index finger down to the bottom of the clear sheet in her hands, "we were hoping that you would help us with that. Do you mind if I record this?"

"No," he said, feeling worried for the first time. "Not at all."

She tapped the pad and a click resonated throughout the room as a camera turned on. "Now," she began, "tell me what you remember."

She looked at him and waited. He thought for a second but didn't remember much of anything.

"The last thing you remember."

It came to him suddenly and he didn't like it. He breathed in deep and started to lie, but as he glanced up at her, he got the feeling she had an ear for bullshit. So instead, he just sighed.

"Angela," he said finally.

"Angela?" He could tell by the expression on her face that the name was not in whatever folder she had been perusing. "Your wife?"

He chuckled for the first time since he had woken up. "No. No, my girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend. It was the last conversation we had before..."

He looked up at her with a start that had to tell her he had remembered.

"...before I left on my last run."

"On the Vespa."

"Yes," he said, "the Vespa."

It was coming back to him in flashes, images and fragments of spoken conversations. He remembered that night on the beach, when Angela had asked him to give it up--to never fly another route or if he did to only do local runs. The nightmares had become too much for her. The nightmares that were but shadows, echoes of the dream. If only she could see what was in his head... Well, it might have driven her as mad as he sometimes thought he was.

But he couldn't leave. It was a good job. The best someone like him could ever hope to have. He tried to explain that, to convince her that staying on with the Merchant Marine was as good for her as it was for him. But she wouldn't hear his arguments and she left the beach behind, her crying and him confused and angry. Yes, he remembered that. He remembered everything before it. It was what followed that was hard, and he knew that was the most important thing of all.

"I'm sorry," he said, sensing her impatience. "I'm doing the best I can. I really am."

"Well," she said, "let's start from what we know. We found you in the trans-Neptunian void, at the edge of the warp zone. We had just dropped out of hyperspace and there you were. In fact, it appears that your escape pod had traveled some distance after the... incident." He didn't like the way she paused. "You had been in there six weeks from what we can tell."

"Six weeks!" She stared at him for a second before nodding. In truth, he had known it would be something like that, but it still shocked him to hear it.

"Six weeks. Your computer recognized you were injured, of course, and kept you in stasis. It's the only reason you are still alive."

"Thank God for modern miracles," he murmured.

"Yes... In any event, that means the accident happened beyond Pluto. And that's where we have a problem, Mr. Connor."

If it weren't for everything that had happened, this would all make sense. If he were in his right mind, he would know what she was implying, instead of lying there stupidly, Charlotte the spider the only being in the room not locked in some bizarre melodrama. Suddenly, through his fog-shrouded mind, he understood.

"We shouldn't have been there."

"No," she said simply, "you shouldn't have. Non-warp, trans-stellar travel is of course forbidden beyond the solar sheath, for obvious reasons. If a ship in warp were to--"

"Yes, yes," he said dully. It was one of the first things he had learned in flight school. "If a ship at warp speed were to intersect with one in normal space, the result would be catastrophic."

"Absolutely."

"So is that what happened to the Vespa?" he asked, knowing the answer as he spoke the words.

"No. If it were, you wouldn't be here, Mr. Connor. And besides, we have analyzed the debris field and there's only enough there for one ship."

Aidan sighed deeply; now there was no denying it. "So she's gone."

"Yes, she is. And then there is the matter of this."

She waved her hand and an image appeared in mid-air. Aidan found himself looking into his own eyes, and there was a bit of insanity and fear he found truly terrifying. The image flickered in and out, but he could hear words and fragments, even if there was seldom enough to make out a coherent story.

"This is a mayday from the private transport Vespa." He heard himself say. It was the last full sentence he could understand. "Warp core... we... facing catastrophic... cannot contain... maybe an hour... minutes... must abandon... please assist..." Then the screen flickered again and died.

"That transmission," the Lieutenant explained, "was picked up by our listening station orbiting Jupiter. Rescue ships were dispatched, but scans showed no signs of life and it was too dangerous to approach the debris field. It was most fortunate that anyone found you, Mr. Connor. It could have been years before that escape pod reached well-traveled space and by then, you would probably have been dead."

He stared back at her. All of this was becoming too much for his mind to process.

"So, can you tell us what that message is all about? Does it ring any bells? Jog any memories?"

In truth, no matter how hard he tried, it did not. He remembered none of it, and watching his own lips deliver a message he couldn't recall was perhaps the most disconcerting experience of his life. He looked up at her, the answer written in his eyes.

"Alright." She sighed. "That's understandable. Honestly, short-term amnesia is a symptom of both trauma and stasis, so it's not altogether unexpected. But we had hoped maybe you would be different. In any event, I wouldn't worry too much about all this. Our computers have analyzed the debris field and your message. They estimate a 98.3% probability that you lost warp containment upon entering hyperspace. That shattered your core grid and forced an abandon ship. The resulting explosion destroyed all the escape pods but your own. As I said, Mr. Connor, you are truly a lucky man."

She smiled at him, and although this one was sincere, Aidan Connor had somehow never felt more unlucky in all his life.

Copyright © 2012 by Brett J. Talley

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