"On the Edge of Eternity" by Steve Stanton

A sharp stab of pain. A cramp behind the knee. Harlin grimaced as the knots began to form in his legs, tiny little tremors like insects under his skin. He twisted in his restraining suit and drummed his fingers on the control keyboard at his side. Overtime again, and no one to blame but himself.

He’d almost had his rock cradled when a stray had come on the radar—almost home green with the goods. Navicomp had indicated a collision course, so he’d had to break. No sense risking his neck for one lousy space rock. Chalk another one up to the fractional probability, the impossible coincidence of random mechanics. The stray had just grazed his target, knocking it into a new corkscrew trajectory. Harlin had chased it anyway, had synched and snagged it with some fancy maneuvering and a good deal more luck than he was accustomed to—now he had to pay the price.

The biomeds and nurses considered it a psycho-physical irregularity. The official title was free-fall stress syndrome, the result of fatigue and the waning hypersensitivity drugs, but the asteroid miners on the belt knew it simply as space cramps and accepted it as another of many occupational hazards. Harlin had seen some bad cases down on the docks—convulsing spider miners with contorted faces, blood crusted on their lips. But he had nothing to worry about, he reminded himself again. He was only a couple hours over the limit, his rock was secure, his screen was green. Just a quick flight to Base and he could log in his shift. A good burn bath awaited him, and an ultrasonic massage to clear the Hyperstim out of his system, then a chance to relax in his bunk and watch the assay results on his overhead monitor. Good magnetics on this one. Some spots glittered like polished platinum when the sun hit them just right. Cobalt, chromium, titanium—any one of these treasures would make the difference.

If he could just stretch out a bit, maybe brush the sweaty brown curls off his forehead. If he could just scratch that infernal itch behind his left knee. Overtime again, with cramps on the way. Trapped in a bullet. A stripped-down, computerized tin can.

He flipped on his com unit and winced as the Base chatter flooded his tiny crypt.

The reply was immediate: “Harlin, you vac-head, where in space are you? I’ve had you on Overdue since I got up this morning.”

“Okay, Control, don’t panic. I’m right here on your radar screen. I should be visual in a minute or two. That you, Eddi?”

“I was just getting ready to shoot you down for a stray, you cowboy. You know you’re supposed to keep com open. I’ll have to log a memo now. My guns are already mobilized. I told you last time.”

“C’mon, Eddi. I’m way outside the sphere. You know the background noise drives me crazy. I can’t concentrate with the com on. Give me a private beam and I’ll keep you company all day.”

“Don’t make me quote regs, Spider Seven. Just don’t cut it so close on your approach.”

Eddi’s voice came softer now, with a note of concern: “You sound a bit shaky. You sick?”

Harlin’s left leg began to tremble in its close‑fitting plastifoam sheath. He tried pressing upward and bending the knee a fraction, which seemed to ease some discomfort. His other leg had gone completely numb.

“You’re clear on the Main, Spider Seven. I have visual confirmation now. You’re glistening like a palladium pendant. Some guys have all the luck.” Eddi laughed, a nasal guffaw that sounded like static over the com. The sparkle could be ice, he knew, but Eddi had been on Control long enough to know how to treat a shaky miner on his way in. Besides, it could be platinum or its more valuable cousin, rhodium. Everybody on the shift got a bonus when a lucky rock came in.

Harlin Riley stood in the doorway to the lounge and concentrated for a moment on the press of the floor against his feet, the slight tension in his muscular legs. Eighty-five percent Earth-g here on the outermost level of the huge spinning wheel. The comforts of home. He lifted up his right foot and felt the ground pull it back down. He planted both feet firmly. As sturdy as a rock. Immovable.

The community lounge swarmed with spacers—biomeds in white linen, comtechs in grey polyester, spider miners in sky-blue jumpsuits. Scattered naval personnel in characteristic black uniforms milled among the regular crowd, off-duty crew from a docked Space Navy freighter.

Harlin winced at the name—a private irritation between him and fellow spider miner Jim Nichols.

“Hey, Prophet! Over here.” Nichols waved a meaty arm in the air, his blond hair wild above his high Nordic forehead. Another colleague, Eric Apa, sat with him, along with two unfamiliar young men in sky blue. They must be fresh recruits, Harlin decided, and as he got closer noticed that they both sported bright green hair. He hoped it wasn’t contagious.

Eric made the introductions, calling Harlin “an old pro.” Eight years in space, thirty-six from the womb, now suddenly old.

“Lamosieu,” the young man repeated with a vaguely French accent. He had brown eyes, brown skin, possibly some African blood, but the green hair tended to obscure racial characteristics.

“What’s with the lemon-lime hair?” Harlin addressed the other recruit—white skin, grey eyes. “New fashion?”

“Sure, everyone on Luna has green hair these days,” Fred Carter replied. “Buy you a draft?”

“Just a citrus, thanks.” Harlin signaled his order to the bartender and tried to imagine seven hundred thousand people with green hair. A search for cultural identity, he supposed. Response to anomie. It made sense in a way. Colonists on Luna could never have the same goals and aspirations as Earthmen, their lives too far removed from the wife-and-kids-in-the-suburbs routine of middle-class luxury. So if they weren’t Earthmen, who were they? Moonmen? Lunatics?

“What brings you two out to the belt?” Harlin asked with a smile as Fred signed for his drink. “Fame and fortune?”

“Good money, all right,” Eric broke in, “but wait’ll you see the bill for that beer you’re drinking.”

The five miners laughed heartily, though the joke was well-worn and cut too close to the heart. There was nothing more expensive than imported mass in the belt, and the trappings of civilization came with exorbitant price tags. Rumor had it that Eric was in fact under some pressure financially and in dire need of a lucky rock, though he had bankrolled a long list of relatives Earthside over the years. With short black hair and finely chiseled Italian jaw, he looked as though he had just stepped off a shaving commercial on the holo.

“Speaking of money,” he continued, “I hear you plucked a nice rock last shift, Harlin.”

“Prelim looks good.” Harlin grinned. “An iron for sure. Trace counts for cobalt and manganese.”

“Sure took your time coming in,” big Jim Nichols observed in a sluggish drawl. Nichols had brought in a “dirtball” last shift—almost pure silica and utterly worthless—and had been drinking steadily all afternoon as a result. “Have some trouble?”

Harlin nodded grimly. “A stray clipped my rock just as I was set to cradle. Blew my synch completely.”

“What?” Ken exclaimed. “You had a collision mid-maneuver and still brought your rock in? I don’t believe it.”

Harlin shrugged muscular shoulders. “I was out over a full cycle. I just started from scratch on the new trajectory.”

“Well, it looked like a decent chase. My credits were down. You know how the Company gets when production lags.”

“Green truth,” Ken stated flatly. “I’m coming in every half cycle, rock or not.”

Harlin nodded. He’d heard that line before, straight out of the Station regs. He’d even said it himself once, long ago. He began to feel old. What was he doing out here anyway?

“So why are you called Prophet?” Fred Carter asked as he set his half-empty mug on the table.

Jim Nichols picked up his own mug and smiled into it. “Yeah, tell them about your sprite, Prophet,” he prodded, then turned to the recruits with a patently innocent air. “Harlin’s got one of those little alien ghosties in his brain,” he told them. “Like a pet, you know. Only we don’t know yet who’s the pet and who’s the master.” He laughed, the conquering Viking.

The recruits stared at Harlin wide-eyed. Eric Apa looked uncomfortably at his hands and rubbed a scab on his thumb.

“No, really,” Jim maintained. “I carried one myself once, believe it or not. My mother had it planted when I was a kid. ‘Course I had it removed as soon as I realized the truth. Not the Prophet, though. He’s going right to the wall with his. What do you think? You got room in your head for a baby parasite?”

“Well, yeah,” Harlin admitted, “there’s been some communication, but not to me personally.”

“These sprites are gonna take over, I tell ya. They’re sending out spies to plan their attack.”

“Bloody red,” Harlin countered. “The sprites don’t need our universe. They live in a different dimension. Outside of space and time.”

“I think I’d prefer a computer implant,” Ken offered. “At least then you know what you’re getting.”

“Yeah,” Eric jumped in defensively, “it’s no worse than an implant. Jim just likes to ride him. We’ve been out in the belt too long. Space happy, you know.” He lifted up a full beer stein. “Space happy?”

“Space happy,” they repeated, and tipped up four golden brews and one citrus punch.

“Have you ever stopped to examine his point of view, Harlin? You know, looked at yourself from the outside?” Eric leaned back in his chair and propped his feet up on Harlin’s narrow cot.

“He thinks with his head, not his heart,” Harlin answered, reclining, staring at the blank monitor above him.

“Perhaps not, but you can’t live your life in a dream, without foundation.”

“I didn’t say that. I know they’re real. But I’ve never understood what they are.”

“That’s just it. You’re running on blind faith here. Doesn’t it scare you sometimes?”

“Four or five pages from a book that may not even exist? You call that assurance? You’re willing to bet your life on that?”

Eric sighed, shook his head. “Okay, you’ve got something. I’ll admit that. And it’s intriguing, I’ll admit that too. But great space, Harlin, it could be dangerous. There’s something living in your brain, for heaven’s sake, and you don’t even know what it is. Did you ever see the old storybook holo where the aliens’ instruction manual turns out to be a cookbook?”

“Look, you and Jim can talk about it all you want. And make jokes in front of the femmes and the recruits in the lounge. But I’m going to find out the truth. It’s important to me. More important than all the chromium in the belt, more important than all those Earthside grounders living in that chemical stew, more important even than my own life, if it comes to that. Just stay clear if it bothers you. That’s why I came out here in the first place—to get away.”

Eric held up his hands as if to ward off the words. “Okay, slow down. I’m your friend, right? Wasn’t I on your side in the lounge? I admire your stand. Sometimes I wish I had the guts to do it myself.”

“Why don’t you then? What’s holding you back?” Harlin swung his legs off his bunk and sat up. “If there’s truth in the universe, don’t you want to know about it? Be part of it? We’re never going to get out of this solar system sub-light. We’re never going to discover all the answers without the sprites to help us. They can go anywhere. I think they might already exist everywhere at once. Don’t you see how puny we are without them? They can offer us everything, the galaxy, immortality. How can you pass it up?”

Eric rose to his feet. “That’s your trouble, Harlin. You’re too pushy. You think that just because you make a risky decision everyone else should follow your example. The sprites are using people like you to evangelize the human race. They’re tampering with your mind.” He held out a warning finger. “You almost had me convinced once, till Jim explained the sprites’ methods. I’m not going to be part of some alien plan of conquest.”

“Maybe it’s not true. Maybe what you say is green. But I’m not going to jump into a nightmare without a decent reason. Show me some proof, Harlin. Show me some good old-fashioned rational evidence.”

“The sprites aren’t going to do miracles for you like a dog performing tricks.”

“I’m doing fine on my own, thanks,” he said as he stepped into the hallway.

Harlin hung his head and scratched at a tangle of brown curl behind his ear. Maybe he wasn’t doing the right thing. Certainly he had nothing to show for his years as a sprite carrier. One by one he’d driven away family and friends. Step by step he’d retreated into space—first Luna, then on to Eros, finally to Base Station just inside Jupiter. He had no place left to run now, and not a friend left in the universe. Just a few pages of hand-copied loose-leaf and an invisible hitchhiker in his head. And a vague promise of something more.

Harlin stretched out his last spider leg and drilled in his anchor. His screen flashed green. Rock secure. A smaller rock, about ninety meters in diameter, but a good iron. A few strays drifted nearby on the radar, but none close enough to disrupt his maneuvers. Harlin smiled as he angled his boosters anti-spinward. Money in the bank. He had a long trip back to Base but would get in under time with any luck. If only he could stretch out these aching muscles.

He plotted his course as he killed rotation. It had been a good chase, but he was way out of standard hunting ground. A lot of garbage in the area. A tricky route home. He punched it in and redirected his boosters. He flipped on the com.

A visceral clamp seemed to tighten in his abdomen. He turned slowly, dreamily, as though removed from his body and watching from a distance, to scan his long-range radar.

He gasped for air as a wave of dizziness washed through him. He steadied his reeling mind. Think, he ordered himself. Could they possibly have blasted out of orbit without notice? Some emergency? Impossible. Too much mass. At best the crew could have evacuated in the lifeboats. At worst...

He keyed in a signal to open his porthole shutter. He stared out at eternal night and searched for any signs of life.

Eric, Eddi, Jim Nichols—all dead. Quick frozen like vac-pak dinners. All the pretty tech girls, the nurses, mechanics.

Harlin checked his air reserves and reset the mix for conservation. Two cycles at the most. He switched his radio to the emergency band and quickly dialed down the volume as the signal screeched.

“Eeeeeeeeeeyaawwk—from Pallas Central and can receive you with minimal time lag. Please signal if you are able. This is an automated survival search for any craft in the vicinity of Strategic Metals Base Station. We are broadcasting from Pallas Central and can receive you with minimal time lag. Please signal if you are able. Over.”

During the pause Harlin thumbed his transmitter and twice repeated, “Spider Seven to Pallas Central.”

The reply came a few seconds later, a woman’s voice in place of the automated baritone: “This is Pallas Central. We are receiving a strong signal from you. Please repeat your call numbers.”

“I’m not sure I have call numbers. They’re probably in the computer somewhere. My name is Harlin Riley, if that’s any help. Who’s this?”

“My name is Armstrong, Florence, Mister Riley. It’s a real pleasure to hear your voice.”

“Call me Harlin, Armstrong Florence, and tell me what happened to my Base Station.”

“I really can’t say, Harlin. I’ve heard everything from a core meltdown to little green men. We may never know what caused the explosion. Can you tell us anything?”

“No, I seem to have missed the whole thing. I was working outside the perimeter...” Harlin lapsed into silence as it occurred to him that he could expect no miraculous rescue from this woman. Pallas was at least four or five days away at full thrust. He was going to die in this tin can after all.

“We’ve got a good fix on you now, Harlin. How many survivors do you have in your lifeboat?”

Harlin sighed. “I haven’t got a lifeboat, Pallas Central. Just a spider with two days’ air.”

Silence stretched out around Harlin as Florence Armstrong spoke frantically with her supervisor on an in-house line. The facts were inescapable: space was too big and atomic propulsion too slow. And Florence Armstrong suddenly found herself in the executioner’s shoes. Press this button and the current will pass through the victim’s body. Speak these words.

When she finally came back on the air a few minutes later, her meek and broken voice confirmed Harlin’s worst suspicions.

“Harlin, this is Pallas Central again. We—uh—haven’t been able to contact any other craft in your vicinity at the present time.”

“I understand,” he said evenly. This was all going on tape, he reminded himself. This was his last contact with fellow humans, his last message to a civilization that had rejected him. He could think of nothing to say.

“I’m so sorry,” Florence breathed into her microphone, the ache of death in her throat, the emptiness of space eternal around her.

Harlin winced at the sound of her plaintive whisper, his own melancholy overshadowed by the acute embarrassment he felt for the poor woman. Torture enough for both of them, he decided, and switched off his com for the final time.

Cold and quiet he drifted, and a vast universe swallowed him like a dust mote, like a puff of sacrificial smoke in the wind, a brief scent of salt on the inland breeze.

“Just you and me now,” Harlin said out loud. “Just you and me and the naked truth.”

He knew from the Manual that the holy sprites never died, that they were not bound by timespace nor constrained by speed of light or antimatter reactions. He had memorized what scraps of the Manual he had chanced upon in his travels, hand-copied doctrines passed by mnemonics and smuggled from place to place. He had heard the promise of eternal life.

What he did not know and could not fathom was what exactly survived the death of his body, what exactly the sprite carried with him from the corpse. A mind, a soul, memories, purpose? Would Harlin remain an individual, a conscious entity, or merely a vague recollection in the nethermost reaches of the sprite’s consciousness? How closely was he intertwined with the eternal aspect of the symbiosis? Would death be the end or the beginning of Harlin Riley?

Steve Stanton's short stories have been published in Canada, Australia, England, Romania, Greece, and USA.

Cover: "Voyager"

The Voyager Maiden edges toward the waterline as she awaits the setting of her planet's twin.

Victoria Zamudio is a student artist. This is her first work to appear as a cover for Double-Edged Publishing.

For more information visit < www.mindflights.com >. The above items appear as part of Volume 1, 2008, Issue 5.

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