Distant Frontiers - chapter 13
day three
Another day, another night, awake, asleep, nothing has changed. No dawn, no dusk. Each morning a black horizon, each evening a black horizon. Such a hardship is this flight, I must force myself imagining things to make time pass by. Counting stars, grains of sparking sand. Connecting dots, creating shapes, turning them white, positives and negatives emerging. Inside a sphere, black glass above me, will that glitter ever fall on me? Fall through me, a mirror image of the above below me. Left is right and right is left, both correct. Up is down and down is up, neither wrong. Always right, I, the centre of the universe.
Funny, how no one is getting mad. Despite this gloom. Have we become so accustomed to it that it does not have negative impact on our lives? Is it something else? Vibrancy of society. It keeps you sane. It keeps you imprisoned. Its structures, its norms, its perpetual circularity.
I should take some sleep soon. All this imagining, flow of thoughts drains me.
To a distant land then, a land of dreams, where up is still up, but it can also be down, left, or right. Where I can escape the confinement of social life.
“Mir, I will take a sleep now,” Sophie said.
“Have a good rest, Sophie,” Mir responded.
“About the beacons. They have two main functions. Firstly, they will serve as an additional source for relaying messages back to the mothership. Once they are released, all outgoing communication must first be transmitted to them and after that simultaneously from the speeder and the beacons. Secondly, interference pattern from electromagnetic waves will mask the position of the speeder, at least for a while.”
“Understood.”
“They will be released on our way back. I will tell when. If I do not return from the wreckage, it is up to you to use them however you see fit.”
“Confirmed,” said Mir.
The last thing she did, before turning the day off, was pasting new energy stickers on her skin. She skipped the oral one. Then she simply sat in silence, tightly fastened on the seat, arms resting on the thighs.
“Mir, take the command and turn off lights.”
“Taking command,” said Mir. At the same time, all colours of the control panel vanished.
Closing my eyes, keeping them open, darkness prevails. Waiting. And what will assure me that I am still here when I open them again? A turn to a new day as black as this night, heralded by cold vivid colours turning on in front of me.