The two men, in another time, had both lived abroad, working. Given their situation, this was an easy thread to grasp as the common ground for their final conversations. Their experiences and dispositions were similar, and despite the difference in their age and circumstances, they found few obstacles in their discussion.
In spite of this general comfort, thick silences fell from time to time. Both were naturally prone to wandering in their thoughts. The atmosphere of their trip defied a quick description; the expected emotions were lacking, and none seemed particularly overwhelming. There were curious hints of nonchalance, as well as a conscious deferment of acceptance, which is, more than it may seem, very different from the denial which many would expect in their situation. The air held an eye-of-the-storm calm. They were reasonable men, and while they knew what was coming, both knew better than to try to face it headlong. If Insanity is passing by just outside, there is no sense in hastening to open the door.
Certain things were strikingly clear. Clarity, of a stark, but inconsistent sort – this was noteworthy.
I miss taxi rides, the younger one remarked. I never took enough of those.
Regret was not unduly dwelt upon. It surfaced, naturally, and then flowed along, waiting to be encountered again downstream. To clarify, that would refer to regret regarding the situation; threads of regret from their past, missed opportunities, the wistful remembrances of potential paths not taken (belonging to the variety of those things common to most souls) were easy topics of conversation. In that sense, it was no different from the way two acquaintances may interact in a sleepy bar.
The older one spoke. Relationship talk was, as always, a convenient beginning, an easy way to quickly relate, to distract the mind from the present horror.
Where does she live? You told me, but I forgot.
Yeah, no problem – London. She’s in London. Working there, short-term contract. Year or two. She’ll probably be done in August.
She worth chasing?
The younger one was taken aback. It was a question he had pondered frequently, and the puzzling conclusion he would always come to was that yes, he was sure about her. He was so sure, but in an uncertain kind of way. It was very overwhelming for him, and he felt baffled by it all.
Yes. Yeah, she is.
Honestly, mate? I’d chase her. Chase her until it fails.
How do you know when it fails?
Well… that’s a good question. You just will, I suppose.
When… I don’t know, would it be when she breaks it off?
Well, no. No. You just know. In your mind, you know when you’re just not allowing yourself to admit it, right, to admit that it’s not working. Anyway, is she worth chasing?
The younger one glanced around, his eyes gathering thoughts scattered across the room; silly thoughts, from a life unreal and distant, thoughts carelessly discarded but now meticulously reexamined.
Yes. She is. At… at the very least, she is worth giving it my all. Seeing if we can work, you know.
Well, in that case, try this whole Singapore thing, and if it doesn’t work out, go to her in London.
I don’t want to be in London. I like it out here.
They weren’t anywhere near ‘out here’, and it was obvious, but it didn’t matter. Both were engrossed in the conversation. They clung to it. They were reasonable men, and they knew that their minds and their hearts were focused on vanity. They didn’t mind.
Well, it’s just the advice of an old salt, but I’d chase her. I’d say my biggest regret was not chasing a girl when I should have. Or could have, I should say. I just thought to myself, there are plenty more wonderful ones to be found. And she was, she was great, don’t get me wrong –
Was it the distance, then?
The older one paused for a moment.
Yeah, ‘spose that was it.
He made a face, and it dawned upon the younger one that this particular face meant something very obvious for this older man, and that, had he known the older one better, it would have been easily interpreted. The moment passed.
Yeah, it was the distance. And the thought I’d meet many more. And they’re out there, it’s true. It just doesn’t always work like that, right. You don’t just go out and.. well, you know where I’m going with that.
But there aren’t any ‘just-come-along-once’ types. Right?
Well… No. But that said, they don’t come as often as you’d think.
They both knew the advice was in vain, but it helped not to think about it like that. It helped to think about it in that normal way, like it was an everyday conversation, and they were talking over a beer, old friends, and it was a random Wednesday night happy hour. Your typical, relaxed, beer-in-the-evening conversation.
The old man spoke again. He could tell that the young man was beginning to let the truth sink in, that they spoke in vain. He would try his best to distract him from it.
It was a wonderful time, back then. So many interesting people. Everybody had their story. Felt like family sometimes.
I’ve had a couple times like that. It was just starting to get that way, this last job I was working.
He was younger, by many years, and the current situation highlighted that. One didn’t notice it as much, in the normal circumstances. There were a lot of things they were both more aware of now.
The younger one asked simple questions, generally.
Where is your daughter? Now?
Oh, still in Japan. I wasn’t even that far – I mean to say, I was at least in the same region. But you know… sometimes you can be two hours or fourteen hours apart and it feels the same. The distance affects you almost the same way. There was a distance starting to grow between us. I suppose that can’t be helped, while she goes away to school. But I should’ve made it over to her more often. It was a fantastic place, at any rate.
Never made it to Japan. Always wanted to.
They fell silent.
——
What was his name? That young guy, who locked himself in the room with the others?
The younger one looked to the ground briefly, and looked back to the older man.
Didier. He was one of my best friends up here. Knew each other from way back, actually. Signed up for the trip together. French guy, which you can tell by the name, I guess.
Ah. Well, it was a brave thing he did. Wish we could let his family know, how he went out, as it were.
Silence fell again. Insanity crept a bit closer, for the young one; disbelief and bewilderment were shouting for attention. He did his best to ignore their voices.
We are doing the right thing, aren’t we?
Of course.
The older man said it without hesitating, but with a hollowness which belied his feigned confidence. There are many things we say without certainty, even in our normality; in a situation like theirs, when unhindered certainty would seem to prevail, it can still be elusive. Looking back, as they were, clips of memory were suddenly crisp and clear; looking forward was murky as ever.
The older one’s response was, in spite of everything, reassuring to the younger one. He tried to set his mind at ease. He asked another simple question.
Where was the best place?
Berlin, I suppose. I always loved Germany. You?
I never made it over to Europe much. Most of my time was over in Asia. Brief little stint in Bogota. I’d have to say… Chengdu. Or Kuala Lumpur.
The older one nodded.
Shanghai was great, for me… back when I was there, it was easy to know everyone, it seemed. That really wasn’t so, of course, you couldn’t know them all – even back then there were so many people. But you felt you could. You always seemed within a few degrees of separation from everyone.
It really exploded in the last few years! That place has a foot and a half in the future, with barely a glance backwards, it seems like.
Pretty apt description, yeah.
The younger one abruptly diverted the conversation.
How sure are you? That this is the right thing to do?
Mate… like we’ve said… there isn’t another way. We would… wreak havoc if we were to land back on Earth. You saw what it did to the rest, and then to that medic ship. It will spread like wildfire. Like a doomsday movie. We’re carrying a doomsday movie on the back of this ferry. So. Yeah. I’m pretty sure this is what we should do. I hope it can’t… leak out somehow.
It can’t, though. Right? Surely not in space. Not in this vacuum.
I’ve no idea. I wouldn’t think so. It should all burn up. As long as our trajectory is all right.
How long will it take?
The older one chuckled.
Eight minutes, twenty seconds. I remember that one by heart. I always thought it seemed so unbelievable, that it could be that fast. I’m not quite sure how to do it, of course; the best we can do is try, and maybe put this thing on autopilot and hope for the best. The safety mechanisms were overridden awhile back, since just before the medic ship docked. Usually there’d be three, four layers to protect against doing just this kind of thing.
The younger man nodded, and fell silent. His gaze drifted to the dark outside their glass shell, and his eyes glazed. The older man was concerned, but left the younger one to his thoughts.
—–
Insanity is mocking, leering. The younger one can see him, a wraith, outside the window. He closes the curtains and tries to snap back to the conversation. He is in his old house, no longer trapped in the old cockpit. He recognizes this briefly as a hallucination but quickly loses this knowledge as his thoughts race. He is sucked into a flashback, slowly watching the grimacing face of Didier as he struggled to seal the door. It all happened so fast. Didier sealing the door, without warning, dooming himself to the death following them, giving the younger man and his older companion the time they needed to make it to the sealed cockpit. The younger man hoped that his friend had not suffered. For all he knew about what was going on… he hoped his friend was not still suffering. It seemed like the victims quickly departed.
Insanity was laughing now. The younger man could just barely make out his face, floating on the edges of his vision. With a start, he snaps back into the conversation, into the cockpit.
What is going on? What is this?
The older man knew that his young friend did not expect an answer. There was no explanation he could offer, in any case. It was unfortunate, all of this. But it was necessary. His young friend was beginning to show worrisome signs of succumbing to the vast mental pressure which had enveloped them for the last two weeks. They had not had even the chance to take a deep breath, let alone contemplate everything that was happening. Now, in this silent cockpit, the only thing they could do was think, and their neglected thoughts were emerging with a vengeance. Everything had caught up to them, and it crashed upon their minds like a tidal wave. The younger one… there was a chance that it would crush him. The older man hoped it would not come to that; he hadn’t a clue of what he would do if the younger man were to snap. He felt reasonably confident in his own ability to resist, or at least evade, the lurking insanity. He had done his best to make up his mind and get on with it. Time for thinking about it would come later, after it was done.
The younger one fell into silence, his eyes focused, fighting with all his strength to keep them from darting about. If he lost control over his eyes, he would shatter his loose hold on the rest of things.
——
The air was beginning to grow short. The younger one had fallen into some sort of near-sleep state. The older one kept an eye on the instruments, on the controls. He hadn’t told the younger one, but everything he had done up to this point had been from memory, from the old space-flight simulators which had become popular when commercial space travel, and subsequently space tourism, had exploded onto the global landscape. That bit of information wouldn’t really help the young man now, knowing he, the ‘experienced pilot’, was doing everything from memory of video game simulations, would it? Besides, his memory had served him quite well, hadn’t it?
With the young man mentally departed, the older man whispered prayers. He wondered idly whether this was a sin of some sort, as it was, in a technical sense, suicide. But there were countless lives to be saved, and… well, he didn’t know what else to do. He had quickly acknowledged, in one of those vacillating states of clarity which permeated the current situation, that he wasn’t to be told exactly what to do; after all, faith could never be quite certain. If he were to be told, wouldn’t it be cheating? Wouldn’t it disqualify his faith somehow? That was how he reasoned with God, all the while wondering if reasoning with God was a vanity. It amused him to a certain extent, now; he told God jokes about how soon he would be home. He wondered if God chuckled as well. The situation would seem to preclude anything but gravity, but the older man was far beyond any vestige of etiquette to situational norm. He preferred levity in any case, and felt that God would not mind, if there was at least some small amount of faith involved as well. It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, after all, to keep hold of faith in this situation. So he held on to what little he had. How could one blame him, hurtling toward the sun in a crippled commercial spaceliner, crew and passengers long dead, victims to the disease which had furiously spread death, the pestilence which even now was held just barely at bay, bristling at its inability to enter their airtight command cabin?
The older man asked God about the younger man.
He’s in a tough spot, the kid. Don’t let him face this alone, now.
The older man felt a whisper of assurance.
Thanks.
——
What keeps you away, Insanity? Stop this! Come!! Don’t tarry – this delay is maddening! Obviously… of course! I know now, that is your purpose – to drive me to invite you in, to cause me to wish my own departure from reality, to urge me over the last precipice! I will not.
I will not.
I will not…
I won’t…
I can’t resist you.
I know I can’t. You know it. What prevents you?
Please.
I don’t mind, now.
Unlike any other time, any other place, it really doesn’t matter.
What can we do? We can’t escape this.
Come on, then.
The younger man notices something he hadn’t before – Insanity hadn’t moved from his post, just outside the window. The wraith stayed, looking on, that same maliciousness in his eyes – but he moved not closer. He was unable to approach… he was somehow restrained.
The old man is sitting next to him now, in his hallucination; he is on the couch inside the house, the old house where he grew up. He takes a look around, for the first time snapping into full perception inside his unreality. The light came in from the departing sun, thick and warm, scattered where it passed through the trees just outside. It was a deep gold. The younger man had assumed it was nighttime, but it was not. Not quite yet, at any rate. The old man didn’t look disturbed in the least. It was like he couldn’t even see the… well, what was it outside anyway? Insanity, but its form… the younger man could not comprehend the form it took. It was not a wraith, not a solid form, but a… presence. Visible not to the eyes, but on some other level; the heart, or the soul, or some other deeper sense. Insanity lurked, but it could not approach, and that realization was enough to buoy the young man’s soul. He strained to snap into reality and leave this false dream.
The older man looked at him, his eyes stained gold by the waning sun.
Hold on there, mate.
They were still in the living room in the younger man’s mind, but it had taken on a surreal sort of permanence. The younger man accepted it. As long as Insanity was held away, he could hold on to the end.
Glad to have you back. Don’t know where you were just then.
We’re doing the right thing.
The older man smiled at his young friend’s resolve.
I’m back now. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold on.
Just do your best.
…It’s getting harder. I… can’t really see you.
The older man was the slightest bit taken aback, but tried to keep the younger man at ease.
Listen, the oxygen is probably running low. I’m not sure what keeps this cabin pressurized. I’m not sure why we’re still alive, to be honest with you. Probably shouldn’t say that, and I know it doesn’t sound too optimistic, but at the moment I’m not keen on mincing words. Like I was saying, the oxygen may be getting depleted quite fast. You’re a bit younger than me mate, and your brain might need more oxygen. No, wait. That doesn’t make sense. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I want you to hear something that I’m certain about – we’re doing the right thing. We could’ve tried to land this thing back home, but it would have unleashed whatever terror it was that got on board. The same thing would have happened to everyone down there on Earth as happened to all those people back there, and all the crew of that medic ship, and your French mate back there. He was a hero, too, that one – if it weren’t for him we’d have all been goners and another crew would’ve boarded and the same thing would’ve happened to them, you know that. But we’ve got to take ourselves far away now. That thing, whatever it is that spread all around, is from out here – from space, from somewhere, I don’t know. You heard what that scientist said – like nothing he’d ever seen, the way it mutated DNA in a split second. We didn’t go through the last two weeks of hell just to save our own skins and take this monstrosity down to all the people down there. My… I didn’t lose my wife so that… when I see her after the end I can tell her that I didn’t do what I needed to. That we didn’t end it when we had the chance.
The younger man, his eyes glancing outside to meet the gaze of Insanity briefly before looking back at his older friend, nodded. Peace settled into his soul and he blinked and the world returned. The brightness of the Earth blocked out all stars from view, and the blue and green and brown stretched out before them, vast and marvelous. He had no words or analogies or metaphors to describe the beauty; it just was. It made him think about God, like the older man had talked about before.
Do you remember how to do it? What we talked about?
The younger man’s question was apprehensive, but even. His voice wanted to quiver, but just barely managed to avoid it.
The older man nodded, resigned.
It’s not quite the same as it was before. It shouldn’t be too hard – only takes around eight minutes, like said. However, this is all a prototype – this navigation technology has only been around for a few years. They’ve the technology, but they’ve not figured out how to use it properly, it seems –
I remember you telling me before, about this – it’s not visiting the neighbors that is difficult, it’s the getting back which is always tricky? You said something like that, right? So, we can make it there. And it’s not like we need to come back.
Exactly. The getting there… sure. It’s just plugging in a few coordinates. If you’re ready…
Yes. We should do it now.
Alright then… give me a moment, I’ve almost just pulled up the interface… okay, here it is. Dumdumdummm… Right! There it –
——
(static)
(garbled conversation)
You know, I have no idea!
The older man chuckles.
Well, I’m not surprised. It’s been quite some time. It was pretty big, back then.
The staticky silence which follows is longer than those previous, nearly a full minute. Acceptance arrives, without pretense, heavy.
(heavy static)
You know, I’m just thinking about it – how long has it been since we’ve slept? At least two days, properly?
A short, incredulous laugh from the younger man.
Besides a few quick naps? A good sleep, how long’s it been? I may try to close my eyes for a little while. I may try to be asleep when we get there.
Go ahead. I’ll make sure we stay on (unintelligible) … a quick while as well.
(unintelligible) warmer in here.
(static)
(garbled conversation)
(unintelligible) Anyway. Good night.
(muffled speech)
(static)
LAST RECORDED MESSAGE – COMPUTERS RECORD: WARNINGS: DANGER IMMINENT – CHANGE COURSE – CHANGE COURSE – CHANGE COURSE – DANGER IMMINENT – CHANGE COURSE IMMEDIATELY – CHANGE COURSE IMMEDIATELY – WARNING: TEMPERATURE EXCEEDING OPERABLE LEVELS – WARNING: TEMPERATURE APPROACHING DEADLY LEVELS – WARNING: DESTRUCTION IMMINENT
It can be reasonably reconstructed that the older survivor managed to initiate the light speed sequence which took YSFLIGHT S0983 to Sol in approximately eight minutes and twenty seconds. Various transmissions from on board sensors record a progressive system failure as individual components shut down. Oxygen levels were low enough to reasonably suppose that the two final surviving members of the YSFLIGHT S0983 incident were unconscious at the time of the flight’s destruction.
From the onset of the incident, transmissions from passengers, the command cabin, and the crew were intercepted by the satellites of several governments and by the company operating the flight. These transmissions leaked to a major media outlet on the second day of the incident and subsequently monopolized global news feeds for the fifteen day duration of the incident and for several months afterwards. A small team of scientists from the medic ship survived for seven days before succumbing, and based on garbled transmissions intercepted from their research, it has been determined that the instability and volatility of the unknown disease preclude any effort to recover the remains of those involved in YSFLIGHT S0983.
Speculation as to the nature of the incident has been wide-ranging and inconclusive.
No further incidents have been reported.
the cloud the sea 