alonewiththemoon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alonewiththemoon) wrote2002-10-09 05:48 pm
alonewiththemoon) wrote2002-10-09 05:48 pm
The Border
As we draw near the military zone the warning beacons begin their automated transmissions of deterrence. My palms are clammy and my back itches as though I’d been sleeping in nettles. I squirm in the captain’s chair, which helps the itch but does nothing for my nerves. The Ehrengard draws nearer to the border. I note that whoever had guided my brain in our new trajectory chose well; it’s not a heavily patrolled section, and probably out of missile range from the nearest orbiting station. Probably. The only source of stability is the odd melody threading though my brain, but even the familiar is making me queasy. Notably, the familiar shape of a sleek black patrol ship as it intersects the Ehrengard causes my stomach to twist over itself.
To my surprise I do not vomit when the comscreen flickers into life. That is lucky, because clearly the military man glaring out of the screen at me, squinting in the glow of his own comscreen, already finds me a contemptible specimen. “Hailing the…”--and there is just enough of a pause to let me know that he is forced by etiquette to address me by my title but he does not give me the respect that is customarily given with it--“Captain of the Ehrengard. You have drifted off course and are approaching the limits of acceptable commercial flight paths. Please adjust your trajectory and have your navigation systems examined by a professional mechanic when you arrive at Lunar Prime. Acknowledge.”
I swallow, my throat like half-mixed concrete. I flick the audio switch to broadcast. I open my mouth to acknowledge that I received the message and try to spin out some kind of explanation of why a fishing trawler is so far astray and find to my horror that I am singing, singing words that I don’t understand along to the melody which has a key I can’t quite grasp. But even as I am sitting bolt upright in my chair, mouth open wide and throat muscles straining, staring into the screen in panic, I am struck by the beauty of the melody, by its rightness.
Clearly the military officer is not struck by its beauty, but struck by some aspect of my singing he certainly is as he reels back from his comscreen, hands clapped over his ears. He is screaming for someone to cut the audio, but before anyone does I can see sparks leaping from his screen across his ship’s bridge, smoke following after, and the screen goes dead. No time for thought. Hands move automatically. Maximum velocity, current trajectory. Acceleration pushes me back into my chair. My usual ritual is to fight it as long as I can, but now I slump back, relieved that for this one moment, my body is rendered incapable of doing anything at all. If I am not in control, at least no-one else is.
The Ehrengard's internal gravity catches up to her and I am able to sit up again. This time I do vomit, making it to the head just in time. My face looks gray in the mirror above the water station. “I don’t look well,” I think, and begin to laugh, laughing until I cry, great wrenching sobs that leave me slumped on the floor between the head and the bridge. The back of my shirt sticks to the wall, and from where I sit I can see the bright smear of fresh blood on the back of the captain’s chair. I wonder if the voices called me out here just to tear me apart, turn me inside out, wring me dry. It is too much. I can’t care. I close my eyes.
To my surprise I do not vomit when the comscreen flickers into life. That is lucky, because clearly the military man glaring out of the screen at me, squinting in the glow of his own comscreen, already finds me a contemptible specimen. “Hailing the…”--and there is just enough of a pause to let me know that he is forced by etiquette to address me by my title but he does not give me the respect that is customarily given with it--“Captain of the Ehrengard. You have drifted off course and are approaching the limits of acceptable commercial flight paths. Please adjust your trajectory and have your navigation systems examined by a professional mechanic when you arrive at Lunar Prime. Acknowledge.”
I swallow, my throat like half-mixed concrete. I flick the audio switch to broadcast. I open my mouth to acknowledge that I received the message and try to spin out some kind of explanation of why a fishing trawler is so far astray and find to my horror that I am singing, singing words that I don’t understand along to the melody which has a key I can’t quite grasp. But even as I am sitting bolt upright in my chair, mouth open wide and throat muscles straining, staring into the screen in panic, I am struck by the beauty of the melody, by its rightness.
Clearly the military officer is not struck by its beauty, but struck by some aspect of my singing he certainly is as he reels back from his comscreen, hands clapped over his ears. He is screaming for someone to cut the audio, but before anyone does I can see sparks leaping from his screen across his ship’s bridge, smoke following after, and the screen goes dead. No time for thought. Hands move automatically. Maximum velocity, current trajectory. Acceleration pushes me back into my chair. My usual ritual is to fight it as long as I can, but now I slump back, relieved that for this one moment, my body is rendered incapable of doing anything at all. If I am not in control, at least no-one else is.
The Ehrengard's internal gravity catches up to her and I am able to sit up again. This time I do vomit, making it to the head just in time. My face looks gray in the mirror above the water station. “I don’t look well,” I think, and begin to laugh, laughing until I cry, great wrenching sobs that leave me slumped on the floor between the head and the bridge. The back of my shirt sticks to the wall, and from where I sit I can see the bright smear of fresh blood on the back of the captain’s chair. I wonder if the voices called me out here just to tear me apart, turn me inside out, wring me dry. It is too much. I can’t care. I close my eyes.