In the Middle of the World
13 Mar 2021Leortis9065
The center.Sagittarius A* yawed before me, a gaping, monstrous mouth cloying, worrying at the very fabric of spacetime. I could feel the old frame, the weathered hull of the Gideon straining under the immense pressure of it. She, like everything in the galaxy, was drawn ever towards it Around us, ringed and blanketed in eternal supplication, lay and endless sea of stars. Blues and reds and dull oranges clustered so close together that I could see no space between. Where once there was the ever reaching jeweled garment of the night sky, now it was as if that garment had been thrown over me, enveloping me in its luminescence, in its stark beauty. I felt whole then. Sitting there at the exact center, at the place which rules all the stars, which beckons forth from the farthest shore---drawing its children together.
I had a hard time breathing for a moment, staring at that vast sea of stars. I suddenly felt like a child again, looking up at the few stars which shone through the light pollution on Synteini A2. I remembered laying alone in the grass on a quiet summer evening there, laying with my arms behind my head and just looking up at the stars. "All those stars have people in them just like me," I thought, my eyes wide, thinking. That's I think where it came from. My "little distraction," as father would have said. It started there, on that warm summer night in my family estate as I wondered and I dreamed. It's never left me since, obviously. I wonder what he would have said, seeing me now, out here where so few have gone. Would he be proud of me? If I flew back right then, would he have welcomed me with open arms, ready and willing to hear all the strange and wondrous things which I had witnessed on my long, arduous journey?
No. At least I doubt it. Gaius Julius Adolphus Kolstain III wasn't the kind of man to suddenly change his mind about something as serious as his only son abandoning life, prospects and family to go walk about 'round the suns. Few in the empire are. He would have turned his back on me, as he had done so many times before, and leave me to the slaves. Like the time I stole his courier, or paid off that cruise ship pilot to take me to Lave---I didn't get farther than two jumps before the leech called sys-auth; or the day I met Aliana, the day they'd picked for our wedding, when I took her to Lagerkvist Gateway and we almost got away in my mamba. Damn was that the day. That was the only time he beat me. Actually laid his hands on me. Drew blood. He scowled and scowled for years after, hating me in his heart at last. "It wasn't enough that you had to kill your mother, now you want to kill me?" he told me again and again.
I don't know. I wish he could have seen me, at least. Could have seen the man the black had made---tired, bald man that I am. Maybe he would have smiled for a moment to see my ship coming into dock, to see me step out in the fresh, clean air, dressed in the flight suit and jacket of a commander, rank of Elite stamped on my shoulder. Maybe.
But then, sitting there in the middle of the world, alone except for the great black hole, with the stars as blanket around me, with the GideonI warm and comforting as my home; I felt, for the first time maybe, at peace.
May you be at peace, father. And, perhaps, maybe you forgive me at last. Probably not, but I can hope.