Who are they?
14 Apr 2022Crazycga
About sixty years ago when I was a kid in Trukampasuk my dad took me on a flight to Nguriga. It was exciting, first time I can rmember seeing witch space. Scared the shit out me then. Still does if'm being honest. But anyway... we pop out of witch space and my dad always told me "son, always check the scanner."So I did. And he taught me what to look for, how to tune, how to interpret the results. And while he was showing me, I tuned into a signal he ignored way on the left side. But I tuned into it and was all proud of meself that I'd found something, computer called it a "degraded emission." Might as well've been the Lost City of Gold for a kid. My dad was a patient man, so he diverted us over to it. I was damn excited filling my head with stories of untold riches, and space faring wonders.
We pop out of cruise and there's the wreckage of a ship. Dad's quiet, checking radar and a grim look on his face. He tells me to open the cargo bay. I thought this was it! We were rich! But he says to me "son, those things out there, the wreckage of that ship... That's all that remains of that crew of all those people. There's a couple of data pods and some personal effects... Always grab those and anything else. We don't make money on those but we can give their families some peace."
Still haunts me to this day. The look on his face. His quiet tone. And the silence of the ship as we collected the last traces of four people. Their hopes. Their dreams. Their memories. He was a good man, if a little rough around the edges sometimes.
I'm chewing the tip of a fresh Ngurigian cigar when I pop out of witch space today. I'm a thousand light years out of the bubble, last signs of civilization I saw were the hypnotized bunnies on the side of the road fifty miles back. (Least thats how I remember that joke went... still dont know what the fuck a "bunny" is, but according to the computer it was a Terran creature.) The cigar is comforting, I always light one up when I come out of witch space properly, especially the way the hell and gone out here.
Pull out the scanner like dad taught me. Couple of shitty little rocks, some asteroids. And way to the left. I made my way over to the degraded emissions and come out of cruise expecting someones trash, or an ejected beacon. And there it was. Way out a thousand light years out. Wreckage.
No survivors of course. Just personal effects. A black box. A couple of final goodbye notes. And silence. I open the cargo bay, collect 'em up.
I hope someone will do the same for me when the time comes.