Reflections on Wood and Marble in the Pleiades
19 Dec 2017Terra Sheer
There's an old saying where I come from: Most men are made out of wood. Time makes even the most stalwart beam dry and brittle. All the hammers and nails of a dutiful life leave their scars. The torment of days grind us into sawdust, and the fires of our ambition consumes what remains, so that, when life is at its end, barely a whiff of a man is left. But others, they say, are made of marble. Those same hammers and nails chip away at the unformed substance of our lives. Torment sharpens the wit and shapes the spirit, such that, with care and time, some rare art might someday emerge. But even if those same torments crush us into powder, there's still enough left to stick in the eye.I think about it while I'm sitting here, watching the last fires of the Oracle go out -- snuffed away into empty space -- and I wonder what I'm made of. It's plenty hot enough in here to melt marble. Going into this hangar is a stark reminder of just what convection can do. I live in a world dominated by radiation. I can't handle this crap. The life support systems are already strained. I'm down to my underwear and still sweating. There's a little red light on my console, angrily flashing about the seal breach in my remlock. Safety systems are always so damned optimistic. If it comes down to it, I think I'd rather fry in my cockpit than eject and meet the same fate as the poor souls out there ... slow-roasted in their escape pods.
Just the same, I'm here, hanging in the middle of the bay next to a hunk of what looks like it might have been the Customs and Import office. Number four limpet is starting to look iffy, limping its way back in. I'm going through them at an awful rate, and that tumbling sea of pods outside doesn't seem to be getting any smaller. This is going to end badly for a lot of people. Hell ... it's probably going to end badly for _me_. I wonder again what kind of fool-headed idiocy brought me down here, and my only answer is, again, the glass-eyed half-memory of just pointing my nose at a star -- any star -- and going. "Second to the right, and on 'til morning." What a shitty way to navigate. I'm going to have to develop a better nose for avoiding trouble if I'm ever going to make something out of my life--
The temperature alarm starts wailing. I flail for the heat sink trigger, so rote now it's like a reflex. It occurs to me, as I watch the blazing sink tumble away into the chaos of the hangar, that I'm only contributing to the problem. That heat's not going away. Maxwell's Demon is a fickle son of a bitch.
Some idiot in a Beluga tries to lift off, but his landing struts have fused to the pad. He pulls against them, wrenches them free, and a rain of sparks falls over a mess of broken fuel lines on the deck. I feel the shockwave of the explosion. I see it shake the air around me. The Beluga pitches wildly, splits open, and spills its contents into the hangar.
_Damn_.
Number four limpet just cut out. I sever its control link and launch a replacement. Hopefully this one will last longer. Not that it will matter much in the end, I suppose. My supply of heat sinks is almost spent. It'll be time to pull out soon. And that sea of escape pods is only getting bigger.
I blink away tears. Not out of emotion, mind you. There's just something stuck in my eye.