Chapter VII

It could have been months later, when Creta nearly collapsed from a sudden fit of coughing. She stumbled away from the old fans, into the more pristine airs of the corridors at the front of the ship. She tried to expel the bad air from her lungs, but it seemed to hang there. She took a few deep breaths and walked around the place to intake more oxygen.

Without thinking, she returned to that same navigation room where she had often come to escape the pains of life in the central chamber. A place, as much as it disturbed here, for her to be alone in the dark. But when she entered, she was not alone.

The black silhouette of the commander was just visible as it he eclipsed the dim nebulae of the outer rim. He was absolutely still and gave no indication that he acknowledged her presence. But then he spoke.

"Hello, officer Mirin." his voice came, more calmed than she'd ever heard it. After more than two years in this confined space, it seemed that Ordin had finally grown accustomed to her presence.

She nodded, as if he could hear.

He sighed deeply, looking out. Creta noticed that he was not looking at the galaxy at all, but into the empty dark of intergalactic space. The same emptiness that was so oppressive to Creta. She found herself asking, "Why do you like it out here, commander?"

There was a moment of silence, almost as still as the nonexistence beyond the pane of the window. Ordin's voice came like the first echoes of thunder from a distant storm. The words came from a throat that sounded old, and young. "When I was a child, on Kharak... We lived far from the cities, in a small settlement... My brothers, my sisters, my cousins and I would spend many nights, outside, in the warm air. We would lie, half-sleeping... On our backs, in the sand, staring straight up into the sky."

Ordin's voice stopped for a moment, his mind caught painfully between his past and his present. Creta swallowed hard, seeing his experiences as her own.

The man spoke up again. "And... And the sky was dark. Only a few stars were there to see. The shape of the galaxy was just a distant shadow, back then. It was so... Clear, so deep, so black." He gulped, tearing himself away from those last perfect memories of his family and all those he had known, in that shining past. "But now... On Hiigara, there is no black. The day is bright, the night is bright. The stars are so close, and so hot, they burn my eyes... There's no rest from the light. There's no night for me, there... There is no darkness."

For a moment, Creta touched his agony, he had kept concealed for so long.

"All those nights in the dark, we felt like we were drifting among the stars. Like we could just float up into space. I think that's what made me join the space program... What made me decide to volunteer for the cryotrays. How ironic..."

And so the man returned to the dark from which his dreams had been born. There was a feeling he seemed to radiate, like happiness, the feeling of being home.

"Where did you grow up, officer Mirin? What were the skies like, on Taiidan?" he asked, after a long while.

"I..." she stumbled in speech. "They were... They were..." She wanted desperately to speak, but trailed off and forced herself to leave the room.

For a moment, it must have troubled Ordin. But before he could consider it, he was emersed in the deep inner peace of oblivion. His mind drifted off, resting once more in the quiet calm of the void.