Here's a piece that I wrote pretty quickly, and I haven't had a chance to edit it yet. Even so, here it is. Let me know what you think.
The
Boy Who Became a Starship
Once upon a time, a
little boy was born on a starship. This
may not sound interesting in and of itself.
Then again, the births of even the most extraordinary men and women
throughout history were only seen as significant in retrospect. And this boy, if nothing else, would grow to
be the most unique who lived.
This was a massive
generational ship with the population equivalent to a major city. They had everything they needed to sustain an
entire society as they journeyed to a distant corner of the galaxy. The young boy’s parents worked all day, so he
grew up exploring the bowels of the ship.
He went to school with the other kids, but he didn’t participate in
their games. The boy preferred the solitude
of his forbidden excursions. He eagerly
crawled inside the nooks and crannies that no one else would ever see. Knowing that he would never see anything of
the world from which his people came, he felt compelled to explore whatever
came within his grasp.
Then, when he was
fourteen, he was squeezing his way through the ducts above the cargo hold, when
something happened. A mysterious blue gas
began to fill the space around him. He
desperately tried to crawl away from it, but was getting too big to pass easily
through the narrow space. Soon he was
overcome by the fumes. They saturated
his lungs, and before he could even begin to speculate about what might be
happening to him, he passed into unconsciousness.
When he woke, nothing
looked any different, except the gas had dissipated. He groggily crawled through the ducts,
dropping out into the main corridor. It
was usually filled with people going back and forth between their personal
quarters and the engine room, hydroponics, and science labs on the other end of
the ship. No matter the hour, this area
always had people coming and going. Yet,
it was empty, devoid of all human life.
All that remained were assorted pieces of abandoned equipment:
maintenance tools, a stuffed teddy bear, a cart of fruits and vegetables.
The young man wandered
the ship for days, exploring now to see if any other human being apart from him
remained on board. The entire expanse of
the ship could have taken more than a week to cover on foot, but he felt he
should have seen some sign of life within a couple days. There was none.
He was alone.
The effects of the gas
hadn’t fully worn off. A part of his
brain felt different. Crazy though it
may have sounded, it seemed as if a door in there had been left open, and
something lurked on the other side.
Of course, he couldn’t
afford to worry about that. As he walked
down the main corridor toward the bridge, he wondered what had happened to
everyone, and how he was supposed to go on from there. Though there was plenty of food, he had to
learn to prepare it. He would need to
figure out how to grow it if he had any hope of staying alive long term. What if the ship broke down? He had no idea how to make the necessary
repairs. Who would he learn from?
You
can learn from me.
The young man
stopped. Those questions had merely been
floating around in his head, and even if he had voiced them aloud, no one else
was there to answer them.
I’m
here to answer them.
His heart jumped into
his throat. “I’m alone,” he insisted
aloud. “I’m alone, so your voice can’t
be real.”
My
voice is as real as yours.
Now his heart was
working double time as he anxiously looked around him. The mysterious voice could be friendly, but
it could also belong to whatever entity took the others. “Who are you?” he demanded.
You
should know me. You’ve seen more of me
than any of the others ever did.
He focused on the voice
and the way it felt. There was no actually
sound to it. He only understood the
words, which meant they had to be in his mind.
Yet the voice had a soft, soothing feel to it. And somehow, as impossible as it seemed, it
felt familiar. “Are you . . . are you
the ship?”
I
knew you’d recognize me once you thought about it.
The fact that the ship
was communicating with him seemed so surreal that he didn’t bother to inquire
about its improbability. Instead, he
went to a more practical question. “What
happened to the others? Why am I still
here?”
The
aliens rendered everyone unconscious and took them. I had no way of protecting them, because no
one was awake to access my defense systems.
The automatic defenses were not powerful enough. You were hidden away and safe, so I protected
you from their sensors. You were the
only one I could save.
He’d always seen the
ship as his home, and even without the other people around, it still felt that
way. Time passed, and the ship taught
him what he needed to know to stay alive.
The telepathic connection he shared with the ship grew steadily over the
years.
With his hands and a
thought in his head, he was able to grow his own food.
The ship worked through
his hands as he made repairs to critical systems.
His eyes were lasers as
he could look at any target and use the weapons to destroy a target at will.
Then, he began to
forget the life he had before. He knew
he once had a name that his long-gone human companions used, but he couldn’t
remember it. The ship didn’t need to
call him by any name.
From time to time, he
wondered what it would be like to have a human being around again, but the ship
quickly dismissed it.
You
don’t need anyone else. You have me, and
we are one.
This is very interesting. There's a part of me that's sad for the boy, and I want to know more of the aliens that took the others.
ReplyDeleteIN a way, this is how I might think Dr. Who got his start with the Tardis.
Great flash fiction, you have a great imagination! :)
ReplyDeleteI wonder what adventures this boy-ship will have next -- interesting piece!
ReplyDelete