Excerpt from Aurora Nominee “Body Solar”,
Originally published in On
Spec magazine;
Reprinted in On Spec: The First Five Years
(Tesseract Books,
ISBN 1-895836-12-3)
His back felt warm. Kind of itchy, too.
Turn my head, he thought. Then, I remember, it takes a long time.
But I can wait.
His eyes took in everything around him. Mostly, it was
just blackness, punctuated by dots of light. Nothing but stars all around
me. Stars and me and my sail.
He hadn't turned his head enough to see the sail, yet.
Funny how he hadn't thought to look at it before now.
How long have I been out here?
Eyes still seeing the black velvet with the pinholes,
he tried to remember the name.
Oh. "Anna?" There was no answer, but he didn't
feel hurried. He easily remembered that patience had never been one of
his strong points, but he felt no anxiety now.
A shock of recognition went through him. My arm.
I can see my arm, stretched out, reaching up and to my side. His head
was still turning, slowly, as he could gauge the rate by watching how long
it took to move the view along his arm.
"Mr. Helbrecht?" a voice spoke in his head. It didn't
sound like Anna, but he thought it best not to take a chance.
"Anna?"
Again, he waited. He could see his hand now, at the
end of his arm. It looked funny, with the sail attached to it, like it
was caught in the middle of metamorphosing from flesh to gossamer. And
just beyond his outstretched fingers he could see where the sail broke
into the vacuum; the optical distortion that made the sail look as if it
were broken in two at the divide. Like looking into or out of water.
A fish in a bowl, he thought. That's me. Except
that my bowl is going places.
"No, Mr. Helbrecht. This is Michel Giroux. Dr. Schaum
is not currently monitoring this frequency. Are you in need of something?"
"I don't remember you."
The sail seemed to go on forever, shining from the light
behind, a beautiful thing to see. He pretended he could see the little
photons crashing up against it, forcing him faster and faster towards...
Hmm. I can't remember where I'm going either.
That could wait. His head had turned enough that he
could see the top of his shoulder now. It was covered with green, a sort
of algae. That much he could remember.
Ironically, he felt his body take a breath.
"Yes, Mr. Helbrecht, I know you don't remember me. I
am new at this position. Now. Did you have a question for me, Mr. Helbrecht?"
A question? I wanted to ask...No! I mean, "I
wanted to ask how long have I been out here? And before I forget again,
where is it I'm going?"
If he watched closely and for some time, he could see
the algae shift positions along his arm and down over his shoulder blade
to where he couldn't see.
The sun felt warm on his cheek.
