Robert Onopa - The Pleasure Tube

“Initial on number three,” Werhner says. “ Go with it.”

I lurch to the console, push the thrusters with my wounded hand, shove through the bandage into blood and bone, burned insulation in the atmosphere, my vision swimming, the pulse a mirror of the hologram, I think of Collette, Collette, Collette.

“Three, gonna hit it.”

“The woman, Werhner! The woman!”

“What… woman?” I hear Werhner say and I begin falling, falling. I see Cooper ripping at the cable rack from program, his large frame hunched in dim light, ripping.

“Two.”

“Alive!” I scream.

“One. Coming…”

ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM

IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION EVENT INTRUSION DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL DAMAGE CONTROL

ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM

IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT

ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM

IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT IMPACT EVENT

ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM ALARM

The hatch to program blows open with a rushing scream, hangs open like a tongue. Through it I see a howling, whirling sun filling the gulf of night, a huge sun, growing larger, a whirlpool of light bleaching my vision in the fine atom snow of the cosmos into which I spin orange flames at my feet, falling, falling. My bones are exploding, yellow-white to white light vision, pure white, white light vision.

Still image: a woman frozen in space, fixed in inky blackness, the funnel of infinity pierced by diamond points of light, stars in the celestial sea. She floats as a swimmer, her palms flat and forward. Her hair streams behind—yet no breeze. Her expression intense and incomprehensible, lips slightly parted to show the glistening edges of teeth—a kiss or a cry—silent in the void.

Copyright © 1979, by Robert Onopa

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Published by arrangement with the author’s agent

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Printed in the United States of America Berkley Edition, MARCH, 1979

Kindle Edition created from the Berkley original by John Michener of Mediaspring.com, February, 2011.

=df the practical limits of a black hole, the sphere within which its gravity does not permit the escape of light; a point of no return.

=df special solution to general relativity which describes the distance between event horizon and naked singularity.

=df product of tidally infinite forces manifest within collapsar; condition of irreducibility.