Philip Palmer - Debatable Space

Lena

I watch the battle unfold on the vidscreen in my cabin. I marvel.

Bloody hell, I think to myself. Indeed.

“We did it Cap’n,” Alliea says.

I close my eyes, exhausted.

“Wake me up in time for the next battle,” I murmur.

And I fall asleep, in my Captain’s chair.

And I dream. Awful, terrible, stomach-churning dreams. I always do. Each of my dreams ends with my own rape and torture. I yearn to wake myself up, to escape the horror. But I know that my body needs the rest. I need to recharge, keep my strength up.

So I remain asleep, dreaming horrors, knowing that when I finally awake, things will be, by and large, much worse than ever I dreamed.

I’m bored, Cap’n doesn’t need me. And so I access my secret hoard of illicit materials.

Cigarettes.

Acid tabs.

Es.

Hardcore and softcore “nudie” magazines.

Crystal meth.

I stroke the crinkled pages of the ancient centrefold mags, and caress an E and an acid tab on my tongue. But I dare not swallow. My system is too efficient, the drugs will be swept out and purged. This is the downside of body refits, you’re obliged to take the drug-control microchip.

There’s always the easy way. At a blink of an eye, I can use my cortical microchip to access hardcore porn images of any given woman having sex with any given man, or other woman, or indeed, any other anything. A simple subvocal instruction will send endorphins or adrenalin surging through my system. I can be drunk simply by saying the word “hic”, I can inhale tobacco and feel a buzz in my veins by saying “smoke’. But it’s not the same. I love to lick the cigarette, I love to hold it in my fingers, I love to touch the acid tabs and pills with my tongue and palate. It gives me an extra buzz.

But I never consume. I know my system won’t allow it. Virtual intoxication is easy; physical addiction is impossible. This, I find a drag.

So I read books. This is something my system can’t purge. I read, and read. And in this manner, I pass the long long months.

The Corporation Fleet, meanwhile, continue their pursuit of us. We have a lead on them, but they have more powerful engines. Each hour, each day, their acceleration pushes their velocity higher. And every day, the boost we received from the antimatter bomb blast fades. We slowly ebb, they slowly flow. Sooner or later they will catch us up.

It is a high-speed chase, which goes on for ages and ages. It will take six months before they are in missile range. And at that point, the battle will start up all over again.

Ah! What a life!

I suck a tab.

I hold a cigarette.

I scratch my fingertips on the staple in the middle of a naked centrefold’s stomach.

I dream of victory.

The Captain always tells me – Brandon, you spend too long alone. You should socialise more. But I do socialise!

With myself. With my books. With my fingertips. With my tongue. With my secret stash of porn. These are my companions.

The buzzer rings. “Brandon, to the bridge,” the Captain calmly says.

The enemy flight has caught up with us. We are about to be attacked.

I rub my crotch, I sniff my cigarette, I suck my acid tab, I let my eyes linger on the centrefold’s gorgeous pudendum.

Then I pull myself back into the present moment. I press a button and my door slides open. I hurry into the corridor.

It’s time for war.

Brandon appears on the bridge, pale and sweaty. “Hello,” I say to him, quietly and gently.

“Hello,” he smiles back, timidly. It’s almost four months since he has spoken to any of us. In that time, the rest of us have partied, trained together, discussed literature and art and life and gossiped about long ago lost loves. But Brandon has kept away from us, locked in his cabin cell. But we don’t mind. It’s his way.

Now I need him, and his navigational and cosmological skills. “Have we reached our destination?” he asks. I nod. He looks relieved. “And are we doing that thing we, um, do?” he mutters. I nod again. He looks even more relieved.

He sits, and takes the controls. “Steady as she goes,” I say. Brandon jerks the ship sharply to port, then sharply to starboard. We veer and lurch from side to side and eventually resume our forward direction. His little joke. It never palls.

Well, not much.

We look at the display on our vidscreen and see all around us the weirdness of a black hole nestling in warped space. This… thing used to be a Type C sun, until it supernovaed and reached critical mass. Gravitational forces pulled the sun in on itself until it shrunk to a point of almost infinite density. Now, this star is so massive that light itself cannot escape.

Jamie has researched all this; he’s a black hole nut. He actually gives them nicknames. (This one is the Cosmic Crusher.) Jamie is one of the band of thinkers who believe that each black hole is the gateway to another Universe. But there’s no way of proving that, because anyone or anything that passes through a black hole ends up, basically, squashed and dead.

With Brandon at the helm, we are now playing a game of chicken with the black hole. As our speed drops, our plan is to skim the surface of the gravity field, and slingshot ourselves out at our top speed once more into space. One slight miscalculation and we will be sucked into the gravity field and destroyed.

Fun, or what?

Close by the black hole is a cluster of neutron stars and mini-black holes locked in a synchronous orbit. These are the dreaded Black Rapids. The only way to proceed through this part of space is fast and skilfully. The complex pattern of gravitational pulls make this whole area of space a ripped and bleeding reef.

In we go: straight at the singularity, then tilting, tilting, the whole ship relativistically distorted, our huge mass makes us a dreadnought, we are extended to the size of a galaxy and yet at the same time we are a tiny plankton hurtling into the mouth of a whale, then attempting to creep out again.

Bish.

Bosh.

Whiish.

We are out again, on the other side of the Black Rapids. Safe.

On our screen we can see the pursuing warships on the wrong side of the Rapids slow, and then stop. A dozen of them peel away and choose to follow us through the Black Rapids. They are, I feel confident, not volunteers.

We watch as one of them is caught in a gravitational undertow. It surges through with a burst of energy and runs straight into a rock the size of a walnut, which contains a mini-singularity. The warship suddenly shakes, and flickers, then shatters into a million pieces.

A second warship tacks carefully away from the black hole, but is promptly sucked into a neutron star.

All twelve ships try, and fail, and die. Several of them attempt to emulate our slingshot method. It is a knack not easily acquired. They all get sucked into the black hole’s deadly embrace.

Whoosh. Gone. Crushed to nothingness or less.

We are safe.

I realise that for several hours, I have been hearing a buzzing sound in my ears. It is the alarm buzzer for the prisoner’s cell.

“Go and see what she wants,” I tell Harry. “I’m going to”

I’m asleep on my feet. Brandon catches me before I fall. He sits me down.

“I’ll just have,” I say, drowsily, “a little…”

Get me out of this fucking hellhole! AIIIEEEEEE! Aiiiiiieeeeeee! AIIEEEEEEE!!!!! I think the battle is over.

I’ve never been so afraid! I was afraid too. I was so scared. Thank God you were here Lena, watching it with me on the cctv. Hold me, please. Hug me. Protect me.

I can’t. Just be here for me. You are so wise. You comfort me.