At any rate, just when I think I understand those amazing memories and thoughts and opinions—just when I want to tell other people the truth about that other, ancient world—
It all lifts up, turns sideways, shoots away.
Whoosh.
DAY 98
I ask for—and to my surprise receive—books on planetary science. No Internet. Just books, and while books are good—some are great—I’ve got big questions about what’s really out there that the old books don’t answer.
If what’s in my head is real, then what kind of real is it? Dead and long past, or present and threatening? Am I communicating with actual intelligences, somehow still alive, still active, after billions of years? Not easy questions, and no easy answers.
My questions began about the time I returned from the Red to Skybase Lewis-McCord and hitched a ride with a colonel’s secretary, and she told me there was fighting on Titan, way out around Saturn—that she had lost a son out there—
And I felt the truth of it.
For weeks now, I’ve been curious about old moons. Especially the big moon families that circle the outer gas giants. The Saturn system is the most spectacular, but to me, all the old moons seem important if I’m going to solve the puzzles that keep me awake all night. I don’t know where I am. I mean, I know I’m back on Earth…
But I don’t know who I am.
Who is back on Earth? Just me?
There must be enough value to somebody that the wizards behind the glass pass me old textbooks and feed this particular curiosity. But they don’t seem willing to teach me more about physics. Still, it’s good to get a change in my reading—away from literature and back to science. Whether I’m curious, or my inner Bug is curious, is a question to which I have no present answer. But I want to find out.
So I’m reading up on old moons. The books, being printed and bound and from the base library, are out of date. I can fill in some of the details by listening to Bug. Bug doesn’t know anything about Titan, specifically, but it has a broader understanding of ice moons than the textbooks. I presume the inquisitors will eventually ask about my reading, what it means to me, what I’m learning, and what I’m adding all by myself. But they haven’t. Not yet. My first clue that the forces behind my detention could be in deep disarray.
They still aren’t asking the right questions.
DAY 100
Here’s how I hope it will go when they decide to spring me. Some of the docs will realize I pose no danger. They will ask permission to enter the suite. I will say yes. What choice? Anything to get shit to happen. The suite is clean but every Skyrine knows how to make weapons out of common items and I’ve had lots of time to think. My plan will move to the next stage. Two of the docs will enter wearing puffy yellow MOPP suits. A Marine MP will accompany them, also in yellow, packing enough hurt to discourage bad attitude. They will suggest I stay back, tell me to sit in my best chair, then ask the same questions they’ve asked over and over. One will take pictures of the other—with me in the background. For this first intrusion into the bughouse, they will not stay long, but by God, they will put themselves closer to the war, to those far-off battles, to imminent peril—to me. That will accelerate their climb in the ranks.
I’ll be so cool that frost will whiten my brow. I’ll smile and nod and thank them for all they’ve done. Then I’ll brain at least one of the bastards before they realize I’ve gone total trigger.
DAY 102
As if things haven’t been weird enough:
Last night, Captain Daniella Coyle came to visit. She just popped up in my head. Coyle died on Mars, deep inside the Drifter—in the Church. Apparently she doesn’t know that. She tried to speak to me. At least I think she did. What I picked up was like looking at an empty word balloon. She hasn’t come back since. But I think she will. Captain Coyle was nothing if not determined.
DAY 120
I’ve exhausted most of the textbooks. Jim Thompson starts giving me the willies. So much thud-thud stupidity leading to so many dead-end alleys of despair. Reminds me too much of my own life before I enlisted and even for a while after. I switch paperbacks and read Robinson Crusoe, an old, safe book that arrived in my pass-through box as a split-spine Signet Classic.
As usual, while I read, I eat dinner off the steel tray—and come upon this:
Let no man despise the secret hints and notices of danger which sometimes are given him when he may think there is no possibility of its being real. That such hints and notices are given us I believe few that have made any observation of things can deny; that they are certain discoveries of an invisible world, and a converse of spirits, we cannot doubt; and if the tendency of them seems to be to warn us of danger, why should we not suppose they are from some friendly agent (whether supreme, or inferior and subordinate, is not in the question) and that they are given for our good?
IT’S A LIFE
Half-asleep, wrapped in my bedsheets, I feel a not-so-gentle prod deep inside my head, as if someone or something is rummaging in my attic and opening old trunks. I’m too tired and discouraged to fight it. Memories come back in waves. Memories that sometimes explain nothing—like random bits of beach wrack washing up on my convoluted shores. Memories that ride high in emotions, too.
Let’s look at you and Joe.
Joe Sanchez and I had a long, winding history on our way to becoming Skyrines. To me, it seems he was always there—has always been there. But of course, there have been gaps. Some long ones—like before our first drop on Mars. I didn’t see him for over a year, during the last phase of training. I thought maybe he had been selected out for special training, but when he reappeared, all was fine; he said he’d been hanging out with a lady in Virginia, while taking some OCS courses at VMI. I have rarely if ever questioned Joe’s word.
And of course that last drop on Mars. He had gone ahead; we had reunited at the Drifter. No explanation there, except that our units had been reassigned at the last minute.
But there were also clear, marked-out moments that seemed like beginnings. I think on one now, lying back in bed with my eyes closed; I can almost see the lowering sun, the line of clouds hugging the western horizon.
The trestle.
The time Joe and I nearly got ourselves killed.
I suppose every Skyrine, every fighter for a nation, a polity, a socially segregated club, starts off believing in the purity and magnificence of trial and adventure. As a child, I sought adventure wherever I could find it—sometimes getting myself into real scrapes with danger and with the law. I was harum-scarum, reckless, but I was also pretty smart and so I seldom got into a fix I could not, all on my own, get myself out of. But on three occasions, before I reached the age of sixteen, I came close to getting myself killed.
Once, I was following a train track in Southern California, not far from where Pendleton still trains and houses young Skyrines. I was with Joe. I was usually with Joe when we weren’t off trying to pick up girls, which we did separately.
Back then Joe Sanchez was a brown-haired Huck Finn kind of guy, a year older than me, as smart as I thought I was, and even more resourceful. We had known each other for two years, we were happy, we were seeking adventure.