Status: Ongoing
Home Is the Stars
Five
It was now nearing a full month since the Sagitta brought the star-stranded stranger aboard. Dr. Landra and her team settled into an anxious routine. With the admiral's permission, she turned her focus completely away from the usually minor ailments of the Sagitta's crew, letting her team take over the daily duties that tending to the infirmary required.
The crew had remained in the system to continue investigating the stranger's ship, and finish gathering the supplies they had initially stopped for in the first place. It was a complete fluke, discovering the vessel. Some of the crew members have called it a miracle. But the admiral and herself, and a few of the other officers were skeptical of miracles. They mostly found comfort in the cold rationalism and logic of the sciences, believing what they could see with their own eyes. Having a lack of faith in the supernatural like this was rife with stigma, and many people who pursued the sciences were regarded wearily. It was a strange paradoxical relationship in which scientists sought and often uncovered the answers to questions that society has been asking for generations, yet they were only a few hundred years shy of being burned at the stake as heretics. The Colonials had grown out of the Faith, and they were much more lax about orthodoxy than in previous eras. But the majority of the Faith's most devout followers were superstitious to a fault.
Thankfully, the Sagitta and her mission didn't attract too many of the righteous, and having a position in the Colonial Fleet afforded the crew some privileges. For one thing, the ship and her crew were so deep into space, with little contact to the home world that practice of the faith couldn't be strictly enforced, much to most of the crew's relief. As a result, many of the crew's officers, engineers, and medical staff were openly skeptical of the Faith. They've seen the cosmos now, and there are no signs of the Gods to be found anyhere.
While the gods remain missing from the cosmos, what they have found is perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of the millennium. Dr. Landra found herself consumed by an obsession with the stranger. She hungered to know who he was, where he came from. So far, the admiral's task force had been unsuccessful at garnishing any information of consequence about where the ship came from. All they could say was that it was extremely advanced and engineered with immeasurable skill. But the computer systems on board suffered heavy damage. They were unable to retrieve anything except the name of the ship, which they only knew from seeing it on the starboard side of the hull from their shuttle. She was named the Cassiopeia.
The name struck something in Landra's memory. She knew that name from somewhere, it was on the tip of her tongue. But every time she got close to recalling just what it was, she lost it again. It occupied her mind every night for the first few days after they learned her name, but neither Admiral Evett, nor anyone she asked had any inclination about it either. "Isn't that the name of a constellation?" With a shrug, that was all anyone could offer her. Their own ship was named for the constellation Sagittarius, after all.
This morning, after it had been bugging her for some time, she asked the stranger about it. But he remained as silent as ever, which was no surprise. She plopped into her chair beside his bed and sighed heavily, tucking her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. "Can you even understand me?" She asked at last, looking up to search his face. She thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch just a bit, the lines carved in his face creasing a bit more than usual. But objectively, it could have meant anything. A nerve in his cheek twitching from an electrical impulse, an involuntary action he had no control over.
Finally, Landra couldn't contain voicing any of her questions any more. The mystery was finally starting to break her. "You've got to give me something, or they'll order me to terminate you. The commander is leaning towards the inclination that you are in a vegetative state, and it would be a mercy to put you out of your misery. I'm beginning to wonder the same, but I see your eyes move. You follow me with your gaze, and I know you're in there. Are you in pain? Has being in stasis for so long damaged critical functions throughout your body?
"You are the single most incredible thing that's ever happened in my lifetime, and all we've managed to determine so far is that you are human, and I can't bare the thought of never having the opportunity to learn from you. Please, I have to know. Give me something, anything." She knew she must have sounded desperate, and in another era of her life, she might have cared. She waited, holding her breath, for something, anything. Any kind of sign that he was in there, that he wasn't trapped in his own mind.
After a long time and his continued unresponsiveness, she sighed again. Exhaustion was wearing on her, and she was at last ready to retire to her quarters. She scribbled some hasty remarks on the man's chart again and put it in the receptacle on the wall. She had made it to the door when she heard a short cough behind her and a quiet wheeze.
"Yes."
The crew had remained in the system to continue investigating the stranger's ship, and finish gathering the supplies they had initially stopped for in the first place. It was a complete fluke, discovering the vessel. Some of the crew members have called it a miracle. But the admiral and herself, and a few of the other officers were skeptical of miracles. They mostly found comfort in the cold rationalism and logic of the sciences, believing what they could see with their own eyes. Having a lack of faith in the supernatural like this was rife with stigma, and many people who pursued the sciences were regarded wearily. It was a strange paradoxical relationship in which scientists sought and often uncovered the answers to questions that society has been asking for generations, yet they were only a few hundred years shy of being burned at the stake as heretics. The Colonials had grown out of the Faith, and they were much more lax about orthodoxy than in previous eras. But the majority of the Faith's most devout followers were superstitious to a fault.
Thankfully, the Sagitta and her mission didn't attract too many of the righteous, and having a position in the Colonial Fleet afforded the crew some privileges. For one thing, the ship and her crew were so deep into space, with little contact to the home world that practice of the faith couldn't be strictly enforced, much to most of the crew's relief. As a result, many of the crew's officers, engineers, and medical staff were openly skeptical of the Faith. They've seen the cosmos now, and there are no signs of the Gods to be found anyhere.
While the gods remain missing from the cosmos, what they have found is perhaps one of the greatest mysteries of the millennium. Dr. Landra found herself consumed by an obsession with the stranger. She hungered to know who he was, where he came from. So far, the admiral's task force had been unsuccessful at garnishing any information of consequence about where the ship came from. All they could say was that it was extremely advanced and engineered with immeasurable skill. But the computer systems on board suffered heavy damage. They were unable to retrieve anything except the name of the ship, which they only knew from seeing it on the starboard side of the hull from their shuttle. She was named the Cassiopeia.
The name struck something in Landra's memory. She knew that name from somewhere, it was on the tip of her tongue. But every time she got close to recalling just what it was, she lost it again. It occupied her mind every night for the first few days after they learned her name, but neither Admiral Evett, nor anyone she asked had any inclination about it either. "Isn't that the name of a constellation?" With a shrug, that was all anyone could offer her. Their own ship was named for the constellation Sagittarius, after all.
This morning, after it had been bugging her for some time, she asked the stranger about it. But he remained as silent as ever, which was no surprise. She plopped into her chair beside his bed and sighed heavily, tucking her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. "Can you even understand me?" She asked at last, looking up to search his face. She thought she saw the corner of his mouth twitch just a bit, the lines carved in his face creasing a bit more than usual. But objectively, it could have meant anything. A nerve in his cheek twitching from an electrical impulse, an involuntary action he had no control over.
Finally, Landra couldn't contain voicing any of her questions any more. The mystery was finally starting to break her. "You've got to give me something, or they'll order me to terminate you. The commander is leaning towards the inclination that you are in a vegetative state, and it would be a mercy to put you out of your misery. I'm beginning to wonder the same, but I see your eyes move. You follow me with your gaze, and I know you're in there. Are you in pain? Has being in stasis for so long damaged critical functions throughout your body?
"You are the single most incredible thing that's ever happened in my lifetime, and all we've managed to determine so far is that you are human, and I can't bare the thought of never having the opportunity to learn from you. Please, I have to know. Give me something, anything." She knew she must have sounded desperate, and in another era of her life, she might have cared. She waited, holding her breath, for something, anything. Any kind of sign that he was in there, that he wasn't trapped in his own mind.
After a long time and his continued unresponsiveness, she sighed again. Exhaustion was wearing on her, and she was at last ready to retire to her quarters. She scribbled some hasty remarks on the man's chart again and put it in the receptacle on the wall. She had made it to the door when she heard a short cough behind her and a quiet wheeze.
"Yes."