Under a Starless Sky

Chapter 90

“Clear!”

The uniform applied Defibrillator pulse. Jon gasped. Hands came up automatically to push the light out

of his eyes. The light was attached to a hand. It took a moment to focus. Normal room lights filled him

and saw a new reality. Medical bay. It was all so damn familiar he suspected it to be unreal. He felt his

arm stretched, and a Velcro arm band secured snugly. ‘Lactic ringer’ the nurse said. Loxy was

suddenly in his eyes.

“Welcome back,” Loxy said.

Jon tried to get up, but hands kept him down. Loxy touched him. “Shh, we got you. I am here.” She

took his hand in hers. A mobile, doctor’s stool came to her, adjusting itself for the appropriate height,

and she sat with a knowing that she wouldn’t fall. Once in under her control, she adjusted her proximity

the old fashion way, pulling the chair to where she wanted. She smiled into his face, wiped tears. “Shh,

breathe, we got you.”

“Are you real?” Jon asked.

“You mean really here?” Loxy asked.

“Loxy?”

“Yes, Jon,” Loxy said.

“I am not Jon,” Jon said.

“Confusion is to be expected after an event of this magnitude,” the Doctor said. The Doctor’s voice was

familiar. His face was too familiar.

“Fiction…”

“The fact that I am here, or that I save you?” the Doctor said.

“House,” Loxy said.

“Seriously, the existential banter that pseudo explains my presence in his world is overplayed,” House

said. “We got it, Jon. I am an admired hero in your world. Thanks for allowing me to bring you back one

more time. Get some rest. Stop fucking dying on my shift.”

“Why do you keep calling me Jon?” Jon asked.

“Who do you think you are, Ion Light?” House asked.

“Maybe we should wake Jung,” Loxy said.

“He is sleeping. Most normal folks are sleeping. You should be sleeping, Jon,” House said. “We got

you. The ship, the nurse, your suit’s AI, the bed’s AI, we all got you. You’re not going anywhere. Now

rest.”

House walked away. He didn’t have to say, ‘notify me if there is any change.’ He said it, ‘you expect me

to say it to comfort you but you should be comforted by the fact I can’t get any sleep because all these

damn bells and whistles are always calling me to comfort someone, which just stupid because

everyone knows my bedside manners suck, but you didn’t hire me for bedside manners…’ the door

shut behind him.

Loxy smiled down at him. “You can stay here, or our quarters. Do you have a preference?”

“Are you real?” Jon asked.

“Yes, Jon,” Loxy said.

“Forever?” Jon asked.

“Yes, with caveats,” Loxy said.

Loxy’s uniform pulsed, heart badge illuminated; the chime for being notified. “Yes?” she said.

“Commander, your presence is required on the bridge.”

“Are we about to go into battle?” Loxy asked.

“No, Mam…”

“Then you got this. Loxy out,” Loxy said. A reassuring smile was offered. “See, not going anywhere.”

“It might be important,” Jon said.

“It’s always important,” Loxy said.

“I want to get up,” Jon said.

“Tomorrow,” Loxy said.

“And if there is no tomorrow?” Jon asked.

“Then we’ll do it the next day,” Loxy said. She kissed him, squeezed his hands, and he slept.

Recovery included bed rest. There was always someone with him, even though he didn’t need a

physical person with all the AI partnerships. Loxy, Fersia, Alish, Keera, and Lester took shifts. The

nurse visited him. Jung came and visited him, asking him if he had any experiences that he wanted to

share. He declined sharing.

“When you’re ready, son,” Jung said, unoffended.

His memory of this life came back in stages. It was supplemented by ships logs. Simple things caused

flashes, impartial memories. Their ship approaching the nebula. An object came out of the nebula-

unseen by sensors. It had impacted the ship, puncturing it, and opened up like flower inside. It dumped

its contents out, submerging Jon in a pile of slime. It had operated as a living things that had simply

punctured the ship and vomited over him. The contents also moved as if alive, flowing faster than lava,

a liquid storm that captured him in a glittery, golden, greenish slime. The outer edges of it hardened in

the air. He and the command chair were completely encapsulated, like an ant stuck in amber. The

reports said he was so encased for about an hour.

“Lie,” was his first thought. “I was gone for…” He couldn’t put days on it. Years. A life time. He had to

resist not to fight it.

The reports also revealed that the moment Jon had been revived, the nebular dissipated and was

gone. In its place was a solar system. One moonless planet orbited one star. That star, in turn, orbited

a miniature black hole. Loxy caught him up on his walks.

He walked every day. Usually, he walked the continuous corridor on the saucer section. The never

ending corridor, one of the few that completed an uninterrupted circuit. Others used it for the same

purpose, stretch the legs, talk. The faster folks tending to be on the outer wall. A person could be a

celebrity here and still walk unmolested. Here, on the ship, he held celebrity status, and he was the

Commanding Officer. And he was allowed to walk in peace. They neither avoided eye contact nor

made eye contact. He was treated normally. It felt surreal. He wondered if the weirdness was just being

back, or that he craved attention, or he wanted to tell his story, or he wanted to test reality.

Loxy came out of his blind spot, tagging him. He stopped, closed his eyes, and shook it off with his

hand. “Don’t do that.”

“Sorry,” Loxy said. “There are people on the planet.”

Jon resumed walking. Loxy accompanied him. They went a quarter of the walk without talking.

“Okay, this is weird. You’re being weird,” Loxy said.

“How so?”

“You’re not curious?” Loxy asked.

“They’re human,” Jon said.

“I was under the impression, you weren’t reading the reports,” Loxy said.

“Did we hail the planet?”

“No response.”

“You’re sending an away team?” Jon asked.

“Yeah, First Contact team has been chosen…”

“I would like to go,” Jon said.

“I bet you would. Not going to happen,” Loxy said.

“Command Staff, High Conference, please,” Jon said.

Jon surrendered his body to his suits AI, and kept walking, while mentally he arrived at the virtual

conference deck, on the circle. On the circle reminded him of the Candace and the ritual. He was able

to track that while the other officers and staff members were arriving. The dome afforded a view of the

planet they were orbiting. There was nothing particularly noteworthy. Nothing that looked like home.

Was it all a dream? It became apparent that everyone had arrived and he had their attention.

“I should go on the Away Team. I might know these people,” Shen said.

He was not bombarded with a bunch of questions. Loxy spoke for the group. “You’re going to have to

give us more than that.”

Jon summarized his experience. They listened to the whole of it without interruption.

“So, you had a death experience,” Jung said.

“Near death experience,” House said. “He wasn’t dead. Dead is dead.”

“He was dead,” Loxy said. “No heartbeat. No brain activity. Not some, zero. That’s dead.”

“The material he was engulfed in created a stasis field that slowed time within the gel,” House said.

“That’s not dead.”

“From our perspective, he was dead over an hour,” Jung stated.

“Even if you don’t include the time he was encased, it took us ten minutes to revive his heart. His brain

activity didn’t resume until the heart resumed,” Loxy added. “That qualifies for dead.”

“And so, he went through a tunnel and saw a light. It doesn’t mean…”

“No tunnels,” Jon said. “Except in the cave. I guess that’s a tunnel. But no. No light at the end of the

tunnel. Except the birth canal sort of counts as a tunnel, and there was a light at the end of that. No. I

am not saying I had a NDE. I had a full life. On a planet.”

“Yes, you’re Picard. This is an episode of Next Gen,” House said.

Jon nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “There is that.”

“I don’t see any reason to dismiss this,” Jung said.

“There is no evidence for superior tech on this planet, not the kind Jon is alluding to,” Tesla said. “And

anyone that could master the three-body problem, creating a stable orbit of a star and two black holes,

that would leave a footprint.”

“Not necessarily,” Loxy said. “They could have a gateway, or structure attuned to that other universe. It

could be a temple or a simple stone.”

“It could be a single isotope,” Tesla said.

“You’re going to find a single isotope…”

“This planet didn’t just come from nowhere,” Sacagawea said. “Are you factoring that in? And the

timing it arrived, well, auspiciously concurs with Jon being revived. That’s something.”

“Coincident,” House said.

“Could they have beamed their planet out of the pocket universe through the black hole?” Jon asked.

“You’re talking about tech far greater than anyone in this galaxy has access to,” Tesla said.

“We were aware of the black hole inside the nebula. Isn’t it interesting that the missing nebula has the

same mass as the star and planet that has arrived?” Loxy asked.

“I would like to address the odds of us finding humans on a planet,” Jung said.

“If we agree the planet didn’t evolve here, then the presence of humans is explained,” Chan said. “They

were placed. Maybe seeded. Maybe kidnapped.”

“Or knowing Jon, his offspring,” Uhura said.

Jon didn’t argue. Loxy seemed amused. “Grandchildren? Great grandchildren?”

“Maybe. If a species from another universe wanted to explore this one, or communicate with life forms

in this one, it would need a proxy. It captured Jon. It made a copy of him, transmitted it into the void

between universes. It then also created an environment for him to exist in.”

“It was more than that…” Jon said.

“Maybe,” Uhura said.

“Definitely,” Sacagawea said. “If you assume we are souls, born into this universe, then it seems

reasonable to speculate there are other souls, other places with other people that also want to

commune with us, the way we come here to commune with each other.”

“That’s reaching,” House said.

“You have seen enough in your life time to affirm the possibility,” Loxy said.

“Yes, but here, and now, we are overly speculating,” House said. “There is no evidence that this is

anything other than a dream he had while in suspended animation. Or, here is a crazy idea, a memory

implant.”

“It could be a download,” Jung agreed. “People get information in all sorts of ways.”

“The planet doesn’t look familiar. I don’t see any evidence for the Great Ridge,” Jon said.

“That could have been a feature a million or billion years ago,” Tesla said. The look he got seemed to

warrant him continuing. “We’re dealing with black holes, then we’re dealing with time dilation. Also, any

other universe, even a pocket universe that originally twisted off from ours, will likely have either a

different temporal signature, or be looped to this universe, or possible even double entry and exit

points.”

“So, he had a NDE with time travel,” House said.

“Time travel is par for the course with NDE’s,” Jung said. “Most people report some temporal anomaly,

whether it is existing a timeless space, or having experiences that seem to last longer than their

physical near death experience lasted.”

“Just sitting on your couch prolongs time,” Jon said. He had to address the looks. “What. That was

funny.”

Loxy shook his head.

“Glad you’re feeling better, son,” Jung said, not offended.

“At any rate, I am on the Away Team,” Jon said.

“No, you’re not,” Loxy said. “If we assume nothing else, this world’s genetic template was either based

off or influenced by your genetic code, and your presence could trigger something.”

“He’s not leaving the ship,” House echoed. “Not while he is under my care.”

“I am better,” Jon said.

“Drop and give me fifty,” House said.

“I couldn’t do that before the event,” Jon said.

“That’s my measure,” House said.

“Captain,” Chan said. “You had an experience. It’s probably safe for you to go. It also reasonable to

allow your staff to do their job. That’s what they were trained for. That’s why we’re here.”

“Okay,” Jon said. “Unless there is anything else, go low.”

Nothing else, the returned to their bodies. Jon and Loxy were walking together. They came to a halt.

She hugged him, then kissed him. “Don’t worry. I got this.”

“I am not worried,” Jon said.

“Then don’t be jealous,” Loxy said.

“I am not… Okay, a little envious.”

“Don’t be that,” Loxy said.

“You never let me do anything fun,” Jon said playfully.

“Oh! Just wait till I get back, young man,” Loxy said.

“Come back,” Jon said.

“To you? Always,” Loxy said.

His eyes lingered on her until she turned out of sight. An officer approached and asked for his

signature. Ordinary schedule adjustment. Departmental requests for priority access to expand and or

optimize local research based on preliminary findings. Authorizing outgoing mail packets, which

contained recognition of latest incoming packets. And that was just the outer-reality function. There was

a whole inner domain, the many worlds of the Dyson sphere that comprised the forward section main

hull relied on the ship’s exchange; personnel rotation came from an inner Fleet base. A Dyson Sphere

that held a star, a known hundred worlds, a million world spaces yet to be assigned and terraformed,

and dimensionally shifted so that the outer edges of the sphere was only slightly noticeable as the

forward portion of the main hull. The star gave power to the million worlds, it sustained life, and was the

primary power source for his ship. Most crew had shore leave inside the sphere. They had second lives

in the sphere. Some people had doppelgangers that maintained the inner life. They were transporter

clones and they linked brains to get ‘life updates’ so that they had the best of both worlds. He was

signing off on mundane, routine stuff- from this life’s perspective, but his life on origin, Earth- still

relegated this to fantasy, sci-fi, and wishful thinking. Routine stuff. He signed it and proceeded to the

Bridge. Back to work.

Jon heard one of his inner voices say, ‘for an imagined life, there sure are a lot of details to attend to.’

He even had to use the toilet. He got lectures when he used alternatives to waste evacuation, such as

beaming it out. “Muscles atrophy when you don’t use them, like your brain is atrophying when you stop

using it,” House would say.