An Off World Message

 

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Ty opened the lock on the front door and pushed his way into his apartment, not waiting for the now slow motor to slide open the door. Once inside the tiny apartment, with the door slowly closing behind him, Ty quickly removed his shabby leather coat, hanging it in the wall-closet, and dropped his work bag onto the floor before walking into the main room of his apartment.

His pet droid, a little silver dog, greeted him, barking in its synthesised voice. Ty lightly patted its head and with a yap of pleasure it wondered off.

Taking his boots off, Ty sat himself down at his workstation and turned on the monitor of his terminal. The screen flashed into life, filled with a picture of Armstrong City, on the moon, complete with the giant statue of the first footprint on the moon – it was his wallpaper picture for the day. He had once visited there but had been very disappointed at how commercial and touristy it was.

He sat there for a long moment simply staring at the screen, not opening any files or programs. There were a hundred and one different tasks he needed to do, there were the revisions on next week’s script, he had not ordered any food in days and his fridge was empty, he had promised himself that today he would at least do some writing of his own, and there were yet more of his brother’s pictures to look at. Instead he just stared at the screen, his mind slipping into a pleasant nothingness – the opposite to how his day had been so far, and it was not half over yet. He had had a script conference at the office, which meant he had to attend in person (no vid-links), and Temi, the new Assistant Producer, had run it. She had ideas of her own about how and where the show should be going; all designed to put her in the best light, the other writers complained after the meeting. The result of the meeting being that Temi wanted large parts of his script re-written. He could have complained to Hal, the Executive Producer, but he couldn’t be bothered. On his journey home it had begun to rain, as it had been doing so for the last week or so, and he hated the rain.

Finally he decided to read his e-mails. It was not high upon his list of things to do but at least he would be doing something.

Moving his finger over the touch sensor, he clicked on the e-mail icon and opened his mailbox. The first thing in it was his one daily piece of spam, which must come off world because otherwise the spammer filter would have been caught it. It was an animated e-mail that offered him any kind of sexual pleasure, female or male or droid or any of the above, and all he had to do was contact a premium rate contact-centre and then he would be put in touch with whatever sexual pleasure he wanted. He deleted it, as he had done a thousand times before. The next e-mail was a rambling one from his mother, her usual paragraph upon paragraph chronicling every aspect of her and his father’s lives. Usually Ty read them with a beady eye open for new script ideas, but today he was not in the mood for his mother’s unfocused stories.

Next there were a stream of emails from his colleagues, all of them complaining about Temi, in varying degrees. He wasn’t surprised at the speed of the reactions against Temi, his colleagues seemed to be able to find a whole range of different activities to do rather then actually write – he knew he was no better. He skimmed through the emails, most of them seemed to be the same thing, a call for an organised protest to Hal. It had happened before, Ty had seen it before with a previous Assistant Producer. Hal had acted as peacemaker and most of the new producer’s ideas had been forgotten – Ty was sure that would happen with Temi.

At the near end of his list of emails he came upon a strange one. The sender was “undisclosed” and the place of origin was simply “Off-World”. The title read, “Thinking of You.” For a moment he thought it was merely another piece of spam and considered deleting it, but something held him back. It didn’t quite look like spam. Cautiously he opened it and began to read it.

As his eyes ran down over the words, first a wave of disbelief rushed through him followed shortly behind by a whole sea of turbulent emotions.

He read:

 

Dear Ty,

I’m not able to send this email via sub-space carrier-beam, they say they’re only for official communications, so this has to go via radio carrier wave. So God only knows how long it’ll take to reach you, but I have to send it. We’re only allowed a small amount of radio carrier wave space so this is the first chance I’ve had to email you.

Since we reached the Sirtus System, ten days ago now, we have been based in an orbital station above Sirtus Four. You’d love Sirtus Four. It’s this green-blue earth-type planet. The air is high in oxygen and moisture, when we’re planet-side we can actually feel all the different currents in the air brushing against us. We have to wear respirators when we’re down planet-side because of the high oxygen content in the air. The medics haven’t decided if the air is safe. I don’t mind the respirators because I just love being planet-side.

Sirtus Four is so rich in life but none of it's like Earth. Almost eighty percent of its life forms can fly. I mean you disturb the smallest of creatures and they just fly away. I’m told they’re sort of like dinosaurs, they’re mostly warm-blooded reptile–like creatures, but they’re so varied and so beautiful you’d never believe it. Last time I was planet-side I was followed everywhere by this group of tiny flying things, they were no bigger then my finger. Every time they changed direction they caught the light and the tiny scales on their bodies caught the light and reflected different colours. They were so beautiful.

In the higher clouds live these giant creatures; we’ve called them Gliders. They never seem to land, they seem to spend all their time gliding through the atmosphere. They’re huge, some have a wingspan of nearly half a kilometre across, and they are the most beautiful crystal blue colour. As yet we haven’t found anything that preys on them.

There isn’t anything you’d call “intelligent life” on Sirtus Four but it is packed full of the most wonderful creatures. I wish you could see it, you’d certainly be able to describe it better then me. But I’m so glad I’ve had the chance to see it.

We’ve had a few runs-in with the Eeez since I arrived here but nothing more then hit and run attacks, which we’ve always won. They had a base on one of the moons of the outer planet, Sirtus Twelve, but they were driven away from that before I arrived. I’ve yet to see one of them in the flesh. I’ve seen the news-vids like everyone else, and the occasional piece of space debris, but nothing more. Part of me is looking forward to coming face-to-face with them, part of me is dreading it, seeing them finally means we’re really at war with them.

My unit is a really mixed bunch. Only three of us are Earth-born. The majority of them are Mars-born and two were born on stations on the edge of our solar system. Anyway, I’ll tell you about them in my next email (one member of my unit, Saito, she’s from the next district to us, small universe?).

Anyway, the main reason why I’m emailing you, like I need a reason, but anyway.

Two days ago the sensor network we have on the outer edge of the Sirtus System picked up all these strange readings. It seems there is a huge Eeez battle fleet heading towards us. Tomorrow we leave to rendezvous with the rest of our fleet. It’ll probably take us a few days to actually reach the Eeez battle fleet but from tomorrow we have to be battle-ready twenty-four-seven, so this is my last chance to email you for now.

I’ve done all my training, done hundreds of simulations, and our commander says I’m nine-out-of-ten battle ready, but I’m also really nervous. I’ve never fired a shot that wasn’t a simulation.

I really miss you, Ty, especially when I get into my bunk at night. I long for your warm body to wrap myself around, in bed. Hugging a pillow isn’t the same. I really wish you were here. I’d love to show you Sirtus Four, you’d love it. I wish you were here to talk to, the others in my unit are good people but they don’t know me the way you do. Most of all, I wish you were here to share my bunk, to wrap my body around yours at night and fall asleep with. The nights are really lonely.

Sorry, I don’t want to make you feel bad. I know your reasons for staying, I respect them, I really do. It’s just that I really, really miss you.

Anyway, I’ve got to go now. As I said, I’m having to send this to you via radio carrier wave. It’ll be going at the speed of light, but they say I’m eight and a half light years away from Earth, so God only knows when you’ll get to read this. Hey, I’ll probably be back home when you get this. We can read it together. We’ll be two old men, together, reading my bad writing.

I love you so much, I’m missing you every moment I’m not with you.

All my love.

Sean.”

 

Ty read and re-read, then re-read the words before him, until the words were almost burned into his memory. Like a ghost reaching out to him from the past, the words clutched at his emotions and squeezed tightly on them. Sean had been right, the email had taken eight and a half years to reach him. It was the first time he’d heard from Sean in eight and a half years. Suddenly he found himself blinking back hot and painful tears.

They had meet when they were both keen, almost breathlessly keen, students at university. Ty had to take a technology course, he was bluntly told his insistence on studying Arts and Literature was not acceptable, so he had opted for a course in Robot/Droid programming. He had felt, at the least, he would get some further ideas for his writing. At his first lecture he’d met Sean, all blonde hair and enthusiasm. Sean was determined to make his career in Robotics. Their attraction had been mutual and almost instantaneous.

Soon they were inseparable, living together in student rooms. To everyone they simply became “Sean and Ty”.

When they graduated they moved into their first home together, a tiny one bedroom apartment. It was cramped but it was their own home and they were happy there. Sean went straight into the Product Testing Department of a large robot manufacturer, while Ty got a job writing for a local e-news-zine (In his spare time he finally began to write, what he hoped would be, his first novel).

Then came the war with the Eeez.

Humans had been expanding beyond their solar system, thanks to the use of stable wormholes (the theory of them Ty still didn’t understand). Humans had begun to colonise other worlds in other solar systems – after colonising everywhere they could in their own solar system.

Then came the Sirtus System.

A human colonising spearhead had taken up orbit around Sirtus Four, to survey it and the system. As they were working, without warning, six Eeez battleships had attacked them and destroyed the spearhead, no survivors. The Eeez said they had claimed The Sirtus System as their own.

This was humanity’s first contact with The Eeez, with any intelligent alien life.

The response to The Eeez attack was to put together a military task force to re-claim the Sirtus System. Suddenly people were being called into military service left-right-and-centre. One of them was Sean. Ty had begged him to apply for an exception, argued with him to apply for an exception, talked and talked about why Sean should apply for an exception, but to no avail. Sean’s mind was adamant, suddenly he had become patriotic for his world and saw it as his duty to defend the Earth. His argument ended there, he wouldn’t be dissuaded.

On his last night before leaving, the night before Sean was to report to his new military unit, on a huge battleship orbiting Earth, they had made love. A meal together in their apartment, then they retired to bed were they made very, very passionate love, almost desperately passionate love. Afterwards they had clung onto each other, tightly holding their bodies together.

Ty couldn’t sleep that night, he couldn’t let go of Sean. Every time he closed his eyes or Sean moved in his sleep he feared Sean was gone, would panic until he opened his eyes and saw Sean was still there.

For twenty hours he watched the military task force leave their solar system, on the news vids, carrying Sean away from him. He watched those news vids again and again, each time silently begging for Sean to come back to him.

It was weeks later that they, the general population, found out what had happened in the Sirtus System.

When the military task force arrived in the Sirtus System they had driven the small Eeez presence out of there. They then set about fortifying their position.

Then the Eeez came back, this time with a full battle fleet.

The human task force and the Eeez battle fleet met beyond the edge of the Sirtus System. This battle had been horrific and fast. Both battle fleets had blasted away at each other in deep space, and in a matter of hours both fleets were reduced to only a handful of ships. These surviving ships, suddenly forced to work together, had limped back to Sirtus Four together.

The shock of how easily both fleets were destroyed reverberated through both the Human and Eeez worlds, and soon both sides were talking about peace. Soon after both Humans and Eeez were sharing the Sirtus System.

Much later Ty found out that Sean’s ship was one of the first ships destroyed, no survivors.

At first he couldn’t accept Sean’s death, there was no body or reality to Sean’s death. Even Sean’s memorial service felt unreal – there were lots of elegies for Sean but no coffin at the centre of it all. Only when the peace was declared and Eeez’s started to appear on Earth did it finally become real to him, Sean was dead and he had lost him forever.

With this realisation came a dark and very deep depression. Ty had withdrawn from almost everything, spending all his time locked away in his apartment. He hardly eat, slept for hours, only watched news vids because he couldn’t concentrate on anything longer, and stopped writing all together. He found he would cry, cry for no apparent reason, cry at any time of the day.

It was only when, unannounced, his mother called upon him. She took one long look at him and dragged him off to see a doctor. From there he was admitted to a Mental Health Treatment Unit, were he remained as an inpatient for nearly three months. After he was discharged he was still treated with medication and psychotherapy. This treatment stretched on for years, but it did enable him to return home and start to live some kind of life.

In truth, his whole life had paused with Sean’s death and had never fully re-started. He had never returned to writing his novel, never tried to finish it or even start a new one. Now he worked as a staff writer on a video soap opera, not even one of the best ones, a job his mother had found for him. Some days, he even found it difficult writing his bland scripts. He had had no other relationship since Sean. Since he lost Sean he felt unable and unwilling to seek out any other relationship. No one would ever love him the way Sean had, so why bother. He still lived in the same apartment where Sean and him had lived together, still surrounded by all the things and furniture they had bought together, with only his pet droid for company.

In those eight and a half years things had changed so much. Now The Eeez were their allies and many of them lived on Earth. Daily he’d see an Eeez out on the street or shopping in the same shops as him. Even his soap opera had Eeez characters on it, actually played by Eeez actors. He no longer found the Eeez strange to look at. They were bipedal, with two arms and two legs, and wore clothes like humans. Their skin was grey, consisting of tiny grey scales, their faces came together into an almost pointed snout, unlike the flat human face, and instead of hair they had short and fleshy tentacles covering their heads.

He didn’t blame the Eeez for Sean’s death, he no longer knew who he blamed.

He stared hard at those words on the screen in front of him. Reading those words he could hear Sean’s voice in them, the tilt and tone of Sean’s voice, playing over and over inside his head. His emotions were raw and sharp, as if he was feeling them for the first time not just dragging up eight and a half year old ones.

Finally he pulled his eyes away from the screen. He had thought the pain he had felt would have eased over the years, it certainly didn’t seem to have that sharp edge of pain when he thought about Sean (which he still did). But this email, this long lost email, this voice from the dead, had opened up very old wounds as if they were fresh. The pain and loss he had first felt when he realised Sean was dead all came back to him.

He stood up and then looked around himself, looked at all the familiar things around him that reminded him of Sean. Then he found he didn’t know why he’d stood up. He stood there for a long moment, lost in his own apartment. Why wouldn’t this pain ever go away, he asked himself, why did it always feel so raw?

Then, like a flood of water breaking through a dam, he started to sob, not just single tears but full sobs that shook his whole body. He covered his face with his hands but still the sobs came. Stumbling, he stepped the few paces over to his sofa and collapsed onto it, his body still raked with sobs.

 

 

Drew Payne

September 2004.

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