Excerpt: Flight of the Absolution

When blood spattered across his palm, Torst knew his days of hiding from the law and running from his mistakes had come to an end. He watched the red syrup drip from his hand into the crystal-clear lagoon where he stood. He looked up past the powdery sands and above the bleached cliff faces to where his rusted old starship perched like a great mother bird watching over him. Fishing was done for today. He needed to climb back up to the ship for a medical scan.

He looked back at the half-submerged rock he had been standing on when it happened. He remembered seeing the shadowy creature swimming far below the sparkling surface. He had been trying to catch the thing for dinner with the spear he’d made from a broken screwdriver blade strapped to a pipe. He remembered the vibration in the shaft as he jabbed the spearhead into its bony shell, but the thing had been too strong. It pulled him and the spear into the water. He had been too stubborn or too stupid to let go of the shaft and the animal had nearly drowned him. When he emerged from the water, he coughed up a quart of water and then blood. He knew that neither the big crustacean nor the fall had caused internal bleeding. He had hacked up tiny droplets of something that looked like blood early this morning. He had ignored it. Now he couldn’t.

There were no doctors or hospitals to visit on this planet. No other humans, or any intelligent life lived here. He had let his friends take the fall for his crimes and stayed in hiding on this rock for 21 years. Now, this would be his reward. He could die on this rock alone, or risk arrest going back to the Central Galaxy for proper medical attention.

He convinced himself that he may be overreacting. He walked onto the beach and grabbed his canvas bag. That sea creature had swum off with his spear, so he would return without it to the rusty old spacecraft he had called home for the last two decades.

He clambered over some familiar boulders and up the steep trail that his feet had pounded down over the years to the top of the cliffs. He panted and struggled to move his heavy body along the path as if he’d suddenly gained a hundred pounds. He sat down for a few minutes on a rock. A puddle from a recent rain lay near his feet. The white hair of the man in the reflection framed a heavy, wrinkled face.

He took his eyes away from the puddle to the clusters of tall green islands stabbing up through the turquoise seas. He had never been to the human home world called Earth, but he imagined it to be a lot like this. He had no desire to leave this beautiful place. A heavy black cloud hung over the horizon. The cool damp wind that came before a summer storm made him shiver like the end of the world had come. He would need to keep climbing. He didn’t want to be stuck on the side of a cliff during a tropical storm.

He struggled to his feet to continue along the trail and into the jungle above. The rocks swirled around him now and he grasped a hanging vine to prevent himself from taking a dizzying lunge into the rocks below. His lungs burned as he forced himself to keep climbing. Even though his legs wobbled as he reached the top, he wouldn't let himself rest again for fear that he might not get up again. By evening, he would become a meal for some remorseless animal that probably lurked nearby.

He could hear the skinny avian reptiles crashing through the branches above him. He had never reconciled with their loud croaking calls, but today they came as a soothing signal that he had nearly reached safety. The path now wound around familiar tree trunks until the rusty landing struts of his home appeared.

A thorn-covered bush had grown out from under the hull. He picked up a fallen branch before he slowly walked around the bush with caution. As usual, a group of fat amphibious predators, like armored tadpoles on stubby legs, hid like criminals under the ship waiting to catch any of the feathery reptiles unfortunate enough to visit the forest floor. He banged the branch against the hull and yelled, “Hee-yaaa!” The guilty vermin scattered into the underbrush, leaving his path to the ship’s hatch clear.

A familiar voice spoke as the hatch opened, “Hello, handsome.”

“Hello yourself, you corroded old junkpile.”

Tellie, the ship’s intelligence system had kept him company all these years. She didn’t offer much conversation unless he wanted facts and data, but sounded human enough to give him comfort at times. He had trained her to use ‘handsome’ to greet him.

He stepped into the dimly-lit cabin. A mix of machines he had rigged for analyzing plants and minerals he found on his daily adventures whirred and beeped softly. He walked past the broken and sweat-stained leather passenger’s seat he used as a bed.

“You’re back early,” the voice said.

“Yeah. I need a med scan”

“Of course. Please open the examination panel and I’ll get set up. Tell me how you're feeling?”

“Aside from pain, exhaustion and blood spewing out of my mouth, I feel amazing,” Torst said as he swung the door to a panel in the wall open.

“If those are your symptoms, you really should return to a human colony and seek proper medical attention.”

“You’d love that, wouldn't you? Then you could get your routine maintenance check you’ve been alerting me about for twenty years.”

“This isn't about me. Please place your nose and mouth near the vent and take a deep breath.”

As he inhaled, a cloud of dust shot out of the machine. He gasped as the cool sensation entered his throat and nasal passages. He knew the nanoparticles that filled the cloud would fly into his lungs and sinus cavities, enter his bloodstream, and examine him from the inside out.

“Remain still for the scanner, please,” the electronic voice said.

Now a blue ring of light surrounded his body. It dropped down to his feet, then slowly climbed back up to his head.

“What’s the conclusion, doc?”

“The bleeding is being caused by a malignant cancer in your lungs. It seems to have spread from your digestive system. You will need to seek medical treatment immediately.”

“Cancer? I haven't had anything but fish, vegetables, and water for twenty years. I thought all this natural living was good for me.”

“It could be a number of things. Toxins from volcanic activity nearby. Fuel could be seeping out of this ship, plants and animals you’re eating could be armed with trace amounts of defensive hemotoxins that could be building up in your tissues—”

“Okay. I get it. So, what happens if I don’t get medical treatment? What if I just want my last days to be here on this planet where I’m happy, instead of some hospital barracks on an Outworld?”

“Without proper medical treatment, there is a 100% chance you will die in extreme pain. Your digestive system could malfunction and you could starve to death, or you could suffocate if the cancer grows large enough to block your bronchial tubes. Either way, it is likely to be an agonizing—”

“So, the only way out of this is proper medical treatment. What's the nearest human-occupied system with a half-decent medical facility?”

“The planet Thrayya, the Earth 17 colony.”

“Rustbucket?”

“Yes, handsome?”

“What's the probability the Voharians are still lookin’ for me and I'll be arrested?”

“I don’t have enough data to calculate.”

Torst lay down in the broken seat, exhausted. The sudden tropical rain tapped on the ship’s dirty windscreen as the storm winds rocked the hull. He reached out and grabbed a little data cylinder he kept in a niche in the cabin wall. He stared at it, twirling it around and watching its silvery casing sparkle. He never wanted to be the source of anyone else’s misery. As much as he loved this planet, if he died here, his crimes would be all for nothing. All this running and hiding would do him no good anymore.

Flight of the Absolution

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