Second Interim, page 28
“You’re a good person, Coura. I’d like to have known you better, and in different circumstances.”
“Me, too,” Coura replied out of politeness, without concern for the truth of the statement.
It occurred to her a second later that perhaps she should think twice before lying to someone who’d just confessed to wiping out the human race. Truthfully, however magnetic was Lisset’s personality, however likable and intriguing she was, Coura didn’t much like the idea of becoming friends with her.
The thought of it, though, combined with Lisset’s tone and word choices, did beg a new, related question. Coura asked it.
“Will you be there with us, in your refuge?”
“I can’t be,” Lisset said heavily. “Protecting the refuge through the second ascension will be the last thing I’ll do.”
“You mean, before you leave with the rest of the Six Hundred?”
“No. Before I cease to exist.”
Coura felt a pang of—something. Knowing what to feel was nearly as hard as knowing what to think, which was to say impossible. At least words were a little easier.
“Why?”
“There’s no other way,” Lisset said. “It’s me or the refuge. One or the other has to be annihilated.” She smiled at Coura. “I choose me.”
“You mean you’re sacrificing yourself?”
Leaving the affirmative unspoken, Lisset asked, “So what do you say now about whether this makes up for what I did?”
Even the new information wasn’t enough to make Coura feel qualified to deliver that verdict. But if she thought of Lisset as human, which wasn’t hard given how well she performed the role, Coura knew what she’d want to hear. It seemed right to grant her that kindness.
More than that, in a thought that gave Coura a sudden chill, she didn’t want to wind up being the human who talked humanity’s savior out of committing to the job.
“I think it must, probably,” Coura hedged.
Lisset laughed. “I’m putting a lot on you. Don’t worry. I’m not looking for affirmation. You’re not helping me decide whether it’s worth it or not. It is. This is just some final moments of companionship. Call it a farewell tour.”
“Did you tell the others that?” Coura asked.
“I did.”
“But we’re arriving at the rift with years to spare. Won’t you have more time with us?”
“Time,” Lisset echoed thoughtfully. “I hate to even use the word. It creates a hole of confusion that other words struggle to dig you out of. But, to put it in simple terms, once this ship passes through the rift, the annihilation will have already happened. Some inhabitants of the refuge will have been there a thousand years. Or their descendants will, I suppose. Others will have just arrived, like you.”
“And some of them will be... aliens?”
Lisset grinned. “Yes. Aliens.”
“How many?”
“Individuals or species?”
“Species.”
“Intelligent?”
“Yes.” Coura began to grow impatient.
“Only six,” Lisset finally answered. “That’s if you want to count yours as intelligent. Just kidding.”
“How will we communicate with them? Won’t it be dangerous? What if we all just start shooting at each other?”
“Please don’t,” Lisset said with rather less force than she’d earlier used to advise Ostan against interrupting. She resumed more contemplatively, “You might find communication easier than you expect. You’ll manage. One thing I can assure you is that it will be an adventure. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
“I don’t know,” Coura demurred. “Maybe. But couldn’t you...” She searched for the right words. “I know you won’t be around, but isn’t there some way you could make sure we do alright? At least at first.”
“You’re afraid of the unknown,” Lisset said. “That’s normal. But if I intervene to keep you safe in one small way, then why not another? I’d have to decide where the line is between making sure that you live and letting you live. I’d rather not look for that line. You don’t want me to. Better to just go forward with a healthy dose of fear, but believing in yourself the way I believe in you.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“I know I am.”
Lisset made the declaration a compliment of Coura rather than of herself. Sighing, she slipped her arms out of the sleeves of her borrowed jacket and held it toward Coura.
“Do me a favor,” she said. “Return this to Aprile.”
Coura accepted it, understanding from Lisset’s look that this was the end for her. On this ship, at least. It wasn’t for a mere human to know what other dimensions were part of her ‘farewell tour.’
“I think it’s best not to leave this body lying around where it could get worshiped or something one day,” she said. “So I’m going to burn it to a crisp in the void engine.” Lisset’s contented look contrasted with the horrific nature of her words. “Your family is on the command deck. Go to them.”
“That’s it, then? You’ll really be gone? You won’t influence us anymore?” Coura had grown so used to watching and waiting for signs of her life’s purpose that she worried it would be hard to stop, even knowing they would never come.
“You’re free of me,” Lisset declared. Coura took those words, and the ones that followed, and pressed them into her brain that they might remain there always. “Your decisions will be fully your own from now on. Make good ones.”
She smiled softly, and her sharp blue eyes shone. Her voice sounded in Coura’s comms.
“Do those work as last words?”
“Yeah,” Coura said in a whisper.
“Goodbye, then.”
“Goodbye.”
By then, Lisset was already sailing to the vault’s exit. The hatch opened, and she vanished through it en route, presumably, to the voidship’s engines to dispose of the flesh she wore.
Alone in the vault, Coura lingered only a moment before setting off, Aprile’s jacket in hand, for the command deck. For good measure, she commed her mother along the way and confirmed that she and Kearn and the others had been revived and said their goodbyes to Lisset. Ostan was also out of hibe, she learned, along with a handful of Whisper’s crew.
On passing through the hatch to the command deck, Coura beheld a sight that rendered her instantly oblivious even to the presence of her loved ones. One smooth, concave surface of the room, about twenty feet across and resembling the domed ceiling of a groundside building, had the ability to display, among an unlimited range of options, the voidship’s exterior view.
Currently filling this ‘holodome’ from rim to rim was a nebula-like expanse of fiery scarlet that Coura knew instinctively must be the rift. Transfixed, she drifted toward the vast red blossom, a beautiful wound in the skin of the universe, a secret passage to sanctuary. Only when her mother came alongside her, drew her close and halted them both on a grabhoop did Coura take notice of her family and Commander Ostan, dark silhouettes against the cosmic backdrop of the holodome.
After subdued greetings, Coura informed them, “She’s gone.”
Her gaze inexorably returned to the rift.
“How long until we pass through?” she asked.
Ostan answered. “Ninety hours.”
* * *
Ninety hours later, having spent much of the intervening span fastened into a grav couch for a deceleration programmed by Lisset, Coura gathered with largely the same group on the command deck. The rift now fully filled the holodome, dwarfing the humans before it and bathing them in warm, crimson glow.
An officer commenced countdown. Frequently forgetting to breathe, Coura squeezed the hands of Serenity on her right and Simon on her left as the numbers shrank to zero.
The passage was scarcely traumatic. The red glow of the rift grew deeper and deeper, fading to a starless black. Whisper’s hull did not quiver. Coura’s insides didn’t try to escape her body. All she felt was a chill pass over her skin, raising every hair, but that could easily have been from her own excitement. Likewise the knot in her stomach was likely the reflection of doubts that Lisset had somehow failed them in the final moments, or worse, deceived them.
A single point of light pierced the black.
Coura opened her mouth but couldn’t speak. For an instant she worried that her ability to breathe had gone, and that the refuge—if they’d reached it—was unlivable.
But it must have been her nerves, for Kearn managed to speak and be heard.
“What is it?” he asked.
The answer, delivered by a member of the command crew, took what seemed like ages.
“A star. Main sequence. Stable.”
Looking at the single, shining point surrounded by empty void, Coura knew that everyone around her shared her confusion. Of course it was a star, but—
“Are there others?” Ostan asked the crewman.
In a disbelieving tone, the officer reported back, “None detected.”
Ostan wondered aloud, “How can that be? What is detected?”
“Data still incoming, sir. Looks like several orbital bodies. Seven... twelve... nineteen... thirty-one.” Lest he be forced to continue spouting numbers, he finished, “Forty and counting, sir.”
“Planets?” Ostan asked.
“Results are preliminary, but yes. Many or most of the orbital bodies appear natural. Current count, one-hundred and four. Still rising.”
“What’s beyond the outer bodies?”
“Unclear, Commander. Possibly... nothing.”
One system, Coura thought. Lisset’s refuge was a single system. An enormous one, clearly, but still just one.
One system, six races.
“Refugium,” Coura said, staring at the single, distant star. Kearn and a few others gave her an approving look.
“Positive detection, Wreath of Seven Stars,” a comms officer announced. Moments later, “Hold High the Flame detected and confirmed. Contact established.”
“Share our data with them,” Ostan ordered. “Request reciprocity.”
“Request they send over Commander Nitya, too.” This demand came from Kearn.
A look flashed over Ostan’s face hinting at possible refusal as ambition battled cowardice, or rather his concern for the good of the ship was tested. Thankfully, the right side prevailed.
“Do it,” he instructed.
“This ship needs a new name,” Coura said. “We can’t go into this place as Whisper of Death. It’s not right.”
“You have something in mind?” Kearn asked.
“I do. But it should be Nitya’s call.”
“I’m sure she’s open to suggestions.”
“I know it’s weird to give a voidship a person’s name, but I was thinking the Daniel Sallat.”
She could tell by Kearn’s look that he approved. “It’s a good name. She’ll agree.”
The same crewman who’d counted planets earlier called out, “Commander! Object detected on non-orbital trajectory. It’s headed closer to us.”
“What is it?” Ostan asked urgently.
“Can’t be sure. Possibly a vessel.”
Coura’s heart leaped into her throat. Swallowing it, she blurted, “Tell the other ships not to fire on it! Don’t let them use weapons. This isn’t an enemy.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Ostan said.
“Please tell them,” Coura begged. “We can’t afford a bad start.”
“Fleet doesn’t listen to us, remember?” Ostan said.
“You have to try.”
With a pensive look, Ostan asked the crew, “Any signs it’s hostile?”
“None yet.”
“Fine...” Sighing, Ostan recorded a comm for transmission: “Hold High the Flame, Wreath of Seven Stars, advise against weapons fire on inbound unknown object. Repeat, advise weapons inactive.”
Coura wasn’t privy to the reply from the Fleet commanders, if any came. Her gaze was fixed on the dome as the view shifted, rapidly zeroing in on a bright speck in the black.
The speck grew into a glowing ball. The ball became a hazy shape, and then it was clear.
It looked something like one of the trees of Martijn Orchard. But this was no tree. Its surfaces were hard and flat and pinkish.
Crystal, in Coura’s mind.
Her mind also held no doubt that this was indeed a spacecraft, a vessel constructed by no human hand—maybe no ‘hand’ at all.
Six species. And here, Coura knew, was a meeting of two of them.
A tear stung her eye before lashes flung it into the dome’s artificial void.
“So beautiful,” she mouthed. The sound failed to emerge.
“Unknown object changing course,” a crewman reported. “It’s definitely powered.”
“Does the move appear aggressive in nature?” Ostan asked.
The time it took for an answer to return produced tense moments for Coura as she hoped Lisset’s choices had not been flawed, her faith not misplaced.
“Negative,” the answer finally came. “New projected course increases distance of closest approach. It’s leaving us.”
Coura exhaled in relief. But not too much relief. From now on, every second seemed likely to bring new opportunities to screw things up.
Zerouali asked, “Should we follow?”
“No!” Coura said on instinct. “They might see that as threatening.”
“Agreed,” Ostan declared, once more proving himself to be far from the worst possible commander for their present situation.
Kearn asked, “What about the Fleet ships?”
Ostan relayed the question to a subordinate, who reported, “Maintaining current course.”
“Transmission received from Wreath of Seven Stars,” the comms officer announced. “They do not intend to engage or pursue unknown craft.” After a pause, he added, “Hold High the Flame confirms same.”
“Guess we’re seeing eye-to-eye so far,” Kearn said. “That’s a good sign.”
“It’s more than good,” Coura said. “It means there’s hope for us.”
In the hours that followed, after the alien vessel vectored away, the remainder of the crew was revived. Vice-commander Nitya transferred onto Whisper of Death, subsequently becoming Commander of the Daniel Sallat. While still aboard Wreath, she had consulted with the Fleet commanders to arrive at consensus that the three ships, two Fleet and one rogue, would stick together.
A destination was selected from among Refugium’s myriad orbital bodies. Scans indicated the world was hospitable to human life. The voyage there would take mere hours.
“Ready?” Nitya asked Coura, inducted only hours before as a member of the Sallat crew.
“More than ready, Commander,” Coura replied. “Let’s meet our new neighbors.”
END
Author’s Note
Thanks for reading!
This sequel comes almost 20 years after I wrote the first book. What made me finally consider continuing the story was the accumulation of high ratings on Interim’s retailer page over the years. There was even one 5-star review in particular in 2020 that prompted me to start in earnest on a new outline.
At present, I have a few ideas, but no firm plans, for Beyond Interim. What all this means is that if you’d like to rejoin Coura and her family in Refugium someday soon, you can increase the chances of it happening by leaving a positive rating (4-5) or review for this book. That greatly helps me to know I’m not just chucking stories out into a lifeless, unfeeling void.
Until then, best wishes.
-PK / June 2021
P.K. Lentz, Second Interim
