Too Bright the Sun

part 1

It’s been over ten years since Gary Enquine sent my friend Przeltski to a certain death. Not one day has gone by without the memories of that battle prowling my mind like a waking nightmare. Many times I have woken in a cold-sweat thinking about it. I will not rest, cannot rest, until Gary Enquine has been brought to justice and been forced to pay for his cowardice. Ten years; it's a long time but I can be patient. Personal journal-entry of Jake Nanden for 2101, Feb 3. 1.

***

The little voice asked, after peering out of another portal at an earlier moment in his life, “Is it possible to time travel for I perceive that I can?”

“Only after you leave this life,” said a voice, high and mighty.

Then the little voice changed its tone for it was angry. “But that’s not fair! For, the one thing I wish I can’t have.”

“Until you leave this life,” said the high voice.

“Yes.”

“Then now you can see advantages to moving beyond this life you have.”

And the little voice perceived that all his previous angers, about matters of the flesh and daily living were not proper angers. A proper anger is the anger that desirable things lay beyond the portal of death. And so from that moment on his struggles to survive, to fight against the current, seemed improper to him and yet he could not help himself.

Two of the Ionian Militia sat on top of Przeltski, ripping his helmet off, while another aimed his laser at his eyes. In the vacuum of Io’s atmosphere, Przeltski was mouthing the words, ‘save me’ but it was too late. I knew I couldn’t and had to try and save myself. I was turning to get away but I could still see his eyes half closing, then looking up and his mouth rapidly shaping the words of the ‘Hail Mary.’ The IM would turn their lasers down to the lowest setting and first shoot out the eyes, then take off the arms and if he was lucky then they would aim for his heart. If he was not lucky, the dismemberment could go on and on for as long as they wanted. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. I struggled and struggled and then I was awake and knew it was the nightmare.

***

An eye opened. It was mine. The blurry horizon crystallised into the edge of the pillow as I realised where I was: Io. Being a commander has its perks, one being your own private cabin, but it was small and cramped. I closed my eye, reached up for the ledge of the sill above me and hauled myself out of bed. Feeling for the sanicube-handle opposite the bed, I released the cube from its folded position against the wall, selected ‘L’ and stepped in but then had to open my eyes to use it without spilling. A tube dispensed a sterilising solution onto my hands and the stream of water became hot air to dry them. Yawning enough for tears to clear my eyes, I took one step over to the n-gen, on the white work surface above the bed. I selected ‘Fried,’ then ‘Coffee, black’ and clicked on, the com centre. I had disabled the voice but I could see the display said, “2101, Feb 4. 2 – 06.30 I. 2 messages. Download?”

I waited for the ding that would tell me my breakfast was ready. I knew I had just had another weird dream but I couldn’t quite remember it now. I tried. The n-gen dinged and I opened the white door to reveal the plate of hot, fried food and a mug of black coffee. I looked at the food dubiously and lifted the dark blue mug to my lips. The caffeine rush to my head felt good. Putting my left hand on my hip, I arched my back and then looked down at the pallid skin stretched over my late-twenties belly. ‘Bigger,’ I thought. ‘But only slightly.’ I picked up the plate of fried – bacon, eggs, potatoes, beans, fried-bread and mushrooms – all preselected as my personal preferences and lifted some mushrooms and potatoes to my mouth with the forkette. My buds tested the taste; it had that slight hint of mint or something metallic about it. “Damn,” I said out loud. For a few days now breakfast had tasted like this and I wasn’t sure if it was a fault with the n-gen or this batch of plasma. My n-gen was civvy and another one of the perks allowed to commanders; I’d had it for nearly five years and it had been everywhere with me. Normally they didn’t last longer than three years.

Balancing the plate in my left hand, I picked up the remote, pressed ‘Monitor,’ chose ‘North elevation,’ then ‘R’ for recording and ‘Dec 9, 11.00,’ morning on the day we had arrived, a date I chose out of habit. I then pointed it at the panel, shaped like a window, on the narrow wall behind the pillow of the bed and it was filled with the image of the ground to the north of the command-post. Just like a window, you could even see ‘around’ the window frame if you wished to put your head that close to it. Yellow and reddish sulphur stretched away between the rocky silicates, to a jagged horizon a few hundred yards above the level of the command-post and perhaps two miles away. In places the silicate rock was white and in others a beautiful emerald green. If it hadn’t been for the bright purplish glow of the morning aurora above, I could have believed I was in the Mojave Desert on Earth, which was in a memory I had of visiting my grandparents once. Taking bigger mouthfuls, with my nostrils closed to avoid the nasty after-taste, I downed the breakfast and alternated my gaze between the landscape on the wall and the contents of the room. I took in the half-finished bottle of vodka next to the empty glass on the narrow table across the gang-way from my bed and the open notepad next to it with a few scrawled lines at the top of a new page. Writing pulp crime-novels was my weakness, or my hobby, depending on one’s generosity.

                                                                              ***

What do you think? It's not a violent story, as I think you will see later. I will add more pems later

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