A Dog Story

            The dog first found the man bleeding in the snow on the lower slopes of the McKenzie Mountains late one spring. The dog, an Alaskan Husky mutt watched the man as he knelt in the snow the crimson stain before him. The man stared off down the slope towards the town at the bottom- its lights ablaze in the late evening dusk. The man did not move save for an occasional shudder between his shoulders.

            The dog peered at the man curiously wondering why the man had come all the way upslope to bleed and die so far from his pack. Cautiously the dog circled around the man on the left where he would between the man and the woods if he needed to run. The man made no move nor gave no sign that he had picked up the dog’s scent. As the dog came around to the front of the man, he could see that the man shuddered in sorrowful sobs not in the death throes of the dying. Hot tears steamed on the man’s face running down until they froze on his beard.

            The dog wondered what it must be like to cry with tears as he sat his haunches to study the man and his sorrow. This man was large like the lumberjacks that had come north in the fall, but not burly with the saw-cut muscles that marked that breed. His beard was new and thin not thick like the pan handlers that clung to the streams for the gold rock. The man’s eyes were haunted like the fur traders that returned south with empty traps smelling foul and defeated.

            The dog noticed the feathers clutched in the man’s right hand and the shreds of the silk cloth in the other. Blood smell was thick on both, the dog decided that the blood he thought’s was this man’s was another’s than. The man continued to weep unabashedly into the cold of the night. The two of them sat there a long time until the dog decided against all of his newfound instinct to pad over to the man and lick his tears away.

            The man jerked at the warm wet contact and turned and stared hard at the dog for a moment before throwing his arms around him and burying his face into the dog’s fur coat. The Dog was very surprised and somewhat pleased by this renewed contact with the member of his former masters. He realized he had missed the touch of man since his own had slipped beneath the ice so many moons ago. He had learned to run with the wolves and fight and eat with them. He had even found a pack mate to run with on the long nights under the star filled skies.

            

The end had come

            The end had come before anyone could anticipate or do anything about preparing for it. The Prometheus was outbound on its maiden voyage, the first colony ship to be launched in the Genesis Protocol Program when the attack came. It had to be an attack the survivors reasoned. One moment, amidst fanfare and televid coverage, the great ship was pulling out of terran parking orbit and then the next a blinding flash of light filled all the screens on the ship and the vids went dead.

            The explosion of the impact on the Earth was tremendous and silent from space. Captain Weis and her bridge crew stood in stunned silence as the vidcom crackled in static and the earth burned. There were other ships but few could go anywhere. On the doomed planet the fires raged, as the impact zone glowed as hot as the sun. At first Weis just stood there not able to comprehend what had just happened; then she was barking orders trying to stop the Prometheus’ outbound trajectory knowing that the coordinates were locked and the run up to light-speed unstoppable.

Weis looked at her communications officer who was frantically trying to contact Genesis base. Harry looked terribly pale as he tried one channel after another with no response. With dread, Weis looked over to Sarah, as she stared at the geo scanner looking for survivors. Sarah looked determined even as the tears ran down her face.

“Captain?”

Weis looked over her right shoulder at the speaker, Ray. He had just come up from hibernation control. He was smiling.

“All colonists and support crew tucked away and ready for light speed.”

She stared at his pleased Indian face, not hearing his words clearly.

“Captain?” He said slowly and then saw the panic on the faces of the rest of the crew who were scrambling around the captain.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

“Ray- The Earth… it’s gone.”

            Time passed on the Prometheus as it accelerated to light speed, two hours and twenty one minutes to be precise, but to the human denizen’s time went by in years as the crew tried to find some chance of hope. Ray sat on the entry gangway and wept. Weis and Sarah stared hard at the Geo readouts and hoped. Sarah cried openly now as she desperately ran and reran checks on her equipment. Harry sat listening to the noisy static in abject silence.

            The Astro-navigators looked over from their pilot chairs forward in the bridge from time to time and shook there heads. For the two, there was only one direction that required their attention and it was the run to light speed. She could and would thank them for focusing on their tasks instead of panicking like Rick, the Crew Medic who had to be given a soother and tended to by Petty officer Clark. Clark held the now sleepily calm Rick as he sat on an acceleration couch like a small child instead of a grown man.

            Weis straightened and looked around, knowing there was no more time for tears. She gathered herself together and stood up and walked to her command chair behind the Astro-Navs and sat down. She engaged the gel grips in the chair before swiveling around to face the command crew.

            “Sarah, pull your self together and lock down the sensor array.”

            “But Captain.” Sarah began, then stopped and did as she was told.

            “Status Harry.”

            “All clear, sir.”

            When she looked at him he was shutting down the com system and making light speed adjustments even knowing that there was little hope that they would ever hear from the Earth again.

            “Ray?”

            Ray looked up and wiped at his streaked face.

            “Go aft and apprise the hiber crew of Earth status and prep for cold sleep, we will be along shortly.”

            He stood up, tried to say something and failed and then turned and stumbled back down the ramp in slow deliberation. She hoped he would be okay. She silently prayed that there would be no suicides before they reached their destination at Centaury Alpha Six, but there would most likely be at least one attempt. She looked around and each of them gave thumbs up. Weis spun her chair.

            “Let’s do this.”

            Greg, one of the Astro-navs on the right held out his right fist and Mike the other Astro-nav knocked it with his left.

            “Light speed in five.” Mike said.

            “Four.” Greg responded.

            “Three.” Mike again.

            “Two.” Greg.

            She was about to tell them to shut up when the light speed transfer occurred and the light spectrum flashed into vision and the Prometheus quietly slipped away into the starry night.

            Light speed felt like a dream as everything froze in place as what was real to the observer stopped and stretched until the mind sped up to comprehend the transition. To the untrained participant the transition would often ruin the mind as it often failed to make the transition in relativity. Thus only those trained in high speed transfers were permitted to stay conscious through the transitions in speed. Too many vegetables were strewn along the timeline of the history of high speed space travel.

            Weis had done the light speed transition twelve times in six missions not including the regime of short trips during academy training; all told though she had made the transition twenty two times if she included her training. Transitions always occurred in pairs, acceleration and deceleration- one could not occur without the other safely. Once a relative object achieved light speed inertia was almost limitless and in the human understanding eternal, though one would eventually slow down. What high speed space travel had achieved was faster than light speeds.

            This was what the Astro-navs were for, only they were capable of handling the speeds and navigation that faster than light speed travel entailed. They were like the athletes of the spacing community, not only were they genetically prepped for the rigors of conscious space travel but also mentally capable of making the additional transitions. They would remain awake as the Prometheus continued its acceleration into slipspeed while the command crew would join the colonist in deep sleep until deceleration back to sub light speeds.

            As relativity took hold again inside the great ship, Weis opened her eyes becoming aware she had clenched them shut as they had raced into light speed. She blinked them rapidly assimilating her vision to the emergence lighting on the bridge. She gazed around the bridge taking inventory of her crew. Satisfied she looked over at the Astro-navs who were slapping each other on the shoulders. Smiling at their tenacity, she shook her head and Mike gave her the thumbs up signal.

            She leaned back in her acceleration couch and released the gel grips and stood. Greg gave her the five units hand signal as he and Mike turned back to their consoles to start the calculations for slipspeed. Weis turned back to face her crew.

            “25 minutes folks until we must get to bed, so let’s get locked down and out to the sleep sphere.” Weis nodded at her crewmate’s one at a time.

            Sarah had recovered from her earlier shock though her bottom lip still trembled from time to time. She meticulously entered the lockdown codes into her input board. Her finger danced lithely across the keys as she found solace in her work.

            Clark helped Rick to his feet and together they staggered off the bridge and out to the sleep sphere. Rick was ashen as he leaned on Clark’s narrow shoulder. Clark only looked a shade better as the two men walked away. Weis worried about them briefly before she reminded herself that she had work to do.

            Harry and his two support officers finalized setting the auto recall dish although it seemed pointless as the likelihood of any communication ever coming through it was close to nil. Harry spoke in low undertones to his aids, Kim and Gerry, in hopes of not intruding on the grief or duties of the other bridge officers.

            Steven the aeronautics science officer joined Sarah as she finished locking down her station before walking off the bridge followed by Harry and his two aids. Three units had passed since the crew had begun the lockdown procedures. Only Weis, the two Astro-navs and Charlie the weapons officer were left on the bridge. The Astro-navs finished their work and glanced back at Weis, grinning, obviously impressed with themselves. Charlie leaned against the bulk head and sighed.

            “Are you sure, I can’t talk you into staying up with us?” Charlie asked as she pushed her black hair back from her angular face.

            “Nope, not trained for Slipspace, Charlie.” She said, “Sorry, guess you will have to manage with just these two.”

            “Geez, I should have never taken the Astro-nav training.” Charlie said as Mike joined them.

            “What are we discussing?” he asked.

            “I was hoping I could talk the captain in helping me fend you to guys off me.” She said giving Weis a hopeful look.

            “If it was a little kinky sex you wanted…” Gregg chirped in as he stood and stretched trying to show off his body.

            “Oh no, no you don’t.” Charlie exclaimed stepping back behind Weis as the Astro-nav took an eager step forward. Weis held up her hands, taken aback by his approach.

            Mike reached over and restrained Gregg with one arm.

            “Good night Captain.” Mike said pulling Greg back towards their station. He winked at her as he turned. Weis felt a surge of excitement at the attraction but quickly suppressed it as she gave Charlie curt nod as she strode out the portal towards the sleep sphere.

            Charlie gave a sigh and strode up to her secondary station at life support. She climbed into the chair quickly preferring to avoid delaying the inevitable and set the gel straps to the slip speed level. She readied her station and was about to report when she realized that Greg was leaning over her shoulder. She gave a jump and scowled as Gregg grinned at her.

            “Get your own chair Greg.” She snarled.

            “But yours looks warm and comfy.” He quipped.

            She reached up and gave his face a gentle shove with one hand.

            “Don’t you have some things to do?”

            He went back to the fore peering over his shoulder while flexing his buttocks as her. She tried to stifle the giggle but to no avail. Her snorts of laughter only encouraged him to strut around some more. She finally forced herself to stop long enough to report that all life functions were locked in. Greg climbed into his slip harness and settled in for final calculations before the Prometheus would be ready to slip. All that was needed now was word from the sleep sphere.

           

            When Weis entered the sleep sphere she observed that almost all of the bridge crew was ready to enter the sleep chambers. Ray and his aids were putting them to “bed” in pairs. Many of the crew would sleep together is each pod. The idea was that humans needed companionship in hibernation sleep over extended periods. The tests had shown that when drawn out of extended periods of hiber-sleep that pairs woke more fully cognent and sane than singles.

            Many of the crew had been sold on the research, especially since it encouraged coupling and companionship with crewmates and eased tensions when facing extended periods of hiber-sleep. Harry and one of his aids were entering their collective pod as Weis came up. He sheepishly grinned at her over his pretty companions shoulder as she passed him. She absently gave him a nod wondering who he was sleeping with now