Vilsa

A short science-fiction story - Chris Ballard wakes up in a strange place, with no memory of the events which led him to be there.

VILSA

FIRST DRAFT

Black. A swirling shroud of dark fog, suffocating him. He awoke, blinked. Now he could see the white walls, the clock telling him he’d slept for six days.

Why had he slept for six days? What had exhausted him so much? He grasped at thoughts, but the void in his memory was as black as the walls were white.

His legs felt weak, but he forced himself to his feet, hobbled with trepidation to the doorway. It wasn’t a true doorway. There was a hole in the wall where a door would go, covered by a thin curtain. Reaching his hand out, he slid the curtain out of his way, and walked through.

On the far wall was a mantelpiece. It was large, but only two things were there. The first was a plaque with words printed on it: “Unity Hospital Arvila”. Not much, but it told him two things that were useful to know. He was in a Unity hospital, which meant that whatever had happened to put him into a six-day sleep, he’d been found and treated. He was also on Arvila. The only problem was that, when he’d last made planetfall, it was to refuel on Tol Manase.

A planet on the furthest side of the system.

The other item was even more domestic. A small monochrome videograph, leaning innocuously on the side.

The problem lay in the videograph’s subjects. He was there, and stood beside him were two people he only realised he’d forgotten now that he remembered them again. His co-pilot, and his navigator.

*

Chris Ballard eased the joystick into the resting position. The difficult part of the journey was always the comet behind him. That was past him now, and for the next three hours there was nothing on the charts.

A knocking sound. A fist tapping on something. He raised his arm, glanced at his chronometer, and had his explanation. Sesala began her shift in twenty minutes. No doubt she’d awoken early and decided to have some fun before settling down to the monotony. She’d probably set up a communicator next to one of the water pipes and knocked on it a few times.

Knock.

She was annoying him. There was only so much cacophony a man could take. Leaping to his feet, Chris bolted towards the door. He reached maximum speed, hot-footing it down the central corridor of the ship.

 When he reached the next door, set into the left-side wall, he stopped and waited for the hydraulics to stop their hissing and the door to click into place, before stepping confidently through.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“What do you want?” came the sleepy reply, and Chris looked with surprise to the right. There was Sesala, a startled look in her eyes, and he felt a twinge of guilt. It was his shout which had woken her. She had not been knocking.

She opened her mouth to speak, and he worried that he was going to get a grilling. After all, she didn’t ask to be woken up. But her words were much more concerning, and her soft voice just served to drive the point home.

“Why have we stopped?”

She’d spoken the truth. The constant vibration wasn’t there, which meant the engine wasn’t functioning. And if the engine wasn’t functioning there was nothing good ahead. History was riddled with similar cases, and they inevitably resulted in fiery maelstroms of death as the ship in question ploughed into a lump of rock.

They would simply be an addendum to the list.

*

A thought came to him suddenly. He turned on his heel, striding with purpose into the chamber where he’d first awoken. Somehow, earlier, he’d managed to completely miss the second bed, identical to the one he’d been lying on but for one telltale factor: it was entirely untouched.

This revelation activated another thought. He crept gingerly back through the drapes, and sought out the main door. It wasn’t difficult to find. The door was wide, nearly thirty feet.

As he expected, there was a sign tacked to it, just wide enough to contain the unique identifying number of the ship he’d been on. Whenever a mission was activated, a suite in each Unity hospital was fitted especially for the crew.

There were two beds in the suite. One was for Chris. The other was for Sesala. Something had happened to put him here, and there was no doubt in his mind that it had been the end for her. He turned the idea over in his head, hoping his brain would tear it to shreds, but the more he let it fester, the more his conviction in its truth grew.

His train of thought was derailed by an epizeuxic susurrus, a whisper in the air made credible by its repetition. Three times the sound came. Then silence once again descended. He let out a long breath. Somebody had walked past the other side of the door, probably hadn’t even noticed the door was there.

Knock. Knock. The slow rhythmic pounding came as such a surprise that Chris took an involuntary couple of paces backwards.

He’d heard the knocking before. On the ship.

 

*

 

Sesala was lying on her stomach, her head wedged into a small maintenance shaft. She finished her task after a few seconds, and emerged, ash pockmarking her hair and giving her skin a mottled look. She bent down and picked up the high-power stun-gun propped against the wall.

The computer chimed, and Chris diverted his gaze to it to see that the reboot he’d started was now complete. But there was still no engine noise, and that alone was proof that their efforts had so far proved fruitless.

He jumped. Surely he hadn’t heard the knocking again? He peered cautiously towards the doorway, hoping he wasn’t hearing things. Sesala was looking fixatedly at the same spot, her stun-gun pointed rigidly in front of her. Something was out there. The question was what.

 

*

 

His hand clasped onto something soft, and his fist clenched, causing whatever it was to compress with a satisfying sound. He realised his hand was in his pocket; he slowly withdrew it. Once it was well clear, he flexed his arm at the elbow, so that his hand was stretched out in front of him, and opened his fist. Placed loosely onto his palm was a small sweet wrapper. The words written on it told him the wrapper had once contained Belaboran Vilsa.

There was something unique about the taste; two-millimetre-thick coating of chocolate was just right to complete the magic. The outer was sweeter than pure sugar, but once one dared to take a bite, they would discover the other side to Vilsa.

Its innards were the sourest things he’d ever tasted, but, if allowed to remain in the mouth until it dissolved naturally, rather than being hastened by biting, the transition between sweet and sour would pass unnoticed, a sumptuous bliss of taste.

 

*

 

As he watched the door, Chris got a look at Sesala’s face. She looked terrified. He tried to keep a neutral façade, but his hands were trembling at an alarming rate. He scanned the room, looking for something to calm his nerves without giving away to Sesala that he too was afraid. A single Vilsa was resting on the navigator’s desk. He scuttled slowly towards it, and snatched it up with the least movement he could manage. There wasn’t enough to share, and he wasn’t about to let anybody deny him his luxury.

Chris popped the Vilsa into his mouth. As soon as the sensation reached him, the lights cut out.

Sesala screamed in shock. Chris turned to her.

“Are you alright?” he asked, trying to inject concern into his voice. Sesala responded with a positive. The knocking, which had been pounding out a steady rhythm, began to increase in pace. By the time it stopped getting faster there were about two knocks every second. And they weren’t just getting more frequent.

They were getting louder.

 

*

 

A small part of him had hoped that, when they got no response, whoever it was who wanted to come in would just accept that they weren’t going to get an answer. His failure to respond seemed instead to have had exactly the opposite effect. The person on the other side of the door was now more determined than ever to get into the hospital suite.

“Go away,” he yelled. The knocking stopped instantly, and he was satisfied for a few seconds. Then his eyes widened as he realised what he’d done. He held his breath, hopeful that they’d take the hint and leave him be.

The knocking started up again. He yelled through the door, telling his guest to wait while he found the control. It wasn’t difficult. A panel held two buttons. He slapped the ‘Door Open’ button, and it slid to one side, enabling the person to enter.

They did just that. Chris stood to one side to let her in, and once she was clear of the door he shut it again. One visitor was enough. He turned to face her. She was wearing the tunic of the medical staff.

“Sesala... she’s dead.” A simple statement, and he expected a simple response.

“No,” she replied flatly. He was so convinced his surmising was accurate that it was a good six seconds before his brain got round to processing her answer. How could he have been so wrong?

He asked the orderly as much.

“Sesala Roe was not aboard the ship when the rescue team arrived,” she said. “I’m sorry, but she’d already left.”

The words hit him like a cannonball. If she’d found some way of getting out, why hadn’t she taken him along too? The whole thing was beginning to verge on betrayal, something Sesala wasn’t capable of. She was too kind-hearted to do something so callous.

“That’s impossible,” he said. But some far-out corner of his memory was beginning to open, and he realised it wasn’t impossible.

It was true.

 

*

 

The silence was broken by the sound of the door sliding open. A silhouetted figure was stood in the doorway.

“Sesala,” the figure said. Chris caught a flash of movement. Sesala, walking  towards the door.

“What are you doing?” he ventured, as her silhouetted form became visible in the rectangular light at the doorway. She didn’t speak. But once she was through the door, she turned towards him. His brow furrowed in confusion as she crouched into an abstract posture. Then he saw a circle of blue light flash in front of her, and realised what came next.

The gun’s bolt catapulted him to the ground. He lay slumped awkwardly on the floor, winded, and as he struggled for breath, he saw the door shut. There was the bare minimum of light. This wasn’t an issue for long.

He could feel his eyes closing, and he knew at once he was losing consciousness. The world faded in front of him, and within ten seconds all was dark. Black. A swirling shroud of dark fog, suffocating him.

 

Author's Note

Ignore the fact that the story ends abruptly - this is intended to complement a novel I'm in the middle of working on, which isn't fit for viewing.