A Solvent Mediator

"Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say." So they say indeed. Piotr tossed the booklet into a bin by his feet. Enough material was available to read on this voyage, he could spare junking that particular one. Space is a near-vacuum, his thoughts drifted, full of energetic places and objects. The plasmic aether that connects galaxies across the known universe in a web much like the structure of the human brain, was teeming with activity. Piotr however could admit, in this little pocket of emptiness between Sol and Proxima, the notion of a soundless scream haunted him. Much like the empty space inside the atom, he imagined himself in a similar situation, scaled up to barely comprehensible dimensions. He tossed a crinkled orange wrapper into the bin as well.

Surrounded by his books in the cozy warm-lit reading nook, Piotr should have felt comfortable. On the other side of the transpolymer pane, past the reflection of his gaunt close-shaven features, a large starfield reached away in all directions. This side of the vessel had something to look at, thankfully. Endless clusters of light appeared to claw into the void and he almost perceived a tremor in that starry hand. Piotr rapped his pen on the blanched plastic tray table in front of him, side to side between his index and middle finger- an imperfect metronome. He contemplated with sudden unease the different mediums, atmospheres and lacks thereof, all permeating his picture of the universe. A sort of out-of-body feeling came over him, one that he'd had a growing awareness of since he left Earth. With each tap of his pen, he felt farther away. He was quickly pulled back.

"When's nextmeal, chef?" A raspy yet soft voice rang out, "I'm starving for some more of that five-star space slop!"

"Space slob?" Piotr began with a startled outburst, barely catching anything she said. The swirling red mass that had grown in the viewport he could finally identify as a reflection of bright red hair and not something cosmic issuing forth. He realized the young woman with the unique voice was being sarcastic.

"Ah, I hope you enjoyed it. You're just going to have to wait until the Punchcycle."

"Slob?" She laughed.

"What?"

"I said space slop, not slob. Either way, I like it! Much more appealing than the usual food.” She smiled warmly. Piotr spun his pen on the tray and smacked it to a halt as he rose to his feet. The woman rested a hand on her hip and stepped closer. “Anyways, Punchcycle’s come and gone—almost an hour ago!"

Impossible.

Had he been reading anything absorbing enough to steal his attention so profoundly? Had he actually missed that shocking landmark moment during the usual sunless and moonless day? The scheduled beam emitted by Lunatu? "Sorry I must have dozed off." Though he knew he hadn't. Had he?

"Took me a surprisingly long time to find you! I'm Trisha."

"Good to meet you, Patricia."

"No, just Trisha. Nice to finally run into the artist behind the cuisine! The kitchen crew sent a couple of us out to wrangle you in."

"Fine, fine."

Trisha led Piotr to the galley where most of the crew were gathered. Thirty or so voices hummed in nonchalant conversation and a subtle haze of recently-vacated cigarette smoke was in the air. Another peculiar sickly-sweet scent stung his nostrils, though slightly. He couldn’t identify the mild aroma yet it was familiar to him. “Found ‘im.” She waved in an exaggerated gesture to the seated group, and was greeted by some feigned applause. The kitchen crew were standing, either prepping or waiting around. Waiting around, Piotr thought, ready to be whipped into action by their chef. He mentally prepared to enter into his cooking state of mind and leave his abstract state of mind behind for now. Still, he couldn't shake that silly phrase from the booklet and wondered what happened that made him, of all people, the late one.

"Chop, chop, boys."

A few grumbles and a spit of air through closed lips was his reply but he decided to go easy on the staff, considering.

"I'll let you get at it." Trisha said and disappeared into the galley.

"Everything's prepped, sir. Potatoes parboiled, greens ready to fire. Steaks room temp and oil's heating up real slow." His sous chef rattled off with a bit of an accent. "Still faster than you though, Pete." Another lad chimed in. Piotr admittedly enjoyed working with this bunch, they maintained a good balance of work ethic and lightheartedness.

"Alright, you shits, well done." Piotr smiled, and cooking they went.

Trisha walked down a short aisle past groups of shipmates huddled around in conversation, eagerly awaiting nextmeal. Every three hours the crew consumed a small balanced meal, and every other meal was cooked fresh, which no one wanted to miss. Hot meals were rare on Proxima-bound voyages, but this voyage was special. High profile people made their way to Proxima B for any number of world-building assignments and the current vessel's compliment was loaded with such people. Trisha stood by her spot at the officer's table as several sets of glossy, tired eyes looked up to meet her bright colorful ones.

"Y'all look like you could use a nap." She said, trying to speak jovially, but was actually serious and concerned. In the last few staggered three-month wake-regen sleep cycles aboard the Connexion, she had noticed changes. The four-plus year jaunt to Proxima B was known to change people, but this crew had been showing out-of-ordinary levels of fatigue at the halfway point. Trisha felt a subtle blanket of torpor fall over her whenever she was around members of the crew and especially around her command shipmates.

"You're... not wrong!" Wooster said and leaned back, breaking eye contact with Trisha while he arched back in his chair. He liked how she looked in that flightsuit and puffy-armed jacket, the way her natural red hair juxtaposed the olive drab uniform. "Yep." He leaned forward again, looking her up and down briefly before snapping up to face her with a squint. "I'm ready to go under again, fight back whatever atrophies the gravitter on this rig has taken away." He wiped sweat from his dark forehead.

"It's your rig!" Estebahn, the talkative one, shifted on the bench as he spoke. He made room for Trisha. "Trish, some B-Jee?" He offered her a brightly-wrapped gum-like snack, an orange glint flickered in his eyes.

"Serious? We just activated yesterday, Cap." She told Wooster, ignoring Estebahn's offer. Wooster stared past them all for a moment and grunted, gritting his teeth behind closed lips. He scratched his chin stubble and then put out his hand towards Estebahn.

"Gimme." Wooster motioned to the snack. The B-Jee was waving in front of Trisha's face now.

"Thanks, I'll pass. As usual. Just give up, dude."

"I know it's no steak, but it's better than nothing! Sure beats cigarettes or coffee!" Estebahn laughed. Several other people at the table made various utterances of agreement or disagreement.

"It just doesn't sit right with me, that Prox stuff." Trisha said, finally taking a seat. She noticed a few cloaked figures look up at her from the next table over. Many of their hands raised, palms-out, in her direction. She looked away quickly, sitting down to join the officers in conversation.

“Weirdos.” She muttered under her breath.

Estebahn stared at the cloaked figures unashamedly. "I've noticed they don't like B-Jee either, maybe you should make friends!"

"Yeah I don't think so." Trisha said, lighting a cigarette. Shortly, the hot food came out and all ate and were content.

Lunatu, a satellite almost half the size of our moon, moved in high orbit above Earth outside the interference of our solar disk. Its purpose: to shoot a high-powered laser through space at pre-calculated points along the flight paths of vessels headed to Proxima Centauri. Once per Earth-day when in position at apogee, it fired beams designed to make contact with all currently traveling vessels' massive solar sails. This Punchcycle, as it was known in slang, propelled craft in increments to near-light speeds, a jarring event in almost frictionless space. Each emitted beam added lost velocity making up for small divergences caused by the avoidance of, or collision with, interstellar material and energy currents. As a secondary function, the beam charged a large on-board capacitor. Its purpose was to finally slow vessels to orbital speed via discharge device, once the target exosystem was in range.

"Punch in five."

Bloodshot eyes locked onto a series of dim readouts. Bathed in muddy orange light, an operator looked on attentively. His job wasn't to coordinate the firing of beams but rather to monitor the automated system's telemetry, ensuring vessels traveled accurately and heat dissipation remained within acceptable tolerances. Boring work to the layman, but to the Lunatucians, levels of anxiety were always high and higher still among officials who were aware of the bigger picture. A history of past inexplicable events captivated operator Arcus' thoughts as he looked on intently, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Over his shoulder, barely visible in the dim light stood another figure shrouded and tall, observing.

"Punch in thirty seconds." Arcus continued.

"Begin high res recording." A female voice hissed. Glassy and cold, but her tone was not untroubled.

"Recording." He confirmed, sweeping aside various items on the large input panel: an active lightcard, a B-Jee snack wrapper, several styluses and storage chips. They all clattered to the side and he hit record. Station teams could be sure to experience strange power loss and baffling phenomena during any firing of the beam, but that never diminished their nervous excitement. Unofficial reports of outlandish anomalies had imbued conversations as early as the second laser-assisted voyage when Lunatu was first activated, still in testing phases. Aboard the artificial planetoid, a level of alarm constantly gripped the inhabitants. Positioned opposite the Moon, The Lunatu Platform garnished just as much cult and conspiracy as our mysterious original satellite, and in a fraction of the time.

"Punch Imminent!"

Both operator and supervisor visibly stiffened in anticipation.

The Hypergleam, as the internal device itself was named, hummed to life. It could be felt as much as it could be heard and everyone could feel all the pores on their bodies tighten shut as hair rose and a sub-dermal crawling sensation pervaded them. Being the first and only incarnation of hyper-laser technology, Lunatu's relatively new step into our evolving understanding of the cosmos had left a sort of footprint in space never before seen. This laser's light exceeded the conventionally-accepted relativistic lightspeed limit. This was accomplished in three ways:

One: The implementation of gravitation as a mechanical force as seen exerted across the solar system's planets; meaning gravity affects heavenly bodies instantaneously across vast distances- a force faster than light.

This was harnessed.

Two: Photons are both matter in ways and energy in other ways. They are affected by the medium through which they pass, spurring the realization that light does not travel at a set constant but can be manipulated.

This knowledge was applied.

Three: The Hypergleam's power source generated the allegedly limitless core of energy necessary in actualizing the previous feats.

The source of this power? Classified.

The supervisor's ears popped and the air crackled in an harmonic orchestra of outlandish ambient noise, saturating the wide control room. She contemplated the full implications of the device every time it fired.

"Firing!" The operator's voice nearly cracked. The laser fired, briefly lighting up a whole side of Earth in an off-putting rust color as it went. All eyes fixated on the readout screens, as the beam was barely visible for a fraction of a second. Several moments passed as they followed a digital representation of the hyperlight band cutting through space towards its intended target, the Connexion and her sail.

"Blaire, look!" Arcus said, adjusting his glasses with a finger's push. "That's not a return beam from the Odysseus Array, no ships are on Earth-bound voyage. I think we have a phantom!"

The supervisor leaned forward into the light, her long dark hair obscuring her face. As soon as the beam made Punchcycle at the Connexion's position successfully, it appeared to flash and reflect back towards Lunatu. She straightened again and dialed into her wrist-mounted Brockhoist, holding it close to her mouth.

"Here it comes." Blaire said softly into the device. As fast as it had left, some sort of hideous non-color reflection came back and silently hit the station. No movement was felt yet the air inside the room crackled again and the scent of ozone was obvious. It all dissipated quickly.

"That was a big one!" She managed a smile. A short while passed. "Raise the lights, sweep for malfunctions, power surges, the usual." Her command to the present staff was immediately executed. The lights came on as well as the systems that had been on standby.

"Ma’am!" Arcus motioned to the screen, unable to form more words. Blaire's eyes widened. Another beam, many times larger than the first reflection, was hurtling towards the station.

"Four levels of magnitude. Consume variable Eight. One. Zero." the Brockhoist lifelessly croaked.

"Kill the lights! Cancel sweeps!" She called to other operators, now visible behind them, but it was too late as the wide beam struck the planetoid platform. Still no sound, no vibration, but a gruesome foreboding came over her in tandem with a headache. Blaire propped herself against a console nearby while regaining her balance and focus. She began to discern a ringing sound, or perhaps an odd plastic peeling sound? Quickly she realized it was a voice screaming and whirled around to where Arcus sat at the front. The power in the station surged again. Blaire's steely eyes scanned the room. Had Arcus moved from his seat? The room was dark again but Blaire felt as if she missed some previous event that happened between now and when she had heard the scream. Everything appeared normal besides the faint smell of ozone, but that was expected. This time however, she felt deeply disconcerted. She tried to recreate an image of the missing moment in her head:

Arcus, motionless, standing upright near his chair and facing her. The room, brightly lit, more so than was typical at full operational lighting. The readout screens behind the operator: a deep void, she couldn't make out any detail. But that all was unimportant, compared to his eyes. Two infinitely dark orbs where iris's should be, and the whites of his eyes a contrasting bright paleness. His mouth frozen shut. No, did he have a mouth? Details were too washed-out to tell. Blaire realized that Arcus' eyes were somehow the source of the screaming.

Was that in her mind only? Arcus was fine.

She shook her head and ingested something produced from inside her cloak, muttering Eight One Zero, and conducted the usual recovery process. The closer vessels got to Proxima B the more obvious the hyperlaser side-effects seemed, but this experience was on a new level for her. She began to believe there was some credence to people's fantastical reports aboard Lunatu.

The beam hit and dispersed across Connexion's massive solar panels, a flurry of rolling electric discharges skittered from the central hit-point to the rest of the sail and then all light vanished. Systems recharged. The lights flickered momentarily in the medical unit.

"Like hell!" Wooster spat.

"Please hold still, Kensington." The doctor withdrew his tools from Wooster's mouth, a mechanical third arm retracted upward.

"I told you I need the stuff, coffee doesn't exactly do the trick anymore."

"You're off coffee, is that so? Not the story your teeth are telling me. You really should cut back on everything else as well, I don't care what planet it's from."

The captain sat upright, pushing away Dr. Zeytra's gloved hands. "This visit's done!"

"Captain, really. The pain's going to increase if I don't operate right now and I can't give you more than a local because you're already flooded with counteracting substances. It's too big a risk."

"I ain't scared of tooth pain." Wooster said, slowly laying back down on the articulating recliner. "But just let me take a bit and I'll be fine through it. Without the stuff, yes I would be nearly catatonic, but it's awful. A waking nightmare." The doctor removed the gloves that Wooster had touched and therefore contaminated. "It's like my thoughts are a five-way intersection on a superhighway with no lights, you read?"

"Sure." Zeytra replied. "All the more reason to get through that withdrawal as well as the rest and clean up. I can order you unfit for command, you realize."

"Z, you sure could try." Wooster, laying horizontal again, tipped his head backward and popped a last chunk of B-Jee in his mouth. The doctor sighed as he donned new sterile gloves.

"I'll be monitoring you." Doctor Zeytra said. "I have something for you to help ease down off of everything- when you come around to it. At least promise me you'll cut out the cigarettes, the coffee, the pentobarbital, and just stick with the Prox stuff? If I can't get you off of everything, at least do that for me?" Wooster crossed his arms and nodded. "You have another waking year aboard this ship before Proxima, I'll need you at your best by then."

The doctor continued his work inside the captain's mouth, the third arm lowered from above and joined the operation. Wooster chewed and felt a surge of energy as he swallowed the B-Jee. He could just manage to see past Dr. Zeytra's tools which now whirred and buzzed to life, and caught a glimpse of his own folded arms. Their usual darker tone seemed to ungulate and coarse with new colors and glinted with barely perceptible light. His sight became pinpoint accurate. He could see dew droplets on every hair along his forearms and within those drops structures of some sort. Were they steps? Blocks in a wall? He couldn't be sure and decided to close his eyes. Every time the orange-wrapped snack seemed more potent and not less, but it did occur to him that he ate the stuff more often now.

"Doc." Wooster managed to gargle but his mouth was inhabited by the tools repairing a tooth. Zeytra mostly ignored him, pausing slightly before resuming his task. Nevermind, Captain Wooster thought. We'll discuss my mission when I have some new damn teeth, ones that won't melt or change shape.

Her boots clacked softly on the panels of the corridor floor as Trisha made off to find Piotr once again. This time it wasn't because he was late to the kitchen, but she hungered for answers. Figuring she knew exactly where to find him, she stepped through the opening into one of the Connexion's many studies. Passing underneath the unusually decorative bulkhead, she spotted Piotr once again by his favorite window next to his section of books, ones he had brought with him from Earth. More people were in the study this time, scattered about the room in other nooks or in the middle of the room at the round table. Trisha noticed several cloaked figures gathered across from the chef in hushed conversation.

"Piotr!" She said a few times, finally gathering his attention with a loud whisper as she drew closer.

"Pat- Trisha." He said haltingly, lowering a fauxsatin bookmark onto his current page before looking up. "How can I help you?" A pale yellow film retracted from his face, shrinking to finality at a thin headband that plugged into his ears.

"Sorry I didn't notice the notetaker." Trisha said, pulling out a chair and sitting in it backwards.

"Yes, just catching up on some work."

"I wanted to ask you about that. Noticed your name was added to my geographic expedition roster for late next year's landfall."

"Is that so? Smashing!" Piotr closed his book and placed it on the small tray in front of him.

"I didn't know you were an exobiologist on top of being a good chef."

"I have a variety of interests."

"All in the same category no less." Trisha leaned in a bit and lowered her voice. "What I don't understand is your assignment."

"Well, I aim to categorize, study and test flora and fauna natural to Proxima B for more potential food sources. Prox is known for higher levels of silicon than Earth so I need to figure-."

"I know all that." She laughed. "What's your specific assignment? I thought the Proxers already had plenty of Earth-origin livestock and crops implanted in the city infrastructure, why would we risk expanding our diet, eating more of the indigenous stuff?"

"That's true." Piotr seemed somewhat nervous, looking away for a moment.

Trisha noticed him hesitate. "You can tell me, I'm your team leader now."

Piotr now lowered his voice. "Prox soil is slowly rejecting almost all Earth-origin lifeforms. This isn't common knowledge, but I'm supposed to be establishing safe-to-eat alternatives already on Proxima B, potentially to be spliced with the Earth food."

"There are none." A new voice interrupted. "Not many... not for the unjoined at least."

The two turned to face their unexpected guest, a robed pilgrim who had pulled back his hood and stood attentively nearby, hands folded before him. His face was pale and every visible hair was starch white. He smiled kindly, revealing reddened teeth.

"People eat that snack from Prox all the time-" Trish began but once again the pilgrim spoke over them.

"By the locutions of the most venerable-" A large leathery hand grasped the pilgrim's shoulder from behind, softly but very firmly. "Ahh... yes you are correct." The pilgrim rephrased his response. "That is almost the correct path." He bowed and stepped back, making room for a very large man who had slowly risen behind him, still cloaked and hidden in his dark hued robes. He spoke only in gesture using his two bear-like hands, outstretched in a palm-forward greeting, fingers pointed up towards Piotr and Trisha. Other pilgrims who gathered, mimicked this greeting and took down their hoods in turn. The beast of a man kept his hood up, veiling any detail of his face save an occasional glint from his eyes. Piotr looked on in quiet fascination.

"Correct path to what?" Trisha broke the silence, genuinely confused.

The large man sat back down, legs crossed on the panel floor, his head lower now and about equal to Trisha and Piotr's eye level where they sat. He bowed his head downward and the pilgrims, four others total, spoke in sequence about their knowledge of Proxima B. "It is true. Pure Earthen lifeforms are in peril. Sa'Laya is a rugged band of life between the inferno of Centauri and the abyss of its absence. Nature is hearty there, as we are all called to be."

"N'Sojour are we. Of those who've vowed to take the true human path laid before us by Sa'Laya." Spoke another, his features wildly different, his skin a deep blue-black color. Piotr had read about this cult, the cult of the meteor that had hit Earth long ago and spurred great interest in the Proxima system. This Sojourner, as they called themselves, bore the same reddened teeth and in addition had gold linear markings down his face. His features were chiseled and saturnine and he spoke at his own pace, a tempo that demanded full attention. "The size of Sa'Laya is bigger. The heart of Sa'Laya is lighter. All these things call for us to join in the next steps."

"Earth our egg. Sa'Laya our legs!" A third pilgrim interjected.

"I don't understand." Piotr began, speaking for both himself and Trisha.

"We can help you find what you seek. Prosperity for humanity in union with the life of- on Proxima B." The first pilgrim said.

Piotr had another question, but remained silent as he and Trisha noticed the large man had removed his hood and the present N'Sojour stepped respectfully to the side, turning to face the giant.

A palpable aura fell over the library.

Piotr was frozen in awe and Trisha locked eyes with the great man. His eyes laughed back and his eyes said not to worry. His eyes said that this was the way humans were meant to talk, how they could learn to talk naturally and that he was very happy to meet them. She smiled and said aloud "Nice to meet you too." And then realized she must sound foolish but his eyes assured her not to worry. She knew now that all the pilgrims who were unjoined spoke to him out loud in response and that it was okay. His eyes continued saying "We are sojourners on earth, we belong in the living voyage to places and states of being. It's what we were designed for." Both Trisha and Piotr were enraptured. The giant's eyes continued, "Come with us to the Bones of Triangula and see the checkered halls and heavy water and I shall show you and your friend how to live on Sa'Laya."