Naturally, You Have Questions

by Angus McIntyre

Naturally, you have questions.

You awaken in a rush of fluids, ejected from your cryotube into an unknown space, the air cold on your skin, your sleep-fogged eyes assaulted by flickering lights. Your first gasping scream echoes in emptiness.

As the world comes into focus, you cough up the remains of the gel in which you were immersed. Your throat is raw from the tubes that have fed you through the dark months of hibernation. Inactivity has weakened your muscles. You press your cheek against the metal floor, savoring the feeling of solidity.

Does this seem familiar? It should. Later you will understand why we keep telling this story. This is not the first time you have woken alone in a world beyond your understanding. Rebirth echoes birth.

When you can stand, you explore the chamber. There is writing on the consoles and panels, but it means nothing to you. Voices fill the air, mechanical, amplified. They howl and gibber and distort, and you press your hands over your ears to shut out the noise. Your own inability to make sense of anything enrages you. You weep in frustration.

Language comes gradually. You start to recognize some of the glowing glyphs on the screens. You assign them meanings. This one, surely, speaks of air, or water, or food, or some other essential. This bloody scrawl hints at an emergency, some catastrophe too huge for you to understand. All is not well.

Eventually you give up on the hope that someone will come looking for you. Your birth was unscheduled. If anyone still runs this ship, they have other things on their minds. No one knows you are here.

You gather tools, food, improvise a bag from plastic sheeting. You wish you had a weapon.

Adventures await. In the weeks to come, you will learn the shape of this vast vessel that is your home. Like language, memory returns slowly, and each revelation leads to fresh puzzles.

There are wonders here. Forests of enigmatic machines work to a mysterious rhythm. Dim corridors filled with whispering sounds stretch to infinity, lit by the monotone glow of emergency lighting. A tribe of cobalt-blue Micajaws has colonized the garden deck. Their golden eyes peer at you from a jungle of food crops left to run wild. They are more curious than threatening but beware those crescent-shaped beaks.

You may encounter other wanderers. Among them will be friends, lovers, enemies. Not all are as they seem. Saint-Juste is not to be trusted, and the Purser has his own agenda. Shun the Twins. But Shiremun is less hostile than he seems, and the Scarred Woman may prove a valuable ally.

And then? You cannot remain indefinitely aboard the Ship. Every journey has an end. Eventually, it will be time for you to take the last step and leave this moving world.

And even I cannot tell what awaits you then, whether you will come to safe harbor or to destruction, to oblivion or a hopeful planetfall.

Angus McIntyre is the author of the space-opera novella "The Warrior
Within", published by Tor.com in 2018. His short fiction has appeared in
a number of magazines and anthologies. For more information, see his
website at https://angus.pw/.