This Long Vigil by Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle

Author:Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle [Bruno, Rhett C. & Castle, Jaime]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books

4: REPLACEMENT

I don’t believe I’d ever crossed the Living Ring with such speed in my life. I don’t think I’d ever had to. On the Hermes, there was rarely any reason for haste. Even when a birthing was taking place, Dan was so in tune with the ship’s functions that he’d always given me ample time to be where I was needed.

I stopped a few yards away from Inhabitant 2781’s glass life chamber. I savored the last few steps, the room I’d called home for so long on my left and the woman I felt like I knew on my right.

I smiled and placed my hand against the tube.

“You’ll have to find a name as well,” I whispered to her, my fingers curling as if they were threading through hers. “I won’t be here, but be kind to Dan. He tries his best.”

It wouldn’t be fair of me to wake her against regulations, though I’d thought of it many times before and did then too. What I’d give to actually hold her hand just one time. But she’d have to find her own destiny as the Hermes’ Monitor, as I did.

“Dan, you were right.” I gazed down the hall at the many life chambers vanishing around the bend. For whatever reason, I knew that all of them would be safe in her hands. “She should be the next Monitor.”

“You have made your selection?”

“For you, yes. Inhabitant 2781 is to be the seventh Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes.”

“She is a suitable choice. There are twelve hours until your shift comes to an end and she will be awakened. Is there anything you would like to do before you must return to your life chamber, Orion? I can generate another riddle.”

Twelve hours. I guess I had fallen asleep after all. But it didn’t matter. Twelve hours was as good as twelve days for what I had in mind.

Without answering, I rounded the Living Ring and climbed into the long cylindrical passageway toward the engine room. Within that corridor—which, like the Conservatory, lacked any sensation of pseudo-gravity—was the ship’s central airlock exiting into space. I’d performed minor repairs there before, but until now, I’d only seen it as nothing more than another hallway.

Where the other corridors were lined with life chambers, this one had none. Instead, spacesuits hung along the bulkhead on both sides—exactly one thousand of them. They were all empty and faceless, as if filled by ghosts. I drew my weightless body in front of one and stared at my reflection in the helmet’s glass. My eyebrows were graying, and my flesh was soft and pale with a patch of shallow wrinkles forming beneath my hazel eyes.

“Orion, what are you doing?”

Dan’s voice was calm as ever.

“Dan…”

“Yes?”

“I’ve always wondered. Did any of the other Monitors ever get to go outside these walls?”

“The opportunity never presented itself. A Monitor would only need to perform repairs from space if the ship’s radiation plating were damaged.”

“Did they ever ask to go?”

“There were certainly periods of curiosity, but, like you, they were content to remain within the safety of this vessel.

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