In the Gloaming

Photo by Sonja Langford on Unsplash

Tony pressed the button, and the bulb on the first purple candle flickered into life. Not a real flickering as in from a flame, but the cold kind produced by energy. No open flames were allowed on board the Melchior.

It was kind of a silly thing, these four plastic candles set into a ring, powered by a battery pack Tony had cobbled together from spare parts. The purple paint flecked off three of them and the pink one was faded almost to white.

“So you can count Advent, too, Daddy,” Kaden had said.

Tony smiled, watching the jerky, jumpy motion of the false flame.

Back home, they’d be gathered around their own real wreath, with fresh greenery and wax candles. Angela would read from the Bible and either Kaden or Spence would light the first candle. They would probably squabble first over who got to play with fire for a minute, though Angela was pretty good at getting that decided beforehand.

Prayer. Angela was always good at that sort of thing. Tony fumbled his way through life, but Angela sailed through on the wings of prayer.

Longing bore a hole through Tony’s chest. He heaved a deep breath, trying to ignore the burning pain. He prayed an Ave and then shrugged on his thick, flame retardant worksuit. It was time for another shift.

The Melchior was a junker. Not that the old girl was a piece of junk. She collected it. All sorts of space trash floated in the darkness between stars and planets. Their ship was one of many, operated by different companies, that cleaned up the trash before it ran into a star yacht, merchant ship, or space station.

At the end of the tour, they took their haul to a collection site that sorted it all. The useful was sold to outfits that catered in selling used-but-like-new junk. What could be recycled was, and what couldn’t be was destroyed. It was a nice system, invented when a bunch of people got up in arms about turning entire planets into landfills.

Tony worked in maintenance. He was one of a team that kept good ol’ Melchior running during their three-month stints in space.

Down in the engine room, his three guys were already seated in a loose circle, looking over damage reports and repair requests. The hum and blue-green glow of the Fold Engine made a pleasant background. As did the smells of grease, metal, and stale coffee. The mechanics looked up as Tony entered.

“Did ya sleep through your alarm?” asked Jasper.

Tony snorted. “I’m not even late.”

At a rickety table against the wall—a flat piece of steel balanced on some old crates—he poured himself some coffee in a red mug. White lettering on the mug read I fix spaceships, not stupid people. Someone had put a Santa figurine beside the coffee pot.

He took a sip, grimaced at the taste, and asked, “What do we got today?”

“Oh, the usual,” said Lans. “Got three complaints about the water pressure in the showers.”

“Cuz the water recycler is only workin’ at 75 percent,” said Pete. “Captain keeps promising me the parts but a month later and all I gots is promises and pissed off junkers.”

“I’ll talk to the captain.” Tony gently pushed the ship’s cat out of the last chair and pulled it over to join the circle. “What else?”

He sipped his coffee and listened to the usual litany of complaints and things-to-do. His mind, though, kept wandering to home. Glancing over at the little Santa, he wondered if the kids were already begging Angela to put out at least one Christmas decoration.

He dragged his focus back in time to hear that one of the trash catchers, a massive arm with articulated “fingers”, was malfunctioning. And the coffee machine in the officer’s galley was busted.

“Aw, hell,” Lans drawled. “We best put that one at the top of the list.”

They all chuckled. Tony turned to Pete, his mouth opening to ask him where they were on the maintenance schedule for the trash catcher hydraulics, when a knock sounded through the spaceship.

Everyone froze. Listened. The knock came through again, echoing over the engine’s melodic hum. After a pause came a third, hollow knock.

“Air in the lines?” said Jasper in a low voice.

Lans shook his head. “The whole ship’d be shudderin’.”

“Maybe it’s that broke trash catcher,” said Pete. “I told Miles and them to leave the damn thing alone. Maybe they tried to use it, and it broke loose and hit the side of the ship.”

The three guys looked at Tony. He shrugged, not because he didn’t have an idea but because he didn’t want to voice it.

It sounded like someone knocked. But they were floating in space, a few light years off the nearest space route. It wasn’t like someone was going to drop by and ask for a cup of sugar.

A crackle came over the wall speaker. “Hey, who’s down in the engine room?”

It was Piper, their pilot. Tony pushed his chair over to the wall and pressed his fist against the talk button.

“We’re here,” Tony said. “You callin’ about the knock?”

“Yeah. Any ideas?”

“We always got ideas, Pip. Whether they’re good ones is yet to be known.”

“Ha ha.”

Tony looked over at Pete. “Go check the bank.”

Pete heaved out of his chair and jogged up a set of stairs to a catwalk that ran around the perimeter of the room. Along one side was a bank of flashing, glowing, and steady lights. If anything had gone wrong, they could see it from there.

The speaker crackled again, and Piper’s voice returned. “All my readouts say we’re good.” He sounded confused.

“What about the guys outside? They see anything?”

“We’re between shifts. Ain’t nobody out there.” He paused. “Or shouldn’t be.”

That sent a chill down Tony’s spine. He looked up at the catwalk. Pete turned from the bank. Their eyes met. Pete shook his head.

Tony pressed the talk button. “Hey, our readouts are all good, too. Could’ve been a bit of trash hittin’ the side of the ship.”

“Yeah. But. It didn’t sound like that.”

He licked his lips, wondering when his mouth became so dry. “Anything on the exterior cams?”

“Kay checked. He didn’t see anything.”

Kay was co-pilot and his eyes were almost as sharp as Piper’s. If he didn’t see anything, then that left only one option.

Tony asked, “You want one of us to take a walk?”

Before Piper could answer, more knocking echoed through Melchior. It was a steady rhythm, not the random tapping of debris tumbling along the ship’s side. A steady knock, knock, knock that came from one location.

The four mechanics looked at each other, rising fear in their eyes.

Piper said, “Yeah. Captain says it might be a good idea.”

#

Because everyone had heard horror stories about monsters trying to invade spaceships, no one raised their hand to volunteer. Tony felt tempted to have them draw straws, but he knew he needed space walk hours. The company mandated a certain number per rotation, and he was behind.

Captain Horace met Tony outside an airlock on deck two.

Horace was a tall, thin man who, every tour, said this was going to be his last. He looked perpetually sleepy, and his hair had been iron grey for as long as anyone could remember. This time, though, Horace looked thoroughly awake.

“If it’s a living creature,” Horace said, “do not engage. Immediately return.”

“Aye, captain,” Tony said.

“If it’s debris, assess and then return. We’ll outfit a team to go take care of it.”

“Aye, captain.”

“We’re not going to have any incidents. This is my last tour, you know.”

“Aye, captain.”

Inside the airlock, pure oxygen was pumped in, letting Tony pre-breathe for a bit before suiting up. It wasn’t like pulling on a parka and walking out into a cold night. There was a process, one that was meticulous and made Tony nervous every time.

Just as he finished suiting up and latched his tether in place: Knock. Knock. Knock. The airlock door rattled. Tony’s stomach dropped.

“Pip?” Tony’s voice shook slightly as he spoke into his communications headpiece.

“Reading you loud and clear,” replied Piper.

“Did you hear those knocks?”

“Yep.”

“It came from outside my airlock.”

“That’s not good.”

“Nope.” Tony looked through the airlock window into the ship, at Captain Horace.

Horace frowned, his focus on the door beyond Tony.

“I know you looked earlier,” Tony said, “but can Kay take a look at the cams on starboard side, deck two?”

“Hang on.”

“Hanging.”

Silence, save for the faint crackle over the comms. Horace, who couldn’t hear what was being said, made a rolling gesture with his hand. Get on with it, the motion said. Tony held up his hand, palm toward the captain, and then pointed at his ear. Horace nodded, understanding that there was a last-minute communication.

“Hey, Tony,” Piper said. “We don’t see anything.”

“Nothing at all? Not even a dent?”

“No.”

Tony’s stomach twisted hard. “I don’t like this.”

“That’s because you’re smart.”

Fat good that was doing him, though. Tony took a deep breath. “I’m beginning the opening sequence.”

With his fist, he punched the button. The airlock had already lowered the pressure when he was first sealed in, but now it was fully equalizing with the pressure outside. He read somewhere, once, that this process wasn’t unlike what the deep-sea divers on Earth used to do a couple of centuries back.

The grav control cut and he floated into the air. Tony grabbed onto a handle to keep from bumping into the ceiling. The exterior airlock door slid back, revealing the black nothing of space punctuated by the distant silver dots of stars. Tony double checked his first tether and then readied the second one he would use to clamp to the outside of the ship.

“I’m going out,” he told Piper.

“Roger that. Safe walk.”

Tony released his hold on the handle and eased out of the air lock.

Only for gravity to grab hold of him and yank him downward. He slammed into a hard surface, knocking the breath out of him. Tony coughed hard and dragged air into his lungs. He pushed himself up onto his knees.

What he saw made his mind go numb.

He was not floating weightless beside the grey and red hulk of the Melchior. He knelt in a grassy space dusted with snow. Dark evening shadows soaked the surrounding trees, bright orange edging the horizon. He could make out picnic tables and benches, trash bins and a little pavilion. This was the park near his house back home.

He panted hard, fogging his helmet. His heart hammered.

Turning, he looked back. But there was just more grass and snow, sloping down to the road that cut through the neighborhood. Streetlights were flicking on. A few houses glowed with strings of Christmas lights: red, white, and green.

No Melchior. No open airlock.

His gaze dropped to the tether that had connected him to the ship. It lay limp and useless on the ground. He pulled the line to him. It was cut cleanly, as if someone snipped it with scissors. He felt faint.

Tony licked his lips. “Hey, Pip, do you hear me? I-I think I’m hallucinating, man.”

Silence. Not a word or even a crackle.

“Piper? Piper, do you copy?” His voice rose sharply. He forced down a deep breath to squelch the panic. He couldn’t take too many deep breaths, however. He only had so much oxygen.

Slowly, he stood. Looked around again. In a detached way, he noted that it was the gloaming. That’s what his grandmother called twilight. As a kid, when he stayed with her in the summertime, she used to tell him to always come home in the gloaming.

He swallowed and opened the panel on his left arm. It contained readouts from the sensors peppering his suit. Maybe the reality of numbers would snap him back to his senses.

But the numbers made even less sense. The suit had sensors for things like oxygen levels, radiation, toxins, all of that. Everything read as Earth normal in bright green.

“Piper,” he said, “please answer me, man.”

Still nothing. Tony swallowed hard.

“Hello!”

He jerked his head up, looking around. Someone was sitting at a picnic table not far from him, though they were almost indiscernible from the gathering night. The figure raised its hand in a wave.

Slowly, Tony walked over. He put his hand to his belt, where a utility knife was strapped. As he drew closer, the figure resolved into a man with the plainest, most boring face possible. He wore brown pants and a brown sweater, both of which matched his hair color.

“Sit down,” the man said. “And you can take your helmet off.”

Tony did not move. “What are you? Where am I?”

The man smiled. “You’re home. In a way. I was able to bring you to the space where I live, and make it approximate your home, but I cannot hold you here for long.” The man’s smile saddened. “I do not have much time left. Please sit.”

Tony slowly slid into the bench across from the man. He hesitated, and then disconnected his helmet, the oxygen shutting off with a hiss. He lifted the helmet away.

Instead of the sucking vacuum of space boiling his blood and freezing him, he heard the evensong of birds. Felt the sharp chill of an encroaching winter night. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked and a hovercar door slammed. Tony placed the helmet onto the table.

“What is this place?” Tony whispered.

“I told you: the place where I dwell, approximated to yours. There is a deeper explanation, but you would not understand.”

“What are you?”

“Another difficult question. Think of me as a Traveler. I was trying to return home, but I seemed to have run out of time.” The man looked off into the distance. “That is what happens when you love the journey a little too much, I suppose.”

“What do you want with me?”

The man focused back on him. “Sit with me? I saw your ship and I thought, maybe there was someone who could sit with me.”

“Why?”

“No one likes to die alone.”

Tony’s brows rose, alarmed. “You’re dying? Maybe we can help you. We have a medic--”

The man shook his head. “Your medic would not even know where to begin with me. And it is nothing to fix. Everything has a beginning. Everything has an end.” He shrugged. “Now that you have questioned me, I question you. Why this place? Why not in your domicile?”

“You brought me here. Are you sure there is nothing we can do for you?”

“You are doing much now. I reached into your heart, and this was the place I first encountered. Why here?”

Tony looked around, memories peeping out of the deepening shadows. “This is where we take our sons to play. To have birthday parties.” He sighed. “It’s where I asked Angela to marry me. Where she told me she was expecting our firstborn.”

He blinked back sudden tears. The pain Tony had been trying to ignore since he turned on the first Advent candle flared in his chest. That endless hole that he could just about fall into.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” Tony said. “I-I took on this junker job because I couldn’t find anything else Earthside. I told Angela I’d quit it as soon as I found better. But the pay is good. So’s the health insurance. When our youngest, Spence, came along--he’s got a few problems.” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. “I think I spend about half the year in space. Other half is working at the shipyard.”

“And this is necessary on your world?”

“For us, it is. Why’d you leave your world?”

“The call of the star lanes proved too much to ignore. Not everyone answers the call. If I had stayed, I would have had a home and a family like you.”

“Didn’t you get lonely? Hell, I feel lonely sometimes and I’m surrounded by people.”

“Yes.” The alien’s face softened. “I was often lonely. But I had made my commitment, as you had made yours.”

“Do you wish you had stayed?”

“Is it useful, to regret now? What is done is done.”

“But if you could go back?”

The Traveler stared at him. For a moment, Tony thought he saw something in his eyes, something deep and unfathomable. It was like standing by the railing of a boat at night, staring down into the abyss of deep ocean.

The Traveler said, “I think I would like us to sit a while in silence. Do not worry. I will let you know when to put your helmet on again.”

“Thanks.”

Tony looked back around the park. He looked toward the neighborhood and wished he could just get up and walk home. He wished he could help this alien who was so far from his own home. Just sitting there didn’t feel like enough.

The darkness deepened. The flame of twilight was slowly dimming away. He lifted his face to look up at the sky. He gasped. The sky was crowded with a dizzying array of planets and stars, burning in constellations he had never seen before. It was an alien sky.

He looked back down. The streetlights and houses had faded from view. It was becoming harder to see beyond the edges of their picnic table. But above them, the sky burned platinum.

The last of the twilight, the gloaming, slid away.

The Traveler, in a tired voice, said, “The sky above was from my world. This park was from yours. We have shared a bit of home together. Thank you.”

“I wish I could help you more.”

“You have done more than enough. You made me feel a little less alone.”

Tony’s chest ached, and this time not for himself. He nodded.

The alien said, “Put your helmet back on, my friend.”

Tony slid the helmet on, locking it in place. No sooner did he than the rest of the vision dropped away.

“I see him!” shouted Piper in his ear. “I see Tony. Tony, can you hear me? Where the feck did you go?”

Tony blinked. He was floating again in space. To his horror, the Melchior sat a couple hundred yards from his location. His severed tether floated around him.

“I’m here,” Tony said. “I’m here.”

“I see that, but where did you go?”

Tony didn’t answer as he tried to understand it himself.

Piper said, “Can you use your thrusters to get back to the ship? Captain is pulling together a retrieval team. Miles keeps saying he can use one of the catchers—”

“Tell Miles that if he even goes near one, I’ll knock him six ways to next Sunday.”

Miles was the worst operator of the trash catchers, and the last person Tony would suggest for such a drastic action.

“Deploying thrusters now,” Tony said. “I’ve had an alien encounter.”

“You what?”

“You can read about it in my report.” Tony looked around but the alien hadn’t left a body behind that he could see.

#

The company had protocols in place for alien encounters, not that they happened much. Captain Horace ordered Tony into an isolation chamber, and then he let Tony to call home.

“Hey, sweetie,” Angela said, her smiling face filling the small screen. “I wasn’t expecting a call yet. Everything ok?”

Tony smiled back. “Hey. Everything’s fine. Where’re the kids?”

“Outside, playing. Wanna see them?”

“That would be great. And guess what? Looks like I’m coming home a month early.”

“Really? That’s great!” Angela frowned, however. “Are you sure you’re ok? Has something happened?”

“I’ll explain later. Can I see the kids?”

“Sure.” She picked up the vid screen from its wall holder and walked across the house. Tony could see glimpses of photos on the walls and a bit of garland hung over a railing. It looked like the kids had begged for one decoration to be put out early, and Angela had relented.

He said, “Let’s not tell the kids that I’m coming home. I want it to be a surprise.”

“They are going to go nuts.” She reached the door and opened it, a sudden wind blowing back her sandy blond hair. “Here you go.”

She held up the viewer, angling it so that Tony could see into the backyard. A fresh dusting of snow covered the ground. It wasn’t deep enough for a snow fight, but Spence and Kaden were doing their best, lobbing tiny handfuls of snow at each other. The gloaming covered the world in shades of indigo.

“Hey, kids!” Angela shouted. “Your dad’s on the screen!”

The kids ran towards them, their shadows racing ahead of them, and Tony’s loneliness vanished with the setting sun.

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