Published: 24 Jan 2019
The next day started out much like any other with only two exceptions. Chip was running late, contrary to his normal routine and habit, and there was a large group of early customers in the store which is not at all normal. Chip and I said goodbye quickly in the middle of the flurry of activity and I even had to hurry into the corridor after Chip because he’d almost forgotten his permission disk for the field trip.
As I then moved from task to task, going about my daily routine, things just weren’t going right. Something kept nagging at the edges of my perception. I felt all day as if something was wrong, but I just couldn’t get it into focus. I kept trying to put the feelings behind me but they never really left.
The rest of the day was busier than normal as well, enough so that I didn’t notice the time until the com system started to buzz. I glanced quickly at my old clock and saw that it was already 15:00 hours and it puzzled me that I had not even heard the chimes. ‘Hmm; too early for Chip, he still has practice.‘ I thought as I walked back to the office. But even as I activated the comlink, a sickening chill ran through me and I realized it was that same uneasy, ‘things not right‘ feeling I had been dodging all day. “Highlander Imports.” I said to the comlink as usual.
“Are you Mr. Jared McFarlane?” A female voice asked.
“Yes. How can I help you this afternoon?”
“This is the Emergency Medical Center. Do you have a ten-year-old son named Chip?”
“Yes. . . What’s wrong?!”
“It would be best to discuss it in person. You need to come to the EMC as quickly as possible please!”
“I’m on my way!”
My heart was in my throat and I could hardly breathe as I punched the “off” button and ran for the door. AIl I could think of was Chip and I didn’t even wait to get my customers out of the store. I burst into the shop next door like a mad man and tossed my code key at John.
“Family emergency! Get my customers out and close up for me?! Okay!?”
“Sure thing Jared. . .” is all I heard as I flew back out of his shop and ran for the teleporter. I normally don’t like, nor use, these things but right now I needed all the speed I could get. I stepped into the chamber, pressed my ident card to the reader and almost screamed, “Emergency Med Center, NOW!” There was a dull hum of energy and a tingling sensation all over my body. Then everything went black for several seconds. Suddenly the world reappeared and I was standing in the teleport chamber of the Med Center feelings bit nauseous.
Dashing to the info-cube, I quickly located Chip in the Critical Care Unit, and it must have alerted his doctor, because by the time I found my way there he met me at Chip’s room door. As we went through the door together he explained that there had been an accident at the spaceport. A private shuttle had lost attitude control and slammed into the space bus the school had been using.
There had been over 100 students injured, ten critically, and Chip was one of the ten. The doctors had done everything they could for Chip but there just wasn’t anything more to be done. They didn’t understand how, but Chip was barely holding on to life as if determined to see me one last time. As I stepped up to his bed I could tell I had only just enough time to hold his hand and look into his eyes for a brief few moments before he slipped away. By some miracle Chip summoned his last bit of strength, opened his eyes, and squeezed my hand.
“Daddy, I’m scared! I don’t want to die!” were his last whispered words to me as he reached out his other hand and touched my chest. A moment later he went limp and moved on to the next life. AIl I could do was gather my beautiful boy into my arms, hold him tight, and cry. I don’t know how long I stayed that way for sure, but I finally let him slip gently back onto the bed. I was numb all over and just stood there staring down at Chip’s face until the nurse touched me on the shoulder.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked.
My thoughts were a jumbled mess, but having been through this with my wife and both of my parents I knew what must be done.
“Can you get me a pair of scissors and a small pouch of some kind, preferably the kind with a seal if possible?”
It took a minute but she brought in what I had asked for. I then carefully clipped a lock of Chip’s hair, gently folded it, placed it into the pouch and sealed it, tucking it safely into my breast pocket over my heart.
“Send his body to the funeral home with instructions to do nothing but basic preservation, and I mean NOTHING else. I have certain family rights and I’ll make all further arrangements. ”
The nurse indicated she understood so I turned then and walked home. It took over an hour but I needed the time to think and remember.
The next week was going to be the hardest I had ever lived through but I had to because I had one final task to do for my son. Being from a very proud and staunch Scottish Celtic family, it was tradition that bodies be burned on a ceremonial funeral pyre. This however, would never be allowed here on Persephone, being a self-contained colony where all waste, including bodies, is recycled into the basic elemental stockpiles. I had to call in every favor I was owed, but I managed to get Chip’s body placed in a stasis chamber long enough to work out the details of what I had to do.
I didn’t have a lot of time so I sold off every last piece of my store that would go quickly along with all that was left of my family heirlooms, except for the parchment with my title on it, as I would still need that to accomplish my task.
With the money from that, and a loan from the Far Reach Bank and Trust, I bought an old beat up Trojan class, one man space freighter and named it The Desolation. It already had an upgraded Wave Rider drive called a W. E. I. R. D. , and I slapped in the four class-b hyper sleep beds I had salvaged some time back from when a galaxy cruiser upgraded its medi center. Then I transferred Chip’s body to one of those beds, loaded on all the leftovers from my store, which wasn’t much, and took off for Earth.
Arriving on Earth, I went straight to the Scottish head council with my parchment, genealogy, and ID to plead my case. It cost me more than I thought it would, and I would be short on funds for a while, but that didn’t matter right now. AIl that mattered was that I was granted permission to hold the funeral pyre on the grounds of my ancestral home, the ancient McFarlane castle.
The spot I picked and was granted was a half mile from the castle but I was still glad it was ‘off season’ for the tourists. I wanted to be alone and had no desire for Chip to be another ‘attraction’ at the museum. It took a couple of days to have the wood brought in, build the pyre, and have the site secured but finally all was ready.
I dressed Chip in his full Scottish regalia including his kilt in the family tartan and placed his little body on the pyre I had built. I placed around him his favorite items and his bagpipes, then stepped back and picked up my own pipes. I began playing the traditional funeral dirge and was surprised and shocked when almost twenty of our best friends suddenly appeared out of the trees to place flowers on Chip’s pyre, because I had not notified any of them about this. They stayed while I played and gave an impromptu eulogy as I had not planned one. Then they each gave me their condolences and departed, knowing the last part was for me alone. It took almost 48 hours for the pyre to bum itself out and go cold. I used a sonic destabilizer to reduce any leftovers to dust, then I gathered Chip’s ashes, and by family right and tradition, spread half to the wind from the highest tower of the castle.
I had already prepared an urn with the lock of Chips hair glazed onto the outside, there to remain forever, into which I placed the other half of the ashes and sealed it. Taking the urn, I returned to my ship and placed it in a small cubby I had also prepared on board, where Chip’s urn would sit behind an energy shield until the day I die.
After that there was nothing left for me but this run-down ship. I had been a space trader on one of the large conglomerate ships called The Harbinger V in my youth and it seemed the only choice open. Besides, it would let me leave behind all the pain and loss. The store was gone, my wife was gone, my parents were gone, I have no siblings, and now the only thing I had in my life that still meant anything was gone too.
So off I went to the Traders Guild on Mars and told them I wanted to renew my old license. Then I put my ship and self on the market, saying I was willing to take on any cargo and go anywhere for a good price. It didn’t take long to fill up my entire ship with goods to go to the outer rim of the galaxy and point my bow to the stars.
All I wanted right now was to put as much distance between myself and my pain and memories as possible. I had no interest in returning to a dead life. In many ways it seemed that I had died there in my sons arms that day too.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that I couldn’t run from memories because they’re always there. It also didn’t take long for me to remember why I had given up space travel for the stability of a store. You see, space travel is not what it was made out to be in the old videos and novels of the twentieth century. Yes, the big heavy-duty space drives that can hop across the galaxy in just days do exist but only in the military and large conglomerated companies. They’re way too expensive for a private pilot like me to afford.
The best I could do was this upgraded W. E. I. R. D. That stands for Wave Energized Inertia Riding Drive. It seeks out the wave front of energy released from a star and rides the inertia through space like a surfboard on an ocean wave.
The problem with this is that it can take weeks, months, and even years to go from one planetary system to another. A pilot could grow old and die doing this job, and many do, but I had no intention of doing so. I use my hyper sleep beds to suspend my body between systems and let the AI computer fly the ship. That’s something else the twentieth century got wrong. Computers and AI, or Artificial Intelligence, have advanced so far beyond anything ever imagined that they are totally reliable and have never tried to take over. In fact, if it weren’t for AI, there would be no space travel since we humans just aren’t capable of doing that much math at the speed necessary for space travel.
Unfortunately, the one drawback to both an AI and space travel is that it’s lonely out here. The AI may be smart, but it’s not much for company. It took two years of bouncing around the galaxy for me to put the pain of Chip’s death behind me enough to start working on a project to save my sanity from loneliness.
On one of my trips through the galaxy I was stopped in the Shalute system, home to the Lorreens, a race of beings somewhat like the mythical dragons of Earth except they are humanoid in form with two legs, two arms, etc. They are covered in hard scales all over their bodies and sometimes have more than one head, but no wings or fire breath nonsense.
I was able to haggle out of them a holographic system for my ship. After I got all the hardware installed I loaded it with every image, voice recording, video, and psychological profile I could find still in my things, of Chip. I also put in all I could remember and tell the computer about him. I did run into a small problem though. My computer didn’t have enough memory for the huge program needed for the holographic generator so I fudged. I took out all the history files older than one thousand years ago. I mean, who needs all that crap anyway, flying around out here in space.
It worked and the AI said it didn’t need the files anyway so now I have a holo-Chip who follows me around the ship all the time and keeps me company. Oh, it’s not like having my son for real, nor is it even like having a real person either since it’s just an image and can neither touch nor be touched. However, since the holographic generator is programmed to simulate human emotion and action it gives me something to interact with when I’m awake.
Right now, however, it’s time for me to take another nap for about three months. I really hate these hyper sleep beds though, because I dream while I’m under and I can’t just wake up all of a sudden. When I do wake up it takes a while to get my mind back to the real world and real time. The dreams can seem so real that I almost believe I really am back there in my shop on that fateful day again. And that dream just keeps replaying itself as if my mind thinks I can change the past somehow.
Every time I climb into the hyper sleep bed I go to sleep with these thoughts in my mind and this time is just like all the others. I wonder, as I doze off, what awaits me on the other side this time. I see holo-Chip standing there next to my bed, as he always does each time I go to sleep. I’ve set the program to be as autonomous as it can be, in order to better simulate human behavior. It makes me wonder what he does with the time I’m down. Maybe it’s his presence that brings on my dreams, I don’t know.
“Night Chip.” I say as I doze off.
“Night Dad.”
We hope that you are following this story. You might want to let Jared know by emailing him at: Jared at CastleRoland dot Net