Jump Point magazine Issue 01.01 (n°01), December 2012 | Page 18

Whisperer in the Dark
by David Haddock

People complicate things. That’s what they’ve always been good at.
Take a look at any functioning civilization and you will see chaos, confusion, and frustration. It could be human, Xi’An, Banu, Vanduul, whoever. We may look different, be built different, but boil us down and
you’ll find the same insecurities, fears, and anxieties gnawing.

Her ship, the Beacon, drifted through that silence. Tonya customized
almost every hardpoint and pod with some form of scanner, deep-range
comm system, or surveying tech to get her further and further from
the noise.
The problem was that the noise kept following.

* * *

Tonya Oriel watched the yawning abyss outside the window. Kaceli’s
Adagio in 4 gently wafted through the otherwise empty ship. Scanners
cycled through their spectrums on the hunt for any flagged anomalies.

After three weeks on the drift, Tonya couldn’t put it off any longer. She
was due for a supply run and to sell off the data and minerals she’d
collected. After repairs, new scrubbers, and a System Almanac update,
she hoped she’d have enough for some food.

The void. It was pure. It was simple. It was permanent.

The Shipping Hub in the Barker System had been the closest thing
to a home she’d had for the past few years. Tonya set her approach
through the shifting entry/exit patterns of ships. The Orbital was
busier than usual. As soon as the Beacon docked, her screen buzzed
with a handful of new messages from the CommRelay. She passed them
to her MobiGlas organizer and went to the airlock.

A calm serenity huddled around Tonya’s shoulders like a blanket, the
kind that can only exist when you are the only person for thousands
of miles. Everyone else can have Terra, Earth, or Baachus, with their
megacities teeming with people. Never a moment where there wasn’t a
person above, beside, or below you. Everything was noise. Tonya needed the silence.

18
18