"What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?" Her Eyes Were In The Stars!

 Have you ever wondered, as the old Jimmy Ruffin song sings, "What becomes of the broken hearted?"  Do they mope around listening to old MoTown standards while binging on off-brand gellato?  Do they take long walks around city blocks with their trench-coat collars up and a quiet quiver on their lips?  Do they get hurtled across space and time by a malfunctioning hyperdrive into epic confrontation from the very memories they run from?
     As previously announced, I totally have an e-book now, one that answers all those very questions!  What's that?  Perhaps you would prefer to read a longer excerpt before you make your e-book purchase decisions?  A most just protestation.  In the excerpt below, taken near the novel's climax, our (anti?)-hero Jon Wilson has already experienced episodes as a U.S. soldier, a slave, a star-pilot in a Holy War, a Buddhist monk, a smuggler, a Dune-like Shield-warrior, and as a Medieval Knight; he has survived multiple Apocalypses that have sent mankind back to the stone-age so often that he's kinda used to it by now; he has seen his proper name go from being one of the commonest to one of the strangest in the galaxy; and not once, in all of his many travels across space and time, has he been allowed to forget the face of Tasha, his ex from college.  And now, while a horse-bound knight on a quest to slay a dragon, he abruptly finds himself in an ancient and automated space craft, one of the last still functioning in the galaxy...

Chapter 22: Paradise

When I opened my eyes again, I beheld the stars.

Looking around quickly, I found myself sitting in the transparent cockpit of some Nivkolan-era star-jet, shooting through the immensity of space, careening toward a bright red nebula that gradually filled my field of vision.

I shifted in my seat awkwardly in my bulky armor and sword and shield, and demanded loudly, “Where in Billiam’s name am I?”

“You are in an automated shuttle en route to Paradise,” came the computerized response.

In vain I searched for the source of the voice. “And what is Paradise?” I demanded once more.

“The most accurséd place in Heaven,” came the cryptic response.

I was swiftly recovering my instinctive memories as a pilot and a smuggler, but the bewildering reply, my clumsy armor, my sword and shield cluttering up the cock-pit, and the lack of controls upon which to rest my hands, left me baffled and frightened. I’ve often thought that if a man can just put his hands on something, something he can heft and handle, something to assure that he can hold, well, then he has something to hold, something to touch, and reassure himself, if that makes any sense.

The nebula itself was gorgeous (though I won’t tell you which it was lest you try to find that accursed place yourself), a sea of reds and pinks and lights swirling around me endlessly; and given my recent medieval state, it was in fact like the first time I’d ever seen one. I mean, I intellectually and dimly remembered hiding out in nebulae before, and even of being reminded of Tasha by them—but all those remembrances were like dreams now, déjà vu, images from a previous life dimly remembered, memories I’d always had but never had, like the photos of her that weren’t of her at all...

The shuttle flew confidently and with purpose, like it knew exactly where to go, avoiding the pulsars and radiation wells, the worst storms and the thickest gaseous fogs, and sweeping me past the most brilliant colors of that ocean of gas, as though giving the guided tour.

So overwhelmed was I by the Nebula’s staggering beauty that I didn’t notice it at first—a star, a sun really, fully formed and stable, hidden deep within the folds of the clouds. Gradually I became aware that we were on a direct course to that sun. I panicked a little, that this shuttle was going to plunge me directly into that sun, that I’d die alone, far away, unknown, forever frustrated in my quest. My clumsy armor clanked and clashed as I fidgeted futilely in that tiny cockpit hurtling me to my doom.

But before I could get too worked up, I saw it—a single Earth-class planet, a perfect grey sphere, in secure orbit around this star—and I intuitively understood that our approach vector was for that planet.

“So that’s Paradise?...” I said more to myself.

“Affirmative,” came the computer again.

There was no burning into the atmosphere as we entered Paradise’s sky. The atmosphere (itself grey) seemed to gently separate to let us in, without the least friction. Gentlest atmo-entry of my life, it actually soothed me. I peered out the cockpit, looking for cities, mountains, landscapes. I saw only grey.

The retro-rockets of the shuttle itself fired just as gently, and set me down so quietly it took me a second to realize we’d landed, for the grey was uniform. We came to rest on this perfectly flat grey plain. I was unsure what to do next, for the controls remained inaccessible to me, and even if I had control, my now-returning memories reminded me that there must be no atmosphere out there at all, and my armor was certainly in no shape to protect me. But as I silently debated what I should do next, without my asking, the cockpit opened and I briefly screamed and gasped for air …and gasped in perfectly breathable oxygen. I calmed somewhat after a couple breaths, and a ramp extended down out of the craft to my side. Seeing as I could still breath, I took that as my cue—I gathered my courage, composed myself like a true knight of Wessix, stepped onto that ramp and marched onto Paradise.

Now, when I say it was grey, I mean it was grey—not silver, but grey. The surface was grey, flat, no hills, no valleys, no seas, not even rocks or pebbles or dust—it was unnatural. The sun (such as it was) only filtered through dimly in a grayish light. The air itself was thick and grey, like a fog, but unlike fog, for it was very dry. Even cloudy days back in Seattle have a variety of shades of grey in ‘em, like a painter’s canvas, almost appearing as an impressionist work splashed across the sky. But by contrast, this grey was uniform, dull, and complete, more frightening than even cliffs or deserts—those at least have a reason for being, those at least make sense.

My sword and shield extended, I stepped forward slowly, carefully, tepidly. I tried to be all brave as a knight should, carrying myself with purpose and determination, but in short order it was just too much—the grey, the solitude, the empty nothing all around, the stillness—there wasn’t even a breeze—it was intolerable. I cried out at last, “What is this place?”

“Ah, brave Jon son of Wil!” came a cheerful voice, “I thought I recognized you.”

I swung around and there I saw (and you probably will never believe me) (hell, you probably don’t believe a word I’m saying now, anyways, so I might as well just run with it), none else than Haja Nivkola III standing there, in full uniform.

“Nivkola?...” My voice absolutely shook, I ain’t gonna lie.

“No, no, dear friend, though I’m flattered you think so,” the apparition said happily, “Lord Haja Nivkola III died long long ago, about the time of the, how’d the historians end up terming it? The Great Catastrophe, yes. Ages ago, really.”

“Then a gh…a gho…”

“What? Ha-ho! No, comrade, no, no ghost,” he laughed good-naturedly, “of course you can certainly be forgiven for considering the idea, though I suspect the ghosts that haunt you are of other than the spectral sort…

“My, my, my, a knight in shining armor,” he said smiling, examining me, “you certainly have carried on the heroic age in these dark times, haven’t you! Ooh, is that the sword I gave you?—”

I swung my blade at him. “Back, back!” I shouted, betraying my terror, “Enough! If you’re not Nivkola and you’re not a ghost, then just what the hell are you?”

“Oh, no need to be frightened, dear friend!” he said easily, still pacing around me, “You certainly have nothing to fear here…at least, not from Paradise itself…”

“No more of your riddles!” I shouted again, pointing my blade menacingly at him, my glare steady but my lips quivering.

Nivkola only laughed in that easy way of his. “Oh, dear Jon Son of Wil, you cannot slay me; I am you!”

Now I lowered my sword, not in fear but exasperation. “Dude, what the hell are you talking about?” I said, my old voice creeping back.

“Ho-ho, quite right, quite right! No more of my riddles, dear friend, you are right, I’ve had quite enough fun at your expense! One quick story, then all shall be clear,” he proceeded, pacing back and forth and lecturing like a college professor, as was his want, “To begin: The ability to bypass the Von Field was discovered almost the same time as its initial invention—in fact, it was discovered by my own scientists in fact. That is, the deconstruction of the field was built right into it, all along, something I suspect that you of all people can appreciate.

“You can rest assured that this fatal weakness was a closely guarded secret. Nevertheless, I knew as the People’s Forces swept across the galaxy, that the tyrants would work devilishly to uncover the Von Field’s weakness as well. Accordingly, I made silent preparations for that sad inevitability…

“As you are no doubt aware, the campaign for the Tian’zhu system was when we discovered that they had finally discovered our little secret for themselves. I think I honestly thought that if I surprised them with my own counter-measures (for surely they would assume that cheaply-produced swords and shields were all we possessed), then perhaps I might at last crush them decisively and usher in the new Paradisiacal age of mankind.

“Of course, I was wrong.

“As the Great Catastrophe spread, quickly, universally, uniformly across the inhabited galaxy, sending all worlds back to the stone-age, I finally abandoned my dream of universal paradise, and instead withdrew to my own personal one. I selected this most hidden planet to debut a technology I’d hoped to share with all mankind once the conquest was complete—that is, this, the utility cloud.”

“The what now?”

“Trillions upon trillions of nanobots,” he continued to lecture, “to the –nth magnitude and beyond, compose this cloud enveloping all of Planet Paradise. The nanobots utilize mental-interfaces, responding to all your thoughts, constructing from the sub-atomic level upward whatever your heart most longs after…”

“Wait, you mean this cloud will create…”

“Whatever you desire,” he finished my thought, “And I am your first desire, it appears. I am most flattered, I must confess!”

“What?”

“At the moment you exited that transport shuttle, what your mind, blank with fear, desired above all else to know was, and I quote: ‘what is this place,’ and the cloud gladly acquiesced by re-constructing its creator, to give the authoritative explanation. Dear friend, though I have been dead for centuries, I am as real and biological as yourself, made up of nano-bots organizing at the atomic level as atoms, molecules, chemicals, cells, tissue, organs, a fully functioning body, and voila! Nivkola, raised from the dead, at your service! Go ahead, poke me with your blade, test me out. Come, come now, don’t be shy,” I poked him I did, and honest-to-goodness blood poured onto my blade, “Ouch, ooh! Yes, you see there? That’s fresh blood now on your blade, is it not? The wound is even gushing and staining my uniform. And to think I just had this laundered...”

“Wa-wa-wait,” I interrupted, “If this utility cloud can re-create, well, anything…why not, you know, reproduce your own body and, you know…still be alive?”

“Ah, and here we come to crux of the problem,” sighed Nivkola, “And the reason why this truly be the most curséd place in heaven.

“I told you it reacts to your thoughts? My friend, we even took the severest pains to ensure that the utility cloud responded only to deliberate, conscious thoughts—none of these secret manifestations of the id or subconscious or nightmares whilst you sleep and other such sci-fi nonsense.

“Sadly, such is an over-reduction of the human psyche; the human mind is no monolith, but an ever-shifting composite, countless and contradictory in its manifestations. We individually are not one but many, brave Jon son of Wil, complex and self-refuting. We do not form multitudes, we are multitudes. Your deepest fears and despairs? There be nothing subconscious or even repressed in them, friend Jon; merely shuffled and reshuffled until they are lost in the manifold neuroses and discourses that swim around in the ocean of your mind. We focus on only this or that, we distract ourselves fiendishly, we run and we hide and we believe we have moved on my friend, but our hidden thoughts are still conscious—and in fact are not even all that hidden. Soon enough, if one is not careful, they are soon enough made apparent as well, and that full consciously. In fact, I believe only a month after I withdrew from the universe to live my life on Paradise, I was torn apart by wolves, set on fire by midgets, and run through by a rhinoceros.

“Well, they don’t have to be logical fears to be fears, now do they!

“All others I brought with me met similar fates. As such, a strict screening process was implemented (while we still could, before the Great Catastrophe was complete) to screen out those who might immigrate here. A very strict, disciplined focus, a severe single-mindedness—‘pure in heart and mind,’ if you will—is all that qualifies—or perhaps I should say is what must qualify—a man to enter Paradise.”

“You mean other planets have these shuttles, too?” I asked.

“A few, yes, and fewer still have been discovered, for we have hidden them with only cryptic instructions amongst the ruins of mankind, lest they be known by the world and either suffer similar horrific fates as we, or attempt to reproduce such an accursed tech on their own world, to the misery of many. Fewer still have passed the mind-scan, and fewer still have lived long at all once they arrive. In fact, to date, the only person to die of old age on Paradise has been a Buddhist monk from AnQing San, and he just sat and meditated on the flat grey plain all day; didn’t conceive a palace or harem of beautiful women or anything. He treated the illusions of the place as he apparently treated the illusions of all existence, I suppose! It appears that at the peak of human technology, the old adage is proven true at last: Paradise truly comes only from within.

“But then, you know something of that already, do you not, Jon Wilson?”

“Um…huh?”

“You passed the mind-scan,” he said, “Meaning you are either the most disciplined, focused man in the universe,” (here on cue Tasha screamed in my mind, “You’re distracted, Jon…”), “Or peculiarly tormented…

“…at least, tormented in such a fashion as to be considered benign. You have a very specific, very particular conception of what Paradise must look like, what must be granted you for it to be complete, to be happy at last, do you not, friend Jon Wilson?”

His eyes were searching mine. A thought was forming on the edge of my tongue, and I wouldn’t know what it was till I said it—but just as my lips began to move, Lord Haja Nivkola III himself leaned forward as though he would kiss me on my cheek, but instead whispered into my ear, “Go, my friend! She awaits you.”

And looking over my shoulder, slowly turning around, I saw no more grey, but blue...

(*Pst!  Are you the least bit curious to find out what comes next?  Do his deepest desires at last come true?  Does having all his dreams come true prove a curse?  Does Godot finally just pull up a chair at the dinner table, and might that be more terrifying than actually having to eternally wait?  Perhaps you'd like to purchase said e-book to find out!)