Red Sky: Chapter 47
It looked like a fireworks display from my vantage point on the ground. The white explosion set off against the raspberry clouds creating a beautiful creamy dessert that slowly melted away. I lingered while those raspberry clouds casually reclaimed their territory, until the sky was its familiar smothering canopy of red.
The cruiser disappeared as quickly as it appeared, gone before the white had completely evaporated, back to its routine patrol. I looked to the Shoebox wondering if another hover would appear, maybe the first shift would do some reconnaissance. Nothing emerged from the garage door. I looked back to the sky. It was serene once again as if the hover had never climbed for the heavens, as if those clouds never parted for the patrol cruiser, as if humans and machines had never disturbed it at all.
I had found the automatic flight controls after all. Programming the hover to climb straight up into the sky was easy once I understood its language. Satisfied in the knowledge that I was now dead I flung the knapsack over my shoulder and began my trek across the desert. No one would be looking for me now. The freighter would be allowed to run on schedule carrying the processed ore off the moon. When the life pod on that freighter jettisoned, it would simply be a malfunction, no one would chase after it as it floated through space. I was a problem that had been solved. A runaway that didn’t make it out of orbit.
If that freighter kept the same schedule I’d noticed a year earlier, I had two hours to reach the refinery. And now I had an advantage I hadn’t counted on. The universe is full of scanners that detect humans, but could they detect me? I was made up of the same material as the freighter’s walls. I was the invisible man. And I could go where they couldn’t. The unprocessed ore kills them. I’ve lived with that ore for two and a half years. I was built to live with that ore. I could dive into the cargo hold if need be. Goodwell tried to take my world away, but he helped me, too. It almost seemed too easy now. Life is a lot easier after you’re dead.
The orange monster held the sky as I made my journey across the sand. The refinery kept growing in size. There were no guards or patrol ships, only the redness of the red moon. That redness continually lightened during my trek. It turned a reddish-orange, then a bright orange, the red fading into the background until finally a familiar yellow blurred through the horizon. Golden streams of color blanketed the red moon. The sun appeared, rising over Janus, overtaking the orange monster. I stopped jogging to watch my first sunrise in years. Perhaps, my first sunrise ever.
The golden rays pierced my corneas. I did not blink. The sun kept rising and the red moon disappeared entirely. I no longer saw the red of its skies nor the orange of Janus nor the gold of the sun’s rays. For the second time in my life I no longer saw any color at all, the world was one of light and dark and shade. A beautiful colorless world that dripped from my open eyelids.
I began marching again, forward into the colorless world, the wind at my back. The hot wind of the moon pushing me towards the refinery.
When I reached the refinery I could see the freighter. It was colorless, too, stationed on the landing platform ready to lift off. Figures moved in the cabin several stories above, but they were too far away and too distracted to notice me as I dashed across the last few meters of desert.
There were others on the ground with me, a dozen different machines moving and loading the processed ore into the gigantic bottom of the freighter. They didn't have my layer of false skin, instead shining silver under the blinding rays of the sun. Even my colorblind eyes could see that. They didn’t have my feet, rolling on wheels or tracks across the refinery floor. Their hands, spindly three-fingered appendages, reached out to maneuver lead-lined crates of processed Qalladium.
I worried the silver machines would turn on me and alert the flight crew. I moved forward one small step at a time. They ignored me even when I was only a few steps away. They were oblivious to everything else in the universe except their assigned tasks. They didn’t care if I invaded their space. I could pat their heads and rub their bellies, as long as I didn’t directly interfere with their work they would leave me alone.
Walking past my silver friends into the vast cargo hold, I continued through crates and crates of Qalladium, into the body of the ship, searching for the escape pods. I found those pods down an empty hallway on the back of the ship. Three pods lined the wall, their doors numbered. I chose the second door for no particular reason.
Two chairs were at the head of the pod. They were aimed at the window that showed the inflamed sky above. I buckled myself into the first chair waiting for takeoff. The count in my head said I still had an hour until liftoff. But I was finally done counting. I could wait without registering each minute. I relaxed and watched the clouds lazily wander across the sky.
My window was sprayed with water. I thought those clouds had finally brought rain to the moon. It wasn't rain. It was water from the engines of the freighter as they started their slow boil.
Color came back to my world. The red sky came alive again. Light golden rays and orange shadings brightened, the red moon was only red once again, the way it has always been, the way it will always be. I wondered if I would miss that color red once I was floating in the blackness of the universe. But I wasn’t in that blackness yet, there were still minutes to wait and a chip in my head ready to explode.