Amid the Noise and Haste

Chapter 1 - Silence

In theory, space is silent. Space is so vast and so empty that it is essentially a vacuum devoid of matter. Science tells us that sound waves propagate through matter, therefore space, lacking in matter as it does, should be silent.

Humans cannot experience this silence. Humans need things like air and water to live, and so it is that we must bring these with us. We bring with us the constant hubbub of gurgling pipes, hissing air, and vibrating deck plates. We cram ourselves into metal boxes and conquer the vast emptiness, and in doing so we fill space with noise.

These noises were forefront in the mind of Luna Rousseau as the Daring Smile dropped out of FTL into a quiet, empty patch of interstellar space. The low hum of the grav-plates was setting her jaw on edge. The steady beeping of various systems meant to reassure her that all was OK was a repeating hammer in her brain. What she needed now was quiet.

Epsilon station had been an ordeal.

An hour in the queue at the bounty office with a sullen and uncooperative fugitive, cramped into a waiting room with insufficient chairs and even less air conditioning. Even once the prisoner had been transferred, it was another hour for the bureaucrat to verify the capture and to authorize the bounty. A bounty they insisted on paying in physical cred-sticks.

It was at this point, she mused, that her headache had begun.

Unfortunately that was not the end of it. Up next was an hour queueing at the small clinic next to the station’s main concourse to get her damaged med implant replaced. Of course, that then necessitated the usual arguments, proffering of evidence and presentation of signed affidavits to convince the doctor that yes, the implant did need to regulate hormone levels, and yes these were the correct target estrogen and testosterone levels. Getting the serotonin levels sorted was almost an afterthought. She almost regretted being out in the colony worlds, at least back closer to the core worlds people were generally more accepting.

It was here that she could finally unclench her jaw, but the headache had truly set in. She could almost feel the vein in her temple throbbing with her heartbeat.

Even then, this had not been the end of it. The much-depleted satchel of cred sticks still needed to be deposited in her account, so she braved the concourse and fought the crowd all the way to the bank.

Luna grimaced as she recalled the crowded concourse. A space station designed for a set number of people, with life support for so many. Expected visitor counts, limited docking spaces, and yet with each return trip they seemed to find a way to cram more bodies into a station of finite size. Maybe they’d finally get funding for an expansion, or maybe Epsilon station was some sort of experiment in human sardine cans. These days she strongly suspected the latter.

Another half hour of queuing in the bank, and the creds were deposited. At this point, she was done. She could check her balance back at the ship. She could worry about finances and savings once she was calm. Even searching for new jobs could wait until her head had stopped pounding. Until the clattering din of the crowds no longer caused her nerves to fizz and boil. This was the last of the tasks that required her to be physically present, and so she had rapidly fought her way back through the crowds, to the sanctuary of the Daring Smile.

She was able to take her time with a glass of cool water and a painkiller for the headache while she observed the drones loading a few crates into the cargo bay and refuelling the ship. The painkiller took the edge off, but her senses were still overloaded from the station. She often wondered if she’d be better off planetside in a small farming community with fewer people, certainly not in a big city, some of those were as crowded as the space stations. But space was where she felt she belonged, as long as she had a ship to herself and time to unwind before being forced back into the maddening crowd once more.

With the Daring Smile restocked she’d been able to depart quickly. She picked a random direction and engaged FTL. Within minutes, she was far outside the Epsilon system and in interstellar space where few ships chose to venture. A check of the scanners showed nothing in range that would intersect with the ship’s course. She breathed a sigh of relief and began keying in the shutdown commands.

The faint rumble of the engines vanished, the gurgling pipes fell silent, the hum of the grav-plates finally quieted, and the beeps silenced. Her pale face was briefly reflected in the blank monitors before the ship switched to dim red emergency lighting. In the semi-darkness, she finally began to feel her mood lift.

“How strange” she mused, that planet-bound humans had to recreate this experience with a tank full of warm water. She floated free of the pilot’s seat and began to drift, her no-nonsense black braid trailing free from her head like the tail of a kite. The tightness in her muscles began to disappear as she unclenched, and relaxed.

With just her aboard the ship, she knew she had several hours of air. The Daring Smile was insulated enough that things would stay warm enough for at least that long too. Time enough for her to unwind. She moved languidly towards the central corridor. Her world defined now by an absence of noise. Her own breath and heartbeat, a constant gentle rhythm now amplified without the white noise of day-to-day ship life to mask it. She focussed on her breathing, counting in and out as she began her meditation.

To the outside eye her ship was floating dead in space. Here inside this metal shell, floating amid the void was the closest she could come to true peace, to the true silence of the universe. She allowed herself to drift towards the upper deck, with the intent to head for the observation window in the rec room. The pilot’s chair probably offered a better view, but she knew that it felt too much like she was on duty, too much like work.

She finally reached the rec room, her leisurely pace less from practical zero-g manoeuvring and more from just revelling in the lack of gravity. A chance to view the stars, to breathe, to relax. She was the only human for light years in any direction. From the sensor data, Daring Smile was the only man-made object for at least a light year. Alone. Just the way she liked it.

So it was an incredible surprise when something bounced off the hull without a resounding CLANNNGG!