Echo-1 The Whale

38: In Space, Never Get Out of the Boat

The next moment we, and by we, I mean the entire inner contents of the Magus, were flushed into outer space. We moved with such a force that for a moment I was knocked unconscious. What really happened was the vacuum of space sucked the tidal wave of water right out of the ship and I was hit in the head by a free-floating tank.

The icy cold snapped me out of it. I opened my eyes for one second, the longest second of my life. I saw the Banga with a water fountain the size of Niagara Falls spraying out her side. The liquid turned to ice and sparkled all around like crystalline snow. With the Magus behind us, we found ourselves in the void between the two ships. I was surrounded by the universe's deadly frozen empty hand and there were others out there floating in space and dying with me.

My body stiffened. I was almost out of breath. Mox's arms held onto me but I couldn't feel his touch. His face was in my face. He curled his body around me and opened his mouth wide like a prehistoric tyrannosaurus rex, unhinging his jaw and gaping to an unimaginable size. I looked down his pink throat. He inched forward and swallowed my entire head. I closed my eyes. I held my breath for as long as I could and then let it out. I held longer and when there was nothing else I could do, I attempted to breathe in. Mox fed me a slim stream of oxygen. It was a small breath and maybe his last, but I accepted it with nothing but love for the creature who just ate me alive. His breath had a soft cool smell like dew on a field in the morning. Everything was cold and dark. The only sign that I was alive was the slow thin air I continued to draw from Mox's lungs.

No sensory deprivation could compare to this experience. I toyed for years in the realms of deep inner mind lucidity but this; my body weightless and frozen, my senses dulled, utter and total silence, blackness without end; this was something new. I became aware of my heartbeat slowing in my chest. My mind raced.

I began to dream of my previous life. I was young, it was summer, and the sunlight shone through the trees on a thin peninsula of land. I was walking through high bleached grass out toward the edge of a lake. My father was there. He was fishing. He turned around, saw me, and smiled. I carried two cool drinks, walking carefully with them all the way from our campsite. The glasses were slippery with condensation. They were filled with ice and I gripped them as best I could, trying not to spill. I handed one to my father and we both took chilled refreshing drinks. I looked across the water to the point where his line met the surface. There was a tug. The reel started zipping. It was a big one and it was pulling plenty of line.

A hard flat surface collided with my legs and lower body. Mox regurgitated my head. There was a suction sound and I took in a big breath of air. I felt the pressure of an atmosphere and opened goo covered eyes. I heard the sound of a door opening and felt warm air hit me all over. I lifted my numb hand and rubbed it across my face.

Mox was there in front of me in the airlock of the Brick; the safest place in the galaxy.

The Sentinel moved past Mox into the cargo hold. Uzi's Rust-a-gogo was right behind him. The top opened and Uzi jumped out.

"How the hell are you two alive!?"

Mox hit me on the back hard and I coughed up a bunch of goop.

His smile filled my blurred vision. "Your species is certainly durable, I'll give you that. Now, pull yourself together and come see what I caught."

Uzi reached down and helped me off the floor. The feeling was coming back to my body but I was still a bit unstable on my feet. I leaned on Uzi. His scarred face with its mechanical red eye seemed almost friendly.

"You're going to like this," he said smirking as he helped me to the lift.

We went up one floor to the lab and the Sentinel stopped outside the door. Mox twirled around, sword at his side, Veltearrik Acid Blaster held high, balanced off his hip; not that he had hips. You'd have never known he was just drowned and frozen, let alone survived the vacuum of space. He reached to his belt and unholstered his stun gun.