The Journal of Virgil Harrison

[Acolyte]

Sleep didn't come so readily, the booze apparently more eager to acquaint itself with my memories of Penelope than it was to help me forget them .

I was three ales deep and happy that nobody was here to see me. I smacked my tongue around, trying to see when it would regain feeling, and in my hands I held a holo-gen. I sat there, turning the blue-and-white phantom of my old Spatial round and round. That wing, that big ol' bullet sponge. I didn't want to think about how many times it saved the cockpit - me - from shrapnel or plasma fire.

Tau-31.

I'm back flying Penelope. There's sweat - I remember the sweat. I remember thinking how cold it looked out there and - why am I sweating? Behind me, through an airlock, down the hall past the lab, and in the cargo bay, six refugees are curled up, wondering when their last breath will be. They'd already been fooled once. I was intent on proving them wrong again.

The liner had been split right down the middle by Gallic artillery when I found them. The giant, posh monstrosity had been refitted to evacuate Planetform colonists when the first Gallic warships were detected en route to Tau-31. They were pulling through the debris field toward the gate to Leeds when they spotted the carcass of Battleship Nagasaki. Only one engine was firing, two others pissing an inferno of H-Fuel and oxygen into the void.

Right when it was sure to detonate, it pulled through the wormhole. Must have made it through FTL too.

That's when the Gauls noticed the liner, and they sure as hell didn't care that it was civilian.

I'm jerked back to reality by the friendly jingle lifting up and out of the call box in a nearby wall. I shout out for the household computer to answer, and soon Geoffrey's voice is coming over the speaker.

"Virgil, my boy!"

"What is it, Geoffrey?" He was happy. He was far too happy.

"What? You treat an old friend like that?" he paused, "Have you been drinking?"

"Not enough."

"Well, pick it all up together, my friend, I have good news!"

Over the years I've learned to be skeptical of Geoffrey's enthusiasm. The last time he was this excited I wound up delirious and half-dead on Planet Carlisle looking for some old-tech artifacts from before the age of trade lanes.

"You've said that before."

"Yes, and was I not right? Did not I break you into the archaeological scene with that Carlisle trick?"

"Cambridge considers me more of a grave robber than archaeologist."

"And what is the difference? Ah!" he said. I can imagine him flipping a pudgy hand dismissively, "You get paid! You get paid very handsomely!"

"And promptly spend half of my earnings in the hospital."

"Just the once, boy!" he said, suddenly growing serious, "Now do you wish to hear of this proposal or not?"

With some hesitation, I agreed.

"Do you remember Silas Lapham?"

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Rebirth | The Journal of Virgil Harrison

[\JG/] - AU - RepEx - OSI - .:j:. - XA - SCRA - ELE - VE - Zoner for Life

I've seen it all, man.