In the new Version the ending is changed so your questions are meaningless. However, in the original version: PAM says ‘greetings, gossamer’. all the story before that was a dream. The humanoids were just in his mind/dream. PAM killed him due to a computer glitch, although this is ultimately ambiguous (you can think PAM killed him for whatever reason you like), but that is the real reason.
Sci Fi & Fantasy / Journeyman (Analysis)
Gossamer’s eyes snapped open.
He was surrounded by vast, unending cold.
I’m dead, he thought.
He was not.
Gradually, the frigid temperatures that had gripped his body for the past fifty long, lonely years began to dissipate and rational thought returned to his mind. Immediately he inspected his surroundings.
He was lying down in what appeared to be a small coffin-like container, about three meters long by a meter wide and about half a meter thick. The only illumination in the container was a dim blue-green light above his chest. The atmosphere inside the object was thick and somewhat misty, and he presumed this was due to the freezing temperature. The walls encasing him appeared to be constructed from a highly reflective and strong metal, possibly titanium.
The container by now had nearly reached an acceptable temperature, and his thoughts turned to escape. In this particular department, however, he could find no means of doing so. He couldn’t see any visible joints or cracks in the metal around him, nor could he see any buttons or switches. He turned his thoughts instead to another issue: Why was he in this situation in the first place? He tried to rewind his memory, but it was blank. All he could see was a dark fog, not unlike the mist that had moments before surrounded him.
With so much thinking yet little results, he finally gave up and fell into a shallow sleep.
Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, startled and alert.
‘Greetings, Gossamer,’ said a melodic but artificial voice, ‘I see your vitals have reached normal levels.’
Thoughts now began to stream through his mind at an extremely fast rate. Who, what, was this new and unfamiliar voice, coming seemingly from nowhere? He was functioning well enough to know that only the voice could answer this question, and more.
‘Who- or what- are you?’ he asked, talking to nothing in particular but hoping the voice could hear him.
‘You are conversing with Patient and Mission Control/Diagnostic Protocol, Serial No. 565/S2. You may refer to me as PAM if you wish.’
‘Thankyou…Pam,’ replied Gossamer.
This shed new light on the matter.
A computer, eh?
‘Can you… let me out of here?’ he asked none too confidently.
‘I am sorry, Gossamer, but for optimal survival efficiency you must remain in the recovery phase for at least an hour after waking.’
‘Well then, why am I in this place anyway?’
“Your memory must not have returned as quickly as we had thought. Do you not remember Project Genesis?’
The name did indeed ring a bell in his head, but he couldn’t remember much.
‘Elaborate,’ he ordered.
‘Certainly. 50 Earth years ago, astronomers discovered Asteroid Cygnus X-1 headed on a trajectory that would bring it into collision with Earth. In the face of this, the Global alliance launched Project Genesis. Two humans, a male and female, the cream of the genetic crop, were cryogenically frozen and hurtled at 25% the speed of light towards the star Eta Carinae. The mission, at present, is going extremely well.’
He digested this new information.
‘So does that mean I’m…’
‘The last man in the universe? Yes.’
He exhaled sharply.
‘And the woman?’
‘She is alive and conscious, like you.’
He stopped talking for a moment as he thought.
‘And I take it we’ve reached this ‘Eta Carinae’?’ he asked, resuming the conversation.
‘That is correct. Is your memory returning?’
‘Uh…yes, PAM.’
‘That is wonderful news. We-’ she cut herself off.
‘Your recovery is complete,’ she finished.
Gossamer supposed she must have been continuously checking and re-checking his vitals the entire duration of their discussion.
‘At present we are en route to planet H-01’s surface. We will touch down on the surface in a few hours.’ ‘Ok. PAM, would you mind raising the transparency of the pod?’
‘Certainly.’
Gossamer looked out the capsule as the walls shifted from a metallic luster to the almost invisible clarity of glass. For obvious reasons, he could not view the surrounding space without certain filters, as the light and heat from the sun would blind him within seconds, and incinerate him not long after that.
The scene around him was beautiful nonetheless.
Just above his feet he could see the approaching star, now about the size of his fist. To his right, he detected a plethora of planetary objects.
Only one of them was inhabitable.
One would assume that one would see many stars in spaceflight. However, this was not so. The light from the nearby star was such that it drowned out almost all other light in its intensity.
To Gossamer, the rest of space was bleak and starless.
This did nothing to console his mental state. Ever since he had woken, he had felt tangible fear in the air. He couldn’t quite place his mind on the source of this fear though. Perhaps the absolute remoteness of his situation? The fact that he was the last man in the universe? He didn’t know for sure.
‘Signal detected,’ said PAM suddenly, interrupting his thoughts, ‘Shutdown sequence initiated.’
He had to repeat what PAM had just said, to make sure he wasn’t losing his mind.
‘Shutdown sequence initiated?’ he asked quizzically.
‘That is correct. Signal received at 0400 hours, 27 minutes, and-’
‘That’s enough, PAM. Exactly who was the sender of this signal?’
There was a pause.
‘Sender is…unknown. Shutdown sequence commencing.’
‘No, PAM. Do NOT shut down. That is an order.’
‘I am sorry, Gossamer. Shutdown must be carried out.’
‘NO! Do NOT shut down! DO NOT!’
‘Shutdown…complete.’
His eyes widened in fear.
‘PAM? PAM?’
There was no answer.
‘Oh, hell.’
His attention was once again brought to the approaching star. An all too large approaching star.
Then he realised.
Without PAM’s guidance, he was drifting straight towards it.
‘Oh, please no. Not this. Not this,’ he pleaded.
He knew he would have to act fast if he was going to have any chance at life. He was starting to regret raising the pod’s transparency. Soon, the filters would be insufficient to halt the penetrating beams of light and heat, which would bring swift destruction to his defenceless body.
He looked behind him and could see the woman’s pod drifting along at an equal pace. In the far recesses of his mind, a plan began to form. He silently paid a quick thank-you to genetic engineering. As far as he could remember from his numerous days of astrophysics lectures, one could survive in space for as long as one could hold his breath. Despite the chilly temperature of -270°C, almost none of his body heat would be lost due to the vacuum.
Another quick thank-you to underwater survival training (he had absolutely no idea how that would be relevant in space), and he was nearly ready to carry his plan out. From the many hours he had spent training to regulate his breathing and heartbeat in that specific training class, he knew that he could probably hold his breath for about five minutes.
He was aware that he would have to somehow open the pod’s lid somehow, and he remembered that a small access panel was situated at the bottom of the pod, just in front of his feet.
He painfully maneuvered himself within the claustrophobic confines of the pod until he was face-to-face with the panel.
The panel had a moderately simple user interface, but it still took him a few minutes to work out how to initiate depressurisation. Obviously he had not paid enough attention during the class that deal with that particular little conundrum.
He breathed in one final lungful of air and prepared for the journey.
The pod only took about fifteen seconds to fully depressurize. Every precious second counted, and he pressed the lid’s disengage button.
He gingerly pushed against it, helping it along, wanting to get out of this prison as soon as possible. His logical mind knew that there wasn’t much danger as long as he kept holding his breath, but the knowledge that there was no way or means of getting air even if he wanted it, was beginning to affect him, slowly but surely. Mild panic, despite his best efforts to combat it, was setting in.
Letting go of the pod, he began drifting slowly towards the woman. He felt as if he was drifting in the sea, slowly being pushed here and there by the ebb and flow of the current, whereas in fact he was going through space at the leisurely speed of about 70,000 kilometres a second.
The woman’s pod was approaching.
He thrust out his hand as it passed him, then reached up with his other one to gain a firm grasp. His fingers slipped a little, but in no time he was travelling at the same speed as her, and it was relatively easy to maintain his hold.
As soon as he had a firm grip, he began banging on the pod’s lid. Already, he could see a dark fog being pulled over his eyes, and his senses dulling. He continued banging, banging, wishing and wanting for the woman to hurry up and let him in.
A horrible thought crossed his mind. What if the woman wasn’t even awake? No, he remembered, it was all right. PAM had told him that the woman was alive and conscious. What if she didn’t know how to open the lid? What if she didn’t know it was him?
His need for air was now a volcano boiling and churning inside him, and it was all he could do to keep his mouth shut and keep willing himself, willing himself not to breathe in. His vision was spotted with dark black spots, swirling around and colliding into one another. He began to lose feeling and slowly, he began to expel the wasted air from his lungs. Yes, he would die here, he knew in the corner of his mind. And so would mankind. He had ultimately failed, failed everyone, all his training was useless now. Suspended in space, so close to life and yet so far. Random streams of thought began running through his mind. Family, people he had seen yet did not know, things he had done, past lovers, his friends. It didn’t matter.
His life was flashing before him, here in the middle of infinity, with nothing between him and the countless entities of the universe.
A hand reached out for him. Salvation.
When he came to, he was inside his pod again. The temperature was nice and cosy, and there was no trace of the cold that had once been present. He turned over and saw the woman.
‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I see you’re finally awake. I wasn’t sure if I’d lost you or not.’
He groaned.
‘Almost,’ he admitted.
‘Hmm. Well, sorry for the delay. PAM was giving me a little trouble, wouldn’t open the door when I asked her. I had to manually open it from the panel,’ she explained.
‘That’s alright. Better late than never, I suppose. But a few seconds later and…’
He didn’t want to think about what would have happened then.
‘Although one question begs to be answered: What the hell were you doing out of your pod? Did you suffer a momentary bout of amnesia?’
He would have laughed if the question had not been so serious.
‘PAM shut down on me. She apparently received some sort of overriding signal.’
‘So yours gave you a bit of trouble too?’
‘A bit of trouble? A bit? I was on a crash course to a nice happy picnic with the sun. I don’t know about you, but I would say that that trouble is a bit more on the ‘Life-ending, death-bringing’ side of the scale.’
‘Well, if I hadn’t been able to manually open my pod’s lid, you would have died. Isn’t that ‘Life-ending, death-bringing’ trouble too?’ She retorted.
He thought about this. And, suddenly, he had an awful revelation.
‘PAM,’ he said softly.
‘Hello again, Gossamer. You should have stayed where I left you. I thought we had properly finished you off, although I must admit we didn’t factor in your resourcefulness.’
PAM was trying to destroy the mission.
‘Hopefully,’ it continued, ‘this time you will not be so lucky.’
His fear rose as he heard a quiet hiss. The pod was being depressurised.
Racking his brain for a plan, he turned to the woman.
‘Listen,’ he said in heightened apprehension, ‘I have a plan. Look, if we breathe from each others lungs, we might be able to last a bit longer. Then, we need to go outside and nudge the pod until it faces the planet’
The woman looked a bit quizzical.
‘We’re going to have to… uh… kiss,’ he explained.
‘Oh. Ok.’
Gossamer moved towards the woman and locked his mouth with hers. Alternating taking shallow breaths from each other’s lungs and then expelling the wasted air into the rising vacuum, they manoeuvred themselves around until they were facing the panel. Gossamer hit the lid release button, and they pushed themselves up and over the sides, and out into space. The woman nudged the container in the general direction of the planet. It did not have to align exactly, as soon the planet’s gravity would attract the pod and do the rest of the work.
He motioned for her to hurry up so they could get back into the pod, and she signalled the thumbs up. He stopped breathing from her and lifted himself back over the side and into the pod.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the lid begin to move.
That couldn’t be right. He pressed the lid release button. It kept on closing. He pressed it again. Nothing happened.
He looked up at the woman.
Her eyes were filled with panic. He motioned her to get inside.
She grabbed the sides and pulled herself in.
The lid whirred, picked up speed, and slammed into her waist, nearly knocking the air out of her.
He grabbed her arms, trying to pull her in, but she was stuck.
He heard another whirring, as more power was diverted to the lid.
Damn that computer!
He could see the lid digging into the woman’s midsection, and tiny globules of blood were starting to form and float away from her.
Another whir.
A sickening crunch came from the woman, and the lid slammed shut with an explosion of blood and other matter.
He looked down at her severed torso.
Gossamer felt sick, but desperate measures were called for.
He placed his mouth over hers and began breathing.
A slight shudder indicated the start of the pod’s descent into the planet’s atmosphere.
The shudders were growing more violent by the second now, and he was thrown to the back of the pod.
He was plastered there and he could not move a single muscle, however hard he tried.
It was like one of those gravity-orientated amusement park rides from hell.
It felt like every bone in his body was being squashed like a pancake, and he found himself shouting out in pain, trying to breath from the woman but without much success.
The inside of the pod was getting hotter too, almost unbearably so.
Inside his head he could imagine what the outside of it would look like, streaking through the air, or whatever it was that comprised this god-forsaken rock’s atmosphere, and billowing plasma and flames and looking like a flaming harbinger from hell.
And without warning the pod stopped almost instantly, the lid flew off, and he was sent careering into the front of the pod. In the brief instance that he was still conscious, just as he hit the wall, he heard numerous snaps. He thought something along the lines of ‘Well, that can’t be good,’ and was knocked senseless.
Many hours later, he came to.
He was alert almost instantly after waking, and he quickly jumped to his feet. Surveying his surroundings, he found himself and the pod to be on a vast, sandy plain, uniform in every direction. He breathed in deeply. He smiled. It was oxygen.
But he knew that such brief pleasantries were not to last. Without a mate, in the middle of a desert, with no food or water, it was only a matter of time before he died of starvation, or even worse, boredom.
He perched himself on the side of the pod, and waited.
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nelson1 reviewed Version 2 -
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I Think the first version worked better with the suggested edits I offered. The second version is less feasable.
Personally if I was in a coffin like pod, I’d be panicking from the onset of conciousness.
Suddenly he sat bolt upright, in a box of 50 cm thick this would not physically be possible.
There is still no reason as to why they moving from Eta carinae to H 01s surface. How would gossimer know that the pod could be made transparent, what training was he having and why(no explaination for this)check spacing from few.-”Certainly”.
I suggest PAM allowed Gossimer to see out by remotely removing the pods metal outer shell or something like that. The pod would need some way of producing oxygen if removed from the Mother ships holding pen. So to detatch them in space would make no sense, there would have to be buttons and some form of o2 generating device. A person would need to be on a life support machine to survive for fifty years in a pod and they’d need to be moved, or they would not medically be abled to live, they would die of pnumonia or haemostasis/ they’d get blood clots etc.
In a previous description you said the pod had no buttons,yet later in the story they are there, makes no sense.
Why would Gossiomer exit the pod if he knew he had oxygen at this point, could you not allow Pam to allow conversation between the two in the pods somehow.
Why did PAM want to sabotage the mission, again no explainaton.You can’t survive in space without a spacesuit, medically a brain dies without oxygen after 4 minutes.
This second version, just does not work at all, I suggest going back to the first version, do the edits, and you can still perhaps have some communication with the female through a radio, in the pod if you wish to intruduce her as a character.
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VoicesInMyHead reviewed Version 1 -
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I love this piece and how you setup the story very well. Your characters are very strong and their voice is also very powerful in this story. I look forward to you developing this more and flushing out the characters more.
Shakespeare reviewed Version 1 -
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I was pulled into this story quickly and hooked. However, it ended rather abruptly. It wasn’t clear who saying “Greetings, Gossamer…” at the end? Was it PAM or the humanoids with sunken eyes? If it was the humanoids, why did he die if they were seemingly friendly? Who killed him? I hope you clarify this in comments as I’m really interested to know (as a reader).
Margaret reviewed Version 2 -
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While sci-fi is not my field, this is a fast-moving (no pun intended), exciting, and fascinating story. Your command of language, your ability to handle dialogue, and your talent for creating suspense are absolutely amazing for a 15 year old. You should definitely bring your work to the attention of agents. I’m assuming that you have already published, but if not, you should certainly send your pieces out to appropriate magazines/journals. The minor editing problems just need a careful rereading.
Best.
Margaret
tanithsdestiny reviewed Version 2 -
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This is a great story so far! You’ve done really well with description and the sci-fi language is pretty much perfect. ;) If there is a way to insert a little background into it…for example, his classes…was he specially trained for this? Or was he just randomly picked? Also, while your dialogue and thought processes do give us a little glimpse of your characters, you might want to add some physical descriptions as well. Your dialogue is very good, at least from the little bit I saw, although maybe try inserting a little more into the next chapters?
Overall, very nicely done! Your ending is spectacular and makes me want to read more! Definitely keep going.
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wolfie_pink reviewed Version 2 -
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I’m not too big on sci fi and fantasy unless its nuclear bombs turning people to zombies. But this was interesting to read and it was quite suspenseful. Now I know some stories don’t have happy endings but I wasn’t too crazy about the ending. Oh well, that’s my opinion.
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