Friday 25 May 2012

Flash Fiction: Barnacles


Terrance worked the greyships. That’s what he told boys at the bar.

It wasn’t a lie, and if they imagined he meant something more, like he actually flew them, then that was their fault, not his. Anyway, they were just passing through; they were after exactly the same thing he was.

He filled the fantasies of greyship crew better than one of the genuine, pasty, vacant greyspace jockeys would – they were undernourished and socially underskilled, always staring into elsewhere. They forgot to eat and never talked about anything but the Grey. If you weren’t one of them, you had nothing they were interested in.

Who would want to be with a real greyship crewmember, with that distance and numbness? Ah, but they wanted Terrance... Terrance had the body that manual labour and the gym had granted him. He had the charm of a v-star and the smile to match.

He had originally come to Erewhon Station following a boy. Cameron.

Cam had been looking for work, and when he found it, everything changed.

Terrance was left behind, scraping hulls. He felt a certain affinity with the station that had become his home. The port thrived, but the only permanent residents were a few thousand maintenance and security staff. The station was thirty three kilometres long, conceived as a thriving hub, but its residential areas were vast, hollow, haunted.

Greyships only berthed at Erewhon on the way to brighter stars. While they were in dock Terrance and his fellow hull-monkeys went to work, rappelling down the sides of the mighty behemoths with blowtorches, chemical spray and sickles.

The Grey allowed for faster-than-light travel, but it wasn’t fully understood. It was described as an ocean beneath our level of space-time, and, like an ocean, things lived there; unfathomable things that adhered themselves to greyships and, given time, ate through their hulls.

But in normspace the parasites were inert matter. With the right application of various elements, heat, chemicals, they could be scraped off. It was not a glamorous job. At the end of a shift Terrance would smell of sweat, chemicals and ash; his muscles would be cramped and his eyes puffy despite the mask.

No one appreciated a long, hot shower like a hull-scraper.

That evening, Terrance was too distracted to enjoy the cleansing, steaming water. The greyship Brave Leviathan was in dock, which meant Cameron was here, too.

Terrance towelled his body dry and considered himself in the mirror. He looked deep into his ice blue eyes and searched for motive. He should go to a bar, find someone insignificant and temporary to bring back to his bed, or better yet, just stay home.

But he wouldn’t. He knew he wouldn’t. He would go and see Cameron, even though it would end up with Terrance in tears and Cam attempting some kind of awkward, dispassionate consoling.

They said the Grey changed a person, that once the crew had gazed upon that foreign place their minds became altered by its otherness. They said that greyship crew thought differently, that old motives and emotions were pushed aside by thoughts of the Grey and the new philosophical paradigms that emerged.

The transit companies said a lot of things. They came armed with gigabytes of medical data and excuses, but as long as the crew could fly the ships, arrive on time and on location, the companies didn’t care. They turned a blind eye.

Terrance had watched the change take Cameron; he had felt the distance that grew and grew with each sojourn into greyspace. Eventually the space between them felt greater when they were together than when Cam was off-station. When they broke up, Cam had just nodded, and walked away.

Whenever Terrance saw Cam now, there was some indefinable feeling, scent, aura, that reminded him of the things he scraped from the greyships. And there was something in the depths of Cam’s eyes that studied him.

And Terrance just knew.

Things lived in the Grey, unfathomable things.



28 comments:

  1. Nice bit of sinister sci-fi. There's some good, efficient world building here as well as the character relationship to give more meaning to what's going on.

    This works as a stand alone but I think it could grow.

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    1. Thank you, Pete.

      I don't know if we'll see more of Terrance, maybe in passing, but I can definitely see myself setting more stories in this universe. =)

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  2. A great piece of sci-fi, John, riffing on a few of my favourite movies. The relationship obviously holds it all together, but as Pete says, there's a great world here I'd love to go exploring!

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    1. Thanks, Jack. =)

      Might be some more at some point. =)

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  3. I love the world you've created here and the sinister feeling it gives. Solid characters too. I'd like to read more. Bravo!

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    1. Thank you, Natalie.

      I don't get too many bravos, that's put a smile on my face. ^_^

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  4. Neat world-building as usual, John. The parasites were inert matter - how cool.

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  5. 21st century Lovecraft! Things lurking in the spaces between…

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    1. Thank you, Larry. =)

      I'm willing to bet there are things out there worse than anyone has imagined yet, indescribable things... ;D

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  6. Wow. Great piece, and you did a great job with Terrence's character.

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  7. I agree with Peter, "Sinister" is a good way to describe this, even the name "Greyships" has a sinister ring to it.

    Brilliant sci-fi, as always John.

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    1. Write enough SF and you keep having to come up with new kinds of FTL travel, new kinds for 'hyperspace', and why should other dimensions be devoid of life...?

      That said, I do particularly like 'greyspace'. =)

      Thanks, Steve. =)

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  8. This struck me as a piece of something much bigger, a much larger story arc that I'd like to read.

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    1. Thanks, Bev. =)

      Most of what I write I try to create as a story within a greater world. Every story has history, future, geography around it that influences it. Will I come back to this one...? Maybe... I'm not very good at committing to longer pieces... ;)

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  9. wow. Wonder what lives in the gray? The relationship is great, and binds the whole thing together.

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    1. Thank you, Sonia. =)

      That's really great to hear. I'm trying to work at the 'human' side of my writing, the interrelationships and the people. Glad to know it worked. =)

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  10. Really enjoyed this! I'm left wanting more because the characters and the premise are intriguing. This is a storyline I could see myself curling up with -- and ending up having to order dinner in for the family so they leave me alone to read.

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  11. Love a good story before bed! And ooh it reminds me of Event Horizon! But more sinister... what does indeed live in the Grey?
    Yet to find out...
    Scary prediction for the future John. I have a feeling this story may evolve..and that is a beautifuly terrifying thought.

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    1. Thanks, Cindy. =)

      More sinister than Event Horizon! O_O

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  12. Very classic (and classy) setup -- this reminded me of Bradbury a lot. I could imagine a whole series of stories with this setting. Fingers crossed we'll see more of them.

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    1. Wow, thank you, Katherine. =)

      I certainly think, with the encouragement from this one, Erewhon and greyspace will be on my mind while I'm writing in the future. =)

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  13. Hi John, I like the darkness that creeps in here at the end. An interesting character who seems like he's gotten a hard lot pining for grayspace critters.

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  14. Hi there John -- a lovely piece of writing. Loved the grey; the neat, strangely sinister hull barnacles; and the relationship as an overall structure. Nothing of note to scrape of this piece of work -- very sleek.

    St.

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