Darklight

the onboard clock displayed ten thirty pm, but that meant nothing to Bot. In space, time loses its meaning. Bot noticed how his sense of time had changed, since he first entered a spacecraft. It stretched, like a stocking but it still retained a purpose, similar to a ruler.

I need to get to the colony centre by one thirty four am, he thought. Keek should be in his chair by now, checking his email as usual, with his lunch in his lap. Bot cringed at the thought of it, the manufactured Clamfruit. It just wasn’t natural he thought, the GM crops. He was getting sidetracked, he gripped the wheel firmly, as if trying to sober up and forced his eyes open. After a while though he couldn’t help drifting back into that rolling thought process. It must be my upbringing, he thought, raised on a farm, always having those same values, not adapting to the new ways. On the monitor he stuck a postcard “Cornwall welcomes careful drivers” it read in a caption above the main picture of a smiling rustic couple. He fondly remembered the times when Cornwall still had grass. Long before the cement and the bulldozers and the glass. Bot realised that he was gritting his teeth and once again peformed the sobering ritual.

The stars shimmered past the bridge window in front of him. If it wasn’t for the tremors pulsing through the ship, he would of thought it was an animation being played on a movie screen.

All these notions capitulated as the phone rang. Miserably he clicked his earpiece on and answered “Hello?” His eyes wandered around the stars, so he didn’t notice the relatively long pause. “Hello is that Bot Donald?”  He could tell it was Keek. His voice was distinctive. A mixture of English and Martian colony dialect. “Yes, hello Keek” “Where are you now?” Keek asked. Bot looked down at the interactive map. “Still within the Van Allan belt I’m afraid” There was silence on the end of the line, so to keep him busy Bot started to fiddle around with the settings on his map. A few seconds past by. He put the map down and hung up. Strange, he thought as he put the other hand back on the wheel, that’s not like him.

Night time distorts things and space is no different, here its night time all the time, he thought and when you hear eerie silences like that you can’t help but feel irrational.

Keek felt a vice like grip around his jaw. The pain seemed to sear through his teeth. God knows what’s happened, he thought. He didn’t want to open his eyes, lest he find his jaw lying in front of him, staring him in the face. I don’t remember a thing. Seconds seemed to turn into hours and the timeless nature of space became more so. It was becoming too much to bear, he couldn’t stand being in the dark for much longer. He blinked and let in the beams and slowly it became apparent that these were the ceiling lights. Whoever they are they haven’t kidnapped me, I’m still in my room. he thought more rationally now. Keek now realised, the thing that was making his jaw uncomfortable was a bit of fabric tied around his mouth. He was essentially gagged. His hands, he found tied up behind his back and he was sitting on his office chair.

Whoever done this must be out of their mind, he thought, obviously not from the Martian colonies.

Keek heard faint rustling noises coming from behind him, then a woman appeared in a grey jacket. She viewed him with the kind of look you might give a mouldy fruit. Then passed out of his blurry view again. Keek prided himself, at moments such as these, on keeping calm. Didn’t all of the terra-Martian race?

In Keeks office there was another individual, a balding man in his early thirties who started to plan the next move. He was also wearing a jacket and it was clear that they were working together. “Is the gravity pump in place?” Keek picked up the faint sounds of their voice. “good and are you receiving my computer signal?- right, over and out”