The Silence of the Spheres

[Cptn d'Ka 0]

The Silence of the Spheres
Je’rit d’Ka, Captain, USS Missouri 

"There are whispers in the emptiness between stars…, the meaning of which has all but vanished among the young."
~Ethan Neufeld

 The aliens had disappeared, most probably into subspace, and yet he sensed a presence. Yes, a presence, but no thoughts, nothing to indicate sentience. Only a presence, no different from the planets, the stars, or….

 D’Ka straightened in the command chair of USS Missouri, his heart pounding a rhythm to the universe as he reached out in desperation for something… anything… that would tell him that life existed here… anywhere.

 But there was nothing.

 “Commander Lei’ri, you have the con,” he said with forced calm as he rose and walked in silence into his ready room. If Lei’ri replied, he did not hear it. If his executive officer was alive, he did not feel it. He could not tell, except that Lei’ri breathed, he moved, and he voiced concern—which the captain ignored. The same it was for the rest of the crew. They breathed, they moved, they tended to their labours, but he felt nothing. Except that one inexplicable presence.

 It is said that there are whispers in the emptiness between the stars. This he always knew. It had been part of his childhood, part of his initiation into the power of Sindar telepathy: the good it can do, and the evil it can wreak when unchecked. One thought, unguarded, can destroy thousands of innocents. It is also said that the Sindar have the most powerful telepathy in the universe.

 They do not. 

“Where are you?” he whispered as the door slid closed behind him with a soft, comfortable hiss. He heard that; why could he not hear the rest? “Please,” he begged as he wandered to the viewport and reached into the black void that was not void at all. “Where are you? Let me hear you.”

 Asteroids, planets, stars, nebulae, and galaxies vibrate a rhythm, known by some as the music of the spheres, hypothesized by others as the vibrations that compose the fabric of space and time. Yet he knew them as the very life and breath of creation, the fabric that would be formed into sentient beings by the hand of the One who ruled the universe. 

“Where are you?” he whispered. 

He waited, his hands grasping the viewport sill with a desperation he had not experienced since his bond-mate approached the threshold between life and death. Kirel! Thy-trin, he called.

 “Rest.”  

The voice came to him as soft, warm, soothing… and terrifying.

 “Who are you?” he said aloud, searching the ready room as though someone had entered unbidden. “Where are you? What do you want?” 

“Rest.” 

He stopped, stared, then returned to the viewport to gaze across the void, fighting panic, and hoping that something out there would give him insight and all would be well again. “Why?” he sighed. “Why rest, when I have lost half my being? The silence is disturbing. It is…. It is unbearable. I hear nothing!” 

“You hear me. Now listen. Rest.” 

“Why? Why should I rest?” 

“If you do not, you will die.” 

Only then did he remember.  As far as he could envision, two ships vied for dominance between normal space and subspace, and yet there was only one: one ship above the planet and one entity deep beneath its crust. One attacking ship and one defending presence? It was possible, but how…? 

The searing pain from the battle that engulfed his body, so powerful that he could not endure; the anguish laid upon all telepaths here, on the planet, and on the station: the anguish that could have killed them, but did not: it all made sense.

“What of the others?” 

“Rest.”

Several hours later, security breached the door to the captain's ready room and burst through in panic, assuming the worst and ready to deal with it.  

They found him on the couch, sleeping peacefully.