Ride the Star Wind: Cthulhu, Space Opera, and the Cosmic Weird Read online

  “Captain, the coordinates,” Petrov said. “They’re for a white dwarf at the very edge of the galactic heliopause. The name of the star is G426-71. Historical probe data indicates one planet orbiting it.”

  It wants me. And he wants me, Ilyana thought. Sooner or later, I’m going to slip up if I stay alive. But not if I’m dead. I could just override the safety protocol to the airlock and fuck them both. She didn’t know what this new king wanted. But maybe . . . maybe, I can get Hastur to fight it to get to me.

  Death and horror are all there is. Embrace this truth. Ilyana couldn’t be sure if this was her own thought or that of Hastur.

  “Petrov, I’m going to set our course for those coordinates,” she said.

  “Why, Captain?”

  “Because I want to see who this new King is,” Ilyana replied. “The Commissariat needs to know, and we must determine whether or not it’s a threat.”

  “I recommend you set course for New Kiev, Captain.”

  “Build yourself an ass, Petrov, so I can stick my foot up it.”

  “I cannot obey that request, Captain.”

  “There’s your answer.”

  She altered the course of the Miriya. It would take two ship-days of travel to reach the star, degrees off her original course, and leave Hastur with less than forty-eight hours.

  * * *

  The two days left her haggard and dazed. Her fingernails turned brown, and her hair fell out in patches due to lack of sleep. She tried to alleviate her suffering through meditation. The tendency for micro-sleep was so strong, however, that she ended up having to force herself up out of her delta state every few minutes. Even that wasn’t enough.

  Let me show you my face, the king whispered to Ilyana. The mark itched and burned. Peel this illusion away, and you will behold me. Relief began to spread in a warm, addictive glow across her cheek.

  “Captain!” Petrov yelled. His voice sounded distant but rapidly approached as if it were charging her. “Captain Vosik! Attention!”

  She jumped to her feet, snapping a salute. Her wits returned, and she realized she’d been tearing at her face. As if she were going to peel it off.

  “How bad is it, Petrov?” she mumbled, the words slurring through her lips.

  “You were scratching at your face,” the artificial intelligence replied. “The epidermis has been broken, but superficial damage only.”

  She looked down and saw that her brown, splintering fingernails were smeared with blood.

  “The Hasturan infiltration is gaining strength, Captain.” Petrov said. “At this point, you are at risk for indoctrination. I now recommend stimulants and must renege on my prior recommendations that you return to New Kiev.”

  Ilyana laughed in spite of herself. She’d destroyed the slave chip in a bid to prevent her future self from being persuaded to return after becoming an infection vector. The gambit had paid off after all. “Is that all it takes to get you to stop nagging me? A dead god trying to take my mind?”

  “Yes. I also wanted to inform you that we are at the star G426-71. There is a Terra-class planet orbiting it. My scans spotted an anomaly. The planet surface contains a mega-structure that appears to be artificial. If that is the case, it is the largest artificial structure in the known galaxy—now that Hastur’s flagship has been destroyed.”

  The screen filled with the great black pyramid from Ilyana’s dreams. Even the great doorway was there, a gaping portal ringed in white stone.

  “Inform the Commissariat, Petrov,” Ilyana said. “Prepare the shuttle for a non-atmospheric landing at the base of that pyramid. We need to get data on this new king.”

  While Petrov entered flight coordinates into the shuttle and confirmed fuel levels, Ilyana injected a stimulant syringe directly into her leg. Then she treated the long scratches on her face and donned her spacesuit.

  The chemicals took hold and stilled the madness in her mind, leaving only guilt and the familiar pull of duty. Ilyana felt the coagulated blood on her face, the way the scabbing followed the mark. She avoided reflective surfaces. The fear of seeing what she had done, the potential of what she might still do to herself, drove away the weariness, but she knew it would come back.

  She entered the loading bay and walked toward the narrow shuttle she would use to reach the surface. There was another sensation, crowding in on the jagged buzz of the stimulant. It was the distant sensation of the second alien presence. The image of the desiccated, eyeless face returned in her mind’s eye.

  Maybe, it’d be better to go like that, Ilyana mused. Quick pop of the visor, thirty seconds of agony, and done. He might not get Natasha and Greg—no, focus on the agony. On getting to the surface.

  “Petrov, can you assist me with flying the shuttle to the surface?” Ilyana asked. “There’s no atmosphere, and I’ll need the help in calculating retro-thrusters.”

  “Yes, Captain. Though I cannot allow you to return to New Kiev in your current state, policy allows me to act as copilot.”

  “Here’s to small mercies,” Ilyana said. She walked up a ramp to the access port on the shuttle. It opened, and she stepped inside. Taking the controls, Ilyana waited for Petrov to remove the air in the bay and open the doors and activated the shuttle.

  Outside the ship, Petrov took over while Ilyana watched the planet. Only the wrinkles of mountains cast shadows for contrast on the bone-white surface. The dwarf star glimmered against an infinite backdrop of space.

  Too exhausted to fly the shuttle herself, Ilyana watched the landscape. A couple of shaking thumps indicated that the shuttle had landed and brought Ilyana back to her predicament. The alien presence emanating from the pyramid felt almost tangible. The Yellow Sign on her face throbbed and itched in counterpoint, like a parasite aching to break free of its host. Ilyana rose to her feet and stepped to the airlock.

  “Captain,” Petrov announced, “I have identified a potential hostile. Please see the screen.”

  Ilyana’s eyes rose to the panel outside the entrance to the airlock. There in the image, she beheld a solitary black-suited figure standing before the entry into the black pyramid. The being stood upon the white sand, motionless, staring up at the cylindrical fuselage of the Miriya’s shuttle. Its visor was open.

  “Madness and death now or later, Petrov. That’s what this has come to,” Ilyana said. “I saved my people and brought on my own doom.” She laughed, giving voice to her black despair.

  “You have to have hope, Captain,” Petrov said, voice low and inflected with sadness.

  “Start working on that tin ass, Petrov,” Ilyana said. She hit the command for the airlock to open and stepped inside.

  Thirty seconds and a cycle later, the outer door opened. Far above, the dwarf star cast dim radiance over the landscape. The pyramid obliterated the horizon as far as she could see to the sides and straight up. The specter waited, perhaps half a kilometer away.

  “Petrov,” Ilyana muttered, “I saw that hostile on the bridge.”

  “Noted, Captain. I am zooming the shuttle’s optics for a closer look,” Petrov said in her ear. A second later, “Captain, there are remnants of a specific ship insignia on its chest plate. Those are the remains of a crew member of the River of Heaven. That ship was lost in the Pleiades, thirty-seven kiloparsecs from here.”

  “What?” Ilyana asked, amazed. “That . . . how is that possible?”

  “Unknown, Captain. Hopefully you will find out.”

  She walked several meters away from the shuttle across the pale white sand but kept an eye on the distant figure. The intensity of alien presence increased, radiating like a furnace from the temple. All lingering presence of the King in Yellow was purged from her mind. Even the blight of the mark ceased to ache. She turned away from the edifice to look out over the landscape and get her bearings—and froze in awe.

  Ilyana beheld the Andromeda galaxy, suspended in all its immensity without any small motes between it and her. All around the titanic spiral, floating like beacons amidst
the void, were the glowing islands of light and dust that comprised the sister galaxies of the Milky Way. Beyond, like solemn multi-hued jewels, were all the visible galaxies in the universe. She had dared to fling the King in Yellow across this beautiful infinity at a galaxy-sized black hole. The temerity of what she’d done hit hard, humbling her.

  A harsh voice speaking a language Ilyana didn’t recognize burst over the com in Ilyana’s helmet. She couldn’t help screaming in response. The voice itself grated against her nerves, her will. There was almost nothing human in its tone.

  The voice spoke again. Ilyana dropped to her knees, stricken by the volume. She looked up and saw the cadaver striding toward her across the sand. Her heart beat rapidly, and her head felt as if it would burst from the weight of the alien presence and that horrible voice. Yet she was calm. At last, she was going to die, free of the King in Yellow.

  “The hostile is speaking in ancient Mandarin,” Petrov asked, interrupting Ilyana’s reverie. He replied, also in the same language.

  Ilyana almost didn’t believe what she heard. The dead human was several meters away and closing in. “Wha . . . what are you doing?”

  “Asking it to tone down the volume. It’s damaging to your hearing and sending your blood pressure up to dangerous levels.”

  The voice replied but at a much lower volume. Though painful to her psyche, this time the voice didn’t threaten to explode every blood vessel in her head.

  “What is it saying, Petrov?” Ilyana asked. She stared at the dead human spaceman, watching it approach her. It stopped two steps away from her. At this range, she beheld the ravages of time on the suit and the mummified remains of the human within.

  The armor and insulation were blackened by exposure to radiation and the absolute zero of space. Ilyana spotted the faded insignia of the Chinese ship. Thousands of parsecs away on a planet no other human had ever visited, she was staring at the ambulatory remnant of one of the crew.

  “Captain, it introduced itself as Senior Lieutenant Xing Yu-ha of the River of Heaven. It, or should I say she, apologizes for the pain her appearance has caused. She says she—”

  The voice interrupted the AI and Ilyana could not track either one. “Petrov, stop,” Ilyana broke in. “Translate—” She stopped, bewildered by the unexpected turn of events. The voice of the dead woman stopped as well. Can I even call this a . . . she? “Translate as . . . as she speaks, please.”

  “Yes, Captain. Translating. ‘I sorry, mortal-flesh-bag-bones-wait. Sorry, have not been human in a long time. Have to reassemble context and limitations.’”

  “What?” Ilyana asked.

  The specter lifted its straightened arms up in front of its body and pivoted them out to each side. The elbows bent at forty-five degree angles. Surprised by the movement, Ilyana realized that the thing was attempting body language. It—she—was expressing regret. The Senior Lieutenant’s face, little more than smears of dried flesh somehow attached to pitted pale bone, moved in a ghastly approximation of speech.

  Xing Yu-Ha spoke again, and Petrov translated. “I know what you see. I look ugly-dead to you. I am much worse inside this stupid can and hate it very much. Be glad you cannot see my body inside this.” The ancient astronaut brought both hands around to smack its chest plate.

  “What is it you want?” Ilyana gasped. The pressure of the alien presence was getting to her. The Yellow Sign began to burn and itch again as her body metabolized the last of the stimulant. “And how is it that you exist?” She gestured at her. “You should be dead. You are dead!”

  “Know that life and death are phase states,” Yu-Ha replied. “You will learn this when you are introduced to It That Sleeps.”

  “Why?”

  “It is my god, and it wants to meet you.” Without turning, the dead woman pointed straight back into the entrance of the dread pyramid. Her arm was at an angle that would have dislocated her shoulder if Xing Yu-Ha were alive. “Will you come and see? It is your choice.”

  Ilyana looked past the astronaut to the entrance at the base of the edifice. She realized that what slept within could pull her mind out from her body and down that corridor to itself. More importantly, it hadn’t yet done so.

  “I have a choice?” Ilyana whispered. She was stunned by the realization that a god as mighty as Hastur was being considerate of her. After years spent fighting an implacable, unstoppable foe, she’d grown accustomed to the reality of an uncaring cosmos. I actually have a choice? Ilyana thought. For once in this blasted universe, I can make a choice and someone will respect it?

  “Yes,” Petrov said, parlaying Yu-Ha’s words. “You are marked by our foe. My god wants your commitment, not your fear.”

  Ilyana looked up at the dead Chinese woman, meeting the horrid gaze of those empty eye sockets. She was at the end of her options and her life. From here on out, it was all beyond her control. “Yes,” she said.

  In an instant, Ilyana, or rather her mind, was grasped by a vast psychic force and removed from her body. Just like in her dream, she hurtled into the gateway and through the darkness at breakneck speed. She perceived a vast berth at the center of the pyramid, kilometers long, and a prostrate form both indescribable and terrifying. Her speed increased as she approached the deathless immensity. Then, reality unraveled as the Sleeper awoke.

  Ilyana was as a snowflake, melting before a waking alien sun of terrible intelligence. All the scenes of her life, her being, were pulled apart into drops of thought by a mind that encompassed eons of time.

  The Sleeper regarded each mote of Ilyana’s life from birth onward. The god took her into humanity’s war against Hastur, reliving it through her perspective. She relived fighting cultists in hand-to-hand combat, ordered firing solutions against the rotting quasi-organic behemoths that comprised the ships of Hastur’s fleets, and hated herself for saying goodbye to Gregor and Natasha over and over again.

  Then, there was the final conflict. Desperate, outnumbered, striving to defend New Kiev from the monstrous fleet that appeared seemingly out of nowhere in planetary orbit, Ilyana had come up on Hastur’s flagship from behind in her destroyer, the Arkady. With her ship damaged, most of her crew dead, the King in Yellow ignored her to focus on the remainder of the Noviy fleet.

  The Sleeper watched her realize the flagship would be pointing at Centaurus A at a certain position in its orbit over New Kiev, because she knew the skies of her own homeworld. Then came the frantic calculations on how far a warp exclusion bubble would extend once generated and the construction of a rough remote control of the war-torn wreckage of the Arkady. Her ship could still jump into FTL space. That was all she had to work with; there were no other options.

  It was enough. From her lifepod, Ilyana watched the Arkady suddenly trap the vast majority of the king’s flagship inside its warp bubble, sending him on a no-return collision course with one of the largest black holes in the universe. As the rest of Hastur’s fleet went still in the sudden absence of their king, it was this final scene the Sleeper lingered on, savoring the moment.

  The strung-out fragments of Ilyana’s consciousness came back together. She found herself suspended over an ocean of light. It stretched into infinity in all directions. She was no longer in pain nor tired nor haunted. Nor was she alone.

  Two entities hovered just outside of her peripheral awareness. It took Ilyana a moment to realize one was the Sleeper—asleep no longer. The Sleeper shielded its immense puissance from her, sparing her sanity from its full scrutiny. The other was Yu-Ha, no longer desiccated. Now the former human woman was beautiful, full of life and happiness.

  Without words, the Sleeper directed Ilyana to look down, and she did.

  Below Ilyana was a sea of consciousness, transcending the limitations of time and space, which encompassed all the living and dead beings of the universe. She would be part of this as well, but the Sleeper held her above it, in this place where gods dwelt beyond mortal limitations or concepts. Here Ilyana understood why Yu-Ha had said that life
and death were “phase states.”

  A dream-thought from the Sleeper enveloped Ilyana. She witnessed the long-ago struggles of a species that had sought the stars, like humanity, only to encounter the King in Yellow. This species reminded Ilyana of ancient mythic creatures: fauns. Ilyana watched as the fauns fought for their survival against the endless onslaught of the king’s hordes—and lost.

  Desperate, the last remnants of the fauns discovered the Sleeper and woke it. They begged the god to defend them from Hastur. Though the Sleeper stood against the King in Yellow, it could not defend the fauns from his hordes. His will was too strong, and he conscripted those species he devoured to serve him, for the fauns were not the first. The cycle of death and silence among the stars was fated to continue.

  But you, you did something no one thought was possible, Yu-Ha explained, or even conceivable. To the Sleeper, to Yu-Ha, to every being in the universe living, dead, and yet to be born, Ilyana was a hero.

  They then plunged into the ocean of Being. Ilyana was now connected with everything in existence—and everyone. She found Natasha and Gregor in a small apartment on New Kiev, eating breakfast in silence. Gregor’s hair and beard contained more silver than she remembered. There were wrinkles of worry and concern around his eyes and mouth, which she longed to smooth away with a kiss. Natasha was now a young lady, solemn, staring out at the grey morning as she chewed.

  All Ilyana had was now, so she reached out and touched them both with her presence and her love. She was pulled away through space and time, returning to the pyramid. Only now, the dais holding the Sleeper had moved. It was floating in the vast atrium within the pyramid, still bearing the Sleeper’s body. And there was a question to ask.

  Ilyana and Yu-Ha looked down at what the dais covered. There were machines ancient beyond comprehension, tiny in comparison to the Sleeper, sustaining thousands of embryos in stasis. They were the last hopes of races long dead, waiting for a chance to live. All waiting for a starship in the night sky.