( Read the previous episodes of Journey to Centauri.) |
Journey to Centauri : Episode 14 Miriam awakened to the taste of blood in and her mouth and brilliant light filling her vision. She closed her eyes and then opened them again...she could hear her heart pounding in her ears, and her skin felt alive. She could see past jagged edges of glass and up the sloping wall of the chamber outside; she could make out every seam, every scratch up there. And around her, she could hear the creak of the ship, the hiss of air, the pounding of a hundred hearts, her fellow crew, echoing and thundering in the chamber around her.Her hand, laying loosely by her side, crept up and felt a stickiness on her stomach, and then a hard cold edge inside of her. Blood, and glass. Fragments... She closed her eyes again, focusing herself. She shifted her thoughts from the random stream of impressions to the concrete, the small, the close. Her lips began to move, reciting short prayers learned back on earth, meditations to pull her through difficult times. Her heart was pounding, her senses hyperkinetic...stimulants pumped into her system. Her hands could move freely, unconstrained. Blood on her fingers, shattered glass overhead, the slope of metal that was her ship over that. Alive, bathed in light, brilliant light from a nearby star or a vision, the kind she had always craved on Earth. She moved her hand again, this time up to her throat where a small metal cross once lay against her skin. It now lay somewhere nearby...she could not wear it in cryosleep, but she could imagine it, cool against her skin. Miriam. A voice, and a light. Pulling her upwards, up to the source. The mission. The people around her. Her body, injured, her blood as mortal as any other. What had her pastor called the human body? A "fragile vessel for the soul." The booming of hearts. Her own heart, racing, in overdrive. The computer monitoring her vital functions was clearly flooding her system with cocktails of drugs and medicines, keeping her alive with single-minded purpose. Miriam! A voice, and the glass lifting away, more light pouring down on her and then a shadow. A hand, pulling at her, lifting her upwards. Rising upward, out of her coffinlike shell, she knew that God had spared her for a greater purpose. No shadow would block her way to the one true mission, the mission against which this entire ship and all its crew were but one tiny spark in a burning pyre. An arm went around her, and she felt its warmth encompass her. Resurrection. Ship's Medical Log Next episode will be posted Wednesday September 2, 1998. Miriam's bio coming soon... |
