The Surfonaut
- simongra
- Apr 8
- 4 min read
Also available as audio here:
It was getting dark. He stood in the light of the two suns on dusty, gravelly, and barren ground and began to stretch so he could continue running. His legs still felt wobbly, as always after he had just jumped.
Behind him came the sound of a cat.
"All right, Kitty, something's coming soon."
The man turned around and picked up the cat. It began to purr.
Then he headed towards the city that lay before him.
It wasn't particularly large and was laid out like an old Western town.
However, neon lights blinked from the hotels and shops, and people, as well as humanoid beings, rode horses through the alleys. The horses, however, were not alive, but mechanical constructs, replicas of creatures that supposedly once existed on a distant, small planet.
The man stopped in front of a dilapidated house that had been patched up with several metal plates. A neon sign flickered above the entrance, displaying the words "Tom's Homes".
He went inside.
"Good evening, Arian." whispered a deep voice from behind the counter.
"Hey Tom," he greeted back.
"You were gone longer than usual this time. Were there any problems?"
"Not really, but the jump between Elon3XB2 and here is always an experience."
"Well, I believe that. Surfing on gravitational waves has never been my thing, I'd rather take a Spacehawk. It takes longer but is at most half as dangerous." Tom nodded with a serious look.
"And that your Kitty even goes along with this..."
"Honestly, I think she's handling it better than any human. Tell me, how much time has passed this time? The jump was approximately 10,000 light-years, so according to my calculations, about 1,000 years and three days should have passed."
“Four,” Tom replied. “Four days.”
"Damn, that's not enough. I have to write again."
Tom nodded and marked a line on the map with his name.
"Of course you could do it differently..." he called after Arian, who was already on his way to the elevator.
"You must have found something, right?" Tom grinned mischievously.
"No Tom, not this time, really."
Arian went up to the 27th floor, where he had rented a small one-room apartment. The plant he had left there before his trip was gone. Well, after 1000 years without watering, that would have been a miracle.
Time had long since functioned differently in his world. In the galaxy where he lived, several solar systems and neighboring planets had already joined forces and exchanged information. The problem of time in interstellar travel had been solved by agreeing on a standard average distance for all inhabited planets, thus establishing a common time. Different time zones still existed, but they were no longer as vast as in earlier times. To allow the inhabitants of the planets to adapt to the standard time, cryosleep became the normal sleep method. This made it possible for Tom and Arian to meet again even after 1,000 years. During this time, Tom had essentially slept ten times, waking for a day in between each period. Of course, there was a catch: cryosleep causes cells to age extremely rapidly. And a solution was later found for this problem as well: "Nishtin."
An unusual, inconspicuous substance that the body could absorb like food. It was discovered that this substance not only has an intoxicating effect but also virtually stops cell growth and death. Unfortunately, Nishtin is only found on a tiny planet surrounded not by multiple suns, but by three black holes. Getting there is a miracle, getting away is practically impossible, and remaining on Elon3XB2 is pure suicide.
A penal colony had been established there for the galaxy's worst criminals. They were then forced to dismantle the Nishtin.
Due to its effects, demand, and absolute rarity, Nishtin became an over-the-top drug that only the rich and those with power and influence could afford.
Unless someone outside the system managed to steal something from Elon.
Arian was one such person. He traveled through space on a spaceboard, riding gravitational waves, which helped him escape Federation ships. Traveling on a spaceboard was extremely risky; the slightest mistake and you were catapulted across space, forced to drift weightlessly without propulsion until someone found you or your body gave out.
Arian had already made such jumps many times; jumping into a black hole also requires extreme precision, otherwise it will tear you apart.
Even though Arian took these risks and occasionally managed to smuggle some Nishtin, it hadn't made him rich. On the contrary, he used to work as a space cop for the Federation, but then he went too far during an interrogation and was transferred to Elon as a warden. There, he teamed up with some other guards and began smuggling Nishtin. But when the scheme was eventually discovered, he quickly switched sides. Suddenly, he was no longer the one putting chains on others, but one of those wearing them.
One day, however, he managed to escape. He stole a spaceboard and eventually succeeded in jumping through one of the black holes, which brought him to this planet.
He had tried to make ends meet with odd jobs. He used his spaceboard to run errands for wealthy people, who barely left him enough to survive.
But when he came to Nishtin, word got around about his errands. At first, he didn't pick it up himself, but worked with a middleman, but when the middleman was caught, Arian had to rebuild his business.
For a while, things went well, until a politician who knew about his past began blackmailing him. Arian was then forced to go into hiding and smuggle Nishtin almost without payment.
But he wasn't going to let it go on forever. He was now trying to find out more about this politician in order to have a countermeasure. But so far he hadn't succeeded.
He pressed the button on the capsule and lay down inside with Kitty. Another round of cryosleep lay ahead before he would continue his mission.
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