Losing you

I was working long shifts on a waypoint station. The station was orbiting a purplish green world called Sun Dansk. Who knows how many people live down there—billions, perhaps. It was not my job to care. Most nights, I was so tired from work that I didn't even clean off—just got into bed covered in oil or glue or gunk.

One night, I couldn't sleep though. I watched the planet below for a long time. But that only made me feel small and fleeting. I watched a little nude action on the streams, and that didn't help things much either. So, I went wandering around the station. It was the middle of the night, Standard Time, and everything was mostly deserted.

It didn't take me long to come upon a bar on one of the poorer decks. The bartender was organic, and I was thankful for that. Said his name was Bayliss something-something. He fetched my drink without a fuss. Strange thing, though, when I went to pay.

He said, "No need."

"Really?" I said and offered the money.

"Really," he echoed. "This one's already paid for." He nodded over my shoulder.

I followed the nod. At the very back of the bar, next to the window, was a lantern. I'd never seen one before, but I'd heard enough stories to be certain what it was. It looked to be about eight feet high. Its skin was a gentle blue, scaled like a reptile. The mouth was a small, red-rimmed, puckered hole that opened and shut every few seconds, and the eyes—great dinner plates the width of a man's head with emerald green irises bedded around the center. The thing appeared to glance at us, and I turned back to the barman quickly.

"What do you mean already paid for?" I said.

"Just that. The thing already paid for your tab in advance."

"What?" I said.

"Just that," the barman leant in. "Best you go and see what it wants."

"No, I think I might just drink up and go," I said. "I think that’s what I’ll do."

The bartender leant even closer.

"I’ve been working here twenty years or thereabouts. Not once has one of those things ever come down to the deck, let alone into the bar. Go and see what it wants."

I threw back my drink, and the barman poured another and gave a nod. When I reached the table, the creature didn’t look up.

"Hello," I said. "I believe you paid for my drinks."

The thing had its eyes set on something out the window and didn’t speak. It just kicked a chair up for me with a great metal leg. The other leg appeared to be organic. And there wasn’t a shred of clothing on the body, save for a strip of blue silk across the body. Around its neck hung a pendant, and as it swung, it appeared to fall back through extra dimensions—hypergeometric jewelry. You know how expensive that is. But it was the smell that really rankled: the tang of ozone, the reek of iron, and a few spices and unknown names.

I sat down. The creature kept its gaze out the window, and perhaps a minute passed between us without a thing being said. Then, in a voice that sounded like gargled barbed wire:

That planet has 89 names in the common tongue. It is Sun Dansk. Others call it Akoop, and others call it Nomor Five, and others call it by other names."

I followed his gaze and sure enough, there was the purplish orb below us, minding its own business.

The creature continued,"But none of those 89 designations are its true name. All objects in the universe have a true name. The name the universe recognizes that thing by.

It turned to me then, its burning irises boring like lasers.

"You have a true name," it said.

"Do I?" I said very quietly.

"Yes. If a planet or an acid has one, why not a person?"

"Huh," I said.

"Would you like to hear it?"

"Ah… not just now, thank you."

It raised a quivering tentacle to the bartender, and he rushed over with another drink and set it down in front of me, then raced off again.

"A thing's true name is not just its designation," the monster said. "But it contains all the information one might want to know about an object. Its age, for example, its form, and the time when it would die."

The thing nodded slowly to the barman.

"His true name is Shat ne Senate, and from this we know he’s a good man and that a heart attack will get him three years, one month, and thirteen days from now."

It blinked slowly. I wondered to myself if the monster had a true name.

"Ah," it said. "Yes, of course I do."

My blood ran colder.

It waved a tentacle widely and turned back to the window, to Sun Dansk below.

"But let’s not talk about that now," he said.

"I'm sorry," I said in a mouse’s voice. "But what do you want with me?"

The mouth opened and shut, taking snaps of breath. The eyes blinked dreadfully slowly.

"Do you know what I am?" the creature rasped.

"I'm… I'm not sure," I said.

"What do they call a thing like me?"

"A lantern, I think," I said.

"And do you know why?"

It nodded to a docked void skipper, perhaps a half-mile away. The ship looked like a nimble blackfish.

"I suppose you don’t know how your voice chips reach the stars?"

"No," I said. "I don’t."

"Well," it continued, "It’s a complicated process. It’s made even more complicated by the fact that when a ship enters ether space, computers don’t function. And humans don’t function either. Any complicated machinery must be switched off, and humans must be put into transit sleep, packed away like sardines."

The mouth made some strange imitation of a smile, then corrected itself.

"Failure to do this will result in broken machinery and broken humans. The only processes left online during the trip are very simple life support and very simple piloting equipment. When I say very simple, I mean it. The control yoke is linked to the motion fins by wire. Wire."

"Traveling to the stars by thread and pulley?"

"Well, that can’t be true," I said.

The thing fixed me with a glare.

"I'm sorry. I—I mean… I didn’t know that."

"Well, now you do."

It purred.

"Man will solve all of his problems one day. But starships will always travel by thread—that never changes."

Talk of the future with such certainty would normally have signaled extreme, but instead I just felt prickles spreading up my head.

The lantern said, "If you knew Time’s true name, you would understand the time is a bread loaf already baked."

It gave me a moment to think about this, watching all the while with those green burning irises.

Then continued, "As I said, ships enter ether space across great distances. Since computers and the majority of humans can’t take the stress of the journey, special minds were engineered by scientists back on Earth."

"These minds would stay awake and pilot the ship through impossible geometries. Riding at the very front of the ship, in a little outer bubble, a single beacon leading 10,000 human capital to safety—a lantern," it said.

The lantern nodded, raised its scaled tentacles.

"The process comes with something of a cost, however. We watched a void skipper undocking from one of the civilian ports. It backed away from the station and hung like a dog waiting for permission to go bounding. Then it swung around, pointing its nose to some invisible destination ahead, and set off."

I spied a little bubble protruding from the front of the craft.

"There is no time and no duration in ether space," the lantern said, watching the void skipper. "All events occur one. It is the privilege of one awake during that journey to see events ahead and events behind. We learn the true names of everything and we learn to say them. And given the complexities of ether space travel, we occasionally arrive before we set off."

"You’ve been to the future?" I said.

"Relatively," it agreed.

"And the past? Is that a blessing or a curse?"

"I thought both, depending on the day," the lantern said quietly to itself.

"One day, the services, the lanterns will not be needed. Men and women will learn to bear ether space in school as you learned the alphabet. That time will not be for another three thousand years, however."

It snapped its tentacles tight then loose.

"Her name is Paula Hammond."

"What?" I said.

The creature gestured with a tentacle.

I looked behind. A woman had come in, perhaps mid-30s.

She sat alone at the other end of the bar reading. She has lived a fairly dull life full of waiting, the lantern said. Waiting for the right relationship, the right career.

This was all in vain, of course, as she’ll be killed in a welding accident two and a half months from now down on the construction deck.

The girl glanced over at us and the lantern, I suppose, then quickly turned her attention back to her book.

I remembered a bit of temporal physics from school and I said, "It’s not a changeable thing, is it?"

The lantern shook its head.

"Of course," it said, "though now you’re wondering what your future looks like."

"I am," I agreed.

Another silence passed and I snatched a glance at the girl with her book.

I knew the paradox well enough—in trying to change her fate, I would only seal it.

"You’re tired."

"I’m tired," the lantern said quietly.

"Let’s not bullshit anymore."

It took my drink in its tentacles and necked it. It wiped its strange snapping mouth.

"It said lanterns live a very long time but we’re not immortal. Every now and then we have to recruit. It isn’t a pleasant initiation process but the rewards are worth the growing pains." It left that hanging in the air and stared into me.

"What?" I said.

"I’ve told you how it is. That you have the mind for the career. You’ll be beyond the limits of distance and duration. You’ve seen two things as they are. You will learn the true names of the world and in return you need only guide a few starships from sun to sun all of eternity in exchange for a little shepherding."

"What?" I said again.

"You need some work done to you back on Earth but it won’t hurt so much. I’ll give you a few moments to think it over."

I was quiet a little while then gave in to the giggles.

It watched me without expression or comment.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but my time is short," and interrupted.

"I’ll save you the trouble. You’re going to protest about what short notice this is, how ridiculous it seems. You’ll thank me politely but ultimately explain in a roundabout way so it’s not to offend that you like your life now and don’t feel the need to go jaunting off into the universe at a moment’s notice."

"You wouldn’t say this, of course, but there—that’s the shape of the thing."

"Yes," I nodded meekly.

It turned its massive eyes back to the void skipper. The ship was barely visible now—a smudge among the stars, probably powering up its main drive, I imagined.

The crew will be frosted in long sleep. The ship drones cleaning the corridors and the canteens and the laboratories. And at the front of the ship, in a small transparent enclosure, I supposed was a hunched monster with enormous vermilion green eyes and a puckered mouth of frantic snapping open and shut.

His tentacles wrapped about the control yoke and its mind already trained on infinity.

"Let me make this easier for you," the lantern said in a dark voice, its gaze still on the void skipper.

"You haven’t recovered from the breakdown of your marriage. We never will. You’re constantly waiting for a promotion to the craftsman’s deck and it will come two and a half years from now but the work will be hard and the pay won’t be much better. And even though you’ll regret taking the position, you’ll remain in it due to your frankly excessive pride."

"You’ll die in 30 years, 7 months, 4 days and 10 hours from now."

"Anna, please don’t," I said.

"In a decompression accident aboard a void skipper bound for Ithaca, as your lungs explode and your blood boils, you would think very quickly about what a boring life you led and how fear constantly held you back from pursuing your true passions."

Ironically, you will not realize your true passions until that very moment.

The puckered mouth appeared to smile again.

"This is how events will unfold."

"Well then, I won’t board that ship," I said.

"Yes, you will."

"Why won’t I go to Ithaca?"

"Yes, you will, god damn it."

"Why even tell me this if there’s nothing I can do?" I said.

It folded its tentacles over on each other, business-like.

"Lanterns see possible futures. Also your death aboard that void skipper is..."

"But there is something you can do about it. I’m leaving tomorrow on a void skipper bound for Absant. Come along."

"And?" I said.

"And sit up front with me. Catch your first glimpse of ether space. The ship will jump—ribbon—and you’ll see what it is that I’m getting at. You’ve got the brain to handle it."

"After that, we’ll jaunt to Earth, get you ready for proper training, and after that you’ll be a lantern."

"And if I don’t want to?" I said.

The lantern shrugged.

"Then I wish you luck with the rest of your life and assure you again that there’ll be no reaching Ithaca alive."

Out the window, beyond the planet in the black, the void skipper activated his ribbon-drive space lens for a moment. Then the ship was gone.

"I’d offer you another drink but you’re about to go to bed," the lantern said.

"What I was thinking about it," I said.

It stood, loomed over, regarded me again with the green dinner plate eyes and didn’t blink.

My void skipper leaves attends more Standard Time and said,

"Look, I appreciate the invitation but I’m really not interested, thank you."

The thing nodded to me and the air reeked again of ozone.

Then it made for the door.

I sat back and stared out the window down at Sundance Key, then to where the void skipper had been. There was no trace of it now.

One could scour the whole universe and find nothing—not until it popped back out into regular space where it had gone into everyone, into that place between places, up to a boundary and beyond it.

I called out,

"Why come?"

And from right behind my ear the lantern said,

"What’s that?"

I tried not to jump.

"You’ve been waiting there. You had a final thing to say. We’ll say it now then."

I said slowly,

"Why did you come to ask me what you asked me?"

"You’ve seen the future," he said.

"So?"

"And the future doesn’t change."

"Why ask me if you knew I’d say no?"

The creature bent down slowly to my ear and I felt the coldness of its skin sucking the warmth out of mine. I smelled his breath and it was not unpleasant and not pleasant. I heard his mouth snap shut, snap open, gasp.

Finally it said,

"I lied. I came to you because you will think the matter over tonight and seek me out tomorrow and we’ll travel together. I wouldn’t waste my time on you otherwise."

It put a tentacle on my shoulder.

"This is one of the few rituals among lanterns. We may come to our past selves and make the offer. 10 o’clock tomorrow. See you there."