The route to the Osilis system from Alta Gwyen was in most respects unremarkable. It was free of interstellar dust and gases, there were no hostile star systems, and the magnetic and electrical fields in the area generally didn’t amount to much. But it was Tommy Racker’s favorite route, and whenever he could justify it, he tried to plan his flights so that at least some of the time was spent in the sector.
Several hours earlier. Tommy had felt every newton of thrust as his SkyMark 27 roared off of a corporate landing pad on Alta Gwyen. The gees had pressed him flat against the cushioning of the seat, and he had felt helpless as the blue sky turned first to deep blue, then blue-purple, then purple-black, and finally black, revealing a curtain of shimmering stars.
Two days earlier, the space trucker had delivered a string of six tanker cars to Deep Station 78 when the call came in from his office. A Holigoth business consortium had 24 containers of Celeium extract which absolutely, positively had to be delivered to Osilis VI by the end of the standard cycle, still some three days away.
Because of some minor disagreements over exact fees and guarantees, Tommy had had to land the Galaxy Ghost. After making the necessary agreements and signing the contracts, he had blasted back in to space, picked up the load from the freight yard, and headed on his way to Osilis VI.
"Domino," he said to the flight computer, "do you ever wish you had another computer to talk to?" The computer did not reply though an orange light did begin flashing, indicating that the systems were busy.
Finally, it spoke. "Unable to process request." Tommy sat back and looked through the clear panels of the flight deck ceiling.
"Of course you can’t," he laughed. "Poor Domino, stuck inside that box."
"Unable to process request," Domino repeated.
Sighing, Tommy lifted himself from the chair and walked a couple of steps to the hatchway leading to the lower deck. Reaching down he gave the wheel a full turn and lifted the hatch, revealing a spiral stairway to the lower level of the rig--a section containing his quarters as well as a rudimentary galley unit. He wouldn’t be going to sleep for another few hours yet, but none-the-less he wanted the hatch opened before the Galaxy Ghost crossed the perimeter into the Osilis sector.
Tommy looked down onto the bed. It was unkempt; the sheets were dingy and old, and contained pinhole burns and other time related tears. I’ve gotta remember to buy some new ones when I get to Osilis, he thought to himself, pulling a bent cigarette from his black t-shirt pocket. Truthfully, he had the same thought before he reached every destination, but somehow he always forgot upon arriving there.
As he stared down onto the bed, images of his wife began floating through his mind. They’d been married only a year when he decided to go into the space transport business. He still remembered the sad looks in her soft blue eyes when he’d leave to go on an assignment. At first, the assignments were no more than two or three days in length and usually entailed hauling freight loads too small to justify their being taken on the large freighters from Earth to the moon, or to Mars and the outer rim colonies. After awhile, though, the routes became longer, the loads greater, and the time spent from home gradually grew from two days to two or three weeks, sometimes with as little as four days at home before leaving for the next job.
Marla couldn’t take it. When he’d found her in bed with a next door neighbor, it saddened him greatly, but he couldn’t really say that he blamed her. The romance of wide open spaces had always appealed to him, and there were spaces no wider to be found than along the interplanetary (and later, once he’d purchased Galaxy Ghost, interstellar) freight routes.
"GG3-4657 Galaxy Ghost, this is Osilis Sector traffic control" a voice from the hypercom said, pulling Tommy back from his memories and towards the flight chair. He put on his headset (something he hated wearing when he didn’t have to) and replied to the call.
"Galaxy Ghost, be advised that a level two ion storm will be entering the sector from Theta 252. The storm is expected to intersect your flight path at one-three hours from arrival. Proceed with caution. Osilis Traffic out." Tommy acknowledged the call and took off the headset, pondering his options and lighting the cigarette. The sensible thing to do would be to alter his flight path to avoid Osilis 252, but doing so would take him out of the sector much sooner than he wanted. I’ll just wait and see when I get closer, he thought to himself. Again, his mind began drifting back to his marriage. It had ended eight years earlier, and while there had been other women in his life, it had been six years since his last real relationship had ended badly for the same reasons that his marriage disintegrated.
Outside of occasional clients and patrons at spacebars and trading posts (and he couldn’t really count Holigoth businessmen and drunken Theca dock workers as good company), Tommy didn’t really have much contact with anyone beyond the nameless, faceless voices of yard masters and traffic control officers.
Again, however, as he began to enter a sad reverie, a klaxon began ringing in the cabin. At first, startled and somewhat confused, he checked the console and the computer monitors for warning lights, but then it dawned on Tommy that he had set the alarm system to go off when the ship crossed Osilis 184. Realizing where the ship was, Tommy rotated his chair and began searching the cabin, listening intently for any sound not associated with the ship itself . . .
It started as a scratching sound downstairs, a sound which he lost at first in the noise of an engine thruster reagent valve. But then Tommy realized what it was. A clicking, scraping sound came from the decking below, and it seemed to be moving from one end of the room to another. Excitedly, with the look of a child on his face, he put the cigarette into the disposal unit, stood up, and walked to the hatchway.
"Nikki! Come here girl," he said in the pseudo babytalk that all sentimental pet owners use. A pale greenish gas, almost like an aura or burst of marsh fumes, ran excitedly to the foot of the stairs. A tiny shimmering object could be seen flickering at the end of the green, dancing cloud. It bounded up the stairs, and as it came closer, the cloud took shape.
By the time it was next to Tommy, the figure was now in the form of small dog, roughly the size of a large breadbox. Its fur, which would have been white, was longish, and near the front it was shaggy and curly, a little like a poodle’s locks. In the back it was flatter and smoother, a little more like a cocker spaniel’s coat. Its head was like a cross between a Benji-dog and a poodle, and the eyes were bright and looked at Tommy with excitement. It’s front left leg continually tapped up and down as if the dog was barely containing nervous, excited energy. As it sat on the floor, the tag under it’s neck revealed itself, showing the name Nikki.
Three years earlier, Tommy had been crossing through the sector on a routine freight run when the ghost dog appeared for the first time. Naturally, at the time he’d thought that the stimulants he’d taken to stay awake on that voyage were playing with his brain. But he had taken no such drugs when he came through the sector again on the return trip and saw the ghost of the dog. Now, Nikki was something he looked forward to, something he tried to see whenever he could.
"Hey girl," he cooed, and his face literally lit up into a giant smile. Nikki barked, but the sound sounded distant, almost as if she were in the next room under a bed when she did it. As she barked, her front end bent down so that the front legs and paws, which were surround by a green shimmering light, were sticking forwards towards Tommy. Her tail wagged wildly, though it seemed to be like a motion picture out of synch, with the after image lingering much longer than one would have expected.
Tommy knew what she wanted. He walked over to the flight console and opened a small storage compartment, taking out a red rubber ball. He turned around to see Nikki waiting in intense excitement. "Get it girl," he yelled as he threw the ball. Nikki jumped up onto her hind legs as the ball sailed over her, and then scrambled to run after it. Again, there was the sound of claws scratching at the decking, but as with the bark, it sounded distant and not quite there. Laughing the whole time as Nikki scrambled after the ball, Tommy watched as she would grab for it, but each time the ball literally rolled through her. Finally, when it’s bouncing and rolling motion slowed to crawl, Nikki was able get some sort of contact with it.
Tommy crouched down to the floor. "B’ing me the bawl," he encouraged, "come on, you can do it!" Slowly, with tremendous effort, almost as if she was trying to move a lead bar with her nose, she inched the ball towards him. Even though it was taking such an effort to do so, however, it was clear that Nikki was loving every minute of the activity.
I wonder if you appear to anyone else, Tommy thought to himself. Ghost dogs were not really things truckers talked about at freight terminals and trading posts. While he thought it would be horribly egotistic to assume that she appeared only for him, he liked to think that the lack of talk about the ghost, even in whispered conversation in back booths of greasy utensil diners, indicated that she haunted only his rig.
Except, he thought, I can’t really say this little girl haunts. "Come on Nikki," he cooed as she moved the ball even closer. Finally, the ball lay at his feet, and she ran around him one, two, three, four times, each time barking and grunting excitedly liked she’d flushed out the prize rabbit from its borough. Then, she stood expectantly, her front end again down, almost like she was bowing to Tommy. Again, he threw the ball and it bounced wildly around the cabin, one time even flying high enough to hit the transparent panes of the cabin ceiling. With an enthusiastic yelp, she again chased after it.
From what he’d heard of ghosts, Tommy had always assumed that spirits stayed behind when they had unfinished business or when they had met untimely or grisly deaths. Nikki was an enthusiastic and active animal, even for a ghost, but it was clear that she was not young when she had passed away. But her demeanor, her actions didn’t indicate sadness or unfinished business either. What he’d finally decided, after the first seven or eight encounters, was that Nikki had stayed simply because she loved life so much, because of the sheer joy she seemed to feel with every game, with every movement. Even in her spectral state, in her barely solid form, she seemed to feel pleasure and happiness at just being able to chase the ball around the cabin.
Once again, she managed to get the ball to Tommy, and then sat down, tired and panting, but with undiminished enthusiasm. "Good girl," he cooed. "Wish I could give you some kinda treat, but I don’t reckon’ you could eat it." She focused her glossy, brown eyes on Tommy, and she barked a loud bark, her mouth moving into little O’s as she did so.
The two of them continued playing for several hours longer, sometimes running up and down the stairs after each other, sometimes playing ball, sometimes just rolling around on the floor in mock wrestling. And through it all, Tommy couldn’t tell who was having the most fun.
Finally, though, he couldn’t stay awake any longer. "Domino, auto control," he said, and the Friendly Automated Task System beeped to indicate readiness. "Initiate current autoflight sequence. Set wake up for 0600. Transfer communications to lower bay." As was his custom on these types of flights, he looked out the window at the long stack. While the computer would warn him of any problems, he always felt more comfortable visually confirming that everything was okay. As he looked out the window at the plus shaped cluster of Celium tanks, he saw the reaction thrusters on the service structure happily firing away, keeping the stack in a stable position for warp speeds. Satisfied that all was well, Tommy turned around and descended the staircase into the lower bay, falling into bed without taking off any more than his shoes.
Asleep immediately, he didn’t notice as Nikki half jumped, half floated onto the bed beside him. She looked down on him, her face and neck craning from side to side in that confused look that dogs use so well. Deciding that the fun and games were over for the night, she spun around three times on the bed, the eerie after image always lagging behind the shimmering, green body, and then curled up next to him. She too began to fall asleep, but as she did her body became less distinct and more like a ball of glowing, green gases.
****
She was still there when the communications system buzzed on at 0300 hours. Groggy, it took several seconds to wake up, and when he did, Tommy moved over to reach for the headset, in the process rolling through Nikki, who dispersed and then reassembled on the floor, shimmering and panting.
He placed the headset over his ears. "...ommend avoidance of Osilis 252 through 287. . . . . . . This is Osilis Sector Traffic Control broadcasting a blanket signal on all frequencies and emergency bands. At 0240 standard hours, reconnaissance probes indicated that the ion storm now entering the Osilis sector has strengthened to a level three on the Zympa-Maxim scale. Flight through this sector is now considered very risky. The Space Guard will not, at this time, guarantee immediate assistance to traffic caught in the storm. Therefore, we strongly recommend avoidance of Osilis 252 through Osilis 287. . . . . . ."
Tommy pulled the headset off, letting it fall to the deck. Then, slowly, he rose, and climbed the stairs towards the cabin. "Come on Nikki," he called as he entered the flight deck. Nikki scampered up and ran towards him, losing her footing temporarily and sliding across the floor, eventually pushing through the chair to the other side.
Tommy sat down in the chair and scanned the monitors, looking in particular for the real space locator. Osilis 250 it read, and he felt his spirits fall. He reached up and scratched the salt and pepper stubble on his chin, and then pushed his fingers through his unkempt hair.
Nikki’s foot tapped nervously on the deck, and she stared with the hopeful, piercing eyes that nearly all dogs have. The trucker looked down at her and smiled. Somewhere inside he wondered if all men and women in his profession turned to mush around cute dogs. Even farther down, he wondered if anyone sane would fall for a ghost of a cute dog.
And then his mind turned to what was somewhere ahead of him in space. It wouldn’t take long to reach the storm, and he began considering braving it. Ion storms aren’t so bad if you just keep your cool, Tommy thought A brief electrostatic buffet--a turbulent offshoot of the storm--chose that moment to rock the rig. He turned and looked behind, just soon enough to catch sight of the stack bouncing before the stabilizing thrusters restored its balance. "Damn," he said to himself.
Switching the forward sensor array to its maximum range, he had little trouble finding the storm. It was one of the bigger ones Tommy had seen, and even now the sensor screen occasionally distorted under the weight of the return signal. Still, Tommy was unsure of what he wanted to do. Looking down at Nikki, seeing her staring back at him both hopefully and apprehensively, he found it harder and harder to make the final decision.
Suddenly, Tommy found himself sliding across the floor as a stronger buffet knocked him from the flight seat. Out of the corner of his eye, he briefly saw the back end of the stack come in to view, and he bolted up to inspect the damage. The thrusters had restored balance, but the rear supports of the service structure had been partially broken by the turbulent conditions. Returning to the flight seat, he scanned the sensor readout one last time. Finally, reluctantly, he made the only decision he felt he could.
"Domino," he said, "Alter course to Osilis-Roxis 252 through 287, then resume flight plan."
"Confirmed," Domino replied. It suddenly occurred to Tommy that he’d let the computer execute a routine move, something he almost always did himself, and he wondered why he couldn’t alter course himself. He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes, trying to flush out the fatigue that was again closing in. For a few minutes he lost the battle, and then he jerked his head up, frantically looking for Nikki and checking the locator. It still flashed Osilis 250, but the movement indicator showed that the ship was now moving parallel to the line towards the next sector. Finally, he found her sitting below his chair at his feet, looking content and happy, and a little tired. And then he knew why he couldn’t bring himself to manually alter the ship’s course.
"Well girl," he said to her as he stared into her bown eyes, "It looks like we’re gonna part company sooner than I wanted to." She looked up him, and he could swear that her eyes and face took on a sad pall. It was a definitive fact that her color dimmed considerably, and she became more blurry and less distinct. "I’m sorry," he whispered, and to his great surprise he found himself starting to choke up. "Oh for gad’s sake," he said, feeling disgusted. It’s bad enough that you love the thing, he thought, and now you’re starting to cry over it. But choking up he was, and he got down onto the floor beside her.
Nikki laid down and rolled over on her back, almost beckoning him to scratch her belly. Even though he knew he could do no more than feel her nearly indistinct form, he tried to do so. As always, his hand passed through her, leaving a wispy trail of ectoplasm behind.
She stayed on her back, again beckoning him to scratch. Again, it failed, and he felt the tears starting to come over him despite his best attempts to control his emotions. Nikki rolled over and then ran to the corner of the room where the ball had come to rest, and Tommy followed her with his eyes.
Nikki looked at him, deliberately looked at him to see that he was watching, and then she lowered her nose to the ball. Again, she tried to move it, and the first few attempts failed as she merely passed through it. Finally, though, moving slowly and deliberately, she was able to nudge the ball forward towards him. She stopped, turned again to make sure that Tommy was paying attention, and then she moved the ball again.
His eyes, salty and burning slightly, focused, and inside he felt the dawn of recognition. "Come here Nikki," he whispered softly, motioning for her to come. With her tail held high, she trotted back to him, her claws again softly ticking on the decking as if she was in the next room.
"You can move the ball," he said as she again flipped onto her back, "you can touch the deck enough to make a sound...you’re here...I just gotta take it slowly...real slow..." He began gently lowering his hand towards her, barely letting it move. Nikki curved her body so that she could follow his hand with her eyes. It took nearly a minute for him to approach her green shimmering form, and as he was almost on her he paused to a near standstill, barely letting his fingers graze the surface.
And for the first time he felt fur. It was tenuous, so barely there that sudden movement would have sent waves of ectoplasm shooting over the deck, but it was there. She was cold to the touch, but her fur was soft, and as he slowly moved his hands over her belly and chest, her left hind leg began to thump in circles at the air.
"Ooh, that hit’s the spot doesn’t it," he said gleefully. He sat stroking her fur for five minutes, all the while wondering how long it had been since anyone had been able to scratch her. He tried to imagine going years being unable to get at an itch in the extreme middle of his back, the phantom zone where no one with arms and shoulders not dislocated in an accident could reach for themselves. He couldn’t help but laugh at the thought.
Finally, feeling much better than he thought possible, the trucker lifted himself from the floor and sat down in the pilot’s chair. Nikki rolled over, and for a minute looked up at Tommy’s smiling face. He looked at her as he put on his headset.
"Osilis-Roxis Traffic Control, this is Galaxy Ghost. Requesting permission to deviate into your space to avoid ion storm..."
****
The last few tick marks on the locator before crossing into the neighboring sector passed by, and Tommy watched with anticipation. He knew what was coming. He knew what always came just before he left the space where Nikki seemed to reside. First, she sat down at his feet, and then she spun around in a circle three times, as always an afterimage following closely upon the main greenish glow of the body, and then she layed down, like any dog preparing to take a nap. One tick mark to go, and she exhaled a long breath, as if relaxing into a deep peace. And as the ship crossed into the next sector, she became first indistinct, and then finally faded from view.
Tommy was alone. He’d realized some years earlier that it was his lifestyle or his love life, and he couldn’t see himself giving up the freedom of space and the peace of the wide open valley of the galactic traverses.
She was a dog, and a ghost of one at that, but Nikki was the only thing which stood between him and the void of loneliness. Tommy at once felt silly and elated, berating himself for counting on a ghost for companionship. And yet he was beginning to suspect that he served the same purpose for her, giving her something in the real world to hold on to in her odd half-life. If this was indeed the case, then at least he was not alone in his isolation.
Ghosts let go one day, he thought to himself. For the first time, he let his ego become big enough to hope, to wish, that when the day came that he would let go this mortal coil and pass on to whatever was there on the other side, that she would follow him there . . .
The End
While herding a sturdy diesel across the highways of life Jeff Williams dreamed of becoming a writer. In between haunting railroad yards he scribbles cryptic notes on slightly-used paper napkins. He brainstorms these abstruse anagrams into the tales that you've just been reading. Jeff can be reached at jtwrccc@aol.com.
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