The Navigator (Awash In Starlight)

By Steve Merrick

A superbly dark, funny and entertaining romp through the universe with the last survivor of a viral epidemic as our guide and an un-named virus as our narrator. This story begins with the Munich Virus, which wipes out every known population of humanity across the universe, leaving Kego, our schizophrenic nine year old navigator, to fend for himself and return to Earth with the Frozen, those who were lucky enough to be in stasis when the virus struck. We follow Kego on his journey through the cosmos as he stears the Solstice back to Earth to re-establish the human race.

Narrated by an unknown and un-named virus of indefinate age, wisdom and sarcasm who gives his somewhat unusual yet strangely enlightening views on Kego's, and utlimately humanity's, journey, as obstacles are met, faced and hurdled, this is more than just a story. It is a romp through the history of mankind as viewed by one who has not been subject to 'civilised' influences and has gained his knowledge through The History itself and by another who was there as an outsider looking in.

Somehow this book manages to cover every subject from religion to politics, using life, death, peace, war, love, hate and humanity as its stepping stones, without burying the story or bombarding the reader with endless details. Instead Merrick has created a post apocalyptic science fiction tale set in a future that seems possible even today, that will make you both laugh and cry, feel compassion for each and every character at some point while hating them in the next and leaving you wanting more when you reach the end.

The review above is reproduced courtesy of Sams Reviews at goodreads

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Merrick
• Release date: Jun 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458018823

Steve Merrick

Why is it so hard to write your own Biography and why do words like pretentious and dilemma keep ricocheting around my head as I type this. So from the top, I am Steve Merrick, I am also known as stevesevilempire the photographer, check the website any time you want or type that into google, really I am a one man evil empire. My life long dream has been to write good science fiction, real stories that use the future in an allegorical way to reflect our present. Other than cycling and tree hugging my hobbies are Physics, Marine Biology, Ilford HP5 Film, music and my first love is photography. Steve Merrick AKA stevesevilmpire

Book preview

THE NAVIGATOR (Awash In Starlight)

By

Steve Merrick

Copyright Steve Merrick 2012

Smashwords Edition

Dedicated to,

Joel Ross-Merrick

Part One.

Awash in starlight a species died on the small planet they called the Earth. Some of them died together and others went to their happy hunting ground alone but with a pre-programmed inevitability I killed all of them. Their deaths were my canvas and this was my masterpiece, this time for the first time I was everywhere, even in their spaceships and the insignificant outer world colonies. So I killed every single representative of the species called humans. Except one and he nearly finished the job for me.

I have killed them before and it was what it was. The first was an old hunter gatherer called Badger, as a child he could kill a rabbit every time by throwing his favourite rock at it. He was a clean and proficient killer of small mammal’s but then so was I. I remember his mind though, mad perplexing thoughts and he did figure out how to use the stars to navigate by, but he didn’t expect me. My second victim was the woman called Moonlight. She worked out how to use fire but fire can’t stop me. All of their religious books refer to me in one way or another. In truth they only had themselves to blame as I had been serving them notice all the way through their brief history.

When Moonlight played with fire on that cold morning, she didn’t know I was going to kill her, nor that I would take her two children as well. Yet at least she wouldn’t have bothered talking about morality, it is pointless to try when you are confronted by me, but in the Middle Ages they did, it was all about morality back then, it didn’t save them, in fact it couldn’t. You can paint all the pretty pictures you want too but if the enemy is at the gates, what good are they?

Our universe lacks organisation, and I am unaware of any non random influences at play in the evolutionary garden that is planet Earth. I can only tell you different acids make chains, then chains make ribbons and that is where the dance starts. You see all life is a chaotic and random mess, so their imagined organiser caught me off guard. I am not stupid, this divine thing was a potential threat. So because of their screams for this god or that, I was forced to look for it. I couldn’t find it anywhere, so I went back godlessly to doing that which I do best.

Yes I remember that dance back before the planets. That is where I am from. I am no god. I am just very old, and those humans managed to let me loose. Evolution is such a blast isn’t it, they thought they could use genetic engineering to defeat me. They believed I was at war with them in the first place, then for all of their efforts, I was forced to fatally evolve. You see I am a virus. I am now all virus’s and I am the virus that wiped out humanity. Well almost all of it, I missed one.

When humans started to mess with their own DNA, it was only to be expected. In fact it was what they had to do. Maybe it was the future singing to them, or possibly it was just a concept of what they all wanted to become. I don’t know I am a virus so the human mindset is irrelevant to me. Yet when they streamlined their own codes, that marked the end because it forced me to react. I had to work so hard to overcome all of the obstacles that they put in front of me. So the basic truth of it is that as they innocently played with their DNA I had to get stronger.

I admit that they had many successes as they fiddled with themselves in a species wide feat of masturbation. I got a few hundred thousand here or there, but inevitably this was a showdown. They even created a utopia, it was a one sided uneven utopia led by happy well balanced non violent people. Personally having seen this species battle it’s way down from the trees it was a bit of an anti climax. I had started off on single cell life forms in their pre history. I had learned my trade. I had over many millions of years earned my masterpiece. My perfect moment.

So I destroyed their utopian world order. I am definitely in the details of this massacre. This death spree was so unexpected and close to infinite, until they had all fallen to me except that one child. At least his response to their pseudo perfection was understandable to me.

What is perfect. Who can define perfection. The more I learn of us the more I doubt my own head. It makes my thoughts hurt. I don’t want to be perfect.

It's hardly a collection of his greatest hits but the words even out of context give you the picture. So who was this surviving misfit that saved humanity, and why had I stopped myself by deliberately creating him in the first place. At least I think I did, in my defence it was a very busy fortnight.

I guess I should start at the beginning. Back when he was an embryo his mother called Kego because she mistakenly believed it was the Japanese word for hope.

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Kego O’Grady was conceived and born in deep space on board the Asterio class starship, the Solstice. His mother Eileen was a spacer engineer whilst his father Tetsuya was a Japanese navigator. They had even managed to convince themselves that they loved one and other. So in between working shifts Tetsuya had unintentionally fertilized Eileen’s ovaries and I knew what was coming both figuratively and literally, at that point neither of them knew they had created Kego. That was all my fault. You see I had been fiddling with them, I can only say that a part of me knows that I wouldn’t be where I am without the interference’s of these supposedly intelligent mammals. Which made Kego my my tool to save my third favorite dish from extinction and Eileen became my temporary workplace. I am a virus and all life at some level is viral so his creation was for me, an act of child’s play.

Tragically their love was not destined to last, the father wanted nothing to do with the child. The little child did try very hard to be loved by the man, home made cards and desperate attempt’s at hugging resulted in a massive rejection. Kego even got into trouble for attacking him when he was three. So although he never expressed it morbidly, it always left him internally confused when he thought of his Dad.

I don’t want to give you the impression that his early years were all bad though. The ships captain Deneke Hastings genuinely loved having the little guy around, as did most of the thirty strong crew. When Kego was a baby she had him moved~into the bridge to make life easier on Eileen, she also hoped it would help Tetsuya get over his issues with his son. Although she failed in her attempt at father management it did make one thing absolutely clear to everyone aboard. Kego was a star child. If his cot was moved away from the portal window he would shriek and scream violently, but in front of those stars, he would sleep gurgle and poop without the slightest disturbance. In fact most of his first three and a half years were spent on the Bridge of that mighty ship, watching the Great Nothing, slip past his face. As the adults worked the little boy learned to read and write from technical manuals and anything else that would fall his way.

His first word was Stars, Even his first steps were taken in an effort to get closer to them. Eileen regretted missing them but the computing officer Finlay didn’t. He was lost in an abstract bit of binary code when a movement from the corner of his eye made him turn to the portal. Looking at Kego he watched him wobble, then stumble and finally make the three steps to the bomb proof glass. Pressing both hands and his nose against it he chuckled and said. Stars, Finny, staaaars. Finlay fell for the ugly little guy then and there, he took him under his wing.

Somehow despite all expectations, the random non genetically engineered child turned out to be smart, intelligent, and possessed by a curious imagination, but he could never be described as good looking or cute. His blonde hair and blue eyes shone out in a nasty contrast with his oriental bone structure. His face just didn’t really work but as you now know that was to be the least of his worries. On his fourth birthday he moved into view room three. It’s glass canopy suited the little boy just fine because he could see even more stars than ever before. It was there that Tetsuya did the one thing he ever would do for Kego. He posed in a photo of all of them, then left. Strangely many years later that picture would be the very last thing he would see. Tick tock.

I listened and watched for five and a half more years, it sounds dumb to say that I was proud of the little mammal I had created, but for all my mitochondrial fiendishness I am not embarrassed of being proud of my work. Yet by his ninth year he was actually quite special. In the words of Stephanie Newton, the ships science officer, He is a natural theoretical physicist. For her it was a dualistic form of hell. She had spent seven years of her life in the university library on Regis Nine, studying and struggling with the many different faces of the universe, and there was this kid, getting it all understanding it and then evolving it. Deep down inside of her she was afraid of his question, if you had dug a bit deeper into her head, you would have realised that a part of her really begrudged him his gift.

For all of her professional jealousies Stephanie was one of his greatest allies. He was a scientific roller coaster ride and she loved the barnstorming sessions that they had. It was the way he said Shit. very gently when he got it all wrong, but that little dance when he was right, that was fun for her as well.

I guess I aced it with his schizophrenia, it had taken a gene or two to generate, no one on board the ship was unduly nervous about the little boy’s imaginary friends. It would have shocked them all to realise just how crazy he actually was, as he would chatter away to the empty space. Only Dr Callisto had any doubts, it was there to be seen in his genetic map. So as he grew so did her suspicions. Occasionally he wasn’t even there. Physically he was sat in front of you but for him everything had slowed down. His thoughts were like a distant bowl of soup on planet Earth and very far away, light would slow and stop, time would become irrelevant as Kego would would be lost in the extreme beauty of everything. His predetermined life was to be spent mostly alone and this illness that I had planted in him, would eventually be his salvation.

For Kego however the puzzle was the universe, it is true that he read a lot for a child his age, but mostly he would sit and watch the stars slip past his bedroom, navigating the vastness’s of it all. So by nine he had expressed an interest nothing, zero, or as it used to be known dark flow. On the bridge Hastings had given him her old hat with a navigators badge on it, and even though it inevitably fell of his small head, he had taken to wearing it. She burst out laughing when he had asked her about the nothing, he had been so serious about it. It was cruelly and poetically balanced, she knew he was the smartest person she would ever meet, and he was interested in nothing. When his ears glowed red he also knew her laughter had upset him.

You steer the Solstice through it all the time, I want to know what you know about it. Tick, tick, tock. So in the run up to my massacre he was Hastings Petite Officer on the bridge, it was there that he learned all that he would need to survive.

On the morning that I attacked the Solstice I was also attacking everywhere else. Their history was full of surprise attacks but this was a viral surprise party. All of the crew including Kego started to get sick. I killed Tetsuya first, it was only because his body had been weakened by accidentally inhaling toxins. There was no statement to his death just opportunistic delight. On Earth I was Munich H9112G, the media called me the Munich Syndrome. According to the World health Organisation I posed a relatively small risk when I first emerged. I was a slow burning little flu initially but with a twenty three year gestation period you can forgive their medics for getting it wrong. In all the battles we had had in the past, I learned the value of subtlety. I evolved in tandem with other sicknesses, and it wasn’t until my death toll started to mount up that they realised the danger. In the space of a week and a half everybody died. Except Kego O’Grady.

On board the Solstice the crew went their deaths in different ways. The majority clung hopelessly to their lives and watched them fade surrealistically away. Dr Calysto went down fighting, staring at me through a microscope, my magnificence was the last thing she saw. When science officer Newton realised it was game over, she left the Solstice in a space suit never to be seen again. Almost anecdotally she floated past Kego’s room and watched the small boy twitch and shake as his small body fought me. Finlay died in his sleep after draining his last three full bottles of sour mash whisky. Eileen died trying to reach her son, her last word were, Kego. Throughout all of this by an act of impressive will power, Hastings diverted the plague ship away from all ports of entry, then after hearing her crew die she drank some rose water, cocked the Blackhawk 3000 laser gun and blew her brains out.

However as humanity ended its existence, the small mammal called Kego slept feverishly, his small child’s frame fought me and somehow survived.

End Of Part One.

Part Two.

One woman wrote forty years after his disappearance. As I heard his last words my mind was lost in the static silence that roared at us all from the receivers, I had only one thought and that was that I never got the chance to meet him. Now there is so much written about his life that my words can only be the insult to the injury. Yet since most of the writings are based around the Solstices security footage, all of it should at least have the advantage of being accurate. Imagine a life recorded, that was Kego’s legacy.

Not that he knew any of this when he immediately awoke from the fever. Sheets stuck glue like to his skin, his body was so weak that all he could do was lie there and watch as his stars trucked past. A tube was sticking out of his arms, but he was struggling to remember the hot and delusional dreams, something had been there it had been talking with him. Kego didn’t immediately try to get up, experimentally he moved his eyes around the room to see what was there. The mark 38 robot stood solidly in the middle of his room. Stars reflected off of its domed mirrored head.

Cautiously a little hand slid along the edge of the bed and eventually the child lifted up onto one elbow. His little robo dog Albert lay curled up and shut down in it’s basket. Then the medical droid cradled his head and offered him a glass of water. That liquid was the best drink he would ever have, his entire body was screaming for it, so Kego very slowly drank three cups and then threw up.

Finally the child pulled himself from the bed and felt the hardness of floor beneath his buttocks. Hunger and exhaustion had taken their toll on many of his bodily functions and briefly he wondered why he was naked. The memories were coming in so slowly, even though the droid had been bathing him every hour, it seemed like nine years had passed by since then. The clock on the mark 38 gave Kego a timeline. Sitting stunned that he had been out of it for eight and a half days. He had been lying there all that time. It was another hour before he spoke, the small child had been trying to apply logic to his position.

Where is everybody and am I contagious?

Everybody is dead and you are contagious.

The coldness of it’s words disturbed the medical droid next to Kego.

Gently, you have to talk to humans gently. A smiley face flashed across it’s screen, Kego, now is not the time to think, now is the time for a nice bath and some food. You have been through quite an ordeal haven’t you.

The little boy just looked lost and started to cry.

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Much later in life he wrote.

Worthless Words. By, K O’Grady

Waking up in a nightmare scenario is the easy part, trying to stop yourself denying the nightmare scenario is almost impossible. The bath was the best thing on offer so I took it, for almost three days eating made me sick and dizzy, vomiting became a welcome distraction from the reality I had just walked into. Initially my mind just couldn’t cope with it and writing this twenty years later I guess it still can’t. Every time that Opus said the words Munich Syndrome I would just retreat to my stars and get lost in them like some drifting canoe. It’s no wonder it took me three days to ask about them. Even when I slept there was that latent fingerprint of a conversation with it, it wasn’t the schizophrenia talking I still believe it was the virus.

I finally had to ask the question I knew the answer to. Mum? I know that nothing can prepare you to watch a replay of a loved ones death on a monitor but if you ever have to be warned by my words. As I watched her stumble and heard her last words my hand pressed so hard against the screen that it left it’s impression on it, just as the images that you are seeing leave their impressions on you. It changes your reality completely, so completely that it becomes a physical sensation, a sudden transition, a rush and wham! Nothing ever looks the same again. Everything is the same but it is you who have changed, not the world.

Imagine smoothly changing places with your reflection in the mirror and that isn’t even close. It has a noise to it as well, a kind of splooshing sound as you make this transition. Then everything is absolutely fine, it’s beautiful, it’s fantastic, I personally remember that calm that overtook me afterwards, it now makes me shudder. Because it is at that point that you have lost your mind, in that calmness and certainty that its all lovely, you have made a transition into insanity that you will never voluntarily come back from.

It’s true he went calm and for many years was amazingly optimistic but his pragmatic nature is to human eyes, quite terrifying, Kego then watched all of the other crew men and women die, he even managed to laugh as Finlay sang the Drunken Spaceman one more time before he died. Watching Newton fumbling in the airlock was actually the way he would’ve chosen to go, but then he heard the last word she transmitted.

I get it now, I finally get it, forgiveness is irrelevance but at least I can get it now, none of it matters, I can accept that and at least I get it now.

Kego listened to her say that three times and then laughed and said. "Stephanie you really didn’t get it