Beyond the Light

1. The One where Everything Changes

The entire universe lay before me; rich velvet with countless gold encrusted jewels vying for attention. Attempting to outshine each other. It was almost poetic in its beauty and I wanted nothing more than to be any place else.

My sister didn't seem to share my unease though, because she pressed her nose even closer to the view screen, mouth open with wonder and eyes glowing brighter than the galaxy outside.

I had rarely seen her this excited,  not even when she got to fly her first shuttle. The only thing that brought this particular gleam to her eyes were the old stories of the dark space. Fairytales that most children outgrew sooner or later. Not Gret.
She devoured the tales of places so strange that nothing in the known universe could compare.

A shudder ran down my spine at the memory of one particularly weird story. Something about beings so painfully beautiful that one was driven mad and compelled to follow over the Rim into the unknown to serve as a trophy, something to be shown off, gawked at and carefully stowed away.

She loved these stories. The colourful accounts of fantasy and strangeness that were shared by children of all cultures in the communal cribs on the Knots, as well as the indulgent whispers of the adults at parties when the mood orthe level of drink called for it.

Gret even wrote her own once, when we were in our third or fourth year of school. In the end, she had finished two pieces and I translated them both into Bel'whan.Partially because I owed her for saving me from handing in nothing but a few short lines and partially because her grip on any language except Common was loose at best, then and now.

Both of us had passed with full marks, but I suspected that the teacher had known. It was just the way we worked together. The Mercer Twins. A well maintained engine, pieces fitting together seamlessly.

The sudden, shrill warning tone of the ignition pulled me out of my reverie. My eyes shot to Gret already strapped into the pilot seat, fastening the small navigational sensors to her temples. I exhaled through my teeth. Finally we were getting away from the Rim. This place made my stomach curl in on itself.

"You've got to look at that, Tristan. It's ..."

She fell quiet as I stepped behind her and followed her eyes. Outside, the stars shone in all their beauty, right up until the point where they just ... didn't.

To the right from our little vessel, maybe five minutes away at normal speed, floated a cloud of nothingness. A few tendrils of absolute darkness coiled around the softer, somehow milder darkness of space. The rim looked as impressive and impenetrable as it always did. Imposing and honestly more than a little scary in its otherworldliness, yes. But not more so than in the holograms we were shown at school.

As we stared in silence at the wall of black, something at the very edge of the horizon flashed. Another vessel? There shouldn't be. But then, we shouldn't be here either. Something else entirely? My heart pumped and the blood rushed through my head. For a breath, the universe stood still inside and around me, then the years of training kicked in.

"Shields up!"

My voice sounded rough, breathless. The computer complied nonetheless and a wave of bright light flooded the screen for a blink. It was gone as fast as it appeared and the monitors showed that the shields were now in place. They would not hold off very much, this was just asmall standard class exploration glider after all.

"Let's get out of here, Gret. Before something happens and we are confined to the Knot for ages for stealing communal property."

"No, wait."

My head whipped around from where I had fiddled with my own piloting head set.

"What? Gret you can't be serious!"