Dad sat at the computer console in my room and began waving his hands in front of the kinetic control display. He knew my curiosity would get the better of me and I'd turn away from the window to see what he was doing. I fought it for as long as I could, but the impulse won and soon I was surrounded by the holographic display as it expanded to fill almost the entire room. He paged through various StellarWeb updates until he found an article one of our ride along reporters had filed earlier that day. Dad's fingers flexed and curled as he scrolled through the piece. Finally, he pinched a sentence in mid-air to highlight it.
"Dr. Bonadventure was his usual gregarious self, but his son – the so-called prodigy, Jason Bonadventure - was anything but talkative," Dad read aloud. "One might be tempted to call him aloof or, if one were less charitable, cold."
He looked over his shoulder and when I didn't respond immediately, threw the hologram sentence at me. The sentence hung there between us, the words "aloof" and "cold" literally dividing me from my father for a few tense minutes.
"What is the cause of this anxiety, son?" he finally asked.
I hesitated a few more seconds and finally said, "I've been having the dreams again."
My father sighed knowing what was coming next. "I don't want to fight with you about this anymore," he said. "Dreams are just that, dreams. They are not prophecies, omens, portents or - whatever other mumbo jumbo your mother may have told you."
I bristled as he mentioned my mother. Things between the two of them had become icy over the past few years. I remembered a time when they were very much in love and our home was a place of bliss. But ever since I turned 12, they saw eye-to-eye less and less. It culminated with my dad moving out and taking up residence on Beta Colony - out near Alpha Centauri. Of course, with our Inferno Industries stardrives tearing up the space lanes hardly any place could be considered far away from any other now. Still, even if we weren't physically cut off from Dad, Mom and I were certainly emotionally
cut off from him. Although no longer widely held or popular any more, my mother still had spiritual beliefs. As we conquered the stars, people had less of a reason to believe in the supernatural. The mystery had gone out of the universe for many of them, but not for my mother and me. Six months ago I started having these sinister dreams.
"It's the same as before," I said. "We are on a ship - a giant one, like this - but it isn't like this. It's more like an ancient steam vessel. But yet, it is cruising through space, at full speed. And then, just as we are cresting a wave of stars, we are overtaken by a great black shadow."
I waved my arms through the air to demonstrate the movement the shadow takes in my dream and my dad just scowled at me. "Finally, I see what is causing the shadow," I continued. "It’s a great black, pyramid of a vessel, moving through the stars just as quickly as we are. Alien life, Dad! Think of it! You know we saw a ship like it before - back on Mars!"
He shook his head. "Son, we've been over this. In the 100 years that mankind has been traveling the stars we've found barely a handful of worlds that are even capable of supporting life, and none have been home to any intelligent alien species. The only alien life out there is some very basic plants. What we saw on Mars all those years ago was...well, I still don't know what it was, but we agreed you're not to discuss it with anyone else ever again."
I pressed on with retelling of the dream. I knew he had heard most of it before, but I hadn't told him, that in the last week, the dream had actually been a tiny bit longer before I awoke in a cold sweat.
"Dad, listen, the dream has started to last longer. The pyramid ship overtakes us and the tips of the shape begin to glow with a pink light. After a few minutes of appearing to grow in power and brightness, the pyramid unleashes energy bolts at our ship. And in a matter of minutes, our ship is torn apart. Just like before, when other ships' crews reported seeing and being attacked by pyramids."
Chapter 1, 2 and 3
Start from the beginning
