Dex and the Valiant © Jack L. Burton Dex Varthan felt like a victor.
His ship told another tale entirely.
The carbon scoring and battered hull displayed the scars that revealed the truth behind the lie that Dex had chosen for convenience's sake to believe.
Far now from civilization, yet not so near to ‘no man's land' to cause concern about being marooned, Dex at once felt peace and anxiety in his current state.
All main systems were functional – marginally. The tiny vessel managed well enough for the time being in space. However, how she would handle during planetfall was another matter entirely.
‘On second thought,' Dex pondered, ‘a spaceport just might be my best bet after all.' No atmosphere to gingerly plow through. No ever-increasing gravitational fields to navigate along or struggle against. ‘No sense tempting fate when other options are available,' he reasoned to himself, now letting a manageable quantity of the undeniable reality that surrounded him creep into his mind.
No.
‘Creep' was not the right word. In truth the sensation he felt seemed more to wash over him – like a not-altogether-unpleasant ooze.
‘Ooze'… Now there was a word that suited him indeed!
Among other things (many, many , other things), Dex was a trader, a merchant, and a prospector (though a prospector of what might be a cause for some debate). Actually, he rather preferred not having a title with which he could be distinctly labeled. Such labels, he supposed, always forced oneself to define oneself in terms set forth by others. One had to be careful of being too definitely labeled. Such labels could lock a man into a box – a type of self-imposed purgatory from which it was all but impossible, once entered into, to escape to freedom again.
That sort of life was not for Dex. He lived, traveled, occasionally fought (more than he preferred, but less than he admitted), and would (at least he hoped) one day die on his own terms.
A slight glitch in the Valiant's inertial stabilizer started startled the lone traveler back to reality. A quick systems check showed nominal fluctuations in the vessel's vital systems. Life support, close-range navigation, and maneuvering controls were all functioning adequately.
As a bit more of the reality the loomed all about him squeezed itself into his consciousness, Dex found himself wishing that his vessel's exo-drive was still intact. Unfortunately, the exo-drive had been one of the few ‘true' casualties of his latest ‘encounter.'
He decided to let his mind drift to the exo-drive. For an uncounted number of years his planet's technology never progressed beyond physical means of propulsion for spacecraft. First it was expanding gases, then ion propulsion – finally nuclear impulse.
Then they discovered the gravity fields. Manipulating these brought his world to within a fraction of achieving light speed. Again, eons seemed to pass (at least, that was how all of the history texts portrayed it). Then, they discovered how first to access, then to create – wormholes. This brought the first ‘apparent' faster-than-light age. It was termed ‘apparent' because, although the result was moving from point to point in real space in less time than it took light to traverse the same distance, the term ‘light speed' held an entirely different meaning in wormhole physics.
Finally, after time immemorial (again, as portrayed by the history texts), his people developed the exo-drive. It allowed even the smallest of vessels to ‘skim' along a hyper-dimensional plane while navigating in ‘real space.'
There would be no ‘skimming' for Dex for the foreseeable future – certainly not until he could put in to a spaceport for repairs. Even then, he had his doubts as to the prospects of truly repairing his ship, not to mention the inevitably painful expense of time and money that would undoubtedly be required.
Yet, such was his life and had be for almost (almost) as long as he could remember.
Dex Varthan. Merchant. Trader. ‘Prospector.' Traveler.
Despite the whirlwind of thoughts racing through his mind, and the virtual torrent of reality that had now finally burst the dam of illusion that he had erected against it, Dex found himself becoming very fatigued. Despite his best efforts to remain awake and alert, his body finally succumbed to the persistent fatigue.
He slept.
Some time later (just how long, with the chronometer one of the casualties of his latest battle, he had no idea), Dex awoke, and peered outside his main (actually his only ) viewport to find the vast expanse of a repair dock in the bowels of some unknown space station.
Apparently, he had set the autopilot after all, though he could not remember doing so. In his mind he vaguely remembered that the auto-nav system had sustained damage and was only marginally operable – certainly not a device to be trusting one's life with.
Nevertheless, the view before him was undeniably real. Opening the access hatch, he heard the sound of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of beings from dozens of worlds conversing, working, walking, some even clamoring, and a few fighting. He smelled the distinct odors that could only come from a repair dock in space. It had that unique smell of something slightly moldy blended with the metallic odor of machinery with a bit of oily mist and ozone peppered in.
As he departed from the Valiant he realized that no one seemed to take even the slightest notice of his presence. Glancing up at the roughshod bulletin board, he found directions to the mess hall. He suddenly realized how hungry he had been, having gone without rations for three days before he fell asleep.
Even as he began to realize the tremendous toll that his latest ‘excursion' had taken on him both physically and mentally, he began uncharacteristically to walk with a bit more bounce in his step.
Muttering to himself in a tone so softly that not even those he passed within inches of could hear above the din of activity in the docking bay, he said to himself:
“Yes. I am Dex Varthan; and, now I am ready to begin!!!”
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