The throbbing white neon lights at the doorframe of the decontamination chamber flickered. The hum fluttered and rose, settled and rose again. The attendant’s eyes went from the monitor to Rye, back to the monitor. The man behind Rye in line sighed loudly.
Finally the white lights turned green. “Clear,” said the attendant.
Rye hefted his bag over his shoulder. “Sorry,” he muttered sheepishly. “Rough job.”
Beyond the moments of their life spent watching Rye being decontaminated, however, no one had anything else to give the man, and certainly not any time or attention.
That’s how it was on those sorts of pleasure cruisers. There were supplies for sale, certainly, but most people went there to be left alone and enjoy any and all of the ship’s semi-legal indulgences.
Rye was no different. Things had gone badly awry on his last trip. He was contaminated in more ways than usual and it had all come to weigh on his soul. Getting drunk and listening to stories was the only kind of therapy he believed in.
The third deck bar was called Titan and it was quiet. Soft music played from a speaker embedded in the bartop, while pink lights cast everything in pale red hues.
One man sat at the bar. Rye could tell from a glance that the man wasn’t human, but he couldn’t ID him further than that.
A good place to start a conversation.
Rye took his seat. “I know some people are private and some people can be sensitive, and I respect all of that. So if you want to be left alone, say the word and I’ll abide it. But I’m struggling to place your kind and it’s gonna haunt me if I don’t at least ask.”
The man at the bar smiled. While his form was human, there was something off about his eyes and his mouth. Both too large. Too emotive. Too carefully considered in their articulations.
“You don’t see us much,” said the man. “I’d be surprised if you’d ever seen my type before, to be honest.”
That had Rye’s attention. “Well, I’m a man who’s done his share of traveling, so that’s a surprise. Glaivan, maybe?”
“I look like a shapeshifter to you?” said the man, openly amused.
“Something looks new about you,” said Rye. “Like you haven’t been wearing that face for too long.”
The man nodded. “That’s interesting. No, this is the face I was born with. And I was born quite a while ago, so it should be fairly worn in by now.”
Rye nodded, motioned to the bartender to bring him the usual. “A longed-lived race, then?”
“Very,” said the man.
“Immortal?”
The man nodded. “I suppose so.”
Rye only knew of two immortal races. One were the Iverlian lair worms and the man certainly didn’t look like a lair worm. The other was the End Beings, who were more starlight than physical form in those days. Not bodies made for drinking in dive bars anyway.
“Now I’m stumped.” Rye took a swig. “Wait, immortal how?”
The man’s big eyes squinted. “‘Immortal how’ how?”
“Infinite lifespan? Reincarnation? Or…?”
“The third one,” said the man. “Regeneration.”
Rye was dumbstruck. “Regeneration? That’s…what the hell are you?”
The man laughed. His laugh was genuine and breezy. The laugh of an unbothered being.
“Well, did I say there weren’t many of us? Because there aren’t. Truthfully, I may be it.”
Rye considered the man. “But you don’t know?”
The man shook his head.
“Because you don’t want to know.”
The man nodded. “You’re perceptive.”
Rye shook his head. “Just experienced. Knew a Rangar once. You know what happened to them, right?”
“Of course,” said the man. “Terrible.”
“He thought he might be the last one, too,” said Rye. “I asked him if he’d ever gone looking and he said no, because nothing good would come of it. Maybe he’d find someone, but what would that do for him? Just another person carrying the same pain, traumatized by the same things. He didn’t want to meet someone like that. Someone like him. Didn’t want to see the things he was keeping buried in his own head.
“Worse, though, maybe he’d go looking and he’d find out that he really was the last one. Better off not knowing.”
The man took a sip of his drink. “Afraid. That about sums it up for me, as well.”
Rye gestured to the barkeep – one for each of them. “Same as before – if you don’t want to talk, don’t talk. But if you do, I’d love to hear about it.”
“You strike me as someone who’s heard a lot of stories,” said the man.
“Just the curious type, I suppose.”
“What do you do with other people’s stories?”
Rye tapped his glass to his forehead. “Stake ‘em up in here.”
“You don’t share them with others?” asked the man.
“No. If it’s not my story, I don’t tell it. But I’ll tell you this – the best stories are the ones that keep me out here. When I hear a good story I can’t help but think, ‘Well now I’ve got to do something more interesting than that. Now I gotta make my own stories worth telling.’”
“Well, I can respect that,” said the man. “I’m not sure if this is a good story or a bad story. But I’ll tell it anyway.”
Rye swirled the ice in his drink and listened closely as the man began his story.
“If we’re starting at the very beginning, I suppose it should be said that my people are not naturally occurring. We were the end result of centuries of experiments. Failures. Triumphs. Disasters. There was supposedly some prophetic or religious reason why the project was pursued so ceaselessly, but I don’t know the truth of that. I only know that we were made to be what we are, for a purpose I can only guess.
“By the time I was born, we were already in decline as a species. We’d had something of a golden era. Our abilities, our regeneration and effective immortality put us in a unique position. We acquired wealth and fame. We thought quite highly of ourselves, but that was in line with how we were treated: as functionally the closest thing to a god most lifeforms would encounter. You could say we let it get to our heads, but there really never was a reason to be humble. We were as close to invincible as anyone has ever been.
“But like I said, I didn’t see any of that. By the time I was born our star had waned for a number of reasons. Power and fear go hand in hand, but you need to be able to lean into the fear to maintain the power and we never quite understood that. Just because we could not be killed didn’t mean we couldn’t feel pain. We weren’t even especially good at defending ourselves. When the tide turned, it turned hard. Suddenly we weren’t gods. Just abominations. Unworthy of rights or consideration. Unnatural things.
“We had lived like that for quite some time when I was born. As species that is functionally immortal, the drive to reproduce naturally declined. And there was also the fact that our lives were so miserable. We were hated. Abused. And there was no escape. Not even the one escape all other species enjoy.
“My parents were shamed for having me. Childbirth had become taboo. Cruel. It was quite possibly the cruelest thing you could do.
“My parents believed that I might ease their own suffering. Give them something to focus on. A project. A thing to love and receive love from. But…I was just a boy. Whatever relief I provided wasn’t enough.”
The man paused a while and took a sip of his drink.
“What’d they do?” said Rye. “My gut’s telling me they’re not around anymore, but I can’t guess how.”
The man nodded. “A few hundred years ago, there was a man who claimed to know how we could all end our suffering. A true solution, he said. It caused quite a fury in multiple ways. The most downtrodden of my kind were suddenly galvanized. The people who hated us the most were appalled that we might find some way out of our misery. And many others who objected to our plan on moral grounds. They simply didn’t think anyone had the right to make that sort of decision for themselves…”
“Not even centuries old sufferers with no hope of salvation?” asked Rye.
“No one,” said the man. “Well, as you guessed my parents were swayed, as were many others. And they got their final wish, in a manner.”
“Not to pick at a wound, what exactly…?”
The man nodded. “Nothing especially clever. They just ejected into space en masse. No suits. Naked, actually. Let the void take them.”
“Asphyxiating and freezing simultaneously…Christ.”
“If it were that simple,” said the man with a weary smile. “To be honest, I’m not sure they’re even dead. More likely trapped in an endless destruction and reconstruction, all on a cellular level. They don’t move, the bodies. They appear dead, but no one’s bothered to collect one and make sure.”
Rye felt his skin tingle, a flush of cold running across his exposed skin. “That might be too much for my mind to hold.”
“I’m sorry,” said the man, motioning for another drink. “I did say it wasn’t a very good story.”
“No, no,” said Rye. “I’m just…I can’t imagine and I can imagine at the same time. Even if I think I’m probably not imagining it all quite right, I can’t help but feel some version of your despair. It’s all too sad.”
“It was good intentions,” said the man. “At least, that’s what I like to believe.”
“Not to be crude, but how come you didn’t go?”
“Out into space?” said the man. “I didn’t want to die. I still don’t.”
“What was different for you?” said Rye.
The man shook his head. “I suppose I was too curious to die.”
“The universe is vast,” said Rye. “The more you see the less you know.”
“Very true,” said the man. “I always thought that if I stayed long enough, I would understand.”
“Understand what?”
“How to be alive.”
For the first time Rye realized that soft music was playing in the bar. He couldn’t place it, but it was mellow and comforting. It made the conversation even more dreamlike.
“I can’t pretend to understand what that means.”
The man laughed. “It’s as vague as it sounds. I can’t even explain it, to be honest. I’ve just had this idea for the longest time. If I’m here, if I stay, if I meet enough people, if I experience enough things, go enough places, it will come together. It will all make sense. And the time spent getting there will have meaning.”
“You’re a thoughtful man.”
The man went quiet.
Rye cleared his throat. “What next? You didn’t blow yourself out an airlock, so where did you go?”
“War first,” said the man. “You remember the incursion on Terra Senta? A twenty year siege. It was fought primarily by mercenaries in the end. That was when I joined. I had never killed anyone before then. I thought it might do me good to experience that.”
“It certainly changes you,” said Rye.
The man laughed softly. “I’d sort of taken you for the type. I hope that doesn’t offend.”
“I’d imagine you live long enough and you see most people for what they are on a first glance.”
“It’s not that simple, but there are certainly signs.”
“The war, though,” said Rye. “Terra Senta. I’d imagine you won your share of glory.”
“You’d be mistaken,” said the man. “I certainly followed orders. Saw plenty of battles. My body was soaked through with plasma rays and split in two by energy swords. Took my share of the kills. But doing what you’re told doesn’t win you much honor. And coming back alive isn’t enough, either. Coming back to life didn’t change the fact that I was just a cog in the machine. If it wasn’t me, it would be someone else. No matter how many times it was me. At best, I like to think I kept a handful of men and women off those battlefields. For whatever that’s worth.”
“That’s not nothing.”
The man laughed again. “Very little is.”
Rye nodded. “I suppose you got me there. Terra Senta ended a long time back. What’d you do after that?”
“Odd work. New fields. Always learning. Starting over at the beginning. I’ve always enjoyed not knowing how to do things. Or, I suppose I mean that middle period between complete ignorance and total mastery. Watching skilled workers do what they do. Seeing what I can do. What I can’t do.”
“And see, I hate that,” said Rye. “Hate feeling stupid. Being the slowest one on the job. I’ve always been impatient, especially with myself. Always want to be the best, or I just…don’t bother.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the man.
“I’m sorry to say it,” said Rye. “I’d change it if I could.”
The man quietly examined Rye for a moment, before turning his eyes back down to his drink.
“For the longest time now I’ve been employed as a sin eater.”
Rye shook his head. “Never heard of it.”
“Well, I may be the only one. It really only works if you have my unique abilities.”
“Regenerating?”
The man nodded. “Do you think evil exists?”
“Seen too much to say otherwise,” said Rye.
“Can evil exist in an otherwise good heart?”
Rye whistled. “This is getting more philosophical than I was expecting. I guess so, yeah. Good people carrying evil thoughts and impulses inside.”
“In my work I help those otherwise good people let the evil out in ways that aren’t destructive to themselves and others.”
The weight of Rye’s experiences settled in on him then. He felt cold and tired. “Destructive to you instead?”
The man nodded. “It’s fulfilling in ways that are hard to articulate.”
Rye’s mind flashed a thousand violent images. Gruesome torture. Blood and broken bones. Decapitation. Worse and worse and worse.
He down his drink in a single gulp and motioned for another.
“You let them do…whatever they want?”
The man nodded.
More images. Rye’s imagination was doing him no favors. But worse, these were things his mind had conjured in moments of idle thought. Quiet impulses he would never act on. But he was seeing those terrible thoughts made manifest on this man. Over and over.
“I hope the pay is good,” said Rye, trying to break the tension within himself.
“No pay,” said the man. “I don’t believe there should be barriers to my services.”
“I get that you can handle it,” said Rye. “Your body comes back, no matter what. But what about the pain? I can’t imagine the pain.”
“Don’t try,” said the man.
The conversation paused as both men examined their drinks and sat quietly with their thoughts.
“Are you disgusted?” said the man after a time.
Rye took a moment to consider his response. “Not you, no. But I suppose I am disgusted. It’s a lot to consider.”
“The universe is complicated,” said the man.
“So, what’s next?” said Rye. “Or is sin eating your calling?”
“I don’t suspect I have a calling,” said the man. “Just a lot of time.”
Rye was tired. Too tired for pleasure. Too tired for gambling or even a meal. He settled his tab, shook the man’s, and said his farewell.
Back on his ship, Rye considered the chest of Alxite gems in his storage locker. He thought about what they might be worth and what he did to get them. He weighed the value of one against the other. Briefly, he let his mind fill with all the things he’d ever done, all the reasons he’d ever had, and all the ways he’d felt (or refused to feel) about his own actions.
He was a well traveled man. He had good stories to tell. But now he was tired.
As his eyes closed, he saw the man’s face once more. Those strange eyes. That strange mouth.
As he fell to sleep, Rye made a decision: if he saw the man again he would ask him to eat Rye’s sins.
He made a second decision: he would spend the rest of his life staying as far away from that man as he could.
Rye slept fitfully. When he awoke he left the pleasure cruiser.
One more place he could never return.
Photo credit: KELLEPICS
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