The Last Stand

How far in time, space and aloneness can a man go before breaking? Who makes such journeys, where do they take place, and what happens when they do? Find out as our hero pursues... The Last Stand.

On the corner of 178th Street and Fort Washington Avenue, diagonally across the street from the old YMWHA, on whose site is now the Port Authority Bus Terminal, there was a wooden, olive drab newsstand. In the evening you could pick up a late paper or perhaps a copy of The Saturday Evening Post before hopping aboard the downtown number four, fifth avenue bus. The newsy who carried just about everything inside the little hovel was a one armed World War I vet who rarely spoke, but who knew all his customers, as they knew him, and who warmed the night corner with the flickering yellow light that glowed inside his booth. He sat quietly, some nights in a thirties newsy’s cap, sometimes in his wool seaman’s cap and ragged pea coat, as he awaited his last few customers for the late edition papers. In his heart he had long tired of the same faces, people coming and going, while he sat and watched, and waited, and dreamed. It seemed as if he had long tired of the repeated amenities; the token exchanges. He never smiled.2

Well beyond the visor of the frayed tweed cap he wore on this night, the old eyes in his craggy face turned toward the black sky and the stars afar, deep into so many nights. He might have created alien craft soaring out from the heavens, settling some distance before his Earthly establishment to dispatch a dashing, or otherwise, spaceman toward him. And as the chilly winds blew along the George Washington Bridge from the rolling Hudson beneath it, certainly, he may have mused, the stranger and his companions, if there were any, should be drawn by his light, and should like to read of all the Earthly news. To the spaceman he would casually say, unruffled: “Paper, mister?”3

But there was no ship. No spaceman; frequently no customers at all at this hour. Not yet.4

***5

He had journeyed, or so the records indicated, through the black vastness, the deep and empty reaches of space. Such a void of depth and emptiness did he traverse, that he had only to sleep through it; a sleep as deep, empty and black as those forever night realms through which he passed unknowingly. The hulking, silvery ship had carried him millions upon millions of miles through bleak and blurry light years from home to….6

Now the rays of a warm sun, a different sun, beat down on the ship’s multi-layered windows as the polyplex alloy shades lifted, filling the hulk’s inner chambers with real light. And as his waking moments took shape in the swaddling of his cryochamber it seemed like a fresh Saturday morning. But it was not. 7

He had last been awake some months earlier. It was a Thursday, then. It seemed like only hours ago, but checking the readout on the ship’s computer, the M330, he found it to be sixteen weeks.8

He rose, washed, exercised and dressed. Then he ate. Checking further readouts on the M330 he flicked from line to bar graph, from color spectrum to texture, temperature and density scans. All the sequences were congruent. It was somewhat of a comfort. All seemed to be as expected.9

Winston and Effington might have been pleased that, so far, all was going according to program. He felt the vacuum of their absence; the fear of being alone, but he had already dealt with the nightmare of his crewmembers’ early and untimely demise months…years ago, when the accident occurred. He accessed their factor input charts and watched the printout of the substitution program he had affected with mission control when they were still reachable. The variables of Winston and Effington had been modified accordingly and the necessary accommodation made. CONTROL had wiped the slate and rewritten the mission in mid-flight. Winston and Effington had never existed. But, he thought as he peered out the gaping polyplex window into the pulsing dark violet glow of the new sun, they had.10

For four days and four nights in the new time, he orbited the pink sun’s world making preparations for the ship’s touchdown. He worked, watched and dreamed as he shouldered his triple load. He pondered the ship, himself, the mission and what awaited below. 11

The vessel had been through all of it. He had not. But, he thought with some guilt, he had survived. There was a certain pride in that. Now, however, the success of the mission’s completion, and it was a considerable task, would be up to him...alone. He had a momentary heady sensation as he contemplated the changeover from automatic pilot to manual shifting. There was no one else to fall back on. 12

The constant and unbroken cloud cover, whose chemical composition was still in the process of being analyzed by M330, was growing into a source of depression. It gnawed at the thin shell of patience which still managed to contain his curiosity. From time to time M330 showed enough latitude in conditions for him to drop altitude, which he did, but to little avail. The upper reaches of this stratosphere, with its heavy haze, seemed boundless despite the computer’s indications to the contrary. The ship nonetheless continued its easy spiral descent, quietly, until he noticed the change in the darkening purple pulsing outside.13

He was not sure as to its cause, but M330 revealed the answer on its summary screen. First, each of its line and bar readouts showed a glitch where one should not have been. The aberration was apparent alongside its twin comparison trip program model. With each subsequent readout revealed by the wipe, the irregularity widened. Then the computer began showing variants of the glitch elsewhere along the lines and bars. These seemed to correspond to the pulsing outside. 14

On one of M330’s sub screens a trouble-shooting program operated on a one-step ahead, factor-isolation principle. On it, a color depiction of the planet’s rising sun loomed impressively. At its near quadrant on the face of the star there was a tiny fleck. He might have overlooked the spot had it not been blinking like a cursor. He considered manually expediting the ship’s spiral descent when the unexpected impact occurred. It jarred him, but was more like an electro-static charge going through the entire ship. When he regained his senses and stood up to the relief and realization that he was still alive, he noticed that ensuing readouts on M330 failed to make complete sense. One, however, did. One of the ship’s reverse thrusters was knocked askew by the shock, and without them a safe touchdown would not be possible. He saw too, one of the stabilizing gyros was thrown off and the ship was now losing altitude at an alarming rate. Further, there appeared to be a terrible turbulence outside. If he could realign the thrusters and at least modify the gyro problem he might have a chance. But it would take time; at least an Earth hour or two. Fortunately the atmosphere of the huge planet below was that deep: a minimum, according to M330’s charts, of three to four thousand miles from where he might be now.15

With no little difficulty, jostled and bounced, he worked his way aft to reach what needed getting at. At one point, between adjustments which ended in the ship’s listing, he noticed her cutting through the haze of strange clouds. The magenta pulsing was gone. The blackness was becoming sharp and clear. There was nothing visible out there now; not even a blurry fog by which he could gauge his movement. It looked as if he were not moving at all. But miles below, he knew, off to his right, was a white ball; quiet and slightly phosphorescent. 16

Outside the ship was a stillness that enveloped her; permeated her. He had arrived, coming in. He wondered to what. As the time passed the ball grew larger; its phosphorescence diminishing; another layer of cloud-cover becoming apparent. He thought his silver ship gliding in over the planet must look majestic, impressive, but wondered: to whom? There were moments of expectation. There were flashes of…something more than just haze, night and barren landscape, but they were only flashes, no more than that.17

Combining as much precision with haste as he possibly could, he replaced one of the damaged thruster’s parts and the affected gyro was realigned. M330, however, was responding only partially, half-wittedly. He had no time to delve into its circuitry. But he ran a final readout, all of which seemed plausible, and assumed the controls. It was the last stage of the descent with touchdown quickly approaching. 18

His orbit had just eased him around to the night side of the planet and the big star was setting rapidly. This was not on the program. Margin of error was not half the planet. But it was too late for a correction. He was too low and his spiraling approach and rate of descent could not accommodate it. The thrusters were activated and he felt the ship list. Suddenly there was a wave of nausea and as it continued it was punctuated by periodic perspiration. He had the thought that the prospect of death, no matter where in the universe one happened to be, carried with it the same terrifying anguish. Then he began to ponder, once again, Control’s mission.19

A relatively nearby galaxy and each of several solar systems within it were selected on the basis of proximity, accessibility and promise. That is to say, was there at least a probability the mission might bear fruit? The planet below him now was not known to bear life, but could sustain life. M330 and crew would reach it, explore it, mark it, seed it, and if possible retrieve at least one of the long dormant satellites and probes we dispatched. The usual quota of soil, rock, vegetation and liquid samples would be expropriated; experiments conducted on site; logs kept; transmitters erected; cameras set in place; monuments raised and a systematic search for life conducted.20

But now, somehow, the mission seemed absurd to contemplate seriously. Survival and the question of what follows that were higher on his priority list of considerations. There would be plenty of time to execute Control’s laundry list once he safely set foot down on…whatever it was down there.21

Down there. It was a good deal closer now. It had, in fact, as its terrain filled M330’s entire major viewing screen, by its growing proximity, transformed itself into reality. Soon, if he lived, he would be enmeshed in that reality, confident that it would be a reality not altogether dichotomous with his own. It would simply be an extension of his own reality. And yet, staring into the holographic viewing screen, it occurred to him that what he saw and was about to encounter was not so strikingly alien to him and could have existed anywhere. And this was, in fact, anywhere. It was just about as far “anywhere” as anyone so far as he knew had ever gone. For moments he attempted to grasp, in his terms, just how far. He did not dwell on it. It was relative, wasn’t it? The illusion, if not the reality, remained: It did not seem far. It could be…home.22

The thruster had been firing for some time. A warning sound and the unmistakable voice of ailing M330 directed him to strap in and prepare for the final phase of braking and the last series of spirals before touchdown.23

It was night. Purple night and he seemed to be gliding deeper into it as occasional patches of light came to him and faded. Still it remained clear. For interminable stretches the terrain was unchanged, and unwavering night was bathed in unspoiled clarity. He maneuvered, corrected and remaneuvered. Then, unexpectedly, the ship slowed on its own and helplessly banked as it had hours before in the pulsing. As if in a Herculean attempt to correct itself it shocked the heavy stillness with an ear splitting report, sounding as if her giant hull had cracked. She did not right herself, jolted, and then slammed into the planet’s brush and soil, askew. 24

When at last he was able to pry open the hatch of his dying ship he paused to marvel that he was alive. Then, he looked deeply, reflectively and with awe into what surrounded him. The hulking ship had somehow fallen onto an elevated embankment from which he thought he could make out yards of relatively flat terrain, long clumps and stretches of brush and more flatland. Far off to his left low cliffs formed a valley with this land on which he now stood, and configured a jagged outline of what seemed like ebony totems against the foreign sky. The steep and forbidding walls draped the scene menacingly but the fresh air was so still and the pitch so quiet as not to presage anything, good or evil.25

He waited for morning but it did not come. Perhaps he had slept through it. He couldn’t be sure as M330 was no longer providing reliable indications of anything. Going through the ship he laid out the standard lines of equipment which would enable the first of several excursions he was planning. At least his rover cart was working.26

Not planning a lengthy exploration at first, he packed the buggy with a few essentials, lowered it from the ship and stood beside it, once again surveying this undisturbed indigo whose domain he was about to invade. It was then he saw it. He blinked his eyes. Far down into the valley, and then up, atop one of the flanking slopes there was a flicker, steady and distinct, like a beacon. It was the singular feature at the apparent terminus of the long landscape to draw and captivate his attention. He got into the RC1 and headed toward the light.27

Most of the light that served to illuminate the terrain before him came from several moderately sized moons. Together, though, they did not reflect as much light as Earth’s one satellite; nor did there seem to be as many stars overhead as on a clear Earth night.28

The RC1 buggy bounced and jiggled but tugged its load without too much strain. At times it seemed to glide through hardly any ground resistance as it dashed toward the light. But the glowing light did not change in size or brightness. It did not appear to be getting any closer.29

It was more than a night’s ride, he wanted to rest but he would not allow himself to and he would not turn back. It was still black night and the valley was endless. From time to time long patches of thicket would fall between his line of sight and the beacon, but always, as the buggy sped through to the clearing that lay ahead, the yellowish flicker reappeared, undisturbed.30

Occasionally he dozed momentarily consumed with fatigue, only to be jarred awake by a bounce, snapped into a quick consciousness parallel with a panicky scan of the horizon. He knew he had slept, not so much by his abrupt awakenings but, by the dream imagery his mind had begun to form during these mini naps. At first, no more than converging lines and quilty patches formed his images, but as his exhaustion increased the lines took on more intricate shapes and the patches dissolved into speedy, senseless mini-plots. One such plot saw several suns rising at various points along the planet’s horizons creating an enormous convergence of shadow which, when combined with the sunlight, blocked out both the beacon and its site…and it was lost to him. 31

Another dream had him traveling away from an ever receding light source only to discover it being a faint star on the horizon. The dreams continued until the dark, flanking slopes gradually leveled out and, to his astonishment, he found himself on an equal plane with the amber twinkle. It was only then he rested and had something to eat.32

The RC1 had plenty of muon fuel and seemed in fine shape. Still, there was a substantial area of thicket ahead, and while taking a short exploratory on foot, mostly for exercise, he opted to go the distance that way now that he could clearly make out the glimmer through the bramble. And perhaps walking might change his luck.33

He was quite unaware of the passage of time, more so of distance. Only once, and only for an instant, did he give thought to the ship, envisioning it much farther down the plain than it was in actuality. But with ship and cart behind, quite alone now, he began to stumble.34

The beacon was now beginning to come into focus through the brush, as the low star grouping on the horizon, of which his yellow gleam might have been a member, became obscured. He ran through the tangle of thorny vegetation that cut and pierced his suit and scratched his steamy visor until he removed it. A solitary figure in this alien planet night, he stumbled and pulled himself forward, tearing through the undergrowth of this remote sphere, this forlorn point in nowhere, everywhere, anywhere. 35

The dark green wood thinned and parted and cast out its visitor. It was almost within reach, he thought, as he looked up. And then some three hundred yards down, for the first time, he thought he could see it clearly. It stood alone: a beat up, painted over, olive drab, wooden, dimly lit newsstand. Inside, under a slightly flickering yellow light, half hidden behind a stack of freshly printed newspapers was a wizened, tweed-capped, newsy. From beneath a backdrop of sweets and crisply colored magazines, the newsy, no smile on his craggy face, drew out a late paper. The hardly discernable breeze that it fanned forth bore the scent of ink. The old man held it out. “Paper, mister?” he said.36

He groped for change in his suit, bought one of each late edition: The World Telegram, The Herald Tribune, The Daily News, the Mirror, The New York Post, The Journal American, a couple of pulp magazines, Collier’s, Look, and the Saturday Evening Post. He bought peanuts, Life Savers and a plain Hershey Bar, an Old Nick, Mason Mints, and A Butterfinger. 37

He would go back to the ship now, catch up on all the news, read the funnies, do the puzzles, maybe even listen to the radio. Why not? It was Saturday night! So what if he was alone? He was alone before.38

***39

Four point four light years away, on planet Earth, a craggy faced newsy in a tweed cap, tucked inside his newsstand and the lonely night on Fort Washington Avenue, under a flickering yellow light, awaited his last few customers for the remaining late edition papers. But in his heart he had long tired of the same faces, the familiar amenities, the well worn exchanges. Beyond the visor of his cap his tired eyes turned toward the night sky and the stars and galaxies afar, deep within it. His vision created alien craft soaring out from the heavens, settling before his Earthly establishment and dispatching a dashing spaceman toward him. Certainly, he mused, the stranger and his companions aboard should like to read of all the Earthly news, perhaps enjoy the magazines. And so, to the spaceman he would casually say, in a most unruffled manner: “Paper, mister?”40

But there was no ship or spaceman, no customers at all at this hour; no one to hear him mutter as he had so many times to himself, with each passing shadow, “Paper?”41

Lonely here, thought the old newsy huddled under yellow light with his night phantoms, but, he pondered as he turned his gaze to the stars in the dark, it’s lonelier up there, I’ll bet. Lonelier up there.42
 

Reviews

[Stonewall]

An interesting write Gary. I find the quality of your prose enviable and seemingly effortless. You somehow manage, in the midst of being highly descriptive, to give the reader a sense that your work takes place in a wider world or context, which I don't think is easy to do. We writers are often so intent on describing the scene we imagine that it can become a little disjointed. You manage to make your spaceman character both present in the scene and illustrate the way our minds tend to wander.

I must admit to some confusion when you made the leap from the newsstand into outer space, although it was certainly not without warning. Your first scene and description of the 'newsy' was just right, a sense of history evoked by the names.
I felt you would be returning to the newsstand towards the end, which in some ways made me too anxious to read through the middle section with enough care. But I like the contrasting loneliness and the way you bring them together, while each of your characters remains lonely. Well done.