The Cardboard Spaceship (To Brave The Crumbling Sky Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  1. The Captain

  2. Jennifer

  3. Roses and Tuna

  4. The Cardboard Spaceship

  5. The Secret Sky

  6. The Cosmic Garden

  7. Captured!

  8. Slaves of Venus

  9. The Ruins

  10. The Worm Cave

  11.Pup

  12. Awake the Martian Twilight

  13. Escape from Mars

  14. Quiet Journey

  15. Climbing the Mountain

  16. The Devasthanam

  17. Secrets of the Tiamatites

  18. Departure

  About the Authors

  To Brave the Crumbling Sky

  Book One:

  The Cardboard Spaceship

  Matthew Snee and Gregg Chirlin

  Copyright (C) 2016 Matthew Snee and Gregg Chirlin

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2016 by Creativia

  Published 2016 by Creativia

  Cover art by

  http://www.thecovercollection.com/

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  For our mothers…

  1. The Captain

  This is the first, the last, the only Earth.

  Lewis Darby, “Constants of the Planetique”

  “We are not machines,” Captain addressed his passengers, “complacent in our servitude.” His fingers danced expertly across the controls as he spoke into his microphone. “Nor are we tools, consummated by functionality. We breathe and we yearn, and the beauty of our dreams…” he paused for effect, “…outweighs the pettiness of our limitations.”

  Far off the engines rumbled as countdown began.

  “I remind you, the blue sky is just a trick of light. Day: an illusion. Night is the truth. The great sea of stars beckons. Once there … only there …”

  Captain's voice trailed off. A stark melancholy seized his heart. He was thirty-nine years old now, still living in his mother's house in Kalansket, Indiana. The spacecraft was only an old refrigerator box he had crawled under. The microphone he spoke into was his fist. The pioneers on his vessel … all imaginary.

  Why was he still pretending? Why did he keep crawling under there, away from the world, into the dark, with all the world drowned out and his life but a dream?

  He knew.

  Then Captain regained his composure. “I may not make it there with you,” he confessed, his voice trembling, “but hope and ambition outlive everything.” He pressed buttons he had drawn on the interior of the cardboard box. The final sequence began. Thick gravitational forces smacked into his bones, and he fantasized the bones of a thousand brave companions. Ignition. Even inside the cockpit he could swear he smelled rocket fuel.

  A cool sweat trickled down his neck. His skin shook.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  * * *

  His real name was Lewis Darby, and he was a science fiction writer of some repute. He wasn't terribly famous, but he could easily pay his and his mother's bills, and for that he was glad. That he descended into the basement in the evenings once his mother was asleep to pretend he was a starship commander … well, no one knew that. But for as long as he could remember, he had been called Captain. He shared the name “Lewis” with his deceased father, so when he was young, to keep things simple, and because he was so enamored of space and rocket ships, his parents had somehow started calling him “Captain.” The name had stuck through elementary school, and even through high school, into his twenties, and now here he was, almost forty and still referring to himself with this title, and his mother did too. There was another reason for this. Captain hated his father and hated that he shared his name with the man and did everything he could to forget it.

  In the evenings, Captain would sit out on the front porch of his mother's house, watching the lights and people of Kalansket, listening to the soundtrack of cars and dogs barking as the sun stretched slowly out of the sky. They lived on a well-populated street, and there were a lot of families with children in the neighborhood. He liked to watch the children. He wished he was one of them.

  Maybe he was one of them.

  Through the street noises, he would just be able to hear the pleasant chatter of the sitcoms his mother watched. She was the keystone of his life. He lived in constant fear of her dying, and year by year, as she grayed and dimmed, this reality prowled closer and closer. It was unbearable when he thought about it. What will I do then? he thought. I don't want to be all alone.

  After awhile Captain would get bored of the evening and the insects and would go back into the house. Then he would read, usually from his extensive science fiction collection. The Golden Age writers of the forties and fifties were his favorite, of course, with their penchant for grandiose heroics painted across the stars.

  He couldn't see why everyone wasn't obsessed with prying open the sky. Just think of the wonders out there! Infinity waited. But everyone was content, instead, to lead a simple, mundane life here on Earth. Even Captain's mother had no interest in the vast questions of the galaxy. It all made Captain feel very sad and alone.

  This was his life. And day by day the years passed.

  * * *

  One morning everything changed. Captain awoke to an unpleasant odor wafting in through his window. He struggled out of bed and looked down onto the backyard, but saw nothing. Still, the smell was repugnant and unlike anything he had ever known.

  As he showered and got dressed, he forgot about the stench, his mind—as usual—drifting between various story ideas, and his stomach grumbling for breakfast. Downstairs he found his mother, Athra, at the kitchen table, eating toast and drinking tea, peering at the newspaper through her thick glasses.

  Athra smiled as he came in. “Good morning, Captain.”

  He smiled back. “Good morning, Mom.”

  Captain prepared cereal for himself. He looked at the time: eleven o'clock—a little later than he usually woke up, but he had been up late writing, his mind aflame with his new novel. Once his bowl of cereal was ready, he went back to the kitchen table and sat opposite his mother, who smiled and asked him what his plans were for the day.

  “I don't know,” he said. “Perhaps a bike ride.” His mood soured as he imagined another lonely day ahead of him, with nothing to do, nowhere to go, no friends to see. “I don't know.”

  “Well,” said Athra, “there's still time to sign up for grad school. You could become a professor if you wanted and go back to teaching … at a real university this time.”

  Captain swallowed down her suggestion. He used to teach at the local community college until—

  “I'm too old now for that,” he said. “And I've got money now because of my books …”

  “I know,” Athra said. “I'm just suggesting a way for you to …”

  Get back into the world.

  Captain stirred his spoon around his cereal, thinking deeply. Maybe I could go back to school, he thought. I could meet people. I could meet … someone new.

  “No, I'm busy with the new novel. I … maybe next year.”

  “That's what you said last year,” Athra argued.

  “
I know,” Captain mused. “I'll think about it. I really will.”

  Athra said nothing.

  * * *

  After breakfast, Captain rinsed out his cereal bowl and went back into his office, which had once been his father's office, a long, long time ago. He settled into a creaking, wooden chair behind a massive desk—both also once his father's—and leaned back dangerously, his heels lifting up off the ground. Using his toes he pushed himself around until he faced the rear window, where light came through in startling beams, and he could see out onto his mother's expansive flower garden. He took in the sight of the green grass and climbing elms and sighed, content … but also terribly sad.

  He spun back around until he faced the desk and sat forward again in his chair, picking up his latest manuscript and weighing it in his hands. It was thick already. The real world paled in comparison.

  Sighing again, he laid the manuscript back on the desk, waking the computer and loading up his file. Out of habit he turned on the swing music radio station he listened to every day. It crackled and a measured voice pitched out, starting in mid-sentence:

  “—strange astronomical phenomenon in the sky of the Northern Hemisphere over the past four days, and scientists have thus far been at a loss to explain it. Astronomers have located its source, somewhere near the planet of Venus, but their instruments have not described the occurrence consistently. All they can agree on is that the phenomenon is huge, and that it emits a strange frequency that has been described as 'a terrible roar.' When asked if this phenomenon is a danger to Earth, officials have been noncommittal. Even the president himself recognized and mentioned the bizarre color in the sky while he was making a speech at a rally today, making light of a phenomenon that has some very afraid …”

  Captain listened closely. He was always fascinated by astronomical information, but this anomaly made him especially excited. What was it? Where did it come from? There were always new questions when it came to outer space, which he found thrilling. But this time a new seriousness had overtaken the world, at least in his observations. On his bike rides for the past couple days he had noticed children pointing up at the sky, scared, and their parents hurrying them down the street. At the store yesterday, nearly all the canned goods were gone, having been bought up by people worried about the impending future. No one understood what the phenomenon was, or what it meant, or what would happen next, and this stirred fear among the population. Captain, however, felt a rush of adrenaline, something he rarely felt, and despite his hesitations, he was in awe of the manifestation. What is it? he wondered. What does it mean?

  The voice on the radio finished recapping the news and a song came on, one that Captain knew and loved, so he quickly forgot about the astronomical phenomenon and went back to his writing.

  * * *

  Hours passed as Captain typed and considered his story. Finally, feeling stiff, he raised up out of his seat and stretched, yawning loudly and wondering how he might distract himself from his work and do something less productive but more fun. It was past two o'clock now, and he was getting hungry again for lunch, so he decided to head into town and eat a sandwich.He said goodbye to his mother, who was in the backyard pruning her roses, and then opened the garage door and took his bike from its resting place, lifting his leg over the seat and stepping on the pedals.

  Gliding out of the garage, he whisked down the street. The sun was bright, and a light wind frolicked in the air. It was spring in Indiana, and he suddenly felt glad to be alive. He rode down through the streets, which were peaceful and quiet until he reached traffic and the town's main thoroughfare. Kalansket was not large, but it had many businesses and restaurants to visit on its main street, and people meandered up and down the sidewalks, dipping in and out of stores. It was a beautiful day, and despite the ominous color in the sky, most people were enjoying themselves, or running errands, or taking time with friends. It made Captain happy to be surrounded by other people, but also accentuated his solitude, and he wished he was accompanied or bound for a rendezvous.

  After locking up his bike, he entered a local café, which sat at a corner and bustled with late lunch customers. The host, who recognized Captain but did not know him, nodded in his direction and gestured at an empty table by the window. He sat. In a moment the waitress came over and greeted him; she was new, and he didn't recognize her. He wondered where the other waitress—a sweet, young woman he had a small crush on—had disappeared to. Sadly, he recognized the possibility that it was either the other waitress's day off, or she had perhaps quit or been fired, and he would never see her again.

  “I would like chicken salad, on rye, with mayo and mustard, and a tall glass of water,” Captain said as he struggled to smile at the new waitress, an older lady in her fifties. “And fries, please.”

  “Okay, honey, just give me ten minutes,” she said, writing in her notepad.

  The waitress left and Captain remained by himself. He stared out the window at the pedestrians as they walked by, innumerable personalities that he glimpsed both brightly and sorrowfully as he waited for his lunch. But then a sour feeling came over him. He felt like he was being observed and his eyes turned to a place across the street where he saw a young woman, watching him intently.

  She appeared to be Indian, but with lighter skin, and she had long, dark hair pulled back behind her shoulders. She was dressed strangely, somewhat out of time for a creature of her age—which looked to be about thirty—wearing a dated, gray jacket over an out-of-style white blouse, dark blue jeans that hugged the curve of her lower body, and toting a backpack like a student. He saw that she held a cigarette down in her right hand, smoke spiraling around her. The woman was beautiful. He caught his breath and warm electricity swirled inside him.

  As she noticed him noticing her, she turned around and headed in the opposite direction, disappearing down the street. Captain sighed, disappointed. It was a coincidence, just somebody on their cigarette break.

  When the waitress brought his meal, he was still thinking of the woman and as he ate, he continued to ruminate on her existence and his own loneliness. Why don't I ever meet a woman like that? he wondered. Why is my life … in stasis?

  He finished his meal and tried to forget about the woman, which he had difficulty doing. There had been something about her, something–off. But he forced his mind to change the subject, returning instead to a light depression over his solitary situation. He lived like a hermit, and he reaped what he had sown.

  He paid for his meal, stopped by the restroom, and then exited the café. He looked up and down the street for the woman he had seen, but she was nowhere. She was gone.

  * * *

  Captain didn't quite feel like going home yet, so he held off on unlocking his bike and instead strolled down the street, peering aimlessly into the shop windows, not really expecting anything to take his fancy, just distracting himself a bit. He passed a coffee shop where a pair of bearded guitar players was tuning up in front of a small audience and paused to observe. It's easier for instruments to be in tune than it is for people, he thought, looking at the duo. A moment later they started playing, casting earnest harmonies through the coffee shop and out onto the street. Captain thought for a moment of going in and sitting, but scanning the room he found that no tables were immediately empty—or empty enough for him.

  Ever restless, he turned and headed into the nearest store, which happened to be the neighborhood's used bookshop, a place he knew well. Inside he felt instantly more at peace. He could smell the old books and dust, the odors of knowledge, and the words of the dead waiting to be read. He smiled at the clerk, a small woman in her fifties dressed in an azure sweater with a pair of maroon glasses hanging around her neck. He didn't know her name, but he knew her face; her pink smile was reassuring, and the meticulous nature of her makeup reminded him of his mother. Still, there was a disquiet in his bones that he did not understand.

  He browsed, running his fingers over the spines of books and eyeing a
nd coveting each title. He might not have read all these books, but he knew of them—authors he'd heard of and novels he'd caught rumors about. It was his job to know the world of letters, and he took it seriously. He might not have read many romance novels, but he had some; he might not enjoy true crime mysteries, but he had read some of those too and was familiar with the genre's star authors. He had read Jorge Luis Borges with passion as a youth, and the poet's truths had fired in the chemicals of his mind ever since: all books are divine.

  He slipped a few off the shelves and decided to buy them: The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain; The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf; and a book on Aristotle (which he knew he would never read. He held the soft paperbacks in his hands, reassured, and went up to the clerk to pay.

  But as he did his eyes glanced out the window and—

  There she was again, the woman from earlier, standing across the street: not looking at him this time but instead turning her head left and right, watching the street for something. She wasn't smoking, either, and even though she was far away Captain could tell she was nervous. She shifted from one foot to the other, and her hands fussed anxiously with the edges of her jacket. Then she looked into the bookstore, but for some reason or another—perhaps the sun's glare on the window—she did not see him, or at least her eyes did not meet his.

  Captain was both apprehensive and curious. What's going on? He pulled out his wallet as the clerk tallied up his sale. It was only a couple bucks. He paid quickly and then asked the clerk if there was a back door to the store.

  “Um … yes … why?” The clerk eyed him, confused.

  “I-I think there's someone following me,” Captain said.

  “Oh!” said the clerk. “Yes. I'll show you. It's just like a novel!”

  “Yes,” Captain said, trying to share her enthusiasm, “it is.”

  They made their way to the back, until they reached a thick, iron door which was obviously the exit. It was a serious thing, foreboding.