Free Forbidden the Stars by Valmore Daniels

Alliras swore; it was becoming a mantra.
    Another technician reported, “All other objects identified as equipment from the survey team. Tools, rations, other accouterments.” Specific details at this point was lost on Michael and the others.
    “What about the TAHU?”
    “No sign, sir.”
    “Recover everything out there,” Michael directed. “I want a detailed report and autopsy on my desk by nine tomorrow.”
    The probe would magnetize the objects and drag them back to the Canuck Flyer , the mining orbiter, a large complex the surveyors used as a way station between Luna and the asteroids. With hundreds of engineers and processing technicians on board at any given time, there was a more than adequate mechanical and chemical laboratory, as well as an experienced medical staff on hand, more than qualified to perform the necessary procedures.
    “What happened to Alex Manez?” Alliras said, but no one ventured an answer.
    Michael, his body stiff, turned from the operations room and headed for the conveyor.
    *
    Alliras accompanied him down the hall. When Michael punched the up button for the conveyor, intending to ride to the seventeenth floor where his office was located, Alliras said, “I think I’ll go home to my wife, if that’s all right.”
    “I wish I could do the same,” Michael said in a soft voice. “Right now, I have to write a press release for the media, and I have a few unpleasant calls to make to Margaret and Gabriel’s families.”
    “I don’t envy you that task. By tomorrow, SMD stock might well be worthless.”
    When the Alliras’s conveyor arrived first, he shook Michael’s hand. “I’m truly sorry about all this. I hate to sound clinical, but unless we can find out what that element your surveyors found on Macklin’s Rock, there’s no upside to this. The media will eat us for breakfast. We’ll lose our funding and our charter.”
    “I know. Take care, Alliras. See you tomorrow.” “I’ll stop by mid-morning, if that’s all right.”
    “Just fine. Convey my apologies to Angela.”
    “I will. Try to get some sleep tonight yourself.”
    “Right.”
    Alliras stepped inside the conveyor tube. He nodded and tried to give Michael a smile as the doors shut.
    The second tube arrived, and Michael rode it up to the top floor of the building.
    *
    In his office, he place two commlink calls. One to the Manez Family, and one to the Sheridans, and expressed his condolences as best as he could for the loss of their children and for their missing grandchild.
    He then typed a short press release or the media, posted it on the Associated Press Mesh Board, Highest Priority, then turned off his computer, opened the liquor cabinet and withdrew a bottle of scotch. He poured himself a stiff measure in a plastic coffee cup.
    After a quarter of an hour, he placed a commlink call to his home.
    “Hey, babes,” he said when his wife, Melanie, answered.
    “You’re still at work?” she asked.
    “Yeah. I think I might be a while. All-nighter. Gotta be here in case they find anything.”
    “What’s wrong?”
    Michael had to take a deep breath, and then he filled her in. They talked over the link for three hours.
    He made sure to tell her he loved her before hanging up.
    Michael finally stretched out on the couch in his office to try to catch a few winks.
     

__________
     
    Unknown :
     
    Disconnected.
    Free falling.
    Force of pressure.
    The depths of space.
    Lost in the farthest reaches.
    Found by the light of Sol.
    All things seen as if one.
    Nothing is possible when everything is gone.
    Feeling his way through the morass of darkness.
    Screaming against the vast vacuum of madness and pain.
    Sailing with the solar wind as guide to his destination.
    For one instant he feels the power of all.
    The next moment the call comes to him.
    It is power; it is for him.
    The beacon of a million stars.
    The shores of all consciousness.
    The signal is Home.
    It calls him.
    Come,