Excerpt: Solipsist

I don’t know why I’m even talking right now. I guess hearing a human voice is comforting in this vacuum, even if it is my own voice. But when I think about it, anyone that could hear this isn’t anyone I want to hear it. Brink and Pilate are all that’s left of us, and if my home is destroyed by those bastards, then they’re the only ones left who could intercept this transmission. Those bastards. You bastards. Do you hear me? Remember my name, because I’m the one that got away. Not that it matters anyway.

Because none of us are ever getting away from this.

Don’t you understand? I don’t know why you think this is a game. And honestly, I know nothing of the war—my father would never talk about it. All I know is the humans at Embros would be ashamed of you. All those decades ago, that first colony had so much hope. And all you want to do is destroy? What could you possibly want from us? I guess I would tell you that Brink is peaceful by choice, but you know that’s not true. You know we’re weak. You know we have nothing to stop you. Is that why you insist on imperialism? What the hell is there to be imperialistic about? You don’t understand. We’re monsters. I wish you could just dream with us. Because on Brink, we’re the dreamers. And dreaming is just a safer place to be.

But then I guess I have to think about that. What am I doing all the way out here? I don’t belong here. I belong on Brink, dreaming about Unknown. But I guess I just ran out of things to dream about. I grew up. Once my wife died, I had nothing. And that’s what you have to understand—I’ve exhausted all of my options. I’ve even lowered my standards and gone for those options, but there is nothing. That’s why I did this. There’s nothing left for me to do. But I don’t know why the hell I’m explaining myself to you. Maybe this is all just a rationalization for me. Still, it sickens me to know that these wistful musings will meet only the ears of Pilate. You make me sick.

I’m sick. I feel sick. I don’t know what it is—it doesn’t matter to me. I want to die, so maybe it’s fatal. Wouldn’t that be nice? I’m sure you don’t enjoy listening to these deathly thoughts, but if you’ve come this far, then I suppose it doesn’t matter how morbid I get. The interesting thing is that I don’t know why I’m so distraught. I loved my father very much, but it was time for him to die. Everyone’s father dies. That would never be enough to make me do this. The fact that he died young isn’t really the issue. The death of my wife was of course devastating, but what you have to understand is that I never loved my wife—I was very fond of her, but I don’t believe I ever loved her. And ever since Hazen and I fought that last time, I’ve been bothered by that, but for the life of me I still can’t figure what would throw me over the edge and make me leave like this. Not that there’s any going back. I suppose I shouldn’t dwell on my convictions. And if you hail from where I think you might, it’s certainly not important to me that you understand them anyway.

In the end, all that’s left for me is my father’s craft. And that’s fitting enough, I think. She was my earliest love, this war-torn machine, hull blackened and scarred by combat. But for all her imperfections, she’s beautiful to me. Perhaps that’s what we have to understand about life, that no matter how tattered something is, no matter how hopeless something is, there is always hope. In that way, I suppose I should hope that I find some habitable planet in this directionless voyage, but ultimately I think there has to be a point to hope. If I were to, by some miracle, happen upon an empty planet, I would simply die there instead of here. There is no intrinsic nobility in the beating of a heart. Creatures of all kinds do that without the help of sentience. In fact, I happen to find sentience to be a curse.

So please, don’t ever let anyone tell you that life is noble simply because it is a life. For the same reason that I don’t respect a man for his prestige, I do not respect a life just because it exists. A life is made noble by the things that it does, the lives that it touches. If all that’s happened to me could be blamed on one person, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill that man, to break his limbs, to crush his skull like his actions have caved in on mine. Because that is not a noble man, and on this point I will not bend. I know I’m a coward for what I am, but I’ve done everything I can. In the long run, even the noblest of souls can work their bodies and minds to the breaking point and never make a difference.

Because sometimes the world doesn’t move.