“Gift Horse” by Robert Traxler The plain extends out to the recess of my vision. I follow a track set by a thin fissure, a crack etching out a new fault line. I keep moving ahead, following its path which is my path which will take me where I must go. The rest is periphery—rocky formations off to both my right and left—distant—somewhat closer on my left side, but the exact magnitude I don’t know. It would be easy to reach into my satchel, grab some device, aim it at the distant crags to the left, note the digits formed by process of mirrrolocation, point it to the right and compare the readings. I could do that, it would be extremely easy, but it would mean nothing. I could do it to occupy the time spent walking alone across a barren, cracked field of dust but the time spent thinking about doing it and thinking about not doing it has more meaning. This is how I pass my time. I try not to look to the sides, to the mountains or hills or outcroppings or scattered stones. They are periphery. They mean nothing. I move ahead. The dust rises with each footstep before some gravity pulls it gently back down. It is a thin layer and it drifts and slides about the plain, slowly but perceptibly, in gentle, oscillating patterns—waves of dust like the shallowest, driest sea—not cresting but shifting with the calm inevitability of tide and current. The dust rises with each step but I move confident that no trace of footprints will remain. Straight ahead, in the sky above the horizon, I pull seven stars apart from the rest to make a new constellation. Two stars to the left, two stars to the right in a reasonable facsimile of symmetry, with three stars running neatly down the middle. The four symmetrical, encompassing stars are hands and arms—Clytemnestra’s—clasping the sword of the three middle stars dripping with Agamemnon’s filthy blood. It could be anybody stabbing anyone else, I guess, but the skies of one world I’ve known had belonged to the Greeks, so another sky with other stars might as well take their names as any. I stop for just a minute, bend down, and touch my finger to the straight, jagged line I’ve been following. The tip of the index fits just enough to form a thin ring of dust around the thick polyfiber of glove. A distant, low hum pulses up into my arm in a steady suggestion of rhythm. It will grow in intensity the closer I get. The hum will grow into a weak vibration. That I can feel something now is a good sign. I get up, continue, and a few minutes later my transceiver beeps and a single speck of green flashes on my visor. I turn the knob and am greeted by a soft moment of static as the transceiver adjusts to the inbound signal. “Nest egg. Nest egg. . .” “Nest egg, copy. Gift horse.” “Gift horse, copy. I have attained Point A. Status.” “Status in progress.” “In progress, copy. Vector set for Point B. All channels silent until Point B attained.” “Silent, copy. Out.” “Out.” The filter swallows noise in a descending sweep as her voice cracks back into the transceiver, back into waves and aether and static. I sweep back the dial and close the channel. I look ahead and keep walking the path towards the horizon and the seven stars of hands and bloody sword. Perhaps I should have picked a less ominous image. It sounds so dire. It sounds worse than it is. But there is no sword where I am going—real or metaphorical. - I turn the transceiver off and look up at the tower. Any structure would tower over this barren plain, but this tower is not more than a few stories tall. This side is featureless except for a small vent near the top. This is my goal. First I remove the thin, gauze coverall from my satchel. It is packed into a tight square which I unfold and spread on the ground. Next I remove the tube of adhesive and place it beside the garment. I pick up the garment and peel it apart along the slit running down its back. I step inside, wrapping it as tightly as possible around my oxygen-suit, snapping sleeves, legs, and collar to the embedded fasteners. When it is correctly secured, the slit in back slowly readheres up to the base of my neck. I pick up the tube, push off the cap, and squeeze out one palmful of gel, spreading across the front of the smock and down the length of my body. I continue this process until I am frontwise covered in a thick, translucent layer of the unctuous paste. With the empty tube tucked neatly beneath a rock, I turn back to the wall and press myself into its smooth expanse, spreading my arms as wide as possible. I give a starting push from my boots and begin the process of jerking my arms and legs in arrhythmic flagellations. The process is made easier than would seem by the relatively low gravity in effect. The process is best described as a writhing—a writhing and a flailing—upwards along the face of the wall. There is just enough force in the sticky pull of the adhesive to return me flush against the wall’s surface as each spasmodic jerk pulls me momentarily away. In this fashion I scale the wall, making up for what I lack in grace with speed. I stop just beneath the vent. The gel holds me firm. While its grip is not perfect—I am, after all, sliding down the sheer precipice—it would take several months unimpeded to reach the bottom again. I can afford this respite. In fact, it is very much needed given the difficulty of what I must do next. The vent protrudes eight decimeters from the wall, whereupon its lower lip juts down at a forty-five degree angle from its base, making the transition from the wall require a bit more concentration. The very adhesive that enabled my ascent up to this point is now the complicating factor. Though it holds a solid grip once contact has been established, in conditions where contact has not been firmly established it can have the effect of causing slipperiness. The drop from this height, given the relative weakness of gravity and the armor of my suit, would not kill me; however, I would likely sustain damage to limbs or spine such as to prohibit mobility. When I am ready, I stretch back my left arm, angling my torso out slightly by pushing against the wall with my right. After a moment, I push off with my feet. My left hand reaches past the angled lip and grasps the base while my right arm arcs back, up and lands adjacent. I take advantage of the momentum from my legs as I pull myself up into the vent. Just a few meters in is the grate. I loosen the coverall to reach into my satchel and remove the gyro-ratchet which I use to unbolt the grate. I enter and lean it across the vent carefully bolting it back into place. Had I a tool that could assist in the jump, I would have used it, but this vent is made of conelium: non-magnetic and impervious to any tool or weapon I could fit in my satchel. I switch on my visor’s night-vectors as I step into the dark maze ahead. - Under static sky and stars, the landscape shifts slowly as rocks begin to appear on the ground ahead. First pebbles appear, scattered about in a mild gradient. The pebbles grow in frequency and then in size. Soon they are stones, rocks. The rocks meld into something like small boulders, scattered about. The landscape has inverted. I see flat plains at my sides. The rocks are before me. None are as large as the peripheral outcroppings once were, but they exist here now, around me. I stop at the faint sound of a click. I strain my ears, nerves tensed, and amplify my sensors. I don’t expect any encounters in this area, but neither do I expect sound. I unlock the weapon I didn’t expect to use, the weapon in whose use I am inproficient. Point B should eliminate most threats when reached, but we’re still in silence so she’s not there yet. I proceed more slowly, in caution and light tread. Nothing is moving, not even the dust between the barriers of rock. The stillness offers reprieve. I am safe in the stillness, but the source of this stillness—rocks, stones, walls—encloses danger. Each hidden niche holds a question whose ultimate answer is a trap, a snare, death. Moving I now hear a soft echo of footfalls among the rocks. My footsteps are faintly multiplied. In this new aural landscape, I pull out an area scanning device with my free hand, squeezing the control, sending radial waves tracing motion onto the handheld screen. It will work if I’m close enough. If I’m close enough will it matter? I hear another click. The screen still shows only one blinking green dot in the center, myself. I’ve trained the corner of my eye to keep tabs on the screen while I follow the wavering aim of my weapon back and forth across perspective. Two clicks, from opposing directions followed by a faint whirring sound. This is followed by crescendo, a chorus of clicks rising behind all rocks, in all directions. I am lifted, carried in a crowd of sound, while I remain alone on my screen. The clicks rise and fall, in step, out of phase, shifting and combining in a multitude of rhythms, all but encroaching on this isolated blip. Now I see it. A small machine peeks out from behind a boulder maybe fifteen meters ahead, thirty degrees to my right. Time empties itself as I shift to move my arm, to aim, to act. Time wavers, it constricts, compact, small, I reach for an instant, but that instant expands out of my grasp. My sight falters before the impact. I see it. The beam extends from the bot in a soft, bright spectrum until it meets my chest and I feel a burning pinpoint enclose my whole being. Glancing down, I see fabric, flesh, particles disintegrate. A ringing fills my ears from within. I taste metal. I smell roses. All senses dissolve into a profound emptiness. - I step past the ventilation fan and quickly pry off the wedge so the blades resume spinning. At just under a second, support systems will not register a malfunction. I remove the smock, crumple it, and squeeze it into a crack at the base of the fan. I turn and proceed slowly down the length of the duct’s narrowing corridor. It twists in a wide, angular spiral as I move towards the tower’s center. The walls of the duct are featureless. They slope inward until the first corner I turn. By the time the walls run flat, I must continue on arms and knees. Before crouching, I unhook the satchel from my hip and refasten it to my chest. I do not have far to go insomuch as distance is concerned, but this suit is bulky and the space is cramped. An hour passes, I turn another corner, I begin to see narrow slats on my left. Dim light seeps into the shaft. I begin to count each aperture. Preliminary calculations direct me to the ninth. Shortly after the sixth aperture, the tunnel forks with a path leading off to the right. I continue straight ahead but after three decameters I encounter a dead end with a shaft opening below in a straight, vertical drop. This is not expected. Are the schematics we utilized in planning this mission wrong? Is intelligence faulty? I look over the edge into the descending shaft and see no bottom, no features other than the four straight, smooth walls. I cannot move forward. I am now crawling backwards, moving by feel alone. Progress before had been slow, now it is much slower. It takes me about twice the time to trace the distance backwards, back to the fork where I can continue down the second path. Schematical studies indicated that maintaining a leftward direction at all branches would lead me to the proper sector for Point B. Was this duct omitted from the schematics, is it new, vestigial? What hidden purpose could it hold to keep it apart from the other ventilation ducts and their documentation? Unless, again, our intelligence is faulty. Continuing on my new path, I now see another aperture ahead. Seven. I move forward with a renewed yet tentative confidence. With unknown variables now in play, I must exercise caution. I pass the aperture, the slits of light. The tunnel narrows again, just a little bit. My movement becomes even more constricted. I am not trapped, I still move forward, though still more slowly. It takes another hour to make it through to the next two apertures. I arrive at my assumed destination and peer as best I can through the narrow slits of light at the white hallway below. I take a minute but see no signs of activity. There is just enough room to twist my forearm and reach into the satchel to grab the gyro-ratchet and unscrew the grate. I slide it quietly to the side, pushing it forward and away from my body. I squeeze myself through the opening and pull myself into the hallway head-first. At my hips, I flip my torso up to pull out my legs and descend to the floor. I drop silently, slowly, maintaining a lookout towards both ends of the hall. I remove the suit and stuff it back into the vent. I pull the grate back in place without bothering to bolt it back in. I ready my light-slicer and move softly down the hall. I look into the first room on my right as I pass, gathering my bearings. It looks to be a mini-kitchen or break-room with a few appliances and a food actualizer. This is expected. I seem to be on the right track. Farther down is a door to my left. It is shut but a sign indicates that it is a janitorial supply closet. This is also expected. The room I am looking for should be at the end of the hall. I reach the jamb and set my back firmly against the wall. I point my reflectograph at the wall opposite me. I read the presence of two men (I retract the assumption—two humanoids—they are expected to be men, but this detail will not be confirmed until I have made proper visual contact with the subjects) are occupying the space within the room. What I must do next is critical. Killing them will be easy, even if detected first; however, giving my presence away, giving them the opportunity, with one push of one button our entire mission is jeopardized, whether they survive or not. Stealth is paramount. I lock into their positions, return the reflectograph to my satchel, and prepare my attack. - I emerge from the transporter with a sensation of electricity and razors splitting apart my brain. My tongue is dry and swollen. I feel the faint remnant of a fire burning through my chest. I stumble against the door and rest until control of my faculties and ideation are restored. A minute passes and I take a glance back over the transporter. The damage is worse than I’d remembered. She’d assured me we’d be fine to disembark after completing our mission, but with the gravital cortex dented like that and the plethoric masses of exposed wire I don’t see how. But this is not in the domain of now. Now I must resurrect the journey that was interrupted. I step away from the ship and enter the vast expanse of dust and stars, thinking back to the last time just a few hours ago. She offered the hoversport, I elected to walk. She left in her own hoversport as I followed behind in the rapidly increasing distance. I check my transceiver’s history. We’re still in silence. I’ll hear from her later. In less time than I’d imagined, I’m back at the approach of pebbles, rocks, and boulder. I crouch behind the first stone large enough to conceal me and begin scanning with my device. There are no readings; of course, I know the ultimate merit of that datum. I proceed slowly, taking cover wherever possible, running scans on the device. It’s not long before I come across my body, collapsed and twisted and dead. The corpse is mostly intact except for the hole exposing my chest cavity. The face is distorted, but that could be my face—the face of someone staring down at their own dead body, as a mirror of decomposing flesh. I say “decomposing” and that is accurate, but it will take close to four-hundred years to finish its decomposition, in this atmosphere. I know not to stare too long, lest it engulf me. I move on. I find it somewhat strange not to have encountered this same machine who destroyed me. I haven’t even heard a sound. I move from rock to rock, kicking up dust and scattering pebbles and crouching and scanning and breathing the heavy breath of someone within an inch of their life. But I am alone again. Not even my corpse is around anymore, just my own self. And I leave behind the stone outcroppings and return to flat field and fissure. More time passes. My constellation hangs before me. A small beacon stands askew, blinking. I approach, pass the steady red beat of its emitter before a new feature begins to dominate the landscape. A lake opens up to my right whose shore moves very close to my shepherding fissure. I walk along the shoreline for a bit and stare across the smooth surface of some aubergine liquid spreading nearly to the horizon. Reflected ahead of me, I see a sword pointed back up at the sky. A shape forms floating meters out. In it I see a back, an arm, a leg, mostly submerged, amorphous in its protean form. It could be a body floating by. It could be just the lingering impression of having seen my own corpse so recently. It could be. . . something else drifting out there. I couldn’t say what though. A thin fog begins to seep from the surface in wisps and draws away my attention. Moving forward, looking forward, I pass the shore, the lake and am back over the featureless expanse of plains. I walk along in a shroud of stasis. Time alone passes. Static arrives in a brief, sharp squall quickly diminishing into a soft, sustained, soothing hum. Silence is broken. “Nest egg. . .” “Nest egg, copy. Gift horse.” “Gift horse, copy. I have attained Point B. Terminating silence.” “Point B, copy.” “What is your status on Ranch C?” “I am still in progress. Have not reached Ranch C. Will report back when I’ve reached Ranch C.” “In progress, copy. Awaiting status fulfilled. Out.” “Out.” - The two bodies are stretched out and draining their blood on the floor, directly at my feet. I switch off the transceiver. We have time. I can stay here performing maintenance operations with a periodic combination of buttons, at designated intervals, for up to a week before Base Central catches on. I do not wish to overextend my duration in these confined quarters, but will make use of this reprieve as offered. He also knows we have time. That is why he decided to walk; that is why I will be sitting here, waiting. I may be making it sound worse than it is. I am not used to waiting too much, but I could make use of this reprieve. The bodies in the middle of the floor pose an immediate nuisance. I drag each body halfway down the hall to the supply closet starting with the one closest at hand. The door is locked. I find the keycard attached to his belt, take it, and wave it in front of the latchport before placing it in my own pocket. The door slides open and I set the first body within. I drag the second and place it atop the first. The door slides shut. I return to the control room, stepping past the pooled streaks of blood and sit down at the console. I recite the memorized key combinations and then press them in order, sending out evidence of facilities at normal operating capacity. With the first round complete, I switch on the transciever and retune the frequency. As the static emerges, I begin to repeat my identifier until I receive confirmation. “Nest egg, copy. The house.” “The house, copy. Point B attained. Gift horse in progress. Awaiting further status.” “Point B, copy. In progress, copy. Out.” “Out.” The sound fades away and I lean back in this padded office chair looking at the readouts traversing the array of screens in front of me. Most of it means nothing to me, but I look for occasional fragments of meaning. After sitting, staring for a little while, I get up and walk back down the hall to have a look in the mini-kitchen. Perhaps they have something more palatable than semi-rehydrated protein sticks. I open the vacuum box and flip through the stacks of organo-potable matter. I find one that looks to have a relatively high concentration of green marbling. I select it and slide it into the food actualizer. The slot flashes and subsides in a subdued orange glow; I remove the disc. It is more palatable than my current rations so I fully eat its contents and return to the chair in front of the screens and network of buttons. I have time before I am required to press these buttons again. With my alarm set for five hours, I allow sleep to take over me. A sound awakens me, but I slowly start to realize it is not the alarm. It is a broken voice, repeating. . . repeating. . . Static. I reach for the dial. “Gift horse. . . Gift horse. . . Gift horse. . .” “Gift horse, copy. Nest egg.” “Nest egg, copy. Ranch C in line-of-sight. Approaching now. Status fulfilled. Expect touch in a minute.” “Fulfilled, copy. Out.” “Out.” I leave his voice and begin preparations at the console to receive touch. - Looking up, the rectangular façade of the energy works looms ahead. Looking down, my corpse stretches out, half-twisted with glazed eyes and dissolved torso. I don’t remember that one. I must be losing it. Beads of sweat begin to form on my neck and forehead. I adjust atmospheric controls lest my visor begin to fog up. I take a slow, deep breath and move towards my destination, following the crack that leads right to its base. I reach the wall and the large door with its panel tucked into a shallow recess to the right. There is something else to the left, another corpse slumped over against the wall. I approach against weakening force of legs gradually dissolving into jelly or foam or some quivering mass of nerves and trepidation. I nudge the shoulder. Though the top of the skull is completely shattered, the face is intact enough to recognize my face. It’s another corpse, another death I can’t remember. How many are there? Have I littered the surface of this desolate world with a string of broken cadavers strewn haphazardly about? A thin sound emits from deep in my throat and I lean an arm against the wall as I steady myself, holding back a rush of bile. It’s not the sight of my corpses. I have no qualms—I mostly have no qualms about staring into my own dead face. It’s the void in memory, the fact that I have no recollection of these deaths or any branch of time leading up to them. . . and their volume. None of this is insignificant. But I must face this chasm of anamnesis, allay my breathing, and walk across the span of the large door. I am finding my lost nerves. I touch the panel. The glowing pulses start red and after a few seconds switch to a soft, welcoming blue. There is a groaning of dirt and steel as the door begins to slide apart, a motion it is not often asked to make. I step through the parted maw and enter what looks like a vast, dark warehouse. I make to turn on my beams, but a faint flicker begins to show over my head, strengthening with each step, with each step following my path, passing light from one bulb to the next before ghosting back into a shadow. Their luminescence is never bright, but it is enough to see. As my eyes adapt, the stillness of the warehouse transforms into the perpetual motion of a factory. Gigantic pistons fill the room, rising, falling, turning, yet only issuing the softest sighs of susurration. It is here where the core of this spheroid is being drained, hollowed into a cracking shell, though not yet, not yet hollow. It still has decades to go before it collapses on itself into an even more useless, dead husk floating through space. A new source of light emerges. Around each piston, three rings in series glow in turn, starting from bottom to top, repeat, hovering around the middle third section. No other aspect of their functioning changes. But the lights dance with me, above me, as I move through the room. There is no discernible logic to their triplicate rhythm; is it merely decorative? An ornamental tattoo silently tapping my welcome amidst their heretofore mechanized solitude? I feel not alone in their austere, rigid presence. Soon the circumscribed pistons thin out and an open space spreads beneath the vaulted ceiling. In the center is a small, frustopyramidal platform with a spotlight shining down directly on it. I cover the distance and step up onto its base. I approach the small console arising from a stem fixed directly in the center of this square base. I place my hands at its sides and examine the inlaid features. On the left side is a single green button. In the center is a square formation jutting out at an angle from the faceplate but perpendicular with the floor. On the right side is a small numeric keypad with a thin screen above. The screen reads “READY” and the green button is glowing brigtly. I remove the datacube from my satchel—the single most important item of this mission, that which I have spent the past eight months crafting. With security standards such as they are, infecting any system with a virus is a nearly impossible task. Detection and inoculation would be nearly immediate and absolute. This is not, in strict terms, a virus. It will serve the core architecture with the best of intentions, the loftiest resolve. Herein lies its crippling power, its insidious, innocent hook. It will try, will help for a while; it will serve with use and purpose across multiple procedures within the kernel, across a multitude of systems on the network, for a while. It will try and it will work and it will work out and it will, eventually, fail. It will fail and it will bring a vast array of functionality across the galaxy irreparably crashing down with it—these seventy-three lines of code inflicted on this unmanned mining station on this remote, desolate, insignificant ball hurtling through some presumed orbit in some system I couldn’t be bothered to learn the name of. I hold up the cube and the data passes quickly, invisibly through two inches of empty air. The green button stays green but stops its glow. The screen freezes on a line of asterisks. My work is done. I tap the dial and send signal out across the plains to my partner waiting in an isolated tower some kilometers distant. “Gift horse, copy. Nest egg.” “Nest egg, copy. In Ranch C. I am accepted and the lush pastures are green.” “Green pastures, copy. We will now rendezvous at null.” “Null, copy. Out.” “Out.” - I skim crossing over the surface on my hoversport as I return to rendezvous at the ship. I am certain to arrive first, but that is mostly convenient as I will need to make preparations before takeoff. Some minor repairs may need attending to as the transporter sustained a minimal threshold of damage on impact. All of this should be standard, but the time afforded will be auspicious. The journey is mostly flat, but I now pass through a short ridge of diminutive mountain and cross back to a stretch of plains. Up ahead is a cluster of boulders dotting the landscape. I skirt around it but something out-of-place catches my attention and I move in closer. I dismount and see what I had most feared. It is him. He is lying supine with an extirpative laser-cannon wound lacerating the entire upper-chest region. For final verification I check the serial number underneath the collar and confirm a match. I check each compartment of his satchel and register the datacube safe within. He must have encountered a stray sentry that missed the disengage signal on his way back from the successful mission. It feels a waste and I feel a remote sadness that I keep remote as I pull his body over the back of the hoversport and tie it down before proceeding to engage a single-sided rendezvous. Upon reaching the transporter, I immediately make a call out. “Nest egg, copy. The house.” “The house, copy. Green pastures attained. Green pastures attained. Success. But Gift horse is down. I repeat, success but Gift horse is down.” “Green pastures, copy. Gift horse down, copy. Do you maintain Gift horse on premises.” “Affirmative, Gift horse on premises. I am ready to return.” “Ready, copy. Out.” “Out.” I find an empty container in the under-hold and stow the body inside. I latch it firmly with lock and lower it gently back in the under-hold. I survey the damage. As expected, it is minimal. I should be able to make it back at least to the way-station without any need for repairs. I gather a few empty panels and cover a few exposed gaps as a precautionary measure and clear the chassis of ground. I board the transporter, drop the gate, and seat myself at the cockpit. The transporter lifts, glides for a moment just over the ground, then traces a parabolic curve asymptotically approaching the orthogonal. I pull gently from gravity and begin to trace an arcing path through the inert naught of space. I move with leisure, postponing as long as possible the bout of paperwork awaiting, scheduled to fill the time until my next mission. - Leaving the works, I turn back to get one last, imbuing look at my constellation, the arms, the sword, the blood, embodying a microcosm of justice—these seven points of light. This story, like all those Greek stories, is an old story. People still tell them sometimes, but people are not always around, not always listening. Agamemnon was a pig. He murdered his daughter like a craven beast just to run off to some foreign place to wage a pointless, exhaustive war with no other guiding purpose than the shame of his cuckolded brother. He spent years murdering his own and other men, women, and children. He spent years in command over death and attrition. And the Greeks thought he was some great hero, because finally at the last moment, he murdered a few more people, in the heart of their city in pillage and rape. So he came home. But Clytemnestra, his wife, didn’t think he was so great. She saw her daughter’s blood. She felt his cowardly absence. She cut him open with a sword as soon as he returned in a display of righteous accord. Still, Agamemnon remained beloved by the Greeks. Here we disagree and it becomes apparent how little I have in common with those Greeks save standing alone on an empty world finding names and stories for a few scattered projections of stars in our skies, out of boredom and the very tedium of our insipid worlds. I take my fill of this vision and turn around to leave him there in the sky, being murdered in perpetua. Walking back I pass the bodies, more this time. They are multiplying around me. How could I have not seen them before? How could I have even died this many times since we’d landed? Most of them can’t be me. It’s a trick of the imagination or of something else. I continue not to look, to let them blur by as the scenery off a speeding hoversport. I keep my eyes fixed straight ahead, following the crack and nothing else. It is a ladder I climb, my eyes on one continuous rung with each limb put forward. In this way I continue, shut off to my thoughts and surroundings, as best I can be. Eventually, after much time, all of my senses return with a start. Here lies the scarred and scorched earth of a crash, but there is no transporter occupying the shallow, rutted ground. I gather my bearings to make sure this is indeed the right spot, our point of departure and rendezvous. All data confirms my hunch that in my trance I neither walked too far nor too short but am exactly where I’m supposed to be, only the ship is not. She must have. . . she must have seen one of the bodies (or maybe just one, just the one body I remember) and presumed me dead and left as is within all reason and protocol. I signal out from the transceiver but receive no response. With care, I remove my helmet, place it on the ground beside me, and breathe deep. I step out from the rest of the oxygen-suit and raise my arms before me. A kaleidoscopic swirl of colors pulses in and on my skin, down and through and up and across my wrists and forearms and palms and hands. I hold them up higher against the sky and marvel at their motion and color and spinning beauty against the dark canvas of perpetual twilit hues and thin streaks of vapor and the countless pinholes of backlight shining out from millions of tiny stars, but the focus remains on the shifting, pulsing, radiating color that moves in waves and ebb across the surface and subcutaneous layers of my skin.