Part 1 is here: Coming of age, 2484
Dervlah sits in silence. For the first time in her life, all she could hear was the sound of her own body. Nothing else. In Space, silence means death. With none of that fancy machinery around to keep her alive, Death comes stalking.
The cart named Kit wasn’t really dead, but everything that moved within it was. Kit had an enormous amount of energy wound tightly around the conduction coil in the back. But that energy was silent.
‘If I take no action, Death will come. But how is that different to living?’
Dervlah realises her eyes are closed only when everything turns orange red. Slightly flashing as though someone was shining a light at her. She opens her eyes, wipes away the gathered tears, to see someone shining a light at her. From another cart. In space.
With every thing shut down, the light begins to blink. ‘I think it’s morse!’
MORSE_CODE_DICT = {
'A': '.-', 'B': '-...', 'C': '-.-.', 'D': '-..', 'E': '.',
'F': '..-.', 'G': '--.', 'H': '....', 'I': '..', 'J': '.---',
'K': '-.-', 'L': '.-..', 'M': '--', 'N': '-.', 'O': '---',
'P': '.--.', 'Q': '--.-', 'R': '.-.', 'S': '...', 'T': '-',
'U': '..-', 'V': '...-', 'W': '.--', 'X': '-..-', 'Y': '-.--',
'Z': '--..',
'0': '-----', '1': '.----', '2': '..---', '3': '...--',
'4': '....-', '5': '.....', '6': '-....', '7': '--...',
'8': '---..', '9': '----.',
' ': '/'
}
inverted_dict = {v: k for k, v in MORSE_CODE_DICT.items()}
text = ''
for code in morse_code.split(' '):
if code in inverted_dict:
text += inverted_dict[code]
else:
text += code‘R U OK’. ‘Am I ok? Well I’m not sure. No I’m not ok. Why are you shining a light on me. Is the vastness of Space, the great beyond not enough to get a bit of, well a bit of space?’ Apparently not.
Fingers start pushing in the circuit breakers, one by one. A quarter the way in, the alarms start their clamour. Three quarters of the way through, they cease, but the noise. The whoosh of the air filter is back. The tics and buzz of electronics and heaters are back. The sound of life is back.
The click of the radio is back. ‘Cart named Kit, cute. Eh, cart named Kit, this is Punice, do you hear me?’
‘Punice? What the hell is he doing here? I better respond. Hmmmm. Oh yes’:
‘Fuck you, Punice Milord.’
Continued in Coming of age, 2484 (4)