Obelisks book one, p.1
Obelisks, Book One, page 1
OBELISKS
Book One: Dust
By Ari Marmell
A Macabre Ink Production
Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Crossroad Press digital edition 2022
Copyright © 2022 Ari Marmell
ISBN: ePub Digital Edition – 978-1-63789-763-8
ISBN: Trade Paperback Edition - 978-1-63789-762-1
LICENSE NOTES
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Meet the Author
When Ari Marmell has free time left over between feeding cats and posting on social media, he writes a little bit. He’s been a storyteller since childhood, something he did frequently in lieu of schoolwork. His professional endeavors include novels, scripts, short stories, role-playing games, video games, and the occasional dirty limerick. He’s worked with publishers such as Del Rey, Pyr Books, Wizards of the Coast, Titan Books, Aconyte, and now Crossroad Press.
Ari currently resides in Austin, Texas. He lives in a clutter that has a moderate amount of apartment in it, along with George—his wife—and the aforementioned cats, who probably want something.
You can find Ari online, if you’re not careful.
Website: mouseferatu.com
Twitter: @mouseferatu
Facebook: facebook.com/mouseferatu/
Bibliography
Novels Available from Crossroad Press
Obelisks
Obelisks: Dust
Obelisks: Ashes (forthcoming)
Other
The Iron Devils
Other Novels
The Corvis Rebaine Novels
The Conqueror’s Shadow
The Warlord’s Legacy
Mick Oberon Jobs
Hot Lead, Cold Iron
Hallow Point
Dead to Rites
In Truth and Claw
The Widdershins Adventures
Thief’s Covenant
False Covenant
Lost Covenant
Covenant’s End
Other Novels
The Abomination Vault (Darksiders)
Agents of Artifice (Magic the Gathering)
Ash and Ambition
Bloodstone: Awakening (Bloodstone) (forthcoming)
Gehenna: The Final Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)
The Goblin Corps
In Thunder Forged (Warmachine)
Litany of Dreams (Arkham Horror)
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Author’s Note
Getting a book from concept to shelves is a long process. As I write this foreword, it’s already been a couple of years since the first draft of this novel.
As I write this foreword, people are dying in Ukraine because the monster who currently rules Russia values his own ego over human life.
I don’t know what the situation will be when Obelisks hits shelves, let alone at the near future point where the story is set. I don’t know if the invasion/occupation will be over, I don’t know what international relations with Russia will look like, I don’t know what the Russian space program will look like. I can only write what I know to be the case now, and what I hope will be the case later.
Right now, Russia remains an integral part of the ISS program, their cosmonauts an integral part of the mission crews. I hope that in the near future, the people of Russia and Ukraine both will be rid of the monster. So Obelisks will run with that, and remain as it was written.
Content Warning
Many of you are familiar with my other novels.
Obelisks is very, very much not like those. Very. So, for those who appreciate such things, I’m including a content warning. If you prefer to skip these to avoid spoilers, please page ahead now.
CW: Violence, graphic injury, body horror, drug use, prolonged illness, suicide, dead animals, dead infants, pedo/hebephilia (though anything explicit remains “offscreen”), gaslighting and manipulation, slurs and bigotry, catcalling.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
* * *
Tomorrow the world would end. Tonight they had guests.
Flight Engineer Cynthia Han idly studied the white metal of the mating dock and worked to keep herself still. Fidgeting would be a good way to set herself spinning or tumbling or otherwise looking the fool. She settled for double-checking that her ponytail—what passed for high fashion in low orbit—wasn’t crooked.
“Tell me again,” she asked, as two-thirds of Expedition 81 floated and bobbed across the length of Node 2, “why the Sunday best?”
Cynthia, along with Commander Clarence Walker, and Kolya Rybalkin of Russia’s Roscomos space program, had formed as near a line, shoulder to shoulder, as the inconveniences of microgravity would permit. The fourth, Hashida Natsuhiko—easily the smallest of them, but having claimed he’d met the Japanese space program’s minimum-height requirements solely through positive thinking—was hunkered down, feet in stirrups to hold himself in place, at the robotic workstation. From there, he operated the grappling arm and coordinated with the incoming capsule.
All were dressed, not in the casual wear that was normal working attire on the International Space Station, but in their official mission jumpsuits, complete with flags and expedition patches.
“They’re our first guests,” Walker said, apparently unbothered by the fact that he was repeating himself. “We’re being good hosts.”
Cynthia had the discipline, and a respect for the commander she offered few others, neither to roll her eyes nor sigh. Barely.
Nobody was ready for Clarence Walker’s voice the first time they heard it. Not only was the Expedition Commander six-foot-three with shoulders so broad you could crucify a smaller man on them, he was also a former Marine. Natsuhiko said once that he didn’t follow the commander so much as orbit him. The day they’d met, several years and several missions ago, Cynthia had expected James Earl Jones when Walker opened his mouth. Or at least Keith David.
What she’d heard, instead, was more Morgan Freeman on a really quiet day. It hadn’t taken her long, though, to recognize why. Commander Walker spoke softly because he damn well expected you to pay attention, to jump when he ordered it, if that was your job. If you didn’t? That soft voice was worse than any shout.
None of which, nor the esteem in which his crew held him, meant they wouldn’t question or complain or even snark when the situation was anything less than dire.
“No, I get that. But Ethan’s spent more time up here than most of us,” she countered. “We don’t need to impress him. The others are an amateur…” She tried and failed to keep the distaste from her mouth; Cynthia’s opinions on “corporate astronauts” wasn’t precisely a secret. “…and a tourist.” With that one, she didn’t even try.
“Pilot,” the commander corrected her. “And the preferred term is ‘space flight participant.’”
“My preferred term—”
“He’s also funding several of our experiments, he’s the reason we’re seeing Ethan again, and most of all, his presence was approved, so we’re going to be respectful.”
Approved. Like NASA had a choice. As long as they were dependent on private companies or Russian craft for travel and supplies, they had little option but to put up with whomever their partners sold seats to. She caught the hint of tightening in Clarence’s tone, though. Best not push any further. Instead, she checked her ponytail again—her
“Somebody has to actually do work around here.”
“Trust me, Clarence, this is work.”
Kolya snorted. “I think they probably think to offer bribe before we do,” he said through an accent not quite as thick as the airlock. “Next time, we must be more quick.”
“I accept cash, allotments of breakfast packets, and sriracha,” Walker offered. Then, “Cynthia? I know you don’t take this seriously, but please. ‘Commander Walker’ while our guests are here, okay?”
Wow, if she’d barely kept her expression polite and still before… “All right. Since you asked so nicely.”
“I’m so—”
“Docking successful.” Natsuhiko’s announcement was punctuated by a heavy clang that reverberated throughout the ISS. No accent there that Cynthia had ever noticed. Despite English not being his first language—or second, or possibly even third—nobody would guess he wasn’t a native speaker. The two Russians occasionally accused him of witchcraft. “Seals look good. I think we can welcome our guests with only a tiny chance of losing them all to the vacuum of space.”
“All I can ask for,” Walker said. “Shall we?”
Buttons were pushed, latches were unlatched, and the hatchway finally swung inward. A quick gust shot through Node 2 (“Harmony” to the PR folks), a puff of air just a bit cooler, with the faint metallic, almost gunpowder tang so common to space travel.
The first of the new arrivals expertly shot through the opening, catching and orienting himself on a handrail. He wasn’t quite as tall as Walker, though his lanky frame made him look it, or quite as old. Despite his relative pallor, he’d have been a strikingly handsome man if he’d had anything resembling a chin. As it was, Cynthia decided with an inward smile, she wouldn’t be the one to tell him the new goatee didn’t hide the lack.
“Commander Walker,” he said in greeting.
“Doctor Bell.” Walker extended a hand. “Welcome back.”
“What is this?” Kolya demanded in mock outrage. “No ‘Permission to come aboard’? I thought this was formal occasion!”
Walker’s cheek twitched.
Bell smiled broadly, reached out and clasped Kolya’s forearm. “How’ve you been, Russkie?”
“Well, Imperialist Pig. You?”
“Oh, can’t complain.”
“But you will anyway, I think.”
Then it was her turn, and the expression he turned her way, though swiftly smothered by a returning smile, worried her. “Cyn.”
“Ethan.” She wanted to hug him. She wanted to hide from him. She settled for a moment of clasped fingers. “Happy to be back?”
“Very. Almost as happy as I am to be out of there.” A tilt of the head indicated the hatch, from which sounds of a whispered argument were beginning to creep.
“I thought the Crew Dragon was supposed to be comfortable?”
“That,” Ethan said, lips going flat, “depends entirely on who you’re sharing it with…”
Ethan, it turned out, had understated things.
After the mess and the hassle of the following hours, Cynthia had been only too happy to call it a night, to crawl into her sleeping bag and let the world go away.
She wished it had never come back.
Agony, pounding, a foreign presence insinuating itself first into her dreams and then dragging her, rough and slow, from the solace of unconsciousness. She thrashed in the darkness, moving before she was aware she’d awoken. Her body tried to jackknife forward, her stomach ready to empty itself. The bungee cord that kept her sleeping bag tethered to the wall yanked her up short, the jolt enough to fully wake her.
Her arms, left unrestrained thanks to the slits in the bag, floundered desperately around her. One hand slapped against the privacy door of the tiny nook, ensuring she’d tugged it shut last night. She always did, but even the pain couldn’t quite crowd out the paranoia.
The other reached back, groping for the small bags she’d hidden, tucked away between the sleeping bag and the white-cushioned wall. By the time she got one up to her mouth, however, her stomach had sullenly calmed.
Deep breaths. Slow.
This was bad, one of the worst since she’d come aboard. Please, God, let it be a fluke. I can’t be getting worse. Not so soon…
She reached again, now to another little plastic packet taped to the back of the sleeping bag. This one contained a handful of pills and a prefilled syringe. For about a year, her fingers lingered over the rounded ends of the latter.
No. The pain might be bad enough, but she’d be expected to be up and about in… Minutes? Hours? Whatever.
The pills, then. No Dilaudid, just Vicodin.
“Just.”
She shoveled two into her mouth, grabbed for the bag of water Velcroed to the wall, and almost bit through the cap on the straw. Lukewarm water bubbled up and across the roof of her mouth before she could make her throat remember how to swallow.
Cap. Close the cap.
She fumbled at it, fingers resisting her commands. She felt like a newbie at the simulator again, trying to coax and cajole the computer model of the station’s robotic arm. A few drops escaped the bag, little wobbling and glistening spheres floating on their merry way, before she managed to snap it shut. Not enough to cause problems. They’d go splat somewhere inside her sleep station and disappear into the padding.
God, if she’d thrown up, though…
If she’d thrown up before she could get to a bag. If the acoustic blanket that covered every bit of the sleep stations like a padded cell hadn’t muffled the sounds of her thrashing. If she’d had an episode this nasty in front of anyone else.
If, if, Goddamn fucking if.
Mother wouldn’t approve of the language. Neither would Clarence.
Fuck ’em.
She giggled softly, winced at the pain it caused, winced at the pain wincing caused. Forcing herself to still, she hung from the sleeping bag, head and arms floating—like a drowned body—and waited for the painkillers to take the edge off.
Waited to be Cynthia again.
It was the damn get-together last night that’d done this. Had to be. Clarence and his stupid insistence that they welcome their “guests” formally, have a meal together, stay up late catching up and getting to know and blah, blah, blah.
And okay, yes, visitors weren’t normally a thing when the commute was two-hundred and fifty miles straight up. This was a big deal. Cynthia was genuinely happy to see Ethan, for all that she could have cheerfully introduced his traveling companion to any one of the temptingly handy airlocks.
Or at least, she would have been happy to see him, except…
Maybe she should just tell him. Maybe he could help.
Sure, if you want to be on the ground a day later. Permanently.
Nope. Mouth shut.
In any case, big deal or not, old friends or not, important and self-important space tourists or not, Cynthia was a creature of routine. Last night had kept her awake, talking and listening and generally growing irritable. The notion that that was enough to trigger an episode was bad.
The notion that maybe the episode didn’t need a trigger was worse.
The drugs must have been kicking in. She was thinking clearly—well, clearer. Fortunately, she’d never been particularly prone to being knocked loopy by her meds.
Still, she squeezed her eyes shut before flipping on the light. Only when the glow beyond her eyelids, turning black to red, failed to return the railroad spike to her skull did she open them again.
White padding to all sides. Laptop on a stand beneath the light fixture, currently as asleep as she wished she were. Water bottle and books and storage sacks Velcroed to the wall, photos taped between them, more empty Velcro and more empty tape waiting for whatever else she might decide to stick there. All happily at home in a space most people would be ashamed to call a closet.
Everything as it should be. She hadn’t knocked anything askew, hadn’t vomited before she was awake enough to realize it.
Whether the sigh was one of relief, or one of resignation that her luck wouldn’t hold out forever, Cynthia couldn’t say. The deep lungful of recycled, vaguely metallic air was invigorating, though. It smelled of work, of accomplishment, of something she could be proud of.
