160 — Eventual Horizon

The wormhole radio chatter got weird. In and out came snippets of phrases, some from Star Central, but some were voices we recognized as ourselves. Many were about things that hadn't even happened yet. When orbiting a black hole's event horizon, it was speculated such things could happen.

Auditory and visual manifestations.

Some were nonsense, some weren't; some from the future; others tied into some possible future. Or even the past.

But murder?

This particular wormwire broadcast was as clear as it was disturbing:

"Be advised you are under arrest for murder until your return. You are to dispose of the body as per protocol and go for insertion into the window-worm home. There, you'll be taken into custody."

"What body?" I asked. "Who are they talking about? Us? Me?"

"Me?" Burke echoed.

"I mean, it's just you and me."

"And Abernathy," he added.

"He's cryo, though," I pointed out.

"Look, it's just a possible future, right?" he said nervously. "Only a possibility one of us'll kill the other."

"Possible? It's us, Burke! Impossible! No one's killing anybody. We like each other. We've been out for seven months and haven't had so much as a cross word, even before morning coffee."

"Morning," he laughed. "That's funny."

Within hours, however, Burke and I began mistrusting each other, albeit subtly. We began scrutinizing every decision, experimental step, and implied discovery. We second-guessed each other about implied hidden meanings in our conversations.

His politeness began to irritate me; and he didn't like the way I walked so heavily in our artificial-G, "clomping around," as he pointed out so constructively.

The black hole was spiraling our minds toward it, even as we circled it well beyond its event horizon.

Back home, we confused the hell out of the authorities during debriefing.

"No, I didn't kill Burke," I insisted to the Marshall. "I killed Abernathy before he killed Burke."

"Abernathy was in cryosleep!" the Marshall argued.

"Depends on your orbit inclination," I said. "You see Burke right there? Alive and well!"

"That's not Burke--that's Abernathy!"

"Yea, that son-of-a-bitch!" I went for his throat.

"Stop!" yelled the Marshall. "This'll be the third time you killed him!"

"Maybe for you!" I hollered back.

_______

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Saturday, June 8, Dayta 160 of the Story-a-Day Challenge

366 WORDS (without A/N)

Title-accompaniment photo was AI-generated (Artificial Interstellar), but the timelines were not.

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