One More Time Around

By K. M. Hasling

Has it been long enough? the little voice in her head asked for the umpteenth time.

No, one more time. Jyone used the phrase as a habitual counter, marking another revolution around the black hole. One more time around, then I’ll be far enough in the future that they will have forgotten me.

Blood. So much blood. She remembered his throat spitting perfect red spheres into zero-G. Saliva from his open, surprised mouth formed bubbly globes, and his eyelids didn’t close. The droplets splattered but didn’t stay or stain the metal walls of the spaceship. Why had she used a knife? It had made such a mess. She should have used a blaster. Or an airlock. But no, she had used a knife. The sharp blade was quick across his pink skin. She couldn’t remember feeling any resistance; she couldn’t remember the motion of ending his life with her shaking hand. But she did remember the bloody mess.

Once again, Jyone shook her head, attempting to clear her mind. The view from the spaceship was sparse aside from a few pops from suns and cosmic dust winking in and out, the event horizon tricking her eyes. She tried to focus on the darkness instead of the starbursts, knowing that even if she weren’t looking for it, the red jewel of Vollink’s sun would stain her vision like a bloody reminder of her crime. Her brow hardened as she remembered that he had deserved it. When he found her on Vollink, his greedy eyes had singled her out. Her tattered clothes had exposed her thin midriff along with her yearning to escape. She was so hungry. His charade of kindness had sounded like a promise. “If you can work hard, I can save you,” he had said. And she had believed him. He had rescued her from starvation on Vollink and dropped her straight into slavery. A horror of clothes that never stayed on and debts never paid.

Then Jyone was bestowed a gift. “A baby?” he had scoffed to her reddened face, embarrassment replaced by the sting of his slap. Jyone thought he would care about the baby even if he didn’t care about her, but she was wrong. So wrong.

The morning sickness wasn’t bad, and she was thankful. A month passed, and instead of a bump, she bled. She whimpered when she told him, but he rolled his eyes. “I took care of it,” he leered. His hand slid down her backside and pinched her inner thigh as she hovered aghast. “We can’t have any babies around here, so I took care of it last night.”

So, she took care of him. He had killed her hope while she was sleeping, and the next night, she returned the favor while he slept at the main console. She didn’t regret it, but she did regret the mess. Cleaning the blood in zero-G took months, and she never quite slept the same.

Jyone relished being free of his foul tongue and abusive squeezes, but she was still trying to outrun the consequences. She stared into the interstellar blackness, and the red of Vollink flashed in the void. Two hundred, she counted. Thankfully, infinity was possible in space-time, always counting down but never reaching an end. The magic of the black hole allowed her to trick time and escape further forward if she kept orbiting it. She could wait to emerge at a time in the future when no one would know her and those who were looking for her would be dead. Although the Galactic Police wouldn’t be hunting her, dead men like him drew suspicion among friends, especially when their ships didn’t show up at checkpoints and black-market deals fell through. But Jyone had traversed five revolutions by then. Now, she had to stay hidden until alliances dissolved and the tag on his ship was history. So, had it been long enough?

It had been too easy, overcoming her cowardice and killing her captor. She surrendered to the hate, letting justice overtake her morality. There hadn’t been a plan to kill him. It just happened and Jyone felt relief instead of remorse with each passing revolution. So, the fear that overwhelmed Jyone daily now was different. The word murderer was impossible to wipe from her tongue. Breaking this loop could mean jail, or worse. She couldn’t seem to summon the courage and lose the very freedom she had won. One more time, she thought nervously. One more time, and then maybe I’ll be safe.

The red jewel of Vollink snuffed out as the ship dipped around the event horizon again. Then the little voice in her head whispered. But will you forget?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

K. M. Hasling is an author of more than science fiction and fantasy novels. She has written dry user guides as an engineer and nail-biting ghost stories as a cave tour guide. Today, she lives in Colorado and turns science fiction dreams into reality as a software manager. Mars and Mayhem is her first published book and she has other interactive fiction stories online.

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