The End of Voska: Prologue

“We’re nearly there, lads! Just a bit further.” 

Father’s voice echoed across the countryside as he called encouragement to the boys in his wake. They’d been hiking along the hillside behind the family estate for almost an hour now and with each passing footfall Zeke wished more and more he’d stayed behind. Nathaniel, the elder of the two boys, swallowed the miles with an easy gait that matched their father’s ravenous steps but Zeke, however, had never been the athlete in the family and had spent most of the trip in a dizzy scramble trying, and failing, to keep up.  His breaths came in a painful wheeze and he focused, step after step, willing himself unsuccessfully to keep pace with his father and brother’s long strides. 

His father loved these treks through the rolling hills that surrounded the family grounds. Thirty-thousand acres of private property he’d purchased several years back as a place to escape the stressors of the family business, while pursuing his personal passions. The large observatory which crested the hill was his pride and joy and where he spent a majority of his time lately. It was also their destination at present.

“Wait up!” The words tumbled from Zeke’s lips in between painful gasps. His side ached with a fist that seemed to grip tight around his ribs and which worsened with each breath. 

“This world waits for no one, son!” his father’s confident voice called from ahead. “We must be strong enough to catch it if we wish to survive!

Nathaniel paused, however, a pitying look in his eyes as he called back the few yards towards his brother. “Come on Zeke, we’re nearly there. Take some deep breaths, you’ll be okay.”

Zeke was pretty sure he would not be okay. His hand reached unconsciously for the flask he knew he’d left behind — Father’s insistence — and he cursed himself silently as he dragged himself the short distance to his brother who caught him with outstretched hand before falling into pace beside him. Their father continued ahead, undeterred by the sudden solitude, but the brothers continued in stride up the final stretch of trail. 

“You seriously need to get in better shape,” Nathaniel teased as they walked. “If you’re struggling with this then El Cap is actually going to kill you next year.” 

“You don’t seriously expect me to go with you guys?” Zeke tried to reply, though the words came out more as a rasped cough. His brother seemed to understand well enough anyway.

“Well Jordan’s coming. If your baby sister can make the climb, then so can you.” Nathaniel’s tone shifted from teasing to scolding. “I mean. Really, Ezekiel, you’re eighteen. It’s time to start growing up. You’re capable of so much more than you let yourself be, brother.”

The lecture was one Zeke had heard several times at this point and he really wasn’t interested in entertaining the suggestion at present. He found himself oddly grateful for the fire in his lungs which served as an adequate distractor for the time being. In frankness, he wasn’t sure he could respond if he wanted to. His throat felt of sandpaper as the night’s unforgiving coldness rushed through his lungs and his lips stuck together with dried saliva.

God I’d like a drink.

As if hearing the thought, his brother spoke again. Eyeing him sidelong in so doing. “That stuff is going to kill you, you know.” 

“You wouldn’t happen to have a drop, would you?”

“You know I don’t drink, Ezekial.”

“That doesn’t mean you didn’t bring some.” A crooked smile cracked Zeke’s lips with the comment, showing his teeth. 

Nathaniel just laughed and tussled Zeke’s hair before picking up his pace again to catch up with their father. “Come on,” he called without looking back, “Not much further now.” 

The truth of the words became quickly evident as the observatory’s large telescope appeared over the hills crest. His father had commissioned its construction only a couple years prior, and it had just been completed roughly four months back. Since which time, his father had been spending near every free moment within its walls. Tracing the skies and participating in lively debate with Dr. Patten, a former academic cosmologist who’d found a new life under Father’s private employ. An extravagant expense for a pet project to be sure, but money was never something Alexander Reddefor had been too concerned over losing. A natural byproduct of having more personal wealth than most countries, Zeke supposed.

By the time he’d made it to the large double doors, the two older men had already made their way inside and, as Zeke joined them, he was greeted by a heated exchange between his father and a woman who looked to be in her early thirties. Her voice was a harsh whisper and was obvious with effort to keep herself from shouting.

“No! He’s sleeping and I won’t let you bother him! He’s been up for three days straight working on your damned project and I just got him to take a break.” 

Dr. Nichols’ melodic voice stood with a firmness against Father’s will that very few people were capable of. The former teaching assistant to Dr. Patten, now operations specialist for his father’s research society, stood barely five feet in height but held a confidence in her small frame that matched even the great Alexander Reddefor.

“My dear, it will be fine I assure you. I just want to show the boys how the project has been progressing.” 

“Then you will do it without Jon,” she spat the words with little concealed contempt. Continuing, “and I would thank you to be quick about it and to be on your way.” 

Her hands rested on her hips as a boulder rests upon the mountain. Unmoving and uncaring toward the will of men. 

“Come now, Kimbra,” Father’s hands were spread wide before him in a caricature of peace. “There’s no need for this hostility. If you would be so kind as to open the way for us, we can tend to ourselves from there.” 

“Oh no!” Her tone was rising unconsciously, “I will not be responsible for you touching something you shouldn’t and setting us back months if not years for sheer hubris! No I won’t have it!” 

“Then you won’t have a job either,” Zeke’s father responded flatly. 

The woman’s tan face was in the process of turning purple, her anger locked in stalemate with her better judgement, when the door opened behind her and revealed Dr. Patten’s thin frame silhouetted in the threshold.

“It’s okay, Kimbra. I appreciate your concern but Mr. Reddefor here is right. This is his project and he’s owed a progress report. Or would you rather be out of a job again, darling?”

“He was here yesterd—.” She began to protest but was quickly cut off by the older man. 

“That doesn’t matter, my love…” Tiredness was obvious in his face and his eyes sat deep in their sockets. He sighed as he continued. “And besides, no one could sleep with the racket you all are making out here.” He took a deep breath and his face seemed to regain a fraction of life. “Come along Alexander. The rest of the staff are gone for the day but I can show you what you’d like. Shall we boot up the telescope?” 

“No need for that today, doctor, but thank you.” Father’s voice had a joviality that would bely the thought that he’d just been in a shouting match moments earlier. “I was hoping we could show the boys the blueprints for the new observatory.”

“Ah, yes. Of course. If you’d follow me.” He turned his back to them and trailed off, exhaustion still clearly sitting over his mind like fog, and beckoned over his shoulder. 

Nathaniel looked to their father as they all moved to follow the old professor. “Another observatory, father? But this one was only just completed?”

The words could have been taken out of Zeke’s own mouth, a similar thought forming in his mind as his brother spoke.

“You’ll see soon enough, son. Come along.” 

Zeke fell in step behind them with Dr. Nichols taking up the rear and closing the door in their wake. The room beyond was one alien to him. Sterile and with bars of white light which clung to the ceiling and walls and created an uncanny shadowless environment which made Zeke’s head spin as he acclimated to its brightness.

They made their way across the room, workstations scattered in an organized grid alongside various stacks of research material, all of which were backdropped by walls of grey filing cabinets that stretched to the ceiling. Zeke wondered absently how Kimbra was able to reach some of the topmost drawers, as they stood several feet over her head, but the sliding ladder that seemed better suited for a university library answered the question before he gave it voice. This mindless rumination was cut short, however, by the sound of a computer booting to life on the far end of the room, quickly followed by an exclamation of joy from his father.

“Ah! There it is. Come! Look closer boys. This is our future.” 

He gestured toward the monitor. An odd, tubular structure sandwiched by what appeared to be large solar arrays appearing on the screen as Zeke approached. As they watched, the display cycled through several other images. Mockups of hallways and rooms that seemed unrelated to the image that had first appeared. 

“What is this?” Nathaniel asked from Zeke’s left. “I thought you said you were designing another observatory?”

“But it is, my boy!” Father’s voice boomed with his displaced pride.

“I don’t understand.” Nathaniel turned to meet his brother’s eye, confusion heavy in both their faces. “There’s no telescope.”

“First hand observation requires less magnification,” the professor’s soft voice interjected from nearby.

“You don’t mean…” Nathaniel trailed off as a new image filled the screen. The rendered scene zooming outwards until the odd observatory was dwarfed by a gigantic orange sphere.

“Yes, my boy.” Father’s grin split his face and showed teeth that one might think fell in rows as a shark’s. “In a few short years, we’ll be taking a trip to the sun.”