you thinking.”
“I’m not thinking. I’m doubting.”
“We can fix this.”
“Fix what?”
“Your need for adventure. I can see all the pieces. I just need time to... We can make...we can make a game of it—here onboard. Hide and seek, or a scavenger hunt. Like we did as kids.”
“I don’t want games. I don’t want to be solved. I want to be loved.”
I pulled myself to the door.
“You never let me love you!” he shouted, which of course is ridiculous. I’ve been out here with him for twenty-three years.
The veins in his arms surfaced even through the thermal suit as he fought the straps on his wrists.
I left him to release the sail and enter new coordinates, which made LAMB go berserk. Suddenly everything made new sense. When I had my breakdown passing Venus and Zeph held me, it wasn’t out of love. He was fixing me. He was making sure that my insecurities didn’t sabotage his mission.
“That didn’t mean I didn’t care for you then or now,” he said. “I want what’s best for both of us, and what you’re doing, it isn’t it.”
I was finally starting to see him for who he really was. And I could see the universe for what it truly could be. I was glad I was sending us to the sun, so that God could judge and choose between us: the man courageous enough to face a god and the man who was too good to be fixed himself.
According to LAMB’s calculations, the Sun’s gravity will overpower us in three days. The flares have been rocking us already so it’s a long shot that this message is even recording. Even before the gravity pulls us in, I’ll most likely have died from heat. The Helianthus was engineered for the frigid expanse of open space, not for heat.
Zeph’s been trying to get me to untie him.
“Why are we headed to the sun?” he said.
“Are you trying to stop me?”
“How can I?”
“That’s where God is.”
“At the sun.”
“Should I gag you too?”
“Do you think that God is so limited that you must go to him? Is the universe so large, that he cannot find you if we went back to Earth?”
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
“Is your God so vicious that he demands that you pay with your life before you can meet him?”
“It’s not like that.”
“I’m merely pointing out that you cannot romanticize the danger out of belief in God.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“It’s okay. Let me hold you.”
I undid one of his arms and he clasped me to his chest.
“Let’s go back. And you can tell me all about God on the way.”
My tears stung my eyes, clinging like a lens that made his face waver, that wouldn’t float away.
“If I release your other arm, what will you do?”
“Hold you closer.”
“What will you really do?”
“Turn us around.”
“Without sails, fuel won’t get us very far.”
“A hero always tries. He must try. Even if he fails.”
“Gravity is already pulling us in. It wouldn’t do any good.”
“There’s not much time then.”
“No.”
“Let me hold you.”
I’ll go down in a minute. I just want to finish this. I’ll let him hold me for the end. I’ll go from one lover’s arms to another. But I’m worried for him. The Divine Nature is a jealous nature. He does not share whom he loves.
Will he show mercy to Zeph who made me doubt? Will he be tender to the both of us? These things are not revealed in the stars. The face of God burns with—
(End of Transmisson. -P.S.)
###
WANT MORE HELIUM QUEST?
More titles in the Helium Quest series are available wherever ebooks are sold. Now available for pre-order:
Titus Ad Larem
Titus’ life as a stay-at-home dad is disrupted when his husband, Lucas, loses his job. He re-enters the workforce as a stockboy at Glenn’s Value Plus, where an encounter with a woman stealing tunafood and a coworker vowing to get him fired cause him to wish he lived on Mars. The X-Tellus company wants to give him that wish. But what would it take to leave his life—and his family—behind?
Also, check out the novel that inspired the series: A Land Overflowing.
A Land Overflowing
Ten years after the bees are gone...
Gideon Groebel is barely old enough to remember what the bees looked like and only knows about the Dieoff thanks to the internet. Suddenly finding himself in possession of the only known hive in the country—and hunted for it—he seeks sanctuary at a small farmstead off the road, which only lands him as prime suspect in the pipeline bombing. For protection, he strikes a deal with a local deputy to gather evidence on the real terrorist. But when his efforts are sidelined by a forbidden romance and an old man trying to save his soul, things get stickier.
ABOUT PETER SCHNAKE
Peter Schnake has long been fascinated by the plight of the bees, by space travel and the future. His writing takes him to the intersection of the sacred and the scandalous, to the absurd and the serious. This is where honesty flows out like a river and floods the pages.
He lives and writes in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Connect with him:
web peterschnake.com
twitter @pschnake
facebook /peterschnake
blog peterschnake.blogspot.com
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