The Pearl

I watch as the cold rays of the distant sun light up the side of the station while Rick brings the ship in to dock. The belt here has been nearly mined dry, and we’re preparing to move on to a new system tomorrow. Today’s haul probably wasn’t worth more than $20, just enough for me to get a decent last meal on the station before leaving.

I’d gotten to know the station reasonably well over the past few months; all its quirks and tricks. I’d even grown accustomed to its strange gravity that shifted and changed as the station spun through space. It was almost sad to leave, but I sure as eggs wouldn’t miss it.

My thoughts are interrupted by a sharp metallic screech, a hefty thud, and a hiss of air as the ship makes contact with the dock. Rick is completing the final boarding procedures as I make my way to my quarters to grab my pack and head into the station. The change in gravity is noticeable, as it always is, and I pause inside the cockpit entrance for a short second to let myself adjust. Rick would sell the cargo, his intelligence was built for tasks like that, and he always made sure we got the best deal.

Leaving the ship with my pack swung over one shoulder, I nod to the duties officer as he boards the ship and then I turn to head towards the Red Crab. I’d heard good things about the chef there, at the very least it’d be a nice change from the tasteless goop I mainly lived on.

It takes all types to make a station like this run smoothly. But there is one thing everyone here has in common, we’re all a bunch of thugs and criminals. Asteroid belt work rarely attracts upstanding citizens. You need guts to have a go at a job this infamous, and you need the brawn to go with it to survive. The business is cutthroat; big commercial operations gobble up the easy pickings and leave the rubble for us solo operations. But that’s not so bad, and oftentimes it’s lucrative too. That means it’s all the more important to be ready and able to stand up to anyone. Because wherever there’s money, thieves and robbers follow. And not just out on the belt either, you have to keep your wits about you when you’re back on the station too, otherwise you’re liable to get robbed by any one of the number gangs that roamed the station with nothing else better to do. A decent person wouldn’t survive one day out here in this forgotten corner of the galaxy.

It’s with those thoughts on my mind, that I make my way through the station to the Red Crab. And as I’m heading down one of the main hallways I hear a pitiful cry for help from one of the smaller service corridors to my right. I glance over momentarily, with all intention to continue on my way regardless, but my attention is captured. An old frail lady is fighting a desperate, but ultimately pointless, tug-of-war with some young upstart bag-grabber obviously hoping for a bit of extra cash.

Usually, I wouldn’t give two hoots about somebody getting mugged by some thug. But something, perhaps the strangeness of the situation, makes me stop. The moment I pause the lady turns to look at me, and something compelling in her gaze draws me in. The kid doesn’t think twice when he sees me start to walk over; my tendencies toward wanton violence are not unknown on the station, and he drops the bag and bolts. The old woman recovers, picks up a couple of things that had fallen on the ground in the struggle, and straightens back her thin white hair. And then she turns to me, with a smile and a nod of thanks.

“Thanks for your help there, young one. You must have a something of a reputation on this station, hm?”

I provide a small nod of agreement.

“You helped me,” she continues, “and that deserves a reward. Wouldn’t you say?”

I’m not even sure how to reply. Some cash would certainly help me get by, but I don’t really expect this old lady to have any, and even if she does, I’m not one for accepting charity. I might not have many principles, but one I’ve stuck by for most of my life is that you get what you’ve got coming: if you work, you get paid; if you steal, you get killed. But right now, nothing I’d done was deserving of reward.

But without waiting for me to answer, the old lady goes on.

“What’s that old saying? ‘An eye for an eye’? Neither of your eyes are going to be very valuable for me, but your ongoing help will be; and for that, I’m willing to let you pick any eye you want.”

With that, she opens up her bag and begins rummaging around inside.

It’s now that I realise what I should have seen before, the old woman was clearly crazy. No wonder she tried to fight the would-be mugger and risk getting killed. And now she’s looking for an eye in her bag!?

As I try to convince myself to just walk away, she looks up at me, and smiles almost condescendingly, “I’m not crazy, you know.” I stop myself from blurting out a vindictive confirmatory reply, and before I can think of something else to say, the old lady lets out a quiet exclamation.

Smiling, she pulls a smooth, white, ceramic case out of her bag and lays it on the ground in front of her. Intrigued, I lean forward as she opens the case, not sure what to expect. The lid falls back revealing a bank of eyes. Line upon line of various eyes, each one fitted into indentations in the main body of the case and held in place with clear plastic covers. Eyes of all colours, pupils of different shapes and sizes, each one of them staring back at me from out of the case. Despite the shock, I manage, although somewhat poorly, to hold my composure.

“W-wh-what are they?” I barely get my sentence out.

The old woman replies as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. “Eyes,” she says, “each one adjusted and customised to integrate seamlessly with any host, and each one providing a specific set of unique skills.”

It takes me a moment to grasp. “So these are, like, bionic eyes?”

The old woman chuckles gently, “No, no, not that advanced, I’m afraid. Merely organic eyes with cybernetic improvements. Take this one, for example.” She picks one from the middle of the case. Her fingers deftly grasp the wet, fleshy eye and lift it from its hole, revealing a dangling mass of wires and flesh connected to its back. “This one lets the host see a range of light wavelengths that are all outside of the visible spectrum.”

“However,” she continues as she places the eye back into the case, “a few of these eyes are not cybernetic and are purely organic.” She gestures to some of the other eyes in the case, “I cannot create them, they reproduce naturally. Some say they are lifeform of their own, others say they are an extremely advanced technology, but no-one knows truly what they are, how we got them, and how old they are.”

I don’t know what to say.

“But enough talk. You need to make a choice, young one. Pick an eye, and I will exchange it here. Be quick for I must be leaving soon.”

I look down at the case. Some look just like ordinary eyes: green, blue and brown irises, round pupils staring back at me from the case. Some have slight irregularities that show their technology, some are clean and perfectly shaped, while others look old, misshapen and dead, almost.

And then I notice one at the back.

I’m not sure why it attracts my attention, but something about it draws my gaze. Its iris is twice the size of a normal eye but ordinary dull brown. Something about it draws my attention and I turn my gaze to it.

I can’t look away from it.

I stare at it wondering why it would be so attractive, but as I look at it, it moves, and the brown twists and turns and fades to a deep turquoise blue. And then the blue swirls and shimmers, giving way to flashes of deep purple, and brilliant pink. As I watch it, it continues, all the colours of the galaxy in an eye.

That’s the one. That has to be the one.

I point to the shimmering eye.

The old woman smiles softly and nods in reply. “Ah. The Pearl.”

Her slight, almost wistful, smile as she watches the shimmering eye tells me more than anything her words could.

“Not many notice it, nor give it time to show its true colours. This is one of the organics. A fitting choice. And one that will serve you and me well.”

With that, she reaches into her bag again, pulling out a weird metal contraption.

“You might want to lie down for this part.”

Before I can reply or protest, I feel a sharp pain in my side as a needle is jabbed into my leg. I try to fight against it, but as the liquid courses through my veins, my feeling and motor control fade and I feel myself fall backward toward the ground.

Some semblance of my consciousness remains, and as I drift between sleep and wake, I feel the cold metal of a device press against my face. Thin tendrils creep underneath my eyelids and make their way around my eye, the sensation, while not painful, sends shivers down my back. Then with a stomach-turning slurch and thop, I feel my eye slide out of its socket. As tough as I am, a feeling like that and a sound like that is just too much, and my consciousness quickly fades. I wake to a sharp pain at the back of my eye as the machine moves what I can only assume is the new eye into place. I feel the movement of the cold metal tendrils again as they dance around the back of my eye sending sharp metallic bursts of pain into the back of my head. Then as quickly as it started, the machine slides out, is lifted off my face, and it is over.

The old lady leans toward my ear, “3 days, and then remove the patch. You’ll find me when its ready.”

She presses a patch down on my eye, and I hear her pack her case back into her bag. I try to ask her when I will be able to move, but my immobile mouth refuses to push the words out. The old lady replies anyhow, “The aneathetic should wear off in the next couple of hours.”

Already something is happening, and I begin to see bright colours flash before my eyes, like a brilliant fireworks show. And as I hear the old lady walk away, I drift slowly into a deep sleep.