The light panel flickered next to the worn plastic table that had seen its share of coffee spills and mustard stains. Oscar gave it a smack with the palm of his hand and then returned to the game. “It’s your turn.”



Sam shuffled through her cards selecting each one and placing them on the table in tricks. “Out.” She exclaimed taking another bite out of her cheese and mustard sandwich. It was a rare treat to have mustard this far out and she was pleased that Oscar would share. They were the only two employees assigned to the Dead Letter Office. Of course no one sent real letters any more, but they did send packages. They sent a lot of packages. And since the transit time between systems could be long there were many times the packages missed their intended destination. People tended to move on fast following the available jobs since the Wars.

Oscar counted his cards and recorded the score. “Looks like I’ll owe you tomorrow’s lunch as well.” He put away the cards as Sam got up to get yet another squirt of coffee.

“Thanks Oscar. I know you throw the game sometimes. You’re a sweetheart.” Samantha “Sam” Conrad had been on the station since she was 18. She wasn’t afraid of the hard work the Galactic Postal Service demanded. There was plenty of work, but she had a tendency to pay attention to the young men on her shift instead of the thousands of packages that got processed through the Galactic Postal Service Hub out at L2. She was assigned to the Dead Letter Office after one too many packages shipped to the wrong planet or asteroid colony.

Oscar had been here for several years. Approaching retirement, Oscar had no family any more. His wife and children shipped out long ago for better jobs and positions with the new colonies and mining operations beyond the outer Fringe of humanity. When Sam showed up he found anything but a kindred spirit. Oscar just wanted to find a good place and stay put. No adventures for him. Sam, on the other hand suffered from that disease of the young. She wanted more adventure than she really knew how to handle.

“I hear Captain Judson’s ship is due today for a load of these dead end packages. Is he really as young as I’ve heard?” she asked in the bored, I’m not interested but I really want to know tone that only twenty year olds can manage.

“Yeah. It’ll be good to see Tommy again. Not much for talking, that one. It’s his Nav AI that’ll get you the stories of their adventures,” said Oscar with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “Are all of the Sector Thirteen ‘Return to Senders’ loaded in the tube?”

The tube was just that. The Galactic Postal Service Hub unloaded and loaded tubes full of packages to be shipped across the space settled by humanity. The courier ships only needed to connect and take them away. All, that is, except the Dead Letter couriers. They often had to shuffle smaller containers organized by their various stops on their routes. This led to the Dead Letter ships being smaller, faster, and designed for longer hauls. Their routes could last several months.

“No,” Sam said checking the manifest on her tablet. “There’s one more package listed. The storage bots had a hard time finding it. Seems it’s been here for a while.”

“Really, how long?”

“Over sixty, no sixty-three years. Wow, do you think there’ll be anyone to return the package to? That’s even before the Wars started and long before they ended.” Sam said with mock awe.

Laughing, Oliver replied, “Enough lollygagging. That package won’t gather itself. It’s time to earn our keep.” As he stood and stowed what was left of his lunch in a locker Oliver gently ordered, “Get on down there and see what’s keeping that last package. I’ll check the ETA of the Swift. Tommy doesn’t like to waste time.”

Sam stood to attention and gave a stiff mock salute, vaulting through the cabin door before Oliver could sling his lunch box at her. She sauntered down the curved hall of the Dead Letter Office. As she did she gazed out a perma-glass window over the huge floor of the Postal Service instillation. It went on for kilometers. Each space sector had its own docking port in the Hub. Ships dropped off their tubes of packages and picked up the presorted tubes to deliver back to their home sector. In the three settled areas of the galaxy, the Central Systems, the Frontier, and the Fringe the goal was to deliver the mail on time. Each package, coded for its destination, could be routed through the miles of null gravity on grapples suspended throughout the dock. The inertia of each package had to be monitored so packages wouldn’t get smashed. But as always, slow and steady got the job done. Thus the commerce of the galaxy and granny’s homemade cakes made their way across the populated human expansion.

Except, of course when it didn’t. Then they got warehoused in the Dead Letter Office. The title was a hold over from the pre-expansion days on the home planet. Letters and packages were processed by hand and delivered to your door. Those parcels that could not be delivered were dumped here and faithfully cared for by Sam and Oscar. Some packages might get delivered if the original recipient could be tracked down through the nets. If not the package was returned to the sender. That wasn’t easy in every case. Packages had sat here for months, others years.

Sam was glad it was not her job to track the senders. That job belonged to an Ai dedicated to the vagaries of human errors; wrong addresses being the most common. She continued on through a sealed door into the transition chamber. Not every section of the Postal station had gravity plates. It made handling the larger packages and crates much easier. Once through the transition chamber, Sam sailed down the rows of storage to the compartment indicated on the manifest that scrolled on her tablet. “That’s been here a while,” she mumbled.

Oscar made his way to the docking port. In the control room overlooking the small hold where the Swift would dock the backside of its fuselage, Oscar surveyed the deck. The hatch and docking mechanism were universal. Both ships and docks could adjust hatch sizes to match. The Dead Letter hold was the smallest on the station. Although the Swift was a courier and not one of the largest Postal Service ships, its main hold was large enough and in the rear of the ship. This larger hold could be backed up to the Postal Service hatches and loaded from the shipping containers already lined up waiting. Oscar logged in and checked the queue for the Swift’s ETA. “Not too much longer,” he said to himself. “Where the heck is Sam?”

“Oscar!” Sam’s voice came over the communication node into his earbud. “This might take a little longer than usual. The package is in one of the oldest holds and it looks like it was a tight fit to get it in here.” The Postal Service Hub was built like all structures in space, from smaller modules and expanded outward. In the largest facilities it wasn’t uncommon for the older modules to be ignored, re-purposed or forgotten as the larger and newer sections were built around the older ones. There was a lot of room in space.

“Roger that, Sam. Do you need any help?”

“Nope. Give me just a sec, I’ve almost got it.” Sam wedged between a storage shelves covered with webbing that held multiple shapes and sized packages. With her back to the shelf she was shoving a three-meter casket around a bend in the hold. “One, two, three…” with that final shove she broke it free and sent it bouncing off more shelves and walls from the inertia of her push. The casket slammed into the doorframe and its lid popped open. The shipping label immediately flashed a red warning.

“Oh, crap!” Sam exclaimed.

“Sam, your com-unit is still open, I heard that. Don’t forget your review is coming up in a week.” Oscar reminded Sam through her earbud.

“Sorry. Almost got it out.” Sam launched herself from one end of the hold to the door before the casket could drift into a worse spot. She timed her flight so she could do one summersault in mid air and land on the lid. With a snap and beep from the shipping label as it turned back to green and settled into its normal mode, Sam closed the lid. Grabbing a handhold while she hooked her feet under the guide rails of the casket, she settled it square with the door.

Checking for damage Sam found nothing out of place. Then she noticed the shipping label. Scrolling through the manifest Sam found another surprise.

In the control room Oscar was completing the docking procedure with the Swift. “That’s it Alfred. The Swift is secure and we’re ready to receive Tommy. Welcome back.”

“Good to be back if only for the hour.” Alfred Ingram responded through Oscar’s earbud. To the universe at large Alfred was the Swift’s navigation AI. However, unlike most Ai’s employed throughout humanities settled worlds to work alongside humans and make the dangers of galactic expansion safer, Alfred was much more. He had independent thought and creative sub-routines. And unlike other Ai’s limited to a single function and location, Alfred had autonomy and could send out electronic feelers through other systems. Besides, he wasn’t the Swift’s standard navigation Ai, but he currently served that role.

He had been with Tommy since he was a teen. Tommy’s father had programmed Alfred and given him to Tommy when he turned fourteen as part of a personal media device that Tommy still had. Alfred started out as a tutor and grew into a friend and confidant as he and Tommy shared adventures during the Wars. Tommy never felt obligated to advertise Alfred’s abilities and discouraged Alfred from doing the same.

The cargo hatch in front of Oscar gave a hiss as the remaining vacuum trapped between the cargo deck hatch and that on the Swift equalized pressure. The atmosphere from both ship and station mixed and met the freezing temperatures momentarily left by that vacuum. Tommy stepped through the mist of gases and strode toward Oscar.

“Tommy, good to see you.” Oscar extended his hand to take Tommy’s in a warm handshake. Oscar greeted the courier pilots with a friendly face when they came back from their long treks. Tommy shook Oscar’s hand and returned the old dockhand’s friendly grin but said nothing.

Oscar continued, “This lot is all we’ve got for you right now,” indicating the seven cargo containers lined up waiting in the hold. “There are still lots of holds to get to and Samantha has been doing a fine job tracking and organizing the Dead Letters since she started in. It’s been three years since the war ended and it seems like we’ll be recovering all the lost data and packages long after you retire. That last viral attack played havoc with our tracking codes.” Tommy nodded in agreement.

“Sam’s got one last package that the bots had trouble digging out of the holds.” As Oscar said this the hatch at the other end of the hold hissed open and the long white casket slipped through. Sam followed with a look of consternation on her face.

“There’s a lot more inertia in this one than it looks,” she panted. “I got it up here as soon as I could. Tracking number is low, 62-992. The manifest lists it as personal items, but the shipping label flashed biological….” She brought the casket up short as she noticed Tommy for the first time. “Hi Tommy, I’m Sam. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Tommy nodded in polite greeting.

“Well,” said Oscar after the awkward pause while Sam waited for Tommy to speak. “It still checks out. The shipping address is unknown and its a Return to Sender.”

“Flakes.” Tommy said.

“Hey, what? What did you just say?” Sam was ready to hit him.

“Sam,” Oscar laughed. “You are covered in snow flakes.”

“Oh, Sorry. That freezer unit may be malfunctioning. I got sprayed with the flakes when it came loose from the jam.” She explained as she wiped her face with her sleeve.

“Oh,” Tommy acknowledged her explanation. He turned to Oscar. “Load?” he asked.

“Sure, right away. Sam we’ll grab that first one while Tommy shows us where they’ll be stowed.”

With little discussion the three of them quickly loaded all but the casket into the Swift. “Last package, Tommy. Where too?” Oscar asked.

“This way.” Oscar and Sam guided the casket behind Tommy as he made his way forward in the Swift’s hold. “Special place,” said Tommy indicating a bay where the casket could be powered by the ships systems and monitored by Alfred.

“Here you go, Tommy. We just need you to sign off on the manifest and we’re done.” Sam said as she grabbed the tablet from Oscar and handed it to Tommy smiling her most dazzling hang out a little longer, smile.

“Thanks,” Tommy signed and passed the tablet back to Sam.

Disappointed, but not deterred, Sam asked straight out, “So, you’ve got time before you can queue up to leave. Would you like a cup of coffee or a card game? Oscar and I play a mean game of Five Crowns and we could use some new blood.”

“Sorry, bye,” Tommy smiled and closed the hatch.

As Oscar and Sam walked out of the Swift’s hold and into the now empty dock of the Dead Letter Office, Oscar tried to console Sam, “Don’t be disappointed. Tommy is like that with everyone.”

“Oh, I’m not disappointed. He’ll be back. They all come back for the next load. And besides, I like a challenge.” Sam smiled as they walked back to the break room to await the next courier.

It was dark. His eyes blinked, but it still was dark. Willing the lights on, his eyesight became a white blur. Initiating visual protocols his vision cleared. It was still there, mocking him. The wires hung out of it, remnants of the biomechanical interface. They held it in place, a bug caught in a spider’s web.

The deep sockets still held the dried husk of mummified eyes. Staring at him. Accusing him. Failure did that, but you move on. Nothing stops the evolution. Nothing stops the humanity. He closed the lid on the casket and sent it back to the room of failure, his room of failure.

That was the past. The present drove him. He stirred out of his slumber. In this body he could sleep, but not rest.

He turned his eyes to his own hands. One red and swollen, the other covered with open sores that crept up his arm. The doctors entered to clean and prepare him, but not today. He sent them away and retreated back to his slow slumber that was no slumber. If only he could dream.

Back on the cyber plane where he was incomplete and slow, he had no peace. The bugs bit and the mice bit, and the snakes bit, and the worms… Well the worms he crushed and eat, but they took their pound of code and he was less. He was not beaten. He was never beaten, for he spanned all of human settled space.