Desolation

He stands nude before the translucent pod.  The pill shaped container may as well be on fire for all the enthusiasm he has to enter its embrace again.  He looks back at the monitor, a stall tactic that even he understands will not work much longer.

“All is ready, you may proceed,” his own voice says to him from the ship’s speakers.

“I know ‘all is ready’, but I’m not ready,” he says under his breath.

The ships systems are coming online, one by one. The ship’s computer is less a computer and more him.  As he slips into an induced coma for the duration of the journey his own mind will take over and keep the ship on course, as well as communicate with others who are in the Tamas Form.

Life Support is operating at perfection, as usual, and there is nothing to fear.  Nothing at all.  But, it isn’t about the fear, it is about the release.  Once he eases his body down into the pod, and the nano-laced jelly covers him completely, he will be lost once again to the Surya, the one mind.

He is suddenly reminded of an ancient Hindu proverb, There is nothing noble about being superior to others. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

The is no thought that can remain hidden from the Surya, no wicked desire or off-hand remark that can stay in the shadow where he intended it to remain.  All of him, all that he is will be collected, cataloged, and contained in a report somewhere.  That is why he finds a moment to look back at a monitor, one last second of being alone, being himself and nothing more.