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Everything is violently green. He can't remember the last time he saw anything so lush. It had to have been on Earth. Even the terraformed parks on Luna weren’t so lovely, so welcoming. Henry thinks he can walk forever and it will be green grass and bleached blue sky until his legs give out. So he does, taking deep lungfuls of breath. It's so cool and sweet he could weep. He crests a hill and a breeze picks up, as if blowing off a salty body of water. The grass falls into a rocky beach that ends in soft sand and finally a calm ocean that wasn't there when he emerged from the plain of grass.
Someone is standing at the edge of the water, hands in the pockets of rolled up jeans. He had last seen denim when he was a boy and even then it had been outmoded. The sound of the waves hit him suddenly and his knees went weak as he remembered it from his childhood. His home island is so far from him now it might as well not exist. The sand is warm and silken between his toes. The figure doesn't turn, opting to watch the sun caress the crest of the waves. Henry isn't sure where he is or what is even happening. The last thing he remembers was being aboard the Jackdaw, doing his maintenance duties as the ship slept, except…
“Joey?”
The figure turns toward him. “Hello.” He’s handsome with a good complexion and eyes that rival the color of the sea when the sunlight gilds it. His small mouth is balanced by his round jaw.
“What are you…”
“Are you confused, darling?”
“Very much so, yes.” Henry’s getting frustrated.
“Why not enjoy it, whatever this is?”
Before Henry can reply, Joey begins to walk along the shore. The sand squelches between his bare toes. “I came here when I was a boy. My parents… loved this place.” It could be anywhere in England or France. Germany, perhaps. Henry follows him up to a grassy rise overlooking the waves.
A picnic has been laid out on a red and white checkered blanket. Henry thinks he can smell everything at once. The meat, the richness of tomato. Real wine makes his salivary glands tingle. Joey sinks down among the feast and Henry finally sees him, the sun highlighting the fine lines of his face.
“Come. Sit.”
His face splits open with a radiant smile. Everything is fresh and delicious and Henry's jaw works as he looks at Joey’s beautiful hands folded across his tucked-up thighs.
“Isn't it wonderful? The sights? The food? The company?”
Henry has never seen such blue eyes. They’re fathomless, shifting. Henry eats to over-fullness but the discomfort quickly dissipates and they finish the bottle of wine. They lie back to study the movement of clouds when Joey finally touches him. A finger caresses the back of his hand and a warm weights sinks into his depths like an anchor. Joey then curls his fingers around Henry’s hand and rolls toward him until they are pressed thigh to shoulder. His breath is cool against Henry's hot neck.
“What is the last dream you remember having?” Henry opens his mouth to speak but finds his mind completely blank. “It's all right. It's been a while, hasn't it? I can’t even recall the last time I dreamed much less what I dreamed about. It's been a long, strange millennium, hasn't it?”
“I think it was about my child who died. I was holding her and she… vanished. I looked for her but it was like she had never existed, hadn't been so much as a thought. I woke up ill and then it was time. The Jackdaw.”
As he speaks, Henry knows that this was the last time he had dreamed before going into deep sleep where dreams were kept at bay by a cocktail of chemicals. If that were true then how-
“Henry!”
Is it possible for an AI to be panicked?
Henry seizes as he's pulled out of his pod, laid on the cold, dry ground for medical intervention. It feels as though he's been dipped in something metallic. More needles in his skin, the cool spread through muscles and veins.
He wakes in the medical bay hours later, still sedated but no longer retching.
“There shouldn't have been such a failure.”
“Yeah, well. Best laid plans and all that.”
Henry doesn't recognize the voices.
“Are we running diagnostics on the other pods?”
”Yes, but it will take time.”
“Of course.”
“Joey.”
Henry’s eyes slide open, roll, focus.
“Yes?”
“What did the suppressant failure look like on your end?”
Henry cannot decipher what Joey says but the cadence of his voice lulls him into a calm he's never felt before.
Someone stands above his head, out of view. “Poor bugger, goes hundreds of years without a dream and then this happens. Can't imagine what you saw, mate.”
Henry swallows around a hard, dry lump in his throat.
“Let him sleep, Sunil. We’ll get him back into the pod once he's well enough.”
Everyone filters out and Joey finally speaks. “Was it all right? Your dreaming?”
“We were picnicking on a beach. It was wonderful. I was going to ask you to sing for me.”
“But then you had to wake up.”
Another hard swallow. “Yes, love. Didn’t even have a chance to get to the good stuff.”
Joey’s laughter is a balm and Henry slathers himself in it. He sleeps and when he wakes again, it is to another round of maintenance duties.
“Good morning, darling.”
Henry can only lay in his pod a minute longer than usual and mourn what he has lost.