UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA Edmond, Oklahoma Dr. Joe C. Jackson College of Graduate Studies A Song for Eurydice A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN CREATIVE WRITING By Sarah Paige Berling Hofrichter Edmond, Oklahoma 2015 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would first like to thank my husband, Eric, for his unwavering support and his willingness to drop everything at a moment’s notice to read my latest draft. Please keep the “What If” questions flowing, and I will grudgingly admit that Reddit does have its uses. Thank you also to my parents, who have supported me through my long and wandering college journey, and celebrated with me when I found my place in the English field. Thank you to my siblings, Katherine, Ben, Adam, and Sam, who sent me amusing photos when I got overwhelmed, and gave me tips on making the most out of my allotted 24 hours per day. Thank you to my best friends Danny Bowman, Aine-Moire Roche, and Jesse Casillas for keeping me on an even keel, through all parts of my degree path, and always encouraging me. Your adventures with active volcanoes, radiation, and kitchen fires – respectively – inspire me. Thank you to my wonderful committee, who never once told me that my premise was ludicrous and instead focused on bringing the story to the highest possible level. I appreciate that you understood the intent, and then helped drive me towards the end goal. Enormous thanks to Alpha Sigma Kappa – Women in Technical Studies and the Triangle Fraternity at the University of Oklahoma. You guys answered all of my engineering questions promptly and accurately, and then invited me out for drinks. You all deserve a medal. Many thanks to the English and Humanities professors here at UCO, who are angels made of patience, sarcasm, and obscure information. Without their guidance, I would have never found my niche, and I never would have received such enthusiastic support for a science fiction thesis. And finally, thank you to the many nerds I list as friends, who understood the drive to write about aliens, who suggested ideas, and who volunteered to attend my defense. You kept the writing from being uncomfortably solitary. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THESIS . 5 TITLE OF THESIS . 6 PART ONE: TERRA ARCTURUS. 7 CHAPTER 1 . 8 CHAPTER 2 . 17 CHAPTER 3 . 26 CHAPTER 4 . 42 CHAPTER 5 . 53 CHAPTER 6 . 60 CHAPTER 7 . 67 CHAPTER 8 . 79 CHAPTER 9 . 85 PART TWO: ACHERON . 92 CHAPTER 10 . 93 CHAPTER 11 . 99 CHAPTER 12 . 104 CHAPTER 13 . 112 CHAPTER 14 . 117 CHAPTER 15 . 123 CHAPTER 16 . 136 CHAPTER 17 . 144 CHAPTER 18 . 154 CHAPTER 19 . 166 CHAPTER 20 . 177 CHAPTER 21 . 186 CHAPTER 22 . 195 CHAPTER 23 . 207 CHAPTER 24 . 217 CHAPTER 25 . 228 CHAPTER 26 . 239 CHAPTER 27 . 240 PART THREE: BILÖST . 257 CHAPTER 28 . 258 CHAPTER 29 . 271 CHAPTER 30 . 291 CHAPTER 31 . 314 CHAPTER 32 . 317 4 ABSTRACT OF THESIS AUTHOR: Sarah Paige Berling Hofrichter TITLE: A Song For Eurydice DIRECTOR OF THESIS: James Daro, MFA PAGES: 332 A SONG FOR EURYDICE tells the tale of the human refugees living in the desert wasteland of Terra Arcturus, hundreds of light-years from their obliterated home, Old Earth. The story follows Captain Orion Andersen of the former Scandinavian Kingdoms of Northern Europe (SKONE), whose arrival on Terra Arcturus has effectively curtailed further military advancement; his murdered girlfriend, Niki Alsecco, whose death reveals more complex political twists than surface tensions would suggest; and the distant gods of Orion and Niki’s ancestors, upon whom Orion calls when battle with Rhialt, the chief deity of the native Nessians, appears imminent. The story is told from the point of view of a nameless Scribe in service to the Judges, who, in the absence of God-of-Old, determine the eternal fates of their human charges. With political unrest straining relations amongst the Judges, the Scribe finds that telling the tale of Orion and Niki could be the key to saving the remaining human refugees from eternal damnation. A SONG FOR EURYDICE asks the question, “Who determines what is real?” It explores the relationship between reality and madness; religion and science; and history and the future. This novel seeks to show the futility of describing subjective experience as objective truth through use of metaphor. Ultimately, the novel decides, reality exists only in your head. It is what you choose to do with that knowledge that determines who you are. 5 A Song for Eurydice 6 PART ONE TERRA ARCTURUS Behold the Invocation. Hail, O God, Lord Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth. As He was in the Beginning, so is He now and so shall He ever be. Worlds without number, worlds without end. All things must end. Behold the Intimation. Hail, O Children of God, who from dust born, to dust return. Hail, O Sons of Adam, who wander the myriad Edens circling in Heaven’s luminous sky. Hail, O Daughters of Eve, who tame the New Earth and all Her Creatures, forging Paradise from Despair. Hail, O Sin, Mother to Mankind, Progenitor of Progress, Herlequin of Hell. Hail, O Death, O War, O Plague, O Famine: Hail to Mankind’s foregone Destiny, written in the Book of Life, pages torn from the Tree of Knowledge. Well met, Immutable Fortune. Behold the Interpolation. Hail, O Grateful Vicissitude, the Lord no longer with thee. The Lord no longer with us. The Lord, no longer. 7 CHAPTER ONE On the day that she died, Orion Andersen sat in his favorite pub, drinking the pisswater that passed for beer on this backward planet, and wishing she'd never existed. The beer was derived from the sour berries found on every single damn bush in this city, it seemed like, and it left a bad taste in his mouth. But it was better, he knew, than the liquor served in most bars – derived from a sharp-bladed cactus he had never bothered to learn the name of. Everything about Terra Arcturus disgusted him. Niki was only the icing on this molding cake. He stared at the mirror behind the bar where, if this had been a civilized place, images of naked women or sports scores would appear. Instead, Orion saw himself as he was sure the bartender saw him: just another miserable soldier with an unacceptable haircut and red-rimmed eyes. And the uniform, of course. He hated that fucking uniform. “'Ey,” Orion said, clumsily snapping his fingers. “Need 'nother beer.” The bartender spat on the ground. That was another thing Orion hated about Arcturus: these hillbillies had no sense of hygiene. “I serve you no more beer,” the bartender said, crossing his arms. 8 The accents on this little planet were difficult for him to decipher, but he could understand the basics: he was being cut off. What is his name? You can reason with a man if you can use his first name. “Jereshi,” Orion mumbled. That's right. With the J's pronounced like Y's because that's how the natives spoke. The post- pissers were hopeless when it came to speaking Sapiens, and over time, the humans fell into their lazy speech patterns. Pathetic. “What do you want? I tell you, no more beer for soldier scum. You must leave. Pay first.” “Jereshi,” Orion pleaded, “I'm not drunk. Really. Just one more?” “No.” Fuck it. He could piss better beer, and probably would once he got home. No, he wouldn't go home, he decided. He would go somewhere else, to wait off the beer sweats and clear his mind. Maybe then he could reason with Niki. As he reached into his pocket to grab money he had never cared to differentiate, a rough hand clamped onto his shoulder. Oh God the Nessians the fucking Nessians I killed them God no I killed them what are they doing here I killed them when I got to Arcturus and they're back and they want revenge and... Wait I did kill them I remember the ship fell apart screams over the intercom the ship fell into orbit but... What about ghosts don't those primitives believe in ghosts goblins what if they really do exist only here on this God-forsaken planet and... 9 Christ. How do I fight a ghost? He scrambled for his gun and spun around in his chair. Hopelessly tangled, he fell to the floor in a defensive crouch, preparing for the worst. “Hey, Rion,” Thompkins said from up above. “You look a little drunk.” The tension left Orion so quickly that his bladder let go. Damn it. It was just Thompkins. He debated spilling some beer on himself to cover the urine stain - Thompkins would never let him live down the fact that he wet himself. “Help me up, asshole,” Orion said, holding out a hand. Thompkins grabbed it and hauled him to his feet. “No more drinks,” the bartender insisted. “We are closed now. Go away.” “Yeah, yeah,” muttered Orion as he tossed a half dozen small coins on the bar. The small ones were worth less than the big ones, but he couldn't say how much, and he couldn't say he cared. If it wasn't enough, the bartender would let him know. Thompkins kept a steel grip on Orion's upper arm, though Orion was certain he wouldn't fall again. Thompkins was a very different breed of animal from the Nessians. “Let's get you home, soldier,” his friend said. A third shadow fell into step with them as they walked into the bright desert sunlight.