Through Glass Darkly Episode 1 Read Online Free

inclination to persuade or convince others.
    I don’t know why the image of that broadcast was so clearly in my mind as I awoke, but it was still with me as I once again felt the golden weight of sunlight upon me through the hospital window. It was a feeling I would’ve been content to lie and enjoy, had not the terrible experience of the day before still also been burned into my memory.
    I knew I was in a better state than most of my crew-mates, and the only member of the senior staff in any kind of good condition, so as soon as I came around I pressed the button to let the nurses station know I was awake again. It was the same nurse on duty, who appeared almost instantly at the door. The same two agents following close on her heels, both still knowing better than to attempt to get past her until she gave the all clear.
    I almost didn’t notice the third man, as the nurse bustled around me, helping me to sit up and bringing forward the table ready for my breakfast. But then something about him in the corner of my eye pulled my gaze toward the door where he stood, and I felt my heart almost stop.
    It was Hughes, just standing there looking at me. I could barely believe my eyes when I first saw him, and was about to start asking him questions when I noticed he was wearing a suit again, and his face was tanned. And then a dozen other subtle and obvious differences started to jump out at me until I realised this wasn’t the man I knew.
    It wasn’t like looking at a twin, or a look alike. There was still so much that was the same, but it was like looking at an earlier version of the man I knew. The same age as he would be now, but without so many of the changes which had been apparent in his famous broadcast.
    As soon as I grasped that fact, the differences were obvious, and I found myself thinking that the Hughes I knew had simply matured beyond the point that this man had reached. I noticed his gaze searching my face then, as though he too were looking for something, and I realised he must have already seen his own dark reflection, but had not yet been able to understand what his eyes had shown him.
     
    ‘You’ve already seen him, haven’t you?’ I asked, without artifice, seeing the answer already written in his eyes.
    ‘Yes,’ he answered after a moment. ‘Though I do not pretend to understand how it can be possible.’
    ‘We contacted Mr Hughes yesterday,’ Jenkins explained, after a momentary silence. ‘Thinking it would be a simple matter to. . . confirm your captain’s identity.
    ‘As it turned out Mr Hughes was already here in New York and after we explained, he kindly offered to give us some of his time. So with his permission we began by comparing finger prints.’
    ‘And discovered they were identical?’ I guessed.
    ‘Yes,’ he continued, a note of surprise in his voice. ‘It was quite a sight to see them both in the same room together,’ he continued, getting back into his stride. ‘But for these two men to also share the same prints. . . Well I don’t quite know how that can be possible, but it is.’
    Even with all the evidence, the hundreds of dead, dying and injured, they’d still somehow thought we might be a trick. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for them, but it was time we sorted things out.
    ‘Unfortunately the only man who might be able to explain any of this to you,’ I said. ‘Is lying unconscious on his back in a room on the other side of this hospital.
    ‘I don’t mean to suggest that you are by your nature a secretive person,’ I continued, indicating the man stood before me, and trying to lighten the mood. ‘But, even amongst the senior crew aboard our ship, it was a widely held view that we weren’t being told everything by the Captain, either about the Expanse, or the various capacities of the ship we sailed in.’
     
    Even as I spoke, I realised from their body language that something had changed, and for a moment thought the Captain must have taken a