Subjectivity

In Short

Faced with widespread psychological claustrophobia and the absolute physical barrier of light speed, a unified Solar Government outfits a starship with ten misfits and a massive supply of an untested, powerful hallucinogen called Omnidrene. Tasked with denying the stark reality of interstellar space through shared illusions, the crew creates a tranquil Spanish garden retreat to anchor their minds. However, as private nightmares bleed into the communal space and outgrow their collective control, the line between subjective illusion and objective reality blurs completely, culminating in an astonishing and chilling return to Earth.

The Story

Humanity expands across the solar system but hits a stone wall when scientists prove faster-than-light travel impossible. Unwilling to accept defeat, the unified Solar Government pushes forward regardless, launching a series of disastrous interstellar missions. Normal elites, specialized crews of criminals, and various demographic subsets all succumb to severe madness within months or a few years inside a small steel ship. Desperate and running out of ideas, the government selects ten brilliant misfits—including drug addicts, occultists, and social outcasts—for ship Number Thirteen, provisioning them with half a ton of an experimental, highly complex hallucinogen named Omnidrene to help them deny reality.

As the ship passes Pluto, nominal captain Oliver Brunei leads the crew in taking their first dose of Omnidrene pills. The plain gray steel walls begin to melt and shift into vibrant colors, and the crew quickly discovers that by concentrating intensely on shared concepts, they can materialize common hallucinations, such as a bovine green dragon and a brown camel. Finding the cluttered individual daydreams exhausting, Bram Daker suggests standardizing the common room, leading the crew to agree on a tranquil Spanish garden complete with a fountain, green lawn, and protective white walls. For months, this shared sanctuary shields them from the mounting psychological strain of the void.

However, the illusion begins to fray as suppressed subconscious fears leak past their collective defenses. Marsha Johnson bursts into the garden pursued by a gigantic black snake, and when Lazar Marashovski calls upon his mental dragon to destroy it, the beast has grown dangerously larger and more feral. Soon, monstrous creatures—including a Tyrannosaurus rex, a vampire bat, a pterodactyl, and monstrous versions of their own pets—haunt the ship's corridors and press against the garden walls. The crew struggles daily to maintain their sanctuary, but exhaustion and terror erode their combined focus.

Seven months into the voyage, the garden is perpetually shrouded in gloomy gray clouds, and the monsters routinely breach the perimeter. Realizing they are losing the battle against their own amplified subconscious minds, Daker urges everyone to visualize Earth and the familiar Spaceport to anchor their sanity. Driven by sheer panic, the entire crew pours their remaining willpower into imagining the terrestrial spaceport, creating a violent, flickering vortex of color, time, and mind.

Miraculously, starship Number Thirteen reappears back at Earth's Spaceport, seemingly exceeding light speed and stunning officials who still track its distant image light-months away. A high-ranking Solar coordinator arrives with a two-hundred-man honor guard and medals to greet the returning heroes. When the main hatch opens, ten dazed survivors stagger out, immediately followed by the living, breathing manifestations of their collective nightmares—a giant green dragon, a Tyrannosaurus rex, a pterodactyl, a vampire bat, a spade-tailed demon, and an enormous black serpent.

How It Unfolds

The impossible mandate Faced with racial claustrophobia and a hard speed-of-light limit, the Solar Government refuses to abandon interstellar travel. After numerous disastrous missions driven by conventional crews and targeted demographics, officials resort to launching ship Number Thirteen with a crew of ten misfits.

The first dose Cruising past Pluto, captain Oliver Brunei distributes an untested, powerful new hallucinogen called Omnidrene to the crew. Swallowing the blue pills together, they watch the gray steel walls dissolve into vibrant colors and begin cooperatively materializing simple shared hallucinations like a camel and a dragon.

The Spanish garden Seeking order amidst the chaotic daydreams cluttering the ship, the crew agrees to transform the common room into a shared Spanish garden. Complete with a lawn, a fountain, and protective white walls, this engineered sanctuary provides a peaceful environment that sustains their sanity for months.

The creeping monsters Subconscious fears steadily breach the collective illusion as monstrous entities like a giant black snake and an expanding dragon begin haunting the corridors. Although the garden initially holds them back, the creatures grow bolder and more aggressive, overwhelming the crew's waning concentration.

The terrestrial vortex Cornered by mounting horrors and failing defenses, the crew desperately focuses all their collective willpower on visualizing Earth's Spaceport. This intense mental effort triggers a violent, multi-dimensional vortex that hurls the starship back home in an instant.

The monstrous homecoming The starship suddenly materializes at the Earth Spaceport while its optical image is still tracked months away in deep space. As the hatch opens to cheering officials, the surviving crew members are followed out by the terrifying, fully materialized beasts of their shared subconscious.

The People

Oliver Brunei serves as the nominal captain of the mission, driven largely by a desire to avoid jail time. He attempts to maintain order and keep the crew cooperative, but he ultimately watches helplessly as his own friendly Saint Bernard transforms into a monstrous green-fanged beast alongside the rest of the crew's nightmares.

Lazar Marashovski is a cynical, baronite-addicted misfit who introduces the recurring dragon hallucination into the group's shared space. While he initially treats the shared visions as a game, his inner anxieties cause his mental dragon to grow steadily larger, more feral, and harder to control.

Vera Galindez, a former occultist and would-be medium, consistently questions the wisdom of relying on Omnidrene and recognizes the fragility of their mental constructs. Unlike the others who double down on denial, she repeatedly advocates for stopping the drug before it is too late.

Bram Daker is a stocky, scowling crew member who initiates the creation of the Spanish garden to bring order to the common room. Later in the voyage, when the monsters overwhelm their defenses, it is Daker who rallies the panicked crew to collectively visualize Earth to save themselves.

Marsha Johnson is an insecure woman seeking isolation who struggles deeply with her inner demons, introducing a giant black snake that repeatedly breaches the group's fragile sanctuary.

In Its Own Voice

Reflecting on the government's reckless determination to reach the stars regardless of human cost, the narrative observes the grim philosophy behind their desperate measures.

When a government with tens of billions of dollars to spend becomes monomaniacal, Great Things can be accomplished. Also, unfortunately, Unspeakable Horrors.

Describing the initial ingestion of the experimental drug that triggers the entire voyage's surreal psychological shift, the captain introduces the substance to his fellow crew members.

"This, fellow inmates," he said, "is Omnidrene. The time has come for us to indulge."

Confronting the terrifying realization that their mental constructs have escaped all boundaries, a crew member tries to rally the panicked group as the environment disintegrates.

"Only one thing's strong enough!" he bellowed. "Earth! Earth! EARTH! Think of Earth! All of you! We're back on Earth."

What It's Really About

The story explores the dangerous hubris of authoritarian bureaucracy and the inescapable nature of human psychology. By sending a crew of social outcasts into deep space armed only with a reality-denying drug, the narrative examines how institutional monomania manufactures its own horrors. It questions whether humanity can truly conquer the physical universe without first confronting the chaotic depths of the inner mind. The central argument suggests that trying to escape physical reality through total chemical delusion does not conquer the void; it merely gives external form to repressed psychological terrors. Ultimately, the story poses unsettling questions about what constitutes reality when subjective hallucinations become robust enough to reshape the physical world.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate classic speculative fiction driven by psychological suspense and dark irony will find much to admire here. Reading the story feels like descending slowly into a fever dream, where the claustrophobia of a steel starship merges seamlessly with vibrant, terrifyingly plastic hallucinations. The narrative brilliantly captures a mounting sense of dread as orderly sanctuary spaces slowly succumb to encroaching chaos.

Modern readers should note that the story reflects mid-twentieth-century science fiction tropes, including period attitudes toward psychological conditions, social deviation, and government bureaucracy. The characterizations occasionally lean on broad mid-century archetypes, and the premise relies on a swift, classic pulp escalation rather than modern hard-science procedural detail.

Despite these dated elements, the core psychological premise remains strikingly compelling. The journey from playful shared daydreams to an inescapable parade of monstrous projections leaves a lingering, eerie impression. It reminds us how easily our internal anxieties can manifest when we try to outrun our realities, ensuring the story remains a fascinating, unsettling artifact of speculative imagination.