He awoke on the deck of a starship.  The large, central viewscreen displayed the planet below.  He was lying on the floor beside the command chair where the captain should have been sitting, but there was no one else to be seen on the bridge.  His head ached.  He sat up and looked around, anyway.  He found that he was wearing a beige overcoat.  The console on the arm of the command chair indicated that the vessel was on autopilot, frozen In a geostationary orbit over some target on the planet’s surface.  He sat down in the chair and rubbed his forehead, trying to remember what had happened.  Then he realized that he had forgotten who he was.  Amnesia pressed down like the hand of a stranger inside his skull, keeping some dark secret from him.  He had no past and no future, and yet he remembered the general layout of the ship, how to read the controls, and how to check the computer’s status systems and verify that he was the only person on board.

He sat still for a very long while, afraid to discover who he was.

“Am I evil?” he wondered.  “Did I have friends before?  Am I supposed to be on someone’s side?”  It seemed to him that there had been some kind of conflict, something urgent had been happening.  “Does someone expect me to do something?”  He found it better to sit still and wait, for the moment he moved he would have to take on the responsibility of deciding what to do next.

“What was I afraid of before?  Where was I going?”  He punched commands into the console to display the ship’s manifest, and any available information on its origin and ultimate destination, but then his head started to hurt worse.  He had to look away.  He didn’t want to know.  He stood up and walked to the central viewscreen, looking down on the planet below.  “Computer, what’s below us?” he asked.

“The ship is parked in geostationary orbit over the city of Zendaria.” replied the ships computer, its warm female voice echoing softly among the workstations and display consoles of the deserted command bridge.

He decided to take a chance on finding out something he didn’t want to know.  “Is this a military ship?” he asked.

“This ship’s call sign is INA398, registered vessel of the Caledrian Merchant Marine.”

He felt that he needed to get off the ship fast.  If he stayed, someone would find him, and although he couldn’t remember why, he knew he did not want to be found.   “Computer, prepare the skiff for launch.”

“Yes sir,” said the voice and consoles around the bridge flashed to life as automated ship’s systems were activated to carry out the order.  “Estimated time to readiness, eighteen minutes.”

He remembered that there was a lounge on the other side of the door on his left.  He went through and found a soda in the refrigerator.  He opened it and slumped down a chair, eyes closed.  The pain in his head was a little less.

“I wasn’t completely evil, or I wouldn’t be worried about it,” he thought.  He tried to remember where he had been going.  Suddenly the computer interrupted his train of thought.  “Systems are unable to prepare the skiff.  There is an obstruction in the airlock.”

“Show it on screen four.” he ordered.

The wall screen in front of him blazed to life and he could see the gray walls of the docking bay and the pale blue door of the airlock to the skiff.  It was a familiar sight.  He knew he had been there before.  The only thing unfamiliar about it was the pair of legs stretched awkwardly across the metal gridwork of the docking bay floor.  Someone, living or dead, was lying in the airlock door.  He had no idea who it could be.

At that point he could have asked, “Computer, who am I?” and learned quite a bit, but he chose not to.

“Computer, how long can the ship maintain this orbit without being disturbed?”

“With current fuel and resources, seven weeks.”

Someone could be looking for him, but without his memory he couldn’t know what to do about it anyway.    But if he moved the body and tried to get away the cops could arrest him.