9781910981729 (12 page)

AN ASTRONAUTS DREAM

The doctors had assured her she wouldn’t dream, and in fairness, she hadn’t. These were the first thoughts that occurred to the astronaut as she began her slow wake from hibernation. As she felt the robot probes injecting her body with electrolyte solutions and various assorted stimulants to aid her return to consciousness, her training began to take over. ‘Cygnus’ she thought. ‘We’re finally there’. Eighty three years lying in this high tech tomb, watched over by the ever present unblinking eyes of the computers monitoring her every body function was at an end; machines that had ensured her very existence as her ship streaked through the hostile vastness of deep space towards her final destination. ‘Where none has gone before,’ she thought, the enormousness of her situation undulled by the sluggishness of her awakening thought processes.

By now, she mused, braking procedures would have been initiated. Her ship, the mighty
Hector,
would be shedding incalculable kilo joules of energy as the star drive wound down. Within a few days the ship would have stopped completely and her charge would be sat silent, surrounded by sights new to human experience. An end to an epic journey and a fitting achievement for the most advanced spaceship ever created. The
Hector
was a true
Ship of the Line;
the commodore’s insignia on her uniform was a testament to this. She allowed herself the luxury of a smile as she considered her achievement.

In twenty-four hours her second in command would awaken and so would her chief engineer to oversee the last stage of their deceleration. As commander it was her privilege to determine that she was awakened first to enjoy a delicious twenty four hours of solitude and experience the sights of deep space so very far from home with no distraction. In a week or so the rest of the crew and the colonists would be woken including her own personal companions. She thought with pleasure and longing about Lara and Tekashi. Both so very different and yet both so appealing and, mercifully, unintimidated by each other. An affectionate triumvirate whose love had grown so fast that it had bewildered her and hopefully would survive the challenges of their brave new worlds.

After a few minutes she felt strong enough to speak, but when she tried all that she could manage was a pathetic squeak. ‘Strange,’ she thought. ‘I should be able to speak almost immediately.’ She put it down to an inordinately long time in hibernation. Her previous maximum had been a mere two years. Eighty-three years was bound to be different. Half an hour later she felt almost ready to sit up but she still found she was almost unable to move beyond the odd twitch and, more concerningly, it was still impossible to utter an intelligible sound.

A wash of concern passed over her. Something was wrong. She should be returning to normal far more quickly. She was unable to interface with the main computer as it was voice activated though she knew its systems would be waking her up as carefully and as quickly as possible. She reasoned that the only thing she could do was wait in a state of some anxiety until she was fully revived.

The hours passed inexorably slowly as she waited for the first signs of mobility and speech, a process that should have taken thirty minutes maximum, even after all these years. It was a most shaken Commodore who crawled from her capsule almost a day later. Shakily she stumbled across the floor to a terminal and tapped the ‘Interface enable’ key. Still unable to speak properly, or most certainly not in a manner where the computer would recognise and respond to her, she keyed in her clearance and enquired

Ship status?

After what seemed like an age an answer appeared on the screen.

Nominal.

Unappeased and annoyed by the brevity of the response she keyed in.

Current velocity and position?

Again a full thirty seconds passed before the reply flashed up on the screen.

Current velocity zero, position unknown.

She blinked in disbelief and rapidly typed

Why is position unknown? When did we stop?

The cursor oscillated briefly then typed out.

Position unknown due to no frame of reference. Ship stopped fourteen hours and fifty-three minutes ago.

Confused, she typed again.

Take position from star fixes.

This time the reply was immediate.

No stars available for fix.

A sensor malfunction. A serious problem at this stage of their mission. She was immediately concerned. She resumed her interface.

Run full diagnostic on sensors.

The computer immediately replied.

Initiated.

As the computer commenced its investigations, she made her way painfully over to one of the windows in the hibernation chamber and hit the button to raise the screen. As the screen went up she looked eagerly to see the star system she had travelled so very far to find. She looked into an inky blackness and could see nothing. She reached out and dimmed the room’s lights to get a proper view but it made no difference. It was like looking into pitch-black nothingness. Someone clearing his throat courteously behind her made her jump out of her skin.

“I’m awfully sorry to startle you,” said a shadowy figure in the gloom of the darkened room. Reacting immediately, she hit the normal lighting button which revealed a kindly looking elderly man dressed in what looked liked the sort of costume that was difficult to place. Maybe Indian or Srilankan she thought, though the man appeared to be a Caucasian.

She stared at him, knowing she couldn’t speak, afraid but unwilling to show it. The man waved his hand gently and said. “It’s ok, you can talk now. You should start feeling better shortly. Who am I? Well it’s a good and simple question but a long answer I’m afraid.”

She spoke, slowly at first getting used to using her voice again, “Computer, intruder alert, initiate all high security protocols. Start waking procedures on security detail.”

The old man chuckled. “I’m sorry, but the computer is only operating at its most basic level though, one has to say, considering everything, it’s done rather well. I really think we should talk.” As he spoke she watched him carefully, trying to evaluate him. He seemed totally at ease yet he had no apparent back up despite his intruder status. The man smiled at her and eased himself into a chair.

“I’m unarmed, benign, unaccompanied and here to try and help,” he said. “We’ve lots to discuss.”

“My crew and passengers…” she began to say.

“Are safe in hibernation and unharmed,” the man replied, cutting her off. “Let me try to make it a bit easier for you. Let me tell you what I know.” She was about to interject, not used to having someone else take the initiative but the man held up his hand and said, “Please indulge me. You set off on your valiant trip to travel a great distance to colonise and terra form new worlds. It was a laudable exercise. Your ship actually had a star drive which was rather clever I must say. There aren’t many who worked out how to do this. What was it you called them? Tachyons. Yes that’s it, tachyons. What a wonderful name. Yes, they do indeed travel faster than light and your people worked that out. Very clever, very clever indeed.”

She made to speak but he silenced her with a look, a slightly more serious look this time and continued. “You can ask whatever you wish…when I’ve finished.” He settled himself more comfortably in his chair and continued. “A few weeks after you set off you initiated the star drive which was programmed to push you towards Cygnus where you would arrive after eighty three years. Despite the fact that the drive was capable of huge velocities, it took many years to accelerate to the speed you thought was possible so you left it to the computers to manage this function and, so to speak, you took to your beds to sleep through what would have been a rather tedious journey. What you don’t know is that initially everything went to plan until just after you passed Proixma Centauri. Now, you must understand it wasn’t your fault; it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just one of those things that happen. Shortly after Proxima Centauri you had a small encounter, a very small encounter indeed, with a minute particle of space dust that had been rushing across the universe since the dawn of time itself. While you slept, this particle, no more than a micron or so wide, hit your ship and went straight through it. It was so small even the sensors didn’t notice the microscopic hole it made in your hull. Alas this particle blasted through your computer core and destroyed a few lines of machine code…a few critical lines unfortunately. It caused what you would call a catastrophic protocol failure. You do like those complex words don’t you? The result of this was that the computer forgot to turn off the star drive and, as the deceleration program was linked to your ‘wake up’ program, this was also forgotten. So you kept accelerating and kept going.”

“We’re not at Cygnus?” she asked.

“Err, no…I think we can safely say you missed your stop.”

“So where are we and who the hell are you and how did you get onto my ship?” she snapped.

Apparently unperturbed by her manner the man answered. “Sadly this where the answers to your questions become a little more, shall we say…enigmatic?”

“Try me,” was the terse reply.

“Which question would you like answered first?…actually I’d better answer the first one and then the answers to the second and third question may make slightly more sense,” he said. Before she had a chance to say anything he continued.

“Your ship just kept accelerating and accelerating and just kept on going until there was nowhere else to ‘keep going’ to. Not to put too finer point on it…err how do I say this…you’re at the end of pretty much everything actually. Before you ask the next question, which I know will be ‘How long have we been asleep?’ I must tell you that if I tried to tell you that in that wonderful base ten numbering system that you use I’d still be chattering out zeros in a few days time. Just trust me that’s it’s longer than you could ever begin to imagine, hence your difficulty in waking up. I must say, your machines did a rather good job keeping you alive.”

She was too intelligent to think he may be joking. This was not a colonist who had somehow awakened to play a practical joke. This intruder was either very dangerous or very powerful, or perhaps both.

“Yes, you’re right,” the man murmured. “I am powerful as far as you’re concerned, but most certainly not dangerous.” As she was about to speak he again held up his hand to silence her and continued. “And in answer to the third part of your question, which you may recall was, ‘who am I?’ that is a slightly more difficult one to answer. Forgive me if I save that bit of information until you’ve asked me a few more questions. I can see you’re just bursting with them and understandably so. Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time, because here time doesn’t exist, at least not in the way you think about it.”

She tried to read his expression but found herself unable to. Her first thoughts were about the safety of her crew, passengers and ship. The next priority was the mission status. This strange interlocutor was a command problem that she could have never envisaged. If he was a saboteur why was he bothering to talk to her and what would he be hoping to gain? He clearly wasn’t a colonist (he could never have taken himself out of hibernation) and she knew all her crew member’s faces and he most certainly wasn’t one of them. His story was obviously preposterous, so what was he doing there and what was she going to do about it?

“Just the thoughts one would expect of a quality commander,” the old man said, startling her. “Yes I can read your mind; it’s frankly a lot easier than using speech. So much less restricting. My story is not preposterous, it’s true; your crew and passengers, as I’ve said, are fine but your mission is compromised by a factor that is way beyond your training, experience or understanding. And, as I know we’re going to have to get around to this sooner or later…I am the one who created all this.”

“What?” she snapped, “You created these problems?”

“Very indirectly…yes,” he replied. “But what I really meant is that I created…well…all of it really.” He made a grandiose gesture.

“You’re a ship designer?” she said.

He laughed great guffaws until his shoulders shook. “No, no, no,” he said, “Not just the ship…everything…what you call the universe actually.”

Something inside her snapped. “Let’s get this straight. I’m at the end of the universe yes? And I suppose you must be God then? Nice outfit by the way. Call me cynical but piss off and let me check some facts for myself.” With that she strode past him into the corridor and made her way to the bridge. As she stamped her way towards an elevator she shouted, “Computer, is voice interface activated?”

“Enabled,” came back the pleasant female voice.

“Computer,” she continued, “how many years has this mission lasted so far?” By the time she had entered the elevator and subsequently reached the bridge, the computer was still chattering out the trillions of zeros needed to answer her question accurately. “Computer stop” she barked as she walked out onto the bridge. The computer’s confirmation of the stranger’s affirmation did nothing to ease her mood. “Main view screen” she said as she stood on the command deck. The screens whirred back revealing a 180-degree view outside the ship which showed…nothing…just the same inky blackness she’d seen from the hibernation port. “Computer, how many light years have we travelled?” she asked with some exasperation. Two minutes later the computer was again still chanting the almost infinite number of zeros needed to answer her question when suddenly it went quiet. The stranger was standing next to her.

“That’s enough. Time for some empirical experience,” he said gently. With that the bulkhead next to them vanished, opening the bridge to deep space. Shocked she stood back. “Don’t worry,” the old man said. “I’m taking care of your breathing…please follow me,” and with that he walked outside.

He stood looking at her, seemingly floating in black nothingness some ten meters outside the hull “Com’on,” he beckoned. “What have you got to lose?” Nothing in her training or experience had prepared her for anything like this. Her mind raced trying to rationalise her situation but came up with nothing. The computer had confirmed that she had been asleep for untold millennia and she had travelled a distance that seemed to be unquantifiable in physical terms. Additionally this stranger seemed to know all about it and had the power to read her mind and make walls vanish, powers that revealed not inconsiderable abilities yet mercifully he appeared friendly. She conceded it would probably be best to just play along until the purpose of her situation revealed herself. With that she took a tentative step outside her ship and found it was just like walking on a normal floor. Though she was surrounded by pitch black there was illumination provided by the ship’s navigation lights so she was afforded a clear view of the man.