All power in the ship was now confined to life-support. They were simply existing.
Washed in the blue back-up light, Scott sat in the communal lounge’s reclining chair. He had taken his second tranquilliser pill in eight hours, and now – twenty minutes later – his fear of a slow and painful death had receded away to a safely ignorable distance. They were all resigned to an inevitable death, it seemed. But at least they could go comfortably in unconsciousness when the air finally runs out, courtesy of Doctor Lichman and his medication. Every time he closed his eyes Scott saw her: Deanna, wanting him almost as much as he wanted her. And then an instant later admonishing him for taking this assignment, when really he didn’t need the money. Did I? He also saw her at his funeral; upset for sure, but there was already another man sidled in to offer her comfort: one of her rich clients, no doubt, moving in on a vulnerable woman. Yet he knew she’d have to get on with her life; he would want that – surely? … but to just keep that flame burning for him.
Josh looked over from the adjacent chair and said bitterly, ‘How does it feel to be a pioneer, Scott? Pretty fucking cool, eh?’
‘Yeah, it’s just that,’ Scott answered wearily. ‘We’ll be remembered for centuries to come.’ Yet his sarcastic tone didn’t feel inappropriate; he had a definite inkling that their true situation would be covered up … rather than explain how it could be that they were stranded four thousand light years from Earth.
Lichman was in a upright chair a few metres away by a coffee table. ‘You’re not giving up hope just yet. I’m keeping the last of the tranqs in reserve for an emergency.’
‘You mean the emergency of when the air runs out … in about, what, three hours?’
‘I’m talking about if one of you two had a panic attack, thinking you’re going to die.’
‘But we are, doc,’ retorted Josh. ‘We really are!’
‘Have some faith, man.’
‘Well, that’s all we have.’
Lichman looked to Scott. ‘You still got some power left in that suit pack?’
‘Err, hardly any.’
‘Then I’ll get mine. We’ll hook them all up to the sensors.’
‘But the sensors have fried.’
‘Not all of them. There’s a remote interface in the corridor.’
Scott pushed himself off the chair, feeling his balance go, not knowing if it was the failing AG or the effect of the tranqs.
The interface panel was the same one they had accessed near the flight-deck door. The hand-held console adapted as a sensor relay. Scott fumbled clumsily with the connecting wires, to the concern of Dr Lichman who seemed poised to take over.
He managed it finally. The two ailing power packs connected to the control panel, held by Lichman. The screen flickered, but it stabilised enough to give a relay feed of surrounding space. Not that it was anywhere near as good as the flight deck sensors; the over-layed text said: SPACIAL SCAN – 1-MILLION KILOMETRES.
A radar-effect line circled the screen. Then after about a minute: SPACIAL ANOMALY APROX THREE HUNDRED FIFTY KS OUT IN THE DIRECTION OF PEGASUS CONSTELLATION. CANNOT IDENTIFY.
‘What is it?’ Lichman said, peering over at the little screen.
‘Your guess is a good as mine, doc.’ Scott’s voice still slurred, and the drug-induced sleepiness was making this all seem a bit unreal.
‘Perhaps it’s our rescuers.’
Scott switched the screen to visual only and set it to relay the magnified image of the anomaly. He could see something rippling amongst the starred background, but nothing was resolving. And after a few seconds the screen went blank followed by: INTERFACE DEACTIVATED.
The power packs had finally drained of what little was left.
Scott heard irregular footsteps, and turned to see Josh running in an oddly skipping motion.
‘It’s going,’ Josh said breathlessly as he came to a juddering halt a metre from them. ‘Gravity – AG. And I think the air’s running out too. Can’t you notice?’
Lichman turned to face Scott. ‘I think he’s right. Check the console.’
It confirmed that the surrounding air was thinning at three percent a minute.
Josh shook his head. ‘This is it, man. Time to open that pill box, doctor.’
‘Not so soon. Something’s out there trying to reach us. We put on space suits and wait it out.’
‘Could be our rescuers,’ Scott said brightly.
‘Give me those damn pills.’
*
This was like nothing he had ever before experienced. He was spinning, his suit quiescent after dropping into the wormhole, not knowing if reactivating it would lead him to his death. At one end – his destination – he saw stars bowing towards him as if seeing through a lens, the other: a timer, clearly visible above the wormhole generator. Maybe this had been installed for his benefit, and that this effect had been anticipated. All the numbers were changing wildly. He could just make out the hours, the minutes were a blur.
Zorandi knew that this time-differential was normal. To the observer in the lab he had entered the event horizon in a fraction of a second, only to appear suspended in time upon entering. Negative energy surrounding him, a vacuum of dilated space-time stretching to a zero-point singularity, spun to form a ring. Not something he could see or know when he passes through it.
Now, though, Zorandi had to focus. He gave the voice command to deactivate the counter field.
Subject to the full force of the expanded singularity he shot towards the mid point. The suit’s inertial dampers were not enough to prevent him almost losing consciousness. Only as his momentum passed him through the singularity did he regain some awareness of the stars before him.
He was already out the other end; the suit had ensured the smoothest possible transition. It relayed to him a star map showing before him the distance from the stranded ship – a mere two point four million kilometres. He deployed a relay beacon, to constantly record his transmitted position and vital signs and broadcast to him any changes in the local environment.
‘Activate eighty percent burn,’ he instructed the suit. Fifty-two mini fusion thrusters fired up, sending him surging forward like some children’s animated superhero. Without the extra load of power cells he was carrying to revive the ship his acceleration could have been a hundred gee instead of a mere ten. Still, he was due to rendezvous in less than two hours.
Yet something was causing him to drift off course, strange eddies in the surrounding space.
Then his location jumped as if he’d been caught up in one of these eddies.
‘Analyse any spacial anomalies.’ Zorandi instructed.
‘High levels of gravitational distortion. Cannot identify possible cause.’
He wondered if somehow the wormhole was still having an effect. But when he checked with the beacon, it had gone; curiously the suit had omitted to relay that to him. Did it think this was extraneous information? He knew the wormhole couldn’t be sustained for the journey back, in any case, and would have to wait it out in the ship. A ship full of humans never sounded very appealing, but out here was something exceptional.
Zorandi was having trouble keeping a steady course, his suit’s fusion units were constantly correcting deviations. At least this suit was designed for most types of gravimetric disturbances, maintained at 0.4 percent light speed.
After an endless two hours the ship was in visual range and he was rapidly decelerating.
Coming to a halt at a kilometre from the vessel he made a check with the transponder beacon, needing the reassurance that it was still functioning. But when he requested the relay signal something appeared very wrong. The delay of five minutes was worrying enough, its chronometer readings were even more of a concern. According to the beacon twenty (Earth) days had passed since his last transmission request, and his time dilation was becoming exponentially greater. No relativistic effect could account for this kind of discrepancy. It was something he had no understanding of; his suit was certainly unable to give an explanation. He hoped the ship had been affected to the same degree – that their subjective time was only counted in days – otherwise their corpses should have been retrieved by the B’tari recon crew.
Zorandi moved very slowly towards the Farquest. The beacon was set now to give a constant update. In what should have taken mere seconds to relay info was now taking nearly ten minutes; the last update told him four months had passed. The effect must have been getting stronger nearer towards the ship.
Typical Earth design, he thought: all hard angles, to give the impression of solidity and robustness – reassurance that this vessel can withstand the most extreme conditions space can offer it. A false impression easily discounted with the most cursory knowledge of the cosmos.
He was so caught up in observing the ship he hadn’t noticed what was happening to the constellations, until his suit told their position had shifted. When he looked, he knew exactly what this was: the watery effect shimmering over them before they vanished to reappear in the state they had been tens of millions of years earlier. The younger stars even showed signs of shifting their output spectrum to the bluer end.
Temporal erasure.
In this time frame it would be too late. He’d never make it back before the erasure spread to Sol and way beyond. All life on Earth no more advanced than primates. All of human history: how unique and fascinating it had been; the richness of its culture, its art and literature – merely wiped out in a meaninglessly short time. Was that really what these aliens wanted? Their idea of a clean slate, perhaps … and for what?
‘What about me?’ he said in the B’tari home language. ‘Are you just hoping I will die?’
He wasn’t really expecting an answer to this desperate plea for the self. Instead he continued edging towards the ship, wondering how the passengers would react to being told they were the only humans left in existence, if they were indeed alive.
The outside hatch to the airlock could not be opened in the normal way. He tried the remote interface port – a simple gold node; his suit emitted an EM signal in an attempt to communicate with the ship’s control systems and pump in enough power to activate the lock mechanism. But it came as no surprise to discover the electrical relay was fused beyond use. The hatch lock would have to be lasered through.
Even with its violet spot held still the laser failed to make any impact, as if it were no more that a presentation pointer. He felt ridiculous for being so sure of its effectiveness. Yet curious – such imperviousness – for human technology. Surely they weren’t anticipating the risk of an alien invasion?
In a final act of frustration Zorandi fixed a micronuke over the hatch lock area, and then retreated by about a hundred metres.
At first he thought the explosive had failed after the timer on his suit reached zero. Then after another twenty seconds the hatch blew away, but it was like watching a slowmo replay. The temporal anomaly must be concentrated around the ship, yet his sensors were telling him nothing, as if the ship were in normal space.
He exited the outersuit – tethering it to the nearest grapple loop – leaving a standard EVA suit, allowing him to easily enter the hatch.
Once beyond the airlock, the view inside was pitch black, indicating that there was not even reserve power remaining. There was always the possibility that something, or rather one of the aliens, had infiltrated the ship and killed the passengers. Still, rather than use infrared or echo location Zorandi opted for a simple wide beam spotlight. If there was anything/anyone aboard it would surely already know of his presence, and his fate was probably sealed in any case. At least he could see the interior in stark detail.
He reached a control panel near the flight-deck door, which was already opened, told the suit to make a remote power-assisted interface. Now at least that would gain the attention of any intruder. But Zorandi knew he was stalling, putting off the inevitable moment when he would discover the fate of the passengers.
In the meantime the interface console was telling him all systems were at zero power. Once the console gained enough charge it gave him some more detail: Last power input 219,584 hours ago. That was about twenty-five years! Time inside seem to exist in its own bubble.
I’m too late. Yet, until he saw time being unravelled, he’d clung to the vague hope – thoughts of how he would save those passengers, return to a hero’s welcome.
Zorandi felt the panic rise within his stomach, becoming a bile in his throat. He desperately wanted to remove his helmet, but then he would die within seconds. His own air was due to run out in about thirty hours. It was not something he’d even thought about before. But he couldn’t risk connecting his power packs at this stage.
Got to move on.
On the floor of the corridor was an EVA suit, what had clearly been the last reserve for one of the passengers. Zorandi leant down so that the full beam illuminated its bubble helmet. There was no one inside. A sharp exhalation of breath followed. Then Zorandi continued on to the main passenger deck, sweeping his light over the luxuriant chairs and couches: the epitome of human extravagance, although this was the pride of Earth’s space endeavours.
Two more vacuum suits about three metres apart on the blue carpeted floor. But again neither of them were occupied.
Zorandi looked about for a few more minutes through the other rooms until he was satisfied the passengers were no longer there.
Most ships, even a moderately sized one such as this, have some kind of escape pod; yet his searches revealed no evidence of any. And even if they had escaped it seemed a futile act of survival.
Eventually, when his suit was becoming unbearably claustrophobic, he decided to connect up one of his power packs. The interface console did not accept such high level input. Instead they had to be connected in the maintenance bay below the flight deck.
Power restored after a shaky start: bright white overhead lights came on, dazzling at first – the stark restoration of a sudden return to life. This should create enough power for not only all environmental systems but all secondary including a limited engine thrust, depending on the level of damage.
Even before he went back up to the flight deck, Zorandi got out of his suit. For the first few seconds all his fear and apprehension vanished, only relief at this sense of freedom. It was just a ritual that reminded him of some faint memory of having returned to safety.
Then logic kicked back in.
The flight deck’s control panel appeared damaged beyond use, but he found a portable unit that bypassed every other interface. He considered trying to manoeuvre the ship to see if it could shake off this strange temporal field. Pointless at best, he realised. Equally, activating a distress beacon would only advertise his presence to the aliens, perhaps viewing him merely as the leftover detritus to clean up: the only sentient being to survive the wave. Yet a more sinister alternative presented itself. He was unique in having gone through temporal erasure, the only B’tari out of his time – living it twice. Surely he was of value to the Elusivers, a curiosity to be studied?
If the aliens have enough control of this ship to keep it isolated from the surrounding universe then they had control over him. Perhaps observing him, deciding the fate of the last remaining b’tari.
Zorandi collapsed to the ground. The standby bleeping of the portable unit taunting him.
All those efforts to prevent them, failed?
He considered the true nature of his motives. How much was it really about rescuing those humans?
***