Onliest

by J Daniel Batt

  The settling ponds themselves were impossible to navigate—at best there was a foot above the water level in those spots where the water from the entire ship was filtered slowly through the depths of rock and then back to the ship. All of the moisture was moved through that very bottom level.

  Along one screen, the engine performance of Olorun was analyzed and displayed. This one had schematics floating above themselves, projecting up off of the screen with a wave of her hand. The screens stayed flat until she chose to interact with them. But with a simple motion, they expanded and filled the space around her—a very real three-dimensional visualization of whatever they were projecting. For the engines, she was able to move and manipulate the different parts and examine the flow of fuel from the scoop back through filtration and processing to the engines themselves. The engines themselves were cold and quiet now. They were in a drift sequence. Floating ahead with inertial mass only.

  “Oh,” Blip said from her right.

  Syn floated to him and hovered near the center bay of screens. The one in front of him had no diagrams. There were only numbers and an array of tiny dots blinking on and off in such a fast succession that they made no sense to Syn. Blip was gathering some data—he could read that, but she couldn’t. “What is it?”

  “Something is wrong.” Blip’s eyes went off and then so did his mouth. He became a white porcelain football floating above the green-lit screen. “A second,” his voice chimed, far more robotic and manufactured than was normal. He was in deep calculation. This wasn’t like being on the Jacob when he was trying to convince the elevator to ignore its programming. This time, he was downloading key information. “A minute more on calculations. I want to run this a couple times to make sure.” His voice had a bit more color. Less monotone now. Maybe he was hopping through the information at a better pace.

  So Syn sat and watched the various micro squares turn on and off. She became hypnotized by their flashing and almost fell asleep until she heard his voice, “Okay. I’ve got it.”

  “What do you have?”

  “It’s bad,” he said.

  “Don’t try to soften it. Just tell me.” Syn hated when he evaded answering. Nothing was ever positive when he did it that way. It always made the news feel a bit larger to her, but she usually listened more after he took that approach, just as she was then.

  “Okay, so um…”

  Computers that stuttered had to be the stupidest thing ever. “Get to it,” she said.

  “Something’s wrong with the gravity,” Blip said, and she saw him pull back a small distance. Not more than an inch, but he shifted when he broke the news. Was he scared?

  “What’s that mean? How much?”

  Blip moved closer but still kept his space. “Not much now. But it will mean a lot soon. A whole lot.”

  “Isn’t the gravity controlled by the spin of the Disc?” Syn asked, leaning closer to the screens.

  Blip spoke aloud, although Syn knew it was only for her benefit, “Give me a visual of the Disc.”

  The computer spoke back, its voice deep and feminine, “The Disc is thirty…”

  Syn cut it off, “I know.”

  Blip interjected, “Show me the spin of the Disc now compared to the spin of the Disc when Olorun launched.”

  The single image of the Olorun now inhabiting the air in front of them split into two identical sized copies. Olorun then and Olorun now. The colors had faded. All along the outside of the ship, black lines and small dent marks appeared. The skin of the ship itself was now bright white, bleached from the decades of constant radiation bombardment without any form of protection.

  But the biggest difference was the spin. It wasn’t much, but while watching, after the fourth or fifth spin, it was obvious the more recent version was slower. And if it was slower, “The gravity is less now than when we started,” Blip said.

  Syn shook her head. “Can we live with it?

  “It isn’t a great difference.”

  Syn’s hand traced through the air. The Disc was spinning slower. Gravity was less. But there was so much else happening there, she could not figure out why. The energy being pushed into the Disc to keep it spinning was the same. The weight of the Disc was nearly the same as it had been. Although that wasn’t entirely true—there were a few tons’ difference. In the scope of things though, that was nothing. She just couldn’t figure out why it was moving slower. She walked through the sparks of light hanging around her, moving her hand to grip and rotate the image of the Olorun in the air. She spun it around to get a good profile look at the Disc spinning about the needle. Beautiful. Slow. Steady.

  “I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

  “You have all the information you need to make this analysis?” That had been a line of thinking that Blip had trained her in early on. She had to make sure that she knew all of the details before she hypothesized. It was the result of having an AI as a mentor. Data was king, or at least all of the data at her availability. Anything that was obscured could be a potential spot for answers. For Blip to have supposedly analyzed everything, a bit of a connection and explanation for the slowing Disc should appear. But nothing?

  “Yes,” Blip said.

  Syn grabbed the edges of the Olorun hologram before her and pulled out. The ship’s image expanded. She did it again and zoomed in on the part of the needle where the gate would be. With her thumb and index finger pressed together, she turned the various pieces of the needle around, looking for anything. “Is this now?”

  “The image is accurate as to the last full ship analytical scan performed at 0200 hours, earlier this morning,” the computer answered.

  “You mean the explosion?” Syn asked.

  The computer responded, “Yes.”

  Syn turned to him. “You’ve already done a scan? I hate when you read minds.” Syn said, although she truly didn’t. It was always something that made her want to hug him right after he did it. She smiled and thought, it’s freaky how well he knows me.

  “Ya, it was what I was wondering,” Blip said.

  Syn raised her eyebrows at this and stepped over to him. “You did? Did you ask the computer about it?

  Blip hesitated.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” Blip said, “I’m just verifying that I understood everything the Olorun replied with. There’s no connection. The explosion didn’t seem to result in any decay of the rotation of the Disc. The decaying speed had been occurring for a lot longer before the explosion happened.”

  “Did the slowing cause the explosion?” Syn asked.

  “I…Hmm…Maybe,” Blip said and then spun around to interface with the computer again.

  Syn smiled. She had stumped him. She muttered, “’Bout time.”

  “And that’s a no,” came Blip’s fast response.

  She grunted and crossed her arms. “Fine.” She turned back to the design of the ship. Something about the image was bothering her. Something about the numbers. Syn wasn’t a math genius, but she could hold her own. Everyone on the ship had to know complex algebra. She wasn’t great at physics, but she understood the gist. This type of modeling was where she fell down. Nonetheless, something was annoying her about the images and figures floating around. Something that seemed off.

  Propulsion. That was it.

  “Blip, how much fuel is left?”

  Blip coughed and narrowed his eyes at her. “Computer, can you give me a quick summary of the overall total engine expenditure since launch?”

  The computer replied, “In fuel?”

  Syn nodded. Blip said, “Yes.”

  “Thank you. Give me a brief moment to verify the data.” The moment was brief. Maybe a second at most. Then, the screens around her pulled out the full bar graph showing monthly and yearly fuel use for overall propulsion.

  “There,” Blip said. He shone a light out to highlight in the air above some small number.

  Syn just raised an eyebrow.

  “The fu
el being used, and the overall drag on the ship doesn’t equal the current speed and projected mass. Based on fuel expenditure, we should be moving a lot faster than what we are now.” Blip spun around and worked the calculations out on one of the screens near Syn. He mumbled to himself, “See. At this speed, the fuel should’ve been a lot less. At this fuel rate, we should be traveling much faster. There it is. If I…No, almost there.” He gabbed to himself and ignored her. This calculation was critical. He went silent.

  Syn stood in the middle of the quiet, blackened bridge, waiting for Blip to come back up for air. All but the screens were dark. There, around her, floated the blue diagrams of the ship, glowing in bright lines.

  “No, this is far worse than what I had originally predicted. I knew it was bad, but not this bad…” Blip stopped mid-sentence, realizing he had uttered more than he intended. He turned to face Syn.

  She glared. “Do you think these have…”

  Blip just stared at her. Not at the figures. Not at the numbers. Not at the diagrams in the air around them.

  “Blip?”

  He just stared at her.

  “Did you know this was happening?”

  Blip didn’t respond. Although she could’ve sworn she saw a momentary, half-second flicker of his eyes when she asked the question.

  “Blip, are the explosion and the gravity and the fuel connected?”

  “No,” he finally spoke. “There is no way they are connected.”

  “Did you know about this before now?”

  “I knew.”

  It was her turn to stop talking. She glared at him, eyes furrowed, jaw clenched. Stupid Blip. He knows something that he isn’t telling. What else is he hiding?

  He continued, “I knew that something was off, but I didn’t think it would matter. I didn’t think it would be this bad, this fast. We’re still moving through space. We’re still going to be on this ship for a few more decades.”

  She turned and placed her finger on the glowing number he had highlighted. “Not according to this.”

  He glanced at where she pointed. The numbers were a stream of information, but what they were spelling out was simple. They were burning too much fuel. They either didn’t have enough to make it to Àpáàdì, or when they arrived, the ship wouldn’t have enough to slow their speed.

  “Blip,” Syn said, “If I’m understanding you, and from what I can grasp, if these figures are right, we are burning through our fuel faster than we should be. Either we stop that, and this trip takes a lot longer, or we don’t, and we burn up too much fuel, and we can’t slow down when we get there? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “What’s it matter?” Blip said.

  Syn’s jaw must’ve dropped down to her feet. “What’s it matter?” Her voice was louder. She waved at the numbers scrolling around us in the dark room. She wanted to pluck them from the air and rub them in his face. How could he not grasp the problem? “Olorun won’t reach its destination! We’re stuck on this ship forever now! How can you say that?”

  His voice lost all emotion. “The mission is dead, princess.”

  Syn didn’t think. She didn’t breathe. On the word princess, she slammed her fist into his white hide, and he went sprawling through the air. “I’m not a princess!” Syn shouted, her fists balled up, screaming at him. “I’m not a princess.”

  He turned and righted himself without effort and flew back at her. Syn jerked back in fear that he was going to charge her. Instead, he moved right up to her, nose-to-nose. “The. Mission. Is. Over.” Each word was uttered sharp and distinct. “Over.” He repeated the last word, drawing it out long and loud.

  “No!” Syn shouted.

  “Over. They’re dead. All of them. Even if you land on the planet, even if you make it there. In a few decades, maybe a century, you’re going to die. And then what? What’s it matter? We have a good life here on this ship. Let Olorun do whatever Olorun wants to do.”

  Syn narrowed her eyes. Her head spun. Why was he talking about the ship like that? As if it was autonomous? It was automatic, but at best, the ship was still a dumb bot—a massive dumb bot, but a dumb bot still the same.

  “What are you talking about?” She couldn’t believe it. Blip had always been the one to tell her of the plan of the ship and the ship builders. He had gone through the great vision and the goal for the ship. He had described the exit from Earth and the need to move humanity elsewhere. He had been the one to go one for hours describing the great interstellar initiative of the years before that led to the building and launching of Olorun. Syn couldn’t believe what she was now hearing. “It’s your mission!”

  “It’s a dead mission. It was a dead mission from before you awoke. These numbers don’t matter.” With that, he signaled to the computer to shut the display off, and the blue floating images blinked out. They were left alone in the dark room, silhouetted against the star fields in the windows. “Let’s go back to the Disc. To the treehouse.” He turned and moved to the door.

  “Blip,” Syn said. Her eyes staring out at the starfield in front of them.

  He stopped and turned around. “Yes?”

  “Why can’t I see the ramscoop?”

  “Huh?”

  Syn stepped closer to the primary display, the one that showed what was ahead. The star they were aimed at, Kapteyn’s Star, was barely a pinpoint of light from this angle. There was nothing but empty black space there. “Where’s the ramscoop?” Syn pointed ahead of them.

  “This is an image of what’s ahead of the ship,” Blip said.

  “I know that. Where are the cameras positioned?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Syn spoke into the air, “Olorun, where is this camera located?” She tapped the image ahead of her.

  Before Olorun could respond, Syn caught the faintest wisp of blue light from Blip.

  “Blip?”

  “I want to go back down to the Disc,” he replied. And with that he was back to the door.

  It was all quite clear at that moment to her. She whispered a question she had asked several times before, but this time, she knew there was a different answer than before. “What’s on the other side of the gate?” Her words were faint.

  “I do not know.” There was something in the way he said it—maybe the flatness of the words. Perhaps they came out just a fraction of a second faster than they should have. She was certain. Blip had just lied to her.

  “You’re scared of what’s on the other side of the gate.” Syn still looked out at the stars. “There’s something on the other side, and you know what it is. No—I take that back. You know who it is. There’s someone else on Olorun, and you know about it. And I think you’ve known about it for a long time.”

  Syn walked toward him and tapped the top of his head, “And you know how to open the gate.” It was her turn to walk to the door. She pushed off and floated to the hatch before he could respond. Syn floated through the five-foot gap and then popped the hatch open below into the gate room.

  There it was. The gate with its odd and conspicuous bubble. It looked like a zit and the more she stared, the more she was sure it was going to explode.

  Blip’s shadow entered the cavern, and he came to hover beside her.

  He started, “Syn—”

  “Open it,” she said, not allowing him to get anything in. She didn’t want the excuses. She didn’t want the explanations.

  “Syn—” he started again.

  This time, louder, “Open it!”

  “You don’t know what’s on the other side.”

  “But you do.” She tapped her spear against his shell.

  “Not exactly. I didn’t know there were people alive over there.”

  “People? Alive? More than one?” Syn flung her arm out in gesture at the behemoth door before them. “There’s living people over there?”

  “There must be. But I don’t know how.”

  “Stop it with the thousands of cryptic sentences! What are you talking about? What�
�s on the other side? Where does that gate go to?”

  He did not respond. Instead, they floated in the emptiness as the engines hummed behind them. There were no sounds beyond that.

  Then he spoke three words which rattled her and took her breathe away. “There’s another Disc,” he said.

  She shook her head. She rubbed at her temples. She staggered at the shock of his words. She struggled to catch her breath. She had heard him, but it was unbelievable. Another world? After several moments, she found the words and asked, “Another Disc?”

  She wanted to be angry. He had just shared the most significant piece of information ever. She was furious. But she was also stunned, and her words coming out were nothing more than a single croak.

  “When the Madness struck here, it struck there first. This was before you were even woken up.”

  Syn knew the Madness had started before she was awoken. She had been activated after everything on the Disc went to Hell. Blip had always called the plague of killing and insanity The Madness. It made sense. Finding corpses torn apart, entire families slaughtered, and a perfect world devoid of humans felt like madness.

  Blip continued, “From what I can tell from the scant files, it was the same: disease and killing—it was the identical story as on this side. But they went a step further. They burned their Disc. Someone or several people set fire to the residences. The bots couldn’t respond fast enough. Everything went up in flames.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “It’s what Olorun told me. But everything was destroyed. The food stocks. The farms. The bots themselves. Gone. I did not say anything because there was nothing over there. An empty shell.”

  “What about the knocking? The voice? You told me everyone on Olorun had died.”

  “That’s the truth.” His voice was indignant. He wanted her to believe him. Syn wanted to believe him. “That’s what Olorun told me.”

  Then a thought crept in. She had never had reason to doubt anything until this moment. Finding out that Blip had hidden facts made her question everything. “How can you be sure Olorun isn’t lying?”