by Carl Derham
*
“Are you feeling tired Oli?” the ship asked, sounding concerned. “If you need sleep, I can stimulate your brain with a few hours of virtual sleep. It will only take a few seconds.”
“No, I’m fine thanks. I’m too excited to be tired, but does that mean that I never have to sleep?”
“I’ve never tried it on a Human, but theoretically you should be able to remain active for about one week before you need a genuine night's sleep. Your brain can be easily deceived, but the body soon protests if you continue down that road.”
Oli thought about the potential for clubbing and festivals. Staying up for a whole week, partying through day and night and never getting tired. Mmm, he thought. He was just slipping into Oli World when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Did you just touch me?” he asked, looking around in both directions.
“Virtually,” the ship stated, very matter-of-factly. “I don’t have any physical form so I cannot actually touch anything, but I can stimulate your nerve endings with a very high frequency signal, so that you believe that I touched you.”
“Telepathy?” quizzed Oli.
“Yes Oli, a very basic form, but telepathy all the same. The Annenians were highly telepathic, and designed their ships with an artificial form of telepathy so that they could be controlled by thought. Humans have some way to go before your brains can even begin to explore this possibility.”
The dis passed metres above Oli’s head as he thought about a ship controlled by thought. This didn’t appeal one little bit. He would much rather see a wheel, with knobs and buttons to press. Oh well, he thought, can’t have everything I suppose.
“Are we in kind of a rush, or can I have a look around the rest of the ship, Ship?”
Oli chuckled. He had wanted to give the voice a real name but the ship, Ship thing really appealed to his sense of humour, so he decided to leave it until he was bored with the joke, which in all reality could take weeks.
“The journey to Annenia will take five days, then we must locate and collect the equipment. That’s assuming that it has survived the inevitable demise of Annenia during the subsequent twelve thousand years. Then five days to return to this solar system, leaving us with three days to perform a task that should only take about ninety minutes. So yes Oli, we have time to spare.” And with that Oli heard a short psst noise from behind him. He swivelled round on the chair to see that a door at the far side of the room had opened.
“As I’m sure you’ve already appreciated Oli, this is the control room.”
Oli would have liked to see a few more controls, but he had suspected that it might be the bridge. He pushed himself off the chair with a little jump, landed both feet on the floor and walked towards the door. As he reached it he could see a long corridor, the same height as the room and about the same length as a bus. There were seven doors, three on either side and one at the end. There were no lights on the ceiling or on the walls, but the corridor was well illuminated. The light seemed to emit from within the fabric of the walls.
The ship sensed Oli’s impending question.
“The walls are constructed from a light generating metal alloy, Oli.” Oli could have sworn that he heard a snigger.
“The material that was used in the internal construction of all ships was an alloy of Annenian Bennian and the light-generating ore Gargite, found only on Garg. It’s a magnificent planet Oli. It shines like a star but is actually totally frozen over.” The ship continued to explain that Earth astronomers have been misidentifying Garg as a star since astronomy began. He would point it out to Oli when they were in orbit.
“Cool!” said Oli. The thought of being in orbit above the earth actually looking down at the entire planet was a childhood fantasy about to come true. Oli walked down the corridor running his hand down the wall as he went. It was as smooth as glass and cool to the touch. He was amazed to see ripples and patterns of light moving away from his fingertips as they brushed the surface. He stopped for a while and started making shapes with his fingers. Interlocking patterns emerged from his fingertips and disappeared into the edges of the wall. If he jabbed the material with his finger, circular ripples spread from the point of impact like waves in a pond.
The ship waited for a few minutes and then cleared its non-existent throat.
“Oh sorry,” said Oli, “miles away.”
As he reached the first two doors, the one on the left shot open with a “psst.”
“That’s a bit urgent, isn’t it?” he said as he reeled back. “Does it shut that quickly?”
“Yes Oli, but it won’t harm you. It has sensors to detect any object in its path. To construct a door that slammed into anyone who walked through, would be shear folly Oli.” The ship reassured him that even if it contacted a falling leaf it would not close. Oli still knew that he would be jumping every time a door opened. He asked the ship to make it more of a psssst, rather than a psst!
“I’ll see what I can do Oli.”
Oli walked into the room. It was the same size as the control room and the walls glowed. There was a bed that looked like a flat version of the chair on the right hand wall, and a strange looking round metal tray in the far-left corner. The tray was about one metre wide and curved like a very shallow wok. Suspended from the ceiling above it by a short golden rod, was a silver sphere the size of a cricket ball.
“This will be your room, Oli, and that is a cleansing unit.”
“A shower?” balked Oli.
He imagined all the water running across the floor due to the lack of curtain. Then he remembered where he was and awaited the ship’s explanation.
“It’s called a matrem. It isolates all foreign material on your body and vaporises it. Annenians didn’t perspire, so I’ve upgraded it to include liquid and dried perspiration.”
“Hmm.” Oli frowned, totally unconvinced by the whole idea.
“Can you smell things?” Oli asked, thinking that he might string it out for as long as he could without having to vapourise his body.
“I sense odours in the form of airborne bacterium and particles of bodily fluid, but have no opinion as to whether they are good or bad.”
The ship understood Oli’s question and didn’t want to push anything on him. After all he was handling all of this considerably better than it had anticipated. Oli said nothing; he just gave a nod and turned back into the corridor to face the door opposite. He jumped a little as the door opened, then nearly departed his skin when the one behind him closed. This is gonna take a while, he thought. The open door revealed an identical room with a bed and matrem.
“I was usually crewed by two Annenians,” the ship offered by way of an explanation.
“Where did the other ninety-eight sleep?” Oli asked, half expecting the ship to say they were frozen in the cargo hold.
“The main ship, Cranus, is hidden on your moon disguised as a mountain Oli. They transferred me from Cranus to this ship to make it easier to hide me on Earth. Cranus is a little too bulky to have concealed it on Earth.”
“When do I get to see Cranus then?” asked Oli, excited about the prospect of being on a huge star ship. He tried to imagine what the bridge of the big ship would be like.
“We have no need of Cranus at this present time Oli,” the ship explained, “but one day when the Human race is ready, it will be resurrected.”
Oli looked through the doorway without actually entering, to confirm that it was identical to his room. He nodded and continued down the corridor. As he approached the next doors, he suspiciously scrutinised the door on the left, telling himself, it's gonna go “psst” any second now. Ready… ready… He jumped as the door on the right went “psst.” Oli looked shocked. Had the ship just played a practical joke on him? Did it have a sense of humour? Surely not.
“This is the computer room Oli.” Not a hint of a smirk.
If that was deliberate, Oli thought, it’s good.
He walked to the doorway and looked in
to see a similar sized room to the others. The two sidewalls and the back wall were covered with white cabinets, a meter high, two metres long and half a metre away from the floor. Each cabinet had a curved control panel sloping away from the base. The control panels were covered with symbols and groups of buttons. This is more like it, thought Oli.
“You never need to come in here Oli. I am totally maintenance free,” the ship said, immediately bursting the image that Oli had conjured in his mind, involving him sitting at one of the control panels, pressing all the buttons as he controlled the ship.
“What if something goes wrong?” Oli asked.
“I can repair any damage that the ship may sustain. Also, there are three million nano drones working all over the ship, and if any problem requires physical work, they can combine to make larger drones.”
Oli was starting to feel a bit left out. Maybe there would be something for him to do in the next room. After all, he still wasn’t sure why the ship had brought him along. He walked back to the corridor, looking with one eye over his shoulder at the computer room door. ‘Psst’ it shut, he turned. ‘Psst’ the other one opened. He walked to the entrance and looked in. Empty! It was the same size, but as far as Oli could tell, contained nothing.
“This is the games room Oli.” The ship's explanation was met with silence. Oli just stood there and looked around at the empty space.
“Squash?”
“The Annenians appreciated recreation Oli. I possess two thousand of their favourite games stored for use on long journeys. Most of the games require telepathy but I can give you a demonstration if you would like.”
“I would like,” said Oli, already entering the room, “very much.”
He walked to the middle of the room, all the time wondering what sort of game could be played in an empty room. The door closed behind him.
“This is a game called Jabnahie. The object of the game is to journey through a three-dimensional cubist universe by synchronising the colours of the cubes. Try to imagine playing your human game called Rubix cube, from inside the cube, using only your mind to synchronize the colours. As each cube is correctly positioned, you advance to the next cube. There are too many variations to explain to you so I will play the game while you watch.”
At that moment, a door opened in the wall to the right of him and a chair, similar to the one in the control room, but more reclined, slid along the floor, coming to rest behind him. He sat in the chair with his palms resting on the arms. The chair adjusted itself to match the contours of Oli’s body and rather more alarmingly, two solid braces arrived from the back of the chair, over his shoulders and down to his waist, completely pinning him into the seat. As this was happening the walls stopped glowing and Oli found himself looking down a tunnel of cubes, diminishing in size into the distance. They began to flash all different colours and rotate forwards, backwards and sideways. Oli wasn’t watching a computer screen or playing a game on a two-dimensional surface, he was actually inside the cube and the entire stage of the game was laid out in three dimensions around him. As the cube that he occupied morphed into a uniform colour, the next cube would shoot forward and the same thing happened again. Then one cube started flashing red and the tunnel turned through ninety degrees, both vertically and horizontally, causing Oli’s neck to ache. He felt his weight pushing forward into the chest restraints. His brain actually instructed him to hold on tight as he went into free fall. His head went through the side of the cube and into a cylindrical tunnel which started flying towards him at an incredible speed. It was like flying down a water shoot with all kinds of lights flashing either side of him. The tunnel snaked its way for about thirty seconds, throwing him the few millimetres that the restraints would allow and then it exploded into a vast open space. He placed his arms by his side to reassure himself that he was still sitting in a chair, as every other sense in his body was informing him that he was falling through space. Then from all directions, came lines of colour spiralling towards him and in an instant they closed in to form another tunnel of cubes.
The game stopped, the lights came on and Oli was sitting in the middle of the room again.
“Do you get the idea Oli? Oli…Oli…are you alright, Oli?”
“Woaw!” was all that Oli could manage to say. He had seen some great light shows, and computer generated graphics, but this?
“I’m sorry Oli. I thought it would be manageable for your senses on the slow setting, but your brain isn’t used to such strong visual and gravitational effects.”
“Do it again!” Oli spat the words out.
“Maybe later, Oli. We really should be moving on now.”
The restraints disappeared into the back of the chair, which righted itself slightly, allowing Oli to push himself onto his slightly wobbly legs. They left the games room and as Oli looked towards the end of the corridor he was facing the final door. But there were two more doors on the side walls before they reached that one.
“They are just storage and cargo rooms Oli. They are empty now.”
“Okay,” said Oli. “I’m guessing that the end room is something to do with the engines. Am I right?”
“You are indeed Oli. Congratulations on your use of insight.”
Oli turned to face the voice and gave a questioning look. Was it his imagination or had the computer been watching a little too much Star Wars. He found himself smiling and was definitely beginning to like his new bodiless friend. But he wouldn’t say anything yet, not until he was sure. The door opened and he walked into a small room with a low ceiling, which tapered towards the back of the room. In the middle of the room was a black pedestal, about a metre high and on it sat a dark, crystalline globe, which glowed very slightly and audibly pulsed every second or so. There were no controls that Oli could see and he found himself wondering if this thing could ever get off the ground.
“The globe is a Graviton Particle Generator, Oli. It gives the ship all the power it needs and can create a gravity field strong enough to alter the course of your sun. When it is operating, it is sealed in an invisible field of energy that cannot be broken by any force in the known universe. All the energy can then be channelled to a single point in front of the ship, fracturing space/time and allowing the ship to pass through a strange region of the universe that the Annenians named nulspace.”
The ship explained that the gravity drive was incredibly complicated but there would be plenty of time to learn all about it on the journey to Annenia and back.
“I will give you all the information that you require with the Neural Feed Set, but I cannot transfer it in a single bulk, because you would probably burst.”
“Why aren’t there any controls in here?” Oli asked in a voice that conveyed disappointment rather than curiosity.
“All of the controls are within the brain of the ship. I manage everything. The Annenians were fond of simplicity, and their technology was such that they rarely required manual interaction. If they wanted a change to be made to the course or speed they would just think it and it would happen.”
Oli was standing in the doorway to the engine room, with an expression that betrayed total overload. The ship picked up on this, without utilising telepathy.
“Well Oli, that’s the ship. Now I really do think that we had better get moving.”
