The Dark Ship

by Phillip P. Peterson

  Irons switched off the headlamp. Jeff had been right. The room was illuminated by some kind of indirect light that was getting brighter all the time. It wasn’t clear where the light was coming from—it appeared to be coming from all directions at once and produced no shadows.

  Irons stepped out of the lock chamber into the hangar-like room.

  Jeff followed him. “It’s not that different from one of our stations.”

  “Or a base on the moon or on another planet,” Irons agreed. “Except for that strange writing.”

  Jeff headed for the opposite wall with the door. There was a window in the middle of the hatch. Beyond it was darkness. Beside the door was a text written in the strange cuneiform characters he had seen earlier. It looked as if it had been stenciled on the wall. It was written in block type. Jeff had no idea if this alien language was read from left to right or vice versa. None of the signs resembled the Latin alphabet.

  There was a hissing noise behind him, and he swung round. The inner lock hatch had closed, just after Shorty and Mac had entered the hangar with the equipment sled. Fields examined the wall around the hatch. “I don’t see any controls,” he said. “If we wanted to get back out, I wouldn’t know how.”

  “Maybe we should have posted someone outside,” Green said.

  “And what good would that have done us?” Irons asked impatiently. “We would have been separated. As I said, we only have a chance of finding a solution to our problems in here. Not outside.”

  Green’s grunt didn’t exactly express agreement, but Irons didn’t pursue the matter.

  “At least there are no alien bodies,” Owl said brightly. “But the air in here reeks as bad as it did in the lock chamber.”

  “And it’s just as warm,” Joanne added, wiping the sweat from her forehead with her gloved hand.

  Jeff still couldn’t figure out whether this was a space station that had been flung out of orbit, or a giant spacecraft. They’d managed to get inside, but it was completely unclear what would happen next. He turned to the Major, who was frowning at the opposite door. “How should we proceed, Sir?”

  It took a few seconds before Irons responded. Finally he returned Jeff’s gaze, but he seemed to look right through him. The already heavy rings under his eyes were darker than usual. For a moment Jeff was afraid Irons would collapse, and his stomach tightened at the thought. He had always been able to rely on the Major. Without his experience and instincts, they didn’t stand a chance. There was nobody who could replace Irons. Jeff, who was the most senior officer after the major, certainly didn’t feel up to the job.

  But after a moment, Irons’ facial expressions hardened again, and his steel-blue eyes were as determined as they had been before. “We have more than enough time to evaluate our situation and check out our surroundings. First, we need to determine whether this artifact is actually abandoned.”

  “You said that some kind of automated system probably opened the airlock.”

  Irons nodded. “Yes, that’s what I think. And we have to find out if it’s possible to communicate with it.”

  “But how?”

  Irons shrugged. Then he took a deep breath. “Is anyone here?” His voice boomed through the room, causing Jeff to flinch. “Can anyone on this ship hear me?”

  The others had all turned around to see what was going on. Castle looked at his commander as if he’d lost his mind. Then there was a tense silence and Jeff could hear his own heartbeat.

  “I can hear you.”

  Jeff almost jumped out of his skin. The voice spoke flawless Cosmocration. It was a high but distinctly male voice.

  “Welcome on board.”

  The voice was completely devoid of emotion and sounded as if it had been synthesized by an ancient computer. Jeff looked around but couldn’t tell from which direction it was coming. There must be several speakers in the room.

  Irons cleared his throat. “I am Major George Irons, Commander of the Imperial spaceship Charon. I would like to thank you on behalf of the whole crew for taking us on board.”

  Jeff exchanged a quick glance with Irons. The major raised his eyebrows. His forehead was covered in beads of sweat. He looked as tense as Jeff was feeling. “Who are you?” Irons asked finally.

  “I am the intelligence of this ship.”

  Jeff nodded slowly. So it was a spaceship, and not a space station. A spaceship this big?

  “Are you like a computer? An onboard computer?” Irons asked.

  “That is an adequate description.”

  “Seems to be some kind of artificial intelligence,” Irons said quietly to Jeff. “Where’s the crew?” he shouted into the room.

  “The crew left this ship long ago.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they had arrived at their destination.”

  “Destination?” Green whispered. “What destination?”

  “The crew was looking for a suitable planet on which to settle after our own system was doomed.”

  “Doomed? How doomed?”

  “A gamma-ray burst threatened to make our galaxy uninhabitable and so this spaceship was built to bring the inhabitants to a new world.”

  “An ark,” Joanne chipped in, astonished. “This ship is an ark. It’s certainly big enough.”

  “There must have been billions of living beings …” Green said.

  “Unbelievable,” Short added.

  Everyone started to talk at once.

  “Whoa!” Irons raised a hand. “One at a time. First we have to clarify the important points. I will talk with this computer and nobody else, understood?”

  Jeff’s teammates fell silent.

  “Unfortunately, our ship was destroyed, as you may have noticed,” Irons said. “We’re stranded here. Will you help us?”

  “Yes, as far as I am able,” said the alien voice.

  Jeff let out a sigh of relief. Maybe they’d been lucky after all. If this was a spaceship, it might be able to take them to the next inhabited star system. Once they were there, they could continue exploring the ship in safety.

  “Can you give us access to a hyper-radio system so we can get a ship to pick us up?”

  “If you are referring to superluminal communication, unfortunately I cannot provide that.”

  Shit!

  Irons grimaced. “You don’t have a hyper radio?”

  “No.”

  Jeff felt an icy shiver going down his spine as he realized the possible consequences. What if the strangers didn’t have superluminal technology? Then being on a spaceship wouldn’t help them much. How fast was this ship flying through the interstellar void? At half the speed of light, Jeff remembered. At that speed they would need a century to get to the next outpost.

  Irons seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Surely this spacecraft doesn’t just have subluminal engines?”

  Unfortunately, it made sense. Why else would they have built such a huge ship? Perhaps this had been a generational spaceship, on which millions of beings had been born and died before reaching another star system after decades or centuries. No wonder the crew had disembarked after arriving at an inhabitable planet.

  “No,” said the strange voice. “This ship has a functioning superluminal drive.”

  Jeff let out a sigh of relief.

  “However, our jump drive is much slower than your hypertechnology appears to be.”

  Jump drive? Jeff had never heard of a jump drive. These aliens must have developed a completely different technology for space travel than humans.

  “How slow?” Irons asked.

  “This ship can jump about two light years a week, if I use your units of measurement. In between, the capacitors have to be charged.”

  Jeff wondered how the computer knew their units of measurement, let alone their language.

  “Two light years a week,” Irons mused. “That would be half a year for a distance of fifty light years.”

  The alien voice did not answer. If they could persuade the onboard com
puter of this huge spaceship to take them to Sigma-7, they would need half a year to get there. That was a long time. But at least a more feasible amount of time than a hundred years, which none of them would survive.

  “Would you perhaps be willing to take us to a specific system, whose coordinates we would give you?” Irons asked.

  Right now, this was the question of all questions.

  Silence.

  “We could certainly agree on some form of payment,” the Major said.

  Payment … what kind of payment could they possibly provide?

  Several long seconds passed, during which Jeff’s heart beat so fast it made his temples ache.

  Finally the computer answered. “Certainly.”

  Jeff could have whooped for joy, but he restrained himself. They would get back home! Six months … they could use the time to explore the giant ship. It might come in useful for Jeff’s studies after the war was over. It would take him in a completely new direction, but it would also give him a huge advantage over his peers. Yes, he would be the specialist in extraterrestrial culture and history. In his mind, Jeff could already see himself giving lectures at interstellar conferences. Who knows, he might even end up winning the Nobel Prize.

  Someone slapped him on the arm. “Stop daydreaming,” Irons said harshly.

  Jeff swallowed. Of course. It was still a bit early for daydreaming. First they had to get back home.

  “Do you have a name?” Irons bellowed into the room.

  “No.”

  “Does this spaceship have a name?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it called?”

  “The translation of the name is ‘spaceship’.”

  Irons rolled his eyes. Jeff chuckled. Green snickered.

  “How should we address you?” Irons asked.

  “That’s up to you.”

  “Then I’ll simply call you Computer.”

  No answer.

  “Is there an area where we can base ourselves? Accommodation of some kind? Perhaps with access to clean water?”

  “Appropriate rooms are being prepared for you. I suggest you make your way there now. We can discuss any details later.”

  Jeff wondered who was preparing their accommodation. Robots?

  “Great, thank you” Irons said. “Where do we need to go?”

  Suddenly the hatch opposite them hissed and moved aside.

  “There’s your answer, Major,” said Shorty.

  Joanne hurried over to Jeff and Irons. “This is all a bit weird, if you ask me,” she whispered. “Can we trust that thing?”

  “Unfortunately, we have no other choice, Lieutenant Rutherford,” Irons said softly.

  “How does it even know our language? It’s creepy.”

  Irons put his hand on her shoulder. “There are many questions that I hope will be answered in time. But we mustn’t rush anything. This spaceship is our only chance. We’ll have more than enough time to explore the ship and find out what we want to know.”

  “I don’t know if I even want to explore the ship,” Green said, not budging from the spot.

  “Why not?” Jeff asked.

  The engineer turned to face him and stamped his right foot on the ground. “This thing is huge. You would have to travel thousands of miles before reaching the other side. We have moons in our Solar System that are smaller. It freaks me out just thinking about what’s hidden in the depths of this ship.”

  Jeff had to admit the ship—this whole situation—gave him the creeps, too. Everything was so alien. But hadn’t the ship’s computer promised to help them?

  “And another thing,” Green interrupted his thoughts. “It’s a ghost ship. Christ knows how long its been flying itself through the galaxy. At this speed, it must have been flying through the known sector for years. Why has nobody ever tried to make contact with it? I reckon—”

  “Stop, Lieutenant Green,” Irons barked. “I’ve had it up to here with your fear-mongering. We’ve been received in a friendly manner, and I will not allow you to insult our hosts with your unfounded suspicions.”

  Green looked down at the ground and didn’t answer.

  “Corporal Fields, get the equipment. We’re going.”

  The technician nodded and beckoned to his shipmates.

  Jeff followed Irons to the door. He stopped at the threshold. A long corridor stretched out in front of them. The walls were made of an unusually dark gray metal—the whole ship seemed to be made of the same material. The corridor was very dimly lit, but at least it was light enough to see where they were going. And it was just wide enough so that two people could walk side by side. It sloped down gently from the surface of the ship.

  “Strange—it’s like a ramp,” Irons said. “On our spaceships and stations, the floors and corridors all run parallel to the decks. If you need to reach another level, you use elevators, stairs, or ladders.”

  Suddenly he gave a gasp of surprise.

  “What is it?” Jeff asked.

  “Walk forward six more feet and you’ll see for yourself,” the major said.

  Cautiously, Jeff took a step forward. His foot met with less resistance than he had expected. When he pulled the other foot after it, he was monetarily overcome by dizziness. “The artificial gravity is changing vector direction,” he said in surprise.

  “That’s right,” Irons said.

  Jeff looked back at the hangar or whatever that room with the airlock was. It was strangely tilted now, and his shipmates seemed to be leaning against invisible walls, but Jeff knew it was just an illusion produced by the different directions in which the artificial gravity of the spaceship pointed.

  “We have to be careful not to lose our sense of direction,” Irons said, setting off again. The others followed him, reluctantly. Jeff wondered how much farther they would have to go until they reached their quarters.

  “You’d never have done this on a human spaceship,” Green mused. “But considering the size of this thing, it makes sense. Imagine—a corridor tilted at ninety degrees leading straight to the center of the ship. You could reach it without ever having to use a staircase or elevator.”

  “But they must have had transportation systems,” Irons frowned. “Surely these aliens didn’t travel such vast distances on foot.”

  “It’s so murky,” Joanne shuddered, stepping into the corridor. Her face gleamed faintly in the pale light, while her dark space suit appeared to merge with the gray walls of the ship.

  “You’re right,” said Jeff. “It wasn’t particularly bright in the hangar, but here you can hardly even see any outlines.”

  “Maybe the aliens’ eyes were more sensitive than ours,” said Owl, who was trudging along the corridor behind Joanne.

  Sticking close together, they continued walking down the hallway in silence. Nothing—not even the occasional door or recess—broke up the monotony of the dark metal walls.

  Irons quickened his pace and marched on ahead. Shorty and Mac, who were carrying the equipment sled, brought up the rear. Thanks to the integrated inertia negation, the sled was light as a feather despite its mass. One person could have pulled it alone, but it was so big, it was easier to have two people pulling.

  They must have covered about a mile when they finally got to an intersection. Three corridors forked off at different angles from the one they had been walking along. Only one was illuminated, and Jeff could see that it also led downward, and that there was another turning a little further on. One of the other corridors seemed to go up, but it was too dark to see for certain.

  “Now where?” Owl asked.

  Irons just grunted and set off down the illuminated hallway. Jeff saw the major tapping something into his handheld. “What are you doing?”

  Irons held out the handheld computer—part of every crew member’s equipment—for Jeff to look at. He could see that the major had drawn several lines leading away from a rectangle. It was a rough sketch of the path they were taking. Jeff nodded, and Irons put the handh
eld back in his pocket. It was a sensible thing to do, of course. Whichever way they went, they would know the way back to the airlock if necessary. The inertial navigation systems in their handhelds were also recording the route they were taking, but it was sensible to have a hand-drawn back-up.

  “How far still?” Green asked. Nobody answered. “Thanks a lot,” the engineer muttered sarcastically.

  Jeff only hoped that the aliens hadn’t been used to walking hundreds of miles on foot. He wondered what they had looked like … the facilities they had seen on the ship so far didn’t tell them much. The lock hatches and the width and height of the corridors suggested the aliens might have been similar in size to humans, but that was just speculation.

  Every time they came to a junction, only one of the turnoffs was illuminated. Without ever hesitating, Irons led the group further into the mighty ship.

  Almost an hour and a half had passed, during which time Green had complained on numerous occasions about his aching feet. Each complaint was acknowledged by a glare from Irons—although secretly, Jeff could have done with a break himself.

  After yet another intersection, the new corridor became wider and they passed the occasional door adorned with the strange symbols and characters in the alien language. There were no door handles, but next to each door there was a little blue box embedded in the wall. Jeff presumed these were opening mechanisms, and was tempted to try one, but he didn’t know how the ship’s computer or Irons would react—and he didn’t want to find out.

  Shorty had less scruples. Just as Jeff was turning away from one of the doors, the young mechanic pushed one of the boxes. The door remained closed, but three short beeps sounded through the corridor.

  “Fingers off!” Irons said sharply. “I don’t want anyone here to touch anything without my command. Is that clear?”

  Shorty looked down at his feet and nodded. Irons snorted and set off again. More intersections followed at ever shorter intervals and Irons struggled to keep up with his sketch. Finally, they turned into a corridor in which the light petered out after several feet. Somewhere beyond where the darkness began, there was an open door from which bright light shone into the corridor.