by J. E. Gurley
Lyton nodded. “I see. Lord Hromhada said you were lucky. I feel better now.”
As headed back to the bridge, leaving Ulrich and Lyton to struggle out the foundations of an entirely new navigation system, he felt a small burden lift from his heavy load. If anything happened to Amissa, Jazon felt certain he could manage to Skip the ship, given the proper coordinates. The voyage might take longer, but at least he could get them home.
Amissa was an unknown factor. In spite of his mixed feelings about her, he realized that she was, at least in the Dastorans’ eyes, a product, a tool designed to help them escape the galaxy.
It would be easy for a tool’s designer to put his mark upon the tool. He could feel the tension between them when they linked. It was as if she was fighting to retain control of her emotions, or perhaps her thoughts. He could sense something else, also. She was hiding something from him, perhaps from them all. Her secret could endanger the entire mission.
9
I say to my patient, “I wish you a very good journey to an unknown you’ve never seen.”
Dr. Pieter V. Admiraal
“Skip point in ten minutes and counting,” Jazon announced over the intercom, his eyes remaining glued to a visualized countdown clock floating in front of him. Jazon’s heart pounded and his lips stuck together from dryness, but he couldn’t break the link to quench his thirst. This little bit of journey into the unknown was far riskier than any he had taken before. Harder still was the fact that he didn’t even know half of what was going on. Here, his implicit faith in Amissa would have to suffice. Amissa’s mood had changed. He could sense it through their connection. She seemed quieter and more withdrawn, reluctant to engage in conversation. He wasn’t sure if it was due to his revelation concerning Lord Hromhada or the impending Skip. Perhaps he was reading too much into her reticence. If he were the one charged with guiding a proto-type spacecraft into an entirely new realm, he might be reluctant to break his concentration for idle chatter, too.
He and Amissa had developed a plan of attack, of sorts. They decided Occam’s Razor would remain stationary as it Skipped. If they had miscalculated, they wouldn’t have to avoid diving into the heart of a star or something equally as devastating, or so they hoped.
If Ulrich and Lyton’s theory about black hole synchronization proved correct, they should locate several of the anomalies quickly and establish a crude trail to follow. If not, they would be flying blind.
The Trilock ambassador, M’Kat, remained sequestered in his cabin, choosing to meet his fate alone. So much the better as far as Jazon was concerned. Having the Trilock around reminded him too much of his near-fatal encounter with T’Tirik. It wasn’t good to be reminded of your mortality too often. In his case, it was becoming a habit. The others chose to congregate in the galley, the largest open space on the ship. Jazon remained on the bridge, linked to Amissa by his neuro-link helmet. He had used the depilatory cream on his scalp before leaving Lord Hromhada’s ship, and the loose-fitting helmet tended to slide around as he moved his head. He lowered the Captain’s chair to an almost reclining position and lay as still as possible to keep the link intact. He had deliberately avoided seeing Amissa with the dozens of wires running into her link socket, connecting her to the ship’s functions, allowing her some degree of privacy. Even the computer now interfaced through her cortex, allowing her to scan for any information vital to the safety of the ship.
“Four minutes,” he informed them. His voice had picked up a squeaky component, making him sound like a frightened teenager headed for his first prom.
His boards were all in the green, but that meant nothing. Disaster lurked like an unseen entity before any Skip. Even a small error could be fatal. Once the Skip engines went on line, his task as pilot would be over. Amissa would be in complete and total control. Still, he re-checked the boards out of habit.
“Twenty seconds.”
His hands were sweating. He rubbed them across his coveralls and grabbed his chair’s armrests.
“Now!”
He braced himself for the jolt. The familiar gut wrenching, soul-twisting violence of a Skip did not occur. Instead, one moment he was looking at a field of familiar stars, and the next, a black void.
“Where are we, Amissa?”
“In a stationary position near a small, white star,” she answered in his mind. “It is invisible except by gamma wave detection. We are currently inside a dense cloud of super-charged hydrogen ions, dark matter.”
Her voice was cold and machine-like. None of her previous doubts was evident.
“Can you navigate?”
There was moment of hesitation. “I suggest one more Skip. This dimension seems almost proto-stellar. Such large volumes of dark matter could affect navigation. Besides, such a small number of stellar objects would make navigation more complicated.”
“All right, then. We Skip again.”
“No! We must stay and study this place. It contains invaluable data on the origins and the future of our own universe.”
He knew without checking that it was Lyton speaking.
He flicked on the ship’s intercom with a mental shrug. “We don’t have time, Lyton. It’s not our mission. I’ll log the coordinates for future exploration.” He knew, even as he said it, that unless they managed to survive this mission and get the ship away from Lord Hromhada, no one would ever have the opportunity to explore other dimensions, except the Dastorans. He could hear Lyton’s heart rate quicken at the thought of leaving, but he said nothing more. After all, it was on his behalf that they had undertaken this mission.
“Skipping again.”
This Skip was equally without the usual physical side effects Jazon associated with Skipping. He scanned his screens. This dimension seemed more familiar. At least, there were suns and visible galaxies. He even saw a huge nebula so close he could almost reach out and touch it. It was a massive stellar nursery some sixty light years across. Alternating bands of black and orange lent it an almost bee-like appearance.
“This is more like it,” he thought to Amissa. It was a galaxy much like theirs. If they could correlate sufficient black hole data, it should be easy to navigate.
“The Stumphman-Lyton Black Hole Theory seems to be correct.” He smiled as she announced her name for the theory. “I have accumulated data on a sufficient number of black hole commonalities to navigate. We should reach our destination in eight days.”
“Eight days?”
“I can perhaps find a better dimension, a shorter time frame, but only twenty-two minutes will have elapsed in our time dimension due to sidereal differences in stellar velocities and space-time curvature.”
Twenty-two minutes! It would seem this new engine performs as well as the Dastorans predicted.
“I suggest a twenty-one percent probability of a successful completion of this mission.” Her voice relayed the figures as if they meant nothing to her.
Her words stunned him. “Why the low probability?”
“There is a thirty percent probability the Trilock ambassador will succeed at destroying the ship. There is a ten percent chance some unknown breakdown could occur. There is a forty percent chance that this AI will malfunction under stress. Taking all other factors into account, I derived at a twenty-one percent chance of success.”
Her prediction concerned him, especially the one about herself.“You foresee a malfunction on your part?”
“My confidence remains high but, certain … quirks give me reason to doubt my ability.”
“Quirks?”
He felt a mental sigh as a whisper throughout the ship. “I have tried to purge my emotions while linked to the ship. This has proven less effective than my creators estimated. I still feel fear.”
Suddenly, he could detect the fear in her thoughts, tiny tendrils of doubt that reached out seeking fertile ground in which to take root. Was she deliberately allowing him a glimpse of her emotions or was the fear so prevalent that it had woven itself into her link? A modic
um of fear could be a good thing in a new universe, but what if her fears overrode his commands?
“Describe this fear.”
“The Trilock surely want this mission to fail and will make some attempt soon. The ambassador’s mind is a vessel filled with Trilock hidden commands. If what you say is true, the High Lord’s Drones are certain to have your death in mind at the completion of this mission. Protector Huumba especially is envious of your command and desires to replace you. Then there is the professor. I have detected a strange biological substance in Professor Lyton’s blood chemistry.” She paused.
“Go on,” he urged.
“The probability of your death is very high. Your death would cripple this AI’s ability to function properly.”
“You’re saying that thoughts of my death are frightening you and that my death would limit your ability to function.” He couldn’t allow that. He didn’t want to die but in the event of his demise, he would hope that the others, at least Ulrich, stood some chance of survival. He had almost missed her mention of the Trilock’s hidden commands. How did she know this? Could she read minds while linked? If so, could she read his mind? He hoped not.
Even with Amissa’s emotional guards engaged, he could still feel some leakage over the neuro-link. If this continued, problems could arise soon. A normal fourteen-year-old girl does not have the emotional stability to handle a relationship. A six hundred year-old, fourteen-year-old girl is even more unstable. If her growing emotional attachment should jeopardize the mission, none of them might survive. He would have to speak with her but not while neuro-linked. While linked, he could not disentangle his emotions from hers.
“Amissa. Set a course for the Claw Nebula at the safest speed.”
“I suggest we Skip back into our space in six hours to check our progress, as a precaution.”
“Do it.” He sensed Lyton’s presence in the computer. He said, “This looks like an interesting place to study, Lyton.” He got no answer, but could tell the ship’s sensors were all working, sending streams of compressed data to Lyton’s terminal.
To play it safe, Jazon ordered several more Skips back into normal space. Along the way, they would place signal drones to mark their course and to communicate with Lord Hromhada. In this way, should a catastrophe occur, not all data would be lost. Extra Skips required more energy and would add time to Amissa’s original estimate, but Jazon was in no hurry. It seemed prudent to err on the side of caution.
He felt like the captain of one of the old explorer ships he had read about as a child, Skipping blindly into uncharted regions, praying to luck to get home. If travel to other galaxies became commonplace, a new breed of explorer would be needed. One who lived and died with those of his or her own kind. Years could pass for the crew of a space ship while they made transit, yet reappearing at their destination almost instantaneously. It would be a matter for the psychologists and sociologists to work out.
Amissa seemed to have things well under control, making slight detours for Lyton’s sake as he discovered some interesting phenomena. Jazon decided to unlink and see how his crew was doing.
He almost fell out of his chair from dizziness. His disorientation was stronger than from any previous Skip. The walls seemed to pulse with a life of their own, shimmering in and out of existence. Reality felt less stable. After a few moments, things settled down, but he still felt a kind of emotional hangover. The intense link was taking a toll on his mind and body. He wondered if it was having a similar effect on Amissa.
He found Ulrich and Lyton still in the wardroom discussing their newly discovered navigation system.
“I say we call it the ‘Lyton-Stumphman Principle’,” Ulrich offered.
Lyton shook his head vigorously. “No, no, my friend. I say we give it to the world anonymously. Perhaps the ‘Black Hole Connectivity Navigation’ principle.”
“Why does it need a name?” Jazon asked as he entered the room.
Ulrich looked at him in surprise. “Why, uuh, everything needs a name.”
“Why this perverse need to label everything we touch? It is as if naming it makes it ours to use or destroy. No one will ever refer to this navigation system by name, will they? They will simply say, ‘Engage the drive. Set course for point ‘A’.”
Ulrich lowered his glasses and glared at Jazon over the tops of the frames. “What’s gotten into you?” he asked. “Are you ill?”
Jazon shrugged and waved his hands about aimlessly. He wasn’t sure why he had broken in on their conversation. It wasn’t as if he really cared.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s from the neuro-link. I’ve never been so … so deep into another mind, or so closely linked to the ship’s systems. It’s somewhat disconcerting.”
Lyton held out a flask of liquor. “Perhaps a sip of this will drive out the willies,” he said amiably. He seemed to be holding up to his alcohol consumption pretty well considering his small stature. In all his days of drinking, Jazon had never attempted to maintain a certain level of inebriation while still trying to function. He wished Lyton luck. Their lives depended on his success.
“No thanks, Lyton,” he declined politely. His head felt as if someone were dipping into his brain with a whisk and vigorously rearranging his thoughts. He supposed it was new neural pathways developed by the neuro-link. “I’ll take some coffee, though.”
Ulrich jumped up, offered Jazon a cup, and poured into it a steaming brew of black coffee with just a touch of cream. He smiled at Jazon with the affection of a puppy.
“What?” he asked as he watched Ulrich’s eyes light up.
Ulrich smiled. “Just trying to make things easier for you, that’s all. You did, after all, finally decide to undertake this mission in spite of all your earlier objections.”
So, Ulrich thought he had managed to convince me to come after all. “Don’t let it go to your head. As soon as we complete this mission, presuming we survive, I’m stealing this ship and Amissa and heading back to Earth. You’re welcome to tag along. With the weaponry of Occam’s Razor, the Dastorans would have to send a Thistleship to stop me.”
He turned to Lyton. “I thought you would be at your terminal, soaking up all the data Amissa’s sending you.”
“Oh, I am, I mean my terminal recorder is on and set to call me if anything really interesting comes up. This place is quite exciting, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, very,” he answered wearily, then turned and walked off, leaving both Lyton and Ulrich with their mouths open.
In the corridor, he met Huumba and one of the other Drones – he couldn’t remember the Drone’s name. His head pounded from the after effects of the neuro-link.
“I notice we have Skipped successfully, Captain Lightsinger. How do you feel about our magnificent Dastoran engineering now?” His smug expression irked Jazon.
He brushed past the irritating Drone. “Ask me when we get home.”
Huumba would not be denied his moment of triumph. “Surely, you realize no Terran ship has this capability, or ever will have.” He was practically shouting at Jazon’s back. “Our race was probing the stars while yours was climbing trees in fear.”
Jazon stopped, spun around and, with a level voice free of rancor, said, “Your people are indeed fine engineers. Even now, your people are busy engineering their hasty retreat from a duty to those whom they have sworn allegiance. I would expect no less from the traitorous Trilock, but expected more from a Primary Race.”
He could almost hear Huumba’s teeth grinding, as he turned the corner and almost ran headlong into M’Kat.
“Do not judge all my people by T’Tirik’s actions. The T’Oki Clan are a brutish lot and lack the subtlety required to deal with other races.”
The Trilock disappeared around the corner before Jazon could reply. It was plain to see that he was making no new friends on this voyage. His father would be proud of his consistency. Even as child, he had been somewhat standoffish. He had retreated more and more into himself, as he wat
ched friend after friend find their animal spirit guide while he did not. He, the son of a medicine man, a Hataalii, was alone among the tribe without a spirit guide.
His failed attempt had taken what spirit had existed within from him. He had returned to his father’s home, hungry, exhausted, and suffering from a spider bite. The fever and swelling lasted almost a week, sapping his strength even more than the search itself. He had recovered a changed youth. No longer interested in the spirits that had abandoned him, he had chosen to abandon them as well. The long, lingering death of his mother had been the catalyst for his leaving.
He could still remember the tears glistening in his old man’s eyes as he told him of his desire to leave the reservation and join the Alliance Marines, as had his great-great grandfather in the beginning of the war. His father had not attempted to stop him. Jazon often wished that he had. If his father had reached out to him at that moment, his life might have been different, or at least he often thought it would. However, given his propensity for screwing things up, somehow he doubted it.
He remembered the day he had left. His father stood by the side of the road, kicking gravel with the toe of his scuffed, worn boots. He had said nothing all morning as he and Jazon waited for the irregular arrival of the bus to Flagstaff. The morning air was charged with change. Winter was slowly releasing its grip on the high mesas, and tufts of green were appearing here and there among the rocks. The air smelled of burning firewood, an odor that even to this day reminded him of home.
Breaking the stony silence, his father had said, “Son, I know you feel abandoned by your people, by your heritage, but it is not so.” He spoke in English to fit Jazon’s mood.
Jazon said nothing, pretending to watch a hawk spiral overhead, catching the thermals off the desert floor and using them to climb so high that it was merely a speck in the sky within minutes.
