Ship status?
After what seemed like an age an answer appeared on the screen.
Nominal.
Unappeased and annoyed by the brevity of the response she keyed in.
Current velocity and position?
Again a full thirty seconds passed before the reply flashed up on the screen.
Current velocity zero, position unknown.
She blinked in disbelief and rapidly typed
Why is position unknown? When did we stop?
The cursor oscillated briefly then typed out.
Position unknown due to no frame of reference. Ship stopped fourteen hours and fifty-three minutes ago.
Confused, she typed again.
Take position from star fixes.
This time the reply was immediate.
No stars available for fix.
A sensor malfunction. A serious problem at this stage of their mission. She was immediately concerned. She resumed her interface.
Run full diagnostic on sensors.
The computer immediately replied.
Initiated.
As the computer commenced its investigations, she made her way painfully over to one of the windows in the hibernation chamber and hit the button to raise the screen. As the screen went up she looked eagerly to see the star system she had travelled so very far to find. She looked into an inky blackness and could see nothing. She reached out and dimmed the room’s lights to get a proper view but it made no difference. It was like looking into pitch-black nothingness. Someone clearing his throat courteously behind her made her jump out of her skin.
“I’m awfully sorry to startle you,” said a shadowy figure in the gloom of the darkened room. Reacting immediately, she hit the normal lighting button which revealed a kindly looking elderly man dressed in what looked liked the sort of costume that was difficult to place. Maybe Indian or Srilankan she thought, though the man appeared to be a Caucasian.
She stared at him, knowing she couldn’t speak, afraid but unwilling to show it. The man waved his hand gently and said. “It’s ok, you can talk now. You should start feeling better shortly. Who am I? Well it’s a good and simple question but a long answer I’m afraid.”
She spoke, slowly at first getting used to using her voice again, “Computer, intruder alert, initiate all high security protocols. Start waking procedures on security detail.”
The old man chuckled. “I’m sorry, but the computer is only operating at its most basic level though, one has to say, considering everything, it’s done rather well. I really think we should talk.” As he spoke she watched him carefully, trying to evaluate him. He seemed totally at ease yet he had no apparent back up despite his intruder status. The man smiled at her and eased himself into a chair.
“I’m unarmed, benign, unaccompanied and here to try and help,” he said. “We’ve lots to discuss.”
“My crew and passengers…” she began to say.
“Are safe in hibernation and unharmed,” the man replied, cutting her off. “Let me try to make it a bit easier for you. Let me tell you what I know.” She was about to interject, not used to having someone else take the initiative but the man held up his hand and said, “Please indulge me. You set off on your valiant trip to travel a great distance to colonise and terra form new worlds. It was a laudable exercise. Your ship actually had a star drive which was rather clever I must say. There aren’t many who worked out how to do this. What was it you called them? Tachyons. Yes that’s it, tachyons. What a wonderful name. Yes, they do indeed travel faster than light and your people worked that out. Very clever, very clever indeed.”
She made to speak but he silenced her with a look, a slightly more serious look this time and continued. “You can ask whatever you wish…when I’ve finished.” He settled himself more comfortably in his chair and continued. “A few weeks after you set off you initiated the star drive which was programmed to push you towards Cygnus where you would arrive after eighty three years. Despite the fact that the drive was capable of huge velocities, it took many years to accelerate to the speed you thought was possible so you left it to the computers to manage this function and, so to speak, you took to your beds to sleep through what would have been a rather tedious journey. What you don’t know is that initially everything went to plan until just after you passed Proixma Centauri. Now, you must understand it wasn’t your fault; it wasn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just one of those things that happen. Shortly after Proxima Centauri you had a small encounter, a very small encounter indeed, with a minute particle of space dust that had been rushing across the universe since the dawn of time itself. While you slept, this particle, no more than a micron or so wide, hit your ship and went straight through it. It was so small even the sensors didn’t notice the microscopic hole it made in your hull. Alas this particle blasted through your computer core and destroyed a few lines of machine code…a few critical lines unfortunately. It caused what you would call a catastrophic protocol failure. You do like those complex words don’t you? The result of this was that the computer forgot to turn off the star drive and, as the deceleration program was linked to your ‘wake up’ program, this was also forgotten. So you kept accelerating and kept going.”
“We’re not at Cygnus?” she asked.
“Err, no…I think we can safely say you missed your stop.”
“So where are we and who the hell are you and how did you get onto my ship?” she snapped.
Apparently unperturbed by her manner the man answered. “Sadly this where the answers to your questions become a little more, shall we say…enigmatic?”
“Try me,” was the terse reply.
“Which question would you like answered first?…actually I’d better answer the first one and then the answers to the second and third question may make slightly more sense,” he said. Before she had a chance to say anything he continued.
“Your ship just kept accelerating and accelerating and just kept on going until there was nowhere else to ‘keep going’ to. Not to put too finer point on it…err how do I say this…you’re at the end of pretty much everything actually. Before you ask the next question, which I know will be ‘How long have we been asleep?’ I must tell you that if I tried to tell you that in that wonderful base ten numbering system that you use I’d still be chattering out zeros in a few days time. Just trust me that’s it’s longer than you could ever begin to imagine, hence your difficulty in waking up. I must say, your machines did a rather good job keeping you alive.”
She was too intelligent to think he may be joking. This was not a colonist who had somehow awakened to play a practical joke. This intruder was either very dangerous or very powerful, or perhaps both.
“Yes, you’re right,” the man murmured. “I am powerful as far as you’re concerned, but most certainly not dangerous.” As she was about to speak he again held up his hand to silence her and continued. “And in answer to the third part of your question, which you may recall was, ‘who am I?’ that is a slightly more difficult one to answer. Forgive me if I save that bit of information until you’ve asked me a few more questions. I can see you’re just bursting with them and understandably so. Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time, because here time doesn’t exist, at least not in the way you think about it.”
She tried to read his expression but found herself unable to. Her first thoughts were about the safety of her crew, passengers and ship. The next priority was the mission status. This strange interlocutor was a command problem that she could have never envisaged. If he was a saboteur why was he bothering to talk to her and what would he be hoping to gain? He clearly wasn’t a colonist (he could never have taken himself out of hibernation) and she knew all her crew member’s faces and he most certainly wasn’t one of them. His story was obviously preposterous, so what was he doing there and what was she going to do about it?
“Just the thoughts one would expect of a quality commander,” the old man said, startling her. “Yes I can read your mind; it’s fra
nkly a lot easier than using speech. So much less restricting. My story is not preposterous, it’s true; your crew and passengers, as I’ve said, are fine but your mission is compromised by a factor that is way beyond your training, experience or understanding. And, as I know we’re going to have to get around to this sooner or later…I am the one who created all this.”
“What?” she snapped, “You created these problems?”
“Very indirectly…yes,” he replied. “But what I really meant is that I created…well…all of it really.” He made a grandiose gesture.
“You’re a ship designer?” she said.
He laughed great guffaws until his shoulders shook. “No, no, no,” he said, “Not just the ship…everything…what you call the universe actually.”
Something inside her snapped. “Let’s get this straight. I’m at the end of the universe yes? And I suppose you must be God then? Nice outfit by the way. Call me cynical but piss off and let me check some facts for myself.” With that she strode past him into the corridor and made her way to the bridge. As she stamped her way towards an elevator she shouted, “Computer, is voice interface activated?”
“Enabled,” came back the pleasant female voice.
“Computer,” she continued, “how many years has this mission lasted so far?” By the time she had entered the elevator and subsequently reached the bridge, the computer was still chattering out the trillions of zeros needed to answer her question accurately. “Computer stop” she barked as she walked out onto the bridge. The computer’s confirmation of the stranger’s affirmation did nothing to ease her mood. “Main view screen” she said as she stood on the command deck. The screens whirred back revealing a 180-degree view outside the ship which showed…nothing…just the same inky blackness she’d seen from the hibernation port. “Computer, how many light years have we travelled?” she asked with some exasperation. Two minutes later the computer was again still chanting the almost infinite number of zeros needed to answer her question when suddenly it went quiet. The stranger was standing next to her.
“That’s enough. Time for some empirical experience,” he said gently. With that the bulkhead next to them vanished, opening the bridge to deep space. Shocked she stood back. “Don’t worry,” the old man said. “I’m taking care of your breathing…please follow me,” and with that he walked outside.
He stood looking at her, seemingly floating in black nothingness some ten meters outside the hull “Com’on,” he beckoned. “What have you got to lose?” Nothing in her training or experience had prepared her for anything like this. Her mind raced trying to rationalise her situation but came up with nothing. The computer had confirmed that she had been asleep for untold millennia and she had travelled a distance that seemed to be unquantifiable in physical terms. Additionally this stranger seemed to know all about it and had the power to read her mind and make walls vanish, powers that revealed not inconsiderable abilities yet mercifully he appeared friendly. She conceded it would probably be best to just play along until the purpose of her situation revealed herself. With that she took a tentative step outside her ship and found it was just like walking on a normal floor. Though she was surrounded by pitch black there was illumination provided by the ship’s navigation lights so she was afforded a clear view of the man.
“There,” he said. “I told you it would be OK.” He pointed to his left and said, “What can you see?” She looked into the blackness and could just make out a smudge of white light. “What do you think that is?” he asked.
“I have no idea.” she replied honestly.
“It’s the universe.” he said, “And it’s coming. Or should I say…expanding…our way.”
“So where are we?” she responded as quick as a flash.
The man made a slight motion of his hand and two easy chairs appeared. He motioned to one. “Please sit.” So she sat. She sat on an easy chair suspended apparently in thin air and contemplated the vastness of her ship, the stranger and the pale smudge of light that was supposedly the universe. She thought. She thought like she’d never thought before; she thought until her head hurt and finally came to a conclusion then spoke, slowly and carefully. “If what you and the computer say is true, we’ve reached the edge of the universe and passed through it. Physics dictates that where nothing happens or no events occur there is nothingness. My ship has passed beyond the event that is the universe and by doing that has created an ‘event’ outside the universe hence me and my ship being here has called this place into existence.”
“Bang on!” said the man with some enthusiasm. “Very good…very good indeed.” She was childishly pleased with the man’s patronising ebullience but she tried to shake off the feeling and keep her thought processes logical.
“And you say you created the universe?” she said, trying not to sound sarcastic.
“I most certainly did but despite what you said earlier I’m not suggesting I’m God, or at least not in the way you would think about that entity.” He replied.
“So who are you?” she pressed.
The man took a deep breath “It’s not easy to explain.” he confessed.
“I did create the universe so the best description of me from your point of view, is ‘The Creator’. A mite egotistical I must admit but it’s an accurate statement.”
“So what are you?” She pressed.
The man put his fingertips together and thought for a moment. “This is going to sound patronising, but there’s no way that I can explain that to you from your frame of reference.”
“How can I believe that you are the creator then?” she continued. “If you were, you’d know everything about the universe and everything that’s in it…actually you’d know everything about me.”
“Correct,” he replied and before she had a chance to speak he pressed on. “I do know everything about you. You love cats but don’t like ginger ones but you don’t know why, you adore the smell of newly mown grass, the best sex you ever had was with a mining engineer on Phobos, you have a freckle behind your left ear and when you first saw the earth from orbit it was less impressive than you expected. You prefer to sleep on your left side and you still feel guilty about stamping on a spider that you found in your cupboard when your family moved to New York. You feel that your nose is the least attractive thing about your body and you had the hots for your father’s best friend when you were a teenager…how am I doing? Do you want more?”
The astronaut reacted as if she had been struck physically “That’s enough,” she said quietly.
The old man chuckled. “Sorry about that but I had to give you stuff that would bring you up to speed quickly…and don’t worry…I most certainly don’t judge you, in fact I can’t judge you as that defeats the exercise and would also be self destructive. You’re part of me you see. I looked inside myself and you were what I found…you and a whole universe. I don’t judge you…I experience you...in fact I experience everything….that’s what this is all about.”
The woman just stared. She had rarely ever been speechless, but she had so many questions and didn’t know which to ask first. Sensing this the old man continued. “Yes, I know, it’s a lot to take on board isn’t it? Only a few have ever made it this far and they’ve had the same problems.
“Which few?” She said; glad to have something apparently rational to talk about.
“Oh you weren’t the only species to have figured out faster than light travel; actually you’re the fourth, shall we say, ‘being,’ to make the trip.”
“So why.” she said. “Why the universe? What do you mean, ‘you experience me?”
The old man leaned back on his chair. “You asked me early on what I was and I told you you wouldn’t understand the answer. The truth is I don’t fully know myself. I know that I am and that I exist but that’s all I really know. I know I am powerful and I feel….God do I feel….err sorry…probably the wrong phrase to use….but I exist without a universe…I exist in timeless harmony. I need to experience what I a
m…to know what I am…I know I am what you call ‘good’ but if I don’t experience it how can I fully understand that about myself? I need to know, you see…I need to know all of it…so I created the universe from my very being. It’s all part of me and I’m part of it. I created an environment with linear time and countless races and ‘possibilities,’ which I could experience through those entities that inhabit it.”
She thought for a moment and asked the obvious question. “Why did you have to create the pain and suffering…death, disease, conflict, cruelty…the universe can be a really shitty place. Why didn’t you create somewhere…well…nice?”
The old man pursed his lips and sucked regretfully thorough his teeth. “I know,” he said gently. “It can be hard, even unbearable, but I had to…don’t you see? This is what it’s all about. To know myself as good I had to create what you call ‘bad’ to experience the opposite of what I am to know what I am.”
She came back quicker than he expected. “Isn’t that just bloody selfish? We have to suffer so that you can go on your little voyage of self-discovery? Countless trillions suffer just so you can ‘find yourself’?”
“Hmmmmm,” the old man said. “I see that I’m going to have to try a little harder to convince you that my quest is beneficial to all. You see, I’ve told you that you’re part of me, therefore you don’t die nor does anyone; you just come back to me. But you’re asking yourself, what does coming ‘back to me’ really mean? I think it’s time for some of the real stuff. Some things are only understood by experience...they cannot be explained. He made to move his hand when she snapped, “Wait a minute, whatever you’re going to do or show me, I need to know something first. If you’re not God, despite the fact that you seem to know everything and evidently created everything, then that means that you’re telling me that there is no God.”
He laughed again his eyes twinkling as he enjoyed his reverie “Oh no, Commodore, there most certainly is a God...I created all this to know God.” And with that their environment exploded. A mass of incredible white brightness engulfed them both. In that instant the astronaut had no body; she was existence only. She felt the old man, she felt herself….she felt the universe…she felt everything. For an instant of time she knew and experienced that she was ‘all that is,’ the power of the experience beyond her ability to describe it. Her psyche opened, really opened, allowing her to understand for the first time the power of everything. She saw the unique dynamics of emotion and understood why they were real and the physical world was not. She called out as if experiencing a thousand orgasms simultaneously. She felt…for the first time she truly felt. “Oh my God,” she gasped, “I had no idea…I had no idea…this is what I am…I remember….I remember….oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” And it that instant it was gone. She was a sat on her chair again opposite the man, sobbing uncontrollably. As her body racked with tears she blurted out “You love me…you know everything about me but you love me anyway…I remember.” The man pulled her out of the chair and embraced her gently as she continued sobbing into his shoulder.
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