Fundamental Force Episode Two

by Albert Sartison

NAVIGATION SYSTEM FAILURE

  Those assembled on the bridge gazed as if hypnotized at the winking notice. The AI seemed to be consumed with fear of the emptiness outside. It shouted its loss of landmarks in huge letters.

  The first to break the silence was the captain.

  “Status?” he asked the first pilot.

  The pilot moved his head strangely, whether as a sign of approval or of something else was not apparent; he shrugged his shoulders.

  The captain coughed irritably.

  “Er... I don’t know, Skip,” the pilot replied eventually, shrugging his shoulders again. “There isn’t a single instrument working here...”

  “Any other problems?”

  “No, sir.”

  “OK then.”

  The captain sipped his coffee and sat down at the console next to the pilot.

  “The others aren’t lagging behind, I hope?” asked one of the crew.

  The pilot turned toward him and looked pointedly at the radar screen. Where the points marking the other ships with synchronized parameters had been, there was now only an empty screen.

  “We have no contact with the ships during a jump,” said the captain, answering for the pilot.

  “Because where we are now, there is no-one apart from us,” added Clive.

  “Why not? I thought we were all flying together. We synchronized, didn’t we?”

  “We are flying together in a sense, from the point of view of our own Universe where the Solar System and all the rest exist. But now we’ve left it, gone beyond its bounds. And here we are alone.”

  “Why alone? We all jumped at the same time, didn’t we? We are now on the crest of the same wave.”

  Clive shook his head.

  “Leaving the Universe is not like going through a door into the next room. We are outside space-time, the physical concepts we are used to don’t apply here. The other ships have also left our Universe just as we have, but we are not next to each other. Here they don’t exist, just as we don’t exist where they are. Not a hundred kilometers away nor a billion light years away. There is no-one here and there never has been. Time does not exist here either. While we are here, time in our Universe is standing still.”

  “What the devil is that out there?” asked someone.

  They all turned toward the window as if on command. Outside, seemingly just a few hundred meters away, a barely visible round spot of light was suspended in front of them. It was wavering slightly, as distant objects do through asphalt-heated air on a hot day. The synchronizer on its long rod was almost touching this hazy mirage. Steve blinked strongly a few times to make sure it wasn’t an illusion.

  “Ah, so that means he was right...” muttered the flight engineer.

  “Who was right? About what?” asked Clive.

  “There’s a convexity from the top, see? It’s wider in the middle and narrows again below that... It’s the cross section of our ship. The gap through which we’ll return. We are seeing our own future, if you can put it that way...”

  “What?” asked Steve.

  The flight engineer turned to face the others in the pilot’s compartment. His cheeks were burning and his hands shook a little with excitement.

  “It was suggested before the experiment that cause-and-effect links could be breached at the junction of space-time. A theory emerged that at some point, we should be able to see the shadow of our future...”

  “Jump off wave in five seconds,” announced the pilot.

  Steve instinctively reached out for the nearest steel handle recessed into the wall and grabbed it, expecting a shaking.

  “Four, three, two, one!”

  It seemed to Steve as if everything in his head went blurred for a moment, like when you stand up quickly after lying down for a long time. His eyes filled with darkness for a second, his heart beat faster. When his sight cleared, stars were shining again outside the windows.

  The position of the brightest of them in the Libra constellation had changed. Now they were shining at a greater distance from each other and had shifted slightly to one side. There could be no doubt. They had just travelled a great distance and were in another sector of the galaxy, tens of light years away from the Solar System.

  “Skip, all systems are online again and operating in normal mode. No reports of damage,” reported the pilot and, looking around at the others, added: “It looks as if everyone is OK.”

  The captain switched on the loudspeaker system to contact the rest of the crew.

  There were no SSS troops in the pilot’s compartment. Those on watch were all over the ship, keeping it secure. Most of them had probably not even noticed what had happened.

  “How are things with you?” he asked the SSS commander.

  “Everything’s under control here. Have we arrived?”

  “That’s what I’m just trying to find out. Everyone is to stay in position until further orders.”

  “Roger.”

  The captain finished his coffee and put the mug aside.

  “Skip, preliminary calculation of our location completed,” reported the first pilot.

  “Well? Are we where we should be?”

  “It’s only a rough estimate from distant quasars. There isn’t much parallax so far, we haven’t yet covered enough distance...”

  “Where are we?” the captain interrupted him.

  “Well, we’ve come out in the right star system at least.”

  A sigh of relief passed in a wave through the pilot’s compartment.

  “In ten minutes we’ll know our exact position relative to the central star.”

  The captain nodded approvingly.

  “Good, good. Are the other ships in place?”

  “All in place.”

  “Then we’ll send the first packet as soon as we know the exact position values.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Steve, only half listening to the conversation, searched among the newly visible stars for the one toward whose planetary system they were flying. If their point of entry back into space-time had been where originally estimated, their destination should be directly on course ahead of them, at a distance taking two weeks to travel. And although Gliese 581 was considerably smaller than the Sun, even such a small star fifteen days’ flight away should show up against the background of other distant stars. But however much his eyes ran across the sky, he could not find it.

  “Where is Gliese itself?” he asked eventually, unable to stop himself.

  “What?” The pilot took his eyes off the monitors and glanced briefly at the navigation map. “It’s a little more to one side than it should be. We’re slightly off course. Skip, calculations are ready, I’ll fire off the packet. Packet gone.”

  “Roger,” replied the captain. “How far off are we?”

  “It’ll take an extra 42 hours.”

  “Two days? Oh well...”

  “Permission to correct course?”

  “Permission granted.”

  The pilot made several brief manipulations on the console, changing the onboard computer program, and leaned back in his seat. Almost at once, the stars outside the windows floated down. The ship cautiously turned its nose upward and to starboard.

  The pilot observed the maneuver for a few seconds to make sure it was correct, then picked up his pen and held it aloft like a conductor’s baton.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce...” he declared, then froze expectantly.

  The attention of those present was initially drawn to his raised hand and then to the view outside the window. A fat shining point slowly floated down from the top edge of the window.

  “...the red dwarf known as Gliese 581! Please join me in greeting!” he finished, and made a waving gesture with his baton.

  As if taking this as a command, the bridge filled with the sound of chatter. Steve approached the captain.

  “What was the packet the pilot mentioned?”

  “A capsule with an information carrier. It will be
picked up by the wave on which we arrived here and carried back to the Solar System. It’s the only means of communication over such a great distance. They’ll be burning with curiosity and concerned about our health.”

  “Uh-huh... Reminds me of a carrier pigeon.”

  The captain merely smiled and, clapping Steve on the shoulder, turned back to the two pilots.

  Meanwhile, the star had slowly slipped further and further down and now almost reached the bottom edge of the window. Despite being classed as a red dwarf, its light did not appear red at all, but yellow-orange, unlike the familiar and blindingly white sunlight from our own star. Viewed from space, that is, without the Earth’s atmosphere in the way.

  “Don’t you think it’s rather a strange shape?” asked Clive softly, standing next to him with his eyes fixed on the star.

  Yes, Gliese did look flattened out from the poles, creating the impression that it was rotating very rapidly around its own axis.

  “Maybe it’s the rotation,” suggested the flight engineer. Steve had not noticed him approaching from the rear to stand behind them.

  “I think we would have known that,” objected Clive. “Our apparatus would have noted such things. After all, Gliese is our neighbor.”

  “Perhaps we should just use the telescope?” suggested Steve loudly, glancing at the captain, who, although busy talking to the pilot and seemingly not listening, looked up.

  “Ask him,” he said, pointing to the second pilot, who nodded.

  With movements so precise they could have been automated, he activated the telescope and put the image from it onto the screen in front of him. The starry sky on the screen nimbly travelled to the side when the telescope’s motors started working. Finding Gliese, he slowed down the rotation and smoothly aligned the reticle in the center of the screen with the center of the shining orange spot.

  As soon as the stars were frozen, the pilot switched on the magnification. The orange star rushed toward them and grew in size until it filled the entire screen. The telescope at once reduced the brightness, hiding its sensitive lens behind a light filter. The blinding disc immediately became less bright, enriching the image with detail.

  From smooth and uniform, the star’s surface was transformed into an uneven boiling mass of superheated star material being blown outwards by viscous bubbles. Dark and light regions alternated on the seething disc. The sides of the star had a geometrically correct circular shape, but toward the north pole they appeared to be cut off. A hanging blurry-edged shadow of unknown origin covered the top edge of the star, creating from afar the impression of irregularity of shape.

  “I get it,” said Clive. “That thing over the northern hemisphere is most likely a Dyson Sphere, but a strange variant of one.”

  “You mean you didn’t know about the sphere?” asked the pilot.

  “No,” replied Steve. “It’s on the reverse side, if you’re looking from the Solar System. By the way, I’d like to know if it was by chance or intention that it was located so that it couldn’t be seen from Earth.”

  Clive simply shrugged his shoulders.

  “What would be the point of hiding it? The aliens told us themselves that Gliese is populated. And if they hadn’t built us a sphere, we would have taken a very long time to get here with our technologies. Why this secrecy?”

  “

  Well, at least we know now that it is inhabited by intelligent beings,” said the captain, whose mood had now greatly improved. “You know what they say, time is money. We have enough money, but not a lot of time. In ten minutes we begin calling the aliens. I ask only the scientific team to stay in the pilot’s compartment, everyone else get to their posts.”

  3

  Zach stared at the screen for a few seconds, after which he turned his gaze outward, to where Gliese 581 was shining in his eyes in an unusual color. A whole bouquet of emotions flashed across his face, from despair to indifference, from helplessness to disillusion. He finally let go of the gun and, deep in thought, started biting his thumbnail.

  “Well, why not? Sooner or later...” he muttered and, glancing briefly at the navigation map, rose from his seat and started wandering around the pilot’s compartment.

  For the time being, he ought to forget about what had happened and get a grip on his brain. Concentrate on the job in hand. So, his ship had somehow managed to reach another star system. That was a hell of a shock, but it wasn’t what mattered right now. It was important to understand why he had been taken to somewhere so far off. That was easier said than done, however. He hadn’t the slightest clue to latch onto. Where should he begin?

  After doing several rounds, he returned to his seat and the console in front of him came to life. The ship’s serial number appeared on the screen, but control was blocked. Whoever had hired Zach had decided that there was no point in allowing him manual control.

  Zach read the serial number aloud: “XPH1927”.

  He urgently needed to hear someone’s voice, even his own would do. Damn it all, to be so alone in another star system...

  “I hear you, sir,” replied the ship’s AI.

  Zach’s eyebrows shot up in astonishment. This was the first time the ship had reacted to his presence. Since he had dictated the code revealed to him by the holographic cube, the ship’s AI had totally ignored the passenger on board.

  “So voice control is not blocked?”

  “It is not, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you say so before?”

  “You didn’t ask, sir.”

  “Typical answer for an electronic idiot...”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What else don’t I know?”

  “I do not understand your question, sir.”

  “You are permitted to converse with me to receive orders from me. Is that so?”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “Including a change of course?”

  “Only if it serves the mission.”

  “What the devil is the mission?”

  “Unfortunately, sir, I do not know that.”

  With a sigh of disappointment, Zach lowered his head to his chest. It seemed as if this idiot had decided to test his patience...

  “How do you know what serves the mission if you don’t know what the mission is?”

  “My program permits me to carry out maneuvers in accordance with your instructions only within the near-planet space of GL-581-c. The route there and back to the evacuation point cannot be changed. My flight mission will be fulfilled in the planned time,” reported the computer in its smug expressionless voice.

  “What was that task? Where are we now?”

  “We are close to 581-c, the third planet of the system. The flight trajectory is optimal for approach and entering high orbit.”

  “The third planet. Is that the one that’s inhabited?”

  “According to my database, the planet is marked as inhabited.”

  “According to the database... Uh-huh... So that’s only a guess, is it? Have any communications from there been intercepted?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No? And is there any other activity? Radar scanning, for example?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Hmm... Strange. When are we due to return to the evacuation point?”

  “In eight days.”

  “Eight days?”

  “Exactly, sir.”

  “Why eight? Why not nine? Or seven? What if I don’t complete the task in time?”

  “According to the program, I must set off for the evacuation point to arrive there at the appointed time. This is of the greatest priority and cannot be changed.”

  “And why, may I ask?”

  “This time schedule prevents us from intersecting the flight trajectory of a group of other ships on course for 581-c. I am obliged to avoid approaching within the effective range of their radars and to maintain radio silence.”

  “So we are not alone...”

  “That’s right, sir.”
>
  “What sort of ships are they? Military?”

  “I do not possess that information, sir. But the ships may be armed.”

  “If they’re armed, they must be military...”

  The AI did not respond, but it seemed to Zach that it agreed.

  “OK, it’s all the same to me... You’d better show me the planet itself.”

  In the telescope, GL-581-c looked like a large droplet of milk diluted with water, floating in weightlessness. The opaque matt surface covered the entire visible side of the planet like a veil of mist. It was not possible to make out continents and seas, if there were any, even in the part well lit by the central star. There was no way of resolving anything from this image.

  Zach swore.

  “All right, keep calm,” he said to himself, half-closing his eyes in order to concentrate. “Let’s go about it another way. We’ll begin at the beginning, but from the other side. Now you’re the guy with the bulging wallet. You’re sitting in the room of that five-star hotel, racking your brains for a way not to get caught talking to that hood, what’s his name, Zach...

  “And you’re sitting there shitting yourself with fright, because if you are caught, you’ll have to answer a lot of tricky questions. Ordinary people don’t have anything in common with guys like that...”

  Zach opened his eyes and glanced at his reflection in the mirror-like surface of the opposite wall. He certainly looked the part. It’s not a good thing to fool around with those sort of guys.

  Contented, he half-closed his eyes again and returned his thoughts to the hotel room.

  “And you’re sitting in the chair and, to give yourself courage, you’re scoffing something...”

  Zach ran through in his mind the most expensive delicacies he could think of.

  “...A banana. And I don’t mean that genetically modified crap that sticks to your teeth like plasticine, but a real one, grown under the burning sun of Australia, in the open air. The most recent harvest, 2038...”

  He set about peeling the imaginary banana. After peeling half of it, he threw it into an imaginary bin. Nonsense, there hadn’t been any freshly-preserved ones for a long time. Guys like him may have been eating them a hundred years ago, but now there were only dried ones.