Firmament: Reversal Zone

by Pennington,J. Grace

  “Doctor?”

  He didn't turn around, or give any indication that he'd heard me.

  I cleared my throat and tried again, louder. “Doctor?”

  He turned and looked at me. I couldn't read his face.

  All the things I'd thought about saying ran through my mind. I'm sorry I didn't ask you before agreeing to the Captain's proposal. I'm sorry this happened. I wish that things would go back to normal. Please forgive me.

  Instead I said in a voice that trembled ever so slightly, “The Captain wants you and Whales to start formulating a theory about what might be happening and how we can fix it.”

  A beat of silence, then he said, “Yes. Whales already informed me. I'm on my way there now.”

  There was a tone of finality to his words, as though he was waiting for me to tell him something he didn't already know. I decided to oblige.

  “The Captain wants me to sit in while you two discuss it...”

  I faltered. I couldn't do this. I wanted my Doctor. I wanted him now.

  “Doctor?” I said, in a still more tremulous voice.

  He looked me in the eyes, but didn't say anything.

  “What are you thinking?” I ventured, taking a step closer.

  “We need to get to work,” he said, choosing to act as though I hadn't spoken. Then he turned to walk past me towards the door.

  Tears welled up in my eyes, and I felt his hand brush my elbow as he passed. He didn't look at me or say a word, but the touch quelled my rising emotions for the moment. I followed him out and into the B-Deck briefing room.

  Whales was already there, logged into a computer at the far end of the long conference table. The Doctor strode down the room and sat two seats away from the end. He set his pad down. Neither of them said anything, and I tentatively took a seat at the opposite end from them and just watched. I wasn't sure exactly what the Captain wanted me to do. Settle any arguments so that they could stay on track with their research?

  I wasn't sure I was qualified at all for this. No sooner had the doubt infiltrated my mind than I forced it out, and prayed instead.

  “Have you had any ideas yet?” the Doctor asked Whales.

  Whales' eyes were cast in shadow by the deep furrows in his forehead, making him look far older than his thirty-nine years. “I haven't had a lot of time to look into it.”

  “Well, where do we start then?”

  I couldn't get used to that gentle, polite, yet somehow cold tone coming from my Doctor.

  “The scanners aren't working, and neither are the instruments, so I'm at a loss right now for how to make direct observations...” The scientist broke off and rubbed his head with a sigh.

  “We can at least observe the results.” The Doctor sat up perfectly straight.

  “We barely know what the results are right now.”

  I caught a whiff of the slightest sickly sweet smell in the tense pause that followed, and sensed the ship begin to move.

  “I know. But we can at least look at the results that we can observe for a start, can we not?” The Doctor's voice remained frosty.

  “Yes.” Whales touched his pad and glanced at it. “We're still trying to figure out what implications it's having on engineering, but I want to know what we can observe about ourselves, too.”

  “My instruments seem to be compromised as well,” the Doctor stated.

  “That's a pretty big problem, isn't it?”

  Whales's tone was as strained as his expression. I sat up a little straighter.

  “Not for the present.”

  The Doctor usually didn't use words like “present.”

  “Doctor, what's going to happen if someone has a serious problem?” A vein bulged in Whales's temple.

  I glanced at my wristcom. Well past dinnertime. The empty stomachs probably weren't helping the situation.

  “Well then,” the Doctor went on calmly, “let's try to fix the issues before someone has a serious problem, shall we?”

  “It's easy for you to say when you don't have to worry about getting us out of here before supplies run out...”

  I cleared my throat, trying not to show how nervous I was. “Maybe...” I began, and they both looked at me. That wasn't the right way to start. I tried again. “What can we observe about ourselves without the instruments? Does that help?”

  Whales stiffened and the Doctor relaxed. “Well,” the Doctor began, “Crash said something about our personalities being reversed. I've been reading up on my medical journals, and I can't find any comparable phenomenon—but since we retain all our skills and memories, this seems to be a chemical matter rather than any kind of brain damage. I need to research more.”

  Whales spoke slowly, voice still tight with irritation. “Reversed. We should get McMillan in here to help us see if any form of reversal can explain the problems they're having.”

  I spoke up again. “Maybe, Mr. Whales, you could go talk to him about it after dinner?” It was tense enough with just Whales and the Doctor in the room.

  I bit my lip. That should have been phrased as an order, not a suggestion. Right now I outranked them, and the Captain trusted me to keep control for him. But how could I, a twenty-one-year-old who didn't even have an official rank, give orders?

  “I am hungry,” Whales admitted. He looked at the Doctor.

  “All right. After that, you check with McMillan about any changes, and I'll see what I can do without my equipment. Are you going to dinner, Andi?”

  I waited for a smile, a softening of the eyes as he looked at me—even a slight motion of leaning towards me. None of it came.

  “Yes sir. I will.”

  He nodded, then picked up his pad. Whales signed out of the computer, and they both left the briefing room without a glance at me.

  I stayed seated and breathed, slowly, deeply, rhythmically. We were making some progress. Not much, not at all, but some. They at least had a plan of action. The sooner we made it out of there, the sooner everyone would be back to normal. That was why I had to focus.

  I sensed the halting of the ship as the intercom on the wall behind me buzzed to life, and the Captain's voice spoke through it. “Andi, are you there?”

  I stood up and stepped to the smooth, white metal speaker and pressed a button on the side. “Yes, Captain?”

  “I need you on the bridge.”

  “Be right there.” Pressing the button again, I took another deep breath, said another prayer, and hurried to answer his call.

  Chapter IX

  I stepped onto the bridge and into a complete change in atmosphere. Everyone worked efficiently, but the only sounds were beeps and blips of the computers and the soft tap of fingers on panels. The tension was so palpable I felt like I should be swimming in it instead of walking.

  I opened my mouth to say, “Second medical officer on the bridge, sir,” out of habit, then stopped. Was that what I was supposed to say now? Or was it, “Commander Lloyd on the bridge, sir”? I winced. That didn't sound right at all. “Mission consultant on the bridge, sir,” didn't sound much better. So I settled for the simplest option available. “Andi Lloyd on the bridge, sir.”

  The Captain swiveled his chair slowly to face me. He was leaning back again, and his arms lay limp at his sides instead of being propped up sturdily on the chair arms. “Thanks for coming, Andi.”

  He had no need to thank an officer for obeying orders, but I said nothing. I moved forward to stand beside him.

  He swiveled forward again and spoke. “We've picked up a message.”

  “From where?”

  “I don't know. Communications haven't been transmitting or receiving, but somehow we picked this up suddenly. It's not an audio message, it's text. It just... popped in, suddenly.”

  “Did you look at it yet?”

  “I wanted to wait for you.”

  For half a second I thrilled at the feeling of importance this gave me, then I banished the thought and reddened slightly in shame. “Is that why we're not moving?” />
  “Yes. McMillan had us go for a bit so he could study things, but I had everything stop when we got the message.”

  I just nodded, and the Captain turned his chair to face Yanendale. “Read it.”

  His tone and words were lax, but I let it pass and listened as the com marshal read the message.

  “The white darkness closes in, and we cannot see the sun. Oh for a thousand ships to find the way out of that which inhibits us. But the glory of what might be drives us ever inward, on to the unknown, even though we die in the attempt. Would that a passing vessel would heed our cry for help, even as we disappear into the realms not yet discovered.”

  Guilders laughed.

  “What does that mean?” I asked after a moment of confused silence.

  “It doesn't mean anything that I can see,” said August irritably. “It's just nonsense.”

  “Do you think it's a code, Captain?” Yanendale asked.

  The Captain shook his head and crossed his arms. “Don't think so... but... it could be a clue...” He looked at me.

  I shook my head. “It doesn't show us anything.”

  He shrugged. “I guess not. I thought it might.”

  I realized my mistake and quickly thought through the Captain's reversal. He was normally incredibly stubborn and decisive, so that would make him very pliable to others' opinion and suggestions at the moment. I needed to encourage him to take his own ideas more seriously.

  “Oh, I don't know,” I backtracked. “What did you have in mind?”

  He hesitated. “I think it's from the Pigeon.”

  “How in the world can you know that?” Guilders burst out.

  I kept my eyes on the Captain and said, “How so?”

  “I remember Crash saying he 'didn't have a hint of romance in him.'”

  I remembered that, too. “But why send text instead of an audio message?”

  Here Yanendale ventured an opinion. “Communications aren't working, you know. Text is a totally different thing. Maybe he thought it would work better.” Hearing the casual, almost slangy speech from the normally professional Yanendale was jarring.

  “So how does that help us?” I looked at the Captain again.

  “We know the Pigeon is probably in here...” the Captain furrowed his brow.

  “If...” Guilders began, and then stopped. It sounded like he had started to say, “if I may” out of habit, but had decided not to. He began again. “Yanendale said it seemed like the message just 'popped' up. Communications aren't working. And when we were on the outskirts of the cloud, our communications with ISA were delayed. If the cloud slowed them down that much while we were outside, it seems obvious that it's all but freezing them now.”

  I waited, but the Captain said nothing, so I asked, “So you're saying that we came to it rather than vice versa?”

  “I don't see how that helps,” August snapped.

  I sighed.

  The Captain sat up. “Yes... that does make a lot of sense. Though a little more respect would not be amiss, Mr. Guilders. And you too, Lieutenant.

  Guilders mumbled something under his breath, but I was too grateful the Captain had pulled himself together to pay attention. He raised one finger as he thought for a moment, then he said, “I think... it just might help.”

  He rubbed his chin, and I waited for him to explain.

  “Well?” Guilders said.

  “I'm thinking.” The Captain almost sounded like himself again. “Assuming he sent out more than one message it could be like a breadcrumb trail. I don't know Dooley, but to be a commander you have to be resourceful. Maybe that's what he intended.”

  “How could we even follow a trail of communications?” August asked. “We have no way to detect them, and no way even to tell which way we're going.”

  “Thank you for your insight, Lieutenant.” The dismissive tone was closer still to his normal self. “Mr. Guilders, any suggestions?”

  “Not until we know what's wrong down there,” Guilders insisted. “Even you aren't...”

  I was glad his sentence was cut off by Crash's voice over the intercom. “Captain, we're not having much luck down here. With respect, sir, I think you might need to try to come up with a new plan.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Crash.”

  He turned to the fore, opened his mouth, closed it, hesitated, and then turned to me. “What do you think?”

  I balled my hands into fists and tried to process. The trail didn't help much without knowing which direction the freighter had been going.

  “I don't know if this is possible...”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Maybe Mr. Yanendale could compute the angle of approach on the message, if it moved very slowly instead of standing still, and we could head that way?”

  “We can't see where we're going,” August said.

  Guilders echoed his doubts. “We won't even know if we're going in a straight line.”

  “Better than nothing.” The Captain stood up and strolled to Yanendale's chair. “Mr. Yanendale, check the message's records.”

  “Okay.”

  The “okay” was very much against protocol, but the Captain ignored it. The comm marshal tapped away at his panel for a few seconds before shaking his head. “Nothing. No record of motion. Must've been too slow, if it moved at all.”

  The Captain closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them again and pointed at the screen. “Is it coded with a point of origin?”

  Yanendale checked, and nodded. “Yeah. Looks like we have coordinates.”

  “And?”

  “Only a few centimeters different from the point where it was picked up.”

  “That's still two reference points. Enough to draw a line. It's something to go on, anyway.”

  “Captain?”

  August's voice was quiet and had less irritation running through it than before.

  “Hmm?” The Captain turned to face him but didn't step away from the comm station.

  “Something happened with my panel again. It looked like the sensors were working for a moment, then they went out again, but now the displays are flashing off and on... nothing coherent, just a jumble of different signals.”

  The Captain made no move to examine it. He leaned on the back of Yanendale's chair. “Anyone else's panels showing these signs?”

  A chorus of “no sir”s mixed with some “no”s.

  “Hmm.”

  I looked at August's panel and saw for myself the blinking, erratic display. “It looks like what happened to the science station the other night, Captain.”

  He stood up straight, but slowly, as though gravity had been increased. “Tristan said he couldn't find anything wrong with the other panels?”

  “Yes sir.”

  The Captain heaved a heavy sigh. “Mr. Guilders. You and Lieutenant Howitz plot a line between the points Yanendale sends you. That's the direction we're going to try to head. Do your best.”

  The slump of his shoulders and the slight downward tilt of his lips spoke of defeat. A knot tied in my stomach.

  “Go ahead and eat, Andi,” he said with a languid wave of his hand. “I'll let you know if I need you.

  I started to agree, then stopped. “Are you sure I should go?” I asked, trying not to let my voice show the timidity I felt.

  “I'm sure. A lot of use you are on an empty stomach.” He tried to smile.

  “Yes sir. I'll come back after dinner.”

  “Good.”

  There was nothing else to say. The rumbling of my stomach confirmed his decision, so I left the bridge.

  The tension lifted the moment I walked out into the hall. I let out a long breath as I walked to the elevator, and I prayed wordlessly that we'd find the Pigeon very, very soon.

  Mostly for selfish reasons.

  As I walked into the mess hall, I remembered Almira's behavior from earlier and my heart sank. The opposite of kind, cheery, motherly Almira was not something I especially wanted to see at the moment. Or really ever.


  Instead of trotting back into the galley to say hello and help out, I just headed to a seat at a table in one corner of the room to wait for my food.

  The mess hall was busier than usual, especially for this late in the day. A haze of chatter hung over the room, and at least two thirds of the crew was concentrated in the center, filling every table except those around the edges. Most people waved hands, uttered a constant stream of conversation, and shoveled food into their mouths like machines. Some just sat with eyes glazed over and ate as though trying to avoid notice.

  I hoped the Captain was right. I hoped this crew had what it took to get through this.

  “Here.” Eduardo, the kitchen assistant, slid a tray in front of me. “Hope you enjoy that, sweetheart.”

  I jerked up and my jaw dropped, but he turned on his heel without a word and sauntered off. Eduardo was one of the most gentlemanly young men on the ship. At least, he had been.

  I dug my fork into the steak and picked up my knife to cut it. Both utensils felt much too heavy, and I dragged the knife back and forth until I had sawed off a bite-sized piece. I winced as I chewed it. It was tough. Much too tough for Almira's fine cooking. I ate half of it before deciding that my jaws were too tired for such a workout, and I hurried to finish the rest of the meal.

  The mess hall was almost as full when I left as it had been when I entered.

  I rode the elevator back up to the bridge, my mind fuzzy from the surrealism of it all. The scene that met my eyes when the bridge door opened didn't help.

  “If we listen to you, we're never going to get there! We've been at top propulsion for an hour and still no sign of another message.”

  I didn't know Guilders' voice could get that loud.

  “Mr. Guilders, honestly, an hour is a very short amount of time. I'm sure they couldn't go any faster than we can. No reason to send out another message in one hour.”

  “Maybe if you're trying to lead someone on a breadcrumb trail,” August interjected. Guilders turned to him.