Firmament: Reversal Zone

by Pennington,J. Grace

  “I guess we'll find out,” the Captain said, examining his uniform buttons. “The question is... should we set course and let Andi do something else, or should she stay here?”

  Guilders shrugged. “Maybe she can go back and forth. Come back when it starts fading, stay for a bit, go again.”

  “Sure,” the Captain agreed. “Andi, you go have dinner, and then we'll see where you're needed next.”

  I stood up, and August spoke again. “I'm starved. Can I go along?”

  “I'm hungry too, Lieutenant, but I need you here right now, to help Guilders with the calculations.”

  “But I need food,” August complained.

  “August...” I sighed.

  He turned back to his station without another word.

  The Captain looked helplessly at me. “I suppose we can ask Crash to fill in for the time being...”

  I should have encouraged him to exercise his authority, and not let August defy him like that. But I knew if I could eat with August, I could see him normal again, and I craved that. So I just said, “Yes, we could.”

  The Captain nodded at August. “Fine. Go eat.”

  August stood quickly and left the bridge. The Captain took off his cap and rubbed his brow with his sleeve. “Eat and report back... I'll let you know if we need you or if anything happens, okay?”

  “Okay.” I followed my brother out.

  Again, the mess hall was jam packed and chaotic. We squeezed through the throng of crewmembers and into seats at a table near the opposite wall of the room.

  “I'm so hungry,” August complained.

  “Did you eat lunch?” I watched Eduardo and Katharina race up and down the room serving sandwiches.

  “Yes.”

  His posture remained stiff. I closed my eyes with a sigh.

  “What?” His voice was raised more than necessary.

  I opened my eyes and just looked at him.

  It only took a couple minutes for him to begin to adjust. His shoulders relaxed and his head lowered. His eyes lost their snap and became more like the soft, gentle ones I was used to.

  “I'm sorry, Andi,” he said.

  “You can't help it.”

  “But I can,” he sighed, leaning his chin on his hands. “I just... when I'm like that, I don't want to. I just want to snap out my ideas and my opinions like they're all that matters... I know it's not right.”

  I remembered the extreme discipline of the Doctor and the Captain, and I had nothing to say.

  “You can't know how it feels, Andi...” he began.

  “I know.” A pause, and then I sighed again. “But you can't know what it feels like to have the entire crew depending on you.”

  “I know. I'm sorry.”

  We ate in companionable silence.

  After dinner, I hurried back up to the bridge.

  “Hey,” the Captain greeted. “Can you go ahead and have a seat at communications? I was about to send for you.”

  I slipped into the chair and watched the fading, flickering panel lights for signs of rejuvenation.

  “Go ahead and eat, Yanendale,” the Captain said, and the comm marshal darted off the bridge as though the words had been the pull of a trigger. “You too, Mr. Guilders. Crash will take over for you. At your station, Lieutenant.”

  Guilders also shot away, and the Captain, Crash, August and I were left on the bridge.

  “Any news?” I asked.

  “We still can't locate the source of the cancellation signal, even though they've been searching the ship... Whales caught some of the cloud in a jar and they're trying to study it. But it's not much.”

  “No theories on who is behind... that and the incident in your room?”

  “None. I had Romero question each of those who'd been in my room, to no avail.”

  I bit my lip. “Maybe I could help?”

  “How?”

  “Well, they won't tell the truth while they're like this... it's the new personality that's making them do it, right? So if I was there, maybe it could make enough difference to...” My voice trailed off. I remembered the night captain grabbing my wrist with an “I'm sorry.”

  “Maybe...” the Captain considered.

  “I don't know that that would work, Captain,” Crash cautioned.

  “Why not, Mr. Crash? It's worth a try, anyhow.”

  Something in Crash's eyes looked more right than it should have. I'd never known Crash to be cautious on the least. He was the most impetuous person I'd ever met. So why did his expression strike me as so familiar?

  “Well, we really need Andi up here right now,” he said.

  “Then let's bring the suspects up here.”

  “I think it might be Commander Stacey,” I called as the Captain started towards the intercom.

  He turned back to me. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “A hunch.”

  “All right.” He stepped to the intercom and said, “Romero, please bring Mr. Stacey to the bridge.”

  Stacey arrived with the head of security moments later, looking pleased with himself and casual. “Hello, Captain Trent,” he said, his voice rising in an almost giddy falsetto.

  The Captain just pointed to a spot next to me. “Stand there, Stacey.”

  The night Captain obliged and stood where directed, leaning up against the communications panel and stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “Why did you enter my room yesterday?”

  “To get some records, sir,” Stacey smiled.

  “Did you do anything else while you were in there?”

  “No sir-ee.”

  The Captain let the disrespect pass. “Did you use a signal to cancel the generator when we tried to gather some of the cloud?”

  “What generator?”

  The Captain sighed. “Andi?”

  I cleared my throat before speaking. “Commander Stacey, the other night when I came up here after we found Dooley's second message, you said 'I'm sorry' to me just before the Captain arrived on the bridge. Why?”

  “Because I'd acted so flippantly, of course,” he said in the most flippant manner possible.

  “I don't think so,” I said.

  He shrugged, then stopped smiling.

  I prodded further. “Are you sure you didn't do anything else in the Captain's room?”

  He hesitated, then said, “I'm sure.”

  “Are you sure you didn't touch the intercom?”

  “I'm sure.”

  “Are you sure you didn't put anything in his food or drink that night?”

  “I'm... sure.”

  “Are you?”

  His eyes sobered. He hesitated, then looked to the fore for a moment.

  “No,” he said at last. “I... I don't know what's wrong...”

  The Captain spoke up. “You did it?”

  Silence. Then, “Yes sir.”

  “Why, Stacey?”

  He looked towards the fore again, then said, “I don't know, sir.”

  The Captain sighed wearily, then gestured to Romero. “Take him to the brig.”

  “I'm sorry, Captain...” Stacey said. I looked up into his face and saw moisture in the corners of his eyes. I shuddered.

  “I know.”

  Then Romero escorted him from the bridge.

  Chapter XIV

  Less than an hour of silent work later, we found it. Yanendale was back from dinner and spotted it as it came in.

  “Another message, Captain.”

  The Captain reclined in his chair, eyes closed, muscles limp. He looked worn rather than lazy. I turned to Yanendale, “Would you read it, please?”

  He read aloud, his voice unusually weak. “How weary this journey has become. Always white as snow, yet always black as soot. We cannot see the stars, the beacons of light that would guide us towards home. So weary. Starved for all that once was, starved for what may yet be, we travel on, always on, yet never knowing our path, knowing only the destination. Without a light to guide us in the cloud of confusion, we float ai
mlessly among the hidden stars.”

  Silence followed his reading. The Captain sighed, still with his eyes closed. “At least it's a new one. Mr. Yanendale, find the next one and we'll make a heading for it.”

  Yanendale leaned over me to work the panel, his heavy breathing uncomfortably close to my ear. I was weary, but not as weary as the others seemed to be. The extra effort to function with their condition must cause extra strain on their systems.

  There was only breathing for a moment, then Yanendale called, “I have the message on our radar. Sending data to the helm.”

  Another moment of work, then he stood up.

  “Received,” Guilders said, also sounding worn, and began working his console.

  A voice, which I recognized as the Doctor's, sounded from the intercom. “Andi, please come to the B-Deck lounge.”

  I looked at the Captain, who nodded without opening his eyes or sitting up. “I'll let you know when we need you again.”

  “Yes sir.” Pushing myself out of the chair, I slipped off the bridge to meet the Doctor.

  He was feeding the fish when I arrived, and at first I wasn't sure whether he'd heard me approach. Then when I was just two meters away, he said, “Do you notice anything different?”

  I didn't know what to say, or where to look, or what he meant. I looked at him, then around the room, then finally at the fish. I studied them, counted them.

  “Twenty-six...” I said. Two-Tone was missing.

  “Exactly. Twenty-six. That is different, isn't it?” He turned to me, and though his face was calm the look in his eyes was somehow—disappointed.

  “Yes sir,” I whispered. “I'm sorry, Doctor.”

  “I found the centropyge bicolor dead. I imagine the cloud did it. I imagine I can expect all of them to go before we get out.” He said it matter-of-factly, without bitterness explicit in his tone, but the bitterness in his eyes remained.

  “I'm sorry... what was the cause of death?”

  “I don't know.”

  Silence for a moment.

  “Is... that what you called me in here for?” I asked.

  He breathed a deep sigh and his frame relaxed. “No.”

  I waited for him to go on. He took a deep breath and turned to look at the fish again before speaking.

  “We've been calling this a reversal. And in many ways it certainly is. But what if... what if it's more of an inversion than an actual reversal?”

  I shook my head. “I don't understand...”

  He turned back to look at me. “To reverse is to turn completely in the opposite direction. East to west, left to right, there really is nothing in common between the two. A parting of the ways. Opposites.”

  I nodded.

  “But an inversion is more complex. An inversion is... a reflection of reality. An inverse triangle is not the opposite of a triangle... it's still a triangle. It's just upside down.”

  “But how do you categorize this... personality mixup as an inversion?” I frowned. Slight apprehension made it suddenly hard to swallow.

  “The centropyge bicolor has two sides. Yellow and blue,” he began. “That's what made me think of it. See, if this cloud had turned our personalities completely around... if it had made them the opposites of what they were... the ways we act would be entirely foreign. It would be... impossible, honestly. Personalities are more complex than that. No one is brave who does not have fear. No one is wise who has not been foolish. No one is kind who does not have the potential to be cruel. That's how traits work. They're two-sided. Like the fish.”

  “But what makes you say that's what's going on here?”

  “Trent.”

  I raised my eyebrows as I thought of the Captain and his lazy, indecisive, casual behavior. “What do you...”

  “I've known Trent longer than anyone else aboard. Longer even than you, Andi. I knew him not only before he was a starship captain, I knew him before he was even starship captain material.”

  “And...”

  “He wasn't the same man you know, Andi. True, he had a certain determination, but he struggled with two flaws that are looking particularly familiar to me—laziness, and peer pressure.”

  I remembered how he was constantly slumping back in his chair, and how he tended to agree with basically anyone who said anything.

  “What about Crash?” I asked. “You've known him a long time, too.”

  “Crash has always had a great deal of leadership ability. He's always had the potential for great competence, but he's never really allowed either to develop fully because of his overconfidence and his pride.”

  “So you're saying... it's not giving everyone traits they don't have...”

  He shook his head. “No. Instead, it's... inverting what's there. Suppressing the dominant traits and emphasizing the traits that haven't been developed, or were overcome, or are weaker, but still there.”

  This blew my mind. I just stared at him, finding myself mentally surveying each of our closest friends on the crew and their transformation. Almira, with her almost unnatural kindness and patience, had been through intense trials that I knew had softened her natural warm, motherly personality. Guilders, who was quiet, practical, and loyal, but had a sarcastic, competitive streak that only popped up in measured, hard-hitting comments now and then. August, who was naturally quiet and shy and nervous, but who had a lot of strength in him—a lot that had been subdued by our biological father. The Doctor, who was normally grumpy on the outside but kind on the inside.

  I kept staring into his face.

  “It's true, isn't it?” he said.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I think... it is.”

  He turned back to the fish. “Personality is only one aspect of a human being. We're shaped by our upbringing, core values and beliefs, and experiences.”

  “So... motivations wouldn't change?”

  “No. I don't think so.”

  Then what was going on with Stacey? Why would he do something that put his career as a future starship captain at risk?

  “I'll be glad when this is over,” the Doctor stated, still staring at his twenty-six fish.

  I didn't echo his words aloud, but inwardly I agreed with all my heart.

  The intercom sounded just then, and I instantly recognized the Captain's voice. “Andi, come up here please.”

  With just a glance at the Doctor, I hurried out of the room and up to the bridge.

  I didn't even have time to announce my presence when I arrived, because the Captain was standing near the door waiting for me. “Look,” he said, pointing out the fore window as I stepped in.

  I followed the direction of his finger and saw a large, gray, vaguely rectangle object floating ahead of us—not moving, just sitting in the cloud.

  A small gasp escaped my throat. “Is that...?”

  “Yes. We're pretty sure it's the Pigeon.”

  Chapter XV

  I stared at the fuzzy gray shape, then looked at the Captain. “We can't communicate with them?”

  He shook his head, took off his cap, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, every motion marked by weariness. The silence on the bridge was heavy—as if tension and tiredness exerted their own version of gravity.

  Yanendale interjected, his voice also weary. “It's possible that when we get right up next to them we could send a text communication the way they did, but there's no guarantee.”

  “We'll try it, but we're going to go ahead and board,” the Captain ordered, putting his cap back on. “I want Gerry, Andi, August, Guilders, Crash, and Whales to go aboard and have a look...” I need to stay and look after things.”

  “Are you going to be okay without me?” I asked. I cringed at the words, but I knew there was a real possibility he might not.

  “I'll be fine. It shouldn't be too long, anyway.”

  I nodded. “Should we go right away, Captain?”

  “Yes. Quickly. I want to know why they're just sitting there... why they gave up.”

  “Yes sir.” I
turned to leave, and he gave one more order.

  “If you aren't back in two hours, we're sending another party after you.”

  “Yes sir,” I said again, and I left, followed by Guilders, August, and Whales.

  It didn't take long to get ready. The only people who needed to bring any equipment were the Doctor and Whales, and they only needed pads and scanners for gathering data. We all gathered at port peripheral airlock two to board a shuttle, which Guilders and Crash would pilot to the Pigeon.

  The shuttles were small, designed only for landings and ship-to-ship boardings. The six of us piled into one and I stationed myself at the back of the cockpit, where I watched as we disengaged from the Surveyor and maneuvered towards the freighter. Unlike most boardings, we wouldn't be able to have any contact with the Surveyor if things went wrong.

  Which gave me a deep unrest in my stomach.

  Nobody made a sound as we approached until we were just a few meters away from the side of the Pigeon. Then Guilders spoke up.

  “They aren't opening the access. We'll have to moor manually.”

  Crash nodded.

  I looked out the porthole to my left and saw the white word Pigeon etched in the side of the blocky cargo vessel. The word, as well as the rest of the surface, was covered in dents and scratches. How long had this ship been in commission?

  We attached to the side with a mild but jarring collision, since there was no way to ask anyone to moor us. I could see nothing out the windows now except the side of the Pigeon, the cloud stretching on for what seemed like infinity, and the Surveyor, a barely discernible shape many meters away.

  Guilders and Crash used a manual override to open the access of the Pigeon while the rest of us waited. When it was open, they moved aside and looked at me.

  It was a few seconds before I remembered I was supposed to be the leader of this party. Guilders might be the first officer, but I was temporarily second in command only to the Captain himself.

  I took a deep breath. “Shall we go?” I said.

  They didn't wait for me to step out first. Crash drew a blaster and moved into the airlock, looking from left to right as he went. Guilders followed, weaponless. The others held back, waiting, so I stepped out of the shuttle behind the two men.