Dark Matter

by S. W. Ahmed

  “See?” Zorina said to Marc. “I told you! Have more faith in our brainy friend!”

  With that, they began their descent to the canyon floor. Zorina led them down a steep path, one she had been on many times before. At the bottom, they set up camp in the same spot that she had used in the past, under the shelter of what had once been the wing of a drone.

  Marc sat down on a section of broken pipe. He was feeling exhausted, and was certain that any moment now he would die of thirst in the scorching heat. Much to his delight, Zorina revealed a bag full of food supplies that she had stored in the corner of the wing during her last stay. She sat down next to him, and together they drank some ale and shared a few pieces of sparli. He instantly felt better.

  “Hey, my man, want some sparli, with some ale to wash it down?” she called out to Sibular.

  “Thank you, but I do not require any nourishment,” Sibular replied. He was analyzing a number of ship parts a short distance away.

  “What the…? How does he survive?”

  “You don’t know?” Marc said. “The Mendoken don’t eat or drink. I was surprised too when I first found out. Their brains are mostly organic, but their bodies are half organic and half mechanized, and each half fully supports the functions of the other half. When they were first evolving, they used to eat a plant called Torteg, but once they incorporated the mechanized parts into their bodies, they no longer needed nourishment in the form of food. Their mechanized parts are designed to continuously absorb energy from the electromagnetic waves that surround them, with which they sustain the organic parts. The organic parts in turn are responsible for intelligence and overall consciousness.”

  “Amazing! The Grid always showed Mendoken to us as ugly monsters who devoured everything in their sight. It seems they’re nothing like that. I suppose the technology is not too different from the way the Grid nourishes all Volonans who are connected to it. We obviously don’t have such extensive mechanized body parts like the Mendoken have. The only things we do have are those connectors on the top of our heads to receive the Grid’s transmissions and convert them into the energy our bodies need to survive. Volonans have to be connected to the Grid, though, in order to obtain energy like that. Otherwise, it’s down to traditional food and drink.”

  She yawned. “Well, time for a nap.” She then glanced at Sibular. “Let me guess, he doesn’t sleep either?”

  “Nope, none of them do.”

  “Ah! Hopefully he’ll make some progress in the meantime then.” She lay down on the ground and rested her head on the pipe. Within seconds, she was fast asleep.

  As Marc finished his last mouthful of sparli, he decided to follow her example. Given how tired he was, he knew he wouldn’t be of any help to Sibular at the moment. He felt a lot more at ease now, knowing that the three of them were here together, with a plan to get off this planet that just might work.

  He lay down on the ground next to Zorina. Gazing up at the sky, he wondered why it was that there appeared to be no day or night on this planet – the sky was always the same dismal gray. Perhaps the days were just really long here, he thought. Before any other possibilities came into his head, he drifted off to sleep.

  When Marc awoke, he wasn’t sure at first where he was. For a moment, he thought he was back in his dream house on the cliff, with Iman lying by his side. But that happy thought faded away as soon as he opened his eyes. The sky was the same dismal gray, the air still terribly hot and humid, and the surroundings nothing more than the same messy piles of junk.

  “How long have I been asleep?” he wondered. He sat up, and noticed Zorina was no longer lying next to him. In fact, neither she nor Sibular were anywhere in sight.

  He stood up in alarm, and began looking for them in between the piles of junk. He feared the worst. Had the two of them fought and killed each other? Or had they left without him?

  In the distance, he could hear the sounds of drilling and metal clanking. He followed the direction the sounds were emanating from. After passing by the ruins of an old spaceship, he finally saw what the source of the noise was.

  Just ahead, standing in front of what looked like one of the ship’s engines, were Sibular and Zorina. Rather than fighting each other, they were hard at work, attaching pieces of machinery to each other. They were working at an incredibly fast pace, much faster than Marc had ever seen any humans perform construction work. They had clearly made a lot of progress during the time he had been asleep.

  “Who says Mendoken and Volonans can’t work together for a better future?” he thought, smiling. He walked up to them and offered a helping hand.

  The three of them worked all day long, trying to restore the old ship engine to its original state. Every couple of hours, Zorina stopped to take a short nap, while Marc drank some ale to replenish his body with all the water he was losing in the intense heat. The two of them also ate carefully rationed sparli for lunch and dinner. Sibular kept working continuously, never once wavering or stopping for a break, never once complaining about anything.

  The days passed, and bit by bit the ship they were constructing began to take shape. Zorina showed Marc a natural spring right in the center of the canyon, where they were able to bathe and get fresh drinking water from. She also went back to her living quarters on the outskirts of Krasia at one point, baked enough sparli to last them for several weeks, and brought it all back to the canyon in neatly packed rations.

  While Sibular toiled away nonstop on building the ship, Marc and Zorina set up a detection system around the entire perimeter of the canyon which gave early warnings of any approaching drones. This system provided them with ample time to stop whatever they were doing and stay absolutely still whenever any drones came flying over the canyon.

  For the most part, Marc and Zorina followed Sibular’s instructions while working on the ship, since he was the most knowledgeable about ship technology. They discussed many topics while they worked, and although squabbles periodically erupted between Marc’s two companions, squabbles which were either quickly put down by Marc or abruptly stopped due to visits by drones, each of them ended up gaining a better understanding and appreciation for each other in the process. Marc learned quite a bit about Volonan history from Zorina, the highlights of which included the following:

  The Volona once lived in the real world, and had big, thriving cities spread across their home planet of Barenoa. Volonans always enjoyed living in comfort, partaking of good food and spending all their skills and assets on entertainment and pleasure. As their population grew, the Volona consumed all of the planet’s natural resources. While a select few warned of the ramifications of what was happening, the majority paid no attention. Eventually the planet’s ecological system collapsed, and the once beautiful world of forests, oceans and blue skies turned into a complete wasteland.

  During that time, one cataclysmic natural disaster followed the next, and millions of Volonans died on Barenoa. Those that remained worked frantically to develop space travel technology, and built ships with which they escaped from their home world. Some of the ships made it to other livable planets and moons in nearby star systems, where the survivors settled and started new societies.

  Initially, the Volonan settlers were more environmentally conscious, vowing to never repeat the same mistake again. But as one generation replaced the next, history was soon forgotten. Within a few million years, they had once again depleted the natural resources of all their new home worlds, and once again had to leave to look for other livable planets and moons.

  This cycle continued, with newer generations leaving their homes every few million years and settling on other worlds. But eventually it came to an abrupt end. One of the planets the Volona landed on was already inhabited by an intelligent species. They overpowered the Volonan settlers, mass-murdered them and used their ships to head off into space. They began attacking and invading other Volonan worlds with tremendous ferocity. Within a few years, they became a major threat to the very survi
val of the entire Volonan race.

  Extinction, however, was not in the Volona’s fate. Among the demoralized survivors spread thinly across the different worlds emerged a new leader who united what was left of the Volonan people and led them to a bitterly fought victory against the enemy.

  The Volona resolutely decided never to repeat their mistakes of the past. They formed an integrated, united Empire, spread across all their star systems and surrounded by secure borders to keep out outsiders. And they moved into the virtual realm, where they would be able to perpetually live in ultimate luxury and comfort. The Virtual Translation Grid is an ingenious system that not only takes care of the virtual worlds of all Volonans, but with the help of the dense material purania also sustains itself perpetually through energy from the radiation of close to 300 billion stars across the Empire, never once wasting any natural resources or emitting any pollutants.

  “Well, that certainly explains the Volona’s distrustfulness of other species,” Marc thought, as he finished listening to Zorina’s long account of Volonan history. “Although it still doesn’t justify it.”

  One night, as they lay down near each other before falling asleep, Zorina told Marc the story of how she had had fallen out of grace with the Empress Adrelina:

  Zorina and Adrelina are identical twins, the only daughters of Yulandina, the previous ruler of the Empire. At her deathbed, Yulandina faced a quagmire about whom to hand the throne to. She arbitrarily gave it to Adrelina. As always, these events were depicted somewhat differently to everyone by the Virtual Translation Grid, depending on the relevant context in each individual’s own virtual world. And, as always, each individual could choose to find out the real truth by specifically requesting that information from the Grid.

  To pacify Zorina and to make sure that she didn’t begin a rebellion, the new Empress appointed her as Chief Imperial Defender, one of the most prestigious posts in the whole Empire. This strategy seemed to work. For over 30 years, the relationship between the two sisters remained relatively peaceful. But then, an anomaly in the Grid occurred – they both fell in love with the same male, a Volonan by the name of Rudoso. The Grid made it appear to Zorina as if Rudoso was exclusively in love with her in her own virtual world, and similarly with Adrelina in hers. Meanwhile, Rudoso had the impression in his virtual world that he was only in love with Zorina.

  Such anomalies in the Grid hardly ever happen, but whenever they do occur, they are impossible to detect until after the Grid has already corrected the anomaly by itself. Unfortunately this process usually takes a long time, due to the tremendous complexity of the Grid and the number of activities it manages on a daily basis for the entire Volonan population. It took 12 years for the Grid to recognize and correct this anomaly, probably the costliest one in its history.

  When the anomaly became public knowledge, all hell broke loose. Rudoso decided to stay with Zorina, which infuriated Adrelina. She accused Zorina of orchestrating the anomaly, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing her with Rudoso’s help. She had both Zorina and Rudoso charged with treason and imprisoned them for life.

  Zorina spent 2 years in captivity, before eventually breaking out of the Grid and finding herself here on the planet Nopelio. Now, 6 years later, she has no idea what happened to Rudoso or how to find him. Most likely he is on some remote planet somewhere, imprisoned in his own virtual world.

  Chapter 24

  It took a total of 15 days for Marc, Sibular and Zorina to finish assembling the ship. Not that it was much of a ship by anyone’s definition, but its makers weren’t worried about looks, sophistication or comfort. Their primary goal was to build something big enough to hold the three of them and fast enough to help them escape from the Volonan Empire. The Aftaran border was much closer to Volo-Gaviera than the Mendoken border, so their plan was to head in the direction of the Aftaran Dominion. Sibular was confident that, given the good relationship between the Aftar and the Mendoken, they would find easy passage to the MendokenRepublic once they reached the Dominion.

  After much initial reluctance, Zorina had agreed to accompany Marc and Sibular all the way to the Republic. As afraid as she was of traveling into the heart of what she considered enemy territory, she had eventually been persuaded that her presence and testimony would make it much easier for Marc and Sibular to convince the Mendoken government that the Volonan Empire was not behind the consar attacks on their worlds. Sibular had also given her his word that if she helped put an end to this war, then the Mendoken government would undoubtedly protect her and grant her asylum.

  The three of them now stood in front of their completed ship. Overall, it was no larger than an average sized helicopter. In appearance, it was more like a random collection of different shapes and colors, with a central transparent hump that housed the cockpit, two wings of unequal length and width, and three uncovered kilasic engines mounted just behind the hump.

  “She’s definitely no looker,” Zorina observed.

  Marc couldn’t agree more. If this ship were to enter a competition for aesthetic value, it would surely come dead last. He also wasn’t feeling particularly confident about its reliability or safety. Forget consar travel – that wasn’t even an option for this vessel. Not only were the necessary materials and precise measuring instruments for consar technology not available in this scrapyard, a contraption coupled together so loosely would never be able to withstand the tremendous multidimensional forces during consar entry and exit. The ship’s occupants would literally be pulled apart, atom by atom. But even with its conventional kilasic engines, he wasn’t convinced the ship would hold together during takeoff, let alone fly through space.

  “You’re, uh, absolutely sure it won’t be easier to stop this war by just telling the Volonan authorities what we know, right?” he asked Zorina.

  She looked surprised. “By reconnecting to the Grid? Are you nuts, young human? I’ll be back in prison and you’ll be dead before we get anywhere near any imperial authorities to tell them anything. That’s what I’m absolutely sure of.”

  The course of action was therefore clear. Sibular climbed into the cockpit first, and Zorina followed.

  Marc felt his heart rate jump as he climbed on board after them. “This could very well be the last flight I ever take,” he thought.

  It was snug inside the cockpit, with barely enough room for the three of them, but the full 360 degree view of the outside actually gave the cockpit a spacious feel. The few instruments and screens across the front dashboard looked archaic, especially compared to the sophisticated systems Marc had seen earlier on board the big Mendoken ships.

  Sibular stood in the front, as he was the main pilot, while Zorina took a seat as the flight navigator to his right. Marc took up the rear of the cockpit, where he had a small seat all to himself. His task was to monitor the function of the engines and to make sure they were always running smoothly. Sibular had given him a crash course on how kilasic engines worked, and had shown him how to correctly interpret the data from the gauges connected to the engines.

  Sibular sealed the cockpit door shut. “Are you both ready?”

  Zorina bobbed her head up and down with excitement, while Marc gave a reluctant nod. The only inviting thing about this small cockpit, he felt, was that its oxygen supply and air conditioning system provided somewhat of an improvement over the hot, humid air outside.

  With that, Sibular touched an icon on one of the illuminated screens on the dashboard. The engines lit up right away, springing to life with a deafening roar. He pressed several other icons on the screen, and then rested his front hands on two handles that protruded from the dashboard.

  As the ship lifted straight up from the ground, heavy vibrations tore through its chassis, and Marc could have sworn he heard clanking sounds coming from below. But all the engine gauges showed normal readings, and his fellow crewmembers seemed unconcerned.

  After the ship had reached a height of about 50 feet from the ground, Sibular pulled on the two handle
s, and the ship began moving forward. He then took it for a short test flight around the canyon, pulling and pushing each handle to control tilts, turns and speed. No test flights had been conducted earlier, in case drones spotted the ship’s movement and shot it down before it had even had a chance to clear the atmosphere. This was to be both the ship’s first test flight and its maiden voyage through many light years of hostile space.

  Fortunately, Marc’s fears of the ship’s stability appeared to be unfounded. It certainly was noisy and it did rattle a lot, but it flew effortlessly through the air. After a couple of more laps around the canyon, Sibular tilted the vessel upwards and flew it into the gray sky.

  Nevertheless, their exit from Nopelio wasn’t going to be quite that easy, as they very well knew.

  “Here they come!” Zorina exclaimed, pointing to the navigation screen in front of her.

  Sure enough, as Marc looked over her shoulder at the screen, he could see a few blips approaching from the right. Several seconds later, he saw the real things outside, as the silhouettes of drones broke through the clouds and headed towards the ship. And this time, there weren’t just the standard three, there were nine of them.

  “Should we come to a standstill?” Sibular asked.

  Zorina flapped her ears. “No! There isn’t enough time. We have to outrun them!”

  Sibular pressed a couple of icons on the panel screen and pulled on the handles. The ship sped up and entered the thick clouds with full force. Visibility instantly dropped, and heavy turbulence began tossing the ship about.

  “Where are they?” Marc asked frantically, feeling the nausea rise in his head.

  “They’re coming up behind us!” Zorina shouted, staring at the navigation screen. “They’ll fire any sec…!”

  Before she could finish her sentence, a bright light zoomed right past the ship from behind, missing its left wing by inches. Other bright lights followed on both sides, above and below. The drones were firing shot after shot.