by Carl Derham
CHAPTER 3
Annenia
There was a second of green light emitted from the Neural Feed Set. It wasn’t actually visible in the room, only inside Oli’s head and he immediately felt as though he had been asleep for eight hours. He stretched, farted, scratched the inside of his thigh and tossed the NFS back onto the control desk.
“Ahem, Oli, that’s actually quite a sensitive piece of equipment,” the ship stated ruefully.
“Oops,” offered Oli, his teeth clenched apologetically.
“Right then,” he said with one hand still manipulating his inner thigh, “let’s get to work.”
“Oli, it will take us five days and two hours from here, not counting the time that we require to extricate ourselves from this rock. Do you feel up to space travel?”
“Oh, yes, I do believe I’m totally up for space travel,” said Oli, trying desperately to prevent himself from leaping into the air and shouting Yeaha!
“How do you plan to get us out of here? I hope you’re not going to destroy the pyramid. That really would not be a good opening in your quest to win them over.”
“By the same method that I used to transport you through the solid rock. It’s called a matter transform bubble. Put on the NFS and I’ll explain it to you.”
Flash! “Cool” said Oli. “These Annenians really were quite smart, weren’t they?”
The ship suggested that they leave immediately, under cover of night, to avoid drawing too much attention. All of a sudden, all the lights on the control panel began to flash and there was a deep, almost imperceptible throbbing sound from the rear of the ship. The screen above the control panel began to change colour and Oli could see a domed rocky surface curving around the front of the ship. It was obvious that they were in a cave, the walls of which were close to the outside of the ship. The surface of the cave was very smooth and followed the shape of the hull. He felt around for the arm of the seat, not taking his eyes off the screen, and slid sideways into it.
“I thought you might like to watch as we leave Oli,” said the ship.
“You’re totally right; I would,” said Oli, grasping the arms of the chair and leaning slightly towards the panel. “How long will it take us to clear the rock and fly off?”
“No more than two minutes,” answered the ship.
Oli watched as the face of the cave began to shimmer, like looking through the heat haze of a distant city.
“Are we moving yet?”
“Yes Oli, we are travelling through the rock at twenty five kilometres per hour. You will not feel any movement because the ship is encased in a stationary gravity field that counteracts any forces exerted from outside.”
The light show continued for a couple of minutes and Oli was sat glued to the screen. Then the colours began to dissolve and the shimmering slowed as the rock cave slowly reappeared.
“We will have to hold here for a while,” said the ship. “I’ve detected two men walking on the surface. We’ll wait for them to pass.”
“Stephan!” exclaimed Oli, smacking the palm of his right hand against his brow.
“In all the excitement I forgot all about Stephan. He was in the tunnel with me when you brought me down to the ship. He’s gonna be flipping. Is there any way that we can call him and let him know that I’m okay?
“What’s his name?” asked the ship.
“Stephan Johansson,” replied Oli. “What are you going to do, call directory enquiries?”
The ship explained that it had every telephone number in the world on record and could locate anyone by their mobile phone signal.
“I have a Stephan Johansson who is currently 5.3 kilometres from here, in the city of Cairo.”
“That’s him,” said Oli. “Where’s the phone?”
“I’ll put him on the speaker. Just speak normally.”
The sound of a ringing tone filled the room and following just three rings the distressed sounding Stephan answered.
“Stephan. It’s Oli.”
“Where the hell are you? What happened? Are you okay?” blasted Stephan in one long breath.
“I’m fine.”
Oli would have covered the mouthpiece at this point but there wasn’t one, so he turned away from the screen and whispered. “Can I tell him what’s going on?”
“I don’t think that would be wise at this present time,” said the ship. “Make something up.”
Now Oli was in no way a world-class liar. In fact, on the few occasions that he had actually tried to embellish the facts, his friends saw through it in the first sentence that he uttered. His entire face would give away his discomfort at the situation.
“Who are you talking to? Where are you?” shouted Stephan.
“I’m sorry Stephan, but I can’t tell you everything. In fact, I can’t tell you anything. But I’m fine and the most amazing thing has happened. I’m going away for a few days and when I get back I’ll call you and tell you everything. I’m sorry if you were worried. Gotta go, bye.”
With that, the ship cut the line and Stephan was left on the balcony of his apartment looking out over the Giza plateau; confused, but relieved that Oli was alive. He was dying to know what was going on though. He had definitely seen Oli disappear through solid rock, and for all his attempts to reason with that ridiculous image, he could find no doubts whatsoever.
“Thanks,” said Oli. “I don’t know if that helped him at all but at least he knows that I’m okay.”
After a few minutes, the ship announced that the coast was clear and with that, the wall of the cave began to shimmer and change colour again. But only for about five seconds and then the screen became black. Oli immediately thought the ship had turned it off, but then he realised that the blackness was dotted with white lights and he was actually looking up into the most incredible night sky that he’d ever laid eyes upon. The screen immediately changed and was now filled with a magnificent view of the entire planet Earth in all its glory.
The flash of silver that Stephan saw from his balcony came from the side of the pyramid and disappeared vertically into the night sky. He could have put it down to a trick of the limited light, but he added up everything that had occurred during the previous few hours and arrived at a completely preposterous conclusion.
“Oh my God,” he exclaimed, falling back into the chair, still looking up into the starry sky, hoping for another glimpse of whatever it was.
Oli sat forward onto the edge of the seat and gasped at the sight, his jaw just a few inches from the floor.
“I thought you might like to take a look at your planet for the first time Oli,” said the ship.
Oli, like most people on Earth with access to a computer or television had seen pictures of the earth from space, but as any astronaut would confirm, nothing prepares you for the real thing.
“Do you mean to tell me that we moved from Egypt to here in just a couple of seconds?” asked Oli, trying to imagine exactly how far they had travelled in just a few seconds.
“We are stationary in space at 70,000 kilometres from our previous position. It is not recommended to travel faster than light within a solar system; there are all kinds of gravitational effects from the planets, which can cause problems for the integrity of the graviton field.”
“How fast exactly is this ship?” asked Oli, sitting back in the chair, mouth agape.
“When travelling faster than light,” explained the ship, “we use the light scale. So the measurement of Light-50, would indicate that we were travelling fifty times faster than light.”
“What’s that in kilometres per hour?” asked Oli, eager to get some idea of the ships potential.
“This ship has never actually been run at full speed, but theoretically we can travel at Light-438, which equates to approximately four hundred and eighty billion kilometres per hour. To put it into terms that you may find easier to grasp; in one hour, the ship would travel from planet Earth to the Sun and back again one thousand six hundred times. I’ve been making some i
mprovements during the last ten thousand years and I believe we may be able to add a further twenty or thirty billion kilometres to that figure.”
“Pretty quick then,” said Oli, his air of nonchalance masking a totally blown mind.
“Let’s go,” he said pointing at the screen.
“That’s a rear view Oli. I think it’s probably best if we go the other way. I’ll drive.”
Oli sat back and watched as the earth became smaller and smaller. The ship had split the screen into two sections, one showing a forward view and the other a rear view. Oli jumped slightly as the moon appeared, larger than he’d ever seen it before, then that too faded into the distance. Within the space of a few seconds he could see no sign of his home planet. The viewer changed again and he could see the sun expanding to fill the screen. The ship seemed to be flying quite close to the star and Oli expressed a concern that it might get a bit hot. The ship explained that it was equipped with powerful shields that could deflect all known types of radiation. Ten minutes later, there was no sun, just the dark void of space. A further twenty minutes idling along at just below the speed of light and they were clear of the solar system and all its gravitational effects and ready to head for Annenia.
Oli was wandering whether he would see the stars blur and speed past the screen, or if his body would stretch out in front of him and then suddenly spring back into shape, but when the ship finally accelerated past light speed and entered nulspace there was no change in the viewer.
“I’ve been lied to,” said Oli.
The ship explained that the distances between stars are so vast that even at this speed he would not be able to tell that they were moving, unless of course they passed very close to a star. In the early years of Annenian space travel, there were some daredevil Annenians who would do this for fun, but they usually ended up barrelling into an orbiting planet or an asteroid field. The ship reassured Oli that it was not capable of producing adrenalin, so such testosterone-fuelled thrill seeking was not in its nature.
“If we’ve got five days to kill, I’d like you to teach me more about the ship and the Annenians,” said Oli.
“There is much information I wish to give you Oli, but I’ve been monitoring your brain patterns and I do not wish to do any more rapid dumps for a while.”
“You might not,” said Oli, “but I’m busting. Where do I go?”
“I do not understand Oli. Where do you wish to go?”
Oli explained in the nicest possible way and was promptly directed to his room where a Human-style waste unit had been installed. The ship had learnt many slang terms and understood much Human behaviour from fifty years of watching television, but it was going to learn a lot more in the next five days. Oli had completely forgotten about the door and when it opened, he flinched and groaned at himself for being so jumpy. On entering the room he went to the far left corner as instructed, a panel opened and out slid a black toilet. The top of it would have made Thomas Crapper proud, but as with the chair, it tapered to a point on the floor.
It won’t take long to fill this up, thought Oli.
The ship told him that the interior contained a waste-recycling unit, which would convert any remaining nutrient into a consumable snack. The remaining waste would be vaporised.
“Where’s the paper?” asked Oli, searching for another little door to open.
“You do not require any paper Oli, the unit will detect any waste product which has become lodged and remove it.”
Oli was sure he’d imagined it, but the ship actually sounded slightly disgusted when it said this.
He stood up, the toilet disappeared into the wall and a tray appeared from above the door. It contained a small round biscuit, similar in texture to a Hob-Nob, which happened to be Oli’s favourite snack. Thankfully it resembled a plain Hob-Nob and not a chocolate one. That might have unsettled even Oli’s cast iron stomach. He picked it up, placed it under his nose took tentative, short, sharp breaths.
“Lasagne?” he inquired.
“Yes Oli. The unit will analyse your digestive flavours and try to recreate a similar taste that is pleasing to your palate.”
Oli examined the biscuit intently, before stealing a tiny nibble and chewing it with his front teeth only, not willing to commit his entire mouth to the task. Once he was convinced that there were no remaining hostile flavours, he walked back to the control room, taking more bites on the way, leaving a tell-tail, Hobnob trail of crumbs behind him. He was concerned that he would have to live on the same recycled biscuit for the whole journey, but the ship ensured him that this would only work once. After that, all the nutrients would have been absorbed by his body and the biscuit would be of little use. The ship was equipped with a food maker that could reproduce any type of food using the fifteen million sampled ingredients it had stored within its memory. It converted atoms, drawn into the unit from surrounding space, into the relevant molecules that could be combined to create anything contained within its memory banks.
Oli sat in the control chair, and the ship told him it would begin his knowledge implant slowly, with a reduced flow of information. It would be like watching speeded up television and remembering everything. So Oli placed the headset on his temples, sat back in the chair and closed his eyes. For the next six hours, he received 2,000 years of Annenian history. From their first attempts at space travel, which were not dissimilar to those of humans, to the first successful attempt at breaking the light barrier.
The Annenians shared a similar volatile past with Humans, with an industrial age leading to wars and competition to reach the three moons that orbited the home world. Then one year, shortly after they’d discovered graviton technology, an asteroid, akin to the one hurtling towards Earth, appeared on a collision course with their planet. The entire Annenian race realised that they would have to work together to halt this threat. So they did; and once the asteroid was diverted into the Annenian star, they never looked back as a race and had enjoyed millennia of peace, harmony and parties to die for.
With the discovery of faster-than-light travel, they were able to colonise many planets within a relatively small section of the galaxy. But Annenia was always the favourite world. They would only stay away for a few hundred years before coming back home to sample the good life. Some Annenian explorers had ventured further out into unexplored space, but even travelling at many times the speed of light, they would need several lifetimes to reach the other end of the galaxy. The idea of reaching other galaxies had been abandoned long ago as quite simply impossible. Oli understood why the Annenians loved their home planet so much. From the few images he had received, it looked stunning.
The ship was very impressed by Oli’s ability to sit and absorb information, but didn’t want to overload his poor little monkey brain. The flow of information stopped, and Oli opened his eyes. He didn’t say anything, just sat there silently, looking out at the brilliant stars, with eyes like a tarsier, startled by its own flatulence.
“Are you alright Oli?” asked the ship, “any dizziness, or trouble focusing?”
“No I’m fine,” he uttered, with a very slight shake of his head, without taking his eyes off the screen.
“What a story, and I remember everything like I lived it myself. I must admit though, I do feel a bit tired. I think I might go and get my head down for a while, you know real sleep, if that’s alright with you.”
“Of course it is Oli. It’s only natural for you to feel weary after such a long period of absorption.”
Oli slept soundly for nine hours, and when he awoke, it was dark and he wasn’t sure if the whole weird thing had been a dream. Then the walls slowly began to glow again, taking about a minute to regain their full brightness. Damned civilised, these Annenians, Oli thought, his mind flooded with relief that it hadn’t been a dream. No alarm or blinding morning light. They really knew how to start a day.
“Good morning Oli,” said the ship. “Can I suggest that you take a matrem? My sensors are picking
up many foreign bodies and bacteria on your person.” That was the nicest way that anyone has ever told me that I stink, thought Oli. He walked to the matrem and stood under the silver ball. He felt a slight tingling feeling all over for about a second.
“That’s it Oli, it has completed its cleansing sequence,” said the ship. “The micro-drones have prepared your clothing while you were sleeping.”
He found his clothes on a small shelf that had irised opened in the wall next to his bed. As he put his t-shirt on, he realised that it smelt strange; sort of fresh; and it was soft and glided over his body like silk. There were no creases in any of his clothes and the beloved holes in his socks had miraculously disappeared. Oli finished dressing and walked to the control room, marvelling at the way that his clothes moved in sync with his body.
“Would you like something to eat Oli? The food unit is on the left hand wall.”
A table and stool slid out from the wall and at the end of the table, a panel shushed upwards to reveal a space about the size of an oven recessed into the wall. The inside was grey with a black base, raised slightly to form a platform in the middle and there was a faint light emanating from within the unit.
“Tell the unit what you require Oli. I cannot promise that it will be exactly as your taste buds remember, but it should represent a close approximation. I have been experimenting over the years with Earth recipes and would appreciate your feedback.”
Oli had a croissant with strawberry jam, a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee and a bowl of muesli. He made a mental note to never drink the ship’s coffee again, but everything else was very palatable. The croissant was definitely not a croissant, but it filled a hole. Whilst he was eating, he could sense the ship waiting for a reaction, rather like his mother would when she was experimenting with a new recipe. So after every mouthful, he would make an ‘mmm’ sound and chew the food with a big smile on his face.
“Delicious,” he stated, probably a few more times than was actually necessary.
He spent the next four days absorbing Annenian history. He only slept twice, but enjoyed virtual sleep several times. He had watched the Annenians exploring space and meeting strange forms of life on various planets throughout the parts of the galaxy that they had explored. Even at the speeds that they were capable of, they had still only covered about five percent of the galaxy. They had encountered only five intelligent life forms, of which the most unpleasant were the Throgloids. They were a barbaric, aggressive life form, intent on destruction and conquering. Fortunately they were far too dumb to ever accomplish space travel and it was predicted that they would wipe themselves out within a few thousand years. As a precaution though, The Annenians did keep a watchful eye on them and if they had ever come close to leaving the confines of their planet, they would have been dealt with appropriately.
“What does ‘appropriately’ mean?” asked Oli, “How would they have dealt with the Throgloids?”
“Just, appropriately,” stated the ship and Oli left it there.
It’s lucky the Annenians weren’t around to see their Humans’ progress, thought Oli, or they might have had to deal with us appropriately too. The ship assured Oli that any of the minor disagreements that Humans had with each other, were mere playground scuffles in comparison with the exploits of the Throgloids.
Another race of beings was named Shmeek. They lived on a small planet, about the same size as Earth, but with much less surface water. It was largely a forest world and they lived in the huge trees that grew to a height of two kilometres. They were the dominant race on the planet and lived in fear of nothing. They never fought, and lived only to farm the forest and play Gampti, a rather unusual game involving a dried Gampti fruit and ten million Shmeek. They would gather at various points around the largest continent which circled the planet's equator. The object of the game was to pass the Gampti from group to group until it reached the point of origin. There were many ways of passing it. They spent much of their time inventing machines to hurl the fruit great distances and catch it also. If it was dropped, it had to be taken back to the previous position. The longest ever game lasted three Shmeek years and ended in a draw.
Oli was also given a general navigator's knowledge of the stars, and now, as he stared at the constellations on the screen, he knew the earth names, distances and associated planets of over three thousand systems. The brightest star on the screen was called Tau Ceti by Earth astronomers. It was 12 light years from Earth and was the Annenian home star. Earth scientists had recently discovered that there was a planet orbiting the star in such a position that it was likely to possess an atmosphere and surface water. They hadn’t yet worked out that it was the home star of the species that created humanity. How little they knew, thought Oli.
He had also acquired a slightly more composite knowledge of the ship, the gravity drive and how it worked. He was a long way from fully understanding the science behind the generator, but he understood that it created a gravity field similar in strength to a black hole. The ship had explained that gravity is actually the weakest force in the universe, but when you have a lot of it concentrated in a small space it becomes incredibly powerful. The Annenians had theoretically built a Graviton Generator that if ever turned on, would create a centre of gravity as powerful as a point of matter that existed before the big bang. Some scientist had wanted to take it to a corner of space with no life and start it up but they were dissuaded from doing so by the thought that it could grow and grow, swallowing up all around until it eventually devoured the entire galaxy. The graviton generator could focus varying levels of anti-gravity at any point around the ship, forcing it to move in any direction and at any speed. But the main strength in the generator was to focus a point of gravity so powerful, that it opened up a temporary rift in space, allowing the ship to slip through into nulspace and hence travel faster than the speed of light.
“Is that anything like a wormhole,” asked Oli.
“Wormholes are science fiction Oli, but yes, if you could maintain a graviton rift at one point in space and connect it to another equally implausible rift at some other point, then you could, theoretically, create a wormhole. The Annenians experimented for thousands of years, but never ascertained a means by which the rift could be maintained in a stable form.”
Oli had also aquired a basic knowledge of ten other Earth languages and he was regularly beating the ship at backgammon.
“You need a name,” said Oli in Japanese, his head resting in his hands, staring out to space.
“I can’t keep calling you ship. I mean, that’s just daft. Isn’t it?”
“I had never really thought about a name,” replied the ship. “I suppose that if you were to address me by my design and year of awareness, you could call me AK 1077/328.”
“I was thinking maybe of something more like…Ah…Robbie, after my mate in London who’s a wizard with computers.”
“Robbie would be acceptable Oli.”
“When do we need to refuel?” asked Oli. “This Glurk stuff that was mined from the earth’s core can’t last forever, can it?”
“Glurk powers the magnetic and gravitational fields of an Earth-sized planet for about five billion years. The small amount that is harnessed within the Graviton Generator will power this ship for a period in excess of one million years. So there’s no need to worry about running out of fuel just yet. When it comes to kilometres per gallon, I’m the boss.”
All these figures were blowing Oli’s mind but he was trying to take it all in nonetheless.
“So if the human race does want to start exploring the stars with this technology,” Oli asked, questions filling his head, “where will we find Glurk, since the Annenians mined it all?”
“Firstly, Glurk is self-replenishing, so the supply is inexhaustible. Secondly, the Annenians didn’t mine it all, or the planet would have stopped producing a magnetic field and that would have been less than ideal.”