by Alex Deva
"Mate," he said, using the British colloquialism for the first time. Finally, that got Mark focused on him.
"Hey. I didn't understand that. Third century, remember? How bad is it, if it's true?"
Suddenly feeling very tired, Mark sat down on the floor, with his back resting on the gently curving wall. He looked at his two companions. The little girl was scared, about to start crying. The Dacian, too, had a worried look behind his blond strands. He was tense and expectant.
Mark took a deep breath.
"OK," he said. "Astronomy lesson. Listen in."
Aram looked at Doina, then back at Mark. The latter rubbed his face, thought for a spell, then began:
"We were all born on the same planet, which we call Earth. It's a great, round body that rotates on its own axis, and also revolves around the Sun. It takes a day for a full rotation, and a year for a full revolution. Also revolving around the same Sun are a number of other planets; together, they make a system, that we call the Solar System."
He was gesticulating, trying to use his closed left fist to signify the Sun, and moving his right hand around it in orbits.
"So an orbit is the movement that one body makes around another body. The Earth flies on an orbit around the Sun, which is almost like a circle. The Moon has its own orbit around the Earth. The other planets have their own orbits too, as they revolve closer or farther away from the Sun than we are, and some also have natural satellites, just like Earth has its Moon."
He paused, trying to think out the next part.
"Now, the entire solar system is also moving, and so are very many other stars, together forming a galaxy. We all revolve around the centre of that galaxy, and we are closer to the fringe than to the middle. And there are many many galaxies, other than ours."
He looked up at the other two.
"Space is really... really... really huge," he ended lamely.
For a while, nobody said anything.
"OK," said Aram finally.
Mark looked at him. He had expected a torrent of questions and arguments.
"Just that? OK?"
"Well, who cares if the Earth goes around the Sun or the other way around? A day is a day and a year is a year."
He turned to Doina.
"Doi?"
"I believe you," said the young girl, simply.
"Thank you," he said with genuine gratitude.
"What about that light speed stuff?" asked Aram. "Isn't light..." and he dug for another neologism, "...instantaneous?"
"Light is pretty much the quickest thing there is, as far as we know, but it's not instantaneous," answered Mark. "You don't know what a metre is, do you?"
"Something to measure length?" said Doina, tentatively.
"That's right," said Mark. "A metre is about this big," he demonstrated with his hands. "When I stand up, I am one metre and seventy-one centimetres tall."
"Let me guess," said Aram. "There's a hundred centimetres to the metre."
"Your Latin pays off," said Mark.
"And a thousand metres make... A kilometre," discovered Doina.
"Very good. Now, how many hours in a day?"
"About ten," said Aram, "and about another ten in a night, but it depends on season."
"That's roughly right. In a full day, say from one morning to the next, there are twenty-four hours."
"And an hour has sixty minutes," said Doina.
"I knew that. I think," said Aram too.
"And a minute has sixty seconds," added Mark.
"Erm... right."
"So, we can measure speed, by saying how much time it takes for someone to travel a particular distance. You would say, I think, that some city might be four days away on horse, right?"
"Sure," said Aram.
"Well, that's distance expressed as time and speed," explained Mark. "Just as well, we can talk about speed in terms of distance and time. So if that city is two hundred kilometres away, we could say that the speed of a horse is two hundred kilometres in four days, right?"
"OK," said Aram.
"Well. Light travels nearly three hundred thousand kilometres... in a second."
The Dacian took a moment to ponder this, than said, coolly:
"Sounds about right to me."
Mark smiled.
"Well, I'm glad it does. What it also means is that, with each second, we are that much farther away from our homes."
Aram shifted his weight from one foot to another, looked at Doina, and said:
"Fine. And how do we get back?"
"I think the ADM said we're on the way back, didn't it? Doi, would you mind touching that symbol again?"
The little girl obliged, stepping to the wall, placing her palm against it, and chose the relevant symbol from the myriad that instantly sprang up.
"I'd still like to know why it responds so differently to her," said Mark.
"You can ask, I guess," said Aram. "But the important stuff first."
"What are you?" asked Mark loudly, looking around him.
The voice responded immediately.
"I am the Automated Decision Maker of this ship."
"Is there anyone else on board?"
"There is no-one else on board apart from the three of you."
"What are you doing?" asked Mark, then realised the question was vague. "What is your mission?" he reformulated.
"This ship is one of many, each sent out in different directions. They were all built by one civilisation with the purpose of finding intelligent alien forms of life in the galaxy. The mission is to find them, bring them on board and maintain the ship during their travel back to the original world."
"Is the ship's trajectory automated?"
"It was until now. However, with you here, the ship will require piloting on her way back home."
"Why the hell would we take it there?" asked Aram. "What would happen to us then?"
"I cannot say," said the voice. "My programming only defines my mission thus far."
"How did you bring us here?" asked Mark.
"Once we discovered intelligent life on your planet, an elliptical trajectory was programmed into the ship. On each pass, we retrieved one of you. This is to be the fourth pass."
"How did you retrieve us?"
"The ship was equipped with three matter transmitters. I used one on each pass. The transmitters are, by nature, single-use."
"Matter transmitter? What's that?"
"It is an orbital device that can scan for individuals of particular configuration, and then uses a focused energy beam to transport a discrete entity towards a receiver. This ship was, at that moment, passing by on the opposite side of the planet, and thus was able to receive the payload and reconstruct your bodies just prior to their embarkation."
Mark exhaled in amazement. Aram looked at him and said:
"I take it in your day they didn't have things as cool as that?"
"No, they didn't," answered Mark in a low voice. Hell, even the ones in sci-fi films didn't work like that, he thought. Then, to the air around him:
"So you're saying we piggy-backed on an energy beam and went through the whole planet Earth?"
"And reintegrated immediately outside the ship, after which you were pulled in," the ADM said. "Assuming I understand piggy-backing," it added.
"Was that the only way?"
"Focused energy of any kind travels only in a straight line," the ADM responded. "If it's emitted from orbit, it can only go forward through the planet."
"Now that you say it, it makes sense," said Mark. "But why are we all about nine centuries apart?"
"If the word relativity, as appears in your vocabulary, pertains to attraction forces perceived as geometric properties of space and time, then you may be aware of the time dilation effect."
"I think so," said Mark. "I may be. E equals em cee squared and all that?"
"Time aboard a vessel moving at velocities close to the speed of light flows at a different rate than for an outside observer. The appro
ximately one month of our revolution took around nine hundred years on the surface of the planet."
Mark swallowed hard.
"So what year is it now on Earth?"
"I cannot answer that without direct observation and the local frame of reference," answered the ADM.
It was Aram's turn to speak:
"Wait. So I was the first one in, right?"
"Yes," answered the voice.
"That means I've been here for at least two months?"
"Yes. Doina has been here for over a month."
"Why aren't we dead?"
"After the initial analysis, I determined that interaction with you alone would not be sufficient, so I stored you until you became useful."
"You stored us?! What am I, wheat?"
"No," answered the voice earnestly.
"What are we to you then? Why are we here?"
"You are to be the crew of this ship."
Aram looked around him.
"I'm not a very good sailor, you know. I've never been on a ship in my life."
"Nobody's ever been on a ship like this, apparently," commented Mark.
"As the crew of this ship, we can do with it what we want?" asked Aram.
"Yes, but the assumption is that you will return it to its originating system and establish contact."
"Why would we do that?!" asked the Dacian again, in genuine curiosity.
"The premise of my programming was that any encountered civilisation, given the means to make contact with a new one, would welcome the opportunity. This ship is offered as such a means."
"Can we go home?" asked Aram, simply.
"We can return to Earth and are, in fact, doing so now. It is impossible, however, for you to return to your times, as time travel is physically impractical."
"So we can never see our homes again?" spoke Doina for the first time.
"I do not see how that could be accomplished."
"This is unacceptable," said Mark. "We didn't volunteer for this. Who are you to simply pluck us out of our lives and force us to man this ship?!"
"I am the ship's Automated Decision Maker," came the straight and unhelpful answer.
"And that gives you the right to kidnap people?"
"I do not have rights. I have only my programming."
To that, they found nothing to reply.
"Hey, I have two questions," said Aram after a while.
The ADM said nothing, so Aram carried on.
"How come we speak English all of a sudden?"
"Between the languages spoken by the three of you, English was the least complicated language, but offered the largest vocabulary," came the answer. "With your species, language skills are easily identified as specific neural pathways. I only reconstructed the same pathways in Doina's and Aram's brains."
"Easy as that?" asked Mark.
"No," said the voice. "I am merely trying to explain it in simple terms."
"I'm almost sorry I asked," said Aram. "Here's the other question. Well, actually, I think they're two."
Once more, the voice said nothing, and Aram asked:
"Where's the galley and where's the head? After two months, I really need to piss."
IX.
They all agreed that those were very good questions. Unfortunately, the ADM didn't have the answers they were hoping for. It knew the words, but had no idea of their meanings. It seemed to understand the concept of food as source of energy, but had none to provide for its crew. Neither was it familiar with toilet amenities. After a few minutes of explanations that ranged from patient to awkward to exasperated (Can't we just pee out of a window? Aram had asked at some point, prompting Mark to give him a brief theory of vacuum), the Englishman said to Doina:
"Doi, why don't you try to talk to this thing? Maybe you'll have better luck. The ship does seem to like you better."
"I'll try," she said.
Mark turned towards Aram and gave him a pointed look, then casually stepped aside. The Dacian followed him. They whispered, not quite looking at each other:
"What if we're not being told the truth?" Mark asked.
"Crossed my mind," said the blond man, his lips barely moving.
"How about you go on a quick recon? See what you can see?"
Aram met his eyes for a second, then asked: "OK. Up or down?"
"Try up," said Mark. "We'll wait here. Find out as much about this place as you can. Then come back, and try down."
The other nodded, went to the wall and touched the symbol that opened the ceiling. Engaged in explanations with the ADM, Doina gave him a questioning look, but he just winked at her, and launched himself upwards. Mark followed him into the room above until the ceiling closed. He returned his attention to the young girl, who was trying to teach the artificial intelligence what water was.
"H2O," he said, suddenly.
Doina stopped in mid-sentence.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I just remembered. Water is two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. Do you know these elements, Decision Maker?"
"I do," answered the walls. "I understand now what water is. It is a common compound."
"Well, do you have any?"
"No."
Doina gave a short gasp and looked at Mark. He tried to return an encouraging smile while he took in the answer. It hadn't been unexpected, but he had held some hope.
Are we gonna die of thirst on a spaceship? Mark asked himself. That would be the mother of all ironies!
"But I can make it," added the ADM.
"You can make water?!" she asked.
"Yes. It is similar to making air."
Of course, realised Mark. What have we been breathing all this time?! And that raised another question.
"What happens to the carbon dioxide we're exhaling?" he asked.
"Atmosphere mix is maintained constant by removing new gases and supplementing the ones you use," answered the ADM.
"How did you know to do that?"
"I analysed the atmosphere of your planet when Aram was retrieved."
"So we're breathing air as it was two thousand years ago?" Mark wondered.
"Two thousand years before you yourself were retrieved," corrected the voice.
"Wow," said Mark. "This is the cleanest air I'll ever breathe, probably."
Doina looked at him, impatiently.
"We were talking about water," she said. Then, to the walls: "Can you make us water, please?"
"Yes," said the voice. A mass of grey, viscous gel suddenly oozed from a portion of the lower wall, from the floor to about waist height. It was shifting and changing shape for a few seconds, until it turned clear and liquid. For a tiny instant it hung still into the air, then splashed on the floor in a big puddle, splattering Mark's shoes and trousers.
"Wow!" exclaimed Doina. "Is that water?"
"Yes," answered the voice.
Mark knelt down and touched the liquid with two fingers. It felt neither cold nor warm. He rubbed his fingers together; it did feel like water. He sniffed it, and discovered it was odourless. He took a risk and tasted it; it was tasteless, too.
"It may be water," he said, carefully.
"How are we supposed to drink it now? It's all over the floor."
"Well, we could use a piece of cloth," he said, "or we could be a little creative. Let's experiment."
He stood up.
"Watch this," he told Doina and winked. He looked at the wall and made sure the ADM symbol was still glowing.
"ADM," he called. "Can you create a solid, hollow object the shape of a hemisphere, with a radius of ten centimetres and a thickness of one, with a flat square base of four centimetres each side, that will be filled with water?"
"Yes," answered the voice.
The mass of grey gel oozed again out of the wall, this time gathering at its base, just where it met the floor. It looked alien and grotesque, but it quickly morphed into the round shape of a bowl, part of it solidifying and part of it liquifying, until it looked like a normal dish -- if su
ch a thing could be said about an object of completely unknown provenance, made of a completely alien material -- filled to the brim with clear water.
"That was amazing," said Doina, and leant over to pick it up. She was careful not to spill it, but the bowl was too full and dripped a little. She shot a questioning glance towards Mark, who said:
"Yeah, let me try it first." He took the bowl out of her hands, carefully put his mouth next to its edge, and took a small sip.
It tasted like nothing, just like pure water is supposed to.
He swallowed and braced himself, waiting for a few seconds for something bad to happen, like a sudden stomach ache -- or instant death, he thought.
But nothing happened at all.
"I think it's fine," he said, and passed her the bowl.
The young girl drank with enthusiasm. She stopped when the bowl was less than half full, and, wiping her mouth, she handed it back.
"For you and Aram," she said.
Just as he took a big gulp, the floor opened.
X.
Aram floated up through nearly immobile drops of water and stepped out of the low-g zone, with what seemed like practised ease, right into the puddle on the floor.
"What the hell happened here?!" he asked, as the floor-door closed.
"We made water," said Doina, proudly.
Mark gave him the bowl and the Dacian drank it to the last drop, then looked at it with curiosity.
"What did you find?" asked Mark.
Thoughtfully, Aram looked up towards the ceiling through which he had exited earlier.
"Well, I guess that makes it a ring, then," he said.
Mark and Doina looked at him quizzically.
"It's a ring of round rooms, stacked floor to ceiling," the Dacian explained. "A torus," he added after a second, smiling smugly at Mark.
The other nodded.
"Good word, mate. Anything interesting?"
"Twenty-four round rooms, each identical to this one as far as I can tell. Flat room, arched ceiling. Each about twice as tall as I am. All of them completely empty. All of them with working walls. I jumped in, touched the wall, opened the ceiling, jumped up again. There's a bit of an angle, when you move from one to the next. The last ceiling I jumped through was this floor," he said.
"Nothing in them at all?" asked Mark.