by Tim Reed
Neutron Star
Tim Reed
Neutron Star
Copyright 2011
By Books to Go Now
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First eBook Edition –September 2011
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Neutron Star
“Meal. Served. Duke.”
Jack looked down at his feet, where Obo 1 held a tray of primordial slime that seconded as lunch. Beside it was a cup of recycled water, a glassy film reflecting the spacecraft’s light as the robot struggled with its load.
Hmm…an appetising lunch, how can I refuse such wondrous offerings?”
Obo 1 looked up at Jack with his one, expressionless eye, and said nothing – he was immune to sarcasm, it seemed.
“Meal. Served. Duke,” he repeated, in his surprisingly soft, metallic voice.
Jack took the tray before the poor little robot collapsed under its weight, and set it on his console, untouched. He would eat in time, but every day was a struggle to swallow the crap, and he had to routinely build himself up to open his mouth, chew, and digest.
“God…I didn’t sign up for this,” he muttered.
“No. What. Then?” asked Obo 1.
Jack blinked, not expecting the question, but of late Obo 1 had shown signs of individuality – persona even. He talked more, exhibited interest in Jack’s routine, and maintained the ship without his ‘duke’s’ say-so. Jack smiled. The little robot was the only companion he had, out in the vast reaches of space, and he took it as a plus that so far he hadn’t wanted to bash Obo 1’s puny metal frame in.
Much longer though…and he couldn’t say.
“I signed up for exploration,” he replied, affectionately patting the robot’s chrome dome. “Not to sit in some unknown star-system waiting for damn probes to arrive!”
They had sent him through a stable worm-hole – as they had many other ships – to bring back raw materials for Earth. The process was slightly random, with a little risk, but the big-wigs back home could detect solar systems holding the needed ore, if not the suns, comets, and asteroids surrounding them. The cocky sods seemed to think Jack wasn’t in much danger though. After all, his Orichalcum Pod was nigh-near indestructible – a blessing from the washed up ruins of Atlantis, fifty years past.
Jack chuckled. It had taken them almost forty years to discover Orichalcum’s phenomenal usage in space.
Now, astronauts were being jettisoned through hundreds of worm-holes, seeking other planets to bleed dry, and Jack was part of the process. Sure, the food was crap, but he loved solitude, and so far in his thirty-seven years, it was the only job he’d been able to hold down for more than six months.
“Eat. Food. Duke,” said Obo 1, breaking into his thoughts. “Enjoy.”
Turning like a remote-controlled car, the little robot scooted off, making a high-pitched whirring sound. Jack watched him go, and then turned back to his graphic novel – his umpteenth read of ‘Atlantean Women in the Stars’, He knew everything that was going to happen, every phrase, but he persevered, immersing himself in a routine, avoiding looking out into space.
It wouldn’t last, he knew. Sooner or later the neighbourhood would call, and when that happened, boredom always changed into unease.
Why? A simple reason really – he was in no ordinary solar system. Twice he had flown through worm-holes, into spectacular vistas of planets, dominated by Yellow Giants. And twice he had returned with tales, ore, and a large paycheck to take home to Edmonton. This time, however, the probes were taking forever to come through, and his surroundings were dim, dreary, alien and perilous.
“Tick tock,” he muttered to himself, drumming fingers on the control panel. “Christ sake, come through the hole already.”
Due to the funnelling of time, probes sent immediately after a spaceship sometimes didn’t arrive for weeks – or even months − afterwards. Jack had been waiting three months and still nothing had come. Every day he ‘zoomed’ the monitor in, on the swirling, purple worm-hole, hoping to see a brace of silver objects spiralling nearby, but each morning he was greeted with the same, empty scene.
“Why can’t they just attach them, idiots.”
He knew the reason why, but Jack was pissed off. The extra weight from the probes, attached to his space-pod, would be too much for the hole, and it would bend in on itself like a giant slinky, dissolving Jack’s atoms into no more than mini-Quarks, floating around the vastness of space. So instead, he had to play the waiting game, engine off, in his unsettling solar system.
Sighing, Jack took a sip of filmy water, grimacing at its taste, and then looked up as a beam of light hit him in the face, illuminating the spacecraft like a candle. A throb of energy shook the pod − making his teeth rattle − but the beam didn’t linger, passing on into space, circling like a lighthouse.
“Maintenance. Done,” said Obo 1, as he whizzed back into the cockpit. “Shaking. Wall. Repair. Difficult.”
Jack was pleased to see the one-eyed robot, but he still snorted, jabbing an accusing finger out into space.
“Tell that to the Neutron Star, Obo 1,” he said. “Not me. It’s the damn beam of light that’s responsible.”
“Responsible. Pulsar.”
A Pulsar, that was its correct term, but Jack hated being corrected – especially by Obo 1. He stared daggers at his companion, who, to his credit, scooted off into the corner, unleashing a screwdriver at a rusty bolt.
“Pulsar eh?” muttered Jack. “It’s a damn lighthouse, that’s what it is! A damn lighthouse that lights up nothing!”
He was only partly right. The Pulsar did light-up his surroundings, but only momentarily as it spun. The rest of the time, Jack was faced with eerie twilight, broken only by three dull planets, slowly moving with eccentric orbits around the star, rotating as if spun by the gods.
“Star? That’s a laugh. It’s nothing like the sun.”
He knew enough about cosmology – even losers had to pass exams to work with Oretech – to know that what he’d found was exceedingly rare. A Neutron Star was a tiny, vicious thing, left over from a massive star going supernova. It was only fifty kilometres across, but its mass was greater than a million Earths. Apparently, a teaspoon of Pulsar material would weigh more than five million tons. Incredible, mind-blowing stuff, but Jack − as close as he was − saw only a dim, pitiful lighthouse, not the cosmic anomaly everyone drooled over at home.
Still, he had to be careful.
Pulsars worked like lighthouses, but their beams were home to horrific radiation. On top of that, due to their dense core, their magnetic field was incredibly strong, so even the few million miles away that he was, Jack had to be careful – the thing acted like a tractor beam, pulling anything nearby into orbit.
“Bolt. Rusted.
Replacement. Needed,” intoned Obo 1 from the corner. When Jack ignored him, the robot swivelled to face him. “Replacement. Needed.”
“Er…wall hatch in my quarters.”
Appeased, Obo 1 zipped off, leaving Jack alone again. He felt drowsy, but dare he risk a nap? He might miss the probes, and that would mean the pulsar gobbling them up…and a failed mission. Oretech didn’t look too kindly on error, and Jack could expect docked wages if he returned empty-handed.
On the other hand, sleep wasn’t something that came easily in space.
“Just a little nap won’t hurt,” he muttered to himself.
Slumping down in the cockpit, he closed his eyes.
The craft floated in space, its Orichalcum shell curved like an egg. But he wasn’t in it. He was outside, looking back at Obo 1’s tiny figure zipping around the cockpit, oblivious to his master. He wanted to reach out, call, anything to stop drifting away, but space smothered him – vast, opaque, and relentless.
A gnat he was, his buzz barely audible, his fate irrelevant. So why did he feel so important? He was a human, damn it! A human on a mission in this cursed solar system. He shouldn’t be out of the craft at all!
Throb.
The Pulsar’s beam washed over him as he spun, mirroring the Neutron Star, twirling in an arc. Heat flowed from it, burrowing through his spacesuit, scorching his back raw in micro-seconds. He screamed, but nothing came out. The only sound was the pop-popping of his tissue, bursting like bubble-wrap from the radiation. Skin disintegrated, muscle dissolved, and blood leaked out into space, coalescing into horrendous, half-alive forms – crimson and leering. He was a cavity, hollowed out like a piece of fruit, and still he spun, edging ever closer to the pulsating star-remnant…and his destruction.
Jack woke up with a jump, almost falling off his seat.
Throb.
The Pulsar rattled the ship, knocking the slimy meal all over his lap, and Jack swore as he struggled to his feet.
“Mess. Needs. Cleaning. Obo 1. Do. Duke.”
The little robot was there in a jiffy, buzzing around, a cloth in one of his tiny hands.
“Leave it, Obo 1,” muttered Jack. “It’ll dry itself. The Orichalcum keeps things nice and toasty.”
Obo 1 made an indignant drilling sound, but continued his task, daintily dabbing at Jack’s overalls.
“Why. Duke. Off. Seat?”
“Having a nap.” Jack touched his head, remembering his dream. “Well…a nightmare.”
“Not. Familiar.”
“Of course not, you’re a robot. You don’t have dreams…and if you did, it would be the kind that involved, nuts, bolts, oil, and maintaining ships until the cows came home!”
“Not…Familiar.” Obo 1 sounded as confused as a one-eyed robot could. “What. In. Nightmare?”
“You won’t understand.”
“What. In…”
“Yes, yes, all right.” Jack sighed. “For a robot, you aren’t half stubborn!” Obo 1 looked up at him, silent. “Heh, you’re my space shrink, it seems. God, that’s depressing, but there you are.”
“There. We. Are.”
“Yes…here we are.” Jack laughed, but it stuck in his throat as he recollected his dream. “I dreamt I was out there,” he said, pointing into space. “So close to that pesky Neutron Star…”
“…Pulsar.”
“Pulsar then! Heavens, you are a pedantic little robot.” Obo 1 spun in a tight circle, as if the insult pleased him. “It was destroying me, munching into my back, giving me cancer, blisters…all sorts of burns. It felt like I was dead, but not dead, you know? And that Pulsar was dragging me towards it, like it was a living thing, wanting me there on its surface!”
Jack took a breath, surprised by how worked up he was getting, and Obo 1 just stared, filling the ship with cold, expectant silence.
“Impossible. Dream,” said Obo 1 eventually, wheeling away to carry on his chores.
“Bah!” muttered Jack, waving a dismissive hand at the retreating robot. “Impossible maybe, but damn scary. Wonder what possessed me to have it?”
He looked across at the distant Pulsar – no more than a smooth shadow illuminated by its pulse. It looked so innocuous, as did its surrounding planets.
“I wonder how YOU got there,” he said, jabbing a finger at the offending planets. “A massive star explodes, obviously taking its own planets with it, and then you appear. God must’ve felt cruel to nudge you towards such a place.”
Chuckling, Jack folded his arms behind his head, listening to Obo 1’s familiar clanks and squeaks. He felt his eyelids droop, and let them close, musing on the probes, his paycheck – anything mundane. But when he opened them again, something was momentarily amiss.
Everything looked almost the same, but it was that ‘blink of an eye’ factor that unnerved him, casting doubts in his mind that something outside was different, however slight. He blinked again, and this time everything was the same, but his memory pressed the rewind button without thinking − playing, measuring, and contrasting.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “There was something. I saw something! Something out in space!”
Jack swivelled in his chair, checking instruments and calling for Obo 1.
“Duke. What. Orders. For. Obo 1?”
“Did you see anything strange out in space a moment ago?”
Obo 1’s single eye stared out of the cockpit, then at Jack, and then back out of the cockpit again.
“Obo 1. Doing. Maintenance. Saw. Wall. Nothing. More.”
The robot’s attempt at wit went unheeded by Jack, such was his agitation.
“There was something out there, over by the planets. Hmm…I think it was purple.”
“Purple. Is. Colour.”
Jack opened his mouth scornfully and then closed it, realising the robot’s astuteness.
“That’s true. Space is black,” he said. “Only objects give it colour.” He shrugged. “Must’ve been some dust or something, caught in the Pulsar’s glow.”
Except, he instinctively knew it wasn’t. He had seen something mixed in with space – a colouring, amalgamation, something uniformly running alongside it…in the same direction. It wasn’t behaving erratically, just flowing with the darkness, part of, and yet separate to it.
Obo 1 looked at Jack again, his metal frame bobbing up and down.
“No. Sign. Of. Probes?” he asked.
“What? No, no sign of them.”
“Perhaps. Duke. Should. Leave.”
Jack stared at the robot dumbly, failing to comprehend what he was on about, but then it clicked. Obo 1 was concerned – well, as much as he could be – for his sanity. He thought Jack was cracking up.
“You think I’m getting space madness?”
“…A. Touch.”
“A touch of madness?” Jack forced a laugh. “Don’t they say that all geniuses are ‘touched’ by madness?” Obo 1 was quiet so Jack ploughed on. “Einstein had it…and he also had the Theory of Relativity.” He tapped the window. “Never saw space this close up though, did he? I wonder what he would’ve made of Neutron Stars? Discovered after his time, I think.”
Obo 1 made an exasperated clicking sound and wheeled off. Jack, absurdly, thought about calling him back, just for someone to vent at, but he didn’t. Instead he stared into space, musing over the robot’s advice. Should he abandon the mission? He could claim the area was unstable, that the Neutron Star was too dangerous, with too strong a magnetic field to manoeuvre the probes around. All of it might be true, or none of it, and the bigwigs at Oretech wouldn’t be any the wiser.
They didn’t have the balls to come out here themselves; just let them try and chastise him.
“Sod it, I’m out of here!”
Saying the words aloud gave him heart, so he flicked the engines back on, relishing the cacophony
of noise. Obo 1 whizzed back in, but Jack just patted him on the head.
“I’ve taken your advice, oh metal sage,” he said. “Can’t wait any longer for the probes. Let’s just call it a bad job and head home.” He looked at a monitor to his left. “Worm-hole looks stable – shouldn’t be any hitches.”
“If. Duke. Says.”
“Duke does say!”
Leaning back in his seat, Jack eased on the thrusters, whistling tunelessly as the ship rattled forward. He plotted a course for the worm-hole and switched on the autopilot, which meant he only had to confirm commands at certain junctures, leaving the rest to the AI. For a few moments he stared out into space, unconsciously waving goodbye to the eerie Pulsar, but then drowsiness overtook him, and even Obo 1’s clanking faded away into the background hum.
Was he asleep or awake? He didn’t know. He had closed his eyes, but now they were re-open the world seemed different – and yet the same, tinkered maybe in some subtle way.
What had he been doing? Oh yes, engaging autopilot and relaxing back in his chair, pleased to be going home before Obo 1’s ‘space madness’ touched him anymore.
Where was he now? It was dark, windless, and he saw nothing around him – no console, flashing lights or levers. But wait…something was coming, a distant horizon illuminated by a small, pale light, moving closer at tremendous speed.
He felt frightened then, unable to flee, floating in the void as the Pulsar approached, gobbling up thousands of miles in seconds, and yet only minutely growing. There was a tug at his sleeve – an invisible hand pulling, gently at first, but then ripping, tearing at his space suit, wanting him exposed.
‘Not this time.’
He fought the pressure, but it was fruitless. Gravity had hold, and along with the Neutron Star’s terrible magnetic field, he had no chance of escape. All he could do was watch and go with the flow – like an ant being swept downstream, knowing a river − and drowning − awaited at the end. Tug, tug, and then rip, went his suit, splitting at the elbow as gravity gleefully tossed him around. And all the while the Pulsar came closer, looming like a giant piece of obsidian, opening an invisible maw to swallow him whole.