Synthesis

by Rexx Deane

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Aryx asked.

  ‘If someone on the station is responsible for the explosion, I don’t want them to know we’re on the trail.’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘It’s a few hours away. We should bring some food along. I think the ship’s got rations, but it’s silly to waste them when we don’t need to.’ Sebastian moved over to the flight console and sat in the pilot seat.

  ‘I’ll go and get some. I need to stretch my tyres.’

  Aryx returned several minutes later with food packages in plastic containers. A portable heater unit and kettle were perched precariously on top of the pile in his lap.

  ‘You look like you’ve planned for a camping trip – I hope that’s not a burner!’

  ‘It’s a heater, not a flame. Jeez, I’m not that stupid.’ He wheeled to the cabin’s chilled storage compartment and stowed away the food.

  Sebastian programmed the computer with the departure procedure. The docking crane lifted the ship into the shuttle transit system and magnetic inductors drew it through the tubes into the centripetal launch bay, where it hung motionless. The launch countdown started and Sebastian slumped into the seat, his cheeks sagging as the internal gravity plating came online.

  ‘You alright?’ he called, looking back.

  Aryx had anchored his chair to the floor with his magnetic clamp. ‘I’m okay.’

  The ship rotated until the bow pointed towards the outer rim of the station. Sebastian’s cheeks tingled with the blood drawn to his face while the gravity plating holding him in place competed with the force of the station’s rotation.

  ‘This is weird. I’ve never launched like this in a ship with gravity.’

  ‘You’ll be okay. Just don’t throw up on the console.’

  The launch doors drew apart, the countdown ended, and with a bile-shifting lurch the station hurled the ship into open space.

  Chapter 7

  The Ultima Thule shot out of Tenebrae like a stone from a sling. The engines burst into life, and it swung in a wide arc. The bright station slid by on the starboard side against the inky black of space and pastel tints of green and blue; the dazzling purple of the nebula ahead filled the windows, giving the cabin interior a violet wash.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Aryx said.

  ‘Yes, it is. I’ve never—’ Sebastian jumped in his seat as Aryx pulled up beside him. ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘You didn’t expect me to stay back there all the way, did you?’

  ‘Just make sure you clamp yourself back down. I don’t know how she handles.’

  Half an hour later, they reached the acceleration node. The dark steely sphere, several hundred metres across, hung in space, suspended within the twelve open faces of an iridescent blue dodecahedral frame. It could easily have been mistaken for a giant, angular single-celled organism. The ship skirted the enormous framework, following a path outside the one-kilometre capture radius until it lined up along a tangent in the direction of the next node, light years away. The Ultima accelerated and the steel sphere glowed with a magenta corona, while faint tendrils of light reached out and gently caressed the metal scaffold. As the ship drew closer, the threads brightened and converged, pointing towards the ship. The Ultima Thule skimmed the capture radius and the tendrils intensified, merging into a stream of energy that snaked out from the sphere through space towards the ship. The stream hit, the ship flared brightly, and in the blink of an eye it was gone.

  From the cockpit, the stars ahead accelerated, dimming as their light shifted towards the ultraviolet end of the spectrum and beyond. A moment later, the filters on the windows compensated, making their light visible once again.

  Sebastian stared out of the window. Stars faded as they passed the ship, and the view of space ahead shifted as though the universe were a simulation played forward at high speed.

  His knuckles turned white, his fingers clamped around the armrests of the pilot’s seat, and he bit back the urge to vomit as his internal organs rode at speed over an invisible bump in space. Aryx seemed to be doing better – his grin reminded Sebastian of his nephew when he’d taken him to an amusement park and ridden on a rollercoaster for the first time.

  The lurches were horrible. He’d hated the feeling ever since he’d first found out what caused them during his first orientation flight.

  He’d been standing in a queue in the docking hangar on Tenebrae, waiting to board a training shuttle. Spaceflight wasn’t something he’d done regularly before leaving Earth, and all the trips he’d taken were aboard passenger shuttles, with no exposure to the pilots, navigation, or even windows he could see out of. His stomach quivered with anticipation and he leaned to one side to see past the column filing into the ship. Why were they taking so long to board?

  ‘I don’t bloody care – I’m not getting out. You’ll have to lower the ramp so I can board!’

  The other side of the conversation was inaudible, and the only visible part of the loudest speaker was a muscular arm, gesticulating wildly at waist height.

  ‘No, I’m not being carried aboard. You can piss off!’

  A brown-uniformed official walked past the ship, speaking into his wristcom. ‘Can you please lower the ramp? We have an awkward trainee who won’t get on.’

  The ramp at the front of the ship lowered and a man in a wheelchair shot out of the queue towards it.

  A second official at the bottom of the ramp reached for the back of the chair. ‘Let me help you over the gap.’

  The marine in the wheelchair – after all, that was a military-issue vest he wore – slapped the hand away and wheelied up over the gap. ‘I can manage myself.’

  Sebastian finally reached the front of the queue and walked up the steps into the shuttle.

  ‘You’re in row 6, seat A,’ the official said, checking an infoslate.

  Sebastian made his way into the training cabin – a spacious section of the shuttle with several rows of seats, most of which were filled, and a large screen on the far wall at the front. His seat was on the end of a short row of seats at the back.

  The marine came down from the front of the ship and wheeled into the gap next to him.

  He grimaced inwardly. Space travel was bad enough without sitting next to an irate passenger.

  The ship lifted off, and a few moments later the seatbelt warning light went out. A shaven-headed officer with a short grey moustache stepped out from a door in the forward section and stood by the screen.

  ‘I am Sergeant Lombard, your instructor for this trip. The lesson for today is superphase dynamics.’

  The seated group shifted in unison as the screen lit up with a diagram of Tenebrae station and the surrounding space. Close to the station was a pentagon, representing the system’s acceleration node.

  The marine leaned over to Sebastian and whispered, ‘They better not come out with a load of made-up bollocks.’

  Sebastian continued to listen to Sergeant Lombard.

  ‘—unfortunately, scientists have never been able to determine how they function, and even though the Bronadi and Antari have the capability to repair the nodes, their research into the mechanisms has been as fruitless as our own.’

  ‘See? Told you,’ the marine said. ‘They don’t know anything.’

  Sebastian smiled. His stomach moved in his abdomen as though the ship had run over a bump. ‘What was that?’

  ‘The shift? Nobody knows, but they think it’s when we pass the gravity-well of a star. Either that or through another big object.’

  ‘Oh, Gods! Why don’t they tell us this stuff?’

  The marine grinned. ‘They probably don’t want to scare you.’

  ‘Mr Trevarian, do you have something to add?’ Lombard shone his laser pointer on the marine’s chest.

  ‘Sir. No, Sir!’

  ‘Then do you mind repeating what I just said?’

  ‘No, Sir, but I wasn’t paying attention, Sir!’

  Lombard reddened. ‘Know it a
ll already, eh? Come up and explain the need for accuracy during node jumps to your fellow students.’

  ‘Sir! Yes, Sir!’ Trevarian wheeled to the front of the cabin, where his head was barely visible over the others.

  The on-screen diagram changed; the station disappeared, the pentagon moved to the left, and a circle appeared around it. On the far right, two star systems appeared, one with a node and one without.

  Trevarian shone the pointer on the circled node. ‘This is an acceleration node, as you know. The ring around it is the capture radius and its perimeter is one thousand metres from the outer points of the node scaffolding. You touch this, and it’ll send your ship along its current vector, in superphase.’

  ‘Does it send you to the next node along?’ someone in front asked.

  ‘No, it’ll throw you light years in whatever direction you’re going until the energy runs out or you encounter the heliosphere of another star, whichever is soonest. The only way to get near another node is to head straight for one.’

  ‘So, what happens if you miss?’

  ‘This.’ The on-screen ship rotated a little, flew past the node, and disappeared. ‘Nobody knows how far a node can send you, but if we assume this ship encountered another star without a node, 150 light years away, it would take you one hundred and fifty years to get back.’

  Someone in the middle of the room put up their hand.

  Lombard peered over the group. ‘Yes, Tallin?’

  ‘How long would it take at near lightspeed?’

  ‘Remember your basic physics,’ Lombard said. ‘That is at lightspeed.’

  A collective gasp issued from the group.

  Lombard smiled. ‘You’d do well to bear that feeling in mind. Always plan your jumps carefully because it’ll take just as long for a mayday signal to get back.’

  ‘Can’t you turn if you miss?’ Tallin asked.

  ‘No. Your engines and thrusters won’t affect your velocity during superphase transit. You simply have to wait until you stop, either due to encountering another star and being pushed out of superphase by the heliosphere, or the energy running out in interstellar space.’

  ‘Is that why it takes a long time to plot a course?’ Sebastian asked.

  Lombard nodded to Trevarian and he replied, ‘Yes. The computers have to calculate stellar shift to work out where your destination actually is, and that takes time.’

  Lombard continued, ‘If there is a problem with your navigation system or insufficient time to calculate a node hop, it is imperative that you do not perform the manoeuvre. Most of the nodes we know about are within an hour or two’s superphase travel from each other, but when planning a trip, don’t count on that timing being constant. Gravity, the rotation of the galaxy, and other factors come into play, and sometimes a return trip between the same pair of nodes can take up to twice as long.’

  The display became a map with numerous tiny dots overlaid on the swirl of the Milky Way. A network of lines connected many of the dots.

  ‘This is an overview of the known network,’ Lombard said. ‘The lines here represent known maximum travel distances and unobstructed lines of sight– safe paths, if you like – between nodes.’

  Sebastian put up his hand. ‘Sir, some don’t have lines going to them. Why is that?’

  ‘There are no comms relays in those systems, and most of them are uninhabited. The lines represent the orientation of the relays – you can get a signal out of a system without relays, but they won’t receive incoming signals from the network unless a relay is pointed in that system’s direction. It’s the vital infrastructure that allows our real-time communication with other systems in the network. The techs will give you the specifications if you’re interested.’ Lombard turned to the marine at his side and gestured for him to return to his place. Trevarian wheeled back to his spot.

  ‘That was very informative,’ Sebastian said, leaning over. ‘My name is Sebastian Thorsson.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ the marine said, shaking his hand. ‘I’m Aryx Trevarian.’

  Lombard raised his voice. ‘To continue the lesson, you will be instructed in how to program a flight path and set up the navigational computer. You’ll go to the cockpit in pairs …’

  Sebastian stared at the voids on the Ultima Thule’s map now, tantalising and terrifying – what unknowns might lurk in the dark spaces between? He had no real desire to venture into them; he simply wanted to reach Sollers Hope in one piece.

  After an hour’s travel in superphase, an alert sounded from the console and the ship dropped back to relativistic speeds. The stars slowed and settled back into static constellations while the computer plotted a course for the next acceleration node along the route.

  It took a matter of minutes for the ship to reach it, where it repeated the process of lining up along the tangent between it and their target system beyond. The ship accelerated past the node and was catapulted into superphase once again. Sebastian’s stomach did several more circuits of his abdominal cavity as the strange gravity-well effects contorted his innards.

  Ninety minutes later, the ship arrived at the planned destination, Quintoc, the system that served as home to Sollers Hope.

  For an instant, Quintoc’s blazing disc illuminated the cabin with a bright, white light. The window filters engaged, cutting out the damaging radiation and toning down the brightness to levels safe for Humans. Sebastian’s eyes took a few moments to become accustomed after the blinding flash. The signal scanners were disappointingly silent. Where was Sollers Hope?

  A band of black, dotted with bright specks, ran across the centre of the sun as though a giant glowing biscuit had been broken in half and left a smattering of stellar crumbs.

  Peering through the window, both leaned forwards as though the extra few inches would help them see better.

  ‘Is that … an asteroid field?’ Aryx asked.

  ‘Oh, my Gods – it is!’ They were heading straight into a cloud of rocks, invisible through the filters against the black of space. Sebastian hammered the manual thruster controls. A joystick popped out of the console and he yanked it backwards. The ship bucked, and their faces pulled down while the gravity plating struggled with the change in inertia as the engines forced the ship onto its new heading.

  Aryx’s wheelchair creaked from the strain. ‘Woohoo!’

  ‘You shouldn’t be enjoying this!’ Sebastian said, gritting his teeth.

  The ship blasted out of the ecliptic plane, over the danger, where the sunlight revealed the extent of the asteroid field. Sebastian sat with his mouth open. If they had continued their previous course, they would have been smashed to pieces by small asteroids. As one of his instructors had once said, ‘If the glass hits the rock, or the rock hits the glass – it sure as hell ain’t going to hurt the rock!’ They weren’t going to end up as the glass, so Sebastian eased off the controls.

  The ship skimmed over the field and the scanners kicked into life, emitting distorted comms chatter. The density of the field must have blocked the signals coming from the colony; the strongest came from an area within the asteroid field’s inner radius. They wouldn’t have to scour the field trying to find Sollers Hope after all.

  ‘That makes it a bit easier,’ Aryx said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m glad we don’t have to fly through that. I’m not that practised at high-speed manoeuvres, and I’ve no intention of learning here. Now, let’s find the mining colony.’ Sebastian pressed a control on the console and hundreds of blinking dots appeared on the display, indicating the presence of mining ships deep within the asteroid field. A stronger set of signals came from a small planetoid, several thousand kilometres from the main field.

  The planetoid itself was a smooth pale grey, except where several large craters and plateaus punctuated the surface. A huge crater dominated the flat expanse beneath the ship, the rim of which was spanned by a glinting geodesic dome. Several hundred metres away on a plateau stood a tall, white radio mast, shining in the sunlight. Ma
ny smaller industrial structures lay scattered around, connected to the main dome by thin tube-like tunnels, half-buried in the dust. The largest of the tubes ran from the main dome to a building that resembled a submerged cylinder lying on its side.

  Sebastian activated the comms. ‘This is Talaga class shuttle Ultima Thule to Sollers Hope colony, requesting permission to land.’

  Silence.

  He and Aryx stared at each other for several seconds. Was anybody listening? Were they even welcome?

  A woman’s voice spoke. ‘This is Sollers Hope control. Welcome, Ultima Thule, you are allocated bay six. Please engage magnetic repulsors when landing, and a taximech will tow your ship to the allocated bay. Extend your landing gear only when the taximech indicates with a green light.’

  ‘Acknowledged, control.’ Sebastian closed the comms and, heaving a sigh of relief, programmed the descent into the navsystem.

  Light flashed in his face as the facets of the geodesic dome caught the sun, and the glare from the airless rock intensified as the ship descended. The ship stopped several feet from the ground as the magnetic repulsors engaged with the landing pad, and a small, metallic dome topped with a long, flexible antenna and red flashing light trundled out of the hangar towards them. The dome-shaped taximech extended a long arm and a loud clunk echoed through the ship as the little robot dragged them into the hangar.

  They eventually came to a standstill in bay six. Sebastian waited until the light on the mech turned green and extended the landing struts. The ship settled on the ground with a soft thump and a second, more muffled clunk followed.

  Sebastian jumped up from his seat. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Docking cowl, probably,’ Aryx said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  Butterflies fluttered in Sebastian’s stomach as he prepared to leave the ship. He hadn’t realised how excited he’d become about the prospect of setting foot on solid ground.