Afterimage

by Roderick Geiger

  “We won’t be going in there for awhile,” Lomax said.

  “Suggestions?” Gill asked, scanning the little crowd that already seemed to be huddling closer together for warmth.

  “Start a bonfire,” Galtrup said, rubbing his arms. “Maybe get some arctic - you know – moonsuits or something…so we can go in the lab.”

  “I think we should be getting the hell out of here,” Lomax entreated.

  “Abandon ship?” Gill pondered. “No we can’t just leave.”

  “You can’t believe either patient is still alive,” the doctor returned. “Now it’s becoming dangerous for us to stay here.”

  “Until we’re sure the REME has ended and Argyle is safe, we must stay here and try to turn this thing off.”

  “Maybe it will burn itself out,” Galtrup postulated. “It probably has a finite lifespan, you know, energy isn’t generated from nothingness...”

  Gill didn’t really want to mention it, but he kind of just blurted it out: “Chain reaction. I didn’t pay it much mind but Deverson mentions it in his notes.”

  “Nah.” Galtrup dismissed. “Chain reaction? Reaction with what?”

  Gill was talking softly now, a slight shiver in his voice only partially caused by cold: “People. Dying people. I don’t know, people in the immediate area…say within a few miles of here. We’ve created interference that’s preventing the natural flow of… energy.”

  “Sorry, I don’t buy it,” Galtrup insisted. “There has to be another explanation.”

  “Like what?” Gill demanded. “All the power’s off. What else is there?”

  Ishue entered the conference room first. It was dark save the big TV monitor on the far side of the table, which glowed with an image of Argyle’s stern, low in the water, churning up froth as she attempted to steam away from something large and black in the sea behind her. “Ho-ly shit,” Ishue muttered, and Chalmais repeated the chant. He attempted to make contact with the boat, but it soon became clear Argyle was transmitting, not receiving, with no audio in either direction.

  Ishue studied the black object from several angles. “It’s flat,” she announced. “It’s not moving. I think it’s drawing them in. Like a hole. A hole in the ocean?

  “A maelstrom,” Chalmais muttered.

  Devon, along with everyone else on Argyle’s bridge, watched in speechless silence. The sea had gone calm, very quiet. But now, in the daylight, it was clear the ocean was no longer level, the ship on a slight but noticeable incline to her stern, slipping slowly backwards as if caught in the current of a river. The Argyle’s low-tech Diesels were still spinning top speed, almost holding position. But not quite.

  “Negative two KPH,” Rachete guessed.

  “It must be 25 kilometers around,” Gleason said. “Look! We’re below the horizon of the thing!” The Argyle had slipped to within one kilometer of the center.

  “It’s like somebody pulled the plug on the bottom of the ocean,” Schiffer said. “What are we going to do?”

  “All my electronics are out,” Rachete shrugged. “We can’t send an SOS, and even if we could, there’s no time.”

  “We have to find a way to tell Vrynos to shut it off,” Devon said. Above, the sky had cleared remarkably, the dense cloud cover broiling away, replaced by a giant thunderhead, black as night, formed-up tight directly over the center of the maelstrom. “We have to find a way to tell them!” Devon repeated, unaware that the stern camera, packed in a weather-proof enclosure, had somehow survived the electro-magnetic pulse and was still sending six images a second to a satellite 48 miles above.

  When Ishue and Chalmais returned to the Bridge, Gill looked at the two expectantly: “Well, did you reach Argyle?”

  “Not exactly,” Chalmais said. “But they’re in trouble.”

  “Big trouble,” Ishue added, pointing at the Lab 3 window. “And it’s a fair bet there’s the cause.”

  “We don’t know that,” Chalmais rebutted. “It looks more like a weather problem to me.”

  Lomax interrupted: “Should we be hanging around here? I mean, what if it’s going to blow up while we’re standing here like a bunch of idiots. If there’s nothing we can do about it, shouldn’t we get the hell out of here?”

  “Nothing,” Chalmais said, hugging himself for warmth. “You’re absolutely right, Doctor. We can come back when it’s done doing…whatever it’s goddamn doing in there.” He waved his fingers dismissively at the iced-up window. “I’m calling it. Everybody out. Evacuate the building! Everyone. Move. Now.”

  The handful of technicians and observers still present left without protest, followed by Lomax and lastly Chalmais, who didn’t turn around. He would not waste his time repeating the order to those foolish enough to linger.

  Galtrup, Gill and Ishue found themselves the last on the Bridge, staring at one another uncertainly as Chalmais’ voice trailed off down the hall: “Blackburn! We’re evacuating. Get everyone out. Have your men sweep…” His bellowing voice trailed off into silence. A long moment passed.

  “It doesn’t look like it’s subsiding to me,” Ishue scolded, peering into the cold Plexiglas. She turned. “You guys…what the hell did you think? Didn’t it occur to you how over your heads you were?” Her breath was condensing now, little visible clouds.

  “Everybody else gone?” Gill asked as he stared into the window, mesmerized by the surreal light. He was thinking about Sara, how she’d gotten him into this, sucked him in, seduced him, then left him to clean up the mess. Her mess! Then an idea struck him. “Maybe we should turn the power back on,” He said slowly. “Maybe, if it’s cold enough in there, the torque surge will shatter the frozen frame and the whole thing will collapse.”

  “Hmmm,” Galtrup mused. “Maaay-beee.” It was common enough, especially in the early days of MRI, for the aluminum box-tubing to bend and deform under the load of the two superconductor electromagnets as they applied torque against one another. “I guess it’s possible,” Galtrup said, then added matter-of-factly: “I can’t feel my feet.”

  But no one got up to throw the switches. Instead they sat, chairs huddled close to one another a few feet from the window, the three of them staring into the light.

  “It’s beautiful,” Ishue said dreamily. “Do you think it will leave soon?”

  “Why should it?” Gill pondered. “It’s feeding. Why would it leave?”

  “Hmmm,” Galtrup uttered. “You sound like you think it’s alive or something.”

  “Maybe it is,” Gill said. “Life in its purest form. That thing there, a window into the source of all life in our universe.”

  “It’s b-beautiful,” Ishue repeated with a shiver. “W-what should we do?”

  “We…should probably do what Gill s-said.” And after a moment, Galtrup added: “But I can’t seem to f-find the strength…”

  “I-I’ll g-get it,” Gill said. “I-I’m g-getting up now.” But he didn’t.

  Thus the three sat, transfixed, like campers staring into a late night campfire. Silently, lost in individual thought, unmoving.

  Monday

  Gyttings-Lindstrom Research Unit,

  Eugene, Oregon

  He hadn’t noticed it before, a tiny, irregular blotch inside the source of the light, muddy brown, changing shape, casting sharp shadows slicing forward into the room. But he couldn’t quite pull focus on it. His eyes wouldn’t obey. He tried to clear his head with a shake. Nothing happened. What is that? Is it two-dimensional…or three? Something’s wrong with my eyes!

  “Hey guys,” Galtrup said fearfully. “Do you see that? What is that thing?” But the words came out strange; distorted and unintelligible. Shit. What’s happening to me?

  Then he heard something, a hum, far off in the silence. Louder. Like an alarm. “Turn that off!” he commanded.

  “Yes, Captain,” a female voice behind him said.

  He whirled his chair around to the voice: short blonde hair, striking sky-blue eyes and a cleft in her chin. “Sara?” He said th
e name before he could stop himself. He knew it wasn’t Sara. And he was no longer on The Bridge. Or was he?

  “Captain? Are you all right?” Her voice was strong and sweet.

  “Yeah, fine,” Galtrup lied. It was like passing out of a dream. Where had he just been? The answer was right there…so close…seemed so real…but now he couldn’t quite grasp it and it was fading fast. He concentrated hard…to no avail.

  In front of him, a huge curved screen, black space punctuated with stars, blurry with movement. Moving stars. Thousands of them. In the margins, dozens of readouts, displays, graphs. Speed, relative position, power levels, O2, hull deflection…

  Another voice: “Planetary mag field alarm is off, sir. Looks like a new one…4.138317 Lears…starboard axis 1-4-3, ahead 1-zero-9.” It was the voice of Ensign Verge Debalis, the watch officer. He sounded excited.

  “Magnify,” Galtrup ordered. The image on the curved screen changed, a different view of space, an animated arrow pointing at a tiny speck of light. The computer had finished cross-checking against its vast library of star charts and displayed: confirmed - previously undetected planetary magnetic field.

  “God I wish we could go,” Verge said. But of course they couldn’t. They were truck drivers, not explorers. “I wonder what they look like?”

  “Could be anything,” the female engineer said. “Man-eating monsters, lush forests, viruses…”

  “Or all three,” Galtrup added. It was protocol to report newly discovered lifebase planets immediately. “We’ll have to drop out of INFX and send the coordinates back to earth.”

  “She’s pretty hot anyway,” the female said. Her name was Ari, drive engineer on Pennsylvania, a 35,000-kiloton supply freighter enroute to Five-one-Xidia and it’s 13 life-bearing planets.

  “Have you ever been, sir?” the young watch officer asked. “I mean to an ‘unexplored?”’

  Galtrup chuckled. “Twice. Not as exciting or glamorous as you might think. Sometimes we spend more than an earthyear in orbit, dropping probes, analyzing data. Pretty dull, actually.”

  “And dangerous,” Ari said. Everyone knew the story of the Research Vessel Kiev, still floating around that distant moon. A ghost ship. Whatever it was had gotten inside their hermetic suits, eaten them alive. “The bio-drive is destabilized to point-zero-zero-eight,” she said, then added matter-of-factly: “4,400 Celsius.”

  Verge was staring at the faint speck of light on his screen, the planet’s homestar. Not very impressive from this far out. But the planet’s field was strong and steady, an Earth Minus 2-point-1-7. They find class-two quadrupeds on weaker planets than this. “Could this be the one?” he thought out loud.

  “Not likely,” Ari said cynically. “Six-hundred-fifteen life-bearing planets explored…not one host to sentient beings.”

  “It’s just a matter of time,” Captain Galtrup said paternally. Then to Verge: “If you want it bad enough, Ensign, get your hours in, you’ll get your RV assignment.” He turned to his Lieutenant. “Depolarize countdown on my mark…”

  “You’d think after 100 years the scientists would have figured how to the keep the bio-drive from superheating,” Ari said as she worked the cerebral interface control. “Depolarizing in three…two…one…” and suddenly, noiselessly, Galtrup found himself seated at the center of a large transparent dome under a stark canopy of motionless stars punctuating the blackness. Around him his four crewmembers busied themselves at their stations.

  Captain Galtrup hasn’t been himself for several days, the drive engineer thought. And who the hell is Sara?

  The Pennsylvania had come to a complete stop. “What’s our make, Ensign?”

  “Nineteen-point-seven Gigs, sir,” Verge said looking up from his console. “One-hundred-eighty-seven-point-seven minutes in.”

  “About 22 Xight,” Galtrup said, nodding his approval. He studied his Lieutenant’s profile a moment. Pretty girl, but all this phasing is taking its toll. She was overdue for a couple cycles off. “Did you ever wonder, Lieutenant, what it must have been like back in the days before INFX technology?”

  “Sir? What made you think of that?”

  “I don’t know.” And he didn’t.

  “Back in college I had a history prof who collected late-twentieth-century science fiction,” she said, shaking her head fondly. “He said people back then believed faster-than-light travel would somehow make time go backwards.” She laughed.

  “I guess I meant the innocence of it,” Galtrup reflected. “You know, the mystery, the wondering about life, mortality…and inevitable death.”

  “It must have been just awful,” she said with finality.

  Whatever he’d been feeling was gone now, faded away like a familiar aroma stolen on a wisp of wind. “Mmmm,” he said flatly. “I’m going aft. Zip me when we’re cool enough for restart.”

  The shivering coldness had passed and now Gill sat motionless, neither warm nor cold, numb, unblinking before the icy blue light pouring out of Twin Tunnel’s mouth, pouring like heavy smoke, filling the room all around him. Somehow the wall between Lab 3 and the Bridge had vanished and Gill found himself seated only a few feet from the machine. He wanted to move but could not. Is this it? Is this how it ends? What will become of Anabelle and Jennifer? I won’t see them grow up. How will they get along without me?

  Gill would never hear them say ‘Daddy’ again. He knew this. It was over. The blackness, the nothingness would be upon him soon. Very tired. Very tired.

  Then he heard the tiny voice: “Daddy! Come play hide and seek with us in the forest!”

  The blue fog, absolute in its coldness, parted before him, pushed aside by a shaft of brilliant sunlight, Anabelle in the meadow motioning for him to come, skipping backwards through a field of purple lupines, broad-leaf ferns, snowflowers, golden poppies. The sunlit vision widened to include Jennifer, leaning against an immense ponderosa pine at the edge of the meadow, head buried in the crook of her arm, counting. She was standing! On her own. Her piteously deformed little legs transformed. She pivoted gracefully and - hands on hips - scolded: “Come on Daddy! Hide!” Anabelle was already headed into the woods, running through pools of golden sunlight.

  He’d never believed the professor’s theory about the purpose of dreams, never really believed in the Expiration Protocol. It had always seemed 99-parts wishful thinking to one part hard science. But now here it was, unfolding before his eyes. My cold, dead eyes! It seemed so real. Felt real. But it wasn’t real. He knew his real Jennifer couldn’t walk…would never walk, run, play. Did he really want to spend eternity in a dream, a self-indulgent fantasy, flash-frozen in an instant of time? And what was the alternative?

  “So beautiful,” Ishue said again, voice cracking with awe. How could anything so beautiful mean them any harm? Life in its purest form. The eye of god. She tried to turn toward Gill, half hoping he had not gotten up to turn it off, but her frozen neck muscles would not respond. Numb. No longer shivering, no longer feeling the cold.

  Deep within the light a tiny figure took shape. A person! She strained to make it out, and as she did, she felt the light pulling her in. It frightened her. She resisted.

  “Ilene!” The voice echoed down at her. “Don’t be afraid! Come on, they’re all waiting for you.”

  “Daddy?” Her fear slipped away.

  “Come on, honey,” he bellowed from the top of a hundred massive granite steps, the voice echoing through a long row of 60-foot-tall pillars.

  Was this heaven? Go into the light? Why not! Why the hell not! “I’m coming, Daddy!” She felt herself moving up the steps, not walking really, more like floating, and as she approached the image came into focus. Pre-Christian Rome? I know this place! She’d seen it in a picture. Yes! It was the Low Library, Columbia University, New York City.

  “I’m so proud of you I could explode,” he said, taking her hand.

  “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” She hugged him with all her might, deeply inhaling the familiar aroma. It had never occu
rred to her until this moment how handsome he was. Short black hair, the bushy, black eyebrows over dark, almond eyes. So manly, so classically masculine. Wearing a perfect gabardine suit. “This is the best day of my life,” she bubbled, and even as the words left her lips she wondered if it was false; if she was in fact, still alive.

  “Me too,” he grinned. “You look beautiful, Ilene. Do you have your speech ready?”

  “I do!” She said, for a moment surprised at her own confidence. And they walked through the pillars, arm in arm.

  Captain Galtrup waited for the last of his bridge crew to take-up positions. “Are we about ready?” he asked no one in particular.

  “Nozzle temp is passing 600 centigrade, sir,” Ari snapped.

  Galtrup studied his displays. The huge freighter was positioned at relative all-stop, course laid-in through low-magnetic space, INFX nozzles cool enough now…but something bothered him. “Is it just me or is it freezing in here? Ensign? Can we get more heat?”

  But Ensign Verge was distracted by something else: “I’m picking up a number-4-mass object coming straight at us, port 1-9-4, forward 5-7. Beyond visual.”

  “Sensor extrap!” Galtrup barked.

  The computer created an image of what it thought the object looked like and projected it onto the forward dome, the shape morphing several times before settling-down into a smooth-sided rectangular solid with odd-colored lights emanating from one end.

  Man-made! “Port thrusters full astern!” Galtrup shouted. As the huge ship lurched backwards, the object slowed and turned with it, matching speed. Intelligent! A ship? More likely some kind of probe…or weapon!

  “Maneuver,” Galtrup commanded. But he already knew it was no use. Maneuvering was not something big freighters did quickly.

  “There it is,” Ari shouted, pointing up into the dome at the tiny speck tumbling toward them.

  “It should be setting off the prox alarms,” Verge said. But it wasn’t.

  As it drew closer the helmsman said: “It looks like a command console, doesn’t it?”