by Greg Remy
“Damnit.”
Kappa crushed the last fragments of the circuitry in his hand. It was as frail as a 100-year-old derby horse. He looked down at the box of remaining processor boards and though he already knew their fate. He inspected each in turn and then replaced the box into its compartment. He was not going anywhere for a while.
Chapter 22
Requiem for a Doctor
Zoe twiddled the sable bequest with her fingers. The silent dirge from it inspissated the air around the captain’s seat. Though cool to the touch and colder still by memory, the small cenotaph warmed Zoe with the speculations of what it might contain. One side bared the epitaph of the deep scar from the encounter with the man in the cowboy hat. She thumbed at it and could feel the fracture extending across the surface. A melancholy sigh left her lips, meant only to be audible to those in the cockpit; Darious was studying in the main room and her pensiveness was hers alone.
After ensuring the ship was on course for the Doctor’s homemoon, Zoe set the data stick onto the instrument panel and guided the computer to extract its contents. To her surprise, it contained only a single file of coding, though considerable in length. Zoe read through the first few lines of overlapping numerals, symbols, and text.
“Hmmph.”
At first glance, she had no idea what she was looking at. A ploynumeric method for interstellar communications? Didn’t seem to be. A comparative morphologic study of sea cucumbers and fractals? Nope. She scratched her chin and internal cogs began to slowly turn. Wait a minute… The idling flywheels rotated faster and faster, interlocking with further gear heads, and expanding into a critical thinking machine. Zoe flipped on her revered, low-toned music and shifted her mind into overdrive.
Zoe became a dizzying sight, a human-powered pure computational engine; her fingers indefatigably typed away on the console while her eyes scanned layer upon layer of coding. Her body constantly left to the central chamber, returning with books and materials of everything from cryptocalculus to The Epic of Homer. Her mind never strayed from the enigmatic program of Dr. Saknussemm. All parts of her were in concert, working as one toward a single goal.
Many hours passed. The console was strewn with books and her screens were filled with multitudinous pages of coding. Zoe was tinkering with a particularly puzzling string of content when she heard Darious come up behind her yawning. She did not look up from her work. He bent over her and peered at the virtual monitors. He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“How is it going, Captain?”
Zoe sighed and finally paused her work. With arms stretching high, she cracked her back and adjusted her sore neck. The central display suddenly flashed ‘Error’ in big letters. Zoe sighed once more.
“That’s how it’s going.” She removed the data stick from the console. “It’s been damaged.” Darious took up the small rectangle and examined it. “Glanced by gun blast it seems,” she said.
Zoe held out her hand and Darious gingerly placed it in her palm, as though it was the last remnant of an extinct world.
“I’ve worked my way through much of it. It seems to be some sort of synchronized resonance for some sort of globular protuberance. What it does, or how it does it, I have no idea. This particular section here,” she flipped through several virtual pages of coding and pointed to the middle of an intricate, multilayer sequence, “is completely corrupted. So, in addition to figuring out what the program is, I have to fix what seems to be the crux of it. So... yay me.”
Darious smiled and squared his stance. “Oh Captain, my Captain. I fear our trip is far from done.” He reached out a hand high to outer-space, presenting his sentiments to a congregation far from his center stage. “Your ship has weathered every crazed man; the prize we seek is near won. Oh Captain! My Captain!”
“Haha!” laughed Zoe. “Ah. Walt Whitman. I think I like your version better. So, seems someone has been doing a bit of classic reading.”
“Yes! Zoe our forefathers saw the world with an amazing, poetic mindset. They created. They attempted and endeavored. They...” He fumbled for the word, “...they dreamed.”
Zoe smiled warmly. “Indeed.” With the cessation of her work, she now realized how fatigued she had become. Her mouth opened wide and a noisy yawn leapt out. “I think we could both do with a much-needed break.” Darious nodded.
Turning off the harmonized warblings and minimizing her work from all the displays, Zoe laid back in her seat and stared out at fully revealed space. Though the text was gone, her mind kept recapitulating her work, overlaying the eternal night of space with strings of coding. Darious let out a complimentary yawn and settled with her in the seat. It was a snug fit, perfect for the two. The grandeur of the cosmos, just an arm’s length beyond, soothed their weary bodies and minds, and they slept.
Chapter 23
The Fury and the Anthropos
“Wakey, wakey Mister.” Zoe playfully tapped on Darious’ forehead. “Wakey.”
He stifled a yawn. “Ahhh. Are we there?”
“Just about.” Zoe was manning the console with her one free hand, as the other was locked behind Darious.
“Oh. Excuse me.” He bent forward, freeing her arm.
“Thank you.” Zoe lifted the limb, but it remained limp. “Asleep.” She wiggled it and giggled. “Ah! That always gets me.” With her one functioning arm, she picked her way through the navigation systems. “Let’s see, we are about 1.6 million kilometers from the system of Ios...” She fumbled with the controls as her other hand slowly regained responsiveness. “The weather seems fine; it’s not raining toads just yet. Wait a minute!” She sat straight up and typed with both hands, ignoring the fatigue of the one. Darious quickly scooted out of the way and booted up his station. She flung the new information through cyberspace to his monitor.
“Oh my,” he said upon reading it.
Zoe engaged a full stop of her ship. Forward thrusters ceased, and reverse thrusters ignited, sending the craft into a hasty deceleration. Ios’ moon was infested with ships encircling it. In fact, the entire system was interwoven with ships of various sizes and makes, all bearing the single identifying signature of Pantheon Industries. Here laid a company armada of galactic-enabled ships.
Darious spoke up, “I think it would be best if we did not venture further as we are not sure where the corporation stands in all this.”
“And considering the kind words the Doctor had of them,” added Zoe. “Man, they are everywhere, as if they are scanning the entire system.” She reflected on this for a moment. “Hopefully they are scanning inwards and not out at us.” A blue light on the projection screen signified her ship had come to a full stop and was holding its position in space. Zoe pivoted the ship around and launched them away at high thrust from Ios and Iros.
The two sat in a long silence. Zoe’s skin was tingling, no longer from awakening circulation, but from nervous anticipation. After several minutes, it was apparent no ships interior to the star system had taken notice of them. “Well, there goes that.” Zoe was looking at her original scans of Dr. Saknussemm’s moon abode. “We need more information of his work. Dang! I bet his home was a goldmine. What can we do now?”
“Well, I suppose we could just ask them for it,” said Darious, lightheartedly.
Zoe snapped her fingers. “That’s exactly what we will do!” Though she was turned away from Darious, she could just picture his face dropping. “Well, except for the asking part,” she added.
“I already regret what I have said.”
“Too late!” Zoe rebutted, smirking. “Okay, here’s the idea: All the information they find from the Doctor will be stored, right? In some database, somewhere. So, we go to the filing center,” she put up air quotes with her fingers, “and ‘borrow’ what we need, and get out of there. All before tea time.” She could now sense Darious glaring at her. She turned towards him and her supposition was indeed true. “Aww come on. It could be fun...”
“It is a very dangerous idea, Zoe. We
will be directly in harm’s way. Some man has tried to kill us. Twice now.”
“I know. I know. Darious, I need to do this. I need to know the reason for Dr. Saknussemm’s death.”
Darious took a moment and then solemnly nodded his head. “I understand. You are right. I too feel a certain allowance must be made in this direction. You are not alone, Zoe. I am in.”
“Yay!” She stood up and wrapped her arms around him. “Okay. Let’s see where Pantheon keeps their data. This time, we are going to the source.” Zoe compiled a quick search. “Ah. Turns out it’s at their headquarters. Planet Kratos in the Pantheon System. Of course they named an entire solar system after themselves. It’s in the Veritas Sector. Ugh. 3 hundred and—ugh—twenty-nine floating-parsecs away.”
“That will take several weeks at high thrust; time for us to prepare,” said Darious.
“Indeed sir. Let’s start from the top. Find who the head of the corporation is and if they have their office there. If they don’t, go down the list to the next highest-up person. Map out everything you get. The safest way to gather information is to access public databases through a coupled proxy line, like I showed you.”
“Aye Zoe. I suppose I will also have time to finish this.” He held up a book, ‘The White Whale,’ and smiled.
Zoe swiveled back around and surveyed the mess of papers on the console. “I suppose it gives me more time to ponder this code. Then it’s settled,” she said authoritatively. “Set course for Pantheon Industries.”
“Aye.”
The ship swept upward in a great arc. Transfusing in its ionizing wake, a passing cloud of nearly microscopic dust ignited and burst into a flurry of sapphire and amethyst, creating a spectacular trailing glow. The effervescence shimmered for some time before dissipating and becoming once more obscured by sempiternity.
Zoe meanwhile was transformed into an Erinyes of furious proportions, wholly transfixed in her work. Days passed. Soon weeks sailed by. The Fury and the Anthropos always remained assiduously dynamic; always learning, practicing, formulating, and most importantly of any two-bodied system—creating new inside jokes.
With the arrival at Pantheon Industries’ headquarters just a day away, Zoe had finally narrowed her scope of research and was applying it to the missing sectors of coding. She had brought the craft to a complete stop and scanned the entire surrounding area. Darious was with her in the cockpit, looking over her shoulder and offering his thoughts on the test she was prepping, most of which were related to their safety and the safety of the ship. Still fresh in Zoe’s mind was the Doctor’s amazing technology of his home and ship. As such she heeded Darious’ warnings and placed all principal systems on a redundant standby in case of the worst.
As Zoe wrapped up the last bits of work, she reflected on how the culmination of weeks of nonstop effort was to be this single experiment that would probably last no more than a minute. Among her thoughts, she noted how adept Darious had become at working on her ship with her, on both soft and hard-ware; he was a great help.
“Okay Darious, let’s boot up this bad boy.” He held the back of her seat. Zoe noticed his fingers flexing and understood; in fact, she was probably more apprehensive than he. “So, supposedly, assuming I understand what the Doctor’s algorithm is supposed to do, we are about to generate a resonant node through two pulsers I’ve modified, the node being of what I understand to be of infinite size—which, I’m not sure how—vibrating at near infinitesimalness—again, which I barely understand how—in a supposed contained volume—to which I’ve set to be a meter diameter sphere in front of the ship—that does… something. So... ready?”
“Yes. Wait!” exclaimed Darious. “What about the secondary inter-airlock seal?! Is it—”
“Checked and double checked. I’ve put it with the rest of the systems in a separate parallel program. I think we’re ready.” With that, Zoe initiated the stitched-up program from the late Doctor.
A low hum started from under their feet and the floor lowly vibrated, as if Zoe’s bass had been turned on and was slowly being dialed up. “That’s normal. Just the exigency bay opening and the signalizing Z-Pulsers warming up.”
“Z-pulsers? What is this?”
“Well, there are two of them. They’re both below us, aiming forward into space. I worked up the Z-Pulsers from what I could gather about the Doctor’s program. There were some coded blueprints; most of which were intact. Also, knowing—mostly—the parameters of his inputs made it a fairly easy task. Basically, take your standard zepto-second pulse generator, couple it to an antenna, pump up the power, and restrict certain waveforms. Add a bit of other magic and then run the program. Viola. I dub them, Z-Pulsers. The Z stands for…” She gave Darious a wanting look, but it was evident he was not in a jesting mood. She playfully waved him off and continued anyway, “No not zepto, for zero things to worry about.” She smiled.
Lights onboard the ship suddenly dimmed and Darious nervously shifted. “Still normal. Capacitor banks charging.” Zoe could feel his grip on her seat increase, matching the increasing quivers of the ship. “Program fully online. Initiating sensors.” A readout display began pouring data packs to a screen on their lower left. “Stable. Stable. Check. Check. All normal.” The humming continued to increase. “Norm... errm.” The scrolling information flooded by at rapid speeds. The vibrations were now no longer at their feet, but all around them, reverberating the walls as if they were on an old steam train. The ship’s recessed lighting began to flicker and go out completely for entire seconds at a time. Zoe and Darious peered out at the empty space in front of the ship. Nothing was happening.
“Wait!” Zoe gasped. They simultaneously bent forward and stared. It was as if a faint haze was coming into focus just ahead of the ship. “What is that?” asked Zoe. The diffused light barely shown, as if it were obscured by clouds. In fact, it looked as if the light itself was the globular shape. Zoe squinted harder, trying to understand what it could be. “How is it doing that?” she trailed off. In her mind she could not connect how the pulses being sent out were creating this sight. Sure she was dumping energy out into space, but the program was specifically alternated pulses so that each Z-Pulser did not interfere with the other. There were no energy collisions happening. What were they reacting with to make the light? The test medium was a vacuum, verified by her ship’s sensors to be a pure section of space and now, something was being created from it. Out of nothing, something.
Sensor readouts were now spewing forth feedback too fast to read. The low-level humming was still increasing, now becoming a prominent noise rather than a background annoyance. The amplitudes of vibrations within the ship now made their feet bounce on the ground, creating tapping sounds. Books and tools throughout the ship vibrated from their pedestals and rattled on the floor. An entire disconcerted concert was taking place within Zoe’s craft. The cloud of light ahead remained unchanged.
Zoe’s vision remained fixed on that golden hue. “It’s so—” multiple electrical pops resounded from somewhere. The ship jerked, and the humming ruptured into mashing clashes, as if an entire world of machines had all lost a sprocket at the same time, and everything completely ceased. The ship stabilized, and all systems returned to normal. However, Zoe and Darious were left wheezing between white teeth and even whiter faces. Zoe looked out; the glow was gone.
She lifted a shaking hand to the keyboard. “It... it looks like we blew a couple ancillary fuses. The ship auto-decoupled the Doctor’s program as soon as that happened.” She leaned back and sighed. A similar sound escaped from Darious. The sensor readout had stopped its text-based voluminous vomit. Zoe scanned through the resulting summary.
“Wow!” She snapped up from her seat and intently read with both hands on the console. “Darious look! On a micro-scale we were changing the space in front of us, actually modifying it!” A deluge of abstractions suddenly filled the canvases of Zoe’s mind, having just witnessed the impossible made possible.
Darious rea
d and his eyes widened with astonishment. “At the atomic scale….” He shifted his gaze back out to space. “But to what?”
“That, I have no idea.” Zoe sat back down, making sure to save the information and then checked on the status of her ship. “Well, everything else seems intact. The fuses are back there.” She thumbed behind her towards the main compartment. “It’ll take a minute to fix and then... more science!” Just as Darious was lifting a finger in admonishment, Zoe sprung from her seat, and was off to grab several spare palm-sized fuses.
Chapter 24
Let’s Try That Again
Upon the prompt completion of repairs, Zoe took up the captain’s seat and set about preparing the computer to once more initialize the Doctor’s program, ensuring that all primary and, now, secondary systems were safely tucked away. Once ready, she stretched her arms out, interlocking her fingers, and pulled the cartilage zipper apart. Zoe shook off the weariness from weeks of labyrinthine work and wiggled her fingers in front of the console with anticipation.