They’d walked along almost a hundred and fifty feet of blank, seamless corridor before the doorway came in sight ahead of them.
Connor commented out loud, “Crewing this ship must be difficult. If the map is right, it’s about two hundred and fifty feet from the airlock to this room, which is just half of the corridor length. Can you imagine how many people should be needed to cover the different duty points if this was a naval vessel?”
Lekiso had also been keeping a careful eye on the surroundings, so she answered Connor softly, “If this ship even needs a crew. We haven’t seen any sign of anyone else. Meriam, can you detect anything?”
“Just us,” Meriam replied, looking down to manipulate the interface on her forearm.
“I’m not detecting anything except us, and a good forty feet down and more to the middle of the ship, I can detect that Devourer parasite we collected. But other than that, nothing.”
Marc was eyeing the door ahead of them.
They knew it was a door because it had seams showing an outline and a single line down the middle. It was twice the size of the airlock door that had let them in.
“Uh, wow. So, most of the ship is probably automated.”
“You are correct,” SAI said in that calm and conservative voice that it had.
“Should human interaction be required with onboard systems, your biological makeup is sufficient to get anywhere in this vessel within twenty seconds. That is without the use of extraneous equipment or Gravitonics.”
Connor processed that information and gave it some thought: that would mean that all of them would realistically have to be as fast as or faster than an Olympic sprinter. No, triathlete, since the ship wasn’t all just open corridor. What the hell had been done to them to make them so proficient?
“Uh, oh. Okay then.” Marc looked over at Connor, who just shrugged.
SAI spoke again, the doors sliding open silently as it directed the humans: “Please, come in.”
* *
Meriam looked around the room.
Coming in last, she stopped behind the other four, who were also all taking a moment to let it sink in. The room was a uniform light gray color, and it stretched from the doorway out for a distance that was hard to judge, but it was far away.
The five of them were on a small ledge that jutted out from the nearest curving wall.
As far as Meriam could tell, the room seemed to be the inside of a sphere, and judging by the curvature and the height of the doorway, the interior was more than seventy-six feet across, end to end.
It was the same from floor to ceiling if it could be called that.
At the edge of the ledge they were on, there were five seats, not chairs but actual comfortable-looking cushioned seats. Each one was also quite obviously adjusted to match each of the humans, with one seat larger than the rest and going down in sizes to the smallest for Marc.
Each seat was cushioned and upholstered in the same gray material, although Meriam couldn’t see any stitching or other means with which they had been assembled.
Each seat was inclined slightly, with a footrest at the lowest point, but what was really interesting was that the seats were floating. Right there on the lip of the ledge, each seat just hovered in the air.
There was no bob or slight drift as if they were invisibly tethered somehow.
Then the weirdly calm voice spoke from the walls again: “Please do not be alarmed as the door closes.”
The five of them turned as one to see the door sliding soundlessly shut, leaving them all stranded on the narrow ledge inside the room.
“The door is not locked. It would be futile anyway,” SAI said into the silence.
It was Connor who responded: “What do you want from us?”
The voice issued uniformly from all around them. “Please, sit. This discussion will be assisted by visual media, and the display is best done within this chamber.”
Meriam didn’t see how arguing would make any difference; after all, it hadn’t so far. Apparently, the others agreed. With some general glancing among themselves and the equivalent of a helpless shrug to varying degrees, they all took the seat that best matched their body and build.
The seat felt very comfortable as if Meriam were sitting on a bubble of air floating on water. No one moved except to lean back into the shape of the chair.
Whatever was keeping the seats afloat was impressive. Even Connor’s weight didn’t budge the seat’s height over the ledge, and moving from side to side didn’t shift the seats from where they floated.
Then SAI spoke to them again: “Please remain calm as your positions are adjusted.”
A brief pause, and then the chairs floated soundlessly and effortlessly away from the ledge and into the center of the room. Meriam could tell because the ledge receded while they were moved, and it seemed as if the far walls got closer.
It was hard to tell, though, with the same color and tone across the inside. The five of them then rotated just as Meriam saw the ledge recess into a slot in the wall and another door of the same interior material close on the inside of the door they had come in from.
The room was then wholly seamless on the inside, the walls a smooth gray arcing around them along every side, and the door had vanished without a trace. They could have been floating around in a circle for all they knew. No air moved, and no motion betrayed any feeling whatsoever.
They just floated there in a semicircle, facing the center of the room, which abruptly turned a pitch black before being lit by a galaxy of stars.
A literal galaxy of stars.
Meriam thought it looked a lot like the Milky Way, which was confirmed when SAI spoke.
“This is the galaxy of humanity’s birthplace.” A small star was outlined in violet light, and a tag marked it among the multitude of stars.
“This is the Sol system, the first solar system to be colonized by mankind.”
Marc made a sound like he was going to say something, but the artificial intelligence didn’t pause long enough for him to get a word in.
“In the scale of the local cluster of galaxies, this is where the Milky Way resides.” The perspective of the spiral galaxy shifted, with the entire grouping of stars turning away from the five humans and other galaxies swooping in around them.
Meriam was impressed. The room was able to show three dimensions all around them: above, below, and to either side.
They were now looking at a group of many different kinds of galaxies. The information placed inside her mind identified them as globular clusters, spherical galaxies, other spiral galaxies, and so on. Mainly, though, Meriam just let the computer talk and left the heavy memories to unfold on their own.
“This group of galaxies is approximately the same age on a universal scale, none of them more than a few million years variance in age to each other. Insignificant on the universal timescale. Looking further out, we find the clusters of galaxies that formed earlier in the timeline of the universe than the Milky Way.”
The perspective shifted again, pushing the Milky Way and its neighbors down and to the right while other clusters came in all around them. Centered on the humans’ viewpoint was a set of galaxies with non-uniform makeup. Each of these galaxies was drifting into globular shapes, only one or two still holding on to a spiral formation or otherwise some core that was uniformly expanding.
The cluster was also marked by many more nebulae and spreading gaseous formations. One of the galaxies, with what seemed like a cloud of deep maroon color among the many thousands of stars, was highlighted.
It had a globular core and a single arm of stars that stretched out like a fan, almost like the shape of a clamshell. The whole of this galaxy was filled with the red cloud, in some places like a mist. For something the size of the galaxy, the remnants of stars that had gone supernova appeared like a crimson stain spreading through water.
“This is galaxy NGC 1569, as per current objective timeline human labels.”
The viewpoint
then zoomed in to this galaxy. Stars went flying past the humans in their floating seats, so close that they looked as if they could be grabbed. Meriam struggled to reconcile herself to the sheer scale involved: hundreds of thousands of stars, billions of light years.
SAI continued speaking while the NGC 1569 galaxy filled their respective vision.
“This galaxy formed life millennia before the Milky Way. Evolution brought the various species of this galaxy to a technological level of spacefaring society around five millennia before humans landed on the moon of Earth. Within this galactic citizenship that they developed is the location of the Puzzle Box.”
A marker appeared with an outline around one of the stars, respective to the viewpoint of the humans, which was side on to the galaxy. The marker was in the upper top left of the galaxy. The perspective then shifted again, zooming out, but this time without the other galaxies being as vivid as the Milky Way and NGC 1569.
The Puzzle Box marker also stayed, showing the relative position of the star, and quickly, the viewpoint included the tag for Sol in the Milky Way as well.
“In terms of the direction of travel, this galaxy was the closest to Sol in three-dimensional travel so long as a traveler was traveling away from NGC 1569 and unable to travel in any direction back towards the universal core.
Or, in simpler terms, the Milky Way was the closest galaxy for anyone wishing to escape NGC 1569 and who was also limited to traveling to galaxies that are the same age or younger within the universal expansion.”
“Uh, wait a moment. Hang on there.” This time, Marc got in just at the end of what SAI was explaining.
“Yes, Marc?” SAI inquired.
“Uh, wow. Didn’t expect you to refer to me by name.”
“My parameters for interaction include the correct social graces. As we will be working together, the inclusion of your name in common familiarity will lead to more precise communication and acceptance.”
“Uh, no. No, I’m not comfortable with you using my name, thank you very much!”
“Marc, buddy? Just ask it what you wanted to ask. I don’t think arguing with it will help,” Connor said kindly.
Meriam could agree. In any situation where you didn’t have the answers, it helped to play along. The art of any good con: go with the target, or in this case, the seemingly sentient program running the massively powerful technology of the ship.
“Uh, yeah, okay. So, uh, SAI?”
“Yes, Marc?”
Marc shook himself a little. For a moment, his frustration showed again, but he kept it under wraps.
“Uh, it’s nice to be shown the galaxies and all, pretty pictures, sure, and the distance and all of that.” His sarcasm was thick, but he followed through. “What we want to know, though, is why we are here? What does any of this have to do with us? And honestly, I’m wondering why you are using the weird tenses in explaining things.”
“You are correct, the terminology can be confusing, which is why I have started with the beginning. At least, the beginning relative to myself and this ship, which then leads into your involvement at this time, relative to your own personal timelines.”
“Uh, what the hell are you saying? You make it sound like we need to understand where you came from, and that you came from somewhere difficult for us to understand.”
“You are correct,” SAI repeated in exactly the same tone and with the same inflection on the words. Of course, Meriam wouldn’t expect a computer program to get impatient, so the way it spoke was probably going to be very consistent.
SAI continued: “My purpose was set to predate your lives, as is the current situation.”
“Say what?” This was Ormond, who cut in before Marc could speak. “You make it sound as if you are trying to explain something that has already happened?”
“Incorrect, Ormond. It is currently happening relative to objective time.”
“Uh, objective time? As compared to what?”
“As compared to subjective time which is yet to be written.”
“Uh, okay, but that’s always the case, isn’t it?”
“Correct, except that the subjective timeline is being monitored closely with the objective timeline, as influenced by your presence here.”
“Say what?” Connor exploded. “What are you saying?! Can you put it simply, please?”
“I apologize, Connor. I was attempting to build the bigger picture before the complex subject of altering the timeline was to be discussed.”
“Uh, altering the timeline?”
“Oh hell,” Connor whispered.
“You are messing with me!” Ormond almost fell out of his seat; he sat up so fast. Even Lekiso looked like she had just been swatted. Meriam could understand. She felt pretty dazed herself.
As if things weren’t bad enough being abducted and meeting aliens.
Now they had time travel too?
* *
Perhaps Lekiso had the right idea: keep moving forward and get all the answers. At least, in this case, Ormond was highly inclined to agree because to sit and contemplate what had just been revealed was probably going to melt his sanity.
“Okay, mate, err, ship, or SAI, or whatever you call yourself. How about us humans just shut it for a bit and let you finish your little explanation, hey?”
“Thank you, Ormond. That would be most efficient at this juncture.”
“Yeah, well, just get on with it. Okay, folks?” He gave the others a look that he hoped got the message across that they should just shut up and listen, at least for a little while.
“We’ll get back to question and answer, yeah?”
No one argued, and after a significant pause, SAI rolled on, starting back at the image thrown up of the two galaxies and the points marking the humans’ only two experiences off or on Earth.
“In the thirty-fifth century, humans had begun to settle areas of the Milky Way galaxy and make contact with other species among the stars. The expansion of the cooperation of humankind was aided by both technology and the advent of Gravitonics, which I will explain in more detail later. Suffice to say that humans were the most advanced species in the Milky Way. There are complex reasons for this, which are not relevant at this moment.”
The map of the spiral galaxy showed the territory of mankind spread out from Sol, and some other territories were highlighted but unmarked.
“Around halfway through the thirty-fifth century, by human reckoning, there came communications from other species that the galaxy was being invaded by a large host. The initial information was, in fact, incorrect. The fleets that were entering the Milky Way were not aggressors, but rather refugees.”
Arrows were drawn on the map, showing the direction inwards from NGC 1569 towards the galactic center of the Milky Way.
“These refugees came in many thousands of vessels, most in need of serious maintenance or outright repair. Many were overloaded to the point of near total life support collapse despite the skills of their engineers. I describe this so that you can understand that these refugees were desperate. Desperate enough to have ventured through the massive gulf between the two galaxies and desperate enough to risk millions of lives in the attempt.”
SAI spoke in a consistent tone.
Inflection must have been part of its programming since it could talk the right way and emphasize words properly. But though it was not like a computer voice reciting only facts, to the human ear, it still lacked emotion.
What SAI described was horrible, and Ormond had the notion forming that what it was describing and where they were now couldn’t be a coincidence.
“The fleets had been separated within the expanse between the galaxies. Some came together and forged ahead in alliance among themselves, while others went rogue and attempted to take new worlds. Where there were already inhabitants, these worlds were sometimes taken by force. This process took years, and by the time mankind was made aware of what was happening, there was a lot of confusion.
“Many species
of the Milky Way who were directly in the path of these refugees had already come to the conclusion that they were invaders or pirates. Others who were listening to what the refugees were telling them tried to spread their horrible tale. With all of this going on, it took some time before the facts came to light. These refugees were not species of the Milky Way. They were natively from NGC 1569, and they were all that remained of the galactic citizenship.
“Among them were still Domums, Alerans, Lanillans, Antonasas, Jascalians and many others whom you have already encountered—and many you have not. They brought their databases, scans, and recordings of the threat that had driven them from their own galaxy and into the Milky Way. They described this threat under the name ‘Tempest.’”
“Ah, jeez,” Connor exclaimed, and then he quickly shut up again with a glance at the other four.
Ormond agreed with the sentiment. If the Tempest had been bad enough to drive the species of this galaxy away, then they were worse than anyone on the Puzzle Box knew.
SAI waited for a second for anyone else to speak before it continued.
“At first, mankind sought to ascertain whether the refugees were those that had escaped war among their kind and the Tempest. No one dared to truly believe the facts being presented. There was a widespread belief that these refugees were fleeing a war fought on a galactic scale, a horrible concept and one very big to take in, but nonetheless, refugees from war could be handled, and aid in a war could be given.
“But the facts mounted, and as the new refugees encountered began to diminish, the picture was painted for mankind in no uncertain terms. These refugees were not those escaping an ongoing war. They were the last surviving members of galaxy NGC 1569 who had survived the gulf between galaxies. There would be no more coming, and there was no one left to go and help back in NGC 1569. The Tempest engaged not in a war for resources or dominance; they participated in the genocide of every living sentient creature.
“And in galaxy NGC 1569, they had succeeded, but even worse, they were on their way to the Milky Way to continue their purge. The Tempest were not going to stop until the entire universe was devoid of sentient life.”
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