A piece about the void. Trying sci fi out here. Would like to know if it works.
Part 1. The Salmon.
Two sets of heavy boots hit a metal gangway. Two sets of knees bend and one hand splays out on the floor to give extra balance. The rustle of two protective suits initiates the next phase of movement.
Behind the silver clad runners a grate swings, waving them good bye.
**
“Captain, I have an anomaly on channel seventy one. Sending it over.” Small and white and rimmed with collected sweat. The button, pressed, began the transfer.
“Got it, thanks.” The captain looked down at his screen. Channel seventy one was his window into the engines; a small virtual pipe that stretched through cables and air all the way through the ship to where matter was converted to thrust.
“Call that an anomaly? Don’t waste my time. We have years of travel before we even get close to communication range with home. I don’t want to use up my all my energy on blips like that.” The captain flicked a few switches and returned to the card game be had been playing with the computer.
**
“Joe, Have you heard about Eridanus?” Albert was leaning against a tree. He was picking idly at the shell of a hazelnut. Occasionally he would use his teeth and spit the sharp fragments onto the ground. His companion, Joseph, was a few years younger and had no taste for nuts. Using a large stick as a bat he was seeing how far he could send his pickings into the next field.
“Nope.” Shielding his eyes from the sun, which was setting behind the next hill, Joseph watched his latest projectile fall short of the fence and swore under his breath.
“It’s the river that flows to Achernar. Below the Great Bull.” Albert paused to pick pieces of nut out of his teeth. His friend took the opportunity to interrupt.
“Is this something from your fantasy books? You know I don’t read that stuff.” Joseph was now facing the tree. Starting on a new nut, Albert continued.
“No. It’s in the sky. We will be able to see it when the sun has gone down fully. Achernar is the eighth brightest start. We can trace the river up from that.”
“I wondered why we came out here. I didn’t think it was because you wanted some nuts.” Joseph sat down next to his friend and looked at the sky. “Why the sudden interest in constellations?”
“It’s where they sent the new ship. The one that has been in all the papers.” Reaching into his bag, Albert pulled out a page from a magazine and metal case about the size of a large loaf of bread. Joseph took the page and read the headline aloud.
“New Ship sent to swim up river.” Joseph heard the catches click on Albert’s case and looked over. The top half of the case came away completely. Inside was a compact telescope.
**
The two silver suits are motionless. They are standing next to a door. Turning, the taller of the two faces the second. The front plates of their helmets recursively reflect the shape of their heads back and fourth.
The shorter of the two speaks and waves an arm at the door. The helmets block any sound. The taller figure shrugs.
Holding up the arms of their suits both figures look at a small displays embedded, and glowing red, just below the wrist. The shorter figure kicks the door and shouts something; louder but still retained.
Sitting, both figures lean against the corridor wall and stretch out their legs. The porthole in front of them, on the opposite wall, shows nothing but complete darkness.
**
“Time for me to check out for the evening boys and girls. Wake me if we get out of this nothingness.” The captain turned off his console and slipped his feet back into his shoes. The air conditioning had made them cold and unfriendly.
“Good night captain.” Chanted the remaining people in the room. The captain walked the long way round to the door, glancing over each persons shoulder before leaving the room. Everything was painfully normal on all but one of the screens. The last, right before the door, was still showing the blip on channel seventy one.
“I’ll have another look at that in the morning. If it’s still there.” The captain left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.
**
“Come on, take it off. Mine’s green.” The taller of the two suited runners, a man, sat with his helmet between his knees. Tapping on the face plate of his companion’s suit he waggles his arm so the green readout is obvious.
Managing to turn the action into a rude gesture, the man’s companion shows the still red square on the arm of their suit and the second helmet is not removed.
“Point taken. I am reckoning that you’re still red because you’re a woman in there.” The sound of his voice makes the still helmeted woman turn towards him. She bangs both sides of her helmet and shrugs.
“Can’t hear me? Oh well, no need for introductions yet then.” The man pushes himself up off the floor and takes two steps towards the porthole. Breathing on the glass to steam is over he slips off the glove on his right hand and dots the condensation with his index finger.
Part 2. The River.
“Wake up captain.” The voice above his head brought the captain back from sleep. Reaching up from under the covers he pressed a button next to the speaker; acknowledging the wakeup call.
“Did we hit stars again?” The captains voice was sleepy but hopeful.
“No sir, sorry sir. It’s that blip we saw earlier on channel seventy one. It’s not so little any more.” The voice cut off with a click.
“On my way. This better be one large blip you have woken me up for.” Reaching for a shirt, and sticking one arm into a sleeve, the captain pushed his way out of his cabin and into the corridor that would take him to the control room.
**
“Okay. I am green now too. I am Flower by the way.” The woman’s voice has a slight lisp.
“You’re a flower? I’m Patrick.” Turning from the porthole Patrick extends his un-gloved hand to Flower.
“No, my name is Flower.” There is a hint of annoyance in hint voice.
“Oh, right. Hi Flower. Interesting name.” Patrick and Flower shake hands. Flower has not removed her gloves.
“Looks like were stuck back here. The captain has locked down the entire section.” Taking off his second glove Patrick strikes the door with the flat of his hand. “If we are in full quarantine then it will be seventy two hours before we can go anywhere. Kind of makes me wish we had not dropped into this section.”
Flower wrinkles her brow and swears under her breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have followed you. I thought you were from the Garden like me.”
“Flower from the Garden. Nice. Why did you follow me then?”
“Don’t take the piss. I followed you because you are wearing one of our suits. Where did you get that by the way?” As she speaks she takes a step back and folds her arms.
“No need to get so aggressive. I work in reconditioning. You know, where you send all your broken stuff to be fixed. This was the first suit I found that fitted me.” Patrick pauses for a second as he notices the reason for Flower’s lisp. “What happened to your teeth?”
“Oh, these? I had my canines removed. I am a Vegetarian.”
**
“Keep reading while I set this up. I think you will enjoy it.” Albert poked the first leg of the telescope into the ground.
“Using an ultra-dense micro fuel the Salmon will slingshot around Achernar.” Joseph looked up from the page. Albert was attaching the gimble to the top of the three legs stuck into the ground. “What’s the Salmon?”
“The ship.” Albert dug around in the metal case. “Keep going.”
“Achernar is an ideal star to initiate the multistage slingshot up the river. Its extreme rotation speed, which leads to its ovoid appearance, will give the Salmon enough energy to easily reach the next star. This star will, in turn, give the Salmon an extra boost to continue its journey.” The first section of the telescope was attached to the legs. The sky was turning a deep inky purple. “The Salmon’s mission is to investigate the newly discovered planetary systems which populate the river; Eridanus.”
Joseph coughed and took a sip from the straw attached to the flask on the upper arm of his jacket. “What are they investigating?”
**
“Shit.” The captain kicked his chair away; it slid up to the end of its rail and stopped. “Stuck in the middle of this damn void with no communications and, now, no engines.”
Everyone else in the room was silent.
“Any ideas?” The captain walked up to the large window which pointed out into blackness and turned to face the control room crew.
“We could try and jump start it?” The voice was quiet.
“Good, do it.”
“But, there are significant risks captain.” The same voice came across the room.
“Any other options? No. Right, jump start the bloody thing.” The captain dragged his chair back down its rail and started jabbing at his console; flicking through pages of statistics.
**
Patrick is standing at the porthole again. Each time the glass clears he breaths a fresh coating of condensation and pokes a new set of finger marks. Flower has a small book in her still gloved hands.
“What the hell are you doing? I can’t concentrate with your incessant huffing.” She looks up from her book. Patrick’s head obscures the porthole.
“I am drawing stars.”
“What? Why?”
“There aren’t any. Not here. But then again I don’t imagine you would notice in the Garden with your blue dome.” Patrick moves away from the porthole so Flower can see.
“No stars. You are right. Why is that then?”
“You don’t know? We have been in a void for nearly three years now and you have never looked out of a window?” Patrick is looking at Flower, trying not to stare at her teeth.
“In the Garden we believe that to keep the plants growing we have to fully commit to the idea that they are growing in a natural environment. We talk and act as if we are on a sunny warm planet and the plants grow better. So no, I have not looked out of a window in the past three years. No need to be so stuck up about it.” Reaching up to the porthole Flower wipes away the remainder of Patrick’s breath with her glove.
“Well, we are in a void at the moment. It’s a huge area of absolute nothingness. No matter, no energy and no forces. As we pass through our engines push out gasses and stuff leaving a trail behind us. That trail, unhindered by anything, keeps moving away from us; as we move away from it. Eventually the trail will meet the edge of the void and collide with the wall of everything. That is quite a light show. We saw it on the way in.” Grinning Patrick shows Flower his full set of teeth.
“You sound like a page from the information channel. That’s where you got it from isn’t it? That little speech you gave there.” Flower doesn’t return Patrick’s smile.
“Yeah; I did get it from there. But there is nothing wrong with keeping informed.” Patrick breaths some new stars onto the porthole. “At the moment there is no way of judging the ship’s speed. No way of plotting where we are and no way of communicating with anyone outside the ship. There is a big argument going on about whether there is any point keeping the engines going at all. We can’t really use them to change direction and there is nothing out there to slow us down; like friction or anything. I think we could basically just coast all the way across. We can’t measure our speed. We could just be sat in the middle of no where not moving. They are pretty sure that’s not the case because of momentum and the lack of friction but…” Flower cuts him off.
“So why don’t they just turn the engines off? It sounds like a waste of fuel to me.”
“I don’t know really. The science is above my head. But from what I can remember of the official reason: Because we don’t know where the edge of the void is we have to keep the engine running so they are ready to provide the back thrust needed to slows us down on the other side. We need to push hard against the wall of matter on the other side so we don’t turn into a light show. They say it takes six months to bring the engines back up to full power and we would not be able to detect the edge in time to get them up and running again before…” Patrick holds up a flat hand and punches his fist into it.
Advanced Critique Encouraged
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