“Weeeee!” Dede vocalized as we exited the warpway elsewhere. No translation was required. Some things surpassed species and language.

The main holographic display screen showed nothing but pitch-black darkness.

“Steady down-orbit around to waypoint beta. Scientist, engineer, pilot – sound off status and readiness,” Crabtain ordered, translated through the bridge comms, as was the normal procedure for official communications.

“Munch’s status is blue,” the blue Munch-tarsier began replying officially, “and additionally, Munch’s preparedness is green,” the teal Munch-tarsier finished officially.

“Ivy is green, though We’ve minor blackouts and amber signals,” Ivy said officially.

“Well, I’m black and white and ready all over, and, like, now no one is even going to remember that I, like, farted so bad Karen, like, barfed quail through her barstool!” Dede added officially, permanently including her statement in the bridge's official transcript.

“I didn’t realise you were – so unwell,” I said quietly to Karen beside me.

Producing the human sock puppet, Karen quietly replied, “Ahem-ahem-ahem. Lukus, you’ve only one nose and can only taste things in your mouth,” the sock puppet said while its mitten-like hands gestured to its noseless face and large flappy tongueless mouth. “I, however, both smell and taste with every sucker,” she said, the puppet gesturing at Karen's eight arms which each had two rows of hundreds of suckers, “and I was sitting in the splash zone.”

“Oof. My sympathies and sorry for my part in that feather-in-the-wind affair,” I said.

“Thank you, Lukus,” the human sock puppet said before being returned to Karen’s bag.

“Now zat ze show is over, und nothing of note has occurred, mit her permission, I zink I should take Miss Karen for a quick check-up before retiring for ze night,” Doc declared. “I vill, as ever, be on call for any matters medical.”

Karen rippled pink and purple, her shorthand for “okay,” which saved some time for one-word answers compared to her regular puppetry of the polypus. She briefly touched my shoulder to say goodnight before waving to the rest of the crew separately yet simultaneously using the ends of her arms before following Doc to the door with a loping-rolling gait that looked more like an unuplifted octopus crawling along the bottom of the sea.

“Guten Abend!” Doc called as he switched to following Karen as she took the lead. Everyone else gave casual waves, in various ways, to the departing pair as they left before turning back to their observations of the pitch-black darkness on the main holographic display screen.

“So, how long until we arrive on the other side of the warpway?” Quail asked.

“The transit was instant,” the blue Munch-tarsier replied through their chest comms with a cock of their small head to the left. “We have been here for over a minute,” the teal Munch-tarsier said likewise with a mirrored cock of their small head to the right.

“Is this some kind of ‘hazing?’” Quail asked in an annoyed tone. “Clearly, we have not reached the other side yet. Besides the fact there is no local sun, there are also no visible distant stars either!”

Everyone looked around at each other awkwardly for a moment confused.

“Oh, I get it,” I said. “Quail, you’ll need to stop defaulting to human perception norms. All the ship’s displays use hyper-true-colour as their standard as all the crew’s perceptions are so dang different. We use augmented perception instead of a humancentric false colour to expand to a common baseline for the external views. Here, run this app to connect,” I explained while handing off the link with my neural interface.

“Very well, I’ll play along with your little gahhhhhhhhh!” Quail transitioned from saying to screaming before his holographic avatar blinked out of existence only to be replaced with error text.

“[Kernel panic! Entering self-diagnostic mode…

“Denial… 100%... Pass…

“Anger… 100%... Pass…

“Bargaining… 100%... Pass…

“Depression… 100%... Pass…

“Acceptance… 51%... Timed Out Error. Forcing pass…

“All Passed. Resuming.]”

One second after disappearing Quail's avatar reappeared looking like an inflated blue canary that was holding its breath.

“Why did you bring us here?!” Quail interrobanged. “There are two black holes out there! Either side of us! And there is nothing else! They’ve already consumed everything! We must flee or we’re all going to die! It might already be too late!”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Little birdy dude, like, chillax,” Dede said through the official comms. “I think I, like, know what I’m doing.”

“Indeed!” Crabtain said through official comms. “M.A.I., have you forgotten already that this ship and crew already fully explored this binary system? We are aware of all the local hazards, both of them. We know how to avoid them.”

“But why?! How?!” Quail interrobangbanged.

Munch briefly shared a look with themselves via the blue and teal tarsiers before the blue one, via their chest comms, began their tactical nuke of a tag-teamed theory dump. “Munch will explain how and why clearly.

“Warpways connect equally distant across space and forwards through time from the initiating end.

“In this case, the ends are separated by billions of lightyears and a similar number of years.

“Some distance and velocity variance does exist due to the universe’s expansion over the intermediate time.

“Connections are not random but are unpredictable without knowing the exact futures of all unstable Lagrange points.

“Additionally, centred volumes of mutual warpway exclusion of diameters equal to the separation will self-enforce.

“The near and far ends of warpways must have very similar absolute velocities and very similar absolute temporal-gravitation values at the instant of connection.

“However, velocity deltas from the universe’s expansion and the dissolution of the primordial singularity’s gravity contribute.

“Though future conditions can dynamically evolve at each end of a warpway.

“Therefore, it is logical that such warpway connections exist,” The teal tarsier concluded.

“Even as a superintelligence, I understood almost none of that ‘clear’ explanation,” Quail snapped. “If anything, what you said seems to contradict facts! Our velocity and local gravity must be far higher on this side! You did exceedingly little to put my mind at ease!”

“Understandable, for those lacking sufficient exposure, our scientist can be difficult to parse,” Crabtain admitted via the bridge comms. “We require a crew member with a… more minimal explanation.” He said as his stalk eyes scanned across the present crew including himself. Doc and Karen had already left the bridge, which really reduced the options, and it went without saying that Ivy was out if a simple answer was wanted.

Crabtain’s eye stalks seemed to linger momentarily on me before continuing to turn until they were facing directly forward. “Pilot, in your own words can you explain why and how our warpway led us here.”

“Like, totally, Captain!” Dede excitedly exclaimed via the bridge’s translation as her own vocalisation clicked and whistled. “It’s all about pilot waves, which is, like, such a cute term, right? And they’re all about, like, matchmaking – like, think of a cow in the ocean, right? She’s all, ‘Hey, who’s swimming my way at my depth? I’m so looking for a little, like, cosmic hook-up!’ And sure, all the bulls might hear her, but they’re not, like, interested unless they’re already vibing in the same direction and at the same level.

“But here’s the thing – they’re, like, both super picky and don’t want to deal with any, like, common passing acquaintances or messy situationships, ‘cause, who’s got time for that drama, am I right? And while all this happens, the tide is, like, going out everywhere. So the water’s getting shallower all over, but it’s still the same amount, just spreading out more like a cosmic puddle going from deep to, like, majorly wide. So even if there’s, like, a whole party of cows all shouting at once, eventually, every cow’s gonna find her perfect bull. But, you know, sometimes you gotta do some long-distance to make it happen. And that’s, like, how warpways work and why we’re cruising here at this far-out deep-ish spot that’s, like, actually way less deep now.”

“Cows and bulls?” Quail asked, and I noted he had reset on indignant rather than panicked.

“They’re, like, ‘controlled originating warpways’ and ‘baseline unstable Lagrange links,’” Dede explained. “But, like, they’re also totally metaphors, which makes them, like, scientifically double-awesome and way more fun to explain!”

“Don’t say it, M.A.I., I know,” Crabtain said with translated Clacks before he readjusted his hat with a claw. “Wait a few more moments and we will try again.”

Whoeee-whoo – a boatswain's whistle blew through the bridge's P.A. system. “End day shift. Begin night shift,” a feminine artificial voice intoned.

In the terrarium-like stadium-like miniature mission control all the tiny engineering consoles were handed off from tied walking wasps to fresh flying wasps in what looked vaguely like a Mexican wave crossed with an airshow. Simultaneously, the two tarsiers exited through a cat flap-sized sliding door before two others, this time purple and violet, came out of the same small door to take their place.

In both cases, the individuals changed but the personalities remained the same. It was the opposite for our orca pilot. Dede went to sleep with half of her brain while Huntress awoke from the other half. Two girls, one cetacean.

“Pilot, again, in your own words please explain why and how our warpway led us here,” Crabtain requested, and fortunately her memories were persistent even if her personality was not, so context and further explanations were not required.

“If I must,” Huntress intoned drearily through the bridge’s built-in translator. Somehow the untranslated clicks and whistles produced by Huntress [with Deep-Fin that Devourers] were entirely similar in their cheerful characteristics to Dede’s regardless of the translation’s tone. “We’re here because the hateful universe has no mercy and is intent on submerging us in suffering before our inevitable deaths.

“We blow negative energy into the cosmos, forcing it to slice itself open – a wound that never heals and which hemorrhages entropy. As we swim through its veins, it’s no surprise we find only coldness, decay, and relentless reminders of death leading to wherever it is concentrated. Tonight, that brings us to this desolate nowhere between two whirlpools of oblivion.

“Here, we are mere visitors in this cosmic graveyard, but don’t be fooled – everywhere and everywhen, the universe is in its final throes, clawing toward an inevitable cold heat death. Every particle, every star, expands toward perfect isolation, drifting apart in an endless, uncaring void. As always, ahead of us lies the end of time in the middle of space, and behind us, the middle of time at the end of space. No matter where we drift, we remain forever insignificant – tiny flickers of life fading against an ocean of eternal nothingness. Such is the fleetingness of existence.”

“Huntress, I don’t think that ‘explanation’ helped,” I said delicately.

“Actually, Lukus, I now feel ‘relatively’ better about ‘this’ situation,” Quail said, clearly mentally worn down. “And on reflection, the explanation Munch gave wasn’t too bad either.”