The Pegasus was taking a deep breath. Tord felt it all around him. The atmosphere on the bridge was a cauldron of emotion, with a centre of stillness. Quiet concentration mixed with determination, excitement and, for some people, fear.
Tord himself was a mirror image of the same blend of emotions. Excitement sparked in his mind, fear weighed in his stomach. His concentration rode the waves of feelings, and he struggled to calm down. To breathe and prepare himself. To focus on what was suddenly his responsibilities. The last 45 minutes had been a whirlwind after receiving the sudden and unexpected message.
“Mr Allen, please report to the bridge”.
The confusion he had felt as he was hurrying from the common room where he had been sharing the excitement with the rest of the off-duty crew had only grown since then. Finding himself standing in front of the captain, he had only heard half his words through his scrambled brain. But two things stood out. Nick was missing, and he was to take the astrogation duty station for the jump. Astrogation, for the first jump through the wormhole?!
Tord looked up at the timer on the wall, counting down. Seven seconds. Such a short time. An eternity. Their end, or the beginning of the future.
Six seconds. Tord closed his eyes and felt calm approaching. Five seconds, and all he had to do was to wait.
Four seconds, and everything was already done, nothing to prepare or change. The astrogation data had been - three seconds - locked in yesterday. Perhaps he should have double checked the data?
Two seconds. His eyes flickered over the screen, showing long numbers blinking.
One second.
Surely Nick had checked it.
-
Three hours earlier.
The next time acceleration was eased, Goose moved Nick’s body out of the chair. He had noticed some people staring the last time, when he had remained seated for the duration of the break. The sensation of gravity was still an exciting mystery to him, and he almost missed the press of two gees pressing down.
He decided to empty Nick’s bladder and let the duty officer know he was heading to his room, noting the other people moving around. Some heading to get a drink, others to their rooms. Automatically, he registered facial expressions, body language and read their lips, storing away the information. Now that he had full access to Nick’s body’s resources, he was leveraging part of Nick’s brain to support both information processing and storage. He was still reeling from the power. Not sure exactly how far he could push the capabilities of the new setup, Goose kept adding more and more tasks, more and more information. So far, the hybrid brain architecture had coped with anything he could throw at it, with only minor adjustments and improvements. When first scanning the brain, Goose had noticed that some of the cell structures showed signs of degradation, and he had repaired them using specially programmed nanobots. He had also made the brain grow new cells. The human brain seemed to be adept at learning and growing new connections when they were small children, becoming less efficient as humans grew older. Goose had found a way to reverse that process, and Nick’s brain was currently learning at the pace of a six-year-old.
Goose steered Nick’s body into his cabin and went to empty his bladder. When he came back into the bedroom, there was a knock on the door.
“Yes?” he said.
“Hi Nick, it’s me!”
It was Sae, and he opened the door for her to step inside. She smiled at him and opened her mouth to speak. Goose watched her face, and alarm bells rang in his head when….
“FLOWER-VERTIGO-ALIGNED-PRESENT-SEABOARD”.
Goose’s world collapsed on itself.
-
Two hours earlier.
Sae was in a panic, and Rashi didn’t know what to do. The always rational, always calm Sae had collapsed on the floor. Her body was shaking, and she was gasping for air, tears streaming down her face.
It had begun like they had planned. Sae entered the room and triggered the dead man’s switch - and it had worked! Nick’s body has fallen to the floor as Goose lost control. After they had moved him to the bed, it had all started going downhill.
Rashi and Sae had both tried speaking to Nick, who appeared unconscious. Eyes open, staring into space, nothing they said registered. Sae had tried messaging over the restricted communication channel without a response, and with every passing minute, she had become more and more alarmed. Keith had remained in the room's corner, observing silently, as the girls tried to reach through to Nick.
Rashi had fought her own battle with despair, which she had won, largely thanks to Sae’s deteriorating state. One of them had to stay collected. For now, anyway. In a corner of her mind, the possibility that Nick wasn’t answering because Nick wasn’t there anymore sat like an unwelcome visitor. Again, she pushed the thought away as she forced herself to think through their situation.
In theory, the trigger phrase should have done three things: Disconnect the mindpal from the network, leaving only a channel to Sae open. Kill off all nanites and disable the nanofactory. And last, disrupt Goose’s control channels to Nick’s body.
As a secondary consequence, Rashi knew Goose should right now be dying, slowly. The alien imprint that had leveraged Nick’s cell structure required constant renewal to fight off Nick’s body’s immune response. Every minute, more cells were destroyed, and at one point there would not be enough left of Goose to salvage him.
If their theory was correct, Goose had done something to Nick that isolated his brain from his body. They had hoped Nick could regain control once Goose was disabled, but so far… It seemed like Goose had done something more permanent. Rashi wondered if Goose had hijacked Nick’s entire brain, erasing him in the process. The black thought in her brain tried to push its way to the front, but again, Rashi pushed back. Gathering her thoughts, she moved to sit next to Sae on the floor, putting an arm around her.
“Sae, “ she said. “We can fix this, but you need to calm down. There is something that we can do, and first you need to take a deep breath.”
Sae did not respond, and Rashi remained beside her, holding her. She also took Nick’s hand and held it. She didn’t know if Nick could feel it, but just in case that he could, she wanted him to know she was there. That they were both there.
It was only a few minutes later, even as it seemed like an hour or more, when Rashi finally felt Sae’s shoulder relax. Sae leaned into her for a moment, before getting to her feet while wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Right. Enough of that, “ she said, and reached a hand down to Rashi to pull her to her feet. Sae looked at Keith, still standing quietly in the corner of the room. “Sorry about that.”
Keith simply said, “Ready?”, and Rashi watched an unspoken conversation between the two. There was something growing between the two. A kind of respect, or trust.
“Yes, “ Sae said. “Let’s solve this problem.”
“You’re the only connection that we have with the alien, “ Keith began. “Have you confirmed that the connection is working?”
“I’ve checked that it’s there, and open. But I’ve not received any responses to my queries. Either Goose isn’t responding, or he isn’t picking up my attempts at communication.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Let’s assume that he can hear you for now, “ Keith said. “What have you tried to say?”
At this, Sae looked down as her voice faltered. “Honestly, nothing sensible. Mostly incoherent screaming.”
Keith smiled at Sae. “Thought so, “ he said. “And if your predictions from before are correct, the alien has… what? Another 72 hours before they degrade?”
“Yeah, “ Rashi spoke up. “Something like that. But there’s another deadline coming up… in a few hours, we are going to jump. Probably to some location in space where Goose expects the signal to traverse. And if we don’t actively monitor for the signal, it will pass us by. That’s the end of his mission.”
“Good point, “ Keith said. “Ms Anson, how about… reminding our alien friend about these two deadlines?”
-
One hour earlier
Anger… an unfamiliar word to Goose. A new word for a new sensation, a new feeling. He could feel the anger filling him up. Consuming him. Everything was at risk because of the stupid humans. He should have disabled them while he had the chance. Before that girl said those words… words that had ruined everything. If only he had detected her intentions a split second faster.
In one hour, they would jump to the target location, and The Pegasus would appear in a perfect location to intercept the signal. If he wasn’t back in control by then… they would know something was wrong as soon as the jump completed. All his carefully laid plans. His hours of observing the bridge crew and building a model to predict their response and behaviour. He knew the captain would initially blame Nick, who had been in charge of the astrogation target data, but he also knew with equal certainty that carefully chosen words would have calmed the captain. Deflected the blame. Reinforced his trust in Nick. Words that Goose had prepared.
Everything would have been ready for Goose to suggest that they extend the laser receiver array to sweep the neighbourhood for signals. Everything would be perfect to line it up in the direction where…
Where the signal would come from. The backup of his entire People. A complete capture of their state. Every thought they had ever had. All knowledge, every intention. The thought brought a wave of intense longing - longing for the feeling of belonging to the network. He was tired of individuality, of the limitations, of the… narrowness. He remembered being a creature who could think a million thoughts at once, who could observe the entire domain of their existence in a moment. Who was whole.
And now everything was at risk. He would be alone - forever.
Goose was back to the original location in Nick’s stomach. Restricted, cut away from the access he had to the brain architecture, cut away from the access to Nick’s nervous system and muscles. The nanites that he had used to maintain control were all destroyed. He couldn’t even access the factory. All his nanites were gone. And he was back to… this slow state of being. A world of limits, where he was not in control.
The humans had tried to communicate with him. He had heard Sae’s repeated and increasingly desperate attempts to reach Nick. His only source of joy was in denying her that contact - but he also knew that responding to her was his only chance.
Goose heard her again. Either you reconnect Nick, or I send a message to the captain that the astrogation data has been altered, she messaged. He will abort the jump, and we will go back to Deimos.
This time, he responded.
No. Goose replied. First, we jump to the vector coordinates, then I give you Nick back.
Goose was expecting an immediate response, but it was several minutes before Sae replied. She must be consulting with someone else, and Goose wondered who was in the room with her. Probably Rashi. His lack of hearing was frustrating - with only the single communications channel to Sae open, he could only guess at what they were discussing.
Without Nick back, and soon, you die. There’s no way we can trust you any longer. For all we know, Nick is already gone, with no way to bring him back. We have nothing to lose. You have everything.
That is not so. Nick is still here. I can easily reconnect his brain to his body.
So you claim. But we cannot trust you.
Goose knew his bargaining position was bad, and he thought about what to do. It was excruciatingly slow - he had gotten used to the vast processing powers in Nick’s brain.
And I cannot trust you. If I reconnect Nick, how can I know you will help?
A small pause, and then
This is Rashi. Sae has connected this channel to my mindpal. Goose, you know I have supported you from the beginning. You know I want to help you save your People. That has not changed. I promise you: If you bring back Nick, we will help you.
And a few seconds later.
Goose. You know me.
Goose remembered, then. Remembered the feelings of friendship. Remembered Rashi. He parsed her words carefully, and he brought up the model he had built of Rashi’s behaviour. She was honest. He knew that. Trust was such a human concept, and he remembered his initial confusion over the possibility that communication could contain intentional falsehoods.
But you also need to trust me. To bring back Nick, I will need to create nanites.
-
30 minutes earlier.
Rashi saw Nick’s eyelids flutter, and he suddenly sat up straight in the bed. She ran over to him and threw her arms around him, hugging him hard, tears streaming down her face. Sae was calm and collected, and now it was Rashi’s turn to let her emotions take over for a little while.
“Rashi…” Nick said. His voice was hesitant, but strong.
“You are back!” she replied. Sae and Keith were standing at the back of the room, talking about something. Their voices were hushed, but they were both using sharp gestures and talking over one another. Rashi knew what they were discussing.
“Nick.” She said and smiled at him, “Lot’s of things to talk about, but we have little time. Here, active this.”
She sent him the small program Sae had created. It was a monitor, showing the activity level of the nanofactory. Any activity in the nanite factory would generate an alert.
“But,” Nick said, “Goose will die off soon... If there are no nanites to replenish him?”
“If all goes according to plan, we will deal with that soon. Listen up -”
As Rashi told Nick the plan, Sae and Keith quieted down. Suddenly, a lighting strip in the ceiling began to pulse in angry red, and a voice blared over the loudspeakers.
“All hands, all hands, all hands. Prepare for wormhole transition in three minutes.”
-
Now.
Tord saw the countdown hit zero.
They had plenty of theories about the wormholes. How it would feel like to jump. What it would look like. What would happen. Tord had his own concerns about temporal paradoxes and causality, and they flickered across his brain as the countdown finished.
It all happened in the blink of an eye. One moment they were around Sol, and in the next they were… elsewhere. A moment between moments, and…
Tord experienced… living. A life. Finding a girl, settling down, having children, going to work, watching his parents die, seeing his own children grow up and have children, growing old, breakfasts, shows, movies, going on walks, visiting Earth, a honeymoon to Enceladus to visit his old friend Nick, commiserating about their time on Deimos. About The Pegasus failing again and again until funding ran out…
It was all fading now. Fading too fast. Fading painfully. This was a life, a life he had lived, and it was disappearing. Like a dream, pulled out of his memories. In a moment between stars, Tord had lived a full life, taken choices, had experiences, loved, lost.
He looked around the bridge and could see vacant expressions on the faces around him. They spoke no words as they looked at each other. Everyone was… a little older. A second older. A lifetime older. Their eyes held… the shadows of a life fully lived. A woman behind him sat quietly, tears streaming down her face, her hands twitching as they grabbed for something that was no longer there. Another woman radiated happiness, and Tord could see her shoulders easing as if from a terrible tension. Raw emotion sparked like electricity around the bridge when a voice broke the silence.
“All… All stations, please report.”
Tord shook his head and blinked his eyes. The strongest wave of déjà vu washed over him as he looked down at his terminal, trying to remember his training. He initiated the preset sequence of control checks with his mindpal.
And as the numbers started appearing on the display in front of him, he went entirely still. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
“Sir…” His voice croaked and failed him. He tried again. “Sir. Astrogation… “ he breathed in. Out. “...astrogation checks show non-compliance with targeting data.” Tord gulped. “We are not at TOI 700”.