“Your main screen is so big!” Cygnus squealed, hugging him tight as they looked out the wide image of deep space, “Isn’t it Iain?”
He turned back from the bank of controls she had nudged him to glance over at. He had no idea what the readouts, holograms and buttons meant or did. Iain sighed, then shuddered as he turned back to the big screen the dominated the vast vaulted chamber. This wasn’t like the tiny TV stage sets or cramped shots of the ISS and other human built spacecraft control rooms he was more familiar with. The bridge of the Transient Void was cavernous, and from the number of chairs, looked like it could have had a crew of hundreds, once upon a time. Could some of them even be frozen below decks? Or had they bugged out on the lifeboats ages ago?
“It’s quite amazing,” he forced out, could even hear a bit of an echo call back to him. “Big as an Imax, really.”
IMAX? Skipper asked.
“A really, really, big screen,” he said. “Biggest screens we have back at home on Earth. Or did. Along time-”
Cygnus caught on quickly, cut off his awkward reminiscing.
“Yes,” she said, “Give us a show Skipper. I want to see what the universe out here looks like through your eyes.”
I have the capacity of viewing across all electromagnetic wavelengths, it stated, sounding reluctant to put on such a display. You are merely a limited organic life form. You can’t possibly appreciate such a display. Especially not as we are currently phase-skipping.
“Nonsense,” Cygnus insisted. “What you find beautiful, I’ll find beautiful.”
Then she elbowed him in the ribs, and added under her breath, “you’d better look away from this, preferably towards the navigational boards over there. And memorize whatever you see.”
“I don’t know what I’m looking at,” Iain whispered back. “Even if I memorize what I see, I won’t know what any of it means.”
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“Doesn’t matter,” she told him, “We’ll get the extract the images later. Trust me you don’t want to see what’s coming from the big screen.”
Extract the images?
He was going to ask Cygnus what she meant by ‘extract’, but she’d already turned away and was addressing the ship’s Skipper.
“Please?” she pleaded. “Just a little look. A few seconds. I’ll be fine.”
Very well, the Skipper replied. But only a few seconds. I do not wish to cause you grievous harm.
Iain could swear he still heard her screams echoing down the ship’s corridors hours later.
He had been able to find some fabric to wad up into a sponge later and press them gently over her burned, blood read eyes after they made their way back to the passenger deck and their quarters.
“You should go to the infirmary and get that looked at,” he suggested. “I was fixed up pretty good there.”
“No, we can’t do that,” Cygnus whimpered. “For one thing, I like my eyes the way they are. And for another, Skipper won’t worry about either you or me trying anything. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
And so he continued padding her injury.
“Gently. eyes hurt,” she forced out, gripping his thigh with her hand as he worked to soother what she had described as a bit of a flash fry of gamma and x-rays on the outer layers of both her eyes. “oh… that’s better.”
“How bad is it?” he asked. “That didn’t do permanent damage, did it? I mean the pain, the blindness, that’s just temporary, right?”
God, that would be an awful consequence for getting what was needed to escape the Transient Void
“Oh yes,” she told him in a strained voice. “They will get better in a few hours, maybe have an afterglow for a few days after that. I do this from time to time anyway to remind myself how good I’ve got it, being what I am. Sometimes I need that lesson.”
“Then I guess I have to thank you for telling me not to look into naked multi-phase space then.”
He still felt bad about letting her suffer alone for it.
Her grip on his thigh loosen a bit, then grip hard again when he pressed on her other eye.
While he was soaking the eye, he leaned over to her ear, speaking in a whisper.
“Did you at see anything recognizable, anyplace nearby we can get to?”
“U-huh,” she whispered into his ear in response. “I think we might be passing through an inhabited region of space, a binary star cluster within the next few days. I can make sure with a short-term memory brain scan on you. There are plenty of sleep capsules down below that will be able to do the job. Once I get a confirmation,” she clapped her hands, her clothes not falling off this time. “We’ll be able to begin plan A.”
Iain let out a sigh of relief at that confirmation, feeling Cygnus shiver in response.
“Oh, do that again,” she breathed. “It tickles.”