The Arc of the Universe: Episode One
The Arc of the Universe: Episode One
Title Page
Part One: The Ships
Part One: The Ships
Part Two: The Room
The Arc of the Universe
Episode One
By Mark Whiteway
By the same author:
Lodestone Book One: The Sea of Storms
Lodestone Book Two: The World of Ice and Stars
Lodestone Book Three: The Crucible Of Dawn
Lodestone Book Four: Seeds Across the Sky
Lodestone Book Five: The Conquered Shore
Lodestone Book Six: Eternity’s Shadow
www.markwhiteway.weebly.com
Part One: The Ships
Part Two: The Room
“The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Part One: The Ships
Regan Quinn gripped his son tighter as explosions arced like fireflies in the night. It was Mardi Gras in Rio; Bastille Day in Paris; the 4th of July in Central Park. Only this was no celebration. Each fading orange flash ignited oxygen, blew bulkheads apart, snuffed out lives. Human lives. Mothers, sisters, fathers, uncles, wives. lovers—the field of humanity, burned like chaff.
Beside him, Conor winced. Quinn realised his fingernails were digging into the boy’s shoulder. He released his grip.
“What’s happening, Dad?” Conor asked.
Colonists gathered before the wide window like soap scum—like seaweed on an incoming tide. They fixed Conor with needle stares, as if he were interrupting a religious service.
Quinn struggled to sound reassuring. “I don’t know. I’m sure the Ship Master will make an announcement soon.”
The fleet was barely three weeks out from Kapteyn’s Star bound for a virgin world surveyed eleven years earlier. As a port official, Quinn had watched a score of these “wagon trains” depart over the years and never felt any compulsion to join them. Then xanthe fever had taken Sarah.
At the post-funeral reception attended mainly by dutiful co-workers, he’d nodded, served drinks and made small talk. When he finally closed the door on the last of them and gazed about their four-room prefab, its emptiness gnawed at his stomach. He made his decision.
Their destination was a lot less promising prospect than many. Pictures showed a harsh, volcanic world plagued by tectonic shifts and sulphur clouds, but the promise of lucrative mineral deposits was enough to tempt those willing to put up with shaking furniture and the stench of rotten eggs in exchange for a fresh start, a free home and no taxes.
Quinn’s handful of friends did their best to talk him out of it. Conor had said nothing. He would have followed his surviving parent into a pit of fire, which was not so far from reality. Both of us need time and space to heal. That was what Quinn told himself at the time, but like all sweeping statements, it papered over feelings. The hurly burly of departure gave him the perfect excuse to avoid the subject of Sarah’s death.
In the darkness beyond the window, vessels burned, their skeletal superstructures lit like glowing embers. Twenty-seven ships had departed Eire, the colony world orbiting Kapteyn’s Star. How many were left?
As a pen-pushing bureaucrat Quinn knew little of the hazards of space travel. He was certainly unaware of any natural phenomenon that could account for destruction on this scale.
An attack of some sort? He craned his neck, but could detect no weapons fire. Since the diaspora began a hundred years ago, the fledgling colony worlds had seen a dozen flare-ups, ranging from border spats to all-out conflicts. But they were a dozen light years from Eire colony, the nearest human outpost. Besides, what would anyone have to gain from attacking a bunch of miners, geologists, engineers, hydroponic farmers and their families?
A claxon battered his eardrums. What now?
Boom! The floor bucked, and people fell like scythed wheat. Quinn staggered. Conor’s legs folded, but Quinn caught him by the arm and dragged him to his feet. The speaker stayed silent. Where are the announcements—the instructions? Where’s the crew?
Boom! The ship rocked again. Stars danced and folk swayed in a crazy rhythm. He heard a crack,then a hiss. An opaque blemish appeared in the observation window. Jagged lines radiated from the stress point.
A red light began winking above the observation room’s only exit. Decompression protocol. “Get out!” Quinn grabbed a handful of Conor’s jacket and dragged him towards the doors. The other colonists’ movements slowed with ice-bound indecision. “Get out now!”
Quinn thumped the wall panel and the double doors swished open. He staggered through with Conor in tow. The cracking from the window grew louder. A woman screamed. He spun round. Bang! The window shattered and an instant gale plucked people like weeds and tossed them out through the hole. They cart-wheeled away into space, arms and legs flailing.
The survivors staggered and crawled towards the doors, faces contorted against the wind. A red light snapped on and the doors began to close. The automated system was sealing the breach, just as an animal might chew off a limb to escape a trap.
A dark-complexioned girl with Polynesian features bared her teeth and stretched towards him, fingers splayed. Quinn hit the override—no effect. Keeping the door open a second longer than necessary could spell doom for the rest of the ship. Machine logic overrode human compassion. The doors sealed, cutting off the gale.
Conor lay sprawled on the floor where Quinn had dropped him like an old sack. He stared at the doors as if he could see through them to the death and devastation beyond. The claxon wailed as if in grief.
Quinn knelt beside him. “Are you all right?”
Conor met his gaze. After a moment, he nodded.
Quinn eased the boy to his feet and checked the corridor. It was empty. The comm was still silent. Maybe the system was down, or maybe the crew were all dead. Either way, they were on their own.
A red arrow on the wall signified the direction of the nearest lifeboat. “Come on,” Quinn said.
He set off at a rapid pace. Conor trailed after him in a daze.
~
Quinn reached the lifeboat station half-expecting someone to have beaten them to it and the berth to be empty, but to his relief, the indicator shone green. The ship shuddered like a creature in agony. Thin smoke and ozone hung in the air. Circuits shorted out somewhere. He had no way of knowing whether damage was confined to this deck, or whether the entire ship was crippled. Sweat trickled down his temples as he mapped out a plan. Launch the lifeboat and then try to contact the Halley or any other colony ship still functioning and request a pick up.
He performed the airlock sequence as he remembered it from the safety presentation. Inside was a small, round compartment with a raised console at the centre. He pulled down one of the wall-mounted seats, strapped Conor in and then took the seat opposite the panel. The lifeboat could carry twelve at a pinch, but they couldn’t afford to wait.
An amber light winked in front of him, but he had no idea what it meant.
A calm, female voice enveloped them. “Welcome. Safety protocol 12A is in effect. Do you wish to override?”
The lifeboat began to creak and judder. Quinn gripped Conor’s arm with one hand, and his armrest with the other. The lifeboat began to shake violently. “Launch now!”
“Launching.”
Bolts shot back. Thrusters fired. Upward momentum slammed Quinn back into his seat. He screwed his eyes shut. Gradually, the pressure on his chest eased and he opened his eyes. Conor was wide-eyed and breathing heavily, but seemed uninjured.
Quinn forced a smile. “Let’s see if anyone’s out there.”
He hunted for the exter
nal display switch.
“Dad.”
“What is it?”
“Those people...”
“I know. Try to put it out of your mind.”
“Are...are we going to die?”
“Not if I can help it.”
A rectangle of light appeared over the console, rotating slowly. The view showed hulks burning against a star-studded backdrop. Was one of them the Halley?
“Computer. Interface,” Quinn said.
“Working.”
“Transmit general distress call.”
“Automatic beacon is already in effect.”
Naturally. “Has there been any response?”
“Negative.”
Quinn paused. “Show me the positions of all lifeboats in flight.”
“No other lifeboats are in flight.”
“What?”
“No other lifeboats are—”
“I heard you the first time.” Glancing across, he saw Conor’s panicked expression.
“Are you saying we’re the only survivors?”
“No other life support systems are functioning.”
Quinn’s heart thumped in his chest. He felt as if he were falling headlong off a cliff. Close to 12,000 people had left Eire colony. Were they all now dead?
He dragged himself back. “Distance to nearest planetary system?”
“5.7 light years.”
The lifeboat had only sub-light thrusters. They’d run out of fuel before they’d travelled more than a tiny fraction of that distance. The only choices before them ended in either quick or slow death.
The lifeboat started to grind and shake, rattling their seats and their teeth.
“Interface. What’s happening?” Quinn cried.
“External force compression.”
“What?”
“Space in the vicinity of this vessel is being distorted.”
“Cause?”
“Unknown.”
Was this what had destroyed the rest of the fleet?
“Engage thrusters.”
“Course?”
“What? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter...away from this disturbance.”
The lifeboat groaned as if in pain. Snap...Snap...Hiss... Fractures appeared on the wall opposite, leaking precious oxygen into space.
Quinn tore off his restraints, grabbed an emergency pack from beside his seat and began slapping patches over the breaches. Gradually, the hissing abated, but the seals were only temporary.
“Thrusters are inoperative.”
“Dad!” Conor pointed at the adjacent wall. A dark crack was spreading along its length.
Quinn dropped the emergency pack, tore open a locker and dragged out a pair of pressure suits. “Quick!. Put this on.”
Conor unbuckled his seat restraints, and together they donned the suits. The hiss became a roar, as air fled through the crack.
Quinn lowered his headpiece and felt the seals engage, then turned to help his son. Conor’s tiny face was lost in the great glass visor.
The rush of air died away to silence. The vibration in the hull had also stopped.
“Interface,” Quinn called into his suit radio. “Report external conditions.”
“Spatial compression has ceased.”
At least they were no longer being torn apart. Quinn checked the heads-up display—a little over ten hours of oxygen remained. A hundred...a thousand—it wouldn’t have mattered. They couldn’t possibly expect rescue this far out. Conor gazed at him with wide, trusting eyes. I should never have dragged him along. Now he’s going to die and all because of me.
I wild idea came to him. They could cower inside this broken tin can and wait for the end. Or they could embark on one final grand adventure together.
He smiled. “Let’s go for a walk.”
~
As Quinn operated the airlock controls, the lifeboat complained bitterly that unauthorised extra vehicular activity would compromise atmospheric integrity. There’s no bloody air left in here, you idiot. That was what he wanted to say. Instead, he simply countered the lifeboat’s senseless prattle by repeating, “override” until it finally acquiesced.
He stepped through the airlock feeling festive—almost euphoric. He’d heard stories about the odd things people do when faced with imminent death, like rushing back into burning buildings. When fear takes over, common sense takes flight. Or perhaps dying is the only time in our lives when we truly get to shake off our inhibitions.
The galactic arm spread out before them in a bright panoply. Conor’s eyes widened as he drank in the view.
“Dad?” he said, breaking the silence.
“What is it?”
“Does anyone know we’re here?”
Quinn weighed his response. “The lifeboat’s automatic beacon is still transmitting. Whoever’s out there will eventually hear us.” Eire colony was the nearest human outpost. Someone there might well pick up the signal in forty years or so. “I just wanted to say I’m proud of you son. Last year, when your under-14 team made the semis, was one of the proudest moments of my life.”
They floated together in the bejeweled blackness. “Dad.” Conor’s voice sounded strained.
“What?”
“I don’t really like soccer.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you say anything before?”
“I-I don’t know. You worked so hard to get me on the team, remember? The coach was a shipping agent and owed you a favour. Then Mom was so excited. She came to every game. I couldn’t just quit.”
“You did it for us?”
Conor nodded inside his helmet. “After practice, I used to sneak off to the gym.”
“What for?”
“Me and a few others would play tennis.”
“Tennis?”
“Yeah. Sorry, Dad.”
Quinn smiled and shook his head. “When we get back the first thing I’m going to do is buy you a racket.”
“You think Mom would have been disappointed?”
“Mom was never disappointed by anything you did.”
“Not even when I rode the cultivator through her flower bed?”
Quinn chuckled. “You got me there. She was pretty mad at you over that. She made me ground you for a fortnight.”
“She got sick not long after that.”
Quinn frowned. Her coughing had awakened him, but he’d dismissed it as nothing till he saw blood in her spittle. Rounds of doctors and treatments followed, but she just kept getting worse. “I’m sorry.”
“Dad?”
“After she...after she was gone, I should’ve talked to you more. I-I guess I just shut down.”
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“No. No it isn’t.” The stars swam before his eyes. “I dragged you out here. I didn’t give a thought to what you wanted.”
“But I’ve had a terrific time. I made a lot of new friends. And Daisy is great.”
“Daisy?”
“Her father’s a mineralogist.”
“A girl.”
“Sure. We’ve been hanging around a lot after classes.”
“H-hanging,” Quinn parroted. First my son’s a closet tennis player. Now he has a girlfriend. His heart surged at prospect of the man his son might become and then crashed in the realisation that he would never know. Everyone was gone. This floating together in an empty universe was all they had left. “What’s she like?”
“I dunno. We just seem to enjoy the same stuff. She laughs at my jokes.”
“Your mother never laughed at mine.”
“That’s ’cause they’re not very funny, Dad.”
“Hmmm.” Quinn hunted for a guide star, like searching for a familiar friend in a crowd. “You know, I always wanted to be an astronomer when I was growing up. The thought of what might lie out there in all that immenseness fascinated me. But my math was never up to scratch. I ended up in an office listing inventories and organising schedules. Engines d
rive ships, but they can’t fly unless their paperwork’s in order, right?”
The comm was silent. Conor’s suit drifted. Something’s wrong. Quinn peered through his son’s visor. The boy’s skin was pale and his eyes were closed.
“Connor?”
No reaction. Quinn checked the readouts. CO2 was sky high. Quinn reached for his air line, his gloved fingers fumbling at the connection. He pulled it free with a hiss and then attached it to the receptor on his son’s suit. It clicked home. As oxygen flowed into Conor’s suit, Quinn’s air reserves dropped. He didn’t care. Pressing his helmet against his son’s, he willed the boy to wake up, but the indicators remained flat-lined.
Quinn’s chest heaved. Salt tears stung his eyes. Baring his teeth, he ripped out the air line and watched the last of his own air bleed away into space.