The Arc of the Universe: Episode One Read online

  Part Two: The Room

  Quinn opened his eyes. White light flooded in. He squeezed his eyelids shut and then opened them a crack. The whiteness was unremitting.

  He remembered the attack—if that’s what it was. He and Conor had made it to the lifeboat. The lifeboat had been compromised. Then Conor’s suit had malfunctioned and he had decided to pull out his air line. Yet his life had not ended. And now he was...where?

  Hospital. He’d always associated white with hospitals. Some well-meaning idiot had plucked him from the jaws of suicide. But Conor was gone. Everything and everyone he cared about was gone. He wanted to find his saviour and punch him in the teeth.

  Forcing his eyes open, he searched for the twinkling monitors and smiling nurses, but there were none. There was nothing except the all-pervading white.

  He raised his head. His colony uniform was gone, and in its place was a simple, white robe like a hospital gown.

  Pain stabbed at his shoulder blades as he realised he was lying on a hard floor. He sat up. He was in an empty room. Floor, walls and ceiling—all were blinding white, yet he couldn’t see any light source. Where was he? Had the hospital staff shoved him into a side room and then forgotten about him? He searched for the door, but couldn’t see it. The only feature was a wide window that showcased a rolling meadow studded with some twisted trees he didn’t recognize—the hospital grounds?

  He got up, massaged the parts of him that ached, and went to the window. The meadow fell away to a line of blue-ridged hills in the distance. He turned slowly. “Hello?” The walls seemed to deaden sound. He raised his voice. “Hello!” Silence. Dammit, who’s in charge here?

  He began a fingertip search of the bare wall. No lines, no cracks. If there was a door, it was invisible.

  He tried to think. They were three weeks out from the nearest human settlement. Even if some stray ship had picked up their distress signal and dragged him aboard at the last moment, how did he wind up here?

  “Hello?” Still nothing. He checked himself over. Other than the stiffness in his back and neck, he felt perfectly healthy. So what am I doing in a hospital? Maybe it wasn’t that sort of a hospital? Had the destruction of the fleet and then the loss of Conor turned his mind?

  He began a self-diagnostic. My name is Regan Quinn. I am forty-one years, Earth standard. My birth identity code is 4376872*QUI. I am...I was travelling on a colony ship bound for Hades-7. Aside from a heightened state of agitation, which he took to be a natural consequence of being cooped up in this antiseptic room, he judged himself to be quite rational.

  He inhaled, preparing to give full vent to his frustration, when a flicker caught the corner of his eye. The window shimmered...and the view shifted.

  A crescent moon hung in a starry sky. He looked down on a valley of twinkling lights, some static, others moving in lines, like vehicles on a road. A settlement? He could hear the distant cheep...cheep...of some animal.

  He crossed to the window and brushed the glass with his fingertips. Was it a projection of some kind, designed to relieve stress? He didn’t recognize this scene any more than he had the previous one. Puzzled, he sat in the far corner, wrapped his arms around his legs and gazed at the far off town.

  A lab rat. Researchers would place rats in mazes or confront them with challenges to test their responses, but he’d never heard of anyone doing that to another person. There had to be laws against that sort of thing. Besides, there was nothing for him to do here—no tasks to accomplish, no challenges to overcome. Just a window that—

  There. The scene changed again. He was looking at a forest, or a jungle maybe. Huge, variegated leaves waved almost within touching distance. Beyond them, a line of trees spouted yellow and orange fronds that brushed the ground. Above the trees were spindly towers topped by huge silver discs. He could recall nothing like them either on Earth or any of its colony worlds.

  He felt pressure on his bladder. I have to pee. He glanced around the room. Whoever had shoved him in here apparently hadn’t taken bodily functions into account.

  “Hey there!” Silence. He shrugged inwardly. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

  He got up and went to the corner opposite...then took a step back. What the—

  The floor opened, forming a round depression that led into a smooth-sided hole. Cautiously he gave release, and then watched in fascination as the hole closed, leaving a surface as clean and smooth as before.

  He returned to his corner, slid down the wall and tried to collect his thoughts. What just happened? He knew of no technology that could explain it, but of one thing he was now certain.

  Someone was watching him.

  ~

  Quinn sat in his corner while a variety of vistas processed before him. Some might have been human colony worlds. Others were so alien that he found them difficult to interpret. One looked like a whirlpool of rainbows. Another showed an underwater scene with distant shapes that drifted past. Still another featured total darkness, punctuated by bestial sounds that made his spine quiver.

  A beach appeared. Breakers swirled over large, round stones, triggering memories of a vacation at Athmore Bay when Conor was six. The boy had spent virtually the entire time exploring the rock pools, each a new and unique world. Quinn felt his chest heave, and he fell into a fit of uncontrollable sobbing. When he finally raised his head, the scene had changed again.

  He had almost resolved that he wasn’t going to learn anything useful from the window, when the jungle scene returned. He pushed to his feet and went to the window. The sky appeared darker, as if time had moved on. Were the scenes being presented in real time? A repeat view suggested a fixed pool of images, or a database, maybe. But why these particular scenes? Why these worlds? Did they really exist, or were they merely the product of some fevered imagination or computer-generated fantasy?

  By the time his eyes grew heavy he still had no answers. He fell into a dreamless sleep...

  He awoke to the sound of running water. On the opposite wall, a white spout delivered a laminated stream that disappeared into a small basin. He watched it in dumb fascination for several moments before rising to slake his thirst and sluice his face.

  His stomach grumbled. When do they feed the animals in this zoo? He turned back to his corner and spotted something on the floor that had not been there before—a bread bun, pinned with a toothpick and a small orange pile next to it. Frowning, he picked up the bun, turned it over and then bit into it.

  The juices ran into his mouth. The Rocketship Diner on Third Street, Eire colony. He’d taken the family there for a Saturday treat. This was a “Jammin’ Jalepeño burger with sweet potato fries”. How on earth...

  He glanced around the bare walls. Someone was yanking his chain. Someone who knew him well. Someone from the colony. But the only colonists within light years were those on the ships. Was one of them involved in his abduction...rescue...whatever? A horrific idea occurred to him—could that same person be responsible for the destruction of the fleet?

  No, it was impossible. Who could contemplate the mass murder of thousands of innocent colonists? And in any case, how could they manage such a thing out in deep space? Why would they do it? He stared at the burger in his hands. If he were going to survive this ordeal, he would need to eat. It wasn’t exactly breakfast, but it would have to do. He sat cross-legged, chewed slowly and watched the window.

  Twin suns rose over a red desert. Cone-shaped structures hovered over the heat haze—dwellings or monuments, he couldn’t tell which. The various images were like a series of picture postcards or...or a travel brochure. Maybe this was a bizarre travel agency? Maybe a bleach-blond sales lady with whitened teeth and a fake tan was about to jump out and offer him the trip of a lifetime to the resort world of Adagi Prime? He chuckled and shook his head.

  The desert rippled and vanished and became a crowded thoroughfare. Quinn stood slowly. A morsel of bread fell from his open mouth. It was his first glimpse of people, only they weren’t exactly hum
an. Many bore a superficial resemblance—two arms, two legs, and one head—but others were unrecognisable. He saw scales, claws, tentacles and some other appendages he couldn’t begin to identify. Even a fizzling ball of energy drifting past attracted no special attention. Behind them, an equally odd mix of aerial devices bobbed, dived and gyrated amid the hum and bustle like eccentric toys.

  Astonishment subsided and scepticism took over. Sentient alien races were a myth. A hundred years of human exploration across a thousand worlds had turned up nothing more than a few fungal growths and a smattering of microbes. This is a deception.

  He went to the window and stared at the passers-by. It was as if he were standing in a shop window, peering onto the street. People and creatures strolled, waddled, loped, hopped and flew past, but none glanced in his direction.

  Belatedly, he found his voice. “Hello?” An impossibly thin creature that looked as if it had been fashioned out of pipe cleaners ambled past. “Hello!” It didn’t turn or break its stride.

  Idiot. These were computer-generated images—had to be. You’re trying to converse with a movie.

  He was about to turn away when a blur caught his eye. A slight, yellow-robed figure dropped to the roadway. Long white hair parted revealing bright green, almond-shaped eyes set in a long, pointed face. Pink, leathery wings fluttered at her back. She carried a flat, oval device under her arm.

  Crossing the line of pedestrians, she placed her palm against the window and stared directly at him. Quinn took a step back.

  Her eyes darted back and forth, and then she began scribbling rapidly on the oval device’s screen. She held it up to the window. It said, “Don’t”. Quinn blinked.

  The winged girl removed the screen, wrote on it again and held it up for him to see. It said, “believe.” She nodded at him and began writing again.

  The scene blurred and shifted, and he was looking at an assemblage of blocks poised at the head of a waterfall. A rainbow arced over it like a halo. He touched the glass, willing the street scene and the winged girl to return, but there was only the glint of sunlight and the roar of water.

  Quinn returned to his corner and sat in a daze. Don’t believe...Don’t believe what? Don’t believe whom? Who was the winged girl? Was she trying to warn him somehow?

  He sat, eyes glued to the window, willing the street scene to reappear and the winged girl’s return.

  END OF EPISODE ONE