Light in the Darkness
James O’Keefe
I kick the soccer ball with a gentle flick of my foot to Tracey. It slips through her hands and bounces away. She giggles as she chases the ball. Her white dress flows like a sheet billowing in the wind behind as she runs, her golden hair trailing behind her. The vivid green leaves rustle as the trees sway; the gentle breeze turns into a gust. It’s time for us to go inside.
My hands hover over the keyboard; eyes glued to the monitors before me. I can’t physically move but I know that in an instant I can do anything to help the ship. The music blaring from the speakers reverberates around the cold grey interior. It doesn’t disturb anyone; I’m the only one here. I sing along in my head, the lyrics I know off by heart. My music choices stave away the boredom before my next break.
The smell of dinner wafts through my nose. Julie has prepared another delicious roast lamb and vegetables for us. The table has been laid out with care. The wine is breathing. The meat carves easily, falling to the plate. I dish up servings for us all. As I wait for Julie to sit, I rest my head on my arms. The meat is melt-in-your mouth tender; the gravy thick and rich. We eat, chatting away about our days; about how Tracey is going at school and what we are expecting when we finally reach our destination. Time seems to stand still whilst I am here.
The day we left was something that is burned into my mind. The sight of the blue Earth, the Moon just peaking from behind; one of beauty and yet one that made us realise how small we were in such a vast universe. For the first year of our journey, we were all awake on board the ship, watching Earth get smaller as we travelled. There are only a select few born to witness this. It’s one I will remember for the rest of my life.
I sit in the brown leather lounge chair, talking about my struggles with the intense loneliness, the lack of physical company I face each day. The psychologist sits listening, hanging on every word. His face creases, the age-lines showing as he frowns or smiles. We talk for hours. After our session we head to the bar. Commander Rison and Eric, one of the many scientists, are there. We talk about the mission, our hopes and fears, what we want to do when we reach our destination. Rison still intimidates me even after all this time – a strong leader with a commanding presence but also a brilliant mentor. A man I look up to. Eric is more like me; a quiet, reserved man.
Six months had passed when we reached Mars, the ship gliding through the vacuum with ease. We stare through the windows in awe at the gigantic ship yards above the moon Deimos. We send communications back and forth with the giant city established over a hundred years ago around Olympus Mons. The gigantic inactive volcano protrudes from surface, the glittering metal of buildings spreading out like a spider’s web from the middle. Soon after I say goodbye to everyone as we enter the cryo-sleep units and the VR world.
I sit and watch the stars go past, one by one until there is just darkness. The Andromeda Galaxy is dead ahead. I can’t see it just yet. One day in the next thousand years or so it will be a small speck of light and before we know it, we will be there. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve asked these questions. Why are we going there voluntarily? Are we alone in this place? Why are we doing this when we could have stayed on Earth? The signal discovered by SETI in 1977 set this program in motion. It may have taken engineers almost three hundred years to get us moving, but we are finally on our way.
I spend time with my family. Both Julie and Tracey haven’t aged a day since we left Mars. The software of the virtual reality makes us appear ageless. I have lost track of how many times I have been here, running the automaton. I catch up with Eric for a beer. I tease him about the new moustache he is attempting to grow. We reminisce about our time at the Academy and wonder how life is back on Earth. We will never hear from those left behind.
A bright flash cuts through the boredom of systems monitoring. I check the logs. Nothing. Is it a glitch? Or something else? I run a quick diagnostic. Negative. Could it be my mind slipping between the virtual world and real? The diagnostic runs again with yet another negative result. I put it aside as a possible glitch and log a report.
The small dot of the Andromeda Galaxy is growing steadily larger. According to the computer systems it will still take another thousand years. The passage of time is meaningless with all of us in cryo-sleep. I am tempted to send the signal to wake the engineer to help with the feeling of restlessness. I need to talk to someone in person. I'm resisting the temptation.
Another flash of light. It’s a touch longer than the first one from the other day… week… year? I check the logs again, this time more thoroughly. There is something out there. The reading was so brief it barely registered. What is happening out there? My heart would be racing but I can’t feel anything. Is this the first sign of a new form of life? Is it a meteor or a comet? Could it be a hypervelocity star shot out of our galaxy by the supermassive black hole in the centre?
Alarms go off everywhere. Proximity alert. I pause the music. What the hell? Sensors should have picked up something earlier than this. The alarm escalates from a ping to a constant ring, the noise so loud it would deafen anyone. I hit the override to stop the alarm.
A screech rings from several decks above. The whole ship shakes; I struggle to keep her steady. There’s been an impact on the hull. I adjust retro-rockets to keep our heading. The smallest point of a degree this far out could prevent us reaching our destination. It doesn’t help. Rather than wasting the critical fuel for the rockets I kick the main engines into full burn. It takes a few hours to get the ship back on course.
I send an inspection probe to check out the area of impact. The view from the probe’s camera appears on the monitor directly in front. As it approaches the damaged area, air plumes like steam into the void of space.
The probe moves closer, closer. It reaches the damaged area; a chunk of rock sticks out from the hull. Air has stopped escaping, the automatic sealant having kicked in, sealing the inside area of the hull. I release maintenance-bots to deal with repairs whilst a reconnaissance probe is sent to bring the rock specimen aboard.
I watch on the screen as the R-probe cuts the rock from the hull, the M-bots repairing the damaged section. A blue glow shoots out from the R-probe as it speeds off to the quarantine deck to unload the rock into an automated laboratory. Its mission simple – recover, analyse, destroy.
As the probe docks, a signal is sent to one of the scientists. Within a few moments I receive a message from the lab automaton. I respond, giving him a quick rundown of the events. Another message appears on screen from Rison, giving me authority to wake anyone from cyro if I deem it necessary. He also thanks me for keeping the ship on course. The rare compliment puts me on a high.
The sun burns my skin as I toil away in the garden. I head back inside to escape the heat and to eat another meal with my family. Julie can’t believe that we hit something. Its appearance without warning still plays at the back of my mind. I decide to cut my rest period short, anxious to get back to duty. Julie and I spend the last few hours before I return to work at our favourite view-point in the hills. It may not be real, but we still spend time there, the place we had our first kiss. The sun is setting across the ocean, the sky a brilliant orange. The clouds turn from white to red to a dull grey as the sun slips out of sight beyond the horizon.
Reports trickle through. A new one each day lodged in the ship’s log. I try to read and understand the material. Most of it goes way over my head; chemical compositions, radiation readings, full spectral analysis. Nothing stands out. To me it’s just a pretty standard asteroid, like those in the asteroid belt near Mars. Report after report comes through. The first paragraph of the fiftieth report grabs my attention. The lab has found what appears to be organic material. Is this the first confirmation of life outside our own galaxy?
The detailed analysis of the organic material takes several weeks - its carbon based and appears to need oxygen to survive. The carbon dating results give it an
approximate age of over a billion years; it’s older than the human race. The DNA report suggests it is a distant cousin of bacteria found on Earth. Eric puts in a hypothesis that it may have originated on Earth at one point and shot into space during a major asteroid impact. The characteristics are so similar that the evidence on hand supports that theory.
Alarms ring out. There is a problem in the lab. I send the signal.
I awaken in the cryo-bed. My eyes feel like they are glued together. They finally flutter open; brief flashes of light; my head heavy from the grogginess. The clear Perspex shield that keeps us protected is frosted over, a dull light piercing through the thawed gaps. A gentle hissing sound; the oxygen supply is creeping up to full levels. I breathe in deep, holding the fresh air in my lungs for several blessed moments. The warm air melts the frost, leaving snail trails as it slides down the sides. I feel like a kid again, breathing warm air on to cold glass just to see it fog up. I lie for a while; I count to one hundred before the centre seals sigh and hiss, the shield opening down the middle and pulling back to the sides of the cryo-bed.
I rest for a few more minutes, allowing my body to wake and get used to breathing again. The sound of feet walking across the deck draws near so I push myself up and hang my legs over the edge of the bed. My head spins, I hold myself in place gripping the edge, the metal cold as I stare down at the grey deck. I bite back the bile that rises to my throat; hibernation sickness.
“Come on then Matthew, we got work to do,” Commander Rison says as he placed his warm hand beneath my chin, lifting my gaze to his rugged face. “Feeling okay?”
“Yes, sir, just shaking this fogginess out of my head. Help me off?”
Rison takes a hold of my arm, his grip firm and tight. It was the first human contact I’d had for a long time. Pins and needles run up my arm; the first physical touch. He pulls back, his other hand reaching up to my shoulder as I slide down the bed. My bare feet thud onto the deck, the pattern of raised circles on the floor sending more tingling through my whole body.
“Here, take this, it should help with the sickness.” He hands me a small white pill. I put it in my mouth, crunching it into small pieces. The fog lifts from my head; the pins and needles dissipate.
“That’s much better,” I say as Rison lets go of me. I quickly put on some socks and shoes before leaving the cryo-chamber.
I follow behind as we make our way to the laboratory deck. Corridor after corridor, staircase after staircase, it feels like a labyrinth. If it wasn’t for the bright red signs at each junction or in each stairwell, it would be easy to become disorientated and get lost. The laboratory deck is deep in the bowels of the ship at least twenty floors from the cryo-chamber.
My family is in another chamber, as far away as possible from the laboratories, less risk of anything being able to get through. I wonder about how safe they are but put that thought to rest. No point dwelling on them at the moment. The drill sergeant at the Academy would have something to say about that. Two guards meet us at the laboratory deck, handing Rison a phased plasma gun.
We reach the main door of the laboratory. Rison keys in his override command on the door panel. It takes a moment before the giant door slides open, a large hiss of air escaping. The smell is so bad it makes us gag, dry retch. It smells like something had died and rotted in there. I stay my ground, taking shallow breaths through my mouth to help calm my stomach. The overhead ventilation fans kick in, sucking the bad air away. Now I know how archaeologists must feel when opening centuries-old tombs.
Rison holds his gun ready, motioning to the guards. He enters first, the guards close behind. I take a deep breath and enter.
The viewing area looks fine, no signs of any breaches. Rison stands, his weapon held loose at his side. I look into the lab area – the place is a total wreck. Tables split in two; black and red marks splattered all over the walls and ceiling. It has to be blood. The robotic arm that usually hangs from the ceiling is shattered. Something has to have come from the asteroid piece, but we couldn’t see it. “I can’t even see any of the asteroid, sir,” I say.
“Neither can I. That worries me. What were the initial reports on it?” he asks. He’s testing me.
“Nothing much. Similar to the asteroids in our own solar system. It was only the most recent report that indicated some sort of organic matter in there. The following report stated it was old, very old. The lab was in full quarantine mode. Judging by how it looks, it failed. Maybe something exploded in there, causing the issue. I can’t say for sure though, as I’m not that familiar with that system.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to know every system in the ship Matthew, but I would agree. It does look like something exploded in there. That would explain those marks on the walls. I hope there is some sort of residue we can test.” Rison glances behind me. “At last. Took your time.”
I turn around. Eric. We shake hands. His grip is firm, the same firmness as when I first met him. He flashes a smile at me as Rison fills him in.
Eric peers through the viewing window, studying the lab. He whistles before pressing his hand against the glass, activating the computer system display. Pale blue and bright green text and charts flow all over the glass. From what I can tell, he is checking the most recent examination reports, the reports that were due that night. He stops the display for a moment, pushing his hand along the glass. The other images reduce in size to a small section at the bottom while the area he had stopped grows to fill almost the entire screen. “Watch this,” he says as he scratches the back of his head.
The screen turned to a view from above the asteroid piece. It explodes with a bright flash. I cover my eyes, peeking through the gaps in my fingers, the image so bright. I blink a few times, allowing my eyes to adjust. The explosion dies. The laboratory remains in the same state.
Eric presses more points on the glass and the images change to a different angle. He slows down the playback of the explosion. He adjusts more settings, going into infrared view. As the asteroid fragments explode, the image turns to shades of red, yellow, orange and white. For a moment, from the centre, a dark spot; colours from dark blue to green move across to the airlock door before vanishing.
“Did you see that, sir?” I ask Rison.
“I did. That concerns me. Where did it go Eric?” Rison’s brow furrows.
“I have no idea. As soon as it hit the airlock the sensors lost track of it. There should be some trace of it, whatever it was, but there’s nothing there now.” He turns to look at us. “It’s like…”
Eric’s face contorts in pain. He raises his shaking hands to cover his eyes. He falls to his knees as blood pours from his ears. I step towards him, but Rison pulls me aside as Eric topples over onto his side, his hands falling from his face. His eyes turn black, blood seeping from around the sockets, more blood gushing from his nose. Spasms wrack his body. Eric’s body flails for a moment before coming to a shuddering halt. I hold my breath. My heart beats hard in my chest like it’s trying to break out. Before any of us move, his body explodes; a muffled splat as the body tears apart. Blood and entrails fly in all directions, covering us, the walls and the ceiling. One of the guard’s dry-retches.
I wipe the blood from my face as best as I can. A moment later, the emergency decontamination system kicks in. The door behind us hisses shut before the room fills with foamy water. It reaches up to our waists before it stops and I wade over to the laboratory air lock but the door won’t move. I turn and look at Rison walking towards me. The guards behind him wash the blood and gore off. I do the same, the foam helping scrub it all off with ease. I unbutton my shirt and let it drop into the water, it’s ruined.
For several minutes we all scrub ourselves down before Rison uses the control panel by the main door. He presses a few buttons, keying in his command code, overriding the security protocols. “We can only move around in a small area. The quarantine situation is at a high enough level that I don’t want whatever happened to Eric to be loose on the
rest of the ship.” He presses another button, the door sliding open, the water and foam gushing out into the corridor. “For now, get changed in the room just down the hall to your right. We need to work out what happened.”
“But Eric just exploded!” one of the guards cries. I share his panic but hold it in check.
“More reason to work out what is going on.” Rison is all hard professionalism.
“We have to get out of here. We have to…”
“Follow protocols,” Risen snaps. “Do our jobs right and things will be fine. Panic and we end up like Eric. Of that I am certain.”
We make our way down the corridor, the foamy water disappearing down the grated drains that opened when Rison keyed in the override.
We all sit at the plain white table in the middle of the quarantine bay, all wearing the same grey and black jumpsuits. Rison is reviewing the incident with Eric on the pop-up screen that sits in the middle of the table. We can all see it. My stomach churns as I watch Eric’s body explode again and again. We had started to become good friends on this journey and now he is gone. I manage to hold back my tears. Now’s not the time to lose it. Rison and I stare at the screen whilst the guards sit, grim looks on their faces. I’m sure they want to find out the cause and deal with it as much as Rison does, but that edge of panic isn’t too far from their eyes.
Rison adjusts settings for each playback, infrared, ultraviolet and several other modes I had never heard of. The only one that gives us any clue is the gamma readings. At last something that might help. Rison replays the gamma recording, this time in slow motion. We watch as Eric turns to talk to us. Before he collapses, a small, fiery ball enters his mouth. The readings flare as the convulsions hit Eric. As the body explodes the screen turns from orange to white hot. At last we found a way to track it. Rison rests back in the chair, staring at the red dot as it floats out of view and the room fills with water and foam.
“Well, at least we have a way of finding it,” I say. “The way it moved I would say the quarantine protocols are useless. It was able to pass through the double air lock from the lab to the viewing room.”
“Agreed,” says Rison.
“We need to wake the ship, wake a security crew,” one of the guards says. “We aren’t safe.”
“The ship is not in danger yet, “ Rison says, trying the calm the man. “We need the tracking devices and heavy rifles from the armoury.” Rison flicks another switch; the view changes into a detailed analysis of the foreign entity. “At least it’s organic, but I have no idea if our weapons will be effective against it. The only way we are going to find out is by hunting it,” he says as he stands. He keys in the command override to disable the quarantine protocols. “I have already sent for more men to help us, a full security team should be waking up now, we will help them while arming ourselves.”
Joined by some more guards, we make our way to the armoury. The guards pick the assault phased plasma rifles from the racks and give them a quick inspection to ensure they are operational. The design of the phased plasma weapons is perfect for ship based security, the heated plasma affecting flesh but not the thick metal of bulkheads or airlocks. I hunt around until I find the scanning devices. I turn one on and switch it over to gamma mode. The display shows blue blobs where we are standing; the radiation emanating from us is quite minor. The entity from the recordings will be giving out far more radiation than we do, so should be easy to track.
“I’m getting a signal just ahead, sir,” I say as I watch the screen on the tracker, the entity displaying as an orange blob. Has it been stalking us? The guards are nervous and jumpy and unless they all had readers the orange blob would be invisible.
We make our way in silence towards the destination of the reading. It hovers in the air before darting back and forth. The entity is invisible to the naked eye; though it does act like an intangible flash like when you close your eyes for just a moment and the impression of a bright light is left there. I hold the scanner up, watching the readings. The blob on screen moves side to side.
Rison motions for the guards to turn their weapons on to wide beam. The guards acknowledge, and I stand back. They take careful aim down the corridor in front of us before firing several shots. The energy shoots out like a net. It has no effect – the phased plasma attuned to our own biology. The energy hits the bulkhead and dissipates rippling out into nothing. The blob on screen continues to dart back and forth.
It stops.
I'm holding my ground.
It moves towards us, growing larger as it approaches with such speed that there is not time to warn anyone. The guard next to me falls to the ground, his body bleeding and convulsing the same way Eric had in the lab. He screams the sound echoing down the corridor.
“Find cover,” Rison shouts.
We all run for cover. I dive around the corner as another guard runs past me. The scream cuts off as the splosh of the guard’s body exploding, followed by the sound of blood and meat splattering everywhere. I hold the tracking device up and observe the entity speeding away from us, down through the bulkhead and floor.
My earpiece crackles for a moment. “It’s making its way to the laboratory level,” an unknown voice comes through. Rison must have issued another wake up alert for more crew and I was glad for it. Unfortunately the internal sensors aren’t as strong as the tracking device. They can only give us a broad indication on the entity’s destination.
Several minutes later we return to the laboratory level. The radiation shielding used makes it hard to track it via the hand-held device. Rison orders the crewman using the internal sensors to guide them to the entity’s location. “Make a sharp left,” the crewman’s voice comes through our earpieces.
We turn left into another laboratory. The door slams shut behind us as we walk into the centre, weapons held ready and gazes sweeping the room. Rison stands to my left, a guard to my right, the rest of the guards behind us. We huddle together, our backs to each other, forming a tight circle. There’s enough space to lift our weapons, but close enough I can hear the guard breathing through his nose, his nostrils vibrating, the sound almost deafening at such close proximity. I wipe the sweat away from hands. My heart beats faster.
Rison orders with an authoritative whisper, “keep an eye out for any sudden movement of light. It could be anywhere.”
I nod in reply, others holding their weapons firm, ready to fire. I hold my. A cold shiver slides down my spine. My breath fogs in front of me as I exhale. The temperature’s plummeting. I hold the scanner up, moving it slow, allowing deep scans. I hover over the local environmental controls along the far wall. A faint signature of the entity displays on the screen. I motion to Rison.
He indicates to the guards to fan out and aim at the wall. The guards move, weapons high ready to loose the fanned beams. He holds his hand out before dropping it. The guards open fire on the array, Rison unleashes a full volley from his weapon. The entity grows in size as it shoots out of the wall, the first real physical presence. It’s shaped like an old fuzzy tennis ball, rapidly changing in size. I don’t know if my eyes are playing tricks on me or not. It buzzes around the room like an angry wasp. I follow it with the scanner as best as I can, watching it change colour on the screen from blue to green to a brilliant red. “We must have hurt it, sir,” I state, keeping a watchful eye on the screen.
I glance at Rison as he’s lifted up into the air, raised clear off the ground. His whole body shakes as the entity takes control of him. The body shudders in the air, his arms and legs shaking like a puppeteer had lost control of his marionette. Rison tries to fight the entity from taking control. I can see in his eyes he is still there, his mouth grimacing, his hands in fists, digging in deep. He’s fighting as best as he can against a being far more powerful.
As his body convulses, I notice the guards lower their weapons, all bar one. He has careful aim at Rison.
“Kill… me…” Rison says through his clenched teeth. Blood trickles out the sid
e of his mouth. The pain must be so strong he has bitten into his tongue or a cheek.
The guard takes careful aim, but hesitates. The others still stand, guns wavering. I snatch the rifle from the nearest guard and take aim. It is the first time I have had to hold a weapon since basic training.
“Do… it… please…” Rison pleads with us.
I pull the trigger.
Plasma bolt after plasma bolt bombards Rison’s body. Another guard follows suit. For a split second, it’s just the two of us firing before the rest of the guards take aim and fire.
The bolts tear through the flesh, burning gaping holes into his torso. The smell of charred meat is strong. We continue to fire at the floating puppet until the entity shoots out. The corpse falls to the ground in a crumpled heap.
The entity hovers. It flies toward me. I take a step back. It stops right in front of my face. The heat emanating from it almost burns across my nose and cheeks.
I hold my breath and close my eyes. Is this the end? Will I see my wife again? Will I step foot on an alien planet for the first time?
Nothing.
I open one eye, like a child taking a peek to see if a parent was still there. The entity hovers. I open the other eye. The light emanating from the entity turns to a pale yellow before dissipating into the ether.
I check over the computer systems on the bridge. The guards perform a full ship-wide sweep, attempting to find the entity. They find no trace of it. I wonder where it has gone.
I slip into an EVA-suit, a hiss of air as the helmet seals around the neck. My fingers feel fat on keyboard as I key in the decontamination protocol command. The mag-clamps hold me in place as all the air rushes out of the bridge.
White gas fills the room. Any organic matter it touches will disintegrate. I stand and watch out the window, taking in the sight of the void between galaxies. The Andromeda Galaxy is still the same small ball of white as it was yesterday, but now I have seen it with my own eyes. I wonder if we will come across any other new life as we continue the journey. What about the entity? Did it really originate in our galaxy or is it far older?
I shiver. How can that be? My breath turns to fog inside my suit. I turn around slow, the mag-clamps clunking on the metal deck as I move. In the open doorway is Rison. How is he alive? The gases should have vaporised his remains and been flushed out into space. His face is blank and dull. He’s not breathing. I lower the mag-clamp settings to step back, his eyes flash a bright red. I trip and my foot catches in the automaton chair. I twist it left and right. It won’t budge. I fumble with the mag-clamp release as Rison approaches. His shadow casts over me. I look up, his face twisted into a perverse smile.
In Room Empty But For You
Alexander Zelenyj