At long last, the Pacific Foundries sprung to life and the first ship in three long centuries emerged from beneath the waves. It's glistening white hull inlaid with black lines and the name of the Amaya emblazoned in bold lettering.
It was the fastest ship ever built and rivaled the size of the Grand Traveler. Captain Edward Nathans of Ganymede was selected by lottery among the Proto-Artesians and he took command with a crew of a thousand mariners. Their maiden flight to Alpha Centauri was uneventful and they were cheered and greeted by the Charon and Meteor.
The Amaya assumed the role of transiting the increasing frequency of ore shipments as new ships were being built to replenish the fleet. For the first time in centuries, old ships were retired and scrapped not for lack usefulness, but of the ready quantity of newer, better ships.
Gregor kept the Grand Traveler and turned down the second ship the Perry. That went to Mars and every other ship was handed to either a Proto-Artesian or Neo-Artesian leaning Captain until the first hundred ships were evenly distributed.
Liberty Station had finally delivered on its promises and were richly rewarded for heralding a new golden age for mankind as a dozen of the new vessels began charting paths to new star systems and planets. Future generations will look down on us and feel appalled at our squalor conditions on cramp and aging space stations compared to the luxury and abundance of whole new planets lush with green plants and blue oceans. The rush to colonize new planets caused surging vacancies across the inner and outer rims with hundreds of millions signing onboard for the next jump to stars as hundreds and thousands of light years from Earth.
We followed star charts that were gleaned by the Proto-Artesians from the mechanical brain and identified at least a thousand habitable worlds once home to the Alpha Centauri and we laid claim on all of them. The value of the knowledge gleaned from that dead alien brain could not be understated and coupled with the new star ships we had all that we needed to forge our own Empire.
I was granted special audience with the researchers who had been studying the alien brain and visited their research installation on Despina. They were led by Doctor Peter Hsiang, a Martian Neo-Artesian who surprisingly led the Proto-Artesian team. His obsession with the mechanical brain led him to Despina and he had been successful in building an interface to communicate in a primitive way to extract valuable knowledge and information. They were able to map some of the complex brain waves and could interpret its thoughts and believed the it could still dream.
Doctor Hsiang was most interested in meeting me as he heard of my dream travels and after examining me found it remarkable that we had many similar brain wave patterns and even more startling we both once had a similar tumor. The alien brain's tumor was long since exhumed eons ago when it was first severed from its body.
I placed my hand on the thick clear glass and was startled that I could sense it and felt its general unhappiness. The Doctor showed me how to use the interface and the brain recognized me as someone who had also traveled through dreams and eagerly wanted to converse with me. It felt trapped and wanted to be allowed to pass on than persist as some macabre science experiment.
There was little more of value it could share or know as it was a low ranking member of its race. He described his past life as akin to a maintenance technician. He agreed to share what else it could in hopes of earning its freedom to travel once more and it wanted to share a secret with me alone, asking the Doctor and its team to leave the room and not hear what it was about to tell me.
Peter hesitantly agreed and promised we would be alone and no one would listen to what it was about to say. For added security, the brain showed me how to converse directly with telepathy and we practiced for several minutes until I felt a rush and sense of clarity. His thoughts were so clear and I could hear everything he was saying at an incredible pace. He must have spoken a million words in a fraction of a second as he quickly brought me up to speed on all the particulars of dream travel, including its obvious risks and dangers as I had already become aware of.
He then asked me to stretch out my arms and dip down. He warned it would be frightening and excruciatingly painful, but something I had to experience eventually. It will leave scars both visible and seared into my being. I agreed without hesitation and we both jumped to another world, not too far from our own and he pointed out a tiny speck of light as our Sun on the horizon. Then in a dark hole that appeared he had me dip deep down and I reached in and felt the squirming brain worms.
I could feel it crawling and its touch burned my skin, it was awful. He made me grasp it and then we quickly jumped back to Despina and I could see the horrible thing flailing about. It let out a piercing shriek as it began to disintegrate and dissolve into a burning ooze. It had wrapped its tentacle body around both my arms and as it hissed into nothing I could see my skin scarred with purple and black contusions that were raw and bleeding. I could feel the thing, the worm that pierced to the bone and I collapsed screaming in pain as the Doctor and its team came rushing in, they could see the smoke and for a moment the silhouette of the brain worm.
Then I heard a laugh and a cackle, this was a cruel stunt, a joke. The Doctor's assistant helped me to the infirmary as the Doctor frantically pressed on the interface and all it got was the same reply that the brain wished us doom.
No comments:
Post a Comment