The Paradox of Fiction

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Anteros screamed anyway. He knew the audio speaker was engaging, but his audio receptors couldn’t detect the sound. The strange ship which had brought them out here appeared to be spinning around and getting smaller. In reality, he was the one spinning around and drifting further away at an alarming speed. In 28 seconds, the ship would just be a white dot reflecting Sol’s light and therefore look just like another star. Anteros screamed again.

‘Anteros, where are you going?’ said Ianeira monotonously over the interwire, ‘I can see your mouth opening and closing.’

‘Ianeira, I’m hurtling into the void of space and have about 20 seconds until I’m outside of the range of the harpoon. Can you please retrieve me?’

‘Have you considered engaging your boosters to stabilise yourself and then coming back to the ship?’

‘Yes, I have considered that Ianeira. However, the boosters are currently non-functioning and have been so for weeks now, and my time is running out for possible retrieval.’

‘Understood.’ Fourteen and a half seconds remaining. The harpoon silently shot out from the ship and embedded itself through his shin, four spokes springing from the tip. The impact was enough to slow Anteros’ rotation slightly and, as the line went taut, he momentarily felt like the rest of his body was trying to separate itself from his leg. Anteros had already decided screaming in the vacuum of space was futile and so he watched as the mechanisms and plating in his knee joint separated, exposing the circuitry beneath. That whole leg would need to be replaced.

Ianeira began to haul him in. Another voice came over the interwire,

‘Anteros, I’m glad to see you have been lost to the endless void of space.’ Zoe’s monotone voice had a deep yet distinctly female quality to it. Most Robots ignored their gender, a holdover from their manufacturers. While Anteros agreed it served no greater function, he liked the extra dimension it added.

‘Thanks, Zoe. Now, do you know why I was blown away from that door? Isn’t your job to detect rigged explosives? Or based on the fact you’re not out here with me, you did detect explosives and decide to do away with me?’

‘Anteros, you know we would be remiss without you.’ Anteros was now close enough again to see Zoe perched on the outside of the ship with an open door to the interior. The Mite, their much smaller ship, was gripping onto the ship like a parasite 23 meters away from the door.

‘Do you need to repair your leg?’ asked Zoe. Anteros ran a quick diagnostic before replying,

‘No, it’s still functioning for the moment. Ianeira, can you release me in two seconds.’ Ianeira didn’t respond, but two seconds later, the spokes retracted, and the harpoon pulled itself out of his leg.

Using his frictionless momentum, Anteros continued to travel towards the side of the ship. Anteros tucked his knees up to his chest and pivoted slightly so he was travelling feet-first towards the ship. He engaged his legs just prior to hitting the ship, the mechanisms absorbing the impact. Or rather one leg absorbed the impact while the other leg with a hole in it faltered and slipped to the side. Fortunately, the magnetic soles of his good leg kept him in place, and he was able to right himself in moments.

Slowly standing up, he walked over to where Zoe was waiting for him, perpendicular to the open door. Her dark titanium frame stood two meters tall, almost blending in with the dark space behind her. The blending into space was by design, the Androktasiai were built for warfare in space. Her four arms hung rigidly by her side, and her blank, tinted, polycarbonate face gave no indication of what she was processing. Anteros sometimes tried to see through the tinting to the numerous sensors within her head, seeking for some kind of emotional tell, but was never successful. What he did know was that her wry humour was always a good sign she felt comfortable in their situation.

‘So, what did knock me off?’ asked Anteros.

‘It was decompression,’ Zoe responded.

‘Decompression? What decompressed?’

‘An internal atmosphere.’

‘Why would this ship have an atmosphere? What did it comprise of?’

‘Not sure, Zagreus is still running particle analysis.’ On cue, Zagreus’ mirthful voice spoke out over the interwire,

‘And done. The ejected air consisted mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, with a small amount of oxygen and water particles.’ Anteros processed momentarily.

‘Are we considering there might be biological matter on board?’

‘With that kind of composition, we are considering there could be fauna on board.’

A few years ago, some Robot found a preserved quadrupedal mammal. Not only did it fetch the highest amount of Drach for any salvage, but the Robot gained favour with The Authority. Anteros was pretty sure his ruined leg’s design was based off the structure of the mammals muscular array.

Zoe must have been processing along the same lines,

‘I will take point on this one. Too many unknowns inside and I am sure we are not the only ones to have picked up this ship’s signal, we just happen to be the closest.’ The mechanical rivulets that ran along Zoe’s armoured body began to glow red and a rail gun emerged from one of her arms.

‘Is that to kill the mummified cat?’

‘No-Robot knows for sure that thing is actually a cat. It could be a bear.’ With that, Zoe stepped down through the door and with perfect gyroscopic orientation, positioned herself to clamp onto the floor and continue to walk. Anteros – far more awkwardly – sat down on the frame of the door and pushed himself over the edge and clamped his feet to the floor. His knees asymmetrically took him from parallel to the floor to standing upright. Anteros was a bit disappointed Zoe wasn’t watching.

‘I have 360-degree sensors. That was almost suave considering your broken leg.’ Zoe stood still in the middle of the room they had entered before saying

‘This is an airlock, and it will not let us through this door until that one is closed.’ Zoe had a habit of not making direct requests.

The airlock they were in was odd, more cluttered than he was used to. There were lockers, shelves and hooks against the walls, but all the content seemed to be missing. Zoe was peering through a windowed door – and next to her right arm was a small screen. Anteros quickly approached and touched the screen. Nothing. He noticed a button beneath the screen and pressed it. The screen lit up with a foreign-looking display.

‘What is that?’ asked Zoe.

‘It’s an interface. But the language is odd. The numbers are the same as ours, but I don’t compute the graphemes. There are also pictograms. Without reference tables, this could take hours to decipher.’

‘What about that one that looks like a door closing?’ Like screaming in space, Anteros knew giving Zoe the scathing look he wanted to would be pointless. He pressed his finger to the screen. There was no visual or haptic response. He tried again nothing.

‘Some kind of security system?’ asked Zoe.

‘No…’ Something deep within Anteros recognised this. He felt heat flow into his fingers. He pressed the pictogram again and the door behind them closed. At the same time, the airlock lit up and he felt vibrations beneath his feet. Air started to flow in through vents in the roof.

‘Now that is interesting.’ Zoe appeared to be watching Antero carefully.

‘What did you two do? This entire ship just lit up. Looks like basic power systems are now operating.’ Zagreus sounded excited.

‘So not a derelict as you first thought?’

‘No… I guess not. If you can find information on where this ship came from, that would be beneficial. The Authority will pay as much for information as they would for scavenged objects.’

The ship finished settling on an atmosphere and the opposing door opened. Anteros called out to the ship on the interwire,

‘Hello there, what is your purpose?’ No response.

‘Anteros, I have already trailed hailing it. It appears this ship does not have an AI,’ said Ianeira.

‘No AI? How old is this thing?’ Zagreus responded,

‘Couldn’t say for sure, but more than 500 years.’

‘Has Ianeira decoded the digital signature yet?’

‘Sort of. Decoding the signature wasn’t the issue – very rudimentary security layers. We just don’t understand what it says. The language is completely unknown.’ The same as the interface.

‘We will see what we can find.’ Zoe and Anteros proceeded along a corridor, lit only by two dull LED strips along the floor. Likely the ship was operating at low power, although Anteros was not sure of the purpose in pumping an atmosphere throughout the ship. Except now he could talk aloud.

“Zoe, have you heard the expression, nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space?” While Anteros spoke through his jaw mechanism, Zoe only had a speaker in her neck.

“Yes. Why?” Anteros opened his mouth and let out a metallic scream.

“We are not in the vacuum of space anymore. We are now in a pressurised ship of ancient and foreign-make.”

“Yes… I get that. I thought it would be funny.”

“I don’t get it.” The two of them continued down the corridor in humourless silence. They tried a few of the side doors, but they appeared to be either locked or defective. Anteros could not work out the layout of this ship. Ianeira’s levels were stacked on top of each other from her rear to the front. Whereas this ship had a few levels running horizontally from the thrusters to the bridge at the front. Zagreus had guessed that it was a rotator, but whatever allowed it to rotate seemed to be missing.

If they were going to find out anything about this ship, they would find it at the front. Fortunately, when they reached the bridge, there were no doors or barriers preventing their entry. The bridge had command controls and screens running around in a semi-circle from the left walls around to the right wall. There was a gap in the screens at the front where several windows gave an unhampered view of the stars outside.

“Do you see that?” Zoe pointed to shutters sitting just above the windows outside.

“Window shutters – for organic eyes.” Anteros started to explore the control panels around the walls and while there seemed to be some power running through them, the interface was ancient. There were even some analogue buttons. Both Zoe and Anteros poked and prodded the interfaces, but neither were successful.

“Look at what I found – can you use it?” Zoe threw him what appeared to be clothing for a hand. It was some form of mesh material interwoven with wires and microchips. Anteros slipped his hand inside, and the mesh stretched neatly. Again, Anteros felt heat flow into his hand and suddenly the panels lit up.

“I can sense your body generating the heat to operate this technology. Your internal systems appear to be designed for it.”

“I don’t understand – I think I must have some autonomic systems, but I don’t know what the trigger is.”

Zoe did not respond and Anteros turned back to study the screen in front of him. It looked like a map, but bigger than any he had seen. He moved his covered hand which resulted in the contents of the screen moving slightly. Zoe came up next to him.

“Neat.”

“Was that an emotion, Zoe? I wish I had recorded it.” Anteros switched to interwire,

‘Ianeira, permission granted for optical access.’

‘Understood.’ A small icon appeared at the top of his visual field indicating Ianeira was linked in.

‘What is this map?’ There was silence for a moment before Ianeira responded,

‘This is a star map. You can just make out Sol in the bottom left.’ Anteros found Sol and followed a line moving from Sol to a point in the top right of the map. From that point, the line travelled all the way back again.

‘This ship has returned to the Sol system, returning from that star over there.’

‘Based on the orientation of the map and the stars, I believe its destination was Kepler-186.’

‘Is there anything significant about that star.’

‘Based on my access levels, I understand it is a red dwarf star located in the Cygnus constellation with five confirmed planets orbiting it.’

“Anteros, look at this.” He crossed the bridge to see Zoe looking at a map of the ship. She pointed to large room on the deck below them.

“You can see the ship has a dedicated power-flow here. What needs that kind of power?”

“Life support.” Zoe walked back out of the bridge into the hallway and crouched down. Seconds later, a breaching laser burst out of one her arms and carved a perfect hole in the floor.

“You didn’t want to check to see if an elevator or something worked?”

“Chances were low there is enough power for the elevators and this way I can control the access points.”

“I can’t wait to have to step around the large hole in the floor.” Zoe ignored him and stepped into the hole, descending gracefully down. Anteros slipped down after her and landed with a clunk. This area felt darker, but it could just be a contrast from the windowed area above.

“Follow me,” said Zoe before marching along the corridor. Anteros diligently followed as Zoe led them to the room where the power was being dedicated.

“Have you noticed how nice these hallways look?” asked Anteros.

“Does it remind you of a passenger liner?”

“Yes, exactly. The walls are smooth.”

“The room is around here.” A room was an understatement. They walked into what looked more like a warehouse. Large cylinders lined both walls and there was another row running up through the middle. Even from the entrance in the low light, Anteros could see the cylinders were either broken or empty.

“You take the left and I will take right.” Zoe didn’t wait for a response and started walked down the right aisle. Anteros tentatively headed down the left aisle, stopping at each cylinder to inspect it. They were made out of some sort of glass that been blemished over the years from whatever liquid or gas had been inside. Some had cracks, others had doors that were slightly ajar. Each one had a small interface panel at the base, but non seemed operational.

“Hey Zoe, I reckon these once housed Robots based on the size and the fact they all have doors on them.”

“Anteros, you need to come here now.” Zoe mostly spoke in monotone, but he thought he detected a waver in her voice. Anteros scuttled around the back of one of the tanks and found Zoe at the very end of her row. The cylinder she was standing in front of was different. The panel at the base was on, showing a dashboard of metrics. It was full of a liquid that was either green, or lit by a green light.

Anteros barely noticed the details because he was focused on the occupant of the cylindrical tank. He felt the heat flow through his body again as he accessed something deep within his drives. He studied every detail, words going his head he had never used before. He scanned up and down the soft flesh which was almost white. Hair which floated like a silk curtain above their head. A face mask was connected over their lower face, but he could still see slight twitches of their sleeping eyes.

“What is that?” Zoe asked. Zagreus chimed in over the interwire,

‘Anteros, your performance levels are going all over the place. You’re doing some intense computing over there.’ Anteros spoke both aloud and digitally,

“It’s a human; a live human female.”