The Viluverse - Chapter Twelve

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Jensen floated for what felt like an eternity. Having never been in a position like this, he was tickled by its novelty and surreal nature. In a world already bordering on the insane, this was unreal. He could move if he leaned in either direction, pausing to reflect on the room he found himself in.

He was neither dead nor alive, just somewhere in the between, surveying the featureless walls of this place which housed what looked to be gold bars from top to bottom on one side behind a cage. What treasure his pirate friends were after, he could not guess, although he knew it involved a scientist somehow. That was something at least, and as he floated, he let his mind drift.

He felt neither hunger nor a desire for thirst, just a sense of floating. Is this what the afterlife felt like? He knew not, just feeling the environment around him as his mind took over the picture. He thought about the vast Ark ships that brought the pioneering colonizers of Earth’s new race out to the stars, information pouring into him as if from some other source he couldn’t quite comprehend.

They were rather ingenious in construction, consisting of two giant spherical spheres, each mirrored and reflecting the space around them. This was a purely aesthetic design choice as the engineers and designers wanted to create something of beauty rather than of pure mechanical ingenuity to be humanity's first great leap into the unknown.

They were connected by a single beam out of which thrust a short column leading to two enormous horizontal wedges which sloped to meet each other at a great distance from the ship. These comprised an antimatter engine sending out powerful energy which culminated in a massive beam of bright light.

The sphere on the left was purely for storing the matter and antimatter fuel needed for the long trip. The sphere on the right comprised the main bulk of the ship’s inhabitants. They were housed in a gigantic tube with horizontal grey cryo chambers stored lengthways in circular arrangements.

Each had a solid door opening outward; inhabitants floated out when thawed into an external acrylic see-through chamber surrounding the tube. Within were regular handholds on either side and two poles that ran accordingly, providing plenty of grip in the enlarged zero-g space. Accidents were not unknown but rare, and no fatalities had ever occurred, leading some to imaginatively call it the “Fall Ball”, although Jensen had yet to have the pleasure of using it.

Surrounding the chamber was a light blue shaft that had circular curved doorways accessible via matching white inward-opening airtight doors in the chamber, leading to many different compartments and corridors for additional storage and maintenance; a rabbit warren of technological possibility made possible by nanotechnological innovation.

Each sphere was designed on Earth using a revolutionary manufacturing technology utilizing nanobots to create a nanomaterial composed of a unique carbon silica steel alloy and programmable nanobots. A vast square chamber with walls that could retract on wheeled tracks housed the first part of the process. A giant nozzle on a retractable crane arm sprayed the substance onto an appropriately shaped magnetic force field generated from projectors below, which the resultant substance formed itself around.

Once the force field was switched off, the structure could float independently, now beginning to harden as it floated above the manufacturing station. It then began to enlarge gradually as it reached higher into Earth’s orbit, an electronic signal from the base station in the manufacturing planet instructing the nanomaterial on how to form itself.

As it ascended higher into the atmosphere it gradually hardened to the point where it became a solid structure floating in Earth’s orbit. Two reusable AI-directed grey shuttle craft would then slot into docking holes on one side of each sphere.

They would then use high-powered thrusters to push the ship toward two giant space elevators, which rose on either side of the manufacturing facility. They would maneuver them into place, docking each sphere to the elevators below. Each elevator comprised a central ribbed tube made of carbon alloy material with separate support tubes running up each side.

The central tube could be used to transport anything from liquids to craft inside using magnetic fields generated by the rings, which were spread at 5-meter intervals. Each elevator had a base station that could be used to connect to central transport hubs and a local away station that acted as the equivalent of an airport, located in specially designated remote areas.

Once the tube was docked with the spheres, it would begin pumping in a nanomaterial that would fill the entire sphere and form structures within. Once the central shaft in the main sphere was completed, the main passenger tube would be raised into it, being locked into place with passengers already frozen for the journey.

Once materials had been loaded, the two shuttlecraft would begin thrusting downward using directional thrusters on long arms in a circular axis away from the main docking collar. The shaft they were on extended beyond and from this circular axis, leading to another axis with four large propulsion thrusters and four long struts which were folded back at 90 degrees and could be pivoted to form large landing legs.

The ships had fuel tanks attached to each arm of the axis and were designed to act as both tugboats, emergency life rafts, and exploration ships all rolled into one; the shaft exterior being lined with sensors and the interior being large enough to hold a sizable amount of passengers who would be strapped into the walls with adjustable dividers between them, although this was primarily for emergency use only and could get quite chaotic if not organized properly.

The spheres would then raise and undock from the elevators, with a separate pair of reusable white shuttlecraft, which resembled more conventional shuttles with wings, docking where the elevators had been. These were designed primarily as landing craft and could comfortably take a large crew onboard, with one as an emergency backup.

In an emergency, the entire central shaft could be jettisoned and the ship docked to it could pilot as long as fuel supplies allowed, ideally in tandem with the other shuttle, which would attach itself to the opposite end. A combined forefield surrounded the ship, designed to prevent space debris or other larger material from impacting it, and the nanomaterial was designed to be sturdy enough for all but the largest asteroids. Nothing was ever foolproof however, and accidents were only an impact away in theory, although nothing disastrous had happened so far.

The entire structure could comfortably take a medium-large population into space for ten years, with refueling made possible by pit stops at various colony stations located on carefully selected moons and planetoids, themselves fueled primarily by asteroid mining.

Asteroid mining had become an incredibly lucrative industry, with modular platforms constructed out of hardened steel alloys on many asteroids located within the solar system and beyond. Each had incredibly powerful radio transmitters, which could relay their position across large distances, allowing separate modular fuel ships to hone in on their position and dock using long tendril-like refueling cables that were incredibly lightweight but could deliver the required fuel very quickly.

The material would then be transported to larger bodies where it would be processed and stored carefully in magnetically-sealed chambers accessible by specially designed cables utilizing similar technology. Once the Ark received a transmission signal via a communications array located at the top of the habitant sphere, the onboard AI would direct the fuel ship into orbit, and the long cable would be maneuvered into a tunnel in the middle of the fuel sphere by android astronauts who would then oversee the docking procedure.

Each refueling was a complicated process made easier by these automated systems, and over an Earth day, the ship could be on its way again. If suitable moons, planetoids, and asteroids were discovered, special prefab modular habitats from the habitant sphere could be deployed, using tubes in the sphere and utilize compact android AI systems to begin construction work with nanotechnology assisting in the process.

It was a relatively efficient system that was constantly being refined as more ships were sent out, and the Vilu system meant that human occupants had at least some way of occupying their time in the long dark.

Specifically selected, genetically modified humans with AI implants were the drivers behind the Viluverse, but nobody was ever privy to who they were exactly or even what to look out for, making the whole experience even more mysterious.

They were dream architects, for all intents and purposes, while their subconscious was amplified by AI to generate the real architects themselves deeper within. They were connected via a special nanotechnological fluid to all the other inhabitants onboard. There was no telling, of course, what effect this might be having on the passengers, most of whom were selected based on merit and genetic principles that Jensen barely understood or knew anything about, but he preferred not to dwell on either: he’d been having too much fun, and sometimes ignorance was bliss.

Jensen didn’t truly know if he knew any of them or if he did his memory did not reveal anything. A journey for another time and place, whenever that would be. He had remembered the legends of the interstellar wars springing up as mythology with giant sci-spaceships fighting off a mysterious race and the storytellers who took delight in refining this mythology while keeping its specifics and truer, deeper intent if there was one, a mystery.