Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (14 page)

Everybody had been partially right: Freedom with her genuine aliens, Sara’s game-players, Andre’s illusory messages in the sky, Myrion’s archetypes, my own early script-writers. Each had become a facet of a glittering new hypothesis.

But was
this
one right?

My theory was neat, I felt, but it wasn’t complete. There was still something missing, something I hadn’t taken into account. Something that had happened was bothering me - but when, and what? It was there in my head, I suspected; all I had to do was shake it loose. Somehow.

I collapsed back into the chair, thinking furiously. Something Freedom had said ...?

Turning to the terminal, I keyed it for voice-activation and reconnected it to the
Jew’s
AI mainframe. This sole computer link became my only connection to the rest of the ship. Through it, I could access the security records. It was a long shot, I knew, but worth a try. Anything to jog my memory.

I skimmed through the first encounter, but found nothing. Same with the second and third. If the clue existed, then I was looking in the wrong place.

Instinct took me back to the moment when the drive had malfunctioned, when it had looked like we were going to die. The cameras on the Control Bridge had recorded our panic with unflattering detail. On the screen in my ‘office’, we milled like ants, helpless, waiting for the descending boot to crush us. The reactor had failed and the ship had lost power; we had been effectively dead from that moment onwards. Without power to complete the jump, we should have been torn apart by strong nuclear forces and utterly destroyed.

But, miraculously, we had survived. Why?

And that was it. So simple and yet so tangential that I almost missed it.

‘We’re getting a power surge,’ Freedom had said. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening down there!’

A power surge - just strong enough to push us just far enough, back to real space.

A power
surge.

Where had it come from? Not from the reactor itself because that was down; not from the backups because they hadn’t cut in yet. That left outside, except that there’s no outside during a jump. Which meant...

Which meant there had to be another power source aboard the ship that we didn’t know about.

Erasing the security records from the screen, I nervously cleared my throat and spoke into the microphone:

‘Hello? Are you listening? Hello?’

The screen instantly lit up, as though it had been expecting me:

» HELLO, ALEK MAAS.

I stared at the words for a moment, almost daring them to disappear. ‘This isn’t some kind of prank, is it?’

» NO.

The simple negative carried the weight of a thousand words, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe I wasn’t crazy after all. ‘My God ... Where are you?’

» INASMUCH AS WE CAN BE SAID TO HAVE A TRUE LOCATION WE ARE AFT OF THE

DRIVE SHIELDING.

‘And how long have you been aboard the ship?’

» SINCE THE STAR YOU CALL SIGMA BOÖTIS.

‘But we saw no sign of ... No, of course we didn’t. That’s not your home system.’ I sagged back into the chair and ran my fingers through my hair. I was talking to an alien! ‘I can’t believe this is really happening!’

» TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION, YES, BUT NOTHING IS STRANGER THAN A SOAP OPERA.

I laughed, mentally chalking up another correct guess. ‘True, very true.’

» HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN?

‘Since the drive failed, I think.’

» IT WAS THEN THAT YOU REALISED?

‘Subconsciously, yes. But it wasn’t until we arrived at Delta Boötis, here, and the saucer appeared again, and I had the chance to think it through that I was sure. The aliens weren’t following us at all; they’ve been with us the whole time!’

» YES.

‘Yes.’ I sagged further into the chair, truly struck by the enormity of the situation. ‘You saved our lives. Thank you, on behalf of all of us.’

» WE HOPE THAT YOU WOULD HAVE DONE THE SAME HAD THE SITUATION BEEN REVERSED.

‘Of course, of course.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Freedom will be glad to know. She’s been tearing her hair out trying to figure out how you tracked us through hyperspace.’

» SHE DOES NOT ALREADY KNOW?

‘No. How could she? I haven’t told anyone else.’

» NO ONE?

‘Of course not, I - ‘ Stopping in mid-sentence, I stared at the bold, emotionless upper-case letters on the screen. A strange sensation crept up my spine. ‘Why?’

» OUR LONG-TERM GOALS HAVE NOT BEEN ALTERED. WE STILL INTEND TO MAKE CONTACT, BUT WE DO NOT WISH TO REVEAL OUR LOCATION UNTIL THE TIME IS RIGHT.

‘Of course not, but - ‘

» THE TIME IS NOT YET RIGHT. YOU REALISED SOONER THAN WE EXPECTED.

I began to feel cold. ‘So what happens now?’

» NOTHING. WE WAIT.

‘But what about me? If I promise not to tell anyone, will you trust me?’

There was no reply. The screen remained blank. ‘Hello? Are you still listening?’

» WE ARE CONFERRING.

‘About what? Whether to get rid of me because I know too much?’

» YES.

I gripped the edge of the desk so hard my fingers bent the plastic. This was insane! I had to
do
something.

To my left was the red depressurisation alarm, the surest way to get an instantaneous response from anyone nearby. If worse came to worst and I could hit the switch fast enough, then someone might arrive in time to save me.

Otherwise, I would have to talk my way out of it.

‘Look, come on, guys - or whatever you are. This has gone beyond a joke. You can trust me. I won’t say anything, I promise. No one would believe me anyway. You really don’t need to -’

» ALEK MAAS?

The single line of text silenced me as effectively as a slap to the mouth. ‘Yes?’

» THERE IS LITTLE TIME LEFT. ALTHOUGH IT PAINS US TO DO THIS WE HAVE NO CHOICE. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND LATER.

At exactly that moment, the door to my office chimed.

I didn’t stop to yell for help, or to wonder what the aliens had meant by ‘understand later’. The door was locked airtight, and there wasn’t time to think.

I simply lunged as fast as I could for the depressurisation alarm, hoping against hope that my reflexes could outrace alien weaponry.

As I threw myself across the desk, something bright flashed out of the corner of my eye -

— the fingertips of my right hand brushed the smooth plastic of the switch —

—  my skin tingled all over, as through a strong static charge had enveloped me —

— and I died.

Sara rang the doorbell to my office four times before giving up. When I didn’t reply, she went and found Andre, who used his authority as security officer to override the door’s magnetic lock.

Gabe was summoned and a search organised. The entire crew (those few who weren’t involved in the repairs, anyway) scoured the ship from fore to aft, without success. The life-support AI reported that it was supplying breathable atmosphere to one less person than before, but that the overall mass of the ship had not decreased and no airlocks had been activated. Andre subjected the security recordings of the corridor outside my room to intense scrutiny. No one had entered or left my room in the time between my arrival from the debriefing and Sara’s visit. And the room itself was empty.

Which was very mysterious.

I had, it seemed, disappeared into thin air.

Sara cried. Andre was suspicious. Gabe agonised over how to report my loss in the mission log, Jake was philosophical. Neither Freedom nor Steve had time to think about it. Myrion was grimly amused.

And all the while I watched them, unseen and unknown, from my new home aft of the drive shielding.

I wasn’t dead, much to my surprise.

As it turns out, I was wrong about a lot of other things as well.

The aliens are a little more forthcoming now that I am with them. They explain that my body no longer exists, that it has been broken down to its constituent elements and dispersed throughout the ship, that the ‘I’ remaining is an abstract template of the old Alek Maas, like an AI but infinitely more complex. I inhabit the realm of information, incorporeal yet very much alive, thanks to my alien friends: an analog of my former self, complete with emotions, irrational urges and an initial reluctance to fully accept my new status. Gradually it sinks in, however: the reality of my new life.

The aliens themselves have existed in this fashion for centuries. Their culture learned early in the development of its space program that it was far easier (not to mention cheaper) to send disembodied templates on long voyages than ‘real’ people who constantly eat, breath and excrete. A large proportion of the
Wandering Jew,
for example, is wasted on oxygen and water recyclers, waste processors and medical facilities, whereas their ‘ship’ is nothing more than engines and a sophisticated mainframe, with no life-support whatsoever. A source of power is all they require.

But, like them, their ship does not technically exist either; that’s the part I have trouble understanding, and which they seem reluctant to explain. Somehow, the mainframe generates a model of
itself,
along with the rest of the ship - and the more I think about this, the less it seems possible. I wonder sometimes if they are ghosts travelling on a ghost-ship, with me as their guest.

But I am, of course, substantially more than that. They can learn more by interacting directly with me than they could from thousands of hours of covert observation. And I have certain other uses which only become apparent as the truth slowly emerges.

I was right about the flying saucer, but not entirely. It
was
an illusion and a crude attempt at communication, but for the benefit of one person, not the entire crew. It was an attempt to get the attention of a very specific individual.

As such, it worked, but only just. That I guessed the truth, or near enough to it, sooner than they had expected confirmed what they already knew. Their understanding of human nature was flawed. If they wanted to insinuate themselves into our reality without disturbing the contextual continuity of the soap bubble, then they needed help. Human help.

They needed, in short, a
Director.

And there was only one of those for one hundred and sixteen light years.

Time passes quickly. We watch the crew of the
Wandering Jew
explore the Delta Boötis system. The drive and the reactor are repaired, and my disappearance is made official. When the next package to Earth is despatched, I will be recorded as ‘missing, presumed dead’.

In my absence, no one has assumed the role of Soap Operator - a fact which pains me. The reports are being assimilated instead by a dry, dead AI with no sense of drama. The reappearance of the saucer and the near-tragedy of the jump should have been exploited to the fullest - not to mention my own disappearance: yet another mystery to plague the brave crew! Had I been there, I could have produced a first-rate episode.

But, in a sense, I am still there, and I have more time now that I am not confined to the halting rhythms of the flesh. It is a relatively simple matter to prepare the episode for my own enjoyment - as an exercise, a dry-run - while my alien benefactors watch. They are intrigued by how I turn reality into melodrama.

So intrigued, in fact, that they allow me a small favour. When the AI finishes its freeze-dried report, they tamper with its memory. It is my work that issues from it, my work that is sent to Earth. My role as impartial observer continues unchecked. From my new perspective, I can integrate each episode into a much larger plot containing aliens, First Contact, and perhaps even a genuine romance.

Sara, the dear girl, refuses to believe that I am dead. My unexplained disappearance has made her suspicious. When she sees the report, her opinion is confirmed.

‘He’s still here,’ she insists to anyone who will listen. ‘He’s the ship’s ghost.’

I attempt to convince my hosts that she is a threat to their security and must also be kidnapped, but they aren’t stupid. They know that I am simply seeking the company of one of my own race. Besides, they are busy. The saucer must put in an appearance soon, in accordance with the new script I have written. An archetype’s work is never done.

But I don’t mind. We have our schedule and are sticking to it. Beta Herculis, one year away (the twenty-fifth system, the halfway point) is where and when we will reveal the truth to the rest of the crew. All I have to do is wait until then to get my body back, or a copy of it at least. Perhaps my role as ship’s ghost may be expanded to allow small messages to appear in the system. At least that way I could talk to her, tell her that there is nothing to worry about, that she will be safe.

We are all in safe hands now.

And the story continues ...

~ * ~

AFTERWORD TO:

...........................................................THE SOAP BUBBLE

When I sat down to write these notes I was rocked by the revelation that I remembered very little about this particular story. The plot itself is clear in my mind—especially so having recently worked with a trio of talented thespians in turning “The Soap Bubble” into a musical space opera with a reality TV twist. Beyond that, however, I drew a complete blank.