Gavin Smith: The Age of Scorpio

Eldon’s mood had improved with Melia waking up but was now beginning to sour again. He needed to replace Eden but needed to find someone of her calibre that came at her price. He tried his best to ignore her. Instead he focused on the wriggling naked feline in his lap.

‘Will we be docking soon so we can go and do something fun?’ Melia asked.

‘Baby Doll.’ Eldon ignored the gagging sound that Eden was making. ‘We need you to do some work.’ Melia pouted. ‘Did you look at the data packet I ’faced you?’ Eldon had to suppress his irritation as Melia shook her head.

‘I figured that if it was important you’d tell me when I woke up.’ Melia concentrated for a bit. ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere, baby. Why’d you want to go into the Red here?’

‘We’ve been given a tip on a some salvage, Baby Doll.’

‘In Red Space?’ Melia’s purring baby talk had gone; now she sounded more businesslike. ‘Isn’t that like, really dangerous?’

‘Yes. There’s a reason the Church has us stay on the routes marked with the beacons,’ Eden snapped.

‘They’re paying a lot, Baby Doll – they even installed a new bridge drive,’ Eldon continued. Greed and the need to be safe warred within the feline.

‘Enough money to have fun?’ she asked. Eldon nodded. ‘A lot of fun?’ Eldon looked pained but nodded. Eden groaned as she saw her bonus getting smaller. Melia smiled.

‘I’ll go and put some clothes on before what’s-her-face expires in a puddle of jealousy.’

‘While you’re at it, why don’t you fuck yourself?’ Eden suggested.

‘Only with Eldon watching, darling.’

Nulty didn’t want to miss this. It had been so long since the Black Swan had gone into Red Space. His hangar door slid down as he disconnected himself from his immersion link. In aperture configuration, Nulty scuttled out of the hangar on deceptively spindly looking insectile legs. Even living as a machine he felt the vertigo of being alone out in the stars and embraced it. He hoped he never grew tired of it. Though he had to cut off the comms chatter from the rest of the crew. He wondered how they could just bicker at times like this.

In front of the Black Swan space was ripped open, though Nulty did not appreciate it as violence. To him it looked like a tear lined with a silk ribbon of blue pulsing radiation. Through the tear it looked like space was bleeding, the bright crimson of Red Space. As incredible as this sight was, there was something about the fabric of Red Space that made him feel uncomfortable. He knew Red Space was dangerous. He knew much of it was uncharted territory, and in his several hundred years of spacefaring he’d heard all the stories, though like most people he’d never seen anything. Deep in his metal shell he just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong at a fundamental level. If he were forced to put a word to it, the word would have been vampiric, though every time he thought it the rational part of his brain scoffed at him.

As they moved through into the eddying, seemingly living crimson smoke of Red Space, Nulty retreated back into his hangar. Reconnecting, Nulty went looking for solace in immersion fantasies.

‘Sorry, boss. Nothing but glitches,’ Brett told Eldon.

‘Baby, I’m bored,’ Melia said. Her tone suggested that she wasn’t just bored, she was more than a little worried.

‘Wow, so this is what Red Space looks like,’ Eden muttered to herself sarcastically.

‘Everyone fucking shut up!’ Eldon shouted. He was trying to concentrate. He even ignored Melia’s pout, which this time wasn’t just for effect. They’d been in Red Space for the better part of twenty hours, running every conceivable sensor sweep they could. Different rules applied in Red Space, though none of them had ever thought to investigate those rules and find out how they worked. Normally it was just enough to know that some things worked, others didn’t, and stick close to the Church beacons so you didn’t get lost. Those different rules, however, were playing havoc with their sensor sweeps. They had been chasing glitches and sensor ghosts, some of them terrifying in scale, for the last twenty hours.

Despite the uppers, most of them were tired. Because of the uppers, most of them were jittery and even more irritable than normal.

‘What’s that?’ Eldon asked, sharing information with Brett.

‘Another glitch,’ Brett answered wearily. Eldon sighed and then highlighted more of the sensor information. ‘Okay, so it’s a repetitive glitch.’

‘If it’s that regular then there’s a reason. Nulty?’

Nulty had been quiet but he’d been monitoring the sensor sweeps through neunonic interface with his own liquid-software brain.

‘That’s called cause and effect,’ Nulty said over the interface.

‘The signal’s so weak,’ Brett pointed out.

‘Baby, are we moving?’ Melia practically mewed. She sounded frightened.

‘It’s okay, Baby Doll. The Red plays tricks with your perception, just like with the sensors. We’ve got the engines compensating for a stationary position.’

‘Does it play tricks on the bridge drive as well?’ the feline asked.

Normally Melia liked it when she was the centre of attention. She did not like it so much this time as they all turned to look at her.

‘What do you mean?’ Eldon asked. He wasn’t sure if it was his mind playing tricks on him, but now Melia had said that, it did feel like the Swan was moving.

Melia shared the pertinent bridge drive info over the neunonic interface.

‘Shit,’ Eldon said simply.

‘That’s weird. It looks like something’s pulling at it,’ Nulty said over the interface.

‘Ever seen anything like that?’ Brett asked.

‘No, never even heard of anything like that, and I thought I’d heard every bridge drive tale going.’

‘We could be about to start one,’ Brett said, his curiosity overriding his concern.

‘Maybe our mysterious benefactor gave us a dodgy drive,’ Eden said.

‘If something’s pulling at it, then there has to be some kind of measurable force or transmission,’ Nulty said. The rest of them just looked at each other blankly. Nulty had left human mannerisms behind a long time ago. He found himself missing sighing. ‘We’ve been looking for something solid, a wreck. Reconfigure the sensors to check every conceivable spectrum capable of carrying a transmission, then check the rest.’

Much to Eldon’s irritation the others didn’t even check with him; they just followed Nulty’s suggestion.

Eden didn’t say anything, but her expression changed to one of shock.

‘What?’ Eldon demanded. Eden shared the link. Over the ’face the transmission took life in the centre of their minds. At first it just sounded like a deeply unpleasant discordant noise that put them all further on edge. Then with the help of their internal systems they started to discern a pattern.

‘Is that a language?’ Brett asked. Even his normally positive attitude was being overridden by wariness bordering on fear. It felt like an ancient fear, like something he knew at some base instinctual level as an uplifted ape. One thing was clear: if it was a language then it was from a species very alien to any of the known uplifted races.

‘It’s singing,’ Eden said. There was something about it, drawing her to it.

‘Turn it off! Turn it off!’ Melia all but screamed. Melia could break the link any time she wanted and had in fact already done so. Eden just shook her head at the performance, but the others had broken their link to the horrific sounding ‘music’. Eldon was hugging Melia.

‘Boss, this is getting a little fucking weird,’ Nulty said.

‘I don’t like this. Let’s go back,’ Melia said.