Chapter V

Ordin returned to the small room where his crew waited for him. Before entering, he had thought that what he had learned in the past moments had been interesting. He heard what they had to say first, thinking he would save the best for last.

When he'd recovered himself from the shock that had followed, he'd managed to remember what he'd wanted to tell them. "The Hiigarans, they explained things to me. I didn't understand everything they said, but I learned a lot."

Ziir returned to consciousness from his silent considerations on time travel, to hear the Commander.

His voice sounded old, rough. The air in the chamber was unusual... It seemed stale. They were all having a certain degree of difficulty breathing it. "This is one of the prison ships that carried the exiles to Kharak, three thousand years ago. Or... Three thousand years ago as of landfall."

"Yes, we guessed."

The commander nodded. "I talked to their elder, their current leader. You see, this is the third generation of Hiigarans on this ship. And it was supposed to be the last. This ship was on its way to Kharak, making one final hyperspace jump that should have taken it into the system. But it failed, somehow. The ship materialized out here, beyond the outer rim. Their drives are inoperable, so for the past six months, their time, they've just been floating here trying to fix the drive and get back on course. The trouble is, they don't know how. None of the original engineers are still alive, and no one can figure out how to repair the core.

"The ship is also wearing out. It was never designed to carry the exiles for this long... The life support systems are beginning to shut down. Carbon Dioxide is slowly building up in the air. Those few people with any skill are predicting that the atmosphere will become toxic within five years. The elder asked for our help... He wants us to help his people repair the drives."

"With A'Kuul's help, it could probably be done." Ziir stated, coming to grips with the situation. "But, if we really have moved through time, are you sure it's a good idea to do that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sure we've all heard theories about this sort of thing... Paradoxes, time loops... You have to remember that our own present is not going to happen for three millennia. Anything we do, or change, or help right now will affect the future in ways we can't imagine."

Ordin was disturbed by this, but undaunted. "I myself tend to believe that paradoxes are impossible. We can't know what effect our actions will have, but because we are here now, we can assume that our actions will not change anything in our own present. We cannot defy our own time-stream."

Ziir nodded. "Have you studied these theories before?"

The Commander spoke, darkly. "I've spent the past sixteen years of my life trying to figure out how to change the past."

Silence descended.

Wearily, Ordin raised himself from the ground and moved toward the guard. "Tell Dhir, we'll help you."

 

* * *

They were lead, not by guards but by the elder himself, down the makeshift streets and alleys of the prison ship, in the direction of the drive module. They passed between great tents and crudely-erected structures that had functioned as homes for countless thousands of refugees for three generations... Everywhere here there was decay. Bits of dust from the rusted ceiling of the cavernous chamber littered the ground, and everything else. The thought that people had lived out their entire lives in this ship was utterly unimaginable to them, and yet it was not, at some level, unexpected. For this was the place of dreams and nightmares... It seemed somehow familiar to the crew because it was embedded in their distant memories of generations past... This was where the entire Kushan civilization had held its existence between the stars--and almost become lost forever in the void.

Creta, the only non-Hiigaran there, only felt as if the unconscious scorn from the other crew members had increased. This place was the object of their hatred for her and all Taiidani... The very symbol of the old empire and its evil deeds against the ancient Hiigarans. It was an unending reminder to them, it seemed, that she had once served the Emperor, even as consciously they never would have admitted it.

Luckily for her, the refugees had never seen a Taiidan. Had she arrived on this ship nearer to the time of the original exile, she might have faced the full force of the combined anger of all those who had been forced to abandon their homeworld. At least, right now, everything directed at her was subdued by the veil of politic and self-control.

They passed through denser residential areas... The ground was a sea of humanity. The refugees lay on an ocean of old blankets, trying to sleep under the eternal artificial lighting of the room. A staggering odor drifted upward but it was masked by the dull taste of the air... Chemical, over-processed. The source was clear... A huge fan jutted from the near wall of the chamber.

"Our old life support systems have been overworked since the beginning..." the voice must have come from Dhir. Creta was already getting used to the strange tongue, beginning to sense the similarities between it and the Hiigaran she already knew. After a while, it just sounded like another accent. "These fans have been turning for the entire voyage. The motors have grown rusty over the years, and the speed of the blades is no longer enough for the air to reach the center of the chamber. That portion is now uninhabitable."

The entire life support system must have been installed in a hurry, for Creta could see most of the filtering mechanisms sitting out, exposed, and somewhat damaged. Some of the tubes were broken, leaking precious oxygen--and not-so-precious coolant-- into the surrounding area. Actually, she could relate the prison ship to transport frigates she herself had flown, and she recognized this massive inner chamber as nothing more than an enlarged cargo hold. This Khar-Toba class ship probably served most of its life hauling freight around the inner rim, with this "cavern" being nothing more than a place to stack crates. Its conversion to a generational humanoid transport vessel had, by the looks of things, been a fast and crude.

"How many of you are there here?" Ordin asked as they ascended a long ramp.

Dhir paused at the hatch, consulting his memories. "I believe there are eleven thousand, within one thousand. I was taught that there were more than thrice this many, in the beginning."

Ordin sighed as the lock opened. At the end of another corridor, they arrived at a larger door, a very shiny one that didn't look as if it had been touched in eons. Dhir stopped, his eyes focused on the floor, as if this place was holy ground, and he was afraid to offend the spirits inhabiting it. Ordin hit the panel, and the door flew open at once.

They were bathed in a faint blue light, and a wave of frigid air flowed away from the opening. Ziir looked in against the wind that stung his eyes and surveyed the scene. There was a narrow walkway running part of the circumference of a large sphere suspended in the middle of the chamber. Pipes and conduits of all shapes and sizes projected from the walls of the sphere and fit into sockets on the circular walls. There were obvious signs of damage here... many of the tubes had split or been torn from their connections. Panels hung loose. There were stains on everything, the last remnants of oily liquids that had dripped out of their containers many years ago. It was a small wonder it didn't work.

Someone swore loudly.

"This thing been giving you trouble?"

"Yes." Dhir forced himself to look at the drive. "For as long as I can remember, I heard the elders talking about it. They said it never went on target, always jumping thousands of kilometers from the intended destination. We had a hard time catching up with the rest of the convoy. And it kept getting worse each year until the last jump, when it took us out here."

Ziir whistled, probing through the ancient machinery. "Was it turbulent... Did the ship shake a lot with the jumps?"

"Yes, very much. My arm was broken in the jump, some time ago. It happens to many of us." He rubbed his left elbow, wincing with the slight pinch of pain.

With a quiet snapping noise, Ziir removed a section of the casing and peered inside.

"Can it be fixed?" asked Ordin, distraught by the mess.

"I think so. It's old, and it's... bad. But I think I might yet be able to get at least another jump out of it. I'll need A'Kuul to look at it."

The commander nodded. "Good. I'll get him." He lead the rest of the crew with him.

Creta remained, her eyes fixed on the dark orb. She spoke the question that had been on her mind for hours. "Ziir... Why did the Bentusi give you the drive unit for the Ir Miilas?"

He looked up from the chaos. "Well... You know, our Hiigaran drives wouldn't work well enough out here."

"Why? What's so special about the outer rim?"

He scratched his head. "I don't completely understand it... It's just that hyperspace works differently, when space is so... Empty. Maybe... I heard theories that space is like a plane, curved by gravitational forces. Out here, there's no matter to produce gravity, at all. No stars within ten thousand lightyears, no asteroids or nebulae. The plane of space is just... Flat. Perfectly flat, and somehow that interferes with normal hyperspace."

Creta stared at the machine. "And the Bentusi drive somehow compensates for that, I suppose. But why, then, don't they do this mapping mission themselves?"

Ziir shrugged. "Unbound races have never participated. I don't know why." He buried himself in the mesh of cables again. His voice swirled around the machine, combined with its everpresent drone. "I know what you're thinking, but it's no good. The galactic council has records of mapping missions going back to the day of its establishment, and there has never been any report of anything like this happening."

"Maybe it did happen, but they never made it back."

Ziir looked up and gulped.

 

* * *

A'Kuul and two engineers descended the ramp, hauling a small crate of equipment. They met Ordin and the others at the foot of it, exchanging worried glances and uneasy words.

"Are you sure it's wise to proceed like this, Commander?" A'Kuul asked. Even as he spoke, the display on his face seemed to be running models and simulations.

"No." the commander smirked at his own response. "But we're going to do it anyway." He talked into the intercom. "Ziir? Do you copy?"

"Yes. I've just finished surveying the hyperdrive core... I think I can find my way around it. It is, essentially, identical in configuration to the drive unit from the mothership."

"Good. What's your estimate on how long it will take to repair it?"

It took a moment for Ziir to add it up. "Six to twelve hours, depending on how fast we can get it unpeeled. No more than eighteen hours, if all goes well."

The commander nodded to himself. "Get on it. Ordin out." He looked up from the receiver. "Sjet, take command, keep watch over the ship while we're gone. We'll see about changing shifts if needed, but until then I don't want anyone leaving Ir Miilas. Agreed?"

"Y-yes." the engineer stuttered and reluctantly pushed himself through the lock.

 

* * *

"We're ready..." Ziir called over the radio. After three hours of exhaustive work with the damaged core, they were ready for the first phase of testing. They would feed power into the drive and align it with a test destination, to see if it could generate a weak wavefront. If the drive passed the test, they could move on to the next phase; if it failed, it would help them localize the problem and hopefully fix it.

The Paktu Engineer was far off in the navigational chamber of the prison ship, with Dhir and the other elders. The control systems were old, sluggish, but still operational. Slowly, the massive ship brought its ancient engines to bear and lumbered forward, aiming itself back toward the galaxy of its origin. Dhir nodded to him, and the engineer reported over the comm circuit, "Ready on this end. Confirmed... We have drive alignment, coordinates locked in. Awaiting your command..."

Ziir nodded to the commander. "Hit it!"

Paktu took a deep breath and punched the console. All through the ship, they heard a deep rumble, like distant thunder. The noise rippled through the walls, washing over the massive crowds of Hiigarans who had gathered around the more stable areas of the cavernous chamber. Each man, woman and child was excited by the noise, as much as frightened... For this was all the hope they had ever had of reaching a home, for a very long time.

A dim blue light began to build up around the hull of the prison ship. The waves expanded and engulfed the vessel, and space began to bend.

"It looks good, commander. Everything is within tolerances... For a three-thousand year old freighter, she's working beautifully." Ziir called, against the roar of the drive.

"This is Ir Miilas... There's a problem..." a disturbed voice echoed through the comm circuit. "We're being hit by the gravitational shear. The wavefront isn't wrapping correctly."

Ziir scanned his displays frantically. "Ir Miilas isn't safely within our hyperspatial field... The quantum wavefront is unstable. The ship's being torn between spaces."

Paktu shouted into the intercom. "I'm shutting down the drives."

Ziir heard the sounds die down behind him, but the sensors told him better. "Nothing's happened. The wavefront is still building... It's going to collapse. Ir Miilas has to detach now, or it will be destroyed by the shear."

"Detach! Get clear!" Ordin yelled. He ran quickly to the airlock. He braced himself at the window and watched as the smooth form of the ship removed itself from the hull and floated away... It made it just in time. Just as the ship made safe distance, a turbulent streamer of the blue light swept under it. Had she been closer, Ir Miilas would have been destroyed by that streamer.

"The wavefront is dissipating." Ziir called.

Ordin sighed, relieved, but all but lost his breath when the Ir Miilas, only thirty meters from the glass, vanished into nothingness. He pressed his face against the cold glass and scanned the dark space beyond for the shape of the vessel, but it was nowhere.

"Ir Miilas! This is Ordin, calling Ir Miilas!"

Only dead static was his answer.

Trapped somewhere in the depths of hyperspace, torn away from reality, the ship was lost. And with it, the six Hiigarans realized, they had lost all hope of return.