The Temporal Void

Justine

The moment after Justine realized she wasn't dead was the most tranquil point in her entire life. What, as a five-year-old, she'd imagined walking into biblical heaven would be like, just lacking the angels. Once she acknowledged she actually was still alive, she checked round while the feeling shrank back down, as if wounded by her practicality. She could hear her heart beating. She was breathing. Exoimages revealed other body functions were nominal, including the macrocellular clusters and biononics. The cabin lighting remained on. Gravity field held steady.

'Status? she asked the Silverbird's smartcore.

'Life support operational. Secondary systems performing at optimal post-damage level. Hyperdrive inoperative.

'What's wrong with it?

The smartcore didn't respond at once, which sent a chill down her spine. If it was taking this long to diagnose the failure, the damage must be significant. She stood up, and walked over to the galley alcove. The bruising on her legs and back from getting thrown around made her draw a breath.

'Quantum state of this location does not correspond to external universe parameters.

'Wow, Justine replied. She stared at the section of bulkhead nearest to the smartcore. Well, we knew it was different inside the Void. 'Okay, show me where here is, please.

Her exoimage wrapped her in the view gathered by the hull sensors. Justine gasped in delight as the glowing nebulas of the Void shimmered softly all around her. As she watched, she could see movement amid some of the far-flung patches of luminescence — just as they had when the Waterwalker gazed up at them from Querencia. Stars glinted through the exotic ragged veils, lightyears distant.

Wait… distant? In every direction?

'Where's the Void's boundary?

'Unknown, the smartcore replied.

'But we came through it less than a minute ago.

'Yes.

Oh crap. 'What about nearby objects? Can you sense anything? Like the Skylord?

'No radar return inside five million kilometres. No visual acquisition of any large mass. Hysradar inoperative. No local gravity field registering.

'Hell. It's dumped me in the middle of nowhere. Justine slumped down in the chair, at a loss what do to, or feel. Then she remembered one of the marvels of the Void. / wonder. She smiled tentatively, and looked at the glass of chilled white wine the culinary unit had just produced for her. Closed her eyes, and tried to let her mind find it. Strange shadows swept through the darkness, a lot duller than anything she'd ever perceived in the gaiafield. Justine snapped her eyes open. Farsight! 'Okay then, now we're cooking. She smirked at the wine glass, and imagined reaching out for it, lifting it high. The surface of the pale white liquid trembled, producing a tiny ripple. Then the base of the glass tilted up a fraction. 'Yes! she laughed exultantly. Another ten minutes saw the glass shift a couple of inches.

All right, not exactly the Waterwalker's strength, but I've only just got here. And it's all real. Every single one of Inigo's dreams is real. Holy shit.

'Start cataloguing the constellations, she told the smartcore. 'See if you can find any which match the ones that are visible from Querencia. Also, locate the nearest star.

Once it had begun that task she stripped off and went for a good long shower. A real one, with water and gel — no modern spore rubbish. Her flight through the Gulf had lasted for what seemed like an eternity, leaving her stressed, aching, and exhausted. The tiny TD link back to her father had revealed the support and encouragement of a good proportion of her species, which had buoyed her along at the time. Now the residue of that emotion had fallen on her as an awesome feeling of responsibility. She was the ambassador for an entire universe to a whole different universe. It was all getting a bit much for her poor old biological brain to cope with.

After the shower she ate a decent salmon en croute and mint-buttered jersey potatoes, washed down with some champagne. The smartcore still hadn't recognized any nebulas by the time she'd finished her raspberry Pavlova. She was asleep less than a minute after lying down on the bed which the cabin extruded for her.

Ten hours later she woke. Rested and almost immediately impatient. The smartcore still couldn't find a recognizable nebula, not even with meticulous three dimensional projection of the ones it could map. Whatever angle it examined them from, they simply didn't match. Either she had emerged a very long way from Querencia. Or so much time had passed inside the Void that they had simply changed beyond recognition. Neither option was good.

The nearest star was three lightyears away. There was no detectable mass point between her and it.

Justine ate a light lunch, and told herself it was never going to be easy. Perhaps the Skylords were sailing towards her in their fabulously serene fashion. They were all slower than light creatures after all.

That afternoon, she rubbed medicating salves on her bruises, and ordered the gym to extrude for an hour's work out. She went to sleep with music playing quietly in the background, feeling not a little annoyed with the Skylords. And perhaps just a tinge claustrophobic. Or maybe that was agoraphobic. Would being completely alone in a universe bring a sensation of closing limitations or infinitely expanding horizons with associated loneliness?

On the second morning she had a light breakfast of eggs and toast. The (lightweight plastic) cup containing her freshly squeezed orange juice drifted across the cabin from the culinary unit and nestled into her open waiting (physical) hand.

'Yes!

Bandits and Ranalee watch out! There's a badass new girl in town.

Two days later every nebula had been thoroughly analysed. Justine had to face up to the simple fact: she was completely lost.

She ran a review of the ship's capability. The direct mass converter could power her almost indefinitely. Her small level-seven replicator could produce most of the ship's components. The few bots on board were capable of high-level maintenance. And best, or worst, of all, the medical cabinet could hold her in stasis for over a century without serious damage to her current body. It could also grow a clone and download her stored memories into it if her situation became extreme.

All in all, it was a pretty crappy way of whiling away your immortality.

However, the smartcore did report a few disturbing irregularities; not everything functioned perfectly the whole time. She saw unexplained glitches in the log of some systems. They'd always gone when she ordered a real-time review, and the analysis never gave any reason why they'd occurred in the first place. The only constant was that the more sophisticated the system, the more susceptible it seemed to be to the odd malaise.

She took another day to make her decision, or rather nerve herself up for what she knew had to be done. The ships whit li had brought the Waterwalker's ancestors to Querencia had fallen from the sky, or crashed. The legends were never clear on that. However, they had certainly never flown again.

Something in the Void was inimical to technology — presumably the different quantum structure underpinning what passed for spacetime in here. Though she was uneasy at the whole mental supremacy concept which the Void sustained; having the mind as king opened up some disturbing potentials. It could well be that the collective Heart was wishing the Silverbird to fail.

She did have confidence that the Silverbird was a lot tougher at every level than the old colony ships which had somehow blundered in here all those centuries ago. Her first instruction was for the smartcore to run a comprehensive analysis of the quantum structure, and from that to determine any conceivable reconfiguration which would make the ftl drive function again. Secondly, she used the small on-board confluence nest to amplify her own thoughts as she composed a message of greeting to the Skylords, asking them to find her, asking them to fly to her. A message it repeated ceaselessly.

After that the ingrav started to accelerate the little starship to point seven lightspeed towards the nearest star, a velocity which would take her there in a little over four years. The force fields could cope with a dust cloud impact at that velocity.

Justine ordered the smartcore to revive her at regular intervals, or in case of emergency. She reviewed the sensor images one last time. Nothing had changed outside. With that, she stepped into the medical chamber, and began the suspension process.