“I can hear you.”
Jeff almost jumped out of his skin. The voice spoke flawless Cosmocration. It was a high but distinctly male voice.
“Welcome on board.”
The voice was completely devoid of emotion and sounded as if it had been synthesized by an ancient computer. Jeff looked around but couldn’t tell from which direction it was coming. There must be several speakers in the room.
Irons cleared his throat. “I am Major George Irons, Commander of the Imperial spaceship Charon. I would like to thank you on behalf of the whole crew for taking us on board.”
Jeff exchanged a quick glance with Irons. The major raised his eyebrows. His forehead was covered in beads of sweat. He looked as tense as Jeff was feeling. “Who are you?” Irons asked finally.
“I am the intelligence of this ship.”
Jeff nodded slowly. So it was a spaceship, and not a space station. A spaceship this big?
“Are you like a computer? An onboard computer?” Irons asked.
“That is an adequate description.”
“Seems to be some kind of artificial intelligence,” Irons said quietly to Jeff. “Where’s the crew?” he shouted into the room.
“The crew left this ship long ago.”
“Why?”
“Because they had arrived at their destination.”
“Destination?” Green whispered. “What destination?”
“The crew was looking for a suitable planet on which to settle after our own system was doomed.”
“Doomed? How doomed?”
“A gamma-ray burst threatened to make our galaxy uninhabitable and so this spaceship was built to bring the inhabitants to a new world.”
“An ark,” Joanne chipped in, astonished. “This ship is an ark. It’s certainly big enough.”
“There must have been billions of living beings…” Green said.
“Unbelievable,” Short added.
Everyone started to talk at once.
“Whoa!” Irons raised a hand. “One at a time. First we have to clarify the important points. I will talk with this computer and nobody else, understood?”
Jeff’s teammates fell silent.
“Unfortunately, our ship was destroyed, as you may have noticed,” Irons said. “We’re stranded here. Will you help us?”
“Yes, as far as I am able,” said the alien voice.
Jeff let out a sigh of relief. Maybe they’d been lucky after all. If this was a spaceship, it might be able to take them to the next inhabited star system. Once they were there, they could continue exploring the ship in safety.
“Can you give us access to a hyper-radio system so we can get a ship to pick us up?”
“If you are referring to superluminal communication, unfortunately I cannot provide that.”
Shit!
Irons grimaced. “You don’t have a hyper radio?”
“No.”
Jeff felt an icy shiver going down his spine as he realized the possible consequences. What if the strangers didn’t have superluminal technology? Then being on a spaceship wouldn’t help them much. How fast was this ship flying through the interstellar void? At half the speed of light, Jeff remembered. At that speed they would need a century to get to the next outpost.
Irons seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Surely this spacecraft doesn’t just have subluminal engines?”
Unfortunately, it made sense. Why else would they have built such a huge ship? Perhaps this had been a generational spaceship, on which millions of beings had been born and died before reaching another star system after decades or centuries. No wonder the crew had disembarked after arriving at an inhabitable planet.
“No,” said the strange voice. “This ship has a functioning superluminal drive.”
Jeff let out a sigh of relief.
“However, our jump drive is much slower than your hypertechnology appears to be.”
Jump drive? Jeff had never heard of a jump drive. These aliens must have developed a completely different technology for space travel than humans.
“How slow?” Irons asked.
“This ship can jump about two light years a week, if I use your units of measurement. In between, the capacitors have to be charged.”
Jeff wondered how the computer knew their units of measurement, let alone their language.
“Two light years a week,” Irons mused. “That would be half a year for a distance of fifty light years.”
The alien voice did not answer. If they could persuade the onboard computer of this huge spaceship to take them to Sigma-7, they would need half a year to get there. That was a long time. But at least a more feasible amount of time than a hundred years, which none of them would survive.
“Would you perhaps be willing to take us to a specific system, whose coordinates we would give you?” Irons asked.
Right now, this was the question of all questions.
Silence.
“We could certainly agree on some form of payment,” the Major said.
Payment… what kind of payment could they possibly provide?
Several long seconds passed, during which Jeff’s heart beat so fast it made his temples ache.
Finally the computer answered. “Certainly.”
Jeff could have whooped for joy, but he restrained himself. They would get back home! Six months… they could use the time to explore the giant ship. It might come in useful for Jeff’s studies after the war was over. It would take him in a completely new direction, but it would also give him a huge advantage over his peers. Yes, he would be the specialist in extraterrestrial culture and history. In his mind, Jeff could already see himself giving lectures at interstellar conferences. Who knows, he might even end up winning the Nobel Prize.
Someone slapped him on the arm. “Stop daydreaming,” Irons said harshly.
Jeff swallowed. Of course. It was still a bit early for daydreaming. First they had to get back home.
“Do you have a name?” Irons bellowed into the room.
“No.”
“Does this spaceship have a name?”
“Yes.”
“What is it called?”
“The translation of the name is ‘spaceship’.”
Irons rolled his eyes. Jeff chuckled. Green snickered.
“How should we address you?” Irons asked.
“That’s up to you.”
“Then I’ll simply call you Computer.”
No answer.
“Is there an area where we can base ourselves? Accommodation of some kind? Perhaps with access to clean water?”
“Appropriate rooms are being prepared for you. I suggest you make your way there now. We can discuss any details later.”
Jeff wondered who was preparing their accommodation. Robots?
“Great, thank you” Irons said. “Where do we need to go?”
Suddenly the hatch opposite them hissed and moved aside.
“There’s your answer, Major,” said Shorty.
Joanne hurried over to Jeff and Irons. “This is all a bit weird, if you ask me,” she whispered. “Can we trust that thing?”
“Unfortunately, we have no other choice, Lieutenant Rutherford,” Irons said softly.
“How does it even know our language? It’s creepy.”
Irons put his hand on her shoulder. “There are many questions that I hope will be answered in time. But we mustn’t rush anything. This spaceship is our only chance. We’ll have more than enough time to explore the ship and find out what we want to know.”
“I don’t know if I even want to explore the ship,” Green said, not budging from the spot.
“Why not?” Jeff asked.
The engineer turned to face him and stamped his right foot on the ground. “This thing is huge. You would have to travel thousands of miles before reaching the other side. We have moons in our Solar System that are smaller. It freaks me out just thinking about what’s hidden in the depths of this ship.”