“You won,” Jeff croaked. “Now do what you have to do.”
But the being didn’t move. It stood motionless before him.
What felt like an eternity passed. Jeff’s heart was pounding like a drum. Why didn’t it just kill him, like those other beings had killed Major Irons and Fields? What was stopping it?
Fascinated, Jeff looked at this creature that was slightly smaller than him. The head seemed to shine from the inside and the light flickered slightly. It was like looking at a light just beneath the surface of rippled water.
“What are you?” Jeff whispered.
Very slowly, the creature raised both arms. It stretched them out, palms first, and Jeff was reminded of old paintings of a benevolent Christ giving his blessing. Then the creature floated back a little way and turned around. It lowered its left hand, lifted its right one a little, showing him the back of the hand.
Jeff stood completely rigid. This wasn’t the behavior of a creature that wanted to kill him. Gradually, his fear began to subside, although his heart was still pounding like a jackhammer.
But what does it want?
The creature had now retreated as far as the door. It stopped there and continued to hold out its hand in Jeff’s direction.
Does it want me to follow?
Robotically, Jeff took a step forward, but then hesitated. Should he really follow this creature? What if it was a trap? On the other hand, it hadn’t attacked him like it had Fields, Irons, and Finni. Jeff was suddenly overcome by a dreadful feeling that he may have completely misjudged the situation. What if the light aliens hadn’t been responsible for the deaths of his shipmates? But then what was? Or were there good and bad versions of these creatures?
Jeff took a deep breath and clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms. The pain triggered him into action. There was only one way of finding out.
Jeff walked toward the alien being. It waited until he had almost reached the door, then drifted down the corridor. Jeff followed it back down to the long corridor that connected the cavity and the central area. There, it swished round to the right. Jeff looked over his shoulder nervously, fully expecting to see a whole group of light aliens, but there were none to see.
For a few minutes, Jeff followed the ghostly creature and wondered if it wanted to take him to Green and Joanne. But at the intersection, it turned left and took him on a zigzag course through the bowels of the black ship.
Finally, it stopped in front of a door. Jeff waited a few feet behind the creature; the door opened as if by magic. The creature floated in and Jeff followed.
The room resembled the projection room where they had found the map of the ship. Several armchair-like objects were dotted around the room. It reminded Jeff of the small movie theater on board the Orpheus space base. Did the creature want to show him a film?
The alien floated to the front of the room to the projection screen and came to a stop in front of one of the armchairs. Then it raised an arm and touched it with the palm of its hand.
Was the thing telling him to sit down?
Nervously, Jeff stepped closer. Could he trust this creature?
Finally he sat down, not taking his eyes off the alien.
He sat there tensely while the figure hovered in front of him. It lifted both arms and moved its hands backward slightly.
It wants me to lean back. But why?
Jeff tried to relax, and rested his head on the back of the chair.
Suddenly there was a hissing noise. Something cool wrapped around his head and he couldn’t move anymore. His hands shot up in panic. With his fingers he could feel a piece of tight-fitting metal covering his head. Only his face was left uncovered.
And now what? Was he going to be tortured? Had it been a mistake to follow the alien? He broke out in a cold sweat.
The creature made a soothing gesture.
Jeff tried to calm himself.
It drifted to another chair and lowered itself into it. Jeff could only watch it from the corner of his eye.
Suddenly the projection screen at the front of the room lit up. Unlike the other map he had seen, this wasn’t a hologram. Individual characters were projected onto the wall one after another.
“I’m afraid I can’t read that,” Jeff whispered more to himself than the alien.
“But I’m sure you can understand me,” replied a sonorous, robotic voice from an invisible speaker somewhere in front of him.
“Yes,” Jeff whispered.
“Good. Finally we can communicate.”
Now Jeff understood why they had come here. The device seemed to be some kind of translation machine. Finally, he would get some answers! But would this creature tell him the truth? He had to think of Irons. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that one of these creatures was responsible for the deaths of his companions. And not to forget all the lies the onboard computer had told them.
“Who are you?” Jeff asked finally.
“My name is Jerry, I am an—”
Jeff pulled a face. “You’re kidding me, right? Jerry?”
There was a short silence. Then the voice could be heard over the crackly speaker again. “It is unlikely that my actual name exists in your language. I imagine the translation system selected a name at random.”
That made sense.
“Sorry for interrupting. Please continue.”
“I am one of the last survivors of the original crew of this spaceship.”
“How is it that you’re so… so…?” How should he phrase this?
“Don’t be deceived. This is not my actual body. This is a hologram with limited manipulative abilities. An avatar, so to speak.”
“An avatar,” Jeff repeated in confusion.
“I will explain later. My real body is in stasis in another part of this ship.”
“So some of you did stay on board after you reached your destination,” Jeff said.
“I don’t understand. We never reached our destination.”
Jeff pricked up his ears. “You didn’t?”
“No.”
“But the onboard computer told us you left the ship before it embarked on a discovery expedition.”
“What onboard computer?”
Jeff was utterly confused.
“The computer that controls the ship.”
There was a pause, which seemed to last an eternity.
“This ship is not controlled by a computer.”
“It isn’t?” Jeff was baffled.
“No.”
“Then who controls it?”
“He does.”
“He?”
A long silence.
“The demon.”
31.
“Our galaxy was doomed. Several supermassive stars at its center burned out and died in a massive hypernova. The expanding gamma-ray flash gradually erased all life in our galaxy. With our drive technology, we could not travel more than a hundred light years per year, so we built this ship as a way of escape. A ship constructed from an asteroid that would be able to accommodate all the inhabitants of our world. Ten billion of us, approximately. And we began a journey that would take us to the next galaxy in twenty-five thousand years, where we hoped to find a new home,” the voice explained.
“And all those billions of people lived in cavitys, like the ones we saw?” Jeff asked.
“Only their avatars.”
“I don’t understand what you mean by avatars,” Jeff admitted.
“We are freedom-loving beings and our home world had a beautiful, dark-blue sky. We couldn’t bear the thought of living for hundreds of generations in the cavitys of the asteroid ship without ever seeing our new world with our own eyes. We also wanted to spare our children and future generations this fate. That’s why we used a cryogenics system.