Legacy

by Edd

“Message coming in.” The communications officer looked toward Captain Nels Okkerstrom. “They’re transmitting the images now.”

Not for the first time, Nels wished he were down on the planet instead of heading Earth’s first interstellar skipship. “Transfer them to the AI,” he said.

Nels had been twelve when scientists at CERN had sent their first experimental tachyon message. A millisecond later they had been inundated with responses nobody had been able to translate. Now, thirty years later, here was The Prometheus and her crew orbiting one of the sources of those messages.

Everyone on the bridge watched as images from below flitted across the computer’s screen. Everyone on earth who was tuned in could see them, too, via quantum ansible. Cylindrical alien buildings, signs, scrolls, all the extant imagery of a dead civilization still transmitting to the stars.

Nels tore his gaze away from the screen. “Katya? How is the translation going?”

The computer expert glanced up from her own screen monitoring the AI’s progress and spread her hands. With visual as well as digital information, the computer stood a good chance of being able to decode the signals. If not, computers all over Earth were viewing the same data. With luck, they’d soon know why this culture was extinct.

Nels ordered the ground team to return to the ship. He didn’t want them spending the night just yet. There was no reason yet to brave whatever might lurk below. He paced the bridge.

Two hours later Katya Malinov leaned toward her monitor. “Got it, sir,” she murmured.

“Put it up,” he said, gesturing to the public address speakers. “We’ve all waited long enough.” The communications officer flipped a switch.

“Extend the life of your sun.”

Nels cocked his head. So this was the alien message, a warning. Was there some previously unknown danger to their solar system?

“You have won the extrasolar lottery!”

Captain and computer officer exchanged glances. Nels said, “Is that–?” and she said, “Um.”

“Big sale on black holes!”

“Good god,” said Nels. “It’s spam.” He drew his hand across his throat. “Cut it off.”

“Sir,” said an officer at the helm. “The Bohr is requesting permission to dock.”

“Granted,” said Nels. “Tell them we’re–” The huge ship shuddered. The lights dimmed. “What the hell?”

“We lost power,” said one officer and, “No, it was diverted,” said another. The artificial gravity switched off. “It’s still being diverted,” said the computer officer. “To our communications array.”

“Cut off the AI,” yelled Nels, floating impotently in midair.

The gravity switched on, then off, then on. Air whistled out the vents.

“Satisfy your loved one,” bellowed The Prometheus to the galaxy. “Debt consolidation is easy!”

Notes – 29/14/106

by AlexM

Name: Beeotter

Exterior description: A thin creature a metre long, with another metre’s length in its forearm-thick tail. The whole body is covered in fur striped yellow and black. Its head is flat on the end of the body, with no discernable neck, and is dominated by a pair of black many-faceted eyes. A double pair of translucent brown-orange wings is its primary means of transportation, although the six stumpy legs suggest some motility when it has landed.

I saw the beeotter from afar, resting on the statue in the centre of the Square. I approached it cautiously. If I had learnt anything since my arrival in this place an unclear time ago, it was to never assume benevolence from its peculiar inhabitants.

Gravel crunched under my shoes; it was impossible to walk quietly in this corner of the world, when the crumbled remains of the buildings that stood around the Square lay thickly across the ground. As I approached the beeotter, a spindle-thin building fell and, seconds later, another sprouted up in its wake, like a stone flower growing at accelerated speeds.

When I reached less a metre’s length from the statue, the beeotter leapt from its perch and, wings flapping, buried its sting in my thigh. It moved so quickly I had no time to react. I merely collapsed to the gravel, gasping in shock.

And I heard a voice.

It said: I am a clue.

The beeotter died, stuck into me. I awoke, agonised but with my mind afire.

It occurred to be that this was probably another of the world’s tricks, but I had not entirely given up on hope.

I did what a biologist does when faced with an unknown creature. I laid out my tools from the pack on my back and I dissected.

Interior description: Its innards are laid out in a mess of lines, circles, squares. They intersect, merge, divide–as I watch I see new roads form, old buildings fall. They are confusing. They are a map of this place. There is no exit, no way back into my old world. That door long ago crumbled. But there are places I might like to go.

I pulled the sting from my thigh, cleaned and bandaged the wound. Several days passed where I could walk only far enough to gather stone-fruits from the buildings surrounding the Square. In that time I worked hard to preserve the beeotter–plucking a hollow glass-fruit from the plants around the buildings, filling it with a mix of water and concentrates from my pack.

And then I began walking, holding my map out before me and choosing my path.