Augury

By James 'Porphyre' Grahn

As Porphyre left the station, there were two things he noticed: a large, courier-class starship directly in front of him; and that it was not changing course.
He flipped his retro rockets on full, and quickly hailed the craft. "Change your course. I do not have room to maneuver here." The ship came to a halt gradually.
"I have a message for you..." The man had a standard, Imperial-issue uniform on. Clearly the type that sheds tears when he hears the national anthem. That would explain how bull-headed he was in risking both their lives in his close approach. More willing to serve than to use his brain. "…from Imperial command."
"Doubtless," Porphyre said, under his breath.
"The Imperial Command wishes you to report to BeBeCe immediately. Your skills are required."
"For what?"
"It is not mentioned in this dispatch."
"It reads as a Federal system. Why would the Empire send me into the Federation?"
"They must have their purposes. You are listed as having rank in the Empire. This surprises me. All Imperial agents are instructed on how to follow commands without question. There obviously was something wrong with your training. I pity you."
"Nice," Porphyre said bitterly, remembering the twist of fate that drafted him into the Imperial Navy. "Nice." Porphyre locked onto BeBeCe and left the known universe.
If restricted by the bounds set by the universe, it would have taken Porphyre more than 30 years to reach his target. Assuming, of course, he had infinite fuel, equipment that wouldn't break down, and a ship that wouldn't fall apart under those extreme stresses. But his ship wasn't restricted to the universe, therefore bypassing the inability to go faster than light by leaving the universe and entering hyperspace.
Hyperspace crumples the distances which we perceive between stars. A voyage that would take half a century in our universe, Realspace, would take less than two weeks through hyperspace. Now that nations had spread out among the stars, hyperspace was the only thing holding humanity together.
He entered Realspace again in the BeBeCe system, about 2 AUs away from the nearest planet. Nothing was here to give him an indication of what he was supposed to do. Porphyre sighed, and waited for what was to come.
After an hour of waiting, which he spent mostly scanning the ship's displays, a Marquette rushed up on his left side and stopped suddenly. Hyperspace drives can traverse interstellar distances in weeks by escaping from the laws that hold our universe together. However, hyperspace drives can't actually take you close to a planet, because gravity has an enormous effect on them. The Marquette’s drive was a hyperdrive modified for short distances, at the expense of longer-range capabilities.   It was too small to accommodate the equipment for longer jumps, anyway, so it wasn't that large of a sacrifice.
And so it reached him in minutes rather than hours.   It hailed him
"Sir… Porphyre? You are to board my ship by order of Imperial command. It is imperative that you reach my ship so we can arrive at the target in time."
"Why is there such a hurry? And what will become of my ship?" Porphyre asked. His ship was state-of-the-art, a Stiletto Interceptor, and he was a little squeamish about leaving it anywhere.
"There is an Imperial agent aboard my Marquette who will pilot your Stiletto back to Imperial space. You will be able to retrieve it following your mission."
"Okay…" Porphyre said. "Dock at the top hatch. We'll swap ships there."
The Imperial pilot acknowledged and closed the communications channel. Soon Porphyre heard a click, a thud, and the hiss of air as the Marquette docked with his ship. He climbed the ladder up to the Marquette, noting that the Imperial agent who climbed down after him was the same type of agent he had seen in the courier at the station: a puppet of the Empire. He could trust this man with his ship as much as he could trust Imperial command itself. Maybe that's why he didn't trust him much.
Porphyre tried to make himself at home in the passenger cabin. The chairs were comfortable, but he couldn't shake the uneasiness of not knowing why he was there. A nearby screen showed the pilot's face. The pilot began to speak.
"You have been called into this system to investigate a very peculiar phenomenon. About 6 months ago, a military satellite left from the BeBeCe war detected an X-ray burst and a ship coming from the direction of the burst. The ship is not of any known designs, and is presumed to be of an inhuman origin. The satellite is orbiting a gas giant and the ship is on a slingshot course that will take it out of the BeBeCe system in a matter of days at about 20% of light-speed. We've been sent to intercept it before it can make its flyby and accelerate out of the system," the pilot concluded.
"Is it known whether or not the X-ray burst may have come from a hyperspace entry point?"
"No, but it is presumed."
"Let me see those readings." Porphyre had majored in physics in college, and figured he could probably determine the point of origin of the craft if he had the readings from the entry.
Porphyre scanned the readings and fiddled with the ship's computer to his satisfaction. "If we are to assume that that was an entry point, then according to my calculations, we'd be dealing with a craft that can make it from one end of the galaxy to the other in a single jump. That's a lot more powerful than anything I've ever seen. Even Thargoid drives wouldn't measure up."
At the mention of the Thargoids, the only other known intelligent species in the galaxy, the Imperial pilot shuddered. The pilot was younger than Porphyre, but perhaps his grandfather had told him about the war. The Great Thargoids War was a result of a misunderstanding that started when a human pilot attacked a Thargoid ship that was going about its own business. After several decades of intense fighting. Eventually, the humans developed a fungus that ate crucial portions of Thargoid ships, and the Thargoids disappeared for one hundred years. Eventually, peaceful contact was established, but three years later, they disappeared once again. Perhaps the pilot knew about the carnage of the war. Or perhaps he just hated the Thargoids because it was Imperial policy. Regardless, in a few seconds the Imperial pilot regained his composure and said, "I see. We will intercept in four minutes. Close com."
The screen flickered off. The Marquette came to a sudden stop two minutes later. The only explanation was that something had gotten in their way, as Fastdrives cease functioning around gravitic disturbances. Porphyre contacted the pilot. "What's going on up there?" he asked.
The pilot's eyes were wide open. "You'd better come up here and get a look at this."
Porphyre rushed to the cabin. Upon entering the cabin, he saw the pilot's problem and what stood in their way. There were three ships. One was a small Krait, and it appeared to be having some problems with a thruster. It spun awkwardly while trying to hold its position among the group. The second ship was a massive pink Boa. While Porphyre didn't like its color scheme, the Boa was obviously ready for battle. The third ship was truly a classic, a Cobra Mk III. Though old, it was also quite capable of holding its own in a tussle.
A face flashed onto the communications screen, awash with static. The computer showed that the transmission was coming from the Krait. "What business… you… in…" Eventually the whole screen was covered in a snow, and the sharp hiss of static replaced the voice.
Another face flashed onto the screen. This time, the man in the Cobra was talking. "What he meant to say was, ‘What business do you have in this system?’."
Porphyre stared into the face. "Rob!?!?"
An eyebrow raised on the face on the screen. "Is that you Porphyre?"
Porphyre nodded.
Rob smiled. "It's been ages since I last saw you. Want to go back to the pub for a drink?"
Porphyre shook his head, "No thanks, Rob. Looks like I've got some pressing business from Imperial Command."
Yet another face slid into view alongside Rob's, on the now crowded comm screen. "Imperial?" The computer indicated it was coming from the pink Boa.
"Yes, Imperial. And who are you?" Porphyre asked.
"I'm Viscount Jades," the man said with pride. The pilot's jaw dropped at the sound of his name. The Viscount was famous for several incredible feats of cunning, bravery, and service to the Empire. He was rumored to be on the fast track to being proclaimed a Prince, the highest rank non-royalty could hold. Porphyre didn't let his feelings register in his face and just stared through him. "Hello Jades. I've heard quite a bit about you."
Jades let out a tight-lipped smile and said, "Thank you, Porphyre. What is your business here?"
"You don't know about the X-ray burst and the mystery ship?" asked Porphyre.
Jades slowly shook his head. Eventually Rob did the same.
Porphyre turned once again to the view outside of the ship. The Krait had stopped spinning left to right, but it had also started to rotate slowly.
"Who's the guy in the Krait?" Porphyre asked.
Rob responded, "His name is Bee-Keep."
"Has Bee-Keep thought about working his Krait? It definitely looks like it needs it."
"He's been overhauling it for a while, now. He says after another year of repairs, it'll be like new!" Rob replied.
Porphyre took another look at the Krait, which was noticeably jerking fore and aft as Bee-Keep tried to stabilize it.
Porphyre broke the silence by saying, "If you couldn't tell, the Empire is in a hurry here. They shipped this Marquette over here for this purpose only." He suddenly realized that he didn't know that as a fact, so he added, "Right?" while turning to the pilot.
The pilot nodded, still staring at Jades.
"In that case," Jades said, "We'll get out of your way. Since it's for the Empire, I’ll try to meet you there. What are the coordinates?"
The pilot sent the coordinates over to the Boa. Jades studied them and said, "I can get there in about four hours. You can get there in about two minutes. I’ll arrive just before it completes its sling-shot orbit. I’d advise you to leave immediately."
Rob said, "Right. We'll get out of your way. Say, after you're done with that ship, come over to Hole for a drink."
"Where?" Porphyre asked.
"Hole," Rob repeated. "It's the marsh-world in this system. Bee-Keep owns a pub there. It's easy to find."
"Thanks. Maybe I will stop by. And maybe you can tell me where I could still find a Cobra like that!" Porphyre said.
The three ships slowly backed off so the Marquette could continue on its journey. As soon as the ships were a couple of kilometers away, the pilot initiated the Fastdrive once again, and the Marquette was well on its way to the gas giant. What started as a speck grew gradually into a huge, screen- filling, orange planet. It stopped growing on the screen as the Fastdrive disengaged, and the pilot started to perform scans for the unknown ship. In ten minutes they were floating over the craft, extending a docking tube to it.
Porphyre was in the cabin with the pilot, watching the tube's progress. "I haven't seen docking tubes in quite a while. It's been a long time since docking ports were standardized," Porphyre commented.
"Yes it has been, but docking tubes have a seal that adheres around the airlock. That way, we can get a good seal even if our airlocks don't have the same specs," the pilot replied.
Porphyre nodded. A few seconds later, a solid thud indicated that they had docked. Porphyre started for the hatch. The pilot stopped him.
"Not yet," the pilot warned. "First we let the air from inside the mystery ship into the tube. If it's breathable, then we go in. If not, we suit up, then go in."
"Ah." Porphyre made his way back into the cabin.
The testing yielded curious results. The air mixture was close to human standards. The humidity, temperature, and nitrogen content were near to ideal. The only figure that was out of balance was oxygen content, which was higher than normal.
"Let's move," the pilot said, starting for the airlock. "And by the way, there's no artificial gravity on the mystery ship. You'll get a slight feeling of disorientation, but if you've ever been in zero gravity before, it's not anything new."
Porphyre nodded and followed him to the hatch. "I've just realized," he said, "I haven't caught your name."
"It's Djeez," the pilot said. Djeez grunted as he pulled the hatch open. "After you?"
"Thanks," Porphyre mouthed. He climbed over the lip of the hatch and let go of his handholds. He fell for the first second, then floated through the tube as his momentum carried him toward the other hatch. He landed softly on the other ship's hatch.
Porphyre opened the other hatch by turning a handle that cranked an archaic arrangement of gears on the outside of the craft. After four full turns, the handle wouldn't move any further, and Porphyre pulled at the hatch. It swung open. The interior was dim.
"Bring a light down here!" Porphyre yelled up the tube.
Djeez nodded and disappeared for a moment. When he reappeared at the portal, he was holding a small light. "I'm coming down. Look out!"
Without another word, Djeez hopped into the tube and landed on the other ship. The zero-g conditions caused him to float upward softly due to his impact with the other ship. Porphyre grabbed him before he could get far. Once they were both floating next to the hatch of the ship, Porphyre said, "Shine your light down there."
The light probed the ship, but saw nothing but an ugly brown muck that covered everything. Several strands of it had stretched across the hatch in a macabre parody of a cobweb. Porphyre tried to brush it away, but it stuck to his hands. After a few minutes, Djeez and Porphyre were able to clear the hatch of the sticky strands, and they proceeded to investigate the ship.
"I think I might know what this is," Djeez told Porphyre. "I think that this is a substance called biomass. It was first engineered to help terraform Mars. It produces oxygen much faster than any natural biological. When space flight became more common, another type of biomass was developed, a type that didn't need sunlight to function. Biomass is the predecessor of the biofilters we use on spaceships today.
"That would mean that this is a human ship. It would also explain the higher than normal oxygen levels. Of course, biomass isn't supposed to have this type of growth. And there would also be this problem: the ship would have to be more than a millennium old."
Porphyre nodded, saying nothing.
They pushed forward and arrived at an intersection of two tunnels. "What do you think?" Djeez asked, shining the light down each tunnel. "Straight ahead?"
Porphyre shrugged, then added, "I guess," after he realized that a shrug might be hard to interpret in zero-g. Something caught his eye, just then, off to his right. A flash, like light reflecting on a mirror. "No," he said, pulling Djeez back, "Let's go right."
They turned and went through the tunnel. As they pushed off the walls, in an attempt to gain speed, they noticed the lights mounted inside the ship were steadily getting brighter. After a few more seconds, it was also increasingly evident that there was a light at the end.
At the end of the tunnel was the cockpit. It had a chaotic layout that would have made any pilot's head spin. A few dozen lights blinked at once, and countless others were dead, burned out by overuse. All of the displays were so flashy and demanding, that Porphyre barely noticed the commander's chair was turned completely away from them. But he still noticed it.
Motioning Djeez to the chair, Porphyre readied himself and spun it around. It was empty.
"Looking for me?" a voice asked.
Porphyre kicked the chair, so that the impact would send him backwards, away from the voice. He looked up to see who had spoken. It was an old man, a decrepit old man, like you would expect to see before the age treatments began. "Who are you?" Porphyre finally asked.
The man said, "I am Daniel. I am John. I am a living ghost. I am nothing. I am the universe."
"Huh?" Djeez ventured.
"My name is not important," the man asserted, the end of his sentence punctuated by a cough.
Seeing that his previous question had failed to get a sensible answer, Porphyre tried again. "How did you get here?"
"I was sent here by all saints and blasphemers," the old man answered.
Slightly upset at a lack of a solid answer, Porphyre responded, "Look old man! We know that you entered this system through hyperspace. What we don't know is how you got here in this antique ship!"
"I am here on behalf of the demons and angels," the old man said calmly. "I have spent one hundred years in what you call hyperspace. I have seen things you'll never see. I have seen prophets and beings beyond comprehension."
"One hundred years?" Djeez whispered to Porphyre.
"It would be consistent with the readings we got from the entry point, and it would also explain this bout of cabin fever this guy seems to have. After all, we only think of hyperspace as instantaneous because when we use it, it takes about a minute. The only thing that bothers me is how much power you would have to expend to stay in hyperspace that long," Porphyre answered.
"But why wouldn't he have gone farther?" Djeez asked. "After all, one hundred years in hyperspace would be enough to travel to the Andromeda Galaxy, if not farther."
Porphyre considered this for a moment. "But if somehow he also was able to move through time, that would explain both the age of the ship, his age, and how far he had gotten."
The old man, who had been droning on and on about blasphemies, suddenly looked impatient, and was glaring at the pair. Finally, Porphyre spoke, "How did you get into hyperspace?"
"My time is short, and how my journey began is not as important as what happened during it," the old man said, waving his finger in the air. "Nevertheless, I shall describe my entry since you requested it. "I was a pilot. A test pilot, in fact. Hyperspace was just beginning to be used, and a new corporation thought they had a new way to get in, so you could go farther than 1.8 light-years, the maximum distance at the time. They had devised a cylinder, and rotated it at half the speed of light. It was supposed to create distortion pockets into hyperspace, that a ship could fly into. They said that all the tests had been positive and that it was as safe as anything else at the time. But when I was flying close to the cylinder, looking for the distortions to open up at any time, something went wrong. The entire cylinder collapsed, and it was replaced by something that blocked out all the starlight around it."
Porphyre nodded, "A singularity. They created a black hole."
"Exactly!" the old man said, snapping his fingers. "And just when I thought all was lost, I got an energy reading on my scanner. I headed toward it, and I realized that it was one of those distortions that they had told me to look for! Needless to say, it didn't take a lot of time to choose hyperspace over being crushed to death in a black hole…
"In hyperspace, all of my digital instruments went mad. My timepiece recorded nearly an hour for every second I counted. My crewmates and I had to live on extended rations, adding more and more biomass to our diet until we were eating only biomass. Eventually all my crewmates died. Following their deaths, the augurs came. They showed me things that no man was ever meant to see…" With that, the man's voice began to trail off.
"Get anything out of that?" Djeez asked Porphyre.
"I think so… the pocket distortion would have let him enter hyperspace, and the black hole probably powered his trip through time and space," Porphyre answered.
"What about these beings he claimed to see?" Djeez whispered to him.
"What, the augurs?" Porphyre snorted. "I doubt that they are real. We've never known Thargoids to do anything like that, and they're the only other being that we've made contact with…"
The old man cut him off, speaking with a booming voice, "I have been told by the augurs that there is to be a cleansing of humanity. It was foolish for humanity to believe that they could get away with such a reach for the stars. We rebuilt the Tower of Babel, thinking ourselves equal to God. The day of reckoning is near. The augurs guided my ship through hyperspace. I fear that they have sent me to this time for a purpose, to herald their coming. They come to announce the complete annihilation of our galaxy."
"How? When?" Porphyre asked, the words nearly blurring together.
"They did not shown me how or when. But they did tell me that it was to be soon. Be wary of them, too. They seem genuine, but are not. They come to rob humanity of all its wealth. They are at war with angels, and they come with the intention of corrupting humanity," the old man said.
"Angels?" Djeez asked.
"The angels come with eight legs. I have met with them, also. They have armor of metal, and they speak not as we speak."
"Thargoids?" Djeez asked.
The man smiled. "You know of them? Humanity would do good to side with the angels. The angels are mankind's only chance for salvation."
Porphyre rubbed his eyes. "Look. You're on a sling-shot orbit into interstellar space. We've got to get you into the Marquette, and get out of here."
The old man shook his head. "I know my course. We're not going anywhere. I sealed the hatch after you came in. Not even I can open it. I have seen things no one was meant to see. I fully intend to take them to my grave… and I don't believe that physical retaliation is going to work either. Just before I entered, I set the cockpit aerosol dispensers on a timer. They should discharge momentarily."
"What do they hold?" Porphyre asked.
"Ships of this time period used aerosols to put inhabitants to sleep during long interplanetary flights," Djeez said, cutting the old man off before he could answer.
"Quite correct," the man said. "Quite correct."
The hiss of the aerosol made everything melted away.
Porphyre came to on the deck of the Boa. One of Jades’s crew members was slapping him on the face. "Ow. Stop it!"
As Porphyre sat up, he saw that Djeez was already standing and was speaking to Jades. Jades nodded several times, then saluted, and strode over towards Porphyre. Porphyre scrambled to his feet.
"You don't have to get up, you know," Jades said.
Porphyre shook his head, which seemed to make it spin violently, and stayed standing. "I'm fine. Really." Something seemed wrong to him. "Where's the old man?"
Jades answered, "He was too weak to handle the aerosol. He was flat-lined by the time I got to him. Did you know I had to use a laser torch on the hatch? It was a very tough metal."
Porphyre shook his head.
"Well, at any rate, we're near Hole now. We'll land soon."
Bee-Keep’s pub was nearly empty. Rob had his own table in the corner, and two other tables were filled with passing couriers and traders. Rob motioned for Jades, Djeez, and Porphyre to come meet them. Hours passed as Porphyre recounted what happened on the ancient ship, with Jades and Rob adding comments or questions at several points during the story.
After Porphyre had finished, Jades asked, "What do you make of the creatures that the guy claimed to meet?"
Porphyre shrugged. "Cabin fever, maybe. He was alone for a long while."
It was at that moment a courier burst into the pub. "The Andromeda Galaxy is being torn apart by a cosmic string. The cosmic string is heading this way, too. It'll rip our galaxy apart when it arrives in twenty years. It'll be the end of civilization, unless we can find a way out."
Murmurs and whispers could be heard as the various tables contemplated what they heard. Every voice was tinged with an uncertain anxiety.
The bearer of ill news continued, "It'll be confirmed in the journals, if you don't believe me. There's more… seemingly benevolent aliens have landed at the capitals of all the major political bodies. They say they are here to help us with the cosmic string ordeal. They call themselves the Augurs. They have also publicly condemned the Thargoids. They say that the Thargoids have caused this."
There were groans and whispers, hisses and anxious chattering, but one group in the pub was quiet. The group at the corner table stared at the courier, in horrible comprehension of what it all meant.

 


Story ©1998-2000 James Grahn

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