Serenity's Quest

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Except for the Lumarians, of course. The remaining members of their race, few as they were, had been in a high state of distress, after hearing the screams of terror and despair for days.

Well, not hearing, exactly. The Lumarians were blessed with an extra sense that no other species possessed, a fact that frustrated High Chancellor Clayden Dray to no end as he walked with long strides towards the Serenity's deck.

Clayden hated things he couldn’t wrap his head around, even though the Lumarians he had met in his life had tried their best to explain it to him.

“It’s like being able to sense the brilliant blues and greens in Solderan's starset with your eyes, or hearing the sweet melodies of a diliger with your ears,” Cassetta had told him long ago. “Except different.”

“You mean like a vibration?”

“No, no. Nothing like that.” Cass had shaken her head, rolling her brown curls like waves across her shoulders.

He'd reached across the bed, taking one of the soft curls and twirling it playfully around his finger. “Then is it like a feeling, some sort of intuition?”

She shook her head again, pulling the corkscrew lock from his hand. “It’s hard to explain to a human.”

Clayden had once heard about an entire ecosystem that evolved in the pitch blackness of an underground cave. When they brought the animals out into the light, they realized they had no eyes. Clayden felt like one of those sightless creatures when he was around Lumarians: not missing something he’d never had, but frustratingly oblivious to the things the Lumarians could sense in their environment.

Despite his rush to get to the ship's deck, Clayden stopped in his tracks. Speaking of being oblivious, he realized he had forgotten something. Looking back over his shoulder, he called, “Osla, keep up. We are in a great hurry.”

Osla obediently pumped her four-year-old legs into action and ran down the hall towards her father, her long turquoise hair flying behind her.

Clayden frowned at the shimmering blue streaks, disappointed she’d gotten the recessive genetic mutation from her mother’s side. Not that he minded the mutation itself; only the memories it evoked.

She landed beside him with a final hop, skip and jump, and thrust her hand into his.

It was hot and sticky.

Poor Osla, sick with a cold and being dragged out of her warm bed because her father needed to resolve an intergalactic emergency. But the daycare was strict – no child could return until a fever had subsided for two rotations. Clayden scooped her up into his arms to carry her the rest of the way.

Usually Osla would be with her mother, Etta, at this time of the month, but Etta was away on her honeymoon. He suspected that within the year, Osla would have a sibling.

He idly wondered what the new baby would be called. Only mothers could name children, and many women, his ex included, liked the trend of finding a word that was meaningful to her or the child, and then creating an anagram with the letters. When Osla was born, Etta had declared to him, “Her special word is Also, because I will never be alone now that she is here – for she shall be with me Also.”

It could have been worse. A different arrangement of the letters and his daughter could have been called Asol, or Losa.

Osla was a nice name.

Nevertheless, Etta’s choice let Clayden know that she no longer saw him as someone who kept her from being alone. She dissolved the marriage soon after.

Clayden arrived on Serenity's deck and deposited Osla in a chair by the door, setting her daycare backpack beside her. “Now sit here and be a good girl. And don’t touch anything.” He placed her sound blockers over her ears and selected a few of her favorite stories and songs. The noises on deck would soon become deeply unpleasant, and perhaps some soothing music would lull the little girl into a nap. He laid her blanket on top of her.

Clayden then weaved his way through Serenity's crowded deck, where dozens of officers crossed back and forth over the floor or huddled in groups, their voices fast and furious. Above all the din, at the front of the deck, the sounds of pain and crying could already be heard.

“High Chancellor!” The Left Hand on duty snapped to attention, giving him a five-fingered salute – the highest level of respect.

“Stop it!” Clayden hissed. “Let’s be concerned with the more important things.”

He nodded towards the Lumarian, huddled in a fetal position on the floor, eyes squeezed shut. “How long has he been like that?”

“It started quite mildly a few days ago, and I thought it would clear up on its own. But it became much worse a few hours ago. I called for you then but you were…occupied.” The Left Hand turned his gaze to Osla in the chair by the door. “Begging your pardon, sir, but should she be here for this?”

Clayden gritted his teeth. Who was Left Hand, a man with no children of his own, to judge him? “Daycare kicked her out. She has a fever.”

Left Hand persisted. “Things could get rough. Perhaps not something a child should see?”

“She’ll be fine,” Clayden said gruffly. “Look, her eyes have already closed. She’s sound asleep.”

A screech erupted from the figure on the floor, drawing their attention back to the Lumarian. He writhed as if in labor, muttering as drops of sweat sprouted on his brow.

“He’s feeling the pain of the screamers,” Left Hand observed, stating the obvious.

“Any idea yet where the screams are coming from?”

Left Hand opened his mouth, then closed it again.

“Well?”

“Right Hand is looking into it, sir. But so far, what she’s found is…well, it's not something we’ve ever seen before.”

The Lumarian screeched again, louder than before. He gripped his stomach and gasped, “Terror. Horror. Despair. Tears.”

“Should I get the doctor to give him something, sir? For the pain?”

Clayden hesitated. Left to run its course, the emotional agony and suffering could cause the Lumarian’s blood pressure to skyrocket, making his brain explode into pieces inside his skull and bringing the species one step closer to extinction. But blunting his sensations would mean the loss of a valuable information tool for his ship, which could lead to the death of millions if he couldn’t find the source of those who were screaming and help them.

“Nothing for pain,” Clayden ordered as he turned to make his way to the other side of the deck. “But get him something to keep his blood pressure in check.”

Although he never showed it, Clayden hated the plight of the Lumarians as much as everyone else – maybe even more, since he was usually the one to give the orders to provide them with some comfort or to deny it. The psychol-scientists had been working on an artificial intelligence system that could replicate the Lumarians’ abilities for decades, but so far, nothing had come close.

But just like every other crew member on the galactic rescue team, the Lumarians were treated well. Their paychecks were even higher than average, with bonuses each time they had to endure an “incident.” They received free health and dental care and plenty of recreational time off.

They just weren’t allowed to leave.

…

On the other side of the deck, Clayden found Right Hand perched on a stool in front of the nine-dimensional holographic map. Her face was pinched and her eyes squinted, as she tilted her head in deep concentration, this way and that.

“Right Hand,” Clayden greeted her.

She startled, then leapt to her feet and swung her hand into a salute, before dropping her arm and sitting back down again.

“Right. Almost forgot how much you hate the old ways, sir.” She gave a wry smile, but her face remained serious.

Clayden gave her a rare smile, but got straight to the point. “What have you found, Right Hand?”

“That’s the thing, sir. I can’t tell you, because I have no idea what it is.”

Right Hand pointed to a small region on the map, and Clayden followed her gaze.

The spot reminded him of something. Some child’s toy he’d seen in a museum once. A kaleidoscope. That’s what it was called. But the patterns and shapes weren’t symmetrical or a mirror image like within a kaleidoscope. The area swirled in multiple colors and patterns, first backwards, then forwards and then diagonally. It seemed to grow into something new with each turn, fast and then slow, defying the laws of physics or any predictable force of nature.

“And you say you’ve never seen anything like this before? Not even something similar?”

“No, sir. And I’ve been searching the databases, doing image searches, for a few days. Nothing.”

They both stared at the ever-changing pattern before them.

“I do believe, sir, that we may be observing the first of something, that this thing, whatever it is, has never existed before.”

“And do you believe it’s connected to the screams that the Lumarians are picking up?”

First Hand shrugged. “Of that, I can’t be sure.”

“Your best guess, then.”

“I can only say that the timing of this anomaly's appearance correlates to the distress of the ship’s Lumarian,” Right Hand ventured. She raised her voice to be heard above the moaning from the other side of the deck. “And clearly, it’s getting worse.”

“Perhaps we should get a closer look then?” Clayden wasn’t asking First Hand for permission to move closer to the anomaly. He’d already made up his mind. The Lumarian would succumb within days if he couldn’t find the source of the screaming and silence it. And besides, the Serenity was an ambulatory rescue ship, one that was supposed to find beings in distress and help them out. This was their job.

Right Hand frowned. “I’m not sure we should rush in, sir.”

Clayden raised an eyebrow. Right Hand had never questioned his authority in all of the years they’d worked together, so he felt safe having a more informal relationship with her. “What’s the meaning behind your sudden insubordination?” he asked her, with a wry smile. "What are you nervous about?"

Right Hand drew a deep breath, but before she could begin, Clayden interrupted her. “In layman’s terms, please. You know I can’t recall all that crap from our academy days.”

First Hand nodded, knowing that Clayden was valued more for his ability to make the hard decisions than his understanding of galactic facts and theories. She was the only person he ever shared this weakness with. Theirs was a different kind of relationship than a boss and underling, although they never let it show in front of the other crew members.

“The problem is, we humans are arrogant,” Right Hand began. “Like, at every step throughout history, we think we know the answer to everything, we even burn people at the stake who disagree with the popular theory. And then, it turns out we're wrong.”

“Examples?” Clayden asked.

“People forget that a theory is a theory. Something not proven.”

An agonized groan reverberated across the deck.

“Be more specific, please. Time is of the essence.”

“Let's start with the Big Bang Theory. Humans actually thought that all the matter in our vast universe, the stars and planets, the galaxies and gases, the equivalent of about two trillion Milky Ways, was all densely packed into an object…an object about the size of a peach.”

Clayden couldn’t hold back a laugh. “And yet our professor chastised me when I questioned the absurdity of it all.”

“Yes. And then, as you know, the ‘peach,’ which was about a quadrillion degrees, exploded, sending massive hot-mess debris out into the universe. And it created the stars, the moons, the suns, the galaxies, the heavens.”

“Right.”

“Except something about the Big Bang Theory didn’t make sense. Turned out what we knew about the theory of gravity let us down, too.”

“Remind me.”

“We assumed the way gravity worked on Earth would be the same way it worked everywhere else in our expanding universe. But it wasn't the case. Stars in the far reaches of a galaxy were moving too fast if gravity was supposed to be the only thing keeping them in orbit. There had to be something more. So that’s when humans came up with the idea of…”

“Black holes. Dark matter.” Clayden finished for her. “I remember that part.”

“Exactly. Black holes that sucked matter into them, providing the extra ‘pull’ that would explain the gravitational speed the humans were observing. And that theory helped support the Big Bang Theory, despite the anomalies.”

“So back to square one.”

“Nope. Not even close. Because then came the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, which is the leftover radiation from the Big Bang, and it brought in new information that led to all kinds of different theories, and then…”

“Right Hand, please. Give me the condensed version.”

Right Hand sighed. “The bottom line is that we still don’t know what the hell happened. Or what we’re doing. Or where we're going.”

“How comforting. So why the hesitation on my recommending that we investigate this…this kaleidoscope thing? It could shed some light.”

Right Hand looked back at the holographic map. “Because one of the theories that evolved Big Bang was the Bang-Bounce theory. That the universe would eventually stop expanding and then gradually get drawn back into the peach again – from there to explode all over again.”

“So you think this might be the peach? That we’re heading back into the beginning of the universe, the Big Bang?”

“My measurements are showing that we’re going to have a front row seat, sir, unless we reverse course within the next few days. We’re actually being drawn into the…the peach right now, for lack of a better word.”

“And that’s your best guess?”

Right Hand turned to look at him, her eyes soft. “I can’t be certain, Clayden. Just like all the other failed theories, this could be half true and half bullshit. Or something new, something that we never imagined before.”

Clayden stared at the ever-mutating spot on the map. “To confirm, you say we have about three days before we can no longer reverse course away from it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Clayden rubbed his forehead. How the hell was he supposed to make a sound decision out of this? No solid information, a suffering Lumarian, people screaming their lungs out from an unknown location and an unknown cause.

And a daughter who was sick with a cold.

He glanced over to the chair by the door, wondering what the universe would hold for his child as she grew up.

The chair was empty.

“Crap! Right Hand, please print me out a report of everything we just discussed and your recommendations. Schedule a meeting with all Right Hand Officers and Star Marshalls for one hour from now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Clayden strode quickly to the empty chair, where Osla’s ear blockers and blanket still lay. The door to the deck was open. Who could have been so careless?

He strode out into the hallway and looked both ways. Nothing. Which way would she have gone? She couldn’t get off the ship of course, but the ship was also not childproofed. And kidnappings and abuse were not unheard of.

Clayden’s heart thudded in his chest as he considered the possibilities. He began jogging down the hallway to the left, the way he and Osla had arrived barely an hour ago, then changed his mind and turned to head right.

…

Osla sat back on her haunches and placed her hand on the Lumarian’s forehead.

“Don’t worry,” she said in her small voice. “It will be all right.”

The muscles around the Lumarian’s face first twitched, then relaxed. He stopped writhing and let out a gentle sigh.

Osla stroked his cheek. She found his hand and slipped her small one into his.

The Lumarian opened his eyes. "It's you,” he said to Osla.

Osla smiled, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Osla! There you are! You must never wander off like that again.” Clayden scooped his daughter up, but her hand still held fast to the Lumarian’s.

“Let go of her!” Clayden commanded to the Lumarian, shaking Osla gently until their hands parted.

Clayden could not stay angry at the Lumarian for long. He stared, surprised to see him lucid but ready to take every advantage of the unexpected gift.

“What are you seeing? Where are the screams coming from?” he commanded.

The Lumarian gathered the strength to lift his arm and point at Osla. “Do not let harm befall her. She is the only one, and in great danger.”

He’s delusional from the pain, Clayden lamented, realizing he was unlikely to get much out of him. “Never mind my daughter. What have you seen?”

The Lumarian’s eyes glazed over. “As above, so below.” His head turned to the side, and he was gone.

Clayden had no time to despair the demise of his ship’s only Lumarian. A sudden jolt reverberated across the ship, sending him flying backwards. He twisted in mid flight, trying to maintain his grasp on Osla and protect her, until he hit the floor hard.

“Sir!” Right Hand appeared before him. “Remember my theory about us having three days before we could reverse course? I was wrong. We’re being sucked into the anomaly right now. Calculations show we’ll be entrapped within it – whatever it is – in less than 48 hours.”

Clayden pushed himself to his feet, still holding onto to Osla. His mind raced. How could he even begin to plan for this event, let alone save the millions of beings who were depending on him? He glanced around the deck, layered in chaos as shipmates struggled to stand up and the injured called for help.

“Da?” Osla nudged him.

“Yes, love?”

“I have to go to the bathroom."