Rety had been sitting at the bar for some time now. It was getting harder to hear over the cacophony of the men and their body odor. No amount of water limitations was an excuse for the stench emanating from them.
Rety distracted herself by mentally noting the HEX numbers of the bottles on the wall. It was a silly game but a game that came in handy when she was navigating her ship through the galaxies. As Captain the importance of light and color or the absence of either really surprised her.
In this bar, she could tell that there were no other captains who had managed to Nav their way through time. In fact in this solar system, there were only two, one of them being her. She traced the shape of the neon pink drink bubble and began sinking into gladness as the tingle of the drink spread through her body easing her anxiety. She was anxious about many things. She was anxious about the money she owed for the last ship. She was anxious about having to message the family members of the dead crew. She was anxious about the flow of time and how it had seemed to be slowing and no one noticed. At least she hadn’t heard from anyone in the surrounding four galaxies about it. She also hadn’t picked up any whisperings on the Interstellar Comm about it either.
She returned to her Hex number mental exercise and finished her drink trying not to think about the implications. She placed her palm on the pay pad and found her way out into town. EXYRBIT 27H was relatively new meaning that it had been added to the intergalactic map less than 150 years ago. Many would call it a fledgling town on a baby moon. She liked it though. It was one of the few places she frequented especially after a failed wormhole jump.
The thing about wormhole excavations was that death rates were high. Of her 26 excavations, 12 of which she had lead, there were only 3 with zero casualties. There had been some lost limbs and disfigurement but those were easy things to pay and fix with the haul from the excavations.
In the PreG era before intergalactic maps existed they theorized that wormholes were somewhat of a tunnel. What they didn’t understand was that tunnels stored so many precious artifacts and historical data of space and time. They also did not understand that you could turn a black hole into a wormhole using a little bit of nuclear fission and a lot of mathematics.
Sometimes she felt sorry for old earthlings. They had lived eons on a tiny rock and never got to experience the joys of dipping into the Gas lakes on YUKPN87, float across the arid mountains of GVNDKI5L, or even enjoying eating the many many unending cuisines across the galaxies. Sometimes the sheer limitations of the past scared her. It made her wonder what limits existed now. It made her frantic to find answers and so she found herself on ships excavating wormholes for answers.
3 T-Rotations Later
She dragged her hands against the walls of her new ship. She could feel the warm hum of it thrumming against her palm. She pressed her face against the wall whispering to it all the good things that would come for them.
We’ll survive again.
We’ll jump through 7 wormholes.
We’ll bend time like origami making it beautiful, making it useful, making it art.
The ship thrummed in response dimming its lights in response to her wishes and affirmations. This was a newer model made from fuzing organic matter and SIC. Super Intelligent Computers were a step above the older AI and had existed for a while but the fuzion with organic matter was a fairly new development. It functioned like a living organism healing itself and adjusting to the endless changes in environment of the Universe. Its warm thrum was a sign of life.
She made her way to the food garden where the crew sat being boisterous. There were some non-humans here but she liked her crew diverse.
“Welcome to your new home, The Calypso. It’s nice to see new faces but even nicer to see some old ones,” the vets cheered in response. “I won’t blabber on too long. You all know how this goes and have all been debriefed on how I like to run my ship. Let’s keep it clean, keep it kind, make some money and most importantly try to stay alive.” The sentiment was met with another bout of cheers.
She took a seat next to Lunis who she had grown incredibly fond of on the last three trips. The smell of whatever Lunis was eating made her sick so she tapped her Sanibracelet and let the medicine do its thing. She loved the hope and excitement of a new trip. It was it’s own drug.
16 T-Rotations Later
It shouldn’t have taken her Sanibracelet as long as it did to realize that she was pregnant but it did. The nausea had eased but she absolutely hated how drained she felt all the time. Her stomach had gotten too big to fit in her old suit so she had to have one refitted. They were so very close to their wormhole and she needed to be outside with the crew while she still could.
So far the trip had been smooth. They had found a few stashes across various jumps. She walked to Lunis’s station and knocked.
“Hey Belly.”
“I believe you meant Captain. I’ll choose to pretend that’s what you meant.”
“Yeah yeah yeah. Whats up?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask have you heard anything about weird time phenoms from the crew? Time slowing, time black outs?”
“No, not the crew but I did stumble on a Chattrail that had some observations about it. You concerned Rety?”
“Less concerned and more curious about why the G-Consortium haven’t said anything. It’s clear something is going on. You can’t plan with silence you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I do. I’ll keep my eyes on the Interstellar Comm and let you know if I see anything.”
“Thanks Lunis. Oh, and please you and HP stop the frolicking in the Med Bay after hours. You know the SIC tells me everything… right?”
Lunis smirks, “there’s only room for one belly here anyway right?”
Rety smacked Lunis playfully and headed back to her station.
4 T-Rotations Later
They had made it. The darkness of this particular wormhole was a sight to behold. Rety imagined it had swallowed it’s fair share of civilizations. She imagined it was pregnant with history and stories. The crew’s usual din had been replaced with a staticky anticipation.
Each member went through their prep-list to ensure a smooth excavation but even the vets were a little nervous. This bad boy had decimated more formidable foes. The Calypso seemed to hum a warm song of worry and excitement. Rety pressed her head against the walls whispering again.
We’ve made it this far girl don’t you fail on me and Bunbun now.
A lesser captain might not have felt the 3-degree increase in temperature where her body touched the ship but Rety and The Calypso had become like extensions of the other. They approached the mouth of the wormhole hoping that this one was more of a bridge than a twisted tunnel. Before long they found themselves swallowed, expanded, and stretched. Then silence. A suspension in time frozen like an ice lake. The ship had successfully halted mid-passing.
The crew prepared to exit and begin their scavenging. On exit, they could hear the muted groan of the wormhole through their suits. It was a sound that Rety found oddly comforting. She wondered if Bunbun could hear it in her stomach. The thought was punctuated by a large metal bang. It seemed like the sound expanded and ricocheted around the expanse of the darkness.
She did not need to look to see that The Calypso had been hit. There was no contingency for this. The panic didn’t creep in it stuck somewhere between the Amygdala and her Sanibracelet. The ship was the only thing keeping them from becoming ancient artifacts stuck in the time pockets of the wormhole.
“Lunis! Lunis? Is everyone on the ship okay?”
The ship and the large object seemed to be frozen in their collided state. The explosion seemed to be spiraling outward like ice crystals forming on a window.
“Can anyone hear me?”
She could see to her far right two of her crew. They seemed to be stuck midmotion. Rety tried to look back up at the ship and call out again except now she was the one moving like ice.
In the inbetween of the wormhole she was stuck. Her mind sped through thoughts. How long how long how long? Bunbun. Lunis. There had been no reports of any ship surviving a collision like this in a wormhole and so she had no out, no how, no answer as to why she was suddenly stuck except a wormhole was the kind of thing that was a bridge and a cell all at once.
She thought and thought because it was all she could do suspended in animation. She wondered about how often the things she had excavated were actually frozen by time. She wondered if anyone would excavate her and her crew or if the blaze from the ship’s explosion would, given enough time, eviscerate them all. Mostly she thought of Bunbun and wept a cry that would never be heard in the tunnels of the wormhole. Mostly she played the HEX game with the colors of the explosions and prayed the Universe would be kind enough to free her from the cage.
Reminder: I’ve decided to continue to start my pieces with no introduction. I would like to capture the feeling of opening an anthology and landing on a good story. I feel like an introduction no matter how brief can significantly change how the work is perceived and how people interact with the writing. If you like my work, can’t afford to be a paid subscriber, but want to support you may do so here.
WHEW! I hate science unless it’s time to cook or write science fiction. I didn’t really know much about wormholes & blackholes (a black hole can lead to a wormhole but supposedly all wormholes don’t have to start as blackholes) but it was fun reading about the theories and science behind it. This is for sure one of those stories that could be a novel! I have many ideas about what caused the collision, the G-consortium, and some other things. Questions my husband asked mostly centered on how they managed to navigate and see in the wormhole. The short answer is tech. That’s something I’d expand on more in the longer story if I ever get to write it. Overall I enjoyed writing this as it stretched the imagination in a new way.
TELL ME:
Did the story go where you expected? What questions did you have about the story that went unanswered? Do you think mankind will ever get to the point of traveling through wormholes? What was your favorite word or line?
For all of you who have already subscribed thanks so much!! For those of you who haven’t subscribed yet, it’s never too late to join my smart and funny subscribers (nickname sadly still pending)!
As usual tune in next Tuesday for my next newsletter.
What a great story! I was certainly surprised with the ending; the story has so many pleasant twists and turns. I found myself empathizing with the ship for some reason, it reminds me of a faithful dog.
I came on the recommend of ol' Will Boucher and not sorry I did. A nice tight little story that packs a lot into a little. I especially like how the notion of pregnancy is hinted at throughout, in comments on wormholes being pregnant with possibilty, even in the nortion of the "PreG" era which suggests pregnant, though I don't know if that last one's intentional.
Any follow-up (again not sure if you're planning on one) could build on the idea of a galaxy being pregnant with a wormhole, it being pregnant with new galaxies, just as Rety's pregnant with unborn Bubun - and if you think about it, if Bunbun her unborn has ovaries they even contain pregnant possibilities too, all like a cosmic Russian doll.
So anyway, great writing, I'll be sure to check out your other pieces soon.