The Pilgrimage
(through time and space)
Happy Thanksgiving!
This British writer would like to share a sci-fi story and some music with you.
The music
The story
This is one of my favourite stories from Who Built The Humans? The full novella is 39,000 words, making up about a third of the wordcount of the book. I often wish I’d published Lucy’s universe as its own short paperback, and now I have those 100 ISBNs, I might. Between you and me, this novella has some strange links to the upcoming Earthloop Trilogy, that four-book time travel adventure I’ve been chiselling away at.
But here, on its own, is a scene which shows humans and aliens and advanced holographic beings getting along and going on an adventure to find home.
The pilgrimage
△ LUCY’S UNIVERSE △
As was often the custom in immortal communities, Varda was not born, but built. Her internal organs were a work of art, her brain and heart designed to keep going even in the endless emptiness of space. Her skull was an impenetrable fortress, her memories and personality kept inside crystal drives hidden behind intelligent locks. Others carried around spare bodies, but people like Varda never needed to. Hers was so perfect that if she wanted to, she could climb outside naked to perform maintenance on the ship, but she never did.
Her co-pilot, Orbarop, was an Ooblan, an arthropod species that closely resembled the early Earth’s isopods and trilobites. His body was a brown mass of twitching limbs, his shell a pearlescent suit of armour. At any sign of danger he could shut down, going into deep sleep inside his own inbuilt cryogenic chamber. His shell would collect itself into a ball and weld itself shut, nanomachines under his skin poking out only to entomb themselves completely for however many centuries he needed to pass. Because of this his bulbous natural eyes had hardened, the wiring moving itself to the underside of his shell. Here his mouth and new eyes lay at the same height as he towered above Varda, his arching body presenting his face at an angle that made it almost look human. His mouth was a wide crescent of flesh that rarely opened except to project his voice when shouting, his gills trailing down to what might have been his waist. He too could operate perfectly in the cold vacuum of space, but he also never needed to.
The ship was shaped like a sea urchin and draped in a sentient algae that gave it a dark green and chrome shimmer. Each spine on the ship had its own set of sensory equipment, as well as advanced propulsion funnels that could drastically alter trajectory if it ever needed to. Each funnel was filled with potential energy waiting to be spent, and most would never need to be used in the ship’s long lifetime. The longest of these spines was close to a kilometre in length. It was twice as long as the rest and formed the nose of the ship. It was here that Varda and Orbarop rested, and where they would traditionally meet with the ship’s avatar.
The obliteration field was long behind them now, as much a rumour as the dead planet they were chasing. Earth, the origin of Varda’s species, was as much a legend as the afterlife machines that had been left to die there.
“How long?” Orbarop asked. He spoke in a low rumbling growl, like the hoot of an owl slowed down to half its normal pace. Varda had already attuned her hearing to Orbarop’s low pitch, and her evolved mind had no trouble separating the countless layered tones and interpreting them. She turned her chair to face Orbarop, finding that he was looming above her again. From the base of his antennae were hung several human bracelets, gifts from his travels. Varda recognised the jade carvings of the seven-sun planet, a perpetually illuminated world that orbited seven stars at once. It was where her parents were built, where she had met Orbarop, where they were married.
“Five more millennia,” She spoke softly. Her lips were a shining obsidian, her eyes like orange jewels. Her skin was the darkest of blues, almost black, and adorned with golden tattoos that represented the many star systems she had visited with Orbarop. They appeared to be etched into her skin, and sometimes Orbarop thought their shape changed with her mood.
“I love you,” The Ooblan growled.
“Love you too,” Varda replied. Orbarop curled his mandibles into his version of a smile, making her laugh, then scuttled away into a grey corridor behind the cockpit. These long sleeps had become routine now, and the periods of wakefulness existed only as an echo of old human traditions. In ancient times coldbeds used to be the primary method of long sleep, requiring human maintenance and attention every few decades. Now the machines could manage it all themselves. They rarely even spoke to their pilots or passengers, each living in their own private pocket of the universe, each existing in perfect harmony. Some ships even decided where to go, with their passengers appearing mid-journey if they liked the trajectory. It was akin to a symbiotic relationship, where the humans and the Ooblan were alien pets to the spacecraft. The spacecraft gave the passengers a journey, and in return the passengers gave the spacecraft their sleeping minds to explore. In this way many spaceships knew what it felt like to fall in love, and many Ooblan and humans knew what it felt like to skim fuel from the atmosphere of a burning planet.
Varda spent a few customary minutes checking on the ship before returning to the sleeping chamber with Orbarop. They were dreaming for three centuries before the ship spoke again.
“Ooblan,” the ship said.
“What is it?” Orbarop asked, swimming with his golden children. The dream children clattered their little pseudo-hands on his shell, asking why there was a ghost in the river. They were not afraid, and tried to splash the whirling entity with water. The avatar changed its shape and became solid. He was an ancient human male now, draped in a flowing orange cape. His angelic presence seemed only to enhance the beauty of the dream.
“Varda is crying,” Ship said, playfully splashing water back at the dream children.
Orbarop was already aware that Varda was on the outside universe, as she never strayed far from his side in either reality. But he was not aware she was sad, and this was normally something he noticed regardless of what dimension he was in. Varda’s subconscious was typically human, and would often rain its feelings onto the dream world. Yet the world around Orbarop was sunny and pleasant. There was no sadness to be seen.
“Has she disconnected?” Orbarop asked.
“No.”
“Is she in pain?”
“I think she is happy,” The ship said. He walked out of the river and looked around, inspecting the new leaves Varda had invented in a previous dream session. Orbarop was confused.
“Look after the children for me,” he said. He curled up into a ball and fell through the ground, appearing once again inside the ship. Quickly he unfurled and scuttled across the bridge to find Varda weeping in the cockpit. Ahead of them was a cluster of shattered starships.
“What is wrong?” the Ooblan asked.
“Nothing. Sorry, did I wake you?” Varda replied.
“The children will wait. If nothing is wrong, then why are you crying?” Orbarop asked. Varda almost laughed, then pointed to the window.
“I’m happy. It’s here. And it’s beautiful,” she wept. She tilted the ship to view more of the wreckage looming ahead of them. It was arranged in a similar shape to their ship, a central mess of metal and dust surrounded by outcrops of ships of all kinds, stretching out like an explosion. They didn’t appear to be facing anywhere in particular, having been dented and jostled by countless impacts with each other and scavenger ships over the long centuries.
“The cluster. It’s here,” Varda said. Orbarop leaned in beside her and looked out to the endless mess of starships.
“Your theory is correct Varda,” Ship said. “Seventy three percent are aiming outward from a central point,” The words filled Varda with hope.
“That means I was right and the storytellers were wrong. There wasn’t a treasure here, not the type they spoke of anyway. The cluster is a portal. The ships didn’t come to this place to find something, they came from here, from the centre!” Varda announced. She took the manual controls and began driving the ship inward, deftly avoiding the ruined starships all around them as the cluster became denser.
“But why are they destroyed?” Orbarop asked.
“The last of the travellers ran out of fuel here. The portal was their final chance. That’s why we will find no bodies. All the emergency pods will have been launched, and I imagine some attempts were made to rebuild a decently sized ship from the combined wreckage of the larger ships. They weren’t designed to survive timelane travel. If Ship does a scan of any craft we pass, he will find that there were humans here, once, but that no bodies remain,” Varda explained.
Ship appeared in his orange robe as a hologram behind Orbarop. He nodded. “No bodies,” he said. Varda was right. Her ancestors had once narrowly escaped this place, leaving their ships behind in a calculated escape plan. The progenitors of the new humanity.
“Time worm could have got them,” Orbarop grumbled, laughing as he spoke. He knew Varda had no space in her mind for those ancient Ooblan myths.
“Or perhaps they saw us coming, had heard about your sense of humour and left,” Varda replied. Ship stood stoic behind them both, taking in the sights as they neared the centre of the cluster. He frowned, holding his perfect angular jaw as he thought of something. This was a purely social act, as whatever he was pretending to be thinking about had already been calculated. Similarly, whatever question he was about to ask had already been answered. He knew with unshaking certainty that Varda would say yes, but his scientist’s mind wanted to ask just to be sure.
“Can I assimilate the basic minds of these old ships into my own?” Ship asked.
“Absolutely,” Varda replied. Almost before the word had finished leaving her lips Ship had absorbed the surrounding crowds of technology.
“Done,” he said.
“Anything interesting?” Varda asked.
“Yes. Your genetic ancestors originated on a Holtz class star cruiser. This was the first human ship found to be capable of the journey through the rift,” Ship said.
“Trading vessel?”
“The finest.”
“Anything else?” Orbarop asked. Ship knew what he meant and searched for more vessels as they navigated the dense debris field.
“No Ooblan signature here. The origins of your species remain as mysterious as ever, my friend,” Ship began. “The humans were initially encountered by Atanattat technology on this side of the cosmos. It would seem that the timelane that the Atanattat used to enter this region of spacetime is the same one that brought the humans here. Perhaps this is evidence they are not from a higher reality as myth suggests, but merely another time.”
“Another entry for your library,” Varda said.
“I should hope more answers lie at the other end of the tunnel,” Ship answered. His cape flowed in the same imaginary breeze he had brought with him from the sleep world.
“Shall I pause the children?” Ship asked.
“Yes please,” Varda and Orbarop said in unison. Inside the dream world the golden hybrid children grew sleepy and still, hibernating until their parents would visit again. Ship concentrated, and the metal surrounding the cockpit became like thin quartz, a cracked glassy surface with only the residual brownish intrusions of circuits becoming visible from certain angles. Varda reached to where she knew the scanner button was. Pressing it, she initiated the scan of the wormhole ahead of them. A single glistening probe erupted from somewhere beneath the cockpit, spiralling madly towards the wormhole. As it flew its spire-shaped body twisted, mapping its surroundings. Then it was gone. There was a minute or two of silence, and then Ship spoke again.
“The probe says our ship will survive the journey,” he said.
“Chances?” Orbarop asked.
“98% safety,”
“But is Earth on the other side?” Varda asked.
“Of course,” Ship replied as if it meant nothing. Varda looked out through the transparent cockpit at the temporal storm ahead of them, imagining Earth. Outside there were waves of surreal movement, ships disappearing and reappearing, as if time itself was being torn apart. She pressed her hands against the glass, the golden carvings shining under starlight.
“And does this lead to the past?” Orbarop asked.
“The rift is predominantly spatial. There is a mere five hundred year discrepancy,” Ship said.
“Nothing compared to our pilgrimage here,” Varda said.
“Exactly,” Ship replied. “It is negligible, but it does mean that the Earth Varda’s ancestors left behind will likely have changed over the millennia. You may not be returning to the Earth of legend, but another world entirely,” Ship explained.
“That doesn’t matter,” Varda said. “At least it’s still there.”
The ship’s long nose punctured the centre of the wormhole, the rest following shortly after.
“There is wreckage. I will resume control,” Ship said. As they entered the time tunnel Orbarop curled into a ball, his body clattering against the back of the cockpit. Varda laughed, but she too was afraid. She thought about the children in their interior universe, thought of casting her mind there but didn’t. She couldn’t miss this. She had to see the ship emerge into human territory.
Ship piloted himself around and through the wreckage of a thousand more starships. He kept close to the centre of the time tunnel, scanning the machines scraping against the glistening edges, and wondered what had kept it open all this time. Then, before he could answer his question, the tunnel frayed and dissolved before him.
“We are off course,” Ship said stoically. Varda could tell by the erratic movement of the stars outside that they were no longer travelling, instead Ship was turning on his axis, looking around desperately. In these frantic movements she felt a sign of fear, something she imagined Ship had learned from frequent trips into her subconscious.
“I thought you said ninety eight percent,” Varda said.
“I survived, didn’t I?” Ship replied sarcastically, his voice tainted with nervousness.
“Relax, it’s not like we’re at the edges of time,” Varda said. She knew the ships hated the nonsense that formed the outer shell of the universe, and had hoped the reference to it might distract him. The incalculable mess they had left behind held no answers that a Ship’s brain could compute, and nothing for Varda and Orbarop either.
“It is not that. I am just taking it all in,” Ship explained.
“Taking what in?” Varda asked. She turned on her chair to face Ship’s avatar as he sat on Orbarop’s still spherical body. Ship was looking right through her, his countless minds elsewhere.
“So many stars,” he said. Varda could almost see the beginnings of tears below his avatar’s eyes.
Beneath Ship’s avatar the spherical form of Orbarop started to move again.
“It was always this way, in our legend,” Orbarop growled. He finally unfurled himself, snapping back open with enough force to throw Ship’s avatar into a supporting beam on one end of the cockpit. He shattered and flowed around it, congealing elsewhere and brushing himself down, another pointless mimicry that he employed simply to appear more human.
“I know the stories. The time worm that ate the star sailor. When he cut his way out of its stomach the stars had died, and he had sailed to the universe’s edge. That is where he took his children, who became the first Ooblan, the children of the starless edges of reality,” Varda replied. Orbarop curled his mandibles into his signature smile, holding her shoulders and looking out at the universe ahead.
“You do listen,” he said.
“I have located Earth,” Ship interrupted.
The ship took another century to reach Earth, during which Varda and Orbarop slept. They shared only one brief dream with their children in the sleep world, during which they tried to explain to them what they were planning to do. The children, being virtual themselves, grasped the concept easily, but the brightest of them was sceptical.
The planet was not as Varda’s ancestors had described it. The barren world was green again, greener than it had ever been, and its continents had been split into distinct zones in which extinct species roamed and endless paths snaked from place to place. Ancient monuments had been unearthed, thousands of which did not appear on any of the records that Ship had acquired from the ruins in the wormhole cluster. It was like the planet had been reborn.
“There is intelligence,” Ship said as Varda woke up. He waited until Varda and Orbarop had taken it all in before telling them what he meant.
“An archive machine, Enuwha, has befriended Lucy,” Ship clarified.
“She’s real? And still alive!?” Varda exclaimed.
“Archive machines… like the ones near the edges of time?” Orbarop thought aloud. Ship nodded at both statements, but stopped Varda from pushing the ship closer to the planet.
“She cannot see us now,” he explained.
“Why not?” Orbarop asked. He pushed Ship’s avatar aside, his bracelets clattering atop his head, and pressed the manual thrust. Nothing happened.
“Lucy has humans,” Ship explained. Varda and Orbarop stopped, both turning to give Ship their full attention.
“But all the humans left,” Varda said.
“She made new humans,” Ship said. “I have sent ghost probes to the surface. They tell me that Lucy was emptied of human memories and left behind. But Enuwha had retained humans that were thought to be lost. Those were the progenitors to the new race.”
“And they walk the Earth?” Varda asked. Ship shrugged as if to almost agree, waiting before speaking again, as if he was thinking at a biological pace.
“Only when they die. Lucy and the archive machine reversed the order of things. She uses her simulation as the living world, and the real world as the afterlife. That way the humans will not escape her.”
Varda contemplated this for a minute, thought about the simulated afterlife in human mythology, how some had proposed they were still living inside it, that the edge of space was really the edge of Lucy’s imagination.
“And what happens if humans try to escape, and how long was this Enuwha under Earth’s surface?” Orbarop asked. Before he could answer Ship received a message from another vessel waiting in the darkness.
“Atanattat cruiser requesting communication,” Ship said before dissolving his avatar. Golden sparks and embers died away where he was stood seconds before. Varda looked up at Orbarop as he let out a nervous wheeze from somewhere under his plated head. Ship’s emotionless and sudden announcement had only made the situation more surreal. Orbarop hesitated as he thought about accepting the request. Varda tapped him on the shoulder and smiled uncomfortably.
“Do it,” she said.
Orbarop accepted the alien request with all the nervousness of someone making first contact. The Atanattat were legends, something he had only heard of in stories, something he was quietly afraid of.
The Atanattat ship was a heavily corroded tetrahedron, each triangular side composed of mangled pipelines, scars and craters. It looked as if it had been hollowed out of some other, larger vessel, or perhaps patched together from the ruins of molten starships. Each side seemed to be welded to the rest with immense lines of molten metal. It reminded Orbarop of the lava flows of his home world.
The thing lumbered lazily between Mars and Earth, jittering every now and again as its internal thrusters misfired. Something about it made Varda want to run away. Even Ship’s usually stoic avatar looked uncomfortable as he stood at the old and disused docks, the three of them waiting for the slow visitor to land.
The ship was much smaller than theirs. It reminded Orbarop of a virus entering a body, and deep down he worried the Atanattat would not be friendly. Then the Atanattat manifested beside them, making the short subspace leap between the interior of his ship and the interior of theirs. His body was red and brown, spindly and sharp. He had mandibles much like Orbarop, but the bipedal gait of a human despite having six legs. He moved as if his body was two or three human bodies overlapped, and even his hands were clasped together into a rough approximation of something humanoid. Ship presumed this must have been his attempt to seem similar to the predominant forms on the ship.
The Atanattat towered above the three, his body atrophied and weak, shaking under its own weight. It wasn’t long before Ship called for a portion of the floor to rise to meet the alien’s body, helping him down into a seated position.
“Your kind knew of Lucy, and you never told us she was real?” Varda asked. She was shaking, though Orbarop did not know why. The spiderlike being above her leaned down, looking into her memories.
“You know of more? I thought I was the last,” He said.
“There were seven, in official records. They rescued the humans on the other end of the time stream. Why didn’t you go through?” Varda replied.
“His ship would melt,” Ship said. The Atanattat nodded.
“There were three on this side. Myself and two brothers.”
“What are your names?” Orbarop asked.
“I am Sarbrox. My brothers were Scohhrin and Lahkx. Both died on impact with this reality. I carry their bodies in my ship.”
“I am sorry,” Orbarop said. He took a bracelet off one of his antennae and offered it to Sarbrox, who slowly took it in his long fingers.
“What is this?” Sarbrox asked.
“A gift of friendship and condolence,” Orbarop said. Varda looked at the Atanattat as he spun the bracelet between his fingers.
“It is from an ocean world,” Varda said, remembering the day she bought it.
“Do you like it?” Orbarop asked.
“I like it very much,” Sarbrox replied, fitting the bracelet over one of his immense fingers and smiling.
“So it is true, the Atanattat are from a higher realm?” Ship asked.
“That is what our machines tell us. All we remember is falling,” Sarbrox said.
END
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Wow. What an interesting story start. Like it very much.