Read Online The Life Engineered by J. F. Dubeau - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: J. F. Dubeau
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breathable by humans. How old was the Spear of Athena, anyway?
As soon as air pressure reached ninety-nine kilopascals, the hissing stopped, and the inner airlock door groaned open. On the other side was a sizable room suspended above a hangar. Everything was lit brightly but irregularly, creating large patches of shadows.
I started walking, or rather pushing myself, in search of the nearest elevator or access ladder, marveling at the simple miracle of generating sound. I hadn’t realized how much I missed hearing things, and I wondered if Capeks made music—if so, was it any good?
My journey to the bridge happened without incident. Once outside the hangar, I had to climb up an access vent to reach the upper levels, as none of the service elevators were functional. My size and the lack of gravity made the task easy, if a little annoying.
The bridge itself seemed designed for human-sized creatures. Stranger still, there were chairs attached to what I assumed was the floor. At some point this vessel had some kind of artificial gravity, it seemed. It wasn’t a large room, designed for functionality rather than comfort. Six apparent stations were distributed evenly in front of the squat window that spanned almost the entire width of three of the four walls. The view outside was of the enormous latticed girders that formed the barrel of the mass driver. There did not seem to be a chair for a captain or commanding officer.
Every workstation was different, designed specifically for whatever specialized task its user had to perform. I activated the terminal for the mass driver, quickly realizing that I had no familiarity with how any of these systems functioned. Basic navigation of the operating system was instinctive enough, but digging to find specific data was going to take some time. Thankfully, that was something I had in ample supply.
I spent almost an hour playing around and digging through the system, making slow progress at figuring the archiving protocol of the logs. A good fifteen minutes were wasted looking for a search function to no avail. I’d found the logs themselves, millions of them dating back several thousand years, when I was interrupted by a sound.
The ship had been built to last. I hadn’t heard a single instance of the structure groaning or machinery grinding. At best, and only when I paid extremely close attention, I could sometimes catch the maneuvering thrusters firing in the far distance. Otherwise, the ghost ship was almost as silent as the cold vacuum in which it floated.
Yet I heard a noise, and it was unsettling. It was like metal on metal. A cold, high-pitched clicking that emanated from the sole corridor that led to the bridge. I turned to see what might be the cause, but I saw nothing.
When I turned back, my terminal had reset. For a moment I was nostalgic for the ability to sigh in exasperation. As sturdy as the Spear of Athena might have been, the centuries had clearly taken their toll on the computational system that served as its nervous system.
Frustrated but persistent, I traced my steps back to the log archive and quickly figured out the dating system. Once I knew how the archiving was filed, it was a simple task to find the latest entry. Just as I was about to access the file, though, the noise interrupted me again. I turned to the corridor but saw nothing again, and when I turned back, the terminal had reset a second time.
Frustrated but no more the fool, I switched my vision to the infrared spectrum, remembering how I had seen a multitude of heat signatures zipping around the ship during our initial approach.
Then I saw them.
Half a dozen heat signatures. Each with obviously mechanical configurations built around a low-emanation power core, appearing as orange, glowing orbs with spidery webs of red and purple tendrils. One was loitering just outside the door to the bridge and was probably the source of the annoying sound. Were they Capeks? Automatic systems native to the
As soon as air pressure reached ninety-nine kilopascals, the hissing stopped, and the inner airlock door groaned open. On the other side was a sizable room suspended above a hangar. Everything was lit brightly but irregularly, creating large patches of shadows.
I started walking, or rather pushing myself, in search of the nearest elevator or access ladder, marveling at the simple miracle of generating sound. I hadn’t realized how much I missed hearing things, and I wondered if Capeks made music—if so, was it any good?
My journey to the bridge happened without incident. Once outside the hangar, I had to climb up an access vent to reach the upper levels, as none of the service elevators were functional. My size and the lack of gravity made the task easy, if a little annoying.
The bridge itself seemed designed for human-sized creatures. Stranger still, there were chairs attached to what I assumed was the floor. At some point this vessel had some kind of artificial gravity, it seemed. It wasn’t a large room, designed for functionality rather than comfort. Six apparent stations were distributed evenly in front of the squat window that spanned almost the entire width of three of the four walls. The view outside was of the enormous latticed girders that formed the barrel of the mass driver. There did not seem to be a chair for a captain or commanding officer.
Every workstation was different, designed specifically for whatever specialized task its user had to perform. I activated the terminal for the mass driver, quickly realizing that I had no familiarity with how any of these systems functioned. Basic navigation of the operating system was instinctive enough, but digging to find specific data was going to take some time. Thankfully, that was something I had in ample supply.
I spent almost an hour playing around and digging through the system, making slow progress at figuring the archiving protocol of the logs. A good fifteen minutes were wasted looking for a search function to no avail. I’d found the logs themselves, millions of them dating back several thousand years, when I was interrupted by a sound.
The ship had been built to last. I hadn’t heard a single instance of the structure groaning or machinery grinding. At best, and only when I paid extremely close attention, I could sometimes catch the maneuvering thrusters firing in the far distance. Otherwise, the ghost ship was almost as silent as the cold vacuum in which it floated.
Yet I heard a noise, and it was unsettling. It was like metal on metal. A cold, high-pitched clicking that emanated from the sole corridor that led to the bridge. I turned to see what might be the cause, but I saw nothing.
When I turned back, my terminal had reset. For a moment I was nostalgic for the ability to sigh in exasperation. As sturdy as the Spear of Athena might have been, the centuries had clearly taken their toll on the computational system that served as its nervous system.
Frustrated but persistent, I traced my steps back to the log archive and quickly figured out the dating system. Once I knew how the archiving was filed, it was a simple task to find the latest entry. Just as I was about to access the file, though, the noise interrupted me again. I turned to the corridor but saw nothing again, and when I turned back, the terminal had reset a second time.
Frustrated but no more the fool, I switched my vision to the infrared spectrum, remembering how I had seen a multitude of heat signatures zipping around the ship during our initial approach.
Then I saw them.
Half a dozen heat signatures. Each with obviously mechanical configurations built around a low-emanation power core, appearing as orange, glowing orbs with spidery webs of red and purple tendrils. One was loitering just outside the door to the bridge and was probably the source of the annoying sound. Were they Capeks? Automatic systems native to the
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