The Paradox Paradox, page 11
As Morag spoke, a teal cube about the size of a grape floated over to Eureka, stopping about thirty centimetres from her face. Eureka reached out for it and was slightly dismayed that her hand always sat impossibly behind it. Morag chuckled.
‘It’s just an overlay I’m afraid. Nothing fancy.’
‘It looks pretty fancy to me,’ Eureka said, moving her head around this floating, fictional object. Underneath the cube a percentage appeared, indicating that even several hundred years in the future, loading bar progression was still about as smooth as a gravel enema. After sitting on 99 per cent for a little too long, the cube vanished and a series of settings invited Eureka to calibrate her new piece of tech. ‘So, what can this thing do?’ she asked while calibrating her blind spot.
‘Well for a start, it can do this.’
Eureka looked around. As far as she could tell, nothing had happened.
‘Do what?’
‘This,’ said Morag, enunciating enough for Eureka to spot it this time. ‘Your mouth is … wrong.’
‘One way of putting it,’ Morag said, her mouth moving in an entirely different way to the sounds emerging from it. ‘Real time translation. You’ll see the discrepancy, no options for syllable replacement like with an NPC, but at the very least I can stop speaking Human. Awful language.’fn27
‘Incredible,’ Eureka laughed, not yet realising that she was arguably the very first person from Earth to ever communicate with an alien.
‘Aside from that, it should interface with the majority of controls onboard. Communications, maps, lighting controls, that sort of thing.’
‘Nurse!’ called Theo from across the room, walking back and forth and barely concealing his mischievous giggles. ‘Is this new leg supposed to bend this way?’
Morag shook her head, patted Eureka on the knee with a smile, and went to check on Theo, switching from her primary to her secondary brain to cope with him more easily. Eureka watched her go, so enthralled by the ultra-precise movements of her metallic limbs that she didn’t even notice the streak of light floating in the air in front of her until it was coughing politely.
‘Mrs Shine?’
Eureka looked up. Hovering slightly above her and gently wafting like the arms of a jellyfish was a small bolt of intense blue lightning about a metre in length. ‘Neat,’ Eureka mumbled to herself, reaching out and receiving a massive shock when the hand she expected to pass through an object touched a very real thing.
‘I am Malcolm,’ said the lightning, ignoring Eureka’s small squeak of panic out of politeness. ‘I am a sentient creature known to your kind as a Fibril Blue. Additionally, I am the lead exotic engineer onboard this station.’
‘I thought you were a screensaver …’ Eureka gasped, once again not knowing what in any colour of blazes was going on. Malcolm ploughed on.
‘I am here to talk to Dr Morag about the status of your health, and your fitness for any potential duties,’ Malcolm said, his form shifting rapidly, creating a new shape for each syllable. ‘Do you consent to this conversation taking place?’
Eureka nodded slightly. Waves rippled slowly across Malcolm in response.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Do you wish to add anything, or shall I consider this conversation complete?’
Eureka closed her mouth, then opened it again to completely ignore a decade of first-contact training. ‘You’re beautiful.’
Malcolm’s form suddenly spiralled in on itself rapidly, a series of small pink sparks cascading from him.
‘Thank you,’ he said, regaining his composure and shape. ‘That was an enjoyable, unexpected response.’
With a ripple, he wafted off to converse with Morag. Eureka watched him go, the smile on her face threatening to become permanent. She settled back into her pillows and took a moment to explore her new EC, pulling up a menu from the corner of her vision and coming face to face with an impossible choice. A search bar.
Her mind flooded with ideas. She could find out the origins of the Fibril Blue, the future of space travel, or who the hundred and fortieth regeneration of the Doctor was going to be played by.fn28 Six hundred and eight years of history, news, people, planets and aliens were at her eye’s fingertips.
For about three seconds Eureka decided the best place to start would be a history recap. Learning about the place she now found herself would be vital to her time here. Then, as it often did, a face popped into her head. One with mad red hair, violent eyebrows, and the ability to make Eureka’s heart flutter like a butterfly on a sugar rush. However, before she could type so much as the first ‘L’, Malcolm had floated back over.
‘Morag has confirmed to me that you are physically able to complete any and all potential duties. She also notes that your mental health may be fragile.’
‘That’s … one way of putting it,’ Eureka said meekly.
‘We had a therapy session this morning though didn’t we?’ said Morag, walking past to move around some paperwork and not at all to eavesdrop. ‘I think we made some great progress. We really started to put your past twenty-four hours into context.’
‘What was the phrase you used to describe my mental state?’ Eureka asked.
Morag looked up from the paperwork she was pretending to file.
‘Tonto,’ she beamed.
Eureka looked at Malcolm.
‘Tonto,’ she repeated.
As Malcolm worked out what to do with this information, a new voice popped into Eureka’s ear. Based on its content, she assumed that everyone else heard it too.
‘Morning, everyone … or is it afternoon? What fucking time … Anyway, Osheen here. The first test of the time machine is about to begin. If you have a particular station you need to man, get to it. If not, wish us luck. Osheen out.’
Time machine … Eureka thought to herself, unable to suppress an excited grin. I’m so glad I didn’t dream that part.
‘I must go,’ Malcolm said, possibly bowing. ‘If it is OK with you, I would like to continue this conversation at a later time.’
‘Are you flirting with me, Malcolm?’ Eureka asked cheekily. Morag snorted.
‘No,’ Malcolm said, matter-of-factly. ‘I simply wish to make friends with a historical figure such as yourself.’
With that, Malcolm suddenly shot out of the room, whipping away round the door and out of sight. Eureka looked over to Morag and tilted her head after him.
‘You saw him too, right?’
Morag smiled and began to fluff the pillows behind Eureka.
‘Malcolm is very much real, and very much lovely.’
‘Lovely?’ Eureka scoffed. ‘He called me a historical figure, the git!’
‘Well, you are going grey,’ Theo chuckled from the other side of the room.
‘I am not above beating up a man with his own walking stick,’ Eureka called back.
‘I never knew that,’ Theo laughed. ‘The things they edit out of school history books.’
‘School history books?’ Eureka replied. ‘What subject were you taking, “Highly attractive captains of the twenty-second century”?’
Eureka laughed. The room didn’t. The joviality of moments ago had shifted into something else that Eureka couldn’t quite put her finger on. An awkward weight. Someone in this room didn’t know something, and it was probably her.
‘Let’s take a walk,’ said Morag softly. ‘There’s something you need to see.’
* * *
On the other side of Osheen’s space station, a ten-metre-wide sphere of iridescent glass hovered in place, suspended silently by invisible forces. An equally shimmery and transparent cylinder curved around it, forming a ring that connected to all eight of the station’s support arms, ready to draw power into itself, focus it, and fire it into the central sphere. This was the time machine, and it was almost ready.
Osheen stood in this control ring, his fingers nervously tapping out a beat on the closest surface they could find, as he stared out of the curved glass window, unable to break eye contact with the scrap of paper sitting on the floor of the launch sphere, ready to make its journey to the past. In his pocket, the one that had appeared earlier. In the machine, a copy he’d made from his own notebook, to avoid the paper deteriorating through the loops.
‘Holding up?’ Bea asked. ‘Only you look like someone whose dentist’s waiting room also happens to be the tunnel of an aquarium, and that you have phobias of both dentists and fish.’
‘Nervous,’ Osheen muttered.
‘Do you think that could be the fault of the view?’ Bea said, indicating the black hole ominously watching from above them. ‘I’m no interior designer, but I would have pointed the floor away from the scariest thing in the universe.’
‘It’s not,’ said Osheen.
‘It’s not, what?’
‘The scariest thing in the universe.’
‘What is then?’ Bea asked, worried she was about to find out that someone had genetically crossed spiders with theme park mascots. Osheen pointed out of the window, across the separating vacuum, and into the launch sphere.
‘That is.’
At the sphere’s exact centre, hovering perfectly about a metre above the floor, was the temporal focus point. A polished orb the size of a bowling ball, which was designed to withstand, convert, and distribute the full, unparalleled power of time on command. One crack, one imperfection, one tiny miscalculation with this exceptionally perfect piece of equipment and everyone and everything could be wiped from existence.
‘It’s going to be fine, Osheen,’ said Bea. ‘Thanks to that bit of paper, we already know this works out, right?’
‘Sure,’ said Osheen, unsure.
Ready to commence, said Malcolm over local comms from his position deep inside the floor of the control ring. Osheen shook his head to help break eye contact with the paper and took his position behind a bank of controls and monitors. An unbelievable amount of buttons and switches blinked and hummed gently around him, as thick cables escaped out of the back of the console and snaked across the floor. He flicked everything he needed to, pressed all the important buttons in the right order, and tried very hard to not focus on his anxious stomach ache.
‘Fire it up, Malcolm.’
Malcolm fired it up. A countdown from ten filled half of the available monitors across the station.
‘Fire it up’? asked Bea internally.
What’s wrong with ‘Fire it up’?
I was expecting more. You know, something punchier.
Like what?
I don’t know. Something inspiring.
This is only a test, Bea. I’ll do inspiring later.
Bea tutted electronically as the countdown hit zero.
The whole command room began to vibrate as the eight energy converters between the time machine and the living area began to unfold. From each one, a pair of mile-long blades slowly unfurled into space, eventually extending out fully with a series of satisfying clunks. Osheen checked the readouts, nodded to Bea, and gave Malcolm a digital thumbs up.
A high-pitched whine built up and quickly petered out as the station dumped the majority of its energy reserves into starting the blades up, giving them just enough of a kick to get moving. The moment they became unbalanced, the black hole took over, dragging the blade down into the ergosphere, before kicking it back out again even faster, generating a small amount of energy which the station converted and stored in an incredibly complicated array of capacitors. Twenty seconds later, the second blade dipped in and out. Sixteen later, the first again, as Osheen noted that the turbines were now generating power by themselves. As the blades dipped in, they began to curve slightly. Time at the tip was moving slower than time at the rotor which, as far as mechanical stresses goes, is an absolute bugger to compensate for. Yet, here they went, going faster and faster, generating more and more power, enough to rip spacetime a new one. Osheen had seen a lot in his time, but watching these colossal turbines blur as they sped through the ergosphere made him feel uncomfortable on a primal level. There was something wrong about an object that big travelling that fast. It felt impossible, and that was coming from the guy who designed it.
With an almighty roar, the capacitors fired their reserves at the time machine, funnelling it directly towards the launch sphere. A thin beam of pure, white energy hit the temporal focus point, causing it to become equally as dazzling. Within seconds, the beam finished the transfer, emptying the station of power and plunging it into darkness and silence, the only light coming from the orb itself, which glowed intensely with its newly converted temporal energy.
‘Goodness,’ Bea whispered. Osheen didn’t reply. Bea had said it all.
A green light lit up on the console in front of Osheen. He looked at it, took a breath, and grabbed the big red rotary switch in front of him.
‘Fire it up,’ Bea beeped.
Osheen jerked the switch to the left, kicking impossible physics into action. Immediately, the temporal focus point started to vanish, tucking itself behind the universe. The readouts went berserk, lights flashing like a Christmas Day rave, yet the station remained oddly calm. If you didn’t know better, you’d probably say that space and time weren’t currently being ripped apart from each other a few metres away. Silently – or maybe not; there were ten metres of nothing between Osheen and the machine – a bolt of crystalline light snapped at the paper, causing it to vanish.
‘Holy shit!’ yelled Osheen, punching the air with delight and causing Bea to take evasive action. He twisted the red switch back, causing the temporal focus point to un-pinch itself back into normal spacetime. Once it had returned, Osheen jabbed a series of buttons that caused the focal point to dump any excess energy into the black hole above them in a single, bright beam. With that, the colossal turbines began to fold back into the station, the lighting returned to its default setting, and Osheen breathed for the first time in several minutes.
‘It worked,’ he said, the readouts in front of him backing up his statement. ‘It actually worked.’
From a small vent in the floor, Malcolm emerged, literally buzzing. ‘Congratulations, Osheen,’ he said. ‘An incredible day for science.’
‘You too, my friend,’ Osheen replied, waving a hand at the many monitors in front of him. ‘Happy with the results?’
‘It will take me time to study them in depth, but I believe in all but one case, the machine behaved optimally.’
Osheen looked up from his monitors, giving Malcolm a concerned glance.
‘All but one case?’ he asked, the stomach ache returning.
‘The station’s orbital thrusters were ill prepared for the impact of the temporal energy,’ Malcolm said, bringing up diagrams. ‘This side of the station drifted towards the black hole during operation.’
Osheen concurred with the data presented to him. ‘Good spot,’ he muttered at the screen. ‘Should be an easy fix, no?’
‘Yes,’ said Malcolm. ‘I have already started recalibration calculations and plotted a course to return the station to its original position. However, this situation will have some fallout that you have not yet considered.’
At that moment, Osheen received a message from the fallout on one of his monitors. It was Alphonse, but his usual deep voice had been transformed into a series of speedy, barely legible squeaks.
Heyyouguysalrightdownthereit’sbeenawhileanywayjusttoletyouknowthatfatoumataisherewe’rekeepingthemcompanybutyoushouldprobablyheadoverassoonasyoucanmymumalwayssaidthatyou don’twanttowastethetimeoftheleadersofthefreeuniversehahaanywaygetuphereasapalphonseout.
Osheen, Malcolm, and Bea stared at each other, one of them slightly baffled, another fully baffled.
‘Time dilation,’ Osheen said finally. ‘We’ve moved closer to the black hole so time is slower here.’
‘So not a helium leak then?’ Bea asked, slightly shamefully. Osheen tapped a button, adding a time readout to the screen and revealing that this computer believed it was 11:27am, AST.fn29 A further tap added an error message.
‘The data from the living area is coming at the wrong frequency,’ Osheen chuckled. ‘This is like trying to read a watch as someone pelts it at you.’
Several more taps compensated for the issue, and finally Osheen could see the real time: 3:14 p.m. AST.
‘SHIT,’ Osheen yelled, running for the nearest matter courier as fast as his ancient legs could take him. ‘Fatoumata will be here already! Bea, with me. Malcolm, check the data. Make sure everything is safe for the main event.’
‘Affirmative,’ said Malcolm, vanishing into the depths of the machine.
Osheen squeezed between two doors that weren’t opening fast enough for him, and entered the small matter-courier hub attached to the side of the control ring. He thought briefly that the time dilation might mess with teleportation, causing him to be thrown into space, the black hole itself, or even between two floors of the living deck, but decided that the alternative, a several-mile hike through one of the narrow walkways in the support beams, was a far worse option regardless. ‘How do I look?’ Osheen asked, destination ready, holding his arms out to the side for a full approval. Bea looked him over, staring at the few thousand or so hairs on his head, each of which pointed in a different direction; moving down past his grubby lab coat; and ending on a scuffed pair of shoes that she had been planning to fire out of an airlock for some time now.
‘You look smart,’ she nodded. Osheen shook his head and activated the matter courier.
‘I never should have written you that lying program,’ he muttered. With a small crack of air they both disappeared from the control ring, bathing it in silence, and allowing the microscopic split in spacetime that they’d failed to detect to spread unabated.
Chapter Thirteen
The Poison in the Heart
OSHEEN’S RESEARCH STATION | 2783
‘Another vol-au-vent?’ Alphonse asked, bowing deeply as he offered up the slightly grubby tray decorated with his least mucky tea towel, upon which lay exceptionally light-looking pastries.
