'Time Travel' by S F Elton

 

© SF Elton 30/9/2018

'Wormhole' image from Pixabay.com (Creative Commons)

“Déjà vu!”

“What are you babbling about?” the younger man snapped, irritably.

“You know, the feeling we’ve been here before.”

“I know perfectly well what it means, but this is one of the most important moments of our careers, possibly one of the greatest moments in history, and you should be concentrating on the mission. Now are we good to go?”

“Well, yes, but something feels wrong. I know it was expected that we would lose radio communication with the station this close to the wormhole, but why are all the lights out? It looks deserted.”

“There could be any number of reasons and it might even be an illusion. No one has experienced these conditions before, and this will be the only chance for the next thirty years, so I say we must try it.”

He was right. The decades of preparation and vast sums of money that had been ploughed into this undertaking could not be risked for the sake of a feeling. The vast arcs of glowing plasma from the wormhole, formed a hypnotic display to the front of their craft while the dark outline of the research station overlay the complete blackness of the void behind. Even if its occupants had decided to turn all the internal lights out for some reason, the signal beacons should still be flashing. The more the older technician study it, the more dead and deserted it appeared.

“When did you first notice there were no lights visible from the station?”

“I don’t know. I was studying my instrument panel and our progress forward, like you should have been,” the anger in his voice surprised even the speaker. Had it really only been a day that he had been shut in this control room? The clinically barren feel of the place was sucking all the life out of him. If only that old fool would stop rambling on and get this over with.

“Look, the gaps are aligned. We have trained for this over and over again,” it felt like they had done it a million times, “All you have to do is press the button.”

“Yes, but we have a few minutes and I’m telling you something feels wrong.”

“Feelings, again!” personally he felt a thousand years old and would rather die than spend another second in this living hell of waiting. He knew exactly what the other would say next but could not own up to it. That would only confirm the Déjà vu theory.

“Well, if you think about it, that’s really why we are here. The unmanned probes came back with all data fully wiped, as if they had never been sent. The reason we are being risked is because we are not machines and a big part of that is down to having feelings. If we ignore them then we might as well be machines.”

“Oh, come off it. You know the most likely reason was some extreme magnetic effect that wiped the drives. Our brains should not be affected. That’s why we are here.”

“That was one line of reasoning, but we should make every use of our advantages over machines.”

“Look the time is nearly up,” there was clear desperation in his voice now, “Are you really going fly back there and tell them they are going to have to put everything on hold for thirty years because you had a funny feeling?”

The silence was filled by the increasingly maddening whisper of the air conditioning. The young man was screaming silently in his head now, “Press the button, press the button.”

“OK, maybe you’re right. Hold tight. 3,2,1.” He pushed the button and they surged forward into an invisible plane of unbelievable violence.

……

“Déjà vu!”

“What are you babbling about?” the younger man snapped, irritably.

“You know, the feeling we’ve been here before.”

“I know perfectly well what it means, but this is one of the most important moments of our careers, possibly one of the greatest moments in history, and you should be concentrating on the mission. Now are we good to go?”

“Well, yes, but something feels wrong. I know it was expected that we would lose radio communication with the station this close to the wormhole, but why are all the lights out? It looks deserted.”

“There could be any number of reasons and it might even be an illusion. No one has experienced these conditions before, and this will be the only chance for the next thirty years, so I say we must try it.”

He was right. The decades of preparation and vast sums of money that had been ploughed into this undertaking could not be risked for the sake of a feeling. The vast arcs of glowing plasma from the wormhole, formed a hypnotic display to the front of their craft while the dark outline of the research station overlay the complete blackness of the void behind. Even if its occupants had decided to turn all the internal lights out for some reason, the signal beacons should still be flashing. The more the older technician study it, the more dead and deserted it appeared.

“When did you first notice there were no lights visible from the station?”

“I don’t know. I was studying my instrument panel and our progress forward, like you should have been,” the anger in his voice surprised even the speaker. Had it really only been a day that he had been shut in this control room? The clinically barren feel of the place was sucking all the life out of him. If only that old fool would stop rambling on and get this over with.

“Look, the gaps are aligned. We have trained for this over and over again,” it felt like they had done it a million times, “All you have to do is press the button.”

“Yes, but we have a few minutes and I’m telling you something feels wrong.”

“Feelings, again!” personally he felt a thousand years old and would rather die than spend another second in this living hell of waiting. He knew exactly what the other would say next but could not own up to it. That would only confirm the Déjà vu theory.

“Well, if you think about it, that’s really why we are here. The unmanned probes came back with all data fully wiped, as if they had never been sent …”

“Look the time is nearly up,” there was clear desperation in his voice now, but interrupting his superior felt good, “Are you really going fly back there and tell them they are going to have to put everything on hold for thirty years because you had a funny feeling?”

The silence was filled by the increasingly maddening whisper of the air conditioning. The young man was screaming silently in his head now, “Press the button, press the button.”

“OK, maybe you’re right. Hold tight. 3,2,1.” He pushed the button and they surged forward into an invisible plane of unbelievable violence.

……

“Déjà vu!”

“What are you babbling about?” the younger man snapped, irritably.

“You know, the feeling we’ve been here before.”

“I know perfectly well what it means, but this is one of the most important moments of our careers, possibly one of the greatest moments in history, and you should be concentrating on the mission. Now are we good to go?”

“Well, yes, but something feels wrong. I know it was expected that we would lose radio communication with the station this close to the wormhole, but why are all the lights out? It looks deserted.”

“There could be any number of reasons and it might even be an illusion. No one has experienced these conditions before, and this will be the only chance for the next thirty years, so I say we must try it.”

He was right. The decades of preparation and vast sums of money that had been ploughed into this undertaking could not be risked for the sake of a feeling. The vast arcs of glowing plasma from the wormhole, formed a hypnotic display to the front of their craft while the dark outline of the research station overlay the complete blackness of the void behind. Even if its occupants had decided to turn all the internal lights out for some reason, the signal beacons should still be flashing. The more the older technician study it, the more dead and deserted it appeared.

“When did you first notice there were no lights visible from the station?”

“I don’t know. I was studying my instrument panel and our progress forward, like you should have been,” the anger in his voice surprised even the speaker. Had it really only been a day that he had been shut in this control room? The clinically barren feel of the place was sucking all the life out of him. If only that old fool would stop rambling on and get this over with.

“Look, the gaps are aligned. We have trained for this over and over again,” it felt like they had done it a million times, “All you have to do is press the button.”

“Yes, but we have a few minutes and I’m telling you something feels wrong.”

“Feelings, again!” personally he felt a thousand years old and would rather die than spend another second in this living hell of waiting. He knew exactly what the other would say next. “Now you’re going to go on about our feelings being the reason we are here instead of a machine. Well, it’s your call to fly back there and tell them you felt we needed to wait another 30 years!”

The two stared at each other while the air conditioning whispered a minutely different tune.

“Yes, it is my call and we’re heading back.”

Every action and even thought required a huge effort but the ship turned threw them towards the station.

“You were right,” the young man’s shame was swamped by shock but both emotions felt curiously wonderful to him, “The place has been abandoned, but that would be impossible in the few hours we have been away.”

“Impossible or not, we can only survive in this craft another thirty-six hours. We need to get in there.”

Three hours later they had docked and manually overridden the airlock system. The air inside was thin and stale. There was barely enough power to turn on the central computer. The records were bad enough but worse was the complete silence on all communication channels.

“It’s not just this station but this entire section of the galaxy. That would take thousands of years.”

“Perhaps it’s been millions and our species time is over.”

Over the next few days everything pointed towards that last, chilling statement being true.

“If you can get the hydroponics system running again then there’s no reason you couldn’t live here for years,” the older man said calmly.

“Me, what are you going to be doing?”

“The rings are aligned again. I’m going back to the wormhole. You can come with me if you want to.”

The younger man blanched as memories of that living death crashed back in.

“I thought so,” continued the older, “Not much of a choice really, a delayed death or a snippet of life played over and over again. Perhaps if I write myself messages and try to do things differently …” his voice trailed away.

When it came to it, the young man found the idea of parting from the only other human in the universe more frightening than being confined with him for eternity. They both gave the countdown that surged them forward into an invisible plane of unbelievable violence.