Into the Unknowable Ch. 17

Intrepid - 3756 C.E.

The Intrepid's computer system had been tampered with. Sheila Nkomo knew this for sure. She could use most of the system, but she had no access at all to any part of it that could tell her what was happening on the space ship.

Ever since Captain Kerensky and the military officers had arrested and detained her in the villa, she had been as much blind as she was naked. She had no access to the Intrepid's information systems. She couldn't monitor the bridge. She had no means of communicating with any of the crew and passengers. Beyond the daily reports from the uncharacteristically upbeat captain and the scientific bulletins, she had no direct information at all about the current operations of the space ship of which she had until recently been the Second Officer.

There must have been meetings and discussions to decide whether the Intrepid should take the highly irregular and unauthorised action of plunging into the Anomaly, but beyond a few sketchy second-hand accounts Sheila knew very little about them. There was clearly an active policy of censorship which was itself in direct contravention of every conceivable policy maintained by the Interplanetary Union. It was as if Captain Kerensky had hijacked the ship simply to take everyone on board towards their doom, but in her daily briefings she spoke about it as if she was merely following orders from Mission Control. In fact, so insistent was the captain of this that Sheila began to doubt her own memory of the mission's original purpose. This became even more disconcerting when Sheila accessed the Intrepid's Mission Statement which was subtly different from how the Second Officer remembered it.

Had she gone mad? Had she stumbled into an alternative reality? She'd never have agreed to participate on a mission that would sacrifice the lives of thousands of people for a dubious and unverifiable scientific adventure whose results couldn't even be relayed back to Mission Control. And here was a Mission Statement that quite clearly stated that this was precisely what the mission would do, even though it was phrased in terms like 'exploratory ingress' and 'practical research'.

Sheila's opinion of her captain had always been mixed. She was respectful of the Saturnian's rank and her professional attitude towards her rank and position. Her conversations with her senior officer had been relatively relaxed though not as much so as those with the Chief Science Officer. Then again, Sheila had always felt uneasy about the captain's quite obvious sexual attraction towards her. It was one thing for a man to show, however discreetly, that he found the Second Officer attractive. It was quite another for a woman to do so. Sheila had never had even the slightest inclination towards a romantic or sexual relationship with another woman.

Perhaps it was because the captain was piqued by Sheila's rejection of her advances that she'd placed the Second Officer in detention. Whatever it was, it couldn't have been for insubordination or dereliction of duty. And why was she given no explanation? Beyond a cursory account of the conditions of her detention, Sheila Nkomo had been given no reason for this extraordinary action.

She vividly remembered the moment several weeks earlier when she awoke, naked and dazed, in the villa. As she adjusted her eyes to the unfamiliar room and the bed on whose sheets she lay without blankets or sheets, she gradually became conscious that she was in the company of Captain Kerensky and two military officers who she didn't recognise. They were standing just by the bedroom door as if they'd been expecting her to awake at just that moment.

"You are at liberty to wander about the villa as you please," Captain Kerensky informed her. "You have almost complete access to the Intrepid's facilities. But you will not be able to leave the villa and you will not be able to communicate with anyone."

"What's there to stop me from leaving, captain?" Second Officer Nkomo asked when she saw that the doors were not locked.

"You'll soon find out, Ms Nkomo," said the captain.

"Can you at least tell me why I've been put in detention, captain?" Sheila pleaded.

"That's classified information."

"What have I done to deserve this?"

"As I say: that's information I'm not at liberty to disclose."

Sheila watched Captain Kerensky and the military officers depart with the captain walking ahead of the two soldiers. None of them glanced back at Sheila as she stood dazed, confused and humiliated on the lawn of the villa in what she'd been informed was the outermost level. This was normally considered the most privileged level for the Intrepid's passengers, though after the attack by the Holy Coalition and the later bombardment by the maniac trillionaire it was now mostly empty with brand new villas and freshly planted trees.

Sheila's question remained unanswered. What did stop her from leaving the villa? There was no prison wall and Captain Kerensky and the military officers didn't pause at all as they marched off.

However, Sheila soon discovered the nature of an invisible force field through which she could throw stones but which she couldn't walk through. The Second Officer was no expert in invisible force fields, but this one was quite unlike any she'd ever encountered before. This was a weapon the Interplanetary Union had kept secret until this moment.

From that time on, Sheila became angrier and angrier. She was angry at the injustice of her captivity. She was angry at Captain Kerensky for having singled her out for detention. She was angry when she discovered that, contrary to her original understanding of the mission's parameters, the Interplanetary Union had chosen to plunge the Intrepid into the Anomaly on a suicide mission. And her anger motivated her to study in detail that information to which she had access of the space ship's progress through the Anomaly's peculiarly empty space. It also stirred her several times of every day to run full pelt in many different directions towards the invisible border that confined her in the hope of identifying a weakness she could take advantage of. She had no clear idea of what she would do if she managed to escape. It wasn't as if there was anywhere she could hide from the Intrepid's extensive surveillance system. And she was sure that by escaping she would just compound the original unspecified offence for which she was being punished.

Sheila became not only angry but also somewhat anxious. She was alarmed by her first sight of one of the peculiar Apparitions associated with the Anomaly. She thought she'd know what to expect, but the sight of three mediaeval knights marching towards the villa in full regalia was both astonishing and terrifying. The fact that they vanished after fewer than twenty seconds didn't diminish at all the strangeness of the sight. Then there were more and more of these Apparitions. She mostly only saw them from a distance, but she was especially surprised when a bizarre feathered animal more than two metres high wandered noisily through the villa and stood in her kitchen for very nearly five minutes before it vanished. Unlike the knights, this visitation directly interacted with the villa and had gulped down almost all the soup that Sheila had been looking forward to eating.

Her daily offensive on the invisible boundary was never better than futile. Sheila detected no sign of weakness in it whatsoever. Then again, the exercise did allow her to vent some of her rage and frustration and perhaps by doing so she might alert the attention of a passer-by. This seemed unlikely, however. In the whole time Sheila was detained the only person who'd directly addressed her was Captain Kerensky and the only person she saw passing by, and this from quite a distance, was a woman in a strangely diaphanous dress who looked very much like Beatrice, the wife of the Godwinian Paul Morris. This was peculiar because Paul's villa was in the next outermost level and there was no good reason that Sheila could think of for the bimbo from Ecstasy to be wandering about on this level.

And then one day, when Sheila had more or less abandoned all hope of success, when she ran directly at the invisible boundary on this occasion it offered no resistance whatsoever. She'd run a full twenty metres further than she'd normally have done. It was as if there'd been no boundary at all.

When Sheila realised this, she continued running in a kind of ecstasy of release. She kept running and running until she'd covered well over two hundred metres from where she'd previously been stopped and nothing hindered her in any way.

She was free!

She stopped running and stood upright at a point well outside the villa's grounds. She was panting heavily not so much from exhaustion, as she'd always been very fit, but from disbelief that after so long in captivity she'd managed to escape so easily.

And now what should she do?

She decided against returning to the villa. She wasn't going to fall for that trap. If she was going to be imprisoned anywhere it would be somewhere else. She wandered instead into a nearby villa she'd watched for so long from a distance and had never seen anyone either enter or leave. Not surprisingly there was no one inside. It was as brand new and pristine as the villa in which she'd been detained.

After so many weeks with nobody with whom to communicate, Sheila desperately wanted to talk to someone. There were so many unanswered questions. Why had she been imprisoned? Why had the Interplanetary Union consigned the Intrepid to the Anomaly? What was going on?

Sheila wandered from villa to villa. The outermost level's artificial six hour night approached, but Sheila ignored the demands of her diurnal cycle in her hunt for other people.

There was the same uncluttered emptiness in every villa she visited. None of them had evidence that anyone had ever stayed there. Was Sheila the only resident on the outermost level?

It was several hours later and after exploring many more villas that Sheila at last found proof that she wasn't alone. It was still dark but even before Sheila entered the villa it was evident that someone was living there. There was the distinct imprint of a body on the lounger in the lawn. There were traces of damp footprints from the swimming pool to the veranda. The door to the villa was slightly ajar. Not open. Not closed. Just carelessly left ajar. As Sheila pushed the door fully open she was anxious that this might be a trap and she'd be confronted by military officers who'd handcuff and arrest her once more.

Instead she discovered the slumbering naked body of the one person on the space ship she believed she could trust. How fortunate could she be?

"Petal!" she cried, ignoring all conventions of decorum as she shook awake her closest friend. "Wake up, Petal. It's me. Sheila."

"Who?" said the Chief Science Officer dozily as her eyes slowly opened and focused on the Second Officer.

"Sheila. It's me."

"Goodness!" said Petal Chang. "It is! And naked too. This is a surprise."

"You've got to forgive me," Sheila apologised. "There must be a systems fault. The Intrepid hasn't provided any clothing for me."

"Nor for me," said Petal with a broad smile. "Am I pleased to see you! Were you imprisoned as well or am I really the only one?"

"You aren't the only one," confirmed Sheila who noticed that tears were dripping down her cheeks. "But do you know why we've been imprisoned like this?"

"The only reason I can envisage is that both of us would have objected to the Intrepid being set on a suicide course into the heart of the Anomaly," said Petal. "Quite clearly Captain Kerensky and the Interplanetary Union decided that troublemakers like us should be kept hidden away."

"Just the two of us?"

"Perhaps not. Who knows? I can't imagine that anyone in full possession of their sanity would willingly choose to commit suicide by plunging into the Anomaly. There must be other people who've protested."

"Who?"

"I don't know," said Petal. "Not Captain Kerensky, that's for sure. She was the last person I saw when I woke up here several weeks ago. She told me she was acting on the authority of the Interplanetary Union."

"Are you suggesting that neither the captain nor the union which we are pledged to serve are sane and rational?"

"How can they be?" said Petal. "That is unless they know something that's before now eluded the greatest scientific minds in the Solar System. Over the last few weeks I've studied all the scientific reports available to me—and there are few that aren't—and I've seen nothing that couldn't have been established without having to send a space ship carrying thousands of people into what appears to be some kind of alternative universe."

"What kind of alternative universe?"

"You tell me," said Petal. "It's one that hosts countless numbers of these thirty-second Apparitions and a vast amount of absolutely nothing. But even if we had discovered the ultimate meaning of life, the universe and everything, what use would it be without the ability to transmit that knowledge back to Mission Control? Unless we can find an exit route we are all of us going to die in a universe without stars."

Petal and Sheila had much to talk about. Sheila decided that even if she was now to discover that the invisible force field that had held her for so long was confining her in Petal's villa she'd much prefer imprisonment with her good friend than to be by herself, even if they were denied the right to modesty,.

Petal was also motivated by anger and frustration but in a different way to Sheila. She was frustrated as a scientist at being part of an unprecedented scientific experiment but with no access to peers with whom she could compare her observations and hypotheses. There was so much opportunity for scientific investigation and no means of practising it. Sheila, on the other hand, was simply irate at having been unjustly incarcerated. She continually rehearsed in her mind exactly how she would express her anger to Captain Kerensky if she should ever meet her again. The Interplanetary Union was punishing her for her understandable reluctance to commit suicide on a mission where she wasn't aware that such an ultimate sacrifice was required.

"What should we do now?" Petal asked.

"I'd like to have something to eat," Sheila remarked. "I've not eaten for hours!"

Petal laughed. "That's easily arranged. And after we've eaten?"

"We need to explore the rest of the level. If I've been imprisoned without trial and jury for a crime that I've not even been informed of and you have as well then there might be others who've suffered the same injustice."

"And after that?"

"I don't know. But we have a duty to our fellow crew-members and if possible we should seek redress from the Interplanetary Union for our unwarranted incarceration. The very least we should do is challenge Captain Kerensky as to why she misled us about the mission's real intentions and then confined us to ensure we weren't free to express our wholly reasonable objections."

"Is that what you think's happened, Sheila?"

"What other explanation can there be?"

There was a sense in which Sheila was reluctant to leave the villa now she'd discovered Petal but they couldn't stay in the one place. Something had very recently changed in the Intrepid's command system. This was evident from the fact she'd been able to roam away from her villa for more than a day. It was inconceivable that she could have escaped otherwise without it being noticed. Perhaps something had happened to Captain Kerensky. Perhaps she'd acknowledged the extent of her folly. And if so then an apology was the very least that the two senior officers deserved.

Sheila and Petal felt some trepidation as they strode out of the villa. Could the invisible force field have somehow re-established itself while Sheila was inside? Fortunately their fears were unfounded. The two women walked straight out with no let or hindrance of any kind. And they were now able to scout the other villas that dotted the outermost level.

At first, this was a fruitless endeavour. The villas they visited were all empty and had never been inhabited. They were ready and waiting for occupancy, but as none had been allocated they remained vacant. Sheila didn't really mind this. She enjoyed just being in Petal's company. She hadn't realised how much she valued her fellow officer's friendship.

Their exploration was fleetingly enlivened when a huge green hairy monster lumbered across the landscape carrying a huge club over its shoulder and snorting in a voice that resembled a buffalo. The monster vanished after a few seconds and left no trace that it had ever been there.

Somewhat later the two women came across a more persistent presence in another villa. They discovered a door that showed evidence of having been opened. When they peeked inside the door, what they saw was a long dark corridor that didn't belong to the villa and almost certainly didn't belong to the Intrepid. Indeed such a corridor shouldn't even exist. From what could be seen, the corridor extended beyond the length of the villa that contained it.

"Should we investigate?" Sheila asked nervously.

"If we go inside, there's the risk that the door to the corridor will vanish after a few seconds and we'll be stuck in a dark void forever," said Petal. "I think this is an adventure we can leave until another time."

After several more hours, the two women did at last meet other people that were demonstrably both persistent and corporeal. They didn't vanish within seconds. It was a pair of other officers: both male and both naked. This last fact initially troubled Sheila until she remembered that she was also naked. The two men were likely to be equally as embarrassed by their nakedness as the Second Officer and the Chief Science Officer. The two officers were Medical Officer James Kawasaki and Chief Catering Officer Jose Mala, and the story of their detention was pretty much identical to that of Sheila and Petal. It was very peculiar that their detention took place on exactly the same day as it had for Sheila and Petal and also in the captain's presence. Captain Kerensky must have been extraordinarily busy on that day! Why didn't she assign the task to other officers? Perhaps there was no one to whom she could delegate the authority.

Now there were four officers in the company it was possible to split up their activities and investigate more villas. Most were still empty, but the two male officers found another male officer, Science Officer Bjorn Planck, who was also naked. Sheila was now in the company of five officers which provided a sense of safety in numbers. It also reassured Sheila that her imprisonment was not specific to her. Nonetheless, she was already missing the relative intimacy and companionship she'd had when she was scouting the outermost level with just Petal. She now had to behave more as a senior officer and less like one of two women-friends who enjoyed one another's company.

The officers' accounts were all precisely the same. They'd all been incarcerated while they were asleep. They'd all been awoken by Captain Kerensky and two military officers. They'd all been confined in a luxury villa behind an invisible force field.

"My doctoral thesis was on force fields," commented Science Officer Planck. "I've never come across one quite like this before. Are there any other secret weapons on board the Intrepid that we've never come across?"

"I don't know," said Chief Science Officer Chang. "Perhaps if there are, this would explain how the Intrepid managed to ward off the mad trillionaire's secret arsenal."

"An interesting hypothesis," agreed the more junior Science Officer. "Perhaps the same technology that's generated the force field could also be used as an offensive weapon."