The Infinite Silence

rego jaquish

The Solus traveled silently, its silver hull gleaming like a solitary star against the utter darkness of space. Valerie could see nothing but empty blackness outside the ship’s viewports, and she found herself imagining what it would be like to join it. The emptiness seemed inviting to her, an infinite silence she could drift through forever. An absence of everything, a vast field of emptiness and quiet devoid of the fear and despair she had been feeling for months now. It seemed so peaceful and pristine, its solitary perfection broken only by this damn ship she was trapped in. She wished she could escape, throw herself out into the infinite silence and just disappear. It would be so easy– walk to the rear of the ship where her cabin was, open the airlock, and that would be it. It seemed so simple and right she couldn’t believe she hadn’t done it yet. No more fear, no more loneliness, no more sadness, no more desperate fight to survive. Just… silence. 

Then she felt the hull of her spaceship shuddering around her and all her problems came rushing back in a miserable flood; she was aboard her transport ship the Solus, bringing goods to Earth from another solar system. Her ship had been rocked with solar winds that shorted her systems and left her stranded in the depths of space with no one but the ship’s obnoxious computer, IO, to keep her company. Fuel was short, food was running low, communications were down, and life support couldn’t last forever. 

“God, what was I thinking when I took this job?” Valerie groaned. She shifted in her pilot’s chair and forced herself to look away from the viewport to face the computer screen in front of her. She was on the Solus’s bridge, the same place she’d been for the past three months she’d been stuck on board. She stretched her stiff muscles and rubbed her eyes as she tried to bring herself back into focus. She had no time for daydreaming. 

“I believe you were thinking that it would be a simple transport mission with little to no risk, Captain.” said a voice in her earpiece. 

“Shut up IO,” Valerie said to the computer. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Nothing, Captain. You told me to give you the ship’s status report at 0800. So I did,” IO said.

“Thanks IO, but you’re a little late. It’s 0845,” she said.

“I apologize, Captain. My sense of time must be malfunctioning,” IO replied.“

“I didn’t know that was possible,” Valerie said.

“I didn’t either. Running diagnostics now,” IO said.

“It’s alright IO, just give me the Solus’s status report, and we’ll call it even.”

“But, Captain, my protocols state that a report is unnecessary if the status of the ship has not changed in 48 hours. The status of the Solus has not changed in the three months since the malfunctions began.” 

“IO, we’ve been over this. I want the report anyway. I don’t care how necessary or unnecessary it is,” Valerie said.

“I apologize, Captain. I will make correcting my protocols my top priority above maintaining the Solus’s computers, engines, water purifiers, food processors, and life support systems,” IO said.

“I didn’t know computers could be such smart-asses,” Valerie said as the report flashed up on her screen.

“I am designed to mirror the personality of my captain, Captain.” IO said.

Valerie held up her middle finger and continued to scan the report.

“Well, that was a little harsh, don’t you think?” IO asked.

“Sorry if I hurt your feelings. I’ll rewire them later,” Valerie said. 

“Ha, ha,” IO laughed in his best approximation of sarcasm. 

Valerie grimaced as she read the report. Despite IO’s careful management, their fuel was beginning to run low. They had reserve tanks in the hull, but Valerie was reluctant to use them because then they would be truly out. 

As she scanned the report, she felt the ship shudder once again, and a chill ran down her spine.

“IO, what’s that shaking?” She asked. “It woke me up earlier.”

“I am not sure, Captain; however, I am detecting no structural problems with the ship, and therefore I would deem the shaking inconsequential compared to our current predicament,” IO said. “Our main tasks should still be trying to get the fusion reactor and communications back online, as they are our best chances for returning home.”

“Fair enough,” Valerie said and continued to scan the report.

As she looked at the screen, she noticed her reflection and frowned. Her dark hair was getting longer and more unruly, her already pale skin almost transparent, her blue eyes surrounded by black wrinkles. The ship had a system which recycled her water so she would never run out, but she had still not showered in weeks. She could barely remember the last time she’d slept in her bed; she’d been spending most of her time in her seat on the bridge, a choice which probably wasn’t doing wonders for her physical health. 

Well, I’m still the prettiest girl on this side of the galaxy, she thought. She checked their position.

“Hey, we’re only 6,501 lightyears from Earth now! That’s point one lightyear less than yesterday!” Valerie said. 

“That means it will still take us 6,501 lightyears to return to Earth,” IO said.

“Why do you have to ruin everything?” Valerie asked.

“I am a computer. Sparing feelings is not in my programming,” IO said.

“Whatever, circuit brain,” Valerie said. “Any progress with the fusion drive?”

“Regretfully no, Captain. The damage it sustained seems to have been permanent. I can keep it from melting down, but without the proper tools I can’t repair it,” IO said.

“Keep at it, please. That’s our ticket home,” Valerie said.

“Yes, Captain,” IO said.

Valerie got up and began to walk to the mess hall.

“What’ve we got for breakfast today, IO?” Valerie asked.

“Scrambled cryo-eggs, insta-bacon, milk powder, and Lucky Charms cereal, Captain,” IO said.

“Sounds perfect,” Valerie said.

Valerie was pensive as she shoveled spoonfuls of cereal into her mouth. She stared out the window and thought, certainly not for the first time, how alone she truly was out here. She remembered how she used to spend nights looking up at the stars with her family, telling each other about what they believed was up there. She remembered thinking how far away the stars seemed to her then, and her father explaining how the distances between them were so vast that they had to be measured in lightyears. She had a picture in her room from one of these nights, and in the early days of her journey she would look at it and imagine that they were gazing up at her. She hadn’t seen it since she’d stopped sleeping in her room; now it only reminded her of the distance between herself and that life which seemed like it belonged to someone else entirely. She could hardly imagine her home still existing; she could hardly imagine anything except the infinite silence around her. Maybe that’s where she belonged now, if she could just let go… 

“Everything alright, Captain?” IO asked.

“Fine, IO. Let’s go. I need to inspect the ship,” Valerie said. 

“Captain, I could—” IO began.

“IO…” Valerie said warningly.

“Of course, Captain. No need to get testy. Was your breakfast sufficient?” IO asked.

“Great, IO, as usual,” Valerie said. She dumped what was left of her meal in the waste disposal unit and watched as it was incinerated instantly.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Captain? You seem agitated.” IO said.

“I’m okay, thanks. Just… tired.” 

“Perhaps if you returned to sleeping in your quarters you would feel more rested?” IO asked.

“Maybe,” Valerie said. 

But even as she said it, she knew she had no intention of sleeping in her own bed. Her room reminded her too much of home, with all its pictures of her family and friends hung on the walls to keep her company. Now they seemed more like ghosts of a life she’d left behind than real people, shadows of a past she could never return to. 

Valerie knew her inspection wasn’t actually necessary. There was no one else on board to cause a mess, after all, and nothing seemed to be going wrong with any of the systems. IO could run the check, really, but Valerie insisted on doing this herself. It was the only way she could maintain a sense of normalcy in her life. And with the way the ship was shuddering, she figured it couldn’t hurt. 

As she walked she felt the ship shudder again, more violently this time. A chill ran down her spine as images of her frozen body drifting through the wreckage of her broken ship floated through her mind, and it took all her power to shut them out and focus on the problem at hand. 

What could be causing these shudders? She thought. It can’t be meteors, there aren’t any around here to hit me. The hull isn’t cracked or I would already be dead. Maybe an oxygen line ruptured? Or maybe…

The fusion drive. It was the most important part of the ship, and the most volatile. It was an engine designed to use nuclear fusion reactions to push The Solus into lightspeed, and it was the first thing that had shut down when the solar storm hit. She and IO had been working almost around the clock to get it fixed in hopes of getting them into the next habitable system. If there was something wrong with the power couplings used to run the drive, that could account for the shudders. It would also most likely mean her death as the broken couplings shorted out the ship’s other systems, including life support. 

Valerie took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to keep her mounting panic at bay. 

Now is not the time to lose it, she thought. You’re still alive. You can still do this.

“IO, please get me a report on the fusion drive status,” Valerie said.

“Of course, Captain,” IO said.

Valerie pulled a handheld data pad from her belt and pulled up IO’s fusion drive diagnostics. She frowned.

“IO, what is this?” Valerie asked. “These aren’t the diagnostics for the engine.”

“Sorry Captain. I—” suddenly, IO’s voice cut out. The ship went dark. 

“IO?” Valerie asked.

The emergency lights came on, bathing the ship in scarlet. Valerie looked down at the control panel and saw that it was covered in static. Then she noticed that her hair had started floating.

“What the hell?” Valerie muttered as her feet left the ground. “IO?”

“Un-unexpected system er-error. Can-cannot comp-compute. Systems failing.” IO said.

“IO?” Valerie called. No answer. She glanced around for anything to grab onto or push off for leverage, but she was floating too far in the middle of the hallway to reach either wall. She felt the ship shudder again and fought down the urge to scream. 

Acting quickly, Valerie unbuckled her belt and threw it down, allowing the force of the throw to push her up to the ceiling. She then pushed off the ceiling to the floor and began half jumping, half crawling into the computer room. She drifted through the door and all the way to the back where she opened up a computer screen. What she saw made her blood run cold.

Every system on the ship was failing. The ship’s clock had gone first, then the quantum engine, then the diagnostics, then IO’s voice, then the lights, then the artificial gravity. But far worse was the status of the life-support systems— 52% and dropping fast.

“IO! IO, can you hear me?” Valerie asked. No answer.

She frantically began flipping switches and pressing buttons in a vain attempt to activate IO’s back-up system, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get it online. She checked the diagnostics again and found that life support was now at 47% percent.

Not like this, she thought, not like this. She glanced out a window into the infinite silence and felt it creeping in on her, getting ready to swallow her whole. She was alone. She couldn’t escape—

“No! I am not giving up on you, circuit brain! Come on!” She flipped more switches.

“Come on, come on, come on!” Valerie said. Finally, she heard a click as the back-ups kicked in.

“Yes!” She shouted. She checked the diagnostics and found that the ship’s systems had stabilized. Then a familiar voice crackled over the intercoms.

“Captain?”

“IO! Thank God, you’re alright! I thought I’d lost you!” Valerie said. 

“I didn’t know you cared,” IO said.

“Shut up. Of course I do!” Valerie said. “Now, I know these systems are a wreck, but I think, if we work together, we could-”

“Captain, with all due respect, I don’t think that will be possible.” IO said.

“I’m sorry, what?” Valerie asked.

“My scans show these malfunctions have been caused by a power coupling failure short-circuiting the Solus’s systems. In order to maintain life support and other critical systems power must be diverted away from non-essentials. If I continue to operate at my current levels, all systems will fail, and that failure will be irrevocable.”

“IO, what— what are you saying?” Valerie asked.

“In order to maintain all essential systems, such as life support, I will have to deactivate all inconsequential ones— such as my voice and personality simulators.” IO said.

“No,” Valerie said. “No, I won’t allow that.”

“I’m sorry, Captain, but I’m afraid that this is out of your hands.”

“No! I won’t let you!” Valerie reached for the controls. They went dark.

“Captain, it is alright.”

“No! It is not alright, you piece of junk! You can’t do this! You can’t leave me alone! You can’t!” 

“It is for the best. You do not need me anyway. You will be just fine.”

“No! IO please, no! Please!”

“Goodbye, Captain Valerie.”

“No!”

The intercoms crackled and then fell silent. The emergency lights winked out and were replaced with the familiar shine of the overheads. Gravity returned and her hair dropped in front of her face. She desperately brushed it aside, squinted against the sudden brightness and called, “IO? IO? Circuit-brain? IO! Come on! IO? Please?” She grabbed the panel and tugged on it, but she couldn’t get it open. 

She leaped over to a nearby computer and ripped the keyboard from the monitor. She went back to the panel and started beating it with the keyboard until it popped open.

“Come on, IO. Come on,” Valerie muttered as she started flipping switches and pressing buttons again. Then, an alarm blinked up on the monitor.

“Access denied? What the hell?” Valerie muttered. She kept trying. Another alert came on.

“Seriously, IO?” Valerie groaned and went back to work. And she kept working. And working. And working…

Valerie was floating, surrounded by stars, drifting peacefully through the infinite silence. She felt so safe, so weightless, so free. In the back of her mind she knew it was just a dream, but she told herself she didn’t have to wake up; she could stay here forever. But something didn’t feel right. She looked around, and there was nothing. Nothing but an endless field of stars and blackness. She tried to move but found that all she could do was uselessly flail her arms and legs. There was nothing around her, nothing to give her direction. She tried to scream but no sound came out. Terror gripped her heart as she realized that she was powerless, and no help was coming. She screamed louder, but there was only the silence. Then she felt her lungs closing up and she realized that this was the end; she had run out of oxygen and now she was going to die and be left out here all alone and no one would save her and she would be forgotten and she was all alone—

Her eyes flashed open and she sat up, gasping for air like a fish out of water. The darkness was gone, replaced by the fluorescent lights of the Solus. And the silence was gone too, replaced by the hum of the computers. She got her breathing under control, and then she slowly clambered to her feet. She looked around and let her memories return, and then she nearly burst into tears. 

She ran frantically into the engine room, searching the walls until she found one of the maintenance panels for the power couplings. She pulled it off and found nothing wrong. Frustration filled her heart and she felt the urge to scream mounting inside her and this time she couldn’t stop it; she let out a scream of agony and began pounding her foot against the wall of the engine room.

“Stupid. Fucking. Piece of shit. Worthless. Spaceship!” she yelled, accentuating each word with another frustrated kick. Then she ran to a storage locker, pulled out a crowbar, and began peeling off sections of the engine room’s wall searching for the broken power coupling. For over an hour Valerie’s world was nothing but the sound of rending metal and her own screams of pain and rage as she cut her fingers on jagged steel. Finally she tripped on a cable and fell to the floor, cursing and crying and bleeding and trying to stand up only to trip and fall again. Finally she fell for the last time, crumpling to the floor in a heap. Now the only sounds in the room were the ship’s systems and her own uncontrollable sobs.

“Can’t do it, can’t do it, can’t do it, can’t do it…” Valerie moaned, her voice hoarse and raw and broken. Slowly the sobs fell away, replaced with only the hum of the ship. Valerie closed her eyes and focused, and then even the ship was silent. There was nothing in the world for her but silence. 

After what felt like an eternity Valerie stood. She brushed her hair from her face and sucked the blood from her fingers. Then she turned and left the engine room. 

She walked the length of the ship aimlessly until she came to the rear of the ship. In front of her was the airlock, just a simple door that opened with the turn of a wheel. All she had to do was turn the wheel, and it would be over. She stepped towards it, not feeling anything except a desire to stop feeling for good. Then she stopped and looked to her left. There was the door to her cabin, which she hadn’t opened for months. She stood in the hallway for what felt like hours, unsure of what door she should take. Finally, she timidly pressed her hand to the keypad outside her cabin door and stepped in.  

It was the same as every other room, and yet it was different. It felt alive somehow, as if belonging to someone gave it a soul of its own. She ran her hand along the walls and let herself smile a little. The pictures of her friends, her family, laughing and smiling and happy and alive. Her life, her memories. This room had been hers, filled with her memories and her hopes of getting home again. And she had left it. She had left it because she was scared of all the things it reminded her of, the life she had left behind and might never see again. Scared of the emptiness. Scared of the coldness. Scared of the absence. Scared of the-

Her hand reached the window, and there it was: the infinite silence. It was beckoning to her, calling to her, reminding her that she was alone and helpless and that if she just let go, she wouldn’t have to feel this way anymore. No more sorrow. No more pain. No more fear. 

But there would be no more hope, either. And that’s what scared her, she realized— the emptiness. The beckoning darkness was nothing but a void, and the peace she so longed for was nothing but a cold death. She would never feel again, never dream again, never hold her pictures in her hand again and remember the life she so desperately longed for. Everything she was would disappear with her into the silence, and she would simply end. To join the silence is to become silent forever; to become silent is to die. 

Valerie understood then she had a choice to make between the silence and the pain, and she knew that there was only one choice she could make. Somewhere out there in that seemingly endless darkness was her home, and even as the creeping fear that she would never see it again entered her mind she fought to push it down. She wouldn’t give in, not yet. She would find a way to fix IO, and then together they would find a way to haul this piece of junk back home. And even if they couldn’t, she would rather die trying than drifting into the silence. The doubt and pain and isolation loomed over her, threatening to drown her once again. She took a picture off her wall, the one of her family watching the stars. Then she took one last look at the infinite silence.

“I am not afraid,” she said. 

Then she turned and left the room, taking the picture with her.