“You awake?”
Admiral Stevenson blinked. His eyes felt cold and fresh and new, and it took a moment before the swimming colors solidified into concrete forms. He tried to speak, but his jaw, tongue, and mouth felt every bit as atrophied as the rest of him.
“I know, I know. It’s rough.” Admiral Casey Henders frowned. “But you don’t need to speak. Come.” She beckoned.
He followed.
Coffins of glass, metal, and ice were piled toward the ceiling. Stevenson stumbled awkwardly along the corridor as he tried to remember how to use his legs.
“I won’t leave you alone until you regain 80% motor skill functionality and pass a cognitive test, of course.” Henders said.
“Test.” Stevenson repeated.
Henders smiled. “Very good. You’re getting the hang of speech much quicker than I did.”
She led him to the control room, which resembled a fusion of a traditional ship’s bridge with an old-fashioned living room. A giant window filled the front wall, allowing the universe outside to stare down at them. A field of stars pockmarked the inky darkness, with one slightly red star in the center looming ever-so slightly brighter than the rest.
Henders withdrew a cube-shaped supercomputer, roughly the size of a coffee-mug and seemingly comprised of all glass, and handed it to Stevenson. Lights, symbols, and words filled each facet, and Stevenson began rotating the device, reading the instructions, and solving the puzzles that appeared. As soon as he solved one, another, slightly more difficult one would take its place.
While working he’d occasionally glance up toward the window. Every so often, a strange blue-green burst of light would momentarily explode soundlessly in front of them before disappearing. He wanted to ask about the odd phenomena, but his mind and body were too engrossed in the puzzles he needed to solve. He couldn’t help but notice, however, that Henders stared listlessly out at these bursts with a morose expression plastered on her face.
…
“I think that about covers it.” Henders nodded after some time. She snatched the computer from Stevenson’s hands and placed it back on a shelf. “You’re showing the appropriate level of cognition.”
Stevenson nodded. “I think I’ve got it.” His words were slurred, and each syllable came with difficulty, but he managed. In time, his cognitive and motor skills would return in their entirety.
“I’m going down for a conk.” Henders sighed. “Maybe a few decades.”
She turned to leave as another flash bathed the bridge in hues of blue and green.
“Wait.” Stevenson said. “Before you go-“
“-You wanna know about those lights.” Henders said. She turned around to face him. Her eyes were dark and tinged with a strange sadness, and she looked back and forth from him to the window. “Are you sure you want to know? If I tell you, it’s going to make things far more difficult for you during your wake-time. Personally, I wish I’d never asked about them.”
But Stevenson was sure. “Yes. Please. Tell me. I can handle it.”
Henders frowned. “They’re ships.”
Stevenson gave her a critical look.
She nodded. “You know how this ship was launched a few centuries back with the hopes that humans would colonize nearby star systems?”
“Yeah.”
“Well while we’ve been gone, technology back on Earth improved. Right now we’re traveling about 15% the speed of light, so it’ll take us about another 200 years to get to Gliese. Them-“ She gestured to the window, “they’re able to make the trip in less than 5 years.”
“But that’s faster-“
“-Faster than light.” Henders nodded. “Yeah. I know.”
Stevenson frowned.
“You’re starting to get it.” Henders said in a low voice.
“That means all of this… Us… This ship…”
“Completely obsolete.” Henders nodded. “By the time we reach our destination, we’ll be arriving at a civilization that’s centuries old… A civilization we will not need to colonize, and one we won’t understand.”
“Can we send a message?” Stevenson asked. “Maybe they can pick us up.”
“I’ve tried. So did my predecessor. So did his. Because of their superluminal speeds, you can imagine it’s hard to target them with a signal. A few decades back it was supposedly done, but we couldn’t understand them. It seems that, in addition to improvements in spaceflight, communication technologies have reached the point where humans are a completely telepathic species.”
Stevenson sunk further into the captain’s chair. “So, what… What do we do?”
Henders shrugged. “You? Keep going forward, I suppose. Pretend you don’t know the truth. Act as if we’re still the first humans out this far. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll destroy themselves before we arrive. As for me-“ She turned and gave a wave, “I’m heading to the coffins for a conk.”
Stevenson said nothing as another flash of light zipped across the window.