Nulty didn’t want to miss this. It had been so long since the Black Swan had gone into Red Space. His hangar door slid down as he disconnected himself from his immersion link. In aperture configuration, Nulty scuttled out of the hangar on deceptively spindly looking insectile legs. Even living as a machine he felt the vertigo of being alone out in the stars and embraced it. He hoped he never grew tired of it. Though he had to cut off the comms chatter from the rest of the crew. He wondered how they could just bicker at times like this.
In front of the Black Swan space was ripped open, though Nulty did not appreciate it as violence. To him it looked like a tear lined with a silk ribbon of blue pulsing radiation. Through the tear it looked like space was bleeding, the bright crimson of Red Space. As incredible as this sight was, there was something about the fabric of Red Space that made him feel uncomfortable. He knew Red Space was dangerous. He knew much of it was uncharted territory, and in his several hundred years of spacefaring he’d heard all the stories, though like most people he’d never seen anything. Deep in his metal shell he just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was wrong at a fundamental level. If he were forced to put a word to it, the word would have been vampiric, though every time he thought it the rational part of his brain scoffed at him.
As they moved through into the eddying, seemingly living crimson smoke of Red Space, Nulty retreated back into his hangar. Reconnecting, Nulty went looking for solace in immersion fantasies.
‘Sorry, boss. Nothing but glitches,’ Brett told Eldon.
‘Baby, I’m bored,’ Melia said. Her tone suggested that she wasn’t just bored, she was more than a little worried.
‘Wow, so this is what Red Space looks like,’ Eden muttered to herself sarcastically.
‘Everyone fucking shut up!’ Eldon shouted. He was trying to concentrate. He even ignored Melia’s pout, which this time wasn’t just for effect. They’d been in Red Space for the better part of twenty hours, running every conceivable sensor sweep they could. Different rules applied in Red Space, though none of them had ever thought to investigate those rules and find out how they worked. Normally it was just enough to know that some things worked, others didn’t, and stick close to the Church beacons so you didn’t get lost. Those different rules, however, were playing havoc with their sensor sweeps. They had been chasing glitches and sensor ghosts, some of them terrifying in scale, for the last twenty hours.
Despite the uppers, most of them were tired. Because of the uppers, most of them were jittery and even more irritable than normal.
‘What’s that?’ Eldon asked, sharing information with Brett.
‘Another glitch,’ Brett answered wearily. Eldon sighed and then highlighted more of the sensor information. ‘Okay, so it’s a repetitive glitch.’
‘If it’s that regular then there’s a reason. Nulty?’
Nulty had been quiet but he’d been monitoring the sensor sweeps through neunonic interface with his own liquid-software brain.
‘That’s called cause and effect,’ Nulty said over the interface.
‘The signal’s so weak,’ Brett pointed out.
‘Baby, are we moving?’ Melia practically mewed. She sounded frightened.
‘It’s okay, Baby Doll. The Red plays tricks with your perception, just like with the sensors. We’ve got the engines compensating for a stationary position.’
‘Does it play tricks on the bridge drive as well?’ the feline asked.
Normally Melia liked it when she was the centre of attention. She did not like it so much this time as they all turned to look at her.
‘What do you mean?’ Eldon asked. He wasn’t sure if it was his mind playing tricks on him, but now Melia had said that, it did feel like the Swan was moving.
Melia shared the pertinent bridge drive info over the neunonic interface.
‘Shit,’ Eldon said simply.
‘That’s weird. It looks like something’s pulling at it,’ Nulty said over the interface.
‘Ever seen anything like that?’ Brett asked.
‘No, never even heard of anything like that, and I thought I’d heard every bridge drive tale going.’
‘We could be about to start one,’ Brett said, his curiosity overriding his concern.
‘Maybe our mysterious benefactor gave us a dodgy drive,’ Eden said.
‘If something’s pulling at it, then there has to be some kind of measurable force or transmission,’ Nulty said. The rest of them just looked at each other blankly. Nulty had left human mannerisms behind a long time ago. He found himself missing sighing. ‘We’ve