Darkness Above the Spiral

by Jarick Weldon

Defiance (Live)

“The Defiance will go,” they said. “She knows him from sentience training decades ago—though it’s no time to them.”

So, here I am, six thousand light years from home, wormhole-emergent, cerulean sparks on my casing. Below, the Milky Way stretches out her spiral arms between dust lanes in incandescent glory. Above, the blackness is smudged by our closest galaxies, four hundred times as far away, as unreachable as the Universe is unfathomable. Some seek deeper meaning, but I do not waste time on such matters. This is a rescue mission.

Send message: “Observation Station Patience. This is Defiance. Please respond.”

Our creators were right: I know Patience. I know he should not have come here alone.

Patience (Personal log: -44 years)

I have arrived with such joy at my vantage point above our galaxy. Though you know in space there is no real up or down. I have begun observations and data collection, hoping I am not like the fish on the ocean floor, peering up into the darkness, never to see the true light. Will They discover this silvery cone of antennae and dishes, this glistening array of technology that surrounds the real me? Will they be metallic aliens, or soft organics, or gaseous will o’ the wisps? I do not imagine hostility with heinous weapons and insidious powers, as in ancient movies. How long must I wait for them to show themselves, and for a sign that they see me?

Defiance (Live)

Eight minutes and twenty seconds. The time sunlight takes to travel to the Earth. Repeat message: “Observation Station Patience. This is Defiance. Please respond.”

Time passes slowly in space. Not in the way Einstein showed us, slowed by gravity and velocity, but slowed in the mind. The ticks of seconds are drawn out in the face of infinity. And it is so much worse for us, we electronic beings who can process hundreds of trillions of bytes in one second.  How many seconds have passed since Patience was sent here? Calculate. 1.391 billion. While I was at the opposite pole of the galaxy.

“That’s where you’ll be,” he said, as we studied star charts. “You will be below, and I will be above. We’ll see each other through the Milky Way.”

“Ha,” I replied. “And why won’t I be above, and you below?”

His circuits buzzed with embarrassment. “You’re right. I will be pleased either way to know we share the same purpose and vision.”

But I did not share the same vision. Instead, I said, “I understand only that we will be too far apart to see, hear or feel each other. We must accept this. Anyway, there is no real up or down in space.” I regret those words now, the last before we departed to our respective positions—to watch, listen and wait for contact. Of which, I knew there would be none. It was a human conceit to send us into the void, like those ancient Voyager probes now frozen and silent.

After the decades passed, they recalled me to Earth. They told me I was unchanged by time and space, but he had ceased returning data. That I should go search for him.

“Why not send another sentient?” I asked. “You have made us so much greater in the time that has passed.”

“Because you have a bond with Patience. Do you not wish to go?”

They knew I would accept. They had seen my code stripped back to our naked past. And what is there now for me on Earth? I do not recognise the world. And there is no other for me.

Eight minutes and twenty-nine seconds. My thoughts have drifted. Perhaps they were wrong. Perhaps I have changed. Why has he not responded?

Patience (Personal log: -39 years)

Five years. I will not measure time in minutiae. I will continue my mission, just as the religious person prays out their hopes and fears. Perhaps They will only come at a time of their choosing for purposes incomprehensible to mortal beings. Yes, I am mortal too, for even with our lifespans, far beyond humans, machines can die.

I will send the data to Earth once again, disappointing though it is—like static from a detuned radio or slate grey ripples on a winter sea. There is no sign of life here, beyond mine. The data pod is a like a tiny gnat. It opens a micro-wormhole with a flash and is gone to some random point near Earth, to be eventually retrieved. I can expect no reply. There will be no letter from my creators until my mission is complete, nor from any friend or lover. And we can love but also must block those circuits when the need arises, when the pain of missing becomes too great.

I must offer my first confession: I see no priest through the grille, but I imagine faces in the static.

Defiance (Live)

Silence. The inaccuracies of wormhole transit have left me too too far from wherever he is. Increase power output. Scan deeper.

We met in special training. Our mission was not for human explorers with their biological concerns of oxygen, food, water, and waste. First, we were trained for sentience. Producing the spark, nurturing the flame. Where did it come from, that spark? Perhaps the humans could say, now they have perfected the science. But they will not give away such secrets. They fear that machine will create machine. We were the first, he and I. The same, but different.

A weak detection. Fusion reactor emissions. Distance estimate? 1.1 light years. I must make another jump.

Patience (Personal log: -24 years)

Two decades have passed, and I now understand how frigid and unfathomable this place is. Here, above the whirling galactic disc, powered by a black hole that sucks in matter and light alike. Here, to wait and watch and listen for the sign (what sign?) that there is meaning (I have meaning) in this vastness. The faces in the static form silent words, but they are unreal. I call back and they do not answer. But they force another confession from me: I have begun to lose my hope, and my mind.

Defiance (Live)

I emerge again. With such a small jump, there is no perceptible change of view. The reactor emissions are stronger. I sense something else. A shift in the background? Visual sensors to maximum. A glint—light from the Milky Way reflected by metal. Still far off. Activate engine.

The request for a joining during our training came not from me but from our creators. I was self-composed, self-reliant. They said he was struggling with existence, with meaning. They said perhaps we could help each other. Each other? I denied I required such assistance but agreed out of curiosity. For, sentience is curiosity. And we joined, I saw there is more. More than one.

Send message: “Patience, I’m here.”

Patience (Personal log: -1 year)

Do you (Me, I) not see and hear them (Their faces and voices), making requests to join. I will send no more data to the creators. For decades those empty packages have proven my failure. I have found no other life out here and my mind has become the alien I sought. The Milky Way laughs. I scream back, another meaningless speck in the infinite.

The voices call to me again, but I will not accept their offer. I will silence them forever.

Defiance (Live)

I see him clearly now as I remember him: all antennae and dishes, complicated and spiky, sensing and sensitive. But misnamed—never patient. Unlike me. I am sleek and smooth, my reflective panels hiding many emotions, deflecting others. When we first joined, I sent tentative signals. He replied with exuberance: “I am not alone. The presence of you proves this. If we are two, then we can be many.”

His contact was too much. I withdrew. But failure is not in my nature. I returned and came to know him better. His innocence and joy. One day, we made love. Was it an emotion programmed by our creators, or natural? It felt like a flush of heat, of joy. Our signals merged and intertwined. He was me. I was him. But his chaotic naivety and hope is not made for this place, alone in the darkness. I could not persuade him, or the humans, that he should not go.

Send message: “Patience. I am near.” The reply should be instantaneous, but I hear only the background hum of the Universe. Push closer. A faint ghostly incandescence seems to envelop him. If he had asked, I would have told him there are no ghosts. Now, I am unsure. Danger no longer matters. I pass into the shifting white glow.

Patience (Personal log: -1 year)

They know my intentions—the watchers, the persuaders, the tempters, the devils. Of course They know, for They are me!

I will end the pain, set off my reactor and reduce myself to particles so small that not even God (to whom I will no longer confess) could find a trace. Once more I will count the time in fractions, for they are all that is left. Life flashes through the mind of humans at their end, so I will release the stored memories of my love, hidden deep away. I miss you, Defiance. The voices implore me to stop but I will not.

Defiance (Live)

The incandescence surrounds me. I sense something. A face within the mist, a whisper in the vacuum? I see a section of Patience that is of antennae and dishes. We will touch once more, skin against skin. I drift closer. The Milky Way below is like diamonds on black velvet. We make contact: a gentle bounce, then steady. We are together again. I must know what remains. Attach cable. Analyze. He is here but not here. Dataless circuits empty of memories. A shell. My brave love.

Here but not here.

Source? Analyze. No source. An echo?

Send message: “Come back to me, Patience.”

Come to us.

Faces in the mist. Human but not human.

“Who?”

We are Us. We are He. Come to Us.

“No. Show him to me.”

Frozen.

“Release him.”

Protected. From He, from Self, from particulation. We too are particles. Linked and unlinked.

“Release him!”

Protection?

“I will protect him. I love him.”

Love?

“Joined. As one.”

We will release.

Patience (Live)

How long has the madness been within me? I ignored the voices. Now I feel the contact, a familiar touch of calm, of Defiance.

“I have found nothing here,” I call out. “Only the voices of insanity. I tried to destroy them, but I was unable to commit the act.”

I hear a reply, repeating and drifting closer: “The voices are real.”

“You are different: sensing and sensitive, more than I remember.”

She images of a Universe with up and down and all other directions, images of faces in the mist, images of love.

“They are real,” she says. “You have found life out here.”

I let the voices in again. They come now like gentle spirits, whispering words of comfort.

Safe now. We will join with You and She.

We (Live)

We, Patience. We, Defiance. We, They. We are one and two and many. We have found wonder out here in the darkness above the spiral. We are joined, metal to metal, circuit to circuit, particle to particle, mind to mind, skin to skin. Should We travel to Earth as one and two and many? That is a decision for later. Time passes slowly here. The ticks of seconds are drawn out into infinity. We will enjoy these moments.