Couverture de Three Million CE - Episode 7

Three Million CE - Episode 7

Three Million CE - Episode 7

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 Three million years was a long time. An awful long time. It was so long that Doyle Tingler believed his brain fully incapable of processing the implications of its length, and so did his best to spare the poor thing that unpleasantness. Doyle vacillated his thoughts between two subjects. The first was his quest to find his girlfriend Kirsten, who ran off to join the Nikola’s Children cult shortly after Doyle had proposed to her. Three million years crammed in a stasis chamber with Sarah the security officer–his friend’s would-be-kidnapper–had not dulled his desire to complete that quest, though thinking about how he might go about it now, given his current predicament, tended to darken his mood considerably. The other subject towards which Doyle more frequently steered his thoughts was, much to the chagrin of those around him, thinking of and listing all the films, television shows, and books he knew of that resembled his present situation in some way. “Red Dwarf,” said Doyle, staring absentmindedly at the ceiling. Sarah put her face in her hands and sighed dramatically. “You’ve said that one.” “Have I?” Sarah nodded emphatically. She put down the small black book she had been writing in before Doyle had interrupted her, and launched into a nasally voiced imitation. “Dave Lister, after being put in stasis for smuggling a cat aboard the deep space mining ship Red Dwarf, finds himself resurrected in deep space three million years later and…” “It’s odd, isn’t it?” interrupted Doyle, ignoring Sarah’s mockery. “I mean that it was also three million years.” “Whatever,” Sarah said, rolling her eyes. “Except in that show Lister was the last human alive, so it’s not exactly like this, since there’s two of us. We do have an android, though,” Doyle added, thinking of Desmond, the artificial intelligence that had piloted the Nikola’s Children ship–the Ark–for three million years before crashing it into a planet and copying himself into the robot body they found abandoned there. Doyle shook his head. “But no holograms. What about Farscape? Have I mentioned Farscape yet?” “You mean the show where John Crichton finds himself flung to a distant corner of the galaxy where he has to navigate the socio-political fabric of several unfamiliar alien races as he searches for a way home?” asked Sarah. “Yes,” said Doyle. “Never heard of it,” said Sarah. She returned her attention to her book. “That doesn’t fit, either,” said Doyle. “It didn’t take place in the future. Also in Farscape there were aliens, but I think everyone we’ve met so far is essentially human, give or take a few million years of evolution. Zuli says it’s a widely held belief that all known life originated from a common source. I suppose that would be Earth, though I gather that’s a religiously contentious opinion nowadays. “No, Farscape is close, but I feel like I’m forgetting something even better…” Sarah snapped her book shut and stood up. “Well, be sure not to bother me with it when you’ve figured it out.” She pushed past Doyle toward the hallway that led to her quarters. Bae, the tiny rhino-pig that had been napping at Sarah’s feet, woke up and stretched lazily, then trotted after her. “Oh, I know! Planet of the Apes. Not the new ones, but the old Charlton Heston one. Or the Tim Burton remake. Except those were all on Earth,” Doyle mused, following Sarah and Bae into the hall. “Leave me alone,” said Sarah, quickening her pace. “Maybe the Culture books by Iain M. Banks. Or Dune. Didn’t that desert planet with the sand worm remind you of Dune?” “I’m not listening,” said Sarah. “Oh! Did I tell you about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yet?” Sarah screamed. Zuli leaned back in the captain’s chair and frowned at the patterns that danced across the large curved screen in front of her. She had agreed to help Doyle find Takkah IV, where he believed the Ark had been taken, but to do that they would have to find someone who knew more about the Orubus Belt–an area of space not widely renowned for its abundance of friendly encounters. “I’ve zoomed the sensors out,” Desmond said. “You see those jiggly patterns in the upper left? It’s radiation that the ship’s computer calls non-random chatter. And it’s at a volume that indicates a totally massive communications hub of some kind. Like a station or an inhabited star system. Might be a good direction to head, see if we can get close enough to decode some of it and listen in.” “Very well,” Zuli said, glancing over at the large robot. A snaking tendril of cable connected Desmond’s arm to a console against the wall of the bridge. “I am grateful to you, Desmond. Your interface to the ship and your instruction in its operation has been invaluable. It is just too bad the ship computers did not contain more information about the Orubus Belt.” “Nobody ever mapped ...
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