January 1, 2999

Official log of HMS Queen Elizabeth IV and HMS Adventure, Commodore Cynthia J. Calbot in Command.

We greet the new year from a position some 600,000 light years from home. From this distance, we look towards the Milky Way and see it as a faint patch, larger than a star would look, were there any stars around us! We look ahead and see Andromeda as a patch nearly the same size. One may blot out either with the palm of the hand. I have read that the first astronauts who voyaged to Luna did much the same to Earth. Those who first journeyed to Alpha Centauri followed suit for Sol. We are the first to be able to say that the galaxy appeared as smaller than a Human hand. Will someday someone do the same for the Universe?

The Void is all we thought it would be, which is to say, nothing. What utter desolation! How immense the distances! The closest speck of matter, other than our caravel, would be seen as it was thousands of years ago. Indeed, if we could view Earth right now, we would see no Humans other than those living on the Savanna. The Leviathans, Agrigentum and Mandrofino, to be sure, would be alive and thriving, but our own species, and the Reptils, were in their infancies. How sobering a thought that we children are honored to be first in experiencing this view. I wish Groot had chosen to come, that he could share this view!

Utter blackness. Here there are no magical forests, no fields, no mountains, no weather, no air, no ocean, not a thing with which we are familiar. To be sure, travelling among the stars is much the same but for one critical difference: in a galaxy, one is usually not far from home or help. Unless a major hull breach occurs, one can send a distress signal. Failing that, a filed flight plan not followed, or a beacon interrupted, will lead to a rescue party. An exception would be exploration missions, to which help if often not an option. Even tens of light years from any star, however, one may gather solar or gravitational energy until help arrives or repairs are made.

But here...here we are moving faster than any have ever gone, further away than any have ever travelled...and thus are we more alone. Our telemetry signal reaches the Chandelier without impedance, clearer than any signal in the galaxy, for there are no gravity wells or matter clouds in the way. Even then, it takes days for a signal to reach our departure point. And there are no matter clouds or gravity wells for energy. All that is available to us is what we carry.

I wonder if Columbus, Magellan and their crews felt as we do. At least we can see our destination and our origin, as could Armstrong's and Zuikaki's crew. The mariners saw only the sea and sky. Did they feel trepidation at their position? Some records say yes, but I wonder if there was more excitement among them, their real concerns being food and water supplies. (At least they did not need to worry about air supplies.) All of them, the astronauts included, knew what they were doing was dangerous, but they did it regardless of consequences. And so do we. I wonder if, despite our technological advances, we are really that much ahead. The zeal for exploration, our most intense version unique among all the galaxy, still rules us. What silly apes!

*  *  *

Those who took to the sea had always been of a different breed, and had established their own culture. Though of different stock, and having different languages, these Englishmen would have forged many common bonds with the Polynesians of the 8th century, the Nantucket whalers of the 18th, the Japanese of the 22nd, the Germans of the 24th, their own intragalactic contemporaries in the 30th, and countless others of several species, whether their propulsion was provided by wind or antimatter. All of these men and women would have felt more at home on each others' ships, species and language barriers be damned, then in cities comprised solely of their own culture. Some landlubbers, such as the xenobiologists, may be looked upon with disdain, but from captain to engineer, sailor to medic, all were of the same restless mindset. How well did Melville capture the ways of the sea-farers!

The Adventure, despite carrying five other standard-sized ships as well as smaller auxiliary craft, had enormous empty volume within. This was not filled with air, except for small sections which allowed the crews to have a sense of open spaces. The crew compartments were as they had been since the earliest days of sea-faring: cramped and dark. One open space had given way to a football field, and, being Englishmen, an informal league had been set up among the six crews. Though much work was done on a daily basis, from cooking meals, maintaining engines, observing distant galaxies and caring for toothaches, leisure time was available, and these pioneers filled it as they would. Some read novels, and some were given to song and dance, performing after meals. Food was a common bond among the crew, the mess halls generally jovial, with the ever-present rationing a detail known to all, but generally not foremost among the mind.

The engines and their antimatter fuel had performed well. The flatness of 4- and 5-D space had also followed projections. The gravity wells of both the Milky Way and Andromeda, and even Triangulum and the small satellites, were clearly marked in high-D scans. The ship was still accelerating and had not reached the relative velocity of one million c. That would be quite the unprecedented milestone, and the day would be marked with a celebration!

Antimatter is a harsh servant, never more than a heartbeat away from rebelling. All fuel, by definition, is energy-dense, and is to be respected, contained within a sturdy prison, let out only in small portions for use. Antimatter had been known since the days of Einstein, with refinements codified with the developing science of M-theory. Physical dimensions higher than 3 were a strange beast, most difficult to imagine by creatures such as we, stuck as we are into the familiar up-down, left-right, forward-back. All particles, of which both matter and antimatter were composed, behaved strangely in higher dimensions and transluminal speeds, analogous to the way they acted at a quantum level. Three hundred years of Faster Than Light travel had revealed this nature, and engineers had developed compensating devices.

The new higher D technology, though impressive, could not possibly compensate for all unknown variables. If an unexpected emission or reaction occurred, AIs would adjust speed or course, generating an appropriate log. Thus far, no great deviations had been observed.

But then, not all deviations could be seen, for the instruments did not see all. It came to pass, then, that barely a year into the journey, after cruising speed had been achieved, a new sort of reaction, one unknown to Human science, took place as a result of the ship's speed and presence in the realm of Fifth Dimensional space.

When the Wave Broke, as the previously unknown Planck String reaction would come to be known, Commodore Calbot was in her ready room of the QEIV. As did many skippers, she would often leave routine matters to her junior officers, leaving them to fraternize on the bridge as they would, stepping in to issue orders not usually given by her First Officer. Such orders had come weeks before, when the acceleration of the craft ceased, to be followed by a period of constant velocity. Soon would come the halfway point of the journey, and then a time of negative acceleration, after which they would be at their destination. She was playing a game of chess with her AI, pausing at times to gaze at her viewscreen with its image of the receding Milky Way, when it seemed that the world crashed around her, and all hell broke loose.

No wonder Vulcan, the god of fire and iron, had been a deity in of himself! The forge and other ancient tools of the inferno, with their flames and steam rising from the hardest of metals, were an awesome sight to behold. But the power of a mere chemical reaction was as nothing compared to that of a Planck String. When the runaway reaction took hold, immense energies were released, enough to shake the very fabric of spacetime itself. The rate with which the strings interacted, influenced as they were by the closeness of matter and antimatter, their presence in a high D, and their relative velocity, proceeded faster than anything else encountered in the history of the galaxy, perhaps even at an order of magnitude near the fabled Planck length.

The matter and antimatter fuel, their energy-based containment system and the entire engineering section of Adventure were reduced to their constituent Strings, and some other more exotic entities, perhaps in a instant near the fabled Planck time. The unfortunate crew of the transport who happened to be in that part of the ship met a similar fate, as did the two hovercraft in the rear section of the ship.

The initial interaction, violent though it was, ceased when the fuel was consumed and when the rest of the craft had passed beyond its shock wave. Those crew near the stern who escaped this beginning of the end were nevertheless consumed by ordinary fusion and chemical reactions, or blown out into intergalactic space when the bulkheads cracked and twisted. Perhaps some of them spent their final seconds enthralled by the beauty of their ship's death, atop a backdrop of the twin galaxies.

The third hovercraft was separated from the dying transport, one of the five arms being detached from the starlike whole. The arm and the main part were carried on their own trajectories, re-entering normal 3-D spacetime hundreds of light years from the transport, thence captivated by Newtonian mechanics.

The fourth hovercraft and the QEIV, situated as they were towards the bow of the transport, were spared the fate of their sisters. Even so, they were heavily damaged, with a number of hull breaches. But since their conflagrations were of a sort routinely encountered, automatic fire suppressors were able to contain the blazes.

*  *  *

Calbot awoke to find herself on the floor, with broken objects beside her, emergency lights on, klaxons blaring. She staggered to her feet, forcing open the door to the bridge. Her junior officers were in bad shape, some dead, some knocked out, all with bloody gashes. She croaked out an order for a damage report, answered by the barely functioning AI, and was shocked. The QEIV still remained lashed to the corpse of Adventure. A realtime rear view, full of static though it was, showed not the stern of the great transport, but cracked metal and composites, framing the blackness of the Void. Absolute speed instruments showed that the QEIV was back in normal 3-D space, tumbling end over end as one with the hovercraft and corpse, though QEIV's own engines were compensating, and even now already bringing that loose amalgamation to a relative halt.

Now came in reports from all over the ship. Calbot had revived her helmsman and communications officer, and they were beginning to speak to the other sections of QEIV, the hovercraft, and the remaining pieces of Adventure. The hovercraft had no FTL drive, but most functions seemed normal, if at much lower than normal power or in emergency modes. 30 crew had survived. Queen Elizabeth seemed to have all functions online, even FTL drive, though likewise none were at full capability. Almost 100 crew members were alive. Adventure was nearly a total loss, with some scant power available in the extreme front sections, in which but a lone pair of crew members had been. 129 people, then, had survived. And what of food and water? If there was any silver lining in this, it seemed that all provisions in QEIV and the hovercraft were untouched. The fuel supply was likewise secure. Whatever had caused the antimatter of Adventure to go berserk had not affected QEIV's stores, perhaps because the latter's had not been feeding an annihilation reaction.

The surviving officers met in QEIV's ready room. The crews were busy making repairs as they could to the ship which was to be their lifeboat. Communications were attempted with the Chandelier, but it was feared that their power was not sufficient to allow clear communications at this distance.

Based on the fuel inventory, enough antimatter was present to propel them some 50,000 light years through 4-D space. After that, the ship would descend to normal space, and then continue at STL speeds. 50,000 light years was half the diameter of the home galaxy, and could be traversed by the QEIV in a year's time. It was also one-twentieth the distance to the same galaxy. Even at light speed, the remaining distance would be covered in approximately one million years. Add to this the fact that additional fuel would be needed to enter 4-D space in the first place, owing to their great distance from any significant gravity well, and the officers realized that they were in a terrible bind.

The options were discussed. Put bluntly, they could not return to the Milky Way under their own power. However, it might be possible to use their fuel to power their ship for a time long enough to await rescue. Though the cessation of their telemetry signal was to be expected at around the halfway point of their journey, perhaps anomalous data had been broadcast when the reactor went bad. If enough power could be saved, a strong enough signal could be sent using QEIV's equipment, if it were "souped up," as it were. Even if a distress signal were received at the Chandelier, a rescue mission would not reach them for one year. On top of that, such a rescue might not be possible, if their would-be saviors encountered the same problem.

Perhaps the greatest problem: In total, there was only enough food to last the survivors six months. Even strict rationing would not allow enough for all unless some very clever solutions were devised.

It was decided to forgo an attempt to return. Instead, their fuel would be used to power their ship for the time needed to await rescue. Long range scans revealed the location of the other hovercraft that had survived the disaster. The QEIV would retrieve supplies from the wreck and rescue any survivors, no matter how improbable it was that anyone could have lived through what that craft had experienced.

The main antenna from QEIV was removed, and added to that of the hovercraft. The engineers would remain behind, combining both crafts' equipment, using power from the hovercraft's store, while the QEIV went off to retrieve the other hovercraft.

*  *  *

October 10, 2999

Official log of HMS Queen Elizabeth IV and HMS Adventure, Commodore Cynthia J. Calbot in Command.

I write on this day, Ten-Ten, in the most pessimistic manner. The cautious optimism that we would be able to salvage materials from the lost hovercraft, plus any thoughts that we could grow our own food, proved fruitless, pun intended. My proud ship, Queen Elizabeth IV, was simply not designed for extreme long-term voyages. Adventure was to have been our factory and granary, but we lost all of the machines and hydroponics labs in the accident. We have created what makeshifts as we could, including a more powerful antenna, but on the whole, our efforts have not yielded the results we need to continue our wait. We do not even know if the Chandelier is receiving our signal! Rescue could be on its way, and may arrive after the new year. It is to this faint hope that we cling, the now fewer than 100 of our crews who still live. Many have died, some because of murder, some of disease, all of despair. I have quietly ordered that the bodies not be disposed of... just in case...

The one bright spot is water. At least we are able to recycle all of it, at least until the filters finally fail. So far I have left many lights on, even if at low power, and have retained artificial gravity. Soon enough, we will have to cut the rations for a fourth time, reduce the lights again, and perhaps even resort to old-fashioned spinning for gravity.

I think that we will make it to the new millennium, and on that day we will have something of a celebration. I will inform the rest of the crew that rescue will arrive in the springtime (as if the seasons have any meaning!) whether or not that seems to be the case. I cannot let my own bleak outlook jeopardize the survival of what few members of this crew still remain...

*  *  *

The galaxies were still beautiful. Nothing about their view had changed, for whatever drifting they had done had been on the order of millions of kilometers, as nothing compared to the distances within the Void. Mandrofino had captured the first obscured images of the Dwingeloo and Maffei galaxies some centuries ago, but here they were viewed from an angle never seen from within the Milky Way. Little enough energy was used by the telescopes, and besides, this was first and foremost a Voyage of Discovery. Even though their bodies might not survive the next few years, the data certainly would, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that someday their derelict craft would be found, along with their many observations of the distant galaxies. Those voyagers of the future would use technology far in advance of what QEIV's crew had now, but would marvel at the first images taken of their home galaxy. These images were being sent home even now, but it was simply unknown if any signal was strong enough. The resolution would be low, but the originals would be stored in memory, and that would outlast any mere biological or mechanical construct.

Andromeda and Triangulum were jewels. If one used one's imagination, it seemed as though ships and people could be seen even at this great distance. Once, on one of the FTL bands, it seemed that a veritable signal was received, garbled, though perhaps not of natural origin...

The crew still held some optimism, buoyed by the marvels that the telescopes were revealing. They seemed to accept that they perhaps would never see England again, that The Void was now their home, for however long that would be.

*  *  *

January 1, 3000

Official log of HMS Queen Elizabeth IV and HMS Adventure, Commodore Cynthia J. Calbot in Command.

We have made it! There are scant dozens left now, but we are proud to say that we have arrived in the new millennium It is almost through a sheer act of will that our food supplies, from all sources, have lasted this long. I know that our comrades knew that they died well. We have made quite sure that all data has been redundantly saved for those who will come in the future.

Tomorrow, we will finally drink of the poison pills. There is simply not enough food left to survive for any significant time, and we want whatever energy stores that remain to safeguard our data. The historians of the year 4000 will thank us!

If anyone is reading this in some future time, a decade or a century hence, please know that we know that we die with honor. When our children's children are able to visit Andromeda on a weekend excursion, please tell them about us. Let them know how it once was, but encourage them to go on. Tell them to visit galaxies even further. Show them our images of the Whirlpool galaxy. Let them know that I always wanted to know what it was like in that little nebula at the end of an arm. Tell them to go, and to tell their children to go even further, perhaps to another universe. Tell them to take heart that they may fail, but to try anyway, that others have failed, and even those who succeeded would have happily died trying.

Do it for Humanity.

*  *  *

Epilogue

November 25, 3015

Captain's log, Ramalenta Exploration Ship RES Hivanocan's Way, Captain Mantyl Alorzun in Command.

Today we have come fast to face with a decade-old mystery. We have found the wreckage of HMS Adventure and HMS Queen Elizabeth IV. Boarding parties have entered what remains of the craft. We have found the decomposed bodies of much of the crew, including that of Commodore Calbot. I shall not show my father the images of her final form in this world, but I do know that he will be quite happy to know that his friend can at last be given a proper burial. He will also be thrilled at the pictures they made of all Local Group galaxies.

I only wish that Commodore Calbot could have learned of the wonders she would have found in Andromeda . I do know that she blazed the trail, as the Humans say, and she did not die in vain.