“I’m just as scared as you are. I don’t know what’s going on. If I stay here, I’m dead. If I go out there – wherever that place is – I’m dead. Run out of oxygen? Yeah, that could happen, or this hulking ignoramus will take my head off. In fact, even if we make it back home, I’ll be arrested, tried and sentenced to death. I’m a mathematician. I figure the odds of being alive for much longer are about six million to one.”
“The odds will be considerably worse if you don’t reboot Manuel and get him to function,” Tripp slapped Tor across the face and pointed at the console. “Do you understand what I’ve just said? Russian?”
Wool and Jaycee looked at each other for a response. Their captain was about to lose his mind once and for all.
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good,” Tripp moved his face into Tor’s and stared him out. “One false move, and it’s all over. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Tor blurted, deeply upset. “I understand.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Tripp rubbed Tor’s hair like a child, and winked at Jaycee. “I was talking to him.”
Tor and Tripp looked at Jaycee’s glove. He teased the button once again, “Just give me the word, Captain. Any excuse to press this button.”
Tor cleared his throat and swallowed. He threw his arms forward and hit the live switch on the console. “In my country… I am considered a hero. In the vacuum of space I am considered a traitor. A scumbag.” He rose from his seat and snapped his fingers. “USARIC communications officer Tor Klyce, reboot autopilot four, five, seven—”
“—that’s not even his real name,” Jaycee whispered to Wool, trying to lighten the mood. She didn’t laugh so much as roll her eyes.
“—Manuel, do you read me?” Tor finished and snapped his fingers.
“Yes, I read you.”
WHVOOM.
Manuel’s holographic book image sprang to life in the middle of the room. He rifled through his pages and floated over to Tor, “Good whenever-it-is. How are you?”
“I’m well, Manuel.”
“No, I’m Manuel.”
“No, I said I am well, not I’m Manuel.”
“I beg your pardon?” Manuel shuffled back, slamming his front and back covers together, trying to work out the joke. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand—”
“—Never mind that,” Tripp stepped in and watched the book float around the room. “How are you feeling, Manuel?”
“Full of the joys of a typical Spring day, Tripp. Yourself?”
“Good. He recognizes us, at least.”
“Soul count returns a number I was not expecting,” Manuel said.
“How many souls aboard Opera Beta?” Tor asked. “We’re counting me, Tripp, Wool, and Jaycee. That should make four.”
“I am expecting eight. Haloo Ess, Captain Daryl Katz, Miss Anderson and the series two Androgyne unit.”
Tripp squinted at Manuel in confusion. “Eight? Do you know what happened to them?”
“I do not. I apologize,” Manuel ruffled his pages and emitted four beeps. “I am in full operational order. Quite without anomaly.”
“Without anomaly?” Jaycee shook his head and let out a chuckle of utter disdain. “You don’t know stuff-all about what’s happened to us.”
“Hey, leave him alone,” Tor said. “I don’t know how much data was flushed to his disk before we went through Enceladus. I need to run a test on him. Try to pinpoint the exact time he failed to recollect—”
“—I am running a geo-scan on the ship,” Manuel said. “But I cannot locate it.”
Tripp turned to Tor and patted him on the shoulder. “See what I mean?”
“Wait. Let’s run a test. Ask him something, anything, about an event prior to us going through Enceladus.”
Tripp went quiet, thinking of a question to ask. He arrived at one. “Manuel?”
“Yes, Tripp?”
“What’s my son’s name?”
“Your son’s name is Ryan Healy.”
“And his date of birth?”
“October seventh, twenty-one-eleven.”
Tripp shrugged his shoulders. “Perfect answer.”
“No, wait, wait,” Tor thought aloud. “That’s too far in the past. Manuel?”
“Yes, Tor?”
“Data Point, run exposition scan. Open quote, what is Pink Symphony, close quote.”
Manuel’s holograph fizzled in mid-air as he spun through his pages. Tor turned to the others and smiled.
“He’s recalibrating,” Tor lowered his voice to a dead whisper, “If he remembers anything about Pure Genius and Jelly’s attempt to decode Saturn Cry, then we know he’s up-to-date.”
Cats exist to live a life of comfort and privilege if they are lucky. Should they find a good home, their work extends to that of capturing a mouse. Sometimes, even, defending their territory – if they can be bothered.
Those less fortunate and without a compassionate home are forced to survive. They become territorial, and deadly so.
Nevertheless, one attribute stands true. Cats are stupid. Dumb, ill-mannered creatures to a man, especially in relation to human beings. They have no concept of intelligence and, as discovered in the year 2080, failed to advance in the way humans did given a lifetime of experience.
Humans went on to grasp the concept of fire, for example. A cat doesn’t even know what a box of matches is. Ask an adult human with reasonable common sense to watch a boiling pot of water and he will. Ask a cat the same thing, and it will – it’ll watch it burn the house down.
The above-mentioned facts are important in understanding the breakthrough that was achieved in the year 2119.
Space Opera Beta launched the previous year. It’s mission, to decode a message from what was originally thought to be Saturn. It transpired that it was actually coming from its sixth largest moon, Enceladus.
In conjunction with Opera Beta’s on-board computer, Pure Genius, crew member Jelly Anderson managed to crack the code.
Whether or not she was aware of her success is neither here nor there. The fact remains that she cracked it – which is more than can be said for the humans.
A series of numbers presented themselves, which Pure Genius quickly configured to be the standard English alphabet. The translation of twelve numbers returned the phrase Pink Symphony.
Nothing is known of its derivation, origin, or even what it means. Much like humans in space, or cats on Earth, the answer one can reasonably derive that the discovery is as follows: completely and utterly vague, and of no use to man or beast.
“Yeah, okay,” Tripp suppressed the urge to accost Manuel for his matter-of-fact rudeness. He turned to Jaycee with his thoughts on the matter, “Very snarky. Inelegant to a fault. He evidently remembers what happened before it all started.”
“Well, that’s a start.”
“Very good, Manuel.” Tor held out his hand and prompted Manuel, “Now that you’re operational, I need you to run a—”
“Tor?” Manuel asked.
“Yes, Manuel?”
“I do not have you listed as an official crew member of Space Opera Beta.”
“What do you mean?” Tor shot Tripp and Jaycee a look of extreme consternation. “Explain, please.”
“A little over two hours ago, Opera Beta received a communication from Maar Sheck at USARIC, suggesting that you and Baldron Landaker were not who you said you were.”