Prisoners of Sol 22

Earth Space Union’s Prisoner Asset Files: #1284 - Private Capal 

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The human who’d foretold a codewalker wearing an apron returned the next day, a bit sheepishly; I knew that he knew that he’d left me in danger, not standing by to protect me from Mikri. He set down several jars of unappetizing mush with an apologetic expression, and seemed to search my eyes for some kind of response. I could feel the gauze stuffed in place of my teeth, which had evolved to chip into wood. Despite that, they’d broken against a fruit that this creature devoured like it was nothing.

If the apple was that impenetrable and resilient, that suggests every plant and animal organism in the humans’ dimension is like this. They’re not unique.

Not wanting to offer the first word, I waited to see what was on the alien’s mind. I had so many questions and so much pent-up curiosity about dimension hoppers who could see the future—who could handle the portals where other species could not! There were few direct interactions with the Elusians, since they were so far beyond the rest of us. This might be our best chance to understand the nature of existence. This was a chance to learn about a society that was entirely nonsensical under our own conditions!

“Sorry for running off, Capal,” the alien offered. “You wouldn’t believe how freaky that was. I didn’t understand what was happening.”

I made a face at the jarred goop before me. “No offense, but this looks like slop for animals.”

“I’m afraid this is the best we can do for now. We only have our foods, or the robotic Vascar’s decades-old tasteless dust composed from Kalka’s emaciated crops: I’m certain the latter is a war crime. I don’t know how Sofia and Preston ate that shit for months.”

I shuddered at the thought, digging into the greenish paste without further complaints. “Mikri mentioned the name Preston, and said that Larimak tortured this individual. Who—”

“Sofia and Preston are our first contact duo. You’ll be happy; they’re planning to meet the Derandi and the Girret. If things go well, maybe we can get some food from them that you can actually chew. Any advice?”

“The Girret fill their pastries with insect guts, so…if you could be a bit picky on what you take from them, I’d appreciate that.”

The creature wrinkled his nose. “I meant about the diplomatic meeting.”

“Pfft, I’m not a diplomat. Er, from a historical point of view, I told you about The Recall. They know that the Vascar Monarchy are dangerous. The Derandi and Girret officials are elected, so they…answer to the people. They’ll make all of this public, but I imagine they’ll also know that you attacked Jorlen and not much more.”

“I see. Thanks, Capal. I’ll let you get some rest, and I promise, we’ll hook you up with some nice dentures.”

“Thanks…what is your name? I just call you ‘human’ or ‘creature’ in my head.”

“Dawson Fields, at your service.” The alien smirked, doing a fancy little bow. “Room service available 24/7.”

The creature turned to stroll out of the room. Despite their otherworldly capabilities, my fear of the humans had subsided; they seemed like ordinary people reckoning with a sudden influx of power, and a reality that they didn’t understand. Tack onto that The Servitors using them to fight their war, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit bad for them. I wasn’t sure I could ever see Mikri as a person, but Dawson was a different story. I wanted to learn more about his species, who were the only thing standing between me and ending up in a chipbrain torture chamber.

What was it that Mikri said, when I played back that conversation? “I should hurt you, like you hurt him. I want you to pay.” That doesn’t sound ominous at all. The machine flipped its stance after I tried drawing a connection between us, but that first line let it slip that The Servitors very much want every “creator” dead.

“Dawson? Would you be willing to, well, talk?” I ventured. “I’d like to know more about your dimension, your society.”

The human wheeled around, before taking a seat on a chair. “We weren’t supposed to talk about Sol, but I guess you already know about the dimension hopping shit. I’d rather run the details by you than Larimak. What’s on your mind?”

“The abilities I’ve seen you display aren’t indicative of what you’re used to. I imagine you don’t stand out on your planet. You’re normal organisms there, aren’t you?”

“Boringly average,” Dawson agreed. “Here, it’s like everything is made of glass. We have to worry about how easily we could hurt you. I could accidentally step on your foot and I bet it’d crush every bone in it. I could bump into you entering a room and put you in a body cast. That’s why I’m trying not to get too close to you, because I realized I have to think about it.”

“The teeth incident made you realize how fragile I am.”

“Totally. Who would’ve ever picked a fruit that ironically is a symbol of teachers back home, and imagine it’d crumble your teeth to dust? Who would’ve even thought that might happen?”

“Putting myself in your shoes, it would be strange to imagine Vascar fruits doing that in another realm.”

“Yeah, I worry what would happen if some kind of accident happened with the Derandi or the Girret. Would they be so understanding? It’s not like our android friends, who can just screw on a new arm.”

“Warn the Derandi and the Girret ahead of time. They’ll understand if you explain.”

“I don’t know. I’d be scared if someone had come to Sol with those kind of powers. And now, the fucking visions? We’re basically gods here, Capal. Imagine the damage that one human with bad intentions could do.”

I mulled over his words in silence, imagining local authorities trying to subdue a violent human criminal; that could leave a trail of destruction. Even just one of these aliens running away at those speeds, bumping into civilians: it could be a massacre. I didn’t try to step on insects, but sometimes, it just happened—or sometimes, children kicked hapahills for giggles. It might not be safe for this species to live among us. Perhaps that was why the Elusians kept to themselves, if they had any commonalities with their fellow dimension-hoppers.

Who is going to stand up to a human causing trouble or threatening someone? The power disparity makes that impossible, unless you’re packing serious heat. It’s not their fault, but they’re a disaster waiting to happen.

“It’s good that you understand that. Maybe keeping your distance is the responsible thing,” I decided. “It’s not like we don’t have plenty of new-fangled technology to talk virtually.”

Dawson bobbed his head. “For sure. Our tech seems to be faring pretty well over here. The speeds our ships can go…they make the speed of light look like chump change.”

“What exactly is the speed of light in your universe?”

The human had to search it up, before turning to me. “Around 186,000 miles per second.”

The translation must be wrong. My jaw almost hit the floor as I heard that paltry maximum speed in the humans’ universe; no wonder physics were so haywire. It would require the same amount of force to reach a percentage of c, but that fraction would be insignificant speeds. That was without mentioning how oppressive those consequences would be for organic life—it was a miracle that organisms evolved to withstand it, a testament to adaptability and resilience even in the worst conditions. How did they ever build machines that could fly through the air, when the barrier to success was so astronomical?

Even if they got to the highest possible speed somehow, they’d still be moving so slowly that it would take hours just to travel between planets. Any sane species would’ve been daunted and given up once they understood the math!

“Dawson, I’m so sorry,” I breathed, feeling immense pity for the oppressive conditions that this species had endured for their entire history. Physics itself had been stacked against them reaching societal advancement. “It must’ve been so difficult to build anything that even got off the ground!”

The human gave a nonchalant shrug. “It’s all we know. We had to struggle for everything, sure, but we never quit. The Elusians didn’t help, locking us in our fucking solar system.”

“They did what?!” The Elusians know about these other dimension-hoppers? Maybe it’s like I said a moment ago, trying to keep the humans away so they didn’t inadvertently hurt us. “How did you get past their blockade? Are you…stronger than the actual gods of our universe?”

“What? No, they weren’t blocking The Gap; I mean that they built some kind of wall around our solar system, like a cage. Don’t ask me why, that’s what we came here to find out.”

“A wall? That makes zero sense—a wall like right there by my cell.”

“No, an invisible energy barrier that completely encircles us which might as well be magic.”

“Magic isn’t real, Dawson. The only way that makes sense is if they folded spacetime…you’re a pocket dimension. Theoretical manipulations from—” 

“Let me guess, portal land?” the human sighed. “It’s obvious there’s some artificial bullshit going on with that barrier.”

“I don’t understand. Why construct a…there’s no reason to confine you to just the Sol system, unless there was another reason. What is The Gap?”

“We kept running probes at the barrier and found a portal: yep, unguarded. Now we’re here.”

“Why the fuck would they leave you a portal, and shoehorn you toward it by making it the only way out? Given enough time and mapping of this barrier, even in space, you would find it.”

“I think it’s their way in, to monitor us. We have accounts of a species that looks just like them abducting people, Capal. It’s all so fucking weird.”

The gears were spinning in my head, as a few pieces clicked into place. The Elusians at the very least noticed that humans were an anomaly, and wouldn’t have singled them out for study unless they knew about their extraordinary capabilities. I needed more time to think about this to come up with a meaningful theory; I didn’t have much information on everyone’s favorite 5D beings. I couldn’t imagine Dawson’s people were pleased about near omnipotent aliens manipulating their reality and tampering with their world to some mysterious end.

Saving the killer robots is just the most fixable issue on their list of concerns. It isn’t like the Elusians at all to leave a gate unguarded, unless it was again about risk: anything from our universe that found its way through the low-c realm could wipe out everything. They might’ve wanted to hide its location from us.

“Well, we can’t fix that from here,” Dawson grunted. “What was it like for the Vascar, building flying machines and all? You make it sound like it was a cakewalk.”

I cleared my throat, still reeling from my new knowledge about these dimensional invaders. “We, um, built our first aircraft with steam engines. It doesn’t take that much power to generate lift…the first combustion engines were used on a spacecraft.”

“Hold on. Was the combustion engine invented before computers or film?!”

“Y-yeah. I bet you need a lot of complex trajectory functions to leave your planet, but I mean, there were a lot of crashes from how fast we went. The first traveler didn’t know the no oxygen bit either. Still—”

“It wasn’t rocket science, as we would say. I guess you don’t have that idiom, if going to space just took a little fuel and a push.”

“Y-yeah. When the first Vascar astronauts came back talking about how magnificent Kalka was, it had to be recorded. That’s what, um, drove the invention of the camera, machines to talk long distances, and even computers when we tried to navigate safely.”

“That’s putting the cart before the horse. All of those things paved the path for rocket ships for us; I can’t imagine how this is possible. Rockets instead of the Model-T: ludicrous!”

“Now you see why I felt sorry for you. Are your people really not thinking about…getting out of that nightmarish dimension at all?”

Dawson seemed taken aback. “That nightmarish dimension is our home, where we’ve built everything we could ever need! It’s the cradle of our civilization.”

“Yeah, but it’s so much easier here. It’s hard to believe you’re not considering it. You’d be free to roam, stronger and faster…”

“We’re thinking about building a colony, sure, but we’d be starting from scratch. I’m not sure how society even functions when everyone is a walking superweapon who can run fast as the wind! There’s so many facts of living that we don’t know how they work here. No human has ever given birth, gotten open heart surgery, or had a seizure here. Like the last one—imagine the fucking muscle spasms. Which people with medical conditions do we need to prohibit from moving here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do we. And there’s the issue that we might go insane from visions. Knowing what’s going to happen defeats the purpose of having a conversation: of social interaction at all. I’m not sure it’s ‘so much easier’ here, Capal. Are you?”

I massaged the sore spot on my gums, ducking my head in submission. “No. Maybe not.”

“Exactly. Figuring out rocket science was a whole lot easier than this bullshit. It makes my head hurt. I think I’ve had enough of talking about it for now.”

“Yeah. Me too. But thank you for filling me in, Dawson. I enjoy a good puzzle to solve.”

“I guess puzzles are more fun when your people aren’t the jigsaw pieces, but I’ll ease up on the bitching and step outside. Just holler if you need anything, alright?”

“Will do,” I said absent-mindedly.

I began putting down furious scribbles of everything Dawson had told me, as soon as he left the room; the mental workout would do me good. The parts that didn’t make sense would bother me nonstop until I put together a satisfactory explanation. I wasn’t sure there were easy answers for these dimension-hoppers though, since it seemed that each one they got raised more questions. Whatever the case, I believed that humanity had a gargantuan task ahead of them, to avoid hurting both themselves and the species around them. 

I hoped that the people of Sol could find a way to translate their radically-different culture to our physical reality.

A/N - 22! Dawson explains his concerns about humans’ fantastical abilities and how mindful he has to be not to hurt Capal, and despite the limitations of Sol, he believes life was a lot simpler there. Capal suspects the Elusians know something about our capabilities and that the wall means we’re in a pocket dimension. Our narrator learns about how measly our speed of light is and grasps the struggle we had making glacial rockets, while Dawson is floored by how easy it was for the organic Vascar to build steam-powered spacecraft—and how the order of inventions seem to be flipped.

What do you think seeing Capal’s reaction to our physics, and of how differently technology developed for the Vascar? How do you feel about the concerns Dawson raised? Do you think humanity should start moving into the new universe, or are the risks too great?

As always, thank you for reading and supporting!