Symphony Of Destruction

It was the end of the third week since Unbreakable had left the unhospitable star system Rho Cassiopeiae, and First Mate Lukic started to sing. His voice was not especially pleasant, he took wrong notes, was too loud, but First Mate liked to sing. The whole crew hated these vocal exercises. He knew that but could not help himself. And this time it was pretty bad.

Lukic was running around the ship whistling, humming, and singing the same melody. All the time.

“Ta-da-di, ta-da-di, di-daah-da-dooh…” It was a strange melody, starting like a waltz but ending on a really low note, which gave it an anxious and disturbing feeling.

“First Mate, do you see where you’re going? Are you alright? I almost knocked you over!” Lieutenant Zuma exclaimed, bumping into Lukic in a hallway.

“Oh, I am sorry, Lieutenant!” First Mate apologized. “It is that damn melody again, it is stuck in my head and I can’t remember where I heard it.”

“You seem distracted and lost. Have you seen the Doctor recently?”

“Yes, I did. She says I am perfectly healthy and should get back to work. Doctor Kim is great! She even gave me her approval to use this new supplement I got from the market on Vega-12.”

“What supplement?”

“You don’t know? Highly recommended! It targets specific skeletomuscular zones to grow and become incredibly strong.”

“First time I hear about this. What zones are you targeting?”

“You see, I spend a lot of time at the Track & Field Unit, trying to improve my javelin hurling skills. I really wanted to hit that edge of the universe we discovered recently but had no luck. Need to get better. The supplement helps me to develop specific areas of my body to excel at throwing the javelin.”

“Well, good luck with that! I want to see your progress – please keep me up to date.”

First Mate nodded and kept going down the hallway. Zuma shook his head and decided to talk to Doctor Hyun Kim, master of medicine and good health. The Infirmary was nearby.

“Hey, Doc, have a minute?”

“Of course, Lieutenant! What is it? Are you taking the medicine I prescribed?”

“Yes, Doc, thank you very much!”

“Is it helpful? Are those nightmares still troubling you? What was it – space unicorns, if I remember correctly?”

“Yes, yes! Glittering unicorns orbiting planets, neighing devilishly, kicking space dust with their hooves…I’d wake up sweating all over, terribly frightened, trembling with fear…this is the worst kind of nightmare I’ve ever had! I can’t imagine how we are going to fight these monsters when we meet them for real!”

Doctor Kim looked at Lieutenant Zuma and patted him on the shoulder. “I am happy these nightmares stopped. And I am sure you will figure out how to fight these horrible beasts!”

“Thinking about it night and day, Doc. But I am here for a different reason!” He snapped his fingers. “First Mate! Is everything alright with him? I’ve just run into Lukic, he keeps humming that disgusting song and does not seem to notice what is happening around.”

“Yes, First Mate, of course…I talked to him and took some tests, everything is within the norm…that is, within the norm for him, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, Doc. First Mate could be a little extravagant sometimes, but his behavior these days is very unusual.”

“I agree. At first, I thought the issue was his obsession with javelin exercises and the supplements he asked me to approve. In addition to being distracted, Lukic experienced some problems walking and orienting in space. He said something is ‘giving him gentle pushes’.  

“Gentle pushes? Don’t you think the supplements are messing up with his brain? Or maybe Lukic picked up another bad habit and sniffing some disgusting mushrooms again?”

“No, the supplements are quite harmless. And I checked Lukic multiple times, no signs of substance abuse.”

“Hmm…I don’t like this.”

“Neither do I. But at this point, I am unable to come up with a diagnosis.”

“Alright, Doc. I will keep my eyes on him.”

Zuma left the Infirmary and started walking toward his quarters when he was called to the Bridge by Captain Bostaph via the ship’s intercom. When Lieutenant arrived at the Bridge, he was greeted by most of the crew members, who were already there.

“Thank you for coming, Lieutenant,” Captain addressed Zuma. “Seems like we have a problem with Space Compressor you might want to hear about.”

“This is extremely unusual!” Senior Engineer Chen said. “Engine output is uneven like we are jumping with some predefined intervals…the best way to describe it is the space around us expands and contracts on its own, following a wave pattern. I know it does not make any sense…I am running Engine diagnostics and everything comes back perfectly fine. Yet if this pattern continues, I am afraid the Compressor will have to be shut down.”

“Do you suspect external interference? Is there an enemy around? Should we fire missiles?” Zuma was ready to act. “I knew there is something fishy around here…my dreams of space unicorns…the worst nightmares are coming true…” he murmured to himself.

“Lieutenant, calm down, we don’t see any enemy around,” Captain Bostaph said. “But this is a very serious matter that needs to be resolved very quickly, or the ship will break.”

“But, Captain, the ship can’t break, it is unbreakable, isn’t it?” Lukic wondered.

 Bostaph looked at his First Mate, ignoring his comment, and then addressed the room: “All, please think about this and help Engineer Chen if you can come up with something useful. Dismissed.”

People started leaving the Bridge when Chief Scientist Hernandez turned around and said: “Captain, I need a word with you and Navigator Maynard.”

“Of course, what is it?”

“I am experiencing problems with some of my scientific equipment, which registers disturbances in the space-time continuum of a highly unusual nature. What Engineer Chen has just described made me think about these problems and I suspect they could have the same origin.”

“Wait…I just replaced two Navigation Routers – I saw something similar and thought they’d malfunctioned!” Maynard exclaimed.

“Alright, people, we encountered a space anomaly endangering our devices and our ship,” Captain Bostaph summarized. “Any theories, Hernandez?”

“What would cause disturbances in the space-time continuum?” Chief Scientist asked, looking up. “Our Compressor would, for sure, this is its primary function. But the Compressor is impacted as well…and disturbances are not continuous, it looks more like a wave pattern…” Hernandez twisted her curly red hair in between her fingers, illustrating the wave.

“What kind of wave? An effect of a nearby pulsar, maybe?” Maynard suggested.

“No, pulsars do not cause space compression.” Hernandez dropped her locks and looked at Navigator, smiling. “Gravitational waves! Of course, this is the only explanation! I should have thought about it to begin with!”

“Gravitational waves?” Captain asked. “Like when black holes or galaxies collide?”

“Exactly! This is the only explanation. A gravitational wave is basically a contraction-expansion cycle of space-time.”

“But there are no black holes in this sector,” Captain said.

“They don’t have to be nearby, gravitational waves can travel very long distances. They do not experience decay. This is actually how we learned about the Big Bang, the birth of the universe, and very early stages of its expansion – by studying gravitational waves originating at that time.”

“Amazing, you are so smart!” Captain looked at Hernandez. “So, what can we do about it? Will these waves tear our ship apart?”

“This is what still puzzles me, Captain…” Chief Scientist wrinkled her forehead. “Gravitational waves we know are barely noticeable. Very sensitive equipment is required to register them. And they definitely do not cause malfunction of engines.” She shook her head. “And one more thing: gravitational waves behave like simple, one-dimensional compression waves. The disturbances my equipment registers appear like a complex, modulated wave pattern. Periodic, yes, but very complex. These types of waves are not caused by black hole collisions.”

 “Alright, Hernandez, I need solutions to protect our ship,” Captain said. “Figure it out. Maynard, go help her! You seem like you can speak the same language.”

“Yes, sir, on our way!” They both left the Bridge.

At the same time, First Mate Lukic and Senior Engineer Chen were running various diagnostics of Space Compressor in the Engine room, trying to uncover the root causes of its enigmatic output pattern.

“Ta-da-di, ta-da-di, di-daah-da-dooh…” Lukic kept singing an annoying melody while looking at the engine performance indicators.

“Lukic, would you please stop that?” Chen asked. “This humming of yours is very distracting!”

“Oh, I am sorry, Chen. Can’t do anything about it. This song is stuck in my head. I don’t even notice when I’m singing it.”

“Maybe you need some psychological treatment? Like hypnosis or lobotomy?”

“I am not sure you can call lobotomy psychological…anyway, I talked to Doctor Kim, and she couldn’t find any problems.”

“Alright, just please try not to sing it. This ‘dooh’ in the end is really, really, disturbing!”

“Sure, Chen, will try to stop.”

They looked at the performance data pattern for some time in silence, until a low-frequency noise interfered with their task.

“Lukic, I asked you to stop!” Chen yelled, frowning.

“I am silent as a dead raccoon. That sound probably came from the engine.”

“Wait…yes, the diagnostics algorithm has translated Compressor’s performance pattern into an audible spectrum for better user experience. I could swear it sounded exactly like your ‘dooh’ humming. Or is this shit stuck in my head as well?”

Chen dialed a number sequence on the panel: “let’s amplify the signal so we can hear the whole pattern.”

“Ta-da-di, ta-da-di, di-daah-da-dooh…” they both heard, looking at each other in utter amusement.

“Lukic, is this contagious?! What is going on?” Chen asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Punch me in the face if I know!” First Mate responded, his mouth open wide.

“Let’s go talk to Captain. It seems like we are hallucinating, but I can’t recall being on drugs since we left the Armadillo Nebula Quarter six months ago.”

Lukic and Chen ran to the Maglev capsule, which quickly brought them to the Bridge.

“Ta-da-di, ta-da-di, di-daah-da-dooh…” they both sang as they entered the Unit. To their surprise, they found Captain Bostaph, Chief Scientist Hernandez, and Navigator Maynard there, talking loudly and gesticulating.

“Lukic, Chen – come listen to this! Hernandez and Maynard made an amazing discovery!” Captain addressed the newcomers. “Wait…Chen – you are singing, too? This can’t be good…”

“We have made an amazing discovery as well, sir,” Lukic said. “Senior Engineer Chen has been sober for six months since we’ve left the Armadillo Nebula Quarter. This is probably a record!”

“First Mate, we are talking about serious scientific discoveries here,” Chief Scientist interfered. “Leslie and I were studying the nature of my equipment malfunctions and searching for potential interference. After we removed the noise from the wave pattern, to our utmost astonishment, we identified traces of cosmic microwave background radiation. Do you know what this means?” Chief Scientist swung her hair and looked victoriously at First Mate.

“No, Maria…radiation can’t be good, right? Are we in danger, mutating, turning into ugly remnants of human beings?”

“Don’t be so dramatic, Rade, not that kind of radiation. These are redshifted photons from the very early stages of the life of the universe, perhaps even from the Big Bang itself.”

“Big Bang? The last thing we need is something big to bang our ship…” Lukic murmured.

“The fact that gravitational waves we observe are accompanied by the cosmic microwave background radiation can mean only one thing…” Hernandez continued, highlighting a long pause with a hand gesture, “these waves are the remnants of what had preceded the birth of our Universe.”

“Preceded our universe?” Captain scratched his forehead.

“Yes, Captain, the previous universe!” Hernandez exclaimed. “There are theories of continuous birth and collapse of the universes, but to this point, there was no evidence to confirm or disprove these theories. I believe now we have one.”

“Amazing!” Lukic gasped.

“Since gravitational waves do not decay as electromagnetic waves do, it is theoretically possible for them to continue through multiple cycles of the universe collapse and re-birth. It will be a breakthrough in cosmology!”

“This sounds great, Hernandez, I am happy for you, and congratulations,” Captain Bostaph said. “But what does it mean in practical terms? Are we in danger? Can it break the Unbreakable?”

“I doubt it. But as a precaution, it would be wise to leave this area right away.”

“Without learning about the previous universe? And its inhabitants? That would be a crime!” Lukic announced.

“Inhabitants?” Hernandez asked. “I am not sure about inhabitants, but you might be on to something here…” she concluded, seemingly lost in thought.

“Well, we actually came to tell you about what we’d found out,” Senior Engineer Chen said. “We suspected Space Compressor behaved cyclically, following some sort of a pattern. I’ve been able to translate this pattern into an audible signal.”

“And guess what? It sounds exactly like the melody in my head: “ta-da-di, ta-da-di, di-daah-da-dooh…” First Mate started singing, with Chen joining him mid-way.

“Are you two high? Or sick? Are you feeling dizzy? What did you have for lunch?” Captain Bostaph asked quietly.

“No, sir! Not high, not sick, perfectly fine. As I said, Chen has been sober for six months!”

“This is incredible…I have an idea,” Chief Scientist exclaimed. “Give me a minute, I will call you from the Lab,” she said, running to Maglev capsule.

“What is she up to? Do you have any idea, Navigator?” Captain asked Leslie Maynard.

“No, sir. I do think this is amazing, too. We discovered gravitational waves originating from or possibly before the Big Bang. But I can’t see any musical connections here…”

“I thought you like music, Leslie! Remember that song we listened to repeatedly for three hours when on our way to pick up tourists from the intergalactic cruise ship? That was fun!” Lukic smiled.

“I’d rather forget that experience altogether…” Maynard looked away, studying the space map projection in front of her.

“Captain Bostaph, this is Hernandez,” the voice came via the Intercom.

“Go ahead. You said you had an idea?”

“Yes, and I think I have found out what is going on.”

“We are all attention – what is it?”

“First, I want you to listen to this.” There was a moment of silence, which was followed by random noises eventually turning into a haunting melody: “ta-da-di, ta-da-di, di-daah-da-dooh…”

“Wait! Hernandez, did you join the musical club? What is wrong with you, people?!” Captain shouted.

“Nothing wrong with us, Captain,” Chief Scientist answered. “First Mate gave me an idea that gravitational waves we are experiencing could be modulated, and Space Compressor is picking up this modulated pattern. So, I applied Fourier Transform to de-noised signal my equipment is registering – and, voila! – it is exactly as I thought!”

“What does it mean?” Chen asked.

“It means these gravitational waves carry encoded information. The melody you just heard. And this information is registered and deciphered by my equipment, by our Space Compressor, and by First Mate Lukic. His brain must be sensitive to these waves somehow.”

“Yes! I always felt this is not a fluke!” Lukic exclaimed.

“Wait, Maria…” Navigator Maynard raised her finger. “If what you are saying is true, this means someone – or something – encoded this information into gravitational waves on purpose!”

“And this is the second part of this amazing discovery! The only rational explanation I have is that this melody was encoded by the inhabitants of the previous universe. First Mate – thank you for the hint!”

“You are welcome, Maria! I knew I am connected with ancient, wise beings…I might be one of them, actually…”

“We know gravitational waves can carry information and they do not decay with time,” Hernandez continued, not paying attention to Lukic. “There was research into this phenomena in the past with the idea of using gravitational waves as means of communication. But, since they travel with the speed of light, it was not very useful – we figured out how to use quantum entanglement to send information instantaneously, and that was the end of it. I guess our wise ancient beings, First Mate, did not quite master instantaneous communications, so gravitational waves had to suffice.”

‘Wow, this is so fascinating!” Maynard gasped. “But is it harmful to the ship? Could we somehow suppress the signal so I could chart the course without the risk of interference?”

“Yes, I believe we could. I will create a de-modulating sequence to overlay on top of this pattern using our Space Compressor. This should remove the interference we are experiencing.”

“You are a genius, Hernandez! I am honored to have you on my ship!” Captain announced.

“No problem, Captain! Just doing my job!”

“This is so romantic…” Lukic murmured with his eyes half-closed. “Imagine these ancients, in the dying universe, creating a musical masterpiece and encoding it in gravitational waves to be preserved not just for future generations – for future universes!”

“I doubt they had this intention…” Hernandez replied. “Most likely it is just some random piece of music we picked up, just as if someone would pick up our radio signals originating from Earth in the twentieth century.”

“No, no, no…it has a meaning, this is why I have it stuck in my head…” Lukic said. “I can see an old composer creating this music and sending it our way as he, or she, or it, or whatever these beings were – saw their universe collapsing into nothingness. A symphony of destruction.”

“Or of creation? The end of the old universe means the beginning of the new one,” Maynard added.

“No, Leslie. That ‘Dooh’ in the end is ominous and it shouts ‘destruction!’” First Mate banged his fist at the table.

“Okay, if you wish so, Rade!”

“Hernandez, could you please turn the music back on?” Lukic asked.

“Sure, why?”

“I want to invite Leslie to dance with me to this beautiful dark masterpiece!” First Mate took Navigator Maynard by the hand and they started waltzing around the Bridge.              “Ta-da-di, ta-da-di, di-daah-da-dooh…” Captain Bostaph and Engineer Chen both sang the melody. Chief Scientist Hernandez sighed and started working on creating a de-modulating sequence.