The Whale's Song (Book 1)

Chapter Twelve. Dome and gloom.

The Whale's Song shifted along through space, a carrier of 2,000 people. Its life support systems carrying oxygen, Chinese takeaways, and water, pumped pulse like through pipes and cheap vending machines. Outsides its windows, the galaxy sparkled and shone like a trillion holes cut in to the ceiling from which light spilled through. On closer inspection, the holes with light coming through were actually stars, planets of molten rock, gas giants, and ice formations hurtling millions of miles through inky black absence of light.

Far off on the starboard bow a meteor shower was in progress. A dozen rocks, broken off from deceased planets hurtled along. Their travels through the speed of light sending trails of flames shooting along behind them.

The observation deck of the Whale's Song spanned a mile long. It's window was a giant dome. The floor was set out with gardens, mechanically made ponds and waterfalls. Trails along wooded forest allowed passengers a feel of a solid planet. Scattered along the trails were coffee houses, muffin shops, and a particularly fancy boathouse restaurant reminiscent of a Central Park restaurant. Along the Eastern side sat a picnic lawn, set out with fairy lights and gazebos. The lights in the observation deck room were designed to spread light to the five corners of the room, so that passengers could see their way clearly, without distracting from the midnight sky above. While the observation deck window usually sat open, wide shutters could be activated to close the deck window when approaching suns or when meteor showers were either too close or too bright.

In Outa Rood's time as captain aboard the Whale's Song, she had only closed the shutters once. This was back at Jupiter when the Whale's Song had been requested to return to port for a service just before it had been decommissioned.

In her position in the control room of the Whale's Song, Otua watched the shutters begin to close from her chair. The control room sat atop the ship and could rotate 360 degrees to look over every area of the ship. Not only could the control panel rotate on top of its cone, the cone itself could rotate around the ship. Personal gravity inside the control room had its privileges. If Otua so wished, she could watch the underside of the Whale.

Otua sank back into her chair and turned away as the shutters joined at the center with a shudder she could only imagine.

'Fish,' she called, spinning her chair to the communications officer. 'What's the skinny on the closing of the shutters?'

Fish, a bowl shaped man with a loose toupee, removed his earpiece. 'We've got complaints running in through most communication ports down in the park. People are wondering what's going on. So far no panic, just mild irritation from the grandmothers and the young couples out for strolls. What should I send through the comms as a recorded message for their calls?'

Otua sighed, running a hand through her hair and shifting out some of the knots. 'Tell them maintenance, I guess. Or else it malfunctioned and closed by itself and we are looking into the problem.'

'Hmm, pretty commercialised options,' murmured Fish. 'Maybe the second, seeing as most people know you don't like closing the shutters.'

'You the man, man.'

Otua rose and approached the security feed desk. A row of projected images flashed across the screen. They overlapped and occasionally one would separate from the pile and flash over to the computer frame connected to her chair.

'What's Oz up to?'

Clemmons, the man in charge of security pulled up an image, drew it off from the screen, placed it on a computer frame and passed it to the captain.

Oscar flapped around on an empty disco floor in an attempt to breakdance, Bucket sat to the side, hammering out a beat on his metal sides. The rest of the disco room was empty except for one automated barman standing with a tray of shot glasses. Upon seeing the bar robot, Oscar flapped his way over, used the robot's pant leg to pull himself up the robot, knocked the tray out of the robot's hand by mistake and then collapsed to the floor in a laughing fit.

'Get that man sobered up right now,' ordered Otua, her voice low and full of warning as she pushed the computer frame back into Clemmons's awaiting hand. 'And tell Diamond to turn the heat back on!' she snapped, twirling around and storming out of the control room.

Far off in the distance, the meteors altered course and began falling towards a black speck in the distance. As the meteors neared, the light trails behind began to deform. The meteors seemed to spin in place, rotating as the light was pulled in closer to the round hole in space. The meteors shook and crashed into each other, spinning wildly as they joined each other's gravitational pull. They clumped together into one mass as they neared the hole. The light sucked from them as they entered the black hole and disappeared.