2.10 – The guessing game

A trap had been Trak’s first guess three weeks earlier, when the crew first caught a glimpse of the Garage in the distance.

Three weeks earlier

For such an enormous object, the Garage was almost invisible.

It  gave off no discernible heat or energy, and no star was close enough to illuminate it.

If it hadn’t been for the countless craft inside that still had active headlights, Rachel-7 calculated she would have crashed into the Garage at full speed in about three weeks.  

She decided not to mention that to Daniel.

Don't tell your boss the mistakes you never make, Rachel-7 thought and continued guiding the ship through a galaxy made hazy by the Afterthought's bubble of Quantum space.

"It's a trap," Trak said, examining the dim light of the Garage through the Afterthought's screens.

"Too obvious,” Daniel said. “I'm thinking a Singularity God who collects starships?"

"You think everything's a trap," Rachel said to Trak. "And Daniel? A Sing-God? Really?”

"Maybe," Daniel said.

"A trap makes the most sense. And I don't think everything's a trap," Trak said.

"You do," Rachel-7 said.

"Could be a space-time fracture," Daniel said.

"A space-time fracture that catalogs and organizes spaceships?" Rachel-7 asked.

“Could happen,” Daniel said.

“No,” Trak said.

“No,” Rachel-7 said.

"I don't think everything’s a trap,” Trak said.

"You do," Rachel-7 said.

“This table’s not a trap,” Trak said.

“Are you sure?” Rachel-7 said.

“Yes,” Trak said. He secretly scanned the table just to be certain.

"What about rogue clouds?” Daniel said. “They build vessels. I saw some crazy stuff at my father’s cloud yard.

"But why would the clouds build ships with ancient identification codes unless it was a trap?" Trak asked. "If the codes are authentic, some of those ships disappeared 1.2 million years ago. I have the archive data."

“I like this one,” Rachel-7 said, sending an image to Daniel's eyescreens of what appeared to be a tiny scout ship. “I bet it handles well.”

Daniel realized it only looked tiny when compared to the ships around it. The glowing markings Rachel-7 had added to the image indicated the scout ship was easily a hundred times larger than the Afterthought.

The Garage threw off Daniel's sense of scale.