I am Atta Ommo Atta

of the continua ship Sharrahs. This is the eight-hundredth and fifty-third cycle of my current expedition. I have just discovered a weak region in space/time. I approach this area with excitement with the thought of breaking through to the alternate continua of dark matter. It is ironic that my exploration of the continua might find the answer to fixing the problem caused by our early, blundering experiments in this very technology.

Moving through time and space to this weak region, I watch the sensors with anticipation. No sooner do I enter the Weak Region, as I have dubbed it with capitals, than Sharrahs detects a charged vortex of high energy approaching. I have but seconds to react, but I fire a counter-force at the oncoming vortex. I watch the chaos of the two energy fields as they collide and cancel each other. Logic tells me there should be nothing left, only the pure and neutral vacuum in all twenty-three dimensions of space/time.

But, to my surprise, order emerges from chaos. Sensor reports indicate that another continua ship emerges from the fireball. I instruct Sharrahs to latch onto the other ship. The other continuanaut, if alive, may be in need of help.

Once latched, the Sharrahs reports that communications have been established.

“So, it has to be thus,” I receive a message from the other ship. Sharrahs tells me the packet arrived in stack data structure format, that is, in reverse order. The software has compensated and present the reply. Surprising readable. It was indeed another continuanaut.

“Greetings,” I transmit, not knowing what the other pilot means.

Sharrahs establishes a visual connection for me. I see the other continua ship has the configuration as mine. I see grainy video of the tight cockpit and of the pilot in his regulation armor strapped into his seat.

He transmits, “My ship has become unstable.”

I listen as I watch his engines on the monitor: the violent fluxes that have vexed his engines have subsided. They are the last of the instabilities of his rising from the fireball. All that remains is a curious resonance, weakening by the moment.

“No. Everything seems all right,” I tell him. I look at the monitors again, this time for readings from the Sharrahs. I notice that I, too, have that strange, low-level resonance. The Weak Region let the reverberations from his ship echo into mine.

“It may be too late for that,” he says.

Again, I do not understand his cryptic transmission. “Do you need assistance?” I ask.

“I’ve explored space/time for 853 cycles by now,” he tells me. Then he adds, “Finding you is the most fantastic discovery yet.”

I fully concur with him. Yes, “Finding you is the most fantastic discovery yet.”

When I think of it, I’ve also been out for exactly the same number of cycles. I echo his words, “I’ve been exploring space/time for 853 cycles by now.” That low level echo in the engines that I’ve inherited from the other continua ship may cause me problems yet. The reverberations have found a resonance in my engines, I fear that it will build up exponentially and eventually break through the containment fields.

“Do you need assistance?” the other pilot asks.

“It may be too late for that,” I tell him. I keep my eye on my ship’s readouts. Soon the containment field will fail as the reverberation grows.

“No. Everything seems all right,” the other pilot tells me.

But he is wrong. The reverberation in the engines multiply in strength, as I feared it would. “My ship has become unstable,” I tell him in resignation.

The other pilot says,”Greetings.”

Suddenly I understand. “So, it has to be thus,” I reply. There is nothing I can do as my damaged ship is ready to explode.

The other ship casts me off before I get a chance to ask if I can take refuge on his. But that’s not the way it happened. Once adrift and floating away from him, the other pilot fires a counter-force at me. It is the last thing I see before my ship explodes.

“Atta Omma Atta am I,” I think as my exploding ship shakes violently and the imploding force turns the walls of the cockpit to plasma. I am not.