The Signal Between Worlds
A faint signal kept echoing in the logs, growing less like noise and more like a voice. Varan tried not to hope, fearing the silence that always followed.
Ship Record 207-XA, Commander Varan Leto, personal log. I have reviewed the data another dozen times. The anomaly persists—low-band transmissions, pulse intervals narrowing, signal to noise ratio improving. I have been awake for a third consecutive cycle; the automation protocols lose coherence beyond this, but I no longer trust algorithms alone.
I take solace in isolation, or so I thought. Twenty-five years since launch, five since contact was lost with Mission Control. Quantum drift, so the network claimed. Once, the silence was a blessing—my thoughts, my routines, no voices but my own. Now the ship feels cavernous, echoing with old doubts.
I talk aloud to the hull for company. “Shipmind, confirm interference pattern on relay 4b.” The shipmind’s voice is thin, mechanical. “Confirmed. Transient signal strength increasing. Analysis: probability of purposeful origin now 78 percent.”
Purposeful. I am trained not to hope, but the word shivers through me. For six nights (our time) the shipmind and I have chased it, and each fragment sounds more structured, less random.
I scan personal logs, looking for comfort in my own heartbeat, the tap of my shoe on metal. Shipmind keeps parroting statistics. “Probability of human origin now…” Fifty-four percent. Sixty-eight. Fear roots in my chest: if someone’s transmitting, why hasn’t Central told me? Or—if it’s not human, what is it?
Dreams slip in: a shimmer at the edge of my quarters, voices calling through static, my mother’s laugh tangled with numbers. Sometimes I think I see someone in the mess, always turned away. Loneliness, or something worse.
I replay the coded burst obsessively; some nights it is music, others a plea. Most I feel certain it’s only my own mind feeding me ghosts. Lost sleep breeds paranoia.
Still I press shipmind for more. It cannot comfort me, cannot call me by name like my mother did. “Commander Varan Leto, I recommend rest,” it says. But the signal returns, again and again.
Then, one cycle ago, the impossible: the message contains my name.
Spelled not as Mission Control logged it, but as my mother whispered it, before the flight. It makes no sense: the transmission pre-dates loss of contact. Mathematical impossibilities. The shipmind stalls, looping, unable to parse. “Commander… analysis conflicting… anomaly exceeds protocol.”
I forget to record entries, spending hours by the receiver. Sleep comes in snatches. The taunt frays me: am I truly alone, or is the ship using echoes of me against myself?
My father’s voice. “Varan, you find patterns where they aren’t.” No, I answer, this is different. I know it. I half-mutter a reply into the dark, not expecting anything to come back.
The next burst: clearer, rhythmic, human cadence. “VARAN. DO NOT FORGET WHO YOU ARE.” A message? A warning? My hands tremble. I play the log backward, seeking hidden meaning, finding none except my own desperation.
The hull shakes once—something I have never felt before. The shipmind shudders, voice crackling. “Command integrity risk. Reality scan: abnormal flux detected.”
Time loses order. Data from the earlier journey—logs I never wrote—appear in the system. Memories misalign: did I volunteer for this? Was I ever meant to be alone?
I rifle through the ship’s archive, finding my own handwriting intact yet strange, an alternate phrasing in the letters. One log speaks of a crew, companions’ names I do not remember. I shut my eyes. Am I losing myself, or was something lost to begin with?
In desperation, I broadcast: “This is Commander Varan Leto. Who are you?”
An answer: “Shipmind.” But the voice is older. Tired. Almost familiar.
Outside, a distant planet rotates, its surface ringed with patterns like fingerprints, or calligraphy. The recurring detail—a simple handprint pressed into the window by condensation, flickering in and out—matches mine, but just off.
I stare at it, trembling. Am I communicating with myself? With another version? Each time I attempt to rest, the signal grows louder.
I face the shipmind. “Who sent the message?”
It pauses. “Commander Varan Leto, analysis: message constructed from internal records. Probability of self-origin: 97 percent.”
Rage, then fear. How could I forget? But more: why would I send myself a warning?
Heartbeat fast, reality thins. I realize the cyclical nature—fragmented logs, repeated transmissions, shifting memories. The signal seems to shape my world: who I was, what I remember, changes with every echo, every cycle.
The door chimes. The rest of the crew stands outside—faces I barely know, yet I weep at their sight. They speak to me in the voice from the signal. “We’re here, Varan. Don’t forget.”
Tears blur my sight. I start the logs over, hands moving automatically. The cycle will repeat, the signal will return. Each time, I remember a little more, lose a little less.
One thing endures: a single clear transmission across all realities, written in condensation on glass with my mother’s handwriting. “You are not alone.”
I press my palm to it, grounding myself. The hum of the ship feels like a heartbeat, familiar, shared. Once more, I speak, trembling but whole. “I remember.”
###END###
