Möbius' Ship

Published: October 5, 2024 — written 5 months and 2 weeks ago.

The pain lingered in Möbius’ head as he rubbed his temples, floating in microgravity. Wearily, he looked around, listening carefully to the steady hum of his ship. He tried to remember what had happened, but his memory was blank. All he knew was that someone or something had knocked him unconscious. He was supposed to be alone in space.

“Hello?!”

His shout almost got stuck in his throat, making him cough. But despite his soreness, he pushed himself out of the storage section and used all his force to close the creaking hatch behind him. Once closed, he found the fire extinguisher floating next to him, giving him an idea of how he had been struck.

Pedalling with his wiry legs and arms, he moved through his ship and installed the extinguisher back into the wall, then pushed himself off and down the remainder of the corridor towards his cockpit. The entire time, he floated past blinking control panels, humming fans, and the openings leading to the other modules. He was certain the intruder had to be somewhere.

—

He slid into his pilot seat and clicked his seatbelt into place, its straps all fuzzy and soft from his continuous use. The same could be said about his main controls screen, its display framed with a thick layer of grime sticking to the corners and edges. The ship wasn’t the only thing that had turned old.

He brought up the video feed and zoomed out into the overview panel, sending his eyes darting across the dim screen. Each of the small squares showed a distorted view of a corner, corridor, or module they had been installed in. They all were empty, and the overlay visualising the difference to the previous days only lit up in his private module, showing how he had reorganised his sleeping bag, hanging like a deflated cylinder in the middle of the small confinement. Möbius first grinned, then frowned. He missed the time the crew had called him ‘Kebab’ for how he preferred to be spinning while he slept. He missed company.

Brushing away his heavy heart, he swiped away the camera controls and brought up the section controls, quickly tapping on each to close and lock each module. Whoever had harmed him had to still be onboard. The logs of the egress module showed no trace of having been used in the last hours, and everything before that came up as corrupted.

—

“Oh, I know how to find you!” he screamed.

“Why didn’t I think of this before?”

Angry at himself, he tapped back into the video feeds and pulled at the slider to rewind them. And as he saw them turn off one by one, it dawned on him why he hadn’t checked before: The system’s memory had been failing. He slammed his hand against the clunky display, sending it swivelling back into the ceiling above him. And as if the ship wanted to mock him, the latching mechanism failed, sending it slowly back towards him.

“Fuck.”

Möbius took a deep breath and listened. Did he just hear a step or a faint clanging sound? Slowly, he got up, letting the softened straps glide through his hands until he held onto the opened fastener, feeling the cool metal in his hand. He turned around and peered down the long corridor leading away from the cockpit. The feeling pulsing at his gut was a heavy contrast to his weightless body, slowly spinning around the open hatch.

—

“At least the core of the ship is empty!”

None of the countless compartments, nets, or hatches lining the four long walls ahead of him were open. Everything was neatly stowed away in an evenly spaced grid. Only his continued use of his ship, of holding onto the same edges and surfaces, of pushing himself off and further down the corridor had given the matte white tunnel a dozen shiny specks polished into the matte plastic. He pushed himself through the opening and into the core of the ship.

“I can hear you!”

—

“Why don’t you try to talk to me?”

“… or why don’t you send me a message?”

“… talk to me through the terminals!”

—

Möbius stopped in the middle of the ship, his legs kicking slowly under his body, as if swimming in the middle of a deep well. Keeping his legs moving helped with the pain in his knees, which was worse when he exercised on the treadmill, when he was strapped in, running against the wall. He pulled a device out of a service hatch and flipped it open to produce a keyboard missing half its keys and a cracked screen above it. Floating, he stared at the bottom half of the display, its top bleeding colours with a mesh of distorted lines. The global chat was empty, apart from a test message he had sent three years ago. He hit the escape key, and then counted as he navigated with the arrow keys, knowing from memory where he was going to on the invisible, broken part of the screen. The tail of log messages of the environment messages lit up with red and orange lines.

“Fuck, not now!”

“Show yourself! Stop hiding!”

Möbius was screaming into the hydroponics section. His heartbeat thumped in his ears as he listened for a reply. But the only thing he could make out was the alarm blaring through the hundreds of green racks stretching out in front of him. The red lights flashing towards the end of the module meant he had to go in. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to control his fear of suddenly falling. Even after all those years, he knew micro gravity was not his environment to be in and he missed the times when he could have walked through the plants, to brush his hands through the leaves, and watch them fall to the ground. But since the tether had broken he had been stuck, floating in his ship, floating in space. But he was lucky to be remaining in orbit, unlike the other half of what once was his vessel that had burnt up in the atmosphere. And without it, he could not return, nor make a controlled ascent into the endless oceans of Esrom.

“Just tell me! Where are you?”

Annoyed and scared, he pushed himself through the round latch, allowing himself to slowly spin through the module. To him, it appeared as if he was the one being in place as the ship barrelled around him, letting him look down each of the green rows at either side. And each time he drifted past, he expected to find someone or something waiting for him. But he remained alone. He approached the mist of spray floating between the shelves, letting the cool droplets hit his face. He tried to imagine how it would be to be standing in a light rain, even if he had never experienced one in his life before. He knew it had to be softer than a shower, more sparse, and somewhat slower and random.

“If you don’t want to show yourself, send me a message!”

“Or at least say SOMETHING!”

—

Always keeping an eye on the corridor leading back to the core of the ship, he patched up the broken piping with a bit of tape. It hadn’t been the first time it had failed. As the source of the now thinning mist was stopped permeating the rows of green, he stretched out his arms and grabbed the beams holding the shelves and launched himself back towards the core of the ship. The alarm subsided, turning his confined world back to almost silence.

He sealed off the hydroponics module, then crossed over into the fish farm, determined to check each part of his habitat, one after the other. Here, the rows were filled with vertical tubes, practically long, transparent plastic bags filled with tiny fish. Grey swarms chasing up and down in their limited space. He counted the rows of those that were soon to be harvested and processed into a protein paste, with the excess material being fed back into the top to feed them. With fear, he watched the distorted shapes of the room move around him through the cylinders filled with water and fish, dreading to finally see what kind of alien life had been making the sounds. And each time something moved inside the tubes, he felt a cold shiver running down his back.

Then suddenly, another dull clang made him flinch. He held onto the nearest beam to stop his movements, making him bump into a fish tank, his body denting the cold plastic as he fended off it. This time he was certain he had heard the sound, but it hadn’t come from inside this section. Tired and with fear, he listened intently. And again, he heard a noise, as if metal had been hit against the frame of the ship.

—

Cursing himself back to courage, he made his way back into the cockpit, quickly inspecting the external cameras. The overview showed what remained of his ship. One dysfunctional half of what was once his pride. But apart from half of a spaceship with a giant sail of solar panels, there was nothing else to be seen but the darkness of space.

Möbius scratched his head in confusion, only to be rattled again by a clanging sound. It sounded irregular and non-mechanical, as if something was trying to communicate with him. His arms began to tingle, losing strength with every second as he thought what kind of creature could have made it onto his ship unseen.

He pulled up the control panel and brought up the overview of microphones distributed throughout the ship. Quietly, he waited for the meters to indicate the volume of the sound they picked up. And as he watched the peak of the noise emanate from the storage section, his heart almost jumped out of his chest. He had proof something was on board.

—

“If you have anything to say to me, tell me! Somehow!”

He listened to the clangs as he floated down the core of the ship. And with each sound ringing in his ears, it pushed his fear further towards panic. He made himself stop in the middle of the length of the corridor and left his eyes fixed towards the end of the ship. And there he could see it: Something was trying to open the hatch of the storage module from the inside. Thin, wiry fingers appeared, probing the edge of the round latch, then disappeared to continue with the banging sounds to open it further.

Inch by inch it began to open, creaking and clanging each time it was hit from the inside. Möbius felt cold and sweaty, trying to find a way to defend himself. He reached for the nearest object in the wall next to him and flung it towards the end of the ship. And as he watched the fire extinguisher racing towards the opening hatch, he felt his heart sink into his body as he looked into the familiar eyes looking back at him.

“Oh shit, it’s m—”