1. Journey to Omnobereus

The teasing voice of Arren’s robot echoed through the room. He barely heard the high female voice over the scratching of his pen on paper.

“I must,” said the robot, just a piece of code hidden on some computers, “insist you take a look at the screen now.”

“No time, AR-BOT. Must write report for captain.”

Arren couldn’t talk and write simultaneously. Barely anybody could still write by hand, unless you happened to have a stern father that forced you. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, even though human spaceships were now able to keep a perfect temperature at all times.

“Why does your father want hand-written reports?” asked AR-BOT. “The average human types 3.412 times faster than—”

“Do I know!”

“Was that a question? Yes, you know quite a lot, Arren. You made me, the most intelligent robot of this moment.”

“Well, thanks, but it wasn’t a question.” Arren sighed and looked for the right words to conclude the report. “Remind me to finetune you further when it comes to exclamations and sarcasm.”

“Okay! When would you like to be reminded? In an hour? Two hours? Three—”

“When I’m done with this.”

Arren gazed out the window. It was a black expanse now, their destination so far away that it could be a grain of sand stuck to the window. He tried not to look outside too often. Their spaceships could also simulate gravity perfectly now, which means the outside world could be your only reminder that you were actually walking upside-down.

“I must really insist you take a look at your screen,” said AR-BOT, louder than before.

Arren knew how intelligent AR-BOT was. Or, well, intelligent in terms of facts and numbers and anything but human oddness. If it repeated a message, he had to listen to it.

He walked past a table covered in cables, buttons and colored lights. Nothing out of the ordinary. AR-BOT functioned as it should, just as the several systems that father had placed under his control.

About time, that was! Arren could already repair a rocket engine when he was five! But apparently you had to wait until you were an adult before father allowed you to steer that rocket.

He grabbed the edges of a large screen. He pulled the bright square, held up by a moveable arm, to his eye level. It showed several dots—planets of which they’d known the existence for centuries now—and the current position of the rocket. White markings on a black background.

“Nothing’s wrong,” concluded Arren. “Is this your attempt at humor again?”

“You reduced my humor percentage to zero. Ever since the incidents with confetti in the bedrooms and my insults aimed at the president. Or should I also remind you of—”

“No time for this. We’ll reach Omnobereus soon. I must deliver my report, prepare for landing, and—”

AR-BOT sighed. He’d tried to make the algorithm more human. Softer, funnier. He repeatedly discovered the many disadvantages of doing that.

Eventually, AR-BOT just gave him the answer.

“A planet is missing.”

“What?”

Arrent studied the screen and counted the planets on his fingers. He called them all by name, until he froze at his eighth finger.

“Appareus is missing. AR-BOT, check the scanner for mistakes or failures.”

“Already did that. Found none. Though I must remind you that my power percentage is merely 20% and you’ve denied me access to many systems. Father’s orders, remember?”

“Yes, yes, I remember,” grunted Arren. “I can’t give you more power, not without permission.”

“Then I have no idea where Appereus is.”

Arren cursed his father and punched his fist into the wall. It gave him nothing but a dull metal thud.

“I don’t imagine,” said AR-BOT, “that Appareus is hidden behind that particular wall.”

“A planet can’t disappear. There must be a mistake.”

Arren added a few more sentences to his report. They asked for more power for AR-BOT, to catch mistakes like these earlier. Then he ran out of his workroom.

The corridors were busy. Everyone knew they were bound to arrive at Omnobereus now, after years of travel. Doors were open wide. Objects were carried—and sometimes thrown—to be placed inside electronic capsules, though the older passengers still used regular briefcases.

As the son of the captain, Arren was a famous figure. That did not, unfortunately, give him the same status as his father, which meant nobody stepped aside for him.

He placed his AR-GLASS on the bridge of his nose and put its corresponding earbuds in his ears. The glasses constantly calculated the fastest route through the crowd, as it tried to locate father in the spaceship. By sensing warmth and radiation, it could even recognize people through walls.

How would he ever live without his inventions? How could those pitiful other humans live without his inventions to help them?

Though, this time, it was easy to guess where the captain was: the control room.

“I’ve searched my entire database,” said AR-BOT in his ear, “and found no proof of a planet disappearing in the entire history. I did find abundant proof of radars giving erroneous results. Such as—”

When he ran into the control room, father had already extended his hand. Arren pushed his crumpled report into it.

The text was rapidly read. Father sighed and groaned more deeply with each sentence.

“When will you learn to communicate properly, son? I count twenty spelling errors already. I don’t even understand what you’re saying here and here. I can’t give you important spaceship duties if you can’t report on them. I see progress, but …”

“You’re disappointed.”

“I’m not disappointed,” said father. He tried to look into Arren’s eyes. He still wore his large, blocky AR-GLASS, like a criminal who permanently had a black line over his face to hide his identity.

“I think,” whispered AR-BOT, “that he’s disappointed. His face matches 87.6% with an average disappointed face. His heartbeat is also—”

“Take off the glasses, son. I want to see your eyes.”

Arren pushed a button on the side. The display at the front changed color and drew two pixelated eyes, which matched his own in color and size.

Father grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

“Your real eyes!”

Reluctantly, Arren took off his glasses. He felt naked without them. He couldn’t think without AR-BOT tattering helpful data into his ear, and he couldn’t look at father for long before cringing and looking away.

“You will not get more power. I will certainly not give AR-BOT control over steering the rocket. That’s that. Go pack your things and—”

“Why? My algorithm is better at steering than humans!”

“I can,” said AR-BOT, now a voice audible in the entire control room, “steer about 5.126 times more precise than the average human.”

Father threw his hand into his long black hair. His other hand leaned on a large steering wheel with wooden spokes. As if he captained a pirate ship, not a gigantic rocket lost in space.

He turned red.

“Why are you trying to take away my job, son?”

“I’m not trying—”

“Why do you try to make me unemployed?”

“I don’t! I try to make everyone unemployed!”

The entire crew stopped what they were doing, dumbfounded.

“To my estimation,” said AR-BOT, “I can already take over 99% of human jobs with ease. Isn’t that—”

Father hit a button and reduced AR-BOT’s volume to zero. “Once we’ve landed, I shut off that robot forever. Then everyone can live again, naturally, as they should. Do you hear me?”

Arren wanted to give a retort, but found nothing.

Beeps sounded from the screen behind father’s back. The same type of screen as in his workroom—and a second planet had disappeared.

He pointed at the hole with a trembling finger. Father’s eyes followed, while several crew members checked the screen for errors.

Before their eyes, a third dot vanished. All the dying planets were near the edge, furthest away from their rocket, but now the disappearances crept closer. They all watched helplessly as dot, after dot, after dot was extinguished. More and more, their rocket flew into an unknown and dark emptiness.

“What in Ardex’ name is happening,” said AR-BOT softly.

“Ardex?”

“A saying from my database. One of the godchildren of old. It seemed fitting for such a deadly serious situation.”

“You have never seen anything like this?” father asked cautiously. He shook his head as if angry at himself for asking AR-BOT anything and raising its volume.

“Never,” said AR-BOT.

“You see, son? Useless.”

The next dot vanished as if someone wiped dirt from the screen.

Everyone in the control room ran to the large window at the front. From there, they should be able to spot Omnobereus in the distance now, as they’d land there in a few hours.

Or, rather, that should have been the case. That was the whole reason for their journey. The planet had been hand-picked for its perfect climate, and the rocket had just enough fuel for this journey and none other.

The space before them was awfully empty.

On the screen, only one misshapen dot remained, and it honed in on their spaceship.

Father spoke loud and commanding.

“Omnobereus is gone. Something is coming for us. Turn around immediately and flee to the Nibuwe star system!”