"I am Diaspra"//(2) Prologue: Part 2 (English Translation)
The Immortal was an incredible ship. With its length of about 3000 meters, width of more than 500 meters and 16 decks, it not only looked like a giant from the outside but also from the inside this perfection could not be overlooked.
It was the flagship of the fleet, which was accompanied by a few smaller ships. Once again I wondered how it could remain hidden over all these years despite the research urge of the people who had recently even reached Mars.
All their satellites and telescopes had failed to discover this majestic monster that was practically right in front of them. Some of the other ships, however, they had discovered. But they had never managed to identify them for what they actually were - spaceships.
Although they had no cloaking devices, the researchers could not decipher their true meaning. They had thought they were many things over the years. Ancient rock formations or remains of earlier advanced civilizations were only two of the explanations that scientists repeatedly advanced in order not to have to admit to themselves that they were not the sole rulers of the universe, but that there were civilizations that had to be far superior to their own.
Although the most curious assumptions have been circulating on the Internet for a long time, as soon as they dealt with the subject of extraterrestrial life, they were descripted as conspiracy theories.
The high, white walls threw back every step I took as I approached the elevator to the deck of the bridge.
I still felt strange in this cool atmosphere. Everyone on board treated me with the greatest respect, but until now I've never felt really welcome in this sterile environment.
The diamond floor was so shiny that I reflected myself in. It was a strange feeling to look at my perfectly perfect reflection. Immediately after my arrival, I was taken to my quarters, where clean clothes were already ready.
I had also been able to take a hot bath, which washed away all traces of the exertions of the last few weeks. My own dirty and washed-out clothes had disappeared.
I hadn't seen them since my bath...
Two young women in tight-fitting snow-white suits with silver and crystal badges on their shoulders, the classic uniform of the Immortal crew, had put a stack of equally white dresses on my bed.
I still didn't know what they were made of. There was no such thing on Earth. It was light, a bit like silk, but still soft and perfectly adapted to every movement.
Also I was neither warm nor cold, although my dress nearly reached to the ground had long sleeves, which were fastened with silver rings at my middle fingers and the temperature in the ship certainly amounted to over 20 degrees.
At the hem, at the collar, at the rings and at the sleeves, as typical for the Immortal, diamonds were processed which sparkled like a thousand stars in the light of the fluorescent tubes. The raw material diamond was to be found everywhere on the ship. Apparently, it wasn't as rare all over the universe as it is on Earth.
The sight of me reminded me a little of Princess Leia from Star Wars. A film series that I always liked very much and that still belongs to my favorites today. Only unlike her I wasn't wearing braided hair, but a tightly combed plait that one of the women had tied to me.
I smiled at the thought of Star Wars.
I would never have thought it possible that I would stand on a spaceship myself. I had been a science fiction fan for a long time and I often wished for nothing more than exploring foreign worlds, flying through space and solving the riddles of the universe. But it never occurred to me that exactly this would happen.
I had now reached the elevator to the bridge. Here, too, there was a blue square, exactly identical to the one at the loading ramp. Again it was enough to place my hand in the middle. After the green light, the confirmation, the elevator doors opened and the familiar computer voice asked me where I wanted to go.
"To the bridge." I answered without thinking, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
In the world...
A phrase I'll probably have to break with soon. The doors closed, a bright, warm light enveloped me for a moment, then the doors opened again and the bridge of the spaceship lay in front of me.
I was lucky enough to be able to move completely freely, which irritated me at the beginning, but which I now greatly appreciated.
Most of the crew or passengers did not have access to this area of the ship. So my arrival didn't attract much attention. In general, many of the seats were unoccupied. Only two people were here.
On the one hand, a man with light blond, combed back hair, who didn't even look up from his monitor when I entered the bridge, and an older woman whose hair was already as white as her uniform, which made a strange picture. It almost made her look like a ghost.
She was the only one who took notice of me and stopped her work, holding a kind of tablet PC in her hand with which she projected a three-dimensional map into space that obviously showed different planets and stars.
Prologue