~*~
Lisa went straight to the galley, which had become the unofficial gathering place for the crew when they were not otherwise occupied. This was most often the case recently. They had little to do. The sensors couldn't provide more data than they had already collected. Communication with the space station—or anywhere else in their universe for that matter—was impossible. And Sims required no assistance from them to keep the ship shipshape, even with the drones preforming additional duties such as laundry, water carrying, and the occasional discouragement of overcurious natives looking for a Peacekeeper souvenir—or perhaps a holy relic. She really didn't know how the locals saw them or what motivated a small few of them to approach the ship, but she had instructed the ship's AI to keep them away, which it did by sending out the drones. One sight of an insect-like robot heading toward a townsman went a long way toward encouraging him to recall somewhere else he urgently needed to be.
When she got to the galley, she found Brax and Sandra at the table sipping coffee. They were also apparently in the middle of a philosophical sparring match over the nature of games.
"Hi, Commander," Brax said, interrupting the point he was trying to make with Sandra.
"Our pilot is obsessed," Sandra said with an eye-rolling grin. "I don't think we should let him fly anymore."
"It's a hobby, okay?" he said defensively. "A lot of people take their hobbies seriously."
"And a lot of them are crazy, too. A hobby is a pastime to take your mind off serious things. If you take the pastime seriously, what's the point?"
"To do well at it, of course. And besides, I enjoy it. It's almost like a competitive sport."
"Which is another thing I never really saw the point in," she countered. "But it sounds to me like your distinction between reality and fantasy has gotten a bit blurred."
"Here, it may be blurred even more than you might think," Lisa interjected. "I was just talking with Doc, and he thinks the physical reality of this world is shaped by human imagination."
They listened attentively while she related the things Doc told her.
"That's pretty much it," she concluded. "What do you think?"
Sandra glared at Brax. "You mean all of this nonsense is because of him? We're in one of his stupid fantasies?" She pointed a finger like a dagger. "You idiot! Why couldn't you have been a pinochle fan?"
"Hey, don't look at me. I didn't ask to be here. In fact, if this has anything to do with me, I'm the victim. Something got into my mind and used my memories." He grinned. "I feel so violated." His mocking voice showed just how serious he was.
"I'll violate you, you overgrown adolescent." She threatened him with the closest weapon available, which was a plastic spoon.
He waggled his eyebrows. "Is that a promise?"
Lisa did not know if they were flirting or just being childish, but this was not the time for either. She found her role as the commander of this mission difficult enough to handle without adding babysitting duties.
"Cut it out, you two," she said. "This is not a game!"
"You just said it is…sort of," Brax reminded her.
"If it is, it's not a very good one. I know I'm ready to go home," Sandra added.
"I said cut it out! Whatever it is, we have to deal with it, and I need your help."
They had the decency, or at least the wisdom, to offer apologetic looks. "Sorry," they mumbled more or less in unison.
Lisa heard a sound behind her and turned to see Doc coming in.
"Hi, Doc," Sandra said, her look of remorse instantly vanishing. "Commander Chang was just telling us about your theory."
He went to the coffee dispenser and poured himself a cup. "That may be giving it more credit than it deserves. It's more of a hypothesis," he said.
"If you say so, but it almost makes sense, especially the part where it's all Brax's fault."
"Don't be too hard on him," Doc said, taking a seat. "Things could have been much worse. If reality here gets its template from imagination, we could have ended up in far less hospitable places—like crashed on a plague infested planet or spiraling into a black hole."
"Or facing down a Klingon Bird of Prey or the Star Wars Death Star," Brax added.
"Is something like that even possible?" Sandra said.
"You mean less possible than dragons and orcs?" Lisa asked.
"Good point. Consider the question withdrawn."
"I think the things Brax mentioned could manifest themselves here," Doc said. "Any sufficiently comprehensive fictional setting may be able to. If it's logically consistent and can feel real, the fantasy might have the ability to take physical form."
"So anything is possible?" Sandra said.
"Not quite. I would hazard a speculation that the possibility of human interaction with the setting must exist, otherwise there is no story potential. This means that only places that provide a reasonably hospitable environment for people are likely to manifest. Unfortunately, this does not mean the settings are benign. They may be quite dangerous. In fact, if these are based on human fiction, then some potential for hazard or conflict is essential."
"Why is that?" Sandra asked. "People fantasize about, well, a lot of things. Couldn't we end up on a cruise ship or beach resort just as easily as someplace with rampaging orcs?"
"My guess is that it must present a challenge for the human characters, because these are elements essential to stories and games."
"Yeah, where's the point in a cruise ship without spies or an iceberg?" Brax said.
"You're aptitude for romance never ceases to amaze me," Sandra said.
"Your point, I think," Doc said in all seriousness, "is that romance stories, in which the fantasy essentially involves a heroine establishing a committed relationship with a rich young man, are popular. The key issue, however, is that the common setting for such tales is our reality. I presume that in order for a new universe to manifest, it must have a fundamental factor that distinguishes the fantasy world from our reality, something inherent that it has that ours doesn't, or possibly vice versa."
"Besides, romance stories are boring," Brax said. "It's just normal people doing normal stuff. Where's the fun in that?"
"Personally, I think a rich young man has far more fun potential than rampaging orcs, but I see what Doc is saying. A fantasy set in our reality can't make a different reality because it wouldn't be, well, different, right?"
"That is essentially what I am proposing."
"So…" Sandra said. "The reason all the other tests of the BS device found nothing when they skipped, other than gray haze, was because they had no one on board with an imagination?"
Doc nodded. "That's my presumption for now. This…place exists, but it takes a creative mind, or at least some ability to suspend disbelief, to give it a specific form. Whether it gets its entire template from the people crossing over from our universe, or if skipping opens some kind of conduit connecting the two, I don't know. Both may be possible, but I'm leaning toward the second idea because it could also help explain why magic is in decline here."
"How so?" Sandra asked.
"People in our universe are not as credulous as they once were. They still enjoy fantasy stories, and they identify with the characters and their fictional exploits as much as their ancestors did. Those parts of the stories still can feel real to them. But few people regard magic as something that can actually happen. If the minds of people in our universe structure the nature of this one, then the strength of their beliefs may come into play. Magic may be weaker here because few people in our universe see it as something that could really exist."
"I've been thinking about this," Lisa said, "and if we accept Doc's hypothesis, we may have an advantage. We know how fantasy adventure stories are structured; at least I'm sure Brax does. He's obviously more than familiar with them. There must be commonalities between them, so he can help us figure out the types of situations we are likely to encounter and what we need to do to prepare for them."
> Brax shook his head. "I'm not sure how much I can help with that. They're all different. I mean, other than what Doc already said about there being a challenge you have to overcome, they vary a lot."
"And our challenge here is pretty obvious," Sandra said. "We need to beat the orcs by overcoming the mind flayer that's commanding them. But it still seems to be a pretty lame story. I mean, where's the character development for the bad guys?"
"You don't get much for the bad guys in a lot of them. They're just presumed evil because that's all you need to know. They're really only there for you to have something to fight."
"That's what I mean. Heroes fighting bad guys is not much of a story."
"It may not be very good, but it seems we're stuck in it." Lisa said. "But Doc also has an idea of how to beat them." She looked at the ship's doctor. "Do we have what we need for your sleeping gas?" she asked him.
He nodded. "Yes. I still need to work on an idea for how we can deploy it, but I can synthesize the chemicals we will need with the supplies and equipment we have on board."
He went on to describe in some detail the nature of the gas, focusing his narrative on how it was both simple and effective. Lisa assumed he did so to ensure that everyone here, especially Brax, retained no doubts about its ability to overcome their opponents.
"Well, that sounds like it will work," Brax said to her relief.
"And it has the advantage of overpowering a large number of them without us having to actually fight," Lisa said. "Now, we just need a way to get it to them."
"When Doc was describing his gas, I started to get an idea about that," Brax said. "What we could do is…"
They continued talking late into the night. When they finally retired to their sleeping cubicles, Lisa was exhausted both mentally and emotionally, but they had a plan.
~Chapter 13~