If there is one thing that is always going to be true about life on a ship, it is that it is rigidly routine. Sarah and I fall into a routine of our own. We meet most days for lunch and dinner, talk away as many hours as possible and spend much of the rest of the first stint at sea missing our friends and loved ones.

The ship really is very quiet and this gets even worse when we arrive at the small mining port of Last Bay. Almost half the passengers get off here, including a couple of other former school-mates. The town is so much smaller than Sevrin City, clinging to the shoreline with steep mountains rising close behind.

After five days out to sea, however, it is pleasant to finally have sight of land. We remain docked for a whole day while we take on a large quantity of cargo and all the leaving passengers disembark. Once underway once more, we follow the coast of the peninsula towards Land’s End, another three days away.

I’m just about ready for a change in routine when I get one that I didn’t expect.

<Incoming Call: Jane Crowe>

“Nexima, accept the call.”

“Hello Aidan. I’m Jane Crowe, the director of research at Eastleigh. I’m sorry to disturb you before you get even half-way here.”

“My pleasure, Jane. I’m already getting pretty bored with the whole experience anyway. It sounded like an adventure, but it is a bit tedious if I’m honest.”

“Well, I’m selfishly glad. I know you’re not contracted to start work before you arrive, but would you mind if I gave the rest of the team your details and then you could all get acquainted before you get here.”

“Oh, that sounds like a great idea.”

“Good. I’m assigning Jordan Callow to be your primary liaison. You both have a lot in common and he’s the nearest to your age on the team. You and he will be mostly working together anyway.”

“I look forward to hearing from him, then.”

“Excellent. He’ll bring you up to speed on what we actually want you to start working on.”

“That’s a relief. Nobody has mentioned anything about the sort of research that you do. I know it has to do with the Singularity Link, but I don’t know any of the specifics.”

“Well, I’ll let Jordan explain, but let’s just say that it has quite a lot to do with the final paper you wrote at school.”

“You saw that? It was just a bit of speculation about the possibilities of the Link.”

“Aidan, don’t assume that we gave you this post in isolation. We told the AI what we were looking for, but a few names were also directly put forward by the department after reviewing the possible students who would be graduating this year.”

“I’m not entirely comfortable with some of that. Let’s just say I have a family history with the AI, Jane.”

“Yes, I recognise the family name, Aidan. Don’t feel that they act on blind intuition though. You’re coming to Eastleigh because we want you to.”

“Thank you. It is reassuring to know that I’m not just an AI experiment.”

“Good. Just take the next few days to start to get familiar with as much data as possible and then you can hit the ground running once you get here.”

“I’m not sure regarding Jordan’s schedule. You may not hear from him until tomorrow, or even the day after that. He will be in touch though.”

“I’ll be available at almost any time, so that won’t be a problem.”

“Okay Aidan. It was good to talk to you. I’ll let you get back to the voyage. Have a good day.”

“Thanks again, Jane. Goodbye.”

“Nexima, End the Call.”

“Well, I feel a little second-tier now,” Sarah tells me with a smile over dinner. “My boss hasn’t felt the need to get on to me to start work before I get there.”

“I’m not sure it works like that Sarah,” I tell her with a smile of my own. “Honestly, I’m not sure what all the rush is about, but it will make the time go quicker.”

“Yes. I don’t think my position is quite as high-powered as yours. Mine is just described as an assistant’s role. It sounds like you are a full-blown member of the research staff.”

“Well, I’m pretty intrigued. I didn’t even know that the papers we completed at school ever left the building. Clearly, someone or, more likely something, looks at every single one of them. Once again I’m not sure it is paranoia if they really are watching everything that I do!”

“What exactly was your paper about, if you don’t mind me asking and you think it won’t go over my head?”

“Well, you know that the Singularity Link passes the electromagnetic signal from a transceiver through a nanoscopic singularity. This is what makes the link back to Earth work in real-time.”

“Yes, that’s now fairly basic middle-school physics.”

“Exactly. I was just speculating that it might be possible to scale the whole thing up.”

“Why would you want to scale it up. We can transfer all the data that we need already.”

“I was thinking that it might be possible to scale it up until the surface area of the singularity was big enough to transfer matter.”

“What? How much matter were you thinking about?”

“Well, I was modelling the possibility of moving microscopic amounts, maybe a microgram or so.”

“I’m not sure what good that does anybody though.”

“It might be enough to send Nexima implants from the factory on Earth. You know we’ll run out of them in about fifty years or so. It was all speculation on my part though. I’m not even sure that such a thing is possible.”

“So, a bit like a sci-fi teleporter device? We’ve all seen that sort of show on the old-style broadcasts or read a classic book.”

“Well, not exactly. They always seemed to work by turning the matter into energy and then back again. That really won’t work at all. There’s too much entropic decay in any possible signal. Moving a particle through a singularity shouldn’t suffer from any such problems though. We know that our signals pass through without any degradation or errors beyond those that would be expected with normal close-range lightspeed communications”

“Well, clearly someone has had the same, or a similar idea and they want you to help.”

“Yes, Sarah. That’s what it looks like at the moment. I’ll find out just as soon as Jordan gets in touch to discuss it in more detail.”

“Indeed. Let me know if you need to work when we’d normally be exercising or whatever.”

“I will. I’ll try and keep you posted with what I find out. We’ll still see each other at mealtimes, even if you have to drag me along. I know I can get a bit engrossed when given something like this to get my teeth into.”

“Yes please. It is a little above my level, but as long as you don’t try and explain the maths to me, I get the gist of it all. I may not see it the way that you do, but I’m very interested.”