Don't Look

Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer

The controls were familiar to any race that had developed mechanical means to get around on their planet’s surface.

There was an altitude stick, turning/braking pedals, a throttle plus a variety of buttons and dials to let the pilot know how the trip was going.

A year or two of study to get the math and emergency situations covered and there you go. Every single sentient race could become a pilot.

Except one.

Humans are dumb. They routinely disregarded the most important rule.

“Don’t look at the wormhole’s terminus” was written in all of the available languages, pictograms, sensefields, and soundfeeds around the edges of the front viewscreen of the ship.

That singularity that broke the back of the universe’s insistence on rational behaviour was a place where laws of physics broke down. To look at it drove any sentient mind from this universe irretrievably insane.

They went into whatever fetal, litter, or eggsac position their race was familiar with and stared, wide-eyed, for the rest of their soon-to-be-machine-assisted lives.

Every race knew. Peripheral vision was okay to a point. Look around the point, not at it. Avoid the center. Avoid the center. Avoid the center.

Humans. Sigh.

They called it curiousity. Every single human pilot that had attempted a jump had looked at the center of the singularity at some point during the jumps. The jumps are usually only a few hours long.

They’re banned from piloting now. They’re transported in rooms without windows. Universally, they’re looked down on because of this one trait.