“Yeah.”
The conversation lapsed. Ari smiled at John and looked around the room. John turned back to his work. Ari noticed John’s flight joystick sitting on the desk and picked it up.
“I guess I’d better get back to work,” John said.
“This is a pretty serious piece of gear. I take it your fascination with airplanes is still strong?”
“Yep. In fact, I’m hoping to integrate this gear into the ship. Flying the ship via the telepathic link is fine but it lacks a certain thrill, if flying an Expedition around is any comparison. I also had to concentrate pretty hard to work with Seth at flying. Having a manual flight control system might make it easier to multi-task. It would also allow somebody other than me to fly the ship.”
“So getting conventional computers to work with the orb is more important than ever. All the more reason for us to ask Seth if it can work.”
John sighed. “All right, you got my curiosity worked up about it. Let’s go find out what Seth has to say. Hopefully if we stick to the illusion world I won’t get too tired.”
“Good. And while you’re up, you can show me where you keep the damn booze.”
16.
Ari awoke with a start. She was splayed across the living room couch. Looking over at the wall clock, she confirmed the time of her alcohol-induced nap. She had spent only fifteen minutes passed out, which was fourteen more than she’d planned. Christie and Ray were nowhere to be seen, and all was quiet save for soft noises from upstairs. Nine hours had passed, and John was still banging away on his keyboard.
They had held a conference with Seth inside the vision world of the orb. This time, the orb chose to place them in Christie’s classroom at Suffolk, the same classroom they’d all shared as students. After an extremely annoying conversation with Seth, they learned that it was possible to detect and record Seth’s data output. Apparently, when Umberians wanted to communicate directly with Seth they used an infrared light modulator. This was her best guess, anyway, since when they’d finally communicated their exact question to Seth a cordless infrared mouse had appeared in Ari’s hand, and television remote controls in the hands of the others. She speculated that if she set up an infrared transceiver and hacked the program, they would be able to read Seth in terms of binary code. The question then became how to interpret the data. Ari had some powerful anti-encryption software that she thought might do the trick. Between that and simply asking Seth what kind of data he was transmitting at any given moment could theoretically allow her to write a program to display the data in terms the humans could understand.
After the conference, John had returned to his CAD work and Ray and Christie had gone out for some groceries. Ari was left with the cat and a list of things she wanted Seth to explain to her. The list included relative speed, bearing, yaw, pitch, energy levels, resource management, hull integrity, and all external sensory readings such as temperature, radiation levels, particle density, light levels, and radio transmissions. Given raw data feeds, Ari believed she could create programs to display the information. Any modern computer would do the trick, but Ari planned on requesting a fast machine just for the hell of it. John had a 2.4 gigahertz machine with an opulent 1,024 megabytes of RAM, which was more than enough. Ari wanted additional machines for each room of the ship, networked together, for convenience and collective processing power. Like Ray’s rifles, such a plan was probably not possible. Ari was all for stopping by her place of work and stealing what they needed, but John and Ray would almost certainly object.
After Ray and Christie had returned from the store, they’d spent some time in the backyard talking about themselves. Christie seemed like a smart enough addition to the crew, if they could retain her. It would certainly be easier than finding someone new.
Ari had raided the liquor cabinet after that. She and Ray watched the evening news while Christie called her parents. Ari kept one ear on her conversation, but it turned out to be quite routine. After the news, television was pretty boring. Ari was happy to partake of John’s selection, which was outstanding. She did not intend to get as buzzed as she did.
Pouring herself a glass of water, Ari noticed Ray standing outside. He was smoking his pipe. From upstairs, John and Christie appeared.
“What have you two been up to?” Ari asked.
“I was looking over John’s design,” said Christie.
“How’s it coming?”
“I’m finished,” said John, grinning. “Where’s Ray?”
“He’s right there.”
John went outside and brought Ray back in.
“You guys want to take a look?” asked John.
“Of course,” said Ari.
John led the way upstairs, and they gathered around his computer. John began a walk-through of his design. Ari was stunned at the level of detail he’d achieved in such a short time.
“Impressive,” said Ray. “I like it.”
“Nice windows,” said Ari, referring to the hourglass-shaped apertures that complemented the hallways and each of the living quarters.
It was all there, each of the rooms that John had originally conceived of in his first drawing and a few more. Christie grinned despite herself. This was going to be damn cool. John rotated the perspective for a look at the exterior. He then called up a floor plan of each deck, and passed out printed copies of the bitmap image as a visual aid.
Deck three was the lowest deck. It was ten meters shorter than the decks above it to allow room for cargo to clear the ramp. The ramp, which led into the fore cargo bay, was one of two entrances into the ship. The cargo bay took up two decks. When the ramp was closed, a slope was created which led up to the second deck in the fore section. Behind the cargo bay on the third deck was a hallway that led to a space that John had reserved for any external weapons they might install later. It was labeled the Ventral Gun Room. Behind that was the aft cargo hold, accessed by two corridors that flanked the gun room. Last on that deck was the engine compartment, which was also two decks tall.
“Seth specified a minimum space of twenty cubic meters for the stardrive,” John said.
Deck two ran the full length of the ship, and began with the fore gun room, accessible from either side of the ramp or the ramp itself when in the closed position. On the port side of the cargo bay there was a slightly-curved staircase which led to the port side hallway on deck one. Next came the armory, which overhung the back of the cargo bay by ten meters, and was accessed from below by a short staircase. Aft of that was the orb room, the geometric center of the ship and the place where the orb would be installed. Next was the galley, which had a staircase to the central corridor on deck one. The orb room and galley were flanked on either side by the ship's water storage tanks. John had placed four windows in the galley through which the tanks could be seen. Furthest aft was the upper area of the engine room, visible through a large picture window at the rear of the galley.
Deck one began with the bridge. A corridor on the port side of the deck started at the door to the bridge and ran back past the entrance to a space reserved for computer servers and storage. On the starboard side of the ship aft of the bridge was the conference room, and beyond that was an area John had designated the Lounge. The dorsal gun room was accessible from there. Next were six identical rooms that comprised the Living Quarters, split down the middle by the central corridor and the staircase to the galley. Each room was about five meters square save for the bathrooms, which included integrated showers, and a closet. Lastly was a room labeled the Zero-G Room.
“What’s that for?” asked Ari.
“The Zero-G Room,” John said. “A variable gravity room.”
“What’s the purpose of that?”
“For fun. Extra living space if we need it, but mostly I just wanted a room I could float around in and relax.”
“Oh...”
“It will also function as an airlock. Note the twin hatches on the starboard side.”
“That makes much mor
e sense.”
John went through the ship one more time.
“Any objections?” said John.
“I like it,” said Ray.
“It’s almost perfect,” said Ari.
“It should do nicely,” said Christie.
“Good,” began John, “let’s get saddled up. We have a date with a Navy girl.”
Ten minutes later, the friends had piled themselves and the orb into the Expedition. John was once again acting creepy with Seth inside of his head, and of course insisted on driving.
“You do realize,” Ray was saying, “that it doesn’t matter whether or not you sit in the driver’s seat?”
“Maybe not,” replied John. “Is everyone ready?”
In the back seat, Ari and Christie nodded. John stared out of the windshield for a moment and the truck began to move. Ray took a deep breath.
“Here we go again,” he said.
The truck rose into the sky. John stopped at about a thousand feet, and tried to get his bearings.
“How long is it going to take us to get to the ship?” asked Christie.
“About two minutes at our top speed,” said John.
“How are we going to spot the right one?”
“It’s the USS Portland,” said Ari. “We just cruise above the water and look for it.”
John urged the Ford forward. The landscape began to flit by. Ray directed his gaze upward through the windshield and focused on the stars.
“What if there are people on board?” asked Christie.
“It’s a decommissioned ship,” Ari replied. “There shouldn’t be anyone aboard.”
“And if there is?”
Ari shrugged. The possibility hadn’t occurred to her.
“What about people nearby?” Ray asked. “Nobody’s going to notice a fifteen by forty-five meter section of this ship disappear?”
“We’ll take what we need from the top down,” said John. “Unless somebody is looking right at the Portland it won’t be a problem. Besides, so what if they see something? Good luck explaining what happened.”
“That’s my attitude,” said Ari.
The next couple of minutes passed in silence. John brought the Ford down towards the mouth of the Mystic River. It was obvious which ship was the Portland as there was only one military vessel present.
“There it is,” said John. “I can read the name from here.”
John’s excitement grew as he positioned the Expedition above the ship.
“It’s completely dark,” observed Ray.
“Seth is telling me there’s nobody on board. I don’t see anyone on the pier. Looks like we’re good to go.”
John closed his eyes and spoke to Seth.
“We’re ready, Seth. My design is complete.”
A rising sound filled the cab of the Ford. It reminded Ray of a shifting glacier. Around them, the night sky began to fade away. In a matter of seconds, their surroundings had been replaced by complete blackness. The others waited in silent awe as John received a message from Seth.
“All set,” he said. “Welcome to the Reckless Faith. Seth, lights please?”
A bluish-white light became visible. It appeared as rails of light parallel to the Ford. As the light grew the cargo bay came into view. The lights were set into the wall at floor level. Additional lights set into the ceiling came on. John stepped out of the Ford, blinking in the brightness.
“Come on, it’s perfectly safe,” he said.
The others stepped out. Their footfalls on the metal echoed slightly. Something was causing a noticeable hum, like the HVAC system of a large building. The cargo bay was exactly as John had designed it. Steel walls and aluminum floors gleamed brightly. The main ramp was closed. The stairway to the armory gleamed.
There were no windows in this section, leading Christie’s to ask, “Are we still above the Portland?”
“Yes,” said John. “Seth is using his light-bending trick on the entire craft. Nobody can see us.”
“That’s handy,” said Ray.
“Come on, let’s go check out the bridge.”
John led the others up the port side stairs to the port corridor on deck one.
The corridor had windows. The group looked out at the river.
“Nice view,” said Ray.
“That’s odd,” said Ari, “there doesn’t appear to be any mass missing from the Portland.”
“Maybe Seth took it from the middle of the ship.”
John stepped in front of the door to the bridge, and it opened sideways. The bridge was strikingly beautiful. Large windows swept down from the vertical and became the windshield. Mounting points for five chairs were set into the deck, and a horse-shoe shaped counter swept around the bridge from the front to the sides.
“All of these surfaces are made out of aluminum, so we can drill holes and cut access panels where we need them,” said John. “We can set up our computers inside the counters here, and mount the monitors to the top. Once we set up chairs, the people sitting in them will have easy access to the computers. The center chair will also have my flight simulator controls for manual flight operations.”
Two more chair mounts were set further back, closer to the walls.
“These chairs will rotate one hundred eighty degrees. They can be used to access the extreme ends of the counter-top or can face each other.”
“Let’s take a look around the rest of the ship,” said Christie.
Five minutes later, the group descended a stairway into the galley on deck two. They’d finished touring the conference room, the dorsal gun room, and all of the living quarters. The zero-g room wasn’t particularly interesting, but the airlock hatches worked just fine.
The galley's window into the engine room immediately grabbed everyone’s attention because there was something there. Through the window they could see the newly installed stardrive.
“Wow, that is impressive,” said Ray.
The stardrive was the length of the room and almost as high. It looked like half of a small passenger car from a 1960s era train had been stuck into the rear wall of the engine room. Smaller horizontal cylinders emerged from each side at floor level, and were reminiscent of a pontoon boat. Pipes and conduits connected various points to other various points. It was the source of the humming.
“How does it work?” asked Christie.
“Seth doesn’t know,” replied John. “He knows the power source is cold fusion. The amount of hydrogen that will be available from the water tanks will be enough to power the ship for one hundred years.”
“Not bad.”
Ari walked over to one of the galley’s exterior windows.
“Uh, guys? You may want to look at this.”
The others joined her at the window. Ari pointed at the Portland.
“It’s sagging,” said Ray.
“No, it’s buckling,” said Ari.
Below, the upper decks of the ship were folding in on themselves. The hull bulged outward. Cracks formed on the sides, and with a tremendous bang the entire ship was reduced to dust, which disappeared into the water.
“Oh... shit.”
“I think now would be a good time to head home,” said John.
__________
Joe’s American Bar and Grill in Woburn was not very busy that night. Dana and Levi had spent all day searching the city without luck, and had decided to get some dinner before heading back to Pennsylvania. As exhausted as they were, neither of them much wanted to rent a motel room again. Dana couldn’t help but be embarrassed that she’d dragged Levi along on such a worthless trip, and this lead her to be rather quiet as they waited to be served. Levi had ordered a drink and waited impatiently for it to show up.
“When are we going to get some service?” Levi said at last.
“Just as soon as you forget about it,” said Dana. “A watched waiter never boils.”
“At this rate we’ll never be done with dinner.”
“Let’s stick to appetizers, then
.”
“Okay.”
The waitress had just brought Levi his scotch and soda when his cell phone rang.
“Marks,” Levi said into the phone.
“Levi, it’s Chris,” said Page, on the other end of the line.
“What’s up?”
“You’re not going to believe this. We just received a huge signal. It’s the same type as the others but it is at least a thousand times stronger.”
“You’re kidding.”
“We also got an exact bead on a location this time. The coordinates come back to a pier in Chelsea, the city across the river from Boston.”
“I know the area. That’s incredible.”
“Good, because after this I’m way too curious to let you come back to Bethlehem without checking it out.”
“Then next time you can be the so-called field agent, Page.”
“Call me back when you get close to the city, and I’ll give you directions.”
“Will do. Bye.”
Levi hung up. Dana looked at him expectantly.
“What does Chris say?”
Levi grinned. “Chris says we gotta get our butts to Boston.”
An hour later, with his phone jammed between his head and shoulder, Levi made his way through the streets of Chelsea. Page guided him as best he could, but the information he was getting off of the Internet wasn’t entirely accurate. Dana was practically jumping out of her chair with excitement. At this point, discovering a radio transmitting toaster would be satisfying enough for her. Dana was holding onto the GPS receiver.
“We’re getting close,” she said.
“Page, I’m going to let you go,” said Levi, “and go by the GPS unit from here.”
“Good luck,” said Page, “call me if you find anything.”
Levi allowed the phone to drop into his lap, and ended the call.
“Turn right here,” Dana said.
Levi rounded a corner, passing a sign that indicated that they had arrived at a pier. Levi guided the truck around a gradual turn until they were facing the Mystic River.
“Holy shit,” he said.
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