by David Smith
The air-lock was little wider than the hatch that served it and it was at and odd angle. There was nowhere flat to stand and Dave found himself clambering over the smaller figure of O’Mara. She flattened herself against the curved inner wall of the tube to give him more space, but that was wildly optimistic.
Their suits were largest at the level of chest and arms. Once Dave had got his shoulders up to the same level as her waist, he didn’t have room to go any further. He also didn’t have room to drop the hatch down so O’Mara had to spread her legs and arms, brace herself against the walls of the tube and clamber upwards so he could get further in. She had her head pressed right against the upper hatch before Dave got in far enough to be able to swing the outer hatch shut.
It shut with a clang and both of them slid back down the cramped space where Dave at least had something to stand on now.
There was just barely enough space for the two of them, and they were wedged in so tight that he could hear O’Mara singing to herself through the conduction of sound between their suits as they touched. He said nothing, and she clearly didn’t understand that he could hear her. Even though she mumbled, he still heard her sigh ‘Amazing. I finally get a man between my thighs and he’s wearing a fecking tritanium and carbon-fibre condom.’
Dave suppressed a snigger and calmly reached behind her and activated the controls to pressurise the airlock. To his relief the air-lock systems still worked, a sign that someone had at least survived long enough to repair this part of the ship. A green light flashed, signalling that the pressure now equalled that inside the vessel and it was safe to open the hatch. Dave reached up, but couldn’t reach the lever to open the inner hatch manually.
The angle at which the air-lock rested meant he was leaning over her, and like O’Mara he had to use his hands and feet to brace himself against the curved walls of the air-lock in an attempt to scramble upwards. He quickly realised he couldn’t brace himself and reach upwards at the same time. He activated his comm-set. ‘O’Mara, can you reach the lever?’
She reached up behind herself but as she did, she nudged his arm and he slipped down, landing on her with a thump. She grunted ‘Blimey and on our first date too!’
Dave tried to remember how serious the situation was. She had at least reached the lever, and there was enough power to open the hatch into the ship. Looking up, Dave could see it was dark, but his suits sensors detected an atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen at a low but acceptable pressure.
O’Mara tried to scramble up the sloping side of the airlock, but she was on her back and couldn’t get enough purchase in the heavy suit. Dave realised that there must be steps or ladder rungs built into one wall of the space but couldn’t see anything either side of them and deduced that they must be either behind him, or out of view behind O’Mara.
He called her again. ‘O’Mara, can you see any hand holds?’
‘Yep they’re behind you. Hang on a mo.’
She brought one leg up and began trying to hook it around Dave’s side to gain a foothold. After several seconds of flailing her arms and legs around him she gave up and changed tack, asking him to try to move sideways to give her better access to the rungs. They were face-to-face, and the environmental suits were too wide for them to turn around with two of them in the air-lock. After much grunting and wiggling they found themselves still face-to-face, but with O’Mara now on top of Hollins. With a groan of frustration, O’Mara said ‘Hang on I’m going to try to climb up you.’
She turned off her intercom, wrapped her legs and arms around him and began using Dave’s body as a ladder to pull herself up. Still unaware he could hear her through the contact between the suits she mumbled ‘Wow, this is the closest I’ve got to a man in three years. Now what shall we call our baby if I get pregnant?’
Her progress was slow, but at least it was progress. After much grunting and groaning, O’Mara managed to pull her torso up through the hatch and get her thighs over Dave shoulders, leaving him staring at the crotch of her suit.
She wasn’t used to such strenuous physical activity and had to stop for a little breather. She still had her intercom turned off, but Dave could hear her breathing hard. He also heard her still mumbling away to herself. ‘Enjoy the view, skipper, it’s been a fair few years since anyone’s had that vantage point.’
With a sigh she clambered inelegantly out of the airlock. With her out, Dave could finally get access to the rungs built into the bulkhead to pull himself up.
Once inside the ship he closed the hatch and opened the visor of his helmet. He was instantly struck by how loud the rumble of the winds passing outside was, and within that rumble he could hear the hiss of sand being blasted against the hull of the ship.
The air inside was thin and cold and he could see his breath curling out in front of his helmet’s lights. He opened a link to the team still outside and said ‘Ok team, we’re in. It’s safe but I suggest you follow one at a time: there’s not much room in the airlock.’
O’Mara pulled out her tricorder and began to move away, but Dave stopped her: He still wasn’t certain how safe they were and he had the strangest feeling that they weren’t alone. He wanted at least one more team member inside before they began searching. Before long, the airlock hatch opened again and Dr Mengele clambered out.
While she waited for the last member of the team to come inside, Dave and O’Mara began heading into the engineering section. As soon as they entered, the lights on the sides of their helmets brightened to give them more light to see by, and as they moved the little pools of light they generated swung around the interior of the ship.
Although the after end of the hull was mostly intact, there were still signs of significant damage inside. A gantry that had once been at high-level within the space had come crashing down, forming a considerable obstacle on a path already made difficult by the angle at which the ship had come to rest.
Other support structures had fallen, along with cables and pipework which seemed to drape across every gangway like some artificial rain-forest.
O’Mara cast around with her tricorder and eventually settled on one direction from which the energy trace was strongest. They moved towards it carefully, slipping occasionally and having to brace themselves against machinery and consoles, all still perpendicular to the deck and thus neither vertical nor horizontal.
Before long they picked out something at odds with the rest of the ship. Large white slabs of metal constructed a cube in the middle of the engineering deck. It was propped up to be roughly horizontal and among the odd angles and wreckage it seemed to float independent of the rest of the ship.
The metal plates were crudely welded together along the edges, and Dave realised that these were sections of hull plating that had been removed from the outside of the ship and brought in.
There was only on reason to do that: someone had obviously survived long enough to build a shelter to help protect themselves from the pervasive gamma-radiation.
They approached the box and saw discarded ration packs and drink pouches piled outside one corner. At this corner, a pair of crude hinges had been welded in place, and getting his fingers under the opposite edge, Dave pulled hard, swinging back a rough heavy door.
They peered inside the dark, cramped space. In the limited light from their helmets they could see more discarded food pouches, together with a small heater and a torch. Some ancient books lay on the floor next to a pile of black rags, and Dave heard O’Mara gasp as she spotted a foot protruding from under the pile.
Dave crouched down and pulled his own tricorder out. A quick scan revealed that whoever it was, was still alive. Wasting no time he called back to the team. ‘Doctor, we have a survivor, rear of the engine room!’
He heard the thump of heavy boots moving as quickly as they could through the cluttered and awkward space and before he knew it the tall German doctor had entered the tiny space and pushed straight past him to the pile of rags.
They pulled the rags a
side to reveal a very large middle-aged woman, apparently wearing a nun’s wimple.
She scanned the prostrate figure. ‘Severe radiation sickness, indication of several broken bones, severe dehydration, borderline malnutrition. We must get . . . her . . . back to the ship immediately.’
Dave noticed her pause but thought nothing more of it. ‘Stavros, we need and urgent medevac. Get a spare suit over here and prep the shuttle for immediate lift-off.’
The doctor treated the unconscious woman as best she could, but as soon as Stavros arrived with the suit, she began dressing the woman in it. ‘She won’t be able to operate the air-lock unassisted. We must find another way to get her out.’
Dave took Stavros and they used their phasers to cut away the plates welded over the internal entrance to the compartment. By the time the Doctor and Kessel had managed to dress the woman in the suit, they’d cleared this original entrance and used a grav-halter to help carry the woman back to the shuttle.
They took off as soon as everyone was aboard and Dave looked back down at the forlorn ship in the long deserted site. It clearly had some significance but he was no archaeologist. He just thought it odd that the massive structure was shaped like the Greek letter theta.
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The next day, Dave dropped by the Sick-bay. Doctor Mengele was looking at the readings above the bed of the still unconscious woman.
‘How is she doctor?’
‘Not well, but she will make a full recovery. She absorbed a very heavy dose of gamma radiation despite the shielding she’d erected. We’ve managed decontaminate her and remove any radionucleides she’d ingested and inhaled. We’re treating her at a genetic level to reduce the possibility of radiation related cancers. Do we have any idea who she is yet?’
‘Not for certain. With all the radiation around the planet, we can’t access central records from here. All we have is what we knew before we got this close, which is that the ship was chartered by a group of Scientologists for some sort of pilgrimage.’
The Doctor looked confused ‘Are scientologists some sort of religious group?’
Dave nodded. ‘Apparently so. I vaguely remember reading about the religion while I was still in high-school, but I thought that scientology had died off long ago.’
Dave was about to ask if she’d actually woken yet, when he saw her stir slightly, and her eyes opened.
‘Where am I?’
The Doctor checked her bio-signs before leaning over her. ‘You are in the Sick-bay of USS Tiger, a federal cruiser on an exploration mission. We discovered your ship of the surface of a planet identified on our star-charts as Sigma Epsilon Theta Six Iota D five. Our away team found you aboard . . . ‘
‘Teegeeack.’
Mengele looked at Hollins and then back at her patient. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Teegeeack. This planet is Teegeeack Prime.’
‘We were not aware the planet had an informal designation’ stated the Doctor carefully.
‘It does. That’s why we came. We came here to find the staging post of our greater selves.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘We believe this world is the staging post from which all Thetans that are now in physical form originated’ said the woman quietly.
She had closed her eyes, and Dave wasn’t sure if she was saying this to them, or to herself.
Trying to circumvent any theological discussion he asked ‘What happened to your ship? And it’s crew?’
There was a pause and Dave wondered if she had lost consciousness again, but eventually she spoke. ‘We were sure we had arrived at the right place as soon as we saw the graveyard of Galactic Confederacy ships in orbit. We were so excited!’
Her closed eyes squinted, but tears welled gently from the corners and rolled down the side of her face. ‘The crew refused to take us any closer when they saw the debris, but eventually we agreed to pay them a fortune from the worldly possessions the Church would no longer need. They tried to pass through the debris, but eventually a piece damaged the ship. Then more damage occurred and before long we were doomed. The ship spiralled out of control and crashed within a few metres of our destination.’
‘You were heading for the pyramid?’
‘If that’s what you wish to call it.’
‘What did you expect to find there?’
The woman sat up sharply and there was a pleading nature in her response. ‘Proof! That’s what we hoped to find in the pyramid. Proof. Proof that may finally silence the doubters and the haters and the unbelievers and the mockers! Proof that their scorn and ridicule were wasted on the righteous!’
Dave was taken aback by the sudden passion in her words, but could see the passion was born of frustration, visible in the tears in her eyes and audible in the anguish of her voice.
‘Eight of us survived the crash. We buried the dead and accepted death as our own fate, but the strongest of us were determined to use what little time was left to us in seeking our goal. We went to the temple, but one by one succumbed to the radiation.’
‘But you survived quite some time, sister.’
‘Because I was weak’ she admitted. ‘The temple was empty, the spirits we sought long since gone. I lost hope and returned to the wreck where the ship’s Captain had fashioned that crude survival cell. The others never lost hope and one by one they paid the price. I buried the last of them, then buried the Captain, and sat alone waiting for the end, ashamed of myself.’
She began to cry and deep sobs convulsed her body.
Dave moved to comfort her, but the Doctor was more pragmatic. Seeing a surging heart rate and elevated hormone levels she calmly stepped forward and sedated the nun.
--------------------
‘Scientology?’ snorted Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara, ‘I thought all that old codswallop had become too embarrassing to sustain!’
‘Apparently not’ replied Hollins. ‘The single survivor is Sister Emmanuela Matic, a member of a small sub-branch of Scientology. From what I can see from the records held in our memory banks, there are hundreds of such splinter groups from the main Church of Scientology which did disappear over a hundred years ago. Sister Matic is a professional pastoral carer of the Society of Independent Scientologists. According to their own literature they offer education, guidance, advice and companionship, but stop short of calling themselves a church.’
O’Mara adhered to no religion and was usually less than tactful when it came to dealing with others peoples theology. ‘My cousin Eilidh got into all that scientology and dianetics nonsense, but then, she believed in Santa and the tooth fairy until well in to her teens. Used to keep checking under her pet rabbit for chocolate eggs too.’
Dave was a little more understanding. ‘Religion is a personal thing. It’s important for some people to believe in something. I know that you lean towards trying to make sense of everything through science, but some people don’t have the capacity for that.’
Religion was one of the few things Tiger’s Science Officer had firm views on: ‘I can only speak for myself, but it seems to me that man creates god in his own image, and frankly, man is a bit of an arsehole.’
‘That’s as maybe, but we’ll need to treat the patient with respect and no small amount of tact: Regardless of what you think of her religion or any other, you need to remember that she’s lost most of her fellow believers trying to reach this planet.’
O’Mara looked a little chastened but still couldn’t let it go. ‘I will sir, but that just proves my point: religion drives people to do the most ridiculous things.’
‘Either way, while your team is on the surface, I expect you to treat this place with the dignity and deference any place of religious significance deserves.’
She nodded dumbly, like a little schoolgirl being told off by a strict headmaster, but her face lit up when the Captain said ‘Ok, remember the rules and play nicely.’
She dashed off to the Shuttle Bay to meet her team of scientists for a
second away mission, this time to investigate the mysterious pyramid.
Before she reached the door of the turbo-lift, Dave felt a sudden compulsion. ‘O’Mara!’
She stopped in her tracks. ‘Yes sir?’
‘Be careful down there: something about that place gives me the creeps.’
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They’d taken the newest of the shuttles which had been named Cook after the famous British explorer.
Cook was equipped with far better instrumentation than the older shuttles and was a little roomier too, allowing them to carry more equipment for the away team.
Chief ‘Barnacle’ Bill Fisher flew the shuttle this time. One of Tiger’s longest serving crew members, Bill claimed to have been pretty much everywhere, done pretty much everything and always had a tall tale to tell about it.
Scudding through the grimy atmosphere, he chatted away more out of habit than anything else. ‘This reminds me Dujagdis Five in the Raman Sector. That was a weird old place, all hurricane winds and dust storms. Whole civilisation had evolved underground, I tell ya. We had to dig down fifty meters just to make first contact! ‘Course things were a bit weird at first. They had no concept of living above ground. I traded two kilos of gold for a pair of sunglasses!’
No-one replied, or believed him and the salty-dog flew a circuit of the structure so the scientists could carry out a preliminary investigation from the air.
O’Mara scanned the structure with radar as dust had reduced visibility and noted the structure had slightly lower density on each of the faces connected to the raised bank. ‘Looks like the entrances are on that causeway. Can you set us down there?’
Chief Fisher looked out through the windscreen. ‘It’s narrow, but I can manage that. I once landed a Mark Two shuttle on the back of a moving grav sled for a bet you know. I was serving aboard USS Mann, a fine ship, and . . . ’
Rolling her eyes, O’Mara lowered the visor on her suit, turned off the comms and enjoyed the rest of the trip in silence.