“Captain.” Sonny broke in. “I have analyzed and identified the interloper.”
“So, what is it, Sonny?” Levi pressed.
“It’s one of ours, a space probe. One we sent out before we left Earth. It has followed us here. Its original destination was Kepler-62, twelve hundred light years from Earth.”
“Why is it here? Round trip would be about two hundred and fifty years.”
“This is one of the later probes which had several newer upgrades. This probe has been instructed that if it found something of high importance on its way to the original destination, the probe was to abandon its mission and report back to us. It must have found something and followed us to report it.”
“When will it reach us?”
“At its present speed, three months and six days.”
“Well, that’s a ways out. We’re wrapping things up here on Searth, and we will be back on the road again by then. Let’s pick the probe up on our way out. Sonny, send a packet out with our findings and our decision to the other ships and Admiral Johnson.”
“Acknowledged. Packet sent.”
“Thank you, Sonny.”
Ten minutes later the communications officer hailed him. “Captain, Admiral Johnson wishes to speak with you.”
“Put him on, please.”
The admiral’s face appeared on the main viewer. “Captain, this is an interesting development. I just received your packet. I heard something was up when the Guardians went online, and we got the alert. I didn't have the time to find out what went on until I received your packet. It sounds like good news.”
“We hope so, Admiral. Those probes must make refueling stops in systems that have gas giants with hydrogen atmospheres. When it scanned a system looking for gas giants, it found something else of large enough importance to abandon its primary mission and return to us to tell us.”
“Yes, I know. I helped design some of those probes. Anyway, after the Guardians completely check out, there will be nothing to keep us here anymore.”
“Correct, Admiral. We have a tentative departure planned in about one month. The colonist, or should I say immigrant selection list has begun, and we want to make sure they have everything they need before we leave.”
“Copy that. I meet regularly with the local Mat’Ma, and he has assured me of the Te'Hat's complete cooperation.”
“How is Melon?”
“You can ask him yourself when you come down, Captain.”
“Come down?”
“Yes, I assumed you would want to come down to make a personal announcement to the men and the locals about our departure and beyond.”
“Yes. Of course.” Levi had not thought to touch base with the locals. He had been relying on the admiral for those things perhaps too much, and Leo had been good enough to jog his brain. Even if it was an E-brain.
“Very good, then. Johnson out.” The screen faded.
While he talked to the Admiral, Levi had entertained a conference call at his virtual apartment with the other three captains: David Williams from the intrepid, Bill Collier from the Wanderer, and Margrit Lichtenwalter from the Valiant who had taken the helm after the failed rebellion on Searth. Margrit had recently become an E-human and had come to terms with it. They were all sitting around a large coffee table in very comfortable chairs, guests in Levi’s virtual apartment.
“Good morning, Captains,” Levi addressed the informal gathering. There was a knock on his door. The door glowed with symbols and fractal equations, followed by E=mc2. “Come on in, Sonny. You’re almost late.”
“The timing difference was negligible, as I finished seven hundred and fifty-two important pieces of business in the last three hundred cycles. And, as you say, I was almost late.”
Bill chuckled, “Well, I think he’s got you there. Don’t need any lawyers as long as he is around, I think.”
“You are all aware of the most recent development regarding the probe," Levi began. There were nods from around the table. “This is either very good timing or very bad timing, depending on how you look at it. In a few moments in real-time I will need to notify the Council and convene a meeting to discuss our next move. But I don’t think the meeting should take place until we gather the probe and find out what it has to say.”
“I agree,” Captain Lichtenwalter said. “The best part is that when we intersect with it, we will still be in this system, and not in the middle of nowhere having to change course.”
“Right,” said Captain Williams. “If we are leaving in a month, and the probe is three months out, that means we will run into the probe about a month after we shove off.”
“If all the variables do not change, it will be one month and twenty-eight hours,” Sonny commented.
“Well, I said, ‘about’ didn’t I?” David was annoyed at what he thought was Sonny's nit-picking. “I calculated the same number as you did, but humans are used to speaking in more general terms. We’re not robots, you know!”
“I meant no offense, of course, Captain Williams. I only mentioned it because I believed the accuracy was relevant.”
“How so?”
“When we intersect with the probe our position will still have us well inside this system. However,” Sonny continued, “If our new vector lies more than ninety degrees on either side of our intersection point, then we will lose time and energy.”
Margrit spoke up. “Wouldn’t our new vector be in the direction the probe entered the system, Sonny?”
“It would be in the direction the probe refueled last. It may be in that general direction, but not necessarily.”
Levi stepped in. “Well, while you all were distracted, I worked the problem backward from Kepler-62 along the most likely route the probe would have taken. Accounting for the time in transit, I worked out three possible systems it originated from, all in the general direction of the probe. So, we are settled on this part. What do you think Sonny?”
“I concur.”
There were nods around the table.
“Good,” Levi acknowledged. “I want us all on the same page. I didn’t know if anything else needed working out before I addressed the Council.”
Margrit said, “I have not heard where we are going next, if we are not staying here.”
“Sonny and I have been discussing this off and on for some time. He has been doing a lot of research, with assistance from our science teams, concerning our other two top destinations. Barring a change in course from what the probe has to say, we have settled on GJ667Cc. It had been our top choice until we discovered Searth. It is in the opposite direction than Searth, but along the direction of our third choice, which is over four hundred light years away.”
Captain Williams was taken aback. “Whoa! That’s a fair piece away even at ten times the speed of light.”
Levi nodded. “Yes, I know. But we have to go where our probability of survival is the greatest. This probe may tell us nothing or give us just what we are looking for. We will have to wait and see. Thank you for coming, and I will see you at the Council meeting when it is scheduled.”
The captains all said goodbye and left the virtual apartment, but Margrit lingered.
“Is there something I can help you with, Margrit?”
She looked at him shyly, as if she were afraid. “I have a problem that I hope you can help me with. The others, they might laugh at me, but I know you are the gentleman in the group.”
“I can try to help,” Levi replied, not knowing what else to say.
“It’s about sex.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That is a broad subject. Can you be more specific?”
“I want to have virtual sex. I hear it is fantastic and, well, it is a very tempting thing to hear. There are not very many people to choose from.” Margrit screwed up her face in disappointment. “Now I’m sounding stupid!”
“It is natural, not stupid. I can put you in touch with many people who have been enhanced on my ship.”
“What about you
?”
“Me?” Levi was caught off guard. His stress levels were rising. He needed to get them under control. “Thanks for asking, but I am a private kind of person, and I love my wife very much. I would not jeopardize that for anything. But I tell you what. Talk to my wife Alex, and maybe you girls can come up with something for your problem.”
“Thanks, Captain. I will do that. See you around.” Margrit turned on her heel and let herself out, leaving Levi alone in his virtual environment.
She was the prettiest captain of their little group, he thought with a smile. Then he left his apartment and returned to the real world. where three point two seconds had elapsed.
He turned to his communications officer. “Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Contact Chairman Rocha and have her call me at her convenience.”
“Aye, sir. Right away.”
While he waited for Izzy to call him, he reviewed some of the latest telemetry and data from the Guardians' test run. He was satisfied with it overall. However, some filters might require to be installed in a new patch. An unexpected knock on his virtual door derailed Levi’s thoughts. Alex entered, wearing a friendly smile.
“Hey, Alex. This is an unplanned but nice visit.” It was then he saw Margrit in tow.
“I brought Margrit with me, if that is all right. We have been talking, and we needed a man’s opinion.”
“I guess. Is Alex helping you with your problem, Margrit?”
“Why yes, she is, as a matter of fact.” She blushed a deep pink.
“I’m getting some red flags here! Alex, what is going on?” Levi was putting two and two together, and he wasn’t sure he liked the answer.
“Well,” Alex began. “Margrit told me of your conversation, and how you sweetly let her down and suggested she talk to me about her sex problem. She seems to be under the impression that you wanted her to ask my permission to have virtual sex with you.”
“What!” Levi was alarmed. “No way I would ever put you in that position! My intention was to see that she got what she needed. But with someone else!”
“I appreciate your noble intentions, but I have solved the poor girl’s problem all by myself, thank you.”
“Good.” Levi felt relieved. “Who did you set her up with?”
“Why you, you silly man!”
“Me? And you’re okay with that?” Levi wasn’t sure he was in Kansas anymore. He felt very uncomfortable discussing having sex with someone else in the presence of his wife.
“I’m confident enough of our relationship that I can help this poor starved individual with her first foray into virtual sex and realize her potential. We are both good at this particular skill, are we not?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I think both of us can help her out. Don’t you think?” Alex was giving off vibes that Levi had not witnessed before. She smiled, a mischievous, wicked smile. Margrit blushed again.
“What? Three? Right now?” He felt like a computer that had frozen. It was hard for him to put two words together coherently. The two women began to advance on the captain sitting frozen on the couch.
“Now, Captain,” Alex said with that wicked smile. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
NINETEEN
Goodbye
“Do you blame your mother for selling you to the gangs on Earth?” Alice asked.
“No.” Stiles said. “This often happened to teenage males in that part of the world.”
“But it did hurt you when your mother gave you up?” Alice probed.
Stiles did not look forward to these little meetings at all. The small room. The non-descript furnishings. Lately Alice had been really touching nerves, and he vowed secretly to mess her up when he got the chance.
“Look, we have been over this a hundred times. Yes, my mother gave me up to the thugs. Yes, I learned how to survive in that new environment. Yes, I rose through the ranks to lead the syndicate. It was not a GANG!”
“But, did it hurt you that your mother gave you up?” Alice noticed he had not answered the question.
“I think our little playtime is over.” Stiles became silent.
“You know, Charles, our 'playtime' is a condition of your release into the colony. If you keep holding onto these things which contribute to your antisocial ways, the captain may believe you to be too much of a liability to let you live.”
“Let him chuck me into space then. What do I care?”
“I care, Charles.”
“You’re just a freakin’ machine. You don’t know nothin’.”
“I know you are actually longing to belong to something close and reliable. Something that matters. Something you can love and get love from.”
“Mumbo-jumbo bullshit.”
“Is this bullshit, Charles?”
Abruptly Stiles found it harder to breathe. At the same time, the temperature dropped rapidly. Frost crept over the walls, coating everything. His head buzzed. He couldn’t feel his ears anymore. He looked up at the monitor which served as Alice’s face. He opened his mouth to say something, and nothing but squeaky sounds came out. He fell on the floor, staring at furniture legs until he finally blacked out. When Stiles came to, the room was transformed back into the therapy room he knew before.
“What did you do to me? Why did the room change? WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?”
Alice’s controlled pitch and tone endeavored to calm him. “Some time ago, when you hurt yourself doing the reclamation work on the ship, you were sedated while we fixed your leg.”
“Yes, I remember,” Stiles replied, trying to figure out what happened.
“I had a device implanted into your brain,” Alice stated matter-of-factly. “I also took the liberty and downloaded your brain when you were incarcerated. I know everything.”
A mixture of panic and rage washed over him. “Now that’s not playing fair!”
“The safety of the Atlantis and of yourself is at stake. You are not responding to therapy as we had hoped. Just now I controlled what you saw and felt to make your experience real. Know that as long as you pose a hazard to the ship or yourself, I must keep this device inside you.”
“So, can you make it blow up or something if I get out of line?”
“I cannot say. Those things are classified.”
Stiles knew what that meant. “Yes, classified.”
“You need to understand, Charles, just what you are saying. Being chucked out into space is not immediate death. The process takes a few minutes. An unbelievably long few minutes before you die. People are not often presented with the chance for a do-over. Humans are not often compassionate enough to allow an enemy or troublemaker to remain in their group. They are more apt to cast out the offenders and move on. The captain was tempted to do this but decided to give you a choice, a very generous offer given what has transpired. The captain believes humans must become citizens of the universe to survive. To become good citizens, we must let go of our animal ways and mature into a more enlightened society. The animal is still very much in humans now, but Captain Metcalfe believes we must try to overcome it. To that end, every life is important. Especially yours, Charles.”
Stiles chose his words carefully. “You and I may have had our differences in the past. It has been four years now. I have learned that I cannot fool you. I have learned that I don’t have to behave the way I had on Earth to survive. But I also know myself. I will never be satisfied while someone else is running my life. I must make my own destiny. I do not trust it to others.”
“Like you couldn’t trust your destiny to your mother?”
“No one.”
“Well, let’s talk about that. Did it hurt you that your mother gave you up…?
◆◆◆
Levi could see the admiral approaching his apartment door and had it open as he was about to knock.
“You know, that joke is getting kind of old now. Are you about ready to go down?”
“Yes,” Levi admitted. “I’m going to have
to get better jokes. And yes, I am ready to go down with you.” He finished straightening up his dress uniform.
Alex came into the living area from the bedroom. “Oh, hello, Leo. How are you? Are you ready for the big day?”
“Hello, Alex. I’m fine, and yes, I think we are all ready. That is a very elegant dress you have there. You look magnificent in it.”
“Thanks. Just something I grabbed from the Fab plant.” She smiled with mock smugness. “I guess we should be on our way. The shuttle is scheduled to leave in twenty-seven minutes.”
Concerned, Leo shook his head. “After we get on our way to our new destination, I have got to get my brain wired up!”
“Don’t worry, Leo.” Levi clapped him on his back. “I think we can help you out with that.”
They arrived at the shuttle with plenty of time to spare. On the trip planetside, the slack time found Levi’s mind wandering, replaying the things which happened on Searth. He was going to miss this place. There were the differences from Earth. Humans had grown up in a lusher and more hostile world than this one, and it showed, a thought he tucked away for future use. This had also been Earth’s first contact with a nonhuman culture. The Te’Hat had been good hosts to the humans, but if the roles were reversed, he knew hospitality like that would not have happened on Earth. When the officers landed, the admiral reminded Levi of the itinerary. Levi felt a little edgy. The Te’Hat saw this appearance as a big deal, and he didn’t want to mess it up.
The ship had landed near one of the colonist domes. The admiral had briefed him on the meeting's itinerary, but not how it would be implemented. When the door opened Levi was awestruck by the sight before him. He stepped out to the largest gathering he had ever seen. Te’Hat as far as the eye could see! In front of him stood a path flanked by what Leo had told him later was every Mat’Ma on the planet. Incredible! And in front of the captain stood Melon.
“Melon, what is all this?”
For many of us, this will be the last time we see you. And, by coming here today, you honor us with your presence. Melon’s telepathic voice conveyed warmth.
The Journey of Atlantis: The Children of Earth Page 21