Anton's Odyssey

by Andre, Marc

  Ellen stood in the living room surrounded by boys that looked much less dorky than us in their collared shirts. I waved at her and she smiled and nodded. She didn’t come over though.

  “Man this place is a total sausage fest!” Hammond said. “I’m pretty sure the whole point of this party is to punish us for being boys. You know, let us know there’s so much competition nobody stands a chance. I can’t believe I paid fifteen hundred dollars for these,” Hammond nodded at his bouquet. “What a waste of money!”

  Ellen’s mother handed us each a cup of tea. Most of the other boys got fine china but Cotton, Hammond, and I got recyclable plastic cups.

  Ellen tossed her hair and giggled at a joke made by some tall blond prosperous-looking kid. A strong jaw and his physique well sculpted, he looked like he came straight off a recruiting poster for the Space Marines Officer Candidate School.

  “Hey I know a joke too!” Cotton said, “What’s the cause of a large pee value? Too much tea!” Cotton cackled maniacally.

  The puzzled look on Hammond’s face indicated he agreed that my brother’s joke had been phrased rather awkwardly.

  “Lovely dear,” Ellen’s mother said, frowning.

  “Who’s that big pretty boy over there?” I asked, pointing to the space marine poster child.

  “That’s Johnna,” Hammond said spitefully. “He’s a senior and a cocky jackass if ever there was one!”

  “Language boys!” Ellen mother shouted at us. She projected her reprimand loud enough for all to hear. Many of the other guests looked over at us and frowned. Ellen tried to bury her face in the palm of her hand, as if to say, “I can’t believe I invited those guys.”

  “Where’s Allen?” I asked.

  “I haven’t seen him.” Hammond said. “He’s kind of small, so maybe he’s hidden behind some of the bigger kids in the next room.”

  “I’ll go check.” Cotton said. He nudged his way into the living room, shoving the other boys out of the way as he searched for our missing friend. With a jolt from behind, Cotton nearly toppled Johnna. The large boy clinched his fist and bit his lip, using every bit of restraint he possessed to keep himself from slugging my brother.

  Cotton came back and said, “He’s not here. I even checked under the couch. Tee hee hee!”

  Something about Allen’s absence made me feel very uneasy. Of course, Ellen probably didn’t even notice Allen wasn’t there with the attention she was getting from all the other boys.

  “Let’s go find Allen.” I said.

  “Good idea,” Hammond agreed.

  “I know he’s not under the couch,” Cotton chuckled, “tee hee hee.”

  We left without saying goodbye. I knew it was bad manners but I figured after hearing her mother holler at us, Ellen wouldn’t be talking to us for quite some time, regardless of whether or not we gave her a proper farewell.

  Allen was still in his pajamas when he answered the door. He looked bleary eyed and frazzled, like he had been up all night.

  “Wanna hear a joke?” Cotton asked.

  “Okay.” Allen said.

  “What’s the cause of a large pee value? Too much tea.’’

  Allen actually laughed. “I get it,” he said. “You must be learning basic statistics in math class?”

  “I am,” Cotton said laughing, “get it, ‘pee,’ p-value; ‘tea;’ T as in T-test. Tee hee hee!”

  “Yeah, I got it the first time around,” Allen said. Leaning forward the small boy asked me quietly, “Your brother okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s nothing. Doc gave him a double dose of antiemetic for the landing. Said the side effects could make him loopy.”

  “Sure, they can do that.” Allen said, amused.

  “He practically got us kicked out of Ellen’s tea party.” Hammond said.

  “Oh is that today?” Allen’s jaw dropped. “I totally forgot.”

  Allen was one of the most reliable people I knew. It wasn’t like him to flake on a commitment. There was definitely something peculiar going on.

  “What’s going on?” I said. “What have you been working on?”

  “I haven’t been working on anything. I’ve been watching TV.”

  “Oh cut the crap!” Hammond snapped. “We know you’re too smart to just sit around and watch TV like the rest of us.”

  Allen frowned. He realized he couldn’t fool us. “Okay, you guys better come in.” he said. We wandered into his bedroom. Allen sat at his desk and activated his computer. “You guys don’t know much about machine code do you?” We shook our heads, feeling rather stupid. “Then I should probably just tell you, rather than show you.”

  Allen walked over to his closet, took off his pajama top, and traded it for a slightly rumpled shirt. Hammond and I shared shocked glances at how flabby the boy was. His upper body was completely devoid of muscle tone.

  “I’ve been monitoring the preparations for landing these past few days.” As if reading our minds, he continued, “You guys may be wondering why I would bother to do something that seems so boring, and the answer is simple: To the technically enlightened, it isn’t boring at all. Landing a spacecraft with the mass of a small city while preserving the safety of thousands of crewmembers, not to mention the cryogens, is probably the most difficult task in all of space travel. There are so many variables to consider and so many things that can go wrong. Our destination, Gliese 581e is particularly hazardous —”

  “Because of the dense atmosphere and high winds invariably lead to turbulent-mediated centrifugal yaw acceleration.” I interjected. I had not forgotten how much Allen hated interruption, but for once in my life, I possessed knowledge relevant to Allen’s science lectures, and I felt the need to show off that I wasn’t stupid.

  “Yes,” Allen said, rather surprised. “How did you know that?”

  Of course I didn’t inform Allen that Dr. Zanders told me about the problem when he recommended Cotton’s current medication. Rather, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “We all know that.” Turning to Hammond I asked, “You knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I knew that,” Hammond lied rather convincingly.

  “I knew that, too,” Cotton said, followed by, “tee hee hee.”

  “Well good for you guys.” Allen said. “Let me cut to the chase then. Someone has been reprogramming each of our stabilizer motors. It wasn’t any protocol I recognized at first. I kept re-checking my calculations, checking planetary charts to make sure I was comparing the code to data appropriate for Gliese 581e. There was something kind of familiar about the motor ignition and duration sequence. I couldn’t quite place it, but I knew I had seen it somewhere before. Gretchen finally let me browse the old hard copies in the archives. She wasn’t going to let me at first, but I begged and pleaded, and she finally agreed because I was a good kid who never caused her any trouble. I found the sequence in a very old journal dating back over seventy years. Back before the development of enhanced-precision interstellar navigation systems, stabilizers were bigger and weren’t just stabilizer motors. They were also used to change a ship’s trajectory midflight when updated data revealed the vessel had drifted off course. That’s what the new code is. It’s a set of abbreviated trajectory corrections. Someone is taking great pains to blow us off course.”

  “You mean make us crash?” Hammond asked, alarmed.

  “No, the code doesn’t necessarily interfere with a gentle touch down. But there is something else, a second set of codes that will make the ship dump its auxiliary cubane fuel stores. Both codes have the same activation sequence, meaning by typing in a single command, whoever wrote the code can cause the ship to land thousands of kilometers away from the nearest colony and have no remaining fuel, essentially stranding us.” Allen scratched his head. “What I can’t figure out is why would someone would do that?”

  I shrugged.

  “Maybe it’s some sort of emergency code.” Hammond explained. “Ship starts to go down hard, you divert it someplace safe and dump the fuel to prevent
an explosion.”

  “I thought about that,” Allen said, “and that may very well be the case. What disturbs me, though, is that I cannot identify the computer user who inserted the code. Whoever he is, he is doing it from within in the engine room, but when I check the security system, the user seems to be using a computer that isn’t being manned. I have no idea how he’s doing it.”

  “Why can’t you just delete the code?” I asked.

  “I can’t. It would need to be done from within the engine room. Also, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea, just in case Hammond is right, that it’s some kind of emergency diversion procedure.”

  Allen’s computer flashed the new ship announcement. “Landing preparations initiated. Crewmembers not participating in touch down should return to their living units. Charles Pecelschmidt Sr., first mate (on behalf of the captain).”

  “Oh no!” Allen shrieked. “I need more time!”

  Hammond put his hand on the small boy’s boney shoulder. “I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” he said, trying to reassure Allen. “I don’t think you should worry about it.”

  “What do you know?” Allen snapped rudely. “You’re a moron. I’ve seen your file. You’ve failed ninth grade!”

  There was no anger on Hammond’s face. Just a hurt look that read, “How could a friend take such a cheap shot.”

  “I’m going back home.” Hammond said sadly. “I guess I’ll see you guys outside when this is over and done with.”

  Hammond hobbled away on his crutches. Stress and lack of sleep were clearly affecting Allen for the worse. I didn’t want to leave him alone, so I asked him if we could stay during the landing.

  “You’re not returning to your living unit?”

  “No, you’ve seen our place. It’s tiny. Once you’re strapped to the wall it can get pretty claustrophobic.”

  “Then you should definitely stay here. All the chairs in this room can form an electrostatic bolt to the ground strong enough for landing. You two will find them much more comfortable than the jump seats in your living unit.”

  The busty bubbly blond bimbo in the Cub Scout uniform and floral print scarf appeared on Allen’s vid screen. I remembered her well from the lift off instructions months ago.

  “Hello,” she said with her large unnatural smile. “I hope you’ve had a good voyage —”

  “I don’t need this now.” Allen snapped. With a single keystroke the busty bubbly blond bimbo disappeared, and Allen resumed hammering frantically on his datapad.

  “Awe, I was watching that,” Cotton whined. “She had nice boobs!”

  “Here read this,” hardly losing a second, Allen reached under his mattress and tossed Cotton a skin mag, one we had looted from Jackass Bob’s living unit.

  “Awesome,” Cotton cried.

  “What are you doing exactly?” I asked Allen.

  “Monitoring the engine room,” he said without taking his face away from the vid screen. “I’m going to see if our renegade code writer makes an appearance.”

  From where I was sitting, I had a pretty good view of Cotton’s skin mag, which helped pass the time. Allen’s computer beeped, and he quickly dismissed a bulletin that read, “Landing sequence initiated. Stay alert for emergency announcements.”

  The ship rumbled as we entered Gliese 581e’s thick atmosphere. Allen muttered to himself as he pecked away at the datapad. “Where are you? You’re not here. I’m glad that you’re not here.”

  As the rumbling got more intense, Allen finally turned away from his computer and smiled. “Hammond’s right. It’s nothing. I really do owe him an apology.”

  “Yes, you do,” I agreed. “What you said hit way below the belt.”

  “I was really stressed out,” he said.

  “Hammond will understand. Just be sincere,” I advised.

  The screen flickered, catching Allen’s attention. As he read the new line on the vid, smiling Allen transformed back into stressed out Allen. “What’s this? Oh no! He’s back!”

  “I am sure it’s nothing to worry about.” I said vapidly.

  Allen opened and closed a few more windows, checking several more data points before finally addressing me.

  “Oh no! It’s definitely something to worry about!” He said gravely. “There are fifteen crewmembers officially working the engine room, but sixteen people are logged onto computers there. Someone’s hacked in. He’s there right now. Not just on a computer, but physically present someplace in the engine room. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but I understand now. He’s jacked in a rogue computer. He’s probably lurking in a corner. I think he has a definite destination in mind, and when data becomes available and the circumstances are right, he’ll pick among the many diversion codes he uploaded and activate the one that will land the ship closest to his target. We have to stop him from initiating the code, or he’ll divert the ship and dump our fuel. Then we’ll never get off this planet again.”

  Allen spoke with sincerity and confidence. He wasn’t over reacting to some sort of imaginary perceived threat. He had spent the last few days checking and double checking his work and, at that very moment in time, had finally reached the unequivocal, correct conclusion.

  “What do we need to do?” I asked.

  “You and Cotton need to get into the engine room. We need to figure out who it is and stop him. I’m going to need to stay here to monitor the computers and the trajectory of the ship. We don’t have much time. Once the ship starts to experience turbulent-mediated centrifugal yaw acceleration, anyone who isn’t strapped into a chair with an appropriately strong anchor bolt is going to be pretty useless.”

  We spent all of five seconds in preparation, just long enough for me to cram in an earpiece and pin on a microphone so that I could communicate with Allen. Over-medicated, Cotton had passed out in his chair. Were I to wake him, he’d be too groggy and unfocused to be of any help.

  Allen shouted directions as I raced from his living unit. The passageways were completely deserted, everyone else either strapped into a chair in a living unit or at a work station. With each step, I could feel the floor vibrate as the Magic Sky Daddy plummeted further and further into the depths of Gliese 581e’s thick atmosphere.

  My mind raced. Allen said I don’t have much time before the ship starts to buck and roll, I thought. How much time do I really have? We’ve had no time to prepare and have no idea what we are up against? How are we going to pull this off? Who would do this? Terrorists? No, they’d just blow the ship up. Goons from an organized crime syndicate? No, stranding the ship doesn’t make any business sense. Piety-freaks? Yes, that’s it. It must be piety-freaks. The cryogens, the assault on Cotton, everything suddenly fell into place. They’re trying to start their own utopian colony free from the over-reaching arm of government regulation and the oppression of stylish clothing and hairdos. That would explain why they’d dump the fuel. They want to be stranded in the middle of nowhere surrounded by no one but themselves. They’ll defrost the cryogens and free them from incarceration. What would become the rest of us though? Would they kill us?

  I don’t recall hearing any of Allen’s directions through the earpiece as my mind and body raced. The path to the engine room must have been processed by my preoccupied mind through some subconscious portal. I seemed to arrive at the doors to the engine room in no time at all. The doors were locked, as a security measure.

  “Let me do some hacking,” Allen said through the earpiece. “I’ll get the doors open soon.”

  Although it probably took Allen less than a minute, it seemed like ages before the doors finally swung open. I had not stepped foot in the engine room since day one of our voyage and had long forgotten the enormity of the place. Starmen in orange and white jumpsuits were strapped into chairs mounted in front of video terminal displays. Between the noisy whirring of the machines, the rumble of the ship through the planet’s atmosphere, and the intensity of the work before them, nobody seemed to notice I had wand
ered in.

  What am I looking for exactly? I thought. The noise made it hard for me to think straight. Stay focused! I’m looking for a piety-freak using a rogue computer. I searched the room. The sight of all the electronic and mechanical gadgetry was overwhelming. I understood none of it. My head started to spin. Stay focused! I’m looking for a person acting suspiciously. Pay no attention to the machines!

  And there he was! Crouching down on hands and knees was a bald man in a white jumpsuit partially hidden from view behind some kind of rotating turbine. He was entering data into a tablet computer hardwired into a data port. I rushed him. Just a few meters away, with the light behind me, I cast a shadow over his tablet and he looked up. I saw his badge. Frederick Chaucey! I thought. I know that name. Yes, he’s the one Cotton spied watching a piety-freak program o TV. What did Allen say about him? “No family, keeps to himself,” that’s gotta be the profile of a dangerous piety-freak.

  Surprised to see me, the able starman shouted, “Kid, you can’t be here! This place is very dangerous.”

  He tried to get to his feet, but I was too quick. With a jump and a leap, I planted a flying knee into his right temple. He crumpled over backwards, unconscious.

  “I got him!” I shouted into the microphone with excitement. “I’m in his computer now.”

  I tapped on the input screen so Allen could locate the computer. What did he just say? I thought. “Kid you can’t be here!” That’s a strange thing for a piety-freak villain to say when cornered. Wait! Cotton never saw the bald guy’s face when he was spying from the ductworks. We just assumed it was Fred Chaucey, but it could have been somebody else. What do I do? It suddenly hit me. Check his eyes stupid. I bet, just like Hammond’s replacement foot, Dr. Zanders probably only keeps a few extra eyes around. If Cotton poked one out, his eyes won’t match.

  I rolled Frederick Chaucey over and peeled open his eyelids. Both his eyes were the same color, dark brown. Even the small freckles scattered in each iris seemed to line up well. Oops! My heart sank into the pit of my stomach.