The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle

by John Thornton

  “I will stand here and keep the door open for you, so you can search,” Paul said. “You have your pistol if a Roe is in there.”

  Gretchen opened the door, and beyond was a dimly lit corridor. The lighting was coming from small posts which came up from the floor along the sidewalls. They were about every meter or so and most were casting a dull light. There was a strand of tightly wound hoses along the right hand wall. Those hoses, each about as wide around as Gretchen’s forearm, were twined about each other and were red, yellow, and blue in color. That braided strand of hose stretched far down the corridor. At the end of the corridor was another door, but it was not shiny nor did it look like it was stainless steel, although the lighting was poor.

  Gretchen stepped behind the door and saw that there was the label, ‘Terragora Investigation and Evolution’ etched into the steel. There was also a broken latch.

  “Good thing you are holding this door. The latch from this side has been wrenched off.”

  “What could do that to steel?” Paul asked. “Are you sure it was not severed or cut off?”

  “No. It looks like someone grabbed it and just pulled until it stretched and snapped.”

  “Could an automacube could do that? Maybe?” Paul asked. “I know steel is nowhere near as strong as permalloy, but it still takes some strength to just break steel.”

  “But why?” Gretchen replied. “It would be easier to just sever the latch, not rip it off.”

  “If they had the tools to cut it. I have noticed, there are not a lot of tools in this place, this garden. But why break it from that side?”

  “So no one could get in, would be my guess. I will check the other door. You make sure this one stays open.” Gretchen turned on the fusion pack light and walked down the hall. “This door is a pressure door, and labeled ‘Pedestrian Expressway’. I hesitate to open it until the three of us are here.”

  “Okay. So we check the other exit before venturing any further. The other exit will probably open to some paradise, right?” Paul called sarcastically. “You have left footprints in dust. No one has been down that hall for a long time.”

  Gretchen returned and they closed and locked the exit. They walked down one of the rows between the vegetable plants, and past the common room. Brenda was seen sitting at the table surrounded by the children. The sound of laughter came from them.

  “Laughing children. What a wonderful sound. Paul? What if we stayed here?” Gretchen asked. “As you said, they do not have it so bad here. Should we just lock ourselves in and live here?”

  “You thought of that too? I wonder if this place could produce enough food for us all.”

  “Brenda said there used to be more adults. Apparently they made enough food then,” Gretchen answered.

  Paul took Gretchen’s hand and held it gently. They said no more as they walked hand in hand toward the exit.

  “Paul? Gretchen?” Brinley called. She was squatting in the middle of the crops, at the rear side of a green automacube.

  “I thought you were working on the water pump?”

  “I examined that. There was a scorch mark a couple meters long on the outer housing of the permalloy of the pump. A simple oversight caused the tragedy, just some insulation incorrectly placed. The parts and a rudimentary tool kit were still lying on the ground nearby. Easy fix, but I am surprised the adults missed it, especially with more than one person doing the job,” Brinley said. “Truly sad they died from such a simple oversight.”

  “So what are you doing with that automacube?” Paul asked.

  “Well I wondered what state the other equipment was in. These automacubes are about the only skilled tools this place has. The tool kit I found up by the pump was nothing more than glorified hand tools,” Brinley replied. “No calibrators, no vibration saws, no real precise instruments.”

  “Is that why they failed in the installation?” Gretchen wondered aloud.

  “No. The pump was already preassembled. It just needed to be connected into the ship’s power system They simply did not install the parts in proper order. Just sloppy work, by leaving off some insulation. There was a diagram on the side of the pump with step by step details. The tools they had were adequate for that job had they only followed instructions. But that is not the only usual thing.”

  “What do you mean?” Paul asked.

  “Well, this automacube is in working order, no problems there. But its log shows that about three years ago, roughly the same time as that accident, it was reprogrammed.”

  “Why is that unusual?”

  Brinley considered before she answered. “It is a rather sophisticated job of reprogramming. It would take more than a simple set of hand tools to do it, and it would take some real skills to do. I could do it with the right tools, but I have not seen any tools around here for the job.”

  “So they have tools stored somewhere else,” Paul said. “So what?”

  “Paulie, Brenda is smart, but she was injured in that accident. So even if they do have tools stashed around here somewhere, who did the reprogramming? The others died, so who did that job?”

  “What did it change?” Gretchen asked. “Was there some malfunction of the machine? Did it burn out like the pump?”

  “No, nothing like that. It is actually a change to the list of plants this green automacube will tend and nurture. Specifically there is a list of plants which this automacube will destroy on sight. Let me read the list: papaver somniferum, cannabis ruderalis, nicotiana tabacum, papaver somniferum. I do not know what those plants do, but the reprogramming makes destroying them top priority for this automacube.”

  If we could contact Tiffany, we could find out what those plants are,” Paul said.

  “Those plants are death,” Rika said from behind some of the vegetable plants.

  They all turned to see the child. She was watching them intently.

  “Hello Rika,” Gretchen said hesitatingly. “I did not see you there.”

  “Those plants you mentioned are not nice things to talk about. They cause death,” Rika said in a far away kind of voice.

  “They are poisonous to eat?” Paul muttered.

  “No. They are thought changers. They fogged the mind of the adults. That is why our parents died. Only the Teacher lived. She never used those plants, but the parents did. Those thought changer plants have been eliminated. They are not nice things,” Rika said. Her narrow green eyes seemed to be endlessly deep. She brushed a strand of her golden hair back behind her ear.

  “So which adult did the reprogramming on this automacube? Brenda?” Brinley asked.

  “I did it. It did it to all the automacubes. Martin opened them up, but I told them what to do,” Rika replied, her small mouth quivering a bit as she spoke. “The Teacher was so badly hurt. Irina fixed her, but it was too late for the other adults.”

  “What do you mean, Martin opened them up? Does he have the right tools somewhere?” Brinley asked. There was an anxiousness in Brinley’s tone that both Paul and Gretchen heard but did not understand why it was there.

  “Martin just thought them open. Then I told them what to do,” Rika replied.

  “You did a wonderful job reprogramming this automacube,” Brinley said. “Who taught you to do that, Brenda?”

  “We just know those things. Irina knows healing. I know machine’s minds. Martin knows machine’s bodies, and the triplets play with animals,” Rika said in a wistful way.

  “The broken latch on the door?” Gretchen asked.

  “Martin did that.”

  “There are no rats in here, is that….?” Gretchen asked. She too was now worried as her mind was assembling a picture.

  “The triplets only want nice animals here. Rats are not nice animals, they are kept away. The sullied animals are also kept out. The sullied people are worst. You were allowed to come because you are not sullied and had nice thoughts and needed some rest. I better go back to our lessons, I can hear the others calling me,” Rika said and turned and walke
d away. She stopped a few steps away, and turned back. “I told Squash, yellow automacube to help you. It is not needed here, and you will be needing a guide, the one you have now is too limited. It cannot think enough. Thank you for being nice to us, but your rest here is ended. We will take care of our Teacher. Good bye.”

  Rika walked away. She stopped one more time, turned and said, “You need not send the blue nor the white automacubes here. It was a nice thought, but that is not needed. I am sorry you will not succeed, but I know you must try.”

  The three adults stood in astonishment for a moment marveling at what they had seen and heard.

  “I did not hear the other children calling,” Paul said.

  “Nor did I Paul, nor did I,” Gretchen said. “I do not think we can.”

  The yellow automacube rolled up from the opposite direction.

  “Brinley, what just happened? Gretchen? I do not understand?” Paul stammered.

  “Paulie, I am not sure what is going on here. I doubt we will ever know. We have a chance to leave and we need to take it.” Brinley attached the minicomputer to the yellow automacube and shared the information. Two buttons appeared on the yellow machine’s display. One said ‘Proceed’ and the other said ‘Halt.’

  “They are just children, right?” Paul muttered. “Just children.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, Paulie, it might help keep the nightmares away,” Brinley said as she pushed the ‘Proceed’ button.

  They yellow automacube nicknamed squash led them away.

  14 lead by squash

  The stainless steel door was opened by the yellow automacube. They slipped past the doorframe and out into the passage. Paul shut the door with a bit of anxiety as he thought about Brenda and the children. The handle and lock on this side of the door were ripped off and missing, just like the door Gretchen described. Paul hoped the children would not be in danger.

  “We are fine. Thank you for your nice thoughts.”

  “Did you hear that?” Paul asked abruptly.

  “Yes, Paulie, you just shut the door. It always sounds like that when it locks. Come on now,” Brinley said. “Do not get jumpy about some clicking of tumblers and latches.”

  “No, not the door. Did you hear the words?” Paul asked again.

  “What words? I did not hear anything,” Gretchen answered. She touched Paul’s arm in reassurance. “Was it Tiffany?”

  Paul tried his communication link, “Tiffany? Please respond. I think I heard you! Tiffany?”

  There was no answer.

  Gretchen and Brinley both tried their own communication links, but they did not receive a response either.

  “I thought I heard something. Sorry,” Paul said.

  The passage was straight and lit by illumination boxes on the walls to the left side. The boxes were set about every meter, but only roughly one out of four or so were working. The walls had wide horizontal stripes in deep purple color alternating with light gray. The hallway stretched out ahead of them for roughly fifty meters.

  “The walls were molded these colors. It was spun into the permalloy when it was built. This is not painted on,” Brinley said as she touched the walls. Then she looked down the hallway. “There must be some doors or something along here.”

  The automacube rolled ahead of them.

  The floor was also permalloy but was not smooth but rather had a small raised pattern on it. The pattern consisted of rows of small ‘V’ shapes which were a about a centimeter up from the deck. It did not interfere with walking, but had a somewhat odd visual effect when looking down. It reminded Brinley of expanded metal she had seen on walkways and catwalks.

  About every five meters there was a number ‘42’ on the walls. First in gray on purple, then the next in purple on gray, and so forth. The ducts, vents, and grilles set into the walls were tan colored and not purple nor gray.

  “Why forty-two on the walls?” Paul asked.

  “Maybe it is the name of this passage?” Gretchen suggested.

  “Maybe there are forty-two Roe that live in this place and like the gray and purple colors?” Brinley chuckled. “Why is a really tough question to answer, sometimes.”

  They had reached about fifty meters away from the stainless steel door when they realized that the hallway did not just abruptly end, as it appeared to do from a distance, but branched to either side in a diagonal manner. The striped walls made for an optical illusion. There were doors, which had small clear windows, blocking each branch.

  “Not a lot of door we get to see though,” Paul commented as he peered into the clear permalloy. “It looks dark behind each one.”

  The yellow automacube headed toward the right branch and extended its arm to jack a cable into the access port next to the door.

  “Should we check it out first?” Paul asked. “It might open to toxic gas, or something else. At least with the clear permalloy we can check first.”

  Brinley pressed the ‘Halt’ button on the automacube. “Sure, we can look, but the automacube is leading us the way the map showed. I placed all that minicomputer’s information into this transport automacube.”

  “It is named Squash, so is that a description or a prediction of our fate?” Paul asked sarcastically.

  Gretchen turned on the fusion pack light and shined it into the clear window. The beam of light revealed what was beyond the door.

  “I am glad we checked,” Gretchen said while gulping. “There are several bodies behind there.”

  Brinley and Paul looked in as well.

  The bodies were all face down and splayed on the deck. The chamber was hexagonal shaped, with two other doors in the walls. There were papers spread all over the room, as well as knocked over furniture.

  “Check the other one,” Paul said. “Maybe we can go that way instead?”

  “The automacube was going to open this one,” Brinley said as she kept looking into the first room. “This is strange…”

  Gretchen took the fusion pack away and shined it into the other clear permalloy window. The room beyond was the same shape and style as the one with the dead bodies, but was tidy and neat, and lacked the bodies.

  “This way looks better,” Paul commented as he looked along with Gretchen.

  “Paulie? If a Roe killed those people in there, it would have torn them to pieces,” Brinley said.

  “So those people killed the Roe while they were being attacked. We have done that. The difference is we survived. So what?”

  “Paulie, think about it. If the people died, the Roe would rip them up. If the Roe died, the tagalongs would consume it, and any other thing the Roe might have killed or maimed badly enough. So either way, they could not escape. In there, the bodies are intact. Why?” Brinley asked. “Why no Roe or tagalongs?”

  “Brinley, that is a good question,” Gretchen said and returned the light to shining in the first room. “They are obviously dead, and not freshly killed, the one whose face I can see is shriveled up, dried out.”

  “So what do we do?” Paul asked. “Maybe there is toxic gas behind here? Maybe it is vacuum? Maybe suicide in a sealed chamber? Maybe a thousand other things happened, who knows? But we can see they are dead!”

  “Send in the automacube alone while we stay well away from here,” Gretchen suggested. “That way if there is gas, we do not get hurt.”

  “But what if the door snaps shut behind that automacube? Remember what did the children call it?” Paul asked. “Yes, they called it ‘Squash’ and probably for a good reason, I think. Well if Squash gets in there and we are shut away from it, it may just continue onward without us. Or it might live up to its name, and we will be squashed.” Paul leaned against the wall. “You two go back to a safe distance, whatever that is. I will stay with the automacube as it enters. I will shut it down inside if this door shuts. Brinley you can get it open again, right?”

  “No door can keep me out, or keep me in,” Brinley smiled wide.

  “And without a medical kit, toxic gas wil
l kill me too,” Paul lamented. “Hopefully it will be quick. So back off and let me do this.”

  Gretchen gave him a hug and they walked down the hallway.

  Brinley whispered to her, “I just cannot understand why no tagalongs. Unless that room is completely sealed.”

  Paul pressed the ‘Proceed’ button on the automacube. It extended its manipulation arms and inserted a cable into the access port. The door with the widow slid to the side. There was a small hiss as air passed by Paul and filled the room. It had not been vacuum, but there was a pressure gradient difference which the air moving around sought to balance.