“Paul, that is draining the fusion boxes quickly,” Gretchen said. “Search for the next ship instead, or we might not get a chance to even try.”
Paul continued to attempt to align the orifice and the circles of energy.
“Paul, do not throw away a better chance!” Gretchen said.
Paul blew out a gust of exasperated air and pushed the interface. The attempt to lock on the weak signal from the Colony Ship Trailblazer shut down. “AI, search for the last ship, but make it quick.”
“Proceeding to search for CS-7 Colony Ship Zubalamo,” TSI-15 stated. “Tracking and searching with faster-than-light scanners. Vectors, position, speed, and status harvested. I am now assessing, apprising, and sifting for signs of a teleportation receiving pad.”
Paul tapped his fingers against his thumb with his right hand and held tightly to Gretchen’s shoulder with his left. “This has to work. I must get away from here.”
TSI-15 stated, “Signal found indicating teleportation receiving pad on CS-7 Zubalamo. Signal strength at moderate levels. Recommend connection of sending pad to receiving pad.”
“We have a way to get away!” Paul said in triumph.
His fingers flew across the light blue surface of the three dimensional interface. The circles of energy hovering over the grid slowly merged together.
“Synchronized and harmonization of matter transmission begun,” Paul said. “Calculations confirm establishment of bond. Starting to modulate for expansion.”
The two circles of energy swirled around each other and then stopped and stayed in place. They deepened and sharpened at the same time.
“Orifice connected,” Paul happily yelled. “Expanding opening and calibrating the connection.”
The circles of energy elongated and started to rise over the grid. A shimmering something was seen in the middle of the energy. It quivered a bit and began to sharpen in focus.
Suddenly the connection was cut off completely.
“What?” Paul yelled. “What happened? Tiffany, reconnect me immediately!”
The two energy circles zipped apart, shrank, and then hovered over the opposite ends of the sending grid.
“Signal has been lost,” TSI-15 stated.
“Get it back!” Paul screamed. “Get it back right now!”
“Searching for receiving pad signal in last known location,” TSI-15 stated. “Unable to locate. Trace elements are the only finding.”
“Tiffany! Help me!” Paul yelled. “Reconnect to that signal!”
“Paul, there is no signal. It was truncated on the receiving end,” Tiffany’s voice stated. “TSI-15 is correct. The signal is lost.”
“No! No!” Paul cried out as tears fell from his face.
Gretchen looked at the fusion box. “Only five minutes of energy left.”
“No. I had it. It was connected!” Paul whined.
Gretchen stood up and pushed Paul away from the command console. “AI connect to the Trailblazer signal as quickly as possible.”
TSI-15 responded. “Switching. Weak signal from CS-6 Trailblazer recovered.”
Gretchen threw the entire remains of the fusion boxes’ energy into the connection with that weak signal from the Trailblazer.
“Warning. Warning. Warning.” The words came from the command console. “Overload warning. Do not exceed design parameters.”
“Silence all warnings,” Gretchen commanded firmly.
The two circles of energy rushed together and popped as they met.
“Bond established,” Gretchen said as she gritted her teeth. “Expanding.”
The orifice snapped into place and was about a meter tall and wide.
“You did it!” Paul said.
Looking through the orifice they could see a biological habitat of some kind. The picture was fuzzy and very tightly limited in perspective, like looking down a piece of pipe, but the connection was made.
“Dome 17! Finally!” a woman’s voice called out from the other end of the orifice.
“Gretchen, open it up so we can get through,” Paul said and reached to touch the interface.
“Dome 17? Brink! Brink I need your help! Reverse polarity on the teleporter!” the woman said. Her face was now visible. Despite the bruises and the filth covering her face, she was recognized by Paul and Gretchen.
“Janae. We will be coming through soon,” Paul said.
“Where is Brink? I must come back to Dome 17,” Janae said. Her golden blond hair, which Paul remembered as longer than her shoulders, was now raggedly cut back. Her heavy brown eyebrows were slashed on one side with a deep scar. Her brown eyes were watery and terrified, flittering back and forth from looking into the orifice to glancing all around her.
“Janae, we have built a….” Gretchen tried to say, but Janae hollered over the top of her.
“Dome 17! Help me! I need Brink,” Janae insisted. “Put Brink on right now! We have to reverse transmission arrows. Brink will know how! I must return!”
“Janae, we are opening a passage to come to you,” Paul said as he adjusted the command interface.
“Blast it! Shut up and listen you fool!” Janae cursed. “I need Brink now.”
“We are coming to you. I will have the orifice open enough to get through in a moment. We are almost out of power,” Paul said. “But we can make our escape.”
“Confound it all. LISTEN TO ME!!! You must not come to the Trailblazer. The Dome people must go somewhere else. Please get Brink so I can come back. I need to talk to Brink right now!” Janae pleaded.
“We are coming to you,” Paul said. “This place is a nightmare, and Dome 17 is dead!”
“Maggot muddled moron!” Janae screamed in panic. “You have never seen a nightmare. Get Brink or some of the Committee!” Her eyes were wide in fear. “You really are not in Dome 17? You… I remember now. Yes… You two went to one of the other colony ships? Oh please, no! You were in a sling launch ahead of us! Oh……. Ken is dead. They killed him. Crazed animal things everywhere. Our AI Kimberly went rampant from….Oh you…. no I must come back to Dome 17; there is no other way….. No…. Oh you doomed bloody idiots!”
“I will open the orifice and we will come through. Just a bit of fine tuning and it will expand enough,” Paul said. He was not really paying attention to Janae.
“You want to come here?” Janae began to laugh in a terrifying and pathetic way. Her once pretty face was wracked with sorrow and horror all mixed together. “You want to come to the Trailblazer?”
“We must escape!” Paul yelled out.
“The power levels are almost gone!” Gretchen cautioned.
“The Trailblazer is death. Can you reverse the flow so I can come to you?” Janae begged. “Please let me come to you! Please!”
Tiffany replied, “There is no way to reverse the sending and receiving pads.”
“Janae, we cannot open it for you to come here,” Gretchen said. “I am sorry.”
“You sorry? You! I am on the Trailblazer! It would have been better to go outside Dome 17 naked. That would be an easier death. Count your blessings you did not come here! Oh….now…..no, no, no….now I get to die all alone.” Janae again began laughing and sobbing and cursing all at the same time. She tipped her head back and the crying laughter erupted in a pathetic burst of sounds.
The orifice snapped shut as the four fusion boxes all burned out just nanoseconds apart.
Tiffany’s voice came from multiple places around the room. “Gretchen and Paul, I apologize for my failures to help you and make your mission to the Vanguard a success. I did the very best I could, but I understand I have failed you at times. I did everything I can to make sure this teleportation endeavor succeeded, but I have failed. Please contact Brinley and Larissa through Victor’s multiceiver. I have been keeping Brinley apprised of this mission, and she has been working with Larissa. I know you do not trust Larissa; however, she and Brinley are your best resources on the Vanguard. It was an honor to serve with you. Farewell.”
“It cannot fail. We have to escape! We will just try again and rebuild the system. Please build some more equipment so we can try again. Tiffany? Tiffany we can just try again, right?” Paul asked. “We are going to keep at it until this succeeds!”
“Tiffany, explain what you mean!” Gretchen yelled. Her heart again heard more than Tiffany had said in this second farewell. Something was terribly wrong with Tiffany, and Gretchen sensed it.
There was no response.
The burned out jumbo fusions boxes were now blank. The grid was just a pile of expanded permalloy. The command console had no power at all.
“Tiffany? Tiffany?” Paul wailed up into the emptiness of Reproduction and Fabrication. “Tiffany?” His voice echoed back without any responses.
Paul dropped to his knees and wept.
16 failure
Outside of the Reproduction and Fabrication facility, while Paul and Gretchen attempted to use the teleportation sending pad, in a small room that was nondescript and just off where the sky tube control center was located things were happening.
“Rika, I am getting really tired,” Martin said. His blue eyes did look tired. His head ached a bit and and he did not want to concentrate so hard anymore.
“I know,” Rika said. “But the time is not right yet. That man and that woman have not yet failed. We must give them time to do that.”
“I know, but it is so dull,” Martin replied. He then spoke to several pressure gates, which were some distance away, and they responded to him by partially opening up. The pressure differences which had been separated by those gates were suddenly equalized. The immense pressure rattled the permalloy ductwork. The movement of such pressure sucked another group of Jellies through the spaces the gates opened. Those gaps were too small for the Jellie’s fluid-filled outer suits. Tough as the suits were, they ruptured under the extreme pressures. Their tentacles flailed around a bit as they were mashed to death by the shattering of their suits. Their glowing bluish purple bodies, evaporating water, broken equipment, and shredded suits flew along until they were splattered about. “There are so many of the bad animals, and I am tired of smashing them. They never learn to just stay way.”
“Martin, I know you are tired. I am tired of talking to these machine people,” Rika said. “They keep thinking the same bad things, even though I tell them to go away. They are bad machines, like those bad animals.”
“I am bored too,” Irina said. Her deep brown eyes, and long black silky hair contrasted with her ivory colored clothes. “I think we should all go back home. The Teacher Brenda will need to wake up soon. How about if you Rika, tell the machine people to go to that big room on the level below us? Martin, will you open the doors for those bad animals to go through to that same place? Let them be together so we can take the triplets home. Maybe the machine people and the bad animals can learn to play together nicely this time?”
Rika held her head for a moment, pursed her lips, and squinted her eyes.
“Those nicer people, that man and that woman, they did not make the trip they tried,” Rika announced. “As we knew, they failed. They also know that now. The machines are shutting down their test. Irina, your idea is good. Let the machine people and the bad animals play together. Martin, please do that for those bad animals.”
“Finally, then we can go home?” Martin asked.
“Yes. I have told the machine people they need to go to that big room,” Rika responded. “They think it is their idea, but I know they will listen.” She reopened her eyes. “The machine people and the bad animals will be busy with each other.”
The triplets walked over. They were still sharing the fun of holding the gray and black striped cat. He was rubbing his face against theirs, and his face was only a few shades darker than the triplets. The cat was purring contentedly as the children petted him and rubbed him.
“We heard what you said,” the triplets stated in unison. “This cat thinks we should take that man and that woman with us when we go.”
“I guess we can do that,” Rika said. “They are very sad. It is not good to be thinking about such sad things. Their trip failed, and since their trip did not work, they are thinking sad stuff. Brenda will be happy to see them.”
“They will need me to touch them,” Irina said. “That will help.”
Rika again paused for a moment and her narrow green eyes sort of unfocused. “Their machine Tiffany will not be able to come with us. She is entangled with the other machines in their playroom. I helped Tiffany to leave some gifts for that man and woman. We will go get them now.”
The children proceeded along and back toward Reproduction and Fabrication. Martin told the doors to open up for them as they walked.
“I am glad you found the cat you wanted,” Rika said as they entered the facility.
“That was worth the whole trip here,” Jennie said. Lennie and Bennie shook their heads in agreement. Then they said in unison, “He says his name is Bernie. He has promised to be nice to the chickens.”
“I can hardly wait to show the Teacher this cat!” Bennie said.
The children entered Reproduction and Fabrication, and saw all the broken teleportation equipment. Martin reviewed it in his mind and knew it did not need assembly or disassembly and it was now just raw materials. Rika knew that the command console would never speak to her or anyone else again.
The machinery of the fabricator had again stopped and was waiting for future orders. Rika told it to rest until it was needed. TSI-15 obeyed.
The triplets then turned their grayish-blue eyes toward Paul and Gretchen.
“We are sorry you did not get to go on your trip,” the three said together.
Paul was kneeling down next to the now inert command console. His head was in his hands. He did not respond to their words.
Gretchen looked over at the children. “Are you children safe?” She asked, but it without much emotion.
“Your friend Tiffany had some things made for you,” Rika said. She walked over to the conveyor belts where a satchel was sitting. She handed it to Paul.
“We are stuck here,” Paul said dejectedly.
“I know. I am sorry you did not succeed, but we knew you needed to try. We kept the bad animals and the machine people away so you could try your best,” Rika said. “But now take these things. They are gifts from Tiffany. You will then come with us.”
Irina walked past Rika and over to Paul and Gretchen. She reached out a hand to each of them. When she placed her small fingers on their shoulders she closed her eyes.
Paul and Gretchen both lost consciousness and slumped gently to the floor.
epilogue
Gretchen awoke to a strange sound.
"Klauuk kak-klauuk kak."
She opened her eyes, and looked at the ceiling. It was a pale green color. She blinked her eyes several more times.
"Klauuk kak-klauuk kak"
“What is that noise?” Paul muttered. He was lying next to Gretchen. Soft and fuzzy blankets were over them which matched the pillows and sheets of the bed they were in.
Gretchen lifted her hand to her eyes and rubbed them. “I am not sure.”
Paul yawned a huge yawn and then sighed. “It woke me up.”
“Me too,” Gretchen said. She then tried to sit up, but was weak. “Paul, we were trying to use the teleportation unit.”
“That is right!” Paul said as he rolled onto his side and looked at Gretchen. The bed under them was solid, yet soft and comfortable. “What is this place?”
“I have no idea,” Gretchen responded. “I remember poor Janae’s face in the orifice and how she was terrified.”
“You should be thinking nice thoughts now,” Rika said from the doorway.
Paul and Gretchen looked over at her. She was wearing simple beige colored clothing. Her narrow green eyes looked back at them with intensity. Her golden hair was loose around her head.
“Rika, where are we?” Gretchen asked carefully.
“
The Gardens of Delight. I have to go see the Teacher now,” Rika said and ran off. “Remember to think good thoughts.”
“That place where we met the children that first time?” Paul asked. “Is that where we are? How did we get here?”
“Of course that is where we are,” Gretchen said. She stretched out her arms and legs. She turned and sat up on the side of the bed.
"Klauuk kak-klauuk kak." The animal noise came again. They now recognized that it originated outside of the open window in the wall near the bed they were in.
The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle Page 139