Sleeper Ship

by Jim Rudnick

  Then below as he fell, he saw light ... a pinpoint, but still there was light below ...

  He tried to swim toward it, but he couldn't feel his arms as he tried to stroke toward that light. He flailed his legs but couldn't feel them either, so he tried to relax and watch as the light below grew from that pinpoint to a tiny spotlight to a brighter and brighter larger ball of light.

  He was not scared; for some reason, this was not something that had scared him, but it made him feel more contented, more fulfilled, more, yes, more potent. And still the light grew until it was all around him as the blackness receded above his head.

  Unexpectedly, he heard whispers. ... many, many voices whispering at him in a language he thought he almost knew but could just not make out the meanings. Those whispers grew and then grew more, intertwining, linking, and building on each other until they were whispers no more but now shouts and shrieks and screams and screeches. He vomited again and again ...

  He would have tried to cover his ears, but he could not as he had no hands.

  He was lost, and yet one whisper was breaking through the cacophony around him ... a single solitary voice that he thought he knew ... a voice he thought he could trust. A voice he tried to focus on and tune out all those other voices. A voice that became a bit louder as he fell. A voice that somehow seemed familiar ...

  And the Master Adept appeared directly in front of him as the whiteness around him snapped out of existence and his quarters appeared to his now working eyes.

  He was shaking and tried to quiet his muscles and remain still but was unable to do so as his jaw dropped open.

  He looked around his room, but there was no one there but him and the Master. As he squinted slightly, he noted that she was not opaque, but slightly transparent. She is not really here, he thought, she is "mind-linking" with me, a novice Adept officer.

  While he thought about that, the Master held out her hand to him, and while her mouth did not move, he heard her say "take my hand, my young Adept."

  He reached out and grasped at her hand. It was not there ... his own closed on itself, and she nodded to him.

  "Yes, I am mind-linking with you, Adept Sander, and yes, this is something new for you. New really for us too.” As she said that, more Adepts popped into view around him. Eight, nine, no there were ten of them now including the Master who were also mind-linking with him. Here but not really here. Just here in his mind.

  He nodded to them all and said right out loud, “Welcome ... I ... I am at a loss for words ..." He looked from one face to another, questioning but not knowing why ...

  The Master smiled at him.

  "You have no need to vocalize, Adept ... all you need to do is to think, and we will hear you," she said quietly with not a movement of her lips. But then she smiled at him, turned to one of the others there, and smiled again.

  "Adept Sulis was the last young Adept that we successfully mind-linked with before he was ready, and that was decades ago. Since then we have not been so successful in this endeavor," she noted and her smile fell.

  Bram might have asked more but judged that even when the Adepts were not present, he could still get a “feel” that some things were best left unsaid, unasked, and unknown.

  "Adept Sulis, I thank you then for paving the way to this new Adept ability for me ... but that makes me wonder why this was done if it could end—uh—unsuccessfully?" He knew the point of all this was to come now so he sat up a bit straighter and looked directly at the Master.

  She nodded to him.

  "As we thought all, this young Adept will be a force one day as he has drilled down to the reason we had to risk this now."

  She turned back to Adept Sulis and ever so slightly bowed her head.

  Sulis looked around the circle and then back at Bram. His face grew solemn, Bram thought.

  "Adept Sander, you know that your current mission seems to be, what—slightly beyond the pale, correct? You're seemingly on a pointless trip around the RIM's inward borders to check on boundary buoys. Do we have that correct?"

  Bram just nodded.

  "A mission with no real import—one that the captain considers to be punishment for his previous actions when we were after the Pirates, he supposes." Bram reasoned this was about the truth too; this really was not a mission but a six-month sentence of boredom.

  Sulis nodded back to Bram in agreement it appeared.

  "And so we risked this early mind-link attempt to get someone here on this mission to watch for us as all things change in a day or two at most. Everything changes now for the Confederacy with what will face you in the next days. Everything," he added, and the faces all turned to Bram.

  He thought for a moment that there might be more, but Sulis and even the Master just looked at him.

  "Then I take it that this means that the Marwick will be in jeopardy or something similar, do I have that correct?" he mentally thought and then realized he had said right out loud.

  The Master nodded to him and then waited.

  "So, what am I to do" he queried her. His hands were clamped on the bunk's edge with a vice-like grip that was cramping his fingers. He let go and rubbed the cramp away.

  "No," the Master said, "you are not to direct your captain to 'do' anything, but to simply help him as any Navy Adept officer would. You are to aid and abet any and every occurrence and not to hinder any of the decisions that he makes. Your own duty on this is to report back to us via the mind-link, which you can now control, on what you find and what occurs ... that is all you need do, Adept."

  He nodded to her and bowed his head. As he looked up, the Adepts in the circle around him faded out of existence ... until only he and the Master were left together in his quarters.

  "This is what needs to be done—and as you now know, being an Adept officer in the RIM Navy means many things, Bram ... including a loyalty to our Issian faith. We would never ever ask for any kind of a betrayal of your Navy oaths ... but what we ask for is allied with them. This is the RIM, and we are all citizens of the Confederacy. And we all need to survive ..." she added as she grew more and more transparent ... then disappeared.

  Bram thought on that for a minute then suddenly remembered that whatever was coming at the Marwick was a Confederacy changing event, whatever it was, and it would happen in a day or two.

  He shrugged and realized his head hurt now but couldn't fathom if it was because of all those beers or the recently ended mind-link. No idea and now to sleep off at least one of the reasons for the headache, he thought, and he twisted down to his bunk. Tomorrow was another day ... and forewarned he would watch carefully. Carefully indeed... until something came at them.

  #

  Sachem Hassun of the Gamma Row band moved slowly, almost regally, through the crowded Council room and made his way to the center of the Tribal circle. Around him, the other twenty-four elders sat and waited for their Tribal Council Sachem to sit and then watched as he held up his hands to the skies.

  "Oh, Sigil of the Feathered Serpent Ikaria, hallow our Council and make us forever remain as true as we have done for more than a thousand of generations. We plead you to listen to our Council and lead us to what must be done. We are your band, and we look to you for guidance."

  He knelt on one knee and touched the back of his right hand to his forehead, holding that pose for a full minute before he stood up and then faced one of the elders around him. The rest of the inner circle of elders also knelt and showed the same respect to the Sigil pennant that hung above their heads at the circle's center. Then they all sat and waited. In the outer circle, the rest of the Ikarians sat too and awaited the Council to start.

  "Shaman Nadie will now remind us all of our band heritage and why we move toward our band's wishes ..." Hassun said, and from the circle, an elder rose and took up his spot behind the seated Council leader.

  Shaman Nadie was an elder, being raised from the sleeper tanks 241 years ago, and yet was still a man in his prime. Strongly built, it was said he w
alked the five rows ten times a day, from one end to the other. His hair was still jet-black, his eyes still bright, and his stride to the center of the Tribal circle was quick and robust. Elder or not, he and the rest of the elders were anything but merely older than the younger circle around them. He looked to one and all and met the gaze of each and every one of the forty Ikarian band members who were the awakened crew of the Keshowse.

  Yet his ability to garner friends within the crew that was awake was almost impossible as he would talk on and on about the Ikarian heritage and their place in the grand wishes of their home world, never quieting, never stoppable. At every Tribal Council meeting, he was the one who spoke of the band and the wishes that had sent out the Keshowse more than a thousand years ago. He had to be borne yet not admired, and the crew settled in for his telling of the Ikarian history.

  "We are Ikarian. We come from almost fifty light-years inward, and we will leave this galaxy in only two more awakenings. We are Ikarian," he stated again and turned in a circle repeating this last statement to the four corners of the circle. Around him, some stared up at the Ikarian Feathered Serpent sigil while others looked away. None of this was new for them, having had decades of the Shaman’s discourse.

  Nadie went on and on, as was his wont. He reminded them all of their need to remember their home planet, its past, and their place in their history. He spoke of their ingrained abilities to ride, to hunt, to explore, and yes, to fight when the need arose. He spoke almost lovingly of their Arrow tests, of their throwing skills, and of their use of rough-and-tumble-style skirmish skills, and he looked proud as he said that. Everyone present knew that Nadie could do the Ten Arrow test in less than seven seconds, and his ability to help support and toss other archers up above any intervening walls so that their targets could still be hit was legendary.

  His tone changed as he went on to orate about their planet, Ikaria, and how it had responded to the comet that had threatened their world thousands of years ago. The world's bands had united and faced the incoming threat head-on. The tribes had responded with the only thing they had known to do, which had been to divert the comet on its path to destroy their world by bombing the comet with their biggest missiles. They had succeeded in only breaking up the comet into smaller sections. Some had missed Ikaria but some had hit their oceans and their continents too.

  The comet pieces that had hit the oceans hurt badly, and many coastal tribes had been washed away. Still others had lost everything, and famine had set in, as they were unable to get sustenance from the turmoil that was the ocean. They had moved inland, but most did not make the long migrations.

  But it was the comet shards that had hit the continents that the Ikarians learned had done the most damage as the explosions of the impacts had subsided. Afterward, the climate had come back slowly, the crops had regrown, and the economy of the planet had rebounded.

  But what none of them had known was that the comet had carried a virus—an infecting germ that had not been killed during the impact but had been wafted to every corner of the planet to be inhaled by the tribes around the world. And every Ikarian had been infected with this virus, and every Ikarian had been unaware of the fact that they were now changed ... and changed for what could only be discerned in the centuries to come.

  More than seventy-five percent had died in the first few years of the virus infection and that meant that the survivors were somehow different from the ones that had died. But no one at the time had known why and it wasn't for generations that their Science Sachems learned what had happened and why some had lived and some had died. It was science that was borne out by the survivors and their families and their families too.

  Nadie stopped then and turned back to look directly up at the sigil that hung over their heads.

  "We know the wishes of the Ikarian band, and we swear to help us all to achieve that goal. We are Ikarian," he said one more time and then returned to his own space in the inner circle. His oratory was done, and he sat lithely and remained quiet, as a Shaman should who has once again told the history of his Tribe. He bowed his head and didn't see the rest of the circle again touch their foreheads in respect. He was not liked, but if anyone knew the Ikarian history, Shaman Nadie was the Sachem of note.

  Sachem Hassun slowly stood and looked out at first the elder circle and then the circle of the Kikinamagans too ... and held out his hands, his palms upturned and asking.

  "For the first time in more than one thousand years, we have been discovered ..." he said and went on with his voice rising above the sudden whispers around the circles.

  "Yes, Kikinamagan Naqreq was the witness, and it was just a few hours ago—and no, at this point, we know little more," he said and steeled himself for the furor that came to a head immediately.

  "But Sachem, this is the foretelling of the past ..." said one Kikinamagan, half-rising in the outer circle but sitting when he was dragged back down by someone to his side.

  "We must greet them," said another who sat up on his knees.

  "This is not the way that things were planned," said still another who pushed away an arm that sought to quiet him.

  Others were arguing among themselves and even some of the elders were.

  "This is the start of the end of our voyage," Sachem Ahanu said quietly, but his words cut through the voices, and they faded away as all faces turned to Hassun.

  Hassun nodded.

  "Yes, it is as it was spoken centuries ago—that we will await contact—full contact with non-Tribal beings before we do anything else. We know, and you all know, what has been written and what is known to be our answer to this kind of an encounter to our voyage. We will wait—this is what we must do. We wait, Ikarians ... the crew and our 10,000 sleepers, we wait," Hassun said, his voice persuading and his look stern.

  The thought that the wishes of the band might be now suddenly changed hushed the group, and they all looked first at Ahanu and then to Hassun as if to seek the proper course.

  Hassun then bowed to Ahanu and gave the sign of respect to the singular idea that maybe—just maybe the Keshowse would be entering the final part of its long voyage. Looks between the two of them passed eyes to eyes, and then they both bowed to each other, signs of respect again shown.

  "To our sigil, we entreat the Feathered Serpent Ikaria to help us and guide us ... and we will go on ... as the wishes of the Tribe will be honored."

  Hassun turned to show his sign of respect to each and every elder and then strode out of the circles and away to the corridor beyond the Council room. Each of the remaining crew members gathered in little knots to talk and to try to talk out their own thoughts. Each knew their history, and each knew their own limitations and successes ... and each would look to the future as they waited for full contact.

  It was that contact which would determine what would happen to the Ikarians and what would happen to the contactors ... the Rim Confederacy ...

  #

  Boundary buoy number eight lay just ahead as the Marwick slowly moved toward it. Sensors filled the slowly scrolling left-hand sidebar of the bridge display occasionally with red bold lines. The Marwick's XO, Craig Templeton, made inserts to same and grunted to the bridge crew.

  "Call the Captain, Bull, and tell him we've got a problem ... damn!" He continued to read and make console inputs at the same time.

  The bull ensign spoke into his throat mic, then again, and once more before he turned to the XO.

  "Ah, Sir ... the captain says he's uh ... indisposed ... Sir." He held out his empty hands and looked a bit uncomfortable.

  Templeton stared at him and then nodded.

  "Fine, Ansible, get me those logs from the buoy and quick—and transfer them over to my console too. Bull, recap what occurs here and send it down to the captain’s screens in real time," he ordered and went back to the display.

  "Uh ... Sir, the captain is not in his quarters, Sir. It appears he's in the gym, Sir, but uh ... I don't think he's actually working out, Sir," Lieutenan
t Whiteside the bull ensign replied.

  "One day you will explain what you mean, Lieutenant, but for now just log this, okay?" the XO said and turned to the bridge science officer.

  "Lieutenant Paterson, is that real data? That comet went through here, what four years ago, and we have no such records in the Navy dbase? How is that possible—" He was interrupted by Lieutenant Framingham, the bridge Ansible officer.

  "Sir, yes ... the buoy has more than a dozen messages stuck in its queue as the buoy antenna is no longer working. Well, in fact, if I can believe this sensor shot," he said as he punched a button or two and the side of the buoy facing Juno suddenly appeared and the sheared-off array could be seen, "it's gone, Sir. No wonder we never got word." Most of the port side of the buoy was scraped clear ... the blackness of the metalwork had bright shiny grooves and striations that ran for meters.

  Sure enough, as the XO noted, there was shiny steel that twisted off to one side of the buoy and scrapes that appeared to show something had clipped off the array that had included the Ansible antenna and its long-range sensor antenna too. Boundary buoys were small, but for some it appeared not small enough to be missed by the occasional collision with space debris.

  "Logs in, Ansible?" the XO asked, noting that the bull continued to update his own console, so he assumed the captain was getting updates. Would need to ask on that later.

  "Aye, Sir." Lieutenant Framingham nodded. "We've got vector and timing. Comet went by this buoy four years, two months ago at approximately one-sixth light-speed or 30K MPS, Sir. Path is outbound, and in about 230 years, she'll leave the RIM—no collisions indicated, Sir," he finished off and noted same in the Marwick logs.

  Nodding, the XO called out to the helm.

  "Rizzo, plot us a course to intercept that comet. I want to see it up close," he said and was again interrupted by Lieutenant Framingham who looked at the XO, his head tilted to one side.

  "Sir, the comet is not a problem, Sir, and the buoy does need repairs, and well, Sir we're right here right now ..." His voice drifted off.