“Kieran.” It sounded like Arthur’s voice, very soft and distant, coming from the OneMan. Kieran approached, hunched over, gripping his stomach with one hand. “Are you there?”
Kieran leaned into the helmet to speak into the headset. “I’m here.”
“Go to the port-side stairwell and walk down.”
“Okay.” Kieran limped across the bay between the rows of shuttles. He made it to the stairwell and started down the cold metal steps, leaning heavily on the railing. The ship was cold, very cold, but the air was good. He could smell the pollen from the rain forest as he descended the stairs—a huge relief. The ship’s lungs were still intact.
He heard footsteps below, then saw a long shadow creeping up the wall of the stairwell. From around a bend, Arthur appeared. His face broke into an immense smile, and he ran up the rest of the stairs and hugged Kieran tightly. Kieran winced, and Arthur pulled away. “You okay?”
“Not sure how to answer that,” Kieran said.
“I heard you say Jacob Pauley made you swallow explosives,” Arthur said.
“How did you pick up that transmission?”
Arthur grinned. “We’re always listening.”
“I threw up the explosives. Now I just have the detonator in me.”
“So you’re safe?”
“I won’t explode, anyway.”
The two boys took the stairs down three more flights, only enough time to give each other a broad outline of what had been happening. As Arthur opened the door to the habitation level, he smiled. “I’ve got some pretty interesting news, but first…” Arthur paused, seeming almost frightened to ask, “Have you seen my dad?”
Kieran touched his friend’s shoulder. “I saw your dad in the brig when I first got there.”
Arthur closed his eyes and smiled.
A cramp seized Kieran, and he doubled over.
Arthur grabbed him by the arm to hold him up. “I thought you said you threw up the explosives.”
“Not the detonator, though.” Kieran groaned. “It’s stuck in me.”
“Maybe we can get it out. Let’s ask Tobin.”
Kieran leaned on the wall of the corridor. “Tobin is alive?”
“Yes,” Arthur said and cocked his head. “They think we’re dead?”
“They told me you were.”
“I was afraid of that.”
Kieran winced with another spasm of pain and pulled on Arthur’s arm.
“Come on,” Arthur said, “let’s find Tobin.”
Kieran followed his friend out of the stairwell and down the cold corridor, bracing himself against the wall. Arthur knocked and entered an apartment without waiting for a response. Kieran followed him into a living room that had been converted into a makeshift hospital. There were four beds, each one pushed against a wall, each occupied by one of the sick adults. Victoria Hand was the only one conscious, and she smiled weakly at Kieran and lifted a couple of fingers.
“Tobin!” Arthur called and went down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
“Quiet,” Tobin said irritably. He was sitting on the side of a bed, looking spent, but when he saw Kieran behind Arthur, he bolted to his feet. “Kieran!”
Kieran rushed at his old friend and put his arms around him. “I thought you were all dead.”
In the bed where Tobin had been sitting was Philip Grieg, the heroic little boy who had saved Waverly and Seth from Jacob Pauley. When Kieran last saw him, his face had been horribly swollen and bruised. Now his features were back to normal, and there was even a healthy pink in his cheeks. “How is he?” Kieran asked as he sat down on Philip’s mattress.
The little boy opened his eyes, a faint smile on his lips. “Hi.”
Kieran laughed with joy. “He’s okay?”
“He has three words,” Tobin said with pride. “‘Hi,’ ‘bye,’ and ‘uck,’ when we bring him his emergency rations.”
“So he’s getting better?”
“He started talking a few days ago.” Tobin gave a tentative nod. “I think he’s blind in one eye, and he can’t use his left hand, but he can hold a cup of water, and he’s starting to be able to sit up. Victoria thinks he might be able to walk again someday, but not for a while.”
Kieran bent over the little boy and kissed him on the cheek. Philip smiled and said “Hi” again.
“Is that Kieran?” someone by the door asked, and Kieran turned to see Austen Hand standing in the doorway holding a stack of empty ration containers. He dropped them on the floor, rushed at Kieran, and gave him a bear hug. “I thought that was your voice.”
“Yeah,” Kieran said, grimacing at the way the boy jostled him.
“What’s wrong?” Tobin asked.
“He’s got a detonator in his stomach,” Arthur answered.
“What?” Tobin and Austen yelled simultaneously.
By the time the situation was fully explained, Tobin had Kieran lying on the floor at the foot of Philip’s bed. He gave Kieran a pain reliever and stood over him while he drank three entire grav bags of water.
“They said to force fluids, right? We’re forcing fluids.”
“I can’t drink any more,” Kieran said halfway through the third bag.
“Yes, you can,” Tobin said stubbornly as he squeezed the bag into Kieran’s mouth.
Kieran managed to force the rest of the water down and was surprised to find that it actually did lessen the feeling of broken glass in his middle.
“The water should help expand the tubes inside you and help you pass that thing.”
“You can’t operate?” Arthur asked.
“I’ll ask Victoria,” Tobin said and left the room.
“Where’s Sarek?” Kieran asked Arthur.
“He’s in the next apartment over. He’s monitoring the repair crew.”
“Repair crew?” Kieran asked, surprised.
“From the New Horizon. They’re salvaging the Empyrean,” Arthur said with a gleam in his eyes. “The central bulkheads were all untouched, and they’ve even been able to save some of the starboard compartments, too. They’re working on connecting everything together with pressurized conduits. They’re almost done.”
Kieran felt gobsmacked. “You mean this ship is worthy?”
“The Pauleys tore a big hole in the hull, but the girders and underlying structure are still strong,” Arthur said.
“But how can it fly with a huge hole in the hull?”
“It’s not like the ship has to be aerodynamic,” Arthur said with a shrug. “Space is a vacuum, right? So as long as the bulkheads remain strong, this ship can travel.”
Kieran shook his head, amazed.
“I remind you, not without some measure of pride, that my father was a member of the original design team,” Arthur said, puffing up his chest. With a big smile he added, “German engineering.”
Tobin came back in the room with an apologetic smile. “Victoria said opening up the gut is very risky.”
“But what if the detonator tears something?” Kieran asked, not sure it hadn’t already.
“Perforation. That’s the danger. If you start to feel sick, we’ll operate.” Tobin looked at him worriedly as he fumbled through a pile of medications that were overflowing a small table in the corner, then handed him a vial of pills. “Take two of these every four hours for the pain. And rest.”
“No,” Kieran said, sitting up. “I want to see Sarek.”
“He’s a couple doors down,” Arthur said. Kieran followed him down the corridor to an apartment near the stairwell. The front room was so cluttered with papers and ration containers that it took Kieran a couple seconds to spot Sarek sitting at the dining table. When Sarek saw Kieran, he stood up from his portable com unit, a half smile on his face. He put his hand out for Kieran to shake, but Kieran pulled his friend in for a hug. Sarek patted Kieran’s back awkwardly.
“Good to have you back,” Sarek said briefly. He sat back down at the dining table, which served as a makeshift desk for him. Judging from the mou
nds of ration containers and empty coffee cups, he spent all his time here. “Did Arthur tell you?”
“Tell me what?” Kieran asked, sinking onto the ratty couch next to the table.
Arthur looked like he was about to give Kieran the biggest present of his life. “I’ve found a planet that fulfills the Goldilocks Contingency.”
“Fulfills the what?”
“Read for yourself.” Arthur handed him a printout from the mission manual.
The Goldilocks Contingency
New Earth was chosen by the mission designers for its moderate temperatures, its atmospheric composition, its size relative to Earth, and the similar length of its day and year. The sun it orbits, Centauri 8, emits a light spectrum very like the sun’s. Of the thousands of worlds surveyed, New Earth was by far the likeliest candidate where Earth-based life could thrive.
Nonetheless, the designers recognize that the mission might, as it nears New Earth, encounter data that suggest the planet is not all we had hoped. It is also possible that another planetary system might be discovered that could appear even more hospitable than New Earth. If the mission crew determines to change course for another system, the mission designers have included a contingency plan for how to survey the target system, how to cope with a course correction, how to manage a slowdown upon approach to the new star system, methods for determining the best possible orbit should the system be reached before adequate deceleration has taken place, etc.…
We wish to advise, however, that such a course change should take place only if and when insuperable circumstances have made life on New Earth untenable, for this new course will be fraught with risks impossible for the mission designers to anticipate, and that might challenge the equipment and personnel in ways for which they have not been prepared.
Kieran searched Arthur’s expectant face. “Are you telling me…?”
“I’ve found a planet that can support Earth-origin life,” Arthur said with great pride, then added, “most likely.”
Kieran looked from one boy to the other. They seemed perfectly serious. “But the mission is for New Earth…”
“This planet is closer,” Sarek said. “We could be there in nine years.”
“We wouldn’t have time to slow the Empyrean down…”
“We’d have to put the ship into a long elliptical orbit and send out away teams via shuttle,” Arthur said. “It can be done. They planned it all out with equations and computer models for a course correction.”
This time Kieran couldn’t hold himself back. He grabbed Arthur’s face and kissed him on the forehead. Arthur pushed him off, rubbing the kiss away while Sarek snickered.
The friends talked into the night. Sarek and Arthur ate a meager dinner of pasta with beans and spinach, but Kieran could manage to drink only broth. He felt the detonator inching through his gut, but the news of this new planet was so exciting he didn’t care so much about the pain. Kieran looked at the star charts and read through Arthur’s calculations, and the more he learned, the more convinced he became that this was the answer. “This is wonderful,” he finally said. “But we can’t leave the others behind.”
“That’s the part we can’t—” Arthur began.
Just then, a knock sounded on the door. “Open up,” called a gruff masculine voice.
The three boys froze in fear.
“I’ve been listening to you for the past forty minutes, kids. I know you’re in there. Open up.”
To Sarek, Arthur whispered, “It’s Chris. The crew chief.”
“I want to talk,” the man said.
Arthur paced the room in short circles while Sarek wrung his hands with anxiety. Kieran could only stare at the star chart laid out on the table in front of him. Already lost. It was already gone.
“Kids,” Chris cajoled, “I’ve known you were on the ship all along.”
“We can’t trust you! You were going to deny our wounded medical help,” Arthur said to him through the door.
“I said that to warn you. I’ve seen your com signal all along from Central Command. I knew you were listening, but I never told my crew.”
Sarek and Arthur looked at Kieran, uncertain. “You guys have a gun?” Kieran whispered.
The other two shook their heads.
“I’m alone and unarmed, guys,” the man was saying. “I just want to talk.”
“I’ve been listening to him,” Arthur whispered as the boys huddled in a triad. “All I can say is, he sounds like a nice man.”
Sarek looked at Kieran. “But he could be tricking us.”
“He knows we’re here,” Kieran said. “Everything is lost anyway. We might as well talk to him.”
Arthur walked to the door, hands hanging at his sides as though he were ready to draw a weapon, though he had none. He opened the door to a man with light brown eyes, a squarish buzz haircut, and an angular jaw. He had an apologetic smile on his face and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not here for a fight.” He slowly entered the room, looking cautiously from boy to boy.
None of the boys moved or spoke. Kieran’s heart was pounding painfully in his chest, and his stomach clenched around the jagged lump in his middle.
Chris pointed to a wooden ladder-back chair next to Sarek and said, “May I?”
Kieran had no idea what to say as the man walked across the room, turned the dining chair around and straddled it, leaning his elbows on the back. He was sitting next to the table where all their plans were spread out, plain to see. “I’ve got some interesting news,” Chris said as he chewed on a toothpick. “But first, tell me about this planet you were talking about. Go slow. I’m not as smart as you guys.”
Kieran wondered for a few moments if he could somehow kill this guy to protect their plan, but Chris looked strong, and besides, there was something about him that seemed trustworthy, friendly, even. Arthur and Sarek exchanged looks, and Sarek shrugged. “He already knows.”
Arthur sighed, resigned, and told the story over again. When he’d finished, Chris chewed off the end of his toothpick and spat it out. “That is certainly amazing news, but I’ve got you beat.” He made dramatic eye contact with each of the boys before he said, “Anne Mather is dead.”
A full minute of silence passed before anyone could speak. Kieran asked, “How?”
“Ginny Pauley got hold of a gun. That’s why I decided to finally make contact with you.”
“Jacob’s wife…” Arthur said pensively.
The man opened his hands in a gesture of appeal. “If there was ever a time to take over this ship…”
“What?” Kieran asked sharply.
“I want to help you take over this ship,” Chris said evenly. “Why do you think I knocked when I did?”
“Why should we trust you?” Arthur demanded.
The man grinned and pointed at Sarek’s com screen. “Flip to the surveillance video in the port shuttle air lock.”
Looking skeptical, Sarek did as he was told. Eight people were trapped in the air lock pounding on the doors, screaming at the tops of their lungs. “Chris! Chris!” one of the men yelled. “Open up! Hey!” Someone else, a woman, said, “He can’t hear you. Otherwise he’d have opened it.”
“What’s going on?” Kieran said, eyeing the man with suspicion.
“It’s a bluff,” Chris said. He pulled a new toothpick from his breast pocket and stuck it between his teeth. “Soon you’ll send this video to New Horizon Command with the message that you’ll blow those people out the air lock unless they release all the Empyrean crew.”
“Why would you help us take this ship?” Kieran asked.
“Because I’ve got some of my own people waiting on the New Horizon that I want to bring aboard.”
“You mean you want to share the ship with us…,” Sarek began. “It’s our home.”
“I know,” Chris said, shifting uneasily in his chair. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you guys.”
“To ask permission?”
“To info
rm.” To the silence in the room, he said, “I’ve got a guy on the New Horizon who’s working on gathering some … refugees. They’re people who can’t make a life on the New Horizon anymore.”
“But Anne Mather’s dead,” Arthur protested.
“The people who really run the show? They’re alive and well.”
“The doctor,” Kieran said.
Chris’s eyes darted over to Kieran, and he nodded. “For some of my friends, this ship is their only chance.”
“You don’t really want us to blow those people out the air lock…,” Arthur began, watching Sarek’s vid screen, which still showed the frightened, trapped people.
“Hell, no. Like I said, it’s a bluff. Those are just the people on my crew who I know won’t cooperate with us. Once we get our people over here, we’ll let them go.”
“We need more than just hostages if we’re going to scare the New Horizon into giving us our parents,” Sarek said, his steady black eyes fixed on the man.
“You’ve got an idea?” Chris said.
Sarek grinned.
THE BRINK
Waverly stood by Seth’s bed, her hands gripping the safety railing. His vitals had stabilized, and he looked more restful now. She touched his brow and, even though the com screen over his bed reported that he was still running a fever, she thought she felt a difference. She held her lips to his forehead and kissed, kissed, kissed him.
Suddenly a rude alarm shattered the air. She looked up to see the doctor running toward a ringing telephone.
Seth was so deeply asleep, he didn’t even twitch.
“All hands to their quarters,” came a hysterical woman’s voice over the intercom. “The church elders are needed in Central Command immediately.”
The medical staff froze in stunned confusion, then Seth’s doctor raised her arm over her head. “Huddle, everyone!” The nurses and other staff rushed to the woman’s side and conferred in whispers, then most of them ran out the door to the stairway. Waverly watched as adults rushed down the corridor to the elevators, shouting in panic. When she looked at her hands, she found she was wringing a handful of Seth’s sheets.
Flame: A Sky Chasers Novel Page 26