The Agathon: Reign of Arturo

by Colin Weldon

  Barrington scratched the side of the thick stubble that had grown on his face.

  “I want a full damage report in fifteen minutes, Doctor,” he said clicking off the comm system.

  Carrie turned her attention back to the star charts. She took a slow breath and opened up her mind to the crew. She focused on the thoughts of those around her and began filtering out the ones she did not want to hear.

  “Why would life support fail like that in one compartment?” the captain asked Chavel.

  The lieutenant shook his head.

  “It shouldn’t, sir. The failsafes against that happening make it almost impossible. I don’t understand it,” he replied.

  “Run a ship-wide diagnostic again, Lieutenant, the last thing we need is life support randomly going down,” he said.

  “Yes, sir, running it now,” Chavel replied.

  Carrie tuned the noise of the bridge crew out of her mind and continued her search. She began focusing on the medical bay.

  We must leave Carrie. Time grows short.

  Tyrell’s thoughts suddenly flooded her mind. The Black alien fluid that had commandeered his body resonated in her mind as strongly as if he were sitting next to her. She opened her eyes and looked around the bridge. She caught Young’s eyes who was looking at her curiously. He had been unusually quiet around her, since the discovery of her powers.

  “Father, with your permission I would like to go to the medical bay to check on Doctor Tyrell,” Carrie suddenly said.

  She quickly realised what an unusual request it must have sounded like.

  “If he is conscious I would like to ask his advice about some astronomical computations I am running at the moment. It would help in determining our current position,” she said, wondering if the lie sounded plausible enough.

  Her father squinted his good eye and nodded. She knew he didn’t buy a word of it, but wanted someone who was at least able to handle Tyrell’s capabilities in close proximity to him. She stood up slowly and made her way to the lift.

  “I’d like to go with you,” Jerome Young suddenly said.

  Carrie stopped at the door to the lift and looked at him.

  “Of course, Mr Young,” she said reluctantly.

  Young moved towards the lift and joined her as the doors slid open. They stepped inside and stood quietly as the doors closed. She could sense what he was about to do, but thought it best if she just let it happen.

  “Halt lift,” he said out loud.

  The lift came to a sudden stop, making the two passengers shake for a moment. Young turned to Carrie and looked at her. She knew he meant her no harm, but she still felt intimidated by the former CEO of Jycorp. The man had run the planet Earth and all its inhabitants, both on the former world and the Martian colonies. He regarded her for a moment before turning away from her to face the wall.

  “Don’t be afraid, Carrie, I just want to have a quick talk with you. We really haven’t had the chance to get to know one another since we came aboard, have we?” he said still looking away from her.

  “No, Mr Young, we have not. What is it you want to know?” she said cutting to the chase.

  “I have spent my whole life, or the vast majority of it, looking for answers to the reason behind the signal. It is the reason I appointed the position of an Earth Chancellor in the first place. So that I could continue my research and be as close to the Monolith on Phobos as I possibly could,” he said.

  Carrie looked at the man curiously. He was handsome for his age, had thick dark hair and piercing eyes. He didn’t look or act like she had expected at all.

  “You know this ship was my idea?” he said, “Well, actually it was Tosh’s idea, but its execution and design was originally mine. I drew a picture of it once on a napkin and showed it to Tosh in a cafe in New York on Earth nearly ten years ago.”

  “I did not know that,” Carrie said.

  “Yep, your father has done an incredible thing here, completing it in time for us to escape. He really is an amazing man, you should be very proud,” he said, “I know that your mother would have been equally as proud. I was fortunate enough to meet her once on a visit to the Aquaria base. You were only a baby at that stage,” he said pausing, “You look like her.”

  Carrie looked at him curiously wondering where all this was going.

  “So I’ve been told,” she said beginning to feel a little uncomfortable.

  “Carrie, as head of Jycorp I was privy to things in this world that neither you nor your father were aware of. It seems silly now to have those secrets, as we are probably the only humans left alive in the universe,” he said turning to face her.

  Carrie waited for him to continue.

  “There was a file that I was made aware of by a section of Jycorp, when my father died and I took over the family business as it were,” he said, “The file contained a list of individuals from around the world that had certain …” he paused again “… abilities,” he said.

  There was a deathly silence in the lift. The air seemed to be getting thicker.

  “These individuals exhibited signs of telepathic and kinetic traits not unlike what you have shown. Though none of them were anywhere near your capabilities,” he said.

  “What?” she said flabbergasted, “There are more like me?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Young answered, “While the initial tests of these others showed a mild ability to sense emotional states, none of them had any external projections like your electrical discharges. It was postulated by our scientists that it was a next stage in human evolution. The accelerated progression of what you can do could be a mutation of those abilities, caused by some sort of radiation on the Martian surface. You were, after all, the first human child to be born on that planet,” he said.

  “My God,” Carrie said staring off into the distance.

  There were others.

  Her sense of isolation suddenly began to fade.

  “And now they’re dead,” she said.

  Young raised his eyebrows and nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell my father?” she asked.

  “The truth is I was going to, but we really haven’t had the time. There are more pressing things at hand at the moment and I wanted you to know first,” he said, “I know what it feels like to be an outsider, Carrie. I know that you are probably feeling alone and isolated from the rest of the crew on this ship and I wanted you to know that you are not alone,” he said placing a hand on her shoulder.

  He was not what she was expecting at all. There were deep secrets in his mind, but there was also a sincerity to the man that she had only known from a few.

  “If we are to meet the Signal Makers, I believe that you are the most important person on this ship to help us do that,” he paused for a moment “Lift resume,” he said out loud turning to face the door.

  “Doctor Tyrell is not human,” she said without thinking, “The Black entered his body when we crashed on the mechanical planet and it is now in complete control of his body,” she said.

  “Lift halt,” Young said again.

  The lift once again ground to a stop.

  “I’m sorry, what?” he said genuinely shocked.

  She didn’t know why she said it, but there it was.

  “He does not mean to harm the crew in any way, Mr Young. If anything, he has knowledge about the Signal Makers. It is a sentient life form. From an ancient race of beings that habituated the Martian surface for millennia. I do not know why it was left behind, but it saved my life and that of my father on the planet surface,” she said.

  Young looked truly amazed.

  “I thought it liquefied organic material on contact?” Young said.

  “As it turns out, it was trying to bond with members of our colony, my mother included. For some reason it found a compatibility with Tyrell’s body and was able to integrate itself inside him,” she said laying out the facts.

  Young seemed to be taking it quite well. As if he had suspected it.

>   “Is Doctor Tyrell dead?” he asked.

  “Apparently not, but his subconscious has been suppressed. I would say it is akin to being in a coma. I doubt very much that he is aware of anything or in any pain,” she said.

  “Who else knows about this?” Young asked.

  “My father and that’s about it currently. The crew is under enough pressure without having what has been proven to be a lethal alien species running around the ship. There was a genuine fear of reprisals for the deaths on Mars should it be made public knowledge,” she said.

  Carrie suddenly felt her mind being probed by Tyrell’s, by The Black’s mind. It was reaching out for her. Trying to find out where she was. Young was silent for a moment before turning to the door and facing away from her once again.

  “Lift resume,” he said quietly, “Well, this should be interesting.”

  Carrie let her information sink in before something suddenly struck her.

  “Mr Young. Are you absolutely sure that there are no others like myself on board this ship, or left on the space stations, should they have survived all this time?” she said.

  Young didn’t answer straight away. He turned his head and met her eyes softly.

  “I honestly don’t know, Carrie,” he said.

  The doors to the lift sprung open. She waited for a moment trying to sense if he was lying or not. As far as she could tell, he was not.

  8

  The Agathon

  Medical Bay

  Carrie stepped through the doors of the medical and waited with Young by the large tissue regenerator. The frosted glass of the domed chamber made it difficult to see through, but it looked empty. The room was relatively quiet with just the sounds of the bleeping bio beds echoing around the walls. Doctor Brubaker saw her come in. She smiled at her and nodded, walking over to the pair. Her hair was tangled up into a knot tied at the back and she looked tired. Then again, they all looked tired. Tyrell was lying unconscious in a corner bed with his arms folded neatly on either side of him.

  “Hello Carrie,” she paused and looked at Young, “Mr Young,” she said nodding politely at the pair, “What brings you down here?” she said.

  Carrie smiled at her and still couldn’t figure out why her father had rebuffed the doctor’s advances. They would have made a great pair and at least he would have been happy.

  “I wanted to check in on Tyrone, Michelle, we could use his help when he wakes up. How is he?” she asked.

  Brubaker turned to look at Tyrell.

  “Can’t find a damn thing wrong with him to be honest,” she said, “Other than oxygen deprivation, he should wake up any time. I was going to let him rest rather than give him a stimulant to give his body time to recover naturally.”

  Brubaker looked at Young.

  “I just needed to get away from the bridge for a while, stretch the legs,” he said.

  Brubaker nodded at him and smiled.

  “May we?” Carrie said motioning towards Tyrell.

  “Please,” Brubaker responded, “I would like to talk to you when you’re done, Carrie, about the test we performed yesterday,” trying to maintain a level of privacy between the two.

  “Of course,” Carrie replied moving past her towards Tyrell’s bio bed.

  They stood for a moment beside the sleeping doctor. Young pulled up two small stools on wheels and they took a seat.

  “He looks totally normal,” Young said quietly to Carrie.

  Carrie suspected he was waiting for black goo to start pouring out from every orifice of Tyrell’s body.

  “Yes, he does,” she replied looking up at the biometric readings from above the bed.

  “Blood pressure normal, vital signs normal,” Young continued, “Surely Brubaker would have detected the presence of The Black inside him when she did a bio scan?” he asked.

  “Apparently not,” Carrie responded equally perplexed as to why the black liquid was not detected by the doctor.

  She suddenly felt a hand on hers, causing her to jump. She looked down and saw Tyrell’s eyes looking straight at her. Fully awake. The irises and surrounding tissue of his eyes had turned completely black. His grip on her hand tightened as the world around her started to fade away into nothingness.

  A bright light dazzled Carrie. It was so bright that her eyes started to burn. She shut them to block it out and raised her hands to cover her face. The light began to dissipate as she opened her fingers and peered through. She felt weightless. Her legs dangled freely in a great void of greyish light. There she floated in silence. Waiting.

  “We have to leave the ship,” came Tyrell’s voice from the void.

  “Tyrell?” she shouted out into the nothingness.

  “Carrie, we do not have much time. You must come with me,” Tyrell’s voice said.

  It sounded like it was echoing off invisible walls.

  “I am not going anywhere with you. This ship needs me. How can you ask me that?” she said raising her voice. She felt no power in this space. She could not feel any electrical energy inside her and for the first time since the discovery of her powers she felt truly vulnerable. This was clearly his realm.

  “Carrie, you MUST come with me,” Tyrell’s voice said in a booming angry tone.

  Carrie covered her ears. She let the echoes of his voice fade away into the empty space. She began to get angry.

  “Why?” she shouted, “Show yourself, Tyrell!”

  A solid strip of what looked like crystal formed in front of her. It was transparent, but definitely solid. It looked like a polished diamond with six perfectly shaped elongated sides. Light was broken up through its centre, splitting it into all the colours of the rainbow. She had to admit that it really was quite beautiful.

  “What are you?” she said to the solid floating form.

  “I am what was,” said Tyrell’s voice, “The others need you to fight,” he said.

  “What others? What are you talking about?” she said.

  The free floating crystal turned slowly.

  “Tyrell, or whatever the hell you are, this ship is lost. We have to find the Signal Makers. We have to save our people, we have nothing left,” she said.

  “Your people can be saved,” Tyrell said, “Carrie, their only hope is if you come with me,” he said sounding suddenly sincere.

  “You want to destroy us, I heard you,” she said, recalling an encounter with a vision of The Black that had come to her while on the Martian surface.

  The turning crystal remained silent.

  “If you do not come with me, I will destroy your ship,” Tyrell said flatly.

  Carrie was not expecting that and while she had put up a fight against The Black in Tyrell’s lab, she did not really know how powerful the entity was. Was it just keeping her alive?

  “You can try,” she said defiantly.

  “There are far greater things at stake here, Carrie. The Targlagdu will follow. It will not come alone. You must come with us. You can save us all,” he said.

  Carrie thought about leaving her father. She thought about Chavel and the others. The lost ship and the broken Earth. The Agathon would never survive another encounter with the alien mechanical planet. If the Faster than Light engine failed for any reason they were all dead. She also knew that there was something happening to her. Could he be right? If a being was this powerful and helped, could it really save the rest of them?

  “If I go with you, will you promise to return me to my people?” she said.

  The crystal floated freely scattering broken colours across her face.

  “If we are successful, you will be returned,” Tyrell’s voice said through the light.

  Carrie was suddenly struck with a deep sadness that she would never see her father again. She could not allow him nor the others to die, but above all that, she suddenly felt like she had no choice.

  “Okay, Tyrell,” she said bowing her head, “Let’s go.”

  There was another flash of white light as she awoke suddenly in th
e medical bay. Tyrell’s hand was still firmly gripped onto her arm. His eyes still black. She looked around to find Young on the floor unconscious. Doctor Brubaker was collapsed on the floor behind him. The sounds of the bio beds and computer consoles filled an eerie silence.

  “Let go of me,” Carrie said looking furiously at Tyrell.

  He complied, releasing his grip on her and sitting up slowly from the bio bed.

  “What did you do to them,” she asked looking around at the crumpled people around her.

  “They will be fine, Carrie, we do not have much time,” Tyrell said standing up.

  “Wait, I have to tell my father,” she said.

  Tyrell checked his lab coat for the container he had taken from the engine room.

  “You may contact him en route,” he said.

  They stood from the bio bed and made their way to the exit. Carrie desperately wanted to see her father one last time, but Tyrell was moving quickly now. She thought about running, then she thought about unleashing a fury of electrical energy in his direction. She thought of the ship and whether it would survive a battle between the two. She came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t.

  “Where are we going?” she asked as they stepped into the hallway.

  “The shuttle bay,” Tyrell said scouting out the corridors.

  The Kandinsky

  “Apparently it only lasted for several seconds, Chancellor,” Hector Stanley’s distorted image said.

  Arturo stared at his security chief and leaned back in his hard backed chair. He nodded slowly.

  “Are you sure there was no other transmission?” he asked.

  “No, sir, just static, the relay is not powerful enough at this distance to transmit it would seem. What action would you like me to take?” he said.

  Arturo thought about it for a moment. He could just order Elstone dead and be done with it at this stage, but seeing as it was going to happen anyway he might as well wait.

  “None,” Arturo replied, “Contact me again in twenty-four hours, Verge out,” he said closing the screen into its holder on the surface of the desk.

  He closed his eyes and placed his hands together touching his index fingers together and resting them against his head. He began to breathe deeply, quieting his mind. The door to his chambers bleeped. He ignored it and continued to relax his thoughts. He could feel the other one just below the surface of his mind. He was waiting, watching. The door bleeped again. He opened his eyes and sighed.