by Yunker, Todd
Electra walked to the rock face and examined it closely for any signs of an entrance. She made her way along the wall 10 meters and checked for an entrance or a trigger for one. Electra’s efforts were for naught. If there was an entrance, it was very well hidden. She then went to a secondary check on her mental list. The builders of the gardens used natural lighting when they could to reduce the need for maintenance. A window was preferable to a lighting fixture that would wear out eventually. The builders would camouflage them normally, but if they were to be placed high up and out of sight from the ground level, they would be out in the open.
Electra walked out from the wall and shaded her eyes as she tried to spot a window amongst the rock and brush. She scanned the hillside carefully. It was a quarter of an hour before she saw what would be best described as a void amid some bushes. Electra ran to the wall below, where she suspected the window to be. She hurled herself up the wall. Her prowess in free climbing was demonstrated as she hardly broke a sweat as she approached the ledge 11 meters up. Electra stopped and saw it was a void in the wall; more so, it was bigger than what she could make out from the ground below. She grabbed one of the bushes and pulled it from its attachment, dropping it to the ground. She could see the rectangular windowsill much better. The windowsill’s force field flickered as she reached out and touched it. Electra was able to grab the sill and draw herself up to a sitting position.
She looked around the room from her perch on the windowsill. The equipment was still active. Electra jumped to the floor; the thud of her landing echoed through the room and out the open doorway on the far side of the room. She walked toward the door but stopped when she noticed some skeletal remains. It was humanoid and long dead. The environment here was not suited for preserving remains, and the body’s poor condition said as much. Electra checked the wall by the window. No moisture. She touched the force field again. It was still functional and kept out excess moisture and rain.
She went back to the body. In one hand was a clear crystalline tablet the size of a clipboard — a maintenance screen.
Electra lit up with recognition. “So, you were a custodian,” she said softly.
She knelt down and looked at a maintenance screen that had slipped ever so slightly from the body’s grip. Electra had seen one during her training. They were extremely valuable, giving the user access to the garden’s maintenance systems. Only the custodians were issued one. They had never found one still functioning.
Electra said solemnly, “You were left behind, weren’t you?” She reached for the thin sheet of flexible crystal, the thickness of construction paper, and touched it. An organic light-emitting diode sheet glowed; the displayed data scrolled in real time on the left side of the screen. Graphs and what looked to be alerts blazed across the rest of the sheet. She took it from the floor, held it by the top left corner, and lightly drew a line diagonally over the graphs. They changed, as did the data below them. It was active and responsive to her access. Electra rolled up the sheet and put it safely into her pack. She returned to exploring the rest of the room, noting the equipment running quietly along the wall. It was interesting, but she had a find of real significance. A functioning maintenance screen! Her people had been looking for one of these for thousands of cycles. Electra reached the door and looked into the darkened interior. She hesitated at the door, shook her head, and went back to the window.
Electra pulled herself up to the windowsill and looked over the trees toward the devastation in the distance. She would head back and let Alec know of her discovery. Electra turned to where she knew the body to be resting. “Thank you for everything. I will return to make things right for you,” she said and turned to get a grip on the windowsill and let herself down. She made her way down the wall with the agility of a six-armed Levol. When she neared the ground, she leapt from the wall, landing without incident.
*
The Quest stood alone in the clearing. The pile of vegetation and tree trunks that had enclosed the engines were long gone. Shredded plant matter lay in large heaps around the perimeter of the ship. Alec was sprawled out under a shade tree that had managed to stay mostly upright. He had a look of total exhaustion and was covered with small nicks, scratches, patches of dirt, and smears of mud. The goggles he had over his forehead were covered with dirt and wood chips. The circular clean patches of skin on his face indicated that he had used the goggles heavily. He had pulled the heavy work gloves from his hands; they had fallen to the ground near a hot chainsaw-chipper and gone unnoticed by their owner.
Alec mused, “I really could use a beer.” It was a rhetorical statement to the universe more than a demand. “Ice cold, with a full body.” He stuck out one hand and grabbed an imaginary beer bottle; the other hand grabbed a bottle opener. He opened the bottle and took a whiff. “Not too much hops. I want my beer to complement what I eat — not overpower it.” Alec tossed back the imaginary bottle, guzzling the nonexistent suds. He gave a satisfactory sigh of contentment and leaned his head back against the tree trunk.
Dancer wielded the chainsaw-chipper; the chain cut its way through the tree trunks at high velocity. Energy fields combined with the chain’s actions and shredded the tree trunk. Dancer ground it down to a more manageable piece and tossed the last of the cut tree aside. He looked at Alec. “We don’t have any of what you call ‘good beer.’
Alec responded, “I know. It’s the hops — a good Willamette Valley variety. Could you see what we do have? I need to find another source of hops. What we have is getting a bit old.”
Dancer went inside the airlock. Electra yelled at Alec from the tree line. “Alec!”
Alec’s body ached as he turned to see Electra running toward him over a free-form obstacle course shaped by the power of the wave. Alec called out, “What did you find?”
Electra, breathless with excitement, handed him the maintenance screen. She said, “I found a building buried in a hill back there, with a maintenance worker’s skeleton. He had this in his hand,” she said as she pointed to the maintenance screen. “They are very rare, and, in the entire time we have been here, we have never found one active.”
Alec took a closer look at the paper-thin crystalline material. The characters in the material — “on” might have been a better description — seemed to come from the crystal itself. Alec held up the sheet to the light and could not see any circuitry, but it still continued to display information both graphically and in text. He rubbed the surface. The display changed, and a 3D rendering of the Endless Beach garden appeared above the device. A blue curved line flashed as it appeared to be moving toward an island chain.
Alec pointed out to Electra a section on the coast in the middle of the path of the destructive wave. “This looks like about where we came down.” Alec stood, holding the screen up as he compared the topography of the hills around them to those on the screen. “Those hills look like this area,” he said, pointing to the foothills in the distance. Alec looked at the screen and then checked each direction in turn.
Dancer came from the Quest with a bucket of bottled beer. He offered it to Alec, and he took one. Dancer put it down, picked up a bottle, and opened it. Then Dancer offered it to Electra, who watched Alec with interest as he tossed back the bottle, taking long, slow gulps from it. He finished the beer and chuckled. “A two-row malt, flaked barley, Mt. Hood hops, CaraPils malt, pure water, and ale yeast. A fine Golden Ale, Dancer.” He closed his tired eyes. “I’m glad you were able to print up some of the Kiwanda Cream labels. The best batch we’ve made, partner.”
Electra turned to Dancer.
“Alec likes things — no, obsesses over — all things earth based. No need to worry.” He looked over at his friend. “Yet,” said Dancer with a mischievous grin. “We brewed the beer based on an earth recipe.”
Alec opened his arms wide and spun slowly in place. His eyes took in the horizon. He stop abruptly, his eyes meeting Electra’s bewildered expression. “This device is telling us someone or someth
ing is interested in us. This is a warning to evacuate."
Electra picked up the maintenance screen, held it up, and compared it to the terrain around them. She stopped and sat down. Alec sat down beside her. Electra pointed to the corners of the device. “Hold them.” Alec did as he was asked. Electra held the two free corners and pulled at them. The screen grew larger with the tension being applied. The surface and terrain rendering scaled up, as did the size, to a large architectural drawing. They held it firmly and examined the map closely.
Alec bent over and looked at the surface of the screen he could still see bordering the rendering. “This material is so light.” Alec shrugged his shoulders, his eyes meeting Electra’s.
“It’s not any harder to hold than before,” Electra said with interest. “We should be able to find out what we need to do to fix everything.”
Alec looked to the sky. “Of course, with a facility as large and complicated as this sphere, you would need hundreds of millions of custodians.” He looked for icons along the edges of the screen. Alec ran his hand along the edge closest to himself and found what could be a control icon for a pinch zoom motion. The view zoomed out, and they saw the entire landmass they were on. A blue dot appeared and began to flash, indicating their location on the island at the furthest end from the oncoming wave. Again it zoomed out, until they could see all of the Beach Garden.
The blue-dot flash quickened, capturing the attention of both Alec and Electra. The display changed and zoomed back on the blue line in the ocean moving toward them. The line was over darker water, the darkness of a tall wave. It was a second wave on its way. It had washed across entire island chains and archipelagos as it came at them. The swiftly moving wave was well on its way to the landmass with the flashing blue dot.
Alec yelled to Dancer, “A second wave is on its way. We gotta go. Now! This next wave is going to be worse.”
Electra carried an armload of tools inside. Alec gathered a chair and some other small tools and headed for the airlock. Dancer came from behind the Quest.
Dancer had an oil rag in his hands. He wiped some fluids from his digits. “Sorry, Alec. Couldn’t hear you. Thought I’d do that maintenance we talked about.”
Alec skidded to a stop by the ship. Alec said incredulously, “You did what!?!”
Dancer saw Alec’s agitation and replied indignantly, “I had to pull the injectors on the FTL engines. We talked about this.”
Alec unconsciously looked in the direction of the ocean, expecting to see the wave coming even then, “Yes I did, but not now! We have another wave heading our way, and it’s a lot bigger than the first one. Can we get out of here?”
Dancer scratched the back of his head as he looked at what needed to be done. “Well, maybe.”
“Not good enough, Dancer, not remotely good enough. Let’s hit it, then,” commanded Alec.
Electra gathered the remaining equipment and stowed it aboard the ship. The maintenance screen went dark as she grabbed it. She grabbed the corners diagonally from each other and pushed them together. Electra returned it to the original size, and it displayed the garden’s systems updates and the latest news.
Alec turned to Dancer. “Double check to make sure everything is picked up. I don’t want to leave some irreplaceable pieces of equipment or tools out on the ground or leave a panel open, leaving us vulnerable.”
Dancer leapt to the top of the Quest. He rushed back and forth to check that all panels were sealed. The FTL engines were not going to take them to the next star, but they were ready for interplanetary system flight. Dancer made sure the panel seams were lined up and then headed back toward the airlock.
Alec made his way quickly around the Quest. He looked for equipment as he mentally checked off items on a takeoff list — undercarriage, landing gear, and engines. He would have Dancer get the FTL back online at the first available opportunity.
Alec completed the mental checklist finding only a wrench on the ground near the tail of the Quest. He made it back to the airlock and sealed it behind him. He dropped the wrench into an open toolbox on the way to the command deck. He spun the pilot’s chair around enough to take his seat. Alec and Dancer worked as one to run through preflight in an abbreviated time.
Electra manned the engineer’s station and turned on the outer shields. The panels registered no change. She turned them off and back on again — still nothing. “Shields are down,” she announced.
“I hope it does not become a problem,” replied Alec as he cleared some warning lights.
Electra had the maintenance screen running in front of her. The display showed the second wave smashing into the coast at great speed. The wave’s height measured at 100 meters as it washed ashore. The Quest fired her engines, but they sputtered, with bits of material still in their throats. Electra could now see the monster wave hurtling toward them out the port, its face churning with tons of water to pound the Quest’s hull until it surrendered itself and her crew to a watery end.
She was so close to getting home again that she would not give up. Electra had had some close calls in her past, but it was those whom she’d led during this mission that made it hard for her just to give up. They were colleagues — no, more than that, they were good friends — who would give their lives to further this mission to save their families, friends, and their world. Electra refused to be the one who gave up.
Alec turned to Electra. “Vent some fuel into the system for a richer mixture. I am going to try something different.”
Electra did so, as the oncoming wave was clearly coming closer. Water from the base of the wave reached the Quest.
“Not enough time to get us out of here,” stated Alec.
The pressure of the moving water had little effect at first, but, soon, the rushing liquid reached a height that lifted the ship a little.
But then came the wave.
“Now,” yelled Alec.
The white-capped wave was still nearly 100 meters tall and beginning to break the wall of water, curling as gravity pulled it over, forming a large hollow above the Quest. The ship’s long, graceful design allowed the firing of the engines to propel the ship up the deep face of the thick curl of water forming the tube. Alec kept the ship angle down and across the wall of water, like a champion surfer keeping his longboard riding the wave through the tube to safety.
Electra held her breath as Alec and Dancer managed the Quest’s course as the tube’s curl now fully enclosed them in a gas chamber. Alec fired the thrusters at full acceleration as the ship reached the collapsing end of the chamber.
The Quest burst forth from the water’s surface. A trail of froth followed them for a short distance as the Quest put some distance between it and the ocean wave sinking below. It was soon evident that the wave had finally run out of energy as it sank to ground level and returned back to the shoreline and basin.
Alec took the ship on a long, circular climb to scan their landing zone. The devastation was total after the second wave’s passage.
“Electra, I promised to get you home. It’s time,” said Alec.
“I just provided the coordinates for the nav computer,” replied Electra.
“Then make it so,” replied Alec.
The Quest rose higher in the atmosphere. The second wave scoured the land below as they cleared the garden’s force field. The ship gracefully turned in a wide arc and headed due west of their position. The engines, freed of the contaminants clogging her system, climbed even higher, allowing it to accelerate to a speed fast enough to get them to their destination in just a few hours. They could go faster, but maintaining a slower speed would mean they would not stand out against the background of the sphere too easily to the ship tracking them. The Quest sped over the islands far below. The ship was back in its element.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The G-type main-sequence star at the heart of the sphere bathed the interior with a soft light and warmed the interior surface well enough to keep water in liquid form. The mainte
nance functions that cleared the interior space of debris had stopped. A belt of material and asteroids formed between the star and sphere. Its growth was being fed by the space debris captured by gravity wells at each of the 12 pentagons.
The Skiptracer’s ship found its way to the asteroid belt in its search for the Quest. The ship dodged rock and small asteroids as it tried to avoid detection from the Quest or other life forms within the sphere that might not appreciate the uninvited visitors.
The creatures Worrell and Gino were playing leap frog, one sub-creature at a time. Gino reassembled first and kicked Worrell in the backside as it tried to complete its assembly.
Gino screamed with glee, “I first.”
Worrell’s sub-creatures picked themselves up from the floor and reassembled again. Worrell said spitefully, “You going to lose your topselves if you don’t find that ship again.”
Lights and alarms sounded at an ear-splitting volume. Gino moved quickly to the console and keyed in commands. The alarms, loud enough to wake the dead, continued unabated in their mission. Gino grabbed a wooden club from its receptacle on the front of the console. Its long shaft came down in a graceful arc as Gino aimed it at the control panel. The panel showed evidence of previous interventions. A great ringing of metal against wood filled the compartment. The alarm ended.
Gino pointed elatedly, “We have them again. Trace Unit not functioning. Discovered it, they must have. Lucky we found them before they found it. Visual tracking now available.”