“Okay.” After a short pause Misti continued, “There, it’s on your cloud storage. It’s called ‘The Amazing, Mystical Human Being’.”
“Cool! I’ll take a look.”
They were quiet for a while as John rubbed at his still unshaven stubble. After some bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror, he continued, thinking aloud: “You know, the only reason we can’t dewarp in a precise spot is that the body we’re reappearing by dominates the gravity field. So, we can gauge it pretty precisely in a radial direction because the gravitational gradient goes in that direction, but not so much in a tangential one because there’s nothing relative to measure against.”
“That is the current state of the science, yes.”
“But if we were coming out surrounded by mass, we could be much more exact about it, since the gradient would radiate in every direction from center. As long as the surrounding mass wasn’t hugely one-sided, anyway. We couldn’t dewarp in a chamber within Earth, because the planet’s mass would dominate the measurements in one direction, making accurate position estimation impossible. But, if the chamber were in the center of a much lighter body…” Goose bumps broke out across John’s body as the possibility dawned on him. “Misti, we could dewarp inside Diomede. I’d have to write some code, but we could do it!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“It’s impossible,” Michael said. “To even try it would gravely endanger both this ship and whoever might be inside Diomede.”
“But the mass equations work,” John protested, “even allowing for fifty percent greater mass on any one side.” He sputtered, sparring with a man of greater expertise, who also happened to be his superior.
“That still leaves two other problems. One, you don’t know what the ship’s orientation would be when she comes out of warp. She could exit exactly on the center of mass, but the ends could still be very close to the ends of the cylinder. And the other thing is, what happens when a ship exits warp in anything other than a vacuum? It’s probably a pressurized atmosphere in there.”
“My guess on that front is that there’d be a bit of a bang, but nothing too destructive, since it’s a gas,” Daniel said. “The displacement would create a pressure wave, but it wouldn’t be catastrophic.”
“Even in that confined environment?” Michael snapped.
“Probably. Although we’d need to run simulations to be sure.”
“Then I’m assigning you that job,” Captain Weber said. The atmosphere among Atlas’ tired crew, having been awoken at 3am to discuss the possible way to rescue their stricken compatriots, was both excited and tense. Oliver headed off to his cabin to begin work on coding the model.
“We can control our post-warp orientation by applying Maxwell’s Theorem, and by the very short amount of time we’ll be in warp,” John said. “But, we can’t eliminate the risk entirely. I know I can code it, though.”
“But… altering the core warp-navigation interface code in flight?” said Michael. “It’s unheard of! I won’t have it on my watch.” Captain Weber raised an eyebrow at Michael’s outburst.
“Michael, we don’t always know what’s possible until we try,” John said in a barely restrained tone. “Do you think the early explorers of Earth’s poles, or Alaska’s interior, had everything figured out in advance?”
“No, but they didn’t take stupid risks, either.”
“I’m not saying there isn’t a risk here, but what about the risk to them if we don’t try?” said John, jabbing a finger at the rocky satellite rotating eternally outside. “It’s like Nandi said. The time it takes to go back to Earth and come back with what we suppose is the right equipment could well prove fatal for them. I’ll write the code. Three thousand lines max. You can review it. We’ll unit test it. Then we’ll take it from there.”
“Not going to happen. As your direct superior, this isn’t a risk I’m prepared to take.”
“And as your direct superior, I’m overriding you,” Weber said.
Michael’s eyes shot daggers at the Captain. Weber met his gaze, unflinching. “John will prepare the solution. Then I will meet with you, him, Oliver, Jake, and Zachary, and we’ll review everything and come to a decision. Is that going to be a problem for you, Van Buren?”
“No, Sir.”
“Good. How long do you think it’ll take, John?”
“Twelve to eighteen hours.”
“Then you’d best get started. We’ll delay departure until after we’ve met. The outcome of which will determine if we take a 500-meter hop or a twenty-two light year voyage.”
* * * *
Tiredness was no longer a concept to John. Nor were food, water, or his bodily functions. His mind swirled with creative ideas. He felt equations, charts, and the blurred boundaries at the edge of space and time take up residence in his body. They channeled themselves up into his head where they coalesced into a universe of their own, the neurons in John’s brain as numerous as the stars of a galaxy. Each added its own input to the discussion and he marshaled them effortlessly as they fit into place like the pieces of some impossibly large jigsaw puzzle. Finally, he squirted them out onto the wall-screen in his cabin, using his neural implants, as code, black text on a white background. Typing by hand would have been wholly inadequate for this task. He was literally on a different plane of existence, floating in the flow in which all creativity happens. The greatest artists, programmers, and other creators could control the flow state at will. Time stopped for him as line after line appeared in front of him, his mind resonating with the vibrations of the very universe itself. Little by little, the flood of ideas within him began to subside as they took on an external digital form. The hour hand of the vintage wristwatch he had brought along for the ride swept around and around, as meaninglessly as if there were no radium-laced glowing figures painted on the dial. Early morning on board Atlas turned into noon, seemingly in a blink of an eye, and then early evening. Then, as thenevening passed and night approached, the hour hand began to slow down. John’s neurons were now rapidly approaching empty, having given up their billions of pieces of information. The mechanism by which he translated those into a computer program slowed down, and the creative stream flowed to a trickle. Now, the hour hand resumed its proper pace, but the minute hand was still going around quickly. As 11pm approached, the last pieces of the almighty jigsaw puzzle fell into place. The giant wells of creativity had run dry, and the translation mechanism welcomed the rest this provided as it no longer had to run like a furious engine whose needle never left the red zone. The second hand now swept around at precisely one full circuit every sixty seconds.
John’s eyes were partially glazed over, his work finished, as he gazed at the masterpiece before him: a directory with dozens of new code files in it. This is why God rested on the seventh day, he thought. Creation was hard work. He fumbled, dazed, for the door handle as his stomach grumbled. He used the handrail on the passageway ceiling to pull himself towards the upper galley.
“Ah, there he is,” Daniel said brightly, as he browsed the menu for an evening snack, looking up in surprise as the hermit emerged. “You look beat.”
“I am.” John ordered up a hot burrito with his implant and the food was delivered fifteen seconds later from a little door. John donned an eating glove, which insulated his hand, blowing on the food to cool it down.
“How did it go?”
“It’s done.”
“Nice. Does Michael know?”
“Not yet.”
“Planning on telling him now?”
“No, I’ll do it in the morning, with you guys present, to at least minimize the risk that he’ll invent problems with the code when he reviews it.”
Daniel frowned. “What is it between you and him?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know. I really don’t. He tried to pin the navigation problem on me, too.”
“Dang. Between you and me that man’s got issues.”
“He sure does.”
“He is yo
ur boss, though, so you’re still under his authority, and he’s responsible for all the systems. But, Weber, Oliver, and I will keep an eye on things to keep him in check. I’m confident in you.”
“Thanks, man. That means a lot.”
CHAPTER FORTY
“D’you suppose this is what the garden of Eden was like? Perfect, and yet dull?” Morgan asked. She sat on a low shelf of rock, with her light beige capris rolled up past her knees, her feet dangling in the clear, bubbling stream.
Sally looked up from her book. “I don’t know. I do know the plants in Eden weren’t all plastic, though.” A couple of the others whizzed by on a bike trail crossing the stream, which had appeared overnight nearly a week ago.
“It’s getting boring walking the same routes every day.” She swished her feet back and forth. “Like we’re in the universe’s most luxurious jail cell.”
“Yeah.”
“What’re you reading?”
“An alien romance, believe it or not,” Sally said, without looking up. “It’s actually pretty good.”
“I didn’t know that was even a thing.”
“Me neither.”
“Is there… sex in it?”
“God, I hope not!” Sally chuckled.
Morgan sighed. “I miss Mum like crazy. I’d give anything to hear her voice. And to know she’s okay.”
“Good morning, ladies!” Chris said loudly from behind them as he walked over across a patch of treeless scrub.
“Hey,” Morgan said, morose, leaning back on her hands.
“You know what would be cool? Building something hundreds of meters tall and jumping off.”
“What?”
“No, not like that,” Chris said, rushing to correct her misconception. “We’d be in the center of the wheel that way, and hence in zero G. You could fly with no effort!”
“Yeah, until you float down to the ground, and something hits you going seventy meters a second.”
“Then you’d just have a long tether to pull yourself back with before you got that low. It’d be awesome!”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“How much longer?”
“Martelle says I-Naan-I’s still dodging the question,” he said, referring to the one alien who talked to them—in plain English. “They also aren’t giving us a reason for holding us. It seems they’ve been expecting us for a while, though.”
“That’s nice.”
“But… they’re such nice jailers!” Chris said sarcastically.
“They can go and shaft themselves with a long iron pole, which I’ll gladly provide them.”
Chris looked up at some of the others playing Frisbee in a meadow a few hundred meters away, and pausing contemplatively. “People were born to work, to create, to push forward and overcome obstacles. An endless vacation in a resort in a sky does get pretty old.”
“Reeled in like fish, we were. And just like a fisherman isn’t afraid to damage his catch in the process, neither were they.”
“He says they didn’t know about the implants.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Who’s the worst off?” Morgan asked.
“Faith.”
“Tsk.”
“She won’t even get out of bed. She has a major case of depression.”
Morgan’s face brightened. “Is she taking visitors? I’ll go and see her if she is. Might give me a little bit of purpose.”
“You can try.”
“Right.” Morgan pulled herself back and stood up. A thunderous boom and a massive shockwave knocked her into the water. Chris was knocked from his feet as the concussive wave ripped leaves and branches from trees. Sally, lying on her stomach, was half over the rock ledge, her head under water. Further down, the stream rose up into a tidal wave that ripped toward them to inundate the shore.
The cyclists, now crossing the meadow, were thrown from their machines.
The windows of the accommodation building blew inwards like a nuclear blast had gone off. Some of the bedroom doors spun into the large dining area, scattering chairs, as the building heaved and groaned. Small chunks of concrete fell to the ground, some onto the screaming, prone occupants. The upper floors of tall buildings in the cities began to crack as all the windows shattered. In terrible slow motion, one structure shed a fragment as large as three houses. The brick section toppled, as those nearby watched in disbelief, and then began to spin, shedding masonry as it descended.
Lightning shot across Morgan’s vision as her head hit the pebbly bottom of the stream. Churning water filled her lungs as she lost all sense of direction. She choked, inhaling water as she tried to fill her lungs. It was lighter in one direction—that had to be up. She pushed towards it with everything she had. Her head broke the surface and Morgan gasped for air.
“Morgan! Sally! You guys okay?” Chris screamed from the bank. He saw Morgan’s head emerge from the torrent and jumped in. “Shit!” he shouted, just as he was about to grab her under the arms. A three meter-high wall of water bore down on them.
“Sally!” Morgan spluttered.
Chris was rooted to the spot, mesmerized by the tidal wave as he lifted Morgan out of the water. “Hold your breath!” he commanded, as he recovered himself and dove off in the direction of Sally’s dark shape beneath the water several meters away.
Morgan was tossed by the furious, foaming water as Chris fought the surge and undertow. She fought to hold her breath, images dancing in front of her eyes. Mum—
Chris grabbed Sally’s flailing body as the wave engulfed them all. They tumbled like rag dolls in the torrent, thrown and battered until the wave passed and they lay on the stream bed. The displaced water flooded the banks and they sat in the overflow. Chris, his hair plastered to his face, looked down at Sally, still in his arms. He sat up and lifted her clear of the floodwater. She convulsed, bringing up water from deep in her lungs.
Morgan, looking like a drowned cat, sat up and spluttered, before looking fearfully behind her, expecting another wave to crash down. Turning back, she focused on Chris and Sally. “Is she okay?” Morgan yelled frantically.
“Help me get her onto shore.” He stood up, cradling Sally in his arms as she shook. Morgan rushed over as Chris climbed up the embankment, using a low rock ledge as steps, and placed Sally as gingerly as he could on the hard granite, and rolled her onto her side.
“Slap her back!” Morgan commanded. Each slap of Chris’ hand brought up more water. Sally waved him off and inhaled desperately, gulping down air.
“What the hell do you think that was?” Morgan said, noticing trees slanting at odd angles, branches floating on the still swamped ground nearby.
“No clue,” Chris said. “Hopefully this habitat isn’t about to blow up.”
Morgan raised her head. “Holy Christ! Look! It’s the Hercules!”
Chris looked up at the ship, looming huge above them as she tumbled about her axis in the center of the wheel. “But… how? It was destroyed!”
“Then it’s not Hercules. It’s the Atlas.”
* * * *
No sooner had Jake said “Entering warp,” than the entire ship heaved and shook around them, flinging their heads from side to side as their straps prevented them from being thrown from their seats.
“Spinning on all axes!” Jake yelled. “Arresting!” He mentally commanded the ship’s attitude control systems to cancel her chaotic tumble.
The crew’s heads turned as they tried to make sense of what was outside. Michael looked left, and then followed the curve of green and gray above them and around. “Good God! Look at this!”
“It’s all a blur at the moment,” Nandi said, trying not to throw up.
John gazed out in wonder, as everything slowly stopped spinning outside. “It’s an Earth analog,” he said in wonder. “There’s… trees, buildings, rivers, entire towns!”
“They’ve gotta be down there somewhere,” Nandi said, getting hold of her gorge and willing herself to scan the world below.
/> The scene outside eventually stabilized. “We’re awfully close to the wall,” Weber said. Atlas had come to rest pointing almost along the wheel’s axis.
“I’ll turn us ninety degrees,” Jake said. Everything slowly moved around them.
“I see people!” Oliver said, pointing at an open green area with some flea-sized creatures moving about.
“There, too!” Haruka said excitedly, indicating a strip of concrete path that crossed a river and snaked down towards a city.
The others scanned around the inside of the giant wheel. “I see some!” “Me too!”
“We did it!” the Captain said, punching the air. “Well done, crew! We’ve finally found the Hercules personnel. Now all we have to do is figure out how to rescue them.” “That’s not going to be easy,” Jake said. “There’s no way to land such a huge ship on the inside of a spinning wheel.”
Part IV: The God Chamber
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“This is absolutely incredible! They’ve created a mini Earth!” Catherine cried. Meadows, streams, forests, and buildings scrolled by quickly in front of Atlas. “The tangential velocity’s gotta be at least 380 kilometers an hour, to provide Earth-like gravity.”
“A cosmic merry go round,” John said in awe. “I have many questions…”
“We all do,” Captain Weber said, “but there isn’t time to try and get answers now. We have to get everybody out of here.” He turned to Jake. “Can you get us into a pitch-up rotation so we’re at least matching the interior’s rotation?”
“Sure thing.”
“Good. That way we can get a good look around without everything rushing past.”
Jake carefully pulled back on the stick, slowly spinning thousands of tons of ship until its surroundings no longer appeared to be moving.
“Absolutely incredible,” Haruka said, scanning her eyes up from green and brown natural areas, past a gray town, and a blue lake.
“Do you think you could land the ship?” the Captain asked.
The Lost Colony Series: Omnibus Edition: All Four Volumes in One Page 14