Law's End

by Glenn Douglass

  A horrified "What?" blurted out of Greene's mouth.

  In exaggerated innocence Kassad said, "I can't believe Cameron would fail to mention that defining moment of our professional relationship."

  "No he didn't." Greene stated sternly before asking the obvious, "Why would you ever consent to work for him again?"

  Shrugging nonchalantly Kassad explained, "The pay's too good, I never let a Lawship bother me unduly, and the last time I did a job for Professor Fitzgerald he kept me out of that penal colony."

  If Greene's facial expression could be trusted the revelation had open up a world of unpleasant possibilities to be considered. "So what do you suspect is going on?"

  In half honesty Kassad answered, "I've no idea whatsoever, and you?"

  Shaking her head worriedly Greene said, "I never even met Fitzgerald before Law's End shifted. I just want my husband back."

  Kassad tried to reassure his passenger, "I'll do my best…" he was cut off as the color drained out of the world and went grayscale. Blinking at the familiar surroundings of the Sabha's cockpit rendered in black and white Kassad concluded, "It looks like we're here."

  "It's just a shift in the way our brains are processing visual data. Other senses are also affected." Greene explained so as to feel more in control of the situation. "It will get worse the longer we're here. Complete blindness shouldn't occur for at least two months so long as we don't linger in space; there's something about the presence of a significant gravity field mitigates the process. Our olfactory sense will go first in a few days, and then taste will go in a week or two. Touch and hearing should hold out for a year."

  "Seems an odd progression." Kassad noted while continuing to blink in a vain effort to return his vision to normal.

  Greene was quiet as she tried to summarize the complex data analysis she'd been involved in and eventually explained, "There's nothing in Lawless space that prevents our minds from working completely, but some of the chemical reactions related to neural activity are hampered. Hopefully there won't be any permanent damage."

  Setting aside his unease at the new look of the world Kassad summarized for her, "So it's what we already knew. We need to do this fast."

  "Fast would be good." Greene agreed.

  Turning his mind towards the practical concerns of the immediate future Kassad inquired, "How bad off can we expect any survivors to be?"

  "I can't say. We didn't have enough data to reach that many conclusions about complex systems in prolonged exposure." And it deeply worried Greene that they might find the survivors completely vegetative or worse.

  Checking the rather antiquated gauges monitoring the engines Kassad announced, "It looks like our thrust to fuel consumption ratios hasn't been affected, so we should hit atmosphere on schedule. Of course that's presuming they left the research platform."

  It wasn't until that moment that Greene truly accepted that there might not be any survivors and her voice became withdrawn saying, "They should have… unless something went horribly wrong."

  Sudden concern gripped Kassad. "I should check to make sure Canis is alright." A robust barking answered and both turned to see the completely unaffected dog bound into the cockpit.

  Kassad slipped out of his flight chair to check the dog for any signs of discomfort. Worryingly Kassad checked the eyes, ears, and reflexes of the animal. He reminded himself that in emergencies the auto-medical pods could put the animal into stasis until they returned to normal space. As if sensing his person's discomfort Canis leaned forward and gave Kassad a reassuring lick across the face.

  Withdrawing from his inspection with a grimace while wiping his face with the back of his hand Kassad announced, "I suppose I was right about him handling this better than us."

  Taking it as a small consolation that if the animal could adapt than certainly her husband could Greene said, "I hope so, we may need his help."

  Sensing Greene's discomfort Kassad finally and fully relented that she was exactly as she presented herself. If there was a secret or conspiracy then she was not knowingly a party to it. That didn't mean his passenger didn't know more than she was saying, then again most people did.

  To reassure his passenger Kassad stated confidently "Don't worry if they're alive we'll find them and bring them back in time."

  With her mind fully focused on that goal Greene asked, "Should we start looking for the distress beacon?"

  "Yes, good idea. We're a bit far out but it can't hurt to start." Kassad leaned across his flight chair to manipulate the controls above his head from where he stood on the opposite bulkhead.

  As expected the signal, if it was there at all, was lost in the ordinary background noise of space. Radio signals spread like an expanding balloon with the signal getting thinner and more tenuous the further it went. Meanwhile the much more powerful signals generated either directly by stars, or indirectly by the worlds that orbited them, tended to drown out everything.

  Studying the sensor display Kassad concluded, "That's odd."

  "What is it? Did you find the beacon?" Greene asked hopefully.

  "No, but I found the research platform, or at least what's left of it." Kassad began working the controls to bring up a more detailed wire frame model built by the sensor information.

  Where the research platform should have been was a debris field. A few large chunks of the platform remained keeping station in the region where the platform was listed to have been. Smaller components had already spread out beyond the immediate area in a pattern that would likely take days to analyze.

  As far as Greene was concerned the status of the abandoned platform was of little importance. "After they abandoned the station to reach the relative safety of the world's gravity well something must have gone wrong, a critical reactor failure, something."

  Pointing significantly to a fragment that looked like little more than a wireframe model of an egg carton Kassad said, "No, the reactor section is more or less intact. From what's left it looks like the explosion was in one of the habitat sections." Realizing what this sounded like he quickly added, "Could have been one of the labs. No reason to think they didn't get out. So far the total mass doesn't add up anywhere near to the whole platform with escape pods. There's a good chance they all got out."

  A bit too insistently Greene said, "So we should focus on One-Nine-Four-Beta instead."

  Extending his fingers palm out Kassad rejected the idea. "We've got two hundred hours to reach the world, and we're going to use all of that time to learn what we can." With a few console taps Kassad swept through the various spectrum bands Sabha's sensors used to perceive the cosmos around them. "I may be going into this blind, but there's no way I'm coming out of this that way."

  Losing patience with Kassad's paranoia Greene complained more petulantly than she'd intended to sound, "I don't care what's really going on here. I don't care if there's a conspiracy or a crime. I just want my husband back."

  Frowning at the short sightedness Kassad explained, "And if that warship has orders that no one is to make it back alive it would be better that we know that now rather than wait until a hole gets burned through the hull killing us all."

  Rolling her eyes Greene responded, "You can't be serious. That's a Lawship. They wouldn't do anything like that."

  "Really? Ever? What if there was some horrible Law's End plague that would wipe out the hundred thousand galaxies if we were allowed to bring it back? Do you think they would hesitate to take a shot at us then?" Kassad waited only a second for an answer before concluding, "No, we have to know why this is all happening if we're going to save ourselves let alone anyone else."

  With deliberate insistence Greene said, "The science team will have all the answers we need."

  "Maybe." Kassad responded skeptically then he changed his verdict after a little more thought, "Probably, however even if they do there's no assurance that anyone we come across here is going to be any more forthcoming than anyone we've run across so far."

  Rea
lizing that she wasn't getting anywhere against Kassad's paranoia Greene concluded, "You don't trust me either, do you?"

  Conceding the fact with a nod Kassad said, "I'll grant that you probably don't know that you know you know more than what you've said, but I still believe that you do know more than you've said."

  Shaking her head in exasperation Greene said, "You're just paranoid. Too many years spent as a ne're-do-well."

  "I'm just being practical." Kassad insisted dismissively. "We'll divert slightly to get a better look at the platform."

  "We shouldn't divert at all."

  "And what if someone is still alive on that thing?" Kassad asked, stopping Greene in mid protest. "The reactor is intact so it could still have some life support. Anyway, it's not far off from the course to One-Nine-Four. It'll only add three hours to the flight time."

  "Fine." Greene said standing to leave. "I'm going to lie down. Either Lawless space or your paranoia is giving me a headache."

  Greene departed leaving Kassad to worry over the sensor returns. A few hours later Greene returned to find Kassad unmoved. This defined the pattern over the next few days as they closed with the increasingly confusing scene.

  "Are you ever going to leave that chair?" Greene finally asked. "You still need to eat and sleep you know."

  Distracted by the flow of raw information from the sensors Kassad answered, "I eat and sleep here when you're sleeping below."

  Greene smirked. "You just don't want to leave me alone at the controls do you?"

  Waving away the accusation Kassad replied bluntly, "No, you don't know-how to work them anyway. But if you're truly interested what has me concerned is here." He pointed to the wireframe display.

  Whatever had happened to the survey platform had roughly clustered debris into two groups held together by momentum and microscopic gravitational force the debris exerted on itself. One group was a large and still expanding ball with the remains of the reactor near its heart. The other group was a long debris trail with the bulk of its mass heading towards the system's primary, into the system's star.

  It meant nothing to Greene and she wasn't afraid to say so. "You find something meaningful in that? You really need to leave the cockpit. Get some real sleep and something to eat."

  Even the thought of food and eating made Kassad grimace as he explained, "I'm forcing myself to eat, but nothing has any flavor. I'm sleeping fine, and I don't need the constant change of scenery you well-dwellers do."

  Kassad used the popular spacer slang for those who resided inside gravity wells instead of living their lives out among the stars. It was only a mild pejorative. It had numerous and much more vitriolic counterpart terms used by those living on worlds to describe those who lived among the stars.

  Kassad also understood the typical well-dweller attitudes towards those who 'didn't get out enough' as they applied to spacers. It was true enough that those who chose a spacer career had to endure prolonged isolation and solitude. Those who couldn't either gave the life up or cracked up. Kassad had long since adapted to spacer life, however the adaptation had taken long enough that he could still feel sympathy for those who hadn't.

  Greene wondered if Kassad, still gazing distractedly at the wireframe display of debris, was purposefully trying to annoy her. "Gee thanks."

  "These look like D class cargo containers." Kassad said, pointing at blocky masses behind the long trail of debris.

  "Not very surprising since you see those everywhere." Greene said, noting that the big rectangular blocks were so ubiquitous as to be invisible in any given situation.

  Kassad leaned closer to Greene and said, "Ah, but look where they are in the debris field. They're at the back, and they're caved in like they absorbed the brunt of the explosion."

  "So?"

  Rather condescendingly Kassad explained as if it were something every child should know, "So, no one stores these delta class cargo containers anywhere but near the exterior of a vessel. It's just too much trouble to move the things around. Here it's like they were placed to push the debris in a specific direction."

  "And what does any of this have to do with why we're here?" Greene tried to follow his logic but found nothing. "I suppose now you want to run down these cargo containers after we search the power plant?"

  "No, they're too far out and moving too fast to go after without expending more fuel than we can afford, but this does tell us something. The position and velocity of the debris tells us the explosion happened a month ago, and if I'm right the crew abandoned the platform long before the explosion. This gives us a more complete timeline than the supply ship report." Kassad sighed in frustration at the mystery. "You are right about one thing. There's nothing more we can learn up here. Any answers to be had are on the surface of that world."

  That conclusion was one Greene was eager to endorse but the questions Kassad raised made her curious. "Not that I'm displeased that we're finally getting to this, but are you trying to say they deliberately set the place to blow after they left. Why?"

  Shrugging Kassad speculated, "Destroying evidence perhaps?"

  Her irritation rising again Greene insisted, "It was an innocent research project."

  Inputting an adjustment to Sabha's course Kassad wondered aloud, "Maybe they were concerned the Lawless wouldn't see it that way? Or maybe they're concerned about something else?"

  Trying to turn the conversation to the more relevant rescue issues Greene asked, "And you still haven't detected a beacon from the team?"

  To Kassad's mind that was a lesser mystery. "No, the world's geothermal activity is putting out a lot of noise across the normal frequencies. Still, I've got a pretty good idea where they are. The sensors picked up some metal reflections on the surface."

  Not wanting to appear irrationally optimistic Greene said, "That could just be debris from the platform."

  If Kassad noticed Greene's efforts to appear reasonable he didn't comment on them. "Possibly, but I don't think so. Not unless the fragments fell in a way that just so happens to be arranged to catch light and reflect it out into space. It couldn't be more designed to catch attention if it were a big disco ball a kilometer across."

  "A what?"

  "Oh, never mind." Kassad said, quickly abandoning any attempt at an explanation. "Big reflective surfaces like this are part of most escape pod survival kits." Collapsing down to the size of an ebook they could be unfolded to cover a large area at angles to the gravitational source thus distinguishing it from pools of reflective water. "Even if it's not, right now we have somewhere to start looking, and we'll know more when we get closer."

  Chapter 7: "Alone"

  "Nature abhors a vacuum and so the great void calls to us. We are called to reach out and fill it in with understanding."

  - attributed to Herself

  Greene woke from a dead sleep full of wrong dreams to find a world that was just slightly off. It had no color or sent and somehow managed to smell wrong even though it had no odor. Strangest of all these incidental sensations she was aware that she couldn't taste the inside of her mouth.

  From a small speaker mounted near the door a voice came, "This is Kassad. We'll hit the atmosphere of Alone in one hour. Try not to have anything loose or rolling about my ship in an unsecured fashion."

  They'd been decelerating almost the entire way to the lone habitable world in the system since completing their inspection of the debris field. This meant they'd turned the engines towards their destination so they could no longer perform sensor sweeps of it. Kassad had assured Greene that they'd be able to see everything they needed to once they got into orbit.

  Taking advantage of the remaining time Greene took advantage of the stateroom's sanitation facilities. Somehow she'd grown accustomed to their inelegant efficiency. It didn't make the experience any more pleasant, but it was more efficient.

  On the bridge Greene found Kassad in his consistent position in the pilot's seat. Canis lay belly up in his acceleration bed. In the wireframe dis
play their destination loomed tantalizingly close.

  Taking her own place in the co-pilot's chair Greene asked, "Why did you decide to name it Alone?"

  Smiling at his nickname for the work Kassad explained, "Anomaly, Lawless, One, Nine, and I've chosen to ignore the B. That works as an acronym to spell Alone. More or less. At any rate it is certainly better than calling it Alpha Lima One Nine Four Beta."

  Out of a desire to be contrary more than to voice any real concern or interest Greene asked, "Why?"

  "Brevity is the soul of wit?" Kassad suggested.

  "What?"

  Only a little deflated at the quote not being appreciated Kassad dismissed the subject, "Never mind."

  More than willing to let the topic go Greene asked, "So did you verify that the reflections were from where they landed?"

  "I think this is pretty good proof." Kassad said, bringing up a magnified wireframe display.

  At first the display just looked like a jumble of disassociated lines. Gradually Greene's mind found the patterns of familiarity in the low resolution display. Forms that had to be people and the cube shapes of spent escape pods dragged into a rough circle from where they had landed.