Quest for the Conestoga (Colony Ship Conestoga Book 1)

by John Thornton

  “I will make the conjecture, even without your asking. The mostly likely scenario is that the vehicle has a mechanical breakdown.”

  “A fusion truck having a mechanical failure?” Jerome asked. His mind was running through all the systems and their duplicated backups. He could see the circuits, designs, and schematics in his mind’s eye. A failure in one of those over-engineered systems, with the multiple redundancies, was hard to envision. Yet the tan toxic environment was relentless and in its own impersonal way, ruthlessly unstoppable.

  The three adventurers had strapped themselves together and were now walking toward the dome. Hobart, about ten centimeters taller than the smaller of the other two, Beth, was shielding them from the wind as he leaned into it. In addition to the connecting straps, all three had cables linking them together as they pushed forward. At times the dust was still so think it was hard to see all three of them at the same moment.

  Jerome spoke in a commanding tone. “Faraday, turn on whatever exterior lighting you can and help guide them around the shortest way to the entrance. Their RAM clothing will protect them, but the less time they have to walk out there the better off they will be.”

  “The lights have been activated,” the AI Faraday replied. “It is questionable whether or not they will be able to see them.”

  Jerome watched intently. Hobart waved a bit with his arm and the other two moved to follow. He obviously had seen the lighting and was moving accordingly.

  “I stand corrected,” Faraday stated. “Your suggestion had more merit than I conjectured. At their present rate of ambulation, they will reach the entrance in approximately forty-five minutes.”

  “Make sure all this is recorded on my private data stick, but make no official recording of this. I will be there to greet them after decontamination,” Jerome said. “I can easily stay here until they enter, and then still get down there before they are thoroughly flushed, brushed, and dusted.”

  He then watched the monitors. The three adventurers continued their trek through the dust, wind, and toxic atmosphere. The cameras on the dome shifted to follow their progress. When they got right near the dome, they had less wind to confront them, but deeper drifts of dust and debris. The perspective in the monitors was also less clear.

  “Faraday, connect me to Cammarry, but do not allow her to see where I am,” Jerome ordered.

  “As your partner, she is well aware of your unapproved excursions into these areas,” Faraday answered. “However, the connection is made. I placed a blank background behind your image.”

  “Jerome! I will not ask where you are,” Cammarry said as her image replaced the three dimensional one Faraday had been projecting. “So do not tell me some tale.” Cammarry rolled her narrow brown eyes, and grinned. Her oval face, with its snub nose, twinkled with delight. Her long, straight silky dark brown hair, was parted down the middle. Behind her was one of the stacks called biological unit farms. The clear, sealed, cubes contained taupe or grey colored fungi consisting of super hybridized biologicals. Row after row of the cubes were arranged on both sides of the walkway, as high as the ceiling.

  “The adventurers are back,” Jerome stated. He knew exactly where Cammarry was walking as he recognized the biological cube farm. When he had been younger, one of his many jobs was helping to harvest, clean, and restart those cubes which contained fungi. He did that through modern reproduction techniques, and even sometimes through antique methods like cloning or even more old fashioned and primitive ways. He vividly recalled dissecting the fungi while protecting the nuclear membrane to keep it intact throughout the process. At the time he found it all rather boring and of little consequence, yet he, like all his age-mates, had learned the lessons. He still could sing a song about processing food bars from fungi, and its lyrics raced through his mind.

  “Which team? Hobart, Ken, and Beth? Or Jamie, Karen, and Paul?”

  “The first team,” Jerome replied.

  “Again, I will not ask how you know, because if they had already cleared decontamination, I would have heard about it. When will they enter Dome 17?”

  “About forty minutes or so. I will meet you by the Portal of Purpose,” Jerome said.

  “Hey, stop teasing me about that. I only called it that once, besides, it is our purpose. We are adventurers and we come and go through that dilation portal. That is our purpose in life, exploring the outside world.” Again Cammarry was twinkling in her eyes as she spoke. “Would you rather have some revolving door like in your old stories? Perhaps with a concierge and valley parking?”

  “It was called valet parking, from what I read,” Jerome replied to the woman he adored.

  Cammarry smiled, and her smallish white teeth glistened. “Like almost all of that old world, whatever it was called, it no longer exists. I will meet you there. Any idea when the other team will be back?”

  “Not yet.” Jerome considered waiting for the second team to return, but recalled they departed a day behind Hobart, Ken, and Beth. “I will be there shortly.”

  The image shut down, and Jerome then shifted the adjustments on the monitor he had established. He considered shutting it down and removing it like he usually did. “Faraday, this system will alert you when someone else is detected. Immediately let me know when you receive that signal.”

  “Understood. However, you are aware that leaving these unofficial monitors in place while they are functioning increases your risk of detection, correct?” the AI asked. “The risk is minimal, but increases the longer the monitors are powered on.”

  “What will the Committee do, throw me outside?” Jerome asked. He got up and moved through the maintenance shafts.

  The AI’s voice followed Jerome as he progressed away and toward the ladder which would lead back to the occupied and legal parts of Dome 17. “The Committee has any number of potential remedies which can be applied as a punitive measure. That could include removing me as your personal artificial intelligence system. I would find that unpleasant. I have made many adjustments in relating to you, and would find other work less satisfactory. There are currently no unassigned adventurers, so I would be doing other work. Apparently, you do not care about my future.”

  “I would miss our repartee, and the banter between us,” Jerome replied to Faraday and descended the ladder. He then removed a wall panel and peered beyond its opening. It was very unlikely that anyone would be passing by, but it was possible. The closet where the wall panel was located was empty. He climbed out. The supplies which he had moved out of the way were just as he had left them.

  Replacing the wall section and then the supplies, Jerome walked out of the closet.

  There were only a few people in the hallway which led toward the medical units. One of them was close by as Jerome stepped out.

  Regina, a technician, who was of medium height with shoulder length dark hair and bright eyes turned as he closed the closet door. “I thought I heard a voice. May I help you?”

  “Just me fumbling about,” Jerome said. “Sorry if I disturbed you. I am fine. I must have mumbled to myself.”

  “No worries at all. Keep up the good work with the missions and all. Be safe!” Regina said with a nice smile and a hint of adoration. She turned the corner and was out of sight as she continued on her way

  That was one moment when Jerome was thankful for the status he had as an adventurer. It felt good to be looked up to by someone from the general population. Being in the group of only twenty-five people out of the 1500 or so who lived in the dome did give him some unique status, but it felt like notoriety. Cammarry had told him that there were some people who thought the adventurers were not carrying their load of the work, but few people were willing to study, train, and do the requirements to be an adventurer. The attrition rate of the recent missions had also reduced interest in the job of adventurers.

  He walked onward and was soon past the medical section and heading toward the cafetorium which was a gathering place. He passed some other people. Those peopl
e did not pay much attention to Jerome, even though he was wearing the clothing that adventurers wore inside the dome. He wondered what they would think if they saw him covered by the RAM clothing with its hood, goggles, and other accoutrements necessary for survival outside the dome. That thought brought his mind back to Hobart, Ken, and Beth who would by now have entered the first stages of the outer portal and were in the decontamination process. Their RAM clothing would be stripped off, and sent for destruction. The information gathered and then stored in their data sticks would be transferred to the Dome 17 information systems. The data sticks would then be destroyed. Except for their fleshly bodies, nothing that had been in the outside world would enter Dome 17.

  “Faraday? Have they passed through decontamination?” Jerome asked.

  “There is no official report of their return, however, I have observed that energy use has risen in two stages of the decontamination chambers. That would indicate that the first two adventurers have begun the process. I cannot tell which ones, nor is my comment an official acknowledgement of the return of anyone.”

  “Let me know when they are getting through.”

  “The first will be completed in nineteen minutes, if the process has not been modified,” the AI replied.

  Jerome recalled how tedious that process was, and how physically taxing it could be. He had been on three missions outside of the dome, and each one had its own special troubles. Decontamination was the last step of the process, unless you counted the after-mission briefings which were basically a boring time of sitting with a Committee member and telling them what was discovered. That was just a rehashing of what was on the data stick and transferred to the information systems. More often than not the briefing was a mere formality. Jerome always let the other team members relate the facts, and only responded when directly asked.

  “There you are,” Cammarry said as she walked up behind him. He was about six centimeters taller than she was, but both were lean and muscular. Except for the elderly people who were in the senior care facility, a section not far from medical, everyone in Dome 17 was thin and fit.

  Cammarry grabbed Jerome and hugged him tightly. “What do you think they found?”

  Jerome shook his head.

  “I hope it was something very useful. It is about time that some of these missions to the other domes revealed positive results,” Cammarry remarked.

  “You are always on a quest for information. Remember your mission to Dome 5 provided some help with sanitation systems and recycling of human remains.”

  “Minimally.” Cammarry brushed back her hair. “We already had functional knowledge of alkaline hydrolysis for elimination of infected bodies. Our decontamination processes are much more efficient, and Dome 5’s attempts to stem their disaster were just stupid. They wasted water on an antique method they called aquamation. Can you imagine wasting water?”

  “No.” Jerome kissed Cammarry’s forehead gently. “We are learning that our dome has advanced and developed better than the others. We adapt and evolve. Those poor souls are to be pitied, but remember history? Far too often humans have done incredibly stupid things.”

  “Some even violate regulations and wander into restricted areas.” Cammarry looked into Jerome’s hazel eyes and smiled. “History is tragic, but not in every circumstance. Maybe this team found something helpful? It is conceivable that some other dome had a technological breakthrough. Brink is not the only genius, although he is so very good with machines. You are pretty good yourself in that area.” Cammarry nudged Jerome affectionately.

  “No one surpasses Brink with mechanical items. Willie, maybe, but he is much more utilitarian and practical. Brink does the math. He unlocks the arithmetic behind everything,” Jerome said. “Willie just uses ballpark figures.”

  “Ballpark?” Cammarry asked with a grin. “Like ricochet ball?”

  “No. You know what I mean.” Jerome nuzzled into her face and kissed her.

  “Yes, you are making reference to ancient sporting complexes where hundreds of thousands of people would gather all exposed to the environment, right? Can you imagine that many people?”

  “Not really. I think those legends are hyperbole, however, this dome was designed to hold 10,000 people, so maybe there were big coliseums where people gathered.”

  “That was back hundreds of years ago, if it ever really happened that way,” Cammarry replied. “But back to Hobart, Ken, and Beth, what did they find?”

  “I have no idea, but you can ask them. There is Beth now,” Jerome pointed.

  Beth was just stepping out of the dilated portal which had ‘Restricted Access’ written above it. Her almond shaped brown eyes, met Jerome’s and Cammarry’s. Beth had her long brown hair pulled back into a bun which had a few loose strands. She looked tired, even dressed in the new clothing which had replaced the RAM suit which had been sent for incineration.

  “Beth!” Cammarry rushed over.

  “Hello. We made it back, but that last couple hundred meters around the dome was very difficult,” Beth said. She usually was positive, but the exhaustion was obvious. Looking to Jerome she said, “We did bring you back a present.”

  Jerome’s face revealed his surprise.

  “Hobart can tell you about it. I need to go and sleep,” Beth said and turned to go.

  “But what did you find?” Cammarry asked as she walked along with Beth. “How many people are still in Dome 9? Is their technology helpful?”

  “There is no Dome 9. It will all be in the report at the briefing.”

  “No Dome 9?” Cammarry said as she watched Beth retreat.

  “Another lost one,” Beth muttered as she walked away.

  The portal dilated and Ken stepped out. Cammarry and Jerome could feel the air shift as it was sucked into the decontamination chamber.

  “Hello, Cammarry and Jerome. Why am I not surprised you knew when we would emerge from that decontamination torture?” Ken’s black hair was short and tightly twisted right near his head. His short beard matched his head hair for color, and nearly for curliness. His pale blue eyes looked almost as tired as had Beth’s.

  “Beth said there is no Dome 9. Was it never built or were you unable to find it?” Cammarry asked. “What is the story?”

  “We found where it once was. Just a big hole in the ground now. Not even much ruins around, but lots of radiation. I am especially fond of RAM suits now. The levels around that Dome 9 hole were twelve times higher than the lethal average background on the way there.”

  “An atomic blast crater?” Cammarry asked.

  “That is what I thought, but the Committee will review all our findings. We did run across some relics about five kilometers away from the hole. A small building which somehow survived, well most of it anyway. Nothing much to it, but it was clearly from before the Great Event. We even recovered a few items you will like Jerome.”

  “Beth said it was a present for me,” Jerome said.

  “In a way. For our archives anyway. We found twenty-seven paper bound books in that old building. Yes, paper that survived. We scanned them all into the data stick, and that information is being transferred to the archives.” Ken smiled a thin smile and nodded. “You can read them after the Committee reviews the information. Looked like old and meaningless stuff, but what do I know of obsolete writings like that? Relics are more your hobby, right? Kind of a wonder that the little building survived all this time. Some old and bulky appliances were in that building as well. One for heating, as if the outside needs to ever get hotter. It was rather strange.”

  “From before the Great Event?” Jerome said.

  “That is what they appeared to be. The paper in the books was so brittle and delicate it did not survive the scanning, but we got a majority of the information, text and images.” Ken stretched his back and yawned. “I recorded and invoiced all the appliances, but what would anyone want with antique designs? Maybe Willie or Brink will enjoy seeing the schematics, but it was all old technology with in
tegrated circuits, silicon, germanium, and direction contact electrical relays. Really old stuff. Dome 9 is just a crater. No help for us there. Basically we just found old-style junk and some books.”

  “No billiard balls?” Jerome spurted out.

  “No balls of any kind,” Ken replied in a puzzled way. “You and your old metaphors.” He then summoned his personal artificial intelligence system and was asking it questions as he walked away.

  “That is really disappointing,” Cammarry said turning to Jerome. “To think of Dome 9 as being destroyed is tragic. I wonder if we ever will get to know why a thermal nuclear detonation took place? We know fusion power as we have here in Dome 17 is safe, but we have been refining our power system for 100 years. You think Dome 9 personnel did that or not? Would people refuse to refine and update and improve their own technology? After all, refinement of technology is our future, right?”

  “Fusion technology is not an abacus,” Jerome said. “Those who fail to adapt fail to survive.”