by V J Kavanagh
The screaming stopped.
* * * *
Steve followed the MEDTECHs and gurney into FH 1’s departure hall. The polished concourse floor peeked through a throng of polite jostling. Everyone carried the same blue, regulation-size catchall. Across the concourse, a line of gleaming autopaves transported the excitement up onto the mezzanine and the departure gates. More autopaves passed overhead, traversing the concourse, and emptying the accommodation blocks.
Not everyone smiled, at the top of each autopave stood a weapons-ready Defender.
Steve tapped the MEDTECH on the shoulder. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Exercise, sir, been like this since yesterday.’
Steve scrutinised the guns on the mezzanine. Jannae, Gerhard, Francois, SIS, MP 14, the white cube. He pulled in a few pieces of the puzzle and let them spin.
The gurney peeled away as the MEDTECHs headed for an autopave down to the forward decks beneath the cockpit. Cargo Vessel Zero-Four had no hospital segment. Penny would be travelling in one of the crew’s escape pods.
In all-passenger configuration, a ‘Tubby’ could carry 11,680 passengers seated across the eight hemicycle halves of its four cylindrical segments. However, as no passengers were embarking on the lower decks, Steve assumed those HemCycs held cargo.
Once through the departure gate, Steve stepped onto the inclined autopave; his seat was in the upper HemCyc of Segment 2.
At the cabin entrance, a Grey Defender stepped out. ‘Sorry, sir. I’m going to have to take your backpack.’ He motioned with his head. ‘You can collect it from the forward baggage hold when we dock.’
Steve entered the sterile white cabin and turned left into the aisle, his head just clearing the illuminated ceiling. The aisle divided forty rows of twenty-eight dark blue seats. He’d be travelling on the lower of the three decks, and as they always filled top to bottom, back to front, he’d be sitting in the front row.
Murmurs rose into the warm air circulating around his head, the hint of pine failing to mask odorous sweaty plastic. Over the heads of his fellow passengers, he could see the rectangular impressions indenting both sides of the fuselage. There were no cabin windows.
The aisle opened out and Steve turned right onto a stretch of charcoal carpet that separated the front row seats from the white forward bulkhead.
He was fastening his harness when the announcement came.
‘Good morning Continuity. My name is Commander Mitchell, on behalf of myself and the crew I would like to welcome you aboard cargo vessel zero-four.’ The Commander spoke with the gravitas of a man who could envisage a line of bodies stretching for three kilometres. ‘We will shortly be departing flight hub two. Our estimated docking time with Provenance is zero-two-four-five Earth time. Please listen carefully to the announcements. I wish you all a pleasant flight.’
CV-04 swayed, adding a few anxious titters to the murmuring. They’d begun to taxi towards the launch ramp.
To Steve’s left, a dark haired woman with dilated pupils and a nervous smile stared up at him. He wasn’t sure which concerned her more, the forthcoming flight or sitting next to someone whose appearance epitomised trouble.
Two sharp pings and a woman’s voice silenced the cabin. ‘Welcome Continuity to exercise Exodus. The Council would like to thank you for your assistance in preparing Provenance for its journey to the new world. Please ensure your catchalls are placed in the stowage bins beneath your seats and your harnesses are securely fastened.’
The mild swaying ceased. They were over the ramp. Faint clunks from below told Steve that the massive ramp pistons were driving home tree-trunk-like locking pins along the belly of CV-04.
A distant rumble grew, the lights dimmed and a tenebrous hush fell over the passengers. The rumble intensified into a jagged shake, bodies shuddered, chins bobbed. Steve felt a squeeze on his left arm. She’d closed her eyes, her lips moving in silent speech. When the frequency of shuddering pitched to a vibration, Steve rested his head back. Dampers between the segments would absorb the initial surge.
His mind’s eye envisaged CV-04 streaking down the rails at six-hundred and thirty metres a second, but that wouldn’t be fast enough. Although past V2, it needed additional momentum to break out of Earth’s atmosphere at a specific point in time and space. An electromagnetic rail ramp had pushed CV-04 to stage one. The twin SEC HF2600s would punch it to stage two. Five thousand kilometres an hour
Steve’s seat thumped him in the back, the grip on his arm tightened. CV-04’s airframe groaned as it fought to restrain 100,000,000 kilograms of hyperlonic thrust. His stomach heaved and a collective ‘Whoa!’ filled the cabin. They were airborne.
The jagged shaking returned and as the inclination increased, g-force pushed Steve deeper into his seat. Above the rattle, the engines growled, thrusting them ever higher, ever faster.
01:53 FRI 03:11:2119
CV-04, Upper atmosphere, Earth
Two minutes after launch the shaking subsided and the menacing growl muted to an ataractic throb. CV-04 had exceeded escape velocity.
A commanding voice cut through Steve’s thoughts, ‘Continuity, this is your Captain. We have left Earth’s atmosphere and will shortly be cutting the main engines in preparation for docking with Provenance. Please ensure your harnesses remain fastened and your feet are firmly in the restraining clips. Should anyone feel unwell, please use the bags attached to the seat in front of you. Welcome to space.’
The grip on Steve’s arm relaxed. The woman’s drawn face carried a pale sheen and a tired smile. ‘Thank you.’
He tilted his head. ‘It isn’t something I’d want to do every day.’
Her gaze wandered down over Steve’s shabby clothes, ‘Did you leave in a hurry as well? We were only told this morning.’ She extended her hand. ‘Gabby Firth.’
Steve shook her surprisingly cool hand, ‘Peter Wilkinson.’
Gabby relaxed back, hands clasped in her lap. She managed to maintain the silence for about ten seconds. ‘I thought we were going to live in here when we get to the new world. Why aren’t there any windows?’
Steve pointed to one of the rectangular indents. ‘Each one of those is a window. You’ll cover reconfiguration during induction.’
‘I can’t believe I’m here. I didn’t think they’d begin the exercises for another ten years, and I’d be too old then.’
Steve’s head rolled back, his mind lulled by calm blue light. Everyone believes it’s an exercise. As SIS knew they would.
Silence wasn’t the response Gabby wanted. ‘Why do you think they decided to leave early?’
‘I don’t know. Planetary orientation?’
‘Planes of motion don’t change. Do they?’
Steve closed his eyes. Equations covered the lecture hall’s screen, Kepler, Hawking, Einstein. Jason yawning.
Gabby had an alternative theory. ‘Now, if Colossus has changed course that would make sense.’
Someone tugged on Steve’s arm.
The Defender’s polite voice contradicted his arched eyebrows. ‘Everything will be explained during orientation.’
Steve swivelled his head back to Gabby. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Sorry. Can’t help myself.’
Steve closed his eyes again, his thoughts descending to the evac-carry connected to the ship’s life support system. He doubted he’d ever have the opportunity to ask Kacee how she knew who Penny was. His assumption being that, for whatever reason, she had not administered the full dose of nanossasin and you only disobeyed SIS once.
Cabin chatter grew to an excited gabble. For all but a few, this would be their first experience of weightlessness. Steve’s seat moved away from him, as did his stomach. Feeling the need for a diversion, he fixed his attention on the bulkhead-ceiling abutment, and his thoughts on the docking procedure.
CV-04 had completed the final burn at apogee, their orbit would be circularised. With convergence complete, it would ali
gn with one of Provenance’s two docking ports. Sitting high on opposite sides of the circular hull, each port opening stood as tall as Big Ben and four times as wide. On entry, CV-04 would pitch down and manoeuvre into one of six outer pipelines specifically designed for cargo handling.
Steve’s body gained weight. They were within the gravitational field generated by Provenance’s core. He rocked; dull clunks entered the silent cabin.
‘Continuity, this is your Captain. We have docked with Provenance. Unloading operations will commence shortly. Please listen carefully to the following announcement. Thank you and good luck.’
Steve swayed. Their segment had unlocked, extraction into the two-storey airlock had begun.
A loud ping preceded a woman’s voice. ‘Welcome to Provenance. You will disembark into the holding area prior to transfer to reception. Gravity in the holding area is seventy percent. Do not be alarmed. Upon arrival in the reception hall, proceed to your designated assembly point. If anyone is unsure of their designation, a CONSEC bureau is located to the right of the reception gates. Please ensure no luggage is left on board.’
A faint hiss filled the cabin and ambient blue hardened into ice-white. The doors opened.
‘You may disembark.’
Before Steve could stand, a grey uniform blocked his view.
‘I’ll get your bag, sir.’ The Defender’s eyes locked on Gabby. ‘You stay there.’
Steve glanced left. Dread tugged at Gabby’s pale face. Her colleagues filed by, ignoring her.
Steve followed the Defender to the bulkhead and looked back over his shoulder. He had to flick his eyes twice before the spark of comprehension lit Gabby’s face. The Defender turned around, his head snapping in the direction of Gabby’s empty seat. ‘She’s gone.’
Steve shrugged. ‘Can’t trust anybody these days.’ He took hold of his ruckall, ‘You carry on here, I’ll find her.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
* * * *
The holding area was little more than an enormous hanger attached to the outer hull. Transfer to the reception hall in the revolving core meant passing through a labyrinth of autopaves and shifting doorways. Steve joined the queue and moved smoothly through the first doorway. Within two minutes, the bright reception hall burst into view, awash with people, and their vivid blue catchalls.
Several groups had already formed under the viewscreens that ran the length of the far wall. Steve set off through the bustling crowd in the direction of the CONSEC bureau.
He never reached it.
‘Mr Wilkinson?’
Masking his perplexity with a frown, Steve stared at an incomprehensibly familiar face. ‘Who are you?’
The man wore the golden brown uniform of a SCITECH officer, the number twelve glinted on his forest-green epaulette, as did the four silver bars on the similarly coloured mandarin collar. He looked young for a Level 12 Commander. About the age Matt would have been, had he lived.
An affable smile accompanied the extended arm. ‘I’m Alex.’
Steve shook the warm hand, ‘Hello, Alex, thanks for meeting me.’
‘You’re welcome.’ Alex gestured towards a pair of metal doors adjacent to the CONSEC bureau. ‘We can take the deck-car to the MEDLAB.’
As they approached, an armed Defender barred their way. He nodded at Steve’s ruckall. ‘Has that backpack been cleared through quarantine?’
Alex turned to Steve. ‘Are you carrying anything that should concern me?’
‘No.’
Alex removed an ID card from his top pocket and held it up, ‘I’ll vouch for the backpack.’
The Defender scrutinised the ID, stiffened and took a step back. ‘Yes, sir.’
Once inside the deck-car’s polished metal interior, Alex tapped the keypad; the doors enclosed them in silence.
‘That’s better.’
Steve tugged his ear.
Alex tapped his right trouser pocket, ‘Jammed.’
‘Have you seen Penny?’
‘She’s in MEDLAB fifteen central. We’ll take her down to depot thirty-three; she’ll be left alone there.’
A ping preceded the doors opening. They stepped into a wide corridor of charcoal fibre carpet, beige walls, and a white ceiling with illuminated coving. Alex set off right.
Followed the sweeping corridor for about one hundred metres brought them to the MEDLABs’ trapezoidal doorways. Three metres apart, the doorways lined both walls for as far as Steve could see. Each numbered doorway held a pair of white moulded doors and each door had an observation slot in the upper half.
Alex stopped outside number fifteen and looked Steve up and down. ‘You’ll need to decontaminate.’
The moulded doors glided back, releasing a waft of cool antiseptic. Ahead, frosted glass barred entry to the MEDLAB. Alex tapped the anteroom’s wall console, ‘You’ll feel a slight pressure from the vacuum.’
Steve didn’t mention this wasn’t his first time, he was sure Alex would have known that.
The frosted glass parted to reveal the surgical-white interior. In the centre, between cupboard-lined walls, lay Penny, all but her head covered in a light blue sheet. Beyond Penny, a length of mirrored glass divided the far wall and a pair of deck-car doors filled the left corner.
A C-shaped robotic doctor hovered a few centimetres above the glossy tiles, its corrugated arms looping up to their locking points like giant earrings. Two metres in height and fifty centimetres wide, an RMD replaced a hospital of equipment, and doctors. Something else he’d never discussed with Penny.
On the right, a bank of three monitors hung from the ceiling. Beneath them, a metal table, with neat rows of medical instruments glinted. The mirrored glass cleared and a round female face popped up from behind a console. Her Slavic accent filled the lab, ‘Patient is prepped and stable, sir.’
Alex nodded. ‘Thanks, Dobriana, you can go now.’
‘I have a call from Command, sir.’ Her tone carried an edge.
‘What did they say?’ Alex’s didn’t.
‘They want to know about patient, name, condition; they want to send someone from CONSEC.’
‘What did you say?’
‘What you told me, sir. SCITECH officer from plant genetics, contaminated with bionanos.’
‘And what did they say to that?’
She made eye contact with Steve. ‘They send someone.’
Steve stepped forward. ‘When was this?’
‘Five minutes ago.’
He spun to Alex, ‘We have to go.’
Alex turned back to the monitors. ‘Display the dyscrasia analysis.’
The right-hand screen flickered into a multi-coloured bar graph.
Alex studied for a moment and then pushed the monitors aside. ‘Good, less than one PPM. Disconnect and erase the record.’
Dobriana’s head bowed. ‘Done.’
‘Thanks, Dobriana, you’d better go.’
The green suited nurse rose, flashed a quizzical look at Steve and left.
Steve looked down at Penny. ‘What’s the prognosis?’
‘She might suffer some short-term memory loss.’
Steve reached across her and grabbed Alex’s arm. ‘How much?’
‘Not enough that you can’t fill in the gaps. We’ll put her in short-term stasis until it’s safe to bring her back for the operation.’
Steve released his grip. There was something irritatingly reassuring about Alex, and troublingly familiar.
Dobriana had dressed Penny in a medical cryo-suit. It resembled a short surf suit, except it was silver, veined with white cables, and spotted with red connector plugs. Pink blotches dappled Penny’s pale skin and lank auburn hair clung to her mauve tinged face. She looked like a corpse washed up on a winter’s beach.
Alex tapped the gurney’s control panel and they followed it to the deck-car.
03:13 FRI 03:11:2119
Cryostasis Depot 17-11-33, Provenance, LEO<
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The deck-car doors opened into the Erebus chill of cryostasis Depot 33, its dimmed yellow light barely touching the seventy cryotube racks facing Alex and Steve.
Depot 33 in Section 11 of Deck 17 held twelve thousand six hundred cryotubes and covered an area equivalent to four soccer pitches. Provenance had fifty such depots, designed to support the five hundred thousand of Continuity who’d be kept in long-term stasis. Designs that SIS were about to change.
Steve raised his hand to Alex and stepped out of the deck-car. His scrutiny traversed the polished metal deck, passing across the malachite glow of seventy consoles, each one indicating the start of a one-hundred metre long rack. Cryonics had advanced, but not so far as to eliminate risk. Without the precise clinical administration of cryoprotectants, you would split apart during vitrification.
To his left, in the distant gloom, a rotating red light indicated an occupied rack.
He followed Alex and the gurney in the direction of the red light. A four-metre aisle bounded the depot and separated each rack, providing access for the medical teams and the Scorpion.
Steve’s voice carried in the voluminous twilight, ‘Where is everybody?’
Alex shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
After several minutes, it became apparent that only the farthest rack had occupants.
Steve spoke to Alex’s back, ‘Are the nurseries on line yet?’
Alex slowed, allowing the gurney to overtake him. ‘I don’t have access to that information.’
‘If Continuity are loading, the nurseries should have been on line for at least a year. These racks should be half full.’ This proved beyond doubt; Provenance’s departure was not scheduled.
‘I’m aware of that, as are the Resistance.’
It was too dim for Steve to catch the nuances of Alex’s expression, but not the stress in his voice. ‘Meaning what?’