Jerome stopped for a moment and leaned against the wall. “Sandie? If you see an access port, I will jack a cable in and you can see if you can find out all those things. However, I think our first priority must be to relocate Cammarry.”
“I know that is right!” Sandie stated.
Jerome stepped away from the wall, but looked at it. “Causeway NS209? This must be the bypass passage.”
Khin laughed. “What else would it be? She said it would be here, and it is here. Yet you are surprised?”
Jerome reached into his backpack and started to pull out his fusion pack.
“No need for wizard light. I can see well enough for us both, even though this passage is a bit darker,” Khin stated. “Just follow me and we will walk to the Chicken People.”
“Lead on, bright eyes,” Jerome teased.
The causeway was about ten meters wide, and three meters high. It had an oppressive feel. The overhead lights were only along one upper corner of the irregular wall, right where it met the ceiling. To Jerome, the whole way was indistinct, but there was the usual plant growth. They walked for a good distance, but all looked very much the same. At one point, Jerome and Khin walked past one door that was somewhat open. Darkness lay beyond it. Neither took any notice of that one threshold.
Through that doorway was a small office where Cammarry was sleeping soundly.
8 finding the chicken people
Cammarry awoke. “Jerome?” She mumbled in her sleepy state.
“No, but I am with you,” Shadow stated.
“I should never have gone off alone, and especially not without the com-link. What was I thinking?”
“It is not your fault. You were injured and did the best you could do. You were focused on saving Dome 17, and you still can. You need to get to engineering and find the right communication equipment,” Shadow insisted. “There is still time for those fifteen hundred people.”
“I think I should go back and find Jerome,” Cammarry said as she used the small toilet. “We are better when we work together. I need to get in touch with Sandie as well.”
“The radiation is in the way. The radiation prevents that,” Shadow reminded her.
“Being an AI from the Conestoga, you can lead me around that, right?” Cammarry asked. “You should have deck plans, and schematics, and sensors. How connected into the nonphysicality are you? What other systems can you access?”
There was no answer.
“Shadow? Shadow? Please answer me!” Cammarry pleaded.
There was no reply.
“I have lost Jerome, and also Sandie, and now Shadow too?” Cammarry murmured to herself. She opened her backpack and took out a box. She opened it and ate the food which had been in suspended animation. It was labeled ‘Turkey Shredded w/Gravy & Diced Potatoes’ which meant nothing to her. When she opened the container, it got warm, and a pleasant aroma filled the office. The food was thicker and more textured than she was familiar with, but its taste was not bad. It was moister than the typical food ration bars. She ate the entire serving and drank her fill of water.
“Now I will continue to engineering. Radiation behind me, the unknown ahead of me, I wish Jerome could tell me one of his figures of speech to inspire me,” Cammarry said as she gathered all her gear.
She proceeded into Causeway NS209. She was unable to tell that Jerome and Chin had passed through there only a few hours before. She came to a junction, where the lighting was better, although still dim. To the left or to the right? She consulted her map which showed the route to engineering. Following the route, she took the right hand passage. Had she taken the left, she may have encountered Jerome and Khin as they paused at a cross passage some distance away to refill their water supplies.
Cammarry walked and as she did, she kept track of the route she was following. When she came to a large foyer, she stopped and looked for any signs of what the place had been. The room was damaged. There were charred black marks on several of the walls where some kind of explosive had gone off in the distant past. The darkness of an open elevator door marred the surface of the wall. The shaft was now empty, for the elevator car was lodged there, but without any light inside of it.
In a neon blue paint, someone had hand sprayed a message across the wall near where an elevator door was standing open. It said, ‘Beware Chicken People.’
“I am looking for engineering, not Chicken People, but Khin spoke of them.” She patted the weapon holstered on her belt. “I will find engineering, and make the connections that need to be made.”
“Yes, you will. I am confident of that,” Shadow stated.
“So at this location you can speak to me,” Cammarry observed. “Your systems must be limited. We lose contact at times.”
“I do not want us to lose contact, but yes we do,” Shadow stated. “I am trying to be there more and more for you.”
Cammarry looked around to evaluate the surroundings. There were some odd projections next to the open elevator doors. The elevator car was stopped partway between the decks. She could see the blank floor of the car as she looked inside. It was not covered in the pale green mossy growth, and it also had no light source at the top of the elevator. The shaft was hidden from view by the lower extensions of the car. Those side walls were fitted so tightly and sealed against the shaft, that Cammarry wondered how the car could move. Peering at that part, she could see scrapes and gouges in the permalloy.
“Something really hard made those,” Cammarry muttered. “I wonder what propels the car in this elevator? What power source can cause that mush stress on permalloy?”
She decided to try connecting her fusion pack into the wall near where the graffiti was located. It took her a while to locate an access port. “I wish I could plug a cable in here and have Sandie assess this part of the nonphysicality. There might be a record, or log, of this elevator’s events.”
The fusion pack activated some flickering lights around the wall, and the elevator doors, which had been open, suddenly slammed shut with a resounding clang. A blue light came on, in the shape of a hand, and that was near to where the elevator door had shut. Another light came on, about three meters away, and it was yellow colored and circular. Then a flashing red light began to pulse along the edge between the floor and the wall where the elevator was located. The pulsing red light was slow and rhythmic.
“Shadow? What does all this mean? You are an AI, or synthetic brain from the Conestoga, so tell me what this is all about?”
“I am unable to process your inquiry,” Shadow stated. “I am unable…”
“What does that mean? Is your system shutting down? Are you losing connection? What is happening with you?” Cammarry asked. “Are you under an attack?”
There was no response.
Cammarry looked closely at the route she had in her hand. There was a symbol which looked like a miniature version of the hand which glowed in blue. There were a few other symbols right in light with that first one. The throbbing red light made reading the map difficult, so Cammarry unjacked the fusion pack from the access port. The red light faded a bit, and the flashing slowed down. Then it faded more, and got slower and slower. Finally, it faded out completely and was extinguished. Yet, the blue hand symbol and the yellow circle continued to glow.
“There must be some energy ultra-capacitors, or cells, or old batteries connected to the nonphysicality here. The wall is holding some kind of power charge. Sandie could have told me all about it.” Cammarry walked over and placed her hand on the blue lighted symbol. A different set of elevator doors opened, and the yellow circular symbol shifted to a different shape. The shape was a triangle with its apex pointing downward.
“The route shows what might be a descent here. If I am reading it correctly.”
She walked over to the newly opened elevator and peered inside. There was a foul odor which emanated from there. The smell was somewhat like burned circuitry, but also had a more pungent and stinging sensation on her nose. As she looked m
ore closely she could see a pile of various items stacked against the back of the elevator.
Cammarry set her backpack down, so that it blocked the doors from closing, and stepped closer to the junk pile. There she found a broken heavy-weight light with the remains of a lufi-amalgam battery. Some kind of headgear was there, with muffs that would fit over one’s ears. The foam around the edges of those was crumbling off., and a cable with frayed end dangled from the headset. There was a container of six, hand span-sized cylinders marked, ‘Sir John Falstaff’ and a bright green colored permalloy pry-bar which was sticking out of a crushed gray plastic box. The old label on the box was in tatters. Under all that, was a pile of malodorous cloth in browns, greens, and grays.
Turning around, Cammarry could see a column of buttons next to the inside wall of the elevator. The buttons all had symbols on them, but in the dimness it was hard to make out what they were.
“The other elevator had much better lighting.” She turned the fusion pack light on which improved the illumination the interior of the elevator.
Unexpectedly, a few grayish furry things rushed away and out the door.
“Rats again,” Cammarry stated as she recalled what they looked like from her previous encounters with them. “Fear not! Do not be frightened little animals. I am not here hunting you. I will not hurt you.” She thought of Khin, and a small smile came to her face. “He would laugh right now, if he were here.”
Cammarry again looked at the column of buttons. Each one had a different symbol on it, but none had actual writing, just like the previous times she had seen the inside of an elevator on the Conestoga. There were a total of sixteen buttons in the column, again very much like what she had seen before, but here none of the buttons were illuminated from behind.
“I am going to assume that there is a structural correlation between these buttons, and the actual decks on the ship.” Cammarry put her finger in her mouth as she pondered which button to activate. “The map shows three symbols here at this location, so where are they on the column?”
“What were they like in Dome 17?” Shadow asked.
“Who?”
“Elevators. What were they like back home?” Shadow asked.
“We mostly used stairs, but the restricted upper levels could have been accessed by lifts. The levels in Dome 17, both above ground and below ground were numbered. By the way, you should be able to tell me what these symbols mean.”
“I am unable to visualize them,” Shadow stated.
“Well, three symbols on the map, match three here on the column of buttons. I will try the lowest one. That might be the closest to the exterior hull.”
“Unless the decks alter gravity manipulation at some point,” Shadow replied. “That is a consideration.”
“Do you know if the elevator has altered gravity on certain levels? What information do you have on that? What is your function on the Conestoga? What schematics can you provide?”
“I am unable to process your inquiry. I apologize for any difficulty this might cause. I am only trying to help,” Shadow relayed. “I am unable to process your inquiry.”
“Unsophisticated and impaired system, thank you for trying. I rather thought that was what you would say. I guess I am lucky to even get to interface with you at all, from the damage I have seen that was done to the artificial intelligence systems, and their physical components. Your physical attributes must be in some other location, and not part of that graveyard Khin took us through.”
There was no response.
“Well, three symbols. Three buttons. Maybe it is a code or key of some kind? Shadow? Can that be?”
Again there was no response.
Cammarry reached out and pressed the button on the very bottom of the column. It was the same symbol that was on the map, only on the map it was on the left side of the three symbols and just to the right of the hand symbol.
There was a negative function buzz.
Cammarry looked down and realized her backpack was still blocking the doors. She pulled it in, and suddenly the lights came on overhead with a brilliant sheen. The doors hissed shut. The elevator descended at a rapid rate. Cammarry braced herself in the corner. “This is way too fast of a drop!”
Cammarry was lifted slightly off the deck from the rapid acceleration downward. She held onto a handrail on the side of the elevator, but with her other hand pressed another button on the column. It was the second one which matched the symbols on her map. The button lit up from behind in a pink glow, and the first button she had pushed started blinking rapidly in yellow. The acceleration continued, and the elevator car jerked and bucked. The junk pile, as well as her backpack skittered around the floor of the elevator.
“Well, one more match!” Cammarry said and slapped the third button with the last matching symbol.
The column of buttons shined in blue, and the jerking, bucking, and acceleration stopped. The elevator was descending, but at a reasonable rate. Cammarry bent her knees to absorb some of the inertial forces that were affecting her body. She smiled as she felt things were again under control. Her peace did not last long. She felt an unexpected lurch and a change in direction of movement, with a bit of a spinning sensation. The lights all flickered and briefly went dark. The elevator continued its wild’s ride. Then Cammarry felt herself rising, but her senses were a bit overwhelmed and it was unclear what direction she was moving. She again braced herself tightly into the corner.
The dim lights came back on, and a moment later, the elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened with a grinding noise.
“Doooduuu. Baalk Beeegook Buuk!”
“What? Who is there?” Cammarry said as she stepped out from the elevator.
“This is a new place,” Shadow stated quietly.
“Yes it is. Tell me where I am, please! Have I followed the route?”
Shadow did not respond.
A brownish gray blur ran across the hallway a few meters away from where Cammarry stepped from the elevator. The opening to the elevator whizzed shut behind her. Looking back, she could not tell where the elevator door had been. She looked again and then gazed all around. The walls of the hallway were a deep blue color, at least as seen in the dim light. The floor was covered with patchy areas of the pale green mossy plants. Some spots of the permalloy floor were exposed and free from the growth medium.
“Dooduuu. Buuk!?” More noises came from down the hallway.
Looking that direction, Cammarry saw a strange creature run on two legs from one open doorway, across the hall and into a ventilation duct opening. It was not a goat or a rat.
“Now what was that?” Cammarry called. “A new animal, the chicken?”
Another of the creatures appeared and turned in the middle of the hallway. Unlike the other one, this one stood looking at Cammarry. It was about one-meter-tall and stood on two yellowish colored legs which ended in odd pointy toes. Its overall color was brownish-grey, but unlike the goats this animal did not have fur. It had a different kind of stuff coming off its skin on most of its body, but the legs, and conical face were bare of the stuff that was not hair, or fur. Its pale, greenish-yellow eyes were wide circles on its gray skinny face. It stared at her with interest, curiosity, and a level of intelligence. The end of its nose was brighter yellow than its feet, and the nose looked pointed and bulged out a bit from the face.
“Duudooo, baaakaak.” The animal made noises, which were vastly different from the goat sounds. As it turned its head, Cammarry could see that the colors on its face and nose were diverse shades of green, black, and yellow on its pointy knob. “Deoodiooo” it clacked again. No one would mistake this creature’s vocalization for a human, while occasionally goats did sound like people. The goats could sound just like humans screaming in agony.
“You are beautiful and so very strange,” Cammarry said out load. She took a step toward the beast.
The animal squawked and moved some short appendages on its sides which were covered by the stuff that
was not fur. It bolted and rushed away quickly. The rear portion of the animal had a thick tuft jutting out rather like a tail. Its two muscular legs swiftly carried it along as it ducked its head down and disappeared around a corner.
“My you are a speedy one. Now what would John say? He taught us that fur, hair, scales, and feather were the coverings over the integument of animals. So are those scales or feathers?”
“Scales? Heavens no. Chickens are covered in feathers,” a voice said from the side. “Who are you and why do you not know that?”
The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books Page 34