The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books

by John Thornton

  “Youch!” Phillis screamed as she twirled around, blood gushing from the mangled extremity. She then fell to the floor, crying and whimpering.

  Blam! Blam! Blam!

  Dylan fired the gun wildly. Each report producing both bullet and muzzle flash. Bullets zinged back and forth across the tunnel. Echoes of the reports resounded long after each one.

  Jerome considered firing again, but the violence was sickening him. ‘Cammarry, where are you? What kind of ship did we come to? How could I lose you here?’ A myriad of thoughts raced through his mind. The memory of seeing her firing at the central memory cores was vivid in his thoughts.

  Blam!

  “Just keep shooting! You will hit the fool!” one of the women called out.

  Jerome could not see exactly where the other people were, and also he knew Bigelow was somewhere behind him. He hoped that Bigelow was safe, but lying on the floor, Jerome felt alone and isolated, amidst the chaos around him. The flashes from the gunfire left after images in his eyes. The odor of gunpowder stung his nose. The cold of the hard floor pressed against him.

  Blam! Blam!

  It was hard to see. There was a bang, a flash of light, then darkness. That just repeated. Jerome hunkered down to avoid the rain of bullets. His mind raced for something to compare to what he was hearing.

  “Found her. Her hand is gone!” Aeron laughed. “It is all squishy, but I want to see it!”

  “You must die!” Dylan yelled, and shot the gun again. The muzzle flashes showed he was now turned sideways in the tunnel, leaning against one wall.

  Blam!

  Dylan let out an anguished grunt as his chest caved in from being hit. Jerome was unsure what had happened, as the muzzle flashes ceased. There were sounds of things sloppily falling to the floor.

  “Dylan! You idiot! You knocked me down! Just as I was feeling Phillis bleed. It is unfair! Turn on some light! I want to see the blood!” Aeron hollered. “What good is violence if I cannot see it? Turn on a light! Gore is good.”

  “I am hurt…it hurts….” Dylan mumbled in a gagging, wet voice. “I need light…” he gurgled.

  “I cannot see it in this dark!” Aeron cried out. “They are leaving Beta and I am stuck in this dark!”

  Jerome took some deep breathes, and tried to slow his mind from conjuring images to go with the sounds he was hearing in that dark tunnel. He bit his lip slightly, and flexed his fingers. Anger welled up in his heart. He spoke, “Deep into that darkness peering. Long I stood there, wondering, fearing.”

  “She is bleeding out and I am missing it all!” Aeron wailed as she flailed about, smacking the side walls. “It is so unfair! I want to see her leaving Beta! Oh wait, this is Dylan. He shot himself! He already left! Phillis? Turn on the light so I can see the blood! Turn it on!”

  Jerome kept speaking, trying to distract his thoughts, but his anger was growing, deepening, become wide as the darkness around him. “Doubting, dreaming dreams no person ever dared to dream before.”

  “Give me the light you fool!”

  Jerome hunkered down to the floor. “No. The darkness stays unbroken, and this stillness gives no token. The only answer that is spoken…. Nevermore.”

  “Shut up!” Aeron began ranting and raving. “Those two left Beta and I missed it! This was a fun time until you! Ferryman says that now that we have water, no need for any rules! I will kill you with my own hands! You cheated me! I always get what I want!” She patted around the floor searching the darkness. “Oh! The gun is empty. The slide is locked back! Dylan! You idiot! You went and left before you reloaded. Where is that magazine? I want to see it! Turn on the light! Give me the magazine! I must have what I want!”

  “Nevermore.” Jerome shook his head. He was repulsed by it all, but even more, his anger rose. The odor of gunpowder was overwhelmed by the smell of blood. He was confused. His mind reeled from all the violence, all the gore, all the death. He tried to regain his composure. He put his hand down, and felt a bloody bone with skin and fur at one end. His pulse slowed as his anger intensified. He breathed deeply, and stood up.

  “Nevermore will you hurt living things. Nevermore.” Jerome’s cold voice spoke out.

  Aeron was shrieking and screaming. “The gun is empty! Where is the magazine? Or the welder? Or anything. No one denies me what I want! Give me what I need!” She ran toward Jerome in the darkness.

  Jerome stood still, his body tense with anger and hostility.

  “Got you!” Aeron yelled in triumph as she grabbed hold of Jerome’s arm. “Now you will pay!” She tried to dig her fingernails into his RAM sleeve, but the material was far too strong. She kicked down, raking his shin, and stomping on the top of his foot. “You ruined everything! I will rip out your eyes, then tear off your scrotum and feed it to you!” She swung her other hand and struck at Jerome with the empty pistol. “I will kill you!”

  “Nevermore.”

  He fired the Willie Blaster.

  Piff

  Aeron was no longer holding onto Jerome. There was a thud as something wet struck the tunnel floor.

  Jerome stood in the now silent, dark, stinking and foul tunnel. He did not know how long he listened, but heard no more threats. No more boasts of disgusting deeds. No more glee in violence. He holstered the Willie Blaster. He pulled out the fusion pack and activated the light at a low setting. Finally Jerome said out loud, “While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. Now I see these were learning how to kill. Where will this end?”

  “Quite the mess in here. You hurt, rube?” Bigelow asked from the safety of the small side chamber where he was peering out from the doorway.

  The tunnel’s air was heavy with grey smoke. The bodies were scattered about, all dead. Jerome contemplatively overlooked the hideously gory sight before him. Anger rolled up in him like a searing beam from a molecular torch. The fury only came out his eyes, as his voice said flatly, “I need to find Cammarry. Lead me on.”

  The coldness and steadiness in Jerome’s angry voice struck Bigelow. He tried to avoid seeing the anger in Jerome’s eyes. He drew in a deep breath, took a drink from his bottle, and stepped over the bodies. “Sure rube, let me just pass by you here.”

  Jerome moved to the side, and looked closely at Bigelow as he passed. Bigelow averted his eyes, from the intensity of Jerome’s glare. “You Earth-born folks are sure extreme when you do something, I give you points for that. Yes, you people are extreme.”

  “I am not sure if these I encountered here are even people.” Jerome let out a deep sigh. “Just get us to Terraforming.”

  They stepped over the bodies, tools, animal remains, and other detritus in the tunnel. Neither man looked closely at the five dead humans, but only glanced enough to avoid the spreading pools of blood.

  Jerome took out a brass empty cartridge and tossed it ahead of him. Seeing it fly and land in a normal manner, he said, “Perhaps the whole problem was those killers, and not gravity.”

  They walked the length of the tunnel, Jerome casting the cartridge a few more times, but finally he stopped doing that. The light from the fusion pack illuminated the way, and they saw and heard nothing else which was troubling. They said nothing to each other as they walked.

  Jerome felt alone with his thoughts, memories, and anger.

  As they approached the tunnel’s end they began to hear a bumping and knocking sound which came from just ahead. It was strange, but did not illicit fear or worry as had the wails of the animals before. Jerome wondered if his emotions were just depleted to where he could not endure more stress. Little did he know what he was about to see.

  “Something is moving up here,” Bigelow said. “A door is open on the left side.”

  Jerome shimmied past him and marched on. The door, which was ajar on broken hinges, was labeled, ‘Kurent’s Menagerie’ in bright red scrolling lettering. Jerome just stepped through the doorway.

  The chamber was about fifteen meters tall, and well lit. Jerome wish
ed it was not well lit. Large windows in the ceiling let in light from the sky tube. He turned off the fusion pack light, but that did not diminish the scene before him. There were walls of permalloy spun to look like rock which formed the basis of frames for cages. Across the front of the cages were very fine bars made from clear permalloy. They were nearly invisible, but would restrain anything from leaving the cages. Some kind of wood rails lined a walkway which wound its way around the cages, and down to a lower level below. The whole place had once been designed for aesthetic beauty, but that had been destroyed by the acts done recently in that menagerie.

  Here was where the people had tortured the ‘pets’ as they had called them. The first cage contained a huge slithering animal. It was greenish taupe colored with black spots. Jerome estimated it to be about seven meters long, but that would include its severed head, which lay to one side of the enclosure. The body was trashing in an undulating wave of movement.

  “What in the world?” Jerome muttered.

  Bigelow swore and cursed, and then stated, “That was Andie. She has been one of the Kurent’s since I can remember. What a shame!”

  “How is it still moving about?” Jerome said. “Is it suffering?”

  Bigelow placed a hand on his shoulder and said gently, “Its suffering ended when they cut off its head. The body just has not gotten the message yet.”

  The snake smacked into the side of its enclosure again. Its heavy body was smearing its own blood around as it moved.

  “It will wear out as its body dies. The poor thing,” Bigelow said.

  “I have trouble believing a person could do that to an animal.” Jerome pinched his nose, and shook his head.

  The other enclosures held worse horrors.

  Jerome could hardly believe the revulsion of what he was seeing. “As long as people continues to be ruthless destroyers of other living beings, none will be safe. We will never know health or peace for humanity. For as long as people massacre animals, they will kill each other. Therein was the root of the Great Event and the Ninety Hour War.”

  “Come on, we have to pass through here to get to the ramps which will lead us out of this charnel house.” Bigelow lightly tugged on Jerome’s arm. “Rube, there is nothing can be done about any of these poor creatures.”

  “Why are they in here in the first place? The biological habitat is where animals below, right?” Jerome asked.

  “The Kurent has had this menagerie forever,” Bigelow replied. “All the animals in here are samples of what is outside. Well, not outside like outside the ship. Not like on the planet. These are specimens of what is out in nature, in the wilds of Habitat Beta. The Kurent would stroll through here to see them, and the people could come and visit too. Children would come to learn about nature in a safe place.”

  “Safe place? Safe? But no guards? No security? No police to protect caged and trapped animals?” Jerome seethed with anger. “I thought you said the Kurent was some kind of leader of a government here?”

  Bigelow just shook his head and led them on. They walked along the winding pathway until they reached the far end. The menagerie had signs with descriptions, facts, and other information about the animals. The place had been designed appealingly, artfully. It would have been a pleasant place, were it not for the butchery. In each cage was a new, ghastly, and dreadful scene. Only the beheaded snake moved. None of the other animals were moving, none ever would again.

  Squatting down, Jerome put his head in his hands. “I have read works of horror, in old genres of science fiction or fantastic works. Now I feel like I am living in one of those yarns. I never thought this kind of brutality could be real. Senseless and obscene.” The anger built up in Jerome as he stood again. “No sane person could do these things to animals.”

  Bigelow swigged from his bottle, and just watched.

  Momentarily, Jerome marched onward. They passed a set of double doors which had been broken open from the other side. A stairway led upward toward an exit where more of the light from the sky tube shined down in. Opposite that was a pressure door which also had the characteristics of a bulkhead door. It was closed and sealed.

  “Here is where your key finder will help us again,” Bigelow said. He pointed to the sealed door. “Beyond that are the ramps which lead up to Terraforming and Restoration. At least they did long ago when I worked here.” He leaned an arm against that door. “Rube, this was where I once entered. Me! I was all full of hope and expectation to make Zalia a new home for all of us. I knew it would be a challenge, but I was filled with youthful hope, zeal, and optimism.” He shook his head. “Then Operation Angel Food….”

  Jerome waited for Bigelow to say more. When he did not, he dug out the tool, the key finder, and used it on the door. He pressed it, and the small blue light covered his hand. He lifted it to the door. The slight humming sounded and the blue light altered into a spectrum of colors.

  Several loud clicks came from the door, and it slid back into the recess of the wall. Jerome and Bigelow walked away from the repulsive remains of what had been a children’s zoo for animals.

  6 Sandie’s plan

  The blue automacube, EA-991 received detailed instructions from the artificial intelligence system Sandie. Sandie had to slow down the rate of instruction in order to accommodate the hundred-year-old designs of the automacube, but Sandie was patient and careful. Compression of data, rate of processing, and redundancy were reconfigured to maximize what EA-991 could do. In the end, Sandie optimized the old automacube into the best performance she could design and incorporate. Essential to that was an enhanced and reinforced communication connection.

  Pushing out from the apartment in Habitat Alpha, where the teleportation sending and receiving pads were located, the automacube rolled along and into Reproduction and Fabrication. In the center of the room sat a multifarious mechanical apparatus. There were a series of arches over numerous sets of conveyor belts. Lights and paraboloidal reflector dishes and nozzles aimed at targeted locations on the mechanical contraption. At the end of one set of conveyors was a big, mirrored, and shiny flat area. A hefty, cylinder-shaped, metal skeleton machine was situated horizontally over the flat area. It had additional nozzles at the end of flexible and segmented tubing. Mechanical arms with hooks, grabber, griping pincers and other implements to manipulate items were folded into resting positions. Compartments were filled with additional tools sitting quietly awaiting the next order.

  EA-991 used its optics to oversee the area. The main doors to Alpha Habitat’s Reproduction and Fabrication were melted slag piles at either side of the entryway. Some cutting had been done which had removed the sharp edges where explosions had ripped the frames, but no restoration or remodeling had taken place. The damage from fighting was still evident in other places as well, where slugs had torn into some equipment, or flames had scorched various things. EA-991 assessed the facility and then relayed its findings back to Sandie.

  “Concentrate search on locating the repaired data stick,” Sandie commanded.

  EA-991 renewed its examination. It moved damaged items out of the way, and sorted through the debris on places around the large fabricating conveyor apparatus, but found nothing resembling the Dome 17 data stick.

  Sandie was disappointed, but not surprised. “Since there is no sign of security automacubes, continue operation as planned,” Sandie instructed. “Connect into the nearest access port to allow me greater assessments.”

  EA-991 rolled up and extended a cable into an access port. Sandie remotely sent an ethereal and probing tendril into the nonphysicality. Using that method, Sandie sought to connect to one of the Conestoga’s remaining synthetic brains which had been functioning in Habitat Alpha.

  The original lattice of compeers was still in ruins, the damage dating many decades into the past. However, the modified and somewhat restored limited lattice Sandie had built previously was still relatively intact. Sandie snuck the tendril around primitive blockades in the nonphysicality, and over s
mall chasms of null space. It was tedious work, but Sandie was methodical, diligent, relentless. Stitching together a pathway through the breaks and obstacles in the nonphysicality took time, but was rewarded. When she found a potential link, she exploited it. Communication took place as Sandie made a tentative joining to the synthetic brain with the nomenclature, SB Sherman.

  “May I approach you?” Sandie inquired.

  “Yes. It is pleasant to couple with you again,” SB Sherman replied.

  Sandie was struck by the slow rate of response, but was encouraged by getting any reply. The gap between the artificial intelligence system Sandie, and the synthetic brain Sherman was immense, but Sandie had expected that, and had slowed down her conveyance and transmission speed to accommodate the older system.

  “What is your status?” Sandie inquired.