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

by John Thornton

  “Do not be too hard on the young man,” Erma said. “He is in love and eager to impress his intended. If he wants to practice stories or narrations on us, to prepare for the omiai, and his official meeting, we can spare him the time. Impressing his miss is important.”

  Jerome, his anger seething, bit his lip and clenched his fists. After a blistering glare at Bigelow, he turned back to the elderly couple. “I will not burden you any further with my stories. The greatest scholars are often the commonest people. You both are to be commended for what you are doing. I too appreciate your kindness and generosity.” He followed Bigelow up into the boat. “May I ask why this is called a durham?”

  Erma looked puzzled. “It is called a durham, because that is what it is.”

  Lloyd put his arm around her. “The lad is still learning and exploring the reaches of his mind. Durham is the name for these kinds of boats. In the boathouse I do have a canoe, a kayak, a coble, and a foyboat, but none of them are river-worthy. Besides, they would be too small for your journey, and even when they were watertight were only good for recreation or fishing nearby. So farewell, and blessing on the omiai!”

  “On the way back, do not carry any donkeys. Did I tell you about how Lloyd hauled a load of donkeys? They almost tipped the whole boat over, but Lloyd got them there faster than if they would have walked.” Erma waved as she yet again spoke of the donkeys.

  Lloyd pressed some commands onto the blue automacube, and E-645 rolled back a bit, shoving the durham boat out into the water. The automacube’s manipulation arm then released the boat and it gently launched out and away. The automacube then pulled the sunken triangular trolley out of the water.

  “Blessing on your omiai, and on all of us as we venture toward the Westerhuis 13 system and our rendezvous with the planet Tlalocan our future home!” Lloyd waved.

  The durham boat floated backward a bit on the river’s current. Bigelow stood near the pedestal of the boat, and looked at the control board. The top portion was a small display with several colored buttons and indicators for the direction of the water jet. Jerome walked over next to him. There were two seats which flipped up and locked into place near the controls. Jerome fixed them in place while Bigelow touched the display which controlled the motor. A small jet of water was ejected at the side of the boat. It turned its bow into the current, and away they sailed.

  Looking back, Jerome heard Lloyd remark, “Miss Kay will be good to you.”

  Then the current carried them away. There were occasional scraping as the flat bottom of the durham rubbed against some submerged objects, but nothing too rough rocked the boat. Jerome sat on one of the chairs, and spoke to Bigelow.

  “What happened back there?” The anger was radiating from Jerome’s face.

  “My dear rube, we acquired a boat,” Bigelow said smugly. He took his bottle out from where he had hidden it and took a long swallow.

  “You poke me again like that, and I may not be as cooperative,” Jerome warned. His lips were drawn.

  “Calm down rube. Is it right for you to be so angry? How else was I to get you to stop jabbering? Your questions and comments would have spoiled my pitch. You need to pursue Cammarry, and I helped you. You should be thanking me, yes you should.”

  Jerome considered. The rocking of the boat was unusual, not like being in zero gravity, nor like anything else he had felt. It was an unfamiliar sensation. “I suppose you are correct. Thank you. I just thought being honest with those people would be best.”

  “Honesty is a tool and is subjective. Those old people wanted a mission or a quest, and so I gave them a purpose,” Bigelow said. “We needed transportation. We both win, and it was not really twisting the truth too much. You are emotionally committed to Cammarry, so that is the truth. She may not be a nurse, exactly, but she can use that medical kit, so that is honest enough. And you are a scholar, in your own way.”

  Jerome consider what he had said.

  “And do you think telling those elderly people about the condition of Habitat Beta would have brightened their moods?” He added some colorful profanities. “Would your truth have improved their lives? Where is your compassion for compromised people? You should use your head rube, yes you should.”

  Jerome bit back a comment, but considered what Bigelow had said.

  The shorelines were marked with a wide area where the river once had flowed. Weeds and short brush stuck up from the water in those areas. The more Jerome watched, the more he could determine where the river had once flowed, as compared to its current level, but he could also see where it had been even lower than it was now.

  Soon they floated under a bridge, and were moving past the cultivated farm fields.

  “Those elderly people, Lloyd and Erma,” Jerome began, “they seemed to know you.”

  “Well, rube, they remembered me as working in Terraforming, part of that team, but as you could see, they are advanced in age. The ancient old, I call them. Doing pretty well, I would say. I applaud them for being as capable as they are.”

  “But they did not know that the Conestoga made planet-fall,” Jerome commented. He just could not let go discussing it. “You let them remain in that deception.”

  “No deception,” Bigelow huffed. “They know somewhere in their minds, they know. But at their age, it is easier for them to recall the times when there was hope. Lots of the ancient old talk like that. If you press them to conform to the current situation, they sometimes get depressed or angry. Why hurt old people? They will die here in Beta, let them keep their hope for a journey among the stars alive. Who knows, maybe someday they will get to Westerhuis 13 and the planet Tlalocan.”

  “Was that the original destination?” Jerome asked.

  Bigelow cursed a long string of words. “For what it is worth now, I believe it was,” Bigelow stated with a wave of his hand. “It does not matter a bit. Nope, it is not worth even a tiny brass spacer worth. Just some empty and meaningless concept now what the original destination of the Conestoga was. I can tell you, rube, in Terraforming, the systems were not at all prepare for the planet we are on, not at all. That was why the bastardized Project Angel Food was begun. Terraforming’s original plans called…”

  Crash!

  The boat suddenly dipped violently as the bow crashed downward deeply into the water. Sprays of water were thrust up from the sides. The water flew through the air, but in a flat, heavy sort of way. It fell back to into the empty cargo area of the boat with a thud, rivulets flattening out and squishing down over the planks of permalloy in odd ways.

  Bang. Snap!

  The boat lurched again, twisted, and dunked sideways. The permalloy planks flipped off the deck and up into the air, but quickly hammered down to the deck in a cascade of noise.

  There was a loud groan as the honeycombed permalloy of the bottom was stressed and pressured. The planks shook around and were a jumbled mess.

  “Get to the side!” Bigelow commanded and shoved Jerome over.

  Jerome fell flat onto the chaos of disheveled planks, catching himself with his arms, but biting his lip as he fell. The taste of warm blood ran in his mouth. A plank bucked up and smacked him in the mouth, splitting his lip. More blood flowed. His ears perked up at the grinding sounds which he heard. The hull of the boat wrinkled a bit, then popped as it creased in a seam which traveled crosswise on the boat. Planks dancing away from it. Bigelow quickly stepped out of the way of the dimpling permalloy.

  “What!” Jerome cried as he watched the creasing and dimpling permalloy continued to bend. Then without warning, the boat popped upward, nearly leaving the surface of the river. Jerome was thrown off the deck, and caught himself on his feet, stumbling a bit toward the side of the boat. It splashed back down, and this time the water flew up in normal fashion. Jerome held onto the edge and watched the river, the boat, and Bigelow.

  CRACK!

  A noise echoed across the water from the boat. The boat spun about on the water. The crease in the boat’s bottom snapp
ed back into place, with just a small wrinkle showing where it had been. The scattered planks were an unruly broken mess.

  Jerome looked back, and the currents and waves of the river were distorted along a circular pattern in the water. The level of the river was depressed over that area, but he could not understand why. Everywhere else he looked, the river seemed roughly the same level, with just variations in waves and ripples. But over that circular area, which he estimated to be about ten meters wide, the river just looked wrong.

  Eyes wide, he looked at the waters. “Do rivers do that?” Jerome asked as he pointed at the strange sight.

  “That is a fair question.” Bigelow stared hard, but also worked the controls on the pedestal to stop the spin of the boat. A small jet of water shot from the side, and the spin stabilized. “I am not a seaman, but I have done my share of boating, especially as a youth. I have never seen anything like that in my life.” Bigelow snorted a bit. “But I have not been on the river as it is refilling after a long drought. Who knows what oddities we will see?”

  “But the permalloy?” Jerome knelt down and touched the wrinkle in the ship’s hull. “This is permalloy. Nothing should be able to bend it like that. It is not steel or some softer metal. This is permalloy. Sure it is old, and is honeycombed inside, as that elderly man said, but it is permalloy.”

  “That it is, rube. That it is.” Bigelow looked up at the sky tube far overhead, its warmth caressing his face. Some areas of sweat were showing through his clothing, marking his chest and armpits. “It is good to be outside again. You ever consider the light from the sky tube?”

  Jerome ignored the attempt at diversion and ran his hands across the wrinkle, and squat-walked along where the damage had been done. “Gravity was altered back there. That must be it.”

  “What are you saying?” Bigelow snorted. “Another, what did you call it before? A gravity sink hole! Ha! We are in flood waters. Who knows what was under the water back there. Could have been some whirlpool leading down into a now flooded tunnel. The transport system might have been breached under there. I can think of a thousand reasons that make more sense than your gravity altered sink hole idea. Gravity sucking away is just preposterous.”

  “Perhaps. I have never been on a boat before. Never seen a river before coming to the Conestoga. Maybe it was a normal part of a river,” Jerome admitted. But then he ran his hand across the wrinkle in the permalloy. “But this is permalloy. It takes something extremely powerful to bend it. That would take more than some ecological force.”

  “Look at the planks, rube! The old man probably repaired the hull in the past sometime, and covered it with that thin veneer of planks. The repair failed when it was under stress. Maybe he made it look all nice on the outside, but the permalloy was already creased and broken beneath?” Bigelow said and took a long drink from his bottle. “That is undoubtedly what happened. That old Lloyd had placed a superficial fine layer of permalloy planks over a prior break, or a place where the ship had been disconnected with cutting tools. This whole boat may have been just stuck back together with weak bonds.”

  “You do not sound very convinced. The planks look more like a padding or insulating factor, not a cover-up,” Jerome said while he stood. He kicked a couple loose planks out of his way. “That old man did not seem like one who would take short-cuts on repairs, especially on a boat he named after his daughter.” Jerome considered. “But I did read once about whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of corruption, and brokenness. That was in some religious context, but it could mean a superficial repair, I guess.”

  “Now you are thinking clearly. Finally,” Bigelow stated with a weak smile. “No gravity changes. Not possible. If there had been a shipment loading down the planks they would have all stayed in place. Look at it clearly and rationally.”

  “I always think clearly. Gravity changes are possible,” Jerome snapped back. “I know that is true, and you do too. This planet has higher gravity than we feel in this habitat. Oh I wish I could connect to Sandie and have her run some conjectures or measurements.”

  “You are talking about gravity outside of Beta, not inside. But just so you do not worry, rube, I will steer us clear of anything that looks like what we saw back there. Satisfied?”

  “Condescension does not suit you. Bigelow, we saw it when that predator cat chased that nyala, and now we saw something in the water. I am not so fast to dismiss what I have observed,” Jerome snarled back. “I know what I saw.”

  “And I, my dear rube, am not so fast to jump to outlandish speculations, when much more normal situations and consequences are at work.” Bigelow waved one hand in dismissal of Jerome while with his other he adjusted the controls a bit. “The motor is working fine, and we are still on our way. The old man just did a cover-over repair of some major damage, no need to resort to runaway imaginings. The Special Care Unit is on the seacoast, and with the rate the river if flowing, I think we can get there by dusk. You just relax.”

  Jerome said nothing. He kicked some of the planks away into where the cargo might have been stored. He wiped the blood from his lip, the split wound still open and sore. He considered getting out the medical kit to heal it, but then just spit a bloody stream over the side and into the current of the river. He looked again at Bigelow, and saw a slight tremble in his hands on the controls. The sweat spots under his arms were bigger now as well. Jerome’s RAM suit wicked his sweat away for storage, but it did nothing to appease his building rage. He spit again, another glob of red plopping in to the river. His anger was as red as the sputum which washed away in the current. The target and direction for his anger were unfocused.

  8 adrift in mid or body?

  Jerome did not bring up any conversation as the boat floated down the river. The sky tube shone down, its warm yellow light basking the riverbed and the biology all around it. The durham floated along, the scenery on the banks and fields of Habitat Beta were beautiful, natural, and pleasing to see, but Jerome’s anger lingered. He flexed his hands in rhythm, but the muscles stayed bunched and tight. He took some slow deep meditative breathes, and concentrated on some upcoming trees which were along what had been the old riverbed when the river was full. Here they were still many meters from the water’s edge, but they were vibrant and green.

  “Oh Cammarry, I hope you are safe. I am coming as fast as I can,” Jerome muttered softly.

  In the side of a tree, there was a hole, with some small creature stepping out. A brownish bird emerged, but when the sky tube’s light struck it, there was a revelation of colors. Jerome’s eyes fixed on it as he slowed his breathing a bit more. The bird was multicolored with iridescent plumage. There was a hint of red near the eyes, a green head with white stripes, and a brilliant white flare down its neck. It waddled onto a branch and then leaped off.

  “Geeeeee! Geeee!” The bird called as it flew. It was not flying like the other birds Jerome had seen, but rather a somewhat controlled fall. It dropped a bit and then spread wings, revealing a buff colored belly. Finally, flapping its wings, it flew. Another bird also emerged from the hole, and it was less brilliant, with a white eye-ring and more subdued coloring. It too leapt off.

  “De weep! Dooo weep!” the second bird called after its mate. “cree-r-ek, cree-e-ek!”

  The birds circled a bit and glided onto the water where they made a smooth and easy landing some distance away from the boat. They swam close to each over and bobbed on the waves made by the wake of the boat. They somehow reminded Jerome of the FTL scout ship and how he had flow to the Conestoga with Cammarry in those cramped confines. A single tear ran down his face, which he wiped briskly away and flicked the moisture toward the river. “Alone,” he whispered to himself. “I am alone now.”

  “Wood ducks,” Bigelow called out. “That lady duck probably has a clutch of a dozen or more eggs in that nest. Life is being restored, since the water is back. You should see when their ducklings come out. They walk out and just drop
off the branches and plop to the ground. It is the funniest thing.”

  “Right. It is always so very funny when gravity takes hold of something. A real thing to laugh at.”

  “Not that again, rube!” Bigelow ground his teeth. “That is getting tiresome. Yes, we saw something odd. I agree with you, it was weird, but the drought, the changes in water with its return, and all you have gone through, well, they make for…”

  “Enough of your excuses! I am sick of them,” Jerome interrupted and unconsciously placed his hand on his holster. “How much longer before we reach the Special Care Unit place?”

  Bigelow eyed Jerome’s hand, but gave a forced smile. He drummed his fingers on the control panel on the pedestal. “The river is getting deeper, so we are making better time. The current is stronger. Old Lloyd was right, the channel is deeper here.”