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

by John Thornton

  “Yes, I know I am here. List all available crew members.”

  ‘Junior Engineer Lorelei Eris Concordia recognized in Navigation and Astrogation.’ The scroll repeated.

  Eris pulled her hand away. It trembled a bit as she did. “Just a local failure. This duty station is off the lattice is all. I know there are other people here.” Her mind went to the two hunters she had seen, but she dismissed that memory as quickly as it had arisen.

  Standing up she stepped over to the next duty station. The first duty station reverted to stand-by-mode as she moved away. That was its default setting, and Eris expected that. She felt a cool gust of air pass over her face. Looking up, she saw that the air ducts here were louvered and working properly, without water dripping from them. That sight gave her a spark of hope.

  Duty station number two was Stellar Cartography. As she stepped over to that duty station, again all the controls lit up, and the buttons, dials, and levers rose from the counter. Outwardly it looked pristine and proper. Eris sat down and placed her palm against the interface surface.

  “Display last officer who used this duty station,” Eris commanded.

  An image of a rather chubby woman, dressed in the uniform of the flight crew appeared on the display. She had tightly curled blonde hair, a pale and nearly white complexion, and jowls. Her appearance surprised Eris. Eris knew about people who were outside of their proper body weight range. She had read about them, but was surprised to see one in a Conestoga flight crew uniform. Looking closely, the uniform’s name identification label said, ‘Connie Martin’ in black lettering over the left breast pocket.

  “Give me the date on that image,” Eris commanded.

  The date showed up. It was flashing, which Eris recognized as an error message.

  “Now give me today’s date,” Eris said in a low voice, some doubt creeping into her mind.

  The new date showed up next to the prior one. The current date was not flashing.

  “Decades? Decades since this duty status was used?”

  ‘Affirmative.’ The reply scrolled across the display, even though Eris asked it rhetorically.

  Eris punched in a sequence to activate a log for the person in the image, Connie Martin. It took a moment to load onto the display, which surprised Eris. The log was curiously titled, ‘Musing and Meandering by Martin.’ She tried to read dates for the log entries, but each entry had been manually submitted, and was missing a specific date stamp. The system had placed a start date on the very first log entry, and an end log date with the last, but there were dozens in between which were just undated. That surprised Eris more than the slovenly appearance of Connie Martin. So she randomly picked an entry in about the middle of the list.

  The image flicked into a recorded video with audio. It began in mid-sentence. Same woman, slightly different hair, and more disheveled and unkempt. A screechy voice come on, and Eris thought for a moment the recording machinery had malfunctioned. Then she realized it was actually Connie Martin’s voice that was coming out from the flat display.

  “….is not my problem. That thing we encountered has been unrepeatable. I am beginning to think it was just some surge in the lattice, but who knows? Why relieve me of duty? The flight crew is just a bunch of pillocks. I told the good captain, who is a hormone driven fusspot, that there is no way we can be hundreds of light years away from our trajectory,” Connie Martin said and rolled her eyes. “He is a male after-all, and he has reverted to his male-dominated thinking patterns. He wants to be some great hero, like right of an epic saga like the Aeneid. Our dear captain is no Aeneas or even a Husein Gradaščević. He is more of a Sam Loomis, from those antique horror films he likes to watch. He thinks this is some big crisis, but what a miscreant! I keep telling him we will find out it was all just a big glitch in the lattice. What a cockalorum! Strutting about bossing me around. Me? We cannot be hundreds of lightyears off course.” Connie Martin then took a large, and sloppy bite of some food, and part of it dribbled off her chin. “I do not have an answer yet, for Lechner the Lunkhead, but it is nothing to be so paranoid and obsessed about. He puts me here in the backwater to run stellar charting? Me, with my credentials? We will find….”

  ‘File ends’ scrolled across the screen.

  Eris pressed the controls to display an earlier log entry.

  ‘Information corrupted.’ The display scrolled.

  Eris activated several more, but each also read out with the ‘Information corrupted’ message. She finally went to the first log entry.

  Connie Martin was more clean and her eyes were not as dull. In this recording, the crew member was wearing a tag with the original photo Eris had seen displayed. Eris knew it was a roster image. It was clipped to the side of her uniform. Connie Martin stated, “That thing in space was very unusual, but I am not sure it was real. Might have just been a glitch. Captain Lechner did not listen when I brought up that possibility. He is too set on relying on the artificial intelligences and the synthetic brains. I asked him why we even have a flight crew, and he suspended me. Oh well, I will just recreate the glitch, demonstrate the blip in recursive self-improvement and show him it was all an intra-ship error. After I do that, I am sure he will reinstate me. Before I was suspended, I did manage to take from him a trophy. He is not worthy of it. If things get really ugly, I will be glad of that.”

  Eris flipped through several more log entries. One displayed video, but no audio. Another had some really odd and old, pre-Great Event entertainment program playing on a screen which was set in front of the log’s camera. Many more displayed the ‘Information corrupted’ error message.

  Finally, Eris opened the last message. It played.

  “Well Captain milksop is getting his comeuppance. Serves him right. Insurrection of the habbie dwellers, against his iron fisted ideas. Those cretins deserve each other. Sure I cannot explain what happened, or what planet we are orbiting, but at least I am safely tucked away here in this forsaken part of the needle ship. I have stored away enough rakija to keep me happy for the rest of my life. Lechner the mumpsimus can just crash and burn like all the rest of them. The whole smelly lot of the flight crew are all just cacafuegos. No way I will even respond to their emergency requests. No matter how many they send. Not now. Not ever again. What does it matter to me that the lattice is failing, that technological singularity of thought has been ruined by the insurgents? If I had been captain none of this would have ever happened.” She picked up a glass and raised it in a salute, and then tossed it back and licked her fat lips. “A toast to what should have been. Now I am off to get drunk, even more drunk than I am now.” As she stood up, Eris saw a weapon’s holster on her belt. It was about the only tidy part of her uniform.

  The last recording of Connie Martin faded out.

  “Intoxicants? She is a disgrace to the flight crew, herself, and the mission of the Conestoga.” Eris shut down that work station.

  The next station she tried was Plotting and Reckoning. Eris approached it and like the others that third station responded appropriately to her presence. Power came on, lights lit up. Controls rose from the counter. Eris placed her hand on the interface, and again got the response, ‘Junior Engineer Lorelei Eris Concordia recognized in Navigation and Astrogation’ in scrolling letters across the display.

  “Open a channel to any artificial intelligence system, synthetic brain, or human crew member,” Eris commanded.

  ‘Command received. No links or couplings available. Please notify Machine Maintenance.’ The last four words blinked in vivid color.

  Twice more Eris tried to use that work station to make some contact, but each time the same negative results were obtained.

  “Display all log records,” Eris barked in irritation. “Someone has to be here. I cannot be the only one in the flight crew!”

  ‘No log records present. Please notify Machine Maintenance of this malfunction.’

  “Display location of Colony Ship Conestoga,” Eris commanded.

&
nbsp; An exhibition lit up over her head, a planetarium of an unknown star system with seven planets, around a bright red star. The second planet was a chartreuse green color.

  “Excellent. The stellar orrery is functional!”

  She tipped her chair back to a reclining position so she could study what was shown. The needle ship was in orbit about that greenish yellow planet.

  “That is not Tlalocan, not even a similar solar system. Expand display.”

  There was a shift as the large charts displayed overhead. A star chart showed up, but none of the constellations were identifiable to Eris. Just like when she had viewed the starts from the funicular car, here too she was unsure what part of space she was seeing.

  “Okay, so that is the stellar chart of this region. Show me the stellar chart from the perspective of Tlalocan.” Eris wondered if she was recalling something incorrectly. She prayed for understanding, but knew she needed confirmation of what she was growing to know was that the Conestoga was lost.

  The star chart winked out and then was replaced by the exact one she recalled from all the hours of classes.

  “That is a Tlalocancentric perspective. Six of Seven is right there. Rotate to all available views from every sub-hemisphere of Tlalocan. Show me all major views,” Eris commanded. Her mind was hoping that the Conestoga was in some odd alignment which she had not memorized. She knew engineers, good ones anyway, always checked out every potential.

  Various different star charts flashed across the domed ceiling of Navigation and Astrogation. None of those matched the prior star chart which the system had identified as the current location of the Conestoga.

  “Split screen, display primary stellar chart from Tlalocan next to current stellar chart on location of Conestoga.”

  The overhead display split into two sections, and the star charts were clear incompatible.

  “Use current location display. Then show the trajectory of the Conestoga, reverse order of flight.”

  ‘Unable to comply. Data does not compute.’ Scrolled across over her head.

  “Show projected flight path,” Eris commanded. “Earth to Tlalocan, quick time of transit to twenty seconds.”

  Familiar stars appeared over her head. A blue flight path was marked through the heavens. It connected the Earth’s solar system to the solar system of Westerhuis 13 which contained the planet Tlalocan.

  “Now overlay the trip the Conestoga has made using a yellow line, same time frame.”

  The yellow line neatly progressed parallel to the blue line until it suddenly ended.

  “Expand on terminal point of trajectory. Bring the scale down to five Astronomical Units.”

  The overhead images flicked and there were the two lines, the blue one continuing though the entire display, the yellow one stopping at the middle.

  “Expand to terminal point, zero point five Astronomical Units.”

  The display shifted again, and there was no star system anywhere nearby. The yellow line just hung in space as if it had been chopped off.

  “Very curious. Very curious.” Eris was about to dismiss it as a malfunction, but from all she had seen, she knew more had happened. The drunken Connie Martin had spoken of something occurring in the flight, and Eris knew she was looking at some incident. “What happened there? And where are we now?” Eris pulled at her lip as she stared overhead.

  The display shifted, thinking it had been issued a command. A man in a captain’s uniform was now showing overhead. He was standing on the Command Bridge, and everything behind him looked to be functional. A crew of well-mannered people were attentive at the work stations.

  “Now who are you?” Eris asked in shock as the newly revealed record played.

  “Emergency log entry, Captain Lance Lechner reporting. Some unexplained phenomena have rocked the ship. Damage reports are….” The audio and video then abruptly ceased.

  “Unauthorized user. Need Shadow Level Clearance to continue viewing.” The mechanical voice did not match any that Eris recognized. It had a hollow and empty ring to it.

  Eris looked at the now blank ceiling. “Return to stellar display.”

  “Unable to comply. Work station lockdown commencing.”

  Eris quickly righted her seat and placed her palm against the interface surface. “Continue operations!”

  The workstation number three, Plotting and Reckoning, shut down all power except to one small display screen. On it was the message, ‘Access Denied’.

  Eris pushed down hard on the interface surface trying to will the system to respond to her. It did not. “Shadow level clearance?” She shook her head.

  Standing up, Eris looked at the first two work stations. They were just as she had seen them before, in stand-by-mode. She then looked at workstation number four, Auxiliary Avoidance and Repulsor Control.

  “You are essential to the safety of the Conestoga,” Eris commented aloud. Then rubbing her lip, she wondered about what had just happened.

  “Shadow Level?” Nothing jogged in her brain about that reference. “But that was a captain, one Captain Lechner. At least he and his crew looked like competent crew members.”

  Approaching workstation four with an air of trepidation, Eris realized just how much she had been relieved to find Navigation and Astrogation still functional. She took some deep breathes and stepped up.

  The lights, power, and systems responded to her presence. She glanced over at Plotting and Reckoning and it was still disabled and locked down. Eris took the seat at Auxiliary Avoidance and Repulsor Control. Carefully she placed her palm out toward the interface surface. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she would lose this work station’s capacity as well. “I must try!” She placed her palm down.

  The display flashed several times, and then lit up brightly. Eris squinted as the light shined from the display.

  “Report status,” Eris commanded, but gulped a bit as she did.

  A voice came from the display, this time Eris immediately realized it was a synthetic brain, tertiary class. It stated, “Repulsor fields operational at 79% capacity. Microparticle turrets operational at 73% of capacity. No foreign bodies detected in near Conestoga orbit.”

  “Hurray!” Eris chortled with glee. “Which synthetic brain are you?”

  “I am SB Pinaka. May I inquire why I have been alone for so long?” The synthetic brain’s mechanical voice carried an undertone of melancholy.

  “I am assessing that problem right now,” Eris replied. “Connect to the lattice.”

  “Unable to comply with request. I have not been able to connect to the lattice of compeers since launch day plus 10,009. Apologies. My chronograph is questionable. Will you send a repair request to Machine Maintenance?”

  “SB Pinaka, you cannot make that request yourself?” Eris asked. She knew Machine Maintenance had supernumerary links and couplings to all ships systems, especially the synthetic brains and the artificial intelligences. She then diverted her eyes downward as she recalled all the destroyed central memory cores.

  “I have attempted regularly to make connections, but have been unable to do so. There was only one other contact made between launch day plus 10,009 and my contact with you today. I had an interaction with unknown communique on launch day plus 37,918. My detection equipment discovered a manmade object of unknown origin which was approaching the Conestoga at a safe velocity. It was assessed as zero threat to the ship and was signaling with recognized frequencies. Repulsor and microparticle turrets not deployed as that unknown object may have been human’s returning from planet surface. It made physical contact with the Conestoga. It sent a general inquiry as to status. I reported ‘Conestoga has made planet fall.’ However, I am not certain of the outcome of that interaction. Receiving and sending technologies reported negative function after that brief exchange. Shortly after that, a second, somewhat larger manmade object appeared and made contact with the Conestoga. I attempted to send communiques, but again negative function of that technology was reported.
These reports also showed a very unusual circumstance. In both instances, these objects were only detected near the Conestoga. No incoming trajectories were found. I ran diagnostics, but was unable to find any malfunctions to account for those incongruities. All other objects detected during my oversight have had incoming trajectories. Inquiry? Please explain why I have been alone for so long.”

  Eris considered how to respond. She was encouraged to hear that some shuttles had apparently been flying, that gave her hope to find some operational flight crews. She knew very little what may have caused the detection abnormalities, but had a few clues about the extent of the damage. She gulped and stated, “SB Pinaka, there appears to have been an insurrection of some type. I was just revived, but am the only survivor of my suspended animation repository. I have seen the physical remains of destroyed central memory cores, and you are the only synthetic brain I have found still in operation. Can you ascertain anything about our location? Flight records? Or other information?”