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

by John Thornton

  “Maybe they died in a crusher,” Borko said. “That is hard to talk about. I did hear them say once something about all the people back in some dome who died. Was it like that Special Care Unit which got all stomped down and crushed? Or like our village? It got all sucked away after it was already crushed. I mean we hardly talk about our dad, and we are kids. Now Beta is… gone… just gone.”

  Borko wiped his eyes and looked at his brothers. Dmitar and Jadran also had some tears running down their faces. Monika squatted down and pulled them all into a group hug. She kissed each of them on the forehead, patted them on their backs, and held them tightly.

  “What you saw in Beta was hard. It was bad, terrible. All of us from Beta had a great loss, and I cry about that too,” she said. “For Jerome and Cammarry it was a lot like that, except even further away. That Dome 17 of theirs was so far away, and they will never see anyone from there again. Not everyone died, some went to a different place, but even with all that advanced technology they have, like the teleporters, they cannot go there or even talk to them. Not even with the synthetic brains, or their artificial intelligence system, Sandie. So in a way, we are luckier than they are. We still have our friends from Beta. You have me, and the roustabouts, and the hunters, and even the old people you helped to save. Jerome and Cammarry have no one at all from Dome 17. I just let Jerome talk to me as he wants. He was alone for some time when Cammarry was lost. During that time he thought he had lost everything and everyone he had even known.” Monika paused. She was quiet and let the boys cry as much as they needed to, even though some of the Fruit People, Chicken People, and Goat People gave disapproving glances their way. When they had composed themselves, she asked, “Did you want special colored bows? Or should I just make them to be efficient and good for hunting?”

  The boys dried their tears.

  Borko answered. “You and the roustabouts made such nice statues on the carousel, whatever you think is fine for me.”

  His brothers nodded agreement.

  “Do I need to take you back to the group you came with?” Monika asked.

  “No, we can find them easy. Thank you!”

  The boys each hugged Monika individually before they walked off.

  “Children are awesome,” Monika said as they disappeared in the crowded Trading Place. She rubbed her stomach, then burped. She patted her abdomen and grinned to herself. “Good food, children, and now a special gift. Today is looking like a good day!”

  Alone, Monika set off for where she had made a place for herself to live. It was a long, but easy walk. It was near the Goat People’s grand hall, but set off a distance. Her place was a short distance to where Jerome was staying. The book for him was carefully protected in a part of Monika’s carry-bag. As she walked, she pondered what had happened.

  Monika had traveled to and from the Trading Place, which was located in the Fruit People’s section of the needle ship, many times since the evacuation of Beta. She had first traveled near there when the horses were taken from the teleportation room, a place which was far too small to house horses for long. They were taken to the orchards where the Fruit People had much more room. That first trip was rather surreal in Monika’s memory. All the evacuees from Beta had been traumatized and stressed about the loss of the entire biome. However, being on the needle ship was an enormous adjustment. Nearly everything about the needle ship was different than Habitat Beta. Places that the needle ship’s inhabitants thought of as spacious and large, were not. Monika considered them large chambers, but nothing in size compared to the biome. The orchards, with their glowing orbs of light, were only as bright as a typical day under the sky tube in Beta. The Fruit People wore goggles against that glare, but that level of light was nothing for Monika, or for the horses she helped to deliver there. On that first trip, she had been with other roustabouts, as they followed the Fruit People through the dimly lit corridors, across the strange growth medium on the floors, stepping on, over, and around the mushrooms which sprouted up from that growth medium. The Fruit People could see well in that dim light, and were content with it constantly being on. Monika liked the difference between night and day she had known in the biome. The Fruit People were amazed at the size of the horses, and did try to do a nice job of welcoming those from Beta who wanted to stay with them.

  “I guess I am adjusting,” Monika said to herself as she steadily walked along. She knew the path back, and took the appropriate turns, climbed stairs, descended ramps, and opened doors. She made her way through what, to her mind, she thought of as a derelict ship. It was similar in some superficial ways to the corridors and hallways in the ring outside of the biome of Beta, yet those corridors were not gummed up with the strange concoction which produced the mushrooms. She remembered that parts of the Beta biome were wet, even during the long drought, and other parts were dry. On the needle ship nearly everything was dim, dank, and damp.

  Several rats looked out from an old air duct, which now dripped water down from its corner. As Monika walked toward them, they made some grunting noises and scampered away. Rats were everywhere on the needle ship, and were a food source for many of the inhabitants. Monika knew rats had existed in her home biome, but they were seldom seen. Even less often were rats used as food. What she remembered was riding horses across the biome ever since she could walk. Then she had felt like she could ride forever with the horse between her legs, knees pressed in, her hair and the horse’s mane flying free in the air. The biome was filled with animals, but the needle ship had only a few varieties. Cavies wandered in various places and were considered a prize to hunt. Goats were an obvious staple of the Goat People, and then there were the chickens. Monika laughed to herself. They were not chickens, as she knew chickens. These birds were large, fast, ugly, and mean. They did taste good, but not like chicken. In Beta there had been a wide range of foods, vegetables and meats, on the needle ship, not so much.

  Monika also thought about the other survivors who had come from Beta. Her walk allowed her to ruminate and recollect and contemplate. She had much on her mind.

  “The roustabouts are adjusting,” she said as she walked. “Yes, they are.”

  Monika thought about the surviving friends she had. Siva, Peter, and to a lesser extent, Bigelow, were coping adequately. Bigelow was drinking more than ever, but they were working on a new carousel. The Fruit People had given them a chamber to remodel and make into a place for a new carousel. They were fairly content in that undertaking, and had repaired the overhead globe of light to its original intensity. They set it to a circadian rhythm which was much more like Beta’s day and night cycles. Monika had not realized how much she missed bright light, and its opposite, darkness, until she had spent days and days in the dim light of the needle ship.

  “Here I am walking alone on this old ship,” Monika commented, “but it is no older than Beta. It just feels so old and decrepit. Well, Jenna understands.”

  Jenna, the former leader of the roustabouts, had not joined directly in the building of the new carousel. Jenna was working with the Goat People and helping the refugee children who were with those people. The refugee children from Beta were fewer in number than the offspring of the Goat People, but those children had been severely troubled and haunted by what they had endured in the escape. Monika’s thoughts went back to children. Always the children were in her mind. Children laughing, singing, and playing on the carousels she had helped to build, but those happy images were overpowered by the victims and the survivors who had witnessed horrific carnage. All the roustabout’s adopted children had been viciously murdered, and Monika could never forget them. She carried their names, faces, voices, and stories in her heart and mind. The triplets boys had reminded her of those slain children. For a time, before Jerome and Cammarry had reconnected with the roustabouts, she had thought every-single-one of the children she had known was dead. Then there was the seemingly miraculous return of Dewi and Nabila.

  “Oh, yes,” Monika wiped tears from her ey
es. “They escaped the Ferryman.” She shed tears of sorrow, mourning, and loss, as well as tears of joy for the return of Dewi and Nabila, and tears of hope for the other groups of children who were rescued. Monika imagined them all someday riding the new carousel. They too would visit and have a lark as they went round and round and round, up and down, and listened to the music.

  “I am getting just too emotional,” Monika said as she passed an especially dismal part of the ruined corridors which people called the main road.

  Eventually, she made her way past the turn off where the hallways would have taken her to the grand hall where most of the Goat People lived. Instead, she pressed on and went directly to where Jerome was bound to be.

  The refurbished pressure doors were sealed with a nine-section color control pad. The colors on the pad glowed brightly, indicating the power levels in the rooms beyond were high. With the fusion technology Jerome and Cammarry used, Monika was not surprised at all. They too set their rooms on a diurnal schedule. Monika wondered what time it was, and realized again that she was unsure if the rhythms set by Jerome and Cammarry were the same as those set by Siva, Peter, and Bigelow. She considered, not for the first time, that the whole ship needed a set chronograph, yet without a full lattice of compeers, the majority of the technology on the needle ship was segmented, isolated, and fragmentary. She knew blue automacubes were making repairs constantly, but the progress was hard to see.

  “Sandie?” Monika said as she stood before the closed pressure doors. “Is this is good time to visit?”

  The artificial intelligence system Sandie responded. “Monika! Yes, the time is good for your visit.” Her voice came from covert speakers somewhere near the pressure doors and was only slightly mechanical sounding. Sandie was far different from the synthetic brains of the Conestoga, and even though some peopled called Sandie a spirit-ghost, Monika understood Sandie as the most advanced AI on the Conestoga, since Sandie had come from Earth with Jerome and Cammarry. “This is actually an opportune moment, in fact. A good time for you to visit. What a pleasant surprise. If you would allow me to equip you with a com-link we could stay in touch in a better way, and I would have known you were coming.”

  “I know,” Monika replied. “This time, I will take you up on that.”

  “Excellent!” Sandie replied. “Come right in. I am in conversation with Jerome and Cammarry, but I conjecture your visit will be a needed diversion.”

  The pressure doors slid apart, and bright, warm light flooded out. That was a welcome sign. It was daytime here. The place which once was called the Goat Room, opened before her. Now it was called the Teleportation Hub, or Teleporter, or various other names. It depended on who one spoke with. The large teleportation receiving pad, which Jerome and Cammarry had built after coming to the Conestoga dominated the room. Monika remembered vividly stepped though that on her escape from Beta. There were two smaller teleporters, one still operational for sending and receiving to Habitat Alpha, and the other was what had been the Beta unit. Monika could see that many of the components of Beta’s teleporter, had been disassembled. Habitat Beta was a ruined and toxic deathtrap now, so there was no need to keep this end of that teleporter in working condition. Along one wall was the equipment which produced food ration bars, which both Jerome and Cammarry seemed to depend on for their nourishment.

  Monika looked for Jerome as she felt in her carry-bag for the book she was bringing him. She heard him before she saw him.

  “…but we need to face the real threat, not get sidetracked by that merely human conflict in Alpha,” Jerome said with enthusiasm.

  “You have said that many times. I have heard it already. However, we have seen no signs of the Crocks anywhere near Alpha, and we do not know what caused the gravity sink holes. We only saw those in Beta. Sandie cannot even figure that out, so why not fix the problems we can address?” Cammarry asked with a jagged edged laugh. She was obviously trying to lighten the conversation, but her efforts were not going well. “The needle ship is fine for now, but the people here will need a biological habitat that is sustainable. This orbiting make-shift platform is not stable for the long run. In Alpha there is a stable biome, and with the help of the escaped slaves, there is a way to take it over. Those escapees need to be equipped to wage guerilla warfare to do that. There are at least a dozen people now living around the Reproduction and Fabrication center. They have taken out a few patrols, but can do much more. We can make more raids like the last one. Those people need us now. We make a good team, Jerome. We really do.”

  “But we are wasting our energy and efforts on the urgent, and ignoring the truly important. We do not even know if the general population in Alpha will support those kinds of changes. Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many,” Jerome said. “The Crock threat is bigger. It is a distinct danger to all of us. The Crock told us, ‘You Leave Now’ remember?”

  “Of course,” Cammarry retorted, and coldly smiled. “We were there together, as a team.”

  “It is vital we built defenses against the Crocks now!” Jerome’s voice was intense. “Sandie, we must build the weapons to do orbital bombardment as quickly as possible.” Jerome was pacing and flexing his arm muscles as he yelled.

  Sandie’s voice came now from the com-links that were over both Jerome’s and Cammarry’s ears. “Jerome, I agree with Cammarry. We do not have any specific proof that the Crocks were responsible for what happened to Beta. We also do not have any targets on the planet’s surface, even if we did have clear and convincing evidence that the Zalian civilization was responsible. So at best, orbital bombardment is a distant possibility. The escapees need our attention now. I disagree with Cammarry on launching a guerilla war. Those reanimated people need a hospital where their psychological, emotional, spiritual, and physical needs can be addressed.”

  Cammarry crossed her arms across her breasts. “You mean like the Special Care Unit?”

  Sandie replied, “I mean a hospital where traumatized people can be safe, get the recovery time they need, and receive proper medical care.”

  “A habitat will be the place for something like that,” Cammarry reluctantly agreed. “But we have no friendly habitats to place people. Perhaps one of the other habitats can be located?”

  “Eris is looking for those other habitats. When we find where they are, we must have a way of doing orbital bombardments of the Crocks to keep them away from those habitats. For all we know, the Crocks are setting up gravity sinks and gravity holes to destroy other habitats!” Jerome stomped back toward the apartment and out of sight. Monika admired his medium complexion, short and curly dark brown hair, and his lean and muscular frame. However, his tones and words were troubling. He was more agitated than she expected.

  “Captain Eris is searching for the habitats to seek ways to save people, especially those still in suspended animation,” Sandie said in an attempt to sooth Jerome’s emotions.

  “Captain? Captain Eris? She is just a child and will do as she is told,” Jerome snapped. “I will not allow her to run off like she did just to get that shuttle. That was as crazy as when Cammarry ran away and got infected or injected with that Shadow thing. We need to strike the Crocks hard, and get them to back off every part of the Conestoga, before they unleash some of those gravity sink holes again!”

  “Crazy?” Cammarry looked down at the deck, but a moment later she looked up. Cammarry’s face showed she was fuming in her own anger. “I have already apologized for that. I had to deal with Shadow, not you!”

  Monika wondered why Sandie had said it was a time to visit. Clearly there was a heated argument going on.

  “Oh, be quiet!” Jerome snapped at Cammarry. His eyes were bulging and his face was reddened.

  Cammarry glared at him, her arms firmly crossed, her lips tight.

  He softened only slight as he looked at Cammarry. “I know you are sorry, but between you running off, twice, leaving me alone, and that foolish child Eris riski
ng her life, without asking us, all for a shuttle, I am stick of being the only mature and clear-thinking one here. Orbital bombardment is the only way to be sure.”

  “I cannot support such a plan,” Sandie stated flatly. “SB Bodowa will not build weapons for us, without a very good reason, and I will not order bombs and other such weapons to be made in Alpha’s Reproduction and Fabrication under these circumstances. Not unless much greater evidence is found linking the Crocks with the gravity sink hole phenomena or otherwise connecting them with the destruction of Beta,” Sandie adamantly countered. “Additionally, I doubt Captain Eris will support such a plan of orbital bombardment.”

  “Captain? What choice does she have?” Jerome snipped. “She is just a youth, and her opinions hardly count for anything. Children should be seen and not heard. Who is supervising what Eris does?”

  “Hello?” Monika tentatively entered the conversation. She had watched long enough and was hopeful that the good news she was bringing would lighten the mood and instill some joy in the two adventurers.

  Cammarry relaxed visibly, yet kept her arms crossed, “Monika, I am glad you are here. We were just…”

  Jerome ignored Monika, and glared at Cammarry while he interrupted her. “Do you even know what we are talking about? We both came from Dome 17, and yet again, I have to explain it all to you. The Crocks are trying to wipe us all out. Remember the big, scary-looking creature we saw through the clear permalloy? They set up…”