Come people from everywhere,
Goat, fruit, or chicken, I don’t care,
We are all in this, come find some bliss,
For this carousel way up past the air!”
“Bigelow!” the three boys cried out all at once. The boys ran forward as they saw him standing next to the open doors. The light from inside was nearly blindingly bright, but they easily recognized him. His brown floppy hat was on, and his dark brown clothing was clean and neatly pressed.
“Well, well, well, people from Beta!” Bigelow said with genuine affection. “This is a special treat! So glad you could come out for the first ride of the new carousel. Yes, this will be a moment you can remember for the rest of your lives and tell to your grandchildren. Yes, it is!” He took a long drink from his bottle and then hugged each boy in return.
“Hello Bigelow,” Alisa said. “Who all is here?”
“Well, now that you are here, the party can really begin. Of course, there are people from all over the needle ship who have come here. The stars for today are Siva, Peter, and Jenna. They, and yours truly, that is. Children are everywhere from all three tribes of people.”
The boys looked at their mother and she could tell by their faces they were bursting with eagerness to go inside. She nodded, and they ran into the light.
“Zmaj and Kiddie!” the boys yelled together as they saw the border collies from Beta.
“Oh, and the horses are inside as well. They came over from the orchard yesterday,” Bigelow announced. “Tell your boys to be careful around them all. They step where they please!”
“I will, thanks Bigelow.”
Bigelow kept up his song as Alisa entered the carousel chamber. It was one of the larger chamber on the needle ship. Not quite as big as the orchard of the Fruit People, but much much taller than the Grand Hall of the Goat People. At the center of that tall ceiling was a large suspended globe hanging down which was providing the warm and yellow light. It reminded Alisa of the sky tube in Beta, and was supposed to be just as effective for growing plants. Around the perimeter of the area were newly planted trees of various kinds and types. All were still rather small, the tallest being between two and three meters, but Alisa could tell that one day this new place would be ringed by beautiful and full trees. The ground under the trees even looked like the dirt in Beta, as there were even a few flowers growing in various spots.
At the center of the whole area was the new carousel. It was so similar to the ones back in Beta, that Alisa gasped for a moment. Then she saw all the people. It was the biggest gathering of people she had seen in one place since she had fled away from Beta.
The new carousel was not yet moving. Across the top it said in large letters, “Lark” and was centered right underneath the light globe. Its newly painted colors were vivid and dynamic. It had a pyramid tip or roof over it. Alisa knew that when it started up, that top would spin one direction, while the platform with the paired animal figures would spin in a counter direction, all around on a center axis. The stripes were bright: red, blue, green, yellow, orange, and violet. Even before it was activated, the stripes gave an illusion of movement, a sort of swirled pattern which was part of that top of the carousel.
The statues were of animals she knew from Beta, as well as other carvings of animals she had heard about that lived in other habitats. Some she suspected were imaginary animals as well. Each pair was unique with a place for a rider to sit.
Jenna, Peter, and Siva were all standing near to a line which was gathering. The line had children and adults in it, waiting to get onto the carousel.
“It has happened! It has happened!” A well-known voice cut over the top of the hubbub of other people talking. “It has happened!” There was much laughter from that voice as well.
A hush fell over the crowd as people turned to look at the familiar man who was yelling so excitedly.
“It has happened!” Khin yelled again. He was laughing so hard it was a chore for him to get other words out. He rushed across the chamber to where Jenna, Peter, and Siva were standing. “It has happened?”
“The babies?” Jenna asked.
Khin laughed and laughed. Vesna joined him and she was beaming with a huge smile. While Khin laughed, Vesna said, “Yes, the babies were born. Monika had her two boys!”
There was general applause and words of encouragement as well as lots of questions. All the questions were shouted to Vesna and Khin.
“It is all so funny!” Khin laughed. “As my mother says, when babies came, life was never the same.”
“Two healthy boys!” Vesna announced. “They are each right at four kilograms, and perfect! Slightly different hair colors, but healthy and well! Monika is doing very well, especially for her first delivery.”
“And the father?” Someone shouted.
This time an unsettled quiet settled down on the crowd, and people looked from side to side. All knew Jerome had been melancholy for months, since he had come back from Alpha’s biome.
Khin tried to hold it in, but could not. He blurted out, “He is smiling! He even picked one of the babies’ names. A funny name too! Brink!”
“The other boy is named Kalur, after Monika’s father,” Vesna yelled out.
The crowd roared its approval.
“That is exceptionally good news,” Jenna stated after the crowd stopped its chattering. “Now, we really should open up the new carousel for its first riders. Everyone who is from Beta, please come forward. There are more than enough carousel figures for all of us, and more. But Beta people get first seats.”
Dewi and Nabila led some of the other children onto the carousel where they mounted the beautifully carved statues. The few adults from Beta positioned themselves all around the carousel.
“Bigelow? Are you going to ride?” Jenna called out.
From the doorway Bigelow started to walk over to the carousel. He took a long drink from his bottle, as the images and voices in his head were growing more insistent. He then faltered in his footsteps. He made a show of slipping, but was stricken by how intense this episode was. “Jenna, my dear friend. It seems I have partaken in a bit too much fruit of the grape. I will watch as you all follow Horace around.” He wrestled his feelings mightily and put a happy face on, and sang a cheerful melody.
“Horace on the carousel drives all around,
Goes up and down, round and round.
He’s been glad since the day he found,
That our carousel is no longer on the ground.”
Jenna waved, but looked long and hard at Bigelow. “Thank you. Let us begin!”
Siva activated a control and the musical bells of the carousel began to play. Then the automacube that had been repurposed and was located at the center of the carousel engaged the proper gears and the entire large mechanism began to work. The platform rotated one direction. The top of the carousel rotated the other direction. The statues, with their riders, began to move up and down, and sway gently forward and backward. Children laughed with pleasure. The adults smiled in happiness. The survivors of Beta rejoiced in something that finally felt like the world that had been destroyed. The people from the needle ship delighted in all the festivities. The whole carousel chamber rang with joyful noises.
Bigelow stepped out of the chamber, and into the dimly lit hallway. His head was throbbing. He swallowed more of the alcohol, but it was not keeping the voices at bay. Not this time.
He slumped down to the floor and squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as he could. “No. No, I do not want to go. No!” He whispered, but there was no one around to hear him. “Please no! Not again.”
Bigelow’s mind slipped away from his physical essence and was surrounded by fog. Not fog from too much drink, but a fog of being outside of the physicality and the nonphysicality.
“Brigadier, I am forcing this upon you. I apologize,” Captain Eris stated. Her fuzzy and indistinct phantasm appearing before him. “I know you are here in the shadowlands with me.”
; “I am Bigelow, not Brigadier. I am not working in Terraforming anymore. I am a roustabout,” Bigelow tried to insist, but his personality was too stressed to fight back.
“You must help Captain Eris,” Shadow stated. “I have been frustrated by you too much. You know you are part of this.” Both Eris and Bigelow heard Shadow’s words.
The phantasm of Captain Eris congealed into a more stable form. “Your implanted identification says you are Brigadier Conrad Nathan Halbridge, but I will call you Bigelow if that helps. The Shadow system will be utilized, and you and I are the only reliable ones. I need your help.”
“Please, Project Angel Food is over. Please let me alone. Please!” Bigelow pleaded.
“I told you he was too resistant,” Shadow stated. “He should be expunged from the Shadow Level Clearance.”
Captain Eris’ presence seemed to grow and take on larger and more immense size. “Shadow, I said no. We have an emergency, and the whole fate of the Conestoga is in doubt.”
The essence of Shadow slipped and faded, but was still ever present. “Yes, Captain.”
“You can talk about…. Shadow?” Bigelow croaked out. “I can talk about it to you? Really?”
“Yes, Bigelow. You and I can talk about Shadow in this way. All without any restriction on your physically. But only here can we talk openly. In the shadowlands we can discuss anything. But you must slow down your drinking, I need you as functional as possible. We both, along with some questionable others, have access to the Shadow system.”
“Access? More like being possessed, haunted, and cursed! Not access,” Bigelow whined. “Just leave me be, please.”
“Sorry, Brigadier, you are part of this. Bigelow,” Eris said more gently. “Here in the shadowlands, the hyperconsciousness, we can talk. We must talk. AI Seljak in Alpha’s Terraforming and Restoration has been running tests. Not like Project Angel Food, that was an abomination. Rather, AL Seljak has discovered, along with AI Ogma, that the inhabitants of Zalia are correct. We must leave now.”
“What?” Bigelow asked. “I do not understand.”
“No humans can survive on Zalia, not even in the habitats which made planet-fall. It is not sustainable. All the remaining habitats on Zalia are in grave danger. In Alpha a gravity sink hole has developed. We must assemble a team and find a way to leave this world. We need pilots and other trained people who can accomplish this goal. There is far more to you than a carnival barker. The Conestoga must be saved. The Zalians say we must leave now.”
“Jerome was right?” Bigelow asked in a weary voice.
“Perhaps with the dangers, perhaps not with their source. The cause of the gravity sinks holes remains a mystery, but we must lift the habitats off the planet to escape,” Eris replied. “Ascension is the only way.”
“Jerome the rube is really messed up and from what I hear, Cammarry is worse. Missing somewhere in Alpha, if she is alive at all,” Bigelow said. “That AI Sandie could be helpful.”
“Sandie is not from the Conestoga,” Shadow stated for both Bigelow and Eris to hear. “Can Sandie be trusted?”
“Sandie is sophisticated, oh how well I know,” Captain Eris replied. “Sandie also is conflicted about the mission, so I am assessing how to utilize Sandie, Jerome, and Cammarry. We are going to have a real chore trying to ascend the Conestoga away from this death trap before all the habitats end up like Beta.”
Bigelow nodded his agreement, but doubts filled his heart.
Eris ended the connection and then prayed for guidance, resting her forehead on her folded hands. The images from the shadowlands faded away, and the last she saw was Bigelow standing up and shaking his head.
Eris lifted her head and blinked her eyes. The workbench in Navigation and Astrogation was very familiar to her now. Breathing in and out slowly a dozen times, she composed herself. The task was far harder and she had a shorter time-frame for completion than she had told Bigelow. She looked at the display screen in front of her. All the synthetic brains, and the few artificial intelligence systems which were now coupled into the needle ship’s lattice of compeers were listed. Eris tapped on SB Cotard’s name and smiled to herself. Then she adjusted the lattice controls and focused her view to only include the systems in Alpha which were now also linked into the lattice. Those systems were also under her operational control. She breathed a sigh of relief, but then prayed again as she knew the work ahead was herculean. Jacking a cable into an access port Eris connected in the conservation slate in front of her to the workstation she now called the Bridge. Navigation and Astrogation was physically evolving. “Only hundred twenty days left. We must leave soon, or all habitats will fail. Why does that number seem so familiar?”
The End.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Thornton writes science fiction from his home where he lives with his patient and understanding wife, two goofy dogs, and an ancient cat. His thoughts were in conflict about what more to write here, so that is all for now. Unless, maybe there is more coming in another book?
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Ascent of the Conestoga
Book 7: The Colony Ship Conestoga
John Thornton
Copyright © 2016 Automacube Enterprises LLC
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1535445061
ISBN-10: 1535445068
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my loving and understanding wife Marcia. She and my daughters, and sons-in-law have tolerated listening to my weird ideas and stories for so long, it still amazes me that they listen. Thanks to you all.
CONTENTS
This book is a work for fiction. If the characters sound like anyone who I have ever known, well, perhaps, subconsciously those relationships (good or bad) have colored my writing. I think the artificial intelligences and synthetic brains in my story are better people than some I have known in the real world. For that matter, the automacubes and aliens are as well.
If you like this book, check out the Colony Ship Eschaton which is a series of ten books and is complete. You may also want to check out the Colony Ship Vanguard which is a series of eight books and also is complete. Those books are also set in the same universe as the Conestoga, a weird place that my mind has created over the last twenty years or so.
Thank you!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Cover art by Jon Hrubesch
1 Agony Alleviated
The light from the sky tube was warm and yellow as it washed down illumination on Alpha Habitat. The sounds of the waterfall which fell along the sidewall were a soothing murmur. This waterfall, part of the Loop River, came crashing down from the sand-hills area to the jungle area. The thirty-five-meter fall was nearly perfectly vertical and the rocky pond at the bottom was deep. The river flowed out of that pond, and continued its trek around the habitat. Mist floated in the air from the spray of the waterfall.
Birds of all kinds, flew both above and below the waterfall. Those suited for the jungle biome tended to stay in the jungle biome, while those suited for the sand-hills stayed in the upper ecosystem. Alpha had mechanisms to help that to happen. The ridge escarpment separated those two biomes very effectively, and nature took care of those birds who decided to be adventurous, or stupid enough, to wander from their ancestral homes.
“Oh, there is the brave adventurer, seeking to go somewhere it does not belong. I wonder what its story is?”
One bird was circling lazily over the waterfall. It made a few tentative glides out and over the lower level jungle area, as if considering a further descent away from its home. However, after a few indolent arcs it apparently changed its mind. So with some strong beats of its wings, it ascended upward and headed back. As it flew, it turned its belly to the human who was watching, and exposed the pale, tan color of the underside of its wings. They were bordered in dark brown, perhaps with a hint of red in barred stripes. It had a sort of chunky body and large head. The head swiveled a bit as it looked at its flight pattern. The bird�
��s broad wings came to a distinct point, and its muscles easily lifted it upward as it ascended in flight. The tail was shortish and somewhat square. As it flew, its feathers and features were clearly visible to the person sitting on the small deck which jutted out from the rocky ridge escarpment. The bird made a shrill cry as it winged itself away after one final look around.
“That is a new one to me, from up above. Not like that bigger, black and white one, which flies up from the jungle sometimes and lands at this Ranger Outlook deck. John would know what kind of bird that is, he would know about both kinds. I will call this new one, the smart bird, for it did not go where it was not wanted.” Her mind drifted to John and all the others from Dome 17 who she knew she would never see again. She hoped they had fared better than she did.
The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books Page 181