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

by John Thornton

  Khin and Vesna secured their gear and weapons in web harnesses then sat down in the passenger seats of the shuttle. Khin had an eager look on his face. His smile was almost as wide as his entire face.

  “We will get to fly soon. You will see,” Khin said.

  “Strap yourselves in,” Cammarry ordered. She tapped the com-link. “Who is there to guide us out?”

  SB Pinaka’s voice came from the speakers on the shuttle. “I can assist you. The lattice of compeers has been working diligently to restore the hanger bays here on the needle ship. The process will be much smoother than your previous journey’s.”

  “So can we launch already?” Cammarry asked.

  “I was unaware you wanted a step-by-step description,” SB Pinaka stated. “The hanger bay is being depressurized. The docking clamps have released hold of NS-99. The exterior doors will be opening shortly.”

  “Can I fly yet?” Khin asked.

  “Stay in your seat,” Cammarry snapped at him.

  The lights of the hanger bay shifted and a yellow flashing light came on. The large exterior doors started to fold back revealing the blackness of space, and the sprinkling of stars which spread across it.

  “No blinding red light?” Khin asked. “No flying? This is a different Wizard’s quest.”

  Cammarry noted on the cockpit that the shuttle was still experiencing gravity manipulation.

  “SB Pinaka, when will gravity manipulation be shut down?” Cammarry asked.

  “Loss of gravity manipulation is noncompulsory now that the hanger bay is functioning more in line with its established operational directives. Do you want me to shut down gravity manipulation to the hanger bay?” SB Pinaka answered.

  “Do what you want,” Cammarry snapped and hit the shuttle’s thrusters. It rose off the deck and headed toward the now open exterior doors.

  Alizon took in a deep breath as the shuttle rocked and moved rapidly out of the hanger bay.

  “I left gravity manipulation in place, since you had already begun your flight,” SB Pinaka stated. “Lack of gravity manipulation in a shuttle can result in serious bodily injury or even death It is not recommended for standard shuttle flights. Caution should always be utilized in situations where there is an alteration in gravity vectors. In the future, if you insist on violating standard operating procedures, and endangering your passengers and yourself, please be sure to give instructions on your preferences prior to every launch and docking.”

  Cammarry rolled her eyes, and then blew out a long gust of air. “Sandie, are you even around?”

  The shuttle cleared the exterior doors, and Cammarry maneuvered it to fly along the length of the needle ship.

  “Oh my dear!” Alizon exclaimed as he looked out of the viewport.

  “I am here,” Sandie the AI answered. The artificial intelligence system’s voice was different in a way Cammarry could not quite identify. Before she could ask more, she was interrupted.

  “Your spirit-ghost! Can Sandie let me fly now?” Khin cried out with laughter. “The last flight was better.”

  “Oh bother me silly,” Cammarry nearly laughed at him. “Khin, you can be such an annoyance. According to that SB Pinaka, that launch was more how it is supposed to be. Oh, never mind, let me find what you want.”

  Cammarry looked over the cockpit controls and discovered that the display was more complicated than she remembered. The physical controls were identical, and they were just as they had been at launch. Now, however, there were many more items on the display screens. There was a list of icons on one side of the screen, one of which she knew was for gravity manipulation.

  “Yes, Khin, in a moment, you can fly.” She looked over at Alizon, “You are about to feel like you have no weight at all, and that may upset your equilibrium. You too Vesna.” She pointed to spots on the arms of the chairs. “There are still the arms and the restraints, so you will not float off, but it is an odd sensation.”

  “Khin has talked of this often, and I have been eager to see what he so enjoys,” Vesna replied. “He claims it is better than riding the fastest horse. I have gone very fast on Poco.”

  Cammarry looked again at Alizon. “Are you ready for this?”

  Alizon nodded, but his eyes were wide, and he was rigidly grasping the arms of the chair. He kept looking from Cammarry to the viewports where the length of the needle ship seemed to stretch into infinity, only to be surpassed by the vast distance of space beyond it. The bluish-gray of the needle ship, contrasted with the pitch black of space, and the shining lights of the stars glimmering in that obsidian colored background.

  “The inertia suppression systems are still on, to keep us from being splattered all over the walls in the shuttle.” Cammarry announced as she touched the icon, “I am shutting down gravity manipulation.”

  “Hooray! I want to fly!” Khin cheered and unbuckled his restraints.

  The pull of the gravity manipulation was gone. Cammarry was ready for it, and noticed hardly any changes.

  Khin squealed in delight as he unlatched his restraints and tumbled around in the cabin. “Flying! I love to fly!”

  Cammarry heard gagging sounds. She looked over and saw that Alizon had begun to vomit. Quickly she pulled a small vacuum tube from the arm of the chair and unfolded its facemask. It could both supply air, and suck it away. She turned it onto removal and got it over Alizon’s face just as the emesis was leaving his mouth. He looked very pale, and his eyes were rolled back in his head.

  “Hold this on your face,” Cammarry instructed and pulled one of Alizon’s hands up to the mask. He weakly complied.

  “Strap down Khin! I am turning gravity manipulation back on! NO more flying.”

  Khin, seeing the stricken Alizon, grabbed an arm of the chair and pulled himself into the seat. Vesna had the restraints in her hands and strapped them onto him quickly.

  “There is time for play, but also time to be serious,” Vesna snapped at him.

  “You are correct, my Vesna. As my father says, ‘Work hard and do not be a fool, too much play, all you do is drool,’” Khin responded. Gravity manipulation pulled on him as it had before.

  “I doubt he ever said such a thing,” Vesna said and grinned at Khin. “I have met your father, in fact several people who claim to be your father.” She then looked at Alizon who was recovering. He had stopped vomiting, and Cammarry was resetting the vacuum tubing.

  “Alizon, you have been through so much. I will keep this journey as smooth and easy as possible.” Cammarry adjusted several controls,

  “Sandie, can you help guide us to Eta and a suitable hanger bay?” Cammarry asked.

  “Yes, Cammarry. I am doing that,” Sandie stated. “I am glad you called on me again. I will talk you though to the destination.”

  “I would rather not speak to you any more than I have to,” Cammarry answered. “Just put a visual on my display here. I will track it myself.”

  Sandie the AI replied, “I understand. The mission route will now be displayed on your cockpit screen.”

  “I can speak to you, if you prefer,” SB Pinaka stated. “The lattice of compeers is exponentially expanding and I can offer a fuller array of service. How may I help you?”

  “Just shut up until I call on you.” Cammarry gritted her teeth and looked at the display. She then adjusted the flight of the shuttle so that it flew more perpendicular to the long axis of the needle ship. They flew onward.

  The course took them over and around the needle ship. As they flew the green and yellows of Zalia emerged from behind the permalloy ship which had been blocking it.

  “Oh such wonders,” Alizon stated as he gazed at the planet. He was still pale from the nausea. “Beautiful woman, these marvels keep surprising me. Even though you have shown me so much, nothing I have seen is as exceptional as your spirit. Thank you for helping me. I was sick. You have the tenderness of a nurse in you.”

  Cammarry smiled, but from behind her came a voice.

  “She also has man
y funny things, wizard things, which are hard to understand. I have seen her do…” Khin began.

  “My Khin, you speak far too much. What would your mother say about a runaway mouth?” Vesna playfully taunted him. “Maybe, ‘when words run amuck, there is no good luck,’ or something like that?”

  Khin laughed and laughed. “Vesna, oh my Vesna, you give me joy.”

  Alizon looked over at Cammarry. “So we are going back to that world, but from my understanding, listening to what was said, we are going to a different place? Eta? Will it be like where those others were?”

  Cammarry just glanced at him. “It will be the same, but different. I do not mean to be obtuse. The basic physical layout may be very similar. From what I understand the eight biological habitats were all built using a common design. A long cylinder, with a shell of corridors and hallways and equipment rooms all around it, with the thick hull at the outside. The interior is where the biome is located. That is the common design. The biome itself could be really different. From what I learned of the old Earth’s natural state, there were a multitude of different ecologies. Alpha has one, but Beta was different. All eight were probably different. Different ecologies, biomes, plants, and animals.”

  Alizon was listening carefully. So were Khin and Vesna, although Khin was busier trying to recall, or invent more sayings from his mother and father.

  “Think of it this way,” Cammarry went on. “Alpha has two regions, the sand-hills and the jungle. They are different. The biomes in the other habitats will be even more different yet.”

  “And that green world, you call Zalia?” Alizon asked.

  “That is so different that we cannot live there. The air is poison,” Cammarry replied. “Life exists there, a whole network of life, but it is not compatible with our bodies.” She shuddered for a moment, recalling what she had witnessed through the window outside of Terraforming.

  “Beautiful woman, what is it? A shadow crossed your face,” Alizon stated.

  “Shadow! Do not ever say that again!” Cammarry snarled in anger. Then she caught herself and remembered who she was talking with. “Sorry, Alizon. I was having a very bad memory.”

  “You are forgiven. I am feeling better now, but I will remember not to mention that name, of it causes bad memories for you.” Alizon’s color and countenance were better now.

  “Bad memories are like the Burning Netherworld,” Khin said from behind. “Best to not visit there much at all.”

  “I agree Khin,” said Cammarry. “Vesna? Has Khin taken you to these colorful places he speaks about?” It was clear from her words that Cammarry was trying to alter the conversation away from the Shadow and her memories. “Are those places as bad or as strange as he claims?”

  “We went to the Graveyard of Dead Minds, and that was more like an overgrown ruin,” Vesna replied. “But we have not gone to the Land of Bad Air, or to the Burning Netherworld.”

  “Or to the Hallway of Forever,” Khin laughed. “There are too man monsters by there, or so the stories go. Some say there is good rat hunting there, but others say wizards are there too. I do not know the legends from the Chicken People or the Fruit People. They have scary stories, though.” Khin laughed at bit as he said that last part, and none of those listening knew whether he was serious or mocking.

  The shuttle picked up speed and began its descent into the atmosphere of Zalia. The flight went more smoothly than Cammarry expected, and she glanced occasionally at Alizon to make sure he was not getting another bout of motion sickness. She admitted to herself that the shuttle was performing better than ever before. She was not about to admit that to SB Pinaka, or to Sandie, or even to Eris. Yet, she felt better about it, and seeds of hope were planted in her heart. As she glanced at Alizon, she knew his encouraging words, fawning though they were, were also watering that hope for the future.

  “Alizon, the inertia suppression system handles most things and keeps us alive against the massive forces which would otherwise be throwing us around in here, but they have limits. As we descend there will be some additional turbulences and bucking effects. Be prepared,” Cammarry warned.

  The shuttle cut downward and sliced through the atmosphere. They rounded the large planet, and the red sun shone down on their flight like a huge red eye watching from afar. That lasted for a while until the yellowish green clouds with their whitish tops obscured some of that red orb’s glow. The light was still there, while the sky covered over their heads, but the fierceness of the red sun was mitigated.

  Down dropped the shuttle, and Cammarry pressed the thrusters for even greater speed. She had no desire for causal observation, just for destination.

  NS-99 leveled out and headed toward Eta habitat. The red sun was nearly directly overhead now, but its light was murky through the chartreuse color of the sky. Had Cammarry been watching the ground more carefully, she could have noted the long quad rail system which was moving vehicles on it. Those vehicles were loaded down with large yellow bubbles. Inside each of those bubbles was a functional suspended animation cocoon. The line of vehicles was pulling away from the habitat. No one in the shuttle observed it.

  Cammarry brought the shuttle spiraling in on a rapid descent over the Eta habitat, heading toward a hanger bay which, according to the route Sandie had displayed, was called Baker 1221. It was at the apex of the huge cylinder, nearly in the center, a long way from where the habitat and ground intersected.

  “I guess we must converse now. Sandie?” Cammarry mumbled and then tapped her com-link. “Sandie? We are on final approach, will you open up the hanger bay here, or do I turn around and go back?” She could not keep the tones of contempt from her voice.

  “I am opening the exterior doors,” Sandie the AI replied. “I already depressurized the bay and it will have earth-normal gravity when you dock. Be advised, that inside the hanger bay, the vector of gravity manipulation will be ninety-three degrees off the planet’s gravity. Unless you wish to dock under a different vector or magnitude of gravity. Your course and speed look fine.”

  “Oh yes, fine. Normal is fine. I do not want another tipped-to-the-side, oblique world. Fine is good. Normal orientation to the rest of the habitat would be fine as well. Then we can have a fine trip, in a fine place, with some fine people. Yes, everything you do is fine with me. Just fine.” Each time Cammarry said “fine” it was like she was punching someone with her words. She was not sure exactly who she wanted to punch, there were several on her mental list, but the urge was strong.

  Looking ahead, Cammarry saw that the yellow stripped doors of the hanger bay were starting to open. This hanger bay was on the very top of the habitat, and she would have to lower the shuttle down vertically, and then adjust for the altered vectors of the gravity manipulation as she entered the hanger bay. In a part of her mind she was thankful that Sandie had warned her of the gravity alterations, but she would never say so out loud.

  The shuttle slowly descended into the maw of the hanger bay. From Cammarry’s perspective, everything did appear canted. Even accounting for the altered angles, she assessed the hanger bay. Its seven stalls were all empty. There were no other shuttles. As soon as the shuttle passed the huge and thick exterior doors, Cammarry shifted the internal gravity manipulation off, and allowed the gravity manipulation vectors and fields in the hanger bay to take hold.

  The shuttle shifted about in the air in a jostled and abrupt move, which Cammarry compensated for with several well aimed thruster’s discharges.

  “Oh dear,” Alizon said as he gulped and his eyes spun. “I am dizzy. Nauseated.”

  “Sorry, I should have warned you,” Cammarry stated.

  Khin was chuckling and had said something about flying, but Cammarry missed it.

  Alizon clutched the arms of his chair and swallowed hard. He did not throw-up but he was rather pale again.

  “That should be about it for major vertigo-inspiring incidents,” Cammarry said. “Well, I better take that back. I am not sure what all we will encount
er here in Eta, but I will try to warn you beforehand.”

  “Thank you, beautiful woman. I have never seen up shift so quickly, and down feel so strangely powerful on my body. Oh, these marvels you have shown me.” Alizon looked at her.

  “I apologize.”

  “I would gladly endure much more just to remain in your company,” Alizon replied. “I want to be here, whirling head, queasy stomach, and all. You are worth it.”

  Cammarry blushed a bit as she could see from his face and eyes he genuinely meant what he was saying. She shifted her attention back to the cockpit controls as the huge exterior doors shut. That appeared to be now to the side of them, as the hanger bay’s deck felt like it was down.

  There were several clanks and clacks as the shuttle locked onto the docking clamps. The lights in the hanger bay flickered, then stabilized as the bay was re-pressurized with air from the corridors. The large display screen at the back of Baker 1221, had several jagged cracks across it, and there was no illumination.