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

by John Thornton

  “No. We should make haste. Those children are still lost. Should we not hurry?” Vesna asked with some irritation. “What of them?”

  “I hoped the lair was in the in-between. It is not.” He pointed to the door. A few hairs were struck on the edge, and a small smear of blackness was next to them. “The monster went into the Hallway of Forever.”

  “So, what?” Vesna asked. “The children are still missing. We should hurry, right?”

  “It is the Hallway of Forever. I keep telling you.” Khin laughed, but it lacked happiness. He gestured for Vesna to also eat, and she finally, obligatorily, took a few bites. They both drank down some water, and then secured their food supplies.

  “Turn off your light,” Khin said. He pulled on his goggles, and pushed the door open. “No more light will be needed in here. Already it will be too much!”

  8 A thousand battles, a thousand victories

  The display screen of the Defense and Counter Assault Control workstation gleamed in a glow which washed over the whole room. The various perspectives danced with colors, and shapes. The predominate one was an irritating purplish blue. That purplish-blue luminosity reflected off Monika’s pale skin and made her appearance seem wraithlike. Yet, she continued her job.

  It had been several hours since the close flyby of the Jellie ship on its way to collecting the robotic probe. Those shining displays, monitors, and screens all were showed the same basic situation. Things were unchanged since the Jellie ship stopped it flight near where they suspected the Cosmic Crinkle to be located. Sitting there basking, or more accurately, saturated by the purplish radiance, as well as the ongoing lack of any significant changes, was boring. This allowed Monika to have time for contemplation. Jerome was sleeping near the twins, and he would tend to their needs, although she knew it would be tough for her to stay focused should one of her beloved babies begin fussing with vigor. For now, the next-door room remained quiet and still. The purplish glow did not extend into there, although the threat that purplish blue luminosity represented did.

  “Too quiet,” Monika mouthed the word, and licked her lips. Taking a drink from a container, she then continued her vigil. Her watch would go on for some hours more. And so, she watched, pondered, and contemplated. She shifted a display to show the view of Zalia. It was terminally quiet and unchanged. The now dead world was just a splotched tan ball. It did not even have the Jellie ship hovering about it any longer. It hung there in space like a rotting fruit which refused to fall from a tree in one of Beta’s orchards. Jerome thought of it as another Earth, yet Monika had never known Earth. The similarity was they were both now dead and a shade of tan. Well, she had not known Earth as anything other than a place in history, and when she admitted it, Earth seemed just a myth or fable. For all of Monika’s life, the people in Beta had not looked back, for there was no possible return to Earth. Earth had been fatally sick when they left decades ago and even that first crew and set of passengers knew there was no going back. For people like Monika, who had been born after the habitats had made planet-fall, that was even more real. Nor did the people of Beta really looked forward. Oh, they knew, some of them anyway, they knew the stories of how the Conestoga had been on a vast trek across the stars to a new home, Tlalocan. Yet, that saga was just more mythological and fable-like, than Earth. Everyone accepted that crash landing on Zalia was the end of that quest. Beta people did not look back, nor look ahead, but just lived for the day. In the midst of drought and suffering, the daily grind was more than enough troubles.

  Instead, they went round-and-round on their day-to-day activities. Much like the carousels Monika and the roustabouts had built. The carousels were immensely popular. That gave the people something to do, a lark, so to speak, but it was just an endless turning around the same place. That was life in Beta, just a spinning around and not getting anywhere. And yet, as Monika looked at the dead planet of Zalia, she rather truly missed Beta.

  Despite all the hardships, the drought, the multiple birth curse, which she now thought of as a blessing, and the cruel gravity sink holes, Beta had been home. Happiness and joy had been part of Beta life too. Home where the roustabouts could sing, build carousels, trade with farmers for food, or even hunt and fish for meat. Music was played, especially around the carousels, and despite the strange and ineffective government, parts of Beta had been good. Thinking of her parents, some tears slipped from Monika’s eyes. She understood her boys would not have grandparents, uncles, aunts, or cousins to enjoy. Her home was gone, and her heart ached that she would never see those Beta inhabitants again. The babies were her home now, as well as the strange man from Earth, Jerome. Her immediate family was home. That and the few refugees who had escaped with her. She thought of the missing children, one of whom had been born in Beta. How rare that would be, as even her own children, conceived in a wagon on Beta, were born on this needle ship. Home was here. Yes, home, even if that meant living in the strange accommodations of the needle ship, with its bizarre light, weird tribes of people, very limited types of animals, and a mere fraction of the foods she had known her entire life. Goat’s milk would never be a good substitute for cow’s milk, but alas, that was all that was available for now.

  “Will Alpha be any better?” Monika said aloud. She had heard Alpha had cows, and was similar to Beta in some ways. Her voice was hollow and lonely, as her words expressed her heart. “Alpha will never be Beta.”

  Monika changed her gaze from Zalia, to the display showing the Jellie ship. Looking directly at that display made her eyes hurt a bit as the purplish-blue light was disturbing. She twisted a knob and altered the color density on the display. The Jellie ship was moving in a slow fashion around where the lattice of compeers said the Cosmic Crinkle was located.

  “Going round and round? I wonder? What are they doing there?” Monika muttered.

  “That is a splendid question,” Sandie the AI replied. “Our instruments are only able to detect and assess their activity to a limited degree. One can only guess at their motives and agenda.”

  “Do you think they know that place is our goal on this last flight?” Monika asked.

  “The Cosmic Crinkle is but one step toward our goal,” Sandie replied. “Admittedly it is an important step, but much about it is also unknown.”

  “Two alien races, and two alien devices, and our fate on this last flight is hanging in the balances. Jerome tries to get poetic about it, or quotes some random old saying, but the simple fact seems to me that we need to succeed or die,” Monika stated. Her lips were tight as she looked intensely at the Jellie ship. “Are they just patrolling there, waiting for us to show up?”

  “That is a consideration I have been taking seriously,” Sandie replied.

  “We must save my babies. Sandie, they have already endured too much.” Monika then looked down at her feet. “I am almost afraid to ask, but what of those lost children?”

  “Khin and Vesna and the others are still searching. Nothing else of substance on that front to report,” Sandie lied. The AI did not feel Monika would benefit from knowing what was happening with Khin and Vesna.

  “Could one of the Jellies have gotten aboard?” There was a tremble in Monika’s voice. “A Jellie looks like a monster to me, how much worse to that poor child Clark?”

  “I have also considered and reconsidered that possibility. It is not farfetched, but I do consider it unlikely, at least regarding the apparent abduction of the two children. I have been listening in on Clark’s comments, and the few things he has said describing the thing he saw are not consistent with what we know of the Jellies.” Sandie refrained from discussing the most recent observations by Khin and Vesna.

  “But how would a child describe someone in a spacesuit?” Monika asked. “A person in a spacesuit would look strange, does look strange. How much more unusual would a Jellie look if it was wearing some kind of protective gear, built by an alien technology, to come aboard the Conestoga?”

  “Again, you pose a splendi
d question. A child sees the world and uses common items as reference points in the description. Clark’s few comments all seem to relate to the animals he knows. Hair, is one factor he spoke of, but unlike a goat’s, a cavy’s, or a rat’s hair.”

  Monika tapped the display with her finger. “The sea in Beta has all kinds of fish and water animals, well, it did, before Beta died. If a fish or water eel somehow got trapped up on land it would flop around and try to get back to its natural habitat. What is the natural habitat for those Jellies?”

  “Oh Monika, I do admire your inquisitive mind. I have been running conjectures. Regarding the Jellies, they almost certainly require some kind of fluid in which to live. Somewhat like the Floaters we saw on Zalia, and very much like the fish you reference, the Jellies do have some kind of natural, for them, environment. Humans live in a gas environment, and need special equipment to leave that environment. It is a very valid conjecture that to leave that to leave the Jellie’s natural environment, that species would need some kind of technological remedy. We carry a suit filled with a proper air mixture, pressure control, and temperature regulation, to name just a few items, and call it a spacesuit. I conjecture a high probability that the Jellie’s must have some kind of environmental equipment, a suit, for lack of a better term, which carries them around in their own natural environment.”

  “Like a fish in a bucket. But those Jellies not only are in the bucket, they are carrying the bucket, and from what we saw, they are able to fight from that bucket. The Zalians did not call them Apex Predators for no reason. So, how do we defeat them before they cut loose with that pink beam of destruction and knock holes in this bucket of ours?” She patted a side wall. The firm permalloy was somewhat reassuring in its hardness, but when Monika looked up at the display and saw the dead Zalia, that assurance faded.

  “We are working on offensive weapons, to, as you put it, put holes in their bucket. The first Willie Cannon has been installed in Exterior Repair Station 100. The hanger bays will be used for the Vindicator Missiles, FTL Punchers, and the teleportation bombs.”

  “So according to the screens here we now have the five probes which can be used, but only as big dumb slugs. We also now have just one Willie Cannon. But if I am reading this correctly, that cannon can only fire at targets which are within its line of sight on a limited arc from that location, right?” Monika was a bit confused, but to her its abilities looked very limited.

  “You are correct. Each Willie Cannon, being a straight line projectile weapon, can only be deployed against the Jellie, if it is on that side of the Conestoga, and if it is within that cannon’s field of fire. Were we to mount the Willie Cannons on the exterior of the hull, we could have a vastly superior field of fire, but that exterior construction would very likely reveal our position. Right now, the cannons are assembled with the exterior doors closed. That hides the construction work, keeping our exterior as dark, and energy-less as we can make it. Our subterfuge depends on the Jellies not discovering our location for as long as possible. The plan is to install a Willie Cannon in each exterior repair station. When that is completed, it will give us 35% coverage of the Conestoga, so those cannons can only be considered a secondary weapon system. A new cannon will be in place each hour until they are all established. Once each cannon is operational, the exterior doors can be opened, as the cannon does not put off energy until it is fired.

  “So, the main weapons will be completed when?” Monika asked.

  “The first ten Vindicator Missiles will be deployed to hanger bays within the next ten hours, but their warheads will not be ready for another seven hours after that. The FTL Punchers are being assembled now, and they should be ready for use in eighteen hours. The teleportation bombs are to be fabricated after those two systems are established.”

  “I am afraid our time might be running out. The Jellie ship is moving again!” Monika’s eyes grew wide in the increased purple glow which came though the display, despite the filters she had placed on. She snapped off the magnification, and the scene being displayed was easier to tolerate.

  “I am also monitoring that,” Sandie replied.

  The Jellie ship was moving, but not toward the Conestoga. It was zipping along away from both the Conestoga and the planet Zalia. Its mission was a complete enigma.

  A brilliant flash leapt from all the displays. Then a dull gray fuzz came on where images had been shown. Monika rubbed her eyes, but her pulse pounded in her head.

  “Sandie?”

  “Calculating and analyzing this event. We have lost all scanning abilities on the Conestoga,” Sandie stated bluntly. “Currently, I am unable to conjecture what just occurred. Searching for answers.”

  A foggy mist rolled around Monika’s consciousness. Her eyes closed involuntarily.

  “Monika? I offer apologies on the abrupt nature of this summoning,” Eris said. Her voiced sounded far away, and muffled.

  Monika opened her eyes, but it was not to see the Defense and Counter Assault Control workstation. Instead, she felt like she was in an attractive field of wild flowers such as had grown in some of the valleys of Beta. Puffs of white mist, or fog circled around her and then rose upward. Her gaze followed those puffs. The sky tube was missing entirely. In its place overhead was a brilliant blue canopy of sorts. A large yellow circle was giving off warm, refreshing light.

  “Again, forgive me,” Eris stated.

  “This is the shadowlands, and all will be explained momentarily,” a woman with Sandie’s voice said.

  “I must have been injured. Some explosion, or energy surge?” Monika muttered out loud.

  Peter, Siva, and Jenna appeared and then walked up to her, their images looking only slightly fuzzy. Monika wondered again if she was dreaming, or hallucinating, or had been knocked unconscious.

  “This is the Shadow Level Clearance area, the shadowlands, and all the ship’s artificial intelligences are here, and most of the flight crew,” Eris said. “You have been grafted in, and I again apologize as it was without your consent. Now, to the emergency.”

  Two central memory cores appeared standing amidst the field of flowers.

  “I am working to restore the Conestoga’s ability to perceive beyond the hull,” AI Seljak stated.

  “The lattice of compeers is intact, but shaken,” AI Batibat added. “The Triumvirate is functional and assessing what occurred.”

  “Wait!” Monika yelled out.

  “I told you putting her in here was a mistake,” Bigelow said as his apparition appeared. “She is still post-partum, and at least the rest of us got a warning and made our own decisions. This is too much like what happened to Cammarry, and I strongly object.” He took off his hat and flapped it around. “Besides she has been so close to the rube.”

  “Bigelow? Jenna? Eris?” Monika whirled about. “Why are you here? How are you in my dreams?”

  “Monika, this place is not a dream or a hallucination,” Jenna answered. “It is here as a backup system for the flight crews. Peter, Siva, and I were offered the implants a short while before we got the remains of the Conestoga to ascend. I wish you have been offered, and not just implanted.”

  “It is a huge shock,” Peter agreed. “It was tough when it happened to me, and I knew what to expect. But trust us, this is safe.”

  “There is a crisis,” Siva said. Some ghostly looking equipment was in front of his figure. He was adjusting some items, but the ends of his arms and hands were translucent as was the machinery he was working on. “I too think involuntary implantation was wrong. Sorry Monika.”

  “I do not understand. Not at all,” Monika said and looked around quickly. Some phantasms were moving in the distance, figures of some kind, in old-style uniforms. But she looked back to items closer to her.

  “I will explain it all, after we fix this.” The woman with Sandie’s voice stepped over to the two central memory cores. In the glow of their amber lights, she had no reflection and cast no shade at all. She laid her hand on top of one of
the tall cylinders, on the uppermost top brass-colored ring. Green lights rushed between the woman and the machine.

  “No shadow? I see no shadow from the light. I know this is an illusion or delusion,” Monika said.

  “I am never seen, only heard. I am Shadow. You are now in the Shadow Level Clearance, and these are your fellow members. Do not be afraid, but please wait for a moment while we assess what has happened. Take a seat at your work station, please.”

  Monika’s lips trembled. “Cammarry’s Shadow?” She sat back. Her butt landed on what felt like the control chair in the Defense and Counter Assault facility. She looked down and saw that it was a chair very much like that, and some controls and monitors were now appearing before her. They had only a semi-opaque firmness to them. Much like the items Siva had been manipulating, so too these instruments were like specters, or like what Monika had learned about from olden times on what was called then virtual-reality, or cyber-space interfaces.