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

by John Thornton

  “I will. You have my covenant on that,” SB Cotard stated.

  “And you will be answerable to me, if something happens to my Khin while I am in this strange machine suit.”

  “It was brave and noble of you to volunteer as a rescuer to those places in the needle ship. I am sure there are emotionally challen…”

  Tired of talking to that synthetic brain, Vesna snapped off the link. She chewed on her lip. Then blowing out her breath with her pursed lips she was able to get the strands of hair away from her face. That allowed her to better see the popup display on the inside of the bubble helmet.

  The needle ship’s corridor around her was wrecked, and only illuminated by the spot lights on her spacesuit. The popup showed an area not too far ahead, and two decks down, which was still pressurized. There was some chance survivors might have been able to get to that location. If so, she could direct them to the funicular system which was still operational and not far from them.

  Walking was hard, not because of her healing arm as that was held in place by the spacesuit, but rather because of the fungal growth. Her boots slipped on the fungal growth. The sidewall was where she was stepping as the growth medium and plants which covered the floor prevented her boots from making good contact. Gravity manipulation was faltering, and using the gripper-adhesion function from her boots provided her with better footing, but only as it contacted permalloy. Yet, walking in a diagonal way as gravity shifted was a challenge to her dexterity.

  “At least it is not a crusher, or gravity sink hole,” Vesna said as a wave of gravity manipulation washed through the corridor. This time it made things lighter, and her arms felt nearly weightless for a few moments. Then that passed and the gravity manipulation settled back to what was normal. The gravity which struck her was never in excess of what she considered typical, but being inconsistent, she did not want to fall. “This suit is clumsy and awkward. I would rather be riding a horse.”

  Vesna walked, as it were, along until she reached an open elevator shaft. That allowed her to descend downward, but only because she had the gripper-adhesion ability of her boots. When she reached the proper level, she moved toward a sealed bulkhead door. Reaching into a compartment on the thigh of her suit she pulled out a cable and inserted it into an access port. Her suit was then able to communicate with the room beyond the bulkhead door.

  “Is anyone alive inside?” Vesna called out. Her voice was taken through the cables and projected out of the speakers in the room. She could also now hear ambient sounds from the chamber.

  “Yes! Are you a wizard? Yes, we are here!” a voice returned. “There are sixteen of us in here. Egg People, and Fruit People.”

  “Wonderful,” Vesna replied. “How badly hurt are you?”

  “Bruised up, and banged around, but nothing serious. What happened? Something is wrong with everything. Why is down so weird?” The unnamed voice replied. There was also a gaggle of other voices in the background, but the system had selected the first voice and given it primary status and the others were filtered out and only registered as a muffle.

  “No time for explanations. You need to move toward Alpha. Only Alpha is safe now.” Vesna replied. She studied the popup display on the inside of the helmet. A safe route was shown which had a clear path to the funicular vehicle access point. She wished for more engineering skills, or just a better understanding of how the spacesuit was doing all it was doing, but she trusted it. “There will be green lights at doors and hatches, and crawlspaces. You will need to follow those to get to safety. Follow them exactly! Do not try to open any door that is not lit up with green. You will die if you open the wrong doors. Trust the green lights, and the lights will get you to a vehicle and that will take you to Alpha.”

  “I see the green light is now on over a maintenance shaft. Do we all go in there? Really? You should come in here and lead us. Please!”

  “From where I am, I cannot open your room, sorry. Now that you are located, something will guide you with those green lights,” Vesna stated. “I must go to the next place. Follow the green lights. Do what I say. In Alpha, you will be safe. Take whatever food and water you have.”

  “Oh, please come in and lead us! Please!” There was an increased amount of muffled sounds. More people were talking, but the primary speaker was still the only one Vesna heard clearly.

  “You will die unless you go now. Go now!” Vesna yelled.

  “We understand. We will follow the green lights.”

  “Other people might meet you on the way. Help each other,” Vesna instructed. “The vehicle can only carry so many at a time, so if it is filled up, you might have to wait your turn. Do not worry, just keep moving to Alpha. Good luck!”

  “Thank you. We will follow he green lights!”

  Vesna pulled the cable out and checked her next reading on the popup in her helmet. It showed she needed to descend downward again to reach the next possible place that was still pressurized.

  “Sandie?” Vesna asked. She knew her com-link had been switched to voice activation when she donned the spacesuit.

  “Yes, Vesna. I am receiving audio only from your location.” Sandie the AI replied. “The nonphysicality is significantly fractured in multiple places, but I can hear you. How can I assist?”

  “The popup here shows I need to descend now to that same level as the Burning Netherworld, and that Hallway of Forever,” Vesna stated as she returned to the elevator shaft and again proceeded downward. “Will you please keep a check on my Khin in that hospital? It scares me to think it might be like that SCU in Beta.”

  “Vesna, I will supervise as best I can. I do have some transmission capacity with SB Cotard, but as I told you, I am limited by my own Atomic Level Processor being located in the Goat Room, which is now only partially connected to the other sections of the Conestoga.”

  “Sandie, use that teleporter thing to go to Alpha directly. Then you could check on my Khin and be in a better place. Unless, that is a dumb idea,” Vesna said. She descended down another level and encountered a section where there was no gravity manipulation at all. The corners of her lips turned up in a grin as she thought about how Khin would love to be able to fly there.

  “Thank you. That is an excellent idea,” Sandie replied. “I am not sure why I did not consider that until now. My transference into the automacube and then the savage attack on the needle ship has taken up more of my processing capabilities than I conjectured.”

  “So, you talk to me then when you get to Alpha and check on my Khin. Do not let him die.”

  “I will be making the teleportation move momentarily,” Sandie replied. “I conjecture that I will have better communication abilities from Alpha than from here, but that is not guaranteed. There is a small but real risk I will lose contact with you. The system in your suit has all the possible locations for survivors already plotted, and between you and the others rescuers there are only six more places to investigate. The one you are headed toward is the only one close to your position. After assessing that, you should return to Alpha as quickly as possible. The needle ship is in bad shape. My conjectures on the structural integrity of the needle ship….” Sandie paused for a minute, reconsidering to whom she was speaking. “It will be more dangerous the longer you stay. Check that last place, and get out.”

  “I understand. So, you jump over there, or whatever you call it, but make sure Khin is safe and healing. SB Cotard tried to kill him once. You must keep him alive,” Vesna stated. The tones in her voice were strong and insistent.

  “I understand. Good luck to you.”

  Vesna pulled herself along, the gravity manipulation was absent. She turned a corner as she headed toward that final section which was on her popup. As she stepped her boots still made good adhesion to the wall, even though it felt like she was walking sideways down the corridor. For a moment, she felt discombobulated. The beams of light from her suit illuminated several dead animals floating around. One goat, and one of the big birds the needle
ship people called chickens. Bubbles of dried blood floated around the animals. Vesna did not see much other damage to their bodies, and figured they died when something had blasted many parts of the needle ship.

  Crossing past where a pressure door had failed, and was jammed partway open, Vesna reached a companionway which did have gravity manipulation. She stepped off the wall and down onto the uncluttered floor. It was one of those very few passageways which did not have growth medium on the floor. She hustled along, as best she could in the clumsy spacesuit. She took several more corners, and then reached the intact bulkhead door.

  Again, pulling out the cable from her spacesuit, she pulled it into the access port.

  “Hello inside? Is anyone live in there?”

  There was no response.

  “If you are hurt and cannot speak, bang on something to let me know you are alive. I might be able to help you.”

  There was still no response. Vesna could hear nothing from the compartment beyond the bulkhead door. She scrunched up her face, inside the bubble helmet, and considered what to do.

  “Sandie? Sandie? There is no response from this spot.”

  Silence met her inquiry.

  “Well, she must have used that machine to jump to Alpha. I will check inside here anyway.” Vesna looked around and saw that the bulkhead door was the only one in that section which was still sealed and shut. Other doors, mostly pressure doors, and passageway doors, were either jammed in partially open spots, or were still locked back in their pockets inside the walls.

  “Last chance! I will open the door unless I hear from you!”

  There was still no reply.

  Vesna took the cable and connected it into the nine-section color control pad. As she moved, she jarred her injured arm a bit and winced at the pain. After making the connection with the cable, the controls glowed dimly being powered by energy from her suit. She tapped in an emergency override code which Sandie had sent out to all control pads on the Conestoga.

  The bulkhead door opened, and a rush of water came flowing out. It spread quickly along the hall, and then splattered about as it reached the section without gravity. Along with the flow of water, a number of human bodies coasted out from the chamber. None were alive.

  “So, sad. So very sad. To drown in a place meant for safety.”

  Vesna unjacked the cable and looked into the chamber. She could see ruptured water pipes, from which the water had flowed and pooled in the chamber. At the far end of the chamber, as the water receded downward, markings on a door became visible. White lettering identified where the door led.

  Vesna read the sign aloud. “Tertiary Entrance Repository 997.” Her mind whirled. “That is where the monster was.”

  She walked through the draining water, again thankful that her books had the gripper-adhesion. Then Vesna took out the cable and plugged it into the access port next to that door. Her popup display did not show any atmosphere or pressure beyond the door, but she wanted to check anyway.

  “Hello! Hello? Is anyone inside there?”

  There was no response.

  Vesna almost turned and headed back, but something was nagging at her mind. She tapped in the emergency override code, and the door slid open. Blackness was beyond, but that was dispelled by the beams from her suit’s spotlights. Wreckage was everywhere. Vesna stepped in and had to climb up and over some fallen ceiling supports. As she did, she saw a glow coming from somewhere ahead of her.

  “I am not in the front of that place. Must be the back door.”

  As she stepped through the wreckage and debris, she shoved ducts, pipes, and hoses out of her way, but it was a jumbled mess. Her arm ached even more with the labor of her efforts. As she emerged from the piles of rubble, she saw a multitude of cuboidal mechanical containers which were stacked up to the ceiling along both sides. Those columns and rows stretched into the far end of the chamber where there was a glow from some powered equipment.

  “Halt! This is a restricted area,” a mechanical voice stated and Vesna heard it in her helmet.

  “I am here to rescue people. Who are you?” Vesna asked, but as she did, a red security automacube, rather beaten up, rolled out from a passageway. It was lit up by the glow from six of the cuboid boxes which still had power. Vesna’s heart beat faster with some trepidation at seeing a cubie red.

  “I am receiving your transmission. I am SA-44. You were here before. I am in charge of these prisoners. This location has lost all contact with the lattice. I cannot connect to the overseer AT Batibat. There was an explosion of unknown origin which destroyed the medical and engineering automacubes which were here with me.”

  Vesna was correct in her assumption, she had made it back to the spot where her beloved Khin has battled the monster.

  “The evil one that attacked those children is still here?”

  “Yes, ma’am. After her capture, there had been an order to transfer her Alpha, but that order was rescinded. We were ordered to incarcerate her here. She was again placed into suspended animation and her injuries are in stasis. The medical automacube handled those details, but as I stated, it and the engineering automacube were destroyed in an explosion of unknown origin. I remained to oversee the prisoners. Are there evacuation orders? I alone am insufficient to transport any of these suspected insurrectionists. I have lost contact with my superiors. I need clarification on what to do with these people. I am in charge of these prisoners, and am awaiting further orders,” the red machine replied in an expressionless manner.

  “That is why I am here. You are relived. You are needed elsewhere. Report immediately to Alpha. Take the quickest way and assist with the recovery efforts. Help people along the way to get to Alpha.” Vesna snapped the command before she actually thought about it very much.

  “Affirmative. I have received your instructions.” The red machine rolled away.

  Vesna was surprised the red cubie had obeyed her so easily. Glancing at the spacesuit’s popup display she saw that the location of the place where people were following the green lights had been sent to the cubie red. She then looked out at the suspended animation cocoons. She checked the readings on her spacesuit, and noted that the area she was in, Repository 997, was only incompletely pressurized, and its gas content was toxic. Her suit’s display showed her a list of long. That list had words with many letters, but which she did not know. They were all flashing in red, and that was all Vesna needed to see to realize that the repository did not have breathable air.

  She stepped around and looked for where the automacube had gone. It was completely out of sight. So, Vesna stepped over to the cocoons and peered inside. The spotlights from her spacesuit shined through the semitransparent permalloy of the cocoons.

  “You are the monster that tried to kill my Khin. Your friends are like you, and started all the problems on the Conestoga. Insurrectionists,” Vesna spat out the word. “Monsters, all of you.”

  Carefully and methodically, Vesna began turning off and disconnecting the power sources to all six of the cocoons.

  “These were the people of the monster. Yes, that monster who tried to kill my Khin. Now they are all dead.”

  With a final check of the shutdown cocoons, Vesna smiled. She then left and hustled her way back to Alpha.

  13 GROUND the possession of which imports great advantage to either side, is contentious ground

  Meanwhile, the teleportation system from the Goat Room to the apartment outside of Alpha’s Reproduction and Fabrication facility just completed its cycle. The blue automacube, EA-662, which contained Sandie’s Atomic Level Processor, rolled out from the apartment and up to the work station near the large conveyor belts. The manipulation arm placed several cables into access ports, and also inserted a direct connection into a power coupling.

  “Captain Eris? This is Sandie. Are you safe?”

  “Sandie, oh joy!” Eris stated. “I have tried connecting to you through the shadowlands, and every conventional system, but that all failed. I thoug
ht you too were lost. With so much death on the needle ship, I feared you were gone as well. Praise Jesus!”

  “I was in a precarious position, being in the Goat Room when the Jellies attacked. Additionally, I was still recovering from the relocation of my ALP,” Sandie replied. “I just teleported here and have now scanned the damage. My condolences on all the losses, especially of the crew working the main engines. Are you safe and secure?”

  “This bridge still exists.” Eris choked a bit. “Peter, Siva, and those seven others will be badly missed. Unfortunately, they are not the only deaths. All across the needle ship…” Eris halted and took some deep breaths. She silently prayed and slowed her breathing even more. “Sorry, about that. You probably already know the extent of the damage.”

  “Actually, I have only the limited readings available from here in Alpha. Large sections of the needle ship are dark to my tendrils. Do you have better readings from the bridge?”