With a degree of effort, Maddox began to pump the handle up and down vigorously until there was a satisfying hiss and the doorway to his right swept open once the pressure of the system was sufficient. With caution, both Praia and Maddox leaned slightly to obtain a better view through the opening.
‘As empty as the rest of this place,’ Maddox murmured almost absent minded as he cautiously stepped into the small chamber beyond the door and glanced about with intense curiosity. ‘A veritable ghost colony!’
Praia had also ventured just inside the open doorway, but had her arms crossed before her with her hands each clasping the bicep of the other arm. She shuddered slightly at the thoughts this description put into her young mind, untempered by the rational calm of the shared consciousness.
‘Don’t say that, I’m scared…’
Maddox turned his attention to her, realising suddenly how vulnerable she had actually become now that she was separated from the rest of her colleagues. She was just a young girl once more, but devoid of real world experiences and the apparent safety of these surroundings now tempered with unease and suspicion. He moved quickly over to her and grasped her shoulders with both hands, applying a slight reassuring amount of pressure as he looked into her eyes.
‘Hey, come on now, as you have said they’re all below after being summoned under what looks like an emergency drill. All we need to do now is find them and make sure they’re okay, then try to work out what’s going on here before we put a stop to it all.’
‘Yes, I just…….’ Her voice tailed off slightly and her eyes took on a keen stare as a renewed determination crept over her. ‘Over there Captain, against the rear wall. That is the access hatch which leads to the lower data core level.’
She twisted slightly to gently free herself from Maddox’s reassuring gesture and moved swiftly to the back wall of the small chamber where there was a narrow square hatch. She leant down and tugged at it a few times and managed to heft it open, the hatch pivoting on its hinges to reveal a ladder leading downward. The shaft and area at the base of the ladder which she could see through the narrow opening were lit by oval lighting fittings strung from pins driven into the rocky walls, casting pools of illumination against the gloom.
Maddox moved to her side and glanced down into the shaft, then towards the young face, which now beamed up at him with a renewed vigour and confidence.
‘At some point remind me tell you why I’m not too keen on confined spaces and underground tunnels,’ he quipped with a raised eyebrow. ‘I take it you’re not bothered about going down there into that darkened narrow passageway?’
As she furnished him with a smile and an innocent shrug, he returned his gaze downward to the ladder with awaited him.
‘Okay then, here goes nothing,’ he grumbled as he turned his body about and took his first step downward, descending to the lower level.
‘My diagnostic shows the system is in one piece,’ Maia muttered as she closely inspected the display panel beside the core reactor housed in the aft section of the Erstwhile. ‘Looks as if a tremendous irregular surge in energy occurred and the system shut down in order to prevent any damage.’
‘That would be when the colony fired upon this vessel,’ Ezri replied quite factually, ‘although not at a level to cause irreparable damage. Just to disable our systems. One may presume that they may have considered the impact with the surface to be sufficient to eliminate the craft, whilst they husband their energy resources for maximum efficiency.’
Seemingly contemplating her own words, Ezri straightened from her task of inspecting the wiring conduits running under a section of floor panel and turned to face her companion, her thoughts revolving around the fact they had not been more seriously compromised.
‘Although your recounting of the young girl who freed you from captivity and promised to do the same for our Captain would indicate the presence of a second group within this colony who are not versed in violence and they may have reduced the impact of the shot in order to provide us with an opportunity to survive, despite the wishes of the majority in control here.’
Maia turned away from the diagnostic panel to watch as Ezri stood and walked over towards her, the artificial face bearing a good approximation of thoughtful expression as she came to a halt and voiced the outcome of the various contemplated scenarios which were being processed.
‘Indeed, if this is the case, then I must assume the girl will have made contact with the Captain and presently he will be enmeshed within some form of scheme to aid these underdogs in their attempts.’
‘How can you be sure of that?’ Maia asked innocently as she followed Ezri from the reactor chamber to the fore decks.
‘I am working on presumptions that there is indeed an underdog element within the community, however based on that premise, I can be sure the Captain will be attempting to aid them. He has an uncanny habit of siding with such types as can be proved through various historical endeavours.’
Maia nodded as she had to defer to Ezri’s much lengthier wealth of experience with Captain Maddox and his exploits. She just wondered how well they turned out historically. The fact that they were still alive to endure this present misadventure must have spoken for some measure of success, if not simply being to survive.
17 Underground
Maddox had reached the bottom of the ladder and with a quick check upwards that Praia was okay with her own descent, he set off cautiously along the narrow hewn passageway carved through the rock of the small moon. It was quite obvious almost immediately that although Praia had suggested this was a well frequented place, the passage was far too narrow for people to be moving to and fro with regularity, passing each other as they did in the passageways above.
As a very young boy he had followed the others into a group of caves on Earth, their intent was to explore and discover hidden treasures. Full of the spirit of adventure they had climbed down and down through narrow passageways, squeezed through cracks between rock faces and wondered at expansive caverns as they discovered them. Their wonderment and fascination turned to a growing despair and fear though, as their supply pack was dropped accidentally and descended into the absorbing darkness as they traversed a narrow ledge aside an immense expanse. With limited food and water available, and only two torches remaining with the small band of intrepid explorers they had decided to turn back and recommence their adventure at a later date when they had gathered more supplies, but no one quite knew the pathway back. Growing fear turned to panic as the young boys and girls fought with their own personal demons to press onwards in the hope that the path they had chosen to return along was the one leading them to freedom, but with various forks along the way and the path seeming to descend – although they had lost a genuine bearing on up and down, it was just a feeling they all shared – they eventually made it to a large cavernous opening in a cliff face overlooking an underground lake.
Each of them had a length of rope about their torso, which they combined end to end to form one long length of rope in a daring plan put forward by Maddox’s younger brother Luke. He was a champion swimmer at school, and volunteered to go down into the lake to see if there was a passage that led out from the cavern they were in. His reasoning was that the water had to come from somewhere, and hence there must be a channel below the surface they could all use to escape.
Despite their fears and reservations, they had this option or to retrace their steps along the long, narrow path they had squeezed and climbed along but Luke was determined. He convinced all but John to the plan. They did all agree that should he pull three times quickly on the rope, they were to pull him back immediately and quickly. If he pulled once, with a few seconds pause, then a second time they were to follow one by one as he had found a way through. Suffice to say that they all survived the exploits, as Luke followed the underwater passage he found and emerged quite jubilantly into the cold waters of Lake Windermere. A couple of tugs and nervous moments of waiting later, each of the group follow
ed the rope and emerged gasping for air, finally followed by John, who was not only overjoyed at the freedom from confinement and the ability to breathe, but at the sight of his brother.
His young, impulsive brother, Luke.
Yet another innocent soul consumed in the aftermath of the Martian’s incursion, the impact of his death being the driving cause for Maddox to leave the Earth to its fate and wander out into the stars in search of alcohol and adventure to try and drown his guilt surrounding the circumstances of Luke’s demise. The whole lot could have been consumed in the fires of hell for all he had cared back then, but now it was a driving force behind his intent to help those who were under sufferance or downtrodden.
Shaking his head slightly and refocusing on the present rather than dwell in the past, the confinement of his current surroundings bore upon his conscious mind and Maddox realised he had paused in his progress and Praia was close behind him in the narrow tunnel, her voice quite audible and querying his pause with obvious concern and fear.
‘Sorry,’ he said apologetically over his shoulder. ‘Childhood trauma involving a cave and a group of young fools. It’s okay, the passage is widening just up ahead.’
Resuming his movement, it took him moments to breach the opening into the slightly wider cavern and he paused once more to stretch his shoulders as Praia joined him in the widened cavern they both now occupied. Her gaze being drawn away along one wall which was filled floor to ceiling with technology, which had quite obviously been stripped from the colony ship and brought down to this under-colony cavern. All the equipment was humming with power and stretched along the length of the wall, interspersed with large cylinders connected via a multitude of wiring, each bearing a transparent panel near the top edge to break the uniform metallic surface.
Moving to the nearest one, Maddox peered into the transparent cover and then stepped backwards slightly, turning to Praia as he did so with a furrowed expression upon his brow.
‘Well, I’ve found Marcus. He’s in here,’ he said quite straightforwardly. ‘Whatever here is,’ he added looking slightly further along the cavern at the other cylinders which were present. ‘They look like they were stripped from a medical facility?’
Praia stepped forward slightly towards Marcus’ cylinder and nodded in confirmation of Maddox’s assumption.
‘These are the original life support pods from the medical wing of the Colony ship for crew and complement hibernation on long haul journeys. These were converted to provide support to the natural body when a person interfaced directly with the computer through those neural headbands. We moved on from using this technology as our implants were sufficient for regular tasks and routine communication through the shared mind, however, in emergency situations we use them as life support should our environment be compromised, but as that is not the case as you and I are still alive and breathing I can only assume this has been instructed by the computer to support the bodies of my peers whilst their minds interface directly with the computer core.’
Maddox moved around Marcus’ pod and over to the next one along the row, glancing in the transparent window at a much more mature face than that of the colony leader. Holding his comments for a moment, he moved to the next and glanced in, then to the next with the same action.
‘Praia? When you spoke of the adults who arrived here with you when we first met at that council meeting, I had the impression they were long gone. Am I right in assuming these bodies here within these cylinders are the physical remains of those people?’
Following his path around Marcus’ pod, Praia joined him at the side of the cylinder he was inspecting and glanced inside at the occupant.
‘Yes, Captain,’ was her simple reply.
‘Yet you said they were all dead?’ Maddox mused quietly, his words barely audible over the electronic hum which pervaded the silence of the cavern they stood within. ‘Why keep them here and hooked up to the machine if they passed away?’
‘They’re here as a visual reminder to each and every one of us of the sacrifice made by these brave pioneers of our colony, of their selfless act to help us survive against the odds and forge the community which we now benefit from.’
Turning his attention away from her momentarily and glancing along the length of the cavern he saw three more tubes. Then slightly further along there was a low arched tunnel in the rock wall leading into darkness beyond.
Returning his attention to the pod before him, he dusted off the control panel on its side and inspected the controls.
‘But if they were linked to the system, the pods would have maintained their bodies’ functions. That’s what you said a moment ago wasn’t it? These things preserve life functions whilst interfacing with the computer core?’ He asked almost absent-minded as he tested the control panel, then inspected the results of his endeavours.
‘Yes, that is correct,’ Praia replied with curiosity over his seemingly inexplicable intent upon the fate of their benefactors. ‘However, there was a fault within the systems which was unexpected and therefore unplanned for which caused feedback into the cortex of their minds, the result of which was their unfortunate death, but it is their sacrifice which now drives our intent to better our community and thrive as they desired for us.’
‘According to this, the environmental cycling was suspended,’ Maddox offered as he stood up from inspecting the panel on the side of the cylinder. He turned to Praia slowly as his mind was furiously trying to fit these most recent pieces into the puzzle which was gradually coming together. Without the proper cycling of air within the sealed environment the air within would gradually become unbreathable leading to asphyxiation.
‘The computer monitored these systems and it would have alerted us if…….’ Her voiced lowered slightly at the end of her statement which dangled unfinished for a moment. She glanced at the pods, then back at Maddox, who was watching her closely with a look of genuine concern on his face. ‘They were working with salvaged equipment, brought down here and connected up to the colony’s power core and computer system. Maybe they did not connect them properly? Maybe there was a system fault they did not perceive? Maybe the computer was not able to detect such an anomaly until it was much too late?’
‘That’s a lot of maybes,’ Maddox said gently as he returned his attention to the cylinders and made his way over to a second pod, checking the control panel on its side but was provided with the same result. ‘Praia, I think you are already suspecting this, but I’ll add another maybe to your list. Maybe the computer itself turned them off and didn’t want anyone to know?’
The look she presented him with caused Maddox to raise both hands before him in a placating gesture quickly. He fully understood she was already in enough turmoil having gone against the will of the majority within her colony and then to be excluded from the group call to retreat below the surface, so he had to tread carefully, despite her apparent willingness for him to intervene in the events which were transpiring for fear of pushing her too far too quickly and actually turning her against him.
‘Hold on a moment before you reject the concept,’ he pleaded with her. ‘You said earlier that it was the computer which provided the scenarios that persuaded the adults to enter these pods and upload their memories for the betterment of the community, right?’ At her nodding in confirmation he quickly continued his explanation. ‘The computer which they had reactivated to serve as the automation behind the colony and to monitor and nurture the young charges they had been marooned with? What if the computer itself predicted a scenario whereby the adults were removed from the equation and it was at the top of the tree, guiding and planning the development of your colony from the very early days up to this point in time now?’
‘You mean the computer scripted out the whole scenario just to remove them from authority and assume the role itself for some purpose we are only just discovering?’ Praia asked genuinely intrigued. The tone in her voice denoted that she was not dismissive of the idea and was actually conte
mplating the possibilities posed by Maddox’s theory. ‘That would mean this whole situation was schemed out many years ago, long before the rise of Marcus to leadership of our colony.’
Almost unconsciously as she spoke the last words Praia turned to glance over to Marcus’ pod and her thoughts turned to how much his development had been nurtured towards this goal as opposed to him leading the effort. In that respect, he was a victim of some long term plan and a pawn in the events as they were transpiring.
‘Yes, it would.’ Maddox confirmed as he checked the panel on the pod once more. ‘I am starting to have a very bad feeling about all of this. Each of these are showing that the life support was actually suspended, not deactivated or caused to fail. The pod would thus keep the occupant restrained but without the cycling of air within the sealed environment, the person would basically suffocate.’
‘Very perceptive Captain,’ said a voice which seemed to fill the air about them but have no discernible origin. ‘Please continue. I am enjoying watching you work through this scenario.’
Maddox instantly tensed whilst Praia seemed to shrink as she huddled towards the side of the life pod, as if it offered her some form of protection.
‘Captain? The computer knows we are here!’
‘Of course it does,’ Maddox said quite slowly and carefully, picking his words cautiously. ‘You lot handed over most of your base controls to its supervision and at such a momentous point in the whole grand scheme we’ve just touched upon, do you really believe it would just forget about you, or let us wander around unchecked? No, the chances are it’s been watching us for quite a while now, monitoring and listening in.’
It was quite obvious that they were being monitored, but at present they must have presented a negligible threat or else he was pretty sure they would have been intercepted before now. Even though he had to admit to a part of him feeling dismay at this development, at least now they could try and fathom some detail behind everything that was happening on this far flung rock.
Children Of Earth (Tales from the 23rd Century Book 1) Page 16