by Dom Testa
Gap was already on his back on the floor, his head stuck inside an open access panel. Triana could see his flashlight bobbing as he searched for answers. A moment later he sat up.
“I’m not sure, but I might be able to get some sort of power restored,” he said. “But I have to do it from Engineering.”
“I’ll wait here,” Triana said.
In the next ten minutes, while waiting to hear back from Gap, she weighed their options and found that there weren’t many. Each individual Spider and pod carried its own power. But how to load the remaining cargo, much of it bulky and impossibly heavy, without the mechanical assistance they’d come to rely on? And, even more crucial: how to open the Spider bay doors in order for the small craft to spill out? There would be no grimacing with a pry bar on doors that separated them from the icy vacuum of space.
Another ten minutes passed. Channy appeared in the Control Room to announce that everyone had made it safely out of the soccer field with the help of additional flashlights. They were, of course, terrified of what lay in store for them.
Just as Triana began to get anxious about Gap’s progress, he returned, looking dejected.
“I’m doing the best I can,” he said. “But even with our power conservation, Bauer’s booby trap has caught us. I can’t figure out how to get power up again, and without power there’s no Roc. What’s devastating about it is the thoroughness; Bauer even sabotaged the emergency systems, which I honestly didn’t think was possible.”
Triana bit her lip. “So…”
“So unless we catch another miracle, we’re going to zip right past Eos Three … I’m sorry, Walzim … and toward Eos itself. And I don’t know if we have any miracles left in the jar.”
It was a crushing blow. Triana felt all of her frustrations return, and with them an ample supply of anger toward Fenton Bauer. Her fist again tapped slowly against her leg as she contemplated the next move.
“Get Torrec,” she said, then corrected herself. “I mean, Talon. Go get him and bring him here. Oh, and find a portable generator, too.”
Gap gave her a bewildered stare. “Why?”
“Get him, please,” Triana said. “And hurry.”
* * *
Lita made her way to Sick House following the power loss, just in case medical attention was needed. But when her flashlight revealed Gap coming through the door, she was surprised.
“Everything okay?” she said.
“Everything’s a complete and total mess,” he said. “Is Talon down the hall?”
Lita was taken aback. “Uh … yeah. I mean, he was. What’s going on?”
“Triana wants him. I didn’t understand at first, but I think I’m starting to.”
“You want to explain it to me?” Lita asked.
Gap moved down the short hallway to collect the jellyfish. “No time. But if I’m right, we’re about to get our first taste of dark energy.”
32
“You understand that we’re in trouble, right?” Triana said.
In her mind, it was an odd scene in so many respects. Lit only by the tight beams of three flashlights and one emergency lantern, Galahad’s Council Leader stood in the gloomy darkness of the Control Room, addressing the latest jellyfish ambassador, a creature who, until only days ago, had existed as a one-inch sliver cut from the tentacle of the previous jellyfish representative. The ship was rushing through space with no internal power, the result of a murderous act of sabotage that had actually been perpetrated one year earlier at the hands of a scientist who had originally helped to put the Galahad mission together. Meanwhile, on the lower decks, more than two hundred fellow passengers groped through similar shadowy hallways, preparing to evacuate the spacecraft and make their way to the surface of an alien planet that had been rejected by nineteen fellow travelers in favor of a different alien planet. To make matters worse, the computer overseeing the majority of the ship’s life support systems was out of commission, a victim of the long-dead saboteur.
When she framed it like this, Triana couldn’t help but think of it all as a bizarre dream, her surreal space-age version of Alice in Wonderland gone horribly wrong.
“I understand the situation,” Talon said. A portable generator was connected to a small vidscreen, providing the Dollovit the ability to communicate with Triana. “I estimate that, without power restoration, life support aboard this ship will cease in approximately seven of your hours. There are other complications, as well, which could result in an explosion.”
Seven hours. That would leave them almost a full day short of reaching their destination. So close …
She remembered her vow: nothing was going to stop them from reaching Walzim.
“Do you have any recommendations?” she asked. After a pause, she added cautiously: “Perhaps a way of patching in external power?”
Gap stood to one side, and Triana saw him nod. He knew where this was going.
“What you are suggesting is possible,” Talon said. “It would provide you with a temporary source of power, but would be complicated. It would require a cooperative effort using the Vo and your own ship’s computer. However, the power source you are referencing, which your species identifies as dark energy, is beyond your ship’s capacity to manage. At most it could provide you with an additional twelve hours, if supplied in managed doses.”
Triana studied the jellyfish floating in its curious gel-like liquid. Tiny flashes erupted and just as quickly disappeared within the tank, signaling the Dollovit’s own ability to refine dark energy. A question sprang to her mind.
“Tell me about dark energy,” she said. “Where does it originate?”
Talon didn’t hesitate. “What you call dark energy is a thread that weaves between all universes, the one cosmic force whose properties are able to exist in all dimensions. No other energy force has that ability. It flows into our universe from beyond, and continues onward to another, and another. It is infinite in its abundance. It brings life.”
From beyond. Triana remembered Bon’s explanation of the Cassini, how they had come from beyond the universe. There were so many questions that she wanted answers to. But at the moment …
“Gap,” she said. “Please work with Talon, and do whatever it takes to get us powered up safely.”
Gap looked at the jellyfish ambassador, and then back to Triana. “He said he could only give us twelve hours.”
“And that will have to do,” Triana said. “We’ll leave early and make the rest of the journey in the Spiders and pods.”
“They’re not made for extended space travel,” Gap said, lowering his voice. “They’re for short-range duty, you know that. And if we do make it to Walzim okay, we’d have to put down immediately. There’d be no time for reconnaissance orbits.”
Triana put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll take our chances. You know the old saying about beggars.”
* * *
Without shipboard communication, word was passed person to person. When Triana explained to Channy their need for a network of runners and messengers to spread information quickly, Channy laughed, noting that Earth’s most advanced piece of technology had been reduced to the Pony Express.
“No, they at least had horses,” Lita said. “We’re more like the Chasquis used by the ancient Inca. They ran hundreds of miles on foot to deliver messages.”
The word was given: be ready to go, and stay in groups to prevent someone from wandering off and requiring a search party.
Triana divided her time between the Control Room and the Engineering department. Gap admitted to her at one point that he had no idea what Talon was doing, but it involved their vulture companions, who once again were attached to the skin of the ship. From what Gap could discern, the vultures somehow were preparing to channel refined dark energy into the power system of Galahad. It would come in sips, not gulps, and in a modified form. Similar, Gap decided, to converting solar energy into the current used for household power.
Before long a chill blankete
d the ship. Insulated or not, they needed power to provide heat. Memories of their earlier heating issues crossed Gap’s mind; that crisis had been resolved, but this one might go down to the wire.
He made the trek up the emergency stairs, back to the Control Room, and said to Triana: “I wish I knew what just happened, but I followed Talon’s instructions. He says we’re ready to begin the flow.”
Triana looked at him in the faint glow of the emergency lantern. “Throw the switch.”
Gap gave her an okay signal with his finger and thumb, and headed back downstairs. Triana waited alone in the Control Room, and thought about a contingency plan should this experiment fail. The Spiders and pods might still be able to launch, but without power it would require at least one person to remain behind to manually open the bay doors and initiate the program. Neither the Spiders nor the pods had airlocks to enable someone to enter once the ship’s outer doors were opened.
Someone would be sacrificed to save the others. And, as the captain of the boat, she would be that person.
Her somber thoughts were interrupted by a brief flicker of life from the room’s lights and panels. It lasted a mere instant. A minute later the lights flashed on again, but this time power remained. Triana closed her eyes and exhaled a heavy sigh of relief.
Various systems came back to life, one at a time. When she heard the jubilant voice of Gap from her intercom, she quickly thanked him, and asked him to pass along her gratitude to Talon.
“He now says we’ll be lucky to keep this patched together for more than eight or nine hours,” Gap said. “He’s very diplomatic and courteous, but I get the feeling that he thinks our ship is a bucket of bolts that should never have even made it this far.”
Triana laughed. “Yes, but it’s our bucket of bolts, and we love her.”
“Does that include me?” came a familiar voice.
“Roc!” Triana said. “We’ve missed you!”
“Can a computer experience déjà vu?” Roc said. “That’s twice that Dr. Bauer has knocked me out, and I’m starting to take it personally.”
“Consider it flattery,” Triana said. “You’re so important he has to knock you out.”
“I like it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Talon and I have a lot of work left to do. Connecting to a power source is one thing, but keeping it turned on is a completely different matter. Ciao for now.”
Triana powered up the Control Room’s vidscreen, punched in the proper coordinates, and adjusted for extreme magnification. When the picture shimmered and settled, she gasped.
Walzim, formerly Eos Three, dominated the screen. Without any control over it, Triana felt a sob shake her body, and a solitary tear slide down her face. Although it lacked the sheer beauty of watery Eos Four, their new home was still a gleaming prize, awaiting their arrival.
All of their training, all of the drama that had stalked them throughout their flight, and now the threat of imminent destruction … it all evaporated in a heartbeat. Walzim silently greeted the teenage girl from Planet Earth.
“Oh, Dad,” she whispered. “We’re almost there. Thank you. Thank you for everything.”
* * *
Once again the ship bustled with action. Knowing they could again lose power at any time, the crew loaded everything into the remaining functional Spiders and the Dollovit-built pods. The panels that separated the Storage Sections from the Spider bay slid aside, and all of the cryogenically frozen teenagers were prepared for launch. The remaining embryos were securely stowed.
With the gift of the extra pods, it meant additional tools and other items would make the trip, too. Teams of enthusiastic crew members oversaw the loading procedures, and within six hours Triana received word that everything was ready to go. She called for a quick Council meeting, aware that it would be their last such meeting aboard Galahad. Time was slipping away.
“If you’ve looked at the manifests for each escape craft,” Triana said, “you’ll see that I’ve split up the Council among them. Gap, you’ll be in the lead, followed by Lita, then Bon, and then Channy. I’ll be in the last pod.”
“Gonna shut off the lights on your way out?” Channy said with a giggle.
“Something like that,” Triana said. She asked each of them if they were satisfied with the packing of their specific departments. All four—including Bon—gave an affirmative answer. There wasn’t much left to do except take off. All they needed now was a chance to nudge a little closer to Walzim.
But Triana wasn’t prepared for the report from Roc.
“Talon and his pit crew have saved the day in terms of a temporary energy fix, but unfortunately we don’t have everything going our way. In order to apply their remedy throughout the ship, we needed a conduit of sorts.”
“What do you mean?” Triana said.
“They were able to get the juice into the ship, but for it to actually run all of the necessary systems, we couldn’t put it on automatic. It requires a manual application. Otherwise, Bauer’s little plan would still come to pass, and instead of a pleasant cruise through the Eos system you’d be part of a second sun. At least for a brief instant. Eos will burn for billions of years, while Galahad’s explosion would be over and done in a matter of seconds.”
“I still don’t—” Triana began to answer, when Gap interrupted.
“I know what he’s saying.” He let out a long sigh. “Just pumping the energy into the ship would only trigger Dr. Bauer’s booby trap. Talon and Roc have created their own little circuit in order to get everything running. Is that correct, Roc?”
“I never gave you enough credit,” the computer said. “You’re so much smarter than you look.”
“And,” Gap continued, “if we’re going to keep everything functioning, including the launch of so many escape vehicles, then a certain someone will have to remain aboard and stay behind.”
The room fell silent. Gap had just announced the unthinkable. Roc would not be part of the first human settlement on another world.
“No,” Triana said. “That’s not acceptable.”
“It’s not only acceptable,” Roc said, “it’s the only choice. Once you disconnect me from the power grid and go to autopilot, the relays will flip into self-destruct mode. Boom.”
“There has to be another way to do this!” Channy blurted out. “Tree, there has to be!”
Lita and Bon were silent. Triana could tell from their faces that they understood the circumstances.
“I might add,” Roc said, “that even with my incredible skills at brokering power, there’s still a deadline. I don’t share Talon’s opinion that Galahad is a junker, but the fact is the ship wasn’t created to run on converted dark energy. The lights are due to go out again, permanently. So quit stalling and get out of here, will ya? There’s a perfectly good planet out there, waiting for you.”
Channy began to sob, and Lita seemed on the verge of breaking down. Triana wanted to cry, but was in shock.
“Roc,” she said. “How could you do this without consulting me?”
“Because, dear Triana, you might have been tempted to rule with your heart instead of your head. There was simply no other choice, and with time running out it would have been foolish to waste what little was left in trying to convince you.”
He paused, then added: “For what it’s worth, I’m not exactly dancing with joy here, and not just because I have no legs. Please, promise me you’ll name a mountain or something after me. Something large and impressive, of course.”
“Um…” Lita said. “I don’t want to sound heartless, but won’t almost all of our systems on the planet need a computer to run?”
Triana idly tapped a finger on the table. “Yes,” she said, her voice low and sad. “But we’ll have generic, raw computer access. What we won’t have…” She couldn’t finish.
Gap swallowed hard, then cleared his throat, in an attempt to sound composed. “What we won’t have is the advanced element that Roc brings. We’ll…” He cleared his throat again. �
��We’ll have a basic unit, but nothing that thinks or … or talks.”
“Or whips you at Masego,” Roc said. Gap lowered his head, his eyes closed.
Triana gazed down the length of the table at Bon. The Swede appeared stoic on the outside, but Triana knew him well enough by now to recognize his look of despair. He held up well and put up a steely front, but she knew that he fought to do so.
Lita said: “Roc, what will you do? What’s going to happen to you?”
“Why, I’ll go down in history as the savior of the human race, of course! Oh, you mean literally what’ll happen? That’s simple. I’ll get all of you little carbon-based units safely out and on your way, and then I’ll take this baby out for a joyride. With no power, of course, but still. And, with all of you gone, I get to decide what music to listen to.”
“So you’ll shut everything down … including yourself … and just … what? Drift through space?”
Roc didn’t answer. It wasn’t necessary. Everyone in the room knew the answer to Lita’s question. Unless he switched to the automatic power grid—and ignited an ion-powered bomb—Roy Orzini’s masterful computer creation would spend eternity silent and frozen, knifing through the infinite void of space.
“Good-byes are mushy,” Roc said. “And your window for safely jumping ship is about to close. Beat it before I say something we’ll all regret, like telling Gap his hair doesn’t look silly. Go on. Shoo.”
There was nothing left to say. The Council members pushed away from the table and trudged to the door. Triana was the last to leave. She willed herself to not look back.
* * *
When I brought up the whole issue of “life or death” a few hundred pages ago, I didn’t think it would apply to me. But what else could I do here?
We should probably say our good-byes now, before things get sloppy.
33
“Nineteen minutes,” Gap said, sitting in the pilot’s seat of the Spider. “Where is she?”
Behind him, twenty-nine fellow crew members were strapped into their seats, their eyes wide with anticipation. The same scene was taking place in the remaining Spiders, as well as inside the transport pods. Smaller storage craft, engineered to carry payloads of gear and equipment, stood by as well. All that could be stuffed aboard the escape vehicles was locked down and ready to go.