I then turned to Miki and presented her with her own silver lieutenant’s bar and let everyone know that she would be working closely with me at the order of the captain. While these promotions were ahead of schedule, I said, they were necessary to provide each of us with the clout we would need to get things done with the colonists. I also mentioned Commander Herman would be leading the assignment and with Miki would be working out all the mathematics we would need for the planetary approach as well as the first colonial site lay out.
The implication was that Herman would be in total control. It was not the absolute truth, although it was close. I would be directing the plans and approving the structure of the operation all while making sure there was no mutiny brewing. Of note, I informed them all that additional changes in rank might become necessary ahead of schedule to lead the colonists in the right direction and everyone would have to compete fiercely for those jobs.
After having explained what we were up to, I was confident it would race around the ship and no one would be surprised when I appeared to tell them what to do.
After having a drink to toast our luck, Miki and I had a long meeting with Commander Herman. I filled her in on the suspicions and how the captain had suggested we handle it. She agreed to take charge as I suggested. First of all, she would handle the technical side of setting up view screens for the colonists and making sure they were aware of what we were discovering along the way. That way, their input would be seen as welcome. In addition, once the trajectories were completed, she would return to her station to monitor the changes we would be seeing on Kepler and its satellite on a daily basis. She would also periodically call the colonists together to explain what she was seeing and let them review it all for themselves.
Before I put my introductory speech to the colonists together, I had one other major duty to perform. The captain needed to know whether the previously unknown video portals had been used for spying by either Commander Boggs or Buryl. A minor duty required me to find out how Buryl was doing and see what the doctors had to say about his psychotic episode.
I decided to do the former first and headed for the ship’s library and the AI computer. As I sat down at the portal desk and activated its systems, the computer surprised me.
“Good morning Lieutenant Kelso and congratulations on your promotion. Captain Hollenbeck has informed me of your new duties and authorized your access to any part of the ship. You will no longer need special codes for your inquiries.”
“Well, thanks. And when you have the time, please thank the captain for doing this for me.”
“Done.”
“Also, now that you have awakened from your long sleep, please activate the typing systems. I do not wish our conversation to be overheard and it goes without saying that my inquiries must remain secret. Captain Hollenbeck, CID Colonel Lipscomb and I must be the only personnel authorized to access this communication.”
“Confirmed. This session will be designated Lieutenant Kelso 2, for your eyes and those you designate. There will be no override code.”
“Thank you.”
“Not necessary. It is my job and I never sleep.”
“Ah, I should have known that.”
I paused for a few moments, thinking back to my previous discussion with the computer. I pulled the typing keyboard toward my lap, and began:
“Computer, during our last discussion, you mentioned you could not tell me the contents of several areas of the ship that were blocked from your scans. I need to know what is in them. I also need to know where the five other monitoring portals are located. Would you print out a diagram for me so I can find all of those spaces when I need to do so?”
“Yes sir, and please remember to re-cycle the map upon completion of your tasks.”
“Will my command override open those compartments?”
“Yes sir, it should, unless someone modified the system without my knowledge, and that would be impossible.”
“You’d think so. Consider this though; someone has blocked your ability to monitor those compartments, so I’d say just about anything is possible on this ship right now.”
The computer paused. “Yes. That is a conundrum. If you find out how this was done, please let me know so I can incorporate it into my records.”
“If my override is also blocked, is there a way for you to decode the door lock system and then allow me to open them?”
The computer again paused. “This is indeed confusing,” it said. “My programming does not include such a process, because if the doors do not respond to your override that command block could only have been ordered by someone with full authority to do so. I have no record of anyone having been given such authority. Nevertheless, excepting your proposition of its possibility, I am still of the opinion that the process of decoding the current command block would be simple. Your new authority as the captain’s aide-de-camp would suffice to override or decode any combination, unless it was quantum protected. If that turns out to be the case, I may have to devise a new method of decoding. As a last resort, you might have to force the doors open.”
“Okay, I have one final task for you. Commander Boggs has the use of six video monitoring portals. One of them is in his office and the other five are scattered about the ship. He is authorized to use them for monitoring ship’s personnel only if Captain Hollenbeck agrees to a specific request from him. Can you tell me if he has ever used any of those portals to monitor or observe anything other than the compartments involved in running the ship, such as the engine or fusion rooms? Do not include Buryl Boggs’s use of the portal in the Commander’s office.”
“How far back do you wish me to look?”
“Five years would be sufficient.”
“Working — Yes, Commander Boggs regularly monitored the activities of his son, Buryl Boggs, when he was not in school. This began during Buryl’s senior year.”
“Did he discover his son’s use of the office portal?”
“Yes. After that, he set up an alert system to warn him when Buryl was in his office.”
“So, he knew of his son’s spying and who he was spying on?”
“Yes, I believe that is encompassed within my previous answer. Are you still having memory problems?”
“No, I am simply aghast at this news and thought to confirm it. Now, did he see Buryl get into his safe?”
“I have no record of that.”
I thought about this for a few moments and then directed the text of my inquiry be sent to the captain and CID Colonel Lipscomb. I asked the colonel to meet me at compartment 502 on deck five, which was the closest of the spaces the computer could not monitor. I added that he should bring two Marines with him.”
When I got there, Lipscomb was already there. Captain Hollenbeck arrived before I attempted to open the door. He did not explain why he had decided to come along.
“Well, here goes nothing, I said. It’s probably full of whiskey.”
I looked at the captain and then the colonel. “Computer, override the door lock on compartment 502 on deck five. If it will not open, decode for the new numbers.”
“Yes sir.”
I heard a click and the door popped open a few inches. My first thought was one of relief. Whoever had secured this room had not had the wherewithal to incorporate its security within a quantum code.
I stood back and one of the Marines pulled the door all the way open so we could look inside. It was as dark as the Bridge floor in the room, without a photon to stimulate the eye. Lipscomb felt around inside the door jamb and found an illumination switch. Several LED lights came on slowly and grew in intensity.
Colonel Lipscomb stuck his head inside, half turned and said, “Sergeant Kent, please stand by outside the door and prevent anyone who comes along from getting closer than twenty meters to this room.”
“Yes, sir,” Kent said as he stood to attention by the door.”
I looked around. The room was filled with plasma rifles in racks along one side,
probably as many as five hundred. There were also crates of what looked like power packs for the rifles along the other side. At the far rear of the room were several large bags, usually called super-sacks. They were very strong, made of Kevlar fabric capable handling two to five tons of material.
A quick inspection showed them to be filled with what looked like white medicine capsules. There were many millions of them within each bag. “Colonel, what are these things?” I asked. “I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
He looked closer and said, “I think they might be old style general purpose antibiotics, designated for distribution to assault forces. If they are antibiotics, they’d be capable of curing just about any disease known to man. Let’s take a few samples and have them analyzed. Captain?”
The captain nodded. “Yes, they could be military antibiotics or someone’s personal stash of recreational drugs. We had a few reports of colonists getting high on some kind of drug many years ago and several people died from overdoses. Then, it all just stopped and we assumed the supply someone had brought aboard had been used up.”
“It’s possible that Buryl had been using some kind of drug,” I volunteered. “He was foaming at the mouth and completely insane.”
“That would explain part of it,” Lipscomb said. “Except how he managed to get in here in the first place and where all these weapons came from.”
“Colonel Lipscomb,” the captain said. “I’m guessing the other compartments referenced by the computer contain the same sort of cargo. That suggests to me that Andy’s concern about mutiny is spot on. Someone may have decided to prepare for a mutiny as far back as the final days of loading. Or, and this is a distinct possibility, the colonists stocked these in case they had to deal with a hostile life form. I do recall discussions of this before we left and some of those advocating for it were adamant. Nevertheless, the decision was made to leave all such threats to the Marines. We did not want to be seen as driving intelligent life forms from their own planet and we had methods of protecting our people without harming any other life form.
A decision was therefore made not to arm for such an event and I certainly never authorized the stocking of such large numbers of munitions. Someone did, or they would not be here. I’m thinking it may have been the board of trustees. There are more weapons in this one room than the entire Marine complement would ever likely need.
So, what would you two recommend? Should we destroy them, take them to some other storage room, or simply disable the weapons?”
“Sir,” Colonel Lipscomb said, “It seems to me that this would be the logical place to leave them. The computer override system would have to be changed to prevent anyone from opening the door without your direct order. The order should include the decoding system the computer has now created. It should be available only at your order and an alarm flagged to your office if anyone attempted to gain entry to it for any reason.”
“I agree with that,” I said. “And, it has the advantage of not tipping whoever did it off to the fact that their secret is no longer a secret. Still, before you make that decision, we need to check the other rooms.”
“Yes,” the captain said. “Let’s go.”
It took no more than a few minutes before we were on deck four at compartment 402. “Computer, open the door to compartment 402, deck four by whatever means necessary.” I said.
The door clicked and popped open as before.
The captain looked in and then backed out. “More weapons,” he said. “Similar bags at the back. Different pills, though. Some of them have been spilled on the floor.”
Lipscomb entered and walked to the back of the room. “Oh, my God.”
Chapter 20
“Captain,” Lipscomb asked. “Are you familiar with the drug known as, “De-Tach?”
“No. Should I be?”
“Now you should. It was designed for combat. One pill will provide what is known as ‘compliance’ assistance. It makes people exceptionally susceptible to suggestion and absolutely compliant with military command. It was developed before we left orbit and had never been accepted by any branch of the military. From the point of view of the Marine Corps, the need for such a thing was ridiculous. Marines will follow orders under virtually any circumstances and the idea that they might need a drug to get them to fight was seen as absurd. I agreed with that position and expected it would never be manufactured or distributed to any military force. Apparently, someone else decided they ought to have it anyway.
All I can say is that whoever is, or was behind this, is seriously paranoid about aliens. They may now be more concerned about keeping it all and making sure we don’t discover who brought it on board.”
“So,” I interjected, “If I am reading you correctly, these drugs would turn any average colonist into a serious fighting machine? And that would suggest it was probably the colonial leaders who decided to bring them aboard? Right?”
Lipscomb nodded.
Captain Hollenbeck walked to the back of the room to look at the bags of drugs. He bent down and looked closely at one of them.
“These are labeled, unlike the others. And the markings are definitely military. U.S. Army, it appears. So, it would seem the government must have thought they would be of some value at some time in the future. Why else manufacture them?”
I pondered this and suggested we look at each of the trustees to see if any of them had been closely connected with the manufacturer of the drugs. “Can you tell who manufactured them from the label?”
The captain bent down again to read one of the labels. “Ah, yes. It’s here in the fine print. They were manufactured by Marshall Industries, a huge pharmaceutical company that was one of the largest corporations on Earth.”
“Isn’t there a ‘Marshal’ on the board?” I asked. My studies in Earth’s history were now paying off.
“Yes.” The captain said with a grim look on his face. “He was the CEO of Marshal Industries and is now chairman of the board of trustees on the ship.”
Captain Hollenbeck became very quiet. He was no doubt trying to remember the discussions about fighting aliens if they found them, what kind of arms should be taken for the use of the colonists and in general how he would handle this current situation. I calmly suggested that we get on with our tour. There was no question now that we would find more of the same in the other three compartments. We had to know for sure and then return to the captain’s office to discuss the matter. While we were dropping down a floor to Deck 3, compartment 302, it dawned on me that whoever had chosen these rooms had done so for a purpose. Most likely it was so they could easily remember which of the hundreds of such rooms the material was in. Given the size of the ship, there were plenty of places for secrets to be kept.
From head on, Kepler Dawn looked like a gigantic football with bulges at the rear where the engines were housed. There was nothing fancy about it because it was designed to be practical and carry as many people as it could, all while being able to sustain them as long as necessary.
The crew members and military specialists were generally housed in the upper portion of the ship, from decks one eighty to two hundred. Cargo was scattered about the entire ship, with massive spaces for heavy equipment and bulk foods at both the top and bottom of the ship. The colonists and their families were housed at the bottom levels, decks one through twenty. In between, compartments for spare parts and crew specialists were scattered. At any one point, elevators and the tube cars could deliver a person wherever he or she needed to be in short order.
I noted each stash of weapons and drugs was located on floors occupied by colonists and would allow them to arm themselves from any of the floors they were on.
We found similar stashes of weapons and drugs of different colors and sizes in all of the other compartments, took samples of the drugs and weapons for testing, and re-set the door locks to prevent anyone from attempting to enter without the captain being notified by the computer. Commander Lipscomb intended to
track the weapons and their manufacturer’s records and I was directed by the captain to inquire at the hospital about Buryl and whatever it was he might have taken.
∆ ∆ ∆
While approaching the head nurse’s desk, I ran into the paramedic who had saved Mary Sakura’s life. He’d changed into a different type of scrub clothing, this time a gaudy red. I recognized him easily by his pug nose and serious upper body muscles. Having such muscles seemed a common thing for the people on board. My assumption was that with so much free time on their hands, working out would be something many people would choose to do in order to get rid of excess energy.
This time I was a bit more courteous, not having asked his name before because of the general excitement. He told me his name was ‘O.J. O’brien.’
“What does the ‘O.J.’ stand for,” I asked.
“Uh, nothing, sir. It’s a family thing. Several members of my family had similar names, ‘J.D.’ and ‘M.J.”
“Very well, O.J. I wanted to talk to you first, before I speak to the neurosurgeons. I need to find out how Mary is doing and also the status of Buryl Boggs.”
A big smile spread across his face. “Mary is in great shape. Still rattled, of course. All in all, though, she’s in pretty good condition. I think the rape will be her only lasting injury. Sometimes it takes months for a woman to get over such a thing. Sometimes, they never do. At any rate, if she will allow me to do so, I intend to stick by her and provide whatever support she might need.”
I knew Mary had not chosen a mate either for temporary play or a longer term relationship and thought this a good match.
“I will tell Miki about this and don’t be surprised if she does not come by to check up on you. She’s very protective of Mary.”
USS Kepler Dawn Page 12