by J Battle
He glances over at the jagged, gap toothed remains of the habitat dome that had one enclosed the whole crater, providing a safe haven for thousands of people. Even now it towers over him, a testimony to the ingenuity and perseverance of humanity. If he cared to tour the whole of the bright side of the Moon, he would fine the same scene repeated over and over; eternal monuments to those who perished in the Hardlampon War.
That was how he came to leave the safety of his underground chamber, wakened from his semi-slumber by the ground shaking explosions that completely destroyed the lunar colonies.
As he’d walked along the dividing line between night and day, he’d watched the alien craft swooping low above the great dome, releasing their deadly missiles and swerving away in broad arcs to renew their attack. He saw the first cracks appear in the supposedly indestructible carapace of the dome, the escaping air visible as it met the absolute cold outside, the water it carried immediately freezing and falling to the ground as tiny, slow hail stones.
Some were quick enough to don their spacesuits and escape into the open, avoiding the quick death of catastrophic depressurisation. But their only reward was to watch their home being destroyed and then to wait for their own slow deaths as their spacesuits’ limited stores of air were depleted.
Number Five had considered what help he should offer to them. But, although so desperately few, there were still too many of them for any efforts he might make to have any value, and, as always, his primary concern was the safety of his precious burden. So he’d merely watched for a while longer, a witness to their pitiful deaths. Then he’d turned his back on them, and walked back into the darkness.
After the hostilities had finished, it was obvious to him that precautions had to be taken to ensure that he was not put in a similarly dangerous position again. It would have been so easy for a Hardlampon missile to go astray and destroy him as he hid in his simple hole in the ground. Then he would have failed in his mission and lost the little parcel of life he carried.
So he set up an array of sensors to keep watch on Earth and nearby space. If there were ever any further hostilities, he would be warned well in advance and be able to take evasive action.
Which was why he is here today. Not to defend himself against rampaging aliens, or badly targeted weapons. But against Earth itself. And, even more terrible for him to consider, also against Jack.
**********
‘If you don’t mind me saying, your ship is a little small for our requirements. Especially if the journey is going to take as long as I expect. I can’t even see any sleeping quarters.’
‘Sleeping quarters? Oh yes, I remember them. They’re for when you need to sleep, aren’t they?’
Debois pursed his lips, deciding that it was a rhetorical question.
‘No canteen, no ablutions, no recreational facilities. It’s just so tiny and spartan.’
‘It suits me.’
‘Why don’t we take my ship; it’s much more comfortable.’
‘That’s not going to happen. I don’t trust you; you have a crew, and you’re far too slow.’
‘You might be surprised about that.’
‘I see. Could it be that you’re using TPI? Illegally?’
‘Well, needs must, as you might say.’
Jack turned away; rerunning his checks on the nearby craft. If they were using illegal technology to propel it, there might be more danger from the ship‘s weapons than he’d expected.
But there was no obvious immediate threat.
He turned back to Debois.
‘Let me know what your exact requirements are. Then we’ll just grow the ship to accommodate them.’
‘You’ll grow the ship?’
‘Yes. We’ll import the requisite matter; another advantage of TPI technology.’
‘How does that work?’
‘Well, we keep most of our mass in the 17th Prime; there’s plenty of room there. It makes things much simpler in normal space where mass is always a factor.’
‘I see; it is always nice to have adequate storage space.’
He climbed from the chair and looked around.
‘OK. We’ll need a fully functioning canteen, a large bedroom with its own facilities and an excessively large heart shaped bed, a recreation room, decorated in pastel colours and with the minimum of exercise equipment. Oh, and can we have one of those 5 metre full feature holo screens, with full aromatic features?’
‘Whatever you want.’
There was an unnerving amount of groaning as the ship began to stretch and the temperature plummeted.
Debois shivered and wrapped his arms around himself.
‘It’s quite cold in the 17th Prime. Things will warm up soon.’
Debois sat back in the chair, bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them for warmth.
‘What’s the plan, Captain? When do we leave?’
‘Just as soon as the modifications are complete. It won’t take long.’
‘Are we going after Number Two first?’
‘Not yet. Number Seven is more urgent and more convenient. He’s already many light years from us; the longer we delay the further he will be. We can catch him, but it would be wasteful to delay.’
‘But Number Two is destroying worlds.’
‘There are plenty of worlds.’
Debois gasped.
‘Surely you don’t mean that!’
Jack turned away and strode across what was now the bridge of his ship, through a long corridor into the canteen.
Debois had asked for it to be fully functioning. Well, it did have a kettle.
Chapter 16
Julie didn’t want Jack to be an astronaut; he knew that. Just as she’d never wanted him to join the Air Force
Of course, she never actually said ‘don’t do it.’ That was not her style. But he knew just the same.
It was never what she’d signed up for. When she’d first met him he was about to finish his physics degree, to go with the 1st class mathematics degree he’d achieved previously. A future of research and teaching seemed on the cards.
With her degrees in English Lit and Art History, their careers in academia could link and match.
Then he told her he wanted to join the Air Force.
No matter how much he explained, she could never really understand why he’d made this sudden decision. And to her, it was sudden. He had never discussed his plans with anyone, not until the time was right for action. There was always a little hesitancy in him about sharing his hopes and wishes, even with Julie.
Perhaps a little warning would have helped, being able to share the decision making about what was going to be their future.
But it was too late for that when he made the announcement.
So she let him go. There were no obvious tears as she told him it was over; that she wasn’t going to follow him around the world, from one base to another. She wanted her own career, her own life.
And, for three years, they were apart.
It seemed fine for both of them. He was busy, scoring record highs in all the tests he was subjected to. Learning to fly a string of more and more complicated planes. And he seemed to excel at everything he was asked to do.
She was busy too. Teaching teenagers who had much better things to do with their time. She persevered and felt she was achieving a measure of success. Whilst her pupils never actually read anything by Chaucer, Shakespeare or Shelley, at least they knew who they were.
Those three years passed for both of them, busy and without apparent distress, but they never dated anyone else.
They met again, apparently quite by chance, at a friend’s party. The years apart melted away and they were back together again.
It was summer, so she was on a long break and he seemed to be having an extended period of leave.
At first she didn’t ask too many questions; she was just happy that they were back together.
Then he told her that he was on leave awaiting a
transfer to the US. He was going to join their astronaut training programme.
He was a little nervous, he told her, in case she reacted the same way she had last time.
But she simply took his hands in hers.
‘They have schools there, don’t they?’
Chapter 17
When he intercepted the messages between Earth’s AI and Jack, Number Five was at first unsure what he should do. If Jack was allowed to land on Earth in a new cloned body, with his family, how would that affect himself and the other replicants?
They surely didn’t need the original to continue. In fact, that was their purpose, to carry on when Jack was gone.
Still, it was disturbing to think that Jack was giving up so easily.
Then he intercepted the message between the AI and the ship that had carried Debois to the rendezvous:
‘It you can, you must follow Russell’s ship, to ensure that he follows through with his side of the bargain. If he does not destroy all of the replicants, then it is your responsibility, Captain West, to make sure that the task is fulfilled. Your ship has the necessary firepower to ensure that, but you must not allow Russell to trick you into failure.’
‘And if we are unable to rescue Debois?’
‘He is well able to look after himself, but, if it comes to it, in the end he is dispensable.’
‘I fully understand and I will fulfill my duty to the utmost of my ability.’
‘Of course. That is why you were chosen.’
With the full explanation of the situation now open to him, Number Five had only one option. If Jack intended to destroy all of the replicants and then die himself on Earth, then he had to be stopped. He could not allow the final and total death of all of Jack’s organic material.
And if that meant that Jack had to die; so be it.
**********
‘You’d better strap yourself in. I’m going to switch off the AG in a moment. We have to reduce our mass as it impacts on our maneuverability as we alter course to leave the system.’
‘I see. No. You’ve lost me.’
‘We get our artificial gravity from the layer of heavy-mat covering our deck.’
Jack could see from the bemused look on Debois’s face that things were not getting any clearer.
‘Don’t you have heavy-mat?’
‘No, I don’t think we do. What is it?’
‘In traditional quantum theory, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle refers to the position of quantum particles. But the same logic can also be used to reflect their state; so we are able to select for a heavier state. That is how our gravity is close to Earth’s; the mass of the thin layer of heavy-mat is equal to that of Earth. Which makes it a little challenging to accelerate or alter our course in real space.’
‘I did wonder; it’s the smoothest AG I’ve come across.’
Straps had appeared on each side of his seat, so Debois was quick to make use of them.
‘How long will this take?’
‘A couple of minutes to change our course and get on the right heading, then half a day of acceleration to get to the closest safe jump off position, then we flicker.’
‘How long will it take once we flicker to reach our destination?’
‘There are factors outside our control, but it should be between twenty-eight and thirty-two nano seconds.’
‘Oh. Quite fast then.’
Debois paused for a moment, checking his restraints.
‘What level of acceleration were you thinking of?’
‘What can you take? We need something close to ten G to make the timeframe.’
Debois considered the question. Ten G for twelve hours would be punishing, though he could take it. It would put incredible strain on his genetically enhanced bone structure and his nano mechs would be working overtime, but there would be no permanent damage. There would be pain, and he could deal with that without any great problem. But there was more than just himself to think about. The crew of his ship would never be able to function under those conditions.
’Ten would be too much for me. I’d struggle at more than five.’
‘OK. Five it is then. It will increase the time for our real space journey; it shouldn’t impact on our flicker time.’
‘I’ll need a proper acceleration couch.’
‘The seat will change before we start. Oh, I should have mentioned. I’ve disabled your ship; they won’t be following us.’
Chapter 18
Max couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the gap in the schedule. The AI had really messed up this time, leaving a twenty-four hour gap between shift twenty-one and twenty-two was surely a mistake, and an expensive one at that.
He was trying to decide who he should tell when an idea sprang into his mind, fully formed.
What if? No, he couldn’t, could he?
Without giving it too much thought he flash-commed Sarah.
When he explained his idea she was hesitant at first. But it would be such fun.
‘Can you arrange it?’ She FC’d back.
‘Already done; we’re both now on shifts twenty-one and twenty-two. I’ll need to fiddle with the programming of the transport controllers, but that’s straight forward. So, is it yes?’
‘Go on then. What shall I wear?’
‘Something optional I was thinking.’
Sarah and Max were part of the reconstruction crew who were preparing Five Little Fish for its historic voyage. A berth on board was their payment for their labours.
Within only a few weeks, they would be leaving their family and friends behind on Earth and setting off on this fabulous new adventure.
They were just reaching the end of shift twenty-one on the habitat, waiting for the final bell.
Max was working on a little dell he’d taken weeks to develop. He had hoped for fjords, but the habitat wasn’t quite large enough for that. He was happy enough though, with what he had achieved so far. There would be a brook running through it when the acceleration phase was complete, for now, he had to make do with the channel he had dug across the low green hill.
He stood up straight and arched his aching back.
As ever the view amazed him. He was born on a dirt world, so he wasn’t used to the way the land curved away from him. If he kept his head down, he could imagine he was in a shallow valley, anywhere on Earth. As he raised his eyes, however, the illusion vanished. For nowhere on Earth did the land rise and rise away from you, the way it did here. He was facing the north end of the habitat so the ground on his right and left climbed away from him in gentle curves that just didn’t stop, as they circled the inside of the cylinder that was Five Little Fish. They met three kilometres above his head, on the other side of the sun-strip; a thin strip of light that stretched along the length of the habitat.
He felt a little dizzy, his subconscious mind asking him, if that’s the ground over there, where am I standing?
There were some clouds today but he could clearly see the narrow bands of cultivated land, brown and green alternating. There was a large circular gap in the pattern that would one day be a lake. Max was quite disappointed that he hadn’t been allowed to do the inlets.
He stepped onto the nearest retaining wall, one of hundreds of low barriers encircling the habitat to hold the soil in place during the drive phase. He began to run along the wall, his easy strides eating up the distance. After 5 minutes or so, he stopped and looked back.
The little dell he had started from was at eye level now, though the wall had appeared perfectly flat as he ran along it. That flatness was an illusion, he knew, but if you kept looking down, it seemed real enough.
Five Little Fish was not a large habitat by today’s standards. But then its purpose was unique.
Originally a mid-sized asteroid, five kilometres in length and a little over three in diameter, its centre had been dug out to provide a secure living space for up to forty thousand inhabitants. Unfortunately, they never had the chance to board their new home; inst
ead they were forced to remain on the moribund world that Earth had become.
For that was all nearly 1000 years ago, before the catastrophic collapse of the Heaven’s Climb investment consortium resulted in a galaxy wide economic downturn that lasted for centuries. All seven of the habitats that were still under construction were mothballed to wait for the upturn that was so slow to come.
For dozens of generations, it seemed that The Fall would never end.
Then, quite out of the blue, a small group of exploration zealots had bought the habitat for a pittance, and made plans for their great adventure.
Now the latest drive engine was attached to its southern end; probably the largest single machine ever made. As its fuel, it would use the waste material dug out of the centre of the asteroid that hadn’t been sold off when the project was put on hold, and several thousand tons of additional new material that had been purchased at horrendous costs.
For Five Little Fish would not be left in orbit around its mother planet as was usually the case. No, it was destined for a journey across the Universe, further than any human vehicle had ever gone. It would take many thousands of years, as its maximum speed was still only a fraction of the speed of light.
The noncrete lining was replaced, the soil and the biomass were laid down, the twenty thousand volunteers and lottery winners were chosen.
Even the dell was ready.
It was only a handful of weeks before the journey would begin.
The materials required to build the villages that would eventually be dotted about the lush landscape were stored at the southern pole, until after the acceleration phase. As specified by her work schedule, Sarah was working in that area, checking that everything was in order.
When the bell rang for shift end she simply put down her tablet, removed her holo-goggles and ran her hands through her short blond hair. Then she strolled along the meandering path to Max’s dell.