“Nothing in the commander’s log,” she said. “I mean nothing. Empty. Nada.” She slid out of the chair and moved over to a bank of operations stations. She tried one and then another until she found the science station.
Amelia continued to work at the comm station. “I’m not finding much in communications,” she said, hovering over the panel. “I do see the station’s communications activity with us, and the automated messaging.”
“That’s it?”
“Just a minute.” Amelia frowned as she studied the info she was digging through. “There is one interesting thing… I see the exact same set of transmissions three times previous to ours.”
“So we’re not the first, then.”
“No, we’re not. However,” Amelia looked up from the panel, looked over at her sister. “In the last thirty five years, there have been only those three others. There’s not a lot of traffic coming through here.”
According to both the station chronometer and their own internal body clocks, it was getting late. Claire and Amelia had a quick meal and then sought out a room in the station’s sleeping quarters to spend the night. Despite expectations, both managed to get a good night’s sleep. The small room was clean, the beds comfortable. They found clean sheets and blankets in a nearby supply closet.
When Claire woke the next morning, she found Amelia already up and gone. She cleaned up and dressed, then walked the empty passageways to the mess hall. She found a breakfast ration packet and heated it, ate a quiet breakfast on her own before heading up to the command center.
Amelia was sitting at the science station when Claire reached command. Claire went directly to the commander’s station and dropped into the chair.
“What’d you find, Amelia?” Claire turned slowly about. “Are we supposed to just wait? Should we head down to the planet on our own? What happens if we try? I wouldn’t want to get shot out of the sky as we entered the atmosphere.”
Amelia looked both confused and unhappy. “Sensor readings have been giving back some odd data, and I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“Which sensors?”
“I’ve been taking a look at Old Earth.” Amelia frowned, curled her brow as she continued to study the sensor data. “The planet looks… deserted.”
“Is it habitable?”
“Absolutely. Flora, fauna, oxygen, oceans… there’s just no one there.”
“Could they be hiding?”
“Theoretically possible, I suppose; somehow masking their presence.” Amelia thought on that for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t think there’s anybody home, Claire.”
Claire nodded, spun slowly about in the command chair, her fingers drumming on the armrest. She mumbled loudly. “So what’s the labyrinth for? What’s this station for?”
And what about the three ships that came here before us? wondered Amelia. Where did they go?
She watched Claire absently tapping the armrest of the command chair. “So, waddya think, Claire?”
“I think…” Claire said softly, “that we were directed here for a reason. We don’t appear to be in any immediate danger, so until we know more, we hang out here.”
“Not that we have many options,” said Amelia. “We can’t go back the way we came.”
Maneuvering the labyrinth was definitely out. Old Earth appeared open to them, but that wasn’t a certainty. Something bad could be laying in wait. Even attempting to leave the station could trigger another of the hidden weapon platforms.
“That is correct,” said Claire. “The way we came is probably not an option.”
“And so we hang out here,” sighed Amelia.
“For a bit.”
§
Amelia passed through the umbilical tube and stepped into their shuttle. She worked her way forward and entered the main cabin. Rummaging through the galley station, she found a ration packet of meatloaf.
Two days without meatloaf was two days too long.
She turned about and was ready to head back into the station when she stopped, looked back behind her at the main computer station.
An indicator light was blinking.
She sat at the computer and activated the monitor. A pass code box displayed in the middle of the screen, waited patiently.
Amelia stared at the box, frowned thoughtfully. She twitched her mouth from one cheek to the other. Deciding then, she leaned forward and entered their now familiar family code. She hesitated, then clicked transmit.
Danny’s face appeared on the screen.
“If you’re seeing this, it means you’ve docked at Station Delta. Glad you made it.” Danny should have looked more pleased. “Hello, by the way.”
§
Hurrying down the passageways, Amelia found Claire in the space station’s recreation room. Both of them had been spending quite a bit of time working with the exercise equipment over the previous days.
That, and just hanging out.
“There you are,” said Claire. “Where ya’ been?”
“Shuttle,” said Amelia, waving her ration packet.
“Meatloaf? Geez, Amelia.”
“Yeah. And um… a message from Danny.”
“I’m assuming it has nothing to do with the meatloaf.”
Amelia moved over and sat on a workout bench opposite her sister. She stared down at her hands for a long moment, finally looked up at Claire.
“It looks like we still have a ways to go.”
Danny had recorded the message more than forty years earlier. At the time of the recording, the labyrinth had been fully functional for only a handful of years, and Old Earth had a refugee population of several hundred thousand.
But things were about to change. Danny wasn’t quite sure how it was all going to turn out.
Human populations had grown scarce in this corner of the galaxy. The Takiree had recently stumbled across the Solar System and Old Earth, and discovered the Labyrinth. They spent several years looking for weaknesses. According to Danny, they became obsessed with it, in their own alien way. They buzzed about the outer perimeter, poking and prodding. There was something in their DNA, in the way their brains were wired. The very idea of a labyrinth and the reward of Old Earth at its heart drove them crazy.
Most recently, they had begun sending probes into the Labyrinth.
And then things grew quiet.
Danny thought it may have been due to something happening back in their own corner of the galaxy. He couldn’t imagine anything else drawing their focus away from their obsession with getting through the Labyrinth and reaching Old Earth.
That was when the Council came up with a new plan.
“Plan?” asked Claire.
“Plan…” sighed Amelia. She hesitated. She took in a long breath and let it out slow. “They left.”
“Left? They left?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“How could they leave? I mean, how could they just… leave?”
“Danny was a bit sketchy on that,” said Amelia.
The population that had settled on Old Earth was certain the bad guys would return, given their earlier determination. And sooner or later they would find a way through the Labyrinth.
So, let them. It might take them years to get through to Old Earth, only to find it empty.
And while the Takiree fought and sacrificed and died getting through the Labyrinth, the refugees will have settled somewhere else.
Some of them, that is.
It took a considerable amount of time and resources for the population to secretly withdraw, but they did it. Some of them had gone to another out-of-the-way planet.
Many, however, had chosen a different path.
They were following after a huge human armada that was heading for the war in the far corner of the galaxy. But they weren’t going to join the fight. They had gone to free their brethren, those who had been collected by the Takiree and forced to fight their war for them.
“This all happened a long time ago,” s
aid Claire. She hesitated a moment then. “Whatever was going to happen, already did.”
“Probably. You were thinking of going after them?”
“Not really. I expect they’re on their way back. If they… you know.” Claire stared down at her hands. “I suppose Danny had thoughts on what we should do.”
“He was a bit vague, really. He didn’t know how long it would take for us to get here. He was leaning towards us following the refugees that were settling on that out of the way planet he mentioned, but he didn’t know what the bad guy situation would be like when we got here.”
Claire straightened her back, took a breath. “Can’t have us leading the Takiree to the new home.”
“That was the gist of it. So, what are we going to do?”
Claire looked about the exercise room. “Well, as for me, I think I’ll finish my workout. Then lunch.”
Amelia left Claire to her exercises, took her meatloaf ration packet to the mess hall and heated it. After lunch she returned to the command center and spent the afternoon going through science logs, comm logs and anything else she could find that might help her gain a better understanding of what had happened forty years earlier.
There wasn’t much. Even the exact location of the planet the humans had chosen to migrate to was cryptic. It would take Amelia time to decipher, should that be where she and Claire decided to go.
Of the three previous visits to the station, it appeared one had been Danny. The other two, from all indications, had attempted to leave back through the Labyrinth, most likely following after the refugees.
When her stomach began its daily late afternoon grumbling, Amelia went in search of Claire. They had tended toward more traditional sit-down evening meals together since coming aboard the station, and she wanted to know what Claire wanted to do about dinner.
Her sister wasn’t in any of her normal haunts, and Amelia was about to call for her over the intercom when she found herself in a narrow side-passage she hadn’t gone into before. This led her to a long, narrow observation room; its outer wall was set with a series of tall, clear panels looking out into space.
Old Earth hung large against the black.
Claire was sitting on one of several benches, her back to the door.
Amelia came up behind her. “Wow.”
Claire didn’t respond. Amelia stepped around and sat on the bench beside her sister. They sat quiet for a long while, looking out beyond the station, out at the planet barely two hundred thousand miles away, a blue and white globe set against the jet-black of space.
“What do we do, Claire?” Amelia asked at last.
Claire didn’t answer at first, and Amelia thought she wasn’t going to answer at all. She finally did let out a gentle breath and spoke softly.
“What are our options, really?”
They sat silent again, taking in the view of Old Earth, bright and radiant… alive.
There was no hurry.
They had all the time in the universe.
Episode Seven
“Arrival”
The lighting in Cryo Room 3 was set to medium, creating a soft glow that was just bright enough to push away the shadows. Several of the transport ship’s personnel were helping recently awakened sleepers from their cryo chambers. Colonel Dan Bradford, sitting on the edge of his cryo bed, waved away an approaching assistant, giving a polite thank you.
He rubbed at his face as he looked about. Of the twelve beds in this room, four were open, including his. The other eight remained in cryo state. That would indicate that this was probably his scheduled wake up call. The staff assisting the others from cryo were certainly calm enough.
Danny finished disconnecting his cryo-feed and monitor lines and stood up. His first few steps were slow and easy. By the time he reached the open doorway and stepped into the hall, he was steady enough to walk without the support of the nearby walls. Walking the hallway, he passed the open doorways of the other cryo rooms before stepping into the locker room. He found his locker, undressed and went into the showers.
His battalion had spent twenty two months in the war zone. His and the other human battalions had joined forces with the Jaung in their fight against the Takiree. It hadn’t always gone well, but after almost two years they had accomplished their goal of freeing the hundreds of thousands of humans that had been taken over the span of two centuries and involuntarily conscripted to fight for the Takiree.
It had been messy. And even then it hadn’t really been over. The Takiree chased them for two more years as they worked their way out of the quadrant. Eventually though, with the help of the Jaung, the humans were finally, truly on their way home.
Danny never did discover the reason for the war between Takiree and Jaung, but the Takiree were definitely on his own personal bad guys list. To be honest though, the Jaung were as scary to Danny as were the Takiree.
Cleaned up and dressed, he worked his way to the central passageway and started forward to the command deck. The colonel insignia on his collar was the only military dress he wore. His clothes were civilian work coveralls and comfortable slip-on shoes. His short hair was graying at the temples. His middle age was showing.
The transport ship’s command deck was an open floor divided into five sections, each with its own set of work stations. The shift commander, sitting in the central command chair, acknowledged Danny’s arrival with a nod before turning back to his duties.
Over in the communications area, Lieutenant Reynolds was talking with the comm officer. He excused himself and joined Danny.
“Good morning, Colonel.”
“Lieutenant. How do things look?”
“We’re two days from Station Hilo,” said Reynolds.
“No problems then?”
“Eight years of quiet,” said Reynolds. This had been Danny’s second stretch in cryo since departing the Takiree quadrant. “We’ll drop your team off at ten hundred hours day after tomorrow. Hilo has a shuttle to take you on to Old Earth System.”
“Thank you,” Danny said calmly. “That’s good news.”
Lieutenant Reynolds hesitated, finally asked curiously, “Old Earth, sir?”
Danny gave the man a pat on the arm before turning back to the exit. “I’m hoping for a family reunion, Lieutenant.”
§
Claire and Amelia walked the well-traveled trail through tangles of thick brush and scrubby-looking trees. The trail wound its way around and through dozens of rusting hulks of long-abandoned spacecraft, brought there and left to die hundreds of years ago, the ships overgrown now by vines and bramble.
Claire led the way, occasionally using her wooden staff to push aside a thorny vine or blackberry bush that threatened to swallow the trail.
The sisters stepped into a large clearing that was encircled by a high perimeter wall of trees and brush. Their shuttle was there, taking up the entire north end of the clearing, the hull half hidden by the encroaching vegetation. Also in the clearing was a small storage shed, a smoke house, a large vegetable garden, a picnic table and a barbeque pit.
Claire took Amelia’s backpack from her sister and walked over to a heavy work bench. She set their gear on the counter and began sorting through it as Amelia went into the shuttle.
The shuttle used the bare minimum of power. They kept proximity sensors operating, but brought up other systems only as needed. Amelia interfaced with systems on Station Delta once weekly. Should anyone attempt to make contact with them it would likely be by way of the space station. As importantly, the station also monitored inner-solar system activity and they would like to know if anyone was in the neighborhood.
Amelia turned on the emergency overhead lighting as she entered the main compartment. This provided enough light for most of their tasks. There was additional lighting available to them whenever they needed it.
They had brought the shuttle down to the planet’s surface three years earlier, this after spending more than twenty six years on the station, the majority of th
at time in cryo. By Amelia’s most recent calculations, at current power usage the shuttle would go completely dark in another eleven months. She didn’t like the idea of losing contact with the station, but didn’t see any way around it.
And they had long ago lost the ability to lift off the surface. They were planet-side for good.
Once the shuttle could no longer communicate with the station, there would be little reason to stay with it. Claire was already making plans to move. She wanted to build a cabin, a barn, and start a farm proper. She had her sights set on a piece of land bordering a river some three days travel to the south.
Amelia certainly wouldn’t mind the additional living space, but there were issues with Claire’s plans, most significantly for the very reason they had chosen not to establish a more visible presence right where they were.
But… circumstances change. Who knew what those circumstances might be in another year?
Claire came into the shuttle just as Amelia returned to the main cabin after cleaning up. They passed each other as Claire took her turn aft to shower and change, Amelia settling into the chair at the computer station. She activated the computer, brought up the comm system and established the connection with Delta Station. She spent the next few minutes going through the station’s previous week’s logs.
She was shutting down the connection when Claire came back into the main cabin.
“Any news?” asked Claire, pulling her hair back into a pony tail. She was dressed now in clean clothes.
“No one called to say hi,” she said. “But it looks like we have company.”
Claire sat on the edge of the table, pulled her feet up onto the chair. “The Takiree are back…”
“They’re in the neighborhood; well inside Mars orbit.”
The Takiree had made it through the Labyrinth a year after Claire and Amelia had moved from the station and down to Old Earth. The sisters had hunkered down and played dead for weeks while the Takiree searched the planet for signs of human activity. Since then they dropped in now and again, usually only making cursory searches.
Sisters in Space: The Complete Series Page 11