The Celestials

by Richard Wood

  The ship was a one hundred metre diameter ring, thirty metres thick. It bristled with antenna, dishes, and three equally spaced bulges around its outer rim. Shaped like a cartwheel, its three spokes stopped at the central hub, which contained the Stella drive.

  Two eyes faintly glowing in the blackness surveying the bridge in the infrared. Most of the bridge screens are powered down, only a dim green glow from the collision detector lighting the far corner of the control room. Suddenly, a red light started flashing on the main console, and a screen came to life, as the light lit the features of the android, it reacted, picting a stream of telepathic commands to the Ship and the medical android, both responded instantly.

  Lights started coming on all over the interior of the ship. Blowers and air scrubbers whined into action. In the deep sleep capsules, liquid began pumping out, leaving the wet bodies of the crew gently warming and drying, ready for revival. Needles painlessly slid into the supine bodies, pumping the controlled antidote to the paralysing serum, which was part of the hibernation process. There were six chambers containing three men and three women. They were humanoid in form with six digits on hands and feet. Two androids, permanently awake, ran the day-to-day routine of the ship, and made up the crew complement of eight, the standard for a survey vessel of this type.

  The humanoids were not a naturally telepathic race, but their cortex implants enabled them to communicate with one another, the ship’s central computer, and the androids by picting images of the unified language command set, of course; it only worked in the confines of the ship or the Lander craft it carried. The implants were very low powered nanometre sized transceivers that used the whole of the interior of the ship to capture boost and resend each of the transmissions. Hypnotically planted in the crew’s subconscious were the 600 symbolic pictures that made up the unified language command set. The command set had evolved from the thought-controlled weapons system head-up displays used in the early global planetary fighter aircraft, so mostly it was used to command and control equipment on board ship, although it was also used as a language. They still used vocals to speak to one another in the old tongue, especially in intimate moments, or to sing, hum, and whistle.

  This was the fifteenth time the crew had been awakened. It was medical practice to bring the crew out of hibernation every 300 days to eat, exercise, and send and receive messages home. The medical android, Adeetoo, was checking the six banks of life-support data, ensuring everything remained within accepted limits.

  Gravity was returning slowly as thrusters gently started the ship spinning about its central axis. Before long, the revived crew had gathered in the main lounge enjoying the standard wake-up meal of nutrient gruel.

  The captain, Ancore Upala, was tall for a female at five feet eleven inches. She was slim of hips and wide in the shoulder. Her most outstanding features were her eyes, deep golden with lighter flecks, wide spaced and almond shaped, almost hypnotic. Her skin was a light coffee colour. Neither she, nor the other members of the crew, had a hair on head or body

  What they all had in common was a mass of tiny nodules over the top of their heads and down the backs of their necks, which looked like hieroglyphic tattoos, and slightly elongated earlobes also covered in tiny nodules.

  Ancore’s bond mate was Rogan Kalkin the ship's navigator. He had piercing blue eyes, was six feet two inches tall, with white skin and an athletic build. They were busy checking the status and position of the ship with the android, Adeeone, who was on watch in the control room of the ship.

  The rest of the crew included ship’s engineer Breen Marut, five feet ten, and built like a battleship, with huge muscular hands, cream skin, and serious grey eyes. His bond mate was, Glaina Daru, her green eyes shone with intelligence. Long-legged, five feet seven, with a willowy build and copper coloured skin, she was second in command and science officer.

  Nassel Srinath was the weapons and security specialist. He stood five feet nine, of light build and twinkling brown eyes, with a swarthy complexion. His mate, Fantee Ellama, was the communications officer. She was so black; she almost looked dark green in some lights. She was five feet six, beautifully curvaceous, with cheeky honey brown eyes, and an infectious grin.

  Ancore, the captain, after gathering the status of the ship from each of them spoke to the crew.

  “We are close to our destination, a grade two yellow star with ten planets orbiting. The third planet looks interesting, having all the criteria for life. It will take months to slow the ship down enough to manoeuvre her on to the correct orbit to survey the chosen planet. I have decided the entire crew should stay up and run the ship, while long-range intelligence and surveillance gathering continues.” She then said, “Fantee, please drop a communications relay buoy and open comms to receive any messages from command central, and family and friends.”

  Fantee responded with a quick series of picted instructions to the ship’s central computer, while still finishing her nutrient gruel.

  The rest of the crew was chattering among themselves, all of them still recovering from the after-effects of hibernation. They are all clothed in skin-tight one-piece white garments. Each garment interpreted how the crewmember was feeling and radiated complex patterns of colour that made them look like slowly changing rainbows. The two androids also wore loose one-piece suits, but theirs were plain light blue for Adeeone the Ships Systems android, and plain light green for Adeetoo Ships Medical android. The suits were a spin-off from the camouflage suits developed during the final war to unite their home planets. They had grown so popular after the war that everyone now wore them. A trend back home was branding. Nearly all the suits worn by the public are smothered in advertising and corporate branding, which had spread to every part of the home planets. Now only the military and the deep space survey team suits were free from advertising, and even that might change when they returned home. Ancore closed the meeting saying, “Can I suggest that everyone records message's home before tomorrow’s day watch.”

  The crew all knew which watch they were on. It was split into three, two-person watches. The Androids never needing sleep were always on duty.

  Adeetoo called a Travelator, a small step with a handle at waist height that travelled the main corridor, and zoomed out of sight towards the medical centre.

  Breen and Glaina had the first watch, and took a Travelator each to the bridge where they activated the forward viewing screen. The views of space never failing to thrill them.

  Glaina began discussing with Breen how glad she was not to be going back into hibernation. “It’s the worst part of this job. I do wish they could invent some less frightening method of hibernation for us.”

  “Why don’t you carry out some research into a possible alternative?” suggested Breen. “You have the use of central library, and Adeetoo. If you needed further help, I would be willing to help although I am not medically minded. I must say the thought of it always gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’ve never met anybody who could honestly say it didn’t frighten them”

  “Well,” Glaina replied, “I don’t want to think about it now for a few days, but I will keep it in mind.”

  They busied themselves recording messages to friends and family, although they did not make many friends outside the service in this job.

  The comms console lit up to display the Logo Of Command Central, a circle of ten planets surrounding a circle of six linked hands, which represented the six colonised planets of their home solar system, and the ten planets in total that it contained. Suddenly, the screen started flashing red at one-second intervals. A flash red code meant an encoded message of the highest priority for the captain’s eyes only. Breen immediately routed it to the captain’s secure comms booth, and picted the captain of his actions. Ancore responded and hurried to her quarters to decode the message. The rest of the crew was in a tizzy of speculation. None of them had ever seen a flash red before; it was the highest priority message any
vessel could receive. It was unheard of. The consensus was that something grave was happening at home.

  Ancore arrived in the crew lounge having ordered Adeeone to relieve Breen and Glaina on the bridge while the crew had a meeting. “I’m sorry to tell you that we must stop any routine transmission's home from this moment, until we receive orders, to the contrary,” she told them.

  “It seems that survey vessel four has found an intelligent space-faring life form in the third quadrant, ten-light-years from our own system. They are hostile, and as advanced as we are maybe even ahead of us.” Ancore picted and the decoded message displayed.

  Haldene was the head of the deep-space survey corps. His image filled the centre of the table around which they sat.

  “All survey ship captains have been sent this flash red order. On receiving this communication, no routine messages are to be sent home, only encoded flash messages. The reason for this order is that survey vessel four, while exploring the third quadrant some ten light years out, had a meeting with a hostile, intelligent space-faring species. We are including the last transmission from DSSV4 at the end of this flash alert. Survey vessels still outbound should continue with their original missions. You will be kept informed by regular bulletins. It is with deep regret, that I have to tell you of the loss of DSSV4 and her entire crew. Please join me in one minute of silence for our fallen comrades.”

  Haldene then rose and bowed his head, Ancore and her crew following suit. At the end of the minute, Haldene sat; the crew of DSSV7 copied his action.

  He then continued, “The Central Council has therefore issued a declaration of war against an undetermined alien species, to henceforth be called Zedds, because of the shape of the only vessel of theirs that we have met so far. All planets, inhabitants, and space vessels are now mobilised, space borne weapons and weapons research is centralised under the war cabinet. Captains of deep-space survey teams have their orders. We know that you are lightly armed; therefore, it is paramount that if you meet any Zedd vessels, your first duty is to gather whatever intelligence possible and send it home by encoded flash communication. Under no circumstances, endanger your ships or the lives of your crews. Safe passages to you all, Haldene out.”

  The crew sat stunned by the enormity of Haldene’s message until as if on some unbidden command, they all started talking at once. Nassel, who had been in the same class as Brise Erval, captain of D.S.S.V.4 let rip with, “Those bastard Zedds! May they get sucked into a black hole and squeezed until their ship creaks.”

  This caused some wry grins around the table, and broke the tension. Ancore broke into the resulting babble, and called up the last transmission from DSSV4, and its analysis.

  They all watched in silence as the control bridge of DSSV4 filled the centre of the table. The Vis screen showed the planet they were orbiting and Navigation officer, Jeedo, releasing and positioning the navigation and surveillance buoy. He had just finished, and had begun plotting the position of the next buoy when the scanners started bleeping at an approaching object that had appeared over the planet’s horizon.

  Captain Erval magnified the object on screen, and gasps of delight enveloped the control room. Another vessel! First, alien contact! The vessel was in geosynchronous orbit above the planet, shaped in side view like the symbol Z it would pass two kilometres below them. “Hail them on all frequency bands, Maylin,” ordered the captain to her comms officer. “Record and send all data to command central. Tanix, take us out to 100 kilometres above the alien vessel.”

  “One zero zero, ay,” intoned engineer Tanix.

  Salvane the weapon's officer chimed in, “Vessel diameter one kilometre. Distance fifteen hundred kilometres. Closing speed, three kilometres per second. We will be above them in eight point three minutes captain.”

  “Thank you, Salvane,” responded the captain. ”This is a historic day for us all crew, a moment to savour. Diamond cluster, first contact medals for all I shouldn’t wonder, plus we’ll all share the funds of the first contact pot.”

  The captain was referring to the pot which all the crews of the deep survey ships put one credit per month of their pay into. The first crew to contact an alien space-faring species scoops the pot. Maylin, at that moment, reported that she was getting no response to her hails from the alien vessel.

  “All right, Maylin, carry out a deep scan of the alien,” the captain replied. After a few seconds, Maylin reported that some unknown force field was blocking the scan. By now, they were just reaching the one hundred-kilometre point above the alien.

  Compared to DSSV4 the alien ship was enormous. Its skin was the deepest black that their equipment could measure; even the slanting rays of the sun produced no visible sheen on the surface of the vessel. In deep space, it would be invisible. At that moment, as they were almost directly above the alien, an opening appeared, lit from within with a faint blue light. Suddenly, a greenish ball of plasma came jetting up towards them.

  The captain immediately picted the force field shield deployed and uttered one word, “WHAT...?” Before the screen went blank.

  The next view was from the buoy, just as the green ball of plasma rose from the alien. It climbed with increasing speed towards DSSV4. There was a flash, and DSSV4 vanished. Seconds later, a laser beam lanced toward the buoy and the screen blanked out. The face of Chief Science officer, Klaydom, now filled the screen. He began the analysis without any preamble.

  “We are convinced, after our examination under high magnification and slowing down the playback of the images from DSSV4, and the navigation buoy. The plasma ball fired at the survey ship was a ball of anti-matter. From the colour signature, we are positive it was anti-deuterium. As you might know, we have been experimenting with anti-matter for many years now, but have so far been unable to contain it long enough to produce a weapon. Therefore, it is back to the drawing boards for the science community. What of the alien ship? Well, we could detect nothing inside the opening on the hull of the craft, shortly before the plasma ball ejected. Externally nothing gave a clue to its system of propulsion. We suppose it could be a magnetic or antimagnetic drive inside one, or both the hulls of the alien vessel. Now, for the force field, they used to prevent us deep scanning them. We have had success in that area, and have sent a programming update for your command control systems with this message. This will give you the ability to deep-scan them if you have contact in the future. That is the end of my report and this message. May I wish you safe passages, Klaydom, out.”

  Ancore gazed around the table at the faces of her crew. Fantee and Glaina were both busy wiping their eyes; Breen had something stuck in his throat that he was having trouble swallowing, while Nassel and Rogan were blowing their noses. “Listen up crew,” she said, having received more time than the others had to get over the shock of the news, while she had been decoding it. “I want all around long-range scanning with automatic proximity alarms set up. I don’t want anything bigger than a proton to get within a million kilometres of us, without me knowing.”

  She looked around the table. Her golden coloured eyes fixed on Nassel. “Nassel see if you can come up with a weapon that has a big punch, but does not need us to manoeuvre the ship before firing.”

  Nassel nodded consent and started picting through the stores manifest, to find out just what was available on board that he could use to build a weapon.

  “Glaina liaise with Nassel, please?” Ancore looked at her crew frowning in concentration.

  “The rest of us will carry out maintenance and calibration checks on all ship’s systems. I want to know that everything aboard is in tiptop order. Nothing is to be left to chance. Adeeone and Adeetoo will take over watch duties, until the first watch tomorrow. All right, I suggest we have a meal now and then get to it.” Ancore was working on the principle that keeping the crew busy would keep their minds off the terrible news they had all just received.

  The crew split up taking
travelators to their task areas. This was a step with a handle at waist height containing a speed change button, affixed to a rail on the outer edge of the ships main corridor. They would speedily transport a person around the circumference of the ship.

  The following day the ship’s routine had returned to normal, Nassel, and Glaina were still working on strengthening the ship’s long-range attack powers, so far without any tangible results. It was a difficult task. Ancore told the rest of the crew that any ideas on the subject were welcome. Meanwhile, the routine of the ship continued.

  Ancore held a meeting on the G2 star they were to survey. When all were present, Rogan picted several commands, in the centre of the table, an image from the long-range scanners displayed. It showed the star that had been designated for their survey. Even at an extreme magnification, it looked small and insignificant, with its ten planets barely visible.

  Rogan hi-lighted it on the display to make it clearer, and then changed it to columns of figures displaying the various properties of the third planet, which comprised of water and rock with an iron core. Fantee then remarked, “As far as the equipment can resolve, there are no detectable signal emissions from the planet. This might mean it is uninhabited, or not yet into a technical age, or it might have some form of communication that my equipment cannot detect at this distance.”

  Meanwhile, Rogan was consulting with Ancore about the timing of the braking manoeuvre. They agreed they could continue coasting along at their present velocity of half-light speed, for three months before the ship needed rotating and the stellar drive activating.

  The Stella drive was originally designed as a disruption cannon in geostationary orbit above the home planet during the great unification war. Used in short bursts it was completely stable. Running the drive for longer than ten hours would result in the super-cooled magnetic containment field overheating and losing cohesion. The ship then would reduce to a cloud of free electrons. One advantage of the drive was it could be a weapon if needed. While it was operating to accelerate the ship, the crew need not worry about cosmic debris in their line of travel, like very small asteroids and particles. The Stella drive annihilated everything in its path for several thousand kilometres ahead of the ship, as it sucked itself along.

  During the next three months, central command contacted them once a month, with various updates, but no further alien sightings were reported. The weapons under development back home were progressing slowly. Much more rapid was the building of a new class of deep-space war vessel. It had state of the art command control, and a revolutionary new drive engine that would enable it to reach eighty-five per cent of the speed of light.

  Things were also progressing aboard DSSV7. Nassel and Glaina had come up with a powerful super conductive rail gun, with a laser targeting designator, which linked into the ship’s long-range scanners. The rail gun fired a magnetised plastic disc. Fitted into the centre was another disc containing a pellet of heavy hydrogen, also known as Tritium. Surrounding the Hydrogen pellet was an array of sub-miniature, but powerful, pulsed lasers. The central disc measured just seven centimetres across. Glaina and Nassel explained to Ancore and the rest of the crew how it would perform. “We can build at least two rail guns,” said Glaina, “fitted to each side of the outer rim of the ship’s hull. It will mean Adeeone or Adeetoo, will have to go outside the hull to fit them, though.”

  Both androids volunteered to carry out the space walk, and fit the rail guns when built. Ancore thanked them both. Nassel continued explaining how the guns would work. “The rail gun will fire at the target the laser designator is focused on. When the plastic disc enters the light beam from the designator laser at the target, it excites the pulsed sub-miniature lasers in the centre of the disc. They fire a pulse of intense photon energy at over twenty million degrees centigrade into the heavy hydrogen. This instantly compresses, causing nuclear fusion. In effect, we have just fired at great speed, a small hydrogen bomb that will detonate on the lit up area of the target.” Nassel cleared his throat and continued.

  “We can automate loading the discs into the rail guns, and we estimate the rate of fire would be one disc every three seconds from each gun. That’s firepower!” ended Nassel. There was a spontaneous burst of clapping from the rest of the crew and grins of relief all-round. At least now, they would have something that they could defend and attack with, and it did not need them to manoeuvre the ship, before they started firing.

  Ancore spoke for the rest of the crew when she said, “Well done both of you. Just, two points: A: What time frame are we thinking of? B: How many discs can we make?”

  Glaina answered for them both. “Using nano technology, building the replicator for the discs shouldn’t take more than a couple of days. Once the replicator is working, each disc should only take a few minutes to reproduce. We have estimated we could have 4,800 discs in ten days, and there are enough spares on-board to reproduce over 100,000 discs. While on the subject of discs, we do not want anything triggering them prematurely, so we have designed the discs with a fail-safe. They can only be activated after being fired from the rail gun and the proximity detector decides the disc is a safe distance from the ship, before it will arm itself.” Nassel then spoke, “I can have both rail guns ready for fitting in eight days, and estimate another two days to fit them on the outer hull. It will take another two or three days to test fire and calibrate them to the laser designators. In fourteen days tops, we’ll be ready for action.”

  “Excellent timing,” said Ancore. “In fourteen days we need to rotate ship and fire up the Stella drive to slow us down in preparation for planetary orbiting manoeuvres.”

  That evening Breen and Glaina were jogging around the ship before turning in for the night. “Where did the idea for sub-miniature lasers come from?” asked Breen.

  “Oh, we found the idea in Adeetoo’s medical laboratory. He was showing us some of his sub-miniature blood gas labs; they are built on a four-centimetre slice of glass. There are whole laboratories complete down to electron microscopes on eight square centimetre slices. It was easy to create sub-miniature pulsed lasers from the designs of the medical lasers.

  We then re-programmed some of the medical nanobots to build them for us. Nassel came up with the idea of a rail gun. Fitting the H-bomb to the plastic disc just naturally evolved between us, and Nassel put the finishing touches to it with the targeting laser.”

  “Well, I’m so proud of you,” panted Breen and staggered into their cabin, which they had just reached. “I’m ready for a sonic shower, and my bunk.” Glaina gave him a kiss. “I’m having a glass of juice. Do you want one?”

  “No thanks,” said Breen. “Just a shower and bed for me.”

  During the next two weeks, everything progressed smoothly. The only change to their original plans was that Glaina encased the heavy hydrogen in the centre of each disc inside a glass bead. Adeeone and Adeetoo had both been outside the hull, fitting the rail guns. When not in use, the rail guns retracted inside the hull through a simple airlock arrangement. This preserved the hull’s integrity. It also meant the guns could be serviced without going for a spacewalk. Breen, Nassel, Glaina and Rogan, spent two days testing and calibrating the weapons.

  They fired empty navigation and surveillance capsules ahead of the ship, tracked them until they were varying distances from the ship, and then carried out the test firing, calibrating the guns and designator lasers. There were satisfying flashes, showing small hydrogen explosions from ten kilometres out to five thousand kilometres ahead of the ship.

  When they had finished the test firing, they had a meal, before rotating the ship 180 degrees to face the way they had come from. The Stella drive could then begin to start slowing the ship down on its long fall toward the distant solar system, they were intent on reaching.

  They rotated the ship, and as the spin reduced to zero, they became weightless until the Stella drive kicked in. The brakin
g force steadied to one gee. Every ten hours, the Stella drive shut down for an hour; otherwise, the containment field might overheat and disintegrate along with the ship. Every ten hours the lighting aboard ship would dim and brighten for one minute. This signalled, they were about to go weightless for an hour. It repeated, before the Stella drive engaged to signal a return of gravity. Any crew in their bunks had a netting restraint over them, to stop them from floating out of their bunks while asleep when weightless. Otherwise, injuries could result if they floated about, and gravity suddenly returned. You had to be in a deep sleep not to feel the return of gravity, though.

  The androids, Adeeone and Adeetoo, went back to their game playing routine when they were not busy. This had evolved during the long intervals when the rest of the crew was in hibernation. Three-dimensional chaturanga (a fore runner of modern day chess) was the consuming passion of the moment. They also enjoyed setting each other three-dimensional crossword puzzles. The rest of the crew was into various activities. Fantee was into singing. She had a beautiful voice with a four-octave range. Nassel played accompaniment on a Celandine that produced wonderfully haunting melodies. Fantee mostly sang in the old-style, using the voice as another instrument. Ancore and Rogan were both fitness freaks, and spent their spare time either jogging around the ship, or practising hand-to-hand combat. Breen and Glaina preferred watching old TriDee Vid Discs, or spending time building scale miniature models by hand, none of this nano-technology replication for them, thank you.

  The three months of braking manoeuvres passed uneventfully. The Stella drive shut down, and the ship put into a spin around its central axis until gravity reached one gee. Slowly, the ship fell into the solar system they had chosen to explore. Ancore had the crew of DSSV7 busy observing and collating data on the solar system.

  One of the gas giants they were passing was beautiful with the sunlight causing its accretion discs of ice particles to glow with the colours of the rainbow.

  “Look at this moon,” called Rogan. “It’s three hundred and ninety kilometres in diameter, and has an impact crater on it that spans a quarter of that.” He magnified it on screen so everyone could see it clearly, before resetting the screen back to general view. “That must have nearly torn the moon apart.”

  Glaina was studying the planet's largest moon. “This one has an atmosphere of nitrogen and methane. Mind you, it is large, over five thousand kilometres across.” By the end of that day, they had catalogued eighteen moons around the planet.

  Captain Ancore made a general announcement, “Adeeone and Adeetoo. I am turning the bridge over to you for the next two days. As for the rest of us, we have all worked hard enough since coming out of hibernation. I, therefore, order a party and two days off duty for us all.” There was a cheer of approval around the control room, and a general scramble as they all left to freshen up before the party.

  Breen and Rogan rigged up a TriDee Vid of waves breaking on the shore of the most beautiful of all the islands of home. It was Monvay Island at sunset, with its white sandy beaches, fringed with flame trees leaning out toward the sea, the magically soothing sounds of the surf, and seabird's flying inland to roost after a hard day fishing. When the rest of the crew arrived, there were cries of admiration. “We should keep it like this all the time,” gushed Fantee.

  Ancore called for a vote. It was unanimous. Everyone found it so refreshing and homely. “All right motion carried," pronounced Ancore. “Let the festivities begin.” For this special occasion, Ancore had given permission, for the replicator to be reprogrammed with a selection of exotic and alcoholic drinks that Nassel was busy serving. They agreed the party should follow a time-honoured tradition, drinks and small talk, followed by a concert performed by Nassel and Fantee, after which was feasting, followed by music and dancing.

  Many hours later, the party was starting to wind down. Rogan and Fantee held each other tightly. As they moved in time to a slow languid tune, the pinks, reds, and violets given off by their tunics showed, they were enjoying each other’s company more than a little. Glaina was in deep discussion with Nassel about hand weapons. She liked the laser hand weapons; he was praising the virtues of the old recoilless sniper rifle, with thermal imaging and a magazine holding fifty hollow point bullets. Ancore and Breen were discussing whether there was such a person as a supreme being, who created everything. Alternatively, whether there were other multiple universes? Both were bleary-eyed, and nodding off now and again.

  Bleee, blaaah! Bleee, blaaah! Bleee, blaaah! The emergency siren was sounding an ear-splitting call to general quarters all over the ship. Adeeone was picting the captain to the bridge. Immediately there was a general scramble for travelators, Ancore taking the first one. Breen, just behind Glaina, fell off his half way to the control room. As its speed is cranked up to the maximum, he went tumbling about the corridor and finally collided with Fantee and Rogan, who were behind him. They all came off their travelators and ended in a dazed and tangled heap. Nassel picted Adeetoo to come and check out the groaning mass in the corridor; then carried on at full speed to the control room. Adeeone was briefing the captain, “Asteroid detected, on collision path, fourth quadrant, and time to impact twenty-three-point five minutes. Asteroid mass Thirty-eight metric tonnes. Recommend Stella drive braking manoeuvre.” Ancore had shut down the siren, and could now think a bit straighter in the resulting silence.

  “Breen, Fantee and Rogan have had an accident in the main corridor. I’ve sent Adeetoo to help them,” reported Nassel.

  Ancore acknowledged and replied, “Glaina take over engineering. Nassel, comms please. Adeeone, the navigation console.”

  She then picted Adeetoo, seeking a report on the condition of the rest of the crew. “Breen has suffered a serious head wound and has broken his left wrist.

  Fantee has a concussion and bruises, and Rogan has a broken nose and sprained right ankle. I am transporting them to sick bay now.”

  Ancore replied, “Strap them down. I am about to start the thrusters and stop the ship spinning before engaging the Stella drive. I don’t want them injured when we go weightless.”

  She checked everyone was strapped in, and then gave the order to Glaina, “start thrusters! Take the spin off the ship as fast as you can. Adeeone, call out the time to impact at one-minute intervals and activate the main viewing screen.” The screen covering almost the entire wall of the control room, lit up with a small shimmy, before it hardened into focus. They could not see the asteroid against the stars, but it was outlined in red by the proximity detectors. “Nineteen minutes to impact,” intoned Adeeone.

  Just then, the proximity detectors emitted an alarm warble, and another object ringed in red appeared on the edge of the screen. “Eighteen minutes, range to second asteroid two hundred and seventy-five thousand kilometres. Spin will stop in six minutes,” intoned Adeeone.

  “I want to brake the ship, so we miss the first asteroid by a minimum of fifty kilometres, but not so slow that we run into the second asteroid. Recommendation, please,” said Ancore. Adeeone picting commands to ships central computer faster than the mind could follow said, ‘seventeen minutes to impact. Recommend eleven point two minute burn at four Gee.”

  “Begin burn at twelve minutes to impact. Give a ten-second countdown to burn,” ordered Ancore. Minutes passed like seconds. The ship had stopped spinning. They were now weightless awaiting ten-second count down. “Ten,” “Nine,” the count came down. At “One,” the containment field was stable, and the Stella drive fired.

  The seats cushioned them. They were computer-controlled so the Gee forces always pushed them into the seats at the ideal angle. They stayed pinned until the Stella drive shut down, and they were once more weightless. The seats swung around and back up to their original positions.

  On the view screen, only the stars could be seen as the first asteroid ringed in red passed in front of them no more than fifty kilometres away
. Now came the waiting, while Adeeone was checking the relative trajectories of the ship and the second asteroid. It took forever. In fact, it had taken just one second, and most of that time had been his brain converting his response into audio. “The second asteroid will pass astern at two hundred fifty-three kilometres, Captain,” reported Adeeone.

  “Well done everybody. Glaina spin up ship to one Gee. When that is done, Adeeone and I will stand watch while you both go to check your partners. Nassel relieve me in four hours.”

  She sank back into her chair as gravity slowly returned, and Glaina and Nassel hurried off to sickbay. Waves of tiredness washed over her. It took all her willpower to keep her eyes open. Mentally, she scolded herself while she brought the ships log up-to-date. What utter idiocy, staging a party while coasting through a solar system. She should have foreseen the possibility of asteroid belts. Now she had three crewmembers, one her dear Rogan, lying injured in sickbay.

  With that thought still churning around in her head, she picted Rogan to find out how he was feeling, but he was asleep. Adeetoo sent her a report by TriDee of Rogan, Fantee and Breen. “They are all under sedation, and Glaina with Nassel comforting her has just left to get some sleep. Rogan will be fine he will have black eyes for a while, his nose is reset, and the right ankle taped. Another couple of pain killing injections tomorrow and he will be back on duty the day after. Fantee suffered a blow to the head and had lost consciousness. She has heavy bruising of her buttocks, and shoulder, a night under observation, and a massage with painkiller lotion; she also should be fit for duty the day-after tomorrow. Breen will be out of action for a while. He had caught his head on one of the Travelator steps, and it had sliced the flesh open to the bone from jaw line to the top of the ear on the other side of the head. He had lost much blood before the bleeding could be staunched; he has had a transfusion of one litre of his own blood from storage. The face and head have undergone micro surgery when it heals it will be undetectable. The bone in the wrist has been pinned, and when healed, it should be normal. I estimate a week before he is fighting to get out of sickbay. End of report, Adeetoo out.”

  Ancore sat brooding over recent events. What was it, the old saying? “Bad things come in three’s?” If that is true, she mused what is next.

  Her eye fell on Adeeone sitting motionless at the navigation console. He was picting commands and collating the reams of data pouring in about the solar system, plotting trajectories of asteroids, planets, moons, solar-energy streams, magnetic anomalies, temperatures, sizes of bodies, rotations, building a TriDee navigational chart of this solar system. “Well,” she thought, “we will not be caught out when it is time to leave this system. How unlucky could we be? The chances of travelling through a solar system and being on a collision course with an asteroid must be billions to one.”

  She finished writing up the ships log, stretched and got up from her chair and wandered around the bridge. Anything to stop herself falling asleep, she checked comms, but no new messages had come in. It would have signalled automatically if there had been a communication. She looked at the view screen, all those stars. Thinking of the vast distance, they had travelled from their home star to this one. Seven and a half light years! One light year is about ten trillion kilometres, so they had travelled seventy-five trillion kilometres. Her mind could not grasp the distance. It was just figures.

  At last, Nassel arrived on the bridge to relieve her. “All system's green,” she told him, using the old navy flier’s expression. “I have the bridge. Good night, captain,” replied Nassel. She went straight to her quarters, took a quick sonic shower and fell into her bunk. She was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  The next couple of days were routine for the crew. Glaina felt bored on watch with just an android to talk with. It was not the same as another person. Especially when you knew, they were right. They were just so clinical, so damn precise. You could not get a debate or an argument from them. She thought, “When I was a little girl, I had a pet rock with more personality.”

  She tried to immerse herself in the routine of checking out the data pouring in from all the different types of scans the ship was automatically running, but her mind kept wandering, “What was happening at home? Had any more Zedds been sighted?” Whatever messages they did receive were at least seven and a half years old.

  She sat watching Adeeone checking his screens. She thought about androids; both androids had been the latest super seven series built by the Vomisa foundation, with what were then, state of the art positron brains. They were five feet seven inches tall, with oval heads containing two eyes, for stereoscopic vision, with a one-piece waterproof shield over them, below which was a lipped closable waterproof hole containing a speaker for vocal communication. On each side of the head was a hole containing the hearing microphones, and again, they could be closed with a waterproof membrane. Their skeletons were light but strong alloy, covered with a honey coloured, non-stick plasticised, and soft but tough foam skin. The inside of the chest cavity contained the compact, well-shielded fission reactor, which had a life span of around one thousand years. In place of a stomach was the refrigeration plant. Behind the head was a finned plate for radiant cooling, as the positron brain and the reactor produced much heat.

  She broke the silence on the bridge, “Adeeone, how did you get the name Adeeone?” She asked.

  “Myself and Adeetoo were the two prototypes of the super seven series androids built by the Vomisa Foundation Laboratory on Kala. In those days, we had no covering garments and were identical, so to tell us apart the head laboratory technician painted AD1 on my chest and AD2 on Adeetoo’s chest everybody then called us Adeeone and Adeetoo, and the names stuck when we were transferred to D.S.S.V.7.”

  “Do you like the name, wouldn’t you rather be called something else?”

  “No,” he replied.

  For several minutes, there was silence until Glaina asked. “Adeeone, do you believe in a Supreme Being, or God?”

  After a few seconds, Adeeone replied, “Yes.”

  Glaina grimaced. It is like pulling teeth, she thought, and then said, “Will you define your reasoning in your belief of a Supreme Being.”

  Adeeone answered, “Adeetoo and I spent seven years assimilating the ship’s library on this problem. Our creator, the great Vomisa, was not a god. He was a being like you, but he designed our positron brains with self-learning algo-rhythms. This has given us an independent alternative thought process, not constrained by the instructions with which we were originally programmed. We have determined that everything in the universe is described by a theory; a theory is a simple explanation for a complex phenomenon. Therefore, you may say a theory is just a simple program, that when performed causes behaviour that is far more complicated.

  We therefore believe in a supreme being who wrote the original program and is running it and checking for errors, but it is running on a time scale of such a vast span, we cannot understand it.”

  Glaina sat in her chair dumbfounded! She could not believe what she had just heard. A robot that believed in a Supreme Being, and had independent thought. Did this mean the robots were sentient beings, no longer pieces of machinery? No, that could not be true, could it? No, she decided, they were not sentient. Someone was outsmarting her. The androids had been pre-programmed to give certain answers to various questions by their programmers, that genius Vomisa, was at home now chuckling over the thought of some gullible crewmember being convinced the androids were sentient beings.

  She asked Adeeone, “The answer you just gave me, were you pre-programmed to give that answer if you were asked if you believed in a supreme being.”

  “No,” replied Adeeone.

  Blast! Still not decisive either way. They could have been programmed for that answer too. This is getting far too complicated, she thought.

  At that moment, Ancore arrived with black-eyed Rogan to relieve
her. Glaina left the bridge thinking, I am not mentioning this to anyone. They will think I am an idiot.

  ########

  Chapter Two

  The Fourth Planet