Passage

by Thorby Rudbek

  Until now.

  She suddenly had the urge to run through the star divider and throw herself into Richard’s arms. She knew that as she was now, desperate and alone, naked as the day she was born, he could not resist her if he awoke to find her cuddled up beside him. She sat and stared at the glorious stars which she still hoped to see in reality, from some peaceful hilltop on Arshonna, someday soon, contemplating her daydream and contrasting it with her highly valued virtue.

  Her pale skin gleamed in the bright starlight. She fiddled with the ring in her hair absently until it interpreted her finger movements as a signal and shimmered into a straight rod. The fantastically full, dazzlingly bright waves spread out slowly across her back, making her shiver unexpectedly. She crossed her arms over her cold, bare chest, covering the softness of her form and causing the ache that filled her to fade somewhat. Finally she got up, and dragging her silky wrap behind her, somehow made her way to the Pool Room. I’ll keep to my decision; the future will show it was right, though I need him so much I can hardly stand it now.

  Her father would have smiled; he had – like the true genius and loving father that he was – created a Tutor for her, and that Tutor had taught her well.

  ***

  Richard was awoken abruptly by cold water splashing over his face and chest. He sat up, spluttering, and clutched the bedding around his middle as he opened his eyes and saw Karen leaning over him, laughing as she held out what looked remarkably like a very ordinary and earthly, empty enamelled pail, which was still dripping the occasional sparkling drop onto the mossy surface beside the bed.

  “You look funny when you’re asleep!” she commented, the dimples very much in evidence as she displayed herself with false gaiety before him, dressed in a chequered shirt with jeans and suspenders, her hair in pigtails and her feet in open-toed sandals made with broad brown leather-like strips. “You were dreaming about working on the farm… with your brother.” Her cheerful expression faltered somewhat. She stroked her free hand across the blue material of her form-fitting jeans. “I thought a diversion would help us get busy today.”

  Richard looked away into the distance, recalling the memory she had evoked.

  “That was four years ago… boy! Was it fun! My parents encouraged us both to try out all the tasks we could find - tasks that we never imagined would be so, so different from life in Boston, the big city. Colin got me the second day, just like this.” He indicated the pail, smiling at the memory, then at her. “You look superb!” He returned to savouring the image she presented, as if he were drinking it all in. “It was a good move, I think.” He remarked finally. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he gestured down at the crumpled sheets and blankets, “I’ll get ready to help you muck out the pigs.”

  Karen bent down and kissed him lightly on the lips, relieved that her ploy had worked, then turned and ran back through the divider, leaving him to get up in privacy.

  Richard pulled the soggy blankets around his middle as he got up. He chuckled as he walked into the Pool Room; somehow the possibility that Tutor was gone forever did not seem quite so unmanageable in the bright light of morning. We’ll learn.

  Richard stepped out of the Pool Room, dressed much the same as Karen; he was not surprised to see the Arshonnan hillside stretching away behind him as he turned to enjoy the tantalizing scent in the air.

  “Come, join me for some ‘vittles’!” Karen called from a blanket spread out on the springy surface.

  Richard sat down and was pleasantly surprised by the pancakes that Karen offered to him. He dug in, after the briefest of thanks. A few minutes later he stopped and looked over at her. “I guess I should really thank you for all you do. Life is perfect when I’m with you.”

  Karen smiled and watched him eat for a few minutes. “I figured out what makes things switch off when the diagnostic system works automatically,” she announced finally, unable to keep her good news to herself any longer. “It’s the general state of these Macral units.” She held up one of the chrome-like cylinders, and it glinted in the simulated sunshine. “They are all so bad that none of them meet specifications when interconnected to a series of failed ones.”

  “Did I sleep that late?”

  “No, I just woke early.”

  He shook his head, embarrassed at the thought of her working while he slept.

  “So, how do we fix them?” He took the sample Macral in his hand and hefted it, intrigued by the inferred complexity of the device, which contrarily appeared to be a plain and solid cylinder of highly reflective metal. Something about the size and shape seemed familiar, and he searched his memories, trying to identify it.

  “I took out a few and fixed them manually; there’s a guide in the computer to explain how. Then I put them back in and checked just the units I had worked on. The diagnostic found a couple of mistakes in what I had done, and corrected them!” Karen grinned. “So I checked the same units afterwards; they showed up as ‘average grade’, which is three grades higher than ‘nominal’.”

  “My beautiful mechanic!” Richard kissed her, then settled back to hear the rest.

  “The real test was to check another unit, along with the good ones, one that I hadn’t looked at. I did so, and the diagnostic unit pointed out the faults and allowed me to correct them until that Macral was at ‘average’ too.”

  Richard finished off his food and jumped up, reaching down to help her up.

  “Show me how to do it, and I’ll fix some too, while you continue; perhaps we’ll get it all done in time for a game of squash!”

  ***

  Richard and Karen were sitting down on the hard floor, leaning against the rear wall of the Control Centre, exhausted physically and mentally by all the clambering and climbing they had needed to do to get to the many failed or unreliable Macrals, and by the exacting task of optimizing each unit, in conjunction with the computer, so that it would show up as ‘average’. Occasionally one of the new Macrals would raise the reliability to ‘good’, but the fabled ‘excellent’ that they had just discovered was the state of the entire ship – when it was built – was never attained. After some hours of this, both of them wondered how Scout Craft Seven could ever have operated with such worn-out and poorly maintained equipment; they decided that this was another indication of the craftsmanship that had gone into their wonderful Citadel so many centuries before.

  Richard looked at the orange ball rotating rapidly before them, filling the forward viewscreens and most of the side screens also. “The computer may be satisfied with this orbit, but the more I look at that gigantic thing, the more I want to move far away from it. It’s like someone hung a huge chandelier in a closet.”

  “I think we’ve fixed all the controls now,” Karen nodded, preoccupied with the process so much that she missed his droll imagery. “Let’s try the pilot’s panel and see if the Drive is back on line.” She started to get up but sat back with a sigh, suddenly overcome by her doubts. “What good is all this, Richard?” she wailed. “We don’t have any idea where we are… We know nothing about the complex mathematics of interplanetary travel; how will we ever find our way to Arshonna?”

  “We have to learn how to do all the things Tutor did for us, then we’ll be ready.”

  “But I can’t. I never did anything without Tutor; he’s been with me for as long as I can remember, almost.” Karen leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands under her chin, her eyes brimming with tears of frustration and inadequacy.

  “You decided to go to school without Tutor to help you. You picked me without any Tutor to vet me; you burned down the school without any help–”

  “That was a dumb idea! I wanted to keep all the officials so occupied that they wouldn’t have time to think about me. All it did was bring them around sooner.” Karen sounded uncharacteristically bitter.

  Richard reached out gently and laid his hand on her shoulder, letting his thumb and first finger touch her pale neck. He felt all her inadequacies, weighin
g down on her like a lead overcoat, as he had never done before.

  “If you were dumb, then I must be doubly dumb; remember, it was my idea! Anyway, you did it so well I bet they’re still trying to figure out how you managed to switch off the sprinklers until the fire got a good hold!”

  Karen brightened up a little. She looked up from her knees at the huge planet, turning like a top, just inches in front of her nose.

  “Okay. I’ll get up and work the navigation computer if you’ll pilot our Citadel.”

  Richard helped her up and they sat down on the centre and left chairs. He watched as she activated the unit and the displays in front of it resolved themselves into a holographic local star map, seemingly half-buried in the surface of the panel, half breaking free from its constraints. A star some distance from their location was labelled with a serial number.

  “There, I told you Tutor had put us back into Normal Space somewhere useful, somewhere good for us!”

  Karen smiled her agreement and accessed the catalogue with some interest. “Yes, and I think this must mean that the computer knows where we are! I’ll just bring up the information.” The adjoining display formed into a listing several paragraphs long; Karen read it out:

  “‘Outpost Twenty Seven. Founded in the year twelve thousand sixty seven AL. Day: Twenty-nine—’”

  “Did you mention a date just then?” Richard interrupted with great excitement.

  “Yes, it was twelve thousand sixty seven AL.”

  “‘AL’, I wonder what that means?”

  “Oh, I don’t know... You mean like ‘Anno Domini’ and BC? It doesn’t say, but I can tell you what the date was on Earth if you like; the computer has them cross-referenced, just as it has all the units converted to the standard ones used on Earth. Maybe Tutor did that, before he… Well, that date was eleven ninety-two AD, anyway.”

  “About the time of the crusades, if I remember my history correctly…” Richard mused. He looked up after a minute or so of contemplation. “Sorry, carry on,” he urged her.

  “Where was I? Oh yes! ‘Day: Twenty-nine point eight hours. Temperature ranges between plus five and plus twenty-five, little seasonable changes. All Base facilities now contained within Shell Field to reduce exposure to the arid and stormy local weather. Base conditions maintained at forty percent humidity (at a nominal temperature of twenty). Recreational facilities include a lake and an extensive library.

  “‘Convenient for transport and survey craft. Current staffing level: semi-automated support, featuring a full-time complement of three thousand four hundred and seventeen in four shifts. Nearest colony: Shoona (Estimated population of that planet based on last census: four million seven hundred thousand). Travel time in Dimensions five through seven: three hours fifty three minutes to Shoona; four hours four minutes from Shoona.’”

  “That’s weird, it takes longer one way than the other!” Richard commented.

  “Yeah, and what about those dimensions; I still don’t understand how there could be more than the four we know.”

  “We were in them, I’d have to say…” Richard shrugged his shoulders to indicate his own uncertainty. “Tutor did attempt to explain about that, but…”

  Karen nodded, but did not speak for a full minute. Then she continued reading:

  “‘Time to system limits not included’ – oh that’s part of the previous bit about those weird dimensions – ‘estimated at twenty seven hours outbound from Outpost 27, thirty nine hours outbound from Shoona).’” Karen grinned, her confidence level way up again. “That’s got to be something to do with the different solar systems for Shoona and O. P. 27!”

  “More planets in the Shoona one, I should think.” Richard agreed.

  Karen turned back to the display and continued with the next paragraph, after a moment’s thought.

  “‘Some parkland established within the spacebase in the year twelve thousand one hundred forty two AL. Functional repair and education facilities upgraded in the year twelve thousand two hundred seventy eight AL. Planned Scout Craft repair facility (to be available once super-hard material development has been concluded). Only base convenient for travel to Outposts nine, fifteen, and twenty-six. Discovery of significant beryllium deposits during initial survey, currently thirteen percent mined, with stocks maintained in farside supply depot at main mine.’”

  “That’s it, and it’s… only a sixty day journey from here, in conventional space!” Karen concluded as she turned back to the star map and figured out the distance.

  Richard smiled, impressed and greatly relieved to have discovered so much, and to find that help was not so far away after all.

  “Sounds like a good possibility, especially with the education facilities, perhaps they can teach us how to fly this thing through that grey stuff,” said Richard. “Or perhaps the Base’ll be so much bigger by now that we will be able to catch the next bus home! Or to Arshonna, I mean.” He paused, thinking again about the only planet he had known until just a few days before. “Say, how far are we from Earth now, anyway? I don’t suppose we’ve got very far. Barnard’s star was supposed to have at least one big planet like this, I think. Maybe that’s where we are.”

  Karen reduced the scale on the star chart by a factor of ten. Then she moved to a total reduction of a hundred and looked for serial numbers. “It doesn’t show yet.”

  Richard leaned over, incredulous. “How can that be? We were only in that grey stuff for a few seconds, well, maybe a minute at most; we can’t have gone that far!”

  Karen changed the range once more before she located the familiar planet near the far edge of the display, labelled rather obscurely as ‘Earth, CS Seven.’ “CS Seven, not SC Seven. I wonder what CS Seven means? It’s over two hundred and forty light years away from here!” she exclaimed suddenly, as the scale caught her attention.

  Richard just stared at her, then turned to lean over the display again so he could see for himself. “There’s something very strange here…” He turned back to the pilot console and activated the Star Drive system log. “It says here that the Drive functioned at one hundred and five percent at the time of our exiting Normal Space, rising to nearly one hundred thirty when we re-entered here, eighty four seconds later!” He called up further data, then sat back, visibly stunned.

  “What is it?” Karen asked, able only to pick up on his shock.

  “We were within two minutes –” Richard took another breath and collected himself together enough to continue. “Two minutes of a catastrophic reactor overload when I decided to shut down the Drive yesterday. It seems all the warning systems were disabled along with half the other functions of our craft when things started to go wrong. We would never have felt a thing.”

  Karen pictured the bright flash he visualized, then took his hands in hers and tried to soothe away his jitters.

  “Not only that,” Richard continued as soon as his nerves would let him. “But we accessed dimensions beyond what I have started to think of as ‘Grey Space’, where the Star Drive is designed to function, dimensions which defy any analysis by the computer. Our return to Normal Space in this sector of the Galaxy was not assured, in fact, we could easily have found ourselves in another galaxy entirely, thousands or hundreds of thousands of light years from here. If it were not for Tutor.”

  Karen could not think of a suitable response. She had caught what Richard had held back from stating, and she knew that, had they been less fortunate, there would have been no guarantee that they could ever have returned. She remembered also that Tutor had used up all available computer space to attempt the impossible, whilst simultaneously diverting life support controls and other essential services through temporarily unused circuits to avoid faulty Macrals and other components, as the Star Drive overload caused cascading breakdowns throughout the entire Scout Craft. Perhaps, in his final moments, as he programmed himself into oblivion, he had actually succeeded!

  Richard and Karen sat in quiet, companionable contemplation for
the best part of an hour before they felt reconnected to the reality of their continuing existence and uniquely fortunate circumstances. Then they resumed their checking of equipment, until they were sure that all systems were operational.

  “Let’s try to move away a little, like we were going to do a while back,” Richard suggested, as the small yellow sphere with black hexagonal patches appeared above the panel. He reached out and gently took the miniature soccer-like ball in his left hand, while punching up a low power setting for the Drive with his right. “Hold on to your seat!”

  Karen grinned back nervously, and she turned and watched the huge planet on the forward viewscreen as Richard pulled up on the two-inch sphere. Gradually the racing clouds started to recede; Karen’s grip on the arms of her chair slacked off slightly.

  Richard checked the orbit display; he could see that the previously off-centre ring was now stretched out into a long ellipse. Their current position was on a part of the curve climbing away from the gas giant, but the return portion appeared to intersect the planet’s ill-defined surface! Trying to calm himself and correct the situation without panic, Richard pushed the ball forwards slightly while observing the effect on the display. The ellipse started to round out, until it appeared to be closer to a circular shape, but off-centred once more.

  “Once we reach the top of this,” he tapped the display, “I’ll give the ship a little more speed and correct the orbit so that we stay that far above the planet.”

  “OK.” Karen nodded. “At least we know it can be done now,” she said as she sat back and watched the orange ball of clouds, now completely visible on the forward screen, still glowing faintly with the energy it was emitting. “Those controls look quite simple, too.”