Various implications occurred to Jason. "You AND the colony ship are both from Conover?!" He tilted his head to the side, his eyes widening, and he said slowly, "So, while searching for your mother, YOU must have encountered the SAME whirlpool as the colony ship! Incredible! Where is your mother anyway? Katz couldn't have searched for her if he didn't know where she went!"
"Father never said!"
Jason looked over at the image of the colony ship on the radar screen, then back at Dalton. "Let's see, the colony ship left exactly... 98 years ago. Katz returned to Infinity City five, no six years ago, after being away 93 years. So he must have been on Infinity City the first time 99 years ago. Some time after that he stopped at Conover and picked up you and your father. And then years later began looking for your mother, and hit the whirlpool. How old were you when he began looking for your mother?"
"About nine or ten."
"The colony ship's voyage was supposed to have taken just over ten years. Maybe your MOTHER was on... I mean IS ON the colony ship, and Katz had just followed the path it should have been on, and hit the same whirlpool. This is incredible!
Dalton, your mother may be on that ship!"
Dalton's face clouded over, and he looked away.
"What's the matter, kid? I thought you'd be excited.
You're finally going to meet your mother, if she's there!"
Dalton looked back at him, and said bitterly, "She can't be on that or any ship. She must be dead back on Conover! She wouldn't have taken off on a ship and left me behind. Nobody's mother does that. She must be dead. Just like my father. Both my parents are dead!" He buried his head in his arms, then looked up angrily at Jason with tears in his eyes. He stormed over to the hatch in the pilot room floor, kicked the control button, and dropped through, stumbling down the ladder. Jason heard the living quarter door open, and slam loudly closed.
POOR KID, he thought. Jason began to feel guilty for speculating about Dalton's mother without first thinking about how Dalton would react. Katz seemed to have followed the path of the colony ship because she was on it! But why HAD she abandoned Dalton as a baby? No one abandoned children in Infinity City.
What an abhorrent idea! No, it was a ridiculous notion that his mother had been on the colony ship. Jason dismissed the entire idea.
Jason felt Dalton probably needed to be alone for a while to sort things out. This was an awful lot for a sixteen year old boy to handle. Jason decided to contact the colony ship in the meantime.
He grew excited and rubbed his hands together. This was always a thrill, letting despairing space travelers know that help had finally arrived. "Computer, record the following message." And from the keypad of the pilot seat he typed...
BEGINNING OF MESSAGE:
COLONY SHIP HEAVEN, THIS IS INFINITY CITY SAILSHIP
RESCUE-THREE. HAVE RECEIVED YOUR DISTRESS MESSAGE.
HAVE ALSO SLOWED HEAVEN BACK DOWN TO A STOP, NULLIFYING
EFFECTS OF THE "GRAVITONIC WHIRLPOOL" SPACE PHENOMENON
THAT THREW YOU OFF-COURSE. ARE YOU RECEIVING THIS?
END OF MESSAGE.
He spell-checked the message, wishing to appear as official as possible so they would not think he was a pirate. Then, he instructed the computer to send it. A reply was received immediately! It read...
INFINITY CITY SAILSHIP RESCUE-THREE, THIS IS THE
HEAVEN. COMPLETE MESSAGE RECEIVED.
But, that was it!
Jason frowned. They were not very excited. He sent another...
HEAVEN FROM RESCUE-THREE: PLEASE IDENTIFY THE PERSON
RESPONDING TO OUR MESSAGES.
The reply was once again immediate:
INFINITY CITY SHIP RESCUE-THREE, THIS IS THE HEAVEN.
THIS IS SHIP'S COMPUTER PF24, OPERATING IN MAYDAY
EMERGENCY MODE, RESPONDING TO INFORMATION REQUEST: CREW UNAVAILABLE.
"Computer, switch to audio link." There was no one there to impress with impressively official written communication.
However, Jason wanted to talk with humans, if there were any!
"PF24," he addressed the colony ship's computer. "How many crew and colonists are alive?"
The response: "613 colonists and 0 crew members alive."
WHAT?! "PF24, how many original colonists and crew members were there when the HEAVEN left Conover?"
"925 colonists, and 23 crew members."
"PF24, detail crew member cause of deaths."
"All deaths caused by fatal injuries."
Jason asked, "PF24, what caused the fatal injuries?"
"Affect external to HEAVEN."
"PF24, what was the affect? Describe it."
"Cannot label the affect in question. Description follows: The Heaven encountered random accelerations beyond the tolerance of its superstructure."
Jason inquired further: "When did this occur?"
The HEAVEN'S computer responded, "Ship time: 7.21 Earth-standard years ago. Galactic time: 90 years ago."
So, the crew had been killed in a serious accident! The whirlpool, of course. But, there were 613 surviving colonists.
He needed to talk to one of them. He typed out another message:
"PF24, is there a leader of the surviving colonists?"
"Yes."
Jason was growing irritated at this computer's lack of intuition. It should have responded with a name! Must be an exclusively digital model, Jason surmised. "Well, who IS the leader?!"
"A human named Excarver Durdaine."
"Do you have communication equipment to let him communicate with me directly?"
"Yes."
"Tell Excarver Durdaine to go to this communication equipment, and talk to the captain of the ship that has come to your rescue."
"Instructions now in progress. Summoning Excarver Durdaine to the communication room."
"Tell me when he gets to the communication room."
"Acknowledged."
Jason addressed his own computer verbally. "Computer, tell me when we receive the next message."
He suddenly realized he must look terrible, and not like a captain of an official rescue ship at all. Looking the way he did now, he looked like a pirate! He had learned that pirates were the chief worry of anyone stranded in space, because pirates left no WITNESSES. "Computer, priority one, get a robot up here as fast as possible with my dress uniform, a hair-brush, and a shaver!" The computer acknowledged, and the hatch in the pilot room floor slid open immediately in anticipation of the little robot. In less than one minute Jason heard the elevator activating. A few moments later the blue robot popped up into the pilot room.
Jason grabbed the ultra-sonic laser shaver and made short work of his mangy stubble. Next, he took the hair-brush and started tugging at his hair, which he had again negligently allowed to get too long. He periodically pressed a button on the brush which sprayed a polymer steam into his hair, instantly flattering even the most stubborn tangles.
He removed his coverall, and tossed it down through the hatchway in the floor. "Hey!", he heard Dalton, upon whom the coverall had landed, shout from below. Jason pulled on his formal Militia Guard dress coverall, and was just buttoning up the jacket when Dalton appeared in the hatchway. Jason climbed back into the pilot room. Dalton looked down and said sheepishly, "I'm sorry for getting angry, Jason. That wasn't how someone in our business should act."
Jason smiled at him, and tousled Dalton's hair. "That's okay, kid. I've thought about how you must feel." He extended his hand, and saying brightly, "Partners-in-rescue, right?"
Dalton looked up, grinned, grabbed his hand, and vigorously shook it up and down. "Yeah! Partners-in-rescue!" Then he looked quizzical, "Hey, what's going on? The robot came blasting out of its cabinet, and almost knocked me over. I didn't know it could move that fast. I followed it up here."
"We've made contact, kid!", Jason answered excitedly. "I've been talking to their computer, and I'm waiting for their leader now."
"Computer," Jason instructed, "when the leader
of the colony ship establishes communication, if its visual send back an image of our pilot room and my image but make me look and sound exactly like John One of the Larsch. And filter out Dalton. Oh, and animate a cap on my head matching my uniform." He wanted those on board the colony ship to think there was more than a single officer on-board the sailship. He loved to impersonate his good friend John One who looked much more like an officer than Jason, who clean-shaven though he was, always seemed more like a pirate.
He hoped mischievously that someday someone who had seen the impersonation would meet John, and confuse the hell out of him.
Dalton looked over Jason's uniform. "What happened to your cap?"
"Uh, I lost it." It had been accidentally left back on Infinity City at a certain young lady's apartment whom Jason had not thought prudent to call on again.
They waited excitedly to hear from the leader of the colony ship.
10. THE LEADER
"Message from PF24," the sailship's computer suddenly announced.
Jason read the message...
PF24 TO RESCUE-THREE: EXCARVER DURDAINE NOW ON-LINE. READY TO INITIATE GALACTIC STANDARD VISUAL
COMMUNICATION MODE 1279.
He instructed his own computer, "Put him on view-screen one, and use it as his point of view. Establish contact."
Now he heard the VOICE of PF24. "PF24 to Rescue-Three: Communication successfully establish. Excarver Durdaine standing by. Awaiting your command to activate audio/visual link." PF24
had a strange accent. But one that Jason was all too familiar with. It had the same accent as Dalton! Jason looked over at him. He was just looking expectantly at view-screen one, apparently not having noticed the accent of PF24. "PF24, proceed," ordered Jason. And, the view-screen came to life with the image of Excarver Durdaine.
He was aging badly! His bushy black hair was graying all around. He had deep wrinkles especially around is gray eyes, deeply set below huge bushy black graying eyebrows. He had a moustache, and a distinguished looking goatee, streaked with more gray. He was hunched slightly, and wore a pale white robe of office, trimmed in gold lame'. He leaned forward peering intently at the image of officer John One, synthesized by Jason's computer, and spoke slowly with a slight trace of suspicion,
"This is Excarver Durdaine. Our ship is the HEAVEN, from CONOVER, RIGEL. Who are you?"
Jason liked to act as official as he could at this kind of moment. With a matter-of-fact voice he replied, "This is Captain John One of the Infinity City Militia Guard, commanding the sailship Rescue-Three." He was telling the truth, sort of. He WAS still an officer of the Guard, though now in the inactive reserves, and the image Durdaine saw was really that of John One.
He had not actually claimed that Rescue-Three was a Guard ship, which would have been illegal. But he knew Durdaine would assume this was the case. He continued, "We have received your distress message, and are here to lend assistance." Durdaine would hear the voice of John One.
Durdaine smiled weakly, and shook his head a little. "It is hard to believe someone has finally come. And, another ship from Infinity City. It has been so long. We've been in space 15
years. There was a terrible accident on our way to our destination. All the crew killed! Hundreds of us colonists, as well! My God, we had almost given up hope. Will you send a message to our home world, asking them to help us?"
"We can do that. But, we are completely equipped for repairs in space, and would like to offer our assistance. We would like permission to send over mission specialist Jason, and an assistant to survey the cause of your distress, and propose corrective measures."
"You can repair us yourselves?!" But, he nodded. "Of course, of course. You are from Infinity City. We are fortunate, indeed. Yes, I gladly grant permission, on behalf of our ruling council, for you to come aboard. But, we know nothing about how to perform any kind of docking with you. We have no crew. Thank God the life-support systems are all automatic.
Actually, some of them have malfunctioned. Maybe you could take a look at those, too."
"We'll see what we can do." And, now Jason got to the best part of his performance: "Before we proceed we must know officially if this is an errand of mercy or are you affiliated with an agency on your home world that the Militia Guard can invoice for its services?"
Durdaine looked surprised, but responded having been taken in by Jason's ruse, "Oh, well, to us this is certainly an errand of mercy. But I'm sure I understand. Your service must cost Infinity City a great deal. Our mission was commissioned by our federal government, itself! It is a very important colonization.
Our home planet is now full of people, and we don't want to over-populate. That is why we have purchased our destination world.
We are the first colonists. We have been sent to set up the initial colony. It is a brand new, unpopulated world, with prime conditions.
Durdaine nodded, "Yes, I'm sure our government will gratefully pay any reasonable fee. You do not require authorization from them first, do you?"
"That is not required of any government sanctioned mission,"
Jason, in the guise of John One, assured him. Durdaine looked relieved. Jason smiled at him, "We want to get you going again as soon as we can. Now, for the record, I must ask the address of the agency back on your home world that will receive our invoice. Your commission identification would be most helpful..."
Durdaine responded with the information. "I have always heard that the people of Infinity City were financially astute,"
he commented.
"Yes. It costs money to live in a black hole... We will coordinate docking and boarding with your PF24 computer, and keep you personally updated with our progress, Your Excellency."
Durdaine breathed a sign of relief, bowed, then smiled.
"Thank you! Thank you! We are so grateful!"
"Our pleasure. Colony ship HEAVEN, this is RESCUE-THREE, Captain One commanding, terminating communication." Jason punched the end-of-communication button on the arm of the chair.
When the screen showing the thankful image of Excarver Durdaine went blank, Jason leapt out of the pilot chair, and whooped for joy. "What a catch! A government sanctioned mission! And, he didn't even ask our price! Dalton, we're gonna be rich! We'll head for CONOVER right after this and collect." He began planning excitedly, "We'll bring a taped message from Durdaine, official authorizations, personally signed."
"Jason!", Dalton cried. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Jason looked at him, "What?"
"The colony ship still has to be fixed first."
Jason confidently waved a hand in the air, "No problem!"
11. ENTRY
Before boarding the colony ship Jason wanted more details.
They used the side winds of the nearby gravitonic current to tack over until they were only a few kilometers away from the colony ship. Then, they wound in all the tall gravitonic sails, except for one left out to deflect just enough gravitons for maintaining artificial gravity. Jason used the propulsion jets to creep in still closer. He took it slow, wary as he was of the danger of collision with the huge looming spaceship.
Jason had the computer begin scanning the huge colony ship.
Dwarfing the sailship, it was cigar-shaped, dull dark gray in color, and hundreds of meters in length. The skin was featureless except for three things: gigantic atmospheric guidance fins at the tail end, sturdy enough for landing; large dormant ion-engine bells protruding from the tail; and the damage from the rendezvous with the gravitonic whirlpool, two long ruptures both on the same side of the colony ship stretching laterally around for almost a third of the ship's circumference.
The ship was rotating slowly about the axis extending from nose to tail, providing artificial gravity for the occupants.
Jason learned from the colony ship's computer PF24 that they could board through an air lock located in the nose cone section.
He maneuvered the sailship in closer to a point just beyond the nose of the immense ship.
He felt like a fish about to enter the mouth of a gigantic whale.
The colony ship's computer obeyed his every request. He learned that without a crew, after a preprogrammed amount of time the colony ship's computer had switched to emergency mode, shutting down the engines, and allowing any reasonable entity to control it. It had preprogrammed 'instincts', of course, preventing it from executing any command that would endanger its passengers. But it did anything else that Jason or even Dalton commanded.
Jason asked about the ruptures. He learned that the colony ship had manual repair facilities, but with the crew gone there was no one who knew how to operate the repair equipment or the spacesuits necessary for entering the vacuum within the ruptured areas of the ship now open to space.
Jason had the tools and materials to repair the ruptures himself. This he decided to do, and sent out one of his robots to jet around the ruptures, scanning them closely so that later his computer could have the robots prepare the special sealing material he carried with him to the exact dimensions required to seal the holes. Jason and Dalton later would take rolls of the thin but extremely strong material out to the ruptures to repair them. Then, inside the colony ship, they would repair whatever damage was below the ruptured sections.
But first, it was time to meet the colonists! Jason and Dalton went to the cargo hold, and put on spacesuits. They opened the inner hatch to the air lock, went in, closed it, and started the outer hatch cycle. After all the air was pumped out of the lock, the outer hatch slowly swung out and open, revealing the flat blackness of outer space, brightly burning tiny stars, and, of course, the immense colony ship hanging above, as if about to fall on them.
They were about 100 meters away from the tip of the colony ship. It was so big at this distance that its vast size blocked their view of its tail fins at the far end, and the ship appeared, in the dim starlight, as a huge dark gray disk. At the tip of the ship, the nose cone had opened into four sections, like the petals of a large, iron gray flower. Inside, the disk-shaped, opened air lock ominously stared at them like the black pupil of an eye.
Jason spoke to the sailship's computer through the microphone in his helmet's radio. "Computer, add Dalton to this channel, and scramble all our communications." He did not want anyone aboard the colony ship to be aware of his assessments and impressions which, for disabled spacecraft, tended to be rather gloomy.
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