Tehom: The Tehom Legacy Book One

by S. Abel de Valcourt

  Morning came early for the pair, both wanted more sleep and their lack of cordialness spoke volumes.

  “Damn it! I told them not to do this!” Simon sat on the edge of his bed pod and looked across the wall.

  Unlike all the other cabins, the Tehom cabin had been outfitted with luxurious and exotic wood veneers and special trim. An artistic rendering of the ancient Tehom coat of arms had been carved into marble and set in the middle of the wall opposite the exterior door. The cabin even had a private bathroom, which was completely contrary to the design of the ship.

  “They are just full of surprises aren’t they?” Liberty smiled.

  “Do you have any idea how much that thing weighs? How much mass? That’s four passengers, at least, four people we could have brought with us!” Simon growled, visibly angry.

  “We launched with a shortage of several hundred anyhow, it doesn’t matter. The company wanted you to have a special place for us to live out our lives as a thank you. Enjoy it Simon.” Liberty gathered up her hair and bound it with a hair comb.

  “I am going to go see Eleanor.”

  “Eleanor is fine Simon, give the girl some space. Colleen already promised to keep an eye on her for me.”

  The couple both had duties to attend to, the infinite vastness of creation awaited, and it was Simon’s duty to his passengers to make sure that they could thread a needle, stop on a dime and park an 800,000 ton slightly rounded brick in orbit around a planet 20 light years away. The work load was to be astounding, for everyone on board.

  Chapter Eighteen: Wonders never cease

  The wonders of spaceflight quickly became commonplace and lack luster to the passengers and crew aboard the Tehom One Generational Spacecraft. The highlight of the previous half decade had been the claiming of the ice rich asteroid which once locked into place at the bow of the ship had become the key to generations of fresh drinking water. The shielding benefits from both interstellar radiation and rogue asteroids had been a major success in the theory and design of the TOGS.

  Eleanor Tehom and her two friends, Colleen Rush and Sandra Wright had almost instantly become the celebrities on board. As socialites their every action, word and mode of dress was analyzed; they had become the voice and figureheads of the heavily female dominated society.

  Colleen Rush, controlled Rushes, the dining, musical and social hub of the public promenade. In just five years she had pioneered the flow of a society set apart from everything any of them had known before. Many of the women on board had originally seen themselves as breeding stock escaping a life of uncertainty for another life of servitude. Rushes had turned that around and empowered the passengers, giving them not only a place to cut loose but also a place to converse and share ideas and innovations. The industrial nature of their endeavor had not been quick to falter.

  Sandra Wright had surprised everyone on board with her music. A month after the earth faded into the field of stars behind them she had stood on stage at Rushes in front of a crowd of hundreds. Her guitar hung on her and as she strummed slowly, she seemed to be meandering, unsure of what to play. As the unsteady grouping of chords began to assemble and flow together a sad ballad flowed into a song of glory and adventure, of hope and of life. For nearly a half hour her fingers strummed, every string connected with the hearts of her audience, and her own tears fell to the floor as she cried at the beauty she was unleashing to the crowd. Her song, the first of many that would follow became the anthem of the TOGS and would be heard for generations on board. Her artistic genius keyed into the society on board and both comforted and invigorated everyone who heard her.

  Eleanor Tehom had taken a different path than her pair of companions. From the first moment she arrived her decisions and opinions were heeded by everyone on board. The common knowledge that Eleanor had been groomed to replace her father as the guiding light of the Tehom had engrained in the community even before her arrival on board. Meetings of the Citizen Council, legal proceedings and community events all seemed to occupy her every moment.

  “Miss Tehom, the data packets from Earth just finished.” A voice chirped from Eleanor’s wrist mounted personal communicator.

  “Good news or bad?” Eleanor kept talking down the catwalk above the promenade; she made every effort not to look down.

  “Letters, thousands of letters. Very little news, the data is over two years old.” The voice chirped again.

  “Put a team together and distribute, many people will be happy to hear from Earth. Make sure everything is cataloged and archived as always. I gotta go.” Eleanor reached down and powered down the little computer at her wrist.

  Are you ready for this? It’s going to be hard, but there are things that need to be said.

  Eleanor’s thoughts raced as the door in front of her opened and a flood of highly filtered oxygen flowed around her and messed up her hair.

  The room she entered was lit sparsely, most of the light came from the dome above, a deluge of color and starlight. The nest as many called it, originally was to be an observatory of sorts, a private lounge and place of contemplation.

  Now, it’s a tomb.

  Simon Tehom had fallen ill. The medical facilities didn’t exist on board to properly diagnose or treat his condition. He had lost feeling in his feet early on board, when the numbness crept up his legs, spine and shoulders the doctors on board took the position that he had suffered a series of strokes. Paralyzed throughout his body from the shoulders down, except for limited use of his right arm Simon had asked to be moved into the nest where he could see the stars every day.

  The room was bare, a metallic black tiled floor reflected the starlight like water and with the low unnatural light seemed like walking among the stars themselves. The only sounds were the labored breathing of Simon in his bed and the footsteps of Eleanor as she approached her father.

  I hate seeing him like this.

  It was common knowledge that Simon Tehom wouldn’t ever leave the room he now resided in. Nurses fed and cleaned him, Eleanor visited when she could, and he still delighted in playing and helping design the educational games that would feed the minds of the young for generations to come. His mind sharp and crisp, it was his body that seemed to be slowly letting go.

  “Happy Birthday Eleanor,” Simon smiled at the sight of his daughter now newly eighteen.

  “Thank you Papa, did you get me anything?” she smiled back, a sad tear in her eyes.

  “Only the official keys to the kingdom, as it were. You are in charge now.” He winked at her.

  “I have been in charge for quite some time now,”

  “I’m sorry about that Eleanor, with your mother gone…”

  “I know Papa, there was no one else. It’s alright, I can do this.”

  “You are right, you can. But you shouldn’t have to, not so soon.” Simon shook his head slightly and touched a handkerchief to his head which dampened with his sweat from the exertion of conversation.

  “We got letters from Earth today, thousands.” Eleanor seemed excited and for a moment looked around her at the infinite reflections of stars in the room.

  “Be careful, words from home can be both a good and a depressing thing. Many of the older folks are home sick.”

  “I know, but we are all human, we all want to know how things are getting along on either side of the divide.”

  Simon nodded turned his head slightly to face her. “How long till we reach interstellar space?”

  “About three months, we are all excited by it, I’m sorry I didn’t get to come up and see the view of Pluto when we passed it last week, I am sure it was amazing from up here proximity wise I had to be on the command bridge.” Eleanor sat on the bed at the feet of her ailing father.

  “Another fifteen years till we reach terminal velocity?”

  “Forty two percent of light-speed, pretty damned fast, think you’ll make it?” Eleanor laughed sadly and looked into the sullen face of her father whose only response was a slight smile as his eye
s returned to the field of stars above him. “I have a meeting, do you need anything Papa?”

  Simon didn’t respond, lost in his thoughts his mind walked among the stars.

  Eleanor exited the room and made it across the catwalk before she collapsed in tears and sat on the floor holding her knees. The anguish of losing her mother so quickly seemed a blessing compared to the constant torture of watching her father waste away so slowly. Every visit to his bedside a little less of him remained.

  He has given up, he is no longer fighting.

  Life would go on, long after Simon was gone, long after she herself was gone. The ship had proved to be sturdy, efficient and homely. The decision to discard many of the science fiction fantasies of the first designs and embrace the more mundane cruise ship feeling was a wise one. Many had ceased to remember daily that they were millions of miles away from the Earth. Life simply had changed and the people on board adapted.

  “Are you ok?” Colleen Rush stood above Eleanor with a hand outstretched in an offer of help to stand.

  “It’s just hard you know, he is the best man I have ever known.”

  “He is the best man I’ve ever known too. When he does go…”

  “He is already gone, just his body hasn’t caught up yet. He hasn’t been completely here since my Mom died.” Eleanor said as she stood up.

  The two friends walked down the long curtain of stairs to the ground level of the promenade. Colleen wrapped her arms around Eleanor and smiled, “We are all in this together, it will be alright.”

  “What are you hearing at Rushes? How are people?”

  “There is a lot of talk of all the babies on the way, even before the restrictions are lifted.”

  “Almost three hundred babies will be born about the time we hit interstellar space. Then we are limited only by resources, rather than mass. We are still working on a lot of the gaming and instructional tutors for the Beta Generation.”

  “Are we still calling it that?”

  “It’s efficient, we are Alpha, and they will be Beta, their children Gamma. We have to keep it straight somehow.”

  “When are you… they going to open up the DNA banks?”

  “You are thinking of getting pregnant already?”

  “Well, it is our responsibility isn’t it? But yea, I want a baby, or four!” Colleen laughed.

  “You just want out of our little cave. I know you and Sandra have batted heads a few times. Thank you for waiting though, it would set a bad example if you took the unofficial road.”

  “I know, besides, I haven’t found a man that I’d be willing to share yet. Seems so unnatural.”

  “At least you have had time to look. The company didn’t really look at the sociological aspects of our generation only having one man to every three women. It was done only for genetic diversity. It will take the whole trip to balance out.”

  “So once we hit interstellar space, the banks will open?”

  “Yea, and we will also open up room transfers to allow for co-ed living arrangements for those that want them. We have done all we can to discourage births, soon we will have to turn the other way and take the opposite stance.”

  “Babies!” Sandra bemused.

  “A whole new generation, born in space and off the Earth, they won’t know anything except what is on board and what they read. I think it will be easier on them than it has been for us.” Eleanor rested her head on Sandra’s shoulder for a moment.

  “Do you think they will hate us? For forcing them into this I mean.” Sandra’s brow furrowed.

  “I try not to think about it Sandra. The morality of the argument was written out a long time ago. We can only soldier on.” Eleanor winked and walked alone to her office, leaving Sandra at the entrance to Rushes.

  “Don’t forget, Poker tonight with the boys from D deck!” Sandra called out after her.

  Eleanor’s only response was to raise her hand and wave.

  Everyone has baby fever. But it’s better than being lonely.

  The lack of opposite sex companionship had plagued the women of the TOGS, it was a natural reaction to fight and compete for the attentions of the few men on board. As the official restrictions against pregnancy began to lighten the closer and closer they got to the line between the Sol system and interstellar space many of the women had gotten more and more aggressive in their pursuit.

  The approach to the little room she called her office was a busy one. Nearly every single one of her steps toward her destination was announced by a crewmen or passenger issuing her a cordial word of greeting.

  The large archway under which the TOGS command bridge stood put her own office door in a sort of shadow, close enough to be watchful and available, yet private enough to have a bit of quiet in spite of the constant activity outside her door.

  Sandra Wright’s first frame of the TOGS anthem echoed throughout the ship, signifying the official start of the work day. Classes started, research began anew, maintenance workers and computer programmers all began their tasks of cooperative service to one another.

  The screen of her computer flashed, two hundred and sixty messages had accumulated over night. The messages contained anything from research reports and status updates, to individual citizens asking for an advocate to overcome some problem or drama.

  Most of the requests were a constant mundane drone of uninteresting pieces of information; however one message caught her eye.

  MS TEHOM – WHAT IF WE COULD GET TO TEHOM PRIME IN 75 YEARS INSTEAD OF 93? I HAVE AN IDEA. – REX FULLER

  Eleanor groaned. The ideas to speed up or take shortcuts came every so often. The number of scientific minds on board led to constant theories of how to shorten their journey. Three theories were of constant debate, a way to speed up, a way to slow down faster thereby allowing for a longer duration at maximum velocity, or a third off the wall idea that didn’t seem to fit in with the other two. The dangers were always the same, a risk to the mission, the crew and the ship itself. Simon, Liberty and the bulk of the Citizens council had warned everyone against fiddling with the mission parameters. The computing power available to calculate the mission data on board was severely lessened as they no longer possessed the immense data centers they had on Earth. Quite a lot of people had a hard time with the realization that they would never see their destination.

  Eleanor had no desire to take risks with the mission, there was no need. Three quarters of a century or a century, either way it was a long time. The resources were under budget, the ships maintenance was minimal, and there was no need to take such risk. Only boredom, fantasy and impatience kept the ideas alive and the messages arriving every few weeks.

  REX FULLER – A GAIN OF A FEW YEARS IS NOT WORTH THE RISK TO THE SHIP OR THE CREW. MISSION PERAMETERS ARE STATIC AND WILL NOT BE AMENDED. – ELEANOR TEHOM

  Her candid and common response didn’t keep the brilliant scientific minds from day dreaming into the subject. Each and every person on board had a function, a hobby and ways to keep their both minds and bodies engaged and active. Even that did not keep the day dreaming and impatience of the middle-aged at bay.

  The years will be long, the pace will be slow, but we will get there safely. No need for unnecessary risks.

  Of the letters delivered in the feed from Earth the common phrases picked up by the data mining database expressed a story not unexpected. In the six years since they had last stepped foot on the Earth the political and economic terrors washed over the peoples of the Earth in a red tide. Even as the Republic of Texas dissolved officially, Russia had taken steps to deny the Chinese any of the Tehom Consortium’s advanced technology.

  The familiar commonalities of correspondence streamed across the screen as family, friends and former boyfriends rushed to get their letters submitted the story quickly took shape. The influx of Tehom knowledge and information had been the major sticking point in negotiations between the Chinese and Russian governments. Russia was concerned, and rightfully so that the Chinese would ad
vance in technology so quickly that the Russian military wouldn’t be able to keep up.

  A peace treaty was enacted which lasted only a few short months when the Chinese were caught accessing the databanks in Texas remotely. In response, the Russian Federation had detonated a nuclear device in the atmosphere above Abilene, destroying the city and the bulk of the Tehom Consortium compound which had been roughly an hour away by car.

  It’s gone. It’s all gone, everything?

  Eleanor paged through the various screens of reports and the evidence was irrefutable. The majority of Texas had been destroyed and rendered unlivable. The event had sparked an all out action of ground wars, invasion and complete chaos. The last of the letters had been dated two years ago when the data stream had been sent from a location in Florida. The last line was telling, it said simply,

  PRAY FOR US.

  Chapter Nineteen: The Curtain Falls on us All

  The passing of Simon Tehom did not come as a surprise to anyone on board. Simon died as many great men did, old, alone, awake and in his bed. His eyes open he looked into the vastness of space and whispered a single word which echoed through the halls of the TOGS.

  “Liberty.” Simon’s parched and weak voice permeated through the hearts of everyone on board. They had finally passed into interstellar space, completely free of the gravitational forces of the Sol solar system and their former home.

  “Miss Tehom?” Xiang Hao peered around her doorway.

  “Yes Hao?” Eleanor smiled, in spite of the sad news of the day.

  “I… I am very sorry to hear about Mister Simon, your father.” The young boy bowed his head in both ceremonial and actual sadness.

  “Thank you Hao, It is enough for me to know that he was comfortable with his life. He did not fear his own death. To tell the truth, I think he looked upon death with a kind of awe and mystery, another adventure.” Eleanor looked at the blank wall and closed her eyes slightly.