“Oh, it’s you Jim. I was going through the list of nonfunctional chambers. I thought that Dr. Chin would want to try one of them first. There’s a minor problem with the rest,” he said, pointing at the screen. “There’s not one single section of the ship that will hold an atmosphere. It’s fortuitous that we arrived. The colonists did not have a chance of disembarking on their own. If just one section had been intact then the people there could have repaired the rest.”
“So how’re we going to fix it?”
“I switched to a private line a few minutes ago and contacted Raul Montoya on La Raza. He’s sending a small freighter with repair autoserves. They can use the ship’s plans I took from this computer.”
“Will we have to do it?”
“No, the system on its way is fully automated. They spray the interior of the outer hull with a polymer. It forms a sort of balloon inside the ship.”
Jim grabbed the floating chair and looked for somewhere to wedge it. On inspection, he found that its back was cracked and broken in several places. He tapped Levin on the shoulder and pointed at the damage.
“I saw that too. It was originally glued to the floor. When the polymer broke down and the ship either accelerated or decelerated it must have broken free and struck a bulkhead. By the look of that, it must have happened on several occasions. We’re lucky it did not do any damage to the computer system.”
“But why wasn’t it bolted down? That would’ve been safer.”
“Take a look around. Much of the equipment here is glued down. I have no idea why.”
Jim surveyed the room. On a number of crudely welded tables small objects sat without visible means of attachment. Jim reached for what he recognized as an old military radiac meter. One quick tug and it broke free.
“No,” Levin said, fumbling for his camera, “please put it back. We have to record everything first.”
Jim attempted to push it back in place but when he let it go it slowly floated away from the table again.
Jim watched Levin aim the camera in various directions. “And the nonfunctional containers?” he said. “Can one be detached without affecting the others?”
“Oh yes, once one of them has malfunctioned and the person inside has died then the ship’s computer completely isolates it. I have located the perfect one to try. Deck thirty four, section seventy five, room C.. Right next to the door, it’s number 267,558. The name is Roger...”
“I don’t want to hear the name Levin,” Earl said. “We’re already on our way to the shaft. Just give us directions.”
Jim pointed at the monitor. Levin hesitated for a moment, confused as to what Jim wanted. He then reached down and made an entry on the old keyboard. Jim read the appearing text.
“He’s been dead for over one thousand three hundred years Earl,” Jim announced.
“I’d like to hear Earl,” Celia said, “turn your receiver off for a minute if you want. Go ahead Jim.”
“He was Roger Christianson from Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada. Age twenty eight. Occupation mechanic. Married with two children.”
“What about his family?” Celia said.
Levin typed on the keyboard.
“Wife, Linda, ok,” Jim said. “Children, Kevin and Mark, ok.”
After reading, Jim turned and headed for the door. “It looks pretty simple. We’ve got to get it out the door, down a corridor to the central shaft, down the shaft then out the corridor we came in and through the airlock. That’s three turns we’ve got to make.”
* * *
The plastic case of the cryogenics chamber floated on its side halfway through a door. The severed wires drifted back and forth as Earl gently pushed from behind.
“Hold it! Whoa!” Jim said. He ducked quickly to his left to avoid being pinned against the bulkhead.
“Are you all right?” Earl asked. He grabbed his end and braced with his feet either side of the door.
“Just peachy. Now we have to turn this end to your right. Celia, can you give it a slight push from your side.”
“Pushing now.”
“Earl, will the corner clear the door frame as it turns?”
“It will, by about an inch.” Earl chuckled to himself. “I should say two centimeters. Keep forgetting that they don’t know what an inch is any more.”
Jim placed both feet on one wall and steadied his end in the center of the gap between the stacks of chambers. “Well, I understand, so go ahead.”
The other end swung into the corridor. Celia stopped its turn by placing her feet on the wall and holding on. “Now it’s out here, what next?” she said.
Earl slipped through the door and along the gap between the chamber and the bulkhead. “What if I go to the central shaft while you two give it a push? I’ll catch it when it gets there.”
“Sounds like a winner,” Jim said. He kicked off from the handrail and dove between the ceiling and the chamber toward the rear.
“Jim,” Chris said, “bad news. The fleet has withdrawn.”
“What? We lost the battle?”
“Not exactly. The Bund caught the fleet in a rather precarious position so they rather prudently got the hell out of there.”
Jim caught hold of the handrail on one side while Celia did the same on the other. They both gave the case a solid push and watched it drift slowly down the corridor.
“What about casualties?”
“Very light. Most of the ships got out, only a few escorts were disabled or destroyed.”
“What about that battle cruiser Spinelli was... Celia it’s going to hit the wall on your side, can you catch it?”
“Sure can,” Celia said. She took off hand over hand along the rail.
“Spinelli wasn’t on a battle cruiser, he was on the escort Hiro Maru. The media usually indulge in a little disinformation under these circumstances. He’s at the moment in a life pod awaiting a Bund medical corvette.”
Jim slowly followed the chamber and watched Celia as she nudged it away from the wall. “How’s Carol?”
“I’m just fine,” Carol said. “Ian’s name just came through on the V net as being safe. Marie’s husband’s all right too.”
“That’s good news,” Jim said, peering down the side of the chamber. “Earl, instead of stopping it could you give the end a shove down as it comes through the door and keep it going down the shaft?”
“I think I can do that. Levin, where are you now?”
“Just coming down the corridor from the main computer room. I believe I can get to the door leading to the exit before it gets there.”
Jim watched as the chamber slowly glided through the door and saw Earl from the knees down as he gave it a push with his feet. It slowly upended then suddenly stopped.
“It hit a rung,” Earl said. He bent down and wrapped his arms around the upper end. With a bit of man handling and a solid shove the chamber continued its way down the shaft.
“Earl,” Levin said, “it’s going the wrong way.”
“What do you mean the wrong way?” Earl demanded, trying to look past the descending chamber. “Where are you? I can’t see you down there.”
“I am down there but at the moment, to you, it’s up there... or here... ah...”
Earl looked up just as Celia and Jim reached the door. “That way is up, not down. What are you doing up there? Did you get lost or something?”
“I am down,” Levin said. “I believe you’ve got your perspective inverted. That happens occasionally at zero gravity.”
“I think you had better stop Roger before he gets too far,” Celia said before she was overcome with a case of the giggles.
“Oh shit!” Earl said. He grabbed a rung and took a nosedive after the retreating chamber. Jim followed with his faceplate close to the bottoms of Earl’s boots.
“Got hold of it. Can you grab my feet?”
Jim took hold of the most convenient boot then swung his legs under, spreading them to catch the rungs either side.
“S
top pulling up a minute. I’m losing it,” Earl said.
Jim felt his leg muscles tighten. He pulled his feet away from the rungs and drifted down still holding onto the boot.
“Jim, look up and smile,” Celia said.
Jim looked up to see Celia aiming a camera up the shaft as he struggled with the concept of up and down as well as Earl’s boot. He tried to turn the scene over in his mind, but no matter how hard he tried he was still the designated right way up and Earl was still head down.
“Pull up.. er.. down… uh… the direction my feet are pointed.” Earl said. “I’ve got a good hold on it now.”
“Would you point that thing somewhere else,” Jim said, “this isn’t funny.”
“You kinky boys,” Peter said. “I’ve never tried it that way before.”
“It’s stopped,” Earl said. “Now pull and we can get it going up... er... the other direction.”
This time it was Jim that couldn’t control his laughter as his foot searched for a rung. “Stop kicking, Earl.”
“Marie and I would like to thank you two guys,” Carol said. “We needed a bit of humor to cheer us up. Did you do it intentionally?”
Jim pushed with his legs while holding Earl’s boot to his chest. The chamber slowly started to move. “Of course we did. What, do you think we’re stupid or something?”
* * *
“So, now we’ve got it here, what do you want it for Doc?” Jim asked, hugging Carol as Dr. Chin peered through the glass plate.
The chamber sat on two low exercise benches in the recreation room of the Lydia. The face they saw through the plate was unlike others they had seen. The cheeks were sunken and lips curled back to reveal teeth in a hideous grin.
“We need to know more about their cryogenics procedures. We know little about the chemicals used in preservation.”
“Chemicals? Don’t they just freeze them?”
“Oh no, let me explain it this way. Have you ever seen a rigid container filled with fluid frozen?”
“Yep, I’ve stuck beer cans in the freezer to cool them down fast and forgot they were there. They exploded.”
“Exactly. Water expands when it freezes. That’s due to alignment of the dipolar molecules into crystals. A body cell is full of water, so it also explodes when frozen. That’s where the damage occurs. We have to introduce a chemical that allows the water to reach very low temperatures without it crystallizing.”
Jim started to laugh. “Antifreeze?”
“If you’ll excuse us, we will have to work fast before the warmth in this room starts to thaw out our friend Roger here.”
Jim turned and still holding on to Carol walked toward the door of the recreation deck. “What happened with the fleet?”
“Chris can explain the details better than I can. It seems that Admiral Blaunt pulled some sort of totally unorthodox maneuver.”
* * *
The group gradually assembled on the observation deck. When Earl, the last to arrive, took his seat, Chris started the explanation.
“Admiral Blaunt of the Bund pulled a bluff. She sent the scouts through, followed thirty seconds later by the main fleet. It was instantly believed that there would be at least three minutes delay while the scouts transferred the information gathered to the fighting ships. So, they appeared to be scouting first but then came through blind and caught our fleet while it was repositioning.”
“So,” Earl said, “they got caught with their pants down.”
“Something like that, but in that situation the Bund fleet still had to orient themselves. To buy the minutes needed, they threw near suicide assaults with fast fighters and battle corvettes at the nearest Commonwealth targets of opportunity.”
Earl raised a finger. “But the fleet did blow that battle cruiser, the Barbarosa, out of the water didn’t they?”
“That was done with a gas cloud.” Chris looked around and found more than one confused face. “It employs the facts of inertial physics and exiting from parallel space. You see, when an object comes through, it doesn’t exactly appear instantaneously. It sort of grows from a point taking a fraction of a second. Any matter, such as a gas, is very rapidly pushed out of the way. The more concentrated the matter, the greater pressure on the hull. Concentrated enough and the hull of a ship will collapse under the pressure. The scouts are small with highly reinforced hulls that minimize the risk. “
Where’d the gas cloud come from?” Jim asked.
“It comes from a mine which is exploded when there’s an imminent attack. The battle cruiser appeared inside one of those clouds and was destroyed.”
Jim propped his head on his fist with his elbow on the arm of the chair. “I heard Spinelli say something about the fast fighters coming through the wreckage. I take it that isn’t exactly the safest thing to do.”
“No it isn’t, they lost half the flight due to collision with pieces of wreckage. One thing it does do though is confuse the gunner’s sights. That’s how they got close enough to hit the escort.”
“Our losses were light but what about the Bund’s fleet?” Jim asked.
“Horrendous,” Chris said. “I’m surprised that there wasn’t an immediate counterattack.”
Peter chuckled to himself. “I think I know why....”
“Lies,” Karla said, leaning back in her seat. “Just like in my time. Why can’t they tell the truth?”
“Ah… what lies?” Earl asked, looking confused.
“That reporter said he was on one ship when he was actually on another. If he misled the people on that, how can you trust him on anything else? I could think of better people to evaluate the facts than the government.”
“But he’s not government,” Jim said. “He’s an independent reporter.”
“The government gives him a license and they can take it away again. That means they control him.”
“Karla,” Earl said with growing antagonism. “You see a government plot in everything.”
“Look who’s talking,” Karla snapped. “You see communists under your bed.”
“But Karla,” Chris said, “We, through our government, give the press a directive to use whatever tactical misdirection necessary. The military news specialists, like Spinelli, are the most highly trained in the profession. A military specialist that strays from the rigid code of a compromise between truth and security will never work in the media again.”
“Mind control, that’s all it is, and you’re brainwashed. You’re all fools.”
Carol jumped to her feet and took a pace in Karla’s direction. “I’ve had it with your puerile opinions!” she yelled. “My brother’s on one of those ships! If it keeps him safe then I give them full permission to lie to me when it’s necessary!”
“Your brother is an idiot order following soldier that deserves to die.”
“That’s it, I’m going to punch her lights out,” Carol said, clenching her fists.
The speed of the event took Jim by surprise. This time it was Halbert’s turn to intervene in an argument. He moved faster than Jim had ever seen him move before. Standing between the women, he raised one hand toward each.
“It’s not worth fighting over ladies.”
Karla slapped at Halbert’s raised hand. “Why don’t you go back to getting you’re information from a bottle?”
Jim stood and approached the group. “Karla, I think you’d better go to your cabin. Emotions are running pretty high.”
Karla turned and headed for the lift tube. “Fuck all of you. There’re men and women superior to those elected politicians you so blindly trust. Some day one will rise from the bottomless pit and end all this bullshit and put things right for a change.”
“Who?” Jim asked, shrugging his shoulders. “Your Guru?”
“Hell no!” Karla yelled while turning to glare at the others. “No damn idiot with a bed sheet, someone that knows what’s wrong with the world and knows how to fix it. Someone will take over that’s ready to die for his beliefs. All this h
as been foretold.”
“Yep,” Jim said, “she’s talking about her Guru, or it could be her astrologer. What’s your sign, Karla?”
Earl let out a sarcastic laugh. “What, another Hitler taking over? That doesn’t match with the love stuff you’ve been spouting. A Hitler that goes around loving everyone will sure as hell die.”
“If you’re willing to be killed, then you’re willing to kill, that’s what Charlie says!” Karla yelled and stormed into the lift tube.
“Who’s Charlie? Jim asked.
“None of your fucking business!” Karla yelled as the door slid shut.
“Oh, hell,” Jim said. He stood, stunned by Karla’s comments. “That’s strange. I’ve never heard a hippy talk like that before.”
“Sub-branch of the culture?” Chris asked.
“Don’t know,” Jim said, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head. “What were we talking about?”
“Peter,” Halbert said, struggling to remember what he wanted to ask. “You said you think you know why they didn’t counterattack. Could you explain?”
“Oh yes, there’s more than one group with a growing sense of nationalism. They’re all talking about their own past worth in comparison to the others.”
“Let me guess,” Jim interrupted, “it’s my fault. I brought the books and that’s what’s causing everything.”
“You guessed it,” Chris said. “If the groups had known their histories all along, they would’ve resolved the situation in their minds. Dumping three thousand years worth of traditions, victories, defeats and humiliations on them all at once has caused chaos.
“So who’s pissed off at whom?”
“The Chinese are now mad at the Europeans for the opium wars. The Greeks are mad at the Turks over the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans. The eastern Europeans are mad at the Russians over being forced into the Warsaw pact. The Russians are mad at the Japanese over the 1906 war. The Arab league and the Israelis, who have had a cordial relationship for almost fifteen hundred years, now hate each other. Everyone’s mad at the French, even the French are mad at the French….”
To Wake the Living (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 2) Page 11
