The Island of Hope

by Andrei Livadny

  "Easy, man, easy," Vladimir took a wad of cotton and moistened Simeon's dry lips. "Take it easy. Drink this," he placed a round amber-colored piece of candy into his mouth. The candy exploded, filling his mouth and throat with a pleasant sensation, cool and tickly.

  The boy's lips trembled. He tried to speak; finally he gasped, "Yanna."

  Vladimir pressed the intercom key and moved his chair closer. "So, let's start from the beginning. I understood your question. Try to relax. Everything's OK."

  Simeon leaned back on his pillow and lowered his eyelids. He was so weak that he struggled not to faint.

  "Are you listening?" Vladimir said.

  A barely noticeable nod served as an answer.

  "So, you're among friends. Quite by chance, we came across your spaceship drifting through space and sent an assault group to check it. There must have been an accident — or you might have collided with a meteorite – we never worked it out. The fact is that the ship was disabled, there was a huge shell-hole in its side, all power units were exhausted except for the two stand-by ones which fed the cryogenic compartment from whence we extracted your companion and yourself. There was nobody else in the ship except a non-functional android, model unknown.

  At these words Simeon tensed up.

  "Don't worry, he's here on board, but it looks like our technician has given upon him," Vladimir smiled.

  Simeon nodded, then half-shut his eyes again. "How's Yanna?" he wheezed; the question was hardly audible.

  Vladimir took his time. "You see, the cryogenic process is very complex. The capsules you were in are outdated which is why our onboard reanimation equipment is practically incompatible with them. Therefore we should exercise caution. You've come round because your body is stronger. In short, the girl is alive, we're supporting the proper functioning of all organs of her body, but I'm afraid the total awakening is not something we can do tomorrow."

  Simeon re-opened his eyes again and squinted over his shoulder; he caught sight of the transparent sphere containing Yanna's body.

  "What's your name?" Vladimir hurried to ask, trying to divert his attention.

  "Simeon."

  "OK, I'm Vladimir," he squeezed Simeon's shoulder in a friendly manner. "Don't worry, she'll make it," he said, sounding more optimistic than he should. "You'll see. Just give me some time, and I'll sort it all out."

  Simeon's head dropped onto the pillow. "I'll be waiting," he whispered, his lips dry with dehydration.

  Exhausted by the conversation, he soon drifted off into a deep sleep.

  Vladimir rolled his chair away. "Have you heard, sir?" he asked.

  "Yes, I have," the captain's reply came through the intercom. "He speaks International English with an old-fashioned Russian accent. As far as I know, there are no such worlds left in our sector."

  "Right. But he's slept for the best part of a hundred years."

  "Most likely, he comes from some other location. In any case, I don't think it's an attempt to plant a mole on us. Their ship was built out of damaged modules of battle spacecraft from that period. Apparently, these two have had it hard."

  "They have sir. Any news from Stellar?"

  "It's too early for news, Vladimir. We'll reach the patrol point in five hours, and only then we can have a communication session with them. Let's hope they've deciphered the file you made."

  * * *

  For the next five days captain Hans Frauenberg thought about the rescued astronauts only occasionally: Io had reached the assigned zone measuring eight cubic light years, and began patrolling. This sector was considered as one of the most dangerous in case of a sudden break-through of enemy ships, and the task of the cruiser was to promptly locate the point where the hostile spacecraft would come out of hyperspace and contain them until the main forces of the Fleet arrived. Io was a kamikaze spaceship.

  That was the tenth year of the Second Galactic war — the Free Colonies, having conquered Earth, were dividing the spheres of Galactic influence.

  * * *

  He was alive.

  Simeon was lying under a thin sheet, enjoying the coolness of a fresh bed.

  No doubt, the spacecraft was only a fraction of the world where he longed to go, but a really great one! All the sensations were new. You had merely to open your eyes – and you saw the soft radiance of the ceiling panels. The floor exuded warmth. The rustle of air regenerators didn't let up for a second. The ship was in good working order, not a wreck, but part of a larger world which traveled through space obeying people's will; it wasn't helplessly drifting with the elements.

  He turned round. Yanna's motionless body was still wound with the tubes of the life support system. Vladimir was sitting at the table busy with some paperwork.

  The sight of the helpless girl awoke his dormant anxiety. If only Andor was with them! But in spite of all his efforts, Simeon could not remember under which circumstances Yanna and himself had been placed into cryogenic chambers and why the android had had to switch his power over to them.

  Vladimir finished writing. "Aha, you've woken up!" he said joyfully. "Excellent."

  Simeon forced a smile and sat up. Weakness had almost disappeared, but he felt giddy as before.

  "Think you can get up?"

  Simeon slowly placed his feet on the floor. Could he trust his feelings? His atrophied muscles were hardly able to bear the weight of his body. Simeon staggered, then made a few steps. It was as if history repeated itself: once again he was learning to walk in the gloom of their cramped compartment. In a moment, the door would open and the father would come in.

  The young man's hands lay on the cold plastic of the life support capsule. He leaned against it, his face at the same level as Yanna's. Vladimir carefully took him by the arm.

  "She’s stable," he answered his unasked question. "We're waiting for some info from Stellar. We must get her there."

  "You mean your planet?" Simeon asked, stepping toward a chair.

  "Sort of," the doctor answered vaguely while reaching into a closet for a flight uniform kit. "The captain wants to talk to you; besides, our computer technician is looking forward to the moment when you're able to walk," Vladimir cast a testing glance at Simeon as if about to ask something. Still, he stopped just in time, remembering the captain's interdiction. Hans Frauenberg had promised to personally deal with anyone who’d utter a word about Io's patrolling in front of Simeon. Vladimir kept his fingers crossed. If only they were in luck, like last time. He really didn't want to think of all the consequences of a potential breakthrough in this sector.

  "So, where would you like to go first, to see the captain or the tech’s laboratory?" he asked once Simeon had dressed. His experience suggested to him that it would be better to take the guy as far as possible from the motionless body of his young companion.

  "I want to see Andor."

  Vladimir raised his eyebrows, uncomprehending.

  "I mean, the android," Simeon corrected himself. "His name is Andor."

  "OK, then, Hawley will be glad to see you," Vladimir said, locking the door of the medical compartment. That Simeon had no idea of the on-board subordination didn't astonish him at all. 'In fact, the captain can wait, why not?' he thought, not without some pleasure, while they headed for a between-deck lift well.

  Io was about a mile in diameter and almost twice as long. The internal space of the ship was divided into ten self-sufficient decks.

  Simeon walked along the corridors, taking in the odors and sounds of the living breathing ship and couldn't believe that he was here, among people, and that all around him wasn't a figment of his imagination. It was real.

  * * *

  Deck 2 of the spacecraft housed the launch pads.

  They stepped onto a narrow balcony that traced the internal perimeter of a huge hall. Simeon involuntarily stopped to examine the launching pads on which ten, small hawk-nosed assault module their armor glowing, hunched like birds of prey with their wings folded but ready to launch at any second.
The hatch of one of them was open. A bright spot of light fell onto the dark coating of the launch pad.

  Vladimir touched his shoulder. "Sorry, I'm a bit pressed for time."

  Simeon nodded, forcing his eyes away from the majestic panorama of the launch site, and followed the doctor into a side corridor.

  There was nobody in the technical laboratory.

  "Hawley!" Vladimir called. "Where the hell are you?"

  Silence. Puzzled, he looked round.

  All of a sudden Simeon brushed him aside and walked into the laboratory. He kneeled before a bulky capsule inside which lay a strapped-down android.

  Vladimir realized that he had made a mistake. The sight of the immobile robot made the boy suffer just as much as the sight of Yanna.

  'Why?' Simeon kept asking himself, unable to find an answer. 'What happened to our ship and to us?' his fingers slid off the transparent plastic of the capsule.

  "You stay here while I go look for him in the workshops," the voice of the on-board doctor interrupted his thoughts. "Just don’t touch anything, OK?"

  Simeon nodded.

  Now his attention was focused on Andor. The transport capsule was equipped with a complex set of instruments. A number of cables and energy interfaces were reaching from numerous connectors to the robot's head. Two monitors displaying a chaos of sparkling dots confirmed a total inefficiency of the testing and control systems. Andor was dead.

  Simeon’s hand lay onto the built-in keyboard unit.

  Enter activation code.

  At one time Andor had made him memorize the access code and showed him how to reset his systems. Simeon noticed his fingers tremble and willed himself to stay calm. He couldn’t afford to make an error and run the wrong sequence.

  Something clicked inside the capsule’s inner works. The information carrier drive rustled to life.

  The access program worked. The data entry port was enabled.

  The chaotic dance of dots on the right monitor was replaced by a short message,

  No charge detected. External power source required.

  It wasn't yet Andor, but one of his emergency programs. Simeon looked around him. He was alone but he wasn’t going to wait. He disconnected some equipment and plugged in the capsule’s power cable.

  The message on the monitor instantly changed.

  Please wait. Main accumulator is being charged. Built-in power sources will be switched on in 618 seconds.

  Simeon perched himself on the edge of the capsule, imagining how Andor would emerge from his oblivion, recovering consciousness and memory byte by byte.

  The intercom panel blinked with an incoming call. Awaking from his reverie, Simeon startled and looked round. Nobody.

  He pressed the connection button.

  "Hey, Hawley, what the fuck?" a built-in loudspeaker growled with the captain's voice. "We've got a problem. Code Alpha twelve! Go quickly to the launch deck, Sergei and Spyte are there fixing module #7. You've got a second!"

  The loudspeaker clicked and disconnected.

  Simeon couldn’t make head nor tail of Frauenberg's tirade, but the order was quite clear. He glanced at the monitor. Three hundred seconds left till activation.

  He could make it. Simeon hurried out onto the balcony of the launch deck. The hatch of one of the modules was still open. Simeon vaulted over the low railing and covered the fifteen-foot drop in one leap.

  Voices came from the wide open hatch. Simeon walked over to the gangway and froze. He had no intention of eavesdropping, but a few random words rooted him to the spot.

  "Bullshit! Can’t the Captain understand we’re cannon fodder!"

  "Then why the fuck are you here?" another voice asked.

  Simeon didn't know the speaker. He didn't know anybody of the crew except Vladimir. So, he remained immobile by the gangway, quite unaware of the fact that this last question had been asked by Sergei, commander of the assault group who had brought Yanna and himself on board the Io.

  "I need to earn a few bucks and leg it. I’ve had this war up to here."

  "Shut up, then."

  "You don’t care, do you? You’re gonna croak anyway, today or in a month; but this is my last sortie!"

  "Put a sock in it, will ya? Otherwise I’ll make sure you’re not going back to Stellar,” Sergei's voice rang with threat.

  "All right, all right. Don’t get your knickers in a twist. You’re all psychos here. Actually, what did they send you here for? They say you used to be an officer on the Fifth Orbital Station. Is it true you used to be one of those who protect Stellar?"

  "Sort of," Sergei answered gloomily. He paused and added, "This is something I don’t understand: what’s the point dying for money? You think it’s normal?"

  "And what did you want me to do?" the other man spat out. "As a volunteer, I at least had a choice! You know, all my life I've been scared they’d send me to space infantry," he suddenly admitted.

  "Okay, you smartass. Enough," Sergei said good-naturedly. "Back to work now."

  They returned to their positions, judging by the resumed clanking of metal and clicking of spanners.

  Simeon didn't move, shattered by what he’d just heard. This was a heavy blow indeed.

  The world was at war again.

  * * *

  Thunderstruck, captain Frauenberg stared at the murky sphere of the radar. Five dots. A small enemy squadron. A nearby wormhole had just disgorged Io’s death sentence. Because to engage in combat with five cruisers would be certain death, but it didn’t look as if they had an alternative. Better to be killed in action than to rejoin Fort Stellar's penal battalions.

  A few seconds didn’t change anything now. The attack was too sudden and too powerful.

  Alarms wailed. The general warning system sprang to life. Its pleasant female voice echoed in hundreds of intercom loud speakers,

  "Battle alert!"

  "Take action stations."

  "Five heavy enemy cruisers at a thousand miles in combat mode."

  "Shit! You fucking-"

  Simeon didn't understand the last word.

  "This was supposed to be my last sortie!" the voice repeated hysterically, accompanied by the clanging of the readied pulse gun.

  A powerful figure appeared in the module’s hatch. "And what are you doing here?" Spyte bellowed, noticing Simeon. "Haven't you heard what that bitch just said? We're toast! Time to leg it!"

  He didn’t have the time to say all he wanted to. A tremendous blow hit the spacecraft.

  The Io shuddered.

  Somewhere monitors exploded; the lights went out, replaced by the ominous red glow of emergency lamps under the ceiling; then the power supply was restored, and the deafened people saw the smoldering wiring fill corridors with thick smoke.

  Simeon rushed back to the balcony, but Io's main computer had already switched to combat mode. All hatches were simultaneously shut all over the ship.

  * * *

  Hans Frauenberg was perfectly aware that they had no chance of survival and that resistance could only prolong the agony.

  The five heavy cruisers on the screens in the pilot room zoomed into view: the incorporeal dots transforming themselves into armored behemoths aglow with navigating lights.

  "Come on, John, quit fucking around!" the captain snapped, slumping into his seat at the fire control console.

  John Selkirk who was trying to bring the Io out of her uncontrollable spin didn't need reminding. Beyond all expectation, he managed to manipulate directional thrusters to vector the cruiser into a firing position.

  The captain’s hands fluttered over the controls. The engines roared, operating the main calibers. Monitors flashed frantic successions of numbers.

  Frauenberg pressed the Fire key.

  The first volley breached the leader’s shields, sending cascades of debris into space. The raging beams of laser guns slashed at the giant until one of them hit the reactor unit.

  The hyperdrive exploded in an impressive display, but even this su
ccessful hit couldn’t change anything for the Io. A simultaneous salvo of the four wingmen swept off her laser batteries, leaving fire-polished shell holes where the gun ports had been mounted.

  The sirens wailed more urgently. The soft female voice sounded like a mockery while the crew was choking on the smoke filling the battered cruiser.

  "Depressurization of modules five, seven, twenty and forty-seven. All unimpaired compartments are sealed. Losses of heavy armament – ninety percent. The main propulsion system is damaged and will be ejected. All equipment to switch to emergency mode."

  Only two minutes had passed since the enemy squadron had been located by Io's radars.

  Angry blue lights flashed along the perimeter of the launch deck. There was some activity around the launch pads of nine of the assault modules. The pads shuddered and began to rise, lifting the ships up to their respective launching silos.

  Spyte rammed the sealed hatch with his shoulder. "You fucking piece of shit!” he screamed, kicking the thick steel. Having vented, he trudged back to the open hatch of the repaired ship.

  Simeon still stood by the gangway. He felt as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. For the first time in many years he was desperate.

  Still weak after reanimation, he now stood in the bowels of a strange spacecraft whose computer had separated him from both Yanna and Andor. He was unarmed and defeated.

  "We're locked!" Spyte growled, walking past. The automatics has sealed the deck!"

  He reeked of death.

  The module’s hatch began to slide shut.

  * * *

  The re-activation only took a split second. It seemed to Andor that he’d only just sunk into oblivion on board their makeshift spacecraft. But the reading of the nuclear timer sobered up his machine brain. Ninety-three years had elapsed since he’d fed all his power to the batteries of the two cryogenic capsules.

  In the few seconds that his memory was being tested and systems reset, his external scanners registered the reddish light of emergency lamps and the familiar vibrations of bulkheads.