The Colony Ship Vanguard: The entire eight book series in one bundle

by John Thornton

  Gretchen drew out the Willie pistol while Zoya and Brinley took aim with their own handguns.

  “Before you do your cutting, may I make a suggestion?” Doctor 147 asked.

  Paul nodded as he connected the cutting torch to the fusion pack.

  “I may be the better choice for cutting open the door. I am not an engineering automacube. My own surgical equipment includes a laser scalpel which I can enhance to levels which I conjecture will be sufficient for cutting these welds. The free-will Brinley granted to me will allow me to re-purpose my abilities in this area.”

  “That is a good idea,” Paul said and he stepped back away from the door. He put away the cutting torch and drew out his own handgun.

  “Paulie, do not shoot any of us with that. Understood?” Brinley teased.

  “I will do my best to only shoot at threats,” Paul retorted.

  The four weapons were aimed at the door as Doctor 147 extended the multi-jointed appendage and a small medical laser began to slice through the welds. “My conjectures were correct. The welds are being separated.”

  The steel door shook a bit as the automacube jacked a cable into the now cleared access port. There was a raucous buzzing, but the door did not open. There were no hinges on this side of the door, and it did not appear to be a door that retracted into a pocket.

  “I will attempt to force the door open,” Doctor 147 stated. “I do not have the proper tools for this job, but I may be successful.”

  The machine connected its arm to the door and then all six wheels spun as it pulled. With a screeching cry the door swung about two thirds of the way open.

  Paul stepped up and looked inside. The lighting was iridescent and the shadows slowly were altering color as he looked. The Insectarium was a medium sized chamber with cages along one side, and clear permalloy boxes along the other. The illumination came from the ceiling and was insufficient to tell what, if anything was in the cages or behind the clear permalloy.

  “I do not see any Roe, or other obvious threats,” Paul said as he stepped through the doorway. “But it is hard to see in here, the light is changing and bothers my eyes.”

  The others followed him in and holstered their weapons. The automacube came behind. It pulled the steel door closed after the group had entered.

  “There has to be a door out of here, or something,” Brinley stated. “That transport vehicle would not just be designed to come to a single place. TSI-981 said we were below Saretov. That is a town in F Habitat. There must be a way up.”

  Paul had taken the fusion pack out and had turned on its light. As he shined it into the clear permalloy boxes, he saw many dead things. Some kinds of animals or other small creatures. They reminded him of the long dead bodies he had seen in some of the failed domes on Earth. “There was life in here, once. Looks like it was a while back. Everything in these, pens, or containment units, whatever they are, is dead.”

  Gretchen pushed on several of the cages. A large section of the wall, cages and all, swung away. Behind it was a stairway which led upward. On the back side of the wall section, which had opened, was a sign. It was not stenciled or neatly painted like other designations. This was on a sheet of some thin material and read, ‘The Insectarium is in Biological Administration during crisis. --Edwina’.

  “So this place was sealed off and closed down?” Paul asked. “During which crisis?”

  “I think it would refer to the Outbreak,” Brinley replied.

  “So we go up those stairs and look for my momma,” Zoya stated with authority. “We really must hurry. I fear for what has happened to her.”

  The stairway was visible up to where it turned at the next landing. It was dark beyond that. Gretchen was carefully looking at the wall at the base of the stairway. She was tracing the wall with her finger.

  “I believe there is an elevator here, but I am not sure. I will try using my fusion pack to power it up.”

  When Gretchen inserted the connection to the fusion pack, a green line became illuminated making a rectangle on the wall. There was not a hand symbol, which would have indicated an elevator, nor was there a nine section color control pad. However, two round buttons became illuminated along with the green outline. One was green, the other was brown.

  “Brinley, what do these do?” Gretchen asked.

  “I have not seen a system like that,” Brinley replied.

  “It is new to me as well,” Doctor 147 stated.

  “Zoya, this might be a faster way upward. It is worth checking out,” Gretchen said in a soothing voice. “Our mission is to find your mother, and we must be alert as we progress, lest we miss an opportunity.”

  “You are correct. Sorry I am so eager and pushy. Those buttons remind me of grass on the surface and brown dirt below. That is how I think of the biological habitats. I am not sure if that is helpful, but that is what I thought of immediately,” Zoya replied.

  “It might just be storage or something else,” Paul stated. “Nothing much seems to make sense to me in these corridors.” He pulled out the handgun and aimed it as the green rectangle. “So try it.”

  “I agree,” Brinley said, and pulled out her own handgun.

  Gretchen pressed the green button. The rectangular section of wall folded inward and revealed an odd series of two meter square platforms which led upward at an angle. They were somewhat like large stairs. It was all bathed in a green light.

  “I guess we have a choice of two stairways,” Gretchen stated and she stepped onto the platform.

  There was a lurch and the whole platform moved away upward at an angle. Another platform raised up out of the floor to replace the one Gretchen was riding on.

  “Gretchen!” Paul yelled and he jumped onto the moving platform.

  Paul saw Gretchen turn and her mouth opened wide, but no words were heard. She raised her hand but it looked to be in an awkward position. Paul rushed forward and slammed into a transparent barrier of some kind of material. It was not as hard as permalloy, but was rigid and unmoving. It was between the platform he was on and the one a level above where Gretchen was riding. About a half meter separated them by height. Gretchen was pushing on the barrier. Paul felt air move as a similar type of clear divider came up behind him separating him from the platform below. Then he felt more air movement all around him. He was riding on the platform the same direction as was Gretchen. He turned and looked back.

  “Zoya, take my hand,” Brinley called as she grabbed her and pulled her onto the next platform as it rose from the floor. The two of them also felt the barriers come up and enclose them as well as the air circulation around them. They could see Paul one level above and ahead. He slammed his hand into the barrier, but there was no sound heard. Gretchen was one step further up along the ascending series of platforms.

  “I am glad we are together,” Zoya told Brinley. “I hope this was designed to move people.”

  Brinley wrapped her arm around her and held her tight.

  The white automacube rolled onto the next platform and followed along.

  The line of ascending platforms carried them all away from Insectarium, and the fusion pack which was still connected into the wall. Paul pulled out the cutting torch and was about to try to sever through the clear material between his compartment and Gretchen’s but she waved him to stop. He turned and saw that Brinley and Zoya were also motioning for him to wait.

  Each compartment was in utter silence as the platforms continued upward. No machine sounds, and no noises of any kind penetrated those compartments.

  Gretchen could see the light ahead changing colors and become brighter. Then she felt the floor level out and it pushed her ahead. The barrier in front of her came down and she felt the difference in air pressure and temperature. She stepped off. The platform moved a bit more ahead and then divided into a multitude of tiny segment, each less than a finger width wide. Half of those, every other one, dropped away into the ground, the rest were level with the ground.

  Paul was righ
t behind her, and as soon as the barrier came down in front of him he rushed to her and hugged her.

  “That was rather strange,” Paul commented. “But where are we now? It smells sort of like Inaccessible Island, maybe?”

  Brinley and Zoya joined them, as did the automacube a few moments later. The moving platforms continued to segment and drop down into the floor as they watched. Then the movement stopped, and the wall folded up and covered over the platforms. There was a brown light illuminating a rectangle on the wall. Next to that were two round buttons, one green and one brown.

  “So green was up and brown was down,” Zoya said.

  Looking around, Paul could see that the permalloy wall, behind which was the moving platform system, was different than the rest of the enclosure. Bright light was shining in from a rough opening between the other walls. Those walls were made from some kind of organic materials. Paul thought it was called, wood, but was uncertain. It reminded him briefly of Grandpa Gari’s home where he and Gretchen had recuperated. He had also seen wooden items traded by the Free Rangers. Wood seemed to come in various shapes and forms and styles. He had been told wood was taken from trees, but he had not seen that process. He stepped past the opening and into the shining light.

  “We are in the biological habitat,” Paul stated as his eyes adjusted to the bright light.

  The others followed him out of the wooden structure. The sky tube far overhead was brilliant. It shone down on the habitat. Off to the side, they could see a collection of permalloy buildings behind a short wall. Each of the permalloy buildings was of the same size and design. They were boxy with a pyramid shaped roof. There were two levels, from the look of the windows, and three windows on each level on each side of the building. The windows had small doors outside of them which could be pulled shut over the window. While the buildings were of the same design, the colors of each one varied greatly. Some were bright red. Others were yellow, or blue. Some had multiple colors all on the same building, with one level green and the other white. The shutters around the windows were a contrasting color to the rest of the building. The only missing color was orange. The wall between them and the town was about a meter high and was the same color as the ground. The wall was made from some kind of blocks. There were people seen moving about around the buildings.

  The ground stretching away from the city was flat and covered in low mounds of vegetation set in clumps. There were some trees, mostly around the city. They were different kinds of trees than anything Paul or Gretchen had yet seen on the Vanguard. These tall trees had thick trunks and dark brown bark. The branches were many and tangled and covered in heavy green leaves.

  “That is the town of Saretov,” Brinley said. “I have heard of it, but I have not visited here before. We are outside of the city.”

  A whistling type of sound came to them. It repeated itself.

  “That sounds like it is saying, ‘watch it, watch it, birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie’ or something like that,” Gretchen commented. “Is that some person calling us?” Her eyes were scanning the tops of the trees as that seemed to be the source of the whistling sound.

  “No, not a person. That call is that red bird’s song,” Brinley pointed to a flash of red as the bird darted from one tree to another.

  “Those are not poitevin!” Paul yelled. He had been looking around behind the wooden structure they had exited.

  Everyone looked where Paul was pointing. That was when they realized they were in a large enclosure and the wall was actually surrounding them. They were at one end of the enclosure which stretched off a good distance. There was a set of wooden gates in one part of the wall. At the far side of the enclosure were a number of large animals.

  They were heavily built, bulky framed animals. Like the donkeys Paul and Gretchen had seen in the Wilds, these animals also had long hair or fur. Their legs were thick and sturdy with rounded cloven hooves. They were various colors of brown with splotches of rust or beige. Their hair hung down off their abdomens. Their heads were large and oval with a curved spike coming up from each side. They were gray colored around their mouths. They all were turned and looking at the people.

  “Those are immense!” Gretchen said. “They must be nearly two meters high.”

  “They probably weight a thousand kilograms,” Paul added.

  “Hey you!” A man called. “Get out of my pasture and quit bothering my grunters!”

  The man was outside the wall and shaking a fist at them as he yelled. “I say, get out of there right now. If you upset the grunters I will take it out of your own hide!”

  Several of the larger animals, the grunters, were indeed making a grunting kind of noise. They were bellowing, grunting, and scraping the ground with their horns and hooves. Paul reached for his handgun, but Zoya grabbed his hand first.

  “Sir? I am sorry to have bothered you and your herd of meat animals. My momma is lost and I am searching for her. Can you help me?” Zoya asked.

  By now the man had reached the wall nearest to them. “Your momma is not in my pasture, I promise you that. You get out of there right now! My grunters are my livelihood. You must not rile them up.”

  They walked over to the wall and slid over it. The automacube adjusted its wheels and easily passed over the wall as well.

  “Were you trying to steal a grunter?” The man accused them. “I have secured my young ones in a separate pen. These will be going to market soon. How did you get into my pasture?” The man’s face was deeply wrinkled, and ruddy in color. He squinted as he looked them over.

  The large beasts were now moving back around the wooden structure and spreading out in the pasture, but still keeping their distance from the strangers. Apparently, they had been spooked a bit from the people coming out of the wooden building.

  “Like I said, sir, my momma is lost and I am trying to find her. Will you help me?” Zoya gave him a smile.

  “Have you spoken to the Constable and his troops?” the man asked. He eyed the tools on Zoya’s belt and also looked at Brinley with a discerning eye.

  “No sir. We are seeking her on our own. Will you help?” Zoya asked.

  “I doubt Constable Jeffry would help in something as inconsequential as finding a lost momma,” the man said in disgust. “How can a grunter rancher like me help you?”

  “My momma was lost near Exterior Repair Station V-2210. If you can just tell me the correct direction to go, we will all leave you in peace and be very appreciative of your help,” Zoya said with persuasion in her voice.

  “I know of no place by that name near Saretov. Is it in Perm? You are a long way from Perm where our good Governor’s Zlata lives. May her life be blessed. I have not been there myself; I do not care to travel.” The people listening could not tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

  “Is there someone who could help us?” Zoya asked.

  “Perhaps. You certainly look lost and helpless yourselves, and getting into a grunter pasture is just plain foolishness. You could easily have avoided the pasture; the wall is hard to miss.” The man turned and walked briskly away, even though he did limp a bit. After a few more paces he looked back and called, “Are you coming?”

  The people and automacube followed.

  The man led them along the wall of the pasture, past a large and flat tank of water where the beasts could drink, and toward another small wooden building. Gray colored birds of some kind walked around in front of the structure. They had long necks and webbed orange feet. Paul and Gretchen were wary of them. There was a garden area behind the structure. Beyond the garden was an obviously abandoned permalloy building like the ones seen in Saretov.

  “This is my dacha. Inside we will talk more,” the man entered the small wooden building. The building was only one floor with two windows and a door facing the front. It was brightly colored, like the buildings in Saretov, but the paint was flaked and peeling in places. “The machine stays outside.”

  The white automacube halted and waited on
the lawn as the others entered.

  Inside, the dacha was oddly furnished. Hanging down from the ceiling in various places were lengths of cloth and shirts and pants. The walls were painted bright green halfway up, and then white above that. There were small boxy cabinets on the walls with dishes, pots, pans, and various cooking implements hanging on hooks. An oven sat wedged into a corner. The whole place had a haphazard fell to it. A table and single chair were at one side, and a bed at the other. The back part of the room was covered by draperies of a taupe color.

  “You do not live in bigger building?” Paul asked.

  “Out! You go outside,” the man snapped at Paul. “I am helping the girl. She reminds me of my youngest child.”

  Paul looked at him in surprise.

  “I said out!” the man snarled. “Go!”

  Paul walked outside and stood by the automacube.