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

by John Thornton

  “So we can leave now?” Paul asked. “The sooner we get there, the sooner we escape.”

  “Paul, we need to be careful and cautious as we proceed,” Gretchen said as she sat down on one of the seats. The orange automacube rolled into the vehicle. The rear hatch closed.

  “Please remain seated while the vehicle is in motion,” TSI-981 stated. “Estimated time of arrival at destination is one hour, forty seven minutes.”

  There were a series of clanks and clunks as the vehicle moved away from the transport terminal.

  “So Tiffany where are we headed,” Paul said as he stretched out his legs.

  “We will arrive at a spot close to the needle ship. Upon arrival we will need to do further assessment as to the next steps to be taken,” Tiffany replied.

  Gretchen noticed that Tiffany did not give a precise location, but she refrained from saying that. She had hoped that Paul would have quit due to the dead body, yet she also struggled with her own desire to escape from the Vanguard and the threats. She knew working with Brinley was the rational choice, but following Paul was the emotional choice.

  “Well, I am taking a nap. Wake me when we get there so I can help build the teleportation sending pad,” Paul said.

  “As I have stated previously,” Tiffany corrected, “many factors have to be established before the building of the teleportation system can take place. For example…”

  Paul interrupted the AI. “The details do not matter. The fact we are escaping, that matters.”

  Tiffany switched to the communication link and made a private connection to Gretchen. “Gretchen, I know you cannot audibly respond without Paul hearing, but I am concerned about his state of mind.”

  Gretchen nodded her head.

  “This undertaking is very complicated. The Master Engineer Brink had a team of specialists who worked very hard to establish the basic teleportation sending system in Dome 17. Of course I have access to their records and their diagrams and calculations, but the design facilities here and the production of components may be beyond the capacities which the Vanguard has on board. Admittedly, we do not know the limits of the Reproduction and Fabrication Complexes, but they were planned and built over one hundred years ago. Even if we can make the necessary astronomical calculations, and if we do discover that a teleportation receiving pad is operational, we may still be unable to build the sending unit.”

  Again Gretchen nodded.

  Tiffany went on, “You and Paul have both suffered much by way of physical, psychological, and emotional trauma. I want to suggest that Paul speak with the constructed simulation I have made of Doctor Chambers, yet I hesitate to suggest that. Do you think Paul would be receptive to speaking with the simulation of Doctor Chambers now? This time in the transport vehicle might be an opportune moment, but I conjecture that the suggestion would be better received if it came from you.”

  Gretchen nodded again.

  “Paul?” Gretchen said. “Would you please speak to Doctor Chambers with me? I need to talk over what has been happening, and I need your help.”

  “That simulation that Tiffany made? The construct?” Paul replied. “You need help?”

  “Paul, this has been terrifying for me. Of course I need help,” Gretchen replied. “And we are just sitting here doing nothing until we get to our destination. Would you please speak to Doctor Chambers with me?”

  “Sure Gretchen. I wish Tiffany had suggested it. Tiffany, please begin that simulation thing you said you could make which would resemble Doctor Chambers.”

  “Yes, Paul, I will gladly run that program. As I said, this construct of Doctor Chambers will…”

  “Just do it!” Paul snapped back.

  The arm on the automacube extended outward and a light projected from it making a two dimensional image on the side of the vehicle.

  The image was about a meter square and felt very much like looking at one part of the wall and desk while sitting in Doctor Chambers’ office. The part of the office which was visible in the image had a colorful mural on one wall which had been painted by Doctor Chambers himself. The colors were not as vibrant as Paul remembered, and the tan overcast to the whole office was deeper than he recalled. The desk had numerous small items on it; books, hand puzzles, writing implements, and assorted other items. The chair in front of the desk was empty.

  “Tiffany, is the color system on the images in the correct hue and tone?” Paul asked.

  “Yes, Paul. That is one area of the construct that I can recreate to near one hundred percent accuracy.

  “It looks bleaker than I remember,” Paul said. “And where is Doctor Chambers?”

  Doctor Chambers walked into the image and sat down on the chair and swiveled around. His short and curly hair was tight to his head, and his expressively kind, light-brown eyes looked at them. Wrinkle lines from smiling and laughing were in his dark face. His colors reminded Paul of the deep brown dirt he had seen in the rich garden soils. It was a color connection he would have never made when he lived in Dome 17.

  “Hello Gretchen, hello Paul. What is going on with you two?” the simulation of Doctor Chambers asked.

  “Well, it looks and sounds like Doctor Chambers,” Paul said.

  Doctor Chambers gave Paul and inquisitive look, mostly staring at him with one eye while arcing, ever so slightly the other eyebrow.

  “Well, you are not real. What do you want me to say?” Paul replied after a bit.

  Doctor Chambers gave him a brief smile. “True, I must confess I am aware I am not a living biological entity. It is odd really, knowing that I am not actually sitting here in my office.” He turned and knocked on the top of his desk. “It seems solid enough to me. I feel like I am alive. I look alive to me. However, do you two recall the ancient idea of the Turing Test? Well never mind, that is antiquated. Yes, I am a construct from your artificial intelligence system Tiffany, so moving past that, you two have had quite the time since I last spoke to you. I believe it was just prior to the sling launch. What has happened since then?”

  Gretchen gave a concise and accurate overview of the major events which had happened. She described the freezing in the Wilds, and did not omit any of the violence, killings, murders, and threats to their lives. She even included the demise of Dome 17 and their failure to secure a teleportation connection.

  “Well, that means there is a good chance I am dead. Now I feel really bizarre speaking to you here from Dome 17. Forgive me if I use the improper tense when describing where I am. I am new to being a construct, it seems just like a typical day to me. Paul, what do you think of all that has happened?”

  “I am just glad we are escaping the Vanguard,” Paul snapped back.

  “Are you really?” Doctor Chambers said.

  “Of course I am glad about it. I need to get away from all the killing and the death and everything,” Paul answered.

  Doctor Chambers steepled his fingers together. “Fear and stress are part of life everywhere. Here in Dome 17 there is a fear of radiation and a fear of the mechanisms of the dome failing. Or I guess I should properly say was that fear, since Dome 17 was destroyed. From your vantage point, that fear was real, legitimate, and appropriate. When you lived here, did that fear and stress make a difference in your moment to moment life?”

  “Not for me,” Paul said, too quickly.

  “I only thought about it mostly when I went on missions,” Gretchen said, “Or more so when Paul went on missions where I remained in Dome 17.”

  Doctor Chambers relaxed his hands. “Paul, we discussed your mission to Dome 3. How was that stress and fear different than what you are feeling today?”

  “Death is death, there was no real difference. Karen died right before my eyes. It was not different than those children who died right before my eyes,” Paul admitted.

  “Paul, responses to extreme trauma and violence, like you have seen, strike powerfully into the essence of who you are. When you were in Dome 3, as terrible and as horrific as that was, you
had a place to flee back to, Dome 17. Do you have that now?” Doctor Chambers asked. “Do you have somewhere to go?”

  Paul looked at Gretchen then he said, “I hope we will. That is what this mission is about.”

  Doctor Chambers looked at Paul and at Gretchen. He waited.

  “I am concerned about Paul and all he has seen and gone through,” Gretchen said. “I know how much it has affected me, and how hard it is to cope with all this.”

  “Gretchen, fear and stress reactions are essential for human survival. Not because of the angst and problems they inflict, but because they enable people to pursue essential goals and to respond appropriately to danger. You both are genetically solid and were given an effective upbringing as age-mates here in Dome 17. I would say you two had the best humanity could provide. Quality genetics, and a structured, healthy, and loving environment to grow and become physically and mentally healthy individuals. Therefore…”

  “Sure, that is why Dome 17 died, right? It was the pinnacle of human success, only to be destroyed in a radioactive nightmare,” Paul said in an overly loud voice.

  “Gretchen, has Paul been making these kinds of comments often?” Doctor Chambers asked.

  “Yes. With increased frequency as things have gotten worse,” Gretchen answered.

  “Paul, the stress responses: fight, fright, or flight are provoked by the genuine threats, dangers, challenges you have faced on that Colony Ship Vanguard. Your comment, and the others you have been making, are coping mechanisms. I was going to say you are doing better in that situation than could be expected, even though you were raised in what you so eloquently say was the ‘pinnacle of human success’.”

  “So we know we have the dangers, and escaping will solve that. Tiffany will find us a way to get away, we will take it, and the problems will be over,” Paul said. “That will solve everything.”

  “Paul, when you returned from Dome 3, after you witnessed Karen commit suicide, when you got back, did that solve everything? Did escaping Dome 3 cure everything?”

  “No, we found out we had to go on this crazy mission to the Colony Ship Vanguard,” Paul replied.

  “You feel like you had to go on that mission? If you had not gone on that mission, what would have happened to you?” Doctor Chambers asked ever so gently.

  “We may have been able to teleport to where everyone else went,” Paul finally said.

  “That is one possibility. Let us assume that took place and you both survived the breach of Dome 17, and you both teleported to safety somewhere. But step it back some. Would the Committee just have abandoned the mission to the Vanguard, if you two had not chosen it?”

  There was a long pause.

  “No,” Paul finally admitted. “They would have pressed others to volunteer for that mission.”

  “So someone else would be on the Vanguard right now?” Doctor Chambers asked. “You tell me, who would you pick to take your places?”

  “I would not want anyone to be here on the Vanguard,” Paul finally confessed.

  “Yet you worked very hard, nearly killing yourself in a frozen habitat, trying to get everyone from Dome 17 to come to the Vanguard. How would things be different if that had worked?” Doctor Chambers asked.

  “I would not have failed in my mission. If I had set it up soon enough, it would have been before the Dome 17 breach and everyone would have gotten away,” Paul said. “If I had only worked harder.”

  “Paul, you nearly died. There is no way you could have worked harder. You tried as hard as humanly possible to succeed. You could not have done more,” Doctor Chambers said.

  “But so many people died. I should have been the one to teleport them all to safety,” Paul stated flatly.

  “Did everyone teleport to safety?” Doctor Chambers asked.

  Paul looked into his hands and slumped his head.

  “The AI Copernicus had a message which said about half the Dome 17 population died because of the environmental breach,” Gretchen reported.

  “I could have prevented all that!” Paul said. “I could have saved them. I just was a failure!”

  “Paul, Gretchen, both of you consider what I am saying. If you had connected in and made the teleportation system work, say before the Dome 17 failure, and say everyone was taken to the Vanguard. Would they have been safe?”

  “What?” Paul asked.

  “If you had worked harder, which no one could have done, but say you did work harder and succeeded, and all the people from Dome 17 where there on the Vanguard. Would they be safe?” Doctor Chambers looked deeply at both Paul and Gretchen.

  They did not respond.

  “It is a simple, straight forward question. Would you really have wanted all the people from Dome 17 to come to the Vanguard?”

  “I would not feel so alone, but…” Paul took Gretchen’s hand and squeezed it. “I do not even want Gretchen to be here, and I do not want to be here.”

  “So would you still say your mission failed? You are both alive, and that is better than half the people in Dome 17. You are in a clearly dangerous situation, and you have seen things that most people could never cope with, and yet you are still striving forward. Paul, when Karen was overwhelmed, she committed suicide, right in front of you. That was not your fault. The failure of Dome 17 was not your fault. The inability to get the teleporter to work was not your fault. And certainly the deaths of those ship people around you were not your fault.”

  “But in my dream…” Paul started to say but was interrupted.

  “We will be arriving at our destination in three minutes,” TSI-981 stated. “Please remain seated until docking is completed and the hatch door is fully open. Repairs are in progress.”

  Doctor Chambers looked in puzzlement. “That is a voice I do not recognize. Is it one of the old ship’s systems? Well, turn me on again whenever you need me. I will be right here, but remember what we spoke about.

  The image projection faded away.

  The vehicle stopped, then backed up and with several clangs and a grinding noise it docked into their destination.

  6 Hydroponics without water

  The hatch door sprang open, and a strange, rotting kind of scent entered the vehicle. Gretchen pulled out her pistol and aimed it at the passageway.

  “I will check it out,” Paul said and stepped out of the transport vehicle.

  Gretchen followed and the orange automacube rolled after.

  The lighting was not bright but was enough to see the transport hub that they were in. Two of the other hatches were open, one with a large beam of metal lying across the opening. The two vehicles behind those hatches were dim and without power. There was obvious damage to each of their interiors. Four other hatches were closed.

  “Paul, I do not see whatever is causing that smell,” Gretchen stated as she scanned the area looking down the sights of her pistol.

  “It is foul, that is for sure.” Paul pointed at a grille on the top of a wall. “The ventilation system looks to have had some kind of smoke or toxins enter.”

  The wall itself was a dull white color, but the areas around the grilles were soiled with soot and smeared with grayish black stains.

  “Tiffany is it safe to breathe in here?” Gretchen asked.

  “From my understanding of the safety protocols by which the transport system operates, the transport vehicle would not be allowed to stop and disembark passengers unless the terminal met basic safety requirements,” Tiffany stated. “The artificial intelligence system TSI-981 should have checked prior to docking. I assume the area is safe from an environmental standpoint,” Tiffany replied.

  “What? The old AI ‘should have checked’? You mean you did not check?” Paul asked. “The Vanguard has lots of things that should have been done, which did not happen. None of the AIs here seem to be operating in a logical or consistent manner.”

  “I agree with Paul. Tiffany, you need to be overseeing these old systems,” Gretchen stated.

  “We need to get o
ut of this stink.” Paul walked across the terminal and pulled on the lever on a steel exit door. It swung open away from him.

  “Mind your own kittens!” A voice screamed as Paul pushed open the steel door.

  “It is a Roe!” Gretchen yelled directed her pistol toward the new voice.

  Paul tried to pull the door shut, but his arm was grabbed and he was yanked into the space beyond the door. The steel door slammed shut.

  Gretchen raced to the door, pulled down on the lever, but the handle would not budge. She stepped back and kicked at the door, but it did not move.

  On the other side of the door, Paul felt his arm yanked tremendously hard. He fell face first to the deck and tried to scramble away.