Sleeper Ship

by Jim Rudnick

  "Nothing could be worse than that—surely!" interrupted Bram.

  "What we didn't know was that deep inside the comet lay a virus. A virus that we partially released when our weak bombs blew the comet apart, and a virus that was born—or reborn—when those pieces crashed into our planet. A virus that would change everything," he added as he looked around the anteroom as if to find support, but there was none.

  Tanner and Bram instinctively seemed to lean back, as if to try to distance themselves from the alien in front of them ... as if a few feet could protect them from whatever virus had infected the aliens.

  "Those of us who lived didn't know that we had been infected—and this mutant virus infected all the surviving tribes all around our world. No one it seemed was resistant, no one at all."

  "For God's sake, man ... tell us what you have ... what you're infected with, said Tanner. "You look fine. You look healthy in fact."

  "Yes," the Sachem said, "we are all very healthy here on board the Keshowse. We were picked for this Sleeper ship as the best of the best, and we are all proud to have been named to the crew. But that is now ... back 1600 years ago, we didn't know that the virus even existed, nor that we'd been infected, until the survivors of the impact showed signs—signs that were unmistakable."

  He paused then and seemed to collect himself for the final moment.

  "The Ikarians, who survived in conditions almost too terrible to eke out an existence, lived well past our then-normal life expectancy of eighty-six years. They lived to be 140 years old on average. All of them—the virus it appeared had somehow changed our aging process, slowing that down, almost doubling our expected age. The virus gave us longevity, an unexpected change from a deadly impact."

  The silence flooded around the three of them; not a single thing could be heard. After some minutes had gone by, Tanner realized each was lost in their thoughts.

  "How many years after the comet strike was the Keshowse sent out with its Sleepers?" Tanner asked, trying to get all the details.

  The alien nodded.

  "Yes, after the generation that was alive during the comet strikes died, the next generation studied the virus and realized we would have to find a new home. Our world was so destroyed and our population now living so much longer, we needed to look elsewhere ... our world's resources were severely limited, our game non-existent, our ground less fertile, and our climate wounded.

  Tanner's head cocked to one side.

  "How long did that next generation live?" he asked, dreading the answer as he thought he knew it.

  Sachem Ahanu nodded back.

  "Yes, the next generation lived for more than 170 years. The virus is a part of all of us, and it appears to not have as yet found an answer as to how long our lifespan is now," Ahanu said.

  Bram seized that even though his captain's hand grabbed his arm.

  "Which begs the question, Sachem, exactly how old are you—and the rest of the awake crew of the Keshowse now?"

  "Our testing facilities have shown that we do not know how long we can live with the virus. What we do know is that the current elders of the support crew, of which yes, I am one, we have been awake for more than 200 years."

  "And you look like you're in the prime of your life," Tanner stated factually, "not even at middle age." He turned away and ambled off a few paces, lost in thought. Both Bram and the alien stared at him as he stopped and then returned to stand with them at the center of the anteroom.

  "Sachem, this changes much for us here on the RIM. I will need to report these new facts to my admiral, as you know I must ... but I would ask that you keep our conversation just between us—well us and your own elders. We do not want this to be passed along to any other RIM personnel, agreed?" he said, and he too made the sign of respect, touching the back of his right hand to his forehead as he faced the alien. He received the same sign in return as well as a nod of compliance for the secrecy of this talk.

  He turned and Bram joined him as they left the administration offices and returned via the stairs down to the long corridors back to the shuttle bay and the Marwick.

  Tanner thought that a Scotch or three to think on how it'd be to live to be 200 and not even hit middle age would be nice. He smiled to himself and decided maybe he'd let the admiral know after his Scotch ... this news was so RIM shaking that he'd have to ponder how to handle passing it on. At least EYES ONLY, but he wondered if even that was enough security ...and then thought of the Scotch instead and of Sleepers he'd known before ...

  #

  On the Gillmarten, the bridge was taut with suspense as the crew watched the Z'Lundom ship vectoring into the Niher sun. They lay off to one side of the sun, with millions of miles of space protecting them, but the Sleepers were not protected at all. At less than six million miles away,the aliens had about a half day left of life—at least that's what the Gillmarten's science officer figured.

  "Re-cap, Lieutenant Prokop?" Tanner asked and checked off the points again one by one.

  "Sir, this is a true spaceship—so their hull is standard steel and alu alloy with no heat shielding for planetary re-entry," he said.

  Tanner held up one finger.

  "The ship also has passed the three-million-mile limit hours ago, which rings up the rems they're getting past the fatal dose in Deterministic levels, Sir. They won't live long enough for any Stochastic effects to adhere, so that means that the crew that's awake at least—we have no real information on the Sleeper tanks themselves that could well be shielded—the awake crew is on borrowed time, Sir" Lieutenant Prokop said, his voice calm and monotone.

  Tanner held up two fingers.

  "And lastly, Sir, the ship is not—was not—made for this kind of an encounter with a solar body. The ship is not white one side, black the other to help radiate heat; nor for that matter was it made miles long to help radiate that heat via cooling due to its length. Sir, the ship is gone ... Sir," he added, and his voice trembled only a trifle as Tanner held up the third finger and nodded. Everyone on the bridge crew was focused on him, yet he knew he was powerless in this situation.

  "Sir," his XO said, "is there nothing we can do? That's 7000-plus lives down there ..."

  While Tanner knew he was helpless, he tried to offer up something to help the crew understand. "Admiral Canton pulled the Agamemnon away, what, a week ago ... so the message to the aliens was plain. The official Earldom response to their course change was to ignore it. We were left as the last consort ship, and we will be the ones who see the aliens either divert or die. It was the Earl's final call to their suicide card. Game over is what I think we'd all have to agree is going to happen here, crew. They do not wish to travel again for centuries and have chosen instead to end it all in Niher's sun."

  He went and prepped another coffee, and while blowing on the steaming mug, he looked at them all again, one by one. Most were resigned to the fate of the aliens, and yet he could tell that they, like him, wished there was something they could do ... or have done.

  "ETA, Helm ... to the one-million-mile marker?"

  "Sir, about forty minutes ... and that's when the aluminum in their hull alloy begins to melt, Sir ..." Like the rest of the bridge crew, Tanner turned to watch the alien ship plowing onward toward oblivion.

  The minutes ticked by slowly, and the ship continued to plow towards the sun. At 1.3 million miles out, the Z'Lundom's engines suddenly ignited as the aliens made a burn ...

  "Sir," the Helm barked, "she's making a—making—no, Sir, she's just accelerating directly on the same suicide vector. I thought ... I thought perhaps they were going to try to save themselves, but ... but ..." Lieutenant Prokop sounded sad as he trailed off.

  But he was right, Tanner saw. The aliens were burning up what fuel stores they had as they accelerated deeper and deeper into the Niher sun's corona.

  "One million one, Sir," Prokop announced, and on the view screen, the left-hand sidebar that held the Z'Lundom's statistics began to flash bright red. Tanner nodded to t
he lieutenant to turn it off.

  "Increase the solar filters, please, XO," Tanner said, and a darker filter suddenly cut the brightness of the Niher sun as the alien ship approached its doom.

  "A bit less than a million, Sir," Prokop said. They all noticed the ship appeared to be flowing now ... moving backward toward its aft area as the hull began to soften and the engines were roaring with what looked like full power. Not a minute later, the sphere that held the Sleeper tanks and much of the living space on the Z'Lundom suddenly ignited—or at least sprung hull breaches and flammable items within began to burn.

  "Hull temp, at the melting point of steel now, Sir," Prokop said as the ship began to burst from within, flames jetting for milliseconds as the oxygen first powered the flames and then went out in the vacuum of outer space. The engines suddenly flared out too, and the ship now hurtled toward the yellow star that would swallow it whole.

  A minute later, the Z'Lundom splashed into the sun, disappearing completely, and the Niher sun never seemed to notice.

  "Sir, one thing ... they did punch out an Ansible message—but not to us, Sir. It's aimed at the Earldom Palace, it appears. Sir. No security though at all, Sir. May I ..."

  Tanner looked at Lieutenant Bellanie, nodded, and said, "Read it out, Lieutenant."

  "Sir, it simply says, 'Our spirits are now in your hands,...' Sir."

  Tanner couldn't sip his coffee anymore. Not with what he'd just seen and been unable to stop. A Navy officer took orders—that was true—but surely there had been something he could have done, he wondered as he left the bridge to go down to the Officers’ Mess. Scotch might help ...

  As he nursed the Scotch in the Officers’ Mess on the Marwick, he remembered he’d had several that night. He knew he had to try to do whatever could be done to save these Sleepers. Losing the Z'Lundom years back had been a catastrophe—one that he would not help or take a part in again—spirits indeed.

  He used his PDA to ask the XO join him. Later the two called in Lieutenant Rizzo, the current Helm officer, and between the three of them, they planned to take a trip to Juno—against their current mission. As Tanner explained what he'd been through with the Z'Lundom, he received acknowledgment of his rationale, and then he ordered Lieutenant Rizzo to return to the bridge and change course immediately for Juno. He'd still have to Ansible over to Captain Siegel and turn the mission over to him, and he knew that would be as easy as pie. And if they hustled and made as much time as they could, they'd make the next RIM Confederacy Council meeting but barely. Barely was good enough, Tanner thought, anything to try to help save these 10,000 lives ... and their spirits too ...

  #

  The Master Adept was unhappy for a reason that seemed to be hidden to her she thought, but she knew she had to do something.

  The recent mind merge with the Marwick's Adept officer, Bram, had showed her that her earlier feelings of worry about the Sleeper ship had held true ... the news that the aliens carried this longevity virus was more than she thought the RIM had ever faced.

  She turned back to the window to stare out again at the bleak countryside that her apartment bordered, and she wondered if they might have rain this year. Climatic change had begun more than three hundred years ago and hadn't stopped yet. A rainfall would be nice for a change but would change nothing.

  Not like the virus. If there was one thing that all wanted, humans, aliens, and humanoids, it was longer lives. As soon as the word got out on this virus and that these aliens could live 200 or 300 years apparently with what looked like full potency and virility, she knew the RIM would explode. But what to do?

  She had sworn Bram to secrecy, and that was quite easy, but the news that his captain, was trying to FTL into Juno to try to make the next RIM Council meeting was also unsettling. He will announce this, she thought, so she must have some kind of a plan ready for when this captain made the Council sit up straighter than ever before.

  She didn't know, nor did she believe anyone else knew, whether or not the virus could be culled from the aliens and whether it could be made to work on anyone else, human or not. She didn't know much about the virus, but what she did know was the explosion that such news would bring—and the jockeying for position to gain from this as well.

  As she watched a lone bird float above the bleak fields below, she wondered how such news would strike the Baroness who appeared to be the Council member who at this point was closest to being in charge of the aliens. She wondered how the rest of the Council would handle that positioning especially now that there was the implication that the Barony might be the presiding factor for the longevity virus—who had it and who could get it.

  The bird continued to fly, coast really, and it rose and fell on air currents she could not see, never finding prey nor fleeing from a predator. There was nothing out there save itself, she realized. As barren as she could see the country was, she wondered what it would be like to be that bird, forever searching and yet hiding at the same time.

  She suddenly knew why she was unhappy; there simply was no way to be happy with the upcoming showdown at the next Council meeting—no way at all. She was the bird.

  #

  In the anteroom to the RIM Council chamber where the meeting had just begun, the Provost Guard was unflappable.

  "Sir, yes, Sir, I know who you are, but the orders are always the same. No entry to anyone unless someone from within the chamber comes out to ask for a witness or an officer ... but we know ahead of time, Sir, as they're on our list. Today, Sir, the list is empty ..." the guard finished up a bit lamely.

  Tanner stood in front of him, only slightly leaning on his XO, and that was not lost on the guard either.

  "And Sir, it, uh, looks like you're not really in, uh, shape to go in there, Sir."

  The guard’s eyes stayed looking straight ahead at attention.

  The XO piped up immediately. "Guard, we're here on the most important item that the Council will ever consider, and Captain Scott was injured. As you may remember, he was the one that rid the RIM of the Pirates a few short months ago ... so I want your name, Sergeant. Now!" Craig said as he leaned in toward the guard and glared at him, eyes blazing.

  To say the guard was intimidated would be the understatement of the year, Tanner thought and he noticed the guard's right eyelid was twitching ... and he grinned at the man.

  "TenShun! Sergeant," he slurred out and followed that with "right turn and left, right, left, right, left" and he happily watched the guard march away from the front of the door and down the long hallway.

  He pushed away from his XO and ran his hands through his hair, remembering not to touch the sore spot behind his left ear where he'd fallen just an hour ago in his quarters as the Marwick touched down on Juno. By pushing everything they could and burning the candle as much as they could, they'd made it in twenty-nine days to the RIM Council meeting only a half-hour after it had started.

  "Tanner," Craig said, "this is still a bad, bad idea. No matter what the issue, this should not go to the full Council, Sir. My opinion, Sir ..." he trailed off. He knows as well as I do, Tanner thought, that this will change everything. He nodded though to appease his second in command and then reached for the Council chamber door.

  "Sir ... one more thing. Go slow, Sir. The admiral will be as shocked as they all will ... especially when we walk through that door seeing as we're supposed to be back near Novertag."

  Tanner knew to nod; however, that would make his temples pulse and would hurt, so he settled on a curt "agreed."

  As he twisted the doorknob, the tall thick door swung inward to open, Inside the room, they could hear raised voices that paid no attention to their entrance.

  The Leudi member was standing partway down the U-shaped Council table, and he was loudly berating someone and saying over and over, "we do not know what kind of trade negotiations will be necessary with the Carnarvon unions. We will not be undercut in these talks by the Faraway guilds. We will not ..." His voice trailed off as Tanner and his
XO walked up to the open end of the table and stood waiting.

  Chairman Gramsci held up his hand, and the Leudi member sat down heavily.

  "Captain ... Captain Scott, is it?" Gramsci said, his Alex’n accent more potent than Tanner remembered.

  "Chairman Gramsci, I know that this is highly unusual, but I need to speak to the whole Council on a mattress ... a ... matter of what can only be called the biggest emergency ever faced by the RIM. Sir ... it's about the aliens, Sir," he added, and the room, if possible, grew even quieter.

  "What about the aliens, Captain?" the Baroness interrupted. "We have already sent medical teams and healthcare professionals, so what could be more important than that?" she said coldly.

  "Baroness, I am sorry, but this is, as I said, the most important thing that has ever come before the Council. More important, Admiral," Tanner said as he half-bowed to his superior who sat just to the right of the Chairman in the raised row behind the Council table, "than my staying off Novertag once the truth came out, Sir."

  The XO moved up to stand right beside his captain and took his arm, steadying the man who had the full attention of the Council, something that only the admiral seemed to notice.

  "Explain, Captain. We'd all like to know," the Chairman said and sat back.

  "Chairman and members of the Council, what I'm about to tell you was, uh, was exhumed ... er ... gotten from one of the alien elders. He spoke truthfully—if it's one thing about these aliens, it's that they respect the truth. I don't think that they even know how to—"

  "For God's sake, Captain, on with it," the Baroness barked from over on his right, as she leaned on the table to point at him.

  "What is this secret, Captain, that is important enough for you to break into a Council meeting? Please, Captain, salve our curiosity."

  Tanner nodded to the Baroness.

  "The Council should know that the reason that we were told the Ikarians left their home planet was to get away from a world that was torn up by comet strikes. That is their public story. But the real truth is that they left because of a virus ... one that infected them all."