Unfortunately, the human mind could process information only so quickly, and all the Representatives and Guardians were experiencing some sensory overload as each of their brains acclimated in its own way to the huge data dump they'd been subjected to. Zack had reached the point where he was beginning to feel almost normal again, and with that came the realization that the time for action was upon them. He followed the corridor until it opened out into a large chamber, also hemispherical in shape but at least ten times the size of his quarters.
The members of the Deimos expedition had converted this particular space into a galley and common room. A great deal of meaningful human interaction occurs in the presence of food and drink, and commandeering this section for that purpose lent a small measure of normalcy to an otherwise totally alien experience. In spite of his earlier resistance to getting up, Zack had always been an early riser and was surprised to see one of the other Guardians, Lieutenant Ariane MacPherson, had arrived before him.
"Morning, Ariane," he said, as he came up behind her.
He hadn't interacted with another human for several days and felt a small, pleasant rush of anticipation at the prospect of spending a little time alone with this particular human before any of the others arrived. He sensed she felt the same by the way her face lit up when she turned to greet him.
"Mornin', Zack. You're up a little late. You feeling okay?"
"I'm fine, I guess," he replied. "This whole thing has been so bizarre... It's really good to see you."
"Thanks, I could say the same about you."
They stood awkwardly about a meter apart for a couple of seconds before she stepped up and embraced him. By reflex, he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back. The embrace lasted no more than two seconds and was more sisterly than sensuous, the kind of hug shared by friends who haven't seen each other in a while. Zack wished it had lasted a little bit longer.
"You been sleeping alright?" she asked.
"So, so," he replied. "I've been having some really strange dreams."
He was struck yet again by how attractive his colleague was. Ariane was a tall brunette with large, expressive brown eyes. As a space-faring ensign in the Federation Naval Intelligence Agency, she was required to wear her hair short so it wouldn't interfere with the function of a spacesuit helmet or lengthen the time needed to get one safely and properly sealed. Over the time he'd known her, he'd seen her arrange it in a variety of styles, all of which looked more than fine to him. She was also required to stay in top condition, and she looked it, even in the somewhat unflattering Navy regulation coveralls she was usually wearing.
"Tell me about it," said Ariane. "Seems like the last couple of nights haven't been as bad, though. Coffee?"
"Thanks," replied Zack.
Ariane handed him the cup she had just filled and then poured another one for herself. In addition to a small kitchenette, the improvised galley contained four rectangular tables, made of what looked like stone of some kind. The tables had grown up out of the floor after the humans described their requirements to the Deimos AI. Stone benches, which had also emerged from the floor, ran lengthwise on either side of the tables. The two early risers made their way over to the nearest table and slid onto benches on opposite sides. Zack took an exploratory sip of his coffee and nodded his head in approval. The expedition hadn't skimped on anything and the coffee they'd brought with them was some of the best available.
The two of them sat in silence for a minute or so as they savored their first few sips of coffee and continued the process of waking up. Zack looked over the top of his cup at his companion and said, "Today's the day we get to meet an actual alien. I'm not sure how to react."
"Me neither," she replied, "but it's about time."
"Amen," replied Zack. He gave his head a couple of little jerks side to side, as if to clear it. "How much information can you cram into a person's head in three weeks?"
"Way too much, I'd say," said Ariane.
"All I know is my brain can't take much more of this. Feels like my head is about to explode!"
"It's been the same for me," replied Ariane, "and I agree, it has been a bit much."
"I'm thinking our 'teaching and learning' sessions are over and it's time to get to work."
"I sure as hell hope so, but as Guardians our main job will be to protect and advise. Decisions and directions will have to come from the Representatives."
"Hopefully the Regional Guardian will have some advice for us on the subject," said Zack.
"She'll be able to help somewhat, but remember the AI says there're limits on how much she can interfere. It looks like we'll have to find our way through this maze on our own."
"Yeah, I know," said Zack, "At least our Representatives are level-headed people. It should be fairly easy to talk them out of doing anything really stupid."
"You've been thinking about this a lot, haven't you?"
"Pretty hard not to," he replied. "I..."
Before Zack had a chance to elaborate, they were joined by Professor Harold MacPherson, Ariane's father. While MacPherson was neither Guardian nor Representative, there was no limit on the number of advisors the Representatives could appoint to help them with the citizenship process. As the scientific leader of the original Deimos expedition, he was one of the first of these advisors to be selected.
"Good morning," said MacPherson.
"Mornin', Father," said Ariane.
"Professor," said Zack with a nod of his head.
MacPherson strode past them into the kitchenette area and went about fixing himself a cup of tea, after which he came back to their table and stopped next to Zack. "It appears as though the two of you are in the middle of some rather serious conversation," he said.
"You could say that," said Ariane. "You're more than welcome to join in."
Chapter 4. Old Friends.
Converted freighter Capri, on the surface of Deimos, October 1, 2676.
Holger Tvedt, King of the Sol Vikings, made his way down a long, inclined ladder running between the first and second decks of Capri, an old, heavily-modified cargo ship. As he descended the ladder on his way to the galley, he was struck all over again at the quality and the condition of the old ship's furnishings. In spite of the fact Capri was more than fifty years old, she was a unique and very capable ship, and had been perfect for the needs of the Deimos expedition. Her basic platform, a Bombardier Mark II Voyager, was a versatile design still being used by the manufacturer as a platform to build freighters and other utilitarian spacecraft. Beginning with this sturdy and proven template, she had been ordered and built as a yacht for a company that had used the ship very effectively to woo and impress wealthy clients.
A Bombardier Voyager Mark II was, like most spacecraft, essentially an elongated cylinder, rounded at both ends. Unlike many of the even more utilitarian ship designs, the Mark II was somewhat more pointed at the stern than she was at the bow. She was just over a hundred meters in length and about fifteen meters in diameter. As a ship intended to frequently go in and out of the various docking facilities found all over Federation Space, the number of external structures on her hull had been intentionally kept to a minimum.
She had a ring of three reaction engines, each on its own pylon, some twenty meters from her stern, while an array of dishes necessary for communications, logistics and navigation dotted her hull in several strategic places. Up towards her bow was the gentle bulge of her bridge, consisting of a pair of slender, triangular, forward-facing viewports in a "V" arrangement at the front of an elongated blister that tapered aft before smoothly faring into the cylindrical hull and disappearing.
The ship was the uniform gun-metal grey color of her native hull material except for several distinct and rather gaudy patches of color. A pair of palm trees about three meters tall with brown trunks and green, spiky leaves were emblazoned across the side of the hull just below the bridge. The name "Capri" was superimposed over the top of the palm trees in meter-high italic scrip
t consisting of letters of a garish pink color surrounded by a narrow sky-blue outline.
The end of her nose and the tip of her stern had received similar treatment; both of them were painted the same hot pink as the lettering and were delineated from the rest of the hull by a narrow sky-blue stripe. Rather than merely ringing the hull, the colored swatches and their accenting stripes had been applied at a forty-five degree angle. The crew of the ship had mixed feelings about both the design and the color choices, but the overall effect was to lend a somewhat jaunty air to an otherwise mundane exterior appearance.
In addition to having some rather opulent, upscale furnishings inside, Capri also had a number of unique and very useful internal modifications. These included a large meeting room on her second deck, and posh sleeping accommodations for a dozen people on the deck above. Just three months ago, her engines and fusion reactor had been overhauled and upgraded to the same specifications as the most modern examples of her kind. She had also been equipped with a salvaged, twin-mount, retractable turret, housing a pair of formidable pulse cannons.
Since MacPherson's expedition had landed on Deimos, Holger had been spending the majority of his time on Capri. Though his own shuttlecraft was also parked on the surface of Deimos, less than thirty meters away, Capri's accommodations put those on the utilitarian shuttle to shame.
For nearly a month now, Holger had been managing the affairs of the Viking Nation through use of the Capri's Tachrad, short for "Tachyon radio," a faster-than-light (FTL) communications system used throughout Human space. Though his absence hadn't been a problem, at least so far, he was becoming more restless by the day, eager to get back to Midgard, the giant space station that was home to the Vikings, though how much longer he needed to stay on Deimos was still up in the air. One of the reasons he'd stayed as long as he had was because his beloved daughter, Gertrude, had been caught up in this damnable Deimos Artifact mess. To confuse matters even more, Holger had, like Dr. MacPherson, been chosen to be one of the advisors.
Holger arrived at Capri's small, well-appointed galley to find that Cliff Bernard, engineer on the old spaceship, had gotten there before him. Cliff had his own living facilities back in the engineering section of the ship which wasn't very far from the galley. Sitting at one of the two tables, the engineer was part way through a cup of coffee and a couple of rounds of toasted Lehman's starbread topped with scrambled synthegg.
Lehman's starbread was made from a proprietary strain of genetically modified, vat-grown yeast and had been a starship staple for as long as anyone could remember. The stuff had decent texture, would keep forever and actually tasted pretty good, especially when it was toasted. Holger poured himself a cup of coffee and grabbed a Lehman's breakfast bar from the galley's stores before going over to have a seat across from Cliff. The bars were also pretty good.
"Mornin', Holger," said Cliff, looking up from a schematic on his personal tablet. The wiry little engineer looked to be a little past middle age, with short, sparse, greying hair; dark blue eyes and callused hands. He was dressed in his customary choice of clothing - a dark-green coverall that started out clean but inevitably became soiled by something within the first few minutes after he went to work. This one hadn't been decorated with any grease or dirt, as yet, but it was early in the day.
"Mornin', Cliff," replied the big Viking. He took a big bite of his breakfast bar and chased it down with a gulp of coffee. "I sure hope Zack and Ariane and the rest of that lot make their minds up pretty soon about when we can get off this blasted moon."
"I'll second that," said Cliff. "This waitin' is really gettin' to me. I'm so bored I checked every one of the Capri's systems twice. I even went outside and aligned the thrusters, not that they really needed it. The ship is ready to go soon as we get the word."
"You may've noticed that I'm gettin' kind of antsy myself," said Holger. He paused for a moment to take another bite of his breakfast bar and a gulp of coffee before adding, "I'm also not that thrilled about my daughter gettin' picked to be one of the Representatives for this confounded Amalgamation Citizenship thing." He shook his big, blonde, shaggy head. "I really need her at home. I've made it no secret that I'm hopin' she'll replace me when the time comes. What do I do now?"
"She'll be fine, Holger," said Cliff. "Zack and Ariane are both damn smart and cool-headed, and they're good in a fight to boot. So is Gertrude."
"I know that, but I still wish she wasn't goin' off on some cockamamie wild goose chase to save the human race from itself!"
"I hope you don't mind me sayin' this," said Cliff, "but I feel better about the whole thing knowin' she's one of the ones got picked."
"I don't know if I'm in a position to judge, but thanks for the compliment anyway."
"Just speakin' my mind," said Cliff.
"Now we're at peace with the Jovian Hegemony and we're talkin' to people from Earth, I need her more than ever."
"I'm sure you'll figure it out."
"Easy for you to say," said Holger as he got up from the table with a sigh.
"What's goin' down?" asked Cliff.
"I've got to go back inside the moon. They're havin' some kind of highfalutin meetin' this morning. I can't imagine I'll be of much use, but they want me there anyway. See you later."
"Later," replied Cliff.
***
On the other side of Deimos, Galactic Sentinel Guardian for the fourth quadrant, Symantia L'Proxa, approaches the moon in her sleek and stealthy Sentinel scoutship. When she draws within three kilometers of the moon's surface, she activates a device on the pilot's console. In response, the entire floor of a small crater directly beneath the ship dissolves into a shimmering green force curtain. She expertly guides the little ship through the curtain and into a hangar where she sets the ship carefully down on a pad designed for the purpose.
Above her ship, the force curtain reverts to its normal appearance as a crater floor. She checks the scoutship's systems before shutting down and stepping out into the hangar. A spacesuit isn't necessary, the area is not only pressurized but the gravity has been adjusted to a level close to that of her home planet.
"Welcome, Guardian Symantia L'Proxa," says the Deimos AI. "The Human Representatives, Guardians and their current advisors are gathered in the common room."
Symantia knows the way.
Chapter 5. Dangerous Visions.
Deimos common room, October 1, 2676.
"Thank you, My Dear, I'd love to join in," said the Professor, taking a seat next to Zack. "What did I miss?"
"Well," said Ariane, "we were discussing the fact we're about to become the first members of the Human race to meet an actual alien. Not only that, our orientation, and our time here, has got to be just about over. We're trying to figure out what we need to do next."
"That is indeed the question," said MacPherson, nodding his head as he took a sip of his tea. I've been pondering what our future direction should be for some time now, though things are a little more straightforward for Kathryn, Olga and myself."
"How so?" asked Zack.
"We still have two complete facets of the Sentinel Pyramid left to decode. In order to accomplish this task, we'll be staying right here inside Deimos for the foreseeable future. I expect the expedition will be requiring more information from the pyramid before too long."
"How's that going?" asked Ariane.
"Well enough, I suppose," replied MacPherson. "With the exception of Arnold, of course, we've been working on the project nearly every waking moment while you and the others were going through your orientation."
Arnold, who had been selected to be one of the Representatives, was MacPherson's former post-doc and a top level symbologist in his own right.
The professor continued, "We've managed to decipher about half the symbols on Facet two, the one counterclockwise to the original face. We learned a lot getting the original facet puzzled out, but it pains me to admit even that side is only about eighty percent completed."
"Onl
y eighty percent?" asked Zack.
"It's not as bad as it sounds," replied MacPherson. "Some of the symbols and usages we haven't been able to translate on the original facet also appear on the other two sides. With what we already know, we should be able to make good progress once we decipher them. We feel like we're getting close to a breakthrough but, so far, we aren't there yet. I'm wondering if we can get any help from this Regional Guardian who's supposed to get here later this morning."
"Can't hurt to ask," said Zack.
"Any idea what the inscriptions say from your work so far?' asked Ariane.
"Some. I think our progress will be part of what we will be discussing this morning. Personally, I think a brainstorming session is just what we need at this juncture. I trust those of us who have been retained in an advisory capacity will be included in any decisions that are made?"
"Speaking for myself," replied Ariane, "I wouldn't have it any other way. Us Representatives and Guardians have all had a deluge of information packed into our heads over the last several weeks, but not much of it has anything to do with archeology or symbology. Now that we're about to be exposed to another intelligent species, and Murphy knows what else, we're going to need your experience more than ever. Right, Zack?"
"Absolutely," said Zack. "There's no way the six of us can do this job on our own." With that, he finished off his coffee and got up from the table. "Be right back," he said. "I've got to get something to eat."
The Archeon Codex: Guardians of the Galactic Sentinel Book 2 Page 3
