Project Sail

by Anthony DeCosmo

  “I mean a dead world, like England; lifeless, burned to the ground.”

  “You see,” King proselytized, “a planet—or moon--of fire and smoke.”

  Wren’s expression twisted.

  “Jesus Christ, how about details beyond stupid Old Testament bull shit.”

  “That’s what I saw; a picture of destruction. This world is one big Pandora’s Box; we should leave.”

  Hawthorne shared, “I did not see much either, just a glimpse, but I had the impression of watching beings of some kind, similar to us, falling apart around a big ball of light. It was like a drug-induced trip but, like Dr. King, no detail.”

  “Well I saw plenty of detail,” Kelly Thomas spoke. “Sort of, well, something like clouds, swirling in the sky over a barren world, maybe this place. It felt real, almost like a direct feed movie. I felt a fresh breeze in the air and I had the sense, well I had the feeling, as if everything was, I don’t know… new. I’m not sure but the clouds were rolling together like a storm brewing but it didn’t feel oppressive or scary; it felt liberating.”

  “The peace before the storm,” King guessed. “What this place was, or could have been, before the beast came.”

  Stein said, “So now wait, you think this floating cylinder is a cage for the devil?”

  King said, “I traveled to the stars hoping we might find God, but it seems we found Lucifer. What else could it be?”

  “It’s not a fucking fantasy creature from your book of fairy tales,” Wren exploded. “Now if you are not too busy trying to scare us with stupid witchcraft, could you tell me what the fuck is wrong with Ellen?”

  She stared at him for three long seconds before answering, “I do not see any physical signs of trauma but the burst from the device may have caused brain damage. Her speech skills are clearly inhibited, and possibly her mental processes. It could be that the devil himself has possessed her.”

  “You call yourself professional?” Wren’s normal anger warped into frustration.

  She defended righteously, “It seems that science may not be applicable here; that we have come across an ancient and evil force.”

  “Pardon me,” Stein jumped in, “it could be that Dr. Kost had a knock on the head.”

  “You are right, so we should return to the ship,” Hawthorne said.

  Coffman protested, “Wait a second, um, Commander, we cannot leave, this find is too important.”

  Wren nearly shouted, “We have to move Ellen to the ship for medical treatment!”

  Coffman surrendered with the wave of his hand, saying, “We will leave the monitoring equipment at the site and see what transpires while we return to the ship for medical evaluation.”

  Hawthorne knew he should at least sound authoritative so he added, “Yes, Professor, that is a good plan.”

  Wren’s eyes grew wide and he said, “Hawthorne, King, you two don’t have thinkers, right?”

  “Nope,” the Commander said and King added, “Such vile things.”

  “You two did not see the same level of detail as the rest of us.”

  Coffman said, “Say, you are right, Leo. You and I have standard communication and interaction implants,” and he tapped Wren on the shoulder with his index finger. “We fared worse than the two here without chips, but we experienced more vivid images.”

  “So whatever came out of that cylinder,” Hawthorne followed the logic, “hit people with implants harder than those without.”

  Coffman pointed at Kelly Thomas who still dealt with discomfort.

  “The Lieutenant has a military-grade chip and appears to have suffered the most.”

  Wren explained, “Greater sensitivity, more power, faster processing than the standard shit because military drones need the extra thinking help.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not so smart,” Kelly defended and knelt next to her friend, Dr. Kost. “Ellen does not have implants; she can’t even see direct feed movies, she has to watch them on screens.”

  King said, “And it looks like whatever came out of that abomination hurt her most. So much for that theory.”

  Wren snarled, “Then let’s get back to the ship so you can figure out what the fuck is wrong with her.”

  40. Decisions

  Hawthorne headed for the common room but was intercepted on the stairs by Reagan Fisk who fidgeted, blinked, and appeared on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

  “Commander, this is getting out of control! Since we arrived we have removed the Captain by force, lost contact with Oberon, and now we found an alien object?”

  Hawthorne held a hand up to stop the young man’s babbling.

  “Wait, we lost contact with UVI?”

  He thought about it and realized, yes, they had sent messages home but no replies through the QE link.

  “They have not responded to my daily updates,” Fisk explained.

  “We have been so caught up in exploring the moon that I haven’t paid attention. I just assumed you were in contact with Oberon.”

  “Commander, what do we do?” Fisk’s voice threatened to grow into a screech.

  He looked into Fisk’s frightened eyes and felt a pang of sympathy. The kid was in over his head. In fact, Hawthorne recognized, they all were.

  “Look, Reagan, have Warner run a diagnostic on the QE translation computer. Focus on the details, don’t let the big picture overwhelm you.”

  Fisk nodded.

  Hawthorne felt the need to add, “When this is over we will be heroes and you’ll earn a big raise.”

  Fisk answered meekly, “I just want to get home in one piece.”

  He watched the young man return toward the bridge and then descended to the crew deck and entered the common room. There sat Wren staring at a cup of coffee, biting his lip, and appearing ready to explode. Kelly Thomas also sat at the table, eating instant-stew from a plastic bowl.

  Hawthorne touched her shoulder and she told him, “I’m feeling better.”

  The view of G-Moon through the observation window drew his eye. The outer face remained dark but sunshine would come in a few days as it orbited back toward the red dwarf.

  Phipps entered the room with his head slung and told them, “The professor asked me to monitor the, um, object. It emits bursts of radiation every forty-five minutes.”

  Wren said, “But what is it radiating?”

  Phipps looked at Wren and then to Hawthorne who said, “Thanks, Andy, I will tell the professor.”

  Phipps retreated at a fast walk.

  The dual sliding doors to sick bay opened and Coffman stepped out. Wren nearly fell over jumping to his feet.

  “No change, but we have discovered something interesting.”

  They went inside, joining King and Soto standing over Dr. Kost who was out of her space suit, but otherwise unchanged. Her eyes remained open, her lips trembling. Hawthorne saw sadness in her expression; although he worried he might be projecting his own state of mind.

  “We were wrong,” Dr. King said and Hawthorne read her body language as something between anguish and dejection.

  A screen displayed Ellen’s brain in false color with markers identifying various features.

  King tapped the screen and the display zoomed.

  “The temporal lobe deals in language comprehension, sensory input, memories, and emotion. It helps us derive meaning from what we see and hear.”

  “So what?” Wren asked.

  Coffman said, “Note the dark spot.”

  “A tumor?” Hawthorne asked and immediately felt stupid.

  Before the experts could answer, Kelly Thomas told them, “Geez, that looks like a thinker, but she said she didn’t have any implants.”

  “Yes, correct, Lieutenant,” Coffman said, “but not a thinker like yours and mine. Most brain implants bridge our thoughts with technology.” He pointed at the scanner without touching it, causing the display to cycle images. “The chip reads my intentions and the screen changes.”

  “That’s fucking impressive, profes
sor, but what makes Ellen’s different?”

  King answered, “Instead of interfacing with technology, it modulates her brain functions.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Coffman folded his arms, tapped his chin with his index finger, and answered in a soft voice, “It allows her brain to work normally.”

  King explained, “I believe she suffers from a neurodegenerative ailment, something similar to Pick’s disease, but I do not know exactly because it’s not in her medical files.”

  “Why is a condition that important not in her files?” Hawthorne asked, but before they answered he concluded, “She wanted to hide this.”

  Coffman said, “I cannot see why.”

  But Wren answered, “Go upstairs and ask our corporate mouthpiece how much money UVI would invest in a scientist who has an imperfect brain.”

  King told them, “Point is, this chip allows her to function.”

  Kelly Thomas asked, “What happens without it?”

  “Under normal circumstances, she would have difficulty speaking and thinking as well as various anti-social behaviors,” King explained. “She would not be able to organize her thoughts and would have difficulty communicating.”

  Wren mumbled, “stupid,” recalling words he had said to her at the Captain’s table.

  “The cylinder damaged the chip and it no longer works,” King said.

  “Doc,” Hawthorne pointed out, “she can’t move, she can’t even speak.”

  Coffman replied, “Yes, well the implant is so important to her brain activity that she is worse off with a damaged chip than she would be without one.”

  “So it was the chips,” Wren said and looked right at Dr. King. “Not some fucking devil creature, but a transmission aimed at our brains and so powerful that even without a thinker, you still saw something.”

  Thomas mumbled, “Well that explains my headache.”

  Coffman said, “And the more powerful the implant, the harder the message hit. In Dr. Kost’s case, her chip was so sensitive the transmission blew it out, like an overloaded circuit breaker.” He reconsidered. “Well, I suppose you are too young to remember what a circuit breaker is.”

  “Why didn’t she tell anyone?” Wren asked.

  Kelly Thomas poked Wren in the chest and scolded, “Maybe she worried she would be teased. There’s a bully in every group, right?”

  He did not—could not—parry her words so he turned to King and commanded, “Fix it,” as if a stern voice would make it so.

  “I can’t,” King replied and when he glared at her as if accusing the doctor of all the universe’s evils she retreated a step and pleaded, “I don’t know how, do you understand? That implant is too advanced.”

  Coffman said, “We might be able to repair it, but it will take time. She likely brought with her a tool to calibrate and possibly power the implant.”

  Wren snapped his fingers and said, “I’ll check her quarters.”

  The Englishman turned to leave but Hawthorne touched his shoulder and said, “Wait a second, something is bothering me. Frederick, your probe was silent for a long time, and then it decides to turn back on once we’re in orbit.”

  Coffman scratched his head and guessed, “Oh, perhaps a fault that it finally resolved. Just a coincidence, I suppose.”

  Hawthorne said, “I find that hard to swallow. Your probe that just happened to switch on by coincidence also happened to lead us to that cylinder. When does that stop being a coincidence?”

  Kelly said, “If Captain Charles is working with the European Alliance, well what if they hijacked the probe, saw this thingy, and used the probe to lead him to it?”

  Wren opened his mouth, paused, and admitted, “She might have a point.”

  Hawthorne said, “We should look inside that probe’s data banks for any signs of an intrusion.”

  Wren told him, “I will run a check, but first I’m going to Kost’s quarters. I think she did bring something onboard that she kept out of sight.”

  Hawthorne watched Wren leave until Coffman tapped his shoulder and asked, “Any activity from the cylinder?”

  “Phipps said it’s blasting that signal or whatever every forty-five minutes.”

  “We have to get back down there, Jonathan. The cylinder is emitting a signal and trying to communicate.”

  “From what I saw, it might be trying to warn us that something bad came here or maybe that it will come again. What got shoved in my head was not a greeting card welcoming us to G-Moon.”

  “We must set up a research base and try to understand it. I will take a small team. You can even send the Lieutenant, here, for security.”

  “I am not sending Kelly down again.”

  She jumped in, “Don’t worry, that’s my job and I’ll do it. The boys need out of the cargo bay, anyway.”

  The reference confused Coffman but Hawthorne figured she saw another landing party as an opportunity to rescue her robotic pets from their confinement. Then he remembered another item in the cargo bay.

  “Okay, fine, that’s what we’ll do. But Professor, you have to fix Dr. Kost’s chip.”

  “I can work on it, so can Soto and Phipps. It will take a joint effort between medical and engineering. I can alternate my time between the surface and here.”

  Despite having suffered such a nasty headache during her last trip, Kelly eagerly asked, “When do we leave?”

  “Hold on a second,” Hawthorne muted her enthusiasm. “First, tell Stein to meet you in the cargo bay. If you are going back to the surface, you are taking an army along.”

  ---

  Wren returned to sick bay carrying the handbag Kost had guarded so carefully when bringing it onboard.

  She still lay on the examination table, receiving nutrients and a sedative by an intravenous tube. The vital signs monitor provided the only light in the room.

  “Hello?” He saw Dr. King huddled in a dark corner. “I found this,” and he held aloft a silver device about the size of a pencil with a mesh tip resembling a microphone. “I bet it calibrates the chip or something like that.”

  Wren did not hear a response from King, but he saw her shoulders moving. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he found her sitting in the corner sobbing.

  Leo Wren had experience in dealing with looters, annoying corporate suits, angry coworkers, and egotistical commanding officers. But he could not recall the last time a person dropped their guard in front of him to the point of emotional vulnerability. Most were too afraid of his caustic temperament to risk such exposure.

  Like Ellen Kost hiding her secret because you might call her stupid.

  “I am an experienced physician,” King said. “My faith has been my strength, but down there...I…I let my faith cripple me. It was the implants, but I saw it as the devil trying to take over our minds.”

  Wren found another chair, wheeled it next to her, sat, and listened.

  “I believe in God with all my heart, so part of me must believe in the devil, and I saw him in that artifact. I am a fool.”

  He recognized that he stood at a crossroads. Leo Wren could pounce on King, her fairy tales, and how her faith had endangered their mission. He could destroy her, ending their personal battle and planting his flag atop a hill of righteous indignation.

  He had spent two weeks sharing a bed with Ellen Kost, but she had not shared her secret with him in fear of ridicule. When he had casually called her stupid, she had reacted in an anger born from her insecurities. Had that been a victory? Or just another time in his life when he pushed away someone who might care because he was too busy proving that he did not.

  So he said to Dr. King, “You were just scared, like the rest of us.”

  “My faith got in the way.”

  “Yeah, well, that happens once in a while.”

  Wren remembered his crusade to chase interlopers from England’s ruins, only to find that maybe he was the interloper.

  “Not too long ago, I nearly killed a young man because I was
so blinded by my…” he wanted to say ‘love of country’ but he had to be honest. “Because I was so blinded by my anger, I forgot England did not just belong to me. You can say that my faith got in the way, too.”

  King gained control over her breakdown, and as she did Wren felt a strange new sensation; satisfaction that he had helped her, that his words could be more than weapons.

  Baffled, she said, “I don’t get it. You can say it, Leo, say that you were right.”

  He recalled the day Captain Charles nearly removed him from the mission and tried to damage his career.

  “I do not understand why you believe, none of it makes sense to me. But you did say your faith was as much about believing in people as it was the flying spaghetti monster. When you helped me with the test results before we left Oberon, you showed more faith in me than I’ve shown in myself. So maybe you were right, doctor.”

  He stood from his chair and walked over to Ellen as she lay in the bed, her eyes finally closed.

  Wren admitted, “I guess, well, to me the shit I say doesn’t mean a damn. Just being, well, loud. It’s what I do. I have to learn, I suppose, that just because the words don’t mean anything to me, well, they might having meaning to somebody else. I said something to Ellen that I didn’t think was important, but it was to her.”

  “She’ll be okay, Leo. We will get her back on her feet.”

  “Funny, it is true that you don’t realize what you’ve got until you think you might lose it.”

  ---

  Leanne Warner sat at her station on the bridge watching the cargo bay on a monitor and the more she saw the angrier she grew.

  A shipping container walked on short hydraulic legs across the bay toward the space plane, directed by Bill Stein and Lieutenant Thomas with a drone resembling a crow flying circles overhead.

  Thomas’ robotic pets did not bother her, she was not jealous of Stein visiting the surface yet again, and she was not too curious about the contents of the walking container.

  However, it bothered Leanne Warner that a container made it onboard her ship that she had not known about. As Air Boss, she oversaw air traffic and cargo loading for SE 185. UVI had slipped the large container onboard where it had sat for nearly six weeks without her taking notice.