Terminus Cycle

by Dave Walsh

  “I can look into him myself, commander.” He motioned toward the holoscanner on his lap and shook his head disapprovingly. “It looks like Jonah Freeman is a real go-getter. He's the son of a janitor who moved up the ranks in the civilian military to the point where he was able to get himself a position in the Ministry of Communications. He’s even been promoted a few times from there, it looks like. Interesting.” He scrolled down to the personal information, and a name stuck out to him. “Very interesting.”

  “What, sir?”

  He cleared his throat and picked himself up out of his chair. “It says here that Mr. Freeman spends a lot of time with Jim Levine’s daughter.”

  “The Minister of Finance?” he asked, a puzzled look on his face.

  “The one and only,” the captain said, eyes fixed on the profile. O’Neil had met little Kara when she was younger, and there was a chance that he had seen her lately as well, but it was hard for him to keep up with all of the Ministers and their families. Some, like Levine, tended to fall between the cracks. The financial ecosystem aboard the ship was ornamental at best as there was no need for an economy on there; it just helped to remind everyone of what they left behind and what they would establish again when they got to Omega.

  “Is this a bad thing?”

  “No,” he said, absentmindedly shaking his head with his thumb pressed to his bottom lip. “Just means that this kid might be worth keeping an eye on is all. The Ministry of Communications is a powerful branch of this ship, commander, and it appears that Mr. Freeman is quite the rising star there.”

  “Understood, sir,” Dumas confirmed, still looking uncomfortable.

  “Actually, Dumas,” he added as he tossed his scanner onto his chair before turning back to the window. “Who has the byline from the Ministry of Communications on the story about the device from this morning?”

  “I’m not sure,” he replied as he frantically tapped away at his scanner, shaking his head. “I’d have to discuss this with someone at the Ministry of Communications as they don’t release that information to the public -- it just comes from the Ministry.”

  “Find out for me. I want to know if Mr. Freeman’s name is attached to this in any way, even if he was just in the room where it was discussed.”

  * * *

  The captain leaned back in his chair in his office, taking a deep breath as he stared at the screen above him. There was a photograph of Jonah Freeman on the left and information about him filling up the right side of the screen. He was still young, he thought to himself, and that kid had done more for himself than most aboard the ship could ever imagine. All it took was a little fortitude and effort, and he had pulled himself out from the mire that was the mechanisms of the ship, even if only a little bit.

  Everything in the ship's protocols told the captain to immediately take Freeman into custody and grill him on what he knew, but he couldn’t muster up enough energy to make it happen. Something about this kid felt off to him, but he couldn’t quite place it. There was too much going on right now for the captain to think straight; they were too close to Omega, and he could almost taste the air now. The deeper into the system that they got, the more that they were able to pick up about the solar system and the surrounding planets.

  The system reminded many of the people aboard of their own, right down to the size of the star and its projected age. It felt eerie, almost like they were propelling themselves deeper into a mirror-image projection of the life that they left behind all of those years before. The pressure of being the captain who was going to break ground on the new planet was too much for him to handle sometimes, and at that moment, he just wanted to rest. It was all so overwhelming.

  Jeanette had thrown a real wrench into everything with her inability to hold their marriage together just a few weeks longer until they touched down. He had approached her that morning to ask her why she had gotten in so late the night before, and it sparked a huge argument. She had said that she didn’t owe him any sort of explanation. She had noticed his men following her the night before, even though he had told them to keep their distance.

  The words never came out of her mouth, but maybe it was for the best. There was too much going on with the landing preparations and the drills to worry about one woman and her unhappiness within her marriage, even if it was his own wife. He had wondered before where their marriage had went wrong, but he quickly stopped that line of thought. There was just too much stacked against them with his job and what it took out of him.

  “Captain,” he heard. The door whizzed open, breaking him out of his trance, and he watched Commander Dumas enter the room.

  “Yes, Dumas,” he greeted him as he smiled at his commander, feeling pangs of regret from the public shaming earlier on. “What do you have for me?”

  “It’s about that Jonah Freeman.” The door shut behind him, the metal-on-metal clanking noise filling up the empty space of the room and reverberating off of the walls.

  “What about him?”

  “Sir,” he said, swallowing hard and nodding. “The Ministry of Communications’ records indicate that Jonah Freeman was involved with the story that we released this morning about the device. Not only was he involved, but he was the one who wrote the story. Apparently he is held in high regard by those in power over there and is relied upon for more sensitive situations like this.”

  “So he was with Professor Cox after he had possession of the device,” the captain said as he clasped his hands together in front of his face. “Then he was tapped by the Ministry to put out a news piece about it.”

  “Sir, if I might add,” Dumas began. He glanced down at the captain who was staring up at the screen before him. Jonah Freeman’s information was laid out in front of them. “I think that we should act immediately and treat him as a person of interest.”

  “What do you mean, commander?” He pulled himself up to his feet and took a deep breath. Taking the boy in would only spook him, and if he was as vital to the Ministry of Communications as they claimed, he’d be missed. It would send the wrong message. “Take someone who is moderately visible from a public job and question him about something that he might actually know nothing about? This could just be a coincidence. Worst case scenario is that he and the doctor have discussed this object and are curious about it, but has the doctor reached out to anyone else about this?”

  “No, sir,” he confirmed, still a bit shaky from earlier. “We’ve been monitoring his communications, and Professor Cox has had very few outside communications at all. Most of them are work-related, with a few to Mr. Freeman. If they do know anything, they aren’t telling anyone. And there isn't any information coming in to them. Even if that may be the case, sir, I cannot recommend that we let them continue...”

  “That’s enough, Commander Dumas,” the captain interrupted as he adjusted his glasses. He pulled them off of his face and rubbed his temples with his free hand. “Just keep a close watch on both of them, and keep me abreast of anything new with either one, understood?”

  “Understood, sir,” he said. “Although I must urge you as your trusted adviser that we do more than this. We are so close to Omega, and anything that could --”

  “I understand the gravity of our situation, Jack,” he interrupted, placing his glasses back onto his face.

  “I never understood why you didn’t just get the laser treatment to fix your vision, Pete,” the commander commented, trying to change the subject. “It's painless, and in a matter of minutes, you wouldn’t need to worry about those anymore.”

  “I guess in a way, it keeps me grounded,” he said, thinking about how many times his wife had had that same conversation with him. He always felt that it gave him a more authoritative look, but Jeanette claimed that it made him look out of touch.

  “You are a very stubborn man sometimes, you know that, sir?”

  “Jeanette lets me know that on a daily basis, Jack. Trust me on that.”

  “Oh, speaking of Jeanette,” the commande
r said as he pulled out his scanner and tapped it a few times. “Did you want the detail to keep following her? They are still under orders to monitor her and report directly to me, but it does seem like a bit of a waste of resources with this Professor Cox and Jonah Freeman running around.”

  “They haven’t broken any laws yet,” he replied. He walked over to the counter, picking up a glass and pouring himself some water before staring down into the glass. The water rippled gently as the glass moved. “I’ve always been fascinated by water, Jack,” he said as he squinted and held the glass up to the light. “What I’m looking forward to most is getting to see a real body of water out there -- that and the vegetation on there. I can’t even imagine what it will be like to have my own garden out in the open air, not in this stuffy ship.”

  “I’m not sure that I’ll ever understand your fascination with dirt and leaves,” he said as he walked to the back of the captain’s office and looked into the garden area tucked away in the back. “You do pride yourself on this garden, though, don’t you?”

  “Sometimes it's all that I have,” he took a sip of the water and gulped it down hard, walking over to gaze out over his small garden with the commander. “It is the only thing that can keep me sane out here.”

  “What about Jeanette?”

  “If she was keeping me sane, I’m not sure that I’d have a detail trailing her, would I?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I wasn’t going to ask, but I feel like the door is wide open for it now, sir. Why exactly do you have a detail following her around?”

  “She’s cheating on me.” The words came easier to him at that point, seeing as though there were no more questions in his mind about it. He knew what she has been doing, and even if he didn't know who it was that she has been spending her time with, he understood the situation.

  “Oh my god,” Dumas gasped. “I don’t even know what to say. I guess the detail on her makes more sense now. Who is it with?”

  “Haven’t figured that much out yet.” He took a swig from the glass, emptying it before he walked back over to the counter and set it down. He eyeballed the bottle of whiskey on the counter, which was giving off an amber glow and calling to him. He reached out for it, only to realize how early in the morning it was and stopped himself. “That’s why the detail is still on her.”

  “What are you going to do about this?”

  “There really isn’t much that I can do right now, is there?” He snatched up the glass and placed it under the faucet again, filling it with more water. “Our journey is quickly coming to an end, and there's a lot more to worry about than my personal life right now.”

  “Bullshit,” Dumas blurted out. “Sir, permission to speak freely.”

  “I feel as though I have no choice in this matter, so go ahead.” He knew that Dumas would simply speak his mind at this point anyway, especially after the browbeating earlier in front of the crew.

  “It’s bullshit,” Dumas said as he motioned with his hands toward the Captain. “Your personal life should matter even more now that we are just weeks away from reaching Omega. We’re going to settle on there. We’re going to make a living on that planet, and your life falls apart just weeks before we are to land -- and you're just going to let it? You can’t survive out there with just your garden, sir.”

  “It didn’t just start to fall apart, Jack,” he sighed. He leaned back against the counter and stared deeply into the glass of water, the ripples distorting the deep blue carpet on the floor. The water felt like an abyss at that moment.

  “It’s been heading this way for a very long time and just happened to really start to show signs of decay as we got into this system. There is a lot more to worry about right now than how I’m going to spend my retirement once we reach the planet.”

  “Retirement?” The word seemed to take Dumas off guard. “You?”

  “I’m a captain, Jack. I’m the captain of this ship and in charge of the military as well as the well-being of every civilian aboard this ship. When we reach Omega, we won’t have much need for the captain of a great starship anymore. The journey will be over as will the need for me.”

  “Like you just said, you are in charge of more than just the ship. 'Captain' is just the title that you’ve been given, but you are the leader of everyone here -- on or off of this ship. Things will fall apart without you.”

  “Maybe they're supposed to fall apart,” he said. “Maybe it would be better for everyone to find their own way when we get there. They could, I don’t know, have elections and figure things out for themselves. There is no need for a tyrant like me anymore.”

  “You aren’t a tyrant, sir,” he scoffed, stumbling over his words.

  “If you travel down to the C-Deck, that isn’t what you’ll hear,” the captain said as he raised an eyebrow and stared down at the glass again.

  “That is the C-Deck, though, sir.” he said. “Their opinion doesn’t matter.”

  “Maybe that is a part of the problem: We don’t give them enough credit or say in this matter.”

  “We all know that democracy never worked back on Earth, sir. Why would we allow for that or something similar to return?”

  “Commander, I’m not sure that I care what our society turns into anymore. I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it. I’m going to deliver this ship and its inhabitants to a new planet.”

  “Yeah, well.” Dumas waved his hand at the captain. “What if it happens? What if they want you for another mission?”

  “Another mission?” he scoffed, swirling the ice in his glass. “I’m not sure if I believe that old tale of the Earth Ministry working on faster-than-light anti-matter drives and them appearing in the sky alongside of us to help colonize the planet, Jack. That was always science fiction, never anything more than that. Otherwise, why would they have sent us on this mission if they believed that they could get here in a fraction of the time?”

  “This was a highly publicized mission! The planet was in great turmoil at the time, and something had to be done. They couldn’t back out of the great mission that could save humanity, even if it was going to take eighty years. I have to believe that they wouldn’t just give up hope into finding more efficient methods of travel.”

  “We’ve all seen the briefings, Jack.” He took another sip before he glanced over at his first officer. “That we have our arrival date, and that they promise to arrive around the same time with their new warp drives, but we haven’t had as much as a single communication yet, and we are just a few weeks away from landing. If they have the capability to move multiple times beyond the speed of light -- something that modern physics has yet to be able to crack -- wouldn’t they have the ability to contact us by now?”

  “We’ve been following their orders, though, sir.” He was starting to doubt it himself; the captain could tell. “We’ve sent the encoded transmissions daily to the agreed frequencies day in and day out, waiting for their reply.”

  “You know,” the captain chuckled to himself. “A part of me really does wish that they’ll show up, just all materialize out there and relieve me of my command, let me go on my way.”

  “They’d be losing out on a great leader,” he said.

  “Then all of this will be their responsibility, not mine.” He pressed his tongue to his bottom lip.

  “I’m sorry that Jeanette is doing this to you, sir.” The captain could tell that Dumas carefully chose his words. “But I do not feel like you should throw your career and all of your great accomplishments away or look down upon what you’ve done just because she has strayed. Your job puts you under a lot of pressure -- we all know that -- but if she chose this, then it's on her, not you.”

  “You are really pushing this,” he said. “You sure that it isn’t you she's cheating with, Jack?”

  “Me?” His face turned red, and he stumbled over his words again. “No, never, sir... I’d never do that to you! Pete, goddamn it. You're my friend. I --”

  “Oh, calm down, Jack.�
� He picked himself up and patted his friend on the back. “I’m just joking with you. I trust you. I know that you wouldn’t do that. Plus, you know that I’d just throw you out of the airlock and make an example of you.”

  005. The Martian Monolith

  Jonah Freeman

  Even though they were going to the same place, it felt like Jonah and Kara were moving in different directions. This was true both in terms of their physical destinations and mentally, considering that they were both going to work at the same time and working just a few desks away from one other, but their ways to get there were very different.

  Jonah had stopped by his quarters before going to work in the morning to change and just to remind himself of what he had in front of him, the gravity of the situation. He had done his best this particular morning to shake off the argument with Kara the night before. The truth was, his work with Professor Cox was what he felt was really important, not feeling sorry for himself or trying to keep Kara from killing herself or leaving him.

  “You weren’t in your quarters last night,” read a message at his terminal when Jonah finally settled down at his desk. It was from Professor Cox and lacked the pleasantries that his messages usually had, the usual charm. “I’ve discovered something huge, I think. I think that this is it, Jonah -- oh Jonah, this has to be it. Bring me everything that you can find on the Mars Monolith. -- DC.”

  The Mars Monolith? Jonah typed it into a search box and started running a query as he leaned back in his chair and surveyed the office. It was slow that morning, and everyone seemed focused on Andrea and Alexander's very loud bitch session in the corner about one of their assignments from the last week. This was exactly the kind of atmosphere that afforded Jonah the kind of space he needed to do his own research, especially on a slow news day.

  There was not a ton of pick-up for the Russian cosmonaut story, which meant that it had done its job. It had knocked the wind out of the sails of most of the conspiracy theories and rumors that were swirling around. Of course, some of the fringe groups from the lower decks were still talking about it, but they tended to cling to things like this. Jonah always got the impression that the lower decks were where a lot of the troublemakers ended up through a string of coincidences.