The Pathfinder Trilogy

by Todd Stockert

  “I thought you were going to ask three questions and then that would be it.” Thomas said wryly, smiling weakly. He expected her to lose control and begin shouting, but she actually smiled a bit at his joke and it made him feel better.

  “Dr. Hagen says that you haven’t been keeping your appointments. I expect that will change too.” She disappeared out the door without another word. Thomas leaned his head back deep into his pillow and held up his bandaged left hand. He had absolutely no memory of anything that had happened after he had fallen asleep in his quarters, and he found himself feeling extremely happy about that.

  *

  The spy had been in his quarters for most of the morning and part of the afternoon. It was his day off, after all. On his desk sat three small dark stones that he had managed to smuggle back to the room concealed in his mouth. It had actually made him chuckle how easy it was to simply acknowledge people with a nod instead of the usual hello and have them pass by none the wiser. He picked up one of the stones and began scraping powder off of its surface with a letter opener. He let the powder fall into a small pile on the desk, occasionally pausing for a brief moment to scrape the dust into a paper envelope.

  Just three small stones was all that he would need. Three. Once reduced to powder he had only to mix the substance with a small supply of liquid fuel – easily obtainable from the shuttle tanks during normal hangar bay maintenance – and he would have at his disposal a very small, very powerful explosive device. All that remained was for him to choose a final spot on the Pathfinder where his little surprise would do the most damage. He was still very determined to make the crew pay for what they had done to his people on the warship, and for taking him so far away from his home. Unexpectedly, he heard something behind him.

  Startled, the Brotherhood clone spun in his chair and stared at the far side of the room. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he had detected movement and – since he was definitely in the process of breaking ship’s regulations and committing treason – he was understandably a bit paranoid. There was no one else in his quarters but he nonetheless sat motionless for quite some time. He could swear he had seen movement and he was also certain that he had heard the soft rustle of someone moving around back there. Fear was not something that he had been trained to feel, but right now the emotion was raging throughout his entire body.

  THE PATHFINDER PROJECT

  Chapter X: Phantasmagoria

  Three days later Thomas was in much better shape. He moved back to his quarters and found himself able to read again… as long as he took breaks now and then. He also found that his thought process became sharper and more focused as each afternoon turned to evening, so he spent most of the time during the morning hours getting extra sleep. It became old-hat almost immediately – he would wake up early in the morning with his stomach growling and eat a bowl of cereal or two. After that, he would either go immediately back to bed or else monitor the ship’s news reports from his work station. Even if he stayed up, he inevitably found himself couch-bound for a quick cat-nap or two until 11:00 a.m. rolled around.

  Dr. Simmons checked in at least once per day to monitor his progress and he found himself being a lot more truthful with her these days. She smiled approvingly when she heard how much time he was spending asleep, commenting that “There may be hope for you, yet.” She also noted that his body had quite probably needed the extra shuteye for years and he had simply ignored that need. “Your body has a way of getting what it wants,” she warned him cautiously. “As you get older your metabolism changes, so if you’re a person who needs more sleep than everyone else does you’re going to have no choice but to make some adjustments.”

  He had already met twice with Dr. Keith Hagen, the ship’s psychiatrist, and found him to be a pleasant and helpful man who did a lot of listening. At first Thomas told him everything, confiding to the Doctor things that he had kept secret for years and would never have dared tell anyone else. The feeling of relief he got from finally taking the time to share some of the darker parts of himself really helped, and he found that the Doctor’s encouragement to get past that and move on with a much brighter enthusiasm for life was also helping him. He was still thinking about – and concerned with – his future, but having all of his responsibilities temporarily suspended and the ongoing escape from the daily grind he had lived with for most of his adult life allowed him to really slow down for once and catch his breath.

  Adam was the biggest help. His brother sent him E-Notes in the morning and during the lunch hour of his daily shift. At the end of each day, the elder Roh also stopped by to see him and they would have supper and just talk about life in general. It didn’t take long for Thomas to realize that – after talking about the things he considered to be the most hideous part of himself with Dr. Hagen – it quickly became easier to begin discussing some of those issues with Adam, too. He also noticed that many of the things he had talked about with the Doctor didn’t seem quite so bad anymore.

  Additionally, a couple of the tougher issues that had really bothered him he left behind in Dr. Hagen’s office and no longer felt he needed to mention to Adam. Particularly, it began to dawn on him how many other people felt the same way that he did or had the same problems. It didn’t take long before he stopped loathing what he had become and began to enthusiastically explore the brand new world – and its limitless options – ahead of him. He soon began to feel like a normal, flawed human being… someone who no longer felt the need to try and be perfect every minute of every day.

  He had always felt as though relying too much on his family for emotional support would be perceived by others as a weakness. Now he didn’t care about that, and found the relationship with his brother expanding in a way it never could have before. Repeatedly he would barrage Adam with questions about the Pathfinder’s ongoing exploratory mission, and in the evenings he read everything that he could find regarding Dr. Markham’s assessment of the ‘Atomic Nightmare’ star system that they had found.

  “Actually,” Adam commented during his latest visit, “We’ve left that system behind already. The supply runs were done anyway and our enthusiastic Dr. Markham is after fresh game.”

  “So how far have we come?” asked Thomas eagerly. Normally he would know off the top of his head, but without at least an occasional visit to the Lab wing he was cut off from his normal sources of information.

  “I don’t even know,” decided Adam. “But Julie is in complete heaven. Her team made thorough studies of the M81 and M82 galaxies and then we transited far beyond them to the infamous ‘Atomic Nightmare’. The Captain paused just long enough to do another detailed survey, refresh our supplies, and now we’ve hopped through space several times again.” He took a sip of coffee from his mug and set it on the kitchen table. “As you know, they have plenty of survey points picked out so it’s tough to measure exact distances. We’re still moving outward from our home galaxy, but our course is definitely not a straight line by any sense of the word.”

  “How much new stuff can they be finding?” Thomas wondered. “It’s not like we just invented the telescope yesterday. From everything I’ve heard most galaxies are pretty much the same… a spiral helix composed mostly of cooler red giant stars.”

  “Oh, you’d be surprised,” Adam said. “I’ll have today’s series of pictures that the Observatory submitted for review forwarded to your workstation. It’s not so much the galaxies they’re interested in these days, but the occasional very unique objects they find all alone out here scattered and hidden between them.”

  “I hope they’re keeping a record of our destination coordinates,” commented Thomas. “If we run low on supplies and they become difficult to find, it would be nice to know that we have a few safe locations to return to.”

  “That’s another report I’ll send your way,” Adam decided. “We’re beginning to enter the area where there’s a growing margin for error. Some of the Canary probes we sent back to our home system as a test came ou
t of their transit beyond the orbit of Pluto. The further outward we travel, the more unreliable our older coordinates become.” He studied the design of his coffee mug casually. “Everything in the universe is in constant motion, just as we have always suspected.”

  “We knew that would happen fairly quickly. That’s why they should steer more toward visiting the larger galaxies,” Thomas concluded. “The computer can take a lot of that gravitational drift into account and estimate adjustments. And by sticking to the galaxy clusters we can literally come out of PTP light years off course and still be able to find the damned things with a telescope.”

  “Believe me, they are taking that into account,” grinned Adam. “The ‘Atomic Nightmare’ was just too much to resist. The Observatory team had a blast mapping some of the gravity fields. Dr. Markham wants to come back in a few months when some of the planets on the far side of the sun are on the side we mapped and vice versa. She’s willing to bet that the gravity pockets will be completely different by then.”

  “Utter chaos with so many objects in so many different orbits, and yet the system somehow holds together despite all that.”

  “That’s right,” Adam said, rising from his seat and setting his mug in the sink. “By the way, I almost forgot to mention that you’ve been voted in as an official representative on our new Council. So there will be more than just interesting reading material arriving at your workstation soon.”

  “You’re kidding me, right? Didn’t they appoint you, too?”

  “Of course they did. But the Pathfinder needs both Rohs helping to run things and everyone on board knows it.” He grabbed Thomas and hugged his brother warmly. “I’ll be back to see you again tomorrow… just call me on the Comm-link if you need anything until then.”

  “Thanks,” Thomas said gratefully. “Thanks for being my brother Adam.”

  *

  It was already getting late when Adam got back from his latest visit with Thomas. He entered his quarters and immediately got himself a bottle of water out of a small refrigerator. He sat down in the recliner next to his bed and closed his eyes to relax for a minute. Most of the Pathfinder’s systems were in good shape these days, but he continued to stick to the maintenance schedule they had carefully laid out back on Earth’s moon. Electronic equipment didn’t always handle high levels of current or heat very well and everyone knew the CAS Drive generated plenty of both. They were doing very well though… all of the software and hardware they had labored for so long to set up was working as reliably as promised.

  “Is that you, Adam honey?” said a soft voice from his bathroom.

  “Nori?” he gasped in surprise. “Geez, I had no idea that you were stopping by tonight… you should have said something.”

  “If I had said something, you certainly wouldn’t be surprised right now, would you?”

  “No… no I wouldn’t be.” he said slowly. “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing,” she said innocently, walking out of the bathroom in the skimpiest negligee he had ever seen. It hugged her curves perfectly and he could still see every single inch of her beneath the thin black material as easily as if she stood completely naked before him. She sat down in his lap and suddenly Adam was shifting uncomfortably. “This is your easy chair, isn’t it?” she whispered in his ear. Her tongue quickly followed the words.

  “Gee, nobody’s ever used that line before,” he growled slightly, trying his best – and failing – to stand up straight. “Okay, now hold on for a minute… I worked ten hours today plus spent a couple more visiting with Thomas. Don’t I get a few minutes to myself?” Nori casually touched a spot on the back of her neck and the negligee dropped quickly to the carpet below. He waited until she finished undressing him before he lifted her into his arms. “I guess not…” he decided, kissing her with pure delight.

  *

  Jack Dandridge angrily walked into his quarters after yet another go around with Father Dixon from the ship’s Chapel. He was the one who had originally confronted the Chaplain, Mary, and Corporal Henderson after the memorial service almost three weeks ago now. Since he worked with Mad Dog’s hangar crew, his quarters were located on the bottom deck of the Pathfinder’s four-level passenger section. He was almost completely at a loss for words, these days, when even a priest like Dixon couldn’t understand how offensive some of the gaudier religious artifacts could be to a true believer like himself. He was fed up and had decided the time had come to send an E-Note to the Captain himself on the subject.

  Seeing the elderly, bearded gentleman seated in his quarters caught him completely by surprise. He stared at the intruder and the soft white aura that seemed to surround him with complete astonishment. “Just who the hell are you?” he asked snidely.

  “I am God,” the man said simply.

  “Oh yeah, well I’m calling security. You can spend your time in jail trying to convince the marines that you’re of divine nature.” Jack thought for a brief moment and then asked “Just out of curiosity, why haven’t you ever show yourself to us before?”

  “Does it matter?” the man asked curiously.

  “Yes, people like me are forced to rely upon old, crumbling documents from our distant past as proof of your existence. If you just came out and told everyone how wrong their beliefs are, I could help correct them.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “Look, I’ve had a tough evening already, arguing about religion… okay?” Jack said irritably. “Just get out of my quarters right now and I won’t call security this time.”

  “You’ve dared to join one of the radical religious groups, one that doesn’t worship all ten commandments and now your conscience is bothering you,” the white-robed gentleman said simply. “You’re asking yourself if you’ve done the right thing.”

  “Who are you?” demanded Jack.

  “You may call me David,” the man responded. “Your anger comes from deep within you… your doubts and insecurities about your own faith have caused you to begin pointing out flaws you perceive to be present in the beliefs of others. That doesn’t make you right, you know… trying to make yourself feel better by trying to force others to acknowledge your beliefs. And it certainly doesn’t guarantee you safe passage into the afterlife when you throw such effort into sowing turmoil into the lives and faith of your fellow crew members. They have the same right to choose their personal beliefs as you do.”

  “Get out of my quarters, David,” Jack shouted, reaching out to grab the man’s arm. Again he felt astonishment as his hand passed right through the man’s body. He stepped backward, completely surprised and quickly reached to turn on the lights. His hand hit the wall pretty hard, making several quick thumping noises before he finally found the correct switch. David was still seated on his couch, smiling gently at him.

  “You hold a lot of anger in your heart, don’t you Jack?” guessed David. “You lost your wife and two children and you’re angry because you weren’t back on Earth with them when the attack came. That way you’d be with them in paradise right now, rather than having to fend for yourself on a ship full of non-believers… am I right?”

  “How do you know all of that?” Jack asked quickly. “How do you know I had a family?”

  “Had a family? I think you give up too easily,” David pointed out. “You come from a rural region on your world. Perhaps they survived the attack and are still alive.”

  “A whole lotta good that would do me, stuck out here.” Jack said spitefully. “You should hear everyone talking about the ‘wonders’ that we’ve already found exploring. I didn’t get transferred off of the Pathfinder in time to go home, and now we’re never going to go back. In fact, we keep going in the wrong direction!”

  “If the Brotherhood remains in control of Earth for any length of time, then I think that your presence here is the best thing for you… don’t you?”

  “No!” thundered Jack heatedly. “What the hell good does it do for me to be alive if I never get to see my famil
y again.” He sat down on the couch beside David and began sobbing. “I miss my family so much it’s killing me! Things were going to be so great for us in another year or so. I was almost in a high enough position with my company where we’d have been able to get a decent house and possibly have another kid.”

  “You look a little flushed, Jack. Perhaps you should lie down for a bit.” David suggested, reaching over and placing a hand on his forehead. The deckhand began to feel very dizzy suddenly and a distinct chill swept through his body even though he usually kept the room’s temperature quite warm. He swung his legs up on the couch, noting idly that they too passed completely through David’s body. He settled back into a comfortable position, feeling a wave of fatigue sweep through him and decided that the day wasn’t a total loss. After all, it wasn’t every day that he came home to find God waiting for him.

  *

  The spy continued gathering scrapings from the single remaining mineral rock as fast as he could. Too many people had passed by in the corridor outside for it to be a coincidence anymore – they must suspect him by now. That meant he didn’t have much time. Sweat was running down his forehead in large drops and his shirt was completely soaked with it. Occasionally he had no choice but to pause periodically and wipe his face with a large towel in order to avoid dropping beads of moisture into the pile of dust he was working so hard to create.

  He had turned the room’s temperature down twice now but continued to feel extremely warm. The letter opener slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor as he noticed that he had accidentally cut his hand with its gradually sharpening edge. Cursing, he quickly wrapped part of the towel around the blood that immediately began to spatter onto his desk.