by Purple Hazel
This had been Commander Cadorna’s planned legacy to the new inheritors of the Kapteyn colony: to create a harvesting operation which would focus on marine plant-life and seek to access the great mineral and nutritional health of this nearly endless food source. Estimates from space had calculated the size of the Great Kapteyn Sea at three hundred million square kilometers—about twice the size of the Pacific Ocean. Luigi thus envisioned a future network of these rather efficient processing plants producing nutritious food that could feed generations of humans back on Earth.
Yes, the food processing facility was Luigi Cadorna’s baby, and though he had little input on the prefabricated housing project that they threw up from the floor of that dry seabed in a matter of a few months, the factory he paid very close attention to. By the time new colonists were being ferried down to the surface and fresh work crews were being assembled for trips down to the seashore, Commander Cadorna had already moved his command operation out of B-lander down to first a jiffy pop tent, then to a permanent barracks he had them construct for everyone to live in during the project.
It gave him an opportunity to “supervise” the construction—even though he was not needed nor desired on the scene. It also gave him a chance to nag, bitch, annoy, torment, and drive practically all of them plumb crazy! And when the construction team would travel back to Nautilus up in Kapteyn B’s orbit for more materials and equipment, they’d complain vehemently to the captain about it. Timofeyevich finally quit going down to the surface to visit with the commander altogether. Truth be told, the little Italian fellow drove him nuts as well.
But over the two-plus years they’d been stranded in space, creeping along on auxiliary power, the two had gradually found a way to work together. For one thing, because he was such a paranoid, petty tyrant; people feared him. Even the burly military contractors didn’t like confronting him. He was so hotheaded and quick to confront people—even those towering over him in size—it made more sense avoiding his wrath and staying out of his warpath. Because of this, disciplinary problems on the ship were practically nonexistent.
This seemed to provide some measure of comfort to the embattled captain of the Nautilus…
* * * *
“Da!” smiled Captain Timofeyevich with relief, “our sensors have picked up the presence of a matter device—possibly two of them—floating several hundred thousand kilometers away. We may soon engage the warp drive and renew our journey home, my friend.” Commander Cadorna had heard this might have happened only an hour earlier and had rushed across the massive ship to the command bridge.
He’d been patrolling the halls and corridors making his presence felt for the past few hours, looking out for crew and colonists who might be hooking up with members of the construction team. This had been an ongoing problem; and was a blatant violation of military etiquette. What’s more it was a rule that Luigi Cadorna was determined to enforce.
“Two?” clarified Luigi, “you are telling me captain that there are possibly two of them?” Captain Timofeyevich nodded nervously, not sure of how Cadorna would react to this. But there was no point concealing it from him—he’d find out one way or the other. Indeed, two devices had been detected. Or at least that’s what ship sensors were picking up. At this great of a distance, it was hard to really nail down.
“Da, Po vsey vidimosti...we’re pretty sure,” he replied. “But it’s too far away to tell, really. No matter. We can engage the warp drive within a few days—maybe two. Either way, we’ll be able to inform the crew of the good news. Would you care to do the honors?”
Commander Cadorna was pleased at the opportunity, certainly he was, but he just couldn’t get past the fact they’d detected more than one matter device. His mind quickly diverted to his memories of the two captains onboard the Santa Maria and their lax attitude toward crew discipline. Naturally he assumed the worst.
Could it be they’d inadvertently struck the previous matter device? Perhaps knocked it out of place? Possibly. They could have easily done so and either ignored the impact or even worse, never even noticed it. He imagined those fools banging into it without even paying attention. This was of course quite impossible to do without obliterating the device upon contact, but that’s just how Cadorna thought. Never trusted anyone. Always believed the world was full of incompetent derelicts.
“Idioti!” he exclaimed, “They knocked it out of place, eh?” He walked over to the captain and then lowered his voice so as not to alert the rest of the crew on the command bridge of his suspicions. Not that it mattered, of course. They could easily see he was stirring the pot once again. Trouble was, after this long ordeal in deep space, they were ready to blame practically anybody they could for their predicament. Now it seemed Commander Cadorna had a working theory of a likely scapegoat.
“It’s like my mother always said when I was a little boy, ‘tanto va la gatta al lardo che ci lascia lo zampino’… It means that misdeeds repeated will eventually leave evidence behind. You understand this, don’t you, Captain?” The Russian gave off a shrugging, nervous grin as if to indicate he wasn’t following Luigi’s line of thinking, even if he could already imagine where the little Italian might be heading with it.
“When we get closer,” continued the suspicious fellow, “let us see if there are indeed two pods floating nearby each other. This might indicate that our colleagues from the Santa Maria are to blame for our plight.”
Naturally, Captain Timofeyevich wasn’t considering such a possibility at that precise moment. He was merely glowing with excitement about being able to engage their ADM drive system and finally deliver his crew and passengers back to Earth! But...when Luigi put it like that...he had to admit the bold accusation did have merit.
That became the prevailing theory among the rest of the crew and passengers from that point forward. True, within a few days they did activate the Alcubierre Drive then accelerated back to Earth in a matter of months. No, they didn’t bother with securing or intercepting the second pod within their cargo bay and examining it. Had they done so, they would have found it to be a message detailing for them not only what had occurred but also the coordinates for a future rendezvous point with Santa Maria.
However, the captain and his command staff chose to ignore it, believing it to be in fact a non-baryonic matter pod—or the remains of one—the second of two they’d discovered in the same general area. It never occurred to them what else it could be, especially not when Luigi Cadorna had warned the captain of his counterpart Steinhart Stehter’s suspected “ineptitude”. For within Luigi’s twisted, paranoid mind, the best possible explanation was that Santa Maria had mistakenly moved matter pods into the wrong place, either by accident or due to sheer incompetence and inattentiveness.
Perhaps it had affixed itself to the ship as it passed by too closely. Perhaps they’d merely bumped it and it drifted this far on its own. Either way, he felt the blame could be laid squarely on their shoulders. It worked better for the crew to believe it that way, too, and insured other advantages for him as well. After all, when they got back to Earth, they’d be ahead of the Santa Maria, and that would essentially guarantee Commander Cadorna that his story got told first.
Oh yes, there’d be questions when they got back. Difficult questions. He assumed there would. Captain Timofeyevich would be faced with those as well! How did they come to be delayed? Who or what was to blame? Why didn’t they communicate their situation with Command Central? Or simply put, why were they over two years behind schedule? Timofeyevich worried about this and—in the absence of anyone else he could seek counsel from—looked to his subordinate colony commander for guidance. Commander Cadorna was only too happy to offer up his advice on the matter.
“The solution is simple, Captain,” Luigi would tell him. “We simply tell Space Programme that we arrived at what we thought was our link-up, only to find the Santa Maria nowhere in sight. Our system converted to auxiliary propulsion and we limped along until we found the next matter device. T
hat’s all we know for sure. Dio li Benedica, the Santa Maria and her crew were nowhere to be found...so we set a course for Earth. Simple enough, no?” And Timofeyevich would generally agree with him.
“But what of the second matter device...the one we found floating next to it—I mean, near it? What shall we tell them of this?” the nervous Russian captain would often ask. “How do we address that?”
But Luigi would merely become dismissive and slightly agitated. “We do not tell them of this at all, ovviamente.” In Cadorna’s mind it was an open and shut case. No need to muddy the water. Less complicated the better.
“They will only care to hear why we were delayed and we will tell them...we came out of warp only to find ourselves floating in space and no trace of the Santa Maria anywhere.”
Of course, Captain Timofeyevich knew he’d still have a bit of a problem with this. His captain’s log already noted that they’d seen a second matter device (or what looked like one). How would he explain that, if this important fact came to light? However, not surprisingly, Commander Cadorna had an answer for this as well.
“I wouldn’t concern yourself, Captain. The people whom we’ll meet with back at Space Programme will have known my family. Some might even be nieces or nephews of my dear wife. No one will question my...I mean our report…”
* * * *
However, despite his assurances, that very same official inquiry did occur, and within months of their arrival back on Earth. Yes, the planet was abuzz with excitement over Nautilus’s return. It had been anticipated for several years, ever since Santa Maria’s message had arrived about a year after the matter device had come up missing. For a month or two at least, everyone was thrilled and the media hailed the returning heroes: “Commander Luigi Cadorna, the founder of the Kapteyn B planetary colony, and the discoverer of the Great Kapteyn Sea”...along with the original colonists, the construction team, the determined captain, and the brave crew who’d endured such immense hardship.
What’s more, reports flowed in from the Earth’s moon that the ship’s hold contained thousands of packages of exotic ocean-marine sea food or “Kapteyn Cakes” as the media soon nicknamed them. Missions back and forth to Kapteyn B were now going to be possible, and an aggressive new expansion of the colony was championed by the G.U.
Nevertheless, there was one sticky little issue that Captain Timofeyevich had to deal with. One very important matter that he still had to address. Because of all the fanfare and the explosion in media coverage, few wanted to rush the poor man in front of a military tribunal to field questions on it. But it wasn’t long before the public jubilation and heavy press coverage had tapered off, and the Russian captain found himself hauled before a board of inquiry. It seemed there was a problem with their story.
Unfortunately, for both Yermak Timofeyevich and the rest of the command team from the Nautilus, there was a message pod sitting in a lab back at Command Central which seemed to point up a rather glaring mistake committed by the captain. A similar device had supposedly been waiting for them ten and a half months earlier, and if they’d retrieved it, they would have known that Santa Maria was approaching a revised rendezvous point where they could have intercepted them.
Why was the message pod either missed or ignored? That’s what the board wanted to know. Captain Timofeyevich in a panic contacted his old colleague Commander Luigi Cadorna, who was by now a media darling, appearing on talk shows and Ultravision broadcast interviews detailing the wonders and amazing discoveries “he” had made while exploiting this strange new planet many, many light years away.
Oh yes, he’d plunged into the life of a media celebrity (with both feet) and seemed perfectly suited to it. So much in demand he was, that Timofeyevich had a hard time reaching him. Had to track him down through his publicity agent!
But it was a good idea that he did when he did! For no matter what kind of tale he tried “spinning” for the members of the board of inquiry, one way or another the name Luigi Cadorna was bound to come up during the proceedings. He was in the ship’s log almost daily. Reports of his conduct, reports of his confrontational attitude, reports of his arguments and contentious relationships with the construction engineering staff as well as the crew and colonists: yes, it was all there. Cadorna would have to answer to this if they chose to haul him in as well.
That’s why Luigi was quite wise in agreeing to come to his former captain’s side and face that board of inquiry right along with him. Their stories needed to match for one thing, and on top of that Commander Cadorna needed to make sure he called in every possible favor he could to see to it the members of the board asked easy questions! In his deluded mind, he honestly believed that after over two decades, people at Space Programme would still care who his friends were, or used to be in this case.
As things would turn out though, it went south on them right from the start. The board wanted to know specifically why they didn’t stop and retrieve the message pod left behind for them by Santa Maria. Did they not detect its presence? Of course, they did. There’d be no use in denying that fact. It was right there in the ship’s log! Captain’s logs were electronic documents and literally impossible to erase, correct, alter or fabricate. But what the captain thought it was—or later determined it to be—was an entirely different matter. That’s where Luigi Cadorna figured they could win.
If the captain believed it to have been the original missing non-baryonic matter device, which could have been mistakenly deflected off course by the Santa Maria, he would have had every reason to simply set a course for Earth and engage his warp drive mechanism to speed up their return. He had sick crew members and a cargo hold full of food—enough to feed a large European city for about a month. On top of that the welfare of his own passengers and crew members easily outweighed the necessity to find the Santa Maria and risk any further delays.
Luckily that pretty much satisfied the board. After hours of testimony from Captain Yermak and a few of his former command staff, the defense team could practically see victory looming on the horizon. It was only when the members of the board allowed the prosecution to cross-examine Commander Cadorna (when he took the stand in his old captain’s defense) that the case blew wide open.
It happened mainly by accident. Luigi was initially doing a bang-up job answering the cross-examiner’s questions about what he thought he remembered seeing on the command bridge that day with the captain. Did the captain detect a second object floating in space near the next matter device? “Yes,” he said. Did he slow down to identify it? “No,” he said. Did he say why? “Yes,” he answered...but then corrected himself; and that was when it all fell apart like a house of playing cards on a flimsy old bridge table.
“I mean no, actually,” said Luigi, sitting up straight and puffing his chest out proudly. He suddenly seemed as though he had more to say. The prosecuting attorney, who was at the time sitting at a long table across the room from him, with arms crossed, cocked his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. Attorneys from his team seated next to him weren’t quite as calm and sedate though. They all looked up from their electronic notepads and stared at the witness with mouths agape and eyes wide with interest. This might very well be the turning point they’d been hoping for!
Was it simply a mistake? Did Luigi really mean to answer that way then change his answer in almost the same breath? Or was it something entirely different? Was Commander Cadorna attempting something clever in order to gain more attention for himself?
Certainly, he could have simply said yes, and within an hour the whole thing would be over. Everyone could go home, and Luigi as well as Captain Timofeyevich would be off the hook. Just confirm the original story they’d concocted months before—that it was the captain’s decision to ignore the second object floating near the matter device and proceed on to Earth. That’s all he really had to do.
Why didn’t he? It would have been so easy! Yet the conniving fellow couldn’t bring himself to do it. The resentment of those many m
onths battling with colonists and crewmembers—the conflicts with the construction engineers as well. And what of the marijuana problem? There was that, too. This was his chance to finally sound off and set the record straight.
That wasn’t all, of course. Above everything was that little fear gnawing at him in the back of his mind about what would happen when Santa Maria finally showed up in Earth’s orbit with their version of the story. What would happen then? Why, they’d tell everything! All the problems he’d had back on Kapteyn B. “They’ll be lined up outside the door just waiting for their turn to go tell their side of things,” he mused privately. “What I said, when I said it, what I called them...oh, they’ll have a field day, those jackals.”
Now to be sure, the board likely had all the goods on him already and could have hauled him in for questioning right after they were done with Captain Yermak. Such a report would have been recorded by Tommy Berwick and sent back years before when Santa Maria was preparing to leave Kapteyn B. He knew full well this would have been done; and if they brought that up at some point, it’d then be his little white butt in that lonely defendant’s chair across the courtroom, not Timofeyevich’s. He could certainly see it happening that way.
Perhaps more than anything else that’s why it suddenly occurred to him to act and act decisively. He might not get another chance to get a word in; and though his captain would likely survive this inquiry intact, the same couldn’t necessarily be said for himself. If he acted now, he might succeed in shedding light on the so-called competence and professionalism of his rival captains from the Santa Maria.
