Project Columbus: Omnibus

by J. C. Rainier

  Dr. Kimura responded, though the words were inaudible, even from where Darius stood. Don then moved to a position at the edge of the ramp and looked out over the captive audience.

  “Doctor Kimura, one of the charges against you is sabotage of government property. Do you know what property this charge refers to?”

  Dr. Kimura nodded and Darius could see his lips move, but could not understand the words.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor. I need you to speak up. I can barely hear you, so I know our jury cannot.”

  “They refer to the selection algorithm for Project Columbus,” Kimura replied, this time with near perfect clarity. Darius could tell by the strain in his voice that it had been a long time since he had to speak so loudly.

  “And can you please describe what it does?”

  “It was designed to select passengers for the sleeper ships. It had parameters for many aspects that would need control for initial colonization, including profession, age, marital or familial status, et cetera.”

  “And who designed the algorithm?”

  “It was a collaborative effort between myself, Doctor David Benedict, and two of the initial Project Columbus researchers, Doctors Johann Weiss and Robert Fairweather. Most of the early programming was done by Doctor Benedict, with Doctor Jonathan Fairweather taking over the final work after his father’s death.”

  “And yet you are accused of sabotaging this work?”

  “Objection,” Fred interrupted. “Asked and answered.”

  “Sustained,” Quinn remarked.

  “Very well,” Don continued. “After the algorithm was completed, what was the next step, under the Project guidelines?”

  “We were required to submit the algorithm to Congress, along with detailed information as to its operation. We were not allowed to populate a manifest without their approval.”

  “Did you comply with their requirements?”

  “Yes,” Kimura nodded. “We submitted everything as instructed. It was placed in committee, as expected, but it was debated for five years before it was sent back with an approval, but it had been changed before it came back to us.”

  “How so?”

  “When we began testing the algorithm a few years later, we noticed something very unusual about the citizens it selected. No matter how many times we ran the simulation, an unusual number of Congressmen and their families ended up on the passenger manifest. When we took them out of the equation, we had only around four thousand five hundred colonists, instead of six thousand. And several professions were severely short changed, as well. There were nearly no civil engineers or biological scientists, no culinary workers, and the number of Congressmen exceeded the number of teachers.”

  “And can you explain why this mattered so much?”

  “Enough critical early professions were eliminated or so drastically reduced that we did not believe the colony could survive past the exhaustion of the food supply carried on the ships themselves. The replacement passengers had few or no skills useful for creating infrastructure or cultivating forms of food or resources. Also, many of them were older than our age guidelines, which were put in place to ensure the colony could grow from within by having children on the planet.”

  “You mentioned that these replacement passengers were Congressmen and their families. Were there any patterns as to which ones were selected?”

  “Objection!” Fred growled. “Speculation.”

  “O-overruled,” Quinn stammered after a brief hesitation.

  “Yes,” Kimura replied. His voice sounded as if it was getting hoarse. “The same four appeared every time. Most notable was Senator Ryan Evans, who sat on a key Senate financial committee during the time the algorithm was under submission.”

  The crowd began to mutter. Darius could hear bits and pieces from other colonists, registering disapproval of what they were hearing, though he couldn’t tell if it was about the accusation or the implications it carried.

  “So the program that you actually altered was not your original one, but the one that Congress approved after they modified it, correct?”

  “That is correct. We restored it to nearly the same parameters as the original. Once our tests showed that the manifest would reliably populate what we projected would be a successful skill set, we returned our focus to other aspects of the Project.”

  “Thank you Doctor. With respect to the theft of government property, do you know what property you are accused of stealing?”

  “Yes. The sleeper ships Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.”

  “Why are you accused of stealing them, if their creation was your life’s work?”

  “Because we never resubmitted the algorithm to Congress for approval. We were in breach of our operational guidelines,” Kimura admitted.

  “Thank you. And the treason?”

  “Is for the same reason.”

  “That will be all.” Don motioned to Fred Hausner. “Your witness, counselor.”

  Good. Paint the picture for them, Doc.

  Fred took the place at the top of the ramp vacated by Don as he turned away. He rolled up the cuffs on his sweater and paused for a moment.

  “You and your colleagues launched the sleeper ships in a time of war, correct?”

  Once again Dr. Kimura’s response was too faint to hear.

  “Please speak up, Doctor. For the sake of the jury.”

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “Did you receive authorization from Air Force Space Command to proceed with the launch?”

  “No, we did not.”

  “Did you receive authorization from any governmental agency to proceed with the launch?”

  “No, we did not.”

  “How were you able to get the Air Force crews to comply with your unauthorized launch?”

  Dr. Kimura bowed his head slightly. “We had assistance from other officers inside the Air Force. General Andrew McLaughlin issued an order to the command staff of the Project Columbus crews to proceed with launch.”

  “Did General McLaughlin have this authority?”

  “No, he did not. He falsified information to assume command of the crews in violation of the chain of command.”

  “When you and your colleagues modified the selection program, how many people were removed from the list?”

  “Objection,” Don interjected.

  “Overruled,” Quinn replied.

  Kimura mumbled an answer.

  “I have to remind you to speak up, Doctor.”

  “Approximately fifteen hundred.”

  “And these fifteen hundred people, who had been authorized by Congress to join the colony, were instead left behind on Earth, during a time of war?”

  “They were replaced by…”

  “It’s a yes or no question, Doctor,” Fred shot back testily.

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you. Nothing further.”

  Damn it, Darius cursed under his breath.

  Sarah Kimura again clutched at his arm. “Oh, Darius,” she whispered. “That made him look so cruel.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he soothed. “Doc’s a good man, and he did what he did for the right reasons.”

  Do they see that, though? Doubt seeped in as to whether or not the jury would agree with him.

  Don retook his place on the platform. “The defense would like to call Colonel Charles Eriksen.”

  “What?” Darius gasped. He looked around at the dagger-like looks he received from those near by.

  I thought I was supposed to be next? What the hell are you doing calling Eriksen up there?

  Gabriel’s commander seemed equally perplexed. Even from where he stood, Darius could see the man’s eyebrows knitted tightly together as he approached Captain Quinn and was sworn in.

  “Colonel, are you in agreement that we are currently on this planet illegally?”

  “Yeah.” Eriksen crossed his arms and a smug look crept onto his face.

  “And you believe this because the ships we
re launched because of an illegal order stemming from someone involved in the conspiracy to send the ships?”

  “Correct.”

  “Was one of the original objectives of Project Columbus to create and annex an extrasolar colony for the United States of America?”

  “Yes it was.”

  “If we are here illegally, is our mission still valid?”

  “Objection,” Fred cried. “Leading the witness.”

  “Overruled.”

  Eriksen’s eyes narrowed and Darius could see him snarl. “We would have to receive confirmation of our mission AFSC.”

  “Do you or anyone in this colony have the ability to contact them?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you, Colonel, that will be all,” Don said, looking over his shoulder as he walked away. “Your witness, counselor.”

  “That’s it, you little shit?” Eriksen blurted out.

  “Colonel,” Quinn said as he took a step forward.

  “Shut up, Captain.” He turned back to the attorney. “No more questions? You’re just going to leave it there?”

  “With all due respect, sir,” Don replied with a grin, “I have asked you every question I needed answered. Now if you will excuse me, it’s the prosecution’s turn.”

  Colonel Eriksen stood still, glaring at the defense attorney. From his opposite side approached Fred Hausner, though he did not take notice until the prosecutor cleared his throat loudly.

  “Colonel Eriksen, without confirmation from Air Force Space Command as to the validity of the Project Columbus mission, do you and the crew operate under the assumption that the mission is valid, or invalid?”

  “Valid, until we receive clarification that says otherwise.”

  Hausner nodded. “That will be all.”

  Eriksen lingered at the top of the ramp for a moment, then turned away and took a position behind and to the right of Captain Quinn. His brow was furrowed and he shook his head once he settled in. The corners of Darius’s mouth twitched as he held back a grin.

  That must have burned him up. Let’s see what we can do when I’m up there.

  Don paced back to the edge of the ramp. “The defense rests.”

  Darius felt his heart drop and his stomach knot. What? I’m not being called? But…

  “Very well,” Quinn boomed. “Make your closing argument if you will, Mr. Abernathy.”

  “Thank you.” Though dressed in an unexpected manner, Don took an expected pause and paced across the width of the loading ramp. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, there is no dispute here about what actions Doctor Kimura took on Earth prior to the launch of the ships. He freely admits to the course of action he and his companions took. This is corroborated by the testimony of Lieutenant Reid, who also spoke freely. Bear in mind that it was the prosecution who called Lieutenant Reid as a witness. Two men giving the same testimony. One for the defense, one for the prosecution.” Don wagged his finger in the air at nothing in particular. “Two men, apparently, with nothing to hide. Why is that, I ask myself? The answer comes from the testimony of Colonel Eriksen and the prosecution counsel.

  “Colonel Eriksen himself believes that we are here illegally, and thus we have not established a legitimate colony of the United States. On the other hand, Mr. Hausner defined treason earlier today. In his own words, it is to help a foreign government overthrow a government, or to seriously damage one’s own government. But how can Doctor Kimura’s actions have further damaged a government that is four light years away, that was already in the process of collapse from an extended war that spilled onto its own soil? The government of the United States doesn’t exist here. If you have any questions about that, just look at the judicial process that has been laid out before you today. When’s the last time you saw a military officer preside as judge over a civilian’s trial?”

  Don walked away and took his place at Doctor Kimura’s side.

  I’ll be damned.

  “What… what does it mean, Darius?” Sarah whispered.

  “If the jury agrees, the trial never should have happened,” he replied.

  “So he’s going to be free?”

  “He might be, but we’re not done yet.”

  Fred Hausner approached the impromptu stage. One finger was up to his pursed lips, and his head was cast slightly down. His eyes scanned the audience with the scrutiny of a hawk.

  “Don’t let the smooth words of the defense counsel trick you into casting aside the laws that have governed us since the days of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. We are a free nation, full of patriots and heroes. Their sacrifice was not made, and their blood not shed, so that we could decide on a whim whether or not threats to our country would be ignored or not. Imagine, if you will, what the US would have been like if Lincoln had let the Confederacy secede after they fired on Fort Sumter. The world certainly would have been different, and almost certainly not for the better.

  “We have laws for a reason,” he emphasized. “Doctor Kimura admits to breaking these laws. There should be no further thought about it.”

  Fred paced back from the ramp, ending up against the opposite wall from Don Abernathy. He looked over at his colleague and nodded once.

  “The jury is hereby ordered to deliberate on the matter,” Quinn announced. “Please report to pod seven. An appointed officer of the court will be waiting outside for your verdict.”

  Slowly, the men and women at the front of the throng walked up the ramp. Captain Quinn escorted them inside the ship, followed by the two attorneys, and finally Doctor Kimura, Lieutenant Reid, and Colonel Eriksen, whose glare found Darius in the crowd.

  “What now?” Sarah asked.

  “We wait.”

  Capt Haruka Kimura

  20 April, Year of Landing, late afternoon

  Camp Eight

  The trek up the short, round hill to the south of the village made Haruka’s legs ache. Though the rise was not as high as the one that gave Camp Eight its commanding view of the sea, the incline was a little more sharp. Recent work on the hillside had stripped many of the trees that once shaded its slope, and patches of tilled ground dotted the flanks of the path they walked. Occasionally the path itself was churned up, and the loose dirt would slip from beneath her feet.

  “Watch your step,” Troy said, grabbing her arm as she was about to tumble forward.

  “Thank you.”

  Haruka scrambled to her feet, rubbed the dirt from her hands onto her dusty flight suit, and resumed the ascent. There was a lingering taste of dirt in her mouth, and after a few minutes, she turned her head aside and spat in an attempt to vacate the offending particles. To her satisfaction, the taste subsided.

  They reached the skeleton of a small structure just below the crown of the hill. A small pile of timbers lay in a precarious stack a few feet away from the incomplete, four-foot tall log walls. Posts inside marked the points from which the roof structure would eventually sprout. Haruka walked to the open maw of the front door. Piles of thick green and blue fronds waiting to be turned into roof panels lay within.

  Haruka produced a torn scrap of another flight suit from her pocket and dabbed the sweat from her brow. “So what are we looking at for timeframe here?”

  “Well, the slope is playing hell with our ability to get the wood up here. It would be easier if we could find one of those pods with the tools in it.”

  “I know. I have Will climbing every hill from here to the mountains and back. It’s going to take time, though. We’ve only found two pods so far.”

  “And the workshop one you found was all power tools,” Troy sighed. “Two weeks, maybe. That’s just to finish the work on the structure. Clearing and tilling the whole hill? That’s a lot, and we only have a few shovels.”

  “I get that,” Haruka snapped. “But if we don’t get something in the ground and growing, we’re going to blow through all the edible plants around the village in just a few months.”

  “We still haven’t tested all the plants a
round here to know if there are others we can eat.”

  “We’re working on it. In the mean time, we still need to find a way to grow our own crops.”

  Troy nodded and knocked on the short wall. “We’ll do our part. What have you come up with for us?”

  “A lot of samples, but I don’t know how much of it will take here. I’m sure most of what we’ve got seeds for will die out here if we even try to grow it. I just hope some of the grains take.”

  Troy’s mouth tightened and he stroked his chin. “That’s not very comforting. What if we dig up this whole hill and nothing grows?”

  “Then it might boil down to trial and error with the native plants.” Haruka shuddered.

  Troy cast his eyes down at the dirt and shuffled his foot. The thought that colonists might voluntarily need to eat unknown plants was something that not even Haruka wanted to consider. It was a worst case scenario, but their settlement was months away from the point where desperation might force her hand.

  This had better work.

  “You know they’re never going to buy that, right?”

  “It won’t come to that,” she replied. “I promise.”

  “Alright.” A slow nod accompanied Troy’s response. “Are we done here?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  They turned back down the hill toward the settlement. The sun, though not far above the horizon, still beat on them mercilessly. Haruka paused halfway down to take a drink from her canteen and wipe the sweat from her brow again before continuing on. They reached the path and turned left, where the dead hulk of the sleeper pod rested in the sands. Without a word they entered by way of the frozen ramp and entered the cockpit at the front of the pod. A rancid smell assaulted her nostrils as they pushed open the door. The windows were fogged up from the inside, and black blotches of mold dotted the fabric of the seats. Red flakes of rust could be seen on the edges of most of the metal panels on the control console.

  “Wow, this is a real mess,” she grumbled as she covered her nose with her mouth. “James really thinks he can make something of this junk?”

  “He does. He’s not sure how long he can keep it running, though. Maybe an hour. Maybe just a few minutes.”