The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books

by John Thornton

  “That does not look purely random,” Jerome said as he approached it. “It is chaotic, but looks constructed. Why would someone build this thing?”

  Cammarry joined him, and as they reached the end of the chamber, they could better see that the door there was damaged and had been melted along one side. The drippings of the permalloy ran down and left streaks along the melted and ruined edge of the door. The permalloy had rehardened when it had stopped melting. Next to the door, on the opposite side from the damage, was another flat plate on the wall which was lit up with the twin buttons, one cerulean and the other amber. The lettering over them was hard to discern through the grime, charring, and film on the wall.

  Jerome stepped onto the edge of the mound and reached out to scrape off the film when there was a sudden explosion of movement under his feet.

  Something dark and quick darted away and into one of the holes on the mound.

  “What was that?” Jerome cried out as he stepped back.

  “An animal,” Sandie replied. “I did not see it clearly enough for identification.”

  “I want to see it,” Jerome said, and leaned in and peered into the hole.

  “We have found life,” Cammarry exclaimed. She cautiously stepped forward to where Jerome was watching the hole.

  “This is some kind of tunnel into the mound. I cannot see the animal.” Jerome reached out and patted the top of the mound.

  Several more creatures darted around and scurried into the holes in the mound.

  “That small dome is their home,” Cammarry said. “But what are they?”

  “I was able to observe one specimen for a rough determination,” Sandie said. “It is a species of Muroidea, Rattus Norvegicus. It is likely there are a large number of them in this location, as the mound you are seeing is characteristic of their species. The mound is made from some kind of organic materials which I am not able to precisely identify. The animals constructed that mound, and are not much of a threat to you so long as you keep a distance away from the individuals. Historically they were known to carry parasites and were disease vectors.”

  “Rats? Cammarry asked. “We found rats!”

  “The wise cat eats cheese and breathes down rat tunnels with baited breath,” Jerome said. “Now I understand something about what that means. I found a rat hole. The cat was another type of animal. I wonder if we will see them as well?”

  “Well, if this animal life has survived, then the Conestoga is hospitable for the people from Dome 17. We need to find a place to set up the receiving pad and start bringing them through.” Cammarry pushed aside some of the mound. It was tougher than she expected. She heard a few squeals which made her face smile, but she did not see any more of the rats as they fled. Working for a bit she cleared the way to the door.

  “We need a much larger location than this broken airlock,” Jerome countered. “We will need to get that inner door to open. From the damage, I doubt it will operate properly, even if we infuse it with energy. The frame and door have been melted, welded in a way, together.”

  Jerome pulled a molecular cutting torch out from his backpack. He unfolded it and set it for a proper depth of cutting. Holding it against the ruined door, he moved it in a slow and methodical manner. “I wonder why or how this door got ruined? The airlock function was destroyed.”

  Cammarry lifted one of the fusion packs and activated a light. She shined the beam through the gap where the door was damaged. “I can see some kind of large chair, and two other doors. That next room is not large enough for the receiving pad either.”

  “This out to do it.” Jerome kicked the center of the door and it noisily fell into the next room. The neat and tidy edges where he had severed the metal were shinny.

  They stepped into the room. There was a large chair with many levers, dials, buttons, and controls on its arms. The seat had an irregular and lumpy brown substance on it. They looked closely at the controls, but even more closely at the stuff in the seat. There were tints of red color along some of the edges of the substance, which when examined, was actually a number of individual plants all growing closely together. They had upright stems, with red tinted tops, and cone shaped side appendages.

  “That is a kind of organic material,” Sandie commented. “Using visual methods I conjecture it is part of a plant family called eukaryotic organisms, also known as molds, fungi, and by various species specific names. My database does not allow me to identify this one.”

  Looking around the room, they saw a large display screen which would never work again. It was shattered along one side, with broken pieces scattered beneath it.

  “Shall I see if any of this is operational?” Cammarry said as she reached to set her fusion pack on the arm of the chair. She could see an access port under the grime.

  “Yes, maybe we can get those other doors to open up. From their positions, I doubt they would open to space, and if we can get them to function it is easier and more useful than cutting a way in.” Jerome was still examining the fungus growing on the chair’s seat. “So this is what biology looks like in real life. Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

  “It sort of reminds me of the biological cube farms in Dome 17, just not compartmentalized.” Cammarry jacked the fusion pack into the access port on the chair. A few of the controls lit up, and the overhead light in the room came on. That light showed that the fungus growing on the chair was not the only flora in the room. In the corners of the room were stands of the same kind of fungus. Along one wall there was a hole which had been crudely cut open. Air duct openings were also now visible, and the grilles which had once covered the openings were lying on the floor. More plant growth was seen in the ducts.

  “Those animals must have escaped through those ducts and that hole. In fact, that hole looks like something liquid has been dribbling out of it.” Cammarry approached the hole. She resisted touching the spot where the wetness was. “It looks like water, but it could be something else. Water just dripping down a wall. What a waste.”

  “John could tell us the whole life cycle of these plants, and I bet water is an essential ingredient. See how on the floor there is also a lot of built up grime, dust, and other stuff.” Jerome squatted down and brushed at the floor. “There is a layer of something here.” He pinched it and rubbed it between his fingers.

  Cammarry tried a few more controls on the arms of the chair, and finally two panels lit up next to the other doors. Each panel was about fifteen centimeters square and divided into nine sections. Each section was a different color.

  “Well, that is something, I suppose. Are these some kind of door mechanism? Let me see what I can do.” Cammarry touched the center section of one of the panels. The center was lit by blue coloring.

  The door slid to the side and into a pocket in the wall. Another small room was revealed. A dull glow came from the light fixtures in the ceiling. This room had storage shelves lining the opposite wall. The shelves were covered with more the small brown and red fungi. It was growing on nearly every horizontal surface in the two rooms they had inspected.

  On the floor, was a green colored spacesuit. The bottom section was complete and intact, but the top section was damaged and ripped. Pale green sprouts of some kind were sticking out from the exposed inside of the suit. The jagged edge of the tear cut across roughly where a person’s waist would be. Between the green sprouts the dark yellow of bone could be seen. A skull was exposed where the neckline of the spacesuit ended. Some other green things were also poking out from that neckline. A bubble helmet was off to the side, upside down with a dark liquid inside of it. The liquid had filled the helmet and was oozing down the side where it pooled. More of the dark liquid was running down the wall from an open air vent. It dripped an occasion plop into the helmet.

  “We found a crew member,” Cammarry said. “Dead for a long time. Not dried out like in the dead domes. There is some kind of other plant growth coming up from inside the spacesuit.”
She knelt down and shined the light into the ripped open cavity of the spacesuit. “Some bones, and other organics. Sandie, how long has this body been dead?”

  “That is difficult to determine,” The AI Sandie answered. “Many factors influence decomposition, including microorganisms, liquids, and other environmental considerations. I conjecture that person died decades ago. Not even all the bones are intact and there is a suggestion of rodent scavenging. Note the vertebrae bones scattered under the shelves. The spacesuit has provided some protection but the best conjecture says the body has been here for decades.”

  “Sandie, how is the biological stuff growing in these places?” Jerome asked. “Does natural stuff just always grow rampant like this? Dome 17 never had anything like this.”

  “You are correct, Jerome, Dome 17 was a sterilized environment with air scrubbers and many other antiseptic systems. From what I can observe about the rooms you have entered, there is a strong likelihood that the grime layer you have seen on many of the surfaces is actually a growth medium. I cannot analyze the composition of the growth medium, but I conjecture that is what you are seeing. As to how or why it is there, that is a mystery,” Sandie replied.

  “But it means life is here. We saw those animals, and now different kinds of plants on that dead body. We just need a large enough area for building the teleportation receiving pad. Then we can get Brink and John and all the other brilliant minds of Dome 17 here and we will figure it all out. Cammarry stated. She moved around the storage room, but nothing else was seen. “The other door will open to somewhere.”

  Jerome walked over to that door and copied what Cammarry had done by pressing the blue colored box in the center of the color control pad. The door slid open with a whoosh. Again, the next room was lit by the dull glare from overhead lights they had seen in the other rooms. This room was much larger however, roughly thirty meters long, and about ten meters wide.

  A small thing fluttered by.

  “Another animal?” Cammarry asked as she watched the creature flap its thin wings. It was a brown and gray color and moved flittingly. It came right toward the light Cammarry held.

  The AI Sandie replied, “That is not an animal, except in a very broad definition of the world. It is an insect, to the order Lepidoptera, commonly called a moth. It is attracted to the light. It is completely harmless. This area has more species of flora and fauna than the previous rooms. This room was once some kind of technological center or a common connection area for many systems. However, the wreckage of those systems is substantially hidden underneath the biological growth, especially at the center of the room. I am attempting to virtually reconstruct the original schematics, but the damage is extensive, and with only limited visual and auditory connections, the reconstructive work is slow. I am observing for more information about the original systems here. The primary design of this room was not for biological usages. None of the rooms we have explored were originally suited for ecological systems. As to our mission, this location is a suitable size and location for the teleportation receiving pad. I suggest building it at once.”

  Looking around, Cammarry also saw that the plant growth was different. There were larger plants around the edges of the room, some climbing up the walls, and others were squatty sphere shapes about a meter tall. Like in the other rooms, water was dripping slowly down the walls in various places, and the air vent covers were all missing. Most of the foliage was off-white, brownish, taupe, or a very pale green. There was a musky smell in the air. Several more flying insects were observed. There was a thicket of waist high plants at the center of the room. They were intertwined with each other which made for a substantial clump of plants.

  “Here is where we build the teleportation receiving pad,” Jerome said. “We will just need to harvest the raw materials. The doors here will serve as a source for the grid. I can easily strip out the permalloy and form the grid pattern needed.” He pulled out the molecular torch.

  “There is an awful lot of biological stuff in here. Will it interfere with teleportation?” Cammarry asked.

  “All this amazing and wonderful life is truly a positive sign. I conjecture it will not interfere in any way with the teleportation system. Please be careful not to disrupt too much of the biology as you build. There is sufficient space on this side of that hedge of plants,” Sandie replied. “There are other factors I am concerned about, but am working on those as we speak. The data sticks have the detailed plans and I suggest you begin working immediately.”

  Cammarry pulled a data stick out of her thigh pocket, and took a reader from another pocket. Setting the reader down, she inserted the data stick. Nothing happened.

  “There is no response.” Cammarry removed the data stick and reinserted it. She watched for the light to shine up the side of the data stick, but nothing happened.

  “Try another one,” Jerome suggested. “Perhaps that one malfunctioned.”

  “I have yet to see a data stick fail. They work even in the dead domes.” Cammarry did pull a different one out and inserted it into the reader. Again there was no response.

  “The reader must be faulty.” Cammarry pulled a different reader out and again tried the data sticks. Neither one would function. “This is strange.”

  Jerome pulled out his own data stick reader and tried the data sticks he carried. None of them worked. None of the readers showed any sign of being powered or functional. “All of these are just dead. Sandie, how can that be?”

  “Under normal circumstances, the odds of a complete failure of all the data sticks and readers at the same time is infinitesimally small, so much as to make it a near certain impossibility. However, we did pass through that Cosmic Crinkle, and I do not know what lingering effects it may have had. I will run some conjectures on this situation. Meanwhile, I still have full plans for the teleportation receiving pad. I will project those plans from your com-links.”

  Floating in front of Cammarry and Jerome were the plans.

  “That door we already cut off will be a good start,” Jerome said and turned around and headed for where it lay. He stepped through the doorway and back toward the airlock.

  Cammarry pulled off her backpack and started to disassemble the component parts of the teleportation control systems.

  “Yaaaa, Waaaaah!”

  Cammarry remained motionless in her squatting position.

  “Aaeeeeh! Aeeeeuuua!”

  The strange cries echoed throughout the gallery. Cammarry could see nothing beyond the hedge of plants at the center of the room. Neither could anything be observed long the sides, where there were more open spaces.

  “Link me with Jerome. Jerome?” Cammarry whispered.

  Through the earpiece Jerome answered. His voice was loud, and Cammarry wondered how far it traveled.

  “Jerome, someone is screaming in here.”

  “Cammarry, that vocalization is probably not human,” the AI Sandie interjected. “I cannot identify it, but checking against human pitches and variables, I conjecture it is a nonhuman sound. I cannot be absolutely certain, but the likelihood of it being a person is very low. However, it certainly it is a living entity of some kind. This is so thrilling!”

  “It sounds like it is in terrible pain.”

  “I am coming back,” Jerome called.

  A moment later he burst past the door. He had the Willie blaster drawn. He took a squatting position by Cammarry. “Where is your weapon?”

  “I did not think to draw it,” Cammarry said. “I thought I was hearing some crewman in agony.”

  “Whaaaaoooo! Eeeeeooooh!”

  “That is a terrible sound,” Jerome said. “Pain often causes someone to scream out.”

  They both looked around but could not see anything. The hedge blocked out the view of the center, and the edges remained empty.

  “Maaaeeee. Beeeooooa.”

  “There are at least five separate entities making those calls,” Sandie reported. “I have checked my database but I can find no
corresponding sounds. I apologize for not being able to identify this. It certainly is exciting!”

  “Is there a danger here? I have read about the predatory kind of animals. Are these things preparing to attack?” Jerome asked as he gazed down the sights of his weapon. His voice was calm and controlled. He was breathing slowly and deeply.

  “I cannot give a definite answer,” Sandie said. “There is insufficient information.

  A small animal, roughly knee high, came bounding out of the shadows, around the hedge. It was hard to see because of the dim light and the fact it was moving very quickly and in ways that looked random. It leaped on its long skinny legs, and bounced about. It sprang up onto an old storage crate where the moss and fungus were short, but then bounded off the wall and back to the floor. Another animal also pranced into view and leaped over the first one, twisting and calling out as it did.

  “Baammaa!”

  “Oh cute!” Cammarry said.