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

by John Thornton

  “You may proceed,” Elsa said, but very warily. “If it will not harm me or my baby.”

  “The medical kit is designed to help with things, not to do any harm.”

  Cammarry connected the two wires, and hit the activate button. A moment later the small screen scrolled out the assessment and diagnosis. ‘Adult female: pregnant, 37.87 weeks of gestation. Nutritional status marginal. Fetus: 2.18 kilograms, male, deficient in nutrition and physiologically delayed for gestational age. Oral treatment strongly recommended. Prognosis for both mother and baby are good, provided treatments administered at this time. Mother should orally consume tablets during the next 12 hours. Sustenance will pass through the placental barrier and nourish the fetus.’

  Seven chewable tablets slid out from the side of the medical kit.

  Cammarry looked at Jerome. She was about to say something when he interrupted.

  “Elsa, we want to give you a gift of… this type of food. These small foods are for you and your baby. They will help make you and your baby strong,” Jerome said.

  Cammarry handed the tablets to her. “Please eat these today. They are for you.”

  Elsa looked at the tablets, and then at Khin.

  “Their food has not much appeal, but they are strong and fit. It is a blessing from the wizards!” Khin said with a wide smile.

  Elsa took the tablets and held one under her nose. “There is no smell.” She touched it with the tip of her tongue. “The taste is small, but safe.” She then popped it into her mouth and chewed it up.

  “Mother? May I have some of that food?” The child at her feet said.

  Elsa went to hand the tablets to the child Sassa.

  Khin intervened. He gently took Elsa’s hand and guided the tablets away from the child. “They are a blessing only for you.”

  Sassa began to cry softly.

  “My dear,” Khin squatted down and looked directly into the child’s face. “These wizards have given your mother a blessing, and it is for her and the new baby. So you cannot have some of that. However, I think if you asked Wizard Cammarry or Wizard Jerome to bless you they might do that.” Khin turned his head and implored Cammarry with his eyes.

  “Yes, I would prefer for you to bless my little ones, rather than me,” Elsa said. “They need it more. Each new generation has it harder than the last. May I give this to my child instead?” She held up the chewable tablet.

  “That is designed just for you and your baby. But I would be pleased to check out your child,” Cammarry said. “May I connect the medical kit to Sassa?”

  “It will give her a blessing?” Elsa asked.

  “It may….” Cammarry hesitated. “Let us see what it will do. It will do not harm at all.”

  Elsa nodded, and Sassa stood very still as Cammarry connected the wires to her arm. Pressing the activate button, the medical kit read out, “Female child, age 4 years, 9 months. Marginal genetic health. Below expected growth for age. Borderline nutritional deficits. Treatment suggested: vaccinations, genetic support and realignment, and nutritional supplement. Prognosis good.”

  Three red colored tablets slid from the side of the medical kit.

  “Here, these are made especially for you,” Cammarry said as she handed the chewable tablets to the child. Sassa was hesitant to take them, but when her mother took them and then placed them in her hand, she smiled.

  “Thank you,” Elsa replied and waddled away.

  Some of the other people around were watching, but none drew close, and none said anything.

  Khin looked on with amazement. “You said you could not make food. Now you are giving food to Elsa and Sassa? Why not use the food for yourselves? I know it is bite size, but your wizard machine could just keep making more, right?”

  “Khin, those are medications, not routine foods. This makes items which cure sickness or injury,” Jerome said. “We could not live off of the medical kit’s items.”

  Khin laughed. “You can cure sickness, but not make food? That is so funny.”

  “It is not funny to someone who is educated,” an old voice said from behind Khin.

  “The Old One?” Khin said and turned around.

  “You are not from these people,” the old voice said.

  Jerome and Cammarry both looked over to a thin man who was walking slowly toward them. He was about the same height as Cammarry, which was taller than Khin, and he was wearing a faded green and red uniform. His hair was bright white color, both poking up from his head, and from his unkempt beard. His medium brown face was a mass of wrinkles, especially on his tall forehead. His small eyes were hidden a bit by saggy eyelids, but they intensely looked out from below the white busy eyebrows. He was the only person they had yet met who was wearing shoes.

  “I am Jerome, and this is Cammarry. We are very pleased to meet you.’

  “The music has stopped,” Cammarry remarked.

  “Yes. I am not playing my piano,” the Old One said. “So you got the Reproduction and Fabrication Center running again, although I do not recall those specific uniforms. How did you reconfigure the systems without an SB?” The Old One asked.

  “Old One?” Khin said and gently placed his hand on the elderly man’s shoulder. “These wizards sent me on a quest with them. They are the ones who shook the whole world.”

  “Orbital adjustments rockets shook the ship, you young fool. I forget your name,” the Old One said harshly. “Do not call them wizards, or magicians, or any of your other young and naive nonsense. They are technicians. I forget their ranks, but is so good to know the flight crew is back in service. So what is the status of the Conestoga and the habbies?”

  3 The old one from where?

  The Old One stood there waiting for an answer. His wrinkled face and faded uniform were witnesses of his advanced age, and Jerome was somehow reminded of Agnes in Dome 17’s elderly care unit.

  “The Conestoga is now in a stable orbit,” Cammarry reported. “There is much damage, and we are trying to find a way to communicate back to Earth.”

  “Whatever for?” the Old One asked. His face screwed up even more and there were wrinkles upon wrinkles. “Any signal will take years, no decades, to get back.”

  “We have equipment that can send messages in faster-than-light mode,” Cammarry replied. “We just need to find a way to get past that Cosmic Crinkle that thrust us here.”

  “What nonsense are you talking about? I know of no Cosmic Crinkle. That is foolishness of the order of calling you wizards,” the Old One stated bluntly. He turned to Khin, “Did you just find a cache of manufactured clothing and dress up some of those traders? Are you trying to play a joke on me?”

  “No, Old One,” Khin replied. “I would never try to deceive you.” For once, Khin’s face was utterly serious. “These people are wizards…. Excuse me, they are technicians who I met in a distant part of the world. They were dressed like this when I met them. They have a spirit-ghost, and they use all kind of wizard… all kinds of technology, is that the correct word?”

  “Yes, technology is a correct word, you dumb fool, but I am done talking to you. Go away to your family now, and let me evaluate these people. If I find you have lied to me, I will no longer teach you anything. Now scamper away before I get truly angry. You and all your fools! Get away from me now!”

  “Yes, Old One,” Khin replied and dashed away. “We will all leave. Sorry to have troubled you.”

  The few other people that were nearby rushed off as well. They all had an unusual mix of fear and frivolity on their faces.

  The Old One turned back to Cammarry and Jerome. “Now, I have been here for a long long time, but my memory is clear on engineering issues. Well, mostly clear. Sometimes, it is bad, but not always. Some days I can think, but others there is a mental fog. However, I know there is no way to break the light-barrier. That is why we have a generational colony ship in the first place.”

  “That was the conventional wisdom. We thought that until recently as well. Our Master Eng
ineer Brink discovered a way to do it. That is how we got here,” Cammarry replied.

  “So this Brink fellow revived you from suspended animation? I never could find the vault where the people in SA were housed. I figured their brain died, and so they died too. I know there is a repository, well there was supposed to be one, somewhere on the needle ship, should be holding 10,000 people. I looked for years trying to find it, but could not. I suspected some other members of the flight crew survived, but why did you wait so long to track me down?” the Old One asked.

  “Well we just arrived here not too long ago,” Cammarry answered vaguely.

  “You came from a habbie?” the elderly man asked.

  Jerome ignore the question. “I suspect your name is not Old One, so what should I call you?”

  “These fools around here call me that,” the man waved his arms around and turned in a circle. “I try to educate and help them, but with so many systems gone, there is little I can do. I am Cadet Danuja. You can call me Danny. That is what the flight crew called me back before the accident and the insurrection. As recently revived sleepers, I suspect your man Brink informed you all about that. Bad business that was.”

  “Brink is not on….” Cammarry started to say, but Jerome interrupted her.

  “Cadet Danny, please give us your report on the situation. That way we can compare it to the information we already possess,” Jerome asserted. “Start with the accident. Where were you when that happened?”

  “Right. Report. It has been so long, I forgot about formal reporting. Apologies offered. I was in the forward observation station when the accident happened. My training officer… her name was…. I was in the bow’s observation…..or was it the common…. What was her name? From there I watched as the Conestoga encountered that wavy front. The repulsors had no effect on it. Then chaos broke loose.”

  “That was when you struck the Cosmic Crinkle,” Jerome affirmed. “Continue your report, Danny.”

  “Yes, sir. The main power systems crashed. Life support was reignited, and the astrogation systems went haywire. We buttoned up our station and made for the muster positions as the Captain called for general quarters.” The Old One, Cadet Danny, then suddenly squatted down and began to weep bitterly. Snot ran from his nose as he cried intensely. “Her name? I cannot remember her name…. she was so nice to me…. Until they killed her, and I cannot even remember her name. I want to remember her name!”

  Cammarry placed her hand on his shoulder, and Jerome said kindly, “Take your time, we are in no rush, and you are in no trouble at all.”

  “No trouble at all?” The elderly man sobbed. “The whole ship went crazy. I knew it was a catastrophe when I heard there was a solar system dead ahead. The Captain got us into an approach vector, but….” Danny cried uncontrollably. After a few long and awkward minutes he wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve of his uniform and composed himself a bit. “How long has it been? How long?”

  Cammarry looked at Jerome. “We estimate something like seventy years.”

  “That long,” the crying resumed and Cadet Danny just lay face down on the floor. His tears fell into the plant growth. “My whole life, here at this emergency muster station.”

  Cammarry patted his back. “What was this place?”

  He rolled over. “This was the grand hall, a dining place for the flight crew. I was the only crewman who made it back here when the insurrectionists… insurgents… criminals attacked. I put everything here on manual, as the emergency procedures dictated.”

  “Where did the people come from?” Jerome asked.

  The Old One, sat up and wiped his face. He then got shakily to his feet. “You cannot be flight crew. Hallucinations be gone. Quit haunting me!”

  “We are real and are here,” Cammarry said. “We need your help to understand.”

  The Old One walked away, ignoring the comments from Jerome and Cammarry. They followed him as he walked past the numerous tents, and around the pots of liquids, and the stretched out animal skins. He walked toward the far corner of the grand hall. There the piano stood, at an angle from the wall. The corner where it was did not have any growth medium, or plant life growing on it. It was raised up one step, and had the piano, its bench, and several clean chairs.

  The piano was a rich and warm golden-brownish color with some kind of pattern of swirls in the material out of which it had been made. It gleamed with luster even in the dim light. The Old One, sat at the bench and began to play. His old fingers nimbly moving along the keyboard. The white and black keys responding to his touch. “Without my piano I have no life. I would not know how to live. I would not know what to do with my hands.”

  The music was slow and relaxing, and the stress on his face washed away. The tune was beautiful as both his hands worked in concert making harmonies and melodies complimenting each other.

  “This is different than what you played before,” Jerome said. “If music be the food of love, play on.”

  “A hallucination that knows music, and Shakespeare?” The Old One muttered. “I suppose my mind is truly going this time. Me thinking some flight crew had survived, or that people from suspended animation had been revitalized.” He rocked gently back and forth with the music as his arms and hands flowed smoothly over the piano’s keys. “Music take me away.”

  “Sandie, can you assist here?” Cammarry asked quietly.

  “I am unable to accurately identify the music that is being played. It bears a strong resemblance to a fragment in the records that is labeled as ‘Ivory Dreams’ but about which I have no other knowledge or information. It is possible that the fragment and what is being played come from the same composition,” Sandie replied.

  The Old One stopped playing. He tilted his head to the side a bit. His hands hovered in the air over the keys.

  Jerome carefully placed a hand on his shoulder. “Danny? Cadet? We are really here, but we are not what or who you think we are. We are real people, not hallucinations, nor are we from your flight crew. May we talk about all that is happening? We need your help.”

  “An SB? You have access to a brain?” The Old One asked. “I heard a mechanical voice. It was advanced technology. I am certain it was a synthetic brain. You called it Sandie? I would never name a synthetic brain Sandie, what a stupid name. You must not be figments of my imagination. You have links to a brain? How did that SB survive?”

  “Yes, Sandie is our companion, and yes she is an artificial intelligence system,” Cammarry said.

  “Is this another hallucination? A trick? Am I mad or delusional? Am I dead and not aware of it?”

  “No, we are really here,” Jerome repeated. “Khin brought us here. Your music is beautiful.”

  “I have played since I was….” Danny, the Old One, halted. “I have played since… well as long as I can remember. That was one reason I applied for the Cadet posting. So I could continue to study music, along with all the other studies at flight academy. Only the best and brightest from the habbies were allowed to become Cadets. I was fourteen when I came from Habitat Eight, was it called that? Eta? Eight? Wait? My hometown was called? Oh dear me, I… well I came here from a habbie and was accepted into the academy’s training program.”

  Cammarry pulled one of the chairs over and sat down. “I want to know more about you; do I call you Danny or Old One or Cadet?”

  “These fools living here call me Old One, but you can call me Danny,” he replied. He then set his hands down on the piano keys and began to play again. “The music clears my head, and helps me not to remember the horrors of my life. I hate what has happened. In music I can escape to the time before the insurrection.”

  Sandie the AI spoke up through the group audio aspect of the com-link. “Danny, I am Sandie. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. I will answer any questions you pose, if I can. Yes, I am what you might call a synthetic brain, or even the obsolete and antiquated term, a computer. However, I prefer the designation of artificial intelligence for my race. I
would be glad to call you my friend.”

  “If you can identify this song, I will know you are not a hallucination,” Danny said and began to play. The music took a bit of a dramatic turn with deeper low notes. It built up and reached into the higher notes as it sped up. After about two minutes the music was loud and crashing and Danny hands were zipping along the keys as he pounded down.

  He then quit. He halted abruptly and stopped in a manner that sounded unfinished. “Can you name that music?” He folded his arms over his chest.

  “I am comparing it to my database,” Sandie replied. “It is Edvard Grieg’s ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ with some slight variations. You performed it very well. However, you quit 64% through the piece. Is that correct?”

  Music then came out of the com-links. It was a recorded piano song and sounded very similar to what Danny had been playing. It began at the point where Danny had ended, and proceeded along to a satisfying conclusion.