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

by John Thornton

  Khin laughed even more and began walking in the direction Sandie had indicated. “Spirit-ghosts and wizards, I am not sure what to do.”

  “Khin, you have spoken about the Burning Netherworld before. What is that place?” Cammarry asked as she walked along. She half expected Shadow to make a comment, but she heard nothing from that source.

  “You already know,” Khin replied with a chuckle. He then turned back and looked at Cammarry’s face. “Oh, you do want an answer. You are testing me again I see. The Burning Netherworld is many levels down. You must go down many stairs to get there. It is darker than here. It is hot. The air is bad, foul. Water is around, but it is foul too. The rats are small but plentiful.”

  “So who owns the Burning Netherworld? The Fruit People, or the Chicken People, or the Goat People?” Jerome asked.

  Khin laughed and slapped his stomach. “How can anyone own the Burning Netherworld? Few ever go there, and even less make a home there. I have heard wizards lived there once. Do you know of them?”

  “No,” Cammarry replied.

  They saw a few insects flying around in the dim light, and once a rat peered up from where it was drinking at the small flow of water. It darted away and disappeared somewhere.

  “Sandie? We have reached that pressure door you spoke about. It is just ahead of us. You have no information on what is beyond it? Can we just go around? The causeway continues past that pressure door.” Jerome stood before it and looked it over.

  Sandie replied, “The causeway leads perpendicular to the hanger bay from this point onward. I have tried numerous times to find a method of assessment of that unknown area, but have been unsuccessful. I conjecture that it makes a connection between here and an area at the top section of the hanger bay, but that is only a conjecture, and the basis for it is limited information. A connection fits in the available space, but the area remains unknown.”

  Cammarry slipped off her backpack and unpacked the fusion pack, and the molecular torch. “There is a color control panel here, but it is glowing only weakly. There must be some power in the door, but I am not sure it will allow me to input a code. Shall we can cut open the door and find out what is here?”

  “We can always do that in a moment,” Jerome stated. “Other people’s scars are caution signs for us. Sandie? We are a distance away from where that explosion took place, correct?”

  “Yes. There are at least three bulkheads between this location and where the explosion took place. Additionally, from what I can assess, which is admittedly limited, this area is unchanged due to the explosion. I have detected no appreciable differences comparing what I knew of this are prior to the explosion and what I know since the subsequent incident and the following decompressions which took place. The parameters of the unknown area have not changed since the explosion incident. I know no more, nor any less about this area than I did before the explosion. I am sorry if that is not very useful information.”

  Cammarry raised the cutting torch as if to begin whacking away at the door. “What is the worst that can happen? It explodes!”

  Khin’s eyes grew very wide.

  Jerome smiled and held out a restraining hand to Cammarry. “Hold that thought. None of us want an explosion. I will try jacking in here and see if Sandie can learn more. We can cut it open later if we need to.”

  Cammarry frowned a bit, but it was mockingly. Her eyes twinkled. “Well, I guess you are right. It does feel good to be on an adventure with you again. Just sitting around was increasing the stress to my life.”

  Jerome had to scrape some of the muck off the wall around the access port. He then inserted the cable.

  “Processing,” Sandie stated.

  “Sandie will not tell you the truth,” Shadow whispered to Cammarry. “You are in danger here.”

  “I trust Sandie!” Cammarry barked out.

  “We both do,” Jerome replied. “That is why we are working all these repairs. Sandie is essential for our repairing of the Conestoga, so of course we trust Sandie!”

  The artificial intelligence system Sandie responded, “Thank you for your trust. This access port is sequestered away from the rest of the nonphysicality. I can use it to open this door.”

  “Do it,” Cammarry said, and put the torch down. “If it is safe.”

  “It is reasonably safe, but the room behind it is small, only three meters square. There is a second pressure door inside that small room,” Sandie announced.

  The door slid to the side. The room beyond was dark, lit only by the light which came from the now open doorway. Jerome switched on the fusion pack light.

  “Well that was anticlimactic,” Cammarry said. “No huge explosions or fire or anything exciting.”

  “It was also much less than I was expecting,” Khin said with a giggle. “The spirit-ghost spoke like it was a big mystery, and some unknown thing. It is just an empty room.”

  “Not a room, but a portal of some kind. Look at the wall,” Jerome pointed as the beam of light shined on the other pressure door. The door had dull, but reflective white letters stenciled on it: ‘Warning: Oblique Gravity Manipulation Adjustment this Point’.

  “I cannot read that,” Khin said. “I have not seen those symbols before. This place also has no plants, no water, and no light. It is a dead zone.”

  “More things to repair. Remember, earlier, I told you I thought it felt like gravity shifted. I thought it was a dream or something. It might have been that….” Cammarry tried to speak about Shadow again, but her throat tightened and she stopped herself.

  “Cammarry?” Jerome stepped to her side. “Is it your breathing again? Let me run the diagnostics from the medical kit on you.”

  Cammarry blew out a long stream of air, slowly through pursed lips. Then she could breathe again. “No need. It was just some stale air or dust. That inscription indicates….” She took another deep breath. “Or seems to indicate, that gravity manipulation is altered here.”

  Jerome looked long and hard at Cammarry.

  “What? I am fine. Just had something caught in my throat. Sandie see what you can learn here.”

  “Next time you have some of that gasping, I will connect you to the medical kit whether you want me to or not.” Jerome reached back and pulled the com-link cable from the other access port. He stepped up to the second door, located the access port and inserted it. It was clean and clear around this port.

  Sandie sent a tendril to probe the nonphysicality. “There is a safe atmosphere beyond, safe temperature, although warmer than here at 34.2 degrees. Power is present, but levels are unknown. Deck plan is unknown. I conjecture it is safe to open this pressure door, however, the facts I have are limited.”

  “What about animals or people back there?” Jerome asked. He was thinking of the chickens which had viciously peck at his legs previously, and the goats which had a habit of rushing at him and butting with their horns. He also recalled the larger animals, predator types, which he had seen in Alpha around Wolf City.

  “The information is limited. I have reported all I can tell you.” Sandie replied.

  “So there is still a mystery! Maybe the excitement will continue!” Khin laughed and laughed. “No animals will hurt you. Cavies hurt no one. The rats can bite, but when they bite then you can catch them. More good meat that way. Goats, no worries, and the chickens, well, I hear they are fast and run away. So what animal can hurt you? Bugs?” Khin chortled on his last comment. “A wizard afraid of bugs?”

  “Those birds are not really chickens,” Cammarry stated. She then did not finish as she was unsure how to explain to Khin that the birds he had known his whole life as chickens were in fact dodos. “Well open it up!”

  “Please place a fusion pack connection into the access port,” Sandie stated. “Then when the color control pad illuminates, depress this sequence: blue, green, green, white, blue, yellow.”

  Cammarry’s mind raced. She remembered that sequence, blue, green, green, white, blue, yellow. Cammarry trembl
ed a bit and rubbed her arm where she had been injured. In her mind’s eye she saw the ESRC where the injury had happened.

  Jerome connected the fusion pack, and followed the instructions. The color control pad lit up, glowing brightly. He then entered the proper sequence and the pressure door slid part way open. Then came a negative function sound.

  “Still more to be repaired. We have a huge task ahead of us.” He peered around the door which was two-thirds open. There was diffuse light, different from the dim light which was typical in the corridors, illuminating a sphere about ten meters in diameter. It was a dull white color with silver rails in a multitude of places, and gray accents. The doorway he was standing at was just one of many pressure doors located at various places around all the sphere. The doors were arranged in a haphazard manner, some directly overhead, some below, some at angles, and others upside down, but none on the same plane or in the same orientation as where Jerome stood. Many of the doors were partially open, but revealed only bare permalloy beyond.

  Cammarry peeked around him and gazed at the closest of the other others. ‘Beware: Altered Vector of Gravity’ was flashing weakly on that door in red letters. “What is that all about?” Cammarry stated as she pushed past Jerome and entered the sphere. As soon she reached through the doorway, she understood.

  She floated along in the same direction that she had been heading, only, there was no downward pull of gravity. The gravity manipulation was not working.

  “Wow!” Cammarry exclaimed as she realized there was no longer an up or down or any factors to orient her position. Her weight was gone, but her mass remained. She reached for a handrail, but missed and that sent her into a spin.

  “Zero gravity?” Jerome asked. “Or have you learned levitation when I was not watching? Many ancient religions claim their yogis, shamans, teachers, or enlightened masters could levitate. Are you now an enlightened master as well as a wizard?” Jerome winked at Khin.

  “Not at all funny,” Cammarry called back with a smile as she countered her rotation as best she could. Her body was slowed it into a weak tumble. “I will grab the wall in a moment and hang on.”

  Khin stuck his head around Jerome. “May I fly too?”

  “It is not really flying,” Jerome said.

  “Come on in Khin!” Cammarry called out. “It will give you something to really laugh about.”

  Khin threw himself into the sphere. His body shot forward, and his arms and legs flailed about. His laughing was louder than they had ever heard. “I am flying like an insect, or like a wizard!”

  Jerome carefully pulled himself into the sphere, and held on to the closest handrail. He pulled the cable out from the access port. As he completely entered the sphere, the pressure door jerked closed. A red light flashed in it saying, ‘Beware: Altered Vector of Gravity’. As he looked about the sphere, each door that was closed had that same warning flashing on it in red. The open doors had no such red lights.

  “Jerome? Do you see any controls or displays?” Cammarry called from the opposite side of the sphere. She had reached a handrail and had restrained her floating. She was at about a thirty degree angle to the way Jerome was oriented.

  “I do not,” Jerome called back. He had to raise his voice over the giggles and chuckles of Khin who had roughly bumped into the side of the sphere and then kicked off with his legs and was zipping across the open space.

  “Sandie? Any idea what this place is?” Cammarry asked as she examined the door nearest her. It was open about a quarter of the way, but all that showed behind it was bare permalloy.

  The artificial intelligence system Sandie replied, “I conjecture that this structure is a junction where people can traverse from one gravity manipulation zone to another. The room has the ability to spin, and I believe it aligns up with hallways, rooms, or corridors where gravity is used in a different direction.”

  “But the doors that are open, just have permalloy showing behind them,” Cammarry observed.

  “Except for the doors that are closed, and they have the red warning message,” Jerome called back. “Just like the place where we entered.” He took out his molecular torch and fired it up.

  “Are you cutting our way out? Do we need to go back?” Cammarry asked.

  “No!” Khin called as he tucked his head between his legs and rolled over and over as he passed from side to side. “This is too much fun!”

  “I am not cutting or destroying anything,” Jerome said. “I am marking this door so we know which one we came through. I cannot tell the others apart, can you?”

  “I have been recording our passage,” Sandie replied. “I can tell the difference and I know the way.”

  “But we have lost contact with you before,” Jerome said. “I hope that never happens again, but I will just mark this so if we ever wonder, it will tell us.”

  “You want to read it!” Khin called as he laughed some more.

  “Yes, that is true!” Jerome answered.

  Khin struck the wall hard, and his laughing quit for a moment. His body bounced back toward the center of the sphere. “The walls are hard.”

  Cammarry used her hands to maneuver over to a door that had the red warning illuminated on it. “I assume since the warning is on this door, there is probably some passageway behind it.” She felt all around it and slipped her fingers into a small slot by the edge of the door. A panel flipped open and a ten centimeter by fifteen centime rectangular display screen was revealed. She pressed her fingers against the screen.

  ‘Access granted’ scrolled across the screen.

  “Found something here!” Cammarry called.

  The display screen shifted and text was revealed. ‘This Gravity Alteration Gimbaled Sphere has malfunctioned. Please make a timely report to Machine Maintenance. Service is required to restore function. Serious injury or death may occur from falls due to unexpected changes in gravity manipulation.’ Cammarry read it to herself and then called out to Khin and Jerome and reread it to them. “Khin, grab a handrail and hold on. I do not want you to come crashing down and break your silly neck!”

  “I hear you Wizard Cammarry! I will hold tightly.” He was just reaching a handrail as he said that. “I know falling can hurt. But how can one fall when there is no pull?”

  “The pull might come back on suddenly!” Cammarry called back.

  Khin shut his mouth, and his smile shrank, but his eyes still twinkled.

  Cammarry looked around the display screen, and found two small knobs which popped up when she pressed them. “Sandie, I see no access ports, do you?”

  “None inside this sphere.”

  “Then I will see if these controls can open this door. Are we headed in the right direction to get to the hanger bay?”

  “Potentially, yes. That door, oblique though it is, is roughly in the same direction as the hanger bay. It is still within the unknown area of my deck plans,” Sandie answered. “I cannot tell you what is beyond that door. I have no way to assess it.”

  “I think it will open to a safe place, because of the warning lights,” Cammarry said as she bit her lower lip. In her mind she called out, ‘Come on Shadow! Now is the time for you to help me out here!’

  There was no response from Shadow.

  “I agree with you,” Jerome said and floated gently across the sphere to join her. He was quite nimble in the zero gravity. He grabbed the handrail and braced himself.

  “I am ready!” Khin called out as he held on tightly to a hand rail with both hands, and had a foot hooked into another railing.

  “I am turning the first control.” As it turned it clicked.

  There was a small shudder which ran through the sphere. That was followed by a negative function sound.

  “I do not think any of the lights changed,” Jerome said as he watched all the other doors. “Nothing opened or closed either.”

  “I will try again.” Cammarry clicked the knob into another position. There was no response. She repeated that, turning the swit
ch in the same direction until it would no longer turn that way. Still nothing happened. “I have turned it twenty two times, all the same way. I wonder if between these two knobs it is some kind of combination lock?”

  “That would be a wide variety of possible combinations,” Jerome asked. “This is different than the color control pads which have nine squares and countless combinations.”

  “Actually, the number of combination potentials is not countless, I can calculate the exact number of potentials if you desire. However, I do not think you are looking for a precise number, but instead are making the point that there are a great many possibilities,” Sandie said.

  “I will leave this one at the extreme end of its turn, and try the other knob. It might just open the door with the first turn,” Cammarry looked at Jerome and then unexpectedly kissed him on the cheek.