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

by John Thornton

  Jerome felt a bit of relief over the replacement for the security automacubes he had destroyed. “The Special Care Unit is a big place, and Khin is not alone. He has Vesna and her people, and now links to Sandie and us. Things are different at the Special Care Unit.”

  Cammarry sneered at the words, ‘Special Care Unit’ and grimaced. She did not trust SB Cotard, and winced at thinking of that system’s actions which it said were done on her behalf. She did manage to say, “I too am glad Khin is safe, and not alone.” She remembered that for what seemed like eons she had thought Khin was killed just outside of the habitat on Zalia’s surface. “They were under attack, so the violence is getting worse. Is that habitat-wide, or just around that complex?”

  “From what I saw,” Jerome answered, “The general population of Beta is made up mostly of crazed anarchists. There were some exceptions, like Vesna’s people, the roustabouts, Lloyd and Erma, and some of those people at the Listening Ear. However, the vast majority just seem obsessed with violence and death.”

  “Like the Ferryman?”

  “Yes, like that Ferryman.” Jerome flexed his arm muscles and then said, “I think we should go and check out that hilly corner. You know, where that motorcyclist almost went into those woods. I think his actions might have been more there than just a ruse. I think it is worth going there. The Ferryman has to have some kind of base somewhere.”

  “I am willing if you are,” Cammarry answered. “We go together, and maybe get to the bottom of some of this. I will not run off by myself. I apologize for what has happened in the past. We are a team and need to act like that.”

  Jerome looked at the readings on the display which showed the decontamination process was still taking place. “Is Eris on our team?”

  “I doubt she meant to contaminate all of this hanger bay,” Cammarry said. “She has been through a huge trauma, and we should be compassionate toward her. But stealing our shuttle, and messing this all up is….” Cammarry looked at Jerome and smiled. “It is sort of like what I did a couple of times here already.”

  “You said it. I did not,” Jerome remarked.

  “Maybe the Conestoga has that effect on people?”

  “Hindsight is an excellent teacher,” Jerome replied. “As I once read, a life spent making mistakes is not only more interesting, but also more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”

  “We have certainly done interesting things,” Cammarry said. “I am eager to hear more about Vesna’s people and how they seem to have escaped the violent and selfish inculcation which infected so many others in Beta.”

  “Sandie, what is the status on that other adventurer automacube?” Jerome asked.

  “Automacube T-1DT is still on course for the Listening Ear location. It has encountered, at a distance, several gravity sink holes, but none showed any new findings. There have been tracks from the Crock vehicles near each of those encounters.” Sandie replied.

  “More proof the Crock are setting those,” Jerome snapped. “Has a quality trail been marked all the way to that hilly corner? I have a hunch, call it intuition, or a premonition, whatever you want. I think we should go and investigate that place. The motorcyclist looked like he really was planning on going in there. Do you have any deck plans for that location?”

  “Let me check.” Sandie reached out to the small lattice of compeers which she was overseeing and consulted the synthetic brains regarding that location. None had direct deck plans for that spot in Beta, and the corresponding location in other habitats varied. Her consultation took such a short time that Jerome noticed almost no lag in time when Sandie continued, “I do not have any specific details on that location, beyond the superficial scans which the automacube made when venturing past it. As to your hunch, history shows humans have a propensity for accurately guessing at things like this. Scientists have studied the phenomena for centuries, but no consistent explanation has been proven.”

  “So while Eris is flying away to somewhere, and the red automacube is defending Khin and Vesna, and the yellow is still on its quest, we will check out my hunch.” Jerome smiled and cracked his knuckles. He was eager to do something, but he also was concerned about the terrible violence that had happened at the Special Care Unit. His off-handed remark about Eris flying away was made to cover his concern for his new friend.

  Sandie perceived Jerome’s feelings and stated, “I am monitoring Eris’ flight and will report what she does. We really had no other choice but to let her depart.”

  “Under threats,” Cammarry replied, and smiled as she recalled her own actions and behaviors. “But she may have felt she had no other choice. I do hope she survives. I can understand how she felt and why she acted as she did.”

  “I will do what I can to assist her,” Sandie replied. “In the meanwhile, I will oversee the cleanup of the hanger bay here. I was able to secure the pressure doors to the antechamber, so the teleporter was not in any way damaged by the thruster fuel leak.”

  “So if we walk over to that hilly corner, we can check it out. By then maybe T-1DT will have reached the Listening Ear,” Jerome said. “We need to find out what has happened with Monika and the roustabouts.”

  “Shall we leave now?” Cammarry asked as she eyed Jerome. She already knew from Jerome’s looks and tones that he was ready, but she was unsure why he mentioned Monika more each time he spoke about the roustabouts. So she confronted him. “Jerome? Why do you speak of Monika and the roustabouts?”

  “Because they are looking for those children,” Jerome snapped back.

  “Yes, but Jenna is their leader, and Bigelow was who has helped us most in the past.”

  “Bigelow’s help is unreliable,” Jerome said. “When I needed him the most, to help find you, he turned away. Nonetheless, I found you. Shall we be off? The journey of a thousand light-years begins with a single launch, right?”

  They checked their supplies, and then headed back through the corridors, following the marks left by the automacubes. When they passed the Gravity Manipulation Works, they each considered what had happened There. Twice they had used that control facility, yet neither incident had been successful. The facilities in Beta, those they could access, did not have the ability to hinder, or even detect the gravity sink holes, and therefore, it was uncertain how they would further address the threats.

  “Perhaps Eris will think of some way,” Cammarry stated, expressing the concern both of them had. “She is the expert on these old systems. Sandie? Is that where Eris has gone? Will she be able to stop the gravity sink holes?”

  “I am unable to ascertain her motives,” Sandie replied. “SB Cotard has suggested she is reacting from a Post Traumatic Response situation, but….”

  “Do not listen to Cotard!” Cammarry erupted. She increased the pace of her walking, and pursed her lips.

  “I am not listening to SB Cotard in isolation. I am finding the small lattice of compeers to be helpful,” Sandie replied. “The Conestoga’s systems work much better in cooperating than they did individually. I have consulted with the simulation of Doctor Chambers and we are unclear on the motives of Eris, nor are we certain of her intentions. I will continue to monitor the situation.”

  “Sandie, you are still overseeing the things on the SFT scout ship, our needle ship base, and monitoring the two adventuring automacubes,” Jerome said. “Well, you were. SB Cotard is now overseeing that red automacube. Anyway, are you stretching your abilities too far with all these connections and links? Will you be distracted when we need you? What with searching the nonphysicality, monitoring Eris in that shuttle, and supervising the building of the other items from Alpha’s Reproduction and Fabrication, is it all too much?”

  “I have delegated some items to the lattice of compeers. By the way, the automacubes, RE-1DT, and RE-2DT are ready and in transit. They cannot pass through Dardanella 135 until it is cleaned, but they are en route now from Alpha to the needle ship. I am making conjectures on possible exit strategies for your withdrawal fr
om Beta,” Sandie went on and explained Khin’s request to return to the needle ship.

  “So we have let the Crocks drive us out of this whole habitat?” Jerome spit out the words in anger.

  “Hold those new automacubes on the needle ship,” Cammarry ordered. “Until we learn more, keep them there.”

  “Understood. RE-1DT and RE-2DT will remain on the needle ship until you advise otherwise.”

  Cammarry and Jerome walked on in silence, observing for threats, but seeing no people, animals, or gravity sink holes. Some while later, they emerged from the corridors and briskly walked through the seemingly uninhabited ruins of Quady.

  “No rats,” Jerome muttered. “I saw no rats in those corridors.”

  “No animal sounds out here either,” Cammarry stated. “Last time, even with the mob chasing us, there had been buzzes, chirps, and all kinds of noises. Now this place is eerily quiet.”

  “In literature, saying it was ‘too quiet’ was almost always a foreshadow of something bad, often horrific. I wonder? Adeilson…I hope that boy is safe,” Jerome said as he looked around and continued walking. “He was so fatalistic about dying. He was convinced that the leftovers were coming or the crushers would get him. Now this place he called Deathtown does seem even more to be living up to that name. It is too quiet.”

  “It is hard to imagine what those chosen siblings went through. Even worse was the fate of many of those children they called leftovers.” Cammarry thought about the children they had found on the road to Seron, who were now with the roustabouts. It seemed like ages and ages ago, and she could not even surely calculate the real time that had passed. She knew she could ask Sandie for a precise measure of the time, but did not actually want to know. She blew out a deep sigh and trudged onward. “Too many children, with too much trauma.”

  They came to the roadway where S-1DT and T-1DT had diverged in their paths. The marks laid down by each of the automacubes were slightly different, so it was easy enough to follow the route to the hilly corner. The way looked similar to what they had watched from the cameras and apertures of that machine, but walking it was a fuller, more intense, and much more stimulating experience. There were smells which neither Jerome or Cammarry could identify. The sea had its own pungent aroma, but so did the woods on the opposite side of the roadway. But again, no animal sounds came from anywhere.

  Walking along the broken pavement allowed both Dome 17 adventurers to ponder all they had witnessed. Jerome contemplated the biology of the biome, and the vast diversity of life they had observed. He thought back to John the biologist in Dome 17 and how he would have loved to see a real living environment. However, as he walked now, he was struck by the lack of insects, birds, or animals. The foliage was still present. The thick growth of tall trees stretched as far ahead as he could see, all along the side of the road. That forest extended all the way to the upright end wall of the habitat. Jerome was unsure the distance, but from his walking through Quady, or as he thought of it now as, Deathtown, he knew the forest was probably about a kilometer from road to wall, and that forest looked to stretch the whole width of the habitat, something like sixteen kilometers. He peered into those depths of forest as he walked, watching for movement or any other signs of fauna. He saw none. His mind wondered what had become of the animals. He again thought of John from Dome 17, and how he would have been thrilled to see a real forest, or even more excited to see the sea with its fish. John would probably have been able to estimate the population groups of the animals in a forest that size, or the numbers of fish this sea could hold. ‘Would John know why there was no animal sound now?’ Then Jerome remembered the Kurent’s menagerie, and he involuntarily shuddered. ‘Could all the animals really have been slaughtered?’ Between the violent human inhabitants of Beta, the gravity sink holes, and the Crock vehicles, Jerome considered a mass slaughter as a real possibility. He did not voice his anxieties to Cammarry, nor seek Sandie’s consultation. Several times he flexed his arms muscles in rhythmic calisthenics.

  As they walked along, the quietness was unsettling. Except for the soft footfalls of their walking on the broken pavement, and the lapping of the sea water along the coast, the habitat was still. Cammarry thought of how they had traveled roads in Beta in the horse-drawn troika driven by Bigelow, and she missed vocalizations made by the horses, the clip-clopping of the horses’ hooves, and the rolling and creaking noises of the troika. She pondered how well that vehicle would have fared on the crumbled, buckled-up, and irregular pavement of this road. She had to step around many broken parts, as the roadway was in worse condition than not long ago when they had watched via the automacube.

  “Cammarry, look at that!” Jerome said. His voice was a stark break in the silence. He pointed ahead to a spot where there was a shimmering over the pavement.

  “What do you see?” Cammarry asked as she drew near to Jerome. She reached down and picked up a fist-sized chunk of broken pavement.

  Jerome had one hand in his pocket, holding onto a portion of permalloy he carried with him. “I would toss Buddy over that way, but I am pretty sure there is a gravity sink hole there. The shimmering in the air is dust falling down to the roadway.”

  “Yes, your Buddy can hardly be replaced,” Cammarry smiled. She then threw the chunk of pavement. It flew in a normal trajectory, and then bounced a couple times. As it rolled into the questionable area, it suddenly stopped. It then split into several sections and crumbled apart.

  Sandie the AI spoke through the com-link. “That is certainly a gravity sink hole. Using the dispersion of dust particles in the air as a guide, as Jerome observed, that area is roughly four meters in diameter, in an elliptical formation. I am unable to conjecture the exact strength of the gravity in that sink hole, but it is certainly much greater than Earth normal levels.”

  “So we walk around it,” Jerome stated. He marched away from where the threat was located. “We know they can move, but have we ever observed them move quickly?”

  “I have not,” Cammarry replied. “Sandie?”

  “None of the gravity sink hole phenomena have been observed moving,” Sandie answered. “It is possible they can be turned on or off, or directed, but my conjectures are based on limited observations. We do not know what has caused them, nor how they are formed, nor how they can be removed. I do conjecture a high probability that the extensive damage to this roadway was done by the gravity sink holes.”

  Jerome had walked toward the sea, and then onto the grassy area as he traveled. He left a wide margin of error from where he could see the edge of the gravity sink hole. Cammarry followed. As they walked a bit further on, Jerome pointed.

  “That is what is causing those thing,” Jerome said and drew out the Willie Blaster.

  The ground was chewed up. The tracks of the double-dual tread system were furrowed into the ground leading away from the forest. Trees had been crushed down as the Crock vehicle had passed from the sea, up and over the broken roadway, and then into the forest. Its meandering path was so twisted they could not see where it had gone in the forest. There was just the passageway made by the broken down trees, bushes, and shrubs. The path did seem to avoid the bigger and stouter trees, but the way they were smashed showed the direction of the vehicle’s travel.

  “We have seen those vehicles nearby to the gravity sink holes often,” Cammarry replied. “But we are not sure how much the two things are linked.”

  “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern,” Jerome stated as he looked over the sights of the Willie Blaster and scanned for the Crock vehicle. “We will not dismiss it as mere coincidence just because we cannot see the levers, mechanisms, and pulleys. When we see alien actions, and alien gravity levels, we know it is the action of our enemies.”

  Cammarry nodded.

  See no other signs of the Crock vehicle itself, Jerome holstered the weapon. They walked onward and saw no other gravity sink holes, nor any animals, birds or insects. The silence felt oppressive,
odd, and disconcerting. Even though both Jerome and Cammarry had grown up in Dome 17 where humans, and the biologicals used for food rations were the only life, they had grown accustomed to the noises of the biological habitat here and on the needle ship. Now that those sounds were missing it was bizarre. They reached the point in the habitat where the side wall of the habitat met the end wall, and the hilly corner was located. Looking up at the enormous walls, the sky tube’s light reflecting off those dull surfaces making the corner area more bright in some ways, the adventurers had a sense of how large the habitat really was. Those perpendicular walls rose up and up, but the ceiling so far away was out of focus in the light from the sky tube.

  “There are just no animals anywhere,” Cammarry observed. “I expected something to dart out from the forest, or that thicket.” She pointed to the small and densely overgrown thicket of bushes and brambles which replaced the grassy areas on that side between the road and the sea.

  “I have read that animals would run away ahead of forest fires, and that other animals would be aware of impending earthquakes, and other disasters.” Jerome dropped to a squat and looked at the skid marks, and tracks left by the motorcycle.