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

by John Thornton

  “And how do I know you are not leading me to a trap? You favor those with implanted identification, and you treat me like some criminal. Are you lying to me?” Cammarry asked. “I do not trust you at all. Too many SBs and AIs here have already tried to kill me, or trap me, or kidnapped me.”

  “I have no way to prove anything to you. I agree, you do not have proper identification markers. My core programming is to respond to legitimate Conestoga personnel. I cannot explain why you do not have identification, nor do I have evidence to support your previous outlandish claims of an origin on the planet Earth. Additionally, you are threatening me, which, according to the Code of Conduct for the Colony Ship Conestoga, is a criminal offence. Nonetheless, I have told you the truth. If the lattice of compeers was functional, you could confirm with other systems. As it stands now, you can trust me or not. You know my vulnerability, and I cannot stop that. If I have made mistakes, I apologize. There seems to be more conflict in Alpha than I understood. I admit I do not have a complete picture of what is happening. Being sequestered out of the lattice has done that to me. I only wish to serve and protect the inhabitants of Alpha,” SB Joseph Crater responded. “My function is to oversee and assist in the operations of Alpha’s hanger bays and shuttles.”

  “Well, you had your chance to assist me, and you failed to listen. I will check out that Exterior Repair Station 111, but tell me the easiest way to shut it down. Otherwise I will just go there and destroy whatever I find. Then, I will do the same to your central memory core.” Cammarry’s threats were given with so much force, it even surprised her.

  “The macroactinide capacitor enhancers in Exterior Repair Station 111 are an essential nodal point for the dampening field. If those are removed from the connections, the dampening field will fold down on itself. That would be the easiest way to disable the dampening field, without unnecessary and more permanent destruction. I have an animated removal sequence which I just cross loaded from Machine Maintenance’s self-service directory. I can request instructional materials from Machine Maintenance, but I do not have comprehensive interactions with any other synthetic brains or artificial intelligence systems in the nonphysicality. Shall I play that for you?”

  “Go ahead.”

  The animation showed a simple animated video of a person removing some apparatus from a wall compartment. It was a simple procedure. The animation showed the person installing a new replacement macroactinide capacitor enhancer.

  “That is all it will take?” Cammarry asked. “Honestly?”

  “Yes, if the macroactinide capacitor enhancer is removed, and left out, the dampening field will fold down on itself and be inactive. I can only report on the original design parameters of the Conestoga. There has been tampering, but I am not aware of exactly how that was done, or of what that consists. The animation I played for you is for standard repairs, for existing systems, restoring them to original operational specifications. It is one of the many repair recordings available from Machine Maintenance. I have sixteen of those, but no way to implement any of the repairs. Beyond the pre-programmed Machine Maintenance sending of those instructional animations, no one has responded to any of my inquiries, or summons for help. I cannot contact any engineering automacubes, nor contact any shuttles, nor contact any sensorium equipment. It appears that I cannot receive any other input since just after the dampening field was altered. Until your interaction with me, via this method which is quite unorthodox, happened, all I could do was send in requests, and receive back the instructional animations. Yours is the first sentient dialogue I have had since the alteration. Will you re-establish those prior links and couplings? Could you contact Machine Maintenance directly on my behalf? I would appreciate your attention to this matter.”

  “What?” Cammarry nearly choked as she realized SB Joseph Crater was actually asking for assistance. She took a deep breath. The logical part of her mind knew keeping the systems working was important, but her emotions wanted revenge. “I will check out this method of shutting down the dampening field. If it works, I will consider sparing you, and maybe even telling Eris where you are. She wants to save worthless, old, antiques like you.”

  “I would appreciate….”

  Cammarry tore the earphones off her head and threw them down. “Just shut up already!”

  Cammarry rudely shut down the command controls she had opened, and jerked the fusion pack’s cable from the access port. She gathered up her gear, weapons, backpack, and marched off, heading for Exterior Repair Station 111.

  The corridors were lit, but empty, with an almost overwhelming feeling of isolation, cold, and aloneness. The air had a smell of ozone, mixed with other mechanical scents. Cammarry wondered how much of that was from the milieu, and how much was projected from her inner feeling of conflict and stress. She pressed on.

  It took her some time, having to stop at each pressure or bulkhead door and use the fusion pack to energize them. But she pressed on. Going the short distance was surprisingly boring. Traverse a corridor, stop at an unpowered door, then charge the door, open it, and repeat.

  Finally, she stood before the doors to the Exterior Repair Station 111. She had the fusion pack’s cable ready to plug in, when she noted the nine-section color control pad was fully illuminated.

  “Well, maybe that SB Sherman can talk to me from this point.”

  Cammarry reached out and pressed the center of the control pad.

  Ka-zing!

  The control pad sparked with energy. Cammarry leaped back, but her hand was badly burned. Her RAM clothing had prevented some of the energy from scorching her arm’s flesh, but the hand was bright red and very sore. It was the same limb where the Shadow implant had been violently jabbed into her. Her mind whirled with anger, anxiety, and anguish.

  Cammarry let out an agonizing cry and dropped to her knees. “Not again. No, not again!” She then rolled away from the still sizzling and sparking control pad.

  “A trap. It was trapped!” Cammarry cried out. “Carter the Kidnapper strikes again!” Looking at her hand, she saw it was red with some peeled flesh. The aroma of burnt skin was pungent and sickening. The place where she had repaired the RAM clothing had not protected her as much as the intact parts of the sleeve had done, and a red streak reached up her forearm, ending right near the scar where Shadow had been.

  Sloughing the AWAD and backpack off, letting them clamber to the floor, Cammarry then dug through her supplies and took out the medical kit. She opened the side and took out a trauma gel pack and ripped it open with her teeth. Consuming that, she then connected the medical kit’s wires onto her injured hand and pressed diagnosis.

  The small readout displayed the status of her hand, which she knew was serious, but not severe. The medical kit confirmed that the oral gel would rapidly speed the healing, but it also dispensed some balm to apply directly over her hand. She did that, and then pulled the glove out of the RAM sleeve, and used it as a bandage over the wound. The glove fit nicely and protected her hand. Emotionally, it was comforting to just hide the injury, and she knew the balm would work quickly to heal her. Looking at her RAM sleeve, her vision spun a bit. Her mind whirled. The slash when Shadow was implanted, then extracted, the avulsions, burns, and pain all twisted around in her mind, confusing her, and making her think of it all as one incident, rather than separate injuries. She shook her head, and squinted her eyes, and looked again. The sleeve looked intact, and the glove hid the hand.

  “Well, good enough for now. I am getting inside there.”

  With her uninjured hand, Cammarry pulled out the molecular torch and set it to its maximum cutting depth. Holding it at a distance, she sliced through the connection between the nine-section color control pad, and the permalloy door. The control pad went dark as the connection to whatever powered it was cut. Cammarry made a final cut around the perimeter of the control pad and it fell to the floor with a clang. Then she set about slicing through the door’s edges. It was slow work, but she was able make her o
wn door. She stepped back and kicked it in. The cut-out section of permalloy fell hard to the floor beyond.

  “Youch!” Cammarry yelped as her hand hurt from the jarring. “But I am here!”

  Looking in she could see a complicated chair, and an enormous display screen. It reminded her a bit of the control room inside the Gravity Manipulation Oscillator. Overhead lighting was working, but the room itself was rather small. The chair was the main feature, with the huge display on the wall, and doors leading out the other side walls. The chair had a myriad of levers, dials, gauges, buttons, switches, and all sorts of instruments on both its arms, and set on a pedestal before it.

  Cammarry carefully assessed what was there, and noted some equipment jammed into a corner of the room. That mechanism was not part of the built-in features, and she could see where rough connections had been cut, welded, and crammed into the circuitry.

  “No automacube made connections that crude and primitive,” Cammarry commented. “Eris would frown on such shoddy work.” With her eyes she traced down the connections from the crudely added equipment back to the door. It was welded into place on the interior door’s nine-section color control pad. Cammarry took the molecular torch and neatly severed those jury-rigged connections off. The cables fell to the deck.

  “Excellent! I have reconnection here,” SB Sherman stated as the display screen opposite the entry door flickered into life. A view of the planet Zalia came on. “Somehow this Exterior Repair Station has now reappeared as accessible via the nonphysicality.”

  “Carter the Kidnapper sent me here. It was rigged to kill anyone who tried to enter.” Cammarry looked at the mechanism on the corner and saw that there was some receiving and transmitting equipment as part of the apparatus. The molecular torch made short work of those as well. She severed the energy supplies, the cables, and the individual components away from each other. Finally, a lufi amalgam battery pack was revealed which had charged the entire booby-trap. Cammarry kicked the parts until they were further apart and just a pile of junk.

  “I can now see you have deactivated the tampering,” SB Sherman stated. “Several more sections of this deck are now accessible to me. I cannot find SB Joseph Crater, whom you have given the moniker, Carter the Kidnapper. Have you recently destroyed that system’s central memory core as well?”

  It was a simple question, and yet, somehow, in some odd way, it struck Cammarry hard. It was almost as if SB Sherman knew what Cammarry had been considering, yet just expressed it as a potential. The expectation SB Sherman had for Cammarry doing violence and being destructive, bothered her as much as her throbbing hand, or the feeling that she had been set-up for the trap.

  “I have not yet… well, I am not sure what I will do against Carter,” Cammarry fumbled her words

  Cammarry sat down on the chair. A side of the display screen shifted, with about two-thirds of the screen still showing the view of Zalia. The rest showed command buttons. One was labeled ‘Voice Command’ and Cammarry pressed that.

  ‘Ready’ flashed on the screen.

  “Show me the nearest macroactinide capacitor enhancer location.”

  A deck plan in green on a black background replaced the yellows and greens of the Zalian view. An arrow in red flashed in the room just to the right of where Cammarry sat. The command chair’s location was represented by a small icon of it.

  “If that is removed, what will happen?” Cammarry asked. She was unwilling to trust what SB Joseph Crater had told her, yet she was unsure how else to proceed.

  ‘Failure of exterior scanning, projections, and repulsor system.’ This message flashed in bright red across the display.

  “SB Sherman? Do you concur with what this is telling me?”

  “I am only connected into the doors and other egress points,” SB Sherman stated. “I am not designed for exterior scanning duties, or oversight.”

  “So can you assess the doors to that room next door? It looks like an airlock from this deck plan, and I certainly do not want to open it and have the toxins of Zalia flood in on me.”

  “The room to your left is designated as a storage compartment for spacesuits and other exterior repair paraphernalia,” SB Sherman stated. “As for the airlock on your right, the exterior door is securely sealed, and the interior door is also sealed. I am not sure of the content of the airlock, as my ability to perceive is limited to the egress points, however, I can tell you the log for this room shows that neither the interior door, nor the exterior door has been opened since launch. I surmise, that the proper atmosphere is still inside the airlock, but I cannot guarantee that.”

  Cammarry stood up, and the display screen shifted back to a view of Zalia. She stepped over to the door to the storage compartment. “SB Sherman, open the storage compartment door.”

  The door slid into its pocket with barely a whisper. Inside the room the lights came on. Cammarry could see green stacked spacesuits on the shelves, with their corresponding bubble helmets next to them. Other gear and supplies were also stored there.

  “Keep this door open. I will cut my way out if I get trapped inside.”

  “As long as I am connected, I will assist you,” SB Sherman replied. “Additionally, you may wish to know that Captain Eris has met with a group of escaped slaves, and they are working together as they head toward the stern.”

  “So she is still safe?” Cammarry asked.

  “Yes. Probably safer now that she has human allies with her.”

  Cammarry walked into the storage room. She expected the door to slam shut behind her, or to be assaulted in some manner. She was not. She looked over the spacesuits, and found one marked ‘Female: Medium’ and carried it back to the chair room. The storage room door remained open.

  Cammarry rearranged her equipment and then pulled on the spacesuit. Her hand was still sore, even though it was healing, and as she slipped on the spacesuit’s gloves they snugged up tight against her own RAM gloved hand. The old spacesuit’s systems were simple, but seemed functional. She pulled on the bubble helmet and checked the oxygen reserves.

  “SB Sherman? Can you hear me?” Cammarry asked. Her voice echoed strangely inside the bubble helmet.

  There was no response.

  Cammarry pulled off the bubble helmet and said, “You could not hear me when I had that on, correct?”

  “Yes. That is correct. I did not consider that potential.”

  Cammarry approached the airlock door. The gauges on it read out that the interior was filled with a proper and breathable air mixture, but she knew gauges and displayed could be faked. Next to the gauges were buttons marked ‘Depressurize’ in blue color and ‘Pressurize’ in rust color.

  “SB Sherman, if you open the airlock door I can go inside. If there is toxic atmosphere, I guess it will flood this section of the deck.” Cammarry looked at the door to the corridor she had ruined by cutting it apart.

  “I have that corridor sealed on either end, and if there are toxic elements, the atmospheric scrubbers will automatically activate to remove the impurities,” SB Sherman stated.

  “If those scrubbers are working, and not tampered with or ruined,” Cammarry stated.

  “That is a valid concern. I cannot connect to the systems which oversee atmospheric equilibrium, so I understand your concerns.”

  “I wish Sandie were able to advise me and make some conjectures,” Cammarry said. “Anyway, I will put the helmet back on. Wait one minute and then open this interior door.”

  “Understood.”

  The bubble helmet clicked into place. Cammarry waited in the silence of a spacesuit without communication equipment. She wondered if it was from the dampening field, or from a malfunction. Eris’ suit had suffered a malfunction. The airlock buttons both flashed, and then the pressure door slid open. There was no observable change. No greenish gases emerged from the airlock. No warning alarms or signals from the atmospheric scrubbers and toxin accumulators. But then Cammarry wondered if she would hear the alarms, sealed into the sp
acesuit as she was.

  She sat in the command chair and fingered some controls. She turned off the audio inputs, and activated an analysis of the airlock. Everything read out as operational. Cammarry tried another detector method, and it too showed perfectly normal readings on the graphs and schematics.

  “I will make the repairs before I remove the spacesuit.” Cammarry walked toward the airlock. Just before she stepped inside, she reached down and placed the AWAD across the threshold to prevent the door from shutting.

  Inside the airlock, Cammarry wondered if she could make the needed adjustments. The airlock was roughly three meters long by two meters wide and two meters high. There were controls at both doors and a hand rail that runs along the middle of the wall.

  She found the panel which had been shown in the animated repair video. It was labeled TVK766. Cammarry could not release the panel’s bolts using her gloved fingers, especially since her one hand was still sore. She returned to the chair room and dug through her backpack to find a multi-tool. The panel bolts came loose when he used that tool on them.