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

by John Thornton

  “Visual, spectral, echo, radiographic, neutrinotronic, and gravimetric measurements show it is a viscous substance,” Sandie answered.

  “How can we scan its depth?” Jerome asked.

  “Mag-neutrino detection and ranging will allow for a rough scan down to eight kilometers if the viscous substance remains of consistent character. However, we can scan in a beam only in an area one-half meter in diameter,” Sandie replied.

  “Try it,” Monika suggested. “If it will not damage anything that might be living in that sea.”

  “I can make the mag-neutrino beam very diluted to lower any potential risk,” Sandie answered. “I cannot guarantee a zero risk of damage, as there are substances on Zalia, such as Stabilizite, which we have not studied effectively. However, from the limited knowledge we have of Zalian biological physiology, I conjecture a less than 3% risk of damage to any form of Zalian life. That is assuming the Crock evolved here, and the other life forms follow a similar physiology. Resolution will be poor, but we should be able to differentiate permalloy from non-permalloy accurately. Again the beam will be eight kilometers in depth, but only one-half meter wide.”

  “Like a fork in an apple pie,” Monika interjected. “So that will tell us if Habitat Epsilon is beneath that sea. I think we should try it. Jerome?”

  “Do it,” Jerome ordered.

  A small parabolic dish extended out from the nose of the hovering Probe 01. It rotated and pointed directly downward.

  “Eureka!” Sandie exclaimed, through both com-links. “Permalloy was detected seven hundred sixteen meters below.”

  “It could be just wreckage,” Monika stated. “Delta was in large chunks when we found it.”

  An alert bell sounded from the Probe 04’s monitors. Both people quickly looked at what was now being shown.

  “That is a habitat!” Jerome whooped with joy. He adjusted the monitor so he could see it better.

  Monika glanced over the other monitors, and only 04’s and 01’s were showing anything other than the Zalian surface. “I will keep working to uncover what we found with O1, you work with 04 and see what we have found.”

  “Right.” Jerome watched as the blue-gray colors of the habitat got larger on Probe 04’s point-of-view camera images. The greens and yellows of the air around Probe 04 were much more brilliant and thicker, denser, than the view from the other probes. The red sun was missing, but the sky was a chartreuse. Few if any clouds were in that sky, and it seemed to hang oppressively over the habitat. The landscape around the habitat was the typical things they knew of Zalia: foliage, fields, and strange flows of taupe or brownish gray liquids. The probe was speeding toward the habitat, and passing over a wooded area, if that was a correct term. Those trees of the Zalian forest swayed and oscillated back and forth in the thick and heavy air. They had yellowish stalks with maroon colored crowns which were waving in the winds. This growth had a more random and irregular look to it than some of the other forests which had been observed. This one was wilder, less orderly, and perhaps more natural than the cultivated growth they had seen before.

  “I have the sensors running full on this one,” Jerome muttered under his breath. He glanced at Monika who was busy with Probe 01. He thought to himself, ‘I better be quiet, Monika is not as experienced in flying as was… well, she is working hard and we need to succeed.’

  Monika had directed Probe 01 to move one hundred meters and do another mag-neutrino detection and ranging plunge. The invisible beam shot down into the pudding-thick sea. Again, this one detected permalloy, but at a shallower depth. ‘Oh, so that is the angle. I wonder.’ Monika flew the probe in a direction she suspected would correspond to the curve of the habitat. This time moving a thousand meters. She tapped the controls and a third mag-neutrino detection and ranging plunge was done by the sensors. Here the scan did not detect any permalloy. ‘Found the edge!’ Monika calculated the shape and angles of where she now suspected the habitat to be, and flew the probe another kilometer in a direct direction. Pushing a button, a fourth scanner plunge took place. Here again was permalloy. Monika smiled as her guess had been correct. Several more times she maneuvered Probe 01 until she had the outlines of the habitat plotted. She was unsure how much time had passed, but she had graphed out all the spots on a side-bar of the monitor. She looked at it, and saw the cylindrical shape she knew to be a roughly intact habitat. Glancing at the other monitors, she noted that Probe 04 was on a return course to Alpha and that Probe 03, an odd numbered one was circling a clearly visible habitat.

  “Jerome? I have Epsilon revealed. What else has been happening?”

  Jerome gave her a huge smile. “You were so diligent; I took over for Probe 03 when it encountered a habitat. It is in a holding pattern taking readings. I planted the package on the bow end of Habitat Theta. The sun was rising there, and visualization was poor. The stern was covered in some strange mist, but the package will work well no matter where it is attached. Sandie is running deep scans and assessments. What is the condition of Epsilon?”

  “Looks like it is in one piece, which is about as much as we can tell scanning through the pudding thick stuff. I am thinking we will need to take Probe 01 through that sea, the pudding, to get to Epsilon. Its nearest point is five hundred, ninety-seven meters down from the surface.” Monika grinned at Jerome. “Well done on the others. Any difficulty?”

  “Not really. The atmosphere on Zalia certainly varies from one spot to another. Look at Probe 03 compared to Probe 02.”

  Probe 02’s visual images were just a deep reddish brown. It was flying in the Zalian night. In contrast, Probe 03 was showing the red sun of Zalia piercing the greens and yellows of the sky. It looked like a big, fuzzy, red ball.

  “Earth was almost exactly the same everywhere we went on missions to the other domes,” Jerome commented. “Tan, dry, windy, and deadly.”

  “Well, Zalia is not tan, nor dry, but it is still deadly,” Monika replied. “All I knew was Beta, but I learned about old Earth, and from what I read, and I am not as voracious a reader as you, my dear Jerome, but prior to the Great Event, Earth had all kinds of seasons, and climates, and differences, right?”

  “Yes, John the Biologist used to talk about that often. In poetry there were many references to seasons and nature. The seasons are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and leagues to go before I sleep.”

  “So we have found Epsilon, and Theta, and that one is circling Eta, correct?”

  “Theta is tagged, and Eta will be tagged momentarily.” He made some adjustments and the circling probe moved to land on the habitat. “Probe 05 is rushing toward Gamma. Zeta is still unaccounted for, but that is where it is dark. That probe is moving slower, while doing a careful search.”

  “So you did all this while I was figuring out about Epsilon, impressive. I guess your sophisticated and advanced training pays off.”

  “We are working together, it is not a completion.” Jerome smiled at Monika’s words. He eyed her for a long while.

  “I think Probe 01 can survive the sea, and if we are going to plant the package, we need to set it on the hull of Epsilon. Sandie, will the probe survive if I drive it into the sea there?” Monika tapped the com-link.

  “I conjecture a sixty percent chance of reaching Habitat Epsilon, but only a seventeen percent chance of being about to return to the surface,” Sandie the AI replied.

  “Then that probe is taking a plunge!” Monika said with glee. “Like a spoon into pudding.”

  “More food idioms?” Jerome chuckled. “There are few figures of speech about food ration bars.”

  “I am not sure about that. Boring as a ration bar. Tasteless as a ration bar. Bland as a ration bar.” Monika adjusted the controls for the probe, but she smiled slyly at Jerome.

  “Efficient as a ration bar. Saved by ration bars.” Jerome smiled again as he watched Monika, but also kept his eyes on the other monitors. Probe 03 had deposited the package on a flat part of Eta Habitat, and was now
flying the return route to Alpha. “Best by far is a ration bar.”

  “Now you sound like Khin. Yes, Jerome, food metaphors are coming to me. Breastfeeding just makes me hungrier. There it goes.”

  On the monitor in from of Monika, the point-of-view image from the nose aperture showed Probe 01 slowing tilting downward as it approached the taupe surface of the viscous area. The camera was covered over by the taupe sludge and the probe swan into it at a fairly steady clip.

  “I can only keep the probe on a vertical descent. I will keep it at a steady speed until I get within ten meters of the hull. From them I will slow it down to allow for placement of the package,” Monika said as she carefully watched the monitor. “We have lost visual, and audio.”

  “May I suggest echo location?” Jerome asked. “It probably would not penetrate very far, but even a few meters might allow for maneuvering around any possible obstacles. The mag-neutrino scan can be harmonized with the echo location.”

  “Right. Just lost electronic scanning. Passing the half way point. Still receiving diagnostics from Probe 01.” Monika snapped off each accessory as it became dysfunctional. “Gravity pulse engine down to 64% operational. It is also heating up. Sandie, take some samples of the actual substance and run physical analysis, please.”

  “I have already done that. The sea, to use your term, shows no new substances, but it does have significantly less Stabilizite in it than we have observed in the atmosphere and in my studies of the ground,” the AI Sandy reported. “I am running extended chemical analysis. Thermal differences might account for some of the variations we have observed.”

  An alarm sounded from the monitor marked, Probe 02. Jerome turned to it and said, “There is something happening. I will handle it. Monika, plant the package, unless you want me to put Probe 02 into a holding pattern?”

  “No need, Jerome. Only one of us can adjust the instruments at a time anyway. If you can find that other habitat while I plant this package on Epsilon, all the better. I guess you get to work the evens now.”

  “Got it.” Jerome concentrated on his monitor.

  Probe 01 continued its descent into the unknown. Monika slowed its speed as it was approaching the depth where the scans had showed the habitat’s hull to be located. She still had control of its engine and was linked to it through the communication system.

  Suddenly, a bluish image appeared in the nose camera’s view. It was some kind of antenna which was jutting up from the hull of Epsilon. With some deft maneuvering and an increase of gravity pulses, Probe 01 maneuvered around that antenna. She changed the positioning, and using the leveling sensors in the probe placed it over where she expected the hull to be located. She then fired the engine, with ever so tiny pulses of gravity waves, so the probe was descending again. Then the echo location failed. The nose camera fuzzed out into an image of static, as it too failed. Seals and gaskets on the probe disintegrated and the viscous material of the sea leaked inside. Monika focused her eyes on reading the few gauges and instruments which were still working.

  “A dampening field,” Monika said when the remaining sensors registered it. “Looks like it surrounds the hull, but…” the readings were flipping all over the chart and then that instrument failed as well.

  A red light flashed on the monitor. ‘Proximity alert’ read out and the descent gauge was pegged at six hundred forty-seven meters down. Monika gave the engine another command and it read out that a pulse was generated, but the position gauge remained fixed. Before she said anything, she hit the buttons to deploy the package. Its own instruments lit up with power, and readings started to come back from it.

  “Package delivered and locked onto Epsilon!” Monika joyously exclaimed. “Sandie, get as much information as you can from that package, before it too shuts down. The probe is failing to respond to commands. After the package was set, I tried to get it to move back to the surface, but the engine is not responding now. In fact, there is no response from the probe at all. It is gone. It died at the end of the descent.”

  “I am already interfacing into Epsilon. Well done on that delivery,” Sandie stated. “You are correct on the probe. I too am getting no readings from it, but you did complete its mission. Readings are also coming back from Eta, and Theta.”

  “I am closing on Habitat Zeta,” Jerome said. “It is in the dark there, but I have detected a structure which is eighty-one kilometers long, and sixteen kilometers wide. That is consistent with a habitat. There is also a lot of electronic noise from that place. Looks like this is a live one.”

  As Jerome watched, there were a series of sharp blasts of some kind which came from the audio pickups on Probe 02. He adjusted the camera view, and it still showed the deep red darkness of a Zalian night.

  “That sounded like gunfire,” Monika observed.

  “I have the sound scan level set pretty high so as to avoid hearing Zalia’s basic worldly noises. I also set the audio to filter out the buzz of the gravity pulse engine. I guess it could be gunfire, but outside a habitat?” Jerome asked. It was partly a question, and partly a contemplative idea expressed. His eyebrows raised up in a quizzical expression.

  Monika rubbed her forehead and only then realized she had been sweating with concentration. “What kind of weapons have we seen the Crocks use?”

  “They set-up those gravity sinks to make holes in the habitats. That is a terrible weapon of slaughter.” Jerome snapped. Then he caught himself, and his face relaxed. “Forgive me, Monika. I believe they use the gravity sink holes, and we know they use lots of other tools, like those tanks with treads, but I do not know exactly what weapons they use. Prior to the Great Event, humans had a myriad of weapons. I suspect that the Crocks do as well.” Jerome was recalling the horrors he has seen done to animals in the menagerie. In a soft voice he said, almost to himself. “Back before everything went into catastrophe on Earth, guns were totted as tools which made humanity free and had kept people free. Others said that weapons were instruments of violence, domination, lawlessness, and acts of terror. Both sides were right, at least in principal. The Great Event proved lawlessness and evil use of weapons is more powerful. Earth was virtually destroyed in the 90 Hour War, even though it had been crippled badly in the Great Event.” His eyes were blurry for the tears that were there. “Use of lethal weapons is a huge responsibility. Perhaps gravity sink holes are the Crocks version of doomsday devices?”

  “Perhaps,” Monika agreed. “Shall I take over on that last probe?”

  Shaking his head, Jerome rubbed his eyes. “It is not the last one, that Probe 05 is heading to Gamma, and we need to plant that package. We know Gamma is still at least somewhat functional. These others, who knows?”

  “I am learning,” Sandie interjected. “I am getting excellent quality information from Eta, Theta, and even Epsilon. Epsilon’s assessment I have expedited as I am unsure how long the package of instruments will be usable surrounded by the Zalian sea. Several aspects of that package have already failed.”

  “Thank you Sandie,” Jerome said. “I will now see if I can set the probe down on Zeta and lock the package in place.”

  “I will watch Probe 05 to see when it gets to Gamma,” Monika said. “I guess I am still the odd one.” She winked at Jerome.

  Jerome caught the look, and grinned. He then used the instruments to control Probe 02, as it sped toward the suspected location of Zeta. The nose camera still showed only the darkness of the Zalian night.

  “Strange that there are no external lights,” Jerome said. “Unless they are under attack, or something. Lots of old-style electronic signals, and messy primitive power signatures. None of those would be detectable from orbit in this soup of an atmosphere.” Jerome laughed a bit. “Now you have me thinking in food metaphors.”

  “Jerome, why would they need external lights? I grew up in Beta, and before meeting you, I would never have considered anything about external lighting.”

  “Good point. They might be trying to preserve power. But
Beta did have shuttle flights, and that accursed Project Angel Food. Both those showed external lighting, and the other habitats we have found today, except for Epsilon, have had external lighting. It just strikes me as unusual.”

  “And we do not know about Gamma yet. Probe 05 is approaching it.”

  “We know where Gamma is, just not what is happening inside. Now over here,” Jerome nodded at the monitor. “The lidar and radar show it is a habitat, Zeta, but I need to see more clearly to land and set the package.” Jerome then activated the flood lights on Probe 02. He had resisted doing that, but now decided to try it. Twin white lights beamed out from the probe. The bluish gray permalloy of the hull showed up clearly. He watched the gauges and instruments carefully, and saw a flat area on the top most part of the hull. He knew the package could attach to anywhere as it had an adhesive mechanism, but he wanted to set down on an area where he could just ascend after attaching the package.