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

by John Thornton

  “He tried to kill my Khin, and he knew where we are. He was dying anyway. This was fast and easy,” Vesna said. “He tried to kill my Khin. His people may come to attack us, like the hoodlums of Beta did. It was not safe to let him go, nor to keep him here. I saved my Khin.”

  “Thank you!” Khin rushed over and hugged Vesna. He looked down at the medical kit which was now sitting in the expanding pool of blood. “Spirit-ghost Sandie?” Khin called, “I am confused. Would you help us?”

  Sandie the AI replied, “I strongly advise you to leave Eta now. The threat of attack by the habitat dwellers exists, and there is no reasonable potential for rescuing any of them. Gravity sink holes have developed in at least five places in the habitat’s shell. The risk of spreading this variant disease to the rest of the Conestoga is small, yet a real possibility. Therefore, none of the habitat dwellers can to be relocated.”

  “Traitor Sandie makes another unilateral decision! Again! Traitor Sandie, you were wrong to send us here. You knew what we would find.” Cammarry walked over and activated the teleportation sending unit. She was mumbling as she did so. Alizon was with her. His nearness gave her courage and steadied her enough so she could say, “Khin, Vesna, I will send you to the needle ship, back to the Goat People.” She nearly added, ‘If I can trust Traitor Sandie,’ but she did not. “Then Alizon and I will go to Alpha.”

  “That is a wise choice,” Sandie stated.

  “You just shut up, Traitor,” Cammarry snapped. With force she threw the selector lever to the needle ship indicator. “I have heard a lifetime supply of comments from you, Sandie. My story will go on without you in it.”

  Khin reached for the medical kit. Before he could pull it from the spreading pool of blood, Sandie spoke loudly. “Do not touch with blood on it.”

  Khin pulled his hand back, and turned to look at the teleporter.

  The grid on the floor quivered ever so slightly. The jumbo fusion boxes hummed with power. Then the energy orbs snapped on, grew and expanded. The twin orbs met and shifted into the energy orifice which looked long and deep, yet was flat. The illusion of looking through teleportation equipment was distinct.

  “Khin, Vesna, the way is open.” Cammarry pressed a forced smile on her face. “I am glad you were here, and sorry you got tricked by the Traitor Sandie. Hurry through and go home! Khin, it is like flying, you will be back home, just stepping out into the Goat Room.”

  Khin’s, Vesna’s, and Alizon’s com-links suddenly chirped and Jerome’s voice came from them. “I am unable to reach Cammarry. What is happening? The teleporter just connected and is stable. The orifice is ready. Have you found the habitat people? Is Cammarry safe?”

  “Wizard Jerome, we are coming back!” Khin cried out and holding Vesna by the hand they ran up and onto the teleportation sending unit. They passed into the orifice. For a moment, it looked like their bodies were elongated, stretched to the breaking point, or pulled out of sorts, but then they were gone.

  “Khin and Vesna are here, safely!” Jerome called out through Alizon’s com-link. Khin’s laughter could be heard in the background. “Are more people coming through? Where is Cammarry? Did you find all the survivors?”

  Cammarry snapped the shut-down switch and the orifice disappeared.

  “Can anyone hear me?” Jerome’s voice was adamant from Alizon’s com-link. “Who is there? What is happening?”

  Cammarry reached up to Alizon and removed his com-link. She stroked the side of his face tenderly as she pulled it away from his ear, and thumbed it off. “Will you take me to your home?”

  “Your machine is the route, but I will do whatever I can for you,” Alizon replied. “My home is your home. My life is your life.”

  Cammarry switched the teleporter’s selector lever to Alpha and engaged the startup procedure. “Traitor Sandie may trap us here. I should have offered you the chance to go with Khin and Vesna. I am not sure we can escape.”

  “Their path is theirs. Mine is with you,” Alizon stated. “No matter what.”

  “But why? You call me beautiful woman. Are you just infatuated by my looks? It is all some sexual lust?”

  “You are a beautiful woman, but that was proven more by what is inside you than what is outside. Remember what you did for Haddie? And for me?” Alizon stared at her. “Inner life is where beauty arises. It ascends from the soul and you are a beautiful woman.”

  Cammarry stammered. She looked away, wishing the teleporter would connect more quickly. “But I am a total mess. An angry failure who keeps making things worse. You asked if I was angry with that cannibal?” She gestured toward the dead Tun. “My anger is more at myself, and why would you ever want to be part of that. I am not beautiful. Anger is ugly and disgusting.”

  Alizon looked at the teleportation machine, and then back to Cammarry. “I understand anger. I did not stop those who slaughtered my family, and I struggle. I rage in my heart about that. I saw that same thing, that inner pain, in your eyes the first time I saw you. I know what you feel. Yet, even more in you is compassion, mercy, and hope. Those can arise too. So you are beautiful. You are not rage and anger and hostility. You are not defined by feelings. Nor am I.” He leaned forward, and Cammarry grabbed him by the sides of his face and kissed him.

  “It will take a few more moments for the teleporter to recycle and reset to Alpha,” Cammarry said as she pulled her lips away from Alizon’s. “Then we go home to your farm. I hope the Traitor Sandie, and Shadow, and all my enemies will allow that to happen. Otherwise, I have doomed your life to end in this dead habitat.”

  “As long as I am with you, I live. When you found me, you saved me,” Alizon stated. “I was dead without you. Dead inside, just waiting to fall over on the outside. You gave me back my life. So now it is yours. No matter what, I am alive now, only because of you.”

  “I know you saved me,” Cammarry said. “Shall we save each other now?” She turned and saw that the teleportation sending unit was finalizing its realignment. “I doubt anyone will be able to operate this after we go, but I am setting a personal lock code into the console.”

  “Before, you mentioned chemical explosives?” Alizon asked. “They are in your weapon. Would they detonate from fire?”

  “I think so, yes. Why?”

  “We could set fire to this Albatross Inn to prevent anyone from following us through your machine. That would kill the disease that wretched youth had, perhaps. So, leave the weapon and its parts by this machine. When the fire reaches it, they would explode. Will that work?”

  “I can rig something up like that, yes.” Cammarry looked around at everything which might be combustible. The trash, the broken wooden furniture. “Yes, that will work. It will not hurt the permalloy, but it will certainly make a mess of the controls on the console, and effectively ruin teleportation from here.”

  They set to work piling up the items for the fire, and Cammarry dropped all the bullets and the revolver itself right next to the command console of the teleportation sending unit. She then added both com-links. As she dropped the last one, she felt a chapter closing in her life. She had no idea what would be next.

  “I am not sure what speed the fire will travel, so you should go through as soon as the orifice opens, I will follow after I set the fire,” Cammarry stated.

  “We go through together, or we do not go at all.”

  “Alizon, we are not staying here.” Cammarry kissed him again.

  Cammarry turned the switches and buttons. The sending unit activated and the orifice snapped into place. Cammarry took out her molecular torch, and set it to a burning flame. Alizon held her by the hand, and she tossed it down on the rubbish and junk they had piled around the teleporter. The flames caught. Cammarry turned, and with Alizon next to her, stepped though the teleporter and out onto the receiving pad in the apartment at Alpha.

  13 alpha’s ascension

  The teleporter orifice snapped shut, Jerome looked at the controls and wished he had a sending unit to open
to Eta, but he did not. The only functional sending unit he had was the smaller one for Alpha, and besides, Eta did not have a receiving pad anyway.

  “Khin? What happened down there?” Jerome yelled. “Is Cammarry safe?”

  “Wow!! That was a different flying,” Khin exclaimed with a laugh.

  Jerome grabbed him, and held him by the shoulders. “What happened?”

  Vesna put her rifle’s barrel up against Jerome’s head. “Let go of my Khin, right now.” Her voice was cold and low.

  “You all stop it!” Monika called from by the bedroom. In her hand was a pistol. “No one gets shot here. Settle down, all of you.”

  Vesna’s eyes never left Jerome. “Let go of my Khin.”

  Jerome released Khin and stepped back, his hands in the air. “I just want to know what is happening?” He looked at Vesna. “You have blood on your shirt. Who is hurt?”

  Khin then smiled and shook his head. “A bad man is dead, no one else. Vesna, remember, this is Wizard Jerome. Put down the rifle. Monika, remember, this is my Vesna, no need for guns. No dangers here.”

  “Much better, we are all on the same side here,” Monika said and pulled up the barrel on the small pistol she had, which Jerome had never seen before. It then disappeared somewhere in her clothing.

  “I agree, but no one can threaten my Khin.” Vesna slung the rifle back over her shoulder.

  “Some bad man died? I still do not know what is happening,” Jerome said. “Khin, I apologize, but what happened down there? Are there more people coming?”

  “As my father says, ‘tell lies today, friends run away.’ I cannot tell what I do not know myself. Spirit-ghost Sandie?” Khin called out and held his hand to the com-link. “Tell Wizard Jerome what happened.”

  Sandie’s voice came on. “Khin and Vesna have teleported to the needle ship. Cammarry and Alizon are planning to teleport to Alpha. The situation is complex, but basically, the people in Eta habitat cannot be saved due to an endemic neurological disorder which is contagious, and untreatable.”

  “An untreatable disease?” Jerome asked. “Were these two or Cammarry and Alizon affected?”

  “We do not eat human brains,” Khin laughed. “Bad, foul, man in that stinky forest does.”

  “What?” Jerome asked.

  Sandie proceeded to explain in detail about the disease in Eta. Monika looked nauseated by the discussion, but she stayed and listened. While Sandie explained, Jerome did callisthenic exercises with his arms, trying to calm himself and focus on the circumstances.

  “…so in summary, Cammarry and Alizon are teleporting to Alpha. I have arranged for Reproduction and Fabrication in Alpha to make a supply package with food ration bars, replacement tools, and other gear for them. It will be taken to them via a yellow automacube as they travel to Alizon’s farm. SB Sherman has agreed to assist in getting that there.” Sandie finished the explanation.

  “So Eta is a total loss?” Jerome asked.

  “Those big Crock tanks are there,” Khin added. “Sandie did not speak about them, but that bad man had seen them. Called them metal demon ogres.”

  “Sandie? Is that true?” Jerome asked.

  “Yes, there was evidence of Crock vehicles activity in Eta,” Sandie replied simply.

  “But you did not tell me.” Jerome wrestled with his feelings.

  “I had to condense the account,” Sandie the AI replied. “I did not give exacting details about the gravity sink holes, the condition of the forest, the soils, the malfunctioning sky tube of Eta, or how NS-99 had to be remotely piloted back to the needle ship, among other things. Cammarry and Alizon are teleporting to Alpha, and Khin and Vesna are safe here.”

  “So we are going to the Goat People,” Khin stated and looked at Vesna. “This Wizard’s quest was enough for a while. I would rather hunt rats, and make more cheeses.”

  Vesna agreed and they walked away together.

  Jerome turned to Monika. “Life is a rainbow of chaos, surrounded by a swamp of messes, and wrapped in a confusion of conflicts.”

  “But when I look in either of our son’s faces, I see hope for the future,” Monika replied. “But if I am following all this, Alpha is now the only habitat left. Will that ever ascend?”

  “It has to,” Jerome replied. “That is the only viable habitat. It has to get away from Zalia, or we are all lost. This feels too much like Dome 17.”

  Monika pulled Jerome into a hug and held him.

  On the bridge of the needle ship, the place Eris used as the command center, she was listening to a fuller and more complete report by Sandie and the lattice of compeers.

  “I agree it was wise to avoid telling Jerome everything about the Crocks,” Eris stated. “It might well cause him too much stress, and we still may need his piloting skills.”

  “Cammarry’s learning of the Shadow was a mistake,” Sandie replied. “I should have been more careful.”

  “That cannot be reversed, but I am concerned about the suspended animation cocoons from Eta. Are those people carrying that disease?”

  AI Ogma replied, “Sandie has made available screening procedures which test specifically for that. The physical people, the Crocks, are moving those suspended animation cocoons to Alpha. Each cocoon from Eta will be thoroughly and methodically inspected prior to entrance into Alpha.”

  AI Batibat related, “After passing inspection, the Eta cocoons are being placed into the newly restored Repository, 15A outside of Wolf City. The Theta cocoons have already been loaded into the expanded Repository 17A near Aston. We remodeled to accommodate a total of 20,000 cocoons. The estimated numbers were uncertain prior to the loss of some habitats. We now have solid findings, and have the potential for 19,811 cocoon occupants. Unfortunately, there is a risk that not all will survive transplantation. I will report final numbers prior to launch.”

  Captain Eris sighed. She prayed for strength and endurance. The numbers of people still existing in functional cocoons were significant, yet compared to the 112,000 people who once walked up to a Conestoga repository and then reclined to ‘sleep’ in a suspended animation cocoon, it was a dismal percentage. Eris remembered her training classes where they spoke of a possible loss of five to seven percent of all people in suspended animation, and that was in the major-crisis scenarios. Her teacher had assured her class that ‘realistic expectations show a less than one percent loss factor.’ Remembering how she had awoken herself, Eris realized that those teachers, planners, and projection managers had not understand what a major-crisis scenario could really look like. Eris grinned a morbid, gallows humor grin, and thought how surprised some of those people who were now in suspended animation would feel when they awoke. They would have lived through a flight, insurrection, crash landing, transport by aliens, reloaded into a questionable habitat and boosted back into space. Well, once docked and rejoined to the needle ship, the Conestoga would be reborn, and those suspended animation people would have a chance. Eris prayed even more.

  “The plan is working,” Shadow stated. “Nearly everything has come together.”

  “Yes, the implants are now working well in Peter, Siva, and Jenna,” Eris replied. “The more people in the system, the better our communication, and the more reliable our interactions through the shadowlands.” Eris prayed that that would continue. It was another area which she had hidden from Jerome, although Cammarry now knew something about Sandie being connected to the Shadow Clearance Level system. “It is very helpful that I can speak to others openly about the Shadow communication system now.”

  “It was always intended to be a facilitation for the flight crew, but security and secrecy was essential to prevent the insurrectionists from compromising further the Conestoga’s mission,” Shadow replied.

  Eris looked at the large central display on the wall. It was flanked by two other big displays. On those were now shown views of the planet Zalian, and space. The lattice of compeers had aided in the remodeling and reconstruction. What had once been Navigation and As
trogation with its five work stations, now was a command bridge which could send out orders to all area of the needle ship. Eris sat down at the left hand command chair. To her right was the second officer’s command chair. Two steps down on each side of the bridge were additional expanded control locations. The reengineering of Auxiliary Navigation, Stellar Cartography, Plotting and Reckoning, Astronomy, along with Auxiliary Avoidance and Repulsor Control allowed for the needle ship’s new bridge to be functional at nearly 80% of original design specifications. It was not as elaborate as the old bridge, but Eris felt it would do the job. The bridge worked adequately, but the rest of the needle ship still had a multitude of issues, and blue engineering automacubes were crawling all over it making repairs.

  Pressing a lever on the arms of the command chair Eris spoke, “Engineering?”