“Yes, Khin. I will be with you and Vesna, so long as you have the com-links with you and keep them activated.”
“Very good. We are going to bad places. If the children are found by the others, please tell me, and my Vesna.” He laughed but it lacked mirth. “I do not like where we will be going, so if they are already saved, tell us.”
“I will do that Khin,” Sandie confirmed.
“Off we go!” Khin turned and walked ahead of Vesna, across the growth medium which was thick with mushrooms and other fungal plants.
They soon left the familiar passages, and took side corridors which were even dimmer, and from the larger amounts of foliage coming up from the growth medium, had seldom been traveled by humans.
“My Khin, how do you know which way to go?” Vesna asked. “In Beta, I could track by footprints, or by marks on the trails. Here, I just see the mushrooms, and the ground.”
Khin laughed as they walked along. “The children were lost up by the main road. Lots of people searching there, and if the children are there, those searchers will certainly find them. But as my father says, ‘The truly lost is not nearby, the monster go where people die.’ That is how I know where to go.”
Vesna had to duck under a broken conduit pipe which was hanging down from the ceiling in order to follow Khin. “So, you believe Clark and his monster tale?”
“I know monsters are real. I know the children are missing. I know Clark was very scared,” Khin replied with a chuckle. “A scared child might lie about what he has done, to avoid a punishment, but a scared child does not lie about what he has seen. So, do I think Clark himself hurt those other children? No. Clark would not do that. Do I think Clark saw a monster?” Khin laughed and nodded his head. “Yes. But as I said to the spirit-ghost Sandie, the children might be found by the parents and others.”
“But you do not believe they will be,” Vesna stated as a fact, not a question.
“If we do not look now, and the children are not found, then they will not be found. My mother told me, ‘Just five days you have to save, otherwise they are in the grave.’ She knows. Mother knows about monsters.”
Vesna reached out and grabbed Khin’s shoulder and turned him around. Looking into his face she said, “Khin, monsters have taken other children?”
There was no laughter, no giggles, no smirking grin. “Yes. But not all lost children are taken by monsters.”
Vesna grabbed him and held him in a tight embrace.
“Khin, how do you measure days here?” Vesna asked. “In Beta, the sky tube marked the times. Here, I just sleep when you sleep, and wake when you wake.”
“That is a day. One active time, one sleep time. That is a day. The children have not been lost for a day, not yet.” His face broken into a smile and he chuckled. “I have heard both my mother and my father say that ‘there are three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way, and the monster way.’ By going where we are going, I am thinking of how the monster way would do it.”
Khin turned and walked away. They came to a small door set into the wall. “This says to the ‘Land of Bad Air’. I am reading, like Jerome reads.”
“No one reads like Jerome reads. Sandie is always projecting books for him, from that com-link,” Vesna replied. “But he does know things.” She did not tell Khin what the sign actually said.
“Wizardy things, sometimes. Other times I think he is a big child. Cammarry too. These wizards are weird.” Khin pulled on the horizontal handle on the door. Vesna knew it said, ‘Discarding Chute’ in very faded letters, but she did not tell Khin that. He was pleased with what he thought he could read, and Vesna was gently looking for ways to encourage him and help him to actually read the written signs, and things which they found.
“The Land of Bad Air is where they sent the Old One’s body,” Khin said as the chute’s door dropped into place. “All the bodies we find are sent there. Some call it the grave, but it is the Land of Bad Air.” The chute was about a meter wide and high. The dark maw of the sloped ramp was revealed. The ramp was slivery, slippery, and free of growth medium. “We go down, but will not land by the Old One. He was placed on a different slide.”
“Khin, how many other children have gone missing and then were found dead?” Vesna asked. “You seem like this is a too common feature, yet you have not spoken of it to me before.”
“Most missing children come back without any harm. They get busy playing games, or chasing a smart rat, or are hiding from playmates, or are afraid of their angry parents.” Khin laughed. “Some children dare others to go exploring and the whole group gets lost. I found one group like that and those children were happy to see me!”
“But Khin, what about when children die? Or are attacked by a monster, like what Clark said?”
“Sometimes we find a child’s body. There are places where you can die here. Fall down the stairs on a slippery water flow, or have a broken door fall on you, you die. Sometimes children die that way. There are places in rooms which can kill too. Sometimes older children will go exploring, but forget what my mother says, ‘Search a room, might find your doom, but find a treasure, you have pleasure.’ I have had to bring back children’s bodies who found their doom, in a broken room. Those are sad things.” His smile was there, but it was more a supportive smile, than one of mirth or hilarity.
“Yes, tragedy happened in Beta too. Hunting accidents, fishing boats sank, and sometimes parents fought over children. Does that happen here?”
“People are as people are.” Khin’s smile faded, but not entirely. “Not always so bad, sometimes pretty bad. Some children, usually the little ones, like babies or toddlers, who go missing, are taken by a mom or dad who is fighting with the other parent. This is especially true when those parents are from different tribes. A mommy has a baby and she is in the Goat People, but the daddy is from the Fruit People. He wants the baby with his people, she wants the baby with her people, so one takes the baby. Those things get messy and ugly, but babies are only emotionally hurt. Well, mostly, only emotionally hurt. Sometimes the child is killed by a very angry mother or father. Those deaths happen.”
“But of monsters?” Vesna asked. “In Beta, there were predator animals which would sometimes attack a child. You have never said those kinds of animals are also here. Are they?”
“Well, I have searched for children who just are never found. Maybe they run away and become tramps and wanderers in the forgotten places. Maybe they died and rats tore the body apart. Maybe the body fell in somewhere where we never found it. Maybe some machine destroyed the body in some way. Who knows?” He turned away and looked down.
“Khin,” Vesna walked right up to him and grabbed his face. “Look at me. I am your Vesna asking.”
Khin met her eyes. “Monsters are real. I have seen monster’s lairs. My father said he helped kill a monster when he was little. He does not speak of it much. Mother says, ‘Monsters lurk in dark and gloom, do not open every room.’ And ‘Find a monster lair, burn out every hair.’ I found a lair on the Wizard’s quest and burned out every hair.” Khin was very serious now.
“So, sometimes monster do kill children?” Vesna had not let go.
Khin met her eyes, and just nodded his head.
“Then we must hurry to find them,” Vesna said, releasing Khin’s face. She quickly kissed him on each cheek. “Thank you for telling me.”
Khin laughed and that broke the gloom. “For a kiss, I would have told you much sooner. Shall I tell you more things for more kisses?”
Vesna stroked Khin’s nose with her finger. “There will be time later for talking and for kissing. Now we search. How do we go down this chute?”
“Reading!” Khin chuckled and put his hand against a dim symbol on the side of the chute. As he pressed on it, a small handle folded out. He turned the handle round and round, and a set of metal rungs rose from the flat of the chute. “I made you a ladder.”
“Yes, you did.
Khin checked on the sid
earm in its holster. He also made sure his knife was secure, but easily accessible. His spear was strapped to his back. Then he went first down the chute, followed by Vesna. They descending into the dark oblivion of the bowels of the needle ship.
4 and they will then live
Captain Eris sat in the command chair on the new bridge. Before her the large central display showed deep space. To the left side showed the destination world with its beautiful blues, whites, and other colors. To the right was the now dead world of Zalia, with browns and tans smudged all over its surface. The purple highlighted dot showed where the Jellie ship was in orbit.
Eris tapped her com-link. “Jerome, or Monika, who is on duty at the Defense and Counter Assault Control?”
Monika answered, “I am here Eris. Jerome is sleeping, as are the boys. How may I assist?” Monika’s face appeared in a three-dimensional image which was projected from the com-link and hovered in the air.
“I am still reading everything unchanged here,” Eris stated. “What about from your vantage point?” Eris could access everything that was available to Monika, with a simple spoken command, or just a few touches of buttons, or the spin of a dial. However, she wanted someone to speak to, who was not an artificial intelligence or a synthetic brain.
“The scout’s sensors are still watching the Jellie ship. No changes there. It is still lurking around that end of Zalia,” Monika replied. “The probes we used for landing packages on the habitats have been repurposed and are in Exterior Repair Station 313 waiting for orders to launch. They can fly out one after another.”
Eris rubbed her tired eyes. “That is good. I understand that the weapon building is also progressing.”
“Yes, Captain. I hear that from Reproduction and Fabrication as well. If I can be forgiven for asking, is there something more?” Monika’s kind eyes and pretty face showed honest compassion for the teenager Eris.
“Thanks,” Eris answered. It was not like speaking to her mother, but Monika was a caring person, and Eris trusted her. “I am just worried we are missing something. As an engineer, I know there are times when you just have to wait for something to break, but there is also a time for routine maintenance. Right now, just drifting along toward that Cosmic Crinkle, I keep thinking there is something else I can do. I want this last flight to succeed. We need it to succeed.”
“You have overseen the ascent of Alpha, and have started a weapon building program which is already…” Monika began.
Eris interrupted her. “Forgive me, I am not fishing for complements or seeking to get some accolades. Rather, I just wanted to speak to a person and discuss things. I am glad the weapons are getting built, but in the meantime, is there anything else to conceptualize? I mean, just sitting here and waiting is frustrating.”
“Well, now that the Conestoga is reconstituted, we do not have as many problems,” Monika replied. “Well, different problems anyway. We lost so much, but we are underway. The slavery thing in Alpha is behind us, and the Ferryman group is gone, and we do not need to try to fly a shuttle anywhere and run into that interference, so…”
“Ferryman and interference. Monika! You are brilliant. Those dampening fields the Ferryman used. I wonder,” Eris replied with enthusiasm. “Thank you, and keep up the good work. You and Jerome are vital to this.”
“Okay, I hope it helped,” Monika answered. She was unclear what she had said, but was glad Eris was excited.
Eris broke the link. Then she said, “Sandie? Run some conjectures for me.”
“Yes, Eris. What do you have in mind?” Sandie the AI replied.
“The Ferryman brothers used that dampening field to suppress our seeing what they were doing. Can we incorporate that technology to hide the Conestoga in some way?” Eris’ mind was spinning with potentials.
“If you are referring to hiding the Conestoga from the Jellies, I have already taken steps to make the Conestoga as invisible as possible. We have no exterior lighting. Exterior hull temperature is within a few degrees of the cosmic background temperature, except where the red sun is striking the hull. In those places, I have implemented cooling protocols, and those exterior surfaces should only have about a twenty-degree increase. It is not perfect, but it is a small amount.”
“So, they could track us by temperature, or solar reflection?” Eris asked.
“That is possible, if they were observing directly at our location, and knew what items to investigate. However, the size of our reflection, considering the curved nature of the Conestoga, presents a small, relatively speaking, speck in space for them to see. The heat variance is also minimal, and would not immediately stand out as an obvious anomaly to be witnessed. I must remind you we have very little understanding of the technology that the Jellies are using. I have been unable to even conjecture a possible way that they move their ship in some equivalent of faster-than-light speeds. Their pink explosive beam remains a mystery. The emissions from their ship suggest they utilize a different visual spectrum than humans, although it is possible they do not visualize as we think of it. Their biological senses could be very different than ours, in fact, I would be surprised if they were not significant differences. So, I cannot guess what kind of detection equipment, or sensor mechanisms, or distance monitoring technology they possess. I conjecture a low probability for it to be similar to our own radars, lidars, neutrino-echoes, or other technologies,” Sandie answered.
“Sandie,” Eris went on. She had not been dissuaded by Sandie’s realistic approach. “That one habitat, Epsilon used some kind of barrier field to surround itself. Can we do something like that, only to mask our presence? Sort of just cover over every type of item which might be detected?”
Sandie was quiet for a moment. Then the AI spoke. “Currently, we have stopped all broadcasts, of any type, which might be picked up by the enemy. We also have no detectable trace, as our main drive is not functioning at present. Regarding hiding, I believe we are doing everything within our power to remain secret. However, and I am not sure this is what you are desiring, but I have a suggestion. May I make it?”
“Certainly.”
Sandie went on. “I have designed an item. I combined the technologies of the dampening fields, with the barrier which Epsilon created, and then added the initial phases of Epsilon’s teleportation attempt. As I stated, I am not sure this is what you are looking for, as it does not mask or conceal our position in any substantial manner. It does, however, allow us to throw a shade of the Conestoga up to one thousand kilometers away from our location. That shade, or shadow, or silhouette, chose your term, will put off all the signals which we are attempting to hide. Light, microwaves, neutrino transmissions, large heat variances, and others would show up from there. It will give the appearance we are at that location, when in fact we are not.”
Eris mused and put her fingers to her lips. Then she said, “Throw a shade? Interesting. So, we can cast a fake, but must it look like the Conestoga? What if we were to cast a fake which looked like an immense warship? Or which looks like that Zalian ship? Can we cast an armada of dreadnaughts which will frighten away the Jellies? Throw a shade which is so fear-inducing they run away? Could we do that?”
“What I propose will only throw a shade of the Conestoga in its current configuration. In a way, it is like using a mirror.” Sandie replied, “The capacities we have will only allow for a single projection to be made, and only as a replication of our own ship. Due to those limitations, we cannot cast the armada you suggest, although that is a good tactic and would certainly be a surprise.”
“Well, then we will reserve our casting ability, our throwing a shade, for another time. For all we know, the Jellies might only be here because of what happened on Zalia. Maybe they do not really suspect we are here?”
“From the transmissions, which we received from AI Ogma prior it its demise, and from what we learned from the Zalian’s library, I conjecture it is a low possibility that the Conestoga was not reported to the Jellie in some manner. Howeve
r, what they decide to do about that knowledge is uncertain.”
“So again, we are left with just drifting along until we…”
SB Pinaka interrupted Eris. “Captain, there is a change in the Jellie ship’s movement. The Jellie ship is altering course,” SB Pinaka announced. “It is tracking along the path where the Zalian ship was as it pushed the Conestoga.”
“Show me your best images of it.”
The right-hand display shifted and the Jellie ship appeared as an oblong, glowing, purplish oval. It had veered away from the planet.
“Can they somehow track us?” Eris asked.
“Their technology and capabilities are unknown,” Sandie replied. “I have made conjectures using our own emissions, and our own ship’s energies, and do not believe that someone using our technology could easily find us. However, they may have superior tracking abilities.”
“Captain, they are only following the trajectory of the Zalian ship. If they continue to follow that path, they will be moving slightly off our present heading. The Zalian ship did not push us in the same vector they were heading,” SB Pinaka related.
The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books Page 227
