It was only a brief span of time, from when the shuttle with Jerome inside of it had first encountered the precipice edge of the Cosmic Crinkle, to when the full replica of the Colony Ship Conestoga appeared. There it hung in space, motionless, shimmering, and identical in a multitude of ways. Like a snake shedding its skin, the Conestoga left behind that remnant. However, it was not the real Colony Ship Conestoga. The ghost was there, just like some seventeen hundred light-years away, another ghostly Colony Ship Conestoga sat in the heavens, with a ghostly robotic probe, and a ghostly FTL Scout ship attached to it.
The Jellie spacecraft abruptly altered its flightpath and launched another barrage of purplish globes at the Conestoga. None of them had any effect on the ghost, and just disappeared as they touched the after-image of the Conestoga. Three pink destruction beams shot out from the Jellie warship. Those beams seemed to be truncated just at the point of impact with the ghostly version of the Conestoga.
Keeping its distance, the Jellie spaceship kept firing its various weapons. None showed any sign of actually altering the appearance of the ghostly Conestoga. The Jellies would continue to try to destroy their enemy, like the predators they were, for a long, long, time. However, never did they actually touch or make physical contact with that spectral Conestoga. Jellie pod members would speak of the strangeness of the prey which escaped. Folklore was told in pools, pounds, and oceans across the worlds of the Jellies. Jellies who were not present in the warship which fired on the Conestoga often dismissed the tales. Those myths and legends would only last until that escaping prey species became the predators and hunters.
“What is happening inside the Conestoga?” That very question was percolating in Jerome’s mind, and maybe spoke from his mouth, as he looked around himself in the AS-702 shuttle. It was larger and much more spacious than the FTL Scout in which he had been ensconced during his first passage through the Cosmic Crinkle. It was larger, more roomy, and eerily alone. The instant the Cosmic Crinkle’s edge, boundary, or precipice, whatever one would call it, was touched, all communication stopped. The picture of Monika on the display was gone. The readouts on the mission were flat, lacking any information. And that was just the beginning.
Jerome’s perceptions were erratic, discombobulated, and bizarre. Then his mind considered that comment. “It is all haywire!” His thoughts went to that word “haywire” and then to the phrase “hay wire” and then to the sentence, “It was a wire made of hay.” He was unsure if he spoke the words or not, as his verbalizations and hearing were not producing things he recognized as words, or even sounds. His mind perceived the concepts, but only deep in his thinking.
He thought about the alien Crocks, and how he had seen them as threats, and yet now, here in what they called a “thin place” in space, he wondered about the fate of that entire species. “Are they all dead like their planet?” Thoughts and ideas and concepts bubbled around in his mind, and seemed to seldom hold substance for more than a flash. They were not Crocks, that was his term, but Zalians, and Sandie would even know what their own name for themselves was. They were “the people” or at least “a people.” Now they were all dead.
“Did the Zalians set up this thin place in space? Or was it a natural location that they exploited?” Jerome spoke, but the words struck him more like feelings rubbing across his skin. “Did they use natural forces? Or create unnatural passages? Or what?” The burning of the words on his skin made him shut his mouth, but the words kept appearing, somehow.
He wondered about the ghostly image of the Conestoga which he had first encountered. “Was that real? Or illusion? Or delusion?” Again, his words did not sound like words, but were something else. Now the words made his sneeze with smells that were never sniffed before. “If every time a ship touched the Cosmic Crinkle does it leave a residue?”
“Zalians, humans, Jellies, and what else had encountered a thin place?” A sweet taste erupted on his tongue and nearly made him gag. He tried to spit, but his lips and mouth did not move in command to his thoughts.
Jerome tried to perceive what was happening in his shuttle, but the cockpit looked like it was kilometers away, but sounds echoed in his ears as if he were in a tiny echo-chamber.
“Where is Cammarry?” Jerome yelled out, but no sound bounced back from the walls. He recalled holding her hand the last time he had been in the Cosmic Crinkle, but now he wished to be with Monika and his sons. “Where is anyone?” His hands tingled with lack of physical contact.
Time was stopped, or so it appeared to Jerome, and yet he could feel the pounding of his heart in his neck and head. Thinking of each heart beat made him consider the speed and pace. That led his mind to question the speed at which the FTL Scout had emerged the last time. “Will the Conestoga be faster than this shuttle? Will I get bowled over and crushed as we emerge? Should I sever the hawsers which are binding me to the ship, or should I see those as life-preservers and ropes of hope?”
“Copernicus, Einstein, Faraday, Winchell, Sierra, and how many other artificial intelligences had pondered the meaning of existence?” Jerome tried to close his eyes, but his eyelids were transparent now. “Artificial existence or synthetic realities?” His mind flushed and rushed and bobbled in a sea of emotional ideas. “Brink’s equations?” Then his mind went to baby Brink and his brother Kalur. “Are you safe?”
Jerome’s screams made his jaw ache but produced no noise of any kind. “How long?” He saw flowing water, like in the Loop River. Letters floated before his eyes. ‘Time is a river.’
“Time? Space? Place? Reality?”
Some different voice came to him, or from within him, or in his mind only. He could not tell. “It all speeds up, meanders, and slows down, simultaneously. Gravity sink holes, new wrinkles, whirlpools, and fork into rivers. So, if this river of time can be bent into a pretzel, create whirlpools and fork into multiple rivers, then time travel, chronology, space, and distance cannot have meaning. Or can they? Thin is right. Thin enough to slide from place to place.”
“Who are you? Where am I? Where is Monika? Oh, please let my sons be safe!!! Are you Eris’ God?” Jerome’s feelings crashed and jumbled and stretched out.
The display screen in the cockpit expanded into a huge, luminous, window of sorts. Planets appeared, Tlalocan, the living Earth of before the Great Event, the tan and dead Earth, the ruins of Mars, the Moon, and then Zalia. Zalia alive with its alien greens and yellows, bathed in its read light. Then Zalia in its muddy brown death spiral.
A remembered saying, or a new voice speaking, or a delusion manifesting, Jerome was unsure. But it said, “Tlalocan a planet of lush rains, vegetation, peaceful and full of flowers. There we will make planet-fall, and our descendants will dance and dance!”
Swirling, twirling, expanding, contracting, squeezing and bloating, all happened at the same moment to the shuttle, to Jerome, and he assumed to everyone else on the Conestoga. Although, he felt all alone, isolated, and forgotten. “Why have you all forsaken me?”
Jerome perceived something acutely remarkable and unusual. He heard screaming, and then realized it was his own voice, finally making the air vibrate and create noise. It reverberated in his bones, quivered his heart, and shook his teeth. His eyes saw rays of light emerge from somewhere, irritatingly purple light, with an eye blistering blue tone to it. Then the light split into rainbows, spectrums, and shimmers. Then sound, smell, touch, taste, and vision fused into perceptive blobs which shrunk and snapped as they disappeared. He smelled the teleportation equipment as it connected to Alpha, or was it to Beta? He wondered. As he tried to focus his eyes, he saw six cylindrical habitats, all lying in repose like bodies in a menagerie or like the dead brains which Khin spoke about. Death looming. Death stalking. Death grabbing. Death leaving.
With a whimper, it was over. Jerome’s head was slumped in his seat, his shoulders and body held in place by the harness he had somehow, some when, strapped around himself. Tears ran down his face. “Monika? Are the boys safe? Where ar
e you? Am I all alone? How long oh! Oh, how long will I be forgotten forever?”
“Jerome?” A voice came from far away.
“Jerome?” The voice was a bit more insistent, but still distant.
“Jerome?”
“Monika?” Jerome muttered. “Where am I?”
“This is Sandie,” the artificial intelligence system reported. “We have emerged from the Cosmic Crinkle.
“Are my sons alive? Hurt? Gone? Oh, let them be safe!” Jerome wept severely.
“I am running scans. You and Cammarry are the first to regain consciousness, probably because you were the first to enter. Cammarry is disoriented more intensely than you are. Please, Jerome, activate the systems on the shuttle. Reload the operations. Just tap the green pad on the cockpit.”
Jerome realized Sandie’s voice was coming from the com-link. He raised his head and looked around. A planet was outside the viewports. The stunning Earth-like planet was there, surrounded by the background of blackness. It was a soothing blue color, not the irritating blue of the Jellies, and not a hint of purple anywhere. There were some greens on the land masses, but no chartreuse colors like Zalia had. Bands of pure white clouds whispered over the top of green and brown continents. One continent was long and serpentine reaching up from one ice-covered pole. It stretched into a large and ragged ‘S’ shape. Its other end nearly touched the opposite icy cap.
“Jerome? Please activate the switch on the cockpit’s display. This is very important,” Sandie urged.
“Sandie? From Dome 17, Sandie?” Sluggishly, and with great effort, Jerome lifted his arm. It felt immensely heavy, and for a moment he wondered if a gravity sink hole had trapped him. Then the prickling of his nerves started and his arm and hand jerked up. He pressed his palm against the control.
“Well done! Well done, Jerome!” Sandie stated. “I can now utilize AS-702’s systems much more effectively. We have passed through, if that is the correct phrasing, the Cosmic Crinkle. I am running damage assessments.”
“Monika? My sons?” Jerome asked as he flexed his hand muscles, and pumped his feet. “Tell me they are well, please!”
“I am making assessments, and will report when I know.” Sandie activated every assessment instrument on board the shuttle. Visual, optical, auditory, heat, cold, gravity, radiation, quarkites, and every other item that was measurable, was measured. “I anticipated the effects of the Cosmic Crinkle, by recalling what we experienced in the FTL Scout. Therefore, I sealed off my Atomic Level Processor in the automacube. My conjectures were remarkably accurate, but I did factor in the information from the Zalian library and their own records. The psychic trauma seems to be the major issue for the human population of Alpha, while the structural damage inflicted by the Jellie weapons has imperiled the needle ship. Fortunately, so far as I could assess, there were only four people still on the needle ship, and they are all on the bridge. I cannot make contact with them yet, but I do have Monika on a link. The com-link facilitated that connection, visual and audio are being routed to you.”
Before Jerome could ask for more, Sandie had coupled to that communication. The display on the cockpit lit up. Monika was holding both babies, and over her ear was the com-link.
“Oh Jerome! We are shaken up, but not destroyed. You look to have survived! Hurrah! I am so happy.” The boys were fussing and crying softly, but they were safe against Monika’s breasts. With one arm, she was holding them, and with the other she adjusted some controls in front of her. “I see no evidence that the Jellies have pursued us though that thing. I do not have much to hit them with when they emerge, but I will throw my own shoes at them if that is what it takes.”
Sandie’s voice interjected. “I conjecture a low probability of the Jellies being in direct pursuit. In the Zalian library, they made a note that they had, let me translate and quote, ‘never seen an Apex Predator ship traverse a thin place.’ I believe there is a reason for that, but I lack sufficient information to make a conjecture on why the Jellies do not use what we are calling the Cosmic Crinkle.”
Jerome shook his head. “Monika, I am so glad to see you and the boys. Are you sure the three of you are well?”
“We are alive and endured that. Apparently, we were shielded more than you in the shuttle. As soon as the com-link came on, I could see you. I know you are coming out of it all. I would not say did it well.” Monika’s lovely smile warmed Jerome’s heart. “I will be well when we are back together.”
“Monika? What is our ship’s status?” Jerome muttered as he tried to focus his brain.
Jerome saw Jenna standing behind Monika and the babies. He was pleased Monika was not alone. He then said, “I am not sure. Sandie is checking. Why am I answering my own question?” He tapped the com-link. “Captain Eris? Captain Eris?”
On Jerome’s cockpit display, a fuzzy image appeared at the side of Monika’s. It was crisscrossed with jagged static ripples. It showed the bridge that Eris had built. It looked in good condition. Eris was confident, although her uniform was smudged and had a charred part on one side. Behind her were indistinct figures, that he could not identify. “Jerome? Sandie? We made it! The needle ship took immense damage in that final assault. Those Jellie monsters hit us with stuff that atomized our ship in huge sections. Broke it apart at a molecular or atomic level. That exacerbated the fires. Nearly every energy circuit is on fire, or overheating. Systems are failing rapidly. None of the cooling systems are working. I am opening the compartments to decompression to extinguish the energy channel fires. I can see our new home ahead of us. That world is the planet, the exact one we wanted. It is beautiful. We are,” Eris looked around, and saw a functional readout. “We are 74,562 kilometers from there. I will get these fires out, and then we will work on getting Alpha to land. God be with you!” Eris turn away from the camera, and said, “Lattice of compeers, initiate my plan to extinguish the fires. Now!” As she gave the commands, she shifted several levers.
The display went into complete static. The grays of static reminded Jerome, briefly, of the gray nothingness he saw outside of the FTL scout when he was traveling in faster-than-light mode.
“Did it work?” Monika asked. “I lost audio from Captain Eris.” Monika was tapping her com-link. “I only had audio, the system must have failed.”
“Sandie, please reconnect to the bridge,” Jerome asked, although his stomach was lurching at what he was expecting. He took some deep breaths, but that did not lower his tension or stress.
“I cannot,” Sandie replied. “I am reassessing. Standby.”
The silence was traumatic. Jerome could not tell how long it lasted, but it felt longer, and in some painful ways, more of an endurance test than passing through the Cosmic Crinkle.
“Sandie! Connect me to Eris, please!” Jerome called out.
“There has been a major catastrophe. Eris and all the bridge crew are dead,” Sandie stated. The AI’s voice was flat and without inflection. Jerome had never heard it sound so mechanical and nonhuman.
“What?” Jerome yelled out. “How? What happened?”
There was a hesitation in Sandie’s response. “I apologize for reporting such sad news, in such an abrupt manner. The simple answer is that the bulkheads and pressure doors protecting the remodeled bridge failed.”
“Eris is dead?” Monika asked through her own com-link. “And you failed to warn her?”
Sandie again hesitated. “I did inform Captain Eris of my conjectures which showed high risks in the fire extinguishing plan. Bulkhead doors and seals had been compromised, but I conjectured the plan was possible, but was highly risky. When the plan was implemented, by order of Captain Eris, there was an unexpected explosive decompression on the bridge and in various other places on the needle ship. I am showing no atmosphere anywhere on the needle ship. The needle ship’s power is sputtering and fading. Inertia suppression is nonexistent on the needle ship. Gravity manipulation is gone.”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
Sandie finally added, “Captain Eris’ attempt to extinguish the energy system fires was a noble effort, and she was aware of the high risk for unforeseen problems. Tragically, this was a worst-case adverse effect.”
“Are you certain she is gone?” Jerome asked quietly. “No chance of a spacesuit, or lifeboat, or sealed compartment? Anything?”
“I have reviewed the logs. I have absolute visual confirmation of the last moments on the bridge,” Sandie replied. “Just prior to giving the order for the fire extinguishing attempt, Captain Eris was gazing longingly at the earth-like planet. She gave that command, and unfortunately, the catastrophe happened. I will not show those log records to you, as they are excessively gruesome. However, if it is any comfort, she and the other four people who died did not suffer for very long. Death was nearly instantaneous. There continues to be multiple secondary explosions in other sections of the needle ship. That damage is calamitous.”
“Death, you have no victory. Death you cannot win,” Jerome recited. “I know Eris depend upon this fact. Oh Eris, in your dying hour, it will begin the best hours you have ever known! It shall be the beginning of heaven.” Tears ran down Jerome’s face. “Every soul shall face death, and now no weapon can harm her. Nor can the fire burn her, nor waters make her drown, nor the wind dry her up.”
The Colony Ship Conestoga : The Complete Series: All Eight Books Page 249
