The Galahad Legacy

by Dom Testa

  “Guard what?” Triana said.

  “They guard the beauty and the perfection of each universe.”

  Triana shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”

  Bon tilted his head, as if some new signal had sounded, a flash that only he could comprehend. He said: “Wanna know what gives us away as infants? It’s not how inferior we are in terms of space travel or technology. It’s the fact that we take the universe for granted. We see it, but we don’t really see it. We register that there are planets, and stars, and galaxies. But we neglect the perfection of it. We see right past the beauty of that perfection. We take it all for granted. We ask a few questions, but we plod through each day without any regard for the magnificence of it all. It labels us as not only cosmic children, but spoiled children at that.”

  Triana could only nod now. She couldn’t disagree with what he said.

  “The Cassini are not only watching to see how far along various civilizations are progressing with their technical abilities; they’re paying attention to the maturity of each civilization as well. There’s apparently a point we can march right up to and still get away with our immaturity—kinda like a parent letting a child push the boundaries. But if by the time we reach that point we haven’t begun to fully develop as universal citizens, then…”

  His voice trailed away. Triana didn’t need him to finish the sentence in order to figure it out for herself. She glanced at the timer. Two and a half minutes.

  “Is that what happened to the advanced civilization on Eos Four?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And…” Triana wasn’t sure she wanted to ask the obvious follow-up, but she had to know. “And does that explain Comet Bhaktul?”

  “Yes and no,” Bon said. “The Cassini did not send the comet, nor its killer plague, into our path. They did have the power to divert it, if necessary. But that would have alerted humans to the Cassini presence; you can’t just push a comet out of the way and hope that nobody notices. More important, however, was the fact that we didn’t seem to be worth saving. Although we weren’t to the point where we needed to be eliminated, we also weren’t showing much … how do teachers say it? Potential. In other words, as a species we were a long shot to get our act together.

  “And that’s why they’ve been helping us on Galahad. As cosmic citizens on Earth, we were on the downhill path as a species. But the Cassini were impressed enough with the drive and ambition of this mission to give our kind another chance. A fairly slim chance, but a chance nonetheless.”

  They could have saved us, Triana thought. They could have saved billions of lives.

  Including her father.

  Her blood began a slow boil, but just as quickly she calmed herself. That wasn’t fair; the Cassini weren’t responsible for the death sentence delivered by Bhaktul. If anything, the immaturity of Earth’s most prominent inhabitants—but not the only dominant species, according to Torrec—was the deciding factor. Blaming others, rather than accepting responsibility, was the kind of behavior that likely landed humans in the cosmic doghouse in the first place. Reverting to that mentality now, in the face of everything that had transpired in the last three years—including all of the progress they’d made in the most dire circumstances—would be a catastrophic mistake.

  The Cassini didn’t owe the human race any favors.

  “So you’re saying that the jellyfish have earned their free pass,” she said to Bon. “They aced the test.”

  “You could say that,” Bon said. “But you have a deadline coming down right now, and I just thought you should know that your distrust of them is misguided. It might be better to search within the walls of this ship if you’re looking for unscrupulous characters. We have our share.”

  Triana raised an eyebrow. “Agreed. And what are you suggesting we do about that?”

  The orange eyes seemed to intensify. “You might not have to do anything,” Bon said. “The issue might take care of itself.”

  “Oh? How?”

  Bon adjusted his posture in the chair and fastened the restraint across his waist. “It’s almost time. You better make sure you’re buckled up.”

  The timer flicked under the forty second mark. On the room’s large vidscreen, the impossibly dark rip in space seemed to rush at them, preparing to devour Earth’s survivors. It was now or never.

  Roc, as usual, felt the need to chime in: “He might look like he’s had a few too many carrots, but Bon is probably right.”

  Triana bit her lip again. Bon was on the Council because Dr. Zimmer trusted his instincts. The surly Swede might not have the best social skills, but he also thought things through rationally. And he did, after all, have a hotline to the oldest sentient beings in the universe.

  She jabbed the intercom button. “Here we go, everyone. Twenty seconds to the jump. Good luck to us all.”

  She cinched her lap belt and stared at the image on the screen, stubbornly refusing to let it intimidate her. Bon reached over and grasped her hand as the screen was swallowed in darkness, followed by an explosion of light.

  24

  It wasn’t the sensation that she’d expected. Lita lay on one of the beds in the hospital ward, instead of the one in her room. She wanted to be on call should there be emergencies following the leap. All of the vidscreens in the room were shut down; after hearing Triana’s description, she wondered if the visual aspect was too jarring for the brain to accept. That might have partially accounted for Tree’s lapse into unconsciousness.

  But Lita had blacked out as well, a split second after feeling her stomach lurch. It was the same feeling in her gut that she remembered from her lone experience on a roller coaster. That hadn’t gone well for her, and she’d been happy after that to send her brother and sister on their merry, screaming coaster adventures while she opted for the more subdued carnival rides.

  There was more to this feeling, though. Beyond the pitch and roll of her stomach, she’d felt as if her body had subtly shifted in place. Now, after coming to, she slowly pushed herself up on her elbows and took stock of her physical condition. She appeared to be in exactly the same spot, and yet it definitely felt as if she’d moved on the bed.

  “Roc,” she said. “How long was I out?”

  “Zvid thirt blunk tau bielsk,” the computer said.

  Lita’s mouth fell open and her eyes widened. “Roc?”

  “Sorry, I had to do it,” Roc said. “Gotcha, didn’t I?”

  She fell back onto the bed and threw an arm up over her face. “Ugh, I hate you right now. I really do.”

  “No, you could never hate anyone, Lita. And to answer your question, it’s been twenty-nine seconds since we dove through the window.”

  Lita pulled her arm away and stared at the ceiling. “Twenty-nine seconds? That’s it? So I was out for … what? Less than five seconds?”

  “I don’t know the exact moment your brain was flipped back on, but that sounds about right.”

  She sat up again, and this time swung her legs off the edge of the bed. “This might sound like a silly question, but did you black out? Did you feel anything? I mean, I know you don’t actually feel—”

  “Not true,” Roc said. He manufactured a fake sniffle, then said: “Nobody ever takes my feelings into consideration.”

  “Well?”

  “No, I did not black out, and yes, I did comprehend a change. Your human brain can’t handle having itself split in two for even a second, so it does an immediate reboot. I, on the other hand, have no problem with my chips occupying two places in the galaxy at once. In fact, it’s rather stimulating. I could get hooked on this jumping stuff.”

  Lita said: “What kind of change did you feel?”

  “I’ve never been shoved in the back,” the computer said. “Mainly because I don’t have a back. But that’s the closest description I can give. It seemed like my awareness of the familiar surroundings of the ship were pushed forward.”

  A shove in the back. And she distinctly
felt movement before blacking out, even though she’d remained in the same spot. She shook her head, perplexed.

  “Well, we seem to have made it through in one piece.” Sliding off the bed, she walked out of the ward and over to her desk. “Triana,” she said, snapping on the intercom. “Triana, you there?”

  There was no response. A trickle of concern worked its way into the base of Lita’s spine, and she fidgeted for a few seconds.

  She tried again. “Tree? Hello?”

  “I’m here, Lita. Sorry about that.”

  “What are you doing?” Lita said.

  A small laugh came through the speaker, a contented sound. It caught Lita by surprise; Triana rarely displayed joy. But the Council Leader sounded genuinely happy. She said: “I’m looking at our new home.”

  * * *

  The scene paralleled the one that had taken place three hundred fifty days earlier. Almost every set of eyes aboard the ship found a window or vidscreen, captivated by the sight of the surroundings. But while the view of a year ago had been of a receding Earth—a farewell glimpse that evoked tears of sadness—now they gazed upon a sight that held both promise and relief. For although it appeared barely larger than other stars, this particular orb represented something more than just their destination. It represented victory.

  The crew of Galahad wept again, only these tears were an emotional release of the fear and tension that had stalked them from the beginning of their mission. Eos was within sight, which many interpreted as the finish line, the culmination of the most critical journey in the long history of humankind.

  Triana knew differently. She understood that getting to this distant star system was an accomplishment that, only years earlier, seemed impossible. But it was merely the first step. Perhaps even the easiest step. The work that lay ahead dwarfed the efforts required to keep the ship intact as it streaked through space.

  Nevertheless, she rejoiced at the successes they’d logged, including this final flip through a cosmic tunnel. In less than the blink of an eye, their gray, shopping mall–sized vessel skipped over forty-seven months of tedious star travel, arriving in the misty outer banks of the Eos star system ages before anyone could have anticipated.

  This time the brief blackout hadn’t seemed as frightening to Triana. She’d already experienced it twice, and therefore knew what to expect, but was that it? Or was it Bon? Did it help that this time she hadn’t faced it alone?

  Oddly, Bon remained conscious through the wormhole; he was, in fact, the only crew member to make that claim. Lita suggested later that it was his connection with the Cassini that buoyed him during the jump. As she put it: “If you hadn’t been online with the universal cops, you would’ve slumped over like the rest of us.”

  He stood at a workstation in the Control Room, already plotting the ship’s safe passage through the storm of debris that ringed the outer fringes of the Eosian system. In this respect, most star systems were identical. Without the guidance help of the Cassini, Galahad would be obliterated by one of the trillions of pieces of rock that tumbled and crashed through this chaotic ring.

  Triana walked up to the room’s large vidscreen and inspected the bright point of light that beckoned from nearly four billion miles away. Roc began sifting through the region’s data, gathering information that previously could only be guessed at from the restricted observations from Earth. Now, with Eos and its planetary posse upon them, more details could be mapped.

  “Roc,” she said, her eyes darting across the screen. “Will we need to alter our speed to maneuver through their version of the Kuiper belt, or will we be able to juke our way through?”

  “Hard to say definitively at this stage, but my initial calculations indicate no,” the computer said.

  Bon, his head still hovering over the keyboard, confirmed. “We won’t need to hit the brakes, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Triana could see the orange reflection of his eyes glinting in his monitor. Between Roc’s assessment, and Bon’s Cassini input, the final leg of their tour—rocketing through the system toward the two Earth-like planets in the habitable zone—would take a little over two weeks.

  “I’ve detected our shadows,” Roc said, reminding her that the jellyfish empire would never be out of the picture completely. The vulture squadron had slipped through the same Channel, and now swarmed around the ship. “I see they’re sticking with their base-sixteen system. We have an escort of thirty-two.”

  It seemed a lot to Triana, but what number wouldn’t have struck her as too many? She made a conscious effort to accept the escort, even if she didn’t embrace it.

  “Roc,” she said, “how much time do you need to get a concise layout of the planetary system?”

  “Oh, I’m quite speedy. It’s almost finished.”

  Triana didn’t doubt him on that. She looked at Bon, who pushed his chair back from the keyboard. “We’ll get the Council together in the Conference Room in one hour. Roc, you can present your data then.”

  She pulled her long hair away from her face and walked toward the lift. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my room.”

  * * *

  “Are you okay?” Katz asked.

  Merit groaned, and managed to nod once in reply. He bent over the sink in his room, while his roommate stood behind him and stared at the reflection in the mirror.

  Although few people even knew his first name—he was simply Katz to everyone—the seventeen-year-old from New York was one of the more popular members of the crew. Merit was aware that Katz didn’t like him, and thus probably didn’t care if Merit was fine or not. It was simply an act of courtesy. It was more likely that Katz was worried about his Californian roommate throwing up again in the middle of their room. Merit, on the other hand, worried that the news might spread among the crew.

  “I’m okay.” It was intended to sound confident and strong, but instead came out as a croak. Merit cleared his throat and added, with more force: “It’s not the jump. I think it’s something I ate a couple of hours ago. It’s been giving me fits ever since.”

  Katz nodded, but obviously wasn’t buying it. Anyone could see that Merit didn’t handle the Channel flip very well. “Then if you don’t need anything, I’ll see you later.”

  “Right,” Merit said. “See you later.” When the door closed, he leaned back over the sink and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  The world had shifted, but for the better, as far as Channy was concerned. She lay on her bed, her fingers digging into the thin material of the bedspread. Iris busied herself with a bath, seemingly oblivious to the jump that had occurred. Kylie stirred on the other side of the room, but didn’t seem to be in any distress; Kylie had always been tough, a nice trait to have in a roommate.

  The shift—more like a wobble, Channy decided—happened right before she passed out. She remembered flinching as it occurred, but not being afraid. She’d been startled, that’s all.

  Now, she looked up at the colorful strips of cloth that created a plume of vivid blues, reds, and yellows above her bed. They were arranged in no discernible pattern, a design that Kylie ridiculed as “a collision of color.” Channy gave no thought to the display’s order; for her it was about the cheer that it exuded.

  At the moment it gave her a place to focus her attention while she absorbed what had just taken place. The conclusion she reached startled her almost as much as the shift itself.

  She wasn’t afraid anymore. Of anything.

  The past two months had been difficult for the young Brit. She’d suffered heartbreak, a loss of confidence in her by Triana, and moments where she felt completely overwhelmed by her fears. For someone who’d always been the ship’s brightest light, the funk created an endless loop of despair for Channy. She didn’t want to be afraid, but the more she tried to talk herself out of it, the further she slipped.

  The gloominess only intensified as, one by one, crew members began to drop out of their usual exercise routines. With the crisis of the radiation shield,
and the upheaval caused by the vultures and the Dollovit, excuses to skip the gym multiplied, until Channy found herself leading only a handful of people through the programs. What had always been her greatest source of energy—her thriving, pulsing workouts, packed with attentive and energetic crew members—became a chore, too often with just a smattering of faces staring back at her. She was falling into a well.

  But something shook her when the ship broke through the Channel’s infinitely thin doorway. The jump seemed to toss her sideways, and yet upon coming to she noted that she hadn’t budged. The jolt had, however, rebooted her thinking.

  It was as if a layer of grimy film was stripped away, revealing a fresh, hopeful path before her. Taresh? She cared about him, but his power over her had evaporated. Her fear of the vultures, the Channel, even the unknown? Senseless.

  She’d looked at the wormhole the wrong way. The intimidating dark rip in space wasn’t a lifeless, sinister end point; it was a boundary, nothing more. In her case, it was the boundary between a past that she’d allowed to darken her spirit, and the brightness that comes with awareness. According to Triana’s account, the piercing of the Channel’s horizon was accompanied by a blinding, white light.

  If so, it was a light that penetrated Channy’s soul, rejuvenating her spirit. She smiled at the dazzling, intricate pattern on her ceiling, a mishmash of intertwined cloth strips, and realized that it didn’t need to have order within it. It needed light to bring out the inherent beauty hidden by darkness.

  Things would be different now.

  * * *

  Gap blinked and shook his head, trying to clear the fog. He was on the floor of the Engineering section, tilted to one side. True to his stubborn nature, he’d convinced himself that strapping himself in wouldn’t be necessary. As the ship approached the Channel opening, he’d taken a seat and stretched his legs out before him in a foolish attempt to balance himself. His last memory before blacking out involved an awkward sensation in his gut, tricking his brain into believing he was moving. He wasn’t. But his involuntary reaction was to countershift against the perceived movement, and that, combined with his loss of consciousness, put him in his present condition.