Stranded on Haven

by William Zellmann

  He drew himself up. “Hmph. Obviously such requirements do not apply to me!” he protested.

  I shook my head. “Of course they do, sire. Normal decontamination procedures do not deal with microbial and very tiny creatures and contaminants. If anything gets aboard, the only solution is to pump the air out of the entire ship, and refill the tanks with fresh, sterilized breathing mix. That would take months and cost millions. Better a little indignity.” I shook my head. “I’m terribly sorry, sire, but no one goes aboard without decontam, including me and you.”

  He boarded the gig with massive dignity, but there was poorly-concealed terror in his eyes. My judgment of him climbed a notch. He was a pompous ass, but he wasn’t a coward. He completely ignored Heidi, a feat I’d have considered impossible for any male with a heartbeat. I never even had a chance to introduce her. He barely noted the ‘bot pilot before assuming the copilot seat, to give him a view out the windscreen. He grasped the chair’s arms with a death grip, his breathing shallow and fast.

  I suppressed an evil urge to have the ‘bot do an emergency lift, and instead tried to calm him as best I could. I had the ‘bot pilot lift us slowly and gently on antigravs, and add the reaction drives as slowly as possible. It took us three orbits to finally approach Adventurer.

  Toray demanded to know why the sky was turning black, and I doubt he really understood the explanation, but he nodded sagely, and muttered ‘of course, of course’ several times. He didn’t even seem very excited by his first view of Adventurer, although even someone as self-absorbed as he had to know her importance to his world. I guess he didn’t see her importance to him, at least not yet.

  But even he gasped as the gig slid into Adventurer’s cargo hold. The ‘bot lowered the gig over the clamps, and the boarding tube extended itself.

  He stood up, frowning. “I understood that there was no gravity in space,” he said. “This feels the same as Haven.”

  I nodded. “Adventurer has gravity fields, sire. I have adjusted them for Haven surface gravity.” He merely nodded. He scowled as I handed him the breathing mask in the boarding tube outside the airlock. “We’ll strip out here, sire,” I said. “Place your clothing in the basket. You’ll have to carry it through if you want your clothing on the other side. However, disposable shipsuits are available, of course, and are very practical for shipboard wear.”

  His eyes finally flicked to Heidi, but there was no other acknowledgement. Haven has some medium-strength taboos about nudity. After several trips into space, though, Heidi had apparently decided to deal with the necessity by ignoring it. She loosed her gun belt, slipped out of her shoes and eeled out of her shipsuit as though it were nothing worthy of mention.

  Toray barely spared her a glance. He actually waited for me to strip first. I think he was still uncertain this wasn’t some elaborate joke on him. But finally, I ushered him into the airlock. He insisted on carrying his basket of clothing. His eyes were wide as the red-tinted inert gases flooded the lock. His breathing was shallow and fast, and I pantomimed calm, lowering flattened hands in front of my body and exaggerating my slow breathing. It wasn’t very effective, though, and I was glad when the inert gases were replaced by breathing mix. I’d been worried he might panic and snatch off his breathing mask.

  I didn’t even try to convince him to shower and wash dead skin, bugs, or microbes from his hair or skin. As long as they were dead, his hygiene was his concern.

  Once he’d resumed his clothing, he also regained his pompous manner, demanding to be shown to ‘his’ office. I suppressed a sigh and took him to the Captain’s office. Jane told me there was another ‘Administrator’s office' elsewhere on the ship, but it was not on one of the two decks with life support. Besides, I was sure Toray would insist on using the Captain’s office, since he would be able to impress visitors with that fact.

  He paid almost no attention to the rest of the ship, not even appearing to notice as we walked through the bridge, with its multitude of stations and huge viewscreen. But he certainly examined the office as though on an inspection. He did not seem very impressed with the office itself, or even with the attached cabin.

  “It will have to do, I suppose,” he said as we stood in the cabin. “I may send up some more suitable furniture for the office, but I suppose it will have to do.” I reassured him that this was, indeed, the Captain’s office, and he shook his head and grunted.

  I showed him how to use the Captain’s office terminal to access Adventurer’s comp, and introduced him to it. He didn’t bother choosing an avatar, nor did he give it a nickname, merely calling it ‘computer’.

  “It will do, I suppose,” he finally said. “Have it ready for me to move in next week.”

  I suppressed a snicker. “I’m sorry, sire, but that won’t be possible.”

  He whirled on me, glaring furiously, so quickly that Heidi’s laser flashed from its holster. “Why not?” he demanded. “I warn you, Carver, don’t try to play games with me! You will regret it!”

  I shook my head and sighed. At least he hadn’t noticed Heidi’s leveled laser. “Please sit down, sire. There are some things you must know.

  “You will not be moving aboard for many months. There are problems to be solved first. Except for two decks, this ship is dead, and has been dead for 500 years. These two decks are using the oxygen and other gases from Adventurer’s tanks. Those tanks were far from full, and at the moment, we have no way of refilling them.”

  He started to interrupt, and I waved him to silence. “This is one of the problems I tried to address with the Council. Unless we want to use all our landers to do nothing but haul compressed air, we have to get the hydroponics farm working again. That will take more than a month, and it will take more months for the farm to produce enough air to repressurize the entire ship.

  “While that’s going on, we can work on more efficient decontam procedures. If Adventurer will be hosting hundreds of students, it will be impractical to have all of them strip in an airlock.

  “Then there is the problem of resupply. Even after we get atmosphere aboard, we have no usable food stocks remaining aboard. Supplies will have to be shipped up from Haven. That’s not a serious problem; we have the transport to handle it. But the foodstuffs will have to be grown on Haven and processed into forms that can be used by Adventurer’s food prep equipment.

  “Again, that’s not a real problem; the comp has complete requirements and instructions. But it will take time to have the stuff grown, to contract for the processing, and so on. But all of the life support machinery will have to be checked, tested and repaired if necessary. I suspect it will be at least a year before the first student sets foot aboard.”

  His eyes widened. “A year! Impossible!”

  I shrugged. “I think a year is optimistic, myself, sire. Think about it. You will have to recruit a complete administration and faculty willing to live aboard a ship for months at a time. Your Administrators and Department Heads will have to work with the ship’s comp to analyze the information available. They will have to design curricula, and then your faculty will have to learn what they will teach the students. You and your staff will find plenty to do while the ship is being prepared.”

  He shook his head. His expression was desperate, now, and I suspected some carefully-laid plans had just crashed around his ears.

  “We’ll live aboard the … the other ship,” he replied.

  I shook my head. “No sire. Startrader is a freighter. She’s not designed or equipped to support hundreds of people. Besides, Adventurer belongs to the people of Haven, and I will do my best to see that they receive every bit of information she contains. But Startrader is mine. Eventually I hope to be able to sell most of her cargo. But for now, she is my refuge. I may invite occasional visitors from Haven aboard her, but only as casual guests.”

  “But don’t you see, Jerd, the larger need …” His tone had changed. Now it was warm and friendly; the kind of tone you use with large donors. Suddenly I was �
��Jerd’, not ‘Carver’. He had realized that I was more than just a truck driver. I not only owned the trucking company, I owned an entire starship and everything aboard it!

  But his sentence trailed off as I shook my head. “Sorry,” I replied. “That’s non-negotiable. I’m sure you and your people will have plenty to keep you busy. Establishing tuitions and fees, soliciting donors for scholarships, fellowships, and even chair endowments. You know far more about such things than I do, but I think you should set a target date of fall term, year after next. That way, your schedule will align with those of the ground-based schools, and greatly simplify transfers and such. It will probably take months just to consider all the applications you’ll receive. Surely thousands of students will be applying for a university on a starship!"

  I think I had him at the financial stuff; the rest was just icing. “Yes … yes,” he said pensively. “You’re right, of course. The administrative and financial details alone …” He jumped to his feet. “Well!” he said, suddenly hurried. “I understand your points, Jerd, and rest assured I’ll consider them carefully. But now, I think we’d better be getting back. There’s so much to do …”

  Just for fun, I offered to show him a VR gym, but as I expected, he turned me down, claiming he had far too much work awaiting him below. He had brought an administrator and several secretaries with him; I suspected they would be very busy contacting prospective donors. In fact, I expected he would be in a hurry to get out of the International Zone and back to New Home, where he could twist arms in person.

  I was right. Less than an hour after we grounded, Lisa informed me that one of Toray’s secretaries had radioed for an airship to return them to Firstlanding.

  As soon as it lifted off with Toray and his minions, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and asked Lisa to send down the lifeboat. It was time I talked seriously with Ollie, and Adventurer or Startrader was the place to do it.

  As I headed for Ollie’s office to invite him in person, Ellie stopped me in the outer office. “Just thought you’d like to know,” she said. “Doctor Canva is one of the most famous scientific minds on Haven. He’s a notorious ladies’ man, but aside from that, I’ve never heard a bad word about him.” I thanked her warmly. She didn’t have to give me that information, but she knew I could use it. If Ellie wasn’t such a whirlwind, and Jess wasn’t there … I shook myself to clear my mind, and then shook my head. Seven women, all attractive, all willing, and I was going to bed alone every night, not daring to pursue any of them. And then there was Heidi …

  I was glad when I reached Ollie’s new office. The place was a mess, and Ollie was up to his waist in cartons and boxes, looking somewhat lost. “Come on, Ollie,” I said. “Let’s go up to Adventurer. You can take care of this stuff later.”

  He looked around helplessly, but his eyes lit when I mentioned Adventurer, and he struggled to extricate himself from the mess. He pulled himself to his full height, and bowed slightly. “You will not have to ask me twice,” he said in a dignified tone. His eyes took on a twinkle. “Please tell me that the lovely Heidi will be joining us. After all, I might be a threat, no?”

  I chuckled. “Only to Heidi’s virtue,” I said, and Heidi flushed again. She was smiling, though.

  The lifeboat landed, and we prepared for Ollie’s big jump into space. He was fascinated by the lifeboat’s airlock.

  “Lifeboats have to perform rescues both in space and on planets.” I explained. “So, their airlocks are designed to meet the need. You’ll notice it’s shaped like an oversized man – actually a man in a space suit. That means it can cycle quickly, and not lose a lot of atmosphere in space. At the same time, it’s equipped with full decontamination facilities, so it can function on a planet.

  “Notice the face mask. The person boarding strips naked and steps into the airlock. He places the mask over his face, and the air is replaced with a poison lethal to any oxygen-breathing creature. The mask has straps so it can be used by unconscious patients. Again, it is very quick, and eliminates contamination.”

  Ollie looked around the Zone’s landing ground. “Must we strip naked? Here?”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No, we’ll take care of that on the other end.” Once aboard though, I talked him into stripping and stepping into the lifeboat’s med cabinet for a checkup, while Lisa monitored the readouts.

  “He will be in no danger from the lift.” Lisa reported. “I will instruct the pilot to minimize the physical stress. He is, however, in poor health. He suffers from several nutritional deficiencies, as well as lung cancer, probably from lifelong exposure to wood and coal smoke.”

  “Will he have to travel in the med cabinet?” I asked. “I don’t want to take unnecessary chances, but I know he’d be disappointed to spend the trip of a lifetime cooped up in a box.”

  “That should not be necessary,” Lisa replied. “The man’s health is probably fairly typical of locals of his age, and the cancer is not too far advanced. Most of his infirmities are degenerative, and reflect his environment.”

  I nodded. “File those results. We may want to refer to them later.” I opened the med cabinet. “Good news, Ollie,” I said cheerfully. “You’re cleared for the trip, and you’ll be able to see it from up front, here.”

  Lift off was gentle, on antigravs, and more horizontal than vertical. Even when the reaction engine cut in, there was just a gentle nudge. But the nudge went on and on. I watched Ollie closely, but he was completely absorbed in the experience, flushed with excitement. We had traveled almost twice around the planet before the sky began to turn from blue to black.

  Unfortunately, when we arrived, both Adventurer and Startrader were on the night side. I called Lisa and Jane on my tablet, and had them light all external lights and landing bay lights, so Ollie could at least see us approach them. Still, I think he was a bit disappointed by the pinpoints of light until we got close.

  The light of Adventurer’s landing bay was outlined by blackness, but Ollie gasped as it continued to swell “Gods! It’s huge!” he shouted as we glided into the hold’s landing bay. “I was told she was a globe nearly a kilometer in diameter, but hearing it is one thing and seeing it is another!”

  Jane extended a boarding tube, and I let Ollie know it was time to strip. When I stepped out of the ‘fresher on the other side, he was examining his shipsuit and nodding. “Simple, practical, durable and convenient,” He said. “Perhaps our school will need a uniform!”

  I nodded. “They’re pretty much universal as the working outfit in space for both sexes.”

  He glanced at Heidi, whose shipsuit was tailored to display her charms. Ollie nodded. “So I see. “ He grinned. “Are you sure this beautiful creature isn’t one of your sex ‘bots?”

  Heidi reddened, but she grinned. “Now, Doctor Canva! Who’d have thought the world’s foremost biologist would be a dirty old man?”

  Ollie’s grin widened. “How could a biologist not be interested in basic biology?” he teased. “I can see that Jerd and I will need to meet frequently, if you’re going to accompany him.”

  We moved on to the Captain’s office, with Ollie flirting outrageously with Heidi, though I noticed that his eyes never stopped moving as we walked.

  “This is the Captain’s quarters and office,” I mentioned. “Doctor Toray has already decided it will do admirably for a Chancellor.”

  He grinned. “Of course! If nothing else, it will impress visitors.” He was impressed with the comfort of the Captain’s chair, and the luxury of his office. I used the office terminal to introduce him to Jane, and to clear him for all unclassified information. He passed on the opportunity to select an avatar, and with a wistful half-smile selected ‘Erna’ as his nickname for the ship’s comp. Then I took him on a short tour of the ship. I explained that Adventurer was only partially pressurized; I’d only activated life support on two decks.

  Part of Adventurer's emergency shutdown routine so long ago had been to pump all the air out of the ship, and store
it in high-pressure tanks. So, she actually carried enough air in her tanks to pressurize the entire ship — once. But once the oxygen began to become depleted, and the CO2 content to climb, there was no life support system in place to recycle and freshen it. So I had decided to pressurize only two decks, until plans were completed to activate the hydroponics deck and restart the entire life support system.

  So, to tour the ‘dormitory decks’, we had to suit up. But Ollie insisted on seeing the dorms, and I honestly couldn’t disagree. It was important that he see what he had to work with. I shook my head at the contrast between Toray and Ollie. Toray was only interested in his own comforts; Ollie wanted to see everything relating to the school. I insisted that both he and Heidi take VR instruction in the wearing and use of a spacesuit, and I was still worried. There are simply too many ways a suit can kill you. Once he saw the VR, I practically had to drag him away. I only succeeded by promising that we would come back and he could spend as much time as he liked there.

  Ollie was like a kid in a candy store. He hurried from one thing to another. Suiting up at least slowed him down a bit.

  The dorms were like a history lesson. I’d read about this layout in historical novels and seen it in vids, but it was incredible to actually see it. I half expected Raf Tigg, the hero of Space Mutiny, to walk casually out of the lunchroom.

  Jane said that each dorm held 216 bunks. The bunks were stacked three high and arranged in groups of twelve, with a wide corridor down the middle. The dorms were joined in twos by a single lunchroom on one end that served both. Food was prepared remotely; the lunchroom did not contain cooking facilities.

  “Ollie,” I said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a while before you visit the food prep area. It occupies almost half a deck and is quite far away.”

  I could see Ollie nod through his helmet visor. “I understand, Jerd, and I know we can’t do everything at once, though I must admit I’m tempted to move in right now.” Another bout of coughing bent him over.