He applied the cutting arc to the glass port as red face inside screamed in berserk rage and beat on it with bare fists.
CHAPTER 40
Inside the Iranian fragment.
Zardooz had sedated and dragged Arjmand back to the living quarters where he strapped him into a bunk. While Arjmand was out cold he took the broken ankle and savagely jerked it straight to set it. An inflatable splint did the rest. There was a huge cache of medical supplies aboard so he set up a morphine drip into Arjmand’s arm. When he came out of the sedation he was going to need it.
Zardooz went out to the control room where he had left the corpses of the dead girls, one settled under the desk and the other draped over a command chair. He stood still holding the door frame to counter the coriolis force that pushed him sideways, as he considered what to do with the bodies.
“Bodies!” he muttered to himself. “Where are the bodies. There was no sign of them. Not a bloody mark or scraping of skin. They were gone. “Just gone...? Just... gone?” he kept repeating to himself.
He worked his way around the room looking for some explanation and then went through to the communications center next door, shaking his head and muttering to himself, “Must have made a mistake. Have to be in here. Could swear they were back in the control room.
He couldn’t see them anywhere. He even looked inside the unused staff lockers. Nothing.
Suddenly he brightened up. “Of course!” he vocalized, “They were not dead at all, just unconscious. They have come to and gone to clean up in their quarters. That must be what happened. Thank Allah they are all right!”
Zardooz returned to the living quarters and headed for the women’s section He called out their names in hope of hearing something, but the silence chilled him. He looked into every room, pristine and untouched, until finally he was back where he had started, shaking his head in disbelief. He slumped down onto a bunk in defeat. “By the beard of the prophet, where could they have gone? I am a scientist. People do not vanish into thin air!”
Usually not one to lose his cool, there was no one to see him as he beat the bunk and tore up the coverings, screaming and thrashing, crying with spittle flying everywhere. There was no one to hear him. As precipitously as he had started his tantrum, he suddenly stopped and a huge grin took over his features, more a grimace than a grin.
“I am a rational man and a scientist. There has to be some logical explanation to this. I will follow scientific method and put this anomaly aside until the situation reveals the answer. Yes, I have lost things before and then found them some significant time later. I can do this. I refuse to believe in the irrational. I am not mad.”
“Hey how many contestants are left poofteroid?”
“Who’s calling me a poofteroid jerkaroid?”
“So how many?”
“We’re down to one ninety-nine since we lifted the two girls.”
“Right! That means we can go to the final Game Segment, Universe’s Got Talent. This is the part I like best because we get to interfere with the contestants.”
“Hang about! You’ve been interfering since the game started. You did the snake thing and set the poor blighters on the way to this mess.”
“Quit ya whinging!. You made good money on that penalty payment I had to fork out.”
“Come on you gas giant, get on with it. Who are the judges for this section?”
“We’ve got three. There’s Peepers from Morgana Galaxy, Charonelle from Osburn Galaxy and Howley from the Mandelbrot quadrant.”
“How does the game go now?”
“The judges decide who gets taken out and put in stasis until there are only ten or less remaining. That is when it goes to the viewers to vote and decide who wins.”
“I reckon Carver and Fuller.”
“I think Shaw and Hannaford, but I’ll take your money anyway.”
CHAPTER 41
Aboard Carver’s transport.
“We have four Dinkshif drives on board that were going to be used in the first stage experiments of approaching light speed. The goal was to capture a reasonably symmetrical asteroid in a particular mass range, attach the drives on the perimeter around the center of mass and then accelerate in a straight line from that point.”
Fuller drifted in front of the small group and pointed at his makeshift white board. Carver, the President and all the cadets were seated buckled in around him. He pointed at the diagram drawn on the bulkhead, depicting relative positions of their own transport, the shattered Earth and the pursuing fragment, the moon, the Skyhook with its attached terminus, Space City, and a guess at the positions of the remaining transports and shuttles.
“This diagram represents what I believe to be the whole remains of the human species. Not a lot. We are out of immediate danger right now and we have the time to consolidate ourselves and work on long term survival. Our resources are finite so we must try to capture anything that comes our way. The only thing coming our way at this time is the earth fragment that we have matched velocity with. We have the opportunity to close with this fragment and dock with it. We will then attach the Dinkshif drives at precalculated locations, stabilize the rotation and the fragment becomes our new home and space travel vehicle. With the Dinkshif drives engaged we have the capability to exceed the speed of light many times over, contrary to Eiensteinian physics. Yes Shaw?”
“Sir, the Dinkshif theory has never been tested and flies in the face of all accepted theory and observation. What happens if we expend all these irreplaceable resources and the drives do not work?”
“Commander Carver and I have examined all the parameters of this course of action, including the scenario of total failure. We believe that the risks involved are far outweighed by the possibility of finding another home planet. NASA would not have funded the Dinkshif project unless there was a high probability of success. We need to have some confidence in that. On the flip side, if it is a failure, we still have sufficient reaction mass to make a run for the moon and meet up with other survivors. That scenario does not have a great ending because of limited resources. Sooner or later we all die and humanity becomes extinct.” Fuller paused and saw that the President has a question.
“Mr President?”
“Colonel Fuller, what is the time frame to reach another planetary system if Dinkshif works? And just by the way, I signed the order to implement the Dinkshif Drive project. Nylast Dinkshif was clear and convincing in his presentation and mathematics. I do have some understanding of the theory.”
“On an approximate time scale we have calculated around fifteen hundred days to reach Alpha Centauri which is four light years from us. We will exceed the speed of light by a factor of two during our acceleration deceleration stages. If we simply passed by Alpha Centauri we would achieve that in around four hundred and fifty days’ but we would be travelling at four times the speed of light and would not be able to stop or even observe that system.”
Fuller looked for more questions. There were none so he continued. “Dinkshif theory does not ignore relativistic effects. There will be time dilation involved. He predicted that the time dilation would be logarithmic just like the Richter scale was for earthquakes. Each factor of light speed would cause a many hundred fold increase in the time dilation calculation. Our roughly four year journey will take us four years, but some thirty thousand years will pass in the regular universe.” There was a gasp of dismay from one of the cadets as she covered her mouth and tears filled her eyes. The others looked stunned.”
“Wake up people. You will not see any difference between now and thirty thousand years once we are four light years from this location. We are giving up the remote possibility of meeting up with the other survivors and maybe lasting a few years. We have the best chance of long term survival and continuing our species. You are the ones to renew our race.”
The President signaled Fuller that he wished to speak. He half turned in his seat to face the cadets. He gave them a warm smile to put them at ease
and began speaking. “I owe everyone an apology. I owe humanity an apology. I made a decision to try to protect our way of life from a dangerous terrorist regime which was taking humanity down the road to war and possible extinction. I decided that we had to try to knock out this threat at the source. The only resource I had at hand was an untried weapon using anti-matter. We chose this path to prevent radioactive fallout and to cut off the threat with overwhelming force.
I based my decision on past experience of our country in dealing with irrational, Islamic terrorist regimes. They negotiate from the front and stab you from the back at the same time. It is the irrational minority that rise to the surface and take over these nations. Not just Islamics. Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Red China are all examples of regimes that have abused human rights and murdered millions.
The threat assessment on the Iranian Islamic Empire was so extreme that it was a case of “them or us”. I had to protect us. Unfortunately the scaling back of our military resources by past Presidents reduced our options to only one. I had to use the AMD which was an initiative of my terms in office, a fast fix to patch the huge gap in our defences while we rebuilt the military as it should be, as distasteful as that sounds.
Had we the time we needed for testing and refinement, our AMD would have become the deterrent as designed and kept the madmen in check. We were not given that time and here is the catastrophic result. There is no point in blaming others, but if we should survive and rebuild ourselves, I would like to ensure that even the President cannot reduce our ability for self defence. The rot started in 2008 with the election of a President with Islamic roots, no matter what the denials. There was appeasement and accommodation of radical Islam with a corresponding wind down of our military resources. Britain’s Chamberlain did this with Hitler in 1938 and plunged the world into war with a maniac in power in Nazi Germany.
Our President in 2008 started the same process with the Islamics, deliberately or other wise we will never know. I was elected to reverse the damage, but it was too little, too late.
My friends, I hope God is with us and we all survive to rebuild humanity. Please learn this lesson and build in rules in the new society to keep us free and morally decent.
I apologize to every one of you and to all our lost souls for my action. I now resign my Presidency and become one of us. There is no more Mr President, just Tom. Our leaders are Commander Carver and Colonel Fuller, who have brought us thus far.
Thank you.”
Tom sat down and strapped in. The group just stared at him, stunned. Fuller acknowledged him and began clapping his hands. Everyone followed and the reaction became a standing ovation. After a minute or so, Fuller nodded to Felicity. She worked her way forward and held position before the group.
“Mr President, I could not call you Tom sir, we have discussed this possibility among ourselves and with our commanders. We came to a consensus that no one could have done a different or better job of handling the Iranian threat than you did. We are collectively not experienced enough to form governance for our small group and we request that you join with our commanders Carver and Fuller as a leader of our community. We hope you will lead, teach and nurture us so that we can become leaders of the future. We would like to continue to address you as Mr President.”
Felicity went back to her seat and all eyes turned to the President. He looked to Fuller and Carver who nodded assent to Hannaford’s proposal. The President gave a cheezy grin and shrugged his shoulders.
“OK I guess.” He looked around at the smiling young faces. “Wish all my elections were that easy to win!”
The group laughed until Fuller signalled for silence.
“Delighted to have you on the team Mr President. Let’s get back to the matter at hand. Dinkshif Drives, survival and thirty thousand years. You all have the outline of the plan so now I am opening the meeting to questions and comments. Please raise your hand and I will call each person in order. State your first name so we all get to know each other.”
Fuller pointed at a cadet. “Yes?”
“David sir. Let’s say all this works and we get to Alpha Centauri and there is nothing there for us. What is the contingency plan? When will we run out of resources that if we did not go, might allow us to survive here much longer and look for a survival path right here, in our own solar system?”
“Commander Carver and I considered that scenario and examined every aspect we could think of. Each time we thought we had a viable plan the issue of the anti-matter fragments in our vicinity posed an unknown risk. We have an artificially created concentration of this stuff in our neighborhood. We don’t know how it will replicate but we do know it did not self destruct with an equal quantity of matter. We also know that the mass of anti-matter is steadily increasing as it draws like particles, I guess the term should be teleports, particles from all over the universe. We believe that our solar system is too hot with anti-matter for us to risk our best chance of survival. Given time it is probable that the whole system will revert to anti-matter.
Alpha Centauri is our closest galactic neighbor. If we fail to find a new home, there are other more distant star systems we will be able to reach in our lifetimes. We will keep searching. As to resources, just as we are going to pick up this “disinfected” earth fragment, we will certainly find more raw materials on our journey.”
Fuller was silent and waited for David. “Thank you sir. I believe I understand.” He settled back in his seat.
“Yes.” Fuller pointed to Amy Young.
“Sir, you will recall the question I asked that long four days ago when I still had a family...” she broke down into tears for a moment and then visibly fought off the gnawing emotion. “... and a home and a planet. Sir, we are all that is left of humanity, along with a few other ships which we don’t even know if they made it. Sir, I don’t want to die without having experienced love and sex and having babies like God designed me to do. I know there needs to be rules, so I am saying we should come up with these rules now, that will allow us to live together and to satisfy our physical and emotional needs, right from the beginning.”
“Amy, all of you, and I include myself, Commander Carver, Mr President and his associates. The most important matter at hand is to latch onto the fragment and get away from here as fast as we can. I can’t say there are not risks involved, but with diligence and hard work we can be on our way and we will have around four years of space travel in which to define a workable social system. I have no doubt that love and sex will play a major role in that time. Please, each and every one of you maintain self control as you may never have done before. We cannot afford discord in our small space and you are all the most precious individuals in existence. For certain we will want to make babies and diversify our gene pool. You are the parents of a new humanity. We are Adam and Eve again. Come and help me people. We have a Garden of Eden to find.”
The meeting broke up into designated teams and the two commanders went to each team, handing out concise instructions that were recorded by the buddies. Each group had a prioritized task, but the whole plan was accessible to every cadet.
Fuller approached the President. “Mr President...” the President cut him off mid-sentence with a slash of his hand.
“In private I am Tom, this is Chuck and June. OK? No argument.”
“Soooo...” Fuller stretched out the word. “Tom, Chuck, June. We need to find youniforms for you and see how we can get three more buddies while the cadets are locating the equipment. We need to do this before the docking attempt to ensure your safety.”
“Look” said Tom, “if there are no suits or buddies we will sit and take our chances. We’ve had our lives. You make sure these kids make it.”
Fuller pulled a half smile. “I believe you don’t understand my motive Tom. Your genes are as important to our diversity and long term survival of humanity as any of the cadets.”
“Sorry to disappoint you John. I had a vasectomy nine years ago. Shooting blanks no
w.”
“We’ll find a way to reverse it. You’re getting suited up. That Mr President Tom, is an order.” Fuller beckoned to two cadets who had been detailed for this job. They were clumsy in the weightless conditions, but were slowly getting the hang of free fall movement.
Because the transport had undergone orderly loading before the crisis, every item was documented and locatable. Fuller’s buddy transmitted the information to the two cadets and they drifted off to find the uniforms and buddies, spares designated for the ill fated Space City.
“Please wait here for the cadets. I have to get back to Janine to work the approach.”
CHAPTER 42
Aboard Carver’s Transport.
Fuller and Carver had their heads together as they pored over the surface scan of the fragment. “Looks fairly uniform,” Janine observed. “Shouldn’t make much difference where we set down.”
They continued to look for another minute when John pointed at the image and said, “What’s that?”
They both craned forward, looking intently at a tiny black spot on the surface. Janine reached out and expanded the picture with a reverse pinching motion, a carry over from the ancient touch screen days. The black spot grew and began to resolve with edge detail around a deep black centre. Janine pulled a virtual ruler from the tool bar and aligned cursors on each side of the spot. “About three meters across. What do you think it is?”
“If was a cave or part of a cave complex I would expect to see more holes and craters. If it was part of a city or structure same thing. This appears to be isolated. It could be a volcanic tube or a missile silo. Even an isolated mine shaft.” They stared at the spot for a few more moments. “As that is the only thing we have found on the surface, I vote that we land next to the anomaly for further investigation. Come to think of it, is there any way we can work out the mass of the fragment? Can we see if there are cavities in it?”
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