Running With Argentine

by William Lee Gordon

  Deep Space

  Once they reached the Pelican Argentine repeated the procedure. He hated to subject Mandi to anything more, but he had no choice...

  Leaving his flitter some distance away, his spacesuited figure towed the now re-pressurized ball to the open cargo hatch in the Pelican’s side.

  Once inside, he closed the hatch and re-pressurized the bay.

  He removed her still unconscious form from the space ball and then took off his own suit.

  Carrying her, he stepped through the hatch into the ship proper and opened the bay to space – jettisoning his suit, the habitat, and everything else back into space.

  He quickly took her to the medical alcove and placed her on the table. Her skin didn't look good so he took a dermal repair salve and rubbed it over her. He even massaged into her scalp.

  He took special care around her lower face and knees; blood blisters had formed everywhere the moisture of her breath had frozen into ice…

  Again checking her vitals, he piled blankets on her and hooked up an IV for full-spectrum antibiotics and to replenish her fluids.

  He then went to the bridge and got the Pelican started on its two-week journey to rendezvous with the Roosevelt.

  Only then did he bother to go get dressed.

  Well, actually… He had a cup of coffee first.

  ΔΔΔ

  "You really know how to show a girl a good time," announced a weak voice from behind him.

  He looked back from the Captain's Bench on the bridge to see Mandi shuffling towards him. She was wrapped in a blanket and had obviously just regained consciousness.

  She'd slept for two days and her vitals had consistently grown stronger, so Argentine wasn't overly concerned… But still…

  "Are you sure you feel good enough to be walking around?"

  "No," she said as she sat on the bench beside him. "But it's better than lying on that table in the corridor.

  "I've got this sticky stuff all over me," she continued.

  When he didn't say anything she went on…

  "I feel like I passed out on a date with someone that slipped me a Mickey."

  "Maybe you're dating the wrong type of guys."

  "I've been told that before…"

  After another moment of silence she said, "Thank you."

  Argentine again didn't say anything which, surprisingly to him, seemed to piss her off…

  "It was a stupid thing to do, you know? All those people were counting on you and you just abandoned them! I thought you were better than that…"

  "So, you're mad at me for saving your life?"

  "I'm mad at you for being so… Normal! For a moment there I thought you might actually be this mythical noble person that's supposed to exist somewhere in this mass of humanity…

  "But no… You're just like all the rest. You do what you want to do, what you convince yourself is the right thing to do regardless of how many other people it affects or hurts…

  "What about Sami? What did she think about you abandoning her and the others like this?" she said angrily.

  "I don't know," Argentine admitted. "You'll have to ask her."

  Mandi looked up sharply.

  "We rendezvoused with the Roosevelt in ten days…"

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  Retirement

  Aboard the Roosevelt

  It felt good to Argentine to be back in the Captain's Chair aboard the Roosevelt.

  He hadn't been 100% sure that he would ever sit here again. The chief had finally, though, bought into his reasoning.

  The conversation had been tense…

  "So, you made it."

  "Yeah Chief, we made it," Argentine said from the bridge of the Pelican.

  "You know I can't let you back on board," he said sadly but strongly.

  "If that's what you decide, Chief, I'll understand. But I'd ask you to hear out my reasoning first."

  "No matter how well you’ve thought this out there's always going to be some chance that letting you aboard could contaminate this ship. What makes you think anything you could say would make a difference?"

  "Because you're still here at the rendezvous point," he responded. "If you weren't at least open to the possibility that this could be safe you'd have moved on a long time ago."

  The chief mulled on that for a moment and then said, "Go ahead then… Explain."

  So Argentine did…

  He explained that there had to be some intelligence to the contagion. Whether it was a virus, or a gas, or whatever, if it attacked its host immediately upon coming in contact it could never spread from one system to the next.

  Conversely, if it just had a specific gestation period, like many viruses did, then the afflictions on any given planet wouldn't happen simultaneously - people would have time to isolate themselves.

  To be this efficient, some type of intelligence had to be at work, giving the signal to activate the contagion after it was transported to a new population, or when it couldn’t be spread further.

  "Also, keep in mind that all of the ships still in orbit at Asperia when the Roosevelt left were catastrophically afflicted. It's my belief that the contagion had already spread itself beyond that system or the trigger wouldn't have been initiated.

  "Which brings us to our situation…

  "First, let's talk about the Roosevelt…

  "It's possible that the Roosevelt's shields protected it from being contaminated by any ejected debris, but we can't know for sure because, if I'm right, whatever intelligence that is controlling things wouldn't trigger until you reached another planet or population.

  "If I'm right, there's actually a greater chance that the Roosevelt is infected than we are… But we’re willing to take that chance."

  Argentine could see on his view screen the chief sharing glances with others…

  "Now, as to us…

  "As I explained to you when you helped me set this up, we've taken a number of extreme steps to reduce the possibility of transferring the contagion. The possibility still remains, however, that Mandi was infected before she left the planet (just like the scientists you already have aboard) or that she became infected leaving the planet in her orbital shuttle.”

  “I think that’s the major worry, Frank. All… well, almost all the ships in orbit were infected - it’s a stretch to think that hers wasn’t.”

  “I agree with your thinking, Chief. But here’s where we get to my point… I can show you evidence that our transfer procedures worked; that she and her shuttle didn’t infect the Pelican.”

  “And what would that evidence be?”

  “The fact that we’re still here… Don’t you see? If there is some type of intelligence at work, it would have triggered once we transferred to the Pelican. We’ve been monitoring star systems all along our path. For the last two weeks we haven’t detected emissions from a single one - they’ve all gone dark…”

  “It could have been waiting for you to reach us,” he said without much conviction.

  “I suppose that’s possible, but how would it know? We’ve spent two weeks utterly alone in the galaxy.

  “The truth is, Chief… at this point there’s a greater chance that the Roosevelt’s infected than us.”

  “And you still want to come aboard?”

  Argentine glanced at Mandi, who was sitting beside him…

  “I don’t think we’d last long here… you know it takes more than two people to keep this ship going.

  “I’m proposing we follow the same procedure for this transfer… We’ll jet across in our suits and then strip in the airlock. Once we’re inside you can jettison our suits into space.”

  After a moment the chief grinned…

  “Welcome back aboard, Captain. I’ll illuminate your airlock.”

  “Hey, don’t forget to have some clothes ready for us.”

  ΔΔΔ

  Argentine was sitting back in his Captain's suite, legs propped up and sipping on a snifter of cognac.

&
nbsp; "Technically, it's not cognac," the chief, who was the only other person sharing this moment, explained. "But I guess there's only so many ways you can ferment grapes."

  Somehow, somewhere along the line, the chief had managed to snag a case or two of this wonderful elixir.

  "How long before we reach the void?" he asked.

  "We’ll be there in about a week," Argentine responded. "Call it twelve days until we get far enough in."

  "Still nothing from the Eridani system?"

  Argentine shook his head. Eridani had been the last inhabited system on the edge of the void between the spiral arms – up until two days ago it had still been active.

  Making their way to that void had been like traversing a minefield. They not only had needed to avoid the gravity wells of systems, but they’d felt it best not to intersect any of a number of the currents of solar wind that could constantly cross their path. Both Barry and Sami had performed remarkably.

  It reminded Argentine of a documentary he'd once seen about how easy it was for firefighters to get cut off when fighting a forest fire.

  "I keep thinking about that ship with the guy that claimed to be the head of Asperia's only Secret Society," the chief said, changing the subject.

  "Mandi said that she knew for a fact that there was more than one Secret Society; that guy was lying."

  "And just how would she know that?"

  "I asked her that very thing… And she changed the subject."

  "I'm shocked," lamented the chief.

  After another moment of silence…

  "So, are we really going to do it?"

  "Do what?"

  "Fire up the temporal engines… Are we really going to, uh… Go back in time?"

  "I don't think there's anything for us here, Chief. I'm certainly not going to find a cabin on a lake…"

  "Yeah, about that… A lot of the scientists are still in a tizzy about the extinction event."

  "I don't think anyone's over it yet," Argentine reflected.

  "No, that's not what I mean… Barry says they're all falling arse over tit trying to figure out what caused it. I know for a fact that a bunch of them want to keep on studying it."

  "They can do whatever they want, as far as I'm concerned…

  "I'm tired, Chief," he suddenly said. "I think I've done my bit; or at least I will have once we make the jump and get to an era where everyone can survive.

  "Seriously, all I want to do is find a nice quiet place. It's all I've ever wanted, really…"

  After a moment of silence the chief changed the subject again, "Not everybody discovers a temporal drive. If these extinction events have been happening over and over, how come we've never found an eight million year old derelict ship?"

  "I was talking to the lieutenant about that. You have to remember that we have the advantage of knowing it was coming, even if we didn't really believe it was going to happen to us…

  "At any rate, most likely any surviving ships figured it was simply a normal virus or contagion. They probably waited as long as they could, until their supplies started running thin, and then hoped that whatever it was had already burned itself out."

  "So you think that whatever it is doesn't just go dormant, or die or whatever?"

  "Well, we know it doesn't last eight million years, but yeah… I wouldn't bet that it won't be around for centuries. Which is another reason we need to make the jump."

  "Well, I guess Sami won't be too disappointed," the chief said.

  Argentine looked at him…

  "It's just that she's been going on lately about duty to mankind, or some such. She's got Rory thinking about it too…"

  "I know," Argentine grumbled. "Mandi can't shut up about it… But, dammit Chief! I'm not stopping any of them from doing whatever they want…"

  "Well, you are their Captain…"

  "They can find another Captain. You, for example."

  "No way! Besides, I don't think they'd follow me, at least not the way they follow you."

  "Listen Chief… I want to make this absolutely clear. I'm done. Get it? I'm going to find some nice quiet moon or uninhabited planet and for once in my life be able to close my eyes at night and fall asleep without worrying about everything and everyone."

  "I understand, but…" the chief started…

  "No! Don't even go there. There are no buts. I mean it, Chief. I'm serious about this…"

  CHAPTER NINETY

  The Final Message

  Earth 2351 A.D.

  "Admiral Sanchez?"

  "Come in, Major."

  Major Jacoby took a seat in front of the admiral's desk…

  "We found another message."

  "From Captain Ramires?"

  "I… I think you need to read it, Sir."

  The admiral frowned…

  "Was it at Cydonia?"

  "Yes. We totally missed it the last couple of times we surveyed the area. The pyramid it was hidden in, and the chamber itself, were of totally natural materials. There was nothing at all to suggest it was man-made…"

  "Which is probably why it survived."

  The major nodded his head in agreement, and then handed a report to the Admiral…

  "It's the same laser engraving on that advanced form of diamond crystal. Here's the transcript."

  The admiral opened it and began reading…

  Directed To: Admiral Federico Sanchez, Terran League Space Navy (or his predecessors or successors)

  I don't know whether to admire you or curse you, Admiral. It's really easy, and a lot more fun, to pretend that you're the cause of this entire mess.

  In fairness though, I know you're just trying to do something about it. I just wish you could've found some other poor sonuvabitch to do the job.

  On the other side of this crystal you will find engraved the details about this contagion that our new scientists have been able to piece together…

  It's not much.

  Basically it seems to be some type of intelligent viral matter annihilator. It can't be seen, but its effects are devastating.

  One other thing you need to know is that it spreads quickly and seems to come from up spiral.

  We ran from it, and that's the only reason we’re still alive.

  And this gets back to me cursing you…

  We jumped to an era that is pre-Paladin III. We don’t even know what to call it yet.

  The new crew of the Roosevelt doesn't seem to want to let me retire.

  It looks like I am condemned, once again, to having to set aside my mountain cabin so that I can run off and serve someone else's priorities… Or at least that's the way I'm looking at it at the moment…

  My scientists want us to head up spiral, so I don't know how or if we’ll be able to get any other messages to you. Which I guess means it’s up to us to kill this thing…

  And since that's the only way I'm ever going to get a quiet night’s sleep, that's what we’ll do.

  Damn you,

  Argentine

  The admiral stared at the report in front of him…

  Who the hell was Argentine?

  Preview or Purchase Other Books

  By

  William Lee Gordon:

  My Friend The Emperor

  HERE COMES EARTH (series)

  Emergence

  Destiny

  Diaspora

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  www.WilliamLeeGordon.com

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There are a large number of people that I would like to thank for their inspiration, encouragement, and support. It would be impossible to list them all here.