He turned his attention back to the lever and examined the next slot. By lifting the lever up one more position, he would be selecting “stage two” which only offered a warning not to move into that position if there was no power to the main control panel. He knew very well that there was no power because nothing at all had happened. He read the warning for stage one and decided that if he was to make sure the initiator was off before selecting stage one, then it was okay to engage it afterward.
He flipped the switch for the initiator and turned around to look at the fuel rods again. There was a constant clicking sound coming from the reactor room at a rate of about two clicks per second. It sounded to Hawke like the electronic start to his gas oven, though he knew it was a silly comparison.
They all continued to stare into the room, wondering when something would happen beyond the steady clicking sounds. A thought occurred to Hawke. He borrowed one of the lights and aimed it around the walls of the reactor along the water line. He couldn’t find what he was looking for after a minute of searching.
“It’s not working?” Sky Listener asked.
“I really don’t know,” Hawke replied, “I wonder how long before we would even know. If the initiator had started a chain reaction in the rods, they would already be heating up. But since that water is probably ice cold, it would most likely take a while to heat the water to the boiling temperatures necessary. I was sort of hoping to locate a thermometer somewhere in-”
“Look!” Kashuba pointed to the reactor.
It took Hawke a moment to notice the faint ghostly fingers of smoke or steam rising from the reactor. He laughed suddenly and pointed.
“Yeah!” he shouted, “At least it’s a start!”
“Do we leave the initiator on?” Fire Dragon asked.
“I’m not sure, but it won’t hurt anything if we do. For as many atoms that are splitting in those rods right now, a few extra neutrons won’t amount to anything right now,” Hawke said, “But once it’s fully online, I think the initiator will have to be switched off and on at certain intervals in order to keep the temperatures at a precise level. Let’s just hope it’s automated like the one on the Pioneer.”
“This is great!” Sky Listener said with less enthusiasm than his words suggested, “So what is the timeline we’re looking at?”
“I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but I have no idea and I’m not going to rush things when dealing with something as hazardous as this,” Hawke blurted, “Once the water boils, the turbines will start spinning and power will start coursing through the veins of this ship. It could be an hour, or it could be several hours.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Hawke,” Sky Listener said, “You mentioned the necessity of locating a life support room. I was only asking in order to figure how much time I had to get a group together to locate all machinery rooms. We could have a group of people marking potentially important rooms so it would take you less time to search when the time comes. Why waste time searching bathrooms, bedrooms, and storerooms?”
Hawke closed his eyes and nodded. He massaged his forehead as though trying to work out the demons inside. He continued to nod as he turned to the elder scientist beside him.
“I’m sorry for my attitude, sincerely,” he said, “This isn’t easy for me and I was feeling that no one understood. Like everyone was just in a hurry while I was scared out of my mind. While I am scared. You’re right, though. It would help tremendously if your people could start narrowing down the possibilities where the life support systems would be located.”
Sky Listener gave him a pleasant smile, then squeezed him gently on the shoulder. He tapped his associate on the arm and motioned for the young man to follow him out of the room. Hawke was left with only Fire Dragon and Kashuba.
“I’m sorry, you two,” Hawke said, “I’m just scared, especially now that the reactor is working. I’ve started a nuclear chain reaction and that in itself is not to be taken lightly. Please don’t think me rude.”
“I’m with you, Hawke,” Fire Dragon said, “We want safety as much as we want success. If that means we spend a day inside this ship with no power, then so be it.”
“I agree,” Kashuba added, “We’re in no hurry at all.”
Fire Dragon went over to the doorway where he had dropped a utility bag he was carrying earlier. He took out a lantern and opened the shutters, filling the room with a good amount of light. He set it in the middle of the room, then proceeded to take down the small lanterns that had been hung in the room the previous day.
“I like to have plenty of light when I work, so I always bring my bane lantern just in case,” he offered when he saw the questioning gaze he was receiving from Kashuba.
“Do you have a rag or a piece of fabric in that bag that can be used to wipe down these control panels?” she asked, “If this thing is going to have power pretty soon, we need to be able to see beneath the thick blanket of dust.”
“Actually, I do,” he replied, shifting things around inside the bag.
He finally located a rectangle of fabric and tossed it to her. She caught it and proceeded to start wiping down all the surfaces in the room. All the while, the fog continued to grow in the other room. Hawke looked up at the four steam vents in the ceiling and could readily see that no paddles were spinning inside them. He figured he’d know when the water was boiling anyway just from the turbulence on the surface of the pool.
When Kashuba finished wiping down the panels in the reactor control room, she headed out to the other room with the gravitational-reflex generator and operating systems. Hawke wanted to join her as she continued wiping down all the surfaces that she deemed important, but he was afraid to leave the reactor unmanned no matter how long he believed it would take to boil the water.
He stared into the reactor, grateful that it contained so many fuel rods. If it had only six or eight rods like his miniature reactor on the Pioneer, it would take days to boil that pool of water. He hadn’t counted, but it looked like there were easily seventy-two to ninety-six rods sunken down partway into the reactor.
He suddenly noticed bubbles coming up from the reactor ventilation slots where the water would be the warmest. As a whole, the surface of the pool was fairly still beneath the fog, but near the reactor itself and especially near the slots, it was bubbling up ever so slightly.
He said nothing, knowing he still probably had a while until the water would actually start boiling. He glanced down at Fire Dragon who was knelt next to his utility bag. The man appeared to be taking inventory, realizing for the first time perhaps that it was all he had left from the world above. He could only hope that his “Swiss army knife” of a bag had all that the man would need in the present situation.
Hawke could understand such a feeling. He packed nothing personal on his trip aboard the Pioneer. At the time, he was fairly confident that the trip would truly end up near the orbit of Neptune and then the return trip would take them within twenty thousand miles of the Earth. At the very most, he figured he’d be gone a week. Probably not even half that long actually.
It was during his first night here on Rain that he realized he’d lost absolutely everything that was important to him. He wished he could have packed a single duffle bag or perhaps a suitcase with the foreknowledge that it would have been all he would ever have. Such ponderings left him with the question of what he would bring and each time those thoughts came, his answers were different. How many matchbooks or lighters would he pack? A gun? How many bullets? A multi-purpose knife? Personal photographs? Favorite novels? Medication? A coat? Gloves?
He only hurt himself with such thoughts because he was here now and he had nothing beyond what others provided for him. The closest thing he had from his own world was the very ship he was in and even that didn’t belong to him. So for the time being, all he possessed was the clothing on his back and the woman he loved. At the moment, he realized just how content he was with such a thought.
He turned back to the reactor
and realized the water was bubbling up significantly now and the room was filling with steam. The window itself was even starting to fog up. He smiled widely, realizing for the first time that his plan was most likely going to work.
“What’s that smile for?” Fire Dragon asked.
Hawke pointed up toward the ceiling inside the reactor, “I just saw one of the fins start to move. Actually, another one is starting to spin at a regular interval.”
“Meaning?” he asked, joining him at the steamed window.
“The escaping steam spins wheels inside those vents,” Hawke said, “Which in turn spins electricity generating turbines. I can explain what those turbines are later, but if you’ve ever been shocked by static electricity, you have an idea what is being created intentionally up there in the room above us.”
“I think I know exactly what you’re talking about,” he said, “I’ve hypothesized about such things, though obviously generated by different means,” he said, pointing up at the ceiling, “Look at that one in the vent over there. It’s spinning faster than the rest.”
“As long as the generator is operational, we should have some power pretty soon,” Hawke said.
He suddenly realized that he had no idea how he would verify the existence of electricity. He checked the wall for a light switch and found one just inside the doorway. He examined it quickly and realized it was in the “on” position. He switched it off and on just to check it, but nothing happened.
He went over to the chair that was surrounded by what he deemed to be the main control panel for the reactor. There were three buttons and four switches that had no identifying marks. Everything else appeared to be operated by touch screens, which were all still dead and blank. He didn’t feel confident enough in the reactor to start flipping random unmarked switches.
“Hawke!” Kashuba called, “Did you do something?”
He rushed out of the room and quickly located her standing near the odd spring-wrapped cylinder that he hadn’t recognized from his original model. She pointed to a lit screen on the wall near the giant device.
“Power!” he shouted, rushing over to her.
The screen was alive with the words “G-Ring Power Expander” printed at the top and a bar chart that went from 0 to 165. The black bar was colored orange up to the number four.
“This thing must have priority over some of the other systems, though it doesn’t really make sense,” he said, looking over at the confusing object that was now humming, “This is where the batteries should have been in my original design. This thing must be an improvement that didn’t exist in my time. If it serves the same purpose, then all it does is boost the power to the warp generator.”
“Sounds important to me,” Fire Dragon stated, “What if the Shomani are about to shoot your ship and you find yourself low on power? The first thing you need on any kind of battleship is the ability to flee. Weapons come second, not first.”
“This isn’t a battleship, my friend,” Hawke said defensively, “While combat may be what rules the nations on my world, only science rules over the exploration of space. The intelligent people of my world focus on discovery and expansion while the ignorant stay behind and focus on destruction.”
“Then if this is merely a science vessel, life support should have been the first thing to be brought online,” he retorted.
“Indeed,” he said, staring at the screen, “Sort of confusing.”
“Maybe energy is diverted to multiple systems at the same time, but only the important ones at first,” Kashuba added, “The engines and life support are the most important. Not one or the other – both.”
Hawke turned to her and chuckled. She peered quizzically at him in a moment of annoyed confusion.
“You are completely right, Kashuba,” he stated, “I only laugh because you always see things from a different perspective than me and I forget sometimes how much I need that.”
“Nice save,” she said, “For a moment there, I considered punching you.”
He laughed again, then took her into an embrace. Suddenly, the lights flickered momentarily, turned off again, and then a moment later they flickered back on. The room was suddenly revealed in all its dusty glory. Hawke looked back toward the reactor control room and saw that the lights were also on in there.
Then he noticed a red light flashing above the doorway to the control room. The red light was encased in a rectangular box that displayed a single word. That word was simply “Alert”.
Twenty
The three of them rushed into the reactor control room and discovered all the control panels lit up with colorful images and touch-screen keyboards. Hawke went to the main control chair and examined the various screens before him. A warning flashed on one of the screens, stating that the reactor was operating at inefficient levels. Another warning showed that more than half the ship’s power was currently offline.
“I’ve got a warning over here telling me that power has been restored to life support, but that the systems are all offline,” Fire Dragon said, “It also is telling me to contact the bridge. How does this thing know about the bridge we built to get aboard?”
Fire Dragon’s question confused him for a moment.
“It’s talking about a different kind of bridge,” Hawke replied, “All these warnings are okay. Rather than telling us that the reactor is too hot and a potential danger to us, it’s telling us we need to increase its energy output. We basically need to move the manual level to the second stage in the cold start process. Would you like to do the honors while I try to figure out this panel?”
Fire Dragon jumped at the chance to be able to assist. He took hold of the metal lever and raised it up to the second stage. The fuel rod system submerged further into the reactor.
“Should I turn off the initiator while I’m over here? It doesn’t look like something that is supposed to be left on,” he said.
“I think you might be right,” Hawke stated, tapping out some minor commands on the touch screen, “Go ahead and turn it off. It appears that a lot of the reactor might actually be automated, so we are going to have to release manual control eventually anyway.”
He turned off the initiator, bringing an end to the constant clicking noise. Now all they could hear was the hum of machinery coming from the other room. It was in that moment that they noticed several people standing in the doorway. The sudden presence of lighting throughout the ship had brought many of the people to the reactor to find the cause.
“This is sort of inspiring,” Hawke said, “The status screen is updating constantly as the power is being restored throughout the ship. I can’t tell if I’m supposed to do anything though.”
Hawke examined the panel for anything that may have required his attention. Three separate digital graphs displayed various levels of unidentifiable things being monitored inside the reactor. None of the abbreviated codes on the graphs meant anything to him, so he silently hoped an alarm would warn him to change something if needed. He also hoped that if an alarm sounded, the reactor computer would respond with necessary corrections.
“We should probably make sure this room is manned by someone at all times,” Hawke said, “If nothing else, so we have someone who can manually shut it down if some klaxons start blaring.”
“I agree completely,” Fire Dragon said, turning to an elderly man who stood in the doorway, “Star Dancer, come here so I can show you something.”
The man followed Fire Dragon over to the manual control box. He did his best to explain how the reactor worked, only failing in accuracy on the minor details. The man he called Star Dancer nodded in understanding, and agreed to accept the duty of switching off the reactor if necessary.
“You are probably needed elsewhere anyway, Hawke,” Fire Dancer said, “I can assist Star Dancer in watching for alarms while you check on the other systems in the ship.”
Hawke continued scrolling through various graphs on the main control panel, searching for anything that offered him some
confidence in the reactor. Each screen he brought up was either too abbreviated in its definition or it monitored things he had never heard of. Finally, he located a graph with a sinusoid curve that displayed reaction levels increasing and decreasing constantly within a shaded “acceptable” level. It was moving like a perfect wave, steadily arcing up and down.
“It looks like the system is controlling itself for the most part,” he said to no one in particular, “It’s maintaining the reactions at a steady level, which is good because I’m not sure what I would have done if it were my job.”
“So, then are we good to check for life support? Those vents on the wall aren’t blowing anything,” Fire Dragon said, “And Star Dancer can manage this.”
Hawke looked up toward the dust-covered vents near the ceiling and acknowledged the truth of that observation. The existence of electricity inside the ship did not mean the existence of breathable air or ventilation.
“Yeah, we’d better get going,” Hawke said, rising from the seat.
He turned to the elderly man and motioned for him to join him at the control panel.
“This is an ongoing graph that is monitoring the reactions. It’s important that the curving line remain inside that shaded area,” Hawke said, pointing to the line, “It appears that the system is making its own adjustments, so you shouldn’t have to do anything. If the line starts going up and up continuously, you’ll probably see and hear a lot of alarms. The only thing I can suggest is a manual shutdown like Fire Dragon showed you. Can you monitor this for us? All our lives seriously depend on it.”
The man nodded enthusiastically. Hawke patted him on the arm and then gestured for Fire Dragon to join him as he started out the door.
. . . .
One of the many engineers and scientists who were roaming the ship directed Hawke, Kashuba, and Fire Dragon to the next floor above them. He stated that they had marked some suspicious rooms on three decks so far, but the deck directly above them contained the most probable suspects. The man, an engineer named Light Bender, also warned them that the decks seemed to cover the length of an ordinary village and that there were nine of them.
Dominion Page 11
