“Indeed,” he said, sliding her bed up against the wall next to his, “I don’t have answers, Kashuba. I can only hope we are able to get out of here before anyone is to the point of starving.”
“What’s the plan right now – tonight and tomorrow?” she asked, remaking the beds.
“I’m tired as I’m sure you can imagine, but we can’t leave Fire Dragon to watch the reactor all night. I figure I’ll go take over for him if you don’t mind and that way I can check out all the engineering systems before we spend the day tomorrow searching for the bridge,” he said.
She turned to him; an expression of hurt invading her gentle features. He wrapped her in his arms and held her, pressing his lips into her hair.
“I know it’s our honeymoon and I most certainly wish to spend it right here with you. I want to shut that door right now and lock it for the whole night,” he said, kissing the top of her head, “And once we are exhausted, I want to sleep like I’ve never slept before. But these people are relying on me, and I’m going to be relying on Fire Dragon… and Star Dancer… and Sky Listener… and several other people with weird Indian names.”
“I know,” she whispered, holding him tight, “I don’t know what a weird Indian is, but I do know you have a lot to handle right now.”
He held her a moment longer, then kissed her again. She released him, then returned to the bed she had been making and grabbed both pillows. She tossed them to Hawke, who barely managed to catch both.
“You take the pillows and I’ll grab the blankets,” she said, “You said yourself that the person in the reactor control room merely needs to stay alert for any alarms. Since the alarms involve flashing lights and audible sounds, I don’t see why it can’t be monitored by two people lying together on the floor.”
He smiled, and then he grinned so wide that it suddenly transformed into a laugh. She winked at him, then turned to the beds and folded up the blankets. Fire Dragon was going to discover that he was no longer welcome in the reactor control room for the rest of the night.
Twenty-two
After breakfast and an early morning walk-thru to verify all systems were still online and operating as expected, they divided themselves into two teams to go in search of a bridge or piloting room. The secondary goal was also to map out interesting rooms while performing their search.
They had already searched the full upper level the previous day, locating nothing beyond several vacant storage rooms, living spaces, bathing facilities, a shared dining facility with a vast kitchen, a gymnasium of course, an exercise facility, and a hospital or medical facility. This news was the most disappointing to Hawke because he had expected the bridge to be located on the uppermost level based on his knowledge of twentieth century science fiction.
He and his group also bypassed the second level where they had chosen their living spaces. All the second level had been searched already and had shown to be an almost identical copy of the previous level with the addition of a science lab and an auditorium in place of the gymnasium and hospital.
It was the third deck where they started their search. They already knew that the life support system and the electric generator were located on this level, but a complete search had not been performed. The other team went to the lowest levels and began their search down below.
“To answer your question from breakfast, there are some sects that believe the bane ore is magic. I’ve never discredited it myself, but I can’t say I believe it,” the scientist named Ocean Song said to Hawke, “With what you’ve told me about the metal in the reactor though, I imagine it’s just another sort of metal with similar non-mystical qualities.”
“But the Uranium is poisonous to us and all other life. It ionizes living cells which… let’s just say it is quite deadly. I don’t see those qualities emanating from the ore,” Hawke replied, opening a hatch and peeking into an empty room, “I haven’t conducted any real tests, but simply sleeping in that tent with a bane ore stove should have sickened me or killed me.”
Hawke shut the hatch and followed the others down the corridor. They continued to open the doors as they went, casually observing the various rooms.
“So, do you believe it might be magical?” Ocean Song asked.
“No, not at all,” he replied quickly, “I’ve seen enough to know that everything has its moment of being classified as ‘magic.’ But then the time comes when it’s dissected, analyzed, and after many experiments, it’s revealed for what it truly is. I have to believe that bane is either a metal that is beyond my known periodic table, or it’s a perfect blend of some already known elements. I hope to have time to perform many experiments though.”
“Well, I heard we have plenty of the ore down below,” he chuckled.
“I heard the same thing,” he replied, “It would be nice to find out why it’s there.”
“Umm… Guys, I think I have something!” a man shouted from one of the side corridors.
Hawke rushed toward the sound of the voice. He was fairly certain however that whatever it was the man located, it couldn’t be the bridge. It wouldn’t make any sense to have the bridge hidden so deep inside the ship. He quickly located the open door near the center passageway where others have gathered. He wasn’t prepared for what he’d find when he slipped past the group and looked into the room.
The man who had just hollered had been Light Bender and his back was to everyone in the doorway. On the other side of Light Bender was what appeared to be a shoulder-height aquarium filled with thick green sludge and the skeletal remains of an unidentified creature. The only bones visible in that murky water were those that had settled up against the glass.
The aquarium however wasn’t the thing that horrified those standing in the doorway. It was the detailed diagram of the insides of a Shomani man. Only this particular one wasn’t the kind of chart made on a giant poster as is often found in schools and medical facilities. This was the body of an actual Shomani adult male based on the presence of jaw horns, and he’d been sawed in half top to bottom and preserved in a thin glass case on the left wall. This back half of the creature was all that remained, showing all the inner organs, muscles, and bones with white labels throughout to define what was being viewed.
Kashuba screamed, catching sight of the same thing Hawke had just noticed. She rushed out of the room, pushing her way past those in the doorway. As much as Hawke wanted to follow her and make sure she was all right, he also needed answers. He turned away from the repulsive dissection to examine the rest of the creepy room. The opposite wall was covered in shelves, most of which were devoted to partially dissolved books that would surely crumble to dust if disturbed. Three small aquariums were situated randomly on those shelves. These units were devoid of all water as they hadn’t been sealed like the giant one in the center of the room. Lying at the bottom of each of those grimy aquariums were various fish or snake skeletons. On another shelf, he discovered a Shomani skull and two skulls that resembled those of alligators with shark-like teeth.
Someone called from the door opposite the murky aquarium. Hawke and Ocean Song rushed to the attached room to discover a lab surrounded by walls of various size cages. Even from a quick glance, it was immediately evident that several creatures died in their cages the same as the fish and serpents in the other room.
“What is all this?” Ocean Song asked, examining the larger of the cages, “I hope these creatures didn’t suffer.”
“I hate to say it, but it looks like these were all abandoned while they were still alive,” Hawke said, recognizing none of the skeletal remains, “I can understand the desire to study the native creatures, but not to the extent of letting them suffer.”
“I’m more concerned about that filleted Shomani in the other room,” one of the men stated, “Going with the assumption that this was a zoological lab dedicated to the study of Rain’s creatures, one has to wonder what they classified the Shomani as.”
“I wondered the exact same thing,” Hawke rep
lied, “Did they feel the Shomani were merely another mindless animal on a planet that was free for the taking?”
“Speaking of Shomani, I think you should go talk to your lady,” a woman behind him said, “She didn’t look too good a moment ago.”
He turned and caught the worried gaze of the paramedic. She was introduced to him an hour ago, but he couldn’t remember her name for the life of him.
“She’s sitting in the hall with Winter Grass,” the woman added.
He nodded, then excused himself from the room. He doubted he would be able to gather anything useful from the limited evidence left in the two rooms. Knowing mankind as he did, he feared that anything he gleaned from those rooms would only continue to disappoint him.
Kashuba was indeed seated far down the hall with a young lady knelt next to her. He joined up with them and was relieved to see that although her eyes were wet, she was no longer crying. The lady next to her looked up at Hawke and shrugged. She then rose up from the dusty floor and brushed her hands on her pants as she headed to the rest of the group.
“Do you see why the Shomani call the Cheronook savages?” Kashuba asked, patting the floor next to her in invitation, “You would never find such an atrocity in Hollodale.”
He sat down next to her, taking her hand in his.
“And you wouldn’t find such an atrocity in the Frozen North. You already know these people well enough to understand how equally appalled they were with the stuff in that room,” he replied, “I have studied enough of human history to tell you that we are always doing stupid stuff and regretting it later. Mankind is always better than it was a few generations prior.”
“You have more faith in the Cheronook than I do,” she said, “I don’t know that my mind will ever change in regards to them.”
“The Cheronook aren’t a ‘them’. The Cheronook is actually me and it’s you. It’s your parents and your grandparents,” he said.
She sighed, shaking her head. It was clear that she disagreed with him, but wasn’t in any mood to argue at the moment.
Twenty-three
The bridge ended up being discovered by the other group. Two people from the other group had run up the stairs, calling for Hawke to come join them on the lowest deck. While it confused him that the bridge should be located on the bottommost deck, they had already run out of places he had believed it should have been.
Sky Listener and his group met Hawke and his people at the bottom of the stairs.
“From what you’ve told me about this ship and what it’s like to be in outer space, I feel we had been searching all the wrong places before,” Sky Listener said, walking down the passageway next to Hawke.
“But the bridge is typically on the top of a ship,” Hawke said, recalling all the ships he’d seen in movies and on television.
“And why is that, I wonder? Could it be that the space ships of your era had evolved from the oceangoing vessels that had essentially preceded them?” Sky Listener asked, “So these starships held onto a trait that was useful in sea vessels but would actually serve as a handicap in space vessels.”
“Go on,” Hawke said, continuing down the long corridor.
“The bridge is high on sea vessels because the Captain and his pilot needed to be able to see far ahead of the ship. In space, you told me that visibility is useless to a pilot due to the vast amount of nothingness, thus the lack of windows. In that case, the bridge could be anywhere. But one could argue that windows could serve a great purpose to an interstellar vessel and especially a science vessel sent to other worlds. Where then would you install the bridge?”
Hawke kept in step with the elderly man, then stopped suddenly and turned to him.
“You’re right,” Hawke grinned, “You’ve never left your planet and haven’t worked with spacecraft before, yet you saw something that I couldn’t. I would have the bridge protruding from the base of the ship so that once I was in orbit of a curious planet; I could see the whole world all around me without being limited by cameras and scanners.”
Sky Listener pointed to the corridor branching off to his right. The corridor only extended about twenty feet before dropping as a set of stairs leading downward. Across the expanse to the other end of the corridor was another set of stairs leading down from the passage on the other side of the ship. Both the port and the starboard passages led down to a sunken bridge.
Hawke led the way to the stairs and started downward. After about ten stairs, he noticed that he had dropped into a circular chamber of ice. The round bridge was wrapped completely by thick windows and beyond those windows was nothing but solid white ice. Ship safety being what it was, he was fairly certain there would have been metal covers for those windows while in flight, but while safely grounded, there would have been no need for them.
After turning toward the front of the ship, he took two more steps down to the main portion of the bridge. There were many expressions of awe coming from behind him as the others joined him. He was faced with two chairs in front of him, both with a single six-inch computer screen mounted to the arm of the chair and a small keyboard extending in front of them. Stationed at random locations around the bridge were chairs with ergonomically rounded control panels before them.
“This is beautiful,” Hawke muttered, “I can’t even imagine what the view would be from Earth or Rain’s orbit.”
“Well, if we can get this thing off the ground, you won’t have to imagine it,” Sky Listener said.
“Seriously, Hawke,” Fire Dragon said, “Do you think it’s possible?”
He shook his head, spinning slowly as he took in the whole room. He was frightened by the necessity of so many workstations. Would a ship this size be able to be flown by a group of people who were just winging it?
“It’s all guesswork from here,” Hawke said, moving into what he believed would be the Captain’s chair, “It’s definitely not going to be easy.”
He tapped the keys randomly, bringing the screen to life. There were a dozen icons offered on the screen, resembling the home page on his iPad. One of the square icons was made up of the three letters ENG compressed together. He reached over and poked the icon with his finger. It brought up six more icons to choose from, one of them being a radiation symbol. He pressed that one and was presented with the same screen he saw down in the reactor control room. The upper portion of the screen even had the same sinusoid curve moving inside the safe shaded area of the graph.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay down here and see what all I can learn,” Hawke said.
“Uh, we don’t need you to try flying this ship alone, Hawke,” Light Bender said.
“For real,” Fire Dragon added, “We all need to learn what you’re learning if you want to have a crew who is going to help control this thing. Even that screen right there that you’re changing with your finger - we all need to know this stuff.”
Hawke turned to those around him, amazed at how careless he had been. He had been arrogantly thinking of doing it all alone just because these people were from some primitive world. Yet he had been discovering over and over again how intelligent and adaptable these people were. He didn’t have to do this alone at all and surrounding him was a crew willing to help him figure it all out.
“You are a hundred percent right,” he replied, “I’ve been acting in arrogance and I… I apologize. I really need your help and I’d love to explain everything I’m doing. I’d really appreciate your input and help in every way possible. Thank you.”
“Then show us,” Ocean Song said, leaning on the chair behind him, “What is that thing and how did you change what it showed you?”
“Okay, gather ‘round,” Hawke said.
Twenty-four
Everyone had to meet their beds with empty stomachs that night. Hawke tried to avoid seeing the expressions of the children when they discovered that there truly was nothing on this ship that could be used as food. They had plenty of fresh water and everyone was encouraged to drink cop
ious amounts to help keep the hunger at bay.
Hawke introduced Kashuba to modern showers that evening. What was meant to be a lesson in the water controls turned into a half hour of shared wet passion. Although they had no soap, they both felt clean and exhausted by the time they retired to bed.
“I love you, Kashuba,” he whispered, holding her to him as they lie in the dark room, “Sincerely.”
“I love you too, Hawke,” she said, resting her head on his chest, “Do you think we will really get out of here?”
“I’m counting on it,” he replied, “I’m confident we can break our way out of the ice with an earthquake like no one has ever seen before. I believe we can engage the lower ion thrusters and get this beast off the ground. What I fear however is that we can’t break free from the planet’s gravity and get this thing into space.”
“Why not?” she asked.
He stared up at the ceiling. He could barely make the outline of the light fixture traced out by the reflection of the dim red nightlights in the corners of the room.
“These controls are made for trained people, so although I can figure some things out, I haven’t been able to discover how this ship escapes the planet’s grasp. The lower thrusters are small exhausts and only used for landing adjustments or prelaunch adjustments. They by no means have the power necessary to thrust a metal city into orbit.”
“Let me ask you this then,” she said, “What if we bust through the ice using your gravitational-reflex engine and once we get off the ground, we simply land again on the surface?”
“Believe me, I’ve thought of that and I’m holding onto that as a very possible outcome. The problem I have with that is I fear very strongly that this ship would land at a sharp angle. In that case, I have no idea how we’d get out of this ship unless we cut our way out like we had cut our way in. It would be in our best interest to keep a working ship though because of the power systems and the heating. And I don’t even want to imagine what would come of the reactor once the ship landed at an angle.”
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