Unbound Brothers

by Rob Rowntree

  “At this point I’d like to hand you over to Gibson and Shepperd. Although the blue-space interface data is in the message, it’s incomplete. However, from the look on their faces I think they have news. Gibson?”

  Enthralled, Alan hadn’t noticed Kiki’s fingers digging into his hand. “Kind of intense, Kiki, I guess.” Prising his hand free he wondered at the many questions remaining unanswered all prompted by the message.

  However, one observation was self-evident - The Peterson had found intelligent life of a sort. Pulled away from these thoughts by Gibson’s polite cough, Alan hardly noticed the ashen complexion shrouding Kiki’s face.

  “We’ve been able to narrow down our search area to this system,” intoned Gibson. “The blue-space interface data has yielded some results which will allow us to use rather archaic mathematical solutions to render a rough—”

  Conway blurted “Get on with it man.”

  A flustered Gibson continued, “Yes, well, the system is here.” A new virtual flashed up - an expanded image of the Orion Spur. He reached in and indicated two multi-coloured stars. A circle flashed around a small dot of too-bright-orange. “It’s too small an image to discern, but this is a double star, a sun-like G2 and a smaller, cooler orange dwarf. Our data says that this is the most likely place of origin for the message.”

  Alan turned to Woodland, “Did the searches include this star system?”

  “I’ll have to check once I get a catalogue number up. But to be fair, even if they did, from space the land hugging cultivation wouldn’t have shown very clearly and any automated scanning might not even have recognised it as cultivation. The culture the Peterson found appears to be Neolithic at best, so again probably difficult to detect.”

  “But their Lander was down there, emitting radiation like a stop sign. How would they miss that?”

  “You’ve got me there. I doubt that any survey would have orbited. Space is a big place. I’d bet they just did flybys.”

  “Sounds feasible.”

  Conway moved centre stage. “Right. Alan I want a course plotted and laid by oh- eight-hundred tomorrow. Kiki, will you be able to cope in engineering? If there are any problems I’m sure Woodland there would not mind in the slightest.

  “Gibson and Shepperd will be releasing a series of blue-space interface buoys, three in all. We won’t need to exit into real space to deploy them. Please liaise with Alan here and formulate a schedule.”

  Alan was about to ask Conway about pre-flight checks on the remaining shuttle and skiff when he felt a tapping on his hand. Looking down he saw Kiki’s finger twitching out a rhythm. Her whole hand danced. Perhaps, with Rosie’s death and now the prospect of hostile aliens to deal with, Kiki might be coming unwrapped. About to ask what was bothering her, Alan stopped at the sight of her cold, stony glare. Behind her young beautiful eyes, something stirred, it calculated, it waited.

  Chapter Eight

  Secrets and Wreckage

  “That’s the last of them.”

  Haqiqa surged away, and in the all-encompassing sphere of blue light, Alan gazed back at the final buoy Gibson and Shepperd had deployed. The probe sparkled like a metallic Christmas tree, pinpoints of blue radiance dancing along unseen tinsel. Gibson had explained how the experiment was to work and what they hoped to achieve, but as Alan watched the probe hang in blue-space he found it hard to understand the implications.

  Blue-space locks information into the quantum fabric, pin-points it in space and time – or so the theories said. Gibson’s buoys were going to fix a position on three axes with streams of quarks and at the point of intersection they hoped to find information.

  It sounded farfetched and to be honest, he wasn’t that interested. The joy of blue-space flight coursed through his body and he’d happily let Gibson deliver as many buoys as he wished.

  He allowed the mood to overtake him — relaxed; his mind encountered the skin of Haqiqa, became the skin of Haqiqa and touched the void. Selecting the correct exit-vector he powered up the ship’s engines, his skin brushed against quantum foam and tickled. Gaining speed, the tickle became an itch, a scour, and all the while the view remained still, an impression of him floating, unmoving and alone. His skin said otherwise.

  Due to the vagaries of blue-space travel, the delivery of the buoys cost the expedition ten days. Ten days of mounting tension, he thought.

  Conway, usually outwardly genial, had on occasion burst out in rage; Woodland withdrew to the extent of being downright antisocial. Stowe, on the other hand, appeared reinvigorated, engaging and full of life. In his turn, and almost by rote, Pickering entered into a dark mood, not that Alan cared much.

  One thing was positive, at least, Gibson and Shepperd were in fine spirits.

  That left Kiki.

  Kiki began to regain some of her confidence and enthusiasm. But as their destination loomed, she’d retreated into her shell, becoming a nervous mouse of a woman, deteriorating with every passing moment.

  For certain one of these people was a saboteur, and Alan was no nearer the identity of that person than he’d been when they started. Little or no new information came forth. Woodland’s preoccupation with whatever demons drove him created yet another enigma.

  Fact was Alan still favoured the theory that the perpetrator of these acts wanted the voyage stranded, hence the attempt to contaminate all engineering extinguishers with explosives.

  Even though Kiki now appeared cool about any developing relationship, he felt glad that she’d not been injured. She could have so easily gone to help Rosie.

  The bomb must have been a back-up should other methods fail. Woodland had kept the discovery of the bomb between them, so as not to alert the saboteur. What if Woodland were the bomber? No, Woodland was career navy through and through, a dedicated man. They would never waste one of their own when they could so easily have impounded Conway’s vessel before it left.

  Alan’s internal clock forced him to take notice of his surroundings. He felt the surge and rush of the blue-space boundary plucking at his skin, felt the drag of imminent insertion into real space.

  His enhanced mind quickly configured Haqiqa’s spindle for the transition. Plates and morphing body-shell flowed. “Real space transition, ninety seconds. Strap down.”

  Internal feeds showed him the crew complying.

  “Sixty.”

  In-system hardware and programming warmed and idled, pumps forced fuel towards optimal pressures, engine ports opened.

  “Thirty.”

  There came the slightest of tugs, and like a small fish caught in some immense net, Alan/Haqiqa flapped and floundered into the boundary layer between spaces. His sides hurt. He felt like he was being dragged through some resilient rubber sheeting and yet he found the experience renewing, almost a rebirth into the universe. Both entering and leaving blue-space forced huge emotional strains, but every time the metaphor of a birth entered his subconscious.

  He thought of his brother, possibly a distant hope, or was it wishful thinking, that maybe Jimmy could be reborn, renewed. Already his spore-ports were closing, forcing replenishing secretions into his exhausted body.

  Quickly he looked around.

  The stars here were sparse, but there was no doubting they had left the rift. Stars crowded the sky and only by looking out towards the Perseus Arm could Alan discern any thinning of the stellar medium.

  Feeds showed him the others, their activities: Conway amusing himself with an antique pack of playing cards; Gibson, Shepperd and Stowe heading for the observation lounge, Pickering lagging behind. Kiki sat in engineering. And as for Woodland...

  He’d been in his cabin with the door locked, a privacy filter blocking the digi-feed. Except now the cabin door lay open with no sign of Woodland anywhere.

  Summoning up reserves of energy and willpower Alan brought several virtuals into play, racing through the corridor-feeds as fast as he could manipulate the screen icons. He located Woodland, ten steps from the flight-deck door.
<
br />   The sudden burst of the ship’s proximity alarm brought Alan’s full attention back to the external feeds. Something rushed out of the darkness towards them and in the moments that remained before collision, Alan fought desperately to turn the ship.

  ***

  The image of Woodland vanished. Virtuals brought up impact vectors and recommended manoeuvres – each ending in disaster.

  The object tumbled and came on. Time: two minutes to collision.

  Screw the flight manual - Alan fired the engines pushing the ship towards the oncoming object. Alarms drowned out ambient ship noise and acceleration pressed Alan back into his chair.

  God only knows what this is doing to the crew.

  As he fired docking thrusters to set Haqiqa into a spin, an image of Woodland sprawled against the corridor wall danced through his mind. Alan’s grin set hard as the forward manoeuvring thrusters fired effectively bringing the ship’s nose down and away from the looming mass.

  The ship’s AI flashed warning messages and scrolled stress measurements across his screens. He heard the aching groans of metal, felt the shuddering vibration as the ship desperately fought for survival.

  One minute.

  Readings of the object’s mass and make-up appeared: titanium, hydro-carbons, silicates, hydrogen. Alan expanded the image. “What the—” Tethered vacuum frozen bodies in navy hard-suits flew by. It was a damn navy wreck.

  Thirty seconds.

  No time, no frigging time. He fired up sensors, desperate to take multiple images and passive readings.

  Ten seconds.

  Gripping his chair-arms Alan took a lung full of air and held it. His heart beat loudly, thudding to encompass the slowing seconds in sensory clarity.

  One.

  Impact.

  Haqiqa snapped around and down, throwing Alan first against his chair-back and then out into the data-well, slapping him against the well’s inner wall. Blood spurted from his nose.

  Floating for a moment as the attraction decking went off-line, Alan pushed away from the wall, scrambling back into the chair in an effort to focus on the screens in front of him. Images of the upper decks flashed onto the screen in a mosaic, each scrolling figures on air pressure, temperature and structural-integrity. There! Upper deck, rear compartment, minus 40 Kelvin and falling, air pressure virtually non-existent. That image folded out to fill the screen. Scraps of paper and a drinks bottle stuck to the ceiling, more flotsam blew up towards the cluster.

  Rapidly he brought the self repairing software and hardware online – unseen, small machines, stored in myriad locations powered up and raced towards the damaged section. Advanced sensors indicated that the damage would be repairable, but also recommended sealing the section off to avoid further air leakage.

  Acknowledging the recommendation, Alan quickly checked the area for personnel. Satisfied, he sent the commands; seconds later the area was secure. Images arrived from repair bots between inner and outer bulkheads. Stars spun past a ragged hole the size of a small yacht. Towards the outer edges of the image, struts and wires clawed at the spinning sky like so many desperate fingers. Something...

  Oh shit. Quickly switching to external hull-feeds he stared along the vessel’s smooth flanks, out along its upper hull. “Shit.” A ragged scar pointed towards the rotating sky, a scar where the blue-space engine spike used to reside.

  Faintly he heard Woodland’s curses as the navy man struggled against the ship’s uneven momentum. Looking up from the data-well, seeing Woodland coming along the catwalk, Alan focused on Jimmy. How in the universe was he going to be able to look after Jimmy now?

  Breathing heavily, Woodland came up to the well, leaned in, his face a mask of worry and perhaps, did Alan detect annoyance?

  Alan moved fast punching him hard in the temple. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell us? Why?”

  Grasping his chair-back Alan leapt from the well, his round-house ‘right’, striking Woodland’s head. The navy man staggered backwards desperately trying to gain a foothold in the tumbling environment.

  Breathing hard, Woodland said, “How...was I supposed to...know we’d come out on top of it.”

  Alan tried to move in, a third blow aimed towards Woodland’s stomach. Woodland blocked, turned and took up a defensive position.

  Alan said through gritted teeth, “You should have told us. Told me. I’d have exited blue-space much farther out. A wrecked navy vessel can be a bitch. This one has been. We aren’t getting home, not in this vessel. You and your bloody secrets.”

  “What—”

  “The blue-space spike, it’s gone, cut free by the collision.” Alan gestured at the screens in a futile effort to pinpoint the problem. Watching Woodland, Alan wondered why the fuck he should trust him anymore. “Your navy wreck just sunk us good and proper, pal.”

  Gibson, Shepperd and Conway entered, scrabbling like insects along the walkway. Alan deflated a little, relaxed as his adrenalin output lessened. He stepped back as Conway arrived.

  Conway noticed a trickle of blood coming from Woodland’s mouth. “Gentlemen.”

  Alan stepped further away, grasping a handhold to maintain balance.

  “Mr Abrams please return to your station and secure the vessel.”

  He had heard Conway but still hesitated, Alan stared at Woodland. Had he been the saboteur all along? It still made no sense.

  “Mr. Abrams?” Conway glared.

  Nudged back into their current situation Alan said, “Okay. Yeah.”

  Conway addressed Woodland, “I trust the two of you will be able to explain your little fracas. For now I will settle for a short version of what just happened to my ship. You first, Mr. Abrams.”

  Straight in, no wrapping up. “We’ve been struck by a derelict. Thought it was a damn rock of some kind, but...” Alan looked towards Woodland, “Damn thing was a ship, vacuum rusted, orbited by bodies. Navy bodies.”

  Gibson and Shepperd’s gasps pushed into the tumbling flight deck like fading mist. Conway simply returned his gaze to Woodland, “Very well. What damage have we sustained?”

  The words stuck in Alan’s throat, as if saying them would make the reality of their situation more tangible and thus solidify his separation from Jimmy. “The blue-space has gone. Spike’s torn off. I’ve got the repair bots dealing with it; there’s no immediate danger to the crew.” Immediate. Alan laughed, “Basically we’re friggin’ dead. Like Maslov, we’re going to expire slowly, unless...” Alan left the hope of recue unsaid. “The damn attraction decking is off-line.”

  Conway ignored Alan’s outburst. Becoming the astute commander again he said, “Once Mr. Abrams has the vessel secure and all the emergency issues are addressed, I’ll be calling a briefing. Mr. Woodland,” Conway raised his arm towards the exit. “If you please.”

  Alan wondered if Conway already knew about the wreck, that the navy were all over this but found it difficult to drum up any enthusiasm for such speculation. The prospect of dying a slow death out here and leaving Jimmy behind at home filled him with a seething melancholy and a deep seated anger. Somebody was going to answer for this, and soon.

  ***

  They met in the conference room.

  Looking around the table Alan wondered, even felt alarmed by the drained faces. Yeah, that was it. He’d been busy for two hours, sealing bulkheads checking diagnostics and passively searching the system they’d entered for signs of – well, anything. The crew, though, probably spent the time worrying. Stowe and Pickering’s cheeks looked stained, Sheppard looked drawn, definitely more aged, Gibson drifted in thought, leaving Kiki alone with her blank expression, stirring a coffee. Only Conway and Woodland showed any colour.

  Conway stood, a presence again. “I’m sorry to say that our situation is,” he smiled, “I was going to say dire, but that doesn’t really carry weight, and hopeless isn’t quite true.

  “We’ve lost the blue-space engines, which, simply put, means we are stuck here. Our in-system engines are fully operational a
nd therefore I see no need for over-enthusiastic gloom. We can travel, we can find whatever resources this system’s got and we have machinery to extract them and restock our supplies.”

  Pickering groaned, Stowe twitched. Pickering said, “Damn you Conway. You and your search have killed us all. And for what?”

  “Pickering.” It sounded almost a threat as Conway centred on the one who dared question his motives. Christ, they all knew what it might entail: they wanted to be part of it.

  “What?” Pickering shot back. “It seems to me that this object chasing is at an end—”

  “That’s enough,” Conway said. “I’ll remind you of our understanding, it’s been many years and we almost have it.”

  Alan considered why Pickering used the word ‘object’ when referring to the Peterson.

  Conway, done with Pickering, said, “Gibson and Shepperd think they can get a signal out on blue-space interface; residual wave-collapse or something. They’ll keep working on it and hopefully in the not too distant future rescue will be arriving. In the meantime I suggest that we take the time to explore this system. It is, after all, what we came here to do.”

  Was that it? Surely not.

  “Mr. Conway.” Alan stood. “I have a few questions.”

  “I’m sure you do, Alan. It’s a little complicated, and now—”

  “No. I think I’d like some answers out here in front of everybody.”

  Conway appeared reluctant, but Alan thought he detected a silent acknowledgement of the fact that he, Alan, would not be satisfied with anything less.

  Conway sat, motioned Alan to do likewise, “Very well Alan. Since we are here, and you’ll find out soon enough, please fire away.”

  Alan leaned towards Conway. “Let’s start with this system. It wasn’t until our accident that I began to piece certain things together. You and the navy already knew this was the system, way before the journey began. Gibson and Shepperd there just delivered your well rehearsed scenario.” Alan let it hang. The others appeared surprised.