Zed chewed his lip before he spoke.
Zed did a quick check of his suit before he opened the cab door. He might as well have been in a starless space, or in a well. He switched over to digital imaging, and the star-like structure loomed over him. Zed floated to the rear cargo platform and opened his equipment case and zippered bag. Smiling, he recalled LOLA’s comment about forgetting his tools. His thoughts flashed back to Katherine, and he fervently hoped that she was, and would remain well.
Zed took a deep breath and disabled the magnetic field that held the device. It floated free from the cargo bed, but Zed had to remind himself that although the weight was zero, the mass was still 50 kilograms, and could crush his finger if he wasn’t careful. He pushed the device down between the crystalline legs as far as it would go, and then attached it to the thickest member with fast-acting molecular cement. He glued the test equipment to the same leg, just above the device, and then began his readings. Finally he stopped.
Zed turned the device on and began the programming.
~~~
The world around Zed was black, which was logical, Zed thought groggily. He had, after all, fallen into a black hole. The spinning sensation and the nausea were something unexpected. He was supposed to be dead, after all. He moved and his head struck something a resounding blow. Zed’s nose banged the inside of his helmet. Helmet?? He reached out a hand, and felt something hard. Tracing the shape with slow fingers he felt what seemed to be a brace. His fingers moved on until they came to a small rectangular shape. The shape gave slightly when squeezed. If he were in his suit, and it certainly smelled like his suit, then the suit had lights. “Suit lights, exterior, ten percent.” His throat, he found, was dry as dust. The lights came on and he looked down on a box of Twinkies. Afterward, he couldn’t recall exactly how long he sat like that, staring at the box of Twinkies. His brain seemed to have shut down. Finally he blinked. “Suit, check atmosphere.”
“Oxygen nitrogen atmosphere at 29.92 inches of mercury air pressure. The air is breathable. The temperature is four degrees Celsius.”
“Where the hell am I?” He muttered to himself.
The suit AI, not knowing the impossibility of the answer, answered anyway. “You are currently in the scout class vessel Rose of the Dawn.” Zed sat and stared at the Twinkies for a while more. Finally, he opened his helmet, took off his gloves and opened one of the packages of Twinkies. He took a bite. He could feel the sugary confection revive his stunned body. He took another bite, and then another. Finally, he popped the last bite into his mouth and licked his fingers.
“Ship status?”
“The ship is adrift and spinning, power on standby, life support in fail-safe mode.”
“Location of ship?”
“Unknown until systems and sensors are reactivated.”
Zed reached out a hand and touched the edge of the bridge. His feet floated free of the floor in the zero gravity. ‘Just what the bloody hell was going on?’ He thought to himself. ‘Had he won, or had they all lost? Was he being tractored by the Creednax back to their farm planets?’ Swallowing his fear, and using his neural interface he touched and awoke the power plant. The lights flickered on, and his feet slammed to the deck.
“AI?” he said to the air. “Ship status?”
“Ship systems coming back on-line, Captain.” The androgynous voice said. Zed sighed, too used to dealing with LOLA and Athena. “Set voice pitch to human female.”
The voice slid to a higher pitch. “How is that?”
“A bit lower. Say the mid contralto range, if you please.”
“How is this, Captain?”
“Good. Do you have a name?”
“No Captain. None was ever assigned.”
“Hmmm, How about Gwendolyn? I’ll call you Gwen.”
“Thank you Captain.”
“Where are we, Gwen?”
“I’m studying the star-maps right now. Please standby.” Zed rolled his eyes. “I have found our location, Captain. We are currently ten parsecs on the other side of Callidus from the Hiveworld. I believe that we have set a new speed record, Captain.”
“Are you making a joke, Gwen?”
“Would I do that, Captain?”
“You never know. Set shields and cloaking at maximum. I don’t know how we got where we did, or the current political situation, but until then let’s be careful.”
“A wise decision.”
“Set course for Callidus, maximum velocity.”
“ETA eight days, Captain.”
“That works for me. Until then, I have a house call to make.”
“Orders for me, Captain?”
“Steady as she goes. If you sight the enemy slow down and sneak. If the enemy sights you run away. Make your way to Callidus unless you receive new orders from me.”
“Very good, sir. Have fun.” Zed stared at the ceiling and frowned. Shaking his head, he took a step.
Olympus hadn’t changed. The sun was just as bright, and the birds just as cheerful. When he entered the living room Athena was weeping. She spun as he entered, her hand flying to her mouth, her violet eyes wide. “You can’t be here.” Her low voice was a whisper of disbelief. “You’re dead. LOLA saw you, felt you go.”
Zed looked down at his EVA suit, wrinkled and covered with Twinkie crumbs. “Not dead. It�
��s absolutely amazing what Twinkies can do.” He got no further as Athena hit him with a flying tackle and they both fell to a pile of pillows. Her kisses were hot and frantic, and she tasted of strawberry today. After a while she wrinkled her nose.
“Get rid of that suit and let’s take a bath, and you can tell me what happened.”
He heard her well before he saw her. “Zeeeeeddddd!!” LOLA slammed into him and all three went sprawling among the pillows. LOLA’s kisses were just as ardent as Athena’s. “I saw you die. I felt you die!!” She repeated. “You went down the black hole with that damned Hiveworld and the whole entire Creednax fleet. You might have missed a total of ten ships out of the lot. How did you wind up here?”
Zed propped himself up on an elbow. “Actually, I wound up on the Rose of the Dawn, ten parsecs on the other side of Callidus.”
“The Rose? We saw the Rose vanish in the black hole too. We all saw her beacon disappear as the edge of the singularity touched the asteroid. Where is she now, if you’re here?”
“Heading to Callidus at maximum speed. Gwen is driving.”
Both Athena and LOLA gave him icy looks. “Who is Gwen?” Athena asked in a voice that turned the very air to frost.
“Gwendolyn is the AI in the Rose, my dear.”
Athena’s look turned thoughtful for a moment. “We’ll have to set things up for a new personality core.”
“Don’t bother.” Zed said with a grin. “I’d say that her personality is already pretty complete. She even knows how to make jokes.”
Athena frowned. “That’s impossible.” Zed had to sit down because he was laughing so hard. Athena turned and winked at LOLA. “It looks as though we have a new sister, sister.” She stood, holding Zed’s hand and pulling him to his feet. “I believe that the bath in my room is the largest.” Their feet had barely touched the water when Cybele arrived.
The Rose of the Dawn met the Belerophon while that ship was still one week on the other side of Callidus. LOLA had managed, somehow, to keep everything quiet, and nobody knew of Zed’s arrival until he appeared at the top of the bridge lift, rested and in a clean uniform.
“I believe you’re in my seat, XO.” Zed said quietly at Mike’s back. The Executive Officer spun, his face turning pale. “You’re supposed to be dead, Zed. We all saw you…”
“I suppose that I could find another black hole to throw myself into. Apparently whatever is on the other side spat me back out.”
“Does Katherine know yet?”
“I just got here.”
“You’d better see her.”
“I’m on my way.” Although he winked at the rest of the grinning bridge staff, he didn’t like the tone of Mike’s comment. The door to his quarters slid open, and Katherine looked up from her seat on the couch. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her pale face was drawn. Her green eyes, however, were calm.
“A few days ago,” She began. “I just knew that you were safe. We all saw you disappear into the black hole, along with the Rose, but I knew you’d be back from the dead… again.” He sat down and embraced her. Her kisses were distant. “Can we go home now, and raise our family?”
“Home?” he asked softly, not knowing what she was driving at.
“Cybele, silly. You’ve talked of it often enough. We can raise our family, and maybe have a few more children. I think I’d like girls this time.”
“Whatever you wish.” Zed murmured, as a cold breeze blew through his mind. Katherine lay her head against his chest and shut her eyes.
LOLA let out a small wry laugh.
He could feel LOLA’s serious expression.
Epilogue
CYBELE
The summer day was sunny and warm, flannel shirt weather for the planet Cybele. The terraformers had been working hard at changing the weather for the last decade and things were definitely getting warmer. A sprawling ochre colored hacienda overlooked the wide blue Zodesh Bay. Surprisingly, the bay was actually free of ice for several months a year now, and occasionally sails could be seen far out in the Krolm Sea. Chickadees and finches, imported from Earth, frolicked in the trees while far overhead a lonely osprey circled, his mate sitting on a nest full of eggs a mile further up the coast. Genetically modified jasmine vines that bloomed all year filled the air with their sweet scent.
Fernandez Edwardo Raphael Daniel Yates, former Flight Engineer, Captain, Fleet Captain, and Governor was now Repairman Extraordinaire as he stepped out of his repair shop and stared out across the bay, toward the haciendas of Mike, Alina and Caithlexa Flaherty, and Emilio and Larisa Lopéz. Other former members of the Rose of the Dawn crew lived in scattered homes, most within walking distance. Five leagues distant, the city of Winterdell boasted a population that almost exceeded 10,000, and was the capital and principal city of the planet Cybele. A herd of young children raced by, shrieking with laughter, and Zed smiled. Three of the crowd were his own girls: Mariel, Valeriya and Galina, aged seven, six and five, respectively. The rest belonged to Mike Flaherty with children from both Alina and Caithlexa, and Emilio Lopéz. He turned back to the workshop and sat down in front of a sensitive piece of electronic equipment. Although the equipment was powered, Zed had no test equipment and no tools. He heard footsteps at the door, but didn’t bother to turn around. He knew who it was.
“Hi dad. What are you fixing today?”
“An FTL Com for your uncle Mike.”
She craned her neck to see over his shoulder. Her soft red hair brushed his cheek. “That it?”
“Yup. The transmitter is burned out.”
“You going to replace it?”
“Nope. I’m going to convince it to fix itself.”
“Can I watch?” Mariel moved closer. A tall girl for her age, Mariel had dark red hair and intent sapphire eyes. Of his three ‘special’ girls, she was the most gifted. Some of the other children accused them of witchcraft, but his girls just smiled. They were so far beyond Earthly witches it wasn’t funny.
“Okay, just look into the circuit like this;” A glowing overlay settled on the equipment. Zed touched it with a finger and a spot glowed. “The signal comes in here.” His finger moved, tracing a faint path. “And it travels along here.” He touched three spots. “These spots are signal amplifiers. They’re all bad.” He blew up the view of the first bad component, a small transparent cube floating in the ai
r before them. “See the bad spot?” His finger lit on a dark spot.
“Yeah.” The voice whispered in his ear.
“Watch what I do.” As his finger moved, new circuits seemed to regrow. Soon the darkness disappeared. Moving on to the second component he did the same thing. “You try it.”
Mariel reached a single finger down and touched the last component. It flared white, and the green transmit light flickered to life on the face of the unit. “There.” She said in satisfaction.
“Very good.” Zed smiled and touched her head. “You’ve just done the impossible, again. They say these things can’t be fixed.”
She wrapped her arms about his waist and gave him a long hug. “Thank you for showing me, daddy. Oh, by the way,” She looked around the empty room. “Aunt LOLA called me to say that she and Athena and Cybele would like to see you. Can I go with you to Olympus? Please?? It’s been so long since I’ve been there.”
She had him wrapped around her finger and she knew it. “All right, but your sisters will have to keep your mother and your brother Connor occupied while we’re away.”
“Connor is still at school. He’ll be there for hours, and Valeriya is going to suggest to mother that she make cookies. That will keep her busy for two hours at least.”
“You three are con artists.” He laughed. “How is your sister Lysa today?” Lysa was Mariel’s unborn sister, but that only slowed her down a little. She’d been talking with her other three sisters since four months after conception. Katherine was in the last month of her pregnancy now.
“Lysa is getting bored. She told me that she may speed things up a little.” Mariel gave him a tight little smile. “She’s going to be a pest all right.”
“Tell her no fooling with the timing. We’re trying to be another normal human family.” She stuck her tongue out at him, and Zed sighed.
“You’re such a lump, daddy. We can fly, since you taught us! We can fix things that can’t be fixed. We can hear thoughts if we want.” Her face wrinkled in an uncertain frown. “We aren’t like other people.”
...and they are us 3: HiveWorld Page 19
