Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  He is gradually starting to feel hungry. Therefore he pulls some dried food out of his belt pouch, giving Murnaka half of it. Then they drink water from a dispenser in the wall. He is still not saying anything, but both of them seem to feel that the time for leaving has come.

  Murnaka pulls out the map and then points forward with her touch-arm. He looks at the path ahead of them. There is still a long way to go. They will be traveling for several days if they have to continue opening doors by force. Yet he doesn’t mind—he is actually glad, because the time with Murnaka seems more valuable to him than any minutes without her.

  He doesn’t know what is wrong. He keeps catching himself watching her flawless green skin and admiring the play of the muscles in her powerful thighs. He must not get distracted by this.

  Before they open the next door, Gronolf first seals the door behind them, because Murnaka has discovered a control panel for the life-support system. Using it, she can purposely reestablish normal air pressure. The Omniscience is not overriding it. Murnaka sets the life-support to keep the pressure on a normal level. Now they can finally take off the masks and talk normally.

  They reach the next two rooms via the proven blowtorch method. Gronolf wants to open the third door this way, but then the sensor reacts and asks for authorization. His companion enters the data, and the two of them are admitted. Are they past the worst parts of this sector now? Gronolf would like to believe that, but then where are the occupants, particularly the children who were supposedly raised here?

  The room they are entering looks as if it had just been left. There are scattered documents, and a monitor displays the data of an experiment. On a table Gronolf finds an open food container, which still smells fresh. In the corner is a climbing plant just starting to blossom. He admires the cyan blue of its leaves. Plants are not allowed in the crew quarters. Gronolf has the impression of detecting the various scents of numerous comrades in the air. Males and females seem to have worked together in this room. Yet where have they gone—and why?

  In the middle of the large room there are wide double doors on both sides. Murnaka points left.

  “That way,” she says.

  The doors are not locked, and Gronolf can push them open by hand. He takes his weapon off his shoulder, but he detects no danger. This area is covered in waterproof tiles. It could be a hygiene room—after all, the crew has to wash somewhere. Along the walls Gronolf sees long basins with side walls at chest height, so he cannot discover what is in them. Above the basins, heat lamps were later added, which is unusual. No, this is not a normal hygiene room, unless the crew of this sector has grown totally soft. Gronolf approaches one of the basins and looks over the edge.

  He jerks back immediately. He has to get this image out of his head, as otherwise he will go insane. He grabs hold of Murnaka, who also wants to peek into the basin.

  “Don’t,” he says. He is unable to utter more.

  Murnaka wiggles out of his grip. Normally he would be strong enough to hold her, but right now he has to empty his stomach. The fold opens and all the food squirts out. He has entered a nightmare. How can he get out of it again? Gronolf pinches his thigh, but he is still caught in this false reality. Through his rear eye he sees Murnaka holding onto the side of the basin. Despite this, she is swaying heavily, as if a heavy tremor hit the ship. Oddly enough, this scene gives him new energy. He has to protect Murnaka and keep her from perishing due to this sight.

  Gronolf takes three rapid steps and jerks her toward him so violently that she falls on her back. Murnaka utters a painful shriek. Gronolf briefly peers into the basin—briefly, yet much too long, because he will never escape this sight of extremely decomposed children immersed in a slimy, stinking sludge. They will never experience their draght. He feels like he is being welded to the side of the basin, like being unable to ever avert his front eye. Yet then Murnaka’s fall pulls him involuntarily away and he also lands on his back on the cold tile floor, breathing heavily.

  For half a bubble period they just lie there. They don’t say a word and they don’t move, because each of them is busy trying to purge the horrible images, so there will be space for other thoughts in their minds. Then Gronolf slowly gets on his feet again, carefully avoiding a look over the edge of the basin. He is still swaying a bit, but he stands on two legs. Somehow he has the feeling he should take the weapon off his shoulder. He slowly walks to the exit.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the other two doors.”

  Murnaka briefly moves arms and legs, but she still remains on the floor. Let her rest. He has one more task to fulfill.

  Gronolf goes through the double door and back into the large room. He traverses it and reaches the other double door. It is slightly ajar and he sees a narrow gap between the two doors. He only has to push it open with his hand, but something is holding him back. It is the fear of what he might witness.

  He unlocks the safety catch on his weapon. This is foolish, but the weapon gives him strength. He uses its tip to push the right side of the door open and enters the room. It looks just like the other one, with tiles everywhere and basins at the edge, and with heat lamps above. Yet there is a crucial difference he sees at once, which he simply can’t ignore. The crew members, who had been missing in this sector so far, sit inside the basins. They are arranged in a neat sequence, and they don’t move. A long row of big black eyes is staring at him. He can only see their upper bodies. They look uninjured, as if they might get up at any moment, but an unmistakable odor of blood emanates from them. Gronolf does not have to get any closer to be sure they are all dead.

  He turns around and leaves the room again. The door closes behind him with a squeak. Then he changes his mind. Everyone must know what happened here. He reenters the room, takes a recording device from his belt, and starts filming. A few moments is all he needs, as the images have so much effect. Then he walks to the edge of the basins, holds the device over them without looking himself, and presses the record button again. When he is done, he feels an enormous sense of relief.

  “What are you doing there?”

  He steps next to Murnaka and helps her get up. “Just a few recordings.”

  “You want to—”

  “Yes. What happened here must not remain without witnesses.”

  Murnaka places her right touch-arm on his back. “We should not rush things.”

  “Whoever is responsible must be punished.”

  “And who is responsible for it? The leadership group, because it broke the taboo and allowed procreation, perhaps even experimented with it? The Omniscience will claim that it only interfered because rules have been ignored.”

  “Murnaka, you’d better take another look over the edge of the basin, then maybe you wouldn’t talk like that anymore.”

  Gronolf immediately realizes this is unfair. Murnaka pulls her hand back and stiffens. Perhaps he can make amends? To be honest, she was just as shocked by these murders of innocents as he was. And he did not think that she was trying to protect the leadership, or even the Omniscience.

  “I am sorry,” he says, “but we cannot simply pretend we never saw this. Something like this must never happen again. Somebody has to determine the cause and punish the guilty ones.”

  “There is still time for that after we return. Otherwise, there will just be more of these bad decisions.”

  Perhaps she is right. Murnaka is smart. And it is true that determining the culprit would be hard. Yet he feels he cannot finish his task unless he has at least done something about this matter. Everyone has to know what happened here.

  “I am sorry,” he says, “but I simply can’t do what you say. I... the burden is too heavy. I can’t just go on like this.”

  “I understand,” Murnaka says. As a sign of her grief she has pulled all four eyelids slightly upward. “Then it simply has to be done. I am not angry at you, even though I think it is the wrong decision.”

  That last sentence encourages him. He turn
s around and starts looking for a console. In the middle room he finds a control panel. He attaches the recording device and starts the transmission.

  They traverse three more rooms. In the fourth they find a resting area. The sleeping beams look so inviting that they almost simultaneously decide they really need a few hours of rest. They share a bit of dried food and wash up. Gronolf stretches along the length of his beam. Letting his limbs hang down feels good.

  “Quiet waters,” Murnaka wishes him before falling asleep, following tradition.

  “Quiet waters,” he replies.

  Archive, Darknight 11, 3350

  Gronolf wakes up from a slight noise. He is a warrior, trained to sleep in a way that nothing and nobody can surprise him. He silently reaches for the weapon that hangs directly above the sleeping beam. His eyes are wide open, but it is pitch-dark. The noise comes from ahead and left. Murnaka is sleeping to his right. He can hear her calm and steady breathing.

  The sound that woke him is a quiet clacking. It definitely does not come from her. The clacking slowly comes closer, while moving to his left. Gronolf calculates his chances. As soon as he gets up, the light in the room will turn on. It might blind him for a moment, but it should do the same to the intruder. That is, unless it is a machine, which can adapt its sensors faster than his eyes are able to adjust. To him, this seems to be the most realistic scenario. In practical terms, it means he will have to shoot blindly, without knowing exactly what is in front of him, friend or foe. Yet... why would a friend be sneaking around in the dark and deliberately moving in such a way that the motion sensors of the room don’t react? Especially now, with the tension aboard the ship?

  Gronolf makes a decision. He uses his sonar to locate the foreign object. At the same time he raises his weapon with a lightning-fast movement and fires at the target he sees with his inner eye. There is a dull crack, but unexpectedly the light does not turn on.

  “What’s up?” Murnaka asks softly without moving. This is the perfect behavior for this unpredictable situation, just as one learns during training.

  “Possible enemy object destroyed,” Gronolf says. He listens intensively, but the clacking has disappeared. Even his sonar no longer detects a movement.

  “Mask on,” he says, because he suddenly hears the typical hissing of air escaping. Somebody has switched the life-support system to pump mode. This does not make much sense to him. The Omniscience must know it cannot hurt them this way. It probably just wants to distract them from something. But from what? From the new intruder behind them! Now Gronolf notices a scurrying movement. The thing is fast, but not fast enough. He whips his weapon around and shoots. No more movement—he must have hit it.

  “Retreat in three... two... one,” he whispers. In this room they are at the mercy of their enemy’s plan and can only wait and react. They have to change the situation in order to become active players themselves.

  “Go,” he cries. Murnaka obeys at the right moment. Gronolf can see her sprinting to the exit, thanks to his sonar sensor. He follows directly behind her. He uses his touch-arm to close the door behind him.

  “Keep going!” he shouts.

  They run through the next room. He has to admire Murnaka’s memory. She knows exactly in which direction to go. He smashes the next door shut to block the way for possible pursuers.

  “Go on!”

  It is fantastic how well they synchronize. He rarely ever saw that happen even with the best recruits. The room they have reached has a chest-high platform in the middle—a perfect defensive position.

  “Stop!” he yells.

  Murnaka immediately finds a secure place behind the platform. Gronolf drops two blaze balls next to the entrance. The lighting system in the entire sector seems to be out, and his sonar only works optimally when he is moving. The blaze balls will illuminate the entrance for at least one bubble period. Gronolf takes a deep breath. Of course, they should have expected this. He really would like to know, though, what exactly he killed earlier.

  “Good reaction,” he praises Murnaka.

  “Good training,” she says, and her lack of modesty does not sound arrogant.

  Gronolf leans against the rear side of the platform. He pulls a folding mirror from his belt and holds it up behind him with his right touch arm. This way he can see with his rear eye what is approaching from the front. His right eye covers the right side, while Murnaka is responsible for the left side. Gronolf uses an additional mirror to watch the ceiling with his front eye. Exactly over the center of the platform he sees the opening of an air duct.

  “Change of tactics,” he whispers, and points upward with his free load-hand. Murnaka signals that she has understood him. Gronolf waits patiently until the blaze balls are almost extinguished, then he jumps on the platform, rips out the grate of the air duct, and pulls himself up. Murnaka quickly does likewise. During training he often had to crawl through such narrow pipes, and it was always a nuisance, but with a real threat below them it suddenly works perfectly.

  The life-support ducts follow a certain pattern in each sector. Like veins, the ducts emanate from a central station and supply the rooms of the area below them with air. The sector centers are autonomous, but they have generously sized cross-connections with other sectors. If the technical systems in one of these centers should fail, at least three other centers can supply the relevant sector. This way, a network of air ducts spreads through the entire ship.

  Gronolf rapidly crawls ahead. They have to cover a great distance, so he has to preserve his strength. Murnaka seems to be following him without any problem. However, their adversary will soon notice they switched levels. Gronolf’s plan therefore includes occasionally breaking through to a level above or below them. Will this be enough? He doubts it. The Omniscience knows the structure of the ship much better than he does. They can try to remain unpredictable, but if it knows their destination, it can place guards at every entrance. Does it know their destination?

  After about one and a half bubble periods they descend into a technical room inside an adjacent sector. The sector appears to be inhabited, but this particular room is empty. They proceed as quietly as possible to avoid detection. Gronolf checks the room for microphones and cameras, but he finds nothing except for the autonomous recording device of the archive. The Omniscience should not have access to it.

  “We need to go somewhere else,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Just as a diversionary tactic. So that the Omniscience will expect us there. Perhaps the drive system?”

  “Why would we want to sabotage the drive?”

  A good question. Gronolf can’t think of an answer. Without a drive the ship would be damaged and they would all die. Nobody could want that, so the Omniscience would never believe them. However, there is no other structure in the core of the ship that would make a believable destination.

  “You’re right. Too bad, I thought I could trick the Omniscience.”

  “Nobody is smarter than the Omniscience,” Murnaka says.

  They reach the last sector without any further problems or encounters. Murnaka unrolls her holo-map and points at the structure in the middle and then upward.

  “The core of the ship is above us,” she says, “and it consists of the drive, and the thinking modules of the Omniscience are on top of that.” Murnaka moves the longest of her seven fingers back and forth.

  Under different circumstances, Gronolf thinks, that could be a very erotic gesture.

  “The hub runs directly through the core. It starts at the security chamber.” She taps on a spot which now glows yellow. “Here—this is where we can seal off the Omniscience from the rest of the ship.”

  Gronolf is amazed when he sees the structure in its entirety. “The ship is built almost like the body of a Grosnop,” he blurts out.

  Now Murnaka probably thinks him stupid. How could he have overlooked this until now?

  “With one minor difference,” she says. To his relief, she does not soun
d at all amused. She uses her long finger to give the map display a slight push, and the entire visualization starts to move. “The living quarters rotate around the core, which—luckily—is not the case with our bodies,” she says.

  Gronolf gazes down at his body. Without the rotation there would be no gravity, no up or down. “After we have left the living quarters through the airlock, we have to wait until the hub comes rotating below us.”

  “Exactly. There are about ten body lengths of vacuum we have to cross.”

  Gronolf points at the mask on his belt. “No problem,” he says. He bends over the map and zooms in on the airlock of the living quarters. The real problem will await them there. The pressure chamber, which has been built into each of the innermost sectors for maintenance purposes, offers the only way into the core. Everything is very well-arranged and there are no alternatives, because the exterior wall of the entire living shell is so thoroughly hardened that it would survive even an explosion of the drive system.

  “If the Omniscience wants to stop us, it would be here.” He points at the airlock. If they don’t manage to reach the exit, they stand no chance of fulfilling their mission. “Do we have any information about what to expect?”

  “The Omniscience has maintenance robots, that’s all we know.”

  “It certainly should be able to modify the robots according to its requirements.”

  “Without a doubt,” Murnaka concurs.

  “I understand. Then we will proceed the way I teach all recruits. We use the element of surprise and destroy anything that might be dangerous. If I am right, there is nothing in that room we are not allowed to demolish.” Gronolf holds his weapon at the ready, “Please take cover behind me.”

  Murnaka looks at him with her front eye but remains silent. Should he say a few farewell words? No, that would be bad luck. He is the best of his plex. He will clear the path to the airlock, that is the only thing that counts. Nobody can stop him. He feels warm at the pit of his stomach.