by M J Kendrick
Carlton couldn’t contain himself any longer and jumped from his seat and ran to his mother. Leaning over her pod, he wrapped his arms around her and said, “Mom.”
The tears were streaming down his face as he sobbed with happiness.
Jean shakily raised her forearm and placed her hand on his quivering shoulder. “My Carlton, you’re here.”
A small tear trickled down her cheek.
Melanie took command. “That’s enough for the moment, Carlton, now step back, we’ve more to do.”
Carlton reluctantly released his smiling mother and turned to his father to repeat his hugs and sobs. When Daniel finally managed to pry them apart, he handed David a large glass of pinkish fluid which had a clear plastic tube as a straw.
He placed the tube in David’s mouth and said, “You’ll need to drink this, it has all the goodies in it that will kickstart your metabolism, and you’ll feel much better.”
As David began sucking away at his drink, he glanced over at Jean and smiled. She was already halfway through her drink, and already they could see her coherence and alertness returning.
When David and Jean had both finished their drinks, Rose, Freddie, and Bar came up to them, smiling.
David smiled and said, “Oh, wow, you’re all here.”
Rose, who still had a teary face, put her hand on David’s arm and, with a smile, she said, “Glad you’re back.”
They were all being careful to keep their greetings neutral and, once they had all hugged, kissed and welcomed David and Jean back to the land of the living, they left them to go and catch up on their sleep, leaving Carlton, Daniel and Melanie to bring them up to date.
When they had gone, Daniel and Melanie ran a complete physical diagnosis on David and Jean, answering questions here and there on how they felt while they gently moved each of their muscle sets.
Daniel produced two wheelchairs and positioned them by the pods.
“Okay, you guys,” he said, “we’re going to move you to beds in the recovery room.”
“Where exactly are we?” asked Jean. It was only a matter of time before they would ask the obvious questions, so Carlton quickly said, “Let’s get you properly settled first, then I’ll bring you both up to speed.”
He knew they would want to explain what had happened and why. He could already see from their body language that they were waiting to feel strong enough to bring the subject up. He knew it would be their priority. He didn’t want them to suffer from guilt; they had all suffered enough, and he would do whatever he could to ease their apprehension.
“Okay, then,” said Jean, “Let’s go.”
When they were settled in the recovery room and propped up in bed, Daniel and Melanie said, “Everything seems in the green, congratulations on being the first... well, cryo-sleepers, I guess.”
They all chuckled.
Melanie showed them a slimline remote control and said, “We’ll leave you for now. If you need anything or feel anything, use the call button on these. Otherwise, we’ll see you in a couple of hours when it’s feeding time!”
When they had gone, Carlton pulled up a chair between their beds so that he could face them. When he sat down, he said, “I’m so happy you’re both alive; it’s the best present I could ever have wished for, but please don’t do that again.”
They all laughed.
Jean felt she needed to explain and said, “Carlton, we know how you must have felt….”
Carlton stopped her, “Mom, Dad, it’s okay, you don’t need to explain, William’s father has done that already, and I’m cool with it. What matters is that it worked, and now you’re here and I love you both dearly. What happened in the past should stay in the past, because there’s a whole new future ahead of us now and, believe me when I tell you, you’ll understand.”
Jean was crying. Carlton had matured so much since they were last together at the Christmas tree farm. She looked at David, his face showing pride in his son.
David said, “Well son, fire away, we’re both dying to know what’s been happening. How long have we been in stasis, and where exactly are we?”
Carlton leaned back in the chair and sighed.
“All right,” he started, “There’s a lot to tell, too much for you to handle at once, so I’ll bring you up to speed in stages. It’s going to take a while. Firstly, I want you to relax—there is no bad news, only good news and great news, so you don’t need to fear the worst on any front. Secondly, you are safe; in fact, you’re both almost a forgotten memory, so no one is going to come looking for you. Okay, where to start . . .”
He looked at Jean and David; they appeared a little relieved and comfortable with what he had said.
Carlton continued, “You’ve been hidden away in the stasis pods for just shy of six years. This place is called Uharu. It’s a private island 1,300 miles east of the Solomon Islands. It’s impregnable, independent, has state-of-the-art labs and research capabilities, this hospital, restaurants, and comfortable accommodation. In fact, it has everything, and it is home to 136 loyal people.”
David was looking impressed, “Private island, wow. Who owns it?”
Carlton smiled, “I do, Dad.”
David and Jean both looked like rabbits caught in the headlights.
“Whaaaa,” said Jean, flabbergasted.
“Hang on Mom, there’s more, a lot more….”
For the next ninety minutes, Carlton told his parents of Quantum and the Quantum Research Academy and all of the assets that he had accumulated in the six years they were in stasis.
Both David and Jean were dumbstruck as Carlton revealed more and more of what they had. Finally, when Carlton casually mentioned that they still had over $205 billion in the bank, David, who never swore, slowly and quietly said, “Fuuuck me….”
Carlton and Jean just couldn’t stop laughing. Carlton suggested that it was best to stop there for now. He would continue after they had eaten and had their vitals checked again.
At the end of the day, Carlton was about ready to drop. David and Jean, despite having been asleep for six years, were also exhausted as they digested the incredible information Carlton was bombarding them with.
They went to sleep feeling stronger and looking forward to the next exciting installment of Carlton’s update in the morning.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The following day, David and Jean were up out of bed and walking around the recovery area quite normally when Carlton joined them for breakfast.
For all intents and purposes, they had made a full recovery from their cryosleep experience. Daniel and Melanie wanted to keep them under observation for one more day but saw no reason why they shouldn’t be released the following morning.
Despite feeling fine, Jean agreed that another day of observation would help. As they were the first humans to use the stasis pods, as much post-re-initialization data as possible should be gathered.
By ten that night, Carlton had finished his day-long update, and his parents now had the full picture of exactly what was what. He felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Everything he’d done since MIT suddenly felt right and justified, even the shock and sadness of learning of their deaths in those dark days was lifted from him, and now they could share his dream as a family.
After he left them, he went down to the beach and sat on his favorite rock by the water’s edge to look up to the myriad of stars in the heavens, and, with the gentle breeze blowing in the warm balmy night, he took a moment of prayer to give thanks for the gift of returning his beloved parents.
The next day, while Daniel and Melanie showed David and Jean their beach-front home that was cut into the rock and next to Carlton and Lucy’s, Carlton would break the news to the Smarties and then to everyone else.
The news about David and Jean had been a jaw-dropping surprise to everyone, and, after the reasons why were explained, David and Jean were treated like heroes after overcoming the difficulties that they had been faced
with.
For a week David and Jean toured the facility, talking to everyone and getting to grips with the enormity of Carlton’s aims for Quantum and the spacecraft build. They spent time with the Smarties’ parents and especially with Simon.
By the end of their second week, the Smarties’ parents were ready to head off back to their homes. Everybody had loved them being there, but all good things must come to an end, so Carlton had arranged a huge beach party for them to say goodbye.
The whole of Uharu attended and a very memorable time was had by all.
After the Star had departed to take the Smarties’ parents to their disembarkation points on its global supply run, David and Jean had been up early to wave them off, and, as the ship disappeared over the horizon, they went to find Carlton who was in the cryo lab with Lucy.
“Hi Mom, Dad,” said Carlton with a beaming smile.
“Morning, son,” said David, “We want to do something, we can’t be sitting around all the time.”
Jean was focused on the cryo lab’s impressive equipment.
Carlton nodded and said, “Well, if you feel ready.”
Jean looked at him and said jokingly, “We were born ready. Where can we work?”
Carlton said, “Mom, you’re in here with Lucy, Melanie, and Daniel. Dad, you’re with me up in nano.”
David and Jean smiled.
“Right then, let’s get to it,” said a very happy David. Lucy handed Jean a lab coat. David and Carlton eagerly made a sharp exit and headed for the nano lab.
***
It took David a full month to catch up on Carlton’s extensive research and, very soon, he and Rose were running a series of experiments which combined some of David’s earlier research with Carlton’s discovery research. The one area that Carlton had yet to fully explore was the effects of high magnetic flows through the enhanced and irradiated iridium alloys.
David had discovered some surprising side effects of the original experiments that he’d conducted in the past before Omni had sold out. Those experiments had shown marked resistance to any forms of monitoring and data capture.
The missing ingredient which at the time he would never have found was the identification of the irradiation effect.
David had theorized that his earlier results could possibly lead to the development of a fully deflective material that would prevent any form of scan from being able to remain on a target point and register its presence by causing the scans to just skip over.
He had suspected that if such a process was discovered it would even make objects impervious to detection by radar, and that thought meant it would almost certainly be handed over to the military, so he never pursued it and stored the data away in his secret files, the ones he had given to Carlton.
Carlton had been following up on his emitted force experiments with Freddie and Bar.
Apart from further increasing the efficiency of the EPCs, Carlton was chasing down ways to achieve a negative force that had an ambient attraction rather than emitting a directional outward force similar to the properties of a magnet, but not confined to metal.
He had been showing promising results but hadn’t yet found the magic ingredient that would act as the catalyst to reverse and spread the effect.
David’s advancements in his magnaflow experiments offered promise and looked as though it might hold the key. Carlton had prioritized his research, as it paved the way for both artificial gravity and inertial dampening.
Their development was vital to the spacecraft as they would need to be incorporated from the outset and could greatly affect the design stage.
With Jean’s knowledge and the invention of the PMGs, the development of a deep space stasis pod had already reached the drawing board stage. Jean had been able to expedite the progress by incorporating the technology that she had held back from Omni.
Like David, Jean didn’t want the military to get hold of her research into the human versions of the stasis pods. The ones that she and David had used were of her own design and contained some vital technology that was missing from the phase two trails that were run at ACR. Without her or her research, she doubted they would be able to develop a working human prototype.
With full access to the triple-walled nanotube technology, Miles had produced some incredibly tough but workable laminates that had the same weight equivalent of dense plastic. He was experimenting with ways to further strengthen the already thin sheets and increase their ability to withstand radiation. He had been keeping very close to David’s research, as he felt that, if the process proved to be successful, it could be introduced into his laminates and could offer a way to fully protect the ship from radiation sources, and they could all avoid glowing at night.
Despite the Smarties’ mutual dislike of weapons, they had agreed that it might be prudent to have some sort of proactive defense system for the spacecraft and for Uharu. Anton had been developing a fazed laser that used his TBL technology in a highly focused beam. With its enhanced power, the defense laser showed that it had a devastatingly destructive capability—so much so that it could only be tested by firing it vertically up through the atmosphere and into space. Anton had produced four fazed lasers for Uharu and twelve for the spacecraft.
For five months the research and development continued, with everyone at Uharu deeply involved with their part of the project, relentlessly improving and further developing the many individual systems and components that would be used in the spacecraft.
When David and Rose made the first breakthrough using high-intensity magnaflow technology, it paved the way for Carlton and Miles to follow suit, and, within a few short weeks of each other, they had fully developed David’s radar deflection processes into a viable nano additive.
Carlton had mastered viable artificial gravity and Miles had produced a material that was impervious to any forms of radiation and could be included in the manufacture of any shielding or sheet material.
All of these breakthroughs were grounds for massive celebrations but each of the scientists at Uharu, although feeling great pride, simply took them in their stride and carried on.
It was only when Carlton made an insignificant discovery that caused all that to change.
Carlton had used the magnaflow technology to increase the properties of the emitted energy substantially, but they had never run any long-term powered tests.
They had constructed a custom-designed testing area behind some vault-like steel doors. The inside was amassed with monitoring equipment and substantial steel frameworks that had been buried deep into the rock face.
Small prototype thrusters, one-tenth scale, had been securely anchored and had been aimed into a venting tunnel that had been cut into the rock at the far wall of the testing area and continued through almost half a mile of rock to finally exit high up on the northwestern side of Uharu.
Carlton had been gradually increasing the power output at a rate of 5 percent for each long-term testing phase, holding steady for seven hours each time before taking it up a further 5 percent for the next seven hours.
So far, at four days into the testing and at 25 percent power, the readouts and data were unwavering and impressive.
The increase to 30 percent was the first time that Carlton had needed to get up in the middle of the night to visit the testing area and instigate the next increment.
As he opened the steel blast doors and entered the test area, there were a few seconds before the lighting automatically came on.
In the darkness, Carlton saw a myriad of incandescent pastel colors streaming from the thrusters and out through the venting tunnel.
As the bright test area’s illumination activated, the mesmerizing display was absorbed in the background light.
Carlton immediately deactivated the lights and stared at the beautiful display as the streaming colors returned.
After a while, Carlton reset the output to the next 5 percent increment and engaged the power, never taking his eyes off of the streamin
g colors.
As the power increased, so did the intensity of the colors and, at 30 percent, they produced just enough light to make a gentle ambient glow in the test area.
As Carlton stared at the wonderful side effect, he easily pieced together why it was happening.
It was the iridium.
The oxidized salts were known to produce a rainbow effect when they were burnt off, and iridium was the Greek word for rainbow.
Carlton had never been able to witness this enhanced effect, as all previous testing had either been in brightly lit areas, or the iridium had been completely enclosed. This long-term open test was the first time that it would have been seen.
As Carlton imagined how impressive and beautiful the full-power effect would look, he instantly knew that his spacecraft would be called “The Iridium Rainbow,” and that his adventure was just about to begin.
THE END
About the Author
Marcus Kendrick was born and raised in London where, after leaving school, he started working for the city’s largest newspaper. After a few years, he left to follow his dream of joining the Royal Air Force, where he served in many countries.
Returning to the world of international media, Marcus continued his career within the magazine and exhibition industry before switching to marketing and consulting within the land development and property market. In 1998, after years of searching, he was lucky enough to acquire his own land to build his home in Royal Windsor, U.K. where he currently lives with his wife.
He has a strong love of science and technology and is a member of the British Science Fiction Association. In 2018, he began writing full time.
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