Starship Alchemon

by Christopher Hinz

  The doors between Ericho and the containment whisked open seconds before he reached them. Jonomy must have been tracking him, overriding the airseal shutdown and clearing a route.

  He listened closely, distinguished other warnings. A rhythmic drumming indicated that the Alchemon had lost a portion of its internal telemetry system. A tinny pulse indicated a gravity aberration and a birdlike chirping, a radiation release. Each alarm by itself was bad news. But all of them combined…

  Comprehension slammed through him as he dashed through a final airseal to enter the corridor leading to the containment.

  An internal explosion. It seemed the likely explanation for this particular mix of alarms.

  An airseal at the opposite end whisked open and Rigel came rushing toward him. The two of them reached the containment door at the same time.

  There was abrupt silence. Jonomy had killed the alarms in this corridor. Only flashing red ceiling lumes indicated they remained on emergency status.

  The lytic’s words came through loud and clear. “The event occurred in the containment lab, twenty-three seconds after Lieutenant Donner entered.”

  “Is the containment breached?” Ericho asked.

  “Unknown. Total sensor loss in both areas. Every system within the containment and its lab has been terminated. Thus far, all seals are holding. However, there is low level gamma radiation in that corridor and other areas bordering the containment.”

  “How bad are we getting juiced?” Rigel demanded.

  “Radiation leakage is minimal. IBD reports that you are well within safety parameters.”

  “As long as we don’t open the door.”

  “You cannot open it,” Jonomy said. “None of us can. The Sentinel has taken control of that airseal.

  Jesus of Naz! Ericho thought. What had the lieutenant done?

  “There is no clear indication of what has happened. Every piece of hardware down there registered a near-simultaneous overload and dropped out of the net. I am trying to locate and restore the surveillance cam files of those final seconds after the lieutenant entered the lab and apply those modified wavelengths to penetrate the adhesive fabric. The explosion was severe enough to send a pulse into data storage, scrambling recent files. The Alchemon has quite literally received a traumatic shock. It is trying to restructure itself, reroute misplaced data into undamaged regions.”

  “What about the air vents?” Rigel asked. “The containment’s totally self-contained but the lab feeds off some of EHO’s subsystems. There could be radiation leakage there.”

  “The vents were sealed by the Sentinel within microseconds of the explosion.”

  “Donner was alone in the lab?” Ericho asked.

  Jonomy hesitated. “That has not been confirmed.”

  “Crew status?”

  “Per emergency conditions, they are isolated in whatever section they happened to be in at the moment of the incident. June, Hardy and Alexei are in their quarters. Faye is still in the main social room. Do you want any of them routed elsewhere?”

  “Send June to med. Keep everyone else where they’re at. What about LeaMarsa?”

  “Unknown.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “For some reason, the trackers can’t locate her. It may have to do with that traumatic shock the ship received, temporarily disabling some of our systems. However, I can confirm that she was in the containment lab approximately ten minutes prior to the explosion.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I spoke with her.”

  “Then she could have been in there with Donner.”

  “Unknown.”

  “All right, Jonomy. I’m heading up to the bridge unless you have a better idea.”

  “There is nothing further you can do outside the containment. The Sentinel will not permit access. Repair pups are being dispatched into all adjacent areas to scour the radiation leakage.”

  “Any damage to the Big Three?” Rigel asked.

  The tech officer was referring to the trio of Level One systems that provided the means for a ship to enter a Quiets. The delicate spatiotemporal coagulators were the most vital since not all of their complex functions had full backup. The other two, primary power and the main quantizer – the latter performing trillions of nanosecond-to-nanosecond calculations within Quiets space – had auxiliaries.

  The Big Three – SCO, POP and PAQ – needed to be working in perfect tandem to enter and exit a Quiets. They represented the ship’s ticket home. If any one of them and its backup had been severely impacted by the explosion, the Alchemon would be stranded out here, lightyears from Earth. And given Pannis’ miserly policies for dispatching search-and-rescue missions, the expense might not be justifiable to a corporate retrieval committee.

  “No apparent damage to the Quiets systems, captain. Secondaries are stable as well.”

  Ericho sighed with relief. But the feeling was short-lived as Jonomy continued.

  “However, I cannot at this time be one hundred percent certain of that diagnosis, particularly in regards to SCO. We will not have confirmation until the impact of the explosion is fully addressed and all major systems go through a reset process.”

  Ericho spun to Rigel. “I think you’d better–”

  “Way ahead of you,” the tech officer snapped, dashing toward the stern.

  Jonomy might be unable to guarantee the proper functioning of SCO, POP and PAQ directly through the Alchemon’s network, but Rigel could do a manual check from the Big Three nexus. The site was accessible via a maintenance shaft from the port lander hold.

  Ericho headed in the other direction and boarded the nearest elevator. A quick ascent to updeck and transit through two airseals brought him to the bridge.

  The lytic’s chair was slowly rotating around the HOD. Jonomy’s eyes were pinched shut, indicating he was in a deep stage of communing with the network. Ericho didn’t want to bother him with more questions while he was interfacing. He plopped in the command chair and accessed the network from his control panel.

  The first wave of scrolling data induced a grimace. IBD – internal bio detection, a Level Four system – was reporting a thermal increase of six degrees at the containment entrance where Ericho and Rigel had stood only moments ago. Even though the temperature escalation was relatively mild, IBD was now declaring that section of corridor an unsafe zone and suggesting that all access be restricted unless crewmembers wore biosuits.

  It wasn’t the thermal leakage itself that concerned Ericho but what the reading indicated. If that much heat was penetrating the reinforced lab walls and door, the interior must be superheated, perhaps even molten.

  Jonomy opened his eyes. Ericho took the opportunity to bark a fresh question.

  “Could it have been a micronuke?”

  “No, captain. If it had been that severe, we would have registered shock waves all over the ship.”

  Ericho wasn’t convinced. “I felt a strong vibration when it happened.”

  Rigel came over the intercom. “A micronuke would have taken out half the ship. We wouldn’t be here talking about it.”

  “Captain, I’ve located the final surveillance video from inside the lab.”

  Jonomy piped the imagery to Ericho’s wafer. The viewpoint was from a ceiling camera. Ericho watched in mute fascination as Donner burst into the containment lab and proceeded to throw a wad of adhesive fabric at the camera. The video disappeared for only an instant, then took on a greenish pallor as the lytic modified wavelengths to see through the fabric.

  “Here are the final twelve seconds,” Jonomy narrated. “Notice what the lieutenant is withdrawing from his jodhpurs.”

  Ericho grimaced as Donner slipped a stubby metallic cylinder from a wide pocket. “A Higgs cutter.”

  “He must have swiped it from the mech shop,” Rigel said. “We only have two manual ones aboard and that’s where they’re stored. All the other HCs are attached to robots or specialty pups.”

  Ericho felt d
rained, his adrenaline rush from the incident starting to wear off. It didn’t matter where Donner had procured the device.

  “The lieutenant must have had the cutter with him at the Homebound,” Jonomy said.

  Ericho should have searched him. He should have been far more concerned about Donner’s behavior, about the crazed philosophizing, about the earlier faux attack on the bridge. He could have stopped this.

  He sighed; realizing now wasn’t the time for self-recrimination. He watched in silence as the inevitability of the incident played out on the monitor.

  Donner used the cutter’s laser-like beam to burn through the lock of one of the lab’s secure storage closets. He yanked open the cabinet door to reveal a boxy fusion battery on the top shelf. Pointing the Higgs cutter at it, he depressed the trigger. The incinerating beam again ignited, the HC emitting a distinctive whine as it ramped up to maximum output. It took only three seconds for the beam to pierce the battery’s shielding.

  An instant of frozen time. The screen went white as the camera signal was lost.

  On a starship that possessed safeguards against the unimaginable, an insane man had carried out a relatively simple act. A powerful Higgs cutter, restricted for shipboard use except in emergencies, had been directed at the unstable elements of a fusion cell. Precisely calculable physics had determined the result: a melt, an expanding ball of intensely hot fire absorbing all surrounding matter within nanoseconds.

  Rigel, who must have been watching the surveillance feed on a monitor from the bowels of the spatiotemporal coagulator system, broke the silence. “I guess we’re lucky it was the lab. Most other areas of the ship don’t have such thick walls.”

  Ericho nodded. Had Donner vaporized himself elsewhere, the Alchemon likely would have been destroyed.

  “Captain, crewmembers are asking to be released from their secure areas.”

  “Do it.” There was no reason to keep them sequestered at this point.

  “I am receiving updated data. The melt has definitely breached the electrochromic wall separating the lab from the containment. Status of the organism remains unknown.”

  “All right,” Ericho said, trying to get a handle on the situation. “Let’s assume for a moment that Bouncy Blue has been destroyed. That means we have two useless chambers down there, both hot as hell and filled with radioactive gases. We might be able to clean up the outside corridor and control any air leakage through EHO, but that mess in the lab and containment is going to stay hot for a long time.”

  “And it could start leaking,” Rigel added. “With that much of a heat source in the middle of the ship, we run the risk of thermal baffles failing. So, we blow the containment airlock and give the whole goddamn radioactive mess a vacuum enema, purge it into space.”

  “Exactly.”

  “In theory, the suggestion is sound,” Jonomy said. “Sudden depressurization should work and make the eventual cleanup easier.

  “However, there are two issues we must address before taking such action. First, we are not positive the organism is dead. Remember, this is a creature that apparently survived in a harsh environment on Sycamore for more than a billion years. For all we know, it is capable of surviving a melt.”

  “No way,” Rigel said.

  “The second issue is more fundamental. We can no longer open the inner seal of the containment airlock. That subsystem is offline and presumably suffered damage from the melt. And even if we could reroute the controls, the mechanism itself may have been fused by the intense heat.”

  “Then we do an EVA,” Rigel said. “Someone goes out there and opens the outer seal, enters the airlock, plants a low-intensity explosive at the inner hatch. We blow it manually. Same result.”

  “You’re forgetting about the organism.”

  “Fuck Bouncy Blue. We’re dealing with a goddamn melt! We have to dump that mess. And we got to do it before we go through the Quiets.”

  Rigel was right. Ericho had gone through enough Quiets to know that odd things could happen to a vessel during one of the instantaneous passages. The engineers who designed and worked on Quiets travel were well aware of the strange forces that came into play when the spatiotemporal coagulators were activated.

  On one of Ericho’s early flights, dozens of airseals had mysteriously opened during the transition. On another trip, his vessel had emerged from its Quiets passage in geonic turmoil, with simulated gravity flipped ninety degrees, transforming walls into floors or ceilings. Traveling through a Quiets with a highly radiated compartment… there was no telling what might occur.

  June came over the intercom.

  “Faye and I found LeaMarsa. She appears to be in a deep sleep. We can’t seem to wake her up.”

  “Where was she?” Ericho asked.

  “Downdeck, corridor B-1. Near the dreamlounge. She was just standing there, frozen.”

  “You’re taking her to medcenter?”

  “On our way.”

  Hardy joined the conversation. “Captain, I heard Rigel’s suggestion and must insist that you hold off on any decision about purging the containment. I believe there’s a distinct possibility that the organism survived the incident.”

  “We’re still evaluating the situation.” He faced Jonomy. “Can we get a pup in there with a camera?”

  “I am afraid not, captain, at least not yet. Not even the most shielded pups can handle that level of exposure. The mix of radioactive isotopes in the lab and the containment are still too hot. However, most of those isotopes have short half-lives. They will decay relatively fast.”

  “How long?”

  “Eight to ten hours before a pup can survive for any reasonable length of time.”

  “What about the links?” The ship’s pair of virtual reality-controlled robots had far better shielding than the pups.

  “Minimum of three hours,” Jonomy answered.

  “We could cut that time in half,” Rigel said. “Outfit one with additional shielding.”

  “There is an obvious problem with any of these options.”

  Ericho nodded grimly. “How do we get them in there without contaminating more of the ship?”

  “And in either case, robot or pup, there will be fatal contamination to the unit. Pannis guidelines for such a scenario suggest not using a link.”

  “Why the hell not?” Rigel growled.

  “Replacement cost for a robot is approximately six times that of the most expensive pup, excluding the warrior pups.”

  “Screw those buttmeisters in Pannis accounting! Our asses come first.”

  “No argument. Those are only guidelines, not dictates. The decision is left to a ship’s captain. Before we proceed much farther down this path, I would remind you of a more fundamental issue. The Sentinel is controlling that airseal, which is the only way into the containment area other than the external chute. The Sentinel may decide not to allow the door to be opened for either a robot or a pup. Furthermore, the corridor airseal also may have been damaged and be inoperable.”

  Ericho took Jonomy’s concerns in stride. They’d figure out how to deal with the Sentinel and a possibly nonfunctioning airseal when the time came.

  “Rigel, are you in SCO yet?”

  “Yeah, I’m here, checking systems now. So far, everything’s green. But I’ve got a few tests to run.”

  “How long?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “When you’re done, prep a link robot for a hot environment. Extra shielding, whatever else you can think of. We need to get in there.”

  CHAPTER 11

  LeaMarsa floated within the alternate universe of neurospace but there was something different about it. Several clusters of the faux-stars – each grouping hundreds or perhaps thousands strong – were cloaked in ominous shadows.

  “Coalesce and Target.”

  It was the same gravelly voice that had uttered Sentinel Obey. LeaMarsa again sensed that the phantom woman was straining to be heard from somewhere amid those stars. Yet it was a
s if she was on the far side of a vast ocean. And as with the earlier utterance, the significance of Coalesce and Target remained unfathomable.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  There was no response.

  A burst of light from one of those shadowy clusters snared her attention. A single star from within the cluster shot out of neurospace like a renegade comet, coming toward LeaMarsa at high velocity. But before the ejected star could reach her, it dissolved into nothingness.

  The incident provided fundamental insights about the realm of luminous dark. Each star was the analogue of an intelligent lifeform, and the star that had been ejected was the analogue of an entity whose life had been extinguished. Furthermore, it was someone she knew.

  Lieutenant Donner.

  LeaMarsa bolted awake to find herself sitting upright in an unfamiliar bed. Two pairs of hands grabbed her shoulders, gently pushed her back down into the mattress. She squinted under bright overhead lights, unable to discern faces.

  Vision cleared. She recognized her surroundings, realized she was in a medcenter treatment room.

  June and Faye flanked the bed. Above, the tentacles of a multi-pronged clinician drooped from the ceiling, its hands clutching a variety of diagnostic modules.

  “Let me up!” she demanded.

  They allowed her to rise. She looked into their faces, saw deep concern.

  “I’m OK. I’m fine now.”

  She got to her feet. A rush of dizziness forced her to sit back down.

  “Take deep breaths,” June suggested.

  LeaMarsa inhaled and exhaled slowly. “What happened to me?”

  “We found you near the dreamlounge in a deep sleep,” June said.

  “It’s like you were in a coma,” Faye added.

  It was neither sleep nor coma but another psionic blackout, albeit one apparently lasting longer than usual. She remembered leaving the containment and heading for an elevator. That the blackout had occurred near the dreamlounge was probably coincidental. She hated such places and had avoided them since she was fifteen.