Alpha Rising (43 page)

“
Darwin? Hairy? What kind
of cornball offerings are those?” Kaz yelped. “They don’t start
with
a
or
e
.”

G.R. sank back on the stool and folded his
arms across his burly chest while the others tried to come up with
meaningful names.

All of a sudden, Bach stood and flashed his
megawatt smile. “Well, the word atom gave me an idea.” He polished
his fingernails against his chest. “And, I like it better every
minute.”

“
What?” Star
asked.

“
Let’s call them Adam and
Eve. Not a-t-o-m, atom, but a-d-a-m, like the real Adam and
Eve.”

“
Oh, I like that,” Kaz
said.

“
Love it!” Deni
said.

Lynch shrugged. “Why not?”

G.R. fiddled with his symbol necklace.
“Works for me.”

Star said, “Adam and Eve?”

The others tried to answer, but Bach
dominated. “The first man and woman placed on Earth by God, the
Creator, in the beginning of time.”

“
Is this another story from
your Bible?”

“
Yes.”

“
I’m glad we have it
aboard. I want to read it.”

For a moment, Bach seemed to enter another
place in time. When he snapped back, he said, “Gosh, mention of the
Bible just brought a powerful memory of our crewmate Faith.” He
shivered without meaning to. “She loved anything to do with Noah’s
ark—collected all kinds of Noah stuff. Now it almost seems we’re
living that Bible story right now. Look around. Kaz joked about
Noah’s ark back on Ashkelon, but here we are on Bach’s Ark,
civilization has ended, and something outside is coming down like
rain.”

Lynch broke the silence that followed Bach’s
comments. “Actually, this is like a fast-forward scriptural montage
where Noah’s ark meets the opening of the sixth and seventh seals
in the book of Revelation.”

*****

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Adrift in the rafters of space, with
visibility at zero from the downpour of silvery dust, Bach and crew
stopped keeping track of time somewhere after the fifth week.

The E-module Arkriders now mingled freely
with those from the other planets, and often spent their time
sharing personal stories with the crew in the main cabin. Some
tended to the hydroponic gardens, while others cared for the
animals.

Bach had tried numerous times to instill
hope with enthusiastic talks of survival, but hope had long faded
and all were weak from lack of exercise and mental stimulation.
Most simply went through the motions necessary to maintain status
quo and nothing more.

#

After awakening from a catnap in a wall
hammock, Bach yawned and stretched as he moved to the middle of the
cabin and did a dozen jumping jacks, then dropped to the floor and
cranked off a round of pushups before heading to the cockpit to
look once more at the instrumentation. He yawned again, almost
mesmerized by the silvery dust sliding down the windows.

Star plopped beside him, arms hanging
lifelessly at her sides. “I wish there were enough stored power to
run computer games. I’d gladly design a few for mental
stimulation.”

Bach shifted his eyes sideways, flexed an
arm muscle, and said in a robotic, computer-like voice, “I’d beat
you every game.”

She leaned back, smiling in amusement. “I’d
build ’em with ciphers you’d never figure out.”

He nodded and sighed. “Yeah, and I wouldn’t
have the energy to defend my honor.”

“
Your honor?”

He patted his shoulders and chest and stuck
his hands in his pockets as if searching for something. “I think I
still have it,” he said, dead serious. Then he snapped his fingers
in a jazzy rhythm and sang in a lounge-singer voice, “I just want
to testify, your honor, that I’ve lost my honor.”

The exhausted two giggled like children and
Bach soon lost it with a laughing jag he couldn’t stop.

Star snuffed through her nose and
breathlessly said, “You’re too silly.”

He wiped tears from his eyes and groaned,
“Ohhh, I needed a good laugh.”

She grabbed him by the arm. “Bach!”

“
Yeesss, Star?” he
teased.

“
Look at the windows!” The
energy in her voice got his attention.

He looked at the windows and sat bolt
upright. The silver rain had ended, and as the windows cleared the
once dark and hopeless view became one of blue, almost heavenly,
airspace.

“
Oh, God, thank you,” he
stammered, turning dials to boot up the view panel.

Star checked a printout with incoming data
of an exterior scan. “I can’t believe it. The ship’s sparkling
clean, as if polished by a cleanser.” She collected more data.

“
Hey!” Bach yelled through
the cabin to Deni and G.R. who were snoozing in the alcove
hammocks. “Wake up. Come here.” He used the intercom to call Kaz
and Lynch back from a visit to the E-module.

With the crewmates gathered around, Star
used a hand-held device. “Look at this. I don’t understand it, but
there’s an anomaly in this realm of space. It affects our fuel’s
density. Energy sensors are showing our fuel’s power output at a
hundred times greater than normal. It doesn’t seem possible, unless
it’s somehow related to the liquid absorption.”

“
Some things can’t be
scientifically explained,” Bach said with a burst of energy. “I’ll
run a couple of sims.”

“
Even if we can use the
fuel, where will we go?” Kaz asked, peering out a porthole.
“Nothing but blue space.”

“
It’s blue because
something’s creating a source of energy and light,” Bach replied.
“If it’s a sun, we can harness the energy with our solar
collectors.”

“
It could be something like
a daystar that’ll disappear and reappear on schedule,” Star
offered.

Star and Bach moved to mid ship to work at
the control center. “If we collect enough energy to get the main
generators up and instrumentation working, we should be able to
burn that fuel and take a tour of space.”

Kaz scurried to aft cabin and rummaged
through drawers and cabinets. “Where’s that Bible? I want to find
out what happened to Noah’s ark after the rain stopped.”

“
They wound up on a
mountain,” Lynch said. “Some believe it’s on the lost continent of
Atlantis, now under water.”

She thumbed through the Bible’s gilt-edged
pages. “Lost in space with no mountains—now what?” She stared at
Lynch. “How do you know so much about the Bible?”

“
I studied for the ministry
in my younger days. Then the heavens called in a different
way.”

Her voice squeaked.
“
You
, are
half-minister? Holy cow! There really is a lot I don’t know about
you.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, I have lived a
few years longer than you.”

Bach shook his head without looking up.

Kaz changed the subject. “I’ve heard the
word, ‘Atlantis’ but never knew the legend behind it.”

Lynch continued. “The philosopher Plato
described Atlantis as an island empire on the other side of the
center of the world. An Eden on Earth from which sprang all the
other cultures—the root of all civilizations.”

G.R. spoke up. “In my opinion, it seems
we’re the beginning of a new civilization right here on the Ark—a
space-platform world of the future.”

Kaz glared at G.R. like an angry
drill-sergeant. “I refuse to live out my life confined on this
ship, space platform or not. If there’s a speck of land out there
big enough to hold Lynch and me, we’re outta here.”

Lynch smiled. “Sounds romantic. Adam and Eve
revisited.”

G.R. tauntingly laughed with his tongue
hanging over his bottom lip. “Scary thought. Kaz—the mother of a
new civilization.”

“
I wish you two would
coexist peacefully,” Deni said.

“
Just tryin’ to keep it
interesting.” G.R. chuckled. “Actually, we love each other like
brother and sister.”

“
In a very unusual family,”
Kaz whispered to herself as she turned more pages in the Bible. A
few minutes later she asked Bach, “How many days have we been
adrift?”

“
This is day forty,” he
replied.

Lynch shook his head and said, “Well, you’re
talkin’ Earth days. Maybe out here there’s a space/time warp. Maybe
it’s been a thousand years.”

*****

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Bach bolted from mid ship to the cockpit,
leapt over the bench seat, and booted up a computer. “Hallelujah!”
he yelled at the top of his lungs.

Following on his heels, Star didn’t take
time to sit down. “Generators and instrumentation’s working,” she
announced. “Life support systems updating.”

“
Amen!” Lynch muttered,
rushing to the cockpit. “Is
everything
back up?”

“
Yep—and it looks normal,”
Bach replied. “Go ahead and restart the subsystems back
there.”

Lynch, Kaz, and G.R. swung into action. Deni
rushed to the cockpit and sat next to Bach. “I can’t believe it!
How did you know we were operational?”

He pointed to the overhead panel and tapped
on a keyboard at the same time. “The digital pressurization readout
lit up.”

“
Anything I can help with
up here?” she asked.

“
Sit with Star for a minute
while I monitor the rollover from emergency power.”

Deni adjusted the bench back higher to fit
her tall frame, then settled in as if preparing for a feast. She
ran her hand across the controls, spoke into the electronic voice
interpreter, wrote on the air panel with the laser pen, and
measured light intensity displayed as colors and symbols on a
monitor. “Star, what’s the purpose of this one?” She pointed to a
small instrument with a touchpad, dials and push buttons.

“
It shows when radar
detects an object, then calculates distance, and—”

Deni cut her off. “It’s detecting something
now.”

Star slid across the bench. “Quick, set that
scope sixty degrees from center and get a size measurement. Put the
cursor on the laser’s blip to check the range indicator.”

“
Too much at once,” Deni
grumbled. “Help me.”

Bach stepped back to the cockpit, leaned
over Deni’s shoulder, and eyed the data panel. “You can do this.
Use the touchpad and enter ‘DP’ for the dimensional picture, then
follow the onscreen prompts to find out if it’s coming this
way.”

“
An asteroid?” Star
asked.

“
Not enough heat,” Deni
stated.

“
Any movement?” asked
Bach.

“
Not toward us. More a
rotation.”

“
Enlarge it,” Star
said.

Deni manipulated two dials and the image
filled the screen.

“
A rogue planet?” Star
wondered aloud. “It can’t be.”

Deni gulped. “Urusa!”

“
What?” Bach shoved in next
to her. “Move over.”

The downloaded image showed a planet
encircled by two crisscrossing bands of water and orbiting its own
small sun.

“
It’s Urusa,” Deni stated.
“Look at it. It looks just like the pictures we had when we were
headed there from Earth.”

“
Urusa?” Bach
stared.
The hand of God has touched us
again.

Deni shouted to the others, “Hey, guys, come
here. Something out there looks like Urusa.”

Lynch was first to the cockpit. He leaned in
for a look, then stepped back. “I ain’t gettin’ all excited
yet.”

Kaz hesitated then said, “Bach, we’re still
on the earthship. Did you keep those observatory pictures and
logbooks when you rebuilt this thing?”

“
Yes, they’re in a lower
port side storage bin. We kept everything.”

Kaz darted to aft ship with Lynch following
and the two rifled through the storage holds. She found the
AstroLab’s old logbook and read from it on the way to the cockpit.
“It says Urusa means Place of Peace. And it says the quadrants
created by two crisscrossing bands, believed to be water, appear to
have distinctly different environmental habitats. Urusa orbits its
own small sun.”

“
Voila!” Lynch yelled from
aft. “Observatory photos.” He waved a bulging, crinkled envelope
through the air.

Deni took it from his hands and pulled out a
collection of photos showing Urusa and its sun. The crewmates
waited on pins and needles as a printout ejected from the
electro-brain.

Star analyzed the incoming
data and held a photo at arm’s length for all to see. “The planet’s
crisscrossing bands
are
water,” she stated. “And, yes, the quadrants have
varying environments.” She sat back and her voice changed to almost
a whisper. “The planet looks like the symbol of hope.”

“
It does!” Kaz interjected.
“Is this a sign from God, or what? So how long are we talkin’
here?”

“
What do you mean?” Deni
asked.

“
Urusa’s our resting place,
like Noah’s ark and Atlantis, so how long till we get
there?”

“
Longer than I’d like,”
Bach replied, “but we
will
go there.”

Star typed on the keyboard. “We’ll have to
conserve every fuel fragment, which means minimum acceleration,
minimum deceleration, and optimum speed. But we could conceivably
make it there in—”