Farthest Reef (17 page)
Authors: Karl Kofoed
Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Science Fiction, #space
Mary smiled. “The more Gannys on board, the better.”
Wysor laughed. “Salt o’ the earth, us Gannys, huh?”
“They’re survivors,” offered Johnny.
The smile left the Captain’s face. “Does everybody think this is a one-way mission?”
“Not everyone,” said Alex. “But until we return we may as well look at it that way.”
“I suppose.” Wysor scratched his short gray beard. “What’ve they got you two doin’?”
Alex shrugged. “I guess, until we start exploring Bubba, Mary and I are passengers.”
“We’re going to explore the ship,” said Mary. “Finally!”
“Where do you want to go, exactly?” asked Johnny.
“To see the biocylinder,” said Mary, pulling on Alex’s arm.
“And the Science Center,” added Alex, grinning.
“Why?”
It wasn’t as easy as Alex hoped. Johnny suggested they plan their tour and log it with the computer.
”Can’t we just tell the cab where we want to go?” Mary sounded completely dejected.
Johnny shook his head. “When we’re orbiting Lalande you can do that, but …”
“He doesn’t trust us, Alex,” Mary pouted childishly.
“Is that true, Johnny?” asked Alex, eyeing the Professor.
“Of course not,” protested Johnny. “We’re having problems, now, and this isn’t the time …”
“Why don’t you want us to see the clicks?” Alex asked the Professor.
Johnny looked at the faces around him. Everyone, including Wysor, was watching him.
“Fine,” he said. “Take your walk. We can find you easily enough if we need to.”
Alex raised a finger. “Where’s the lab where the clicks are being held?”
“The Biolab. Just tell it to the computer. Go to the second stop.” Johnny waved his hand, getting the attention of Stubbs’ assistant. “Ned, we’d better establish special access status for Alex and Mary Rose. Numbers …” Johnny touched his console, presumably accessing data. “Here it is … 1147 and 1148.”
Captain Wysor pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the main entrance behind him. “It’s that way. Off with you. We’re wastin’ time here.”
Alex studied the spherical display over the com. “When are you doin’ the next jump?”
“A couple hours,” answered Wysor, glancing at his console.
7
Mary paused before they entered the tubeway and surveyed the curving expanse of the biocylinder. Searchlights on the great central column played back and forth across the terrain, seeming to enhance rather than hide the cylindrical shape of their world. It was a dizzying scene, and not one that Alex cared to stare at for too long. He took Mary’s hand and hauled her into the tubeway. She had obviously been mesmerized by it all but didn’t resist being pulled away. “Jeeps,” she murmured, looking into Alex’s eyes. “This place is just … huge.”
“Come on, my love,” urged Alex, pointing at the waiting car in the tunnel. “We’ve got to visit the lab soon, or we’ll run out of time.”
“I thought we’d walk by the lake,” said Mary, pulling her wrist free of his grasp. “Jeeps, Alex. That way if we run late we can just run to our house before launch.”
Alex deferred to Mary’s plan. After all, he thought, exploring the cylinder was her idea. It wasn’t really dark, as Johnny had said. The spotlights provided adequate light for them to see where they were going. Everywhere they looked, pools of light were moving over the landscape. It looked like a vast surreal arena lit up for a major event. Yet there were no crowds or throbbing music, only the two of them walking down a path, past their domicile – now mostly below ground – toward the distant canyon that would soon become a lake.
The cylinder was silent, or seemed to be at first. But soon Alex began to hear the sound of wind. A grove of trees not far away was bathed in a spotlight projected from the central column. He noticed its branches moving and called Mary’s attention to it. “Dingers, Mary,” he said. “This place makes its own weather.”
A sign before them said ‘Lake Geneva’, and an arrow pointed to a distant causeway. In a few minutes they reached the sandy shore of the lake. As they expected there was no water lapping against the rocks that lined it, nor breaking on the artificial beach that extended perhaps thirty meters out from the lakeshore. Alex could see flat panels and girders covering the rest of the lake bottom. Filled with water, it would be convincing, he thought. He remembered Johnny saying something about fish and other sea life being introduced. They were somewhere below decks in bays designed to dampen the water’s sloshing when the ship moved.
“So those fishes are down there under our feet somewhere, swimming in aquariums?”
“I guess so,” Alex shrugged. “But, to be honest, I glaze over when Johnny spouts ecology and biosystems. He’s the man to ask, I’ll give him that.”
“Well,” said Mary. “He’s a terraformer, isn’t he? Don’t they do that sort of thing?”
Alex grinned. “So I’ve heard.”
Mary hugged him as they walked. “I hated being cooped up in that control room,” she said, sniffing the air. “I feel better already.” Her foam suit squeaked rudely as it rubbed against his. “Smell the plants?” she whispered. “Like the Marys’ atrium on Mars.”
“A bit,” he said. “Minus the otters.”
Mary looked up as a pool of light moved over them. “The spotlights are feeding light to the trees,” she said. “Like Mars in winter.”
Alex walked down a sandy ramp to the beach. His feet sank slightly into the sand but none of it stuck to his boots. On close examination he realized that the beach was made of foam, like everything else. He turned to comment, but Mary was standing in a small grove of trees at the edge of a park. In the dim light he watched her wrap her arms around the trunk of a tree and hug it. She looked up into its leaves and laughed. “I’ve never done this, Alex, hugged a tree.”
Alex ran to join her. Catching her hands, he wheeled around, taking in the enormity of the cylinder. “Mary, this has got to be the strangest place in the universe. Hell, we’re not even
in
the universe.”
Mary laughed and hugged him. “The trees are real. So is the grass,” she said.
Where they stood they had a good view of the lake bed. It ran down the length of the cylinder, and its meandering shoreline looked almost natural. It was clear, even in the darkness, that
Goddard’s
landscapers had created as natural a biosphere as possible. He looked forward to seeing it all again in daylight mode. “I wish I’d paid more attention to details when it was operating normally,” he told Mary.
They both noticed a light some distance away, moving toward them at a modest rate of speed; a security vehicle. Mary looked around at the cylinder and soon spotted three other moving lights. “Patrols or repairs, I assume,” she said.
Alex and Mary strolled over to the beach. They stood arm in arm and watched the vehicle. As it approached, they lost sight of it behind buildings and trees. Finally it emerged at the end of a building about a hundred meters from them. It stopped there and seemed to wait for several minutes before turning away from them and disappearing behind a grove of trees.
“Perhaps we should move on,” said Mary.
“Because of them? Only if you’re ready, my love. This is our trip.”
Mary kissed Alex and squeezed his butt. “There’s going to be a jump soon and you wanted to visit the clicks, so we’d better hurry.”
A few minutes later they were back at the tubeway. “Science Center, Section Two,” said Alex, wasting no time.
Alex and Mary were expected. Jeanne Warren and Matt Howarth, who knew them from the second reef mission, met them at the Biolab entrance. They both wore foam suits like Alex and Mary’s, but theirs were bright green. Jeanne smiled as Matt reached past her, offering his hand to Alex. “We got word you were coming over. There’s coffee if you want some.”
“I thought you were the geebrew connoisseur.” Alex smiled engagingly.
“Not since they put me in charge of this Biolab.” Matt patted Jeanne on the shoulder. “Jeanne has the babysitting job,” he added.
Matt’s assistant rolled her eyes but maintained a pleasant smile. “Care and feeding, that’s me,” she said, not too cheerfully. “If you want to take a look at them we should do it soon,” she advised, glancing over her shoulder at Howarth.
They all walked quickly down a plain white corridor lit by a single fluorescent strip to a pair of doors marked BIOLAB. The doors slid open, revealing another corridor. A sign on the blank wall had arrows pointing in opposite directions. To the left were offices, and to the right, Exobiology.
Chapter 8
1
If Alex had expected the clicks to be kept in some slapped together tank, he was wrong. The enclosure was far more elaborate than he’d thought would be necessary to keep the clicks alive. Standing before the huge curving glass wall that contained them, all he could see was the reflection of the laboratory. “One-way glass?” asked Alex. “Or are you just pretending the clicks are here.”
“Oh, they’re in there, all right,” said Matt Howarth. “We keep it dark … like their home on Jupiter.”
Alex put his hand up to the glass trying to see inside. “Is there a way we can see them?”
“I was getting to that,” interrupted Matt, signaling with a nod to Jeanne. She touched her temple and muttered some orders to someone unseen.
“You’re wearing com-tabs,” Mary whispered. “Are you …?”
“No, Mary,” answered Jeanne. “I’m not a Sensor, but I had a BioCom system installed. Like you, I had it done for the mission. Built in com tabs are optional, of course … for us. But if it gives you an edge … well, bite the bullet, right?”
Alex wasn’t sure if Mary Seventeen was being slighted by Jeanne. If so, she shrugged it off. “I hope they appreciate your dedication,” Mary said, smiling politely.
The lights lowered to near-total darkness. A moment later the interior of the tank was illuminated by a green light. Inside, floating lazily amid fluffy shards of reef material, were the two clicks. “Looks like they had a pillow fight in there,” Mary snickered.
“Pillows stuffed with black feathers, no doubt,” quipped Matt. “That’s the flotsam we’ve been making for them. As you can see, Alex, your pets are fine.”
At the top and bottom of the circular enclosure were vents and what appeared to be access doors, but the details were hard to see. Debris was floating everywhere, propelled by air currents in the tank. Floating aimlessly, side by side, the clicks seemed oblivious to the fluffy maelstrom or the humans outside the glass.
Alex watched them closely, struck by their apparent calm. “Is that all they do?” he asked. “They’re pretty casual for captives. Are you sure they’re okay?”
Howarth laughed. “They’re alive, Alex. All we can say about them for now, but that’s what counts.”
Jeanne seemed annoyed with Matt’s offhand style. “I think they’re fine … but we have no idea what their condition is. I would expect them to be in shock, but obviously …”
“They don’t seem agitated,” Alex noted. “Do you sense anything, Mary?”
“I hear them,” she answered. “They’re muttering.”
Matt looked at Mary Seventeen and smiled appreciatively. “Do you think they know they aren’t on Jupiter?”
Mary looked incredulously at Matt. “How would I know that?”
“Well … as I recall, you’ve provided some insights into their behavior in the past.”
“I get feelings when I hear them sometimes, Matt,” Mary conceded with a shrug. “But, honestly, I’m never sure if the feelings are theirs or mine.”
Matt looked disappointed. “I was hoping you could help us understand them.”
“We’ve been recording and analyzing their sounds since they entered the tank,” added Jeanne. “For what it’s worth.”
“Care and feeding? How’s that done?” Alex asked. “And where’d you get that reef stuff?”
“The Chemlab fabricated it based on samples of the reef,” said Jeanne. “It’s a mix of carbon rod … fullerenes, all easily manufactured. We use them already in our composites.”
Annoyed that Jeanne was stealing his thunder, Matt cut in. “The air is warmed and flavored with the same mix of gasses we found in the reef. We’ve salted the air liberally with a bacterium that we grow in our lab.” He pointed at the doors on the far side of the room. “It’s piped in directly. We’re pretty sure it’s the bacterium that sustains them,” he added. “So we’re growing a lot of it.”
“How much time before the jump?” Mary asked, scanning the walls of the lab. “Neither Alex nor I have timepieces. Why aren’t there any clocks around here?”
“Fifty minutes,” said Jeanne, looking at her wrist. She wore a black plastic strap that bore glowing red numbers. “It was my great grandfather’s,” she added, holding it up. “It has the original LEDs. A real antique.”
Alex never took his eyes off the clicks, seeking some clue to their condition. “How long will it take to get back in our crib?”
“Maybe ten minutes,” said Matt, admiring Jeanne’s watch.
Alex relaxed a bit, knowing they still had plenty of time, but he kept his eyes glued to the clicks. “How did the clicks do during the last two jumps?”
“Fine,” said Matt. “They acted the same. This area is protected with a field during jump insertion. You could stay here, I guess, but …”
Alex scratched his head. “Do they ever fly around? Become active?”
“If they have, I haven’t noticed.” Matt looked at Jeanne and she nodded.
“That’s all they do? Just hover?” Noticing a seat near the wall behind him, Alex sat down. “I want to watch them a while,” he said. “Is that okay?”
Mary wasn’t as fascinated by the clicks as Alex. She asked Jeanne and Matt for a quick tour of the facility. Alex was invited along, but he declined. “Not right now,” he said, leaning back against the foam covered wall and folding his arms across his chest.
“Like watching grass grow,” Jeanne laughed as she, Mary, and Matt exited the room through a door marked LAB.
For the first few minutes it seemed that Jeanne was right. The clicks did nothing but drift, but Alex noticed that they were drifting toward him. It took a while, but soon they were hovering side by side, as close to the glass as their flowing arms allowed.
“What’s with you two?” he asked in a loud voice. “I know somehow you can see me. Don’t ask me how I know, though.” He took a deep breath, got up and stepped closer to the glass. “By the way, I’m sorry I got you two into this,” he said. “All I can say is … I promise to try to get you back to the reef … home. Do you understand?”
While the clicks hovered silently behind the glass, it was easy for Alex to imagine faces on their featureless knobby heads. “We should give the both of you names,” he said, smiling. “Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum, I guess. What do you think?”
Matt entered the room with Mary and Jeanne close behind. “Why name them?” he inquired, looking amused. “They’re identical.”
Alex shrugged.
“What do you think, Alex?” asked Matt. ”Any thoughts about the clicks, other than what to name them?”
“Nothing new, I guess. They seem okay. That’s all I wanted to know,” he said. “I guess we should get back to our place. Thanks for the show and tell.”
Matt regarded the clicks for a long moment. “They seem curious about you.”
“They drifted toward me a bit, yeah,” said Alex. “But I don’t think it means anything. Can they see us?”
“If they can see, I suppose so,” answered Warren. “The glass is tinted but transparent. I’ve noticed they do seem interested when someone’s near the enclosure.”
Alex had seen enough to satisfy his curiosity. He listened as Warren and Howarth debated the clicks’ visual acuity, but it offered no insights, only speculation that he himself had already done. He took Mary’s hand. “We’d better go,” he said. “Jump time.”
2
Only a few minutes after leaving the Biolab, Alex and Mary were at the underground door to their quarters. Matt had accompanied them to the cab and offered a courteous, if stiff, invitation to revisit the lab. When they entered their home from its underground entrance, the lights came on automatically and the computer at once began to nag at them.
“Launch time minus 29 minutes.”
Inky had met them at the door, scolding them for having left him alone, but fresh bowls of cat food and water placed lovingly in the corner of the bedroom pod changed his mood.
They took a few minutes to get snacks from their food panel, then retired to the bedroom, where they undressed and showered before finally entering the protective module. Mary glared at the pink foam suit folded at the foot of the bed. “I’m not wearing that sweaty thing again, Alex,” she grumbled.
The computer was listening. “
The stasis dome provides four thousand times the protective screening of a standard issue PCM foam garment, Mary. Though highly recommended, the suit is optional for our next jump … which is in seven minutes. The dome will close in one minute.
”
Alex dropped the towel wrapped around his waist and joined Mary in the pod. A minute later the dome closed, as promised. She stretched her long body and rolled toward him, draping across his chest. “Still thinking about the clicks?”
He rose up on an elbow and stroked her soft white hair. “I don’t know. Nothing much to say. We should watch a movie.” He smiled and kissed her bare shoulder. “Something good to jump to.” He lifted his head. “Can we do that, computer? Watch an old film?”
“
Of course, Alex. If your selection is in the ship’s entertainment library.
”
“Name it, Mary,” said Alex. “Mrs Computer is always listening.” He eyed their surroundings dubiously.
Mary turned over and looked up at the seamless white dome. Red glowing numbers reminded them of the ongoing countdown. She smiled. “The Wizard of Oz,” she said.
“
Loading MGM’s 1932 classic …“The Wizard of Oz” … from the entertainment library
.”
Dorothy’s house was swept into a tornado just as
Goddard
performed what the computer called a mid transit pulse series.
Inside the maelstrom of a wormhole, Alex, Mary, Dorothy, and Toto moved into a new universe.
3
The film ended long after Alex and Mary fell asleep in each other’s arms, and they missed the amber haze that discolored the lavish holographically reconstructed scenes of Oz. But without those medicinal gasses, they would not have slept and their nervous systems would have reacted adversely to the effects on their consciousness of the bending of space. Even Mary’s genetically perfect body, like any other organism, had its limitations. Her bio-mechanical nervous system was especially vulnerable. Without medicinal help, few aboard could survive five powerful jumps without sustaining some neurological damage. As they slept, micro-factories in Alex and Mary’s pod sampled the air to diagnose their medical condition.
When they awoke the dome was blank. “Two more to go,” muttered Alex, feeling as though he had just been raised from the dead.
Mary was already up and getting dressed. In fact, only inches from his face her beautiful naked rear was wiggling into her foam flight suit. Alex smiled and found that his cheeks hurt. Also, his knuckles were swollen and sore. He slowly rose from the bed and found pain a complement to almost every movement of his body.
Mary turned and looked at him. “You look pale, Alex. What’s wrong.”
Alex tried again to move and collapsed. “Dingers. My muscles hurt. I hurt.”
“
Kindly lie back on the bed, Alex
,” said the computer. “
Mary, if you could leave the bed area I intend to close the dome to evaluate Alex’s condition.
”
“Do it, then,” said Mary, feeling Alex’s forehead. “He feels cool,” she commented as she stepped away from the bed. “Okay, close it up.”
Alex lay back and waited, the room swimming around him. For a moment the computer did nothing. Then it spoke again. “
The cat is at the foot of the bed.
”
Mary ran to the spot and dug through the bed covers. Underneath, she found Inky curled in a ball. She scooped him up, took a few deliberate steps backward and waited, clutching Inky between her breasts.
Alex waved bravely, forcing a smile, as the dome slid shut.
He felt better lying down. “
Just relax, Alex,
” said the computer’s reassuring voice.
Johnny’s bearded face appeared on the dome overhead. The image wasn’t clear. With him was an attractive woman in a purple foam suit. Alex didn’t recognize her. “This is Chief Med Tech Murchison, Alex,” said Johnny in a soothing voice. “We were notified by your computer. You’re a national treasure, Alex. We don’t want to lose you.”
Alex squinted first at Johnny, then at the woman. He knew the image was sharp, so it had to be his eyes that was blurring her face. “Murchison?” said Alex. “See me? Um, how do I let you do that?” He licked his dry lips and looked around for something resembling a button.
“Just say yes,” said the woman in a silky voice. Though her dark countenance loomed large, all Alex could see was a pale oval with large dark eyes, red lips, and black hair apparently tied back, as it only outlined the top of her face. She looked like a cartoon. Alex giggled, “Yeah … why not?”
“That’s a
yes
, computer,” Johnny added.
Alex examined the dome during the seconds that followed, but nothing seemed to change.
“What?” asked Alex.
“Undress, please,” Murchison said.
“Okay.” Alex unzipped his foam suit, giving no thought to modesty. In his haze, the faces hovering over him were no more real than an interactive film. He was weak, but managed finally to pull his legs free of the clinging foam material. Exhausted, he lay back on the bed and looked up again at the faces projected on the dome. They were more blurry than before. He closed his eyes and his mind wandered back in time. He saw Holo-Porn booths on Jupiter’s moon Io, lined up row on row along dark metal gantries, their eerie flickering lights revealing, in glimpses, lonely spacers full of geebrew wishing they were home. “Thank God for Mary,” he whispered.
Alex opened his eyes as full consciousness returned. Murchison’s face moved closer to the monitor. She blinked her large dark eyes, apparently examining him more closely. Johnny wasn’t there now, just the large fuzzy cartoon of the chief surgeon. “He looks pale,” said the woman, looking to her left, off camera. Then she turned to look at something else nearby. Alex guessed they were monitoring the computer’s analysis of the air samples from his dome.
“How do I look?” he asked, forcing a smile.
“The markers show an imbalance,” said Murchison. “A small one, though. Easily fixed with stimulants, Mister Rose. You’ll be fine.”
Alex smiled. “Call me Alex,” he said. “Do you have a first name?”