Infinite Reef (46 page)

Not long after Alex and Mary had returned home Johnny had paid them a visit. A lot of things were discussed. First, coffee – or the lack of it aboard. The Commander assured them that almost immediately after the order was given to prepare for a gee-pulse test flight to the Jovian system, plans were being made for transfers of supplies. He explained that teams of robot mechanics had found and repaired a curvature in the neutronium core path. With the correction completed, a test was inevitable. Even from EarthCorp’s point of view, the ship must eventually go to the inner system. The only question was to where and under whose command.

For the crew of
Goddard
the answer was unanimous. From the beginning, all of them had signed on to a one way trip. Each of them had been chosen to be an integral part of a team. They were scientists, physicists, biologists, astro-biologists, bakers, survivalists, librarians, historians, musicians; a microcosm of humanity. Each person aboard and those about to be born had a home, a place that they’d forged with their hands. Legally the ship belonged to EarthCorp, but to this crew the ship was theirs. In a way that bridge had been crossed when they sailed away to Lalande. They’d completed a mission, discovered not only life on an extra-solar gas giant, but advanced and technological life.

This may have been the problem, Johnny reminded Alex and Mary as he reviewed their position. The
Goddard
had encountered alien life. EarthCorp had every reason to be cautious. “That’s the thing, Alex,” lamented the Commander. “Even if Earthcorp has no darker motive than quarantine, if we submit, we’re all doomed to at least some prison time …”

Mary nodded and finished Johnny’s thought. “… and among people who don’t know us and distrust us.”

“Exactly, Mrs Rose!” Johnny raised an eyebrow. “Reading minds, are we?”

“No, Johnny. It’s obvious. Everyone aboard feels that way.” Mary demurred.

Johnny eyed Mary up and down. “You don’t have to hide it, Mary. “

Mary stamped her foot and wrapped her slender arms across her chest defiantly. “I knew this was going to be a problem.” She glared at Alex.

Alex shrugged. “I didn’t tell Johnny … you …”

Mary sat down. “Look. It’s like this. I can tune some people in, sometimes. But it takes work. I hear radio waves …
thousands
of them right now since you’ve allowed the crew to chatter with home.” She looked at Johnny with the expression of a frail orphan. “I don’t share any of that … with Alex. Not with anyone. For a sensor it’s confidential.”

Johnny smiled and nodded. “Then it doesn’t matter if you can read my thoughts, does it?” He straightened. “We’re going to a sun-like star. If we can.”

6
There had been no military action on EarthCorp’s part, mainly because Johnny kept in close touch with his daughter. He even invited her to monitor
Goddard’s
emissions during the gee-pulse test. He was looking at her dark complexion, her dispassionate but beautiful gaze.

His last words were, “Switching off, dear,” as he severed all communications with the shrouded world they were orbiting.

Alex and Mary elected to spend the jump as observers in Master Control with the command staff. As Alex pointed out, it was the only station aboard the ship that still had a drink resembling coffee. He was not getting used to tea. The control room was crowded but quiet. On the viewscreen the sun was rising over the crescent rim of Titan, and it was time for the burn. All 35 of
Goddard’s
powerful engines were given the command to catalyze and atomize molecules of water four. On one of them there was a warning light, flashing ominously on a black wall display behind the engineering unit. A buzzer sounded an audible alarm.

“Let it go,” boomed Johnny over the sound. “Turn that thing off. We can do this with two thirds of our engines down.” Silence was Johnny’s only answer. He looked around him, standing stiffly at his post. “Does anyone disagree? We have ten seconds to launch.”

Again there were no dissenters. Alex and Mary were in the rear lounge, sipping coffee and looking relaxed, although they were anything but. The ship had never done a jump like this before. This time, the gee-pulse would precede the engine burn. From EarthCorp’s viewpoint the ship would simply vanish.

At least that was the theory. Mary crossed her legs and lifted the cat to a more comfortable position in her lap. She’d fought to bring Inky along. The cat was finally allowed only if Mary promised the cat would remain leashed to a drink dispenser in the lounge.

Mary had agreed. For the moment, Inky was happily purring in Mary’s lap. Two seconds later, the purring stopped and a wave of nausea swept through everyone in the room. At the same time there was a sound like a distant thrumming wind.

Alex recognized it. “That’s the drive train,” he whispered to Mary. “Magnetic waves slidin’ down a tube.” A jolt cut off Alex’s words. “Ignition!” he managed as he gripped the metal arms of the sofa. He looked at Mary, sitting tensely with one arm was locked to the arm of her side of the sofa, while her other arm held Inky; wide eyed but still purring.

“Sever all com links with Titan. All links with anyone.” Johnny’s voice sounded grave.

Captain John Wysor had been too busy to meet with Alex and Mary upon their return, although his wife had been kind enough to keep Inky’s dishes full of food and water. The gaunt Captain was now consumed with the launch, but in the midst of it all he caught Alex’s eye and Alex gave him a thumb’s up and a salute, which was returned.

They wouldn’t be talking for a while, Alex knew, and they wouldn’t be sharing any Ganny brew – the Best Brew ‘Round Ol’

Joe.
Goddard
was low on many staples. It was anyone’s guess if fresh coffee or brew or anything would be taken aboard when the giant ship swung past Ganymede. There was a narrow window of opportunity. Alex’s mind was haunted with uncertainties. It was as if a mighty wave had swept in and forced them to flee mankind forever.

Alex’s musings were interrupted by a second sickening wave. “Ooooof,” said Mary. She puffed out both cheeks and rubbed her stomach. “Junior didn’t like that one.” He could feel Mary relax next to him. The chatter she constantly edited from her consciousness was now suddenly gone, canceled out by the laws of relativity. She smiled blissfully and put her head back. It was almost as if she was high.

“Alex?” she sighed. “What on earth do we know about Cassiopeia?”

“Not a dinger, my love,” answered Alex. “But you’ll be the first to know.”

The circular shape of the Master Control room made it easy for Alex and Mary to hear everything that was said in the room.

“What about that engine?” Alex heard the Commander ask his first officer.

“No cameras to see back there, sir,” said Ned. “My guess is something’s stuck inside the nozzle. Its sensors won’t allow it to fire.”

“A person?”

“Something. We don’t know.”

“And we can’t go out and see.”

“Not in gee-space,” whispered Mary. Her head was back and her eyes were closed. Inky, clutched tightly to Mary’s chest, was asleep.

“Not in gee-space,” echoed Ned Binder.

“Continue the burn,” said Mary.

“Continue the burn,” said Commander Baltadonis.

Mary opened one beautiful eye and saw Alex looking at her. She blinked. “It’s so peaceful with so few voices,” she murmured.

“You have no idea.”

A mere twelve hours had passed since they left Titan. There had been constant radio contact with the colonies. Data packets had been downloaded all over the ship and more were coming in. Already, ten teracube data packs had been stored. Also updated were the medical and biological libraries. 1288 crewmen and women were steadfastly with the mission, many of them young or young families. In the end only eleven people wanted to disembark at Ganymede; they easily fitted in two of
Goddard’s
emergency life pods.

As the starship
Goddard
swung past the dusky red moon Io, it released its two pods of human cargo to be snatched up by a Ganny ship code-named
Atlantis
. The significance of that code name was lost until some of the crew began to sift through the data that had been sent to them. One shuttle was there to greet them, loaded with coffee, tobacco, plants and seeds. Also aboard were several families of snakes, two dozen rabbits, a pair of hogs, moles, earthworms and other assorted items. About half of these things actually materialized in orbit above the ice moon Ganymede. Telescopic views showed the same old moon Alex and Mary remembered. As they gazed at it on their viewscreen, they both wondered how such an inhospitable looking place should contain such warm memories. Perhaps only in such an island of harsh reality a colony could evolve that valued human spirit above profit. That was, at least, Alex’s theory. He hope it would apply to
Goddard
colony, as well. That was the truth of it. They were about to become
Goddard
colony, the first one-way space ark.

Alex thought of his times with the miners of Gannytown. Living as close as possible to a good-time life style had an effect on a person, other than merely an incomprehensible dialect. Notoriously cluttered hulks of jury-rigged metal, Ganny ships always smelled like gee-brew, the rightly acclaimed refined potable that tasted great and countered the effects of weightlessness on a body. The Gannys claimed the brew got its spark from the milk ice that was mined there.

Alex had his hopes up. If they only got a few tons of Ganny brew and coffee, life would be complete, he thought. He got his wish. Not only did
Goddard
acquire rare seedstocks, but it added to its hold a new state-of-the-art shuttle and eleven crewmen, seven of them scientists and one a Ganny brewmaster with all the equipment necessary to set up a brewery aboard
Goddard.

With the new additions to the crew aboard they learned that Gannytown had launched a silo full of brew. Then came a shipment of dried milk, sugar, more coffee, oats, mail and technology. Modernized computer manufacturing equipment, and a vast supply of data chips, both recorded and blank.

Alex and Mary observed all this from afar, and with some melancholy. Far beyond that icy moon and all the memories there that beckoned was the planet Mars, where Mary Seventeen was born, and beyond that Earth, Alex’s first home and the mother of all life.

“Well, at least we visited Earth,” she said. Their heads were together as they sat side by side watching the transfer of the goods into the shuttle bay. The transfer was smooth and nothing was heard from EarthCorp.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, an alarm sounded. Alex had fallen asleep watching the moon roll by on the wall screen, but Mary heard the strange alert, received on an emergency frequency: WEIGHT DIFFERENTIAL .7559 TONS. Sensors aboard
Goddard
had detected a reduction of mass. It had been gaining mass as cargo was transferred aboard, but suddenly the ship lost weight. Since everything was accounted for, only one possibility remained. Something had broken off the ship.

All at once, the hair on the backs of each of the 1288 crewmen aboard
Goddard
prickled. This was not the time to have unexpected glitches. They were about to launch toward a star. Their destination data had just been displayed on screens all over the ship:
Distance from Sol: 19.4 light years

Star name: Eta Cassiopeiae A

Star type: Sunlike yellow- orange dwarf G3V

Star mass, radii: 0.91, 0.98 x Sol

Star2 name, type: Eta Cassiopeiae B, orange-red dwarf K7V

Star2 mass, radii: 0.56, 0.65 x Sol

Binary separation: 36 - 107 AU

Hypothetical planet location: 1.1 AU

Possible life: 90%

Alex and Mary looked at each other in alarm. What BIG object had left the ship? Should they be running for the safety of their fortified bedroom? Twelve minutes later a smiling Commander Baltadonis was on everyone’s view screen again. “There is no alarm, people. Nearby ships have scanned our surface. Something left our ship, but it wasn’t a vital part, or any part at all from what we can determine. We have completed loading our stores and are approaching our launch point. As to what left the ship, we aren’t sure. Nearby ships spotted a reflective spheroid heading toward Jupiter. There were no vids taken of it. Prepare for launch. As you were.” Then the screen went blank.

Alex looked at Mary. “A sphere hitched a ride.”

“An alien sphere? From …”

Alex nodded. “What else can it be? Hell, there were two opportunities, one at Bubba and the other as we flew by Bubba 2. An ambassador, perhaps. It seems right, after all, since two Jovians were left with the Lalandians.”

“What should we do?” Mary wrung her hands nervously.

“What can we do? It isn’t
Goddard’s
doing, anyway. This is between the Lalandians and the clicker men.” Alex shrugged.

Again Johnny’s ruddy face lit up their wall screen. “We are now on a formal countdown. For those of you who are wondering, we have had no contact with EarthCorp. If they know what we are doing and have objections, then they are letting us go. Unfortunately we may be leaving them a problem. My guess is that problem is headed for Jupiter, not Earth. But we’ll probably never know.” Johnny chuckled a bit, then continued: “That whatever-it-was hitched on one of
Goddard’s
engines only means … well, we have full power now.

So, this is your one minute warning. We’ll be going to full pulse, so be sure you’re in your shelters.

“As you all know, our goal is a sunlike star, Cassiopea. This star has been carefully chosen from all the neighboring sunlike stars for two reasons. One is that it has a high likelihood of having habitable planets. The other is that it is in the opposite direction from the dog star Sirius, due to explode as a supernova in the not too distant future. We are now Goddard colony, and now that we are colonists, we must be thinking about our long term future. We are looking for roots, for a new life, and perhaps we will find it at Cassiopea. At this point all I can add is Godspeed.”

The End