Paws and Planets (11 page)

“This one has
been activated,” said Winston Randall, ship’s vet and pressed into
this rescue mission five hours before. He was tired, heart-sore and
weary. Not all of the colonists in section six had made it.

As Leading
Rating Laura Merriman, in charge of this rescue and repair party
had said as she detailed him to her squad, “I need someone who can
cope with major injuries. You’re a vet. Humans have bones that
break and tissue that gets damaged just like our animal friends.
Come with me.”

She looked up
from the bodies she was examining.

“Wait until I
get these covered,” she said. “The roster says this cabin held two
adults and two children of twelve and four.” Looking down at a very
small body, she added, “this one’s the younger.”

Laura dragged
Tara’s mother over to lie her beside her dead husband then lifted
young Mark and laid the little boy on top of his parents. An untidy
bundle of bunk coverlets became their shroud.

Laura stepped
back and checked that the makeshift shroud covered all the
bodies.

“United in
death,” she whispered, closing her eyes for a few seconds in
respect before turning to Winston. Mark was not the first dead
child she had come across this fateful day. Youngsters were less
able to cope with the multiple stresses of pressure changes and
other space accidents; these were assured facts. In consequence, a
high proportion of the three hundred or so dead in colony section
six were children.

“It’s the
living I’m more worried about,” Winston grunted as he turned
towards Tara’s cabinet.

He busied
himself checking the cabinet’s external readings. Inside, Tara saw
his silhouette through the Perspex and braced herself for the
compression exchange as the cabinet readied itself for opening. She
had practised this, although nobody had thought she would ever need
to do it for real.

Laura moved
with careful steps towards Winston. Although the gravity had been
restored, it was not yet stabilised to normal levels and was apt to
fluctuate without warning.

“Well?”

“Normal,” was
his terse reply.

“Get on with it
then.”

There was a
whoosh as the door opened. Tara tumbled out of the cabinet with a
low groan. Winston caught her in strong arms and lowered her to the
floor. The girl looked up at him, a dazed expression on her face.
Laura knelt down beside her.

“How are you
feeling pumpkin?”

“Bit woozy,”
was the reply then Tara started to retch as a prelude to losing
whatever remained in her stomach.

The two adults
turned her into the recovery position. Too late Laura realised that
Tara was now facing the covered bundle that had been her
family.

Tara’s eyes
opened wide as she began to comprehend what she was seeing.

Through another
bout of retching she cried out, “Mark?” She began to sob.

Laura looked
over. To her horror she realised that she had not been quite as
efficient with the body-coverings as she had thought. A pitiful
little hand was peeking out of the covers nearest Tara. Laura
wrapped her arms round Tara, trying to give what comfort she
could.

It was not
enough.

The cries got
louder. Tara screamed out the loss of her father, her mother and
her little brother. Tears poured down her cheeks. She began to
choke and to thrash about as the hysterics took hold.

Her rescuers
looked at each other.

“Better give
her a shot.”

Winston pressed
the hypospray to Tara’s right arm. Her eyes fluttered once then
closed as her body went limp in his arms.

* * * * *

EPISODE 3 –
SEARCH

On the bridge,
Rating Rybak was struggling with the star maps. An earnest young
man, he had the reputation of being meticulous in his duties and
was a brilliant mathematician. The son of a colonial farming
couple, at the age of sixteen he had decided that farming was not
the life for him and had asked to join the
Argyll
’s crew.
Without that sense of adventure and independent spirit, he would
probably have done what his parents wished and remained with them
in the colonial sections studying farm technology.

James Rybak had
without knowing it, become one of the most important, if not the
most important member of the ship’s company. Nobody realised it
yet, some never would. He would be the one who would save all their
lives.

He coughed now
to get attention.

“Chief?”

The exhausted
Chief Petty Officer looked at him. It had been a very long day and
it wasn’t over yet. His eyes were red rimmed with tiredness and his
mouth was set in a tight line. There was so much to organise and
bar the engineering officers who had quite enough to do in the
engine room, nobody else able to take temporary command. At least
Commander MacIntosh would be well enough to take some of the load
from his shoulders in a few hours; at least that was what the
medics were telling him. He would get some shuteye then.

He squinted at
Rybak who saw this as an invitation to proceed.

“I think I know
where we are sir!” he said, his eyes blinking excitedly from behind
his gold-rimmed spectacles. James Rybak was one of the few people
unable to wear optical lens implants.

Robert
Lutterell heaved himself to his feet and walked the five paces
towards the navigation console. Hooking a mov-chair with one foot,
he placed it to his satisfaction and sat down with a grunt.

“Right Chief,”
James Rybak began, his fingers flicking over the keypad. On cue a
star map came up on screen.

“This is where
we are.”

Robert
Lutterell looked at the map but was none the wiser. Long ago he had
decided that the technicalities of star navigation were beyond
him.

There was a
pause. Rybak was waiting for a reaction. Glancing at him, the Chief
realised that the young man was looking inordinately proud of
himself, as if he had achieved something that merited a great deal
of approbation.

“That’s good
Rybak,” his superior encouraged, nodding at the screen, “and where
exactly is that?”

“Not where we
should be Chief, in fact, er, quite far away in fact.”

With an
increasing sense of foreboding, the CPO asked the question
again.

“Where
exactly?”

James turned
his head to speak to him. He spoke in a low voice. He knew that
Robert Lutterell wouldn’t want this news bandied about.

“Light-years
Chief. Unexplored space. Even unmanned probes haven’t been this far
out.”

“Light-years?
You sure about this?”

“Yes I am. I
have checked and double-checked the calculations. I
am
right.”

He sounded so
sure and confident and Robert Lutterell believed him.

“How did it
happen?”

“Dunno. I only
know where we are, not how.”

The CPO took a
deep breath and looked at the lad.

“I don’t want
anyone told just yet.”

I understand. I
won’t say a thing.” He looked his Chief straight in the eye. “Will
we ever get back to our home system again?”

A sombre shake
of the head was James’s answer but he had known it already. It
would not be possible to get home.

“I’ll be
getting on with looking for a likely planet then,” he said and
turned once more towards the console, touched the save command on
the keypad and started to bring up more information. He screen
began to display a rippling mass of data, incomprehensible to the
CPO. The older man stood up stiffly.

“I’ll send you
over one of the evaluation technicians if I can find one,” he said,
placing one hand on James’s shoulder and pressing it down to
emphasise his next point. “I say again to keep quiet about this. I
don’t want a panic if the crew and passengers find out before we
have some answers to give them.”

He went back to
the command chair; temporarily his command chair and sat down.

When James
looked over twenty minutes later, Robert Lutterell was fast
asleep.

Stuart
MacIntosh left him there when he re-entered the bridge some hours
later.

James repeated
the devastating news to the man who was now the ship’s commanding
officer.

Stuart
MacIntosh nodded, barked a few orders and the senior surviving
evaluation technician arrived on the run. Two assistants followed a
short while afterwards.

James went for
a rest in the anteroom adjacent to the bridge where temporary bunks
had been set up. The technicians began the tedious task of checking
all the worlds that they might possibly reach for the features that
would support human life. If they felt it a forlorn hope, no
matter, human nature being what it was, they would try.

* * * * *

Some days
later, and on James Rybak’s advice, the WCCS
Argyll
began to
move towards the most populous sector (planet-wise) of this part of
the galaxy. Repairs were completed; the dead consigned to their
airless grave in space. Some semblance of order returned to both
colonists and crew, but none would ever be the same again. They had
gone through too much.

The least
affected by it all were the surviving colonists, some seven
thousand, seven hundred and seventy six. Life continued much as
normal. Two babies were born. Food was prepared and water rationed
out. There were less of both than before, but nobody was
complaining. To stave off panic, Commander MacIntosh told the
colonists part of the truth. He explained where they were and that
there was no possibility of their return. There had been no major
reaction panic to this news. There was some grumbling, but the
colonists, with a few vocal exceptions took the news remarkably
well, much to Commander MacIntosh’s relief. He had been prepared
for trouble.

Stuart
MacIntosh then told a blatant lie as he informed the colony leaders
that they had found a suitable planet with landfall in three weeks.
The colonists harangued him constantly for information. Commander
MacIntosh was quite naturally evasive in his replies, citing
recurring transmitter problems as the reason for the scarcity of
available data. With great acumen he managed to answer their
questions in a general manner, not giving away any hint of the fact
that what he was describing to them was largely a figment of his
imagination. With an inward smile CPO Robert Lutterell listened to
his CO’s handling of the situation and audibly chuckled when Stuart
said that he wasn’t sure what the planet looked like, as the visual
transmissions were so poor, adding that all he knew for certain was
that the planet was round.

Only a selected
few knew the truth. After sober discussion between the remaining
commissioned and senior non-commissioned officers, the ship was
readied for the worst. A mechanism was set up which would send the
entire ship’s complement painlessly and permanently to sleep if a
planet could not be found before the remaining food and water ran
out.

Knowing nothing
of this, specialists and technicians prepared for their arrival on
their new world. Databases were downloaded from the ship’s
computers on to temporary clipdiscs for use on the handheld
datboxes that would be used on the planet. The batteries on the
handheld datboxes would only last three months on the surface;
there was no way they could be recharged once the WCCS
Argyll
’s engines were shut down. The portable solar chargers
were not designed for heavy usage on a planetary surface so the
data was also transferred on to sheets of durapaper as a more
permanent library medium.

Everything that
could be of use was being tagged, boxed and otherwise prepared for
transfer from the ship on the planetary surface. It was intended
that the ship be stripped of everything that might possibly be of
use. Portable cages were prepared and strapped down for the
remaining animals to ease both their descent to the surface and
their transfer off the ship.

The crew kept,
mostly by choice, apart from the colony sections. They knew or
guessed the truth. They were in a sombre mood, preferring to spend
what might well be the final days of their lives with their
families. They also did not want to quell hysterical passenger
riots that might develop if a crewmember inadvertently said
something to let the truth about the situation out. It was safer
for all concerned if they kept their distance and counsel.

Tension was
running high when James Rybak, his supporting technicians grouped
behind him, their faces alight with anticipation and relief,
approached Commander MacIntosh with the news.

James spoke
three words only.

“We’ve done
it!”

Stuart
MacIntosh looked at him, one elegant eyebrow raised in enquiry.

“Done
what?”

“Found an
oxygen based planet sir. Indications from the initial analyses are
positive, indeed we are over ninety-eight per cent certain that it
is suitable for human habitation. We must send the probe out. Find
out for certain.”

“Waste of the
probe if you have made a mistake,” said Robert Lutterell. “We won’t
have another to send to the next planet you find if this one proves
unsuitable.”

James turned
towards him and blinked at him owlishly through his spectacles.
“Chief, we’ve evaluated over nine hundred planets in this sector.
Over eight hundred and ninety didn’t possess any measurable
atmosphere at all, never mind anything else. The atmosphere of this
one is, as far as we can judge, extremely similar to that of Earth.
There are large land and water masses too.”

The young man
turned to face his commanding officer.

“There won’t
be
another sir,” he said earnestly. Behind him, the
technicians nodded in agreement. “This is it. We have to change
course now. It’s the only chance of a future that we’re likely to
get.”