Shackleton's Folly (The Lost Wonder Book 1) (26 page)

“Yes, you did. The box did contain a piece of the ‘inscription’ — as you call it,” replied Electra.

“Good to know.” Alec looked into her face, which was close to his as he readied himself. He kissed her gently on the lips and caught her off guard. He smiled and said, “I needed that.” He stood up quickly from the edge of the med-bed — a little unsteadily at first. It caused Electra to grab him about his naked waist. He quickly dropped his arms to envelop her. “I could get used to this.”

“We have a mission — remember?”

“I do remember, and I will give you this. Something I hold very close to my heart.” He pulled her close. “I make you a promise,” he spoke softly. “I will fix the problem with the maintenance system. I do not take my promises lightly.”

“How about getting on your feet first?”

Alec looked down and nodded. “I am on my feet and ready to go. How… How many hours was I in there?”

“102.”

“I feel a bit peckish. How about a meal, and you can catch me up on what you and Dancer have been up to.”

*

Alec sat back into the cushions supporting him as he tossed back the last bite of an eggroll. He set down the bowl, now empty, and the chopsticks he had been using. “I feel the need for a food coma, but that will have to wait.” The emptiness in the pit of his stomach was now satisfied. The med-bed experience was different for everyone. Alec would usually wake up famished afterwards, and this time was no different.

Electra gave him a look. She saw his nonchalance toward what had happened to him for what it was. He did not want her to worry about the deadly situation he’d had to face to complete the mission. He brushed it off as if it were nothing.

“Yes, I am now full and ready for a status update.”

“We have been on a zigzag course to the nebula. Dancer and I decided that it would be the best way of throwing off anyone who might have followed us.”

“A smart play,” he smiled.

“We have kept watch on the long-range sensors and have not detected anything, so far.”

“So far?” asked Alec.

“I have a feeling we are not alone. I refuse to believe, for a moment, that your Wolfgang Gray has given up on finding us.” Electra took his empty dinnerware from him and returned it to the wall system. She placed it in the receptacle for cleaning and recycling.

“I am sure we are not alone, but this ship can outrun most, so, even if we are being followed, somehow we will get to our destination first,” said Alec knowingly.

“Alec, you do not understand. We need to make sure we are not followed to my home world. Its continued existence hinges on its anonymity.”

“No welcome signs. We will do everything we can to shake them off our tail. Dancer and I have had a lot of practice losing ships who think they can play ‘Follow the Leader’ with the
Quest
.”

Dancer came from the command deck. “Done?”

“Why, yes I am. I was nearly cooked — no, wait. That’s not it. I was seared or braised and then left in a water bath at a relatively low temperature or stewed. So nice to have your supposed friends cook you once in a while. Are you saying I am a cut of tough meat?” Alec grimaced as he turned his ribs, still on the mend. “Did you even look in on me?”

“Believe me when I say I tried, but your medical staff would have nothing of it.”

“That so?” He caught Electra looking at him with a smirk.

“I’ll let it go this time, but don’t let it happen again.”

The
Quest
’s journey into the Frontier through hyperspace bordered on the surreal as they jumped in and out of star systems that only the foolhardy would attempt.

Electra was in the pilot’s seat, and Dancer was in his. Alec sat strapped into the engineer’s position.

“Everyone ready? This one will be a big surprise for our shadows,” said Electra.

“Show me,” said Alec. He was a little hesitant in letting her pilot the
Quest
, his baby, but she had managed not to kill them so far.

“Jump and new heading laid in,” said Electra.

The stars blurred, and they hurtled through hyperspace, arriving very quickly at their destination. In the near distance, a magnetar lurked in space directly in front of them. The gravimetric waves of the 20-kilometer neutron star reached out, rippling throughout the ship. The
Quest
turned the instant they reached normal space and tried to jump a second time. The ship sputtered as the titanic gravity waves distorted near space, making the second jump impossible. Engine alarms and lights filled the station in front of Alec as he rerouted the system around a failed power coupling. That was the one he’d bought from Honest Nedal. He was told it was to spec, but as Alec fought to contain the failure from cascading to more systems and save them from one of nature’s most deadly perils, he promised himself a little payback if they survived.

“Ride the curvature of the space-time well, and get us out of here,” yelled Alec over the alarms, alerting them to additional systems hitting critical.

Electra and Dancer rapidly turned the bow of the
Quest
back toward the magnetar.

“Hit it,” replied Dancer.

Electra hammered the controls as the
Quest
slowly gained speed as it followed the curvature of the bottomless pit the magnetar’s presence caused. The
Quest
’s course skirted the point of no return using the deformed structure of space to fling it back out into space.

“That was close,” said Electra.

“Some booby trap that will make,” replied Alec. He quieted the alarms one at a time as he brought the ship’s systems back into their rated specifications.

The
Quest
’s course curved back into the direction it had intended to take after returning to normal space. It blurred into hyperspace and left the deadly trap for anyone who might have been following them.

“I was relying on the navigation data provided by the good Captain W’shiquan,” Electra responded as she turned to look at Alec.

“Then we should be more respectful of possible inaccuracies in the data.” Alec put on a smile for her, but she rolled her eyes and returned to the flashing display in front of her demanding her attention.

The
Quest
remained on course, its FTL engines throbbing as it traveled through the void. This was Frontier space in every sense of the word. How much of the data was accurate and how much was suspect they did not know, but they were going to be more cautious in the future. The
Quest
came out of its jump into normal space a few light years outside of where they had intended to, giving any other hazards they might find along the way a wide berth.

Space before them filled with a spectacular nebula too dense to see through. The interstellar materials gathered here were in the pre-stellar core category, a nursery of new stars in the early-development phase.

The colors were earthen browns, and yellows, mixed with greens. It looked like a mesa rising from the plain — like an elevated area of land with a flat top, surrounded by steep vertical cliffs. It was as if a landscape artist had had a vision on such a grand scale that he needed a canvas of such size and scope that only the universe itself could accommodate his vision. The
Quest
took a path that would take them over the top, giving the nebula plenty of room. The mesa’s structure was rich with texture and appeared to be weathered; it showed what looked like erosion. They could see a formation further ahead that, to all appearances, was a cavity in the center of the mesa that sank to unknown depths. As they got closer, they saw a ribbon of yellow at the top, encircling the chasm; it seemed to be gripped by an invisible force, its substance pulled downward from the cliff tops. A waterfall of epic proportions ended in the billowy mist rolling out over the chasm’s floor below. The “water” here descended from a wide stream or river, a 360-degree block waterfall of such natural beauty that they all remained silent a moment to take it all in.

Electra checked the sensors for any possible signs of being followed. Dancer engaged in a comparative analysis of the star-chart data and the conditions they had found.

“Initial analysis of the star-chart data and what we have found brings me to the conclusion that the good Captain was not diligent when charting nebulae — understandable but inconvenient,” Dancer commented. “Only infrared sensors will see through the nebula.”

Alec got up to look over Electra’s shoulder at the vast nebula outside. “This is it. There. See — at the base of the waterfall in the chasm? Head for that feature,” said Electra with a tone of excitement in her voice.

“Absolutely amazing — it’s like Niagara Falls on Earth, but, here, it completely surrounds you,” Alec stammered in recognition.

Dancer checked his panel as the
Quest
moved closer to the falls. “Looks good. Another confirmation for your father’s work.”

Alec’s pride welled up in him. He observed, “Better slow it down. We don’t want the dust to burn a hole in the ship.”

“Yes, this is it. I am reducing ship’s speed and heading into the chasm and base of the waterfalls. This is the falls for which you have been searching.”

Alec beamed and looked out the forward screens again. “I give you, The Falls of Ur.”

Their prospective nebula had changed as the
Quest
made adjustments in course. The “mist” rising from the floor of the chasm billowed up and around the ship. The shields held steady against the abrasive mixture of materials. The mostly yellow, dust-like material of the nebula bounced harmlessly from the shields. The
Quest
slowed even more as the density of the nebula demanded their respect.

Alec and Dancer stared at the view.

Alec said, “Absolutely beautiful.”

“A vision from the maker,” Dancer said in agreement.

Alec bent over Electra’s shoulder. He asked, “Where now?”

Electra stated, “We are almost there. I swore an oath with the rest, not to return until we had achieved our mission and found the help needed to save the world.”

Alec said resolutely, “I made a promise to myself long ago to save my people. You are my people.”

“Is it within you to save it?” asked Electra.

Alec smiled. “What is that prophecy again?”

They were now at a crawl but still making progress toward the base of the falls. The closer they got, the darker the material grew around them. The light from the stars behind them was diminished at first because of the mist and now by the darkness of the nebula making up the mesa.

The speakers in the room came alive with a song. A classic, new-age piano piece, featuring a meditative sound and the call of aquatic singers weaving their voices with the instruments. Alec and Electra looked over at Dancer, who shrugged his shoulders. The music blended with the visuals from the front portals. “It enhances the experience,” said Dancer.

The outer shields of the
Quest
glowed eerily as tens of thousands of dust particles and larger objects scoured the field’s surface as if it had one. The ship lowered its velocity even more to reduce the drain on the ship’s systems as they passed into the inner regions of the nebula.

Electra managed to find an eddy of lower-density material in the dust cloud. Then a small channel ran into a larger one, leading ever inward. The shields held as the
Quest
floated inward, following the path of least resistance.

Alec sat at the engineer’s station. He watched over the systems as they compensated for the dusty nebula outside the ship. Alec took it upon himself to tune the forward sensors to get the greatest possible performance out of them. The nebula was extensive; there was no telling what was in there, just out of sensor range. It could be anything from rubble to an orphan planet. Electra wove in and out around material as they went deeper and deeper into the nebula.

Electra watched the scanners seek out what was at the edge of their reach. “We are getting close,” she said. Electra rolled the
Quest
and took it into a climb.

Alec made himself useful — he checked systems, balanced the power between engines, and kept the environmental systems going. The
Quest
hummed as Electra dove and bobbed through the currents within the nebula. She commanded, and the ship responded to her touch. It took a gifted pilot to coax the thoroughbred ship into anticipating one’s needs. The mindset was of peace and ease for Alec. He would get into one of these states of mind and become one with the ship, figuratively speaking. Alec closed his eyes and felt the state of the ship. It was one of harmony and a willingness to follow.

“Alec, I cannot say how this is possible or why this is occurring, but you are fulfilling a prophecy. A prophecy from a time many cycles ago, when we were still on the mother world,” said Electra.

“You mean Earth? Well no, come to think of it, it would not have been ‘Earth’ because that is an Old English term that came into being long after your ancestors would have left our world,” said Alec as he studied the data pouring from the screen in front of him.

Electra reflected, “Some of those who had chosen to leave had sought the comfort of an oracle. It was said that our journey to the lights in the night sky would be long but without incident.”

Dancer manipulated his console and read the sensor data. The dust was thinning ahead of them.

Electra continued, “The oracle foretold that, in the distant future, those who left for the lights in the sky would have contact with the home world again.”

The shields were glowing because of the micro-meteor strikes; now the barrage was softening as they were nearing a void in the nebula’s interior. The
Quest
’s speed rose as the great ship vaulted toward the empty space, promising a rest from the constant drain on her shields.

Alec looked up as they neared the edge of the nebula. The screens began to show what lay beyond. The veil of the nebula was pulled back as they entered a void in the dust cloud. The
Quest
shot out of the tendrils that emanated from the dust cloud’s interior walls surrounding the empty space. The space the
Quest
flew in was eerily without starlight. Dust and gases surrounded them, closing them off from the rest of the galaxy.