The Colony Ship Eschaton: The entire ten book series, page 23
“And this Domer, the man called Conner, with the wheelbarrow, he received all his firewood?” Rowan asked Lydia.
“Yes, the boys were already taking it there when the legionnaires found them,” Lydia replied.
“So he came to no real harm, except for the fear,” Rowan asked.
“That is correct,” Lydia replied.
“The boys must be taught a lesson,” Lottie insisted. “They know that fear is not a laughing matter, and they should not play tricks on those less intelligent than they are. We have spoken of their pranks before.”
“Conner is a very smart man,” Brink interjected. “He is just new to this place, as well all are.”
“I meant no disrespect to your people,” Lottie quickly explained. “It is just rather difficult to understand others who do not know the basics of the world.”
Brink did not say anything, but the look on his face was not pleasant. Rowan and Lottie both caught his attitude, but did not understand why he would take offense at honest views toward the Domer’s lack of knowledge.
“We are all one people, not separate,” Lydia responded, looking at both Brink and the parents.
“But Rectora, and meaning no disrespect, but these Domers are unskilled in the ways of the world. Nonetheless, the boys will need to make restitution to the man Conner. I suggest that they deliver firewood to him every three days for six times.” Rowan looked at his sons, and they looked down at the floor.
“That seems like a most agreeable solution,” Lydia began, but Brink interrupted.
“With all due respect, I disagree. I admit that Conner does not know the ways of this habitat’s forest; none of us really do. But may I suggest that your boys consider a different task?” Brink asked the parents. “And may I ask that the boys decide which they would rather do?”
“Of course. What is your suggestion?” Rowan asked, looking intrigued. This was one of the first times he had spoken to Brink, and Rowan was getting a feeling for the man. Rowan admired straight talk and honest expression, and hoped to find that in Brink.
“Jamie and Michael have been looking for someone to guide them in an exploration of this habitat. And I believe your boys are well acquainted with the forest. Would they be willing to serve as guides for Jamie and Michael in the exploration?” Brink suggested.
“Jamie and Michael!” Jacob exclaimed.
“Yes, Jamie and Michael. They wish to make a detailed survey of this habitat,” Brink replied.
“But what of the bandits?” Lottie asked. She clearly was a bit troubled by this suggestion.
“What of them?” Lydia replied. “There has not been much heard about them lately.” Lydia did not mention the cleansing of the village of Gath. That was something that was not spoken about outside of an official confessional time.
“There was some talk about Gath,” Brink started to say. Lottie, Rowan, Jacob, and Joel all made a gasp and looked nervously at one another.
Lydia quickly interrupted in a stern voice. “Yes, Gath is a small empty village. No more need be said.” She glared at Brink, squeezing his knee under the table. No one spoke for quite some time. They finished their meal, and the boys took away the bowls and other utensils. They began to clean the items in the sink and put them away.
“This was a very good meal,” Brink finally said to break the silence. “I am not sure what I just ate, but it tasted very good and was so filling.” He had only eaten a partial bowl of the soup.
“It is lamb and vegetables,” Lottie said.
“Lottie, it seems that our boys have a decision to make,” Rowan stated. The boys rejoined the adults at the table. “Let me see if I understand the options correctly. And please, Rectora, correct me if I am wrong.” Lydia nodded. “Boys, you were wrong to frighten that Domer, I mean, our new neighbor Conner. So you will be required to be in service as a punishment. You can haul wood for Conner, or you can guide Michael and Jamie into the woods. Lottie do you agree that it is the boys' choice?” Rowan asked his wife.
“Yes, they must learn to do what is right. Boys what is your decision?” Lottie looked to her sons.
“Michael and Jamie!” Both boys said excitedly.
“Rectora, will that have your support?” Rowan asked. “If the boys also apologize to this Conner?”
“Yes, that is a good idea. Boys, you will come to the town square tomorrow morning and be prepared for your role as guides.” Lydia looked at the parents, then back to the boys. “And you will remember that your parents will be taking over your own duties here at the farm, so this is not playtime in the woods. This is serious business. And you must go first and explain what happened to Conner. An apology is in order.”
The boys looked at their parents, and it dawned on them just what was happening. They were at the start of a grand adventure. The smiles they wore covered almost their entire faces. They could get through an apology in order to be in on an adventure.
6 off to see zeus
Regina knew she needed to make the trip to Reproduction and Fabrication. She had memorized the route Theta Four had shown her. She did not take long to pack, and she did not inform anyone where she was going. Not that she tried to be secretive about it, it just honestly never occurred to her. Her life in Dome 17 had been pretty much that way. She did her job, went to the few places there were to go, and did what she wanted to do during her off hours. She had not been part of the adventurers team. Those were the people who had explored the other domes and found them all to be dead. She had read their reports and considered their findings, but she did not have any burning desire to leave the safety of Dome 17. The tan dry Earth outside that dome was not appealing. To risk the radiation, the dust storms and the burning heat, all just see some other dome that had failed and was filled with dehydrated corpses was for others, but not for Regina.
This was different somehow. It was just a trip to another part of the ship, and a talk with an artificial intelligence. So she loaded a backpack with five data sticks and three information readers. The readers were not much larger than a food ration bar, so there was still room in her backpack. She did pack a few food ration bars and some water containers. She also brought a small utility tool - or SUT - which had pliers, wire cutters, multiple screw driver heads, adjustable wrench and even a small knife blade. Then she packed in a fusion pack in case there was a need for more energy in one of the places she would travel to.
“Theta Four, I am ready to start off to find Zeus,” She announced as she returned to the portal room.
“The first step is to take the transport to Engineering. That is about as far as I can take you. From there you must make your own way. You may enter when ready,” Theta Four announced.
“Sure you cannot just teleport me there?” Regina said somewhat under her breath.
“Teleportation technology is unknown to me. Brink has explained the mathematics, but teleportation is unknown. From what Brink has said, the system the people from Dome 17 used to arrive on board the Eschaton is incomplete. The receiving unit was in the town square, but the sending unit remained in Dome 17. Brink has explained the mathematics to me, and they are very interesting. But I cannot teleport anything anywhere. Do you still want to use the transport system to go to Engineering?” Theta Four inquired.
“Yes," Regina replied.
The portal door opened, and inside was a room with about ten seats on each side, facing each other. There was another display screen at the end of the room. Regina understood that this was, in reality, a vehicle, which would move her to another part of the Eschaton. The door slid shut behind her as she entered. Then the vehicle shook a bit, and there was a sense of movement.
“Please display status of transport,” Regina said. The screen on the front of the vehicle showed a graph with a green line in addition to several other lines. Her route was plotted in a blue dotted line. It was not a straight pathway. “Theta Four, display route to Reproduction and Fabrication Zone if all Eschaton systems were intact.” Regina commanded.
“Complying. Remember this is not an accurate representation of the present conditions.” Theta Four replied. The new graphic appeared. There was a totally different route marked out. It looked much shorter and far less convoluted.
“Explain why I cannot take the more direct route to reach Zeus.” Regina said.
“If all systems were operational, you could have interacted with Zeus in Habitat One, from which we just departed. There would have been no need to travel to Reproduction and Fabrication Zone. The graphic I displayed showed the physical route to arrive there assuming that all system were operational. Currently only Habitats Five: Tropical, and Eight: Secondary Aquatic are open to transport, along with the Engineering section. Habitat Two: Primary Aquatic, Habitat Three: Savannah, Habitat Four: Asiatic, Habitat Six: Desert and Habitat Seven: Mixed Farming are all sealed by emergency systems. I have no sensors beyond those seals to assess the status of those habitats. I have been unable to link or couple into any of those regions of the ship. The lattice is nonfunctional. So I plotted a route around those unknowns. Records show significant damage to some systems, so it is likely that inside those habitats there is also significant damage. Ship’s emergency protocol only seals these doors when there is a grave situation. However, the last transport to Engineering discovered an unauthorized security system and defensive system had been installed at that entrance. That threat has since been neutralized, and I have sensors in 11% of the Engineering Section.” Theta Four explained. “Remember, we can only interact for a short distance within Engineering.”
“Thanks, Theta Four,” Regina was reconsidering the wisdom of her choice to try this trip, but she was determined to press onward.
“Arrival in Engineering Section is imminent. I detect no life forms or other dangers in the areas I am capable of scanning within Engineering. There is no evidence of the illegal security system which I deactivated on last transport here.” The vehicle came to a halt, then slowly back upward a bit. There was a clanging noise. The door then opened, and Regina stepped out toward the Engineering Section. The antechamber was colder than the vehicle had been. The lighting was of a different sort, and the walls were covered in expanded metal grillwork. Regina had been told that here was where several legionnaires had died on Jamie's mission to retrieve a vibration saw. Regina walked briskly through the antechamber and into Engineering itself.
She passed by the Emergency Storage Rescue Cabinet (ESRC) whose door was hanging wide open. The shelves were empty. Looking around Regina saw that Engineering was a huge mess. Doors of all sizes were hanging open or half off their hinges. There were some burn marks on various places on the permalloy metal walls. The permalloy here was different than that in Dome 17. It was of a different color, and the way it was spun left a subtle yet quite discernible difference. At least to Regina who had an eye for details. Broken pipe work was severed in several places, and wires were hanging out of sections of the walls. Control panels with wrecked screens were along one side, and seats were upside down. None of the controls here appeared to be operational. There was litter and debris covering much of the floor.
“Theta Four, can you still hear me?” Regina called out.
“I can only hear you by the echo from in there,” Theta Four’s voice came from the antechamber. “I have lost some of the coupling and links to that area. They were damaged, and when I relinked the connections were tenuous. Do you have the route to Reproduction and Fabrication Zone?”
“Yes, I am departing this part of Engineering. I will call for transport when I get back,” Regina replied. Grasping the shoulder strap of her pack, she headed out.
Regina walked past the ruined control section of the area and around some large cylindrical storage tanks. They were several paces wide and nearly as tall as the ceiling. Along a wall behind the storage tanks, Regina found a stairwell that led upward. She climbed the stairs. The route in her mind showed she needed to access areas above the Engineering section. All the major things in the section seemed to have been spun from permalloy metal. As she climbed the stairs she looked out over this Engineering section and was amazed at the levels of destruction that were found. 'Why was this area defended by a security system, if it had already been ruined?' She pondered.
At the top of the stairs, she turned and followed another walkway which was suspended from the ceiling. Various walkways went in different directions. She knew she needed to go upward, but was unsure as to which way to go. The light was not bright enough to show where the walkways went. She started with the widest of the walkways and followed it. After some time she found herself looking at a dead end because none of the doors would open. So, returning to where the stairway was, she tried a different approach.
She tried several more, coming to similar results. The walkways and stairs usually just went toward a part of the Engineering section and then just quit. It made no logical sense. One walkway did show severe damage, and the end was broken and fragmented and bent downward. There had been an explosion in some distant past.
She tried them over and over being methodical in recalling which ones she had tried. The maze of stairs and walkways varied in places. Some were nearly completely dark, and in others beams of light shown down from fixtures in walls or ceiling or, even on occasion, from illuminated floors. Regina tried another. This walkway ran straight away toward the further parts of this section. As she walked, the air grew a bit warmer, and the lighting flickered. As she proceeded along she got to a point where the walkway took a sharp right turn around the corner of some very large pipes. She peered around the corner and saw that the walkway ended in a doorway. The sliding door stood ajar. There were weld marks along both the top and bottom. 'Well, someone was here who could weld permalloy. And they didn’t want this door to be closed.'
Regina looked inside beyond the door. The dim light did not reveal much that was beyond the welded door. It was a room of some kind, but her vision could not penetrate the shadows. Therefore, she removed her backpack and, carrying it, turned sideways and scooted into the room.
A light blazed from the ceiling. Regina threw up her hands to cover her eyes, dropping the backpack in surprise. After a moment, her eyes adjusted, and she saw she was in what appeared to be a living quarters. Or at least where someone once had lived. There was a stack of boxes in one corner. In another corner was a toilet, sink and shower. Rust covered some of the fixtures. The room had an old and unused feel about it. Even with the bright light, the room still seemed somehow dim. A cot was located against one wall. A lumpy blanket was lying on that cot. Regina walked over and examined the blanket. With an odd combination of fear and curiosity, she pulled back the blanket uncovering a skeleton.
The skeleton was dressed in green coveralls; a set of work boots were sitting under the cot.
“How long have you been here?” Regina asked aloud. The clothing the skeleton wore was the best manufactured clothing Regina had seen anyone onboard the Eschaton wearing. It was clearly not the homemade, handmade woolen materials of the people of Antioch. Nor was it the same as the brown nonorganic armor of the legionnaires. It reminded Regina of work clothing. An engineer, her mind told her.
“Well some lights work here. I wonder if anything else is working.” She examined the room more closely. The water fixtures were nonfunctional. The buttons, knobs and levers would not even turn. But in one section of the wall, Regina found a small break between two pieces of the wall. She felt along it with her fingers and discovered a small indentation. Pressing on that released the section of wall, and it folded outward. The panel which had opened was about two hand spans wide and had several large switches and buttons. They were of various colors, but nothing was labeled.
Regina considered what to do. It would all be trial and error. So, starting with the switch in the upper left hand corner of the panel, she turned it. Nothing happened. She repeated this with all the switches, but none seemed to do anything. She next started pushing the buttons. Pressing the third button, a loud noise was heard. A shaking was felt, and a section of wall swung back into itself. A light flickered on.
The elevator door was open.
7 and some rcs will lead them?
“So, Michael, is today the day?” Jamie asked her newlywed husband, short red hair tossing to the side as she talked. Her smiling face was spattered with freckles.
“Yes, I suppose I will need to get out of the dirt eventually,” Michael said as he stood up and brushed the rich black soil from his hands. “I still find it amazing that the dirt feels moist.” His muscular build and short dark brown hair were appealing to his new wife.
“Not to mention the lack of radioactivity or poison or toxins.” Jamie laughed. “And yes, we have a rain day, one day out of every ten, or is it seven? Well, it is too weird.”
