The Colony Ship Eschaton: The entire ten book series, page 48
“Okay boys, this is the scout ship from different views. Notice how it is hooked to that rope and the rope to the ground? Well, that is so it will not float away. But why can’t I contact Roxanne?” Brink muttered a few other words, which the boys did not understand at all.
“Is Roxanne another talking machine?” Jacob asked.
“Yes. I think that is what sent those words, ‘I am here’ and maybe other things,” Brink replied and then talked to himself some more. “Now if I can just find... yes, here it is...”
The screen showed a log of messages which were all similar in length to the one he had seen with the image of Dome 17. They all came through the same transmission array on the hull of the Eschaton. They all came slightly over forty-seven minutes apart. And, indeed, they did all originate from the wreck of the scout. They came by a directional specific carrier wave.
“Gotcha!” Brink cried out. He was happier than he could remember. “Now, how do I get you inside?”
Brink got up from the chair, and the screen went dark. “What!” He quickly sat back down, and the screen lit up again, but it was back showing the stars as it had at first. “Okay, just got to find it again...” He followed the patterns he had used previously. After some tense and excessively long time, the display again showed the four images of the wrecked scout and the log of messages.
“Jacob, will you slide into this seat and sit with me?” Brink asked. “I think this system will only operate when someone is seated here in the chair.”
“Okay,” Jacob slid next to Brink. The screen remained illuminated.
“Now I am going to slip off, but please do not touch anything,” Brink instructed.
As Brink slid off, the screen remained functioning. With a sigh of relief, Brink walked over to the space suit and examined it in more detail. He held the legs up, then the top and realized there was no way he would ever fit inside of it. Then he looked at the boys, but even Jacob, as big as he was, was not large enough to wear the suit. Besides, I could never ask an uneducated child to do a space walk, it would be hard enough for me to do it. He thought. “Jamie could do it!” Brink said aloud.
“Jamie could do what?” Joel asked. He was excited, mostly due to Brink being so happy, but also because of the amazing images he was watching. “Is Jamie coming here?”
“If I can get a message to her, yes!" Brink said as he slid back into the seat in front of the display screen. “Now, I need to figure out how to...”
Graphics and images flipped by on the screen. “Okay, is this it?” Brink read from the screen. “Habitat One: Coastal Plains, Transport Terminal?” A very grainy image appeared on the screen, and the boys got even more excited. The words 'Live feed’ flashed under the image.
“That is Paavak! I can tell because he has that broken piece in his armor,” Jacob said.
“Yeah, that’s Paavak. He has those big hairy arms,” Joel added.
“Hello?” Brink said as he pushed down on a menu on the display.
Paavak drew out his sword and looked around. He called out. “Tobias!”
The screen showed Tobias running over to Paavak. “What is it?”
“There’s a voice here, different than the talking machine,” Paavak replied.
In the display screen, they looked very small, but the boys were excited to see them.
“Paavak, Tobias, this is Brink. Can you hear me?”
“Brink?” Paavak said as he looked around. “Where are you? Are you behind one of these portals?”
“I am not there, but I can speak to you. I need your help,” Brink said. “Can you get Jamie for me?”
“Tobias, this may be a trick. How do we know? This might be the talking machine? Or it might be sorcery. Do we answer again?” Paavak was shaken. “I am sorry, my friend, that I did not have more compassion for you when you said you heard that other voice.”
“You say you are Brink?” Tobias asked. He had not drawn his sword, but his hand rested on its hilt.
“Yes, I need to speak to Jamie. One of you run and get her,” Brink replied.
“Tobias, it is a trick. One of us leaves, and the other is alone here,” Paavak was looking even more nervous. “The Rectora said Brink went into the forest with two boys, so how can he be here talking to us?”
“Tell him that his wife makes the best apricot cakes,” Jacob said. “Sara’s a good baker.”
Brink turned to Jacob. “Great idea!” Then he again pushed down on the menu. “Paavak, Jacob says your wife makes the best apricot cakes. Is that true?”
Paavak visibly relaxed. “Yes, and Jacob always is coming by and wanting to eat some. But how is this possible? Brink?”
“Yes, I am speaking to you through a machine, but it really is me. Jacob and Joel are with me. I need to speak to Jamie. Can you get her please?”
“Jamie, Michael and Regina left here some time ago. They went with a rolling machine which was yellow in color. The talking machine... they said Theta Four… it well… they left on a journey,” Paavak replied as he put his sword away.
“Do you know where they went?” Brink was getting concerned.
“No.”
“Then can you talk to Theta Four for me?” Brink asked.
“You cannot talk to the machine yourself?” Paavak asked, worry had gotten back into his voice.
“I will help you Brink. What do I do?” Tobias interjected.
“Call upon Theta Four and see if it hears me,” Brink said.
“Theta Four, can you hear me?” Tobias asked with some hesitation.
“Yes, how may I help you? Do you wish transportation?” The machine voice came from the display near the portal doors.
“Did you speak to Theta Four?” Brink said. It was obvious that he could not hear Theta Four.
Tobias felt caught in the middle and was troubled by the events happening around him. Paavak was also nervous about these two different voices that could hear them but not hear each other. Tobias spoke up again. “Theta Four can you hear me?”
“Yes, do you desire transportation?” the mechanical voice replied.
“Brink, it seems that you cannot hear the talking machine, and that Theta Four does not hear you. I hear you, and the talking machine hears me. And you hear me. I do not understand. But what do I do to help?” Tobias said with a large degree of puzzlement.
”Tobias, I am certainly glad you are here with me to hear all this. It is very strange,” Paavak added.
“Ask Theta Four for Jamie’s location. You might have to ask in several ways, or using different words.” Brink said. His mind was working on why the AI could not hear him nor could he hear the AI. But he was grateful that some parts of this intra-ship communication system was functioning. Could this be attuned for biological organisms only? He wondered.
Brink listened to the one side of the conversation while Tobias asked questions. Tobias had experience in doing interrogations, and that showed. Tobias kept weaving questions around the same theme, and despite some obviously sarcastic remarks he made, from what Brink could tell me made progress.
“Brink, that machine is frustrating. But the talking machine told me it did not know exactly where Jamie was, but I finally got it to admit that Jamie is most likely somewhere in a place called Secondary Aquatic. Does that help?” Tobias stated.
“Yes, it is something. Thank you!” Brink replied. “Please tell Rowan and Lottie that their boys are safe.”
Brink started to search for Secondary Aquatic and any systems in that habitat which he could use to contact Jamie. After some time, Brink discovered a menu, which opened up a schematic. It came up and displayed locations in Habitat 8: Secondary Aquatic. Most were red, or in shadow, but one was green and seemed operational.
Brink touched the tabs and muttered. “I hope whatever this 'Weather Monitor’ is that it helps us.”
22 According to the manual.
“Jamie, how long do we keep looking here?" Michael asked. He rubbed his eyes and looked away from the display screen. “These antiques aren’t going to help with our data sticks.”
“I am about to quit as well. I have been all through these systems, but there is no access to anything close to the technology we need. It is all much more about observations and recordings and nothing really about what will help us," Jamie replied. She was tired and getting a bit frustrated. She got up and walked out of Weather Monitor. Michael followed.
“But you know Regina is tearing into this stuff. She seems convinced that this technology will somehow get us ahead, but since it does not even connect to an AI, at least not that I have found. I think we should press on and continue. Just hit the switch on the automacube and away we go.” Michael was stretching the muscles of his legs after sitting so long trying to open up and find ways to use the old systems. The sky tube overhead was fading, and night was coming. The vistas from outside the Weather Monitor were splendid as the sky tube faded, and the light reflected off the seas in either long direction.
“And how did Sihnesto know I was pregnant?” Jamie whispered, as she glanced back inside to where Regina was still working steadily.
“That’s why I was willing to keep at this for so long. I figured there was some kind of scanner here, and he got the information from the scanner. I thought maybe if a scanner could tell you were pregnant, then maybe it could tell what was wrong with the data sticks and readers," Michael quietly responded. “And how are you feeling?"
“With my fingers as I always do," Jamie replied. “Seriously, I am more tired than usual and parts of me ache that should not be aching. The hike over here was not hard enough to make me feel like this. I will be so glad when we can do this the normal way and have this baby develop in a safe extracorporeal nursery. I feel like such a savage.”
“Well, the key is getting the data sticks up and running, or we are all going back to the Stone Age. Can you imagine this as high tech?” Michael waved his arm around.
“Well, the ship is, what, a hundred some years old, and these systems seem to have been built in that same time. Too bad the Fellowship of Maintenance was not the Fellowship of Development and Advancement,” Jamie leaned up against Michael. “So, do we press on still today or wait here tonight and head out in the morning?”
“Michael, Jamie, come here quickly!” Regina called out.
They rushed back into the room and gathered around Regina. She was looking down at the screen in front of here. Words were scrolling across it. ‘Any Dome 17 people? Please access this message.’ It was repeating over and over as it scrolled by.
“So who is that?” Regina asked aloud.
“Can you access that message?” Jamie asked.
“I think so. This system is so old and clumsy, but it has some kind of retrieval program. If I try this...” She pushed on several tabs at the same time, and a new section opened on the screen. After numerous other attempts, she finally was able to isolate the scrolling word message.
A nine panel color pad appeared on the screen. Under it were the words ‘This is Brink. Please enter: green, green, white, blue, red, red, yellow, amber.’
Regina pushed the colors in that sequence. A new image appeared, and the words ‘Live feed’ flashed across the bottom. In the image was a small room with a young boy sitting in a chair. The walls around him showed it to be some kind of control room or something.
“Joel?” Michael asked. He was astonished to see the boy.
“Michael!” Joel yelled back. “Brink! Jacob! Come here! Come right away!!”
“Joel, what is this?” Michael asked as Jamie and Regina looked on.
“I can’t get up or the lights go away. We brought Brink here. Shammai attacked us again! He tried to kill Brink with a stone, but the stone missed, and then we all surrounded him, and he got all afraid, and I thought Brink was gonna kill him, and he thought he was gonna be a pillar of salt, but you know he could not be a pillar of salt. And did I tell you we stayed in Gath? There are no dead bodies there, but I thought I found a dead body in that room over there, but it's not a dead body. Gath was scary and weird. I think it's a stupid place. Brink says he knows what it is, that thing I found, that’s not a dead body, but I don’t understand what he says. He is very sad about some stuff, but he does not talk about it much. But now he is very happy. Brink! You gotta come!” Joel spurted out the words without seeming to take a breath at all.
“Joel, where are you now?” Michael asked.
“I’m sitting here in this chair so the lights will stay on. Brink and Jacob went to pass water some place, and I was told to stay here. We’ve been waiting like hours and hours. This machine can see all kinds of stuff, like stars, and we talked to Paavak and Tobias, and they talked to that talking machine, Theta Four, but we couldn’t hear it. Isn’t that stupid? We could not hear it, but Tobias could, and we could hear Tobias. Paavak seemed kind of scared when we talked to him. But this thing shows us other stuff like some wrecked junk hanging on a rope..." Joel caught himself. He remembered that Brink said the junk was Jamie’s and Michael’s. “I mean your stuff isn’t junk... I mean it kind of looks like junk, but Brink said it's really important and that we needed to get Jamie here. Brink! Brink! You gotta come now!” Joel screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Joel, slow down. Please just tell me one thing at a time, okay?” Michael pleaded.
“Okay, but there have been lots of things happening,” Joel replied.
“You are with Brink and Jacob?”
“No, they are off passing water. I am here in the room sitting on the seat so the lights don’t go off,” Joel replied.
“But Brink and Jacob are coming back, right?” Michael prodded.
“Right!”
“And you three got attacked by Shammai?” Michael asked, and Jamie squeezed his arm.
“Right!”
“You’re not hurt? Not any of you?” Michael went on.
“Nope! Shammai ran off. He was so scared of being a pillar of salt. You shoulda seen his face. It was almost as funny as Conner and the wild beast,” Joel smirked a bit. “Brink! Come back!!! Brink!”
“Did you and Brink use the transports?” Michael asked.
“Nope.”
“So you are in Antioch?” Michael was a tad frustrated but tried to keep it out of his voice.
“Nope. You see, Brink came and said he wanted to go to the edge of the world, and Papa said we could go with him, since we know how to get there. But Brink did not say which edge of the world...”
Brink walked in behind Joel; Jacob was following. “What is it Joel? I heard you yelling,” Brink looked the display screen. “Oh! Now, carefully, let me slide into this chair.” Joel and Brink switched places. “This chair seems to be activated by weight, or something, I really need to delve into its operation. We have lost the contact several times,” Brink said as he settled into the chair. “Jamie, it is so good to see you!”
“Hello, Brink. This is a huge surprise. Where are you? Joel tried to explain,” Jamie was so pleased to see Brink. Brink had a haggard look about him and seemed to be a bit shaky in the way he moved.
“I backtracked, with the help of these boys, the route you and Michael used in getting onto the Eschaton. I have found Roxanne! The FTL scout is still tethered to the hull. We need to get it recovered as quickly as possible. Roxanne is generations ahead of the antique systems here. Our best bet in fixing the data sticks is using Roxanne. How soon can you get here?” Brink was almost manic in his comments.
“Brink, I don’t even know where you are exactly? You backtracked our route in? So we will need to come all the way back to Antioch and then across that habitat?” Jamie was imagining the journey, but then the issue of the pregnancy and her desire to do it the normal way occurred to her. “We will leave right away, but how did you find us here?”
“I am using the remains of an intra-ship communication system. I spoke to Theta Four through the legionnaires and learned you were in Habitat Eight. So I sent the scroll message to every functioning thing I could find in that habitat. I have gotten some other bizarre replies, but we can talk about that when you get here.”
“So you can contact Theta Four?” Jamie asked.
“In a roundabout manner, yes.”
“Okay, we will head back, and I will connect with you again from the portal room. Watch for us there,” Jamie replied. Jamie saw Brink rise from the seat, and the display went black.
“That was pretty vague about where they are,” Michael said. “I mean, those halls and stuff under that habitat are a maze. We never have found our way back to the zero-gravity gymnasium. But Roxanne would really help!”
