Until the Dawn, page 35
"You don't have to worry, William. The Mirikon your Doctor has prescribed is working perfectly. The reason you're having a reaction is simply a result of the direct exposure you had. You're in absolutely no danger."
"I hope you don't mind if I confirm that," William decided as he sat down by the work station on his desk. He typed up a quick E-Note to Dr. Simon and let her know that he was having hallucinogenic symptoms and ended the communiqué with a query as to whether he needed to stop by for a booster shot of Mirikon. They already knew the unknown bio-agent was non-life threatening, so he saw no immediate need to use the Comm-link and wake her.
"You're thinking about going back there aren't you?"
"Pardon me?" he said, swiveling in his seat to gaze – somewhat in disbelief – at the image of his long dead wife.
"Your conversation yesterday morning with Mr. Komm – it sparked the thirst for revenge in you, too. You're considering a return to Earth, so you can try and be a hero," she said. "I know you, and that's exactly what part of you wants to do. Go back and try and help the survivors – if there are any." She paused, folding her hands neatly on her lap. "That Brotherhood attack was hideous… you've seen the video footage and know that they are too powerful. You're simply going to get yourself and everyone who comes with you killed. Can't you see that?"
He looked at her with more than a little intensity. "We have been working with Peter Wrangler to find new ways of identifying and dealing with them. If we can build weapons that will beat them then I most certainly will consider going back and knocking them off their damned hill. What are we supposed to do now that humanity is defeated – let their bloodthirsty nature turn on each other while what's left of our people get caught in the crossfire?" He shook his head in disbelief. "A society that only knows how to kill will look for new enemies… and if they don't find any they'll turn on each other. Who knows," he snapped furiously. "Maybe they'll even start a civil war and begin destroying four or five stars per year in our galaxy just so they can keep their opponents off balance."
"You cannot control what the Brotherhood or strange, alien races do any more than you can control what people like Jon Komm do," she pointed out. "There will always be people who think and believe differently, who value life less than we do, or who simply are bloodthirsty and like to kill. Our civilization has been many things, but it has never been perfect."
"The Brotherhood will find out that running our society efficiently will be much more difficult than conquering it," predicted Norris.
"So let them figure that out for themselves. Leave it alone. You don't have to try and play a part in that battle any more, William. For God's sake you have our son to think about."
"Our son deserves his home," snarled William angrily. "He deserves his grandparents around him and his Mother to turn to for advice. He deserves a lot more than he's going to get in life. All parents want things to be better for their children than it was for them."
"Our son deserves a home," Elizabeth said, correcting his statement. "You've found plenty of places out here that are suitable for colonization already – and with the Waywardsman's technology you've also managed to put the Brotherhood threat permanently out of reach. You've already beaten them William – there's no need to go back."
"They took our homes," William said, tears running from the corners of his eyes. "And they killed our families. Our families!"
"And if you go back they'll kill you too," she insisted softly. "Where does that leave James? He adores you and you're all he has left."
"I am the commander of the Waywardsman Project and a Naval officer," William said fiercely. "It is my sworn duty to safeguard my people and fight back against our enemies… whoever they may be."
"Your duty as a father overrides everything else," she protested. "I'm not around any longer to remind you, but if I was still by your side I think you know how I'd react to your suggestion of fighting back against the entire Brotherhood military. All you're looking for is the same kind of revenge you accused Jon Komm of."
"You're damn right I am," Norris said, standing up and wiping the tears from his eyes. He took a tentative step toward the couch. "Beth…" he pleaded softly.
"Take those angry feelings and put them aside," his wife said firmly. "They won't help James and they'll only tear you apart emotionally. Be a father William. Be a good Dad. If you do that then you will have already beaten the Brotherhood because they can no longer touch you, or any of the families on this crew. Nothing is more important than keeping the children on this ship safe and the future of humanity intact. You have the power in your grasp to guarantee the survival of the human race. Isn't that more important than fighting back?"
"Right now I'm not in a position to guarantee anything," Norris growled. "We're floating in the middle of a huge gravity river and I don't think we're going to be able to make it out of here in one transit. It's quite possible that we have a very long journey ahead of us – James could be a kid without a real home for a very long time."
"Perhaps I can help with that," said a voice from behind him.
Norris spun around quickly and noticed an elderly man standing behind his kitchen counter. The newcomer was thin, had a wrinkled face and friendly smile along with wispy curls of hair so gray they appeared almost white. He was dressed in a dark blue sweater and gray slacks. As the Captain watched he walked out of the kitchen and crossed the room to stand next to the sofa. "Who are you?" William asked cautiously. "I know hallucinations have at times become commonplace on the Waywardsman, but for the most part people generally see someone they know. As far as I can recall, I've never met you before."
"No you most certainly have not," the man agreed, smiling warmly. "You'll pardon me for not introducing myself sooner, but I've never seen a man have a conversation with a couch before so I wanted to observe you a little bit."
"As far as I know, this time I'm having a conversation with my kitchen," William said, feeling a little bit ridiculous. "The only difference is that now I see two imaginary people instead of one."
"Do you?" the man asked carefully, raising an eyebrow. He turned and glanced toward his left, and Norris noticed that a very sleepy-eyed James had walked out of his bedroom and was staring at him very oddly.
"Dad… Dad who are you talking to?" James asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "It's kind of early in the morning to be having people over, isn't it?"
"There's no one here James," the Captain responded. "I'm just thinking out loud. Dr. Simon refers to it as a duel between the right- and left-brain halves of our subconscious. We see imaginary people and can even interact with them if we choose to… but in reality we're simply visualizing a conversation that's occurring inside the brain. I touched some mineral rocks this morning and they must have…"
"Who's the old guy?" James interrupted, pointing at the wizened, smiling newcomer. Norris stopped in mid-sentence and stared at his son.
"You can see him too?" he asked.
"Yeah, he's standing right there in front of you," James said, sounding a bit more alert than when he had first walked into the room. "Can't you?"
"Sure I can, but he's not supposed to…" On impulse Norris stepped forward and reached out a hand to Elizabeth. Her image had faded a little bit but he could still see her and she also reached out her hand toward his.
"Take care of our son William," she said. "I love you both so very much." She nodded warmly at her husband and then looked lovingly toward her twelve year old son as if grateful to admire him one last time. Norris reached out carefully and his hand passed right through her. He waved it back and forth to be sure, but she was definitely one of the bacteria-induced hallucinations that the crew had been reporting since their visit to the 'Atomic Nightmare' star system. The interaction with James had helped awaken his own sleepy subconscious and he watched her fade completely away. The older gentleman, however, continued to stand next to the sofa with a big smile on his face.
"Welcome to my home Captain Norris," the man said pleasantly, stepping forward and offering his hand in friendship. "I know a lot about you and I plan for you to know me as well. My name is Noah and I sincerely hope that you and your Council will welcome a delegation from my world aboard your starship." William stood where he was in complete shock for a moment before carefully holding out his own hand. As he had done with Elizabeth, he cautiously reached forward and was completely astonished when his hand unexpectedly touched warm human flesh. Stunned, he shook hands with the man while James stood giggling in the background.
"Noah," Norris said carefully. "It's nice to meet you, Noah. I don't mean to be rude, but I hope you'll understand and humor me by telling me just who you are and what you're doing on board the Waywardsman."
"Isn't it obvious?" James asked, continuing to laugh with delight. "That's the guy who sent us the mystery picture, Dad."
* * *
Aaron nodded sleepily at the two marine guards standing next to the Observatory wing's hatchways. He entered cautiously and walked slowly out into the central working area, trying repeatedly to keep from yawning. Over by the main office area he could see Jillian and Greg – both were excitedly discussing something.
"Good morning," he said drowsily as he joined them. "What's up with the early morning wakeup call? It's not even five in the morning yet, for God's sake."
"We had a choice," replied Greg. "We could disturb you or we could disturb the Captain. So welcome to the Observatory!" He handed Aaron a cup of coffee and the elder Rem took a sip as he surveyed all the printed material that was spread out all over Dr. Marcus's desk.
"Okay Doctor," Aaron grinned. "I give up. What's worth disturbing me at this hour? Did you find a neutrino with a crappy attitude or something?"
"You're joking right now, but you won't be in a minute or two," Jillian said confidently, handing him a photograph freshly printed only moments before. He took the paper and studied it intently, noting that it showed mostly the golden nebula mist that they had grown used to seeing during the Waywardsman's slow journey along the length of Poseidon's gravity river. There were some additional red- and green-colored nebula clusters in one corner, but other than that…
"What… what exactly am I looking at?" he asked. "This is just another one of your pictures of stellar irradiated dust."
"Not quite… take a look here," Jillian said, pointing to a dark spot in the upper right corner of the photo. "One of my astronomers detected this less than two hours ago. It's very hard for us to locate individual objects with all the nebula dust floating around us, but he managed to get a decent shot of this because it's so huge."
"Okay," Aaron said hesitantly. "So you woke me up at 4:30 a.m. in the morning to show me a picture of a black circle almost totally obscured by a gold dust cloud. I still say big deal." He watched as Jillian frowned and handed him another picture – this one a magnification of the object she had pointed too. Aaron glanced at the new photo and did a double-take before whistling as he set his coffee cup down. "This…"
"…is a 3 dimensional sphere of empty space," Dr. Marcus finished for him. "It's sitting in the exact center of the gravity river like a boulder in a stream. Everything that touches its perimeter breaks apart just like the current in a normal river of water would and continues its course around it."
"How close are we to this spherical void?" asked Aaron, suddenly intrigued.
"Extremely close," Jillian said, tapping the picture with her forefinger. "It appears as though our CAS transit into the center of Poseidon's river was indeed a planned adjustment to the Waywardsman's course by someone – we're drifting directly toward it."
"Well what is it?" he asked. "It looks like the result of some kind of energy source that neutralizes gravity. It's acting just like a magnet would when you move its positive pole next to a negative one. It's obstructing or repelling all of the dust and stellar objects that come in contact with it, forcing them to simply float around."
"For starters it's almost three million light years in diameter," Greg spoke up. "It's also a perfect sphere – Dr. Marcus's astronomers have not been able to find any distortion or fluctuation in its shape whatsoever."
"Is it man made or a natural occurrence of some sort?" queried Aaron.
"We weren't absolutely certain at first, which is why I woke Greg up first. Two of our advanced Canary Probes have extra equipment built into them including a small PTP transit drive. We sent one of them into this 'sphere of nothing' to take a closer look around."
"If nothing else, we were going to verify that standard Point-to-Point still works," commented Greg. "The Canary's trip was successful, so now we know that if our attempts at CAS re-initialization fail, it may take a little longer but we will eventually be able to move back out into normal space." His expression was confident. "The Captain and the rest of the crew will be happy to hear about that part, at least."
Aaron leaned thoughtfully against Jillian's desk and took another drink from his coffee cup, carefully studying the enlarged picture of the dark sphere. "So don't keep me in suspense – what did the Canary find?" he asked excitedly.
"This," Jillian said enthusiastically, handing him a third picture. The new photo had a computer date and time stamp in the lower right corner, information that was automatically supplied by the Probe's camera. Other than that the image was completely black except for the object in its center.
"It looks like a ring of gold," observed Aaron. "It's just a simple oval."
"The photo was taken at an angle," pointed out Jillian. "But we were able to use our computer system to estimate that when viewed from above, this golden ring appears to be a near-perfect circle."
"But what is it?"
"That is a small, artificially constructed galaxy containing approximately four and a half billion yellow stars similar to our own back in the Milky Way," Dr. Marcus continued. "The circular ring of stars is 80,000 light years in diameter and – like the spherical void surrounding it – the star cluster's shape is simple geometrical perfection."
"So it has no spiral arms like a standard galaxy?"
"Nope," Jillian grinned. "And no red giants, no blue giants and no black holes other than the super-massive one at its center. This is a man-made galaxy specifically built to contain stars capable of holding habitable planets in a stable orbit." Her expression was one of pure delight. "Someone has technology that is so far beyond ours, it's… well, more than I would've ever hoped to run across. Finding Poseidon was an astronomer's dream, but this… the engineering involved in creating this is absolutely awe-inspiring."
"The inhabitants have to be the people who sent us the mystery transmission," Aaron decided, his enthusiasm growing as he continued to carefully examine the detailed photographs that he held in his hands. "They have to be!"
"That's very likely," Dr. Marcus agreed. "It's just one of the reasons that Greg and I decided to wake you. We're still wondering whether we should wake the Captain too."
"I'm not so sure about that," Aaron objected. "He had a pretty rough morning yesterday helping Colonel Emerson deal with crowd control during that deck four situation. I say we let him get his rest, if for no other reason than to give your team the time they need to gather more facts." He turned his attention to Greg. "How far away are we from this galaxy?"
"If we continue to drift, we're still weeks away," responded Greg. "But if we power up our engines we could be there within a couple of days. The Captain will have to decide that one."
"We'll likely get a decision from him soon," Jillian commented, continuing to behave more excitedly than they had ever seen her. "Captain Norris is due in the Command Dome at 0600 this morning, so I guess you could say we have a little surprise for him."
Terra Firma
UNTIL THE DAWN
Chapter XIX: Terra Firma
* * *
Dr. Jillian Marcus sat quietly in the Observatory, absolutely elated. One short week after encountering an extremely advanced alien civilization the Waywardsman was moving quickly toward the home galaxy of their newfound friends. That is – she mentally noted – the small but profoundly elegant galaxy that was completely man-made and organized into its current structure long ago by human people just like themselves. She could still remember the stunned expression on Aaron's face when the Captain had first introduced them to Noah.
As if things couldn't get any crazier, that was about the same time Colonel Emerson showed up to notify Norris that an undetected, unknown shuttle had docked on the starboard side of deck one and successfully gained access to their airlock. One of the passengers had discovered the small ship by accident, happening to glance out a window from just the right vantage point. Noah had chuckled at the discovery of his ship and then waved his hands while saying "Surprise!"
She held another gift from Noah… a printed image that he had given to her created using the same software as the original mystery universe transmission. The difference this time was that the picture was a simple but effective diagram of the Proteus galaxy – as she had officially dubbed it. At its center was a standard super-massive black hole, but unlike a regular galaxy's gravity vortex this one was very carefully monitored and artificially controlled.
