IMAGINATION'S PLACE
FICTION
JOURNEY TO THE LIGHT
By Speaker Gerald Polley
All rights reserved.
Chapter 19
They got settled in. Carol went to get up from
her chair and nearly flew across the room. "What the?" she
muttered.
"You should have read the warning notices," a voice
spoke up. "Right now we're using gravity plating. It does
not produce the one G gravity that these quarters will have when
they're part of the main ship and it is rotating. Caution in
movement should be observed."
"Thanks a lot!" Carol remarked, rubbing her arm that had come in contact with the wall. "Who are you?"
"I'm this compartment's monitoring system," the
voice answered. "I carry on all emergency functions. You
should also practice getting into your pressure suit in the event
atmosphere is lost. It's not difficult."
Carol looked into her bedroom. Her suit and
her husband's suit were in an alcove there. She wasn't really
claustrophobic, but the thought of climbing in that thing and sealing
the hatch was not exactly her idea of fun. She sighed,
however. "Schedule a surprise drill for some time tonight," she
instructed. "You sure this thing that will seal the baby's crib
is safe? if That it won't go off accidentally or something and
suffocate him?"
"System cannot seal," the voice answered, "if there
is sufficient atmosphere in the room. It can only work if
atmosphere is decreasing. Every possible safety precaution has
been thought of."
Carol grinned. "Rather proud of yourself, aren't you?" she teased.
"I am a synthetic intelligence," the voice answered, "I cannot feel emotions."
"Bull shit!" Carol muttered. "Well," she
continued, "I understand this ship's got a telescope. I was going to go
have a look at it and maybe take some readings."
"A very good idea!" the security system
continued. "My counterpart in that section has been concerned
that those operating the telescope have not seemed too competent.
He would be more satisfied if someone more skilled was operating the
systems."
"That's very odd!" Carol thought. She
understood that there was a very competent group of German astronomers
operating the telescope. She made her way through the ship,
transferring to the zero gravity area made her nervous. But she
soon got the hang of zipping along the corridors. When she
entered the telescope facility a beautiful young woman approached
her.
"Are you the wondrous Carol?" she asked.
"I don't know about wondrous," Carol answered, "but I'm Carol."
The woman laughed. "I'm Anna!" the woman
announced, "That fellow up there is Fritz, and that fellow over there
is Joseph. We've got some new pictures of your strange mystery,
and its in viewing range right now. If you wanna have a look."
"Do I ever!" Carol snapped. She went and looked at
the images on the monitor and then got to the eye piece. She was
studying the object when she was aware of something. Looking in
the telescope's shiny surface she saw Anna coming at her with
something. She jumped away and the woman got the telescope
instead.
"Damn!" she cursed. Suddenly a man seemed to drop out of nowhere.
"Put the weapon down!" he snapped.
"To hell with you!" the woman screamed, and came at
him with the thing. He knocked her arm up and away, and drove the
palm of his hand into her chest. There was a loud cracking. The
woman stepped back and fell over backwards, hitting the deck with
incredible force. The two men came charging in from different
directions. They, too, held the strange looking weapons.
With incredible efficiency Carol's defender put them down. A
swift knee to the stomach, a chop across the back of the neck finished
the first man. A twisting, flowing motion and driving the second
man in the back sent him flying into the rail with such force that his
chest literally wrapped around it. His arms and legs went limp
and he hung there. The man backed off.
Suddenly Carol saw he was wounded. One of the
assailants had managed to cut the side of his head! Carol saw
some towels, grabbed one, got to the man and wrapped it around his
head.
"Where's the sick bay?" she asked.
"Two more sections down," the man answered, "through
the hatch into the gravity section. Go right. You'll find it."
Carol wasn't small. In the no gravity section
her burden was easy, but when she hit the gravity it wasn't that
hard. A man was coming down the hall and she screamed "Help
me!" Without hesitation the man dropped the readout board he was
carrying and in moments was helping Carol carry the man through the
corridor. He spoke into a transmitter and when they got to the
sickbay several hands took their burden. Carol stood by and watched as
they worked. "Damn!" he snapped. "That was close! A
little bit lower and they could've got some of your primary circuitry,
crippled you."
"Only part of me!" the man answered. "Please, do not leave a scar, doctor."
Carol noticed they'd given the man no
anesthesia. "The lady looks in distress," the man
commented. "Perhaps you'd better explain, doctor."
"Oh!" the doctor sighed, "Sorry, ma'am. Our
friend here is a cyborg. He's got quite a few flesh and blood
components but his brain is a computer, and his skeletal structure is
metal."
"Oh!" Carol moaned. "Not an animated tin can with delusions of grandeur!"
Everybody in the room laughed. "Yes, ma'am!" the man
on the bed answered. "Officially we don't exist. But that
is what I am. We developed these forms to better assimilate with
humans."
"There we go!" the doctor snapped.
"Good!" the man said sitting up, "I should go back
and clean up the mess. Being head of security on this ship is going to
be an interesting adventure to take back and share with my
people!" He got down and stretched.
"Just remember," the doctor commented, "you're fast
and you're agile, but you're not indestructible. Bullets will
kill you."
"I know!" the man answered, "But they didn't have any bullets, only plastic swords."
He headed back for the telescope and Carol followed.
"Most grateful for your assistance ma'am!" the cyborg praised.
I'm called Tin, by the way."
"Glad to meet you!" Carol praised. "I wish you didn't have to kill."
"Unfortunately," the cyborg answered, "I didn't want
them to use the explosive charges they carry. Dispatching them
quickly was a necessity. I would much rather have had some long
conversations with them."
When they got back to the telescope there were others there picking up the bodies. "Full autopsies!" Tin snapped.
"Yes, commander!" one of the men answered. "How in the hell did they get through security?"
"Obviously," Tin answered, "somebody switched their
fingerprints and bioscans. We need to find out who that somebody was."
"A shame! She was quite a proficient lover."
Carol looked at Tin in shock. "You were intimate with her?" she asked.
"Several times!" Tin admitted. "They were very
interesting experiences." He went over and began to disassemble
some of the equipment. He looked to two other men and snapped
"Let's make sure they didn't leave any surprises. Thoroughly search
their quarters as well. You may still use the telescope ma'am, but I
believe your object is now out of range. But the gaseous cloud
that will be in sight in a few minutes is absolutely spectacular!
Don't let us disturb you. We'll work around you."
Carol shook her head, went to the monitor, and began
to study the readings that they had just gotten and, was more perplexed
than ever. "Do you think it's really a ship, ma'am?" Tin asked.
"No," Carol answered, "these readings show there's
absolutely nothing in the tail except water. No chemicals,
anything that could've been used for propellant. No, I don't
think it's a ship. It's a natural phenomena but it is very
strange. I don't suppose your people have ever encountered
anything like it."
"Unfortunately," Tin answered "I have not been.... Lord of Heaven! Get her out of here, now!"
Without question one of Tin's assistant's
whisked Carol to her feet and was headed for the exit. The other
came and joined Tin. "Ow!" he remarked, "Careful sir!"
"I intend to be!" Tin answered.
Several anxious minutes passed then Tin's assistant
appeared carrying a cylinder. He quickly got it out of the area.
"All clear!" Tin cried.
"I think I've had quite enough for today!" Carol
answered. "I think I'll call it a night. Thanks again. Where were
you, by the way!"
"Floating on the ceiling," the cyborg
answered. "I just wanted to be around when all of you came
together. I had a feeling they might be afraid of detection and if my
hunch was right they would act quickly. I'm glad I had that
hunch!"
"So am I!" Carol assured. She got back to her quarters and her husband greeted her.
"Heard there was trouble!" he snapped.
"It was taken care of," Carol answered. "These
people are persistent but I don't think they could have much left. I'm
gonna need some new astronomers."
"No you won't!" her husband answered. "They didn't
kill the originals. When word was released that they had failed,
they released them. They'll be up on a flight tomorrow. This time
we'll make double sure they're the right people. We're checking
everybody else out on this section. Don't understand why they
don't like you so much."
"Neither do I!" Carol agreed, "And I wish they'd stop!"
Her husband nodded. "They'd better!" he snapped.
The next couple of days passed quietly. Carol was
asked to speak to the press. She did in a meeting room. Assuring
everybody that the object was natural. "What's happening," she
explained, "is that the sun is heating up the ice inside the
object. As it slowly rotates and faces the sun the water is
escaping as violent outbursts of steam. Usually when the object
is pointed almost directly at the sun. This is causing it to slow
down. But it's changing its trajectory very little. It may
be just enough that it will miss Mars."
"Why isn't the tail getting bigger?" someone asked.
"This object is showing incredible gravitational
force. Something inside of it is generating a magnetic field that
is holding the water vapor in. It is all very odd, but not
unusual. Some large comets have been known to develop magnetic fields
as they come closer to the sun. We have not detected any iron
particles in the water, but that's not saying that there are some
deeper inside the object. We'll simply have to see."
"Well it's going to take you 36 months to get to
Mars," another reporter put in. The object should be gone by then."
"I'm not quite sure," Carol answered. "If it
slows down quite a bit more, if it has enough water to do so, it may
still be around. We can't be sure yet. We should know in a
couple of months. There is a possibility Mars may have a new
moon."
"Wow!" the reporter cried. "That would be somethin'!"
"It sure would!" Carol agreed, "It certainly would!"
Things settled down. Everybody on the ship now
appeared to be who they said they were. Finally the day came
everybody was waiting for. Their shield generator was cranked up
to full power, the ship's engines fired. They moved away from the
Moon. Carol had only made a couple of visits to the surface to
use the telescopes there, herself. But they had given her no more
than she already had. "I'm almost certain of it!" she announced,
"If things continue as they have been this object is going to go into
orbit around Mars, an orbit that should keep it there for at least
500,000 years before it fell into the surface. But I think by
then, we'll have the technology to make sure it doesn't. We'll be
monitoring the results as we approach."
Everyone on Earth was getting excited, they were getting very, very excited!