Chapter 10
Have you ever noticed, after a hard day’s work, it's always great to get home and put your feet up and let the tension and strain of the day ebb away? For some crazy reason Carl had that feeling now, back in Shadow in the middle of the void of space, sitting eating food without description of contents and talking to a 'walking-talking' holographic force-field! How the hell was it generated? Carl paused in his eating, drinking and listening to Rint to consider what in hell he was thinking or feeling about.
“Some problem there Carl?” Came the hesitant question from Rint.
“No, no carry on. I was miles away for a moment.” Was his jerky reply.
Happy to be home? Here he was regarding Shadow as home? Pat would have said he was cracking up. But, to be honest, where else could he call home at this very minute. Here he was, relaxing and feeling better by the minute, this had to be his home to keep him sane. At least until they found their 'home' planet, Earth.
Rint was still giving his story, or should it be called a travelogue of errors.
Io, evidently, was an untroubled world with climate, population, and everything along the lines of good old polluted Earth.
Io had its advanced technology, as Earth has, but quite a way ahead of Earth. There were clever scientists, 'very' wealthy industrialists and masses of voyeurs.
It was one particular Industrialist who saw a potential in a particular type of force-field generator, also a holo engineering professor, a Bacteriologist and a dream. This wealthy person wanted to be able to visit other planets, there was one problem, the nearest planet was twenty-four light years away. Io had not advanced past the Ion space motor, very efficient but impossible for the casual visit to 'planets'.
The Industrialist thought, perhaps, he could construct a planet near to Io using the new force-field system and the holograph engineer. The 'new' part of the force-field was that it could be generated in any colour and not emit any powerful shocks when an object touched it. It had only been used in entertainment thus far.
Money was poured into this scheme, unlimited amounts, and the transmitted holo form of the 'Technicolor-dream' force field was mastered, to a fine art. It then only remained to be able to fit to the holo form a system whereby communication could be carried out from the real person to the holo form and between the holo formed persons. This was also eventually mastered.
According to Rint, each 'living' holo had its own frequency and it was this frequency that gave the holo the speech transmitter capability. One of the side effects of this type of transmission was that George's 'speech waves' were also transmitted.
“Why,” you may ask,” did the wealthy tycoon need a bacteriologist?”
This was why Rint's story was taking the whole of Carl's dinnertime plus one desert and three 'coffees'.
Evidently, when our tycoon had finished up with his holo system and had succeeded in constructing any type of planet he desired, out in space, no one else was in the slightest bit interested. The tycoon soon became fed-up travelling to his 'far away' planets all by himself.
Enter the bacteriologist! The obviously crazy tycoon perfected a virus, of sorts, that would slowly breed and infect the whole of the real planet with a killer disease that had no simple cure and no preventative vaccine. He then had built vast caverns underground with suspended animation casks with connections from the mind of the suspended life connected to the holo transmission system. He succeeded in beguiling the population of Io into voluntarily going into suspended hibernation to allow the intentionally released virus to breed itself out. It was reasonably short lived but lethal.
The suspended-animation casks had been perfected years before and were in use on space flights already in progress on the long flight to the far planets.
The population welcomed this reprieve from certain death and thanked the 'saviour' for his brilliant idea and took the 'rest cure' to live out the virus. Everyone who went into hibernation was led to believe that they would be released as soon as the automatic virus sensors reported that, for a period of one year, no virus had been located in the air, rivers, sea and soil.
The people who didn't volunteer for hibernation all perished, there was not a single living person left on the surface of the planet. The virus began to breed itself into oblivion.
There was one snag however. The tycoon didn't want any of his 'playmates' to leave his constructed planets. He simply had the automatic sensor release-mechanisms inhibited and placed under his own control. He was quite safe in that no construct person could return, as a construct, to within one planets diameter of Io. Therefore no construct could cancel the locked-out release system. Only our tycoon knew where or how to turn off the lockout. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the tycoon died in hibernation. Also the original population began to die, one by one, in hibernation, which was in theory not possible. There was possibly a major fault building up in the hibernation vaults.
The sleeping population numbered two hundred and eight million, five thousand Earth years ago. The living sleeping population today numbered two and a half million and the number was reducing slowly year by year. They had to be woken, and soon, before the whole population died away, forever.
“Rint,” Carl interrupted,” I'm nodding off and have got to have a kip.”
“Ok Carl, I will wait until you are ready, I am in no real hurry myself, I feel fine,” answered Rint,” but please be aware that I have over one thousand friends who feel acute discomfort. It is this discomfort that precedes the deterioration to certain death.”
“You have our promise, at least mine for now, I see Pat's asleep,” he assured Rint,” but I know he is as concerned as I am. We will do all we can for you.”
Sleep came easily, as if he were dead, a dreamless bliss, to be gently woken by George, playing music in his 'personal' ears.
“Sorry to disturb you Pat, Carl, it is my belief you are both lacking certain vitamins, this is the reason you are tired. I have re-analysed your blood electrolytes and see many that you are not receiving in your diet. Please drink the glass of liquid I have readied for you and I will carry out a further test in ten hours time.”
Perhaps this was why they had virtually collapsed after their pretty simple visit to the construct Io.
“I feel ok George,” was Pat's response,” how about you Carl?”
“Well, I thought I was ok but maybe it's more than we can detect ourselves, we just crashed out.”
“I think that is a correct analysis Carl.” Said George.
“Rint,” said Carl,” sorry to keep you hanging about so long, perhaps we can get to work again.” Carl noticed they had been out for the count for eight hours of lovely sleep.
“There is no rush Carl,” responded Rint,” I have been waiting for thousands of years, a few more hours is of no consequence.”
“Right,” said Pat, he had been for a wash and brush up,” what's on?”
“A couple of questions Rint,” Carl began,” you said you didn't want us to be detected leaving Io, why was that?”
“Ah, well, we have some religious fanatics and they have the electronic power, as we all have, to blank personal transmissions,” explained Rint,” that being the case, I wouldn't be able to converse with you or anyone else at all. These idiots want to stay as constructs and they reject any efforts to change the norm”.
“Pretty negative sods,” said Pat,” let them stay constructs and those who don't should be able to return.”
“I quite agree,” came Rint's reply,” but they will not shift their view even when their own people are dying.”
They seemed to have arrived at the end of discussions, now they had to get to the nitty-gritty. How do they help return the construct sleepers to the wakeful state?
Carl began,” You say you cannot approach the real Io Rint, how the hell are we going to revive you?”
“Good question,” Rint responded,” you are going to have to find the master keyboard and reverse the programme.”
“Even if we find it,” said Pat,” I can't even operate a bloody typewriter, how the hell am I going to carry out a programme change? How about you Carl?”
“No bloody chance.”
“Gentlemen, I can read the computer for you,” offered George,” if you take the Nav. Interface connector with you I can receive the outputs from the Io computer, display them on the screen here and hopefully Rint can carry out the interpretations and programme corrections. Is that correct Rint?”
“Yes, I can carry out that reading for you.” Answered Rint.
“How do we know the interface will connect to the computer?” Pat asked.
“You only need to strap it onto any computer cable and the induct-frequencies will correspond to the computer activity, it is a normal event for my circuits.” George explained.
“Tell me Rint,” Carl wondered,” how, as a construct, can you see and hear things?”
A pause.
“I don't really know, it must be something to do with the force-field feedback system,” noted Rint,” I have never given it a thought before, it has just been that way. What an interesting observation, I can see everything here on your ship, in full colour. I don't really know how, I just can.”
So, they now had a direction but Carl still didn't see how they could find the Master Computer keyboard. It could be anywhere. Rint was to supply the answer.
“To find the computer keyboard, you only have to enter the cavern system. The computer keyboard is either in the casket with the Constructor or next to him. He operated the final command and could operate adjustments without effort. I know exactly where his casket is.” Rint explained and took up a pen and began very detailed drawings of the country outline, the area topography, rivers, roads, hills and the exact position of the main entrance. All this was carried out on ten sheets of paper and the quality was similar to that given out by a CAD plotter.
“Damn good drawings Rint,” observed Pat,” should be a piece of doddle to find that. What do you say George?”
“You will have very little trouble Pat,” George responded,” I have it in memory and you will receive HUD information as and when you require it.”
It was all coming together very well, Carl couldn't see any problems in the finding of the caverns, however it was the getting in that could be the problem. We are talking about 5000 year old closed doors, they could be just a little stiff to open. They would have to face that problem when they arrived there, Rint was no help on that subject, he could remember entering and had given George his entry point but he couldn't for the life of him bring back a memory of what the doors looked like. Oh well!
“What do you think we'll need to take with us to attack those bloody doors Carl?” Wondered Pat.
“Give us a clue,” he replied,” but I reckon we might need our special parangs, give em a try out, what do you say?”
“Hey, that’s a good idea, cut some flowers for George.” He laughed.
“You may be surprised to learn Pat,” interjected George,” that I find fresh plants and flowers very pleasant. The Yil carried out detailed studies of all flora and fauna on every planet they ever visited.
“I was joking you bloody iriot,” Pat said,” if you think I'm bringing you flowers back, you've got another think coming.”
“Oh,” sounded a disappointed George,” I thought you were serious.”
“Let's get the hell away from here Carl,” said Pat,” P'raps he'll be normal when we get back. Will you be here Rint.”
“I am hoping to see you with my own eyes Pat.” Answered Rint.
“Bloody right, dumb sod I am,” sounded an apologetic Pat,” what else Carl?”
“Sounds like I can leave it all to you Pat, you've got all the good ideas.” He smiled.
“Piss off, let's go then.”
“Right,” said Carl, then hesitated,” but where's Io?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Rint,” right, let me show you, it's over there.” Pointing out of the front screen.
Great help!
The holo sphere lit up and Carl asked Rint to position a circle around Io, which he did after a couple of minutes.
“P46, wedge l80, decimal 5 light years,” said Pat,” that's quite a way from your construct Io, some force-field transmission power there.”
“Ok, now we've got it,” Carl stated,” p'raps we can get to it.”
They picked up their 'new' parangs and belted them to their trousers, which had special loops just for that purpose, and were ready to go. A last farewell to Rint and George, run through the HUD details and programme their jumps to and from Io. They were as ready as they would ever be.
“All ok Pat?” asked Carl.
“Yep.”
The door opening appeared and they stepped through, allowing a short distance of normal power travel before jumping on Pat's activation. There was the merest of blips and they were in orbit above Io.
The planet was a normal Earth blue/white/green/brown colour and the continents stood out in stark relief against the seas. Io consisted of thousands of large islands connected by causeways and tunnels, probably in a very bad state of repair by now, but the causeways were still visible from their five hundred mile altitude.
Their Huds gave a yellow dotted continental outline and the Nav module was searching the thousands of island shapes for a match. The search took about fifteen minutes before an island on the edge of the visible disc was highlighted, they had their first success.
The side of the planet they were above was in sunlight, provided by the large golden furnace behind them. The continental island they required was at about two hours past sun-up.
“Your shields have not registered any probes or discovered any harmful virus's so far.” Came the gentle voice of George.
Carl had asked George to monitor the shield to allow them to concentrate on their task, so they could expect periodical reports to come their way.
“Looks, pretty, down, there,” Pat stammered,” let's, power, down, and, get, out, of, this, bloody, vacuum.”
“Right.”