4.
“Sounds like a regular Garden of Eden, doesn’t it?”
Harrigan looked up from the controls of his ATV and turned towards Boronova. She had put her book down and her eyes were closed. Harrigan had no doubt that she was referring to Muryah’s description of 505-D. Yes, it was like a paradise. A paradise with some of the best mountains he had ever seen.
“Hopefully we can get enough time to enjoy this Eden,” Harrigan remarked. “I’d even be willing to come out by myself.”
“And I’m sure Calloway’d like to see you climb without a partner, too,” Boronova said with a slight giggle. “You and Veronica are two of a kind. She’d go scuba diving alone if she could.”
“Guilty,” Harrigan admitted. “There’s something to be said for the feeling of serenity one gets at the summit that makes the achievement all the better, lass. Maybe you’ll see for yourself soon.”
Eyes still closed, Boronova nodded in agreement. Maybe one day. Real soon.
Nguyen Lee sat on the hood of the ATV and stared out at the ocean. He watched Martine standing knee-deep in the surf, as the waves crashed over her thighs. Although tests had proven the ocean to be almost the same as the water on Earth, Lee had still persuaded her (barely) from doffing her jumpsuit to experience the feel of the ocean on her skin.
Still, Lee could see why she liked the water so much. There was so much of it out there, unexplored, waiting to be experienced. He could almost see the water evaporating and being sucked up into the sky to collect and fall back down again as rain. The ocean had a profound effect on the weather patterns on most planets and it fascinated him to no end.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Nguyen?” Martine asked, walking out of the surf and across the sand. “Sure you don’t want to join me for a swim?”
Tempting as it was to see Martine’s well-built body in her underwear, Lee still felt a twinge of duty calling to him. Being cooped up with Calloway had rubbed off on him a little. He shook his head and Martine frowned.
“You’re no fun, you know that,” Martine said, as she walked around to the driver’s side of the ATV. “You need to live it up while we’re here. According to Mariah, there’s a lot more further from the shore. We just have to find it.”
“It’s funny,” Lee said. “I went to the beach a lot when I was in China, but I never really saw it like this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know my country is the most populous on the planet,” Lee replied, turning to look over his shoulder at Martine. “There were always so many people at the beach that I could barely see the sand. It was like that in Japan, the Philippines, Korea; I think the whole Asian continent was a sea of people instead of water. It was never like this, being the only people for miles around.”
Martine laughed as she sat in the vehicle. A moment later, Lee climbed off the hood and got inside the ATV. He strapped himself in and lowered the lid until it sealed airtight.
“Not just Asia, my friend,” Martine said as she started the ATV motor. “In Rio, the beaches were always crowded. The women still go topless and the men flock there like bees to honey. That’s why I love diving. There’s a whole new world under the surface that’s not filled with screaming kids and fat old men or women trying to show off their bodies. Now, prepare yourself for this new world.”
Lee stared straight ahead, feeling the ATV move forward. The vehicle hit the surf and inched ahead. They stopped momentarily, but continued when the vehicle’s suspension adjusted itself for the ocean’s sandy bottom. Soon, the ATV was completely submerged.
Sunlight filtered through the overhead tree branches like light through the seams of a canopy. Penski shielded her eyes as she stared up into the branches. She walked alongside Muryah through the forest the others had explored earlier. The captain could only marvel at all the plant life, at the small animals that drank water or nibbled on plants, completely oblivious to her approach.
“It really is wonderful here,” Penski said, admiringly. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to leave.”
They stopped at a smooth-flowing stream. A large rock with a flat top rested next to the meandering waterway, about two feet above the shiny surface. Muryah leaned against the rock while Penski sat on top of it.
“As a kid, I used to sneak out of the house and dangle my feet in a brook,” Penski blurted out before realizing she had gotten a little too personal with someone who was still essentially a stranger.
“Why would you have to sneak out of your house?” Muryah inquired, innocently.
At first Penski didn’t reply, but, Muryah kept looking at her, inquisitively. With each passing moment, she felt more and more comfortable until she finally gave in.
“Well, my parents always wanted another child,” she said, feeling embarrassed. “My mother couldn’t bear any more children and neither of my parents believed they could build a strong enough connection to an adoptee. So, I ended up having to try to live up to the dreams they had made for two children. I was always studying, training or working. There…there just never seemed to be time for me.”
“Well, there’s time now,” Muryah replied.
Penski gave Muryah a quizzical look.
“You mean dangle my feet now?” she asked. “I can’t do that. I’m the captain.”
“You’re also a woman who obviously needs a break,” Muryah answered, simply.
Penski only thought about it for a moment. She giggled like a schoolgirl, then reached up to the lapel of her uniform and pressed a button. She took off her boots and lowered her feet into the water. Surprisingly, the stream was cool. She’d expected it to be icy cold because it seemed to flow down from the direction of the mountains. She looked over at Muryah and smiled broadly for the first time in many years.
Back on the ship, Calloway heard most of the conversation between Calloway and Muryah. Then, his monitor went blank and he sighed. The others had disabled their uniform cameras as well. Their bio monitors - the devices that monitored their life functions - still worked, so Calloway could at least see if they were in any sort of distress.
He expected the actions out of Martine and the other civilians. Martine especially because she always promised not to violate the rules by turning off her uniform camera. Of course, the next day, she’d do it again. Now, though, the captain, who had enabled the others by not dishing out discipline for the violations, was tossing the regulations into the latrine herself.
He had been reading the personnel files of the crew of the Tomahawk for most of the day. All the crewmembers had seemed like fine, solid ISEA astronauts. He couldn’t find a reason why they had become hateful enough to leave one of their own behind. It left him with another empty feeling.
Deciding he had no choice, he called up the probe program. There was no guarantee that Penski would launch the probe. Yet, someone had to inform ISEA and the colonists.
He took all the information that had transpired with Muryah and downloaded it into one of the remote-controlled probes. When launched into orbit, it would transmit its information to the nearest ISEA outpost. The sheer distance between 505-D and that outpost made it clear that no answer would be forthcoming for at least two days, even with the newest laser technology. Still, Calloway knew it was something he could control.
He finished downloading. He pushed more buttons and prepared for launch. Normally, engineers like him would have used the headset to command the ship’s artificial intelligence to do the procedure. But Calloway loved doing it manually as a way to stay up-to-date and alert for emergencies. He typed in the launch code and, when the countdown reached zero, pushed a large red button.
Atop the ship, a hatch slid open and a circular platform rose up about a foot. On the platform was an oval cylinder, standing on end. With almost no noise, the cylinder launched itself, using magnetic waves to push away from the platform.
Down below, Calloway watched it gain altitude. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a bolt of lightning ripped down from the sky, disin
tegrating the cylinder. The bolt kept coming, and struck the platform.
Calloway watched in astonishment as the incredible energy from the lighting bolt surged through the ship. He knew the ship would disperse the power, but something was wrong. It was as if the energy had a mind of its own and was following its own path.
Right towards him!
His console exploded in his face. He barely got his hands up in time. A split second later, the microchips and nanobyte chips melted and ignited in a brief but powerful blast. Calloway was flung away from the console and slammed like a rag doll against the opposite bulkhead. Mercifully, he slid into unconsciousness.