Transplant
By
David B. Reynolds-Moreton
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Transplant
Copyright © 1998 by D.B.Reynolds-Moreton
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Transplant is the first part of a trilogy called ‘The Sapient Continuum’, and is complete in itself.
Table of contents
Chapter 1 The Nightmare
Chapter 2 Doubts
Chapter 3 Revelations
Chapter 4 Reality
Chapter 5 Food and Drink
Chapter 6 Trial by Water
Chapter 7 The Art of Survival
Chapter 8 Actuality
Other Books by the same Author
About the Author
Synopsis.
Stupidity, greed, and isolationistic fundamentalism between the three main super powers had pushed mankind to the very brink of the slippery slope leading to irrevocable mutual destruction. It only needed one more small ‘international incident’ to begin the terminal process of man’s demise on planet earth, and it happened.
Just before the holocaust began, a small group of wealthy and reasonably sane individuals got together to discuss what could be done to save some small remnant of humankind.
The conference concluded that a small group of as near genetically perfect people as possible should be sent to another star system, hoping to find a similar planet to earth on which to continue the human race. The main problem with this idea was that the journey would take many generations of human lifetimes to reach even the nearest star system, and that wouldn’t necessarily guarantee a suitable planet.
Somehow, a small pocket of people had to be protected from the final destruction of earth, and so Project Transplant began, and only just in time.
The Story
TRANSPLANT
Chapter1
The Nightmare
Glyn Bolstrom burst out of his nightmare into the inky blackness of the cabin, his body bathed in an ice cold sweat and shaking uncontrollably. He could still see the group of hideously distorted faces surrounding him, mouthing their obscenities as his trembling fingers groped for the elusive light sensor pad behind his head.
Wave after wave of panic surged throughout his body as he tried unsuccessfully to differentiate between reality and the terrifying sequence of events which had made up his nightmare.
Eventually, his desperately searching fingers brushed across the smooth raised surface of the sensor pad and the cabin luminary flashed into life, flooding the area around him with its harsh blue white light, adding a hint of sanity.
The grotesque collection of distorted faces slowly faded from view, but not before another shudder had rippled through his already shaking body.
Glyn breathed a sigh of relief, his breath whistling through his still chattering teeth as he heaved his body into an upright position on the bunk bed.
‘I can’t take much more of this.’ he cried out loud.
‘Having one of your nightmares again, dear?’ His wife had been woken by his thrashing about as he came out of the horrible dream.
‘Yes, and the damn thing is getting worse each time it occurs. I can still see their awful faces after I’ve put the light on. Sorry to have disturbed your sleep yet again.’
‘Don’t worry, dear. Tomorrow, or I should say today, is Sunning Day, so you can sleep on a little and catch up on your rest as there are no set tasks for you today, as far as I know. At least, I didn’t see any on the screen last night.’
‘Try to get back to sleep, dear, and I’ll see if we can get some help in the morning.’ and with that she turned over and drifted back into her slumbers.
He knew no help would be forthcoming as the Medic had broken down, or to be more precise, was only working intermittently, and then it only offered random advice which rarely fitted the problem asked of it.
Glyn would have liked to go back to sleep, but he was now afraid to in case the faces returned. One helping of that nightmare was quite enough for one sleep period, he thought.
His sleep had been disturbed for several weeks now, and the nightmare always began at the same point.
His wife was just about to give birth to their first born, although in reality they were not due to have children for some years yet, unless there was an unfortunate terminal mishap among one of the other members of the ship.
He was standing in the Medics room at the foot of the delivery couch, and Mia was smiling sweetly at him over the huge bulge of her distended stomach.
‘It won’t be long now dearest, I can feel her moving about.’
At this point the door bursts open, and six birthing attendants rush into the room and spread themselves around the bed, three to each side.
They are dressed in long dirty grey robes with cowls hiding their faces, and mutter incoherently among themselves as they lay out an assortment of surgical instruments on the edge of the couch, flashes of light mirrored from the overhead luminary unit accompanying the tinkle of steel on steel.
And then the screaming starts. At first it is just a soft low whimper, repeated again and again, and it then builds up slowly into a crescendo of sound which threatens to split his head open with its persistent screech of torment.
The attendants are jumping up and down, clapping their hands and chanting some unintelligible words which somehow seem to have some significance to him, but he can’t think what it is.
Mia’s face distorts into an ugly parody of what it once was, one eye sliding down to the middle of her cheek, her nose tilts sideways and creeps up the other cheek pushing the eye socket up onto her forehead. Her hair is all but gone, just a few straggly wisps of dull grey brown hang down limply, like chewed string.
Her face becomes a distorted patchwork of red and brown pimpled skin, while a dribble of dirty saliva seeps from the gaps between the few blackened and broken teeth which remain.
The attendant nearest to him pushes forward, nearly knocking him off balance, and then thrusts a gnarled and dirty hand between Mia’s legs. The screaming goes a tone higher and considerably louder. Glyn’s ears try to fold over themselves to shut out the torturous sounds and then the attendant braces himself against the couch and tugs and pulls strenuously, cursing and swearing.
Suddenly there is a loud ‘plop’ and the attendant holds a baby up by one leg, letting it swing to and fro, as if it were being blown by intermittent gusts of wind.
The cowls drop down to the attendant’s shoulders, and a hideous array of faces are revealed. All are distorted and twisted to a point of being hardly recognizable as human.
One had only one eye, another, a hole where the nose should have been, the third had three eyes, one of which was in the middle of its forehead. Each had its own terrible deformity, made all the worse by their gesticulations and the high pitched ranting and raving which was going on.
One of the attendants, with putrefying sores and a piece of decaying jaw bone showing through the ruptured skin, spun around and thrust his face into Glyn’s, the overp
owering stench of his breath nearly making him pass out.
‘Look what you’ve spawned, a mutant, a hideous travesty of humankind! It will have to be destroyed, burnt, mashed up into a pulp. It can’t be allowed to live and breed more of its kind.’ And with that he grabbed it from the other attendant and swept out of the room, the little girl child with the perfect pink skin, golden curls and pale blue eyes gurgled and smiled at Glyn, waving her chubby little hand in farewell.
Each time the nightmare occurred, it contained more detail, more sounds, and now smells were added to the deep distress Glyn had just experienced.
He dimmed the light down until it was only a gentle glow so as not to disturb his wife, and lay there, wondering what to do about the horrors of the night.
In the beginning, it hadn’t been too bad, just unpleasant. Now, as the nightmare gained more detail, it was just about the most awful experience he could imagine, and the last three times it had occurred the images had remained long after he had switched on the cabin light.
He could try the Medic once more, but he couldn’t remember the last time it gave out a sensible answer to a query, and no one else seemed able to help.
Glyn drifted into a half sleep state and relaxed, but not for long as the stench of the one with the putrefying sores assailed his nostrils once more and he was snap wide awake again, a new gush of ice cold sweat being added to his already wet night clothes.
As he was now fully awake, he was determined to stay that way until it was time to get up, no matter what.
‘Suppose I’ll get used to it in time, anyway, it can’t get any worse.’ he muttered to himself. But he had thought that a few weeks ago, and it had.
To pass the time, he went over the events of the past few days, checking to see if he had done all the work assigned to him correctly, and was pleased to discover that he could find no fault with what he had done.
The lights suddenly came on fully to herald the new day, and he got up and stretched his tired body before going into the washing room for his morning rinse down.
Several others had preceded him, and among them was the team leader with whom he had discussed the nightmare problem a couple of weeks ago.
‘They are getting worse, and I don’t think I can take much more of it, Benz, surely there’s something that can be done. It really is getting beyond a joke now.’
‘Not that I know of. I’m more of a practical man, what you need is someone who is skilled with the mind, and I don’t think we have anyone like that at the moment. You could try the book room, although it is only meant to represent a very tiny portion of the knowledge contained in the Teacher. Pity Teacher isn’t still functioning, but it has been out of order for several generations now, so I’m told.’
‘Well it’s worth a try I suppose.’ replied Glyn, feeling a little better as the warm air from the drying ducts caressed his body, evaporating the last few droplets of water he hadn’t managed to shake off, and sending it on to the recycling unit.
After completing his ablutions and dressing, he went back to his cabin and helped Mia finish tidying up before heading for the eating room where they all met up every morning to have the first meal of the day, and to find out what their duties for the next shift would be.
One of the few devices which hadn’t broken down over the intervening years was the food preparation machine. It had suffered from a few hiccups on occasions, as did the partakers of its offerings, but by and large, it had functioned in a reasonable and sane manner, at least most of the time.
Considering that it was a purely mechanical device, it managed to produce a surprisingly varied selection of menus, some of which left the consumers guessing as to what the offering was supposed to be, but generally it was good wholesome stuff, and no one had died from its culinary concoctions, as yet.
By the time Glyn and Mia had reached the eating room, everyone else had arrived and were seated, the two children and the one teenager seated with their respective parents, waiting for the day’s offering to come sliding out of the hatchway.
They were greeted with nods and smiles from the assembled diners and replied in like manner, taking their places at the end of the long table.
They had barely settled into their seats when the hatch slid back with a sigh and the first two plates of today’s offering appeared.
‘Good God, what is it this time?’ asked the recipient at the head of the table, not really expecting an answer. The two plates were passed on down the table and the next two appeared at the hatch as if by magic.
When everyone had received their portion, the comments began, most of which were humorous but some contained veiled threats as to what would have happened to the chef, had it been human.
The usual ripple of laughter accompanied the more cryptic remarks offered by the most witty of those assembled.
The food was good and wholesome and pleasant to taste, although the mechanical chef had got a little confused as to the appropriate colours for the synthetic fried egg, beans and potato fritters it had produced, but this wasn’t unusual.
The meals provided by the ship were augmented by fresh fruit and vegetables gathered from the hydroponic gardens, of which there were many, the most natural of them being the current orchard with its green lawns dotted about with a selection of all the fruit bearing trees old earth had to offer at the time the ship was built.
The orchards took quite a time to come to maturity and produce their harvests, so there was a system of rotation, an old dying orchard was cleared of its trees and allowed to rest for a while, and then replanted with new stock from cuttings taken earlier.
After everyone had consumed their fill of the synthetic breakfast and a selection of fruits and berries from the side table, they all sat back engaging in light conversation, awaiting the instructions for the day to appear on the screen above the food hatchway.
As this was the seventh day of the weekly cycle, it was deemed a day of rest, and little work was required of the crew except for the inspection of the status board to ensure that all was well with the ship’s equipment. Slight corrections needed could be made to bring any green lights back on, should they have changed to red, indicating a problem.
At last the screen flickered into life, and only three of the assembled diners were required to give up a little of their free time to attend the ships needs.
Glyn then told Mia about the books, and his intention to visit the book room just in case it might hold some data which could be useful in counteracting his nightmares.
‘I’ve never been in there, what’s it like?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, I’ve only heard about it. They say it’s full of old books from the days of Earth, but only a token amount, as all the data we need is held by Teacher.’ he replied.
‘But Teacher doesn’t work any more.’
‘I know, that’s why I’m going to the book room. No one else is able to help, so that’s my only chance of finding out why I’m getting these nightmares.’ He sometimes wondered if his wife was as bright as she was made out to be, but she made up for any lack of awareness by her loving care and attention to little details which made his life all the more sweeter for her being there.
‘I’ll go along to the sunning room for a spell. Will you join me there later, dear?’ she asked, smiling sweetly. ‘You are looking a little pale.’ she added as an afterthought.
‘Yes, but I don’t know when exactly. It may take a little time to find what I need from the book room, but I’ll be along as soon as possible.’ Glyn replied, knowing full well that he might have to miss the sunning this week if he was to find what he wanted.
The book room was not visited very often, in fact Glyn couldn’t recall anyone he knew having been in there.
The main reason for this apparent lack of interest in the books was due to the fact that the room had an inert atmosphere to protect the books from the normal ravages of decay, which oxygen and moisture in normal air would produce.
This m
eant wearing a suit complete with air supply if one wanted to study the works of the ancients, and not many were prepared to put up with the extra hassle of so doing, when a much quicker answer to their questions could be obtained from Teacher, that is, in the past when it was working. Now, no one seemed to care.
Unfortunately, Teacher had broken down some three generations ago, but as the youngsters were taught all that the adults knew, including reading and writing, there was little need for the book room. It was just a museum, a small token of that which was, a reminder of how things were done in a bygone age, but which could now prove its worth.
Not being sure where the book room was, Glyn headed for the equipment room where all the necessary tools and materials for repairs were issued when something wore out or needed a little attention. He remembered that a map of the ship’s layout was on one wall, and the book room should be on it.
The ship was big, very big, and it was some time later when he entered the equipment room, much to the surprise of its occupants. ‘What are you doing here, Glyn? I didn’t think you were called to duty today,’ said one of the men, loading tools into a carry bag.
‘I’m trying to find the book room, it should be somewhere on the wall map of the ship.’ Glyn replied, trying to make the answer as nonchalant as possible, thus avoiding a possible long explanation of his need to find the room.
Luckily they took no notice of his answer, and carried on loading their tools while Glyn scanned the wall map for the elusive book repository.
At last he found it, tucked away in a corner of the main map, and perhaps a good twenty minutes walk away from his present position.
Making a mental note of its relationship to one of the hydroponics gardens he knew well, Glyn turned and bade farewell to the tool collectors with a wave of his hand, and set off down the corridor in what he thought was the correct direction.
Striding off purposefully on his quest, he wondered what a book looked like, and how he would know which one contained the necessary information. Glyn could read and write proficiently, as all members of the ship could, but he had only seen written reports and messages so far, and wondered if a book was like a report, but bigger.
He was a little out of breath as he passed the hydroponics chamber where the passageway split into four, and slowed his pace to make sure of his bearings. The map had shown that the book room was off a small corridor which in turn was off the main one he was now in, but this was new territory to him and he felt a little uneasy as he walked on into the unknown regions of the ship.
As he marched on, he noticed several light tubes in the ceiling of the corridor had burnt out, and no one had bothered to replace them. This could only mean that very few, if any, had been to the book room, or even down this corridor, for a long time.
A feeling of loneliness overcame Glyn as he hurried on, and he felt even more uneasy as he reached the turn off for the book room. This corridor hadn’t been trodden for some time, as a layer of dust had collected on the floor showing his footprints up clearly as he looked back. The normal dust removal system must have broken down, and no one had noticed. As this wasn’t a vital function of the ship, he supposed the maintenance computer had ignored the fault, leaving it to the humans to repair, if they didn’t like dust.
Most doors had numbers on them, while some had numbers and their purpose spelt out in letters. Glyn hoped that the book room was one of the latter, as he didn’t know the number of the room and hadn’t thought to find it out before he began his journey.
Checking each door as he went, he began to wonder if he had passed the room, as the corridor seemed never ending and the only markings on the doors were in numbers.
A feeling of panic hit hard as he realized that he was cut off from the rest of the ship’s members by a great distance, and if he got lost who would be able to find him?
He found some relief in the knowledge that the tool collectors knew where he was going, and if the worst came to the worst, and he was missed, they would no doubt set up a search party.
Feeling a little brighter at the thought of possible rescue, he almost passed the door of the book room in the gloom from a failed lamp.
The door was clearly marked 235 with BOOK ROOM printed beneath the number. Glyn pressed the usual button in the centre of the door and it obligingly hissed open, revealing a small and cramped chamber beyond.
He entered the chamber, the door hissed closed behind him, and the old feeling of fear returned. He shook it off, looking around for the air suit he knew he would have to wear in order to enter the actual book room.
It hung on a peg high up on the wall, a long flexible tube protruding from the back section which then snaked around and disappeared into a socket on the wall.
As Glyn struggled into the suit, he wondered how they had decided what size to make it, and found the designers had indeed been generous in their specifications, as it hung on him like a lose fitting bag and would therefore fit anyone, if fit was the right word.
The head gear was a cumbersome thing to have to contend with, and he could well see this was yet another reason why this room wasn’t the most popular one on the ship.
Clamping the helmet into place, he took a couple of steps towards the entrance door of the room, and was pulled up short by the air hose. Realizing that he would have to disconnect it, he did so, instinctively holding his breath.
The inner door opened to reveal an odd shaped room, the walls lined with what he thought were the books, with a dim light over a table in the middle. Just inside the door was a socket for the air hose, and he reconnected it hurriedly, gasping in a breath of fresh air.
The shape of the room wasn’t the normal square or oblong enclosure he was used to, but more reminiscent of the space when several odd shaped rooms were brought together, and the book room was that left over space where they joined.
He went over to the nearest wall and slowly pulled a book from the shelf where it had rested for several hundred years. Fearful that it might disintegrate, he gently laid it down on the table and opened the cover.
‘A Collection of British Butterflies’ adorned the top of the first page, and beneath it was a picture of a butterfly with spread open wings, a glorious golden thing.
Having never seen one before, Glyn didn’t know what a butterfly actually was, but he was able to identify it as a member of the insect family as he had seen insects in the hydroponics gardens, but none as beautiful as this.
A strange lump came up in his throat, and all thoughts of his purpose for being there fled as he slowly turned over the pages, drinking in the sheer beauty of the illustrations and wishing these creatures were needed to pollinate the gardens on the ship.
It took a while to go through to the end, and with a sigh he reluctantly replaced it on the shelf, and set about trying to find how he could identify the book he had come for.
Set in the wall between the books was an oblong panel, with the word INDEX at its top. There didn’t appear to be any controls to work the index, no buttons or switches that he could see, so he laid his hand on the main panel to see if it would respond to his presence. There was a slight flicker of light, a hint of some lettering, and then it went blank and stayed that way, despite repeated touches and not a few thumps from a very frustrated Glyn.
He gave up fiddling with the inoperative index after a while, and returned to the shelves of books, which he found to his amazement were in no special order that he could discern. They certainly were not filed by author or subject, and he supposed that over the years they had been put back in a random fashion by those who had used them.
Selecting another book at random, he sat at the table and opened it. It appeared to be a condensed history of earth from the time of the Romans, who ever they were, up to the time of the smelting stations which had encircled earth. It seemed that raw materials were in very short supply, and the asteroid belt was being mined for anything useable in the way of minerals.
The end of the book seemed to b
e contemporary with the period in which the Great Ship had been built, although there had been no mention of it that Glyn could find.
He had only a scant knowledge of the history of the Great Ship, as it was referred to, and that was on a ‘hand me down’ basis from his forebears. His interest in the ship had been reawakened by the book, and he decided to find out as much about it as possible, but first he must locate the necessary data to stop the awful nightmares.
Several random selections provided a mine of interesting things to study, but so far there was nothing about dreams.
It was only when he began to feel hungry that he was aware of how long he had spent in the company of the books, and checking his time piece he realized that he would have to hurry if he was to get to the eating room before it was too late for the midday meal, and a panic ensued at his absence.
The journey back to a familiar area of the ship took less time than he expected, and he began to wonder if he had accidentally taken a short cut, but later when he consulted the map of the area, he knew he hadn’t, he’d just been very hungry and in a hurry.
During the meal Glyn explained to Mia what he had been doing, but although she listened intently, and asked the right questions, she showed little interest in joining him in his quest for knowledge.
He now had a new interest in life, and impatiently waited for the rest of the ship’s members to finish eating so that he could get back to the books.
The bowl of fruit had just been passed around the table, when the screen above the food hatch lit up, a gong sounded and the voice of the Captain echoed across the eating room, his words printed out on the screen as he spoke.
‘There has been a malfunction in hydroponics garden number H233, please attend at once and correct.’
The Captain had never been seen, and rarely spoke except in an emergency, so everyone took what he had to say very seriously. It was rumoured that he was just an extension of the vast computer system which ran the ship, but no one was sure.
For a moment Glyn forgot about his books as he and three others volunteered for the duty call, and went immediately to the equipment room to collect whatever the ship deemed necessary for the operation.
‘Looks like we’ll have to suit up.’ one of them said as four bright yellow anti-contamination suits spilled out onto the floor from a locker.
‘Something must have gone horribly wrong for us to have to wear suits.’ Glyn added, a feeling of dread welling up from his stomach.
There had been a spate of mishaps in the hydroponics department of late, and the worrying events seemed to becoming more frequent.
‘Better check the route for the shortest possible journey, as this is one I don’t know.’ one of the team said, looking up at the spider web like corridor map on the wall.
‘It’s down three levels and off to one side of where we are now, and that’s quite a distance. You’d think they would have put in some form of simple transport, wouldn’t you?’
‘At least it gives us some exercise,’ Glyn said, ‘and one or two of us could well do with it.’ he added, with a glancing grin at one of the team who was a little over weight.
Just then there was a loud thump as a purple canister with a white skull and crossbones on it came out of a chute and rolled across the floor of the equipment room.
‘This must be serious, I’ve never seen one of these before,’ Glyn said to no one in particular, ‘and what do we do with it? There are no instructions on it as far as I can see.’
‘I don’t like the sound of this event. I thought the Captain’s voice was a little strained when he spoke to us earlier, so maybe this is a major catastrophe.’ one of the team said.
‘Oh, come on, the Captain is only a computer voice, it can’t show any emotion like we can.’ Glyn felt sad that any of them should be so naive as to give credence to the story of the Captain being human and aloof from them all, hidden away in a little place of his own.
‘Well, it’s never been proved one way or the other, and I think there may well be something to it. After all, most things have broken down or developed a fault at some time, but the Captain never has, so perhaps he is real after all.’
‘Come on you two, we’ll sort this out later on if you really must, but drop it for now and let’s get on with the problem of the hydroponics cell.’
The four of them staggered out of the room laden with an assortment of equipment that should fix just about anything, or so they thought.
Clanking and rattling their way along the corridor, they came to the first of the lifts they would have to use. It was a tight squeeze to get all four of them in, and the equipment, but they made it, just.
The lift was silent in its movement, and they only knew they had reached the lower level when the door hissed open to reveal a service tunnel.
‘I thought we were using the normal corridors.’ said Glyn.
‘So did I,’ Brendon added, ‘but it looks as if there is something wrong with the corridor we want or the lift doesn’t know what it’s doing.’
‘Let’s go back up and try coming down again, that should prove the point.’ Glyn suggested.
One of the team shuffled round, found the correct button and they returned to the corridor they had started from.
‘Right, now let’s see what happens.’ and the lift descended once more to stop at the service tunnel.
‘I didn’t know such tunnels existed.’ commented one member of the team.
‘I’ve never seen one, although I did hear about them some time ago,’ added Brendon, grumpily ‘and I don’t like the idea of going in. We would have to bend up double and with all this equipment, I don’t think we could make it.’
Glyn poked his head cautiously into the tunnel and looked up and down it. The light level was very low and it had a dry dusty smell about it, and then he spotted a very good reason for not entering.
‘It looks as if there are two rails sunk into the floor and that can only mean that something on wheels goes along it. If we are in the tunnel when whatever it is comes along......’ He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
‘Looks like we shall have to try and find another connection to the corridor we want, but is it above us or below?’ Arki, the tall one asked.
‘Damned if I know. Perhaps we should go back up again, go along the corridor and try another lift.’ Brendon offered.
‘Good idea.’ replied Glyn, and they all wriggled round so that one of them could reach the control button, their equipment making a cacophony of clanks and rattles in the confined space of the lift, and up they went.
The next lift was some way along the seemingly never ending maze of passageways in the Great Ship, and it was a disgruntled bunch of men who eventually piled into the box like space which had been designed for two in comfort, and three at a squeeze.
‘Let’s hope this one works correctly.’ said Glyn, thumbing the button a little more firmly than was necessary.
The lift dropped to the required level as far as they could tell, and when they emerged into the lower corridor, the number sequence on the doors corresponded with those they’d seen on the ship’s map back in the equipment room.
‘We shall have to go back up that way,’ indicated Glyn, ‘until we come to an intersection, and then turn off to the left.’
‘No, to the right.’ Arki said, but with little certainty.
‘I’ve got a bit of paper here somewhere, let’s draw out the route you memorized from the wall map, and then we can put in the diversion we’ve just made.’ Brendon said, looking at Arki.
Although they referred to it as paper, it was really a thin sheet of plastic material on which they could write, and then wipe off the writing in order to use the sheet again. Old names for commodities still stuck long after the materials from which they were made had been replaced with something else.
Arki drew out the map, made the corrections for the diversion, and apologized for his mistake.
‘One day someone is going to get los
t in this labyrinth.’ he added, still not happy that he had made a mistake which could have caused even more problems for the group.
‘Never happened yet, as far as I know.’ Glyn added, trying to add a note of cheer to the proceedings.
They trudged on, coming at last to the door marked H223 and paused before it, putting down their equipment.
‘Better suit up, we can’t go in there without protection as there is a flashing red light on the door.’ Brendon commented, sourly.
‘How do you know that?’ asked Arki, still smarting from his mistake.
‘Don’t know really, must have heard it somewhere, anyway that light isn’t there just to make the door look pretty, it’s a warning.’
They struggled into their protection suits, locked the head pieces into place and checked their radio communications units. All seemed well.
‘OK, let’s do it.’ said Glyn, who seemed to have assumed leadership by default.
He pressed the pad to activate the door’s opening mechanism, and after a pause it obligingly slid to one side. The four of them crowded into the small space of the airlock, the outer door slid to and a green light came on to indicate that they could proceed into the problematic hydroponics chamber.
The chamber was vast, stretching upwards into a mist shrouded ceiling which they assumed was there, but couldn’t see. A long wide walkway stretched off into the distance, each side of it shrouded in banks of deep green foliage, some of which had decayed and drooped downwards to block the centre path in places, a general mistiness hung in the air adding to the sense of gloom.
‘What are we supposed to do?’ asked Brendon, looking around nervously as if expecting something nasty to come out of the foliage at them. They put their equipment down and looked around at the vast green jungle.
Glyn was just about to ask the same question when the ‘ping’ which heralded the voice of the Captain sounded, but with a strangely muffled sound to it.
‘Please look around you and tell what you see. The optics in this unit have malfunctioned and I am unable to observe the situation.’
They all looked at one another in astonishment, the captain didn’t usually ask questions or require their help, he, if it was a ‘he’, just gave orders and made announcements.
The other three looked at Glyn, Brendon raising his hands and shrugged his shoulders. Glyn realized that they had unanimously chosen him to be their spokesman on the subject of the chamber without saying a word.
He quickly looked around the vast cavern of greenery to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important, and said,
‘This end of the chamber is nearly normal, as far as I can see, with only a few clumps of leaves showing signs of decay, but further on down the line I can see whole branches laden with a dirty green brown mess of decayed vegetation, some of it has actually turned into a liquid and is dripping off the ends of the branches. Good thing we can’t smell it.
‘There is a blockage further on down the chamber, I will try to get past it so that I can see what the rest of the chamber looks like.’ He walked up to the first branch which had bent right down to ground level, the slime from the dripping end forming a small pool of disgusting bubbling liquid which he was very careful not to tread in or get on his suit.
Glyn went to push the blocking branch to one side, and as his hand touched it there was a soggy snapping sound and it fell to the ground, a thin drizzle of brown liquid oozing out of the broken end which was still attached to the main growth. The piece which had fallen split open along its length, adding more of the putrefying liquid to the slime pool in the middle of the path.
He bent as close to the ruptured branch as his stomach would allow to see if there were any signs of living creatures in the remains which might have caused the disintegration, but nothing moved except the turgid liquid still oozing out of the collapsed branch.
Carefully he stepped over the nauseous looking mess on the path and slowly walked on down between the towering ranks of plants, most of which showed signs of succumbing to the rot in varying degrees.
Brendon had followed him a few paces down the track way and was getting nervous, calling over the radio link
‘You are disappearing into the mist, I can only just make out your shape. Do you think it wise to be out of sight?’
Glyn hesitated for a moment, he didn’t like the idea of being out of sight just in case something went wrong, and no one knew about it.
‘OK, as the mist begins to hide me, come forward, keeping me just in sight, and then the others can do likewise as you begin to fade from sight. That way we shall all know what’s going on and can render help if necessary.’
Slowly Glyn edged his way past fallen branches and pools of slime, which were becoming more numerous as he proceeded down the pathway between the towering giant plant growth.
‘What do you see now?’ the voice of the Captain sounded uneasy, but Glyn put it down to his imagination as he felt sure the Captain wasn’t really human.
‘More of the same, except that it is getting worse, every plant is affected to some degree, some have collapsed completely.’
A few minutes later and the foursome had gone as far as they could, spread out along the pathway and keeping each other just in sight.
Glyn had reached a point where he thought he could see the end of the chamber wall in the now very steamy conditions, and called back on the radio that he wasn’t going any further as his way was blocked by too many fallen branches.
Again the attention getting ‘ping’ sounded, to be followed by the sonorous tones of the Captain.
‘Take the purple canister up to the end of the chamber, pull the tab on the top, the end will come off. This reveals a valve. Hold the canister vertically, turn the valve until the arrow points to the mark and then raise it up as high as you can. Turn to face the way back to the entrance port. Press the button next to the valve and walk back to the port.’
As the canister in question was back at the point where they had all come in, there were a few muttered curses as the foursome trouped back to recover it.
When the little group had reassembled at the pile of equipment they had dumped earlier, it was the fourth member of the team, Bolin, who volunteered to activate the canister which brought an audible sigh of relief from the other three.
This time they set off as a group to the far end of the chamber, helping each other over fallen branches and taking it in turns to carry the heavy canister.
As they made their way back to the far end of the chamber, Glyn gave the Captain a running commentary of their progress and the degree of increasing decay they observed as they went down the pathway, hoping the information would be of some use.
When they had gone as far as it was deemed safe to go and with what they thought was the end of the chamber in sight, they halted, informed the Captain that they were about to release what ever it was the canister held, and prepared to walk back the way they had come.
Bolin removed the end of the canister as instructed, turned the valve and held the canister as high as he could.
‘Someone else will have to press the release button, I can’t reach it and hold this damn thing at the same time.’
Brendon stepped forward a couple of paces, thought better of it, and stayed put.
‘OK, I’ll do it.’ said Glyn stepping up to the nervous looking Bolin. He pressed the button and stepped back in one fluid movement, as if expecting the canister to come alive. All that happened was a faint hissing sound and an almost invisible stream of vapour jetting high up into the air.
‘Looks harmless enough, but I wouldn’t count on it.’ Glyn felt something should be said, if only to ease the tension they all felt.
Slowly they made their way back towards the entrance point of the chamber, helping Bolin with his canister wherever a branch got in the way or a pool of slime had to be trodden in, as the fluid from the decaying vegetation dripped down from the rotting branches at an ever increasing rate.
G
lyn kept the Captain informed of their progress as they went along until they neared the end of the pathway by the entrance, and then disaster struck.
A large branch fell from high above, knocking Bolin off his feet and sending the canister spinning into the slimy mass of decay at the side of the path. As he fell his arm caught on one of the steel posts which marked the edge of the path, ripping the suit open and exposing bare flesh.
As the others crowded around him, a thin trickle of blood appeared and a look of horror flashed across Bolin’s face.
Glyn quickly told the Captain what had happened, but there was no reply for a moment.
‘Come on Captain, what do we do now? Bolin’s been injured, what should we do?’
‘Recover the canister and go to the end of the chamber. It is vital that the operation be completed. Do it now.’
‘But what about Bolin?’
‘Recover the canister....’ the Captain just repeated his former order.
Arki squelched his way into the morass at the side of the path, recovered the canister, and holding it as high as he could walked on up the path, cursing under his breath.
Bolin was looking decidedly sick inside his face mask, his skin had taken on a pale grey colour and he was trembling.
‘Bolin, can you hear me? Stand up, come on, stand up.’ but Glyn was wasting his breath, Bolin slowly slipped into unconsciousness and slithered from their grasp to lie on the pathway in a crumpled heap.
‘Is he dead?’ asked an equally pale Brendon.
‘No, I don’t think so, but he’s very sick. We must try and get him back to our quarters as quickly as possible, someone may know what to do.’ although in all honesty, Glyn didn’t think anyone would.
‘Captain, what can we do for Bolin?’ asked Arki, returning to the group and not really expecting a reply.
‘What has happened to him?’ came back loud and clear.
‘He fell against a steel post and gashed his suit, he also cut his arm on it and now he’s unconscious, what should we do?’ Arki was getting irritated at having to repeat himself.
‘There is nothing anyone can do for him. The spray from the canister must have got into his blood stream. He will die very soon and his body will disintegrate. Please place his body on the side of the pathway and it will be disposed of along with the vegetation.’
They looked at one another in sheer disbelief that the Captain could be so callous and uncaring towards one of them, it was his duty to look after them, or so they thought.
‘We can’t just leave him here.’ Brendon said, his voice sounding lumpy and strained over the radio link.
‘It looks as if we shall have to. We don’t know what’s wrong with him, and I doubt if anyone else does. If the spray has killed him, and that’s what the Captain implied, then he will be carrying whatever it is in his body, and that could then spread to the rest of us if we take him out of his suit.’
Glyn was having trouble making his voice sound level and normal due to the lump in his throat.
Arki lifted the unfortunate man’s arm to look at the wound, and a thin stream of brown fluid poured out causing him to drop it and jump back quickly.
‘Whatever that stuff is, it certainly works quickly.’ he said, and then they looked at the forest of vegetation down through the length of the huge chamber.
It had crumbled into a limp mass of soggy twisted branches with hardly a leaf in sight, both sides of the pathway seemed to be alive as the few remaining weakened branches bent under their own weight, wriggling and twisting against each other as they slumped downwards to join the writhing mass of slush on the floor of the chamber.
‘I think we had better get out of here as soon as possible, we’ve done our job, at some cost, so I’ll check with the Captain to see if we can go.’ Glyn said, but before anyone could agree or otherwise, the Captain’s voice boomed back,
‘You must all leave the chamber now and go to the decontamination room, I will direct you there. This chamber will be flushed out as soon as the last few branches have been turned into liquid form, and you would not be able to survive that.’
Bolin’s head was lying at an awkward angle and Arki bent to straighten it out, at least it would look better, he thought. As he lifted the head, several litres of brown fluid poured out of the split in the arm rent and all three nearly lost the remains of their breakfast.
That was enough, and they struggled to pick up their equipment along with Bolin’s, and headed for the exit as quickly as was decently possible.
‘Please enter the lift. You will be taken to a decontamination point. Please make sure you have all your issued equipment with you, nothing must be left behind.’
‘What about Bolin?’ asked Brendon.
‘There is nothing we can do for Bolin, as the Captain said. He is dead. And now his body will be returned to the recycling unit.’
‘I can’t see the Captain going in there to fish his body out, so that must mean that everything in there will be turned into a liquid and then recycled. I don’t like the sound of that somehow.’
‘It’s normal procedure Arki, if you think about it. All our unwanted materials go to the recycling unit, including us, if the truth were known.’ said Glyn, trying to add a note of calm to the situation.
‘When people die, they go to the room of rest.’ Brendon interjected, a nervous tone to his voice as if a long held myth was about to be exposed for what it was.
‘Of course they do,’ Glyn replied, ‘but where do you think they go after that? Everything has to be recycled, or there wouldn’t be anything left after a few years.’
They all really knew what happened, it was just that some didn’t want to think about it in any detail.
The lift door obligingly opened at their approach and they all crowded in, the door hissed to and Glyn automatically shuffled around to reach the control buttons.
‘I don’t see anything marked decontamination, so what do we do now?’ he asked.
‘You will be taken to decontamination.’ The voice of the Captain boomed in the confined space of the lift cubicle. ‘It is completely automatic.’ And the lift began to move.
The door opened into a larger cubicle into which they all trouped, glad of a bit more space to move around in.
‘What happens to us now?’ whimpered Brendon, looking around anxiously at a cage like structure against the far wall.
‘Be patient, the Captain will tell us.’ replied Glyn, placing a hand on Brendon’s shoulder, which made him jump.
‘Please enter the cage in front of you. Place your equipment evenly over the floor of the cage. You will be submerged in a decontamination fluid. It is quite safe. You have your own air supply contained within the structure of your suits. When the fluid is over your heads, please rotate on the spot, raising your arms above your head.’ The command level of the Captain’s voice had gone up a couple of notches, and they all trooped obediently forward, doing as instructed.
The cage door slid to behind them with a clank, and a sudden jerk indicated that they were on their way down into the darkness below.
As the cage descended, a milky white fluid surged up around their feet, foaming as it raced around any obstacles in its path. Brendon had now gone a very pale shade of grey as the light disappeared to be replaced with the seething decontamination fluid.
As it closed over their heads they could feel the fluid being pulsed in a series of powerful jets pushing against their bodies, making it difficult to retain their positions without bumping into each other in the confined space.
Raising their arms above their heads and rotating as instructed, proved even more difficult as their feet kept tripping over the equipment on the floor of the cage.
Without warning the fluid level dropped, light returned and they stood there looking at each other, their vision distorted by the milky fluid still clinging to their face plates.
‘Thank goodness that’s over.’ Glyn said over his radio link, but no sooner had the words been
uttered when a fresh surge of clear fluid foamed up around their feet, and they were soon submerged again.
The pulsing jets began again, and they obediently raised their arms and rotated. Glyn wondered what they must have looked like to an observer, concluding that the word must have been ridiculous.
When the pulsing stopped, it was replaced by a low frequency vibration which seemed to penetrate their very bodies, making them feel sick, and that caused a considerable amount of concern as they could well choke within the confines of their helmets.
The fluid drained away again, the cage rose up to the level above and the door slid back, inviting them to leave the cage, not that any encouragement was really needed.
Somewhere a fan started up, the whine of the blades rising to a crescendo as a blast of hot air buffeted them about, and they rotated once more with their arms vertical.
When whatever it was had decided they were sufficiently dry, the fan was cut off and all was quiet again.
‘When the tone sounds, please close your eyes tightly. Do not look at the light source, it will damage your retinas beyond repair.’ In a way, it was comforting to hear the voice of the Captain again, Glyn thought.
The ‘ping’ sounded, and they screwed their eyes as tightly shut as it was humanly possible to do as a searing blast of blue white light hit them with what seemed like almost physical force.
The light switched off, and they were left in what seemed to be total darkness, but slowly their vision returned and a sigh of relief echoed around the radio links.
‘You are now decontaminated. Please return your apparatus to the equipment room. Your exit from this room is opposite to that which you entered from. You will be guided back to your quarters.’
‘Thank you for your co-operation, that is all.’ The faintest of clicks indicated that the Captain was no longer on line, and they were alone in the bowls of the great ship.
‘I hope the device which gives directions hasn’t broken down,’ Arki offered, ‘or we shall be in real trouble.’ Before anyone could answer the door slid open to reveal a dark passage ahead, and they hesitatingly moved forward thinking over what Arki had said.
The door of the decontamination room slid to behind them with a definite click, and they knew there was no way back in as there were no controls on what now looked like a normal passage wall, and there was no sign of where the doorway had been.
The corridor ran to left and right, the left section being more brightly lit, so they headed along it, hoping they were doing the right thing.
They had been walking for some minutes when a section of the corridor wall slid back, and they all stopped.
‘I suppose we are intended to go in,’ Glyn commented, ‘I don’t go much on the ‘directions’ we are supposed to receive.’
There was nowhere else to go as the lights up ahead in the corridor had dimmed, the lift now offering the only fully lighted area.
This time they felt the surge as the lift went upwards, stopped, moved sideways, changed directions several times and then went up again.
When the door opened into a now familiar section of the ship, they were totally confused as to where they had been, and feeling not a little dizzy.
‘Thank goodness we’re back in one piece, I really didn’t think we’d make it.’ Brendon said, smiling for the first time since breakfast. Glyn gave him a pat on the back and said,
‘We’d better report back to the others and tell them what’s happened to Bolin. Let’s dump the equipment and then it will almost be time for the next meal, so we can tell them then.’ Without realizing it, Glyn had taken full control over the little group, and they had accepted it quite naturally.
After laying out their equipment on the long bench like shelf along one wall of the equipment room, they left it for the machinery to check over and store in the appropriate sections for reuse at a later date.
A few diners had arrived when the trio trooped in, and Glyn said that it would be best to wait for all to assemble before relating what had happened, and the others agreed.
Slowly the room filled up with the other members of the ship, and when all were seated Glyn stood up to make his announcement.
‘I have some sad news for you all. Bolin is no longer with us. He had an accident down in the hydroponics chamber, and there was nothing we could do to help him, even the Captain couldn’t help. I won’t go into the unpleasant details of what happened, but he is no more, and as far as we can tell, didn’t suffer much. He will be missed by us all, I’m sure, and as we can’t say farewell to him in the normal manner, I suggest we hold a one minute silence, and think about him.’
After the look of shock had passed, they bowed their heads and a minute of silence began, extending into several minutes as no one wanted to be the first to break what little respect they could pay to a much loved member of the ship.
Most of the meal was eaten in silence, and it wasn’t until after the fruit bowl had been passed around did any real conversation take place, and then it was only of a trivial nature. It was a rare thing to lose someone accidentally.
Fortunately no one asked Glyn for details of what happened to Bolin, and he was glad, as he didn’t want to go through the horror of the incident again.
As the meal time break ended and the diners departed to go their various ways, Mia turned towards Glyn and asked him, ‘Will you be going to the sunning room, dear? You missed your session this morning.’
‘No I don’t think so, I’d rather go to the book room, there’s something I want to find out and it may be in one of the books.’ He replied, not that he had anything specific in mind, but he wanted to be alone for a while, there were things to think about and he didn’t want any interruptions. She just nodded and smiled. He sometimes wished she would show a little more interest in life, a little more spark.
The first time he had gone to the book room he had some difficulty in finding it, but this time he suddenly found himself there, not being aware of the journey apart from the last few metres.
The fact that he had to suit up again didn’t seem to matter this time, and he went into the main room and sat down. Just what was it he wanted to find out? He wasn’t sure, but he felt it had something to do with the Captain, but what? He felt quite sure that the Captain was just an extension of the computer system which ran the ship, similar in a way to Teacher and Medic before they had ceased to function.
He began a random selection of the books, one here, one there, finding the contents of most of them interesting, but nothing really grabbed his attention.
A systematic search was the only way he was going to find what he thought he wanted, and so he pulled the chair over to the narrow end of the room, climbed up, and began checking each book in turn.
There was a lot of information here he thought, but virtually nothing pertinent to the ship or how it was run. It was when he reached the last book on the top shelf that he came upon the first clue in his search.
The title on the spine ‘Cement manufacture in the twentieth century’ seemed an odd selection for a book representative of Earth’s history, so he pulled it out to take a quick look at its contents.
A small clasp held the book closed, and he returned to the table to try and release it. Why should a book, which was intended to be read, have a clasp to seal its contents? He felt his heart beat a little faster, surely this couldn’t be just another ordinary book, and he fiddled with the clasp until it suddenly sprang open, and the contents were exposed.
He had been right, this was no ordinary book, but one made up from separate sheets laced together and placed in the cover of a book whose contents had been removed.
It was hand written in a clear script which made easy reading, and he dragged the chair back to the table, sat down and almost reverently turned the first page.
‘My name is Jon Silworth, I am twenty four years old, and of the third generation on board this great ship which is into its one hundred and twelfth year in its mission to find mankind a
new home among the stars.
According to the Teacher, which is a computer driven device intended to educate the new born, the ship was built by a consortium of very wealthy and philanthropic individuals who foresaw the demise of mankind on planet Earth.
The main reason for writing this record of our lives here is so that if anything should go wrong with the system, then those who are to come will have a record of things as we have seen them, and the purpose of this great venture.
The ship is vast, but we do not know of its true size as we only have access to certain parts of it. Everything is recycled automatically, so sustaining our needs. Most things seem to be self repairing, as far as we can tell, only occasionally do we have to physically replace or repair items as instructed by the Captain, whom we have never seen, but assume is part of the crew in a separate section of the ship. Why they are apart from us, we do not know, but there must be a reason. Perhaps we shall meet when we find our new home.
There is one aspect of our life which some of us do not agree with, and that is the allocation of mating partners and the production of the next generation.
Our numbers are strictly controlled, and that is reasonable, or the ship would not be able to sustain our needs, but the choosing of partners is something we would like to do ourselves. When this was queried with Teacher, we were informed that only the Medic could make an accurate selection of mates to insure the correct mixing of genes.
While I can see the sense of this, there are a few dissenters in this generation who, for some reason unknown to me, cannot understand this need, and have gone to great lengths to try and override the system. So far, they have been unsuccessful due to the clever way in which the system has been set up.
Although some couples have tried to mate of their own choosing and conceive children thereby, they have been unable to produce any offspring. Only couples selected by the Medic can conceive, and then only when instructed to do so. The chosen couple are requested to visit the Medic’s room where something takes place, but we do not know what it is or how it is done, and then a child is born to them after the appropriate time.
The sex of the child is predetermined in some way to suit the needs of the project, and this sometimes causes dissent among those who want a child of the other sex. Fortunately, there seems to be nothing they can do to outwit the will of the ‘ship’, as they see it. The other matter of concern to some of us, but not me, is the way in which the bodies of those who die are disposed of.
They are taken to a little room where the last farewells are said, and then the body which has been placed on a table like structure disappears into a hole in the wall, to be broken down and its materials recycled somehow.
A small quasi religious body, luckily with few members, object to the recycling system, and are in constant argument with Teacher about it, but to no avail. I do not understand their reasoning, and I suspect there is none that will stand up to close scrutiny.
It is said that it takes all sorts to make a world, and that rule seems to apply here on our little world!
Yesterday there was a commotion in one of the hydroponics chambers, but I only heard about it. A team of three were gathering fruit when it was discovered that one tree had produced several fruits which were twice the size we were used to, and they had a somewhat distorted shape.
When this was commented on the Captain must have overheard it, and ordered the fruit and the tree to be destroyed, or I should say recycled.
One of the team objected, saying that he thought it was a good idea to keep the extra large fruit and even breed new trees from it. This did not go down well with the Captain, who then reinstated his earlier orders and threatened to destroy the whole chamber of trees if they did not comply at once.
When I heard about it I asked Teacher why the Captain had acted this way, and Teacher said it was important to keep every growing thing pure in a genetic sense, as no one knew what effect a mutated life form would have on us if we consumed it. It makes sense to me, but I wonder why the Captain did not explain it at the time.
I have often thought it strange that we still use the old Earth time, hours, days, weeks and years, when we have the chance to make a new and more rational time marking system.
Teacher said it was to give us a feeling of continuity with the past, I suppose it’s right.
We are kept busy most of the time, doing things which I sometimes suspect are not really necessary. There is a machine shop where those who have been taught the necessary skills are called upon to manufacture spare parts for the ship, but I sometimes wonder if this is only a means of keeping us occupied, as I am sure the ship could make anything it requires.
We still have a seven day week, Sunday being the only day when we are not called upon to do something, unless there is an emergency.
Everyone is expected to go to the Sunning room on this day, and bathe ourselves in its light. Anyone who misses more than two sessions is soon detected by the Medic, who then instructs that person to take a light bath, and checks that he does!
I sometimes go to the observation room, where a view of the star field around us can be seen. It is a wonderful sight, and changes slightly each time I visit. We do not have any star maps, so it is not possible to work out where we are, but the ship knows, or so we are informed.
It will be many generations into the future before we reach our destination, something I shall never see, as the distance to the nearest sun with a possible habitable planet is so vast.
I would very much like to visit the power plant which drives the ship, but every time I try to engage Teacher on the subject, it is evasive and says that I do not need to know about it, or that it is a dangerous area.
The latest riposte to my more subtle enquiries on the subject elected a response which surprised me somewhat, being: ‘You have asked this question in one form or another several times, and the answer remains the same, you are not allowed in that area.’
I began to wonder if Teacher was human after all!
Glyn read on, each page revealing a little more about the attitudes of the ship’s members at that time towards the project and their hopes and aspirations for the future.
Realizing that he had spent a little more time in the book room than he had intended, he carefully noted the page number he had reached and replaced the diary on the end of the top shelf where he had found it, resolving to return at the next possible opportunity.
Returning to his cabin, he found Mia in a state of great excitement.
‘Arki has worked it out that we are the most likely couple to be allowed to have a child, now that Bolin has gone, what do you think of that?’
‘I’m delighted of course, but it seems a pity that we had to lose Bolin in order for this to happen.’
‘But we would have to lose somebody before I could conceive, so what does it matter?’
‘Looked at like that, I don’t suppose it doesn’t matter, it was just the way we lost him that hurts.’
Glyn decided to let the matter drop, as in his opinion, Mia’s view of things always seemed a little superficial to him, and it wasn’t worth the trouble to try and explain how he felt.
He changed the subject by trying to interest Mia in his discovery in the book room, but she showed little more than polite interest, so the conversation died as it usually did on matters other than the more mundane happenings on board the ship.
Mia wouldn’t have been his natural choice for a mate, but as they had been allotted to each other on the basis of the correct mixing of genes with regard to their offspring, he accepted the inevitable, but he would have preferred someone with a little more spark and curiosity. Apart from that one fault, as he saw it, she was the perfect companion, and always ready to support and comfort him when needed.
It was time for their evening meal break, and Glyn and Mia joined the others as they gathered in the eating room, chatting lightly among themselves, although the topic of Bolin’s misfortune was noticeably absent.
The food appeared as always, the usual comments accompanying each dish as it slid through the hatchway, but somehow the sting had gone out of the ribald remarks reserved for the culinary delights of the mechanical chef. Bolin’s demise was having a far greater effect than was apparent on the surface of things.
By the time the fruit and berry stage of the meal had been reached, the conversation had dwindled to the occasional acknowledgement as the fruit bowl was passed around and the odd muttered curse as someone bit into the stone at the heart of the fruit they were eating, their attention not being fully on what they were doing. Bolin was going to be missed by many for some time to come.
The usual soft ‘ping’ heralding an announcement from the Captain took everyone’s attention, and all turned towards the screen above the hatchway where the spoken words would also be displayed for all to read. There was little chance of a verbal being misinterpreted that way.
‘After the meal break, Glyn and Mia will go to the Medic’s room. It has been decided that the time is right for you to have a child. I offer my congratulations and good wishes for the happy event which is to follow.’
A light round of applause followed the announcement, and all turned towards the lucky couple, smiling and nodding their heads in agreement.
Glyn, always keen to acquire extra data, saw a chance to get a little more information out of the Captain and said,
‘I thought the Medic had fallen from his highly exalted perch and was only offering random wisdom these days, so is it safe for us to put ourselves into his somewhat befuddled hands?’
‘It is quite safe. The Medic’s verbal and screen abilities have malfunctioned but the equipment is operating correctly. You have nothing to fear.’
‘Can we not repair the Medic? its help is often needed.’
‘It is beyond the capabilities of those present to achieve this. I have taken over the duties of the Medic and will issue medical instructions when required.’
‘Can you not repair the Medic? Or could we not do so under your instruction?’
‘That is not possible, I am sorry.’
‘What will happen to us if your circuits break down?’ Glyn was taking a chance with such a barbed question, but he was into his stride now and cared little for the consequences of such an impertinent query.
The ensuing silence was almost deafening, and everyone glanced to and fro from Glyn to the screen, hardly believing what they had just heard.
The softest of clicks indicated that the Captain wasn’t going to answer that one, and had disconnected himself from the audio system and further verbal assault.
‘You implied that the Captain was just another machine.’
Brendon looked as if the myth of Christmas was just about to be exploded.
‘You think he isn’t?’ asked Glyn suppressing a grin, he was enjoying this and felt like pushing it to its limits.
‘The Captain is the Captain, and I think we should leave it at that for now. It doesn’t matter who or what he is, as long as he keeps functioning. We all have our own beliefs on the subject, and as long as we are happy with them what does it matter?’ Arki had stopped the debate before it could get out of hand, and no doubt saved a few present from having their illusions shattered.
‘Come on you two, it’s off to the Medic’s room for you, and good luck.’ he added with a grin.
As they left the eating room and began their journey to the Medic’s room, Mia took Glyn’s hand and skipped along besides him like a teenager on her first date, totally oblivious to the parry and thrust of the debate they had just left.
The Medic’s room would have been a frightening place for anyone not used to seeing the array of equipment lining the walls, and the fact that there wasn’t a human in sight to operate them, but the couple were used to the place and accepted it as quite normal.
A screen lit up as they entered and instructed Glyn to sit in the examination seat, which he did without hesitation, having done so many times before.
A soft whirring of hidden machinery and a melodious chorus of electronic sounds as the circuits did their thing accompanied the examination, and, he suspected, the fertility treatment, whatever that was.
Moments later it was Mia’s turn, and she eagerly jumped into the chair, positively beaming at the thought of her motherhood which would soon become a reality.
The equipment went through its paces, taking a little longer than it had with Glyn, or so he thought, and then it signalled that it had completed its work.
She got up from the chair and stood beside Glyn, both of them wondering if there was anything else which had to be done to enable them to produce the promised child, when a gentle ‘ping’ announced that someone or something was about to make an announcement.
‘Go forth and multiply.’ The sonorous tones of the Captain were unmistakable, and they chorused, ‘thank you.’ in unison.
Glyn grinned to himself as he realized the possible double meaning to the Captain’s statement, recalling an old English expression which was now frowned upon, and a slight doubt began to grow in his mind as to whether the Captain was human after all.
After leaving the Medic’s room, Mia held Glyn’s arm, bouncing along like a child with the promise of a new toy.
‘Is that all there is to it? Can we have our child now?’
‘Yes,’ replied Glyn, ‘apart from the obvious biological function, and that shouldn’t be too much of a chore.’
‘Oh great.’ she giggled, almost dragging him off balance as they headed for their cabin.
‘Should have asked what sex the child would be.’ Glyn said to himself, but then realized the Medic would probably have said ‘Take two tablets twice a day,’ or the like.