Archaea 2: Janis (11 page)

“Dak...” he floated, mouth agape at the gleaming, vicious looking nova cannon that filled the core of the Archaea. “Is that a nova gun?”

“It sure is, Les. The Archaea is not some soft little frigate, though I would greatly appreciate it if you could see your way clear to keep this out of any official report...”

“I understand Dak, and copy – this isn't the kind of thing you really want to advertise. This ship must ring like a bell when this goes off!”

“Well, it does okay... she was purpose-built as a platform for this gun, originally. Though we have done some additional work to make her less gut-wrenching, it is still quite an experience when this lights up, of course.”

“I can't even imagine. The Starry Dawn vibrates through her entire structure when we light these off... I am amazed you have all your teeth left!”

I laughed, and flashed my pearly whites. “It's not that bad, Les, though it's bad enough we try to only use it when necessary.”

“Well, up against the Mantis... even with this, I am still amazed you weren't hulled. Did they have the gage on you?”

“Oh yes, Red caught us completely off guard. We were in the thickest part of the Danaan Fields--”

“What were you doing in there?”

“Well, it's a long story, but I figured we might be able to shave save some time of the Sol to Vega route, but of course, well... you know how that is.”

I waited until he was done laughing at my expense, I neglected to include the part where Janis had slipped us nearly halfway through Danaan, and we made the run in record time. Need to know, and all that.

“So how did you survive their opening salvo?” he said, clearly concerned that if I could somehow do it, then the next enemy he tries to tango with may be able to as well.

“Oh, it was really just dumb luck. I had just flipped for a burn and punched it, right before his first shot went off, so it skimmed past. Luckily for us, his second shot went wild as well, and I used our smaller size to our best advantage, by getting in close enough. Once we got close, we could turn inside his circle all day long, and I just burned the bridge deck.”

“What about his turrets?”

“Well, again luck played a hand for us, there were so many hunks of rock whizzing around, most of his kinetics fell short, and he must had had valve-turners on the scopes, because he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.”

Of course, I was again leaving out the role Janis played, of maneuvering us to everywhere their rounds weren't going, and firing intercepts for everything they launched, including their incoming turret fire.

“Dak, you call it luck, but knowing you I would say there was a fair bit of skill involved.” he smiled. At this point, we were in the cargo hold, and his men were poking around, looking at crates and checking labels.

“Sir, please take a look at this” one of them called out.

“One moment, Dak”, Les said, kicking over to the crates. They spoke a minutes, then Les waved me over.

“Dak, these crates here, marked 'Diethylenetriamine Pentaacetic Acid'... that's a mouthful... What are these for?”

“Les, those are part of the medical supplies we're carrying. Hang on a moment while I get you the details on those.”

I pulled out my handset and keyed in a text query to Janis for information. “Les, DTPA is used as treatment for radiation poisoning. It leaches metals from the body, allowing the radioactive particles to be passed as waste.”

Les was busy on his handset as well, and after a few moments nodded. “Radiation poisoning is a bad way to go, I can't imagine. Well, I think we've taken enough of your time here Dak. While this runs counter to my current charter with AV, it looks like you're doing a pretty important job here.” He fixed his men with a look, and they nodded.

“Thanks Les, I really appreciate it. It was sure nice to see you again” I said, and I meant it. Les was one of the good guys, and someone I wouldn't think twice about helping if I could.

Chapter 10

A short while after the Starry Dawn had moved off, the captain arrived back on the bridge with a fresh refill... for Pauli?

“Hey Pauli, how do you rate? The Captain never gets me coffee!” I said, waving my empty cup.

“I think he's trying to get me hooked on it, Yak”, Pauli said, closing his eyes and sipping. “Ah... he sure does make a good cup of coffee. Say what you want about his so-called piloting skills, Yak, his coffee is first-rate.”

“What? I never--”

“Looks like someone needs a little adventure in the back of the gig...” the captain said, ominously.

“Captain,” I stammered, “I would never say such a thing! You are the best pilot alive. I know, believe me, I know!”

“Of course you wouldn't Yak.” the captain said, laughing. “Though I don't think either of you have ever seen me fly, not really.”

“Captain, I have definitely seen enough to know better.” I said, adding “Maybe Pauli needs some gig time.” I smiled across the aisle.

“Yep, I think the next time I have to fly the naps in zero visibility at mach silly, Pauli's going to be my wingman.”

I laughed out loud at the look on Pauli's face. He looked as if he had just swallowed an uncooked mouse.

“Speaking of wingman... Pauli, when you were showing Thom around, do you recall what exactly you spoke about?”

“Not really Captain... I showed him the helm, the rings, the gun deck. He seemed interested in the nova cannon, and then we got caught up in watching you guys crack the gold cases in the cargo bay.”

“Do you remember saying anything about Janis?”

“No. I would not have done anything like that, Captain. In fact, Janis was under strict instruction to not manifest, even on screen, the whole time he was on board.”

“That's good to hear, Pauli, thanks. So did he talk about our characteristics, speeds, or other capabilities?”

“Well, he asked a lot of questions, but I don't really know much about the Archaea, other than the tech of course.”

The captain nodded thoughtfully. “Did he ask about any tech?”

“He did, but I didn't go into too much detail, because I almost never do – I tend to lose people pretty fast when I get going. I told him we had upgraded many of our systems, but that's about as far as I went. I didn't tell him anything about the core, or the wetnet.”

The captain considered this a bit, then fixed me with a look. ”Yak, how about you, son. Did you get any opportunity to talk with Thom?”

I thought back over the short time he was with us. “No, nothing substantial Captain, just to say hi a few times.”

“Did you see him do anything suspicious?”

“In what way sir?”

“Oh, I don't know... in any way, I guess. Anything out of the ordinary that you noticed?”

“Well, sir... no, not really. Of course when I was on watch, I wasn't really watching him, if you know what I mean.”

“I do, and that's what has me concerned.” He took a deep breath, and mashed the 1MC. “All hands, be advised, I have just learned from the captain of the Starry Dawn, my old friend Les Scott, that the person we rescued from the hold of the Mantis was actually the mutineer captain, Red Martigan.”

Pauli spun around and looked at the captain with a very serious face. With a grim nod, he continued, “It is very important that we all take the time to try and recollect everything we can about what he did aboard Archaea, what we said to him, what he might have learned, and most importantly... what he did when we weren't watching him.”

He waited a few moments. Gene was the first to break the ice and take the plunge.

“Captain, I didn't really talk to him much, but I do recall seeing him wandering around the gun deck one time I passed through to my stateroom.”

“Gene, what do you mean, wandering?” Jane asked, a little sharply.

“Well, it seemed odd, Shorty. He was over the magic line, and sort of looking around. I reminded him that the caution stripe is there for a reason, and he looked... uncomfortable. At the time I thought he was just embarrassed, or maybe a little anxious that he was in a dangerous area, but now I am not sure...”

“Shorty, I need you to perform an immediate inspection from stem to stern, of everything involved with that gun. I mean now”, the captain ordered.

“Inspection, aye.” she said, all business and from the sound of it, white-hot furious.

“Gene, that goes for you as well. I want a full and complete inspection starting from the inner lock in the cargo bay, back through to the farthest access hatches around the reac drives. I want every centimeter of this ship scoped, inspected... tasted, if you must – but I want this done now, people, nothing takes higher priority than this.”

He looked up at Pauli and I, adding “Pauli, I need you to work with Janis, to inspect every single connected system she has access to.”

“Captain, this is done,” said Janis. “Additionally, as you are about to request, I have prepared a concise report on Red's movements aboard the Archaea, using sonic triangulation and enviro loading. I do not have visual inputs, but I was able to achieve a high degree of accuracy through sonic triangulation from all vox inputs.”

“I--” the captain cleared his throat as he started swiping through reports on his screen. “Thanks Janis. I was actually going to ask if you could do something like this.”

“Sir, I know. This is why I have done this, sir. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help further.”

“I will. In that case, Pauli, I want you and Yak to go through every inch of the ring spaces, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Be thorough. I will work on replaying this report, and call out additional search locations as I am able.”

Before he could tell us to go, we were already gone.

*****

I played through the movement report Janis built while my crew tore the Archaea apart. The report was well done, and gave some insight into how Janis 'sees' the interior of the Archaea.

She had Red's position marked with a red dot, with an arrow showing the direction he was facing at the time, and his movements around the Archaea were delineated by the structure and interior compartments, as defined by the returns from sound waves.

Some areas where there was additional noise, the resolution would get slightly jittery, but it was apparent that Janis had done the best she could to map the position accurately. It lacked color, but the imagery was more than clear enough to see where he went, and what he did.

For the most part, he didn't do much.

As he moved around and interacted with the crew, Janis had recordings of every conversation he had. There were a few times I could recall being present for some of the conversations she recorded, and having ones of my own at the same time... but it was as though I didn't exist. She had completely filtered any sounds that were not relevant to the conversation Red was having. It was a little spooky.

“Janis, do you record everything?”

“No sir. Unless I am specifically asked to record something. I am always monitoring, but do not listen unless I am specifically addressed.”

“But Janis, how is it that you recorded this?”

“Sir, I recorded this on my own discretion.”

I sat back in my chair a bit, still playing through Red's movements. “But Janis, how did you know that this would be needed?”

“Captain, it is a little hard to explain. Your frame of reference is very thin, like a slice. You anticipate and react around information you experience in your frame of reference. I do the same thing, but my frame of reference is much larger.”

I sat and chewed on that for a bit, rolling it around in my head, while I watched Red move from his stateroom up to the gun deck, and... step out of the safe zone. He clearly looked up and down the deck, and moved over to the armatures.

“Shorty, Red was at the armatures... and then he spent some time near the focal rings.”

“Sir, checking now.” she said.

I watched him for a bit longer, he was at the focal rings for a while, and then stepped back as Gene moved into the frame, I could hear Gene warn him, almost word for word the same as Gene told it, and after Gene moved past, he moved back into his stateroom.

I sighed, and kept flipping through the report.

“Janis, the common convention, as I understand it, is that there is no future, and there is no past. There is only an instant of time, smaller than we can measure, that we perceive as the present.”

“Yes sir, I am aware of this.”

“And?”

“Sir, it is incorrect.”

“Janis, this is a challenging discussion that I am probably not qualified to have... I may need some more coffee.” I took a sip, and the cup was dangerously low. “Can you describe for me why this is incorrect, in words you think I might understand?”

“Absolutely sir. If there is no future, and no past, then that means that energy and matter in the universe are being nearly instantaneously created and then destroyed, an infinitesimal moment before and after the present.”

My brain, sluggish and weak from coffee deprivation, tried that on for size, and it felt a little off.

“Janis, that seems pretty unlikely.”

“Sir, it is. I am afraid I am unable to calculate exactly how unlikely it is. I am amazed this convention has remained a viable alternative to what is actually happening.”

“Janis, it seems to be that... one second please.”

I had just noticed that Red was heading aft. He moved through the cargo bay and towards the gold. A sudden sound from the inner lock forward as it opened and he appeared to have moved behind a stack. It was probably Gene going back to engineering that scared him to hiding, but he stayed behind the crate for some time.

“Gene and Shorty, be advised, Red spent some time around the gold crates, twenty... twenty three minutes, to be exact.”

“Aye skipper”, Gene said gruffly, probably making a face to match.

“Captain... the focal rings sir...”

“What is it Shorty?”

“Sir, they're all munged up, greasy fingerprints everywhere...”

“Don't beat yourself up there Jane, stay frosty. I need you to stay focused here.”

“Hah, funny sir...”

“Shorty, I am not trying to be punny. Not much anyway, though I admit that's pretty good – I am serious as a paycheck. So far, that's the only place I've tracked him on the gun deck. Stay focused on that for now, I want my gun ready to fire, Jane. Now.”

“Aye sir, making it happen.”

“Gene, I want you to take a look at the crates in the hold, but I want you to use all possible caution. I am in no hurry whatsoever to open any of those cases.”

“Absolutely Dak, I am on it.”

After Red left the cargo hold, he didn't do too much else, just wandered around the galley a bit, and back to his stateroom.

“So Janis, with all space being created and destroyed... it seems pretty unlikely that all of the complex relationships between atoms, molecules, cells, structures... the organizational fields, energy states. They would all need to be created in an identical manner every instant, throughout the universe...”

“Sir, that is the common convention.”

“Well, that doesn't make any sense, Janis. If there's one thing I've learned, is nothing works the way it's supposed to.” I thought for a moment. “So how does it all actually work?”

“Sir, it simply is. Everything that will be, already is. All mass and energy, throughout the universe, is located where it is, when it is.”

“Janis, you say the word 'simply' but I think it may mean something different. I am afraid I am a bit cross-eyed here.”

“Sir, I understand. Consider a light source. When the light source is activated, the photons will radiate outward at the speed of light.”

“Ok, Janis, this is my speed. So how does that actually work?”

“Consider a wider view of the event, encompassing a segment of time, rather than an instant.”

“Um... okay Janis. I am now envisioning straight spaghetti strands of photons... is that right?”

“Sir, it is. Now extend those strands to a light year.”

“That's some long spaghetti, Janis.”

“Indeed, sir. When you view the strand as a light year long, you are able to visualize the reality of what is happening. The photon isn't moving. Time isn't moving. Your ability to perceive a subjective moment, makes it appear to move. ”

I felt a slight wobble.

“Janis, this is... Is this real?”

“Yes sir.”

I felt an overwhelming urge to get some coffee, and knew that the moment I stood up, and stepped down the companionway, I was only fulfilling a destiny of mass and energy, along for the ride.

*****

I don't do windows, I don't do floors, and I definitely, positively, don't want to do focal rings. The beam surfaces of the focal rings need to be clean, and I don't mean that in the sense of getting a rag and wiping it down until there are no streaks, but I mean, there can't be even a stray molecule on their surface. They are hermetically sealed in the factory, and you don't even want to look at them cross-eyed.