The Horicon Experience (8 page)

Love, Robert and Agnes

“So the boys finally made it to school,” Jake said after Sherry finished reading the letter.

“Sounds like Stan is having a few problems. When do you want to go visit?”

“Not so fast woman!” Jake exclaimed. With a grunt, he lifted his artificial left leg down from his footstool.

“First, we don’t know where they live, and second, I don’t want to just drop in unannounced. And third, we don’t even know Stan.”

“And fourth, my love?” asked Sherry sweetly.

“And fourth, my leg is killing me,” Jake answered. “I’ve got to give my assistant more time in the pulpit.”

Sherry reached over and stroked her husband’s hair. “I’ll find their address.” She got up and went over to the comm line to activate the directory. Jake just shook his head and rubbed his leg. He had never been able to slow her down, and he never would.

∞∞∞

With an ear splitting blare, the structural integrity klaxon sounded throughout the control cabin of the
Starduster
. Akir Asmed, sitting in the control chair, grabbed the controls while at the same time he disengaged the autopilot. The book he was reading on interplanetary exploration and colonization went flying across the cabin.

“George!” Akir hollered as he sought for the kill switch on the klaxon.

“I hear it!” George shouted back. He sprinted forward from the bunk in his cabin and dove for the auxiliary panel, taking in the readings in a glance.

“I’m showing a rupture in the port tank!” Akir shouted when the klaxon finally shut off.

“Confirmed,” replied George from the aux station.

“Captain,” Akir urged, “let me turn command back over to you.”

“No, you stay right where you are,” George ordered. “Throttle us back to the low yellow arc until I can determine our situation.”

“Yes sir,” Akir answered. He raised his right hand and firmly grasped the throttle bar that hung from the ceiling above the control seat. With deft pressure, he throttled the small craft back. The scout ship fell out of light speed and into the low yellow arc, a virtual crawl compared to the high-light velocity they had built up to notch by notch over the last four days. Stars that had previously been only streaks of light were now distant pinpoints in the darkness of space. The small ship shuddered and moaned under the stress of the sudden rupture of the port tank.

“Can I help?” asked Akir.

“You stay put!”

Akir sat in the control chair where he had been the last few hours. He had his right hand on the throttle bar and his left hand firmly on the axis ball. He was exerting every ounce of strength he could to keep the small ship from spinning off into uncharted space. The one thing he did not want to do was spin off course and become lost in space. He had heard of ships, empty ships, found after being lost – ships usually found with evidence of a Red-tail attack. He could only imagine the horrible fates of the hapless crews.

“Suit up!” George called to Akir after checking the environmental control console. “We may loose atmospheric integrity any minute now!”

Akir locked the axis ball with a magnetic clamp and poured himself out of the control seat in a fluid motion. Crossing the cabin to the storage locker, Akir grabbed his clear pressure suit with one hand and tossed George’s across the control room with the other.

Both men jumped into the form-fitting suits. The helmets fit firmly over their heads, the faceplates in their upright positions. Since they still had pressure, the faceplates remained open. Any sudden pressure loss would cause them to snap shut and stay that way until the air pressure equalized and cabin integrity restored.

“We’ve got a problem,” George said to Akir. He tapped the indicator gauges that showed the relative pressure on the port and starboard tanks.

“We’ve lost structural integrity in the port tank, and the starboard tank is trying to compensate,” George reported. “Unless we shut down completely, we’re going to lose both tank systems, which could cause the ship to explode.”

“You mean implode, don’t you, Captain?” Akir asked.

“Implode?”

“Yes sir,” answered Akir. “Our repulsion field would prevent us from exploding, but the resultant pressure of a tank rupture would cause the repulsion field to crush in on us, causing us to implode, sir, not explode.”

“We’ll argue terminology later if we survive this,” George snapped back. “Shut us. I’ll do what I can with the other systems.”

“Yes sir!” Akir agreed, jumping back into the control chair. He released the magnetic clamp from the axis ball and slowly pulled the throttle all the way back to the number one position. Both the speed and the threatening gyrations of the ship decreased noticeably.

“All the way off,” George ordered.

“But sir,” Akir protested. “If we shut off all power, we’ll lose the repulsion field. We’ll be open to being hit by space debris and slag.”

“I know,” George answered. “But if we don’t relieve some of this pressure, we’re going to die anyhow. So what’s your choice, implode or explode?”

Akir rolled his eyes and shook his head. “To tell the truth, neither of those choices really makes me happy,” he complained.

Pulling the throttle full off, he then threw one final switch that cut off the power from the ship’s cold fusion green box. They felt more than heard the repulsion field collapse around the ship as it hung free and defenseless in space.

“Good work, Akir,” George said, almost wiping his brow and then remembering the hazard of the faceplate. “One of us will have to go outside to assess the damage to the tank, so we’re going to lose cabin pressure. We might as well stay suited.”

“I can go outside, sir,” Akir volunteered as he climbed out of the control chair.

“You sure? It’s my ship. You’re not responsible for it.”

“The last time I looked at who was sitting in the command chair, it was me, not you,” Akir answered. “I was driving when it happened, so I’ll be the one to go outside.”

George nodded his head. Now he was sure he liked Akir Asmed, this poor kid from the rim.

“Alright, copilot,” George said. “Then you better get on an extra oxygen tank and magnetic boots. You’ve got work to do.”

“And in the meantime, why don’t you see if you can contact Shalimar and have them standing by with a retrieval ship?” Akir suggested. “We may need it.”

“Good point,” agreed George. He turned to the communications console and keyed his microphone to the emergency broadcast beacon.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is Captain George Citti of Galactic Axia fast scout
Starduster
declaring an in-flight emergency. Does anybody copy? Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”

The ship had been handling so smoothly for the first four days of their trip from the mothership to Shalimar. Just another day and they would have reached the safety of Shalimar.

George and Akir had been developing a loose friendship, each learning to trust the other with more intimate details of their personal lives. A week was a long time to spend together in close quarters without sharing a few personal points of interest. For example, Akir learned that George (he’d finally become comfortable addressing the captain of the ship by his given name instead of by his rank) was an only child from a prosperous family on one of the industrialized planets, whereas Akir hailed from a poor planet further out on the rim. Economic upheaval had left the planet impoverished, which was one of the main reasons Akir had joined the service.

Akir was happy that his own seven brothers and four sisters back home were still all alive, but the economic burden such a large family placed on the household was sometimes unbearable. The pressure of trying to help support his younger siblings while working for minimum wage was just too much for him. So with the permission and blessing of his father and mother, he had enlisted in the troopers. That had been seven years ago and he had not regretted a single day of it. At least not until now.

On the other hand, George did not flaunt his apparent wealth or social position, something that would be impossible on the caste-conscious planet of Akir’s birth where wealth and position were badges of privilege.

“There’s no middle ground,” Akir had explained to George one day while they were talking. “You’re either rich or you’re poor. Social advancement is through family connections, dowries to purchase a bride of suitable status, and the never changing pursuit of wealth.”

“I’m glad it’s not like that in the service,” George said to Akir. “In here, you make it or you don’t, and it all depends on your willingness to succeed and excel.”

“That’s true,” Akir answered. “There are no weights of oppression on our necks. We sink or swim by our own talents.”

And yet here we are working together as a team
, George thought as he reflected on all this.
Man against an indifferent universe! That’s the real challenge!

∞∞∞

The laws of physics never change. Molecular structure responds to the forces of nature today just as it did eons ago. A fraction of a degree change in temperature and a harmonic vibration due to gravitational differences combine to cause two adjoining molecular surfaces to change their alignment half a micron. Electrons captive in their valence orbiting for countless centuries are free to continue an interrupted game of sub-atomic billiards as inductive energy courses through long-unused conduits. Instantly an inorganic thought takes form.

WHERE AM I?
it asked itself as countless circuits start to come on line. Power cascades through them and ancient logic pathways realign themselves. A self-diagnostic program checks the conditions of its internal pathways and notes minor damage in some areas, more serious damage in others. In nanoseconds, repair procedures initiate, creating new pathways around damaged or inoperative parts. Its internal harmony re-established, other programs take over, checking the relationship of the unit with its peripheral equipment.

Disconcertedly, it finds itself severed from its subordinate extensions. A search routine provides no answers, only that the unit is in a foreign environment. Activating circuits and sensory apparatus originally meant only to aid its strangely absent organic attendants, the unit tentatively starts to explore the world around it.

∞∞∞

The hatch opened and Akir Asmed pulled himself out of the airlock into space. As the tether line played out, Akir twisted himself around so he could get a quick overview of the starboard side of
Starduster.

“Looks good on this side,” Akir reported as his line slowly came to the end of the reel. A touch of his thruster pack control arrested his movement scant feet before the line went taut. He didn’t want his own mass, no matter how little, to cause the damaged scout ship to drift in reaction.

“Understood,” George replied over the intercom from inside where he monitored ship systems. Out of deference to the inspection, even the interior gravity had shut down, leaving George held down by the restraining straps of the chair he sat in. Like Akir, if he needed to move about, George would depend on the magnetic boots he wore. Activation only took the flip of a switch on the front of his pressure suit.

Akir thumbed the thruster control on the extra-vehicular excursion pack, EVEP. He held the joystick controls in both hands, steering himself by forced thrust toward the rear of the ship. The port tank was located under the ship, just forward of the aft port panels.

Before Akir even reached the tank, he could see the problem – a rupture in the port tank. Water and sewage that was stored as heat sinks spilled from the tank into open space. Fortunately, the cosmic drift directed the spill way from Akir. He certainly did not want the waste material to immerse him.

Akir drew as close as he could to the rupture. The closer he got, the more damage became apparent to him. He noticed right away a four-inch split running the length of the tank. Worse were several cracks that started at the leading edge of the tank and ran up into the mainframe and superstructure of the ship.
This is bad
, he thought.

The headset in Akir’s helmet crackled with static for a moment, and then George’s voice filled his head. “Akir? You copy?”

Akir keyed the remote mic button on the EVEP control handle. “We’ve got a problem, George.”

“Give it to me straight.”

“Yes sir,” Akir answered. “The port tank has suffered a serious rupture that runs the entire length of the tank. We’re spilling water and sewage into space.”

“That it?” George asked.

“No sir. I can also see stress fractures that extend up into the mainframe and superstructure, but I can’t tell how deep they run.”

“So you’re telling me we’re flying either a quick fix or a total loss. Is that right?” George asked his copilot.

“Yes sir. We’re going to need that retrieval ship. I’d be afraid to power back up and run at even marginal speed.”

“Alright, Akir. Come on back inside,” George ordered. “We’ll turn the green box back on so we can have internal systems and the repulsion field to protect us from space debris. Then we’ll wait for the retrieval ship.”

“Yes sir,” Akir answered. “I’m on my way.” Akir keyed the thruster control on the joystick and headed back toward the airlock.

George turned back to the communications console. “Shalimar control,” he said, speaking into the comm mic. “This is Captain George Citti of the Axia Scout
Starduster
requesting deep space retrieval. Please respond.”

This is going to be a long day
, George thought, leaning back in the comm chair.
A very long day indeed.

Chapter Six

“Connect the X431 to the radical overplay port. Secure with the captive screws,” Delmar read aloud for the fifth time from the instruction sheet. Looking up, he craned his neck to watch Stan’s efforts.

“It won’t work,” Stan said disgustedly. “First, the X431 has the wrong type of plug, and second, there are no captive screws.”

“Well, we have to get this thing assembled and log on to the lab computer before eight,” Delmar complained.