Tides of the Continuum 1: Making History (5 page)

“Where is it? Can we see it?” Aurora was looking out the windows, searching wildly for the Legion's massive bulk. At first glance, its running lights blended with the surrounding stars. Then all at once, her eyes focused on it. “How long till we get to it?”

Lincoln checked the counter, “In just under an hour. We're still some thousands of miles out.”

Aurora watched intently as they neared the large craft. Soon it was too big to be seen through the windshield, and still they approached.

Aurora asked, “What’s with the void in the middle of the ship’s area?”

Lincoln already knew what she was referring to and pointed as he answered, “The engine nacelles, those pod things to the sides of the void, cause the ship to move forward by pulling space back. It’s kind of like rowing a boat. But the engine assemblies are designed symmetrically. They pull space on both sides of each engine, making it almost impossible to have structural attachments on the sides of the nacelles. Because of this, each engine was attached on the top and bottom, and the primary shape of the Legion was engineered around it. That’s the reason for the open area between the engines and sandwiched between the upper and lower portions of the ship. This design also allows us to have several launching bays in that area that can release ships in a kind of protected harbor.”

Aurora felt excited, but a small part of her began to worry. Normally when good things happened to her, the universe found a way to taint them with some sour point of reality. Her mind began to wander toward what the down side could be to this new facet of reality. Perhaps Lincoln's group had her mixed up with someone else and would sooner kill her than release her back to earth with the knowledge she had received. Perhaps they were not as benevolent as they pretended to be. They could be cannibals, intent on introducing new blood into their breeding stock for the food of the giant robot overlords.

She dismissed the last possibility as it sounded too ludicrous to be real. But then again she was riding in a shuttle toward a ship that measured roughly one and a half times the size of Texas.

In time, they traveled into the void between the upper and lower sections of the Legion’s massive shape. The surface that previously appeared smooth from thousands of miles away took on a rougher contour. The small ship entered a large hanger bay recessed in the skin of the Legion. They touched down in the middle of an immense parking area full of various ships of different sizes. There was a slight bump as they landed.

7

Lincoln moved to the back of the small ship and opened a compartment. He pulled out a pair of space suits; he laid one on the bench in front of Aurora then started to climb into the other. She caught on and picked up hers. She had a little trouble sealing it, but with Lincoln's help, they were soon ready.

Lincoln touched a small gray box on the arm of Aurora's suit, and she heard a click. He did the same to his own arm, and then spoke. To Aurora's mild surprise, she heard him in her helmet. “Be careful when we leave this hatch. This interior parking area is a maze and I don't want to have to send teams to find you. We only have about ten minutes of air without reserve tanks. We'll be breathing the air that's around our bodies in the EVA suits. Try to breathe calmly, and you'll be fine.”

In spite of her pounding heart, Aurora gave a cool nod and wink. They turned to the hatch; Lincoln pressed the buttons that would safely depressurize the cabin. Aurora listened as the hiss gradually went silent. She noted that she could still hear her own movements, but not Lincoln's. It was like she was watching an old silent film.

The hatch opened and Lincoln picked up an odd-shaped object before he exited the craft. Aurora followed in silence. She heard Lincoln's voice over the helmet radio, “There is a cable with a snap ring on your suit. I want you to attach it to mine on the little ring in the middle of my back. Do you see it?”

Aurora answered, “Yeah, I see
it. You know, I won't get lost. You don't have to collar me with a leash.”

“You misunderstand. We aren't going to walk the three miles to the airlock door. That would take too long. Luckily, the artificial gravity is only effective for the first ten feet above the deck plates. That's what this is for.” Lincoln lifted the object he'd picked up from the ship. "We'll climb up the side of this craft and jump beyond the gravity field. Once we are weightless, I'll use this booster to make course corrections and navigate us to the other side of the hangar. Hurry, we're wasting air talking about it.”

Lincoln was already climbing the side of the craft. They got up to the top as Aurora felt the dizzying sensation in her head from the lack of gravity. Luckily, Aurora's nausea didn't return. On a three count, they simultaneously jumped up and Lincoln switched the small booster on. It lurched in his grip, directing them toward the airlock chamber on the other side of the massive bay. The booster was only active for a few seconds, just enough time to give them momentum to keep flying, but it went cold before its jet wash burned a hole in Lincoln's suit.

Aurora felt a short wave of panic wash over her as the cord tightened and then jerked her after Lincoln. As she gripped the cable connection, she was glad she'd secured herself as Lincoln had asked; she wasn't certain she could have held on tight enough to not be left behind.

While they were gliding at altitude, Aurora looked down at the hundreds of vessels over which they were passing. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, and she started to breathe harder. To calm her, Lincoln began talking smoothly and slowly about the ships below them. She stared in amazement at the varying designs and shapes and sizes. There were several different groups, which she categorized. The compact streamlined vessels seemed to be a kind of small starfighter, while the oblong and compartmentalized ones, she assumed, were for cargo transport. Lincoln pointed to a few and identified them as Talons, as Fangs, some as sloops, and a few as frigates. He told her she could find complete information on the entire fleet in the ship's central computer system.

They reached the other side of the hangar just as Aurora’s heavy breathing started to take its toll. Lincoln ignited the booster for some slight maneuvering
, and they set down about ten feet from the door to the airlock. Aurora was getting light headed as they stepped through the doorway into the pressure chamber.

Taking hold of a handrail, Aurora steadied herself and relaxed slightly. She heard air moving as soon as the door was sealed. A tone sounded and Lincoln quickly opened her relief valve. “What did you think of your first experience in space?”

Aurora smelled clean air and breathed deep, filling her lungs with its sweetness. “Not bad for a field trip.” She replied as she opened her suit and quickly shed its bulk. “What’s next on this thrill ride?”

They heard a loud metallic clank, as the airlock's other door unsealed, allowing it to roll open and reveal a small group of people waiting on the other side. A tall man stepped forward. He had bright copper hair that continued down his jaw line, and around his mouth. His uniform fit snug, but didn't look like it would restrict movement. He raised his hand to shake Aurora’s, “Welcome aboard. I'm Commander Paul Cutler, Colonel Smyth's First Officer. I run the ship while he's away.”

She responded shyly, "Aurora Dane." She would have said more, but for once in her life was having trouble finding words.

Commander Cutler turned and, with a wave of his hand, introduced several other people. “This is most of the senior staff. Here we have Dr. Eliza Cruz; this is Chief Engineer, Peter Ambrose; this is Amelia Cruz, she's our Chief of Security.”

Aurora stammered, “Nice to meet you,” as she glanced at each of their faces in turn, registering that these weren’t aliens. They were humans. She had to continually remind herself that she hadn’t just sped into the future, but was still in her contemporary present. But then, paradoxically, she had stepped into the future. These humans had grown accustomed to living on a starship, which according to modern earth technologically, should be impossible and yet, there she stood on the deck plates of a real starship. Her own personal “Twilight Zone” had commenced. The whole thing was dizzying and exciting to her at the same time.

“Hey, wait. I’ve seen you before,” said Aurora.

Paul replied, “Yes, we met briefly at your college. But I was unable to stay for a proper introduction. I was also working to recruit new volunteers.”

“Yeah, I heard that’s getting tough lately.”

The first officer ignored her comment and continued his welcome, “We have prepared a place for you to stay. It isn’t big, but it has everything you could need. We have arranged for a tour of the ship later. It won’t be a complete tour, because of the sheer size of the thing, as you can imagine. This,” he handed Aurora a small object resembling a money clip, “is a gift from us to you. It's a comlink. You clip it to your collar or neckline and it acts as a sort of radio, or cellular phone. The difference is you don’t have to pay for airtime. It’s activated when you say the word ‘central’. You then name your target and you are connected. It’s hands-free at its finest.”

Aurora looked around at the staff and noticed that they all had comlinks on their collars. “So I can speak with any person on this ship? Is there a phone book I could look through? I mean there has to be two people with the same names here, as big a ship as this is. Aren’t there like two or three Bob Jones
es? This could get very confusing.”

Her rambling was cut short by a response from Security Chief Amelia. “If Athena has any question about who or what you are referring to, she will ask you questions to help clarify. She doesn't assume.”

Aurora was perplexed. She had assumed that Central was a switchboard or something. “Did you say she? Is there only one operator?”

Lincoln said quietly to her, "Athena is a computer, not a switchboard operator."

Aurora asked, "And it responds to verbal commands?"

Peter must have understood her question because he knew how to answer it. Peter raised his voice and said, “Athena?”

From no particular origin, a voice replied. It was a smooth, female voice, with a gentle undertone. It said, “Yes, Mr. Ambrose?”

He continued, “We’d like you to meet someone new. This woman’s name is Aurora Dane. She will be staying with us for a while.”

Athena answered, “I am pleased to meet you, Ms. Dane. Mr. Ambrose, is this the new occupant of section 48, subsection 326, block A, room 2985?”

Aurora blurted, “Is that my address? What a mouthful!”

Athena’s perpetually calm, disembodied voice answered, “Would you like a new address? I could assign you something a little easier to remember. What about block A, section 1, subsection 1, room 1? I’ve found that people have an easier time remembering numbers that are redundant, and the location I mentioned has recently come open.”

Aurora looked at the others; she didn’t know how to answer. She had never spoken to a computer before. “I guess, whatever you think is best. So your name is Athena?”

“Yes, it stands for ‘Artificial Thinking Heightened Ethical Neural Assembly’. But I like the symbolism of my name also. The original Athena was the mythical goddess of wisdom and protector of her people,” she responded.

“Then, why do we say Central before you connect us with someone’s comlink?” Aurora asked.

“Because when you start with the word Central, I know that you are referring to me to connect you with the name you say next.” Athena answered.

“Um, okay, thanks.” Aurora said.

The tour continued from one level to the next. Most of the traveling was done in small van-sized carriages they called maglevs. They floated in a magnetic field, touching nothing, until they stopped. As they traveled in vacuum through tunnels several hundred feet across, they reached extreme speeds. This system of transportation, allowed people to go from one end of the ship to the other in minutes rather than the months it would take if moving at walking velocity.

Aurora was awed by the sheer size of the ship. She saw enormous machines and systems, many of which, on
Earth, wouldn’t be invented for decades. She saw dining halls large enough to feed all of Boise in one sitting, bays full of more vessels than would fit in the Great Lakes, and rooms with forests growing in them the size of small cities. The enormous artificial environments were complete intricate biospheres.

As they entered a maglev after exiting one such room, Lincoln spoke to Aurora about another special safety feature. “If ever there is any kind of breach that threatens the atmosphere of a specific area of the ship, the ship is designed to seal the damaged section. So, if the hull ruptures or a maglev tunnel rips, the ship automatically contains the bleed with special bulkhead doors, so that the entire ship doesn’t decompress. Any dramatic change in the ambient air pressure triggers the seal.”

“So, if the forest room we were just in started to burn and the air pressure dropped, the forest would be sealed off from the rest of the ship?

“Right.”

“Good idea.” said Aurora as they walked.

“Yeah, we thought so too. That’s why we had them built.”

“Sounds like something the RMS Titanic had. Lots of good it did them.”

“The rupture they faced was more than their system could handle. That doesn’t mean the idea itself was flawed.”

“Now, that I’ve had a glimpse of your ship, are you going to tell me what I’m being recruited for?”

Lincoln answered in a general way, “We would like you to join EPF. We think your profile matches several different areas of expertise
, and you could choose from a wide variety of options. For instance your ability to both see the details and the complete picture could lead into either engineering or research."

"Oh great, so something I was studying anyway."

"Right, but you could also be considered for a command capacity because of your assertive personality. We often promote command personnel from within the ranks, but from time to time we feel the need to infuse new blood into our leadership positions. Take me for instance. I was recruited directly into the command program, bypassing others below me in rank. I was first a trainee, then second officer and then first officer. I was given command of this vessel when it was commissioned some years back.”

Aurora yawned as they stepped from the lift into another corridor.

“Is this boring you?”

“Oh no, it’s fascinating, but I just need some shut eye. When do I get to see my new apartment?”

“How about now? This door is yours,” said Lincoln gesturing to one of the many along the hall.

Aurora casually entered her door and gingerly looked around. Lincoln entered also, but kept a respective distance from her. Aurora explored the back rooms until she found her way back to the main living room where Lincoln awaited her.

“So?” he asked.

“Thank you. It’ll do,” Aurora said to her tour guide, her comment pregnant with unspoken words telling him his presence was no longer required.

“Well, I’ll see you in the morning. We’ve had a full day touring this monster of a ship, but tomorrow is going to be even better.”

“What you got planned?” Aurora asked as she led him back to the door.

“I’m taking you flying. Out in space.” And then before he let the door close behind him, “Sleep tight.”

Aurora found her way back to her bedroom, sank down on her bed and closed her eyes with the intention of sleeping, but found it impossible. The thought of more spaceflight excited her, but she still had so many questions about the Legion
, and most of them centered on the ship’s amazing central computer system. She called on Athena again.