Crucible of a Species (48 page)

Nolen continued over the interruption, “Please Dr. Thompson. I’ve continued to gather data and track our course ever since liftoff. The event horizon is an artifact of the cosmic string located at the center of the cylinder but it has no temporal influence. We can control our approach to the cosmic string and that will dictate whether we move forward or back in time just as our nearness to it dictates how fast we travel through time. We can all be safely home very soon if you’ll just listen to me.”

Drake eyed the captain as he stood. His words were hard as iron, “The debate and vote are over. By their own actions, they’ve decided and lost. We will continue our mission, Captain.”

Drake’s gaze sent a chill through the physicist’s bones, “However, the mutineers must first be dealt with and that includes you, Doctor Nolen. The penalty for armed mutiny is death and this time, no reprieve.”

“Colonel, you can’t …”

Pain and frustration fired Drake’s fury, “As I told you on that God-forsaken field back on Earth, you cannot tell me what I can and cannot do. Lord only knows when I said that last but the statement stands true.” The colonel turned and called out, “Sergeant, bind and take Nolen back with the mutineers. Transport all of them under guard to hanger two, there they will await my orders.

“Give Commander Dalmas and Lieutenant Thrumbold my compliments. Ask them to come to the captain’s office as soon as possible.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Sergeant Marshall answered as he led the protesting doctor out of the bridge.

*~~*~~*~~*

Colonel Daniel Drake
examined the prisoners standing in ordered rows. He wanted to make sure they properly bound every mutineer. A semicircle of armed guards surrounded the prisoners who stood before the armored doors of the large Hunter Recon depressurization chamber. He had permitted a few other personnel in the bay to act as formal witnesses while the remaining crewmembers were either in the cafeteria or at their duty stations.

“It’s not really all their fault, Colonel.” His shadow, Lieutenant Thrumbold startled him, “They…”

“They should have let it come to a vote. Armed mutiny is unacceptable and to commit the crime a second time after receiving a generous pardon is beyond forgiveness. Tell those shipmates we’ll be burying that their death wasn’t really the fault of those who mutinied. All I want to hear from you is a report on our status. Are we ready to carry out the sentence?”

“Yes sir, all is ready. Just give the word.” The coolness of the lieutenant did little to improve Drakes fury.

Drake angrily examined the group. Many were hurt and treated for their wounds. A few should have been in sickbay. Several at the back were crying. Two others were kneeling with hands tied behind them, next to a sobbing young woman who had collapsed to the floor. They were scared and they had every right to be but there was no pity. The guards were handpicked, he had every confidence they would carry out his orders.

“My words are for the benefit of the faithful crew of the Argos. Listen closely and bear witness to justice descending upon these mutineers. Mutiny is a hard word and its consequences are always harsh no matter if you are on the winning or the losing side. Now we as winners need finish the cycle.

“Sergeant, open the inner bay doors.”

A sob and shouts of alarm rose as the doors slid open but they turned to hushed gasps of disbelief as they looked inside the airlock. They had not expected to see a Hunter inside the chamber. Drake let them take in the scene before continuing.

“Under the authority invested in me by the ISA as executive for this expedition I sentence you to expulsion.

“You will immediately be taken aboard the Hunter Recon and released into space. From here on you may choose your own course, I’m done with you one and all. We’ve stocked your boat with supplies. Ex-Lieutenant Esperanza has shown us she is a qualified pilot and she will captain your flight.

“Esperanza, I wish you luck with your first command. Sergeant Marshall, carry out your orders.”

Ten minutes later, the crowded Hunter ejected from the Argos into the heart of the temporal maelstrom that is the Red Spot of Jupiter.

“This here’s
a Hunter Reconnaissance boat not a friggin shuttle full of comfy chairs. There ain’t near enough seats,” Chief Gorman ‘Cookie’ Slap’s voice bellowed across the noisy bay as he stepped over the bodies of those sitting on the deck, “any second now we are going to receive one hell of a jolt and we will lose gravity until our wave drive is brought online. Let me assure you a zero-gravity, momentum driven crash can be just as painful as one at ‘1-G’.

“If you are in a seat, strap in. If you can’t get to a seat, sit on the deck and grab onto something or someone. There’s room in back storage but get down off your feet. They ain’t gonna wait until we’re all in here neatly tucked into bed. SIDDOWN!”

Angry former shipmates on the Argos slammed the Hunter’s hatches shut, dogging them from the outside as Cookie stumbled across the deck, pushing past his mates and climbing over others to check the seal on the side entrance. The seal was good.

Fear turned to hope as they initially boarded the Hunter but now chaos filled the boat. There was no planning in this departure beyond the supplies hastily thrown into it and most of the people in the shuttle had no idea where to go or what would happen next.

Cookie could feel and hear the rapid ‘chung-chung-chung’ of the anti-sublimation cycle as it converted the docking chamber’s air into a reusable solid leaving a soft vacuum in the airlock. The inner doors on the Argos were already sealed and in less than one minute, the outer doors would open exposing them to the vacuum of space. There was going to be a big jolt as the catapult ejected the Hunter Recon and then they would lose the pull of gravity until the boat’s wave drive started.

A rumble carried through the deck plates of the little boat marking the opening of the ship’s outer airlock doors. “Hang on!” The bellow was barely out of Cookie’s mouth when a loud bang echoed through the hull and, with a tremendous jolt, the catapult ejected the craft into the angry red-swirling clouds of the maelstrom that was the very heart of the Red Spot of Jupiter.

Cookie climbed into the empty seat next to Esperanza. He grabbed the restraints, glanced up and froze. This was the chief’s first view from the cockpit of a Hunter in open space and the raw splendor of the panorama of a swirling tunnel leading to infinity was both breathtaking and frightening.

The lieutenant waited until they drifted off a safe distance from the Argos before starting their drive and with it gravity returned. For the first time she relaxed, briefly glancing towards the CPO, “Mighty decent of them to wait for us to drift out of range before starting their wave drive. Hell, they could at least have taken us out of the Red Spot before abandoning us.”

The chief, still fumbling with his restraints, answered, “No need to be sarcastic. Be glad they did wait to start the drive. You may not like it but we lost and still got better than we deserved. I would have never given up dis boat if I were the colonel.”

A blue halo enveloped the Argos, distorting its image and that of the swirling clouds behind. Esperanza touched Cookie’s arm, “See that? They just fired up their drive. They’ll be …”

Esperanza stopped to stare in awe. The Argos simply disappeared from their view and in that same instant a ripple formed in the distant wall of the Red Spot’s event horizon sending out a brief pattern like the waves of a pellet gun fired into a stream, “Didn’t waste any time getting outta here did they?”

Cookie’s hushed reply barely rose over the chaos filling the bay behind them, “Guess they’re on the way to Tau Ceti. Wonder if they’ll make it and what they’ll find if they get there?”

Ensign Mary Li was already into her report as she came forward to lean on the back of their seats, “We’ve food and water for two days. That’ll get us back to Earth with a bit to spare. Do we go to camp or the colony?”

Dr. Nolen came up behind them, “Lieutenant, I assume we’re still drifting. Please insure we don’t move further in towards the center of the Red Spot or our temporal displacement will be hard to estimate.”

He turned to the ensign, “I am surprised by your comment. I thought we wanted to get back to our Earth? We had one unifying goal and fought for it. Now we have a ship with supralight capability and you don’t want to return home?”

Esperanza turned in her seat, “She’s not a ship. In spite of her wave drive, she’s little more than a glorified shuttle. You saw how rough the transit through the event horizon was on the Argos. We don’t know if our little Hunter is going to survive getting through that wall into open space much less trying to push forward through time.”

Nolen replied, “It’s even more complex. If we exit now we will no longer be in the same timeframe as when we entered. However, we’re in luck. They left us the tools for my calculations as well as all of our records, even my personal research is there along with all the data taken during our transit. I’ve started the course calculation that will take us home and expect we’ll find help and support before we make it back to the Skyport.”

Esperanza brought the Hunter around, drawing the vessel closer to the churning wall of gravity waves that was the cosmic string’s event horizon. “Punching through that wall with this Hunter’s like trying to punch through with a paper cup.”

The fatality in Nolen’s answer came through clearly, “We have very little chance of survival if we don’t try and return to our proper timeframe. Short temporal jumps have a greater uncertainty in the exit calculation. We will emerge alone and without the basics for survival. We will land with no protection from predators and without a ready supply of edible plants containing the proper vitamins.

“No matter our destination, we must cross the event horizon of the Tippler Cylinder since we are already inside of it but if we want to survive then we must first return to our own timeframe.”

“So, there is no choice.” Esperanza commented as she stood to go back into the bay. “Let me tell the people, you go and finish your calculations, “Listen up. Dr. Nolen is calculating the course and we’ll be heading home very soon.”

A cheer started but the lieutenant lifted her hand to stop it, “Get ready. Take the extra cargo straps and rig safety restraints for all those who do not have seats.”

Alexander Tomov’s voice interrupted from inside the bay, “You can’t be serious. You want to push ahead in time and then cross the event horizon in this tin cup. That’s like trying to cross the ocean against the current in a dinghy and at the end of the trip we still have to get out of this tunnel.”

Nolen turned from his workstation, “We don’t have a damaged hull like the Argos suffered on our first transit.”

The specialist countered, “Everything we need is back on that planet. I say we take a vote.”

“Yes, a vote,” they shouted as Chief Slap emerged from the cockpit onto the raised platform, “Stop. What the hell do you think this is, some town hall meeting? You will listen to the lieutenant and ….” a crewmember lunged at the CPO from the side. Slap saw the crewman coming and avoided the blow as two more dove at him from the other side. A sharp crack punched through the air of the cabin and the assailants collapsed to a deck whose air now smelled of sour garlic.

Esperanza twisted to look over her shoulder. Cookie was there, the stunner in his hand pointed with deadly threat at those in the hold. His voice boomed through the now silent cabin, “This is not a democracy. There will be no vote. Settle down. Next one to try anything goes out the airlock, there’s not a one of you who is critical to our getting home. Do as you were told and prepare for departure.”

Esperanza looked over at Cookie as she settled back into the chair, “Pistol threats don’t exactly make a happy crew.”

“They don’t need to be happy, they need to listen and obey.”

“Where’d you get that thing?”

“A parting gift slipped to me by Chief Meecham from Drake. It came along with Nolen’s model and research data. Drake thought we might have problems, God bless the SOB. Hope I never see him again.

“Now Lieutenant, let’s see if we can get this little rowboat across the ocean.”

*~~*~~*~~*

“You must be kidding,”
Esperanza mumbled as she reviewed Nolen’s course. “This is how you want us to move uptime? Against the flow of gravity?”

Nolen couldn’t understand why she was so upset, “Of course. We travelled downtime with the gravity waves during our trip here. To move forward in time we need to reverse our course and the closer you can get us to the cosmic string in the center without being drawn into it, the more rapid will be our travel uptime.”

Nolen could see the confusion in Esperanza’s eyes, “The force of gravity associated with the cosmic string is several hundred times that of Jupiter. Unlike a planet’s confined point-source of gravity, gravity in this region follows the long thread of the cosmic string into the very heart of the planet as the string itself spins very rapidly. This heavy-gravity spin is what enables it to warp time without us having to exceed the speed of light; it’s a natural Tippler Cylinder.

“The flow of gravity down the cosmic string overpowers even the massive gravity waves created by Jupiter, it’s rather like pointing a high pressure water hose into the waters of a stream. As we approach the cosmic string the flow is overpowering, uniform and unidirectional resulting in a time-slippage. Outside of this uniform flow, there is a transitional region where the forces from the planet and cosmic string mix. That is where we are now. In this region, gravity waves again become more and more chaotic as we move outward and we can use this area to navigate until we ultimately reach the event horizon or storm wall as you call it, where total chaos exists since the gravity of Jupiter balances that of the cosmic string.

“To travel back we must start our run out here near the storm wall and dive in towards the string. However, as we approach, we move in the direction opposite that of our course of six months ago. Here’s the tricky part, when our wave drive is active, we are a part of the gravity wave and if we approach too close to the cosmic string, it will sweep us away into the past. To avoid this, we must turn our drive off before entering this region and allow momentum to carry us through the timestream and against the temporal current.

“The experience should be somewhat like putting an aircraft into a steep dive and then pulling out. We coast in as close as possible to the cosmic string, moving ahead in time a little bit with each close encounter. Then on the other side, we restart the wave drive, turn around and repeat the process rather like a moth flitting about and passing repeatedly through a flame. The deeper we penetrate the region, the further forward in time we will move with each pass but we can never touch the string and must leave enough momentum to prevent our being trapped in the down-time flow.”

Esperanza stared at the plot simulation for a while before answering, “It’s gonna be a long, hard climb back home.

“How are our passengers doing Cookie?”

“They’re unhappy but quiet and ready.”

“Here we go, everyone hold on.”

The boat dove in towards the string at the center of the Tippler Cylinder, gaining speed as they pushed inward until they were close enough to see the swirling, twisted lines of the cosmic string itself. The colors of the far-off horizon shifted, red event horizon clouds took on a green and then blue sheen. Esperanza cut the drives as they entered the spinning timestream and the world around them transformed and the Hunter vibrated as though they had passed off a smooth road into a plowed field.

“We’re coming up on our closest approach to the string,” cried the lieutenant. A heavy jolt rocked the vessel as it slammed into the temporal timeflow. Waves of nausea flooded those inside while the skies turned black from intense gravity bending even the photons of light away from the timestream.

A deep, purple suddenly filled their world and Esperanza fired the drive. Colors around the boat swirled across the spectrum, ever shifting as the Hunter struggled to climb against the pull until the skies returned to the normal red of the storm.

Esperanza showed no mercy for the time-sick passengers but immediately reversed their course to begin the next dive.

Misery filled the cabin with each more violent pass. Travel became a repetitious, stomach retching journey with no visual appearance of progress or passage of time. After an eternity, Nolen tapped Esperanza’s shoulder, “That’s enough, Lieutenant. Back off to the wall, I need to run a short calculation.”

The crew sensed the change in course even before Nolen moved into the bay to make the announcement, “We should be back home. According to my calculations, we arrived a year after our original departure plus-or-minus nineteen months. Lieutenant now is the time to exit.”

Esperanza announced, “Everyone make sure your restraints are tightly fixed. We have one last hurdle.”

The Hunter Recon accelerated outward, slamming into the deadly storm wall at full throttle. Churning waves of gravity jolted the tiny vessel, ripping the controls from Esperanza’s hands. The small craft tumbling end over end, spinning within the thrashing gravitational fields as they tossed the vessel around like a marble in a bottle. Gravity shifted continuously, first pulling up towards the ceiling and the next second slamming everyone towards the bulkhead or deck. There was no way to anticipate the direction of the violence as it carried them onward with a will of its own.

Their world suddenly stopped bucking and the heavens around then began rotating in a mosaic of brown, white and black. The Hunter’s autopilot stabilized their flight and above the craft settled a vista of the now familiar red tower, the Red Spot viewed from its side. Typhoon-filled clouds of Jupiter lay to port and the black velvet, diamond-studded majesty of the universe beckoned on their starboard.