Return to Dakistee (16 page)

"Brian Holt, Rear Admiral, Upper, Commanding Officer of Higgins SCB, message complete."

"Some good news at last," Carmoody said. "I would have felt completely lost without you here, especially after this latest development. What do we do now?"

"We've reported the situation as required by Space Command regulations, so I suppose we're free to continue our investigation until someone orders us to stop."

"Let's go."

When they were again in the Vault, they walked along the main corridor, staring up at storage racks that stretched towards the ceiling.

"Of all the things I expected we might find down here," Christa said, "this would have to rank as perhaps the last."

"From everything I've read, they seemed like such an enlightened people. I don't understand it either."

As they moved deeper into the cavernous area, Christa ordered the lights on. It was surprising that after nineteen thousand, four hundred years, everything worked as well as it did.

Eventually the two women arrived at a raised platform that seemed like a control station. They climbed the stairs and discovered a computer console arrangement similar to that in the security rooms. There was not a speck of dust on any of the four chairs there.

"I guess there must be a virtual army of bots down here," Carmoody said. "Everything is so pristine."

"Yes, it would appear so. I wonder if we'd have any better luck accessing the main computer system from down here. Let's give it a try."

The women took seats as Christa touched the console table to illuminate it. The readouts jumped to life and began displaying an incredible amount of information. As a viewing monitor powered on, it displayed the picture of a woman.

"Who's that," Carmoody asked.

"It must be one of the facility's officials. Her title says Chief Administrative Director."

"She's a Dakistian? She looks kinda like us."

"The people of Dakistee didn’t look all that different from humans."

"But Nordakians look so different. Aren’t they direct descendents?"

"The dissidents who left in search of religious freedom didn't have FTL, so generations lived and died in space. There's speculation that the species mutated during their trip to Nordakia because of inadequate radiation shielding."

"Wow. I never read that."

"It's just speculation, but there's no arguing that the original inhabitants of this planet weren't as tall and didn't share the Nordakian ability to change skin color. Their skin color seemed to vary between a rich Moroccan brown and a Northern European link pink. In the news broadcasts of the period, I saw none of the extremes represented by deep blacks or albino colorations, and no Mongolian yellow coloration."

"The dissidents were lucky they left when they did. Their bodies may have mutated, but at least they didn't fall victim to the plague that sterilized the population of this planet and eventually led to its extinction."

"Uh, yes. They were lucky."

"Can we determine anything more about this individual?" Carmoody asked, pointing to the image on the viewer.

"There's a button here marked, 'Kudlaknee.' That means 'Presentation' in Dakistian. Perhaps it's like a vid biography."

As Christa pressed the button, the viewer changed to show a series of numbers. Readouts jumped to life and the viewer changed to show a graph with steadily increasing wave forms.

"What's it doing?" Carmoody asked.

"I have no idea," Christa replied. "But I don't like it."

"Tap the button again. Perhaps it will revert to the image."

Christa tapped the button once, but there was no change. She then tapped it twice, and still nothing changed. The console continued to display fluctuating information values and the waveform on the viewer continued to show increasing activity.

"Look," Carmoody said suddenly, pointing to a robotic arm that was descending from the ceiling far above. The slight whirring noise from its servos had attracted her attention.

The articulating arm moved with precision and latched onto a long box in a storage rack. After securing itself, it waited as the box was released by the rack's holding mechanism.

"It's lowering a coffin to the floor in front of us," Carmoody said. "Ewww! I hate dead bodies. Especially mummified bodies. Put it back. Quick."

"I don't know how. Besides, I'd like to see the skeleton, if it hasn't turned to dust in twenty thousand years."

"You
want
to see a skeleton?"

"I want to see the original bone structure of Nordakians. I've seen images of the current skeleton. They have four more ribs than humans, but otherwise it's pretty similar. I understand the internal organs are pretty similar as well, allowing humans and Nordakians to breed."

"Nordakians and humans have procreated?"

"I'm not aware of any offspring yet, but there have been marriages."

While they talked, the box had neared the floor and an automated dolly arrived to accept it. Christa climbed down from the platform as the articulating arm carefully positioned the box on the cart. With her first good look at what she had thought was a coffin, she said, "I think our original assessment was incorrect, Gracie. This isn't an immense mausoleum; it's a stasis repository."

"Stasis? That can't be. Stasis isn't viable for more than forty-two years."

"I didn't say I thought they intended to sleep longer than that, just that this box is no coffin. Perhaps the people who functioned as caretakers were unable to awaken the sleepers, or perhaps a decision was made to let them sleep their lives away because there was no hope left for a cure to the plague."

"You think someone would just walk away and leave tens of thousands of people to die in their sleep?"

"I don't know, Gracie. I'm just speculating on possible reasons for so many people having died in their sleep, if indeed all these chambers are occupied."

On the platform, the console suddenly started producing a bleating sound. Christa and Carmoody hurried to determine the cause.

"I don't see a problem," Carmoody said. "No flashing lights or anything."

"Maybe it's a gentle reminder instead of an emergency alarm. Perhaps it has something to do with the stasis chamber that was just lowered. Look at the display— the waveforms have adopted a regular pattern."

"But what do they mean?"

"I don't know," Christa said as she stared at the viewer. "You don't suppose…"

"Suppose? Suppose what?"

"That the person in that stasis bed is being revived."

"After nineteen thousand, four hundred years? Impossible."

"So was a material that's impervious to all forms of energy weapons until we discovered the properties of Dakinium. Perhaps the Dakistians discovered a method of suspended animation where all bodily functions totally cease."

"Scientists have dreamed about that for centuries, but it's been conceded that such a process is impossible. A slowing of all bodily functions is the best they can accomplish."

"Alyysian physiology allows them to be completely frozen, then thawed and revived centuries later. It doesn't work with humans because our bodies are mostly water, and water expands by fifteen percent when frozen. That expansion destroys fragile cell structures. We've all seen what happens when you freeze a tomato and then thaw it out."

Carmoody nodded. "Yes, we did that experiment when I was in pre-school. What a soft, soggy mess that tomato became. You couldn't even pick it up because the outer skin had broken open."

"We know we're more advanced in many areas than the Dakistians were, but we also know they were ahead of us in others. This might be one of those areas."

The automated cart had begun to move away from the loading spot. Carmoody saw it and asked, "Where's that going? Or more importantly, should we follow it?"

"Yes, let's see where the computer is sending it. If it realized the body is deceased, it might be headed for a crematorium. We should try to stop it if that's the case."

The two Space Command officers hurried down from the platform and raced after the cart. The entrance door opened for the cart and remained open for the two women. They followed the cart to the elevator and then joined it inside. They felt the elevator begin to rise, then stop after several seconds and open. The cart exited and turned to the right, but the lights didn't come on until Christa gave the command.

The automated cart wound its way through a maze of corridors until it entered a large ward. When it stopped near the center of the room, another articulating arm lifted the enclosure from the cart. As the box came free, the cart left the room. Christa and Carmoody watched as a table rose from up the floor near the wall and the articulating arm placed the box on top of it. The arm then attached connection wires and tubes from the table to the box. The top cover of what they had thought was a coffin, at first, had been completely opaque until then, but, as they watched, the dark color faded until the cover was as transparent as glass.

"Amazing!" Christa said as they looked down at a female form that appeared to be middle-aged. She had magenta-colored hair with red highlights and, unlike the skin-tight stasis suit typically worn by stasis bed occupants, she was clothed in what looked to be a simple white terrycloth gown. Overall, she looked like someone who had climbed into the box just moments ago and closed her eyes. Christa remembered the debilitated condition of Jenetta's body after ten years in stasis. The two officers didn't observe any indications of respiration, but the condition of the body suggested that it might be receptive to resuscitation. "Gracie, go to the surface and call the Marine Central Command. Tell them we need a full medical team here immediately— preferably one with a doctor who has expertise in stasis recovery cases."

"On my way," Carmoody said as she turned and ran from the room.

Christa reached into a pocket and brought out a tiny case that held four rings. Each about the size of a personal log ring, these were decidedly different because there was no hole in the center. Instead, each had a small optical lens. She touched the edge of one to her tongue, then placed it on a nearby piece of equipment with the lens pointed in the general direction of the stasis container. Taking a small viewpad from another pocket, she centered the image on the box, adjusted the focus, and began recording. The ring would now record everything that happened around the stasis box until either the recording was stopped or it ran out of storage space in about two week's time.

Christa then placed another ring in front of a viewer located on a central desk. It appeared to be identical to the viewer they'd seen in the Vault. She synced the two recording devices so they would share a common time-frame for later analysis.

As Carmoody emerged from the tunnel, she immediately placed a call to Marine Central Command using her CT. The proximity of Fort Carver allowed the use of CTs anywhere in the Loudescott area. When the first facility had been discovered, a portable communications unit had been set up, but a more powerful unit of the sort typically found on a base had long ago replaced that. The computer generated a carrier and made the connections via satellite to the Marine Base halfway around the planet.

As soon as she had made her needs known and had told the communications operator that the request came from Lt. Commander Christa Carver, she was put through to the base hospital. A dispatcher there said that shuttles would be in the air in minutes with a full medical team. Carmoody had the dispatcher transfer her to Supply, where she requested that a base communications system be delivered to the new facility ASAP. Carmoody signed off and hurried back down to the Medical and Research level where she found Christa staring down at the body through the transparent cover.

"A medical team is on the way," Carmoody said. "They should be here within thirty minutes. I also requested a more powerful com system for inside the facility. Perhaps we can stay in contact with the surface if we have stronger signals."

Christa nodded, then said, "She looks so much at peace, doesn't she?"

"Yes. Any sign of life?"

"None yet. It may be too much to hope for. Just because her body has been perfectly preserved doesn't mean she can ever be revived."

"It would be such a shame," Carmoody said.

"What would?"

"To sleep for twenty thousand years, only to die without truly waking up."

Chapter Twelve

~ October 23
^rd
, 2285 ~

"I'm not familiar with this equipment, Commander," the chief medical doctor said to Christa as they stood looking at the viewer mounted on the central desk. "I don't know how to interpret these symbols. I can't tell if they're reporting the health of the patient or evaluating the hot chili in the mess hall."

"The symbols are Dakistian, Doctor, but that's as much as I can tell you. Can you at least tell me if she can be revived?"

"If, as you say, she's been entombed for nineteen thousand, four hundred years, the chances are astronomical. I agree she looks perfectly preserved, but that doesn't mean anything. She might have died almost twenty centuries ago, but something that was pumped into the body and stasis chamber might have destroyed all microbial life so there was nothing in the chamber to destroy the body."

"But the instruments seem to indicate they're measuring life signs."

"We can't know that. Perhaps that's the way their instruments appeared when life ended. Our monitors show a flat line, but that doesn't mean the ancient Dakistians designed theirs the same way."

A nurse, just one of a dozen medical personnel ringing the stasis chamber suddenly shouted, "Doctor Johannes, the patient's eyes are open."

"I— could have been incorrect, Commander, with my earlier statement. Nurse, are her eyes blinking?"

"No, Doctor. They're just wide open. Wait, they just blinked."

"It appears I was wrong, Commander. It seems that we have a nineteen thousand, four hundred year old patient on our hands."