The Agathon: Book One (27 page)

“I dunno,” he said. “Back on Mars?”

“You’re dismissed,” said Tosh.

“Excuse me?” said Emerson. “You can’t dismiss me.”

“Tosh to Barrington,” said Tosh, tapping his comm panel. Emerson looked at him.

“Barrington here,” came the response.

“Emerson has restored main power. Life support is coming back online now,” he said.

“Well done,” said the captain. “Propulsion?” he said.

“Boyett and I are tackling it now. I’d like to relieve Emerson for a few hours to get some sleep and take over down here. He’s about to fall down,” he gave Emerson a little smile.

“No problem. Emerson, you there?” he said, raising his voice on the comms.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Nice job. Get some sleep. I need you firing on all thrusters, excuse the pun. Report to me at oh…
seven
-thirty. Barrington out.” Emerson looked at Tosh and nodded. He looked over at the environmental systems control and checked out oxygen levels throughout the ship. Seeing that they were returning to normal, he removed his breather. The others did the same.

“Make sure the intake manifold is purged of all excess plasma,” he said, turning to Boyett. “If not we’ll have bigger problems than trying to break orbit.”

“Yes, Landon, I do remember my basic flight training, thank you,” she said, crossing her arms. Emerson looked embarrassed.

“Please excuse the young man, Lieutenant. He suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, which sometimes manifests itself as being a jackass,” said Tosh, moving his chair closer to Emerson and trying to get him moving out of the engine room. Emerson raised his hands.

“Okay, okay, you win. I’m going.” He looked at Boyett. “Care to walk with me? I would like to brief you on a few items before I take a nap.”

Tosh raised an eyebrow and looked at Boyett.

“Eh... Okay,” she replied. Emerson gestured for her to lead the way and they began walking towards the entrance.

“Smooth,” said Tosh under his breath. Emerson gave him a wink as they rounded the bulkhead and headed for his quarters.

Agathon Base Camp

16:33 Martian Standard

The Black coursed itself through Tyrell’s veins. It looked at its appendages. Locked into shape. Unable to spread out. It had the same verbal communication ability as the lost ones. It had watched the pink entity for many suns. Absorbing the thoughts of Tyrell. It had taught it much about the mammalian species that had woken it. It had been in peace. Resting in the blissful void. Awaiting the return of the lost ones. This was not home. It could not feel the others. They were gone. It was alone. It had to find the others. Without the others there would be no reason to exist and no hope for returning to the bliss. It had been torn, ripped from its home back into the corporeal realm. This
three
-dimensional universe of flesh and bone and rock. Trapped by this Tyrell thing, it had watched. Learned and waited.

This pink species was not like the others. It was small but its unusually large cranial capacity would serve it well. It flexed its appendages and remembered what it was like to feel the boundaries and confinement of flesh. The Tyrell was quiet. The Tyrell had resisted briefly but was now sleeping deep within this stolen mind. It looked back at the vessel The Agathon and watched its inhabitants as they scurried about. Little creatures still worried about the importance of planets and stars and space. If they only knew.

It looked up and gazed at the nearby star. It was Sayoko Prime. It was sure of it. The Targlagdu should not have been here. The others had destroyed it. Long ago. They had destroyed all Targlagdu. Yet it had returned. The pink species was in great danger and it had no other way to reach the bliss without them. It continued its work on the quantum filament device it had been building. Using primitive tools made the work slow and cumbersome. The pink species were clearly several hundreds of thousands of years away from finding how to cross the rift and still relied on mechanical devices to carry them. For a moment it felt sorry for how long they had to travel before they could shed their physical selves. They would soon feel shock and sorrow for their mistake in their time calculations in this corporeal realm. It knew all that the Tyrell had known and the Tyrell had not told them yet. The Tyrell was keeping information from them.

“The others would be dead by now,” the Tyrell would say over and over again.

It listened to the air as it sank deep into its lungs and remembered its corporeal self. It too needed a gaseous interaction with flesh in order to survive. The others did not think this joining was possible. Previous attempts had extinguished the pink species and reduced it to its subatomic elements, but The Black had waited. It chose to remain in the container and observe the pink species as it went about its linear existence. It began to hear shouting in the distance. It looked towards the treeline and saw two of the pink running towards the rest of the group. As the pair got closer it saw the Barrington emerge from the ship and move to meet them. A small group were assembling around him. Something had happened to the pinks.

The Carrie was special. The Black could see her now. The special one knew it was here. She was much farther ahead in this linear existence than the rest. The pinks did not know what she was yet. It had seen her kind before. A millennia ago. It knew what she was. It had to be very careful. She was close to emergence. The Carrie could stop it from reaching the bliss. It watched for a moment as the two pinks reached the group. They fell to their knees as they began speaking to the Barrington and pointing to the trees. The group all looked at the forest in the distance.

It sensed that its time on this world might be running out and it needed to finish its work, so turned its attention back to the device. It knew that the forces on this world would soon begin extinguishing the pinks. The pinks did not know yet that this ancient predator was not natural and should not have been at Sayoko. They had awoken it in their naivety and irresponsible stumbling across this realm. It began to work faster. It had to convince the pinks to leave this world and find the lost ones before it was too late. It began to sense the special one. It looked up as it began to sense anger coming from her. The Carrie was running towards the forest. Alone.

21

“C
arrie, get back here,” shouted her father.

“Carrie!” he shouted again. She wasn’t listening to a word as she sprinted towards the treeline.

Carrie
! he shouted to her in her mind.
If you don’t stop right now, I’m going to put you down with a pulse gun
! The force of his voice in her mind stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t know why she had suddenly taken off running. Meridian had been in tears when they had arrived, but she had felt the fear of Llewellyn as she was killed moments ago. Young had described the large snake and that it had taken her nearly a half hour ago, but Carrie was sure that she had only died a minute or so ago. She was certain of it. It had felt like the terror Lorenzo Fraine had experienced moments before The Black had liquefied him. David was not dead. She knew that. She had heard him say goodbye to her, but he was alive. She could help him.

“I can save him,” she shouted back to her father, who was running to meet her. She could feel his helplessness, but also his anger at her having taken matters into her own hands. He reached her and took her arm.

“Don’t do that again,” he said angrily. “I don’t care if you’re my daughter or not, I am the captain and if you disobey me again I’ll throw you in a confinement cell for the rest of time, you understand me?” She became six years old again and tears began to fill her eyes. She held them back.

“Dammit, Carrie, this is not a science experiment. This is real life with real people and I am responsible for them. If anything happens to you…” he trailed off as Chavel appeared from the treeline. Carrie and her father looked at the lieutenant. He was covered in blood and holding his neck. He looked disorientated. Carrie began to feel a surge of anger towards her father.

“Let go of me,” she said, gritting her teeth. He complied after a moment and she ran to meet Chavel. Her father followed. A moment later Chavel fell into her arms, covering her with blood from an open neck wound.

“He has a severed artery,” she screamed.

“Barrington to Brubaker. Medical emergency,” her father said into his wrist comp.

“I’m already on my way. Sixty seconds,” came her reply. Chavel’s eyes were wide and bloodshot. He began shaking. Carrie put her hand over the wound, which was spitting out blood. She pressed as hard as she could.

“He’s going into shock,” she said to her father. She looked into his eyes and pleaded with him.

“Stay with me,” she cried. He began to say something but slipped into unconsciousness. She could feel his blood pressure beginning to fade and she looked around for help.

“Help me,” she said to her father.

“Hold his neck,” he said. He wrapped his arms around the lieutenant and lifted his body off the ground. They both began to move quickly towards Brubaker, who was moving up towards them. Carrie’s hands were darkened with blood. They reached Brubaker and placed Chavel on the ground.

“Don’t let go of his neck,” she said to Carrie. She nodded, pressing down firmly on his artery. Brubaker unhooked a portable med kit from her shoulder and began scanning his slumped body. She removed a dermal threader from the bag and placed it next to Carrie’s hand.

“On the count of three I want you to release his neck,” she said, looking into her eyes. Carrie was beginning to lose Chavel’s thoughts as he began to slip away.

“Quickly, Doctor,” she said.

“One... Two... Three,” said Brubaker. In just under a second she had the wound closed and cauterised. The device quickly sealed the artery with temporary Nano med threads, which would remain in place until the wound had healed completely. The bleeding stopped immediately from the wound, as she injected him with a sedative and a haemoglobin originator. She then began checking the body for other wounds.

“He’s got two broken ribs,” she said to the captain. “Lacerations to the lower lumbar region and a punctured lung. Looks like he was hit by something large,” she said.

“Prognosis?” asked the captain.

“I need to get him inside the ship. He’s stable for now but he’s lost a lot of blood,” she said. Brubaker gestured to one of the medics that had followed her over.

“Go get me a stretcher and some blankets,” she said. The young Asian woman nodded and ran back in the direction of the ship.

“Will he live?” Carrie asked. Brubaker gave her a reassuring squeeze of her hand and turned to the captain, who was now looking towards the treeline. Meridian and Young had arrived at the group.

“What the hell happened?” said the captain, standing up. “Where’s Llewellyn?” He directed his question at Young.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?” said Carrie.

Young was still out of breath but he responded, “John there’s something in the forest.” He looked away.

“I need more, Mr Young. Where is Amanda Llewellyn?” he said, furrowing his brow. Young looked at Carrie, confirming her statement.

“Something took her,” he said under his breath.

“What?” said Barrington.

“Whatever it was attacked us near a clearing about one kilometre in. I think we should get everyone on board the ship until we figure out what we’re dealing with here. As long as we’re exposed like this, we’re all in serious danger,” he said.

Barrington looked at Meridian. “Chase?” he asked. She was visibly shaken by what had just happened and was wiping tears away from her cheek when she answered.

“Get everyone in, John. These things know we’re here and they know which direction we were headed.” Several medics arrived with blankets and a stretcher and they all helped get Chavel onto it.

“Carrie, go find Tyrell. I need to see him,” said her father. She was looking at Chavel and feeling very guilty at not sensing what was happening to the group earlier. Chavel looked like he was in bad shape and she was having difficulty getting any readings off him. She had forgotten about Tyrell.

“Okay,” she replied.

“Everyone inside now,” Barrington said, looking towards the tree line. It was still. Chavel was lifted off the ground and the group began to move steadily towards the ship.

It watched as the Carrie approached it.

“D
octor Tyrell?” the special one said to it. It looked at her. She was covered in blood from one of the pinks. The Black accessed the Tyrell’s personality memory and responded.

“Yes, Carrie,” it said smoothly, mimicking the mannerisms of the pink it was now inhabiting. The Carrie looked at it. It wondered for a moment if she already knew that it was there. She looked at the device.

“Doctor Tyrell, my father wants to speak to you about an incident that has just happened in the forest. It seems there is some sort of life form living on this planet. It has killed Amanda Llewellyn.” It contemplated the meaning of ‘killed’ for a moment and accessed all the information that the Tyrell had on the subject. The cessation of existence in this realm was death. Where a biological entity no longer functions to support the life contained therein. The Carrie looked at its device.

“What is this, Doctor?” she asked it. It saw no reason to withhold the information from her.

“Carrie, this device is calibrating our exact distance from point of origin, by collating and referencing the current star chart data and comparing it to astral observations. Your father deemed it to be of upmost importance, as did Mr. Young.” She looked at the machine.

“I have never seen a design like this before, Doctor.” She looked into its eyes intently. It felt something foreign begin to enter its realm. It shut it out and responded quickly.

“I have to do the best I can with the equipment on board. Some of the imaging arrays were damaged in the crash,” it said to her.

“I see,” she replied, still looking steadily and strongly into its eyes.

“Have you learnt anything from the readings?” It had learnt a lot from the readings. Far too much to try and explain to these linear beings, but enough to pacify them.

“I would prefer to finish my readings and report on them once complete. I know you understand, Carrie.” It smiled. The Carrie’s expression did not change. She turned back towards to the ship.

“I’ll join you in five minutes. I would like to secure one more linkup,” it said.

“No problem, Doctor,” she said, not turning her head. It turned its attention back to the device and began downloading the data into its comm pad. It looked in the direction of the forest. It was running out of time. The beast was awake and would be coming for them soon. This most ancient of creatures, the Targlagdu, posed little threat to it but while in corporeal form it could prevent its return to the bliss. It could not allow that. The device began to chirp. The data collection was complete. It packed up its equipment and made its way across the open plain towards the ship. It looked out at the splitting colours of the Sayoko star as it filtered through the haze of artificial blue treetops. It was the Targlagdu’s way of attracting
space
-faring sentient life forms to its surface. They would soon understand why.

B
ridge Conference Room

22:00 Martian Standard

“Where are we?” said Barrington, sitting at the head of the table. He addressed the question to Tyrell and Young, who were both sitting at the foot of the conference desk. There was fear in the room. Carrie sensed that. She was looking at Tyrell, trying to figure out what it was that was sitting across from her.

“It’s not organic,” said Young finally. Tosh and Emerson were side by side next to Carrie at the table.

“What?” said Tosh openly. Carrie noted how tired everyone looked, especially her father. He hadn’t slept in days.

“There isn’t a trace of organic molecules anywhere on the surface,” Young continued. “Whatever those things were that killed Llewellyn were mechanical in nature, not biological.”

Carrie looked at Doctor Meridian, who was looking distantly towards the centre of the table. She hadn’t spoken much since returning from the forest and Carrie was worried about her. She was withdrawn. Emerson was tapping thruster equations into an integrated computer in the table and not paying much attention to anything.

“Tyrone?” Barrington said, turning to Tyrell. He looked at the captain.

“Yes, John?” he said calmly.

“Well?” Barrington pressed, clearly looking for answers. There was a hint of anger in his tone and Carrie wondered if he was about to snap at him. The room looked in Tyrell’s direction. The doctor looked momentarily confused before responding. Carrie felt like he was trying to remember something.

“What was the device you constructed to locate our position?” Young interrupted.

“One thing at a time,” said Barrington to Young, frowning.

“Captain,” Tyrell began. Carrie noticed a slight change in the doctor’s voice. It was somehow deeper.

“The data collected by the device shows our position to be one thousand, three hundred and
thirty
-two light years from point of origin.”

“What?” said Meridian. Emerson’s eyes widened and looked at Tosh with his mouth wide. A heavy cloud descended on the meeting as everyone began speaking at once.

“That’s impossible,” said Young, looking at Tosh.

“You’re wrong, Doc. There’s just no way that can be the case,” Tosh said, leaning back in his chair.

“The FTL drive worked exactly as we had anticipated it to. Other than the explosion, we have had no fluctuation in power outputs or relative space time compression throughout the entire flight,” said Emerson. A small argument began to take shape between Young and Emerson as to how The Betty was being managed. Carrie looked at Tyrell, who remained perfectly still and impassive. Barrington hit the table with his hand, silencing the room.

“This is not the Aristaeus system?” he said with his thumb rubbing his cheek.

“No,” said Tyrell, “it is not.” His voice was expressionless. “The device I have constructed was specially calibrated to track the stellar transition from point of origin.”

“What the hell is he talking about?” said Meridian.

“Okay, everyone, just be calm please and let the doctor finish saying a complete sentence, so that we can all get to the bottom of this,” said Barrington.

He was not able to contain his frustration any longer. “There are several matters to address currently,” he continued.

“Firstly. This is not the origin of the signal makers’ home world. There is no evidence of a correlating signal from any planet in this system. Secondly, it is the location of Sol. The star the Earth was orbiting before it was destroyed. Before The Agathon’s systems were disrupted it conducted a full scan, as it is programmed to do, of the surrounding visible spectrum in order to calculate its position within the galaxy. What it discovered was that not only had the ship travelled almost twice the distance that it had intended to, but that the relative position of point of origin was not where it should be either. As we all know, planetary systems themselves are expanding outwards and orbiting the galactic centre. Our own is traveling at nearly eight hundred thousand kilometres an hour,” said Tyrell

Meridian put her hands up.

“Okay, seriously, where the fuck are we?” she said.

“Chase!” shouted Barrington. Meridian folded her arms and sat back in her chair, closing her eyes and taking several deep breaths. Tyrell looked at Meridian blankly.

“The position of Sol from our perspective has remained almost stationary. Which is impossible, given the distance that its light has had to travel to reach this planet. A simple calculation, using our distance from origin, leaves us with the conclusion that it is currently nearly seven trillion kilometres from its position when we first activated the FTL drive.”

“Meaning?” Emerson said,
wide
-eyed.

“A time dilation seems to have occurred.” Carrie looked at the group. Young placed his hand on his mouth. Meridian looked at Barrington.

“What do you mean, a time dilation?” Barrington pressed.

“Time appears to have slowed for those on board The Agathon.” There was silence at the table.

“By how much?” Meridian asked,
wide
-eyed.