Firmament: Reversal Zone Read online

  Since when did Crash leave decisions up to me?

  “All right.” I looked at August, who was working his panel, and timidly asked, “August, have you had breakfast?”

  “I was about to,” he said, not turning around.

  “Do... you want to eat with me?”

  “Sure.”

  That was all, and the dismissive tone left me unsure what to do.

  “So... I'll meet you down there?”

  “I'll be down when I'm ready.”

  He still didn't turn around. Heart heavy, I turned and hurried off the bridge.

  My August was still there somewhere. Under the rude, brash exterior. He had to be. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, but it persisted.

  We'd have him back to normal soon. Hopefully very soon.

  I didn't bother to visit Almira when I reached the busy mess hall, knowing that she was still the opposite of her warm, kind, motherly self. Instead, I located the same table in the corner of the room and sat, hoping August actually intended to come.

  Apparently he did. After only a minute or two, I spotted him making his way between the full tables to reach me. I smiled at him, and he returned it, but his was thin and without feeling.

  “Hey,” I said as he sat down.

  “Hey,” he said, his accent still sounding abrasive.

  I didn't know what else to say, so I kept quiet. So did he. The silence continued as Eduardo slapped down our plates of sausage and beans and rice, then swept away.

  He looked at his food, then spoke up, his interest sounding forced. “How are you holding up?”

  “I'm tired,” I said.

  He nodded, took a bite of the sausage, and drank some of his water. I watched, not feeling like eating.

  “You should eat,” he said a bit more gently, looking at me.

  “I'm not very hungry.”

  “You should eat anyway.”

  I picked up my utensils and sawed at my meat with the dull knife. Another silence was broken by August's voice.

  “Feel like you're going crazy yet?”

  “Definitely,” I promptly replied, and we laughed a bit.

  We finished the meal in silence, then he nodded at me and left. I tried not to think about the whole thing as I went to the briefing room to find the Doctor and Whales.

  They were both there, both studying computers at the long table and they didn't notice me when I walked in. “Any news?” I asked.

  Whales tapped his computer screen before replying. “McMillan checked everything. Says it's worse than he thought... something's wrong with the thrusters, like... one of them might not even be working.”

  “I haven't been able to find out anything new,” the Doctor added. “Although I did find traces of a hallucinogen in Trent's blood.”

  I pursed my lips, trying to think. “Who would want to do that and why?”

  “A captain needs respect, you know,” was all the Doctor said. It was in an odd tone, but I was better able to handle that after last night.

  I thought for a moment. “Make him look weak in the eyes of the crew, you mean?”

  Whales shrugged. “Everyone's in a vulnerable state right now.”

  I wasn't sure if this was to be a fact in defense of the Captain, or an explanation of why people would be easily set against him.

  “We do have an idea,” the Doctor said.

  I pulled out a chair two seats down from them and sat, ready to listen. The Doctor turned to Whales, who cleared his throat, obviously struggling to remain professional.

  “Our sensors aren't working, but if we could study the cloud with mechanical instruments in the lab, such as a microscope, it's possible we could learn something.”

  “You want to bring some of it onto the ship?”

  “We want to try,” the Doctor answered.

  “I'll ask the Captain.” Standing up, I cleared my throat. “Thank you both for trying.”

  “You're welcome,” said the Doctor graciously, and Whales merely nodded. Then they both turned back to their computers.

  I headed up to the bridge to tell the Captain about their plan. I had no idea how they hoped to accomplish it, if they even knew of a way yet, but I knew he'd want to discuss it with them.

  I'd never realized how much I took our wristcoms for granted. Everything took twice as much time and energy without the ability to communicate with someone through those little devices. Now, unless it was something that could be said over the intercom, we had to walk all through the ship to deliver the smallest message.

  When I reached the bridge, Crash was there. But instead of lounging over people's chairs being annoying, he stood with this hands clasped behind him, slightly to the rear of the Captain's chair, watching the window with stiff posture, as if at attention.

  “Andi Lloyd on the bridge.”

  The Captain swiveled to greet me. “Any news?” He slouched in his chair, shoulders rounding forward and eyes half closed.

  “They do have a plan. Of sorts.”

  “Well, go ahead, tell me.”

  “Perhaps somewhere more private?”

  He hesitated, then stood up. “Are they in the briefing room? They could talk to me themselves, I suppose.”

  Guilders stood and turned around. “I'm the first officer. I should be there.”

  The Captain hesitated, then looked from me to Guilders. “I suppose...”

  I wasn't sure having Guilders there in his present state was a good idea, but he was the first officer, so I supposed I couldn't really do anything about it.

  “Crash, you come too,” the Captain said, his voice crisp. Crash nodded and followed us out.

  When we reached the briefing room the pair still bent over their computers, but they looked up when we entered. The Captain sat at the head of the table opposite them, folded his hands, and looked at them. I started towards the seat on the Captain's right, but Guilders leapt forward and sat in it, and I had to be satisfied with the Captain's left. Crash took a modest spot halfway down the table.

  “You have an idea, I hear?” the Captain said.

  This time, Whales spoke up. “We want to try to capture some of the cloud in a container and bring it aboard so we can study it with mechanical instruments, since our electronic sensors aren't doing us any good.”

  Guilders exploded. “Bring some of it aboard? Just how do you plan to accomplish that? And just what do you think is going to happen once it's here? How do you plan to contain it? Have you even thought about any of that?”

  “Actually, we have,” said the Doctor coldly. “We plan to create a force field container, send it out of the airlock with a technician, and have him collect some of the cloud in a field. Then, once we have that aboard, we can siphon off small bits of the content to study within smaller force fields.”

  The Captain leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Sure, that could work.”

  “Could?” Guilders spluttered. “Could isn't good enough. What's going to happen to the man who goes out into this? What might it do to his suit and his air?”

  “He's only going to be out there a minute,” Whales protested. “It is a risk, but...”

  “Actually, Guilders may be right,” Crash said quietly.

  More words I never thought I'd hear him say.

  “We might have to take risks,” I said. “If we're going to get out of here, and especially if we're going to rescue the Pigeon on time.”

  The Captain frowned. “I see Mr. Guilders' point...”

  “Pardon me, Captain,” the Doctor said, “but if we can't find out anything about the cloud, there's nothing we can do for you, and we can't find out anything about it if it's outside the ship and we're inside. Not with sensors being the way they are.”

  I opened my mouth to agree, but Crash spoke up again. “With all due respect, the Pigeon still has a month's worth of provisions. That gives us time to exercise a little caution. Why not take a few days and continue to do what experiments we can here?”

  Defin
itely not the Crash I knew.

  The Captain turned to me, eyelids drooping. “What do you think, Andi?”

  I rubbed my forehead. Guilders was right, it was a risk. But coming into the cloud had been a risk. We had to rescue the other crew, as well as our own. In his right mind, the Captain would say so. “I think... we should do it.”

  “You can't be serious,” Guilders scowled.

  “I am. We have to find out more about this.”

  “I do see your point,” Crash said.

  “Of course you do,” Guilders all but yelled, jumping out of his chair. “You always are one to take risks, aren't you, Mr. Crash? Doesn't matter who gets hurt, as long as it isn't you, and as long as you get your way.”

  Eerily wrong as the tone was, he wasn't incorrect.

  “I really think that kind of reaction is uncalled for,” Crash said, unfazed.

  “So do I,” said the Captain, straightening up. “Thank you, Guilders, please return to your post.”

  “I...”

  “I said thank you, Mr. Guilders.”

  Guilders hesitated, then turned and stormed out.

  “Thank you, Mr. Crash, please go oversee things on the bridge while I continue this,” the Captain said.

  “Yes sir,” Crash deferred, and stood up. He smiled at me, and left.

  The Captain sat up a bit straighter and spoke in a more commanding tone. “Gerry, I want an extra protective suit on whoever goes out there to retrieve the cloud. Who will you need to work with?”

  Whales answered. “We'll need help from McMillan and Bradshaw.”

  “Understood. You have my permission to carry out the plan. Just... be careful.”

  “Of course,” the Doctor said, and went back to his work. Whales also turned back to his screen, but for several minutes the Captain made no move to leave. He just sat there staring at the two of them as if his mind were locked down.

  I finally asked, “Captain, should we return to the bridge?”

  Before he could answer, Crash's voice came from the intercom. “Captain, we have a problem.”

  The Captain pushed himself out of his chair and stepped to the intercom. “What is it?”

  A pause, then, “I think you'd better come see for yourself.”

  We both hurried up to the bridge, where we found Crash in the captain's chair, swiveled to face Yanendale at communications.

  “We found a message,” Crash said.

  “From Dooley?” The Captain’s face relaxed.

  Crash frowned. “Yes, but listen to it.”

  We listened as Yanendale read aloud, “We seek the light, but find ourselves only in white darkness. Oh that the pangs of hunger for freedom would leave us! We seek eternally, never claiming respite as our own. Though I would fain see the stars again, I see them now as through a storm cloud, reminding us of the glory that was our travel and now is not.”

  Silence hung over the bridge as we took it in. I was the first one to state the obvious.

  “But... that's exactly the same as the last one.”

  “Yes, it is.” Crash looked at the Captain, who didn't take his eyes off the communication screen.

  August looked back towards us. “Why would he send the same message twice?” he snapped.

  “I don't think he would.” The Captain looked at me. I couldn't speak.

  “We've been going in circles,” Crash said.

  Chapter XII

  Tears stung my eyes, against my will. Going in circles? Hopelessness enveloped me like a thick blanket. “Then... how can we know where we're going?”

  The Captain closed his eyes, and silence prevailed. I thought he might break down, but he didn't. Instead, he straightened, breathed, then spoke. “Mr. Guilders. I know things are difficult for you right now. It's hard for all of us. You too, August. But... I need you both right now. Please. Put your heads together and find me a way to navigate under the current circumstances.

  He seemed more like himself every minute. Guilders and August, on the other hand, both seemed to be fighting down urges to talk back. They looked at each other. Then August said, “Give us an hour, Captain.”

  “No longer,” the Captain said, then turned and strode out. I followed.

  As soon as we were off the bridge, he stopped, leaned against the wall, put his hand to his forehead, and sighed. I stood just beside him, not sure what to do or what to say. Did he need a private moment, or should I encourage him? Where was his head right now? It must have taken incredible discipline to pull himself together as he had just then. Was he tired?

  He didn't move or speak for a moment, then I reached out and touched his arm. He put his hand over mine, and turned to smile at me. “I have faith in them. Will you see if you can help your father and Whales... I'm very hungry and I don't need their drama right now, so I'm going to eat.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He let go of my hand and I pulled it back and left him.

  I found the Doctor in outfitting, working with Lieutenant Bradshaw to find a protective suit for the technician to wear while gathering some of the cloud.

  He smiled at me when I walked in, and though it wasn't his normal half-smile, it was an effort and I appreciated it. I walked over to him. “I was told to help you.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it, though I imagine Whales could use more help than I could at the moment. He's in engineering.”

  My heart sank. I wanted to help him.

  He noticed and smiled again, this time a little more like his normal smile, and reached out to touch my hand. “Will you help Whales for me?”

  I smiled back. “Okay.”

  I normally wasn't supposed to go into engineering, because of the radialloy, but it shouldn't hurt me for awhile, and I figured the Doctor and the Captain were right when they said that Whales could use my help.

  Whales and McMillan were working on the force field generator down in engineering, and I helped them find the parts and check the specifications. We needed to create a metal ring—McMillan suggested copper—with points along it at three-centimeter intervals to attach the generators. It was arduous and delicate work, and my arms grew tired from holding the ring for them to attach the pieces to. Beads of sweat gathered on my face under the bright lights they worked with. It tickled, but I didn't let go of the generator to rub it off.

  After almost an hour of work, the Captain's voice called from the intercom. “Can you come here, Andi?”

  His tone was casual and confused, and it worried me. I handed the ring off to a technician, and hurried up the elevator to the bridge.

  Crash was still up there, but the only people at their posts were the Captain, Guilders, and August.

  “Andi Lloyd on the bridge,” I said, then asked, “Where is everyone?”

  “They wanted lunch,” the Captain said.

  “Shouldn't they be replaced?” I frowned.

  He shrugged. “We're not going anywhere right now.”

  I knew this wasn't standard protocol and it worried me a bit, but I let it go for the moment and just waited for an explanation as to why he'd called me.

  He waited a moment before obliging. “Guilders and August have come up with a way to figure out how to go in a straight line, but there are a couple problems.”

  He stopped there, and I prompted, “What are they?”

  He nodded at Guilders, who explained tersely. “First, it will take time. We need to do what we did last time, try to go straight, and calculate how long it takes for us to reach the message a third time. Then we can use that information to run calculations that will tell us how to compensate so that we will go straight.”

  “Don't we have records of how long it took us in the computer?” I asked.

  “Yes,” August said, speaking as though it were completely obvious. “But we need to have two references to compare, in case our speed and trajectory aren't consistent. We're really flying blind. It'll take an extra ten hours.”

  I nodded. “And the other problem?”r />
  Guilders answered this one, too. “We have absolutely no guarantee that this will get us to the Pigeon. They had navigational problems, too, and we have no way of knowing whether they were the same, or whether they were able to overcome them.”

  The Captain looked at me, shook his head, and sighed.

  Licking my dry lips, I turned to Crash. “What are our options?”

  He didn't speak up right away, and his brows furrowed before he finally did. “As I see it, we can either just stay where we are, wander around aimlessly, continue to go in circles, or try going straight and see where it gets us. Dooley may have figured out how to overcome the difficulties the same way we did. He's smart. At the very least, going straight should eventually get us out of here.”

  I nodded. “So... this is our best hope, even if it's a small one, of finding the Pigeon... and if we can't save them we should at least save ourselves?”

  “That's how I see it,” Crash said.

  “Typical selfish attitude, Mr. Crash,” Guilders mumbled, quite loud enough to be heard.

  He was right about Crash typically being selfish. The normal Crash, much as he would hate to admit it, always had his own agenda. But this was the reversed Crash. Who better to trust in this chaos?

  “Well?” the Captain looked at me.

  I couldn't bear the weight of this decision. The lives of two ships' crews were at stake. Why should that power be in the hands of a twenty-one-year-old medical assistant?

  Maybe that was how I needed to start thinking of all this. When I was helping the Doctor and treating patients, some of them severely injured, maimed, or near-death, I had learned to keep a calm and professional attitude. Decisions had to be made, and they had to be made without hesitation. This was only different in scale. I could pretend that all hundred and thirty of our people and all fifty of the Pigeon's were patients, and I was their doctor. But even then—I wasn't used to being the doctor. Only the doctor's assistant.

  I swallowed. “Crash has a point,” was all I could bring myself to say.

  “So he does,” the Captain said, and turned to the fore. “Let's get started.”

  Guilders grunted, but didn't protest aloud, and he and August began working. I felt the shift in the floor under me as the ship started to move.