Read Farthest Reef Online

Authors: Karl Kofoed

Tags: #Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Science Fiction, #space

Farthest Reef (7 page)

BOOK: Farthest Reef
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“Just a simple match-up,” said Alex drily. “Piece of cake.”

The Professor glowered at him for a moment, then continued. The plan called for Alex and Tsu to be pilot and co-pilot while Mary and Sciarra would operate the communications and radar posts. “I’ll be guiding the mission from my magic bubble.” Johnny concluded with an amused look. “Like old times,” he added. “Basically the same crew. Right, Tony?”

“Just don’t dump me in the reef again, okay?” Sciarra said to Alex.

Alex laughed. “Tsu might dump you for fun. Right, Connie?”

“Why don’t I fly the ship and you can tell jokes,” Tsu hissed, glaring at Alex.

Johnny held up his hand. “Okay …” he said. “Since Connie has brought up an issue …”

“Issue?” Alex looked at Connie. “What issue?”

Johnny began to explain. “Tsu feels that she’s a certified pilot with recent experience and you …”

“Have been toiling in the mines,” interrupted Alex. “Is that what’s bugging you? I’ve flown the reef twice, Connie. In
my
ship, I might add. I thought that’s why I’m here. But if you want to pilot her, be my guest.”

“Just a minute,” said Johnny. “Alex …”

“No.” Alex held up his hand. “Why not let Tsu do the flying with me as advisor? If we run into trouble, I’m there. What say, Johnny?”

Johnny frowned. “I don’t know,” he said, swiveling his chair back and forth.

“You see, Connie,” said Alex, looking bemusedly at her. “There’s nothing I can do. Stubbs has his mind made up.”

Tsu folded her arms across her chest and stared angrily at the viewscreen. The computer had built a 3-D model of the reef and was now projecting clicker men population centers, showing as red and yellow dots. They all watched intently as it rendered the image. Finally it was set into motion and a soft focus image of Jupiter was layered over it.

“Not bad,” commented Alex. “But how does that really match up with what’s going on there now?”

“Good question,” said Johnny. “We’ve positioned orbiters over the spot starting, oh, a year after you left the place. They have been radar mapping it daily since then. We think it’s fairly accurate.”

“Fairly accurate,” repeated Alex, looking at Mary skeptically. Her expression told him to keep his mouth shut.

Alex took a deep breath. “The clicker men,” he said. “What about the abduction issue? I keep asking myself how Joe Citizen on Earth would feel if he or a loved one were snatched away and taken to meet aliens on another star.”

“What’s your point?” asked the Professor.

Alex coughed with astonishment. “Have you considered it from that viewpoint?”

Baltadonis hung his head. “We think it’s necessary, Alex. Everybody thinks it’s necessary.”

“I don’t,” said Alex. “I still don’t see how taking one along …”

Connie stood up. “There must be billions of those clicks flying around down there, Alex. So we take one along. Jesus, Alex. This is a big mission. Why are you making such a case …?”

Mary groaned. “This was not supposed to be an argument, was it? Or did I miss that on the agenda?”

On the screen, the reef of life rotated like a liquid windmill, and inside it, buried fifty kilometers or more beneath the clouds, were what appeared to be cities, megacities, and hinterlands; a vast red and yellow web that filled a thin layer of the reef.

“Have you seen this before, Tony?” asked Alex, pointing to the screen.

“I sure have,” said Tony.

“Seen what?” asked Johnny. “This display? Of course he has.”

“Have you chosen a site?” Mary asked, looking at the display.

“As I said before, that depends on how our map matches up with what you see on radar.”

“You said you were keeping track.” Mary faced the Professor.

“Does it really matter?” asked Alex. “Those buggers are everywhere down there. Look at ‘em.”

Johnny went to the console and began fumbling with the keyboard. The image of the Great Red Spot vanished and so did the dark superimposed reef matter. Now all that remained were the tracings that represented the clicker men colonies. Seeing them more clearly made the map look far less complicated. Johnny looked at Alex and smiled, then he tapped a few more keys and the image zoomed in tenfold. Now just a few details of the original map were visible.

He swiveled his chair to face Alex. “When dealing with Jupiter, or its reef, it’s easy to forget how damned big it is. What we’re looking at now is an area measuring only a few hundred kilometers. Even this area is pretty large. Those pockets you see on the map are spaced widely apart. I have a hunch they might be hard to find.”

Alex took a deep breath. “When do we go?”

“Soon,” answered the Professor.

“What do you think, Professor Baltadonis?” asked Tsu. “Who’s piloting the shuttle?”

“I still think you should drive,” offered Alex.

“I think I’ll go sit under the waterfall until this game is over,” said Mary, getting up.

“Before you go, Mary,” said the Professor. “I wanted to speak to you about the tapes. The language tapes.”

Mary sat politely down. “I’m sorry,” she said, peeling a med patch off her neck. “I had a headache. I’m usually more rational, I assure you.”

“Have you listened to the language tapes?” asked Johnny, ignoring her apology.

“A bit.”

“And …?

“I’ll have to listen to them more.” Mary squinted at the screen behind Johnny. “Are you expecting me to talk to them?”

“It might help.” Johnny looked hopefully at Alex but found little solace in his dubious expression.

“I expected that,” Mary offered. “I’ve even given it some thought.”

Johnny smiled. “That’s terrific.”

Mary leaned forward with elbows on her knees and hands clasped together. “What exactly do you want me to tell them?”

The Professor blinked. “Well, I …”

At that moment Inky entered the room. Spotting Mary, he bounded into her lap and folded into a ball. Mary stroked him happily. “Maybe I’ll say come here, clicker person. We want to suck you into our hold and take you to another star, and then you can go visit an alien whirly-pool.” She looked up at the Professor. “Something like that?”

The Professor looked at Mary darkly.

Mary got up and walked to the door. “It’s the drugs, I guess. Sorry, Professor. I’m a bitch, I know. They made me that way. Blame it on your bioengineers.”

3
It was nighttime aboard the great starship
Goddard
, and the central light was dark. Work was continuing, of course. Alex and Mary had seen the lights on the opposite side of the cylinder, tiny moving vehicles weaving their way amid a twinkling network of lights. Watching them from their bedroom window, the flickering patterns on the skin of the great cylinder reminded them of the clicker men’s centers on Johnny’s maps.

Mary had gone to bed while Alex watched a selection from the computer’s movie archives. Mary wore earphones so she could review her language tapes. She lay in perfect repose, eyes open, absorbing the sounds of clicker men voices. From the bed she could see the moving lights out the window. They made a perfect backdrop to what she was hearing.

The tapes had begun with basic facts about Jupiter’s reef and how clicker men’s language functioned within it.
“It is a world of semi-darkness, not unlike that of the deep sea. Many creatures use light or bioluminescence to attract or find food. Others use sound for communication and echolocation of food. In the crowded reef there is a lot of sound, but it doesn’t carry very far. It is dampened and absorbed by the fibrous reef material, a polymerized carbon fiber matting, the presumed residue of previous lifeforms.

“Since the reef does not allow its citizens long distance communication, another method is necessary. We have found that the so called clicker men have devised a way to communicate over long distances using radio waves.”

“Tell me about it,” whispered Mary.

“Their language, then, is of two types, sonic and electromagnetic …”

“Mine, too.”

“Our linguistic interpretations are guesses based on observations of behavior. We have broken the language down into two bands. Please switch your receivers to detect both sonic and radio wavelengths …”

“I’m on it.”

“Let us begin with warning calls.”

Alex noticed Mary’s earphones as he climbed into bed. He put his ear next to hers and listened but all he could hear was clicks and squeaks. “Early rock and roll?” he asked, smiling. “Vintage stuff.” He rolled onto his back and pulled up the covers.

“What movie did you watch?” asked Mary, removing the headset.

“The African Queen.” Alex smiled. “You might like it.”

“What’s it about?”

“A man, a woman, and a boat.” He gazed up at the skylight, seeing the lights moving far away on the other side of the cylinder. “Look at them over there. Don’t they ever sleep?”

Mary turned to face him. “Do you really want Tsu to fly your shuttle?”

Alex shrugged. “If it makes her happy. She seems to want it a lot.” He returned her gaze. “What about you, Mary? Are you ready for the reef? Ready to talk the clickers out of their huts? Will those language programs help?”

“To tell the truth, I’m not sure this language they’ve figured out for me is even close to being correct. But I’ll have to give it a chance, won’t I?” She smiled. “But tomorrow’s another day.”

Alex sighed. “Maybe I’m just not getting it, but it seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to have a clicker man handy.”

Mary nodded. “There’s more to it than that, I’m sure.”

4
The light came up gradually, engineered to mimic sunrise on Earth, even in its color. Its pink glow through the window made Mary’s perfect skin look even softer and more appealing.

But the phone rang, and a little over an hour later Mary and Alex were suited up and standing in the hold of the
Goddard
. Alex had almost gotten used to gravity again, and the weightlessness of the hangar deck made him feel a little queasy. He hadn’t eaten, either, but as he looked around at the scurrying crew he’d bet none of them had breakfast either. They seemed a tired, disoriented lot. The smell of coffee mixed with odors of the jetlube and fuel reminded him of the mines on Io. The only thing missing was the stink of sulfur.

He floated toward his ship just behind Connie and Mary. Twice his stomach gave a lurch, but he beat the nausea back by focusing on the mission and the hope that
Diver’s
lockers were well stocked with geebrew. It was the only drink that would help. Invented decades ago by an astrominer chemist, geebrew provided everything spacers needed recreationally, meaning alcohol, while providing them a biochemical barrier against the rigors of weightlessness. Earthcorp frowned on its use, especially by pilots, because of the alcohol content, but its wild popularity made even the mighty corporations crumble and allow it during all but the most sensitive duty.

There had been a change of plans. Events on Earth were somehow threatening the
Goddard
mission. The details were sketchy, blurted quickly by Stubbs on the radio. The war for the Atlantic had taken a nasty turn. A sea battle off Iceland had been reported as costing thousands of Atlantian lives. Apparently retaliation had come swiftly with a major detonation in an Antarctic ice shelf. The result had been a wave that circled the earth and swamped some coastal cities.

The disaster had left only one of the two financial supporters of the mission to Lalande. With funding threatened, so was the mission. Meanwhile, several scientists were questioning the mission altogether, charging that Lalande was too distant a target for a maiden flight, too cold a star to support life. Others were afraid that the
Goddard
might go on a one-way mission, never to be heard from again. All this impacted Alex directly. Stubbs’ call wasn’t just to report bad news. He told Alex, in effect, that he had to get a clicker man quickly so the
Goddard
could launch before funding was cut off.

“There’s bound to be political fallout from this among our crew, the longer we postpone the launch,” said Stubbs. “We have crew from Earth.”

Alex reached
Diver’s
hatchway and swung inside. Mary did a flip and soared across the cabin, slipping neatly into her chair. “It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” she said. “It feels good.” She glanced around. “Pretty much the same.” She bent over and opened a large mesh bag she’d been carrying, and out popped Inky. He braced his feet to land on the floor, but launched toward the ceiling. The interior was well padded, though, and the cat nimble enough to hit softly, feet first. There he stood, stiff as a post, looking down at Mary. “Jeeps, Inky,” she yelped. “Come down from there.”

“Oh, this’ll be fun,” said Tsu, looking at the cat. She floated between the two pilot seats, as if waiting for Alex to sit down.

“Take a seat, Tsu,” said Alex. “The command chair is on the left. But they’re both pretty much the same.”

“It’s your ship.”

“Hmmmm,” said Alex. “I almost forgot that.” He grinned at her. “Well, I like being on the left, but …”

Tsu jumped nimbly into the co-pilot’s seat and at once began switching on systems. Alex hesitated for a moment, then did the same. “Computer … Alex one,” he said, then looked over at Tsu.

She never took her eyes off her console. “Tsu … two,” she answered.

“Computer … Begin startup sequence,” ordered Alex.

He looked around. Mary and Tony had strapped in their seats and Mary’s cat was safely back in its protective case.

“Maybe this is just a drill,” said Tony. “Johnny is supposed to be here.”

As if on cue, Professor Baltadonis entered
Diver’s
hatch. Without comment he situated himself in his bubble chair, located in the center of the cabin a few meters behind the pilot chairs. He produced a few data cubes from his coat pocket and began feeding them into various slots on the small console in front of his chair. He pulled a lever to his left and the large black dome, which had been pressed tight to the ceiling, began to descend slowly until it came to just below his shoulders. “Hi everybody!” said Johnny, his voice muffled by the bubble.

BOOK: Farthest Reef
9.6Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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