The Pathfinder Project (18 page)

THE PATHFINDER PROJECT

Dennis and Joseph had gotten up
very early to take a tour of the zoo area in the Livestock wing. After his
recent visit with Adam, the Captain’s son had become infatuated with the unique
mix of nature and technology that kept the farming and zoological wings
functioning and was constantly asking to go back and study the area more
thoroughly. He was particularly interested in the bigger cats – Father and son
spent most of their morning together watching the lions and tigers tear into
their breakfast, then lick their paws and settle down for a nap. Joseph was
also completely captivated by a large black jaguar in one of the cages – it had
ignored its breakfast and instead spent its time pacing rapidly back and forth.
It looked angry – unhappy with its captivity – and the powerful muscles along
its legs and back flexed constantly with its movement.

“I see you’ve met Midnight, our
one and only jaguar,” said a tall, dark-haired man dressed in coveralls. He
walked slowly across a dirt path that separated him from the pair. “We call her
Middy for short,” he grinned enthusiastically, shaking hands with Dennis.
“She’s quite a creature and we’re very proud to have her here.”

“She doesn’t like being cooped
up in there at all,” commented Joseph softly. He continued to stand next to the
wooden handrail that separated him from the cage by about two meters.

“Nope,” replied the friendly
man, frowning slightly. “She was born to roam the wild areas of home. That’s
one of the tough parts of my job now. Midnight and some of our other animals
were supposed to have been transferred off of the
Pathfinder
before we
put to space. Since that’s not going to happen, we’re looking at freeing up
some more room for our big cats down the way a bit. We just have to be a little
careful because their scent spooks the other animals.” He paused for a moment,
letting Joseph observe closely. “It’s a good thing you’re here so early,
because most of these animals sleep a lot through the heat of the day.”

“Joseph,” said Dennis proudly,
“I’d like to introduce you to Jeffrey Mathison, our Chief of Livestock &
Agricultural Ship Operations. He’s our project leader for both the Livestock
and Garden wings… so he’s normally a very busy man.”

“That’s right,” Jeff replied.
“Most of the
Pathfinder
’s crew is non-military, but we
all
still
have at least one fancy title.” He laughed heartily. “Why, just yesterday I
believe I passed the ‘Chief Executive In Charge Of Everything’ on one of the
walkways.”

“Don’t joke about that,” Dennis
noted cautiously. “That’s the guy everybody’s going to expect
me
to be
from now on!” He shook his head negatively. “Captain, I have a problem I need
fixed…” he joked, chuckling.

“I suppose that’s one of the
reasons you’re down here so early,” Jeff guessed.

“You could say that,” Kaufield
replied. “We’re going to have a meeting at 0700 and one of the items on the
agenda is the formation of a ship’s government. I don’t plan on setting it up
the way our government usually functions. Instead, I’m going to assign at least
one person from each major section and then have 3-4 spots that will be filled
by civilian appointees – particularly those that work in key positions in the
passenger area.”

“Do you want me to attend this
one?” asked Jeff curiously.

“I don’t know that you need to
yet,” decided Kaufield. “The transcript of the meeting will be available – as
usual – but I wanted to give you a heads up that you may be asked to attend
future meetings.” He looked at all of the caged creatures surrounding them.
“Since you’re in charge of both upper wings I wanted to let you know that
you’re almost certainly going to be voted onto our new Council.”

“Good to know,” Mathison
replied firmly. He winked at Joseph. “I’ll be sure to free up some time on my
schedule.”

“I hope we won’t have to
continue working people so hard,” Dennis commented sincerely. “The agenda for
this meeting is ridiculously simple – I don’t intend for that to happen with
future status meetings.” He put his hand on Joseph’s shoulder and squeezed
lightly. “We’ll issue a full preview in advance from now on. If you’re really
busy and can’t get away, just send someone else from your area to represent
your point of view.”

“Don’t worry, Captain. We’ve
had years to test these systems and as long as we keep them properly maintained
everything will function as promised in our last report.” He scratched his
head. “What concerns me right now is our botanist team. I’ve never seen so many
people with green thumbs. If they keep up like they have been we aren’t going
to have room for the animals!”

Joseph laughed at the big man’s
humor and his Dad chuckled too. They heard someone behind them holler “
Hello!
”
and – since they were caught off guard slightly – Dennis turned in time to see
Corporal Benjamin Henderson walking toward him. The marine’s arm was still in a
sling, and a young girl with a brightly colored cotton dress was happily
skipping along in front of him waving a handful of flowers she had picked.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite
injured Corporal,” Kaufield joked as Ben joined them. Henderson and the little
girl paused to take a good look around at all of the large animals in the cages
on both sides of the walking path. It was really quite an impressive view,
especially with the exotic series of jungle trees and brush that surrounded
each cage.

“This is my daughter Lucy,” Ben
said, introducing her quickly to all the others. “She was on the moon with her
grandparents for a visit with me when the attack occurred, so it looks like I’m
one of the few left with family to look after.”

“Hello Lucy,” Jeff said,
bending down to shake her petite hand. “Do you like the zoo we’ve got set up
here?”

“Yes, but I want to see the
ponies,” she said firmly, looking up at the Corporal. “Daddy promised me I
could see ponies and horses.” Her little mind whirled with possibilities. “And
the giraffe-eds.”

“That’s our next stop,
sweetie.” Ben said playfully, winking at Dennis and Joseph.

“You should have turned left
instead of right then,” pointed out Jeff. A thought occurred to him and he held
up an index finger. “Everyone, please wait right here,” he said
enthusiastically, jogging across the walking path and between two of the cages.
They could hear him rummaging around in what sounded like cardboard boxes for
several minutes. When he reappeared, Jeff was holding two fluffy stuffed
animals.

“Wow, those are really nice,”
Ben said, sounding very impressed. He watched Lucy smile as Mathison handed her
a brightly striped tiger. He gave a second stuffed animal – this one a hairy,
maned lion – to Joseph.

“Now you have your own big
cat,” he told Joseph. Kaufield looked a bit surprised at the gifts but Jeff
waved him off. “We have a bunch of souvenir items stored back there that are
going to be on display near the entrance eventually,” he said proudly. “But I
don’t see why we can’t begin handing them out right away.”

“
Thank you!
” Lucy said
happily, hugging her stuffed tiger tightly. Joseph also echoed his thanks. They
stood visiting for a few minutes longer when suddenly Lucy looked up at her
Dad. “Can we go see the ponies now, Daddy?” she asked, doing her best to sound
cute.

“All right, young lady, let’s
go see some ponies,” the Corporal decided. He waved goodbye with his good hand,
then he and Lucy began walking back toward the exit hatch.

“I have to say goodbye, too,”
Kaufield said. “I’ve got that meeting at 0700.”

“Why don’t you let Joseph stay
with me for a while,” Mathison offered. “I’ll give him a quick tour of the rest
of the zoo and have him back in his quarters in time for school.”

“If it’s no trouble,” Dennis
said cautiously. “I know everyone’s really busy these days.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jeff
reassured him. “We’ve got plenty of staff on board to complete our work. Now
that we’re away from the base, things have actually settled down quite a bit.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed that,”
commented the Captain. He affectionately rubbed Joseph on the head. “Stay away
from the cages and do what Jeff tells you, kiddo.”

“I know, I know,” said Joseph
excitedly. “I’ll tell you all about it tonight at dinner!”

Kaufield watched the two of
them walk further down the path for a few minutes, thinking about the morning
ahead of him. It was only twenty minutes until the staff meeting started, so he
decided the first thing he was going to do before heading up to the conference
lounge was to chase down a really hot cup of coffee.

*    
* * *     *

Mary, Glen, Adam, and Julie
were the first to arrive in Observation Dome One. A half-empty box of donuts
sat on the large table located in the center of the room. There was also a large
coffee pot, and everyone except Glen had a hot steaming cup full.

Adam was casually doodling on a
yellow legal pad, half-listening to the conversation that the others were
having. Dr. Simmons had personally stopped by his quarters the prior evening to
let him know that his brother was having some stress-related difficulty. It
didn’t surprise Adam – he really cared for his younger brother and had
suspected for some time that the younger Roh was not completely dealing
properly with his high-octane career. Mostly he was worried, since Karen had
suggested he refrain from visiting Thomas until lunch time. She wanted him to
have every opportunity to catch up on the sleep that he had lost over the past
week.

“I noticed that the
Pathfinder
executed another PTP transit again during the night,” Mary observed, smiling.
She turned her gaze toward Dr. Markham. “Would that be why you’re here, Julie?”

“Hey, I came to represent my
section,” she said defensively, holding up both hands before returning the
smile. “But I did request that we make another transit, yes,” she finally
admitted, nervously tapping a pen on her notepad. She sat quietly for a moment,
but ultimately could not contain her excitement. “Congratulations on noticing,
Mary! All of you have been so busy looking out the windows at those three
beautiful Galaxy clusters and not one of you thought to look
behind
us.
There were two other, smaller galaxies there that we’ve been studying. They’re
catalogued as NGC 55 and NGC 253.”

“I’ll bet you’re having fun
with all of this endless new territory to explore,” Mary teased, watching the
expression on Julie’s face. “Wasn’t Bravo Point close enough? Did you need the
Pathfinder
to transit closer to those smaller galaxies?”

“Not at all,” responded Julie.
“Without the normal star shine we’re used to dealing with, our telescopes are
giving us a tremendous view out here. So now that we’ve surveyed those smaller
two clusters – along with the famous first three: M31, M32, and our home ‘Milky
Way’ Galaxy – I wanted to move us within range of the final two of the seven
major galaxies that comprise our ‘Local Group’. Since we now have the ability
to go anywhere we want…” She paused, watching the expressions on their faces,
“…I suggested to the Captain that we travel all the way to the
other
side of the Milky Way so we could begin an immediate analysis of M81 and M82.”

“The Canary probe worked like a
charm again,” Glen informed them proudly. “It gave us a good preview of our
next planned transit, and after reviewing its data the Captain gave us the go
ahead earlier this morning. We traveled almost
twice
as far as our
initial leap out of the Milky Way.”

Adam glanced up from his lazily
sketched artwork. “The Milky Way?”

“That’s where we’re from…
Earth’s star is located within the Orion arm of the Milky Way galaxy.”

Adam tried as hard as he could
to resist, but in the end he couldn’t contain his curiosity. “So how far did we
travel this time?” he asked inquisitively.

“The computer estimates the
distance to be at least 12.64 million light…”

“No, no, wait a minute,” Adam
said, interrupting Glen before he could finish. “You software people are all
the same – you just
love
to use decimals. Floating point, fixed point… I
don’t care about the decimal stuff.
Estimate
, please. Just say 12 and a
half million light years or something, but no decimals –
okay?
”

“Fine,” Glen replied. “We
traveled 180 degrees backwards to the original three Galaxies and then
continued on for half the distance between the Milky Way and the other two
clusters in our local group.” He paused dramatically, watching the expression
on Adam’s face. “Total distance is estimated at 12,642,522 light years.”

“That’s incredible,” Mary said,
astonished. “It’s hard to believe that we’ve been able to rely on the CAS
technology so quickly and make those kinds of long-distance transits. For years
we’ve been thinking that a simple transit between planets in our solar system
was impressive!”

“This has all been possible
because of the protocol that allows us to send a Canary probe ahead first,”
pointed out Glen as the door behind him opened and Dr. Simmons entered the
room. “If we didn’t have the capability to send a probe ahead to preview the
destination area, our ability to leap so far in one transit wouldn’t do us much
good. We wouldn’t
dare
travel that far without knowing what was on the
other end. Every time we did so, we’d be risking the entire ship.”

“The ability to just as
precisely control and execute so many quick
shorter
transits is what
impressed me,” Mary replied. “The way we used the CAS Drive against the
Brotherhood in that battle the other day was so unexpected.”

“No one else has the capability
to transit that fast as quickly and precisely,” Glen observed.