A Robinson Tale

Part III

Tempus Fugit

Chapter 6

The rising suns inflamed the forest while cold shadows still swallowed the battleground as they reached the first wreckage. Maureen shuddered. This side of the trench was dead, even to the daylight.

One black obsidian ship lay on its side, half buried in the soil at the center of the impact crater, its thick fuselage cracked open like an egg shell. Thousands of pieces of debris littered the zone. One large chunk of fuselage that covered the stern belonged to another crashed ship. Another lay disintegrated nearby at the bottom of a crater.

While Don maneuvered around a ship with a titanium-like fuselage torn and bent as if it were mere foil, Maureen tried to make sense of the chaos.

All the wreckage was covered by a layer of earth and rocks of all sizes, proof that their crashes had lifted clouds of dust into the air. Had they fallen out of orbit like meteorites? Were they driving through the vestiges of a battle that had taken place in space?

"Don, stop!"

The chariot's wheels skidded to a halt on the uneven terrain, grinding and compacting the rubble.

"What is it?"

Maureen leapt out of the chariot and tip-toed toward a light grey panel, grabbing an aluminum rod on her way. Her heart raced as she lifted the metal sheet. A severed claw appeared, wedged between melted parts. Four dark cables, frayed like old electric cables, dangled out of it like tendons. That robot had been violently dismembered.

Where's the rest of him?

While Don prodded the robot's hand with a pout of disgust, she scanned the debris.

"Am I glad this is a robot's hand and not human remains, or I'd be puking right now."

"And yet, that part comes from a ship with a different technology."

"Well, it can't be human, anyway. The Resolute is the first intergalactic ship we produced."

Maureen rolled her eyes at Don's choice of words. Alpha Centauri was in the Milky Way. But he was right; those ships were proof that an advanced alien life existed in their galaxy. This was her childhood dream come true. So why wasn't she more thrilled?

Because the fulfillment of that old wish had come at too high a price, she thought when Don's voice burst ten yards on her left.

"Oh god! Is that a bone? It's a bone. I found a bone!"

"Are you going to puke?"

Don's shoulders sagged and he sent her a side look that said: "go ahead, make fun of me, I won't say anything."

Maureen trudged in the debris toward Don and kneeled next to his ominous find.

"Hey! Don't touch it. Who knows what alien disease the owner had!"

She shot the mechanic an exasperated glance and made a note in the corner of her mind to tell Judy to add "hypochondriac" to his medical file. Thinking about her daughter made her chest tighten and her eyes sting with sudden tears. She swept them away and focused on the twenty-inch-long bone.

"So carbon-based humanoid life most likely." Her voice quivered as she scanned the unending wreckage anew. It wasn't a junkyard. It was a charnel house.

"Do you think they fought each other? Humanoids against robots?"

"Whatever happened, they all lost."

And so had they. One day, their bones would litter this planet's soil to be picked up by other trapped travellers brought here against their will. At least John and the kids had escaped this death trap.

"We landed," she said, thinking out loud. "And we're not the first." Maureen's eyes grew wide as she connected a few dots, debris squeaking under her boots as she paced back and forth. "All these ships have one thing in common: they crashed from high enough to break into pieces on impact. The ship that made it into the forest left a furrow."

"So it landed, like us. More or less. You think there are survivors?"

"It's worth a look."

"I don't know… aliens? They might not be friendly. And anyway, there's that trench. How are we going to cross it?"

Maureen scanned the wreckage. The solution was right there. They were scavengers now.

Ten hours later, sweat drenched Maureen's back as Don fired their makeshift harpoon for the third time.

The chariot's winch cable, loose on the ground but still attached to the tensioner, flew across the two-hundred feet wide crevasse like a rocket, and hit a thick clump of trees and shrubs on the other side. Maureen switched on the tensioner motor to coil the thin iron cable and pull it taut over the trench.

"A little more," Don shouted to her, standing next to the edge, his hand on the cable. "Go on, a little more… stop."

Maureen stared at their zipline with a satisfied grin on her face. All they needed now was John's climbing gear. After his escapade to the lake, he had stored his material at the back of the chariot.

She was opening his backpack, taking out the harness, when Don stopped her.

"Let me go first. Your husband will kill me if I let you test this crazy stunt."

"I'm lighter. It makes sense for me to go first."

"Exactly the point. If that zipline holds my weight, it'll hold yours. The opposite isn't necessarily true. I'll go first. End of discussion."

Maureen opened her mouth to protest but the mechanic's suddenly stern look froze her. Don wasn't joking. She looked at the bush two hundred feet away and shuddered. The risk the zipline would yield wasn't insignificant. Had she become accustomed to risking her life? Was it an adrenaline addiction? A disguised suicide wish? A psychologist she was not and there was no time for analysis just now. She nodded and handed Don the harness.

Goosebumps covered her arms as he stood on the edge of the trench. She remembered John rappelling down El Capitan's East Ledges Descent route after his second deployment in Iran. Her body tensed at the memory. She'd hiked to the top with other military wives while their adrenaline-addicted husbands conquered the majestic rock.

"Geronimo!"

Don's war cry yanked her back to the present. The rope she'd attached to the harness to be able to bring it back to her side of the trench ran through her fingers. Holding her breath, she watched the cable bowing under his weight as he reached midway and the lack of slope bringing him to a stop. Obviously used to the drill, Don pivoted to face her, and hauled himself backward to the other side. Five long minutes later, his feet touched ground.

Maureen shouted a cry of relief and almost clapped her hands.

Don removed the harness and waved at her. She waved back, and while he jogged to the clump of trees to check on the cable's anchor, she pulled on the rope to retrieve the harness.

His head emerged above a shrub. "All good!" Don's raised his thumbs up above his head.

Harness on, Maureen grabbed the cable and checked the trolley. She hooked up her carabiners and inched toward the ledge, avoiding to look at the one-hundred-and-fifty foot deep chasm. Strapping herself to a weather balloon had been way more crazy than that. And Don wouldn't give her a go if he had any doubt about the cable. She wiped her sweaty hands on her thighs and put on her gloves. Maureen checked her harness for a third time.

"Come on, Maureen! You can do it!" Don shouted from the other side.

Sure she could. Here goes nothing!

Maureen pushed on her toes and jumped. The wind whipped her hair and she had a moment of hope that she'd given herself enough momentum to reach the other side. Just then, she slowed down, stopped, and slid back, fifty feet away from her destination.

Her arms were burning long before she reached it. Don grabbed her hand and hauled her on firm ground.

"There you go."

"Thank God," she whispered, panting and shaking, both from effort and emotion.

"Don will be enough for now." The mechanic turned away with a grin and stepped toward the wide furrow the ship had carved in the forest.

After taking a few deep breaths to ease her hear rate, Maureen trudged up the muddy path. The storm was maybe just that, then: a storm with lightning and torrential rains.

"Why do engineers always multiply their estimates by pi?" he asked as she joined him.

Maureen sighed, uncertain that she was in a mood for bad dad jokes. "You tell me."

"To explain why their estimates are always irrational."

She rolled her eyes when her foot skidded. Don grabbed her arm and pulled her back straight. "Thanks, Don," she said with a touch of sarcasm.

"It's back to Don already? I'm hurt. But I understand. It's okay. Don it is. It's your turn by the way."

"For what?"

"Lightning up the atmsophere."

Really? Okay. "Why should you never expect a long-term relationship with a mechanic?"

"Because he screws nuts and bolts. Come on! You can do better."

"What's the mechanic's word for a shovel?"

"Er… wait a sec, I know that one… that's..."

"Ground-breaking technology."

"I knew it!"

Maureen couldn't help but chuckle. However, the gravity of their situation came back fast. "Those trees were burnt," she said, coming to a halt near a trunk.

Don crouched in front of it, brushed the dark layer on the mud, and sniffed his fingers. "No fuel residue, but it's recent. A couple of months maybe."

They'd covered a hundred feet when something gleaning at the bottom of an uprooted tree on her right caught Maureen's attention.

While Don kept on going straight, Maureen veered toward the object. She crouched and dug around titanium-like debris to unearth it.

"What the…" Her words died in her throat as she stared at the small, flat, metal box. Was this a micro-inverter? Impossible. Frowning, she turned the part upside down. Her eyes grew wide as she dusted the edge and–

Don cursed loudly.

Maureen glanced over her shoulder. Thirty feet away from her, the mechanic staggered and half-fell half-threw himself to the ground. The sickening thud of his head knocking against a rock scared her half to death. She dropped the micro-inverter, jumped to her feet, and rushed to his help. The memory of John bleeding on the hub's deck after being violently pushed aside by the robot twisted her guts as she reached him.

"Let me see," she said, trying to pry his hands away from his head. No blood seeped through his fingers but a dark bruise was swelling just above his left eye. "Look at me. Don?"

The mechanic blinked a few times and winced. "Why do I see four of you? One is already more than I can manage."

Maureen frowned. Was he serious? A concussion was the last thing they needed right now.

"Relax, I'm just kidding. Help me stand up, please."

Of course he was kidding! By his own words, Don West was almost never serious.

She scanned their surroundings. "What spooked you?"

"This," he replied just as she caught sight of a robot's severed head and arm half buried in a deep groove. "I thought it was about to blast a hole in me, but it was just the sun reflecting off its face."

Maureen's lips trembled. A broken solar panel lay in the ditch next to the robot. The landing ship was a human ship. And not many ships had disappeared without leaving a trace.

Nervously, she strode and ran down the furrow until it appeared in front of her, right there... Her legs buckled and she fell to her knees.

The rush of blood made her temples pulse while she stared, eyes wide at Grant's scratched and dented but otherwise almost intact ship. But it was impossible! The Fortuna was a vertical take-off and landing ship. It should have broken in at least four sections. Maureen frowned as she notices black cables on the fuselage.

"The fucking bastards!"

Maureen jumped as Don, standing next to her, pointed the ship. "So they're the ones behind the Fortuna's disappearance. The robots! I can't believe it!" In his voice, there was a mix of outrage and thrill. In her eyes, there was only shock. "I was a kid but it was all over the news. Do you remember how long ago?"

"Nineteen years and two months," she whispered, cuddling into a ball as her stomach suddenly ached.

"That much? You sure?"

How could she forget Judy's age? Grant had died four months before his daughter's birth. Judy would turn nineteen in a few weeks. In her last communication with Grant, she'd told him she was pregnant. His smile was still imprinted in her memory. They never were able to make contact with the crew again. Six months later, Nasa officially declared the Fortuna lost.

"Hey, you okay?"

Don squeezed her shoulder when leaves rustled on their right.

Maureen froze as two ghosts emerged from the forest line.

"Are you two alone?" Cynthia Powell asked while Mark Thornhill, mission specialist, darted into the ship's aft module.

Maureen clapped a shaking hand over her mouth. Her head spun as the Fortuna's flight engineer and thesis director ran toward her.

She hadn't aged a day! How this could be possible? How could Cynthia be alive, twenty years later, looking like she'd just left the day before?

Maureen gasped as her old mentor stretched her hand to her without giving any sign that she recognized her former student.

"Come with us! Quick!"