31
Endurance-
There was a flickering, almost undetectable, 'bump' in the flow of events; a brief, localized distortion of spacetime that accelerated some events relative to others, while leaving no memory of the change but a rapidly fading unease. No memory in humans, at least.
Aboard Endurance, Pete McCord propelled himself back to the flight deck from an impromptu repair job and air filter check.
There were many well-padded 'ricochet surfaces' aboard ship, as well as straps, hand rails and brightly painted arrows, so getting from place to place was a simple matter of pushing off and soaring through the next hatchway (it was wise to tuck in a bit; arms and legs flapping around tended to collect nasty bruises). The trick was controlling your speed. No brakes, after all, until you hit whatever it was you'd been aiming at (hopefully, something soft). After that, it became sort of a physics problem, one of angling your rebound. By this time, both Pete and Linda were quite good at it.
Soaring into the flight deck, Pete braked himself against the pilot's seat, then did a midair tuck and roll, just for the hell of it. No matter how often he went up, weightlessness never ceased to thrill him.
Giving the doctor an (only slightly) abashed grin, McCord hauled himself down into the chair and strapped in. She looked tired (totally worn out, actually), but it had been an awfully rough four weeks. With three crewmates in suspended animation, they'd been forced to do the work of five people, on little food, and less sleep.
...and the work didn't stop. Ever. Endurance required near constant maintenance, plus scheduled equipment and systems checks. On top of all that, there were all those experiments and broadcasts to keep up. Pete had no desire to disappoint Apollo Elementary School'seager, young fourth-grade science class. On the bright side, at least the seedlings were actually sprouting, radiation or no.
Linda was rubbing at the bridge of her thin nose with thumb and forefinger. Her brown eyes were deeply circled, and her dark hair a chaotic topiary.
"Air filter's still up," she informed him, from a seat beside his. Pete glanced past her, at the instrument panel. Ah, yes; green lights good, red lights bad. The air filtration system (which he'd checked on, for some reason, without getting a warning light) was operating at full capacity.
"Was there anything actually wrong?" Linda continued, stifling a yawn.
"Nothing a trip to Home Depot couldn't have cured," the mission commander replied, "and nothing we'd have had a chance in hell of fixing, by the time an idiot light came on. There was a short developing in the Aux-12 computer-panel wiring bundle, where it passes the main filter pack. We'd have had a fire and explosion to deal with."
Pete gave up talking for a minute, and rubbed both hands over his face as though to scrub away the lack of rest.
"Damn," he went on, woozily amused, and deeply exhausted. "I swear sometimes this ship is talking to me!"
Linda Bennet twisted a bit in her seat, turning to regard the commander more fully.
"You, too?" She asked, relieved. "Thank God! I thought I was going crazy. I know I'm tired, but... sometimes, in all the humming and thumping and hissing... I can hear things, like somebody dropping hints about the cryo-pods, or about Lucky chewing his way out of the cage, again."
Pete cocked an eyebrow, and tried to flatten his sandy comb-over back into place (maybe duct tape...).
"The little voices in your ship aren't saying things like: 'kill... Pete... McCord...!' Are they?" He enquired, half in jest.
The doctor laughed, first time she'd done that in days.
"No, and I haven't seen 'redrum' written on the mirrors, either," she joked back.
McCord flipped a few switches, stirring a tank here, warming a fuel line there, and once again checking exterior radiation levels. That done, the commander relaxed a little, letting his arms float back up to nearly shoulder height. Houston was due to check in at 0350 hours, and then they'd compare system status notes, with the annoying long-distance signal delay turning a ten-minute conversation into a two hour marathon.
"Yeah... 'Casper' seems to be on our side, whoever he is," Pete remarked, wondering whose turn it was to cat-nap.
"She," Linda corrected, firmly.
McCord cracked an eyelid.
"She? How d' you figure?"
The doctor shrugged, debating the wisdom of another alertness tablet.
"Not sure, Pete. Just a feeling I have. Something about the way we're being shepherded and communicated... to, I guess."
She'd been about to say 'communicated with', but that wasn't really accurate. The conversation was definitely one-sided... and Pete looked like crap, he really did.
"Why don't you take a rest, Leader-man?" The doctor suggested.
McCord smiled gratefully.
"Okay. Wake me in fifteen, will you? Houston 'll be calling soon, and...," Glancing up through the steel-glass window, he peered at a glaring red spot, the size of his thumbnail. "...she's getting pretty big in the view screen. Gonna be time to..." Big yawn, trailing off into an indistinct mumble, "...defrost the stiffs, soon... damn freeloaders!"
And then, abruptly, Pete was deep in the whirlpool clutches of much-needed sleep.
"Yeah," Linda responded anyway, reflexively checking the medical status board, "I just hope to God everyone wakes up safely, this time."
Tracy Island-
Another bump, a deeper, more visceral shift. Brains rose from his seat at the desk, glancing worriedly around the office. Mr. Tracy had collapsed onto the fireside couch for a ten minute nap, and TinTin was asleep over the tech console, her flushed, slightly open-mouthed face cradled upon folded arms. Kyrano was off in the kitchen, making tea...
Gennine and Grandma Tracy lay stretched out nearby, on temporary cots. Their blanketed forms twitched occasionally, prodded by unease that not even sleep could dispel; not with the boys so far away.
That wasn't it, though. The engineer, feeling a sudden, wrenching anxiety he somehow could not explain, took off his newly printed glasses, rubbed them against his rumpled shirt, then put them back on. They adjusted themselves once more to his blood-shot eyes' tired, watery state, shifting focus as he looked around the room.
Dim light, quiet comm chatter, soft breathing, intermittent mumbling and coughs... The picture wall...
All at once, Hackenbacker's burning eyes lit upon a photo he simply wasn't aware hadn't even existed mere seconds before. Of course!
Relieved, concerned, and more than a bit lonely, the engineer removed a slim phone from the jumble of leaky pens in his shirt pocket, then punched in a certain number. It was early yet, over there, but...
The screen flickered to life, revealing a small, snub-nosed, owlishly blinking face. Creased sheets, amber bunk-light, math book half-hidden beneath his pillow, and limp brown hair falling over big blue eyes completed the picture, filling Hackenbacker's chest with sudden wonder and happiness.
The boy rubbed at his eyes and yawned, saying,
"Dad...?"
Elsewhere...
Where first there had been stillness and dark, a sort of long, quiet peace, he was all at once bumped aware, if not precisely awake.
He was... A little concentration placed John somewhere that wasn't quite Kansas, or the Island, Princeton, or even Wyoming, but an oddly satisfying mix of all four. Nothing was quite stable.
If he turned his head, edges blurred like a water color painting of ocean, mountains and wheat fields. Weird. The house was there, beneath massive oaks, blending aspects of the one at McConnell Air Force Base with his grandparent's ranch house, and a Princeton dorm.
He could hear people within, making 'Sunday-afternoon' sort of family small talk, and John had the sudden suspicion that they'd turn out to be whoever he wanted them to, just as the cooking smells from inside would settle down whenever he decided what he wanted to eat.
He became aware that he was resting on something, which came into full existence as he looked down at it. There beneath him was the long, black hood of his car, which (something suggested) required a great deal of fixing.
Frowning, John stood up, and looked at the sky. It was a very pure, deep blue, cloudless and sunny; and yet, behind that radiant glow, he could sense the presence of stars. Big and real as life, he felt their awesome distances and startling speed... out there waiting to be studied, if he wished it.
As an attempt at diversion, the scenario was almost laughably obvious, yet... rather sweet. She knew him entirely too well.
"Where are you?" John asked aloud.
After a moment, Five manifested herself, in a truly unexpected manner. She hadn't chosen her usual lavender icon, nor a regular human form. Instead, the computer's interface with his dreaming mind was that of every attractive female he'd ever seen... except one.
The faces and forms morphed from one to the next so smoothly that the change was never abrupt, but no one appearance lasted longer than ten seconds or so. A little unsettling, at first, but he got used to it.
Gesturing around at the 'Kingdom of John', he demanded,
"What's all this about, Five? You said you wouldn't...,"
Uncharacteristically, she was bold enough to interrupt him.
"I promised, John Tracy, that I would not lie to you. I have not. This is illusion, but you are fully aware of its nature."
Fair enough.
"Why?"
"The 'parallel processing' attempts have yielded unexpected temporal and dimensional chaos. That which is understood to be reality is in flux, and input is required."
He nodded, leaned back against the Charger (without moving, he was at the driver's side door, now), and folded his arms across his chest.
"What happened?"
"Trans-dimensional linkage with alternates has brought a number of branes into contact, crossing worldlines, entangling fates and transferring individuals." His computer replied, currently as black-haired and dusky- skinned as that pretty thing on the Jersey Shore.
John rubbed at the side of his jaw.
"People have been carried across dimensions, you say?"
"The fact has been stated, John Tracy."
"Who?"
"The newly-written subordinate system acquired by Doctor Hackenbacker, to provide an example."
"Newly written..? You mean, 'Fermat'?"
John was now deeply puzzled. The boy could be something of a plague, forever asking questions, but... new? Hardly.
"Five, how could Fermat have just now been transferred? I remember him."
She had red hair, at the moment, and gradually paling blue eyes.
"The appropriate memories have crossed over along with the individual, John Tracy, as they did with the Lucinda/ Gennine shareware."
John was not easily rattled, but she had his full attention now. The entire scene around them collapsed like a wave function, as his focus narrowed to a diamond-hard point.
"What do you mean, 'Lucinda/ Gennine'?"
Sharing his mind, Five could not help reacting to the strength of his chemical/ emotional state. The illusory females flickered out, briefly, revealing the glowing, wire-form icon beneath.
"The stated event predates my inception, John Tracy," she explained. "Awareness was gained while in the state of linkage, as follows: Your prototype experienced a state of dissatisfaction with the termination of Lucinda Tracy. Your prototype attempted construction of a mechanism to alter past events. This is not allowable. All that resulted was transference of an alternate universe version of Lucinda Tracy, with memories of meeting and merger formed in situ. As with the other changes, this one was locked into my hard drive by the linked state."
For several long moments, John was too stunned to speak. Finally, he said, as a little more environment grew around them,
"Well... shit. That's a hell of a thing. She doesn't belong here. It's not her fault that she's not quite... Damn! And, all this time...," he shook his head, arrowing back to a single thought. "But, he tried to go back in time, and save Mom?"
"As stated, John Tracy, your prototype unsuccessfully attempted to alter a terminated worldline."
John nodded once more. Taking a deep breath, he told her,
"Cancel 167, and... 42. I, uh... I need more time to process this."
Her pseudo-female forms had returned, more fetchingly than ever.
"Operations 167 and 42 cancelled, John Tracy. Next command?"
"Oh..., about the event and individual problem? Screw it. It'll sort itself out. Trying to straighten things up will only perturb the situation further, and something tells me that Ike would miss his son, if... Damn, that's hard to believe! I watched Brains make a complete fool of himself learning to change a diaper. And..., Gennine."
But, Five had a conundrum of her own.
"Command, 'screw it' not fully understood. Please resubmit, in altered format."
"Right now, Five," her analog companion responded with a slight smile, raking a hand through his blond hair, "the smartest action is none whatever. The system will re-equilibrate, trust me. It'll just be different, is all."
The brain chemical state he was experiencing, which she 'felt' along with him, was called 'wistful'. She found it far preferable to 'upset'. To have tarried there, learning new chemical linkages, and how they felt, would have been... 'pleasant'. However, events from without had begun to penetrate the quiet bubble in which the two of them conversed.
Clashing sounds and distant voices, flashes of light, stabs of jagged pain...
John looked up and around, as the sky repaired itself over cracks that opened into Endurance's med-lab.
"What's going on, out there?" He asked her.
"The hardware technician is attempting to bring you online, John Tracy."
He wasn't sure he liked the sound of that.
"Attempting?"
A re-input, in query format, indicating the desire for further data.
"You are experiencing an adverse toxicological reaction to the cryoprotectant."
Oh. The sky seemed to crack open, again, and John briefly glimpsed Doctor Bennet's concerned face.
('Come on, Sunshine, snap out of it, please...!')
A flash of convulsing fire ripped through him, then was gone again, the illusion once more complete.
He asked, evenly,
"Am I dying?"
('Damn it, I'm losing him!')
The pretty figures ceased morphing, for a time. Rather emphatically, she announced,
"John Tracy cessation of metabolic functions is not an allowable operation."
A slight, wry smile touched his face, matching an emotional/ chemical state called 'gallows humor'.
"I'm not immortal, Five. Sooner or later..."
"There is no purpose, without John Tracy."
She'd surprised him, with the force of the statement. Mining his emotions, she could 'ghost' some of her own. Here, at least. What had been mere force-of-programming before, had attained the power of a new mental state.
"Um...," (verbal tic, allowing time for the gathering of thoughts) "..not that I don't appreciate it, but I'm not sure I'm worth that kind of adulation, Five. One of these days, you're going to outgrow me."
"There is no purpose, without John Tracy."
He shook his head, but made no further attempt to dissuade her. As if from many miles away, the doctor's voice cried out again,
('Pete, hold him still! I can't get a vein!')
"Okay, then. Maybe I'd better get back out there, before they give up, and pull the damn plug. So... what do I do? I don't see any 'stairway', or 'glowing portal', and pinching myself isn't working, either. Click my heels together three times and say, 'there's no place like home'?"
This, she knew, was a reference to a certain, very ancient film, but for the first time, Five grasped the fact that his intent in raising the notion was to amuse her, as though she were a person, whose chemical state mattered. 'Playing along', the computer replied,
"There is a convention, among the subset of your species settling in Eurasia, that one who has slept long is returned to a state of wakefulness, thus."
It was illusion, and definitely no 'glowing portal', but the brief kiss flung him across a dark barrier and back into harsh lighting, freezing cold and wracking, fiery pain. No more Sunday afternoon...