The Realm: A Novel - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

3000.5 AD

You can't take it with you, and you can't orbit a planet forever.

- The Great Gramps

Maintaining the aeroponics was simple yet involved. The roots of the plants were exposed to the air and received a mist of water and nutrients. This was usually automatic but there was often the need for intervention to address the condition of the plants. This is why Thomas and Jackson became food wranglers after some brief training from Mr. Hamby.

One plus about aeroponics was that when the ship was orbiting a star, light guides, mirrors, and diffusers were used to bring the starlight to the plants. It was therefore, a bright and calm place to work, probably the best place on the ship. The two competently spent their days working with the plants, although still somewhat distracted by their failure to find the ship's location.

“Thomas, I wonder if we could not reverse the view of the Atlas sheets?” asked Jackson.

“You mean the star charts?” said Thomas Jones.

“Yeah, us astronomers call them Atlas sheets. Anyway, as of now they show you the stars from the point of view of a person inside the view bubble. If what we think is true, namely that we are far past their mapping sphere, then we are on the outside of the view bubble looking in. We need to translate the entire database appropriately.”

“Well, we could ask the Ems to run such a transformation if there is enough calculating power and memory,” said Thomas Jones.

The pair started the process of inverting the Atlas sheets which showed slices of the sky out to fifty-thousand light-years from Earth. But the work was interrupted by human folly, a mutiny among the crew.

“We've confined them to the storage areas Captain,” said the F.O.

The storage areas were on the outer floor of the big, spinning crew wheel, while the middle floor was where the crew lived, and the inner floor was where most of the fresh food was grown. As the centrifugal force was in the outer direction, the outer floor was usually thought of as the first floor or Deck 1.

“They'll have to come around then,” said the captain. “We have all the food here on this deck and the third. How many are there Brandon?”

“We believe no more than twenty have gone over sir.”

“That's a lot anyway,” said the captain. “Any officers or crew?”

“No sir, not that I know of. Mostly employees of the corporation. Most are on their first voyage. I'm afraid they blame you, sir.”

“Never mind. I would still like to reason with them instead of confronting them. Confrontation on a fusion ship might not end well for either party,” said the captain.

“How much longer Mr. Hamby?”

“I don't know Dr. Jones; we'll just have to keep working double shifts until the crisis is over.”

Jackson and Thomas were starting their second shift in aeroponics. They were also helping out with the kitchen duties. It seemed that many of the mutineers were in food management.

“Well, the Captain was wrong about one thing,” said Jackson.”

“What's that?” asked Thomas.

“Apparently they stockpiled some food somewhere in storage, otherwise they would have given up by now.”

Thomas only nodded as he maneuvered the plants into position. At point-four Earth gravity the job wasn't back-breaking, although it was tiring. The engineers that had planned aeroponics had increased the size and mass, thereby the inertia, of the planters in accordance with the reduction in gravity.

The pair were finished with their duties and heading to quarters when Jackson insisted they check the navigation Ems and see what progress they had made. They had their personal assistant AI (called Emmies) with them, something food wranglers didn't usually need, but scientists felt naked without. Jackson brought the latest results up on his screen. He looked at the results briefly.

“Tommy boy, look,” he said.

Thomas took a moment.

“They've finished,” he said.

“Yeah, and they estimated our location,” said Jackson.

“That's impossible. Isn't it?” asked Thomas.

The lights blinked, the big wheel shook.

The “wheel” part of a big fusion ship was where most of the crew lived and worked. A few of the engineers might venture back two-thousand feet to the well-shielded fusion engines and a few others might go forward the thousand-feet to the front control room and the massive particle deflector which was made up of an alloy called Mach-metal. The deflector stopped dust and other particles when the ship was at speed, which for the latest models was up to two-tenths the speed of light. In combination with a magnetic field which deflected charged particles, the big ships were well protected.

Almost as big as the particle deflector the crew wheel was over seven-hundred feet in diameter. Anything that could “shake” this section of the ship was either huge and massive itself or the result of an equally large force.

“What's happening?” asked Jackson.

“I don't know, let's see if my Emmie can tie in,” said Thomas.

Thomas looked at his Emmie, which took a split-second longer than usual to contact the ship's Ems.

“Looks like a blowout in one of the storage rooms.”

The wheel shook again and started a vibration.

“Another one.”

“What could they be doing?” asked Jackson.

“I don't know,” said Thomas. “Unless they were playing with the explosives we were to deliver to Seder's.”

He looked at Jackson.

“They wouldn't be stupid enough to put those things together, would they?”

“I don't know Tommy boy, they're stupid enough to mutiny,” said Jackson.

“Yeah, and I bet they were getting hungry too,” said Thomas.

Then both their Emmies announced at the same time,

“This is the captain speaking. There has been a blowout on Deck 1. All those on Deck 1 have five minutes to return to Deck 2 before we jetty that level. All others are advised to secure themselves and any loose items. That is all.”

“Is he crazy?” asked Jackson.

“I guess he feels there is no choice, the wheel will shake itself to pieces if this goes on much longer,” said Thomas.

“But there goes our ride home,” said Jackson. “Why doesn't he just spin down? We could try to repair it.”

Every schoolboy and girl in the thirty-first century know that the outer wall of a fusion ship's Deck 1 supports the link-drive that enables humanity to travel to the stars. And an important part of that drive is the three layers of special material attached to the outside of Deck 1, part of which had been damaged by the blowout and now would be completely lost upon jettison.

“Get to your quarters Thomas and get as much of your stuff together as possible. Then meet me at escape pod 77.”

Thomas was so startled at not being called Tommy boy that he did just as Jackson said. They were both sitting in the pod when the order to abandon ship was heard.

“How did you know?” asked Thomas.

“No ship has ever 'jettied' a deck and survived Tommy boy.”

The pod auto launched.