Dominion (13 page)

When
Kashuba finished wiping down the panels in the reactor control room, she headed out to the other room with the gravitational-reflex generator and operating systems.  Hawke wanted to join her as she continued wiping down all the surfaces that she deemed important, but he was afraid to leave the reactor unmanned no matter how long he believed it would take to boil the water.

He stared into the reactor, grateful that it contained so many fuel rods.  If it had only six or eight rods like his miniature reactor on the Pioneer, it would take days to boil that pool of water.  He hadn’t counted, but it looked like there were easily
seventy-two to ninety-six rods sunken down partway into the reactor.

He suddenly noticed bubbles coming up from the reactor ventilation slots where the water would be the warmest.  As a whole, the surface of the pool was fairly still
beneath the fog, but near the reactor itself and especially near the slots, it was bubbling up ever so slightly.

He said nothing, knowing he still probably had a while u
ntil the water would actually start boiling.  He glanced down at Fire Dragon who was knelt next to his utility bag.  The man appeared to be taking inventory, realizing for the first time perhaps that it was all he had left from the world above.  He could only hope that his “Swiss army knife” of a bag had all that the man would need in the present situation. 

Hawke could understand such a feeling.  He packed nothing personal on his
trip aboard the Pioneer.  At the time, he was fairly confident that the trip would truly end up near the orbit of Neptune and then the return trip would take them within twenty thousand miles of the Earth.  At the very most, he figured he’d be gone a week.  Probably not even half that long actually.

It was during his first night here on Rain that he realized he’d lost absolutely everything that was important to him.  He wished he could have packed a single duffle bag or perhaps a suitcase with the foreknowledge that it would have been all he would ever have.  Such ponderings left him with the question of what he would bring and each time
those thoughts came, his answers were different.  How many matchbooks or lighters would he pack?  A gun?  How many bullets?  A multi-purpose knife?  Personal photographs?  Favorite novels?  Medication?  A coat?  Gloves?

He only hurt himself with such thoughts because he was here now and he had nothing beyond what others provided for him.  The closest thing he had from his own world was the very ship he was in and even that didn’t belong to him.  So for the time being, all he possessed was the clothing on his back and the woman he loved.  At the moment, he realized just how content he was with
such a thought.

He turned back to the reactor and realized the
water was bubbling up significantly now and the room was filling with steam.  The window itself was even starting to fog up.  He smiled widely, realizing for the first time that his plan was most likely going to work.

“What’s that smile for?” Fire Dragon asked.

Hawke pointed up toward the ceiling inside the reactor, “I just saw one of the fins start to move.  Actually, another one is starting to spin at a regular interval.”

“Meaning?” he asked, joining him at the steamed window.

“The escaping steam spins wheels inside those vents,” Hawke said, “Which in turn spins electricity generating turbines.  I can explain what those turbines are later, but if you’ve ever been shocked by static electricity, you have an idea what is being created intentionally up there in the room above us.”

“I think I know exactly what you’re talking about,” he said, “I’ve hypothesized about such things, though obviously generated by different means,” he said, pointing up at the ceiling, “Look at that one in the vent over there.  It’s spinning faster than the rest.”

“As long as the generator is operational, we should have some power pretty soon,” Hawke said.

He suddenly realized that he had no idea how he would verify the existence of electricity.  He checked the wall for a light switch and found one just inside the doorway.  He examined it quickly and realized it was in the “on” position.  He switched it off and on just to check it, but nothing happened.

He went over to the chair that was surrounded by what he deemed to be the main control panel for the reactor.  There were three buttons and four switches that had no identifying marks.  Everything else appeared to be operated by touch screens, which were all still dead and blank.  He didn’t feel confident enough in the reactor to start flipping random unmarked switches.

“Hawke!” Kashuba called, “Did you do something?”

He rushed out of the room and quickly located her standing near the odd spring-wrapped cylinder that he hadn’t recognized from his original model.  She pointed to a lit screen on the wall near the giant device.

“Power!” he shouted, rushing over to her.

The screen was alive with the words
“G-Ring Power Expander”
printed at the top and a bar chart that went from 0 to 165.  The black bar was colored orange up to the number four.

“This
thing must have priority over some of the other systems, though it doesn’t really make sense,” he said, looking over at the confusing object that was now humming, “This is where the batteries should have been in my original design.  This thing must be an improvement that didn’t exist in my time.  If it serves the same purpose, then all it does is boost the power to the warp generator.”

“Sounds important to me,” Fire Dragon stated, “
What if the Shomani are about to shoot your ship and you find yourself low on power?  The first thing you need on any kind of battleship is the ability to flee.  Weapons come second, not first.”

“This isn’t a battle
ship, my friend,” Hawke said defensively, “While combat may be what rules the nations on my world, only science rules over the exploration of space.  The intelligent people of my world focus on discovery and expansion while the ignorant stay behind and focus on destruction.”

“Then if this is merely a science vessel, life support should have been the first thing to be brought online,” he re
torted.

“Indeed,”
he said, staring at the screen, “Sort of confusing.”

“Maybe energy is diverted to multiple systems at the same time, but only the important ones at first,” Kashuba added, “The engines
and
life support are the most important.  Not one or the other – both.”

Hawke turned to her and
chuckled.  She peered quizzically at him in a moment of annoyed confusion.

“You are completely right, Kashuba,” he s
tated, “I only laugh because you always see things from a different perspective than me and I forget sometimes how much I need that.”

“Nice save,” she said
, “For a moment there, I considered punching you.”

He laughed again
, then took her into an embrace.  Suddenly, the lights flickered momentarily, turned off again, and then a moment later they flickered back on.  The room was suddenly revealed in all its dusty glory.  Hawke looked back toward the reactor control room and saw that the lights were also on in there.

Then he noticed a red light flashing above the doorway to the control room.  The red light was encased in a rectangular box that displayed a single word.  That word was simply “Alert”.

Twenty

The three of them rushed into the reactor control room and discovered all the control panels lit up with colorful images and touch-screen keyboards.  Hawke went to the main control chair and examined the various screens before him.  A warning flashed on one of the screens, stating that the reactor was operating at inefficient levels.  Another warning showed that more than half the ship’s power was currently offline.

“I’ve got a warning over here telling me that power has been restored to life support, but that the systems are all offline,” Fire Dragon said, “It also is telling me to contact the bridge.  How does this thing know about the bridge we built to get aboard?”

Fire Dragon’s question confused him for a moment. 

“It’s talking about a different kind of bridge,” Hawke replied, “All these warnings are okay.  Rather than telling us that the reactor is
too hot and a potential danger to us, it’s telling us we need to increase its energy output.  We basically need to move the manual level to the second stage in the cold start process.  Would you like to do the honors while I try to figure out this panel?”

Fire Dragon jumped at the chance to be able to assist.  He took
hold of the metal lever and raised it up to the second stage.  The fuel rod system submerged further into the reactor.

“Should I turn off the initiator
while I’m over here?  It doesn’t look like something that is supposed to be left on,” he said.

“I think you might be right,” Hawke stated,
tapping out some minor commands on the touch screen, “Go ahead and turn it off.  It appears that a lot of the reactor might actually be automated, so we are going to have to release manual control eventually anyway.”

He turned off the initiator, bringing an end to the constant clicking noise.  Now all they could hear was the hum of machinery coming from the
other room.  It was in that moment that they noticed several people standing in the doorway.  The sudden presence of lighting throughout the ship had brought many of the people to the reactor to find the cause.

“This is sort
of inspiring,” Hawke said, “The status screen is updating constantly as the power is being restored throughout the ship.  I can’t tell if I’m supposed to do anything though.”

Hawke examined the panel for anything that may have required his attention.  Three separ
ate digital graphs displayed various levels of unidentifiable things being monitored inside the reactor.  None of the abbreviated codes on the graphs meant anything to him, so he silently hoped an alarm would warn him to change something if needed.  He also hoped that if an alarm sounded, the reactor computer would respond with necessary corrections.

“We should probably make sure this room is manned by someone at all times,” Hawke said, “If nothing else, so we have someone who can manually shut it down if some klaxons start blaring.”

“I agree completely,” Fire Dragon said, turning to an elderly man who stood in the doorway, “Star Dancer, come here so I can show you something.”

The man followed Fire Dragon over to the manual control box.  He did his best to explain how the reactor worked, only failing in accuracy on the minor details
.  The man he called Star Dancer nodded in understanding, and agreed to accept the duty of switching off the reactor if necessary.

“You are probably needed elsewhere anyway, Hawke,” Fire Dancer said, “I can assist Star Dancer in watching for alarms while you check on the other systems in the ship.”

Hawke continued scrolling through various graphs on the main control panel, searching for anything that offered him some confidence in the reactor.  Each screen he brought up was either too abbreviated in its definition or it monitored things he had never heard of.  Finally, he located a graph with a sinusoid curve that displayed reaction levels increasing and decreasing constantly within a shaded “acceptable” level.  It was moving like a perfect wave, steadily arcing up and down.

“It looks like the system is controlling itself for the most part,” he said to no one in particular, “It’s maintaining the reactions at a steady level, which is good because I’m not sure what I would have done if it were my job.”

“So, then are we good to check for life support?  Those vents on the wall aren’t blowing anything,” Fire Dragon said, “And Star Dancer can manage this.”

Hawke looked up
toward the dust-covered vents near the ceiling and acknowledged the truth of that observation.  The existence of electricity inside the ship did not mean the existence of breathable air or ventilation.

“Yeah, we’d better get going,” Hawke said, rising from the seat.

He turned to the elderly man and motioned for him to join him at the control panel.

“This
is an ongoing graph that is monitoring the reactions.  It’s important that the curving line remain inside that shaded area,” Hawke said, pointing to the line, “It appears that the system is making its own adjustments, so you shouldn’t have to do anything.  If the line starts going up and up continuously, you’ll probably see and hear a lot of alarms.  The only thing I can suggest is a manual shutdown like Fire Dragon showed you.  Can you monitor this for us?  All our lives seriously depend on it.”

The man nodded enthusiasticall
y.  Hawke patted him on the arm and then gestured for Fire Dragon to join him as he started out the door.

. . . .

One of the many engineers and scientists who were roaming the ship directed Hawke, Kashuba, and Fire Dragon to the next floor above them.  He stated that they had marked some suspicious rooms on three decks so far, but the deck directly above them contained the most probable suspects.  The man, an engineer named Light Bender, also warned them that the decks seemed to cover the length of an ordinary village and that there were nine of them.

Hawke agreed with Light Bender’s suggestion to check the deck above.  He reasoned that the
existence of an electric plant above the reactor gave the presence of a life support facility on the same floor a high probability.

Now that there was lighting in the passageways, it was easier to gauge the sheer enormity of the ship by the length of the corridors.  It was impossible to see the end of the corridor even though all the lights were functional.

They located the stairs they had navigated before and took those to the level above.  They hadn’t even started down the passageway before Sky Listener came rushing toward them. 

“Hawke, I think I found the room!” Sky Listener hollered, coming to a halt several yards away.

He motioned for them to follow him back toward the direction from which he came.  Hawke ran ahead of the others, meeting up with Sky Listener who was already headed down the hallway.

“We’ve found a large noisy room back there by the stairs that has to be related to electricity, and since it’s operating, it’s safe to assume it has nothing
at all to do with life support,” he said, still leading the way down the hall, “We found enormous water tanks on the lowest deck, but the nearby machinery related to the water systems isn’t operating even after the electricity came on.  The tanks aren’t frozen by the way, because someone conveniently stored all the bane ore on those lower decks.  The bane kept those two lower decks rather tolerable in temperature.”

“Bane?” Hawke
sputtered, “W-wait, there’s bane ore on this ship?”

“Yeah, a lot of it actually,” Sky Listener said, stopping in the corridor and turning to him, “Is that unusual?”

“Well yeah!  That ore is completely alien to me.  I’d never seen it or heard of anything like it in my life,” Hawke said, stopping next to the man, “Does it look like they were storing it or actually using it for something?”

“There are
three giant rooms just filled with it and it doesn’t look like those rooms were designed for any sort of ore storage.  When you open the hatches, there are boards blocking most of the door to keep the mountain of ore from spilling out into the corridor,” he said, “I’d say they discovered our favored mineral and started mining it to take back to your planet.”

Hawke nodded,
rubbing his chin, “Yeah, that does sound a bit plausible.”

Sky Listener shrugged, apparently unconcerned about pursuing the subject further.  He then turned and pointed
to a hatch marked
“atmospheric management.”
  It was an odd way to refer to life support, but he could understand such a scientific title.

Sky Listener opened the hatch and led the way into the room.  He had left the light on, revealing a long narrow room lined with what could only be giant furnaces on either side of
a center walkway.  The whole ceiling was a maze of ventilation ducts going off in all directions.  At the end of the room was an enormous machine that took up the whole far wall with wide ductwork branching out from the upper half.

Hawke looked at the closest machine, identifying it as a possible furnace or air conditioner.  Glancing down the length of the room, it appeared that the first ten units on each side of the room
were identical.  He couldn’t imagine twenty household furnaces being enough to sustain a ship of this size, but he also didn’t know if they had advanced the output efficiency of furnaces since his generation.

He opened the cover on the front of one of the furnaces and looked at the interior.  It had all the makings of a typical electric furnace.  The main power to this particular unit had been shut off from the inside, again
revealing evidence of an intentional abandonment of the ship.  He shut the cover and looked down the little walkway.

“It wouldn’t do us any good to turn the heat on if there is no air production or filtration,” Hawke said, staring at the enormous machine at the end of the row, “Let’s see what the rest of this room has to offer.”

“Is this the life support room you were looking for?” Fire Dragon asked.

He sighed, walking past the identical units, “It might be one of many.  I don’t see how twenty regular-size furnaces could heat a ship this size, but maybe they can.  Nine levels, each the size of ten to twelve football fields, two furnaces per level… I just don’t see it happening.”

“Then if these only sustain a portion of the ship, do you think it won’t be able to supply the air we need to breathe?” Kashuba asked.

The enormous machine at the end of the room wasn’t the only unrecognizable appliance.  At the end of the rows of furnaces were two cylindrical contraptions
that looked like those jumbled creations found at high school science fairs.  A variety of clear hoses entered these two eyesores through a metal dome at the top.  Dusty wires and pipes, braided together into a frightening serpent, sprouted from the bottom and led straight to the unidentified machine on the wall.

“What is that?” Sky Listener asked.

“I have no idea,” Hawke replied, “It could be anything.  It could be an air purifier, or perhaps an oxygen creator, or maybe it simply scrubs the carbon dioxide from the air.  You are asking the wrong man.”

“But either way, it’s something important,” Kashuba said.

“Most likely,” he replied, “Though I don’t see any way to turn it on.”

“Maybe it’s connected to the beige
beast right there,” Sky Listener said, pointing to the enormous machine, “There are plenty of switches on that thing.”

Hawke looked at the thing Sky Listener was pointing to.  It indeed offered a few switches on the right side to choose from.  A small LCD display was lit up beside it.  It merely showed an outline of the ship and nothing more.

He glanced at the switches and noted that the largest one was labeled as the emergency override switch.  To Hawke, that meant the main shut-off switch, so he moved it into the other position.  The machine made a few knocking noises, then became as silent as before.  Several small lights came on at the bottom of the two odd units beside them.

“Nothing,” he muttered.

“This says the pilot isn’t lit,” Sky Listener stated, pointing to the LCD display, “Why does the pilot need light if he isn’t flying the ship yet?”

“Different kind of pilot,” Hawke said,
stepping back and examining the machine, “Those furnaces behind us are electric.  Why would there be a need to light any pilots?”

He located a metal
service door at the bottom and pulled it open.  He instantly located a valve to turn on the gas.  Much further inside, he could see where the pilot light would be located.  He reached in, feeling around for an electronic starter, but he couldn’t get his forearm past two of the pipes.  He reached around any way he could, but alas, he was still unable to even reach the spot of the pilot light.  The operators, he reasoned, must have had a special extension tool used specifically for lighting a pilot as inaccessible as the one here.

“Does anyone have a lighter or matches?” Hawke asked, “I can turn on the gas to the pilot light, but there’s no ignition switch.”

Fire Dragon dropped his utility bag to the floor and started rummaging through it.

“I have matches in here somewhere,” he said, digging around in the bag.

Hawke stood up and approached Kashuba who had been leaning against one of the furnaces.

“I need a favor from you,” Hawke said, lifting her hand in his, “Your arms are much thinner than mine and I can’t reach the pilot
in order to light it.”