Dreams among Stars (7 page)

At the spot I hit a hole gaped.

Air! Rise! Like being dragged by a puppeteer I worked my way upward.

On the level of the gaping hole cold air hit me in the face and like someone being drowned I gasped in the air and greedily held my face into the airflow.

After that it was very easy to push open the door.

With a shiver I looked back into the darkness of the tower, which nearly had become my grave.

This day was starting out well. I thought sarcastically.

Why was everything aboard the ship trying to catch or kill me with by all means? I hang around below the exit for a while, until my respiration had stabilized and the carefully began the descent.

It was tiresome, climbing down 600 meters ladder is not an experience I would recommend to anyone.

Albeit it gave me a lot of time to take in the scenery below.

I had slept a whole 10 hours and the new day had broken.

Only my second day after the discharge and I felt like having experienced more than throughout the course of my past life.

The overgrown lamps at the ceiling spread a diffuse light, but life on the floor of this segment was exploding.

To my surprise small hills had been formed on the floor, that I couldn’t find any traces of human settlement disturbed me as much as it relieved me.

Marple had some troubles matching the landscape with the stored maps.

After a while she explained that apparently the air locks had been buried below the hills.

A bitter tang of desperation jumped at me, but I shook it off.

I just would have to find a way into one of the mounds.

At about one hundred meters above the ground I had picked one of the hills as target.

It was not the closest one, but a wide cutting lead to it, so I would reach it faster than trying to get through dense forest.

I wasn’t able to properly place the plants I saw, while the flora had been distinctly Mediterranean, this forest was not a real jungle.

Would a jungle have evolved in the colder regions of earth, this might have been how it could have looked like.

At the foot of the tower I reloaded my pistol and drew my second pistol with my left.

With a determined look towards the mounds direction I set the gun in my right hand on stun and the other to explosive charges.

That close to my target nothing should get in my way.

A kilometer filled with wondrous vegetation passed by, but I had no time to marvel at the wonders of evolution, even as I was getting closer to the hill a feeling of being watched took hold of me.

Marple was unable to register much besides some heat signatures within the jungle, which could belong to a wide array of creatures.

Meanwhile I rued taking the easy way, apparently I was getting quite experienced finding traps to step into.

To my ease neither an alarm sounded nor any arrows flew by as I reached the mound.

Marple muttered something about strange readings, but was unable to tell me anything specific.

I examined the earthen mound and noticed that it formed about a 50 meters high dome above the airlock, this didn’t happen by happenstance, someone intended to protect the airlocks.

But who and against whom?

I wondered if I had time to observe the hill for a few hours.

Carefully I walked around the mound, but could not find an entrance.

Marple detected a few hollow spots, but the readings were ambiguous and I preferred to avoid anything collapsing. I located a beautiful spot at the forests edge and had a simple lunch, in which I used up the looted food. Back to synthetic food from now on.

But my missions goal was so very close and I was in good spirits.

The side of the mound facing the tower, which I arrived at first, did show an irregularity, while eating I realized that part of the soil appeared to be a shade lighter than the surrounding ground.

So after I finished my meal I went to examine the spot more closely.

Marple was going on about confusing measurements again.

When unexpectedly a huge rock at my side emitted a sibilant noise and a human face appeared within it, I couldn’t help but give a frightened yelp.

Nevertheless I drew my guns quickly. With the coarse voice of an elderly man he uttered the words “Zhi ba! Peace!” It became apparent why Marple had been unable to detect him. He had lain here tucked up in one of the space suits covered with dirt and had been able to observe since I arrived.

His face was emitting such great kindliness, that I couldn’t help but holster my weapons again.

I longed to trust this elder, yet my recent experiences had me keep my hands close to my guns.

Carefully I said “Hello” and with a calming smile I added “Peace” then waited for his reaction.

The old man slowly stood up and while he did this we eyed each other.

The suit he wore was in perfect condition, but surely was a hindrance in this environment. After all it was designed for outer space and was filled with tools and auxiliaries.

I could see that the man was indeed as old as the hills, nonetheless he moved gracefully and purposefully, however also considerate and not very fast, his movements were obviously practiced.

He opened the suits seals, which completely opened it up on one side and stepped out of it.

Now I saw he wore a fur like a toga and yes this fur definitely was fur from the animals that oh so friendly welcomed me on this deck.

With proficient movements he stored the suit within the hiding spot he had been watching me from.

His voice slightly trembled, which caused an annoyed frown deepening oh so very many wrinkles on his face and I saw the traces of a lot of worry lines.

“
Young lady. We watched you closely and wonder, what is it that you are looking for?”
 

I weighed my options and decided to try and find out more first.

“
I would gladly answer you, but first I need to know, do you - or rather y’all -
with the Benefactor?” with a laugh he replied “By Buddha, no, but this is an excellent question and leads me to assume you do neither.” With relief I reply “Indeed, hello again, my name is Helen and how may I call you?” he waved towards the trees, while replying “my name is Rabten Gustavsson, but everyone is calling me Old Rab.” Slowly some shadows leave the cover of the trees, after about 10 persons I stop counting.
 

I decide to keep my cool and continue the conversation.

“
Rab, if I tell you what it is I need to do, would you help me?”
 

Shrewdly he looked at me and replied “Obviously that depends on what it is, but there is not much we would deny an awakened requests from us!”

That hit home, he had directly seen through me, well but on the other hand it probably not too hard to guess.

“
Okay, so I want to use one of the airlocks to the outside, to perform urgent repairs.”
 

The bafflement on his face made way for a thoughtful look and I nearly expected to hear the cogs turning around in his head.

While waiting for a reply I mustered our freshly arrived company.

It were woman and men wearing a wild mixture of clothing, but all in all they had the looks of natives of olden times. The sense of savageness and liberty I felt was likable and I was strongly hoping that these people would manifest to be allies.

Rabten finally arrived at a conclusion.

“
Young lady, we surely will help you with your request, but this is tied to a certain requirement. Surely it came to your attention that you are a precious quarry. I would have expected you to want to know more about this?” He looked at me inquiringly and I replied “Yes of course, but the ship has utmost precedence, through my repairs I will learn more about the ship’s state.” He nods agreeably “This is a wise decision. Sadly we don’t have any technicians of our own since about 150 years now, the Benefactor had all chased down and we must be thankful for just being able to recapture this area.”
 

“
I am really happy that there are some people left that haven’t lost sight of the mission.” I expressed my delight
with. “My child” Rab sighed “There is so much to say about this, but now about our requirement or rather requirements.” He waved one of the men forward which moved closer with a handheld computer in his hands.
 

“
Alright, our first condition is that one of us has to accompany you and is allowed to learn how to perform those repairs you speak of. The next condition is that you return to us and repair those devices.”
 

I examined the small computer, which consisted of not much more than a touchscreen. Those devices were cheaply manufactured in large amounts and were used as learning devices since ages.

I asked “What do you need the devices for?” and received the reply I was hoping to get “We want to teach our children how to repair the ship.” I looked around the crowd “And who is it that should accompany me?” Old Rab pointed at the man holding the handheld computer “My grandson Rolf Gustavsson” I looked Rolf up and noticed that he probably was in his mid twenties just like me. “Rolf, you are aware that it will be extremely dangerous?” He nodded and replied with a pleasantly firm voice “Yes, but the reward is well worth the risk.” I looked at him with a gravely expression “I cannot promise that we will survive this mission.”

He stood his ground under my gaze.

In the meantime someone had been monkeying with the hill and suddenly an entrance to a cave became visible, when a figure approached running from the trees.

Wheezing the young woman came to a halt before our group and gasping for air she uttered “Soldiers!” Troubled looks examined the landscape. “Its the Benefactors, at the towers foot still.” Energetically the old Rab signaled for attention. “You, you and you” he pointed at people in the group “take a partner with you and notify the resistance within the segments B two to four on our clock, then our neighbors at C three and five and then also C three to five at clock two and four.” With that six members of the group hurriedly left.

The remainder of the group followed the hurriedly onward pressing Rab towards the entrance.

I followed and was baffled when I saw the tunnel even was lighted.

Someone closed the entrance and I truly hoped the soldiers didn’t know the tricks of this segments natives.

I felt like I had entered a gigantic molehill and was half expecting the face of a gigantic mole to breach through one of the tunnels walls any moment, like in the kids movies explaining animals and nature in animated cartoons.

The air was surprisingly clean and the earthen smell was nice and not moldy at all.

At some spots the tunnel was pretty narrow, but after a short while we reached the center of the hill and with that finally the locks gate.

The control room was not very large and seemed like an altar in a prayer room, appropriate decorations had been placed and I realized that defending the airlocks had been raised to a religion for these people.

When I excitedly hurried to the control room I felt a tension running through the crowd, to suddenly allow a foreigner that close to the holy of holies nearly was demanding too much.

Suddenly Rolf was at my side and whispered “Let me enter the room first.” He waved to the group and opened a cover panel rendering visible the manual opening mechanism.

I was unable to resist the temptation and with a grandiloquently gesture I said “Open” which Marple commented with a grumpy “You really could be more polite” as the door opened with a hiss and I chuckled at the surprised faces.

Rolf looked at me disapprovingly, as he crouched into the small room.

I followed and busily started taking inventory.

The available equipment was in brilliant condition to my pleasant surprise.

Quickly we found two fitting suits, but I had to face the problem that I needed a 100 meters of data cable and matching clamps for the outer hull, so no one would entangle in the cable on future maintenance missions.

I checked the reserves in the material tanks, those were nearly depleted, but it would be enough for the cable.

The fabrication device or in short fabber for any desired construction parts, was not in working condition though, it had been used until completely worn out. To have it create its own replacement parts had been overlooked.

I was prepared for a situation like this and took out another of the nanite stripes.

After placing the stripe on the fabber my busy little machines got down to work and repaired the fabber, after that I set it to produce a copy of itself so I would have a spare fabber ready just in case.

Now I only needed the cable and we would be ready for action.

Rolf was closely watching all of my actions throughout the last half-hour and was seemingly memorizing all my movements, at times the attention nearly was too much to bear.

From the outside someone knocked on the door, which Rolf carefully opened. The old Rab was telling him something, while I was busy rolling up the slowly forming cable around my hips, which was an arduous task in a space suit.

After the talk finished Rolf closed the door and reported to me “The soldier are on their way to this and the other close by airlocks, so when we are done with the mission we have to be very careful on our return.” I nodded “Okay, by the way I am ready, so it is time for your first lesson.” He looked at me questioningly “We have to perform a thorough check on each others suit, watch me closely as I check your suit.” I checked the fasteners of his suit and made sure everything was properly tightened. He repeated the procedure with my suit. Then I said “Marple, close the visor… please.” And my helmet came out from the collar.

I surveyed Rolf, of course there also was a control for this, but with data assistant glasses everything out there would be much easier for him.

The fabbers reserves still were sufficient and I signaled Rolf to wait, while I left it to Marple to have the fabber make a copy of her.