Quest for the Conestoga (Colony Ship Conestoga Book 1) (18 page)

“I believe so, although the system is antique and I am not able to fully scan its mechanisms. The gravity manipulation will not be felt until entering the airlock and passing the door’s threshold. It is possible that gravity effects are already established in the airlock.  I can only follow the old programming of the door switches, and they do not indicate the current status of gravity within,” Sandie replied. 

“Well, open it up,” Jerome ordered.  “Once more into a breach.”

Both Jerome and Cammarry pulled their suit’s masks into place.

There was a grinding and tearing sound.  The airlock door shuddered a bit and then snapped open.  Very dim light revealed the airlock. 

Grabbing a handle on the outside of the door, Jerome swung his legs into the airlock.  “Yes, there is gravity here.”  He dropped into a standing position.  “Feels about like normal.”

Cammarry followed his example and maneuvered into the airlock.  There were handrails along both sides of the chamber which was roughly five meters wide, and ten meters deep.  At the far end was another door which was askew in its frame.  The door alignment was off, and darkness was seen beyond where the door failed to close.  Scattered all about the floor of the airlock were piles of debris.   

“No toxins or other contaminants in the air,” Sandie replied.  “There are particulates of organic matter as well as residue from a myriad of safe items.  None pose a threat to you.”

“The place is a mess,” Cammarry observed as she walked forward.  “Trash and old machinery parts, and something smells rather foul.”

Jerome had stepped toward the far end of the airlock.  There was a pile of debris in that corner which was about waste high.  Tightly interwoven stands of something were in a mound.  Several fist sized holes were in the sides of that mound. 

“That does not look purely random,” Jerome said as he approached it.  “It is chaotic, but looks constructed.  Why would someone build this thing?”

Cammarry joined him, and as they reached the end of the chamber, they could better see that the door there was damaged and had been melted along one side.  The drippings of the permalloy ran down and left streaks along the melted and ruined edge of the door.  The permalloy had rehardened when it had stopped melting.  Next to the door, on the opposite side from the damage, was another flat plate on the wall which was lit up with the twin buttons, one cerulean and the other amber.  The lettering over them was hard to discern through the grime, charring, and film on the wall. 

Jerome stepped onto the edge of the mound and reached out to scrape off the film when there was a sudden explosion of movement under his feet. 

Something dark and quick darted away and into one of the holes on the mound. 

“What was that?”  Jerome cried out as he stepped back. 

“An animal,” Sandie replied.  “I did not see it clearly enough for identification.”

“I want to see it,” Jerome said, and leaned in and peered into the hole.

“We have found life,” Cammarry exclaimed.  She cautiously stepped forward to where Jerome was watching the hole. 

“This is some kind of tunnel into the mound.  I cannot see the animal.”  Jerome reached out and patted the top of the mound. 

Several more creatures darted around and scurried into the holes in the mound. 

“That small dome is their home,” Cammarry said.  “But what are they?”

“I was able to observe one specimen for a rough determination,” Sandie said.  “It is a species of Muroidea, Rattus Norvegicus.  It is likely there are a large number of them in this location, as the mound you are seeing is characteristic of their species.  The mound is made from some kind of organic materials which I am not able to precisely identify.  The animals constructed that mound, and are not much of a threat to you so long as you keep a distance away from the individuals.  Historically they were known to carry parasites and were disease vectors.”

“Rats?  Cammarry asked.  “We found rats!” 

“The wise cat eats cheese and breathes down rat tunnels with baited breath,” Jerome said.  “Now I understand something about what that means.  I found a rat hole.  The cat was another type of animal.  I wonder if we will see them as well?”

“Well, if this animal life has survived, then the Conestoga is hospitable for the people from Dome 17.  We need to find a place to set up the receiving pad and start bringing them through.”  Cammarry pushed aside some of the mound.  It was tougher than she expected.  She heard a few squeals which made her face smile, but she did not see any more of the rats as they fled.  Working for a bit she cleared the way to the door.

“We need a much larger location than this broken airlock,” Jerome countered.  “We will need to get that inner door to open.  From the damage, I doubt it will operate properly, even if we infuse it with energy.  The frame and door have been melted, welded in a way, together.”

Jerome pulled a molecular cutting torch out from his backpack.  He unfolded it and set it for a proper depth of cutting.  Holding it against the ruined door, he moved it in a slow and methodical manner.  “I wonder why or how this door got ruined?  The airlock function was destroyed.”

Cammarry lifted one of the fusion packs and activated a light.  She shined the beam through the gap where the door was damaged.  “I can see some kind of large chair, and two other doors.  That next room is not large enough for the receiving pad either.”

“This out to do it.”  Jerome kicked the center of the door and it noisily fell into the next room.  The neat and tidy edges where he had severed the metal were shinny. 

They stepped into the room.  There was a large chair with many levers, dials, buttons, and controls on its arms.  The seat had an irregular and lumpy brown substance on it.  They looked closely at the controls, but even more closely at the stuff in the seat.  There were tints of red color along some of the edges of the substance, which when examined, was actually a number of individual plants all growing closely together.  They had upright stems, with red tinted tops, and cone shaped side appendages.

“That is a kind of organic material,” Sandie commented.  “Using visual methods I conjecture it is part of a plant family called eukaryotic organisms, also known as molds, fungi, and by various species specific names. My database does not allow me to identify this one.”

Looking around the room, they saw a large display screen which would never work again. It was shattered along one side, with broken pieces scattered beneath it. 

“Shall I see if any of this is operational?”  Cammarry said as she reached to set her fusion pack on the arm of the chair.  She could see an access port under the grime.

“Yes, maybe we can get those other doors to open up.  From their positions, I doubt they would open to space, and if we can get them to function it is easier and more useful than cutting a way in.”  Jerome was still examining the fungus growing on the chair’s seat.  “So this is what biology looks like in real life.  Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”

“It sort of reminds me of the biological cube farms in Dome 17, just not compartmentalized.”  Cammarry jacked the fusion pack into the access port on the chair.  A few of the controls lit up, and the overhead light in the room came on.  That light showed that the fungus growing on the chair was not the only flora in the room.  In the corners of the room were stands of the same kind of fungus.  Along one wall there was a hole which had been crudely cut open.  Air duct openings were also now visible, and the grilles which had once covered the openings were lying on the floor.  More plant growth was seen in the ducts.

“Those animals must have escaped through those ducts and that hole.  In fact, that hole looks like something liquid has been dribbling out of it.”  Cammarry approached the hole.  She resisted touching the spot where the wetness was.  “It looks like water, but it could be something else.  Water just dripping down a wall.  What a waste.”

“John could tell us the whole life cycle of these plants, and I bet water is an essential ingredient.  See how on the floor there is also a lot of built up grime, dust, and other stuff.” Jerome squatted down and brushed at the floor.  “There is a layer of something here.”  He pinched it and rubbed it between his fingers. 

Cammarry tried a few more controls on the arms of the chair, and finally two panels lit up next to the other doors.  Each panel was about fifteen centimeters square and divided into nine sections.  Each section was a different color. 

“Well, that is something, I suppose. Are these some kind of door mechanism?  Let me see what I can do.”  Cammarry touched the center section of one of the panels.  The center was lit by blue coloring. 

The door slid to the side and into a pocket in the wall.  Another small room was revealed.  A dull glow came from the light fixtures in the ceiling.  This room had storage shelves lining the opposite wall.  The shelves were covered with more the small brown and red fungi.  It was growing on nearly every horizontal surface in the two rooms they had inspected. 

On the floor, was a green colored spacesuit.  The bottom section was complete and intact, but the top section was damaged and ripped. Pale green sprouts of some kind were sticking out from the exposed inside of the suit. The jagged edge of the tear cut across roughly where a person’s waist would be.  Between the green sprouts the dark yellow of bone could be seen.  A skull was exposed where the neckline of the spacesuit ended.  Some other green things were also poking out from that neckline.  A bubble helmet was off to the side, upside down with a dark liquid inside of it.  The liquid had filled the helmet and was oozing down the side where it pooled.   More of the dark liquid was running down the wall from an open air vent.  It dripped an occasion plop into the helmet. 

“We found a crew member,” Cammarry said.  “Dead for a long time.  Not dried out like in the dead domes.  There is some kind of other plant growth coming up from inside the spacesuit.”  She knelt down and shined the light into the ripped open cavity of the spacesuit.  “Some bones, and other organics.  Sandie, how long has this body been dead?”

“That is difficult to determine,” The AI Sandie answered. “Many factors influence decomposition, including microorganisms, liquids, and other environmental considerations. I conjecture that person died decades ago.  Not even all the bones are intact and there is a suggestion of rodent scavenging.  Note the vertebrae bones scattered under the shelves.  The spacesuit has provided some protection but the best conjecture says the body has been here for decades.”

“Sandie, how is the biological stuff growing in these places?”  Jerome asked.  “Does natural stuff just always grow rampant like this?  Dome 17 never had anything like this.” 

“You are correct, Jerome, Dome 17 was a sterilized environment with air scrubbers and many other antiseptic systems.  From what I can observe about the rooms you have entered, there is a strong likelihood that the grime layer you have seen on many of the surfaces is actually a growth medium.  I cannot analyze the composition of the growth medium, but I conjecture that is what you are seeing.  As to how or why it is there, that is a mystery,” Sandie replied.

“But it means life is here.  We saw those animals, and now different kinds of plants on that dead body.  We just need a large enough area for building the teleportation receiving pad.  Then we can get Brink and John and all the other brilliant minds of Dome 17 here and we will figure it all out.  Cammarry stated.  She moved around the storage room, but nothing else was seen.  “The other door will open to somewhere.”

Jerome walked over to that door and copied what Cammarry had done by pressing the blue colored box in the center of the color control pad.  The door slid open with a whoosh.  Again, the next room was lit by the dull glare from overhead lights they had seen in the other rooms.  This room was much larger however, roughly thirty meters long, and about ten meters wide. 

A small thing fluttered by.

“Another animal?”  Cammarry asked as she watched the creature flap its thin wings.  It was a brown and gray color and moved flittingly.  It came right toward the light Cammarry held. 

The AI Sandie replied, “That is not an animal, except in a very broad definition of the world.  It is an insect, to the order Lepidoptera, commonly called a moth. It is attracted to the light.  It is completely harmless.  This area has more species of flora and fauna than the previous rooms.  This room was once some kind of technological center or a common connection area for many systems. However, the wreckage of those systems is substantially hidden underneath the biological growth, especially at the center of the room.  I am attempting to virtually reconstruct the original schematics, but the damage is extensive, and with only limited visual and auditory connections, the reconstructive work is slow.  I am observing for more information about the original systems here.  The primary design of this room was not for biological usages.  None of the rooms we have explored were originally suited for ecological systems.  As to our mission, this location is a suitable size and location for the teleportation receiving pad.  I suggest building it at once.”