The Pathfinder Project (23 page)

Just three small stones was all
that he would need. Three. Once reduced to powder he had only to mix the
substance with a small supply of liquid fuel – easily obtainable from the
shuttle tanks during normal hangar bay maintenance – and he would have at his
disposal a very small, very powerful explosive device. All that remained was
for him to choose a final spot on the
Pathfinder
where his little
surprise would do the most damage. He was still very determined to make the
crew pay for what they had done to his people on the warship, and for taking
him so far away from his home. Unexpectedly, he heard something behind him.

Startled, the Brotherhood clone
spun in his chair and stared at the far side of the room. Out of the corner of
his eye he thought he had detected movement and – since he was definitely in
the process of breaking ship’s regulations and committing treason – he was
understandably a bit paranoid. There was no one else in his quarters but he
nonetheless sat motionless for quite some time. He could swear he had seen
movement and he was also certain that he had heard the soft rustle of someone
moving around back there. Fear was not something that he had been trained to
feel, but right now the emotion was raging throughout his entire body.

THE PATHFINDER PROJECT

Three days later Thomas was in
much better shape. He moved back to his quarters and found himself able to read
again… as long as he took breaks now and then. He also found that his thought process
became sharper and more focused as each afternoon turned to evening, so he
spent most of the time during the morning hours getting extra sleep. It became
old-hat almost immediately – he would wake up early in the morning with his
stomach growling and eat a bowl of cereal or two. After that, he would either
go immediately back to bed or else monitor the ship’s news reports from his
work station. Even if he stayed up, he inevitably found himself couch-bound for
a quick cat-nap or two until 11:00 a.m. rolled around.

Dr. Simmons checked in at least
once per day to monitor his progress and he found himself being a lot more
truthful with her these days. She smiled approvingly when she heard how much
time he was spending asleep, commenting that “There may be hope for you, yet.”
She also noted that his body had quite probably needed the extra shut-eye for
years and he had simply ignored that need. “Your body has a way of getting what
it wants,” she warned him cautiously. “As you get older your metabolism changes,
so if you’re a person who needs more sleep than everyone else does you’re going
to have no choice but to make some adjustments.”

He had already met twice with
Dr. Keith Hagen, the ship’s psychiatrist, and found him to be a pleasant and
helpful man who did a lot of listening. At first Thomas told him everything,
confiding to the Doctor things that he had kept secret for years and would
never have dared tell anyone else. The feeling of relief he got from finally
taking the time to share some of the darker parts of himself really helped, and
he found that the Doctor’s encouragement to get past that and move on with a
much brighter enthusiasm for life was also helping him. He was still thinking
about – and concerned with – his future, but having all of his responsibilities
temporarily suspended and the ongoing escape from the daily grind he had lived
with for most of his adult life allowed him to really slow down for once and
catch his breath.

Adam was the biggest help. His
brother sent him E-Notes in the morning and during the lunch hour of his daily
shift. At the end of each day, the elder Roh also stopped by to see him and
they would have supper and just talk about life in general. It didn’t take long
for Thomas to realize that – after talking about the things he considered to be
the most hideous part of himself with Dr. Hagen – it quickly became easier to
begin discussing some of those issues with Adam, too. He also noticed that many
of the things he had talked about with the Doctor didn’t seem quite so bad
anymore.

Additionally, a couple of the
tougher issues that had really bothered him he left behind in Dr. Hagen’s
office and no longer felt he
needed
to mention to Adam. Particularly, it
began to dawn on him how many other people felt the same way that he did or had
the same problems.
It didn’t take long before he stopped loathing what he
had become and began to enthusiastically explore the brand new world – and its
limitless options – ahead of him
. He soon began to feel like a normal,
flawed human being… someone who no longer felt the need to try and be perfect
every minute of every day.

He had always felt as though
relying too much on his family for emotional support would be perceived by
others as a weakness. Now he didn’t care about that, and found the relationship
with his brother expanding in a way it never could have before. Repeatedly he
would barrage Adam with questions about the
Pathfinder
’s ongoing
exploratory mission, and in the evenings he read everything that he could find
regarding Dr. Markham’s assessment of the ‘Atomic Nightmare’ star system that
they had found.

“Actually,” Adam commented
during his latest visit, “We’ve left that system behind already. The supply
runs were done anyway and our enthusiastic Dr. Markham is after fresh game.”

“So how far have we come?”
asked Thomas eagerly. Normally he would know off the top of his head, but
without at least an occasional visit to the Lab wing he was cut off from his
normal sources of information.

“I don’t even know,” decided
Adam. “But Julie is in
complete
heaven. Her team made thorough studies
of the M81 and M82 galaxies and then we transited far beyond them to the
infamous ‘Atomic Nightmare’. The Captain paused just long enough to do another
detailed survey, refresh our supplies, and now we’ve hopped through space
several times again.” He took a sip of coffee from his mug and set it on the
kitchen table. “As you know, they have plenty of survey points picked out so
it’s tough to measure exact distances. We’re still moving outward from our home
galaxy, but our course is definitely not a straight line by any sense of the
word.”

“How much new stuff can they be
finding?” Thomas wondered. “It’s not like we just invented the telescope
yesterday. From everything I’ve heard most galaxies are pretty much the same… a
spiral helix composed mostly of cooler red giant stars.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Adam
said. “I’ll have today’s series of pictures that the Observatory submitted for
review forwarded to your workstation. It’s not so much the galaxies they’re interested
in these days, but the occasional very unique objects they find all alone out
here scattered and hidden
between
them.”

“I hope they’re keeping a
record of our destination coordinates,” commented Thomas. “If we run low on
supplies and they become difficult to find, it would be nice to know that we
have a few safe locations to return to.”

“That’s another report I’ll
send your way,” Adam decided. “We’re beginning to enter the area where there’s
a growing margin for error. Some of the Canary probes we sent back to our home
system as a test came out of their transit beyond the orbit of Pluto. The
further outward we travel, the more unreliable our older coordinates become.”
He studied the design of his coffee mug casually. “Everything in the universe
is in constant motion, just as we have always suspected.”

 “We knew that would happen
fairly quickly. That’s why they should steer more toward visiting the larger
galaxies,” Thomas concluded. “The computer can take a lot of that gravitational
drift into account and estimate adjustments. And by sticking to the galaxy
clusters we can literally come out of PTP light years off course and still be
able to find the damned things with a telescope.”

“Believe me, they
are
taking that into account,” grinned Adam. “The ‘Atomic Nightmare’ was just too
much to resist. The Observatory team had a blast mapping some of the gravity
fields. Dr. Markham wants to come back in a few months when some of the planets
on the far side of the sun are on the side we mapped and vice versa. She’s
willing to bet that the gravity pockets will be completely different by then.”

“Utter chaos with so many
objects in so many different orbits, and yet the system somehow holds together
despite all that.”

“That’s right,” Adam said,
rising from his seat and setting his mug in the sink. “By the way, I almost
forgot to mention that you’ve been voted in as an official representative on
our new Council. So there will be more than just interesting reading material
arriving at your workstation soon.”

“You’re kidding me, right?
Didn’t they appoint you, too?”

“Of course they did. But the
Pathfinder
needs both Rohs helping to run things and everyone on board knows it.” He
grabbed Thomas and hugged his brother warmly. “I’ll be back to see you again
tomorrow… just call me on the Comm-link if you need anything until then.”

“Thanks,” Thomas said
gratefully. “
Thanks
for being my brother Adam.”

*    
* * *     *

It was already getting late
when Adam got back from his latest visit with Thomas. He entered his quarters
and immediately got himself a bottle of water out of a small refrigerator. He
sat down in the recliner next to his bed and closed his eyes to relax for a
minute. Most of the
Pathfinder
’s systems were in good shape these days,
but he continued to stick to the maintenance schedule they had carefully laid
out back on Earth’s moon. Electronic equipment didn’t always handle high levels
of current or heat very well and everyone knew the CAS Drive generated plenty
of both. They were doing very well though… all of the software and hardware
they had labored for so long to set up was working as reliably as promised.

“Is that you, Adam honey?” said
a soft voice from his bathroom.

“Nori?” he gasped in surprise.
“Geez, I had no idea that you were stopping by tonight… you should have said
something.”

“If I had said something, you
certainly wouldn’t be surprised right now, would you?”

“No… no I wouldn’t be.” he said
slowly. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” she said innocently,
walking out of the bathroom in the skimpiest negligee he had ever seen. It
hugged her curves perfectly and he could still see every single inch of her
beneath the thin black material as easily as if she stood completely naked
before him. She sat down in his lap and suddenly Adam was shifting
uncomfortably. “This
is
your easy chair, isn’t it?” she whispered in his
ear. Her tongue quickly followed the words.

“Gee, nobody’s ever used
that
line before,” he growled slightly, trying his best – and failing – to stand up
straight. “Okay, now hold on for a minute… I worked ten hours today plus spent
a couple more visiting with Thomas. Don’t I get a few minutes to myself?” Nori
casually touched a spot on the back of her neck and the negligee dropped
quickly to the carpet below. He waited until she finished undressing him before
he lifted her into his arms. “I guess not…” he decided, kissing her with pure
delight.

*    
* * *     *

Jack Dandridge angrily walked
into his quarters after yet another go around with Father Dixon from the ship’s
Chapel. He was the one who had originally confronted the Chaplain, Mary, and
Corporal Henderson after the memorial service almost three weeks ago now. Since
he worked with Mad Dog’s hangar crew, his quarters were located on the bottom
deck of the
Pathfinder
’s four-level passenger section. He was almost
completely at a loss for words, these days, when even a priest like Dixon couldn’t understand how offensive some of the gaudier religious artifacts could be
to a true believer like himself. He was fed up and had decided the time had
come to send an E-Note to the Captain himself on the subject.

Seeing the elderly, bearded
gentleman seated in his quarters caught him completely by surprise. He stared
at the intruder and the soft white aura that seemed to surround him with
complete astonishment. “Just who the hell are you?” he asked snidely.

“
I am God
,” the man said
simply.

“Oh yeah, well I’m calling
security. You can spend your time in jail trying to convince the marines that
you’re of divine nature.” Jack thought for a brief moment and then asked “Just
out of curiosity, why haven’t you ever show yourself to us before?”

“
Does it matter
?” the
man asked curiously.

“Yes, people like me are forced
to rely upon old, crumbling documents from our distant past as proof of your
existence. If you just came out and told everyone how
wrong
their
beliefs are, I could help correct them.”

“
What makes you so sure of
that
?”

“Look, I’ve had a tough evening
already, arguing about religion… okay?” Jack said irritably. “Just get out of
my quarters right now and I won’t call security this time.”

“
You’ve dared to join one of
the radical religious groups, one that doesn’t worship all ten commandments and
now your conscience is bothering you
,” the white-robed gentleman said
simply. “
You’re asking yourself if you’ve done the right thing
.”

“Who
are
you?” demanded
Jack.

“
You may call me David
,”
the man responded. “
Your anger comes from deep within you… your doubts and
insecurities about your own faith have caused you to begin pointing out flaws
you perceive to be present in the beliefs of others. That doesn’t make you
right, you know… trying to make yourself feel better by trying to force others
to acknowledge your beliefs. And it certainly doesn’t guarantee you safe
passage into the afterlife when you throw such effort into sowing turmoil into
the lives and faith of your fellow crew members. They have the same right to
choose their personal beliefs as you do
.”