Saving the Grenlow

The Grenlow, a small, Morgan-class transport, tumbled lazily end over end for three weeks before headquarters tapped Jim Cable to go aboard, stabilize it and bring it home.

Others in his class, like most who attended the pilot academy, dreamed of one day piloting and later even commanding a planet-class battleship. He had held no such aspirations, hoping instead to land a steady job piloting a transport, preferably a small one like the Grenlow.

When other students had tested for and received every possible vehicle endorsement on their pilot’s license, he had tested only for one class-size above the Morgan class and smaller. He preferred the smaller transports because they were neither designed nor outfitted for interstellar deliveries, and unlike most of his classmates, he had no desire to visit other systems. He dreamed of a steady route over which he would haul dependable cargo within the system. He would settle into a routine—be gone a certain time, home a certain time—and he’d be able to live a normal life.

But he’d fallen short of that goal. He’d annoyed his class commander by outmaneuvering him during navigation trials. Without the class commander’s recommendation he would never land a clean job, and so he hadn’t. For the past four years he’d been working for System Retrieval Inc., finding, targeting and recovering wrecked or abandoned ships.

The work was steady, but it lacked both the spontaneity he’d eschewed and the routine he’d sought. He seldom had to think beyond the company guidelines, but he was called out at all odd hours of the day. A job might take him away for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks. Recovering the Grenlow, he expected, would fall into the first category.

Preliminary readings of the ship had indicated life support was fully functioning on the transport and there were no signs of potentially deadly contaminants, so he decided against wearing the EnviroSuit. He would transfer from the retrieval ship directly to the bridge of the Grenlow to begin the recovery. His side pack contained everything he might need for various contingencies. All the stats said he should be in and out in less than four hours if the main engines were working.

During his preliminary research of the Morgan class he’d learned the ship was streamlined for utility. In addition to the transport bay itself, it would consist only of the bridge, the captain’s quarters, the crew’s quarters and the engine room. In its prime, the transport had carried a minimal crew. One capable pilot should have no problem bringing it in.

He materialized alongside the captain’s chair on the bridge and began his initial inventory. His overall general scan indicated the research was correct regarding the layout of the ship. The scanner also detected no signs of any carbon-based biology. And therefore no problems, he thought, and grinned.

He narrowed his focus and looked around the bridge. When he was satisfied, he touched his skull just ahead of his right temple to turn on his transmitter and began his report. It would go live directly to headquarters and as a redundancy it would sear to his mid-term memory. “The bridge is typical of a small, older-class ship.” A small green light glowed softly for a moment directly behind his forehead. They were receiving his transmission.

He looked down to his right and grinned. “Most notably, the captain’s chair is a throwback to the days before thought-controlled devices became the norm.” He’d learned to fly in a similar chair. After he completed the inventory and had judged the Grenlow safe, he would use the physical controls imbedded in the armrests to control every function of the vessel.

He hesitated for only a moment, then settled into the chair, shifting slightly as it conformed to his size, shape and weight. Man, whoever designed these knew what comfort was all about. He looked at the blank view screen on the front bulkhead of the ship and reached for a joystick on the right armrest of the chair. Then he remembered company policy and his hand-held scanner. He much preferred using his own senses, but for the sake of a paycheck would defer to technology. He dialed-in the transport bay and gave his scanner a cursory glance. No life signs, no biological matter, as I expected... yawn. He grinned. Now let’s see what’s really going on.

He dropped the scanner on his lap, then depressed the joystick. A view of the transport bay appeared on the screen. The bay was smaller than he’d expected. He manipulated the joystick and saw that the bay also was empty, as it had appeared on his scan. It could carry up to twenty-thousand tons of cargo, or it could be outfitted in one day to temporarily house, in stasis, a thousand troops, their weapons and three days’ rations. Why it was currently devoid of cargo or passengers was not his concern. Others would figure that out after he got the ship home.

He picked up his scanner and dialed in the crew’s quarters. He scanned for life signs and biological matter and found nothing. Another matter for the ground-bound techs back at HQ. So far so good. He focused on the view screen again and brought up the crew’s quarters.

In his research, the quarters had appeared to be compartmentalized, with individual, self-sufficient modules. In actuality it was a large room, divided with temporary barriers into twelve minimal living spaces clustered along a narrow hallway. Each living space consisted of a one-piece room unit, a small combination bed and dresser, complete with a CompuDesk with a chair attached at one end.

He’d read about these room units as well. When seated at the desk, the crew member would be able to record thoughts to a particular part of the ship’s log and engage in any creative or entertainment endeavor he or she could imagine, whether writing or sculpting, listening to famous voices from the past, indulging in a hologram presentation or whatever else.

Everything was contained within a circuit that included only the crew member’s desk and the crew member’s mind. The desks contained the first mind-link processors, precursors to the minuscule computers that were imbedded in everyone at birth now. His had been imbedded just before he’d left school. He grinned at the thought. The resulting scar was proof positive that he himself was a throwback. Everything seems normal in the crew’s quarters.

He quickly scanned the captain’s quarters next, bringing it up on the view screen a moment later to double-check. He manipulated the view of the captain’s cabin, peering into every corner, and found exactly what he expected to find. Nothing out of the ordinary there either, other than the absence of the captain. But again, that was something for the ground-bound back at headquarters to figure out.

He turned his scanner on the engine room and frowned. No readings. He switched it off, then dialed in the engine room again, but with the same results. That can’t be right. He dialed in the captain’s quarters again and received the same readings he’d received before. So the scanner’s working. He dialed in the engine room one more time. Still nothing. He snapped off the scanner. Better to see with my own eyes anyway.

He settled back in the chair and manipulated the joystick. Where he should have seen a view of the engine room, there was only a cloudy kind of static. It was as if he were looking through a haze, but there was nothing on the other side. Very odd. He tried the scanner one more time, then turned the view screen off and back on, all with the same results.

Finally he got up. He stepped away from the chair, then paused. I should let them know what’s going on. Again he touched the sensor imbedded in the right front side of his skull. “Okay... backtracking a bit, neither the scanner nor the on-board viewer indicated any life on board the Grenlow... or any biological matter at all.” The dim green light appeared momentarily behind his forehead again as he continued. “I checked the bridge, of course, as well as the transport bay, the crew’s quarters, and the captain’s quarters. When I tried to scan the engine room... well, let’s just say technology strikes again.

“The scanner won’t scan the engine room. Oddly, neither will the on-board view screen. I’ll have to either check it manually or scrub the mission, and I’ve seen no reason to scrub.” Plus I need the check. He thought for a moment about his decision not to wear the EnviroSuit, then dismissed his fears as silly. He continued his report. “At any rate, this should be nothing more than a routine check. If there were anything wrong with the engines, life support would be less than fully functional. Then I wouldn’t be here and so on.” 

He left the bridge and stepped into a hallway. It ran between the bulkhead and the captain’s quarters, then the crew’s quarters, then the transport bay, all on the left. Where the hallway ended there was a final door on the left. He pulled the door open and latched it at the base with the mechanism provided. Then he turned and stepped into the engine room.

The sharp, acidic stench of burning electrical circuits assaulted him. His tongue suddenly tasted like sulfur, his eyes watered, his nose stung. He instinctively turned away and pulled a FilterSpec from his side pack. He seated it over his nose and eyes in the light sheen of sweat already coating his forehead and cheeks.

The haze he’d seen on the view screen was not evident. The air was clear, but imbued with a great weight, as if ponderously thick like water that was not wet. It pressed on him, and yet it felt like something he could duck under.

He carefully leaned forward, then bent. He put his hands on the floor and crawled forward along a row of circuitry cabinets. He was below the weight. An uneasy feeling settled over him and he frowned. Knock it off. Just do your job. The no-slip serrated catwalk left indentations in the heels of his hands and the soft tissue of his knees. Every few feet he raised his right hand to open and check a circuitry cabinet.

The first few were warm to the touch. Nothing remarkable there. The ship never lost power. He opened each one briefly, glanced inside, and moved to the next.

As he inched along, a sound like a dentist’s drill spun up from the seventh cabinet. He crawled forward and reached for the latch, but jerked his hand back and almost fell on his face. Damn! That thing ought’a be glowing! He leaned back to his knees and pulled a set of pliers from his pack. Guarding his face with one arm, he twisted the latch.

As he cracked the door, the dentist’s drill became a whirring scream enveloped in a hot black and grey cloud. When the door swung open, the cloud swirled out. Even as he pulled back, the hair on his arms and fingers and eyebrows curled and shriveled away.

Guarding his face again, he leaned in as close as he could and visually traced the wires to where they should be in the previous cabinet. He quickly moved back along the floor, ripped open the sixth cabinet and cut the wire bundle. What seemed an electric tremor ran up along the heel of his right hand, up through his elbow and shoulder, and dissipated in his body. The sizzling stopped.

He listened for a long moment, then sat back for a moment. On the third try he touched the spot just ahead of his right temple. “Okay... prob’ly nothing but... I think I just got... a pretty good shock. Felt like voltage. Gonna... finish up here and... should be on... my way home soon. Maybe a half-hour.”

When he’d rested for another moment or two, he moved along the other nine cabinets in an all-but cursory inspection. As expected, he found no other problems.

At the end of the row, he braced his hands against the floor and stood. He leaned against the rail for a moment, then turned and started back along the catwalk, his right hand slipping smoothly along the railing. He attributed the tingle in his palm to the coolness of the metal. Now... get up to the bridge, put this pig back in the sty.

Watching the catwalk pass under his feet, he smiled. Crystal would be waiting, and that was always a good thing. She was the only woman he’d found who could put up with his strange schedule. He’d heard rumors she was juggling the schedules of a couple other recovery techs as well, but he’d left those in the rumor bin where they belonged. No need to go hunting trouble.

Still smiling and thinking of Crystal, he looked up just in time to avoid walking headlong into the door. He put his hands against it as if checking to be sure it was real. Then he frowned, took a step back, looked down. Oil. Hydraulics sprung a leak. Just another one of those little things that make life more interesting.

He reached in his side pack and fumbled around for a screwdriver. But didn’t I leave the door open? I set the floor lock, right? He mumbled, “Okay, now you’re getting paranoid. Chill, James. It’s gonna be fine.” But I did set the floor lock. I remembered clearly setting the floor lock.

Then he remembered his reaction at the acrid smell that came rushing through the door. I must’ve kicked it loose again. He grinned and shook his head. “Typical.” He’d get a ribbing back at headquarters. Might as well get it over with now. He touched the sensor just ahead of his right temple. “Okay, base, I just did something stupid here.”

He frowned. The little green light didn’t come on. Doesn’t it come on after the first sentence?

“When I came into the engine room, I... I set the floor lock.”

Still no green light. Did it come on when I told them about getting shocked? He couldn’t remember.

He shook his head. “But I turned too quickly and... well, I must’ve kicked it loose... or something.... Hey are you guys there? Base?” He paused. “Base?”

   His right hand closed around the handle of the large flat-head screwdriver and pulled it from his side pack. He looked down. “There it is.” He glanced at the door. No hinges... have to work on the latch.

But as he turned to step toward the left edge of the door, something surged through his right arm and swelled in his chest. He dropped to his knees and the screwdriver clattered across the catwalk. “Damn! Hey... hey, that didn’t... feel too pretty good.”

He leaned forward and grabbed the screwdriver.

It seemed to tug, as if trying to pull away from him.

“What?” He shuffled forward on his knees, squeezing harder to maintain his grip. “Seriously? Even my screwdriver don’t wanna be around me?” He laughed.

The tip of the screwdriver was near the bulkhead, and the tip was leaning upward.

He stared. “What the hell?” A chill crept up his spine. He pulled hard on the screwdriver. “Look, I’m the human. You’re the tool. You do what I—”

Then his gaze lit on a slot in the wall. A single slot. His right arm felt warm, a warmth that radiated up through is torso and neck and head and out through his left arm and down through his legs and feet. He was tingling again, but it was warm, comforting.

The feeling’s coming from that slot. That’s what the screwdriver was tryin’ to tell me.

He raised the screwdriver. But what if this will turn it off?

The tip began to quiver as it drew near the slot.

He put both hands on the screwdriver and held it back, tight against his stomach, not wanting the warmth to dissipate. Oh please oh please oh please....

But steel is steel and humans are flesh and blood.

His arm surged again, filled his torso and flowed out again through the screwdriver and into the slot.

His mind melded to the Grenlow.

His body went to dust.

*

The Grenlow, a small, Morgan-class transport, tumbled lazily end over end for three weeks before headquarters tapped Jacob Simpson to go aboard, stabilize it and bring it home.

* * * * * * *