The Colony Ship Warren #1-7, page 16
part #0 of Colony Ship Warren #1-7 Series
“Different societies?” Allen interjected.
“That is a fair term to use, yes. The most populous class is the population of people in suspended animation. Reports indicate that somewhere between one hundred thousand and one hundred and eighty thousand people were placed into suspended animation chambers which are onboard the colony ships. There was a raffle of sorts for the Colony Ship Eschaton, and for that ship there is a consistent advertisement of the number 144,000. Whether that number was symbolic or literal is debatable, as the number 144,000 has religious significance in some historical cults. There is no consistent interpretation of the religious meaning of 144,000. The numbers for the other colony ships are less detailed. How many the Warren carries is unclear.”
“That is a huge population!” Beth exclaimed.
“But all those people, they are inert in suspended animation, right?” Allen asked.
“I would conjecture that is correct,” Elsa replied, “although I have very limited facts to base that conjecture upon. The second most populous group on the colony ships consists of the residents who live in the biological habitats. The number of those people is not well attested in the records, but from what I was able to gather, each habitat was designed to easily support five thousand residents. However, some records call for a smaller number of residents in those biomes. The records are contradictory. No matter the number, those people would live out their lives, procreate, and then die in those biological habitats. We are roughly three generations out from launch. It is possible some of the original habitat residents are still alive, but they would be well over one hundred years old now. Longevity in a biological habitat is not understood enough for me to hazard even a guess as to life expectancy for those people.”
“So, if there are seven or eight habitats, we are looking at thirty to forty thousand people? The vast majority born on board?” Beth asked. “Living in those habitats?”
“That would be a reasonable, but rough estimate,” Elsa replied.
“We can call them all Bob! Born on board, right?” Allen laughed.
“Or call them Alice, since some will be females,” Beth kidded.
Elsa went on, “I suspect each person will have a unique designation and proper name. However, again I must stress, we do not know the Colony Ship Warren’s starting numbers of people or the deck plans for the ship. We do not know the progression of the flight. The last report we have is that at roughly thirty-one percent of the way into the voyage—and the timing on that is unknown because we have no reliable records on the proposed length of the Warren’s voyage—an incident occurred. An unnamed crew member reported some disaster onboard the ship and the ship’s main Artificial Intelligence system, called Monitor, was put into Command Mode with the instruction to protect human life. One report received from the AI Monitor stated ‘biological organisms killing each other. Request immediate instructions.’ The details behind those reports are unclear. If a disaster happened, the numbers of people on the Warren could vary greatly from our guesses.”
“Elsa, how did we even get those reports?” Beth asked.
“Let me check. Great question!”
There was a pause while Beth and Allen looked at each other.
“I am unable to fully answer your question. That grieves me. Riley and the astronomy team in Dome 17 complied those reports about the colony ships. They also worked with Brink and the engineering staff when developing FTL and sending out the robotic probes,” Elsa replied. “When I reviewed Riley’s other works to see if I could detect how the details were gathered, I found bothersome anomalies. Yet again, I am finding numerous subtle and quite sophisticated alterations in the records. The astronomy department has had almost no oversight for the past several years, which is a violation of protocol, and these irregularities are hidden deep in the records. This is disturbing and should not have happened.”
“But again, until we set up the teleporter, we can do nothing about any of that,” Beth stated.
“And Riley might just be exceptionally good at astronomy and less precise and obsessive about archiving and keeping records,” Allen added with an optimistic tone. “This scout is working and we are on our way! Brink is superb with machines, and Elsa, you said there will be three societies of people on the Colony Ship Warren. Those sleeping the flight away, those living in the biomes, and what is the third group?”
“The records indicate there was a flight crew of roughly one thousand people,” Elsa answered. “Those people lived and worked on the central drive section of the ship—whatever that looks like—and were set up in what seems to have been a form of familial succession or perhaps even a dynastic succession where the roles and positions of the parents were passed down to the next generation, and then that generation to the next and so forth. Those patterns are found throughout the records of the colony ship programs. They looked to the monarchy system of ancient times as a model for a long-lasting ruling class.”
“So, no person can become a parvenu, but instead is stuck in the same job as her ancestors,” Beth commented. “Good for a few at the top of the dynasty, but not so good for those at the bottom.”
“But did the flight crew rule the ship? Even those in the habitats? How was their society structured? Was there mobility between the biomes, or could someone move from the flight crew into a biome, or someone from the biome join the flight crews?” Allen wondered out loud. “Forgetting the ones who are sleeping away their voyage, I still wonder if that societal structure would be stable or unstable. Especially so in the subsequent generations. Those people would be born into a world where they were on a vast colony ship. How would they react?”
“A great question, Allen, and I am sure we will find out the answers when we arrive. I see similarities between people who are conceived by Dome 17’s age-mate programs and how those children are born into Dome 17, compared to people who are born—in whatever fashion that takes—on the Colony Ship Warren. May I suggest you both get some sleep? I will monitor everything and awaken you if there are any abnormalities. I do not require rest, but I know you both do. It is my job to nurture you both and make this mission succeed!”
While neither one was very sleepy, they did relax and try to rest, but their minds were swirling with thoughts.
11 Arrival
“We will be exiting FTL momentarily,” Elsa announced. “Your physiological signs are excellent, all our systems are performing flawlessly, and I have high hopes for our success.”
“I actually fell asleep,” Beth said in wonderment. “I did not expect that at all.”
“I stayed quiet and had some good meditative times,” Allen stated.
“He also read voraciously,” Elsa added.
“I confess, I did. Not only Lewis Carroll and fairytales. I thoroughly studied the various scenarios for how we can gain entry into the Warren. It may be quite the challenge.”
Elsa announced, “Be prepared for reinsertion into normal space.”
The gray outside the viewport disappeared in a soundless snap. The blackness of space was back with a different configuration of stars, but that celestial beauty was not what caught the attention of Beth and Allen.
“FTL has been completely successful. Our position is stable. All systems working at optimum levels. We have arrived,” Elsa reported.
“That is so big!” Allen yelped out.
Looking out the viewport, the entire right half of their field of vision was a vista of an enormous mechanical marvel, the left half of what they could see was open space with its blackness and stars. The constructed thing before them looked like a vast assortment of geometrical shapes, all covering a metallic surface. Since the seats of the scout were arranged in such a manner as to let Beth and Allen sit upright, in their minds when they looked up, that was the direction which was perceived as up. Without the draw of gravity pulling them downward, the visual clues were all their minds could use to give them an orientation of up and down, right and left.
“That is the Colony Ship Warren, right?” Allen gulped as he looked hard at it. “The whole right side of what we can see? From top to bottom, and way off in the distance!
“What a landscape,” Beth said and then caught herself, “should I call it a ship-scape? That is the Warren, right?”
“Yes, it is,” Elsa replied. “Powered and illuminated by its own devices. That is a very good sign. I understood what you meant when you used the term landscape, despite there being no land in view. You are seeing a part of a section of the exterior hull of the Warren. I am taking readings on its size and configuration.”
“I can barely see much of an arc. This thing is huge!” Allen stated.
“Indeed,” Elsa replied. “I have taken reading on this structure, and this segment of the Warren is over eight kilometers long, and indications are that from measuring the arc of the surface you are seeing, it is sixteen kilometers wide in a cylindrical shape. That is assuming there is a constant arc all the way around. It might be different on the far side, but my conjecture is that this is the end of one of the biological habitats. I am getting back distant readings indicating there is another structure of comparable size beyond the far end of what you can see. We are too close to the surface here for me to take readings of the entire colony ship. If it follows the general pattern of what we think colony ships were like, there is far more that we cannot see from this vantage point.”
“Two things that big?” Allen asked in awe and wonder.
“At least two sections, there may be more,” Elsa replied. “It is all quite exciting.”
“Elsa, where is the probe and targeting beacon,” Beth asked.
Beth was scanning the surface of the Warren looking for the targeting beacon. The hull of the Warren was a maze of structures, all with an overall bluish-gray color, but that might have just been the effects of the lights which were sprinkled around the surface. None of the hull was in much shadow as the lights were on the tops of the tallest projections and all the lighting shown down on the various cubes, rectangles, and other edifices which made the surface so irregular.
“I will superimpose a heads-up marker on the viewport. The beacon would be difficult to spot with an unaided human eye,” Elsa replied. “The probe is tethered to the beacon and is only ten meters from the surface.”
A shimmering red circle lit up and inside of that was a small yellow dot. And it was, as Elsa had said, hard to distinguish from the rest of the myriad of things on the hull.
“Those structures, buildings, or whatnot, are not small, either,” Allen observed out loud. If we are a hundred meters away from that, those buildings are pretty large.”
Beth remembered the lights that had been turned on for her when she, Hobart, and Ken had been trying to walk in from the broken fusion truck. It occurred to her that the Warren had exterior lights on, and she wondered about it.
“Elsa, why do they have lights on the outside of their ship?”
“An excellent question. I cannot give a conjecture of any probable validity until we ask someone here. I can speculate about a number of reasons why they would do that, but mere speculation is not helpful at this time. I do note that the far cylinder, is not illuminated, which makes visualizing it a bit more problematic.”
“They know we are here. They must. The probe and beacon are there, and this area is lit up. I think that is a response to the probe and beacon. We knocked and someone is answering,” Beth’s voice carried hope and gladness. “Just like when the fusion truck went kaput and someone turned on the exterior lights of Dome 17. That saved our lives.”
Else replied, “Jerome did that from an illicit observation point in an area which was supposed to be sealed off from dome personnel.”
“More revelations of strange activity,” Allen said. “But I am thankful he did that. Otherwise…”
“Yes, and I never thanked him,” Beth remarked. “I will do that when we… oh, wait, he and the other adventurers went to some other colony ships.”
She wiped a tear from her eye and pushed the thought of those losses away.
“Beth, your proposition that someone here has turned on the porch light, to use an antiquated idiom, certainly fits the circumstances here. The signal from the beacon is steady. I am repurposing our short-range communication systems. We have com-links for your use in connecting back to me, and I am using those communication methods to see if there are any signals coming from the Warren. We do not have FTL radio, but we do have a variety of detection methods for other types of communications.”
“We made it here, but now we need to get inside,” Beth stated firmly. She licked her lips and went on, “If they know we are out here, they are probably watching what we do.”
“Should we survey the rest of the Warren before we decide on a place to enter? I would like to know as much as we can about the physical structure of this big ship.”
“Knowledge of the situation is good. Our thruster fuel has not been used at all. Our current movement, relative to the Warren is synchronized and therefore our positions are stable. Our emergence from FTL was flawless and Brink’s calculations were exact. We can remain in this position for an extended period. However, once synchronization is broken, we will be expending thruster fuel. Currently, our thruster fuel capacity is full, but that does not allow for us to take extended cruises around the Warren. Starting movement, stopping movement, and all steering will involve use of fuel, which is essentially irreplaceable. I suggest we look for an entry point close to here,” Elsa interjected. “Once that entry point is determined, then we move to that location.”
“How will we know where to enter?” Allen asked.
Beth reached forward and manually adjusted some of the controls. The floodlights on the scout turned on and off rapidly.
“If they are watching, this will tell them someone is here. We are a speck in space, and we do not want to have them miss us,” Beth explained. “We knocked. They turned on the lights. Now we are responding.”
The entire expanse of the Warren winked off. The sudden disappearance of every light on the hull of the enormous ship was shocking. Beth and Allen both blinked as their eyes adjusted to the abrupt loss of light. As they looked out, they did note that the light on the targeting beacon was still on, and the floodlights from the scout ship did cast a dim beam of illumination on a small circle of the colony ship’s hull, but otherwise what had been a blue-gray panorama was now almost as black as the depth of space in the opposite direction. In fact, in a manner of speaking it was darker since there were no stars anywhere on that surface. Just the tiny prick of light from the beacon and the dim glow from the floodlights.
“Beth, I think someone noticed,” Allen said to break the silence which had descended on them.
She flipped the floodlight switch and increased its power to maximum. That did very little to light up the hull any better.
“Elsa, what do you think?” Beth asked.
“It seems highly unlikely that the shutting down of the entire hull’s illumination was a coincidence with your flashing the floodlight,” Elsa replied. “However, interpreting what that means is much more difficult. Did they shut off the porch light? Invitation or rejection?”
“Have you heard anything on the communications systems?” Allen asked.
“I have not detected any other signals, aside from the beacon’s. I have not yet transmitted anything, as I was about to ask you for permission to do that when Beth initiated the visual signals. Do you want me to transmit a message?”
“We could use the protocol for what we would have said, if we had ever found a functional dome,” Allen suggested. “But that would need to be modified, a lot.”
Elsa answered, “Brink and the other new artificial intelligence systems already established a message to be delivered. It can be sent in mathematical formulas, in standard language, and all the major languages from prior to when standard language was established. Shall I send it?”
“Tell them we are here to assist,” Beth interjected. “That report said they were requesting instructions. Tell them that we are answering… it was an AI named Monitor, right? Yes, tell them we are here with help and give instructions.”
“Yes, make it short and concise,” Allen affirmed with a laugh. “Humpty said to make each word do a lot of work like that and we will pay them extra.”
“Yes, I agree, but will not include anything about eggs or falling. I will send the message, ‘Heard your call. We are here to help. Please respond,’” Elsa offered. “If you both agree.”
Beth looked at Allen and she grinned, “Better than some obscure poem, or math equation.”
“Agreed. Send it!”
“Transmitting message in standard and the languages which are in my database, beginning with the most common languages and proceeding to the more obscure.”
A series of blue lights appeared on the hull of the Warren. They flashed three times and then blinked off. A short distance away another set of lights came on, again casting a blue glow over the hull and its variety of structures. After flashing three times, they too went dark. A moment later, still further away, a different set of blue lights came on and flashed three times and went dark.
“That is an answer to our message!” Allen exclaimed. “It must be, but what does it mean?”
“Look!” Beth pointed at where the lights were flashing even further away on the hull. “I think we are supposed to follow these lights.”
Allen nodded, but asked, “Elsa? Elsa, do you think we should follow those lights?”
“I cannot be absolutely certain that we are not witnessing some automated sequence of lights. There is a chance this is purely coincidental, but I conjecture that is a low probability. If you wish for me to maneuver the scout I will, or either of you can use the manual controls. We will be expending thruster fuel, which, as I said, is irreplaceable, but I do think we are seeing a response.”
