Distant Reality Chapter Three
GRID Traveler Trinity: Distant Reality
Author: J Carrell Jones
Table of Content
Chapter 3
A paradigm is a worldview unique to each person. Change the rules you change the outcome. Change the outcome changes the paradigm. The universe does not take kindly to changing the rules.
Chapter 3
Robin sat in the command chair, getting a feel for how Sean seated himself. She noted that he sat with his back flush against the rest. “Mr. Kirkland.”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Send a message to the Gallant. Tell them that all is well and we’ll be proceeding to rendezvous point immediately.”
Kirkland adjusted the Comm. plug. His fingers danced over the keypad. He placed in his routing codes and sent the message.
- Beginning of Message*
Comm. Officer of the Johnson sending a message to Commander of the Gallant. Message follows: Proceeding to rendezvous point immediately. No ETA given by commander. Please reply upon receipt of message. Signed Comm. Kirkland.
- End of Message*
Kirkland waited. He didn’t know the Comm. Officer of the Gallant but a friend from the Trailblazer spoke highly of Gallant’s Comm.
“Message sent, ma’am.”
Robin nodded. “Mr. Foster, set a course for . . . “she keyed in a set of numbers and sent it to his console, “I want us there in two hours . . .”
Two hours, ma’am?”
“Was I making a suggestion or giving an order?”
“An order, ma’am. Shall I alert the crew and medical?”
Robin frowned. How dare he she thought. “Explain yourself mister.”
Foster swallowed hard. “Ma’am, the Johnson travels on Long waves.”
Robin’s anger tempered down as she realized what Foster said. Long waves. The Johnson still had the old engines. Probably his punishment.
She sighed. “Thank you, Mr. Foster. I forgot. Proceed as fast as the Johnson can go without Tranking up.”
Mr. Foster nodded and started his task. He called up the Nav. Map and took notes. Thirty-five grid jumps! By the book it would take a little over five hours. He cut it down to twenty-seven jumps. It wasted fuel and would be bumpy. He keyed in the codes, looked over his shoulder.
“Ready, ma’am. Three hour twenty-seven minutes. Best I can do and keep our lunch down.”
Robin smiled. Sean kept a good ship. She knew the Webster could make it in a little less than five hours. “Proceed, Mr. Foster.”
With a nod, Foster started the sequence of grid jumps that would take the Johnson to whom knew where. He watched his panel, and did what he did best: Navigate.
Robin punched the intercom button, “Commander Blakemore, please report to Top Deck conference room, please report to the Top Deck conference room.”
Sean drifted in a sea of smooth colors, soft fluids, and faded lights. He dreamt of nothing but patterns. His dream-state body floated in complete relaxation, no worries, no hassles no fuss. A cloud of mixed colors covered him. It was soft and pleasant. Sean rolled in its cool and changing patterns. Another cloud drifted by, its collision marked by the increase in flowing colors splashing around him. Several more clouds drifted into the already chaotic patterns that were produced by the previous encounters. Sean’s dream state sensed something wrong. He tried to relax and will the colors and patterns to smooth out, but more clouds gathered, their colors and patterns dark. Sean gasped as he tried desperately to stop his dream from its inevitable conclusion. “No!” He silently hollered, “No! I want to dream!” A cloud crashed into him. The force knocked his dream state in a spiraling fall into nowhere. Another cloud slammed into him, and another, and another and another.
Sean woke up sweating. The sheets were moist from the perspiration that gleamed on his body. He looked around. No clouds.
“Commander.” The computer spoke.
“Yes, what is it?” Sean said, burying his face into his hands.
“Captain Spaarin requests that you see her in Top Deck Conference Room.”
Sean got out of bed and dragged himself over to the sink. He stared in the mirror, studying a face that didn’t sit right with him.
“Commander, did you get the message?”
Sean snapped, “I got it.” Then, “Send the Captain an acknowledgment message to the Command CRT.”
The computer remained silent.
Sean grabbed his clothes got dressed and headed out the door.
Robin sat waiting. Now was the time she would tell him. The door hissed open and Sean walked through.
He looked at her, said nothing and sat down across from her.
Robin sat back and stared.
Sean stared back. He would meet her on her terms.
“Sean, did the Admiral tell you why he gave me command of Johnson?”
Sean shook his head, “Nothing important.”
“Have you heard of Necronomicon?”
Sean frowned and shook his head.
“Have you heard of Magick?”
“Magic?” Sean blurted.
Robin began, nodding her head slowly, “Understand that this is serious.”
Sean sniffed, “Serious?”
“Suppose Earth was visited in the past by Aliens . . .”
“Excuse me, Captain, but is this speculation?”
“Pardon?”
“We’ve been out here,” he waved toward the window, “for more than two centuries. The only aliens we’ve encountered were the ones we scattered ourselves.”
Robin blinked and frowned.
Sean continued, “I would like to believe in ‘em, but we’ve only found proof of dead worlds”
Robin cleared her throat. “Have you heard of Magick?”
“Yeah, and?”
“I mean, really know of it? Not just something you grew up with, but have you seen it?”
“Just in Vids and Streams. Why?”
Robin sat back and smiled. She pursed her lips in thought, took a deep breath. “Earth was visited long ago.”
Sean huffed. “You turning my ship into some damned ghost hunter?”
Robin ignored the question. “Dr. Loggar will be joining us from the Gallant. She will conduct the investigation . . .”
Sean raised an eyebrow. He heard of Dr. Loggar. Pretty high up in GRID Command. “Really?”
Robin thought a moment. “An investigation, the proof is beyond scary.”
“How so?”
“Dr. Loggar was working out in the region we will be heading into. She and her group found artifacts and equipment, computer equipment Sean! Equipment that is still working.”
“Working! Alien computer equipment? Impossible!” Sean said.
Robin shook her head. “No, it’s not. The equipment is working. Hardcopy manuscripts detailing how to operate it. The manuscripts were preserved for over 1,000 years.” Robin’s eyes welled up with tears. She softly shuddered at the thought of this information. My Goddess, she thought, it still makes me shake when I think about it. She cleared her throat. “Sean,” she began softly, “think of it, a connection between another intelligent race and ours. Suppose we are their people.”
Sean sat uneasily in the chair. The information Robin was giving him was shocking, if not difficult to assimilate. Aliens, maybe real proof. “Is the evidence real? Any chance of fraud?” Sean knew the answer. GRID Command would never send a trillion-credit ship on a whim. The evidence had to be exact and overwhelming.
Robin shrugged, “Anything’s possible. After Dr. Loggar made the discovery, GRID Command placed armed ships in the area. She took some stuff to Earth for further analysis. She thinks the stuff is real. The Gallant is going to meet with us. We’ll take her aboard and proceed to the system.” Robin hesitated. “She asked specifically for you.”
“Me! I don’t believe in magic, or in aliens!”
“How can you say that, and really mean it? Earth has had a lot of unexplained occurrences throughout our existences.”
Sean huffed. “Fraud, practical jokes, massive EM surges.”
Robin thought a moment. She never really considered that Sean would totally deny evidence. Yet again he hadn’t seen the evidence. She had and it scared her. A handful of scientist who think they’ve found something so profound and utterly old that it has to be from ‘someone’ else? Maybe humans were the only ones still alive in the galaxy. Robin slowly shook her head. “This place is much too big for just humans to exist.” Robin said. “We can’t be the only ones here.”
“All right,” Sean started, “suppose we’re not the only ones in the galaxy, or the universe. The all important question is why have we not been contacted.”
Robin opened her mouth to answer, but Sean cut her off.
“Because, maybe there is no one else.” Sean said casually as if it was the hundredth time he said it.
“Maybe,” mused Robin, “they’ve had some form of a Main directive regarding life forms. We have one.”
“You see, you sound like all the other UFO . . .” Sean paused to consider his words, then continued with, “. . . believers. We’ve been in space four hundred years now. We’ve traveled to hundreds of planets. We’ve settled tens of then. And in our centuries of populating the galaxy we’ve made war with ourselves. Yeah, we’ve found some evidence of intelligent life, but we’ve never encountered it. I’d like to believe in ‘em, but the truth is we are it. We’ve mapped 125 cubic billion light years and nothing. No encounters, no proof of existence now. Nothing, nada, zero, zilch.”
“Sean,” Robin retorted, “that is less than one percent of the total volume of the Milky Way.”
“Robin, we’ve had this discussion before.”
Robin stared.
“Look, scooping up an 8 oz. glass of ocean water is by far less than a millionth of a percentage of the total volume of water, but you’d find it full of life.” Sean waited a second. He was giving Robin a chance to counter. “We should have found something by now.”
“Wait and see what Dr. Loggar has.”
Sean smiled, “I will. I’d also like to know why she asked for me.”
Robin shrugged.
The room was silent for several seconds.
Sean cleared his voice. “If you’ll excuse me, Captain.”
Robin picked up on the formal tone, “I’m through. You have other duties to perform.”
Sean nodded sharply once, got up and walked out.
Robin turned her chair around to the window. A star streaked its elongated self slowly by. We can’t be alone Robin wished, and hoped. This universe is much too large for it to be wasted on us.
Sean walked back into his room and sat down at his desk. He thought about what Robin told him and immediately got scared. He cursed himself for the sudden emotional turn. Why am I scared he thought? We are alone, aren’t we? I grew up all my life believing that humankind was it. And if there was life ‘out there’ then it happened a long time ago, right? Sean got up and walked over to the bar and pulled a bottle out. He stared at the clear contents for a few seconds, pursed his lips and put the bottle back. I am scared. I’m also excited. What if, life, other than humans is out there? That would be something. “Computer?”
“Yes, Commander?”
“What do you know about Dr. Loggar?”
“Dr. Kathy Loggar, is currently GRID Command Exobiological/Anthropological coordinator.”
“Is she married?”
“At the last known query, no. Dr. Loggar is single.”
“Do you have any documentation on her life?”
“I have documentation of all individuals of prominence and importance to GRID Command.”
“How about answering with a yes or no?”
A pause, then, “Yes.”
“Thank you.” Sean walked over to his couch and sat down. “Tell me about her please. Dim the lights also.”
The lights dimmed and Sean relaxed as the computer began.