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New Google Group:

http://groups.google.com/group/sff-writers-forum My intention in creating this group is to provide a place for wrtiers of Science Fiction and Fantasy to post their stories and discuss their craft. Members shouild feel free to post their material. -0-0T::Z Google Groups

The First Day on the New World

By

Carl E. Thompson

c. 2006 Maveric Lion Production

My brother and I entered the ICU. The shriveled shape on the bed only looked remotely familiar. But it was Mom, no doubt about it.

            They had called us this morning to tell us that she was not expected to live. So Joe and I had hurried to Frankford Hospital to say good-bye.

            Kathleen L. Thompson, nee Hardiman, had spent eighty-three years on this earth and had been the mother of two sons. She’d worked in a defense plant during World War II. She was the first love of my life. I don’t think that there are many men who cannot say that their mother filled that role—if they are in any way honest. And she gave me an even greater gift. She taught me to read and, without that gift, I would have been unable to commit these works to paper—or its electronic equivalent—now. And, when she was in High School, at Hallehan Catholic High School for Girls, she’d been a fairly good artist. So I’m sure that my brother, Joe, inherited his artistic gifts from there.

            Not to mention that she had given us the encouragement to pursue these gifts that he own family had denied her.

            I had trouble learning to read and the good sisters at St. Joachim School weren’t going to waste their time teaching me. My father wasn’t rich and he wasn’t catholic so they basically didn’t give a damn. I wasn’t one of the elect who were bound for Heaven anyway. Do I sound bitter?  No, I realize now that they couldn’t help it. The nuns at that school were mostly the crazy daughters of wealthy catholic families foisted off on a church that was desperate for vocations. I really do believe that that is the source of the Church’s current problems. They wanted to fill habits with warm bodies and not necessarily people of quality. but before you all jump on me for addressing the ugly elephant in the middle of the room let’s get back to the story of my mother and how she filled in for an inept and bigoted educational system that is even now dying as I speak.

 Mom got Encyclopedias at the Supermarket and every night she would read them to me. Somehow that worked. Before long I learned to read them for myself.

My mother opened up that door for me and for that I will always thank her.

It was also my mother who introduced me to Science Fiction by letting me stay up late on Saturday night to watch Chiller Theater. It was here that I first saw such 1950s SF classics as The Day the Earth Stood Still and Forbidden Planet. Not to mention just about every one of the Universal Movie monsters.

I always suspected that she just wanted company while watching the scary movies but, just the same, I was hooked on SF. All it took was Star Trek, Lost in Space and the Robert A. Heinlein juvenile novels at the Free Library to finish the job.

And it was my mother who took me to the library and helped me get my first library card.

For that, if not all the other countless Mother things she did for me, she will be missed.

Joe and I stood by the side of the bed as the life signs monitors bleeped, the signal of my Mom’s life fading with each pulse. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought about the monitors in Doctor McCoy’s sick bay. I needed to think of anything but what was happening.

I kissed her temple. She looked like she was sleeping peacefully.

“Good-bye, Mom,” I whispered. “Your boys are going to be all right. We’re going to make it.”

We stood there silent as the waves on the monitor flat lined. She was gone. A big piece of my life went with her.

The pretty Japanese-American lady doctor pronounced her and the nurse disconnected her from the leads.

“I’m an orphan too,” said the nurse.

“No,” I said, “that can’t be right. You don’t call adult men orphans, do you?”

“Sure you do,” she said.

There were papers to sign and then we walked away down what seemed to be the longest hospital hall in the Universe. Two orphans, two grown men, heading out to face the new world.

A line from an old movie went thought me head. It was one of those SF films my mother had let me stay up late to watch.

It was called When World’s Collide and it ended with the survivors of a destroyed earth landing on an alien planet—their new home.

The end title said: And that was the beginning of the first day on the new world.

I knew just how they felt.

Space Family Churchill

Part 5

By

Carl E. and Joe G. Thompson

c. 2006 Maveric Lion Productions.

The heat shielded belly of the saucer shaped pod bit into the atmosphere of the new planet.

            The point of entry was over the large, western ocean of Oceania. So far so good. I had started off my marine career in helicopters and stealth infiltrators before becoming a space marine. I still felt very much at home at the controls of aircraft and spacecraft.

            But not too comfortable. Because getting too comfortable doing anything leads to mistakes and mistakes lead to crashes and crashes…well you can work out the rest.

*

Once we were past reentry and deep enough into the atmosphere I activated the Negative Matter Drive and leveled off. Our sensors scanned ahead of us picking out the safest route to the proposed landing site, which was on the central continent on a plateau that overlooked the ocean. This was a place where our robot probes had touched down and, therefore, one of the few places we knew with any confidence.

            Almost at once we had a problem. Ahead of us, over the big ocean was a big assed storm. I informed Dave of that.

            “We should have expected that,” he said. “One, big continent means lots of oceans for storms to build up on and very little land mass for them to waste their energy on. They have plenty of time and plenty of energy to grown really big. That’s going to be a problem living on this planet.”

            Yeah, that if I can set us down safely and not kill us by splattering us all over the surface.

            I had to keep the pod above the storm and look for an opening where we could set down. That was going to be a problem. We had only so much fuel and when it ran low we’d have to land, one way or another. Furthermore, if we were on the surface with dry tanks then someone would have to land and bring us more—or we were staying, like it or not.

            Already I was getting buffeted by high winds. It was going to be hard to keep altitude if this got much rougher.

            And it did.

            The pod took a sudden dip down into the clouds and we were struck by lightning. The power systems were shielded but they still went down and took a second to reboot.

            Now we were in the storm and being tossed about. This was not going well.

            Contrary to popular opinion, lightning does strike twice when you are flying a charged spacecraft through a storm. It struck us six more times and that was enough to cause loss of several key systems. While they regretted and rebooted we plunged down into the clouds. I struggled with the controls trying to keep us upright while Doctor Dave struggled with his stomach contents, trying to keep them down. I did not envy him his humanity at that moment. I might well survive a crash at sea and be able to walk out across the oceans floor. He would not do as well.

            As this thought was crossing my mind the power cut out and the pod began to drop. Oh, shit!

            If the systems were not fried the nanites would repair them and the computer would boo them up again. If not. Well, maybe I could find Dave some sort of floatation device. Because were still far out at sea.

            I didn’t bother to tell Dave we were crashing. He’d find that out soon enough. I figured that the best use of my time was to see if I couldn’t repair the ship and get her operating again.

            Deep inside the storm I managed to get some control back. I cold keep her level and flying—perhaps long enough to reach dry land and set her down. But the winds were giving us a hell of a buffeting and I didn’t know how long I could retain fairly level flight on manual.

            The altitude continued to drop as the NMD was no longer on line. We were gliding, as well as our flat saucer shape would allow us to glide. Maybe, with enough speed and if we didn’t get bucked around too much we’d make it to the shore—to dry land. I crossed my mental fingers and prayed to whatever god might be listening.

            We managed to say airborne for another twenty minutes. We also managed to lose enough speed so that when we plowed into the beach we were not killed.

END OF PART 5.

Space Family Churchill

Part 4

By

Carl E. and Joe G. Thompson

c. 2006 Maveric Lion Productions.

We loaded up the Excursion Pod early in the morning. I was to fly the first landing. Going along with me would be a platoon of bots and David Churchill. He was to be the first human being to set foot on Oceania.

            Dave—as I now felt free to call him—was very excited. Like a kid who’s been given the keys a gaming factory. I was not. I knew that this was a dangerous operation and that getting excited before a dangerous operation can get one killed. Hell, you can get killed even if you don’t get existed but being so only increases the odd. Surviving is all about reducing the odds of certain death.

            The whole family came down to the pod bay to say goodbye. I had to admit that I was a little jealous. It had been a long time since I had any living family to see me off on a mission. A long, long time.

            Watching them gave me fresh and somehow different insights into this family of pioneers that I had not gotten on the first meeting.

            My opinion of Dave and Su had not changed but to a degree my opinion of the two older kids had.

            Rachel Li seemed concerned about her father and hugged him tightly at the embarkation lock. Frank stood off respectfully but there did seem to be admiration for the old man in his brown eyes.

            Junior was the only exception. He seemed to be more interested in me. He even walked me from the ready room to the embarkation lock.

            “So,” I asked him. “You excited about the landing?”

            He shrugged. “I guess you’re skilled enough to handle it.”

            “No one is ever too skilled when it comes to landing on a new world, kid,” I said.

            “But you’re a machine. You’re programmed to land the ship safely.”

            I didn’t want to explain that I’m not exactly a machine. That inside this shell I am a human being, and that even the best of machines sometimes, and often do, fail. But I had another concern.

            “What about your Dad? Worried about him. Frail human that he is.”

            Junior shrugged that annoying shrug again. “He’ll be okay.”

            Apparently the relationship of Junior and his namesake was not as good as it should have been. That was too bad.

*

I entered the ship and climbed up to the cockpit, where I strapped my metallic/ceramic bulk in—not so much to protect me from harm during a rough flight, as to protect the interior of the ship. I’m built pretty sturdy.

            Dave was strapped in down below, his wife and his elder son helping him to secure himself.

            While this was going on a plugged into the system using the fiber optic leads that allowed me to thought control the ship as if it were my own body.

            “How are you feeling, Doc?”  I asked my passenger.

            “Nervous and anxious as hell.”

            “Then I reckon you’re ready to go.”

            “Past ready, Gunny.”

            “Then let us ride. This is Planetary Excursion Pod 007 to Bridge. We are ready to launch.”

            “Very well, Colonel, “said the Captain. “Launch.”

            The pod dropped away from the ship and headed for the planet.

*

END OF PART 4.

Space Family Churchill

Part 3

By

Carl E. and Joe G. Thompson

c. 2006 Maveric Lion Productions.

The Skipper moved Conestoga into a low, circular orbit of Oceania.

            Once in the low orbit we began to launch probes.

            I had to admit that Oceania was an apt name for the place. Eighty percent of the new world’s surface was ocean—five percent more than Earth.

            We were soon sure that the atmosphere contained oxygen and nitrogen and the green was chlorophyll. Which meant algae and plant life—just like home.

            It was the first time anyone had seen living life off Earth. Until then the fossils of Mars were the only evidence we had that Earth was not the only planet that had ever sustained living organisms.

            Now all we had to do was give the bio-monitor systems on the probes time to evaluate these life forms with respect to our own.

            Would the Churchills be able to walk around in open garments or would this be another hard suit environment?

            It too a week.

END OF PART 3.

Space Family Churchill

Part 2

By

Carl E. and Joe G. Thompson

c. 2006 Maveric Lion Productions.

The dining hall was on the middle deck of the torus that spun to provide gravity for the humans. Along one side were high definition vid windows that showed a panoramic view of the planet and stars. The view one would have seen had the Conestoga not been clad in radiation armor.

            This hall had never been used before, though the mechanoid crew often held celebrations in its hyper-reality simulation. Holidays, birthdays, upload days—whatever. Inside our mechanoid shells we still maintained our core humanity.

            The officers gathered around the table with the Churchill family. The cook, who was also the chief medical officer, had prepared her first meal of the voyage. Though we mechs require nourishment we do not eat as live humans do. We receive inductions of nutrient for our organic parts.

            Nonetheless each mech had a plate in front of him/her with a name card. But the plat would remain empty.

            A robot warden served the humans their fare. It was a non-humanoid machine.

            The Skipper’s hologram sat at the head of the table. The rest of us were arranged in a boy-girl formation with the humans, as far as we could stretch it. Five humans and forty mechs—you do the math.

            At first it appeared as if the dinner would be a silent one. It’s hard to get humans to converse with mechs. We’re not the sci-fi robots that their culture has brainwashed them to expect. We’re a little too human—which increases the discomfort.

            The captain, of course, broke the ice.

            “Doctor Churchill, what do you think of the Tau Ceti System so far?”

            David Churchill smiled for the first time since coming aboard.

            “Well, I haven’t actually seen much of it,” he grinned.

            “So I gather it doesn’t feel like home yet,” I said.

            Churchill looked nervously at his kids. All of them, save for Junior, seemed pained.

            “No not yet, Colonel. Not until I get to walk around on the floors and kick off my shoes—so to speak.”

            “And what do you gave to say about that, Mrs. Churchill?” asked the Skipper.

            “Well, first I have to examine the floors and see that he won’t be picking up any nasty fungi,” she joked. “And, please, call me Sue.”

            “Very well, Sue it is.”

            After that the ice was broken.

            We learned a lot about the Churchill family that was not in their official biographies.

            David Churchill had begun his official career with the intention of being on this mission. He had been ten years old when Conestoga boosted out of El-Five. He’d watched the launch on Global Video and made up his mind right then and there. If there were to be no human astronauts then he would become a scientist, a planetologist and volunteer for the mission.

            If he had any resentment for mechs it was only in that they got to go first into the great beyond. But, as a man of science, he understood why that was necessary. The journey to the stars would take decades and no human could endure that, even in suspended animation. This way was the best way.

            His wife, as good waives tend to be, was more pragmatic. She was here because her husband wanted to be here and she had come to share his dream. Besides, this was a great opportunity for a biologist. No life had been yet found off Earth. And in addition to that the colony would need a physician. Su-lin Kim had graduated from medical school before going on to get her PH.D in biology, if there was no life on Tau Ceti’s planets a colony would still be established and she would found that colony’s first medical center.

            This brought us around to the kids.

            I’d had kids in my past life, all grown and gone now. So I understand that kids never share their parents’ dreams. At least not in any form the parents might recognize.

            Rachel Li was a Hollywood brat with digital paint in her blood and—guess what—Tau Ceti was decades away from needing, wanting or having an entertainment industry. At least not a professional one. She also fancied herself a trophy—as many young women still, unfortunately, do. Guess again. There’d be no eligible bachelors—especially not the kind of shallow gasheads she was into—for many years. She’d have to reach down into her promising genome and bring more to the table than looks.

            I reckoned she’d head back to Earth in three months.

            I gave Frank even less time.

            He answered questions in short grunts, when he wasn’t listening to pop music on his ear bud or snaking peeks at the Caption’s bosoms. He was girl crazy and there weren’t too many girls around here. Not real ones anyway. That was understandable. But it didn’t make his lack of attention any less annoying.

            Every teenage boy fancies himself a rebel when in actuality all teenage boys are followers. Not a Thomas Paine or a Che Guevara amongst them. They think that being fashion victims and label junkies makes one a rebel. It doesn’t.

            Frank would probably be sent back to the Homeworld in a third the time it would take his sister. They might even leave on the same pod.

            Which brought us to Junior.

            He was bright and attentive. Why not, he was smart. He asked questions and observed things. He’d adapt well to the new environment. Probably because his status as a child prodigy had always made him the odd man out back home. He’d never fit into the peer groups and so he would not miss them.

            The dinner ended and we all took our leave. The crew to their duties and the Churchills to their night’s sleep and preparations for the next day.

END OF PART 2

*