Reality Zero

Chapter 12

  ‘Captain, I’m receiving a weak signal from the planet. I thought this reality was uninhabited’ announced the Communications Officer, George Lewczenko.

  ‘Put it up, please Mr. Lewczenko’ replied Captain VanDelden.

  ‘Calling Cornishman. Calling Cornishman. Do you copy? This is Major Sunil Modaley for the Cornishman. Calling Cornishman. Calling Cornishman. Do you copy? This is Major Sunil Modaley for the Cornishman.’ There was a short break and then the message was repeated. After five minutes of the message being repeated, it suddenly ended.

  ‘Can we pinpoint where that’s coming from?’ asked the Captain.

  ‘From this far out, all I can tell is that it’s from the planet, Sir.’

  ‘Oh well, thank you, George. Once we’ve dealt with the base from this version of Astraeus 5, we’ll head over there and investigate further. Although they’re not calling SOS, Major Modaley sounds a little desperate. Whatever type of ship the Cornishman is, I’m surprised they’re not responding. While we’re dealing with the base here, focus on the planet and see if you can get a more precise location for Major Modaley. At the same time, can we see if there’s a ship in orbit around the planet? As they’re not responding, they may be having problems themselves.’

  ‘Yes Sir’ replied the Communications Officer, turning back to his console. An hour later, the Cornishman was sighted coming around the planet.

  ‘We’ve found what may be the Cornishman, Sir, but it seems dead’ announced Lieutenant Strowgger.

  ‘Thank you, Lieutenant. Looks like we need to investigate. How are they getting on with the base?’

  ‘There is no base, Sir.’

  ‘That’s slightly disappointing but never mind. In that case, we might as well get over to this version of New Oregon. Please set a course for what we take to be the Cornishman. We need to investigate that first. We also need to reply to Major Modaley and inform him we’re on the way. George, please put me on the radio on the frequency he’s using.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Major Modaley, do you copy? This is NS Dark Horse responding to your call to the Cornishman. Please reply.’

  There was no response, there being no-one at the shuttle to receive it. However, the message resulted in the buzzer sounding on the speakers that Will had set up in the camp. It caused a minor panic with the Marine and the scientists there. They’d almost forgotten that the radio system was working, it having been, in their minds at least, so long since Will had set it up.

  ‘Major, we’ve had a response to your calls to the Cornishman. It’s from an NS Dark Horse. Should I reply, or would you prefer to deal with it, Sir? Out.’ asked Private Blake on the camp’s radio.

  Major Modaley was just as surprised by the news as they had been at the camp. The initial enthusiasm they had all felt when, at last, they could communicate with the Cornishman, had given way to a degree of unease when they hadn’t received any response from their only way off the planet. Now, to add to the Major’s confusion, the response had come from a ship calling itself the NS Dark Horse. He’d never heard of the NS prefix, or a ship called the Dark Horse, so couldn’t imagine where it had come from.

  ‘We’ll be back as soon as we can, but that’s going to take us an hour or more. Can you respond to the call, please, Private? I’ll give them another call when I get back. Please let them know that. Modaley out.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. Will do. Out.’

  Jill Blake ran as fast as she could to the shuttle, turned off the recorded message and picked up the microphone.

  ‘This is Private Jill Blake calling NS Dark Horse. Do you copy? Out.’

  ‘This is the Dark Horse. Is Major Modaley with you?’

  ‘Not at present, Sir. He’s currently away from the base but will be returning in about an hour. Are you here to rescue us?’

  ‘If you need our assistance, we will provide whatever is possible. What’s your situation?’ asked George Lewczenko.

  ‘We’re an exploration party. We came to discover what had happened to a group of settlers who came here about two hundred years ago but we haven’t been able to contact our mother ship since we crash landed on our way down about a year ago. We managed to get our radio working about a fortnight ago but haven’t had any replies to our calls until you responded. Do you know what’s happened to our mother ship?’

  ‘Thank you, Jill. By the way, my name is George. Couldn’t the settlers help you? We are en route to the ship at the moment from one of the small planets within the system. We will be in orbit in a few hours and hope to be able to find out more. I must warn you, however, that your ship is running dark and there is currently no sign of life on board. We’ll know more when we get there.’

  ‘Hello George. I’m afraid the settlers died some time ago, possibly soon after they landed. We haven’t been able to discover why but there seems to have been some kind of fatal illness that wiped them out. None of us has become ill, though, so we’re optimistic that whatever it was has long gone.’

  ‘I’ll call you again when we know more about the Cornishman but for now, just be assured that help is on it’s way. Please ask the Major to call us when he can. I’ll be monitoring this frequency.’

  ‘Thank you, George. Blake out.’

  ‘Dark Horse out.’