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A collection of 15 ficlets that continues Jack Crichton's quest to find his son.
Science; Home Base; The Search Begins; Report on Sykar;
As Farscape II exited the wormhole, Jack and Andrea could only gasp in amazement. They both spoke, “We’re through! We’ve exited at a planetary system. One of the planets has artificial satellites. What wonders will we find?”
The console notified them the fifth capsule was sent. About fifteen seconds later they were notified the wormhole closed. They shut the capsules down.
“Do you think we’ve been detected, Sir?” Andrea asked as she got the equipment ready to intercept transmissions.
“Jack, just call me Jack, please. We did not exit near their satellite system, but it’s hard to tell at present. Let me help you scan the frequencies. We’re not in Kansas any more, eh, Andrea?” In spite of the risks, Jack couldn’t help feeling elated.
Jack’s obvious enthusiasm was infectious, and Andrea was feeling happier than she had in years. “Besides the stars being completely different from what we know, and this planet has two moons about fifteen degrees apart, what makes you think….. Hold on, I’m picking up a transmission.”
“I’ve got the recorder turned on. I’ll be taking other measurements while you are studying the language.”
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“Well sir, uh, Jack, I think I have some of the rudiments of this language. It’s a lot harder when I can’t see what they are talking about, but I think they call themselves Logari, and I may be able to identify some syntax. It would be better if I could get a visual of them.”
“It is very risky for us to get any closer. We don’t know if we’ve been detected. It’s been about two days since we’ve arrived, and I don’t see any indication as yet even though we’ve seen them leave the planet. It surprised me when they moved away from us. We also don’t know if any of the transmissions were directed at us.
I need to determine if we can reactivate the wormhole to return. The solar activity here is quite low. If we can’t reactivate the wormhole, then we should attempt to contact them.”
“One fortunate thing for us is we can breath their atmosphere. But we don’t know anything about their biology. And it’s true we wouldn’t know if they have been trying to contact us.” Andrea frowned at the last. She had prided herself in her ability to learn languages fast, at least the rudiments. This was very different.
Just then, Jack made a low whistle, “We have company.”
“They want us to do something, but what?” Jack watched as smaller ships surrounded Farscape II. “It looks like they are steering us to the furthest moon from the planet. We have no choice but to follow.”
Jack maneuvered between the smaller ships. A much larger ship appeared on the far side of the moon as they came around. The lead ship slipped into a portal, Farscape II followed. Once the three escort ships and Farscape II were secured in the docking bay, a wall closed and sealed everything in. Jack and Andrea watched as bipedal beings got out of the escort ships. Andrea tested the atmosphere. “Colonel, we can breath this air.”
“Yes, and do you notice something else? Gravity.
I think we have to deplane.”
“One other thing sir, they look human from here.”
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Jack and Andrea stood on the deck, their hands in the air. Two human looking beings had weapons trained on them; a third faced them unarmed. The unarmed man spoke, but they could not understand him. The man spoke again, his expression going from calm to icy. Jack thought better of his own silence and spoke. “I’m here to find my son. We are working together. We mean no harm. We do not understand you. I know what I’m saying means nothing, but I hope you can see we do not intend any harm.”
To both Jack’s and Andrea’s surprise, the man smiled and signaled the others to put away their weapons. The man spoke again, and then just shook his head and pointed to himself and said, “Velorek.”
“The microbes aren’t perfect. Certain colloquialisms and idioms are not easily translated, and the microbes will develop more vocabulary over time. But they adapt to your system, and language so you can understand what others say, even if you can’t say it yourself.” The lab technician explained.
“If it’s alright with you, I’d like to talk about how all this works later. I am very interested in the details.” In spite of her language skills, Andrea had never experienced anything like this.
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“Why do you think your son is somewhere near here?” Velorek was taken aback by the audacity of these humans, to risk it all, without any real evidence to support their wishes. “Why did you think you’d be able to survive? You can’t even create a gravity well which you need if you are going to remain in space.”
“It was more hope on my part. But when John disappeared we had certain readings that indicated he went somewhere. We could find no trace of him. We started a project and first sent probes into the phenomenon to get data. DK, one of the scientists back home, devised an ingenious scheme to capture data through the wormhole, which is what we determined the phenomenon to be. The wormhole showed stability, and we thought it came out to approximately the same place each time. Both Dr. Walker and I were willing to risk coming here. I need to find my son. Her motivations are different.”
“We don’t have the ability to create wormholes. Scientifically, we know they are possible. If I could take advantage of that technology, I will help you find your son.” Velorek said.
“I would welcome all the help you can give me, but I don’t know if I can share the technology with you. Aside from my loyalties, I am not a scientist, and I don’t fully understand it. Dr. Walker’s specialty is in the biological sciences. Perhaps you can tell me about yourself and your organization.” Jack said.
“I will try to be brief. There is another organization called ‘Peace Keepers’ which I used to be part of. Many planetary systems rely on the Peace Keepers for protection, and to gain advantage over their perceived enemies. However, the Peace Keepers exact a heavy price for their services. Because of a personal betrayal, I was ejected from the Peace Keeper organization. At first I thought I was going to be executed, but things worked out differently. I found many other ex-Peace Keepers in a similar situation to mine, and we formed this alternative group. We provide the same type of service as do the Peace Keepers, but only require monetary payment. We have had moderate success. If we could get a technology the Peace Keepers don’t have, we will have another advantage over them. Also, I hear rumors that they are trying to develop this technology.” Velorek said.
“Please understand, I need to be cautious, but can I speak with anyone you’ve helped?” Jack asked, and then thought, *It hardly matters; they have the upper hand, and can take what they want. Maybe we should just go along with this scheme.*
“That’s easy. You can speak to the Logaries, this system. They contacted us for support as soon as they detected you. That’s why we’re here.”
“It’s better for us to have your cooperation and, besides, that’s not what we are about. I make it a very strict rule to get cooperation wherever possible. It’s easier, and less expensive that way. Dr. Walker, what did you think of them?” Velorek turned toward Andrea as he asked the last bit.
“It is quite beyond my experience. We have intelligent aquatic mammals on Earth, but they do not have any technology. They had a great deal more to overcome than either of us to get into space. Really quite amazing.” Andrea was still stunned by the images of the Logaries, who reminded her of a cross between a large octopus and a small dolphin. Communicating with them was not difficult as they, like dolphins and whales, breathed air.
Jack stopped and offered his hand to Velorek, “In for a penny, in for a pound, to quote an Earth saying. On Earth we shake hands to indicate agreement. It’s also done in friendship.”
Velorek smiled and then shook hands with both. “I like that custom.”
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“Your music is very interesting. What are we listening to now? It’s quite beautiful.”
“It’s called ‘Requiem’ by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was brilliant composer who lived about two hundred and fifty years ago. This is one of my favorite pieces. He died before he could finish the piece. There are several variations, but I think this is the best version.” Jack said.
“The other music. I like it, but it’s different. Is that for your son?” Velorek asked.
“Yes, it’s a unique style called Jazz. I brought some of his recordings with me.” As Jack finished the last, both he and Velorek looked at each other as if they had the same idea. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jack felt somewhat stupid asking that.
“I don’t know. I just hit me that we might try to copy and distribute the music as much as we can, and leave instructions if the right person asks about it.” Velorek said.
Jack was grinning, “John, call home.”
“Come in Andrea, I’m just finishing up. Ask away.” Quonn completed her notes and put the instruments away.
‘You told us you don’t regulate body temperature the way we do. Can you tell me more about it?”
“After examining you and Crichton, I saw you regulate heat differently. In fact, it is superior to our system. Because our ability to cool down is limited, any lasting heat buildup results in our brains ceasing to function, but we remain alive. We call that the living death. You do not have that problem. Your skin is different from ours, your sweat glands are much more pervasive and better developed.” As Quonn said the last she could see Andrea draw a sharp breath and frown slightly. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling alright?”
“Yes, just some unfortunate baggage I brought with me. When you mentioned skin I immediately reacted because where I come from, a dark skin can be a disadvantage. I’ve had to deal with some prejudice because of it, I am not faulting you.” Andrea hoped she hadn’t stepped on any toes; both she and Jack had been treated with the utmost hospitality considering they were the intruders.
“I think you should know Peace Keepers are extremely xenophobic. Most of us were Peace Keepers at one time. Velorek won’t tolerate this behavior from us, so we are learning to accept other peoples as they are.”
“There is more that I want to learn about your physiology, but before we get into that, I have some questions of a personal nature. Do you have reproductive cycles? I’m asking because……..”
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Jack showed the data and equations DK had stored to Velorek. “I’m not a scientist. I’m just a seat-of-the-pants flyboy. So these equations don’t mean much to me. DK also developed a procedure for me to use these equations in order to reverse the process for us to return. In order to create the wormhole, we needed our sun to be in a high solar activity period. This sun isn’t.”
“We can find a sun with enough activity to make these equations work. We need to go back to our base for our scientists to work on this data. We’d like you to keep working with us, both of you.” Velorek said.
“Thanks; of course we’ll go with you. Where else would we go anyway?” Jack said.
Velorek interrupted Jack, sensing what he was about to ask. “A group of us wandered about for about a half a cycle, getting the odd job so we could eat, and get provisions when the people here contacted us for some help. They had heard about some other things we had done, and wanted protection from the Peace Keepers. It’s because they are Sebacean, the Peace Keepers would occasionally conscript children and young adults for their army. They wanted to prevent that from happening again. It took some doing, and of course we needed help from them, but you see the result. It’s also better for us to be on a planet rather than space all the time. It gives us more of an identity.
I was also thinking you might like to learn how to fly our vessels so you could search for your son independently. We have all the information we need to work on a wormhole. I would like Dr. Walker to stay here to work on our problem with heat with our scientists.”
“I would like to start immediately. Will you be able to contact me as soon as you think you can send a probe back to Earth?” Jack was hoping for this opportunity.
“Yes. You will be working with Lilli Norryl. She is the best instructor we have, and she is eager to do some flying herself.” Velorek said.
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“Quonn, would it be possible for me to see your DNA and compare it to mine?” Andrea was fascinated by what she had seen. While there were some differences, Sebacean physiology had much remarkable commonality to Human. The reproductive systems are very close, food metabolism is identical for all practical purposes, and the brain seemed similarly organized if one could judge from scans. Visually you couldn’t tell Sebaceans from Humans. But the DNA would say volumes.
“That’s easy, we have a complete Genome map. We’ve had it for over five hundred cycles.”
“We’ve just figured ours out. I brought the data base with me.”
“And for an old man, huh?” Jack was enjoying himself and didn’t mind making a joke at his own expense. Hell, he was elated. He got here in one piece. He just hoped John had as much good fortune once he arrived on this side of the universe.
“Oh, I don’t think you are old. What’s old for a human?”
“Me, haha. Humans live to about seventy some odd years on average. It’s getting less rare for us to live into our nineties, and a few do make it past one hundred. I’m sixty-three.”
Lilli frowned. “Sebaceans live on average to about two hundred and fifty cycles. But I don’t know how to equate cycles to years. I’m one hundred and fifteen.”
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“Jack, we’re at Sykar. We’ll orbit until we get clearance to land. You will be free to go about your business while I negotiate with Volmae. They had problems with Peace Keepers in the past, and need protection from them. Velorek doesn’t know if they have the currency to pay for our services. He needs to know if they have any commodity they can trade in lieu of currency.”
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“Andrea, this is incredible, we share most of our DNA!” Quonn was as excited as Andrea had ever seen.
“I’m overwhelmed. I would have been surprised to find fifty percent compatibility. To be over ninety, nine percent identical is beyond imagination. We need to confirm it with our own DNA, not anonymous samples. What is really puzzling to me is on Earth we share at least some DNA with all living things there. Does this mean Sebaceans originated from Earth or that all living things in the Universe share DNA?”
“The tiny amount of commonality with the local Flora and Fauna here can be attributed to random chance. That is even true on our home planet. Scientists have never had a satisfactory explanation for this. All other species we’ve encountered are connected to the life on their planets; we are not.” Quonn was still digesting this information.
“If Sebaceans did originate from Earth, then it had to have happened thousands of years ago. It most likely occurred before we evolved to our present form to explain the small differences. How could that have happened?” Andrea was thinking of all the UFO sightings and abduction stories as she spoke, which she dismissed.
Velorek noticed Jack could barely contain himself as Lilli spoke. “It might work if they could process the root and supply their own protection with the weapons we can deliver to them. We have enough in reserve for that, but ammunition is always a problem.
Jack, what did you learn about your son?”
“I spoke to the local law enforcers, what I’d call police, and showed them his photo. The first few people I spoke to didn’t recognize him, but I eventually got to meet with Tanga who knew John. She told me that not only was he okay, that it was through his efforts, and the people he was with, that they were able to free themselves from the Peace Keepers. Volmae later confirmed that. The only thing is, it happened nearly two cycles ago and he’s gone and they don’t know where.”
“It’s a start. We’ll keep getting the music out to as many places as we can, and keep the inquiries going. Sooner or later, we’ll find him, or he’ll find us.
I have some good news to tell you as well. Our scientists are sure we are able to tap the energy needed from a sun to start a wormhole and send a probe to Earth. We will leave in ten arns for the first test.”
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“Your scientist were very clever by supplying absolute coordinates for Earth. Without them we would not be able to aim the probe.” Marnie Bainor, Velorek’s lead scientist said.
“How can the coordinates be absolute?” Andrea asked.
“There are two pieces to it. First, they provided a way for us to equate how you measure time to ours, and then they referenced how far and in what vector Earth is from the theorized origin of the universe. Very clever indeed.”
Letters From Jack [1-8]
Letters From Jack [9-16]