Steve’s shorts: Dr. Carlos and the Ship of Sleepers, Part Four…
[Note from Steve: This sci-fi story is in four parts. Enjoy.]
Dr. Carlos and the Ship of Sleepers
Copyright 2020, Steven M. Moore
Some of Captain Irving’s crew were stunned by Obregon’s history lesson; others just curious.
“I might speak for the others in saying that we’ve just heard a very long sci-fi saga,” said Betty Liu, Irving’s chief navigator, “and are amazed that it’s all true.”
“Rather incomplete,” said Lester, “but Carlos did a good job. You can fill in the details at your leisure by chatting with Brendan’s AI. By the way, as soon as yours is fixed, we can try to update its database.”
“The question now becomes,” Irving said to his crew, “what do we want to do.”
“This ITUIP has colonies, you say?” Liu asked Carlos and Lester.
Lester shrugged. “Colonies come in many shapes and forms. ITUIP, with the SEB’s catalog of potential colony planets, can be accessed by anyone in the Union. Starships, as they make their rounds through ITUIP, update their databases with data collected by the SEB. Let’s call it organized chaos because the ships are the fastest form of communication within ITUIP, so all databases aren’t equal.”
“That said, we can hardly keep up with the demand for colony planets,” said Obregon. “When a colony has become stable and is beyond those first pioneering decades, it usually becomes a member of ITUIP…but not always. There are benefits, although some colonists don’t see them and are happy to be left alone. ITUIP respects that, and sometimes must enforce the latter by putting colonies into quarantine when strange regimes control them.”
“We were sent here to colonize this planet,” Irving said. “Couldn’t we still do that?”
Liu and the others nodded.
“Makes perfect sense to me,” Lester said, “if that’s what you want.”
Liu looked around the table at her colleagues. “Give us a few minutes,” she said.
***
“Do you think there’ll be a heated discussion?” Lester asked Carlos as they explored the silent, centuries-old starship. Different things interested each man, but the overall experience was as if they were in a historical hologram.
Obregon was about to answer when the voice of one of the techies came into their ear implants.
“Captain, we’ve found the glitch. Some circuits in their AI blew. They corresponded to subroutines that control the cryo process, including its associated sensors. Fortunately everything kept functioning on automatic. Even the failsafe coding locked up.”
“In other words, they had redundancy, but that didn’t work either?”
“Right-o. The crewmembers awake at the time it happened couldn’t wake up those in cryo, and they couldn’t go into cryo either to save themselves. Simple as that. Everything else in the ship continued to function. That’s mostly autonomous systems where the AI’s not needed. It’s in a coma, by the way.”
“Can you repair it? If these people are going to start a colony, they’ll need a functioning AI.”
“We’ll keep working. It’s not a trivial task. This is antiquated stuff. Cutting edge for the times, I suppose, but long ago surpassed.”
“Let’s assume they can fix the AI,” Obregon said to Lester. “If they want a colony, we should help them by completing our survey.”
“Of course.”
They were called back to the ready room.
***
“Some of us would like to hitch a ride on Brendan,” Irving informed Lester and Carlos. “Others want to start a colony. Is that possible?”
“I don’t see why not,” Lester said. “But are there enough of you staying to make the colony viable?”
“Four men and six women are staying,” said Irving.
“The women will be busy,” Obregon observed with a smile.
Liu smiled back at him. “That was the plan we agreed to back on Earth. Only Andy is going with the other women on Brendan.”
“I guess we’d better get busy, Lester, and finish our survey. That will at least give the colonists a running start. Five of these people need a cab, but the other ten need a planet.”
“I’d agree if I knew what a cab was.”
“If I tell you, will you get me another medical staff member when we return to Sanctuary?”
The colonists from Earth smiled at that exchange. They knew what a cab was. Obregon would win in that barter.
***
Comments are always welcome.
Dr. Carlos, Starship Brendan’s Medical Officer. Want more Dr. Carlos stories? He has had many adventures cruising around different star systems in near-Earth space. I’ve collected earlier ones in this free PDF download. For the complete list of free PDFs, see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this website. And please check out my other sci-fi offerings. I write them to entertain you. That’s especially important in these days of the COVID-19 pandemic when everyone is staying at home and trying to keep from getting bored.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
