NOSTROMO IN SPACE AND TIME by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

Solar System

Tina Forster was accompanied by Amelia Earhart and SPIRIT’s android avatar when she went to greet the crew of the AEGIS on their arrival. The first to come out of the AEGIS was Eve Silisca, holding the hands of little Stephen and Samantha, closely followed by Samuel Schmeling and the rest of the Tempus Team members. Her first move was to kiss the two children on their forehead.

‘’Welcome aboard the NOSTROMO, my sweet children. I am Tina Forster, captain and owner of this ship. Since Eve sent me an advisory message before arriving, I was able to prepare something for your reception. To my left is Amelia Earhart, who will care for you and guide you around my ship. Like you, she was saved by us from the past, in the year 1937 to be more precise, so I deemed her to be the most appropriate person to care for you on arrival.’

‘’Wil she be our new parent, miss?’’ asked Stephen.

‘’She may, if you like her. I know her to be a great woman with a big heart.’

‘’And who is going to be our father, miss?’’ asked in turn eight-year-old Samantha, bringing a slightly embarrassed smile on Tina’s face.

‘’Well, Amelia is not exactly married at the present time but she is frequenting a really good man. Let’s say that the social attitudes in the 24th Century are much more tolerant and liberal than those of the 19th Century. But the priority right now will be to find new extra clothes for you. Amelia will take care of that and will escort you in a shopping trip around the commercial outlets of my ship, then will bring you to your new home on the NOSTROMO. Be prepared to see many wonders today, kids. Amelia, they are now all yours.’’

‘’Thanks, Tina. Wel , let’s go shopping for new clothes for you, kids.’

As the two children were led away by Amelia, Tina looked at Eve and Samuel.

‘’So, how did your mission go?’

60

‘’Without a hitch, Tina.’ answered Eve. ‘’We were never in danger of attracting undue attention and our spy probes allowed us to quickly identify Jack the Ripper once he started his series of murders. However, what we saw of 1888 London and of the rest of Victorian England was even more depressing than we had expected. The living conditions of the majority of the population were downright awful, while the contrast between the rich and the poor in England was severe, to say the least. Our documentary should come as a shock to the people of the Spacers’ League on that subject. We will have to somewhat censor parts of our documentary, though: that Jack the Ripper was a sadist of the worst kind and some of the murder scenes are horrible enough to make about any Human throw up.’

Tina nodded her head once, her expression now most serious.

‘’I can believe you on that. How did you deal with Jack the Ripper after his fifth canonical murder?’’

‘’Ben and Maria grabbed him at night and flew him up to an altitude of 15,000

meters, where he died of asphyxiation. They then dropped his body into the Thames after removing anything that could help identify him. For the authorities of 1888 London, he will only be an anonymous man who fell in the Thames River and drowned.’’

‘’Good! And who was he? Was he one of the suspects investigated at the time by the London Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard?’’

‘’No! He was never suspected or even named in the archives of the time. His name was Henry Walker and he was an assistant-mortician who worked at the London Hospital, in the Whitechapel District. Talking of Jack, Maria has something for you.’

Tina looked at Maria Sharapova as the latter stepped forward and presented her a fifteen-centimeter-long blade contained in a transparent plastic bag.

‘’The knife used by Jack the Ripper for all of his five murders. We took it from him before carrying him up to high altitude. His last murder was particularly horrible, as he spent nearly two hours butchering his victim. About that knife, will you want to keep it in our museum or wil you hand it over to the British police in London?’’

‘’I will probably hand it over to the British authorities, at the same time that I will give them a copy of our visual documentary, once it is ready for widespread distribution.

Well, enough said about that monstruous bastard, if we want to be able to eat supper with a level stomach.’’

‘’A good idea, Tina.’ said Samuel Schmeling, who still had nightmares about the horrible scenes filmed by their spy probes.

61

09:52 (London Time)

Monday, May 16, 2338

Office of the Commissioner of Scotland Yard

New Scotland Yard, Victoria Embankment

Westminster District, London, England

‘’Welcome to Scotland Yard, Captain Forster!’ said in a warm tone Sir Harold Livingston while shaking hands with her. ‘’To what may I owe your visit and your request that Sir O’Reil y be also present for this meeting?’

With the Director of the BBC listening on closely, Tina then answered the question from the Commissioner of Scotland Yard in a sober voice.

‘’To a criminal matter dating from 450 years ago, Sir Harold. As you must know by now, my ship made an involuntary trip to the distant past while pursuing the last of the Space Predators’ ship, about one year ago. We then were able after some time and many test jumps to return to our normal time. During those test jumps made to first test and then refine a method to travel back to the 24th Century, we were able to witness a number of historical events, like the burning of Londinium by Queen Boudica, the Battle of Hastings, the execution of Joan of Arc by the English in Orléans and the disappearance of Amelia Earhart in the Pacific in 1937. We also used those occasions to save both Queen Boudica and her two daughters, then Amelia Earhart.’

‘’I remember well the news about your epic trip through time, Captain Forster.

But you mentioned a criminal matter dating from 450 years ago, which would place it in the year 1888. Are you talking about the case of Jack the Ripper? That was possibly the most famous criminal case we ever had to deal with.’’

‘’I am indeed talking about Jack the Ripper, Sir Harold. One of our temporal stops was in 1888 and we used that occasion to investigate that sadistic monster.’

Tina then produced two data sticks, giving one to Harold Livingston and one to James O’Reil y.

‘’These two data sticks contain copies of two historical documentaries we produced out of the data and observations we did in 1888. One documentary shows the life of Londoners in 1888, placing its emphasis on the wide discrepancy between the rich class and the poor class of the time. The other documentary shows Jack the Ripper as he committed his five canonical murders in Whitechapel, Spitafields and the City.’

62

Both Livingston and O’Reil y opened wide their eyes while sucking air in, with Livingston then asking Tina a question in a hopeful tone.

‘’And were you able to identify that bastard, Captain Forster?’’

‘’We were, Sir Harold. His name was Henry Walker, an assistant-mortician who worked at the London Hospital in Whitechapel. He was not part of the list of suspects investigated at the time. As for his motivation for killing and mutilating those five poor women, it seems that he caught syphilis from a prostitute and, knowing that he would eventually die from that disease, decided to take revenge on prostitutes. It also explained why he was so focused on mutilating their genitals and internal organs. We were able as well to grab the knife he used for all five murders. Here it is, for you to keep, Sir Harold. It still has some of the blood from Mary Jane Kelly on it.’

Sir Harold took the plastic container holding Jack the Ripper’s knife as if it would have been a religious relic, then gave an awed look at Tina.

‘’To see that mystery finally resolved after so many years. This is certainly going to become one of our most precious artifacts in the museum of Scotland Yard. Uh, what happened to Jack the Ripper after he murdered Mary Jane Kelly? Most people believe that he then either became inactive, emigrated or died.’

‘’He died from oxygen deprivation shortly after murdering poor Mary Jane Kelly.

Two of my security androids intercepted him at night, then flew him up to an altitude of 15,000 meters, where he died from asphyxiation. Once he was dead, they let him fall into the River Thames, where his body was probably retrieved a few days later, to be classified as an anonymous victim of drowning. I hope that you will not accuse my androids of vigilantism for this, Sir Harold?’

‘’Are you kidding, Captain Forster? I would recommend them for medals for getting us rid of that bastard. Could we view your documentary on Jack the Ripper right now?’

‘’I was indeed intending to show it to you and to Sir James. I must however warn you that some of the scenes you will see are truly horrific, especially in the case of the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. For that reason, we produced two versions of our documentary on Jack the Ripper: an integral, uncensored one where everything can be seen; and a censored one where the worst scenes are intentionally blurred. I have to tell you that I became physically sick when I viewed the uncensored version of our documentary. Before we view that documentary, I do have more for you.’

63

Tina then opened the old-fashioned large leather briefcase she had come with and extracted two envelopes from it, one a legal-size envelope, the other an extra-large, thick one. First opening the smaller envelope, Tina extracted six color image prints and lined them atop Sir Harold’s work desk.

‘’The first photo shows in detail Jack the Ripper’s, a.k.a. Henry Walker’s face.

The five other pictures show his victims as they were just before dying: Mary Ann Nichols; Annie Chapman; Elizabeth Stride; Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly.’

After a hateful look at Henry Walker’s picture, the two British men then contemplated with sadness the faces of his five victims. The picture of Mary Jane Kelly in particular, who had been much younger than the four others, drew regretful looks, with James O’Reil y commenting on it.

‘’She was truly a beautiful young woman. What a pity! Uh, what is in that big envelope, Captain Forster?’’

Tina answered him by opening that envelope, extracting a stack of what looked like target practice posters.

‘’These are a few copies of the new targets we now use on the NOSTROMO for my androids’ practice shooting. We now shoot holes in Jack the Ripper’s face when practicing. I believe that your police officers will be quite happy to do the same when practicing their own pistol shooting.’

Sir Harold grinned while holding one of the target posters and examining it.

‘’Hell, they wil love this! I just may go practice my own shooting after viewing your documentary.’

‘’Which one? The uncensored one or the censored one, Sir Harold? Again, I warn you that you wil need a solid stomach to view the first one.’

Livingston hesitated for a moment before nodding his head once, his face grim.

‘’My job implies dealing with all kinds of crime scenes, including the most horrible ones. I wil look at the uncensored version.’’

‘’I wil too!’ said O’Reil y. ‘’However, the BBC will only show to the public the censored version. Talking of public showing, are you going to ask for a royalty payment for providing us these documentaries?’

‘’No! I could but I won’t! The lessons of History are meant for everyone to learn from them. Well, if you are ready to view that documentary on Jack the Ripper, Sir Harold, we may use your video display unit in that corner of your office.’

‘’Right! Let’s make ourselves comfortable and let’s sit in those sofas.’

64

Some eighty minutes later, with the documentary having come to its end, Sir Harold and Sir James sat back in their sofas, their faces pale and visibly deeply disturbed.

‘’My God! I got very close to throwing up a couple of times. That Henry Walker was a psychopath and sadist of the worst kind. On the other hand, the scene showing him falling into the Thames was immensely satisfying, I must say.’

‘’The same here.’’ added James O’Reil y. ‘’This documentary, at least the censored variant of it, should be a sensation with the British public. I can’t thank you enough for having produced it out of your trip in time, Captain Forster.’

‘’I consider that documentary and the other on life in 1888 to be a public service work, Sir James. Before I go, I would have a favor to ask you, Sir Harold.’’

‘’Ask and you wil get, Captain.’’

‘’I would like to have the pictures of those five women kil ed by Walker to be put on their tombs, so that they could be properly remembered. In case you wouldn’t know for certain where they are, I am ready to indicate their locations to you. I will at the same time deposit flowers on their graves.’’

Sir Harold looked again at the faces of the five long-dead women and slowly nodded his head.

‘’I wil be most happy to do this, Captain Forster.’

The three of them then got up from their sofas, with Sir Harold and Sir James shaking hands with Tina before she left the office, soon followed by the BBC director, leaving the Scotland Yard commissioner alone. He then looked down at the data stick on which the two documentaries were recorded and at the print showing Jack the Ripper’s face.

‘’A cold case, resolved after 450 years. What a day!’

65

CHAPTER 4 – CRAZIES IN SPACE

08:25 (Universal Time)

Friday, April 07, 2339

Bridge sphere of the command cutter AEGIS

Outer periphery of the WASP-17 (Diwö) star system 1,310 light-years from Earth, in the constellation Scorpius Amelia Earhart felt excitement as she observed the bright yellow star now visible on the inner surface of the bridge sphere’s holographic display of the AEGIS: this was the first time she had actually calculated and effected an interstellar jump as part of a craft’s bridge crew. Okay, that was as an apprentice copilot under close monitoring but you have to start somewhere, right? She had been educating herself about 24th Century technology and Space systems for nearly two years now and had trained hundreds of hours on simulators for such a moment but now all that was coming to fruition for her.

Her feelings were further rewarded when the pilot of the AEGIS, Harrison Ford, smiled to her from his command chair.

‘’Right on the money, Amelia. Good job! We wil now take a slow approach towards the star while we scan this system for planets, asteroids...and possible Space Predators.’

That reminder about one of the goals of this reconnaissance mission then cooled Amelia’s enthusiasm down a bit. Most people, including Tina Forster, believed that the threat from Space Predators was now gone for good but you didn’t survive for long in Space if you relied on ‘maybes’ and ‘wishes’. Tina had thus directed for the last twenty months a continued and intensive Space reconnaissance program of the sector of Space assigned by the Spacers’ League to her corporation and that of the Koorivars, pushing ever further away from known territory with two main goals in mind: to ensure that no Space Predators still existed; and to find new habitable systems which could then be exploited or colonized by Humanity. That search had already paid huge dividends, with three systems with habitable planets found to date: XO-1, 18 Scorpii and Epsilon Coronae Borealis. Two planets in those systems, Asiana in XO-1 and Jamieson’s World in 18 Scorpii, were already being colonized, while a third planet,

66

Eurasia in Epsilon Coronae Borealis, was being seeded with Earth flora and marine plankton in a long-term program meant to make its primitive biosphere more compatible with Earth fauna and Humans. Two other star systems found through that reconnaissance program, while not having habitable planets or moons, had proven to be very rich in mineral and hydrocarbon resources, with them leased by Tina Forster for exploitation by the Vesta Corporation and by the Saturn Corporation. Finally, there was the HIP 78288 system, found by one of NOSTROMO’s heavy fighters who had been searching for a lost prospectors’ ship, and which had proven to be inhabited by the Krells, an intelligent species of amphibious giant crab-like beings. The Krells were however being attacked and invaded by the Space Predators at the time. Following the destruction of the Space Predator fleet and invading army by the forces from the NOSTROMO, that system had been declared ‘off limits’ by the High Council of the Spacers’ League to all exploitation and colonization work, so that the Krells could live in peace in their own system. One thing was sure to all, though: there were still a near infinity of worlds left to be explored in this region of the Milky Way Galaxy. Since Project Tempus did not have a temporal mission assigned to it at this time, the command cutter AEGIS had thus been tasked to continue that Space reconnaissance program on behalf of the New Haven Corporation.

While closely monitored and helped by Harrison Ford and the other bridge crew members of the AEGIS, all of whom were androids, Amelia flew the command cutter towards the F6V yellow main sequence star at the center of the WASP-17 System, while Allison Stokke worked her sensors systems in passive mode at first, in order to keep their presence in the system discreet. That soon proved to be a wise decision, as she quickly reported in a warning tone.

‘’We are intercepting a large volume of radio activity within the system. I also can detect a few faint radar signals. This system is definitely occupied by a sentient race.

However, the signals we are intercepting are in a totally alien language.’

Ford then reacted to that by speaking on the intercom to VISION, the artificial intelligence supercomputer which oversaw and supervised the systems of the command cutter.

‘’VISION, start monitoring those communications and see if you can start building up a translation program for that alien language.’’

67

‘’Already on it, Harrison.’ replied the soft female voice of the supercomputer.

Next, the pilot looked at Allison, who was manning the sensors station of the bridge sphere.

‘’Stay in passive mode only for the moment, Al ison. We wil look visual y for planets and asteroids inside that system.’

‘’Understood! I already can see the gas giant named ‘Ditsö’ which was known to circle this star.’

Some forty minutes later, Allison spoke up again.

‘’We are now intercepting a string of video transmissions which look quite similar to those from public video information networks on Earth and around the Spacers’

League. However, their overall low quality suggest that this alien technology is significantly less advanced than ours. I will now plug you to those video transmissions, where images of those aliens are now being broadcasted.’

Amelia, like the other five members of the bridge crew on duty, looked with intense interest as an alien being was shown, giving some kind of passionate speech from behind a podium. That alien was nowhere like a Human being, resting on two pairs of legs of uneven length and having a short torso supporting a pair of long arms and a bulbous head. That head by itself was quite peculiar, with two eyes fixed to the corners of a hammer shark-like head and with a shark-like mouth under the wedge supporting the eyes. The arms ended in six-digits hands with sharp claws, while the creature’s four feet were covered by boots apparently made of leather. As for its main body, it was mostly covered by a sort of cape draped over its back and falling to near the ground.

Amelia made a smirk as she detailed the alien.

‘’Uh, not what I would call a very attractive being. Did the NOSTROMO ever encounter similar beings before?’’

‘’No! This is definitely a new race to be added to our data library.’ answered Harrison Ford. ‘’Whatever he or she is saying, it sounds like quite a fiery speech, with the crowd listening to it responding with loud cheers and approvals.’

‘’This looks to me a lot like a political speech, or a religious sermon.’ said Amelia, making the others look at her with curiosity.

‘’A religious sermon?’’ asked Al ison. ‘’I must say that I never looked at one: religion has been basically dead in the Spacers’ League and on Earth for over a century.’

68

‘’Well, you can search our historical databanks for religious sermons, Allison. We should have quite a few stored in them.’

‘’I wil do that.’ cut in Maria Sharapova, at the weapons station. ‘’Keep on those alien signals, Al ison.’

‘’Okay!’

Less than two minutes later, Maria put side-by-side to the alien a new video showing a Human religious leader making a speech as fiery as that of the alien, making Harrison nod his head.

‘’You are right, Amelia: this alien sounds exactly like that religious person. From when is that datafile from, Maria?’’

‘’From the year 1958. It shows an American Christian preacher warning his followers about the so-cal ed ‘sins’ of non-believers and disciples from other faiths.’’

‘’Try to find a video file showing a speech by a German dictator named ‘Hitler’

during the period 1936 to 1937.’ suggested Amelia, prompting Maria to do so. The latter quickly found such a video file and put it on the crew’s screens, alongside that of the alien and of the American religious leader. Harrison made a smirk as he watched all three videos simultaneously.

‘’Wow! Same speech pattern and same crowd reaction. I would also say that all three videos seem to spew the same kind of general message: that of hatred and intolerance.’’

‘’Which is exactly what Hitler and too many religious preachers of my time were peddling to their followers.’ said Amelia Earhart. ‘’Are we receiving other video channels than this one, Al ison?’’

‘’Uh, quite a few, in fact. Let me go through them.’

It didn’t take long before Al ison shook her head in confusion.

‘’I am getting four different video transmissions but they all show the same alien doing the same speech. This must be considered an important speech on the planet from where these come from. On the other hand, I can also detect a strong jamming signal which is apparently trying to make another station unreadable to listeners. I am not sure that I understand what is going on here.’

‘’I do!’ said Amelia. ‘’This speech we are watching is probably showing an important political leader, while that jamming may be this leader’s minions trying to

69

negate a contradicting message from another faction. This sounds to me like a classic propaganda war, possibly on a planet-wide scale.’

‘’Well, it seems that we are fortunate indeed to have your 20th Century experience available to us today, Amelia.’’ said Harrison Ford before looking at Al ison.

‘’Find out from which quadrant these transmissions come from: that wil indicate to us where the planet of those aliens is.’’

‘’On it!’

Some forty minutes later, using radio direction-finding triangulation techniques, Allison was able to direct the AEGIS towards what turned out to be the second planet in a five-planet system. Harrison Ford looked for a minute at the data Allison recorded about that second planet and spoke up.

‘’It is a near Earth-like planet with a breathable atmosphere and a temperate climate. From the amount of artificial lights visible from a distance on its night side, it is obviously quite densely populated. We see no moons revolving around it and no signs of orbital or Space facilities. VISION, what can you make out from those intercepted radio and video signals?’’

The ship’s central AI computer answered him at once in her soft female voice.

‘’While mounting a translation program for the language of those aliens will take many days, those signals gave me a few clues about that race. First, those aliens call themselves the ‘Tolans’. However, they also widely use two different words to describe what may be two political or religious factions on their world: the ‘Sars’ and the ‘Swons’.

In turn, there are multiple nicknames, insults and mocking words used as well by each of those factions to describe the other faction. This race thus seems to be deeply divided by mutual hatred and loathing, a divide which is caused with fair probability by religious intolerance.’’

‘’Religious intolerance? How intense would you characterize that intolerance, VISION?’’

‘’Extreme religious intolerance, Harrison.’’ answered the supercomputer. ‘’The nearest analogy to it that I could refer to in Human history would be that of the Thirty-Year War in Europe at the start of the 17th Century, when two factions of Christian followers, the Catholics and Protestants, engaged in mutual massacres and widespread destructions, justifying their excesses by calling their opponents ‘heretics’. The

70

movements of their armies around Europe also spread a number of catastrophic epidemics which killed millions of people during that war.’’

‘’And do you know what is the root cause of that religious dispute, VISION?’’

‘’I am stil not fully positive about this, but it seems that they disagree about who is the true prophet representing their god, which they call ‘Arkon’. By the way, they call their planet ‘Arkonia’.’

‘’Religious fanatics who call their planet after their God... Great! We should then avoid any direct contact with these Tolans and study them strictly from high orbit.

Al ison, do you see any evidence of Space activity on the part of those aliens?’’

‘’We are stil too far off for me to answer you on that, Harrison. If they travel in Space or in orbit around their planet, it must then be in quite a limited scale, as I detect no radio or radar signals coming from orbit.’

‘’Then, we wil adopt a high polar orbit around this ‘Arkonia’, in order to map and observe it out of sight of those Tolans. Amelia, I will let you do that maneuver under my supervision, so that you could further practice your new skil s.’

‘’Thanks, Harrison! When I think that, two years ago in my personal time, I was piloting a simple, twin-engine propeller aircraft around an Earth flight.’

‘’Hey, we all had to start somewhere, right?’’

‘’Right!’

19:29 (Universal Time)

Monday, April 10, 2339

Operations center of the command cutter AEGIS

In orbit around Arkonia (WASP-17c)

Amelia Earhart, who was reviewing with the other members of the crew the footage from numerous video transmissions intercepted during the day, had to turn her head and avert her eyes from watching a particularly disturbing scene.

‘’Damn barbarians! To burn alive other people of their own race because they don’t have the same religious beliefs. This is as bad as what the old Spanish Inquisition did during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance on Earth.’

‘’Those Tolans are definitely not a very savory race for sure.’ agreed Greta Norstrom. ‘’Thankfully, they stil don’t have atomic weapons in their arsenals.’

71

‘’Yea!’ added Christian Bale, the navigator. ‘’They also haven’t got into Space yet, so I would place their level of technology and science at about on par with our mid-20th Century. On the other hand, the extreme rigidity of their religious dogmas may well seriously impede the speed at which they wil be able to advance their technology.’

Harrison Ford then stopped the playing of the video recording before speaking to his assembled crewmembers.

‘’I believe that we have seen enough about those Tolans and have enough recordings on them as a basic database on their race and this system. VISION, how advanced are you with creating a translation software of the Tolan language?’’

‘’Quite advanced, Harrison. I have enough materiel to complete that job but just need more time to process fully everything we recorded. Once back on the NOSTROMO, SPIRIT will be able to help me in this task.’

‘’Good! Frankly, I believe that our job in this system is complete. I intend to recommend to Tina Forster that this system be placed ‘out of bounds’ for people of the Spacers’ League: these Tolans are way too extreme and fanatical about their religious beliefs. If you don’t have objections or points to add, then we will go back home.

Nothing? Then let’s head back to New Haven.’’

Amelia smiled at that decision, not because she was getting tired of this mission but rather because she was starting to miss the two British children she had to leave in the tender care of Janet Robeson and of her husband Gerald.

72

CHAPTER 5 – USING A CRYSTAL BALL

14:08 (Universal Time)

Wednesday, 26 April, 2339