Tow chastised himself for getting involved—being noticed by those humans could have serious ramifications. He walked back through the dense pines, leaped over the babbling brook, and ten minutes later saw his ship, parked within the clearing ahead. The walk back had given him enough time to think; to take a hard look at his situation. Now that the pain in his leg was significantly lessened—a little self-evaluation was not only timely, but necessary too.
As he approached he asked the AI orb for an update.
“Four of the Evermore’s systems have been reloaded and are currently being tested, including those for the propulsion system and the wellness chamber’s artificial intelligence system,” the AI orb said.
“Just keep me apprised of your progress,” Tow said, well aware any physical repair made to the damaged emersion drive would take him the most amount of time.
With little else to do but wait, Tow made the same short trek to the farm a daily occurrence, sometimes several times a day, and he knew why. Unconsciously, he was developing a bond with this strange world and, in a limited way, to its human inhabitants. How long had it been since he’d last had direct contact with another living, sentient, being? Six months? Leaving here quickly meant spending additional time in space; returning to the same lonely monotony. If, and when, he reached Primara, he had no idea if other beings actually existed there. It was a destination derived from ancient legends and fables—touted to be a grand expedition, a pilgrimage—when in reality it was a last ditch attempt to save a dying race. Once I leave this world, I will probably never see another living being again, Tow thought, deciding to cut himself some slack. Although not yet exhibiting any of the disease’s telltale symptoms, the Dirth was inevitable—would probably kill him before he even reached Primara.
The AI informed him the Howsh had moved on from both Saturn and Jupiter and were finishing up with Mars. They would arrive here on Earth shortly. So why am I wasting precious time concerned with these human savages? He had no answer for that.
Stepping into the clearing, the battered Evermore was a sorry sight. Still, it was his home and it represented something far more important to him than that. It was what was beneath the lower deck—secured within an environmentally controlled compartment—that gave him the most hope. Tow found it utterly amazing that it hadn’t been destroyed over the past three years. It alone gave him sufficient motivation to complete his mission—or die trying.
Tow stared at the aft starboard section of the ship and the charred, six-foot-long gash in its hull. He’d procrastinated long enough. Before starting in on the repairs to the emersion-drive, he’d need to deal with the dead crewmembers. No longer entombed in the frigidly cold vacuum of space, the bodies had begun to putrefy—to decompose. He could smell them from outside. Caring about them all still, he dreaded what was to come next.
Access to the aft-starboard berth compartment was only possible via the outside hull. Months earlier, crossing deep space, he’d contemplated cutting into that damaged section of the ship through the inside primary aft corridor, but there were issues of cabin depressurization. Namely, far too much of the Evermore’s breathable air would be vented out into space. With what air had already been lost, during the last Howsh attack, it left barely sufficient atmosphere for recycling: first pulled through big environmental filters then through the complex, carbon dioxide / oxygenation conversion process.
The Evermore was well stocked with a variety of specialized tools and equipment. Each ship within the armada was required to be totally self-sufficient unto itself. The same philosophy extended to ship areas, like functioning food replicators, a wellness chamber, and the capability to make virtually any repairs to the ship—on the fly.
The stench had quickly become intolerable. Wearing a lightweight environment suit, it took Tow most of the afternoon to remove the damaged four outer hull panels. Later, prior to his reinstalling them, the open gash—where the plasma strike had occurred—would need to be resealed with a high-strength bonding mixture. He’d have to check the ship’s storage hold to see what was available for that.
One by one, hundreds of cap-bolts were removed with a tool not too dissimilar from any number of hand-held power tools utilized on Earth. The individual outer hull plates came away easily and he stacked them into a nearby pile. With the outer hull plates removed, the inner, far thicker bulkhead wall was clearly visible. Multiple long wavy stress-creases traversed horizontally through its metal siding. Beyond that was the actual berth compartment, comprised of much lighter, less rigid materials that had folded inward from instantaneous depressurization.
The inside bulkhead was one huge piece, comprised of a high-strength metallic compound. Using a hand-held plasma torch, Tow started at the upper left corner of the section, cutting a seven-foot-long vertical swath downward. Completing that, he moved up to the top and initiated a sideways horizontal cut—close to twenty feet long—that took him close to an hour to execute. Halfway done, he stood back, admiring his handiwork.
Annoying flies were everywhere, buzzing and circling. A thought occurred to him: What was he going to do with the crew’s remains? Typically, he would quote a prayer then release them out an airlock into the vastness of space. Tow queried the AI, “What do Earth humans do with their deceased beings’ bodies?”
“The two most popular methods are ground burial and cremation.”
Tow expected as much, for it had been the same on Mahli. He needed to find a nice location, somewhere deep in the trees, then dig seven deep holes.
The last two plasma cuts went faster than the first two. As he neared completion of the fourth cut, the nearly separated one hundred and forty square foot sheet, pushed outward, sagging down. He’d wondered if it would simply drop away, but it stayed put, just barely secured.
Tow moved his tools and equipment out of the way. The next task would require some heavy lifting: Not the physical kind—but the mental kind. The combined weight of objects did matter. He estimated the cutaway piece of metal was easily three hundred pounds. That, and it was an awkward size. Taking five paces back from the Evermore, Tow flexed his fingers and rolled his shoulders. Raising both hands, he concentrated. For close to a minute nothing happened. He was out of practice; couldn’t remember the last time he had to move something this substantial using only his mind. And like any unused muscle, it too can atrophy.
Suddenly, there came the sound of metal scraping against metal. And then, finally, the large hull section began to pull free, making a distinct sucking sound. Almost immediately, loose debris within the compressed compartment began to fall onto the ground. Tow continued to mentally levitate the section another five feet away from the ship’s fuselage, moving it off to the left. Its weight was daunting. Tiring, he needed to quickly set it down before it dropped. He then lowered it onto its bottom edge, letting it lean vertically against the trunk of a large nearby tree.
Up until then, Tow had managed to keep his eyes averted from looking into the now-open, multi-berth compartment, and what he surmised would present a most horrific sight. He opened his eyes and gasped. Burning bile retched up from his already queasy stomach. He could almost make out the seven blue-colored individual berths within the distorted and twisted mass. Almost. But it was the entangled appearance of sporadic body parts that hit Tow the hardest. His eyes unwillingly focused on one after another—a seemingly unattached arm—a patch of long brown hair swaying back and forth—as if the congealed mass of metal and berth bedding had somehow sprouted it from somewhere deep within the wreckage. Tow stepped forward, unsure of what he was now looking at. He stopped and brought a hand to his mouth. Two, side-by-side eyes, blankly staring back at him—the crewmember’s face so unimaginably compressed to where it was no more than two, maybe three, inches wide.