Chapter Three: Dead Ends Events began to move quickly after that pivotal meeting. The whole of Meridius colony was a buzz with the news about the discovery of their wayward brothers and sisters. But to Dr. Colchester and his team and even Jack, it spiraled into one big headache. To start, they couldn’t find the database on advanced space exploration, it was gone. The Librarian in the Command Center said it went missing about a month ago but no one seemed to notice. Colchester reminded him that data simply can’t just disappear, but the Librarian replied that the Analyst team had been searching since it went missing. Even the three Savant computers couldn’t find it all.
Frustrated, Colchester and Jack moved to the next problem, storage. Meridius spaceport had not been used in quite some time and was full of material and parts from about half a century ago. Why the council never really used it after Earth was destroyed was a mystery but to Colchester. He remembered the chaos and sorrow that gripped Meridius as that monster of an asteroid destroyed the cradle of humanity. The spaceport was a large compound as well. To Colchester it looked like a cross between the Cape Canaveral from the United States, and Baikunor from Russia. It had four main launch pads arranged in a cross shape with the command tower in the middle. Support and technical buildings lay on the outside of the cross next to their respective launch pads. Storage was a massive warehouse below the command tower that had large tunnels running to each pad.
Another problem associated with Spaceport was damage, after being unused for so long, many things had started to break down or not function at all. The doctor and Jack had to even wear filtration masks to make sure they didn’t inhale any dangerous particulate matter. The final problem was resources, what Colchester had feared all along. It would take a few months to procure more metals for a satellite and even more for a rescue ship. So here it was a month and a half after the start of this mess and Colchester found himself in a local dive kicking back a rough brew made from gen-mod wheat in the Agridomes. Everyone around him was in high spirits, the noise of excited voices and those of ones who had a few too many. Colchester was attempting to zone out watching the viewscreen in the upper corner of the bar.
He was paying attention to the news station, as it went through the usual line up on a Thursday night. “Ah, barkeep, I’ll have what this poor stiff is having,” came a familiar voice. It was Jack, fresh from his stint at the Advanced Lab trying to cook up some new communications Frankenstein he had been working on since grad school.
“Poor stiff? Heh watch what you say you little whelp,” He replied.
“Oh come off it doctor, its after hours, everyone should make an attempt to pretend to feel better.” Jack said with a smile.
“Well spoken, in that case, I’ll do my damnedest to imagine myself as happier.”
“That’s the spirit! Now on to business shall we?” Jack leaned in close sipping from his mug.
“And what business do we have? We’ve exhausted all avenues of approach, and there are several holes in almost any plan we draft. The council is starting to consider the cost.”
Jack studied Colchester for a moment, then went back to his drink, his mind going over this implication. “You mean to tell me that the council is already losing interest? Huh, never thought they would be that flighty.” He responded.
“Well this is a big undertaking, you have your part to play in it Jack, and it’s a big one. But these are the leaders of the colony, they have to take into account everything, and to compound that, they are in the public eye more often than either one of us.” Colchester responded.
The pair then took a sip of their respective drinks and went back to thinking. After about 2 minutes, Jack turned and was about to say something, but thought of it and looked away. By now the drink was starting to creep into Colchester’s mind and he began to feel a little more fluid than usual. “You know, I don’t even know what they call this, but I’m still drinking it.” He said matter of factly.
“I think it’s a type of drink called beer, but that may be a very old term for it.” Jack responded.
“You? Knowing ancient terms? That’s rich, hold on, excuse me can you bring us two more?” Colchester replied and asked the bartender. Sure enough, two more bottles were place in front of them.
“What’s the occasion?” Jack inquired mischievously.
“Its Friday, I’m tired of this rescue junk and we got nothing else to do.”
<A couple more rounds of drinking later….>
“And the best part was, the professor had no idea the radio was still on!” Jack said, his red face filled with a grin and tears. Colchester hit the table hard with his fist in laughter as the two traded stories. “So yeah, that was meteorology for ya! You got any stories of your schooling?” Jack asked with a small giggle in his voice.
“Come to think of it, I can’t really remember, as if…if…” Colchester trailed off, the smile eroding from his face. Jack too now looked at him with a blank wondering what was wrong. “honestly Jack, theres not much, like fog bank blocking me…”
“Guess you were drinking a bit too much in your college days, eh?” he said, the smile washing back again.
Colchester smiled cordially, but he still felt distressed over this,. “ok, I think I’ve had enough, I’m going head out.” He said as he paid the bartender. By now the bar was empty except for him, Jack, and four other people.
“well I guess I’ll see you bright and early on Monday for more of the spaceship business.” Jack said.
“Yeah, I will…”Colchester replied remotely.
Colchester left the bar with more thoughts than he came in, a gain, he considered. The alcohol had cleared of system by now and his mind was racing. As he walked through an overpass from the commercial district to the first residential sector, he stopped to gaze up at the sky. Leaning on a hand rail, he stared into the inky blackness of space.
“Somewhere, somewhere in that ocean of stars, our kin, just wish I could do more to help.” With a sigh, he started walking again, entering the first Residence; M-R1. His suite was across the grid of Residences in M-R3, it was a newer one, built during the second expansion, when Meridius had reached one hundred colonists. By the time he reached his room, he was getting tired. He typed in the alpha-numeric encryption key and provided a hand scan. Upon entering, he flicked on the lights, the couch area was littered with papers; cargo manifests, production quotas, archival documents. This past month had been grueling. He walker over to it and stared at the entire mess, then something caught his eye.
It was an old paper, worn and crumpled. He picked it up, circled in red ink was a section that discussed the last transmissions from Earth, notably the countries involved. The circled part dealt with the military portion of the transmission from the European Union. There was one undecipherable portion of the message, it was a numeric portion that to be a code. It read; [19,7,4] [15,11,26,18] [24,14,20] [18,4,4,10] [26,17,4] [13,4,26,17] [18,19,15,17,26,6,4] [20,13,8,19] [26,11,15,7,26]. He took it over to his study, where he placed on a bunch of priority papers. As he did, he noticed his old pocket watch. It was made of copper, and about three inches in diameter with a chain. He didn’t recall where he got it from except that it had always been with him. Finally, he got into bed and fell asleep, tomorrow he would do some sleuthing.
P.S.
feel free to try and decode that for yourself, its a simple 2 step encryption, just dont post about because even if you dont get it, it will be revealed next chapter
