CHAPTER 4 – A GREAT LOSS
08:15 (Universal Time)
Thursday, August 09, 2334
Bridge of the A.M.S. NOSTROMO
Flying towards the planet Hibernia
TRAPPIST-1 System, 39.6 light-years from Earth
Tina was sitting in her bridge command chair and watching the view of the planet Hibernia, which her NOSTROMO was now approaching, when she saw Germaine Brown, her communications officer, take a shocked expression. Before Tina could ask her what was happening, Brown snapped her head towards her and spoke up with a shaken voice.
‘’Tina, the medical center just reported that Doctor Koomak was found minutes ago in his apartment…dead. The preliminary diagnosis is that he died of natural causes due to old age. It is suspected that Doctor Koomak died of a cardiac arrest during his sleep.’’
‘’Oh my god! And where is he now?’’
‘’At the morgue section’s autopsy room.’’
‘’I am going there!’’ replied Tina while jumping out of her command chair and starting to run down the steps to the next platform, where the elevator shaft linking the bridge complex with the rest of the ship was. She rode down ninety meters before emerging in the central rotunda of the medical center, at Frame Level # 575, and running down one of the six large radial hallways connected to the rotunda. She soon arrived at the morgue section, where Doctor Shamar, one of the two Koorivar physicians working on the NOSTROMO, led her to an examination table on which lay the body of the old physicist. Tina stayed silent for long seconds as she contemplated her dead friend, whom she had known now for over fifteen years.
‘’Was there any trace of foul play, Doctor Shamar?’’
‘’None at all. However, we are still going to analyze fluid and body samples to confirm our diagnostic. All the appearances point to a cardiac failure due to old age. After all, Doctor Koomak was past a hundred-years-old and lived a full life by Koorivar standards. He probably died in his sleep and didn’t feel pain.’’
‘’It’s at least that. The World just lost one scientific giant. I will sorely miss him.’’
‘’Everybody who knew him will miss him, Captain: he had no known enemies. What do you want us to do with him?’’
‘’Do a thorough autopsy, so that his death could be legally registered. In the meantime, I will have his last will checked to see if he specified how he wanted his body to be treated after death.’’
‘’Then, we will freeze his body after the autopsy is completed, until you advise us of his last wishes, Captain.’’
‘’Good! I will now go get his last will from our legal archives.’’
Tina gave a last look at her dead Koorivar friend, who had contributed so much to the present Human exploration and colonization of Space thanks to the invention of his interstellar ‘Koomak Drive’, before walking out of the examination room.
Going back up to the Executive Deck, where her executive office was situated, Tina sat down heavily behind her work desk, still shaken and saddened by her loss. That was when the voice of Spirit, the central artificial intelligence computer of the NOSTROMO, came out of her intercom.
‘’We lost a great mind and a great person today, Tina. Please accept my most sincere condolences.’’
‘’Thank you, Spirit! Could you please retrieve and unlock the electronic copy of Doctor Koomak’s last will, so that I could see what his wishes were about how to treat his body?’’
It took less than a second before an electronic file opened on her computer screen.
‘’Here you are, Tina. Be advised that, in addition to this electronic last will document, Doctor Koomak also had a sealed envelope put into safe legal storage. That envelope is marked for your eyes only, to be opened only after his death.’’
‘’A sealed envelope marked for my eyes only? Do you know what it could contain?’’
‘’Fuck knows!’’ replied Spirit, who sometimes used some colorful metaphors in her speech. ‘’I can have Eve retrieve that envelope for you, if you want to.’’
‘’Please do that, Spirit.’’
‘’I will advise Eve right away, Tina.’’
With Spirit now off the line, Tina pressed one hand on the I.D. recognition pad lying on her desk, so that it could read her fingerprints, then typed a password in her computer, making the legal document open up for reading. That last will actually proved to be quite short, since Koomak had no relatives of his who were still alive and had not produced or adopted children since he had been awakened from his cryogenic sleep aboard the VEON SHOURIA some twenty years ago. He also had few physical possessions, having consecrated his life to scientific research, but had a fairly substantial bank account. It turned out that the content of that bank account was now to be transferred to Tina. There was also a mention about a sealed envelope kept for her in the legal archives vault of the ship. Tina read twice the document before contacting Doctor Shamar at the morgue.
‘’Doctor Shamar, this is Tina speaking. Doctor Koomak’s last will states that he wanted his body to be cremated and his ashes then dispersed in Space over the old orbit of the planet SHOURIA, in the Gliese 667 System.’’
‘’Then, I will advise you when my autopsy will be done, Captain. Do you wish for his body to be exposed before cremation?’’
‘’Yes! I am sure that Doctor Koomak would have wanted his friends to see him one last time before being cremated. I will soon make a ship-wide address to inform the crew about his death.’’
Some seven minutes after closing her call to the morgue, Eve Silisca knocked at Tina’s door and was then invited it, with a man closely following her and holding a sealed envelope.
‘’Tina, this is Mister Variag, from the legal archives. He insisted on coming with me, so that he could deliver this sealed envelope to you in person.’’
‘’Mister Variag followed the correct legal procedure in this case. Can I have this envelope, please?’’
‘’Here you are, Captain.’’ said Variag while handing her the envelope, plus a recognition pad. ‘’I will just ask you to sign for this envelope and apply your fingerprints on this pad.’’
Tina did so, then gave the pad back to Variag, who then left her office. As Tina was about to open the sealed envelope, Eve spoke up while still standing in front of her desk.
‘’Do you want me to leave now, Tina?’’
‘’Please stay, Eve, so you can be a witness to me opening this envelope. Have a seat!’’
‘’Thank you!’’
Tina then opened the envelope and extracted from it a two-page document, plus a data stick marked ‘Secret, for Captain’s eyes only’. Tina, a bit surprised by that, eyed the data stick for a couple of seconds before unfolding the printed document and starting to read it silently, with Eve watching her. The android soon saw Tina’s expression gradually show growing shock and incredulity.
‘’Is something wrong, Tina?’’
‘’Wrong, no? Do I feel Incredulity and surprise, yes! Doctor Koomak apparently worked in secret on a new and terrifying weapon years ago but, due to his pacifist nature, decided to keep it secret from everybody. When we first encountered the Space Predators, the gravity of the threat represented by those monsters made him rethink his stance on that new weapon and he then completed a full design of it, a design that is now stored in this data stick. Still, he wanted it to be known only by me and Spirit and to be used only to protect Humanity from the Space Predators. Since you are the daughter of Spirit and are in constant link with her, I believe that you are also entitled to be in the know about that weapon. Here, read!’’
Taking the document offered by Tina, Eve read the two-page document in less that a second before nodding her head gravely.
‘’I can see why Doctor Koomak was afraid to see this weapon design be known by others than you and Spirit. It is an absolutely devastating weapon of the kind dictators and autocrats would love to have. On the other hand, its design is both brilliant and simple and used the Physics domains in which Doctor Koomak was a top expert. We could actually modify our disintegrator cannons to the specifications of this weapon quite easily, using only the resources available on the NOSTROMO. Can I see what the schematics of this weapon look like?’’
‘’Sure!’’ said Tina before contacting Spirit via her computer. ‘’Spirit, I am now going to plug in and open a data stick eschewed to me by Doctor Koomak and containing the design of a new and extremely powerful weapon. I want you to store that design into your ‘Top Secret’ data bank and restrict its view to me, you and Eve. I would also like an estimate from you about how difficult or easy it would be to adapt our disintegrator main cannons to it. I am inserting that data stick in my computer now.’’
The moment that data stick was plugged in, Tina saw pages of technical drawings and scientific formulas appear on her computer screen, with Eve coming to stand behind her in order to look at the screen over her shoulders. It was however Spirit who spoke first after a couple of seconds.
‘’Data now recorded into my restricted access data banks, Tina. I also reviewed quickly the weapon design and its underlying principles and am ready to say that the design is both sound and simple to build. We can definitely produce its parts aboard the NOSTROMO and then modify our ultra-heavy disintegrator cannons quite easily and rapidly. I suppose that you will wish to keep this whole project a most secret one?’’
‘’Definitely, Spirit! How powerful could it be, according to you?’’
Spirit’s tone of voice was most somber when she answered Tina.
‘’Tina, this is a planet-buster-class weapon, pure and simple. If put in the wrong hands, then it could spell doom for Humanity, or its enslavement under the yoke of the dictator who will control this weapon.’’
14:04 (Universal Time)
Friday, August 17, 2334
Airlock locker room on the Docking Arms Deck
A.M.S. NOSTROMO, inside the Gliese 667C System
22.4 light-years from Earth
‘’…and may the ashes of our friend float for eternity in Space, over the orbit of his native planet, SHOURIA.’’
With her eulogy delivered to the over 460 crewmembers assembled in the large locker room adjacent to one of the personnel airlocks on the Docking Arms Deck, Tina then closed and sealed the visor of her spacesuit and entered the airlock proper, the golden urn containing Koomak’s ashes secured in a closed pouch attached to her spacesuit. Once a technician had emptied the air from the airlock, she was then able to open the outer door of the airlock and step out into the void of Space. Now floating close to the hull of her ship, Tina used the directed gravity propulsion system integrated into her spacesuit and flew away from the NOSTROMO for about 500 meters. She then stopped above the planet Gliese 667Ce, which now occupied roughly the same orbit as Gliese 667Cc, which had been utterly destroyed some 300 years ago when a giant brown dwarf{1} had entered the system and basically destroyed it. Filmed from her ship and with her moves displayed on holographic screens around the ship, Tina took the urn out of her cargo pouch, then opened it and flipped it upside down, sending the ashes inside it slowly floating down towards Gliese 667Ce. Putting the urn back in her pouch, she then came to attention in Space and saluted, a big lump in her throat.
‘’Goodbye my friend! May you rest in peace for eternity inside the star system of your birth.’’
