Creative Commons – The Plainsrunner – Chapter Forty-One

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

They find out why they lost contact with Mission Control.

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Chapter Forty-One – Carry On

It was almost an hour before they made contact again. Finally, in response to one of Wayfarer’s transmissions, they received, “Emissary, this is Mission Control, over.”

She said, “Mission Control, this is Emissary. It’s good to hear you again. What happened?”

“Mission Control is offline. This is our backup site. There was some confusion when the primary site went down, so it took a while before we got this one activated.”

Tallgrass recognized that voice, and he moved toward the communication station as Wayfarer said, “What happened? Why did they go off the air?”

“This is Mission Specialist Wayfarer, isn’t it? Is Supervisor Steel handy? Could you put him on, please?”

As Steel moved for the microphone, Tallgrass told him, “That’s Deputy Director Trueway. I recognize his voice.”

“I see,” said Steel, his eyebrows up. He took the microphone from Wayfarer and said, “Deputy Director Trueway, this is Supervisor Steel.”

There was a short hesitation, more than the small time lag caused by their distance, then Trueway said, “Of course. Tallgrass recognized my voice, didn’t he? Is he there?”

“Yes, Deputy Director. We’re all here.”

Another short pause, then, “Of course. There’s nowhere else to be, is there? My apologies, Supervisor. It’s been hectic here. And there’s the shock.” He paused, then said, “There’s been an incident at Mission Control. That’s why they’re off the air. And it took a while before we figured out what was going on and activated the backup here.”

“An incident?” said Steel.

“Yes,” said Trueway. “There was an explosion.”

Simultaneously, Steel said, “An explosion?” and Tallgrass said, “Seagrass!”

“Yes, Supervisor Steel. We haven’t fully assessed the damage yet, but it’s plain that it won’t be operational again for some time.” He paused again, and they could hear him riffling papers. Tallgrass pictured him at his desk, high above the gleaming sea. He recalled being there with Seagrass. He caught himself reaching to take the microphone and ask about his friend. Trueway came back on. “So far, I’m sorry to say, we’ve confirmed twenty dead and ten more injured.” Then he added, “Seagrass is here with me, and he wants me to assure Tallgrass that he’s okay.”

Tallgrass felt all the muscles in his body slowly relaxing while Steel said, “We’re glad to hear that. And of course saddened to hear about the others. Was it the LLL? How did they get in?”

“We’re assuming it was,” said Trueway. “As far as we know, there’s no one else who would go this far. All we can say so far is that nobody got in from the outside. And it was definitely a locally detonated bomb, and not something sent in on a rocket.”

Tallgrass said, “So it was someone who was there all along?”

Steel repeated the suggestion to Trueway, who said, “Yes, it would appear so.” Then he said, “If you could put Tallgrass on, Seagrass wants to talk to him.”

Once on, Tallgrass said, “I’m glad you’re okay. How did you manage that?”

“It happened during the hand-off. Night shift was going off duty and we were coming on. I guess they wanted to get as many people as possible. I was running about a minute late, or I would have been there. I was just signing in at the front desk.”

Tallgrass shivered at the close call, and said, “Thank goodness for your tardiness.”

Seagrass chuckled and said, “I always knew my bone-laziness would come in handy one day.” They shared a laugh, then he said, “I actually wanted to talk to you about this. I think we can figure out who did it.”

“Do you think so?” asked Tallgrass. “Well, it would have to be someone who was with the LLL before the lockdown.”

“Maybe,” said Seagrass. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and it could be someone that they got to later, and coerced somehow.”

“Right,” said Tallgrass, and they were off. In a short time they had three plausible scenarios for the investigators, one of which turned out to be correct. They found the bomber, who died in the attack, and they found the family members who had been held hostage to coerce him. They were dead, killed when they were no longer needed. The hunt for their killers was underway.

Supervisor Steel took the microphone after Tallgrass and Seagrass were finished, and had a conversation with Deputy Director Trueway. Once he was assured that there was no immediate danger to the Emissary or its mission, he was satisfied and ready to sign off and get back to routine. “Thank you Deputy Director,” he said. “Please give our condolences to the families, and our best wishes to the people recovering.”

“Yes, I certainly will, Supervisor Steel. And don’t worry about ground support. We’re here for you with communications, telemetry and plenty of calculating power. We’re working with a limited number of people right now, but we’re bringing others up to speed. You shouldn’t notice any serious changes.”

“Thank you,” said Steel. “Emissary out.”

“Mission Control out,” said Trueway.

Steel looked at his crew and said, “You heard him. We can carry on with the mission as before.”

“Good,” said Wayfarer, as Tallgrass nodded. He was thinking of his friend Seagrass, and how he’d almost lost him again.

It was Blunt who said what they were all thinking. “What if they take out this one, too? What if we lose Mission Control altogether?”

Steel said, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. There’s no sense in making problems for ourselves.”

“Yeah, but what if …” began Blunt.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, Mission Specialist Blunt,” said Steel.

“Yeah, but …” Blunt began again, then subsided, obviously unhappy.

Tallgrass said, “I wouldn’t worry about it, Blunt. I’ve been in that place, and I can tell you it’s secure. And with this, it’s going to be even more secure.”

“What about the people? What if somebody gets to one of them again?”

“They’ll be checking the people. Making sure their families are safe. Making sure nobody has a hold over any of them. Don’t worry. The only way they could do anything is if they flew an airplane into the building, or something.” He smiled around, and they chuckled. Even Blunt, if grudgingly.

“Okay,” said Steel, “so we carry on, business as usual, right?” When they acknowledged that, he said, “Besides, what are we going to do? Turn around and go back?”

That got a genuine laugh, even from Blunt, and people went back to their duties. In this part of the mission that was mostly a continuous round of systems checks. The ion drive was running constantly, and they checked its numbers periodically. Oxygen, water, batteries, fuel. All checked regularly and often, even after they checked out the first twenty, fifty or a hundred times. They all knew how important this mundane, boring work was, and none of them complained. Even Blunt was all business, most of the time.

They’d just eaten and Tallgrass was standing with Steel, talking. They had disposed of the food wrappers, and captured any bits of detritus they saw floating around. Then Wayfarer went back to the radio and Blunt went to his alcove for a nap.

Steel said, “I heard you talking to Blunt earlier, and I was wondering, why did you bring the glider?”

“Didn’t they tell you?” asked Tallgrass.

“No,” said Steel. “Of course they told me it was coming along, but not why.”

“I see,” said Tallgrass. “Okay. Well, it was my mother’s idea. You know it’s hers, right? You’ve heard the story?”

“Uh huh,” said Steel. “And read the books and seen the movies.”

“Right. I wouldn’t put too much credence in the movies.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t. It was a bit much to believe that a girl on her own like that could kill a day flier. And all those day runners.”

“Actually, that part is true,” said Tallgrass.

“Oh, really?” said Steel. “Hm. Now I really would like to meet your mother.”

“I can arrange that when we get back,” said Tallgrass. “I’d like her to meet you, too.” They nodded, then he said, “Anyway, she thought I should bring it, just in case.”

“What, as a lucky charm?”

Tallgrass laughed out loud. “My mother?” he said. “No. She thought that since it probably dropped down from space, and this thing we’re going to investigate is in space, there might be a connection. And since my mother is the smartest person I know, I didn’t have any objection.”

“Wasn’t that hard for her? I mean, that thing must be worth a lot of money.”

Tallgrass shook his head. “She doesn’t need to worry about money.” He chuckled. “The Professor wasn’t too happy about it, but she convinced him that it would be like another experiment. And she strictly forbade him to think about it getting lost.”

“Because that would mean thinking about something happening to you.”

“Exactly. She’s not superstitious, but she also doesn’t see any reason to tempt fate.”

“That makes sense to me,” said Steel. “You know, I think there’s a lot of your mother in you, Tallgrass.”

“Pah!” said Tallgrass. “I’m nothing like my mother. She’s a hundred times smarter than I am. And braver.”

“Because she trekked across the prairie on her own?”

“Yes! And took on the city. And won.”

“Whereas all you’ve done is get yourself onto a spacecraft and go out to investigate a mysterious, and possibly dangerous, object.”

Tallgrass stopped. Then he said, “That’s different. It’s nothing like what she did.”

“Maybe,” said Steel. “Whatever it is, I’ll bet she’s proud of you.”

Tallgrass ducked his head and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “She is.”