The Galahad Legacy Read online

  “Well, I look forward to your report. Especially when you explain exactly what that thing is you brought aboard.”

  Triana nodded. “Yeah, I expect that will be Question 1A, followed closely by ‘Where were you?’ as 1B.”

  “Can’t wait to hear the answers,” Roc said.

  “Well, I’m tempted to answer ‘I don’t know’ for both, but I’ll come up with something.” Triana tapped open the vidscreen and accessed her personal folder. For the next few minutes she munched on energy bars and scanned the reports. Occasionally she scowled, particularly as she came up to speed on the devastating effects of the space bruise that Hannah had suggested.

  “Incredible,” she murmured. “Can this be true? Damage at a molecular level?”

  “If it’s any consolation, I feel great,” Roc said. “But yes, you might end up resembling a gob of toothpaste.”

  “Lovely.”

  The door opened and Gap strolled in. Triana couldn’t decipher the look on his face, which seemed perched somewhere between agitation and fatigue. He approached her and she slowly rose to her feet. They exchanged an awkward gaze before embracing in a tentative and equally awkward hug.

  “Glad to see you’re in one piece,” Gap said, moving across the room to collect a cup of water. “Feeling okay?”

  “For the most part,” she said. “Physically I’m fine. My head’s still spinning from everything, but I’m getting readjusted. You got my note last night?”

  He mumbled an uh-huh, then took a seat at the table. “Of course I’m dying to know what happened to you, but I guess I’ll wait for the others.”

  There was another uncomfortable silence. Triana wrestled with what to say next, but was spared when Lita and Channy walked in together. Both girls wasted no time in hugging the Council Leader.

  “I’ll start with this hug, but then I want you to turn around so I can kick you squarely on your tush,” Channy said with a mock frown.

  “Sleep okay?” Lita asked. “Any new aches or pains this morning?”

  “Nothing new. I was telling Gap that things seem a little scattered, but I’ll catch up.”

  Channy crossed her arms. “You need a good workout, that’s all. How about this afternoon you drop by the gym and we’ll get some sweat flowing?”

  Triana smiled. “Believe it or not, that sounds great. If I get a break I’ll come see you.”

  As she said this, Bon walked in. He glanced quickly at Triana, then nodded to the rest of the Council before taking his usual spot at the far end of the table.

  “Hi,” Triana said to him.

  He glanced up again, his blue eyes piercing her. “Hello. Welcome back.”

  “Wow,” Lita said. “Way to harness those emotions, Bon. I guess the rest of us seem a little sloppy.”

  Triana leaned forward and crossed her hands on the table, hoping to steer the conversation—and attention—away from her complex relationship with Bon.

  “I’ll spend some more time today with the reports that Gap and Roc have put together for me. It seems that we’re not out of the woods yet with this radiation issue, but hopefully we can find a permanent solution.

  “In the meantime, I know you’ve got questions. I’ll address the entire crew soon, but let me do my best to describe what I experienced when I left the ship.”

  She gathered her thoughts for a moment. “First, I know my decision was very unpopular; in fact, almost all of you have expressed that. I stand by my decision to go. I took the safety of the ship into consideration, and weighed the options that I felt we had. Making a popular choice wasn’t as important to me as doing what I felt was best for this crew. There’s not much more to say about that. If you still have issues with me after this briefing, feel free to come see me individually. I’m open to hearing your opinions. For now, however, I’d like to move forward. What’s done is done. Let’s talk about what happened.”

  Triana looked around the table and saw no argument.

  “The first thing I noticed when I approached the wormhole was how much it resembled a rip, like torn fabric. I guess I’d assumed it would be smooth and symmetrical, like it was punched out by a stamp or something. But it was jagged, and the blackest black I’ve ever seen. An almost painful black, like it was devoid of not only light, but life and … and hope. I think that might have frightened me the most. Not the actual journey through the wormhole, but the fear of leaving the known for the unknown, because it was a crushing, overwhelming unknown. It represented every fear I’d ever experienced, all wrapped into one.”

  She stopped and looked around the table with a sheepish smile. “That’s kinda hard to explain. But … well, most of this is hard to explain. Bear with me, okay?”

  “Did you feel any kind of presence in the darkness?” Lita asked. Triana noticed that both Lita and Bon seemed to lean forward with this question.

  “No, almost the exact opposite. It felt like I was leaving behind all conscious thought, and plunging into a vacuum of total nothingness. It was terrifying. But the moment I crossed that barrier, the very moment I saw the last image of the stars in my peripheral vision and was about to be swallowed by the blackness, it was as if everything turned inside out. Where it should have been an infinite darkness, suddenly there was an explosion of light.”

  “Colors?” Gap asked. “Like a kaleidoscope?”

  Triana shook her head. “No. White light. I know I screamed, and I think it was because of that extreme shift. I expected to plunge into total darkness, and instead was slammed with an almost violent white light. It was like I pierced a veil or something. As soon as that happened, I passed out.”

  Lita stared at her before saying: “So you didn’t see anything, really, when you passed the boundary. A flash of light, and then…?”

  “And then nothing. But…” Triana was quiet for a moment, again gathering her thoughts. “But I don’t think I passed out because of anything physical. I think it was my mind’s way of coping with the sudden change, shutting down rather than attempting to process what was going on around it. A defense mechanism, maybe. I don’t know. But I was out.

  “When I came to—and I have no idea how long that could have been—I was back in what appeared to be normal space.”

  “So,” Gap said, “you have no idea how long it took to travel through the wormhole. Roc, any thoughts on that?”

  “Oh, I’m bursting with thoughts,” the computer said. “But before we go on, is there any chance of getting some popcorn? How are you guys just sitting there, listening to this, without popcorn?”

  “Well, let’s start with your thoughts on the wormhole,” Gap said.

  “To begin with,” Roc said, “you have to stop thinking of a wormhole as a tunnel. It’s not. It’s a theoretical doorway between points in the universe, with no real depth to it. Does that make sense?”

  Channy, who had been listening to everything with her fingers tented in front of her mouth, dropped her hands into her lap. “Or a window. When Triana shot through, it was like crashing through a window, from one side to the other.”

  “Yes,” Roc said. “But a window so thin we’d never see it looking at it from the side. And that actually explains why Triana passed out.”

  “Why?” Channy said.

  “Because the transition between the two sides of a wormhole is not only a division of space, but a division of space-time. It’s one time on one side, and another on the other side. It could be an infinitely small discrepancy in time, or an infinitely large discrepancy. But the point is, the two sides are not only in different places, but in different times. Triana’s brain was essentially in two places—and two times—at the same time, until she passed all the way through. And even though it only took a fraction of a second to pass through the boundary, her mind was in two places and two times at the same moment. That caused her brain to shut down instantly. A sort of reboot, if you will, for safety purposes.”

  Gap stared at the star field shining through the room’s window, deep in thoug
ht. “Okay,” he said. “But we know that the vultures are part machine, part organic material; their brains, or what we think operate as brains, are living tissue. Does that mean they blink out, too, when they pass through the wormhole?”

  “I don’t know,” Roc said. “However, two things to consider: One, their creators obviously designed them for this travel, so they likely have taken it into consideration. And two, it’s possible they are designed to shut down a split second before they pass through the barrier, and flip back on a split second later, in order to bypass any loss of consciousness for an extended time. Kind of like kids in the backseat lifting up their feet when the family car crosses a railroad track. Which is so cute I can hardly stand it. Please tell me you did that, Gap, so I can have a whole new appreciation for you.”

  “Of course I did,” Gap said with a quick smile. “And had my dad honk the horn in tunnels, too.” He turned back to Triana. “Did you have any sense of time at all when you woke up? I mean, I can kinda tell the difference when I’ve slept for an hour versus six hours, you know?”

  “I know what you mean,” Triana said. “But no, I had no concept at all. I might have been out for ten seconds, or ten days. All I know is that I woke up to see normal space through the pod’s window. Well … maybe normal’s not the right word.”

  She stood up and walked over to the water dispenser. The other Council members waited patiently as she slowly sipped from the cup. She kept her back to the conference table to hide the fact that her hand was shaking.

  “The stars looked like stars, but I didn’t recognize any of the constellations. The one thing I noticed right away was the nearest star; definitely a red dwarf.”

  Gap raised his eyebrows. “The most common star-type in our galaxy. They’re all over the place.”

  Channy perked up. “I remember studying red dwarfs. They’re smaller than our sun, and much cooler. And they don’t give off much light, either.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lita said, sitting forward. “Are you saying that the creators of the vultures come from a planet around a red dwarf star? That’s a long shot, isn’t it? I mean, those stars don’t have much room around them to support life.”

  “It’s called a habitable zone,” Roc interjected. “Or, as some call it, the Goldilocks zone. It’s not too hot, and not too cold. It’s just right.”

  “Right,” Lita said. “Earth is in the habitable zone around our sun. If it was closer to the sun, it would burn up; farther out and it would be frozen. With red dwarfs, that zone is even thinner. It’s much less likely that planets would fall perfectly into that band.” She looked at Triana, who still had her back to the group. “Tree, you said that space didn’t seem exactly normal. What did you mean by that?”

  Triana downed the rest of her water and walked back to the table. “I rode out a few shock waves, probably the same thing we’ve experienced here on Galahad. But besides that, space seemed crowded.”

  “Crowded?” Gap said. “Like the junk we dodged in the Kuiper Belt?”

  “No,” Triana said. “For one thing, our friends the vultures. There were … I don’t know, I’d say millions of them. They practically blotted out the stars in some places.”

  Channy shivered noticeably. “Ugh, I hate those things. How creepy to have that many of them in one place.”

  Triana, her eyes down, tapped the table. “There were other things. They seemed to be drifting, but I also got the feeling that they could move about wherever they wanted. At first they reminded me of…” She stopped for a moment, and looked up at the Council. “They reminded me of amoebas.”

  “Amoebas?” Channy said.

  Triana nodded. “That’s what they looked like to me. Large transparent sacks. I could almost see through them, like I was looking through smoke. They moved like soap bubbles on the surface of water.”

  “Could you tell what was inside?” Gap said.

  “Well, besides the smoky haze, I could see things moving around inside. Various sizes. Very graceful. Almost … peaceful.”

  Lita stared at Triana for a moment, then said: “The thing you brought back. I take it that was one of the … graceful creatures inside the…” She chuckled. “I don’t know what to call anything.”

  A wry smile creased Triana’s face. “Well, for the sake of this discussion, and until we know more, let’s just continue to call the things outside our ship ‘vultures.’ We can call the floating blobs ‘amoebas.’ And the thing I brought back…”

  She hesitated, then finally shrugged.

  “Well, we all know exactly what it looks like, so let’s be blunt. We’ll call it a jellyfish.”

  3

  Do you ever wonder why some people are inherently good, while others seem to have been born under the sign of Stinkface? I’ve read thousands of papers from noted psychologists and sociologists and other-ologists who debate whether it’s genetic or environmental. In other words, some think you’re born with a Creep Gene, and others encourage you to blame it on your home life.

  Both sides are persuasive, and both might be right to some degree. I’ve given up trying to figure out where it comes from, and instead just wait for the made-for-TV movie to dramatize it with severe cello music in the background.

  And if you thought that Galahad was free and clear from bad eggs, then you must’ve skipped over the parts starring Merit Simms.

  * * *

  Hannah Ross stood in the hall, five feet from the door to Galahad’s clinic. It had been difficult enough to come this far; now the thought of actually going inside and speaking with Merit Simms made her almost sick to her stomach.

  She’d been content enough with her quiet life before the election, performing her assigned tasks in the ship’s work rotation, using her free time to either study the science behind their mission, or to scratch the artistic itch she felt to draw and paint. Life had been steady, almost calm.

  With one painful exception: her aborted relationship with Gap Lee.

  It was the feeling of rejection from Gap that had prompted her to accept Merit’s challenge to run for the vacant position of Council Leader. With no guarantee that Triana would survive her journey through the wormhole—or find her way back—the ship’s crew had nominated only two candidates. For the first time in weeks Hannah had been face-to-face with Gap as they campaigned for the top spot.

  Of course, Hannah had known all along that Merit carried his own agenda, with his own motive for persuading her to run. He was fueled by his intense hatred of Gap, and his blinding desire for revenge. Gap had outwitted Merit in front of the entire crew, damaging Merit’s following, and unveiling the California native as a saboteur.

  For Hannah, however, her decision wasn’t based on revenge. Instead she’d been impelled to show Gap that she was much more than a quiet brain. For the first time in her life she’d felt the need to prove herself.

  With Triana’s unexpected return a fog now lifted. Hannah felt herself gradually emerging from a world that, in all honesty, felt alien to her from the start. And, when Merit maliciously led Gap to believe that there was also a personal relationship between Merit and Hannah, something snapped. The hurt on Gap’s face stung her, and once again caused her to question her decisions.

  Merit was now on the other side of the door, recovering from wounds brought on by the violent concussion caused by the wormhole that had delivered Triana. What had brought Hannah to this point? A need to confront Merit for the way he’d manipulated the conversation with Gap?

  Or was it a chance for her to exorcise her own demons, using Merit as a tool to relieve her own conscience?

  Perhaps it was both.

  The door to Sick House opened and a crew member walked out, dodging Hannah in the hallway and giving her a curious look. Go in, she silently told herself. Quit stalling.

  She stepped inside to find Lita’s assistant, Manu, leaning over his desk, tapping a keyboard. He looked up and gave her the same quizzical look she’d encountered in the hall.

  “Hi, Ha
nnah,” he said. “Everything okay?”

  “Oh … yes,” she said. “I’m actually here to see Merit.” When Manu raised an eyebrow she quickly added: “If that’s okay.”

  “Uh, sure. He’s awake.” Manu motioned toward the hospital ward of the clinic. “He’s on pain medication, but otherwise he’s doing okay. Go on in.”

  She thanked him and made her way inside. A couple of the beds were occupied near the door, but those crew members—also victims of the wormhole blast—appeared to be asleep. The dark-haired boy at the other end of the room noticed her entry, and smirked.

  “Well, well,” he said as she approached his bed. “Look who stopped by. The Alaskan Queen.”

  Hannah ignored his jab. “I see you’re back to your old nasty self.” She pointed to the cast on his arm. “I also see that no one has signed that. Surprise, surprise.”

  Merit lifted up a hand to push a long strand of black hair from his face. Heavy sarcasm dripped from his voice. “Yes, but I’m touched that you came to check on me. Nice to know how much you care.”

  “You’re a first-class creep, Merit. I’m here to let you know that your little game in front of Gap was sickening. And to also let you know that I don’t ever want you to come near me again. Understood?”

  Merit recoiled with an exaggerated look of shock. “Hannah! After all we’ve meant to each other!”

  She shook her head. “To tell you the truth, I can’t believe you made it past Dr. Zimmer. You must’ve put on quite a show for those two years in order to be selected for this mission.”

  He chuckled, then winced with pain. “Ugh, don’t make me laugh; it hurts to do that. Broken ribs, remember?” Tilting his head to one side, he looked up at her with a sneer. “And don’t sound so superior, Hannah. You worked right alongside me during that campaign.”

  “And it’s a choice I’ll regret for a long time,” she said. “This is not a long social call. I’ve said what I wanted to say to you.” She turned to leave.