“You’re right, Commander,” Dobbins said. “Our mission is nowhere near over. We’re going to need some help.” He activated his hyperwave. “Dobbins to Hyperion.”
“Hyperion. Brackers here, sir. How did it work?”
“Quite well, Commander. All of the androids are neutralized, including the Mayor.”
“Sir?” Brackers’s voice betrayed total confusion.
“I’ll fill you in later, Commander. For now, get three shuttles ready for launch. We’re going to head to the control room to make docking a little easier for them, and then we’ll see if we can get the Lethe’s passengers and human crew together to fill them in on the situation.”
“I think we have already partially completed that second part of our mission, sir,” Skylar called from the far side of the room.
He had gone to stand by the large windows that overlooked the town square. Down below, a vast crowd had gathered, all roaming around and looking confused. They stayed away from the steps of the Town Hall, as if they expected someone to come out of the doors at any minute.
Dobbins walked over to look. “Well, that changes our plans a little.”
He spoke again into the hyperwave. “Mr. Brackers, launch those shuttles as soon as they are ready. We’ll have docking ports ready. Perhaps we’ll be able to have some good news to report by the time you get here. Dobbins out.
“Mr. Zhang, Mr. Sapens, go to the Control Center and get the docking bay doors open and three docking ports free. The rest of you, come with me. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”
They exited the Mayor’s office and descended to the main level. Zhang and Sapens continued down to the Control Center, while the rest of the team moved to the main doors of the Town Hall.
Dobbins paused before going through the doors. Outside, he could hear the murmuring crowd as it congregated. The tone of their voices indicated confusion and worry. He pushed the doors open. The crowd outside quickly became deathly quiet in anticipation. The silence lasted exactly three seconds before a great outcry of panic and confusion erupted. People shouted over other people, some asking questions of each other, some yelling questions at Dobbins, and everyone creating such a cacophony of voices that he could not understand anything being said.
The crowd of well over 1000 people consisted of men and women of just about every age from teenagers upward. Most were dressed in the simple clothing of farmers. All, however, seemed genuinely distressed at Dobbins’s appearance on the Town Hall steps.
Dobbins motioned with his hands to try to silence the crowd, but his effort initially met with little success. Finally, a middle-aged man climbed up four or five steps and with much effort managed to quiet the crowd.
“Citizens of Larson,” the man said, “I have no idea why this man is standing here instead of our Mayor, nor why old Leon the Watchmaker is here with him, but I am sure that there is a good reason if we will only allow him to explain himself.”
“Is he going to explain what happened to all of our security personnel, Micah?” demanded a man near the front of the throng.
“I don’t know what he knows,” responded Micah, “but give him a chance to explain himself. Perhaps the Mayor sent him here.”
The crowd began to shout approval and disapproval of the suggestion at the same time. With some effort Micah quieted them all again. “Let him speak, I said,” he ordered strongly. “After that, if his answers aren’t to your satisfaction, you’ll all be welcome to ask as many questions as you wish, provided that we do it in some sort of order to give the poor man a chance to hear you. As it is, I’d be surprised if he’s understood a thing you’ve been shouting at him. So, everyone calm down, stop shouting, and listen.”
He turned to face Dobbins, looking at the captain with a look of confused interest.
Dobbins began to speak, “I am Captain Christopher Dobbins of the Earth Hyper Ship Hyperion. We have been sent here to escort you the rest of the way to Elysion…”
The crowd began to erupt again into a wave of noise. “He’s nuts!” some shouted. “He’s a Radioactive!” others screamed. “Let him speak,” a third group clammered, “there’s got to be an explanation for his presence here.”
Micah again motioned for the crowd to quiet down, which they eventually did, allowing Dobbins to continue.
“Apparently,” Dobbins said, “your Mayor, Dante, took over many years ago and has been lying to you. You are not on Earth at all. You are on a generational starship, the Lethe, bound for an inhabitable moon named Elysion.” Some in the crowd began to grumble again. “Listen to me!” Dobbins shouted over the noise, stifling the dissent. “Your Mayor, as you call him, has deceived you into thinking that you are the sole remnants of nuclear holocaust. That was not true. Like I said, you are passengers aboard a starship, colonists for a new world. We were sent here to help you complete your journey to this new world.”
“And why should we believe you?” demanded the same man who had challenged Micah earlier. “For all we know, you’re some group of survivors from a different town that managed to cross the radioactive waste to get here. Maybe you’ve killed the Mayor or thrown him in prison, and know you’re here to try to take over with this absurd story of a starship. As far as I’m concerned, you’re whole story is too convenient. A starship? Really? If we are on a starship, why is it that I can clearly see blue sky above me with the sun rising and setting? Why is it that this world is all that there is and that it is impossible to leave this valley without dying?” Many in the crowd muttered their approval.
“We could be lying,” Dobbins answered, “but we’re not. We can prove to you that your Mayor, Desmond, was not who he claimed to be. As far as the appearances around you, you should know about holography. The sky you see is just a holographic projection. And of course you can’t leave this ‘valley.’ To do so would require you to leave the ship.”
Cries of protest broke out again. This time, Micah spoke up over them, “Captain, you say that you have proof that Desmond was lying?”
“We do, Micah,” answered Dobbins. “If you will give me a couple of minutes, we can bring the proof down to you.”
Micah addressed the crowd. “People of Larson, I say that we give this Dobbins the chance to prove his claims. He needs a couple of minutes to bring us this proof…”
“More like manufacture it,” shouted a cynical voice from the middle of the crowd, drawing scattered laughter.
“To bring us his proof,” Micah repeated, “that the Mayor has been lying to us. At that point, you all will be able to see and judge for yourselves.”
“Hey, Micah, remember that we still don’t know why every member of our security force is unconscious. Perhaps this Dobbins can explain that,” another voice called, to the approval of many.
“Yes, I can.” Dobbins responded, “if you will give me one second to send some of my team to retrieve the proof of Desmond’s lies.
He spoke to his team in a quiet voice, “Skylar, Samuelson, go up to Desmond’s office and get Desmond down here as fast as you can. Bring all of the pieces that you can carry.”
They quickly went back through the doors, running for the stairwell.
Dobbins raised his voice to the crowd. “Your security personnel are all androids. We had to disable them because they were preventing us from contacting you and because they posed a threat to us and to you. They are the ones who have been enforcing Desmond’s will upon you.”
Again, disbelief ran through portions of the crowd. “Androids? How can that be?” someone asked.
“Androids! Of course,” another said in response, “it makes perfect sense. Think about the odd color of their eyes!”
A debate broke out within the crowd, some agreed with Dobbins and others vehemently objecting to the idea.
As before, Micah exerted much effort to quiet the crowd, finally succeeding. By the time he had done so, however, Skylar and Samuelson had returned, each carrying various pieces of Desmond.
“Here,” Dobbins said, motioning to the pieces of the android, “is our proof of Desmond’s lies: Desmond himself. He was an android.”
The crowd stared at the pieces of their former mayor in shock. Finally, a woman in the crowd found her voice. “If he’s an android,” she said, “then you can reassemble and activate him, again. Show us that this is truly him and not just a clever forgery.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Dobbins responded. “Desmond overloaded its neural network about fifteen minutes ago. The physical pieces are here, but even if we were to activate it, nothing would happen. This android is in need of a major overall before it will ever function again.”
At this statement, yet another argument broke out among the crowd. This time, Micah was unable to quiet the multitude despite his best efforts. As the arguing raged, Dobbins’s hyperwave chirped.
Activating it, he spoke, “Dobbins here.”
“Captain,” Brackers’s voice said, “Brackers. We have those shuttles ready, and Mr. Zhang reports that the docking bay is now ready to accept them.”
“Excellent, Commander. Send them over at once. It looks like we’re going to need a lot of help.”
“Aye, sir,” replied the first officer. “Hyperion out.”
Someone in the crowd noticed Dobbins talking on the hyperwave. “Hey, Dobbins, who are you talking to?” she shouted.
“My ship,” Dobbins answered her. At this, even more noise broke out, voices shouting about invading armies and the destruction of Larson.
As the chaos mounted, Dobbins grabbed his blaster, set it to maximum, and blew the light post on the right-hand side of the stairs into pieces. As the debris cloud cleared, the crowd stared at him in shock.
“My apologies,” Dobbins said, “but I needed you attention. Please, listen to me. We will gladly answer any and all concerns that you have, but we need to do it in an orderly fashion.”
“Captain Dobbins is right,” Micah added before Dobbins could continue. “And I propose that we do it this way: as a crowd, we’re never going to accomplish anything except a riot. Why don’t we hold a town meeting, in one hour, in the main assembly hall?”
Despite minor protests, this plan appeared acceptable to almost all of the passengers. They slowly made their way out of the town square, some heading directly for the assembly hall on the far side of the square, others down various side streets to attend to whatever business they need to handle before coming to the meeting.
“Thank you, Micah,” Dobbins said.
“My pleasure, Captain,” replied Micah. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for someone else to come to free us from the tyranny of Desmond’s rule. I thought I was going to be found out for sure.”
“You weren’t brainwashed like the rest of the passengers?” asked Ella.
“No, ma’am,” answered Micah. “Let’s just say that I found creative ways to avoid being taken in.”
“Sounds like Leon,” Skylar observed.
“You mean that there’s someone else?” Micah asked.
“Yes,” Dobbins answered. “Leon Sapens, the chief engineer.”
“Well, I’ll be…” Micah said in surprise. “I thought for sure I was the only one left.”
He paused for a second, as if pondering the reality that he was not alone, and then added, “Captain, I suggest you prepare for the meeting coming up. It is not going to be easy to convince these people that what they’ve been told for the past 10 years is all lies.”
“We will,” Dobbins said, “but who are you? What was your original role on the Lethe?”
“My first name you already know,” Micah replied. “My last name is Packard, and I was one of the colonists headed to the new world, primarily intending to be a member of the medical clinic’s staff.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, Captain, I need to head to the Assembly Hall to make sure that it is set up properly for this meeting.” He descended the steps at a moderate pace and strode off purposefully, not showing any signs of hurry
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