Twin Paradox Book One

Chapter Thirteen: All Ears

January 10, 2021 King Everett Medlin Season 1 Episode 13
Twin Paradox Book One
Chapter Thirteen: All Ears
Show Notes Transcript

Kelvin and his trusted protege' Ozzie Guerrero have succeeded in leading their colleagues down to the beaches of the Great Kapteyn Sea where they've gathered samples of soil and sea water.  Now a determination can be made as to whether the vast ocean possesses the necessary components for Humans to eventually farm it.  All indications are that the results will be positive.  Only problem is that one particular individual has proven to be unstable.  Whether caused by a malfunction within the reanimation process or other factors remains to be seen.  Nonetheless a brand new challenge faces the brave crew of the Santa Maria; not to mention the soon to be hard-pressed colonists of Kapteyn B. 

Hello, and welcome back to Twin Paradox.  I'm King Everett Medlin and what you're hearing is a SciFi trilogy I wrote four years ago under the pseudonym Purple Hazel.  Twin Paradox follows my first podcast series entitled Deathwalker Colony, which is now a full length novel available for purchase on Amazon.  It's on sale today in E-book format, as well as the first two books in the Rijel 12 Series, The Rise of New Australia and Return of Anarchy.  

Tonight we continue with Part 3.  Kelvin and his trusted protege' Ozzie Guerrero have succeeded in leading their colleagues down to the beaches of the Great Kapteyn Sea where they've gathered samples of soil and sea water.  Now a determination can be made as to whether the vast ocean possesses the necessary components for Humans to eventually farm it.  All indications are that the results will be positive.  Only problem is that one particular individual has proven to be unstable.  Whether caused by a malfunction within the reanimation process or other factors remains to be seen.  Nevertheless a brand new challenge faces the brave crew of the Santa Maria; not to mention the soon to be hard-pressed colonists of Kapteyn B.

Twin Paradox is a SciFi series encompassing three full length novels; all of which will be read in their entirety during the coming weeks.  You can go online and download the E-books ... or if you prefer, tune in and listen to me read them to you.  So let's keep going. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Twin Paradox, Part Three:  Journey and Conquest.  Chapter Thirteen, All Ears ....





 

 Back on board, both exploration teams were hailed as heroes.  True to form, Kelvin deferred credit to his fellow squad members, highlighting Oswaldo’s heroic run and before that his cleverness in discovering a path down to the beach.  Commander Cadorna by way of comparison seemed to want to seize all the glory for himself, detailing how he’d “calmly walked out into the surf” and “felt the sensations of seawater rushing past my boots”.  Kelvin rolled his eyes and let Captain Stehter piece it together on his own.   

The lieutenant needn’t clarify just who or whom had reached the ocean first.  The Captain added it up rather easily.  No way in hell it was that little Italian fellow - saying that he’d reached the water’s edge before anyone else.  Steinhart was much smarter than that.  He’d write his report later that day and credit both commanders equally, which is what he’d have assumed Kelvin would prefer.  His young officer was a team player, not some selfish fame-seeker.  If only he’d known how this personal insult would later affect Luigi Cadorna - when the commander found out what was in Captain Stehter’s report. 

                                                                                                   ******** 

Within a week, Santa Maria set down in the same dry sea bed, some distance from B-lander.  Because of its girth; a full two-thirds larger than B-lander and covering an area the size of a large metropolitan sports stadium, Santa Maria needed plenty of room to “park”.  For one thing, the dust cloud it created when landing covered B-lander in a layer of sandy dirt; if any living thing had been near it when touching down it would have been incinerated.  The other reason for the great distance between the two ships was just as valid:  the mother ship would create an even bigger whirlwind taking off a year later when it departed for Earth. 

Afterward, surplus crew, who’d been sent with the colonists down to the surface, trudged across cracked, dusty soil to Santa Maria, happily returning to their former home.  Ironically the majority of them missed the place; especially after suffering on board B-lander, sharing sleeping berths with their colleagues and grabbing short naps when it came their turn to go get some “rack time”.  Others by way of comparison didn’t bother with the assigned sleep rotation and braved the surface in tents which “popped open" upon activation and provided both internal heating as well as breathable oxygen.  The crew jokingly took to calling these devices “Jiffy Pops”.   

No predators were ever identified - only curious insects collecting on them whenever they’d venture into wooded areas.  The big dragon-fly looking bug that the crew of Rover One had witnessed alighting on their windscreen?  No one reported ever seeing it again, or anything like it for that matter, so folks began to question whether there were more of them.  The concern was always that if there were larger-sized bugs, there might just as well be carnivores that would feast upon them, and that might indicate the presence of a very large reptile (or salamander, like Young-Min had mentioned).  However no such beast materialized.  Again, most people assumed it was just too cold for such a creature to exist. 

The ocean however was a different story.  Water temperatures in the Great Kapteyn Sea were surprisingly warmer than what had been assumed, given the frigid climate in the interior.  Because of this scientists theorized there may be some form of volcanic activity far beneath the surface which heated the ocean from below.  It certainly went a long way in explaining the abundance of aquatic life they eventually found!  The ocean was teaming with it.  They found so many species of fish and plant life, they couldn’t possibly name them all.  Paddling out in inflatable rafts which B-lander had stored in its cargo bay, several teams of crewmembers, accompanied by a few marine-biologists who were among the many educated people on the mission, took hundreds of samples.   

That said, they almost became a “sample” themselves, when a large aquatic lizard, similar in features to a Galapagos Marine Iguana, reared its ugly head from the murky depths.  It didn’t snap at them, just poked its head above the waves and eyed them for a few moments before submerging.  It was about five meters from one of the inflatable rafts when it did so; startling everyone present.  Judging by the size of its head, marine biologists estimated from head to tail the monster could have been upwards of eight, perhaps even ten meters long.  But it was believed this beast was merely a grazing animal that feasted upon subtidal algae and swam into the ocean from a rocky outcropping nearby.  Temperatures out by the seashore were much warmer than further inland and every “peak hour” during the day, when the Kapteyn sun reached its zenith, they probably laid out on those rocks to heat themselves.  They were deemed harmless to humans. 

Fish, they found, hunted insects alighting on the surface.  Large bugs were often seen venturing out to hunt for insect larvae.  Thus larger fish would often pop up to snare them for a juicy meal.  But as for the Iguana-looking sea monster?  They concluded he must have been foraging for algae nearby and surfaced momentarily just to see what they were.  That he was so incredibly large, could only mean he must have had no natural predators in the vicinity, some theorized.  These assurances were surely welcome news to the folks going out in those flimsy boats! 

The plan back at Space Programme had originally been to “seed” the planet's surface.  Exploration teams went out in surface rovers to obtain plant and tree samples wherever they could find them, and determine locations of any fresh water sources which could be rerouted in order to provide irrigation.  These took no time in finding however the water was going to be toxic for humans, so teams of scientists worked on figuring out how this could be treated in such a way to hydrate plants that could later be consumed by the colonists.   

Meanwhile a large 'grow facility' was to be constructed using materials brought along inside the cargo bay of the Santa Maria.  A mobile crane was provided, which was shipped in components just like the surface rovers had been, and had to be reassembled.  It could later be disassembled and much of it would be used in making the giant laser needed for firing a light beam capable of activating the Star Shot technology on Santa Maria when it was ready to return to Earth.  Since there were no apparent threats to the crew, folks immediately set to work building the colony. 

Yet even in the absence of any dangerous predators living out on the surface, life was terribly difficult!  High winds; frigid cold dogged them incessantly.  It was certainly going to be difficult getting through the ensuing months and most seemed to accept this.  Those who didn’t would simply have to deal with it, regardless of their fitness levels.  For some, the gravity and the harsh cold were more than they could bear at times.  Nevertheless, most everyone was dedicated and reliable.  B.J. for instance worked out there in that dusty lake bed right along with Shamiso and the other twins, helping to build the agricultural center.  Ozzie labored until his pressure suit was literally in tatters.  So did Kelvin.  So did practically everyone!  During that time pretty much all the crew and their officers did their fair share.  They knew what was at stake and pushed themselves as hard as they possibly could during those first three months.  As Kelvin would often say, “We work as a team, people.  It’s the only way we’re gonna get through this.”  Folks were expected to do their share in hopes of finishing the colony on time.  

Not everyone was a “good comrade” during that period unfortunately.  True, Captain Berwick and Captain Stehter were outstanding officers and in particular Tommy Berwick, who was in effect still the supreme commander.  He would remain so until he passed the reins to Steinhart the day he and the Away Team went into stasis for the return trip to Earth.  However, on the planet surface things were different.  There, Commander Cadorna was technically in command, and this authority he seemed to believe he possessed over everyone, regardless of who they reported to.  It turned him into a real … well many had their own term for it but others were more candid. 

“Asshole!” said B.J. one day, forgetting herself for a moment and not realizing her transmitter was on while she said it.  Perhaps she didn’t care anymore.  Not by then anyway.  At the time she was helping move some support beams with fellow crew members, most of whom were women, and as Kelvin passed by (he’d been field promoted to O-3 Lieutenant by Captain Berwick shortly after his heroic run to the ocean a couple months before) she looked over at her old friend and corrected herself.  “Not you of course Lieutenant, I meant uh … well, you know who I mean.”  He certainly did. 

Kelvin chuckled to himself and pretended not to notice.  If it had been anyone else, he’d very likely have addressed this blatant act of insubordination personally.  It was never allowed for a junior officer to refer to a superior in such a manner.  Could even lead to “disciplinary action” if the Captain believed it was detrimental to crew morale.  Then again, who could have disagreed with her?  Not by this point; months after B-lander had set down on the surface.  Indeed, Commander Cadorna had become a royal pain in the behind; pissing off practically everyone at one point or another.  Kelvin himself loathed having to report to the prickly little man.  No one else could stand him either.   

Such a strange transformation ....  

 

Luigi Cadorna had been a perfect candidate for colony commander.  No one could have denied that.  Said all the right things.  Came from a good family.  Top of his class back at college in Milan.  He had it all.  The best selection for the job, hands down.  He had a worthy background, had known all the right people, had interviewed well, and was once married into the powerful Habsburg family.  Sadly his wife had passed away years earlier after a long battle with Leukemia, which had left him a widower at only 36 years of age.  They had no children together.  Yet this served in making him ideal for the job right from the start.  No real ties back on Earth – what’s more, fully qualified for the position. 

He’d been promoted to commander and had gone into stasis shortly before launch right along with all the other future colonists – many of whom he’d developed working relationships with.  Absolutely no one would have suspected something was wrong with him.  For that matter, if anything had been wrong, it should have been identified during psychological examinations performed by Space Programme long before launch day.  These were administered.  He’d passed all of them, and done acceptably well in fitness testing too. 

Yet something about Cadorna had changed, and it was hard to define.  True, no one had really known him that well before the voyage.  No one had known his wife or what he’d gone through following her death.  No one had grown up with him or palled around with him back in college.  Certainly, both Berwick and Stehter had known of him, prior to the mission.  They had met with him too, and chanced to go have a beer with him several times during training.  On those occasions he seemed both  amiable and professional.  “Quite a good mate, as I recall,” as Tommy would sometimes describe him when speaking with Captain Stehter - or in a rare moment when he felt compelled to confide in Lt. Kelvin.   

Nevertheless the man was clearly different from before, and suspicions arose among the two captains that something must have happened to him during his cryogenic freezing process.  He wasn’t the only example of this.  Another crewmember never fully recovered during physical therapy.  Her left leg would continually go numb whenever walking great distances, causing her to fall behind and occasionally require a rover to be sent for her.  This concerned both captains immensely.  Could there be something wrong with the machines themselves?  The stasis machines, that is?  Could there be a malfunction?  Kelvin picked up on this whenever the two captains were discussing the matter.  Being the professional he was, he never spoke about it to anyone ....

  

“You know what he said to me … that putz?” B.J. continued.  Kelvin of course had to wave her off.  He did not dare involve himself in conversation with a subordinate regarding suspected personality disorders in a superior officer.  She was about to tell him how Cadorna had referred to her as a “Puttana pigro” for which there was a clear, direct translation into English.  What it meant in Italian wasn’t very nice.   

At the time he’d said it, Commander Cadorna had been having some sort of conniption fit over workers taking breaks inside the B-lander during a fierce windstorm.  Structures unfinished were withering under the strain and supervisors on the building site had ordered them inside until the danger subsided.  That apparently had been the trigger. 

Kelvin knew what she was going to tell him.  He’d heard all about it by then.  To be sure he’d experienced something just like it personally – when the crazy fellow seemed to be challenging him to fisticuffs over what to name the Great Kapteyn Sea!  Others had complained already – and often.  It seemed the angry little man, so charming when he’d first been selected commander back on Earth, had become a real nuisance:  a petty tyrant; dressing down subordinates and flying into a rage whenever he became paranoid that his staff were slacking in their work.  It was barely understandable given the circumstances.   

Acts of overt laziness or dereliction of duty could never be tolerated.  That was understood.  But it was the way he went about things.  He rubbed people raw; and the combination of pressures:  the crushing gravity, the extreme cold they had to deal with, right along with the absurd timetables for tasks he often assigned them to, drove many to exhaustion and even elicited brave pleas to Captains Berwick and Stehter for intervention.   

“With all due respect; we’re not talking about mutiny here, Captain.  We just need you to do something about this bloke.  He’s deluded, I’m telling you.  Paranoid and unreasonable,” declared one of the Australian colonists who’d had a recent run-in with the little Italian.  “If he’s gonna run this colony after you go well … I’m not so sure we colonists can take much more of this.”  Tommy Berwick could only thank the young man for his candor.   

“Thank you Ensign, that will be all,” he replied in a kindly voice, and the young officer saluted, then exited Tommy’s cabin on the Santa Maria.   

The captain tried and tried to come up with a solution but alas … nothing quite made sense.  The situation put Berwick in the position of either having to tolerate the man’s erratic behavior until the Santa Maria departed; or discipline him in such a way that he’d be compelled to comply with proper rules of etiquette toward subordinates.  That said, doing so might be dangerous, whichever way he ultimately went about it.  Cadorna could be demoted for one, and a different officer moved up.  Unfortunately just who to replace him with was the issue.  He truly thought about it, that’s for sure!  But in the end he recognized that might not be the best option.  Cadorna could be chastised privately, and that might inspire an improvement.  However … Captain Berwick knew better than to do that.  If word got out, junior officers might lose respect for their commander and a mutiny would be the result the moment Santa Maria took off for Earth.  That would be detrimental to the survival of the colony.  At least with the current situation, he had to admit, even if the guy was a “tosser”, the colony’s construction was progressing rather nicely, either because of Cadorna’s tantrums or in spite of them.  In those first few months it was anyone’s guess which might truly be the case. 

B.J. meanwhile had the ear of her lover Steinhart; and she leveraged their time together to get the latest scoop on what he and Berwick were planning on doing about it.  She and Steinhart would often toddle off together on “special exploration missions” using a spare surface rover.  They might even spend an afternoon stealing away from the worksite to go “take some samples” from nearby forests that were really just sporadic clumps of trees near mountain runoff streams up in the nearby hills.  They’d drive off for an hour, “inflate” their pop-up tent, then make love for an hour or two before heading back in time for chow.  B.J. would then carry back containers full of tree leaves or acquired insect larvae and turn them in to research labs onboard Santa Maria, before slipping into the chow line acting like nothing had happened.  It was a great way to take a little break from her tyrannical boss but it came with a price.  The next day she’d catch holy hell from Commander Cadorna who’d call her filthy names in Italian then assign her to the heaviest work detail.  This would send her pleading to Steinhart for intervention once again. 

Schnucki, I can’t take any more of this.  Really.  We’ve gotta do something,” she’d tell him, sighing and laying back on the inflatable floor mat after they’d been intimate together.  “Can’t you get me out of this?  You outrank him after all.  Tell him I’ve been reassigned.  Tell him … shit, I don’t know … tell him to go fuck himself if you wanna.  Fuck if I care.  He’s a maniac, I’m tellin’ ya’.”  

To this Steinhart could only appease her feebly.   

Süsse I know.  Really.  I know all about it.  I’m hearing it practically every day.  He’s unmanageable.  Tommy and I are both quite verwirrt I can assure you.”  Still, nothing was done about Luigi Cadorna.  His reign of terror continued. 

After a particularly abusive run-in with the commander, she’d finally had enough.  She blurted out, “God damn it, Schnucki, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy more desperately in need of a blowjob in my entire life!  He’s fucking insane!  You’ve gotta do something!”  That’s when Steinhart finally had to pull rank. 

“Ensign, if you please madam, you are addressing a superior officer in regard to the mental competence of another senior officer and that’s grounds for disciplinary measures.”   

To this B.J. merely asked with a sexy grin, “Does that mean you’re gonna tie me up again?”  Captain Stehter could only laugh embarrassedly.   

“No Liebling, not this time.  But please, for my sake and yours, let’s keep these discussions private if you would.  Both of us – the captain and myself – have discussed it and we’ve determined that it’s best to focus on getting the colony established as quickly as possible so we can depart this place before….“   

“Before what, Schnucki?  Before he kills somebody?  ‘Cause he’s gonna.  The little turd is gonna drive us too hard and somebody’s gonna get killed, you can bet on it.”  

Captain Stehter could only embrace her naked body and reply, “I’m quite certain you’ll be right one of these days.  Really I am.  If only we had a good, workable solution to this, well ... I’d be all ears.”    




This concludes tonight's podcast of Twin Paradox, Chapter Thirteen:  All Ears.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Watch for episode fourteen; which I'll be posting very soon.  

Also, and don't forget, my latest full-length novel ... Deathwalker Colony ... is available right now in E-book format and can be downloaded today on Amazon.com, along with the first two books in the Rijel 12 Series, The Rise of New Australia and Return of Anarchy.  A link to these can be found in the transcript for this episode.

I'm King Everett Medlin.  Thanks for tuning in.

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