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Chapter 21

Chapter 21

December 5th 2157

Nick explained how by using his blood cells he was able to culture new cells that would remain in stem cell form until extra stimulus was given to them.  Then with the use of a modified Rickman-Allen Chamber he could grow organs from those stem cells.  Heart, kidneys, liver, bone and muscle could all be grown in just a few days and implanted into the patient without worry of rejection.

The two had been talking about the process for close to an hour when a thought hit Logan.  "Dr... uh, Nick, are the Neo's ok with this process?  I thought that any study involving cloning was an act of war against the Neo's."

Nick's neck flushed a little red, as if embraced.  "Ah, well, the Neo's don't know that we have this capability, let alone have studied any of this process.  This has been my pet project for the past several years."

Logan was stupefied.  One man's poor choices would have lead him to trial with who knows what out come, but the company using his research and developed products was completely different.  He couldn't see any way around that this was an act of war against the Neo's.

Maybe Nick recognized the shock on Logan's face so he pushed forward to bolster an argument.  "As of right now this is all theoretical.  The tests haven't been done, I am only here as a precaution against the worst-case scenario.  If everything goes the way that I have planned then the Neo's will not even know about my studies."

Nick stopped talking and ushered in an uncomfortable silence between the two of them.  Logan glanced over at Nora, who was still engrossed in her feeds.  It was not likely that she overheard much of the conversation, specifically because she wasn't currently paying attention to them.

Nicks assistant stepped out of one of the rooms and waved for Nick to come to him.  Nick looked back to Logan and as he stood up said, "I hope that I can trust you with what I told you today.  There are several lives at risk if the wrong information gets out."  With that he hobbled over to his assistant, conversed with him for a moment, and then left the recovery room.

A war with the Neo's.  Neo's versus New Congo and the world.  It was almost a given that New Congo would win, simply because of the number of people who would be required to join the Security Forces if there was a war.  The ratio of soldiers would be somewhere around two hundred thousand to one.  But based on the numbers that died when the Neo's rebelled against the company, a war would severely cripple New Congo.

Logan thought about what he had just learned for a little while longer before becoming board with it.  He came to the conclusion that he would have to keep the information a secret.  Nothing good would come from sharing it.

He sat back in his seat and realized that he was once again by himself with nothing to do.  Nora was still occupied, and Logan decided to check his feeds to see if there was any hint into what their secret project would be.

He tapped his DNAC to activate it and noticed that there was a message in his inbox that was still unread.  It was the message that he had received right before being whisked out of his apartment and into space.  It was a large file with what looked like several hours of video as well as several text and picture documents.

Opening the file Logan was shocked to see Jake's face, he looked sad.  Playing the video Jake began to talk about how he was feeling as he rode the climber up the elevator to the space platform.  "I really wish," Jake said, " that I would have had proper time to say good bye to everyone.  Especially Logan, I'm going to miss him."  Jake's focus had been just off the side of the camera came back to the center of the screen.   He looked as if he were going to cry, but the video ended right then.

Logan was slightly shocked when he realized that he was crying.  It had been several months since he had learned about Jake's death, and he was just starting to come out of the depression that followed.  Now it seamed as if he had Jake's video diary and familiar feelings were pushing their way back into his mind.

Looking around quickly he was happy to notice no one still was paying attention to him.  He wiped his cheeks off and started the next video.  Logan continued on watching video after video, completely absorbed in this newfound world.  He traveled with his brother from the space platform to the Near Ring Station that Jake was stationed at.  Then he began to learn about Jake's fellow crewmembers with the help of five to ten minute video clips.

He had just started to play the next video titled "March 20th, 2157", when he noticed James was being assisted out of his room.  Logan quickly looked at his DNAC to stop the playback.  "Hey Mom, we found s...," The video stopped playing and Logan rose to help James to a seat.

James, Nora, and Logan quickly fell into the comfortable friendship that they once knew back at university.  Laughing about old times, and catching up with new.  It didn't take long before the three were once again speculating about where they were headed and what their jobs were going to be once we got there.

"Well, there couldn't be any more than, what six stations beyond the Near Asteroid Ring?" James asked the group.

 "Well," said Nora, "There is Europa, and Io."  She paused as if trying to think of any others.

"Callisto," Logan interjected.

"Yes, Callisto," Nora said while holding up a third finger.  "Titan, and..." once again she trailed off.  The group looked at each other looking for the answer.

When the answer didn't come, they switched gears and rolled pass the forgotten station.  "None of those stations are large enough to house, well half the people in this ship," James said.

"Unless we will be working out of this ship, I don't see how or what we will be doing out in the deep dark," Logan added.

The group sat and stared at each other for more than several minutes, and it was James that broke the silence.  "What if there was a discovery of some sort?"

"A discovery?" questioned Nora.  "What do you mean?"

"Well..." James lapsed in focus for a moment before returning.  "Well what if someone built a new ship capable of traveling to another solar system in, I don't know, maybe a few years rather than centuries."

"No," Nora was quick, "what reason would there be to have several linguists traveling to the fringes of the system.  We could more easily do the work from Earth and transmit the info to a station or ship."

"Unless they expected a high chance of encountering an intelligent alien race," James pointed out.  Once again the group was silent thinking about the possibilities.  The simple science was that aliens existed.  Living bacteria was found under the ice of Europa, shortly after the Europa Station was established. There was also a yet to be classified organism that lived in the liquid hydrogen of Saturn.  The organism hasn't been classified yet because studding such an organism has yet been almost impossible.

"Enceladus!"  Logan blurted out.

Both Nora and James looked at Logan with shock, "What," they both said simultaneously.

"Enceladus is the last station that we couldn't remember before.  The sixth station."   Logan was smiling and proud of himself for having remembered.

 "What if we received contact from an intelligent race of aliens?"  Nora said as she turned back to James.  "What if we received a transmission and they need us to translate it?"


James nodded his head, "that would explain all of the linguists and engineers, but why would we need so many Special Forces?"

"I don't know," Nora said.  "Maybe the transmission came from closer than we were expecting.  Maybe we are worried about a possible threat."

Logan was reminded about the conversation that he had with Doctor Nick a few hours ago.  "I was talking to Doctor Nick Allen, and he thought that there was a high chance of danger including bodily harm.  Maybe there is a threat of attack."

Logan had to restrain himself from saying too much more.  He didn't want to accidentally let slip that Doctor Allen had actually been working on cloning parts of the human body.  As Nora and James discussed further possibilities, Logan tried unsuccessfully to bury his knowledge of the doctors work deep in the back of his mind.