The Ship Finder: Young Adult Edition

First and foremost I thank my wife, Sheryl, an English teacher, for her patience and hard work to make suggestions, correct grammar, and support my efforts to write The Ship Finder. I also thank my daughter, Melody, for her thorough scrub of the first few chapters based on her acting experience.

The Sci-Fi Fantasy Critique Group of the Tri-Valley Chapter of the California Writers' Club also deserves my gratitude for their ideas on how to improve my story and the way I told it. Members of that group include Patricia Boyle, Gary Kumfert, and Shelley Riley (author of Casual Lies – A Triple Crown Adventure.) Shelley suggested that I modify the original edition of The Ship Finder to create this second edition so it would be suitable for young adult (13 years old and older) as well as mature readers. Patricia read the entire manuscript of the first edition and made many comments that helped me immensely.

In addition, the California Writers' Club primary critique group also provided important input. That group includes Patrick D. Coyle, George Cramer, Stacy Gustafson, Marrilyn Slade, Victoria Emmons, Laura Bolin, Diane Lovitt, Bill Danenhower, Elaine Schmitz, Sherry Nadworny, Maryann Shaffer, and Hector Timourian.

Beta readers who read my near-final manuscript and made suggestions include my aunt, Betty Bechquenturian; Chrys Piliotis; Ed Clark; Anita Haraughty; my cousin, Sally Harris; and retired NASA colleague, Larry Sammons, who gave me tips on the use of shaped charges. Larry passed away in the latter half of 2013, and many of his friends and I miss him.

My cousin, Dr. William E. Sponsel, made suggestions on how to improve passages related to medicine after he read the first few chapters of the manuscript.

Another colleague, retired from NASA, Ann Sullivan, deserves my thanks as well. Her excellent book, From Hopeless to Hopeful: Raising an Older Adopted Child, provides very important information, especially about the adoption of children from Russia. Her descriptions of reactive attachment disorder (RAD) helped me better describe one of the characters in The Ship Finder.

Finally, my co-worker Mike Mewhinney, who retired from NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., as News Chief, urged me to complete this book. Earlier in his career Mike had worked for the Associated Press as well as for newspapers. He is also a great editor who taught me a lot when I worked as a public affairs officer at NASA.

Chapter 1 – Encounter in the Park

(April 3, 2061 – 10 a.m., Northern California) Distant blue flashes grabbed his attention. He slowed his pace. Curious, he ran faster, easily propelling his 195-pound, six-foot, two-inch body in the direction of the flashes. He drew in a deep breath, and the clean smell of spring air filled his lungs.

Thirty-five-year-old Dr. William Wilson, renowned physician and DNA scientist, jogged another hundred yards along the park path. Then he saw an unshaven man lying on the dirt beside the trail. As Wilson came closer, he at first figured the man was a drunk.

But then Wilson noticed that one of the man's arms was bent at an odd angle under his torso. Wilson stopped. The man's long, gray hair was uncombed. His face was scratched, his lips bled, and his clothes were ripped.

Wilson wondered, Is he unconscious? As a rule, Wilson reacted to medical emergencies calmly, but something about this situation made him uneasy. When he knelt on the gravel beside the rumpled man, stones bit into Wilson's knees.

The man fought to lift his eyelids, and severe pain showed on his face as he looked directly into Wilson's brown eyes. I've been shot, he said in a foreign accent.

I'm a doctor. Where are you hit?

In the chest . . . ray wound.

Had he said, Ray wound? A small burn hole went through his shirt. Wilson detected a fruity odor and the smell of smoke lingering in the air. He had never seen nor heard of a ray wound.

He cut the man's shirt open with a penknife. Blue-green fluid seeped from what looked like a large burn around a charred hole just under his rib cage.

Wilson thought, The blue-green fluid could be caused by a drug resistant bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, that's highly contagious. It can form on burns and has a fruity smell. These germs came to the Bay Area from Eastern Europe, carried by people with compromised immune systems, like drug addicts. This guy's accent sounded Russian.

Wilson unzipped his medical fanny pack, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and took a big bandage and a roll of white tape from his pack.

As he ripped a piece of tape off the roll, he considered, Maybe this man is delirious and confused. The burn could actually be several days old, and maybe the bullet cut open an infection on the burn.

Wilson taped a dressing over the ugly hole and damaged skin around it but left the bottom of the bandage loose. If the hole was a gunshot wound, the loose bandage would prevent the increase of air pressure within the man's chest cavity. High internal pressure could squeeze his heart, and cause it to fail.

Wilson snatched his stethoscope and listened to the man's chest. Air flow in his right lung was weak. Even so, the man might have just a minor lung collapse, if he was lucky. His heart beat was twice as fast as it should have been.

The lung isn't so bad, but I don't know what other internal injuries there could be. I need to get him to the hospital quickly, but not necessarily at breakneck speed, Wilson concluded.

It hurts, the man strained to say. Inner One, guide me, he mumbled, delirious. His accent did sound Russian.

I need to roll you over, Wilson said. I must see if the shot went through.

Drag me into the bushes. Hurry, the man said. My enemy is near.

Wilson paused, and scratched his brown hair. The man shook, and a fruity smoke smell still lingered. Wilson glanced around. He saw no one, but to calm the man, Wilson hauled him a few feet into the bushes on the path's edge.

Did you get burned on your chest a few days ago? Wilson asked.

I told you I was just hit, he said, more alert now.

But are you sure you weren't burned a few days ago? Wilson repeated. I saw blue-green liquid come from your wound, which could indicate an infection.

The fluid is normal. It helps to seal the wound.

I'm going to roll you over, Wilson reminded the man. Why would he say the fluid would close his injury? Wilson rolled him over. Good news. No exit wound.

Reach into my right pocket, the man said. Wilson saw that the man's other pocket was ripped, but his right pocket was still intact. Take my weapon. You'll need it. It will answer your questions. An odd, crooked smile formed on his pale face.

Wilson found a strange, dark green pistol and a white plastic page in the man's pocket. There was a diagram on the sheet, and Wilson put the page in his hip pocket.

The heavy, plastic weapon amazed him. It had a six-inch barrel, but no borehole. Instead, a copper-like screen covered the barrel tip where bullets would have exited a normal firearm. The sight was a small, flip-up gadget with a sturdy inch-square, TV-like screen. It had a crosshair cut into its white, plastic face. Maybe this weapon was just a fancy plaything, but it weighed more than a normal toy and looked well-made.

What's this? Wilson asked.

A ray gun. Turn it on. The enemy will soon be here to finish me – to blow me into a million bits. They'll kill you, too, if you don't stop them.

How's it work?

Push the yellow button under the barrel.

Wilson pressed the button, and a sharp, color picture popped onto the gun's small sightscreen. He saw a close up view of where he pointed the pistol.

Try it. Aim at that rock, the man said as he nodded at a boulder.

Wilson trained the weapon at the big hunk of granite thirty feet away, and he squeezed the trigger. A silent, blue line struck the rock forming a small round hole, which sizzled. A breeze blew smoke and the acrid scent of burned rock towards the men. The weapon was soundless. Wilson was impressed. He had fired a real ray gun, a weapon that he thought only existed in science fiction.

Who are the people who are after you? Wilson asked.

They're a human-robot mix, and they carry ray rifles.

Wilson instantly concluded that the man was high on drugs or insane. Yet his wound and the ray pistol were real. And as odd as his gun was, it sighted and fired like any other pistol. Wilson slipped the weapon into his sweat shirt pocket.

Where are you from? Wilson asked.

You won't believe me, the man cautioned. He looked into Wilson's eyes. I'm from Sunev. It's a planet in another dimension.

Oh, Wilson said, nodding. The man might have had an amazing pistol, but he still could be a crazed addict. Maybe he's the victim of a bad drug deal.

I'm an explorer, and I represent my world, he said. My name is Richard Raven.

He doesn't look crazy, but insanity isn't always obvious.

"I'm Bill Wilson. Why are you being hunted?" Maybe Raven is a paranoid schizophrenic or a drug addict who thinks enemies are after him.

My world is at war with an enemy planet. Most of their soldiers are cyborgs, Raven said.

Wilson had a hunch there was more to Richard Raven's story. Why didn't the cyborg kill you? Wilson asked.

I fired back – hurt him. He fled to his vehicle.

Are more on the way? Wilson asked. Maybe a drug pusher will be back with his pals to do in Richard Raven.

The cyborgs can self-heal. If he returned to his ship, more will soon come. Raven paled as the seconds ticked away.

We need to go to the hospital, Wilson said. My vehicle's a hundred yards away. Raven passed out as Wilson spoke.

Even if the man was crazy, somebody had shot him. That person, or persons, could be near. Wilson sprinted to his electric all-terrain vehicle, climbed in, turned the power key, and eased the ATV over small rocks that blocked the parking lot from the path. In less than a minute, he stopped near Raven who was still out cold.

Wilson opened the vehicle's back door and walked to where Raven lay. Wilson took a capsule of smelling salts from his fanny pack, broke the lozenge, and held it under Raven's nose until he awoke. Now, Wilson could move him into the ATV with less effort.

Let's go on three, Wilson said.

Okay. Be quick. The enemy is near, Raven said, his nostrils flaring. My alarm! A red light flashed on his wristwatch.

Wilson dragged Raven towards the ATV and began to sweat. The wounded man's legs wobbled as he gritted his teeth and struggled to walk. Wilson wrestled him into the vehicle's back seat, and Raven's head flopped to his chest as he again fainted.

There was a pop, and bits of glass sprinkled over Wilson's clothes. A death ray had shattered the front passenger window. He froze when he spotted a huge cyborg charging. The brute looked like a giant blond linebacker from the Oakland Raiders. His arm muscles formed knots, and his eyes were too close together.

Wilson's heart pounded, and his mouth was dry. He dove to the ground, thrashed about, and tugged to pull the ray pistol from his sweatshirt pocket. Fumbling to find the weapon's power button, he felt panic but finally pressed it. The soft purr of the gun calmed him. The cyborg was the only foe in sight, but he moved fast, charging like a big cat closing in for the kill, scattering bits of dirt and vegetation behind him.

Wilson was prone on the ground, clutching the ray gun. The feel of the pistol in his hand gave him confidence.

The silent blue line of the cyborg's next ray shot lingered for a moment in the air like a lightning strike in the night sky. Wilson felt warmth on his left temple and smelled burned hair that had been singed near his ear. The ray had just missed hitting him straight in the face.

He aimed his weapon at the cyborg, following him as he charged. Wilson took a normal breath, exhaled some air, relaxed, and squeezed the trigger. A blue ray raced at the fast moving cyborg. The shot hit him in the left leg, and he stumbled, spraying wild shots as he crashed to the ground. Multiple beam tracks, straight lines like tracer bullets, flew around Wilson.

Two shots hit the electric vehicle's roof, burning neat, round holes into it. Wilson kept low and dragged himself into the driver's seat. He floored the accelerator pedal, and the ATV jerked forward, flinging gravel and dirt to its rear. Wilson guided the rugged car east as it sped along the pathway away from nearby Interstate 680, deeper into Sunol Regional Wilderness Park.

He was out of his enemy's sight, so he hit the brakes, and the vehicle skidded to an abrupt stop. Wilson steered left off the gravel path to go north. After a few hundred yards he swung west into an area of scrubby bushes, driving two or three miles an hour to avoid making loud noises.

The Interstate was west of him as he approached the highway through the park's rough country. Wilson was not sure how far ahead the paved road was, but he knew he had gone the right way. He planned to ease onto the roadway, push the ATV as fast as it could go, and head north to the hospital.

As he crossed the uneven ground, he was careful not to steer into a hole, or flip the electric car over on the steep hills. With his eyes alert for any sign of his enemy, he picked his route with care. He stayed in tree shadows and behind bushes. If more cyborgs were to come, Wilson did not want them to see the ATV.

After a half mile Wilson saw Highway 680 ahead, up a small rise. Black mega storm clouds boiled in the far western sky, and minute bolts of lightning flashed in the distant darkness. Mega storms, a result of global warming, were nothing to ignore, even if they were slow to move.

He guided his vehicle between wild bushes and light green sapling trees up the rise and onto the road. Then he jammed the accelerator pedal to the floor, and wind whipped through the broken passenger-side window. The rush of fresh air made him more alert as the ATV barreled forward at eighty miles an hour. Wilson didn't care if the police saw him speed. He could use their help.

He now believed the man's story. When Raven gasped for air, Wilson glanced back at him.

At first the cyborg didn't know you had the pistol, Raven fought to say. That saved us. My Inner One foretold it.

Wilson reckoned it would take three to five minutes to get to Metro General Hospital, which was in San Ramon, a quarter-mile east of the freeway. He grabbed his mobile phone from the front seat to call the police.

Wait! Don't call the cops, Raven screeched. I can't have you tell them that I'm not from Earth.

I need to call the police, Wilson thought. He punched in 91, but like an agile cat, Raven reached over Wilson's seatback and slapped the phone from his hand. The device fell and banged onto the vehicle's floor. Raven, suffering pain because of his lunge, collapsed.

Hey! Wilson yelled. He had to control the ATV as it sped, and he could not reach the phone. No matter. He intended to call the police after he reached Metro General.

Chapter 2 – Discoveries at the Hospital

During the race to the hospital, Raven went in and out of consciousness. He woke seconds before Wilson's electric vehicle slid to a stop on the emergency room driveway.

Where are we? Raven asked.

At the hospital, Wilson replied.

Don't take me in, Raven said. They'll see that I’m different. His skin had paled, and if Wilson delayed Raven's treatment, shock and his wound might kill him.

I'll take you to my office, Wilson said. It's just down the hall from the emergency room.

Raven began to ramble in an alien language, speaking as if he were in a dream and then mumbled in English, Inner One, take me to the land of the living. His dark eyes were dull, and he passed out again.

Wilson drove his ATV to a side door about fifty feet from the emergency entrance. He got out of the electric vehicle and hurried back to the emergency doors.

Head Nurse Helga Onstadt was smoking a cigarette outside. I thought you were starting your sabbatical leave today, Doctor. After a two-week vacation, he was scheduled to fly to Sweden to visit the Karolinska Institute. That was the first leg of a trip to several countries during which he was to review new developments in human gene research.

I need to examine a patient in my office. He's a little weak and still in my car, said Wilson. I’d like to borrow a wheelchair.

Sure, just bring it back when you're done. Need help? she asked.

Thanks, but not now, Wilson said. I have to decide if he needs to be admitted. He doesn't like publicity. Thanks for the loan.

No problem, Helga said.

He started towards the automatic, double-wide emergency doors, which opened as he neared them. Just inside were several wheelchairs.

Two other emergency room nurses glanced at Wilson as he seized a wheelchair. Helga said I could borrow one, he said. I have to move a patient to my office.

The nurses glared at Wilson when he grabbed two blankets, a gown, and a box of latex gloves and put them in the wheelchair. After rolling the chair to his electric car, he tossed the blankets and other stuff in its front seat. He eased Raven, who was half awake, into the chair. Wilson put his tan, greasy cowboy hat on Raven's head to hide his face, draped a tan hospital blanket over him, and put the supplies he had grabbed in Raven's lap.

Wilson shoved the wheelchair into his office, scraping the green entry door's paint. Then he helped the semi-conscious Raven onto an examination table and grabbed a portable chest pressure equalizer. He peeled the bandage from Raven's wound, inserted the equalizer's self-sealing tube into the hole in his chest, and switched on the mechanism's power.

The device hissed, first releasing air from the chest cavity and alternately pumping air in to adjust the pressure inside Raven's chest to normal. The equalizer would stop pressure build-up in the airtight chest cavity, allowing the lungs to expand to normal size if one or both had collapsed. The right amount of air pressure inside the chest would also reduce the chance of a heart attack.

Next, Wilson turned on his small, hand-held body scanner, which wirelessly sent a picture to his computer screen. Raven's interior was different from that of an earthling. Wilson felt a hot, blushing sensation when he realized that he was indeed examining an alien being.

Raven had two hearts, one on each side of his chest, and two lungs, each longer than a human lung. One lung had suffered a minor collapse.

His body hemmed in four kidneys; each was about half human size. There were fifteen ribs, and his brain was a bit bigger than a human's. His spine was thicker than an earthling's backbone while his spinal cord was an inch across at the neck.

The ray had burned a hole into the chest cavity below Raven's right lung, almost to his spinal cord. But Raven was lucky. The ray had missed his lung and both his hearts. Wilson decided to let the affected lung heal itself, judging that it would expand on its own because the collapse was so minor.

Raven opened his eyes, Where am I?

In my office.

How bad is my wound?

You're hit near one lung. We need to sew up your injury at once. I'll call in my colleague, Dr. Ron Jamison, a pulmonary expert, to do the job and double check my diagnosis. Plus we have to deal with the infection on your chest.

No, Raven said. You've got to go to my ship now and get special medicine that will heal me quickly.

We really need to close that wound first, Wilson said.

Raven creased his brow. Our medicine is more advanced than yours, he said. We have a nano-medicine cocktail for major injuries that I need to drink. Nano proteins and chemicals will go to the wound and fix it.

Wilson recalled, A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. Scientists want to develop medicines and microscopic machines on that scale, but a breakthrough is a long way off.

Raven, if I don't act now, it could be serious. Where's your ship?

Reach in the watch pocket of my jeans, and take out the silver disk, he said. You'll need it to locate the ship. Wilson found the metal disk and lifted its hinged lid. The device was as large as a Swiss watch but heavier, a quarter inch thick with compass-like marks around its edge, and various colored buttons.

What is this? Wilson asked.

A homing device – a ship finder. It will lead you to my vessel. The device can summon the ship to come to this general vicinity, as well.

How does it work? Wilson asked, hoping he could learn how to use it before Raven blacked out again.

Press the buttons in this order, Raven said in a weak voice. Yellow, orange, red.

Okay, Wilson said, and he pushed the buttons.

The crew will know that I'm alive. But I need you to talk with them and lead a rescue team here.

Nothing's happened, Wilson said as he peered at the ship finder.

You won't see it do anything. The ship's cloaked nearby, between dimensions, he said. I lost my regular communicator in the fight with the cyborg. Get some paper so you can write directions that you'll need to approach the ship.

Wilson later learned that Raven carried a button-size TV camera and microphone clipped to his clothes so his crew could see what was going on as well as speak with him. But as he scrambled away in the first cyborg attack, bushes had ripped the button camera away. Worse yet, his emergency vial of nano medicine had fallen from his ripped pocket.

Wilson walked to his dented, gray metal desk. As he jerked open the right top drawer, it screeched with a metal-on-metal sound. He snatched a sheet of white paper.

Push the orange button, then the white one, Raven said. Then press the center red one, which is like a computer's enter key. Green arrows will point to the cloaked ship. They'll turn red when you're near it.

Wilson quickly jotted down the directions. If there was a ship nearby, he would need to be careful. It could be defended with powerful weapons. He didn't want to die helping this man.

Chapter 3 – The Strange Cloaked Ship

Before he left for the ship, Wilson attached life monitors to Raven. They would set off an alarm in Wilson's wristwatch radio should the alien's condition worsen.

Wilson's friend, Dr. Jamison, was at work in the hospital, and Wilson could call on him if Raven's monitors showed that he was in trouble.

Wilson walked along a hospital hallway, headed for the rear entry. Its door opened onto a small, half-acre garden of trees, flowers, and shrubs. A path wound through this English garden, and park benches stood next to the pathway in shady spots. A dozen people were in the garden, most of them sitting on benches. One man read the news on his paper-thin electronic reader, while two young nurses sat nearby. They chatted and laughed, enjoying the sunshine. In the distance the western sky darkened as a potent, but slow moving mega storm approached.

Nobody in the garden noticed when Wilson took the ship finder from his pocket. Just as Raven had coached him, Wilson held the device level, like a compass and started it. Small, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) flashed showing green arrows that pointed to the cloaked ship.

Wilson walked at a normal pace in the direction that the arrows pointed. They flashed faster and turned red. The ship finder had led him around the back of a thick, green hedge at the rear border of the hospital property. Nobody was there.

He pressed the large, red center button, as Raven had instructed, and what looked like a small garden shed suddenly appeared, popping into view like a mirage.

Its door swung open. The glow from within the doorway was warm and seemed to invite Wilson in like sunshine on a spring day. There was foliage inside, ornate plants in what could be a foyer.

He walked at a quick pace and went into the chamber. Through a second doorway farther in the craft he saw a bigger room where there were cafeteria-like tables. Other items that caught Wilson's eye were a red cabinet, a big stainless steel refrigerator, and a restaurant-size stovetop and oven.

The area was like the galley of a ship, although the entryway was small. The floor was circular, about thirty feet across. Wilson walked into the deserted, round room.

Two crewmen wearing black helmets, combat boots, and olive drab uniforms stomped into the room from behind