Artifact

by Shane Lindemoen

  A break-out-of-the box extraordinary first novel from Shane Lindemoen, with characters who appeal and talk smartly in a storyline that’s just bursting with danger and imaginative possibilities. Think Jack McDevitt and even Arthur C. Clarke when you approach Artifact, and your appetite for top-notch science fiction, as thoughtful as it is surprising and commanding, will be satisfied.

  Paul Levinson, author of The Silk Code, The Plot to Save Socrates, and Unburning Alexandia

  Half a century ago, when I was just making my first story sales, one of the notions I had was of an artifact, an ancient machine that could be activated with odd results. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, so I showed it to my collaborator H James Hotaling and he was intrigued and started working on it. But in the end it came to nothing, as ideas often do. Well, now Shane has done it, and I am free to speculate that the spirit of the notion searched until it found a worthy writer, and infused him. This is one strange, gripping science fiction thriller.

  Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth series

  Shane Lindemoen has a knack for the spectacular, and his deftly plotted debut is like Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles run through the sieve of Kubrick’s 2001, reshot by Christopher Nolan in the year 2020. Artifact is the type of book William S. Burroughs might have kept on his reading list: the science fiction of ideas meant to tell us about the present through the illusion of our possible futures.

  Davis Schneiderman, author of Drain, the DEAD/BOOKS trilogy—Blank, Ink and Associate Dean of the Faculty at Lake Forest College

  For millennia, the red planet Mars has fascinated humankind. In dreams, nightmares and fantasies, Mars has always been there, Earth’s mysterious neighbor. Now talented newcomer Shane Lindemoen — in his novel Artifact — has taken our obsession with Mars to a new level, searching for the elusive truth of life and what it means to be human.

  Brendan DuBois, award-winning author of Resurrection Day

  Daring, heartfelt, and wholly original, Lindemoen’s debut ranks right up there with the best sci-fi you’ll read this year. The genre welcomes a stunning new voice to its ranks. A must read!

  Ronald Malfi, author of Floating Staircase

  Artifact

  a novel

  Shane Lindemoen

  BOXFIREPRESS

  Published by Boxfire Press.

  ARTIFACT. Copyright © 2013 by Shane Lindemoen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articls and reviews. For information, please contact Boxfire Press at http://boxfirepress.com.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  17 16 15 14 13 1 2 3 4 5

  ISBN 978-1-938191-05-3

  ebook ISBN 978-1-938191-13-8

  Every attempt has been made to ensure this book is free from typos and errors. We apologize if you do stumble across one and hope it won’t hurt your enjoyment of the story. Thanks to changes in technology we can easily correct errors for future readers with your help. Contact us at editorial@boxfirepress.com.

  for or the fans of science-fiction, who dream about tomorrow

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to the East Side of St. Paul, for getting behind this project with pride and enthusiasm. Many thanks to Hannah Oman, for always being the first to read my stuff. Josh Stout, for engineering the artifact. My wife, Karla Lindemoen, for putting up with my incessant questioning of everything.

  I must also acknowledge the continuing guidance of my biggest heroes, Paul Levinson, Nick Sagan, Davis Schniederman, Brenden Dubios, Matthew Woodring Stover, Dan Simmons, and Alex Garland, whose works have all inspired the novel you are about to read.

  A special thanks to Justin McLachlan, Brian Moll, and the staff at Boxfire Press, for giving me a voice. And thanks to you, dear reader, for listening.

  for or the fans of science-fiction, who dream about tomorrow

  ONE

  1.

  The only sound in the room was a pen scratching last minute amendments into my notes. When the yellow light above the airlock turned green, clearing me for safe entry, I took a deep breath and unfolded the flex–phone. “This is Lance.”

  “Hey,” she said. “We ready?”

  The clock above the door read 7:26. The room was one level below ground, and the only light came from a small window eight feet above the floor. Through that window, I could see the bottom tendrils of a weeping–willow pull with the air. Beneath a cloudless sky, each blade of grass rested lucent under the low morning sun.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think so.”

  “Alright, then.” She smiled from the other end. “Good luck.”

  2.

  In the Gray Room, I kept rereading my papers. Every mark reminded me of what was at stake, and I meant to leverage that window of error with a list of mnemonics. I was on a precipice – hungry, and lusting for self–actualization. I made adjustments in the margins, and the sterilized pen slipped as the papers bent around my knee. From somewhere, an echo of metal reverberated against the cinder walls, somehow through the first airlock. I looked up from my papers as it retreated to whichever corner of the facility it had come.

  Nothing from the outside world was allowed past this point, so I slipped my papers back into their plastic sleeve – the pages in my hand were pressed together with beads of distilled water and my thumbs. My chest rose and fell with unrestrained breath that came slow and deep. As I set the sleeve beside me, slipped the corner of it under my thigh, my ears sucked pressure as the outer–room equalized. After rinsing my gloved hands a final time, I stepped into the air–shower and blasted away any remaining dust particles.

  3.

  Just before the inner airlock closed, I registered the sound of bending metal again. I initially thought the sound was coming from the rotational platform, but it was silent – I stretched my neck to keep calm.

  A woman with dark hair spilling out of her scrub cap stood alone in the dark gloom of the observation tank. Motionless and impassive at first, her visor glittered in the flickering glow of deskscreens. Then her fingers moved through the holographic interface with the purposeful care of a surgeon. The Clean Room inside the M–vault’s interior had no windows other than the thick polycarbonate glass that separated the observation tank from the Roller; though it was early morning, pitch colored shadows gathered around her. A stone object hovering within fluctuating polarities a few meters away consumed her focus.

  The artifact was suspended inside an array of powerful magnets that were fixed to an apparatus no larger than a dinner plate, which we called the Roller – this device allowed us to manipulate the artifact’s spin with precise, split–second accuracy.

  I interlaced my fingers and tightened the latex. “How are we looking?”

  “Beautiful,” she gave me a thumbs up, smiling. “Very beautiful. Let’s just hope it’s in a conversational mood.” She switched an image relay to the wall opposite the Roller, showing me an enlarged FLIR of the Martian artifact. “Roller is up, light sensors are up, and scopes are up – good to go, whenever you’re ready.”

  The M–normal vault was a quiet, reverent place – wise, with curved edges and meticulous spacing. Most of the instruments were sleek and black, with soft red and green diodes glowing into pockets of glare. I approached the dais and activated the holographic interface – dimensions of iridescent blue, green and purple readout polarized images onto every wall of the Clean Room’s interior. Everything hummed with purpose and meaning. The explosion proof interior wasn’t designed for aesthetics, but the burst of colorful imaging brought the place to life – while it ha
d to be large enough to accommodate the different kinds of instrumentation, there wasn’t much more to the open space other than site–specific maintenance equipment, a single–pass air conditioning system and some environmental controls that were located inside the observation tank, which were adjusted to a comfortable sixty seven degrees. The interior was constructed of thick permasteel blocks of concrete coated with a vinyl finish, but the walls behind the platform and below the observation tank were plated with paramagnetic aluminum to protect the researchers while minimizing interference with the Roller. When it was up and running, the Mars–Normal vault was a very beautiful place, but also a serious one.

  “Let’s see it,” I spoke into my mic, bringing up the Roller console. I stepped onto the platform, catching my breath. To concentrate on the task at hand, I forced myself not to think about what the artifact represented. Seeing the compelling evidence of other intelligent life in this universe made my fingers tremble. I reminded myself that in order to do what was needed, I had to see the object for what it was, and not for what it meant. I breathed, slowing my pulse, and only then did I allow myself to look at the alien stone floating inside the Roller.

  Measuring fifteen centimeters on each side, the Martian artifact was essentially a square block of ancient, finely cut regolith similar to sandstone. I took in the breathtaking artistry of its surface – delicate lines and virgules etched between an arrangement of circles that covered each side. What those markings meant, I couldn’t imagine. It appeared to be a standard, fossilized piece of Earth’s prehistory, but inside this fossil was the most complex system of nanocircuitry that I had ever seen, that comprised larger components which continued functioning far below the four nanometer threshold – and it seemed to be counting down like a clock. There was a rhythm that pulsed through the center of it, which pumped like the beating of a heart – and the pulse was gradually leveling out. With the current it was drawing, we couldn’t understand how the outflow of electrons didn’t cause the artifact to short–circuit. Many of us worried that it could have been a fusion bomb or something – there was entirely too much mass packed into the cube for it to be regarded safely. But it was old for the kind of technology it was packing – impossibly old. I was told that when they measured the radioactive decay of its magnesium and carbon, the artifact dated no younger than three hundred million years – which placed its construction around the time insects were making their first appearances on Earth.

  “New landscapes, eh Lance?” The woman’s voice carried softly through my earbud, bringing the world back into focus. I looked back at her grinning through the glass. She was paraphrasing an inscription above the lab’s entrance:

  The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes.

  It was a misquote, we knew, but it became another way of wishing each other luck.

  I smiled back, taking another deep breath. When the M–vault finally pressurized, the artifact started slowly rotating. “Okay, let’s find that light again – bring it to zero five, if you would.”

  “Roger that.” There was a flurry of hand movement in the observation tank, “rips to point zero five.”

  The artifact commenced rotation. I double-checked the readout on the wall, making sure everything was okay – the Roller tumbled the artifact into an intentional spin at point zero five revolutions per second. “So far, so good – let’s bring it to one, see what happens.”

  “Rips to point one,” she said, moving another image to the wall on my right. A deep green illuminated her visor. Her voice thrummed with excitement. “That was fast – you seeing this?”

  I glanced at the holographic set of wavelengths on the wall – there was a tiny, almost imperceptible variation in one of the carrier waves – and then the stone itself started to hum. “Hmm. That’s gotta be it – bring it to two, make it move a little.”

  “Bringing rips to point two,” She breathed, “but I got a temperature spike, jumped from nineteen Celsius to thirty seven point seven.”

  I checked the image behind the Roller again, noticing the readout elevating from soft blue to yellow. “That’s – that’s perfect. Means we’re getting somewhere. See if you can bring it to two five.”

  “If it gets any hotter, I’m killing this round–”

  “It’s just clearing its throat – bring it to two five, please.”

  The woman pulled her eyes away from the artifact, its hum building like a centrifuge coming to life. “Rips to point two five – listen to that modulation!”

  I saw another temperature spike – from thirty-seven to fifty four – and then the spectrometer picked up a sudden burst of ultraviolet light blinking across the artifact’s surface. “You found it.” I felt myself smiling, “I got point two five radians per second – double check that for me?”

  “Checking.” There was another flurry of hand movement. “Confirmed, point two five radians per second.” She said, “but that’s way too hot, Lance.”

  “Let’s follow it for a moment–”

  “Lance, it’s too hot…”

  I reached for the console and hesitated. I knew this was a time for caution. I’ve always subscribed to the ethic that science was a patient way of viewing the world. One of observation and objectivism – of removing your wants and desires from the equation. But slow, categorical thinking only got people so far. I remembered rationalizing that discovery was forever that process of risk – that the method of uncovering truth was simply a progression of movements between demonstrable certainty and a coin toss. And from a single coin toss to that unforeseeable place where names went to be remembered forever.

  Ignoring her, I pulled up the console’s light sensor and entered point two five radians per second. The Roller adjusted the artifact’s rotation to follow the strip of ultraviolet light flashing over its surface. The images on the wall blushed to a deep red, indicating that the artifact’s temperature had risen sharply from fifty-four Celsius to one hundred and twenty six.

  “I’m killing it,” the woman said through static. I saw what looked like St. Elmo’s fire flicker over the observation tank, and then she paused, shaken. “What the hell was that?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s – let’s back up a bit–”

  There was another spike to one fifty four, and I heard the woman hiss into the mic. “Roller console just died on me–”

  I looked back at the observation tank, feeling pulsating waves of heat coming from the artifact. “I’ve got a master alarm,” she yelled. “You have to slow it down on your end, Lance. I’m having problems up here.”

  I checked the artifact a final time, making sure that the Roller was still working. “Alright, calm down – let’s work our way through it. Is this an instrumentation problem, or are we looking at an actual power surplus–”

  “I’m locked out,” she said, struggling to keep calm. “I’m locked out, Lance.”

  The Roller console in front of me suddenly dropped from view, and the deep red holograms disappeared. I was in darkness, too shocked to move. When the flare of synapse cleared my vision, I detected a soft blue light. I followed it, now the only visual anchor in the room, and my heart sank – the light was coming from the artifact.

  I tried firing everything back up again, but nothing. I was locked out as well. The heat increased until I could feel beads of sweat roll down my back.

  When the stone artifact reached point two five revolutions per second, something appeared in my peripheral vision – a darkening of a lighter spot on the wall. That was precisely when the hum changed. I could feel the floor beneath my feet begin to vibrate, and when I looked back at the observation tank, it was empty – the woman was gone.

  Backing away from the platform, I could see the wall behind the artifact bulge, as if it were losing viscosity. Undulating waves of heat sucked the PPE suit against my body, and when I turned toward the airlock to
run, the humming grew louder. The pitch increased until my visor cracked, and then everything went dark.

  4.

  When awareness finally came back, I remembered only brief moments. Everything seemed to move like a series of snapshots. The earliest thing I can remember, and the shortest, was being loaded into an ambulance. At the time, I couldn’t really understand what was happening. My protection suit peeled away from a substantial burn on my chest, and I bled precious oxygen faster than the EMTs could replace it. I vaguely remember going over the Parkland formula, trying desperately between fleeting moments of awareness to factor my weight with the amount of fluids they were giving me – it became very important for me to know how much of my body had been burned. The paramedics worried that I had inhaled some of the flame, as they pried my mouth open and inspected my bronchial. That’s the last image I had before they started pumping me full of pain meds and monitoring my airway.

  The next thing I can remember is being transported from the emergency area to a private room reserved for more stable patients, and the woman from the observation tank coming to visit. She brought a pink stuffed animal and a card, and when she allowed herself to look at what was left of me, she would wring the stuffed animal as if she were sacrificing it to the gods. She visited intermittently, but I couldn’t remember her name. I desperately wanted someone to explain what happened, but my questions remained unanswered. Whenever I asked the woman about the accident, she would stare vacantly at some distant point through the window and change the subject. She eventually left and didn’t come back.

  The final thing I remember was a man – and when he wasn’t sitting at the foot of my bed, he paced the room talking quietly into his flex–phone. He was instantly familiar, but at the same time completely unrecognizable. There was something about the smile lines around his eyes that begged familiarity, and the fact that he was around my age should have made me feel less anxious, but it didn’t.