Switching her workstation back on, Inspector Jelde tapped out an encoded response to the journalists message, and sent it down the Interlink.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Karine, Leopard class destroyer. In transit through the Sub-Ether.
Something was amiss, Moss wasn't entirely sure what it was, but there was something about their trip through the sub-ether, which didn't ring true. The clearly defined trail they were following dropped far deeper into the other dimensions than he'd ever been before, at least in a ship. His mind had roved through many of the possible dimensions that began at the surface of the sub-ether and multiplied the deeper he went. However, there was something strange, something different about the route they were now taking. It just didn't feel right…
'You okay kid?' Jenson asked from the second pilot's couch. 'You look like there's something on your mind. What's wrong?'
'He has got something on his mind!' Sandpiper piped up from the navigator's position. 'His wife and child have been kidnapped! He's bound to look like there's something on his mind.'
'Yeah I know that smart-arse! It just looks like there's more to it than that,' Jenson responded with irritation.
Moss's faraway look faded and with obvious effort, he focused on the face of his old friend.
'Hmm…what? Yeah I'm okay,' he muttered, 'It's this path we're following through the sub-ether. There's something weird about it.'
Sandpiper and Jenson immediately scanned the flight instruments alarmed at Moss’s comments. Once satisfied there was no immediate threat, Jenson turned and asked, 'what do you mean kid? I know we're descending deeper into the sub-ether than we've been before, but I can't find any problem with the ship.'
'Nah, it's not the ship,' Moss replied shaking his head. 'You can both calm down, I can’t perceive any immediate threat to us. No, it's this route the computer has plotted from the trace the apparition, Nimue or whatever, left behind. There's something wrong somewhere, but I can't put my finger on it.'
Sandpiper and Jenson exchanged glances. They knew Moss well enough to not doubt what he said. The young father was possibly the most effective operant of all the human races. It would be foolish to ignore his 'hunches'.
'Well it's your call kid,' Sandpiper told him. 'This is your show; we're just along for the ride. How do you want to play it?'
'I don't know…maybe it's 'cause I'm so worried about Jennifer and the baby, I just can't get my head around the problem properly. I guess we'll just have to follow the path to the end and take it from there,' Moss answered with a resigned shrug.
'Well this is the latest, meanest, ship in the fleet,' Jenson said decisively. 'The Karine should be able to handle anything thrown at her. So when we arrive at our final destination, we'll just have to be very cautious.'
'Aren't we always?' Sandpiper quipped.
'I won't even bother to answer that,' was the reply.
The Karine continued to surf through the planes of sub-ether for another fifteen standard hours. Moss tried to pinpoint the source of his unease, but without success.
About halfway through the flight, Excalibur managed to get a sub-ether message to the tiny destroyer, telling them the search for the colonial cruiser Shanoa had been called off. No trace of the ship, her lifeboats or crew had been found.
Moss wasn't surprised. The disappearance of the cruiser and the appearance of Nimue at much the same time, had to be more than just coincidence. He knew the two events were connected; if only he could figure out how.
As the flight computer began to raise the Karine out of the depths of the sub-ether, Moss, Jenson and Sandpiper prepared for a hostile reception. The jamming and stealth capabilities of the destroyer were the latest technology. Using retro engineering from the shattered remains of the Starweb fleet (see Third Player WJP), the stealth capabilities of the new class of starships were leaps and bounds in advance of the older Terran technology. In theory, it should make them largely invisible from the Starweb. Now they were about to discover if the theory worked in practice.
The Karine skimmed the crests between normal and sub-ether space, whilst the passive sensors gained as much information as possible. Then, moving a discreet distance from where the trail ended, the destroyer re-entered three-dimensional space, emerging behind the shadow of a tumbling asteroid.
Rather than wait for the ship's navigation systems to get a fix on their precise location, Moss extended his perception and examined space about them. It didn't take him long to locate where they were. He was confused for a moment by the location of the stars. They were all slightly mis-aligned, considering where they were supposed to be; and the intensity of a few, were far too bright. There was even a red-dwarf, which most definitely should not be in the heavens. At least not in the universe from which they'd just come from.
It was only when the telepathic operant extended his mind to the blue and white planet circling serenely around the nearest sun that the jigsaw pieces all began to fit. That world had a population of several billion; several billion humanoids, and there was no sign of the Starweb's presence anywhere!
'I think we've been had!' Moss half-whispered.
'How do you mean?' Jenson asked, but got no further because Sandpiper exclaimed, 'You're not going to believe this guys, but I'm reading traces from numerous ships tracking through this star system. However, what's even more spooky is the distress signal I'm picking up the from the surface of that Earth-like world.'
'What's spooky about it?'
'It's from that missing colonial cruiser the Shanoa!'
'The Shanoa?' Jenson exclaimed then turned to Moss and demanded, 'Where the hell are we? That can't be Samarcia down there? Where's the Starweb?'
'I don't know where the Starweb is,' Moss told the pair, 'but that's definitely Samarcia down there. It's just not the Samarcia we were expecting! Like I said, we've been had!'
'I think you'd better tell us everything Moss,' Jenson told him. 'This obviously isn't what we'd expected, so better that we figure out what's going on and prepare ourselves now, rather than leap head first into trouble.'
'Well, for some reason that I can't quite figure out yet,' Moss began, scratching his chin thoughtfully, 'we've been guided to a Samarcia where the Starweb has yet to be created. In this universe, the Samarcian commercial and colonial commonwealth is still in ascendance and stretches across most of the known galaxy.'
'Hang on a minute,' Sandpiper interrupted, already confused. 'I thought the Samarcian commonwealth collapsed tens of thousands of years ago.'
'It did.'
'But that means we've moved back in time. That's not possible is it?'
'Nope it’s not possible… in theory. Time is a river that only flows on way. Yet…'
Jenson used the ship's sensors to check the younger man's supposition. It didn't take him long to come to the same conclusion.
'If you look at the position of the stars Han, you can see that Moss is right. This system definitely belongs to the home world of Samarcia, but the stars are where they would have been fifty thousand years ago.' Jenson said, looking carefully at the computer simulation and star-chart comparison.
'I know that the universe is supposed to be continually expanding from the time of the Big Bang,' Sandpiper responded, also looking at the holographic star-chart. 'Star systems are all moving away from each other, at an ever accelerating rate. Which is why as we look toward the centre of the universe, the density of stars and galaxies becomes far greater. The time it takes light to reach us from the centre is so great; we are in effect, looking back in time to the origins of the universe. That I understand, and I understand that the positions of the stars are where they should have been fifty thousand years ago. What I don't understand is how the hell we got here! I thought time travel was impossible?'
'Nothing is impossible mate,' Jenson told him. 'It's just that we don't have the answers to everything. Having said that, I figure Moss has a good clue as to what's happened here. How about it?'
T
he pair turned and looked at the younger man expectantly. They knew that his ability to perceive the multi-dimensions of space, gave him access to knowledge and information that non-operant humans could only dream of.
Moss stared out of the cockpit window thoughtfully for a moment or two, watching the sunlight cast vast moving shadows across the nearby asteroid as it tumbled slowly through space. Then he began his explanation, trying to vocalize concepts, which were virtually beyond the reach of the English language.
'It's been theorized that time travel is possible, by a few scientists, since the end of the twentieth century,' Moss began his explanation. 'The basic theory goes along the lines that time is not necessarily linear. Sure, in our own universe, Monday comes after Sunday and Wednesday always comes after Tuesday, but that's because our minds work in only a three-dimensional reality.
'As we now know there are in fact, many other dimensions in space and time. These dimensions flow and intermingle together in what we now call the sub-ether. The sub-ether is like a river of space-time connecting all points of the universe.
'Our ships are powered by artificial singularities, which by their nature, exist in other dimensions as well as our own. By creating a field of influence around these singularities, we are able to slip into the sub-ether flow without changing the reality of the ship and its occupants. By traveling up, or across the river—for want of a better analogy; we're able to move rapidly to other points in our universe.'
'Okay, I understand all that,' Sandpiper interrupted, his brow furrowed in concentration. 'What I don't get, is how this river, or however you describe the sub-ether, allows us to travel through time.'
'Well, the theory goes that if you descend deep into the sub-ether currents, some of those currents will take you upstream rather than downstream,' Moss answered.
'Upstream being the other direction?' Jenson asked, finally grasping what was being said.
'That's right. So, if time is flowing downstream, then by moving upstream, you are in fact moving against the flow and therefore going back in time.'
'And you reckon that's what's happened to us?'
'I reckon so,' Moss confirmed. 'That's why I felt there was something wrong with our passage through the sub-ether. Now that we're here, I can see that we've been moving in a different direction. The current was taking us the another way, I simply couldn't see it before.'
'Has nobody travelled through time like this before? You would have thought somebody would have had a go,' Sandpiper asked.
'They have,' Jenson answered. 'I remember that the Space Research Agency sent several probes down into the lower layers of the sub-ether. Nothing was heard of them again, probably because they ended up being swept to another point in space-time.'
'Whatever happened onboard the Shanoa, must have caused her to descend lower into the sub-ether,' Moss added. 'However, it seems too much of a coincidence that they should end up at the centre of the Samarcian commonwealth, at a time before the creation of the Starweb.'
'What are you saying Moss?'
'I'm saying that the abduction of Jennifer and my child and the disappearance of that colonist ship were deliberately designed to bring us here.'
'To change space-time?' Jenson suggested.
'Or perhaps to stop space-time from being changed,' Moss responded thoughtfully. 'The other big question is; who exactly is behind all this? There's no doubt we were meant to arrive here, at this time and at this point in space. But why?'
'Well I suggest we stay right here, until we've gathered as much information together as possible,' Jenson told them both. 'If what you say is true, then anything we do here can effect our own space-time?'
'That old space-time parallax problem eh?' Sandpiper said, rubbing his hands with glee. 'It's just like one of those old episodes of Star Trek! I love them!'
Moss and Jenson gave the short stocky pilot a withering stare. He shrugged his shoulders and smiled thinly, 'Sorry! Only trying to lighten the mood…'
Samarcia. Date-unconfirmed.
'Despite a statement from the security council to the contrary, rumours are rife, that the strange vessel which has been impounded at Hallvaux security-force base is not an alien ship, nor a design built by a bizarre religious cult. The mounting rumours declare the machine to be from another dimension of time and space!
There has been considerable speculation for quite some time, about the possibility of other dimensions, or parallel universes other than our own. Some scientists are now openly declaring that the unique structure of the captured vessel and the fact that the occupants are clearly humanoid, indicate that the ship comes from a similar, but subtly different, universe from our own.
The Security Council, who maintain that the ship originated from distant Reglis IV, has strenuously denied this. However, they still refuse to allow journalists or cameramen to see, or interview, the ship's occupants. Until such time as they do, rumours will continue to abound concerning the true origin of the ship and crew. Of course, NBLK will bring you the latest on this story as it happens…'
Brother Dakol was awoken from a troubled sleep by a loud commotion echoing through the corridors of the detention centre. Cells doors were being thrown open and he could distinctly hear the sounds of the Shanoa's colonists and crew being forcibly moved under armed guard. He leapt up and ran to the small peephole built into his cell door. He stuck his eye to it and desperately tried to see what was happening outside. What he saw made his heart sink to the very depths of his soul.
The Samarcian armed guards were literally dragging the men, woman and children of the Shanoa by their hair, feet or whatever came to hand. Instinctively, like animals being led to the slaughter, they resisted and cried at the tops of their lungs. Some struggled, only to be beaten down brutally, others wept and screamed, whilst a few simply walked meekly, unable to comprehend the fate that so clearly awaited them.
Fear, anger and disbelief swept through the Dyason monk. Why were they doing this? What possible threat could these simple families be to the vast Samarcian commonwealth? What had they done to deserve this? A part of him prayed that the security forces were simply moving them all to another location, but this glimmer of hope died when he heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire echoing through the bare concrete walls. His breath caught and Dakol sobbed, not for himself, but for the poor lost souls who he could do nothing to protect, nothing to save, nothing to…he'd failed…when his flock needed him most, he'd failed! The frustration and grief were overwhelming!
It suddenly became quiet. The sound of gunfire died, shortly followed by the screaming. The silence was even more terrible. At least for so long as there had been noise, there had been life. It began to dawn on the brother Dakol, that he at least, was still alive, but why? Why had they spared him? What horrific fate awaited him? Now he was scared for himself.
He didn't have to wait long to find out. The corridor outside soon echoed to a new sound, the purposeful sound of army boots. Dakol stuck his eye to the peephole once more and saw two troopers striding toward his cell. There could be no doubt about their intent. Taking a deep racking breath, he took two steps backwards. He was determined that he should face his final moment resolutely. God and the people of the Shanoa would expect it of him.
The troopers unlocked the cell door, shouldered it open and roughly grabbed him by each elbow. Then they frog-marched him down the corridor, presumably to the same fate as all the other poor souls. All the doors were ajar and as they passed each cell, the monk looked in and saw that they were empty. All except one, where the body of one of the colonists lay prone on the cold stone floor, blood pooling around the corpse.
At the end of the corridor, they turned right, then left, down another corridor, before passing a small open-air exercise yard. It was then that Dakol began to choke, the vomit rising up his throat. The yard was awash with blood, and being piled up in one corner, by more Samarcian goons, were the lifeless bodies of those that once intended to start new lives on another, m
ore hospitable world. Like rag-dolls, eyes wide and pleading, they were unceremoniously dumped, one on top of another. The monk recognised many of the faces. A little girl lay bloodstained beneath a member of the crew. A whole family were piled beside the grisly, battered face of the ship's captain. They were all dead…all butchered; for no apparent reason.
The vomit erupted from his mouth and poured down his clothes, but the guards were uncaring, they continued to drag him by the arms without even pausing. It was at that moment that Brother Dakol lost his faith and realised that he too, was dead… Physically he was alive. Emotionally, he was dead.
He barely comprehended the fact that they didn't stop at the exercise yard. Such was his grief and utter desolation. Later, he couldn't even recall how he ended up in the back of an unmarked limousine. The troopers who had dragged him from the cell disappeared, and at the back of his mind, he was aware of stars in a night sky, and a gentle breeze blowing against his battered face. Then his head was firmly lowered and he was pushed into the back of the automobile. He was vaguely aware of a light-haired woman sitting at the driver's wheel and a heavy-jowled, bulging-eyed man, sitting beside him.
Using a computerised translator, the man told him, 'Brother Dakol, my name is De-Felke and I'm with the News-web. You can relax; you're safe now…'
But the words meant nothing to the monk. The image of the bodies of those he had come to know so well, remained in his mind like a video byte, replaying over and over again. He cared not where he was being taken, or what happened to him now. His previous life had died along with the poor souls of the Shanoa.
The early morning sun glinted through the branches, which moved gently in the breeze. The forest was a favourite place of Inspector Jelde. She jogged ten kilometres around the path every morning, before showering and heading for the offices of the Security Service. The sounds of nature—birds singing, insects humming, the wind in the trees, cleared her mind and gave her the opportunity to mentally organise the day ahead.
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