Quantum Tangle (The Targon Tales - Sethran Book 1)

by Chris Reher

  “I’m feeling a bit of a headache,” Saias said. Caelyn nodded to confirm that he did, too.

  “That’s the result of our contact with the Centauri via his interface, not the alien. Forgive me, Shan Khoe. I meant ‘our visitor’. I would expect far more extensive damage to Shan Sethran.”

  Seth frowned. “What are you saying?”

  “I’d like to take a closer look, if you don’t mind.” The Shantir gestured toward Seth’s interface node. “As a sort of diagnostic.”

  “That is a privilege, Elder Brother. Thank you.”

  Quine scraped his chair closer and placed two fingers over the thin metal implant at Seth’s temple. He closed his eyes to concentrate on his task. “I can definitely detect a duality there,” he said. “Although we don’t have any descriptive language for this. Heightened activity where I’d expect to see that.” A trace of a smile moved his thin, blue-tinted lips. “A female set of neural pathways in addition to your own within one nervous system. The distinction is quite obvious.”

  Caelyn looked at Khoe in wonder. “Were you even aware of race or gender before you met Seth?”

  She shook her head, as fascinated by the Shantir’s revelations as the others were. “It just seemed fitting. We just think of this as the physical world. We don’t even distinguish between sentient and non-sentient. You are just moving shapes to us.”

  “Can you show us something of the nature that Caelyn described to me? Some energy conversion?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a dangerous thing to try, I think.”

  Seth touched a finger to his bowl of tea. “Just a little.”

  She inhaled deeply and nodded. Before a second passed, the cup in front of Seth’s hand slid across the table top and then careened across the room to shatter against the far wall. “Oops.”

  “It’s all right,” Quine said. He had not even flinched at the harsh sound of the breaking dish. “This had a marked effect on Sethran.”

  “A bad one?” she asked, looking worried.

  Quine did not reply to that. “Do you have anything else?”

  “Nothing safe,” she said. “Except this maybe.”

  Sethran gasped when he felt a surge of adrenaline, like the one she had created back on Feyd when it was needed. “All right,” he grunted. “Enough.” He felt the Shantir’s healing presence work to counter the effect of the substance and felt his heartbeat slow again and his breathing become more steady.

  “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

  “No, don’t worry.” He gave her a reassuring smile as he exhaled shakily. “I’m fine.”

  Quine removed his hand from Seth’s temple. “I’d need to review Centauri physiology and spend more time with you. I detect some chemical imbalances - the epinephrine surge you just experienced strained your heart and other systems - but your heart, your whole vascular system, can handle the strain better than your short-limbed cousins. I suggest you don’t indulge in tossing tableware around if you can avoid it.”

  “That’s a relief,” Khoe said.

  Caelyn was still appraising Quine’s expression with a critical eye. “Shan Quine? There is something more?”

  The Shantir nodded. “I am not certain, but I can’t see any way that young Khoe can easily extricate herself from Sethran. Without extensive neuroimaging, which may have to involve our friends on Targon, I can’t give a definite answer. I’ve tried to follow some pathways from your interface taps and am fairly certain that some of your axon terminals are actually fused. Others may simply share a synapse. I can only guess, but this may have happened during Khoe’s… ah, creation.”

  “It can’t be all that,” Seth said. “If that were so, would we not also share moods, thoughts, even?”

  “Indeed. You are quite distinct and separate. But your physical connection, at a cellular level, is detectable to me even here, observed over a cup of tea.”

  “You’re thinking that separation might damage those axons?” Caelyn said. “Neurology is not something I understand in the least. But trying to separate them sounds dangerous.”

  “It would depend on how widespread those connections are. Some brain damage is inevitable. For either of them. Or both.”

  “That can’t be right,” Khoe said. “I can leave any time I want.”

  Caelyn cleared his throat and sat up straighter in his chair as if to prepare himself for what was to come. “Then let me volunteer. We are all linked. Transfer to me.”

  “Shan Caelyn, I cannot recommend that you attempt this,” Quine objected.

  “I agree,” Saias said dryly. “We need you out on Callas before the quasar emits again.”

  “If Sethran is being harmed by this we don’t have time for drawn-out research,” Caelyn said.

  “Still, we should at least set up a safe and controlled environment,” Quine countered. “I have a colleague on Targon who would come out here without needing to discuss this with Air Command.”

  “That would take days.”

  “I can’t!” Khoe suddenly exclaimed.

  They all turned to her, startled by the urgency in her voice.

  “He’s right. I can’t… um, pull away from Seth to go to Caelyn. I can feel Caelyn, like I can access the Dutchman’s systems. But I can’t just go there entirely. It just feels like we’re all tangled up.” She looked at Seth. “I’m so sorry, Seth!”

  He took her hand again, stunned by this latest revelation. “Not your fault,” he said automatically. “I know you didn’t mean this.”

  “This could kill you! I can’t just stay in your head forever.”

  Seth swallowed hard and looked to Quine as if for rescue. “I guess I’m lucky that she’s not manifesting as a Rhuwac, then.”

  “This isn’t funny,” Khoe said.

  Saias folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “Khoe, did others like you also enter real-space? To join with physical beings like you did?”

  Khoe’s brows drew together as she considered the question. “I don’t know. We don’t… we don’t talk about things like you do, sitting around for debate. We just know things. No words, no actions. I felt an imperative to latch onto Seth’s ship to follow the path those smugglers took when they stole from us. It’s possible that others did, too.”

  “We must assume that there are others like you, Khoe,” Saias said. “Posing a danger to our people in this paired form. I suppose we can call you dyads. I wonder if there is a way to make inquiries with Targon.”

  “If Targon catches up with me I’ll be locked up with a probe in my head until they’ve catalogued every neuron,” Seth said. “They’ve already tried once.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Khoe said.

  “Targon is not without scruples.”

  Seth smiled wistfully. “Perhaps it appears that way when they deal with Delphi, Shan Saias. But I am currently a fugitive. They have every excuse to detain me and no one would notice if I disappeared. I’m the perfect test subject.”

  “I thought you’re a Union agent. Is that not so?”

  “Not directly. I worked for Factor Baroch. Now that he’s dead, I have few ties to Air Command.”

  Quine winced, a rare expression on any Delphian’s face, when he was reminded of their leader. “A most valuable patron. For all of us.”

  The others nodded, momentarily silenced as they considered their loss. Even Caelyn showed not the slightest surprise and once again Seth was reminded that much went on among Delphians from which outsiders were excluded. He had searched through every possible resource on the way here to Magra and, although whispers had begun to trade rumors, nothing was yet made public about the Factor’s death.

  “What about that colonel that’s bailed you out before?” Caelyn said at length. “Carras, is it? He knows about you, doesn’t he?”

  “He suspects. But I think I’ll stay out of his way for a while. The officer we killed was one of his.”

  “He’s probably not very fond of you right now, Centauri.” His face
brightened. “Then what about your friend Nova? Isn’t she Air Command? Maybe she can help.”

  Seth immediately shook his head. “Last I heard she joined the Vanguard squad not too long ago. So let’s leave her out of this, please.” He turned to Saias. “It’s my hope that you will be able to help us, Elder Sister. If we can get our hands on one of their devices, those disks, perhaps your team can find a way to reverse the process.”

  “We will most certainly enjoy the opportunity.”

  “And you think the entities imprisoned in those disks can be returned to sub-space?” Quine’s question was for Khoe.

  “I hope so, but what matters is the one I came here for. What you called the trigger entity. We must have that back. Maybe it’s in one of those disks. Or maybe I can find a way to…” She threw a sidelong glance at Seth. “To take it myself. Take it with me back into sub-space.”

  “In my head?” Seth said.

  “It’s very small.”

  “You have a peculiar sense of humor. How about we leave that as a last resort?” He turned back to the others. “If the bits got into those devices, they must surely come out again.”

  “Don’t call us bits,” Khoe said. She looked to Saias. “What did you call us earlier?”

  “Dyads. A dyad is really just a set of two. Paired in some way.”

  She nodded. “Sounds better than ‘bits’, I think.”

  “So that makes me a Dyad, then?” Seth asked.

  Saias nodded, looking amused. “Since you are now a single physical being, I suppose you are, indeed, a whole new species.”

  Seth grinned. “Ought to be named after me.”

  “Except that you might not be the first or the only one,” Caelyn said. “Considering this peculiar harvest that is happening.”

  “Don’t ruin my joy. But I suppose you’re right. We better get on our way.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Saias asked.

  “Besides Khoe?” Seth winked at her and grinned when a deep shade of pink colored her pale cheeks. “I think I’m going to put on my pirate hat and see if I can get a delivery job. Someone is hiring those people to collect for them. I’m hoping it’s the same someone that’s got that trigger entity.”

  “Centauri…” Caelyn said thoughtfully, raising a slender hand.

  Seth turned to him. “You’re not going to suggest what I think you are.”

  Caelyn gave him a benign smile. “You know it.”

  Quine looked from one to the other. “Something escapes me here.”

  Seth swiped a new glass for his tea from a nearby table. “Caelyn has dreams of becoming a spy. Occasionally, he likes to practice.”

  The elder Delphian blinked, momentarily taken aback. “Surely you don’t intend to accompany Shan Sethran?”

  “I am. He’s going to need a spanner.”

  “I can make any jump,” Khoe said.

  “Maybe so,” Seth said. “But you’re sucking up thorium like cubes of sugar. I can only store so much without adding more shielding.”

  “You plan to take a Delphian into rebel territory,” Saias said, incredulous. “If there is a bigger flag you can wave to draw attention, I don’t know what is.”

  Seth grinned at Caelyn. Saias’ point was well made. Delphians, seen off-world only when on their ambitious explorations or in service to the Commonwealth, would draw much attention where rebels congregated. “He shines up well with the proper disguise,” he said. “Someday I may actually get him to cut his hair.”

  “Only if you cut off your head,” Caelyn replied amiably. The length of his blue hair corresponded directly with the line of hair growing along his spine, considered a sign of virility on a Delphian’s otherwise hairless body. Intellectually superior to most of the lesser-evolved Prime species of Trans-Targon, few Delphian males were willing to abandon this ancient affectation.

  “That’s probably not the best way to get Khoe out of my brain.”

  Chapter Seven

  Reylan Tague stared moodily at the display screen in front of him, as undecided and distracted as he had been when he went to bed last night. Or what passed as night on this dismal planet where the Little Sun set only every six months, Targon-time, and darkness fell only when the other star aligned properly and one needed chronometers to know when it was damn well time to get some sleep.

  Not that sleep had been much on his mind lately. Who had time for that when there was so much work to be done before one or the other of Tharron’s sons prodded him for the results that just weren’t coming together. It wasn’t that he didn’t have any results for them. The problem was that he had too many. The Shri-Lan rebels funded his research here in Suncion, tucked away among the lonely expanses of the northern grasslands of Csonne, but now he felt that he just might be grossly underpaid.

  He had not heard from his employers in a while although funds and supplies continued to arrive. His deceptively modest lab required equipment and raw materials costing a small fortune to acquire and to ship out here. He paid a steep rent for this section of the rambling research center and yet more fees for the shared use of the orbiter and four satellites circling the planet. He didn’t really need the satellites but, as long as the other teams here believed in his sub-space research, they were worth the extra cost.

  The rebel agents about to land out here would bring another shipment of raw materials but also came with new demands for faster results. What to tell them?

  He looked past his screen at some of the samples encased in their protective housing. Of course there was nothing to see but a row of thick metal disks, shielded in every possibly way and plugged securely into the small power plant. Entirely separate from the data grid, of course. He’d learned to make certain of that.

  “Rey, they’re here,” a gentle voice behind him announced.

  He turned to Isaran, his assistant and companion, standing at the door. She had not stepped into the lab since that frightful incident but now cast an anxious glance at the open door leading into the corridor. Down there the Feydan was still pacing about in his enclosure, talking and gesturing in some animated but one-sided debate. “Thanks, Isa. I’ll come up in a moment.”

  “You don’t want him down here?”

  Tague stood up and stretched his cramped legs. Too much time spent in this lab, hunched over his calculations, experimenting with the material gathered in sub-space, had taken its toll on him. The average Human just wasn’t made for this, he thought. He’d gotten weak in the knees, round in the middle, and grey on his head on his quest for knowledge. That this quest involved experiments of the sort that few members of the Union Commonwealth would sanction was a small price to pay. Ethics and science had always been uneasy partners.

  He had been fortunate to find a sponsor for his work among the Shri-Lan instead of having to find a likeminded partner among Commonwealth companies. As his work brought him ever closer to discovering the nature of the peculiar emissions first reported by the Delphians, he soon realized that there was something eerily aware, almost sentient, in the way the particles interacted. Disclosing that finding to the Union would mire it endlessly in policy and debate if not halt it entirely. Fortunately, the Shri-Lan asked no questions and looked only for outcomes.

  He went to the door and shooed the woman up a narrow stairway. “Maybe later,” he said. “Let’s see who they sent this time.”

  The man waiting for him in the domed residential pod was probably the least welcome in his estimation. Tov Pald seemed to take up too much space in the tidy commons room as he stood stiffly, having removed neither his overcoat nor the respirator Caspians needed on this planet. Isaran’s lips formed a thin line when she saw the claws of his three-toed feet scrape over the polished floor.

  “Hello, Tov Pald.” Tague forced a smile. The deliveries had so far been made by a couple of Centauri pilots who dropped off their cargo without even stopping to chat. This Caspian, however, ranked highly in the Shri-Lan hierarchy. He ran a gang of mercenaries without any apparent r
ebel affiliation who were loyal only to him. As far as loyalty among those ruffians went, anyway, Tague thought. “I hadn’t expected you to make the trip out here yourself. A rare pleasure, indeed.”

  The yellow raptor eyes above the mask were cold. “Your report is overdue. The Brothers are looking for news.”

  Tague peered eagerly into an open chest on the floor. Delighted by the number of disks, he took two and hugged them possessively to his chest. “There have been some… developments.”

  “Surely you do not mean setbacks.”

  “No! On the contrary. I think you’ll be pleased with my update.”

  “Let’s hope the Brothers will be,” Tov Pald responded. “They want to see progress. Air Command is getting curious about the operation. They tracked my crew to Rishabel; I have no idea how. They barely made it out with these.”

  “What happened?”

  “Air Command sent Vanguard agents to intercept a delivery. Why they’d care about these is a mystery. Things went bad fast. Three officers dead. I lost two of my men.” Tov Pald gestured at the disks. “One of these might have leaked. From what I heard, two Centauri went down without taking any fire. Not getting any radiation from it now, though. Made sure of that. I’ve shifted all drop offs to Belene-34 now. Rishabel is far too hot.”

  Tague glanced down at the heavy containers he still clutched to his chest. “It would take a lot for these to lose containment. Are you sure?”

  “Unless those people got struck by lightning, yes.”

  “Did you get any video of the situation?”

  “No witnesses. And no video. Why?”

  Tague chewed his lip, still not sure what to reveal to the Caspian rebel. Surely, there must be a way to leverage his new discovery in some way. Then again, just ensuring that the funding for his work continued might be enough. “I think I might have discovered a… a side-effect of this material.”

  “Like what?”

  “Come downstairs with me. I’ll show you.” He picked the crate up and walked ahead of the Caspian into the research wing. The main space was another geodesic dome, cheerfully lit by triangular skylights. The entire compound consisted of clusters of such domes, easily transported and assembled, connected by short conduits as needed. From the air, the colony looked like some articulated creature sprawled out on the otherwise bleak plateau, following its contours as the terrain required. Several research agencies shared the facility, which included work and living spaces, support facilities, and even a small settlement of outsiders that came to hunt the native species roaming the moors. Tague’s cluster, the Adrierra lab, sat apart from the others at the northernmost edge of the plateau.