Concept YUS (Cross-World Murder Cases Book 1)

by Set Wagner

  As I entered, Elia was at the sterilizer organizing some instruments and didn’t see me. I passed behind her and quietly climbed the stairs to the observation area above the surgery room. I wasn’t surprised to find that now it was fully equipped—and looked much like the coordination control center in the defractor complex, though more sophisticated.

  Vernie was sitting in front of one section of the extremely long control desk, his attention completely on the text showing on the monitor. I stood behind his back.

  “Are you ready?” he murmured.

  When he received no answer, he turned around. His surprise and consternation were so intense that I almost felt sorry for him.

  “Ah, Simon!” he exclaimed, muffling the sound and at the same time managing to pull himself together and casually change the indicator diagrams on the big monitor to his left.

  “You must have received the latest order,” I said.

  “Well, yes, yes. Listen, Simon, I have no idea what Larsen told you about our job here, but you have to know that the tests—”

  “I’m going to be in charge of the tests too.”

  “But you don’t understand anything—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Put the work schedule back on the monitor.”

  “What schedule?”

  “The work schedule of the tests. Now!”

  When he kept pretending he didn’t understand, I put a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Vernie, the last thing I need is a fourth corpse. But I’m warning you, I won’t allow any noncompliance. As far as I’m concerned, this base is in a state of emergency.”

  He glanced at the flexor in my other hand and then slowly looked up again. His eyes met mine, and the next minute, the schedule reappeared on the monitor. The stages on the indicator diagrams were shown by abbreviations and symbols, most of them unknown to me. But not all of them. I paid particular attention for now only to the green triangular marker in the vertical bar on the right side of the signs, which showed that the schedule was doubtlessly still in its first phase.

  I signaled Vernie to stand up, relieved him of his flexor, and put it in my jacket pocket. I then returned my own flexor to its belt holster.

  “Continue!” I ordered Vernie.

  He reluctantly sat down and began typing the next order but abruptly changed his mind, canceled it, and turned to me hesitantly. “Simon, obviously you have no idea—”

  I interrupted him. “Strictly follow the program and don’t stall.” I pointed to the electronic watch at the control panel. The chronograph showed the time to complete the current phase had almost expired. “I don’t want any delays!”

  Sighing painfully, he bent over the keyboard and this time completed the command. The chronograph indicated a new moment of inception, and the marker moved to the diagrams a few millimeters down, indicating that Vernie had completed the procedure in time. I let him get on with his job and went to the glass partition that surrounded the entire room. I looked down at Elia, who had begun preparing the operating table, and then went back to the control desk and accessed the program that controlled the surveillance cameras. They appeared on the monitor one by one: from the peaks of the closest cones, a panoramic view of the defractor and three separate perspectives on the hill across from it; a view of the Yusian base through a powerful telescopic lens; and a view of our base. From the defractor site were transmitted internal views of all the key equipment and external views of the buffer zones between them. When I completed my check, only one of the cameras, number six, had failed to transmit an updated image. Number six remained dark.

  I noticed that Vernie was again hesitating, so I approached him. He cringed as if expecting me to hit him and started to tell me something but stopped, bit his lips, and activated the radial accelerator. The monitor confirmed that the first stream of supercharged ions had entered the diverter. The polarization indicator started rising, and very soon the scale indicated optimal range. I accessed the adjoining monitor, put it in tracking mode, and saw that the energy density of the ion stream was rising steadily. In general, all was functioning normally, except of course for Vernie, whose psychological instability was close to critical.

  After a while I heard steps on the stairs and stood where I couldn’t be seen from the entrance. Elia entered, her face deadly pale, but her firm stride showed that she had managed to gain as much self-control as the situation required. She walked straight to Vernie. When he heard her, he quickly spun his chair around and, instead of looking at her, stared directly at me. She followed his eyes, saw me, and moaned as if, in me, she saw one of her nightmares come true.

  “Well, we got the latest order, didn’t we?” Vernie “reminded” her, as if she were merely pretending surprise. He simulated a cough and continued, “After giving him command of the base, Larsen must have informed him that the tests will be coordinated from here. Am I right, Simon?”

  “Concentrate,” I told him firmly.

  “That’s right; I have to concentrate!” He pointed Elia toward the exit and added, “I hope everything goes without complications!”

  “Yes, yes.” She started nodding.

  I stopped her when she tried to leave the room. “I think it’ll be more convenient if you contact Reder from here.”

  Now she was the one who hesitated. To show her that she didn’t have a choice, I escorted her to the panel controlling the systems in the room and, before her surprised eyes, blocked all doors.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she murmured. “Do you realize—”

  “Come on! Call Reder.”

  She reached into the pocket of her work coat. It was obvious she didn’t have a flexor or another weapon, but as she was taking out her communicator, I still instinctively tensed up. I tried to cover it up. Today’s developments didn’t change how close we had been the night before, but they did nothing to deepen that closeness either.

  “Ehrlich?” Elia had established contact. Before he responded I indicated that she shouldn’t mention I was there. Then I turned on the amplifiers so I could hear what was said. “Ehrlich!” she repeated, irritated.

  “Yes?” he answered. “How’s it going there?”

  “And with you? I mean—are you OK?”

  “Am I OK? Me? Elia, tell me what’s going on!”

  I grasped her forearm to give her a stronger sign but immediately released it. After all, Reder was going to find out I was here sooner or later.

  “I insist that we postpone the experiment!” Elia said suddenly. “I don’t feel—”

  “Enough!” Reder firmly interrupted her. “Stick to the plan!” And he cut the connection.

  Vernie and Elia looked at each other with the same confusion and weakness. I didn’t let them stay long in this condition but ordered them back to work. Elia went to the curve of the control desk, the central command station judging by the number and arrangement of the monitors. Vernie turned back to the work schedule. I sat down next to him. As I expected, very soon on the display monitor appeared a warning message in bright letters, announcing the installation was approaching critical mode.

  “Oh my God!” Vernie murmured, feigning concern. “That’s what I was afraid of!”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The smallest detail can compromise everything. There is a defect in one of the oscillators, Simon! Good thing we are still in the first stage.”

  Elia came to us right away. “Did something happen?” Her voice reflected her secret liveliness.

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Vernie answered her. “Turbulent fluctuations beyond the norm in the toroid device. Apparently one of the oscillators—”

  “Continue!” I repeated clearly.

  “Hey, isn’t it obvious?” He acted surprised. “We have to terminate!”

  I didn’t say anything. The long pause became a silence electrified by expectation. Vernie glanced at me and reached for the main switch. He put his hand on it, and Elia gave a sigh of almost obvious relief—a short-lived relief because I immediat
ely moved his hand off the switch.

  “Stick to the plan!” I repeated Reder’s final phrase.

  “But if we do—and it leads to disaster?” Elia whispered, emphasizing the question.

  I preferred not to answer her—after all, her question was simply speculative. I turned my attention to the screen displaying the work schedule. The triangular marker had moved down into the bright-red danger zone.

  Elia couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “We can’t go on! You don’t know. You don’t know anything.”

  “Are you sure?” Vernie also emphasized his question.

  I looked at my watch and this time decided to give them an answer, once and for all. I called up the camera aimed at the Yusian base. The monitor showed a Yusian approaching.

  “So…you.” Fear appeared on Elia’s face. Then the fear changed to relief. Finally, her face froze in a grimace of strong disappointment, maybe even disgust.

  “Where’s the dog?” she asked through her teeth.

  “With Larsen,” I answered.

  “OK.” She turned her back toward me and returned to the viewing area.

  Next to me Vernie shifted, and I heard his joints crack, as if proving that his petrifaction during these last seconds was physical as well as psychological.

  “Get moving!” I urged him and, as an additional stimulus, showed him the strange Yusian on the screen. “As far as I can see, there’s no delay.”

  “That’s true,” he confirmed automatically.

  He made himself more comfortable at the control desk and began the next operation, becoming more and more confident with each move. He no longer had to make decisions; now he only needed to use his professional skills, and he could count on them.

  Soon the test of the defractor reached the second phase. It didn’t start smoothly either; the marker on the monitor sank to its lowest point, and the picture changed abruptly into another, bright red at the bottom and under that a thick black bottom line, the fail-safe point. But there was still time before we reached that point. I went to the monitors where Elia was working and checked the displays. Only the external cameras were on, and they registered no danger or change, except that the strange Yusian was now some fifteen yards closer.

  I turned on camera number six. This time it wasn’t dark. On the contrary, it was brighter than necessary; Reder’s image appeared before my eyes in irritatingly contrasting colors. I softened them and shrank the image as much as the equipment allowed. Dressed in protective thermal wear and something resembling a miner’s helmet, he was standing next to the freight hauler on the other side of the bunker, just under the hill, and opening and closing its freight claws by remote control. The familiar armored truck was parked nearby.

  “Keep in constant touch with Reder from now on!” I ordered Elia.

  If she still had doubts about my awareness of their ultimate goal, now they completely disappeared. Instead of her personal communicator, she used the microphone at the control station so I could take part in the conversation too.

  Reder answered the call right away.

  “We have entered phase two,” Elia told him, looking at the display monitor in front of her. “We reached critical mode three minutes ago. The object is here. Four hundred and thirty meters from the point of contact.”

  “I’m waiting for it!” Reder shook his head. “The road leading to you is in order.”

  A faint smile of satisfaction played around his lips. I decided it was better not to talk to him at all. We would meet in no more than half an hour, right here. Until then it wasn’t advisable to bother him in any way.

  Meanwhile, the display monitor was registering new alarming messages, including one about an interruption along the reverse cascade. Apparently Vernie decided to make the problems develop faster.

  I pulled up the panoramic view of the defractor. From the outside, there was no visible evidence of anything wrong. The camera monitoring the Yusian base also showed only a calm landscape because the strange Yusian was no longer in the picture. Now he was being tracked by another camera, where a red blinking arrow indicated each meter change in his location.

  After a while Elia started to count out aloud, “Three hundred meters to the point of contact.”

  “Three hundred,” Vernie confirmed. “Bring up camera eight on the monitor to my right.”

  I stood in front of that monitor, which seemed to be malfunctioning because the picture kept breaking up. The screen was filled with bright sparks, and blue flashes constantly cut across it. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at until the display registered information about the levels of electromagnetic power. This was the inside of the central technology hall, shown from the top. At the moment, the camera was focused on the shell of one of the resonators in the aggregate sector, the precise site of the electrical problems. A few seconds later, the internal pressure increased even more, and then the resonator broke down, producing another shower of sparks and blue flashes. But the pressure in the system remained high.

  “A break in the first wall of the diverter,” Elia reported.

  “OK,” Reder answered.

  Vernie couldn’t control his temper and laughed harshly. He aimed the camera at the reactor, observed it for a minute or two, theatrically rolled up his sleeves, and went to work at the control desk, continually talking to himself.

  “Injectors on! Starter. Antiproton wave has been generated. Twist. Oh, the temperature! It’s rising—and more. Cooling! First cryopump, quick! No, it didn’t hold—poor thing. Influx! Try to change the direction of the stream! Too bad. Attention! Second pump failed too. Cooling system is working at half capacity. Leak is enlarging. Implosions very close to the nucleus! Danger of spontaneous reverse. Now imminent danger of spontaneous—” He stopped talking, still glancing at the gauges.

  I didn’t understand much of his monologue, but the whole time I continued to watch how the marker never stopped moving down through the bright-red zone on the monitor displaying the schedule. Now it was close to the black line.

  “Two hundred meters,” Elia announced.

  “Two hundred,” Vernie confirmed and entered his next command.

  “Complex switch to the doubling contour,” she read from the display monitor.

  “Vernie!” Reder’s voice interfered. “Vernie?”

  “Don’t worry!” Vernie responded. “Everything is under control.”

  In fact, the marker had moved back up again, almost back into the bright-red zone. The thermal parameters were balanced; the diverter and antiproton reactor were still able to contain their supercharged burden, though just barely. The plasma tubes connecting them with the annihilation corpus between them remained in ready mode, with magnetic tracks activated and accelerating boosters charged.

  I went to the viewing area. The strange Yusian was still progressing at a slow, steady pace, as he almost always did during his wanderings. None of the other screens registered anything unusual either.

  “One hundred meters,” reported Elia.

  “One hundred,” Vernie repeated mechanically, his attention focused on the diagrams with a strange, excessive interest, even with longing, as if he expected them to provide him with an answer to a question that had been troubling him for a long time. He waited like that for almost a whole minute—an agonizing strain on all our nerves—then jumped to his feet.

  “Yes, yes—yes!” He triumphantly waved his fists above his head. “It worked! My God! This is the refraction coefficient! Now the beam of light will refract again only when I want. I can control it completely—”

  “Vernie!” Reder interrupted him.

  “Go to hell! During all these months while you—but this is a major discovery too. My own discovery! Nobody has ever reached this point.”

  “Phil, fifty meters,” Elia said quietly.

  “OK. Just let me check these readings once more.”

  “Everything is being recorded.” Reder sounded like he was begging. “You can check them later. Later!”

>   “Well, OK.” Vernie threw himself back into his chair and called up another image on the monitor to his right. He reached over to the main speaker and turned the sound on, activated some other device, lowered his head, and listened intensely to the disturbing sounds coming from the speakers. I turned to the viewing monitors; one of them still showed the interior of the central technology hall, viewed from the top to provide a relatively clear picture of the progress of the tests.

  The aggregates in the middle ring were vibrating wildly, the concrete beneath them cracking and breaking up. The cooling system started expelling streams of condensed steam through its safety valves. The hissing grew stronger, mixing with the booming of the generators. A few shakes followed. I turned to the panoramic view of the defractor. Unbelievably, absolutely nothing wrong could be seen from the outside. I relaxed and looked at Vernie with new respect as he continued.

  “Twenty meters,” Elia said, her voice shaking.

  The devices at the desk recorded a surprising decrease in the pressure and the cessation of the vibrations. The monitor displayed the message “phase three,” instantly overriding any previous messages.

  Then on the command monitor appeared the annihilator itself, framed to appear as large as possible. It was an incredible human creation, embodying immense power and immense hatred. And fear.

  Chapter 36

  The alien slowly climbed the hill. He didn’t use the empty strip along the ferns; instead, he plowed straight through them, so the lower part of his body kept appearing and disappearing. These Earth-Yusian plants, as strange as himself, appeared on the monitor to be slicing into his body or devouring it, but it kept regenerating, recreating itself over and over again. The red sun had begun to rise, covering the back of the Yusian with horizontal rays that looked like flowing streams of human blood.