“No,” Fairamai said, “the educational database has a synaptic interface.”
“How do you operate it?”
“Simply focus your concentration on any rendered object or word.” She pointed to a small antenna above the display. “It will receive your neuropulses. To manipulate the display, form one of the basic commands in your mind. I’ve entered translations of ‘Go’, ‘Back’, ‘Follow’, and ‘Return’. You can customize other commands with the interface at the bottom. Subvocalize searches to begin. I would suggest that you start with the Xtôti entries before moving on to Kulsat history.”
Silently amazed at the remarkable technology, Justine looked at the display. There was a single phrase hanging in three-dimensional suspension: Please supply search parameters.
“Xtôti history,” Justine said under her breath, and the display launched the first page in the database, comprising text as well as a dimensional image of what looked like a humanoid turtle without a shell. For a moment, Justine gaped. In her mind, she hadn’t really formed an image of the Grace, but this was not what she had expected.
Before reading the text, however, she wanted to be sure she had a handle on the interface. She focused on an arrow on the bottom of the display and thought, next. Immediately, the page transitioned to a topic list. Back, she thought, glancing at the right side of the page. The first page returned. The top line of the text read, ‘Introduction’, and Justine focused on that and thought, go. A generic definition of ‘introduction’ appeared on the display.
She played with the controls for a few more seconds until she was confident she could navigate the database.
The synaptic interface was as close to a telepathic link as technology could get. On Earth, thought-link implant surgery allowed for a very rudimentary Meshstream to be uploaded through the optic nerves, with commands still based on vocalization. A true synaptic interface had never been developed.
Turning to Fairamai, Justine asked, “Can you use this for communication?”
Shaking her head, Fairamai said, “Far too many conservatives in the Parliament. They’ve banned synaptic technology for anything other than databases and medical emergencies.” She made a short screeching sound that Justine took for amusement. “One of the first demonstrations proved embarrassing to a certain member of Parliament…”
Justine turned back to the display and immersed herself thoroughly in the history of the galaxy.
∞
The amount of information she absorbed was incredible, but she knew she had only uncovered the tip of the iceberg. Even with her accelerated learning ability, it could take her years to learn everything available in the database.
A few key points stood out from the research.
Although there wasn’t a direct match in the species catalogs between the evolved worlds throughout the galaxy, there were significant similarities among them. With a few rare exceptions, the animal kingdoms of the diverse worlds could be categorized along the same basic families. As humans evolved from the primate family and became the dominant species in Sol System, the Gliesans—whose home world’s geography was dominated by mountainous regions and forests—evolved from a species of flightless birds that was something of a cross between an ostrich and an owl.
The anthropology of the Aves, as they called their species, was fascinating, and Justine had to stop herself from spending the entire session learning about them. There was time for that later. She needed to learn about the Kulsat.
Ninety-two percent of the Kulsat home world’s surface was water. The cephalopods on that planet were the first to use tools for survival. They had created underwater cities and developed agriculture around the same time as humans were still living in caves. The Kulsat had discovered electricity thousands of years before the first human hut had been erected in Mesopotamia.
One statistic that surprised her was, among the thirty-thousand species that had developed space flight—or were on the cusp—less than twelve percent had evolved from land-based mammals. By far, the majority of dominant species evolved from oceanic environments. It only followed, Justine thought; after all, mammals were latecomers on the evolutionary scale of Earth.
As Fairamai had mentioned earlier, the Kulsat had been the second species to expand beyond their planet’s surface and into the space of their solar system. A million years ago, the reptilian Xtôti had already mastered light-speed travel, and had discovered a way to circumvent normal space. Justine had difficulty imagining spending that amount of time alone in the galaxy, knowing that there were tens of thousands of other sentient species with the potential of becoming galactic neighbors.
If the Xtôti had not provided technological advancement, the Kulsat might not have developed light-speed travel for many more millennia—their system was barren of Kinemet. The nearest solar system was eighty-seven light-years away. With the short lifespan of the Kulsat species, they would’ve had to develop generation ships to explore the systems in their sector.
Without Xtôti interference, the Kulsat would most likely have Emerged around the same timeframe as the majority of the other members of the Collection of Worlds. According to the database, there was a mass confluence of advancement throughout the galaxy. The majority of worlds had emerged between two and four-thousand years ago—it was practically simultaneous, in the context of galactic time.
Sol System was a straggler. A question arose in Justine’s mind, and she did a quick search. While interference in un-Emerged systems was against the law, observation was not. The Xtôti had been notoriously close-lipped about the existence of other systems, having learned their lesson with the Kulsat.
A question occurred to Justine, and a few thought-strokes later, she found her answer. Galactic scientists estimated there were over two thousand more un-Emerged systems in the galaxy. When Justine read this, she wondered how they’d arrived at that number. With her mind, she focused on that fact and thought, follow.
The monuments housing the star beacons, she read, all contained the same catalog of language samples. Apparently, the Xtôti kept a close watch on developing systems. At some point in the evolution of that culture, the Xtôti would sample local languages and leave a message on the monument housing the star beacon as a way to welcome them to the galactic fold. There were 2,341 unidentified writing samples.
Justine wondered at the translation they’d found on the Dis Pater. She knew the Mayan language had dozens of dialects, and even modern-day linguists argued over the meaning of many of the symbols and icons.
‘Behold the Mighty Door of Kinich Ahua; Eternity is Now Before You; Beware the Power of Kukulcan.’
It sounded ominous, and she wondered what the message really meant.
She turned to Fairamai. “I have a question about the writing on the star beacon monuments. Actually, I have two, but the first one is, ‘What do those messages really mean?’ ”
“I am not certain the translation program will give you the correct context of our message,” Fairamai said. “The line was written in one of the earliest languages from our southern continent. No one has spoken it in thousands of years, but according to our linguists, it reads, ‘Observe the gate of creation and the endless sky of your future. Great and terrible is the power of Aether.’ ”
Justine deduced that, in a rudimentary form, the messages were similar, and could be written in any number of ways. Here’s the star beacon. With it, you can travel to other solar systems. Use the technology with care.
“The database says all the monuments have the same writing samples,” Justine said. “So yours, out here, has our Mayan message on it. Did the Xtôti write on all the beacons?”
Shaking her head, Fairamai said, “You still do not comprehend. The star beacons all share the same space outside light. Some of our scientists believe there may only be one star beacon, and what we see in normal space is a metaphysical representation. Our technology cannot accurately measure the star beacon. We can only hypothesize. The monuments are connecte
d to the star beacons on a level we do not understand.”
“So, if the Xtôti wrote on one, the writing would appear on all of them?”
“That is our theory,” Fairamai replied.
“So,” Justine asked, drawing her words out, “if one of them were destroyed…?”
Giving that amused screech of laughter, Fairamai said, “They cannot be destroyed. Believe me, it’s been attempted many times by many different systems.”
31
Sierra de las Minas :
Guatemala :
In the morning, Nadia came for Michael.
“Your friends will remain here to ensure your cooperation,” she said, casting a suspicious glance at the others. Her rifle was crooked in her arm, and it was as if she wanted someone to try to escape.
“You said you would send someone back for Diego and Migel,” Michael said.
“Yes. We brought them here last night. They’re in the main house.” She glanced at Humberto. “They will both live as long as you all continue to cooperate.”
Michael didn’t want to give her any excuse to follow through with the threat. Sharing a concerned look with Humberto, he got up and followed the young woman out of the barn. Before he left, he looked back. “It will all work out,” he said. Yaxche gave him a nod.
Outside, there were several more people than the day before. A second cargo truck was there, and it was filled with both electronic and digging equipment. Tucked deep inside the cargo area was a compact excavator.
Alondo was standing near the rear of the truck, going over an inventory list. He looked up as his sister and Michael approached.
“I think we have everything we will need,” he said to his sister, “provided it is not too deep a cave.”
“So long as we are not chasing a fairy tale,” Nadia said, raising an eyebrow at her brother.
“I can’t guarantee what’s there,” Michael said, and felt a shudder go down his spine at the malevolent scowl he got from the siblings.
Nadia practically spat out her words. “For you and your friends’ sake, let us hope we find something worth our while.”
In a businesslike manner, Alondo said, “We have four laser radiation detectors. Once we reach the mountains, you will program the frequency into them, and instruct the teams what to look for. Your map showed an area of ten-thousand hectares. We have used a recent satellite scan to eliminate more than eighty-percent of the area that does not show any subterranean gaps. I’ve marked the remaining possible locations on these maps. With four teams, we should be able to survey all possibilities in one or two days. We’ve paid the local authorities to look the other way for that amount of time. If we haven’t found what we are looking for by then…” He gave Michael a hard look.
They all turned around at the sound of a third truck rumbling up the dirt road. It pulled a long trailer, on the back of which were four military-style all-terrain vehicles.
“A loan from a colonel in the Guatemalan army,” Alondo said.
A knot formed in the pit of Michael’s stomach. Once again, he was being swept along with the tide of events. At one time, he was the CEO of one of the most important corporations in the world, and was at the forefront of future exploration. Now, in less than two decades, he was nothing more than a pawn in an international and interplanetary power struggle.
How was he possibly going to be able to save Sol System from the Kulsat when he hadn’t been able to save Kenny or Alex from Chow Yin? Even Humberto’s intervention had only delayed his being abducted and used by Oscar Ruiz’s children.
Now, if he didn’t cooperate, more innocents would die. There was every possibility they would all die anyway.
Michael couldn’t remember ever feeling so low.
∞
The troop set up a base camp fifty meters outside the tree line at the base of the mountain range and waited while Michael calibrated the radiation detectors.
While raw Kinemet gave off ultra-high electromagnetic radiation—more so than gamma rays—and could disrupt any electronics in the nearby area, the radiation of a Kinemat, such as Alex, was non-ionizing electromagnetic in the extremely low-frequency range. If a Kinemat was not utilizing the radiation, the only means to detect it was with highly sensitive detectors.
When Michael was finished, Alondo split up the men into four teams and handed out coordinates of the most likely locations. Nadia stayed at the camp with the trucks and the excavator. Her task was to coordinate the search with the teams, and provide a communications hub for them.
Alondo took Michael with him. After taking his place in the back seat of one of the terrain vehicles, Michael sat back and kept quiet. Until they found the cave that entombed the alien—if it did, indeed, exist—he didn’t have much to do other than go along for the ride.
The forest of the range was sparse, and the trees were spaced far enough apart for them to ride between the trunks. There was also an intricate pathway system the park officials had maintained for years. From the story Patli had told, it was doubtful the cave would be too far up any of the mountains. Michael doubted they would have to walk any great distance from the vehicles.
While he concentrated on keeping his teeth from clattering together, and his bones from rattling from the jarring ride, Michael considered the younger man beside him. It was alarming how much groundwork Alondo had done in such a short span of time. His attention to detail was meticulous, and he commanded the men with an ease that seemed to be an inherent trait. If he’d put his skills to legitimate trade, Alondo could easily have led a company to prosperity. It was too bad he had baser motivations. Internally, Michael sighed. It seemed the universe ran on greed, jealousy, and revenge.
When they arrived at the first prospect—a small area of rock surrounding an outcrop—Alondo got off the vehicle and motioned Michael to grab the radiation detector from the storage compartment on the back.
As they approached the outcrop on foot, Alondo called his sister to let her know where they were. Once he’d finished checking in, he turned to Michael.
“All right, let’s see if there’s anything there.”
Michael set the laser radiation detector on a tripod in front of the rocks, turned it on, and aimed at the center of the pile of rubble. It was a similar device to the ones surveyors used on asteroids. Idly, Michael wondered if the Kinemet would react to the laser and produce an effect similar to the one that had quantized Macklin’s Rock.
After the initial discovery of Kinemet, every mining company on Earth went on the hunt for the element in the hopes of improving their fortunes. After years of surveys, however, no sign of Kinemet was found.
Now, here they were searching again, but this time it wasn’t for the element itself, but the residue of the element. They were working off a lot of assumptions, but the one thing Michael clung to was that if there had, indeed, been a Kinemetic being buried here, he would give off the same electromagnetic signature as Alex. It was a well-documented frequency.
It took several seconds before the readout spat out the results of the scan. Every spec of matter on the Earth gave out its own form of radiation, and the computer listed every frequency it found: oxygen, silicon, iron, calcium, magnesium, and many other innocuous elements.
Michael adjusted the laser a few degrees and waited for a second readout, which ended up being similar to the first except for a trace of jade—a quantity much too small to warrant the effort of excavation. He continued to play the laser around the area, and only stopped after half an hour of searching.
All the while, he could feel Alondo’s hawk eyes watching him.
“Sorry,” Michael said finally, “there’s nothing in there. From a geological standpoint, it’s probably nothing more than a crevice caused by a natural shift.”
He expected an outburst, but was surprised when Alondo spoke into his radio to touch base with his sister and inform her that the first coordinate was not a hit.
Alondo crossed the spot off his map. To Michael, he said,
“One down, fourteen more to go.”
∞
By late afternoon, they’d surveyed five locations. Some of the areas were buried by rock slides, some from sunken earth, and one had been a wide-open tunnel whose opening was half a meter in diameter. Both Alondo and Michael had started when a lowland paca darted out. The rodent had obviously adopted the cave as a home, and was more frightened by the encroaching humans than they were of it.
After their pulses returned to normal, Alondo said, “We’ll do two more today, then complete the rest of them tomorrow. You look dehydrated. Have some water, and I’ll check in and see how the other teams are doing.”
Michael had just enough time to find the canteen on the seat of the vehicle and take a sip before Alondo hollered at him.
“Team Three thinks they may have found something.” He hurried toward Michael, trying to read his map while he moved. When he got to the vehicle, he put the map on the seat and found the location of the other team. “There. We can get there in ten minutes.”
Despite himself, Michael found his heart thrumming with excitement. Was their long shot really going to pay off?
He climbed onto the back seat, and held on while Alondo drove to the site.
∞
By the time they got there, the other two teams had arrived, and within minutes, Michael could hear the engine of the compact excavator as it slowly picked its way through the forest to them. Nadia stood on a riser outside the cab, one hand holding her close to the vehicle. She had her rifle in the other hand.
A dozen meters out, she jumped from the excavator and trotted up to meet her brother.
Alondo smiled at her, and then turned to Michael. “All right, let’s verify the findings.”
They scaled a short rise to an area where there had been a massive landslide. From the looks of the overgrowth, it could have been decades or centuries since anyone had been there. There was only one way to tell whether this was the spot.
Worlds Away (The Interstellar Age Book 3) Page 21