by S. L. Viehl
“Not stars at all,” I murmured. “More like energy bursts.”
The derelict ship appeared, still glowing with bright colors but obviously adrift. Two Hsktskt patrol vessels paralleled its meandering course, reminding me that if this didn’t go well, we might end up being fired on by the Hanar’s well-meaning militia.
“There is an air lock on the port side,” the engineer said. “We should be able to dock with it.”
As the pilot brought the launch up alongside the rift ship, the rest of us donned our envirosuits and took down our supply packs.
“Until we test the interior for atmosphere and run a biodecon, everyone stays on tank,” I told the men as I fastened on my breather. “Keep your suitcoms enabled at all times. Healer Valtas and I will go in first.”
The launch rocked as its docking clamps fastened to the derelict, and air hissed as the pilot sealed our compartment and opened the air lock. The rift ship’s hull panels slid open silently, inviting us in.
“Ready?” I asked the oKiaf, who nodded. “Let’s go.”
The first thing I noticed when I stepped into the other ship’s air lock was a panel of unfamiliar controls that sparkled with frozen condensate. There were no etchings or pictographs to indicate what purpose the controls served, only a series of colored light pads, only two of which were still illuminated.
“Some power systems are still online,” I said to Shon. As soon as we had all crossed and our air lock closed, so did the derelict’s. “And the proximity sensors are functioning.” The lock flooded with atmosphere, which I scanned and found to be a harmless mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. “They’re air breathers.”
Shon initiated the portable biodecon unit, which detected no harmful microorganisms inside the ship. “The internal temperature is rising.”
“I guess it knows we’re here.” I waited until the atmosphere wouldn’t flash-freeze my face off, and then removed my helmet and breathed in. “Cold, but tolerable.” I nodded to the others.
Our exhalations made a few white puffs as we moved forward into the ship. The first compartment was largely empty, containing only a few odd-shaped objects that seemed to be containers of cargo or supplies. The deck had been fashioned from some sort of orange alloy in a solid sheet that curved up into walls and continued over to form the upper deck. There were no visible seams, emitters, or other devices anywhere, but a soft amber light appeared and filled the compartment. Then one of the walls lit up and showed a series of complicated-looking symbols.
“We’ve been welcomed, I think,” I said over my suitcom. “Captain, are you seeing this?”
“Yes, but our archivists cannot identify the language.”
“Transmit it to Joren,” I suggested. “Reever may be able to do something with it.”
How simple it was for me to say that, now that I’d disconnected my feelings from my husband and our wretched relationship. I expected by the time I returned to Joren, I’d be able to look at Reever and feel nothing at all.
“The crew compartment is this way,” Shon told me, pointing to an opening in the back.
I looked at the other men. “Stay here.”
The oKiaf and I made our way through the opening and along a narrow passage into the adjoining compartment. The amber light preceded us like a guide showing the way.
“An interesting form of energy conservation,” Shon observed as he studied the fluctuating light. “The environmental systems must be designed to respond to the presence of the crew.”
“Hopefully the air isn’t working off the same system.” I stopped to scan some racks from which hung strange-looking garments too small to fit an adult. “Odd. I didn’t see any infants in those tanks.”
Shon took down one garment, which seemed to melt the moment he touched it. Then I realized it was stretching itself into a larger shape. After another moment he was holding a one-piece fitted garment that appeared to be sized for his body.
“Biomalleable clothing with self-fitting sensors,” I guessed. “Clever way to save space and still stay fashionable.”
“Indeed.” He hung it back on the rack.
Around a wall that brightened to show us more of the incomprehensible symbols, we entered the area that the drone had encountered. I counted twenty-one tanks, all of which were occupied by bodies. My first scan confirmed that the crew were locked in stasis; their life signs barely registered. The semiliquid suspension scanned as pure, partially solid protocrystal, identical to the mineral found on Shon’s homeworld except for the structure of the hardened portions.
“The crystalline formation is different,” he told me. “It does not correspond with the samples taken from oKia or my body.”
“It hasn’t killed them yet, so maybe it is different.” I crouched down to study the eight control panels encircling the base of one tank. “These are monitors, I think.” After my scanner showed no conduits leading into the deck, I glanced up. “Where’s the power feed?”
“I cannot locate it.” He scanned the length of one tank. “They are not drawing power from the ship.”
“Well, something has to be keeping them alive.” I spotted an aperture at the base of the tank and peered over it. “This looks like a shunt.” I noted the tiny glyphs all around the outside rim, and the design of the membrane stretched across the interior. “Give me one of your specimen containers, and stand back.”
I took out a syrinpress, and touched the infuser to the center of the membrane. It formed a seal around it, and I slowly drew out a small sample of the protocrystal fluid. When I drew the instrument away, the membrane sealed itself. I immediately dropped the syrinpress into the specimen container and sealed it. A moment later my instrument became covered with hardened crystals, and then dissolved into a clear puddle.
“It will eat through the container,” Shon murmured.
“I don’t think so.” I watched it for a moment, and when it didn’t react to the container, I handed it to him. “We need to take this back to the ship for analysis before we attempt an extraction.”
When we rejoined the rest of the team, I saw the engineer busy performing some scans of his own on the interior hull, but whatever was showing up on his device had him shaking his head in disbelief. “Healer Torin, you should see this.”
I went over and eyed his scanner display. “It can’t identify the ship’s structural materials. Well, that’s not much of a surprise.”
“This is.” He scrolled down through the data until he came to a series of readings. “I scanned the carbon content inside the air lock as well as this compartment. The readings indicate that they are approximately six million years old.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying. “Does that mean it took them six million years to make the jump through time?”
“It is a comparative reading,” he corrected. “The carbon on this ship predates our time by six million years.”
“So this thing came from the past, not the future.” I gazed around the compartment. “Is there anything else you can tell me about it?”
“The power generating the light is not coming from the ship’s systems,” he said. “They operate on energy drawn from an exterior source.”
“I did not see any reservoirs or reserve tanks on the exterior hull,” Shon put in.
“The power is not contained on the ship; it is only being funneled through it,” the engineer said. “According to my scans, it is being drawn directly from the rift.”
Eight
After inspecting the rest of the derelict ship, we signaled the launch and returned to the Sunlace with the sample from the stasis tanks. While the engineer and the guards met with Xonea to brief him, Shon and I took the specimen to Medical.
“When Reever was studying the black crystal, he made use of a secured lab on another level that was not occupied by the crew,” the oKiaf said as I initiated quarantine seals on the room and buffered them with a sterile field. “He felt there would be less threat to the ship if all possible precautions we
re taken.”
“This isn’t black crystal, and I’m not Duncan Reever.” I placed the container in a shielded tank we used to test irradiated and infectious specimens. “It won’t do anything to us.”
He put a paw out to stop me from accessing the medsysbank. “How can you know that? You saw what it did to my body.”
“Jarn saw. I just read your chart.” I knew my actions must have seemed reckless to him, but I also knew I was right. “This is not the protocrystal that exists in our time, Shon. It’s at least six million years old.”
“Age has not rendered it harmless,” he said. “You saw what it did to the syrinpress.”
“But it hasn’t hurt the crew of that ship, and it didn’t try to attack me when I took a sample.” I pulled off one of my gloves. “If you need proof, I’ll put my hand in the container.”
His eyes narrowed. “You are behaving ir rationally.”
I couldn’t agree with him. I’d never felt more sure of anything in my life. But I also knew he could cause a lot of trouble for me, maybe even have Xonea toss me in a detainment cell. “I’m concerned about the people trapped in this stuff. I’d like to get them out of there. But you’re right, I’m probably moving too fast.” I thought for a moment. “We have air lock access through the waste venting system. We’ll set up a specimen-collection probe and keep it handy. If this sample so much as twitches the wrong way, I’ll dump it in the probe and flush it out into space. Satisfied?”
He didn’t look happy. “Very well.”
We spent the next six hours studying the sample, which behaved itself while we subjected it to a full spectrum of scans. It didn’t register on the atomic level as being any different from common quartz, found in abundance on thousands of worlds throughout our galaxy. There was only one primary difference in its composition, and that was the energy infusing it.
“It is not kinetic, thermal, gravitational, radiant, or electromagnetic,” Shon said after assessing the readings. “The scanners cannot classify it or its system. All they can determine is that the power level is constant.”
“When the interactions of any particles aren’t dependent on time, the total energy of the system remains constant.” I went around the tank to take another image scan. “But I don’t think this is the kind of energy that subjects itself to too many physical laws.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Not well enough to call it by its first name.” I straightened and pressed a hand to the small of my back, which was aching slightly. “Maybe it’s simply alive.”
“Then our scanners would identify it as bioelectric energy.”
“Not that kind of life. A different order of life. Maybe higher, maybe lower. Obviously not on the same playing field as we are.” I went over to the console and downloaded the images I’d scanned, and then pulled them up and enlarged them several thousand times.
What I saw on the monitor didn’t correlate with what I knew, at least until I began making the connections. However advanced the technology was that created the rift ship, it still had to pass through an anomaly that emitted extreme levels of radiation along with bizarre, multidirectional gravitational fields. The crew’s fragile bodies would never have survived the passage without significant protection.
The lab around me slowly faded away as memories began flashing through my mind. I didn’t want to think of that makeshift hospital, and the thousands of dying colonists I had been so desperately trying to save. Too many of them had died before I had discovered what had made them sick.
But I had to remember. There was something important that had happened to me that day, something I’d forgotten. . . .
When I returned to Reever’s cot, I found Ana kneeling beside him, her hands pressed to the sides of his face.
“Physical contact helps Duncan to communicate,” she said. I didn’t tell her I already knew that from personal experience. She concentrated for a moment, then shook her head. “There’s something wrong. I can’t reach him.”
“It’s no use.” I touched her shoulder. “We’ll have to revive him, Ana.”
She looked down at her hands on Reever’s face, then back up at me. Something vital flared into her gaze. “Wait, I have an idea. Give me your hand.” She joined it to Reever’s and placed hers on top of both. “He won’t respond to me, but I think I can act as a conduit for you. Duncan discussed it with me once, a technique used to assist a nonverbal species. You may be able to reach him through me.”
“He’s sedated,” I said as I shook my head. “It’s not possible.”
“If we do this while he’s unconscious, will it prevent another seizure?” I nodded. “Duncan has . . . unusual abilities.”
“Ana, he’s on continuous sedation. Whatever abilities he has are fast asleep.”
“We have to try.”
“All right.” It was a last-ditch effort, but at least it was one that wouldn’t kill him. Another seizure would. “Tell me what to do.”
Her hand tightened over mine and Reever’s. “Call to him in your mind, Joey. Call to him as you would a lover.” I closed my eyes, thinking of Kao. “No,” she said. “Call to Duncan.”
I tried. It was difficult to shut out the sounds of the dying around me. I thought of the few times Reever had touched me, linking with me, and tried to summon that same sensation.
Reever. Come to me, Reever, I’m waiting. We need you. I need you.
Something slowly seeped into me, coalesced, became a presence. A semblance of Duncan Reever masked it, but I knew it wasn’t him.
“Something else,” I said. Ana made an encouraging sound, and I tried to intensify the connection by concentrating. “Not Reever.”
I was plunged into a liquid, moving darkness. All around me, I felt not one presence but a multitude. Hundreds, thousands, even millions.
I blinked, and I was back on the Sunlace, sitting in front of the lab terminal and staring at the image display. The protocrystal looked nothing like the Core that had caused the plague on Kevarzangia Two, but it reminded me of that terrible day at the isolation facility because it shared something with the Core.
Intelligence. Consciousness.
Purpose.
“What are you doing?” I heard Shon ask.
“We were wrong.” I shook off the feeling of déjà vu and set aside my memories. “It’s not a liquid. Look.”
He joined me and studied the magnified view, which showed billions of tiny, three-sided crystalline structures suspended in equally infinitesimal energy fields. “They look like nanites.”
“No.” I increased the magnification to show the interior of one of the little crystals. “Do you see it now?”
He peered at the screen. “Increase to maximum resolution.”
The console would only magnify to one million times, but that was enough for Shon to see the internal structure of the crystal. It was made up of billions of tinier, triangular-shaped crystals suspended in their own energy fields.
“If I were able to zoom in on one of those,” I said, “I imagine we’d find that they’re made up of the same crystal matrix, too.”
“What is it?” he murmured.
“There are a couple of inadequate names for it.” My own wonder and excitement subsided, and something cooler took its place as realization began to sink in. “Infinity. Eternity. Forever. Take your pick.”
He backed away from the monitor. “This is not possible.”
“Look at it this way: The next time someone asks you how the universe began, you can tell them there was no beginning. It just was, is, and will be.” I switched off the image. “I think we should call it quits; how about you?”
“How can you be so collected about this, this. . .” He gave up and gestured toward the tank.
“Immortality rock?” I regarded the specimen. “I guess I’m becoming hard to wow in my old age.”
“You believe this is a different mineral from the protocrystal that inhabits my homeworld.”
“Well, the a
tomic structures are quite different, and the three-sided formation is new, but it’s the same rock. This specimen happens to be more evolved.” I switched off the sterile field and pulled off my gloves. “I’d say this is what your protocrystal will look like in a few million years, once it’s had time to grow.”
His expression became exasperated. “We know from the carbon dating of the ship that this specimen came from the past.”
“You’re still thinking in linear terms: a past and a future, a beginning and an end. Those rules don’t apply to something that isn’t governed by them. Like this crystal.” I patted his shoulder. “Try not to think about it too much. You’ll just end up with a really bad headache.”
I knew it was petty of me not to explain everything in minute detail to Shon, but we both had the same enhanced brains and upgraded diagnostic capabilities. If he couldn’t figure it out on his own, maybe he’d sleep better tonight. I already knew I wouldn’t.
After I secured the lab, I left Medical and went directly to my quarters. In the old days I would have stopped in the galley for a meal and spent some time socializing, but as much as I liked the Jorenians, I was in no mood for chitchat. I needed to think.
I took a shower, picked at a meal I didn’t want, and then went to my terminal to do a little work. At first I ran some simulations on the retroviral compound I had formulated for PyrsVar’s treatment, but then I closed the file and began reviewing all the available data we had collected so far from the derelict.
Energy was what bonded the crystals into a pseudoliquid state; I was certain that merging the field was what solidified the matrix. If I could figure out how to temporarily disrupt the energy fields being generated by the individual crystals, I might be able to release the derelict’s crew from stasis.