Quantum Space: Book One in the Quantum Series

by Douglas Phillips

  Daniel’s eyes opened and he sat up straight. His heart pounded. Consciousness, but with a lingering feeling of a bizarre and unnatural world of the subconscious. He grabbed the phone, an incoming call from Christine Shea. “Morning, Ms. Shea, Daniel Rice here.”

  The clock on the nightstand read 7:04. Damn, I should have been up by now. With only a few hours of sleep, Daniel’s brain was still fuzzy and the dream remained fresh.

  Shea broke through the cobwebs. “Soyuz is down. In South Dakota. I need you there as soon as possible.”

  “Down? Landed?” He sounded hoarse.

  “Yes, landed. All in one piece. But something went wrong, that’s why I need you there.”

  “Are they okay?” he asked, finally thinking straight.

  “Probably not.” Shea’s voice was firm. “The capsule is empty.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Daniel stood at the doorway to Marie’s hotel room, feeling uncomfortable that he had so little to tell her.

  “Empty? How could it be empty? Did they get out?” Her eyes filled with tears, her expression a mix of surprise and anguish.

  “That’s all I know right now. It’s their capsule, they’re just not in it. We need to get out there ASAP.”

  Marie turned and ran back into the room, pulling a jacket off the bed and reaching for her packed suitcase. “Ready,” she said. A tear rolled down one cheek and she quickly brushed it aside. “Keep talking. Tell me what you know.”

  Daniel picked up his bag and they hurried to the elevator. “A normal landing, about an hour ago. It came down in South Dakota, just north of Rapid City.”

  “Normal. The parachute deployed? Soft-landing rockets fired?”

  They exited the elevator and ran through the lobby. “Yeah, a normal Soyuz landing, just not in Kazakhstan.”

  “Why South Dakota, then?” she yelled as they hurried across the parking lot.

  “Nobody knows. It might be random. Soyuz must have dislodged itself from 4-D space somehow and returned to where it started, in the atmosphere on reentry.”

  They threw their bags in the backseat of the car and climbed in front. Daniel squealed the tires as they sped out of the parking lot and headed toward the freeway.

  Now in the relative quiet of the car, her volume lowered. “Was the hatch open or closed when it landed?”

  Daniel’s eyes left the road for a moment and he looked over at Marie. “What are you suggesting? They climbed out?” An open hatch might imply the astronauts had found some other shelter, though what, he couldn’t imagine. More likely, an open hatch meant their bodies were still somewhere in space.

  “An open hatch means egress.” She held her hand to her mouth. “I need to know how it ended.”

  Daniel returned his attention to the road. “I only talked to Shea. I didn’t ask, and she didn’t say. Sorry.” He was just as worried as Marie. The situation certainly didn’t look good. Of course, these were men he’d never met, whereas for Marie they were colleagues, even friends. He understood how she must feel.

  “There’s a plane waiting for us at DuPage Airport, and we’ll be in South Dakota in less than two hours. We’ll know soon.”

  Marie nodded and Daniel pushed the pedal to the floor as he sped on to the interstate.

  As they drove, he thought about the Fermilab experiment that had moved a rat through quantum dimensions. Nala had described the rat’s body as liquefied. He wondered how well the recovery team had searched the Soyuz cabin for remains.

  30 Lost

  The military transport Gulfstream C-20H reached cruising altitude and leveled off, the roar of the engines diminishing slightly. Daniel and Marie sat in a forward area of the plane that was allocated for passengers. Two men in Air Force uniforms with lots of gold braid on their shoulders sat a few rows back, and a woman in civilian clothes sat across the aisle, absorbed in her own work. A large pallet of equipment hidden beneath multiple layers of plastic shrink wrap was strapped to the floor behind the rows of seats.

  Daniel reviewed the stack of papers once more. Phone records and computer network logs. They all looked legit, and damning. “They’re basically saying Nala has been spying for the Chinese.”

  Marie shook her head. “Don’t they always?”

  “So, you don’t buy it?” Daniel asked.

  “Not for a second.” Marie kept her voice low and their conversation private, but her passion was obvious. “She called you. She spent hours providing relevant information. She brought up the reference to a disc-shaped planet, and she explained why space junk is going missing without you ever mentioning the Kwajalein report.”

  Marie’s intensity increased to a level that Daniel had not yet seen in her. “On top of all that, if Stetler is involved with the Chinese, as she says, they have every reason to try to discredit her.”

  Daniel was puzzled by her defense of Nala and felt the need for objectivity. “Do they have reasons to discredit her? Yes… of course they do. But what if the truth is just the opposite? What if she really is feeding information to the Chinese? She would have every motivation to point the finger at someone else. And these documents appear to be valid. The phone records, for example.”

  Marie shook her head vigorously in disagreement. “Yes, it’s possible she’s a deceptive, out-of-control employee. But let me approach this question slightly differently… as a woman. There’s a long history in both business and government of women being discredited by men who are their superiors. Discredited when they bring up sexual harassment, discredited when they challenge an entrenched idea, and discredited when they expose fraud, or bias, or anything that shouldn’t be happening in the workplace. I’m sorry, but that’s just reality and it’s been going on forever.”

  She waved her hand through the air as she made her point. “The opposite, a woman lying and her male superiors completely innocent, is almost never true. Except maybe in Hollywood. I’ve seen the system in action—most women have—and I’d bet a large sum of money that Nala was telling you the truth.”

  Daniel tapped nervously on the armrest as he absorbed her argument—and her passion. She was almost certainly right, but this was a serious charge of espionage, and completely out of the realm of scientific oversight. He had reached the limit of his authority, and probably his skills too.

  If it was a case of character assassination, he knew why. “Marie, you’re right. There’s plenty of evidence supporting her, and one glaring flaw with this packet of evidence against her.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Why did they give it to me?”

  Marie remained silent, which seemed to solidify her point. There was little reason for Stetler to involve Daniel in a case against their employee—except to discredit her.

  After a minute, Daniel finally spoke. “We’re going to need help. Last night I made a call to Shea. She’ll send the FBI into Fermilab and Stetler, probably today. Those guys will have to sort it all out in our absence.”

  Marie nodded. “That’s the right plan. Don’t expect the FBI to understand the science going on there, but they’ll have a better shot at figuring out if anyone is lying. Our job has shifted, at least temporarily, to South Dakota.”

  Daniel leaned back in his seat and looked out the window. He thought about his encounter last night at the bar, Nala’s explanation of spatial compression, and her certainty of Chinese involvement. She had provided so many details. Her concerns were real, or at least they felt real. He only wished he had more evidence, beyond her word.

  The drone of the airplane’s engines was hypnotizing and the lack of sleep became impossible to ignore. He closed his eyes.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Marie tucked the blanket in behind Daniel’s shoulder. His head rested against the window shade, now closed. For nearly an hour, she had scoured her brain for every detail of Soyuz operations and systems that might result in an intentional egress, either in space or during reentry. She could think of at least a dozen scenarios, but most of them re
sulted in a quick death to the occupants. It was a discouraging exercise.

  The plane’s engines throttled back and the nose dipped. Daniel’s eyes opened and he sat up in his seat.

  Marie held out a granola bar. “Hungry?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” he said, taking the snack. His voice was scratchy. “Guess I was out for a while.”

  “You’re lucky,” she answered. “I can’t sleep on planes. You just closed your eyes and were gone. But you were up late last night.”

  Daniel blinked and rubbed his finger through the corner of his eye. “So, I’m allowed the downtime?”

  “You bet. Part of being a human.” The pace had been relentless and it wasn’t showing any signs of letting up. She could tell it was wearing on him. It was wearing on her too, and she regretted being so vocal in their argument about Nala’s credibility. She appreciated that, in the end, Daniel had agreed. He had adapted his viewpoint in the face of new information. She couldn’t say that of most people.

  A few minutes later, the plane touched down at Ellsworth Air Force Base on the outskirts of Rapid City, South Dakota. It taxied to a low-slung building in desperate need of a coat of paint. They gathered their bags and stepped out onto the plane’s built-in stairway. A gusty wind blew across the tarmac, picking up dust and tossing scraps of paper past the stairs.

  A man in uniform met them at the bottom. “Dr. Rice? Ms. Kendrick? I’m Staff Sergeant M.T. Peabody. Aide to Colonel McGinn.”

  Daniel practically yelled and still the wind drowned him out. “Sergeant Peabody, nice to meet you. Where do we go from here?”

  A bit of something hit Marie in the eye. “Someplace calmer,” she yelled.

  Peabody shrugged with a grin on his face. “Yeah, it really blows this time of year. Well, year-round, really.” When he didn’t seem to be moving, Daniel pointed to the dilapidated building behind him and Peabody swiveled. “Yeah, sorry, right this way, folks.”

  They followed him into a low-ceilinged waiting room with furnishings straight out of the sixties. Peabody looked behind him as he walked. “First time at Ellsworth?”

  “Yes,” said Daniel for both of them. “Is Colonel McGinn in charge of the Soyuz recovery?”

  “Yes, sir,” Peabody replied. “He’s over at the hangar right now. They brought the capsule in a couple of hours ago. I’ve never seen a Russian spaceship before.”

  They exited to the street side and back into the wind. A car was parked only steps away, and Marie was thankful to climb into the backseat. The terminal might not be modern, but taking military flights certainly avoided congestion on the ground. Daniel climbed into the front and pulled out his phone. “Text from Bradley,” he said over his shoulder. Marie nodded and Daniel typed.

  Peabody gunned the car’s engine and sped away from the curb. “Home of the B-1B,” he said to Daniel.

  Daniel looked up from his phone. “The bomber?”

  “Yes, sir, the Lancer,” Peabody confirmed. “And a few F-16s.” Peabody pointed to a parked aircraft painted in camouflage. “That’s an F-16 over there.”

  “I see.” Daniel returned to his keyboard.

  “I flew in the backseat once,” Peabody announced with a huge grin. Daniel looked up again, a pained expression on his face.

  Marie reached up and touched his shoulder. “I got this,” she mouthed. She leaned forward just a few inches behind Peabody’s ear. “You flew in the backseat? What an experience.”

  “Lieutenant Conner put that baby on its tail. We shot straight up. Ten thousand feet in five seconds.”

  “What a thrill, I’ve never done that,” Marie engaged him enthusiastically. Daniel smiled and returned his focus to the phone. The drive across the air base was only a few minutes, but Peabody pointed out every barrack, mess hall and activity center. Marie played the part of the perfect guest.

  “You never have to leave the base,” Peabody said. “Unless you want to go to the reservation for gambling.”

  “Alas, probably not this trip,” Marie lamented, almost believably. Her enthusiasm was not entirely a façade. She did enjoy talkative people and believed in her heart that they should be encouraged. Otherwise, society is left only with smartphone zombies wandering aimlessly through shopping centers. She had that tendency herself.

  They pulled up in front of a large building with two enormous doors, both shut. “You can leave your bags in the car,” Peabody told them. They walked to a more human-sized door near the corner of the building and entered a hangar that could have easily held a 747, maybe two. The ceiling far above echoed their steps and the sounds of people working. The enormous concrete floor was empty except for the small capsule resting in the center, a flurry of men and women on it, around it, and inside it.

  Peabody got the attention of McGinn, who turned to greet them. “Colonel Steven McGinn,” he said, shaking their hands. A tall, thin man with a full head of gray hair and glasses, he was dressed in tan military fatigues, a silver eagle on each lapel.

  “You’re from the White House?” He looked at Daniel, who nodded. “And NASA, is that correct?” Marie did the same. “I just talked to Spencer Bradley on the phone. He briefed me on what you’re doing, so the three of us can speak freely.”

  Marie turned her gaze to the Soyuz capsule behind McGinn. An aluminum scaffold stood to one side, allowing people to easily climb to the top of the spacecraft. A man crouched on the scaffolding and handed a tool to a woman inside, whose head was visible through the open hatchway. Marie had been in so many training mockups, it was hard to believe this was the real thing.

  “Ma’am, we collected a few personal items from the cabin, including a photo of Jeremy Taylor’s family. What do you want us to do with them?”

  Jeremy’s family—that hit home. This capsule was very real, and so was the loss of three men. “I’ll take care of it,” she answered. “Did you pull the flight recorders?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Flight data and voice. Both were intact. Our guy Pixie is rigging some electronics right now. We’re not exactly prepared to handle Russian technology here, but your bosses at the White House asked me to tap into those boxes, if we could. They want to know what’s there before we return this equipment to the Russians.”

  “Good plan,” Marie replied. “I want to know what’s on those recorders too.”

  “Crazy question, I’m sure,” Daniel started, “but is there any chance they climbed out by themselves before anyone got to the landing site?”

  The colonel spoke in slow drawl. “No, sir. That hatch was closed and locked. We had to trigger the ground release switch from outside to open it. Took a while to find it, but we did. The recovery team said it smelled pretty bad in there.” He looked over at the capsule. “No, sir, before we got there, that hatch was never opened. How those guys got out? Well… that’s anybody’s guess.”

  “And, your search inside? Any…?” He didn’t finish the question.

  “If you’re asking about remains, there are none. No fire, no explosion, no windows blown out, no other points of exit. An ordinary Soyuz capsule returned from space, minus the occupants.”

  Marie stared silently at the capsule. She took a step forward, stopped and looked up at McGinn. “Do you mind?”

  “No, ma’am. Feel free to get up close. We’re almost done here anyway.”

  Marie stepped to the capsule and peered in its small round window. Inside, a light hung from a wire and a woman was unscrewing a box mounted behind one of the seats. Marie put one hand on the capsule’s cold metal surface and closed her eyes.

  She thought of her colleague and friend, Sergei Koslov. A man full of life, with infectious enthusiasm. She thought of the backyard barbeque in Houston. Sergei, the center of attention, a smile always on his face. The bottle of vodka he had brought to celebrate the completion of Marie’s training class. Her promise to kiss him when he returned from space. She felt a lump in her throat.

  Still more difficult were her thoughts of Jeremy Taylor. His lovely wife and their shy
five-year-old daughter at the same barbeque. Jeremy laughing at Sergei’s terrible jokes, and Marie’s threat to add one more exam before she signed off on their training. Jeremy’s little girl giggling when her father snatched her into the air.

  Tears welled in her eyes. She blinked hard and a drop fell on the metal surface. She took a deep breath, kept her face hidden from view and wiped away the moisture from her cheeks. She looked over her shoulder. Daniel was speaking with Colonel McGinn. Her brief moment of reflection was enough. There was a job to do.

  As she rejoined them, Daniel was in the middle of an explanation. “Given what we saw at Fermilab, we think there’s a relationship.”

  “That’s a hell of a story.” Colonel McGinn’s gaze fell upon the capsule and back to Daniel. “Pushed into another dimension? And the technology that can do this, you’ve seen it yourself?”

  “Up close and personal.” Daniel raised his eyebrows. “But I have to say, describing it to you makes it sound pretty crazy. I wouldn’t fault you if you didn’t believe me.”

  “That’s just it, I think I do believe you,” McGinn said. “Dr. Rice, you’re not the first. Dr. Bradley rattled off something similar.”

  “I hope his version is better, because we’re coming up short.” Daniel pointed behind him toward the capsule. “We have the hardware back, but it’s still missing a few critical items that should have been inside.”

  McGinn nodded and looked at Daniel and then Marie with a grimace on his face. “Dr. Rice, Ms. Kendrick, missing astronauts may be only half of this story.” He took off his cap and scratched the back of his head. “That capsule? It isn’t just missing three men. It came back with an extra piece of hardware, and I highly doubt it’s anything you’ll find on a Soyuz parts list.”

  31 Found

  Daniel followed Colonel McGinn as they climbed the steep metal stairs at the side of the hangar, Marie not far behind him. The view across the vast space was impressively empty. A sea of concrete surrounded the tiny Soyuz capsule near its center. He wondered if 4-D space was just as empty.