Quantum Space: Book One in the Quantum Series

by Douglas Phillips

  McGinn unlocked the door and flipped on a light that revealed a small office. “I’d offer you a shot of whiskey if I had it,” he said as he reached into a cabinet. “Might help to make any sense out of this thing.” He pulled out a small cardboard box that made a reverberating clunk when he set it on a table in the center of the room. “I suppose NASA will find some fancier container for it, but we used what we had. Go ahead, take a look.”

  Marie motioned to Daniel to do the honors. He opened the top of the box and peered inside. Wrapped in a towel, the object in the box took two hands to lift it out. “Not some ancient stone tablet, is it?”

  He laid the object on the table and unwrapped the towel, revealing a highly polished silver metal plate, about an inch thick. It was teardrop-shaped, with smooth, elegant curves that ended in a point. But not quite a teardrop; its shape was asymmetric, with one side convex and the other mostly concave.

  “Interesting.” Daniel slid the heavy metal object around in a circle. Its polished surface gleamed from the overhead light. Every edge was rounded and buffed to jewelry perfection. “A shape like the number six or nine.”

  Marie pulled her chair in for a closer look. “More like half of a Chinese yin-yang symbol.” Daniel nodded; she had a point. The drop shape at one end could nicely fit into the negative space at the other end. It seemed like a piece was missing.

  “What is it?” Daniel looked up at McGinn.

  He shook his head. “We haven’t the slightest idea. But you’re right, Ms. Kendrick, this is only half of a whole. Its matching partner is still in Soyuz. We haven’t been able to take it out.”

  “And the two pieces fit together?” Marie asked. “Is it really a yin-yang thing?”

  “Pretty much.” McGinn held his hands together, with one hand pointed opposite the other. “Put together, they make an oval shape. That’s the way we found it, an oval resting on the Soyuz control panel. They easily pull apart, they’re magnetic.” He reached into the cabinet again and pulled out a small nail. “Try this.”

  Daniel held the nail near the edge of the object. When he released it, the nail snapped to the metal. “Okay, definitely magnetic. But why can’t you take the other half out?”

  “It won’t budge,” McGinn answered. “The thing is sitting on top of the control panel, practically glued in place. You can put your full weight against it, but it doesn’t move. We can’t see any bolts or other attachment points, but somehow it’s locked in place.”

  Daniel pointed to a circular hole in the center of the teardrop. “What’s this opening?” He peered into the hole. “There’s nothing in there.”

  “I was hoping you’d tell me,” McGinn answered. “As far as we can see, it’s just a hole. You can shine a light in there, it’s just more of the same smooth metal. The matching plate back in Soyuz is different. No hole. It has a rectangular panel and two smaller holes. And something drawn on it. Nobody’s figured either one out yet, but then we’re not experts. We service B1-Bs out here, not Russian spacecraft.”

  Daniel rotated the heavy plate and inspected the metal closely. McGinn touched the pointed end. “Try standing it up on that. And I should warn you, this is where that shot of whiskey might come in handy.”

  Daniel looked quizzically at McGinn. He lifted the object and set its weight on the curved tip. “It’ll just fall over.”

  McGinn laughed. “The hell it will.”

  Daniel wondered if he had really understood what McGinn wanted him to do. The thing was a plate of metal. He felt its weight in his hands as it rested on its narrow point, obviously top-heavy and unstable. It wouldn’t stand on its point any more than a kitchen carving knife would.

  McGinn waved his hand. “Try it. Just let go.”

  Daniel shrugged. He let go and squeezed one eye shut, ready for the loud bang when the object’s full weight smacked the table. But nothing happened. The object balanced on its tip and even straightened slightly, its heavy rounded top suspended above its narrow tip. It looked very much like the number nine, delicately balanced on its stem. The tip’s curvature alone should have caused it to roll to one side, but the object stood firmly in place.

  “Push it,” suggested McGinn. His expression was nothing but serious.

  “Really?” Daniel held out a finger and gave a gentle push on one side. The inverted teardrop leaned as he pushed, and when he let go, it righted itself again. “That’s not possible, the weight’s all in the top. How’s it staying upright?”

  Marie put her hand on the object and pushed it all the way over until its side touched the table, then let go. Again, the object quickly righted itself, standing back on its point. “Weird.”

  Daniel picked it up off the table and shifted the object between his hands. It felt like any ordinary metal plate, about ten pounds in weight. He set it back on the table, this time with the rounded end on the table like a number six. The object rolled to one side and lifted up, back onto its point.

  Daniel rubbed his lower lip. “I’ve seen kids’ toys that have hidden weights in their base so they’ll always stay upright. Like a punching bag or a free-standing basketball hoop. But this thing feels different. Maybe a little lopsided. Kind of like…” A shiver ran down Daniel’s body.

  Like Park’s tesseract.

  He lifted the object in both hands, tilting it one way and the other, imagining what else might be attached that he could not see, and could not even touch. It was an unnatural feeling and highly disorienting. There was something otherworldly about this object.

  McGinn shook his head. “We couldn’t figure it out either. And just in case you’re wondering, it seems safe to handle. It’s not lead, and we checked for radioactivity. It appears to be chrome or titanium. Maybe silver.”

  Daniel laid the object flat on the table, where it stayed put with no tendency to dance on its point. “It’s none of those. There are only three metals that are magnetic—iron, nickel and cobalt. So, it’s one of those three, or an alloy. It’s most likely cobalt, which is silver in color.”

  Daniel continued to stare at the strange object on the table. “So, this yin thing was found in an empty Soyuz capsule. How did it get there?” He looked at Marie and Colonel McGinn, both with blank expressions. He didn’t blame them; he had no answer either.

  Marie had been mostly quiet, observing Daniel as he interacted with the object. But the question seemed to trigger an idea. “That’s why I asked about the hatch earlier. Like the colonel explained, Soyuz hatches can be opened from the inside or outside—once a ground release is triggered. But let’s be clear. You can only close a Soyuz hatch from the inside.”

  Marie’s point sunk in. McGinn’s recovery team had found the hatch in the closed position but no one inside that could have closed it. It made no sense. Daniel tossed out one idea, even though he doubted it himself. “Maybe this thing is a device that was able to close the hatch? The astronauts climbed out, someone put this device inside and sent Soyuz home?”

  Marie looked puzzled. “Who, the Chinese?”

  McGinn shook his head. “Look at this thing.” He placed it back on its point, and the balancing trick continued to amaze. “If that was manufactured by the Chinese, I want some stock.”

  “Well, it is a yin-yang thing. That’s Chinese, isn’t it?” She shrugged. “Sorry, that sounds dumber now that I’ve said it.”

  They all stared at the shiny teardrop, each remaining silent. Daniel glanced at McGinn. The events of the last twenty-four hours told him that anything was possible. “There are other explanations. Not only for how this thing was manufactured, but also for how the astronauts got out.” He looked over at Marie. “We’ve seen a few things lately that have similarities.” She nodded. He didn’t elaborate; it wasn’t necessary. He could see the gears turning in her head.

  McGinn stood up and pulled out a phone. “Sit tight, let me check on those flight recorders. If we can find out what was going on in the capsule, it might help.” He stepped out onto the top of the stairway and cl
osed the door. Daniel pushed the object again, as if its impossible behavior might have changed while they were talking. It hadn’t.

  He rested his elbows on the table, his eyes just inches from the object. He glanced over at Marie. “What do you make of it?”

  She had only touched it once and seemed to be keeping her distance now. “It came from kata space. That’s what you’re thinking too, right? This thing jumped inside Soyuz, and no one ever opened the hatch.”

  “And the astronauts jumped out.”

  “Right.” She sighed. “But I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”

  Daniel thought for a moment and continued his close-up gaze of the object. “Nala told me last night that they couldn’t return living things from 4-D space. That living cells are damaged in the process. This sure feels like someone else understands that limitation. Soyuz is back, this thing came with it, but those guys didn’t come along for the ride.”

  Marie’s lips tightened and she visibly shivered. “They could be anywhere.”

  He agreed with her assessment. Missing astronauts could be good or bad. “I was also thinking about why this thing stands on its point.”

  “Yeah, me too. What do you think?”

  “There’s more to this thing,” Daniel said. “A part of it we can’t see, just like the tesseract Park showed us. I think it might be a four-dimensional object.”

  “With extra mass on the bottom?”

  “Yeah. Something we can’t see is keeping it stable on its point.”

  McGinn opened the door. “News flash, we’ve got something off the flight recorders. Follow me.” Daniel wrapped the yin object in the towel, placed it back in the box and returned it to the cabinet. Not the most secure of storage places, but at least the office was locked. It would do, for now. “Where to?” he asked.

  McGinn led the way down the stairs into the hangar. “The electronics shop, it’s right next door.” They exited to gusty winds and immediately entered a smaller building only a few feet away.

  They walked through a workshop, filled with shelves of equipment and several waist-high wooden tables. Each workbench was covered with avionics components, their cut wires dangling in the air. Alone at one workbench, a young man in uniform was wrestling a large electronics cable into a socket. He looked up as they approached.

  McGinn slapped him on the shoulder. “Pixie, meet our science team, Dr. Rice and Ms. Kendrick.”

  His name tag read Senior Airman Elwood Tinker, and he set the cable down to reach out his hand. “Call me Pixie, everyone else does.” On the workbench in front of him were two orange metal cylinders with Russian writing on the side. “Some good stuff here.” He pointed to the cables running from the cylinders to another electronics box. “Russian-style data ports, but I got everything linked up.”

  “What’d you find?” McGinn asked.

  “Voice and data. Both are… good. What do you want first?”

  “How about the voice?” Marie answered.

  Pixie nodded and reached for a keyboard. He typed a few keys and a list displayed on a screen next to the electronics. “It’s mostly radio communications.” He touched an item on the list, and a window popped up displaying an audio graph. He touched it and a recording played. The voice coming from the speaker was sharp and clear.

  “Moskva, Sayuz. Peredachu na 922.763. Otvechat… Houston, Soyuz. Transmitting on emergency frequency 927.0. Respond.”

  “Sergei!” Marie smiled.

  Pixie looked over his shoulder and smiled back. “There’s several more like that, ma’am, in English and Russian.” He turned back to the display. “But let me show you this one. It’s different.” He touched the display and another audio graph displayed, its waveform looking nothing like the previous one. He touched it and a strange sound came from the speaker—a buzzing sound, or more like a vibration that varied in pitch.

  Daniel listened carefully. “Sounds like a violin. Or maybe one of those Vietnamese dan bau instruments. You know, where the performer can produce a vibrato.”

  A few more seconds passed. “So, what is it?” Marie asked.

  Tinker held his finger in the air. “Wait for it, ma’am.” The vibrational sound continued, then a silence, followed by two words.

  “Kak pashyevayesh,” buzzed from the speaker.

  Marie tilted her ear closer to the speaker. “Russian, but clearly not a person’s voice. Like it was computer-generated.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Can you match the audio with the source metadata?”

  Pixie grinned. “My thought exactly. I checked—the source was not Roscosmos, or any other ground station. The source ID was blank.”

  Marie paused. “Okay, that’s strange. An unidentified source, but issuing a common Russian greeting.”

  “Sorry, I don’t know any Russian,” Daniel said. “Kak, pash-whatever. What does it mean?”

  Marie spoke, but from the expression on Pixie’s face, he had the answer too. “Any first-year student of Russian knows this one. Kak pashyevayesh. It’s just a greeting. It means ‘how are you?’”

  Daniel held one hand up. “So, let me get this straight. We’ve got a transmission to Soyuz from an unknown source… while they’re stuck in 4-D space… and this clandestine voice is only saying ‘how are you?’ What sense does that make?”

  Pixie nodded rapidly. “I’ve got a theory, but first let me show what I found in their data recorder.” He typed a few keys and a new window popped up, displaying a text message.

  Pixie pointed to the screen. “They received this message about an hour before reentry and about five minutes after that audio I just played. See here? The source ID is blank again.”

  He turned around to face McGinn. “Sir, the radio transmission and this message. They had to come from the same source. And that script? It’s not Arabic. It’s not Farsi either. Or Bengali, or Punjabi. I checked.” Pixie licked his lips. “Sir, I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t think it’s from this planet.”

  McGinn moved close to the display and stared at the message text. Daniel and Marie did the same. Daniel pointed to the screen. “But the first line of the message is in English. ‘Review and respond.’”

  “Yes, sir. But the rest isn’t.”

  Marie leaned her elbows on the workbench. “Well, it’s not Russian, that’s for sure. Are you a linguist, Pixie? How do you know it’s not one of those other languages?”

  “Internet, ma’am.”

  Marie looked skeptical. “You think the source is alien? Just like the yin-yang object back in the hangar?”

  Pixie nodded his head vigorously. McGinn remained silent, folding his arms and taking a deep breath. Pixie appealed. “Sir, I’m no language expert, but it’s not hard to look these things up. I’ve checked—”

  McGinn stopped him. “Relax, Pixie, you sold me.” McGinn jerked his head toward the hangar. “That thing upstairs didn’t come from around here either. And these characters look a lot like what’s displayed on that thing still stuck in Soyuz.”

  “Wait a second,” Daniel interjected. “Let’s think about this. Look, Airman Tinker, er, Pixie, I’m not saying you’re wrong, hell… you might be right.” Daniel blinked hard. “But we’d all be wise to look at the more ordinary explanations. Marie, what if the Chinese sent this message? Would we know it came from them?”

  Marie thought for a second. “Yeah, we would. Incoming data communications are filtered. China’s not an ISS partner; they’re considered a foe in the military sense of the word. Any text from a Chinese source would end up in a virus quarantine folder.”

  “And did it?”

  Pixie shook his head. “No, sir. I pulled it from their routine inbox.”

  “Okay.” Daniel nodded. “But maybe it originated from some other location. The ID is blank, so it sounds like the system couldn’t identify the source.”

  “That’s right,” Marie answered.

  “What if this script is some other form of Punjabi? I’m pretty sure there
are lots of dialects in India.” He looked at Pixie. “And maybe a language expert could explain why it doesn’t match what you saw on the Internet.” Pixie nodded in agreement, and Daniel returned to Marie. “If the message came from India, would we know it?”

  She shrugged slightly. “Well… I doubt the security software has been written to cover every possibility. I don’t know about India, or Iran. There might be a ground station that would show up with a blank source ID.”

  Daniel leaned on the workbench, rubbing his forehead. Focus. Examine the evidence. Apply Occam’s razor and separate fact from fantasy. This Chinese company, Wah Xiang, was the prime suspect. If they had the technology to push a spacecraft into a fourth dimension, they could easily have discovered the means to bring it back. They might be farther along than anyone thought.

  He turned back to the message still displayed on the screen. The unknown script, three lines, three repetitions of the same thing, whatever it meant. Repetition. Why repetition? He stared intensely and paused on the third character. He looked up as the meaning hit him.

  “Holy hell, I think I can read it.”

  32 Yin

  Daniel paced the floor of the electronics shop. Marie reached an arm out to him. She could see the strain on his face. She was either watching a genius ready to unveil the meaning of life, or a person about to have a nervous breakdown.

  Daniel touched her outstretched hand. “Just a second,” he said without looking up, and continued pacing. He muttered under his breath a few times and stopped to mouth words to empty space. His portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, or a demented soul, was nearly perfect.

  “You think you can read it?” she asked softly.

  Daniel nodded. He stopped his pacing and stared right through Marie. He held three fingers to his lips, obviously still deep in thought.

  “What?” Marie demanded.

  Daniel took a deep breath. “Let’s start with the text message. Consider two options, one ordinary and one fantastic. The first option is that the message came from the Chinese, or from India, or some other ground station that we haven’t figured out yet. The second option”—he shrugged, holding his palms to the sky—“is the Pixie theory that this message has an extraterrestrial source.” He pointed at Pixie, who still sat at the workbench. “By the way, if you’re right, we’ll name it after you.”