He started pacing again. “Actually, I can see arguments in favor of both. On the one hand, at least we know the Chinese exist. Being real is always a good start. And we believe they have a new particle accelerator that gives them the opportunity to reach into 4-D space, a clear requirement in order to communicate with Soyuz. That probably rules out India; they don’t have the technology. The Chinese also have the motive for a rescue. They may have blundered into this situation, and it’s in their interest to find their way back out.”
He stopped in midstride and held a finger in the air. “On the other hand, it’s hard to understand why a Chinese-sourced message contains Punjabi, or any other written language beyond English, Russian or Chinese. But there’s the script—and yes, I think I can read it.” He pressed his brow together and turned to Marie. “The English line, ‘review and respond.’ It’s standard phraseology in space communications, am I right?”
She nodded. “Sure. It’s common for any NASA or Roscosmos flight. Basically, it means ‘I’m sending you something and I won’t take action until you respond.’”
“Very likely transmitted by Sergei himself at some point, allowing anyone on the radio frequency to intercept it. Anyone with access to kata space, that is. But this line makes little sense if the source is Chinese. What are they asking for? Review what? Why not just fix the problem and bring Soyuz home?”
Marie had asked herself the same thing. A message from the Chinese to Soyuz didn’t seem to have much purpose. It would be an admission of responsibility. If they were going that far, why didn’t they just contact Roscosmos and fess up?
Daniel continued. “It also doesn’t make much sense if the source is little green men. Again, there’s nothing to review. But the phrase itself is used to solicit a response, and you could say that’s all the little green men were asking for. Give us a microphone click, respond to our message, and we’ll take action.”
Daniel stopped. It wasn’t clear if he was done analyzing, so Marie didn’t respond. She didn’t really have a response to give. There were a lot of hypotheticals floating around the room and she wanted to see where they landed.
He finally broke the silence. “Yeah… strange stuff to be talking about. That’s why I’m still leaning Chinese. It’s the simplest explanation, Occam’s razor being the guiding methodology. One other question, and then we’ll get to the script.” He pointed to the orange cylinders on the workbench. “Over the past twenty-four hours, we’ve heard snippets of the communications from Soyuz, probably including this Russian greeting, kak pashyevayesh. You’re our Russian expert, Marie, do you recall hearing it? Maybe Sergei said it at some point?”
“Yeah, I think he did,” Marie said.
Daniel moved closer to the screen, still displaying the cryptic message. “Look closely at the script. One phrase, repeated three times. There are eleven distinct characters. If we’re reading left to right, the first character is the same as the third character. Does that sound familiar? Like any other phrase we’ve heard recently?”
The point laid out so clearly, Marie immediately saw the answer. “Kak. The first three letters are kak.”
Daniel pointed a finger at Marie and smiled. “The prize goes to my brilliant associate. Kak, indeed. Now, look at the rest of it. If the first part is kak, then the character that looks like a 3 is a vowel-sound, like an a. That character is repeated twice more. The sixth character is the same as the last character, the one that looks like an n with a dot over it? Substitute the phonetic sound, sh. And look at the seventh character, the one that looks kind of like a lowercase j? It’s the same as the tenth character. Substitute the sound, ye.”
Daniel smiled. “It’s a puzzle. Like that old TV show, you know, the one where Vanna White reveals each letter in a phrase? I may not be able to see every letter, but I have enough to be confident the phrase is kak pashyevayesh. Someone was speaking to Soyuz by echoing a radio greeting in both the audio we just heard and in written text. And not once, but three times. It certainly gets your attention.”
Once explained, Marie could see the word as plain as day. Repeated three times in a text message to Soyuz, and vocalized in the buzzing sound. Why? There didn’t seem to be any point. “You’ve got the answer, Daniel. But why does anyone send a message to review and respond and then key on a Russian phrase that has no relevance?”
Daniel didn’t respond. He looked up in the air and slowly started pacing again. He shook his head. “I don’t know. It makes little sense in either scenario.” He continued pacing, clearly not letting the question go.
While Daniel pondered, there was another nagging thought in the back of Marie’s head. A key item on the checklist for any flight that ended in disaster.
What were the last words of the flight crew?
She did her best to keep her emotions in check. “Pixie, we need to locate the end of the voice record. Can you do that?”
Pixie nodded and return to his keyboard. “Got it, the last two minutes. Their system uses an active mic that shuts off when there’s silence, but you’ll hear a click to indicate a break.” He started the audio playback.
“Sayuz zdyehs, otvet. Soyuz here, responding on 922.763…”
“Soyuz, responding on 922.763… Come in…”
“Allahu akbar… Allahu akbar… Come in…”
Marie felt a surge of satisfaction. “It’s Sergei again. He’s reaching out, responding to the message. And that last part, it makes perfect sense. He thinks the message might be Arabic, just like we did.”
There was a click in the audio, a Russian profanity and some angry shouting, then another click. The next sound was a loud pop and a few seconds later a voice, Sergei’s voice, very weak and scratchy. “What the hell?”
The audio playback ended. Marie let out a breath she didn’t even realize she’d been holding in. Even lacking a visual image, or maybe because of it, the audio track was disturbing. Her heart beat rapidly and her imagination ran in multiple directions. Was the pop the same effect they’d heard at Fermilab? Somehow, it didn’t sound quite the same.
“Wow, those guys saw something,” she said. “Pixie, do we have a time stamp on the recording data?”
Pixie examined his screen. “Yeah, that last segment was 1051 UTC… 3:51 a.m. our time, so about two hours before Soyuz reentered.”
“And there’s nothing recorded beyond that point?” Pixie shook his head. “Two hours,” she said carefully. “Lots of time for them to get out, but if they were still in the capsule, you’d think the microphone would have picked up something.”
Daniel had been silent throughout the audio playback. He stood by himself, frozen, staring into space. His mouth opened but nothing came out. The demented soul, or Sherlock Holmes, was back again.
Marie stepped over to him and pushed his shoulder. “You’ve got to stop doing this, Daniel. What?”
He shook his head. “An idea. Colonel, can we get that yin thing down here?”
“Yeah, sure,” the colonel replied. “I’ll be right back.”
While McGinn was gone, she asked Daniel, “Something to do with the final audio?”
He shook his head again. “No. Well, sort of. As I was listening, I was half-expecting to hear that vibrational sound again. You know… right after Sergei said, what the hell.”
It was a scary thought—an alien-sounding voice coming from inside the capsule. “But that didn’t happen,” she told him.
“No, it didn’t,” he agreed. “But it gave me an idea.”
McGinn returned carrying the cardboard box. He unwrapped the contents and set the teardrop plate on the workbench. Just as before, it balanced on its tip with no effort. “What do you want to do with it?”
“Pixie,” Daniel asked. “Pull up the other audio clip, the one with the vibrational sound.”
Pixie had a puzzled expression. “You think? …” He typed on the keyboard and the eerie sound began to play. They waited until the vibration kak pashyevayesh buzzed from the speaker.
It was a multicolored circular shape, a drawing of intricate design, and it was projected into the air as clearly as if it had been drawn on paper.
“Oh, my God,” Marie gasped.
The circular image didn’t waver. The shapes within it were sharply defined, circles within circles, with a variety of colors—orange, blue, yellow and green. It was quite beautiful, though what it represented was anyone’s guess.
“That’s so cool,” Pixie said. “The audio file triggered it.”
Daniel reached out to the narrow base of the teardrop. Marie waved her hands rapidly. “Are you sure you want to do that?”
Daniel’s fingers paused inches from the metal surface. He glanced at Marie, then back to the object, and grasped it. The image remained in place. As he lifted the teardrop from the workbench, the circular image rose along with it. Daniel slowly pivoted his hand and the image orbited around the teardrop as he moved. A smile broke across his face. “It’s a projector.”
Marie could faintly see light shining from the hole in the metal surface. It was undoubtedly projecting the image. But onto what? The air itself? “I’ve never seen any projection like this,” she said. “It’s so clear and sharp. How do you get that by just shining light into the air?”
Daniel turned the device, watching the image swing in the air. “It’s like holding up a page from a laser printer, but without any paper.”
The image was composed of multiple circles. Three primary circles colored gray, blue, and orange contained smaller circles of white, some with additional circles or semicircles inside them. Marie struggled with both the advanced technology and its clear link to the message. Replaying the buzzing voice had activated it, she had no doubt. Could the Chinese have created this? For what purpose?
“It’s a diagram of some sort,” she offered. “It almost looks like a schematic of a planetary system, with the little yellow moons across the top. But the pattern doesn’t look random. Three big circles and several groupings inside.”
Daniel nodded. “Definitely informational. But projected into the air. Why?” He carefully set the yin object back onto the workbench. As it had done before, it straightened slightly and stood on its point. “Take a photo of it.”
Marie nodded and pulled out her phone. Ibarra did the same. They took pictures from several angles. The camera captured the projection perfectly, relieving Marie of the bizarre notion that the image might be appearing only in their collective brains. She was about to take another picture when they heard a click and the floating image disappeared.
“Oh, no!” Pixie shouted. “Baby, come back.”
Daniel peered into the hole. “The light is off. Maybe it’s on a timer?”
Marie waved to Pixie’s equipment. “Play the sound again, let’s see if we can bring it back.”
Pixie pulled up the list of audio recordings on his screen, but Daniel touched his shoulder. “Wait. Before you do that, could we try something else?” He bent down close to the device and spoke into it as though it were a microphone. “Kak pashyevayesh.”
The object clicked, the light came on and the projection appeared once again in midair.
“Yes!” Pixie said and pumped a fist in the air.
“Well, I’ll be,” McGinn said. “Voice-controlled.”
Marie laughed. “Accuracy doesn’t seem to matter. Your Russian accent is terrible. But a brilliant idea, Daniel.” Daniel shrugged with an open hand.
McGinn spoke up from the back of the group. “So, we’ve got maybe two or three minutes until it shuts off again? I wonder if it’s a battery thing.”
“At least we know how to control it,” Daniel suggested. “Even if we don’t know what it’s displaying.”
Marie leaned in closely to study the details of the image. How odd. The investigation had certainly been a roller coaster of new experiences, but the technology in front of her was one of the most disturbing yet. The device was performing magic, standing on its point and projecting into air. They could touch it, hold it, take pictures of it, even speak to it. But understanding its purpose seemed out of reach.
Daniel leaned in next to her, their faces just inches from each other and from the object. They exchanged a very puzzled glance. “What do you think?” she asked.
“Photons don’t glow.” Daniel turned to the image. “They don’t hover in the air. To reach our eyes, they have to reflect off of something. In this case, there’s not much for the photons to hit—air molecules and maybe a little suspended dust.”
“Lasers?”
“Well, it’s true, a green laser can be seen at night. That’s mostly reflection off dust and microdroplets of water. Red lasers don’t even produce that much reflection. No, this is way beyond any laser we’ve ever produced.”
“Maybe the Chinese have some new technology?” She didn’t really believe it herself. The evidence was beginning to point in other directions.
Daniel reached out a finger and touched the side of the plate. “I wonder what happens when the projection hits something solid.” He pushed the object to its side, as they had done before. The projected image also leaned and eventually intersected the workbench. It behaved as any projection would, displaying on the workbench surface instead of midair.
“Okay, that was thrilling,” said Marie. Daniel smiled and released his touch. The object righted itself, the image returning to the air. Marie reached out to touch the hovering phantom, but as her finger passed in front, they heard another click and the image abruptly changed.
“Oh, shit, sorry,” she said and quickly withdrew.
They both stood back. Floating in front of the object was an entirely new image, nothing at all like the previous one. It was a group of orange balls mixed with smaller blue balls. But far more interesting, the image was no longer a flat page floating in space. It was three-dimensional. Each ball was a small sphere, suspended in the air in a specific three-dimensional position.
“Oh, wow,” Daniel mouthed. He moved his head side to side.
Marie moved around the projection. It was like viewing a physical three-dimensional model of objects suspended by wires. She could lower her head and see the bottoms of the balls. It was similar to a 3-D visualization, but not on any computer screen.
She snapped several more pictures with her phone, each from a different view into the floating image. “Unbelievable. I love this technology. Can I have a computer display like this, please?”
“Oranges and blueberries,” said Pixie.
“Oh, you’re good,” Daniel said. “Along with the Pixie Theory of Alien Communication, this image will forever be known as the Oranges and Blueberries Diagram. Are we going to have to pay you royalties every time you come up with this stuff?”
Marie recognized the importance of labeling the unknown. Planetary scientists named rocks on Mars or formations on Pluto. The often-silly names were simply a way to catalog the new discoveries in words they could all share. Oranges and blueberries would do just fine. She held a finger close to the projection. “You think there’s more?” She looked around at their faces. “Shall I try?”
Daniel and McGinn both nodded and Marie stuck her finger purposefully into the projection path. Another click and the image changed to a flat diagram with circles.
“It looks just like the first image,” she said.
“I think it is the first image,” replied Daniel. “Try it again.”
She waved her finger once more and the image switched back to oranges and blueberries. “Yup.” Another wiggle and the circular diagram returned. “Looks like there are only two. But we can get to both of them as often as we like. And…” A clever idea entered her mind and she grinned. “Kak pashyevayesh.” The image changed to oranges and blueberries. “Aha! Flick your finger or voice command. Multimodal UX.”
“Huh?” asked Pixie.
“UX, user experience. Software designers create multiple paths to reach the same functionality.” She commanded once more by voice, and the circular image returned.
For such a simple purpose, the device did seem well designed. “Does it look smaller to you?” asked Daniel. “The image. It seemed bigger the first time we saw it.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” she said. “Let me try something else.” She placed her finger in the projection path and held it there. The image didn’t switch, but a portion of it was missing where her finger crossed the projection path. She moved her finger towards the image and as she did so, it grew larger.
“Cool!” She smiled. “Zoom control, too.” She brought her finger back toward the device and the image shrunk. When she withdrew, the image remained at the adjusted size. “Handy little projector they have here. I so want this technology on my computer.”
Daniel spoke to McGinn. “We have a device that can project two images, an audio recording and a text message. But, we’re only looking at half of what was left in Soyuz. The other half is still bolted, or glued, or somehow fixed onto the control panel.”
McGinn nodded. “What do you propose?”
“We’ll definitely want to try out voice commands on the other one too. Maybe we snap the two halves together again and see what difference that makes? There are several tests I can think of doing. None would take much time, and we might discover more functionality.”
“I think my team is done by now,” McGinn responded. “The capsule’s just sitting there.”
Daniel picked up the yin device and held it out to Marie. She reluctantly accepted it and felt a chill when her hands touched the cold, smooth metal.
Daniel seemed excited. She’d seen that look before—he had something else in mind. “Marie, you’ve got the best command of both languages, and you’re a natural at advanced user interface. Can you take the lead? Find out what works.”
Quantum Space: Book One in the Quantum Series Page 18