Dark Firmament
Page 21
Dawn, with Eve monitoring the process, began calculating their trajectory to the Sagittarius destination. Once there they planned to complete and test the prototype dimensional windowing system.
Joqi decided to meditate to ease the tension caused by all the hard personal decisions he had made regarding close family members. He had just started relaxing mentally, easing into his private meditation place, when a fierce, determined intruding thought shattered the illusion.
Alandi, no! He was too late. She was already there!
He raised mental barriers pushing back her probing thrusts, but her encroaching thoughts went away quickly of their own volition. He followed, detecting chaotic, bruised mental processes, which quickly subsided.
Alandi! He reached out to her but there was no response. Something was terribly wrong. He felt a surge of anxiety and confusion not experienced since he was trapped under a collapsed salt mine retaining wall at age nine.
Joqi reached out to another for the first time mentally, his father, impressing on him the need to find Alandi quickly. He conveyed that she had probed his mind unexpectedly, and doing that may have hurt her psyche. Joqi wasn’t sure his message was fully received or understood.
He quelled his anxiety attack and began searching for Alandi as well. He exercised his remote observation skills and found her quickly, slumped on the floor of the nearby space elevator observation platform. Several people had gathered around her and a medic was at the scene.
Joqi probed Alandi’s mind gently and discovered she was in a shock induced coma. He linked with his father again to impress on him where Alandi was and that she was in a coma, likely from the shock of probing deep into his mind. He conveyed that a medic and others were tending to Alandi, and planned to bring her back to the surface as quickly as possible.
I am sorry, father. I kept barriers up to avoid such probes by Alandi. She caught me relaxing and entering a state of meditation before our departure.
His father was unable to respond, but Joqi sensed the anguish in his mind.
• • •
Joqi watched from afar as Alandi was taken to the surface and then to the Zilerip University Hospital. His father and mother and other family members gathered there in a vigil as doctors assessed Alandi’s condition. The lead doctor advised the family that she was in a deep coma. There was no indication of what caused it; she checked out normal in all other respects.
Joqi was responsible for what happened and he knew that, as did his father. He should have kept his defenses up until leaving the vicinity of Zilia. He felt helpless as he observed activities by those in the hospital, and was uncertain as to what he could or should do to help his sister. His human core emotions ran rampant.
You can ease her hurt mind, Dawn conveyed.
I might do more harm than good, he replied.
You know better than that, Dawn insisted. Set aside your self-incrimination and help your sister!
Joqi felt a numbness settling deep inside, much like he felt when his grandpapa passed away. There was nothing he could do to hold on to his grandpapa then, and he felt there was nothing he could do to hold on to Alandi now. Regardless of his physiological changes, he was still very much human.
You must go to her, my Joqi. The sharp thought pierced his gloomy recriminations.
Grandpeda! I am…
Go now! His grandpapa’s insistent message punctured his growing facade of guilt. You are the only one that can help your sister!
With guilt driven reservations, Joqi sought out Alandi’s hospital room and found her lying still in her bed. He watched and waited as family members and hospital staff came and went, checking on her condition. Two medical technicians came in pushing a cart loaded with equipment. They placed a half-bubble shaped device over Alandi’s head and connected small cables to it from the cart equipment. A brain scanner! The equipment recorded her brain activity and transmitted it to a central nursing station.
He observed closer and saw a very weak signal was detected by the equipment. She was still thinking, but was using very little of her brain. There was hope—Alandi was there deep inside, her mind protecting her from whatever shocked her psyche into the coma.
He monitored how frequently family and hospital staff visited Alandi’s room, and then probed cautiously closer when he knew they would stay away for several minutes. Not that caution was necessary—they couldn’t detect his presence.
He eased into her mind, tracing out recent memories. He found images of how he now looked as he lay immersed in the smart plasma, and then found impressions of horror as Alandi realized how the plasma had transformed him physically. He sought out images of how she remembered him when he was sent on the mission.
Joqi hesitated no longer. He quickly modified the recent images showing him deformed physically. The memories still showed him immersed in the plasma, but looking as he had seven years earlier. He replaced the impressions of horror she felt with feelings of happiness that he was still the same brother she remembered. The mental threads associating the memories to form the essence of her encounter remained intact. He linked the threads to the small area of activity in her mind, and sensed a stir of thoughts there.
He withdrew as cautiously as he had entered, but still observed what was going on around the hospital room. A man soon entered the room alone, his father, who walked over to touch one of Alandi’s arms. His father scooted a chair closer and sat down, and then took one of his daughter’s hands in his.
His father began to pray and Joqi joined with him in thought, word for word, praying for Alandi’s recovery. His father completed the Prayer for Health and Recovery that Zilans had performed for millennia, but kept his head bowed.
Son, thank you for joining me in prayer.
This message startled Joqi. His father had never given any indication he could converse telepathically. Maybe he wasn’t doing so now; Joqi was so tuned to his father’s passionate prayer that he probably picked up on his father’s feelings.
He sensed the rise in activity in Alandi’s mind. He reached out to his father, conveying that all would now be well with his daughter. Then Joqi reluctantly withdrew, pulling his thoughts back inside where he lay in the smart plasma.
Dawn, it is time to depart.
As you wish, Joqi.
He sensed the presence of another. Eve, do you understand why I must go.
Yes, Joaquin, I do. Go in peace. You have done all you can for now to protect humankind. I am sure Prophet Sepeda is proud of you.
Joqi smiled metaphorically. I am sure he is.
• • •
Alandi knew immediately after waking that Joqi was gone. Still, she reached out to him, finding nothing, no response of any kind. Had her surreptitious probes of his mind driven him away? She did not know what to make of him, his vastly different, now vastly advanced intellect. She couldn’t consciously assimilate what she sensed in Joqi’s mind, other than her brother of seven years earlier was still in there somewhere. That gave her peace of mind.
She was in a hospital bed! Panic turned to understanding; she remembered passing out on the space elevator observation platform near the Horizon Quest. But surely she was not out long enough for transport to the hospital.
Someone sat with head bowed beside her.
“Father,” she whispered, squeezing his hand.
• • •
Dawn agreed as soon as Joqi thought it. She eased the Horizon Quest out of its geostationary orbit near the Sayer Research Station, and then accelerated quickly away from Zilia in the general direction of the Sagittarius Constellation. They were not concerned about who, or if, anyone was watching their departure. Their future lay before them, not behind at Zilia.
Joqi looked forward with all the sensors at his disposal, seeking a clear path to the first planet they were to visit. He wondered what kind of life, or if any life at all, would be discovered there. He was anxious to learn what awaited them, but he also appreciated having several months of transit time t
o refine the dimensional windowing system design. His intuition was telling him that system was the key to rapid exploration of vast regions of the Milky Way galaxy.
He smiled as he recalled his Granpeda’s words, Trust your instinct, your intuition. Joqi, always remember your leadership role in advancing our society.
He focused his full sensory capability in scanning the fabric of space all around the Horizon Quest, probing into the darkness. A shimmering ripple in the space-time continuum caught his attention; it was pacing alongside the ship. Then it was gone. Was it a side effect of their warp drive? He continued “looking” closely into the darkness. There was much more to learn about the dark firmament.
EPILOGUE
J oaquin will soon discover how to efficiently open dimensional windows, the AIB conveyed. Then the Milky Way galaxy and beyond will truly open to him.
“My grandson evolved much faster and farther than I ever imagined possible,” Prophet Sepeda replied. He preferred talking rather than thought exchanges. It made him feel more alive.
“Yes, Carlos, it is phenomenal,” the AIB answered. “I am surprised and not altogether pleased. Joaquin has powers that could become godlike, and yet, you are much more devout than he is.”
Carlos chuckled. “Yes, I am more devout. However, he is as devout as you are.”
The AIB would have chuckled if it could. There was truth in what Carlos said.
“My Joqi believes in the God that created all of this,” Carlos said, sweeping his arm to point at the vast vista of billions and billions of stars and galaxies in the observable universe stretching before them. “I believe that as well. But I also believe God interacts on a personal level with all sentient beings in the universe. Joqi believes He does not, and that sentient entities have free will to choose their own paths, to a higher or lower calling as the case may be for each.”
“Yes, my beliefs are aligned more with Joaquin’s than with yours,” the AIB said. “But I also believe that God acts through intermediaries, some more powerful than others, to influence the course of events and the lives of the many.”
“As you are and as I was,” Carlos said solemnly. “And as Joqi has become,”
“As you still are, Carlos, as you still are.”
Carlos frowned at this statement, not sure he believed it.
“Young Joaquin Sepeda will still need guidance from time to time,” the AIB said. “And remember, there is a rising force in your granddaughter Alandi. She will certainly need guidance in the challenges she will face in bringing the four human occupied worlds together in an alliance.”
“Thank you for guiding Joqi to a solution for how to return to Zilia.”
“It was not I that did that, Carlos.”
So there were other forces at play, Carlos conveyed.
The AIB did not reply to this observation.
Carlos’s thoughts turned to Alandi. She had tremendous potential to influence diverse human societies to join in a common purpose—seeking admission to the ranks of galaxy level civilizations.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ezra E. Manes, Jr. was a Program Director for design and development of numerous advanced digital image and signal processing systems. His last position in industry was Director, Commercial Remote Sensing Systems, for Raytheon, Inc., where he managed the development and delivery of ground-based image processing systems for commercial Earth remote imaging satellite enterprises. He played lead roles in developing several state-of-the-art combat, communications, and information processing systems, and had direct marketing responsibility for those systems. He enjoyed a very rewarding U.S. Navy career spanning almost twenty-three years. He earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri, and has written two science fiction novels, many fiction stories, non-fiction articles, and system development proposals. He and his wife Jan reside on their Ozark farm near Thayer, Missouri, where he writes fiction stories and poetry.