Mars Wars - Abyss of Elysium

by Abyss Of Elysium (Lit)

  "A mystery, Fabian," Ashley replied, then she explained the situation so quickly and thoroughly, no one interrupted.

  He let her finish, examining the cryptic note on the palmtop in his hands. Then he replied forthrightly, "It is a code, indeed."

  "Well?" Peter finally asked.

  "I think I understand its logic," Fabian mused, eyes ablaze with energy and joy, continuously scanning the message.

  "Fabian! What does it say?" Peter asked again.

  "Ashley, will you permit me this one moment of instruction?" he asked.

  "Why not?" she replied with a chuckle, looking back at Gorteau with wonder.

  "Look at the message again," Gorteau said to the group as though addressing one of his classes on a field trip as he projected an enlarged display of the palm top screen in front of them. “What do you see right off?"

  "It counts from one on up to... whatever," Powers replied looking closely at the display.

  "One to twenty nine," Peter replied, guessing at the binary sequence.

  "Good guess, but not quite," Gorteau continued. "It counts from one to twenty six, then it leaves a longer pause, indicating a change in logic, followed by three numbers between one to twenty six. Then what happens?"

  The three men began to look more closely at the signal.

  "Then it counts from one to ten," Francis replied, now understanding.

  "Excellent!" Gorteau replied. "The message counts from one to twenty six, gives some numbers, counts from one to ten, gives more numbers, counts again from one to twenty six, etcetera. If it's a code, then what is the meaning of the logic?"

  Ashley's face lit up with understanding. "The twenty six numbers represent the twenty six letters in the English alphabet, and, one to ten represents base ten arithmetic."

  "Yes! Now if someone will be good enough to lend me another palmtop, I'll translate for you," Gorteau replied. Less than two minutes later, he produced this intermediate translation:

  The Base 10 Translation:

  01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 17 18 24 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 3750000 984550130 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 21 11 09 22 25 22 02 17 18 13

  The Symbolic Translation:

  (1-26) QRX (1-10) 3750000 984550130 (1-26) UK IV YVB QRM

  "I still don't understand," Ashley admitted, sharing a quizzical glance with the others. "I'm not sure the symbolic translation makes any more sense than the binary."

  "Very well, I'll read it to you," Gorteau said. "It reads, and this is a loose translation, mind you:

  Dear Fabian Gorteau,

  I will contact you again at a frequency of 3.75 megahertz in two days at 0130 local time.

  Fyodor Stephanovich Kirov

  PS. I am encountering interference."

  Peter looked at Gorteau with a wildly skeptical expression. "Dr. Gorteau," he began with an almost patronizing tone of voice, "you know that all of us have the highest of professional and personal opinions of you..."

  Gorteau laughed in his deep voice which made them all have to suppress a laugh of their own. "You do not trust my analysis?" Gorteau asked with some amazement.

  "Well of course I do," Peter back-stroked. "What I'm trying to say is...well, as a Nobel Laureate you should be able to...," then he fell hopelessly short and knew it. Finally he asked bluntly, pointing to the symbolic translation. "Just how the hell do you get a telegram addressed to you personally out of this:"

  (1-26) QRX (1-10) 3750000 984550130 (1-26) UK IV YVB QRM?

  Gorteau replied, "Nobel Physics Prize winner Richard Feynman once replied to a similar intimation by saying, quote, 'Hell, if I could explain it to the man on the street, it wouldn't be worth the Nobel prize!'. Fortunately, this explanation is much more simple than Feynman's S integrals of quantum electrodynamics."

  "Thank God for small favors," Francis quipped.

  Gorteau laughed again, obviously enjoying his edge. "Okay, we translated the binary numbers into base ten numbers. Then from Ashley's suggestion, we translated the base ten numbers into their alphabetical equivalents, just as you see. This is where I learned that the message was addressed to me. You see, Fyodor Stephanovich Kirov, is currently head of the scientific contingent at Shturmovoi, or the Little Kremlin as you call it."

  "He was the one who designed their reactor," Ashley noted.

  "Yes, exactly; the same individual," Gorteau replied. "Kirov and I became close friends while he was at the Johnson Space Center some years back. We discovered that we had a common interest in shortwave radio. At the time we decided that after he returned to the Soviet Union we would stay in touch through our radio transmitters. His international call sign happens to be UK4YVB. Do you see it in the translation?"

  "Yes," Ashley replied, "as UK IV YVB. Now I see how he left spaces to indicate a change in logic between the letters and numbers."

  "Precisely. I am almost certainly the only one here who would know his call sign and correctly relate it to a radio code. That's how I knew it was addressed to me."

  "What about the rest of the letter?" Jamie Powers asked.

  "The message is made up entirely of shortwave codes. QRX is code for 'I will contact you again at a frequency of'. Then he gave us the frequency of his transmission: a shortwave band of 3.75 megahertz and the date and time group of the transmission. He signed out with his call sign and left the postscript at then end of the message: QRM, which means literally, 'I am encountering interference'."

  "How do you interpret that?" Francis asked, clearly suspicious.

  Gorteau sighed. "It seems clear enough to me that he is not referring to this live radio broadcast. It is obvious that he is referring to the officials at Shturmovoi itself. It believe this reference to be political."

  There was little doubt in anyone's mind that Gorteau was correct. The RSE’s absolute refusal to communicate with BC1 throughout the crisis had clearly defined their intent to remain disassociated from the American base. The reason for that disassociation was not so clear.

  "So we can assume that Kirov will fill us in on what's going on in two days?" Peter asked.

  "Most probable," Gorteau mused.

  "Isn't he afraid of being caught?" Ashley asked.

  "This man is really shrewd," Powers interrupted along the same idea. "Had this message been just two milliseconds shorter, the static filter would have cut it right out. He planned this transmission to be as short as he could make it and still get it past our filters. Look at the signal definition. He had to put a 36 millisecond lead in tone on it just to get it to the right length to pass the filters."

  "Exactly," Gorteau replied with full blown admiration for his colleague. "Those filters were designed by an international conference on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Kirov was a member of that conference which set the parameters of the equipment. The receivers we use here are third generation SETI equipment. He knew exactly what he was doing."

  "But won't he get caught broadcasting messages to us on the shortwave band?" Ashley asked again.

  "Not likely," Powers replied. "None of us use shortwave for anything but very limited over-the-horizon probe transceivers. Even those are severely limited due to the poor atmospheric transmission characteristics of the Martian atmosphere."

  "If you'll check," Gorteau replied, "I'm sure you'll discover that the time and frequency Gorteau picked for his transmission will be the most ideal conditions for shortwave broadcasts."

  "It had better be," Powers responded. "Little Kremlin is over 2,065 kilometers southeast of here."

  "The rest of the community will be glad to hear we’ve made contact, regardless of the circumstances," Gorteau offered. "It should provide quite a morale boost."

  "No! We can't allow word of this to leave this room," Francis said immediately, taking everyone by surprise.

  "Why not?" Peter asked abruptly.

  "Because he said he was encountering interference. We
assume it is with the powers that be at Little Kremlin. Until we find out more information, it would be foolish on our part to risk exposing him to danger."

  "And how are we going to expose him to any danger from over 2,000 kilometers distance?" Powers asked. "If we all got up on top of the domes and screamed back at him, it wouldn't matter, would it?"

  "No, that's not the point," Francis said. "All of us have fairly free access to radio transmissions to and from our own satellites. They almost certainly have the capability of monitoring downlinks with the same ease as we do. They may also have bugs planted in here or even operatives. If we made a mistake of any kind, we would expose him to danger. The fewer people who know about this, the safer he is."

  "Oh please, Francis," Ashley replied. "You really don't think there are spies among us, do you? Isn't that bordering on the outer limits of paranoia?"

  Gorteau replied, "No. He’s right. While I don't subscribe to the bugs and spies theory, if Kirov has gone to such extraordinary lengths to keep his message secure, then we must assume he is in some danger and keep the faith with him. If someone does make an innocent mistake and they find out through our radio transmissions, then Kirov could come to some harm. I agree with Francis. Until we know more, it is best that we keep this to ourselves."

  "Well," Peter said, "Fabian, it’s your private call and your decision. If you don't want the word out, then we'll keep the lid on it. But I think your idea is way out to lunch, Francis. I personally think this news would do the community a lot of good."

  "Thank you, Peter," Gorteau replied. "I'll rest much easier if I know Kirov is safe from harm. Perhaps we can share the news later."

  "Okay, folks, you heard it," Peter said. "This is classified until further notice. Nobody else knows till Fabian gives the go ahead to release it. Any problems?" No one had anything else to say.

  "Then we're off," Peter said. "Goodnight all. Fabian, work with Jamie. He'll be able to set you up and get ready for Kirov's transmission. And Francis," Peter said almost as an afterthought, "get some rest, will you?"

  22

  wo sols later at 0125, Peter, Ashley, Frances, Gorteau, Powers and Toon were assembled in the Command Center. No one else had been told apart from the original team sworn to silence, save Toon. Since it was Toon who would have to establish the complex computer controlled receiving links, Peter felt he had to be informed. Besides, Peter reasoned, Toon was above suspicion.

  The attempt to keep the communication from RES Scientist Kirov secret had apparently been successful, since it had not registered on any rumor mill radar, the most sensitive of all human communication venues.

  “Three minutes,” Powers intoned as they all glanced upward at the master event clock counting down just above their heads. The silence in the room was absolute. Ashley gripped Peter’s wrist and involuntarily squeezed it with the building anticipation of the moment.

  “Two minutes.”

  “60 seconds.”

  “5-4-3-2-1”

  Silence.

  The room was penetrated only by the sound of the ventilator fans.

  “Jamie, did you connect the audio?” Peter whispered.

  “Yes, of course,” he responded.

  All eyes were fixed on the flat, green line that represented data flow from the last transmission of 3.75 megahertz.

  Silence.

  “Time plus one minute.” The green line moved slowly in its flat trace across the data screen. Nothing.

  “Toon, did you program the receivers to collect data from all their known transmission frequencies?” Peter asked, but mostly for everyone else’s benefit.

  “Yes I did,” he responded in a whisper, also eying the flat green trace.

  “What is the chance that this one was filtered?” Peter asked, desperate to understand the silence.

  “Zero,” Toon responded quietly. “I disconnected the filters altogether.”

  “Time plus two minutes.”

  Silence.

  “Time plus three minutes.”

  “Kirov has missed his transmission,” Gorteau finally said in a full voice.

  “Perhaps he’s just late,” Ashley offered, still whispering, as though the data burst would somehow be covered by her voice. “We should certainly give him more time.”

  “Kirov is never late,” Gorteau said in a loud voice, fully challenging the silence. “I’m sorry, my dear,” he relied immediately, “but Kirov is a man of exactness, of near supernatural precision. I am very much afraid that he is not going to reply. I fear that the interference he spoke of may be more sinister than we imagine. First, he would never have risked this process unless there were grave limitations placed on their capacity to communicate. And, further, he has often spoken of the repressive nature of his command structure.”

  “What do you make of it then, Professor?” Francis asked bluntly. “Give us the bottom line.”

  “Danger,” Gorteau responded. “Kirov is in trouble, and so are we. The question that perplexes me is whether or not we are all facing the same dilemma and when or if the parallel disasters will converge.”

  r. Fyodor Stepanovich Kirov sat back in his chair at his scientific console deep in the dark, cold bowels of Shturmovoi. He did not even risk smiling because he was aware that his every expression was probably being monitored by cameras he knew about and a few that he did not. But he felt satisfied that he had successfully sent his detailed message out to BC1 right on time, just as he had promised. True to his character, he had not been even a single millisecond late. Now all he had to do was wait for their answer, and that response would determine whether or not they could all survive the coming winter, and with it the extraordinary disaster that was sweeping upon them.

  23

  t was fourteen sols and counting until the end of occultation and the moment when BC1 could communicate directly with the earth. Occultation meant that the earth had slipped behind the sun in reference to Mars, and that without relay satellites, no message could be received directly from the earth during that period. Actual occultation - that period when the sun’s disk completely blocked the earth - only lasted four sols, but solar interference was so bad that reliable transmission could not occur in a window of 35 sols through the violent, ionized atmosphere of the sun. At the end of that period, the signal would not be crystal clear, but there was a moment in time that the computers had calculated that a minimal, reliable signal could get through the sun’s interference.

  The whole camp waited; some impatiently, some with hope, some with feigned indifference, but they all waited, nonetheless. It was the waiting that dominated every conversation. In just fourteen sols the earth would swing far enough away from the sun so that direct communications would at long last be possible, and all their questions would be answered. The clock relentlessly and indifferently ticked on; in fourteen sols they would know first hand whether their mother planet would return their calls. In fourteen sols, the life support system at BC1 would be two weeks closer to replenishment or a fortnight closer to final failure. The time-stream rushed on and the small earth-born community rode with it, clinging to a fragile existence on this bitterly cold desert planet. Some clung reluctantly; others boldly rode with a fatalistic rush, and a few with an indomitable sense of quiet destiny.

  The rumor-mill had thoroughly ground out all the possible scenarios. A planetary war seemed to be the favorite reason why the communications had been lost, and there were several versions of that rumor, from a simple loss of satellite links to the complete destruction of civilization. Each belief was fueled by an odd mixture of hope or frustration, fused either by bonds left behind on earth or the new ones forged on Mars.

  Families and loved ones on their home planet, however distant, bound them all to some belief that catastrophe had been avoided. But to those transients who wanted to leave Mars behind forever, that hope was more like an impassioned necessity. Yet the colonists felt and voiced some sense of independence from the bureaucracy that had smothered them for so l
ong. Such a level of desire and mixture of beliefs led inevitably to conflict.

  Brinker and company had their hands full breaking up everything from loud arguments to full blown skirmishes. Just after breakfast, Brinker ran across Julian Covenant reading a report after Rat had ordered the dining room cleared for cleaning. Covenant sat scanning the document reader with his feet on the table, reading glasses pulled down on his nose, dressed in a stiff white shirt and crisp, silk tie.

  Brinker unceremoniously kicked Covenant’s feet off the table and growled, “Covenant, your boss ordered the place cleared and you don’t exactly look like you’re ready to go to work. The dishes are stacked high; I hauled most of them back myself. Now I don’t want to have to tell you again - get with it!”

  Covenant turned the document screen to face Brinker.

  “Tell Traynor to check his PC2 screen for this document. I just sent it to him,” he said in a controlled voice.

  “I don’t think he wants to see it, whatever it is,” Brinker replied. Covenant simply stared back at him with contempt.

  “Marine, that is not exactly your call,” Covenant said icily.

  Brinker looked at Covenant long and hard, rolling his stogie around in his mouth once. Then he looked at the document screen.

  “What is this?” he asked, looking at its glowing face, obviously a computer printing in code.

  “You do not want to know what that is, Marine; trust me,” Covenant snarled back, his lip curling into a sneer.

  “OK, you get what you want Covenant, but I want you in the kitchen, like yesterday. When I get back, those dishes had better be gone.”

  “Brinker,” Covenant replied standing and facing the huge Marine, “I will never go back into that kitchen, ever again. And for the good of the colony, I demand that you contact your fearless leader, now! Minutes count.”