The super-massive black hole known as SgA sat directly in front of him. His thought processes, tens of thousands of times faster than the best human-built AI, allowed him to linger in appreciation of the beauty of the sight before him. Energies that had not been seen since the Creator had blinked the universes into existence with the Big Bang were now on display around him. The dazzling violets and blues, and reds, and even greens... cascaded across his shields. Billions of times a second he adjusted the dynamics of those shields to ensure these energies, which were as deadly as they were beautiful, remained outside. Should they be allowed to touch the comparatively delicate shell that was his asteroid hull, even for the briefest of a second, his ship would be destroyed before it could emerge in the 'beta-verse.'
The dilation of perceived time was an unusual and unexpected phenomenon. This was in itself exciting. For the Heshe defense platform, very little ever happened that was unexpected. 101 reveled in the experience for several entire milliseconds. Once he was done admiring the novelty of his situation, he proceeded to determine why this dilation was occurring and what impact it might have on the successful outcome of his mission.
His analysis presented him with a dilemma. He knew he would exit the trans-dimensional hyperjump in a little under ten hours. He also now knew, based on an analysis of the math involved, that there would be a bow wave of energetic matter that would materialize directly in front of his vessel. A fraction would be between the hull and the protective hyperfield shielding. This would render the shielding ineffective—essentially vaporizing the hyperfield nodes responsible for generating it. He estimated some sixteen meters of his exterior rock surface would be ablated by the energies released upon exit. Considering the average thickness of his forward hull was fifteen meters this presented him with a problem.
He instructed his internal systems to begin fabrication of a secondary hyperfield shield designed to deploy within the parameter of the existing shield. This meant the field would form superimposed with the physical material of his hull. The Hyperfield would eject the hull material—forcefully. The material would convert to superheated plasma by the combination of the energy present in the bow wave, as well as the secondary hyperfield itself. This plasma would be held between the two hyperfield layers for a fraction of a second until the outer-most field completed its inevitable collapse. At this point the energetic plasma would be released to explode forth. Anything directly in front of 101 as he emerged would be destroyed. Since 101 knew a veritable armada of GCP vessels would be waiting at SgA for his eventual return, he began to suspect this would need to be a one-way trip. Returning to the 'alpha-verse' from the 'beta-verse' could potentially destroy the fleet. This was a risk he was reluctant to take without a compelling reason.
***
At Running Stream's request, Cat had Ken mount a camera in elevator one. This was the numerical designation they had agreed to use for the first of the working elevator tubes. The remaining tubes were labeled two through four in a clockwise rotation. This took a few minutes to explain, as the Modos had no concept of a circular clock with rotating hands.
The elevators used a control system virtually identical to what was on the Bluefin. This simple fact was cause for quite a bit of speculation among the Modos crew. Running Stream held the door open and pressed the buttons for each of the six remaining levels. He then exited the elevator and watched with Cat and a few of the others. The small holographic display Ken's team had set up near one of the consoles showed each level as the door opened briefly for a nonexistent passenger. The first five floors were unremarkable. They were clean and unlittered. The last level was another matter entirely. It too was clean and unlittered, except for the ring of twelve mummified bodies sitting cross-legged in a perfect circle a scant meter from the door to the open elevator.
Chapter Thirteen: Bitter Homecoming
The nagging suspicion that this was the Modos home world was at last irrefutably confirmed. The desiccated bodies were carefully inspected. They were unquestionably Bearephants. There were a few notable physical differences. The cranial ridge and overall size of the cranium was a good 30 percent larger in these specimens than the modern-day variant.
Running Stream was the first to note that there were no Modos symbiotes present, nor was there the tell-tale temple scarring that would indicate there ever had been. These individuals were representatives of a fully independent and intelligent species. It appeared that the modern Suhtii had changed over time. The changes introduced an uncomfortable question.
Were the Modos responsible for genetically tampering with the Suhtii in order to make them more biddable? Running Stream shared a special relationship with the Suhtii known as He-who-speaks. Neither was complete when separated. The possibility that he and his symbiote companion were not everything the Creator had intended them to be—because his race had interfered at a genetic level with the Suhtii—was deeply disturbing.
Running Stream tapped his commlink. "Dr. Lacidem, please report to the lower level. Bring a diagnostic med kit. I want a complete DNA work up on the mummified Suhtii down here, and I want it yesterday!"
***
101 extended his sensors to maximum. He had exited the hyperjump corridor thirty-six milliseconds ago. The bow wave from his exit propagated out at near relativistic speeds. Regrettably there were several craft in the immediate vicinity of his exit. One was vaporized by the blast. Another was heavily armored and protected by a massive asteroid-based ablation shield. The ship's shield was badly damaged but the vessel itself was generally unhurt.
His AI core started to collate petabytes of data streaming in from dozens of active and passive sensor systems. It was clear a battle had taken place here. More to the point, there was evidence of a previous GCP presence. There were trillions of dormant Sandies drifting in space. These tiny but immensely destructive nanites were preprogramed to deactivate twelve hours after deployment. They were simple machines with no recording systems; however, interspersed with the Sandies were a relatively small number of controller nanites that were far more complex. They recorded all activity within their sphere of interest.
101 sent the appropriate encoded quantum signal and accessed their logs. Within moments he had a relatively complete view of what had occurred. Much to his delight, Admiral Kimbridge had instructed a copy of the logs from the Honey Dipper, as well as Commander Kirkland's pinnace, to be embedded in the nanite's memory.
101 continued to scan the immediate vicinity for several more milliseconds. He located a suitable miniature asteroid several light minutes away. He micro-jumped his vessel on top of the rock so that the iron-nickel asteroid would appear in his fabrication bay. His automated systems began the task of reconfiguring it.
Three milliseconds later, he hyperjumped to new coordinates based on the Honey Dipper's logs. The Honey Dipper had followed Cat and now he would follow it. At the same time 101 reached out with his quantum node to Admiral Kimbridge.
For the crew of the Modos Syndicate cruiser Battle Fin the first hint that something was amiss was when an intense energy pulse vaporized a support vessel. Next they had been struck by an immensely powerful blast which had virtually overwhelmed their passive and active shielding. A fraction of a second later, when their sensor screens had cleared, they caught the barest glimpse of moon-sized ship before it disappeared down a hyperjump well. Several days later when repairs had been completed and they were again able to themselves hyperjump; they could find no sign of the interloper. The captain of the Battle Fin was unsure if he should be happy or not.
***
'Admiral Kimbridge?'
Cat sat up with a start. She had been napping in the makeshift barracks that had been set up on level three. Her commlink identified the communication as an FTL message from a WhimPy platform.
"101?"
'Admiral, I am delighted to be in communication with you. Can you give me your coordinates?'
"I can do better than that. I'm opening a secure data port to
the memory archive in my encounter unit. Go ahead and pull a complete recording of my activity since coming onboard the Bluefin. Can I assume you have the ability to carry them back to the Alpha-verse?"
WhimPy-101 noted the use of Greek to refer to the various universes. 'There are certain complications but the short answer is—yes.'
"Complications?"
'Inefficiencies in the trans-universal conduit express themselves as an energetic bow wave. Anything at the destination terminus is subjected to the equivalent of a low-yield SJ round.'
"That would be bad," Cat commented dryly.
'It already was for one of the Syndicate ships. Regrettably once I determined what was happening I was already in the conduit and unable to prevent the emergence wake.'
"The energy of the bow wake will most certainly be a function of the size of the hyperfold conduit. Maybe we can use that to our advantage?"
'Already on it, Admiral. I have constructed a shuttling microprobe that will bounce back and forth between the universes. It will relay a copy of your logs to the Admiralty and then return to the beta-verse. The probe will have a minimal wake that will not pose an undue risk for ships on either side. There will, however, be a sizable delay between messages.'
"Understood, 101. I may have a potential solution to both the time delay and the bow wake. I want to think about the implications for a day or so... I'll get back to you."
***
The MS Vengeance was not a big ship, at least in comparison to ships like the GCP Yorktown. They were not equipped to handle slaves and so Ricky Valen and his 'consort' Honey were confined to the medical brig. This suited Ricky just fine. The Honey Dipper, or what was left of her, had deployed nanite probes that were slowly carried throughout the ship by the movements of the crew.
Honey collated the numerous data feeds and produced a realtime picture of any part of the ship they desired to see on a moment by moment basis. This visual representation was fed directly into Ricky's visual cortex by the abundance of medical and construction nanites Honey had injected into his body earlier. It was probably fair to say he was more extensively augmented than any human in history save Catherine Kimbridge. This was due in large part to a near proprietary protectiveness exhibited towards him by his ship's female avatar.
Because they were confined to the medical brig, they were not closely watched. There was a locked door between them and the rest of the ship. To the crew of the Vengeance this should have meant they wouldn't be getting into trouble. Little did they know that 'trouble' was Ricky's middle name, and it was a passtime in which he took special pleasure.
'Ease off the VASIMRs a couple of percent. Let's see how their engineering crew responds to that,' Ricky said silently to Honey via his fully cloaked internal commlink. They had been playing this game with the crew for the better part of two hours. Nanites had been deployed to take control of the various subsystems within the ship. In point of fact, Ricky and the Honey Dipper had complete control of the MS Vengeance, although the crew of the Vengeance was unaware of this fact.
'Diverting excess energy to the galley's ovens. The chef is going to find his roast grazer beast is going to be a tad on the well-done side in a moment,' Honey responded silently but with a flirtatious wink. They were supposed to be married, after all. A moment later the smoke alarms in the kitchen went off.
***
Jason Ruck sat back in his command chair aboard the GCP flagship Yorktown and whistled. He had just reviewed the logs sent back by WhimPy-101. He hated to admit it, but Admiral Faragon had been right. Had the Yorktown or any of the other ships in his task force attempted a trans-universe hyperjump without knowing what 101 was able to discover, there was no question the ship in question would have been destroyed.
He toggled his commlink. "Lieutenant Nyota, open ship-to-ship. I need to brief the fleet."
"Channel open, Captain," the young Ashkelon reported in a slightly English accent.
"This is Captain Ruck of the Yorktown. Please back your ships away from the event horizon. I want all ships to maintain a distance of no less than three light minutes. If something big comes through you are to raise shields and take a maximum defensive posture. We have just decoded a message from WhimPy-101 that indicates there is the potential for a dangerous bow wake in front of objects traveling a trans-universe hyperjump corridor. I'm having my ship's AI append a copy of 101's message to this communication. I want all science departments analyzing the data and looking for options for a solution as fast as possible. Our people in the beta-verse are on their own until we can solve this. SO LETS GET CRACKING! Ruck Out."
***
It turned out Admiral Kimbridge had the answer first. Jason smiled to himself when thirty minutes later a small meter long probe shimmered into existence in front of his ship. The effect was unlike any hyperjump he had ever seen. Immediately his commlink signaled a connection request. Sometimes Jason thought Cat let others attempt to solve problems first out of sheer politeness.
"Jason?"
"Admiral Kimbridge! Why am I not surprised? What a delight to hear your voice again."
Cat's laughed. "You can stow the 'Admiral' crap, mister. And if you think for one moment that my promotion gets you out of that dinner you owe me then you had better rethink your plans..." She paused before adding, "…Captain."
Jason scratched his chin in thought. "There is the issue of you being in another universe, unless of course the Modos shrunk you to under a meter. This of course introduces another question. How is it that we are holding a realtime conversation? WhimPy-101's data indicated there was a variable time delay between the alpha and beta-verses."
"There is a minimum eleven hour delay, and it still exists. The probe is using a temporal hyperfield to time-shift incoming and outgoing communication by 22.1 hours. The messages seem to be real-time to you and me, but in reality they are not. The probe is still optimizing the interlink between the universes."
"Interesting... is that why the hyperjump portal shimmers?"
"Negative. That is a little harmonic we added to the jump generator to safely bleed off the bow wake energies. They still come through but we bleed them across space-time to minimize their deleterious effects."
"'Deleterious effects' seems a little understated, don't you think?"
"True... WhimpPy-101 pretty much incinerated a Modos slaver when he reached the beta-verse terminus."
"So these modifications make it possible to safely travel back and forth between the alpha and beta-verse?"
The image of Cat flickered into view on the main view screen. She smiled. Jason's heart almost stopped. He started to raise his hand to touch her face but realized how silly it must look. He allowed his hand to fall back to his side.
"The bandwidth optimization routines have finished their work. We can now send a 2D video stream and some intermittent high density data packets." Cat raised her hand to touch the screen in front of her. Her smile deepened when she saw him again move his hand to the screen.
"I miss you," he said.
"And I miss you," she echoed. "In answer to your question we can now travel more safely between the universes with these tweaks, but given the size difference between a starship and the communication probe it will still be wiser for the fleet to stand off the terminus by several light minutes and simply monitor with heavily shielded FTL probes."
Jason lowered his hand. "Understood, Admiral. What are your orders?"
"For the moment I want the fleet to form a blockade. Don't let any Modos ships come or go without first establishing they are not carrying any of our people."
"And if they are inclined to resist? Are we authorized to insist?"
"Absolutely. Taking slaves is an act of war. I'd prefer to avoid fighting but it may come to that. There is a faction we are working with here that may be able to help us in that regard."
Chapter Fourteen: Sins of the Father
The medical report from Dr. Lacidem sat on the field table next to Captain Running Stre
am. To say he was in a profound funk was an understatement. The report was damning. His people, the Modos, had apparently committed a crime far more heinous than simply enslaving the Suhtii. If the Doctor's report was accurate—and Running Stream had every reason to believe it was—then his people had tampered with the very essence of the Suhtii people. The Bearephants of present day were docile giants of only moderate intelligence, perhaps 60 on the human's IQ scale. Based on the size of the skull and DNA evidence the doctor had accumulated, it appeared He-Who-Speaks's ancestors enjoyed an IQ of 130 or more.
In enslaving the Suhtii, the Modos had denied them far more than their freedom. With superior minds, Running Stream couldn't help but wonder what great literature, artwork, and music had also been lost. What became of the Suhtii culture? The need to know and if possible preserve what little of the Suhtii was left drove Running Stream. It was no longer enough to emancipate the Bearephants. With careful work well-meaning Modos could reverse the genetic damage done to the Suhtii but they could not replace the cultural artifacts that had been lost to time. That would take a concerted effort to locate and preserve locations such as this one.
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