Shroud of Eden (Panhelion Chronicles Book 1)

by Marlin Desault

  Klaas shook his head and scowled. “Time-lines, Gödel solution—it’s all a fuzzy theory. Captain, you have no proof and no right to jeopardize the crew and ship on such a preposterous abstraction. I want to go on record as opposed to this idea. And there’s another problem: the size of the opening may not be big enough for our ship to get through.”

  Anton stepped forward. “The Mark VI side scan radar shows variations, but the narrowest point still measures a half a kilometer. A strike cruiser could easily pass through.” The young Lieutenant’s chin bobbed up and his eyes narrowed. “Skipper, I’ve got it! I know a safe way to find out if we can return.”

  Scott’s brows arched. “Let’s hear it.”

  “We can send the shuttle a little bit into the tunnel and see if it can return.”

  “A prize of an idea.” Scott put a finger to his chin. “Klaas, prepare the shuttle. We’ll try Anton’s idea.” He ground his teeth. “Let’s take a break. Anton can take the watch while we discuss the matter in the alcove.”

  The three gathered around the table. Scott watched Klaas as he listened to the discussion. The visual displays on the walls switched to a woodland scene with a fast flowing-stream. Young maple trees and brownish-red autumn foliage leaned over the water, a reminder of a home more than a hundred light years away.

  Klaas furrowed his brow and glared. “Captain, am I the one you’ve chosen to make this test run? Because if this theory is a lot of space feathers, I’m the one stuck in the tar while you return home, a hero with a promotion.”

  Scott steeled his gaze on his Second-in-Command. “I can’t ask you to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. You took the risk when I needed you to explore beyond the wisp. I’ll test the opening.”

  Klaas exhaled sharply with a hint of a smile.

  “Skipper,” Marie groused, “you’re in command of the ship. You’ve got to let one of us try the opening.”

  Klaas folded his arms, glowering at Marie. “Lieutenant, we don’t need your opinion. The captain has made his decision.”

  Scott swung his hand in dismissive wave. “Nonsense. Klaas is qualified to take command of the Pegasus, especially since we’ve completed the first part of the mission. If I don’t return, he’ll assume command.”

  Klaas nodded in agreement.

  Marie’s expression turned to a gloomy frown.

  “Then it’s settled.” Scott got up and patted Klaas on the shoulder. “We aren’t going back home until we complete the search, and the search won’t be over until we find out what’s on the other side of this tunnel. Bring the shuttle on line.”

  As if unconvinced of Scott’s return, Klaas bobbed an ambivalent nod.

  A light sweat dampened Scott’s gloved hands as he eased into the shuttle’s pilot position. The bay opened and the docking grapples released. With his right arm on the padded rest, he wrapped his fingers around the molded handle of the thrust-vector control.

  Under his gentle touch, the little ship eased into space. The hiss of the exhaust echoed through the cabin as he maneuvered the craft toward the abyss. The illumination from the engine and systems screens cast a gentle glow across the otherwise dark cockpit. When the green light of the distance indicator showed ten meters from the opening, he throttled his craft to a halt.

  Awed by the view, he lingered and watched Pegasus rotate in slow motion like a giant caterpillar spinning a cocoon, with the eight-pointed, golden star insignia of the Panhelion appearing and disappearing with each rotation. In his view above and aft, the Milky Way smeared a starry canopy that spread across the heavens. Ahead, the opening yawned, dark and ominous.

  Klaas’ voice on the ship-to-shuttle intercom pulled him out of his trance-like state. “Skipper, anything wrong?”

  He keyed the microphone. “I’m going to nudge the shuttle up against the opening.”

  “Gently, Skipper, gently,” Marie piped over the comm. “You’ll detect a slight resistance when the ship touches the boundary.”

  The distance number read zero, and the shuttle responded with mild hesitation.

  “Stop!” Marie’s panicked voice blared in his ear. “The prow of the shuttle is already two meters into the opening. Start your egress.”

  The shuttle exhaust roared. “Thrusters are in reverse, but I’m not moving,” Scott barked. “The shuttle is shaking but not moving.”

  His muscles tensed. After a moment, he throttled back the thruster. “Mustn’t panic,” he told himself. He nudged the thrust vector to port, and the craft responded with a slight shift.

  “Marie,” he called out in his microphone. “It’s moving sideways a little.”

  Her voice pitched an octave higher. “Don’t apply forward thrust, you’ll push deeper into the gradient. Forward is into the future. Move sideways or up and down. That way you’ll remain in the approximate same time. The prow of the shuttle is buried in the future, the rest is still with us in the present. Nudge the nose sideways, and at the same time, give gentle reverse thrust.”

  Sweat ran down his forehead as he pulled the thrust lever to zero. He wiped his eyes clear with his gloved hand. In his trembling grip, the vector control quivered. After several deep breaths, his muscles steadied. Time to find out if this damn Gödel solution is real.

  His vision restored, he applied mild pressure to the side thrust. The shuttle’s bow tipped up then down. With a light application of reverse thrust, the shuttle reversed direction and swung around toward Pegasus.

  Scott let out a huge breath. He commanded the docking bay open and slumped in his seat, relaxing only when the grapples took hold.

  In his drenched flight suit, he strode onto the command deck to face his wide-eyed crew. “I don’t understand why, but with a little sideways maneuvering the shuttle slipped easily out of the tunnel.”

  Marie was the first to speak. “The Gödel time-line. The fact that even just the nose of the shuttle returned to the present shows it exists. When we take the ship through the opening, we need to take precise time and position readings. From that, I can calculate the return time-line.”

  Scott paused for a moment in front of the main display and stared into the blackness of the opening. Then he swung round to face his crew. “We take Pegasus through at the start of the next day shift.”

  The Opening

  -

  Pegasus

  ~~~

  Boldness, guide me to thy bounty. Scott Drumond steeled his demeanor to maintain calm among his crew. He ambled from one crew station to the next as they cycled through their checklists. Only when, one by one, the bright amber status icons on the panel in front of his command position changed to brilliant green did he slow his breathing.

  Klaas and Marie exchanged quick glances and spoke no more than a few clipped words. Marie’s explanation of the gradient sounded reasonable, but Klaas made no attempt to hide his skepticism.

  If the truth be known, Scott himself harbored doubts.

  Anton’s enthusiasm for the adventure hadn’t waned, no doubt from a misplaced confidence in his superiors. If the young sub lieutenant had concerns about Scott and his previous misfortunes as captain of the Targelion, he didn’t show them.

  “The ship’s ready to sail. Let us pray for peaceful shores,” Klaas quipped. His lips tightened and his face grew earnest. “Captain, we only need your order to begin transit.”

  Marie kept quiet.

  Her silence, Scott suspected, masked her apprehension.

  With a quick motion, the captain of the Pegasus returned to his pod and snapped the restraints shut. “Commander Van der Meer, get us underway.”

  Klaas advanced the engine-shaped icon floating in the dark panel below his fingertips. The ship inched ahead with gentle acceleration that eased the crew against the backs of their pods. Seconds later, a gentle hesitation reverberated through the ship. The motion pulled every crewmember forward against the restraints.

  Pegasus slid through the opening of the gradient and plunged onward through a sea of time. The prow thrus
t into the outer edge of the opening, and the cavern swallowed the ship meter by meter. The hadron engines, cued by computer control, increased their thrust, spurring the craft onward through mild resistance.

  “Marie, help Klaas avoid the hard spots if you please.” His remark, born of nervousness, sounded trite and obvious.

  The petite officer put her face close to her display. The distance readouts and images of the gradient walls illuminated her profile. “Pinger echoes confirmed. Ship holding on centerline.”

  Scott gripped the edge of his seat. “Klaas, easy on the velocity. Give Marie the time she needs to find any danger spots.”

  The ship slipped deeper into the future. Starlight in the opening behind them changed to a kaleidoscope of sapphire and yellow-white streaks swirling around the sides of the opening.

  Pegasus dove deep. Year and day numbers on the time readout raced forward. In the cleft, streaks of light smeared into a diffuse glow of light patterns.

  Anton swung round in his chair to face Scott. “Skipper, when we entered, stars filled the view aft.” His head swiveled left and right as he took in the scene. “All I see now are bands of light.”

  Marie turned from her instruments and glanced at him. “They’re from starlight shining through the gradient. The unevenness of time refracts and distorts their color.”

  Tensions eased on the second day, and Scott’s comfort with the passage grew. The crew made only occasional checks of the automatic navigation and engine status.

  “I thought you might like some coffee?” In the dim light, Scott offered a cup to Anton, who stood in front of the systems display outlined in subtle light from the green indicators on the panel. Scott brushed his fingers across the light pad, and the command deck lighting shifted to a comfortable, yellow-white day-cycle illumination.

  Anton accepted the hot drink and blew a cloud of steam from the top. “Thanks, Skipper. What do you think we’ll find when we reach the interior?”

  In an attempt to skirt the subject, Scott eyed the Lietenant with mild reproach but answered anyway. “Some indication of the Themis, I hope.”

  Anton crinkled his face. “Do you really believe in that legend?”

  “Admiral Delmar believes it, so I have to go on the assumption that it’s true.” He paused and smiled at the young officer. “If I remember your file correctly, you joined the reserve when you were in college.”

  “Yes, sir, I was always obsessed with space travel. The military satisfied my obsession and got me away from home. I finished my reserve training and got my first assignment, a year of lunar duty. After that, I made a few runs to Ganymede and back. It wasn’t that exciting, but what the heck, I was in space.”

  Scott nodded. “I felt the same on my first assignment in space.”

  Anton glanced away from the glowing indicators and stared at his captain. “If we find the Themis, maybe it will result in some promotions.”

  Scott stared at the young officer for a moment. “The stakes in this mission may be far greater.”

  “Like what?” Anton’s brows arched over wide eyes.

  “The Panhelion.” He put his cup down on the command station workspace. “Admiral Delmar is one of the few in the senior ranks who wants to reform the military, and to him the discovery of the Themis is important enough to risk his career.”

  Scott took the third sleep cycle watch. His confidence soared as the ship sailed onward on a tidal rush of entropy, like Black Sea waters surging through the narrows of the Bosporus. The Pegasus raced into a future that existed beyond the familiar, more orderly shores of that portion of the universe they had left behind. From the earliest recorded history, men had fought to control the narrow Bosporus between Asia and Europe.

  Will men someday fight to control this passage between two times?

  Near shift end, Marie came on deck.

  Half an hour later, Scott spotted a bright, fuzzy light low on the starboard bow. “Marie, what do you make of that light?”

  “Not sure. I saw it a few minutes ago. The readouts say we’re near the predicted arrival time calculated from probe data. Another two hours should see us all the way through.”

  They approached the interior, and the fuzzy spot resolved into a distinct disc the color of light champagne.

  “It’s a star.” Marie half stood and couldn’t avoid an involuntary intake of breath. “Further out I can see more, not as bright. The interior.”

  “It’s the same as outside,” Anton blurted out as he reported for duty.

  “It’s not the same,” Marie argued. “We’ve entered a space-time similar to space-time in the universe outside the gradient.” She drummed her fingers lightly on her work surface. “But with one exception: we’re in a future time.”

  Anton’s mouth hung slightly open. “Are we in some sort of alternate universe?”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s an alternate universe,” Marie said. “Rather, it’s a different part of our universe.”

  “Alternate, different?” The junior officer arched his brows.

  “An alternate universe would exist as a type of parallel universe, if you will. This is a different space-time embedded in the same universe.”

  The waxing image of the amber-tinged star distracted Scott from further thoughts of alternate and different universes. “Klaas, revise our heading. Set a course for that bright star off the starboard bow. Marie, you think that star is suitable for an inhabited planet?”

  Marie called up a new display on her screen. “I’m running the analysis now. My guess is a class F star, or more likely a G. The spectroscope will tell us which.”

  “Are there any planets?” His pulse thumped in his temples.

  Marie whirled. “We have to get closer to answer that.”

  When the disc nearly filled the display, a small, dark spot on the face of the star captured Scott’s gaze. “There’s one planet. No.... Those two bright spots to the right are planets as well—three in all.”

  His pulse quickened as the obvious question burned in his mind. “Can any of those planets support human life?”

  She shot the answer back. “Right now, I can only say the innermost one orbits in the Goldilocks zone.”

  Scott’s mouth fell open in surprise. If the crew of the Themis had gotten this far, they would certainly have searched for a planet orbiting a star of this spectral class.

  He mulled over how Exploration Command back home would react to his report of this discovery. If by some chance he discovered the fate of the Themis... but first things first.

  Klaas bounced lightly on the balls of his feet and became more animated as the conversation progressed. “You were right, Skipper. Damned if you weren’t right. We made it.”

  Scott wasted no time with his next order. “Steer for the planet closest to the star and set a course for a high polar orbit. Let’s find out if it’s habitable or even inhabited.”

  As they approached, the dark spot gradually took on a gibbous phase. The surface on the light side of the terminator turned to bright turquoise as the ship closed the distance to the globe before them.

  Marie tuned her spectroscopes to the various colors to reveal the planet’s atmosphere.

  Scott mulled over conditions the Themis may have encountered: hostile sentient beings, a poisonous atmosphere, or the planet could be an Eden. From their raised eyebrows and slack looks, he suspected his crew’s thoughts tended to the pessimistic side.

  He broke the silence. “Marie, we’re all anxious to hear what you have to say.”

  She brought up the comparator on her screen. “Okay, let’s see how big this rock is. From the size and orbital data I can figure its mass.” The laser on her headband flashed her instruction into the computers. “It’s a tad smaller than Earth. Now for the density and gravity.” She stared at the numbers and icons now spread across her monitor. “The initial spectral returns look favorable. The atmosphere has a high nitrogen content, not quite that of Earth but close enough.”

  “What
about oxygen? Does it have oxygen?” Scott asked, a hopeful flutter in his stomach.

  “It has oxygen. I’m still working out the exact percentage. I know what you’re going to ask next.” She winked at him. “Yes, it has water.”

  “I guessed that from the cloud cover.” Scott’s slight smile faded. “The polar caps are small.”

  “The axial tilt,” she said, eyes sparkling with excitement. “I measure a little over five degrees. The seasonal differences will be—”

  Marie sat up with alarm. “Skipper, I’m not pinging, but my return sensors are active. They’re receiving light pulses from the surface of the planet.”

  Inside the Anomaly

  -

  Pegasus

  ~~~

  The hum intensity of the hadron engines increased as they labored to retard forward momentum and drop Pegasus into gentle orbit over the planet.

  Satisfied with the maneuver, Scott turned his attention to the signal. “Does it have any meaning, Anton?”

  “I’m comparing it with known communications protocols.” Anton worked the icons floating in the input panel in front of him as though playing a piano. He routed the data stream into the computers, and the machines absorbed the information and began searching for a match.

  The first symbols appeared and the comm officer announced, “It has a sophisticated logic.”

  Scott twisted round in his captain’s pod, to better study the image of the strange planet on the large bulkhead screen.

  “Skipper,” said Anton, “regulations require the Contact with Alien Life procedure. I’ve used it in training but never in actual operations before.”

  Klaas glanced at Anton’s data screen, and chuckled. “Relax, Anton. Except in training and in a few cases of spurious noise, none of us has ever used it. No one in the Panhelion has had verified contact with aliens. In any case, you shouldn’t reply.”