“How far can we go?” Julian asked.
“We don’t know, yet,” Dr. Silver replied. “We determined we could go this far, by sending the test-bed here and back. We suspect that we can travel literally to the ends of the universe with this system… the amount of energy used during translation doesn’t seem to be a limiting factor.”
“You can go any distance, with the same amount of energy?” Reya goggled. “Now, even if everything else you’ve said didn’t sound impossible, that part does.”
“It’s one of the more interesting aspects of quantum physics,” Dr. Silver shrugged. “Distance isn’t the factor that it is in Einsteinian space. But there are other factors that may be involved.”
“Like what?” Julian asked.
“You’ll be sorry,” Reya sing-songed.
Dr. Silver allowed Reya’s comment to roll off, before she replied. “Remember, Dr. Rios mentioned that the quantum vibration is different at different distances from the Origin Event.” Julian nodded. “When we translate from one place to another, it changes our quantum frequency, or internal vibration, to that of the new location. Well, there is speculation among scientists that a significant change in quantum vibration will cause fundamental changes in the way particles interact. How they share and use energy… how they influence other particles… how much energy is needed to do certain jobs. Some scientists believe that, after a particular frequency is reached, objects and processes formed by quantum particles lose all coherence. Objects break down. Physics breaks down. Reality itself breaks down. If that’s true, then there is a natural limit to how far we can travel, before we end up as Eo Luis’ atomic cloud.”
“That sounds bad,” Reya said sarcastically. “How do we know how far we can go?”
“Sending out test-beds ahead of us, as probes, will always answer that question,” Dr. Silver replied easily. “It would be a sensible thing to do before we translate Verdant, at any rate, to make sure there was no mistake in calculations, or to identify any physical obstacles or other unexpected anomalies that would be dangerous to us. And we can always send out test-beds as far as we can, set to take readings and come back. Any that don’t come back are obviously in an area that may not be conducive to our survival.”
“Here there be dragons,” Reya intoned. Then she paused, looking at Julian, and the unusual glint in his eyes. “Hey, you’d better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking…”
“He is,” Dr. Silver said, eyeing Julian. “And he’s right. Yes, we can use this system to take Verdant almost anywhere within a significant portion of the known universe. Our quantum translation system essentially turns Verdant into a giant starship!”
“Oh, God, here we go,” Reya moaned, turning on Julian. “I think we’ve had enough of this Brane-Boy stuff, don’t you? We need to get home, Jules! We are not a self-sufficient space ship! We’re a living, research and manufacturing facility designed to stay in Earth orbit!”
“Reya, I know what Verdant is,” Julian told her, holding back his impatience. He looked at Dr. Silver. “However, I also know that we may not be welcome in Earth orbit right now, and it may be beneficial to us to be able to present a… moving target. Also, this technology may be a resource we can sell to Earth.”
“How?” Reya asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Julian replied. “Maybe if we can construct starships for Earth… or at least the quantum system as a drive that they can install in their ships… we’ll have a new product, possibly important and popular enough to guarantee our sovereignty and protection by the U.N. In turn, Earth will get ships they can use to explore the galaxy.” He looked to each of them in turn. “Think of that.”
“If it’s exploration you want to offer,” Dr. Silver suggested, “why stop at ships? We can take Verdant itself to other planets, mount full-scale exploratory expeditions, and return with—”
“You’re doing it again,” Reya protested. “Julian, we have to go home. Period.”
Julian considered Reya’s words, and Dr. Silver wisely stopped speaking. After a moment, Julian turned and asked, “Are you sure you can adapt your test-bed system to a ship?”
“I don’t foresee a problem,” Silver replied smartly.
“All right, I’ve seen enough here. Get your staff to work on retrofitting a freighter with your system. Reya, you pick out the freighter, something medium-sized that can be fitted with temporary passenger accommodations for the trip to Earth.”
“But Verdant—”
“We have to crawl before we can walk,” Julian cut off Reya’s protest. “We’ll get the Earth residents back, and make sure it’s safe for us to return.” He eyed Reya, and she declined to argue his point. Dr. Silver also seemed satisfied. He nodded. “Get busy, you two. Aaron, whatever resources they need are authorized.”
“Of course,” Aaron replied. Julian turned to climb down the scaffolding, leaving Aaron, Reya and Dr. Silver regarding each other. One look at Reya and Dr. Silver told Aaron that he did not want to be caught between them. “You two just let me know what you need, okay?” he said, and quickly headed for the ladder.
Reya finally started after him. Then she turned and regarded Dr. Silver. After a few moments, she said, “Tell me right now: Is this safe?”
“Yes,” Dr. Silver said without hesitation.
“Good,” Reya said after a pause. “Because you know what’ll happen to us if we put a bunch of Earth citizens on board a freighter, and turn them into cosmic soup. Don’t you?” Without waiting for Dr. Silver’s reply, she mounted the ladder and climbed out of the scaffolding.
Dr. Silver silently watched them go. Once they were out of the room, she called to the technicians standing on the floor level. “We have work to do.”
~
When Julian returned to CnC, he was immediately greeted by one of the technicians that had been assigned to monitor their hastily-assembled long-range com system. “Ceo,” the girl stepped forward, “we have up-to-date data on Earth and the satellites’ present state. We’ve repurposed some long-range antennas, and now we’re pulling in faint, but readable, standard com traffic.”
“Thank you,” Julian replied, taking the datapad from the girl and proceeding into his office. He was sure he didn’t want to review the information in front of the rest of the staff, but he wanted to know what was happening on Earth before they blithely jumped… moved… translated… whatever… back into orbit. Fortunately, he reflected, they were not so far away that com signals could not be picked up with sensitive-enough equipment, even from Mars orbit. Most Earth transmissions were not intended to carry much beyond the atmosphere, but the proper antenna configuration could pull in even the weakest of signals.
He waited until he had sat down, before scrolling through the reports gleaned from the com transmissions. As he’d expected, the news was not good. To begin with, Tranquil and Fertile were apparently wrecked, both due to internal fighting between occupation groups and the satellites’ residents and security forces. Tranquil had suffered even more extensive collateral damage from fighters in orbit, and when all the damage was totaled, Tranquil engineers were saying the satellite would be largely uninhabitable within two months. Qing was now embroiled in internal riots, despite the fact that the satellite was considered a Chinese state… apparently, Chang or someone else had finally decided that simply wasn’t good enough. But Chang hadn’t been seen in over a day… there were rumors that he had been assassinated.
All ground-based freight companies had indefinitely suspended supplies deliveries to the satellites, using the still-significant Yellowstone Caldera’s ash cloud as a convenient excuse to avoid even sending ballistics into orbit. At the same time, small and personal ships were constantly jockeying for opportunities to break through the ash layer and try to board any of the satellites. A number of craft had already suffered catastrophic damage trying to ply the ashy atmosphere, and most of those had crash-landed, killing all occupants.
Regarding Verdant, the reports we
re even more lively and inventive, but no less threatening-sounding. To begin with, very few people on Earth apparently believed Verdant wasn’t still in orbit over Earth. Apparently the “advanced cloaking technology” rumor had taken root, and most of Earth was sure Verdant was playing some elaborate hoax. A lot of effort was being expended trying to locate them, primarily concentrated in the vicinity of Earth where their orbit had originally placed them. And the long-range telescope videos of Verdant, plainly seen to be orbiting Mars? The majority of the public believed it was also a hoax, a “special effect” created by Verdant to hide their true location. And some believed the United States was creating the effect, in order to hide their true agenda, that of clandestinely taking over the satellite and allowing America’s elite to live in cloaked seclusion.
And what did the United States government believe? No one outside of Denver could say, and Vice President, now acting-President Carruthers in the High House wasn’t talking, either. Yet the government was spending a lot of time accusing Verdant of kidnapping American citizens, including the President of the United States, and holding them for some as-yet-unstated ransom. A few extremists speculated that the Americans on Verdant were already dead, executed as war criminals. Officials and civilians alike went out of their way to describe the things that would be done to those on Verdant, if their suspicions were verified.
Julian personally had his doubts that they would wait for verification.
There were some official fires he had to deal with: Requests and demands by various departments for resources beyond the standard level three restrictions, a common occurrence, and very often granted within reason. This time, Julian turned them all down. Some of them were as simple as a word in an e-mail. Others demanded face-to-face com time, and Julian had to play the stern father or leader to his charges. A few of them, he simply ignored, or referred the request to the GLIS… they would get the hint. In fact, soon the word would go out that nothing was getting slipped through this time… things were that serious.
But underlying the requests, some almost reasonable, many of them almost insufferable, Julian was continually brought back to their situation, and the terrible loss they had already suffered. The losses to Earth when the satellites, once constructed to be the islands of sanity and salvation of Mankind, would be consumed and wasted, their promise to the future lost to the insanities of the present.
And the loss he had suffered. Evelyn Volov, one of his oldest friends; once an intimate friend; and now, like his wife, lost to him while he helplessly looked on.
After a time, Julian found he could no longer concentrate on the work, and he shut down his workstation. Leaving the datapad on the desktop, he strode out of his office and into CnC. He glanced quickly around the room until he located a familiar face. “Lang,” he said loud enough for everyone in CnC to hear, “you have command of CnC for the rest of the shift, until Eo Luis gets back.”
“Yes, sir…” Lang replied, but Julian was already walking through the doors to CnC, not waiting for his reply.
Julian walked like an automaton through the corridors, to the lift, down to the residential floors. It seemed that the weight of the last two days was bearing down upon him, threatening to break his back with each new step. With the constant barrage of bad news he’d suffered through, he was beginning to lose faith in their ability to return safely to Earth. He thought of Anise, and wondered whether he’d ever get the chance to speak to his daughter again. He thought of his lost Mariel, and remembered how long it had been since he’d visited her grave, or thanked her once again for delivering Anise to his care before she was swept away by the power of Mother Earth’s raging waters. He thought of Evelyn Volov, more than a friend, who could have been more than a lover… and he wondered how much she had suffered when the freighter had punctured Tranquil’s hull and taken her.
He thought of the remaining beauty of Earth, and wondered if he would ever see it with his own eyes again. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins as he considered a life without Earth.
So consumed was Julian by these thoughts, that he walked the entire distance to his own residence without seeing a single step, a single person, a single feature of the satellite he had lived in for the past eighteen years. To be sure, the shadows within Verdant were deepening, standard procedure for the end of the day, and in many areas the lights were coming on, but at that dusky level of the day where those lights seem to be ineffectually dim. Verdant’s interior was morphing from green to grey, and the colorful clothing of passers-by were becoming silhouettes moving to and fro around him, easy to ignore.
Occasionally, he reached a point in his travel where vigilance would have been recommended, to avoid taking a bad step onto a moving lift, or stumbling into a closed door. Fortunately, every lift seemed to be there when he arrived, every door opened, every traffic indicator oriented in his direction. Julian scarcely noticed the ease of his travel, and paid no attention to his unhindered progress home.
But as he reached his own door, something in the periphery of his senses caught his attention, and with a start, he jerked to a halt. His eyes scanned about intently, examining the shadows and corners in his vision, especially those between him and his front door… and presently, his eyes settled on one such shadow, multiple shapes being thrown by a small garden of potted plants in a waist-high planter, shapes that stirred in a light wafting breeze with their attendant leaves, other shapes that defied the breeze and kept their position. He suddenly remembered Kris Fawkes’ warnings about attempted assassinations, and it occurred to him only at that moment that he was… had been… an easy target. And something about that particular shadow did not seem to be the same as those he’d seen before…
Then the shadow began to move. It moved slowly, but not glacially… not as if it did not want to be noticed. This shadow knew it had been seen, and it was satisfied to display itself fully. Julian found that he could not run from it… it was certainly too late, at any rate… so he stood there and watched it with dreadful fascination, until the shadow had finally detached itself from the plants and assumed its own shape.
Then the shadow spoke: “I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
Julian recognized the voice immediately, and found himself releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Kris Fawkes walked up to him out of the shadows, smiling apologetically. As she approached, her eyes fixed on his, and slowly, her expression changed.
Julian stood still and allowed her to move close enough to rest one hand on his shoulder. He felt her fingers flex against his arm, probing, trying to connect with something, all the while never taking her eyes off his. As Kris studied him, he watched her, almost as a spectator watches a performance, waiting to see if the performer would solve the riddle set before them. And at the same time, being the riddle… and not knowing exactly what would happen to himself if the performer was successful. Not sure he wanted to know. Afraid to know.
Desperate to know.
He waited.
Kris spent perhaps the longest time she’d ever spent, trying to read someone so thoroughly, and having the most difficult time at it. Certainly, in Julian, there was pain just below the surface, barely concealed… she had read the data provided by Enu Thompson, so she knew about Mariel… but there was more, far more, denied needs, repressed desires, buried memories… a subjugated spirit. Something that thought it needed to be caged, and that had been self-suppressed for so long that now it had no idea what to do if it gained its freedom. But Kris felt it needed to be freed, for Julian’s own good.
As she studied him, Kris sought words. She had met many caged souls, and she was sure this one could be released with the correct words… the words of magic, the keys that would penetrate the locks and free the caged soul within. It was a risky venture: The wrong words could not only clamp the bars down even tighter, but could also unleash a backlash that could have dire, painful, even fatal consequences. But the payoff could be… transcendent.
And a part of her
was insanely curious about this man, one of so few who did not reveal himself to her in the first seconds, the first words, of their meeting. Her first Man of Mystery in so, so long. She had realized, days before, that she was attracted to him… and later, that she wanted him. For him, she wanted to risk the words, she wanted to dash that cage aside, and she wanted to see what would come roaring out of the cage once it was opened… no matter the risk.
Suddenly, she caught a flicker in his eye… a flash from the buried soul, a mute shout, a glimmer of need, which Julian himself probably didn’t know was there. The flash had Mariel’s name emblazoned on it, of course… but it wasn’t just love, it wasn’t just longing that was there.
According to the data she’d seen, Mariel had fought the floods she and her infant daughter Anise had been trapped against. By the time Julian had reached them, according to eyewitness reports, it was considered a miracle that the woman had lasted so long against the furious current. When, after intense struggle, Julian had finally gotten close, Mariel had handed over her daughter, putting her directly, firmly, triumphantly into Julian’s hands.
Then she’d been swept under by the current, taken from Julian’s grasp so quickly that it seemed she had been captured by submerged hands and borne away. Leaving her husband, and her daughter, to live on without her.
In Julian’s eyes, Kris saw a reflection of the look that had passed between lovers that day. It was a look of heroic effort, and tragic loss, forever burned into his retina. Kris now saw Mariel as Julian remembered her, and she realized: He didn’t just miss this woman; he deified her, and her ultimate sacrifice. And his soul still screamed of her pain.
And at once, Kris had her words. His words. She smiled sympathetically, calmly, carnally, moved close to his ear, and whispered to him:
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