“I am not concerned for my well-being,” Yaxche said, making no effort to lower his voice. “But if you wish, I can show you a way out.”
Michael cocked his head. “You know a way to escape this place?”
“Ahyah,” Yaxche said. “My friend Humberto told me of it.”
23
Lucis Observatory :
Venus Orbit :
The Mayan culture had always placed great significance in Venus, which they referred to as both the morning star and the evening star because it could be seen at either time.
As some of the most sophisticated astronomers of the time—and being a calendar-conscious and mathematical civilization—the Mayans had charted Venus’s yearly cycles and discovered that five of Venus’s years correlate almost exactly with eight Earth years. To them, this was an obvious sign of its link with Earth and proof that Venus itself was a deity. The Mayan people would time any of their great events, such as a war or the coronation of their leader, with the cycles of Noh ek’, their name for the sky god.
And so, when Terry first realized Klaus had set up his main base of operations on Venus, a part of him felt it was more than coincidence; it had to be some kind of divine influence.
From the moment Terry had joined the Cruzados, he had imagined that he had been chosen to spearhead a holy revolution, that he would singlehandedly restore the Mayan culture to the frontlines in the quest for interstellar progress. In his naive fantasy, the world would honour him as an ambassador for Earth once mankind had overcome the limitations of travel between the stars, and made first contact with the thousands of alien races who were waiting out there.
Terry had been taken in by the romantic notion of a holy crusade, with an army of Cruzados at his back.
Terry, however, had no idea how he was going to accomplish that, and after two days on the orbiting observatory, he began to give in to despair. Gradually, he realized that once he had handed the Song of the Stars to Jose and Klaus, his dream had begun to unravel bit by bit, and it looked more like a nightmare with each passing hour.
The Cruzados were not an honorable group. They did not have the ancient Mayan spirit in them. He was coming to understand that they were just another gang of disgruntled peasants and greedy opportunists who, in turn, had thrown in their lot with someone Terry could only describe as a madman—granted, one who certainly knew more about computers, Kinemet and astrophysics than most.
In one of the Lucis Observatory’s workshops, Klaus Vogelsberg sat hunched over a haptic console. There were seven holoslates set up in a half-circle around him. Periodically, he would adjust an input or type in a series of commands.
Terry stood half a dozen steps to the side and waited. He had been relegated to the role of Klaus’s personal servant, and though it grated on his pride, he knew he only had himself to blame.
There was one other person in the workshop. Jose watched as his partner in crime tended his programs. There was a look of dark concern on his face as he stared at the monitors, clearly unable to decipher what he saw.
“You’ve been at this for days. Are we any closer to the solution,” Jose asked.
“Every minute that passes brings us closer,” Klaus said sardonically.
“You know what I mean.” Jose pointed across the room. “He’s the third, so far. At this pace, we will soon run out of lab rats. And every day we spend here increases our risk of being discovered.”
Terry grimaced at the words, and couldn’t help but look past the two men where Jose had pointed. Adjacent to the workshop was a lab, shielded with titanium and electromagnetically sealed. A wide pane of tinted glass—created with particles of titanium—allowed them to see inside the experiment area.
Strapped on a medical gurney, one of the captured American soldiers lay unconscious and naked. Dozens of sensors and leads were attached to his arms, chest and head.
Beside him was a tray on which rested one milligram of unshielded Kinemet—which Klaus had shaved with what had looked like an invisible saw. He had told Terry the beam was simply a non-reactive laser coupled with a chemical coolant, and that he required complete concentration to get the cut just right, “so kindly keep your mouth shut from now on, unless I ask you a question,” he had said through gritted teeth at one point.
When Klaus didn’t reply to his last statement, Jose said, “You promised us you could unlock the secret and give me complete control of space travel. That was the only reason we agreed to your terms. I wonder if you maybe overestimated your capabilities.”
“There is always a measure of trial and error when conducting scientific experiments,” Klaus replied evenly, speaking with much more patience to Jose than he had to Terry. “I assure you, I will have the proper sequence locked down very soon.”
A moment later, however, he matched Jose’s harsh tone. “And don’t forget, the power will be ours together. You may have contributed men and the ancient scroll itself, but without my money and knowledge, you would still be sitting in a darkened warehouse making empty plans. We are partners in this.”
A ripple of irritation passed over Jose’s features, but he quickly reined in his emotions. “Very well, partner. If we are equals, then we should both know exactly what you are doing now.”
“I’m not sure you would understand the scientific terminology.”
Jose narrowed his eyes. “I have taken a few physics courses at university. I’m certain I can follow.”
Klaus shrugged and turned back to his computer. He took a deep breath and seemed to debate his next words. “All right,” he said finally. “We have a little time before we can measure our subject’s reaction, anyway.”
He called up a file and played one of the many animated presentations of the Kinemetic reaction which had peppered the EarthMesh newsfeeds over the past decade.
“Back when Quantum Resources was in its heyday, they used a bombardment of hydrogen photons to create a reaction in Kinemet; it caused the metal to convert into a quantum kinetic force. As a raw fuel, this works, but there’s no control once it quantizes. Whatever is in proximity to its sphere of influence at the time of reaction gets quantized—turned into light. Any electrical impulse is neutralized. When the Kinemet stops reacting with the photons, and returns to solid state, all the electrical systems are disabled. Someone, or something, needs to kick start them, or you’re adrift in space without light, heat … air.”
“Yes,” said Jose. “I know this much.”
“Just making sure.”
Klaus called up another animation. This one was watermarked with the NASA logo on the bottom right, the Quantum Resources stamp on the bottom left, and the word ‘Confidential’ along the top. It was a conceptual recreation of Alex Manez’s voyage to Centauri.
“Now,” Klaus continued, “that problem is compounded. After rematerialization, there is a secondary reaction in the Kinemet, a nuclear fission, which causes the Kinemet to release its photons in an exothermic reaction—something like an atomic bomb. Why? Well, when you drop a rock in water, and it causes a temporary void, when the surrounding water rushes back in to fill that void, there’s a splash. Energy is released. The splash is enough to cause the Kinemet to start reacting to itself. Instead of quantizing, it fissions, and this happens quite quickly.
“The ‘pilot’ is there to give the electrical generators a kick start, so the dampers can prevent the fission from occurring. In the case of the Quanta, the pilot was too slow to rematerialize, and that is why the ship exploded, and that’s the problem they’ve been struggling with for the past few years. How to stop the bomb from exploding once the fuse is lit.” He chuckled at the concept.
Jose asked, “So how does the ancient scroll fix that?”
“The problem is not with the Kinemet. The problem is with the pilot, or more specifically, the irradiation process to create a Kinemetic pilot. It’s something far beyond the quantizing process, which in and of itself is biologically harmless.
“Alex Manez was exposed to the
reacting Kinemet under unknown and uncontrolled circumstances, and was irradiated during that process. Among other things, he became electropathic—and gained the ability to manipulate those electronic dampers needed to stop the ‘splash’—but there is something in him that failed to complete the change. He was unable to materialize in time, and the Kinemet exploded. The incomplete Kinemetic process also resulted in his deteriorating health and will be the cause of his inevitable demise.
“Unfortunately, no one has been able to reproduce the exact conditions that created Alex’s new physiology. They tried photons from other elements like helium and the other noble gases, but that had no effect. The closest they came was to try to prime the Kinemet with a burst of ultraviolet rays. They were on the right path working in the electromagnetic spectrum, but their methodology was wrong—they didn’t have the proper sequence to prime the Kinemet, and so the Quanta experiments continued to fail.
“Some pilots died moments after initial exposure in the lab environment. Two lived for a month before radiation poisoning killed them. Those were the earliest experiments. Five survived the process, but in the field they—like Alex—were unable to rematerialize quickly enough to engage the Kinemet dampers. Boom. Even though Alex somehow managed to survive the explosion on the Quanta, he is also considered a failed conversion.
“So now, the question remains: what is the correct process to create a Kinemetic pilot?”
Klaus pointed to the ancient scroll, which was resting at an angle on a nearby worktable. “You see, the Mayan document contains a key code, a sequence of sound waves which the computer can map to their particle-wave counterparts. We then bombard the Kinemet with that frequency before the quantizing process. Different frequencies—and combinations of frequencies—elicit disparate reactions in the element, conditioning it to give off a subtly different form of radiation.” He shook his head. “It’s an amazing element, and I’m certain it will take decades to chart every aspect.”
Klaus turned in his chair to face Jose and drew in a deep breath. “So you see, I’m reproducing some of Quantum Resources failed experiments, but using the correct frequencies I recorded from Terry’s vocal rendition of the story to prime the Kinemet first. Of course, this is all assuming Terry recited the story exactly as his grandfather taught him—” Klaus glanced over at Terry, who stiffened at the implication that he had made any mistakes.
Klaus continued, “I’ve mapped the notes where he used particular inflections, and I’m hoping they provide the proper combination to unlock the puzzle.”
“Hoping?”
“Well, it’s been a millennium since the scroll was first written. Even if Terry recited the song exactly as he’d been taught, how can we know that every generation passed down the sequence without a single mistake? There are a few other dynamics to consider.”
Jose took a few measured paces towards the window, as if he could see the internal changes in the soldier in the other room. “What are you telling me? How many uncontrolled factors are there?”
“I don’t have complete records from Quantum Resources, so I have had to repeat some of their failures.”
Jose ground his teeth. “How many more failures?”
There was a hint of a smile playing across Klaus’s lips; it seemed he enjoyed tormenting Jose. “Quantum Resources underwent more than a dozen full trials, and established a number of constants. For the purposes of my trial, I’ve been using those confirmed results. There are still some variables in their tests, however, and once we get past candidate number three, here, I only have two more factors to account for, and then we will know whether Terry’s rendition of the Song survived unchanged over the centuries.”
Jose inhaled, then let his breath out in a slow hiss, as if to release the tension that had built up inside him. “Good. Then by all means, proceed.” He turned back to the window to watch.
Klaus wrinkled his forehead in annoyance, but Terry was the only one to see the movement. There was obvious friction between the two partners, but Terry didn’t know if he had the wit to use that against them.
He knew any action he took that made him look more disloyal at this point would most likely earn him a bullet. Now that he had given them what they wanted, the scroll and the song, they had no use for him outside of being Klaus’s personal attendant. After Terry’s behavior on the liner, Jose didn’t trust him anymore and wouldn’t allow him to even carry a gun.
For now, Terry would bite his lip, endure the heartache brought on by witnessing the inhuman experiments, and bide his time until he saw an opportunity to repair the wrongs for which he was responsible.
∞
They did not have to wait long until one of Klaus’s monitoring programs let out a short alarm.
“Ah,” Klaus said. “The sequence is now programmed into the computer. We can proceed with trial number three.”
“How long will this take?” Jose asked. “When will we know if it worked?”
Without answering the question, Klaus punched in a command to his console. “Here we go. Now I’m bombarding the Kinemet with the thirty-two ultraviolet frequencies of photons in the prescribed order, and the sensors indicate the Kinemet is undergoing the transformation. All right, now for the main attraction: hitting it with hydrogen to start the quantization.”
All three men looked up into the shielded room to see the Kinemet suddenly light up in a fashion similar to a magnesium flare. A moment later everything in the room turned into the same light. If not for the Kinemetic dampers in the other room, the Kinemetic radiation from a milligram of the element could conceivably quantize most of the Observatory, as Klaus had informed Terry earlier.
The entire lab room was filled with a brightness so sharp Terry had to put his hand up to protect his eyes. The sensors that had been attached to the soldier stopped transmitting data to Klaus’s computers, since they were also affected.
“They’ve quantized,” Klaus said by way of commentary. “During the Macklin’s Rock incident, Alex Manez was exposed for approximately four hours. The actual length of time required could very well be four seconds, for all we know. Quantum Resources used the four hour marker as a constant, so I’ve been doing the same.”
Jose, who also had his hand up between his eyes and the lab, asked, “So that’s when we’ll know?”
“We’ll know if he is altered or not. Once the Kinemet has completed its process, everything in the room will return to a solid state, and then we can go in and take some readings on the subject. After that we’ll perform a simple quantization procedure and see how quickly he rematerializes. Anything more than nine seconds is a failure; the pilot wouldn’t have enough time to get his bearings and initiate the dampers.”
Giving a nervous cough, Jose asked, “What about the ‘splash’ effect you mentioned?”
“There won’t be any Kinemet left for a secondary reaction,” Klaus said. “If they had only packed enough Kinemet for a one-way trip to Centauri, there would never have been any fission and the Quanta would never have exploded.”
“So we’re safe?”
“Yeah.” Klaus typed a few more commands into the computer, and then spun around on his chair. “The lab is electromagnetically sealed. No one can get in or out. Meanwhile, I’m hungry. Time for something to eat.”
∞
Before leaving, Klaus punched a key on one computer, and the window between the main workshop and the lab room grew darker, enough so that it was no longer physically uncomfortable to look directly at it. Of course, there was nothing to see beyond the glass other than a bright blur.
Following Klaus out the door, Jose ordered Terry, “You stay here. Make sure no one enters except us. Anyone else tries to get in here, send me an alert on the comlink.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “I’ll bring you back a sandwich or something.”
∞
Terry, who had remained stoic while the co-leaders were in his presence, let out a curse and punched his open hand with his fist in frustration once
he was alone.
His anger was directed not only at Klaus, Jose and the Cruzados, but at himself for being such a sucker.
Everything he had done had been to honour Itzel, and to ensure what happened to her never happened to his people again.
And he was right at the center of it; he was the catalyst. If he hadn’t run away from home like a petulant child; if he hadn’t naively taken up with the Cruzados; and if he hadn’t betrayed his grandfather by stealing the ancient scroll, none of this would have happened. How many people—innocent or not—had died because of Terry’s actions? How many more would die?
In the past two days, Terry had been helpless to do anything but stand by as Klaus experimented on the American soldiers. Once he had determined the first subject had failed to change completely, Klaus ordered the victim taken out of his sight, and never followed up on his progress. Terry had never seen anyone with such a lack of remorse or conscience. Klaus was completely absorbed in his task, and didn’t exhibit any signs that he cared who lived and who died in the pursuit of his goal.
One day, while eating lunch by himself, Terry had overheard some of the other Cruzados a table over talk about Klaus, and how he and his uncle had been the ones who had kidnapped Alex Manez a decade ago, and had been somehow betrayed by him.
Terry hadn’t seen much of Captain Gruber. The man spent most of his time teaching the Cruzados combat techniques for ship-to-ship battles and how to fight inside space stations.
That last bit of information drove home the reality that Terry was part of an insurrection, rather than the liberation and rebirth of the Mayan culture he had dreamed of.
And it had only been possible because of him.
There had to be something he could do to stop them. But he knew he wasn’t clever enough by far. He didn’t know how to fight, and he was too transparent to become a politician and sway the Cruzados to his views.
He took a few measured paces towards the window of the lab, and he felt a pang of guilt knowing that the soldier inside would most likely endure hours, days, or weeks of agony before dying of Kinemetic exposure. He hadn’t even found out what the soldier’s name was.
Music of the Spheres (The Interstellar Age Book 2) Page 15