Shaking hands with the Mayan, Calbert said, “We’ve been looking forward to this since Michael contacted us about George’s theory.” He glanced at Michael quickly. “It’s odd that we don’t have a single audio recording of the Song of the Stars, just the translations and the attempts by our own linguists, who were obviously incorrect in their recitation.”
Turning back to Yaxche, he said, “We have an entire team of technicians standing by to hear your story… Unless, of course, you’re too tired from the trip.”
His mouth splitting wide in grin, Yaxche said, “Old men never pass up an opportunity to tell a story.” He barked out a laugh.
Raymond, smiling, said, “I can take him over there if you two need to debrief.”
Calbert said, “Thanks, Raymond.”
The two headed off to the recording lab. Raymond wasn’t a very tall man, but he towered over Yaxche, and seemed to enjoy not being the shortest person in the room for a change.
Raymond started relating some of the theories floating around about the Song to Yaxche, his voice fading out the farther they got.
Michael turned to Calbert. “Can you fill me in on what happened with the Diana?”
Motioning toward the elevator, Calbert headed off first. “What you read in the news is pretty much it. Since Canada Corp. bought out USA, Inc.’s shares of Quantum Resources, we really haven’t had any kind of pipeline into their governmental channels for years. Even most of the scientific information we get from NASA has already been screened and cleaned.”
They reached the elevator, and Calbert let Michael get in first. He punched the button for his floor.
Michael said, “You have to have a few contacts who might give you some unofficial information.”
“Yeah, I do. But no one I’ve talked to has any more idea what’s going on that we do. Apparently, it’s been a military operation from the get-go, and you know how hush-hush they are.”
Michael jerked his head. “Military?”
“Someone got some information that the Cruzados were launching an operation to raid NASA’s store of Kinemet, and they decided to move it all off planet. Since the Chow Yin incident, the American sector on Luna is the most fortified location in Sol System.”
“If they moved the Kinemet off-planet, they assumed the Cruzados didn’t have space capabilities,” Michael said. “As it turns out, they did, and the information was obviously a plant to get the Kinemet in transit, where it was most vulnerable.” Michael punched his fist into his hand. “You know damn well the Cruzados aren’t working alone.”
“The Canadian Space Force has offered its assistance to the Americans, but so far, no one is any closer to figuring it out.”
When they reached Calbert’s floor, they quickly exited the elevator and made their way to his offices. They entered a small conference room set up with several holoslates and a long work table. One of Calbert’s assistants was there, dropping off a large food platter and an urn of coffee.
“I ordered up a few sandwiches for us. I figured we’d be working most of the day.”
Taking off his jacket and draping it over the back of a wheeled chair, Michael sat down and reached for a coffee cup. “Thank you.”
After practically guzzling down his first cup, Michael poured another and grabbed a sandwich. He bit off a piece and while he chewed, he launched a timeline app on the main haptic console. He began to fill in all the major events that had taken place over the past few weeks. Then he linked in as many mesh searches as he thought relevant to the situation.
Calbert got on his comlink and contacted John Markham to see if they had a complete list of the Cruzados arrested in Honduras.
It took them a few hours to collect and collate the data, but at the end of it all, they still couldn’t figure it out.
Calbert moved over to his desk and opened a drawer. “Drink?” he asked.
“I’d kill for a Scotch, if you have it.”
“Of course I do,” Calbert said, and produced two tumblers. He poured a measure into one of them and handed it to Michael who nodded his thanks and took a sip.
“It’s all connected,” Michael said, turning around to look at the board. “And everything was sparked by the original theft. Nothing else would have even been initiated unless they knew they had the key to solving Kinemet. Everything hinged on that, and everything was set up way ahead of time: the rumors of an attempted theft on American soil; getting their people in position on CS3 to intercept the shuttle. They had to have people high up in administration, and—” He whistled at the thought. “—they had to have a lot of resources and money at their disposal.”
“What do you think?” Calbert mused. “A rival government? There was a lot of drum-pounding back during the first Quanta mission. Quite a few country corporations were upset that we weren’t sharing the Kinemet technology.”
“The Chinese?” Michael raised a speculative eyebrow. Their voice of opposition to Western control had been the loudest after the failure of the first Quanta mission.
“I don’t think so. They have their own space mining program. If they really wanted Kinemet, they could just go get it.” He waved his hand spaceward. “It’s out there; the only problem is getting it. No one’s been officially looking for it for the past several years, and there hasn’t been any scuttlebutt on unofficial operations.”
Calbert stood up and paced over to his desk. “And then what do you do with it? As far as most everyone is concerned, we’re decades away from being able to convert it into a stable fuel. Without the conversion technology, the expense is not worth it. Not when the world economy is in a shambles. People are more worried about putting food on the table than whether we can travel to other stars—especially when we don’t have anything more than a hint on a floating ball of ice over four billion kilometers away that there’s anyone out there besides us.”
Michael set his drink down and sat back in his chair. He rubbed his tired eyes.
The entire world had gone through an emotional upheaval over the past couple of decades. With the failure of the first Quanta mission to make first contact, the initial euphoria of interstellar travel had deflated quickly. Once subsequent efforts to reproduce a Kinemetic navigator had failed, public opinion had turned to a level of cynicism he hadn’t seen since he was a boy during the wheat crisis and the fall of public governments. Back then, the reorganization of governments into country corporations had sparked economic recovery.
Though now, he thought to himself, the health of country corporations rested solely on consumer confidence. And since confidence was low, the corporations were taking fiscal losses left and right. Budgets were cut. There was an increase in unemployment and a rise in civil unrest in most of the harder hit countries.
There was no better time for a revolution. Someone saw it coming and had gambled big. Whoever could offer a bright light for the future could write his own ticket. Michael could not believe any of the Cruzados he had met, even the gracious Oscar Ruiz, had that kind of foresight or access to enough resources to have prepared for this eventuality years ahead.
“So someone was coming at the problem from a different angle,” he said out loud. “Figure out how to use Kinemet first, and then source the metal—only they decided to steal the stuff instead of doing any of the heavy lifting.”
“Right. So what did they know that we didn’t?” Calbert asked. “We must have spent thousands of man-hours on the translation of the Mayan scroll. Of course,” he added with a dry laugh, “with all our brilliant minds we never figured out that the medium was the message.”
Rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, Michael yawned.
“Why don’t we take a break for the day?” Calbert said. “I know a nice steakhouse around the corner. We can take Yaxche there to try some Canadian cuisine.”
“Yeah,” Michael said. “My brain is tired from over thinking everything. I’m probably missing the obvious.”
On his comlink, Calbert connected with Raymond. “How�
�s everything going down there?”
“Oh, we’ve been done for hours. The team is busy crunching numbers and looking for patterns. It could take them a while to come up with any possibilities. I’ve been showing Yaxche around the building. He seems to like the roof garden the best.”
“We’re going to break for the day, go out to the ‘Beef and Brew’. Can you ask Yaxche if he’s hungry? And you’re welcome to join us, if you can.”
There wasn’t more than a moment’s hesitation before Raymond said, “If I can? We’re already halfway to the elevator.” He laughed. “We’ll stop at your floor and meet you.”
Michael stood and stretched. He reached for his jacket. “Have you had a chance to talk to Elizabeth?” he asked. “I’ve tried to reach her a couple of times, but all I get is her answering service.”
There was a sudden pained look in Calbert’s eyes.
Michael knew he and George had become more than just colleagues since Michael’s retirement. Before Michael’s wife had passed away, the three couples had vacationed together every other year. It was Michael’s own fault that he had fallen out of touch since her death. At the time, he didn’t want the sympathy his friends had offered, instead preferring to wallow in his anger and loss. He hoped Elizabeth knew she could lean on him for support.
“Yes,” Calbert said. “Once she found out about what happened, she flew down to Florida to be with family. I contacted her this morning as soon as I learned they’d recovered his body. She said she was making arrangements to bring George’s parents and sister here for the funeral.”
At that point, Michael was uncertain what to say. There were so many emotions roiling around inside him that he thought any words he spoke would get caught in his throat.
He was saved when Yaxche and Raymond appeared in the doorway of the conference room, both with bright smiles.
Calbert asked, “Everyone ready?”
“Uh,” Yaxche said into his translator, “I would like to talk to Sky Traveler now.”
“Alex?” Michael asked. “He’s not here, Yaxche. He’s on Canada Station Three. In space.”
Yaxche gave him the same look one would give a small child. “I am aware of this. Perhaps we could use your EPS. That is how I spoke with him two years ago, when I was in Santa Rosa de Copán.”
“Of course,” Michael said, looking sheepish as Calbert smiled at his discomfiture.
Raymond blinked in the way only people with a thought-link blink. He was sending a command into the building’s systems.
“I can patch the uplink right in here, if you like,” he said. “We should probably update Kenny on the scroll anyway—he’s our lead physicist on Kinemet development up there,” he told Michael. “Only been with us for a few months, but he’s come up with some very promising theories.”
All four of them turned to the holoslate as it flashed the corporate logo along with an animation of a radio wave.
After a few seconds, the screen flicked to show a young woman with short blonde hair and a pretty smile. A small inset square in the top corner showed Raymond reflected in the frame.
“Quantum Resources, Canada Station Three,” the blonde woman said. “How may I help you? Oh, hello, Raymond.”
“Terra,” he answered, “how are you? Is Kenny there?”
“Kenny?” There was a quick flash of uncertainty in her eyes. “Well…”
Calbert took a step forward into her view. “What’s wrong? Where is he?”
Chewing her lip, Terra said, “I’m sorry, I thought you all knew.”
“Knew what?” Calbert pressed.
“He’s been arrested.”
Raymond’s voice went up in alarm. “Arrested? For what?”
Terra looked decidedly uncomfortable relating the information. “Someone should have told you this,” she said, and shook her head. “They discovered Alex Manez in Kenny’s apartment early this morning. He’s unconscious—in a coma or something. The station police think Kenny did some kind of experiment on Alex. He claims he didn’t do anything, but they’re holding him anyway.”
“Where’s Alex?” Michael demanded, too distracted to follow EPS courtesy protocols and step into Terra’s line of sight.
“He’s in the medical wing under observation. They said they have no idea what’s wrong with him. Dr. Amma said this was the second time he’s gone into a coma, a deeper one this time, and she’s worried he won’t come back out of it.”
Calbert and Michael shared a concerned look.
Raymond spoke to Terra. “Thank you for filling us in. I’ll call back in an hour.” He cut the uplink.
Before anyone could say anything, Yaxche, who was following the conversation on his translator, grabbed Michael by the arm.
“We must go to him right away,” he said, his tone brooking no argument. “Alex is in a spirit walk, a dream state. I think he has lost his way. I might be able to guide him home.”
Calbert said to Raymond, “You book them on the next flight to the Nova Scotia Space Port and get them on a shuttle to CS3; I’ll find out what’s going on up there.”
31
Unofficial Transcript :
Alex Manez Interview Part Three :
Dated August 2103 :
Frank: “Is the agreement to your satisfaction, Alex?”
Alex: “Yes. Thank you.”
Frank: “All right. We are recording this. Please tell me, in your own words, what happened after you set the escape pod on course for the source of the electromagnetic signals. —And leave nothing out.”
Alex: “May I have a glass of water?”
Frank: “Of course. Evan, please bring in a pitcher and a glass.”
Alex: “I have one more request.”
Frank: “Alex, our patience is running thin.”
Alex: “It’s a little thing.”
Frank: “All right. What is it?”
Alex: “Is there any way you can get me a small sample of Kinemet?”
Frank: “I’m sorry, I can’t authorize that. It’s extremely expensive to mine, and there’s a limited supply on Earth. Seems like a very extravagant souvenir, Alex.”
Alex: “Well, can I just see some for a little while?”
Frank: “Why?”
Alex: “I think I need to be around it.”
Frank: “I’ll see what I can do, Alex, but I can’t make any promises. Are you ready to tell us the story now?”
Alex: “Yes.”
∞
Alex: “I think I already told you that the trip to Centauri felt instantaneous to me, but I didn’t mention that it left a kind of residual memory in me. It’s hard to describe the feeling. It’s like someone tells you about how they went skydiving, and described it so well that you can imagine it was you who jumped out of the airplane. Now, pretend that no one ever described that feeling, but you still have the sensations of the dive. It’s an echo of a memory.
“The moment the ship was quantized, there was a link between me and the Dis Pater on Pluto. The only way to describe it is as a kind of compulsion. It drew me to it. That the Quanta itself was pointed directly at it is besides the point; even if it hadn’t been, I would have felt drawn to the monument.
“When the ship reached Pluto, for a moment it felt to me as if the entire galaxy was laid out in a spider web of connected monuments, and all I had to do was connect myself to one of those strands and fly along its path. I believe, if NASA had not put the Quanta on a direct trajectory to Alpha Centauri, I would still have been able to course correct and travel along that thread. I couldn’t, of course, because this thought didn’t enter my consciousness until after the ship had arrived in the next solar system.
“When the ship arrived, I was able to sense the Centauri version of the Dis Pater, as if it were a homing beacon.
“This is why I believe we are not using Kinemet the way it was intended. I was only partially altered by exposure to the reacting Kinemet, and was never able to fully transform into what I should have become. Yaxche c
alled me ‘Colop u Uichkin’, which we’ve translated as a god of the sun, or stars. A closer interpretation is ‘Master of the Stars’ or, as the term I’ve been using for myself, ‘Star Traveler’.
“I did some reading on the way here from Pluto. The ancient Mayans were a very cosmic-minded and spiritual people. One of their beliefs was that a person was made of pure energy. Every object in the universe is made of that same kind of energy. Energy can be interpreted as frequencies. The Mayans believed that all things had the ability to transfer that energy—if they found a compatible frequency—to any point in the universe.
“Where do you think they developed that philosophy?
“I believe if I had been transformed the way it was intended, I would not have been unconscious during that trip to Centauri. With the powers I have developed since I was irradiated, I believe I should have been able to pilot the ship. My ‘clairvoyance’ would be for navigation, and my ‘electropathy’ would be able to control the amount of power put out by the quantized Kinemet.
“Of course, I was exposed to Kinemet by accident, so I am incomplete. If you conduct tests on others without fully understanding how the Kinemetic radiation will affect them, they could quite possibly exhibit worse symptoms than I have, even death.”
∞
Frank: “When I said leave nothing out, I meant about the events you experienced. We need to leave the conjecture for the scientists.”
Alex: “But this is something they need to hear.”
Frank: “Again, that is yet to be determined. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.”
Alex: “Fine.”
Frank: “Alex … you also understand that in order for us to fully honor our end of the agreement, we must have full disclosure from you … we need the truth. If all the Kinemet on board the Quanta exploded in the secondary reaction, how did you manage to return to our solar system?”
Alex: “While you may or may not believe what I just told you, I promise you that what I’m about to say is the complete truth…”
∞
Alex: “I could do the math. I had less than a week of oxygen and water, but the escape pod would take more than a month to reach the source of the signal. It was a pure survival instinct that I attempted to put myself back into a quantized state. I had enough Kinemetic radiation in my system to maintain my state for the duration.
Music of the Spheres (The Interstellar Age Book 2) Page 21