Music of the Spheres (The Interstellar Age Book 2)

by Daniels, Valmore

  After a few moments, Kenny said, “Is now a good time to panic?”

  “Wait a minute,” Alex said. He could feel the chill creep in to his bones. The bridge was nearing the freezing point.

  The Ultio was only a few hundred meters from the space port, and though it was falling away, it was an agonizing thought that they were so close to salvation.

  When Alex had been saved before, he was in a quantized state, and had no memory of the events, but if he made one giant assumption…

  He concentrated, and pushed his sight out toward the space port. He had the sense that it was wrapped in something similar to the Kinemet dampers because when his consciousness reached the outer hull of the complex, he could not push his way in.

  There had to be some kind of way to communicate with the space port’s computer system, to let it know there was a ship ready to dock. In the case of a disabled ship, they had to have made a provision for some kind of manual override.

  He searched the entire surface of the space port, but after the first pass, he had not found any way in.

  Willing himself not to panic, he continued his search, and it was only at his second pass over one of the large elliptical bay doors of the hull that he spotted a slight protrusion sticking out a few centimeters. It was a tiny metal rod.

  He used his electropathic ability and sent a small shot of energy into it.

  Slowly, the bay door started to open, and Alex could feel a magnetic tug coming from within. He returned to his body.

  Kenny was wild-eyed. “What’s happening? We’re drifting the other way now!”

  “The space port dock has us. It’s pulling us in,” Alex said.

  Michael cried out with joy. “You did it.”

  “I’m not sure it was enough,” Alex said. “Maybe I only postponed the inevitable. Even if we were to manage to get one of those portable quantum drives attached to the Ultio, we’d be dead five minutes after arriving near Pluto.”

  There was a sharp jarring as the ship came to a stop, and Kenny and Michael scrambled in the dark to manually open the cabin door and lead the way to the main hatch. They opened it to reveal the inside of the alien space port.

  The rush of fresh oxygen was pure heaven.

  37

  Alien Space Port :

  Alpha Centauri :

  Standing on one of the metal walkways along the pier inside the alien space port, Michael surveyed the damage to the Ultio. A full third of the hind section, where the quantum drive and Kinemet had been, was simply missing. The ship was as good as scuttled.

  “Maybe destroying our ship was incidental,” Michael said, though to no one in particular. “They wanted the Kinemet and Justine, and didn’t give us a passing thought.”

  Kenny glanced up and frowned.

  “What now?” Alex asked, sitting down near Yaxche, who had found a spot on the floor to rest.

  Michael rubbed the stubble growing on his chin, and winced when he moved his arm. Not broken, but still sore.

  The hangar itself was several hundred meters wide in every direction, laced with rows of berths, metal jetties, elevated piers and several walkways floating at various elevations. It looked as if the port wasn’t meant for ships much larger than the Ultio.

  All of the docking bays in the hangar were empty. The jetties were lined with large discs on the end of cylindrical beams. Michael guessed they served as dock bumpers. They gave off a steady electromagnetic hum.

  When Michael and Kenny had opened the main loading door from the Ultio, they’d been able to manually extend the ramp. Although the electrical systems were dead, and the few small fires had been extinguished, the structure of the Ultio was still unsafe. The ship groaned periodically as metal beams collapsed and the contents shifted and fell.

  “I’m not sure,” Michael said finally. “But we should try to go back in and get food and water. Maybe some blankets or something and make a camp out here.”

  “What about Justine?” Kenny asked, but the only answer Michael gave was the hard set to his jaw.

  The aliens—he assumed they were the Kulsat—had abducted her, and there was nothing Michael could think of to help.

  ∞

  They spent the next fifteen minutes making quick excursions back into the Ultio and gathering supplies and enough equipment to make a camp.

  Kenny set up a makeshift table using a few storage containers. He brought out several holoslates for testing, and finally found one that wasn’t damaged. As he worked on it, tapping, swirling and wiggling his fingers on the haptic console, Michael looked over his shoulder.

  “We should conserve the battery,” he said by way of suggestion.

  Kenny smiled. “No need. There’s a wireless electrical current running through the complex. It’s powering the computer directly. I’m going to see if the space port has a network I can hook into. Maybe we can download a manual on how to get into the living quarters on the other side.”

  Alex had already tried to use his electropathy to open the large door at the far end of the hangar, but had reported that there wasn’t any kind of switch or lever that he could find.

  With Alex’s help, Yaxche had used cargo netting to create a hammock between two vertical beams. When Alex went back into the ship to look for a blanket, the old Indian sank into the netting and closed his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Michael asked, approaching tentatively.

  Blinking his eyes open, Yaxche gave him that big grin. He spoke, and his clip-on translator repeated, “Ahyah. Old men get tired. I just need a nap.”

  Laughing, both in relief, and at the Mayan’s equanimity in the face of everything that was happening, Michael said, “Quite a mess we got ourselves in.”

  “Ahyah,” Yaxche said back. “As they say, ‘Out of the pot and into the fire’.” His grin widened into a full smile.

  Before Michael could say anything more, Alex raced out of the wreckage of the Ultio, his eyes wide.

  “What’s wrong?” Michael asked, his heart speeding up.

  Alex headed straight for Kenny and the holoslates. “There’s something happening. I could feel the electromagnetics activating on one of the other docking bays.” He pointed to the holoslate. “Are you able to do any scans on this?”

  Kenny shook his head. “No, the external sensor on this unit is damaged.”

  Just then, one of the magnetic dock bumpers on the next pier over began to extend.

  Kenny stood up, his face flush and his eyes bright with trepidation. “Are the Kulsat coming back to finish us off?”

  A huge circular section of the hangar wall, the bay door, faded to an almost perfect blackness. The ring of the opening had a vague whitish glow to it. That was the energy barrier Kenny had theorized about earlier. While they were inside the Ultio being pulled into the dock, they’d been unable to see what was happening.

  Michael could feel his hair tingling with the electricity as a new alien ship appeared in the opening.

  It was less than a quarter of the size of the Ultio. As with the ship that had attacked them, the hull of the new alien ship looked to be made of Kinemet—the entire surface glowed and swirled, though the colors on this ship were a kaleidoscope of reds and yellows. Its shape was very similar to the bird-like designs of gull-wing planes from Earth. Michael guessed that this ship could serve a dual purpose as a spacecraft and an aircraft. The front of the ship resembled the coned head of a bird, with a beaked nose that came to a point.

  Michael’s first impression was of a phoenix.

  When the vessel had fully entered the bay, the docking bumpers adjusted themselves to uniformly secure it. The hangar wall solidified once more, sealing the area against the void of space.

  The four stood there with mouths agape during the entire docking procedure.

  Kenny took an involuntary step back when a hatch on the side of the alien ship opened. A broad, rectangular patch of the ship’s hull faded to empty space.

  A platform held by two large metal arms
protruded from the gap and began to descend to the hangar deck.

  On the platform stood two aliens.

  Both of them were bipedal. One of them was significantly taller than the other, standing almost three meters high, and it was extremely thin. The second alien was a great deal shorter, the top of its head level with the other’s elbow.

  When the platform stopped several centimeters above the dock, the two aliens stepped off and approached the waiting humans.

  The shorter alien wore clothing that was alarmingly close to the ceremonial outfit Yaxche wore. Calf-high boots with beads and tassels were pulled over long beige pants. The alien’s torso was wrapped with a tzute style cloth, intricately designed in geometric shapes and earth-tone colors. A scarf hung loosely around the neck, decorated with brightly colored baubles. The alien reached up and removed the feathered headdress, and Michael looked on the face of a being from another world for the first time.

  —And it was human. The small man was dark complexioned, with black hair and a long forehead. High cheekbones framed a broad nose and wide brown eyes. He resembled a Mayan Indian.

  He gave them an easy smile.

  Michael was speechless.

  A moment later, the taller alien, dressed also in what Michael guessed was a ceremonial outfit—though it was one he had never seen before, made of some kind of shiny material and arranged in several folds and layers—also removed its mantle, an oblong cap with several long spines protruding from it.

  Michael gaped at the tall alien.

  She had the same basic features as a human girl, but the lower part of her face was drawn forward to end in a narrow jaw and tiny chin. Her thin lips framed a small mouth set also in a welcoming smile, and her eyes were overlarge and elliptical.

  Instead of hair, she had what looked like the down of a bird that, as far as Michael could tell, ran from the top of her head, where it was white, to the back of her neck where it turned a light shade of yellow and extended down behind her clothes. Michael could not see her ears, if she had any, and the skin on her face and the front of her neck was bright yellow and fuzzy.

  Together, the pair of aliens approached the four humans and stopped. The shorter alien genuflected.

  Michael, the politician of the group, recovered from his astonishment and bowed. He stepped forward.

  Kenny reached out instinctively to stop him, but he smiled at the younger man. “It’ll be fine. These are not the Kulsat.”

  The shorter alien spoke in Mayan, and a split-second later, Michael heard English words come from somewhere near the alien’s collar.

  “I offer my greetings to you. I am Ah Tabai, a Sentinel of the Collection.”

  The alien extended both arms and clasped Michael’s hands in welcome. He glanced at Alex. “It has been a very long time since we first discovered you, Sky Traveler. I am glad you have endured.”

  Ah Tabai then took a step toward Yaxche, and bowed deeply.

  “Grandfather,” the alien said. Michael remembered from something Alex had said that it was a general term of respect for one’s elders, regardless of the blood relationship. “You have traveled a great distance to be here.”

  “Ahyah,” Yaxche said, a look of surprise on his usually calm face.

  Ah Tabai motioned to the other alien, who made a quirky nod.

  “My companion is—” He made a high pitched sound, for which his translator found no suitable match in English.

  As if realizing this, Ah Tabai said, “You can call her Aliah. She is also a Sentinel. You would know her home star system as ‘Gliese’.”

  With that, the tall birdlike alien woman made a chirping sound and tilted her head almost perpendicular to her shoulders. The translator in her suit said, “Pleased to meet you.”

  Michael said, “I’m afraid you are not finding us at our best, but on behalf of my friends here and our home world, I am glad to meet you, and extend our friendship to you.”

  His tone grew somber. “We were attacked by an alien ship—the Kulsat?—and they took our friend.”

  Ah Tabai’s eyes widened. “They did?”

  “Her name is Justine,” Alex said. “She is the first and only one of us to become a full Kinemat—she has Emerged.”

  “That is why they took her,” Ah Tabai said. “It has happened in the past. They will try to find out as much about your system from her as they can.”

  “Is there anything you can do?” Michael asked. “Can you rescue her?”

  Ah Tabai dropped his eyes. “By now they have taken her back to their home system.” He glanced at Aliah. “We hurried from Gliese the moment we detected the beacon in this system was active, but it is obvious we were not quick enough, else we might have been able to save her.”

  Kenny raised one finger. “Uh, excuse me. From ‘Gliese’?” he asked.

  Ah Tabai smiled, “Yes. Gliese is the closest member world of the Collection to this system.”

  “But—” Kenny glanced at Michael. “If you only left there when we arrived here, that would mean you traveled, like, twenty light-years in a little over eight hours!”

  “Yes,” Ah Tabai said, as if this were obvious.

  “That’s unbelievable,” Kenny said. He looked at the alien ship with wide eyes. “You can travel at, what—” He did a rough calculation in his head. “—thirty-thousand times the speed of light?”

  “You are mistaken in your calculation,” Ah Tabai said, as if talking to a child. “It took us that amount of time to get from our planet to the beacon in our system at light speed.”

  “Then…?” Kenny glanced back and forth between Michael and the alien, but Michael couldn’t figure it out either.

  Ah Tabai said, “When we use the star beacons, we say that we travel ‘outside light’. It is by the Grace that we do this. Only inside a system do we travel by light—though the beacon and the space port in this system are too close for light travel.”

  “So it’s instantaneous between the beacons?” Kenny asked. He glanced at Alex and Michael. “It took us over four years.” Stunned, he asked Ah Tabai, “What kind of engine can do that?”

  Ah Tabai said patiently, “When we travel outside light, we use the Grace. All star beacons occupy the same space outside light.”

  Kenny stared. “The Grace. What does that mean?”

  Ah Tabai put up his hand to forestall more questions. “I will answer everything as well as I am able. For now, you must listen to me.”

  He looked at each of them in turn to make sure they were paying attention.

  “As much as I longed for the day we would meet, I had hoped you were more advanced than this. If your friend is the only one of you who has Emerged, then your world is in terrible danger.

  “Now that the Kulsat are aware of you, they will gather an armada and prepare an invasion of your home system.”

  Michael blanched. “We thought coming here was our only hope to save Alex.”

  Ah Tabai nodded. “It was. We do not have much time. We must board my ship and return you to your world without delay.”

  His eyes reflected the gravity of his words. “You need to warn your people the Kulsat are coming, and try to defend yourselves against annihilation.”

  38

  Alien Ship :

  Alpha Centauri :

  Some days I feel my age. I know I am much older than my father was when he passed from the world. My brothers and sisters are all long gone, and my only grandson has died.

  When I think about it, I can understand how many people my age start to look forward to the end. It is not that terrible a thing, passing from this world into the next. All things must end, and on the days when my bones ache and I miss my family and friends who have passed, I look to the sunset of my life with a sense of peace and welcome.

  Today is not one of those days. Today I feel young and full of excitement, despite the danger to the Earth.

  Following the path of the gods, standing on a structure built by the people of the stars, and meeting sky tra
velers from alien lands, I suddenly long for another lifespan of years.

  When Ah Tabai, the traveler who shares our Mayan ancestors, invited us on board his star ship to return us to Earth, the scientist, Kenny, jumped with excitement. If I were not so old and fragile, I would have jumped, too.

  As we entered the alien ship, I could feel a tingle of electricity pass through me, and I could not tell if it came from the vessel or from the wonder I feel.

  Ah Tabai took us to a passenger room with seats that flow out of the walls. When I sat down, the seat gently formed itself around the shape of my body. It felt like I was floating in the air, and I had the urge to fall asleep, but I fought to stay awake.

  Our host told us it will be a short journey to the beacon, and then we will arrive in our home system a moment later. He said he will answer all of our questions when we are in our home system.

  As I drift into sleep, I think about the story Ah Tabai told us, and how the gods who created the star beacons have been missing for a thousand years.

  And I think to myself:

  I believe I know the secret the gods hid on Earth, and I might also know what happened to them.

  EMERGENCE

  to be continued in Worlds Away…

  About the Author :

  Valmore Daniels has lived on the coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and dozens of points in between.

  An insatiable thirst for new experiences has led him to work in several fields, including legal research, elderly care, oil & gas administration, web design, government service, human resources, and retail business management.

  His enthusiasm for travel is only surpassed by his passion for telling tall tales.

  Visit ValmoreDaniels.com

  Also Available:

  The Interstellar Age

  Forbidden the Stars

  Music of the Spheres

  Worlds Away

  Fallen Angels

  Angel Fire

  Angel’s Breath

  Earth Angel (TBR)

  Angel Tears (TBR)

  Angel of Darkness (TBR)