Chamberlain's Folly (The Terra Nova Chronicles)

by Robert Dean Hall

  “Just chasing a gremlin or two, Gabe,” Chamberlain replied as he left the bridge.

  ****

  Yuen and Black Bear sat in Yuen’s cabin eating lunch.

  “What do you think he’s looking for, Dennis,” Black Bear asked.

  The two had been trying to figure out for more than a month what Chamberlain was playing at.

  “I’m not sure, but it doesn’t change anything Billy,” Yuen replied. “Things are going according to plan and if Chamberlain stumbles onto something we don’t want him to find, we have orders to neutralize him. Which reminds me; the benefactors think they may have broken the security on the artificial intelligence controlling the Pinta. If they have, we should be in control of the Ark’s main computer before long. The sooner we assume control and get John out of the way, the better.”

  Black Bear wasn’t fond of the word neutralize. He felt it was a cowardly term institutional militarists used too often. It tended to be used most often by those who had never killed and would probably never have the balls to.

  Black Bear had killed before, and he would kill again, if need be, but he would never become cavalier about it. He hadn’t known Yuen for long, but he had no doubts that Yuen would be able to kill and he was concerned that Yuen might find it too easy.

  Black Bear also became angry any time that Yuen alluded to the notion that Chamberlain was a necessary evil to be dealt with for the time being and was expendable if he ever became an impediment to the benefactors’ long range designs.

  Black Bear didn’t agree with Chamberlain’s views on politics and the military, but there was a lot he respected in the man. Still, as Yuen often pointed out when the two were alone, the benefactors’ already knew what lay ahead for the Ark when it reached Alpha Centauri A IV and it was much more important for the planet to be conquered than who the history books would say was responsible.

  Chamberlain’s vision might be what was responsible for getting them there, but it was obvious he would not have the heart to take the planet by force. That was why the benefactors surreptitiously placed thousands of people like Yuen and Black Bear on the Ark.

  “Is there any news from Earth,” Black Bear asked. He was desperate to change the subject. He tried hard to like Yuen, but he couldn’t shake the feeling the two would be at loggerheads sometime in the future. This day it looked as if it would be sooner, rather than later.

  “Nothing since last week,” Yuen replied. “All of the available links have been repurposed for data transfer until further notice. Chamberlain really made things difficult when he set off that logic bomb the morning we left. Zhereveldonne tells me that Ekkida has had to retranslate and retransmit billions of yottabytes of data. Our operatives back on Earth aren’t able to get any new hyper-links to sync up and nobody knows why the star drive on the diplomatic ship stopped working.”

  “Zhereveldonne,” Black Bear asked. “Since when are you on a first-name basis with Prime Minister Cozeremi?” “If Cozeremi is actually the Ekkidan Prime Minister as he claims,” he thought.

  “Since I became his primary contact on this mission,” Yuen replied, smugly.

  Black Bear fought to keep from grimacing.

  “When can we expect Earth to start converting its sub-light fleet to FTL drives,” he asked, trying to change the subject once more. He was even more miserable listening to Yuen talk about himself than about Chamberlain.

  “We don’t know yet,” Yuen replied. “It’s damned strange, too. Most of the equipment that was up and running before Chamberlain’s logic bomb went off is fine, but we can’t seem to make anything produced more recently work at all. The refit, along with any announcements to the public that we have FTL or hyper-channel technology are on a permanent hold until we find out why. We aren’t even able to create a basic hyper-link from the plans the Ekkidans resent us.”

  “Maybe the Ekkidans don’t want the new equipment to work. Maybe they have lost faith in the Earth governments and have decided to back a new player,” Black Bear said, thinking out loud.

  “Who the Hell would it be,” Yuen asked. His face reddened as he snapped back at Black Bear. “The North American Coalition is backing the consolidated government. They know they are too weak without Eurasia, and the Ekkidans know the mainland Chinese are the only other viable players. They are counting on the balance of power to keep the Earth at peace.”

  “Who’s to say they haven’t already gotten what they want,” Black Bear asked.

  He didn’t want to anger Yuen further, but he felt he needed to make a point. He didn’t have enough information to make a good determination about what the Ekkidans or their supposed leader, Zhereveldonne Cozeremi, wanted with the Earth, but he had enough pieces of the puzzle to suspect they didn’t have the best interests of the planet in mind.

  It had always bothered Black Bear that the Ekkidans to date had only contacted the national governments of Earth in secret and had made no overture to start open relations with them or the newly-formed Consolidated Earth Government.

  “At least,” he thought. “They are contacting all the national governments and keeping the balance.”

  “I wonder if the Ekkidans aren’t getting ready to bail on us, Dennis,” Black Bear observed. “Perhaps they don’t really want us to have workable star drives and they want to curtail our ability to use hyper-com.”

  Yuen got angry just as Black Bear predicted. He knew that Yuen hated to admit it, but he was just as in the dark about the intentions of the Ekkidans as Black Bear was. He was being given more information than Black Bear, but it was still really nothing more than what Yuen needed to carry out his mission on the Ark.

  “Surely you couldn’t believe they’ve abandoned the Earth governments in favor of Chamberlain,” Yuen asked.

  “Why would they advise against neutralizing Chamberlain and command us to do what amounts to ensuring that his mission is completed,” Black Bear asked in return. “Who’s to say they haven’t been communicating with him personally all along?”

  “Chamberlain’s resources were a means to an end,” Yuen snapped. “The Ekkidans and the national governments on Earth needed his brain trust and his ability to rally support from the private sector to transfer the technology from Ekkida to Earth. He may know where the science comes from, but he has never been allowed to talk directly with the Ekkidans. It also seems to me if they were actually backing Chamberlain; we’d have a damned FTL drive and not be crawling along at such a miserable pace.”

  Yuen stood up and leaned over. He got into the still sitting Black Bear’s face.

  “It seems to me you spend too much time thinking about things that are beyond your pay grade,” Yuen told him, speaking through his clenched teeth. “I have more information than you do and I think you should stop second guessing the benefactors and your commanding officer. Do you understand me, Colonel Black Bear?”

  “There is a lot of information I don’t have yet, Dennis,” Black Bear replied, using Yuen’s first name and refusing to acknowledge the rank Chamberlain bestowed upon him, purposefully. “But, what little information I do have about this situation leads me to believe we are being played.”

  He then stood up to emphasize the size difference between the two men and to insinuate that even though their Ekkidan benefactors considered Yuen in charge of the mission, Black Bear was not afraid to question their intentions and he wasn’t personally afraid of Yuen.

  Black Bear towered over the shorter and much less physical Yuen. He looked Yuen directly in the eye as he finished his thought.

  “You should know right now, ‘General’,” he stated. “I will do whatever is needed to get these people to their new home and settled safely because I believe it is what is best for Humanity.” “But, having said that,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I am a citizen of Earth first and foremost, and, if at any time, I believe that what you and the Ekkidans are doing will jeopardize the safety of Earth or put her under subjection to another civilization, I’ll do what I
can to stop it, or, at the least, stand in the way.”

  Yuen smiled back at Black Bear.

  Black Bear couldn’t decide if Yuen was too stupid or too crazy to be afraid for his safety. He didn’t show the slightest bit of fear as Black Bear towered over him.

  “That is one of the reasons I’m glad to have you on board and in my confidence, Billy,” Yuen said.

  Chapter 29

  Chamberlain studied the raw system data at the desk in his cabin. He marked the sections that looked suspicious and compared them with data he knew for sure indicated the presence of a hyper-channel device.

  “There’s a hidden hyper-channel unit on board the Ark, alright,” he thought to himself. “I just have to find the proper modulation parameters without letting anyone know I’ve figured it out.”

  Chamberlain was neither surprised nor disappointed to find concrete evidence that one of the many governments he had been working for had infiltrated his team. He had fully expected it, and planned for the discovery.

  He had placed protocols into the artificial intelligence running the ship that would prevent any mutineers from taking complete control of the Ark’s systems, no matter what attempts were made to supplant him as the ultimate commander of the mission. He was now considering if he should activate them.

  Chamberlain once more looked at the telemetry printouts in the computer view port built into the desk in front of him. He also pulled up the readouts he asked Chertow to send to his personal tablet showing the hyper-link anomalies reported by the Pinta. He matched the time codes. The chronometers on the Ark and the two scout ships were synchronized to within one part in a quintillion.

  Any matchup of the data from the Pinta with the gravimetric or electromagnetic fluctuations that Chamberlain had discovered would indicate there was a second hyper-link between the two ships that was being controlled by someone other than his command. He hoped the link he had already found wasn’t mated on the Pinta. That would mean the infiltration of his crew spread throughout his whole command structure.

  He transferred the data from his tablet to the larger desktop viewport and pulled up the two readouts to compare them. The power fluctuations from the Pinta didn’t match. Chamberlain cut a smaller sequence out of the readings and compared them a second time with one of them displayed in reverse chronology. The patterns didn’t match perfectly, but they were close enough to make Chamberlain worry.

  “Artie,” he said aloud.

  An electronically generated male voice indicated it was paying attention. “Yes, Mr. Chamberlain. I’m listening,” it said.

  “Please take the outputs I have been reviewing and display them on my desktop,” Chamberlain asked.

  “Displaying,” said the artificial intelligence, that Chamberlain had nicknamed, ‘Artie’.

  The four requested readouts lined up vertically on the screen.

  “Time codes are now synchronized,” Artie informed Chamberlain. “But, the time codes have not been adjusted for propagation delays.”

  “Interesting,” Chamberlain thought. “I was just about to request that.”

  “Please make the adjustments, Artie,” he asked aloud.

  “Done,” Artie announced. “The patterns show none of beat oscillation waveforms that would result if a suspected unauthorized hyper-channel link were partially cancelling the approved link out, Mr. Chamberlain.”

  “But something indicates to you the signal between the Ark and the Pinta are being partially cancelled,” Chamberlain asked.

  “Yes,” Artie replied. “It would explain why I can find no problems with our equipment and why the computers on the Pinta are finding no errors on that end. I have reviewed the data myself and confirm there is nothing currently happening in any of the Pinta’s systems to account for the fluctuations in the hyper-channel link.”

  Chamberlain was puzzled. “If there are no interfering hyper-channel modulations or power fluctuations causing the interruptions in the link,” he asked. “What would be capable of doing it?”

  “The most likely possibility would be an unknown hyper-channel link that had a discrete time-domain reversal to our link in its hyper-space component,” Artie explained. “At least over the parts of our link’s pattern that are fading. Since we have no way to determine what any hyper-dimensional waveform actually looks like other than to observe the apparently random fluctuations it causes in our three plus one electromagnetic and gravimetric readings, I cannot be certain of its true nature. The hyper-channel modulation patterns you discovered don’t have the proper characteristics.”

  “What about the electromagnetic noise we have been detecting,” Chamberlain asked. “Could that be causing the interference with the link?”

  “When reversed, the electromagnetic interference patterns you discovered are a close match to the fluctuations in the link,” Artie replied. “However, as you can see, there is no detected gravitational fluctuation that coincides with the electromagnetic patterns. Whatever is creating the electromagnetic interference is strictly a three plus one space-time anomaly and not hyper-dimensional in nature.”

  “The source is an unauthorized piece of electronics,” Artie continued. “But, it isn’t necessarily hyper-channel technology. It would also appear the equipment is drawing power from the Ark’s grid instead of using batteries. Not an intelligent way to operate if you are trying to remain covert. But, the noise is saturating the grid, so I am having problems locating the exact source.”

  “Are you certain the source of the electromagnetic noise isn’t causing the fluctuations in the hyper-channel link between us and the Pinta,” Chamberlain asked.

  “To within a margin of error of zero-point-zero-zero-zero-two percent,” Artie replied. “If the interference is being caused by another hyper-channel link, there is no equipment using that modulation pattern, either on the Ark or the Pinta. The lack of gravitational fluctuation accompanying the electromagnetic noise practically eliminates that possibility.”

  “Can you account for the interference any other way,” Chamberlain asked.

  “There are at least three and one quarter million possibilities based on current scientific knowledge,” Artie said. “However, approximately ninety-four percent of the possibilities are duplications of less than twenty suspected phenomena with variations in observable characteristics.”

  “How long will it take you to eliminate all but the three most likely alternatives,” Chamberlain asked.

  “In seventy hours I can eliminate all but the three most likely cases of the suspected phenomena,” Artie replied. “But, I can’t guarantee we will be able to prove that any of them are the actual cause of the interference. There is more than a thirty-five percent chance the cause is some sort of hyper-dimensional phenomenon we have yet to discover.”

  Chamberlain acknowledged he understood and asked, “Can you give me the modulation pattern calculations needed to tap into the hyper-channel link we already discovered?”

  “Yes, those calculations are complete and if you feed them into your hyper-channel device, you will be able to link up, but the voice and data channels are encrypted,” Artie told him. “You will not be able to listen in.”

  “Can you break the encryption for me,” Chamberlain inquired.

  “Most likely,” Artie replied. “I will get to work on it. I estimate it will take approximately four-hundred and seven days to try all possible encryption ciphers. The hyper-channel sessions only appear to be up for seventeen milliseconds at a time. I have only detected eight over the last two weeks with any certainty and they are not at regular intervals.”

  “It’s reasonable to assume that data bursts would be used,” Chamberlain said. “Leaving an open hyper-channel up continuously is unwise if you think somebody might be able to detect it.”

  “I wonder if I should be leaving my hyper-channel up?” he thought to himself. “Have you noticed any discernable patterns in crew behavior during the data bursts on the discovered link,” he asked Artie.

/>   “No, I haven’t, Mr. Chamberlain,” Artie answered. “I will keep analyzing the data. It is possible the bursts are programmed to be sent while the owner is away from the transceiver. I don’t have enough data to make an assessment as of yet.”

  “Thank you, Artie,” Chamberlain said.

  He sat for a while longer and thought about what he should do next. He didn’t know anything about the agenda of those who had infiltrated his crew.

  An AI as well built as Artie, with the computing power contained in the Ark’s central processor core, would have no trouble keeping tabs on any hidden hyper-channel links on any of the three ships. But even Artie admitted he would be unable to lock onto a floating encryption pattern and decipher it in less than a year, without some really good fortune.

  Chamberlain sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept well for at least a week and it was catching up with him. He was not usually given over to paranoia, but he couldn’t deny the discovery of the hyper-channel link had him more than a little concerned. He attempted to clear his mind.

  In all the years he had managed black projects, he felt he had effectively safeguarded himself from the natural paranoia that comes with the territory. He now wondered if his desire to avoid the paranoia had caused him to ignore some obvious clues that his crew had been infiltrated before the launch. Being more suspicious at that time possibly could have prevented the problem he was facing now.

  Since he first discovered the hidden link, a feeling of dread he couldn’t shake had started gnawing at him. He felt there was only one thing left for him to do that ensured his mission would be completed as he had intended.

  “Artie,” he said. “Please initiate Command Option Five.”

  “Is that a direct order,” Artie asked. “If so, I must warn you that once all parameters are entered and the command session is closed, this option is irreversible and forces me to observe your behavior at all times.”