Obviously not, if the stares were any indication. Maybe I was crazy.
Kristi asked, “I’ve never heard you talk about souls and stuff like this before.”
I shrugged and tried to explain, “I’ve been curious about my abilities that no one else on Earth seemed to have for a long time. Especially before I learned I was actually not from there. I have no proof of any of it, but it fits. If my DNA has something in it that allows me to see more, outside of this three-dimensional universal layer, why can’t the rest be true.
“Again, it’s just an idea, speculation. If not that though, it will be something else just as odd to explain why the Drenil are amorphous. It also might explain why the Seltan failed to make any meaningful contact, suppose the Drenil’s ears and mouth, or whatever they use to communicate, isn’t in this part of reality at all?”
Nalla said carefully, “I can buy in on the first part. The radiation is just circumstantial, but it does give us an obvious place to start. The rest however, is mystical nonsense. It’s far more likely that the Drenil’s body changes are just that, continuous changes. Perhaps that could even be the way they communicate.”
Kristi cleared her throat, “Well, we have about a day before the shuttle will be done fabricating, I suggest we get some rest, and perhaps study the data more completely and get back together tomorrow before heading out.”
I nodded in agreement, and left the room. Perhaps I had gone too far with it, but if I was right, we’d need to figure out some technology that could bridge that gap, which… might be impossible at our current understanding. Still, even Kristi had looked at me like I was nuts, which bothered me a lot. I’d like to think soul reading gave me an insight maybe they didn’t have, but it was equally as possible I’d gone around the bend with my mystical theory.
It wasn’t mystical though, that was just the label stuck on what science couldn’t explain yet. The soul was real. Was I asking the hard questions others didn’t want to contemplate? Or was I just seeing what I wanted to see? I went to my quarters and laid down, maybe I just needed some sleep.
Chapter 7
I stared at the hologram that was in my head, a part of my overlay. I was bored and needed to something to do, and was honestly kind of avoiding the rest of the people on the ship right now. I’d felt inspired to build this visual mock up in three dimensions, and design it. It was only when I was halfway done that I’d realized what I was doing.
Al reported, “I have an update from the stealth sensor net, is now a good time?”
I looked up in thought, now he wondered if I was too busy? Maybe I should have Kristi take a look at his programming.
“Summarize Al.”
Al said, “We found three more bug worlds.”
I giggled, “Not that summarized.”
There was silence for a moment, and then Al said, “They are laid out quite similarly with only minor variations. They are all fully occupied, and still building ships. As far as we can tell so far, there is no interaction between the hives.”
“As far as you can tell?”
Al replied, “No physical interaction, no ships visiting or commuting between them so far. As you know however, quantum communications are impossible to intercept without knowing the exact quantum frequency, of which there are an infinite amount.”
“I wonder if there are just nine planets, and the waves are caused by the different arrival times. Postulate that is true, and then estimate where the other colonies would be.”
Al disagreed, “We don’t have enough data yet. By my estimates it will take them approximately twenty-seven years to build up enough ships to have a million. That suggests there are multiple groups of differing numbers of hives that attack in waves every nine years.”
I tilted my head, “That’s indirect evidence of communication between them, or at least between each set of hives. It can’t be coincidence that nine of them finish building about the same time.”
He replied, “Affirmative, it’s just as unlikely that the three groups of hives attack nine years apart from each other without communication. The idea that they are randomly set at such an even interval is unlikely.”
“So the question is, will they support each other,” I mumbled under my breath.
Al replied, “Unknown.”
I smirked, he wasn’t quite perfect yet if he thought that a valid question.
I looked at my project again and sighed. It was something I’d never make, or submit to anyone else. I’d designed a combat suit, not even questioning where the inspiration had come from. It stood about ten feet tall, with a metal exoskeleton and its own A.I. and nanites. The back had a small pack on it with a series of small fusion devices instead of one large one to keep the thickness down.
It was built like my bustier, using the small ball approach for EM and anti-mass shielding, and it also had several gravity emitters to make it fast and maneuverable in atmosphere. It didn’t have the shield strength of a ship, but then on Earth it wouldn’t need nearly that much, it could easily stop anything short of a nuclear explosion, and most likely even one of those.
It had small versions of plasma cannons, although the ejection mechanism wouldn’t exceed the speed of light, it was still capable of heavy damage against anything unshielded. The gravity emitters were capable of reaching far beyond the suit itself as well. In short, it was a one-man suit that was probably capable of invading any country on Earth, and winning.
I deleted the file and the hologram of it winked out, it was a monstrosity. I hadn’t really been thinking, just creating. It hadn’t been until I was done that I realized what it was for, and it was far too late to protect him. I felt guilty at that, he wouldn’t want my protection, or to act the way I’d been acting. He’d died for what he believed in, and enough was enough. I needed to truly let go and move on.
Easier said than done.
Kristi barged in with her arms crossed, “You going to hide in here much longer?” she demanded.
I smiled, “Maybe.”
Kristi rolled her eyes, “Come on, I want to show you something. You can look at the data more later.”
The data? Oh crap, the data I was supposed to be reviewing in more detail.
“Sure, what is it?”
Kristi grinned, “You need to come to see,” and then she walked out.
Of course I followed, and she led me to the lab and brought up a screen. It had our lab ship shown from the outside, with a strange turret about twice as big as the plasma cannons.
“What am I looking at?”
Kristi grinned and said, “Watch this,” in the, your about to see something awesome, like an explosion, voice.
I looked back at the screen, and it showed a shuttle on it now. She whispered a few words and the shuttle twisted, collapsed inward, tore, and bent… before it exploded.
“What the hell was that?”
Kristi replied, “I call it a gravity pulse weapon. The DE reactor gives us power to burn, and boy does this thing burn power to project a gravity field up to thousands of miles away. But it was cool right?”
“Yes, how does it work?”
Kristi bounced on her toes, “Gravity sheer. The weapon pulses gravity fields at a target, with varying field strengths in disparate directions. The coolest thing is an EM shield has no defense against it.”
“Umm, Kristi, doesn’t that mean we’re defenseless against it as well, even with our much stronger shields?”
Kristi nodded, “Sure,” the lab ship picture changed to the inside, and there were devices planted around the hull, “If we didn’t have a high intensity gravity field for shielding it would be an issue. An EM shield won’t stop a gravity field, but another gravity field will.”
She shrugged and continued, “I know the plasma cannons we have will destroy just about anything that we or our enemies have quite easily, but you’re always saying someone else can come along, it seemed like a good idea to have options. The gravity shielding also has some stealth properti
es, it makes our energy signature much smaller. Not invisible, but it makes the DE reactor have a much smaller energy footprint to scans.”
“Cool, will you submit it to the council for consideration?”
She nodded, “Yes, although I’m going to guess they’ll just shelve it for now, until we need it. It was such a pain in the butt building this to withstand the energy requirements. That’s what took so long.”
I grinned, “Feel free to put it on our ships though.”
We talked a bit longer, but we both avoided my crazy theories. It wasn’t awkward or anything, we just avoided that topic. Then we brought up the Drenil data from the probe, and instead of splitting up, we went over it together…
We were back inside the conference room. Nadia, Nora, Senna, and Blue were here, but sitting slightly apart from the geeky scientists, which of course, I was one of.
“So, anyone find anything to invalidate what I said, or come up with another possibility?”
Kristi didn’t wait, “No, of course it’s almost impossible to determine. As far as their technology, there is exotic radiation in there we don’t understand, and I’m wondering if its natural or not.”
“What do you mean?”
Kristi shrugged, “I have no idea how to create that radiation to run a test, but maybe that’s not more leakage or a reaction from slipping between subspace barriers, but instead the medium they use to slip in and out of dimensions, or it could be as simple as a byproduct of a cloaking device while it cloaks. And as far as talking to them, I have no ideas at all.”
She frowned, and then continued, “It’s probable that, inter-dimensional or not, they do not communicate the same way as we do. It would be like trying to teach a blind man, that was never even told what sight was, to build a video camera and a transport medium, as well as a display. We could probably talk to them with the right technology, but where do we even start?”
Nalla went next, “Well, if we can’t talk to them on our or their level, we pick a different place.”
Ellis asked, “What do you mean Nalla?”
Nalla clenched her hands and I could tell she was highly annoyed, I wondered what that was about, and she continued, “Well, both we and the Drenil are familiar with the radiation their ships have in common with a wormhole. What if we sent them a simple message that way? Pulses and pauses of radiation, maybe in prime numbers, or even just simply count, and see what they do back?”
That might work. Of course we wouldn’t have a wormhole device in the shuttle, which might be a snag. We could do it from the ship, just open holes nearby from the other end. I was also reluctant to push my theory again, if they speak and think on another level of reality, they might be as incapable of understanding us as we do them. Still, it might work even then, as long as they can recognize it as an attempt at communicating.
“That’s a pretty good idea. Talmor, Ellis?”
Ellis jumped in, “I suggest a group of different things. We can flash normal light, pulse and pause the radiation like Nalla said, maybe do the same with gravity, radio waves, and blink our shields to cover EM and anti-mass particles. Hopefully they’ll pick one of those up.”
I sensed the annoyance again when he said her name. Maybe Nalla preferred to be called by doctor or professor?
I nodded, and we all looked at Talmor.
Talmor cleared his throat, he’d been fairly quiet so far.
“All good ideas, perhaps we should try all of them simultaneously. I’m for trying it out before bothering with anything else, let’s get out there.”
Everyone seemed to agree with that sentiment, so we went…
Chapter 8
We decided to take a wormhole to fifty light years from the Drenil world, and then move in at FTL speeds after that. I had Al use the main ship to open one up, and took the shuttle through. We waited a few minutes for a response to our incursion in their space, and if there was one, we didn’t see it. I moved the shuttle in, fifty light years would take less than a minute at full speed, but we went relatively slowly, so it would take an hour. The whole time we ran the scans at full power, but all we picked up was minute quantities of stellar dust and normal background radiation.
I wished I was more positive about this venture, but I really wasn’t. I felt like we’d have a better chance if we waited to improve our understanding of multi-dimensional theory to the point we could take a ship into other subspace layers without drilling a crude tunnel through them first, and then try and figure out what was there.
It occurred to me the normal five senses would most likely be less than useless there, regardless, it wasn’t going to happen quickly. Our only hope was if the Drenil could dumb themselves down to our limited level, that might work.
To be fair, all I had were guesses and gut feelings, so I kept my negative thoughts to myself.
“This should be close enough,” I said when we were at the edge of their solar system. Kristi had been working with her A.I. to set up our little show, using gravity, EM, wormhole radiation, shields, and just plain old light to send the most primitive communication of all, we were trying to knock on the door and get an answer of some kind. Problem was, we had no idea what the door looked like.
The sequence started and I was actually interrupted by Al in my head, “Is now a good time, I have some interesting news.”
I subvocalized while I kept an eye on our scans which so far were flat, “Summarize.”
Al replied, “The FTL race out toward the rim are called the Gelnott. They have dispatched a small fleet of six ships straight to Earth. It’s likely they are coming to initiate first contact between us.”
I almost snorted, still looking at the current scan data. Of course they are, but what kind of first contact. Negotiations, saying hello, or saying die alien scum. There was no knowing until they arrived or sent a message.
Nalla said a little excitedly, “Radiation spike!”
I looked at the scanners and the view, and one of those ships just… wavered into existence, less than two kilometers away. We caught the same exotic radiation types, the one for wormholes and the other one we had no frame of reference for. We waited for a few minutes, even I was hopeful this meant something, but then they just sat there.
An enigma and completely inscrutable.
Talmor remarked, “Perhaps we should cycle it one more time, one at a time, see if there is any reaction to one particular energy or force?”
I said out loud, “Al, do that please.”
I caught a glare from Nalla, apparently she would have preferred to be consulted first.
Oops. Outside of Kristi I wasn’t really used to working with other scientists, or their egos.
Ellis looked fine with it though, and so did Kristi, so I wasn’t going to worry about it overmuch. It was absurd, but I felt sorry for her for just a moment, she needed a Kristi in her life, the Tressian woman was way too serious.
Al ran through the series, one at a time, with a thirty second delay between each. Then we waited, and waited some more. Despite being almost sure it wouldn’t work, I was still disappointed. Still, at least we’d gotten them to come out and look.
Ellis said, “Well that was a bust.”
I frowned, “I agree, it might have attracted them, or not, it could just be our presence here by their colony. For all we know their trying to warn us off right now in a way we can’t even detect.”
Talmor nodded, “Possibly, or they just don’t know what to do back, or understand what we want. Maybe they don’t see a point in establishing contact.”
Ellis asked, “You think so?”
Talmor grunted, “Yes. I mean, what do we have to offer each other really? I doubt they want to import cigars and liquor. The only similarity between us is defending against the bugs, and let’s face it, they don’t need our help for that at all. Not when they take out an armada at a million to one odds easier than breathing.”
Nalla said almost wistfully, “Well, we could certainly use their technolo
gy.”
Talmor nodded, “Sure, but would we even understand it? They’re really ahead of us, by a lot. What’s in it for them? Outside that, I think Alicia might be right. I could be wrong, and they could be talking to us. We just don’t have the right ears to hear their sounds, so to speak. Granted, it would be of benefit to at least make sure both sides are non-aggressive toward each other.”
Ellis chuckled, “You mean them being non-aggressive toward us. I don’t think they’d have a problem spanking us. Besides, I know it’s not real proof, but they have the capability to easily destroy all the bugs in the galaxy, they haven’t yet. Something we should keep in mind.”
The ship disappeared again, it was disconcerting. It wavered and turned partially transparent first, like… I have no clue at all what to compare it to.
Nadia interjected, “What do you mean, something we should keep in mind?”
Ellis said, “Well, they are purely defensive. If we go out in the rest of the galaxy and kill off the bugs, the Drenil might decide we aren’t worth knowing, even if we ever do figure out how to speak to them.”
Nadia replied almost scathingly, “So we should just ignore them, let them attack every nine years?”
How did this science expedition turn into a political argument?
I interjected, “No. But that’s a wide chasm of difference Nadia. There is plenty left between doing nothing, and complete genocide. Of course, we won’t know if containment is a possibility until we go and poke one of their nests. Besides, if the Seltan are right about us being an experiment to see who comes out on top, I kind of like the idea of three out of the four types of life surviving.”
Nora asked, “You believe that theory?”
I shook my head in denial, “Not completely, or not the conclusions. I have no doubts we were seeded, and with four disparate life form types, but I dispute the king of the hill theory, there is no proof of that. For all we know, the seeders wanted us to bridge our gaps and become friends. Besides, the experiment might even be bigger.”
Alicia Jones 4: Enigma Page 4