30

Quantum Resources :

Toronto :

Canada Corp. :

It was as if he had been an entire world away.

When the skybus circled the Toronto Pearson International Airport to line up with the runway for final approach, Michael looked out the window at the buildings and streets whipping past in a blur; and for the first time in over a week, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was like seeing an old friend after a long separation.

In a way, arriving back in Canada was very surreal. Michael had been through so much in Honduras it almost seemed as if he had lived two different lives.

Yaxche sat in the aisle seat, his fingers wrapped around the armrest in a stranglehold, his eyelids pressed closed tightly. He had never been on an aircraft before. At first, he’d been excited by the experience, but his enthusiasm had dimmed at the sudden pressure put on the passengers upon takeoff, and turned completely to fear with the first bout of turbulence that shook the skybus like a baby’s rattle.

The old man wouldn’t listen to Michael’s explanations about aerodynamics or the safety of modern air travel. The only thing he spoke in reply was a prayer to the sky gods.

Even when the plane had stopped, Yaxche still would not relax his grip on the armrests. It was only once they disembarked the plane that he regained some of his normal color.

In the terminal, Michael spied Raymond McGrath in the large hallway, waving to get his attention.

“Over here,” Michael said to Yaxche in English—he had purchased a clip-on translator for him at the Tegucigalpa airport—and crossed the distance to Raymond. “I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine.”

After Michael introduced the two of them, Raymond said, “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, sir. We’re all very excited to have you join us in the labs. Calbert and I have been speculating like a couple of old gossips.”

Raymond turned to Michael. “We’ll grab your luggage and head over to the hotel. We booked you two a suite. You can get cleaned up, rest.”

Michael shook his head. “I’d rather head straight over to QR—if that’s all right with you,” he said to Yaxche, who nodded. To Raymond, he said, “Maybe we can get some fast food on the way.” They started down the hall to the baggage area.

“I miss fast food.”

∞

They all slid into an autotaxi after loading their bags in the trunk, and the vehicle engaged its forward drive the moment the doors sealed.

With his thought-link implant, Raymond was connected with the EarthMesh, and was able to instantly communicate with any linked computer. While the autotaxi had a manual interface for the majority of people—like Michael—who didn’t have one of the implants, Raymond was able to send the vehicle their destination with a simple thought.

While Michael always considered himself an adopter of new technology, thought-link was one advance that did not appeal to him, though he understood why a certain segment of the population jumped at the chance to be connected to the mesh twenty-four-seven.

In his life as an administrator, Michael had spent most of his workday being constantly interrupted. It took extreme organization to juggle the hundreds of daily requests from staff, review info bulletins from the scientific community, process directives from his governmental superiors, and find time in his day to tend to personal needs. To have access to the millions of meshposts, blogs, forums, and newsvids around the clock would only be another distraction.

The downside was that, unless Michael was physically in front of a computer, he had to get his news secondhand.

So when Raymond’s eyes widened as he received an alert that was obviously important, and he said, “You’ll want to see this,” Michael had to flick on the holoslate built into the autotaxi’s dash to find out what was going on.

He quickly logged into this favorite news channel and selected the headline.

∞

Honduran Rebel Movement Crushed.

In a concerted effort, the Honduran Military and the Honduran Public Police Force raided several holdouts across the Central American country corp. at dawn this morning following reports of rebel activity.

A spokesman for the Honduran Minister of the Interior reported that the armed force sustained zero casualties, though a number of rebels were killed in the process. Over two hundred arrests have been made, including several prominent land owners and government officials who are suspected of involvement.

Calling themselves the Cruzados, the movement’s political mandate was to assume leadership over Earth through a monopoly of space travel. According to one source, the rebels believe their actions are destined by ancient Mayan doctrine. The Cruzados are also suspected in the hijacking of the Lunar Lines ship, the Diana, out of Canada Station Three. The whereabouts of the vessel and its passengers are still unknown.

In a joint statement, representatives of the Honduran and Guatemalan Heritage Societies condemned the Cruzado movement.

∞

Accompanying the story, there was video showing helicopters descending on a plantation—Michael couldn’t tell if it was Oscar Ruiz’s or not—and Honduran soldiers pouring out and taking up positions against Cruzados, whose faces were obscured by long kerchiefs. After a quick exchange of gunfire, the Cruzados, obviously overmatched, surrendered. In handcuffs, they were marched into armored vans.

Raymond said, “I just linked with Calbert. He received word from John Markham that Humberto was integral in the raid, feeding them all the information they needed on the other Cruzado encampments.”

Yaxche said, “Of course; he’s a friend of mine,” as if that explained everything.

Raymond paused a moment and spoke in a somber tone. “And they’ve recovered George’s body. It’ll be flown back here within the next few days.”

Michael’s face was rigid, and his jaw clicked, but his reaction was not because of Raymond’s last statement. The raid and the recovery of George’s body was good news, but he’d been expecting it after Markham had let him know Humberto had made contact.

“What?” Raymond asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Michael growled his words.

“Tell you what?”

“About the Diana hijacking.” Michael could feel his face flush in anger. He punched in a dozen search queries and brought up all the information he needed to get up to speed. He was particularly alarmed to read that they suspected the liner itself may have been pointed toward the Sun.

“Justine works for them,” he said in a flat voice. “Was she on that flight?”

“I’m sorry,” Raymond said, nodding in confirmation. “I know you two are friends. I thought you knew. It’s been all over the news for a—” He shut his mouth with a snap, as if only just then realizing that Michael had been out of contact for all that time, and grimaced in apology.

Michael dismissed the apology with a slight headshake. “I’ve seen what the Cruzados are capable of. They couldn’t have engineered that hijacking without some serious help. Tell Calbert to clear his day; we need to make some enquiries.”

∞

When they arrived at the Quantum Resources administration offices, Calbert was in the lobby waiting for them.

“Glad to have you back,” he said to Michael, clasping his hand in greeting.

Michael gave him a single firm nod. “Glad to be back. This is Yaxche.”

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 called 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.

“What I didn’t take into account was that, without a catalyst, I had no way of reversing the process. I could float for months or years before I burned off whatever radiation I had in me. In my theory, a properly conditioned star traveler should be aware while quantized; I was not.

“If I hadn’t been pulled into dock in the alien space port, I most likely would have drifted until I died.”

∞

Frank: “Stop right there! Alien space port! Alex, are you saying you made contact with aliens? If so, this is a serious breach!”

Alex: “No. No aliens. I didn’t lie to anyone about that.”

Frank: “Okay. Continue.”

∞

Alex: “I assure you, the spaceport—the source of the signal—was completely deserted. Everything on board was fully automated. I can only assume their sensors detected me and retrieved the escape pod. I was pulled inside a large hangar. There was a series of platforms that looked as if they were docks for ships of all sizes, but besides my pod, there were no other vessels. The hangar itself was very sparse. I couldn’t see any windows or bay doors anywhere. The walls looked like they were made from some kind of polished stone, rather than metal.

“My first thought was to open the escape pod to step out, take a look around, but my pod’s canopy was jammed. Besides, I didn’t have an EVA suit, and I didn’t know what kind of atmosphere the port had, so I had to remain where I was. There must have been a quantity of Kinemet there, because I began to feel rejuvenated, almost immediately.

“Automated arms extended from along the platform and attached themselves to the pod. At first this scared me, because I thought they were going to open the canopy, but the gauges on the pod indicated that they were merely refuelling me with oxygen and electricity.”

“Once the pod was recharged, another set of arms affixed a large object to the underside of the pod. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I have to assume it was attached with some kind of magnetic clamp. The moment the mechanical arms retracted, the pod began to move away from the dock. I had no control over the navigation systems as the pod moved towards a tube. Inside, I built up speed and was shot out from the port at what I would imagine would be the escape pod’s maximum speed.”

“The entire process from the moment I regained consciousness was less than five minutes.

“As my pod left the space port, I was once again quantized. I have to assume the object they attached was some kind of temporary portable Quantum engine. The next thing I knew, I was in orbit around Pluto, and the ground crew were trying to contact me on the radio. The portable quantum drive had been completely consumed during the flight.

“The rest you know.”

∞

Frank: “Alex, I’m not sure what to say. That’s an incredible story. Are you leaving anything out?”

Alex: “You don’t believe me?”

Frank: “Well … that’s not for me to say, but, I have to warn you that, well, pretty much everyone who reads this transcript is going to dismiss your report as wild speculation at best, and juvenile fantasy at worst. The problem, unfortunately, is that we can’t corroborate any of this.”

Alex: “I know.”

Frank: “You understand that it would be extremely difficult for people to reconcile your story with established scientific fact.”

Alex: “Yes. Sometimes the most closed-minded people are scientists.”

Frank: “Be that as it may, I don’t think the board of directors are ready for this information. As a matter of fact, I think they will dismiss it out of hand.”

Alex: “I’m sorry I don’t have any evidence for you, but I’m sure it’s there if someone wants to look, they just have to return to Alpha Centauri. The space dock is sitting there, empty and waiting.”

Frank: “That, my boy, is easier said than done. To be honest, your account raises more questions than it answers.”

Alex: “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

Frank: “I’m just not sure how to present this information to the board … or if I should.”

Alex: “The world needs to take a closer look at Kinemet, and understand its relationship with human beings.”

Frank: “If your story is true, then I agree, but we need verification … All right, well, at this point, all I can do is to submit the report and get it on record. I’ll leave it to the board to decide.”

Alex: “So what happens now? I mean, to me?”

Frank: “For all intents and purposes, ‘Captain Alex Manez’ is a commissioned member of the Canadian Space Force, and will be honorably discharged. You, on the other hand, share nothing with him other than a name. Once we release you, you will be free to do as you will. I believe the current CEO of Quantum Resources, Calbert Loche, has spoken with you about a position in the R&D department on Canada Station Three?”

Alex: “Yes.”

Frank: “That sounds like a very good deal. But I want to remind you: to speak about your experiences in Centauri to anyone outside of this room will be considered a breach of contract and could be actionable in court. That would be very unpleasant for you.”

Alex: “I’m not a child. I understand.”

Frank: “I hope you do. Now, is there anything you would like to add before I submit the report and end the debriefing? Alex…? Alex…?”

Alex: “No. That’s everything.”

32

Lucis Observatory :

Venus Orbit :

It was the most unique and wonderful sensation Justine had ever experienced.

Although she was no more than a collection of photons held together by her electropathic ability, she was aware of herself and her surroundings. Alex had remarked to her that he had no recollection during the quantized state, as if he were in the midst of a deep sleep.

In her corporeal form, Justine was blind, and could only use her senses of touch, smell and sound to interact with the world; now, she had a sense of sight that was far more powerful than human vision. When she concentrated, she could zoom her consciousness in to any object—as if through a powerful microscope—and see the very particles of matter in their continuous ballet.

She could also sense the planets in their inexorable orbit around the Sun. It was as if she could feel their presence in Sol System, hear the sounds of their heavenly song.

In a more subtle manner, she could sense the alien monument on Pluto, the Dis Pater, like a dim beacon in the dark of space. Beyond that, if she strained to the limits of her ability, she could also sense an entire network of those monuments—thousands of them—spread throughout the galaxy.

Justine had a moment of consternation when she sensed another presence within Sol System. It was like a very faint flash in the distance, and it took her a minute to realize that it was another Kinemetic being: Alex!

She wondered if Alex would be able to sense her, now that she was irradiated with Kinemet.

When she focused on him, it came to her that he was incomplete. His physical form was in one location, but his consciousness was someplace else.

Alex’s essence was adrift, lost in the depths of this ghost world they inhabited. Justine pushed her senses out to search for it, but could not detect his consciousness.

It took her a moment to work through it. Alex wasn’t in a quantized state. He had spoken before about the clairvoyant ability he had, and was able to utilize when not in a quantized state. Justine assumed it was the same as what she was currently experiencing—only, when she was in the quantized state, it was an extremely powerful ability, far more than anything Alex had described. In the back of her mind, she hoped that when she returned to normal, she would retain the sight as Alex had. That would more than compensate for her blindness. But she would worry about that later.

Right now, there were three issues she needed to address. One was trying to figure out where Alex’s consciousness was.

The more immediate problem was that, as she moved her photonic essence out of the lab, she saw that the main room had turned into a war zone. People were dying.

There were two casualties already, though she did not recognize their faces. She spotted Lieutenant Jeffries on his knees holding his hand to his bloodied face while Corporal Marks wrestled with Klaus’s uncle.

Four other soldiers were busy restraining two Cruzados, while Klaus seemed to be aware of Justine and was staring at her with a startled look on his face.

The third thing Justine realized was that she was burning through the Kinemetic radiation in her system at an alarming rate and would very quickly run out of fuel. Like someone suddenly experiencing a pang of hunger, she knew she would require more exposure to Kinemet if she was going to continue existing in a quantized state. And she guessed that she wouldn’t be able to help Alex if she was corporeal, nor would she be much use in the fight.

So, last thing first, she needed to refuel.

It only took a moment for her to sense where the cache of Kinemet was kept in the observatory, and though it was difficult for her to cause her photonic particles to move in tandem through physical space, she put all her concentration into the task and exited the lab in a flash.

Klaus screamed after her as she left.

∞

She tried to devise a plan while she pushed her photonic form down the hallway. In her quantized state, she had the ability to affect electrical impulses—a quick test on a nearby light proved it—and she figured that would carry over when she returned to normal, but only if she was irradiated by enough Kinemet. When Alex had been depleted, he lost both the clairvoyant and electropathic abilities, though he had retained his eidetic memory (which, she surmised, might have been a more permanent physiological aspect of the Kinemetic transformation).

Although she had only seen a dozen or so Cruzados on her journey through the hall, she knew there had to be many more of them. Even if Lieutenant Jeffries and his men were able to overcome Klaus and his uncle, they were still outmatched by the rest of the observatory’s complement of rebels.

Justine was not a trained fighter or tactician, though she had taken the basic mandatory courses in boot camp. They were outnumbered, under-equipped, and malnourished. Brute force was not the answer, but she had a thought that she might still be able to user her newfound abilities to their advantage.

She sent her vision out, tracking ethereally to where the Kinemet had been stored on the observatory’s lowest level, near the docking bay.

Though she was reduced to a mass of protons, she was still unable to pass through solid matter, and she had to take the long way. In her photonic-quantized state, it was actually more difficult for her to move her essence through normal space than if she were solid matter. All of her photons, held together either by some kind of mental force or physical attraction, were in constant motion inside that intangible bubble.

When she finally reached the end of the hall, she began to wind her way down the flights of stairs near the elevator.

Two floors down, she ran out of Kinemetic radiation, and abruptly rematerialized into her human self. She was, however, a meter and a half in the air and was still in motion.

In solid form, she arched and fell sharply to the landing in a tangle of barked shins and banged elbows. The breath knocked out of her, head ringing from impacting it on the wall, Justine lay in a stunned heap for almost a full minute, naked and vulnerable until her breathing returned to normal.

Very slowly, and with great care, she gingerly gathered her arms and legs under her and pushed herself up off the floor. Resisting the urge to vomit from the combined effect of the de-quantizing and nausea from hitting her head during the fall, Justine took a moment to steady herself by leaning against the wall.

Once the feeling returned to her hands and feet, she took a deep breath and oriented herself. There was a thin dribble of blood coming from just under her hairline. She touched the wound experimentally, and winced at the sharp resulting pain.

Now that she was corporeal, she had hoped that she would retain the ability to see beyond herself, but couldn’t because she didn’t have any of the Kinemetic radiation left in her system. She felt a sharp pain of ethereal hunger. She needed Kinemet. If this is what Alex had gone through for the past few years, no wonder he had deteriorated physiologically.

Justine would have to find her way to the stash of Kinemet from memory, and she found that, as Alex’s memory had improved, she now possessed a perfect image in her mind of the layout of Lucis Observatory.

Conscious of her nakedness, she drew one arm over her breasts and resumed her descent of the stairs barefoot, hoping against hope that none of the Cruzados had heard her crash and come to investigate.

∞

When she reached the bottom of the stairwell, she stopped at the door and leaned her head against it, trying to hear any sign of the rebels on the other side.

The resounding silence prompted her to pry the door open a crack. She paused, listening, then opened the door all the way and tiptoed down the hallway.

When she got near to the docking bay, she started to feel an electrical buzz. The hairs on her arms stood up and she felt a warm tingle go through her. The Kinemet was close.

As she moved farther down the hall, the sensation intensified, and once she arrived at what she assumed was a storage lockup, she knew the Kinemet was secured inside.

She tried the door, but it was locked. A sudden bout of panic hit her. She had come all this way only to be stopped by a door lock.

Mentally, she kicked herself. Although the Kinemet was in a different room, and most likely inside the titanium container, there was a trickle of radiation leaking out. That was how she was sensing it. All she had to do was stand there long enough to build up enough of a radiation level to regain her electropathic ability, and then she could easily pop the lock and gain entrance.

Pressing the entire length of her body up against the cold door, she stood there, allowing the Kinemetic radiation into her system. She was painfully aware of how vulnerable she was, and prayed that her luck would hold out a little while longer.

She worried that by the time she was in a position to help Lieutenant Jeffries and his men, it would be too late, but there was nothing more she could do until she had recharged.

After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, she felt the flow of energy course through her veins as if she had just taken a vitamin shot. The energy level in her was akin to a drop in a bucket, but it was enough for her purpose.

A mere flicker of thought was all it took to trip the electronic lock, and she darted inside the room. The door was pneumatic, and automatically closed behind her.

A few more moments closer to the titanium container charged her with enough radiation to open the lock that stood between her and the full force of raw Kinemet.

Once it was open, the Kinemetic influence washed over her like a tidal wave. She remembered the ecstatic look on Alex’s face when he was in the presence of the rare metal, and for the first time, completely understood it.

The clairvoyant vision started to return to her in stages. At first, she had a disconnected awareness of her surroundings, and then the objects closest to her slowly resolved into discernible forms.

She figured it would take at least an hour for her to be fully irradiated; but less than a minute in, she heard the sound of a footfall in the corridor outside the room.

One of the Cruzados threw open the door. He was momentarily taken aback, glancing at her bare breasts. But then, with a roar of anger, he swung his ion pulse rifle in her direction.

Just as he fired, Justine quantized herself, and the ion stream passed right through her photonic self, doing no harm.

With a look of abject surprise, the Cruzado took a few steps inside the room and let out a curse in Spanish.

Justine floated past him and out the door before it closed. The man charged the door, but before he reached it, Justine used her ability to engage the lock, and then blocked the power to the device.

The Cruzado hurled more muted curses as he tried to physically knock the door down, to no effect. He was fully locked in the room as if it were a maximum security prison cell.

This proved that Justine’s plan would work. Unable to overcome the greater force of Cruzados, she would have to take them right out of the situation. The entire observatory complex was run on electronic doors and locks, and Justine was now a master of any electric current she sensed.

As she pushed her essence back down the hall toward the stairs, she hoped she could get back to the lab before it was too late, and before she once again ran out of Kinemetic radiation.

∞

Outside of the workshop’s main door, Justine paused and extended her sight into the room.

There were several men on the floor, and the remaining five were in a standoff. On one side of the room were Klaus and his uncle, Captain Gruber, who was holding one arm limply to his side, blood soaking his shirt sleeve. They had knocked a metal lab table over and were hiding behind it. They each held a weapon. Gruber had an ion pistol in his good hand. Klaus, holding a pulse rifle, was spitting out curses at the three soldiers who blocked his escape.

Corporal Marks was dead, Justine saw. There was a trail of blood on the tiles from where Gruber had shot him to where he now lay. It looked as if he had not been killed right away, and had been pulled out of the line of fire—in vain, as it turned out.

One of the other soldiers, Private Townsend, was face down on the floor, also dead.

Justine felt a sudden pang of loss and anger. Over the past week she had become fond of all the soldiers in Jeffries’ squad.

Lieutenant Jeffries and two men—Privates Vic Genero and Tomas Hodges—were holed up behind a bank of computer servers. Between them, they only had one pulse rifle, obviously taken from one of the dead Cruzados. All three soldiers evidenced wounds and bruises, but nothing looked fatal. The situation was dire, Justine saw when Vic checked the rifle’s meter and gave Jeffries a helpless look. The rifle was void of any electrical charge.

Justine tried not to let her emotions get the better of her, but the atrocities committed against her and the people she cared about stacked up.

She couldn’t simply seal off the room unless she was able to get Lieutenant Jeffries and his men out first, and the only way she could communicate that plan was to rematerialize.

Scanning the area near the two holdouts, Justine looked for anything electrical that she could use her powers on. If she could cause something to blow up near Klaus, it could possibly disable them or provide enough of a distraction to get Lieutenant Jeffries out. But there was nothing she could see that would do what she wanted.

Justine decided to go for broke and hope Lieutenant Jeffries would figure out what was going on and get himself and his men to safety.

She pushed her quantized self through the small opening in the broken window of the workshop door and into the room.

All eyes turned to her as she floated into the center of the room.

Klaus raised his rifle and fired off a single shot in her direction. The ion stream passed through her harmlessly. As if the result did not completely surprise him, Klaus scuttled toward a computer keypad.

Justine had no idea what his intention was, but Klaus had obviously figured out the ball of light in front of him was her, and by the self-confident sneer on his face he most likely had a theory on how to capture or kill her. Of course, when he started the experiments, he would have thought ahead about how to control any transformed subject.

Lieutenant Jeffries wasn’t taking the opportunity, so Justine had no choice.

She transformed back to her human form, and stood in the middle of the room, stark naked.

It had the desired effect on Klaus. He paused in his search for the keypad to look at her.

Justine shouted, “Get out of the room,” to Lieutenant Jeffries and, accustomed to following orders, he grabbed both of his men and complied.

When she turned back to Klaus, he had his rifle pointed directly at her, his lips curling up. In his other hand he held the keypad, and his thumb was pressed down on a key.

Justine immediately willed herself to transform into a quantized state, but nothing happened.

“Too late,” Klaus said triumphantly. Lifting the keypad up, he winked at her. “Kinemetic damper. The same tech they use in a quantum drive. The whole room has been wired for it, not just the lab. Now, I’m afraid, I’m going to have to terminate your experiment.”

Klaus leveled the barrel of the rifle at her head.

There was the distinctive electrical whir sound, and then a frozen moment when Justine’s heart stopped.

A puzzled look on his face, Klaus slowly sank to his knees. On his chest, a small circle of blood blossomed, and he fell face down on the floor, releasing the keypad.

Behind him, one of the younger Cruzados, who Justine had thought was dead, lay on his side, a small ion pistol stretched out in front of him.

“Lo siento,” he said, and then his arm dropped and he went still.

Justine didn’t have time to wonder what had caused one of the Cruzados to turn on Klaus, because Captain Gruber, with a roar of outrage, jumped up from his hiding spot, aimed his own pistol at her, and fired.

But Justine, free from the damper, was able to quantize herself a split second before the first ion stream sliced through her bare skin.

Lieutenant Jeffries and his two men charged back into the room.

His ion pistol spent, Gruber threw it at them in futility. They quickly tackled him and wrestled him to the ground.

Justine, sensing she was nearing the end of her Kinemetic fuel, moved her photonic self to the wall near the door of the lab. Her uniform had been hung on a hook there. She reverted to a physical form and quickly dressed while the lieutenant secured his prisoner.

“What the hell is going on?” Lieutenant Jeffries asked in what Justine thought was a very controlled voice, considering the circumstances. “What was that ball of light? Was that you? I mean, I had a briefing on the Kinemetic effect. Is that what happened to you? That’s what Klaus was doing here?”

Nodding, Justine said, “I’ll explain everything to you later. Right now, I need to secure the observatory. You find a communications room and get word back to Earth about what happened here.”

“Uh, yes, Major.”

Justine took a step toward the door, but paused, and knelt down beside the young Cruzado who had saved her life. She felt for a pulse, but the young man was truly dead.

“And, if you could, please find out who this person was. He saved my life.”

∞

It took Justine a little less than a quarter of an hour to make a full circuit of the observatory and use her electropathic ability to seal off any Cruzado she found. Taken completely off guard, they didn’t stand a chance. By her count, there were at least forty of them held inside the common area, and half a dozen other stragglers she trapped in their individual rooms or work areas.

When she was finished, the returned to the room where the Kinemet was stored. She used her sight to look inside. The Cruzado was standing in front of the container, his face painted with anger.

She spoke in Spanish, and pitched her voice for him to hear through the door. “We’ve taken control of the observatory. Your leaders are dead or captured. We have reinforcements on the way. You don’t have any food or water. Put down your rifle now, lay on the floor with your hands folded on your head.”

There was a brief moment when she thought he either didn’t hear her, or was planning on being defiant. But then he tossed the rifle away from him and got down on the floor.

Justine unlocked the door and stepped inside, quickly grabbing the ion pulse rifle.

“All right, I want you to slowly get up and move into the other room. You’ll wait there until we come for you.”

Glaring at her, the Cruzado nevertheless complied, and once he was safely locked away in an adjacent room, Justine returned to the Kinemet, sat down beside it … and basked in its radiance.

∞

Once she felt her energy levels were back to normal, Justine once more tried using her clairvoyant ability. This time, she pushed herself and tried to home in on Alex’s weak signal.

It was difficult to get a fix on him because he seemed to be fading in and out.

Having the ability to see at great distances without physically being there was revolutionary. Alex’s ability, kept top secret and shared with only a privileged few, had all but dissipated during the years he was not infused with Kinemetic radiation. He had told Justine once that he could only push his senses so far before he became mentally exhausted, even at the height of his power.

It was possible, Justine thought, that Alex had tried to use his power to find her after the hijacking and had exceeded his capacity. If so, he might have exhausted himself and didn’t have enough reserves to pull his consciousness back to his body.

Experimenting, Justine confirmed what Alex had told her. At about one hundred and fifty kilometers from the Lucis Observatory, her conscious vision stopped moving forward. It was as if she had hit a barrier, and no matter how much energy she exerted, she could not push past it.

As Justine moved her sight back toward the observatory, she took in the deadly beauty of Venus. Unlike Earth, whose surface detail could be seen between patches of cloud, Venus was completely covered by its sulfuric clouds. It was mesmerizing, and Justine wanted to drift out there in space forever, exploring all the celestial wonders of space.

But too many people were relying on her.

Returned to her corporeal self, Justine reflected a moment on the powers she had acquired, and being a trained astronaut, she connected most of the dots.

In order to navigate at luminal speeds, a pilot would need the ability to sense the star beacons as if they were a navigational map. She assumed the clairvoyant sight was a reflection of that ability. The electropathy would be twofold. Although she had no empirical data on which to base her theory, it made sense that she would be able to course-correct a quantized ship in flight using the ability. Also, it would be needed once a quantized ship was returned to normal space, in order to dampen the engines and prevent a secondary Kinemetic reaction.

Or, she thought, she might be able to stop the reaction herself without the aid of a damper. There was a lot of experimentation that needed to be done.

She wasn’t certain where the enhanced visual memory would come into play. It could just be a side-effect of being a Kinemat.

She remembered that was the word Alex called himself, and had wondered at times if he was still human.

As she processed the thoughts, she continued to bathe in the radiation of raw Kinemet.

∞

When Lieutenant Jeffries found her and gently shook her shoulder, it took everything in her not to ignore him and sink deeper into the influence of the powerful metal.

“We’ve secured the observatory,” he said to her when she opened her eyes. “All of the Cruzados are in the common room, along with Gruber. We can keep them there indefinitely.”

“What about the young man who saved my life?” she asked.

“Gruber wouldn’t say a word. One of the other Cruzados said the man’s name was Terry, but he wasn’t really one of the rebels. You’ll never believe this: he was the grandson of that Mayan who had the scroll in Honduras. I didn’t get the whole story, but apparently Klaus and Jose—the leader of the Cruzados—tricked him into stealing the scroll.”

More treachery, Justine thought.

The lieutenant said, “You were right, we did get transferred to another ship, the Ultio. It’s a space yacht, with some upgrades. It’s in dock.”

“I assume the Diana is lost, then.”

The lieutenant nodded, then said, “We did an inventory of the computers in the lab. Most were destroyed in the fight, and if there were any data backups, we can’t find them. There’s no way to retrieve Klaus’s work.”

“Did you find the scroll?”

The lieutenant shook his head. “No sign of it. It may have been destroyed once Klaus had what he wanted from it.”

“Well,” Justine said, “we’ll just have to trust that our scientists can reverse engineer … me.”

He looked uncomfortable with reciting the next portion of his report, and it was only after Justine prodded him that he spoke.

“We’ve removed all the bodies; they’re in cold storage.”

“Clive?”

“Yeah. Him too. I’m so sorry about that,” Lieutenant Jeffries said, gently placing a consoling hand on her shoulder.

“Never mind,” Justine said, pushing her feelings deep down. She would think about it another time, when she was more capable of dealing with it. “Did you contact home?”

The lieutenant cocked his head and made an inscrutable face. “It’s about a five-minute delay in EPS transmissions, so we don’t have the whole story. I’ve got Private Genero in the communication room. So far, though, it looks like we’re going to be on our own.”

Justine stood up. “What?”

“Colonel Gagne said it all started with a crackdown in Honduras. Apparently, the Cruzados down there kidnapped the old Mayan and Michael Sanderson, and killed a U.S. national, George Markowitz. Mr. Sanderson managed to escape with the Mayan. The Honduran military moved in and put down the rebels. Apparently, the three of them figured out what was so important about the ancient scroll—probably that the formula for … making someone like you … was in there all along.”

“My God,” Justine said. “George.”

Jeffries took a breath and continued: “But that information was leaked, and now most of the world country corporations know that someone has worked out the solution to Kinemet. Both the People’s Republic of China and the Arabic Consortium are howling mad.”

“The Arabs?” Justine said.

“I guess since most countries have stopped using oil for fuel, they’re scrambling for a way to get back on top. They’ve issued ultimatums to share the technology under threat of hostilities. The world is in gridlock at the moment. Everyone’s borders are closing. There’s talk of war.”

It took a moment for Justine to process that, but her thoughts returned to George Markowitz. She’d met him a few times. Another senseless death. And there would be many more if matters continued down their current path.

“So,” Lieutenant Jeffries said. “What’s the plan, boss? We sit here and wait?”

“Did Colonel Gagne give any specific orders?”

“Nothing other than to secure and defend the Kinemet. He’s waiting on higher-ups to make a decision.”

“In that case, I’d rather not sit around here waiting and doing nothing. Why don’t we load this container back on the Ultio and head back to CS3?”

The lieutenant looked surprised. “CS3? Why there?”

“You remember that boy we brought on board before the hijacking?”

“Alex, the one you told me to forget about?”

Justine nodded. “Yeah, well, he’s in trouble, and I think the only way to save him is with that Kinemet.”

“There’s only four of us and over forty of the rebels,” Lieutenant Jeffries said. “I’m not sure we can handle all of them on a trip back.”

“There’s enough food and water here on the observatory for at least a few weeks or so; enough time for the U.S. Space Corp. to get up here and take care of them.”

Lieutenant Jeffries raised an eyebrow, looking unsure.

Justine stood up and patted the top of the container. She smiled.

“Well, are you heading my way?” she asked. “Wanna lift?”

33

Canada Station Three :

Lagrange Point 4 :

Earth Orbit :

Although Michael wanted to work through the sixteen-hour flight from Nova Scotia to CS3, he fell into a deep exhausted sleep soon after launch and didn’t wake up until the ship began to slow on approach.

While Yaxche had found the skybus trips from Honduras to Toronto and from Toronto to Yarmouth horrifying experiences, he seemed to really take to space travel. After all, there was no turbulence in space.

Michael found him in the forward observation lounge, sitting on a comfortable sofa bench, watching as the two-kilometer-wide space station slowly grew larger and larger as they got closer. There were twenty or so other people in the room, all watching in companionable silence and mesmerized appreciation.

“I could not take my eyes off the Earth as we left,” Yaxche said into his translator when Michael sat down beside him. “I have seen videos from my grandson’s pocket computer, but it is not the same. I am a simple man from a simple village.” He pointed to the massive space station. “This is like something from a dream. It is no wonder the gods reside out here.”

“It’s addictive, being in space.” Michael crossed one leg over the other and leaned back, sharing in the moment. “I’ve only been a few times. I keep forgetting how beautiful it is.”

An attendant entered the room and quickly set his eyes on Michael. He approached and leaned closer. In a soft voice he said, “You have a call from Earth, sir.”

“All right, thank you,” Michael said, and with a smile to Yaxche, he got up and followed the attendant to a communication booth.

∞

It was Calbert.

“I don’t know if you’ve scanned the newsblogs yet,” the CEO of Quantum Resources said, “but the survivors of the Diana have contacted Earth.”

“Survivors!” Michael said, his voice loud enough that a few other passengers who were taking calls turned their heads at the sound. His face flushed red, not from embarrassment, but from anger and worry.

“Four of the Americans, including Major Justine Turner, managed to overpower a band of Cruzados on the abandoned Venus orbital, Lucis Observatory, and recover the stolen Kinemet.”

Michael breathed a sigh of relief that Justine was alive, but a thousand questions flooded his mind. He bit his tongue until Calbert was finished with his story.

“It looks like the Cruzados were led by Klaus Vogelsberg and Trent Gruber. Klaus was killed in the firefight, but they managed to capture Gruber alive.”

“Klaus?” Michael hadn’t heard that name for years, and had completely dismissed him from his memory.

“Yeah. Apparently, he’s been trafficking in information all this time since the Quanta hijacking, and over the years managed to set up a network of contacts throughout Earth and the Moon. That fits in with your theory of who was behind all this. He somehow recruited the Cruzados to his cause, as well as quite a few others. They’re cleaning house on Luna Station as we speak.”

It did explain things, but there was obviously much more to the story. “Are they sending a rescue mission?”

“Not right away,” Calbert said. “The prisoners are secured on the observatory, and Major Turner and the American soldiers are on their way to CS3—they’re using Klaus’ ship, the Ultio. We’re assuming the Diana has been disintegrated by the Sun.”

“Did you find out what Klaus was doing there?”

Calbert shook his head. “If the Americans know, they’re keeping silent about it so far. Especially since the People’s Republic of China has filed an official complaint with the United Earth Corporate Council against USA, Inc.”

“The Chinese? On what grounds?” Michael asked.

“Can you believe it? They’re citing the Nuclear Ban Treaty of ‘42.”

Michael blinked. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Well, Kinemet is based on nuclear technology. They demanded that we prove we aren’t using it to make weapons.”

“That’s ludicrous!” Michael said.

With a shrug, Calbert lifted his eyebrows. “There are a lot of country corporations who feel they’ve been excluded from the technology. With everything that’s been happening on Earth, there’s renewed interest in new developments. No one wants to get left behind. The Council is convening an emergency session. Talk from SMD is the motion might be ratified. It’s a political move.”

Michael didn’t like the sound of that. He wasn’t against sharing technology; if humankind was able to fully develop reliable interstellar travel, he believed everyone on Earth should be a part of it and benefit. However, international corporate politics was renowned for its sluggish pace. Before anyone could move forward with any more research or development, the technology could be tied up for years or decades while the some oversight committee decided whether Kinemet was a danger or not.

“You think they can get it ratified?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes. Who knows, maybe they’re trying to develop interstellar travel independently and don’t want the competition.”

Michael asked, “You think they may have been helping Klaus?”

“I don’t know. Our ‘big brother’ to the south isn’t offering up any information to us at this point. Perhaps you can see what you can get out of Major Turner when she arrives. She should be there sometime tomorrow. The Canadian Space Forces have offered protective services for the time being. I know their commander; I’ll see about getting you clearance to meet with the Americans.”

“Thanks, Calbert,” Michael said.

“Oh,” Calbert said just before severing the connection. “I also talked to the provost officer on CS3 and got him to release Kenny. Technically, he did break Quantum Resources protocol by not registering his activities—and we’ll talk to him about that later—but he swears he was only taking readings. Whatever happened to Alex, it was something completely different.”

With a nod, Michael said, “We’re going to be docking in an hour or so. I’ll call ahead and see if Kenny will meet us at the port. I’d like to get the full story straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“Sounds good. I’ll contact you later tomorrow when we have more information.”

“See you later.” Michael closed the connection and hurried back to the lounge to watch the final approach with Yaxche.

∞

While he waited for his luggage to be unloaded and brought to him on the conveyor on CS3, Michael listened as Kenny explained what had happened that night in his apartment with Alex.

“…and then he twitched and went into a coma. Only,” the physicist added after a moment, “Doctor Amma says it’s more of an extreme fugue state than a coma. He responds to stimuli, and appears to be awake. His consciousness, however, is not there.”

Yaxche, who was listening to the explanation through his translator, said, “He is on a spirit walk.”

Kenny, looking genuinely worried, asked, “Raymond said you might be able to help him; can you?”

“I will try,” Yaxche said.

As Michael grabbed the bags when they passed near him, Kenny said, “They have him hooked up to IVs and they’ve even tried to force-feed him. But he’s fading away. The doctor’s explanation is that he was in remission the last few weeks, but it was only temporary. Now, whatever deteriorating disease was afflicting him before is back.

He added, “And it’s progressing.”

∞

It took a lot of fast talking to convince the medical staff in the infirmary to give Yaxche the privacy he needed to see if any of his rituals (Michael called them naturalistic procedures when explaining it to Dr. Amma) would help bring Alex out of his state.

Dr. Amma wasn’t buying it, and in the end, Michael had to place another call to Calbert and get him to authorize their attempt.

Michael and Kenny stood in the room, watching as Yaxche pulled a few accoutrements out of the bag he had brought with him from Honduras, including a hand-carved headdress decorated with feathers, and a shawl woven with sea shells and bone. He produced two wooden sticks that rattled when he placed them beside Alex’s supine form.

Part of Yaxche’s traditional rituals required the use of fire to help lift spirits to the heavens, but he said he would make do with some candles and incense.

Alex looked gaunt and aged. Though his eyes were open, they stared blankly out of darkened sockets. He seemed to breath normally, but made barely discernible moaning noises once in a while. When Michael grasped the boy’s hand, it felt cold and listless.

“I must enter the spirit world of dreams,” Yaxche told them once he had everything arranged. “Then I will try to commune with the Sky Traveler. It may take a long time. Please make sure we are not disturbed.”

Michael regarded the old Mayan levelly for half a minute, waiting for the ritual to being, when Kenny tapped him on the arm. “I think he means he wants us out of here, too.”

Yaxche gave them a toothy grin, and waited patiently for Michael and Kenny to leave the room before turning back around.

Outside, Michael looked indecisive.

“Uh,” Kenny said, clearing his throat. “Raymond said they’ve finished the initial analysis of the Song of the Stars and have transmitted the data to our computers. Do you mind if I go and have a look at it?”

Michael smiled and checked the time on the wall holoslate. “Sure thing. I think I’ll go get a bite to eat and wait for the Ultio to dock.”

But Kenny, ever the scientist, was already halfway down the hall before Michael finished his sentence.

∞

Michael didn’t have to wait long. He was in the waiting area of the docking port for less than a half an hour before the overhead monitors flicked on to announce the arrival of the Ultio.

It took a few minutes for them to complete docking procedures, and when the gates opened to allow the passengers to disembark, Michael stepped up to greet the survivors.

Before he took two steps, however, a small fireteam of Canadian Space Force soldiers, armed with ion pulse rifles, came marching down the hall.

Before the Luna Station incident with Chow Yin, Canada Station Three only had a small contingent of five peace officers whose primary role was to keep the seasonal space miners in order when they had come aboard for shore leave. Breaking up a bar fight was the most action many of them had ever seen.

Since then, however, the military had sent up a thirty-six-man platoon of soldiers to bolster internal defense and to provide added security for any international visitors to the station.

Michael didn’t recognize any of the soldiers, but they obviously knew who he was. When they got closer, they veered toward him, and the first man lifted his right hand in a salute.

“Sir,” he said. “Master Corporal Bixby.”

Dully, Michael raised his hand in an attempt to return the salute. “Michael Sanderson.”

“Sir,” the master corporal said in a clipped military tone, “we’ve been assigned to escort the American hijack survivors during their stopover on the station. The Minister of SMD informed us you would also be accompanying them.”

“Oh?” Michael frowned. “Do you think they are at risk?”

The soldier gave a quick shake of his head and a cursory smile. “Just a precaution, sir.”

When the main door to the docking bay opened, Michael glanced over and saw Justine and three men—all looking as if they had been through a warzone—enter and step up to the identiscan one at a time.

Once they were processed and cleared, Justine approached Michael, fighting through a weary grin with a wide smile. She gave him a hug, which he returned with as much emotion as hers.

At first, Michael hadn’t noticed, but Justine did not have her optilink or her PERSuit harness on, yet she had spotted him right away and walked toward him unwaveringly.

“Justine?” Although his first instinct was to ask how she was and tell her he was glad she was safe, he found himself blurting out, “Can you see?”

She let out a short laugh and smiled at him. “I am still blind … but, yes, I can see.”

“What—?” He stared into both of her eyes one after another. There was no detectible change in her irises. Her eyes were unfocused, distant.

Justine patted him on the arm. “I’ll explain later. Can we go see Alex right now?”

Michael shook his head. “Soon. Yaxche’s with him.” He detected a sudden pained look in Justine’s expression. They needed someplace private to talk; he was acutely aware of over a dozen pairs of eyes watching him.

“Um, is everyone all right?” He looked at each of the American soldiers in turn. One of them looked quite banged up; several bruises were evident on his cheek and forehead. The lieutenant was favoring his arm, and the last soldier had one eye swollen shut.

The master corporal quickly introduced himself to Justine and the others, and said, “We have an area set aside in the infirmary. If you’ll all follow me, we’ll get you patched up and fed a hot meal. Then you can contact home to make your debriefing. I’ve been told there are several USA, Inc. directors and NASA officials gathering at the capital to listen in.”

“I’m fine,” Justine said to him. “I don’t need any medical attention. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to confer with Mr. Sanderson while you see to the others.” She moved her head towards Lieutenant Jeffries, who nodded his assent.

Master Corporal Bixby called one of his men closer. “Private Ludwig, here, will escort you to our headquarters. We have a conference room set up for the debriefing if you want to use it.” He regarded Michael with a calculating look. “But we also have a few smaller offices, if you prefer.”

Justine and Michael followed the private while four of the Canadian soldiers took up positions around the entrance to the dock where the Ultio was, and the remaining men led the American soldiers to the medical section.

∞

“Are we safe to talk here?” Justine asked once Michael closed the door to a small office. Some thoughtful person had brought in a carafe of coffee and a plate of sandwiches and veggies.

Michael watched as Justine deftly reached for a carrot stick and bit into it with a snap.

“Reasonably,” he said in answer. “So, you first. You can see…?”

“What I’m about to say is probably going to be classified as soon as we report back home.” Justine sat down and took a deep breath. “Klaus figured out the formula to convert a human into a Kinemat. And,” she added with a dramatic pause, “I am proof of it.”

“What? Proof? You mean you’re—?” A hundred questions all tried to pour out of his mouth at the same time. Michael found a seat and eased himself into it, all the while never taking his eyes off Justine. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

She did, and relayed everything that had transpired from the moment they had been hijacked to arriving back on CS3, including that they hadn’t been able to locate the scroll.

When she finished her story, Justine said, “Colonel Gagne was pissed when he found out we were heading here and not back to Earth. I told him we were running low on fuel. He didn’t believe me, but what choice did he have but to arrange for our berthing here?”

“Why did you come here?” Michael asked.

“I knew Alex was in trouble. When I was in a quantized state, I could sense that his consciousness was separated from his physical body.”

“Yes.” Michael nodded. “And since he’s fallen into that fugue state, his body is deteriorating. Yaxche says he’s trying to communicate with Alex, to see if he can draw him back. Don’t ask me to explain how. I’m not even sure I believe in that kind of mysticism, but I don’t have any other ideas. You wouldn’t have come here unless you did have a notion. What is it?”

“Before I tell you that, it’s your turn,” Justine said. “Catch me up. I’ve been isolated for a week.”

“I know the feeling,” Michael said cryptically, and then told Justine what had happened in her absence.

Starting with the EPS from Alex when he went through his first fugue, Michael recounted the events up to their capture and escape in Honduras. When he spoke of George’s death, his words caught in his throat, and he poured himself another cup of coffee.

“The political situation on Earth has been worsening over the past few days,” he said in conclusion. “People aren’t dumb. They’ve figured out there are developments in the area of Kinemet, and are demanding to be brought in. The world economy is in tatters; viable interstellar travel could be a shot in the arm—whether or not there are others out there. If the country corporations on Earth knew just how far those developments have gone, it could get worse. Are you going to tell your superiors that you’ve been transformed?”

After a moment, Justine took a deep breath. “I’m no diplomat, and I have no desire to be,” she said. “I’ll make my report and leave policy to them. Meanwhile, we need to help Alex, and time is running out in more than one way. As I said before, once I make my report to the USA, Inc. Board, the cat will be out of the bag. We’ll all go into lockdown, and then it might well be too late for Alex.”

“What do you mean?” Michael asked. “Do you know something because of … what’s happened to you?”

“I think so.” She stood up and paced, gathering her thoughts. “I haven’t had a lot of time to explore my new gifts, but, whenever I used any of the extranormal abilities, I could tell that I was using the Kinemetic radiation as a fuel. It worked before, and bringing Alex in proximity of Kinemet might reinvigorate him once more. I know, when I ran out of the radiation, I felt an uncontrollable hunger. I think, if I didn’t charge myself with Kinemet, my health would also deteriorate like Alex’s.”

“So you think bringing him close to some Kinemet will snap his consciousness back?” Michael asked.

Justine shrugged. “Maybe. I think it’s worth a shot.”

“There’s no way we can unload the Kinemet here,” he said, thinking out loud. “If any of the station’s security sees it, they’ll report it to our government. And if we move Alex out of the infirmary, the nurses will sound an alert.” Michael chewed on his bottom lip.

“It’s a good thing I planned ahead,” Justine said. She reached into her pocket and brought out a small control pad. “Klaus gave me the idea. He used a Kinemetic damper on me to stop me from being able to use my abilities. I figured if I was leaking any radiation at the security station, they’d notice, so I rigged up a localized damper to hide myself. And—” She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a small disc of metal attached to a gold chain. “—some Kinemet, disguised as a locket if anyone searched me. This should be enough to irradiate Alex. At least long enough to figure out our next step.”

Michael stood up. “Then what are we waiting for?”

∞

On the way back to the medical area, Michael stopped at a communications kiosk and called Kenny at the QR lab. The scientist answered almost right away, but he seemed annoyed at the interruption until he recognized his caller.

“Yes, Mr. Sanderson?”

“Just call me Michael. How are you coming along on the scroll data from Raymond? And I hope you’ve made redundant backups of everything.”

“Of course,” Kenny said, pursing his lips in annoyance at the suggestion. “All data is backed up continually.”

“Just checking,” Michael said, putting up an apologetic hand. “What have you found?”

“We’re working on the theory of pitch and frequency. Perhaps Kinemet is sensitive to sound vibrations.”

“Try converting sound frequencies to light frequencies.”

“That’s not really a valid physics methodology. There’s no direct correlation to—” Kenny’s face froze in mid-word as it dawned on him. “It worked, didn’t it?” His eyes widening, he said, “Someone solved it, didn’t they? It worked on one of the Americans?”

“That’s all I can tell you for now,” Michael said, suppressing a grin. “We’re heading down to the infirmary to see Alex. You can reach me there.”

He didn’t even have time to say a farewell before Kenny cut the connection, most likely off to run some computer simulations.

∞

They stopped outside the door to Alex’s room, and Michael gently knocked before opening it a crack. He didn’t want to break Yaxche’s concentration, but his caution was not necessary. The old Mayan was sitting on a guest chair in the corner, head drooped from exhaustion. He looked up when Michael entered.

“I had a dream,” he said, then noticed Justine. “Hello, Sky Traveler. I saw you in my dream.”

“Uh,” Michael said. “This is Justine. She was captain of the ship that rescued Alex on Pluto. Justine, this is Yaxche.”

She stepped forward and clasped both of her hands around Yaxche’s. “I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this,” she started to say.

“My grandson has passed from the world,” the old Mayan said, as if he already knew the fact of it. He kept a stoic face, but there was a tightening around his eyes, and he looked away as he lost the fight to hold back a tear.

Justine said, “He died saving my life.” Though she did not have the ability to see out of her eyes, they nevertheless conveyed what the sacrifice meant to her.

Yaxche squeezed her hand and nodded. “I would not expect any less. Te’irjiil was a good boy.”

“You’ll have to tell me about him.”

Yaxche nodded. “Yes. We will sit together some time and I will tell you his story.”

Justine pressed her lips together and nodded. Then she turned to where Alex lay in the bed and said, “Let’s see if this works, shall we?”

She withdrew the amulet of Kinemet and place it on Alex’s chest, tucking his hospital gown up over the metal.

The diagnostic machine beside the bed blipped as Alex’s vitals immediately shot up. His pulse quickened, and his vital stats normalized.

Michael quickly leaned over and looked into Alex’s eyes, but there was no dilation of his pupils.

“He looks better,” Justine said in a soft voice. “It seems to take a few hours for us to fully charge.” She shook her head and lifted one side of her mouth in a half-smile. “I say it like we’re batteries or something.”

But after several more minutes passed, there was no sign that Alex’s consciousness had come back to reside in him. The body on the bed was still a hollow shell.

Realizing that Yaxche had not related the details of his dream to them, Michael turned to him. “Is this going to work?”

Ever patient, Yaxche had resumed his position on the chair. The translator did its best to convey the meaning of his words: “The metal of the heavens will heal the body, but not the spirit. The Sky Traveler has always been two parts of a whole. The spirit half is frightened, and has run to the safest hiding place it knows.”

Michael asked, “And where is that?”

“In my dream I saw a small station like this one, looking upon three suns.”

Michael guessed, “The Centauri System.”

Before he could say any more, Dr. Amma raced into the room with a nurse and two attendants. She stopped short when she saw Yaxche in his ceremonial dress.

Michael noticed Justine, who was standing next to Alex, deftly reach her hand down and grab the Kinemet disc.

“What’s going on in here?” Dr. Amma demanded. “The monitors went berserk and—” She spotted Alex, looking hale and breathing steadily once more, and rushed to his side. Quickly, she took his vitals manually, and then looked between Michael, Justine and Yaxche.

“I don’t understand it. All of his signs seem normal. But he’s still in a fugue state. What did you do?”

Shaking his head, Michael said, “Uh, nothing. We were just standing here, talking.”

The doctor motioned to the nurse. “I need to run some tests. Can you bring me the sequencer?” Then she shooed the three of them out with a wave of her hand.

∞

In the waiting room, they were on the verge of sitting down when one of the receptionists stepped into view.

“Michael Sanderson?” she asked.

“That’s me.”

“There’s a call for you. I can transfer it to the kiosk over there.”

“Thank you,” he said, and quickly went over.

The call was from Calbert, and he looked harried.

Michael asked, “What’s going on? Is everything all right?”

“No. The United Earth Corporate Council has granted an injunction against all Kinemet experiments until it can determine if it represents a risk to the safety of the world population.”

Unable to believe what he was hearing, Michael opened his mouth, but couldn’t form any words.

Calbert said, “Yeah. Happened real fast.”

“And they have unanimous support?”

“Almost. The only country corporations opposed were USA, Inc., Canada Corp. and the German Federation.”

“Germany?”

“The rumor mill is working overtime. Apparently, word got out who was behind the hijacking of the Diana, and the Federation denounced Klaus as a disavowed citizen working on his own. They’re just covering their bases.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“As soon as we receive the official notice,” Calbert continued, “we are obligated to quarantine the QR Labs on CS3.”

“What about our Earth-based research sites?” Michael could feel his face flush with outrage.

“They’re focusing on CS3 for now. It’s a smokescreen. Someone thinks we’ve unlocked the technology. And they’re right—Raymond says Kenny thinks he has a workable theory. We could be less than a few months away from human trials.”

“Not if they shut us down,” Michael said in a grumble.

Calbert pitched his voice lower. “It gets worse. The Arabic Conglomerates have proposed sending a team of observers from Luna Station to ensure we’re following the UECC’s edict.”

Michael couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”

“They’re already on their way. Due to arrive in about six hours.”

“You have to do something to stop them. What does Ottawa say?”

Calbert tilted his head. “Cooperate. We’re under scrutiny from the world court. If we balk at this point, we’re admitting we’ve been hoarding the technology.”

Grinding his teeth, Michael said, “If they start snooping around, they’ll find out about Alex and everything else…”

He narrowed his eyes. “Calbert, I have to go. I have an idea, and I don’t think you’re going to like it. If we—”

“No,” Calbert said. “Don’t tell me. I can see the wheels spinning. Whatever you’re going to do, I need to be able to deny knowledge of it.”

That made Michael smile for the first time during the conversation. “All right. If you don’t hear from me, then it worked.”

“Good luck.”

Michael cut the connection and quickly strode back to the waiting room where Yaxche and Justine were speaking in quiet tones. They looked up at him as he approached.

He summarized what was happening, and said, “Justine, I can’t involve you in this, but I have to get Alex, Kenny and all our Kinemet research away from the Arabian observers.”

It did not take her long to figure out his plan, and she put her own spin on it. “Getting us off the station is only half of it. Alex needs more Kinemet, and I know where there is a tidy little stockpile.”

Michael noted her use of the word ‘us’ and he felt a swell of pride.

Justine said, “Turnabout is fair play. How do you feel about commandeering a pirate ship?”

Yaxche gave them that amused grin as he listened to the translation.

34

Canada Station Three :

Lagrange Point 4 :

Earth Orbit :

Justine knew the assembled Board of Directors for USA, Inc., as well as representatives for NASA and a few generals of the U.S. Armed Forces, would be waiting for her to report to the conference room and link back to Earth with an A/V EPS within the hour. This was only the first of several problems.

She needed to stall for time, but she needed help.

As the three of them neared the infirmary, she said, “We need to take a quick detour.”

Michael turned his head to her, though he didn’t break stride. “Oh?”

“Lieutenant Jeffries and the others should be in here somewhere. Let’s see how they’re doing.”

About to say something, Michael closed his mouth and gave her a slight nod.

They found the lieutenant in one of the rooms where his men where convalescing. Private Genero had a cast on one arm, and Private Hodges had several stitches on his forehead. Only one of the Canadian soldiers stood post outside, and he saluted as the three of them passed by.

The lieutenant stood up as they entered and gave Justine a bright smile. The other two started to rise, but Justine waved them back down.

“Hello, Major,” Lieutenant Jeffries said. “We’re just waiting for one of the doctors to clear us, and then we’re ready for the debriefing.”

“That’s what I’d like to talk to you about,” she said. “I want you to go to the meeting, but tell them I can’t make it.”

“Pardon me, ma’am?”

“Just say that there are some health complications from my being held hostage, and the doctors are keeping me here overnight for observation.”

The lieutenant could clearly see there was nothing wrong with Justine physically, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Something more important has come up,” Justine said. “I can’t tell you what it is, but unless you help me with this, everything we went through on Venus will be for nothing.”

He blinked, then made a decision. “Of course I’ll help.”

“Thank you,” she said, and then spoke to the two privates. “How about you? Are you up for the job?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Private Genero, and Private Hodges nodded as well.

“Good,” she said, “because I’m going to need one of you to be a dummy.”

Private Genero opened his mouth in surprise, but no words came out. Justine smiled at him.

Lieutenant Jeffries laughed. “I think you just volunteered, Vic.”

“If you can spare Private Hodges,” Michael said, “I might need some help in the QR Labs.”

“Wouldn’t Calbert or Raymond have already contacted Kenny?” Justine asked.

“Yeah.” Michael gave her an odd look. “But I have a crazy notion I need to run by him.”

Justine nodded. “All right,” she said to them. “Here’s the plan…”

∞

Justine waited for Lieutenant Jeffries to step out of the room and speak to the Canadian soldier posted at the door.

She shifted her sight to the hall and watched.

“Private Johnson,” the lieutenant said to the young man. “Can you show me the way to the conference room you set up at your headquarters?”

“Uh, just you? Sir?”

“Unfortunately, my men haven’t been cleared medically yet, and I can’t wait any longer.”

“Yes, sir,” the private said, and led Lieutenant Jeffries away.

Justine snapped herself back into the room and nodded to Michael and Private Hodges. “You’re good to go.”

Michael grinned and left the room with the private in tow.

To Yaxche and Private Genero, Justine said, “Let’s get set up.”

∞

Dr. Amma was the only member of the medical staff in Alex’s room when Justine entered. She was silently tapping and swirling her fingers around the haptic control on her holoslate, updating her patient’s chart.

“How is he?” Justine asked in a quiet voice.

The doctor glanced up quickly, and then resumed typing. “If I believed in that kind of thing, I would call it a miracle. It’s another complete remission. Physiologically, he’s in perfect condition. But it’s like his mind has shut down. It’s unprecedented.”

She continued updating her notes, and it seemed to Justine that she was there for the long haul.

Although she needed to be careful when using her Kinemetic talents, in case the station’s sensors detected any anomalies, Justine, with a bare flicker of thought, focused her electropathy on the doctor’s holoslate.

The screen went dead and Dr. Amma jerked her hand back. She shook the tablet, and when that didn’t do anything, she tapped the power node a few times.

“Damn,” she cursed. “If you’ll pardon me. I need to find another holoslate.” With an annoyed set to her face, she hurried out.

Justine watched her disappear down the hall, then signaled in the other direction. Yaxche pushed Private Genero ahead of him in a wheelchair. The private was dressed in a hospital robe and let his head, wrapped with a single bandage that covered half of his face, hang forward, as if he were sleeping.

A duty nurse glanced over as they slowly wheeled their way down the hall, and just as quickly dismissed them.

Once the two were inside Alex’s room, Private Genero got out of his robe and pulled the bandage off his head. With his good arm, he helped Justine dress Alex in the costume and put him in the wheelchair. Then the private arranged himself in Alex’s bed.

“You have to relax,” Justine said as she reached for the diagnostic cables still suctioned to Alex’s chest.

After a moment, Private Genero nodded. “All right. I’m good.”

In a single deft movement, Justine transferred the sensor from Alex to Private Genero, and the diagnostic monitor blipped only once.

Yaxche once again took up duty as wheelchair navigator, and pushed Alex out into the hall.

“Thank you,” Justine said to Private Genero. “And if they try to give you any trouble, just tell them you were under orders and had no idea what was going on.”

“It’s the truth,” Private Genero said with a smile. “Good luck, ma’am.”

Justine gave him one more smile, and then followed after Yaxche.

∞

Things had been progressing according to plan, but as she and Yaxche made their way across the station to the port, their luck took a turn for the worse.

Several uniformed men where hurrying about, setting up a perimeter. Justine couldn’t see any civilians in the area.

“Sorry, folks,” one soldier said, spotting the trio. “We have orders to seal off the area for the rest of the day. If you had a flight, it’s been postponed until tomorrow.”

“No, we were just going for a walk,” Justine said, and smiled benignly. She turned back around and cursed under her breath.

They went back to the main corridor. Yaxche watched her patiently as they walked.

Stepping closer to a communications kiosk, she tried to connect with QR Labs.

A harried looking receptionist answered. “Can I help you?”

“Michael Sanderson, please.”

“I’m sorry. He’s already left.”

Justine pressed her lips together. “By himself?”

The receptionist clearly looked uncomfortable answering the question, but she said, “No, he was with Kenny and a soldier. They were—” Her head moved closer to the camera. “Are you Major Turner?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. Mr. Sanderson left a message in case you called. He said…” She glanced to another screen as if to check her notes. “…‘Look for me.’ ”

The receptionist wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Thank you,” Justine said, and severed the connection.

Using her sight to find one person out of the hundreds on the station would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, so Michael wouldn’t have said that unless he knew she could home in on him somehow.

She took a deep breath and expanded her senses out, and almost right away sensed the signature pattern of an object irradiated from Kinemet.

Focusing on it, she saw Michael, Kenny and Private Hodges pushing a large trolley down the cargo hall two floors beneath her. There was something mechanical on the trolley, but it was covered with a black plastic sheet. Whatever it was, it had come into contact with Kinemet at some point.

She quickly scanned the route to the loading area. There were scatterings of workers, but there was no sign of any soldiers.

“Come on,” she said in a low voice to Yaxche. “We’re going in the back door.”

∞

When she reached the main loading bay doors of the port, Michael and the others were already there waiting.

“I hoped you’d figure it out,” he said to her, and patted the object on the trolley.

“What is it?”

Kenny answered, “It’s a prototype quantum drive. Fully functional. We just need fuel and a few hours to hook it to the ship’s main systems.”

“Where’d you get a quantum drive?”

Kenny smiled. “Don’t forget, Quantum Resources designed the first engine. We were working on an improved version just before you Americans sold your share of Quantum Resources to Canada Corp.” He said it as if he had been a part of the process. Obviously, Kenny felt that the actual date of his enrollment in the company was irrelevant to his personal investment in the organization.

Justine turned to Michael. “You’re not bringing it aboard just to hide it from the UECC and the Arabs, are you?”

“No,” he replied, a wild grin on his face. “We’ve got a ton of Kinemet, a quantum drive, and a pressing need to bring Alex’s body and consciousness back together. You heard Yaxche: Alex’s essence is in a world with three suns. What do you say, are you up for it?”

Justine let out a low whistle at the notion. “We have an untested ship, an untested light-speed drive and an untested pilot. Talk about flying blind.” She gave a little bob of her head and a quick laugh. “Of course I’m up for it.”

∞

They raised a few heads on their way across the deck to where the Ultio waited, but they quickly went back to work. Justine was certain they had far too much to do clearing a bay for the unexpected ship to worry about two uniformed soldiers and two scientists wheeling cargo around.

She was sure someone would ask why they had a Mayan Indian in ceremonial garb following them while they pushed someone in a wheelchair, but they were not stopped.

They arrived at the air-locked loading bridge, which was attached to the ship like a long umbilical, traversed its length, and once they reached the end, Justine and Private Hodges turned the latch to raise the bay door. They all helped maneuver the Quantum Engine inside and back to the engine room.

Justine led the private back to the loading bridge.

“Are you up for one more task?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“If we pull this off, pretty much every country corp., news agency, and police force in Sol System will call us traitors or pirates. I want you to do me a favor—and this goes for Lieutenant Jeffries and Private Genero as well.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t defend us.”

He looked startled. “Pardon me?”

“If you stick up for us, it will incriminate you. I appreciate everything you guys have done, but the last thing I want is for them to prosecute you. I told Private Genero to say he knows nothing; he was just following orders. Same for you.”

“I can’t do that,” he protested.

“Yes you can. You could even tell them I threatened your life. Maybe you three will get lucky and get through this without a court-martial.”

His voice tight with emotion, Private Hodges nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Understood.”

She smiled at him. “Good. Now go find the nearest peace officer and report us to him.”

∞

Canada Station Three was primarily a launching point for Canada’s Space Mining Division. It’s secondary function was as a scientific complex with various wings of the station leased out to interested country corporations who might not have the resources to build their own orbital.

Acting as a waypoint for flights between the Earth and the Moon was a distant third in the station’s mandate.

There was usually a considerable amount of traffic to and from the station, and it was tightly monitored.

When Justine prepped the ion engines of the Ultio, and disengaged the electronic couplings from the loading bridge, it was less than a minute before flight control buzzed in.

“Uh, hello, Ultio. This is CS3 Port Control. You have not been cleared for disembarkation. Please identify yourself.”

Yaxche, sitting in the navigator’s chair, looked at Justine to see what she would do.

Instead of answering the call, Justine continued monitoring the ship systems and adjusting power levels.

Michael and Kenny were in the engine room, attempting to install the Quantum Engine. Justine had secured Alex in the captain’s quarters, and had placed the disc of Kinemet back on his chest.

The port officer spoke with authority. “Please be advised: If you do not identify yourself, we will have no choice but to report your ship. You will be interdicted at any space port you attempt to reach. This is your last warning.”

Yaxche motioned to the speaker. “It is not polite to ignore someone who is talking to you.”

Justine made a face. “I’m sorry, Yaxche. I’m just a little too busy at the moment.”

“May I?” he asked, and Justine nodded in mild surprise. She pointed to the controls on the holoslate.

Yaxche leaned forward, turned the monitor to face him, and tapped the button to turn on the two-way feed.

The port officer blinked, clearly taken aback by what he saw. Yaxche still had not changed out of his ceremonial garb.

“Ahyah,” Yaxche said to the man. “Heloo.”

Finding his voice, the port officer said, “Who are you?”

Yaxche gave the man a toothy grin and, remembering to speak into his translator, said, “I am Yaxche. I am on a journey to the heavens.”

“Uhm. Sir? Are you the only one on board? Can you turn the ship around?”

Yaxche shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sorry, I am not able to do that. This is only the second time I have been in a space ship.”

“Sir, did you press something you weren’t supposed to?” the man asked. “If there is anyone else on that ship, please get them to the console. You need to turn the ship around, right now.”

Yaxche said, “You look upset. Perhaps if you were to practice meditation, you would be happier. I could show you how.”

Frustrated, the man opened his mouth to issue another command, but something off the visual range distracted him, and he leaned away for a moment.

When the port officer turned back, his voice took on a stern tone. “Sir. Mr. Yaxche. I don’t know if you are in control of the ship or not, but I’ve just been informed there is an armed spacecraft on approach. Somehow they are aware of your activities and have issued a warning. Turn around and dock now, or they will pursue and open fire—”

At the last, Justine reached over and severed the communications link with CS3, and quickly ran her fingers over a number of holoslates. When the ship’s diagnostics did not provide her with the information she wanted, she stepped back, closed her eyes and concentrated.

She used her sight to scan in the general direction of the Moon. Her body shook with the effort of straining against the limits of her power, but the oncoming ship was too far away. It was pure instinct that she changed tactic. Although she could not see past the hundred and fifty kilometer range, she could sense any refined Kinemet or any object that was irradiated by Kinemet at a much farther distance. Within a minute, found what she was looking for.

And cursed.

She opened a communications link to the engine room. “Michael. How are you guys coming with the installation?”

His voice was thin, as if he were speaking at a distance away from the microphone. He would have remote activated the communications console. “Uh, we barely got started.”

“I don’t think it’s an Arabian ship,” she said, acid in her voice, “and they’re not coming from Luna.”

“What?”

“I don’t know who they are, but they’re coming from Venus.”

“Venus? Gruber?” Michael asked in speculation.

“I don’t know who it is, but they’ve got weaponized Kinemet on board. I assume it’s been loaded into deep-range missiles.”

“What?” Michael repeated, and stepped into the video frame. The side of his face was smeared with grease and soot. He had a laser iron in his hand. “They’re using Kinemet as a nuclear weapon?”

“Yeah,” she said. “They know we’re on the run, and they know our trajectory. They’re coming straight for us. If they fire their missiles and hit us, the explosion will set off a chain reaction in our Kinemet. We’ll be vaporized.”

“Why would they want to destroy us? Don’t they want the chance to get the secret of the Kinemet from us?”

“Not if they’ve already figured it out and want to shut us up so they can develop the technology first.”

Michael cursed. Then he said, “We’re going as fast as we can, but the Ultio is using a proprietary operating system. Kenny’s rewriting code while I install the engine. You’re going to have to give us at least a couple more hours before we can patch it in.”

“Hold on to something, then,” she said. “I’m going to go to maximum acceleration for two minutes—about three g of thrust. It’ll take their ship at least an hour to course-correct. That should buy you another hour and a half before they are within missile range.”

“Got it.” He broke the link, and Justine’s hands were a blur on the controls.

To Yaxche, she spoke while she worked. “You’ll have to go back and strap Alex in; yourself, too. It’s going to be a rough couple of minutes.”

“Turbulence?” he asked, his face paling.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

∞

Once Justine had ensured all her passengers were secured, she wiggled her fingers over the haptic console and fired the ion propulsion thrusters.

The Ultio was basically a reconditioned space yacht, originally designed for the comfort of its passengers. The military-class vessels used by the U.S. Space Corp used a much more powerful hydrogen engine capable of greater thrust, and Justine guessed that the enemy craft was outfitted with something similar, and could easily overtake them.

After two minutes, the Ultio’s velocity was less than a tenth of what the Orcus ships had been capable of.

They were racing against time, and the worst part was, once Justine disengaged the thrusters, she was completely helpless. There was nothing for her to do but wait and hope Michael and Kenny completed their installation before they were all blasted out of space by their pursuers.

Rather than sit up alone in the cockpit and go stir crazy, she decided to head back and check up on Yaxche and Alex. The captain’s cabin had a bridge monitoring station, so she could keep an eye on things.

When she got there, she found Yaxche sitting in a short legged chair he had pulled close to the captain’s bed. Alex was safely bundled under a web of canvas straps, and though he was perfectly still, his eyes were wide open and unfocused. It was more than a little eerie.

“How’s our patient?” she asked in a quiet tone, as if a loud noise could wake Alex. There was a small nook cut into one bulkhead where a short desk and metal bench chair were installed. She sat down on the seat and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

Yaxche spoke to her, but his eyes were on Alex.

“The spirit world is a sacred place to us. Our priests meditated all their lives in their quest to learn to walk on the path of dreams and commune with the gods. There is a story I remember my grandfather telling me, about one of our holy men who had mastered the gift of entering the spirit world through dreams. He preferred being there to being in our world, and one day he set foot on the path and never returned, though his body remained until his death.”

Justine thought about that. “Are you saying that even if we are able to bring Alex to where his essence is anchored, he may not recover? May not want to come back?”

Yaxche closed his eyes and nodded. “It is my fear. The Song of the Stars is a powerful and mesmerizing thing.”

He spoke the truth, Justine thought to herself. When she had been in a quantized state back on Venus, she had heard the hauntingly beautiful sound that emanated from the planets in Sol System. Each voice was distinct in a majestic symphony. In one of Yaxche’s interviews, he had called it the Music of the Spheres. She suspected this was one way the Kinemats were able to navigate in space.

For a brief moment back then, when Justine had focused her senses outside the limits of Sol System, she had become aware of the pattern of the star beacons she had sensed in the stellar distance. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear the much more powerful and eternal composition of the Song of the Stars.

If the stars were the ethereal voices that had been calling Alex home all these years, why would he ever consider returning to normal space? It would be like having an opportunity to be in heaven. What could the mortal world ever offer in comparison?

Justine was just too new at this to come up with any conclusions, let alone viable theories on the cosmic impact of her and Alex’s transformations. She was not a philosopher or a priest, nor was she a physicist who might better explain what was happening.

“Yaxche,” Justine said after a time. “It occurred to me that we never asked if you wanted to come with us. Worst case scenario, we might all die; best case, if we are able to achieve light speed, it will be over four years before we arrive in Centauri. I apologize for not talking with you before.”

It was the better part of a full minute before Yaxche replied. “I know my daughter loves me, but she has built a life with her husband and her two daughters. She does not have time for an old man like me. I had hoped my grandson, Te’irjiil, would follow in my footsteps and become a caretaker for the Song of the Stars, but after his poor Itzel passed, he drifted away from everyone. Now that he is gone, I have no reason to remain in this world.”

He looked at Alex. “Except for the Sky Traveler. He needs my guidance, and as long as he needs me, I will go where he goes.”

They both fell into an introspective silence then, and without Justine really being aware of it, she started to nod off.

She suddenly sprang awake when the remote monitor sounded an alert.

“Here we go,” she said to no one in particular, and hurried out.

∞

According to the Pulse-Doppler radar system, the enemy ship was closing in at five-thousand kilometers distance. If Justine remembered correctly, the outside range any of the U.S. Space Corp. missiles could be fired in space and still be guided with any measure of reliable control was about two-thousand kilometers. At the speed difference between the two ships, the enemy would reach optimal firing range in less than ten minutes.

Justine called down to the engine room.

“Heads up. We’ve got company. How are you coming along?”

After a long span, Michael answered the communication feed. “Physically, it’s installed,” he said, his eyes showing how exhausted he was. “We calculated how much Kinemet we would need for the trip out there and loaded it in the quantum drive.”

“Perfect,” she said.

“Kenny’s got the initial computer systems up and working, but we’re having trouble calibrating the Kinemetic dampers. There’s some kind of interface issue. If we can’t get it working properly, we’d have a better chance surviving the missile attack.” Unnecessarily, he added, “We’d reach our destination only to blow up thirteen seconds later.”

“What’s the problem?” Justine asked, and endured the harried look Michael gave her.

He scratched at the stubble growing on his jaw. “There’s some kind of delay—about seven seconds—between the generator and the Kinemetic damper. With the five additional seconds it takes for the generator to build up enough power to engage the dampers, that won’t give you time enough to rematerialize from a quantized state and start the generator in the first place.”

Justine laughed, almost too loud, in relieved surprise.

“What?” Michael said.

“There’s no re-materialization on my end,” she said. “That’s the missing piece of the puzzle. I’m fully conscious and aware during quantization. I can start the generator instantly once we arrive. Alex—and the other test candidates—were never fully transformed into a Kinemat, and had no awareness in the quantized state. Seven seconds may not be ideal, but it is more than enough time.”

Michael stood there dumbfounded for a moment, then snapped out of it. “All right, then. I’ll get Kenny to map the control functions to your console. He’ll have to give you a rundown, since it’s a patchwork of commands—”

Justine cut him off.

“Damn,” she said. “They’re not even going to try to parley.”

“What?”

She grimaced. “I can sense a quantity of Kinemet hurtling toward us at high velocity. They’ve launched a missile.”

“Warning shot?” Michael said.

“Can’t chance it,” she said, her voice tight. “Can we engage the quantum drive now?”

Looking off screen a moment, probably at Kenny, Michael finally shook his head. “At least five minutes to finish mapping the controls.”

“We’ll be atoms in two.”

Michael said something more to her, but Justine didn’t hear it. She shut all physical awareness from her mind, and concentrated on pushing her sight out toward the oncoming ship.

At the speed the radar estimated the missile was traveling—a little over one-hundred kilometers per second— it would breach the distance between her outer limit of sight to the Ultio in less than two seconds.

There was a chance she could sense it the moment it came within range of her sight, and if her reaction time was quick enough, she might be able to detonate the warhead before the reacting Kinemet got too close and triggered their own cache of the metal.

She waited … and waited…

Like a lightning strike, the Kinemet burst into her awareness, and for a split-second, she faltered and thought she had missed her chance.

Desperately, she sent her electropathic sense on an intercept course with the missile.

The radar on her holoslate blanked as it was overloaded with feedback.

For a moment, she wondered if she had failed.

Then the Ultio bucked like an angry bronco, and Justine was flung hard into the bank of controls. The bulkhead screamed and the diagnostic console lit up as hundreds of sensors reported the sudden change in conditions.

“What the hell just happened?” someone screamed through the comlink.

“How’s the Kinemet?” Justine called back, holding her hand to the side of her head and struggling back into the pilot’s chair.

“Fine.” Michael appeared on the comlink, wide-eyed. “Did you just do what I think you did?”

“Yeah,” Justine said, still breathing hard. “One warhead destroyed.”

“You all right?” he asked.

She nodded, though her head rang from the movement. “But as soon as they realize their missile didn’t blow us to space junk, they’ll launch two at a time.” She shook her head, wincing. “I can’t stop two.”

Glancing off screen once more, Michael said, “All right. Kenny just finished the final mapping. Check your console. He’s labeled all the commands for you. One to start the generator. Another to engage the damper.”

“Sounds simple enough,” she said, and then sent her sight back out.

After a minute, she saw what she had feared.

“They’ve launched two missiles. They really want us dead.” She did a quick mental calculation. There was most likely less than five seconds before the missiles impacted with their ship.

…four…

“Kenny,” Michael called out immediately. “Are we clear to engage the Drive?”

…three…

“Yeah,” he said, his voice sounding muffled. “I labeled it ‘GO.’ ”

…two…

Without further prompting, Justine reached her finger toward the haptic console and tapped the command button and—

…ONE…

—the universe shifted.

35

Partial Entry From Omnipedia :

Subject: Alpha Centauri :

Alpha Centauri is a binary star system averaging 4.37 light years from the Sun. The distance between the two stars varies during their 79.91 year orbit. A third star, Proxima Centauri, lays about .21 light years from the Alpha Centauri stars, and the three companions are sometimes referred to as a triple star system, though it is not determined whether Proxima Centauri is gravitationally bound with Alpha Centauri A and B.

Due to the significant gravitational effects of the system, no gas giant planets have formed. There is evidence that one or more minor planetoids or comets may have found their way into the system at some point, and may be orbiting at the outer rim of the system.

In 2095, the first attempt to travel to Alpha Centauri failed. Though the light speed ship Quanta completed the journey, a mishap upon arrival in our neighboring system resulted in the destruction of the vessel. The pilot, Captain Alex Manez, survived in an escape pod and returned to our system in mid-2103.

Tap for more…

36

Alien Space Port :

Alpha Centauri :

Four Years Later

—After an eternity of drifting in the purgatory between the material world and the unreality of the quantized state of being, Alex was abruptly ripped back to his corporeal self.

He screamed. The pain tore through his very essence. It was as if every atom in his body had exploded. He couldn’t take the agony—

—and in the nanosecond before he passed out, he welcomed the oncoming blanket of oblivion.

∞

Eons later, or moments for all he knew, reality crashed back in as Alex once more regained consciousness. He could feel a bed under him. There was a musty smell wafting up, and a natural brightness permeated his eyelids. He was in his human state.

Disoriented, he tried to sit up, but gentle hands pushed him back down.

“Easy, now,” a voice whispered in his ear.

Alex tried to speak, but he couldn’t move the muscles in his jaw to open his mouth. He let out a groan.

“Give yourself some time,” someone said. It was a woman, and the voice was familiar. Justine. What is she doing here?

“You’ve been gone for a long time,” she said.

He tried to open his eyes, but they were lidded shut. He managed to open his mouth finally, and this time was able to croak out a question. “What happened?”

A second voice, one that Alex recognized right away, spoke.

Yaxche said, “Sky Traveler, you have been on a long journey in the spirit world. We did not know if you would come back to us, so we traveled a great distance to find you. Now, you are whole once more.”

Fighting against the sudden nausea that rose up as the blood pressure in his head increased, Alex forced his eyes open. It took him a moment to focus, and a few more moments to identify where he was.

He saw Michael, Justine and Yaxche, but his stomach clenched when he realized they were in a cabin on an unfamiliar space yacht.

“Where am I?”

“The Ultio,” said Michael. He reached out and touched Alex’s shoulder. “How are you, my boy? You had us worried.”

“I’m fine, I think.” Alex’s head was clearing, and he was able to sit up without feeling dizzy. “What happened?” He needed to know.

“Well,” Michael said, “it seems you fell into some kind of a fugue state, and your consciousness—Yaxche calls it your dream spirit—was anchored in Centauri System. Kenny’s theory is there was an energy link between you and the alien space port. Probably from when you were here last. Naturally, your Kinemetic consciousness gravitated here.”

Here? Alex’s stomach flip-flopped. “Alpha Centauri?” He stared at Michael. “We’re in the space port?”

“Outside of it, actually,” he said. “We can’t figure out how to get in. You seem very upset, Alex.”

Alex gulped. “Uh … it’s … I mean, the last thing I remember was being on CS3. Now I’m in another solar system. It’s just unexpected.”

Michael gave him a comforting look. “Trust me, I felt the same way. I didn’t experience anything when we were quantized. It was a blink of the eye for us.” He glanced at Justine when he said it.

Justine had a playful smile on her face when she asked Alex, “Are you thirsty?” and reached for a squeeze pack of orange juice beside her without looking.

Alex took it when she offered it to him, and as the liquid hit his tongue he realized he was parched. And starving.

But what had just transpired caused him to look at Justine in surprise. She did not have her optilink on, nor her harness. Yet she had passed him the juice without faltering in the least.

“How did you—?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “Use your sight.”

He did. “You’re … a full Kinemat?” he asked in wonder.

“Yes.” A contented smile on her lips, she nodded. “It was Klaus.” She told him about the hijacking and the experiments.

When she finished her tale, Alex asked her, “You were aware the entire trip here?”

There was a particularly distant look on her face when she nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “It was pretty exciting at first, but after four years and however many months, well…” She fell silent for a moment, and there was a reflection of the pain of loneliness on her face.

“Are you able to sleep?” he asked her, wondering if his insomnia was a typical side-effect.

She shook her head. “No. And that took a while to get used to.” Justine smiled. “We are the same in every way, except that I am aware during quantization.”

Alex, like Michael and every other person who had not been irradiated by charged Kinemet, had no awareness when he was quantized. Again, that proved to him that he was not fully transformed—he was stuck somewhere between human and Kinemat. But he was overjoyed that humankind had made the next step in its chrysalis. Justine had made that transition, though it had been forced on her by Klaus.

Alex asked, “You all came here just for me?”

“Well,” Justine said. “That, and we were kind of chased out of Sol System.”

Alex sat up straighter. “What?”

“Are you up to hearing the rest of the story?” she asked. “We can wait until you’re feeling better.”

Alex shook his head. “Other than needing a sandwich or something else to eat, I’m good. Tell me everything.”

They did, Justine and Michael taking turns relating everything that had happened since Alex had shifted out of consciousness, right up until they arrived in Centauri.

“About seven hours ago, we arrived in orbit around the small planetoid you described. The one with this system’s star beacon,” Michael said. “We scanned the area and found the spaceport you told us about. It only took us about five hours to get here. But now we’re just hovering outside the structure. We hoped you knew how to get in.”

Alex shook his head.

Michael said, “We’ve just been doing scans of the port. It looks like the hangar is only half of this structure. There’s most likely some kind of working and living area on the other side, but we can’t detect any signs of life. We think we found a bay door to the hangar, but can’t figure out how to open it.”

Sometime during the last part of the story, Kenny had arrived. When he spoke, his voice was measured and controlled.

“I managed to rig one of the spectrographic sensors up to the ship’s computers. And I got a reading from the Centauri star beacon.”

When everyone looked at him blankly, his jaw rippled in frustration at his inability to get his point across. “You see, when we first arrived in Alpha Centauri, the beacon went dormant right away. You know. Once we had come out of light speed.”

There was an inscrutable look on his face, but then Alex connected the dots. His eyes widened.

“You were able to link to it now because it’s giving off electromagnetic waves. That means—”

“—Someone’s coming,” Michael and Justine said in unison.

∞

In a group, the four of them rushed out of the cabin and up to the bridge where Kenny had installed the sensors. The spectrographic readout showed an ever-increasing wave signal.

Alex was a little unsteady on his feet, but the food and the hour of rest had done wonders; physically, he was recovering quickly. His heart, however, beat in his chest like a hammer.

Over the past few years, Alex had had plenty of time on his hands to research every aspect of Kinemetic science, and based on the readings he saw, he quickly calculated that whatever the new arrival to the Centauri system was, it would enter normal space in less than five minutes.

Where it would arrive in relation to Centauri’s star beacon and the space dock was unknown. The first time Alex had made the trip here, he’d appeared a little over twenty-thousand kilometers away—a very short distance in astronomical terms. The Ultio had also arrived at the same location. The average ion drive could propel a ship that far in a couple of hours, but Alex didn’t know if it would take the newcomers that long.

He had to tell the others, but couldn’t find his voice. Hope and fear both warred within him.

“Are they coming from Sol System?” Kenny asked. “Did they follow us?”

“Impossible,” Michael said in answer, though the crease in his brow showed that he had a kernel of doubt.

Kenny nodded his agreement. “The only two agencies with full access to quantum drive schematics are Quantum Resources and NASA. The security checks I had to go through to get access after I had been hired were exhaustive. There’ve been informational leaks and technological espionage before, but never on this level.” He glanced at Michael for agreement.

Justine speculated. “Our pursuers had weaponized Kinemet in their warheads. Maybe they’ve developed the tech on their own.”

Kenny turned back to his monitors. “Any geek in their parents’ basement can figure out how to do that. It took Quantum Resources years to develop the first functioning quantum drive. Even if these guys managed to mine their own stash of Kinemet, it would be years before they mastered the technology.”

Justine countered. “Klaus was able to make a leap ahead of us, and he was just one guy.”

Frowning, Kenny gave a terse shake of his head. “He had access to the scroll. I say it’s a ship from out there.”

“Aliens?” Michael said in a breathless voice, his eyes filled with wonder.

“Well,” Kenny said as the graph on the monitor spiked, and then flat-lined, “we’re going to find out very soon.”

∞

If the new arrival was, indeed, the mysterious warship that had chased the Ultio out of Sol System, and they had somehow paralleled Klaus’s experiment and created another Kinemat, then Alex and his friends were in trouble.

But the other possibility was potentially worse.

Alex summoned up the courage and, as the four of them stared at the monitor, he said, “I’m so sorry that I never told you the whole truth.”

At first, no one reacted. It was as if they didn’t understand a word he had said. But then Michael slowly turned his head toward Alex.

“What truth?”

Taking a deep breath, Alex took a step off to the side and looked at the large holoscreen showing a panographic starfield.

He said, “Outside of you and Justine, I’ve never told anyone about the space port in this system, except for the oversight committee representative—and I regret telling him that much.”

“You could have told me,” Kenny said, looking hurt. “I had to find out about this from them.”

Alex flushed. “All I told them was that when I came to this hangar on my last trip out, its automated systems attached a portable quantum drive and sent me home. I didn’t want that knowledge to get out, because it would only lead to more questions that I couldn’t answer.”

“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?” Kenny said, but there was only a hint of reproach in his words.

But it was Michael who guessed the truth. “You made contact.”

Alex nodded. “Yes.”

Justine and Kenny turned as one, mouths agape. “You met an alien?” Kenny asked.

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean ‘sort of’?” Justine asked.

“I mean I don’t know who it was for sure. I didn’t see anything. When I came out of quantization, I was inside the hangar, and the machines were installing the drive. The only part that I left out of my story was the voice message on my console. Once I listened to it, I had to purge it from the ship’s memory.”

“Which is why you blew the storage banks,” Michael said.

“Yes. I panicked and pushed too hard. But I remember the message word-for-word.”

“Your eidetic memory,” Kenny said.

“Yes,” Alex said. “And the message was in Mayan.”

Kenny glanced between Alex and Yaxche. “Mayan?”

Alex nodded, and turned on the ship’s translator. He spoke in Mayan, and the others listened to the English version:

∞

I offer my greetings to you, Sky Traveler. I am Ah Tabai, a Sentinel of the Collection. Our people have waited for a thousand years for humankind to walk the path of light, and journey beyond the boundaries of our home system to join with us.

It saddens me that our reunion must be delayed. I am afraid that I bring a message of despair.

Your world is in extreme danger.

Almost one thousand of your Earth years ago, the Grace vanished without a sign of where they went. They were our leaders, our mentors, our elders and caregivers. An ancient race, they were the ones who built the nexus of star beacons and infused them with their essence. The Grace existed in the galaxy eons before any culture Emerged from their systems. There has long been a legend that the Grace hid the sum of their knowledge in an unknown pre-Emerging star system.

The Kulsat, once the favored of the Grace and one-time heirs to their knowledge and wisdom, have turned aggressive and power hungry. When they’ve become aware of a pre-Emerged system, they’ve scoured them for signs of the Grace and their legacy. They have not hesitated to destroy everything in their path to find what the Grace have hidden.

I have sent instructions to the space port computer to affix a temporary light-speed engine to your ship, and it will send you back to your system. You must avoid traveling ‘outside of light’ at all costs, and refrain from returning to this star system, or the Kulsat may sense you.

With luck, your system will remain undetected long enough so that you may learn to fully Emerge. Only then will you be able to defend yourselves against the Kulsat.

Travel swiftly, Cousin. Go with Grace.

∞

Once Alex finished his recitation, he turned to face his friends. They were all stunned.

Kenny was the first one to break the silence. “Why wouldn’t you share this with us? I mean, confirmation of alien cultures aside, the fact that one of them might invade and destroy us is information I, for one, would like to have had.”

Justine answered before Alex had a chance. “If we did know, the first thing we would have done is work towards improving the quantum drives, and on weaponizing Kinemet. Eventually, someone would notice that much Kinemet being used.”

“It’s more important for us to ‘Emerge’,” Alex said. “You heard his last words. Only once we are Emerged will we be able to defend ourselves. I don’t know what that entails, but I’m sure if there were any other option, Ah Tabai would have mentioned it.”

Michael turned to Yaxche, “He spoke Mayan. The Song of the Stars mentions a time when a great number of your people vanished during a war.”

“Ahyah,” Yaxche said. “The Great War.”

“Then…” Michael started to say, clearly working through the facts.

But before anyone had a chance to add to the conjecture, the ship’s console lit up and an alert sounded. On the holoscreen, the faint twinkling of stars turned pitch black as they were blocked out by an enormous object.

It had taken the Ultio five hours to travel from the star beacon to the space port. The alien ship made the trip in five minutes.

∞

Everyone’s eyes were glued to the holoscreen, watching as the outline of a ship began to coalesce several kilometers away.

“It’s huge,” Kenny said in a hushed voice. “At this magnification, I would say it’s at least fifteen-hundred meters long.”

The architecture of the vessel was unlike any craft Alex had ever seen on Earth. It was as if the metal of the hull were made of pure electricity. It glowed and swirled in continuous motion, a dance of solid energy.

The nose of the vessel extended out in a gently tapering cone. The ship’s body was shaped roughly like a tube, and ended in a long taper at the back. Overall, the vessel somewhat resembled a narwhal.

As the ship neared, Alex was suddenly awash with the overwhelming sensation of Kinemet. He shivered.

“I can feel it, too,” Justine said. “The ship itself is built from Kinemet!”

Once the alien vessel came within half a kilometer, it stopped and floated at that position.

“Is it the Kulsat?” Kenny asked. No one replied. “What are they doing?”

“Maybe they’re scanning us. Wondering who we are,” Michael said.

At the same time, Justine and Alex nodded.

“Yes,” Justine said. “I can…” She gave her head a slight shake. “I don’t know how to describe it. When I try to use my sight, I’m just overwhelmed by the Kinemet out there. It’s like looking directly at the Sun. But, I feel like they are looking at us with the sight. Like they are looking at me—”

Her words were cut off abruptly, and when Alex glanced at her, he saw that she was transforming into quanta before his eyes. There was a look of panic on her face in the moment before she completely turned to light.

Everyone else took a step back as Justine’s essence, her collection of photons, floated toward the monitors and through them. They all flickered out as she passed them, and then came back to life when she was through.

Her photons then continued to drift into the hull of the Ultio and finally out into space. Unconfined by any material barrier, her essence shot toward the alien ship, almost as if she were being sucked in through a vacuum tube.

“What the hell?” Kenny asked.

“It’s not her,” Alex said. “It’s got to be them. They’re taking her.”

Michael gasped. “Why her?”

“She’s the only one of us who is a full Kinemat. I’m incomplete. They probably aren’t even aware of my existence.”

“What are they going to—?” Kenny started to ask, but the hull of the alien ship brightened to a blinding level, and lance of pale light shot out toward the underside of the Ultio.

Kenny screamed, “They’re targeting the engines!”

Before anyone could brace themselves, the impact knocked them all to the floor.

Michael let out a cry as he fell, and it looked as if he might have broken an arm.

The electrical systems in the bridge stuttered. One interface console exploded in a shower of sparks, and a panel on the other side of the room popped off, the wires spitting and hissing.

Yaxche, looking frightened out of his wits, had an arm wrapped around the back of the captain’s chair.

The lights flickered off and on, and the artificial gravity generator failed. Alex lost contact with the floor, and floated up, smacking his head against a control panel.

There was a secondary explosion, and then the ship listed to port.

Just before the holoscreens went dark, Alex saw the alien spacecraft turn away and leave, as if confident their attack had been a fatal enough blow.

Alex held enough hope that that wasn’t the case, right up until the air filters shut down, and the entire electrical system fizzled out.

They were adrift in space. Their ship was disabled, and their life support system was non-functional.

The temperature on the bridge started to drop at an alarming rate.

“Alex,” Michael called out. “Can you do anything?”

He could quantize himself, but he had no awareness in that state. In doing so, he might be able to save himself, but there was no way he could navigate the ship or help the others. He pushed his senses out to see if the electrical system was repairable.

“I’m sorry, the generators and batteries are completely melted.”

“What about the Kinemet?” Kenny said. “If it fissions, that’s all she wrote.”

Alex shook his head, then realized no one could see the motion. “It’s not there. They must have taken it when they took Justine.”

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 travelers 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)

Visit ValmoreDaniels.com