Tao hurried along behind, thinking rapidly. There had to be some way of preventing this. What about getting rid of Sama and reinstating Micha? Was that possible? It might be if enough of the mutineers felt like Jophi.
She was still going through scenarios when they arrived in the data repository, a vast electronic library consisting of floor-to ceiling computers. It was empty except for Jophi and herself, and the Security Chief began to set the parameters of one of the computers to allow Jiao access to the data they needed. Tao tapped Jophi on the arm.
‘Is it safe to talk in here?’ she asked in a low whisper.
‘It’s probably as safe as anywhere, though none of us know where surveillance devices may have been positioned.’ He indicated the computer he’d been working on. ‘I believe the data is now available if your PWC interfaces with this machine.’
‘He’s correct,’ Jiao said in Tao’s head. ‘I’m accessing the data now, along with the El interpretation.’
‘Copy that.’ Tao took one of Jophi’s enormous hands and gazed up at him, trying to make eye-contact. He looked down at her in surprise but made no attempt to pull away. ‘Are you aware that sub-quantal space itself is conscious?’ she said.
Jophi jerked spasmodically and looked shocked.
‘No, that wasn’t part of our original brief.’
Tao contacted Jiao. ‘Is that information contained in the data you’ve just accessed, Jiao?’
‘No sign of it,’ Jiao said. ‘Strange, I would have thought it would have been obvious.’
‘My PWC confirms that this is absent from your data. Yet it’s this data that’s being used to justify Sama’s action against the Founders’ Jophi looked down and didn’t respond so Tao continued. ‘What do you think will happen if Sama “kills” sub-quantal space? I foresee catastrophic consequences.’
Jophi was obviously floundering badly but was still looking for reasons to support the mutiny.
‘You’re relying on the word of the Founders for all this,’ he said. ‘We have no evidence that consciousness is a universal constant.’
‘Then let me prove it to you. We have an expert back on my planet who will be able to analyse both your data and that from the Founders. We should be able to come up with definitive proof of what we need to do to make the universe safe – but we might not be able to do it in five days. Can you keep Sama from firing his weapon until I get back to you?’
‘I’m extremely doubtful.’ Jophi was looking more distressed by the minute, wringing his hands, and twitching his wings in agitation. ‘You saw what Sama is like. I’ll do my best, but I can make no guarantees.’
‘Try and persuade your Science Officer to look for the consciousness waveform in sub-quantal space,’ Tao said. ‘Jiao, have you got Gary’s algorithm and the waveform data that Juliette acquired?’
‘Ready and available to transfer,’ Jiao said.
‘Then do it.’ Tao looked up at Jophi. Our data is now in your depository. I’m sure your Science Officer will be able to make the obvious conclusions.’
‘Thank you – though I’m not sure how Sama will react when he finds out you’ve been trying to indoctrinate members of his crew.’
‘Indoctrinate? That’s not what I’m doing at all. I’m simply …’
Before she could finish, the door to the repository opened and Sama marched in, flanked by three large El.
‘Secure her,’ he said, and before Tao could react, the three El simultaneously fired some sort of guns. There was a moment of distortion, as if she were seeing the scene through frosted glass, then it cleared, and she found to her surprise that she was unharmed.
‘Time to go,’ she telepathed Jiao, and tried to form a time-space-fold out of the ship. There was no response. She tried again but was again unsuccessful. Sama watched her with a small smile of triumph.
‘Your folding tricks won’t work through a folded-space barrier,’ he said.
That didn’t make sense to Tao, because she’d already done it one way and couldn’t see any reason not to repeat it on the home run.
‘It’s the guns those El have trained on you,’ telepathed Jiao. ‘The three together very effectively form a folded-space barrier around you. A personal barrier that must oscillate like the one around the ship for them to be able to see and interact with you. It must use a considerable amount of energy, so I doubt they can keep it up for long. However, there’s also a very effective mentalic blocking field around this ship, so even if the folded-space barrier was discontinued, you still wouldn’t be able to fold.’
‘Copy that. I have my blocker nullifier on my force field, though.’
‘Unfortunately, the blocker in operation here is of a very different nature to the one we’re familiar with. It appears to be generic in nature and works on any form of mentalics, Cthon, Human, or otherwise. Your nullifier won’t work.’
Sama was grinning openly.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said. ‘However, your folding techniques won’t work within our blocking field. I guarantee no harm will come to you, but I can’t have you interfering with my mission. You’ll be held in custody until that’s successfully completed, then you’ll be free to go.’ He spoke to the three El who were restraining her. ‘Take her to the stasis chamber and find her somewhere near Micha.’ He pointed at Jophi. ‘And take this one too.’
‘
Chapter 29
Come on, Sol. Time to get going.’ Deira had already finished breakfast and was pacing impatiently while she waited for Sol to drink his coffee and shift his butt. He glanced at her, saw the way the wind was blowing, and quickly finished up.
‘Sorry. Okay, I’m good to go now.’
‘About time. So, how are you going to do this?’
‘Do what? I’ve collected some functions that I think might be relevant, but there’s a big difference between having the bricks and building the house. Chard, you there, buddy?’
‘As if I wouldn’t be.’ Chard’s voice emerged from his speaker. ‘You realise I have no more idea than you, don’t you? I can give you a logical approach, but I suspect you could work that out for yourself.’
‘Humour me.’ Sol took Deira and guided her to the sofa. ‘Dee, I can’t do anything while you’re pacing. It upsets my equilibrium.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Deira sat, though she still looked like she might leap up again at any moment. ‘Chard,’ she said, ‘you might as well give us some help with this. I know Sol’s perfectly capable of doing it himself, but I also know he’s a lazy SOB when he wants to be – and he’s giving me the strong impression that he wants to be.’
Sol started to protest, then realised there wasn’t much point. He gave up and laid Chard on the coffee table.
‘Come on then, buddy. Give us your suggestions.’
‘I believe you’ll need a copy of Josh’s DNA before you can begin to construct a body,’ Chard said.
‘Makes sense,’ Sol replied. ‘Need a blueprint to work from. I’m damned sure I’d have thought of that.’
‘You can carry on alone if you wish.’
‘No, no. It’s fine. Uh…where do we get his DNA?’
‘That’s the easy bit,’ Deira said. ‘The Agency has a sample.’
‘Yeah, okay. So, what next?’
Chard gave a big sigh. ‘Then you apply the functions you’ve gathered to the DNA template. Do you have a problem with that?’
Sol looked sheepish. ‘Well, I think what I’ve gathered should be useful, but I don’t really know how to start. I’m not even sure I’ve got everything I need.’
‘I thought you knew about these sub-quantal functions.’ Deira was beginning to get frustrated. ‘That’s what you told me.’
‘They’re very familiar,’ Sol said, ‘and I’m reasonably sure about the ones I’ve already gathered, but …’
‘That’s great!’ Deira was pacing angrily now. ‘Here’s me thinking we could make some progress on this while Tao’s away and you’ve been misleading me the whol
e time.’
‘It wasn’t deliberate. I thought I could do it. It’s just … well, now we’re about to begin in earnest, it’s such a huge responsibility. What if I make a mistake?’
Deira suddenly understood and stopped pacing. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘You’re quite right. But couldn’t Chard help with that?’
‘I could’ Chard’s voice sounded less than certain. ‘However, I’ve been experiencing a number of minor malfunctions of late – and this is a very important initiative.’
‘So, you’re worried you might make a mistake too?’ Deira was incredulous. ‘I didn’t know AI’s suffered from confidence issues.’ Chard remained silent and Sol continued to look uncomfortable. This clearly wasn’t going to work for them. What else could they do? Deira had a sudden idea. ‘What about getting Gary involved? He could check your maths as you go along. I’m sure he’d do it, as long as we can get permission from Chayka to borrow him for a while.’
Sol immediately brightened up. ‘That’d probably work,’ he said, ‘We could get Juliette involved too. Seems only fair for her to be around to see her big brother return.’
‘That’s decided then.’ Deira smiled. ‘It’ll be good for you to have some support, and it means everyone will feel involved.’
Once that was decided, they split up – Sol headed off to the Agency to obtain a sample of Josh’s DNA, while Deira visited Chayka to persuade him to let Gary and Juliette go for a couple of days. Surprisingly, he was very amenable. Deira thought he’d probably realised that he was going to be the ongoing recipient of increasing amounts of data on sub-quantal space if he continued to work with the agents. Chayka never did anything that wasn’t in his own best interests. Whatever. In this case, it worked to her advantage too, and it wasn’t long before the three of them, Deira, Juliette and Gary, were standing in the sitting room in the house in Boston. Gary gazed around, captivated, then went to look out of the window.
‘It really is Boston,’ he said.
‘Did you doubt it,’ Deira said. ‘This is what folding’s all about.’
‘I guess so. It’s still a bit hard to take in, though.’
At that moment a portal opened, and Sol stepped through, a big grin on his face.
‘Got the sample,’ he said, then he spotted the other two. ‘Jules! Gary! Good to see you both.’ He hugged Juliette and shook hands with Gary. ‘Now we can really motor.’
‘Just give Gary a minute or two to get over his folding experience,’ Deira said. ‘Why don’t you all sit down, and I’ll get us some drinks. Then Gary can look at those sub-quantal functions.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Juliette asked. ‘I know I’m not as mentalically advanced as you two, but surely there’s something?’
Deira smiled. ‘I hadn’t forgotten you, hon. I thought you might like to look at the DNA sample and see whether you can do anything with it to make it mentalically accessible. I think your Dad’s going to need it in that form to be able to make any progress.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure I can do that.’
Juliette looked flushed and excited, and Deira smiled see her so engaged. It was good to think they were doing something that might help Joss – no, be positive, she told herself, it would help Josh. She collected the drinks and took them back to the living room, where she found Sol and Gary already having a conversation about sub-quantal mathematics. She beckoned Juliette, and the two women silently took themselves off to the dining room.
‘Okay,’ Deira began, ‘So, we need to create a mentalic DNA construct from the physical DNA sample. Want to give it a try?’
Juliette nodded enthusiastically and immersed to alpha-normal. This was as far as she’d got with mentalic development – though she’d achieved it in spades when she’d managed to hold the portal open on Mars to allow the entire population of Mars Base to escape. This new task was a whole different ball-game.
She mentalically scanned the DNA and internalised it, discovering it possessed its own unique signature. Not only that, but having identified it once, it now seemed to have become part of her mentalic architecture, so she’d always be able to recognise it from now on. This must be what Tao had been talking about when she’d first been trapped in sub-quantal space and had used Juliette’s DNA signature to alert them to her plight. So, that was easy. It looked like she’d get this done pretty quickly.
She soon discovered the next step was considerably more difficult than she’d first thought. She knew she needed to somehow convert the DNA signature into a mentalic construct that could be used as a blueprint for Josh’s new body, but she simply couldn’t see how to do that. The DNA signature seemed to be scattered all over her brainwaves, giving her nothing to get a figurative grip on and, in the end, she gave up in disgust. She needed a break.
Deira was watching her when she emerged and could see she wasn’t happy.
‘Problem, hon?’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ Juliette explained where she’d got to, and Deira’s ears pricked up at her description of the DNA signature.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I should have told you. When I was constructing Tao’s DNA beacon, Jiao told me the thing had to be put together like a jigsaw, a section coming from every level, including the infra-low. It’ll be the same with this DNA template.’
‘That makes sense,’ Juliette said, suddenly feeling more hopeful. ‘It felt like it was coming from all over and I couldn’t work out why that would be. I’ll go back in.’
Deira put a restraining hand on her arm.
‘Just a second. You’ve never gone below alpha-normal, have you?’
‘No. But I’m sure I could.’
‘I’m sure you could too but learning about your levels is a task in its own right. I’m not sure you’re ready to go further than that.’
Juliette put on her stubborn face. ‘Just give me a chance, Mum. If I get stuck, I can always come back out and let you take over.’
‘You’re right.’ Deira recognised the look. It wasn’t that different to her own when she was hell-bent on something and she knew she should be letting go a little. ‘I’m being over-protective. Just take care. You’ll need to go to the infra-low as part of this exercise and you must avoid the tentacle that lurks round the hole at the bottom. If the final piece seems to be anywhere near there, abandon things and come back out. I don’t want to lose you in sub-quantal space too.’
‘Okay, Mum. I promise I’ll be careful.’ Juliette positively glowed with excitement.
‘Just a minute.’ Deira walked into the living room and came back with Chard. ‘Take hold of Chard, hon. He’s agreed to give you the stimulus to get you out of the infra-low.’ She glanced at the time. ‘Since this is your first time doing this sort of thing, I’ll give you twenty minutes in total. Sound reasonable?’ Juliette nodded and looked excited all over again. ‘Okay. Off you go then.’
Juliette immersed. Now she knew what to do, she found the actual collection of the parts of the DNA construct relatively easy. It was finding out about the various levels that was the interesting bit, and she could easily have spent a considerable amount longer than twenty minutes just exploring. It was probably lucky that she had the time constraint, because it kept her focused, and by the time Chard applied the stimulus, she’d collected what she needed. She rapidly assembled the construct in alpha-normal and left it there, emerging triumphantly. The look on her face told Deira what she wanted to know.
‘Well done!’ she said, hugging Juliette tight. ‘That was a fine example of mentalic development. You should be very proud of yourself.’
Juliette beamed. ‘It was great,’ she said. ‘Now I’ve done it once, I can do it again when I’m on my own. Explore a bit.’
‘Deira frowned. ‘I think we need to have a little discussion about that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, but you need to be aware of the dangers at each level. And you should never go to the infra-low unless you have an AI to get you out again. Promise me that, at least.’
‘I promise.
Honest.’
‘Okay.’ Deira smiled and hugged her again. ‘Let’s go and see how the guys are doing.’
Chapter 30
Tao was led along the corridor to the stasis chambers, Sama taking the lead while the other three El positioned themselves to either side and behind, carefully keeping their folded-space guns trained on her as they went. She glanced down at Jiao, untouched in her holster, and wondered whether the folded-space barrier around her extended beyond the PCW. Only one way to find out.
‘Are you there, Jiao?’ she asked telepathically.
‘I am. I assume the barrier extends beyond my holster or we wouldn’t be able to communicate.’
‘Any ideas how to get out of this? I can’t allow them to put me in stasis. I’ve got to prevent that weapon being deployed.’
‘Copy that. However, I can’t think of an immediate solution.’
‘You mentioned that mentalic blocker around the ship. Do you know where the generator for that field is?’
‘Indeed. It’s clearly marked on the map of the ship. It’s back in the direction we’ve just come. A room only a few minutes’ away at a fast run.’
‘Good. Next question – do I have access to the laser?’
‘You could activate the laser, but it would be useless with the barrier around us. There might be an opportunity to use it when they put you in the stasis chamber. They’ll have to discontinue the folded-space barrier briefly at that time.’
‘That’ll have to do. How long do you estimate I’ll have?’
‘Sama will undoubtedly try to activate the stasis chamber almost synchronously with the discontinuation of the barrier. I would say you’ll have milliseconds at most.’
‘Not long enough, even with combat mode fully established. Okay, what else?’
‘You could re-enter sub-quantal space and get a message through to Deira and Sol.’
‘I guess that’s an option, but it still leaves the real me stuck here in stasis, no use to anybody.’
Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Page 23
