by Thadd Evans
I broke into a cold sweat. If someone kept sending these viruses into the ship’s instruments, we couldn’t fly out of the gorge.
At the bottom of the accelerometer, text brightened. Engine plasma has just reached nine hundred thousand degrees Fahrenheit. In a few moments, ST7 would be ready for lift off.
I glanced to the right.
Several feet away, Yeliv’s ghostly figure, a distorted outline that was filled with twisting shapes, appeared. He kept staring at me as his mouth opened wider. His outline and the shapes flickered—vanished.
“Yeliv, I can’t see you anymore because you’re cloaked. Unfortunately, you were speaking so softly that it was impossible to understand you.
“Anyway, Yar, Greg, everyone, we’re going to take off now. If I don’t, we’ll never get out of the Xah Gorge.”
The altimeter hummed louder. Nobody said a word.
“Paley, I can’t see you. Are you aboard?”
“I…” someone murmured and the sound trailed off.
“Who said that? I can’t make out what you are saying. Speak up.”
“What.”
“The telescopes drowned out most of your comment. Can you repeat that?”
“I’m…”
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t hear most of that either.
“Nianda, are you there?”
“I can…”
I took a deep breath, frustrated.
A distorted red, orange, and yellow Doppler scan, a hazy outline of someone’s shoulders, popped up, then drifted away like smoke. A stranger had destroyed the outline with a phased scan.
There was another problem. An LN ship might land in the Xah any moment.
Nianda’s ghostly figure materialized. After giving me a thumbs up, her body, from the waist up, dimmed.
“Everyone should go to their seats now because we’re going to take off soon. I hope all of you can hear me,” I said.
Silence.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
On screen, the barometric readings increased. The outside air pressure was high enough to keep the ship aloft. It dropped 1 percent. If the air pressure went down 3 percent more, ST7 would drop like a rock and crash.
At the bottom of a monitor, text enlarged. Nine of the mirrors inside the server are out of alignment. That wasn’t a serious problem, but I would have to adjust them before we reached Icir.
I placed the L21 in my chest pocket. If I didn’t eject it into space before we reached Icir, another starship’s scanner would detect the pistol, and someone would shoot us down because they would assume that we were pirates or mercenaries.
A hand gently patted my right shoulder. I glanced in that direction, but only saw an empty room.
An invisible hand placed a piece of paper on my leg. I grabbed it and started reading.
Jason:
I saw you for a second. Then you disappeared. But I can’t hear you.
I can’t see anyone else. They may be cloaked. Perhaps they’re still outside.
I’m going to the passenger compartment, sit down and prepare for take off.
Thank you for help,
Yar—it disappeared.
I reached out and grasped thin air. Although I wanted to shake Yar’s hand, she had left the room.
I glanced at my robotic left hand, wondering if the numb small finger on that appendage was damaged, and noticed layers of photonic cables, and biopolymer muscles. All the skin on the pinky finger and palm had come off.
The main engine roared louder. Narrrrr.
I glanced to the right.
Greg’s chair was empty, but his ghostly figure materialized as he sat down. Greg peered at me, an irritated expression on his face, then he disappeared.
I stared straight ahead. According to the accelerometer, the engine cooling fans were rotating faster—my body jerked down as ST7 lifted.
Near the edge of a screen, the starboard wing tip moved toward a cliff.
I shoved my hand through floating syntax. Starw.t.s2.
A tiny starboard engine popped on, then shut off. At the same time, the ship lurched toward the center of the Xah as my body jerked.
The port wing tip was about to smash into a protruding boulder.
I shoved my fingers through object language. Portw.t.s2.
The tiny port engines switched on briefly. The ship glided starboard and the port wing tip missed the boulder by inches.
Smoke, a cloaking mechanism, appeared, blocking out the accelerometer, the rest of the instruments, the floor, and the ceiling. A team of programmers didn’t want me to see the gorge.
“Ey.inf.on,” I shouted. My robotic left eye switched to infrared. Now I could see the accelerometer and the rest of the instruments.
Near the corner of a maroon screen, ninety feet directly above the port wing tip, several massive icicles were directly in our way.
I stuck my fingers through computer code.
The ship flew starboard—the port wing smashed through the smallest icicle!
Hundreds of water droplets, phased infrared signals, another cloaking device, came into view, obscuring the accelerometer and other instruments.
My left eye switched to extreme x-ray. Text scrolled, indicating that this mode had been activated. Ey.exr.on. Within an instant, the signals dissipated.
Dust, more cloaking, multiplied, covering up the screen and every instrument.
Chills ran up my spine because I had used every mode to overcome the cloaking device. There weren’t any other options left. Any second, the ship might smash into a cliff.
The particles vanished.
But I didn’t know why.
To my right, Greg’s chair creaked. I glanced in that direction.
He, a fuzzy silhouette that kept flickering, was seated. Greg pushed both hands through columns of floating computer syntax, a meaningless gesture.
“Can you hear anything I say?” I yelled.
“Ba…” a distorted whisper replied and cut out.
“That wasn’t loud enough. Who said that?”
He didn’t respond.
His arms began fading. Suddenly, he became opaque. “Jason, I’m…” The response was replaced by static.
“I only heard part of that. What did you say?”
“An optical light programmer has sent forty-one phased signals.” A crackling sound drowned out the rest of his statement.
“I only heard a portion of your comment. Say it again.”
“Okay. I’ve obliterated all those signals with phased responses. But it’s hard to keep up with him.”
“To keep up with him or what? I couldn’t make out anything you mentioned after that. Can you hear me?”
Silence.
In order to cancel a phased signal, a modulating wave, a structure with ridges and troughs, you had to create a matching signal, one that was the exact same size as the original phased signal. Unfortunately, creating it was difficult because waves changed constantly, like moving water.
Near the edge of the screen, wind blown ice chunks hit ST7’s nose, and we rose above the Xah!
At the bottom of monitor, half a mile above us, two LN disk shaped interstellar craft veered port, coming this way.
“Those LN may be holograms or the real thing. It’s hard to say,” Greg announced as he materialized, seated.
The ships turned blue, blending in with the sky.
“Perhaps they activated their cloaking shields,” I said.
“They could have done that. But I don’t have enough time to scan them. In the next few moments, I’ll send another computer virus into a server that is at the bottom of the gorge. If I don’t, a programmer who is near the platform will transmit worms and viruses into our telescopes, making it impossible to reach Icir.”
“Got it.”
“Yar, are you in the passenger compartment?” I announced, speaking into my tablet.
“Yes.”
“Is everybody aboard?” I paused, listening.
“Everybody bu
t Paley,” Yar replied.
I shook my head, disappointed. I hated leaving him behind.
“Can we go back and pick him up?” Yar lapsed into silence.
“No, we barely got out of the Xah alive. If we return, the ship will smash into a cliff.”
“That’s too bad. He was an honorable man,” Yar responded, an unhappy tone.
Greg announced, “Ambassador Yar. Somebody in the Xah was using us as guinea pigs. My guess is that we delivered a transmitter. Then Pohum and a team of programmers started sending those holograms of Bemme because they wanted to see if the transmitters functioned correctly.”
“What kind of transmitter does that?” She sounded surprised.
“It’s a particle converter. In this case, it kept altering electrons throughout ST Seven, and those particles cancelled out RGB, visible to the naked eye, light.”
“When Jason saw Bemme’s body, what created the corpse?” Yeliv’s question came out of our earplugs.
“I believe that Bemme’s body consisted of floating iron particles, tiny pieces held in place by a magnetic field. “ I hesitated, thinking. “If her body was a hologram, my flashlight beam would have gone through it.”
“Jason, how could those particles be so realistic?” Yeliv muttered to himself in Gdii, words my HMR could decipher.
“Years ago, when were on Red Ten, I over heard a couple of Aito, engineers who were talking about multifaceted particles, tiny icosahedrons, fragments that could be joined temporarily at the sides to create millions of different shapes.
“According to them, the icosahedrons wouldn’t break apart because they were held in place by a magnetic field. However, if the field wasn’t strong enough, pinchers, structures inside each icosahedrons, would pop out, and go inside the adjacent icosahedrons.”
Greg turned toward me. “How did the engineers manage to create such a realistic corpse with those particles?”
“Months later, while studying a database, I found out that the icosahedrons, structures consisting of twenty equilateral triangles, all with different colors, can unlock and rotate, creating a realistic shape.”
Greg scowled. “It’s hard to believe that this device exists. If it does, wouldn’t high winds blow the iron particles away?”
I nodded. “They might. Unfortunately, I only studied Bemme’s torso for a few moments, before the wind started blowing harder. Also, because it was dark, spotting any improperly formed iron particles would be difficult.”
Greg frowned, weighing his thoughts.
“By the way, I think that team of physicists cloaked ST Seven with a quantum hologram because they wanted to steal it.” I exhaled, releasing tension.
“Stealing this ship makes sense. It’s fast,” Yeliv said.
“Were those Eaarting buildings real? “ I cleared my throat. “They might be RGB holograms, structures consisting of wavelengths from about three hundred eighty to seventy fifty nanometers, illusions partly obscured by SRG Fourteen and SRG Sixteen?”
“Good question,” Greg replied. “There wasn’t enough time to study their oscillations thoroughly. If they moved in one direction, traveling on a single plane, or the oscillations rotated, then went to the right or left, that would indicate that they were light, not real Eaarting buildings or Eaarting humanoids. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.”
Every one else remained silent.
I shifted in my seat. “What about those Aito men and women, the aliens who were close to the Eaarting high-rises? Based on this recent analysis of phased light waves, my guess is that they were just RGB holograms, not real Aito.”
“Jason, I think you’re right.” Yeliv sighed.
Greg looked at me. “I have another theory. Those programmers transmitted phased signals into your hippocampus because they wanted to know if you alone would see them. And since that was the case, they discovered that their transmitter functioned properly.”
“It’s too bad that they were so ruthless.” I grimaced, unpleasantly surprised. The statement was probably correct.
“Yes, it is.” Greg shook his head, disgusted. “It’s impossible to prove, but my theory is the inhabitants of the Xah have been invaded so many times that they use these devices on anybody who comes close to Solo. They want to perfect the holograms. Even if it means killing us or anybody else, they will do it because they’re afraid that someone will conquer and enslave them.”
Yeliv announced, “I think Greg is right about those physicists and software programmers using those devices to protect themselves. No one wants to be conquered and enslaved.”
On my screen, clouds swept over a massive peak. The LN ships didn’t appear.
“Was that a real LN fleet or were they holograms?” I squinted, trying to see recently parsed numbers more clearly.
“There were a lot of them. They had to be real,” Greg pointed at his screen. “Those programmers couldn’t create anything that big.”
“What about those two LN spacecrafts, the vessels that just vanished?” I glanced at him.
“That’s hard to say.” Greg’s eyes opened wider. “Wait a second. According to my latest extreme x-ray, they were holograms.”
“What if the real LN ships landed on a peak?” I began studying a monitor, one that was connected to the spectrometer.
“You may be right,” Greg responded. “Time will tell. If they fire a missile at us, that will prove they’re real.”
My stomach muscles tightened. I was waiting for an LN ship to show up on screen. As the engine boomed louder, ST7 veered port, flying toward Icir.
Several days later, I entered the passenger compartment to see how all the passengers were doing. “Yar, will your facial tattoos ever reappear?”
She peered at me, her mouth frowning. “Probably not. Because of the extreme cold, Bemme, and the LN robot invasion, my face and eyes turned white. If we reach a desert and pirates, mercenaries, or robots come after us, my face and suit will change color. That would make it harder for them to find me.”
I nodded. “Good idea.”
Notes
Wikipedia articles inspired some of the technical data, PCR, interferometric telescopes and other information.
About the author
I live in a nondescript three-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, a place that is located on a busy street. During the day, I work in market research, conducting phone surveys and recruiting for focus groups. On my days off, I write. Because I’ve studied Chaos Theory, quantum mechanics, psychology, language, robotics and artificial intelligence for years as hobby, these topics show up in my science fiction novels.
