Unknown

by Microsoft Office User

  He looked straight into Lara's eyes, but she didn't really think they were making contact. “I believe I was reading ... no, I was watching WorldNet just a day or so back. Saw a piece on this American scientist. Kreveld, I think. Wants to build ... a great big ship. Real big. Go to the stars. I wonder. Good idea, you think?”

  “We're on that great big ship,” she said, placing a gentle hand to Navarro's face. “You are the captain. The one in charge. And we went to the stars and now we're home. But we still have more work to do, and I could really use your help, Captain Navarro.”

  He looked away, then down to the floor, and Lara saw water well up in the corner of one eye.

  “Captain?”

  She wasn't sure if the expression was borne out of confusion, fear or both. His voice slurred. “So far away. So far away.”

  The water fell upon his cheek as a tear, and Lara fought her own desire to cry.

  “This isn't like the last times I came here, Captain. I need your attention right this minute. I just don't have much time.”

  He cried some more. “All we try is all we know, and then we drift so far away. So far, so far. Away again, so far away ...”

  She couldn't do this any longer. She spent an hour with him previously trying to figure out that riddle, but she couldn't afford that kind of patience today. She kissed him on the cheek, helped him back onto his pillow and started for the door, realizing she should pay more attention to Mifuro's insight and Daniel's advice.

  “Dim light,” she ordered, and the room's brightness was trimmed.

  As Lara pressed her hand against the printlock, and the door slipped open, she heard rustling behind her, and then a footstep. She turned to see Navarro upright and wiping away a tear.

  “Captain?”

  This time when their eyes met, Lara felt genuine physical contact.

  “It's difficult to see through this fog,” he began. “It may return any moment, so I have to be quick. A short while ago, while the fog vanished, I managed to open a channel to the command deck. I listened. I'm aware of your situation, Lara.”

  Each hand was to his side, balled into a tight fist. Lara stepped toward him, fearful he was about to keel over.

  “I fear we’re entering a scenario beyond any we could have imagined. My instinct is that there lies before us a very strong danger. Remember when we came upon Centauri III? Remember the mistakes we made, the assumptions that led us into disaster?”

  Lara nodded. Navarro's eyes began to blink rapidly, and she saw the fog returning.

  “Guard against all possibilities, no matter how improbable, Lara. Consider nothing nothing beyond reason. Vig ... be vigilant.”

  And then, suddenly, the blinking stopped. Lara frowned upon that distinctively empty stare. She helped Navarro back into bed, told him to sleep. He nodded, then smiled, closed his eyes.

  Lara looked back into the doorway. Navarro gathered up his body; in his crumpled white bodysuit, he looked to Lara like a child.

  As the door slipped shut, she heard the words again. “All we try is all we know and then we drift ...”

  6

  A

  s the sun began to peer over the horizon, and the first weary passengers stepped onboard the AirTrains of the Atlanta Federated District, the most powerful man in North America was trying to get at least one more hour of sleep.

  He failed.

  The notification of a priority link into his stream chip began as the most gentle of chimes whispering through his mind. They grew steadily louder, until Sir Jonathan Travert finally opened his eyes and was ready to acknowledge that someone was interrupting him on his private link.

  “SS link, personal line, audio only,” he managed through a yawn, felt a click inside his head, then began the conversation. “Travert here! Please give me an excellent reason not to have you killed.”

  “You asked me to link with you as soon as the timetable was set, sir,” a much younger and somewhat timid voice responded inside Travert’s mind.

  When the president of the Pan American Community recognized the voice, his eyes widened considerably, and his head lifted from the pillow. “Yes. Go on.”

  “Our final stage is in progress. She’ll reach orbit, but that’s as far as she goes. We’re 12 hours out, sir.”

  The president removed sleepers from his eyes, then nodded. “That’s good to hear. Containment on the message remains secure?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  “And the other consideration?”

  “Our sources confirm everything. We recommend you proceed.”

  Travert looked over his shoulder to the woman next to him. She was just beginning to stir, and he offered a confident smile.

  “Excellent news. Don’t call again, or I might have you killed after all. End link.”

  The woman pushed the blankets off her, and she groaned of satisfaction as she stretched all her naked limbs, then offered the president a wide smile full of ivory.

  “Time to play, is it?” She asked.

  “Are you ready for your first game, Dana? It’s a big one.”

  The woman, half Travert’s age, pushed herself up and kissed him, tongue included. “I’ve been waiting years for the invitation.”

  “Then let’s get busy.”

  She strolled into the bathroom and shouted back: “Thank you, Daddy! This is going to be great fun.”

  7

  A

  drenaline was her fuel. Lara Singer was into her 23rd hour without sleep and was beginning to wonder when the exhaustion would kick in. Other than her head, nothing ached. This was rather surprising inasmuch as she had spent so much time venturing up, down and across this massive vessel. Not all of the chores could be accommodated via SlipTube. There were ladders to climb, steep corridors to scale. The ship's design was tortuous in places, but Lara had, by necessity, mastered those intricacies.

  She was proud of that, knowing Captain Navarro expected nothing less.

  With less than an hour to go before most of Andorran’s crew was to meet to discuss its predicament, she joined Mifuro on the command deck and prepared another greeting. She knew this was one hell of a long shot. When she finished, Lara dismissed Mifuro, insisting he take a meal break.

  She was glad to have at least a moment alone, and she became instantly entranced by the forward spectacle. Earth's spectacular patterns of white fabric snaking ponderously over a myriad geometry of blues, greens and browns filled nearly half of the viewport. Andorran was close enough, Lara knew, that if she sat still for a long time she could see lands slowly crossing the terminal line into darkness.

  The continent she was focused upon was shrouded beneath heavy cloud cover. But Lara recognized Africa, more than half of it lost in the night. It would only be a matter of minutes before the east coasts of the Americas would come into view. She thought of home, even though she warned herself against it.

  Long Beach, California.

  She giggled.

  Home? That was a relative word. Long Beach was no more than the last city in which she spent more than six months at the same address. She missed nothing from those times except Mike, the beagle she gave to an elderly neighbor before reporting to Orion Base. She wondered whether he lived a long, happy life.

  Lara became tense, her frustration intensifying as hours passed without a response from Earth.

  A pair of firm hands grabbed hold of her shoulders and began to massage them. Lara closed her eyes and sighed.

  “Your timing is wonderful,” she whispered, and Daniel bent down, kissed her.

  “You ready to face the rest of them in the Commons?” He asked.

  “If I’m not, I know you’ll be there to pick me up if I crap out.”

  “You keep your poise, and I'm sure you’ll come through. It's been quite some time since the crew has been together in one room.”

  Lara rose from her swivel, put her arms around his waist. “Thank you,” she whispered, and t
hey embraced in a long, deep kiss.

  “Where's Mifuro?”

  “Galley. I practically had to order him to get something to eat. He's very devoted to his station.”

  “He's a good man,” Daniel smiled. They kissed again, but with more passion.

  Lara allowed his hands to wander across her body, his lips over her face, along her neck and behind her ears. He squeezed one of her breasts, and she laughed.

  She turned around and faced the viewport, Daniel's arms wrapped around her belly. “There could be so much for us down there,” she said. “The past eight months, they were just a beginning. Weren't they?”

  “You know they were.”

  They stood together in silence for the next couple of minutes, and Lara tried to think only of the positive. She was in his arms, she had his love, his protection. But that wasn't enough to wash away the reality – or Navarro’s warning.

  “I wonder,” she said. “What if there is some simple, logical explanation to what's happening here? And we arrive on Earth. The conquering star travelers returned! Heroes, they might call us.”

  “Very possible.”

  “But then we have to make them face what is almost certainly coming. What name will they give to us then? None of it would have happened if we'd not left Earth in the first place. How do we tell them we might have become their executioners?”

  Daniel said something, but the words didn't register. Lara was consumed by her own dreadful thoughts. She did well to keep these emotions secure for the return voyage, and was surprised that at this moment when she should have felt so secure, these horrid notions finally overcame her.

  Again, her mind called out to Earth.

  But the planet was mute.

  8

  T

  he discovery that made Andorran possible was now more than a century old.

  It was two days before Christmas, 2030, when Alexander Andorran stumbled upon the Ion Resonance Field.

  But that find didn't create enough of a stir, so four years later he theorized that if an IRF of sufficient mass was produced in a vacuum, and then bombarded with a high-density tachyon field, the explosion could accelerate a spacecraft toward the speed of light, perhaps even to the great barrier itself.

  Andorran died 25 years before researchers aboard the space station Miyawa validated the theory by producing a simulated explosion caused by the collision of hydrogen and a massive tachyon stream inside the IRF.

  Three years after that, a man of outrageous fortune named Richard Kreveld announced to the world his dream of a spacecraft capable of near-light speed.

  After 114 years and more than $3 trillion, the deep-space vessel Andorran was closing in on orbital rendezvous with the home world of its creators.

  Depending upon one's perspective, Andorran was either the most beautiful or one of the ugliest creatures humanity ever concocted. Her mainframe of living and working areas was a convolution of interlocking structures – cylindrical, oblong, spherical, globular, tetrahedral. They intertwined for more than half a kilometer, connected by a series of tubes and buttresses. Communications and survey dishes jutted from this mix, situated proudly on the end of long spires.

  But the key to success could be found in the ion scoops, each of the three of them more than a kilometer in diameter. Collectively, they outsized the mainframe 10 to 1, each of them joined at a bulbous housing that contained the Ion Propulsion Generator. The IPG was itself connected to the mainframe by a single service bridge and four couplings, each more than 200 meters long. The mainframe, tiny and confused, seemed to drag the vast scoops through space.

  Inside the mainframe, the Commons was its most crowded in 15 years, as seven of Andorran’s 10 survivors gathered to consider a scenario they never anticipated. The last time they met here, they asked the important questions in the wake of the Centauri III fiasco. What to do about Navarro? Did they make the right decision regarding Pousson? How should they memorialize him? Who should be captain?

  That was when Lara received the mandated field promotion.

  The tone then was funereal; this should have been celebratory. Lara hoped to find a middle ground.

  The Commons was the most comfortable setting for uncomfortable discussion. This giant oval chamber of distinct blacks and whites was the most frequented section of Andorran. Within the bleached walls were the galley, a pair of LitReaders (for the viop zealot who could handle 100 novels in a couple of hours), and the committee table, which was long and square, darker than coal and housing a central viop sphere.

  Lara cleared her throat.

  “Everyone is aware of our problem. But here is the latest I have from Mifuro. We are continuing to replay our greeting on a three-minute cycle, delivered on all known frequencies. Our hails are reaching the planet. What we have to determine is why there is no response and what further steps we should take.” She looked uneasily across the table. “I'm open to any and all ideas.”

  After a pause, Dr. Olivia Jorgennson spoke. “So far, what theories have you been able to eliminate?”

  “Very few, I'm afraid,” she told the Norwegian. “We do know certain basics – there’s high technological activity, billions of people on the surface, point-to-point communication across the planet. We just haven't been able to intercept any of those transmissions. So we know we haven't returned to a dead planet. Beyond that, there are any number of possibilities.”

  And then, there was a new voice: “You are positive there really is civilization down there?”

  The question stunned Lara and turned heads. Amid the grumbles and chuckles, Peter Stewart added to his question: “What I mean to say is, are we certain the ship's computer is giving us an accurate portrayal of the planet?”

  The responses overlapped: “But of course! What kind of logic is that? You've been asleep too long.”

  Lara wasn't sure whether Peter was serious. She'd never been able to get a good read on the man, his eyes rarely giving anything away. They were practically camouflaged in a myriad of facial distractions. Beneath his thick, apricot hair was a face splashed with freckles and highlighted by a dense mustache.

  “What would make you think the computer could be wrong about this?” She asked Peter.

  “Not wrong, so much, as deceptive.” His eyes panned the breadth of the table. “During most of the 35 days we were down on Centauri III, there were Fyal bastards on this ship. Who's to say they didn't make adjustments to the system during that time? Especially at the end, when we know they were ready to have their way with us.”

  “Not possible,” Boris Leonov and Mifuro Nakahita said.

  “No?” Peter responded. “How can you be so certain? They had the intelligence for it, and most likely the access.”

  “But for what purpose?” Mifuro asked.

  “I can't answer that. But as we discovered, the Fyal were masters of deception.”

  “No, is not realistic,” Boris chimed. “They did not plan for us to leave there, ever. What is the reason to alter Andorran's programming?”

  “Protection for them, if we did escape,” Peter waved. “I never said my theory was less than far-fetched. But Lara did say she was open to all ideas.”

  Fran Conner cleared her throat. “I can dispel your notion right there, Pete. I reviewed the latest biosurvey of the planet right before we got together. Vegetation distribution and CO2 levels, agricultural disruption, ozone intensity and meteorological patterns are all at levels consistent with what we would expect to find, based on the ship's original computer model.

  “And I hate to nullify your computer argument, Pete, but I managed a short visual comparison with the meteorological data the computer was feeding. The computer might be able to fool us, folks, but not these eyes of mine. That's Earth down there, exactly as we would have expected to find it.”

  Fran shared a knowing smile with Daniel Loche. Officially, it was Daniel's responsibility to summarize the non-biological data. He was, after all,
chief science officer. But Lara knew her lover didn't mind the intrusion. Fran had a greater knowledge of the planet at-large than anyone else of the crew. Her specialty was plants and animals; her preference was to have all the answers.

  “I can put together a quick viop demonstration,” Fran said.

  Fran was a short, thin woman, her face gaunt, her complexion not unlike taut rubber. Her eyes were deeply inset and suggested she was into her second month of fasting. The reality was quite different. This was a nimble woman, rarely idle, always mentally preparing for her next project. Her premature gray hair was crew cut.

  “No, thank you,” Lara responded to the offer. “I think we have a consensus on this subject. Other possibilities?”

  “You've checked for solar flare interference?” Peter asked.

  “Yes,” Daniel said. “It was one of the first possibilities we considered. There's been no substantial activity since we decelerated.”

  “Could we be transmitting on the wrong band?” Fran turned to Mifuro. “It has been 34 years, after all.”

  Mifuro nodded. “Yes, a long time. But not long enough. The Chameleon band was the established universal carrier system for 60 years before our departure. Its range of frequencies far exceeds earlier methods of communication. I don't think it possible the entire planet could have converted to another technology in such a short period of time. Nor do I believe they would have tried. What would have been the necessity?”

  Daniel smiled. “I agree with you for the most part, Mifuro. A conversion would not have been feasible. However, I do think it would have been possible from a technological viewpoint. Again, the problem would have been finances. Even if the strongest nations agreed to it, the weak sisters surely would not have gone along.”

  “Yes,” Boris added. “Very high price indeed. We must remember climate of discontent when we left. Andorran herself was thought to be too prohibitive. There was talk of many cutbacks in colonial program.”