Newslets and Mindshorts had indicated another of Saturn’s rings was about to disappear - the effect of their recent conflict with the Florans, or perhaps simply the aging of the rings. He supposed there would be an observation party at some point, but it meant Saturn continued to be interesting.
Just then, the door to corridor two dissolved, and a young-looking man with thick black hair and brown skin skipped into the Center. “We got door 347 open!” said Officer Raj Kumar, excitedly.
Hogart groaned. “Must you come running in here every time you get a door open? I mean, it takes at least seven minutes. Couldn’t your time be better spent? Besides, aren’t you supposed to be going back to Lahore for the reunification ceremony? It’s a Sunday in Punjab, as I recall.”
“Well, communications are still not that reliable. And, besides, why would I run? I just flash to the entrance and skip in! And in regard to Lahore, I sent a boff to rep me! I’ll watch it later.”
Hogart sighed. Sometimes it was fun hanging around people in their twenties, and sometimes it was just annoying. Raj was, what, 26? He shook himself and refocused. “What was the alarm about?”
“How should I know? I’m the door opener!”
Hogart put the tool he was holding in a box near him. If Kumar had not been assigned by Patel, Hogart might have had words about respect for rank. As it was, he just sighed again. “Just a moment.” He turned to the center of the Center. “A.I. Avatar please.”
An early thirties Japanese woman, in a T-shirt tied at her waist to reveal her midriff, and extremely tight blue pants with holes in them, appeared near the floor and ceiling columns. Hogart raised his eyebrows. “What happened to your kimono?”
The avatar grinned a big smile, her heavily coated eyelashes fluttering. “Costume program. I thought I’d try something from the 80s. Do you like it?”
“2080s?”
“1980s. I think it suits the shape you programmed. What do you think?”
Hogart looked at her clothes, quizzically. The blue pants looked difficult to wear, and made of some extremely thick material. Camping material? “Is that canvas? Like, for tents?”
The A.I. nodded.
“Well, it’s, um, nice, A.I.”
Why would she even think about changing? He had been reading some of the history that had gone on with a clone of himself in the Andromeda Galaxy, and the evolution of the ship’s avatar. While his clone had fallen in love with the previous incarnation of the Stellar Flash ship A.I., he wasn’t going to explore that option.
Perhaps the new A.I. had also read the reports, and was considering a future with him, or maybe he was just being narcissistic. He shuddered. He wasn’t ready for a digital relationship yet. “Back to my original topic. What was the ‘false alarm’?”
The avatar placed a finger on her cheek and closed her eyes. “Accessing,” she said, sweetly. “Official message from Admiral Wei Zhou. Nothing that should concern you. Continue with getting the Stellar Flash ship ready for her next mission.”
Hogart frowned. “Admiral Zhou is back on 1a already? It must be important. Tell me the details, unofficially.”
“You won’t like it.”
“A.I!”
“Confirmed.” The A.I. became unofficially official, staring directly ahead. “Admiral Victoria Heartness has been kidnapped by a robot officer owned by the Frequency Research Institute. She has been traced to a ship several million kilometers from Proxima B in the Proxima Centauri system. The corporation that has obtained her had previously offered several thousand…”
“Enough. I had heard about the bidder. I thought she’d turned it down. A.I. How quickly can we get the Stellar Flash to the system?”
“Flash drive inoperative,” the A.I. shrugged.
“Escape pods?”
“Storage centers are still contain iridium stones. No escape pods have been maintained for over a million years. Hangar 27 will be the first, scheduled for tomorrow.”
Hogart stared at the almost empty Center, struggling to work out what to do next. A robot had taken Heartness. Was it a robot uprising, or was the F.R.I. seeing how far it could push its powers? Either way, tightening bolts wasn’t going to get him there faster.
“Ahem,” said Kumar.
“Are you still here?”
“Room 347?” Kumar stretched his arms out as though to say, ‘Are you coming or not’?
Hogart frowned. “I need to work out a way to save Victoria!”
“Admiral Zhou said not to worry. A robot officer took her to a corporation. Admiral Heartness is probably sipping champagne by now. Captain, the panels will fix themselves. Please, come with me.”
Hogart straightened his blue jumpsuit. “Why is 347 so important?”
Kumar danced back and forth on his feet. “Oh, come on Jonathan. Come and see. Live a little. You’ll love it.”
“I think I’m more likely to regret it,” muttered Hogart, but he followed after Kumar. As they exited into the corridor, Kumar clicked his flash band on Hogart’s, grinned winningly at him, and then they both disappeared.
Chapter 5
Heartness and the boff appeared next to a large window looking out onto a wide starscape. Resignedly, she stopped struggling and looked out. Her years in space meant she recognized the view. The constellation of Cassiopeia. It was the same image that might have been visible from her station at a point in the orbit around Saturn, but with an additional star near the middle.
Sol.
She sniffed the air and almost choked. Stale and recycled. Not a single whiff of perfume. Gravity felt slightly lighter than Earth normal. Possibly Proxibee normal. Proxibee was larger than Earth but its mass was made up with more low atomic weight elements, so there wasn’t as much gravity. But the humming below her suggested that she wasn’t on Proxibee. She was on a ship of some kind.
The boff released Heartness and stepped back, allowing her a moment. Heartness rubbed her arm but there wasn’t a mark. The robot had gripped her firmly, but gently.
Was it possible to escape? She looked about. Far away, on the other side of the room, was what looked to be the pilot’s area. A tiny flickering dot from where Heartness was standing, but filled with a massive view screen. Any pilot sitting there would think there wasn’t a ship, and that they were just in space. Heartness decided the pilot section was probably for emergencies. Still, it was an option.
While Earth council ships were quite conservative with their space, with every centimeter used and accounted for, corporations could be excessive. The room was at least a kilometer wide. Even with her augmented eyesight, she could barely make out the other side of ship in the distance. A prismatic point finished the ceiling far above her. Was the outside of the ship like a pyramid? The floor seemed to suggest it, stretching in an almost perfect square shape, apart from some exits to corridors on her right.
The entire one kilometer-edged triangular ship, the Stellar Flash, could fit inside with some room to spare. Was this a mother ship of some kind? She accessed data through her newly installed lobe system under her left ear, but expected it would be a while before it retrieved the information she wanted.
And then she remembered her date tonight, and sighed. Zhou would have simply told him she’d been called away on urgent business. At least it was better than telling him she had disappearing ring ice to watch.
“Alright, boff. You’ve brought me here. I’m sure your corporation couldn’t care less about the potential fine and jail time, if I was to complain, so now what? Champagne?”
The robot officer slowly turned its retro cube-shaped head to Admiral Victoria Heartness, then lifted up its plastic four-fingered hand. “What I’m about to show you is private and confidential.” A bluish hologram began to form above it.
Heartness glared at the image taking shape. “If you’re going to tell me I’m your only hope, I’m going to have words.”
The boff remained silent as the hologrammatic video became more defined, then began playing.
&nb
sp; It was not what Heartness was expecting at all.
A macabre image of an indistinct human hand rotated in the air in front of her, tiny waves of electricity sparking and cascading across its surface. The skin looked alive, with faint veins swollen in mid throb near the wrist. The nails were chipped and dirty, with shadows of dust in places. Dark oil marks on the finger tips, and the general blurriness of the blue image disguised its owner.
"What is it?" asked Heartness, fascinated, as the hand continued to turn. “A piece of artwork?” For a moment, she had thought it had simply been cut off by the edge of the visual reference. But then the wrist had faced her, showing a cross section of the marrow in both the radius and ulna, surrounded by muscles, veins and skin perfectly sliced through as though separated from the rest of the body at the molecular level. There was also a flickering field right at the edge, suggesting that whatever the hand was attached to, was accessing some other dimension.
"A human hand," answered the boff, anticlimactically.
Heartness sighed, her curiosity changing back to annoyance with the robot. "I can see that,” she growled. “What happened to it? Who’s it from?"
The boff pointed at the hand above his hand. "This was found at the Proxima Centauri B Frequency Research Center, inside hexicle 18." It turned the image off and the bright light of the field faded away, revealing the expansive room once again.
"My leasor has not informed the interstellar military yet," the boff continued. "She wants this to be discrete. She sent me as soon as she realized some delicacy was required."
“And so, you decided to strongly encourage me to come.” While she hadn’t taken any private gigs for some time, thanks to her work with Earth Council and the Interdimensional Coalition, she knew from experience that initially, most private organizations and government parties required some secrecy before announcing the solved problem to the world.
"We have sealed hexicle 18 until you are able to have a close look at it.”
Heartness had no idea how getting closer to the floating hand would help her be any the wiser. "Any other records? What about others on the base? Do you have any other evidence of the missing 27?"
"Updates received. The hand is the only living thing that has been found so far. Though, our benefactor is not sure about something else nearby, which she plans to show you. However, only 17 of the 54 hexicles have been explored. Investigation has now been paused while we await your response."
"The hand is alive?"
"Still. It hangs there, not dying. The hand could not be shown to you on your station. Now that you have seen it, you are free to decide. You have your flash band and can leave from this point in space at any time. Please let me repeat that 27 scientists have disappeared, and your presence is required."
Heartness knew this was her field. She was contacted when there was anything the bot officers, A.I. detectives, or government organizations couldn't solve. With her extensive experience in multiple dimensions and realities, there weren’t that many in humanity’s sectors that could do what she did. She smiled ruefully. She would be happy to give them a hand. "You know my price."
"Yes, Admiral Heartness. Labor credits are ready to transfer to your charity the moment you sign."
Heartness moved some hair out of the way, and touched her implant. It was still searching for information on the ship, but the work contract had already been transmitted directly to her. It displayed in front of her eyes. Her analysis software did not detect anything unusual, so she sent a simple thought, and her brain wave vibration signature was transmitted via flash communication to the authorization department in the main brokerage on a satellite orbiting Proxima Centauri C. Within a couple of seconds she received the confirmation back via flash satellite relay that the first 100,000 credits had been transferred to her charity. “Boff. As you can now independently confirm, the contract is signed, and I will help the F.R.I find a solution. Please advise Space Station X-1a that I am fine and that everything is under control.”
“I’m sorry, Admiral Victoria Heartness,” said a voice in the air near her. “We must keep this a secret for now.”
“Have you been standing there invisible the whole time?” Heartness asked the air.
“The boff alerted me that you have signed, so I drifted over.” Then there was a click, and a woman phase-shifted into reality next to them, taking a couple of steps to reorient herself with the floor. She looked at Heartness seriously. “The hand you saw isn't the only problem we have. We moved to an outer orbit to collect you more safely. The moment you arrived, the ship began moving back to the closest point we can get. We can't flash jump closer due to the disturbances, but we’re only a few million kilometers from Proxibee."
Heartness was unfazed by the woman’s phase-in, and briefly noted the boff had shut down as she appeared. But she had to know more. “What sort of disturbances?”
"It's better that I show you," replied the woman. She walked towards an exit in the distance, expecting her to follow.
Heartness sighed to herself. Well, if the woman wasn't going to go through the introduction niceties, or at the very least say her name, Heartness would look it up herself. These outerworlders assumed everyone used facial recognition as a normal part of socializing and business, but Heartness was still a bit old school.
Her lobe storage unit had finished downloading anything related to Proxima Centauri, decades of data, and had accessed the most relevant information, predicting Heartness’ needs. The woman was Doctor Vilanna Szuki, born on one of the envirostations circling Proxima Centauri D. 37 years old. Seven PhDs. Her father was from Japan and her mother from Ghana, so her features were almost movie-star like. High cheek bones, blue eyes, mocha skin, and a lithe movement that could probably break a few hearts.
Heartness guessed her model looks might be one of the reasons why the woman was hiding away on a massive ship in another star system. Every media outlet from here to Sirius would want a piece of her. Though, if she ever got her back to the space station, that moodhair would have to go.
“I hope you don’t mind if I ask a lot of questions,” said Heartness.
“Of course.” Szuki smiled demurely as Heartness caught up to her. “But there are some things that can’t be explained and will need to be shown.”
“But what about this space? Why so large?”
Szuki laughed, her frizzy hair flickering with gold highlights. “Oh, daddy had this built for me for my 16th. You know, on Earth, parents used to give their children houses or cars. My daddy gave me this spaceship. Big enough to enjoy an almost infinite number of worlds in. I call it the Traverse.”
“Isn’t that a verb?”
Szuki touched her flashband, and the room was transformed into a mountainous terrain with a corral of horses. One of them whinnied and came over to her. She stroked it affectionately, though to Heartness it looked like she wasn’t quite touching it. “Hello stony. See you again soon.”
Szuki clicked her band again, and the entire paddock and animals disappeared, replaced by towering fluid rocks, three suns, and a group of large spikey aliens gathered around an upturned-mushroom-shaped table. “Hey, Sharpie, congratulations on your new spores!”
A slapping sound came from one of the spiny aliens, which was quickly translated to “Hello Vilanna. Thank you. Good to see you again.”
“You too!” Szuki smiled and clicked her band again, and the tableaux disappeared, revealing the empty space once more.
“So, it’s a hologram room. A gaming place,” said Heartness.
Szuki pursed her lips and her hair changed to a light green. “Not exactly. Follow me. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Heartness frowned. Getting information out of people here was going to be harder than she thought.
Chapter 6
Hogart stood in front of the open door to room 347. A few pieces of stone had fallen around the entrance, and a number of humans and aliens were either making notes or carefully cleaning inside. Several cleanerbo
ts stood idle. They’d probably been told not to disturb anything in the room.
“Come and see, come and see,” said Kumar, attempting to grab Hogart’s hand, but stopping as he saw his frown.
“Just tell me!”
“I need to show you. I want to see your reaction. After all, you built it.”
Hogart strode into the room and looked at the myriad of strange equipment on the floor, on shelves and against the walls. “I didn’t. I assume my clone did.”
“But, your clone had your memories and your understanding. He was, to all intents and purposes, an exact duplicate. It means that anything he created here, you should be able to understand.”
“My clone also lived over 2 million years. I think I’m missing a few years of his life experience. I’ve also since had my mind view system removed, and the gold pill effect nulled. I’m really quite different.”
Kumar frowned. “Come on Jonathan. You’re usually pretty cheery. I can’t be Mr. Positive for both of us.”
Hogart blinked and snapped out of his negativity. “Raj. You’re right. I’m still distracted about Vic…Admiral Heartness.”
“You’ve got a thing for her, haven’t you?”
Hogart immediately wished he hadn’t said anything, and quickly looked around the room. He spied a shelf of urns with labels on them. “Storytellers? So, Hogart-C must have rehydrated the rest and used them to record his life. Or maybe just for company. But, I thought they wanted sun deaths.”
“Dying millions of years earlier than they were born, in another galaxy, meant they requested a change. Ashes until the ship made it back to the right time, then scattered into the solar winds of their sun. We’ll flash them to their star soon.”
“What’s that?” Hogart pointed at a strange fossilized shape in a glass container.
“One of C-Hogart’s experiments. He got hold of a biomechanoid plant, then fossilized it.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Cyborg plant. Fossilized. Says here on the label, in American English. See the z?”
Temporal Incursion Page 3
