by Vern Buzarde
Impermanent Universe
Vern Buzarde
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part 1: Liminal
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part 2: Bootstrap
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part 3: Sentience
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part 4: Convergence
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part 5: Terminus
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
Impermanent
Universe
by
Vern Buzarde
Copyright © 2020 Vern Buzarde
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, stored in a database and / or published in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For Rosa
“We do not see things as they are,
we see them as we are.”
— Anais Nin
Part 1
Liminal
1
“Dr. Carrillo, this is Special Agent Angela King. My name is Daryl Holcomb. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. I know this is a difficult time for you. For the whole team.”
Tess Carrillo eyed them across the table, attempting to gauge the situation, not sure if she was under suspicion or if being interrogated by the NSA was standard procedure after these types of events. Two weeks had passed but it was all still a hazy web. Her perception of reality was now a recursive mirror, everything distorted.
The room was small, windowless. Overly bright fluorescents buzzed above. Her skin felt slightly irradiated. Holcomb was a sturdy-looking athletic type. Early forties. The guy in every commercial for over-exercised tendons and joints, or maybe beard trimmers. King was a no-nonsense blonde with hot-nerd glasses. Pretty. Studious looking. Kind, clear blue eyes. They looked compatible. Like they were paired based on genetics by an online DNA dating site.
“Of course,” Tess said. “I want to do anything I can to help.” She craved a cigarette, but she had never smoked.
“Full disclosure,” Holcomb said, “This interview is being recorded.” He glanced up at a tiny camera in an upper corner of the room. “Are you good with that?”
Am I good with that? Do I need a lawyer? “Yes.”
The woman spoke for the first time. “Dr. Carrillo, may I call you Tess?”
“Yes.”
“Tess, could you start by telling us the first thing you remember about Wednesday, February 5? The day of the event?”
A mild scent of upscale hygiene products wafted through the room, as if the flickering of the lights stimulated their molecules to a low simmer.
“I got up at four a.m. and went to the park to run. Just like every other day. It’s my regular routine. I arrived at the NASA main facility by around six thirty and was sitting at my workstation in the control room a few minutes later.” She left out the hangover part.
“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary at that point?” Agent Holcomb asked. “Any strange behavior? Or possibly new faces? Anyone you didn’t recognize?”
“No, nothing really worth mentioning.” She hesitated momentarily. “It seemed like just another day.” Natalie?
“According to the log,” Agent King said, “there had been a number of mechanical glitches with the Essex leading up to the event. Particularly with the environmental control system. Can you confirm that?”
“Yes. Minor things, but the frequency with which they were occurring was concerning.”
“And you… and Ryan Quinn. You were in a relationship. Is that correct?” Agent King asked.
Tess bristled, the statement and everything it implied so alien on so many levels. Were. Past tense. How can this all be real? She placed her elbows on the table, rested her head in her hands, and whispered, “Yes.”
“And you were the lead for the development of Virgil’s software. The onboard computer controlling the Essex. Also the gatekeeper for any software modifications.”
“Yes.” Do I need a lawyer?
“Tess, as you probably know, we have several videos of the control room from that day, as well as the live transmission from the Essex. Do you think you could watch the videos? Help walk us through it? I realize it will be difficult, but any insights we can glean may help us find who is responsible for this.”
Tess froze, trying to hide the horror she felt at the prospect of watching it all again, even though the whole thing repeated constantly in her mind. The heavy medication wasn’t working as intended. It wouldn’t help. “I suppose I can try. But I’m just not sure.”
“We can stop at any time,” Holcombe said. “Pause, take breaks. End the process if it’s too much. I promise.”
Pause? Breaks? I don’t think there are breaks in Hell.
Tess nodded, and Holcomb tapped some keys on his laptop. The screen on the room’s larger monitor flashed. There were four split views, three of the control room from different angles. The fourth displayed the real-time feed from the Essex.
“Just try to put yourself back there, Tess,” King said. “Try to remember everything you were thinking. What you felt. Also, in the event you see anything strange that the camera may have picked up, something you weren’t aware of at the time, just let us know. This process might be critical to the discovery phase. Hopefully help us shed some light on how all this happened.”
“I’ll do my best. I just can’t guarantee—”
“Would it help if we dimmed the lights? Like it was in the control room that day?”
“Yes.” Anything to stop these fluorescents. Tess closed her eyes, now letting the psychological dam she had formed start to crack, trying to control the velocity of emotions but not sure she could. “I’m ready.”
Holcombe started the video.
2
A flicker of illumination in the dimly lit control room pulled Tess’s eyes from the computer screen to the wall-sized video feed from the Essex, now nearing the mission’s halfway point. An eerie feeling crept over her seeing the ghostlike images on the screen, a portal to the black void of deep space seventy-eight million miles away but with a seven-minute delay.
Tess flinched when a hand from behind landed on her shoulder. “I never get used to seeing this,” Natalie McKay said. “It’s like watching someone else’s dreams.” She squeezed
with her fingertips, then said, “Honey, you’ve got the best hair.”
Is she high?
Lined along the left side of the screen were stacked columns of small green numbers displaying percentages of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide, as well as current time, temperature, speed, distance, mission duration, and approximate transmission delay time. The numbers blinked continuously, fluctuating by tiny fractions.
The Essex’s voyage was the final test run, the last information-gathering exercise prior to the main mission, and there had been plenty of lessons learned. Now the ship was nearing the turnaround point, having collected a treasure trove of input resulting in systems enhancements for the next evolution of the project.
Tess didn’t need to look at the mission duration number on the screen to know the Essex’s journey had now clocked in over four thousand hours. Hours she’d spent consumed, working to maximize the chances of success while contending with the loneliest nights she had ever known. She rubbed her eyes, trying to remember how many vodka shots she’d slammed the previous night in an attempt to sleep, just a few hours before her five-mile run that morning. She gently brushed her hand against the tender area on the back of her upper-left ribs. The latest sports bra had proven to be a disappointment, one more in a long line. Another defective design.
Am I really asking too much?
Ryan Quinn’s outline formed on the screen, the images stabilizing, morphing into something recognizable. He and Don Broussard were focused on some task, unaware their communication feed had been activated. They appeared to be finalizing a minor repair, another in a series of recurring problems that seemed to be escalating in frequency. Tools anchored by thin white cords bobbed gently like curious sea creatures.
Ryan hummed a mournful country ballad, occasionally singing, but the words were wrong, a familiar habit of his and something that made her glow. Something was off, though. There was a weariness in his voice, the tone hollow. He was fading, showing real signs that the marathon was taking its toll.
Ryan turned to Don. “Oh, that’s an easy one. Billy Jack. One of the greatest movies of the twentieth century.”
“Really? Billy Jack? That’s your pick? You’re talking about the same Billy Jack where a…” Static broke up his words. “…who—”
Their images froze like a giant still photograph.
People in the control room were talking too loudly, and Tess smelled fresh kolaches and donuts, something that annoyed her. The presence of free food would distract the group. Melvin Dunlap was rattling on about a recurring dream. He was back in school and realized half the semester was over and he hadn’t been to class. Tess had lost count of how many times he’d told it. She never bothered to tell him she had a version of that dream too.
The audio returned but without the picture. She heard Ryan say, “No, Siskel. Karate. Not kung-fu. Hapkido. Ka-rrrah-tea. Kung-fu is a whole different martial art.”
The static started up again. “So you’re saying… thinks he’s an Indian…”
“Half Indian.”
“Comes back to the tiny redneck town he hates… kids living on some kind of a Montessori hippie reservation commune… Caucasian woman who dispenses Jungian—”
“That’s a tight summary, although I detect sarcasm. Also, this was the early seventies. Might want to factor that in-in-in-in-in-in—”
The two astronaut’s images popped back on the screen. “That scene where he defends the Nishnobie Indian kids.”
“Pretty sure there are no real Indian tribes called the Nishnobie. But I have to admit, that’s a cool hat he wears.”
“Oh man, that hat.” Ryan went silent, staring vacantly, as if confused.
“Hey, man? Ryan?”
Ryan smiled. “What were we talking about?”
“Billy Jack’s hat. We were talking about the movie and—”
“Ah, right. That hat. Just perfect.”
Nick Cardigan, the project manager and human version of a pit bull, barked, “Jack, what the hell is wrong with this feed? Can’t you tighten it up? Why is it so unstable today?”
Jack looked shaken, his face crimson. He didn’t like conflict and always seemed intimidated by Nick. “Something’s screwing up the signal. Some kind of interference. I’m trying to filter it out. But dammit, Nick, I’m doing my best here! It’s not my fault!”
Melvin was sitting right behind Tess and said to no one in particular, “Billy Jack? No, no, if we’re gonna take a ride in the wayback, it’s Caine from Kung Fu. Grasshopper. Master Poe, baby!”
Tess couldn’t hear the two astronauts’ conversation anymore due to the erratic signal and the level of noise in the room. She studied Ryan as if he were an exotic zoo animal, attempting to reconcile the two-dimensional picture with the man she could still smell. The otherworldly image being projected seemed surreal, and there was a slightly uncomfortable voyeuristic aspect to it all. The strangeness of watching him on the oversized screen from millions of miles away was affecting her mind in an unexpected way, some hypnagogic illusion, simultaneously seductive and disturbing. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, it all conjured a growing cryptic sensorial experience, something in the pantheon of anxiety dreams.
Ryan replaced a cover, and Don tightened the bolts with the pistol-grip screwdriver, surgeons stitching up their patient. She tried to suppress the ember of guilt at the fact that he was unaware she was watching. His compact frame still looked strong, although all that time in the tiny ship had taken its toll on his physical appearance. Tess raised her fingers as if to touch him, to feel the body she knew so well.
A small herd had gathered around the food at the back of the room. Donuts? Now? It’s like bringing food into an operating room!
Ryan had thought his selection for the current assignment was an indication he might be a candidate for the primary mission. But one of the great ironies of astronaut Ryan Quinn’s life was that he was a creature of the earth. A tree whose root structure connected to a never-ending network. Like aspens, deeply interwoven and symbiotic. Ryan’s idea of a perfect day was sailing on his beaten-up boat or fishing the coastal canals of the Gulf of Mexico at dawn on a steamy Saturday. Uprooting him and attempting to replant in a Martian desert seemed antithetical to someone so grounded on terra firma. He was designed for a green world full of living things.
Tess now realized with a new level of clarity that the risk was simply something she could never accept. The daily grind of the practice mission had taken too great a toll. Cold hard reality had chiseled away the romantic dreams and aspirations she’d reluctantly gone along with, evaporating any empathy for his ambitions.
Come back now. Stay here with me, please!
In addition to the 168 days of the mission so far, he’d been quarantined for a week prior to the launch. There were at least that many days before he returned. She’d fully expected the separation to be difficult, but their new reality had become a grueling marathon, the finish line too far away to see. She longed for their previous life, wondered what this separation would do for, or to, their relationship. Change, she knew, was inevitable.
Ryan squinted at the camera. “Well, good morning, Houston Control. I didn’t realize it was already my favorite part of the day. And let me be the first to say to everyone, Happy Chinese New Year. In honor of the Year of the Snake, we have opted for martial arts movies playing in the background as we go about our daily routine. We’ve had another fairly eventful few hours. Mostly minor issues, but the temperature’s been erratic. Kind of like that motel room in Tijuana where the air conditioner works for about an hour then starts spitting steam like a leaky car radiator. Details are in the report.
“By the way, this time delay has become quite a pain in the… stern. It feels like we’re communicating by stuffing notes into bottles and throwing them in the ocean.” His image intermittently shook and flickered, some of the words swallowed by
static. “I’m uploading our daily report now. Essex out.” He returned to his task, resuming the song.
Nick jerked his chin at Tess, indicating she should be the contact for today’s communications.
“Good morning!” Tess said. “And Happy New Year to you! You’re sounding a bit cranky there, Mr. Quinn. Just think of the delay as going old school. Like writing letters again. It forces us to focus our thoughts and optimize our words. A more elegant and thoughtful way of communicating.”
God, I sound like his fifth-grade teacher. “So, we’ve been looking over the problems you’ve had with Virgil the last few days. We’ve run several simulations attempting to duplicate your current mechanical hiccups, but nothing looks out of the ordinary. The temperature fluctuation appears to be a mechanical problem, unrelated to Virgil. We’ve written a test procedure for the environmental control system. I’m uploading now. Please run through the steps, and if everything checks out, go ahead with the bimonthly update of Virgil’s system. We’ve incorporated the latest data and made some enhancements to its programming. The updated software will load when you reinitialize. Once you’ve confirmed receipt, we’ll sign off and reconnect at 1500 GMT.”
Fourteen minutes, six seconds later, he said, “Thank you, Dr. Carrillo. It’s very nice to hear your voice. Yep, letters, or maybe…” He cocked his head, grinning.
Tess knew that hungry look and felt her temperature rise in several places but remained expressionless.
“Yes, we’ve received the systems-check procedure. Thanks for the input. Gonna go eat my tube of egg tacos for breakfast now. After, we’ll start working through the list. By the way, we’re on season two of… Don is now in agreement that it’s…”
The audio faded, but Don flashed a forced smile, twirling his upward pointing index finger. Several of the team chuckled.
“Oh, and one more thing. We’re receiving a transmission, origin unknown, but I assume somewhere on your end—not the usual electromagnetic space racket. It seems to be repeating itself every hour, for precisely three and a half minutes. Not exactly sure what to make of it. Virgil has been unable to decode so far. If you’re picking it up, please clarify. See you in an hour. Essex out.”
