Ocio didn’t like the implication of that statement. She swallowed the last bit of the cookie, then dusted off her hands. She withdrew her stun pistol and thumbed the safety. “Open it,” she told him harshly.
He unlocked the door, then pressed the open button. The door slid open. “That-that’s impossible! I know they were in there!” Llarena stated.
Ocio palmed her comm. “Commander Selaye, we have a problem.”
Both soldats were standing in front of the captain’s desk in his ready room. No one had spoken for several minutes. The ship’s activity log was being looked through by all of them on three separate displays. It had taken all of five minutes to search the small vessel. When no trace of the two was found, it was obvious to conclude they had somehow gotten off the ship. But when? Back in the clearing, they had had to leave in a hurry. It must have happened before then. It was the only answer the captain could come up with right now. But still how had they escaped undetected?
“I’ve got something. The starboard airlock was activated just before we took off to avoid that Telkan vessel,” Llarena said.
Ocio shook her head. “No way. They would have had to know the airlock door code! When did you call me to take over for you?”
“Around 1800 hours,” Llarena told her.
The captain had already found out that Llarena had left his post due to the regulator’s erratic reading. He had given previous orders that it was to be taken care of immediately if it happened again. As far as he was concerned, Llarena was in the clear for that reason alone.
“Then the only time they could have escaped is after you left. The door was locked, right?” she asked.
Llarena nodded quickly. At least he thought it was.
Ocio nodded as well. “It was locked when I arrived,” she added.
“Which was how long after Llarena left his post?” the captain asked.
“A few minutes at most.”
The cabin doors were designed to be locked from the inside or the outside. The entire crew knew how to override the locks. Their detainees were obviously quite clever. They had figured out the cabin lock code along with the airlock door code. The captain pushed the display away. This inquiry was irrelevant. Posting internal guards had never been something he had ever had to do before on any of his command flights. Indeed, finding mysterious Terrans on a planet they shouldn’t have been on certainly wasn’t an expected development either! This whole series of events was bizarre and becoming more so by the hour.
The captain activated his comm. “Commander, scan for that patrol ship again. If it’s gone, we’re returning to the ranger craft location. Report when you’re ready.” He looked up at the two soldats who were as baffled at their disappearance as was he. He shook his head. He had no grounds to even reprimand either of them. “Dismissed,” he said decidedly.
Half an hour later, the Cortés Libre landed in the exact spot they had left earlier. Just prior to touch down, scans of the area revealed neither Telkan nor Terran life signs. Clearly, their staked captive Telkan was missing. Lieutenant Navar exited their craft with soldats Barcega, Agrida and Urret in tow. They quickly fanned out and scanned the immediate area with portable biosign detectors. As they suspected, there were none. But they had to be sure.
“Lieutenant,” Agrida called out to Navar.
“What is it?”
“The dead Telkan is missing, too.”
“That Telkan ship must have recovered him. They do that, you know.”
Navar visually surveyed the area where they had staked the Telkan. He found the cut rope and the pole used to hold the Telkan’s arms tied behind his neck. He picked up one of the manacles. He hadn’t seen markings like that on metal for quite a while. It took a moment for him to realize it could have only been caused by a molecular disrupter. It was technology only the Telkans were known to have. He activated his hand scanner and checked the display. The residual energy signature on the metal indicated it was indeed Telkan. The myriad Terran footprints in the area made it impossible to discern if their ‘guests’ had been involved. Nonetheless, he assumed they had. The lieutenant called the ship to report their findings.
“Over here,” Urret told him when Navar was done speaking with Selaye.
The three men quickly made their way to Urret. He was facing down slope with his sensor in hand. “There’s a faint infrared signature leading that way,” he said as he pointed.
The men spread out to look for broken branches in the underbrush and more footprints. Agrida found footprints almost immediately. “Over here,” he called out.
They each inspected the prints. Two sets led away from the clearing toward the river. Navar wondered where the other set was. The Telkan ones. These were clearly Terran. Their boot prints were distinct. He had been sure their ‘guests’ had released the Telkan prisoner and that all had fled in the same direction. But the footprints suggested otherwise. He had originally assumed the Telkan scout ship had picked everyone up. Had they split up on purpose?
Lieutenant Navar reported in again after their assessment. They were ordered to return to the ship straight away. Minutes later, after having scanned further for any other signs of the Telkan ship, they were certain it wasn’t anywhere nearby.
From the engine room display console, Llarena watched the vids being taken of Navar’s party outside the ship. Clearly, it had been a mistake to not have had all the external cameras in record mode. That oversight had been rectified. He decided he was quite lucky to have escaped a good ass-chewing for having somehow lost their detainees. He watched as the ship’s computers interpreted the myriad scans they were running on the area. His conversation with Naylon kept running itself in his head. Naylon’s strange talk about an alternate universe and their odd conversation about some sort of alternate history kept repeating itself over and over in his head. What if there’s a place where we aren’t at war with the Telkans! The very thought of it seemed totally impossible.
But what if it were true?
Chapter 31
The chime on the comm next to Kestin sounded.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Darreth after he answered it. “Someone needs my assistance. It’ll only be a few minutes. I’ll lock the door on my way out.”
Darreth had nothing to do except think. He mused over an interesting detail no one had ever discussed. All of the pirates who had been captured and taken back to Andakar for questioning had met unusual fates. This last year alone two had simply disappeared and one had died mysteriously, although he heard it was of natural causes. Another had supposedly been taken to Earth and one had been deported to Ormi, the most hostile planet with respect to climate of all the Inhabs. Until this moment Darreth hadn’t been interested in what that implied, if anything. His job was merely to pilot the ships that would prevent boardings. In the case of an actual boarding, his people would capture whoever they could and bring them back to Andakar for questioning, along with recovering any stolen pharmas.
Now that he thought about it, it was obvious someone wanted the captured pirates off Andakar as quickly as possible. Maybe before they talked to the wrong people. Corporate lawyers never televised trials. The mass viewing of a trial was deemed to be of no interest to the public. Nonetheless, he knew they got quick sentencing. Since every one of them had died or simply ‘been removed’ shortly after their trials, it was becoming obvious someone was playing a part in it. It was an easy leap of logic to assume Inandra was deeply involved.
Kestin returned much more quickly than Darreth expected. “Well, can you do it?” Darreth asked him. As far as he knew the disk was his only possible link to find Naylon and Tann, and he wasn’t about to let it out of his sight.
Kestin glanced at the reprocomp in the corner. It was capable of replicating virtually anything. The disc could easily be copied.
Darreth looked in the same direction. Curious, he stood, went to the corner and observed the machine. He knew what it was. The label on the front proved it. “This is a reprocom
p,” he said. An LR-44, he thought. I’m not familiar with that particular model but any lab of this size would have one. In fact, given what he’d seen in the lab this model was probably the most sophisticated one in all of Siaron province. “You can do it,” Darreth said, accusingly.
Darreth refused to leave the lab despite feeling supremely sleepy. He sat on a stool beside Kestin as they waited for the reprocomp to complete its task. Darreth finally couldn’t stand it any more. He was about to pass out.
“You look awful,” Kestin told him.
“I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Look, no one’s going to come in here.” He looked at his office door. “I can opaque the windows in there. The couch is quite comfortable. I’ve slept on it many times.”
“Maybe a nap,” Darreth told him. He yawned profusely.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Kestin assured him. They both went to his office. “I’ll wake you when the reprocomp is done,” he said as he pressed an icon on his desk surface. The windows instantly darkened.
Deep in thought, Kestin pressed the button on the doorframe and his office door slid shut. He would never have thought it possible to be handed something like this object, or be presented this kind of opportunity. Intensely curious about it, he peered into the top window of the reprocomp, watching the duplicate object forming in the open space below. It was assembling atom by molecule, and would be essentially identical to the original device once it was complete. The timer was still counting down. The duplicate would be done in another half hour.
The couch was unbelievably comfortable, Darreth discovered. He didn’t even remember falling asleep after his head hit the decorative pillow.
Kestin looked back at his closed office door. He knew he shouldn’t do it but he had to. Darreth, he decided, had no idea how important this object was to science. He had to figure out some way to prevent the man from taking the original away. It was impossible to ignore the imperative almost screaming at him. His hands started sweating. It was obvious what he had to do. The Lieutenant Commander’s request to duplicate the object had sounded terribly illicit. Clearly, the man needed to use it for a secret project. Despite not wanting to be caught up in anything criminal he had to make sure the object wouldn’t be lost. In his mind, unlocking the mystery of this object, perhaps unraveling what the unknown language was on its surface, was of paramount importance. The paper he could produce about it would be talked about for centuries. Kestin paced the lab as he thought about it. He glanced back at his office ever so often. Darreth was surely out cold.
The speaker icon on the flimsy to his right beeped, calling his attention. The reprocomp was done. Immediately, he retrieved the duplicate device from the machine and placed it in the scanning chamber he’d first used on the original. A few minutes later his comparison of the duplicate with the recorded information from the original assured him it was identical, except this one was made from materials derived from his universe. There might be one million atoms difference but that wasn’t enough to bother with. As far as he was concerned, the coil was identical to the original and would activate whatever it was supposed to trigger.
He returned to the reprocomp and pressed an icon on the front panel. Duplicate number two started taking shape within thirty seconds.
Kestin placed the first duplicate under an optical scanner for further analysis. A microscopic scan of the odd spiral writing on the casing was of no help in determining its origin or use. He was sure it was writing, yet nothing in any language database he had access to had any reference to the symbols. Unfortunately, language wasn’t his area of expertise. He knew that would have to remain a mystery in the short run.
He heard the reprocomp beep again. Thunder, he thought. Time was flying by and he had only begun to do a detailed analysis of the object.
Turning to the reprocomp yet again, he pulled the duplicate and the original from the machine and set them on the counter next to it. He retrieved the first duplicate and placed it on the right. Lined up, he noted visually they were all identical. The one on the left was the original so he placed it in a container and sealed it.
The door to his office slid open. He saw Darreth stifling a yawn.
“How long was I out?” Darreth asked.
“Nearly an hour,” Kestin told him.
Darreth spied the two discs side by side. “You were able to duplicate it!” He heaved a sigh of relief.
“The two dupes are nearly identical to the original.”
“Two? Nearly?”
“I’m not worried about a few million atoms difference.”
“What’s this about two?” Darreth said sternly.
“I, uh, went to the liberty of making a second one.”
“I didn’t ask for two of them,” Darreth warned.
“I really think the original should stay here. It’s extremely valuable. I’d hate to see it get lost,” Kestin told him as straight forward and sincerely as he could.
“What are you getting at?” Darreth asked suspiciously.
“Only that you leave the original with me temporarily while you use the other two I made for you.”
Darreth immediately shook his head. “What if the dupes don’t work?”
Kestin was expecting that. He retrieved the original from the case. He brought up the spectral analysis of the original one he did before Darreth went to take his nap. He placed one of the duplicates in the scanner and performed a fresh scan. Syncing the two resultant graphs they matched precisely. As Kestin indicated though, they both were different only in the minutest way. It was impossible to get any more precision or better tolerance than the several million atoms difference both showed. “As you can see they’re essentially perfect copies. They should perform as you expect. I’m merely suggesting the original stay here while you use the other ones. After all, one doesn’t come by something like this object every day.”
There was a short silence while Darreth mulled that over. “How about you keep a duplicate and I keep the original,” he offered.
“You must understand, Lieutenant Commander, this object represents a scientific discovery of monumental proportion. Nothing like this has ever been found in the entire history of mankind. Surely, you can understand how important that is.” He let that sink in, then continued. “I’m not going to ask you what you need the devices for, but it’s obvious you need two. I’m merely suggesting since the original is an ancient alien artifact it should stay here. What if it gets lost or broken? It’s irreplaceable. It’s the only one that exhibits that anomaly of not belonging to our quantum universe. That alone makes it worth preserving.”
“You’re sure they’re identical?” Darreth asked, desperation in his voice.
“That reprocomp is the best that’s ever been manufactured. You saw the analysis yourself.”
Darreth was sure it was a bad idea, but he wasn’t stupid. The scans showed the duplicated discs were as identical as they could possibly be to the original. Plus, there was no indication the coil had been affected in any way through the duplication process. He took a deep breath. “You better keep it safe. I’m coming back for it after I’m done.” In the back of his mind, he was sure he should kick himself for this. But his brain was fogged from lack of a good night’s sleep and he couldn’t find it within himself to say no.
Kestin was relieved beyond measure. “You can be sure it will not only not leave the lab, but it will be kept in a containment field that only I have the code for.” He placed the object back in the sealed container and had Darreth accompany him to his office. The wall to his left consisted of twenty drawers, all of which would only open with his code. He input the code and the top leftmost drawer opened. He placed the sealed container in it and closed the drawer. He carefully and deliberately made sure Darreth watched him enter his code again. He tugged on the drawer. I was certainly sealed, Darreth noted.
Rehl and Darreth stood in the kitchen of Darreth’s bungalow looking at the two ‘keycards’ Dr. Dryter had
made. A holo-pic Kestin had made of the original was displayed on a flimsy next to the box where the devices were resting.
“Do you think this ornamentation is a language?” Rehl asked as he held the object up to the light.
“We figured it is.”
“Only three people know these exist, right?”
Darreth nodded. “You, me and Dryter.”
“Good.” Rehl looked extremely nervous.
“Why the agit?” Darreth asked.
“Do you have any idea how difficult it was to get transport for us?”
“Yes, I do. It was extremely difficult.”
“I’ll probably lose my commission,” Rehl murmured.
Darreth nodded. “And mine, too. But it would be far worse if I told anyone about that alien disc thing. Getting my brother and my boyfriend back is more important than my job right now. I know you’re risking a lot to help me. You can back out. You-you don’t have to do this,” he fumbled for the words, hoping Rehl wouldn’t say no.
Rehl snorted. “Fruck no. I’m with you. Besides, if what you say is true you’re going to need all the help you can get. We’ll hire a lawyer when this is all over. Maybe your dad can get us a good one, huh?”
Darreth sighed loudly, then looked over at the holo-mask Rehl had left on the couch. Used strictly for theater productions, the device, when worn correctly, could temporarily make anyone’s face look like someone else’s. They were illegal to use outside the theater districts because of that. Rehl’s wife knew an actor in a local troop who had one. He said he’d let Rehl borrow it for a prank as long as no one in ‘authority’ found out about it.
Twenty-year-old Hoit Roonyun’s shift was rapidly coming to an end at the Chendra spaceport’s main embarkation terminal. She had processed well over two hundred people through her turnstile in the last hour. Jasterkin Festival Days were coming up on Ajica Prima and people were looking forward to reunions with their families who were off-world. She looked at the chronometer again, noting she had ten minutes left before Briull took her place. He couldn’t get there soon enough, she thought.
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