The Rylerran Gateway

by Mark Ian Kendrick

  Chapter 41

  Corren Grusics, First Executive of the Deep Sky Mining Consortium Supreme Board of Directors, pressed the back icon on the screen to watch the last part of the vid again. It was filled with information that simply couldn’t be true.

  ‘We regret to inform you that Director Alarr has been detained by the Manager General on the Guardian space station. Reasons given were grave and serious, one of which was attempted murder. But there’s more. Chief Councilor James-Po, in collusion with every provincial manager on Andakar, has declared a state of emergency along with a demand for immediate independence from all Consortium provisional business ties and taxes. Calls for a political election are being discussed by a large number of rather influential people. Sir, this is an extremely dangerous and volatile situation. No one here in the Planetary Director’s office is sure whether we will be detained or arrested for similar made-up charges. Please advise as soon as possible. Also, you should be aware that the aliens discovered in the cavern at 44.971N/-116.283W on Rylerra appeared to have come through some sort of dimensional gateway. We know this now because of two Space Navy pilots and two other Andakar Citizens who have been across this gateway and have returned. In fact, they came back with a human who they claim is from an alternate universe and is quite familiar with the creatures found in the cavern. Sir, these recent events are completely without precedent. We request you send an immediate response team. We can’t risk another transmission for the foreseeable future.’

  The vid abruptly ended, but the metadata accompanying the message stayed on the screen along with the coordinates of the cavern mentioned on Rylerra. It was highly unusual to receive a vidcomm directly from a Planetary Director’s staff member. Moreover, Corren couldn’t believe what he had heard. The Manager General of the space station had detained their Planetary Director? Attempted murder? Andakar was demanding independence? A person from an alternate universe? It was not only absurd, it was completely laughable! And had the Chief Councilor gone mad? How could the CEOs of the dozens of large businesses on Andakar be calling for a political election? Had they all gone mute? He’d heard not a single word from any of them. All of them had impossible-to-break ties with half a dozen worlds or more, including some of the largest corporations on Earth. This was simply the most bizarre vid he’d ever received.

  Corren’s agitation was so great he stood and glanced at the table to his right where the brandy decanter begged askance. But that could wait. He needed to get into action immediately. He pressed an icon on his desk surface. The desktop background changed to display the names and locations of the rest of the Executives. Quickly, he pressed the icon for Second Executive Jafar Rohita. Despite Jafar being six hours ahead and it was nearing eleven o’clock his time, Corren was sure he’d be able to get the man.

  Jafar’s security system answered. The virtual agent asked why the call was being placed. Corren merely spoke his security code and the agent’s face dissolved. Moments later Jafar appeared on-screen, wiping sleep from his eyes.

  “Corren, why the top security?”

  “Watch this vid. You are not going to believe what’s happened.” He pressed another icon on the desktop and the vid played for Jafar.

  At that moment, Jafar received another top priority communication. Trying to decide which was more important, he chose to place Corren’s vid on hold and muted him, telling him so, while scanning the tags on the new vid. Only thirty seconds into the vid he stopped it, went to the very beginning, then unmuted Corren.

  “Corren, what in blazes is going on here? Look at this!” The vid was from the Planetary Director on Alkunos.

  ‘Jafar, we’ve just received several clandestine communications from Andakar. Local officials have arrested Director Alarr! Offworld communications and transport has been halted. Halted, do you hear! Assets have all been frozen access to quantum computer channels to discover why this is happening have been locked out. Locked out! This is impossible. I demand to know why this has happened and why we have no access to Andakar.’

  Jafar halted the vid. Corren’s mouth was tight with frustration as Jafar continued to play the vid he had received from Director Alarr’s office.

  “How did this vid make it to Earth?” Jafar asked.

  “Perr Volkis, the PD of Jerrin II sent it.”

  “Yes, yes. That, I know. I mean how did it arrive? Communication has been halted from Andakar,” Jafar asked again, now wide-awake.

  “It appears Director Alarr’s office had an open encrypted channel that wasn’t closed off during their blackout.”

  The look on Jafar’s face was of incredulity at what he’d seen in the last several minutes. “I’ll call an emergency session of the full Supreme Board of Executives.”

  “That’s going to be difficult. Two are on Luna. Abela is on Mars and two here have non-negotiable schedules for the next week,” Corren told him as he looked back to the calendar on his desktop. “Regardless, Abela will be able to attend. She’s wrapping up her meeting there anyway.”

  “Agreed. I can go, too. She should be contacted immediately. It won’t be the quickest meeting in the world, but it will happen. In the meantime, I suggest we find a way to contact Director Alarr’s staff.”

  “I’m sending a comm buoy today but it will only make it a few days before us. The fastest transport to Andakar will take twenty-one days,” Corren said.

  “This is bad, really bad,” Jafar fretted.

  “It’s probably worse than bad,” Corren fumed. “More than six weeks will have passed before anyone from Earth can arrive to find out what’s going on there. That gives those-those insurrectionists on Andakar plenty of time to organize themselves and consolidate power. Simply put, it means they’ll be ready for us.”

  Corren barely slept that night wondering how he was going to manage this unprecedented issue. The number of meetings and trips he’d have to cancel was going to be very difficult to do. Nonetheless, it would have to be done. The next morning during breakfast Corren was surprised to find another vid awaiting him. This one was from Siloy. It was a demand that he come to Andakar immediately. The slightest grin crossed Corren’s face as he forwarded the vid to the rest of the Executives who he had already booked for passage to Andakar. The grin was because he had finally determined precisely how he was going to handle this disruption of business.

  The words rebellion and traitor kept running through his mind as he watched the vid over and over while finishing his breakfast. He had never even considered the possibility of something like this happening before today, but then wondered how it could have been so long overdue. Hadn’t history been full of rebellions? Factions splitting off from existing powers? One power overthrowing another? Corporations had spun off entire divisions, merged, only to split again many times. Yet, in every case he’d ever been witness to either legally or economically, it had always been accompanied by lawyers, newly elected or assigned boards, and new by-laws. Business had run smoothly for centuries. This was totally different. An entire planet simply up and decided for itself how it was going to go about doing business!

  The Citizen file on Siloy James-Po wasn’t large. Only three point six terabytes. The majority of it was reference to the vid record of the decade or so when he was a popular entertainer. That was before he was on the local planetary council. Corren was completely uninterested in his entertainment record. It was his dramatic rise to the rank of Chief Councilor that was of most interest to him. His extreme popularity made him a beloved figure. Opposing a highly regarded native would be difficult at best. That was surely going to add to Corren’s troubles once he arrived, he was sure of it. He saved the file for later once they were outbound to Andakar. Then he’d learn all about Siloy James-Po. Every man had his weaknesses.

  Corren’s first assistant had already cleared his schedule for the next several months. Such a complete clearing of his schedule was entirely unheard of, but simply couldn’t be avoided. After all, traveling to the far end of Inhabbed space was not
a quick and easy undertaking. The next task was to alert a security detail of twelve men. Corren had already determined he would need a crack team of covert operations people. There was no way he was going to what amounted to a hostile planet, ‘invited’ or not, without a security team he could trust.

  The twelve men, lead by Satto Phanafor, were part of a team who had proven themselves twice during local disturbances, and once when a CEO of a subsidiary of a metals fabrication company in South America had been suspected of underhanded dealings. Not only were the men experts with weapons, they were experts in stealth ops, knew how to sift through databases, and had even used questionable tactics to extract much-needed information from people in ways that were always ‘within prescribed law limits’. Corren was sure there was much more going on than what the short communication vids from Andakar had revealed. Getting to the bottom of it and in the fastest way possible would be paramount. Thus, shortly after their arrival on Andakar, perhaps even while he was at a table with Siloy and his cronies, his men would already be dispersed throughout Tokaias looking through computer records, asking the right questions, and making the required scans. Newsvids would be sifted, CEO interviews would be recorded and people would be questioned. Nothing would be left to chance. He had every intention of stopping what he considered a mutiny before he left Andakar.

  The next stop was to Mars. Third Executive Abela Senerete had been given all the relevant information via FTL comm buoy and had already reviewed it before their arrival in orbit. Abela was still quite surprised at the news once she boarded their ship.

  “Are the rest of them on board?” she asked almost immediately.

  Corren had just finished shaking her hand. “Yes indeed. Jafar is here. And Satto.”

  She cracked a smile. “Good.” She knew Satto to be their most loyal special ops team leader. “I’m sure that after we’ve arrived and they’ve done their jobs, this misunderstanding, for lack of a better word, will be over before we leave their space.”

  “I’m certain it will be. As certain as I am First Executive.”

  Less than six hours after they were underway Corren held the first of his formal meetings with the other directors. Satto attended each meeting, something he’d never been privileged to do before. Usually, he was simply given the information he needed, passed it on to his team, and he led them to do what was needed. This was a highly unusual situation and warranted his attendance.

  Before this unusual turn of events, his services had only been needed to make sure that corporate law was adhered to under penalty of incarceration or heavy fine. Adherence to corporate law sometimes required ‘special’ interviews where a little more than arm-twisting, in a literal sense, was required. In this case, only incarceration was being discussed.

  It was during the second week aboard their vessel when Satto received an important communication from Earth. A previously unknown individual named Kestin Dryter on Andakar had much to do with how and why the two Citizens who were employed by the Andakar Space Navy, had gone through the so-called gateway on Rylerra. No one understood what his involvement was so far. One of those Citizens was the son of Chief Councilor Siloy James-Po.

  During one of the meetings Corren explained to everyone precisely how the various issues would be handled.

  “Jafar, I want you to meet with Satto as often as is necessary to not only find this Dr. Dryter, but to obtain whatever information he has. I want to know how Siloy was involved. There is no way he wasn’t. I want you to lead the investigation with him.” Satto nodded, as did Jafar.

  “Abela, since you know Inandra personally, I want you to handle her release. I suspect it will be a simple matter since there is no planetary law that can legally prevent you from doing so.”

  Abela gave him a nod in acknowledgement.

  “Of course, all of you will be directly involved in the initial meetings with their Chief Councilor. Later I will take their ‘guest’, this Efren Llarena, to Rylerra. I suspect he knows a lot more about that dimensional gateway than anyone on Andakar or Rylerra is aware of.”

  “What of the language issue? He doesn’t speak any languages we’re familiar with,” Satto asked.

  “I’m sure by this time someone has fed either a language translator bot’s memory with his language or he’s been taught at least the rudiments of ours.”

  Satto scanned the last page of the report on Efren. “All of the Citizens and Siloy’s pre-Citizen son speak his language, according to the report.”

  The group read the rest of the report and acknowledged that the language barrier would be the least of their concerns after all.

  “Each of us has our assignments. By the time we’re done this will be a dead issue and we will not have to hear more about it ever again.”

  Corren had thought about it a lot. The dimensional gateway would be of extreme importance. All the data, however sketchy it was, pointed to the fact that no one on Rylerra or Andakar had claimed the gateway for anything other than the anomaly it was. On the other hand, he had already determined he would be declaring the object or device, or whatever it was, a Consortium artifact. This status would automatically force discussion of the device and delay any attempt to declare independence by Rylerra, too. He certainly didn’t want this infection to spread.

  By day seventeen in transit, the events that had been pieced together from the vids and other data they had continued to compile no longer surprised Corren or any of the other men and women who were privy to the twice-daily meetings.

  Indeed their tasks had been firmed up and had already been drafted into documentation that would be formally presented to Siloy during the first day of their meeting. Lawyers would be present. Satto would eventually be there to take in everything he could, too. Corren was aware that Satto could read a person better than any computer program he had ever used.

  The day before breakout to the Andakar star system Corren had a formal vid prepared. The vid was to be sent directly to the newsfeeds the moment they were clear of electromagnetic interference. In it, he merely pointed out that the dissolution of ties to Earth would lead to tremendous hardship for Andakar, and which would ripple throughout the entire Consortium. His confiding tone told his target audience he was arriving to provide structure and support, or just a ‘helping hand’, to welcome Andakar back into the fold. In the interest of profit and harmony, economic ties of such long duration and magnitude that all of them shared could not and would not be severed.

  He did not discuss anything that would allude to how he intended to make sure no local elected official would be remaining in office once they was done. That would ensure nothing of this nature would never happen again.

  Chapter 42

  Efren Llarena set the vidPAD down on the tabletop. It was quite unfortunate that Empire Spanish was a different language from the Spanish spoken in this universe. After getting access to much material in various formats of what he discovered was known simply as ‘Spanish’, he quickly discovered it was as different as Lingua was to him. Sure, there were recognizable phrases here and there, verbs somewhat similar, and dozens of nouns were close, but this Spanish was a dialect which was impossible for him to decipher. It seemed the divergence of the two languages occurred at least a thousand years ago, making this version sufficiently different enough as to be useless to him.

  It could have been far worse. He could have ended up in a universe where Spanish had never been spoken. Regardless, it meant none of the automatic translation devices available to him were useful. In addition, RNA learning technology was not only not available, the very mention of it to anyone familiar with it resulted in a lecture about how horrible it was. That was certainly not the case in his experience. How else could he have been able to learn the incredibly complicated navigational skills required for deep space travel? How else could he have been able to learn how to cook the cuisine of three worlds? His sellez casserole was the talk of every person who ever tasted it. The very concept of it being horrible technology an
gered and disgusted him.

  Perhaps the worst possible thing he had learned in the last six weeks about his native culture on Earth in this universe was that the Spanish Empire ceased to exist over a millennium ago. That explained why Naylon had been grilling him about history. In this ‘reality’ Angla had defeated King Philip’s navy and eventually went on to become the global world power for hundreds of years. It was nearly impossible to believe that backwater Angla had become a world-spanning power! The very thought that more than ten centuries of long and illustrious history, a history he was steeped in yet didn’t exist here, had caused a sadness nearly impossible to allay. It was all he could do to not break down in tears. Tears he didn’t know he had inside him.

  But Andakar had a treasure trove of pharmas. Some of which had already been prescribed. His sadness was on hold for now. It didn’t provide him with much solace though. For now, he realized that as soon as he no longer used them that sadness might return. Perhaps worse than before.

  He stared at the title at the top of the page: Lesson 20, and emitted an audible sigh. He had had no choice but to immerse himself in this frustrating endeavor. He had been alternately annoyed and fascinated learning this way. Frustrated, because he was well aware RNA would have made the ridiculous amount of time he’d spent on these language lessons utterly moot. Indeed, within a few hours he would have been speaking Lingua fluently.

  Regardless of the frustration at how slow it was to learn anything here, he was still fascinated with this method of instruction. He had never been forced to learn another language. Indeed, he had never been forced to spend hours of time learning anything as an adult. A simple injection, followed by a two-hour nap, had yielded a treasure trove of new knowledge. But not here. In this universe. On this world. Yet, despite that, he already had relatively decent command of basic grammar, vocabulary, and had participated in twelve two-hour long conversation sessions with his designated Tokaias University linguistics professor. Holographic language interaction was quite simple between lessons. There were pharmas that enhanced memory. He had been taking them, too. They were nothing like RNA but they made his ability to learn seem sharp and clear.