Alex, surprised, looked up to see Kenny smiling at him.
“Uh, yeah. Sure.”
Kenny sat down and arranged his lunch on the table. It was some kind of vegetable soup and a toasted sandwich.
“Are you feeling any better?” Kenny asked as he broke some salted crackers into bits and sprinkled them in his soup.
“I guess.” Not knowing what motivated Kenny to sit with him, Alex was reluctant to say much.
“You gave everyone a pretty good scare.”
“Did I?” Alex spoke in a dramatic voice. “That’s good.”
Kenny stared at Alex for a moment and started to say something, but Alex smiled to show he was being facetious.
Using his spoon to dunk the more stubborn cracker pieces under the soup, Kenny said, “I guess everyone tends to walk on eggshells around you. No one really knows what you can and can’t do. I’m sure it makes you feel less than human sometimes.”
“Or more than human.”
Kenny took a deep breath. “I’ll say it again. I think we got off on the wrong foot, and that’s my fault. I’m new and I just wanted to impress the hell out of everyone. I’m sorry if it felt like I was using you as a stepping stool. I’m really a nice guy when you get to know me.”
“Thank you.”
Motioning to Alex’s lunch, Kenny asked, “You not hungry?”
“I’m starving,” Alex said. “But not for food.”
“Look, if I could do anything about that…”
Alex offered him a conciliatory smile. “I know.”
Twirling his spoon in his soup absently, Kenny drew his face into a look of concern.
He said, “I wanted to talk to you more about what you mentioned in the lab.”
“Chrysalis.” Alex picked up a fry and bit it in half.
“For starters, yeah.” He stared into Alex’s eyes. “I went through all the reports. I only found one where it’s mentioned, and Dr. Hoit, who was head of the Quanta experiments at that time, basically dismissed the notion. I’m reluctant to repeat his exact words.”
“You don’t have to. I read the report.”
Kenny looked startled.
Alex said, “Back then I still had my abilities. I could see beyond my normal range of vision.”
“Uhm.” Kenny looked uncomfortable. Not everyone could accept that Alex had once had those powers, unless they saw it with their own eyes. “Okay. So, let’s pretend I have a more open mind than some of the others. Do you want to tell me about this chrysalis?”
“There’s not really much to tell,” Alex said. “Both NASA—when it was in charge of the project—and Quantum Resources have been going about this the wrong way from the start. What they don’t realize is that I should not have survived my first exposure to Kinemet. I tried to warn them, but they classified everything I said. Sometimes people get a notion stuck in their head and they’re unwilling to believe anything that goes against that.”
“I have to admit, it comes with the territory,” Kenny added. “Scientists can be the most close-minded people you’ve ever met.”
Alex laughed without humor. Then he said, “The entire Quanta project was doomed to failure from the start. One of the reasons I involved myself early on—”
“By hijacking the Quanta,” Kenny added, twisting his lips in a half smile.
“—was because they assumed that the pilot, once exposed to Kinemet, would automatically return to a material state and turn on the electrical systems when they arrived at their destination, and in turn be able to dampen the reacting Kinemet.”
“And you knew there would be a greater delay than what was required? The report said it was several seconds—too long, as it turned out—before you rematerialized.”
“I didn’t know there would be a delay in my returning to normal space, but I knew there wasn’t enough time to start the generators, charge the battery and engage the dampers. The first time I was exposed to Kinemet I was far too disoriented to be of any use. Any pilot in that situation would take too long remembering what they had to do before being able to do it. It was also foolish of the physicists at NASA to think they needed to irradiate a pilot during a quantized flight to transform him.”
Alex took a deep breath. “But that’s not the only thing they were wrong about.”
“The only thing?” Kenny was obviously struggling to understand what Alex meant.
“Light-speed travel is important,” Alex said. “But the way they’re going about it is all wrong. You have to learn to crawl before you can walk, and you need to learn to walk before you can run. From the moment Kinemet was discovered, everyone wanted to go straight from the crib to flying through interstellar space. They’ve skipped a number of necessary steps before they can understand Kinemet, let alone master it.”
“Steps?” Kenny asked.
“To begin with, like with any radiation, radical exposure will result in death. That’s why they scrubbed the Quanta projects—nearly every pilot who they exposed to the element died, and those that didn’t die are in comas.”
“But you were exposed,” Kenny said. “Twice.”
“The second time I was already partially transformed. Additional exposure had no effect. The first time I was exposed I was partially shielded by the TAHU, and I was also far enough away from the point of origin that the effects were somewhat lessened. It was a fluke; I should have died … like my parents. But I believe there was some kind of catalyst that changed the nature of Kinemet before it irradiated me.”
Kenny chewed on his lower lip. “You mean how we charge it with hydrogen particles to initiate the quantum reaction?”
“Yes,” Alex said. “And I tried to tell them when I got back to Earth, but either I didn’t explain it correctly or they were so focused on other things they weren’t prepared to listen.”
“So … what’s your theory?” Kenny asked.
“I think there is a connection between anyone irradiated by Kinemet and those alien monuments. Because I’m only partially changed, the connection is not clear, but nevertheless, I feel it. It’s like a voice in my head calling me. It was very strong when I was in Centauri, and I have to believe if I had been fully transformed I would now know the answer. There would have been no need to cool the Kinemet because it wasn’t supposed to be used like it was, and the Quanta would not have exploded as a result.”
“Do you think…” Kenny struggled for the words. “…that voice was a broadcast from any aliens in that system?”
“There were no aliens in Centauri,” Alex said, his voice tight. He carefully avoided looking at Kenny. “Just me.”
Taking in a deep breath, as if absorbing all the new ideas that way, Kenny slowly let it out again. “So that brings us back to the original conundrum. What is the proper procedure to become … whatever it is that you would become?”
“Kinemat,” Alex said.
Kenny raised his eyebrow. “Kinemat?”
“Someone who has been fully transformed by Kinemet. They started to call it ‘the Manez Effect’ but I hate that.”
“I’m still not clear on what becoming a Kinemat means.”
“Part of the problem,” Alex said, “is that I don’t know either. I don’t know the correct method to become transformed by Kinemet, and I don’t know for certain what the result is supposed to be. It’s difficult to convince someone they’re wrong, when you can’t prove that you’re right.”
“Forget what you can prove,” Kenny said. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m in a transitional state that should only have lasted a very short time. Days, maybe, or hours. My transformation is incomplete. That’s why my health is deteriorating. I need to finish changing.”
“I’ll say it again: changing into what?” Kenny asked. “And how?”
“I don’t know the answer to either of those questions,” Alex told him, starting to grow frustrated.
“Do you have a theory?”
Alex took a deep breath to calm himself. �
�I’m not completely sure, but I believe there are instructions on how.”
Kenny made the connection. “The stolen Mayan scroll.”
“Yes.”
Pulling a disbelieving face, Kenny said, “We had every cryptographer, programmer, and analyst in NASA picking it apart for years. Their conclusion was it’s a nice story, but there’s nothing there that gives us any more information about Kinemet or the ancient races who built the monuments on the edge of the solar systems.”
Alex shrugged. “Just because we don’t know how to read the scroll properly at this time doesn’t mean it doesn’t hold the information we need.” Alex absently popped a fry in his mouth and chewed without tasting.
“So,” Kenny said, his voice measured, “what you are saying is, we can’t truly begin to understand how to use Kinemet for superluminal travel—at least the way the aliens do—until we are able to complete your transformation?”
“Right.”
Kenny picked up his spoon and stirred his rapidly cooling soup. “And our only manual is missing.”
“Yes.”
∞
Although Justine had not sent Alex a message, he knew she usually worked on the Diana, and wanted to come and see her when the ship docked. He’d tried to call her from his apartment, but the Lunar Lines receptionist said they couldn’t connect him for some reason. But he wanted to take the chance she would arrive today.
Promising Dr. Amma that he was feeling much better, he got her permission to go. It was an excruciating trip to the main terminal of the space port, but he made it with time to spare. Exhausted from the effort, he sat down on one of the benches.
He didn’t have to wait long before he spotted a familiar face.
Clive Wexhall approached with a warm smile. “Alex, how are you?”
“Hello, sir.” Alex stood up. “I’m good. It’s been awhile.”
“Yes it has.” He shook Alex’s hand. “They don’t let me off the Moon very often.”
Alex found that he developed an ache in his knees if he stood too long. His braces, designed more for walking, didn’t take any of his weight off his joints when he was standing still. If he shuffled his feet or subtly walked on the spot, the biomechatronics would kick in. When he made the motion, though, people looked at him strangely or asked if he was all right.
Alex sat back down on the bench. “Are you waiting for Justine?” he asked.
There was a slight flush to Clive’s skin. He said, “In a way, yes; but I also wanted to see you.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, Justine won’t be disembarking today. She has to stay on the liner.”
Alex scrunched up his face. “Oh?”
“But,” Clive said, “she asked me to get you clearance to go aboard for a visit while the Diana is in dock.”
It didn’t take any mystical powers to see there was more going on here than the liaison was letting on. Although Alex hadn’t had a lot of dealings with Clive, he knew Justine trusted him, and that was good enough for him.
“All right. That sounds fine.” He stood up and followed Clive to the security office.
∞
The cabin of the liner was completely empty of passengers when Alex and Clive entered. There were a few members of the cleaning crew there. Bypassing the workers, Clive led Alex to the kitchen area and to the elevator.
Clive motioned for Alex to go into the one-person lift first.
“Where are we—” Alex began to ask, but Clive winked at him and put a finger to his lips.
“I’ll be right behind you,” the liaison said.
Without another word, Alex entered the elevator. The door shut and it descended to the storage area. When it stopped, Alex stepped out and looked around. He didn’t see anyone, and for a brief moment he wondered if he’d been tricked, but then he heard muffled voices.
Without waiting for Clive, he walked down the aisle of containers and spotted a group of soldiers at the opposite end of the storage bay. One of them looked up and grabbed his ion rifle, but then someone said, “It’s all right. He’s with me.”
Alex recognized the voice. Justine beckoned him down, and he waved as he made his way to her.
The soldiers looked at him with a mixture of wariness and curiosity, but Justine didn’t offer any explanations to them or to Alex.
She was wearing her PERSuit harness and looked like she was cold. She gave Alex a wide smile, and he quickened his pace as fast as his braces would let him.
Alex was always surrounded by people, but he usually felt alone except when Justine stopped in on her visits. He always looked forward to his voice chats with Michael, but it wasn’t the same as seeing someone in person.
As he neared, he felt a change come over him. At first, he thought it was a feeling of happiness at seeing his friend, but by the time he was halfway to her, Alex knew what he was experiencing was something different. He could sense it.
Kinemet.
It was like a ray of sunshine to someone who had spent months in the dark. He could feel it radiating through him, replenishing him. Like a homing beacon, it called to him.
Everything else became peripheral to Alex, and with a renewed energy, he made directly for the large container in the middle of the group. He was barely aware of Justine or the others, and only peripherally registered their presence.
“This is Alex, my friend,” Justine said to the group with a lightness in her voice. “I hope you guys don’t mind, but he’s going to spend a couple of hours here with us during our layover. Don’t worry, I’ve cleared it with the higher ups. Ah,” she continued after a moment, “here’s the NASA liaison now.”
Clive appeared from behind the containers and waved as he spied Justine. As if completely understanding Alex not greeting her in the traditional manner, Justine waved back at Clive and met him halfway down the hall.
Alex couldn’t hear what Justine and Clive said to each other. He knew he should at least make the effort to pull himself away from the container of Kinemet and say something sociable to Justine. She had obviously gone out of her way to arrange this for him. But the kinetic metal was a siren’s song for him.
When it was not in the midst of a reaction, Kinemet was only mildly radioactive—less than a percent of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. A person who had not been altered by exposure to reacting Kinemet would need to be exposed to the dormant form in close proximity for several months before starting to feel any effects, and then it would most likely only be about as harmful as a sunburn.
Dormant Kinemet did, however, give off enough radio waves to play havoc with some electronics in close proximity. As a precaution against causing any shipboard disasters, the Kinemet on board the liner was encased in a thick container lined with titanium—the same material used in Kinemetic dampers.
Even through the sealed container, Alex could feel the waves penetrating through to his core.
A few hours? If that was the limit to his time, he would need to get closer. He turned around and said, “Can we open it up?”
With Clive in tow, Justine returned to the circle of guards and nodded. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”
As the lieutenant unlocked the main opening by tapping a code into the magnetic lock, Justine grabbed one of the cots and dragged it closer to the aperture.
When the door opened a fraction, a wave of Kinemetic energy poured over and through Alex, and he basked in it. Justine gently guided him to lie down on the cot, and at that moment, she made an odd face.
“Well, there goes my optilink,” Justine said with a laugh. “Might as well put my sweater back on.”
“It is safe for us?” asked the lieutenant.
Justine turned toward the sound of his voice, but she appeared to be looking past him. “If you have a digital watch, it probably won’t tell the time correctly. And forget watching any vids unless you go to the other end of the cargo bay,” Justine said. “But, yeah, the rays are mostly harmless.”
The lieutenant called ou
t a few orders to his men to patrol the area, and told the ones off-duty they could go up to the main floor kitchens.
“I’ll pop back down to check on you in an hour or so,” Lieutenant Jeffries said. With that, the soldiers made themselves scarce.
Whatever Justine and Clive talked about over the next few hours, Alex was completely oblivious to it.
As his body re-energized from the proximity to Kinemet, he found himself once again entering something very similar to that fugue state…
The ancient voice called to him: Alex, come home.
13
Lunar Lines Vessel, Diana :
Dock Seven :
Canada Station Three :
Leaving Alex next to the Kinemet, Justine and Clive moved as far down the cargo bay as they could while still able to maintain line of sight.
The Kinemetic radiation continued to interfere with both Justine’s PERSuit harness and the optilink; the sensors gave her such static feedback she thought her head would overload with the influx of scrambled data. Even though it meant she was once more plunged into complete darkness, she disabled her optilink and put her sweater back on. At the very least it helped keep away the chill of the cargo bay.
She was fine with her loss of electronically enhanced sight, because she had Clive there; he held her tightly in his arms as they sat on a turned over crate and spoke in soft tones.
“I meant it, you know,” he said.
She didn’t have to ask what he was referring to, and she was never one to play coy; she would not pretend ignorance and make him repeat himself.
Over the past few hours she’d had some time to think about what he’d said, but she was still torn. On the one hand, she was acutely aware that she wasn’t getting any younger, and she wasn’t looking forward to spending the rest of her life alone. On the other, her twilight years were still far away, and there was so much more she wanted to do with her life.
Justine couldn’t have asked for a nicer man than Clive. He was understanding, compassionate and kind. Although he could be a bureaucrat both at work and off duty, and could be a stickler for doing things the ‘proper’ way, he also had a singular wit and could make her laugh. The thought of giving her future over to him and making a life on the Moon together was not unappealing. At the same time, she had this fire in her belly that told her she wasn’t ready to settle down just yet.
Music of the Spheres (The Interstellar Age Book 2) Page 7
