Music of the Spheres (The Interstellar Age Book 2)

by Daniels, Valmore

A second voice, one that Alex recognized right away, spoke.

  Yaxche said, “Sky Traveler, you have been on a long journey in the spirit world. We did not know if you would come back to us, so we traveled a great distance to find you. Now, you are whole once more.”

  Fighting against the sudden nausea that rose up as the blood pressure in his head increased, Alex forced his eyes open. It took him a moment to focus, and a few more moments to identify where he was.

  He saw Michael, Justine and Yaxche, but his stomach clenched when he realized they were in a cabin on an unfamiliar space yacht.

  “Where am I?”

  “The Ultio,” said Michael. He reached out and touched Alex’s shoulder. “How are you, my boy? You had us worried.”

  “I’m fine, I think.” Alex’s head was clearing, and he was able to sit up without feeling dizzy. “What happened?” He needed to know.

  “Well,” Michael said, “it seems you fell into some kind of a fugue state, and your consciousness—Yaxche calls it your dream spirit—was anchored in Centauri System. Kenny’s theory is there was an energy link between you and the alien space port. Probably from when you were here last. Naturally, your Kinemetic consciousness gravitated here.”

  Here? Alex’s stomach flip-flopped. “Alpha Centauri?” He stared at Michael. “We’re in the space port?”

  “Outside of it, actually,” he said. “We can’t figure out how to get in. You seem very upset, Alex.”

  Alex gulped. “Uh … it’s … I mean, the last thing I remember was being on CS3. Now I’m in another solar system. It’s just unexpected.”

  Michael gave him a comforting look. “Trust me, I felt the same way. I didn’t experience anything when we were quantized. It was a blink of the eye for us.” He glanced at Justine when he said it.

  Justine had a playful smile on her face when she asked Alex, “Are you thirsty?” and reached for a squeeze pack of orange juice beside her without looking.

  Alex took it when she offered it to him, and as the liquid hit his tongue he realized he was parched. And starving.

  But what had just transpired caused him to look at Justine in surprise. She did not have her optilink on, nor her harness. Yet she had passed him the juice without faltering in the least.

  “How did you—?” he asked.

  She smiled at him. “Use your sight.”

  He did. “You’re … a full Kinemat?” he asked in wonder.

  “Yes.” A contented smile on her lips, she nodded. “It was Klaus.” She told him about the hijacking and the experiments.

  When she finished her tale, Alex asked her, “You were aware the entire trip here?”

  There was a particularly distant look on her face when she nodded.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It was pretty exciting at first, but after four years and however many months, well…” She fell silent for a moment, and there was a reflection of the pain of loneliness on her face.

  “Are you able to sleep?” he asked her, wondering if his insomnia was a typical side-effect.

  She shook her head. “No. And that took a while to get used to.” Justine smiled. “We are the same in every way, except that I am aware during quantization.”

  Alex, like Michael and every other person who had not been irradiated by charged Kinemet, had no awareness when he was quantized. Again, that proved to him that he was not fully transformed—he was stuck somewhere between human and Kinemat. But he was overjoyed that humankind had made the next step in its chrysalis. Justine had made that transition, though it had been forced on her by Klaus.

  Alex asked, “You all came here just for me?”

  “Well,” Justine said. “That, and we were kind of chased out of Sol System.”

  Alex sat up straighter. “What?”

  “Are you up to hearing the rest of the story?” she asked. “We can wait until you’re feeling better.”

  Alex shook his head. “Other than needing a sandwich or something else to eat, I’m good. Tell me everything.”

  They did, Justine and Michael taking turns relating everything that had happened since Alex had shifted out of consciousness, right up until they arrived in Centauri.

  “About seven hours ago, we arrived in orbit around the small planetoid you described. The one with this system’s star beacon,” Michael said. “We scanned the area and found the spaceport you told us about. It only took us about five hours to get here. But now we’re just hovering outside the structure. We hoped you knew how to get in.”

  Alex shook his head.

  Michael said, “We’ve just been doing scans of the port. It looks like the hangar is only half of this structure. There’s most likely some kind of working and living area on the other side, but we can’t detect any signs of life. We think we found a bay door to the hangar, but can’t figure out how to open it.”

  Sometime during the last part of the story, Kenny had arrived. When he spoke, his voice was measured and controlled.

  “I managed to rig one of the spectrographic sensors up to the ship’s computers. And I got a reading from the Centauri star beacon.”

  When everyone looked at him blankly, his jaw rippled in frustration at his inability to get his point across. “You see, when we first arrived in Alpha Centauri, the beacon went dormant right away. You know. Once we had come out of light speed.”

  There was an inscrutable look on his face, but then Alex connected the dots. His eyes widened.

  “You were able to link to it now because it’s giving off electromagnetic waves. That means—”

  “—Someone’s coming,” Michael and Justine said in unison.

  ∞

  In a group, the four of them rushed out of the cabin and up to the bridge where Kenny had installed the sensors. The spectrographic readout showed an ever-increasing wave signal.

  Alex was a little unsteady on his feet, but the food and the hour of rest had done wonders; physically, he was recovering quickly. His heart, however, beat in his chest like a hammer.

  Over the past few years, Alex had had plenty of time on his hands to research every aspect of Kinemetic science, and based on the readings he saw, he quickly calculated that whatever the new arrival to the Centauri system was, it would enter normal space in less than five minutes.

  Where it would arrive in relation to Centauri’s star beacon and the space dock was unknown. The first time Alex had made the trip here, he’d appeared a little over twenty-thousand kilometers away—a very short distance in astronomical terms. The Ultio had also arrived at the same location. The average ion drive could propel a ship that far in a couple of hours, but Alex didn’t know if it would take the newcomers that long.

  He had to tell the others, but couldn’t find his voice. Hope and fear both warred within him.

  “Are they coming from Sol System?” Kenny asked. “Did they follow us?”

  “Impossible,” Michael said in answer, though the crease in his brow showed that he had a kernel of doubt.

  Kenny nodded his agreement. “The only two agencies with full access to quantum drive schematics are Quantum Resources and NASA. The security checks I had to go through to get access after I had been hired were exhaustive. There’ve been informational leaks and technological espionage before, but never on this level.” He glanced at Michael for agreement.

  Justine speculated. “Our pursuers had weaponized Kinemet in their warheads. Maybe they’ve developed the tech on their own.”

  Kenny turned back to his monitors. “Any geek in their parents’ basement can figure out how to do that. It took Quantum Resources years to develop the first functioning quantum drive. Even if these guys managed to mine their own stash of Kinemet, it would be years before they mastered the technology.”

  Justine countered. “Klaus was able to make a leap ahead of us, and he was just one guy.”

  Frowning, Kenny gave a terse shake of his head. “He had access to the scroll. I say it’s a ship from out there.”

  “Aliens?” Michael said in a breath
less voice, his eyes filled with wonder.

  “Well,” Kenny said as the graph on the monitor spiked, and then flat-lined, “we’re going to find out very soon.”

  ∞

  If the new arrival was, indeed, the mysterious warship that had chased the Ultio out of Sol System, and they had somehow paralleled Klaus’s experiment and created another Kinemat, then Alex and his friends were in trouble.

  But the other possibility was potentially worse.

  Alex summoned up the courage and, as the four of them stared at the monitor, he said, “I’m so sorry that I never told you the whole truth.”

  At first, no one reacted. It was as if they didn’t understand a word he had said. But then Michael slowly turned his head toward Alex.

  “What truth?”

  Taking a deep breath, Alex took a step off to the side and looked at the large holoscreen showing a panographic starfield.

  He said, “Outside of you and Justine, I’ve never told anyone about the space port in this system, except for the oversight committee representative—and I regret telling him that much.”

  “You could have told me,” Kenny said, looking hurt. “I had to find out about this from them.”

  Alex flushed. “All I told them was that when I came to this hangar on my last trip out, its automated systems attached a portable quantum drive and sent me home. I didn’t want that knowledge to get out, because it would only lead to more questions that I couldn’t answer.”

  “Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?” Kenny said, but there was only a hint of reproach in his words.

  But it was Michael who guessed the truth. “You made contact.”

  Alex nodded. “Yes.”

  Justine and Kenny turned as one, mouths agape. “You met an alien?” Kenny asked.

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean ‘sort of’?” Justine asked.

  “I mean I don’t know who it was for sure. I didn’t see anything. When I came out of quantization, I was inside the hangar, and the machines were installing the drive. The only part that I left out of my story was the voice message on my console. Once I listened to it, I had to purge it from the ship’s memory.”

  “Which is why you blew the storage banks,” Michael said.

  “Yes. I panicked and pushed too hard. But I remember the message word-for-word.”

  “Your eidetic memory,” Kenny said.

  “Yes,” Alex said. “And the message was in Mayan.”

  Kenny glanced between Alex and Yaxche. “Mayan?”

  Alex nodded, and turned on the ship’s translator. He spoke in Mayan, and the others listened to the English version:

  ∞

  I offer my greetings to you, Sky Traveler. I am Ah Tabai, a Sentinel of the Collection. Our people have waited for a thousand years for humankind to walk the path of light, and journey beyond the boundaries of our home system to join with us.

  It saddens me that our reunion must be delayed. I am afraid that I bring a message of despair.

  Your world is in extreme danger.

  Almost one thousand of your Earth years ago, the Grace vanished without a sign of where they went. They were our leaders, our mentors, our elders and caregivers. An ancient race, they were the ones who built the nexus of star beacons and infused them with their essence. The Grace existed in the galaxy eons before any culture Emerged from their systems. There has long been a legend that the Grace hid the sum of their knowledge in an unknown pre-Emerging star system.

  The Kulsat, once the favored of the Grace and one-time heirs to their knowledge and wisdom, have turned aggressive and power hungry. When they’ve become aware of a pre-Emerged system, they’ve scoured them for signs of the Grace and their legacy. They have not hesitated to destroy everything in their path to find what the Grace have hidden.

  I have sent instructions to the space port computer to affix a temporary light-speed engine to your ship, and it will send you back to your system. You must avoid traveling ‘outside of light’ at all costs, and refrain from returning to this star system, or the Kulsat may sense you.

  With luck, your system will remain undetected long enough so that you may learn to fully Emerge. Only then will you be able to defend yourselves against the Kulsat.

  Travel swiftly, Cousin. Go with Grace.

  ∞

  Once Alex finished his recitation, he turned to face his friends. They were all stunned.

  Kenny was the first one to break the silence. “Why wouldn’t you share this with us? I mean, confirmation of alien cultures aside, the fact that one of them might invade and destroy us is information I, for one, would like to have had.”

  Justine answered before Alex had a chance. “If we did know, the first thing we would have done is work towards improving the quantum drives, and on weaponizing Kinemet. Eventually, someone would notice that much Kinemet being used.”

  “It’s more important for us to ‘Emerge’,” Alex said. “You heard his last words. Only once we are Emerged will we be able to defend ourselves. I don’t know what that entails, but I’m sure if there were any other option, Ah Tabai would have mentioned it.”

  Michael turned to Yaxche, “He spoke Mayan. The Song of the Stars mentions a time when a great number of your people vanished during a war.”

  “Ahyah,” Yaxche said. “The Great War.”

  “Then…” Michael started to say, clearly working through the facts.

  But before anyone had a chance to add to the conjecture, the ship’s console lit up and an alert sounded. On the holoscreen, the faint twinkling of stars turned pitch black as they were blocked out by an enormous object.

  It had taken the Ultio five hours to travel from the star beacon to the space port. The alien ship made the trip in five minutes.

  ∞

  Everyone’s eyes were glued to the holoscreen, watching as the outline of a ship began to coalesce several kilometers away.

  “It’s huge,” Kenny said in a hushed voice. “At this magnification, I would say it’s at least fifteen-hundred meters long.”

  The architecture of the vessel was unlike any craft Alex had ever seen on Earth. It was as if the metal of the hull were made of pure electricity. It glowed and swirled in continuous motion, a dance of solid energy.

  The nose of the vessel extended out in a gently tapering cone. The ship’s body was shaped roughly like a tube, and ended in a long taper at the back. Overall, the vessel somewhat resembled a narwhal.

  As the ship neared, Alex was suddenly awash with the overwhelming sensation of Kinemet. He shivered.

  “I can feel it, too,” Justine said. “The ship itself is built from Kinemet!”

  Once the alien vessel came within half a kilometer, it stopped and floated at that position.

  “Is it the Kulsat?” Kenny asked. No one replied. “What are they doing?”

  “Maybe they’re scanning us. Wondering who we are,” Michael said.

  At the same time, Justine and Alex nodded.

  “Yes,” Justine said. “I can…” She gave her head a slight shake. “I don’t know how to describe it. When I try to use my sight, I’m just overwhelmed by the Kinemet out there. It’s like looking directly at the Sun. But, I feel like they are looking at us with the sight. Like they are looking at me—”

  Her words were cut off abruptly, and when Alex glanced at her, he saw that she was transforming into quanta before his eyes. There was a look of panic on her face in the moment before she completely turned to light.

  Everyone else took a step back as Justine’s essence, her collection of photons, floated toward the monitors and through them. They all flickered out as she passed them, and then came back to life when she was through.

  Her photons then continued to drift into the hull of the Ultio and finally out into space. Unconfined by any material barrier, her essence shot toward the alien ship, almost as if she were being sucked in through a vacuum tube.

  “What the hell?” Kenny asked.

  “It’s not her,” Alex s
aid. “It’s got to be them. They’re taking her.”

  Michael gasped. “Why her?”

  “She’s the only one of us who is a full Kinemat. I’m incomplete. They probably aren’t even aware of my existence.”

  “What are they going to—?” Kenny started to ask, but the hull of the alien ship brightened to a blinding level, and lance of pale light shot out toward the underside of the Ultio.

  Kenny screamed, “They’re targeting the engines!”

  Before anyone could brace themselves, the impact knocked them all to the floor.

  Michael let out a cry as he fell, and it looked as if he might have broken an arm.

  The electrical systems in the bridge stuttered. One interface console exploded in a shower of sparks, and a panel on the other side of the room popped off, the wires spitting and hissing.

  Yaxche, looking frightened out of his wits, had an arm wrapped around the back of the captain’s chair.

  The lights flickered off and on, and the artificial gravity generator failed. Alex lost contact with the floor, and floated up, smacking his head against a control panel.

  There was a secondary explosion, and then the ship listed to port.

  Just before the holoscreens went dark, Alex saw the alien spacecraft turn away and leave, as if confident their attack had been a fatal enough blow.

  Alex held enough hope that that wasn’t the case, right up until the air filters shut down, and the entire electrical system fizzled out.

  They were adrift in space. Their ship was disabled, and their life support system was non-functional.

  The temperature on the bridge started to drop at an alarming rate.

  “Alex,” Michael called out. “Can you do anything?”

  He could quantize himself, but he had no awareness in that state. In doing so, he might be able to save himself, but there was no way he could navigate the ship or help the others. He pushed his senses out to see if the electrical system was repairable.

  “I’m sorry, the generators and batteries are completely melted.”

  “What about the Kinemet?” Kenny said. “If it fissions, that’s all she wrote.”

  Alex shook his head, then realized no one could see the motion. “It’s not there. They must have taken it when they took Justine.”