The Nosferatu Chronicles: Return to Vambiri

by Susan Hamilton

  “Twofer,” said Jasper, “the computer in that office contains the telemetry of the object. Take as long as you need to look over the data and decide if you want be part of our project.”

  “The Wormhole Project?” she asked with a laugh.

  “Yes,” said Jasper.

  *******

  Two hours later, Devonna emerged from the office.

  “It was real,” she whispered. “I never thought I would live to see it, but it was a real wormhole. You’ve found a way to measure gravity waves. And what you referred to as an object was a massive spaceship! Were there people on board?”

  “The passengers and crew were in stasis,” said J’Vor.

  Devonna’s eyes widened further. “Wait a minute! So in addition to a spaceship that was launched in secret thirty years ago and recently pulled into a wormhole, you’re now telling me that you’ve also unlocked stasis technology?”

  “We did not unlock it,” said Emanui. “Now that you have seen the data, what we are about to reveal will seem more plausible.”

  “It’s alien technology, Twofer,” said Jasper. “The passengers and crew crash landed on Earth in the fifteenth century. Their species, the Vambir, have extraordinarily long lifespans compared to humans. It took them centuries to overcome technological obstacles and rebuild their ship.”

  “We assisted them with the refitting,” said Tariq.

  “What are you?” asked Devonna. “Aliens that were left behind?”

  “No,” said J’Vor. “We were…infected with their blood. It transformed us into hybrids.”

  “Our aging process slowed until it matched theirs,” said Jasper. “We’re very old — I was born in Wales in 1441.”

  “I was an archer conscripted into Mehmed the Conqueror’s army,” said Tariq.

  “I was a peasant girl from Wallachia,” said Emanui. “My mother died giving birth to me, and my father was killed on the battlefield fighting for Prince Vlad Dracula.”

  “You were all alive in the fifteenth century…” murmured Devonna.

  She looked at Jasper — that youthful face after all the years she had known him as a senior NASA official. The others had the same look, so young in appearance, yet so old in their manner and countenance. They all exuded a calmness that only attached itself to those who were well advanced in years.

  “You say you were infected,” she began. “Why did you help them?”

  “As you can imagine,” said J’Vor, “the first contact with the Vambir did not go over well with fifteenth century peasants. They attacked the Vambir, human blood was spilled, and the Vambir instantly became addicted to it. But there was one who resisted the temptation: Kevak. He did all in his power to assist humans who were infected. He then turned his attention to rehabilitating those of his own kind who were addicted.”

  Jasper began to say something, but Devonna put up her hand to stop him. “I need a minute.”

  It was all becoming too much for her. She desperately tried to apply logic to a situation that defied every bit of reasoning in her mind.

  They are using alien technology that tracked a spaceship in the Kuiper Belt as it was pulled through a wormhole to the Kepler system. I know that to be true because they have measured gravity waves just as Einstein predicted.

  “What did these Vambir look like?” she asked. “Not little green men, I take it.”

  “They originally had the same features as the Nosferatu character from the horror film,” said Tariq, “but upon ingesting blood, it brought about a transformation that enabled them to pass as human. Kevak was the only one who retained his original form due to his refusal to partake of blood.”

  “So, with the exception of Kevak, everyone on that spacecraft is a murderer!” she accused.

  “They gave in to the bloodlust,” admitted Tariq. “With Kevak’s help, those that we captured were fitted with devices that would kill them if they ever ingested blood again. They lived in isolation for centuries and kept themselves busy constructing the spacecraft, which they named Newisla. They came to terms with their own culpability and managed to rehabilitate themselves. Many found solace in religion.”

  “Secular aliens with superior technology readily accepted the religion of an inferior species?” asked Devonna, not bothering to hide the skepticism in her voice.

  “Not immediately,” said J’Vor. “They went through centuries of blood addiction and withdrawal, followed by intense remorse for what they had done. At that point, many were open to the teachings of a divine being that offered unconditional love and forgiveness. Some chose a Christian path, while others embraced different theologies. They all had the common thread of the great Iam.”

  “Professor Douglass,” said Emanui, “do you think you’ll be able to use the wormhole data in order to reproduce one here?”

  “So you can travel to their homeworld, Kepler-186f?” asked Devonna.

  “Yes,” said J’Vor.

  “Why would you want to open up a shortcut to aliens who are addicted to blood? Isn’t it better for the two species to remain apart?” asked Devonna, echoing Tariq’s earlier concern.

  “Real-time communication would suffice,” said Emanui. “We need to make sure everything is okay. Kevak never once mentioned that the Vambir had wormhole technology. Their original journey to Earth took over ten thousand years, and they prepared for the same on the return trip. Their homeworld, Vambiri, was destroyed by a freak cosmic event, so we have no idea how the wormhole came to be. There could be a hostile alien species different from the Vambir that want the Newisla for themselves. If so, they could turn their attention to Earth at any time. We need to know.”

  “You’re right,” said Devonna with a sigh. “I’ll do what I can to help you, but I need to know something right now — have you told me everything? What about the Ark of the Covenant hoax in 2034? Were your Vambir responsible for the laser-carved tablets?”

  Emanui shook her head. “The Vambir were not here before the Fifteenth Century.”

  “You cannot share what you have seen here today with any outsiders,” said Jasper to Devonna.

  “That’s why you chose me, wasn’t it?” she asked Jasper. “Because I lost my family all those years ago.”

  “It did play a factor,” admitted Jasper, “but most of all, we need your scientific abilities.”

  “I can’t do it alone,” said Devonna.

  “No outsiders,” insisted Jasper.

  “I need Tim Merkowitz,” she said. “You remember Merk.”

  “He’s completely out of his mind,” said Jasper.

  “That would be a plus,” said Devonna. “If he were to say anything to anyone, it would be discounted as just another one of his ‘end of the world’ diatribes.”

  “He’s not competent,” said Jasper.

  “He is when he’s on his meds,” said Devonna. “He was responsible for a lot more than he was ever credited with. You’ve asked me to trust you. I need you to trust me with this.”

  INTERVIEW

  Planet Vambiri

  Earth Year 2044 AD

  Kevak walked into Medical and found Ikato sitting upright in bed consuming a tube of hemo-nectar.

  “You look better,” said Kevak. “Two days in Medical has done wonders for you.”

  “I feel better,” answered Ikato as he took in a deep breath. “My lungs don’t hurt anymore when I do that.”

  “How did you come to be entombed so far beneath Lun?” asked Kevak. “And how have you survived for all this time?”

  Kevak had an idea of what had happened from information gleaned at excavations of the site over the last two days.

  “You found my stasis pod, surely,” said Ikato, “along with the store of hydrogen fuel cells.”

  “How fortunate it was to be so far underground in a lead-shielded chamber with a stasis pod and seemingly endless supply of hydrogen cells precisely when the gamma ray pulse struck Vambiri,” said Kevak. “That in itself was a one in a million chance. But in addition to
that miracle, there were also enough hemo-rations to feed an entire colony. It’s almost as if you were expecting devastation on a cosmic scale.”

  “It’s true,” admitted Ikato, “I took precautions in case of a disaster.”

  “A disaster you created!” accused Kevak.

  “That was never my intention!” cried Ikato. “The project would have gone ahead regardless of whether or not I was involved.”

  “What project?” demanded Kevak. “And what role did that massive particle accelerator play in this so-called project?”

  “Cosmologists identified several planets rich in titanium, nickel, and aluminum,” explained Ikato. “I was commissioned to find a way to eliminate the centuries it would take to reach those planets by conventional space travel.”

  “A wormhole?” asked Kevak.

  “Yes,” answered Ikato. “You must have suspected that’s how you were transported here, since your computer logs would have recorded how long you were in stasis.”

  “First things first,” said Kevak. “You were commissioned by the Council to develop wormhole technology in order to mine distant planets, but when you powered up the particle accelerator, a malfunction occurred that resulted in Vambiri becoming an irradiated rock. Is that correct?”

  “The singularity formed as predicted,” said Ikato. “The lensing revealed stars from another system — I was seeing galaxies thousands of light years away clear as a bell!”

  “What happened?” asked Kevak.

  “The singularity began to expand,” said Ikato. “I dampened the field generators, but I overcompensated, and it abruptly contracted. During the contraction, pressure began to build. I deployed the circuit breakers to shut it down, but that wasn’t enough to prevent what followed. The pressure was released in a gamma ray burst approximately halfway through the wormhole. The quakes that sealed me in protected me from the fallout. At that point, my only choice was to enter stasis and let time take care of the radiation.”

  “But you came out of stasis periodically,” said Kevak, “and not for a matter of days. You were busy with something for an extended amount of time. The clogged carbon dioxide scrubbers we found are a testament to that.”

  “I programmed the pod to revive me whenever the computers detected equipment failure that could cause the reactor to go critical,” explained Ikato. “Each time I was revived, I would run diagnostics on the particle accelerator and take radiation readings. I cleaned out the air scrubbers and reused them as best I could, but I was slowly suffocating. I couldn’t use the lasdrill to escape as long as the radiation levels outside were too high. There was no choice but to go back into stasis and try again each time the computer initiated the revival sequence.”

  “You made more attempts to generate a wormhole?” asked Kevak.

  “Yes,” answered Ikato.

  “Were you successful?” asked Kevak.

  Ikato nodded. “The first time was approximately ten thousand years after the Isla departed Vambiri. The long-range scanners detected your ship’s telemetry. Although I was sealed in underneath Lun when the Passenger Lottery revolt occurred, I was able to intercept the vidcom transmissions during the panic. That was how I learned the Isla was the only ship to escape the carnage. After extrapolating the data from the telemetry, I zeroed in on the planet whose course had been charted by your computers.”

  “You created a wormhole to Earth?” asked Kevak, hiding the concern in his voice.

  “I did,” admitted Ikato. “I was able to see it in its pristine state but was unable to solve the problem of transporting organic matter. Each time I was revived, I made small inroads toward a solution, but when the air scrubbers began to fail, I had to go back into long-term stasis.”

  “When was the last time you ‘checked on’ Earth?” asked Kevak.

  “Around fourteen hundred years before the Isla’s arrival,” said Ikato. “Three days ago I was revived when the computer detected a hydrogen leak. After tending to it, I checked the long-range sensors and discovered your ‘new Isla’ making its way back to Vambiri and was successful in generating the wormhole that brought you here.”

  “I thought you said the wormhole could not transport organic matter,” said Kevak.

  “It works just fine if the organic matter is encased in a metallic spaceship,” said Ikato. “I had no spaceship here on my end with which to escape.”

  “You had a stasis pod,” said Kevak, “would that have worked?”

  “There’s not enough metal shielding for protection,” explained Ikato. “As soon as my instruments confirmed the Newisla was in orbit above Vambiri, I initiated the automatic Korta Code transmission. The radiation levels outside were now safe, so I tried to use the lasdrill to escape. I hoped there would be just enough oxygen remaining in the tanks for me to make it through.”

  “There wasn’t,” said Kevak, “and it nearly killed you.”

  “I had faith you would find me in time,” said Ikato.

  “You’ve been cleared medically,” said Kevak. “We’ve opened up the accelerator chamber and are constructing a new system of vents. The air inside your former home is now safe to breathe. If you’re feeling up to it, I’d like you to give us a tour of the facility.”

  “Of course,” said Ikato.

  *******

  Ikato marveled at the progress that had been made over the two days he had been recovering in Medical. The tiny entrance that had been drilled through to reach him was now a double doorway complete with sensors. They swished open as he and Kevak approached. Once inside, he could hear the soft hum of the newly installed air circulation system.

  “You restored the lights,” said Ikato. “I was cut off from where the wires had corroded.”

  As he looked over the chamber, he could see workers with lasers vaporizing debris in the elevator shaft.

  “Was that the only way in and out?” asked Kevak.

  “Yes,” answered Ikato.

  Kevak’s palmcom buzzed.

  “Commander,” reported one of the workers, “we’re on the next level and have discovered an anomaly. The readings indicate a cloaking device. Shall we use the lasers to break through?”

  “No!” cried Ikato, who overheard the transmission. “I can disable it! The lasers might kill someone!”

  The nearby workers and Kevak exchanged worried looks.

  *******

  As soon as he was standing in front of the anomaly, Ikato waved his hand, and a holographic image with digits from zero to nine appeared. After he successfully punched in the code, an entrance appeared, and he moved to rush in.

  “Wait,” said Kevak. “The air inside may not be breathable. There could have been others trapped like you.”

  “No one has been breathing the air in there,” insisted Ikato as he pushed past Kevak.

  Kevak and two workers remained at the entrance. As the lights flickered on, they saw that the giant space was filled with rows of stasis pods.

  One of the workers standing next to Kevak waved his scanner. “They appear functional, Commander.”

  “What is this place?” demanded Kevak. “A backup plan for Highcastes who didn’t want to take their chances with the Passenger Lottery?”

  “No!” exclaimed Ikato, lifting his hands as he fell to his knees. “These are my children!”

  BLOODLINE

  England, 1538 AD

  Henry VIII was not born to be king. He was the second son. His older brother Arthur was viewed by his contemporaries as the great hope of the newly established House of Tudor, and there was every expectation he would be as legendary a king as his namesake, but it was not to be: six months after his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Arthur died suddenly of the mysterious “sweating sickness.”

  In the blink of an eye, Henry became the sole male heir, and his life was literally the only thing preventing the House of Tudor from falling into oblivion. Recognizing the urgent need for more sons, his parents conceived another child, but both his beloved mother and the baby, a u
seless girl, did not survive the birth.

  Upon succeeding to the throne in 1509, Henry married Arthur’s widow, Catherine, but by 1519 there was still no legitimate male heir. Out of Catherine’s seven pregnancies, only one child, Mary, survived. With each loss, Catherine became more devout, and Henry grew more worried about the succession. Without a male heir, the kingdom would once again descend into chaos and be mired in civil war.

  In 1526, the physicians confirmed what Henry and Catherine already knew: she was barren.

  It was at this time that Henry became enamored of Anne Boleyn, and after cherry-picking passages from the Bible that could be interpreted in his favor, he convinced himself that his marriage to Catherine was bigamous.

  Cognitive dissonance in a king is a dangerous force to reckon with, and Henry was now completely confident that he was, in the eyes of God, a bachelor and therefore free to marry Anne.

  The pope was no help. Normally, it would have been a small matter for secret deals to have been made that would quietly free Henry and pack Catherine off to a nunnery. But Catherine’s nephew just happened to sack Rome and take the pope prisoner during the precise time that Henry was seeking an annulment of his marriage. Instead of rendering a firm decision, the pope used every delay tactic he could think of, believing Anne Boleyn would soon allow Henry to consummate their affair. Once that had happened, Henry would surely cast her aside, putting an end to the “King’s Great Matter.”

  Every man of the time underestimated Anne. She kept Henry at arm’s length for six years, refusing to share his bed until he dissolved his marriage to Catherine.

  The stalemate had gone on too long, and Henry opened his mind to a suggestion that would result in cataclysmic changes not only for England but all of Christendom. His chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, had been, bit by bit, hinting that a king had no superior except God, and as such, a king was God’s representative on Earth and the head of all churches in his own country. It was a scandal, Cromwell claimed, that English churches sent tithes to Rome when that money rightly belonged to the Crown.

  Taking matters into his own hands, Henry broke all ties with Rome and had his handpicked choice for Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, pronounce his marriage to Catherine null and void in 1533.