Parallel Extinction (Extinction Encounters Book 1)

by T. R. Stevens

  A deep voice then spoke up. “Unfortunately, for me, they didn’t figure out in time that the field must be expanded and contracted within milliseconds. When the controlled and energized field sweeps across the human body, the portion of living matter at the field edge reverses its aging process, regressing, while the other portion continues static or standard aging. That creates a disassociation factor between the separately affected cells.

  “Such a field cannot be allowed to pass slowly over the body. A certain experiment ended with unfortunate results—like my death. The disassociation of cellular structures at the ‘terminator’ of the field wave—essentially, cellular disruption—caused me a quick but painful and horrible death. Bit of a mess that I was glad I didn’t have to clean up.” There was a background tone of respectful agreement.

  Fred was beginning to feel restless and it made him think of Angelo; he had never seen his uncle remain silent for this amount of time. “Uncle, you here?”

  “Yes, my boy, still here.”

  The shipwrecked terrologist was sitting in the escape pod, plugged into the micropile output, topping up the charge on his survival suit. It was his first return since his arrival here. The bloodstains and gore around the interior of the small space were unavoidable; he was happy not to be unable to recall their source. He intentionally kept his focus internal, avoiding too much review of the environment.

  “So, you’re saying the energia mostro has total control of the wormhole and time-reversal effects until it is imprisoned and controlled with magnetics and Gravity Rejectors?”

  The first, reserved voice picked back up. “Well, Phil did not finish; there is no time-reverse, and referring to your experience, no translocation of the charges that the pirates fired at you. When the pirates shot you, you actually were hit. That might have killed you, or possibly it did kill you, but the Elemental that you hosted used its innate talent to regress your body backwards to the state it was in before the shot was fired. You lost the memory of those next fractional moments, yet time did not change. You saw the gun fire but it seemed that the bolts simply disappeared and reappeared behind you.”

  Comani was shocked: he might have been fatally shot and he couldn’t remember it? His scientific curiosity brought him back quickly. “But my body is whole? At least I think it is. I cannot say for sure in this suit. How would there be no evidence? And are you saying that there are a lot of these Elemental beings? And on Earth too?”

  That had been an unpleasant revelation. It was the consensus that these things existed in and out of the universe—one of many universes—he’d been corrected on that several times, and they would be too numerous to count, given the infinite nature of universes.

  “Yes, yes and yes. Your body is whole, it is possible for there to be no evidence, and yes to both of your last questions.” His summary answer was joined by a general murmur of concurrence. “I will begin with the latter question. Generally speaking, the controlling gravity ratios work out something like this: One earth-G, the Elemental is solid, and its properties are confined tightly to the parameters of the Elemental’s “body”—the stone-like sphere. The finding of one on Earth is near impossible. The vertigo that you say you experienced, that is an amplified version of what a person feels in one-gravity, when near a stone-elemental form. There is confusion and forgetfulness. For this reason, rarely does a person ever actually complete the action of picking up one of these objects. Its quantum nature is only decipherable if one knows to look for it, and with specially built equipment.

  “At five-plus earth-Gs, the Elemental’s qualities are undetectable. It remains in the solid state until removed from gravitational influence. If this happens, it will begin to ‘thaw’ as it gathers energy from its surroundings, faster or slower, depending on the energy around it, and the depth and time of its former gravity-imprisonment. In your case, it had been feeding on you readily for some time when you noticed its return to the energetic, unconfined state.”

  The thought of that thing feeding on him twisted Fred’s insides badly. The visceral emotion brought back the moments of his desperate escape in this pod. His eyes had been shut against the evidence of that trauma, but that did not now protect him from a crystal clear flashback to what he’d seen before closing his eyes. It caused him to abruptly and uncontrollably vomit into the well of his helmet. There was immediate hush from the “scientific community.” Jessica spoke for the first time since the meeting started. “Oh Freddy… We all know how you feel. Some of us have been through the same thing that you went through, and we’d all probably be throwing up if we had a physical body.”

  His suit cleaned up and processed the vomitus, doing a passable job with the odor. Comani struggled to restrain his gag reflex. Through his embarrassment, he managed, “Thank you, Jessie, molto generosa.” He took a pull on his water tube, a deep breath, then said, “Bene, bene, sto bene. You can go on.”

  The same educated voice that had been offering most of the explanation made a throat clearing sound before continuing. Fred wondered if ghosts had throats, and how was it that they all happened to know Italian. And who was the man speaking so much; why he had been chosen to do most of the talking? He dismissed the question; he did not wish to know what experience might have qualified him as speaker.

  “Well, let’s see… oh yes, when the creature is in a zero-G environment, the field extends one-point-five to three meters from its body, and it is hidden from sight—transformed.

  “Its true nature, we believe, is being displayed at this point, that of the wormhole influence. A conflict we cannot resolve has to do with their response to gravity in our universe, but this leads to other wonderful theories and questions about differing laws of physics. These are not important now.”

  Comani was thankful for small mercies.

  “These objects would not normally progress to any greater state than that of the zero-G state—our laws of physics don’t provide for a naturally occurring, steady-state of true, non-relative ‘negative gravity’.

  “This is where BUMP comes in and muddies up the natural order of things: if you apply minus zero Gs, variable, the field potential will expand, limited only by the amount of plasma energy and the force of negative gravity built up by the containment’s spherical arrangement of Gravity Rejectors. Inside the sphere, a simultaneous, all-directions pull is exerted on the Elemental. A human would be ripped apart if inside this container. Space-based, dual containment tests have given a grand upper limit of the field diameter before the containment sphere implodes.”

  Questions nagged at him, so Comani asked, “If the thing healed me with its power, why wouldn’t I remember it? And I don’t quite understand why the field does what it does for the ships? Why, or how, does it change time?”

  “No, you’re not thinking of it right.” The man’s shell of patience cracked slightly. “There is no change in time. Inside the field—the controlled and rapidly expanded field—we are at the effect of the Elemental’s primary wormhole nature… Don’t interrupt.” Comani’s mouth hung open, a question cut short. “When we encounter these things, uncontrolled, we experience a reversal or skip in personal time but the static reality does not reverse. Remember the déjà vu you experienced?” Alone in the pod, Comani nodded. “Well, that’s what the poor, consumed soul experiences. You got a small taste of it. It is the secondary effect.

  “The primary effect is what BUMP ships exploit. Wormholes. For a ship’s crew, all are within the simultaneous wormhole event, so all appears completely normal.

  “These entities are tied to their home universe’s larger gravitational reality, it is this tie that allows them to warp spacetime. We benefit without any dangerous gravity wells to fall into.

  “The secondary reversal-effect exists on the bow-wave of the expanding field of the wormhole, and it expands so rapidly across the occupants of a ship, there are no noticeable effects. In your pod, as you interacted wi
th it, you were only partially affected by a field that was small, not perverted and expanded to a larger, abnormal radius. Your observations were bouncing back and forth in the rewrite-effect that these things have.”

  Now Comani shook his head. “Hang on—rewrite? What does this mean?”

  The voice of the excited scientist, Phil, broke back in. “Yes, that’s what I was going to say earlier…”

  “Phil, if you don’t mind, let me continue.”

  Comani sensed some hard feelings. There was a conspicuous silence before ‘Dr. Education’ resumed. “You shared with us your initial experience with the object, when you thought the water had somehow traveled forward in time.”

  “Yes, that is right, it went from my squeeze-tube into the field, and then it was all around me. There was no transition; it was just there, everywhere. Little droplets drifting around.”

  “Yes, it seemed that it went beyond time. But, tell me, how much more do you remember before you found that you had become a prisoner of the Elemental?”

  “Actually, very little.”

  “Mmm, yes, you were brought under its influence shortly after your experiment. What you witnessed, Dr. Comani, was a loss of a part of yourself; the same as with the gunfire experience. The water droplets had spread out normally, and you likely watched it happen, but then you were regressed a small amount, and to your witnessing consciousness, there was a gap. Not a simple forgetting; rather, an excised memory.

  “We’ve observed that the regressive event follows the individual’s actual development in reverse. We asked ourselves: how is this possible? What tells reality how to create each younger manifestation of the human that is being regressed? How is it that this new, younger form matches the moment of its existence in the past? It is not a biological regression; no remnants of certain markers, like scars, are left on the regressed body.

  “The answer is that there is a record somewhere in these invisible dimensions, of that person’s past. Their physical past, down to a record of each and every atom of their body as it existed in each fraction of a second in their past. And so, all of the past, every bit of it, is all ‘writ in stone’ somewhere.

  “These colossal stores of life records must represent a resource of raw energy; the being taps into them by drawing that record through the human attached to that recording. During the time that the human is in the influence-field of the Elemental, the flesh becomes morphic, plastic, allowing the physical body to follow the reversing record that is being drawn out. Our only small safety against attacks seems to be that it must use another human as an interface device.”

  The concepts that the scientist spoke of now were intangible, but having lived through such an event, these things were more understandable to Comani than the hard science.

  “We suspect that once this energetic recording has been vacuumed in this way, there is no trace of that person left in this Universal Record, that their souls,” he interrupted himself, “We accept -soul- as a concept, but our definitions vary—their souls are consumed.

  Comani had reached a mental saturation point; he could not conceive of what they were describing, but held his tongue for fear of opening up new areas of explanation.

  Unfortunately, the scientist continued. “So, the Elemental not only drains the life force, but simultaneously feeds the recorded past to the matter-reality as the form disintegrates. The victim is an interface through which to feed upon this energy-record.

  “It isn’t time-travel, but the person appears to be traveling back along their own timeline. A deadly personal rejuvenation.”

  It sounded like the man had tried to make a joke, but there were no laughs. His scholarly voice droned on, but Comani’s attention wandered, the image of the regressing, shrinking pirates filling his mind’s eye. They’d had a look of horror on their face. At the time, he had assumed them to be in great pain, especially since the energy which was penned up with him seemed so hostile. He considered his own disorienting déjà vu and what these ghosts had said about memory loss.

  Those pirates would have been witnessing something through their eyes, which were wide open, but each of those people would have progressively forgotten the context of each moment. The look on their face might not have been one of pain. And it couldn’t be fear; they would not have existed in any one moment long enough to experience anything other than utter surprise or shock at finding themselves someplace that did not fit with the resident memories of each previously-lived moment in time. The look was frozen because they were experiencing the same feeling up until the moment they no longer had a coherent recollection of their past, around infancy. It was a look of stark surprise.

  He shook his head to clear the vision of bulging eyes, tuning in again to what the man was saying.

  “So, to summarize, there are two effects: the wormhole point-to-point effect, and the regressing of the timelines of living matter—the latter effect explains the results you witnessed, uh…” the man was treading into sensitive territory; he didn’t want to make Fred ill again. He tactfully avoided more details. “The former saves us from the experience of time-dilation, wherein all that we’d known at the beginning of a journey would be years-gone by the time we got anywhere.

  “When we …”

  “Thank you,” Comani interjected, trying to politely cut him off. “I think I need to digest all that. Wormhole studies weren’t part of my course curriculum.

  “What about all of you? How is it that all you Italian scientists are involved in this?”

  There was a pause before the response, until one of them surmised what he was talking about. “No, sir, we aren’t Italian, or at least most of us are not. I imagine that your English must be weak, so you are hearing us in your own language. Interesting.” The others caught on and Comani could hear their various comments of mild surprise. He set that puzzle aside, pursuing another query. “Is there anything that you are able to do with all of your understanding of these things?”

  The deep voice spoke up again. “Well, young man, our little collective of brains on this side of the curtain grew to a certain number rapidly in the beginning. We found each other and actively sought out any new crossers, as we call them. But as the military got their bearings on these things, at our expense, the number of new minds to focus on this problem dwindled. The truth is, we are at a dead-end. We understand the nature of the Elemental better than any living scientists, but we have not been able to bridge the gap into action.

  “That’s where you come in, son. We’re hoping that you’ll join the cause, as it were. We need you to get the information back to people who can take some action on behalf of the human race and the danger it has brought down upon itself—yet again.”

  CHAPTER 52

  EVENT: DAY 15, 1020 UT

  “Madam, your personal affairs are of no concern to me.”

  Zhyanka radiated fury as she stood in a pose of resistant attention, fists clenched at her sides. Swan’s humor had moved back to darker shades. “If you make any further objection you will be answering a court-martial.” He paused for effect, half-hoping that the belligerent Russian woman would give him an excuse to pull the trigger on that. It wasn’t an empty threat, though he did have need of the type of things that she knew.

  Still, he could replace her. But she did not give him the opportunity. Her silence said that she had gotten the message, and after making her wait an uncomfortable amount of time, feeling that the authority of the moment had settled firmly upon him, he gave Tasimov her assignment. He explained that it was imperative that she discern more of the nature of the mysterious drive elements and where they originated.

  In her Russian inflected speech, she appeared not to be done with her disagreeable attitude. “You understand, Admiral, the time this will take? This is not simple thing that you ask. This may be not knowable.”

  He let her finish, then said, “I don’t expect excuses,
I expect results. Your attitude is poor from the beginning. You would do well to understand that this is not the way of the Multi-Military Patrol. I am surprised; I would think, by your record, that you would be familiar with what is expected of you. When you were summoned here, you fell under SBMMP jurisdiction. You’re not sitting in some civilian office now.” He dressed her down coldly.

  The woman took on a certain composure as he spoke; a frost prickled about her by the time he finished. To her credit she remained silent.

  He added, “Your work here is classified, as I am sure that you are aware; tell no one the nature of the thing that you are researching. Dismissed,” he said with finality, placing his own wall between them.

  * * *

  She ceased to exist for him, as far as she could tell. She had managed to use restraint, but in her head she wrestled with a desire to inflict him with a stream of her favorite Russian expletives. Any one of which could earn her that court-martial. She strode stiffly out of the office, gladly leaving its oppressive atmosphere behind. Two steps beyond the door, her hard ice shell shattered and fell away from her. She sucked in a deep breath as she strode away quickly.

  So, this was all about the interstellar engine research. Origination. He was asking the impossible. Tasimov sensed something about this admiral that pushed past professional dedication to duty; he had a deadly air about him. She wasn’t sure what he could, or would do if she didn’t provide some sort of answer; she’d just as soon have one, and not find out.

  The admiral had given her a file to begin with—the reality of her assignment, she found, was a chilling one. The file was filled with report-cases of the accidents involving these force objects during some of the original experiments, as well as a recent accident.

  She had never worked directly with the objects; she dealt instead with the lab data and helped to formulate ways to manipulate the forces. But she was well aware of the accidents in the labs, as BUMP had pushed the research on the ship-drive. The path of that research had always been strictly focused toward the eventual reward of interstellar flight. The direction that had been avoided was the deeper understanding of these phantasms of force, aside from simply what they could do. The effort to direct all attention away from the question of intelligence had been transparent, though none commented on it.