by Dan Worth
‘Because I thought it might help you if you could face your demons, strike back at the ones who hurt you and take some revenge. Besides, we need all the good pilots with combat experience we can get. You have a real opportunity here. The pay’s good and you can actually work for something other than just yourself for once. You’re not alone Cal. Talk to the others, it might help. You’ve been facing this thing by yourself for far too long.’ She reached out a hand to touch his shoulder for a moment.
‘But why are the Nahabe involved at all? How come they know so much about these ‘Shapers’?
‘Because they’ve faced them before and they survived. It was a very long time ago, but they have long memories.’
‘I see, and what about you? Why do you want to help me?’
‘It’s partly because I felt guilty about the way that I walked out on you, and well, I think at heart I’m still in love with you.’ She looked directly into his eyes.
‘Now that… that I didn’t expect, ‘he said and laughed nervously, avoiding her gaze. ‘Alien monsters, no problem, but I really never thought that… well. I ah… I thought that you hated me. I thought you’d put my name on that loan to spite me.’
‘Maybe I did hate you, for a little while. It was easier than hating myself. But I never stopped loving you for a moment.’ She stroked his cheek gently. ‘Cal, do you still feel that way about me?’
He looked at the fine lines of her face framed by her collar length black hair, her long nose and arching eyebrows and the fierce gaze from her large intelligent eyes and he knew the answer.
‘Yeah, he replied. ‘Yeah I do, actually.’
Chapter 19
Katherine watched with puzzled amusement as Rekkid walked bleary eyed into the mess hall. He waved a dazed greeting and made his way to the queue at the food counter where he piled his plate and then shuffled over to her table where he sat down wearily in front of her.
‘Christ, Rekkid,’ said Katherine, with a laugh. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘Didn’t get much sleep,’ he replied arranging the food on his tray. ‘I was up late working on something, Katherine. Something you really ought to see.’
‘You’ve just poured orange juice into your coffee,’ she observed. Rekkid swore, looked at his drink, took a swig anyway and grimaced. ‘So what it is?’ she asked.
‘Oh. Well, you know my computer was busy decoding that file I found in the data wafers?’ She nodded, halfway through swallowing a mouthful of tea. ‘Late last night it finally finished the job.’
‘And?’
‘It seems,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘That the Progenitors left us a near complete record of the war that destroyed them. It stops at the sundering of the Dyson sphere, but it gives us a model of the conflict up to that point. I think that that’s what the Arkari uncovered, and why they were so eager to have the whole thing taken out of our hands. Essentially it provides an entire modus operandi of the Shapers.’
‘How they caused the Progenitor Empire to collapse?’
‘Yes. I think someone left this here on purpose for us to find, it serves both as a warning and a lesson. Like I said, you need to see it. I stayed up for hours with the thing. Hence I only got about two hours sleep.’
‘I thought your people could survive sustained sleep deprivation as part of your avian heritage.’
‘Yes well, we can - but it makes us very bad tempered, I’m afraid.’
‘You mean it makes you bad tempered… who’s to notice?’ She grinned. ‘But that sounds like a remarkable find Rekkid, I can’t wait to see it.’
‘Like I said, when I can be sure we won’t be disturbed… shit.’ Rekkid rubbed his eyes then muttered: ‘I really need to get some more coffee.’
He disappeared to the food counter again and returned with a fresh mug.
‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘I’ll show it to you at a suitable juncture, when we have the time and the privacy we need. Meanwhile, I think we should be quite busy today: Cox must have been impressed with our theory about that ship being multidimensional. He sent me a message just now to the effect that the ship we requested for scanning that vessel is now in orbit above us. A Navy recon cruiser, the Arminius, arrived a couple of hours ago and we have full use of its enhanced sensor suite. I’m told that the ship can resolve objects in hyperspace whilst sitting in normal space, so perhaps we might get some insights into how that thing out there actually works.’ He jabbed a fork towards the shape of the alien ship that loomed in the half light beyond the mess’s armoured windows.
‘How long till we get started?’
‘About half an hour. You go and suit up. I’ll join you as soon as I finish eating.’
They stood in the pit in the shadow of the alien vessel. Reynaud and Cox had joined them. Each of them had linked their suits to the live feed coming from the Arminius, far above the volcanic moon, as its sensors swept and probed the area where they now stood. The display of its findings was projected into their suits’ HUDs and appeared to hover between them, a phantom, three dimensional image of the ship and the ground it rested in. The layers of lava deposits were clearly visible, along with the recently dug pit and the human buildings around it. The image distorted and froze occasionally as the signal was interrupted by the storms beyond the protective dome.
‘Are you receiving our transmission okay, sir?’ crackled the voice of the Arminius’s captain in their ears. The question was directed to Admiral Cox.
‘It’s a little rough, but it’ll do,’ replied the Admiral. ‘Atmospheric conditions down here are pretty severe at the moment. We’ve got a dust storm raging outside and the static electricity it’s creating in the atmosphere is degrading your transmission.’
‘We’ll boost the signal,’ replied the captain of the Arminius. There was a pause, then the interference seemed to decrease. ‘Any better, sir?’
‘That’ll do for now. So what are we looking at?’
‘This is a standard ground penetrating radar image of the site sir. As you can see, the ship is clearly visible against the rock strata. Not much else to see.’
‘It would seem to confirm our suspicions that the ship came down into soft lava,’ said Reynaud. ‘See how the underside of the vessel is within that layer yet is perfectly preserved?’
‘Yeah I see,’ Cox replied. ‘Wonder what kind of shielding they had to withstand that?’
‘Ask them to use the magnetometer,’ said Katherine. ‘It might give us some indication as the composition of this thing.’
‘Alright Arminius, you heard the lady. Think you can turn your mine sweeping sensor suit to this?’
‘Maybe… just a moment, we’ll need to recalibrate the instruments to account for the atmosphere.’ There was moment’s pause. ‘Alright let’s see if this works.’
The image was now overlaid with another, showing the readings from the ship’s magnetometer. The metal structures of the complex were outlined clearly in glowing hues, coupled with a few streaks of pastel colours running through the surrounding lava. A hazy blob of colour hovered over the centre of the alien ship.
‘Arminius, can you increase the resolution of your scan?’ said Rekkid. ‘We’re seeing something here but it’s a little unclear what it is.’
‘Sorry, our sensors are already running at maximum resolution. That’s as good as we can get I’m afraid. It looks as though that ship contains internal components of a metallic nature, but the outer skin is entirely crystalline. Crystals of what though, I couldn’t tell you. Of course, the spatial distortion effects that that thing causes aren’t helping any.’
‘Well this seems as good a time as any to move on to examining those,’ said Katherine.
‘Agreed,’ said Reynaud. ‘This, I think, is the most fascinating aspect of this vessel.’
‘Really?’ said Rekkid. ‘I’d have thought ‘terrifying’ was a more appropriate term. If this thing really does exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously, then my guess is that whoever built i
t is as far in advance of both our races as we are to our stone-age ancestors.’
‘Why, Professor Cor, I thought I was supposed to be the dramatic one amongst us. You said so yourself,’ said Reynaud, mockingly.
‘Henri, we’ve learnt the hard way to be wary of things like this,’ said Katherine. ‘Fabulous technology carries as much risk as it does wonder and knowledge. Rekkid and I were among the few Commonwealth personnel to survive the entire Maranos affair unscathed, and then only by luck, so pardon us for being apprehensive.’
‘Yes, what did happen on that planet I wonder?’ Reynaud shot back.
‘When you’re all quite finished,’ snapped Cox irritably. ‘Perhaps we can get on with this?’
‘Certainly. My apologies Admiral; professional differences,’ said Reynaud smoothly. ‘Have the Arminius scan the vessel at the highest resolution they can manage.’
‘Good. You copy that Arminius?’ said Cox
‘Roger,’ came the crackled response. ‘Initiating hyper-dimensional scan. This may take a moment.’
‘Thea class recon vessels like the Arminius carry a modified version of the standard hyperspace sensors,’ Cox commented. ‘Most ships can only look for distortions in this dimension, but the Thea class can extend that search into neighbouring dimensions, both subspace and hyperspace. It allows the ship to peer inside the hyperspace envelopes of vessels in mid jump and determine their exact type. Previously we had to go on just the engine signature of the vessels in question. It was a bit of a black art, to be honest, and not much use if several ship types use the same drive. Don’t ask me how it works though. I just command the things, I don’t build ‘em.’
‘Well it’s useful for us,’ said Katherine. ‘If this thing shows up in more than one dimension our theories are correct. There’s just the small matter of working out how it manages to do it if we are.’
After a brief pause, the geological map they had previously been examining was replaced by a schematic of sub, normal and hyperspace covering the area of space where the moon currently sat. The three dimensions were represented by three stacked planes, the middle one, representing normal space, was curved into a concave parabolic pit from the effect of the moon’s mass and sloped steadily off to one side of the larger gravity well of Beatty. A grid of pale lines provided a reference as to the distorting effect whilst a three dimensional model of Rhyolite sat in the middle of indentation.
The view zoomed in sharply to the surface of Rhyolite. The ship was focusing on the area where the ship lay. Something was visible on all three dimensional planes now. It was a pinprick at first, then it grew ever larger as the Arminius fine tuned its instruments. There was no mistaking the spiny form that now sat in the middle of each plane. Lines of ever so slight mass distortion bent about its crystalline hull as it sat in defiance of the vastly differing space-time geometries that it simultaneously inhabited.
‘Well would you look at that,’ said Katherine. ‘It seems that we were right all along. This thing is multi-dimensional.’
‘Remarkable,’ mused Cox, peering at the diagram.
‘We’re not sure, but from our readings it looks like the ship may exist in further dimensions beyond the reach of our instruments,’ said the Arminius’s captain. Wait a second… ahhh, my Chief of Sensors Operations and my Chief Engineer think that judging from our readings that the vessel is exploiting a loophole in string theory that allows it to do this, but… really this needs better minds than ours to examine it. My advice would be to get a science vessel in here and fill it with as many theoretical physicists as you can lay your hands on.’
‘Well, I think we can consider this a success,’ said Reynaud. ‘It seems that your hunch paid off. I salute you. Another wonder of antiquity revealed.’
‘Revealed!?’ said Rekkid incredulously. ‘You heard the man; this is going to take years of study to even comprehend. That shouldn’t bother your readers though…’
‘Hang on, there’s something else,’ said the Arminius’s captain. ‘On closer inspection it seems that a portion of the vessel isn’t multidimensional. We’ve identified a roughly cylindrical space about half a kilometre in length inside the ship’s hull. It corresponds to the metallic region that we identified with the last scan. The rest of the vessel extends across various dimensions, but that part remains here. Maybe it’s an anchor of some kind in this plane or the engine that drives that thing. You guys should take a look inside and see.’
‘I concur,’ said Cox. ‘Understanding how this vessel works is now our top priority if we are to reap the benefits of its technology. By examining the portion most familiar to us, we might gain the insights we need to understand the rest. I want you three to find a way inside that thing, and quickly. Professor Cor, my men worked through the night imaging the exterior of this vessel as you instructed. I’m assuming that you should be able to make some sense of the patterns we’re seeing within the hull.’ He emphasised the point by patting the nearest spar of the ship that jutted out just above his head, then gazed at his hand thoughtfully after it slid away from the hyper-dimensional surface.
‘I’ll need some time,’ said Rekkid. ‘I can already read some elements of the patterns, but the remainder is something of a puzzle, to say the least. Hopefully I can compare the two halves in order to understand the whole.’
‘Good, if you can proceed with that.’
‘I’ll need a bit of peace and quiet, preferably near the ship so I can examine it further if I need to.’
‘There’s a site manager’s hut near the bow section you can use for the time being.’
‘Good.’
‘Doctor O’Reilly, how about you?’
‘I’d like to run some more tests on the ship,’ said Katherine. I was thinking, maybe if I can get some more data on the ship’s hull at a low level it might give us more insights. The sensors of the Arminius can only tell us so much. Plus, if your teams have found any more broken fragments of hull I’d like to analyse them.’
‘Excellent, I believe Dr Reynaud should be able to assist you in that respect. I need to go and meet with the dig team leaders and assess their progress. Carry on, and report to me if you find anything significant.’ Cox’s suited form turned and left, walking heavily around the rear of the ship until he disappeared from view.
‘Right well, I’m off to find my shed,’ said Rekkid. ‘You two have fun now. Katherine, be sure to call if his company starts to make you want to remove your suit helmet and kill yourself. I’ll see you both later.’ He winked at Katherine and stomped off towards the bow of the ship.
As he watched the Arkari leave, Reynaud said: ‘Your Professor Cor - he doesn’t like me very much, does he?’
‘You think? Rekkid’s a tad irritable at the best of times, but you seem to bring something out in him. He’s not one to suffer fools gladly.’
‘Katherine, I am no fool.’
‘No, and I think somehow that makes it worse. He doesn’t see you as being serious about your work Henri. You’re too much of a showman, and you’ve made quite a name for yourself from peddling some fairly unsound theories in your time.’
‘Now Katherine, that makes me very disappointed. I had hoped with your experiences that you might be a little more open minded.’
‘Yeah well, I’m open minded to anything that you can prove. So come on Henri, try and impress me. What have you managed to find out about the hull material?’
‘Not as much as I’d like, I must confess. Here, I have a piece.’ His gloved hands fumbled with a side pocket on the right thigh of his suit. He produced a small fragment of hull material and held it up. ‘You see? Once removed from the main body of the ship, the material loses some of its multidimensional properties. The field effect is lessened, so I can actually touch it.’
‘The ship must be generating the field around itself, rather the material itself.’
‘To an extent yes, though it would appear that the material itself amplifies this effect in some way. You have your
sample analyser with you?’
‘Yes, hang on.’ She struggled for a moment as she removed the device from its sleeve on her belt.
‘Now have a look at the molecular structure of the material.’ He handed her the fragment and she popped it into the analysis chamber of the device. She activated it and they both waited for a few moments whilst it processed the sample. The results were inconclusive. A series of question marks appeared next to entries for chemical composition, atomic weight and age.
‘We managed to get an approximate age from analysing the ship as a whole,’ Reynaud commented. ‘The number of cosmic ray strikes evident on the surface material is concurrent with a vessel of around five billion years of age. It seems that even the strange nature of this ship is not immune from certain natural phenomenon. Now, have a look at the molecular structure.’
She flipped through the options on the small device, until a graphical representation of the atoms that made up the crystalline material appeared. It made no sense.
‘This… this doesn’t look like crystal at all,’ said Katherine. ‘These atomic bonds should form regular, rigid, geometric patterns. This looks more a like a liquid, or some sort of morphable nanotech.’
‘You’re familiar with such technology?’
‘It’s a long story. Anyway… these readings are nonsensical.’
‘Yes, I thought so too. So I ran the sample through some of higher grade instruments we have back in the base, still no luck. On a hunch I sent a sample to a friend of mine who works in the Navy’s hyperspace research division. He owed me a few favours. Anyway, I didn’t tell him exactly what it was, and I told him to be discreet. He sent me the results back a few weeks ago. Here.’ He passed Katherine a small palm sized datapad and thumbed the controls until a molecular diagram appeared. It showed a complete crystalline structure, regular and recognisable. The various atoms were colour coded.
