---
The ringing of the com unit awoke Adamarus from a sound sleep. He looked at the time—2:30 a.m.. Grace was stirring next to him. He took his pillow and placed it gently over her head to muffle the sound and block the light, then leaned the other way and answered the video com just as another ring started. The top opened revealing Leewood’s concerned face on the screen. “Sorry to wake you, Adamarus, but we’ve got some strange things happening. First off, your friend Bugs is back.”
Bugs wasn’t due back for almost 300 years, Adamarus thought as he cleared his throat and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“The Loud ships have returned.”
Adamarus just stared at Leewood as he tried to make sense of this. “Have they said why?”
“They are not answering our inquiries.”
What the hell, Adamarus thought. “Have we asked any of the Loud avatars if they know anything?”
“No. We can’t. That’s the other thing…” Leewood looked away for a moment then back. “Forty-seven minutes ago, every Loud avatar currently operational in the star system—there were thirty-two—simply stopped functioning and just fell to the ground.”
Adamarus was wide awake now, “Shit.”
“Furthermore, as far as we can determine, this happened to all the avatars across the system at the same instant. Also, at probably the same exact time, the ship which was at Aster-7—it had just dropped off Radin and a small team to bring the reactor online—did one of those ripple and vanish tricks—without any warning—without a word.” Leewood leaned forward, “Several minutes later one of the Deep UV platforms we have at the comet shell pushing comets in system…”
“Right.” Adamarus said.
“…reported it had three Loud ships headed in system.”
Adamarus interrupted, “Three ships?” This was not making sense.
“Yes, the Deep UV Platform got scan data including video and sent it. Two of the ships are definitely the ones that left here a year and a half ago. The third one we haven’t seen before. We’ve picked up the one that was with Radin—it’s on its way to meet the three ships headed in.”
Adamarus sat up on the edge of the bed and angled the com unit toward him. “Based on current data, where will the ships meet?”
“In the same orbit they had before they left.”
“So…where are the ships now?”
“ETA is about an hour.”
“Are you at the control center?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. I’m on my way.”
“Good.” On the small screen, Leewood leaned forward. “Adamarus, we have to assume the worst—I don’t know what that is, but I’m assembling everyone. We’ll keep trying to hail them.”
---
Leewood had been the leader of the original special team, and even though Adamarus outranked him, had more experience and had been the initial Loud contact. Officially, Leewood was still in charge. However, over the years the two had worked so well together that often leadership seemed to bounce between them. Because Adamarus had had more contact with the Loud than anyone else, he was leading the current debate.
“We must assume for now that they encountered the fourth ship on their way out,” Adamarus said as he paced the conference room, coffee in hand. It was now 3:40 and everyone available was there—11 people. “And we must assume that the third ship was coming here from their home system.” Everyone agreed with this. “The ship must have had news that compelled Bugs to bring all their ships back here.” He continued, “The Loud ship at Aster-7 suddenly cutting the links to all of the avatars as well as its rapid departure—all I can think is there was some type of disaster. And if you add that to the radio silence,” he paced to the back of his chair and paused there, “perhaps something has happened—news that the new ship brought from home—and perhaps they don’t know what they want to say to us yet. It looks like they have gotten all four ships close enough to use a narrow beam ship-to-ship communication link to talk among themselves privately.” Adamarus pulled out his chair and sat down. “That’s all I can come up with. Anyone else?”
After several seconds Harrington spoke up, “Given that the new ship is just arriving now, and assuming that they came here as fast as they could, that means that they left the Loud system about sixty years after the other ships left. If something happened, you would think that they would have sent a message. However, my understanding is that the instant message technology they have does not work over long distances.”
Leewood jumped in, “That’s right, so a message sent at the speed of light would have been received over ten years ago.”
Adamarus slowly shook his head, his eyes staring into the distance, “Well, there’s not much we can do until the Loud decide to talk to us.”
---
Five days went by. All four of the Loud ships remained in orbit, very close to each other, arranged in a box formation. On the sixth day, they answered the hails saying only that Bugs would meet with Adamarus alone in the listening chamber at 9:00 a.m.
The next day the landing craft came down at 8:30 a.m. Adamarus got to the room early and waited for ten minutes. At exactly 9:00, the large door opened and Bugs entered.
Adamarus had talked with Bugs face to face in the listening chamber enough to remember its mannerisms, expressions and body language. As he watched Bugs extend upward to take in air before speaking, he knew something was very wrong.
The first difference he noticed was the sharp black thorns on the gray wrinkled lung area—these normally pointed down when the lung was deflated, and when the lung expanded with air as the Loud extended upward, the thorns stood up but remained slightly downward, as if they were relaxed. Now, however, they pointed straight out even when the lung was deflated, and when the lung was stretching up, filling with air, they seemed to bulge outward and even quiver a little. At the base of the thorns where they came out of the lung, white and reddish tissue could be seen. That had not been there before. It was as if they were being forced out, so much so that their roots were showing.
Another thing was Bugs’ eyes—they were no longer clear beneath the green transparent membrane but were clouded and red. Also, the off-white light receptors were different—about a third of them were no longer mushroom shaped—the oval top seemed bent back.
In addition to these changes, Bugs did not expand straight upward, but went off to one side almost losing its balance. And Adamarus noticed another peculiarity, the tentacles which extended and retracted from the gray area just above the layer that touched the ground—these had always been either completely retracted or completely extended. Now, however, they all protruded a few feet and just stayed there. The overall appearance and mannerisms gave Adamarus the impression of utter depression mixed with raw fury.
After Bugs expanded, he seemed to waver there for many seconds. Finally, he pushed downward, but on the way down he halted several times and the normally ear splitting screech was much softer and broken by coughing sounds and clicks.
Adamarus looked at the translator and watched the progress bar progress from left to right. Finally, Bugs’ words issued from the translator, “Adamarus…I…have…terrible…news.”
PART Two - Second ENCOUNTER
“Bad things come in threes.”
Unknown
Chapter Ten – Distant Devastation
“The first law of the cosmos, the cornerstone of all that is, can be completely stated in six words. Once recognized, it stands on its own: rational, undeniable, irrefutable, and indisputable. Backed by three pages of mathematics, a child can see its truth and yet it is so obvious that physicists looked right past it for thousands of years.
The First Cosmic Law: More than one state must exist.
In layman’s terms it means that “something” must exist. Understanding this has profound implications on everything else we look at.”
The Loud Named Bugs
Opening Speech, 23
rd Amular Symposium on Quantum Physics
Source: The Archive
No one could say exactly when it had come into being—mainly because it had started out as many different things, in different areas, in different physical locations, at different times and maintained for different reasons. These in turn had slowly and, in some cases, haphazardly, merged together over a period spanning some 300 years.
The earliest part had been put together by universities. A simple network and database to track resource reservations, quickly followed by scientific observations, ongoing research projects, and associated funding and grants. Another large part came shortly after. Law enforcement latched on to the growing network with their central database of fingerprints, then criminal histories and DNA samples. Meanwhile, thousands of other databases within the government, the military and civilian businesses tied into the network.
Then came the catalyst that would eventually bring everything together. The substance was called Karanite after Della Kara, the scientist who had devoted her life to the development of the molecule. A small sphere of Karanite exactly a quarter inch in diameter called a Data Droplet had the storage capacity of ten exabyte. This was enough storage to hold every fact they had on the planet, plus every word ever spoken in all of history, and every word ever written in all of history…five times over! Four redundant Data Droplets were linked together, then 100 primary high speed I/O ports were added to each. Finally each droplet was enclosed in a three-foot diameter sphere made out of molecular bonded grapheme, the strongest material known to Amular scientists and the closest they could come to indestructible. And in this way, “The Archive” was born.
Over the next fifty years, all data pertaining to all things quickly made its way to The Archive. Besides the history and knowledge store of their race, The Archival also included all com records, all electronic mail and message records, all the data from all security cameras—basically all data recorded in any manner.
An enormous government controlled division maintained and enforced ninety-seven levels of security to The Archive as well as the World Net, which grew with Amular’s expansion into their star system.
“Archive Terminals” were established for more secure data entry. These were located in every major city. All the Archive Terminal buildings looked the same: a large hemisphere of tinted glass surrounded with trees, statues and fountains. Inside were three round structures of tinted glass set in a triangle on polished marble floors. Ringing the sides of the round structures were cubicles providing privacy. The cubicles contained all types of input devices: keyboards, scanners, audio gear, and 20 or so slots for all manner of data disks, chips, sticks and dips.
Woodworth had just finished the data stick transfers of his work as the official historian of the first alien contact when his PDA vibrated. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the screen. On it was simply a pulsating icon of a red raven and it caused his mind to go completely blank with shock. He had never before seen, nor expected to ever see, a Red Raven level alert. To his knowledge, this was an alert reserved for such things as an impending extinction level event or something just as serious. With a numbing sense of disbelief, he touched the icon and it vanished. For several seconds, he stared blankly at the empty screen, then, almost in a panic, he shoved the data sticks back into his briefcase with shaking hands, checked himself out of the Archival entry cube and raced outside.
It was hot. He stood in the shade wondering what this could be about—almost certainly something related to the early return of the Loud ships—but what would cause an alert of this magnitude? After a few minutes, he heard the helicopter approaching. It set down on the lawn and he ran to it and boarded as dozens of people stopped and watched.
Twenty minutes later, he was coasting down the runway in a supersonic fighter jet which had been waiting for him at the airport. It was just him and the pilot. Woodworth had never ridden in a fighter jet before. He was still dazed as the after burners kicked in with a deafening roar, pushing Woodworth back in his seat, and the jet shot off the runway headed for Mach 3.
---
Harrington was in the middle of her yearly four-week vacation. Rock climbing was a hobby she had picked up two years ago from her last boyfriend, and while she had let the boyfriend slip away, the hobby had had more staying power.
She was about halfway up the face of what was aptly called the Dead Drop Wall when her pager vibrated.
It was a hot and dusty day, and she was covered with sweat and crusted dirt.
It took her several minutes to get into a position where she could stop and look at her PDA.
On hearing that the Loud ships had unexpectedly returned, she’d checked in and almost packed it in and headed back. Stubbornly, she’d stayed to do the climb.
Now hanging on the sheer wall, she was stunned by the top level alert. After acknowledging the alert, she reported in, advising the control center of the awkward position she had been caught in. She was told not to worry and to keep climbing, so she did. About 15 minutes later, she heard a chopper and looked up to see a hoist being lowered.
---
Adamarus had stuck his head out of the listening chamber just long enough to give Leewood enough information to justify the Red Raven Alert and get him to initiate it through President Wicker. Then Adamarus had ducked back inside the soundproof room, attempting to get more details from the Loud. That had been 10 minutes ago. Leewood had learned just enough to make his insides twist and his head spin.
Now he paced back and forth outside the soundproof door and the two guards that manned it. Of course the guards had also heard what Adamarus had said. Leewood had reminded them that what they had heard was top-secret and that they needed to forget it. Nevertheless, their faces were pale, their eyes a little too wide—it was obvious that they could not forget, as much as they might want to.
Leewood stopped pacing and checked his PDA—Harrington and Woodworth would both be landing within the next 10 minutes, and President Wicker would be standing by for a teleconference meeting in 15 minutes. Leewood hoped Adamarus would be available by then.
He put his PDA away and walked to the side windows and looked out. He noticed that the sun was setting, but the spectacular sunset was lost on him.
---
Adamarus knew that he was in a state of shock as he watched Bugs struggle out of the chamber. There must be a million things he should ask, but his mind had turned to clay. On top of that, Bugs was so distraught that he doubted the alien could tell him much more right now anyway.
He tried to imagine how he would feel under the same circumstances and then realized that he just might get the opportunity to find out.
“Probability…fold in your favor!” Adamarus said.
Bugs turned and rose up, “Probability will never fold in my favor again, my friend,” and it made its way out of the dome.
Torpidly, Adamarus made his way to the soundproof door, opened it and stepped into the corridor. His heart was pounding and all he could do was stare ahead blankly. Someone said something to him but it did not register. His arm was grabbed—it was Leewood. “Are you all right?” Leewood asked again.
Adamarus pulled himself together. “Yes. Sorry.” Leewood started walking down the corridor, pulling Adamarus along.
When they were out of voice range from the guards, Leewood continued, “We’ll meet in the situation room. Woodworth is almost here; Harrington is in route from the airport and President Wicker is standing by to be teleconferenced in.” Adamarus nodded. Leewood went on, “For now, I’ve decided that we contain this information to just the five of us.”
They had reached the moving walkway to the ground level and started trotting down it. “Good,” was all Adamarus said. He wiped his forehead. Despite the air conditioning, he had broken out in a sweat. His mind was racing, “We’ll need to tie in the orbital Tachyon scope.” He wiped his forehead again, “And we need to have an operator up there with enough security clearance.”
&nbs
p; The orbital Tachyon scope had just come online. The Loud had used Tachyons to view the universe for thousands of years. Tachyons traveled faster than light and therefore showed events involving large amounts of matter/energy much sooner than waiting for light to reveal the event which, depending on the distance, might take thousands of years or more. Tachyons traversed the distance almost instantaneously. Leewood started to ask why they would need the scope, but then changed his mind. “Jake Banner is in charge up there. He’ll have to do. I’ve known him for a few years and I’m sure I can get his clearance bumped up. Really no choice, he’s about the only person trained on the thing.”
Leewood took out his communicator and started making the arrangements as they pushed through the doors.
Outside, the sun had set and the day had started cooling down.
They quickly crossed the street to the entrance of the command center that had been built over the last 14 months. As they pushed through the doors, Leewood put away his PDA and turned to Adamarus. “What else did you find out?”
Adamarus looked over at him, and the look on Adamarus face scared the hell out of Leewood. Adamarus looked forward again as they entered the elevator that would take them down 200 feet. “Patrick,” he said breathlessly, “believe it or not, it gets much worse.”
---
Woodworth was already there, and both Jake Banner at the orbital Tachyon station as well as President Wicker who was at the capitol were already online and visible on two of the large screens. Technicians were still setting up a direct feed to the orbital scope at the President’s end.
The door opened and Harrington entered. She had not had time to clean up or change and was still in her climbing outfit covered with dirt. With no apologies, she nodded to the others in the room and took a seat.
Encounters (The Spiral Slayers Book 1) Page 17
