28
The next several days proceeded about like the first, and the job was starting to become a drag. With every incoming call I’d feel that twitch of anticipation, only to have to tamp it down because someone besides me would be going on that run. A few of them were pretty juicy, too. The biggest deal by far had been a nasty accident on a transport inbound to the ring; apparently its inertial dampeners glitched as it was decelerating out of warp space. It was crewed by Orionids and a few Reticulans. The Orionids took a few lumps, which with their gelatinous bodies must have been hard to tell. The Grays fared much worse. One fatality, the others were now upstairs in the ICU.
The first units on scene weren’t even Med Corps, it was a pair of transit tugs that raced to keep it from crashing into the ring. Once they had the ship stabilized, we’d sent a heavy rescue unit and three additional ambulances. One of them had Bjorn and Chonk aboard, and I was jealous. They’d been the first on scene and were still there, having been called back to the scene by their shift commander. The transport ministry had sent an investigative team, who apparently had lots of questions. I hoped they weren’t in trouble.
Meanwhile, I held down the fort in dispatch. Yay me.
I worked with a rotating cast of Union folks, with barely a familiar face among them from one shift to the next. Jarra was the only constant, walking the circle amongst our consoles, occasionally giving advice, and taking notes. Always taking notes.
To be fair, the others weren’t exactly unwelcoming. Everyone was heads-down in their work and there wasn’t much time for socializing. The job attracted a certain personality type for sure, but I also suspect a lot of it had to do with not being exposed to humans yet. Or if they had been, it may not have been entirely positive, like the Gliesans.
When my shift ended, I checked in on Bjorn and Chonk. They were still at the accident scene. With eighteen hours to kill before my next rotation, I headed down to the hangar deck.
I was sitting at a table along the back wall of the hangar, finishing off a bowl of noodles from the food synth when the alert beacons lit up for bay twelve. My friends were finally coming home after a long day, and I hoped they weren’t too tired to tell some stories.
Their ship settled into its bay with a low hum as its gravity drive spun down. Soon they climbed down from the main door and went about replacing used stock while the next crew helped get the ship ready for duty. There was a lot to do; it looked like a couple of outrigger compartments had been completely emptied. I waited for them to finish with the sterilizing boom before making my way over.
“Hey fellas. Rough one today?”
Chonk eyed me silently. I could sense his tension. “Hello, Mel,” he finally said. “Perhaps later.” Without another word, he picked up his gear and headed for the nearest lift.
I watched him leave with my hands on my hips, a little put out. “That was awkward.”
Bjorn seemed a little stiffer than usual as well. “Do not take it personally. It was a difficult day.”
“As in the run, or the questioning?”
“Both.” He arched an eyebrow. “You are familiar with the accident, then?”
“I’m in the middle of everything now, remember? You’re the one who told me it’d be good to see the big picture.”
“It is bigger than you suspect.” He glanced left and right, then back at me. “But we should not discuss this here. In fact we should not discuss it all.”
My eyes widened. “What the hell happened out there?”
I could see he was considering his options, then reached a decision. He forced a smile. “You’re correct, it has been a long day. Would you care to join me for dinner in my quarters?”
I was a little taken aback. That sounded like an invitation to a date, which he couldn’t have meant. “Lead the way.”
Bjorn’s suite was unexpectedly lavish, filled with trinkets that looked suspiciously as if they’d come from Earth. Reproductions (I assumed) of human artwork hung from the walls, with a few busts of human classical musicians arranged along a credenza beneath the window. The furniture was elegant, with graceful lines and lively colors. He tapped at a panel and relaxing piano music began to emanate from the walls.
“Where did you get all this? Please tell me you didn’t take any of it.”
He looked taken aback. “No, of course not. The furniture is your French Reproduction style, created from patterns we observed on Earth. It appeals to me.”
I supposed that fit the type: alien Renaissance man. He lit an old-fashioned incense candle in the small kitchen and ordered two cups of tea from the food synth.
“I thought you were hungry.”
“A diversion,” Bjorn said as he handed me a cup and saucer. “A good excuse to leave. I will eat later.” He took a seat opposite me and sipped from his tea, beginning to relax. “I suppose you have many questions.”
“I do. But with you acting so cagey, now I have even more.”
“As did the transport ministry team. To be honest, I am somewhat exhausted from answering questions. For you, I am happy to make an exception.”
“I saw the reports from the scene. Plenty of broken bones and internal injuries. Sounds like it was real mess.”
“That it was.” He set his tea down on a side table. “We had to hold until the transit control team could make the ship stable. After docking we found the occupants right away; they were all either in the control deck or the passenger cabin. Those in the cabin fared best, though the Reticulans in the control deck were badly injured. One was deceased. You no doubt know the medical aspects from the patient reports. You do not know the rest.”
“They called you back to meet with the investigation team. Why would they be so urgent to have you back on scene?”
“We were the first to arrive, and they wanted as accurate a reconstruction of events as possible. Being an Emissary, they also wanted my assessment of the situation. There was some history of the ship’s master having unsanctioned encounters with races outside of the Union.”
“Like mine?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. In fact, there are none in the Union like these beings. Their existence is still only rumor. That is what makes this so troubling.”
This was taking a turn for the spooky. “What kind of ‘beings’ are we talking about?”
“We don’t have enough information to make a judgment. Their existence can only be inferred by the evidence they leave behind.”
“And what would that be?”
Bjorn shifted in his chair and gave the window a sidelong glance. “One advantage of being an Emissary is what your kind calls ‘diplomatic immunity.’ I can rest assured that any conversations here are not monitored. And if they are, they are held in strict confidence.”
“Wait a minute—has somebody been listening in on me?”
“Only for reasonable concerns, which in your case are not justified.” He seemed dismissive, which didn’t make me feel any better. “Any contact with this cryptid race is by definition unsanctioned, which would warrant surveillance.”
“I think you’re avoiding my first question. What kind of evidence?”
He tugged at his uniform. “Biomarkers, like fingerprints. Injuries inflicted on others. Unexplained equipment damage. In this case, there was evidence of both.”
I tensed up. “What kind of injuries?”
Bjorn drummed his fingers along the arm of his chair. “Deep tissue damage which appeared inconsistent with the environment and the nature of their other injuries. It didn’t escape our notice, but we also weren’t overly concerned with them at the time.”
“Sure. You’re treating the patient, not worrying about how they got hurt.” I paused. “Unless whatever caused it presents a danger to you, too.”
“The Reticulan casualty appeared to have been deceased for some time. Rigor mortis was beginning to set in. The investigators found this particularly intriguing.”
“Wait a minute. Do they think she was murdered?”
“No, though it is unlikely that her death occurred as a result of the accident.” He stroked his chin. “In my opinion, it may have in fact been a contributing factor.”
“Now I’m confused. Was she monkeying around with the gravity drive?” All I knew was that you didn’t want to stray too close to one of those things when under power. It might never let you go.
Bjorn was silent for a moment. “This must remain strictly confidential, Melanie. If word gets out that you know, it could affect your residency status.”
This felt like a test. I held up my hand. “Scout’s honor.”
He sucked in his breath. “Very well. This particular ship’s master already had a checkered history with the Union. Unsanctioned contacts, questionable cross-border excursions, and so forth. But now he was apparently experimenting with a propulsion system that would be revolutionary. It could also be quite dangerous.”
“Hard to imagine something more dangerous than an artificial gravity ball powered by antimatter.”
Bjorn nodded in agreement. “It is. Yet the possibility remains.”
“I can’t imagine you know all that just from today. If Union detectives are anything like ours, they’re not going to tell you their working theories while they’re asking questions.”
“Also correct. No, my knowledge of the research comes from other Emissaries in the science ministry.”
“Maybe we should talk about the positive aspect, then. What is it about this new technology that makes it so promising?”
“The popular term is ‘interdimensional jump.’ It could enable near-instantaneous travel across immense distances without relativistic effects. A ship would simply disappear from one point in space and reappear in another.”
“How can anything go that fast without affecting time?”
“That is where the interdimensional part comes into play.” He stared at the window, stroking his chin as he considered how to describe it. “You know of the three physical dimensions we exist in—height, width, depth? Time is the fourth, but let’s concentrate on the physical for now. We know there are more which we can’t perceive, because we’re limited to the three we can.”
“I think I follow you. But I can’t imagine what the others might be.”
“Exactly. The Orionids can perceive at least two more dimensions, which makes them extremely valuable for any research into this problem.” He pointed to my hip pocket. “May I see the notebook you brought from home?”
“Sure.” I handed it over, uncertain of where he was going.
He took out a single piece of paper. “Imagine you’re a two-dimensional being. Your universe would be like this sheet of paper, and everything you experience is only defined by width and depth. You wouldn’t be able to perceive anything that existed with that third dimension of height. If something three-dimensional passed through your frame of reference, you would only see its width and its depth. Never its height. It would seem to appear from nowhere, and disappear as easily.”
This place never seemed to run out of things that made my brain hurt. “Where’s the danger?”
“The energy source. Our best theories indicate a jump drive would need a near-infinite power source, and the next step after antimatter reactions is called zero-point energy. This is something human scientists have hypothesized, so it’s perhaps not as exotic as you might believe. Your physicist Feynman calculated the potential zero-point energy contained within a single lightbulb would be enough to boil your planet’s oceans. All of them.”
“Never saw a lightbulb blow like that.”
“That’s because its bonds didn’t break down at the subatomic level. Zero-point energy exists in the fields between subatomic particles. It is not easily released, much less controlled.”
“And this is what has the transport ministry so freaked out.”
“I can assure you, it does not end with them. They are merely the frontline investigators. From their questions, we were able to gather that this ship had been powered by an experimental zero-point reactor. Their inertial dampening field was deactivated, possibly because it wouldn’t have been necessary for a jump drive. It might even be counterproductive.”
“They started out worried that the ship would collide with the ring. Sounds like they knew there was more to be concerned about, like blowing up the whole city.”
“Quite. I understand the ship’s gravity wave signature drew considerable attention when it appeared.” He paused. “Because there wasn’t one.”
I might not be able to grasp the physics, but that sounded exactly like what he’d been talking about. “It popped into our space, out of nowhere.”
“That appears to be the case. It also appears that a functioning inertial field is still necessary.”
“Doesn’t answer the question of what happened to our dead Reticulan, though.” I tried putting the pieces together. “That’s what had Chonk so upset.”
“He became agitated as our interviews progressed. His cohorts have observed some disquieting activity along our frontiers in the past. I believe this struck a nerve, as you would say.”
I drained my tea and set it on the table. “I need to find Chonk. Want to come with?”
We stopped by his quarters first, though neither one of us expected him to be there. Considering the mood he’d been in, there was only one place he could be.
The atmosphere in the Wayside bar was subdued, missing the normal undercurrent of pent-up energy and general rowdiness. We found Chonk at a table by himself, nursing a drink in a ceramic mug. Wisps of steam curled around its brim.
Bjorn and I each pulled up a chair on either side of him. “No ka’vaa’ma’loi for you tonight?”
Chonk slowly pushed his mug away. “No alcohol. Clouds mind. Need think.”
A glance around the room made it clear his friends shared his mood. Maybe they’d already been talking to him, or maybe the warrior rumor mill had accomplished that for him. “Bjorn told me what you found on that ship. Told me about the kinds of questions you were being asked.”
“Could not offer much help. Not want to speculate.” He tilted his head at a sullen group of Thubans gathered around a nearby table. “But we know. Have seen before.”
“On the frontier?”
He nodded. “Difficult adversary. Unable to determine intentions. May not be intentionally hostile, but still threat. Not compatible with Union.”
Bjorn interjected. “As far as we know, no one has ever encountered these cryptids in person. As I mentioned before, we have only seen the aftereffects. Indirect traces of their existence.”
I turned back to Chonk. “What kind of traces is he talking about?”
“Ships damaged, abandoned. Derelicts. Colonies abandoned. All this along frontier. Never seen inside Union space. Never this close to capital ring. Dangerous.”
“Do we know where that ship came from?”
“No route clearance on file,” Chonk said. “Think vessel came from outside Union space.”
No wonder these guys were so grim. From what I’d learned of Union history, they’d never been confronted with a serious outside threat. The Thubans had always maintained the peace. Now they might have to go to a war footing, and I recalled what Xeelix had told me in the tunnel collapse. I prayed these beings weren’t the threat he’d warned me about.
Chonk pointed to my leg. “How long?”
I was happy to let him change the subject. “Not much longer. I should be back on full duty in a week or so.”
“Am glad. You are good medic.” Chonk leaned back, relieved to have something else to think about. He waved at the barkeep. “Round of drinks now. On me.”
“Now you’re talking.”