Being of the Field (14 page)

‘Swithin is dead, Kassa.’ Lucian’s jaw tensed. ‘The car he was driving
blew up
!’

Kassa gasped, her eyes filling with tears.

‘We have lost all communication with Maladaan and the colonies have reported the same problem. Dr Lennox and I suspect our sample had something to do with it, and as I trusted Swithin to ensure the release of the substance and he is now
dead
, it has been left to me to find out what the hell might have happened to him and the sample.’ Lucian felt compelled to stand. He was angry, and worried that their negligence might have caused a major disaster at home. The mysterious being had warned him that there would be repercussions on a global level if they failed to release it on time, and Lucian didn’t even want to imagine what that meant. ‘So, now more than ever, I need you to come clean with me, Kassa, were Swithin and Amie working together for the MSS?’

Kassa closed her eyes, and nodded to confirm…‘Before you even met her.’

Lucian’s jaw set hard as he struggled to control his emotions.

‘Without your reputation and influence at the institute, they would never have got this project off the ground, Lucian,’ Kassa said, her guilt choking her. ‘In retrospect, I know that I should have confessed all this to you sooner, but up until recently there had only been a few leaks and there had been no major harm done.’

Lucian collapsed back into his chair, completely devastated by the news.

‘You have to realise that it was a few leaks in your project, or my entire career!’ Kassa attempted to rationalise her lack of action. ‘I felt I
had no choice but to keep silent. I am fast realising how selfish I have been. I am so sorry, Lucian.’ It hurt her to see her dear friend so completely shattered, and she felt some responsibility. She had helped to break the spirit of one of the greatest men she’d ever known. ‘Now I see that I am just as much to blame for the tragedy that has befallen this project. I resign my post as Chief Medical Officer. You can find a replacement for me when we reach Maladaan.’

Lucian could only nod. They had been friends a long time and he felt betrayed by Kassa’s secrecy. He knew she had done what she thought was best for all, but he was afraid that if he went any further into any of this sordid history at present, he’d just break down completely. ‘Are there any other nasty little secrets that I should know about before you go?’ He managed to squeeze out the question before Kassa left the room, and she paused before opening the door.

‘These people are dead now, Lucian.’ Kassa turned back to look him in the face. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather let sleeping dogs lie?’

It was beginning to seem that the last ten years of his life had been a lie, and he shook his head. ‘The truth might be a refreshing change.’

Kassa supposed it was better that Lucian hear the truth from her than from the MSS or some other investigating authority back on Maladaan. ‘Swithin and Amie were lovers, Lucian.’

Of all the bombshells that had dropped on him recently, this perfidy hit the hardest. ‘Before I wed her?’ Lucian was loath to believe it.

‘All along,’ Kassa managed to reply, and as Lucian buried his face in his hands, she escaped into reception. Closing the door behind her, she burst into tears.

‘Dr Madri, are you all right?’ Aurora assumed that it was the news of Swithin’s untimely death that had her so upset. ‘It is a tragic loss, I know.’ She moved to assist the doctor. ‘Can I get you some water, or—’

‘No, nothing.’ Kassa regained her sensibilities, and managed to rouse a weak smile for the girl. ‘I am fine. You see to the captain.’ She patted Aurora’s hand in reassurance, and gathered her wits long enough to retreat to her chambers.

Aurora ventured a knock on the captain’s door.

‘
I’m not in for the rest of today,
’ he advised via the intercom on her workstation.

She moved to her desk to respond, overwhelmed with sympathy for the captain. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘
Close the office. Take the day off. Thanks, Aurora.
’

The captain had had more grief and pressure piled upon him in the past few days than any human being should handle alone—she didn’t feel that leaving him was the responsible thing to do.

‘
I’ll be fine, Aurora,
’ he added, sensing her hesitation. ‘
I just need some time to myself.
’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll be on call should you need me.’ She left it at that. He seemed rational and needed time to grieve, as did everyone. With so much controversy surrounding AMIE now, she could only hope that the entire project was not about to collapse.

Taren was concerned when Kassa wouldn’t answer her pager and hadn’t returned her calls. She really needed that examination for her research. She dropped by Kassa’s office, but was informed she’d been summoned to see the captain. Taren felt a little guilty having suggested that the captain interrogate Kassa regarding his brother, but what else could she do? She certainly had no answers for the man.

As it seemed she was at liberty, Taren decided that she would head over and see what had Ringbalin so excited. She knew her way to Module C. She’d often passed signage for it on her way in and out the cafeteria. She’d never ventured down to the greenhouse, however, as all the rooms she usually frequented lay in the opposite direction.

On her way past the eatery, a whistle forestalled her trek into the unknown and Zeven came running up to meet her.

‘Is it true?’ He glanced back to his source, Aurora, who was sitting at a table collecting herself over a cup of coffee. There were also a couple of engineers and divers from the marine department about, so he kept his voice low. ‘Was Swithin murdered by the MSS?’

‘We don’t know what happened.’ Taren declined to comment, as many of the crew were casting suspicious glances her way. ‘The communication lines are down, as you probably know.’

‘A fact that is even scarier than the first premise.’ He joined her in the corridor, walking with her until they were away from prying eyes.
‘Only a full-scale attack on Maladaan could have taken out all the communication systems on the entire planet!’

‘I know,’ Taren was also concerned, ‘but I don’t have any great truths to share with you right now. I am as much in the dark as you are.’ She began to move away to be about her business.

‘Keep me informed?’ he asked nicely.

‘What are friends for?’ Taren didn’t feel he mistrusted her, but rather he had intuited that if there was trouble brewing, she was likely to be right in the middle of it.

Taren followed the signage to Module C and upon entering the biodome she was awestruck. The ceiling of the module was a high curved screen that displayed an image of the sun slowly moving across the daytime sky; but that image also projected rays of heat and light onto the garden, along the sun’s trajectory. Beneath this was a cloud layer that cast a shadow onto the expansive gardens below. It was like a huge version of one of Ringbalin’s bonsai incubators. Taren truly felt as if she had just stepped outside into a garden, which was the last thing she expected to encounter in space. The sound of filters, bubbling water and poultry animals were apparent as she began to stroll down the central path. The smell of wet earth, herbs and compost intermingled and made her homesick to the core for the first time since she’d arrived on AMIE.

Amid the din of nature and equipment, Taren heard voices, and turned off the main pathway onto a smaller one in order to track the source.

At the end of this pathway was a lab and inside, a beautiful, tall woman, dressed in a wet suit, was leaning over a bench, speaking with Ringbalin. They were both fascinated with some sealed beakers on the bench, so the scene was quite professional but the body language of the woman suggested that she was quite well disposed towards the young botanist.

When Taren knocked, they were startled and straightened up to put a more respectable working distance between them.

‘Dr Lennox,’ Ringbalin seemed a little flushed, ‘your timing is impeccable.’

‘Are you being sarcastic?’ Taren chided as she entered.

‘Not at all.’ He picked up his glasses from the bench and put them on. ‘Dr Portus has discovered a tiny algae in one of the water samples she collected from just outside the anomaly zone on Oceane.’

‘A single-cell organism! Life is developing fast down there then.’ Taren was stunned, but held out her hand to introduce herself to the marine botanist. ‘Hi, I’m Taren Lennox.’

‘Sorry.’ Ringbalin suddenly realised he was being rude. ‘Dr Lennox…meet Dr Ayliscia Portus, from our marine department.’

‘My honour is great to finally meet the woman who has inspired Ringbalin’s work very much.’ She smiled warmly.

Dr Portus had a very strong accent, which was almost as striking as her stunning good looks, poise and tall stature. Taren was guessing that she was Phemorian. In ancient times the women of Phemoria had rebelled against eons of repression at the hands of their menfolk and, in one of human history’s most famed rebellions, the women seized control of the entire planet and forbade any man citizenship. Since that time, Phemoria had been a haven for women, especially those who sought sanctuary from male brutality.

Taren was more interested in Dr Portus’ discovery at present. ‘So, tell me about your algae.’

All eyes turned back to the beaker as Ringbalin took up a small torch. ‘Check this out.’ He shone the torch into the beaker of murky water, which seemed to be filled with deep green plant shavings. He then switched the light source off, whereupon all the tiny free-floating algae began to pulse with bright green light in perfect unison.

‘Delayed luminescence!’ Taren was delighted by the display.

‘I have studied light emissions between luminescent algae in the seawater on Frujia, because although on the evolutionary scale they are classified as a plant, they move like a primitive animal. What I discovered was that the movement of each dinoflagellate perfectly synchronised with that of its neighbours—’

‘The algae are using the light to communicate.’ Taren jumped two steps ahead in the conversation.

‘Exactly. But that is not what is most interesting.’ Ringbalin was pleasantly surprised to be able to skip ahead in his tutorial. ‘We know
from your past research in biophotonics that all living things are antennas and transmitters of light. The more complex a living organism is in the evolutionary scheme of things the less biophotons it emits—’

‘That is not a widely accepted fact,’ Taren felt she should point out.

‘It will be soon, I feel, as my research corroborates your findings,’ Ringbalin assured her with a smile.

‘Why? What is the biophoton count on this algae?’

‘About fifty photons per second at a wavelength of two hundred nanometers,’ Ringbalin advised.

Taren was shocked. ‘That is well under half the rate of any rudimentary plant or animal I have studied,’ she said, and Ringbalin nodded to agree that the results were exceptional.

‘Indicating that this is a very advanced strand of algae,’ Dr Portus added.

‘The biophoton count of our tundrell is also way below what one would expect,’ Ringbalin said. ‘It also pulses in the dark when the lights are turned off, and although I am yet to confirm this, I will bet my life that the tundrell and these algae pulse in time.’

‘A visual means to confirm communication between species via photon emissions!’ Taren was absolutely beside herself, and could well appreciate her colleagues’ excitement. ‘This could go a long way to proving that light photons are the great translators and communicators of creation.’

‘I believe the intense atmosphere within the anomaly region on Oceane has a lot to do with why these plants are more evolved than any we have encountered before. Lights off,’ Ringbalin instructed and the lab fell into darkness.

‘What are you doing?’ Taren wondered why he’d plunged them into darkness until her eyes adjusted and it became apparent that her body was also pulsing with faint bursts of green light and in perfect time with the algae. ‘Oh, my stars…’

‘You’ve breathed in that heavenly atmosphere, too, and your biology is now in sync with it,’ Ringbalin reasoned.

‘But I’m pulsing light!’ Taren found this somewhat distressing.

‘We all are,’ Ringbalin reminded her, ‘you’re just absorbing less light and rejecting more of it now and so it is more obvious. Lights on.’

‘It also seems to suggest that your biology has undergone an evolutionary advancement,’ Dr Portus concluded.

‘I want to do a photon count on you asap,’ Ringbalin added, ‘as I am also guessing that you are emitting much less than the ten photons of light that your average human being emits in the same area, time and frequency.’

‘That would explain a whole lot.’ Taren’s thoughts had turned to her own research. ‘Like the unprecedented results I have achieved in healing the test subjects in my current trial.’ Ringbalin nodded to agree, and was startled when Taren gasped. ‘If I have been affected by the atmosphere of Oceane, then wouldn’t Zeven Gudrun also be affected?’

‘No doubt.’ Ringbalin raised an eyebrow, knowing that the macho pilot would probably be freaked out to discover that his biological structure was now attuned to some higher alien frequency.

Taren found the fact rather amusing. ‘Well, let’s run some tests on me first. No point in alarming the poor man needlessly.’

‘What about Leal Polson?’ Ringbalin wondered about the pilot who had rescued them from Oceane.

Taren shrugged. ‘He never disembarked or breathed in the atmosphere, so I doubt he will have been affected.’

Zeven had been very open with Taren about his interest in the Powers—from an observer’s point of view he found it all very fascinating. However, Taren didn’t think he would appreciate the information that his experience on Oceane may well have accelerated his biology to a point where his own dormant Powers might be activated.

Taren drew a deep breath, not wanting to get too far ahead of herself.
Let’s just take this one revelation at a time.

It had been a rather eventful day, Taren considered, as she lay in the large round sleeping pod in her darkened room, staring out into the vastness of space through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her quarters.