Chaos Cipher (36 page)

‘
By what
cause?’ asked one of the women in the group, shifting to the
front.

‘
Unknown
enemy attack,’ he explained. ‘The origin of which so far is
alien.’

The crowd
turned their heads and buffed their shoulders and hitched their
belts as they muttered irritably amongst themselves.

‘
Adamoss,’
said another, ‘determine the attack.’

‘
Unable,’ he
revealed, ‘I scanned the vessels before they made their assault and
there is no sign of biological life. Furthermore, it would seem
they were interested in obtaining the antimatter containment cells
for the ship’s fusion reactors and engine feeds.’

‘
They stole
the antimatter?’ asked one of the more junior members, pulling his
glasses down along his nose to see Adamoss with his own pale
eyes.

‘
That is a
fact,’ said Adamoss. ‘Yes.’

‘
Adamoss,
where are these alien ships heading to next?’ asked another of the
female members from the back.

‘
Difficult to
determine, ma’am,’ said Adamoss. ‘I have been trying to access
other stations but so far no other contact has been reported.
Considering the speed they entered the Solar System they have
slowed down considerably, though it is safe to assume they’re
moving extremely fast nonetheless.’

‘
Is there any
way to track them?’ asked one of the Megalo-Britai members of the
group. He was a stocky man with a half colouration of white and
black chequered squares to his face, the counter-side gloaming with
a radiant green mask.

‘
The three
Xenotechs are moving rapaciously and their technology makes their
signals hidden. During the siege of the Hephaestus One, I picked up
the strongest signal only when they opened up their cores and
brought down their shields to obtain the antimatter containment
tanks.’

‘
What can we
do?’ asked another, a man from the Asiapires, his features oriental
and his eyes like most Titans typically blackened. ‘If we cannot
track their position, can we at least prepare to expect their
arrival?’

‘
Certainly,’
said Adamoss, ‘this would be the safest procedure.’

‘
Is it safe
to assume these things mean to harm us?’

Adamoss began
to calculate. ‘There were no casualties,’ he explained, ‘no human
sentient life was aboard the Hephaestus One, but they refused to
acknowledge my communication efforts. If then they are machines
their programs may not include protocols set to receive messages.
To consider this we must assume that whoever sent these Xenotech
machines did so, not with the intention to communicate, but with
the intention to deliver a payload. And they now have antimatter
material.’

‘
Excuse me,’
another voice issued, ‘Xenotech, what’s that?’

‘
It is the
neologism we are using to describe this new encounter,’ the android
explained.

‘
And it would
seem these creatures mean us harm?’ said the commander and
chief.

‘
So just
apply the articles of warfare.’ Said another of the Asiapire
members.

‘
The articles
of warfare are the next logical protocol.’ Another of the group
agreed.

‘
Then we’ll
alert the Orbital Guard,’ said one of the senior men, his voice
hoarse and gravelly like stones etching their lines across a
concrete wall, and he puffed on a smoking pipe that billowed in
opaque clouds in the cold, confidently doling rings from his lips.
‘And we’ll alert our private global defences or the Shield of
Spheres for example and see if we can contract their
resources.’

‘
As a sub
routine, I am advised to recommend that you raise the level of
multiple defences, both international and private, if necessary. I
would deem it even wiser to alert the
Omicron
station. Assuming these
Xenotech are destroying starnavis and stations then
Omicron
will be the next
point of call, followed closely by Mars, then Earth. If they do not
visit Mars, the colonies may at least inform us if they see
anything.’

‘
Not
Omicron
directly,’ said
the man with the smoking pipe. ‘Check with defence contractors in
the region, see if they can intercept. Maybe we can receive some
intel on these things first.’

‘
Make the
arrangements,’ said a young woman from the back, ‘make sure the
hardlanders remain unaware of this scenario, Adamoss. We don’t want
this to get into the public ears just yet. You know how excited
people get about the potential for alien life. This could be the
Olympians up to no good, in which case we don’t want people to
know. Inform The Randian we are excluding coverage for those mutant
bastards.’

‘
I concede
your requests, ambassadors,’ said Adamoss with a light bowing of
the head, turning also to the commander and chief. ‘Mister
President.’

*

The dark had
long since swallowed up marble pale and bronze flesh, where bodies
lay torpor and silent knotted in velvet. Malik saw little in the
darkness. The strong smell of wax and woodstove tainted the warm
air still otherwise faint with the sweet scent of sex. He sat up,
pushing away arms and pulled himself from under the weight of legs,
and made his way through the dimly lit space. There was a sound in
the room, the faint hiss of static and a dull, bass pounding,
throbbing in his ears. He knew that sound. It was the same on the
Erebus, hissing through the darkness, the sound of the Charybdis.
Malik suddenly felt the turbulence of gravity shift and he dropped
to his knees and cried out. His hands were flat on the floor, the
turbulence drawing him back to his stomach flat against it. Malik
Serat put up a fight, resisting the gravitational pull. He lifted
his head and saw the long dark corridors of the Erebus, its
piezoelectric floors shimmering with light, rippling waves of
gravity shifting through the surface like electric
snakes.

‘
NO!’ He
growled, struggling to urge his arm out. He sallied forth and his
chin hit the black marble with considerable force.

Then all at
once the visions were gone. The memory had vanished. But the
static…well that was still there, faintly whispering through his
head like hailstones on a window. And Malik breathed carefully and
collected wits again.

*

The elevator
doors eased silently open and Malik was once more standing in his
brother’s penthouse suite. A long black robe caped around his naked
body, tied at the waist, and he stared through wisps of black hair,
matted wildly from last night’s orgy. A voice was coming from the
centre of the large area. He saw a light emission,
faint.

‘
Mainly
radioactive shield plates,’ said the voice. ‘The initial explosive
successfully ruptured the oxygen cylinders. You can view the full
report on the following link.’

‘
Good,’ said
Vance, suddenly stepping into view as he sauntered around the
holographic display field. Malik stepped a little further forward.
Filipe was still lay on the sofa, his arm spread out, eyes shut,
mouth gaping and choking on his snores.

‘
By all
accounts the Erebus should have fallen inside,’ the voice
continued. ‘It’s a miracle they made it home.’

‘
I don’t
believe in miracles, Mr. Duval’ said Vance. ‘But let us be honest.
Nobody expected Zemi to pull through for his crew. I do believe we
need to learn more about this chaos cipher.’

Vance
suddenly caught Malik listening and the hologram field shrank away
into a mote of light and winked out of existence. Vance
straightened his back, pocketed his hands and smiled.

‘
Malik,’ he
addressed casually. ‘I assumed you’d still be familiarising
yourself once more with your human senses. I wasn’t expecting
you.’

‘
No,’ said
Malik Serat distantly. ‘You weren’t.’

Vance knew
his brother well enough to see that there was no pulling the wool
over Malik’s eyes now. He was far too sharp for that.

‘
How much did
you hear?’

Malik didn’t
respond. He stared.

‘
Malik,’ said
Vance, ‘come now. Have a drink with me.’

‘
My pleasures
have been exhausted.’

‘
Nonsense my
brother,’ Vance smiled, ‘they’ve only just begun. We need to get
you into the Nexus yet.’

‘
What have
you discovered about the Erebus?’

‘
Well,’ Vance
said, moving to sit in one of his large comfortable armchairs. ‘As
you must know I took over many of the investment companies who had
financed the Erebus project so essentially I’m the last port of
call anybody can send information to. What you just heard was a
discussion about the starnavis engineering report which came back
from
Orandoré
today.’

‘
I heard you
discussing the explosion.’ Said Malik.

‘
Yes,’ Vance
said clearing his throat. ‘My engineering team found that the
initial explosion on the Erebus, which caused most of your
problems, was set off not by an impact, but by a ruptured oxygen
cylinder sparked by a naked flame…All observational evidence points
to that being the problem.’

‘
You know
about the chaos cipher?’

Vance took a
moment to think, eyes shifted to the lift slightly.

‘
Ah yes,’ he
smiled. ‘Curious. No, I was only inquiring you see. It seems your
crew suffered from a sort of paranoid delusion I’m hoping to get to
the bottom of.’

‘
I didn’t
tell you about the chaos cipher.’

‘
No,’ Vance
agreed, quickly answering. ‘Barnes. The other
Chrononaut.’

‘
Did he show
you what it is?’ Malik, now lurking around to Vance’s
side.

‘
He told us
you were trying to document moments in time,’ Vance explained,
staring forward. ‘He told us you were obsessed and occupied with
this thing.’

‘
Your
engineers have seen my work?’ Malik asked. ‘My calculations
scribbled on the walls of the Erebus?’

‘
Oh yes,’
Vance smiled.

‘
What does it
say?’

‘
Very hard to
determine, actually,’ Vance was happy to admit, ‘our best
cryptographers believe it has no structure, no order. The
scribbling of a madman.’

Malik Serat
started to laugh as he walked behind Vance’s chair and came about
his other side.

‘
Did he tell
you what it does?’

‘
No.’

‘
Are you
curious to know?’

Vance was
looking up now as Malik Serat came full circle and stopped by the
table.

‘
Yes,’ Vance
said assuredly.

Malik Serat
picked up an empty bottle of wine and smashed it on the corner of
the table. The shower of glass and the impact caused Filipe to jump
out of his sleep in time to see Malik holding a large shard of
glass, cutting deep into the wooden table, carving a large X. Vance
watched; face twitching, eyes blinkered with anger.

‘
Time is an
illusion,’ Serat explained. ‘All that exists is a state of motion,
a state of entropy, and a state of energy seeking equilibrium all
conveyed as gravity conducting like electricity over water. Just as
water can be ice and gas, so too can the process we call time be
transferred from one state to the next.’

Vance got to
his feet, but Malik put his hand out and slowly pushed him back
into the chair, the shard of glass tip first now in Vance’s
direction.

‘
Do you know
who sabotaged the Erebus?’ he asked.

‘
We don’t
know,’ Vance promised.

‘
Are you
lying to me little brother?’ Malik said, feigning his mother’s
accent, ‘because I do hope you are not without sincerity Vancy
wancy? Hmm?’

‘
I swear it,’
Vance seethed. ‘As much as my disdain for you was at one point in
my life unbearable, I had not the means to sabotage the
Erebus.’

‘
Ahh,’ Malik
realised with a sense of gaiety. ‘Now the truth emerges. Your
disdain for me still exists…after all this time.’ And Malik pressed
the edge of the glass against Vance’s cheekbone. ‘I knew you’d
remember me again…little brother.’

Vance knocked
away the glass aggressively and stood above Malik, his breath harsh
on his face.

‘
I will have
respect in my own home,’ he demanded.

Malik dropped
the shard of glass and sauntered away simpering proudly.

‘
What is the
chaos cipher?’ Vance shouted after him.

And Malik
paused.

‘
Finish up my
neurophase and access some of my memories,’ Malik said slyly. ‘I’ll
show you what it does.’

-26-

A
day of celebration was underway in
Cerise Timbers and the day’s festivals were in full swing. There
were dancers and gymnasts, acrobats and fire breathers populating
the area with an astonishing show of entertainment. There were
costumes and actors and poets, and a supply of special tea, the
magic fudge and vapour pipes.