Solar Express (63 page)

“You make me seem like a wanted man.”

“As far as the Sinese are concerned, you are.”

“Can I at least say that I'll let her know more about my therapy when matters are settled?”

The colonel smiled. “That would be appropriate. Also very misleading if any transmissions are intercepted. Now … get back into lower gravity. Otherwise, I'll have to apologize to Dr. Cattertyn. I'd rather not.”

Tavoian stood, realizing his legs were in fact a little shaky. He tried not to show it.

*   *   *

By the time he returned to his temporary quarters, he found two messages waiting for him, one from Kit, and one from Alayna. He decided to read Kit's first.

Chris!

I'm so glad to hear you're back. There's been no word in what news we've been able to get about your return. You'd think that someone would be interested in the only man to actually see the alien artifact.

Are you sure that you're all right? Dad and I don't need any more sudden—or gradual—surprises. I hope you've let Alayna know. I still think she'd be good for you, if only as a friend if you're not romantically interested.

You don't give up, Kit.

I suppose it will be some time before you're back on Earth. The way things are here, you may be better off where you are than most places in Noram. The good thing about Brian Head is that it's not easy to get to, especially for the unsavory types. The bad thing is that there's no easy way to get what you don't already have. But Dad had laid in enough stuff to last all winter and then some.

That doesn't sound good.
But then, Tavoian realized, what could you expect after massive power system failures in a country that had never believed fully in infrastructure that didn't turn an immediate profit?

The rest of the message was cheerfully chatty, without even a hint of what Kit and his father had just gone through.

He almost felt guilty when he opened the message from Alayna and began to read,

Dear Chris,

You're not saying everything. I can tell that. The fact that you're worried about medical tests tells me that you went through more than you're saying. I'm just so glad you're back.

I'm sorry to be late in replying to you. I was going to do so sooner, but just after I got your message I got another one. It was from a doctor my mother knew. She'd treated my father after he'd been wounded in saving a neighbor couple from looters. In all the snow, I think the couple had trouble getting him to the hospital. He lost too much blood, and the doctor couldn't save him …

Tavoian stopped reading.
She's lost both parents … and she's worried about being late in messaging you.

 … I wasn't much good for anything for a while after I got Dr. Blaakner's message. It was so like Dad. He had all the backup power, and his house was secure, but he knew the neighbors might be having trouble. So he went to see if they needed anything.

And she's just like her father.
He finished reading the message and immediately began to compose a reply, knowing that he didn't have that much time.

Dear Alayna,

I just got your message. I understand. I hope I do, anyway. I won't claim to know exactly how you feel, but you know I lost my mother, and I couldn't even get to see her because of where I was. Unlike you, I do have my father and sister, but I wish so much that I could be with you right now.

There are too many similarities between what's happened to and around us over the past year, and we need to talk about them, or message until we can talk in person. Unfortunately, this message will have to be shorter than I'd like, because right now I'm under orders, and I don't have much time. I
promise
to explain everything to you in great detail as soon as I possibly can. That won't be too long.

In the meantime, please, please take care of yourself.

As he sent the message, Tavoian hoped that she would understand. He needed to make what preparations he could for his coming stint in low-grav therapy.

 

93

T
HE
T
IMES OF
I
SRAEL

8 D
ECEMBER
2114

(J
ERUSALEM
) The aliens were real! After releasing a series of stunning images of the alien spacecraft destroyed by the solar prominence last week, the Noram Space Command finally admitted that its mission to study the so-called Solar Express has returned safely to an undisclosed location, with a massive amount of data and images. Once the material is processed, the Noram DOEA will make the bulk of the material available to all “cooperative space agencies” and research institutions. DOEA acting Secretary Correia declined to clarify what constituted a “cooperative” space agency.

Although the NSC mission was crewed by a single pilot, Noram sources have indicated that for reasons of health, including a prolonged period of weightlessness, the officer will not be immediately available for appearances. The pilot is expected to recover completely in a relatively short time.

The massive solar storm that struck the Earth's upper atmosphere was an aftermath of the prominence that destroyed the artifact, a crescent-shaped section of a larger craft that “probably” was destroyed in some fashion more than ten thousand years ago, according to noted astronomer John Dorcaster.

In the meantime, the death toll from the aftereffects of the solar superstorm has now reached into the tens of thousands, and looting and violence continues to occur sporadically in areas of the world where the power disruptions were the greatest and where hundreds of millions remain without access to any centralized form of electric power …

At present, all sections of the Israel power grid are operating, although sporadic local outages have been reported in Gaza …

 

94

D
AEDALUS
B
ASE

8 D
ECEMBER
2114

Alayna didn't sleep well on Friday night and woke early on Saturday, thoughts swirling through her mind. Would things have been different if she hadn't taken the COFAR position? Of course, they would have been. Someone else would have discovered the Solar Express, but with the same result. The CME would have occurred, and the odds were that she still wouldn't have been anywhere near Lincoln, not in time to change what had happened with her father.

That doesn't help …
But it was true.

Chris would still have been assigned to the mission, but he might not have survived without her concerns and warnings.

He might have talked to another postdoc …
Alayna smiled wryly. That most definitely wouldn't have happened. She'd learned later that the other top two candidates for the COFAR position had been men, and it had been clear to her from the beginning that Chris was strictly interested in women.

That didn't help much, either, because she felt like she'd had to pay, somehow, because she'd jumped at the opportunity offered by COFAR … because she'd been attracted to Chris from the moment he had briefed her and the others before leaving ONeill Station, and she had been forward in lingering to talk to him at the end of the transit to the Lunar Low Orbit Station.
But you've both paid. He paid for following his dream of being a pilot … and seeing the stars.

Knowing that if she stayed in her bunk, she'd only stew, she struggled up and dressed, then straggled to the kitchen and made a large pot of coffee. She was going to need it. And then there were her worries about Chris, which hadn't been fully abated by his last message, although she'd been touched by the way he had promised to explain everything. Finally, she wasn't looking forward to the DOEA requisition of space at COFAR for two weeks for no more than five DOEA personnel for quarters and use of common facilities for operations in the area that would not interfere with COFAR operations.

She'd already received a second message from the Foundation, this time from Director Wrae, requesting that she report on the arrival of DOEA personnel and the requirements imposed on COFAR, as well as reminding Alayna that the Foundation could invoice DOEA for all supplies and food consumed by the DOEA team.

As she sat at the mess table and sipped her coffee, she turned her thoughts to what she could control—at least, a little—her work.

Her clearly speculative theorizing about the basis of the alien spacecraft was coming along as she expected. Slowly. That was always the way it seemed matters went after the initial inspiration. The intellectual grunt work to fit the pieces together took forever.
If they will even fit.
There was a Sinese proverb or the like about a journey of a thousand kilometers beginning with a single step. Well, in trying to figure out the theoretical basis of the graviton drive, she'd taken a few steps along the way on a journey that might take millions of light-years.

The other problem that nagged at her was one that was far closer to her own studies—the source of the pseudo-particle beam that had destroyed the alien artifact.

She couldn't help thinking that, somehow, “the man who wasn't there” was somehow involved. Maybe, if she saw the images again …

She thought about eating, shook her head, then picked up her mug, carefully, and walked from the mess to the control center, where she seated herself in her usual position.

“Marcel, please display the fractal construct based on the multi-fractal mini-granulation array—the one that was visible right after the solar prominence and the event that destroyed 2114 FQ5.”

The image appeared on the screen wall.

“Can you construct a three-dimensional image based on the construct?”

“That is possible, but it will not be a fractal.”

Alayna recalled the time, as an undergraduate, when two of her classmates had attempted to create a Mandelbulb—a mathematical attempt to re-create a Mandelbrot set of fractals in three dimensions. Marcel was politely telling her that he couldn't do that, either.

“Cancel that.” Instead, Alayna studied the existing construct. Surely, it should remind her of something. She kept looking, but she couldn't think of a thing.

“Marcel … would you see if you can find a fractal image anywhere in the database, any of them…” She paused. “See if you can get a link to the National Science Center and request a match.” Using Earth-Moon links was frowned on, but if the NSC was up, there actually might be less traffic.

While Marcel waited for a reply, or possibly even for a link, Alayna realized that another message had come in, from Harris at Lunara Mining. She frowned as she opened it and began to read.

Pack train will be leaving here at 0830 with DOEA contingent and supplies. DOEA is paying for the extra power. Enjoy.

The fact that the AI-guided series of lunar rollers was being sent during lunar night meant DOEA was serious about whatever it was, and that was another concern Alayna didn't really want to dwell on.

She immediately replied.

Thanks for the heads-up.

The response was even shorter than usual.

Our pleasure.

Alayna smiled wryly.
Their pleasure at your having to deal with another DOEA contingent.

“Dr. Wong-Grant,” said Marcel, “we did obtain a link. This is the closest to the one you indicated. It may not be what you wanted. Please note the source.”

Alayna did—“Fractal Structure Failure as Indicator of Dysfunction,” Kellana M. Dukes, M.D.,
Journal of Neurology
, April, 2109. She immediately studied the image—which did indeed resemble the construct. Then she began to read the article, and a section leapt out at her.

 … natural fractals do not exist in three-dimensional form. Three-dimensional natural biologics do have a two-dimensional fractal representation in certain biological structures, particularly in the human nervous system …

Could it be?
Observations over the past century had shown that AGNs at the center of certain galaxies appeared to exercise some form of regulatory control over the ebb and flow of gases and matter in a way that kept those galaxies intact and functioning. Even the Earth shifted its magnetosphere to block certain types of CMEs. The problem with the last CME had been that the magnetosphere had been essentially overpowered.

And then there were the ancients. Had Akhenaten been right in his belief and speculations that the sun was more than a natural phenomenon?

That's stretching, Alayna.

Still … why had the sun reacted so violently to the approach of the artifact … unless it could somehow sense the gravitons. Even so …

Energy!
All those energy storage chambers had to be filled—energized—somehow. What if the sun, or whatever the multi-fractals represented, opposed having energy being drained?

That's preposterous. You're grasping at straws … or the man who isn't there.

Nonetheless, she shivered for a moment. Should she send a copy of the reconstructed solar image, along with a copy of the image from the article, to Dr. Dukes?

Abruptly she smiled sadly and then shook her head. She'd write it up, if only in her personal records, but for the present, the Solar Express had been enough of a shock to the poor inhabitants of Earth. Equally important from a professional point of view, first, she wasn't a neurologist, and second, the near-matching solar fractal was a theoretical construct, not a complete observation.

If you can ever capture a complete image … But that would be like imaging the man who wasn't there.

Perhaps … later … but only with better evidence.
Much better evidence.
A lingering thought remained.
But no one else has a better explanation, not yet anyway.