Music of the Spheres (21 page)

Though now, he thought to himself, the health of country
corporations rested solely on consumer confidence. And since confidence was
low, the corporations were taking fiscal losses left and right. Budgets were
cut. There was an increase in unemployment and a rise in civil unrest in most
of the harder hit countries.

There was no better time for a revolution. Someone saw it
coming and had gambled big. Whoever could offer a bright light for the future
could write his own ticket. Michael could not believe any of the Cruzados he
had met, even the gracious Oscar Ruiz, had that kind of foresight or access to
enough resources to have prepared for this eventuality years ahead.

“So someone was coming at the problem from a different angle,”
he said out loud. “Figure out how to use Kinemet first, and then source the
metal—only they decided to steal the stuff instead of doing any of the heavy
lifting.”

“Right. So what did they know that we didn’t?” Calbert
asked. “We must have spent thousands of man-hours on the translation of the
Mayan scroll. Of course,” he added with a dry laugh, “with all our brilliant
minds we never figured out that the medium
was
the message.”

Rubbing his eyes with his knuckles, Michael yawned.

“Why don’t we take a break for the day?” Calbert said. “I
know a nice steakhouse around the corner. We can take Yaxche there to try some
Canadian cuisine.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “My brain is tired from over thinking
everything. I’m probably missing the obvious.”

On his comlink, Calbert connected with Raymond. “How’s
everything going down there?”

“Oh, we’ve been done for hours. The team is busy crunching
numbers and looking for patterns. It could take them a while to come up with
any possibilities. I’ve been showing Yaxche around the building. He seems to
like the roof garden the best.”

“We’re going to break for the day, go out to the ‘Beef and
Brew’. Can you ask Yaxche if he’s hungry? And you’re welcome to join us, if you
can.”

There wasn’t more than a moment’s hesitation before Raymond
said, “If I can? We’re already halfway to the elevator.” He laughed. “We’ll
stop at your floor and meet you.”

Michael stood and stretched. He reached for his jacket.
“Have you had a chance to talk to Elizabeth?” he asked. “I’ve tried to reach
her a couple of times, but all I get is her answering service.”

There was a sudden pained look in Calbert’s eyes.

Michael knew he and George had become more than just
colleagues since Michael’s retirement. Before Michael’s wife had passed away,
the three couples had vacationed together every other year. It was Michael’s
own fault that he had fallen out of touch since her death. At the time, he
didn’t want the sympathy his friends had offered, instead preferring to wallow
in his anger and loss. He hoped Elizabeth knew she could lean on him for
support.

“Yes,” Calbert said. “Once she found out about what happened,
she flew down to Florida to be with family. I contacted her this morning as
soon as I learned they’d recovered his body. She said she was making
arrangements to bring George’s parents and sister here for the funeral.”

At that point, Michael was uncertain what to say. There were
so many emotions roiling around inside him that he thought any words he spoke
would get caught in his throat.

He was saved when Yaxche and Raymond appeared in the doorway
of the conference room, both with bright smiles.

Calbert asked, “Everyone ready?”

“Uh,” Yaxche said into his translator, “I would like to talk
to Sky Traveler now.”

“Alex?” Michael asked. “He’s not here, Yaxche. He’s on
Canada Station Three. In space.”

Yaxche gave him the same look one would give a small child.
“I am aware of this. Perhaps we could use your EPS. That is how I spoke with
him two years ago, when I was in Santa Rosa de Copán.”

“Of course,” Michael said, looking sheepish as Calbert
smiled at his discomfiture.

Raymond blinked in the way only people with a thought-link
blink. He was sending a command into the building’s systems.

“I can patch the uplink right in here, if you like,” he said.
“We should probably update Kenny on the scroll anyway—he’s our lead physicist
on Kinemet development up there,” he told Michael. “Only been with us for a few
months, but he’s come up with some very promising theories.”

All four of them turned to the holoslate as it flashed the corporate
logo along with an animation of a radio wave.

After a few seconds, the screen flicked to show a young
woman with short blonde hair and a pretty smile. A small inset square in the
top corner showed Raymond reflected in the frame.

“Quantum Resources, Canada Station Three,” the blonde woman
said. “How may I help you? Oh, hello, Raymond.”

“Terra,” he answered, “how are you? Is Kenny there?”

“Kenny?” There was a quick flash of uncertainty in her eyes.
“Well…”

Calbert took a step forward into her view. “What’s wrong?
Where is he?”

Chewing her lip, Terra said, “I’m sorry, I thought you all
knew.”

“Knew what?” Calbert pressed.

“He’s been arrested.”

Raymond’s voice went up in alarm. “Arrested? For what?”

Terra looked decidedly uncomfortable relating the
information. “Someone should have told you this,” she said, and shook her head.
“They discovered Alex Manez in Kenny’s apartment early this morning. He’s
unconscious—in a coma or something. The station police think Kenny did some
kind of experiment on Alex. He claims he didn’t do anything, but they’re
holding him anyway.”

“Where’s Alex?” Michael demanded, too distracted to follow EPS
courtesy protocols and step into Terra’s line of sight.

“He’s in the medical wing under observation. They said they
have no idea what’s wrong with him. Dr. Amma said this was the second time he’s
gone into a coma, a deeper one this time, and she’s worried he won’t come back
out of it.”

Calbert and Michael shared a concerned look.

Raymond spoke to Terra. “Thank you for filling us in. I’ll
call back in an hour.” He cut the uplink.

Before anyone could say anything, Yaxche, who was following
the conversation on his translator, grabbed Michael by the arm.

“We must go to him right away,” he said, his tone brooking
no argument. “Alex is in a spirit walk, a dream state. I think he has lost his
way. I might be able to guide him home.”

Calbert said to Raymond, “You book them on the next flight
to the Nova Scotia Space Port and get them on a shuttle to CS3; I’ll find out
what’s going on up there.”

31

Unofficial
Transcript :

Alex Manez Interview
Part Three :

Dated
August 2103 :

Frank: “Is the agreement to your
satisfaction, Alex?”

Alex: “Yes. Thank you.”

Frank: “All right. We are recording this.
Please tell me, in your own words, what happened after you set the escape pod
on course for the source of the electromagnetic signals. —And leave nothing
out.”

Alex: “May I have a glass of water?”

Frank: “Of course. Evan, please bring in a
pitcher and a glass.”

Alex: “I have one more request.”

Frank: “Alex, our patience is running
thin.”

Alex: “It’s a little thing.”

Frank: “All right. What is it?”

Alex: “Is there any way you can get me a
small sample of Kinemet?”

Frank: “I’m sorry, I can’t authorize that.
It’s extremely expensive to mine, and there’s a limited supply on Earth. Seems
like a very extravagant souvenir, Alex.”

Alex: “Well, can I just see some for a
little while?”

Frank: “Why?”

Alex: “I think I need to be around it.”

Frank: “I’ll see what I can do, Alex, but I
can’t make any promises. Are you ready to tell us the story now?”

Alex: “Yes.”

∞

Alex: “I think I already told you that the
trip to Centauri felt instantaneous to me, but I didn’t mention that it left a
kind of residual memory in me. It’s hard to describe the feeling. It’s like
someone tells you about how they went skydiving, and described it so well that
you can imagine it was you who jumped out of the airplane. Now, pretend that no
one ever described that feeling, but you still have the sensations of the dive.
It’s an echo of a memory.

“The moment the ship was quantized, there
was a link between me and the
Dis Pater
on Pluto. The only way to
describe it is as a kind of compulsion. It drew me to it. That the
Quanta
itself was pointed directly at it is besides the point; even if it hadn’t been,
I would have felt drawn to the monument.

“When the ship reached Pluto, for a moment
it felt to me as if the entire galaxy was laid out in a spider web of connected
monuments, and all I had to do was
connect
myself to one of those
strands and fly along its path. I believe, if NASA had not put the
Quanta
on a direct trajectory to Alpha Centauri, I would still have been able to
course correct and travel along that thread. I couldn’t, of course, because
this thought didn’t enter my consciousness until after the ship had arrived in
the next solar system.

“When the ship arrived, I was able to sense
the Centauri version of the
Dis Pater
, as if it were a homing beacon.

“This is why I believe we are not using Kinemet
the way it was intended. I was only partially altered by exposure to the
reacting Kinemet, and was never able to fully transform into what I should have
become. Yaxche called me ‘Colop u Uichkin’, which we’ve translated as a god of
the sun, or stars. A closer interpretation is ‘Master of the Stars’ or, as the
term I’ve been using for myself, ‘Star Traveler’.

“I did some reading on the way here from
Pluto. The ancient Mayans were a very cosmic-minded and spiritual people. One
of their beliefs was that a person was made of pure energy. Every object in the
universe is made of that same kind of energy. Energy can be interpreted as
frequencies. The Mayans believed that all things had the ability to transfer
that energy—if they found a compatible frequency—to any point in the universe.

“Where do you think they developed that
philosophy?

“I believe if I had been transformed the
way it was intended, I would not have been unconscious during that trip to Centauri.
With the powers I have developed since I was irradiated, I believe I should
have been able to pilot the ship. My ‘clairvoyance’ would be for navigation,
and my ‘electropathy’ would be able to control the amount of power put out by
the quantized Kinemet.

“Of course, I was exposed to Kinemet by
accident, so I am incomplete. If you conduct tests on others without fully
understanding how the Kinemetic radiation will affect them, they could quite
possibly exhibit worse symptoms than I have, even death.”

∞

Frank: “When I said leave nothing out, I
meant about the events you experienced. We need to leave the conjecture for the
scientists.”

Alex: “But this is something they need to
hear.”

Frank: “Again, that is yet to be
determined. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.”

Alex: “Fine.”

Frank: “Alex … you also understand that in
order for us to fully honor our end of the agreement, we must have full
disclosure from you … we need the truth. If all the Kinemet on board the
Quanta
exploded in the secondary reaction, how did you manage to return to our solar system?”

Alex: “While you may or may not believe
what I just told you, I promise you that what I’m about to say is the complete
truth…”

∞

Alex: “I could do the math. I had less than
a week of oxygen and water, but the escape pod would take more than a month to
reach the source of the signal. It was a pure survival instinct that I
attempted to put myself back into a quantized state. I had enough Kinemetic
radiation in my system to maintain my state for the duration.

“What I didn’t take into account was that,
without a catalyst, I had no way of reversing the process. I could float for
months or years before I burned off whatever radiation I had in me. In my
theory, a properly conditioned star traveler should be aware while quantized; I
was not.

“If I hadn’t been pulled into dock in the
alien space port, I most likely would have drifted until I died.”

∞

Frank: “Stop right there! Alien space port!
Alex, are you saying you made contact with aliens? If so, this is a serious
breach!”

Alex: “No. No aliens. I didn’t lie to
anyone about that.”

Frank: “Okay. Continue.”

∞

Alex: “I assure you, the spaceport—the
source of the signal—was completely deserted. Everything on board was fully
automated. I can only assume their sensors detected me and retrieved the escape
pod. I was pulled inside a large hangar. There was a series of platforms that
looked as if they were docks for ships of all sizes, but besides my pod, there
were no other vessels. The hangar itself was very sparse. I couldn’t see any
windows or bay doors anywhere. The walls looked like they were made from some
kind of polished stone, rather than metal.

“My first thought was to open the escape
pod to step out, take a look around, but my pod’s canopy was jammed. Besides, I
didn’t have an EVA suit, and I didn’t know what kind of atmosphere the port had,
so I had to remain where I was. There must have been a quantity of Kinemet
there, because I began to feel rejuvenated, almost immediately.

“Automated arms extended from along the
platform and attached themselves to the pod. At first this scared me, because I
thought they were going to open the canopy, but the gauges on the pod indicated
that they were merely refuelling me with oxygen and electricity.”

“Once the pod was recharged, another set of
arms affixed a large object to the underside of the pod. I couldn’t tell what
it was, but I have to assume it was attached with some kind of magnetic clamp.
The moment the mechanical arms retracted, the pod began to move away from the
dock. I had no control over the navigation systems as the pod moved towards a
tube. Inside, I built up speed and was shot out from the port at what I would imagine
would be the escape pod’s maximum speed.”

“The entire process from the moment I
regained consciousness was less than five minutes.

“As my pod left the space port, I was once
again quantized. I have to assume the object they attached was some kind of temporary
portable Quantum engine. The next thing I knew, I was in orbit around Pluto,
and the ground crew were trying to contact me on the radio. The portable quantum
drive had been completely consumed during the flight.

“The rest you know.”

∞

Frank: “Alex, I’m not sure what to say.
That’s an incredible story. Are you leaving anything out?”

Alex: “You don’t believe me?”

Frank: “Well … that’s not for me to say,
but, I have to warn you that, well, pretty much everyone who reads this
transcript is going to dismiss your report as wild speculation at best, and
juvenile fantasy at worst. The problem, unfortunately, is that we can’t
corroborate any of this.”

Alex: “I know.”

Frank: “You understand that it would be
extremely difficult for people to reconcile your story with established
scientific fact.”

Alex: “Yes. Sometimes the most closed-minded
people are scientists.”

Frank: “Be that as it may, I don’t think
the board of directors are ready for this information. As a matter of fact, I
think they will dismiss it out of hand.”

Alex: “I’m sorry I don’t have any evidence
for you, but I’m sure it’s there if someone wants to look, they just have to
return to Alpha Centauri. The space dock is sitting there, empty and waiting.”

Frank: “That, my boy, is easier said than
done. To be honest, your account raises more questions than it answers.”

Alex: “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

Frank: “I’m just not sure how to present
this information to the board … or if I should.”

Alex: “The world needs to take a closer
look at Kinemet, and understand its relationship with human beings.”

Frank: “If your story is true, then I
agree, but we need verification … All right, well, at this point, all I can do
is to submit the report and get it on record. I’ll leave it to the board to decide.”

Alex: “So what happens now? I mean, to me?”

Frank: “For all intents and purposes,
‘Captain Alex Manez’ is a commissioned member of the Canadian Space Force, and
will be honorably discharged. You, on the other hand, share nothing with him
other than a name. Once we release you, you will be free to do as you will. I
believe the current CEO of Quantum Resources, Calbert Loche, has spoken with
you about a position in the R&D department on Canada Station Three?”

Alex: “Yes.”

Frank: “That sounds like a very good deal.
But I want to remind you: to speak about your experiences in Centauri to anyone
outside of this room will be considered a breach of contract and could be
actionable in court. That would be very unpleasant for you.”

Alex: “I’m not a child. I understand.”

Frank: “I hope you do. Now, is there
anything you would like to add before I submit the report and end the
debriefing? Alex…? Alex…?”

Alex: “No. That’s everything.”