Music of the Spheres (23 page)

Justine decided to go for broke and hope Lieutenant Jeffries
would figure out what was going on and get himself and his men to safety.

She pushed her quantized self through the small opening in
the broken window of the workshop door and into the room.

All eyes turned to her as she floated into the center of the
room.

Klaus raised his rifle and fired off a single shot in her
direction. The ion stream passed through her harmlessly. As if the result did
not completely surprise him, Klaus scuttled toward a computer keypad.

Justine had no idea what his intention was, but Klaus had
obviously figured out the ball of light in front of him was her, and by the
self-confident sneer on his face he most likely had a theory on how to capture
or kill her. Of course, when he started the experiments, he would have thought
ahead about how to control any transformed subject.

Lieutenant Jeffries wasn’t taking the opportunity, so
Justine had no choice.

She transformed back to her human form, and stood in the
middle of the room, stark naked.

It had the desired effect on Klaus. He paused in his search
for the keypad to look at her.

Justine shouted, “Get out of the room,” to Lieutenant
Jeffries and, accustomed to following orders, he grabbed both of his men and complied.

When she turned back to Klaus, he had his rifle pointed
directly at her, his lips curling up. In his other hand he held the keypad, and
his thumb was pressed down on a key.

Justine immediately willed herself to transform into a
quantized state, but nothing happened.

“Too late,” Klaus said triumphantly. Lifting the keypad up,
he winked at her. “Kinemetic damper. The same tech they use in a quantum drive.
The whole room has been wired for it, not just the lab. Now, I’m afraid, I’m
going to have to terminate your experiment.”

Klaus leveled the barrel of the rifle at her head.

There was the distinctive electrical whir sound, and then a
frozen moment when Justine’s heart stopped.

A puzzled look on his face, Klaus slowly sank to his knees.
On his chest, a small circle of blood blossomed, and he fell face down on the
floor, releasing the keypad.

Behind him, one of the younger Cruzados, who Justine had
thought was dead, lay on his side, a small ion pistol stretched out in front of
him.

“Lo siento,”
he said, and then his arm dropped and he
went still.

Justine didn’t have time to wonder what had caused one of
the Cruzados to turn on Klaus, because Captain Gruber, with a roar of outrage,
jumped up from his hiding spot, aimed his own pistol at her, and fired.

But Justine, free from the damper, was able to quantize
herself a split second before the first ion stream sliced through her bare
skin.

Lieutenant Jeffries and his two men charged back into the
room.

His ion pistol spent, Gruber threw it at them in futility.
They quickly tackled him and wrestled him to the ground.

Justine, sensing she was nearing the end of her Kinemetic
fuel, moved her photonic self to the wall near the door of the lab. Her uniform
had been hung on a hook there. She reverted to a physical form and quickly
dressed while the lieutenant secured his prisoner.

“What the hell is going on?” Lieutenant Jeffries asked in
what Justine thought was a very controlled voice, considering the
circumstances. “What was that ball of light? Was that you? I mean, I had a
briefing on the Kinemetic effect. Is that what happened to you? That’s what
Klaus was doing here?”

Nodding, Justine said, “I’ll explain everything to you
later. Right now, I need to secure the observatory. You find a communications
room and get word back to Earth about what happened here.”

“Uh, yes, Major.”

Justine took a step toward the door, but paused, and knelt
down beside the young Cruzado who had saved her life. She felt for a pulse, but
the young man was truly dead.

“And, if you could, please find out who this person was. He
saved my life.”

∞

It took Justine a little less than a quarter of an hour to
make a full circuit of the observatory and use her electropathic ability to
seal off any Cruzado she found. Taken completely off guard, they didn’t stand a
chance. By her count, there were at least forty of them held inside the common
area, and half a dozen other stragglers she trapped in their individual rooms
or work areas.

When she was finished, the returned to the room where the Kinemet
was stored. She used her
sight
to look inside. The Cruzado was standing
in front of the container, his face painted with anger.

She spoke in Spanish, and pitched her voice for him to hear
through the door. “We’ve taken control of the observatory. Your leaders are
dead or captured. We have reinforcements on the way. You don’t have any food or
water. Put down your rifle now, lay on the floor with your hands folded on your
head.”

There was a brief moment when she thought he either didn’t
hear her, or was planning on being defiant. But then he tossed the rifle away from
him and got down on the floor.

Justine unlocked the door and stepped inside, quickly
grabbing the ion pulse rifle.

“All right, I want you to slowly get up and move into the
other room. You’ll wait there until we come for you.”

Glaring at her, the Cruzado nevertheless complied, and once
he was safely locked away in an adjacent room, Justine returned to the Kinemet,
sat down beside it … and basked in its radiance.

∞

Once she felt her energy levels were back to normal, Justine
once more tried using her clairvoyant ability. This time, she pushed herself
and tried to home in on Alex’s weak signal.

It was difficult to get a fix on him because he seemed to be
fading in and out.

Having the ability to see at great distances without
physically being there was revolutionary. Alex’s ability, kept top secret and
shared with only a privileged few, had all but dissipated during the years he
was not infused with Kinemetic radiation. He had told Justine once that he
could only push his senses so far before he became mentally exhausted, even at
the height of his power.

It was possible, Justine thought, that Alex had tried to use
his power to find her after the hijacking and had exceeded his capacity. If so,
he might have exhausted himself and didn’t have enough reserves to pull his
consciousness back to his body.

Experimenting, Justine confirmed what Alex had told her. At about
one hundred and fifty kilometers from the Lucis Observatory, her conscious
vision stopped moving forward. It was as if she had hit a barrier, and no matter
how much energy she exerted, she could not push past it.

As Justine moved her
sight
back toward the
observatory, she took in the deadly beauty of Venus. Unlike Earth, whose
surface detail could be seen between patches of cloud, Venus was completely covered
by its sulfuric clouds. It was mesmerizing, and Justine wanted to drift out
there in space forever, exploring all the celestial wonders of space.

But too many people were relying on her.

Returned to her corporeal self, Justine reflected a moment
on the powers she had acquired, and being a trained astronaut, she connected
most of the dots.

In order to navigate at luminal speeds, a pilot would need
the ability to sense the star beacons
as if they were a navigational map.
She assumed the clairvoyant
sight
was a reflection of that ability. The
electropathy would be twofold. Although she had no empirical data on which to
base her theory, it made sense that she would be able to course-correct a
quantized ship in flight using the ability. Also, it would be needed once a
quantized ship was returned to normal space, in order to dampen the engines and
prevent a secondary Kinemetic reaction.

Or, she thought, she might be able to stop the reaction
herself without the aid of a damper. There was a lot of experimentation that
needed to be done.

She wasn’t certain where the enhanced visual memory would
come into play. It could just be a side-effect of being a Kinemat.

She remembered that was the word Alex called himself, and
had wondered at times if he was still human.

As she processed the thoughts, she continued to bathe in the
radiation of raw Kinemet.

∞

When Lieutenant Jeffries found her and gently shook her
shoulder, it took everything in her not to ignore him and sink deeper into the
influence of the powerful metal.

“We’ve secured the observatory,” he said to her when she
opened her eyes. “All of the Cruzados are in the common room, along with
Gruber. We can keep them there indefinitely.”

“What about the young man who saved my life?” she asked.

“Gruber wouldn’t say a word. One of the other Cruzados said the
man’s name was Terry, but he wasn’t really one of the rebels. You’ll never
believe this: he was the grandson of that Mayan who had the scroll in Honduras.
I didn’t get the whole story, but apparently Klaus and Jose—the leader of the
Cruzados—tricked him into stealing the scroll.”

More treachery,
Justine thought.

The lieutenant said, “You were right, we did get transferred
to another ship, the
Ultio.
It’s a space yacht, with some upgrades. It’s
in dock.”

“I assume the
Diana
is lost, then.”

The lieutenant nodded, then said, “We did an inventory of
the computers in the lab. Most were destroyed in the fight, and if there were
any data backups, we can’t find them. There’s no way to retrieve Klaus’s work.”

“Did you find the scroll?”

The lieutenant shook his head. “No sign of it. It may have
been destroyed once Klaus had what he wanted from it.”

“Well,” Justine said, “we’ll just have to trust that our
scientists can reverse engineer … me.”

He looked uncomfortable with reciting the next portion of
his report, and it was only after Justine prodded him that he spoke.

“We’ve removed all the bodies; they’re in cold storage.”

“Clive?”

“Yeah. Him too. I’m so sorry about that,” Lieutenant
Jeffries said, gently placing a consoling hand on her shoulder.

“Never mind,” Justine said, pushing her feelings deep down.
She would think about it another time, when she was more capable of dealing
with it. “Did you contact home?”

The lieutenant cocked his head and made an inscrutable face.
“It’s about a five-minute delay in EPS transmissions, so we don’t have the
whole story. I’ve got Private Genero in the communication room. So far, though,
it looks like we’re going to be on our own.”

Justine stood up. “What?”

“Colonel Gagne said it all started with a crackdown in
Honduras. Apparently, the Cruzados down there kidnapped the old Mayan and Michael
Sanderson, and killed a U.S. national, George Markowitz. Mr. Sanderson managed
to escape with the Mayan. The Honduran military moved in and put down the rebels.
Apparently, the three of them figured out what was so important about the
ancient scroll—probably that the formula for … making someone like you … was in
there all along.”

“My God,” Justine said. “George.”

Jeffries took a breath and continued: “But that information
was leaked, and now most of the world country corporations know that someone
has worked out the solution to Kinemet. Both the People’s Republic of China and
the Arabic Consortium are howling mad.”

“The Arabs?” Justine said.

“I guess since most countries have stopped using oil for
fuel, they’re scrambling for a way to get back on top. They’ve issued
ultimatums to share the technology under threat of hostilities. The world is in
gridlock at the moment. Everyone’s borders are closing. There’s talk of war.”

It took a moment for Justine to process that, but her
thoughts returned to George Markowitz. She’d met him a few times. Another
senseless death. And there would be many more if matters continued down their
current path.

“So,” Lieutenant Jeffries said. “What’s the plan, boss? We
sit here and wait?”

“Did Colonel Gagne give any specific orders?”

“Nothing other than to secure and defend the Kinemet. He’s
waiting on higher-ups to make a decision.”

“In that case, I’d rather not sit around here waiting and
doing nothing. Why don’t we load this container back on the
Ultio
and
head back to CS3?”

The lieutenant looked surprised. “CS3? Why there?”

“You remember that boy we brought on board before the
hijacking?”

“Alex, the one you told me to forget about?”

Justine nodded. “Yeah, well, he’s in trouble, and I think
the only way to save him is with that Kinemet.”

“There’s only four of us and over forty of the rebels,” Lieutenant
Jeffries said. “I’m not sure we can handle all of them on a trip back.”

“There’s enough food and water here on the observatory for at
least a few weeks or so; enough time for the U.S. Space Corp. to get up here
and take care of them.”

Lieutenant Jeffries raised an eyebrow, looking unsure.

Justine stood up and patted the top of the container. She
smiled.

“Well, are you heading my way?” she asked. “Wanna lift?”

33

Canada Station Three
:

Lagrange Point 4 :

Earth Orbit :

Although Michael
wanted
to work through the sixteen-hour flight from Nova Scotia to CS3, he
fell into a deep exhausted sleep soon after launch and didn’t wake up until the
ship began to slow on approach.

While Yaxche had found the skybus trips from Honduras to
Toronto and from Toronto to Yarmouth horrifying experiences, he seemed to
really take to space travel. After all, there was no turbulence in space.

Michael found him in the forward observation lounge, sitting
on a comfortable sofa bench, watching as the two-kilometer-wide space station
slowly grew larger and larger as they got closer. There were twenty or so other
people in the room, all watching in companionable silence and mesmerized
appreciation.

“I could not take my eyes off the Earth as we left,” Yaxche
said into his translator when Michael sat down beside him. “I have seen videos
from my grandson’s pocket computer, but it is not the same. I am a simple man
from a simple village.” He pointed to the massive space station. “This is like
something from a dream. It is no wonder the gods reside out here.”

“It’s addictive, being in space.” Michael crossed one leg
over the other and leaned back, sharing in the moment. “I’ve only been a few
times. I keep forgetting how beautiful it is.”

An attendant entered the room and quickly set his eyes on
Michael. He approached and leaned closer. In a soft voice he said, “You have a
call from Earth, sir.”

“All right, thank you,” Michael said, and with a smile to
Yaxche, he got up and followed the attendant to a communication booth.

∞

It was Calbert.

“I don’t know if you’ve scanned the newsblogs yet,” the CEO
of Quantum Resources said, “but the survivors of the
Diana
have
contacted Earth.”

“Survivors!” Michael said, his voice loud enough that a few
other passengers who were taking calls turned their heads at the sound. His
face flushed red, not from embarrassment, but from anger and worry.

“Four of the Americans, including Major Justine Turner,
managed to overpower a band of Cruzados on the abandoned Venus orbital, Lucis
Observatory, and recover the stolen Kinemet.”

Michael breathed a sigh of relief that Justine was alive,
but a thousand questions flooded his mind. He bit his tongue until Calbert was
finished with his story.

“It looks like the Cruzados were led by Klaus Vogelsberg and
Trent Gruber. Klaus was killed in the firefight, but they managed to capture
Gruber alive.”

“Klaus?” Michael hadn’t heard that name for years, and had
completely dismissed him from his memory.

“Yeah. Apparently, he’s been trafficking in information all
this time since the
Quanta
hijacking, and over the years managed to set
up a network of contacts throughout Earth and the Moon. That fits in with your
theory of who was behind all this. He somehow recruited the Cruzados to his
cause, as well as quite a few others. They’re cleaning house on Luna Station as
we speak.”

It did explain things, but there was obviously much more to
the story. “Are they sending a rescue mission?”

“Not right away,” Calbert said. “The prisoners are secured
on the observatory, and Major Turner and the American soldiers are on their way
to CS3—they’re using Klaus’ ship, the
Ultio.
We’re assuming the
Diana
has been disintegrated by the Sun.”

“Did you find out what Klaus was doing there?”

Calbert shook his head. “If the Americans know, they’re
keeping silent about it so far. Especially since the People’s Republic of China
has filed an official complaint with the United Earth Corporate Council against
USA, Inc.”

“The Chinese? On what grounds?” Michael asked.

“Can you believe it? They’re citing the Nuclear Ban Treaty
of ‘42.”

Michael blinked. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“Well, Kinemet is based on nuclear technology. They demanded
that we prove we aren’t using it to make weapons.”

“That’s ludicrous!” Michael said.

With a shrug, Calbert lifted his eyebrows. “There are a lot
of country corporations who feel they’ve been excluded from the technology.
With everything that’s been happening on Earth, there’s renewed interest in new
developments. No one wants to get left behind. The Council is convening an
emergency session. Talk from SMD is the motion might be ratified. It’s a
political move.”

Michael didn’t like the sound of that. He wasn’t against
sharing technology; if humankind was able to fully develop reliable
interstellar travel, he believed everyone on Earth should be a part of it and
benefit. However, international corporate politics was renowned for its
sluggish pace. Before anyone could move forward with any more research or
development, the technology could be tied up for years or decades while the some
oversight committee decided whether Kinemet was a danger or not.

“You think they can get it ratified?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes. Who knows, maybe they’re trying to develop
interstellar travel independently and don’t want the competition.”

Michael asked, “You think they may have been helping Klaus?”

“I don’t know. Our ‘big brother’ to the south isn’t offering
up any information to us at this point. Perhaps you can see what you can get
out of Major Turner when she arrives. She should be there sometime tomorrow.
The Canadian Space Forces have offered protective services for the time being.
I know their commander; I’ll see about getting you clearance to meet with the
Americans.”

“Thanks, Calbert,” Michael said.

“Oh,” Calbert said just before severing the connection. “I
also talked to the provost officer on CS3 and got him to release Kenny. Technically,
he did break Quantum Resources protocol by not registering his activities—and
we’ll talk to him about that later—but he swears he was only taking readings.
Whatever happened to Alex, it was something completely different.”

With a nod, Michael said, “We’re going to be docking in an
hour or so. I’ll call ahead and see if Kenny will meet us at the port. I’d like
to get the full story straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“Sounds good. I’ll contact you later tomorrow when we have
more information.”

“See you later.” Michael closed the connection and hurried
back to the lounge to watch the final approach with Yaxche.

∞

While he waited for his luggage to be unloaded and brought
to him on the conveyor on CS3, Michael listened as Kenny explained what had
happened that night in his apartment with Alex.

“…and then he twitched and went into a coma. Only,” the
physicist added after a moment, “Doctor Amma says it’s more of an extreme fugue
state than a coma. He responds to stimuli, and appears to be awake. His
consciousness, however, is not there.”

Yaxche, who was listening to the explanation through his
translator, said, “He is on a spirit walk.”

Kenny, looking genuinely worried, asked, “Raymond said you
might be able to help him; can you?”

“I will try,” Yaxche said.

As Michael grabbed the bags when they passed near him, Kenny
said, “They have him hooked up to IVs and they’ve even tried to force-feed him.
But he’s fading away. The doctor’s explanation is that he was in remission the
last few weeks, but it was only temporary. Now, whatever deteriorating disease
was afflicting him before is back.

He added, “And it’s progressing.”

∞

It took a lot of fast talking to convince the medical staff
in the infirmary to give Yaxche the privacy he needed to see if any of his
rituals (Michael called them naturalistic procedures when explaining it to Dr.
Amma) would help bring Alex out of his state.

Dr. Amma wasn’t buying it, and in the end, Michael had to
place another call to Calbert and get him to authorize their attempt.

Michael and Kenny stood in the room, watching as Yaxche pulled
a few accoutrements out of the bag he had brought with him from Honduras,
including a hand-carved headdress decorated with feathers, and a shawl woven
with sea shells and bone. He produced two wooden sticks that rattled when he
placed them beside Alex’s supine form.

Part of Yaxche’s traditional rituals required the use of
fire to help lift spirits to the heavens, but he said he would make do with
some candles and incense.

Alex looked gaunt and aged. Though his eyes were open, they
stared blankly out of darkened sockets. He seemed to breath normally, but made
barely discernible moaning noises once in a while. When Michael grasped the
boy’s hand, it felt cold and listless.

“I must enter the spirit world of dreams,” Yaxche told them
once he had everything arranged. “Then I will try to commune with the Sky
Traveler. It may take a long time. Please make sure we are not disturbed.”

Michael regarded the old Mayan levelly for half a minute,
waiting for the ritual to being, when Kenny tapped him on the arm. “I think he
means he wants us out of here, too.”

Yaxche gave them a toothy grin, and waited patiently for
Michael and Kenny to leave the room before turning back around.

Outside, Michael looked indecisive.

“Uh,” Kenny said, clearing his throat. “Raymond said they’ve
finished the initial analysis of the Song of the Stars and have transmitted the
data to our computers. Do you mind if I go and have a look at it?”

Michael smiled and checked the time on the wall holoslate.
“Sure thing. I think I’ll go get a bite to eat and wait for the
Ultio
to
dock.”

But Kenny, ever the scientist, was already halfway down the
hall before Michael finished his sentence.

∞

Michael didn’t have to wait long. He was in the waiting area
of the docking port for less than a half an hour before the overhead monitors
flicked on to announce the arrival of the
Ultio.

It took a few minutes for them to complete docking
procedures, and when the gates opened to allow the passengers to disembark,
Michael stepped up to greet the survivors.

Before he took two steps, however, a small fireteam of
Canadian Space Force soldiers, armed with ion pulse rifles, came marching down
the hall.

Before the Luna Station incident with Chow Yin, Canada
Station Three only had a small contingent of five peace officers whose primary
role was to keep the seasonal space miners in order when they had come aboard
for shore leave. Breaking up a bar fight was the most action many of them had
ever seen.

Since then, however, the military had sent up a
thirty-six-man platoon of soldiers to bolster internal defense and to provide
added security for any international visitors to the station.

Michael didn’t recognize any of the soldiers, but they
obviously knew who he was. When they got closer, they veered toward him, and
the first man lifted his right hand in a salute.

“Sir,” he said. “Master Corporal Bixby.”

Dully, Michael raised his hand in an attempt to return the
salute. “Michael Sanderson.”

“Sir,” the master corporal said in a clipped military tone,
“we’ve been assigned to escort the American hijack survivors during their stopover
on the station. The Minister of SMD informed us you would also be accompanying
them.”

“Oh?” Michael frowned. “Do you think they are at risk?”

The soldier gave a quick shake of his head and a cursory
smile. “Just a precaution, sir.”

When the main door to the docking bay opened, Michael
glanced over and saw Justine and three men—all looking as if they had been
through a warzone—enter and step up to the identiscan one at a time.

Once they were processed and cleared, Justine approached
Michael, fighting through a weary grin with a wide smile. She gave him a hug,
which he returned with as much emotion as hers.

At first, Michael hadn’t noticed, but Justine did not have
her optilink or her PERSuit harness on, yet she had spotted him right away and walked
toward him unwaveringly.

“Justine?” Although his first instinct was to ask how she
was and tell her he was glad she was safe, he found himself blurting out, “Can
you
see?”

She let out a short laugh and smiled at him. “I am still
blind … but, yes, I
can
see.”

“What—?” He stared into both of her eyes one after another.
There was no detectible change in her irises. Her eyes were unfocused, distant.

Justine patted him on the arm. “I’ll explain later. Can we
go see Alex right now?”

Michael shook his head. “Soon. Yaxche’s with him.” He
detected a sudden pained look in Justine’s expression. They needed someplace
private to talk; he was acutely aware of over a dozen pairs of eyes watching
him.

“Um, is everyone all right?” He looked at each of the
American soldiers in turn. One of them looked quite banged up; several bruises
were evident on his cheek and forehead. The lieutenant was favoring his arm,
and the last soldier had one eye swollen shut.

The master corporal quickly introduced himself to Justine
and the others, and said, “We have an area set aside in the infirmary. If
you’ll all follow me, we’ll get you patched up and fed a hot meal. Then you can
contact home to make your debriefing. I’ve been told there are several USA,
Inc. directors and NASA officials gathering at the capital to listen in.”

“I’m fine,” Justine said to him. “I don’t need any medical
attention. If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to confer with Mr. Sanderson
while you see to the others.” She moved her head towards Lieutenant Jeffries,
who nodded his assent.

Master Corporal Bixby called one of his men closer. “Private
Ludwig, here, will escort you to our headquarters. We have a conference room
set up for the debriefing if you want to use it.” He regarded Michael with a
calculating look. “But we also have a few smaller offices, if you prefer.”