The Pathfinder Project (30 page)

What he had kept to himself and
would never tell anyone was the tie-breaker that Contingency Plan Delta had
been. If Thomas had been unable to get the touch-screen technology reliably
working for him, he would have ordered the crew to
ignore
the distress
signal that they had inevitably responded to. It wasn’t something he was proud
of and it made him feel a lot better knowing that they had produced working
technology in time to allow them to show up and safely prove conclusively that
the signal was indeed a trap.

But no matter how many times he
had silently reviewed the situation his conclusions remained the same. Without
a dependable way of defending the
Pathfinder
against an attack there was
no way
he would ever have ordered the vulnerable ship full of civilians
anywhere near a possible confrontation with the murderous Brotherhood.
Sometimes he wondered how many other ship commanders had been faced with the
same decision,
without
the benefit of CAS technology at their disposal.
How many of them had simply turned their ships toward the stars and transited
directly into the unknown? He was still thinking over the possibilities when an
electronic beep sounded from one of Mary’s consoles.

“Ensign Long,” he said, breaking
the silence. “That sounds like an incoming transmission of some sort. Since
such a transmission is a virtual impossibility considering our current
situation, what exactly is causing that?”

There was a lengthy pause.
“That’s what it is,” the sandy-haired young Ensign announced, clearly
astounded. He turned and looked at Kaufield in utter astonishment. “We are
receiving a signal from an
external
source – coming in on a secure
military
frequency. But how can that be?”

Dennis leaped out of his seat
as if jolted with electricity. He ran over to the Ensign’s position and they
both studied the motion sensor screens carefully. “There’s
nothing
else
out there, not even a rock fragment close enough to transmit from,” the Captain
pointed out. “Where the hell did it come from?”

“I have no idea, sir,” Ensign
Long replied. “It was a very short data burst… just one image file and that was
it. Other than that I’ve got nothing on record in the logs.”

Kaufield pointed at the nearest
monitor. “If we can’t track down the source, let’s take a look at it. Put up
the picture file, please.” The Ensign quickly complied and they both stared in
complete shock at the image transmitted to them only seconds before.

*    
* * *     *

Dr. Julie Markham was squinting
into the viewfinder of one of her larger telescopes in the Observatory when she
noticed Kaufield pull out a chair and sit down next to her. He tossed a sheet
of printed paper on her desk and leaned back with a mysterious expression on
his face. Intrigued, she pushed the viewfinder aside and picked up the piece of
paper, carefully examining the image on it.

“Nice job,” she remarked. “I
like all of the pretty colors. Are you thinking of taking up astronomy,
Captain?”

“
I
didn’t create that,”
he stated matter-of-factly.

“Well whoever did draw this has
been paying close attention as we travel along through space. I’ve been
developing some tentative sketches of my own but none nearly as interesting as
this.” She smiled. “It’s quite possible that our new CAS technology will
eventually allow us to explore beyond the event horizon – or outer edge – of
our universe.” She frowned slightly. “Sorry Captain, I don’t mean to keep
throwing terms like
super-cluster
and
event horizon
at people,
but that’s what they’re called in all of the textbooks.” She paused, carefully
studying the image on the sheet of paper. “Honestly, who did this Captain? I’d
call it a very excellent hypothesis as to what lies beyond the perimeter of our
universe.”

“No one on this ship,” he said,
smiling ominously.

She stared at him, trying to
get the joke she expected was hidden in his words. “Pardon me?”

“No one on
this
ship
drew
that
,” Captain Kaufield replied, pointing at the sheet of paper in
her hand. “We are out here alone – in the middle of nowhere – with most of our
crew and passengers still in the Garden wing celebrating the Fourth of July. So
I was just sitting up there on the Command Deck quietly minding the store…” he
said, still sounding a bit stunned, “…and right out of the blue Ensign Long
picks up a transmission.” He held out his hands. “As far as we can tell, there
isn’t so much as a meteor floating anywhere near this ship as far out as our
motion sensors can see. And yet we picked up a signal from an unknown source
using one of our classified,
encrypted
military frequencies. We saved a
record of the transmission and I used it to print
that
piece of paper.”

“Somebody – other than a person
on board the
Pathfinder
– transmitted this image to you earlier
tonight?” she repeated, her face turning chalk white. “And you don’t know who
sent it?”

“No,” he insisted. “We checked
everywhere in the vicinity and there is
nothing
. I came down here to
show you this because I have a pretty good idea what it might be a sketch of
and needed you to confirm it for me. I’m also hoping you can use your
telescopes to try and search the surrounding area for a ship or planet. There
was no PTP window detected and the signal was
not
faster than light. So
now you know my problem… I have no idea how someone
got
it here at the
perfect time for us to receive it.”

“Could we have intercepted an
older transmission?” Julie asked. “You know, perhaps something someone sent
years ago and it’s just now passing through this area?”

“Nope,” Kaufield said
confidently. “The signal strength is
perfect
… it hasn’t traveled through
any radiation storms or deteriorated in any way, shape, or form that we can
determine based on a standard Comm-signal originating from a distant origin
point. Somehow, someone transmitted that image file to the Command Dome, and
I’ve been left here wondering who did it and how they managed the feat.”

“I have no idea,” said Julie,
dumbfounded. She pointed to the yellow cube that denoted an enlarged area of a
piece from the overall map in the lower right corner of the picture. “Do you
realize what this means?”

“Yes,” Dennis said grimly. “It
means someone or something out there has been observing us long enough to know
who we are and the areas we’re visiting – even across
billions
of light
years.” He rubbed his chin nervously. “And even more importantly, they know
exactly where our home galaxy is and where we came from.”

THE PATHFINDER PROJECT

The day after the Fourth of
July celebration proved to be as exciting on board the
Pathfinder
as the
holiday itself had been. Since they were all personally invested in their
journey through the stars together, Kaufield continued his policy of full
disclosure – he withheld no new information. The only exception to this rule,
of course, continued to be the medical and technical research on the captured
Brotherhood spy. That part of their trip he considered to be a military matter,
and – until proven otherwise – he was still operating under the assumption that
there might be other undercover operatives on board. By morning of the next
day, however, copies of the mystery transmission were circulating throughout
the ship via E-Notes, and by lunch time it was easily the most popular subject
overheard during discussions.

Who sent it
?
From
where did they transmit
?

One person had even proposed
the theory that it was a message directly from God himself. Kaufield shook his
head in amazement throughout the entire morning as he heard or read whacky
theory after whacky theory.
Couldn’t people find anything better to do with
their time than come up with this stuff
? When anyone asked him for his
opinion – and there were a lot of people who did – he would politely respond
each and every time that he was prepared to wait and see what further
exploration of the immediate area revealed. Perhaps the answer was close or
maybe it was a long way off… he was simply not ready to read too much into such
a significant development without confirming it first with facts.

The Captain walked quickly into
the restaurant at the rear of deck four and ordered a sandwich. His plan was to
get a bite to eat and then move along to the rear of the ship and meet with
staff from the Lab and Observatory wings. He grabbed a plate containing a
chicken sandwich and poured himself a cup of coffee before moving to one of the
empty tables to sit and eat his lunch. He noticed that Patrick Warren was
working on the other side of the room, busily bussing tables left disorganized
by the lunch crowd. There were several bruises on the left side of the man’s
face and a bandaged cut under his right eye.

“May I join you?” Glen asked,
appearing from behind and smiling as the Captain immediately waved him toward
an empty chair.

“I’ve heard that our
Brotherhood guest has had a few run-ins with some of the personnel down here,
but then I guess we expected that,” the Captain commented.

“A little uncertainty
concerning his own personal safety is doing him a world of good,” Glen replied,
taking a bite from his own sandwich. “He’s been working his butt off in here,
hoping everyone will just leave him alone. Without his friends and their
nuclear missiles, he sure doesn’t have a lot of self-confidence left.”

“There have been three
documented attacks on this man so far,” the Captain pointed out. “Some of those
boys working the tougher jobs in the hangar bay naturally need to let off some
steam… but I don’t like it much when they get carried away. I’ve got four of
them cooling their heels in the brig for a while… perhaps they’ll drink a
little less and work harder now that they’ve got assault charges filed against
them.”

“There are lots of folks on
board that are wondering if an attack on him
qualifies
as an assault,”
said Glen, taking a drink of fruit juice from the plastic cup in front of him.

“It does as long as I’m the
Captain and the ship’s Council agrees with me,” replied Kaufield. “I will not
tolerate hate crimes on this ship.” He gave Warren a quick once over. “From
what I hear he is quite strong and can hold his own very well. We may all pick
up a few bruises here or there before matters are settled between us and this
Brotherhood fellow, but in the end I have confidence that we’ll all be okay.”

“We have a preliminary report
on that device you found in his quarters,” Glen reported. “It’s some kind of
transceiver like the ones we use on the fighters and other support ships, but
much more complex.” He took another sip of juice. “That’s undoubtedly how he
got the viruses into the systems of our support ships in the hangar bay. My
guess is that it is also part of a larger wireless network when used in
conjunction with other similar devices in the vicinity of our home star system.
We’ve identified the encryption process and frequencies it uses, but unless we
can record some of the actual wireless signals that it processes, I don’t think
we’ll be learning much more regarding how their communications systems work.”

“We’re not going back home… at
least not yet,” Kaufield said, watching Warren carefully. “According to Dr.
Simmons, he’s basically a human biological being just like you and me… with
upgrades. What
was
the Brotherhood thinking when they created him?”

“Perhaps they wanted soldiers,
first and foremost… reliable soldiers.”

“Advancements like that could
have helped Earth’s population, cured diseases…” observed the Captain
thoughtfully.

“And the first thing they do is
infiltrate other nations and try to wipe us out,” Glen said angrily. “It
literally boggles the mind as to what type of thinking process could conceive
of that, let alone assemble all of the resources needed to try and make it
happen.”

“That’s what I’ve been
wondering about him,” the Captain replied with a crisp nod in Warren’s
direction. “Is there still some semblance of a conscience at the center of
their so-called ‘new society’ thinking, or is their government now led only by
sociopathic murderers? We do know from our encounter at Khyber Base that they
were willing to let us surrender.” He laughed darkly. “God only knows what
being a prisoner of theirs would be like.”

Glen finished his sandwich and
pushed his plate aside. “Only a mind running on greed, ambition, a quest for
power… only someone like that could order the death of so many people and that
kind of destructive nuclear attack without feeling so much as a hint of
remorse.”