Jaunt (19 page)

Marlane monitored the three HUDs on a screen along the circular bank of monitors.

“Holographic interfaces functioning normally. All systems go.”

“Specimens active,” Waters reported. “Good for start-up.”

“Excellent,” de Lis said, before nodding to the trio a final time, giving them his approval.

Toggling a holographic green sphere on the interface, Gilmour activated his Casimir vacuum. He began counting along with the virtual chronometer, all the while holding his breath and praying that he wouldn’t be blown to subatomic nuclei.

Waters’ and Roget’s monitors displayed the three pairs of Casimir plates and the jewels suspended between them, as well as the proton spin rate of the individual chronometers manufactured into each Casimir device, which would allow—in theory—the agents to select the particular era for any mission objective.

Gilmour tapped his Casimir plate controls, closing the gap between the plates to within several micrometers, consequently decreasing the zero-point particle field strength to negative ten millielectronvolts.

A black mass now consumed each monitor, raising the heartbeats and voices of Marlane and the assembled scientists.

“Negative twelve millielectronvolts,” Waters read out, her gaze alternating between the monitor bank and watching the final seconds of the agents’ presence.

“Systems nominal,” Marlane confirmed again.

Dark Horse turned to de Lis, a smile barely carved out of the lieutenant colonel’s stern face.

“Come on, do it,” de Lis repeated over and over to himself. His face was flush, with his collar and tie abysmally tight once more, but too transfixed in the drama to relieve the stranglehold.

“Negative fifteen millielectronvolts.”

A tiny bead of perspiration, too small to roll down his nose without force, tickled Gilmour’s skin, causing him to shake his head. Refocusing his eyes, the last image retained by his retinas read “-32 meV.” His ears heard a muffled buzz before—

De Lis stepped back from the trio; their chests were now emblazoned with widening spheres of pure energy, electromagnetic siphons curving light—and this time, matter—

around their respective cores. Within a microsecond the four limbs of each man were pulled inside the optical holes, leaving nothing save the dreadfully familiar sucking echo of air to fill the vacated space.

“Contact...lost.”

All that was...all that could be done...all that is....

Quanta flowed, a river in the spacetime ocean, beckoning at the omnipresence of gravity, the evacuation of quintessence, the unknown of the mind, the depths of the soul...a particle, a drop in the splash that was the membrane of the universe, a vibrating fabric woven with infinite strings stretched taut over incalculable eras, spaces and memories, times that had been imagined, dreams that had been lived.

Together, they were one, innumerable, unfathomable, indistinguishable, borne apart, a stew of species of scintilla, God’s DNA, the genome of the multiple universes, oneness.

The city had changed much before his day; the people...their numbers astounded him, forcing him to remember that at one time, his city of birth was a thriving second capital, not a sparsely populated, commuter’s destination. But much had shifted since then, many had fled, many had perished. He couldn’t begin to ask why it had happened....

Lighting a rolled cigarette, he hoisted his gear onto his shoulders and boarded the train, melding with the mass, becoming a mere drop in the sea. Odors of poverty, despair, even prosperity in some, yes, reminded him of home, telling him through the ages that not much really changed here, just the shadows in charge. Despite this, he was vigilant not to reveal himself, not to betray his differences. Times change, languages permutate, he thought. Even the threads he had buttoned up this very morning had to capture the flavor of the old country; nothing could be allowed to expose him for what he truly was. Because on this day, in this era, all the loyalties to his home country could not save him if he misstepped before the wrong person.

Deep sea water broke over the stem of the Marinochka as the trawler headed into the North Pacific under the stars of the October midnight. Darkness gave the ship and its trailing sister vessel, the Amiliji, security from roving Japanese cruisers, intent on protecting the sovereignty of their expanded empire of the sea. The journey to the edge of the continental shelf had taken seven days, several more than usual, in order to pass cleanly around the declared Japanese territorial limits, avoiding any conflicts between the uneasy goodwill of the mightiest two nations of Asia, won only by a brutal war thirty years before.

Nicolenko found the Marinochka’s corridors cramped, forcing himself to remember the circumstances of this time. Materials were scarce for the war effort; modern techniques for manufacturing steel composites and lighter weight, non-corrosive materials had yet to be formulated, necessitating the need for rationing. His eyes studied the rust stains smearing the cabin’s walls, and he wondered how his people ever emerged victorious in this war.

Despite this, he knew this vessel was perfect for recovering what was sitting on the ocean bed, waiting for him to claim it. Alone in his quarters, Nicolenko pored over the hard copy prepared for him of the craft’s remains, its exact dimensions, and what to look for once the Marinochka had arrived over the site. All he had left to do was lie in wait until the vessel had reached the prearranged coordinates.

By the next morning, the Amiliji had caught up with the Marinochka, allowing the two sisters to proceed on to the undersea trench together. Nicolenko had risen early, as his custom, and walked the upper deck of the ship, breathing in the Pacific air, hoping the atmosphere lent him some sense of what it held many meters below. Marinochka’s captain, Krasnowsky, ordered the vessel to lower anchor, parking the ship near the mysterious trench and its secret inhabitant.

Nicolenko crossed over to the bridge in anticipation of the lowering of the cargo nets overboard. Inside, officers and crewmen hustled to their respective stations, barking out commands while they set to work.

Krasnowsky turned to one of his officers before acknowledging Nicolenko’s presence.

“These depths are more than this ship is accustomed to, but we won’t have problems bringing up your loads.”

“See to it that you don’t. The Navy has invested much into this retrieval process. The Japanese aren’t easy to dissuade from our borders.”

“Yes, sir.” The captain gestured to his men, and a verbal response signaled that the lowering of the nets had proceeded.

Throughout the bridge the strains of the motor lowering the nets could be heard. Nicolenko counted the seconds, then minutes, away, while the weighted nets sank to the bottom of the ocean shelf. His heart drummed against his ribcage; maintaining his composure during this perilous leg of the operation proved quite difficult, even for his seasoned mind.

A buzzer on a station board sounded, reporting that the nets had descended to their fullest depth, ending Nicolenko’s growing anxiety.

“Retrieve anchor,” Krasnowsky commanded, “ahead two knots.”

Unmoored, Marinochka trotted ahead, allowing the unfurled nets to scour the ocean floor as thoroughly as possible and dredge up the remnants of the newly grounded craft on the edge of the teetering slope.

Nicolenko left the serenity of the bridge to observe the ocean water pouring through the lowered booms, hoping to see any remnants of the crash return to the surface, but better yet, willing the remains into the nets. He paced from portside of the vessel to starboard, running contingencies through his mind and hoping the calculated mass of the debris was the correct figure, and not orders below or above. Everything had to be right; he had to be efficient and not arouse suspicions. Above all else, he couldn’t fail. There was nothing else.

Periodic reports throughout the afternoon and night by the crew allowed Nicolenko to map the Marinochka’s route onto his hard copy, giving him an exact catalog of their search so far, and what was found where. Krasnowsky, relying on the best judgment of his boom operators, estimated that over six old-style tons of material had been recovered in the nets, with more dredged every hour. Behind the dredging ship was the Amiliji, tracking the Marinochka’s progress, and keeping an eye open for unwanted visitors. Paying for both trawlers had been expensive, but ultimately, Nicolenko hoped, having two would double his chances of returning home successful.

By morning, in conjunction with Nicolenko’s rise, Marinochka’s first transit of the site had been completed. On the deck, the booms were hoisted into position, and with Krasnowsky’s commands voiced, the operators began raising the nets. Orders were barked on the outer deck and the bridge, all ignored by Nicolenko, who steadfastly watched the nets appear from the water’s surface, carrying in their taut mesh the hopes of his once and future country.

Creaks and groans were the first sensations Nicolenko heard and felt during the nets’

rise, followed by the out rushing of seawater back to the murk. Straining his eyes, Nicolenko discerned metallic debris heaped into piles, caged together like such refuse. The booms were directed over the Marinochka’s holding bay and methodically lowered down, where the nets would soon be emptied of their cargo.

Nicolenko exited the outer deck and descended to the holding bay, where the stench from years of use and disregard for cleansing slammed into his lungs, eliciting a dry cough before he covered his nostrils and mouth. Metal debris coupled with seawater fell to the bay’s floor, creating a tremendous scattering of sound, deafening Nicolenko with successive pressure waves. Gritting his teeth, he crossed over to the mounting pile, careful to maintain a safe distance from the nets, which still expelled their mysterious cargo on the floor.

Crouching down and extending his arm, he picked up a fallen bar. Thin glints of light from the holding bay’s open doors rained down from above, allowing Nicolenko to study the artifact closely. Scoring on the debris limited the level of naked-eye examination, but Nicolenko’s other senses provided enough information to satisfy his innate curiosity, regardless of his own lack of scientific training. He wielded the piece with ease, not at all expecting its lightness; the alloy must have been of some supercarbonic composition, perhaps a variation of the modern day industrial fullerene composites, capable of binding with standard steel metals in a sort of jacket. Again, his ignorance lent him no further clues, but he understood this to not be of earthly origins; it just didn’t feel right. Long ago he had trained himself to rely on instinct in the field; this was one of those times.

The nets soon retreated to the upper deck of the ship, leaving him alone but for a few moments, until the crewmen were sure to arrive for inspection. Clambering into the stack of soaking debris, Nicolenko began a cursory search for his primary objective, his hands rifling among the metallic shards.

“You got here fast.”

Nicolenko rose to his feet and stepped back to the foot of the ladder, where the shadowed form of Krasnowsky now descended.

“This is just the first wave? When do we get more?” Nicolenko asked, deflecting the captain’s attention away from his scrabbling.

“We’re starting the cross salvage now.”

“Excellent.”

Krasnowsky surveyed the debris pile. “Need any help down here? My men are really good at salv—”

“No,” Nicolenko said, waving his arm. “Classified material. My administrators would be most unpleasant if I enlisted the aid of your crew beyond the dredging operations.”

“All right. Wars and crises aren’t good times for making the Party mad, right?” The captain let out a faint, exhausted laugh.

Nicolenko nodded. “If you will excuse me.”

Krasnowsky laid his hands on the rusted ladderbars. Pulling his tired body back to the upper deck, he struggled to accept his position in the greater scheme of the war efforts, and of the motherland. Matters changed so fast anymore, leaving the skipper to abide by archaic regulations, altered shipping lanes, and most indignantly, allowing Moscow to run his way of life, nearly eliminating his family’s sole means of support. He just prayed this latest trawl—

so near Japanese territory—wouldn’t be his last.

Once the captain had finished his ascent, Nicolenko locked the cargo doors from the inside, ensuring his security. He produced a well-hidden holobook from his uniform and a folded specimen bag. Opening the bag, he set it down at his feet and booted up the holobook, beginning the covert search for the objects—those strange, enigmatic jewels he’d first seen in Yakutia.

It would be a long night.

“Do you know how difficult it’ll be for me to take you all the way out into the North Pacific?”

Captain Stanley Clayton asked before flicking a spent cigarette onto the concrete floor, then stubbing it out with the sole of his shoe. The trawler skipper, many sizes larger than the man next to him, produced a small, battered book from his back pocket.

“This says I can’t go nowhere near the Nips. Who do you think I’m gonna listen to, the government—which has told me that they’ll revoke my license if I disregard these regulations, or you, saying you’ll pay me on delivery?”

“I realize the extent of my request, but allow me to assure you that I am good for any price...just name it,” Gilmour asserted.