The World Game (37 page)

When I called for teams to help from among my passengers, I had to quell a small mutiny by some of the guys using my martial arts skills. Incidentally, these guys, one in particular, have redeemed themselves many times over. The incident needs to be forgotten. We performed the rescue that went pretty well as planned, including the scenario for a miss of the catching net, and I caught Martin who had missed the net. We reeled back in after sharing my youniform and buddy melding as he was out of recyclable air after such a long time.” As she spoke of the suit sharing she looked at Martin with a melting smile that he couldn’t resist and he very unprofessionally reached out and hugged her.

“Okay lovebirds, that’ll do.” chided Fuller with a grin.

“When we got back to the shuttle we tried to call the fleet but there was no reply. At first we thought our radio was malfunctioning but then we looked with some focus on the anti-matter swarm passing and saw that the distant view of the fleet under magnification, did not look normal. The ships were all coated in anti-matter.

We couldn’t assume that everyone inside them was dead and it explained the non response to our signals. The anti-matter had damaged the fleet equipment, so we decided to approach and observe. In any case we had to do something because we had no reaction mass left and we were as stranded as the fleet.”

Fuller stopped her there for a moment. “Doctor? Mr Lucas, anything you would like to ask at this point?”

“Yes, I do.” said Doctor Lewis. “I am seeing a pattern emerge here that at this point is as tenuous as gossamer, but it may lead somewhere. Martin, when you were drifting, after missing the net, what was your state of mind?”

“I was worried, but more for the person who was risking everything to come after me. I was confident that if I could be saved, our service dedication and loyalty would bring me safely home and it did. I never gave up hope. I guess it was the best few hours of my life because I had my first date with Sheila!” Martin laughed.

“Without going into too much detail, that was my next question for both of you. I have no idea what your previous “dating” experiences were in life, so if you do have a comparison, how was this any different?”

Sheila and Martin looked at each other. She was suppressing the urge to crack up laughing and he was biting his bottom lip for the same reason. “It was an out of this world experience Doctor.” Martin spluttered and then regained composure. “Physically, I guess for me it was a perfect ten out of ten, and I think Sheila would agree?” she nodded assent with a huge grin, “However on an emotional level, I can say that I would never have imagined that two people could merge their psyches as we did at that time. I had not one speck of doubt that Sheila was perfect for me, that our love for each other, as new as it was, was the most perfect love in the universe. This was not artificial that would dissipate like taking a party drug. This was real.”

“Sheila?” queried the Doctor.

“I agree absolutely. In fact since then, Martin and I seem to think alike and anticipate the other’s thoughts before we get to verbalize. It’s almost telepathy. I would like to say something about the whole event that normally would not leave a person’s bed room, but considering the circumstances and where I am guessing the Doctor is heading with all this, well I have had a couple of experiences from time to time, but they didn’t work out with the guys. Coming together with Martin, and I mean that in EVERY sense,” she grinned again, “I had the longest and most intense orgasm of my life along with the emotional bliss and total joining with Martin. I think the intensity of our tryst must have generated some effect in the universe. I am suggesting that we go back and look at any recordings we have of background radiation, anything, that happened, changed or peaked at that time.

Now one more thing. Felicity and I were talking women’s stuff, and she intimated that she had a similar experience with Gerald Shaw, so we must look at that time as well.”

“The pattern is becoming clearer, the more I hear.” said Doctor Lewis. “Can we get those readings Col. Fuller?”

“I’m already on it Doctor.” Fuller was working the dimage system, inputting the dates and times of pivotal events since the first observed disappearance. He brought up multiple images, each displaying a simple line graph of a measurable parameter, such as background radiation, radio frequency transmission, solar radiation and subatomic particle measures. They all appeared unremarkable except for the universe background radiation. That had some interesting corresponding blips. Fuller tweaked the vertical axis and the blips became definite peaks that EXACTLY matched the pivotal events and then vanished when the Dinkshif drives had been activated.

The group moved in to look and marvel.

“It appears that Mr Zardooz has an amazing intuition that we had to prove using science.” said the Doctor. “So Col. Fuller, who can explain what this background radiation is to us laymen?”

“That’s easy.” Fuller touched a question mark on the dimage screen and the computer spoke, explaining about the ambient radiation that filled the universe and confirmed the big bang theory of creation. Until this very moment, the radiation had been a constant factor, diminishing in intensity as the universe continued to expand. There had never been measurable glitches in recorded history.

“I think we have found a sign post pointing to our aliens.” said Fuller. “We need to look closely at the corresponding events and peaks.”

He removed the other dimage screens and increased this one to take the whole wall, revealing a constant variation level between the spikes, like teeth on a saw. “Look at all that activity,” he exclaimed, “and we had no idea. Uh oh!” He stopped short, pointing to the far right end of the time line. The smooth line from the Dinkshif activation until the present was broken by a single spike that matched the turnover point and Zardooz’s knocking out the nuclear power. Fuller magnified this spike until it revealed that it had a flat top and had lasted for ten microseconds, the area under the spike representing the energy level of the event.

“Call Graham in here now!” Fuller urgently ordered Sheila. He went back to the other spikes and examined them closely. They were all irregular in their profile, exhibiting some randomness. The squared off spike was something else all together. But what?

“Here’s Graham.” said Sheila and went to let him in.

Fuller went over the discoveries and the Zardooz situation and got Doc Lewis and Lucas to summarize their analyses, which were rapidly turning from the realm of ephemeral theory to solid fact.

“So this spike,” said Fuller, pointing to the squared off anomaly, is the first indication since Dinkshif space and certainly out of character.”

Graham perused the earlier spikes then concentrated on the last one. “The flat top is absolutely indicative that there is an artificial radiation source here. Let me think this through for a moment.”

The group was silent as Graham stared intently at the dimage. He moved the fingers of his right hand as though he was playing the piano in the air. Doctor Lewis pursed his lips as he watched Graham processing and gave an almost unnoticeable nod of admiration for the mental aclarity and ability he was observing. Nothing unusual in this group of the top minds in the space program, but still worthy of appreciation, like viewing an old painting masterpiece actually being painted.

“Do we have any other observation recordings, anything, for this time segment? I believe there should be a Dinkshif envelope integrity record in the system. You didn’t look at it before because it has no relationship to external radiation or other phenomena.”

Fuller immediately pulled up the record Graham wanted and displayed the relevant time line segment below the universal radiation graph.

There was an obvious bump in the line corresponding to the flat topped glitch. The rest of the line was essentially smooth.

“We could say that this glitch occurred due to the power fluctuation when Zardooz did his thing, but by my calculations that should have resulted in a net deficit to the envelope integrity charge. What we are looking at here,” said Graham with authority, “is an increase in charge where the envelope was doing its job, trying to prevent a foreign body penetration by repelling it before it could hit. The power fluctuation just at that instant weakened the envelope integrity enough to allow something to pass through it. Looking at the flat top radiation blip here reinforces that theory because the energy represented by the area under the blip is significant. In fact I think we can work out the approximate mass and size of whatever penetrated by using the energy variable which will give us the mass, and the envelope resistance variable which will give us a cross sectional area of the object size. Then we will know what to look for. Maybe not where to look for it is the rub.”

Fuller turned to the group. “People, we obviously have a security breach that unfortunately puts Zardooz on the back burner. I don’t believe he knew the extent of what he was doing, however the damage is done. Mr Graham, please do your calculations and take anyone you need to assist you. As soon as you have a result, publish it to all personnel and we will escalate the search from anything unusual to something more specific.

Sheila, I want you to gather a strike team, those with combat and hostage experience, maybe three others, and work out a plan to pay a crash visit to Zardooz. We can’t spare any more people. Shaw must not be one of the team, regardless. Report to me when you have something.”

“Col. Fuller,” the President had been sitting quietly at the back of the group through the whole series of meetings and developments, “there is one thing we need to consider.”

“What is that please?”

“We have the nano-paint transmitter. The aliens have somehow been observing us from time immemorial in some fashion. The Dinkshif effect obviously upset their observation system as we have just proved, so isn’t it logical to assume that whatever has entered our habitat was possibly not just a single observer device, but maybe a container for something like our nano-paint? Something that could spread through our spaces and observe, even cause disappearances again?”

“Point taken Mr President. Get Mr Shaw in here. We need some way of identifying alien stuff that could be dust, paint, anything. Everyone else, move on your tasks and report in anything you feel out of place, even if it is a fleeting gut feeling.”

The group dispersed except for Fuller, the President, Lewis and Lucas.

Fuller pulled up a corner of his mouth and his eyes twinkled with mischief. “Oooookay gents!” he drew out to raise anticipation. “Here’s a first for psycho-analysis and FBI profiling. Can you profile our aliens?”

“Worst case,” laughed Lucas, “is we’ll end up with a great Science Fiction story that no one will ever read, or we get a little lucky and come close.”

Nickle lay sprawled in a stupor, dulled by the painkillers he kept popping. Every so often he lifted an eyelid to peer back at the bot’s charge light. it had gone from red to yellow. He needed green so he slumped back again.

“Nickle? Oh Nickle, are you there?” sang Charonelle in her sweetest, most innocent little girl voice.

“Bugger off!”

“Nickle! I’m shocked! I just wanted to check on you!”

“Sure you did. Like a fly checks on cow shit. Bugger off. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

He saw something change in the corner of his eye and was relieved to see a green light on the medic bot. He wasn’t entirely sure how to activate it to help him, so started with verbal commands.

It didn’t move. But something flashed across the view screen on its front. He strained to move a little to read the scrolling message. It said “manual re-activation required. Press and hold on/off switch for ten seconds.”

It was going to hurt again, but he had to worm his way closer to reach the switch he could see on the side. He slid out of the chair onto the floor like jello out of a mold.

He stretched his right hand out and with excruciating pain from his broken fingers used his knuckle to hold the power switch down for the ten seconds that felt like ten hours. He heard the welcome message spoken by the bot and flopped back on the floor, completely spent and spread-eagled.

The bot rolled out of its closet right over Nickle’s broken hand and he let out a shriek like never before heard in creation.