Music of the Spheres
Read Music of the Spheres Online
Authors: Valmore Daniels
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Space Opera
Music of the Spheres
The
Interstellar Age Book 2
by
Valmore Daniels
This is
purely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This book may not be
re-sold or given away without permission in writing from the author. No part of
this book may be reproduced, copied, or distributed in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means past, present or future.
Copyright © 2011 Valmore Daniels. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-9866593-7-9
Edited By: Derek Prior
Images: © innovari/Upsidedowncake - Fotolia.com
20130221
Also
Available:
The
Interstellar Age
Forbidden the Stars
Music of the Spheres
Worlds Away
Fallen Angels
Angel Fire
Angel’s Breath
Earth Angel
(TBR)
Angel Tears
(TBR)
Angel of Darkness
(TBR)
Visit
ValmoreDaniels.com
INCEPTION
Copán :
Honduras :
Central American
Conglomeration :
My shame is
unimaginable.
For years my grandson believed I was just a silly old man. I
had hoped he would change his mind and grow to respect me and my knowledge when
Colop—the Sky Traveler; the one they call Alex Manez—returned from the stars to
thank me for helping the scientists.
I know my grandson never truly respected me, and he has
proved to me that I am unworthy. I can no longer bear to face the people in my
village.
Perhaps I was too prideful after Colop told me that they
needed my help to discover the key to the fifth world so that we may become one
with the People of the Stars. He told me the path to the stars was still clouded,
and only I could unlock the secrets of the ancient scroll. I had to help him
complete his journey.
He is the only one who can hear the Music of the Spheres,
but it is not enough. He must also be able to hear the Song of the Stars.
It has been two summers since I spoke with Colop last, but I
have worked very hard to translate the scroll for him.
They sent translators to help me when I refused to let them
take the scroll away, but since they came to our village, they have been more
than useless. They try to find English words to match the ancient Mayan symbols,
and they do not listen when I tell them they are traveling down the wrong path.
I told them Colop should be here to learn the story, but
they say it is impossible; they will send him images and recordings instead.
They do not understand that their machine will only strip the meaning from my story,
and so I declined their offer.
Frustrated with me, they took images of the scroll and sent
them back to their labs; they used microscopes and chemicals to tell them if
the secret was in the paper; they entered the Mayan symbols and pictograms into
their computers.
Afraid of damage to the sacred scroll, the translators
encased it in a plastic cover for me; for this contribution I am pleased, and I
have hung it on the wall in my home.
All their efforts produced nothing more than gibberish,
however. After a time, their irritation led them to threats, and then bribes,
and then to more threats.
When they demanded to know if I am keeping the secret from
them, I told them I have nothing to hide. I can only tell them what my
grandfather said to me: true understanding lay not with the story, but in the
telling of the story. I offer to tell them the story again, but I don’t think
they are capable of listening.
One week ago, my grandson, who has also been frustrated with
me for a long time, asked me to tell him the story one more time. I had hoped
that my telling would give him understanding, but he ran from my house before I
finished the Song.
Yesterday, he brought a friend he said he had met on his
city adventure. The stranger asked me plainly why I would not help the scientists
learn the secret. If I made them happy, he said to me, perhaps the knowledge
could help raise the status of the Mayan people in the eyes of the world. At
the very least, they would send us wealth.
I told my grandson’s friend we did not need any more
computers or machines. Such conveniences are secondary and unimportant in the great
plan. Our status is not necessary, either. Our purpose should be to help Colop
complete his journey and become one with the stars; that is all that truly
matters.
My grandson said that his friend would like to listen to me tell
the story once more. I hoped, perhaps, that their young ears would hear more
than the old ears of the scientists from the north.
We sat on the long couch in front of the scroll and I told the
story to my grandson and his friend one last time. I was very careful to tell
it in the manner it was told to me by my own grandfather.
When I finished, I looked at them expectantly. At first, the
other man’s face was clouded over, but my grandson was excited.
“Do you not hear it?” he said to his friend.
After a moment, the stranger nodded. “Yes. I think so. I
think you are right.”
My heart swelled with pride. Finally, my grandson understood
something in the tale. It was his destiny to hear the story. My grandfather had
passed the legacy to me, as his grandfather had passed it to him. And now my
grandson will become ambassador to the People of the Stars.
“You know the secret?” I asked him. I was hopeful.
My grandson nodded. “Yes, Grandfather, I believe I do. Thank
you.”
“Good.” I closed my eyes with satisfaction. When I opened
them again, I said, “Then you must find Colop and reveal the secret to him so
that he also may hear the Song of the Stars.”
He smiled at me in a way I had never before seen. “Oh, Grandfather.
No, I will not find Alex Manez. And no, I will not give him the secret.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
He stood, and I saw that he clenched his fist at his side. “It
is now
my
secret. It is
my
destiny to conquer the stars, not his.”
My grandson tore the plastic-sealed scroll from the wall.
When I stood to protest, his friend pulled out a gun and pointed it at me.
“What is this? What are you doing?” I demanded of my
grandson.
“Sorry, grandfather. You have to come with us.”
Two more men entered my house, then. They had rifles. I had
no choice but to go with them.
How could I have been so blind? How could I not have seen
all these years how my grandson despised our humble life in the village, and
envied the power of Colop?
There is no use left for me. I have failed the gods, and
must surrender myself to their mercy.
2
Selected EarthMesh Forum
Excerpts
keyword
search:
Quanta
September 2103
“…think the mission was a total fail.
Now they’re touting him around on the newsfeeds as if he’s a conquering hero.
He didn’t even see any aliens or anything. the
Quanta:
ship of fools. What
a waste of money and time…”
October 2103
“…was on a liner to Luna Base last
week. Someone said Captain Alex Manez was on board. I tried to get a look at
him, but the security was too tight. NASA’s meshsite said they’re gearing up to
launch another one of those
Quanta
ships…”
November 2103
“…you hear about the
Quanta 5
test flight yesterday? The quantum drive lasted about two seconds before it
blew the ship right into the cosmos. This is—what?—the eighth astronaut they’ve
either killed or maimed trying to get this right. Not to mention how many
billions each of those ships cost. When are they going to give up? There are
more important things to think about…”
January 2104
“…I guess it was my own fault. I sank
our life savings into USA, Inc. stock before the
Quanta
flight, and I
kept it there even when they missed the scheduled return date and the value
started to sink. Now they’ve put Quantum Resources on the auction block because
their stock is at an all time low and they don’t have any more money to spend.
I just hope that stops the devaluation. It’s going to be a tight Christmas…”
February 2104
“…saw a report that NASA and CSE officially
released Captain Alex Manez from their active roster. He was the pilot for the
Quanta
.
Now that they’ve scrubbed the interstellar program, I guess they don’t need him
anymore. I can’t seem to find any pictures of him…”
March 2104
“…and after fifteen years, now I’m out
of a job. USA, Inc. needs a new CEO. First he spent trillions on
Quanta
ships, all of which either blew up or just didn’t work, or the pilots died in
training exercises. Now he’s sold all Quantum Resources stock to Canada Corp.
for pennies on the dollar. Didn’t he think about all the people who worked in
the Houston office? I’m fifty-two; with the economy in a shambles, who’s going
to hire me now…?”
August 2104
“…finally getting their heads out of
the sand. I just read a press release from Canada Corp.’s SMD stating that
they’re no longer actively searching for that Kinemet element. I mean, without
a working
Quanta
ship, the stuff is far too costly to mine. We can use
iron ore; that’ll get people building again, jumpstart the economy and create
some jobs…”
August 2105
“…you guys remember that position I was
applying for with Quantum Resources? They were the ones spearheading the first
Quanta
missions ten years ago, but they’re more of an applied astrophysics think-tank
operation now. Heavy into theoretical research—right up my alley. Well, I got
the job! I start orientation in four weeks…”
3
Canada Station Three
:
Lagrange Point 4 :
Earth Orbit :
December 2105
Alex Manez sat
in the cockpit
of the
Quanta.
All on-board electronics were dead, the heads-up displays
were blank, and the only sound he could hear was the soft beating of his heart
in his chest.
To the side of the pilot’s chair, a pull ring hung from a
short length of wire. All he had to do was to reach for that ring and give it a
sharp tug. The reaction would switch on the generator and charge the battery,
which would in turn power the computers and other electrical systems, including
the Kinemetic dampers.
Alex reached out for the pull ring, and his fingers—the
slender fingers of a teenager—touched the cool thin metal. The last time he had
done this, his hand passed through the ring, as if he were a ghost caught
between the living and spirit worlds.
The last time, the ship had exploded.
Now, there was no urgency in his actions. With minimal
effort, he drew the ring back until it clicked, and watched as the holoslate in
front of him flickered to life.
A green light indicated that all systems were operational
and ready for normal navigation.
Disinterested, he brushed a thin strand of hair out of his
eyes and longed for the time when he had a full head of hair. It seemed like a lifetime
ago.
He looked up when a short, high-pitched binging sound came
out of the holoslate.
Superimposed on the screen over a schematic display, a sour-looking
face appeared, and narrowed eyes stared directly at Alex as if looking straight
through him.
“And then what happened?” asked Kenny Harriman, the newest physicist
to join the Quantum Resources research team on CS3. He was considered something
of a whiz at the University of British Columbia, from where he had been
recruited.
Biologically only a few years older than Alex, Kenny acted like
a tenured professor. It was as if he had something to prove. From the moment he
arrived in the lab, he had insisted on reading every report concerning the
Quanta
missions, reviewing every diagnostic ever run on Alex, and making sure he was
supervising every simulation exercise.
He also had an annoying habit of making every question or
statement a challenge. Kenny was a very excitable young man who obviously loved
the pursuit of knowledge. At the same time, he was on a personal mission to
drag Quantum Resources back into the spotlight of the world’s scientific
community.
In contrast to the physicist, Alex was the epitome of calm. “I
told you. Nothing happened.”
“Nothing!” Kenny tapped something on his haptic console, and
the canopy of the life-sized flight simulator snapped open.
The hydraulics lifted the top up and away from Alex. He
blinked to adjust his eyes to the brighter light of the simulation room.
Through a large pane of glass, two analysts hunched over computer schematics in
the adjacent room.
The light continued to sting Alex’s eyes, but he watched as Ellen
Yarrow adjusted the rim of her glasses over her pert nose.
Once, when Alex had first arrived on CS3 after his interstellar
flight, he had tried to strike up a conversation with Ellen. She’d acted like
she was uncomfortable, and excused herself. Since then, she had gone out of her
way to avoid him.
Alex had no idea why he tortured himself over her, or over
the possibility of any relationship. Even if he looked as old as his birth
certificate stated, he was still a freak of nature, a science experiment gone
awry.
He was doomed to solitude.
“What do you mean, ‘nothing’?” Kenny demanded.
Alex fixed the physicist with a smile of innocence. “I don’t
mean anything by it. Nothing happened when I pulled the ring on the flight.”
Kenny seemed completely unaffected. “Tell me why I don’t
believe you.”
“It wasn’t enough of a kick to turn the
Quanta
back
on.” Alex explained. “I had to provide the charge to initiate the systems.”
“Right. This ‘electropathic’ ability, which you’ve failed to
demonstrate to us time and again.” The physicist pulled a disbelieving face.
“All we have is your say-so you have the ability to manipulate electrical
systems … oh and the questionable reports from the crew of the
Orcus 1.”
He waved his holoslate in front of Alex.
Alex had had the same argument for the past two years with
every scientist, technician and administrator Quantum Resources and Canada
Corp. had sent up to Canada Station Three.
Before the real
Quanta’s
first interstellar voyage,
Alex had judged that the Kinemetic influence on the electrical systems of the
ship would far surpass initial estimates. The shielded battery would not hold nearly
enough power to start all the shipboard computers. And he had been correct. The
pull ring had done absolutely nothing.
The longer Alex had been in proximity to the kinetic metal,
the more of a charge he had built up. Once the
Quanta
had reached Centauri
space, there was enough electrical current at Alex’s disposal for him to start
the computers and bring the life-support systems back online. That effort—among
other things—had completely depleted him for a very long time.
Alex said, “I will be more than happy to show you how it
works. I just need an adequate amount of Kinemet to replenish me.”
Kenny gave him a cool gaze filled with disbelief.
Alex repeated himself, and there was a tone of quiet
desperation that slipped into his voice. “I need it.”
Without Kinemet, Alex was not only powerless to control
electrical currents around him, but the longer he spent away from it, the
faster his physical body deteriorated.
As with all living things, there were certain vitamins,
minerals and amino acids an organism needed in order to maintain and sustain
life; with Alex, it was as if exposure to the kinetic metal had added one more required
element to his biological makeup when he had been irradiated on Macklin’s Rock.
The physicist shook his head. “Even if I could authorize a
small quantity—which I can’t because we don’t have any—I’m not convinced that
mere exposure to the element will suddenly infuse you with some kind of
supernatural power.”
“It’s not a sudden effect.”
“Besides,” Kenny said, narrowing his eyes, “according to
these reports, when they were still building
Quanta
ships, they
allocated half a milligram of Kinemet here for testing purposes. You were in
contact with it.”
“It wasn’t enough,” Alex said. “A drop of water for a man
dying of thirst.” Without the influence of Kinemet, his health had deteriorated
drastically. The doctors couldn’t prove that lack of exposure to Kinemet was
causing his issues, and without a substantial quantity of the metal, he
couldn’t prove that it would help.
Kenny waved his hand in the air frantically. “We can go around
in circles forever on this. It wasn’t the question I was asking, anyway.”
“I know,” Alex said.
“I know you know!” Kenny was not as capable of hiding his
frustration as his predecessor. He took a long, deep breath. “You say you were
able to start the generator.”
Nodding, Alex said, “I was.”
Kenny sighed. “Then why did it explode, and why didn’t you
die in the explosion?”
“It’s in my report,” Alex said, his voice weary. “I got the
systems up, but it was too late to engage the dampers. The secondary Kinemetic
reaction had started; there was no way to stop it from exploding. I barely had
enough time to eject the escape pod.”
Kenny blinked. “It’s too bad the flight recorder can’t
corroborate your story.”
“I told you, when I used the electropathy to start the
generator, I pushed too hard and it wiped the storage drive.”
“Convenient,” Kenny said.
Alex frowned. “You should have shielded it better.”
Kenny flicked his hand dismissively. “Never mind about that.
You had rations for one week—two if you pushed it. So how did you survive
after
that?
What happened in the almost two-and-a-half months between when you
arrived in the Centauri system and when you made the return trip. You
just—what—floated in space all that time in the pod?”
“It’s a little foggy,” Alex said. “I think I was suffering
some aftereffects from being quantized. Time didn’t really flow in an ordinary
way.” He wasn’t a very good liar. From the look Kenny gave him, the physicist
didn’t believe him on that point.
In his debriefing to Quantum Resources—when it was still a
joint venture between USA, Inc. and Canada Corp.—Alex had reported that his
escape pod had detected a star beacon, an identical cousin to Sol System’s
Dis
Pater,
on the outer rim of the Centauri System. Another huge monument that
resembled an electron cloud, the alien structure rested on the surface of a
minor planet a fraction of the size of Charon.
Alex repeated himself for the hundredth time in the past two
years. “I used the pod’s jets to head for the alien star beacon
.
When I
got there, it just … sent me home.”
Fixing Alex with a look of frustration, Kenny said, “And if all
of the Kinemet blew up with the
Quanta,
how did ‘it’ send you back to
Sol System?”
That was one of the many questions the Quantum Resources
scientists kept asking, but they continued to disbelieve any answer Alex gave
them; and they were right. It was unfortunate that he was unable to tell them
the truth.
He hated that there were things about his story he couldn’t
share. But if he shared his secret before the world was ready, it would lead to…
He didn’t even dare think of it.
The frustration he felt had only sharpened over the past few
years. The world needed to develop the Kinemet technology as fast as it could,
but they had encountered a brick wall. Coupled with the worsening economy, it
seemed no one was that interested in investing in Kinemet.
At times, Alex wanted to scream to get the world motivated,
but he knew he had to bite his tongue.
Time was running out; at the rate of things, it might take
decades for the science of Kinemet to get where it needed to be.
Because of his health, Alex didn’t have decades; he most
likely didn’t even have years.
But whenever Calbert Loche or Raymond McGrath sent up a new
physicist to Quantum Resources, Alex did his best to help them, hoping they
were the ones who could unlock the secret of Kinemet.
Inevitably, due to his reluctance to tell the complete truth,
and also because those details he did share were difficult to believe, those
newcomers eventually discounted the rest of Alex’s story.
Kenny was a little more stubborn than his predecessors, but
he was on the wrong track. Alex knew where today’s conversation was heading,
and the day’s events had taken a toll on him. He didn’t have the strength to endure
an argument, and at this point, he didn’t care if Kenny Harriman pitched a fit
over it.
Alex said, “I’m tired. I need to rest.”
Vibrating with barely suppressed anger, Kenny stormed off and
tapped his report into the haptic console. One of the lab assistants approached
and assisted Alex out of the simulator’s cockpit.
∞
It had been over two years since Alex’s return from the
first interstellar voyage. The world financial crisis had intensified in Alex’s
absence. USA, Inc. and Canada Corp. had banked heavily on a successful mission
for the
Quanta
. Contact with an alien race would have made the country
corporations’ stocks soar. New technologies, medicines, and even the
possibility of interstellar trade would have boosted shareholder and consumer
confidence.
With Alex’s report that he had seen nothing out there except
the distant flare of the Centauri system’s red dwarf star, Proxima, the media
had descended on the two country corporations, hungry for blood. They accused
the United Earth Corporate Council of wasting trillions of dollars on an empty
space fantasy when they should have concentrated their efforts on the realities
of increasing population, famine and energy depletion. The UECC had backed out
of the
Quanta
trials, and after NASA and Quantum Resources’ repeated
failures, USA, Inc. decided to follow suit.
Quantum Resources barely survived USA, Inc.’s downsizing efforts
by selling all shares to Canada Corp. and relocating its quantum research
facility to Canada Station Three.
Without a steady supply of Kinemet for practical trials,
Quantum Resources had turned into more of a theoretical analysis laboratory. At
the moment, their only solid asset was Alex Manez. Despite his agreement to be
their guinea pig—and as his body continued to fail him—he found himself
becoming more and more obstinate.
As had happened during his self-imposed exile on the pirate
base on Luna, without the direct influence of Kinemet, Alex had begun to
physically deteriorate once more. It was as if the radiation emitted from that
element, while basically harmless to those who had not been exposed during a transfer
reaction, had become a requisite substance for Alex. He fed off it; it
replenished him and kept him alive.
He had no idea how long he would live without it.
The harshest side effect of his condition was that he could
not tolerate Earth’s high gravity anymore. While the main labs, administration
areas, and the common and recreation centers on Canada Station Three were all
fitted with the latest in artificial gravity technology, the levels in the
living quarters were completely adjustable by the occupants. Alex, when home, kept
gravity to a bare minimum.
Unable to stand on his own for more than a few short minutes
at a time, Alex had purchased a set of hydraulic leg braces which would support
his weight. He purchased them with the proceeds from the severance package
given to him by NASA.