Music of the Spheres (20 page)

29

Unknown
:

The Music of the Spheres fills her mind and soul.

Raw and exposed, all Sol System lies before her.

The energy of the Sun floods her senses.

Like children, the planets dance in orbit.

Come and play, they call out.

Each have their own laugh.

Their voices are songs.

They are alive.

Another song…

Alex?

So small.

He is lost.

There, but not there.

She pushes her thoughts out.

His song is faint and distant.

He needs her help to come home.

A new being of light, she lacks control.

Her essence explodes outward; the galaxy is wide open.

The Song of the Stars fills her mind and soul.

30

Quantum Resources :

Toronto :

Canada Corp. :

It was as
if
he had been an entire world away.

When the skybus circled the Toronto Pearson International
Airport to line up with the runway for final approach, Michael looked out the
window at the buildings and streets whipping past in a blur; and for the first
time in over a week, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was like seeing an old
friend after a long separation.

In a way, arriving back in Canada was very surreal. Michael
had been through so much in Honduras it almost seemed as if he had lived two
different lives.

Yaxche sat in the aisle seat, his fingers wrapped around the
armrest in a stranglehold, his eyelids pressed closed tightly. He had never
been on an aircraft before. At first, he’d been excited by the experience, but
his enthusiasm had dimmed at the sudden pressure put on the passengers upon
takeoff, and turned completely to fear with the first bout of turbulence that
shook the skybus like a baby’s rattle.

The old man wouldn’t listen to Michael’s explanations about
aerodynamics or the safety of modern air travel. The only thing he spoke in
reply was a prayer to the sky gods.

Even when the plane had stopped, Yaxche still would not
relax his grip on the armrests. It was only once they disembarked the plane
that he regained some of his normal color.

In the terminal, Michael spied Raymond McGrath in the large
hallway, waving to get his attention.

“Over here,” Michael said to Yaxche in English—he had
purchased a clip-on translator for him at the Tegucigalpa airport—and crossed
the distance to Raymond. “I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine.”

After Michael introduced the two of them, Raymond said,
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, sir. We’re all very excited to have you
join us in the labs. Calbert and I have been speculating like a couple of old
gossips.”

Raymond turned to Michael. “We’ll grab your luggage and head
over to the hotel. We booked you two a suite. You can get cleaned up, rest.”

Michael shook his head. “I’d rather head straight over to
QR—if that’s all right with you,” he said to Yaxche, who nodded. To Raymond, he
said, “Maybe we can get some fast food on the way.” They started down the hall
to the baggage area.

“I miss fast food.”

∞

They all slid into an autotaxi after loading their bags in
the trunk, and the vehicle engaged its forward drive the moment the doors
sealed.

With his thought-link implant, Raymond was connected with
the EarthMesh, and was able to instantly communicate with any linked computer.
While the autotaxi had a manual interface for the majority of people—like
Michael—who didn’t have one of the implants, Raymond was able to send the
vehicle their destination with a simple thought.

While Michael always considered himself an adopter of new
technology, thought-link was one advance that did not appeal to him, though he
understood why a certain segment of the population jumped at the chance to be
connected to the mesh twenty-four-seven.

In his life as an administrator, Michael had spent most of
his workday being constantly interrupted. It took extreme organization to
juggle the hundreds of daily requests from staff, review info bulletins from
the scientific community, process directives from his governmental superiors,
and find time in his day to tend to personal needs. To have access to the
millions of meshposts, blogs, forums, and newsvids around the clock would only
be another distraction.

The downside was that, unless Michael was physically in
front of a computer, he had to get his news secondhand.

So when Raymond’s eyes widened as he received an alert that
was obviously important, and he said, “You’ll want to see this,” Michael had to
flick on the holoslate built into the autotaxi’s dash to find out what was
going on.

He quickly logged into this favorite news channel and
selected the headline.

∞

Honduran Rebel Movement Crushed.

In a concerted effort, the Honduran Military and the
Honduran Public Police Force raided several holdouts across the Central
American country corp. at dawn this morning following reports of rebel
activity.

A spokesman for the Honduran Minister of the Interior
reported that the armed force sustained zero casualties, though a number of
rebels were killed in the process. Over two hundred arrests have been made,
including several prominent land owners and government officials who are
suspected of involvement.

Calling themselves the Cruzados, the movement’s political
mandate was to assume leadership over Earth through a monopoly of space travel.
According to one source, the rebels believe their actions are destined by
ancient Mayan doctrine. The Cruzados are also suspected in the hijacking of the
Lunar Lines ship, the
Diana,
out of Canada Station Three. The
whereabouts of the vessel and its passengers are still unknown.

In a joint statement, representatives of the Honduran and Guatemalan
Heritage Societies condemned the Cruzado movement.

∞

Accompanying the story, there was video showing helicopters
descending on a plantation—Michael couldn’t tell if it was Oscar Ruiz’s or not—and
Honduran soldiers pouring out and taking up positions against Cruzados, whose
faces were obscured by long kerchiefs. After a quick exchange of gunfire, the
Cruzados, obviously overmatched, surrendered. In handcuffs, they were marched into
armored vans.

Raymond said, “I just linked with Calbert. He received word
from John Markham that Humberto was integral in the raid, feeding them all the
information they needed on the other Cruzado encampments.”

Yaxche said, “Of course; he’s a friend of mine,” as if that
explained everything.

Raymond paused a moment and spoke in a somber tone. “And
they’ve recovered George’s body. It’ll be flown back here within the next few
days.”

Michael’s face was rigid, and his jaw clicked, but his
reaction was not because of Raymond’s last statement. The raid and the recovery
of George’s body was good news, but he’d been expecting it after Markham had
let him know Humberto had made contact.

“What?” Raymond asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Michael growled his words.

“Tell you what?”

“About the
Diana
hijacking.” Michael could feel his
face flush in anger. He punched in a dozen search queries and brought up all
the information he needed to get up to speed. He was particularly alarmed to
read that they suspected the liner itself may have been pointed toward the Sun.

“Justine works for them,” he said in a flat voice. “Was she
on that flight?”

“I’m sorry,” Raymond said, nodding in confirmation. “I know
you two are friends. I thought you knew. It’s been all over the news for a—” He
shut his mouth with a snap, as if only just then realizing that Michael had
been out of contact for all that time, and grimaced in apology.

Michael dismissed the apology with a slight headshake. “I’ve
seen what the Cruzados are capable of. They couldn’t have engineered that
hijacking without some serious help. Tell Calbert to clear his day; we need to
make some enquiries.”

∞

When they arrived at the Quantum Resources administration
offices, Calbert was in the lobby waiting for them.

“Glad to have you back,” he said to Michael, clasping his
hand in greeting.

Michael gave him a single firm nod. “Glad to be back. This
is Yaxche.”

Shaking hands with the Mayan, Calbert said, “We’ve been
looking forward to this since Michael contacted us about George’s theory.” He
glanced at Michael quickly. “It’s odd that we don’t have a single audio
recording of the Song of the Stars, just the translations and the attempts by
our own linguists, who were obviously incorrect in their recitation.”

Turning back to Yaxche, he said, “We have an entire team of
technicians standing by to hear your story… Unless, of course, you’re too tired
from the trip.”

His mouth splitting wide in grin, Yaxche said, “Old men
never pass up an opportunity to tell a story.” He barked out a laugh.

Raymond, smiling, said, “I can take him over there if you
two need to debrief.”

Calbert said, “Thanks, Raymond.”

The two headed off to the recording lab. Raymond wasn’t a
very tall man, but he towered over Yaxche, and seemed to enjoy not being the
shortest person in the room for a change.

Raymond started relating some of the theories floating
around about the Song to Yaxche, his voice fading out the farther they got.

Michael turned to Calbert. “Can you fill me in on what
happened with the
Diana?”

Motioning toward the elevator, Calbert headed off first. “What
you read in the news is pretty much it. Since Canada Corp. bought out USA, Inc.’s
shares of Quantum Resources, we really haven’t had any kind of pipeline into
their governmental channels for years. Even most of the scientific information
we get from NASA has already been screened and cleaned.”

They reached the elevator, and Calbert let Michael get in
first. He punched the button for his floor.

Michael said, “You have to have a few contacts who might
give you some unofficial information.”

“Yeah, I do. But no one I’ve talked to has any more idea
what’s going on that we do. Apparently, it’s been a military operation from the
get-go, and you know how hush-hush they are.”

Michael jerked his head. “Military?”

“Someone got some information that the Cruzados were
launching an operation to raid NASA’s store of Kinemet, and they decided to move
it all off planet. Since the Chow Yin incident, the American sector on Luna is
the most fortified location in Sol System.”

“If they moved the Kinemet off-planet, they assumed the
Cruzados didn’t have space capabilities,” Michael said. “As it turns out, they
did, and the information was obviously a plant to get the Kinemet in transit,
where it was most vulnerable.” Michael punched his fist into his hand. “You
know damn well the Cruzados aren’t working alone.”

“The Canadian Space Force has offered its assistance to the
Americans, but so far, no one is any closer to figuring it out.”

When they reached Calbert’s floor, they quickly exited the
elevator and made their way to his offices. They entered a small conference
room set up with several holoslates and a long work table. One of Calbert’s assistants
was there, dropping off a large food platter and an urn of coffee.

“I ordered up a few sandwiches for us. I figured we’d be
working most of the day.”

Taking off his jacket and draping it over the back of a
wheeled chair, Michael sat down and reached for a coffee cup. “Thank you.”

After practically guzzling down his first cup, Michael
poured another and grabbed a sandwich. He bit off a piece and while he chewed,
he launched a timeline app on the main haptic console. He began to fill in all
the major events that had taken place over the past few weeks. Then he linked
in as many mesh searches as he thought relevant to the situation.

Calbert got on his comlink and contacted John Markham to see
if they had a complete list of the Cruzados arrested in Honduras.

It took them a few hours to collect and collate the data,
but at the end of it all, they still couldn’t figure it out.

Calbert moved over to his desk and opened a drawer. “Drink?”
he asked.

“I’d kill for a Scotch, if you have it.”

“Of course I do,” Calbert said, and produced two tumblers.
He poured a measure into one of them and handed it to Michael who nodded his
thanks and took a sip.

“It’s all connected,” Michael said, turning around to look
at the board. “And everything was sparked by the original theft. Nothing else
would have even been initiated unless they knew they had the key to solving Kinemet.
Everything hinged on that, and everything was set up way ahead of time: the
rumors of an attempted theft on American soil; getting their people in position
on CS3 to intercept the shuttle. They had to have people high up in
administration, and—” He whistled at the thought. “—they had to have a lot of
resources and money at their disposal.”

“What do you think?” Calbert mused. “A rival government?
There was a lot of drum-pounding back during the first
Quanta
mission.
Quite a few country corporations were upset that we weren’t sharing the Kinemet
technology.”

“The Chinese?” Michael raised a speculative eyebrow. Their
voice of opposition to Western control had been the loudest after the failure
of the first
Quanta
mission.

“I don’t think so. They have their own space mining program.
If they really wanted Kinemet, they could just go get it.” He waved his hand
spaceward. “It’s out there; the only problem is getting it. No one’s been
officially looking for it for the past several years, and there hasn’t been any
scuttlebutt on unofficial operations.”

Calbert stood up and paced over to his desk. “And then what
do you do with it? As far as most everyone is concerned, we’re decades away
from being able to convert it into a stable fuel. Without the conversion
technology, the expense is not worth it. Not when the world economy is in a shambles.
People are more worried about putting food on the table than whether we can
travel to other stars—especially when we don’t have anything more than a hint
on a floating ball of ice over four billion kilometers away that there’s anyone
out there besides us.”

Michael set his drink down and sat back in his chair. He
rubbed his tired eyes.

The entire world had gone through an emotional upheaval over
the past couple of decades. With the failure of the first
Quanta
mission
to make first contact, the initial euphoria of interstellar travel had deflated
quickly. Once subsequent efforts to reproduce a Kinemetic navigator had failed,
public opinion had turned to a level of cynicism he hadn’t seen since he was a
boy during the wheat crisis and the fall of public governments. Back then, the
reorganization of governments into country corporations had sparked economic
recovery.