Music of the Spheres (3 page)

Justine put her optilink back on and turned in the direction
of the holoslate. While any words written in analog format on a sign were
nothing more than a blur, the optilink sensor had the ability to receive digital
data and feed it directly into her optic nerve—the original purpose of the
technology. Her name, position, and other vital information popped up on the
floating slate beside the scanner, and the blinking message icon hovered below
her name.

She touched the icon, and it transformed into a terse
sentence:
Please report to Director Mathers.

The guard, trying to be helpful, pointed down an adjacent
corridor with his neuro-baton and said, “Administration is that way, ma’am.” He
sat back down on his chair, looking bored. “Director Mathers’ office is there.”

“Thank you,” Justine replied with a smile, though she knew
exactly where his office was, and headed off in that direction.

∞

“Sir?” she spoke softly at the entrance of Director Mathers’
office.

Behind the large oak desk, a high-backed leather chair
swiveled around towards Justine. Director Allan Mathers held up one finger for
her to wait. His other hand was touching the comlink on his ear.

“—Yes, she’s here now,” he said to whoever was on the other
side of the call. “—Yes. Consider it handled… All right. I’ll brief her and
send her right down.”

He pulled the comlink off his ear and dropped it on the
desk.

“Justine,” he said. “Close the door and come in. Sit.”

Usually, the director greeted his employees with a smile,
but today his face was grave and drawn. He looked out the window into the
distance while Justine closed the door and approached the desk.

“What’s up, sir?” Justine asked as she eased herself into
the small guest chair.

Director Mathers turned back and leaned his elbows on his
desk. He touched the tips of his fingers together and leveled his gaze at Justine.

“Did you scan the news this morning?” he asked.

Justine shook her head. “Sorry, sir, I was in a bit of a
rush.” Then, when the director didn’t follow up his question, she asked,
“What’s happened?”

“Justine, you are aware that with all the cutbacks, quite a
few of USA, Inc.’s subdivisions, like NASA, have been outsourcing a number of
their flights to commercial lines like ours. We even sometimes provide transport
for armed forces troops and military cargo to Luna and the outlying space
stations.”

Nodding, Justine said, “Yes, of course. Why are you telling
me this?”

“I’m not comfortable about it, but the directive came from
corporate.” He glanced up at her, then looked back at his hands.

“What directive, sir?” Justine wrinkled her eyebrows. “I’m
not sure I follow.”

The director took a deep breath. “Well, apparently a report
just came in that the original Mayan scroll—the one they say was transcribed
from alien visitors a thousand years ago…”

“Yes,” Justine said, gulping. “I know which one you’re
talking about.”

“Well,” he continued, “it’s been stolen, and the old man who
had it has gone missing. They think he might have been kidnapped.”

“Oh?” Justine hadn’t heard any news about this. She wondered
what the kidnappers thought to accomplish. At last report, translating the
document was a bust. That was one of the reasons for mothballing the
Quanta
experiments.

Director Mathers nodded. “That’s not all. The Honduran
Cooperative passed some intelligence on to the CIA. There’s a growing movement
within the Departmentals in that country. Many of them consider that, because
the aliens”—he made air-quotes—“picked the Mayan people to visit half a millennia
ago, they are the ‘chosen ones’ and should be in the forefront of any
interstellar commerce. They’ve been grumbling for years about being sidelined. The
governments, though, now think this group might be behind the kidnappings and
theft.”

Justine pursed her lips. “I’ve heard something about them.
What do they call themselves?”

“Cruzados,” the director said. “But now NASA feels keeping
their supply of Kinemet here in Houston is a security risk. They’ve suffered
enough bad press, and don’t want to see themselves in any more headlines.
They’re not doing anything with the Kinemet currently, and so they want to
transport it to Luna Station. They feel the rebels don’t have the resources to attempt
any extra-planetary action.”

“How much Kinemet are we talking about?” Justine asked.

“About a thousand kilos.”

She whistled. “That’s a lot!” They had used about a hundred
kilograms of the kinetic metal on Alex’s flight, and they’d overestimated how
much they would need.

“We’ve got the room,” he said with a shrug.

Then Justine cocked her head. “So, what does this have to do
with me?”

“Understandably, NASA wants to keep this shipment hush-hush
until it has arrived safely on the Moon. An army squad is providing protection.”
He pointed at Justine. “But NASA wants a liaison to go with them. Someone who
has security clearance, and apparently yours has never been revoked, right?”

“That’s right.”

“You were attached to NASA from the Air Force,” he said. “Best
of both worlds. So they’ve requested you accompany the security detail.”

Justine didn’t want to get her hopes up. She swallowed, then
said, “Accompany? What does that mean? What do they want me to do?”

“Same thing you always do. Only this time you’ll be attending
the soldiers they’ve assigned to the cargo.”

“Oh,” Justine said, trying valiantly to keep the sharp disappointment
out of her voice.

“You’re to report to hangar twelve for a briefing with
Colonel Niles Gagne before the other flight crew or passengers embark.”

Justine got to her feet and sighed.

The director said, “This is not a crap assignment.”

“Yes it is,” she told him.

“It came from up top, Justine,” he said by way of apology.
The expression on his face showed his sincerity. “Look, just do this one boring
flight—”

“A week in a cargo hold babysitting a squad of soldiers is
more than just a little boring,” Justine said and headed for the door. She
would never be recalled to active duty. No one needed a blind pilot. “It’s
demeaning. If you recall, my actual position with Lunar Lines is in public
relations. Now you want me to serve coffee to soldiers?”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Director Mathers said.

Justine opened the door, but paused before leaving. “Well, I
can think of one thing that would make this worth it for me.”

“What?” he asked.

“I have a friend on CS3,” she said.

“You mean Alex Manez, don’t you?”

Justine nodded. “Yeah.”

“What about him?”

“He’s not doing so well.” Justine pulled at her lower lip. “On
the return trip, I’d like to take some shore leave up there; spend a little
time with him and see what I can do.”

“That can be arranged.” The director smiled. “Consider it a
bonus. We’ll arrange some rooms in the Starwatch Resort. I’ll even write it up
as a training expense.”

Justine smiled. “Thanks, Allan.”

She closed the door behind her. Feeling much better about
her newly assigned duty, she strode off to find hangar twelve and the colonel.

6

Canada Station Three
:

Lagrange Point 4 :

Earth Orbit :

Within moments of
entering his apartment, a sudden bursting pain literally knocked Alex off his
feet.

That haunting song that he heard whenever he used his
sight
filled his mind, pushing out every rational thought.

How is this happening?
he screamed to himself. The Kinemetic
radiation had long since left him.

The song was there nevertheless. It urged him—no,
compelled
him—to finish what he’d started over a decade before.

Alex was not whole, and unless he could complete his journey
and transform into a full Kinemat, he would die in agony; and very soon. Time
was his enemy.

For the rest of the day, hiding in his apartment, Alex
floated in and out of consciousness.

Since the first time he had been exposed to Kinemet, Alex
had not been able to sleep or to dream. He could do neither, and did not seem
to have suffered any of the physiological or psychological effects of sleep
deprivation. Apparently, his mind could still shut down.

As if drugged, his thoughts soared and wandered. Images appeared
before him, and flittered away before they could fully form.

Always, though, there was the Song, calling to him. No
matter what he did—taking painkillers, turning off the lights, lying down—it
was always there.

It was difficult for him to think clearly. Like a
gas-powered automobile running on empty, he needed an infusion of Kinemetic
radiation before he succumbed.

His exposure to Kinemet a dozen years before had begun to
transform him, but the change was far from complete. Alex was a hollow shell, a
ghost, trapped between two dimensions. The key, he knew, was in translating
that ancient scroll. No one had been able to solve the riddle, and they’d given
up trying. Alex knew the answer was in the scroll. It had always been right there.

As he thought about it, fighting off the pain of Kinemet
withdrawal, the certainty grew.

With great difficulty—and struggling to maintain his
wits—Alex commanded the communications system to make contact with Michael
Sanderson. If there was anyone who could figure out his puzzle, it was Michael.

But the pain!

He couldn’t remember if he had connected with Earth and
spoken with Michael, but before he could try again, the song filled his head … and
then something happened to him that tore him away from reality.

His body, ill-equipped to deal with the pain, betrayed him.

He began to shut down.

The last thing he heard was the ancient voice calling to
him:
Alex, come home.

7

Sanderson Family
Barbeque :

Hull, Quebec :

Canada Corp. :

A cloud of
smoke billowed out of the barbeque when Michael’s brother, David, opened the
lid to reveal half a dozen charred steaks.

“You think maybe they’re cooked enough?” Michael asked,
standing off to the side.

With his fingers wrapped around the neck of a beer bottle,
he lifted it to his lips and tipped the drink up enough to let a stream of
golden liquid pour into his mouth. Several drops spilled over his beard, and he
wiped them away with the back of his hand.

“Wise-ass remarks will not get you invited back,” David
said, waving a spatula in a fan-like motion over the burning steaks to
dissipate the rising smoke.

“Probably better for my health, anyway.” Michael winked at
his brother.

“If you’re worried about your health, you’d best watch what
you say.” David lifted one of the barbeque utensils and pointed it at Michael.
“I have tongs, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

Michael laughed. “I’ll go get some plates,” he said and
headed toward one of the picnic tables scattered around the yard.

Halfway there, he stopped and turned around. David was poking
at the blackened meat with a long knife.

“And a fire extinguisher,” Michael added in an attempt to
keep the banter going.

“Bah!” David made a shooing motion, but he was grinning when
he went back to his attempts to resuscitate their dinner.

Laughing, Michael closed the distance between the barbeque
and the tables. By the time he got there, though, his smile faded.

His humor never lasted long these days.

After Alex Manez made his miraculous return from Centauri,
Michael had returned to Quantum Resources as a consultant to help coordinate the
Quanta
trials. For reasons the technicians could never adequately
explain, none of the test pilots who were exposed to the Kinemetic radiation
had fully developed the electropathic ability that Alex had. Without that
control, they were unable to return the ships to normal space once they were
quantized as light. Several of those who volunteered died during the initial Kinemetic
irradiation.

Failure after failure caught up to the corporations, both
financially—each ship cost in excess of seventeen billion dollars—and from a
public relations perspective. Coupled with the continued economic instabilities
as more country corporations went into bankruptcy on a global basis, USA, Inc.
had decided to mothball most of their experimental sub-companies, including
Quantum Resources, which they sold to Canada Corp. at a bargain basement price.

Rather than relocate to Canada Station Three and administer
a team of theorists, Michael decided to let them release him from his contract.
Although Alliras Rainier had offered him his old position with the Space Mining
Division, Michael and his wife opted for retirement. He had enough savings for
him and Melanie to live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

But what Michael hadn’t expected was that the rest of
Melanie’s life was cut short a year ago when a city autobus’s brake line failed
and slammed into her one-seater automobile while she was out on a shopping
excursion. She had died instantly. A day did not go by that Michael didn’t miss
her fiercely.

Over the following months, Michael fell into a deep
depression, let his beard grow out, and spent most of his days wandering from
room to room in his empty apartment. The only times he ever emerged was for the
monthly family dinners his brother held.

No wife, no job, no purpose.

The only thing that held Michael together was the weekly
call he placed to Alex Manez; but it was getting harder and harder for Michael
to maintain his hope that something would be done to help the boy and his
deteriorating health. Without his political contacts, Michael was helpless to
prod the medical staff on Canada Station Three to figure out a cure for Alex’s
condition.

During their conversations, Alex invariably told Michael not
to worry; that it would all work out in the end.

“Are you all right?” a voice said, breaking Michael out of
his reverie.

He looked up to see Andrea, David’s wife, fixing him with
two very concerned blue eyes. She was a slender woman with smile lines at the
corner of her mouth and eyes. Streaks of silver had begun to flow through her
raven-black hair.

Andrea and Melanie had been very close friends, and once in
a while she would drop over to Michael’s apartment and look in on him, do his
laundry and try to clean up the place.

Michael realized he had just been standing in front of the
picnic table with a stack of disposable plates in his hand.

He gave her a smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Just lost in
thought.”

Turning around, he brought the plates over to the barbeque.

In addition to David and Andrea, Michael’s two nephews, and their
wives and kids, were also in attendance. Andrea’s sister and her family were also
there. David’s son was out of town, but his daughter-in-law Debbie and her two children
were spending the weekend. All told, David Sanderson’s backyard held over
twenty people.

Michael was grateful for the crowd. Not just for the company,
but because, with so much hustle and bustle, he could blend into the background
and not have to interact. He loved his family, but lately he had found himself
detaching from human contact. It was good to be around people—it reminded him of
his humanity—but he just didn’t have the energy to cultivate any kind of
relationship with anyone.

David looked up when Michael approached. “Good timing; the
steaks are ready.”

“They were ready fifteen minutes ago,” Michael said, lifting
the corner of his mouth in a half-smile.

“Just…” David mimed scraping the burned parts off with a
knife. “And smear it with sauce.”

Michael laughed. While David put steaks on the plates,
Michael carted them over to the tables. While he trucked back and forth, he
noticed he had picked up a little shadow.

He looked down to see his six-year-old grand-nephew staring
up at him with a grin. “Hello, Carl,” he said.

“Hello, Great-Uncle Michael.” Carl waved his hand in a
sweeping motion.

“Just call me Uncle Mike—I haven’t felt great in a long
while. Did you want to be my helper?”

“Sure, Great-Unc—sure, Uncle Mike.”

Michael handed him a plate with a thick steak hanging over
the lip, and watched while Carl balanced it and carried it over to the tables. All
the while, he stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration.

Michael and David smiled while they watched him go.

“Grandkids,” David said. “They’ll keep you young.”

Then his smile faded. “Sorry, Michael. I know you and
Melanie tried hard.”

“I guess it’s for the better,” Michael said after a while.
“I was always working fourteen-hour shifts. Barely had enough time for Melanie.
If I had kids they’d probably have grown up strangers, full of resentment.”

When Carl came back for his second load, Michael said, “You okay,
sport?”

“Yeah. Aunt Ginny says she only wants a half. And one that
isn’t a burnt offering.”

With a laugh, David quickly sliced a steak in two and put
the slightly smaller portion on a plate, which Michael handed to Carl.

“There you go. Steady now,” he added when Carl overbalanced
the plate.

“You know,” David said, and there was an uncomfortable
quaver in his voice, “if you’re not doing anything, why don’t you swing by next
weekend? Andrea and I are going to a bridge tournament. There’s a lot of single
people our age there.”

“I’m not ready.”

Dave held up his hands. “Hey, don’t mean to push.”

Michael shook his head. “I’m just not sure what to do with
myself is all. I always thought this would be my chance to travel the world
with Melanie.”

“You can still travel.” David prepared another steak for
Carl when the young boy returned. “There are chartered tours for practically
every destination.”

“Wouldn’t really be the same.”

“You’ve got to get out of this funk,” David said. “I’m
saying this as your brother and your friend.”

“I know. I appreciate it, really. I guess I just need to
figure things out. I can’t explain it.”

David put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “You don’t need to
explain a thing. Just know we’re here for you.”

“Thanks, bro.” Michael didn’t need to force the smile he
gave David.

When Carl came back for the last time, he said, “It’s just
you and Grandpa left, Uncle Mike. —And me.”

“Well,” Michael said. “Looks like your grandfather saved the
juiciest steak for you, a reward for all your hard work.”

Carl beamed as he took his prize back to the picnic tables,
shouting at his mom, “Look what I got.”

David served the last two steaks, and he and Michael headed
to the table to fill their plates with potato salad, pickles and buns.

While everyone ate, they shared jokes, gossiped, and just
basked in the familiarity of family.

Michael’s appetite wasn’t what it used to be, and when he
had only finished half of his supper, he excused himself from the table to use
the washroom.

“Don’t fall in!” someone joked, and Michael waved a hand in
the air as he went into his brother’s house.

On the way to the facilities, he passed by David’s front room.
A large DMR casement was playing the highlight reel of the last Roughriders
football game. At the bottom of the flat screen was a scrolling newsfeed, and it
was one of the sentences there that caught his attention.

He quickly moved in for a closer look, but only caught the
last part of the announcement:

“…NASA spokesman discounts the impact of the missing Mayan
scroll.” Then the newsfeed went on to other political matters.

Michael sat on the couch next to the control pad and typed
in a command to flip the screen to his favorite bulletin board. He cursed when
he had to physically toggle back and forth between pages.

Within a few minutes, however, he had the entire story—the
kidnapping of Yaxche and the theft of the ancient scroll—and his face grew
dark.

“What’s wrong?” asked his brother from the doorway.

“Who uses a damned DMR casement anymore? Why don’t you
upgrade to a holoslate with an organic user interface?” Michael asked. “You
know, haptic consoles have been around for five years now.”

“I really don’t need to multitask while watching the Jays
get beat by the Cubs,” David said matter-of-factly. “I’m fine with one screen
at a time.”

Taking a deep breath, Michael said, “Sorry.”

“Hey, no problem. You okay?”

Michael looked up. “Looks like the Cruzados kidnapped that
Mayan translator, Yaxche. He was the one who helped us interpret the Mayan text
from Pluto.” He flipped a page on the casement. “And they also stole the scroll
that was supposed to help us figure out how to use the Kinemet.”

“Oh?” David blinked. “I thought they had given up on that.”

“Yeah. They had.” Michael glanced back at the casement. “And
it looks like they won’t be doing anything about this either.” He sighed.

“Well, if NASA and everyone else thinks the document is a
dead end, why would the Cruzados go to all this trouble?”

“I don’t know.”

David spoke again, and Michael could tell his brother was
trying to make it sound casual. “Why don’t you call up that Calbert Loche
fellow? Get your info straight from the horse’s mouth.”

For a moment, while Michael had read the boards, there had
been a spark there, a hint of the passion that had fired him throughout his
forty-year career. David was obviously trying to fan those flames.

Michael had to admit that his natural curiosity had gotten
the better of him for a moment.

He said to his brother, “You know, I think I might do that.”

∞

Most nights Michael couldn’t sleep. His thoughts troubled
him: how much he missed Melanie; his lack of purpose; his growing disconnection
with everyone who had been a part of life.

That night, however, he couldn’t sleep for another reason.
His mind kept working over and over again about why, after so many years and
after NASA and Quantum Resources had devalued the worth of the Mayan scroll,
that anyone would go through the trouble to steal it. Or kidnap Yaxche. Did
they want to hold him for ransom? Who was going to pay?

Unable to sleep, Michael threw on a thin robe and went to
his computer. Although many of his files were classified and confiscated when
he ‘retired’ from Quantum Resources—both as director and as a consultant—he
maintained a folder of his own collected data and musings. Shorthand notes that
held no meaning to anyone but himself were added to various documents he had
downloaded off the mesh. He also kept a copy of all the declassified material
that had been on his computer when he left the company.

Michael began the long and arduous task of sorting and
filtering through every file on his computer. He hoped, somewhere in the morass
of information, there might be something they had missed. Maybe someone else
had stumbled on a vital piece of datum that would reopen the doors to
interstellar travel.

It was three in the morning when Michael finally noticed the
time. He yawned and rubbed his eyes. He needed a couple of hours sleep to
process all the documents he had read, and he had only gone through a small
percentage of the notes.

Michael laughed to himself about how much his brother would applaud
the change in him, the sudden purpose. He went to the refrigerator and poured
himself a tall glass of milk. There was no way he was going to get to sleep
with a full mind and an empty stomach. At least if there was something in his
gut he had half a chance of getting a few precious hours before morning rolled
around. He wanted to be alert when he contacted Calbert Loche.