THE FOREVER GENE (THE SCIONS OF EARTH Book 1) (28 page)

After what seemed an eternity, they crossed the threshold.  Then it felt as if the ship had been shot from a giant catapult; an unbalanced catapult which gave its projectile a corkscrew spin.  She nearly passed out in the first few seconds.  But thankfully the Faerie Folk's ship design was sound.  Its mechanisms compensated enough for the violent movement to enable her to remain conscious.  There were a few screams from others on the bridge and the sound of someone retching close by.  The sound set off her own stomach, and she just managed to pull the suction cup to her face in time to avoid making a very unpleasant mess.

Then she did her best to concentrate on what was going on.  Her external visuals were all blank; the cameras and other sensors having been retracted to save them from being damaged.  She tried to check her calculations again but found it impossible to think straight.  She gave up and accepted the fact that she was not in control anymore.  They would either get to the other end in one piece, or they wouldn't.

The theory of wormhole travel was simple.  The rift in space opened by the star drive was a shortcut connecting two remote locations.  A ship entering it travelled from one to the other without crossing the massive distance in between.  How it really worked, not even the Faerie Folk knew.  Without it, there was no way to travel meaningful distances in space.

The end of the demented roller-coaster ride was sudden and the relief on the bridge palpable.  As they hurtled out into normal space and began braking, she looked at her screen and saw that the trip had taken about four minutes.  She could have sworn it was closer to forty.

"Close it, Harry," she ordered.  Having completed the voyage successfully, she didn't want the ship to be sucked back in.  If the truth be told, she couldn't face making a return trip until her stomach had returned to its allotted place within her abdomen.

The external sensors started to come back on line and she was able to see visuals of the galactic landscape.  As stars and nebulae became visible; she began checking their positions against the star charts to confirm the ship's location.  She started looking for the features of Centaurus A which should be readily apparent.  She made out what she thought was one of its radio jets, but it wasn't in the right place.  It was also the wrong shape; it should look more elongated.  She swiped urgently through more visuals, looking for other features that should be there.  She found some, but they were also in the wrong place.  A cold feeling settled over her heart. 

She scowled and went through her vector calculations again.  They were correct, she was sure of it.  According to the star charts, they should be somewhere in the middle of the elliptical galaxy.  But the visuals told her that they were near its edge.

"Katya!" shouted Hans.  He had been trying to get her attention for a while.

"What is it?" she snapped.

"Gamma 1680 is missing."

She swiped at her screen again.  He was right.  The star system they had targeted was not there, nor was its potentially habitable planets.

She tried to understand what had happened, but she was struggling to think clearly.  The voyage seemed to have scrambled her brain.  With an effort, she focused on reasoning it out one step at a time.

Her calculations were correct.  She had checked and re-checked them many times.  If they had followed the vector she had calculated, they would be in the right place.  She asked Harry to check whether the star drive might have malfunctioned.  He reported that it had not.  Then she examined the data collected during the trip.  She could find no anomalies which may have affected the path of the wormhole.

The only explanation left was that the star charts were not accurate.  Her mind baulked at the idea.  Its implications were too dreadful to contemplate.  If that conclusion was right, then they couldn't use the charts to navigate through space.  Even worse was that all other information the Faerie Folk had given them would have to be questioned.  Had their motives been as pure as they claimed? Had their gifts really been for the benefit of mankind?  Were they even who they said they were?

She recalled something Hans had said a few months ago; that he believed that their star drive blueprint was deliberately flawed.  She had dismissed the possibility at the time; it seemed to make no sense.  Suddenly she wasn't so sure. Hans had been right about the need to abandon the blueprint.  If they hadn't done so, the star drive would still be on the drawing board.

Which wouldn't have been such a bad thing, really.

Because then they wouldn't be lost in space.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A tear trickled slowly down her cheek.  Surprised, she reached up and touched it with a finger.  Crying, the humans called it.  Their tears were usually caused by extreme emotions such as sorrow, distress, fear and, somewhat oddly, joy.  They were nothing if not inconsistent, these humans.

Her people seldom cried.  They were physiologically capable of it, but their existence was so ordered, so peaceful and harmonious, that extreme emotions were rare.  Crying was generally regarded as a sign of mental illness.

Vi quickly wiped away the tear.  She was not going mad, she hoped, although what had prompted the tear, she couldn't say.  It certainly wasn't joy.  Facing up to the fact that her lifespan had been considerably shortened was much more difficult than she had imagined.  The knowledge that her sacrifice was crucial to the future wellbeing of her race should have been solace enough, but it had turned out to be little consolation.

Why that was so, she didn't understand.  Sadness was not a logical response to her situation and she knew that if she discussed her emotions with anyone at the reproduction centre, she would be labelled as unco-operative, or even unstable.  What she really needed was a friend; a human friend to help her make sense of a human sentiment.

Unfortunately, the only human she regarded as a friend was billions of light years away on a planet full of people doing their level best to destroy each other.  She didn't know whether Qara-Chinua was alive or dead.  The news her translator friends had been smuggling into the centre for her was getting more and more frightening.  It had been five human months since the expedition had left Earth.  In that short time the planet's inhabitants had brought their civilisation to the brink of destruction.

Mongolia and Thailand, the two places she identified most with, had remained relatively stable.  But many other nations were not in such good shape.  Conflicts raged across the globe, with wars being fought between countries and within countries.  A collective madness seemed to have taken a grip of the human race.  The fact that two-thirds of it had opted to take the anti-aging serum seemed to have changed its collective mind-set.

It was as if no-one feared anything any longer.  The warning that the serum did not make people invulnerable had fallen on deaf ears.  Billions of people now believed that they would live forever.  They would never have to answer to a higher power for their actions.  Spiritual doctrines lost their purpose and the world's religions no longer had any influence over the behaviour of their adherents.

Claiming a share of the planet's dwindling resources became the overriding protocol driving humanity.  Governments and individuals alike threw the rule of law onto the scrapheap and employed whatever means they had at their disposal to protect what they had, or to take what they didn't have.  Society was breaking down and savagery was filling the vacuum.  Panic stricken governments fought criminal warlords for control of their nations.  Nuclear weapons had not yet been employed but, given the shocking proliferation of violence on the planet, it was only a matter of time before humanity's most destructive weapons were unleashed.

Not for the first time, Vi wondered what had gone wrong.  When the expedition had first arrived on Earth, its civilisation had been fractious, but stable.  On the whole, humanity had responded positively to first contact.  It had been happy to accept new technology from its unexpected benefactors.  There had been some unpleasant confrontations, such as the Russo-Chinese skirmish in Mongolia, but those had blown over.  The doomsayers who had warned of impending catastrophe had eventually been silenced by a complete lack of supporting evidence.  Even when the expedition departed, things had been relatively calm and peaceful. Only afterwards did the situation go downhill.

Not surprisingly, Analyst Ko had expressed the view that the humans' innately violent nature was to blame and that they had been destined to self-destruct sooner or later.  The contact expedition had nothing to do with it.

Human civilisation had existed, in some form or another, for about seven thousand years.  In all of that time it had survived and prospered.  And yet, nine months after the visit of its first extra-terrestrial visitors, it had shaken itself apart.  It seemed an unlikely coincidence.

Ko had an explanation for that too.  Until relatively recently, humans did not have weapons powerful enough to do serious damage to the planet or to affect significant numbers of people.  But in the last hundred years or so they had developed bombs, missiles and biological agents capable of wiping out millions.  In that time they had come dangerously close to ruin a few times; avoiding disaster more by luck than by design.  But their luck had run out.  Even though they had been given a glimpse of a better way of life, they had clung to their tradition of conflict and aggression.

Vi thought that Ko was being deliberately provocative.  His forthright views had set off a furious argument.  Was human civilisation worth saving?  Was the expedition responsible for its predicament?  Opinion was sharply divided.  The intellectual school of thought was that contact had inevitably changed the course of human history; a butterfly effect of sorts.  Had there been no contact, it may have followed the same path to destruction, but then there would have been no debate about responsibility.  Having chosen to interact with humanity, the older race was now duty bound to do what it could to repair the damage.

More popular was the notion that the humans had been gifted technology which they could have used to better their way of life.  Their election to cause harm instead was their own doing and could not have been anticipated by their benefactors.

The Ancient Council had been non-committal; it had expressed concern for the welfare of its newest client race, but had stopped short of resolving to intervene.

Vi decided to test her new status as saviour of her species by composing a missive supporting the call for rescue ships to be sent to Earth.  She suggested that their crews include mediators who could work on resolving the larger conflicts.  This would hopefully restore some semblance of normality to the planet and give its governments an opportunity to restore law and order.

Initially, she sent the missive to the governors of her reproduction centre with a request to pass it on to the Planetary Council.  They received it politely and promised to give it their consideration.  She waited a while for a response, but nothing was forthcoming.  Instead, she was summoned for an evaluation by the centre's psychoanalysts.  One of the questions they asked was how she had been receiving news of what was happening on Earth.  Duty bound to disclose her sources, she did so.  Her supply of news promptly dried up and she spent many days in frustrated limbo, desperate to know what was happening but having no way of finding out.

The conventional wisdom of the reproduction centres was that its females should be distracted from their primary purpose as little as possible. A peaceful and harmonious environment was maintained at all times and contact with the outside worlds was strictly controlled.  Anyone or anything which could, in the opinion of the governors, have a negative effect was kept out.

Most of the females in the centres were young and idealistic.  They were content with their allotted lifestyle, never having been exposed to any other.  But Vi had been schooled as a translator, had accompanied Ambassador Ba's expedition to Earth, and had experienced the teeming planet's diverse cultures, ideas and personalities.  She was no longer content to sit beatifically in what she had begun to think of as a prison.  She knew that she could not leave, at least not until her usefulness as a test subject was at an end, but she was determined to participate meaningfully in the debate about Earth.

After concentrating on modifying her aura enough to convince the governors that she was serenely content and had given up her effort to participate in planetary matters, she resolved to aim for a higher target; the Ancient Council itself.  It might not be swayed by her missive, but at least she would have the satisfaction of getting her point across.

First she had to think of someone conservative enough to be permitted to visit her, but who would be prepared to break the rules for her.  There was only one candidate; her old mentor Master Za.  She knew him well enough to know that, despite outward appearances, he was a rebel at heart.  The idea of defying the authorities by delivering a controversial missive to the Ancient Council would appeal to him.  So she sent him a graciously worded invitation to visit her when he had the time.  She loaded it with simpering banalities; a strategy with a dual purpose.  It would convince the governors that she was suitably compliant and, more importantly, would bring Za running to find out whether his favourite scholar had taken leave of her senses.

He arrived two days later, an uncertain expression on his face.  For a while she kept up the pretence, chatting superficially about her life at the centre.  Any of the governors listening in would be pleased.  Then, when she saw a look of mild alarm settling over his face, she winked at him, slowly closing and then opening one of her large green eyes.

"Master Za, have one of my sweet pastries," she said before he could say anything and give her away.  She passed one to him on a small tray, her slender fingers curled demurely underneath it.  "I baked it myself.  You will be surprised when you taste it."

She wasn't wrong.  When he bit into it she could almost see the amazement which lanced through his aura.  She had mixed a liquid data stream into the filling and, when he swallowed it, her missive to the Ancient Council scrolled unbidden through his mind.  He grimaced, which reminded her how much he disliked ingestible media.  He hated having data fed directly into his brain by an intelligent liquid.

She hoped he would forgive her for the discomfort when he realised the purpose of her subterfuge.  As long as he didn't give anything away, he could pass on her missive to the Council and the governors would be none the wiser.  After they had finished their inane conversation, he gave her a slow wink, which she took as a signal that he would carry out her plan.  When he left her, he was grinning broadly, clearly amused by the plan she had hatched to hoodwink the governors.

For days afterwards, Vi waited on tenterhooks for some reaction.  The governors were unlikely to be pleased when they discovered what she had done, although she didn't think they would dare punish her.  She was a national heroine after all and any unkind treatment would be dimly viewed by the citizens of Azura.  She was less confident about what the Ancient Council might do.  It would have less compunction about censuring her if it viewed her sentiments as unwelcome or inflammatory.

But there was no reaction at all.  At first she wondered whether Za had changed his mind and decided not to help her after all.  But that would be unlike him; he was usually meticulous about keeping his promises.

After a while, she surmised that the Ancient Council must have elected to ignore her.  It was a sensible response from the council's point of view; by ignoring her, it gave her opinion no official recognition or publicity.  Hers remained just one voice among many; some advocating intervention on Earth and others opposing it.

Disappointed, but determined not to give in, she began considering what else she might do.  But there were few options.  Anything said or done within the centre would be suppressed.  Any request to leave the centre would be refused on the grounds that she was in a delicate condition.  And she wouldn't be able to send out any more missives via Master Za.  The governors were not likely allow him anywhere near the place.

As the days rolled serenely by, frustration set in.  She heard no outside news except for the carefully tailored version approved by the governors.  And she couldn't think of any way of getting herself or her views out of the centre.  She began to think darkly about escaping, sneaking out one night and disappearing into the city.  But then what?  Where would she go and what could she do?  As a fugitive, who would take her seriously?  Anyone she contacted would simply report her whereabouts to the centre.  She would be gently returned there, the governors making soothing comments to the effect that her recent experiences had left her emotionally exhausted.  Any public credibility she had built up so far would be in tatters.

When relief from her dissatisfaction finally arrived, it came from the most unexpected source she could have imagined.  Late one night she received an urgent summons from the master of governors.  She was more than a little startled; he did not usually conduct business in the middle of the night. The only explanation she could think of was that the Ancient Council had finally decided to do something about her missive.  Feeling abashed, she pulled on her yellow-brown shimmer-robe and hurried through the dim corridors of the sleeping quarters and across the gardens towards the administration building.

The main doors were already open and she was surprised to see the master himself waiting for her.  His aura was like thunder; he was clearly angry about something.  He didn't speak, simply turned and walked towards the principle meeting chamber.  Wondering how much trouble she was in, she followed him, barely resisting the urge to drag her feet.

The plush chamber was dimly lit and she couldn't help glancing surreptitiously around.  This was where the affairs of the centre were conducted.  It had banked seating on all four sides of the room, surrounding a central podium used to chair convocations.  The seats were all empty and there was only one other person in the chamber; a thin, slightly stooped figure in a blue-green shimmer-robe.  She felt slightly relieved; she had been expecting to see an array of disapproving faces.  Then she saw who the other person was and her heart sank.