The Unreachable Stars: Book #11 of The Human Chronicles Saga (6 page)

Chapter 4

 “So what am I supposed to do now?” Adam blurted, finally reaching the breaking point after Panur’s insatiable line of questioning. “You’ve parked the
Pegasus
somewhere outside the plane of the galaxy, and five hundred light-years from the nearest civilized planet. We have the whole galaxy out looking for us—and you know I can’t hide you forever. What would be the point? I’m keeping you away from the Sol-Kor just so you won’t build them any more super death-rays, but even if I
could
hide you forever, the Colony will just keep absorbing planets until there’s no one left—which they’ll do even if you are returned…according to what you say. So what do
you
have in mind? You’re the genius around here, not me.”

“You are quite right on all accounts, and in order to secure my current status—short of having your entire galaxy stripped clean of advanced life—we must eliminate the Sol-Kor as a threat to your universe.”

“Duh…and how do we do that?”

“The first step is we must shut down all trans-dimensional portals, both here and in the other realms where they exist.”

“You know where the new portals are located?”

“No, not the ones currently being built by the Sol-Kor. However, before embarking for your universe, I detected six other doorways already in operation.”

“Six? I thought only the Klin built a portal?”

“The Klin built the only device capable of transiting starships. The other portals are of the smaller variety, such as the one I built in your garage.”

“Where are they?”

“Various locations within your universe. However, none of the smaller versions are within your galaxy.”

Adam shook his head. “Even if we destroy all of them—including the ones the Sol-Kor are building—that won’t stop others from inventing them in the future.”

“No, it will not. Yet if that happens outside your galaxy, the Sol-Kor will then concentrate their efforts within those harvest fields. Your home galaxy could be safe for several thousand years.”

“Or, as you’ve pointed out, they could use these other portals to branch out to neighboring galaxies. They know the location of the Milky Way and they know you’re here. That will make getting over here a priority.”

“The only other option would be to eliminate the threat at the source.”

“The Queen?”

“Not only that, but the entire Colony. If this queen dies, another will replace her and the activities of the Colony will continue.”

Adam had tended to his cuts and bruises and taken a shower before dressing in a pale blue tunic. Now he and Panur were in the common room aboard the
Pegasus II
, discussing their options.

“So all we need to do is find a way to kill off a trillion Sol-Kor who just happen to be in another universe. Doesn’t sound too hard.”

“That is my belief as well, Adam Cain. After all, they are mostly concentrated in one loca—”

“
Are you mad?
I wasn’t serious. We can’t take on the entire Sol-Kor Colony, not the two of us—unless you can come up with a new super-powerful weapon we can use against them. You can, can’t you?”

“I can think on it for a while. I’m sure I can come up with something…if given the time. In the meantime, it is imperative that you keep me safe and away from the Sol-Kor. You may need assistance to achieve that goal.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Let’s see, I’ll need something like the combined strength of the Humans, Juireans, Formilians and the Rigorians, just for starters. Oh yeah, and they just happen to be the same people who will kill me on sight just to get to you.”

“They must be convinced that turning me over to the Queen will not spare their worlds.”

“And for that I need to have a more detailed conversation with Andy—Admiral Tobias—and lay it out for him.” Adam reached for the comm button on his lap-top tablet.

“You do know that CW communications can be traced?”

Adam hesitated. “Traced? I didn’t know that. Are you sure?”

Panur frowned. “Even my systems can be traced, which means your primitive versions are wide open to anyone with the proper equipment.”

“What equipment?”

“I’m sure your people may not have the means, but I know for a fact that the Sol-Kor do. With the very nature of CW—that being longer communication periods—I would not be surprised if the Sol-Kor are already monitoring your communications in their search for me.”

“They can’t monitor all communications…”

“Not every communication sent is by CW technology. There cannot be more than half a trillion transmissions of this type at any given time within your galaxy. The Colony does possess the means of scanning that many transmissions simultaneously.”

“Let me guess: you built the equipment giving them that capability, right?”

“Of course. The Sol-Kor by themselves are very low-tech.”

Adam pulled up the navigation screen on his tablet. “Staying out here, without the means to communicate with anyone, is unacceptable. I need a base of operations, someplace we’ll be safe, yet with the resources to stay on top of current events.”

“Where might that be?”

“I know a place…or at least I did once. I may have to call in few favors, but it sure beats hanging out here in the middle of nowhere with an entire galaxy out gunning for us. Now show me how this new drive of yours works. You’ve screwed with my control board, so I don’t want to fly us through the middle of a star. That may give you something neat to talk about in the future, but it wouldn’t do my mortal body any good.”

“Do not blame me for your shortcomings, Adam Cain. Not everyone can have the privilege of being immortal.”

Chapter 5

Two days later the
Pegasus II
was nearing the Fringe, and after having had time to think about how to overcome the Sol-Kor threat, Panur announced that he could build a device that could detect all the new portals operating within the Milky Way Galaxy. Adam saw this as positive step forward, the ability to shut down the aliens’ access. It wasn’t a quick fix, but it did hold promise, as long as the rest of the galaxy united to form an effective strike force against the existing Sol-Kor fleet.

But now Adam felt his eyes cross as he scanned the material list for Panur’s portal detector. “I don’t have a clue what ninety percent of this stuff is. You’re going to have to be a little more descriptive.”

“That’s understandable. If you were capable of identifying these items, you could build your own detector. As it is, I feel secure in knowing that I am the only one who can.”

“We’re on the same side here, Panur. We need you to build the detector, but you also need the rest of us to destroy the portals and defeat the Sol-Kor in battle. So how about a little cooperation?”

“Agreed. I will try to go slow so you can understand. My detector must be extremely sensitive, since transit through trans-dimensional portals sends out faint yet identifiable waves, interrupting the underlying harmonics of the universe. I need a material that can absorb these harmonics, and then a method of reading these disruptions. Your brain-interface device is a suitable reader, yet I will need four of them to form a zonal collector of the harmonic waves coming off the detector.”

“Four of them? Will mine work?”

“Yes, once removed from your body. I am fully capable of performing the operation. Shall we begin?”

“Hold on a minute. Let’s wait until we figure out how to get the other three, along with all this other stuff. I may need the artificial telepathy device in the meantime.”

“That is such an inadequate description of the device. The communications function is only a small part of its utility.”

“Only the Formilians make the implants.”

“I understand that. I also know you have a unique relationship with the leader of the Formilians. All I need is three more.”

“Okay, let’s say I can manage to wrangle three more ATDs out of Arieel, what else do you need?”

“For the device itself, I will need a naturally occurring material with the sensitivity to detect changes in universal harmonics.”

“Naturally occurring? What does that mean?”

“It means it’s not artificial, but rather a substance found within the physical environment.”

“That sounds easy. Go on.”

“I need a mass of this material approximately one thousand pounds in weight and with near-perfect uniformity.”

“What kind of substance?”

“That which is formed within a C-star. Its item is number two on the list.”

“So just a little C-star material. You know, it’s been a while since I’ve been to Home Depot, but I’m pretty sure they don’t carry that stuff in-store. Maybe it’s a special order item.”

“Your colloquial humor is wasted on me, Adam Cain.”

“So where do we get this stuff?”

“As I said, it is C-star core material, and I need about a thousand pound crystal, intact and in one complete mass.”

“So it’s a crystal?”

“Yes, that is what the ‘C’ refers to.”

“For crystal?”

“No. It refers to the chemical composition of the crystal. Do you not know your chart of elements?”

“Chemistry wasn’t my strongest subject, so how about a clue?”

“The ‘C’ refers to the element carbon.”

“Like in pencil lead?”

“That is correct, yet in this case it refers to the crystalline version of the element.”

“Crystalized carbon?” Adam frowned. There was something familiar about the phrase, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He opened his mouth to continue the sarcastic banter, but he gasped instead.

“
Diamond!
You need a thousand pound diamond?”

“That is correct.”

“Does something that big even exist? And if it did…it would be worth a friggin’ fortune!”

“It does exist.”

“Where?”

“As I said, in the core of a C-star.”

“That doesn’t help very much.”

Exasperation was evident on Panur’s pale face. “This is becoming tedious. If I have to go through this routine for every item on the list, it will take nineteen hours, eight minutes, and forty-two seconds.”

“Just tell me, what’s a C-star core?”

“It is the core of cold white dwarf star.”

“A white dwarf
star
? You want us to pull a huge chunk of diamond out from the center of a star?”

“Yes.”

Adam fell back in his chair. “And here I thought you were serious about building a portal detector. I didn’t know it was some kind of mutant fantasy. How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

“It will involve maneuvering a localized singularity into direct contact with an appropriate subject star, and then sifting through the debris for the proper remnant.”

“Singularity…as in a black hole? That doesn’t sound so hard. Just smash a black hole into a star…and presto, we have our thousand-pound diamond.”

“You are being sarcastic, yet the theory is sound and quite capable of implementation.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I don’t kid.”

Adam stared at the alien for several seconds, waiting for the punchline to his sick cosmic joke. When Panur remained stoic and serious, Adam shook his head. “So where do I begin?” he asked. “First of all, you want us to find some rogue black hole and then crash it into a star. I didn’t even know we were capable of steering black holes. But assuming we can, then you want to create a massive explosion, after which a shitload of massive diamond chunks will be cast into space. Then we just pick up a thousand pound piece and bolt out of the area like nothing happened.”

“Again, you are being sarcastic. However, you have outlined the proper sequence of events.”

“Help me out, Panur, but how…exactly…can we pull this off?”

“I have already located the proper subject star. It is near the Sylox stellar system, and there is already a singularity in close proximity siphoning off exterior gases from the star. All we need to do is nudge the black hole a little and let the combined gravitational attraction of the two bodies do the rest. A fleet of ten starships, using their combined gravity wells, will provide the impetus. However, the angle of the strike will have to be closely controlled to keep the resulting explosion modest and allow the singularity to absorb most of it. There will be no supernova as you’ve intimated. Most of the star material will be absorbed by the black hole, yet a fair amount of ejecta will escape, including core material.”

“As in huge-ass diamonds.”

“Yes, huge-ass diamonds.”

“A lot of them?”

“Approximately equivalent to eight hundred billion carats, as you measure diamond weight. Yet that is just a fraction of the actual weight of the core. Most of the ejecta will be consumed by the black hole, while another large chunk approximately four-fifths the size of your Earth will remain intact.”

Adam’s jaw fell open, and it remained so for a full thirty seconds before he could speak again.

“And these billions of carats of diamonds will be floating in space, just waiting to be picked up?”

“Correct.”

“And then you can build the detector?”

“Again, correct.”

“And I’ll be filthy rich.”

“If that is your desire. You do realize that as more of this material is recovered, the lower will be the value of the commodity. The intrinsic worth of an item is based on its scarcity. With such an abundance of crystalline carbon, the value will drop to essentially zero.”

“Then I’ll only take a little.”

“Others will come looking for the bounty.”

“In the meantime, I’ll enjoy being first.”

“I did not realize wealth was so important to you?”

“Every man has his price. And with how messed up my life has become recently, I may need some extra cash to rebuild what I can—if I live long enough.”

“Do we proceed or not?”

“I assume the other items on this list will be a little easier to get?” Panur nodded. “Then talk about an incentive…” Adam was beaming from ear to ear. “You’re on, my little friend. Let’s build this damn thing!”