Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (68 page)

“That is another one of my concerns. How come flames were coming out of the engine nozzle if they were running low on fuel and there was no oxygen to allow combustion? And, did the lunar module have enough fuel to escape the gravity of our satellite?”

Carpenter replied while Young left the compartment, he had things to do. “The lunar module used a kind of hyperbolic fuel called hydracine, which does not produce flames when it burns. The lunar module had the necessary fuel to escape lunar gravity, taking into account that it is a sixth of that on Earth and that it didn’t have to fight the resistance of the atmosphere, because there practically isn’t any. It just needed to enter orbit and reattach to the control module which was waiting for them and would help them to escape lunar gravity.”

James had more doubts, but he was aware of the fact that his colleagues would answer all his questions coherently and he would be unable to judge them positively or negatively, due to his lack of knowledge on the subject. The young professor let Carpenter finish preparing the equipment they would need to land on the surface of the Moon and stood still for a few minutes, staring at the expanse of space which surrounded them outside. The sight of Earth from space was beautiful.

Meanwhile, back in the space center in Houston, Richard was running along the fifth-floor corridors of the hospital on his way to Room 54, where Lily was being looked after. She had been calmed down after her previous encounter with the nurse who had fed her medication through the intravenous drip. He thought he could see an improvement in the girl’s health; the shaking was starting to subside and although she had yet to speak, she had moments of lucidness in which she seemed to be aware of everything going on around her. The nurse had told him that after she had left the room, she came across a member of the psychiatric team who was going to be treating her. The woman was tall and had brown hair; she had come specifically from Los Angeles and at that time must have been carrying out a private study into the girl’s behavior. Richard wanted to speak personally to the psychiatrist before leaving the hospital, he wanted to hear her impressions for himself.

It took him seconds to run along the last corridor and stood in front of the door to the room. He looked through the glass and was shocked to see the figure of a woman who was familiar to him. She was wearing typical hospital attire and had a stethoscope hanging from her neck. She was crouching at one side of the bed with her eyes fixed on the monitor which controlled the girl’s cardiac activity. Richard was astonished to see her remove the power cord with no prior warning. She then took out a gun complete with silencer from inside her pants as the paleographer looked on in pure disbelief.

R
ichard slammed his body against the door with all his strength and with a terrible feeling of powerlessness when he saw what was happening. Without knowing if he would make it in time, he ran at the bogus psychiatrist just as she was turning around, surprised by the noise. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for the paleographer to recognize the face of her attacker. It was Mary.

After the impact, Richard was sent flying into the bedside table. Mary fell on top of the bed but the gun slipped out of her hands and slid along the floor to the opposite corner of the room. The paleographer tried to charge at the young woman again when she was attempting to get her hands on the gun. He couldn’t hold her back but he did manage to trip her up and send it skidding two feet away from her.

Alerted by the noise, two soldiers suddenly burst into the room with guns in hand. They didn’t see Mary, who was standing behind the door, and they aimed their weapons at a terrified Richard who was screaming his heart out for the soldiers to turn around, but it was too late. Two shots muffled by the silencer hit one of the soldiers square in the head, immediately knocking him to the floor. The other turned round in time to shoot his gun, but he received a bullet to the right shoulder which went clean through the other side. However, his shot hit Mary in the face, severely injuring her.

* * *

Eventually, after a flight of over ten hours, the space shuttle was in the vicinity of the orbit of the Moon. The image afforded by the inspection headlights was simply magnificent. The view of the Moon was incredible and only seen by a privileged few. In the control room, communication was underway between the Houston Space Center and the lunar base. James couldn’t believe what was happening.

“I repeat,” said the Administrator of NASA through the earpieces built in to the helmets of the crew. “Do not make a lunar landing. Change of plan. The transfer will take place in space, we don’t have time.”

“Transfer?” asked James.

The two pilots ignored him for a moment and kept listening to the Administrator’s instructions.

“Move out of lunar orbit and wait until the TF-08 reaches you.”

TF-08? What the hell could that be?

“Sir, with all due respect, Mr. Oldrich has never set foot outside a spacecraft. Wouldn’t it better if - ”

“Don’t argue with my orders! There is no time! You are running late! The spacecraft has just taken off, it should reach its position in twenty seconds.”

“Twenty seconds?!” exclaimed one of the pilots in astonishment.

James’ heart pounded in his chest; he had no idea what was going on and he had the feeling they were hiding something from him. He suddenly held his breath when he saw a circular object approach them at dizzying speed, coming to a sharp halt sixty-five feet away. “What is that?” he asked in terror.

“That, Mr. Oldrich, is the craft we will use to make the trip to Mars.”

“What?! Is it an alien spacecraft?!”

“Don’t be silly,” replied Carpenter. “The United States has spent several years secretly developing the prototype you see before you. The Moon is the ideal place to carry out tests with complete discretion.”

“And what about the space shuttle?”

“It would never get us there in time. It would obviously take us months to get to the Red Planet at our current speed.”

“Gentlemen,” said the Administrator. “Start the transfer.”

E
ven after three days, James couldn’t believe the scale of events. The United States hadn’t only managed to build a base on our satellite, but had successfully developed a spacecraft capable of traveling at extraordinary speeds. Its circular shape, exterior lighting and flight deck, located right in the middle, made it look like an unidentified flying object in Hollywood movies.

The changeover was quick yet careful, although there was one unexpected detail which surprised the professor. Contrary to what he had been expecting, there was no additional member of crew to join the mission, which made him wonder… who was going to fly the spacecraft? His question was answered when Scott made his way to the flight deck, fastened his safety harness and moved the spacecraft gently, as if was an extension of his body. The obviously wasn’t the first time he had maneuvered this marvel of aerospace engineering.

According Scott, the machine was capable of moving through space at a speed of 165 miles per second, and although they were traveling ten thousand times slower than the speed of light, they intended to cover the 48.5 million miles between them and Mars in just over three days.

Despite constantly wondering what kind of propulsion system the craft used to reach such speeds, James never got round to asking the question. He knew they would never tell him. However, Scott had mentioned something about magnetism, gravitational fields and an innovative source of energy, which made James wonder if it had something to do with the famous antimatter.

The layout inside was nothing like how it looked from the outside. Except for the control room, all the other areas were rectangular in shape. The most startling thing of all, however, was that the scientists who designed it had not only succeeded in cancelling out the lack of gravity, but they had also managed to simulate it inside the craft, meaning that the astronauts could move about inside as they would do on Earth.

James had a chance to see the control room on two occasions. The first was to make contact with the Space Center in Houston and find out how is daughter was, and the second time was to speak to the administrator two days into the voyage.

Even though it had been the U.S. President himself who had forbidden Richard from telling him about recent events in the hospital room, the paleographer went against his orders and thought it necessary to tell him everything. As his friend told him what had happened, James just clenched his fist with rage as he sat before the huge control panel with hundreds of buttons, cursing over and over again under his breath.

“But… how is Lily?” he asked constantly, interrupting Richard’s explanations.

“Don’t worry, I got there in time. Two minutes later and she would have been dead.”

James sighed. He felt a terrible anguish at having left her alone in the hospital.

“Security measures have been dramatically stepped up. There are now two security guards constantly monitoring the inside of the room, and another two to control access to it, not to mention the twenty or so soldiers spread across the hospital. Besides, after eliminating the two ringleaders, both father and daughter, the group should be drifting apart by now.”

“But… from what you told me, the bullet didn’t kill her.”

“That’s right, the bullet was blasted into her face. It ripped through her cheek and jaw but the bitch was lucky - an inch more to the left and she would have been killed there and then. The doctors are keeping her in a coma due to the severe pain she is in. If she were to wake up…, she would feel such unbearable pain that she’d wish she was dead. Her nerve endings wouldn’t take it, she would die.”

“Then why don’t they let her die?! She is a danger to the mission! What if her colleagues decide to free her?”

“She is still very valuable to the Army because she could reveal information which is instrumental for the investigation and arrest of that criminal group. From what I’ve been able to find out, they have leaked false information to the press so that all their accomplices are not aware of what has happened. The news has been splashed across most national magazines. They claim that a madwoman armed with a gun broke into the Houston facilities first thing in the morning, intending to sabotage the mission. The reports state that the young woman was killed in the incident and a further two soldiers were fatally wounded.”

James thought long and hard for a few seconds. The U.S. government would go to extreme lengths to achieve their goals.

The second conversation was much less informal and took place two days into the voyage. That day, when James arrived at the flight deck and sat down in the copilot’s seat, he noticed something that had completely escaped him when he had been engaged in the previous conversation. The black expanse of space which was unfolding before them was like an extremely long tunnel which ended in a small circular light - Mars.

Space communication took place through electromagnetic waves which travel through the universe at the speed of light, some 186,500 miles per second. This is the reason why the messages take two and a half minutes to travel the distance between them, which was sometimes exasperating.

“Mr. Oldrich, how are you getting on?” asked the Administrator.

This time, unlike other occasions, James could see the face of his interlocutor through a monitor installed in the copilot’s control panel. He had a serious expression on his face, and prominent bags under his eyes, the result of not having slept at all for the last five days. Although James couldn’t say for sure, his personal hygiene was a far cry from that of the refined man he saw in Area 51.

James looked on as somebody handed him a series of documents which he proceeding to read immediately while he waited for professor’s response. “The voyage is taking longer than anticipated,” he said eventually.

Lordson smiled. Without the TF-08, the journey to Mars would have taken almost four months. As he had predicted, the lunar base and the aerospace laboratory were proving to be fruitful much sooner than expected. When he read the last page he became serious and spoke to him in complete honesty. “Mr. Oldrich, this morning our SDO probe, a high-tech solar telescope which was sent into space on 11 February 2010 to study the Sun, relayed some chilling data to station located in Mexico. Its original purpose was to understand it, find out how it affects life and the planet, use its advanced instruments to measure ultraviolet radiation and analyze solar changes and magnetic activity; however, it has also been using this time to investigate the solar flares which are visible on its surface. The latest findings have just reached us this morning from the Mexican base.”

“What is going on?” asked James, alarmed.

Lordson took a deep breath. “Our hypotheses were right. A gigantic solar storm is approaching; it’s of immeasurable proportions.”

James looked at the pilot Scott Grissom, but his colleague didn’t even flinch. “When is it due to happen?”

“As you know, a solar storm is a temporary disturbance in the Earth’s magnetosphere, caused by the influence of solar activity on our planet. It consists of three stages, and the first two have already happened.”

They all quickly gathered around the speakers, as if they hadn’t been able to hear what the administrator said. Some of them put their hands to their mouths and stared wide-eyed at the rest of their colleagues.

“There was a solar eruption three hours ago. It took less than eight minutes to reach our planet, severing communications for two hours. This eruption caused the atmosphere to expand until it reached the orbit of most satellites, many of which became embroiled in a fatal descent to the depths of the ocean. The damage produced is substantial, billions and billions of dollars down the drain.”

“What about the second stage?”

The Administrator sighed before he gave an answer.

“Of the first two stages, the radiation storm was the most dangerous to human health. In spite of the widespread warnings telling people stay indoors until we advised otherwise, the streets were filled with people who ignored our advice. When the radiation storm occurred, the millions and millions of people who were outside suffered tragic consequences. The Army was mobilized quickly but it was no use. They couldn’t prevent the thousands of cases of burns, blindness, dehydration, sunstroke and blackouts. They were the lucky ones, because there were many who didn’t escape death.”