Infinitys end books 4 6, p.16
Infinity's End: Books 4-6, page 16
“I agree,” Cas said. “But…” He turned back to Zenfor, working hard over the console. She was inputting parameters faster than he could see her hands move. “What? Do you have something?”
“Maybe. I need to readjust your scanners to do something they shouldn’t be able to do.”
Jann exchanged glances with Cas. He only shrugged. This was why she’d come along. Her blatant disregard for everything in the Coalition handbook was an asset, not a liability.
“I’m overlaying it now,” she said. The shuttle’s window was covered by a light gray grid, indicating they were no longer seeing what was out there. The image flickered once. Then again. Cas squinted, he thought he could make something out, but he wasn’t sure. The screen flickered a third time and he almost fell back out of his chair, the image was so jarring. There, in front of them, was a pillar ten kilometers wide and a hundred tall, coming up from the moon and extending in an arch to the other.
Evie had been right. She’d been right all along.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Box internal log processes: time unit 2599.304.16.34.000033.
Subject is resting, but awake. Internal scans reveal nothing out of the ordinary other than slightly elevated heart rate. Brain wave patterns show nothing unusual until patient attempts to sleep. Subject becomes restless and experiences what are referred to as nightmares. Personal note: Cas experienced nightmares after heavy bouts of drinking. End personal note. Further study is required. Desired result: sleep without interruption.
Box interpersonal study log: Lieutenant Yamashita has come to stay by Commander Diazal’s side. From what I can determine of their stilted body language and facial reactions the lieutenant has initiated an interpersonal relationship and the commander has either accepted or is very close to accepting. This is a most welcome development in my study of human relationship dynamics. If what I’ve witnessed on the net dramas plays out, they will be cheating on each other with other partners soon. I will need to monitor them closely to determine if the levels of pain and anguish I see on the net dramas bear out in real life. I am most excited but must remember to keep my emotions at a minimum as I do not wish to taint the project.
Box personal note regarding matters above. Why don’t more humans couple onboard ships? If the net dramas are to be believed, mammals are horny most, if not all, of the time. What do they do with all that excess energy and where does it go? It will be most interesting to discover how a relationship either tempers or flares the relative horniness in each subject. I may need to take samples. To be continued.
Box stepped around the partition of the sickbay, his subject still on her bed at the other end of the room. Lieutenant Yamashita sat beside her in one of the portable chairs, her head nodding as she fought off sleep.
“Commander, I’d like you to take this,” Box said, holding out a small yellow pill. The lieutenant snapped awake, blinking her eyes a few times at Box’s voice.
Commander Diazal’s eyes were even more bloodshot than before, and she’d lost some more color in her skin. Box consulted his internal files. Neither was a good sign. “It’s a sedative cocktail Xax and I crafted,” he said. “We hope it will help you sleep better.” The commander took the pill from him.
“Is it safe?” Lieutenant Yamashita asked him. Concern for her future partner’s well-being. Action noted.
“Yes, we wouldn’t give her anything harmful. It’s supposed to speed up the REM cycle during unconsciousness. The doctor hopes pushing through the bad stuff might help you get the rest you need.”
Commander Diazal nodded. “Laura, can you hand me that water?” First-name basis. A definite sign of future intimacy. Action noted.
The lieutenant reached behind her and grabbed the small glass on the table, handing it over to the commander. Diazal placed the pill on her tongue and ingested it with the water. “I’m surprised you didn’t just inject me,” she said.
“A direct shot into your bloodstream might have knocked you out immediately,” Box replied. “It is a strong dose. Xax thought it better you drift off.”
“And you’re sure it can’t hurt her?” Lieutenant Yamashita asked, watching the commander’s face. Curious. Subject two is expressing further concern even after I have already addressed her question. Does she suspect I was lying to her? Or perhaps the question is more for her, and not me. Perhaps it is to make her feel better about someone she cares about being in trouble. Eureka! I do believe I’ve made a breakthrough. The lieutenant needs reassurance something isn’t going to happen to her new partner. Their bond is already stronger than I initially suspected. Is this how fast human coupling can happen? I may need to adjust my time expectations. At this rate they’ll be dating other people within days, not weeks or seasons.
“No, completely safe, Lieutenant. Your honeybunch is in no danger.” The lieutenant’s cheeks flushed and the commander suppressed a smile but turned away from him. Box personal note: Humans show embarrassment when confronted with the emotions they already have on display. It is odd, this never happened with Caspian and his former partners. More study is required.
The commander handed the cup back to Yamashita and settled into the large pillow, leaning the bed back. “How long until it takes effect?”
Box shrugged. “A few minutes. And then you’ll be off in dreamland, free to enact whatever fantasies you’re currently having about the lieutenant here.” The commander looked like she might choke on something. “Which, by the way, I’ll need you to share with me when you wake up. For your dream journal.” He turned to Yamashita, whose face was now an entirely different shade of red. Box interpersonal relationships study log: Hypothesis confirmed, in the event they are confronted with the emotions they are already feeling, some humans experience the added sensation of embarrassment. But it is still unclear why. Both partners are clearly aware of the other’s feelings at this point, what I don’t understand is why the reluctance to keep them out in the open. Shelving for further analysis.
“Box?” He glanced back at the commander. “Do I need to tell you again?”
“Tell me what?” he asked. This really was a conundrum. He needed to find another couple on the ship he could cross-reference his findings with.
“Didn’t I just say you weren’t to use me as your experiment? Not more than an hour ago?” There was a definite irritation in her voice. Could it be brought on because he’d just embarrassed her? Or wait, no! It was because he had embarrassed someone she cared about! That must be it!
“You did, Commander. But you didn’t specify I couldn’t study you as a pair.”
“Oh my god,” Commander Diazal said under her breath. “I’m finally starting to see what Cas is talking about.” She turned to her future mate. “Laura, I’m very sorry about him. Please don’t be upset.”
“N-no, it’s fine,” Laura said, forcing a smile. In Box’s experience that meant she was very uncomfortable. Hmm. Perhaps his experiment had pushed things too far. He hadn’t wanted to upset anyone, only confirm his theories.
“Box, shut down whatever research you’re doing on us. And please don’t continue it anymore. I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t say anything about any of this, specifically anything about me and Laura until we have given you express permission to do so. Understand?” Her eyelids fluttered and Box could tell she was having a difficult time staying conscious, but the message had come through loud and clear.
“I understand. I apologize if I’ve hurt you in any way.” He turned to Yamashita. “And I also apologize to you, Lieutenant. I didn’t mean to harm you. The doctor is still helping me with my bedside manner.”
“It’s okay,” Yamashita replied. “Just…caught me off guard.”
“Your concern for the commander is touching,” Box said. “And I wish you only the best.” He leaned in closer. “But watch out for chambermaids and fancy billionaires. They are the death of relationships.”
“Thanks,” Yamashita said, giving him a funny look. He captured the image of her face for study. He’d have to cross-reference that with a few others to determine what it meant later. Commander Diazal tried and failed to suppress a yawn, closing her eyes. In turn it caused the lieutenant to yawn. Could there be some connection between interpersonal relationships and yawning? One seemed to have caused the other. He would file it away for study in future relationships.
“Lieutenant, you should return to your quarters to rest. You’ll need your sleep if you want to be ready for duty tomorrow,” Box said.
She shook her head. “I’m not leaving her. You said it gets worse when she tries to sleep, right?”
“Hopefully not with the sedative she took. But we’ll find out.”
“I’ll be…fine,” Diazal said, though her eyes were closed, and she yawned again. The lieutenant took the commander’s hand.
“I’ll leave once I know you’re okay.” Box glanced up to the readings on the screen behind the bed. It seemed when Yamashita took the commander’s hand, it had an effect on her physiological responses. Her heart rate slowed and her respiratory rate dropped. Perhaps they should have brought the lieutenant in here earlier to help keep her calm.
The monitor indicated Commander Diazal was falling into an unconscious state. He should notify Xax of the change in her responses when the lieutenant touched her, it might be important in a way he didn’t understand yet.
Box internal log processes: time unit 2599.304.16.41.415894.
Subject has been administered compound 0043 in an attempt to induce REM sleep. Sedative has proven effective, final results remain to be seen. En route to report findings to Dr. Xax. Future note: do not perform interpersonal experiments when subjects are under duress. They do not like it. Further notation: all interpersonal experiments are to be—
A scream interrupted his thought processes just as he’d reached the partition into the other side of sickbay. Box turned and ran back to the source: Commander Diazal. She was thrashing on the bed, yet the lieutenant still held her hand.
“What happened?” Yamashita asked. “She was fine a second ago.” There was panic in her eyes as she watched the commander flip back and forth on the bed. Box had to move around to physically restrain her from flopping herself off the bed.
“Commander, wake up!” he yelled, but she only continued to thrash. With one hand still on her, he reached over and tapped one of the controls by the bed. It created a slight discomfort in the area around the patient’s ears, which was usually enough to wake them up without any damage or risk of harm. But it was ineffective.
“What’s going on? Why won’t she wake up?” the lieutenant asked.
From what he could tell she was stuck in an unconscious state; screaming at or against someone in a dream. He glanced up to the monitors, she had reached REM sleep, but now he couldn’t bring her out of it. Box hit his comm. “Xax to sickbay, code gray.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Holy shit,” Jann whispered. “Ryant, are you getting this?”
“What? I can’t see a thing. It looks the same to me.”
Cas spun in his chair. “What did you do? What are we seeing?”
Zenfor wore a proud smile. It was the most satisfied he’d ever seen her. “We’re seeing an area of space that has been pushed out of normal time. It exists exactly point-zero-three seconds behind us.”
Cas turned back to the giant structure. The Engineering skill required to build something like this was far beyond the capability of any Coalition world. It looked as though it had been carved from impossibly large blocks of stone, almost as if it were an ancient artifact and not a marvel of modern Engineering. Hell, maybe it was. Maybe it had been there since the dawn of time. “Pushed out of normal time?” he asked.
“The intense gravity of the two stars in this system are obscuring a time-shift. Or perhaps creating it. At first, I thought it was just a natural adjustment we needed to make to compensate for the gravitational forces at work in the system. But either by accident or design, there is a pocket of time beside the one we can see. But because it exists slightly out of our own timestream, we can’t see or interact with it. We had better hope it’s a natural phenomenon. Because if a civilization has the power to create something like this by will alone, their technology must be more advanced than anything either of our societies has ever faced before.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Jann said.
“It isn’t meant to be,” Zenfor replied. “It’s meant to prepare you for what’s to come.”
Cas took a breath. At least now he could tell Evie she wasn’t crazy. “How can we interact with it?” he asked.
“We can’t,” Zenfor replied. “Not while we’re in our own timestream. We’d have to shift point-zero-three seconds into the past, and not even the Sil have the technology to do that.”
“Well. We can at least take visual scans, now that we can see it. Let’s swing around and see if we can’t get a good look from all sides, take back as much data as possible.” He reached over and tapped the comm. “Captain. We’ve found the arch Evie told us about.”
“You found it? How?”
“I’ll explain when we get back. We’re going to take detailed scans and then return for analysis.”
“Any sign of the alien fleet?” Greene asked.
“Nothing yet, but we’ll keep an eye out.” He cut the comm, turning back to Zenfor. “If you were an all-powerful alien civilization that had the technology to manipulate space-time and you wanted to hide, where would you do it?”
Zenfor stared at him. “Inside a pocket just outside normal time where no one would ever find me.”
“Exactly,” Cas replied. “If they’re still here, I’d bet anything they’re hiding in that system. The one we can’t reach.”
“Which might explain why your Starbase Five can see them, but we can’t. There might be a gravitational lens effect going on where the farther away something is, the more blurred the lines between the two timestreams become. They are already so close together; from that distance it may be impossible to disguise.”
“Does that mean they’ve been traveling inside this pocket ever since we picked them up, or is it just in this system? And how does that relate to the arch? They didn’t bring it with them, this thing is ancient.”
“I can’t answer those questions without more information,” Zenfor said.
“I’m bringing us around,” Jann said. “Prepare to get all the scans you can. Ryant, give us a little space, we can see this thing and are going to try and learn as much as possible.”
“Acknowledged. Yell if you need me.” Ryant’s spacewing backed away as Jann brought the shuttle around, swinging it so the front of the shuttle continued to face the pillar they were closest to, while the ship moved around it like a corkscrew.
“Data is coming in now,” Zenfor said. Suddenly there was a flash accompanied by a short burst of turbulence.
“All stop,” Jann said, halting the shuttle in its tracks. “What was that?”
Cas glanced at Zenfor. “I have no idea, you?” She shook her head.
“Wait, something isn’t right here,” Jann said. “I’m not getting any readings from the rest of the shuttles anymore. Or Tempest.” She tapped the comm. “Ryant, what’s going on out there?”
There was no response.
“What the hell?” she said, peering out the window. Ryant’s spacewing hadn’t moved, it was still hanging in space right where they’d left it. “Ryant, come in.” There was still no response. “We need to check on him, something’s wrong.”
“Wait, don’t move,” Zenfor said. “I’m picking up something else.”
Cas went cold. Not more than a kilometer away was a massive black object that hadn’t been there moments before. The front of it sloped down like a massive cleaving blade, and the sides swooped back to form the body of the ship. Near the rear large assemblies on either side resembled wings in some manner, but they were unlike anything he’d seen before. And at the top of the ship, a protrusion stuck out and ended in a point. “Where the fuck did that come from?” he yelled.
“I’m getting us out of here,” Jann said, pointing the shuttle back the way they came.”
“No.” Zenfor said, still hunched over her control station. “It hasn’t moved or made any indication it’s detected us.”
“But it’s a massive warship, I’m not going to wait around for it to decide it doesn’t like what it sees.” She activated the controls to send them back to Tempest.
Zenfor made an aggravated noise in her throat. “This is exactly what we’ve been looking for. Proof of the alien fleet. We need to take detailed scans. For your people as well as mine.”
Jann glanced at Cas with a “What should we do?” look painted across her face. He had no idea. The ship was massive and unlike anything he’d seen before. Zenfor was right, they should try and get as much information as they could, but there was no telling how long they had. Why hadn’t the ship made any indication they could see them? “I think…we can’t let this opportunity go. She’s right.”
“Damn,” Jann muttered under her breath. “We should at least get some backup.” She tapped the comm again. “Ryant, come in, are you seeing this thing?”
“He isn’t receiving the transmission,” Zenfor said. “I believe we’re inside the time anomaly. We came through when we passed under that arch. It must be a passageway connecting the two.”
“So what, we’re a few seconds behind him now?” Jann asked.
“Yes. Though I’m not sure what the situation looks like to him. We may have disappeared off his sensors or we may still be visible, though he’s having the same problem and can’t contact us.”
“You would think if that were the case he’d be calling for backup,” she replied.
