Edelson-SLightShedding LightMichael EdelsonClub Lighthouse PublishingCopyright © 2010 by Michael EdelsonScience Fiction/Dark Fantasy. 24614 words long. First published in 2010, 2010 enNovellatext/xmlScience Fiction/Dark Fantasy

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Shedding Light
by Michael Edelson
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Science Fiction/Dark Fantasy

Club Lighthouse Publishing
www.clublighthousepublishing.com

Copyright ©2010 by Michael Edelson

First published in 2010, 2010

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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SHEDDING LIGHT

BY

MICHAEL EDELSON

A Club Lighthouse Publishing E-Book

ISBN 978-1-926839-02-8

All rights reserved

Copyright (C) 2010 by Michael Edelson

Cover Art: Michael Edelson (C) 2010

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely co-incidental.

For information contact:

editor@clublighthousepublishing.com

A Club Lighthouse Sci-Fi Edition

CHAPTER 1

IT WASN'T A REAL VIEWPORT, just a dense fibre optic weave that channelled light from the hull to a high resolution display that took up the entire outer bulkhead. The ThruVue logo glowed a pale blue on the panel's bottom right corner, reminding Jack that he wasn't standing in front of an open airlock.

He took a tentative sip of his tea, but it was still too hot. Setting it down on the table to cool, he started walking in circles, hoping the exercise would clear his head. Eighty hours under a neural pacifier in the hop capsule was ridiculous, though he had only himself to blame. He could have plotted the course differently, but he was so damned self conscious he wanted everything to be perfect. When they got back, no one should be able to say that Commander Jack Roberts was a screw up just because he wasn't on the mission roster until a week before launch.

After a few minutes of fruitless pacing, he grabbed his tea cup and started to raise it to his mouth when the ship lurched, like a sudden drop in an elevator. His hand stopped, but the tea rose out of the cup, forming a perfect sphere that sailed towards his face at an alarming speed. He jumped back, realizing too late what had happened and sailed straight up into the ceiling, barely able to save himself from a painful collision by tumbling and kicking off. A week of condensed astronaut training in action.

“Commander Roberts,” the ship's intercom blared. “I need you in the drive bay.” It was Carl, the engineer. He had a lot of explaining to do.

Jack pulled himself out of the ship's lounge using the inconveniently spaced handholds and floated down the corridor.

“Commander, wait up!” He looked over his shoulder and saw Debbie flying towards him, coming in way too fast. He flattened himself to the wall, waited for her to float past and grabbed her tightly with both hands.

“Hey!” she shouted, trying to push him away. “What the hell?”

He held on, and his added mass slowed her enough for him to bring them to a quick stop.

“Take it easy Miss Watanabe,” he said. “You were going too fast.” He let her go and she shoved him away, glaring fiercely.

“What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Too fast for what? There's no fucking gravity!”

“Gravity is not what kills you, it's momentum. Remember your training.” She was a reporter, not an astronaut, but she was one of the first to be selected for the mission. That meant she'd actually had more recent zero gee training then he did. She must not have paid much attention.

“Fine,” she said. “I won't press charges then.” She graced him with her award winning smile, and he remembered the first time he'd seen her on CNN, just after the Chinese sank the USS Clinton off the coast of Taiwan. She had been standing on the deck of a guided missile destroyer, her voice barely audible amidst the launching of orbitals carrying their neutron payloads to the Chinese moon base. That had to be almost ten years ago, and she still looked exactly the same.

“Thank you,” he said. “Now tell me where it is you think you're going.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, just long enough for him to notice, then the smile came back.

“To engineering, with you.” She was tiny, barely over five feet, with great big almond eyes expertly enhanced with subtle applications of liner and shadow. He skin was bronze, her auburn hair artfully decorated with strawberry blond highlights. She hardly needed the artifice, but he had to admit it worked in her favour.

“Uh huh. And give me one good reason why I should let you?”

“Because if you don't,” she said, pursing her lips. “I'll have to make up a reason why the gravity suddenly cut out right after a hop, and it will probably have something to do with you. Besides, you're supposed to give me full access. It's in my contract.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Fine, fine. Let's go. Just stay behind me, no more speeding, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

They didn't run into anyone else on their way to engineering, which was fortunate, since the corridors were narrow and handholds were a design afterthought. They arrived just in time to see Carl almost completely disappear inside the mass interface coupling's access port. A heavy metal lid hovered eerily nearby.

“Carl,” Jack said. “What's going on? I almost burned my face off.”

“Hold on a sec, sir,” Carl said, his voice muffled.

“Did you shut the gravity off?”

“No sir. Went out by itself. I think I see the problem. Wanna come in here with me?”

“What is it?” Debbie asked. “Another malfunction?”

“Hang on,” Jack said. “You'll know as soon as I do.” He squeezed into the access port next to Carl, careful not to bump his head. There was supposed to be enough room for two people, but it was a tight squeeze with Carl, who was a bear of a man.

“Here,” the engineer said, pointing to a bundle of fibre optic cables.

Jack frowned. “It's a data link failure?”

“Yep.”

“But how? Those cables don't get hot.” It looked like a pair of the cables melted away from the harness. Nothing else appeared to be damaged.

“They don't,” Carl said. “But it's possible one of the adjacent components came into contact with them.”

“Any idea what did it?” He didn't see how anything could have touched the cables, but Carl was the best engineer in NASA, with more time in space than anyone, alive or dead. Unlike Jack, he wasn't on the mission because of some last minute miracle. If Carl said it could happen, then it could happen.

“Nope,” Carl admitted. “None of these circuits show any heat damage.”

“The captain will love that.”

“I can't do better, Commander,” Carl said, shaking his head. “It's the damndest thing I've ever seen.” He started to push himself out of the access tunnel. “I'll go get a spare harness.”

“Well?” Debbie asked. Jack felt her brush up against his leg as he followed Carl out from under the coupling. “What's going on?”

“Just a minor glitch,” Jack said. “We'll have it fixed in a minute.” He turned to Carl. “I suppose you'll want me to help you diagnose the entire system. That is why you called me here, isn't it?”

“You got it, sir,” Carl said with a guilty grin. “I'd ask the captain, but he's busy fixing...” He paused, glancing at Debbie. “Working on the adjustments to the capsule interface.”

“You don't need to dance around me, Lieutenant Commander Linnard,” she said, irritated. “I know damned well what happened to the capsules.” She didn't miss a thing, it seemed, except perhaps for that ounce of common sense that kept normal people from leaping face first into every war and disaster they could find.

“Alright,” Jack said, giving her a sideways look. “Let's get started then. We have an observation window in one hour.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 2

ACTIVATE THE VAN TESSEL field,” Merrick ordered, his hands busy configuring recording devices on his observation console. Yelena Nobukova, the VTF technician, began the activation sequence from her control station.

“Field spreading, maintaining stability,” she announced. “Radius, zero point zero three astronomical units.”

Jack leaned over to his commanding officer. “What are we looking at today, do you know?”

“Still the temple in Rameses, I think,” Captain Perpignan said. “He wants to record their building techniques to use against his naysayers.”

“Van Tessel field radius zero point five astronomical units,” Yelena said. “Field expanding, maintaining stability.”

“What happened with the coupling?” the captain asked him, keeping his voice low.

“We don't know yet, sir. Carl thinks something overheated and melted the optic link, but we ran a diagnostic and didn't find anything.”

“See me in my quarters later today. I want to talk to you about this.” It had been a bad few days for the captain, and it showed. Rough stubble peppered the dark skin of his face and neck. His hair, usually cropped down to the nub, was starting to show its dark grey color.

“Aye, sir,” Jack said, returning his attention to the events on the deck.

“Van Tessel field radius at one point seven astronomical units,” Yelena announced. “Field integrity at ninety-two percent.” She was a major in the Russian air force, though her round cheeks and ready smile made her choice of careers seem unlikely. Despite her goofy cute appearance, she was a seasoned cosmonaut, having spent months in Jupiter orbit documenting deep space phenomena with the first Van Tessel telescope. On top of that, she was a medical doctor and had completed a surgical residency. Another first choice, Jack thought bitterly.

“Push for two AU,” Professor Merrick said. “Then hold it steady.”

“Affirmative, field radius two astronomical units, integrity eighty-four percent.”

“Let's see what we can see.” Merrick rubbed his hands together as the main observation screen came to life with white fleecy clouds over blue water and yellow sand. As the professor adjusted the controls, the picture expanded until Jack could make out individual waves, which became a blue blur as the view moved south, finally stabilizing over a large area of desert where tiny ant-like people swarmed over a monstrous construction site. The picture became clearer, then dropped down to focus on a group of workers chiselling away at a large black stone.

“Fascinating,” Merrick said, motioning for his assistant, Jonathan Goldstein, to begin recording. “I want you all to take a look at this.” He pointed to the black stone. “They're making that statue from dolerite. Did anyone see Henderson's special on Pyramid building? He's a big proponent of the idea that the Egyptians had some masonry techniques lost to the ages.”

“I saw that,” Jack said. “He kept breaking diamond drill bits trying to carve the rock.” Jack liked the Professor, and it wasn't only because the man had no interest in who was assigned to the mission or in what order. He was a cheerful British chap with all the prerequisite trimmings: white hair and beard, ready smile and gleaming eyes full of excitement. Usually absorbed in his work, he was always willing to talk someone's ear off about his latest findings. Since Jack was a big fan of educational programming, he was one of the only people onboard with whom Merrick cared to hold a prolonged conversation, albeit mostly one way.

“That's right, Commander,” Merrick said, beaming. “I've always maintained that technology could never compete with good, old-fashioned human perseverance. Look at those slaves and their chisels. It will take them years to finish that statue, but that doesn't matter...they're slaves, they have no choice. So much for Henderson's diamond drill bits.”

“Should I keep recording?” Jonathan asked. The stubbly-faced youth had a PhD in archaeology and could have been teaching his own students had he chosen to settle down in some second-rate university. Goldstein's decision to take a postdoctoral fellowship with Merrick was probably the best thing that could have happened to him; he would get his choice of tenures when they returned with their discoveries.

“Yes, yes,” Merrick said. “This is very important. Do you know who those people are? The ones working on the stone?”

“Israelites?” Captain Perpignan asked with a chuckle. “Waiting for Moses?”

“That's correct,” Merrick replied without humour. “They're building the city of Rameses in the Nile Delta for Rameses II. Captain, I'm going to need to go forward at least two hundred light years, until we catch them leaving Egypt. I want to know—”

“If the bible is right?” Debbie interrupted, her glowing blue palm held high, ready to record every word. “You want to see if Moses really led the Israelites out of Egypt?” Jack had never liked sub-dermal computers, no matter how handy they were. When he looked at his hand he wanted to see skin, not an interactive display.

Merrick frowned. “I don't know how much detail we will be able to see, but yes. I want to see if Moses really did part the Red Sea.”

Jack looked around, waiting for someone to say something, but everyone was silent, and he could hardly blame them. This was exciting work.

Merrick broke the silence. “Keep it here a while. Jonathan, document some of the other building techniques while I focus on these people here. Here is a list of Henderson's claims. See if you can catch something that will discredit each of these.”

“Sure thing.” Jonathan took his list and began playing with the VTF controls. The captain and Carl left the observation deck as the monotony of working slaves ate away at the novelty of seeing ancient Egypt in the flesh.

“Commander,” Merrick said, turning to Jack. “I need you to calculate the observation window times for the next two hundred light years. Keep the current parameters, I want to keep looking at Egypt.”

“Will do,” Jack said, suppressing a groan. Two hundred light years? That would take him hours, and he was still groggy from the hop capsule.

Those who remained stood and watched until darkness encroached on the work site. The picture had been verging from somewhat clear to hazy and blurry, but as night descended on ancient Egypt they lost it completely. Yelena shut down the field and took her leave while the professor and Jonathan poured over their data—data that could answer a question mankind had been asking since the first proto-human looked up at the sky and wondered what the sun was.

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[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 3

“HEY.” DEBBIE POKED JACK'S arm as she walked up to him. “The captain told me to come talk to you. I need to know how to explain what we're doing to the public in a way they can understand.”

He frowned, wondering why she would ask him when there were much more knowledgeable people on board.

“Why don't you ask Professor Merrick?” he asked “This was all his idea, after all. Or Jonathan. They'd know a hell of a lot more about it than I would.”

“I did. They gave me some long-winded speech I can't even begin to understand. You're more like a knowledgeable layman.”

“Thanks a lot.” She seemed completely unaware that she had insulted him. Perhaps that was part of her charm.

“Just explain it the best you can.”

“Fine. We can see the past because we are outrunning the light that is reflected from the Earth.”

“I know that part,” she said irritably, tapping her palm to turn on her voice recorder. “Explain how you can see something that already happened just by outrunning light.”

“Did you just wake up one morning and decide to hop on a spaceship?” he asked, crossing his arms defensively in front of his chest.

“Stop being a smartass. Either tell me or don't. I understand it, I just don't know how to explain it to someone else.”

“Fine,” he said, resigned. “You can see things that happened in the past because seeing is nothing more than reacting to photons striking your eyes. We're not in the past, ancient Egypt is gone forever. All we can do is capture the light reflected off those workers thousands of years ago. How can I explain it...” He hesitated, trying to think of something appropriate. “Okay, let's say you're standing outside and you take a glass of milk and accidentally spill it.”

“Okay, go on.”

“So as you do this, light from the sun strikes you and bounces off, heading out of the atmosphere and into space.” This was the longest one-to-one conversation they'd ever had, and he took advantage of the opportunity to admire her face as he talked. If there was such a thing as obnoxiously beautiful, she was it.

“Okay,” she said, scribbling something in her infernal notepad. It was the old-fashioned kind, with paper made from tree pulp. He didn't understand why she would need to take notes if she was recording their conversation, but it was none of his concern.

“The light that reflected off you spilling the milk is travelling at the speed of light,” he continued. “A hundred years later, it will arrive at a certain distance, which would be a hundred light years from the Earth. If an alien was flying by in that particular spot at the right time, and he looked at the right spot on the Earth, he would see you spilling milk a hundred years after you did it, because that is how long it took the light to reach his point in space. Get it?”

“Keep going,” she said. “This is exactly what I need.”

“Okay, well, since the Venture can go faster than light, we can travel a hundred light years in a very short period of time and catch that light. The milk you spilled a hundred years ago is long gone and nothing can change that, but we can see the light reflected from that moment. Just like when we look at a distant galaxy, we don't see that galaxy as it is now, we see it as it was millions of years ago because that's how long it takes its light to reach us. For all we know, it's not even there anymore.”

“Okay, but how can we see the Earth with the sun and other stars sending out so much light? Doesn't it get drowned out or something?” She frowned, and he noticed the cute dimples in her cheek. He frowned in return, annoyed that no matter how much she irritated him, he never stopped noticing how attractive she was.

“It's a good question,” he said. “Have you ever had a telescope?”

“No, I can't say that I have.”

“A telescope's light gathering ability is measured by its aperture size.”

“Aperture?” The dimples came back.

“The part that catches the light and condenses it to a small point you can see,” he said. “Some telescopes use curved mirrors to take a huge amount of light and focus it into a small place. The bigger the mirror, the more light it captures, and the more distant and dark objects it can see.”

“Okay,” she said hesitantly. “I guess that sort of makes sense.”

“Good. Remember the first space telescope, the Hubble? Its aperture was eight feet. It could capture enough light to look at distant nebula and galaxies, but it couldn't make out planets; too much light from the stars and not enough of an aperture. That's where the Van Tessel field comes in. Our telescope uses an energy field to catch photons instead of a lens or mirror. Its aperture just now was two astronomical units in diameter, that's almost two hundred million miles. Sometimes we can even get it bigger than that. Imagine how much detail it can see with that big of an aperture.”

“Yes, but,” she said, not sounding convinced. “Doesn't the light from the sun overpower the light from the earth? Drown it out?”

“Yes and no. Yes, if you gather light from one perspective, it doesn't matter how much you get, you can't see something that isn't there. However, with an aperture that's hundreds of millions of miles across, we can gather light from many perspectives. When light bounces off an object, it goes in multiple directions. You can see that object if you stand directly in front of it, but you can also see it from a few steps to the side. We gather all of the different perspectives our field covers and make a composite image. The detail, as you saw, is incredible, though the further we get from Earth the less perspectives we can merge. We can see the Egyptians quite easily, but we'd have a harder time looking at dinosaurs. Not that we couldn't do it, we just wouldn't get as much detail.”

“I suppose I can stomach that, though it doesn't quite work for me yet,” she said, putting her pad away. “Now about relativity...”

“Captain Perpignan and Commander Roberts,” Carl's voice crackled over the ship's intercom. “We need you in engineering right away.”

“Sorry, Miss Watanabe, have to go,” he said, failing to suppress a sigh of relief. Being cooped up in a tiny ship with her was proving difficult in a way he had not anticipated.

“I'll find you later,” she called after him as he ran down the corridor.

“I'll look forward to it,” he said, and meant it. Sort of.

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 4

“WHAT THE HELL IS this?” Jack stared at the device and couldn't quite accept what his eyes were telling him.

“Well,” Captain Perpignan said. “At least this may help explain all the strange problems we've been having. We now know for certain that we have a saboteur on board.” He handed the device back to Carl. “What do you make of it?”

“Clever thing,” he said, turning it over and over. “Only God knows exactly what's in it, but it smells a bit like Clorox.”

“A god-damned bomb,” Jack said, shaking his head.

“Well we might have a clue as to whose,” the captain said, indicating the timing device. It was a navy-issue chronograph, sans bracelet. Each of them had been given one before launch. “Whoever is missing his watch is in big trouble.”

Jack absentmindedly fingered his own, still safely on his wrist. Both the captain and Carl wore theirs.

“But why target the field generator?” Carl asked. “It's not a critical component. Unless this is extremely potent, it doesn't look like there's enough explosive here to do more than break it.” Indeed, the watch case was only a little smaller than the blob of explosive putty to which it was attached, which couldn't be very efficient, considering the limited availability of chemicals on the ship. A tiny battery was wired in to provide the ignition spark.

“I wouldn't go so far as to say it's not a critical system,” Jack said. “Without it, we couldn't go forward without fear of hitting a gravity well or a dense particle cloud, and to go back home I would have to retrace our course exactly, having to account for disparate drift. It would be a big pain in the ass.” He had purposely understated things so as not to alarm anyone. Space appeared empty, and for a slow moving vessel it practically was. At thousands of times the speed of light, however, it thickened up pretty quickly. VTF failure would be catastrophic, and if he made even the smallest mistake plotting the course home they would all die. Of all the other crew members, only Yelena truly understood the difficulties in plotting a faster than light course, though she was only able to attempt it with the VTF scope.

“Then that must have been the intent,” the captain suggested. “To halt the mission and make us run home.”

“Why would someone want to sabotage the mission?” Carl asked. “It's not like we're out here spying on people's military secrets...we'd be a little out of date.”

“Whether it makes sense or not,” Captain Perpignan said. “It's still a fact. That bomb did not make itself.”

“Couldn't it have been on board before we left orbit? Maybe a maintenance technician?” Jack suggested.

“No,” Carl said, shaking his head. “I would have seen it when I checked the generator, which I do every day. This was put here sometime after zero eight hundred today. When I found it, it had about fourteen minutes left before blowing.”

“Are we going to announce this?” Jack asked, rubbing his chin. “Tip whoever it is off that we know?”

“No point in hiding it,” the captain said. “When this thing doesn't go off, he'll know someone found it.”

“Or she,” Jack suggested. “But not necessarily. They may think they did something wrong, and try to retrieve the bomb before it's found. We may have a chance to catch whoever it is when they come back for it.”

“Excellent.” Captain Perpignan smiled. “That's what we'll do. Carl, set up a security camera. We'll give it three hours. If no one comes, we'll call a meeting.”

“Aye, sir.”

They waited, but no one came for the bomb.

“A SABOTEUR? ON THIS SHIP? Preposterous!” Professor Merrick objected. “Everyone here was hand picked and rigorously screened!”

“Not everyone,” Jack said, barely hiding his bitterness. They were gathered on the bridge in a hasty meeting announced on the intercom only moments before. Jonathan Goldstein and Yelena both looked as though they had been sleeping, eyes puffy and jumpsuits hastily donned.

The Professor scoffed. “I hardly think it was you, Commander Roberts. Besides, why in hell would someone want to sabotage my mission? It's just a high-tech archaeological dig!”

“Nevertheless,” Captain Perpignan said. “There is a saboteur on board. We found this in the Van Tessel field generator.” He held up the disarmed bomb for everyone to see.

There were gasps and sharp intakes of breath. Then silence.

“I'm going to have to ask everyone to show me their wrists,” the captain said, his voice cold and steely.

“What for?” Jonathan asked, then shook his head. “Oh, the watches. Here is mine.”

The others hesitated, then extended their wrists. Everyone had their watch, except Merrick.

“I don't wear watches,” the Professor said. “I didn't take it when they offered. So you think I want to blow up my own telescope?”

“Seven watches were issued,” Perpignan said in a measured tone. “I signed the requisition forms.”

“He's telling the truth,” Jonathan said while Merrick rolled his eyes. “I was there when they came around with them.”

“You don't need to defend me,” Merrick said, exasperated. “If I wanted to sabotage my work all I would have to do is stop doing it.”

“Maybe you wanted it to look like it wasn't your fault,” Debbie suggested, eliciting a cold stare from Merrick. “Sorry, I'm just thinking out loud. It's ridiculous to think the professor would want to sabotage his own project. He has no motive.”

“Very well,” Perpignan said. “The fact remains, however, that seven watches were issued. The seventh is right here. The question is, who was it issued to?”

“They made us sign for them,” Jack said. “It would be recorded somewhere at home. We'll know as soon as we get back.” He looked at all the gathered faces, trying to see if someone looked nervous. Everyone did, or no one. It was too hard to tell.

“That doesn't do us any good now,” the captain said. “The only way to send a message back to Earth that wouldn't take thousands of years to get there would be to build another FTL ship and point it home.”

“What about the other problems?” Yelena asked, nervously rubbing her own watch. “Can we learn anything from them?”

“Chief?” the captain motioned for Carl to speak.

“Well,” he said. “Let me think.... the first glitch was a processing error in the centron accelerator. That could have been entered in the user interface terminal. I can see if they left some kind of trace, but I doubt it. Also, it could have been a genuine glitch.”

“Alright,” Perpignan said. “What about the other two.”

“The melted fibre optics were definitely sabotage, now that I think about it,” Jack said. “It doesn't make sense any other way. However, I doubt there would be much evidence. We don't lock up our tools.”

“I agree,” Carl said. “But the second glitch, the hop capsule one, is like the first, it could have been genuine. No way to tell. It was an overload in the interface. That's a high current connection and it's feasible that it could blow.”

“You never shared the details of that. Was it any particular capsule?” Debbie asked, holding her glowing palm at waist height, almost trying to hide it.

“Yes,” Carl said, smiling. “Mine. But it wasn't life threatening because the safety system wouldn't move the ship unless every capsule was working within parameters. There's no way to bypass it. At least not that I know of.”

“We still don't know why anyone would want to sabotage the mission,” Yelena said.

“Of course we do,” Jack said, thinking out loud. His words were like a power switch, instantly shutting off all sound in the room as all eyes were locked on him.

“I mean...” He hesitated, suddenly nervous under such scrutiny. “Isn't it obvious? It's a religious thing. It has to be. We were sent here to see if it was feasible to see human history, to answer questions about our origins. We're questioning the bible, questioning God. To a religious person, that would be like blasphemy, wouldn't it? You know how many religious groups back home wanted to kill the project. And all those protestors...”

“This is all speculation,” Merrick protested, visibly disturbed.

“This isn't.” Captain Perpignan held up the bomb. “This is fact.”

“What are we going to do about it?” Jonathan asked. His face was pale and a sheen of perspiration covered his forehead. Jack couldn't blame him for being afraid, but was he afraid of returning in failure, or of being discovered?

“I want everyone to stay here,” the captain said. “Commander Roberts and I will search everyone's quarters. I don't know what we are looking for, but we have no other leads to follow.”

“You are not going to ruffle through my personal things!” Merrick cried, outraged. “I won't stand for it!”

“Professor, that was not a request. If you protest further, I will only assume you are trying to sabotage the mission by forcing me to lock you in your capsule.”

Merrick opened his mouth, then closed it. He glanced at the others as though looking for support, but only downcast glances met his eyes.

“Very well,” he said, waving his hand in dismissal. “If you break anything the navy will have to pay for it.”

“Commander,” the captain said. “Let's go.”

They searched for several hours, but found nothing.

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 5

“JACK?” DEBBIE'S VOICE SOUNDED from outside the engineering bay. “Commander Roberts? Are you in there?” Her head peaked around a corner. He was busy installing a security camera, and the cursed thing wasn't getting any video.

“Not now, Miss...”

“Just call me Debbie, will you?” Her hair was tied back in a bun, assorted curls dangling around her face. She was the only one aboard that bothered to style her hair. Jack didn't know whether he should find it annoying or appealing. Perhaps it was both.

“Fine, Debbie. Not now. I need to install this damned camera and it's not working.” The captain had ordered cameras installed throughout the ship, or at least as much of it as they could cover.

“What's wrong with it?” Before he could stop her, she snatched the camera out of his hands and slid her finger along its surface. A holographic interface appeared just above the device's slick black shell.

“I can't get any video,” he sighed, exasperated. He stood atop a plastic storage box he had enlisted as a makeshift ladder.

“Duh,” she said with an infuriating tone. “That's because you haven't paired it with the controller.” She did something with the interface menus, and the camera rebooted.

“Try it now,” she said smugly, handing it to him. He turned it on, and it worked. He sighed, closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. The more things changed...

“How did you know to do that?”

“I'm a journalist, remember? We work with cameras? Anyhow, now that I saved you about five hours of banging your head against a wall, maybe you and I can have our little chat.”

“Now? With a damned saboteur on board?” He couldn't believe the woman, she was relentless.

“No more excuses, please. The show must go on, as they say, and I still have a feature to write, saboteur or no.”

“Fine,” he said, giving in. It wasn't like he didn't want to be around her. “What would you like to know?”

She took a few steps toward him and his nostrils filled with the gentle scent of her perfume. Part of him couldn't believe she actually brought perfume on board a space ship, but the rest of him was too busy enjoying it.

“I want to know how the probability drive works. How can it beat relativity?”

“All that stuff is on the net already,” he said. “Can't you just look it up when we get home?” He wished he could get her to stop asking him about the damned probability drive. He hardly understood it himself.

“Don't be difficult. I want to hear it from you. I don't need useless techno-babble; if I did I would have asked Carl, who knows a lot more about this than you do.”

“I suppose I'll take that as a compliment.” Again with the put downs. Why did he put up with it?

“You should. That's how I meant it.”

He blinked. “Oh. Fine then. Do you know what a centron is? I guess we should start there.”

“Is that like an atom?” She took out her notepad. She was always writing something in that damned thing. He wondered if there was anything there about him.

“You failed physics in college, didn't you?”

She frowned, and he smiled. Revenge!

“Stop me if you know any part of this,” he continued before she had a chance to riposte. “Everything in the universe is made of a single particles called centrons, which exist in various states. Their states are induced by interaction with other centrons. These interactions result in formations, patterns. An atom is a pattern of centrons in various states.”

“What do you mean by states?”

“A centron has a near infinite amount of states, or characteristics, all of which are entirely dependent on interaction with other centrons. Consider light, whose color is determined by individual photons inducing state changes in each other based on their interactions with particles in solid matter patterns. And the photon itself is a centron whose state has been altered by other interactions.” He shook his head. “I'm not explaining this well.”

“That's okay.” She scribbled some notes. “What does this have to do with the probability drive?”

“Probability is how they describe centron interaction. Certain interactions create a high probability that a centron will behave in a particular way, or have a particular state. Nothing is absolute, but some probabilities are so high as to be almost certain. Centrons interact with each other to form patterns of probability that react predictably. Everything that we think is solid is actually a pattern of centrons with a high probability of stability. Nothing solid lasts forever, as the pattern is never absolute and eventually breaks apart. They used to call this stuff quantum mechanics back when they were just stumbling about and making wild guesses about multiple universes and other nonsense.”

“I'm not sure I follow...” Her eyes were intent, she was really trying to understand. Jack nodded, appreciating her interest for the first time. There was something about the way she looked at him that made it seem as though she was asking these questions out of a personal interest, not just to dress up her story.

“Okay...imagine two solitary centrons. Alone, they have no state, they don't really exist. Scientists call them potential centrons; they are more like the faint possibility of a particle. If a few of these potential particles meet each other, they form a pattern, and that pattern gives them characteristics, or states. But the pattern is not absolute, because if it was, it would never change. Instead, it is merely highly probable that the pattern exists in its current state. That instability is what allows matter to be affected by other matter or energy, all of which is of course nothing more than centrons behaving in certain ways. Now let's say this pattern that forms from a few potential centrons encounters other patterns and reacts to them, forming more complex patterns. Eventually it could wind up a lump of rock, or crystal, or even a person. Life is nothing more than a very complex pattern of centron interactions. When you move your hand, centrons in energy states interact with those in matter states to create motion. Get it?”

“No, but I can spend more time with it later,” she said, patting her palm computer. “Now tell me how the drive works.” She was scribbling furiously. He tried to see what she was writing, but she pulled it away.

“Okay, so I've told you how centrons have probable states, and those states can turn them into anything, right? Light, people...”

“Right.”

“Okay, so think about motion. Motion is a state. If you accelerate a particle to a certain velocity and then take away the acceleration force, that particle will remain in motion forever unless it is slowed by an external force or crashes into something. That particle requires no energy to maintain that velocity. The velocity is a part of that particle's state.”

“Okay,” she said. “Still with you.”

“Good. So there are two ways to induce motion. The first is something like a rocket or a baseball. You use thrust to accelerate a rocket, and your arms to accelerate a baseball. The second is something like light. It is created with motion as a characteristic, and a very high probability characteristic. Nothing accelerates light. It is born, so to speak, moving at light speed.”

“So a baseball needs an external force to move it, but light is just made moving fast?”

“Right. That's what the centron accelerator does. It takes the ship and everything in it and figures out how to change its state, adding velocity.”

“So it's like an engine or a nuclear reactor of some sort?”

“No, the centron accelerator is a logic processor. What they used to call a quantum computer, using the thirty two predictable states of a negative polarity energy centron. It figures out the stimuli needed to coerce the centrons of the ship and its crew into a high enough probability of motion. The centron state inducer is what makes the actual change to the ship and crew through the mass interface, and everything is powered by the reactor. The coupling is what connects all the components. Without it, nothing works.” And no doubt that was why the saboteur had tried to break it.

“I see,” she said, though he doubted she got it all. She seemed bright enough, but he knew it was a little too much for anyone to take in all at once. “Did you say the crew? It accelerates us?”

“Yes, it induces a state of motion in us as well.”

“So why do we need the acceleration capsules?”

“Well,” he hesitated, not wanting to frighten her. “The whole process works very well, but it is very complicated, and sometimes there are minor glitches. That's why we have to be in the capsules when the ship changes velocity. If we moved around the ship, and there was a fluctuation in the probability field...well, it would be bad.”

“I see,” she said. “Is that what happened to my makeup kit? It made a huge mess in my room on our last run.”

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “I assume so. Though I see you must have a spare.”

“Always,” she said, smiling back. “A girl has to maintain appearances. So anyhow, what about the gravity?” she asked. “Why does that go out when the coupling fails?”

“The centron accelerator also does the gravity, using similar principles. It's not real gravity, but it simulates gravity by constantly moving us towards what we define as the bottom of the ship.”

“So how does our reactor work? Where do we get our energy?”

“I thought you only wanted to know about the FLT drive,” he protested. His mouth was dry and the water on the ship tasted terrible.

“Did you not just tell me that the reactor is part of the FTL drive?” she demanded, jabbing at him with her pencil. “Do you now recant your words?”

“Fine, fine. You did help me with the camera.”

“Yes I did.”

“It's the same principle as the probability drive. We convert matter into energy directly by changing the states of the centrons. We can use anything as fuel, but the denser it is, the more efficiently we can store it. All of our waste products are converted to energy. When you go to the bathroom...”

“Uh, thanks,” she interrupted. “That's more than I need to know.” She gave him a crooked smile. “Okay, one last thing. What about the theory of relativity? And what about the little particles in space that could collide with us? How do we get around that?”

He let out a long breath. He had a lot of work to do setting up the remaining cameras, and this wasn't helping him get it done any faster. Carl was originally supposed to do it, but the captain had him sweeping the rest of ship looking for bombs.

“Relativity only applies to conventional acceleration. We do not accelerate or decelerate. We merely change stationary particles into moving ones and bingo, we move. No time dilation, no speed limit. You called the capsules acceleration capsules, but they're really hop capsules, because that's what we do. We hop from one speed to the other. As for particles hitting the hull, the ship is surrounded by a pattern disrupting field, also a function of the probability drive, and it uses the same principles. Anything that collides with us is reduced to individual centrons, which are not a threat. We're bombarded by light-speed centrons every time we turn on a light bulb.”

“So we can go as fast as we want to? A billion times the speed of light?”

“No. Our speed is limited by our pattern disruptor field, it can only protect us from a certain density of particulate matter. It's also limited by the structural integrity of this ship, how much probability fluctuation it can withstand, and by our reactor's ability to contain the power it creates. Listen, I really don't have time to get into it any further, Miss, um, Debbie...”

“That's fine. I have enough for now. I'll come find you when I don't.”

She turned to go, and before he could stop himself he blurted out “Hey, I don't suppose you can help me set up the rest of the cameras?”

She stopped, turning slowly to face him. “Okay,” she said, looking at him strangely. “I guess I can do that.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 6

“HERE YOU GO, PROFESSOR.” Jack handed Merrick a data pad with the calculations that had kept him up half of his sleep cycle.

“What are these?” Merrick took the pad, squinting at the small screen. Jack wanted to kill him. Five hours of work and he couldn't even remember what he'd asked for.

“The observation window data?” Jack reminded him, suppressing his irritation.

“Oh yes!” Merrick said. “Terribly sorry, I forgot all about it. Yes, of course, the data. I'll need to enter these into the computer. I've decided not to stop and look after all, but to record on the fly. A snapshot every few months or so. Light months, not our months.”

“But why?” Jack asked, puzzled. “We can only maintain like a half AU field while in motion. You won't be able to see nearly as much—”

Merrick coughed, interrupting him. “Can I trust you, Commander? To keep something from the others?”

The question made Jack very nervous.

“Um, that all depends...”

“No, no. It's just about my work.”

“Oh,” Jack said, relieved. For a second there he'd been afraid the professor was about to confess. “Sure.”

“Good.” Merrick nodded, apparently deep in thought. “I've decided to pursue a slightly different slant, and with the saboteur on board, I don't want it to get around. I've spoken to Jonathan, of course, but I need you in on it so that no one asks too many questions about the changes in our flight plan.”

“I guess I can keep it to myself, whatever it is. As long as it's not something that the captain would need to know.”

The professor smiled and nodded. “Excellent. You see, I've decided no more fooling around. I'm going for the big fish.”

“Big fish? What could be bigger than what we're doing?”

“I want to discredit the bible.” He paused, staring at Jack intently.

Jack hesitated. “Isn't that what we're doing here already?” he asked, feeling a bit irritated. He never had much use for God or religion, so the concept didn't bothered him, but he didn't think it was a good idea for Merrick to be so happy about it. Some of the others might not be so understanding.

“No,” Merrick said with a shake of his head. “Not directly, not until now. You see it's hard for us to see anything useful, since we don't know exactly where to look. We can't hear anything, and can only see a few hours a day for a few months out of the year. We can't see who shot Kennedy unless the assassination happened during a viable observation window, and only if that window covered that part of the world. Even then, the sky would have to be clear, the light patterns well preserved. That scene with the workers was one in a thousand. Most of what we see is too garbled to zoom in that close.

“We came here to see if we could see anything at all, and we can. But before going home, I want to bring something back, something big. I want to bring proof that the bible is poppycock. If, in fact, it is.”

“But how will you do that?” Jack asked. “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because we won't see any miracles, doesn't mean they didn't happen. Sure, it would be nice to see the Israelites crossing the Red Sea on rafts, but what are the odds we could pinpoint the crossing at all?”

“Interesting you should mention Exodus.” Merrick smiled, narrowing his eyes. “That is one of two areas I plan to focus on. If we can take just one major event out of the bible and discredit it with evidence of a contrary reality, that would show that the bible is at least partly blatantly false. It's one thing to say that the plagues Moses brought to Egypt can be explained by natural phenomenon, but what if we prove there were no plagues, that there was no Moses? Such absolute falsities would undermine the credibility of the entire book.”

“That makes sense,” Jack agreed. “But I still don't understand how it's possible. As you said, the limitations on what we can see...”

“Well,” Merrick said, playing with Jack's data pad as he talked. “I have a viable theory from the last set of interval shots we took, but I need more data before I can formalize it. I don't want to share this till I'm certain.”

“What's the other thing? You mentioned two?”

“Right,” Merrick said. “For that I'll need your help. Is there a limit to how far we can go? How fast?”

“Sure there is. We can only—”

“I don't need to know the details,” Merrick interrupted. “Just tell me how far out we can get in a few days, pushing the ship to the max, so to speak. I need to come to a complete stop, as far away as you can get us.”

Jack thought about it. “The last bearing I sighted down had a clear shot for quite a while, so if we max out our speed we can probably get about four hundred thousand light years from Earth after the next hop without another sighting. There's just one little problem with that.”

“What is it?”

“That will take us well outside the Milky Way.”

Merrick blinked. “Leave the galaxy? We can do that?”

Jack shrugged. “There's no reason why we can't. In fact it's much easier to navigate out there, provided we don't go too far out and get lost.” He almost shook his head as he said it. For almost a hundred years since Yuri Gagarin broke free of the atmosphere, mankind was stuck in Earth Orbit, then the solar system. The Venture was the first manned spacecraft to leave those confines for anything other than a test run and the distance it could travel was mind blowing. The universe had opened up practically overnight. If he managed to get the ship back in one piece, he could be a part of the greatest era of exploration in the history of mankind.

“Will the captain approve that?” Merrick asked, looking uncertain.

“I don't know,” Jack admitted. “We had days and days of mission briefings, but nobody mentioned leaving the damned galaxy. I mean there's absolutely no reason why we shouldn't, except the obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“The further we get, the more difficult it will be to find our way back. I can handle it with a single hop, but after we get there I'll want to get us right back where we belong as soon as I can.”

“Will fuel be a problem?”

Jack shook his head. “Not even an issue. Even if we run out we can feed chairs and other crap into the converter. The amount of energy in even a single gram—”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Merrick said impatiently. “One more thing, commander. For the short hop, can you keep everyone in the capsules while we coast? I don't want to give the saboteur a chance to strike until I get my data.”

“I guess,” Jack said, cringing at the thought of so much time in induced sleep. “I'll have to ask the captain, but I'm sure he wouldn't have a problem with it.”

“Good. If the captain approves, please plot the course, after we complete the data gathering for the course you just gave me.”

“I still don't understand why,” Jack said. “Most people don't interpret the bible literally. Disproving something that's supposed to be a morality tale isn't going to change anything.”

“I agree completely,” Merrick said, his eyes burning with intensity. “First, Exodus is not the only fish I plan to fry, but more on that later, once I'm sure. Second, I have nothing against religion, when it's approached rationally. Some of my closest friends and most respected colleagues believe that God created the world, but they believe he did so through science, evolution, geology. It's not their faith I'm going after.”

“Who then, the fundamentalists?”

“Yes. Those who believe in Adam and Eve, that God literally created the world in six days and that Satan buried dinosaur bones to tempt people to disbelieve. Not to get them to change their minds, because they won't, but to expose them before the world as the frauds and imbeciles that they are.” Merrick's lip curled into a snarl. “And if those bastards are going to try to stop us from learning the truth, I'll do everything in my power to shove it down their throats.”

Jack nodded. In this, he and the professor were in full agreement.

THE OBSERVATION LOUNGE WAS a luxury only a ship like the Venture could afford. Designed around the size of the probability field, the ship had a lot more space than was absolutely necessary for bare survival. The Venture had ample storage, individual crew quarters, and, of course, the lounge with its fancy ThruVue panel.

Jack poured himself a cup of tea and sat on the vinyl-covered settee. He leaned back, relaxing, taking in the view. Nearly every surface on the ship was metallic, multiple alloys of stainless steel, titanium and aluminum. Initially the smooth matte surfaces impressed him with an austere and sterile calm, but the cold metal sheen inevitably replaced those feelings with an oppressive monotony. The stark blackness of space with the vivid glimmer of distant stars was a welcome and invigorating change of scenery.

“You again,” Debbie's voice cut through the calm. “Don't you get tired of following me around?” Strolling over to the drink dispensers, she poured herself a cup of dark black coffee and sat down on the other side of the settee, as far from him as possible.

“Don't you get tired of being so snooty?” he asked. Not for the first time, he'd wished her personality was as attractive as the rest of her.

She frowned. “How am I snooty?”

“Well,” he began, taking a sip of his tea. “Every time I try to have a normal conversation with you, all I get are snide remarks. Unless of course you want something from me.”

“You've been trying to have a normal conversation with me?” She flashed him a coy grin. “I hadn't noticed. Maybe you're just a clumsy conversationalist.”

“That's what I mean. Why can't you say anything without an insult in it?”

“Alright. Let's talk. Is it true we're actually leaving the galaxy?”

He frowned. He had spoken to the captain only a few minutes before. How the hell had she found out so fast?

“Yeah,” he said. “The captain just approved it.”

“Isn't that dangerous?”

“No, not unless I really screw up and get us lost. It's really no different from being in the galaxy, except there are less things to crash into.”

“You're not gonna screw up, are you?”

“I'll try not to,” he said. “See, it's not so bad to have a normal conversation.”

“This is not really a conversation,” she said. “I'm asking questions about the expedition. If you actually want to talk, you'll have to ask me something personal.”

“Okay,” he said, deciding to give it a shot. “Are you scared? I mean with the bomb and all? You're the only one that seems unaffected.”

“There's really no point in being scared. The situation is out of my hands.”

“Come on,” he protested. “You can do better than that.”

“Fine,” she said, blowing air from between her lips. “A little bit, when I'm around some of the others. Not the professor though, or you.”

“Why not me? I could be the saboteur. I'm the only one here not chosen for the mission.”

“Call it woman's intuition,” she said, smiling. “Besides, the fact that you're here almost accidentally makes you the least likely party.”

“How's that?”

“It makes it less likely that someone planned to have you aboard. You weren't even on the auxiliary roster.”

“Gee thanks,” he replied gloomily. “I feel better now.” Salt in the wound.

“Cheer up,” she said, waving her hand dismissively. “You're here, aren't you? That's what counts.”

“Yeah,” he said, unconvinced. “I'll go down in history as the only man on the first interstellar voyage who didn't belong there.”

“Is this your idea of conversation? Feeling sorry for yourself?” Before he could reply, she said, “How did you get to be here, anyway?”

He exhaled slowly, leaning further back in his seat.

“It's a long story.”

“Well in that case,” she said. “I have to run. I have an appointment with my hairdresser. You're the one that wanted to talk, remember?”

“Fine, I guess we have nothing better to do.” He did feel like talking about it, getting it off his chest, but he felt as though he was just giving her more fuel to taunt him. Still, for some reason, he wanted her to know.

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 7

“ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO,” he said. “I was really bored with my job so I decided to go back to school. I applied for the astrogation program at MIT. It was a new program, and so nobody really knew what to expect. I liked that.”

“Impressive,” she said, nodding her head. “MIT. That's got to be tough to get in to.”

“No, not that year. I was a sorry excuse for an applicant. My grades were below average and my undergrad degree was in English.” Despite his bitterness, thinking back to those days brought memories of a happier time. Getting into MIT had been a wonderful feeling. The possibilities had seemed endless.

“Was it work experience that got you in?” she asked, seemingly baffled. “Though what kind of work would get you into an astrogation program I have no idea. Amateur astronomer maybe? Won some awards?”

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head.

“All right,” she said, leaning forward, her cup held in both hands. “I'm intrigued. How the hell did you get into MIT with bad grades?”

He smiled. “Don't you remember? It was 2053. You're a journalist for God's sake, you should know this.”

“The Columbia III disaster? That was a little before my time. I was still in college.”

He nodded. “Yeah, the Columbia. It was supposed to be the first manned ship to leave the solar system. That voyage was the reason they started the program in the first place, and then the ship blows up because of containment failure in the reactor. What do you think that did for enrolment?”

“I can imagine.”

“Yeah. They didn't have nearly enough qualified people, but they couldn't shut down the program or they would have lost millions in government funding. They took what they could get. To be honest, that's the only reason I bothered to apply. I knew I would get in. Three years later, I had a master's degree, and that was that.”

“So what about the navy? How'd you get started there?”

“Well,” he said, absentmindedly fingering the silver oak leaf on his collar. “Part of the program was a reserve commission in the navy...that's why people hesitated to enrol. They thought the navy would stick them on some Columbia IV time bomb. But, they were offering a pretty decent rank, and I guess I fell for the whole Star Trek space officer thing, though my job in the navy wasn't all that interesting.”

“What did they have you doing, scrubbing toilets?” She giggled, drinking her coffee.

He tried in vain to repress a smile. “Not that exciting. Even though I held a reserve commission, I took a full time position teaching astrogation. With the Columbia gone and plans for the next ship in the air, that's all they could find for me to do. But when they started building the Venture, they offered me a job designing the navigation GUI. I jumped on it. It's what I used to do before I went back to school.”

“You built this ship's interface?” she asked, eyebrows raised. He wished he had; she seemed really impressed.

“No, I just designed it, some programmers actually coded it. It was fun, though. I got to do something related to astrogation besides repackaging my MIT education for bored cadets.”

“Okay, so how did you wind up here?”

“Now that,” he said and laughed, shaking his head. “Is quite bizarre. Remember Captain Noguchi died in a car crash a month before the launch date?”

“Of course.”

“Well Commander Cole, their second choice, refused. Said it contradicted his religious beliefs. Hell, if he was here, I'd order him locked up. He's one of those people who think what we are doing is against God.”

“Do you?” she asked, her lips hidden in her coffee cup as her eyes watched him.

“Oh yeah,” he replied sarcastically. “Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!” They shared a laugh, releasing some tension. It felt good to laugh, he hadn't done much of it since the expedition started.

“Just checking,” she said, getting up to refill her cup.

“Well about you?” he asked. “How do you feel about refuting religion?”

She laughed again. “I'm a Buddhist. Figure it out.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She was right, of course. Buddhists miracles were ones of revelation and enlightenment. There was no way to disprove them with a fancy telescope.

“So why did they pick you?” she asked, returning to the previous topic. “There was no one else?”

“There were three other officers of suitable rank with the same degree I had. They were active duty too, real straight shooters. They called them in, gave them the qualification tests.”

“So what happened?”

“They failed, that's what happened. One had a heart condition, the other was afraid of enclosed spaces. What do you call that?”

“Claustrophobic?”

“Right. He couldn't even stand being in the simulator. The third guy turned out to be diabetic. Poor bastard didn't even know it until the test.”

“So that left you.”

“Yup.” He shrugged. “That left me, but only because by that time they were scheduled to launch in less than a week. I was in the facility, tying up all the GUI bugs, and they just came up to me and said ‘Hey, how'd you like to take a medical exam?'” He shook his head. “I guess they could have found some astronomer if they had more time, but they didn't.”

“So you feel like crap because they exhausted all possible options before coming to you?”

“Yeah, basically. Wouldn't you?”

She emptied her cup, then said, “No, not me. They way I see it, there were eight billion other people they could have asked. When you look at it that way, being choice number six isn't so bad.”

“Yeah, well...”

“Besides,” she interrupted. “You may have been lucky getting into MIT, but you graduated. You're here on the mission, and you haven't screwed up yet. If you manage not to mess anything up before we make it home, you'll be a hero, and no one will care how you got to be here.”

“You think so?” he asked, feeling a little better. He wondered why she was being nice to him all of a sudden. Was it because he was one of the two people on the ship she trusted? Or was she just buttering him up to get more information for her article?

“Trust me, I know how people think. I'm a reporter, remember?”

“How could I forget.” They shared another laugh. “Now it's your turn.”

“Me? What do you want to know about me? CNN won the press lottery and I was the only one crazy enough to want to go.” She turned away, perhaps trying to deflect further questions.

“That's not what I want to know. I want to know why someone like you constantly sticks her neck out. Why not settle down, get married, have a couple of kids?”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Isn't that a little personal?”

“I guess,” he said, embarrassed by her rebuff. “Sorry.”

“No, that's okay,” she said, smiling. He realized she'd been teasing him. “You told me about yourself, it's only fair. I was married, but it didn't last, and it was my fault. I don't know why I screwed it up. Maybe I'm just not ready to have my wings clipped. You're one to talk, though. You're divorced too.”

“How'd you know that?” he asked. Before she could answer, the intercom came on.

“Commander Roberts,” Captain Perpignan's voice trumpeted over the speaker. “Get over to the observation deck, ASAP. Repeat, Roberts, ass to Merrick's lab pronto.”

“Dammit,” Jack cursed, picking up his cup and tossing it in the waste disposal chute. “Gotta run.” He took off at a trot.

“Wait up,” she called after him. “Whatever it is, I'm not going to miss it.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 8

“HOW COULD YOU, YOU wretched little worm?” Merrick cursed, spittle spraying from his mouth. “I'll throttle the life out of you!” Jack had to restrain him, though it wasn't easy. The old man was stronger than he looked.

“Take it easy, professor,” the captain ordered.

“Just tell me why, you despicable backstabber!” Merrick demanded. “Why? I trusted you, brought you along on the chance of a lifetime—”

“It's just wrong, Charles,” Jonathan yelled. Carl had a hand on the young man's shoulder. He had secured his hands with a plastic zip-tie. “You're out to discredit God, you old fool! Did you ever stop to think what effect that would have on our society?”

“Science is the pursuit of truth, not what you want truth to be!” Merrick growled, his rage clearly displayed in the rippling lines of his face.

“It's about right and wrong, Charles. Religion is what gives us morality. Just think what taking that away will do—”

Merrick broke free of Jack's grasp and stormed out of the laboratory. “I can't stand to look at him,” he said as he left. “Put him in the airlock and expose him to space for all I care!” Other assorted curses echoed down the hall as his voice faded. Jonathan looked down at the ground, his face a mask of shame and anger.

“Lock him in his quarters,” Captain Perpignan ordered. Carl took Jonathan away, leaving Jack and Debbie alone with the captain.

“How'd you catch him?” Jack asked, still shocked at the discovery. Jonathan was the last person he would have suspected.

“Actually, you caught him,” the captain said, patting Jack's shoulder. “It was the camera you put in here. I told you to put it by the hatch, but that's a much better place.” He pointed to the support brace above which Jack had hidden the camera. “He probably couldn't see it, maybe thought you didn't get around to mounting it yet.”

“Sorry sir,” Jack said. “But I didn't like the angle from the doorway.” The observation deck was a mess of equipment and books, arranged in a haphazard pattern only a madman could find convenient. It was a miracle the camera had been able to catch anything at all.

“Don't apologize,” Perpignan said. “You did good. That's one less problem on our hands.”

“Did he admit to making the bomb?” Debbie asked.

“No,” the captain said. “But he will. Once he understands his situation, he'll want to cooperate. I just can't figure out why he would want to do it.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked. Jonathan's motive seemed obvious, especially after the young man's attempt to explain it to Merrick.

“Well,” Perpignan said. “He's Jewish.”

“So what? We're more than three thousand light years from Earth. That would put us square in the middle of the Old Testament.”

The captain shook his head. “I don't know. How many Jewish terrorists are there? Jewish extremists? I just don't buy it. He had to have been working for someone. We'll need to question him intently.”

“I suppose,” Jack agreed, though the captain's attitude was peculiar. A Jew had as much reason to want to stop the research as a Christian did, as far as he could see. “What did he try to do, anyway?”

“He was wiping data chips, the ones with the interval shots of Egypt. He got about ten terabytes before Carl and I got here. You'll need to get with the professor to find out what was destroyed and try to recover it from backups.”

“Aye, sir.”

The captain left the observation deck, leaving Jack alone with an uncharacteristically silent Debbie.

“What's wrong?” he asked her. He was still struggling with the idea that they caught their saboteur and everything was fine. It had been too easy. Why would Jonathan throw away a promising career over something so stupid?

“I don't know,” Debbie said, shaking her head. “But something is.”

“Woman's intuition again?” he said, trying to lighten things up.

“No,” she said, oblivious to his attempt. “Reporter's intuition. Something isn't right here, this was too easy.”

“My sentiments exactly,” Jack said, not at all surprised at how her words mirrored his thoughts. “Still, life is strange. Sometimes the easiest answer is the right one.”

She did not sound convinced. “Let's hope so.”

* * * *

ENCLOSED IN THE SMOKY canopy of his hop capsule, Jack felt an uncharacteristic fear well up within him. As he felt the hum of the reactor build up in intensity, he couldn't help but wonder if everything was alright with his capsule. There were safety systems, but a system could fail. If his capsule didn't work perfectly, they would be peeling him off the wall.

An orange light flashed on his communications console, signalling a private message from another pod—Debbie's.

“Scared?” Her voice filled the pod with unmistakable tones of wry amusement.

“A bit,” he admitted. “But it's just normal jitters. What's there to be scared of?” This hop was routine, they were just going to coast and take on-the-fly snapshots. It was the next one he was terrified of.

“Maybe someone sabotaged our capsules. We could both die right now.” There was always that, of course, but it was very unlikely. Even the prior problem with the capsules had resulted only in an aborted hop.

“If so, any regrets?” he asked.

She paused. “Yes.”

“Like?”

“Ask me again if we live.”

“Alright then, goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

He closed the circuit.

The humming became increasingly loud and he felt a momentary jolt as tiny discrepancies between the induced motion and the derived velocity of the ship were corrected. His instruments showed that everything was fine

His heart skipped a beat when something white came flying at his capsule and smashed into the canopy, where it formed a white stain that spread slowly. Realizing it was just a styrofoam cup, he groaned in relief. The mass interface was an efficient conductor of motion state, but sometimes things not properly secured in equipment lockers had accidents. A tiny orange stain spread around the cup as a bit of leftover tea was smashed into a five-inch circle before being spread invisibly thin.

It would take about eleven hours to hop to eight thousand seven hundred and sixty times the speed of light. Although it was theoretically possible to achieve full speed at once, they could never contain enough energy to make such a drastic state change. FTL 8760 was hellishly fast. At that velocity, they would travel a light year in one hour, taking a VTF telescope shot every ten minutes. The course he'd laid in was perfect, it had to be. The pattern disruptor field was severely limited; entering a nebula or even a sparse hydrogen cloud at that speed would destroy them instantly.

To pass the time, he used the capsule interface to recheck his calculations, going over every detail with paranoid intensity. After several hours of this, he was tired enough to sleep. Thankfully, the hop was short enough that he did not need to use the hellish neural pacifier.

He drifted off into fitful slumber, woken by the motion of the capsule as it righted itself from a reclined position. The green light was on, indicating that they were no longer hopping. The ship was cruising at a steady speed of almost ten thousand times the speed of light, the motion state fully induced and the probability field no longer fluctuating. Except for the color shift, as far as the scene on the view screen was concerned, they might as well have been standing still.

They all climbed out of their respective capsules, Carl aiding the bound Jonathan out of his.

“I'm off to the observation deck,” Merrick announced. “Captain, could you assign someone to assist me? Without that treasonous rat Mr. Goldstein it's very difficult to get everything done. Commander Roberts, perhaps?”

The young grad student stared at the floor, hiding his expression. Carl took him by the arm and led him away.

“Jack?” Perpignan turned to him. “Do you have time?”

“Yes, sir. We're safe on this heading for quite a while.” How big and empty the cosmos was, he marvelled. A light year in a hour, and still nothing in front of them for days.

“Splendid,” Merrick said as he made for the hatch. “Come along then, Jack, we have work to do.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 9

FOR THE NEXT THREE days, Jack was busy scanning ancient Egypt for favourable weather conditions, taking snapshots where he could. The magnification was too low to see what he was capturing, but that would come later. Image enhancement had been Jonathan's specialty, but Jack was sure he could pick it up quickly enough.

Yelena was there some of the time, struggling to keep the Van Tessel field steady. They'd had three collapses already, and her best efforts could only yield an average diameter of point three astronomical units. There was just too much interference from cosmic debris at their current velocity. This was also just about the maximum speed with which the image processors could cope. When they were moving faster than light, they were actually scooping up photons from behind, and that required a ton of data processing to make a coherent image. They couldn't get anywhere near the same level of detail they had when the ship was at Earth-relative standstill, but Merrick claimed he didn't need it.

The professor was pouring over the data, sorting, cataloguing, making comparisons. He constantly referenced three thick texts on biblical anthropology, as well as countless others stored in his palm-puter. He worked with a feverish intensity, eating sparingly and sleeping for only a few hours a day.

Debbie came and went, asking questions, taking notes. Sometimes she stuck around, chatting and killing time. Where the others felt fear or apprehension, she was excited about the happenings on board. It would give her one hell of a story.

Besides keeping him company, Debbie kept Jack up to date on the captain's attempts to get information out of Jonathan. The man still claimed to know nothing about the bomb or the other glitches, keeping to his story that the wiped data chips were his only act of sabotage. Whether criminal charges could be filed was dubious. He had not destroyed equipment, merely erased data chips. Since the research was partly his, the illegality of the situation was questionable.

By the end of the third day, Merrick announced that he had everything he needed from Egypt. It was time for the dreaded hop to four hundred thousand light years from Earth.

Once again cooped up in his capsule, Jack was about to initiate the hop when the captain's voice sounded over his com system.

“Are you sure about this, Roberts? Leaving the galaxy?”

“Yes sir,” Jack said, his voice filled with confidence he didn't have. “The boundary is mostly in our heads. Nothing will change.”

“Did Merrick tell you why he needed to get that far out?”

Jack cursed silently. The captain had never shown much interest in the particulars of Merrick's work, and Jack had been hoping that wouldn't change. Still, he actually didn't know what the professor wanted at that distance, so he wouldn't technically be lying.

“I'm not sure, sir. Maybe it's something to do with the bible again.”

“Figures. You're sure you can get us home?”

“Yes sir, no problem.”

There was silence for a moment. “Go ahead then.”

“Good night, captain.”

As soon as the acceleration began, Jack put them all to sleep, then went over his calculations for what had to be the fifteenth time. Once he was sure everything was in order, he activated his own neural pacifier and went to sleep.

“VAN TESSEL FIELD HOLDING at four astronomical units!” Yelena said. “Field integrity at seventy-eight percent!” This far outside the galaxy there was less interference from cosmic radiation. A four astronomical unit field would be able to compensate for the distance and get images nearly as sharp as the ones from Egypt.

“Excellent!” Merrick said, then started working the controls. He did not link his station with the main view screen, so no one knew what he was looking at.

For next several hours, Merrick only left his station to go to the bathroom. Jack wanted to sleep off his grogginess, but he had work to do and he didn't dare put it off. He spent the time plotting their return trip, though the few minutes every hour Merrick gave him on the VTF scope made progress slow. He had the authority to override him, but there was no justifiable reason other than his fear of being lost outside the galaxy. A fear that was, for the most part, irrational and best kept to himself.

“I have it, I think,” Merrick said after seven hours had passed. Jack rubbed his tired eyes, looking up from his station.

“Have what?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

“The proof I need.”

“Really? What?” Jack got up and approached the professor's console, trying to see what he was working on. Merrick hit a button and the screen went blank.

“I want to announce it to everyone, if you could ask the captain to call a meeting...”

They were interrupted by a deafening crack, followed by a thunderous rush of air and the groaning and shaking of the hull. The ship shuddered, knocking a few books off console surfaces. An alarm sounded, blaring loudly.

“What was that?” Merrick gasped, blinking rapidly. “Did we hit something?”

“No,” Jack said. They weren't moving, relatively speaking, and anything they couldn't see that was slow enough to hit them would be destroyed by the disruptor field.

Jack ran out of the observation deck and nearly flew up the chute to the bridge. Yelena was there, looking startled. She was exactly where Jack had assigned her, at the navigation console monitoring their position to maintain perfect alignment with their return vector.

“What happened?” she asked, almost in a daze.

“I don't know,” he said as he rushed over to the diagnostic station. Everything was green. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “The hull has not been compromised.”

“Thank God,” she said, shaking off her daze. “Where is the captain?”

Jack grabbed the nearest intercom. “Captain Perpignan please respond. Repeat, Captain Perpignan, respond.”

There was nothing for a few long seconds, then a voice crackled, “Jack, come to engineering right away!” It was Carl. With a growing lump in his throat, Jack made haste to the engine bay.

As soon as he ran through the hatch, the source of the explosion became evident. Amidst a cloud of black smoke that grew thinner as air filters worked overtime, the Van Tessel field generator lay dark and dead, fragments of plastic and aluminum scattered about the chamber. A pair of jumpsuited legs protruded from an open access panel.

Carl was there, kneeling over the body. He looked up at Jack with a grim expression.

“He's dead.”

“Are you sure it's a he?” A brief sensation of panic washed over Jack until he got close enough to see the size and shape of the body. Definitely male. Why was that such a relief? He shook his head to clear it.

“Let's get him out of there.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Carl said, taking hold of the dead man's legs. Together, he and Jack yanked until the head, or what was left of it, emerged from the panel. The arms, lifted straight above the head, were still inside.

Jack felt bile rise up in his throat. The man's face was a bloody pulp, all features mangled beyond recognition. Fighting back revulsion, he wiped something lumpy and soft off of the man's collar. A bloodied silver eagle told him more than he wanted to know.

“It can't be!” Carl said.

“Let's get the rest of him out,” Jack said. They pulled until his arms were free. His hands were lumps of featureless flesh, all of the fingers missing. Turning him over, they saw the short black hair that confirmed their fears.

“It's the captain,” Jack said slowly, trying to control his shivering. “My God.”

“He must have found another bomb,” Carl said, staring at the man's hands. “Why didn't he call me?”

“Get Yelena over here,” Jack commanded. Captain Perpignan was far beyond medical assistance, but she was the only one he could think of who would know what to do.

“I'll go get her,” Debbie said from the open hatch. Jack was momentarily startled by her voice, but then nodded.

“Hurry up.”

The major arrived in just a few minutes, her eyes wide with terror. Debbie stood behind her, followed by Professor Merrick.

“Oh my,” the professor said, wiping his brow. “Oh my!”

Yelena ran over to the captain, knelt by him and took a small device from her tool belt. Holding the object in one hand, she pulled an attachment from it and placed it on the captain's neck.

“He's dead,” Carl said. “He's not breathing.”

“That doesn't mean anything,” she said. “But you're right. He is dead. His heart stopped a while ago and his brain is not functioning.” She stared at the captain grimly, stowing her device back on her belt. “What are we going to do with him?”

It took Jack a while to realize she was talking to him. With the captain dead, he was now in command of the ship. His heart sank even further as the oppression of responsibility loomed over him.

After a moment of hesitation, he said, “Do we have, um, body bags?”

“No, but we have something that will do the job,” Carl said. “I'll go get one.”

“Alright. Yelena, help Carl with the body when he comes back. I'll reduce gravity when you are ready to move him.”

“Yes sir,” she said, looking at him dubiously. He didn't blame her, he was a poor choice for command. He wasn't even supposed to be here. He could only imagine NASA's reaction if they could somehow learn he was in charge. No matter though. With the field generator destroyed, they had no choice but to head home. If they were still able.

Carl returned, carrying a large transparent plastic bag.

“Carl,” Jack said, doing his best to appear calm. “When you are done here, I want to see the camera footage. Then I need you to run a full diagnostic on the ship. Check every system. I want to make sure nothing else was affected.” The centron accelerator appeared normal, as did the state inducer and mass interface. However, there could be internal damage that was not readily discernable.

“Aye, sir.”

Jack prayed that the VTF scope was the only affected system. They were very far from home and no one could save them if they couldn't make it back. Almost immediately, he realized the irony of prayer. They were here to disprove God. What chance that he would answer?

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 10

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN we ran out of space? We're supposed to have more space than we know what to do with.” Jack was getting irritated. The cameras had shut down about two hours before the explosion because of insufficient storage space. They would never know what happened in the engineering bay.

“Someone partitioned the data block,” Carl said, his fingers hovering over the terminal keyboard.

“Why would someone do that?”

“I don't know,” Carl admitted. “The volume that was assigned to the cameras was very small and filled up quickly. Whoever did the partitioning, they had administrative access.”

“So it was one of us three. Dammit!”

“It sure as hell wasn't me,” Carl said. “I was with Debbie for at least three hours before the explosion. She wanted to photograph the hull of the ship, so I took her outside. Takes forever to get suited up. The captain authorized it, in case you were wondering.”

Jack felt a momentary pang of jealousy, which he quickly shoved aside. Why hadn't she asked him to take her?

“Well it wasn't me, I was on the observation deck with Merrick all day.”

“That only leaves the captain,” Carl said, avoiding Jack's gaze.

“Why would the captain do that? Is there some benefit to partitioning the block?”

Carl rubbed his chin. “Not that I can think of, but I don't know everything. There could be something.”

“Was the captain particularly knowledgeable in this area?” Jack didn't think so.

“I don't know,” Carl said.

“Alright, go ahead and restore the original partition. We need those cameras.”

“I'll do it right now. Wait...here it is. The captain used his personal password, not the group one. It was the captain, definitely. He wasn't trying to hide the fact that he did, so I guess there was a reason to do it. Or he just made a mistake.”

THE BRIDGE WAS A large and lonely place without its captain. Jack sat at his navigation station trying to fight back sleep. Plotting a course back to Earth without the aid of the Van Tessel telescope was very hard work. In theory, space was so monstrously huge and empty that he could just point to Earth and fly home in a straight line, needing only the slightest calculations to account for galactic rotation and the Earth's orbit. One of the first informal lessons he learned at MIT, however, was the all important Murphy's Law of Astrogation. If you look for it, it won't be there. If you don't, you'll crash into it and die.

The “quantum” computer was a big help, processing equations seemingly quicker than he could click the ‘execute’ button. Still, despite all of mankind's recent innovations, one thing hadn't changed: computers were stupid, no matter how powerful they were. He still had to do all the really hard work himself. With the scope inoperable, he had to retrace the ship's path as close as he could, and that wasn't an easy task. A fraction of a millimetre difference in the angle of attack could result in a thousand light year gap between their intended destination and where they would end up.

“Commander Roberts?” Yelena's voice jerked him out of his reflections. She stood in the hatchway, hesitant to enter.

“What is it?” he said, swivelling around in his chair.

“I, uh...” She hesitated. “I found something in the captain's cranial cavity. I thought you should see it.”

“That's, um, very disgusting, Lena. I suppose I'd better take a look.”

She handed him a plastic bag that contained a twisted metal disk about the size of a half-dollar, then took a few steps back to watch him.

Opening the bag, he took the disk out of the bag and looked it over. It was warped and pitted, the only discernable characteristic was a letter stamped in the surface. A Greek letter; Omega.

“Thank you, Major. That will be all,” he said, placing the disk in a pocket of his jumpsuit.

“But what is it?” she protested. “Do you know?”

“Yes, I believe I do,” he said. “But I'm not ready to share just yet. Give me a little while to get my facts straight.” As he talked, he nonchalantly glanced at her wrist.

“Yes sir.”

When he was sure she was gone, he shut down his station and left the bridge, headed for the observation deck. Professor Merrick was there alone, pouring over his data.

“I would like to announce my discovery,” he said almost apologetically, looking up from his work when he noticed Jack enter. “The captain's death is a tragedy, but we can't let that destroy the entire mission.”

“The mission is fairly well destroyed on its own.”

“No.” The professor shook his head. “I have everything I need. Even without the data that lout Jonathan erased. I need to present it, to make sure I have everything in order.”

“Very well,” Jack said. “But not just yet. Give me a few more hours to finish plotting our course, then we'll call everyone together.” That was a lie. He had already finished. When Yelena brought him her discovery, he had been checking his calculations for the third time.

“Alright,” Merrick said. “Thank you.” Jack nodded, then left in search of the others.

He found Debbie on the observation lounge, working on a portable computer. The holographic display shut off as soon as he walked in.

“Oh,” she said, looking up. “It's just you.” The display popped back up. As her fingers worked the keyboard, he noticed her watch. She wore it loose on her wrist, like a bracelet. He felt somewhat relieved.

“Are you busy?” he asked, getting a cup of water from the dispenser.

“Why?” He noticed by the slight twitch of her upper lip that she had been about to make a witty comment, but had thought better of it. The atmosphere on the ship had been very grim since the captain's death.

“I have a hunch to test, and I'd like you to tag along. I could use that reporter's intuition of yours.”

“In that case, I'm not busy. Let's go.”

They made a brief stop in Engineering, where Carl was still running his diagnostics. He had his watch as well, Jack noticed.

“How are things?” he asked.

“Still not sure,” Carl replied. “Looks good so far. I'll let you know when I'm done.”

“What was that all about?” she asked him as they made their way to the captain's quarters.

“The watch thing again,” he explained, taking out the stainless steel disk. “Yelena found this embedded in the captain's skull.” He handed it to her.

“What is it?” She turned it over in her hand. Before he could answer, she said, “Omega. It's the back of the watch case, right? Here is a portion of the serial number.”

“Yes,” he said, impressed. He hadn't noticed the number.

“So he found a bomb and it went off in his face, right?”

“That's what it looks like. But there's a problem.”

“It's the same bomb, right?”

“Dammit!” he swore. “How do you do that?”

She smiled. “It's my job, remember?”

“Maybe you picked the wrong career then. You should have been a detective.”

“I am a detective,” she said. “I just don't work for the police. So anyway, if that was the same bomb, how did it get there? Where would the captain have kept it?”

“His cabin. It was the only place in the ship secure enough. I am the only other person who can get in, and if I did, he would know it right away.”

“So maybe you planted the bomb,” she teased. “And the captain found out and went to diffuse it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I would have had plenty of opportunity while you and Carl were lollygagging outside.”

She stopped walking momentarily and raised an eyebrow.

“What?” he said, looking around to see if anything was wrong.

“Nothing,” she said, a hint of a smile on her lips. “I just didn't think...never mind.”

“Fine,” he said, thinking he shouldn't have mentioned it. They continued on their way.

“Here we are.” The captain's room was situated between the bridge and the observation deck at what was pretty much the heart of the ship. A simple ten-digit keypad glowed ominously on the right side of the hatch.

Jack punched in his command code. A red light above the keypad turned green. At the same time, a chime played three times through the ship's intercom.

“That's how the captain is notified that someone accessed his room,” Jack explained. “Since you don't remember hearing that, it means no one but the captain was in here.”

“I don't know,” she said. “I was frolicking outside with Carl, remember?”

“Right. Well, I didn't hear it, and I wasn't. Frolicking, I mean.”

“You're sure no one else could get in here?”

“No,” he admitted. “Not a hundred percent sure. Someone could have discovered the captain's personal code. That would not have set off the chime.”

He opened the hatch and stepped inside. Debbie followed.

“Where would he have put it?” he asked, looking around.

“Medal of Valour, Silver Star,” Debbie read. “Impressive. Do you have any medals?”

Jack frowned. “You know I don't. Not counting the ones they give everybody.” Standing in this room, he felt completely out of place pretending to be in command. It was an acute reminder that he did not belong on the ship at all.

“What's Buds?” she asked.

“Basic underwater demolition,” he said. “Part of SeAL school. You know, navy special forces?”

“I know what a SeAL is. But I don't know why a space officer would go to their school.”

“It's a career booster,” he explained, feeling glum. What was he doing here? The lead he had been following suddenly seemed ridiculous or even worse, spiteful. He looked around, but his eyes kept returning to the medals.

“Don't worry,” she said. “After this, you'll have some.”

“Some what?”

“Medals. More than one I think.”

“What for?” Now was hardly the time for her usual jokes.

“Um, lemme see,” she said. “For taking command of the world's first interstellar space ship and rescuing it and its crew from disaster after the loss of its captain and the destruction of the VTF scope. I'd call that above and beyond, wouldn't you?”

“You think so?” He didn't know what else to say. Despite her acerbic wit, when it came to his sense of unworthiness she had always been supportive. He wondered why.

“Sure, but don't get a fat head just yet,” she said, waggling an accusing finger. “We're not home yet, and you'll get nothing but a bad obituary if we die.”

“Right,” he said, remembering why he had come here. She had put him back on track, and he was grateful.

“So where would he have kept it?”

“Hidden somewhere here,” he said. “There's no sign that anyone was here looking. Let's see if we can find it.”

They began to ransack the room, leaving nothing untouched. Each cabin had a small hop capsule for all equipment and personal items that didn't interact well with the mass interface. Normally, this would apply to the mattresses as well, but theirs were made of entirely synthetic materials. It was elastic, but as they all learned very quickly, elastic did not necessarily mean soft. Jack felt a certain vengeful satisfaction as he tore the thing off the bunk and tossed it on the deck

“Damned torture wrack,” he said, giving it a half-hearted kick.

“I know what you mean,” Debbie said as she emptied the captain's personal capsule item by item. “I hate those damned things. Hello, what's this!”

“What do you have?” Jack came over to take a look. She showed him an empty aluminum box big enough to have held the makeshift bomb. Traces of the grey explosive putty were still inside.

“So this is where he kept it,” she said. “Odd.”

“Why odd?”

“Everything in the capsule was stacked neatly. There was no sign that anything had been tossed aside,” she explained. “No sign that anyone other than the captain took it out of there. And this box, it has a lock.” She held it up for him to see. “It was open, and the keyhole doesn't look like it was picked or forced.”

He nodded. “That's what I thought.”

“But why?” she asked with a perplexed shake of her head. “Why would the captain try to sabotage his own mission?”

“I don't know,” he admitted. “Let's go talk to Jonathan. Maybe he'll have some answers.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 11

“SO,” DEBBIE SAID AS they walked down the corridor to Jonathan's quarters. “You think maybe he was acting under the captain's orders?”

“Maybe,” Jack said. “But it doesn't fit neatly.”

“Why not?”

“Well, remember when we first caught him on the observation deck, after Carl took him away?”

“Sure.”

“Remember what the captain said about Jonathan being Jewish? About how he thought that didn't give him enough of a motive?”

“Yes. I thought that was a bit peculiar.” They climbed down the chute that connected the bridge to the observation deck, making their way to the part of the ship that held the rest of their quarters.

“I think he said that because he had his own motives. Not only that, but he must have felt very self-righteous about them. That's why I think he couldn't understand why someone who didn't share his religious beliefs had a good enough reason to do what he did. Almost like he thought Jonathan was a criminal while he was a crusader.”

“I see it now,” she said, shivering. “Spooky. What you gaijin will do for your beliefs.”

“Gaijin my ass,” he said, laughing. “If there's one thing I know about you it's that you're at least third generation Californian.”

“Honto desu.” She chuckled. “But I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to figure that out.” He smiled at her choice of words.

They came to Jonathan's quarters, locked by an identical ten digit keypad. After entering his code, they stepped inside. Jonathan sat up from his cot. His hands were secured, though Carl had moved them to the front of his torso.

“About time,” he complained. “I need to go to the bathroom. And what the hell was that explosion all about? No one told me anything!”

“Later,” Jack ordered. “We're going to the starboard storage bay. Now.”

“What for?” he demanded, climbing to his feet. Jack placed a hand on his shoulder and shoved him toward the hatchway. “Hey!” he cried. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Now!” Jack barked, pushing him along.

Cowed, Jonathan allowed himself to be shoved along the corridor, eventually keeping pace on his own. They entered the storage bay, heading straight for the airlock. Jack pushed a button and the airlock door swung open.

“Hey!” Jonathan demanded, planting his feet firmly on the deck and refusing to move. “What's going on here?”

Jack punched him in the solar plexus. Jonathan dropped to his knees, gasping for breath. Debbie's eyes opened wide, but she didn't say anything. Without giving him time to recover, Jack dragged him to his feet and pushed him into the airlock, slamming the hatch shut behind him. Jonathan immediately stood up plastered his face against the view-port. His mouth moved, but they couldn't hear what he was saying.

“Wow,” Debbie said, shaking her head. “That was harsh.”

Jack shrugged. “We have to get him to talk. We can't afford to doubt what he's going to tell us.”

“I know,” she said. “It's still harsh.” She smiled reassuringly.

He returned her smile, making sure Jonathan couldn't see. Then he turned on the airlock intercom.

“Let me out of here you goddamned maniac!” Jonathan was screaming, his face red against the view-port.

“Jonathan,” Jack said calmly. “Listen to me.”

“Get me out of here! I'll kill you, you bastard! Let me out!”

“Jonathan,” Jack repeated, slowly. “If you don't shut up and listen, I am going to depressurize the airlock.” His hand rose to hover over the control console.

Jonathan instantly quieted. “What...what do you want?”

“That's more like it,” Jack said in a friendly and reassuring tone. “I need you to understand something. Are you listening?”

“Yes, yes I'm listening!” he cried.

“Good. I am acting under authority from the uniform code of military justice, article 13, paragraph two, under the emergency war powers act of 2012. Are you familiar with that article?”

“N..no,” Jonathan said, breathing heavily.

“It gives a military officer the authority to interrogate and if necessary, execute a prisoner. The captain has declared this an emergency, and granted me the power to exercise my authority under that article. You have been declared a military prisoner. Do you understand what that means?”

“I don't know...I...”

“It means I have the authority to execute you. Listen to me very carefully. I am going to ask you a series of questions. I already know the answers to some of these questions. Do you understand?”

He nodded, frantically. “I think so, yes!” Jack was amazed at the effect he was having on the man. He looked scared to death!

“If you try to lie to me, Jonathan,” he continued. “Odds are I will know it. I will know it because you won't know which questions I am asking because I really don't know the answer, and which ones I am asking to test you. Do you understand?”

He nodded again.

“If you lie to me,” Jack said, still speaking slowly and calmly. “If you lie even one time, I will depressurize the airlock. You will die. Do you understand?”

Once again, the young man nodded. Jack noticed that he was starting to tremble.

“If you answer all of my questions truthfully, I will open the door and let you out. Do we have a deal?”

“Yes.” Jonathan started to sob. Tears rolled down his cheek and drew lines in the fogged view-port.

“Calm down, Jonathan, stop crying now.”

“Okay, I'll try.” The young man took a few deep breaths and managed to get a hold of himself.

“Are you ready?” Jack continued, trying his best to resist the urge to open the hatch. He hated what he was doing, but it was necessary.

“Yes. I'm fine. Ask, please.” Jonathan was exerting tremendous effort to keep his face steady.

“My first question is this. When did you decide that you were going to try to sabotage the expedition?”

“I...” he hesitated for a moment, then exhaled slowly. “I didn't want to jeopardize the expedition. I just wanted to erase the data Merrick was gathering to discredit the bible. I...I thought it was wrong. I just couldn't let him do it.”

“Was wiping the data chips your only act of sabotage?” Jack stared at him intently, his finger still hovering over the control panel. That fact was not lost on Jonathan.

“Yes,” he said firmly, without hesitation. “Yes, that was it. I didn't want to hurt anyone or even this expedition. It would still have been a success without that old fool's crusade against God. We saw the past, proved it could be done. That was enough.”

Jack nodded. “Did you ever speak to the captain about your plans?”

Jonathan looked perplexed. “No,” he said. “No. Why would I do that? He would have locked me up.”

“Good,” Jack said. “You're doing fine. Now think hard. Did you and the captain ever discuss Merrick's research?”

“No.” Jonathan shook his head. Jack moved his hand closer to the button. “No! No! I didn't...wait! Yes, yes I did! But it was after. After I was caught. The captain came to my quarters a few times to interrogate me. He didn't believe that all I wanted to do was erase that specific data.”

“What part of Merrick's research did you talk about?”

“After we found the bomb.” Jonathan looked down at the floor, trying to concentrate. “Merrick came to me and told me that the focus of his research would change. That he was going after the bible directly. He was going to disprove the account of Exodus, of how the Jews left Egypt, and more, though he wouldn't tell me what. That was when I decided to do what I did. I thought that with the weird glitches and the bomb, no one would suspect me. I just couldn't believe he was going to actively try to discredit God. I mean it was one thing when he was looking at building techniques and maybe trying to see how Moses didn't really part the Red Sea, but this was different. I couldn't accept it. It's my work too, damnit, I had every right!”

“And you told the captain this? About the new focus of his research?” Jack recalled his own conversation with Merrick before Jonathan was discovered. He had asked Jack not to tell anyone, worried that the saboteur would find out.

“Yes, I did.”

“Think hard, Jonathan. How did the captain react?”

Jonathan frowned. “I'm not sure. He was surprised, but he didn't say much after that. He left and I never saw him again. Why are you asking me about the captain? What's going on here?”

“Nothing,” Jack said. “You did fine. I'm going to let you out now.” He pushed the button that opened the airlock hatch. Jonathan spilled out as the door hissed open. He was breathing heavily, his face wet with perspiration.

“Let's go,” Jack said after giving the man a minute to recover his composure. Jonathan got up and walked back to his room without saying a word. Once there, he walked inside, then paused.

“I still need to go to the bathroom.”

Jack nodded. “I'll get Carl. I have no idea how to get those things off you without a knife.” He closed the hatch, locking it with a lower level code so that Carl would be able to open it. After calling the engineer on the Intercom, he and Debbie went to the observation lounge.

“Damn!” she said, pouring herself a cup of water. “You're a maniac! Want one?”

“Yes, please.” She poured some for him. “Thank you. I didn't plan any of that, but I had to get him to talk.”

“You were pretty amazing. In a crazy, demented way.” She laughed. “Article 13! You're going to get an article 13 for that little stunt, if anyone finds out.”

He shrugged, smiling. “It's just extra duty and some docked pay. I can live with it.”

“Good thing he didn't know that. So what did we learn?”

“Well, I don't think he was lying, but...”

“He wasn't,” she said confidently. “I'm sure of it.”

“Then that confirms they were acting independently. Two saboteurs, acting alone. It seems crazy.”

“Yes, it does. But it does make sense that the captain made the bomb.”

“How's that?” he asked.

“Basic underwater demolition,” she said. “As in bombs.”

“Damn,” he swore. “I should have realized that. I'm an idiot.”

“Only a little.”

“That reminds me,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Merrick wanted to announce his discovery. We'd better get to it now, before something crazy happens again.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 12

“SO THEY PUT SLAVE masters over them to oppress them with forced labour,” Merrick announced dramatically. “And they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. So says the bible. In that, at least, it is partly correct.” He activated the holoscreen, displaying a digital outline map of Egypt with two large red overlays; construction sites, according to the legend.

“Here,” he continued, pointing to the two work sites. “Are the major projects worked on by the Israelites. The one on top is the city of Rameses, which as you may recall was Rameses’ new capital city that he built in the Delta.”

“The Israelites built the entire city?” Jack asked. They were all gathered in the observation deck, with the obvious exception of the captain. Even Jonathan had been brought here at Merrick's request. The young man glared at Jack with obvious hatred.

“Correct,” Merrick said. “Although remains of many of Rameses’ cities were found in the Nile Delta, no one was ever sure if the Israelites had anything to do with any of them. Now we know.

“The bottom site.” He pointed to the second red square. “Is the temple of Abu Simbel, one of the greatest temples ever built by the Egyptians. It was carved out of the surface of a mountain by lowering artisans down the cliff face on scaffolds. Rameses II built it on the Nubian border as a reminder of his power. Mount Rushmore, by the way, was inspired by Abu Simbel. The small temple next to it is a companion structure completed as a tribute to Rameses’ wife Nefertari. These temples were the second big project worked on by the Israelites.

“Now according to biblical scholars, the exodus from Egypt took place in approximately the year 1585 BC, plus or minus six years. That date was controversial until evidence surfaced that supported a date of 1545 BC, plus or minus six years, for the conquest of Canaan under Joshua. This gives us the forty year difference between exodus and the annihilation of the Canaanites.”

He pushed some buttons on his display console, and the holoscreen split into two sections. On one side, Jack recognized what he thought looked like a satellite photo of a large campsite or village. On the other side was an overhead view of what looked like Abu Simbel undergoing construction. Another push of a button split the screen into four sections, with a similar overhead shot of a village on one side and a large city with highlighted portions on the other.

“Pay attention to the top two,” Merrick said. “It's easier to see the status of completion by looking at Abu Simbel.”

“What is it?” Yelena asked, leaning back in her chair. It did not seem to Jack that she was at all disturbed by what was being discussed.

“My apologies,” Merrick said, smiling. “I neglected to explain. The images on the left side are overhead shots of the two major slave camps where the Israelites were kept, the images on the right show the work they were doing. These first comparisons are from 1590 BC, five years before the supposed date of Exodus. As you can see by the population graphs on the legend, the camps were fully occupied. I derived those graphs from the size of the camp and the level of activity. At this point in time, the population of Israelites in Egypt has continued at a steady climb.” He pushed a button and the images updated. The work sites looked more cluttered, but the camps looked the same.

“This is 1580, ten years later,” Merrick explained. “Note that the projects are further along, while the camps are the same size. Let's jump ahead a little to 1575.” He pushed the button again. This time, the campsite was visibly smaller, with large empty areas and much fewer homes. Switching back and forth between the 1580 and 1575 comparisons, Merrick cycled between visible light and other light spectrums, showing how the population density had declined drastically between the last two shots. The 1575 temple had rough outlines of statues on the cliff face and many little scaffolds and ramps surrounding them.

“Note the level of population decline in the slave camps as compared to the level of completion in the projects. Now let's jump ahead even further. These are from 1570.”

The next four sets of images showed an even more drastic reduction in population. Nefertari's temple was complete, and the bigger one was much further along.

“Now let's look at 1565.” The camp was almost completely deserted and the temples looked finished.

“What this is showing,” Merrick explained. “Is that the slave population greatly decreases as the projects near completion.” He cycled through a similar comparison with the second campsite, but Jack found it a little more difficult to judge level of completion in the city.

“What does that mean?” he asked, his curiosity fully aroused.

“It means,” Merrick voiced triumphantly. “That there was no Exodus, no Moses.” He was silent for a few seconds, looking each of them in the eye.

“How can you tell?” Carl asked, leaning forward. “How do those images prove that?”

“Housing slaves was expensive,” Merrick said. “You had to feed them, treat the sick, give them shelter. Having tens of thousands of slaves when you have big projects to build is one thing, but when you are finished, why bother to feed so many people? Why support so many slaves that aren't doing anything?”

“So what did they do with them?” Jack asked.

“The easiest and cheapest solution, of course. They let them go. Not all at once, but a few at a time. The more complete the projects were, the less slaves they needed. That's why there is a direct correlation between project completion and slave population.”

“So where did they go?” Debbie asked. Her voice recorder was on and she was scribbling in her notepad.

“Here,” Merrick said, pushing another button on his console. A large scale map of Egypt popped up, with several red dots labelled “Concentration.”

“The free slaves lived as nomads on Egyptian territory, slowly gaining in population as more were released. These sites represent their largest population concentrations. When almost all of the slaves had been freed, their populations grew too large for the land to support, so either the Egyptians ordered them out or they left of their own accord, moving North, to Canaan.” He zoomed in to a couple of the concentration points, showing overhead views of nomadic settlements.

“But what does that prove?” Carl asked with a hint of irritation. Jack didn't blame him; it was intuitive, but not definitive. The professor would need a lot more than this, though he had to admit it was a very good start.

Merrick frowned. “It proves there was no mass exodus. It proves Moses didn't lead the Israelites out of Egypt, or split the Red Sea. It proves that a major part of the bible is a blatant lie. The slaves left Egypt slowly, over many years. Not all at once behind some biblical figure and a trail of miracles.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “But what about the other thing? The reason we're out so far?”

Merrick's eyes lit up. “Oh yes, this one is my favourite. It's two-fold, actually. The first is the least, and the simplest. According to the bible, the Earth is roughly six thousand years old.”

“Right,” Jack said.

“Well we're four hundred thousand light years away from the Earth,” Merrick said smugly.

“And it's still there,” Jack finished.

Merrick nodded. “It's still there.”

“This better not be the only reason we're out here,” Jack said. “We could have come seven thousand lights years out to prove the same thing.”

“Not at all, commander,” Merrick said proudly. “Not at all.” He pushed a button. “Behold!”

The holoscreen changed to an overhead view of what looked like an African savannah, though it was subtly different in ways Jack couldn't consciously identify.

“What are we looking at?”

“Right,” Merrick said, sounding annoyed. “Give me a sec. I thought I had it.” The view panned back and forth, then stopped as the professor found what he was looking for. The scene grew larger until Jack saw two people walking. The zooming continued until there was enough detail to see that they were holding hands.

“Let me tilt it,” Merrick said, working the controls. The merged perspectives of the VTF field allowed for a three dimensional image when viewing conditions were optimal. Angles were limited, but there was usually enough data to tilt at least forty five degrees. Merrick managed an almost seventy degree tilt.

“Holly shit!” Debbie said, gasping. Jack understood how she felt; the people—if they could be called people—were not what he expected. They were wrong somehow. Jack's initial response was an instinctive hostility, though he quickly shrugged it off. They looked almost human, but not quite. Their noses were flat and wide, their jaws large, and their brows pronounced. More than that, the shape of their heads, their bodies, it was different, alien. People, but not quite people. Not homo sapiens.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Merrick said. “I give you homo erectus.”

“My god,” Jack said, staring at them, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. They were male and female, man and woman. He was looking at something no human being—no homo sapiens—had ever seen before. Except of course for Merrick, who had been the one to locate them.

“No god,” Merrick said. “At least not like in the bible. This man is not Adam, and she is no Eve. I have images of a whole tribe of them, but these seemed like the ideal presentation.”

“Some people aren't going to like this,” Jack said.

“No,” Merrick said. “They aren't. But whether they like it or not is irrelevant. It's the truth, and you can't change that with a bomb.” His words were harsh, perhaps too much so, but their effect was quickly felt. Jack thought of the captain, and wished he was here to hear them. Would he have felt shame?

“I think what we're doing here is incredible,” Jack said. “Imagine all the other mysteries we can solve on the next trip, or the one after that. I wish...” he stopped what he was about to say. His excitement waned, replaced by bitterness. He had been about to say he wished he could be a part of the next expedition. There was no way, of course. They would have plenty of time to replace him with someone more suitable.

“You wish what?” Merrick asked, pleased with his enthusiasm.

“Oh nothing.” Jack forced a smile. “Nothing important. I guess we're all ready then?”

“Ready?” Merrick asked.

“To go home,” he said. “I have a course laid in, with an optimum departure window of right about now.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 13

“OKAY,” JACK SAID, SNUG in his capsule. “We're going to be in here for one hundred and thirty eight hours. Who wants to remain conscious?”

“Har har,” Debbie said through the intercom. The neural pacifiers could knock a person out indefinitely, with the all too familiar side effects of extreme grogginess and upset stomach. It was, however, better than spending nearly six conscious days in a capsule.

“Let's get started then,” he said, then loaded his course and activated the probability drive. The usual jolt shook his capsule as the ship began to hop. Nothing flew at him this time, they had done a thorough job of stowing everything.

A green light came on in his intercom display screen. One of the capsules had opened up a channel. He waited, hoping it was Debbie calling to wish him goodnight. He was growing more fond of that woman than he felt comfortable with.

“Hello?” he said when no one spoke. Checking the screen, he saw it was the professor's capsule. He turned up the volume adjustment to maximum. He heard faint groaning.

Instantly, he aborted the hop and another jolt shook the capsule.

“Everyone out, we have an emergency!” he shouted, pushing open his own capsule and jumping out. The others followed more slowly, glancing around in alarm. Everyone but the professor.

Jack ran over to his capsule and opened the canopy. He braced himself for what he expected to see. When he saw the professor, intact, he let out a sigh of relief.

Merrick was alive, though his eyes were closed and he wasn't moving. His skin was a dark shade of red and rivulets of blood poured from his nose and ears.

“Yelena,” Jack yelled. “Get over here.” She was at his side before he finished saying her name.

“Help me get him out,” she cried. “We need to lay him down.” Carl ran over to assist as Yelena and Jack lifted Merrick and put him down on the deck. The major began to scan him with her device.

“Help me move him,” she ordered. “I need to get him to the medical station to see how much damage there is.”

“Right,” Jack said, moving over to a control console. “Everyone get ready.” He turned the gravity down to its minimum setting and almost lost his lunch as he felt his stomach try to fly out of his mouth. Disorientation clouded his vision as his body weight dropped to eighteen pounds. He saw Jonathan double over and vomit onto the deck.

“Let's get him out of here,” he said, carefully walking back to the others. Too much spring in his step and his head would bounce off the ceiling.

Yelena picked Merrick up, cradling him as she would a child. The image was strange to behold, a hundred and twenty pound woman carrying a two hundred pound man as though he were an inflatable doll. She disappeared down the corridor, Merrick's added weight giving her stability the others lacked. When Jack and the others finally made it to the medical station, she had him laid out on the examination bunk.

They gathered around in silence as she prepared various instruments. The medical station was a small chamber in the same area as the crew quarters. Only one or two people could fit inside at one time, so Jack kept back and the others followed his example.

“He'll live,” she said, holding a large translucent panel over him. Jack saw shifting patterns of color displayed on the instrument as she passed it over his body. “There is some internal damage to the organs, but nothing serious. His eyes are severely stressed, but they'll be okay in a few days.” She held the panel over his head. “His left ear may have a ten to twenty percent loss in acuity. Otherwise, he will make a full recovery. If he had been in there even a few seconds longer...”

“What happened?” Debbie asked, her arms folded across her chest. “What's wrong with him?”

“His capsule,” Jack explained. “It failed, somehow. The fact that he's still alive means it wasn't a total shut down. Otherwise even the first hop would have turned him into soup.” He shivered, remembering the paper cup on his capsule door. “He was able to activate the com link to my capsule, but then he must have passed out.”

“You saved his life,” Yelena said without taking her eyes off the panel and her examination. “I really mean it when I say a few more seconds would have killed him.”

“How long before he regains consciousness?” Carl asked.

Yelena shrugged. “Don't know. Could be a few hours, could be a day.”

“Carl,” Jack said. “Let's try to figure out what the hell happened to that capsule. We need to know why the safety systems didn't stop the hop.” He turned to the rest of them. “We're not going anywhere until we figure out what went wrong. This will not happen again.”

Jack and Carl left the others with Merrick and went to the capsule chamber, where they began their tests with the interface panel. Jack doubted the problem was software related, but the diagnostic procedures were most reliable if performed in sequence.

“Son of a...” he cursed as soon as the first diagnostic screen pulled up. It was so obvious he had almost missed it.

“What is it?” Carl looked up from his work. He was removing the access panel from the back of the capsule.

“This is ridiculous,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I don't believe this. The capsule was working properly.”

“If that's true,” Carl said. “Then why are we having this conversation?”

“No, you don't understand. The capsule was working within its parameters. Each capsule is set to automatically measure body weight, but someone messed with the calibration. That's why the safety systems didn't override it. That's also why Merrick is alive. He wasn't subject to a full velocity differential.”

“Who did it?” Carl asked, coming over to examine the screen.

“Whoever it was, he used the captain's access code.” Jack was a little relieved at that. He already knew the captain had tried to sabotage the mission. If it was the captain who did this, their problems were still over. Then he saw the time at which the change had been entered.

“So the captain did this?” Carl asked, perplexed. Jack and Debbie had never told him about their suspicions.

“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “Not unless he came back from the dead. One of us did this.”

“Could it have been a mistake?”

“That would be some mistake.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 14

LOCKING THE DOOR TO HIS quarters, Jack leaned against a bulkhead and took a deep breath. He was still a little wet from his shower, shivering slightly as the cool cabin air chilled his damp skin.

Pulling the blanket off his cot, he draped it around himself as he sank into his chair and turned on his terminal. He accessed the crew bios, reading carefully through each one. He thought maybe he could find something there to give him some clue as to what was going on. Two saboteurs so far, and still another on the loose. Unless they were wrong about the captain.

The absurdity of the situation was starting to overwhelm him. This was, with the exception of himself, a hand-picked crew. Career professionals, the finest in their field. The likelihood of one saboteur was infinitesimally small. The possibility of two saboteurs called for divine intervention. Now they had three.

“I damn well know it isn't me,” he said aloud. “So it has to be Carl, Yelena, or Debbie.” He hesitated, tapping the desk with his fingertips. “Or Merrick. I guess it could be Merrick, but that would make him a real head case. Just like me, talking to myself.”

He decided to continue his conversation inside his head. As he scanned the bios using his new command codes, he learned a few more things about the others. Debbie had been married and divorced twice, to the same man. Yelena’ parents had recently been killed in a car accident. Merrick's oldest son had a history of drug abuse. Carl's wife had spent time in rehab for alcoholism. The level of detail gathered was frightening, though it was interesting to note that even supposedly perfect people had something wrong with their lives.

He avoided his own bio, fearing what he would see. Unlike the others, he had never accomplished anything worth mentioning. Merrick had been nominated for the Nobel prize, and would return just in time to win. Debbie had every journalism award worth having, except the Pulitzer. Like Merrick, though, she was sure to get it if they came home. This was the single greatest event in human history. There was nothing else that could even come close. With a single space flight they were opening up the entire galaxy for mankind. More missions like this would follow, along with exploration, colonization, mining, and whatever else could be done in space. This was the start of the golden age of human civilization, the next level of technological and social evolution.

“Will anyone remember my name?” he asked the screen, which failed to respond. He shut off the terminal and climbed into his cot, preparing for some much needed sleep.

There was a knock on his hatch. Climbing to his feet, he walked up to the intercom, the blanket still draped over his shoulders.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“It's me,” came a woman's voice. “Debbie.” He opened the hatch.

“Yes?” he asked, drawing the blanket tighter around him.

“Can I come in?” she asked, one hand on the doorway. She was looking at him anxiously.

“Um, sure,” he said, his mind swimming with questions. “I'm not exactly dressed for company, though.” What could she want?

She stepped inside, folding her arms across her chest. This was only the second time he had seen her do that since he met her. Something must be bothering her.

“What can I do for you?” he asked as he closed the hatch behind her. “Would you like something to drink?”

“You have vodka?”

He raised his eyebrows. “No, not really. Water, tea, cola. One can left.”

“Some tea.” She sat down on his cot.

He poured her a cup from his dispenser, then sat down on his chair, facing her.

“What's the matter?”

“Remember how I said I wasn't scared before?”

“Yes.”

“Well now I'm scared,” she said, looking down at the deck. “Whoever messed up that capsule was trying to kill one of us.”

“You?” he asked incredulously. “Scared? I don't believe it.”

She smiled. “Yup, me. I'm scared. Reporters have feelings too, you know.”

“That might make for a front page story,” he teased.

“So can I stay or what?” She blew at a lock of hair that dangled close to her mouth. “I don't want to be alone.”

“Stay? You mean, in here? With me?”

“No, I mean curled up outside your door.” She turned serious. “If you don't want me to, it's okay.”

He stared at her. His heart beat faster as he contemplated the implications.

“I, um,” he stammered, unsure of what to say. “I mean yes, of course. I'll sleep on the floor, you can have the bunk. Let me go to the supply room and get one of those styrofoam...”

“It's big enough for two,” she said, patting the bunk. “Unless you don't want to get that close to me. I showered, you know.” She looked at him with an amused expression. “Looks like you did too.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Good. I'm very tired.” Before he could say anything else, she stood up and unzipped her jumpsuit. Underneath, she wore a matching set of black undergarments. The light from his LED lamp cast soft shadows around the contours of her hips and waist.

“You want the inside or the outside?” she asked, about to climb into the cot.

“Uh, whatever, I don't mind either way.” He averted his gaze before she noticed him staring. She was exquisite, her body was slender and supple, yet curved in all the right places. Her skin was tanned and smooth, seemingly perfect. With a shrug, she climbed into the bunk, scooting over to the far bulkhead.

Hesitantly, he joined her, careful not to intrude too much on her side. The bunk was big enough for one person, but way too small for two. He felt his skin touch hers and barely suppressed a sharp intake of breath.

“Um, I'm sorry that there isn't more room, I can always go get that pad...”

“So,” she interrupted him. “How come you never came on to me?” She lifted her head and leaned on her elbow. Her other hand came to rest on his chest. “You don't like me?”

He blinked in surprise. “I do,” he confessed. “Very much. I just assumed that you wouldn't be interested.”

“Never assume,” she said, staring at him intently.

“But...”

“How many signals must a girl send? Why do you think I spend so much time with you? You thought it was your sense of humour?”

He began to laugh, despite his tension. The woman never stopped.

“No, I guess it wasn't for that,” he admitted.

“So kiss me already.”

He did, and she met him with surprising enthusiasm. His hands reached out to pull her close, and she responded with an intensity he should have expected. She made love the same way she lived life, for the moment, holding nothing back.

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 15

AFTER THEY WERE DONE, they lay together in the bunk, which was suddenly just the right size. Her head rested on his shoulder as he ran his fingers through her soft brown hair.

“So, here we are,” he finally said, breaking the silence.

“Yup,” she said. “Here we are.”

“So what do we do now?” he asked, before he could stop himself. He was far too relaxed to keep account of his tongue. “Is this it?”

“I usually save the kinky stuff for later,” she said, smiling.

“That's not what I mean. But remind me to ask you about that some other time.”

“What do you want?” she asked, studying him from under her ubiquitous raised eyebrow. “People don't usually ask to marry me until I buy them something expensive.”

“Now you're just being difficult. What about you, what do you want? Did you only come here because you were scared?”

“I take it that's not something you normally ask a girl after sex.”

He laughed. “I guess I never know what to expect from you. You're not the easiest person to get along with, you know. But I really like you despite all that. Maybe because of it. I did since we met.”

“Wow,” she said. “The dashing young starship captain leaves himself vulnerable.”

“This is what I mean,” he said, frustrated.

In response, she kissed him. “What do you think of Fiji?”

“Fiji?”

“Yes, my network is sending me there for six weeks after this gig is over. I can bring a friend.”

“You're asking me if I want to spend six weeks in Fiji with you?”

“Yes. I know it's a long time and the navy will probably need you to—”

“To hell with the navy,” he said. “I'm there.”

“Good.” She kissed him again. “But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We may all die way before we ever get to Fiji.”

“Well then I'll just have to make sure that doesn't happen.”

AS HE WALKED DOWN the corridor, Jack realized that he was happy. For the first time since he'd set foot aboard the ship, he didn't care about why he was here or what the others thought of him. He slowed his steps and savoured the feeling. He wanted to remember this moment, because he had no idea what sort of difficulties lay ahead.

Resuming his natural pace, he was on his way to the bridge to make some final adjustments when he noticed Carl on the observation deck.

“Hey,” he said, climbing down the chute to join the engineer. “Have you heard anything about Merrick?”

“Yes, he's awake,” Carl said, continuing his work. He was scanning the professor's data chips. “He asked me to make a backup copy of his data.”

“Good move. Is everyone ready to go then? I'll only need an hour or so to adjust the course and double check the capsules.”

“I believe so,” Carl said, inserting a new chip into a slot on the console. “I'll be done here in just a few minutes.” It was then that he noticed what Carl was doing.

“Why are you erasing the data chips?” Jack asked. Carl looked up at him slowly.

“I'm not. I'm copying them.”

“No,” Jack said, taking a step closer. “You are erasing them. Step away from the console, now.” Adrenaline coursed through his body and he began to shake nervously.

“No, Jack, I will not.” Carl seemed calm as he removed a chip and inserted another.

Jack didn't know what to say. His adrenal response was clouding his judgment, making it difficult to think. He took another step closer.

“Carl,” he said as firmly as he could manage. “I'm ordering you to step away from the machine. Why are you doing this?”

“Jack,” Carl said as he removed the chip in the slot and picked up a new one. “I've always liked you. You're a good officer and you belong on this mission as much as anyone.” Jack noticed that he had not yet inserted the next chip. If he could keep him talking, he thought, he could save that much more data.

“But face it, Jack,” Carl continued. “You're a dilettante. I read your bio, you've never really committed your life to anything, or anyone. You have no idea what it's like to really give yourself to something, to believe so deeply it becomes a part of who you are.”

“Even if it's a lie?”

“It's not a lie!” Carl growled, his eyes glaring with rage for an instant. The sudden transition from calm serenity to bestial fury and back was unnerving. “Merrick says that's what the data means, but how can we be certain?”

“So why do this?” Jack was edging closer, looking for an opportunity. “It was you the whole time, wasn't it? The melted cables, the other so-called glitches? How can it be worth it?” Carl was not much taller than Jack but he was much bigger. Jack hadn't been to the gym in years, Carl looked as though he lived there.

“Because of what it will do to people. You don't know how important religion is, Jack. You just can't understand it. Without religion we have no morality, nothing to guide us. Look at what's happened to our society in the last century. More and more people turning away from God, turning to drugs, pornography, and other depravity.”

“Drugs are legal, Carl, and pornography is harmless entertainment. The people that wrote the bible took morality from the same place we can get it, our own nature. What you are doing here is treason and sabotage. You'll be court-martialled.”

“I don't care. Some things are worth dying for.”

“Or killing for?”

“I had no choice!” he roared, spittle flying out of his mouth. “That bastard went too far!”

“And the captain,” Jack asked, his eye on the data chip. “He went too far?”

“I had nothing to do with that!” Carl screamed indignantly. “Poor bastard must have tried to do the right thing and it blew up in his face!”

“So you knew about him?”

“No, I didn't. And stop trying to milk me for information. We are well beyond that.”

“Fine,” Jack said. “I'll wait until after you're locked up.”

“So what are you going to do Jack, stop me? You can't.” Carl snorted, looking him up and down as though to emphasize the physical difference between them.

“It's the thing about being a dilettante,” Jack said, taking one final step closer. He leaped forward suddenly, his body relaxed, twisting with the motion of his arm. The instant before his hand struck Carl's jaw he tensed his fist, the power of his entire body concentrated in that one point. The impact jarred his arm and sent a flash of pain all the way to his shoulder. Carl crumpled onto the deck.

“You have plenty of time to learn how to fight.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 16

“HE ERASED EVERYTHING,” JACK explained to Merrick, who was lying in his bunk, propped up on a pillow. His eyes were swollen shut, but otherwise he looked alright. Jack, Debbie, and Yelena had all come to his quarters to give him the bad news.

“Except this.” Jack held up the chip Carl had been holding when he'd hit him. “But it's damaged. Don't know if we can get anything out of it.”

Merrick nodded, his expression unchanging except for a faint smile that crept up around the corners of his mouth.

“Doesn't that bother you?” Debbie asked.

“It would,” he said, chuckling slyly. “If I hadn't made five backup copies.”

“Five?” Jack asked, shocked and incredibly relieved. “You made five backup copies?”

“Yes I did. In places in the system memory not even Carl could find.”

“I'll be damned.” Debbie said. “You're a clever old fox. Looks like this mission will be a success after all. Unless of course, we are not done turning up saboteurs.”

Jack shook his head. “I swear to god I will personally dump into space the next person I catch trying to sabotage this mission.”

“Let's get home quickly then,” Merrick said eagerly. “The quicker the better.”

Jack nodded. “Let's go get Carl and Jonathan and get in those pods.”

“Can't we leave them out?” Merrick pleaded.

“No,” Jack said, smiling. “But I'm as tempted as you are.”

“Do you want me to look at your hand?” Yelena asked, noticing the swelling.

“Nah, it's not broken. It'll be fine.”

Before they got into the pods, Jack examined each one very carefully.

“We'll start the hop gradually,” he told the others after they were all inside. “That way if anyone's pod is malfunctioning, you'll notice it before it has a chance to kill you. Let's get ready.”

The first hop took them to just a few thousand kilometres an hour, with no sign of capsule trouble. He made everyone stay in contact as they gradually kicked it up to full intensity without incident. They were finally able to relax.

“I'll turn on the pacifier in just a few minutes,” Jack announced.

All of the lights on his intercom display went out, except one.

“Jack?” Debbie's voice.

“You feeling okay?” he asked. After the long hop, they would have forty two hours of cruising before it was time to hop down to a safe velocity for entry into the solar system, followed by two days of solar flight. He looked forward to spending that time with her.

“I'm fine,” she said. “But I was thinking about how crazy all of this is. Three saboteurs? It's bordering on absurdity.”

“Bordering? I think it's well past that.”

“You never told me what you learned from Carl.” Her curiosity obvious even through the intercom.

“Always the reporter,” he said, smiling. “He claims he didn't know about the captain. Says he was just trying to give us enough small problems to make us go back early without finding anything. Wouldn't really have been a failure, since we did see enough at that point to confirm Merrick's theory.”

“So what pushed him over the edge?”

“The professor's little show and tell, I suppose. We know Jonathan snapped when he found out Merrick's new focus, and the first bomb was found after Merrick made his comment about seeing the Red Sea parted.”

“So they were all working independently? None of them knew about the others?” The incredulity in her voice was clear.

“It appears that way.” He couldn't believe it either. “You'll have a hell of a story on your hands.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Hey, what are you going to write about me?”

He heard her chuckle. “I'm not sure yet, but it'll be something good. I'm biased, remember?”

“I'm glad,” he said smiling. “Goodnight, Debbie.”

“Goodnight, Jack.”

He activated the pacifier, and they drifted off to sleep.

[Back to Table of Contents]

CHAPTER 17

“COMMANDER ROBERTS!” MERRICK BEAMED, striding past startled revellers as he made his way over to them. “Or should I say Captain!”

“Not anymore.” Jack smiled as Merrick heartily shook his hand.

“And Miss Watanabe,” Merrick said as he turned to Debbie, leaning over to kiss her cheek. “So good to see you. Came together, I see. Splendid, splendid.”

“Congratulations, professor,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It's quite an honour.”

“Yes, congratulations,” Jack added, trying to make his voice heard above the noise of the crowd. The hotel lobby was completely packed with attendees who were busy drinking champagne and enjoying themselves. Some of the most important people in the world were in attendance. Debbie had understated it; it was an incredible honour.

Merrick turned to face Jack, his gaze intent. “I owe it all to you.”

“Nonsense,” Jack said. “I can't take any credit for this.”

“My life then, at least,” Merrick said, once more taking his hand in his. “That's why I told them I wanted you on the next mission.”

“That was your doing?” Jack asked, a little disappointed. He had thought...

“No,” Merrick said. “You were already on the roster.”

Jack nodded, relieved. He had earned his place after all.

“As astrogator and executive officer,” Merrick continued. “That much they wanted. But I told them that if you weren't in command, they could find some other Nobel prize winning scientist to go along.”

“I...” Jack could scarcely believe what he had just heard. “I'm going to be captain?”

“Oh my,” Merrick said. “They haven't told you yet? My apologies.” He smiled sheepishly. “Appears I've let the cat out of the bag. It's simply a matter of trust. You are the only person alive that has the skill and experience, and can be trusted completely. At least that's the way I see it, and you can hardly blame me. After a little convincing, the Navy agreed.”

Debbie elbowed Jack in the ribs. “Congratulations, captain.”

“I understand,” Merrick said, turning to face her. “That you are going along as well?”

She shrugged, smiling broadly. “Somebody has to tell the world how we squander billions of tax dollars chasing light particles.”

“So who are we going after now? Jesus?” Jack asked, chuckling.

“Now that you mention it...” Merrick began.

“Don't even start,” Jack said. “I don't want to think about it until I have to. Debbie and I still have two weeks left in Fiji.”

They turned and walked together into the heart of the crowd. Renowned scientists, foreign dignitaries, even celebrities were all waiting there, eager to talk to the space heroes that had captured the hearts of half the world. What the other half thought of them, Jack didn't want to know.

Captain. Jack repeated the word in his head. Captain. He liked the sound of it.

Sometime later, when the celebration was dying down, he found Merrick standing alone on a balcony. Debbie was mingling with other journalists, no doubt sharing the news of her Pulitzer nomination. Jack was happy for her, and proud.

“Jack,” Merrick said. “Won't you join me for a drink?”

“My pleasure.” They lifted their glasses in a toast.

“To God?” Merrick proposed.

“Wouldn't that be a little odd, considering...?”

“We do owe the poor sod something.” Merrick chuckled. “This is the least we can do.”

“Right then,” Jack agreed, once more lifting his glass and taking a sip. “To God.”

They paused, staring out over the harbour. A cool breeze brought the scent of the ocean, along with the distant clanging of harbour bells. The lights of docked ships swayed in rhythm with the gently lapping waves.

“I'll say one thing for God,” Jack said, raising his glass once more. “He can be very proud of his worshipers.”

“Oh?” Merrick asked, not sounding convinced. “Why would you say that?”

“Why not? Look at what they were willing to do for their beliefs. They gave up their lives, their careers, their futures. What more could a God ask for?”

“Faith,” Merrick said slowly. “He could ask for faith.”

Jack frowned. “I don't understand. They had faith, that's why they did what they did.”

Merrick smiled faintly, turning back to stare across the water.

“Let me ask you a question, my friend,” the old man said. “And it's a very interesting question. If they had so much faith, why did it never occur to them that I would actually find God? Why didn't even one of them assume that if I went looking for the truth, I would find the truth they supposedly believed so very strongly in?”

Jack was silent. He had no answer, though perhaps the question itself was answer enough.

He turned to the harbour, relishing the cool breeze on his skin. He looked up at the sky, full of brightly shinning stars despite the lights of the city.

“Cheers,” Jack said, raising his champagne flute. The glass caught the faint moonlight in its crystalline facets and sent its reflection out into the cosmos.

“To what do we drink now?” Merrick asked, following suit.

“To truth,” he said. “And the leaving behind of childish things.”

Merrick nodded. “Now that is something worth drinking to.”

[Back to Table of Contents]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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MICHAEL EDELSON

Michael Edelson lives in New York with his wife, two daughters and a lap dog. He was a paratrooper in the US Army before coming to his senses, then spent eight sears sailing the Atlantic and currently serves as director of the New York Historical Fencing Association where he researches and teaches medieval German swordsmanship.

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