‘Do I know of any interest in AMIE outside of your organisation, Professor Gervaise? The answer is no, I do not.’ Taren stared Lucian in the eye. ‘I am not a threat to this project…may the field strike me dead if I lie!’
‘I believe her.’ Leal cast his vote.
‘Yeah, she’s a bit creepy,’ Zeven decided, ‘but we’re stuck, so I’ll give anything a go.’
‘Oh, thanks very much.’ Taren regained her humour. ‘What are you stuck with?’
Lucian pressed one of the buttons on the belt around his waist and the shields on the windows in the mess room began to retract. The evening sunlight from the twin suns on the other side of the planet streamed into the room, while the gigantic cloud shrouding the planet over which their craft floated was the most prominent feature of the panorama.
‘Oh, my stars.’ Taren moved closer to admire the view. She’d never seen a planet from space before. ‘It’s beautiful…overwhelming.’
‘Yeah, and mysterious too,’ Starman added.
‘Mysterious in what way?’ Taren’s eyes remained fixed on the view for she’d noticed a patch of glowing cloud on the night side of the planet and this illuminated area was filled with explosive splotches of different-coloured light. ‘What is that?’ It looked like a solar light storm, but it was located around the equator of the planet, not at one of the magnetic poles where this kind of anomaly would normally manifest.
‘That’s what we’re hoping you can tell us,’ Lucian threw the ball back in her court.
Taren’s eyes lit up. ‘Can we get closer?’
Starman smiled and rose to make a move to the flight deck. ‘You bet we can.’
CHAPTER 3
ANOMALY
‘I didn’t mean this close,’ Taren grumbled from the passenger seat located behind Starman’s cockpit in the small tandem spacecraft.
‘Come on, Doc. We all agreed that the only way we’re going to discover anything is to get a sample to analyse,’ Starman reminded her.
Taren looked at the huge glowing storm spreading out over one small portion of the misty planet below—an island of colourful undulating light amid an ocean of darkness. ‘This is so dangerous.’
‘If you want to break new ground, conquer new frontiers and all that, you’ve got to be prepared to take a few risks,’ Starman said cheerily.
‘Now you’re sounding like an MSS agent,’ Taren jeered, and Zeven laughed. Taren surmised he’d been all for going and investigating the mysterious glowing mass sooner, but was held back by Lucian until the anomaly expert arrived—her. But Taren had no idea what the anomaly was either! ‘I just want to go on record as saying that I think this has the potential to be a quarantine hazard. The substance could be highly unstable, even explosive, when contained!’
‘Noted,’ Lucian’s voice advised via her headset.
‘Speaking of negative charges,’ Zeven said, raising an earlier topic of conversation, ‘you’re a real downer on a field mission, you know that?’
‘You’re right.’ Taren got over the horror of what she had agreed to, knowing that if she didn’t maintain a more positive view then she might as well have stayed on AMIE. ‘One thing’s for sure…this is one hell of a first day at work. I mean, I thought I’d at least get to rest after the trip, unpack my equipment—’
‘All you’ve done is rest for two whole weeks,’ Lucian said from the base, defending the urgent schedule.
‘Yeah, Doc, you need to be out and about.’ Zeven rolled their craft and had it right side up again before Taren even knew what hit her.
‘Pleeeease!’ Taren begged him. ‘Do you want me to make a mess in your pretty spacecraft?’
‘See,’ Zeven commented into his mouthpiece. ‘I told you a woman would prove unsuited for this kind of investigation.’
‘Ah, may I remind you,’ Taren retorted, ‘that without this woman your investigation would still be on hold.’
‘She’s got a point there, Starman,’ Leal agreed from the pilot’s seat back on AMIE.
‘So, they call you Starman because you’re the pilot?’ Taren decided this was the time to satisfy her curiosity.
‘Nah,’ Zeven corrected, ‘it’s ’cause I shine at night.’
Taren rolled her eyes to the sound of Lucian and Leal’s laughter echoing through her headset.
‘He only ever surfaces at night, more like,’ Leal informed. ‘We strongly suspect he could be a vampire.’
Taren was carrying a handheld FFRD in order to note whether there were any changes in the quantum world during their flight and she had been glancing at it often.
‘So what is that gadget?’ Zeven wondered at its purpose.
‘This is a Field Fluctuation Recognition Device, which I invented to detect mass fluctuations in the electromagnetic field,’ Taren replied, predicting the pilot’s bemused response.
‘Come again?’
‘It measures random states of molecular order in the normally chaotic behaviour of the molecular world,’ Taren attempted to simplify her explanation.
‘How can it do that?’ Zeven was a little cynical, ‘and why would you want to?’
Taren shook her head, feeling he was going to find that answer very tedious. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’
‘Sure I’m sure,’ he encouraged her to enlighten him.
‘In the quantum theory, particles are represented by fields that have quantifiable normal modes of oscillation. In quantum electrodynamics we study photons being either emitted or absorbed by these fields. Usually these fields function in a random, but stable, manner, exhibiting even amounts of negative and positive charges which cancel each other out and produce no charge for my FFRD to detect. But, if for any reason there is a sudden imbalance in the field, either in the amount of photons being emitted or absorbed, my FFRD will detect this as either a negative or a positive event.’
What Taren’s research indicated was that these fluctuations in the field could be affected and controlled by certain individuals—those referred to as having ‘the Powers’. She had also discovered that every individual could affect the behaviour of the quantum field, but those with ‘the Powers’ consistently had more success because they consciously influenced the needle in her FFRD device to sway into the negative or positive register as desired, because they had a much stronger belief that they had that power over the external world.
Taren had used quite a large cross-section of people to test her FFRD, and her research suggested that everyone had some Power, but that not everyone was aware of the field or their connection to it and so were unable to influence it with any conviction.
Taren noted that Starman’s acrobatic roll of their craft had registered on the FFRD as a slight positive charge. She realised this had been generated by the thrill, or the ‘high’, that was experienced by both herself and Starman during the event. If she had truly been scared during the stunt, nothing would have registered on the FFRD: her negative reaction would have cancelled out Starman’s positive reaction and the chaos of field would have remained balanced. However, as both Taren and Starman had had the same reaction, a slight positive charge had been recorded.
Taren really didn’t expect to register any fluctuations from the glowing rainbow-coloured gaseous mass they were approaching, but as they drew nearer, the needle on the FFRD meter began to shift to the negative.
‘Hey, people.’ Taren kept her voice reasonably casual, trying to sound unconcerned. ‘I’m registering a negative charge here on the FFRD…Wow!’ she exclaimed, as the needle just kept inching further into the negative.
‘Should we be concerned?’ Lucian wanted to know.
‘Well…’ Taren took a couple of seconds to assess what the data could mean. ‘Either Starman and I are so averse to being here that we’re registering enough negativity to match that of a whole stadium of people whose team just lost the grand final, or our cloud of gas knows we’re here and it doesn’t like it.’
‘Are you trying to tell me this mass of gas
has consciousness?’ Zeven scoffed.
‘No,’ Taren replied. ‘I’m just telling you that that’s what the quantum electrodynamics from this readout suggest. There is a ghost in my machine…a very, very big ghost. The chances of this kind of fluctuation continuing for this length of time are approaching the million-to-one-against mark. I’ve never seen this kind of control over the quantum field before. It’s unprecedented!’
‘Could your machine just be experiencing a failure of some kind?’ Lucian proffered.
‘An overload more like,’ Taren replied in all honesty.
‘Could the FFRD be picking up this readout from something other than us or the anomaly?’ asked Lucian.
‘Sure, if you’d like to entertain the notion of there being another large mass of intelligent, or at least sentient, consciousness hanging out around here somewhere.’ Taren felt very uncomfortable suddenly, full of dread, guilt and fear. ‘In my professional opinion, this cloud mass does not want us any closer.’
‘It’s okay,’ Zeven assured her. ‘I can get a sample from this distance.’
‘What are you storing it in?’ Taren inquired.
‘A cryogen-cooled, collision-free vacuum trap,’ Starman said. ‘I shoot the trap down into the mass. The trap cools to absolute zero and provides the emptiest space possible in which to store some of the gaseous energy.’
Taren wasn’t going to argue with his plan; she just wanted this joyride over—she’d never felt so scared.
When the trap was sent down into the spectacular light mass another huge negative charge registered on the FFRD. ‘Hurry up, Zeven,’ Taren urged. ‘Bring it back and let’s go!’
‘I’m there,’ he assured as he reeled it in. Minutes later, with the trap in the ship’s hold, Zeven swung the craft around and headed back to AMIE.
When a bit of distance was put between them and the anomaly, the negative charge ceased to register.
‘The FFRD reading has stabilised,’ Taren said with a quiet sigh of relief.
‘I guess we got away with it then,’ Lucian concluded with satisfaction.
Taren could tell from the captain’s voice that in his perception of events—that is, via the onboard cameras of their craft—the mission had been without incident. ‘I truly hope so, Professor,’ Taren said warily. As usual, it would be up to her to prove that anything extraordinary had taken place.
The return flight gave Taren the opportunity to see AMIE from the outside and she beheld a very impressive and beautiful vessel.
AMIE was a huge craft comprised of six interconnected modules, smooth and elegant, like spheres stretched to an almost flat shape, each one having observation windows all the way around the outermost rim. The body of each module had a metallic fibreglasslooking finish that turned a pale pearly pink tinged with gold in the ship’s exterior lighting. If that exterior lighting was turned off and the window shields were down, Taren imagined the highly reflective surface would camouflage their vessel in space and render it virtually invisible.
Starman explained that the module at the top of the vessel was the command section that housed the flight deck and the docks for their air and land exploration craft. The four modules clustered around each other in the centre housed the bulk of the labs, observatories, offices and living quarters for the staff. There was also one major observatory in the centre of the exposed side of both the upper and lower sections. The base module of the vessel was the marine module, which launched the submersibles that the marine department utilised in their research and this module was a submersible itself, as was the entire craft. The marine module wasn’t attached this evening as it had been left on the warm stormy surface of the planet tonight along with the marine department.
‘A smooth ride, yes?’ Zeven asked in a seductive fashion as he helped Taren down the ladder from the cockpit.
Taren felt patronised but thankful for the aid. Her legs had gone to jelly. ‘As that was my first time, I have nothing to compare it to,’ she retorted, reluctant to feed his already oversized ego. Although the look of disappointment on the young man’s face when she gave him the cold shoulder told Taren that his ego was just a false front. ‘But I’m sure you’re very good,’ she added, in more friendly fashion. ‘And as I’m back here in one piece, you’re a bloody hero in my book.’
For the little flattery it cost her, the smile on Zeven’s face was well worth the effort. When he was happy or exhilarated, his whole being vibrated with an amorous, upbeat energy that was nice to be around.
‘Easy now,’ Bonar Colbers instructed his team as they unloaded the trap from the small transport into an incubator trolley.
Taren approached Colbers. ‘That’s going straight to the quarantine lab, I presume?’
‘Yep, chicky-babe, those were my instructions.’ Bonar winked at her and the younger techs smothered snide laughter.
‘Fabulous, honey-munchkin,’ Taren replied with a good serve of humour, and this set all the men to laughing out loud. ‘I’ll meet you there.’
‘You handled that well,’ Zeven commented as Taren passed by him on her way out of the dock—most of the women they’d had on board were offended by the tech crew’s chauvinistic remarks.
‘Lots of practice,’ she explained and kept going, eager to start analysing their acquisition.
Lucian was awaiting Taren inside the quarantine facility, where all her paraphernalia had been delivered.
‘I took the liberty of having your equipment brought straight here,’ said Lucian. ‘All your personal belongings have been taken to your new living quarters.’
‘Which I might actually get to see before I leave AMIE, right?’ Taren joked, foreseeing much work in her immediate future.
The cryogenic vacuum trap was being transferred into a biomolecular quarantine room. This was an observation area isolated from the main lab by a couple of sets of shield windows which had a biomolecular scanning area in-between. The sample was ejected into a transparent containment tube; it could be observed from the lab visually, and could also be monitored by the computer systems in the lab that would be analysing it.
Lucian smiled at Taren’s jest. ‘It will take a while for the sample to adjust after the cryo-containment, so I could show you around now if you like?’
Taren looked horrified by the notion. ‘You don’t want to leave an unanalysed sample hanging around your ship, surely?’ She was concerned that it might leak, or that some spy might attempt to nick some of the sample. She began searching through her cases for the equipment that she needed.
‘That observation room is constantly monitored by AMIE’s systems and will be ejected from our craft at the slightest indication of a leak,’ Lucian advised her with a proud twinkle in his eye.
Taren was impressed. ‘Who has access to this lab?’
‘You can register the entry code on your way out,’ Lucian assured, as Bonar and his crew stepped into a biomolecular scanning room, situated between the observation facility and the lab, which scanned the crew for any biohazardous chemicals that may have escaped during the transfer. ‘Whoever you give that code to has access.’
Obviously getting a negative for viruses, parasites, radiation, and similar dangers, the tech crew moved into a de-suiting room, dragging their trolley containing the empty trap behind them.
Taren had found her hard drive containing the programs that would give her an initial analysis. ‘Just give me a couple of minutes to plug in my system and I’ll run a spectrograph while we’re away. I want to know what kind of quanta we’re dealing with. My system will beep me when it’s completed graphing the molecular activity of the sample.’ She plugged her hard drive into the lab’s system and proceeded to initiate her program.
‘I can see why you’ve come so far so fast, Dr Lennox.’
Taren’s typing slowed as she absorbed his flattery. ‘In my field, wasting time can cost you proof of a miracle. If you’re not onto it, you miss out.’
‘All too true. And on the subject of miracles
, I want to discuss your FFRD reading during the mission today.’ Lucian raised the subject somewhat warily.
‘I expected you might want to forget it,’ Taren proffered. ‘Unless, of course, you wish to discuss it in order to find a way to dismiss the incident?’
‘On the contrary!’ Lucian’s tone appealed for her to have a little more faith in him. ‘When you analyse the data on the FFRD, I want a copy of the report. I’ll reserve any argument until we have some data worth arguing about.’
Good comeback, thought Taren. Lucian Gervaise was certainly a lot more open-minded than any of her associates to date. ‘Of course.’ She pressed the ‘run’ button and rose. ‘I’m ready for the tour now.’
Lucian motioned to the door that Bonar and his crew were now exiting through. ‘Then let’s start with how to program your entry code and go from there.’
Taren was truly impressed with her living quarters—her rooms were large with breathtaking views of space.
‘Even royalty would be happy staying here,’ she commented, as Lucian demonstrated all the mod cons.
‘When confined to a vessel, people need their own space,’ Lucian explained. ‘This may seem like a large area right now, but in six months it could feel all too small.’
‘Best accommodation I’ve ever had,’ Taren complimented the captain. ‘Good luck getting rid of me.’
‘Having you aboard is a welcome diversification for the project. I doubt we shall be in any hurry to kick you out.’ Lucian hinted that a more permanent arrangement might be on the cards.
Taren raised both brows, but the professor knew as well as she did that until she proved her aptitude for this type of fieldwork, there was no point in discussing the issue further. Space-work was not for everyone, and there was always a six-month trial period involved. ‘Careful what you wish for, Lucian.’ It felt wonderful to be on a firstname basis with the legend of cutting-edge astro-marine research. ‘I seem to induce a condition commonly known as “red cheeks” in most of my supervisors.’