War of the Spheres Page 31

  “Right…”

  The more I thought it over, the more everything fit. They’d come at us, but only in fits and spurts. The aliens could technically get from anywhere to anywhere, but it was difficult. I had to think that only highly trained infiltrators, or saboteurs, could travel very far or accurately using their technology.

  “All this to steal our engine,” Toby said. “That has to be their goal. Why else would they work so hard?”

  “You’re probably right. Our engine, properly refined and installed in a starship, is way ahead of their straps, robes and control packs.”

  “Dammit…” Toby said, working the controls. The screens were fuzzing out and going dark. “We’re losing the signal. We’re too far out, and there aren’t any operating relay stations out here.”

  “That’s okay. You caught the feed and showed it to the right people.”

  “The question is,” Toby said, looking at me seriously. “What are we going to do now? We’re hurtling toward the aperture, but I don’t think Jessup has a clue what we should do when we get there.”

  “You’re probably right about Jessup—but I’ve got my own ideas.” After giving him this vague reassurance, I left him to his hacking and his replays.

  It was time to get to Jessup and Colonel Hughes’ team to agree upon a plan of action. Soon, we’d be very close to the spot where the aliens must have broken into Earth’s Sphere. We had to be vigilant against attacks, and we had to have a viable plan.

  On both those points, I knew my biggest obstacle would be Captain Jessup. The man didn’t have it in him to appreciate good advice.

  Chapter 38

  Back on the bridge again, I had Colonel Hughes backing me up this time.

  “Gray is right, we have to head to the matrix of access points we’re now calling the aperture and test our experimental engine.”

  Jessup crossed his arms and looked up to the overhead.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. You know, aperture implies an opening—as in a possible way through. I think that engine of yours is a bomb—a literal bomb. Even if it works, there’s no proof it will take us outside the barrier.”

  Hughes squared off with him and began ticking points on her fingers. “First of all, we’ve tested the engine. It’s shifted this destroyer a short distance already. Secondly, these aliens have managed to penetrate the barrier, so we know it can be done. Lastly, we don’t have much choice. We can’t fend them off forever. We need to perform our test and get back to Earth.”

  “That’s the part I’m worried about,” Jessup complained. “The getting back to Earth part. I don’t think we’ll survive your experiment.”

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Because going faster isn’t enough to punch through the barrier safely. It’s been tried countless times. No one has ever managed it, not even when traveling at ninety percent of the speed of light. Running into it with greater velocity will be like a bug hitting a windshield while flying at top speed: it will only make a bigger splatter in the end. Mark my words.”

  Hughes turned back toward Jessup. “With all due respect, Captain, you don’t understand this technology.”

  “I don’t pretend to,” he snapped. “I barely know how a jet engine works—but I know what it can and can’t do.”

  She shook her head. “Perhaps we shouldn’t call it an “engine” at all,” she mused. “It’s not like a traditional engine. It changes the state of matter around it, shifts the location of that matter to a different point in normal space, then returns it to its original state. We aren’t trying to break out of our Sphere through brute force, we’re trying slide under it.”

  Jessup snorted. “How do you slide under a force field that englobes you?”

  Hughes gave him a tight smile. “Shall we demonstrate one more time?”

  Captain Jessup made a great show then of considering her words closely. He rubbed his chin, shook his head while muttering. Finally, he stared at the deck, then sucked in a deep breath and looked her in the eye again.

  “I can’t do it,” he said with firm finality. “I just can’t let you endanger my ship in this way. I’ll take you out to the barrier. I’ll let you scan the lay of the land, and I’ll even let you perform a small hop—but not through the barrier itself.”

  “That’s unacceptable,” Hughes snapped. “The whole point of my project—”

  “Yes, yes, you’re keen to commit mass-suicide—as have many before you, I understand.”

  “Captain, may I remind you that this destroyer and her crew is at my disposal?”

  “You can try that, but circumstances have changed. We’ve got aliens actively trying to invade my ship. We’ve been attacked, and we’re probably at war with someone. Your orders came from the Ministry of Control when they thought we were at peace.”

  I gritted my teeth, worried about what might come next. If these two got into a long fight about our orders, someone might check up on the fake instructions Toby and I had provided. Worse, Control might actually order us to head home after considering the options.

  Because of my worries, I raised a hand when Colonel Hughes began her next tirade, cutting her off.

  “Officers, please,” I said. “May I speak to you privately, Colonel?”

  Her eyes slid to regard me, and she nodded.

  “What is it, Chief Gray?” she asked, once we’d drawn aside.

  “I think we should accept Captain Jessup’s conditions—for now.”

  She blinked at me, surprised and confused. “You’re throwing away everything we’ve worked toward?”

  “Not at all,” I said firmly. “Butter him up. We’re agreeing to his conditions—for now.”

  Jessup eyed us distrustfully as we spoke quietly out of his earshot.

  “All right,” Hughes said after thinking it through, and turned back to Jessup. “You’re right of course, Captain—we submit to your lead. Kindly take us to the barrier as near to the aperture as possible.”

  She stalked off the deck, and I followed her.

  Jessup watched us go. There was some degree of triumph in his face—but not much. He knew I had a deeper plan and didn’t like that fact.

  Once out in the passages, Hughes whirled around and faced me.

  “You’re pushy, Gray,” she said. “If you weren’t a spook, I’d get you demoted.”

  “That would be your prerogative, ma’am.”

  She glowered at me in irritation for a moment. “All right. Let’s hear it. What’s your plan? What’s this ‘for now’ business all about?”

  “Didn’t you hear what Jessup said?” I asked. “He agreed to take us out to the aperture, the spot where the barrier is porous. Then he said we could take a little hop to test our theories before returning home.”

  “I heard him. There’s nothing wrong with my ears, Chief. But if you think I’m going to turn back after all this—”

  Smiling, I waved my hands in a calming gesture. “Colonel, we’ll do exactly as he requests… except for the miscalculation.”

  “The mis…?”

  “Yeah, the miscalculation where our little hop goes sideways.”

  She blinked as she considered it, and then she made an amused sound. “I get it. Maybe Fillmore will have an accident with the power controls, is that it? Maybe he’ll goose it enough to take us far beyond the barrier, deep into interstellar space? After all, the system is experimental. No one can eliminate all problems in advance.”

  “Mistakes are easy to make when testing new technology. Who would even know if it was done deliberately or not?”

  “Any decent astrophysicist,” she said. “But that doesn’t matter. Jessup has no one like that on his crew.”

  “How fortunate.”

  She stared into nothingness, and I let her think it over for several quiet seconds. I stayed mute, letting the power of my idea sink into her head.

  At last, she released a tiny nod and a sigh.

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll do it yo
ur way, and afterward you can explain how the mistake was made.”

  “Not Fillmore?”

  “No. You.”

  I shrugged. “All right. Let’s do it.”

  We headed for the troop pod in Viper’s belly next, to where Fairweather rested, waiting.

  Chapter 39

  Less than ten hours later, we slowed as we reached the barrier.

  The membrane of the great sphere which enclosed our star system was invisible, of course. It was a vast englobing wall of force, rather than a physical thing. No human scientist understood the phenomena completely, of course—but that didn’t keep them from making up theories about it.

  “It’s a quasi-natural effect generated by the Sun’s gravity,” Dr. Gevan said with certainty. “Someone has enhanced it, of course, turning a gravity wave into a powerful rupturing wall.”

  “Absurd,” Dr. Fillmore responded. “Merely contemplating this level of ignorance in a colleague makes me ill.”

  Gevan’s rolled his eyes. “Let’s hear your theory then. I know you’re going to tell us anyway…”

  “The wise soul welcomes enlightenment,” Fillmore began. “The Great Sphere isn’t based on any local phenomena. Put aside for a moment that there’s no evidence whatsoever supporting any nonsense about a re-routed gravity wave, the more serious flaw is a logical one. The power source for this barrier must be external. What kind of prison is based on something included within the prison itself? All the enclosed species would have to do is disrupt the energy source to shut it off.”

  “You want to turn off the Sun in order to escape our region of space? Is that seriously your proposal?” Gevan mocked.

  “My point has nothing at all to do with what I want. I’m talking about the logic employed by any powerful alien civilization who could build such a prison for our species. For any non-human to care so much about imprisoning—”

  “—or protecting,” Gevan interrupted. “Don’t forget, we don’t really know the real purpose of the enclosure. Is it there to keep us in—or keep others out?”

  Fillmore made an ignoble “pffing” sound. “The bleating cry of the loser is nigh if he isn’t able to switch the topic of the argument. Can we stay on topic, please?”

  “I’m expanding the conversation, not diverting it.”

  “For what purpose?” Fillmore demanded.

  “To demonstrate that you have no idea what you’re talking about. We must have a working theory as to how the barrier works in order to defeat it.”

  A long crooked finger popped up from Fillmore’s upraised fist. “No,” he said. “We really don’t. No more than a dog needs to understand timber mills to jump over a fence.”

  “Gentlemen,” I said, stepping in between them. “Perhaps we can return to the challenge at hand—please?”

  Fillmore waved a hand at me dismissively. “We’ve input the data hours ago. The engineering work is all done. We’ll jump the moment we come close enough to the aperture.”

  Fillmore then turned back to Gevan and continued his pointless argument. They had very little data go on, but they were both adherents to opposed theories concerning the the origins of the Great Sphere.

  But none of that was bothering me now. I was lost in thought, uncertain as to how I should proceed. Captain Jessup had made it very clear he didn’t want to jump Viper outside the Sphere… but these guys wanted to go beyond basic testing. They wanted to perform the ultimate experiment right now.

  Colonel Hughes stepped to my side and watched the scientists fight with an air of amusement.

  “Seems kind of futile, doesn’t it?” she asked me. “It’s like all this hoopla over the details of the Big Bang. It’s absurd to believe we could come up with a correct theory to explain such a distant moment in time, and yet countless scientists have devoted their lives to the enterprise.”

  “I’ve always felt the same way,” I told her, “but something in Fillmore’s statement concerns me.”

  She looked surprised. “You mean you care about the nature of the barrier? I hadn’t expected—”

  “No,” I said. “Quite the opposite. I’m talking about his reference to a preprogrammed jump the moment we get close enough to the aperture. Is that true?”

  Her eyes darted low, then came up to meet mine. “What if they are?”

  “I thought we agreed to let Jessup feel like he was calling the shots and then a little accident would happen,” I said. “It might seem like we were mutinously ganging up on him to preprogram the whole ‘accident’ ahead of time.”

  “Nonsense. This adventure we’re in the middle of is much bigger than any captain, any destroyer, or any crew. We’re here to discover something for all of Earth, for all of humanity. Once we’ve jumped I’ll deal with his complaints then. Besides, this was your idea.”

  “Is it still your idea to send me to talk to him afterward?”

  “That seems like the easiest way to handle it.”

  “For you, maybe.”

  She shrugged and walked off.

  I sighed. She was going to leave me holding the bag. It was her project, but it was my job to create the cover-up. C’est la vie.

  Frowning, I looked back at Fillmore and Gevan. They were still going at it. Fillmore was arguing that the barrier’s purpose was obvious: to contain dangerous organisms. Gevan insisted that we were being protected from external predators, such as the Vehk invaders we’d been fighting off. I tended to side with Gevan, given recent events.

  Deciding I couldn’t let Hughes escape me so easily, I found her on the cramped lower deck. The engine was nearby, thrumming as it warmed up.

  “How far are we jumping?” I asked her.

  Hughes shrugged. “Far enough to make sure that we’re clear of the barrier. It wouldn’t do to come out in the middle of it. The only thing unhappier than a bug that’s hit a windshield must be the one that’s cleverly figured out how to teleport through it—but miscalculates and rematerializes in the midst of the glass itself.”

  “A grim thought… Does anyone really know how thick the barrier is? I mean, really? What if it’s a thousand kilometers deep?”

  “What we do know from wave-analysis is that the aperture is the least stable portion. It fluctuates positionally and doesn’t match the perfect curvature of the rest. It’s believed to be either a flaw, or a necessary relief valve. Like the spot inside a balloon where the rubber is squeezed shut and the stem is tied into a knot.”

  “Well, whatever you do, don’t bring either of those ideas up to those two.” I indicated Fillmore and Gevan with my thumb.

  Hughes’ mouth twitched, giving me a flickering smile.

  “We’re jumping pretty far out,” she said. “We’re not sure how thick the barrier is—how could we be? We’re allowing for a worst-case scenario.”

  I nodded, accepting her logic. If you weren’t sure how wide a chasm was, you’d better jump as far and high as you could.

  “All right then,” I said. “I won’t tell Jessup anything.”

  Hughes flashed her eyes back to me in alarm. “You’d better not. You work for me, not him. Remember that.”

  Nodding vaguely as she left, I wondered at the fact that she’d never yet seemed to grasp that I didn’t work for either of them. Not really. Those I did work for wanted her project to succeed—that’s what really mattered.

  The ship glided silently to the aperture, and it slowed down as it got closer.

  Viper was, at that point, still one hundred percent under Jessup’s command. Hughes, the science crew—none of them had given the slightest hint that they were planning anything.

  Tensely, we waited inside the Fairweather module. I was surprised to see Toby was there, as was Dr. Brandt. The interior was somewhat cramped as a result, but I supposed Hughes had decided they’d earned the right to be there.

  “Colonel Hughes,” Jessup boomed over a loudspeaker. “We’ve arrived at the aperture. Please take you readings, after which, I’m afraid we’ll have to withdraw.”


  Hughes and I looked at each other. Jessup had said nothing of ordering our test.

  “Logan, open a direct line to Viper’s bridge,” she ordered.

  Moments later, Captain Jessup’s head filled the main view screen, looking tired or bored. “What is it now, Hughes?”

  Hughes frowned. “You mentioned withdrawal. I’m assuming that’s after our test jump is complete—am I correct Captain?”

  “Ah… no,” Jessup said in a tone that sounded sincerely regretful—although I knew he wasn’t the least bit sorry. “I’ve made a choice. It was a difficult one, and I commiserate thoroughly with your disappointment. We simply can’t spare the power or the time in this dangerous region of space to test your module again.”

  Hughes was looking grim. Her jaw was set, and her teeth showed in a gleaming line. “I see… And why do you think you have the authority to abort—?”

  “It’s a necessary alteration to our plans, you see,” Jessup explained, still using a false-sounding tone of apology. “When we passed the mining base and witnessed irrefutable evidence of malevolent intrusions, I decided we must leave the region immediately—following your data collection at the aperture.”

  “Your orders, Jessup—” Hughes began, her voice rising in anger with every word.

  “Have been followed to the letter!” the captain interrupted, matching her tone. “In fact, I daresay I’ve gone the extra mile. I’ve weighed the additional time and distance in enemy territory against the safety of my ship and crew—and we’re now at a tipping point.”

  “But we haven’t yet—” Hughes began, but Jessup cut her off again.

  “We most certainly have tested your device. Twice now, in fact. My orders have been followed. This mission is complete.”

  “Your orders were to take us to the barrier and test this engine!”

  “I’ve done both of these items—but in the opposite order you listed them.”

  A look of determination grew on Hughes’ face. “You know that technicality won’t save you, Jessup. You’ll be hung in court when I get through with you!”