Dark Space (22 page)

   Shawn looked toward the
doctor, but the darkness obscured anything ten feet ahead of them. “So he
says.”

   Melissa held her computer
up for Shawn’s gaze. On it was a map of the surrounding area provided by the
limited sensors inside the unit. Shawn noticed that they were fast approaching
a dead end.

   “Everyone cover your eyes,”
Doctor Uudon said. “I’m going to turn on the lights.”

   Everyone did as he
instructed, holding their hands over their faces. With a flick, the area was
bathed in a soft glow, and once Shawn’s eyes were adjusted, he could see
several crates stacked up against the left wall labeled “Emergency Oxygen
Canisters.” Carved out of the floor near the right wall was an eight-foot-square
hole, with a portable magnetic lift erected around it. Stepping to the lift,
Shawn looked through the grated floor at the endless abyss below. “How far does
this go down?”

   “It’s over a thousand feet
to the next level. There we will find another lift that will take us down a
further five hundred feet.” Uudon said.

   Shawn reached out and
grabbed the support structure of the lift and gave it a good shake. It seemed
sturdy enough, but it looked far from it. Colored a rust-brown and covered in
fine dust, the lift looked to have seen better days. “This is the only way?”
Shawn asked, hoping his apprehension wouldn’t show through.

   “Afraid of heights,
Commander?” Uudon asked mockingly.

   “Piloting a fighter is one
thing, Doctor. Being slowly lowered a thousand feet into utter blackness by
this
thing
… that’s something else entirely.”

   “I will personally attest
to its safety.”

   Unconvinced, Shawn turned
to Melissa and lowered his voice. “I don’t suppose that computer of yours can
tell us anything about what we’re going to find down there?”

   Making sure no one was
watching her directly, she reached into her backpack while the two SS officers
and Uudon were donning their air masks. She withdrew a small, semi-metallic
ball that fit neatly into Shawn’s palm.

   “What’s this?”

   “Sensor grenade.”

   “Beg your pardon?”

   “Just drop it down the lift
shaft. When it reaches the bottom, it’ll emit a burst of ultrasonic waves that
will be detectable by my computer.”

   “What good will that do
us?”

   “As the sound waves bounce
off the surfaces of whatever down there, the computer will use them to
construct a basic topography. Efficient and quiet.”

   “Can it be used to detect
life-forms?”

   She shook her head. “The
grenade is for imaging purposes only and the range is extremely limited. If
there’s something alive down there, we won’t know until we’re very nearly on
top of it.”

   Shawn nodded. When Melissa
left his side to get her mask, Shawn leisurely stepped to the magnetic lift and
dropped the sensor ball in an opening near the shaft, then retrieved his own
mask from a nearby crate. When everyone was fully equipped, they stepped onto
the lift platform and began to descend into the darkness.

   After five minutes of
uncomfortable silence, the team was gently deposited onto a dust-laden floor.
The two Special Services officers were the first to disembark, their powerful
rifles drawn as they swept the area. Doctor Uudon paid them little mind as he
walked to another lift platform a dozen feet away. “If you’ll kindly step this
way,” his voice echoed through his oxygen mask. “We need to get off this ledge
and down to the cave floor.”

   “Ledge?” Shawn asked, then
scanned his flashlight to the ground. A few feet from his position, the floor
abruptly fell away into another abyss.  Stepping to the rim, he saw that the
beam of light was swallowed by the darkness.

   “Do watch your step,
Commander,” the doctor chided from the lift platform.

   Kicking a small stone over
the edge, Shawn waited for the sound of it striking the floor. When it didn’t
come, he turned back to Uudon.

   “About five hundred feet,
as I said. Also, the harmonics of the materials in this cavern direct sound in
very peculiar ways. I suspect that is why the Meltranians chose this location
for their signal amplifier. When we get to the bottom, be mindful not to make
any abrupt oscillations.”

   As they descended, the air
became crisper as the temperature dropped. Once they were at the bottom of the
cavern, the team exchanged their nearly depleted oxygen masks for full-body
environmental suits. With warmth quickly returning to their extremities, and
the length of their oxygen supply increased by several hours, they made their
way cautiously toward the center of the half-mile-wide cavern. Trudging across
the flat, dusty floor of the cave, every step kicked up a cloud of superfine
dust particles that glittered in the beams of the flashlights. After ten
minutes of walking, Doctor Uudon stopped dead in his tracks.

   “And here were are.”

   Shawn lifted his beam until
it was pointing just to the left of the doctor. When he caught the reflection
from a polished surface he stopped his sweeping. A moment later the rest of the
team’s handheld lights converged on the same location. Everyone seemed to take
a collective breath.

   The object—for there were
no other words to define it—was breathtaking. It was far taller than it was
wide, a great translucent crystal of dark purple. There were hundreds of
facets, each reflecting the lights and scattering the beams around the dark
cave. It was embedded in and perpendicular with the floor of the cave, standing
like a beautiful monolith for all to examine.

   “Isn’t it fascinating?”
Uudon said with wonder.

   “It’s sure something, all right,”
Shawn muttered.

   “This is exactly how I
discovered it, save for a thick layer of dust that had coated its surface over
the centuries.”

   “And this is the signal
amplifier you were talking about?” Melissa asked.

   “You don’t believe me?”
Uudon asked defiantly.

   Melissa looked to the
beautiful object again, finding it hard to believe that it could do the things
the doctor had ascribed it. “It’s just not what I expected.”

   “Of course it isn’t, Agent
Graves. As I’ve said before, only a small number of them have been discovered,
and none in this pristine a condition. It’s completely outside anyone’s frame
of reference.”

   “How exactly does it work?”
Shawn asked as he watched the two SS officers out of the corners of his eyes.
There were taking up opposite positions on either side of the object and
maintaining a discreet distance. “You said you were down here examining it when
it did …” Shawn was momentarily at a loss of words. He simply waved his hands
lazily at the device. “Well, when it did whatever you claimed it did.”

   “I recorded the entire
experience, Commander,” Uudon said dismissively as he tossed Shawn a holographic
recorder cube. “You may review it at your leisure. My own account could
scarcely do it justice.”

   “But you also said you knew
where the transmission was sent after it was received by this?” Melissa asked.

   The doctor smiled with
satisfaction. “I believe I do. It was sent deep into Kafaran space.”

   “How deep?” Shawn asked as
he continued to examine the object. As his light passed over the surface, it
was leaving what could almost be described as a spectral trail—as if his light
were inducing a charge into the object itself—but it quickly faded as he moved
his light further away.

   “I’m afraid I can’t say for
certain, Commander. I was only able to get a general bearing. If the
transmission follows standard laws of physics, then it would have only been
able to travel in a straight line.”

   “This thing seems a little
beyond our physics, Doctor,” Shawn mused.

   “I had no idea you were so
well versed in them,” Uudon replied sarcastically. 

   “Did you run any type of
analysis on what was lying along the transmissions path?” Melissa asked.

   Uudon grunted as he turned
away from Shawn. “I did, but only for a short time. It passed near several
planets in Unified space, but once it crossed the border … well, we all know
how limited our knowledge of Kafaran space is.”

   “What else have you learned?”
Shawn asked.

   “I speculate that the
device here is more than just an amplifier. The message that was received was
what could only be described as ‘stored’ in the matrix of the crystalline
structure until the planet itself was in the right orbital plane to initiate
the amplified signal.”

   “Can portions of the device
be removed?” Shawn asked.

   “You’re projecting human
terms upon an alien object, Commander,” Uudon said. “If you’re asking if the
storage matrix portions can be removed and replaced, I don’t see why not. In
fact, even a small slice of the device could contain a great deal of stored
information.”

   “So it’s a computer as
well?” Melissa asked.

   “Only as far as our gross
understanding of what a computer should be. As I’ve said, this device has no
moving parts that I’m able to detect.”

   “Then how exactly does it
store the transmission?” Shawn asked as he stepped to Melissa’s side.

   “It received the
transmission as energy. It stores it in the same manner. No crude binary or
trinary code. It was simple, pure energy.”

   “Were you able to extract
any information from the original signal?” one of the two Special Services men
asked, startling Melissa. Her eyes shifted to Shawn, who shook his head
quickly.

   “I was, but only to a small
degree. It was carried on an amplification wave beyond the normal communication
spectrum.”

   “Then how did you know it
was a transmission?” the other SS officer asked.

   “There were latent
characteristics reminiscent of more contemporary transmission sources.” He then
looked at Shawn with disapproval. “In normal language, Commander, I would say
that while the signal was intended for Meltranian ears, it was generated on
traditional technology. The spectrum analyzer told me as much.” Uudon then
nodded away from the device. When the two SS officers shined their lights in
the direction, they converged on an impressive array of scientific instruments
arranged on several tables. While Melissa understood some of their functions,
most were completely foreign to Shawn. If the Special Services men knew
anything about them, they kept it to themselves.

   “Did you attempt to decrypt
the communication?” one of the SS men asked.

   Uudon considered the
question, as did Melissa. She didn’t recall the doctor saying anything about
the signal being encrypted, and she reasoned that Uudon was considering the
same thing. Eyeing the questioning officer suspiciously for a moment, he simply
shrugged the question off. “It was never really my primary concern. My focus of
research has been the object, and by the time I really began to study what the
received transmission was doing to it, the signal was beamed out. I had barely
enough time to plot its trajectory before the device once again became
completely inert. Again, I was only able to record a small slice of the
original carrier.”

   Shawn reached for Melissa’s
shoulder, guiding her gently away from both Uudon and the prying ears of the
Special Services men. “We’re going to have to follow that signal.”

   She nodded in silent
agreement. “Even if it leads to another amplifier? We could be leapfrogging
through the galaxy before we know it.”

   “We’ve learned all we can
here. Besides, Santorum was in a big hurry—not to mention taking an enormous
risk—by sending out whatever he did. I’m willing to put a stack of credits on
the theory that the ‘someone’ who was expecting the call wasn’t too far away.”

   “Okay, I’ll buy that. What
about Doctor Uudon? He seems to know a great deal about this thing.”

   “If you’re asking if he’s
coming with us, then that would be a resounding yes. Not only am I not keen on
leaving him here by himself, I’m equally not willing to leave him in the hands
of the Special Services. He knows too much, and the last thing we need is for
him to conveniently disappear. Besides, you still have a copy of the
transmission Santorum sent, right?”

   Melissa patted her breast
pocket lightly. “Right here.”

   “Good. Maybe Uudon can help
us figure out what’s inside.” Shawn then turned to the amplifier. “It’s worth a
shot, anyway.”

   “He might not care to
come.”

   “I need you to make sure
there’s no red tape involved with taking him off the planet.” Shawn nodded in
the direction of the nearest SS man, but she didn’t follow his gaze. “Is that
going to be a problem, honey?”

   “No, it shouldn’t be. I’m
sure I can think of something to fully remand the doctor into our custody.” She
sighed, looking around the darkened cave once more. “That still doesn’t get us
deep into Kafaran territory, you know. Just because we have a non-aggression
pact with them, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be welcomed in their space with
open arms.”