DUALITY: The World of Lies (8 page)

Mei rolled her eyes and lowered a bright blue
halo over her head to indicate her false indifference to the
matter.

“You're drunk, you borg fool,” she told
him.

Aru didn't need a halo. He had a cyberbionic
implant linking his mind directly to System. In true blue fashion
Mei had refused one upon her recruitment in the Fleet, defying what
was universally demanded of all officers. They had accepted her
anyway. Whenever Aru tried to extol the virtues of permanent
mindlink technology, she responded that not being handicapped
(mentally) she didn't require one. Then invariably she chided him,
calling him “borg” and the like. By definition though, Aru was not
a cyborg. A cyborg was a being who could not function normally
without a continually active biolink connection between his organic
brain and its artificial components, since both were required to
project its mindscape. Aru could deactivate his implant
indefinitely and carry on normally, but in terms of convenience it
just couldn’t be beat. Having a telepathic link to the machine
world allowed him to issue commands and bring up data displays
faster without any need for verbal or tactile input.

And drunk? Please. He was
just
starting
to
feel good, and he was not about have her, all of people, start
criticizing him over it.

“Yeah, right. I'm drunk.
I'm
the one with the
substance abuse problem.
Me
.”

With some awkward blend of perturbed and
patient, Mei flicked her head to discharge her halo, which
gracefully withdrew into the dark chamber ceiling and
vanished.

“You know...” she started, “you know, I get
that you're taking a little mental vacation right now. I even think
you deserve it. And yes, I'm probably ten times worse than you in
that regard. But what I can't stand is listening to you dismiss
everything that's good for you. Whatever you think of Indulu's
politics, gaining Occitanian world government favor, the favor of
the Arathian Council and The Service, will be a boon to your house!
Rubelian High Command turned their favor upon your house a decade
ago, and look how it has risen! You have the highest governing
organs of both stars shining their grace upon you, yet you scoff! I
can't understand it, Aru. I can't understand you. It seems like you
just want fly around in your spaceship to avoid embracing all that
destiny lays at your feet. You've never even put yourself in for a
promotion. With your glorious record, you could be a commodore
working his way into the admiralty by now. It's all set out before
you for the taking. Why don't you...”

“Because he mocks me!” Aru blurted out
thoughtlessly, realizing immediately what an ill-considered
statement it was. Mnemtech, Mnemtech gave him everything: his
command, his ship, even Mei! He owed all he had to Mnemtech, and he
hated him for it.

Mei reacted with stunned curiosity.
“
Who
mocks
you?”

He didn't ask for more, because he truly was
being mocked with every gift. But Mei musn't know this. His loose
lips needed to lie to cover this slip, and lie well and lie
fast.

“God!” he spat with all the cynical drunken
passion he could muster.

“You mean the God you don't believe in?” she
asked.

“And how exactly do you know that?”

“Because you make it a big haughty point to
declare your staunch atheism to me every other time you drink. But
whatever, I just want to be clear on this. The God, that you don't
believe exists, mocks you by giving you everything you could ever
want and more.”

“That's about the jist of it, I
suppose.”

“Well, I have to give you some credit then.
You've reached a whole new plateau of stupid.”

But it had been quick-thinking stupidity,
clever enough to derail her train of thought from reaching its
logical endpoint. It needed more though… it needed him to go in a
direction so inane that would make her forget so entirely that it
would elude a later retrospective analysis. And he knew just the
thing.

“You know, the only reason I've never bested
you hand to hand is that you're a woman. If I were to unleash on
you as my equal, as I would another man, all that silly martial
arts dancing would fall very flat, and very quickly.”

Mei was of course having none of that. He
could see her wheels turning as she stood up in offense. An avid
student and master of combat arts, it had been her lifelong
pursuit, and her prowess in this area was not to be
challenged.

“I know it emasculates you, moonman, to be
bested by a woman. Or maybe there's some part of you that craves
it. It's hard telling with you sometimes.”

Aru arose in turn, unsteadily clutching his
drink. “We can settle this right now if you like.”

“You already fuck me.... or at least you used
to. Isn't that enough?”

“I'm waiting...” he chided, gulping down his
seventh or eighth neat drink, nearing what he knew was his upper
limit.

Mei started in with a sigh that quickly
morphed into laughter. Aru joined her and plopped himself back
down. Mission accomplished.

“Try that when you're sober,” she threatened.
“I'm going to hold this over you, you know. Behavior most
unbecoming...”

The chamber lights flashed suddenly as an
alert chime interrupted them.

“Commander, an alien signal has been
detected,” System declared.

Mei quickly reaffixed her mind to duty. Aru
stood and clumsily made his way to the central holographic
display.

“What...” she started into query.
“A signal,
here
?
Are you sure it isn't an echo of one of our own?”

“I'm absolutely certain, Commander,” replied
System. “Requesting authorization to launch tracking
probes.”

“Which... which probe is this coming
from?”

Aru found this alert bewildering. As expected,
there had been no signal reception of any sort since the ship
entered the corona, and it was doubtful any could pass through it.
It should be completely silent here. “Mei, launch now. Authorize
the launch!”

Mei looked at him briefly and with some
suspicion, but shook it off. “Yes... yes, Kinny, authorization
granted. Proceed at once, as you see fit.”

“Proceeding. Four tracking probes have been
launched,” System informed them. It then brought up a top-down
graphic of the Kinetic's descent path. A second nearly
perpendicular line intersected it just behind their current
position. “The signal was intercepted by our onboard sensors 23
seconds ago when I sounded the alert, Commander. As you can see
there was only a very brief period of reception before it was lost,
slightly less than 2 seconds, during which 42.2 terabytes were
obtained.”

That was a lot of data for such a brief
reception window. “Strength?” he queried.

“High. 11 gigavolts from our position. Since
we only intersected tangentially, the main transmission ray should
be significantly stronger. Pending further analysis, I would
estimate it at around 50 gv. It also shows low levels of quantum
acceleration, indicating that this signal has been hyper-relayed
and amplified multiple times at low-end tachyonic
speeds.”

“So... it was not directed at us?” Aru
couldn't afford to be the least bit uncertain on this
point.

“Negative, Captain. We intersected it by
purely by chance. As you can see it's running parallel to the
ecliptic, thereby indicating a point of origin and a point of
reception both within the chromosphere. We have launched three
tracking probes along its path toward the reception point, and one
in an opposite vector towards its origin. They should start
transmitting more of the signal to us shortly.”

“Talk about fortuitous!” exclaimed Mei,
perhaps prematurely. The signal was passing between two points at a
far higher altitude than the mystery orb they sought should be. The
Kinetic had not even reached GSO yet in their descent.

“System, what can you make of the data?” he
asked.

“It is highly encrypted Captain, beyond my
capability to decipher.”

“Meaning it was composed by an L-2
superintelligence or higher...” Aru reasoned.

“It's quite unlike any Mnemtechian or
Occitanian encryption I've ever encountered. My estimation,
Captain, is that it is Logosian in origin. Based on the composition
of the encryption code and our proximity to the Emperor's domain, I
think we can say that it’s nearly certain.”

“Yes,” agreed Mei. “It's got to be Logosian.
But how?... Is it a ship? Nothing material survive in here for very
long.”

Aru tried to rub away his double vision and
stared into the hologram. “System, expand that signal line... keep
going... more.... pan out.”

The line grew as the holograph zoomed out
until the curve of Ignis Rubeli became distinct. “Ok, stop there,”
Aru commanded. “Put a marker on each end of that. Those points are
where you'll find the transmission and reception vehicles. What
we're looking at here is a satellite communication
ring.”

System extrapolated the concept out with a
ring of fifty-four equally spaced satellites on the specified orbit
around The Red Star. Aru knew he was correct about this, and so did
Mei.

“Dang, Aru, I believe you're right!” she
remarked. “But why would anyone need a communication ring within a
star? One or more of the satellites must be receiving outside
transmission through the corona. Otherwise, I mean, what would be
the point?”

An even more relevant question was what kind
of materia could survive in this environment for any extended
length of time to propagate these signals? Even the Kinetic, the
very pinnacle of Mnetechian space technology, which had been
heavily outfitted for this specific mission, could not hope to
endure here for more than a handful of days.

“System, display proposed orbital paths for
our search target,” Aru ordered.

A number of lower altitude curves appeared on
the display, marking the best deductions for where an object “on
the ecliptic traversing a sunspot over 20 minutes” sixty-four days
ago would be now.

They both stared into the display intently.
“Refill,” Aru added. Mei must have deactivated the autorefill via
halo.

“This theorized satellite configuration...”
Mei pondered aloud, “Those intervals would be optimal for
maintaining constant, uninterrupted communication with an object in
our target's supposed orbit.”

Aru recognized that she was speaking in
conjecture upon conjecture, but he also recognized that it all fit
together with an undeniable elegance. He took this lateral
reasoning approach another step forward.

“System, pan out all the way to the orbit of
The Stones.”

There were two stones, The White and The
Black, on opposite ends of a shared orbit around Ignis Rubeli.
Little was known of these dwarf planets, as they were the seat and
exclusive domain of the Emperor, Logos. Their bare surfaces hid a
buzzing hive of machine world activity, the brain and the mind of
the Emperor. They were also forbidden space. Any ship or object
that approached within a quarter million kilometers of their
positions was met with certain obliteration by an unerring particle
beam, which is why on entry they'd taken great care to penetrate
the corona from the star's southern tropic, giving that domain a
wide berth. The inner space of Ignis Rubeli was presumed forbidden
as well, but never explicitly stated as such. In gearing up for
this mission quite a few eyebrows had been raised, since even
Mnemtech himself, who had learned the hard way, never meddled in
any space north, south, or within the Stones' orbit.

Panning out that far had the effect of
reducing what had just been a curvature of the star to a full red
circle at the center with the Stones' orbit displayed at the edge
of the holograph. It had also melded their position, the theorized
satellite ring, and their target's orbit into a single
undifferentiated circle hugging the red disk.

Magnify the center? No, that wouldn't do.
“Convert to 2D full floor display,” he ordered.

The holograph collapsed to the floor and
exploded out in all directions flush to the walls of the chamber,
with Aru and Mei left standing upon it. Aru stumbled forward a few
steps spilling his drink a bit, unprepared for the sudden dizzying
effect. Mei was quick to grab and steady him with a girlish
giggle.

She looked down and around at the broad
display, and an understanding came over her face with a grin.
Taking over, she ordered, “Kinny, animate all objects’ orbital
motion, 10000x speed.”

The predicted low altitude orbit of the target
began whizzing around the star, with the high altitude satellite
ring turning more slowly, and the dwarf planets at the edge of the
display inching along slower still.

“I see it.... yes!” she exclaimed. “The
Stones, The Stones would have the power to broadcast a signal
through the Corona.”

System also saw where this was headed and put
the final touches on the picture they were hashing out. Dotted
heavy beams shot straight from each Stone into the satellite ring,
which amplified and relayed them along itself. As each satellite
moved out of range, the next picked it up. From there another
signal was cast from the satellite ring toward the target
object.