Jaunt (11 page)

D’Avid looked to each man. “Any further questions?”

Silence from the agents answered him.

“Good. Dismissed.”

Over the course of the next two days, Louris massaged out of the crew that the Hesperus was approximately one thousand kilometers from the East Siberian Sea, still a good day away. Twenty hours ago, they had diverted a kilometer to the south aft experiencing a close call from sinking ice sheets. And finally, intercepted communiques indicated that the majority of the Confederation Navy was in the North Atlantic and Mid-Pacific Oceans, partially allaying their fears of detection.

For now, the agents were reduced to preparing for their extended mission, memorizing geographical sites, brushing up on their Russian, writing contingency plans, and above all else, practicing severe climate survival training.

The USNAN wasn’t any more accommodating than they legally had to be. Perhaps it was the secrecy of the mission that prevented them, or the orders from the captain, a man named Conway. Either way, the agents perceived a hands-off attitude from the senior officers. Once the IIA agents and their equipment had been off-loaded, the Hesperus would be efficiently, and conveniently, out of range. If the mission went to hell before reaching the first night’s objective, then the agents were SOL.

Gilmour had to admit, despite the chilled atmosphere above and below decks, the ride so far had proved fairly smooth, in contrast to the angry flight the jumpjet had given the group. Small miracles, he thought. He then cautioned himself of the sores, aches and blisters he’d be lucky to have when the agents were hiking their way to the Sakha Republic. That is, if they weren’t hunted down before then.

He quieted his anxious mind and focused on the objective ahead; no use dreading over possibilities. Anxiety would not keep him alive, nor would fear. Just his abilities, his training, and a determination to save the future.

“You do realize we could lose another sample by pushing forward.”

De Lis stroked his chin. “I’ve made my decision, Stacia. Is the Casimir ready?”

Waters peered through the fullerene glass to Roget’s exam table. “Looks like Lionel is just about finished.”

The pair left de Lis’ office and headed over to the main examination table, where Roget and two junior scientists, Cory Crowe and Alik Ivan, were completing work on a larger, sturdier version of the Casimir device. The grey vacuum chamber was twice the size of the jumpjet’s now defunct machine, and capable of supporting several samples. Crowe slipped a holo-cam snake into the device’s open dropchute while Roget read off the final checklist for the modifications.

“Richard,” Roget said, “we’re nearly completed. Another moment or two, and the holo-cam will also be set to broadcast.”

De Lis nodded, satisfied.

A circular bank of four monitors to the group’s left sprouted from the center of the floor, administered by Ivan. He hurriedly connected various optical bundle wires into the rear of the holographic receptors, which then wound underneath the shelf to the Casimir device.

Marlane entered from another room carrying a heavy, reinforced equipment case in her hands. With a loud thump, she set the case down adjacent to the Casimir device. De Lis and Waters crossed over to the sturdy examination table.

“Thank you, Carol,” de Lis said, his fingers keying in a code sequence on the lid of the case, which unlocked the mechanism. Inside were a dozen jewels laid bare on dark molded velvet, their iridescence refracting into the beguiled eyes of the assembled scientists.

De Lis slipped a pair of radiation gloves over his hands in case the objects were toxic. Gingerly lifting a single jewel from its hold, he cupped it in his hands like a sacred offering. He paused for a moment and held it at eye level, looking deeply into its dozens of facets, which held perhaps hundreds of secrets, all of them calling his name, coaxing his curiosity. Shaking his head, de Lis broke out of his reverie and placed the jewel on an adjacent glass plate while Roget, Crowe and Ivan finished the modifications on the Casimir.

A moment later, Crowe set a tool down, proclaiming, “Finished.”

Roget nodded and for the last time, checked the restraints on the Casimir. He had personally welded it to the lab floor, hoping to prevent this more robust device from meeting the same fate as the last one. In the event of a catastrophe, however, not much could indeed be done to stop it from exploding and ruining their chances of ever penetrating the enigmatic jewels.

Roget rubbed his hands together after testing the vanadium-welded rods, then turned back to de Lis. “Ready?”

De Lis retrieved the extraterrestrial object from the glass plate, while Waters closed and sequestered the equipment case several meters away, just to be sure.

Ivan signaled to Roget that the monitor signals were good. Roget then activated the Casimir Symmetrical Virtual Particle Reaction Cavity, which oscillated on the exam table as the interior quantum battery began charging the device. A green diode on a side panel informed Roget that the Casimir was at full power and in optimal working condition.

Ivan unlatched the dropchute, permitting de Lis to place the jewel inside, then sealed it again. Roget punched the aspirator control button, evacuating the ambient atmosphere from the vacuum cavity before dropping the jewel into the metal Casimir plates at the chamber’s heart.

Waters and Marlane monitored the laboratory’s holobooks, using the devices to record the progress of the jewels as they were subjected to the virtual particle/antiparticle annihilation. Throughout the experiment, the pair would be scanning for a method to control the reaction, and perhaps utilize the nano-explosions to their own benefit, whatever those may be.

“Releasing dropchute,” Roget announced, resting his hand on the holding switch. Flipping it, the jewel fell into the chamber, where the holo-cam glimpsed the fuzzy object pause between the Casimir plates.

The assembled group, many of whom had never witnessed such an event, scrunched shoulder to shoulder before the monitors, transfixed by the incoming telemetry. A holograph of the jewel suspended in the chamber appeared on the twin holobooks, coupled with a continually updated data stream. The eyes of Waters and Marlane never strayed from the miniature screens while the devices displayed the condition of the object in the Casimir.

White grains exploded onto the monitors, bringing cries of joy and wonder to the scientists. Deep at the center of the nano-explosions, a void took shape, shifting and twisting a non-descript black mass onto the screens of the curious group. Numerous fingers tapped the amorphous shape’s image, anxiously tracing an outline while furious discussions began about the meaning and circumstances of this new discovery.

“Chronometers at peak,” Marlane said, checking the sequencing numerals on her holobook’s holographic face, as well as the control face.

Inside the vacuum chamber, Roget’s customized quantum timepiece measured the chronometric spin rate of protons, which were synchronized to run parallel with the control timepiece—Chronometer A—located in the laboratory. These were necessary to discern what effects the object would create upon the normal fabric of spacetime.

Waters’ holobook recorded the relative strength of the vacuum chamber’s zero point virtual particles, represented by repeatedly overlapping red and green spheres, a holographic interpretation of old-time field isobars. “Highest field strength at negative three millielectronvolts, lowest at negative one point nine millielectronvolts.” She shook her head. “No change, Richard.”

Roget toggled a dial on the chamber’s exterior. “Decreasing plate distance by...nine micrometers.” He looked back to her, ready for any sign, any flicker that they were making progress.

The holographic jewel held steady on Waters’ holobook. “No change.”

“Wait....” Marlane’s eye double-checked the parallel timepieces. The control scrolled by at the perceptibly normal rate, but the customized chronometer’s numerals slowed, and actually stopped. “Chronometer B...it’s paused.”

“Paused?” Roget stepped over to Marlane and glanced at her holobook. There, in bright green, the numerals to Chronometer B lay frozen at 09:49:31:09571.

“Stacia, the field strength,” de Lis asked, almost giddily.

“Negative eight millielectronvolts, ninety-two percent uniform.” Her holographic isobars ran smoothly together, save for the center of the field, which represented the small space between the Casimir plates.

“Doctors,” Ivan yelled. Pointing a finger to the monitors, he brought attention to the larger void mass flowing out from the center of the screen, exterminating the nanoexplosions all around.

From beside the gathered group, Waters consulted the incredulous data on her holobook. “Chronometer B...is going backwards. It’s reversing! Field strength at negative eleven millielectronvolts...fifteen...nineteen!” The holographic jewel distorted horribly, as if her holobook’s sensors could no longer register the object’s presence. “Richard, we’re losing the jewel.”

“My god...look at it.”

No eyes could break away from the jewel on the monitors. Despite the incessant static clouding the image, de Lis, Roget and the other staff watched the mass invade the entire vacuum chamber, obscuring even the twin plates.

“The plates, they’re fading...what’s going on in there?”

Waters and Marlane shook their heads; they had no better explanation.

De Lis peeked at Waters’ data readings, to see if he could decipher the images they were all witnessing. “Spacetime curvature must be awesome in there...it’s at negative thirty-two millielectronvolts and rising! Lionel, what topology can you—”

Roget lunged for the Casimir twin plates control dial. “Richard, it’s going to destroy the vacuum chamber.”

“Lionel...no, let it go, for just a little long—”

The two men fought for the dial, one hand grasping another like two schoolyard adversaries.

“Richard, we have to preserve the equipm—”

De Lis forced Roget’s hand back and twisted it around, away from the Casimir device. “Stand down, Lionel. If we can just get a few more readings....”

“But the—” he protested, his eyes still burning with the image of the void mass’

invasion of the vacuum chamber. All his hard work....

Waters ignored the internecine squabble before her, instead focusing on the rapidly depleting data at her eyes. Now, the jewel’s holograph had disappeared completely from her holobook screen. “Richard, all sensor data have been cutoff! I’m receiving no telemetry.”

“Nor am I,” Marlane said. “Nothing but flatlines.”

Static on the monitors drowned out any useful images from the holo-cam, but contrarily, the Casimir device still hummed, its own interior sensors declaring it at optimal power. Somewhere mysteriously between the two, rationality and logic had been distorted, twisting reality.

An inkling popped into de Lis’ mind. Freeing Roget’s hand, de Lis mulled over the conflicting reports for a moment. “Carol, status on Chronometer B.”

Marlane glanced at her holobook. “Last contact was at reading eight-sixteen-fiftyseven point seven-four-three-six-two. Telemetry ceased at that point.”

“It lost an hour and forty minutes.” He lifted his spectacles to rub his eyes, then gazed at the reticent Casimir device. “You...what are you hiding?”

To de Lis’ surprise, the instant after his question, the vacuum chamber’s exterior diode went red, indicating a loss in power or operating efficiency. Roget stepped up to it, eyeing the Casimir for any indication or cause for the energy drop.

“I don’t understand,” Roget said, inspecting the power ports on the chamber’s rear.

“Everything’s functioning normally, just how I designed.”

De Lis steadied Roget’s fidgety hands. “Lionel, it’s not the device’s set-up that’s the cause. If I’m right, there’s nothing inside for it to function.”

Roget crinkled his face. “What?”

“Give me a hand.”

Following de Lis’ instructions, Ivan cut power to the device, while de Lis and Roget forced open the lid of the vacuum chamber, using a crowbar and hammer. The pair wrenched off the top, revealing the burnt shell of the Casimir’s vacuum chamber. Roget’s face registered his horror; where once there had been parallel metal plates, the mechanisms for them, various internal sensors and a holo-cam, there was merely a hollow chamber, devoid of circuitry and machinery.

Roget looked to de Lis, awestruck, then scraped the edge of the chamber’s wall, removing flakes of ashen metal with his fingernail. “It did this? Incinerated it?”

“No, not incineration,” de Lis explained. “What we saw in Nepal was different. The jewel...ripped open some type of spacetime vortex. I think this one did as well, taking some presents with it.”

“Spacetime rips...vortices...the Casimir doesn’t have the power to do that, Richard. If I could have created one, I would have done it with a Casimir years ago.”

Waters smirked. “We all would have, Lionel.”

Roget furrowed his brow, sublimating his irritation. “If this could be done, where would it all have gone?” He checked his wrist chronometer. “I don’t see any difference in our local environment, no evidence of change. Surely it would have affected something.”

“Perhaps. The jewel, and everything inside, broke with our present timeframe. They all went back to the past.” De Lis grew somber, feeling rather foolish once more.