F.
Crane frowned at the computer screen, unsure what to make of this cryptic message. Find a friend…
There was another knock on his door: Bishop, no doubt, returning with the meds he’d said he didn’t need. “Come in, Michele,” he said, closing the note.
The door opened. Hui Ping stood in the entrance.
Crane looked at her in surprise.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” Crane said, recovering. “Come in.”
Ping stepped in, took the seat Crane offered. “I just learned of Dr. Asher’s death. I would have found out earlier, but I’d stumbled across something strange in the lab. Anyway, as soon as I heard…well, funny, but you were the only person that came to mind to talk to.”
Crane inclined his head.
Abruptly, Ping rose. “It’s selfish of me. After all, you were there. You must be feeling—”
“No, it’s all right,” Crane said. “I think I need to talk, too.”
“About Dr. Asher?”
“No.” That’s still too raw, he thought. “About something I discovered.”
Ping sat down again.
“You know how I’ve been running every test I could think of, following up leads, looking for the cause of what’s making people ill.”
Ping nodded.
“I was getting nowhere until something occurred to me: people were complaining about two completely different kinds of symptoms. Some were physiological: nausea, muscle tics, a horde of others. Others were psychological: sleeplessness, confusion, even mania. I’d always believed there had to be a common factor involved. But what kind of factor could cause both? That’s when I got the idea the underlying cause had to be neurological.”
“Why?”
“Because the brain controls both the mind and the body. So I ordered EEG tests. And just today I got back the first set of tests. Every patient had spikes in the theta waves of their brains—waves that are supposed to be quiet in adults. Even stranger, the pattern of spikes was exactly the same for every patient. That’s when I got a crazy idea. I plotted the pattern of spikes. And you know what I discovered?”
“I can’t imagine.”
Crane opened the drawer of his desk, pulled out a manila envelope, and handed it to Ping. She opened it and pulled out a computer printout.
“This is Asher’s digital code,” she said. “The one the sentinels are transmitting.”
“Exactly.”
She frowned in incomprehension. Then, suddenly, her eyes widened. “Oh, no. You don’t mean…”
“I do. The spikes in the theta waves match the pulses of light. It’s the same message as the one the sentinels were first transmitting.”
“But how is that possible? Why didn’t we detect anything?”
“I’m not sure. But I have a theory. We already know those sentinels are broadcasting their message on every conceivable wavelength of electromagnetic radiation—radio waves, microwaves, ultraviolet, infrared. We also know whatever created those sentinels has technology far beyond our own. So who’s to say they’re not also broadcasting their messages on other channels, other types of radiation we don’t even know how to detect yet?”
“Such as?”
“Quark radiation, maybe. Or a new type of particle that can pass through matter, like Higgs bosons. The point is it’s some unknown form of radiation, undetectable by our instruments, that interferes with the electrical impulses in our brains.”
“Why doesn’t it affect everybody?”
“Because biological systems aren’t equal. Just as some people have heavier bones, some people have more resistant nervous systems. Or perhaps there are structures in the Facility that inadvertently act as Faraday cages.”
“As what?”
“Faraday cages—enclosures built to isolate things from electromagnetic fields. But I think everybody here is affected—just in different degrees. I haven’t exactly felt like myself recently…have you?”
Hui thought a moment. “No. No, I haven’t.”
There was a brief silence.
“So are you going to take this to Admiral Spartan?” Hui asked.
“Not yet.”
“Why not? Sounds to me like your work is done.”
“Spartan hasn’t been very sympathetic to any viewpoint other than his own. I don’t want to tell him prematurely, give him an excuse to dismiss it. The more evidence I have, the better. And that means finding the other piece.”
“What other piece is that?”
“Before he died, Asher discovered something. There, in the hyperbaric chamber. I know, because he told me so, over the phone. It’s all on the laptop, he said. I need to get that laptop, find out what he discovered. Because he was desperate to tell me something, there at the end. He kept repeating one word: whip.”
Hui frowned again. “Whip?”
“Yes.”
“Whip who? Or what? And why?”
“The secret to that’s on his computer—if the hard drive is salvageable.”
Another thoughtful silence fell over the stateroom. At last, Crane roused himself and turned toward Hui Ping. “Want to head down to Times Square, get an espresso?”
Hui brightened. “Sure.”
They stepped out into the hall. “Perhaps I can help you,” she said.
“How?”
“As part of my computer science degree, I spent a summer interning at a data recovery facility.”
Crane turned to her. “You mean, you can retrieve data off ruined hard drives?”
“I didn’t actually do the recovery myself—I was just an intern, after all. But I watched the process plenty of times, assisted in several.”
They stopped at the elevator. “Earlier, you said you’d stumbled over something strange in the lab,” Crane said. “What was it?”
“Sorry? Oh, yes. Remember those absorption lines I showed you? The ones the sentinal in my lab was emitting?”
“The ones you said could only come from a distant star?”
“Right.”
The elevator doors whispered open, they stepped in, and Crane pressed the button for deck 9. “Well,” Hui continued, “just for kicks, I ran that set of absorption lines against a database of known stars. You see, every star has a unique absorption signature. And guess what? I found an exact match.”
“Between your little sentinel and a faraway star?”
Hui nodded. “One hundred and forty light-years away, to be exact. Cygnus Major, otherwise known as M81.”
“You think that’s where the marker came from?”
“Well, that’s just it. That star, Cygnus Major, has only one planet. A gas giant, with oceans of sulfuric acid and a methane atmosphere.”
Crane felt puzzled. “No mistake?”
Hui shook her head. “Absorption line signatures are as unique as fingerprints. No mistake.”
“You think that—on top of everything else—they’re trying to tell us where they come from?”
“Looks that way to me.”
“Well, that’s strange. Because what could a planet of methane and acid possibly see in the oxygen and water of Earth?”
“Exactly.” And as the elevator doors opened onto Crew Support, she turned and gave him a speculative look.
37
The floor of the hyperbaric therapy suite was thick with debris: empty extinguisher casings, bandage wrappers, disposable gloves. Commander Terrence W. Korolis stepped around it all with the finicky precision of a cat.
Two commandos in black ops fatigues stood outside the doorway, barring entry to what was being treated as an active crime scene. Another stood guard by the control room. Korolis found their chief, Woburn, in the waiting area next to the hyperbaric chamber itself, speaking to a technician. The entrance hatch to the chamber was open; heavy scorch marks ran along its upper edge and across the nearby ceiling, which was caked with soot.
When Woburn caught sight of Korolis he nod
ded to the technician and stepped away, following Korolis into the control room. The commander waited until Woburn had shut the door behind them.
“Update, please, Chief,” Korolis said.
“Sir.” Woburn carried his well-muscled body with stiff precision. “The safety circuits were deliberately bypassed.”
“And the internal sprinklers?”
“Deactivated.”
“What about the fire? Any theories how it started?”
Woburn jerked a thumb in the direction of the observation window. “The compressor, sir. The technician believes it was tampered with.”
“How?”
“It seems the step-down transformer was disengaged while the compressor was running at maximum.”
Korolis nodded slowly. “Forcing the RPMs to spike.”
“And the compressor to overheat, first, then basically explode into flame. Yes, sir.”
“Where could this have been performed?”
“There’s a support closet beyond the hyperbaric suite, tucked between two of the science labs. All the work could have been done from there.”
“Would it have taken long?”
“The technician said if the person knew what he was doing, it might have taken two, maybe three minutes, tops.”
Korolis nodded. The person knew what he was doing, all right. Just as he’d known how to score the inside of the dome with a laser cutter. A good saboteur was trained in how to wreck or blow up almost anything.
Korolis knew all about that kind of training.
He turned back to Woburn. “Any cameras tasked on that support closet?”
“Negative, sir.”
“Very well.”
Korolis paused to glance out the observation window. The technician had ducked inside the hyperbaric chamber and was now out of visual contact. Aside from the operatives in dark fatigues, there were no witnesses.
He turned to Woburn again. “You have it here?” Although the door was closed, he spoke in a tone even softer than before.
Woburn gave a slight nod.
“Nobody saw you take it?”
“Only our own men, sir.”
“Excellent.”
Woburn knelt beside the control console, reached underneath it, and extracted a slim case of black ballistic nylon. He handed it to Korolis, along with a key.
“Do you want us to conduct a further investigation, sir?” Woburn asked. “Inquire whether any of the scientists saw anything, or anyone, unusual?”
“There’s no need for that, Chief. I’ll take over from here and relay my findings to the admiral.”
“Very good, sir.” And Woburn executed a superbly crisp salute.
Korolis regarded him a moment. Then he returned the salute and left the hyperbaric suite.
Korolis’s private quarters were in a special section of deck 11 reserved for military officers. He stepped inside, then closed and carefully locked the door before moving toward his desk. The stateroom was dimly lit. Where others might have set framed pictures or light reading, Korolis had security monitors and classified manuals.
He placed the nylon case Woburn had given him on the desk, then unlocked it with the key. Unzipping the case, he reached inside and pulled out a laptop computer, badly scorched along one side.
The stateroom filled with the acrid stench of burnt plastic and electronics.
Korolis turned to his environmental control panel, put its airscrubbing filter on full. Then he took a seat and pulled the terminal keyboard toward him. He entered the password for his private computer, then entered a second, much longer passphrase to enter a secure area of the Facility’s military network, accessible only by him. Next, he loaded a forensic audio program of the type used by audio restoration engineers and wiretappers. Then, bringing up a list of files, he paged through the entries until he found the one he wanted. Loading this into the forensic program brought up a complex screen dominated by an audio waveform: a mono sound file captured by a tiny microphone.
Korolis plugged a pair of headphones into the computer. Then he adjusted the program’s spectral filter to remove extraneous noise, boosted the gain, and clicked the playback button.
Over the headphones came Crane’s voice, remarkably clear given the low fidelity of the surveillance microphone.
“Before he died, Asher discovered something…I know, because he told me so, over the phone. It’s all on the laptop, he said. I need to get that laptop, find out what he discovered. Because he was desperate to tell me something, there at the end…”
Then came another voice: a voice the program’s soundprint analyzer had identified as Hui Ping’s. Korolis’s face darkened as he listened.
“The secret to that’s on his computer,” Crane went on.
With a click of his mouse, Korolis stopped the playback. Another click closed the file and exited the program.
Korolis stood, carrying Asher’s damaged laptop over to a far corner of the room, where a gray locker sat on the floor. Kneeling, he unsnapped its clasps, opened it, and pulled out a bulky object: a degaussing magnet.
Once again, he made sure the door to his stateroom was locked. Then—slowly and deliberately, and careful to stay well away from his own computer—he held the magnet close to the laptop, passing it over the hard disk. Even if it had survived the fire, this would certainly scramble its data beyond all recognition.
Crane and Hui Ping were serious security risks—and one couldn’t be too sure. This step was a start. And Korolis knew exactly what to do next.
38
Cold Storage Locker 1-C, on the lowest level of the Facility, was a grim place. The temperature was regulated to a precise 38.5 degrees Fahrenheit. The flooring consisted of wooden pallets, placed over a bilgelike inch of cold, dirty water. The lighting was faint, throwing the claustrophobic space into heavy gloom. The air smelled of mold and butchered meat. The only sound was the faint dripping of water.
Admiral Spartan stood in the center of the locker, staring at the horribly mangled remains of Marble One. It hovered before him like a crumpled foil ball, lashed around by heavy chain and suspended from the ceiling by a large, cruel-looking hook. To one side lay the heavy blue tarp he’d just pulled away.
What flaw caused this disaster? As a military officer, he’d made it his life’s work to achieve victory by anticipating failure—his own or an enemy’s—and either forestalling or exploiting it. But how could you anticipate failure when you were working with a rule set that was utterly, incomprehensibly foreign?
It was true that, since Marble One had been destroyed, Marble Two and Marble Three had continued operations without delay. They had implemented the changes recommended by Asher and his scientific team, and there had been no further problems. If anything, the work was going even more swiftly than anticipated: the third, lowest layer of the crust had proven to be of a softer, almost siltlike material that could be excavated very quickly, and they were on track to reach the Mohorovicic discontinuity in days now.
Asher. The chief scientist’s warning, in the wake of Marble One’s destruction and the deaths of its crew, sounded again in the admiral’s head: My recommendation is that we cease all operations until we have a thorough understanding of what caused this disaster.
And now Asher, too, was dead.
There was a screech of metal behind him, and the door to the locker opened, throwing a stripe of yellow light across the dark interior. Commander Korolis—who had a feline distaste for being either cold or wet—wedged the door open and stepped inside.
Spartan glanced at him. “Your report, Commander?”
Korolis approached. “The sprinkler system in the hyperbaric chamber was compromised. And the compressor was overloaded, causing an explosion and fire inside the chamber itself. No question about it: this was an act of sabotage.”
“An act of murder,” Spartan said.
“As you say, sir.”
Spartan turned back toward the ruined Marble. “This time, it seems a particular person was
targeted rather than the entire Facility. Why?”
“I don’t have an answer to that yet, sir. Perhaps we simply caught a break.”
Once again, Spartan glanced over at Korolis. “Caught a break, Commander?”
“In terms of the target. We were lucky the saboteur didn’t go after a more strategic asset.”
“I see. And just how much more strategic an asset could we have than Dr. Asher?”
“Asher’s usefulness to the project was growing questionable. He’d become a Cassandra, sir—his talk of gloom and doom, his eagerness to derail the excavation schedule, wasn’t good for morale.”
“Indeed.” Spartan reflected that if Korolis had any personal failings, frankness was not one of them.
“That’s my opinion anyway, sir. To be honest, I’m surprised it’s not yours as well.”
Spartan ignored the innuendo, instead waving a hand at the remains of Marble One. “And what of this?”
“Tapes of the transmissions have been carefully analyzed, along with the black box from the Doodlebug. Unlike the hyperbaric chamber, there’s absolutely no sign of tampering or foul play. Equipment malfunction, plain and simple.”
Spartan fell silent for a moment, contemplating the obscene tangle of metal. Then he roused himself. “Any progress on identifying the responsible individual?”
“Yes. We’ve isolated one individual who was in both locations—Outer Hull Receiving and the hyperbaric oxygen suite—directly before the sabotage incidents took place.”
“And who would that be?”
Wordlessly, Korolis drew an envelope out of his breast pocket and handed it to Spartan. The admiral opened it, gazed at the contents for a moment, then handed it back.
“Dr. Ping?” he said.
Korolis nodded. “Her Chinese background always struck me as a little suspicious. And wasn’t it your opinion, sir, that the saboteur must be in the employ of a foreign government?”
“She was thoroughly vetted, just like everybody else.”
“Things can slip through the cracks sometimes. Especially if somebody wants them to slip through badly enough. You know that as well as I do, sir.”