The Agathon: Book One (2 page)

“It could have killed you,” he said quietly. She turned and looked at him with an unsettling gaze. She looked off into the distance.

“I have to know what it is,” she said.

“We all have to know what it is, Carrie, but that knowledge will not do either of us any good if that thing liquefies you in the middle of my lab,” he said, his voice raised.

“Can you imagine that conversation with your father?” She didn’t answer. “I’ve entered a code word clearance, only on the containment lab. You are not permitted back in again without my explicit permission,” he said, turning away from her and heading back to his main workstation. She turned back to the viewing chamber slowly.

“Yes, Doctor Tyrell, I understand,” she said.

“Now, if you wouldn’t mind, we don’t have that much time this evening, so if you could reposition the orbital array towards Phobos. I would like to get a visual on the Monolith quickly, on its next orbit.”

“Of course,” Carrie said, tapping some commands into her control panel. The image of the Earth regressed in the viewing chamber, as Carrie pulled back from the blue planet. The stars zipped by as the Earth vanished from sight. Seconds later the image filled with the familiar red planet. An oddly shaped orbiting ball of rock began to appear from behind the Martian haze. As the imaging chamber crept closer, the surface of the orbiting moon became more detailed. A computer voice confirmed the target lock of Phobos. Miles of fluorescent pipes spidered across its surface, crisscrossing at large cubical structures, making it look like a pebble trapped in a glowing spider’s web. Tyrell frowned. While his access to the Monolith structure and signal data had been unrestricted, he was never given permission for data from any other structures that Jycorp had attached to the base of it. Jycorp had been busy the last century, spending much of its resources on this mysterious little hunk of rock.

It was rumoured that over three quarters of Jycorp’s research and development division were now stationed here, along with entrenched military bases and orbited by two space stations, Phobos One and the Jycorp orbital platform, which was restricted to military personnel only. Observing the Jycorp station was restricted by the viewing chamber at the behest of the supreme chancellor and CEO of Jycorp, Jerome Young. The image of the moon filled the viewing chamber. As it reached the surface, both observers looked on at the focus of Carrie’s attention, which became the prominent feature in the chamber.

The two mile high, rectangular structure, stood ominously before them. Mirrored on all sides, it reflected the surrounding area and almost cloaked to the human eye, depending on what angle it was viewed from. One could be fooled as to its sheer mass, unless one was face to face on the surface. There it stood peacefully. A monument to an ancient civilisation. Surrounded by a hub of monitoring platforms and miles of duatronic cabling, which monitored every wavelength of energy emanating from the structure. Silently, it looked out into the universe and played its song over and over. Tyrell looked at the structure. More familiar with it than anything he knew. It had been his life’s work on Earth. Every inch of its surface plagued his dreams. The Monolith signal had been steady over the last hundred years and the human race was no closer to understanding what it meant. Not as far as Tyrell was concerned. The algorithm relayed Terabits of information every second on a carrier wave so strong it had been theorised that the only way it could have been compressed was through subspace. Tyrell knew one thing. The origin.

“Image locked, Doctor Tyrell, relaying data now,” said Carrie.

“Thank you, Carrie. Hold it there for now,” he said. Tyrell linked his console with the relay on the orbiting moon and began downloading the daily updates on the signal. He sat back and watched it, as it streamed past his screen. Thousands of symbols flooded his console. He rubbed his eyes and yawned. His latest set of algorithms had revealed no pattern to the random stream of data. Again. He was beginning to grow weary of the chase. He raised his eyes and watched as Carrie looked on at that rectangular structure being represented in the viewing chamber. He watched her closely.

Carr
ie stared on at the black rectangular Monolith and moved the viewer in for a closer look at its flat polished surface. A familiar gentle hum began to resonate in her mind. The sound felt strangely organic and it always stopped when she repositioned the array away from the moon. She likened it to a cat purring and, when mentioning the sound to Tyrell a few weeks back, she’d realised that she was the only person able to hear it. She had opened her mind to the structure on many occasions but had learned nothing from doing so. It just hummed gently in her mind. She actually found it relaxing.

“Carrie, reposition the array to the Aristaeus system, will you? Let’s say hello to our friends,” said Tyrell from behind her.

“Yes, Doctor,” she said, tapping in the commands for the target star system. Visiting the home world of the signal makers, or what was thought to be the home world of the signal makers, was a daily trip for Carrie.

“Quickly now, I would like to get a closer look at that large orbital we were locked into yesterday,” said Tyrell. Carrie took a breath. His tone was grinding her more than usual this evening and she had begun to find it irritating. His proximity lately had begun to send shivers down her arms. His mind had always been difficult to read. His thoughts were highly organised and she could tell he made great efforts to conceal information from her. It was more than secrecy. He had disciplined his mind to focus in such a specific way when he was near her and she could feel the strain it had on his concentration. He was hiding something from her mind. And so they played their little game of hide and seek.

“Inputting target coordinates now,” she said. The image pulled away from the surface of Phobos and past the red planet, before zipping through the stars. At six hundred light years away, the array was only able to show the system at a distance. After several minutes the viewing area slowed to a gentle halt, revealing a bright star.

“Aristaeus system locked,” came the soothing, female computer voice.

“Lock in Aristaeus Three,” Carrie said into her command panel. The viewing chamber flew past a small rocky planet and past another large gas giant, before settling on the target world. At this distance, Aristaeus III resembled Earth. It was a large blue oceanic world, with swirling cloud masses orbited by the two moons Hemera and Groma.

“Would you like to complete the gravity readings on Hemera, Doctor Tyrell?” she asked.

“Not today, Carrie, try and get us closer to object Delta,” he said. She tapped in target vectors and moved the array.

“Scanning,” she said.

“Object Delta cannot be located at this time,” said the female voice.

“Dammit!” said Tyrell.

“It probably burned up in the atmosphere. It was in very close orbit,” Carrie said.

“That doesn’t explain why it had a stable orbit yesterday, Carrie,” Tyrell retorted gruffly. Carrie bit her tongue. There was tension in the air.

“It couldn’t have been a meteor,” he said.

“Any impact on Hemera or Groma would have left residual debris and we would have seen any incoming projectile on the previous days’ scans of the system.” There was silence in the lab.

“Whatever it was, it’s not there anymore,” Carrie said passively. She could feel Tyrell approaching the viewing chamber and straightened her back. The tension between them began to increase when a low frequency alarm sounded, attracting Tyrell’s attention. A female voice came over the comms.

“Signal frequency change in aspect. Doctor Tyrell, please come to Astrometrics.” Tyrell stood beside Carrie and tapped the console on her chair.

“Tyrell here, I am on my way,” he said, looking sharply at Carrie.

“Keep looking; it may have been flung out into the star system by an asteroid impact or something,” he said, turning away from her.

“I may be a while, so if you still don’t find anything in the next half hour complete those soil samples for Doctor Meridian and place them in the refrigeration unit. The last thing I need today is her breathing down my neck,” he said.

“Yes, Doctor Tyrell,” she said, feeling at ease as he made his way to the lab exit. Tyrell took an instrument out of one of the lockers behind the workstation and left. The hiss of the door column left the room deathly quiet. The only sounds were the quiet chirps from the instrument panel above Carrie’s head. She was finally alone with the Universe at her fingertips. She tapped a few commands in the panel and redirected the array back towards Earth. She magnified the planet so that the equator filled the space in the viewing chamber and relaxed into her chair, watching it spin silently.

As the minutes drew past, she began to lose herself in Earth’s abundance of life and light. She began to feel her eyes close as she followed the continents. As she began to drift off to sleep, the rhythm of unconsciousness was interrupted by what looked like a bright beam of light. Her eyes felt too heavy to look at it any further. It began to brighten. As her mind drifted off to sleep, her mother’s voice began to echo in her mind.

Her eyes open as she feels her hand slip from the inside of a weathered cave wall, while she manoeuvres under a protruding rock face which lies directly ahead of her. The red soil is loose and, although untouched in millennia, it falls from underfoot with ease. She draws in a strong breath as she steadies herself and checks in with the team, who follow closely. She checks her suit for tears and does a visual on her oxygen levels. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in her arm display. She has long brown hair framing a soft and sallow complexion. She has an athletic physique and can feel the adrenalin flowing through her veins as she makes her way through the cave. Her husband is watching intently from miles away, while her daughter sleeps soundly under the watch of Doctor Chase Meridian.

“Easy, guys, it’s loose underfoot here,” she announces to her colleagues who follow closely behind. The cave is dark and she tells the team to activate their overhead lamps. Her two companions follow closely and light up their path with white light. One of them is a young cadet by the name of Charlie Weston. A rather serious
twenty
-
seven
-
year
-old who fills out his suit to bursting point. John had insisted on taking backup. Physical backup, should she run into trouble. While Charlie is pleasant company, he isn’t much of a talker and usually wears a stern and serious expression on his face as he prepares himself for combat at a moment’s notice. She had objected initially but finds him to be a comforting addition. Her other companion is a pretty Japanese mathematician by the name of Jin Li Chun. She has an intoxicating sense of humour and loves to cook little treats for her for their all night lab analysis sessions. As they continue their descent she begins to feel the ground beneath her soften.

“Romeo Two to Aquaria base,” she says.

“Aquaria base here. Go ahead, Jennifer.” Carrie hears her father’s voice coming through the comms. She feels her mother’s heart beat calmly at the sound of his voice.

“John, I’m taking Romeo team into the cavern now. There are high deposits of iron in the cave, so comms may be intermittent,” she says.

“Aquaria base acknowledges. Proceed with caution, Doctor. Aquaria base out.” Carrie’s mind leaves her mother’s and travels across the Martian desert. Through the blinding sand storm and towards the light of the colony. She sees her father standing at a curved window and enters his mind. Their thoughts begin to intertwine as a new set of emotions layer themselves onto her own. For a moment the floodgates of feelings overwhelm her, but it quickly dissipates and they become one. She feels her father’s anxious heartbeat.

“Fucking planet,” he whispers under his breath. He paces behind the monitoring station. “Weather report,” he says to one of the men at a control console.

“That dust storm is right on top of them, Commander. I would have them stay put for at least
twenty
-four hours,” he says.

“Perfect timing, Jennifer, as always,” he mutters under his breath. He strokes his unshaven cheeks. Carrie feels her father’s muscles tense. He a fit
forty
-
year
-old man. He feels tired and is in need of a night’s sleep, but his mind is sharp.

“She’ll be fine, John. Jen’s a tough cookie. Tougher than you, I might add,” comes a female voice from the corner of the room. He turns to see Doctor Chase Meridian staring at him. She smiles. He notices the little smiles on his crew and walks over to her.

“I would appreciate you keeping comments like that to yourself, Chase,” he whispers. She puts her hands up in mock apology.

“Sorry, Commander, my bad, but that woman flew a very long way to an alien planet with you. Not to mention gave birth and recovered from nearly being blown up by some lunatic. So I think she can handle a little camping trip. She’s in her element John, she needs this,” she says. Carrie sees the look in Meridian’s eyes and feels comforted by it. She has a spark in her eyes, has tightly cropped blonde hair and has youth still carved into her cheeks. She has an air of authority that her father deeply respects. He nods and turns back.

“Aquaria Base, this is Romeo One. We have entered the canyon. Readings indicated something a hundred meters north of our current position and seventeen meters down. We are proceeding.” The commander’s brow furrows.

“Aquaria base acknowledges. Watch yourself, you didn’t bring your lucky dice.” He looks over at Meridian who meets his gaze. There is a pause on the comms system, as the unusual familiar tone that the commander uses is understood.

“Aquaria base, that is a negative. Romeo One has it firmly in her atmo suit,” she says. Meridian smiles.