DUALITY: The World of Lies (11 page)

In his wake he heard a buzzing of yapping
voices, surrounding and pestering Indulu, asking if Gahre had
signed the confession and expressing their indignation that he had
not, and how it was not as Indulu had agreed before... Above it all
he heard the Honored One's commanding voice break through theirs
and declare impatiently, “Just... just... let him go.”

C
ommander
Li Meiyang stared futilely into a terminal display of empty sensor
data waiting for the Kinetic to emerge from the erupting surface
flare that encompassed them. The thermal readings and voltages were
nearly as high as they had been during the transcoronal descent.
Magnetic shields were at full capacity protecting them in the
pocket of its polar rhombus. As expected there were no incoming
signals from any of the probes. She questioned whether any of the
fore and aft tracking probes that were also passing through this
event would emerge from it intact. Their smaller mass and energy
shield conduits did not afford them the same level of protection as
the Kinetic. They could not afford to lose many, especially after
having taken the gamble to dedicate the bulk of them to create a
hyper-relay network between the upper and lower
chromosphere.

Here, their altitude was low enough to whiz
around the entire diameter of Ignis Rubeli in less than a day. It
was disturbing to be skimming so close to the broiling surface, the
braided cords of plasma shifting in the volatile photospheric
magnetics like an expanse of maturing wheat in howling crosswinds.
The less rational side of her mind believed that they could not
orbit at such close distance where the surface took up their span
of view entirely, and that they should simply fall into the
cauldron below.

“Commander, we are emerging from the plume.
External communications should be restored momentarily.”

“Thank you Kinny. Chart all probes on the
holographic display as they come online. Highlight any that have
received anomalous readings.”

“Aye, Commander.”

Aru was still curled up in the relaxation pod,
7 hours down and snoozing like a baby. Mei had barely slept. She
gave his pod a swift kick, then another until a slow groan
emerged.

“Rise and shine Captain Hangover.”

“You aren't kidding.” He sat up, rubbing his
temples. “System, coffee.”

“Aye, Captain.” A bridge mug arrived promptly
through the wall intraship transport terminal and was delivered to
him by servicebot. “Your command status has been restored
Captain.”

“Position?” he asked no one in
particular.

“We're in the prescribed target orbit, 22,000
kilometers altitude over the photosphere,” Mei answered. “Orbital
ratio is 21 to 1. Our position is aligned 144 degrees retrograde
relative to Calidon, and we are moving into full alignment with The
White Stone.”

“And our corresponding probe in the satellite
ring?”

“Just a moment Captain.” She stared anxiously
into the display, tapping at it impatiently. “Kinny, hyper-relay
network status?”

“Online... now. Synching.... Real-time
communication link established.”

Boom! There it was, their farprobe: online,
off course, and highlighted.

“Aft Nearprobes 8,9, and 11 are not
responding... starboard 12 reporting heavy sensor damage,” reported
System.

“Yeah, yeah, Kinny. First walk us through
what's going on with Farprobe 34 in the satellite ring.”

“During the transmission blackout, Farprobe 34
detected an orbital object roughly 1,700 kilometers off the search
marker. It followed contingency protocols to adjust course en route
to it. It is still in approach and will rendezvous in the next 30
minutes. Shall I display the visual data?”

What a stupid question. “Yes,
dammit.”

A full 3D rendering of what looked nearly
identical to a child's toy jack appeared on holograph. It spun on a
longer vertical axis with four metallic gray cylinders jutting out
perpendicularly from its center.

“Stop the spin,” she said, and the image came
to a halt.

“Logosian?” Asked Aru, again to no one in
particular.

After a brief pause System decided it was
being cued to answer.

“Almost certainly, Captain. This object's form
corresponds to a retro satellite design speculated to have been in
use during prior historical iterations. It is protected by an
environmentally self-perpetuating force field. The position and
signal readings seem to validate your theory that this is a link in
a communication hyper-relay network.”

“How does a permanent satellite like this
endure in this environment?”

“Unknown, Captain. This design minimizes
surface area contact with the solar medium. To survive for any
length of time in this environment it must be coated with some
materia well beyond mnemtechian technological capacity to
fabricate. A cursory spectroscopic scan identifies it as partially
metallic, but we will need to wait until rendezvous to conduct a
meaningful analysis.”

“What's going with its
transmissions?”

“If I may speculate, Captain?”

“By all means.”

“Observation of transmission relay further
validates your theory, Captain. The four perpendicular cylinders
operate at a high rate of rotation, 18 revolutions per minute. They
function as both transmitters and receivers depending on their
alignment to the vector of orbit, in the aft position receiver, the
fore position transmitter. That transmission is being relayed to
the next satellite in the ring, and its markers precisely match the
signal we observed yesterday in terms of composition,
quantum-forwarding velocity, and amplitude.”

No surprise there. What struck Mei more than
anything though was the diminutive size of the object. A
transcoronal broadcast would require a massive
transmitter.

“This object is only 23 meters in diameter. As
we can see the axis is aligned perpendicular to the solar
surface...” She started into her observation and was
uncharacteristically interrupted by System.

“Yes, Commander, the outward tip of the axis
is currently receiving a weak transmission, amplifying and
quantum-forwarding it along the satellite ring. That signal source
is likely beyond the corona and is angling its beam in conjunction
with this satellite's movement.”

“The White Stone!” she declared. Wordlessly,
System brought the now familiar orbital diagram of the Stones
orbits and that of the satellite ring into perspective. The current
incoming transcoronal beam was highlighted with the White Stone as
its origin, indeed angling the communication beam ever so slightly
to track this satellite's orbit.

“Speed it up, Kinny -the whole
network.”

The holographic diagram burst into 100x speed.
The White Stone’s beam tracked the aligned but much faster orbiting
satellite until it moved out of range. The signal then reset
itself, angling back along the ring to the next satellite coming
into range, and so on.

“So where is the return signal to The White
Stone?”

“There is none, Commander. It is a one-way
transmission.”

That again brought up the vexing question of
why data would be beamed into a star and not out of it. But that
assumed that all the satellite stations on the ring were identical.
Perhaps there was a larger transmitter somewhere in the chain, but
Mei doubted that because it would have to be so massive as to be
visually detectable from a great distance.

“And the inward end of the axial column,
pointing toward the solar surface? What is its
function?”

“Unknown,” answered System, “but as you can
see, Commander, that bulbous tip is much larger than the outward
tip. It's impossible to know what components lay beneath the
shielding, but I would speculate that it is an inactive
transmitter.”

Assuming all this was correct, an elegant and
very hopeful picture formed. They could extrapolate every link in
the satellite chain with complete accuracy. They knew it was
receiving from, but not transmitting to, The White Stone. Probes
were on route to the nearest satellite in perihelion with The Black
Stone on the opposite of side of Rubeli, but it would take a
several more hours to collect that data. Mei reasoned they would
see the same thing there, an incoming transmission.

Just as The Stones in their far extra-coronal
orbit angled communication beams at the nearest satellite to them
in the ring, so too must the ring be transmitting to an object here
in the lower orbit when they crossed paths. She glanced at Aru who
glanced back with a look that told her their brains were already
synched into the same parallel line of reasoning.

“This is just a matter of observing a
satellite with its downward axis transmitter enabled and
broadcasting...” she began.

“Then we track the angle of the signal to the
intersect of this target orbit, which should put us in the vicinity
of the receiving body,” he finished.

They had several probes rendezvousing with
various satellite links on the chain. Some, however, would not at
times be accessible through the wide-scale hyper-relay network they
had laid. But even just sticking with one satellite, they should
observe it align and transmit within the next forty-seven hours,
the full circuit of the satellite ring orbit.

“We can do this even one better. Kinny, assume
an object in an orbital period range of 8,000 kilometers above or
below The Kinetic.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Now find which orbit our satellite ring would
be optimized to transmit to.”

A bright highlighted ring wrapped itself
around the diagram of Ignis Rubeli, 2,330 kilometers above their
current position.

“That's our absolute target orbit,” Aru
confidently declared. “System, navigator: Take us back up there,
and reassign all nearprobes to sweep that orbit.”

“Aye Captain,” responded Mei and System in
unison. Mei's official position was, after all, the Navigator -not
that titles usually held much meaning in a two member crew -or
three if you counted Kinny.

System spoke. “Captain, I don't mean to divert
attention from the search, but we’ve just come into the midst of a
sudden thermal spike. The hullbots are reporting an issue with the
physical shielding on the outer shield ring you should be made
aware of immediately.”

“Whoa, wait... what's going on with the shield
ring?” he asked.

The holograph put a profile view of the
Kinetic on display along with her surrounding toroidal
magnetospheric shield.

“Due to the lower surrounding voltages of the
chromosphere, our environmentally powered magnetospheric
force-shield is considerably weaker here. That has resulted in a
marked increase in the density of highly charged plasma ions,
particularly single protons, seeping into our shielded space and
raising The Kinetic's thermals rapidly beyond safe
levels.”

“We're getting too hot.” translated Mei. It
stood to reason that would happen gallivanting around inside of a
star. At least they still had plenty of heatsinks.

System continued. “Three of the outer physical
layers are showing increases in molecular expansion, begetting what
will be a slow but continuous and irreversible degradation of
structural integrity.”

Mei translated once more. “We're, um...
melting.” Then she laughed. She didn't know why she found that
amusing, because it certainly wasn't. Maybe it was so alarming she
had to imagine it that way in order to cope with it.

“System, how much longer can we continue to
sustain the Kinetic in the chromosphere?” Aru asked
nervously.

“It depends on how much damage you're willing
tolerate, Captain. My recommendation would be that we exit this
star immediately, as our hull integrity will be further compromised
on our passage out of the corona. Based on current data and a best
case scenario, the Kinetic could remain in this environment for
another 14 hours before exiting, though in doing so we will sustain
extreme damage to the hull, outer weapons systems and sensors in
the interim. To be clear about this, Captain, that is the maximum
amount of time we have before engines and basic life support become
compromised.”

It was all so surreal. Mei still had her eyes
on the holograph tracking Farprobe 34, which suddenly began
blinking and then disappeared altogether offline.

System started to go on about the other near
probes that should be online, but were lost in the surface eruption
and others that had reported in but were otherwise teetering on the
verge of breakdown. That only left them with 8 fully functional
near probes for the sweep. Vast sums in military assets were being
lost, but that was far from any of her immediate
concerns.

“Where is Farprobe 34?!” Mei
insisted.

“Lost,” System replied. A display overlayed
Farprobe 34's forward camera stream, or the last moments of it. A
tubular column of white light shot forth between the satellite and
the probe, then darkness. “It appears Farprobe 34 was detected by
the satellite and struck by a direct high intensity particle beam.
We can safely assume it has been destroyed.”