Forbidden the Stars (30 page)

Helen, concern visible in the expression on her face, spoke next. “You screamed and fell down. When we got to you, you were out like a light. What happened to you?”

Justine reached for the clasp on her helmet and undid it. She slowly pulled it off her head.

“I was looking right at it when it passed,” she told them, her voice quiet and even.

Helen, who stood right in front of Justine, cocked her head. “Captain, what’s wrong with you. You seem to be looking past me?”

“Sorry, Helen. But you know how they tell you not to look directly at an eclipse?”

“Yeah.”

“I looked directly at
The Quanta
as it passed. I should have stayed and watched it from the monitor like Dale suggested.

“Helen,” she explained to her second-in-command, “I’m afraid I can’t look at you because I’m blind.”

__________

The Quanta
:

Pluto :

Once he reached Pluto
, Alex did not stop.

He knew, instinctively, that Pluto was not his destination; it was merely the jumping off point.

All he knew was that the artifact,
Dis Pater,
was there, a beacon the starry blankness of space, and then it was gone.

He was past it.

Past the limits of the Solar System.

Out there in that vastness between the stars.

From one point of view, the years ticked by.

From Alex’s point of view, it was merely another instant.

And then…

Then he could detect another beacon, a twin to
Dis Pater
.

Come to us, Alex.

Over here.

This is where you are heading.

We are waiting for you.

__________

The Quanta
:

Alpha Centauri :

Four Years Later

Somehow, Alex knew that there was no such thing as time, but he also knew that he was over four years older chronologically—though his body had not changed. He was an eighteen-year-old in the body of a fourteen-year-old.

It was as if he had taken a detour through another dimension, a dimension without distance, depth or time. A second
Dis Pater
, this one on the outer planet of another solar system, registered his arrival.

(one second)

But now his ship had re-entered reality in another sector of outer space—Alpha Centauri, or Proxima Centauri as some called it…

… the problem was that he wasn’t following! He was bordering in that alternate reality and tangible reality. He was there, sitting in the cockpit

(two seconds)

trying to reach for that pull-ring with a hand that was not part of reality.

(Three seconds)

He was a ghost.

(Five Seconds)

No, he wasn’t a ghost. He was something—somewhere? somewhere?—else.

(Eight Seconds)

He kept trying to grab that pull-ring, but his hand only went through it. He started panicking—he was going to die!

(ELEVEN SECONDS)

He had forgotten! The pull-ring did nothing. It was he who had to…

(!!!TWELVE SECONDS!!!)

Alex screamed as…

(!!!!TWELVE POINT FOUR SEVEN THREE SECONDS!!!!)

…the ship…

__________

Quantum Resources, Inc. :

Canada Corp.:

Toronto :

August 2103

A little more than eight years
had passed since Alex Manez had stolen the world’s first interstellar spacecraft. Michael Sanderson was celebrating his sixty-fourth birthday, and his upcoming retirement, at home when there came a knock on his door.

After receiving the message from the young army private, Michael hurriedly pulled on his jacket, retrieved his briefcase and followed the man into a waiting car without a word to his family or guests.

As he was being driven to the Center, Michael Sanderson opened his briefcase and read over the file on Alex Manez and
The Quanta
for perhaps the thousandth time in the last two years.

Everyone at the Center involved with the project had all but forgotten about Alex and
The Quanta
, and had dismissed the possibility of success.

The original mission plan was a light speed trip to Pluto. When
The Quanta
shot past the outermost planet, every astronomer and astrogator on Earth raced to plot its course. Alpha Centauri was the inevitable destination.

Assuming there was a twin to
Dis Pater
there, and also assuming
The Quanta
would stop once it reached Alpha Centauri, and also assuming Alex Manez was able to stop
The Quanta
from exploding, Michael had every available space telescope aimed at Sol’s closest neighbor, hoping against hope for any sign of Alex’s ultimate fate.

They should have had some result a several months earlier—even a signal that the ship had exploded in Alpha Centauri space—but after weeks and months of waiting with no signs, they had finally given up. It seemed that their news release of the failure of
The Quanta
and the death of Alex Manez had been correct after all. Or perhaps they would never know what had happened.

But now this.

What was this?

The unmanned outpost on Pluto detected an anomaly and would be relaying a full report to Earth.

Was it a bona-fide message from Alpha Centauri from Alex, or a pick-up of an explosion that had happened over four light-years away, nearly six years ago? All the young private had known, indeed, all that anyone knew was that the station had received some kind of signal from the nearest solar system to them.

Michael did not want to become optimistic, but his mind kept going over the details of the project, and Alex’s part in it.

Kinemet was the key to interstellar travel, but no one had expected it to happen for decades. There was too much research to be completed first.

The secret of Kinemet was that, when it was ignited, it randomly converted mass to energy and energy to mass, making anything it came in contact with into a quanta, a spectrum of light.

The science teams from the ten space agencies around the world had worked on containing that energy and harnessing it. The result was
The Quanta
project. The Kinemet would convert the ship into a light wave and send it out to be received by
Dis Pater
on Pluto. Once the alien artifact had snared
The Quanta
into an orbit, the Kinemet would reverse its electronic polarities and convert its energy back into its original mass. The only loss of energy would be in the Kinemet itself, thus theoretically leaving the space ship intact.

They had tried to perform this experiment with unmanned spacecraft but there was a difficulty—once the craft was reconverted to mass, any residual Kinemet left in the fuel tanks would re-ignite and destroy the vessel. They could not rig up an electronic trap to discharge the Kinemet before it reacted since electricity could not work while the reacting Kinemet was present—it was a Catch 22.

From the data they had received, they found there was an average twelve-second delay from the time of mass reconversion to the time the Kinemet re-reacted. Just enough time for an astronaut to discharge the Kinemet fuel bays manually.

But this was not what Michael Sanderson had been worried about. He was confident that Alex Manez, if the matter-energy conversion had not killed him—which was a possibility, but then they would have word, wouldn’t they?—would be able to flick that switch and keep
The Quanta
from exploding. What he was worried about was something he had read in Alex Manez’s file three years after the young man had began his journey. And that something might be an even more significant factor in the success or failure of this project—but Sanderson would only know for certain once he found out if the signal coming in was an explosion, or a message from Alex.

Sanderson sighed and looked out the window of the car. He watched the landscape whip by him for a time before flicking his eyes heavenward.

“Hurry driver!” he ordered the private. The driver nodded sympathetically and pushed his foot down on the accelerator, getting the Director to the Space Center in record time.

*

White knuckles was the contagion as Center officials, video-paper reporters, and Michael Sanderson all waited for the message to be relayed from Pluto and be decoded.

Sanderson didn’t even notice as a rather slight figure sidled up to him. “Sure is a whole whack of people here waiting for word from our young Mr. Manez!”

Sanderson turned his head to see Captain Justine Turner give him a big smile. She wore sunglasses, even though they were indoors, and in her slender hands she held a white cane.

He replied: “I didn’t know if you would make it.”

Justine let out a throaty laugh. “I
need
to be here. Nothing could have kept me away.”

Michael nodded his head, and then, because she wouldn’t be able to see the action, said, “I know how you feel.”

The two of them had kept in contact over the past eight years, as colleagues, and as the only remaining surrogate parents of Alex Manez. They both had a vested interest in today’s outcome.

After returning to Earth, Justine had had to hang up her pilot’s wings, but instead of retiring from NASA, she had taken up an instructor’s position.

“Once I got the message, I hopped a hypersonic with a student. I think we broke Mach 10.” She laughed. “We’ll have to call Guinness on that one.”

“What’s with the cane?” he asked. With the advent of the second-generation thoughtlink technology, Justine had a very limited ability to
see
. Sensors in her glasses measured space between her and objects around her, and translated the information directly into her brain as impulses. It was primitive, but Justine was able to navigate a crowded corridor without assistance.

“I don’t know. I got so used to it those first few years; it’s like a safety blanket now.”

Michael was about to reply, when a klaxon rang.

“Message incoming. We are decoding it now,” the female voice of the communications officer sounded over the intercom.

“I never thought—” Michael could barely form a sentence, the anticipation was so high.

All the voices hushed as the result of eighteen-billion dollars and almost fifteen years of work and waiting came to a head.

The communications officer’s voice was recalcitrant, and everyone’s eyes and ears were unwilling to believe the words she spoke.

“Confirmed:
The Quanta
exploded twelve and a half seconds after reestablishing mass and orbit around Alpha Centauri.”

Statistics began scrolling up the screen detailing, in numerical figures, what had happened.

A thousand voices rose in astonishment and dread, but one penetrated above the multitude: “Then why did it take so long for us to get word? We should have received this information months ago!” Michael called out in a demanding voice. A dozen people began pouring over the computer data trying to find the answer to that question.

His grief and sense of loss was not of
The Quanta
but of Alex, who had died nearly six years ago. The realization just came home to him. It was as if Alex had died the moment the words were spoken over that impersonal intercom.

“I’ll be in my office!” he informed them. Without waiting for a reply, he turned about and stormed away. He did not notice Justine following until he was already in his office with the door closed.

“What are you doing?” he demanded, losing all sense of civility.

The former astronaut shrugged and gave Michael a wide smile, as if she were completely unaffected by the tragedy.

“A lot of time has passed,” she began, inviting herself into a chair on the other side of the Director’s desk. “I had plenty to think about over the past few years. The world is different from when I stood out there on the end of the solar system, looking across the miles of space to watch Alex Manez and
The Quanta
pass me. I never had a child of my own, and I probably never will. Alex is the closest thing I will ever have to a son.” she said, then fell silent for a time.

Michael strode over to a water cooler and poured two cups. He gave her one which she took automatically and sipped.

She said, “At one point in my life all I cared about was being a pilot, or an astronaut, or the first person on Pluto, or a dozen other milestones that people would kill to list on their resume. But since that day when Alex became Earth’s first interstellar traveler, my entire perpective on life shifted. My world shifted polarities.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

“I’m not. I may be blind, but for the first time in my life, I can finally see. Achievements are not what are important. What is important are the people in our lives, and how we are remembered by those we love. Alex may be dead, but I will always remember him as that unique individual who stole a spaceship, and as the brave little boy who so completely changed my life.”

Sanderson opened his mouth to speak, to console, to say he finally understood, but the phone on his desk rang. Annoyed, he picked it up, leaving the general to his own thoughts.

After a few seconds, Sanderson burst out:
“What?”

Finding himself standing, the Director fumbled back to his seat as he hung up. He stared at Justine for a few seconds before saying: “I think you should hear this also.”

With that he pressed a button on his office intercom.

A hauntingly familiar voice crackled through…

__________

Copan :

Honduras :

Central American Conglomeration :

My grandson stands
by me, tall and proud. It is his eighteenth birthday, and he is trying to act like a man, stoic and wise and focused.