Origin - Season Two (48 page)

Mohindar Bhatti
– Former Indian intelligence officer and now a freelance security consultant who does occasional work for
Skyline Defense
.

Naoko Misora
– Student of
Prof. Christopher Watkins
and
Mitch Rainey’s
assistant onboard
RP One
.

Peter Bershadsky
– First chairman of the
Karl Gustav Foundation
, the founder of
Aurora
and father of
Caroline
and
Richelle de Villepin.
For an account of how Peter discovered
Origin
, see appendix C.

Prof. Christopher Watkins
– Former head of the linguistics department at Ohio State University. Watkins was recruited to
Aurora
to decipher the language native to the crew of
Origin
, which he has named
Saishan
.

Reginald Styles
– (
aka. Colonel Styles
)—Retired US Army colonel and long-time colleague and friend of
Francis Moore
. Reginald was the Pentagon project leader of
Operation Princip
before it was brought under the stewardship of
Norton Weaver
at the CIA.

Richelle de Villepin
– Youngest daughter of
Peter Bershadsky
and the head of
Aurora.

Richard Fairchild
– Former Director of Central Intelligence. Fairchild turned out to be an ally of
Francis Moore
in Season One and has since retired.

Sarah Breland (Rainey)
– Employee at
Aurora, Mitch Rainey’s
wife, and daughter of
Erik Breland
.

Song Chun
– Realtor for the Pyongyang elite and all-round go-to guy.

Titov Kargin
– Former Russian army officer, one of the original members of
Aurora
and
Richelle de Villepin’s
right-hand man.

Tsung Kuan Yew
– Chinese Deputy Defense Minister and chairman of the council set up to supervise China’s end of
Project 38
.

Vice-marshal Gil-su Hwang
– Chief of the North Korean foreign intelligence directorate.

Yeon Pok
– Technical head of
Project 38
.

Yoshi Nakamura
– Helicopter pilot and crew member of
Aurora.

—

Names, Places and Objects of Significance

(in alphabetical order)

Amity
– The small township built on the shore of the underground bay inside
Aurora
.

Arman Tenner
– An engineering company based in Berlin and owned by the
Karl Gustav Foundation
.

Aurora
– Secret operational headquarters of Project Origin based beneath the
Isle of Dragons
in the Baltic Sea.

Darkstar
– Communications satellite owned by
Skyline Defense
. Darkstar, while officially decommission, remains in orbit and in use.

Gandalf
– The nickname given by Mitch Rainey to the computer system onboard
RP One
.

Isle of Dragons
– A small, rocky island thirty miles off the coast of Estonia in the Baltic Sea.

Jangdan-myeon mine
– Disguised as a copper mine, the facility is the launch point for the operational phase of
Project 38
located near the 38
^th
parallel in North Korea.

Operation Princip
– A clandestine assassination program begun under the Nixon administration and run out of the Pentagon by army colonel
Reginald Styles.
Following 9/11 the program was moved to the CIA and placed under the control of
Norton Weaver
.

Origin
– A derelict space craft over twelve miles in length trapped in orbit around Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. Origin is the prime focus of
Aurora
and the reason for its existence. For more background on its discovery by
Peter Bershadsky
, see Appendix C.

Project 38
– Originally an exclusively North Korean affair named Red Storm, Project 38 is now a joint venture between Beijing and Pyongyang whose ultimate goal is the elimination of US Forces from the Korean peninsula and the introduction of a permanent Chinese military presence on the border.

RP One
– A
Saishan
surface reconnaissance platform launched from
Origin
by the crew of
Aurora
and now housed inside the
Pandora
.

Skyline Defense
– A satellite and space exploration research company based in New York with connections to the Pentagon. Skyline is a subsidiary of the
Karl Gustav Foundation.

Saisha
– Home planet of the Saishans, the race who built
Origin
. Also the language of the Saishans. The word was coined by
Professor Christopher Watkins
as an English approximation of the original word as pronounced in that language.

The Callisto
– A retrofitted Soviet Victor-Class submarine operated by Aurora. Originally the facility’s only lifeline, the submarine has since been made redundant with the construction of the research center and its docking facility, which can take on supplies directly from the freighter
Karl Gustav.

The Karl Gustav
– A small freighter operating out of Stockholm whose primary purpose is the re-supply of
Aurora
.

The Karl Gustav Foundation
– A private fund headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, established by the last will and testament of Swedish steel magnate Karl Ludvig Gustav. Originally run by
Peter Bershadsky,
the stewardship of the foundation has since been handed to his eldest daughter,
Caroline de Villepin
. The foundation owns a number of companies, including
Skyline Defense
and
Arman Tenner
.

The Pandora
– A research vessel commissioned by
Skyline Defense
and built at the South Korean port of Busan. The Pandora is now home to
RP One
.

An Account from the Origin Files

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1986

Professor Peter Bershadsky watched the students leave from his perch behind the lectern. His eyes fell on a stocky boy in jeans and a fading college football T-shirt busy shuffling his way through the narrow aisle at the top of the lecture hall. Peter watched him, amused by the awkward way the boy avoided looking at him, as if not seeing might somehow mean he couldn’t be seen himself.

“Kevin, can I speak to you for a moment, please?” Peter said, raising his voice to be heard above the din.

The boy’s shoulders slumped in resignation, but he obeyed.

“There’s no football practice today,” Peter said. “I checked.”

Kevin looked away and murmured something unintelligible.

“What’s that?” Peter said.

“I said I need to practice my throw.”

“And this class? I was under the impression you and I had made an arrangement. Don’t get me wrong, you can fail. That’s all you. But this isn’t high school, Kevin. When you leave here, it won’t be with a scholarship. This is the end of the line.”

“I know,” Kevin said, glancing over at the computer sitting on a table in the middle of the stage. “But I don’t think I can do this. All these ones and zeros. I get a headache just thinking about it.”

Peter laughed. “Do you?”

When he saw Kevin wasn’t smiling, he said, “I’ll tell you what. You go do what you have to for the next hour, then I want you showered, changed and back in here for another hour of tutoring. Can you do that?”

“I guess,” Kevin said.

“Good. I’ve got an idea that just might take the edge of those headaches of yours. I’m not saying you have to become a programmer, but I’d like you to leave here with at least a basic understanding of how these machines work. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because two decades from now computers will be running the world. There will be a microchip in everything from your car to your television. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t like the idea of anyone coming of age in a world dominated by mystery. It has a tendency to make people introverted.”

“Make them what?” Kevin asked.

“Withdrawn.”

This time it was Kevin’s turn to laugh. He pointed at the computer. “There’s going to be one of those in my car?”

Peter smiled. “Don’t be fooled by the size of
that
. Most things might be getting bigger, but these machines will only get smaller. You watch. Now go on, get out of here and be back by twelve o’clock.”

Peter was on his way to the cafeteria when his office secretary caught up to him and handed him a small cardboard box. “This just arrived for you, professor. I wasn’t sure if you were waiting for it.”

Peter examined the box with only a hint of curiosity.

“It’s from NASA!” She pointed at the address label.

“So it would seem,” Peter said. “Just go ahead and leave it on my desk. I’ll have a look at it after lunch.”

When she made no move to go, Peter rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to open it here, Mabel. Whatever it is, it can wait.”

Appearing simultaneously disappointed and embarrassed at the rebuke, Mabel stood there a moment longer, then turned, said something he couldn’t make out and walked back down the hall.

Peter had all but forgotten about the box by the time he got back to the office. He picked it up, turned it over, then gave it a little shake. The return address was in California, but there was no name.

There were four magnetic tape reels inside, the kind used to store electronic data. On the small label in the center of one reel was a date: July 15 1985. He took his reading glasses from his pocket and examined the reel more closely, then removed the rest of them and found a note at the bottom of the box. Typed on it was this message:

Professor Bershadsky,

Please find enclosed four IBM S/360 9-track magnetic tapes.

After careful examination we have concluded that the data packets transferred to these, received from Voyager II between 0046 and 1149 hours on 15 September 1985, originated from the DFPCS module on the Jupiter Eye. However, all attempts to decompress the code using the software provided by your team at the time of delivery have thus far proven unsuccessful.

As you know, The Jupiter Eye malfunctioned during take-off and has been transmitting only intermittent status reports in the interim. We therefore suspect that the data may be partially or wholly corrupt. As the chief engineer on the DFPCS project, I would like to request your assistance in retrieving any information that may be recoverable, assuming you still have access to the project’s original resources.

All data from Voyager II is of vital importance. We would therefore ask that you refrain from advertising your results until such time as we have had a chance to review and classify them. On behalf of NASA and the Voyager program, I would like to thank you in advance for any assistance you may be able to provide in this matter.

Sincerely,

Neil Lopez

Assistant Project Supervisor for Research

Jet Propulsion Laboratories

Peter read the letter twice before folding it and putting it in his pocket.

“Sons of bitches,” he said to the empty room.

DPFCS, a convoluted acronym standing for Dual Pass File Compression System, was an experimental bit-compression technology created by a team of grad students he had supervised in the first year of his tenure. The project had come to the attention of a team at Kodak who were assembling a high-resolution camera called the Jupiter Eye for the Voyager program. Kodak had agreed to purchase a temporary license to use the DFPCS protocol to meet the file transfer specifications stipulated by NASA.

But the Jupiter Eye had only been a backup system, slated to replace one of the probe’s original modules in case of a malfunction that could not be fixed in time for launch. And following a few initial tests at which Peter and his team had been present, they had heard nothing from Kodak
or
NASA, and so had assumed the program had simply been mothballed, as was the case with most such projects at the time.

Peter tried to recall who had worked on the program and found he couldn’t remember a single one of their names. They had all graduated that year and headed off to God only knew where to begin their own careers.

“Mabel,” Peter said, “Can you come in here for a minute?”

Mabel appeared in the doorway a moment later. “Anything nice?”

“No, just some archive stuff I requested for a class. Listen, can you look up a number for me? Neil Lopez. He’s the Assistant Project Supervisor for Research at JPL.”

“Sure. Just give me a minute.”

It took her five. She handed Peter a sheet of notepaper with a number written on it in a script so flawless it could almost have been type. He followed her to the door, closed it behind her and called the number. The receptionist at JPL informed him it might take her a while to find Mr. Lopez, but Peter insisted on waiting. By the time Lopez actually came to the phone, Peter had started grading the stack of assignments on his desk and was about to hang up in frustration.

“This is Neil Lopez.”

“Mr. Lopez, it’s Professor Peter Bershadsky.”

Lopez was silent for a moment, then said, “Oh yes, from Kodak, right? I was wondering when you would call.”

“Actually, I’m with MIT.”

He could hear Lopez speaking to someone on the other end. When he came back he said, “Let’s see. Oh yes, MIT. You’ll have to forgive me, professor, things are a little hectic here at the moment.”

“I’m sure they are,” Peter said. “When were you guys going to let us know the Jupiter Eye made it onto Voyager? As a member of the team that worked on the project, I figured we’d have a right to know.”

Lopez hesitated again. “Professor, if I can be candid, we try not to advertise our failures if we don’t have to. I appreciate that may not seem fair to a man in your position, but I can assure you, I’m not the one making those decisions.”