The Quantum Connection (28 page)

"Well, shit fire! We better hope they give us a ride home!" Anson said in his best Southern redneck drawl.

A day and a half later and about five thousand light years from Earth, we finally came to a stop around a bright blue star with a large accretion disk filling its system.

"Hey, this is a new star system. No planets have even formed yet," Jim pointed out.

"Yeah, Jim. But look at that!" Al pointed at the screen about two astronomical units out from the star.

There was a ring that completely encircled the star. The ring must have been taller than Jupiter at its narrowest point. At the tallest point it was probably fifteen Jupiters high both above and below the ecliptic plane of the accretion disk. The system was very busy with vessels going and coming, and mammoth chunks of preplanetary materials being pushed and pulled around by some sort of invisible motivating systems.

"What the hell is going on here?" Tabitha asked. "Anybody have a clue?"

"This must be Gray headquarters or the Palace or the White House or some equivalent," Sara said.

"I realize that, but what are they building?" Tabitha said.

"Ha! It's a Dyson sphere! The little Gray bastards are building a Dyson sphere," Anson answered.

"A Dyson sphere?" Anne Marie asked.

Mike, download all information on a Dyson sphere to Tatiana and me.

Okay, Steven.

"I see!" Tatiana said as she assimilated the data Mike downloaded to us. I had a similar reaction.

"Annie, my dear, a Dyson sphere is a thing named after the physicist Freeman Dyson since it was his idea. I think he got the idea from an old science fiction novel called
The Star Maker
by a fellow named Olaf Stapledon. We need to get this book on our reading list." Anson began explaining the concept. "But it was Dyson who really did the first scientific analysis of the concept and he figured that an advanced civilization, like these Gray fellows here, could build a giant hollow sphere around a star and live on the inside of the sphere. Since the sphere would then be a closed system around the sun it would basically capture all the energy from that sun on the sphere's interior surface and in turn supply all the energy that civilization would ever need. There are other unique properties of the sphere as well, such as camouflaging your entire star system and civilization--well, except for in the infrared. And a lot of other stuff like the immense amount of real estate that you would create for your civilization to live on. Think of how much surface area there would be on the inside of a shell two AUs in radius. That's huge! You know, come to think of it, I bet these Gray guys could implement that cloaking technology on the sphere and completely hide themselves away. I bet they could bleed the excess infrared energy right off into the quantum vacuum energy fluctuations without any violations of a global entropy equation. Second law of thermodynamics then wouldn't be a factor. Hmm . . . one has to wonder how they plan to keep it in place and stable. Perhaps they will only build a Ringworld like Niven's book. I wonder . . ." Anson looked on in wonder at the construction process and continued to mumble and whistle to himself.

The aliens flew us in closer to the largest portion of the unfinished Dyson sphere or ring or whatever it would eventually be. As we approached the surface it became more and more obvious how large this ring structure was. The surface looked infinite from nearby and it wasn't even more than a percent or so complete. A civilization that can travel at a million times faster than the speed of light and that can construct such a huge undertaking must think of creatures like us humans as nothing more than insects. We imagined that we had something that would scare them. I began to think we had been wrong. Something, anything, that would scare these aliens must be . . . SCARY!

We landed on a high-rise portion of the ring that must have been a half of a degree out of the ecliptic plane and it was more than a hundred kilometers above the bottom surface of the ring. The aliens set us down gently and then that childlike voice came through the communications system.

"Earthlings, you can now lower your warp field as we have you captured in a confinement bubble of our own. We will not harm you as long as you show no signs of intent to harm us in any way. Be warned that we will not hesitate to remove you from the hive in an instant if you indicate such hostility."

"Mike," Tabitha said, "lower the warp field."

"The field is down, Tabitha."

"Okay. You heard the man. NO SIGNS OF HOSTILITY. Y'ALL GOT IT!" Tabitha warned us and then repeated the announcement over the ship's intercom to the remaining part of the crew.

"How do you want to proceed, Mom?" Anne Marie asked. She must have been a bit scared because I had never heard her call her mother anything other than General while on duty.

Tabitha smiled at her oldest daughter. "We do this slow and cautious. Only those who volunteer to go will go. Nobody has to, and we won't think any more or less of anybody who wishes to stay here. All volunteers to accompany me to meet the alien leaders raise their hand." Tabitha sighed a breath of relief when all of the hands went up.

"Very good, Al, Sara, and Annie, thanks for volunteering but I want you three to stay here as our backup in case we need you . . ."

"But Mom . . ."

"Lieutenant Ames, that is an order and it is not up for further discussion. You are in command of the
Phoenix
upon my leave," Tabitha ordered. Al and Sara were none too happy about the idea either, but it appeared there was nothing they could do about it. She made no attempt to keep Tatiana and me from going. First of all, she needed us and our special abilities to communicate with Mike and Mikhail. Besides that, she couldn't have stopped us from going if she had wanted to. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. I was going to find out what the Grays want with my wife and the hundreds of thousands of other humans back on Earth who were isolatees. And I owed the Gray sons of bitches some payback for making me crazy for nearly four years of my life.

CHAPTER 21

We stepped out of the payload bay of the
Phoenix
onto the top of the high-rise building we had landed on and there we were met by a sea of little Grays. I counted forty of them. The first five were distinguished by a slight orange and brown random spotting, almost like freckles, on their faces. The one in the lead was holding some sort of device in his hand. The device was about the size of a credit card and was making no noise or light--yet the little freckle-faced alien was paying close attention to it.

Mike, what is that thing doing?

What thing, Steven?

The little credit-card-shaped thing in the lead Gray's hand.

Steven! My sensors pick up an Infrastructure pinging like I have never detected before. The fluctuations are directed at us all but they are focusing and concentrating on Tatiana!

Tatiana, look out!
Mike and I thought to her simultaneously.

A beam of white-and-blue light flung from the card and flowed like a fluid toward Tatiana. Mike's early detection gave her just enough time to turn on her personal warp bubble armor. The blue light surrounded her and engulfed her in a millisecond, and formed a complete ball of swirling blue-and-white light around her warp bubble. The ball shrunk almost infinitely fast into a tiny singular point and then it vanished even from my eyesight it was so small. And then . . . as fast as it had occurred . . . it was gone.
She was gone!

Two and a half milliseconds later I was standing in the spot where Tatiana had been standing, frantically looking for signs of her. There was none.

A millisecond later, the little freckle-faced Gray bastard was a puddle of green ooze on the top of that high-rise. I twisted his head completely off and tossed it over the edge of the building. Then, freckle-faced Gray number two joined him. And then number three, and then number four followed him. The fifth one was smarter than it appeared, and had pushed himself into the other grouping of normal-looking Grays--or perhaps they surrounded him like bodyguards protecting the President. I didn't give a flying rat's ass! All of them and I mean not just these forty, uh, thirty-six, of them, I mean all of the Grays that exist in this universe were going to die if some one of them didn't bring me back Tatiana!

I did a giant leap and rolled in the air through a forward tumble and landed where the remaining little freckle-faced bastard had been fractions of a second before. This one was fast and was no longer there. I rolled to my left and was grabbed and clawed at by the other Grays. My body armor protected me from their claws, but they had some sort of baton weapon that packed a mean-assed wallop. Five of them hit me with the things and released some sort of energy pulse on me before I knew what was happening. The pulses would have at least knocked out a normal human. I turned my warp field on and scattered them a bit. I jumped upward and then came down on three of the things at once and squished them against the rooftop. I kind of chuckled maniacally as bluish-green blood squirted over their leader.

A full second and a half had passed at this point and I had killed more than thirteen of the little bastards. Now the W-squared folks were beginning to realize what was happening and were beginning to react.

The surface materials on the alien rooftop came to life with snakelike probes darting in and out at us. One of them wrapped itself around Anson's left boot and snaked quickly up his leg. He shot at it with his left hand as he activated his warp armor. The field cut the probe in two and Anson unwrapped it and kicked it out of his warp bubble with a fast lights-off lights-on maneuver.

"Annie, close up the ship and put the warp field on now!" Tabitha ordered over her comm circuit.

"Warp armor, everyone!" 'Becca said and joined me in the fray.

"'Becca, wait!" Jim was right behind her.

"We came in peace, you little bastards!" Anson shouted as he busted a clip full of caps off into several of the Grays.

"Capture the freckle-faced one! He's their leader!" I yelled to them over the comm.

Jim and 'Becca played the squeeze game on several of the aliens at once and took them out quickly. Anson continued firing at them with his pistols. I could tell his bubble was blinking on and off each time he fired. I caught sight of the freckle-face just in time as he was bringing another credit card to bear on Anson.

"Anson, stop firing now!" I yelled and he did immediately.

Tabitha saw what I was warning about and started firing on the Gray with the credit card. He was too fast for her, but she got several more of the bodyguard Grays in the process. She kept firing at the crowd of creatures as I converged on the lead Gray.

The blue-white light flowed from the card but I beat its aim before it could get to Anson. Just as the light started to ooze from the leading edge of the device I managed to get close to the alien at near sonic speeds. I did a lights-off lights-on maneuver and had the little bastard in my bubble with me. I tore his arm completely off and had the nanomachines dissolve it. The credit card device I pocketed. I did a second lights-off lights-on maneuver and grabbed a chunk of the rooftop, which I then used as material for the nanomachines to build zip ties and a choke collar. The nanomachines then placed them around the squirming alien in such a way that its feet and legs were zip tied, its good arm was tied to its bluish-green bloody stump, and the choke collar was too tight around its neck. I reached up to the creature's temple and found the clear headband that they all wore and ripped it off him.

The little creature began to shriek in its childlike voice. "Stop, Earthlings. Please stop! You must not kill me!"

"Yeah, who's gonna keep me from it you little shit?" I said.

Steven, help me!
I heard her voice in my head.

Tatiana? Are you alive? Where are you?

I don't know, Steven. The Gray shot me with some sort of collapsing confinement bubble, which was set on becoming a singularity. My warp armor has offset it once it got down to about a nanometer in diameter. I am trapped inside this bubble but it's squeezing me hard. I expanded my warp field inside to be like Dr. Who's phone booth and it's big enough in here for me, but on the outside the bubble is only a nanometer in size. I'm not sure how long my little warp field can hold up to this stress. Help me, Steven. Please!

Don't worry, gorgeous, I'll find a way to get you out.

The little creature shrieked as I put more pressure on its choke collar, "Please, do not kill me!"

"Tell your guys to stop fighting now!" I shook it violently and wanted to kill it badly, but I knew I had to keep it alive in order to save Tatiana.

"I cannot order them to stop without my interface band," it said.

I held the band in front of it. "You make any odd moves and you are blueberry syrup, pal!"

It put the headband on and made some facial tick motions. Then the remaining seven Grays stood down. The human team was able to catch its breath for a second and reload their weapons.

"All right, everybody, just calm down," Tabitha said. "Why and what did you do to our crew member?"

"She was removed," the Gray said.

"Removed to where?" Anson asked as he reloaded his pistol. "You want me to shoot him for you, son?" he asked me, slapped a magazine in, and then chambered a round.

"I do not know where she is. She was just removed," the thing said.

I stuck my right index finger through its left eyeball and it squealed in agony with a girlish and childlike squeal as the eye popped and the blue-green blood squirted out.

"Eeeaaaccchhhh! Pleeeeaase do not kill me!" It flailed and screamed in pain.

"Then you will tell me where Tatiana is!" I yelled in its face. Blue-green syrup now just oozed from the eyeless socket.

"Please, I do not know. I merely removed her. She had to be removed or the Himbroozya could have destroyed us all!" His two-piece nictitating membranes clamped tight over the destroyed eye.