Deep Storm

F.

Crane frowned at the computer screen, unsure what to make of this cryptic message. Find a friend…

There was another knock on his door: Bishop, no doubt, returning with the meds he'd said he didn't need. "Come in, Michele," he said, closing the note.

The door opened. Hui Ping stood in the entrance.

Crane looked at her in surprise.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I hope I'm not disturbing you."

"Not at all," Crane said, recovering. "Come in."

Ping stepped in, took the seat Crane offered. "I just learned of Dr. Asher's death. I would have found out earlier, but I'd stumbled across something strange in the lab. Anyway, as soon as I heard…well, funny, but you were the only person that came to mind to talk to."

Crane inclined his head.

Abruptly, Ping rose. "It's selfish of me. After all, you were there. You must be feeling-"

"No, it's all right," Crane said. "I think I need to talk, too."

"About Dr. Asher?"

"No." That's still too raw, he thought. "About something I discovered."

Ping sat down again.

"You know how I've been running every test I could think of, following up leads, looking for the cause of what's making people ill."

Ping nodded.

"I was getting nowhere until something occurred to me: people were complaining about two completely different kinds of symptoms. Some were physiological: nausea, muscle tics, a horde of others. Others were psychological: sleeplessness, confusion, even mania. I'd always believed there had to be a common factor involved. But what kind of factor could cause both? That's when I got the idea the underlying cause had to be neurological."

"Why?"

"Because the brain controls both the mind and the body. So I ordered EEG tests. And just today I got back the first set of tests. Every patient had spikes in the theta waves of their brains-waves that are supposed to be quiet in adults. Even stranger, the pattern of spikes was exactly the same for every patient. That's when I got a crazy idea. I plotted the pattern of spikes. And you know what I discovered?"

"I can't imagine."

Crane opened the drawer of his desk, pulled out a manila envelope, and handed it to Ping. She opened it and pulled out a computer printout.

"This is Asher's digital code," she said. "The one the sentinels are transmitting."

"Exactly."

She frowned in incomprehension. Then, suddenly, her eyes widened. "Oh, no. You don't mean…"

"I do. The spikes in the theta waves match the pulses of light. It's the same message as the one the sentinels were first transmitting."

"But how is that possible? Why didn't we detect anything?"

"I'm not sure. But I have a theory. We already know those sentinels are broadcasting their message on every conceivable wavelength of electromagnetic radiation-radio waves, microwaves, ultraviolet, infrared. We also know whatever created those sentinels has technology far beyond our own. So who's to say they're not also broadcasting their messages on other channels, other types of radiation we don't even know how to detect yet?"

"Such as?"

"Quark radiation, maybe. Or a new type of particle that can pass through matter, like Higgs bosons. The point is it's some unknown form of radiation, undetectable by our instruments, that interferes with the electrical impulses in our brains."

"Why doesn't it affect everybody?"

"Because biological systems aren't equal. Just as some people have heavier bones, some people have more resistant nervous systems. Or perhaps there are structures in the Facility that inadvertently act as Faraday cages."

"As what?"

"Faraday cages-enclosures built to isolate things from electromagnetic fields. But I think everybody here is affected-just in different degrees. I haven't exactly felt like myself recently…have you?"

Hui thought a moment. "No. No, I haven't."

There was a brief silence.

"So are you going to take this to Admiral Spartan?" Hui asked.

"Not yet."

"Why not? Sounds to me like your work is done."

"Spartan hasn't been very sympathetic to any viewpoint other than his own. I don't want to tell him prematurely, give him an excuse to dismiss it. The more evidence I have, the better. And that means finding the other piece."

"What other piece is that?"

"Before he died, Asher discovered something. There, in the hyperbaric chamber. I know, because he told me so, over the phone. It's all on the laptop, he said. I need to get that laptop, find out what he discovered. Because he was desperate to tell me something, there at the end. He kept repeating one word: whip."

Hui frowned again. "Whip?"

"Yes."

"Whip who? Or what? And why?"

"The secret to that's on his computer-if the hard drive is salvageable."

Another thoughtful silence fell over the stateroom. At last, Crane roused himself and turned toward Hui Ping. "Want to head down to Times Square, get an espresso?"

Hui brightened. "Sure."

They stepped out into the hall. "Perhaps I can help you," she said.

"How?"

"As part of my computer science degree, I spent a summer interning at a data recovery facility."

Crane turned to her. "You mean, you can retrieve data off ruined hard drives?"

"I didn't actually do the recovery myself-I was just an intern, after all. But I watched the process plenty of times, assisted in several."

They stopped at the elevator. "Earlier, you said you'd stumbled over something strange in the lab," Crane said. "What was it?"

"Sorry? Oh, yes. Remember those absorption lines I showed you? The ones the sentinal in my lab was emitting?"

"The ones you said could only come from a distant star?"

"Right."

The elevator doors whispered open, they stepped in, and Crane pressed the button for deck 9. "Well," Hui continued, "just for kicks, I ran that set of absorption lines against a database of known stars. You see, every star has a unique absorption signature. And guess what? I found an exact match."

"Between your little sentinel and a faraway star?"

Hui nodded. "One hundred and forty light-years away, to be exact. Cygnus Major, otherwise known as M81."

"You think that's where the marker came from?"

"Well, that's just it. That star, Cygnus Major, has only one planet. A gas giant, with oceans of sulfuric acid and a methane atmosphere."

Crane felt puzzled. "No mistake?"

Hui shook her head. "Absorption line signatures are as unique as fingerprints. No mistake."

"You think that-on top of everything else-they're trying to tell us where they come from?"

"Looks that way to me."

"Well, that's strange. Because what could a planet of methane and acid possibly see in the oxygen and water of Earth?"

"Exactly." And as the elevator doors opened onto Crew Support, she turned and gave him a speculative look.