To the Last Syllable of Recorded Time - Part V

To the Last Syllable of Recorded Time - Part V

     "How did you get in here anyway?" Goose inquired.
     Zach frowned at him. "What do you think? We stole a ship. Light freighter, not easily missed. There's a whole damned shipyard down there."
     Niko nodded. "Yes, I still wonder what for. It's not as if this were a strategically important location -- we're in the middle of nowhere."
     Goose shook his head as if to clear it. "Yes, something fishy is definitely going on. I mean, the Queen sacrificed half of her army down on that planet -- and no slaves this time. They must have been searching for something big -- an operation of this size makes no sense otherwise."
     "But you don't know what that something was?" Zach inquired.
     "I don't have a damn clue -- there was not the faintest trace of communication -- not even when they finally dug it up. I couldn't see it, but it can't be big. And whatever it was, it came here with the same transport I was on."
     Doc, who was being dragged along by Zach, looked up from the interface and dug in his heels. "Wait a moment. Tripwire has found something."
     "What is it, Doc?"
     "A setup for a series of tests -- high security, very strong isolation fields. I haven't seen that kind of precautions for any other experiment. Ever." He cocked his head to the side to better understand Tripwire's chirping tones.
     "Something about an artifact and altering the time constant... What time constant? There is no time constant -- time is relative. What?"
     The others looked strangely at him.
     "Tripwire isn't making much sense right now," he explained apologetically. "He's mumbling something about probability levels and coherence, and splitting time up into threads, then choosing one and restoring it to probability one ..." His head jerked up, face livid. Niko rushed to sustain him. "Oh, my God! Did you hear what I just said?"
     Gooseman's face was grim, Zach's no less so. "Yes. Physics isn't my strongest suit, but this means we stay."
     "And blow the place up if there is no alternative," Gooseman added.
     Niko shuddered. If they really had to blow the station up, they were probably going to be on it when it happened. "Better yet, we get that artifact and leave here in one piece," she announced.
     Doc's nod indicated he agreed wholeheartedly. "No problem with sacrificing myself while saving the known universe, but I'd rather avoid it if possible." He held up the unit, at the center of which a tiny hologram was flickering in and out of focus, and motioned for the others to come over. "Video data fresh from the labs. Let's have a look, shall we?"
     The small holographic display showed a bunch of lab assistants carefully circling a zero gravity unit inside of which two objects were floating -- one that looked like an ordinary flower pot, and a standard-issue blaster. The head of the labs, a small individual with a large belly, placed his hands reverently on an oblong, golden object resting on a waist-high support in front of him.
     "That must be the artifact," Doc whispered, inspecting the contraption that supported the alien item. " Didn't feel like subjecting it to a field, eh?"
     Niko bit her lip, eyes riveted on the artifact that had started to glow gently, illuminating the pudgy fingers pressed against its surface. "It doesn't react to fields," she murmured, attention focused on something only she could see. "I'm afraid this thing is literally out of this world. Look."
     They all stared, transfixed, as the flower pot went out of focus, contours blurring, then suddenly disappeared. The blaster continued to float as if nothing had happened.
     "They've erased it," Goose stated, looking at Niko. "But how?"
     "Look at his fingers." She motioned to the head of the labs, whose hands were still resting on the golden surface. "They don't touch the surface, they float over it. There is no friction, just an illusion of three-dimensionality. The thing over there is just a projection, nothing else. I'm afraid the true artifact exists at another level altogether." She sighed. "The projection is enough to switch time probabilities, though. That flower pot was erased from time altogether -- as of now, it has never existed."
     "A horrible weapon in the hands of a mad woman," Zach growled. "We have to take it away from her, no matter what it costs."
     "Well, but blowing the station up is no longer an option," Doc said. "We can kill them and ourselves, but the artifact will simply float around in space, waiting for the next Crown ship to pick it up."
     Niko smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "So let's steal it. We're probably the best-trained thieves in the galaxy anyway, so we should manage."
     "Yeah, and the firepower is nothing to scoff at either," Goose drawled, twirling his two blasters around in a speedy blur. The determination on his face stood in stark contrast with his careless stance, the devil-may-care attitude he had perfected so well that it slid over him even in this situation, like a protective cloak. "To the labs?"
     "On to the labs," Zach agreed. "The Queen will regret ever having tried this."

To the Last Syllable of Recorded Time - Part V

From Betamountain.org