Chapter 47 Unknown Sender
UNKNOWN SENDER
AMARA
AN ALARM SOUNDS from somewhere in the ship, and suddenly, Vexar’s gone.
I swear he’s way too fast for his size. I pop the last piece of veladoo into my mouth and follow him to the bridge, licking my fingers and wincing as my swollen feet protest each step.
The alarm stops as I round the corner and find Vexar leaning over the control panel, radiating anxiety.
“What’s going on?” I ask cautiously.
His face is drawn, every sharp feature glowing in the pale-blue light of the display. “The comms came back online,” he says.
I glance at the display—which is in Vhorathi and entirely unhelpful to me—before asking, “Why would that make an alarm go off?”
“The comms did not set off the alarm; the data packet that was forced through the security filter did.”
“Forced through?” That doesn’t sound good.
He straightens and crosses his massive arms over his bare chest. Thankfully, he’s wearing pants, but they hang low around his waist in a way that’s still very distracting.
“This ship is invisible unless it is receiving a communication signal. That”—he points to a flashing orange icon on the display—“is a message from an unapproved sender. It should never have made it past the ship’s security filter.
” He runs a single hand between his horns and through his long black hair. “And now they know where we are.”
I shake my head, trying to organize the heap of information he just dumped on me. “Who knows where we are?”
“I do not know.”
Ok. That’s not concerning at all. “And you can’t just open it and see where it came from?”
“No. It is encrypted. I cannot open it without the correct key.”
“And it didn’t come from one of the people you approved?
” I ask, even though he’s already said as much.
After we left Calidus, Vexar told me he was setting the comms to only receive messages from a few, very specific people.
He made it clear it was for safety reasons and let me have a say on who we included.
Not that I had much to contribute, I don’t know any of these people.
“If it had come from an approved sender, I would be able to read it.”
I bite my thumbnail, feeling my own anxiety rise. “Do you think it’s from Gaius? Or Marius?”
“Or my sister,” he whispers under his breath.
A chill runs down my spine. “Ok. Let’s try to talk this through.
” I slide into the seat on the starboard side of the bridge and pull my feet off the ground, staring at the view from the external cameras shown on the display.
The image is just an endless expanse of stars that would make Neil deGrasse Tyson swoon, but to me, it’s a little scary.
Refocusing myself, I start at the beginning.
“What did you mean when you said the ship is invisible?”
“That isn’t important right now.”
I sigh. Vexar’s more of a ‘think in silence’ kinda guy, and it’s clear I’m going to have to convince him of the benefits of talking things through.
“Well,” I say, resting my feet on the control panel, “do you have a plan? Do you know how to open the message or who might have sent it? Do you know if it’s definitely a bad thing? ”
His jaw tightens. “No.”
“Alright, then we should talk it through. Review the variables. Maybe a question I ask will spark an idea or something.” I wet my lips and repeat my earlier question. “Why are we invisible? That makes no sense.”
He leans a hip against the control panel, face still tight with anxiety.
“We are not invisible exactly, the ship is just very hard to detect. The hull absorbs and re-emits almost everything it comes in contact with: atoms, molecules, dust, radiation”—he waves his hand—“and other things I do not know the English words for. Essentially, anything floating through space will appear to move right through us, including communication signals and sensor pulses.”
“Anything floating through space? Like asteroids …?”
“No. Not like asteroids. Small things. Very small things.”
I take a breath and squint. This is all getting very … sciency, but I guess that’s something I have to get used to. With a sigh, I say, “I thought space was empty.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “It looks empty, but it is not. It is full of many things. Mostly hydrogen atoms moving very quickly, but also dust, and other things. However, that is not the problem. The problem is that some unknown person has our location, and our only defense is stealth.”
“Ok. So we’re sort of invisible.” I’m trying to act cool about someone knowing where we are, but I’m freaking out. At least a little bit. “Are there any other reasons someone might send a message like this? Someone who doesn’t want us dead?” I ask, praying for some sort of hope.
He turns back to the display and braces his hands on the control panel. “That is the only reason I can think of.”
I nod, and despite the slowly rising panic in my chest, I charge forward. “How do normal messages get transmitted?”
“An interstellar message has to originate from a very powerful ship or a planet equipped with a clerk.” He waves his hand like he’s looking for a better word. “A computer that can package and send messages through a fold-point.”
Fuck me. I am so out of my depth here.
I drop my head back and groan. “Why does space have to be a never-ending science lesson?”
“It is not that complicated,” he says gently.
With a sigh, I say, “Fine. What’s a fold-point?”
“Space is big. A direct path from here to Vhorath is approximately 26 light-years in distance.” He frowns and types on the control panel again before looking back at me. “Or 21.06 light-years by Earth’s measurement.”
I hold up a hand. “I thought light always moves at the same speed.”
“It is not the light that is changing; it is the measurement of a year. A light-year is just how far light can travel in a single year. One Vhorathi year is equivalent to 0.81 Earth years. Our unit of measurement is different.”
Huh, that actually makes sense. With a nod, I say, “Go on.”
“The distance is too vast to travel or send messages in a straight path, so we use … I do not know the term.” He types again and his brows dip. “Wormhole? Is that really the correct term?”
“A wormhole? Isn’t that just a half-assed plot device for writers who don’t have the imagination to come up with something better?”
He shakes his head, clearly confused by my comment. “It is a fold in space-time. Instead of traveling along the normal plane of space-time, we fold the plane and jump through it. It is much faster.”
“Now we’re talking about space origami?” I murmur, rubbing my temples. “Ok. So you fold space, or whatever.”
“Yes,” he says, looking slightly amused by my distress.
“Don’t you dare laugh.”
His grin grows and he laughs, which makes me laugh despite the effort I’m exerting to hold a straight face.
When he catches his breath, he says, “Ok. Imagine my hands are the universe.” He holds his hands out, palms up, with his pinkies pressed together.
“You need to travel from the pointer finger on my left hand to the pointer finger on my right. Now, if you travel straight across, the distance is long. You have to cross six fingers. But, if you fold space,” he brings both of his palms together so his pointer fingers are touching, “the distance is much less.” He taps his pointer fingers together.
“You can go from one distant point to another very quickly. This is how we travel and send messages over long distances.” I nod, and he continues.
“A message sent from Vhorath to a ship in interstellar space must go through a clerk that sends the message to the correct wormhole.” He pauses.
“Can we not call them wormholes? That term is very … strange.”
I shrug. “I didn’t come up with it. Call it whatever you want.”
“Good. The originating clerk sends the message to the correct ‘fold-point’ where the message is received by the jump-clerk there. A jump-clerk is just a controller that manages traffic through the fold-point. The jump-clerk then sends the message through the fold, aimed at the next fold-point, and so on until the message reaches its intended recipient.”
My brain is already starting to hurt, but I think I get the general idea. “So it’s just passed along a chain of computers?” He nods, and I ask, “How long does that take?”
“It depends on where the sender and receiver are. Our fold-points are static locations—they are always in the same place—and some planets have fold-points connecting them directly, like Vhorath and Calidus.”
“Which is why we could talk to Marius without a time-lag,” I say quietly.
“Correct. If there is no fold-point connecting locations, messages take longer. Much longer.”
Interesting. “Do the clerks have access to the messages’ content?”
“Yes,” he says slowly. I can already see the wheels turning in his head, and that urges me forward.
“And who has access to the clerks?”
“The Vhorathi government.”
I wince. “Could they read the message we got?”
He scratches the scruff on his chin. “Maybe not. Not if whoever sent it didn’t want them to.
It takes considerable skill to force a message through a security filter, and I would assume someone capable of that could circumvent the clerks’ review process.
” A deep line appears between his brows, and I feel his thoughts moving chaotically.
Then, his face lights up and he starts typing.
I pull my feet off the control panel and sit up. “What? What is it?”
“You are brilliant,” he mumbles, still typing. A few seconds later, the flashing orange icon is replaced by an image, and Vexar lets out a husky laugh as he drops into his seat.
“I’m sorry, is that a bean?” I ask, tilting my head to get a better look at the image. “And why are you laughing?”
He laughs again. It’s a relieved, incredulous sound. “It is a valaktur heart.”
“A what?”
“Valaktur. A large animal native to Vhorath. When we were young, my brother would tease me by saying I had the heart of a valaktur.” He nods towards the screen with a relieved smile. “My brother sent this message.”
I look from him to the display, where a progress bar has appeared beneath the image. “Your brother?”
“Yes. Steinarr sent this. I am certain of it.” When I don’t react, he says, “The encryption key I used is something only he and I know, and it worked.”
That familiar sinking feeling grips my spine. “I thought your brother was on the approved list of senders. Why wouldn’t he just send the message through the correct channels?”
Vexar’s expression darkens, and I think we’re both on the same page. Steinarr didn’t want his message to be seen by the government.
Anxiety hangs in the air between us as the progress bar slowly creeps towards completion. My thumbnail is jagged, but I can’t stop biting it, and Vexar is compulsively messing with the ship’s controls again. I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it.
“You trust Steinarr, right?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says absently, “Steinarr has always been ruthless and uncompromising, and that is exactly why I trust him.”
That’s good. “How long until we reach—” The computer chirps, and I sit straight up, eyes darting between Vexar and the display. “Is it done?”
With a hardened expression, he starts clicking through things. Vhorathi symbols fill the screen, and I turn my focus to Vexar. His bright green eyes flick back and forth as he reads, and then I feel it. Dread.
My breathing slows. “What does it say?”
He shakes his head and doesn’t look at me. Whatever it is, it isn’t good. With a wave of sadness and rage, he says, “Solira, the capital of Vhorath, has fallen.” He stands and grips the edge of the control panel, knuckles going pale with the force. “Aelrith has taken the government.”