Interstellar Publications LLC

From the first book in the Epsilon Indi Series;
The Epsilon Indi Factror; an Interstellar Convergence
my story begins:

Uncertain Times

 

Entering the Great Hall was a bit more difficult than usual for the representatives. Word had leaked out that an unscheduled meeting of the planetary confederation was being called. The citizenry was nervous. Every special interest group had their most fervent protestors on the front steps, with placards and bullhorns in full display. Was there some urgent action needed regarding their star’s recent instability, or was there another problem their world was facing that they didn’t even know about yet?

Pantaleon, leader of the Guardians of Golak protest group, noticed Xenia’s agile young figure plying the crowd. He called out, “Do you have the megaphone? I see some delegates approaching!”

 “Yes sir… Right here.”

The crowd reached a peak excitement level as the security guards pushed ahead of the dignitaries. They frantically burse into shouts of well-known slogans.

“HEPHAESTUS PROJECT WILL NOT SAVE US!”

“NO PLANET B!”

“CAN-THE-WORM!”

With megaphone in hand, Pantaleon saw his chance, calling out over all the others, “Dr. Nikostratos! Has the Wormhole Project failed?”

Taking his lead others joined. They pushed forward, toward the planet’s preeminent expert on advanced physics.

“Wormhole Project! What has happened? We want answers!”

Pantaleon pulled back, letting the others take on the brunt of the surging crowd. He grabbed Xenia by the shoulder and pulled her back as well, just in time to keep her from being trampled. A wisp of a girl, Xenia was good at moving through a calm crowd. But as the excitement level reached a fever pitch, things had become physically dangerous. He didn’t want to find himself explaining to her father why she had been injured, especially since he was one of the very delegates who was about to pass by.

The well-trained security guards used their shields to fend off the panicky citizenry. Some of the leaders would just as soon let the officers apply some pain in response to the level of aggression they were seeing, but others insisted that it was the peoples’ right to protest, as long as they were not initiating physical harm. Pantaleon was relieved to find that he had backed off just enough from the path of the dignitaries to not be seen by Xenia’s father, Erasmos Panthils. He was not one of the members that the rebel leader wanted to aggravate anyway. The ones who were in the pocket of the corporates were his target for embarrassment, if that was possible for such self-promoting types anyway.

In the great Hall as the meeting began, Chairwoman Galene Kleitos, Speaker of the House addressed the dignitaries …..

“Good afternoon fellow representatives. You have been called to this meeting as decisions need to be made quickly regarding matters that effect the state of our world. I will get right to the point by asking for a status update.”

Motioning to the portly, well-dressed scholar sitting behind her she said, “Dr. Nikostratos, I believe you are here to give us a report on the Wormhole Portal Mission.”

“Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. As you all know, we initiated the Wormhole Project some cycles ago, in hopes of finding a suitable planet to be able move – at least some of our kind to – if, or more likely when, our star reaches its more unstable phase of life. Hopes have been high that this scaled-down mission, with a smaller wormhole than would be needed to send actual Golakians, might be a wise first step.”

The stout intellectual, looking a bit frayed, took a deep breath and continued. “By monitoring the viewing camera, we had hoped to be bringing very different news from what I must tell you today...” Nikostratos paused for another moment, this time to dab sweat from his forehead. He continued, “At this time, it would appear that the mission has failed to reach its first target world.”

The chamber broke out in a roar of loud objections, finger pointing, and general pandemonium. Chairwoman Kleitos pounded the giant gavel at the central podium, bringing all vocalizations to a halt. The design of the Great Hall had been carefully engineered so that sounds from the leader’s position where heard at a much greater volume to all points in the Hall, than from any other location… Trigonometry is a wonderful thing!

The otherwise polite, socially proper woman decided it was time to remind the delegation why she was chosen as their leader. Summoning a commanding firmness to her voice that she rarely resorted to, she roared, “Please! We must have order! Nothing will be accomplished here until we can deal with our situation calmly!”

The Hall was brought to an abrupt silence, as one of the senior delegates in the front row anxiously raised his arms high. Accepting the Chairwoman’s acknowledgement, he stood. The delegate spoke in a distinguished voice as he asked the question that everyone wanted an answer to.

“Doctor! Are you telling us that the entire mission has failed or that the first observation waypoint has not been reached? What is the prognosis?... What, exactly, went wrong?”

Trying to jump in on his proverbial coat-tails others quickly tried to call out their objections, defenses, and general moves to grandstand the discussion. The Hall returned to a useless din of almost everyone yelling, and no one at all listening. Chairwoman Kleitos brought her gavel back into action, once again forcing silence.

“Please, everyone! All will have a chance to make their voice heard. We are not accomplishing anything when we don’t follow the Rules of Order. This is serious, and those who sent us here to represent them need our full attention.”

The room returned to a state of order. With a motion to the speaker she announced, “Doctor, please continue!”

Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Dr. Nikostratos resumed his report. “Esteemed representatives, I implore you to realize that the technology we are using for this endeavor is at the absolute limit of our current knowledge. Actually, beyond that! I will remind you that when the Wormhole Portal Mission was proposed to you the academics and engineers who worked on understanding the technology were quite clear that we had not deciphered all of the writings that were discovered along with the device.”

Frey Ingolf, Mendorian representative, motioned a request to speak. Acquiring the chairwoman’s recognition, she stood and stated, “Of course, the doctor is right. We must remember that this project was undertaken as a possible solution for our distant future descendants… One that may or may not bear fruit!”

Kulg Cenai, Miltadian Councilor broke in, “Yes, we have spent many generations searching space with the technology we have been able to acquire or invent, trying to find a way out of this problem… Several cycles ago when we activated this program it appeared that it might give us the answers we sought. It was not presented to us as a sure way out.” The aristocratic leader paused for effect. Then declared,” Let us hear more about what has happened.”

Erasmos Panthils, considered one of the more academically inclined of the representatives, interjected, “Madam Chairwoman, may I speak?”

“Please yes! Speak Mr. Panthils.”

“I echo Councilor Cenai’s request. We should be focusing our attention on hearing more details from Dr. Nikostratos, not on finding blame for unforeseeable outcomes. Please doctor! Tell us what exactly has happened?”

“Thank you Councilor Panthils… Last week we reactivated the portal’s visual screens because we expected it to be on its way down the gravity well of system 29A. The Type Alpha star there is known to have a planet with possible life-sustaining characteristics. We were expecting to see the system, but only distant stars appeared.”

The Hall broke out in raucous outrage once again. All of the planet’s most ambitious politicians were present, and it was just too much of an opportunity to pass up to see who could grab the spotlight. Luckily, there were others present. Those for whom the future of their races was far more important than what quotes would be mentioned in the news reports the next day.

Chairwoman Galene Kleitos thundered, “Please! Honorable representatives! Order, please!”

As the Hall rumbled to an eventual silence, she began once again.

Glaring across the Hall for any who dared to interrupt her, she spoke. “Dr. Nikostratos, what are our options? What are you proposing be the next step here?”

“Thank you, Madam Chairwoman! My colleagues and I are working on that very thing as we speak. Of particular concern is that we have still not deciphered all of the tablets found with the device. Before we activated it, we felt confident we understood enough of the user instructions to be able to refine our knowledge of the rest. Meanwhile the wormhole generator propelled the viewing portal to our first target location.” The doctor emphasized, “As it turns out, that has proven to be a more difficult task than expected… And, I’m sorry to have to bring this up, but I am sure you all realize your funding of this project has not been maintained as was originally planned. This has slowed our progress by limiting the amount of staff available for the task.”

Taking a moment to let that statement sink in, and to gather his thoughts as he cleaned his spectacles, Nikostratos began again. “We believe there may be some factor to be considered in the operation of the device which has not yet been taken into account. Of course, we are also hoping that the problem is not one of the device being damaged during its discovery, or something that deteriorated in the thousands of cycles it was cached away in its hiding place before being discovered.”

Rubbing his temples in frustration, he continued, “Whatever is happening, our first hope is that we might be able to make a breakthrough in the deciphering of those tablets… I should mention that the next target system will be in the portal’s viewing range in just a few weeks, so that should tell us more about the status of things.”

 Councilor Ingolf caught the Chairwoman’s attention once again and was motioned permission to speak. She was one of the relatively younger of the congregation, but highly educated in the art of political debate and the technicalities of the planetary governing agreements. Her ability to analyze a situation and work out a compromise was well respected, so her words held great weight with all present. She began, “Doctor. Are there additional resources we might be able to provide you with to facilitate this? I suspect some monetary aid, at least temporarily, might give you access to more resources. Perhaps we can help by re-aligning priorities in other projects to make experts in the various associated fields more easily available?”

With raised brows, the doctor calmly responded, “That would certainly help, Madam Councilor!”

Representative Cenai quickly made a motion to have the floor. “Fellow delegates! We must be very careful here. Some of these reallocated resources could put other projects in jeopardy. What about the Hephaestus Project? If our world burns again we must have The Keep in order to survive!”

The mere mention of that concept was too much for a few of the “special guest visitors” in the upper chamber gallery to remain silent. Xenia Panthils had gained entrance for herself and a few friends, since her father was one of the official delegates. A rebel at heart since her earliest encounters with her father’s social connections, she was now a teen with a mission. Drawn to a near-fanatic group of well-meaning young adults, she had found her idol in the charismatic leader, Pantaleon. Leaping to her feet, and practically over the high gallery railing, she screamed, “No Hephaestus Project!”

Another couple of her compatriots took up her lead, pulling out a huge roll-out sign, allowing it to drop to its full extent from the balcony, reading, “Commoners will not pay taxes so that the wealthy can survive!”

Together they yelled out, “No Hephaestus Project!”

With this the entire Hall slipped back into roaring incoherence. Chairwoman Kleitos declared the meeting at an end, calling aside key members to arrange a closed-door session to work out details to arrange help for the Wormhole Project.

Things were heating up on planet Golak, in more ways than one.