Paul Middleton: Revelations

As he approached what looked like a campsite in the large cavern that had been set up for a being smaller than most humans, the whispering grew louder.

At that point, Boris decided it would be far safer to pull back at least a short distance before setting up a camp. He sent half the group back along the route they’d taken. He made sure that they had enough glow paint to mark the way clearly.

They definitely needed to get Shen out here. He was the only qualified expert technologist of this area in Russia that Boris trusted. Those Romanovkans with the skill who had been in the town had been too tempted by the siren’s call to space.

Wilderness near Archangelsk, Russia.

It had taken four days for Boris to arrange for a both transport and a protection detail for Shen to the Archangelsk site. He had already sent off blood samples from the Beast to TOM and Bethany Anne to give them some background. As there was little urgency beyond curiosity involved in this, they had a low priority for analysis. It seemed unlikely that the creature was a Were, although checking that did have higher priority.

TOM had told them to expect results in two or more weeks, especially with all the government activity looking into possible alien sites.

Bethany Anne had already given them a well done and congratulations , in her own unique way, for finding and securing the third landing site.

With her assistance, they had moved more than a hundred of the former mercenaries from Boris’ town, and a group of about thirty trusted ex-mercs who wanted in on whatever TQB was doing that had contacted Boris through back channels.

Boris welcomed the new blood from outside. They would have skills and techniques he was less well versed in. They would also be an enormous asset to improving the effectiveness of his small force. Everyone who arrived at the site had accepted the removal of all personal electronics, and understood their communications would be limited and watched.

The site, like the other sites that TQB had already vetted, was simply too dangerous and valuable to treat with any laxity in security. Janna was happy that several of the trusted mercs were taking some of the strain of leadership off of Boris’ shoulders.

It gave her a chance to organize time alone with him. That time alone helped both of them relax and recharge.

Compared to the constant combat operations they had faced while rooting out Konrad’s organization from Western Russia, this post was almost a holiday. A holiday on the icy side of hell maybe, but one nonetheless.

One item had been identified by TOM from the pictures, combined with the emissions that the ship gave off inside the cave. It was evident that the damaged vessel had a crude, somewhat inefficient, and very dangerously modified Etheric energy converter.

This was probably the reason the computer in the cave still seemed to be fully functional and active. No one had yet come up with an answer as to why this ship was here, or how it had crashed. ADAM was still running an analysis of the wreck and debris to try and piece together the ship’s original design.

The analysis of the alloy scrapings had confirmed that the ship was more than two and a half thousand years old. No Kurtherian would have built a ship with such comparatively fragile alloys when the alloys that had been used to make, for example, TOM’s own ship were cheaper and tougher.

That is not to say that the ship was delicate, it most certainly was not. It was made of material at least ten times harder than any alloy the native technology of Earth had yet developed.

They had decided to delay the analysis of what seemed to be the ship’s computer until Shen arrived, despite the fact that it had apparently been removed from the wreckage. It wasn’t its size that would identify the era which it came from for Tom, but rather its design and processing power. As with humans, the design could define a period of history that such an artifact could be placed in.

Shen took one look at the incredible technology in front of him, “I’m in love.”

Boris looked down at him and raised one eyebrow.

TOM had already warned Shen not to attempt to take apart the suspected computers in the cave as they could be early model organic computers and any attempt to take them apart, especially considering their age, could destroy them.

Shen had been given access to all relevant information regarding ADAM’s early awakening. He was, therefore, willing to make the assumption that he could have an early stage developing AI, or higher, on this computer.

The thought simultaneously excited him and terrified him. The similar spike in radio transmissions within the cave to those found when ADAM was still developing made this theory more plausible than not. The only reason the cave hadn’t been detected decades ago was that it held significant iron deposits according to Alecta, making it a reasonably effective Faraday cage.

If it were an early stage AI, then it would likely be searching for any means to send or receive communications. For safety’s sake, he decided that a Faraday cage, as well as a remote key pressing input device, were in order. The AI, if it was present, had been in isolation for centuries. It was, therefore, possible that it did not fit any definition of sanity.

In Shen’s opinion, it was not a good idea to give it any escape potential until they knew with what they were dealing. Especially, considering the likelihood that it was responsible for the differences in the programming of Boris’ nanites compared to all the other Were nanites that TQB had so far encountered.

Whatever was in there might be unconcerned about collateral damage it could cause. That added another item to his worry list about the potentials of whatevers the computer contained. He was also concerned about the whispering both Boris and Janna had described to him. The fact that they claimed it became stronger the closer they came to the box implied that it already had some limited means of communication.

TOM had assured everyone that if it was communicating using the etheric the piddling difference in distances would not have made a difference to the signal strength.

He claimed distance was no limitation to properly calibrated etheric communications.

Boris and Janna provided Shen the supplies he requested with alacrity. It made him wish that all the people he had worked for were potentially endangered by the problems they were asking him to solve.

Alecta was of great assistance to him in setting up the Faraday cage and was a competent assistant in setting up the push button arrangement for the object TOM had described as a keyboard equivalent. He was still working on a means to simulate an organic fingertip for each of the hundred- plus “Plungers” he had designed to press the keys.

His device was a perfect example of the KISS principle in many ways. It was run on compressed air and had a piston aligned to each key. The keyboard was bulkier than modern human ones, the keys larger. TOM had given no explanation of why. It was an itch he couldn’t scratch to Shen, but he was willing to put up with it to be the first human to do the equivalent of a Kurtherian Historical Records search.

He had even convinced TOM, after much discussion, to teach him the Kurtherian language, so there was more than one person to interpret the data.

That was a long, slow process, though.

Meanwhile, Boris and Paul were outside finding easily defensible positions for both railguns and bunkers to be put in. Places to put up railgun positions were the easy part. Boris was certain they could disguise them as pillars of rock.

Paul was a little less sanguine about that proposal, but such formations did appear naturally in the area so he wasn’t convinced it wouldn’t work, either.