The Lost Jupiter (Maura's Gate Book 3) Read online

  “This is the last warning you will receive, Devin Lee and Matthew Pastore.” Devin still remembered the indignant voice when they flew past Jupiter’s orbit toward the interstellar space. “Your conduct has seriously violated NASA’s regulations and a professional’s integrity. Unless you turn around immediately, you will never be given another opportunity to participate in our space missions …”

  “As if there would be more missions,” he had said to Matt. In the past he rarely talked about the government in irony, but at that particular moment he couldn’t help it.

  Right after they had come back from Jupiter, a group of astronomers, physicists, and computer scientists gathered to recover information stored in the diamond. It turned out that the stability of space and time was maintained by galaxy filaments—the sponge-like super structures that connected galaxies and clusters. At the beginning of the century, humans had roughly mapped out their distributions using gravitational lenses. What we didn’t know was that each filament consisted of millions of “strands”, rather than diffused dark matter and hydrogen gases. A strand was a sturdy and elastic structure. When stretched too much, though, it would fragment, resulting in space instability that could last years. At the moment, STR-OX102 was one that had reached its limit.

  No wonder the government decided to give up after Devin had presented the finding. What can we do with dark matter? They said. By the time Devin left with Bigleaf, seventy thousand mind-transferring machines had been constructed by U.S. military contractors and distributed worldwide. In fact, Devin and Matt’s current mission was to revisit Jupiter and discuss with Lionel about the next step, once millions or billions of humans had been compressed into computer memories with their physical bodies left behind. But Devin wasn’t ready to do that. They had survived the comet attack, acquired precious information from another civilization, and nailed the problem they needed to solve. God meant to let their species continue, even though he was as clueless as the government regarding a feasible plan. Anyway, with Kenton’s help, Devin and Matt snitched an energy unit for long-distance travel and installed it in their ship …

  “We found the other strand!” Matt said at the door, holding a few documents in his hands.

  “Does it have the right angle?”

  “They must be engaged.” Matt walked over and spread out a map on the table. The strand they had been tracing was plotted vertically on the paper. A small section of a second strand ran across the upper right corner with an angle of roughly 45 degree. As Matt had said, the two were likely to meet at some point ahead, which was exactly what they had been looking for. In general, strands within the same filament ran parallel to one another, but occasionally they got twisted here and there. If humans could come up with a way to untie 102 from its partner, the strand would be relaxed.

  “Oh, another thing I should let you know.” Matt pointed at a planetary system along the way. “We picked up radio signals from one of the planets.”

  Devin frowned and examined the plot. The second closest planet to the sun was residing in the so-called habitable zone, meaning its distance to the sun was just right so that it was not too hot or too cold. And according to the series of numbers next to the symbol, this was a territory planet with atmosphere.

  “What type of signals?”

  Matt showed him another page with several rows of waveforms. “It’s not periodic, and when I tried playing it out as a sound, it made no sense.”

  Devin studied the waveforms for a while and said, “I don’t think it’s noise. See, after every nine peaks, there is a long gap. The durations of the peaks appear to be random, but the heights correlate to the sizes of the nine solar planets. Mercury, Venus, Earth …”

  “You’re right! Let’s check it out then. We’ll be there Wednesday morning.”

  After Matt had left, Devin finished his beer and cleared the table. Before he dropped the can in the trash basket, the label caught his attention. Heineken, a rather common brand. At this very moment, how many empty cans were being tossed by drinkers on Earth? Only when they held one in outer space, two hundred light years away from where it was manufactured, would they realize the blessing and benevolence it took for a planet carrying soil and water to develop something like this. Maybe he should leave the can in space, as an evidence that mankind had once existed in this universe.

  But not anymore.

  * * *

  “I just want to be with you, Grandpa.” Korina sat in her favorite rocking chair, habitually rubbing the armrests which had long lost their paint. This was the chair in which she had relished stories about princesses, pyramids, elephants, ice-cream trucks … Schools here did teach humanities—a word that contained special meanings to Korina and other villagers—in a dreary manner as they contrived to cover a long list of topics and thousands of years in a few courses. She always felt she had gained a better understanding of her home planet through Grandpa’s stories.

  “I’m an old man, Korina.”

  It took her a moment to figure out what he was trying to say. “But you’re absolutely healthy! And you eat more than Joey, sometimes.”

  Normally, when one of them mentioned Joey’s appetite, the other would have a good laugh. Today, the lack of response from Grandpa unsettled her, and for the first time she realized he was indeed an old man. He was said to be the tallest in the family when he was young; now he was reduced to her height owing to the hunched back. The already tanned and sunburned skin grew darker with the progression of age spots. Surrounded by wrinkles and sagging eyelids, his eyes rarely seemed to fully open, but when they looked at you, you would find nowhere to hide your thoughts.

  A soft whistle blew in the kitchen. Grandpa put down his art work and went to turn off the stove. She looked around the room occupied with shelves of tools and crafts. He was a renowned scientist before he came here. An astrophysicist, did they say? His life shouldn’t be spent cutting wood.

  Grandpa came back with two cups. “You should go,” he said as he handed her the tea. “You need college education.”

  That was not the answer she had expected. “You told me they are aliens. We can’t even see them!”

  “What we can’t see isn’t necessarily stranger than what we can. The fact that they brought us here with all the supplies indicates they are a decent race.” He sat back in his chair and resumed carving the plate. “One day you’ll understand how lucky we have been.”

  After he said the words, Korina had the feeling that he was no longer dwelling on her problem, which made her feel worse.

  “Do me a favor, Korina.” Finally, he lowered the plate and looked up at her. “Next time you go to the community center, print out a map of the star field centering on the solar system.”

  “How large do you want it to be?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s start with a rectangle, five hundred by fifty light years. I want the longitudinal dimension to be aligned with the Pisces-Cetus Filament.”

  That would be a long map. “I’ll go there tomorrow morning. What do you need it for?”

  He looked in the direction of the window. “I’m trying to solve a puzzle. I hope the Earth people have already succeeded.”

  “But what can we do with the universe?”

  “We never know until we have tried. The problem is, people almost always give up too early.”

  (End of Excerpt)