Alicia Jones 4: Enigma by D. L. Harrison Read Free Book Online

avoided that
topic.  Then we brought up the Drenil data from the probe, and instead of
splitting up, we went over it together…
     
    We were back inside the conference room.  Nadia, Nora,
Senna, and Blue were here, but sitting slightly apart from the geeky
scientists, which of course, I was one of.
    “So, anyone find anything to invalidate what I said, or come
up with another possibility?”
    Kristi didn’t wait, “No, of course it’s almost impossible to
determine.  As far as their technology, there is exotic radiation in there
we don’t understand, and I’m wondering if its natural or not.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Kristi shrugged, “I have no idea how to create that
radiation to run a test, but maybe that’s not more leakage or a reaction from
slipping between subspace barriers, but instead the medium they use to slip in
and out of dimensions, or it could be as simple as a byproduct of a cloaking
device while it cloaks.  And as far as talking to them, I have no ideas at
all.”
    She frowned, and then continued, “It’s probable that,
inter-dimensional or not, they do not communicate the same way as we do. 
It would be like trying to teach a blind man, that was never even told what
sight was, to build a video camera and a transport medium, as well as a
display.  We could probably talk to them with the right technology, but
where do we even start?”
    Nalla went next, “Well, if we can’t talk to them on our or
their level, we pick a different place.”
    Ellis asked, “What do you mean Nalla?”
    Nalla clenched her hands and I could tell she was highly
annoyed, I wondered what that was about, and she continued, “Well, both we and
the Drenil are familiar with the radiation their ships have in common with a
wormhole.  What if we sent them a simple message that way?  Pulses
and pauses of radiation, maybe in prime numbers, or even just simply count, and
see what they do back?”
    That might work.  Of course we wouldn’t have a wormhole
device in the shuttle, which might be a snag.  We could do it from the
ship, just open holes nearby from the other end.  I was also reluctant to
push my theory again, if they speak and think on another level of reality, they
might be as incapable of understanding us as we do them.  Still, it might
work even then, as long as they can recognize it as an attempt at
communicating.
    “That’s a pretty good idea.  Talmor, Ellis?”
    Ellis jumped in, “I suggest a group of different
things.  We can flash normal light, pulse and pause the radiation like
Nalla said, maybe do the same with gravity, radio waves, and blink our shields
to cover EM and anti-mass particles.  Hopefully they’ll pick one of those
up.”
    I sensed the annoyance again when he said her name. 
Maybe Nalla preferred to be called by doctor or professor?
    I nodded, and we all looked at Talmor.
    Talmor cleared his throat, he’d been fairly quiet so far.
    “All good ideas, perhaps we should try all of them
simultaneously.  I’m for trying it out before bothering with anything
else, let’s get out there.”
    Everyone seemed to agree with that sentiment, so we went…
     

Chapter 8
    We decided to take a wormhole to fifty light years from the
Drenil world, and then move in at FTL speeds after that.  I had Al use the
main ship to open one up, and took the shuttle through.  We waited a few
minutes for a response to our incursion in their space, and if there was one,
we didn’t see it.  I moved the shuttle in, fifty light years would take
less than a minute at full speed, but we went relatively slowly, so it would
take an hour.  The whole time we ran the scans at full power, but all we
picked up was minute quantities of stellar dust and normal background
radiation.
    I wished I was more positive about this venture, but I
really wasn’t.  I felt like we’d have a better chance if we waited to
improve our understanding of multi-dimensional theory to the point we could
take a ship into other