“Yes, I know” the huge Russian said, lowering his head.
“Yes… You are right.” Hans was lost in thoughts and was scratching his head. “It is heated, too much even. I suppose the temperature of the Cube has been constantly increasing for the last few days, but, of course the dumb headed military did not bother to follow such ‘trifling’ features.
“Hans, I can understand your irony, however, this is not the time for analysis and reproaches, but for actions… Don’t you think?” Marcela touched his shoulder gently.
Hans placed his hand on the Cube but quickly pulled it back. “It’s awfully hot!”
“Don’t play around Hans, it might be dangerous!”
“I’ve a bad feeling about this”, Hans said. “I think the constant increase of temperature in our little Cube will result in mighty fireworks.”
“But how does it produce heat, energy, how does it work?”
“I am not sure, but I have a theory. Do you know how a star works, how it generates energy?”
“I guess it burns out a part of its mass, doesn’t it? The mass turns into energy, isn’t that what Einstein says?” Michael was not very knowledgeable about astrophysics.
“Not quite”, Hans laughed. “Actually, every star, including our bright Sun, works this way. If the Sun burned out its own mass like the burning of charcoal in a stove or in the heat power stations, its fuel would have finished in about 150 000 years. Actually, it produces energy through nuclear synthesis, turning the lighter elements like hydrogen and helium into the heavier iron and cobalt.”
“Something like in nuclear power stations?”
“No, just the opposite. While we break down heavy elements like uranium into lighter ones to obtain energy, the stars do vice versa, synthesizing heavy elements from lighter ones. But in both processes huge quantities of energy are released, that allow our Sun to shine and heat the Sun System in the course of several billions of years. I’m sure the Cube functions the same way, if it was capable of generating the necessary quantity of energy to bend space. If we take this thing and return it to where Norman and the others took it from, it will leave us in peace.”
“Back to the submarine?”
“Yes, Mike, we’ll load it on the Rover and will take it there. When it explodes, it won’t be here and we will be far away in time and space.”
It weighed too much. And it was awfully hot. Three people could hardly take it out of the trunk of the SUV and pull it with ropes to the corps of the submarine. Anyway, they dragged it by the hole, cut there, and dumped it inside.
The corals there seemed to have doubled in quantity. They had as if overgrown the whole place making it seem unbelievably smaller. Four people could push with great efforts the Cube inside and their backs were all the time scratched by the sharp coral edges.
They took off their gloves and looked it over.
“Let Ivanov and Hans try to switch on the Core, Lieutenant, and you help them”, Norman ordered. “Michael will go finish repairing the truck and I’ll return to Marcela in the lab. Be quick, gentlemen, I don’t fancy another night in this place!”
“Fuck you, damned nastiness!” Michael spat noisily over the Cube and followed the Major back to the Base.
“Turn the key clockwise at half a revolution.” Hans turned the red button simultaneously with Ivanov, whose hand was on the blue one. “Now wait and again forward, clockwise, half a revolution… And… now…”
Even Hans’s brilliant mind would not be able to repeat the complex sequence of pressing buttons, pulling levers, handles and inserting starting codes for the submarine.
The lamps on the ceiling blinked a few times, then began shining with a brighter white light. Everything seemed to move around them.
The four generators in the room boomed hollowly and the screens on the wall were lit like a spectacular video-wall at a stadium before the gathered crowd. The feeling was like standing under a buzzing power transmission line. Hans’s head was pulsing with the tension in the air and his ears were ringing from invisible oscillations. The space around him was stuffing him heavily and his flesh was as if convulsing under a press.
“Colonel, where are the temporal chains shown?” Hans asked, breathless and all sweaty.
Ivanov showed a red screen in the left side.
The inscription 15.11.9861 stood on it.
The big lens of the Eye started contracting, the mirrors, directed at the Eye, shone with dim light blue light.
At this moment the Lieutenants tender white face appeared in the opening of the corps and his small energetic eyes started looking around the room.
“How is it going?” he asked, glancing at the Russian with suspicion.
“Can’t you see, Lieutenant, we’ve started the Core, didn’t you feel the tension in the air?” Hans said.
“No, what tension?”
“What about the noise? Are you sure you didn’t hear anything from outside?”
“Nothing at all, but here it is quite warm, actually… Obviously they have good insulation.”
“Or rather the submarine swims in its own climatic bubble”, the plump Professor mumbled under his nose.
“I’ll leave you to the Russian military magic, I need to see what’s going on with the rest of the group. I have a bad foreboding and those things have not been seen for quite a long time.”
“Go, Lieutenant, we’ll be all right here.”
“Be careful, I saw steps in the sand by the prow.”
Babyface slipped through the narrow opening, lithe as a panther, and disappeared.
“I’m telling you, Norman, I’ve never seen such values.”
“Could it be because of the heat, the Sahara climate or any other reason?”
“No, I don’t think so, Norman.”
“And how exactly did you know it?”
“Look, I might be just a pretty image for you, but I dare say I know my job.”
“Please, March, I never implied you didn’t…”
“After I took samples of secretions from your and Michael’s wounds, I inserted a culture in nutritious mediums. I was in doubt, because the infectious changes in your wounds carried out too quickly and it was impossible that the bacteria had melted the tissues in such a short time, fermented and formed a pus secretion. And what do you know? The results were amazing! For two hours all the bacteria in the petri dishes had multiplied hundredfold.”
“How so?” Norman raised his hands inquiringly.
“The development of every colony of bacteria passes through three basic phases:
- an exponential phase, in which the number grows in geometrical progression;
- a stationary one, in which the growth stops because of exhaustion of the nutritious environment and the exotoxins, released from the bacteria. Here the number of dead and new cells is equal;
- dead phase in which the number of perished cells is bigger than that of the newly appeared.”
“Great. so, what?”
“So, there is no dead phase with the aliens that I took from your wound.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that they grow and multiply regardless of the lack of food and without interfering with each other. They don’t need oxygen or carbon dioxide at all, light or any matter to exist! Usually infectious microorganisms need several days to pass through several scores of generations. And these here had divided super quickly, producing a hundred generations for no time at all!”
“Okay, March, what does it mean according to you? And why, the hell, Ivanov was not ill, when your double bit his throat?”