“‘Oddest’ being the operative word, I assume?” Farbeaux sniped.
“Par for the course around here,” Jack replied with a wink.
“Okay.” Niles nodded for the navy communications man to allow Moira into the room. He hadn’t wanted to be briefed by Ryan until he knew who they may have been dealing with. The Traveler still caused many a person at this table major concern for not knowing her greatest achievement had been compromised, stolen, and then duplicated. She wheeled in and nodded to all those around the table with her eyes settling on Anya for only a brief moment. “Virginia?” Niles finished as the room quieted.
“In consultation with Dr. Mendelsohn, we have come to the conclusion that the Wellsian Doorway looks intact and fully functional. But that has not been confirmed as yet by our teams. The damage to the power lines coming into these buildings has not allowed us to bring the doorway online nor even her peripheral systems. The building has a small supply of power coming through its own generating system, which we have fully refueled, but not anywhere near the power we would need to get the doorway operational.”
“Are we working on an alternate power source?” Niles asked Jenks.
“Not yet, we need—”
“Yes, we are covering that,” Virginia said as she cut off the startled master chief, who looked as if he had no idea what she was talking about.
“We have?” he asked with a grumbled look.
“Yes, I have,” she said, looking at his confused face.
“Okay, what should the priority be?” Compton asked only for the benefit of others around the table.
Virginia turned to Xavier, who nodded his head at the camera view supplied by the supercomputer.
“Thus far I have nothing on how to gain signal acquisition without the second receiving doorway being in place. The science just isn’t there. An attempt made without a corresponding doorway, as I am sure Madam Mendelsohn will tell you, is quite impossible. At least according to theory.”
“According to my engineering specs, Einstein may have come up with this theory, but I don’t see how this thing actually works, and sending people through that damn thing without knowing the exact science behind it is damn well stupid.”
Compton ignored Jenks’s outburst and turned back to the large viewing screen. “I sense a ‘but’ in there, Doctor,” Compton said, watching the young man and how he handled the pressure of research on an emergency level.
“That there is, Director Compton. In my briefing by Europa and reading the final after-action reports by Colonel Collins, I may have a lead on something that may help. It’s a long shot but I do think it’s worth looking into. I just need some information from the master chief.”
“Master Chief?” Niles asked looking to his left.
“Go for it, young Xbox jockey.”
Compton frowned at Jenks.
Morales smiled at the intended slight of being called an Xbox jockey. “I understand this entire operation was started when Admiral Everett vanished in an escape pod from HMS Garrison Lee, and then into the unnaturally generated dimensional wormhole, is this correct?”
“Yes,” Niles answered quickly just to keep Jenks from doing so.
“And the government of Great Britain recovered that same escape pod two hundred thousand years, give or take fifty thousand years, after it crashed into the historically and speculated inland sea on the continent of Antarctica. Is this also correct?”
Silence as the room waited patiently, knowing the new man knew nothing of how Niles ran his meetings.
“Master Chief, you designed those very same escape pods, am I correct?”
“That’s right, the escape pods and the assault craft used in the operation.”
“Brilliant designs, I might add,” Morales said. “But I digress. Master Chief, I need the escape pod design specs. Europa may have come up with a solution. As I said it’s a long shot, but it’s better than what the alternative would be.”
“What is it?” Jenks asked as he looked from Virginia to the screen.
“The pod was designed with a global positioning locater, correct?”
“Yes, it acts as a homing beacon upon ejection for search and rescue. All of the pods had them.”
“Completely waterproof?” Xavier continued.
“Yeah, it’s a sealed unit,” Jenks grumbled as he wondered if the kid was questioning his design.
“This is important, Master Chief: What is the life span of the locator beacon?”
“Six months, maybe seven.”
Morales looked away for a moment and his face was lost in the large monitor. He reappeared.
“Europa may have found a way to bypass a second doorway signal. She may be able to lock on to Admiral Everett’s search-and-rescue marker if you can get this doorway open to allow her signal to get through to search for the correct frequency.”
Anya felt her heart skip a beat. All others looked into the monitor absolutely blown away by the young Morales and his obvious and immediate connection with the supercomputer, Europa.
“Dr. Mendelsohn?” Compton said, looking toward the woman.
“I would need to know the frequency of the rescue beacon for the initiating doorway to lock on to, but this may be promising if the beacon is still active.”
All eyes shot back to Niles.
“Virginia, you and Master Chief Jenks are excused. Get with Dr. Morales and see if we have something here.
“Professor Ellenshaw, I need the report by you and the anthropology department on the primordial situation we could be walking into on the continent of Antarctica two hundred twenty thousand years ago, give or take two thousand years. Lieutenant McIntire, the same goes on the geologic front. I need answers, people, on what sort of environment we will be walking into there. I also need the zoological department along with anthropology to get us a read on possible animal and humanoid life, and I need all of this yesterday. Alice will coordinate.”
Niles conferred long distance with the other department heads sitting in the conference room in Nevada as Sarah and Alice both watched Anya eyeing Moira suspiciously. Both women knew Anya had discovered something about the Traveler that had disturbed her. As Moira explained some technical detail or other to Virginia and an attentive Jenks, Anya finally made eye contact with Sarah and nodded toward the door. Sarah looked at Alice and excused herself. Jack eyed the two suspiciously for getting up without comment. He looked at Henri and his head tilted ever so slightly in question.
As she stepped out of the office door, Sarah saw Anya looking out of a filthy window at the overcast and defused light outside.
“Alice and I wondered when you were going to let us in on what was bothering you,” Sarah said as she laid her electronic pad on the table lining a stained wall and then sat on its edge, waiting as Anya slowly turned to face her and the inquiry.
“She is hiding something,” Anya said, biting her lip.
“We all hide things, Moira probably more than most,” Sarah countered.
“My brother,” the voice said from the doorway.
Anya and Sarah turned and that was when they saw the Traveler sitting in her chair with her hand still on the old brass doorknob. She had been sitting there silently.
“Moira, I—”
The wheelchair slowly moved into the room and Moira examined the two women.
“I was searching for my brother. Sixteen times I made the transition through the doorway, and sixteen times I failed to find him.” The old woman advanced into the old outer office where shipyard accountants and naval engineers used to sit huddled doing their jobs of long ago. The wheelchair was silent as she moved it across the floor. She stopped next to Anya and she too looked out at the dreary day over Brooklyn.