It was supposed to be the best day of her life.

Tholidran kha Gralisha, daughter of the Faalturen First Citizen, was ready to unveil her startling new invention. In a compact tech lab on the Ulkiadron colony, a small audience of Faalturen scientists and journalists had already taken their seats. Before them, on a stainless steel table, sat an odd-looking device. Its nearly circular view screen rested on a boxy processor, which bristled with toggle switches and knobs.

Tholidran swept into the lab, wearing a dress embroidered in geometric patterns. Like everyone else in attendance that day, her amphibian ancestry was evident in her blue skin, rounded head, bulbous eyelids and broad mouth. She started off with a brief introduction that no one in the room actually needed. First Citizen Bralidan had called in every favor to publicize the event.

“Mother,” Tholidran had said, “It’s not a holovid premiere.”

But her words fell on deaf ears and in the haze of anticipation that hung over the lab, it took Tholidran a full minute to gather her thoughts.

“Distinguished scientists and members of the Press,” she said, “I give you the gralinev.”

As all but the slowest journalist in the room would have known, gralinev was a neologism with a clear meaning. In Planetary Standard, it translated to “past window.” 

As she explained, the gralinev’s underlying concept was as simple as the science behind it was complex. The device could reinvigorate the quantum signature of any object, organic or inorganic, at any set of spatiotemporal coordinates within the previous thousand years. It could then convert those signatures into light waves and project them onto its screen. Through rapid sequential reconstruction, it could display all visual and aural phenomena within a preset span of hours as if it were a video.

“Allow me to demonstrate,” said Tholidran. 

Her delicate fingers raced across the gralinev’s retractable keyboard. The two-sided screen gradually displayed a vivid image: the first graduation ceremony held at the venerable Drajsaala University, some five hundred years earlier. Eager graduates looked up at an aging Commencement speaker with a mix of joy and awe.

Tholidran paused the display after the first three minutes.                                        

“With this visual reconstruction of quantum states dating back five hundred cycles,” she said, “I conclude this preliminary demonstration of the gralinev. Thank you for observing. I’ll take your questions now.”

In stunned silence, the audience gaped at the “video” frozen on the screen. Finally, a clear male voice piped up from the back of the room. His Press badge and crisp, brown linen outfit matched his incisive tone. 

“Excuse me, but how do we know this isn’t a product of Artificial Intelligence?” he asked. “I mean, my 12-year-old son could have conjured this up on his personal tablet.”

Tholidran smiled. 

“Congratulations on raising a precocious child,” she said. “I hope he’s not as troubling to you as I was to my own parents. Though I do think it’s unlikely that he could have called up such precise historical detail.”

But the journalist had struck a chord. Erchodren Calidrell, aging head of the Ministry of Science, spoke up next. 

“What could have stopped you yourself,” he asked, “from poring over our historical archives? We have holocordings dating back much farther than five hundred cycles.”

Tholidran’s smile was unwavering. 

“I deliberately chose a neutral set of coordinates,” she said, “whose reconstruction would be immediately recognizable. Let me choose a scenario closer to home. Your office at the Ministry, for example, after standard business hours, at the end of last week.”

The minister’s narrow shoulders tensed and his lab coat seemed a size too small.

“I hardly think….” he said.

But the gralinev’s screen was already misting over. A foggy outline of the Minister’s office gradually coalesced into a detailed view. It showed Erchodren seated behind an imposing hardwood desk. Hovering before him were a set of holographic diagrams. Across from him, in one of two leather side chairs, sat a beautiful Faalturen female who was dressed in elegant red satin business attire. 

“As you can see, Minister Calidrell,” she was saying, “the Ashteraal inertial dampening system automatically compensates for even the most violent shifts in acceleration, especially when approaching a fold point at high speed.”

The Minister stared up at the hologram and shrugged his shoulders until his gray formal tunic puckered like the chest of an exotic bird. 

“Yes, yes,” he said. “But your company is third to market with this design, which is barely an improvement over the model we’ve been using for nearly fifty cycles. Physics is physics, my dear, and there’s only so much a new circuit board can do.”

“You may have a point,” said the sales rep. “But what if I told you that Exiterol will make an anonymous donation of one million credits to your charity, in exchange for your endorsement? It would be a big boost to our business, and think how that sum would help your aging and infirm former scientists.”

Erchodren squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Make it ten million and I’ll see what I can do,” he said. 

The embarrassed chuckling that filled the small lab was Tholidran’s cue. The gralinev’s screen went blank. 

“Another fabrication!” shouted the Minister. 

“Come off it, Calidrell,” said one of his colleagues. “Everyone knows you’re on the take. Only the First Citizen stands by you, and if this gets out….”

“I’ll sue!” yelled Erchodren. 

Tholidran smiled again.

“I’m sure the members of the Press would love to make a circus out of this,” she said. “But like everyone else here today, they signed a legally binding agreement to report only on the technical aspects of this presentation. Don’t worry, Minister, your secret is safe. Especially because anyone who violates the agreement can expect their own secrets to be aired on the interstellar newsnets. Also per the agreement.”

It took some minutes for the room to settle down, as the attendees called up the agreement that they had blithely signed a few days before on their personal handhelds. Eventually, Tholidran restored order — but not before Minister Calidrell stormed out of the room. 

“Now,” she said. “I’m prepared to answer your technical questions.”

Almost no one sat idle and their excited questions raised quite a clamor. Tholidran’s responses were a revelation, even to Crelniron Jaher, the most skeptical theoretical physicist in the Faalturen Science Academy. Her dark green jumpsuit was flecked with silvery nubs.

“But you may be in for trouble,” she said. “What would stop a sentient hologram from entering your screen and interacting with those quantum signatures in real time? You know, to change History?”

Tholidran scoffed, citing the improbable energy requirements.

“It’s more of a cash requirement,” said Crelniron. “Anyone wealthy enough to link their quantum processors to an event horizon would have no trouble at all.”

“Nobody’s that wealthy,” said Tholidran. But as Crelniron turned to leave, that confident phrase already seemed disturbingly hollow. Worse, an eavesdropping journalist ran after Crelniron.

“Would you mind saying that again,” he asked, “on the record?”

By then, the only others left in the lab were a team of photographers anxious to get a shot of Tholidran tending to the gralinev. Once she was alone, it was time to transmat the gralinev to a secure lab in her new home: an obscure habitat ring that her mother had commissioned as an investment property. She then set off on a commercial star liner.

By the time Tholidran arrived at the habitat ring a week later, news of the gralinev had ricocheted across every outlet of the interstellar newsnet. Triumphant, but “star-lagged,” her immediate concern was getting a good night’s sleep. The “great work ahead” could wait. 

All the same, she was up before the habitat’s artificial daybreak to install the gralinev in its new location. Despite feeling groggy, she couldn’t stop herself from tinkering with it. But as morning shaded into early evening, she returned to her quarters and lay down on her green, circular bed.

“Just a few minutes’ rest,” she whispered. “Just a few….”

A resounding thud echoed from her entryway. She rushed out of her bedroom and saw a stocky humanoid wearing a black canvas encounter suit, followed by three silvery servicebots. 

Craters, she thought, is that a Yahnt?

The servicebots lunged and grabbed her. The humanoid injected her left arm with a sedative. A male voice rang out from the encounter suit’s glossy visor.

“Congratulations,” it said. 

Tholidran collapsed. The servicebots carried her into the habitat’s main lobby, where a large stasis crate lay waiting for them. The humanoid opened the crate, and the servicebots placed the hapless Faalturen inside it. The crate then sealed itself automatically.

The humanoid activated a set of gravity modulators to float the crate over to his personal cruiser. On his way out, he paused to glance at the habitat’s android attendant. He’d taken pains to scramble its central processor only moments before, along with the rest of the habitat’s security system. 

“Can’t wait to see Rodansk’s face,” he said. “Let’s see him complain now.”

While his voice still echoed in the habitat’s lobby, he hurried out to board his ship with an uncharacteristic flourish — for the taste of success was so undeniably delicious.

^^^

Mark Laporta is a musician, composer and novelist. His acclaimed science fiction series, Against the Glare of Darkness, is published by Chickadee Prince Books, the publishing house owned by Steve Acunto‘s company, CINN Global. His novels are available in paperback or ebook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or at a bookstore near you.