Six of Coins (Part Three)

July 4 - In transit on board the "Relentless"

I had to work later than I anticipated. As a result, Ceasar and I had to postpone our dinner plans.

There were a few developments on a number of cases that required my attention.

Our suspect in the Wirefly murder, Svetlana Pleides, had been arrested on Botany Bay by the local authorities for fomenting a slave revolt and for public mischief. This was an added complication, but it was too early to tell if it would work in our favour or not.

Meanwhile, an extensive autopsy on Wirefly yielded a surprising result. There was no sign of atrophy of the muscles in the legs. There were no injuries or abnormalities in the spine, hips, or lower limbs. In fact, there was no medical evidence whatsoever to suggest that Dr. Wirefly even needed his wheelchair.

-----

Our monitoring station in the Mu Draconis system intercepted the following chatter:

"The Space Navigators Guild offers Draconis Desert Spice for the authentic ALEPh sample. Water for information leading to its retrieval."

First, Ardra had sent Lily on a quest for the Zahir. And now she has put the word out for the Aleph.

These are the titles of two of the books Ceasar and I found on the Colchester. The objects, as described in the stories, each had an effect on human consciousness.

The Aleph elicits a panoramic view. A widening of vision to include all time and space.

The Zahir elicits obsession. A narrowing, or focusing of attention to the exclusion of everything else.

Expansion and Contraction. Fundamental principles.

-----

And something the Colonel had said when we met at the lighthouse gave me an idea for a password to another of Wylder's encrypted files. Sure enough, once settled alone on board my ship, one word and the third disk opened. Another piece in the puzzle.

This file dealt with an alternate theory of consciousness first suggested in the late twentieth century that the Colonel referred to when we met at the Lighthouse.

It is suggested that the human brain processes on a quantum level. The neural micro-tubules being the likely structure to support this process.

It reminded me of something Ardra had mentioned months ago. She was offering items that she thought I could use to coax Krenshar to release the raw mining data from the HAL mainframe.

"I am also in possession of quantum sensitive neural micro-tubules," she had said, "which would advance his (Krenshar's) project."

Ardra was missing the Aleph, whatever that was, but she had neural micro-tubules to spare.