Arcadian Genesis Read Free

breathing heavily beside him. He tried to ignore the other’s presence and concentrate on the strange small glowing thing instead.
    He stared at the video screen; the cylinder itself was hidden behind many feet of lead shielding. They were taking no chances now. The effects of brief exposure to the contents of the device appeared to be negligible, perhaps even beneficial – it had seemed to act like some sort of energizer on the body. But after just a few minutes lesions crusted and dried, and spread quickly until every bit of moisture had been leeched from the body – not just from the cells of the flesh, but right down at the molecular level. They were, in effect, super freeze-dried.
    Over twenty men and women, who had first been involved in opening the device, were now just bagged contents in a containment freezer awaiting transport to the abandoned Kyshtym mines. They, like the thousands of other radioactive, biological or chemical mistakes made over the decades by brilliant Soviet scientific and military minds, would be hidden below the surface in a labyrinth that rivaled a vast city, beneath miles of dark, cold stone.
    Khamid paused over the pulsing, luminescent disk, noting that the silver dollar-sized object seemed to be floating inside the cylinder rather than wired or welded into place. He brought one of the robotic hands around and grasped it, tugging gently – nothing happened. Whatever held the thing in place was not going to give up its prize so easily. He needed to use the other hand. He angled the camera lens around before wedging it into position, ignoring the other contents or mechanisms within the cylinder – primarily several dozen globes, like silken softballs. He expected these would be analyzed at a later date.
    Using both of the robotic hands, and a significant amount of pressure, he managed to free the small disk. He lifted it – it was light, and beautifully made. Khamid compressed his lips in concentration as he maneuvered the object out of the cylinder and into the isolation chamber’s stronger light.
    He carefully drew the robotic arms back from the cylinder and into the work area in the front of the chamber – a long steel bench with cutting equipment, probes and a myriad of testing devices was awaiting their glowing subject. He set the object down and amplified the image. Under magnification, markings could be made out on its surface – writing perhaps, but none that he had ever encountered, or anyone else, he guessed.
    He lifted one of his tools – a diamond drill – and tried to take a scraping. After several minutes, the only damage was to the drill tip – the disk remained unmarked. Whatever had made the symbols upon its surface must have been an extraordinary cutting tool, unlike anything known.
    Millinov bumped Khamid’s shoulder as he crowded in even closer, causing him to jerk one of the robotic arms. Khamid closed his eyes and held his breath for a second. He exhaled slowly and then lifted his gaze from the disk to the larger casing. They now believed the refrigerator-sized primary device had been some sort of probe, perhaps knocked off course by a meteor or just fallen out of a prehistoric geosynchronous orbit. Amazingly, when it was found it had still been active . . . at least until he had decoupled the disk from its internal housing. As soon as Khamid lifted the disk free, the low hum emitted by the object stopped, and its extremely cold internal temperature began to rise.
    The humming sound had been run through the Lomonosov’s exascale supercomputer, and the closest association it could make was with a drone of bees that had located a source of pollen. Whether or not the thing had still been sending signals could not yet be determined. If it was a probe, it was either lost or forgotten. But the power source contained in the disk was still fully functioning a thousand centuries later. If it could be understood and harnessed, its value was immeasurable.
    Khamid