Auto-correlate electrical conductivities with distance of annuli intervals. -0.3. Trial and error. Fit Polynomials to match intervals. Degree of polynomial matches or exceeds number of intervals using error margin specifications. Trial and error. Substitute Graphite and Obsidian with Galena and Onyx. 0.2. Degree of polynom….

I pulled out the ear plugs and rubbed my face.

So much for Ley lines.

Without turning my head away from the monitor, I let my eyes wander over to Andrea. She was silently running her finger over the console in front of her, staring at it in absolute concentration.

Get back to pretending you’re doing something constructive.

I stared back at the screen.

Megalithic Ley lines. Really? That’s your best theory. Esoteric ****ing standing stones from the sky?

Chris climbed back into the room through the bulkhead with a sombre expression on his face. He saw me look at him.

“Don’t worry, we’re not getting sent out there yet. So far there’s nothing for us to do.”

He proceeded to climb back into his seat to continue doing whatever he did before.

"Yet". Right. Stop playing around and think about what you know again. The only discernable reason to create those fine structures from different kinds of stone is that the minerals have different electrical properties. Kind of like what made some kooks on earth think the pyramids were electrical power plants. Forget that crap. It’s more like an extremely inefficient electronic chip or motherboard. Not made from semi-conductors or metal ores, just plain old rock. Maybe it just does whatever it does very very slowly? But the lines aren’t even interconnected, so it can’t be conventional circuitry.

They’re spaced in varying intervals, and the intervals are multiples of each other, more or less. A repeating pattern of multiples that keeps repeating itself. Almost like fractals. And the conductivities are somehow linked to the distance between the lines. Linked somehow… by some non-monotonic transfer function, which I can’t figure out. In some places they form loops with larger ends. Almost like capacitors. Like a resonant circuit. But there’s no inductor. Maybe aliens don’t need one?

Whatever this thing is supposed to do, it’s not doing it now. Probably not even capable of doing anything on its own. It’s only a part of something. It needs a matching piece. In another dimension, like Clutterbuck thought? Hopefully not, or I’ll never hack this thing. Or hopefully so, so we can just leave without making this thing angry.

I realized I wasn’t in the least curious about any of these aliens' shenanigans. I didn’t want to know about them. I just wanted to find a home, food, margaritas, and to see my future kids play on the beach.

Multiples of each other. Like… octaves’ frequencies. Harmonics. Resonance. Vibrations. Fractals… just like…

I went back to a paper I had quickly skipped through before, about the Valhalla Vault being opened using a harmonic EM wave sequence within the sound frequency spectrum.

“The returning EM Fourier spectrum displays ever-repeating patterns which keep splitting into the same smaller pattern like fractals, following the same scheme in higher and lower frequencies. Although we had to switch between multiple instrumentation types to resolve the frequency bands ranging from a few Hertz up to several Exahertz, the fractal pattern kept manifesting itself throughout all our analysis. It felt strange to point an instrument built to measure gamma emissions of supernovae at an object standing in a cave, and get such a distinct, albeit weak, signal. It’s interesting to note that relatively small bandwidths, even as small as the human ear’s audio range, are enough to contain and predict the entire fractal pattern, with unlimited range and infinite depth. Theoretically, the pattern can repeat itself into frequencies higher than those observable in our physical universe, and paint an entirely different larger fractal picture beyond our reach.”

I punched some commands into my screen.

Auto-correlate the Valhalla Song’s Fourier spectrum contained in this file with the loop intervals in artifact region Theta 4, using program Zelman 7.

"With your current processor rights, analysis using the full observed spectrum will take 11 days, 6 hours, and 34 minutes. Do you want me to constrain a part of the spectrum to speed the analysis, give intermediate results, or request more processor rights from the Captain?"

My fingers hammered the screen furiously. “Then constrain to frequencies from 1 Hz upwards, until the calculation time reaches ten minutes. Dork.”

"Beginning calculations."

I leaned back and crossed my arms, waiting for Sidd to finish.

If the frequency range goes through the entire observable frequency spectrum and beyond, why do they call it a song?

“Audio-play Valhalla Song to earplugs” I poked at Sidd with my index finger.

The sound of sinusoid waves softly chimed at my ears. It reminded me of the feedback that one of my professors would often get while fumbling with the sound system before the lecture. Two notes held medium range octaves, then gradually the middle dominant was added, then the major median in an unexpectedly friendly-sounding welcome fanfare. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

Probably just the human element coming out while guessing possible solutions. Could be it’s not something the aliens made, but something close enough. Something their technology recognized.

Hearing the music lifted my spirit out of the dark place I was in. Maybe things aren’t that bad. Maybe everything will be alright.

As I kept listening I started to notice a change in the character of the “instrument” holding the major chord. Are my ears just getting accustomed to it? What sounded like a simple oscillation became a more complex wave form, somewhat reminiscent of a choir, or of howling winds. This is what the broadening of the spectrum must sound like.

Chris raised his head. He looked startled. I assumed it was because he saw me sitting arms crossed and smiling in a self-satisfied way for no apparent reason. Then Andrea broke her concentration too. Her eyes started searching the room. Something's happening. I pulled out my ear plugs.

The sound I was hearing didn’t go away when I pulled them out. It filled the room and got more intense, becoming fuller and broader every second, as more and more things seemed to resonate with it. I felt my chair vibrate, and the console too when I touched it. Andrea sprang up and reached for the intercom on the wall.

“Captain, what’s going on?”

No reply.

Her notepad and pen slid off the desk and bounced around on the metal floor. The original major chord split into two separate sets of the same fanfare, one slowly drifting frequencies upwards, the other downwards.

Everything began to shake violently. I had the impression my eyes were somehow affected by the vibrations because I started to see double. It now sounded like we were in a roaring river or maelstrom. I jumped up and looked through the small starboard window and saw a bright purple and pearl array of colors twist and bend around the Trailblazer, as if we were in some sort of translucent tube or water slide. When I looked back into the room, I saw something I couldn’t explain.

I saw myself still sitting and hanging on to the console, while yet another version of me bolted towards the door. Andrea hung on to the wall, while another blurry Andrea lay sprawled across the floor trying to find something to hold on to. Sparks and explosions went off from all sides. Fire filled the room. The wall broke away and Andrea got sucked out into the void, while on-the-floor Andrea seemed unaffected. One Chris jumped up and yelled at me to put on my space suit, while several overlapping Chrisses desperately tried to stay attached to their chair one way or another.

Abruptly, all the doppelgangers, noises, and vibrations disappeared. Andrea got up off the floor, holding her knee. I found myself sitting down again, but I couldn’t remember how or when.

“What the hell just happened?”

We looked at each other trying to make sense of it. The captain’s voice came from the intercom.

“Not sure. But we sure ain’t in Kansas no more. Everyone to the bridge.”

We complied immediately.

As I climbed through the latch into the bridge, my eyes were immediately attracted to the forward window. It was no longer dark, but illuminated with a rose colored glow. I now noticed that in fact, everything seemed to be strangely more alive and glowing since the crazy double-visions stopped. I beheld my hand groping the gangway ladder, the captain looking over at us while we entered, and the strange pink and purple system through the window in such plasticity and focus, as if my senses were enhanced somehow.

“Peterson, man astronomy and establish our position. Gorman, assess damage and establish a repair strategy. Zelman, scan our surroundings for alien activity. Don’t expect much help from Sidd. He crashed and will take time to reboot.” We took our posts and got to work.

"And while y’all are busy, I’ll tell you what I saw. Some sort of circle-dancing lights appeared out of no-where and dragged us into… not sure what. Like a hole in space. By dragged I mean more like we were accelerated without feeling a force. Like freefall in gravity. Then everything went haywire and it looked like we were getting sucked through a tunnel of light. And then we wound up here. Where-ever here is. Peterson! Where are we?”

"Astrometry wasn’t able to identify any constellations. We’re certainly nowhere near Omega-159. Or near Sirius. We’ll need more time and travel along a larger aperture to scan and match surrounding galaxies. So far no galaxies or clusters could be identified either. But… there’s something else. The cosmic background radiation isn’t what it should be. It’s more intense and peaks at a shorter wavelength. Maybe our sensors were damaged. What the… wow! The red shift is blue!"

Everyone stared at Andrea.

If you’re expecting an explanation from me, I can only offer a few guesses. Maybe it’s because we’re close to the edge of the universe and this system is moving towards it instead of expanding with it. If there even is such a thing as an edge. Or we’ve somehow been subjected to extreme time dilation, and are at a point in time when the universe has stopped expanding and is collapsing again. Although it was pretty much consensus that there would be a big freeze instead of a big crunch. Or, another possibility, we’re in a different universe altogether. One that’s currently collapsing.

O’hara waited a few seconds to see if she had anything more to say before speaking again.

“Zelman, report on our direct surroundings”

“Well there’s another alien uhm… gate… right behind us. It looks identical to the one that got us here. Also looks pretty inactive.” I pushed a button to bring the rear view onto the main screen.

“Positioning and auto-mapping aren't working. From visual sensors I can see we’re near a purple gas giant which has one moon, and there’s a star not far from us, which is ringed by an asteroid belt. Another sun and a blue planet ahead of us." I slid my fingers across the console to bring it into view. ”Between us and the planet is an asteroid field, not very dense, and pretty static.

Below us and far away is a sort of spiraling vortex which appears to be sucking in a nebula. We’re clear of it though, with good visibility around us. There are some dark dust streaks which form some sort of… web. Not sure if it’s a natural thing or not. There’s an energy signature coming from a location in the asteroid field. Looks artificial to me. That’s what sensors could make out so far. If there’s anything more, it must be in that asteroid field or hidden by the planets. There is, however, a crap ton of radiation here. Source unknown. Seems to be coming from everywhere. Maybe it’s cosmic background rays on steroids."

"Gorman, damage report."

"Most of the Trailblazer’s systems blew security fuses from overload. I’m not sure what’s causing it, but the power core is routing more energy than it should. I’m lowering output to compensate. The port cabin is breached and depressurized. Probably a combined result of the first asteroid impact and the shaking afterwards. Both nuclear warheads are uncompromised. Drone 2 must have been left behind in Omega-159. We have no contact with it. We don’t appear to be leaking air or fuel. To assess the extent of the damage to the hull, I’d have to suit up and take a walk."

"Can we navigate?"

“Yes.”

Without a word, O’hara gently pushed the throttle in the side of his armrest forward.

"No wasting time with unneeded repairs in this radiation. Keep scanning the surroundings. We’re entering the asteroid field."

“There’s something I should probably mention.”

“Shoot.”

"I think I triggered whatever got us here. We got sucked in right after I listened to the audio sequence that opened the Valhalla Vault through earplugs. Maybe that thing recognized it. "

“I heard a sort of music right before everything started shaking. And everything around us seemed to resonate with it.”

“I doubt it could pick up something so faint amid the background noise.”

“I don’t claim to know for certain, but it happened right afterwards, and some structures on the thing showed some characteristics of a resonant circuit. And I think it’s established these aliens are capable of more than we can imagine.”

“Good. Then we have a lead on how to get back to Omega-159. Now we’ll explore before we’re toast.”

The trailblazer drifted into the asteroid field. O’hara carefully maneuvered a slightly curvy path through.

“The energy signature is getting more distinct as we approach. It’s coming from three separate points within a few clicks of each other, all with identical characteristics. It’s definitely not black body radiation or molecular state emissions. Doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before.”

I felt the Trailblazer slow down. O’Hara flipped the red trigger guard on his joystick with his thumb. He was ready to nuke our target with the pull of a trigger. We came to a halt.

“Magnify.”

What looked like an asteroid cut cleanly in half by two yellow and silver rings appeared on the screen. Between the two halves dancing lights formed some sort of bubble.

“That’s what the lights that sucked us in looked like. What do scans say?”

“The nature of the energy emitter still isn’t clear. Nor is the source. It’s as if it’s coming out of no-where. There may be something more hidden inside the rocks which our sensors can’t penetrate.”

“Alright. I’m going to circle it at a distance. Watch closely for any changes. Watch if it’s reacting to us.”

A drop of sweat ran down O’hara’s temple. Everyone watched the object rotate on their screens as the captain took the Trailblazer around it in a perfect circle.

“Nothing. No changes.” Peterson sounded relieved.

“But still no clue of what is emitting those lights either. We could move above or under it to get a better view of what’s between it. But we’d have to get closer. Samples of matter may also help shed some light. But both drones are gone.”

O’Hara frowned angrily as he stared at the artifact. It almost seemed as if the lights were taunting him from a distance, daring him to come closer. He caressed the trigger of his joystick.

“Gorman, Zelman, suit up.”