Lakesh sighed sadly. “Orbital space stations such as Skylab and Mir were well-known in the twentieth century, but it stands to reason there may have been others, kept under wraps. Parallax Red appears to have been designed as an elite community, with a maximum population of five thousand. Something of a Utopia even, as you can see. The best of Earth transported to space.”
“Do you think the dwarf beamed down from there?” demanded Grant. “That not only does it have a mat trans, but the place is still functional after all this time?”
“I make no such claims without hard data.” He nodded toward the screen. “There is no record that Parallax Red was actually built, but inasmuch as the gateway I traced was not indexed and the pathway appears to lead to Lagrange Region 2,1 believe the conclusion is as apparent as it is inevitable.”
“You’re going to explain Lagrange Region 2, right?” Grant inquired darkly.
Lakesh laughed. “My apologies, friend Grant. There are five stable areas in space where the gravity from surrounding masses, the Earth, Moon and Sun, are precisely balanced. An object set to rest at a Lagrange point stays there indefinitely.
“The points known as LI through L5 are all related to the Moon. The destination lock of the transit path I
traced terminated in L2, on the far side, or dark side, of the Moon.”
Kane asked, “If Parallax Red was built, who put it up there?”
“An excellent query, friend Kane, but alas I have no solid answers. The Totality Concept’s Overproject Majestic dealt with astrophysics and the mechanics of space travel. There were rumors” He broke off, shaking his head wryly.
“What kind of rumors?” pressed Brigid.
Lakesh forced a rueful smile. “I was going to say, the ‘lunatic kind,’ but with two centuries of hindsight at my disposal, I can’t afford to dismiss any form of speculation out of hand, no matter how superficially outrageous it appears.”
“Get to it,” Grant urged impatiently.
Lakesh coughed, eyes shifting behind the lenses of his spectacles as if in embarrassment. “An exceptionally bizarre conspiratorial premise was put forth in the waning days of the twentieth century, as a means to explain the epidemic of so-called alien abductions.
“The scenario claimed that these people were all lifted off Earth to build secret bases, not only in space but on the Moon and…” Lakesh’s voice trailed off, and he nervously wetted his lips.
“And where else?” asked Kane.
“And Mars.” Ignoring the incredulous stares directed at him, Lakesh took a deep breath and spoke rapidly. “The abductees served as mind-controlled slave-labor construction workers, not for aliens but for a covert, ultrasecret arm of the government. According to this theory, NASA was simply a smoke screen, diverting attention from a U.S. and USSR joint space program.”
Grant rumbled, “That makes no sense.”
“It does if the schemers behind the program had advance knowledge of Earth’s impending doom,” Bri-gid observed. “Whether caused by an ecological catastrophe or the nukecaust.” She paused, then added, “And we know some people did have that forewarning.”
No one commented on her statement. All of them were aware that due to the temporal dilations opened by Operation Chronos, a select few predark power-wielders gained advance warning of the atomic mega-cull.
“Space stations were envisaged as staging points for launching deep-space exploratory craft,” continued Lakesh, “but I suspected that once Project Cerberus began mass-producing gateway units in modular form, conventional spacecraft would be rendered obsolete.”
“How so?” Kane inquired.
“Think about it. Instead of clumsy, fuel-wasting and slow-moving shuttles taking years to reach one of the outer planets, a mat-trans unit set up on the Moon or a space station could move personnel, materiel and natural resources back and forth with relative ease.”
“That might cover mat-trans units on the Moon or in Earth orbit,” Brigid argued, “but not any celestial body beyond it.”
Lakesh replied, “There was a theory”
Kane groaned.
“And experiments were conducted,” Lakesh continued doggedly, “regarding the teleportation of gateway components through space along carrier-wave guides, placed at equidistant intervals to the projected destination. It’s possible that such wave guides were launched from the station.”
“But it’s only possible and it’s only theory,” declared Kane stolidly.