Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

  The message repeated ten times, then ended. MorningLightMountain was puzzled. How had MorningLightMountain17,735 survived for so long? What was it doing on an alien ship? Why was the message so short? Not that it had many options remaining. Other immotiles were already ordering ships to investigate. MorningLightMountain sent instructions to its subsidiary groupings on the moons of the second gas-giant. Four of its most powerful ships launched on an interception course.

  Alliances broke down and new ones formed as the first eight ships closed on the alien. Immotiles disagreed how to deal with the situation. Some wanted to capture the aliens and their ship, others were keen to follow MorningLightMountain17,735’s advice and exterminate the invader.

  The alien started transmitting signals at the Prime ships as they closed on it. They were incomprehensible, no immotile could understand them. Missiles were fired as alliances came into sharp conflict over how to proceed.

  With the lead Prime ship approaching fast and launching a missile salvo, the alien vanished inside a huge burst of spatial distortion.

  *

  The surface to orbit transport ship descended vertically through the Prime homeworld’s lower atmosphere. It was a large blunt cone shape, although it made little use of aerodynamics to land. Eight fusion rockets were arranged around the rim of its base, roaring out slim two-kilometre-long jets of incandescent plasma. Between them, they produced point nine of a Prime gravity, lowering the ship gently towards the coastline beneath it.

  Steam began to swirl up from the surface of the sea as the wavering tips of the plasma stabbed down into it. Within seconds, a hemispherical tempest of radiant vapour was streaking up and out from the epicentre like a squashed nuclear mushroom cloud. As the ship sank down into the supersonic storm front, force fields came on to protect the fuselage from the maelstrom it was creating. The fusion rockets died away when the ship was only a few metres above the seething surface, and its conical base splashed down with a soft bump into the boiling water.

  Tugboats closed in and towed the spaceship back to the piers and loading bays which stretched for over a hundred miles along the coast. This was the main planetary spaceport which MorningLightMountain had built to handle the cargo flying between the planet and its offworld territories. Thousands of flights arrived and departed every year, pouring heat and mildly radioactive contaminants into the local environment. Nothing grew within a hundred miles of the spaceport any more, no crops or weeds of any kind, turning the land behind the shore to a desert of sodden lifeless soil. Even the sea was dead, a choppy expanse of grey water with a thin skin of ochre scum.

  Once the ship was docked, a sub-herd of soldier motiles came on board. They were slightly smaller than standard motiles, with better sight and hearing; they could move faster as well, and had a much greater agility, though they lacked any long-term endurance. Encased in dark armour, they were two and a half metres tall, with electronic sensors complementing their natural ones, and limb strength enhanced mechanically; every arm gripped some kind of weapon. Under direct microwave linkage with MorningLightMountain, they approached the two bipedal alien motile captives with considerable wariness. The immotile wasn’t sure of their potential, so it was taking every precaution. The compartment they’d been confined to was heavily shielded, and they’d been under constant observation for the whole flight back from the asteroid fragment where their ship had been lurking. Physically, they had done nothing, remaining almost motionless for the whole time. Their suits, however, had been emitting those strange microwave pulses almost continually.

  When the soldier motiles came into the compartment both creatures stood upright. MorningLightMountain watched the process with considerable interest. Their legs bent in the middle, pushing the main bulk upwards. They seemed to have no trouble standing still while balancing on only two legs. A great range of electromagnetic emissions were pouring out of the suits again, the usual fast short pulses. MorningLightMountain ignored them and told the soldiers to load both alien motiles onto the waiting ground vehicle. As the sub-herd moved forward to grab them, the taller of the two swung its upper torso limbs around, knocking their pincers away, and tried to speed past them. It could move surprisingly fast, but the soldiers were ready for it, and lifted its twisting body off the ground, carrying it down the ramp to the waiting ground vehicle. The second, slightly smaller alien motile offered no resistance as it was dragged along behind. Both of them were dropped into the cage. A force field flicked on around the mesh.

  MorningLightMountain drove the vehicle along the road connecting the spaceport to its original valley. Long black clouds boiled overhead as they did ceaselessly these days. Rain lashed down across the road’s stone and metal surface, warm water saturated with soot particles. The road was hemmed in on both sides by buildings of toughened plastic, shielding manufacturing machinery from the acidic rain. Big vehicles shuttled between them, carrying components around. Herd after herd of motiles worked around the huge blocks of industrial machinery, servicing and repairing. They didn’t live as long as they used to two thousand years ago, especially in and around the spaceport. Many of them had sores and scabs mottling their skin from cold radiation burns. Limbs often trembled and shook from the damage which heavy metal contamination inflicted on their nervous system. They ate from troughs filled with a treacle-like nutrient sludge that was processed in food factories scattered across the territory’s farmlands. Sensor stalks twitched constantly and gave poor visual reception as they were degraded by airborne irritants gushing out of the refineries.

  In the mountains behind the industrial landscape, where the radioactivity was considerably reduced, fields cloaked every slope in a drab unvarying grey-green patina. Plants struggled out of the thin sandy soil, forced into overactive life by chemical fertilizers that were spread across the terraces by farming motiles and tracked vehicles. All wild plants had been eradicated from the planet now, surrendering their valuable land to the intense agricultural cultivation vital to feed the billions of motiles.

  As the vehicle carrying the alien motiles drove along the switchback road which led down into MorningLightMountain’s original valley it passed through the strongest force field on the planet, capable of deflecting nuclear assaults and beam strikes. Rain beat down upon the sparkling energy plain, flowing into rivulets which ran away over the craggy granite ramparts. Light did still shine down into the valley in the morning, though now it was a bruised grey twilight which leaked through the planet-wide smog layers. At night, the smog fluoresced a funereal khaki from the vast lattice of fusion drives which caged the world.

  Ahead of the vehicle, the conical mountain rose up from the valley floor. It was home to over fifty thousand immotile units now, still the true heart of MorningLightMountain, even though there were groupings dotted all over the planet, linked to it via secure landlines. The mountain had been transformed into a single building, with each immotile nesting at the centre of its own chamber. None of them made physical nerve contact with the motiles any more, their sensor stalk nerve receptors were all connected to an electronic network which connected them en masse to the herds as well as every mechanical segment of their territory. A battery of maser units perched above the valley ramparts extended the gigantic immotile group’s presence across the star system. Below the building floor, the mountain was riddled with pipes and sewers. The immotiles were bathed in a gentle shower of clean water produced in desalination plants north of the spaceport, and piped in to the valley. Waste water carrying away body effluent was flushed straight back into the sea, while water carrying nucleiplasm batches was directed into the moat of congregation lakes around the base of the mountain.

  The vehicle drove over a four-mile-long causeway between lakes. The alien motiles stood upright in their cage, the fat sensor stalks inside the transparent bubble on top of their suits were turned so the two eyes regarded the emerging herds. Below them, the lake surfaces writhed as tens of thousands of congregating motiles squirmed against each other. Not
yet mature, their bodies were partially translucent, with great globules of transforming base cells clustered around limbs and torsos, as if they were surrounded by lumpy jelly. Big pipes poured a torrent of sluggish liquid into each lake: water saturated with base cells that were bred in a huge series of vats at the eastern end of the valley. At the edge of the lakes, motiles helped the newly formed up out of the water. Relay modules were attached to their nerve receptors, allowing MorningLightMountain to fill their brains with its thought routines and commands. On the wide concrete apron ringing the lakes, herds formed up in long ranks to be collected by vehicles that would drive them to their work destination. Over a million a day were transported out across MorningLightMountain’s territory.

  At the base of the mountain building, a tall door opened in the cliff-like wall of stone and concrete, and the vehicle drove inside. This was the primary research area, where the immotile units had built facilities to explore every scientific discipline. The alien motiles were put in the chemical warfare laboratory, where they were sealed up in a cell that had an independent air circuit. Force fields came on around it, capable of withstanding megaton blasts.

  The cell was a broad rectangular room, measuring some fifty metres long, made out of high-density plastic, and completely insulated. MorningLightMountain had installed a lot of examination equipment inside, ranging from scanners which could review the creatures in their entirety, to analysis modules that could sift through their cellular structure molecule by molecule. There were pens where they could be held between examinations, transparent cubes, three metres to a side, containing water, various food bales, and receptacles for excretion. Lighting was full solar-spectrum.

  One wall of the cell was made from a sheet of transparent crystal. Three immotiles rested on the other side, sitting in pools of dark water, a gentle drizzle playing over their skin. One of them had a motile pressed up close, feeding it. All of them could observe the aliens directly with their own eyes as they supervised the examination process.

  MorningLightMountain bent its sensor stalks over so it could gaze at the alien motiles as they entered the laboratory. It seemed to be a mutual arrangement. The alien motiles walked their lurching walk over to the crystal wall, and stared back at the immotiles.

  MorningLightMountain’s priority was to establish a neural interface with the alien motiles so it could determine what kind of threat their immotiles posed to Prime. To do that, it had to discover the nature of their nerve receptors. Once that was ascertained it could manufacture an artificial interface unit and command them directly, as it had done with countless millions of motiles captured from other Prime territories. Their memories would then be drained out into MorningLightMountain so it could see exactly what it was facing.

  Eight fully armoured soldier motiles were in the cell with the aliens, along with eight standard motiles. MorningLightMountain ordered the soldiers to hold the alien motiles steady, while its own motiles applied various sensors. The alien motiles struggled briefly as they were grasped. The electromagnetic emissions from their suits began again. MorningLightMountain tried a transmission on the same frequencies, ordering them to be still. It had no effect.

  Although there was considerable interference, the sensors were able to map out the basic layout of the suits. Their composition was an advanced shapeshifting polymer with various filaments woven through it to control temperature. The atmosphere inside the upper bubble was oxygen nitrogen, regenerated by several small modules of intriguing design. Most surprising were the complex electronic patterns that covered the entire surface, indicating a great many components. MorningLightMountain couldn’t understand why something as simple as a pressure suit would require so many control circuits.

  It ordered the motiles to remove the suits. Under its direction they applied cutting instruments to the surface, and began ripping the fabric apart. As the alien motiles were exposed so MorningLightMountain heard strange sounds emerging from them. When the upper bubbles were broken open the sound grew to extraordinary levels, making the motiles wave their sensor stalks away in an attempt to lessen it. The single fat sensor stalk on the top of the alien motiles was the source, an orifice which flapped open and shut.

  They also emitted a stench so strong that the motiles quivered in reaction. MorningLightMountain hurriedly reviewed the cell’s gas toxin sensors to see if it was a chemical attack. There were some strange nitrates effervescing off the alien motiles, but nothing lethal. It began to catalogue their profile. Even knowing they were alien didn’t adequately prepare it for things so strange. Their skin was a pale white-pink, with slim blue lines visible just below the surface. Thin fibres were sprouting from it seemingly at random and in different colours from brown to white; there were big patches of the stuff on the top of the sensor stalk, and smaller patches between the legs. One had tufts where its arms joined the torso as well as a fine greyish fuzz on the front of its torso, while the other had neither. Physically they had differences, odd limp appendages that dangled like half filled bags, the larger one had a tiny trunk between its legs next to some kind of external sacs. MorningLightMountain could see no practical use for either set.

  Lines of red fluid were leaking from the skin, corresponding to where the cutting implements had been applied. The smaller alien motile had stopped using its legs to support itself, and was hanging limply in the solders’ grip; while the larger one was shaking violently. It continued to make the curious sounds as yellow water discharged from its mini-trunk appendage.

  Motiles collected samples of the red fluid and yellow water from the floor of the cell. The alien motile which had gone inert was placed in the large scanning unit. The image which arrived inside MorningLightMountain was tremendously complex, the alien motile was densely packed with organs. Lungs, heart, and stomach were obvious, but it couldn’t imagine what half of the other ones were for. The bone structure was odd, leaving some parts of the torso unprotected, although the joint system was innovative. Most interesting was the location of the brain, actually inside the sensor stalk. MorningLightMountain moved the scan focus, trying to track the nerve cords to a receptor membrane. Try as it might, it couldn’t find one. The bulk of the nerves left the brain to travel along the thick segmented bone running down the torso, but they all branched into a tributary network that was distributed throughout the muscle bands and thin skin. Could the entire skin be a nerve receptor? Then MorningLightMountain noticed strands of organic conductors wound through the skin. Many of them were integrated into the nerve chords, especially around the five-segment grippers on the end of its arms. Now it knew what to look for, MorningLightMountain gave the brain a more detailed survey. A cluster of minute electronic components were nestling inside the body at the base of the brain, with a multitude of connective threads joining them to the big nerve cord.

  The inert alien motile was taken out of the scanner, and the active one placed inside. Soldiers had to hold it down as the bulbous scan tips moved across it. Where there was no bone beneath the skin, its flesh bowed inward below the probing tips. It started making noise again, a loud burst of high-frequency sound every time the tip pressure increased. MorningLightMountain withdrew a tip, then pushed it forward again. The alien noise-generated again. It was an interesting correlation, but MorningLightMountain couldn’t understand why it did that.

  This larger alien motile had a similar network of organic conductors and electronic components embedded within its body. MorningLightMountain had memories of the alienPrime cybernetics, fusing machines with bodies; but they had all been used to amplify physical functions. These seemed to have no external purpose; they were joined to the brain but nothing else, they weren’t links in a chain. MorningLightMountain’s trouble was that it had little experience of microelectronic systems. It produced simple processors to help govern its own technology, but its own mind always directed the operation of any complex piece of machinery with appropriate thought routines through its nerve linkages. Automation was not a familiar conce
pt, seventy per cent of its group brain capacity was involved in controlling technology, from simply driving a vehicle to regulating the plasma flow in fusion reactors. There were few independent machines within its territories. The most advanced were the missiles carried by spaceships, which couldn’t contain an immotile. They used processors that had flexible algorithmic instructions, which were given specific orders just before launch. Otherwise MorningLightMountain ran everything. Machines served life, it could not be otherwise.

  MorningLightMountain ordered the soldiers to release the alien motile. It did have the kind of equipment capable of analysing the processors inside the aliens, but it was all in the physics laboratories. A batch of instructions were issued to motiles. They began dismantling the appropriate units, ready to transfer them to the secure cell. In the meantime the immotile instructed the motiles to extract all the processors from the pressure suits while it observed the aliens.

  The soldiers had placed both of them in their pens. The larger one had folded its legs, so that it was resting on the floor. It was knocking its gripper on the wall between it and the smaller alien, which was still inert and leaking red fluid onto the floor. Every few minutes it would noise-generate. The fat sensor stalk at the top twisted, and it stared at Morning-LightMountain’s three immotiles again. Both of its arms moved, the grippers forming shapes in the air. It did that for several minutes, then sank back on its folded legs again. The fat sensor stalk rocked about for no apparent reason. Eventually it began to examine the food bales. Small crumbs were broken off by the grippers, and it brought them up to the small twinned orifices at the front of its fat sensor stalk. MorningLightMountain decided there must be olfactory sensors inside the little cavities. Some of the crumbs were discarded, while others were held in front of the larger orifice. A strip of flexible wet tissue extended to touch the crumbs one after the other. They were all dropped on the floor. Next it turned to the plastic cylinder filled with desalinated water. After dipping its gripper in, it pushed one of the segments into its large orifice. There was a short pause, then it lifted the plastic cylinder, and poured almost half of the water into its orifice.