Pandora's Star

by Peter F. Hamilton

  MorningLightMountain completed its analysis of the red fluid. As it suspected, the substance was a nutrient, with a high protein and oxygen content. The yellow water appeared to be a waste defecation.

  An hour later, the smaller alien motile began to move. The response from the larger one was immediate. It hurried over to the wall between them and began to noise-generate in short loud bursts. The smaller one was emitting a long single sound. It flattened its gripper, and pressed it over the long rip on its side where the red fluid was still seeping out.

  MorningLightMountain began to wonder if it was badly damaged. On a Prime, such a rip would seal up and the flesh knit together quickly. That didn’t seem to be happening to the alien motile. Instead the red fluid was undergoing a double transformation, coagulating then crystallizing into dark flecks. It didn’t think much of that as an integral repair function.

  The small alien held its body parallel to the floor, and used both its arms and legs to walk over to the cylinder of water. It ingested some, and then fell back onto the floor, its joints losing stiffness.

  The equipment to analyse the processors arrived. MorningLightMountain’s motiles began reassembling it. After several hours, it was powered up, and the first processor placed under a field resonance amplifier. MorningLightMountain was astonished by the complexity of the device, which was right on the edge of the amplifier’s resolution. There were millions of junctions arranged in a three-dimensional lattice of quantum wire, each strand just large enough to carry a single electron. The processing power it contained was enormous. One of these by itself was enough to control an entire salvo of missiles.

  MorningLightMountain had a lot of trouble holding a full map of the junctions in its mind, the effort was taking up the brains of a dozen immotile units. That alone was enough to worry it. The aliens clearly had a powerful technology in such devices. It was intrigued with the reason for developing them. Clearly in this instance, the suit polymer must require an inordinate amount of control to hold its shape, presumably far beyond the capacity of the alien motile brain to govern.

  In another part of the giant building, MorningLightMountain’s electronics workshop began to assemble an adaptor which could plug into the alien processor. There were several optical interface points, all it really needed was a module which would convert the processor’s output into its own style of nerve impulses.

  Although useful, none of this gave the immotile a method of linking itself to the alien’s brain. The memory of their strange body and nervous system hung in its mind where it could be continually examined and analysed. It simply could not see a natural way to access the brain. Given that, and the obvious lack of mental capacity (as shown by the lack of control over the suit), MorningLightMountain began to wonder just how far down the alien motile caste structure these particular motiles were. They could well be a lot less intelligent than its own motiles, although the similar size of the brain argued against that; and the grippers indicated a high degree of tool usage, for which they would need suitable aptitude.

  Aliens, it acknowledged, were paradoxical in more ways than one.

  Given its overwhelming need to establish direct control over the brain of an alien motile, and the only connection it had found to that valuable organ, it didn’t have a lot of choice. The small alien motile was clearly badly damaged; its eventual loss was inevitable. MorningLightMountain needed to analyse the electronic processors connected to its nervous system; if it could somehow interface itself with them, then it would have access to the alien brain.

  Two soldier motiles carried the smaller alien motile over to a bench where narrow-focus scanning equipment was poised overhead. Clamps were fastened around it, holding it in place. High-pitched squeaking noises pulsed out of its open orifice. The larger alien motile was hammering its clenched grippers on the wall of its pen, also emitting a lot of noise.

  The scanners focused on the top section of the alien motile, and MorningLightMountain located the electronic systems clustered round the top of its main nerve channel. A motile with a small precision-cutting tool began slicing through the intervening tissue. The alien’s noise emissions immediately increased to a much louder volume. Its red nutrient fluid jetted out of the cut. Even though the three-dimensional map of the alien’s biological functions was quite clear in MorningLightMountain’s mind, with the nutrient fluid pump organ beating away in a strong rhythm, it hadn’t appreciated the kind of pressure which the circulatory system operated at. The cutting tool was saturated in the red fluid, which went on to spray across the motile’s skin. Its heat was uncomfortable. The motile had to move away and stand under a small shower nozzle to wash it off. A different motile moved forward to continue the operation.

  The alien had stopped its squeaking. Now its orifice was emitting a sound like old wood snapping. Its body was straining up against the clamps. Red fluid continued to spray out of the cut. Through the scanner, MorningLightMountain saw a series of impulses flash between the electronic components. All activity between them stopped. A moment later the nutrient fluid circulation pump juddered to a halt. Electrical activity in the brain withered away.

  MorningLightMountain instructed its motile to resume the cutting operation. Without the red fluid spray, it was a lot easier to move the cutting tool inwards, exposing the thick nerve channel. Micromanipulator grippers were inserted into the opening, and carefully teased the components loose, breaking the minute and terribly fragile strands which connected it to the nerve junctions.

  One by one they were subjected to detailed analysis. Three of the devices were for redirecting nerve impulses out into the complicated tracery of organic circuitry etched on the alien motile’s skin. One had a very-low-power electromagnetic transceiver built in. MorningLightMountain was pleased to find that – it could well eliminate the need for a direct physical connection to the remaining alien motile. The final device was odd, an artificial crystal lattice that had conductive properties, with a small processor attached. It took the immotile a long time to understand its function. The crystal was a storage system, a highly sophisticated version of the ones it used to retain command instructions for the missiles. In this case, the theoretical information load was colossal; it could hold almost as many memories as an immotile brain. Unfortunately, it was completely blank. As the alien motile died, it must have erased the information.

  The adaptor arrived. MorningLightMountain worked quickly, connecting itself to the transceiver processor and feeding power into the tiny device. A deluge of binary pulses flooded into its mind. It used the thought routines it had developed to control its own processors, running the sequences through them, modifying them to handle the new mathematical arrangements. At the same time, it observed the device with the field resonance amplifier. The string of numbers made up from the binary sequences made little sense, but it did see where they originated from, which junctions they came from. It carefully began to return the sequences, seeing what the result was. Most had no effect, but occasionally a segment of the whole sequence would activate a portion of the processor. Slowly, it built up a set of crude control instructions. The processor seemed to have a lot of operation rules integrated into its design. When the immotile finally managed to switch the transceiver on, a list of possible transmission sequences flipped to semi-active status. By trial and error, MorningLightMountain learned how to order them to flow into the transceiver section for broadcast. Although the binary sequences themselves were horribly long and complex, there was an elegant logic behind the device which the immotile quite admired.

  It used another adaptor to connect itself to a second processor. This one had even more inbuilt operational rules. Once again, MorningLightMountain patiently worked its way through the combinations, flipping functions to active status. It was rewarded by a deluge of output information. The most basic one was a steady signal which was repeated five hundred times a second. Other functions changed the signal minutely, although its main parameters remained constant.

/>   The immotile flipped the additional signal functions off and considered the basic signal for a long while, working through possibilities before it realized what it might be. It constructed thought routines to run through all the prospective formats, to be rewarded by a simple cube of twelve billion specific points. At this moment over a thousand immotile unit brains were now devoted to interpreting the alien electronics and the binary number sequences they used. In all its history it had never devoted so much of itself to a single problem. It flipped the first additional function on, and was rewarded by a string of symbols appearing in the cube.

  The remaining alien motile had become inert, lying on the floor of its pen. As MorningLightMountain worked through the transmission sequences, one made it twitch and raise its fat sensor stalk. The cell picked up a reply transmitted from its embedded transceiver processor which the one now attached to MorningLightMountain acknowledged automatically. The alien motile stood up and stared at the equipment which the motiles were operating. It noise-generated briefly then turned to the immotiles. Its transceiver processor transmitted a long binary sequence, lasting several milliseconds. A whole series of inbuilt rules in MorningLightMountain’sdevice suddenly activated, opening up new junction connections and closing others The immotile watched helplessly through the resonance amplifier as the processor unit effectively shut down. All the primary quantum wire routes making up the lattice of junctions were blocked out. Worse than that, the binary sequences used to accomplish the order were prime number based, those short enough for it to evaluate. Most of them were beyond its mental capacity to determine. It couldn’t reverse the instruction.

  Over in its pen, the alien motile held one arm out level towards the immotile units sitting behind the crystal wall, and extended a single gripper vertically. MorningLightMountain knew defiance when it saw it, no matter how alien the species was. It used its own transmitter in the cell to replicate the sequence which had made the alien twitch and rouse itself. There was no response.

  New and different symbols continued to appear within the visualized cube as MorningLightMountain flipped additional signal functions. At least that had been unaffected by the alien motile’s transmission. But without knowing the actual functions which the symbols represented, the immotile couldn’t begin a translation. Its chances of establishing communications with the alien had been reduced considerably.

  The immotile reviewed its shrinking options. There were only two sources of knowledge left concerning the alien immotiles and what was happening outside the Prime star system: the alien motile’s brain, and its electronic information store. MorningLightMountain had clear evidence that the alien immotile would resist any attempt to establish contact and extract information from its brain. And the smaller alien motile had immediately wiped its information store when it realized what was happening. Logically, the information contained within the store device was valuable.

  A soldier motile raised its arm, and shot the alien motile through the top of its fat sensor stalk with a high-velocity kinetic projectile. Red fluid, sticky strings of brain flesh, and splinters of bone exploded across the pen, splattering the transparent walls.

  *

  The second dead alien motile was placed on the bench underneath the narrow-focus scanning equipment. Clamps held it in place as MorningLightMountain located the electronic systems embedded below the brain. They were all intact; the soldier motile’s shot had been perfectly aimed. The motiles began the extraction operation.

  This time, the electronic information store was almost full.

  *

  MorningLightMountain’s preliminary investigation revealed the information was protected from access by inbuilt rules which needed activation sequences even more complex than the ones which had been used to switch off the transceiver processor.

  The tiny device was transferred to the electronics laboratory, and placed inside a quantum interface detector. It took a long time to read the stored information block by block; but weeks later the entire sequence was incorporated into MorningLightMountain’s memory.

  At the same time as the reading, it had been experimenting with the input channels of the wiped device for the smaller alien motile. The overall purpose was quite simple, nerve impulses from the alien’s primary sensorium were transformed into binary sequences, compressed by a series of algorithms, and inserted into the storage lattice. It held a recording of everything which the alien had perceived.

  MorningLightMountain derived an elaborate thought routine which would reverse the compression and transformation process, turning the stored information back into analogue nerve impulses. It applied the routine to the alien’s information, and allowed the resulting data stream to flow into a single immotile’s brain. The unit was isolated from the MorningLightMountain group by a series of safety cut-offs in case anything went wrong, and the alien thought routines began to leak out and contaminate the group.

  *

  Dudley Bose struggled in the grip of armoured monsters, as the shimmering blade stabbed through the spacesuit, puncturing both the plyplastic and his right buttock. The tip slashed downwards, ripping through flesh in an agonizing line of fire. Pain. PAIN!

  *

  MorningLightMountain wanted to throw its head back and scream as the unknown nerve impulse slammed through fifty thousand linked brains with the violence of a lightning bolt. Shock transfixed the immotile group as the naked slime-covered monsters tore and pulled away its coverings, inflicting brutal wounds across its belly and legs. It wanted to squirm loose, but its legs didn’t work. The memory was pushed away from conscious thought, dwindling into the past. Becoming bearable as the safety systems reduced the intensity of the impulses delivered to the main group. MorningLightMountain’s lung intake gills fluttered in unison throughout its circular cloisters as it took a juddering breath. Billions of frozen motiles all across the territory reoriented themselves, and resumed their tasks. In orbit above the Prime homeworld, MorningLightMountain’s ships returned to their correct flight paths, industrial machinery digesting asteroidal rubble belched and reset their refinery modules.

  Pain. What an extraordinary concept. Prime motiles and immotiles had basic tactile senses, indicating pressure and touch against their skin. But this, this was a physical warning on a scale that took away rationality.

  But then, it made sense in a way. Humans were individual. Astonishing though it was, they had no motile / immotile caste. It was a civilization of billions of full-sentience entities, all of them in mild conflict with each other. In some cases, not so mild.

  >memory<

  The sheer intransigent idiocy of the university board. Every month Dudley spent – wasted! – hours of his valuable time in meetings which accomplished nothing but the perpetuation of bureaucracy and the status quo. His department was always overlooked, always underfunded, always patronized by the larger science departments. Bastards.

  >explain<

  Because this is worthwhile. This is the expansion of knowledge which has a history back to the dawn of human time. This is pure science, driven not by greed but by nobility.

  >motivation not comprehended / memory<

  The vice-chancellor spoke at length.

  >vocalization / aliens communicate via sound / selfmemory<

  ‘Fuck you!’ the alien Bose screamed inside its pen as Emmanuelle Verbeke lay strapped down on the vivisection table, blood squirting out of her carotid artery. ‘Rot in hell you motherfucking bastards! We’ll nuke you to shit and kill your babies when they glow in the dark! We’ll wipe you from this whole fucking universe. Not even God will remember you existed!’

  >god / human ally / memory<

  Written books, hundreds of them, thousands, all multiplying out from a few ancient sacred texts. Stories of how the universe began, how its creator sent segments of itself to the human homeworld to promise salvation. Salvation which came in many forms for many different human alliances. Divine mythology which as a scientist Dudley Bose knew was fiction. Li
ke the woodland elves, which had turned out to be real. The Silfen. What irony.

  >more aliens / classifications/ memory<

  Hundreds of worlds each containing tens of thousands of non-sentient aliens. Several sentient species had been discovered by the Commonwealth as it expanded, their status as hostile or allied could never quite be determined. And one non-life world, the SI planet.

  >SI / human immotile / explain<

  It’s not a human immotile. It evolved out of sophisticated programs. It’s artificial.

  >human thought transfer to SI / immotile function / confirm<

  No, it’s not like that, like you. Some humans download their memories into the SI when they don’t want to rejuvenate, when they’ve had enough of life.

  >paradox /explain<

  I can’t. It’s not something I would ever do. People are not the same, we all have different motivations.

  >SI involvement with starship flight / memory<

  Distant recollections of news reports, blurring into one. Politicians arguing about paying for the flight. Nigel Sheldon being interviewed; Vice President Elaine Doi claiming the SI supported the venture, wanting to know more about the barriers. Never confirmed directly because the SI didn’t talk to individual humans, at least not Dudley Bose.

  >clarification of status / inclusion on flight / memory<

  From nobody to somebody within an instant as he saw the enclosure. Triumph followed by months of cluttered thought of the striving, clawing his way to get selected for the crew of the Second Chance. Surprising himself with the degree of determination and political manoeuvring he accomplished, the suppression of all conscience.