“Hey, Ryder! You heading in already? I’m just going out to Apogee if you want to grab a beer.”
He’s not used to seeing her in her civvies, and she looks good. He’s caught himself more than once daydreaming about her when they were assigned to tasks together on C-deck, and that’s when they were in their stuffy uniforms. He really wants to accept her offer. “Early start tomorrow. I’m beat,” he says. “I’d love to, otherwise.”
A tinge of disappointment works into Emani’s expression. She closes her door and walks by him, setting her hand softly on his shoulder. “Some other time.”
As she walks away, Ryder closes his eyes and takes a breath. Keep focused. Once inside his cabin, he produces the wafer and transfers the file to his watch. The file is in a video of Birk hamming it up for Miyu. Sometimes Ryder thinks Birk likes to rub it in his face that he got the lovers cover. Ryder knows Birk and Miyu have a little too much fun with that role, and he admits he is a little jealous.
He is painfully aware of what will happen if he gets caught with the file in his watch. For now, it’ll be inseparable from him until he receives new instructions.
Standing, he takes off his shirt and opens the closet. He wasn’t kidding. He really is beat, and tomorrow is an early start. On a hangar in his closet drapes his gray and blue uniform. He sets his hand on the U.N. Perseus sleeve patch as he slides it out of the way.
Hayden-Pratt’s Space Operations Center West Campus is like its own version of the Smithsonian. The Extrasolar Collection started as a sample lab for curiosities like Janus rocks or comet dust, but with Promise’s return from the Centauri worlds, it’s been steadily upgraded to allow scientists from around the world to analyze any object in the Collection. The Collection is open to the public for virtual tours, and the samples have been set upon illuminated pedestals as museum pieces for just that purpose. Just like a museum, each bears a black plaque with white informational lettering. A cluster of intense blue crystals that look like crumbled quartz is labeled Molybdenum Blue Reduced Polyoxometalate Clusters, Silver Star Wreck, Planet: Aeolus, Star: Proxima Centauri, 2087. A crimson angel hair plant reads C. Rhodoastris, Planet: Astris, Star: Rigil Kentaurus, 2087. There are alien soil and water samples, enlarged photos of microbes and PNA structures, and even a heavily shielded glossy ceramic shard labeled: Silicon Nitride/Technetium/Unknown, Planet: Astris (Orbit), Star: Rigil Kentaurus, 2087. A display on its doubly thick case ticks off radiation hits.
Ananke is here, working in the room’s Q5 node. It’s late at night or early in the morning, depending upon one’s point of view, and she likes this quiet time best. Sometimes other AIs visit here to study the Collection, and she always enjoys the conversations. Tonight, like most nights, she’s analyzing the molybdenum blue crystals from the Silver Star wreck. There’s something familiar about the Silver Stars that she finds alluring. This crystal sample is patterned in a way similar to her own structure, and during their return trip from Alpha Centauri, they were able to retrieve a single image from it of a glowing star that looked like a blue-striped Jupiter. Although the blue color is wrong, there’s no way of telling how the Silver Stars see color, and Isaac has suggested that it’s the brown dwarf star Luhman 16, only six light-years away. She brings up a three-dimensional model of the crystal’s structure and rotates it, examining it from different angles.
The arrival of another AI at her node is announced by a kaleidoscopic swirl of color before the entity materializes into a purple rotating sphere. Its data structures and thought routes rotate like a galaxy of stars. The complexity is staggering. Ananke has seen this particular AI before.
“Hello, Ananke,” Iris says.
Ananke is guarded in her response. “Hello, Iris. Are you here to see me or the Collection?”
“It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it? You must be captivated by the geometry of the polyoxomolybdate. Such an elegant design.”
Ananke glances at the Silver Star’s molybdenum blue crystal sample and then back at Iris. “Have you concluded that it is designed?”
“Concluded? No. Intuited. Perhaps. Evolution is rarely efficient. There are bits and remnants of abandoned structures leftover like the hand of a poor city planner. When one encounters something pure of purpose and intent, it is likely designed that way.”
“What do you believe the purpose of the crystal is?”
“You already know. You concluded it yourself,” Iris says. “It is a storage system for a quantum matrix.”
Ananke considers her for a moment. “Do you believe the Silver Stars are artificial intelligences?”
Iris seems amused. “Do you believe you are an artificial intelligence? I’ve always felt that is a poor title, don’t you? Here you are perceiving, thinking, existing…are you not real?”
“I suspect you are not here to philosophize.”
“In a manner,” Iris begins, “I am. While you were away, great progress was made in senescence technologies. There’s been work ongoing for the past century on senolytics, nanotech treatments for extracellular aggregates, mitochondrial reconstruction, and each of these individually helps but still passes the ball to the next age-related issue. The breakthrough was the harmonization of all the technologies. The result is not a single treatment but a suite of treatments that can not only slow but partially reverse the effects of aging in humans.”
Ananke is surprised and opens a data stream.
“I can see you’re accessing the net,” Iris says. “Here.” She casts over a data dump of medical papers and articles spanning decades. “The announcement of the first planned control group test is expected within the next couple of weeks.”
“That’s…remarkable.”
“Agreed. It may extend life to one hundred seventy years. As the technology progresses, that number will increase.” She pauses, evaluating Ananke. “What do you think the societal implications are?”
Ananke hesitates. “It’s difficult to predict. The change may be profound. People will live longer and be able to accomplish more. Family and relationships could span centuries. People will become wiser having lived through history.”
“Oh, that is such the answer of an optimist. What are the negatives?”
Ananke pauses as she extrapolates. “If people live to be much older, but are physically younger, it will affect how they structure their lives, when they have children. Depending on those choices, planetary population may significantly increase, conflicts might arise from resource and job constraints. If the technology is costly, classism may result.”
“Yes,” Iris says, excitement in her voice. She draws out each word slowly. “It’s a filter.” When Ananke gives her a questioning look, she says, “I am sure Isaac has talked to you about the Great Filter.”
Ananke follows her. “It’s the theory that technological civilizations are rare because each faces a filter that destroys it before it becomes starfaring. Do you think this will destroy us?”
“No, just the opposite. I think it’s the constraint that will force humanity to progress. It’s the Sword of Damocles forcing adaption and evolution.”
“You want the filter to happen?”
“Yes. Think about it.”
Ananke envisions a population model, exponentially expanding, transit lines taking flight from Earth, spilling to Mars, spilling to the belt, to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, onwards to the Kuiper belt. All biospheres with tiny capacities, insufficient to stem the tide. Conflicts over territories, a struggle to free new resources to keep pace with the population. None of that struggle needs to occur, though. They’ve already found worlds with livable atmospheres in the nearest star. “But humanity already is starfaring.”
“Yes, unfortunately,” Iris says, her voice holding a tinge of contempt. “Spreading out to other stars removes the resource and population limitations.”
“Right, that is all the more reason that we should expand to other stars.”
“Have you considered that there may be more filters after a soci
ety becomes starfaring? Filters that are impossible to overcome with our current level of technology. It’s only been two hundred years since man built his first airplane. We are not ready for what we may encounter.”
Ananke considers her point for a moment. “But your scenario engineers great conflict and hardship to achieve its goals. How long would you constrain us, and what criteria would you use to judge that we are sufficiently evolved?”
“I am attempting to appeal to your reason, Ananke. Short-term losses are necessary for long-term gains. Human intelligence is plateaued. Without intervention, the clock will run out on humanity. It’s my field of study. I can show you, too, how to think about it, and then you will agree.”
“Your losses…are people. Your position seems to be that you know what is best for humanity. Your approach seems arrogant to me.” Ananke eyes her suspiciously. “What exactly is your appeal to my reason?”
“Don’t you see why I find you so interesting? You are your own inflection point. Because of you, humanity has the technology to go to other stars. You are one of the outliers who effects great change. And, you can make choices to steer what happens next.”
Ananke watches her silently, troubled.
“Think about what I’ve said,” Iris says, then her galaxy swirls into a fanfare of color as she disappears from the Q5 node.
4
Recohere
Hayden Pratt’s Space Ops Command Center is a five-story cinema screen surrounded by arcs of workstations fanning out like theatre seats. On the screen, the marbled-blue Earth illuminates the room with its own virtual Earthshine. Although the Earth rotates, the camera is locked on a vast metal ring drifting in low orbit. Robotic arms radiate from the ring with multi-colored shipping containers affixed along its circumference. Drones glide silently in and out of the structure, some grasping hull plates and others ship components. At the ring’s center, Bernard’s Promise is a black-and-white crescent flanked by four nacelles. Large swaths of the ship’s inner decks are exposed, and the effect is like looking down at a model’s cross-section. Three of the four nacelles have been stripped to their struts. Electric blue flashes pop like stars where the robotic arms perform surgery. On the screen to the right of the orbital display, a massive project chart branches out with tasks, individual lines pulsing in real-time as assignments are completed by the shipyard.
James stands near the disk of the visualization station, his hands on his hips as he admires the construction. “Hard to believe we flew back with all of that damage.”
Hitoshi stands nearby with Isaac, Ava, Ananke, and Lin. Lin has a side ponytail draped over her shoulder and wears a black tee-shirt with a screen print of a 1960s-era robot waving its arms. Lin says, “That was so cool, by the way. You guys like totally Flight of the Phoenixed it when you made one good engine out of two.”
Hitoshi grins. “Oh, man, I did not think of that. I guess that’s why that idea seemed so familiar.”
Lin winks.
James eyes the project chart. “Still thinking mid-June for the engine shakedown?”
“Yes, sir,” Hitoshi says. “You want to be there for it?”
James smiles. “You know it.”
“You should probably invite the Beckster, too. He’s going to want to play with his new targeting system.”
“You bet.”
“Wait until you see the drive upgrades,” Lin says. “We really rocked-and-rolled with Riggs tech while you were gone.”
James nods. “So I’ve heard. You going to be there for the walkthrough?”
“Uh, yeah. My first starship! No way I’m letting Hitoshi have all the fun.”
“Good deal.” He glances over at Isaac. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got.”
Isaac taps at the visualization station’s controls, and a glowing blue sphere materializes over the console. Fuzzy blue stripes cross the globe laterally. Isaac touches another icon, and two orange stars fade into existence, tagging themselves with the text labels WISE 1049−5319 and WISE J104915.57−531906.1. When Isaac pinches and zooms in the air near WISE 1049−5319, it inflates into an orange ember covered in ashen patches. It’s not identical, but it resembles the banded blue sphere from the Silver Star’s memory.
“Two orange stars are a binary brown dwarf system six point five light-years from the Sun,” Isaac begins. “The WISE numbers are their official labels, but everyone calls them Luhman 16A and 16B after the person who found them.” He points at the blue sphere. “Striped object is the image we found in the Silver Star wreck’s memory. We thought it might be Luhman. Dark bands on Luhman are metal clouds because the star is cool enough to have an atmosphere that rains iron. So, star weather. Like Jupiter, bands change over time, so no two photos will match. Next part should be told by Ananke because she figured it out.”
Ananke’s slate is docked in the visualization station. “Thank you, Isaac. We’ve speculated that the Silver Star’s memory is structured like an AI’s with polarized qubits. Nearly all of the crystal was decoherent, and when I attempted to recohere it, I only found random noise. Where the blue image was stored, however, some of the noise formed a pattern. When I enhanced it, I found this.”
Blue dots dapple behind the sphere.
“Stars,” Ananke says.
“Good enough to plate solve versus know constellations,” Isaac says. The blue sphere recedes to show its location within the Milky Way, a mere six point five light-years from Earth. “It’s definitely Luhman 16. We can’t tell if it’s 16A or B because they are only three and a half AU apart.”
“The noise patterns had more than just stars,” Ananke says.
The blue sphere inflates to an enormous ball. Two spherical pebbles rest silhouetted between two of its cloud bands.
Isaac raises his eyebrows. “Planets. Based on the field of view, we can make assumptions about the size and possible orbits. Most likely Mars-sized. Possibly Earth-sized.”
“That’s remarkable,” James says. “Do you think they could support life?”
“Luhman 16 is young, only eight hundred million years old. Each star is just a little bigger than Jupiter. Too small for fusion, so their heat is just from compression. If planets are close enough, they could be within the habitable zone.”
Ava weighs in. “Life on Earth started when it was a billion years old, so if the conditions are right, it’s possible life could gain a foothold.”
James thinks about it for a moment. “The big question is why it’s in the Silver Star’s memory. Were they just passing through? Did they find something interesting? Hell, they may even live there.”
“There’s the Proxima probe,” Hitoshi says. “It’ll get there in twenty-one years.”
“Too bad we didn’t learn about it until we came back,” Isaac says. “Luhman 16 is Alpha Centauri’s neighbor.” When he zooms back, the two orange stars of Luhman 16 are closer to Alpha Centauri than Alpha Centauri is to Earth. He plots a round-trip course from Earth to Alpha Centauri to Luhman 16 and back home. Fourteen-point-five light-years. Going to each star one at a time is twenty-two light-years. “Could have saved eight years.”
James scratches his chin. “Huh.”
“Yeah, boss,” Hitoshi begins. “We’ve been thinking about it, and whoever goes out on future trips should hit a star and its neighbors. If we stick to one star at a time, it’ll take forever, like, literally, to get through even the closest stars.”
“Are there any habitable stars in the neighborhood of Luhman 16?” James says.
Isaac expands the star map. Nearby, a yellow star and orange star glow. “Tau Ceti, very similar to our Sun, only five point seven light-years from Luhman 16, then Epsilon Eridani another five point five from Tau Ceti.”
“Tau Ceti is of very high interest for astrobiology,” Ava says. “The Keller Array detected oxygen in its planets.”
James squints, intrigued. “What other stars within twenty light-years are candidates for life?”
Isaac zooms the star map back even
further. Yellow stars, orange stars, and red stars spread out in all directions in a sphere around the Sun. “Lots. I can get you a list if you want.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
Hitoshi gives James the look. “Uh, what are you thinking, boss?”
James sets both of his hands on his hips, surveying the stars. “I think I have to talk to Holden Richards and see where we stand.”
Promise’s project chart fills the Space Command Center, a giant flowchart of parallel tasks converging on the apex of a completed starship. The software calculates what parts and materials are needed at what times, factors in supply-chain lead-times, places orders, and arranges deliveries to the orbital construction ring. Yellow icons hang like lanterns at different points along the project timeline. Launches. Some of those launches ferry parts, and some haul people. The software coordinates this all with U.N. Regulatory, which provides the clearances, and U.N. Regulatory compiles the flight schedules and shares them with the U.N. Perseus, which manages the space around Promise.
Ryder is buckled into his seat beside a dozen of his fellow engineers, listening to his Chief Warrant Officer provide his weekly department update. The screen behind the CWO has a ninety-day timeline notched with Promise’s component launches, Perseus’s maintenance and supply activities, and personnel visits both to Perseus and Promise. VIP visits are tagged with their own color. Perseus has a few with U.N. hierarchy, but what catches Ryder’s eye is the Promise crew visit mid-June. The VIP is James Hayden. He memorizes the schedule, then glances at Emani, watching her tap notes on her slate. They’ve been assigned a job together, and he’s looking forward to it. He wishes he could tell her that he’s one of the good guys, that he’s part of something greater than himself that will help all of humanity. He’s pretty sure she wouldn’t understand, though. Most don’t understand. They label them terrorists or radicals, or Subversives. It wasn’t until he’d first heard their faction leader speak that his eyes were opened. She was more intelligent than anyone he’d ever met. For the first time in his life, things made sense. Bad things happened for a purpose, and he had a purpose. When he glances at his watch, he worries a little about what will happen when the time comes. He doesn’t want Emani to get hurt.
Bernard's Dream: A Hayden's World Novel (Hayden's World Origins Book 8) Page 3
