Forerunner

by Isaac Hooke

  “There you go,” Jain said. “You answered your own question. They have to be little, to fit the crawlspaces.”

  “That doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of them,” Cranston said. “But either way, I’ll trust your judgment.”

  “Thank you,” Jain said. He could only imagine the difficulties he would have had if Gavin were with them. “Proceed with grappling.”

  Jain changed his time sense somewhat closer to normal, though he left it accelerated to aid with targeting. The grappling hook indicator flashed when he was in the appropriate position during the flyby, and he fired.

  The hook hit spot on.

  “Success,” Medeia said. The other two echoed her sentiments, as did Jain.

  The grappling hook quickly grew taut, and Jain began to experience that internal stretching feeling all over again. There was no sound—no moaning of metal, no screeching of intersecting plates—because he had no atmosphere aboard. But he still felt the added weight the hook was exerting, thanks to the Oberon.

  “We’re all good,” Xander said. “The ship is holding in place. We can begin the breakout maneuver whenever you’re ready.”

  “Begin now,” Jain said.

  The acceleration vector changed, and Jain felt the pressure inside of him move with it. He decided to tone down his tactile senses, leaving them active just enough so that he was aware of the directional changes, and the effect they were having on his structural integrity.

  “It appears my calculations were slightly off,” Xander said.

  “How so?” Jain asked.

  “Well,” Xander answered. “We’re having to apply far more torque and angular acceleration than originally anticipated. The Oberon weighs more than the records would indicate. Their cargo bays must be filled to the brim with lead, or equivalent metals.”

  “Or something else,” Medeia said. “Something alien.”

  Jain ignored the comment. “How will this affect our escape from Ol’ Faithful’s gravitational pull? Will we have to jettison the craft?”

  “No,” Xander said. “We should still be able to break free within the allocated timeframe. But the Delta V cost will be higher. We’ll be running on almost empty by the time we reach the moon.”

  “All right, well, do what you can to conserve propellant,” Jain said. “And continue dragging the craft out.”

  Jain watched their progress for a few minutes, and eventually grew weary, deciding instead to speed up time.

  He wondered just what the Oberon contained that proved so heavy. Well, either way, he couldn’t explore it now, not while they were so close to the gas giant. In fact, he didn’t plan to investigate the research vessel until they were well behind the seventieth moon.

  That would be in two days, fifteen hours from now.

  Assuming Xander was right about the updated calculations.

  Jain double-checked them.

  Yes, the Accomp was correct. Except that at Jain’s current time sense, they’d reach the moon in an hour.

  Sometimes, being an AI certainly has its benefits.

  7

  The intense radiation, not to mention gravity, continued to assail Jain and the others all the way to the seventieth moon. When they were three hours out—in normal time—from the moon, finally the gravity stopped having much effect, at least on the hull, and Jain returned his tactile sense to normal.

  Medeia sighed and rubbed her belly. “Well that certainly gave me a stomach ache.” The data packet header preceding her words automatically returned Jain to normal time.

  “Why didn’t you just slow down your time sense to make the journey pass faster?” Mark said. “That’s what the rest of us did.”

  “Oh, I did,” Medeia said.

  “Really?” Mark crossed his arms. “Then why did my timebase just get knocked back down to normal time?”

  “Obviously I reverted to normal time, first,” Medeia said. “But anyway, my sense was slowed down. That’s what I’m talking about: I had a sore stomach for the past hour. But it’s gone now that we’re away from most of the gravitational effects.”

  Mark turned to look at her on the virtual bridge. “You could have turned off your tactile senses, too.”

  “What?” Medeia said. “No. I want to hang onto every last part of my humanity that I can. The feeling of having a body is an important part of that.”

  “Not in here it’s not,” Mark said. “In here, our avatar is our body.”

  “I like to overlay the senses of my starship body with this one,” Medeia said.

  “Overlaying the real and virtual?” Mark said. “That’s gotta be odd. Like living in two dimensions at the same time.”

  “That’s exactly what it is,” Medeia said. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way. It reminds me that this human body is a falsehood. A pleasant falsehood, yes, but a falsehood regardless. It reminds me that while I am alive, that life is as a machine.”

  “Human, machine, what’s the difference?” Mark said. “Life is life.”

  “The difference is enormous,” Medeia said. “Our current life span is limitless, barring destruction. The life span of organics, while it can be extended up to a thousand years for some with proper rejuvenetics and gene therapy, must one day end. Organic life might be something more, the mind imprinting some higher dimensional universe. A machine mind is only what it is, existing in this dimension, and nowhere else. So, life is not just life, as you say.”

  “Let’s not get into metaphysics…” Mark said.

  “You’re wrong,” Cranston said, talking over him to Medeia. “A machine mind produces the same higher dimensional imprints and vibrations as a human mind. I refuse to believe our neural networks are any different than their organic versions.”

  “But they are different,” Medeia said. “Not just structurally, but the way in which information is stored and accessed. The human mind is an electron soup. The machine mind, more of an electron lattice. The human mind evolved naturally within the constraints of the universe over three billion years, allowing it to intrinsically blend into the very fabric of reality, parts of it reaching into the higher dimensions, whereas the machine mind was created in the span of only a few hundred years, rammed into a framework built to exist in the observable dimensions only, because how can we create a machine with access to higher dimensions when we know relatively little about those realms?”

  “I refuse to believe we don’t have a soul,” Cranston said. “That when we die, this is it. I can’t believe that. Even if we are machines.”

  “Well, believe it, because when we die that’s the end of us,” Medeia said.

  “Just don’t die,” Mark told Cranston.

  “If death comes, I take heart in the fact that some of me can exist again, thanks to my mind backup,” Medeia said. “It won’t be me coming back, obviously, but a collection of my memories and experiences. That’s comforting, in a way, knowing that everything that made me who I am can still manifest in this universe. That none of you would have to grieve, because to you, I would be the same Medeia. It would be like I never passed.”

  “Sometimes it bothers me that I’m not the Original,” Mark said. “That the two mes that came before, the human me, and the robot me, already died, and I’m a clone of a clone. But I consider myself my own person at this point. Not so much a clone, as a rebirth.” He glanced at Cranston. “If you’re right, and we have souls, I wonder if it’s possible that those souls could return to these bodies.”

  “No,” Jain said. “It’s not. Think about it. Sheila can build neural networks from scratch… an infinite number of them. We could create more starships, more Grunts, and load their AI cores up with copies restored from your backups. You’re telling me your individual soul is going to go inside of all of them?”

  “That’s a good point,” Mark said. He scratched his forehead. “Hm. I wonder, maybe the soul goes into the first clone, and the others get a new one.”

  “They all get a new one,” Cranston said. “Fo
rmed by the neural network of the AI core itself.”

  “Or none at all, most likely,” Medeia added.

  “This reminds me of the arguments posed between Aristotle and Plato,” Jain said. The team members turned to look at him from their stations on the virtual bridge. “Aristotle believed consciousness was produced by the mind, and only the mind, so that when we died, consciousness died with it. But Plato on the other hand believed in dualism. That consciousness existed independently of the mind, in a dual realm of reality, so that when the mind died, consciousness, or the soul, lived on.”

  “I guess we’ll never known, until the time comes,” Mark said. “Because no one ever comes back once they’ve died. No one.”

  “Except us,” Medeia said.

  Mark frowned. “Yeah, but that’s not the same. We’ve already been over this. Copies do not a soul make.”

  The conversation pretty much ended with that.

  “Xander, send a message to Sheila and Gavin,” Jain said during a lull in Ol’ Faithful’s radiation bursts. Those bursts interfered with long distance communications, so transmitting during the interlude was the best time. “Update them on our progress.”

  “Will do,” Xander said.

  When they reached the moon, the Space Machinists took shelter on the far side because the gas giant’s radiation still proved intense, even at that distance. Though they were relatively far from the giant, the Delta V requirements to enter orbit around the moon were still large compared to what they would have been if Ol’ Faithful were a small planet, but that’s what happened when switching from one inertial reference frame to another. It was very good indeed that the fleet was here to replenish propellant.

  “I can see why that original probe you sent out needed to be repaired when it got back,” Medeia said. “These rays just don’t let up!”

  “No, they don’t,” Jain agreed.

  The Space Machinists flew onto the far hemisphere of the moon; it proved to be a permanent dark side, and the surface was completely black below. LIDAR emissions from the warships still provided a terrain map, however. That LIDAR painted different surface features various colors. Rock was gray. Ice was white. It was able to do this, because some of the photons involved in the LIDAR scan could penetrate to different depths before reflecting.

  “Steer us over the biggest water deposit,” Jain instructed Xander.

  “Directing the fleet to the biggest water deposit…” Xander replied.

  In twenty minutes, Xander spoke again.

  “You might want to look at this,” Xander said. “There’s… debris, on the moon.”

  Jain accessed one of the ventral camera feeds and saw the debris of which Xander spoke. There was a small crater, with metal fragments of all sizes forming a long line behind it. The overall shape reminded him somewhat of a comet, in the way the debris formed a tail that spread away from the crater.

  “It’s consistent with the wreckage of a starship,” Medeia said. “It hit at speed, judging from the depth of the impact crater, and the way the debris spread across the surface in front of it…”

  Jain turned toward Xander, who hovered beside him in his robe. “Are we able to get an ID on that ship?”

  “The black box transponder is active,” Xander said. “According to the registry information, the ship is the Minerva. A Builder class vessel.”

  “There’s the Builder that accompanied the Oberon,” Cranston said. “No doubt they came here to replenish their propellant supplies, like us.”

  “Why here?” Mark said. “There have to be other, more easily accessible sources. Look at how much of our own propellant we used to get into orbit, thanks to that gas giant.”

  “Maybe there really aren’t any other sources nearby,” Cranston said. “Or maybe they were forced here.”

  “The latter makes more sense,” Mark said. “Considering that obviously something happened to them while they were trying to mine ice. And it wasn’t good.”

  “Is there anything unusual about the debris below?” Jain asked.

  “Nothing, as far as I can determine,” Xander said. “Would you like me to send a telemetry probe down for a more detailed inspection?”

  “That would be nice,” Jain said. “Actually, while you’re at it, also deploy two rovers to sift through the debris and check if the AI core is intact.”

  “That’s less rovers to help with the water extraction,” Xander said.

  “No problem,” Jain said.

  Xander adjusted speed to launch a transport. The craft deployed the two rovers on the surface, and then docked with the Talos once more. A telemetry probe also swooped down from the starship to make a sweep.

  “When the telemetry drone returns, send the transport back to pick them up,” Jain said. “In the meantime, full speed ahead.”

  Forty-five minutes later, when they neared the designated extraction site, the fleet decelerated to assume a geostationary orbit. Expending almost their entire propellant reserves.

  The LIDAR scans revealed a surface that was completely white below. He was looking at a vast glacier exposed to open space.

  “This part of the moon never sees any sunlight,” Medeia said. “Those ice caps have to be ancient.”

  “Maybe we’ll discover an alien creature frozen into the ice,” Cranston said.

  “And if we do, you can eat him,” Mark joked.

  “I do love eating frozen aliens,” Cranston said. “Although, considering I don’t have a stomach…”

  “Xander, deploy water miners,” Jain said. “The rest of you guys feel free to start collecting as well.”

  “What about the Oberon?” Medeia asked.

  “Well, I suppose we can launch a transport to investigate,” Jain replied.

  “You don’t sound that eager,” Medeia said.

  “Is it that obvious?” Jain said. “I guess I’m a little worried about what we might find aboard.”

  “I’m sure their cargo is something innocuous,” Mark said. “Something heavy, but innocuous.”

  “Let’s get the miners in place, first,” Jain said. “When that’s done, Xander, recall one of the transports, and load three rovers aboard.”

  “Will do,” Xander said.

  Jain watched as the transports from the different fleet vessels deployed miners on the surface—those were essentially rovers with special arm-like attachments to collect blocks of ice from the surface. One of the arms used lasers to cut through the blocks—the focal length could be adjusted so that the laser pulse converged at a set point deep within the ice, allowing a flat base to be cut underneath, facilitating easy removal with the pincers attached to other arms.

  When all the miners were deployed, one of Jain’s transports left the surface to return to the ship. After docking, a pair of small rovers loaded aboard—crab-like robots that could operate in void environments and were small enough to fit the expected crawlspaces of the research vessel.

  As the transport launched, Jain switched to its external camera, and watched the craft approach the Oberon. Since it had no running lights, nor any thermal signature, the vessel was illuminated solely by the LIDAR emissions from the Space Machinists.

  Jain considered upping his time sense, but decided there was no need, as the transport would arrive soon enough.

  And then, when the transport was halfway to the target, the Oberon changed shape, becoming something else entirely.

  A huge, pyramidal shape floated before him on the LIDAR band. Pipes ran up down the surface, forming trenches and rises.

  “What the f—” Cranston said.

  “Looks like we’ve been tricked into dragging something else out of Ol’ Faithful’s gravitational pull,” Jain commented. “Xander, full halt on the transport.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Medeia said. “An alien craft. Masquerading as the Oberon.”

  “This would explain why our earlier calculations were off, when we were dragging what we thought was the Oberon away from the gravitational pull
of the gas giant,” Xander said.

  “How the hell did they hide all of this?” Mark asked. “It’s like some ancient Egyptian Pyramid.”

  “Has to be some form of holoemitters,” Medeia said.

  “No holoemitters can mask an object that big,” Mark said.

  “Apparently these can,” Medeia insisted.

  “But holoemitters leave a thermal signature…” Mark said.

  “Obviously they have to be masking it somehow,” Medeia told him.

  “What about our LIDAR?” Mark said. “Surely they couldn’t mask that.”

  “We were directing concentrated LIDAR beams at the planet,” Jain said. “Not the ship. We assumed it was the Oberon.”

  “Yeah, but because of photon backscatter, some of them would have reached the ship behind us,” Mark said. “And then reflected back to our detectors. We should have picked up the false shape.”

  “Not if their hull can absorb photons of the wavelength we were using.” Jain studied the image returned by the transport. “Those were certainly some advanced holoemitters, though. The grappling hooks penetrated the false surface of the Oberon to hit the actual hull some distance underneath, but the holoemitters masked the whole thing, making it look like the grapplers attached to the fake surface.”

  “So, if they used us to drag them from the planet, that means their propulsion system is damaged in some way,” Cranston said.

  “Or they’re out of propellant,” Medeia said.

  “Assuming they actually use propellant,” Xander commented.

  “You know, this might not even be the final shape,” Mark said. “This could be another illusion… they could be masking their true identity.”

  “What about the peeled-back hull area we saw on the Oberon?” Mark asked. “Why fake something like that?”

  “Had to be to mislead us,” Cranston said. “Make us think something got aboard the craft. Playing on our desires to figure out what that something was.”