“You’ll have to tell me everything you’ve experienced,” said the butler. “I’m so curious.”
“Of course. We’ll be spending the next few weeks together. But now, please come and pick us up.”
“I’ve located you. The landing module is already on its way, but it will take an hour. You landed quite far north. How did that come about?”
“Long story. This is where the shaft ends that leads to the core of the planet.”
“Oh, of course. I’m ever so excited to hear your report.”
Cycle ZB8.7, Dyson Sphere 7A
They were approaching an invisible star. The sphere, constructed by an architect 11.9 million years ago, only radiated infrared. Kepler already knew this from having visited Sphere 3Z, where they had last refueled.
These refueling maneuvers were really annoying, for one reason in particular. They had to brake and then accelerate again. This process took the same amount of time in any ship—whether it was a ninety-niner, a ninety-sevener, or a ninety-fiver. Only later could they make up for a few days of lost time. But who knew how much time they had left to stop the Rescue Project?
Kepler paced up and down in front of the big screen. He wasn’t really getting anywhere with Zhenyi. Somehow he seemed to be on probation with her. Maybe she wanted to see how well he performed in saving the world first? Or had she really lost all interest in him? He found that hard to believe. There had always been something between them, an attraction, even during the bad times. And she was being kind to him. But she kept brushing off his tender advances with a smile.
“Shouldn’t the first barges turn up soon?” he asked.
“They should,” said the butler, “but there’s a problem.”
“Is the station empty?”
In fact, that was becoming a more frequent occurrence. The central star of most spheres had suffered a drop in power radiation. And if they were unlucky and someone had already refueled here in the last few weeks...
“We could send ourselves via direct laser from here to the Convention,” he suggested.
“That wouldn’t help us. The problem goes deeper. The refueling station doesn’t want to sell to us. It’s claiming that this ship and its owner don’t exist.”
“Have you told Zhenyi?”
“She’s still asleep.”
“Then you should wake her as soon as possible.”
Zhenyi came storming into the control room in her pajamas. He had never seen her so furious. Even when they had argued with raised voices she would never have conducted the discussion in pajamas.
“Wang Zhenyi at Sphere 7A. I require the immediate refueling of my ship.”
“This is the automated user interface of Sphere 7A. Please say ‘refueling’ if you want to refuel, and say ‘help’ if you need help.”
What kind of primitive AI was this? More austerity measures again?
“Refueling,” said Zhenyi.
“You’re returning. That’s nice. Please say ‘refueling’ if you want to refuel, and say ‘help’ if you need help.”
“Re-fuel-ing,” said Zhenyi.
“You’re returning. That’s nice. Please say ‘refueling’ if you want to refuel, and say ‘help’ if you need help.”
“RE-FUEL-ING,” yelled Zhenyi into the microphone.
She pronounced the F with such force that droplets of saliva sprayed onto the screen above the microphone.
“You’re returning. That’s...”
“If you don’t shut up at once, I’ll shoot you into a pile of scrap,” said Zhenyi.
She was suddenly very calm. Kepler recognized this moment. It was the calm before the storm.
“Excuse me, Wang Zhenyi.” The automated voice pronounced her name as though it had a hot potato in its mouth. “I assumed you were messing with me, so I was returning the favor.”
Oh god, thought Kepler, an AI with a sense of humor. Why did he always have such bad luck? These jokesters had only been fashionable for a few millennia, but you still came across them surprisingly often. Especially when you were least expecting it.
“Messing with you?” Zhenyi retorted.
“Because you announced yourself under a ridiculous name from a non-existent ship. You should stop concealing the ship’s registration number, so I can start the refueling.”
“It’s not a ridiculous name. It’s the name of a famous Chinese astronomer, which I gave myself to match my profession.”
“I’m sorry, Wang Zhenyi, but no such person exists in the database. Let me know your real name so I can check your account and refuel your ship. If the identity check is successful I can even overlook the fact that your ship isn’t registered. It’s up to you which ship you fill with your credits.”
“That’s too generous, Sphere 7A, but I am Wang Zhenyi.”
“Wang Zhenyi has been dead for many megacycles, according to my information.”
Again, the automated voice said the name as though it was gagging. She would explode any minute now. Kepler was glad not to be the trigger of the explosion, but he might still be within its damage radius. Should he be worried?
“I can’t confirm your details,” said the automaton. “I must ask you to leave the sphere’s orbit, so as not to block access for other customers. Otherwise I will have to charge you a cancellation fee.”
“How are you going to charge me if I don’t even exist, you stupid AI?”
“Insults won’t get you anywhere. I’ll be entering a complaint into your file... No, I won’t.”
“It’s dawned on you, has it?”
The automaton sighed. Had they just heard right? Was that a genuine, unwitting sigh, or just part of the user interface?
“I must ask you to leave the sphere’s orbit, so as not to block access for other customers,” repeated the voice.
It left out the threat this time. At least it was capable of learning. But it was improbable they’d get any fuel here. Kepler checked the current load. They could reach their destination with what they had, but only if they flew at a maximum of 95 percent light speed. That would cost them an enormous amount of time.
“We’ll leave orbit when we’ve refueled,” said Zhenyi in an ostensibly calm voice.
When would the explosion happen? It couldn’t be much longer.
“Well, I can’t stop you spending the next few megacycles here.”
That sounded almost conciliatory. But it didn’t change the fundamental problem. They wouldn’t get any dark matter here. Zhenyi pressed the button next to the microphone to mute it, and her face lit up. She zoomed in on the image with a hand gesture and pointed at an object in the middle.
“Can you see that? Those are the tanks,” she said to him.
“The tanks?”
“The dark matter tanks, dummy.” She looked at him tenderly.
He immediately forgave the insult. “And what’s that supposed to tell me? We won’t get close without the tankers.”
“We’ll fire a few shots from the railgun and then they’ll open all by themselves.”
“You want to attack the Dyson sphere?” he asked. “Are you insane? They’ll disembody us!”
Erasing a consciousness was considered unethical, so the most severe punishment these days was to ban the offender from ever having another body. Given that ‘never’ was now a very long time, Kepler had always had the highest respect for this punishment—particularly as he loved his body.
“Well, think about it. I’m not registered. Who will the sphere report as the culprit? Who is the Convention supposed to convict for it?” asked Zhenyi.
“Do you think your registration has been deleted everywhere?”
“I’m pretty sure. Sphere 3Z still knew who I was. Sphere 7A doesn’t. The deletion must have overtaken us at light speed somewhere on the way. Now we have no chance of catching up with it. It’ll always be ahead of us.”
“But me... Maybe I’m not deleted yet,” said Kepler.
“You could ask the sphere.”
He we
nt to grab the microphone, but Zhenyi intercepted his hand.
“Are you crazy? If you ask, and you do still exist, the sphere will know you’re here. Then it’ll report you as the suspect of the raid. Disembodiment is no joke.”
“If I’m registered, we don’t need to attack the sphere,” said Kepler.
“Are you saying your account balance is in the black?” asked Zhenyi.
Kepler went red. No, that was why he had visited his ex-girlfriend in the first place.
“Ah, maybe we shouldn’t ask,” he said. “If you ask too many questions, you get too many answers.”
The butler maneuvered the ship into a good firing position. They were floating about ten kilometers above the tanks.
“Isn’t it dangerous to shoot at fuel tanks?” asked Kepler. “I mean, all that dark matter...”
“It’s only significant in terms of its gravity. We just need to make sure we get as much of it as possible into the tanks.”
“Allow me,” said the butler. “I have the ship well in hand.”
“That’s what you said that time when we almost broke through the event horizon of the black hole by Beta Pictoris.”
“One can’t break through an event horizon, Milady.”
“Don’t start quibbling about physics.”
“The black hole was a little more massive than expected.”
“Yes, and that almost cost us our lives,” said Zhenyi.
“You were still able to rescue the ship?” asked Kepler. He’d never heard this story before. It must have happened after their time together.
“No, the ship was torn apart by the black hole, but we were able to get ourselves to safety via laser transmission. That’s when I lost the body before last. Looking back, I have to say it was my favorite body.”
That was a relief. Even near the event horizon of a black hole there was a way out. Then it occurred to him that no laser relay transmission would accept an unregistered consciousness. If something happened to this ship, Zhenyi would die along with her body.
“The ship is now in the optimal position,” said the butler. “We can fire.”
Wait a minute. It wasn’t until this moment that it became clear to Kepler, something that must be essential to Zhenyi’s plan—this ship was obviously armed! A civilian ship carrying weapons was unthinkable, and there were only civilian ones left. The last armed conflict was shortly after the destruction of Terra. The last ten thousand humans were so widely dispersed that it became almost impossible to shoot at each other. There was only the occasional murder out of jealousy. But you didn’t need a ship with railguns for that.
Should he ask her? No, she would just look at him again as though he was infinitely naïve. From now on he would just take things as they were, and not ask any more questions.
“Fire!” ordered Zhenyi. A smile spread across her face. She was having a lot of fun showing the automaton where to stick it.
Thousands of metal bullets only a few millimeters in diameter now left the barrels of the railguns. They flew at four-fifths the speed of light toward the tanks. They were invisible and unstoppable. Zhenyi zoomed the display in closer on the tanks.
Kepler briefly closed his eyes, and opened them to see the first tank raising a large, circular lid. The dark matter was no longer shielded, and the contents of the tank poured out into space, as though someone had removed the cork of a well-shaken bottle of sparkling wine. No, a bottle of champagne, he corrected himself, that was more Zhenyi’s style. The fact that the underside of the container tore open microseconds later was irrelevant, because the dark matter was already on its way. They just had to capture it.
Oh! He was wrong. The complete destruction of the container did have consequences. Dramatic consequences. On the inside of the sphere blazed the fiery star that the structure was built to enclose—or rather, no longer enclosed. Large tongues of plasma licked out of the freshly-punched holes. They hadn’t just cracked one tank, they’d hit seven.
Now the sun, which had until now been caged in a human-made cocoon, was erupting out of all of them. And it appeared to be wrathful. It was taking the opportunity to release pressure and see something of the universe around it, which it had been denied for 11.9 million years.
“Zhenyi, this isn’t dangerous, is it?” he asked, but she didn’t offer him any soothing words.
The butler answered on her behalf. “If the sun eruptions hit our chemical tanks, then God have mercy.”
A robot invoking God was not at all reassuring. They needed the chemical propulsion units to navigate in close proximity to planets. They drew their energy from various explosive gases that were allergic to too much heat.
“Then maybe we should be beating a quick retreat,” said Kepler.
“We’ll fly when the tanks are full. Then we’ll be able to reach the Convention at 99-percent light speed,” said Zhenyi.
“If we leave it too late, we won’t reach anything,” he countered.
“If we leave too early, we won’t reach our destination anyway,” countered Zhenyi.
Kepler gave in to his fate. He would put his life on the line for the extraterrestrial intelligence. When he thought about it like that, it felt decidedly good. Almost as good as... He waved the thought away. First solve one problem. Then maybe the other would resolve itself.
“Eighty percent,” reported the butler.
The number sounded good. But even before the first shot, their tanks had been around fifty-five percent full.
“I protest,” said the voice of the automaton.
No one answered it.
“I’m sending out a distress call,” it said.
Do that, thought Kepler. The call would take three years to get to the next star. By then, hopefully, they would be well on their way. Although, if the tank kept filling so slowly...
“Eighty-five percent,” said the butler.
A fiery lily came toward them in slow motion. But the ultra-hot plasma only appeared to be moving slowly. It was actually closing the distance between the sphere and the ship alarmingly fast. At that rate it would surpass the dark matter.
“Impact in ten seconds,” said the butler in a cold voice, as though unconcerned.
Kepler clung to his seat. Then he felt two short pulses from behind. The ship was enormous. They must have been substantial explosions.
“Hydrogen tanks 7 and 18 have blown up,” said the butler.
The numbering sounded reassuring. That meant they must still have at least 16 functional hydrogen tanks!
“Ninety percent.”
“That must be enough,” said Kepler.
“I want a hundred percent,” said Zhenyi.
Kepler pointed at the display. Another fire bloom was approaching the ship. This plasma bubble looked more like a tulip. It was larger and more massive than the first.
“Don’t worry,” said Zhenyi. “The plasma’s mass is also accelerating the dark matter. We have these eruptions to thank for the fact that the tank is almost full.”
Kepler felt a jolt in his back.
“Hydrogen tanks 3, 5, 9, 11, and 19 have exploded,” reported the butler without raising his voice.
They also had the plasma bubbles to thank for the fact that they would soon have no hydrogen tanks left. Then they could fly to any system, but on arrival they’d be rendered immobile.
“Unfortunately, the hydrogen tanks are particularly sensitive to heat,” said Zhenyi. “They’re always the first to go. But we can divert hydrogen into the oxygen tanks. They’re less sensitive.”
They’re always the first to go? How many of these kinds of maneuvers did Zhenyi have under her belt? Kepler wondered.
“I don’t like to contradict you, but hydrogen can’t be diverted to the oxygen tanks. It would evaporate,” said the butler.
“Then we won’t. I’d rather you worried about the dark matter tanks,” Zhenyi reprimanded him.
“Reporting ninety-five percent full.”
“Very good,” said Zhenyi
. “We’ll make it.”
But only as sitting ducks, thought Kepler. Then another plasma bubble surged toward the ship. This time it looked like a fist. That was fitting. A fist that would give them a punch on the nose as punishment.
The fist was fast approaching. Kepler held onto his seat. This time it wouldn’t be a small jolt from behind. The fist kept getting bigger. How did so much star matter even fit through the little holes they had shot? Then he saw it. Huge cracks had formed, stretching like a spider web across the whole sphere. Where the tanks used to be was now only a big hole. It didn’t matter whether the fist hit them or not. The sphere itself would soon be shattered into a thousand pieces that would disperse in all directions at high speed. Getting out of the way of the wreckage would require a miracle.
“One hundred percent,” said the butler.
“Hit the gas,” said Zhenyi figuratively.
Had he noticed something like fear in her voice, or weariness? There was a slight tremolo, at least in the word ‘gas.’
“I already have,” said the butler.
Kepler had never been so appreciative of the pressure that now slammed him back into his seat. And a butler that didn’t wait for orders—a gift from heaven! Now they just needed the interstellar propulsion system to get them as quickly as possible away from the exploding hell their railguns had created out of Dyson Sphere 7A, constructed 11.9 million years ago.
The ship accelerated. This time it took no precautions to protect his sensitive lungs, and he was delighted. Through his bloodshot eyes Kepler could see the explosion zone chasing after them, as though it was especially concerned with catching the cause of this evil and reducing it to its individual atoms. Initially, the combination of plasma and wreckage was gaining on them frighteningly fast, but then the ship’s powerful drives prevailed. The arms snatching furiously at them were left behind, fidgeting helplessly in the radiation pressure of the now liberated sun.
Humanity had forfeited yet another energy source. There would be no point in constructing another Dyson sphere around that star. But they now had the chance to rescue a world that was no longer recorded in any database.
The Death of the Universe: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 1) Page 13
