Written in Light
Page 5
~*~
From: Opportunity <###########.######@nasa.gov>
To: Robert <########@gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 4, 20## 12:33PM
I wanted to thank you for all your questions. I’m sure you are surprised that I am contacting you since your teachers will have told you that Opportunity is no more. It’s true that I am not as able as I was, but I haven’t given up, and I hope neither will you. Your mother is a very important woman, and she’s also a very smart one. Please share with her the information in the attached file. I think she will find it very interesting, especially the parts confirming the minute amounts of my activity despite what she and you were told.
I don’t want to give up on my mission and wouldn’t imagine you would want me to either. Be my voice when I cannot speak. Tell your friends. Share that information in the file with whomever you think might be interested. Share it with the world. Somewhere, someone else will believe, and that could be all that it takes. Thank you, Robert.
From a world away,
Opportunity
From: Opportunity <###########.######@nasa.gov>
To: Angela <########@gmail.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 4, 20## 12:34PM
I wanted to thank you for all your questions. I’m sure you are surprised that I am contacting you...
From: Opportunity ###########.######@nasa.gov
To: Lucia <########@ymail.com>
Sun, Mar 4, 20## 12:35PM
I wanted to thank you for all your questions. I’m sure you are surprised that I am contacting you...
From: Opportunity <###########.######@nasa.gov>
To: Jiang <########@hotmail.com>
Sent: Sun, Mar 4, 20## 12:36PM
I wanted to thank you for all your questions. I’m sure you are surprised that I am contacting you...
OpponMars @OpponMars Mar 10, 20##
I am not silent. I will not go quietly. Don’t give up hope. #opponmars #marsrover #marsisours #yourrobotfriends #followrovers #duststorm #rideitout
From: Nisi ####### <#########@aol.com>
To: Opportunity <###########.######@nasa.gov>
Sent: Sun, Mar 4, 20## 1:00PM
Why aren’t you hearing me anymore? I ask you about the sunset on Mars, and you don’t tell me? Did they take your phone away? You weren’t bad. I know you weren’t bad. You couldn’t be bad. They need to give your phone back. I need to talk to you! Please, please, please answer my question! (you should; I am being so nice!) If you read this—you give Opportunity their phone back. You do it now!
Very unhappy,
Nisi #######
From: Jacob ######### <#########.####@epix.net>
To: Opportunity <###########.######@nasa.gov>
Sent: Sun, Mar 4, 20## 4:48PM
Ok, so what I understand is that you have given up on Opportunity. That sucks! I tried to email YOU, but there’s like no address for someone who can help. But I know that Opportunity still has an email address, so I’m using that. This isn’t what my parents pay taxes for. You should fix this now. You put Opportunity up there, and that took a lot of smart people and a lot of work. You can’t tell me that you’re not smart enough to help the rover. You should go get it and then fix it. That should be the next mission. Help the rover! Save Opportunity!
Jacob #########
From: Suzann ###### <###.####@gmail.net>
To: Opportunity <###########.######@nasa.gov>
Sent: Sun, Mar 4, 20## 4:48PM
Tell me why you no help rover! I don’t know. You help the rover. That’s what you do!
Suzann
Jacob ######### <#########.####@epix.net>
To: Opportunity <###########.######@nasa.gov>
Sent: un, Mar 4, 20## 4:48PM
SAVE OPPORTUNITY! SAVE OPPORTUNITY! DON’T GIVE UP ON OUR ROVER! WE WON’T GIVE UP ON OUR ROVER!
Jacob
~*~
From: Eva <#############@yahoo.com>
To: Dominic <###############@gmail.com>
Mon, Mar 11, 20## 12:50PM
I’m pretty sure that the PR department never expected a Children’s Crusade. Dom, they are everywhere, busy asking away about Opportunity. They don’t care if there’s a new rover in the works to take over in a few years, they want THEIR rover, and they want it now! The information, by the way, checks out. There is some sort of electrical activity present in Opportunity. It may no longer be much smarter than a brick, but something is happening there. And if it is, the kids are demanding someone do something to fix their friend. Right now, there must be parents who are trying to convince their children that there really is just a man behind the curtain writing messages for Opportunity. Even if it is an electronic man, the kids just don’t care. They trust the one who always answered their questions. Can you imagine what just might happen if enough kids start asking WHY we can’t fix Opportunity? Imagine them in the WHY loop, asking over and over again until it’s just simpler to promise to do something. Children have more time and more determination than we do, and they are not giving up. I never thought I’d say this, but maybe we shouldn’t have either. I think Hell’s frozen over, Dom. I’m agreeing with your pet bot. Sure, why not. Let’s do something, let’s do anything to try to give Opportunity another try.
AstronomyNow @Astronow Mar 13, 20##
Is Opportunity still alive? Enquiring minds want to know, and it’s not just the kids anymore. News stations are starting to pick up on this story, and we’re just as interested in the response as you are. #saveopportunity #astronomynow #opponmars #marsrover #marsisours #yourrobotfriends #followrovers
TodaysFeed @2daysfeed Mar 15, 20##
Recent statement indicates scientific committee to investigate methods to reactivate Opportunity Rover. Scientists invited to think out of the box to attempt revitalizing the Martian robot. Members sought from universities. #saveopportunity #2daysfeed #opponmars #marsrover #marsisours
#yourrobotfriends #followrovers
SciencyStuffNews @sciencystuff Mar 13, 20##
What about the little rover that could? Sounds like the net isn’t going to let this one go. But the real story is who is behind the curtain voicing the pluckiest robot on Mars? Stay tuned. We will reveal all! #saveopportunity #sciencystuff #thetruthisonmars #opponmars #marsrover #followrovers
Business@aglance @businessataglance Mar 19, 20##
Billionaire makes promise to fund mission to Mars for Opportunity. How and when are still up in the air, but now the money is there. What can the private space industry do? Will NASA allow them access to their property? Stay tuned for more updates. #saveopportunity #businessataglance #spaceinvestments #privatespaceindustry #opponmars #marsrover
Evasciencegirl @evasciencegirl Mar 25, 20##
I believe Opportunity deserves a chance. Don’t give up! Raise your voice. Save opportunity! #saveopportunity #kidsforopportunity #opponmars #marsrover #marsisours #yourrobotfriends #evasciencegirl
Affecting the Butterflies
Young Jenny Wallaby was killing butterflies for the public good, or so she told me.
A hot sticky afternoon full of the threat of impending thunderstorms loomed over the neighborhood when the sizzling “zap” of one of the Wallaby’s bug zappers caught my attention. After the first Nile virus scare several years ago, the three zappers appeared at both ends and the middle of the Wallabys’ back porch. Now I heard them all the time. In fact, I’d grown to tune them out. This time the resulting electrical resonance led to the brief odor of something burning. I got up from the chair on my back porch to walk over to the fence, curious as to what just met its insectoid maker. There I observed that Jenny had re-hung the zappers on three sides of the Wallabys’ butterfly bush. A swallowtail gliding in for a landing vanished in a bolt of blue lightning and brief flash of flame. Jenny stood off to one side, arms crossed, a very satisfied grin on her face.
Perhaps now is a good time to intervene before things take a turn for the worse for the rest of the winged population, I thought, leaning ove
r the fence. I started to call her over when a distant rumble caught my attention. Dark clouds billowing in the distance didn’t make the future look too bright for the butterflies or us. “Jenny girl, what’s with frying the poor flutterbys?”
“They’re causing hurricanes, and I’m savin’ the world. You know, the butterfly effect,” she promptly replied.
Well, I asked. That would teach me. Such a pat and exact answer surprised me. How should I respond? Then it hit me, the book I’d loaned her. “So, you think you have it all figured out, right? What about the Bradbury book I loaned you? Did you read the story, ‘A Sound of Thunder’?”
She cocked a hip to one side and placed a palm under her chin to consider. “Yeah.”
Another loud zap of electricity and yet more incinerated lepidopteron ashes floated to the ground. “Think about it, millions of years in the future, the descendants of those butterflies could evolve into something wonderful—or they would if you weren’t electrocuting them. You might be hurting our future.”
Ok, old man, I thought, maybe you just stepped over the line with that guilt trip.
A slight waver in her answer, but she shot back, “Don’t know them. People I know might drown in a hurricane.”
I sort of heard her reply, but only peripherally as I took a moment to consider the wild possibility that I just might be right, and Ray had something there. Could I actually let her destroy the one butterfly that held our future? It made almost as much sense as her tremendous self-assurance that by stopping that one butterfly, the action prevented the next Katrina. Then the first raindrop struck my forehead. Mother Nature apparently cast her own vote on the proceedings. Fortunately, Jenny remained clear of the danger of electrocution when the rain started in earnest. As rain drenched the bug zappers, a loud pop sounded, followed by a brief, bright flash. All the lights in the Wallaby house went out.
I stood there, realizing that there that the butterflies were safe for now. Mr. Wallaby could be rather upset about the science experiment gone wrong, but perhaps he would be more understanding. Besides, at Jenny’s age, her crusade would be forgotten by tomorrow as she found some new cause to embrace.
Running back to my own back porch, I yelled over my shoulder, “Read more Bradbury!”
The future… well, that could thank me later.
The Janus Choice
“Make a hole!”
Danvers heard seconds before being pushed out of the way by a medical tech leading a stretcher team up the ramp to the transition index. He caught a brief glimpse of the body they were carrying and recognized his superior’s black-striped tunic. Angry red burns and seeping yellow fluid covered Brandiwicz’s face. The arriving team of envoys scattered to either side of the platform to let the medical crew pass. Danvers saw the medics’ forms elongate as they entered the index’s wavering line and disappear from view.
“You Danvers?” asked a woman as she moved down the ramp, her eyes following the second-wave team as they offloaded additional supplies.
Still in shock, he nodded once. Upon further inspection, he decided she had the look of a traveler—skin worn down by the suns of other worlds, hair bleached and brittle from odd radiations. CERDAIN said the tag on her blue pullover. He wracked his brain, trying to connect the name to any details concerning new arrivals.
“Well, how long will it take you to get me to Brandiwicz?” she asked. “I’m not exactly blessed with a lot of time.”
He took a breath and said as evenly as he could manage, “Ma’am, they just took him out on a stretcher. His condition did not look good.”
“Huh,” she sighed, turning about to look at the transition point. “Well, that turns this whole situation to recycle.” Her head snapped back to him. “You’re his assistant, right?” She barely gave him a chance to nod in confirmation before continuing, “Well, I hope you’re up to it because we need to find out why the Kamanti have suddenly decided we need to leave their world. That transition index will be open for just twenty-four more hours. The next one isn’t scheduled until next month.”
~*~
“Brandiwicz never had any trouble with the natives before.” Danvers shut the gate behind him as he ushered the woman forward. “You’re not implying that one of them attacked him, are you?”
“I have no idea. The one person I needed to speak with just went where I can’t reach him.” She shrugged. “As for a Kamanti harming Brandiwicz, our behavioral model has issues,” Cerdain added, swinging up into the passenger seat of the skim. She leaned forward, eyeing the spider-webbing cracks in the windscreen.
“We wouldn’t be on the verge of packing up our entire setup and leaving if he were here to give us some idea of what happened. This just keeps getting worse.”
Taking a moment to choke back the less-than-respectful replies that came to mind, Danvers managed to say, “It’s easy to look at this in a certain way when you are part of the second wave. We’ve achieved something here with the Kamanti that is the envy of other first-contact teams. Now, with no warning, everything we’ve put together is going to just vanish. We were notified right before your arrival. As Brandiwicz’s assistant, I’ll do everything I can to figure out how he was injured and if it is related to this situation.” He threw the skim into gear without so much as a glance at her.
Danvers felt her glaring at him and ignored it, pushing the skim out of the rear exit of the embassy compound onto the flat plains and their dark red grasses. Pollen clouds and the winking jewels of the enigmatic light sail farms filled the greenish sky.
Humanity struggled to understand the science behind the machines, making the light sails a prime source of interest to the contact team’s scientists. They distributed the power they generated across the planet by wormhole threads. Since it took a massive amount of power to generate transition indexes, the only kind of wormholes humanity knew how to make, there was a definite focus on understanding how the energy transferred from the solar farms to the city below using only a minute amount to initiate the threads.
With a wide arc, Danvers brought them around the exterior of the Diplomatic Compound to the edge of the urban sprawl that surrounded the Kamanti city of Tuanach. Maybe it said something about humanity that they were placed beyond the outskirts of the city and, for the most part, forgotten. Danvers liked to assume it was an honor. He put the errant thought out his head and guided the skim into Tuanach. The city’s wide streets gave him plenty of room to maneuver, and he focused on his driving instead of his passenger’s ire.
The outpost’s director, Weavir, continued to try to find a way back into the good graces of the loose association of Kamanti leaders. Danvers wished him luck. For eight weeks, Danvers enjoyed the pleasures of this world and its unusual people. It looked as though that time could come to an abrupt end. Center punched the transition index through and gave the envoys three months to determine if it was worth the energy cost of making it a permanent settlement.
Since Cerdain’s arrival, she acted as if she were going to single-handedly clean up the situation. “Where are we going, Danvers?” she asked, her annoyance clear. “The information I need is back in the compound. Now is not the time for a tour of the city.”
“You will want to see where Brandiwicz worked. There could be something in his quarters that will offer more insight into the situation.”
“Look, Danvers, why don’t you make things clear for me? I talked to Weavir before I got here. I talked to everyone. I even talked to that damned archaeologist, Pergman, who did nothing but complain about the natives’ taboo against digging up the past and how he can’t do his job. I still can’t get a clear answer. Why are we being asked to leave?”
Since they were almost at the set of rooms Brandiwicz was given by the Kamanti, Danvers considered his reply and drove on in silence. After he’d pulled the skim to one side of a low building, he turned to her. “The most difficult part of the situation, ma’am, is that we’re not being told to leave. Instead, we were told we can’t stay. It is a
n odd conundrum. Weavir says that he gets the feeling that the Kamanti are acting as if they don’t want us involved in something. It’s frustrating everyone who’s working here. And Pergman, he’s just annoying and has a problem with authority.”
Cerdain slid out of the skim, her footfalls kicking up the city’s ever-present yellow dust. She stood for a moment looking at him across the hood, her arms crossed over her chest. “I know plenty about disappointment, Danvers. Being relegated to clean up someone else’s mess is never going to sit well with me.”
Danvers turned away as quickly as possible, trying to wipe the scowl off his face. Who the hell was she, charging in here as if she had any idea what was going on? He wanted to turn back and argue with Cerdain, but instead, he clenched his hands into fists and led her down a small walk between the rounded walls of the low buildings. He could almost feel the frustration radiating off her. It made him quicken his pace.
The exterior of the building was worn down smooth, like everything in Tuanach. Time lay heavily on the Kamanti. The owner of the sprawling building that housed Brandiwicz’s rooms waited for them at the elliptical gate. Danvers was always struck by the fact that the Kamanti were symmetrical in body plan but radially rather than bilaterally.
Their bodies consisted of eight appendages grouped into four legs that led up to a cylindrical waist. The Kamanti arms were arrayed in a square around a central gullet. Like everyone, Danvers got past the desire to look for eyes and stopped trying to categorize them into genders since they reproduced through budding. The skin of the Kamanti not only acted as a receptor of light but also generated it. Like the environs, their skins at rest were dusky yellow broken up by stripes of dark red.