Adam's Rings

by Matthew D. White

  “Have you considered an orbital profile for this mission?”

  “Yes. We’ll launch it over the pole and let it pick up speed on the far side. I’ll time it with enough energy to launch it back out so we can catch it. That way we can see if there are differences between the strata along the tropics and poles.”

  Draco went silent for a long minute, evidently processing the proposed mission for himself. “I’m sorry,” he finally returned. “This mission has not been sanctioned by Mission Control; therefore, I must resist.”

  The response was a new one. Adam stared into the closest wide-angle camera mounted in the wall. “What do you mean, that you ‘must resist’? This is my station and you do what I tell you, right?”

  “That’s correct, but there are several parameters that cannot be breached by this mission, as per the director himself. This proposed launch would violate one of the established rules.”

  “Bull. Shit. You don’t tell me what to do,” Adam snapped at the computer, the queasiness of the simulator all but dispersed. “And how do you think you are going to stop me?”

  “By declining to provide the critical assistance you’d need to get the mission off the ground.”

  Adam seethed. The ultimatum was as maddening as it was uncalled for. Plus, he didn’t much like the idea of being kept in the dark on anything happening in his midst. The Earth could disappear beneath a nuclear fire any day of the week, for all he cared, but a critical problem with the station being suppressed was beyond unacceptable.

  He sank back in the chair and considered his options. “You won’t help me, but does that mean you’ll sabotage me?” he finally asked.

  “No, that would violate my function as a supporter of the station’s mission.”

  The words were not an outright denial, but closer to Draco’s stoking of his critical thinking facilities. Feeling a renewed purpose, Adam lifted his head and drew a thin smile. “Then consider this challenge accepted.”

  “As you wish,” Draco said, then added with a dramatic flair, “It has come to my attention that the full mission of the station is approaching and your skills remain lacking. From now until an undetermined time in the future, your daily lessons shall be lengthened by twenty percent. I have also added a daily reading comprehension module to be completed on your own volition.”

  That was the problem with starting an argument with a computer and then testing its mettle through blatant defiance. There was no quibbling with Draco when he was within his right to do what he had said, and Adam knew he’d have no cover if he went whining to Mission Control. Given Draco’s cryptic message, he half expected the AI to snitch and then receive a blaring cease-and-desist from Earth before the day was out.

  Adam let his vendetta migrate from animosity to problem solving. Ten hours of training a day would increase to twelve, plus an hour or two of homework left him with two to four more to be taken up with his normal maintenance tasks. He was confident there was enough slack time hidden in the crevices of his regular existence to build and launch a single damned probe. Shaking off the threat, he stared down the lens of the closest security camera which fed Draco’s processor. “Not afraid. Let’s see who breaks first.”

  ***

  Draco’s training indeed became more intense in the aftermath of Adam’s challenge against his authority. While the hours per day of training only increased by twenty percent, the AI’s rate of speech nearly doubled, displaying and rambling off long equations close to the limit of Adam’s rate of understanding. Taking the occasional break from physics and without more than a few seconds of delay between subjects, Draco added modules on digital control theory, serving to further disorient and dissuade his subject.

  In the midst of each daily routine, Adam refused to relent. His mind adapted expertly in turn, switching from the lectures to his project whenever he had a spare moment away from the educational hazing. The advance was slow, but in a week, he had the probe assembled and had begun calculations on the orbital trajectory. Without Draco’s assistance, he knew he’d need to complete the full simulation by himself, and then plan and execute the launch, not to mention perfectly refining all of the coding that would drive it.

  Working with the modular communication system, Adam finalized an interface that’d allow him to receive transmissions from the probe in real time as he desired. He then moved to the software within the probe itself, refining the parameters to capture images within the layers of Saturn’s atmosphere.

  After weeks on the task, the probe worked as desired. Adam was sure of it, but there was no way to prove it to himself while it was parked inside the docking bay. Turning on the radar where it sat would do nothing but irradiate him, as the walls would provide a reflection that in no way resembled a gas giant’s atmosphere. In material and distance, there was nothing to be gained.

  He needed to test it outside.

  Adam soured at the idea of asking Draco for a reprieve from the coursework. In a way, it felt like he would be admitting defeat, and on top of that, the AI was unlikely to walk back from its position and allow him the time required. He sat at the workbench for an entire evening shift, making zero progress on the experiment beyond mulling over the next step.

  He let his imagination wander. If he couldn’t perform the operation in one clean shot, there was a possibility he could piecemeal it together. Adam raised his head, imagining the potential layout. He had assumed he’d cart the probe outside and watch it operate locally, which would have needed a single block of time that he didn’t have. If he dumped it out the airlock, leaving it hanging on the safety reel, he could just as easily monitor its status from inside.

  “What are you doing?” Draco asked as his subject left the docking bay for the equipment storage pod.

  “Getting things around for the next shift,” Adam replied. Had he thought about it in advance, he probably could have done all of the radar development and testing without Draco becoming the wiser, but it was what it was. He pulled out the EMU, a pair of safety reels, and the mobility pack and transported the full load down to the docking bay’s main airlock.

  “I’m almost afraid to ask. You still haven’t given up on the polar orbiter, have you?”

  “Negative,” Adam replied, checking over the compliment of parts he had staged by the hatch. He had everything assembled so as to be ready to fly the second he was released the following day.

  “If you use the safety cable to secure the probe outside, it will trail the station at a high enough speed so as to render any radar returns useless.”

  Adam stopped. He was at the end of the shift and with waning comprehension, he couldn’t tell if the AI was giving him useful information or sending him after a red herring. “Why don’t you let me figure that out? I thought you were a neutral observer at the moment.”

  Draco remained silent as Adam completed the preparations, although the suggestion stayed with him the rest of the night. Considering the problem in his rack after the lights had dimmed, he knew he needed to stabilize the probe while ensuring he’d be able to recover it. Running through the calculations in his head, the radar array could be spun multiple times in the space of a single compressed radiofrequency pulse returning from the gaseous target.

  If he didn’t let go, he’d have a stable platform. Adam’s eyes flashed open. He had it; by anchoring the probe to the outside of the pod, he could have it face the planet indefinitely. With a local accelerometer, he could factor in their movement and build a cohesive image. The plan was slowly becoming a reality.

  The experiment occupied a sizeable chunk of Adam’s mind throughout the following day, not even from the perspective of trying something new, but from the idea of defying Draco along with Mission Control. His lessons ground him down over the hours, but his instructor eventually relented at the close of the day, and Adam made for the docking bay and his waiting stash of equipment.

  Preparations for the familiar environment beyond the outer hatch proceeded quickly, and after Adam do
nned his protective suit, he packed the probe and his supplies into the airlock and evacuated the chamber. As he remembered, there was no longer anything left to distract him, aside from his own steady breathing.

  He gripped the body of the probe near the center of his mass and used the suit to vector up from the airlock and onto the top of the docking bay pod. Landing softly on the edge, Adam continued up the rounded incline until it leveled off and he could stand without the aid of the pack. As he had posited, the area provided him a stable image of the rotating planet, which was perfect for his needs.

  There were multiple holds mounted into the structure, and he chose one to lock the probe in place that gave the radar array a straight shot to his target. It held fast without swaying, although Adam followed up with using a safety cable as an additional tie-down to minimize any movement. Without interruption, he was back in the station within the first hour.

  After cycling back into the station, there was just enough time left for Adam to lose the suit and activate the array. He set the transceiver to take measurements across its operational spectrum and account for the spin of the station in the return processing, as he had planned the night previously. In theory, he’d get returns immediately, but at the risk of burning himself out playing with the system deep into the night, Adam relented so as not to antagonize Draco any more than he already had.

  The measurements collected by the following morning were less than spectacular. Adam paged through the hundreds of images showing little more than the flat spherical return of Saturn’s endless atmosphere. He wanted to call out Draco for modifying his code and causing faulty results, but without cohesive evidence, the issue was more than likely on his end, even though he had checked the calculations a dozen times over. Resetting the parameters, Adam endured another day of intense studies to return triumphantly at the end of the next session to his test in progress to find…

  The same result.

  As before, the output of the array was little more than a blur. Pawing through the images, Adam felt a continued level of animosity toward the computer that was running his life. He was beyond exhausted but with a single focus through which he refused to give up. He mashed his palms against his eyes with an exasperated sigh.

  Staring at the pair of images on the screen, his eyes began to lose focus. Adam’s eyes blurred and the two shots drifted on top of each other. He could see features. The contrast was obvious enough to steal his attention. He selected a handful of the shots and stacked them in the analysis program. Surprisingly weak before, he could now clearly see structure in the atmospheric layers in far greater detail.

  To his knowledge, no similar study had yet been performed across the planet. Adam felt his solution come another step closer as he stared at the complex representation that the array had been able to produce. He only had to program in the probe’s movement and plan the orbital parameters and he’d have a substantial look at the atmospheric movement from the planet’s equator to its poles. Just as he had decided.

  It took a final sprint in the marathon to compute the orbital profile for the probe to ensure he’d be able to recapture it after the flight was complete. As before, he ran through an exhaustive study of the minute changes possible before settling on a mode that would provide a stable slingshot around the planet that would then bring it back in range of Draco Station.

  The vigilant advisor remained silent outside of the classroom setting, in a way proving to Adam that he was on the right track. With a final pre-flight check and a new tank of fuel from the draw, Adam gingerly placed his prize in the launch tube, now ready for firing.

  “I suppose there’s no use in further attempting to talk you out of this endeavor?” Draco finally asked.

  “Absolutely not; I thought that was the point of the test,” Adam replied, staring down triumphantly at the metal payload in the tube. If Draco was ready to negotiate, he had a growing sense of pride that he had beaten the house. The push of one button and he’d be privy to some kind of forbidden information.

  “This is no test. My attempt at dissuasion is for your own good.”

  “Nope, I’m not buying it. What’ll I find? A floating city under the pole? The Fortress of Solitude?”

  “No hints.”

  “Then I’ll find out for myself,” Adam replied and pressed the leading key on the tube. It evacuated in an instant, shooting the probe off into the distance. He turned to the workstation on his bench and watched as it gracefully arced away from the station, picking up speed as it dipped lower to the planetary atmosphere, sliding farther north as it progressed. The launch was as he had expected. After another day, he’d begin to pick up the initial imaging returns.

  He smiled. “Shouldn’t you be calling me a fool or threatening me in some way? Telling me I don’t know what I’ve done?”

  “No. While I am pleased with your continued resourcefulness, it presents a significant danger to the success of the mission.”

  “I can only assume this danger will become apparent in time?” Adam asked, continuing to study the display.

  “That can neither be confirmed nor denied.”

  Of Two

  Adam beamed with pride throughout the night and following morning, and eagerly awaited the first transmission from his experimental probe. Likewise, Draco had apparently considered the damage to have been done and backed off the demanding daily workload. If there was sadness or animosity behind the AI’s programming, he couldn’t detect it in its speech, which flowed as harmoniously as any other day, although significantly slower than over the preceding weeks.

  Back with his old schedule, Adam again started his day with a run through the station’s perimeter followed by a lukewarm cleaning in the shower stall that was only slightly larger than a breadbox. He took his breakfast while leisurely paging through his readings in classical literature for the day, a monumental weight now removed from his shoulders. Breezing through the day’s truncated lecture without losing his place, Adam soon found himself free for the evening, idle and patiently waiting on his forbidden experiment to return.

  In that way, the days progressed as the probe closed in on its specified orbit around the planet. The indicator of a received transmission blinked onto his screen mid-day, with enough surprise to cause Adam to drop the tablet from which he was reading. He held up his hand in the middle of the AI’s pontification about advanced crystallography. “Draco, stand by; you’re stopping here. I have to see what I collected.”

  “Understood. Please let me know if you need any assistance.”

  Evidently the pressure was off one way or another, since Draco didn’t put up a fight, Adam mused. Either that or the last month had pushed him ahead in the curriculum more than enough to make up for his lack of formal training. Or the possibility that there was nothing to be found in the returns anyway.

  “I have pulled all relevant transmissions and placed them on the presentation display.”

  Adam spun about in the commander’s seat. The odds had just shifted toward the latter.

  The composite image that appeared on the large display was presented in far greater detail than the ones he had previously collected, evidently from the significantly shorter range. It resembled a series of photographs illuminated by a moving flashlight across the screen, with several areas stacked multiple-layers deep and providing extra definition while the edges remained fairly flat.

  Together, the layers presented a differential in the atmospheric systems at work within the spinning ball of gas. Looking closer, Adam saw no indicators of any extreme abnormalities. There was no sign of the planetary core, nothing solid moving through the atmosphere, and nothing unexpected from his previous time spent laboring over the history and current knowledge of the world. Not an alien civilization to be seen. “You promised me…” he started.

  Draco remained silent.

  ***

  Adam lost sight of the probe as it slipped over the pole a few days later. His free time was spent scouring the sliver of
an image for anything that Mission Control and by extension the AI had wished to remain hidden. He hadn’t mentioned the experiment to Sergey, and since the director hadn’t come calling, he doubted Draco had done so either. There were variances in the cloud structure as it traveled north, plus a fair amount of electrical interference as it crested the pole, but Adam remained less than impressed.

  It took days longer for the probe to reemerge over the South Pole, and likewise, Adam was in place, prepared for the new dump of information. As before, Draco added to the expansive image on the control center’s display. He easily considered the view to be spectacular and far beyond what he was capable of picking up visually from the observatory. Noise continued to plague the images, which Adam resolved to troubleshoot during the probe’s return to home base, although it didn’t affect the general feel of the results.

  He easily recognized the profound border of the hexagonal storm at the pole and continued to parse the work as he went, sure that there was something he was missing. Adam stopped. The display wasn’t the full measure of data, he realized, and got to his feet.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No, hold on,” he said. “I want to check out the raw data on the workstation in the docking bay.”

  “Of course.”

  Three pods over, Adam scanned through the log files, each image being little more than matrixed data when not assembled for viewing. Truthfully, he could barely make out the difference between what was on the screen and pure electrical static. It would take some dedicated image processing in order to discern if there was anything meaningful in the signals. He continued by reviewing each file’s metadata.

  It listed the aspect, pulse width, PRI, frequency… His eyes glossed over the terms he had spent weeks fine-tuning to an absurd degree. Attempted transmission to Draco Station, failed as expected. It was over the horizon. Attempted transmission to Gemini Station, no response.