Analog SFF, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You're kind of drooping a bit. Could you use a hug?"

  He stepped forward and opened his arms. Without really thinking, she did the same and met him halfway.

  The door swung shut behind her on its own—only the appearances of Hadley's Hotel were early twentieth century.

  * * * *

  Chapter 3

  New Antarctica, 23 October 2273

  Over the following year, a few brave pioneers had moved to the equatorial islands as spectacular icebergs fell into the newly open seas of New Antarctica. Hardy plankton had begun to grow there, and Wotan was predicting fish within a decade.

  Meanwhile, impactor launch preparations were coming to a head, but Hilda still had nothing other than physics and faith in her colleagues that they would prove the delay message was, indeed, fake. The camaraderie she enjoyed with her father had become strained; the elephant in the room was now a dinosaur. If either of them mentioned it, they argued.

  Meanwhile, Sasha continued to ask Hilda for dates. Her status as Wotan Kremer's daughter and chief BHP scientist in residence allowed barriers to be erected to most such distractions, but since Sasha was Naomi's son, he had access. And she gave in, more often than not.

  Thus, when Wotan asked to see her on a serious matter, she thought it was Sasha, and not the project schedule, he wished to lecture on. But no.

  "It is time to make a decision, Hildy. In my position, I cannot, absolutely cannot go against the direction from Earth and the guidance of the best scientific advice available."

  "Father, Iam the best scientific advice available."

  Wotan shook his head. “No, Hildy, you are my headstrong little girl, too stubborn, too committed, too involved. I know you.” He tried to smile kindly. “Even if maybe you are right, why are you so impatient? The project will be tried again, in fifty years, in five hundred. What does it matter, now that we live so long? I am sorry, dear, but your efforts to get people to try to make me change my mind have not had much effect. I am saying no."

  How did he know? Not that she'd made any great secret of her visit to Lobov, or the university chancellor or the local news outlet people; but she hadn't done that publicly and AIs weren't supposed to spy on personal communications. Then she thought about the quiet student in Lobov's office and the mysterious warning she'd gotten on the way. The conclusion that led to chilled her.

  "Father, are you having me followed?"

  He smiled. “The security service, such as it is, has someone keep an eye on you, yes. It is precautionary only, for your own protection. This they do for me, and the other council members and their families, too, so it is nothing to be worried about."

  Oh, chaos! Security was in the hands of a Consolidationist! Hilda couldn't find words. Everything fit together now in the wrong way. She gritted her teeth. Tse Wen, Brad, and Sarah were counting on her to make this impactor launch happen. A knot grew in her stomach. Come on, girl, she told herself, you're supposed to be a genius. There has to be a way out. Oh, where was the way out of this? She thought about timelines, construction rates, terminal guidance, ways to cheat, crazy stuff that she didn't have time to analyze. Time. Then it hit her.

  "Father. Look, we can have it both ways. I can have a second impactor built, and we can launch the first one at the old time and the second one at the new time, and divert or hold the second one when confirmation of the original schedule comes in."

  He shook his head. “Which it will not. Then we'll have this whole conversation over again!"

  "I can live with that.” But could she? It cut through her like a knife.

  Wotan laughed. “You are like the condemned prisoner who put off his execution by promising to teach the king's horse to talk. I will not die. You will not die. And I doubt very much this horse will learn to talk.” He scrunched his face in thought. “This idea of yours will give you, what, thirty days, before we would need to divert the first impactor? No, I think that would be too late. We will make that twenty days—before we step up to peak power. You have twenty days to prove beyond any doubt that the day after tomorrow is the correct impactor launch date, or you will shut down the impactor propulsion."

  "But the other impactors..."

  "Brunhilda Beatrice Kremer, I am enough of an engineer to know that in the very unlikely event you are right, they will have made provision to divert the other impactors as soon as they see ours isn't there. Twenty days. This is what we plan, this is what we will do."

  "New Antarctica days,” Hilda said. That would make it just over a terrestrial month. She smiled inwardly at her small victory. Sarah had sent personal messages all along, and her last message had arrived in the final stages of impactor launch preparation. The next one should arrive just before the final power ramp-up.

  Wotan shook his head with a laugh. “Ja, New Antarctica days."

  * * * *

  Hilda found Sasha waiting for her with drinks when she returned to Hadley's. She suspected that, over the months, he'd even started to anticipate her moods. That usually pleased her, but tonight she once again felt drained, betrayed, hopeless, and yes, even a bit desperate.

  He handed her a glass of dark red liquid with a twinkle in his eye. “They just started distributing this new vintage from our grape vines. I got us a bottle!"

  "Thanks,” she said. “Sasha, I..."

  His lips covered hers, stopping her from saying she wasn't in the mood. With a sigh, she kissed him back perfunctorily. Then she drained her glass.

  He filled it again. “Something wrong? Want to talk?"

  She took another drink and shook her head. “Later.” The stress seemed to become a little less unbearable. Sasha's young hands were all over her, she noted almost abstractly. The initial buzz of the wine was warming her, and she made no effort to dissuade him.

  The petting felt good, maybe just what she needed. Getting in the mood, she pulled on his waistband and guided him to her bed. But, as their clothes found their way to the floor, she glanced at the camera pickups in the room and tensed up. Of course, the system had eyes everywhere. There were very good, unbreachable safeguards built into the artificial intelligences that ran the system and normally, nobody thought of them. But her father, she knew all too well, often considered himself above the limits imposed on ordinary people. She imagined the safeguards breached and Dad, his agents, and all their friends watching.

  "Hilda?” Sasha asked. “What's wrong?"

  She looked at him. Still maybe three or four years from full maturity, he was beautiful as well as handsome. Maybe because of the wine, or pheromones, or just reaching some limit on how much she was willing to fear, she felt her attitude change. To hell with them. She gave in to desire.

  "Ouch!"

  "Oh, sorry!” Hilda pulled her fingernails out of Sasha's skin, stroked him soothingly—she hoped—and laid her head on his shoulder. “Too much happening today; I'm somewhat mixed up inside."

  "Well, I'm not."

  She laughed and went along for the ride.

  Afterward, she let her head relax into the softness of his neck. Sanity faded back in and with it all the worries, all the things that had to be done. How much could she ask of Sasha?

  "I'm using you,” she said, staring him in the eye. “And I know that's what I'm doing."

  Sasha grinned, his wide glistening eyes bored into hers, and he squeezed her hands. “If this is being used, use me! Whenever you want me, Hilda. Go ahead. It's okay."

  "I hope you don't hold it against me later."

  He shook his head and chuckled softly. “Actually I was hoping someday we could share space or something. Maybe a trial contract? Maybe..."

  She put a finger on his lips and shook her head. “Maybe, someday, when I'm not three times your age, and you know a little better who you are."

  He sighed and looked pleadingly at her. “Whenever you want me. Whenever."

  She bit her lip. There was using and then there was really using. But she was in a bind.

  "Do you like Bach?”
She reached over the bed for her bag and pulled out a music wand.

  "Oh. Classical music?"

  She nodded and a fugue filled the room. Then she nuzzled her head into the pillow beneath his. They'd have to have sensors in the pillow, or on their faces, to pick up what she'd say now. Not impossible, but maybe more than they'd bothered to do. She hoped.

  "Can I really trust you?” she whispered in his ear. “Completely?"

  "Sure,” he said. “What is it?"

  "Do you believe me when I say that the impactor has to be launched on time, that the delay message was bogus, and that the entire project depends on that impactor getting pushed to the impact point at the right time with the right velocity vector?"

  "Uh, sure, Dr. Kremer."

  She laughed softly. So in his mind, the Dr. Kremer that ran the BHP was not the same person as the naked woman beside him. Like an ancient Greek goddess, her various aspects must be given separate names.

  "We may have to defy local authority to do it. There will probably be consequences."

  "For you, anything!"

  "You know how pushing the impactor works—by shooting a torrent of tiny pellets at the reflector fields? Like pushing a paper cup with a water hose?"

  "Yeah, that's pretty basic."

  "Right. Well, the launch time and velocities of the pellets are arranged so that they arrive in a steady beam to provide constant thrust. The last pellets to arrive at the impactor have the longest distance to go, and they need a head start. Power requirements almost triple at that point. Anyway, Wotan is giving me until then to find evidence that the delay message is wrong."

  "That's ... uh, only twenty days from now!"

  "Yes. The problem is that the only jury Dad will believe is loaded against me: Dr. Lobov and his students. I'm reduced to hoping for some message from Sol to come in that explicitly mentions the schedule, which no message is likely to do because the schedule has been fixed for years! I need you to help me keep it going anyway."

  "Let me get this straight. When..."

  "Quietly. I want you to help me do that."

  "I could end up frozen,” he whispered.

  She hugged his body closer to hers. “They wouldn't execute you..."

  Sasha laughed. “No, no, that's ‘ennay’ talk for being put on ice—uh, they take you off the net and confine you to quarters. That's the worst, unless, of course, you want to be terminated. That's only been done once—a girl had a baby by someone that dumped her, so she dumped the baby. Outside. When her ice got clear, she didn't want to live with that memory. So instead of being frozen, she asked to be allowed to die. She took some pills. Anyway, getting frozen is still pretty bad.” He looked at her directly. “But I said anything. What is it you'd want me to do?"

  Hilda kissed him softly and whispered, “Ask your mother if she can find a way to prevent the AI controlling the beam driver arrays from following Wotan's orders for a couple of days."

  "Sure, but why me?"

  Hilda put a finger to his lips. “I have a feeling everything I say to Naomi is very closely monitored.” She told him about the incident on the way to her conference with Wotan. “So this may be my last chance to communicate honestly, and I'm taking a chance on that. You need to tell her that everything I say to her from now on, I will say with the expectation that our Consolidationist friends, Wotan's security people, or both are listening in."

  All languidness had fled. Sasha was wide-eyed. He looked around the room, as if searching for bugs. “Do you think that they, ah, are watching us?” he whispered.

  Hilda laughed. “I don't know.” To the room, she said, “Are you?” and watched Sasha's expression. “Just kidding,” she added, wishing she meant it.

  Sasha kissed her cheek. “What do you think Mom can do?” he whispered.

  Hilda thought hard. On one hand, the less Sasha knew, the less trouble he would be in. On the other, it was likely her last best chance to communicate freely to Naomi. “Okay. An AI is supposed to obey authority as long as it doesn't get anyone hurt. When authorities conflict, it obeys the higher one. I'd argue that since the BHP is a project of all humanity, and I am its representative, I outrank Wotan as far as the BHP is concerned. That's the case she needs to make. I've already filed all my physics objections."

  "Aren't the AIs smart enough to choose because of that?"

  "Not where human orders are concerned. What I'm counting on is that first, the fact that I'm right means people might be harmed if it doesn't go as planned. That appeals to the first law of AI ethics. Second, I have a case to be in charge, and that should work for the second law."

  "Sounds like a lock to me."

  Hilda shook her head. “If I can think of it, Father will think of it and so will other people who will come up with a way to counter it. Naomi or Ted might come up with something better. Sasha, I'm a physicist. I want to see if all the little strings sing the way we tell them to. This cloak and dagger stuff leaves me with a pain in my gut. I wish Sarah were here."

  "Sarah?"

  "Dr. Sarah Levine. She's a lot more, well, enthusiastic than I am. She'd be having fun with this.” And, Sasha, too. Hilda thought. Oh, would Sarah have fun with this young man.

  Said young man put his lips on hers. She melted into him, then found herself sobbing uncontrollably.

  * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Hadley's Hotel, New Antarctica,

  14 Nov 2273

  Hilda watched the impactor launch from Hadley's, alone. It was less dramatic than the launch of a starship. The program brought up the pellet wind slowly, to avoid exciting any vibrational modes in the long thin structure. It took an hour for the violet reflection plume to grow bright enough for the cameras to see.

  Okay, we're off, Hilda sent to the operations crew at the control center. It was all deliberately low key, given Wotan's reluctance and the political problems that made for anyone associated with the project.

  Naomi sent back a feed full of cheers, totally innocent. Except that Sasha gave Hilda a big wink. Hilda smiled, poured herself a brandy, and went to sleep.

  * * * *

  A month later, Ted Abila looked at the highly magnified and enhanced view of the departing impactor relayed from a big interferometer telescope in the orbit of the giant planet Amundsen. The pellet streams of a hundred-thousand-plus beam projectors converged in a very narrow, ghostly cone on the head of the impactor, visible only by the red lights strung out along its length. At the tip of the cone an intense glowing ring sparkled with the detonations of millions of particles each second and gave rise to a diaphanous rose of varicolored light, an ever-shifting aurora of recombining ions that trailed back along the length of the impactor. Delicate as it looked, the ethereal flower represented a wind of billions of newtons pushing on the immaterial magnetic sails of their baby. The long iron rod had absorbed an unbelievable amount of energy from the solar arrays circling Erebus, almost as much energy by now as its entire rest mass. Possibly all for naught.

  The beauty of it made Ted sigh. Already two light days distant, its velocity was up to eight tenths of light speed with three days to go. There still had been no confirmation of the launch dates, new or old, however, and Wotan was still adamant about turning the beam drivers off, as Hilda was about keeping them on. He knew that she was right; the delay message cited fringe physics that very few who knew anything took seriously. He had hoped he wouldn't be forced to act on his knowledge.

  The time had come, however, to choose between his career, his position here at New Antarctica, the trust of its leadership, and the completion of the most ambitious project begun by humanity since the terraforming of Venus started. He had made that choice and would honor it.

  He touched the net for the AI controlling the beam array. Thorin,confirm shutdown cancellation authority.

  Shutdown cancellation may be ordered by the designated representative of the Erebus council chairman, currently Wotan Kremer. It may also be ordered by this AI if needed to save human life.
Finally, Dr. Hilda Kremer, as representative of the Human Commonwealth for the Black Hole Project, may cancel shutdown if needed for the continuity of the project, if physically present at the control center and not under duress.

  Thank you, Ted answered.

  Ted stared at the beam reflection aurora for another minute, then sent a prearranged message to Sasha. They had debated whether Hilda should have come and camped out at the project control center, but had decided against that as being too risky. It might signal their intent to defy authority. The cover story—that she was coming out to tell the staff about the shutdown in person—should be plausible enough.

  But Ted had thought long and hard about the words “should” and “plausible enough.” He had decided he was not going to risk everything without a fallback position. So he also sent a message to his brother at Bee, innocuous enough, but containing the word “disestablishment."

  The next four days, he thought wryly, would be very interesting.

  * * * *

  Two days later, by simple chance, Hilda happened to be looking down from her balcony into the courtyard of Hadley's when Sasha, just back from the operations center, walked through on his way to the elevator. The staff was replacing the breakfast tables with casual rounds, creating something of an obstacle for him to weave his way through.

  They rarely met casually anymore—not a falling-out, but simply reflecting mutually incompatible schedules and the fact that Sasha had other more appropriate “projects of his own.” Nonetheless, Hilda felt a kind of parental or sisterly fondness, and she was very happy to see him. Her eyes followed him across the courtyard.

  She suspected why he had come; the truce between her and Wotan was over and the war she did not want was about to begin. The look on his face told it all. He was miserable about something.

  One of the staff turned to speak to Sasha. The face looked familiar. In a moment she had it. He was the lean, goateed “student” in the corner of Dr. Lobov's office when she had first come. As Sasha left the courtyard, the man waited a bit, then left his table. With an almost military bearing, he followed Sasha—as did two other workers. Hilda stepped back from the balcony, her mind awhirl piecing it together.