First Interstellar

by D. W. Patterson

  But he was not aware of someone who was working just as hard as he was, not to make the test a success, but to make it a failure.

  Alex Poro knew the history of the Ems well. But he did not know the history of Em hacking as well as Kenyon Chavis.

  Chavis had called in a lot of favors to find Poro. Then he had made a very tentative approach to the IT Director of Starway Corporation. Even when he had been assured by his informants that Poro was his man Chavis went slowly. He had invested too much time and effort to get caught.

  But Poro had responded and even seemed to open up to the idea of having a collaborator. Chavis through his anonymous persona was leading Poro into the next bit of sabotage.

  The message from Chavis was marked Confidential, Eyes Only. This meant that Poro would have to read the message personally as his Annie would refuse to read such a marked message.

  ANON2 (Poro's designation). Here is the information you need to compromise the Ems. They should be trained on these scenarios AFTER they have finished their flight training. In this way, any flight training that may be antithetical to this information will be overridden. Suggest you run them through these scenarios no more than one day before mission. If you can do this there is a ninety-five percent probability that the mission will be greatly compromised. This scenario data will automatically degenerate as this message will now. Good luck.

  Before Poro could close his Annie the message disappeared, leaving only the training data that he needed to sabotage Starway Two and force Jackson to forget about completing the Starway. He felt elated to finally be striking back against the thing that had brought so much sadness to his youth.

  8

  The day of the next test mission had arrived. Since the primary ship wasn't ready a corporate ship would be used.

  The test also had to use substitute sails since the main sails were not ready. With the substitute sails and vehicle, the mass of the mission was a total of almost five-hundred tons. The mission profile had also been changed by Ajax's experience with Starway One. Before the forward sail was jettisoned the aft sail would be fully deployed. This would guarantee a fully deployed deceleration sail and secure tether before continuing the mission.

  “I'm sure of it,” said Strombecker. He, Ajax and Horace were in the command center of the Starway Two mission. Lindsey was again managing Capcom. A handful of Starway Corporation employees along with a few Em-enabled robots were also in the room. A video screen filled one wall. The huge screen seemed an opening to deep space. Some felt a sense of vertigo, of falling into the screen. A few people couldn't remain in the room but had to leave before the symptoms would pass.

  But Ajax was always thrilled with the view. And now the screen showed the fully deployed light sail. Its thirty-kilometer diameter filling the screen. At this angle, the reflective weave of the sunward side was a splash of concentric colors.

  A rainbow, thought Ajax.

  The countdown continued.

  “Well it doesn't matter,” said Horace Mann. “We'll find out before long.”

  “The Ems will do just fine,” said Alex Poro from the corner of the room.

  Ajax turned to him and said, “How can you be sure?”

  “I reviewed Arn's report on the simulation runs. His Ems are better prepared than any human pilots have ever been. They can think and react thousands of times faster than human pilots. And they have no fears or neuroses, I can't imagine anything they can't handle, therefore the test will be a success.

  “That's a good analysis Alex. For the Corporation's sake I hope it is right.”

  The countdown was winding down; three, two, one, beam ignition. The laser light from thousands of free-electron lasers was coherently directed towards the light sail. Terawatts of power in the form of uncountable photons would soon begin impinging on the sail material. The momentum the photons carried would be transferred to the sail and the sail and fusion ship, together making up the starship Starway Two, would begin to move.

  The giant lasers and their solar cell collectors kept station, meaning they did not orbit the sun, with a combination of ion rockets and light pressure. The beam lasers themselves were being constantly drawn toward the sun, an attraction that had to be counterbalanced with the continuously running ion motors. But the seven huge, at a radius of five-hundred thirty-four kilometers, solar collectors used a combination of light pressure and gravitational attraction to maintain station.

  The photonic momentum pushed the solar collectors away from the sun while the sun's own gravitational attraction pulled them back toward Sol. A light carbon composite framework allowed supplemental corrective thrust to be provided by sun-powered ion motors when needed. The entire station keeping system required more than one Em to keep it stable.

  Now a second countdown began. The time it would take light to travel from the beam lasers stationed halfway between the Earth and the Sun to the light sail.

  “Everyone don your protective glasses,” said Mann. “Even though the viewer will compensate almost immediately the flash of light will be blinding, much brighter than the sun because of the proximity.”

  Three, two, one and then, even through the dark of the protective glasses the beam was intense. Some in the room automatically raised their hands to shield their eyes even though there was no need. Then as the viewer compensated everyone removed their glasses.

  Someone yelled, “It's moving!”

  The wall screen was programmed not to follow the accelerating light sail immediately so as to provide a sense of motion for the people viewing. It quickly became obvious to everyone that the huge light sail, the starship, was in motion. A cheer and applause erupted from the assembled.

  A day and a half later the starship was crossing the orbit of Mars at a speed of almost three million miles per hour. It was time to decelerate. At first, the telemetry coming in showed full deployment of the aft sail and the shedding of velocity. Then it stopped and acceleration began again.

  “Capcom,” said Ajax. “Can you get us a status from Starway Two.”

  “Roger,” said Lindsey Jackson.

  “Starway Two this is base. Please report your status.”

  Now they would wait for four and a half minutes because of the distance.

  “Base this is Starway Two, ship is accelerating. Deployment of aft sail successful but was lost after tether failure. Over.”

  “Beam Control,” said Ajax, “kill the beam.”

  “Roger.”

  “Wait,” said Horace Mann. “Keep the beam on. Ajax I need to talk with you.”

  Ajax followed Mann out into the hall.

  “Ajax,” said Horace. “We need that ship and sail back here to help with the outfitting of the Starway Centauri by the end of the week or the whole mission will be pushed back. And if we stop now we will have to request the help of a Terran cruiser. That's added expense, expense that we can't afford without additional investment. We need to get that ship back here on time with minimum expenditure.”

  “What are you suggesting Horace?”

  “At full acceleration the Starway Two could be in the vicinity of the Asteroid Belt in another day and a half. There is a Solar Federation cruiser in the area that can intercept, decelerate the ship and bring it back. We won't lose any time. And the Solar Federation has already indicated a willingness to help us in whatever way possible, without cost.”

  “Okay, but one thing Horace.”

  “Yes?”

  “Keeping the schedule depends on why the mission failed, doesn't it?”

  Horace shrugged and shook his head yes.

  9

  “The tether didn't break of its own accord,” said Horace Mann standing there with a length of the tether in his hand.

  “How can you be sure of that?” said Strombecker.

  “Look at these tattered ends. Single-walled carbon nanotubes simply do not tear in this way. All the breaks in this material spiral from this point downward,” said Mann pointing to the tether. “Except below this
point where the breaks become more disorderly, more ragged.”

  “And you think that this shows that the tether was deliberately compromised?”

  “Yes, the tether was deliberately compromised. Enough of the strands were cut by a laser so that the tether could no longer support the strain. After that it did break as these more ragged strands indicate.”

  “Are you going to tell Ajax, I'm not sure he will take it very well.”

  “Yeah, I'll tell him,” said Horace.

  “How could this happen with the Ems in charge?” asked Ajax.

  “It couldn't,” said Lindsey. “It couldn't happen with the Ems in charge, without the Em's knowledge that is. They would have known at all times where every hull bot was and what it was doing.”

  “Oh great,” said Ajax. “Now you are telling me that we can't even depend on the Ems. How in the world do you sabotage an Em?”

  “You train them. Just like Arn trained them for the mission. Train them to ignore the hull bots, it becomes just another mission parameter.”

  “That may be true Lindsey,” said Horace. “But someone had to train them, someone that had access to them.”

  “Our saboteur is still active then,” said Ajax. “He seems to have as much freedom of movement throughout the project as I do. Why haven't we been able to discover this person Horace?”

  “I'm afraid Ajax that we aren't equipped to take on the duties of an investigative agency. We have however begun to increase our security personnel. But it takes time.”

  “So that's that. We can't trust anyone. Not even the Ems. Horace would the mission have been a success if not for the deliberate sabotage?”

  “Ajax the telemetry we received before the tether was cut shows the deceleration expected. I have ever reason to believe that it would have been a success.”

  “Then I will have to fly the Centauri mission to monitor the Ems. At this point we can't trust anyone else.”

  “And I will fly with you Ajax,” said Lindsey.

  The lens system at Beam Relay Station One was huge. The lenses themselves were six-hundred meters across. Six lenses arranged in a hexagonal pattern of carbon composite girders. From the front, the entire assembly looked like the bullet chamber of a giant ancient six-shooter pistol two thousand meters across. The assembly was monitored and maintained by Ems and human employees from the settlement located next to the station. At least two beams were active at all times so as not to create a turning force on the structure as one beam might.

  The assembly was maintained at station by attitude rockets. These were either ion or chemical with reaction fuel obtained by contract from the settlement. A fusion ship was usually located close by for provisioning, trading, and the support of nearby relay stations or for emergencies.

  “Are we ready?” said beam relay station engineer Kelly.

  “I believe so,” said his second in command.

  “Okay,” said Kelly. “Engage rockets.”

  Built in a manner similar to the light sails, the lenses, being much smaller, weighed about a ton apiece. The total weight of a beam relay station was about ten tons. So it didn't take much thrust to move. But the thrust had to be applied carefully and evenly or a turning force would result across the structure and cause a spin.

  Near the beam relay station was the power plant. The power plant took the excess heat of the beam lasers that was absorbed by the lenses and turned it into power. This plant was one of the smaller ones along the Starway providing enough power for several thousand people and their industrial base. Power was microwaved across the intervening space to the settlement.

  The settlement at beam relay station one, called Near Star, was also relatively small housing only a few thousand people. It was one of the very common wheel-cylinder-wheel arrangement types. The wheels at each end were two-thousand feet in diameter and one-hundred feet wide. There were four floors on each wheel in a concentric stack. The resulting floor area was over five million square feet. The inner floors were living space, the outer floors were manufacturing. Spinning at just over one and a half revolutions a minute provided a centrifugal force and resulting artificial gravity of eight-tenths that of Earth. Protection from radiation was provided by several feet of the Em engineered radiation blocking gel substance placed in all walls, floors and ceilings.

  The central cylinder between the two wheels was some three-hundred feet in diameter and one-thousand feet in length. It had slits covered with a hard plastic impregnated with Em gel running the length of the cylinder that allowed light in for growing plants. It provided a mere one-million square feet, half for food production, half for storage. It also spun at the same rate as the wheels but because of the smaller diameter only provided an artificial gravity similar to Earth's moon. The cylinder's outer walls were also lined with the same gel-like material as the wheels and slits to provide radiation protection.

  The interior scaffolding of the cylindrical section held plants in trays and the aeroponic watering apparatus.

  The wheels themselves were honeycombed with rooms. Private apartments, workrooms, storage areas and larger workout and assembly areas. Only in the middle at the rotational axis could one move between wheels and the cylinder. The habitat was very utilitarian, practical and relatively cheap.

  “There it goes,” said Councilman Ogden of the settlement Near Star.

  At seventy AU the settlement and beam relay station were well into the Kuiper Belt and would be moving farther into that vast space.

  “Okay,” said Council Head Jurgensen. “Where they go we go.”

  Just then the fusion ship at the sunward end of the cylindrical settlement began pushing. They would have to maintain just the right amount of velocity to keep up with the beam relay station and keep the power on. It was a very finely orchestrated dance.

  “Sir,” said Winston. “I have reports from the nearby beam relay stations, they are on the move.”

  “Good,” said Ajax.

  “How long will it take them to be in their new position?” asked Lindsey.

  “It depends Miss,” said Winston. “For the nearby ones with settlements, a matter of months. For those farther along the Starway it could take years.”

  “That's right,” said Ajax. “It will take almost a year and a half for BRS fifteen-hundred to even receive the message. And he will have to travel the farthest when he starts.”

  “So BRS one has to move thirty AU or one times thirty, BRS two has to move thirty AU plus the thirty AU that BRS one moved to maintain a spacing of a hundred AU or two times thirty,” said Lindsey.

  “Then BRS fifteen-hundred has to move fifteen-hundred times thirty or forty-five thousand AU. That's astounding.”

  “Doesn't matter though,” said Ajax. “The focus will be adjusted to keep the beams centered on any starship sailing along the Starway. And the pilot laser from the starship will inform the beam station of how well they are doing. So the whole system is self-adjusting. Quite ingenious, don't you think.”

  “I do think so sir,” said Winston.

  10

  It had been a few weeks since the Solar Federation ship had rendezvoused with the Starway Two and brought the ship back to Starway Corporation's base.

  Horace Mann had been busy.

  “I've called you all here to propose a mission modification that I think will add greatly to the possibility of success of Starway Centauri and our ultimate goal to complete the Starway.

  “Ajax I know that you for one do not want any Artificial General Intelligence's involved in this project. So that is a given. But what I want to propose now will be a sort of replacement. I still believe that we need to use some type of advanced intelligence on this mission.

  “So, I have contacted some of those living in the meta-verse on Earth. As you know that is the Aggie maintained virtual reality that many people have chosen to live in especially at the end of their lives. The imprint of the brain of each individual is taken, similar to the way an imprint is obtained for an Em
but in this case, there are no budded off-springs and the person usually remains an individual in the meta-verse just as he had been in the real world, albeit with a great deal more capabilities. Anyway, my contacts expressed an interest in participating in this mission and I believe that they could provide the advanced processing power we may need at any time on the journey to the Centauri System.

  “They may be considered volunteers, costing us nothing except the computing resources they require. I open the floor to comments.”

  “Horace, why do you think it so imperative that we have this capability on the mission?”

  “Because Ajax we will be flying into the unknown with only our onboard resources to help us if we run into trouble.”

  “What makes them different than AI?” asked Lindsey.

  “These people that I contacted lived long lives in the real world on Earth or Mars. They only moved into the meta-verse when those lives were ending. They have human responses, human curiosity, human emotions. I think they will fit in with the crew as well as Winston here. But provide computing capabilities that Winston could only dream of. No offense Winston.”

  “None taken sir.”

  “So these will be the mission commanders that you feel are needed to supervise the Em pilots. Is that right Horace?”

  “Precisely Arn. And I have contacted three of them that show an interest. They will function pretty much as Aggies would have on this mission. Three will provide a voting mechanism to make sure we get a correct and unbiased solution to any problem we present them.”

  “I don't like it,” said Alex Poro. “The computing resources required to maintain them will be prohibitive.”

  “Why is that?” asked Ajax.

  “Because sir we will not only have to maintain the cognitive resources they require but also the embedded virtual reality they are familiar with, the VR structures they require. Unlike the Em's that don't require an internal world but only external stimuli, we will need to create a mini meta-verse for these three people to occupy. That would be a large demand on our resources.”