Travels of the Orphan (The Space Orphan Book 3)

by Laer Carroll

  The four elevators went "down" or inward to something inside Bastet.

  SHE focused on the something.

  It was a large cylindrical cavity.

  Large enough to contain a spaceship.

  It once had. But it had...been dissipated the way Robot transmuted matter to gas which then dispersed? Or was used up? Was this why the cat centaurs had abandoned Bastet?

  No. There were many gigatons of asteroid matter still to be used.

  A more fantastic possibility presented itself. The cats had a spaceship. Which transited to hyperspace and went...somewhere?

  HER attention was drawn to an activity which had begun while HER mind explored: the City was waking up. Then had awakened. The ghost network was suddenly clear in HER mind.

  Automatic processes were evaluating the current situation. Organic intelligences inhabited the City. Not cats, but another familiar life form. The City began reconfiguring itself to accommodate its new inhabitants.

  JANE paused the activities of her new body, the entirety of the city. SHE had done something similar when SHE had become Luna City.

  In a sense SHE sat down and worked out a plan. Then SHE stood and put it into effect.

  SHE copied selected information from the NASA database into Cat City and set the City to merging that with the contents of Cat City's memory.

  SHE examined the power generation plant and power distribution network. SHE gave orders to reconfigure the power outlets to Earthly international standards.

  She initiated fault identification and correction procedures. Cat City had a good many faults which had occurred in 9,000 years. None fatal. None unfixable. But they would take time, some of them mere hours, some weeks and months.

  One which soon came fully online was the power system itself, the first priority of the City's self-correction protocol.

  Another was air production. Tailored to the newest customers of the City, it began to fill all the vacant buildings. Heat and cooling was another system which woke to full capacity. It began to bring the City's buildings up to human levels.

  Lastly it repaired the artificial gravity systems in each of the buildings and set them to come slowly to one percent and ready for further adjustment.

  The super-intelligence which called itself JANE reflected on what SHE had done. It was very good. SHE felt an immense wave of satisfaction fill HER biological component.

  HER biological component yawned, a great jaw-breaking inhalation and exhalation.

  Jane snuggled better into her sleeping bag and let herself fall into nothingness.

  <>

  A few gentle raps on the door jamb of her room woke Jane.

  "Come in."

  She sat up in her sleeping bag. Good. The one percent gravity was in effect.

  Riku was picking his way carefully over the floor toward her. Walking was tricky in very low gravity.

  He managed it carrying a tray containing a squeeze mug of hot chocolate. He must have been up at least an hour.

  He presented it to her with a flourish.

  "Your hot choco, Your Highness."

  "Thank you, loyal and obedient servant."

  She looked around and took her first sip.

  "It looks like Cat City has woken up."

  "Aww. I was hoping to see you croggled."

  "Which is why you woke me up from perfectly good sleep? Thanks a million."

  "Hah! You can't fool me. You aren't pissed. You can't wait to jump out of bed and see whatsup."

  "Au contraire. I will now leisurely finish my hot chocolate. Many thanks. You been up long?"

  "About an hour and a half. Old habits. Me and Cassidy--" Anthony Cassidy was the scientist who was the part-time NASA food services manager for the outgoing NASA science team. "--have already fixed up a hearty breakfast for all. Now quit pretending to be blasé and get your ass out of here to see what the Hell is going on."

  "I will--" But Riku was already retreating carrying the food tray with him.

  The conference room was full of people: her crew and the two teams of NASA scientists.

  Kate approached her as she came into the room still sipping her chocolate and handed her a slate computer.

  Jane looked at it, a strange device.

  "It's one of the flat panels beside every door, Ma'am. They were all lit and displaying red text messages like this when we woke up. In English. They'd popped out a bit from their frames to make them detachable."

  WARNING. MINIMAL GRAVITY. PLEASE ADJUST TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS. PRESS HERE TO BEGIN.

  WARNING. AMBIENT TEMPERATURE IS SET TO MINIMUM COMFORTABLE. PLEASE ADJUST TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS. PRESS HERE TO BEGIN.

  FOR A MENU PRESS HERE.

  "Very good, Exec. Anyone started these adjustments?"

  "The two leads have forbidden anyone messing with them. I THINK these NASA people are too smart to disobey."

  Jane emptied her chocolate mug and handed it to Kate.

  "Dispose of this please. Thank you."

  She didn't wait for the woman's "Aye, aye, Ma'am" to walk (it was almost like skating) to the two team leaders who were sharing a slate.

  "Good morning. What have you found out so far?"

  Durand and Song turned toward Jane.

  "A lot, actually. We have each of our people bringing these Cat slates back here to read the alien's version of terms of service."

  Jane had noticed that a good quarter of the room's inhabitants were eating and studying a slate. Most of them had a second or third companion beside them reading with them while they ate. As she watched another team member came in carrying a slate. He immediately gathered a friend.

  Durand said, "I've called an all-hands meeting for 0930. You'll be here?"

  "We'll be here, yes."

  HERE was the conference room and erstwhile dining room. At 9:30 Durand went to one end of the table and Song to the other end. Durand rapped on the table top and got everyone's attention, though not quickly. She waited patiently for a last few people to pull themselves away from viewing a slate.

  The slowest scientist mumbled Sorry as he looked up at her.

  "We need to get organized to adjust to our new situation. Dr. Song and I are going to contact the other research teams and see if they're facing the same situation. We're pretty sure that's the case. What we've discovered is that the entire City is one entity so that seems likely. We also need to bring in the United Nations authorities back on Earth. We'll go through their local reps.

  "First priority is to learn the City's version of its Terms of Service Agreement."

  She named someone in her team to look into that. Song added one from hers.

  "In particular we need to know how to avoid any infractions that would lead to it cutting off its service and kicking us out or just plain killing us. Yes, Captain Kobayashi?"

  Riku dropped his hand. "May I join the team? My specialty is software and systems engineering."

  "Glad to have any help.

  "Second priority is environmental. Are we going to be able to get air and water and so on from the City? How do we transition from our own environmental systems?"

  She and Song named two names and Nicole was allowed to join that effort.

  A third group would study structural matters. What was the overall design of the city and how could humans navigate it? This especially included the power and the artificial gravity systems. Were they in good repair? Could the AG system be ramped up to Earth gravity equivalent? Klaus joined that.

  Several other teams were assigned. Kate volunteered (if Jane didn't need her) to help with liaising with the other building research groups and with the UN. Only Jane did not volunteer for any of them.

  "What part do you want to play in this, Major Kuznetsov?"

  "I will be studying the power generation system, too, but from a theoretical standpoint. Can we duplicate it? Ditto the artificial gravity system."

  "Well, if anyone can make sense of alien science it is you, Major. Have at it.

  "N
ow, let's get to it. Prepare prelim reports of your findings for 1430 hours when we get together again."

  <>

  At 2:30 everyone convened in the conference room. Durand opened the meeting to call on the TOS team. Riku stood up.

  "Mathew and Martha asked me to say a few words first, since I'm the closest we have to a systems scientist. I'll be writing a report to my bosses back at the Space Force on what we've learned so far about the overall system we've got here. It'll likely be made public.

  "The Cats seem to have acquired an open-source design for a small traveling space city with a configuration module to tailor it to cats. The ease with which the city was able to re-tailor it to humans suggests the design could also accommodate other races more similar to us. The implications are staggering. Were there humans traveling space 9,000 years ago?"

  One of the scientists raised a hand and said, "They couldn't have been identical. DNA would have evolved differently on different planets."

  "Of course. Notice what I said: 'races more similar to us.' So not Earth humans, but humanoid.

  "So what seems to have happened here is that the City has been observing us since we moved in and recognized our TYPE. They also copied our small local copy of the World Encyclopedia which evolved from Wikipedia. Putting what the City already knew about our type and from the Pedia it was able to reconfigure itself.

  "Expect a lot of rough edges. They'll get smoothed out, but we're always going to have to be careful how we communicate with the City. Our unconscious assumptions could get us into trouble.

  "Finally, the City adopted the most popular chatbot which you people use daily as an interface to your project database. Beware of its autocorrect function!"

  Riku sat down to general laughter.

  The two NASA scientists who were working on the "ToS" to the City gave a short report in the form of a little booklet with a first page of Dos and Don'ts, followed by six more pages going into them in more depth.

  "This is a draft," said Durand's NASA team member assigned to the working group. "We're going to correct it as we learn more. And try to make it clearer and more compact."

  "Unlike the usual ToS," said his partner with a smile. "Which is designed to be obscure and too massive to read."

  That got laughter from some.

  "Basically," she said, sobering. "The rules are common sense. Like don't put solid matter in the toilets."

  A man in the audience made a joke about the results of his constipation being too too solid and hoped he'd not be ejected from the City.

  The environmental report went a bit long but no one's attention lagged. Their lives were literally on the line.

  The structural group members were both physicists not engineers. They asked Klaus to give their report as space structural engineering was his specialty.

  "Thanks, guys," he said to the two men as he stood.

  "The good news is that everything is good. Amazingly so. The Cats or whoever built the city built it to last. Further I believe that the City is self-repairing. We noticed evidence of work in progress, a lot of it by small centauroid robots wielding tools as we approached. When we did they ceased working till we passed. That was spooky the first time we saw them. Then we got used to them."

  He sipped from a plastic bottle of water.

  "We were able to get into a lot of the City previously impossible to. The City reconfigured hatches last night to be opened by humans. Some hatches we weren't even able to see before.

  "It turns out that on each of the hexagonal sides of the building there are passageways to the buildings on each side. They exist at Level 2, the first of the levels below ground, at Level 16 at the middle, and Level 32 at the very bottom.

  "You enter a room through a door we couldn't see before, into what must be an airlock. The other airlock door is open. You walk a hundred feet of so to another open door. From that airlock you can then enter another building."

  He paused to look about at the very interested audience.

  "I think that each of these building is designed to be detachable, maybe in case of emergencies, and act as a spaceship. About that I'm going to turn matters over to Major Kuznetsov."

  He sat down.

  Jane stood.

  "I'm sure these buildings are intended to be lifeboats at the very least and maybe more general spaceships. Or something else. Perhaps they constructed every space city by collecting modules together to form larger or smaller cities. And inserted them into asteroids to travel as a unit."

  She didn't mention the huge empty volume underneath the buildings which might have housed a hyperspace-capable ship.

  "I was able to get into the hypothesized 'basement' under Level 32 by entering one of the four elevators. Yes, they work now. But I locked the basement so that only I can get into it until we figure out how to make entry into it safe and regulate work in it. That goes for every basement in the city."

  "That's pretty high-handed," said Durand. "What gives you the right to lock everyone out?"

  "Legally, the right the Space Force has to declare martial law in extreme cases in an emergency. Intellectually, because right now I'm the only person on or off Earth who can understand this alien technology. And morally-- Because it's my duty to take care of you all."

  Silence reigned in the big room. Then Song Ha-nui broke it.

  "Cecile, all of us in my team have had several weeks to get to know Major Kuznetsov. I have no doubt of her integrity and dedication to duty. I'm willing to wait on events before I condemn the Major. Let's wait and see. Maybe the alien tech is as dangerous as she says."

  For much of a minute Durand stared at her NASA team counterpart. Then she nodded stiffly. "Go ahead with your report Major."

  "Thank you.

  "The danger is real. It's two-fold because there are two separate technologies. Power generation for the City does not come from a central generator. Instead it comes from a generator for each building. This supports the hypothesis that each building can move and exist independently.

  "It works by 'unbending space.' That's as best as I can describe it. It provides an enormous amount of energy. If released in an unregulated flow it would be the equivalent of exploding a small nuclear device."

  She took a deep breath.

  "The generator is safe if left to operate autonomously, but it's possible there are ways to accidentally unbalance it if someone works on it who doesn't fully understand how it works tries to readjust it for some reason. So until I decide otherwise the doors to the building's power room will remain locked.

  "Gravity too is manufactured by each individual building. It can be modulated by anyone in the building up to 120% of an Earth gravity. This limit was set by the City and cannot be increased."

  Jane looked around at her audience. It was recovering from any annoyance anyone might have felt at her for locking the basement to them. Or they were hiding it really well.

  "If the committee approves increasing the gravity inside the building to Earth normal the building can handle it for as long as it exists. Meaning we can dispense with zero-gravity toilets."

  She had not said the last as a joke but the NASA teams took it that way. They laughed.

  "There is another piece of news I uncovered. The elevators go to another level below the buildings. It appears to be the civic part of the city. It has a high ceiling which gives the illusion of a blue sky with white clouds. And a bright sun. There are buildings which may have been shops and universities and government buildings and such.

  "There is also gravity simulating Earth gravity. I can't calculate the power this takes because I've only begun to understand the theory and mechanisms that implement it.

  "Sections of it seem to be where parks and other greenery would grow. There's a stream bed and at least one pond and swimming pool."

  She paused before delivering her bombshell.

  "And there's water. Ladies, gentlemen, we could go down there now and SWIM."

  Chapter 5 - Sentinel
>
  L.A. Times Science & Technology section

  Interview: Dr. Elias Weber on the alien asteroid base

  LAT: How is it that the French broke the news three days before anyone else that the city that the Cat Centaurs inhabited 9,000 years ago has become active?

  Weber: All the investigators at the asteroid named Bastet agreed to coordinate their announcements. You'll have to ask the French government why they went back on their people's agreement.

  LAT: Some have claimed that the French report is relatively short and short on details. Perhaps the French government preferred to make up for this by an earlier release.

  Weber: Again, you'll have to quiz the government.

  LAT: People no longer need to work in zero gravity and have plenty of power, air, and water courtesy of the AI which runs the city. Do you anticipate a 'land rush' to Cat City?

  Weber: Certainly more people will go there than would have before this. But remember several companies already had plans fairly well along to create well-supplied space stations in the Belt with gravity provided by spinning the station. The location of several asteroids with large amounts of ice would have also supplied air and water to the stations and, for that matter, to Cat City.

  And you have to keep in mind that our space ships have not been made better by this discovery. People will still need to get out to the Belt in the same old space craft.

  LAT: Unless, Dr. Weber, Jane Kuznetsov invents something ELSE!

  (two sets of chuckles)

  Weber: Unless that, of course.

  <>

  Christianity Today - Science and Nature Section

  Interview: Pastor & Professor Adrian Bellows

  On the Galactic Encyclopedia

  CT: You teach a course titled "Faith & Science" at John Hopkins Seminary and have written several best-selling books, including your latest The Cross-Pollination of Faith and Science.

  What do you make of the discovery that the Cat Centaurs had an encyclopedia describing dozens of alien races, including a race of beings of pure energy so powerful that they labeled them star gods? Does this disprove the existence an all-powerful God?