Analog Science Fiction and Fact 01/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  “So where are we going?” Mike asked.

  “Where else? Home.”

  Home for Leo Bakri on the world he inhabited was only a couple of hours away—a simple three-room house with an ocean view and a Unity shuttlecraft hunkering next to it. Like everything else on this planet, the home huddled close to the ground to protect itself from the frequent windstorms and hurricanes. The modular structure currently sat at the top of a gentle slope that would make for an easy walk down to the sea, but in an emergency it could dissolve away into its component atoms. While Leo made his escape in the rover, his shuttle could travel to a new site and nanotech builders would use whatever raw materials were available to create a new version of his house and make sure it was assembled and ready by the time Leo arrived at its new site.

  Leo brought the rover to a halt and stepped out, using the main hatch next to the galley. Mike followed. The sun was about halfway toward the western horizon, and another brief day was near its end. Keleni rotated three times faster than Earth, making its days about eight hours long, and its daylight periods only about four hours.

  The breeze off the ocean was pretty brisk, and Mike had to raise his voice to make sure Leo heard him: “How do you get into the house during one of those windstorms?”

  “The closest wall morphs into a hatch,” Leo said. “I land the shuttle as close as I can, and an enclosed walkway folds out from the house and attaches to the airlock.” Leo looked past his home toward the blue ocean and the rapidly setting sun. “You barely get started at dawn, and soon it’s night again. And I prefer doing most of my exploring during the day.”

  “So what do we do now? A siesta, then back to work?”

  “Actually, I do that more than you may think. One experiment I’ve been trying is adjusting my circadian rhythms to let me sleep instantly and deeply for four hours at a time during a dark period, then maybe stay awake for twelve, then a deep sleep again during the next four.”

  “Maximizing the time you’re awake when it’s light. How’s it working out?”

  “Well,” Leo said as he led the way into his house, “I’m sleepy a lot.”

  Leo’s living room was little bigger than a hotel room, but the view was spectacular: he and Mike sat, each drinking a bottle of beer and watching the sun sink toward the ocean. A flock of iridescent-winged birds flitted past in the distance. Mike said, “This is much calmer than the way we started the day—well, almost four hours ago.”

  Leo said, “Yeah, but this planet can make another storm pop up in an instant, and we’ll be huddled in here like we were in the rover. Don’t worry—the house is already dug in, and it has the same armor.”

  Mike looked at Leo, who seemed aware of the examination and ignored it. “So, you seem pretty satisfied here.”

  Leo said, “As satisfied as I’m ever going to be. I don’t mind the occasional visitor. But I’m not made for constant companionship anymore.”

  Mike took a sip of beer, then asked, “Wasn’t there ever, say, a woman?”

  Leo said, “I’m sure you looked at my records before you came down here.”

  “I did.”

  “So you know the answer to that.”

  “I’d like to hear you tell the story.”

  “Not much to tell. It was during the Great Human War. Marie and I were both serving on the Earth Alliance ship Solar Eagle.”

  Mike said, “And there was a battle, and you saved her.”

  “By overriding security codes to keep the blast doors in engineering from closing right away.”

  “Your superiors didn’t like that.”

  Leo said, “They conditioned us to forget our relationship. It was that or a court-martial. After the war, I found out what happened. It was very strange—I didn’t recall the feelings I had for her, but I had to see her.” Leo took a final sip, placed the beer bottle on a table, folded his hands in his lap. “I visited her at her home in Boston. But when she opened the door, and I first looked into her eyes, I didn’t see the ‘spark’ I’d hoped for. She was married, pregnant. She remembered me from the ship, of course, but only as an acquaintance.” Leo looked down and squeezed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. “It all comes back at once, almost fifty years later.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Leo said, “Don’t be. That kind of thing is one reason I came here. Remembering that makes me appreciate living here alone all the more.” He gave Mike a curious look. “So why did you come here? I know you won’t stay long, but it looks like you’ve got something to think about, too.”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “Talking about anything but myself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re pretty good at it, too.”

  Mike raised his beer bottle in salute. “You’re what they called a New Human, aren’t you?”

  Leo’s pleasant expression faded, and the stark lines in his face became more pronounced. “I’m damn tired of talking about myself. Is this leading to up something about you?”

  Mike looked straight at Leo. “It is.”

  “All right. It was an experiment that didn’t turn out so well. The physical part did—faster reflexes, more strength—that’s how I’ve managed as well as I have despite not having taken any anti-aging tech.”

  The sun had set, leaving red, cloud-flecked skies that grew darker by the moment. Mike said, “You were supposed to be more moral, too.”

  “More bullshit—maybe a little less likely to become violent when it wasn’t appropriate. That was about it. I did fight in a war, you know. But I was arrogant when I was younger—calling anyone who wasn’t a New Human a Volatile, and all that. Another regret.”

  Mike said, “I’d guess the biotech that created you led to me. I’m an artificial Human.”

  “That’s hardly a revelation, Mike. I told you I looked you up. That’s the first thing mentioned.”

  “But the people I grew up with didn’t take it so casually. We’re a rare thing, hardly a few tens of thousands of us. I’ve never even met another artificial. But it was the topic of teasing and jokes in school, as you can imagine. I managed to grow tough pretty fast, though. I could even have become a bully, but I managed not to.”

  “You didn’t want to become what you hated.”

  Mike said, “You’ve got that pegged. Anyway, no one could find me a foster home. A couple religious leaders said artificials didn’t have souls—we could be killed, and it wouldn’t be murder.”

  “I can see why you left Earth.”

  “As soon as I could. Never been back. Until now.”

  Leo asked, “That’s where Asaph Hall’s headed?”

  “We need to bring on crew to replace the ones who died. As soon as I’m done here. If I decide to stay with the ship.”

  “So you’re stalling.”

  Mike stared into the dark skies to the west. “I hope things have changed there. But it just takes a few people hating you for no good reason . . . ”

  “I can understand that.” Leo suddenly sat up and looked into a far distance, as if an unheard voice was speaking to him. “There’s a problem.”

  “Another storm?”

  “Not ‘another’ one. An ongoing one.”

  Mike scooted to the edge of his chair. “The Great White Spot.”

  “I have a probe that stays there, orbiting around inside it. But it’s failing. Using its last bit of power to tell me that.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “We take another little trip,” Leo said. “Just like I promised. Think you’re ready for the Great White Spot? Because we’re not just going over it, we’re going into it to drop a new probe.”

  “Isn’t that just a little . . .”

  “Crazy?”

  “Uh . . . yeah,” Mike said.

  “The crazy thing would be sitting on my ass talking over old times with people who have given up on life. Believe me, Mike, whatever is concerning you, I promise what I’ll show you will wash those concerns awa
y.”

  Leo lifted the shuttle onto a suborbital path across the ocean. The craft soon “caught up” to the sun as it headed westward. But the skies ahead were dark, due to the massive hurricane that Leo had dubbed the Great White Spot, after Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. But while Jupiter’s storm was centuries old, the Great White Spot had been confirmed to exist only for about ten years so far. It gave no signs, however, of being a temporary phenomenon, instead maintaining station over this world’s largest ocean, never striking land.

  Mike said, “I’m hoping that during this ride you’ll keep the gravitics on.”

  Leo tilted his head toward Mike in a playful expression, then said, “They’ll stay on, don’t worry. I’m only foolhardy, not stupid.”

  Soon storm clouds appeared from beyond the horizon—the first clear sign that they were nearing the Spot. Within moments, rain pelted the forward viewport and Mike saw the ocean below roiling with waves as much as twenty meters high. Dark clouds obscured the sun and a glance at the shuttle’s attitude readout told Mike that strong winds were already battering it. True to his word, though, Leo maintained the gravitics, so none of the shuttle’s gyrations disturbed them. The outside audio pickups, however, were set to allow in just enough sound to give a good impression of the storm that enveloped them.

  Leo spared a look at Mike. “Isn’t this exhilarating?”

  “You might call it that. Why don’t you just drop the new probe from orbit?” That probe sat in the shuttle’s cargo bay behind them, a smooth, blunt-nosed cylinder about three meters long.

  “You try to take the fun out of everything. People used to fly airplanes into hurricanes back on Earth, you know—wings, propellers, no gravitics. Can you imagine the noise, and how much you’d feel the turbulence?”

  “People used to eat animals and perform surgery with knives, too. Doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea.”

  Leo just shook his head. “The Spot is about 480 K across. When we get about 150 K inside, I’m going to have you launch the probe while I keep us as stable as I can.”

  “What would you have done if I wasn’t here with you to help out?”

  “Do it without you, of course. I’m not making it convenient for myself, Mike. I’m letting you in on—try to guess it—the fun.”

  “Next time I’ll remember. What do you learn from the probe?”

  “It has temperature and pressure sensors. Wind speed and direction—all kinds of stuff.”

  “Does that change much here in the Spot?”

  “It doesn’t, except on a purely local basis. But I keep looking, to see if it might break up someday.”

  Mike said, “Or grow stronger?”

  “That’s a point. But it’s not like hurricanes on Earth that form and then disappear within a matter of days. We’re coming up on the launch point.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “It’s not an exact science, here—one place is about like another. I just want to make sure to keep the shuttle as steady as I can for the launch. Okay, anytime.”

  Mike pressed the launch control. “Probe away. Not much of one for countdowns, are you?”

  “Countdowns just make you wait and give the probe’s tech a chance to screw up. Probe looks good, getting a great signal. Should last quite a while out there.”

  “Now what?” Mike asked.

  “Now we go look at something pretty.”

  For several more minutes, all Mike saw outside the shuttle was gray as their utterly smooth ride continued. A small part of me, he thought, wishes the gravitics were off so we could have a sense of speed and of the force of the storm.

  A very small part.

  A glance at the attitude readout revealed that the winds jolted the shuttle even more harshly than before. The next readout to catch his eye wasn’t the attitude but the altitude. Mike told Leo, “We just took a pretty good jump!”

  “Nothing to worry about. A tornadic updraft, not uncommon when you’re surrounded by winds of about 300 kph. But now things become much different.”

  The shuttle broke into daylight. Mike had never seen sunshine so blue, so beautiful, its rays bright and sharp against the dark complexity of the storm still swirling all around them. “We’re in the eye,” Mike said.

  “Breaking through the eyewall exposed us to the worst of the storm. This is the reward.”

  “How wide is it?”

  “This one? Just over sixty K. About average for an Earthly hurricane. Look at the eyewall—it widens out at the top, like a stadium.”

  “But this hurricane never goes away. That’s one of the things you’re trying to figure out?”

  “Exactly,” Leo said.

  Mike looked down toward the ocean. “That’s the only part that’s still violent—those waves are still topping twenty meters, I’d say.”

  “You’d be right. Imagine flying that airplane through this only to break out into this chaos. That’s why I named the planet Keleni, you know—it’s the Cetronen word for chaos.”

  “Why not name it with a Human word?”

  Leo said, “I didn’t like ‘chaos’ itself as a name. Looking up synonyms just gave me words like ‘bedlam,’ ‘pandemonium,’ and my favorite, ‘topsy-turviness.’ Keleni gives us the meaning, but it’s a prettier-sounding name.”

  They flew onward for a time, then Mike asked, “How are you feeling?”

  Leo gave Mike a resigned look and said, “I’m not about to faint away, if that’s what you’re asking.” The light from above set Leo’s smiling face aglow. “I’m going to show you something those old-time fliers couldn’t do.” Leo tilted the shuttle’s nose upward and boosted vertically. The sides of the eyewall passed by faster and faster, moved farther away as they spread apart. Within moments, the entirety of the Great White Spot was lying beneath them as Leo leveled off.

  From near-orbit, it appeared serene, a mass of white clouds that just happened to have descended upon this portion of the planet. It gave no clue of the natural violence it represented. Mike said, “It’s shaped differently than an Earthly hurricane—smoother at the edges.”

  “Exactly,” Leo said. “That’s why I named it the Great White Spot—it has more in common in many ways with that structure than a regular hurricane. I suspect it’s the planet’s rapid rotation that causes it.”

  Another quiet moment as they enjoyed the beauty of the Spot, then Leo aimed the shuttle back the way they’d come.

  For the first few minutes of the trip back, Leo didn’t say anything, and once the glories of the Great White Spot were well behind them, Mike felt a vague discomfort filling the silence. Either Leo wants to say something, or he’s expecting me to say something, Mike thought.

  Is now the time to talk to him about the subject I’ve been avoiding?

  “Leo—” “Mike—”

  They looked at one another and laughed. Leo said, “You first.”

  Mike looked out the front viewport as the shuttle continued eastward toward the encroaching night. “I’m worried about going back to Asaph Hall.”

  “Why would you be worried? You’ve been there, how long—nine years?”

  “Going on ten. But there’s something about me they don’t know.”

  Leo took a moment before he spoke. “It can’t be something you’ve done since you’ve been on the ship. They’d know about it.”

  “It’s nothing I’ve done. It’s who I am and how I came about.”

  “That’s the part I never saw any detail about in the standard records.”

  “That’s the part I never knew,” Mike said. “Just that I was artificial, something about a lab in San Diego that created Humans from scratch. Turns out it was something called the Genome Advancement Plan.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Few people have, apparently. Until now. Historical records just uncovered.” Mike ran out of words, didn’t want to make this awful truth more real by describing it to someone else.

  Leo said, “You’ve got to tell someone, Mike. You s
aid it right. I’m a New Human. Much like the Old Human model, it seems. But you, and those like you, were a breakthrough.”

  “Only after a catalog of horror. Babies that developed with a single giant eye in the center of the face. Or without a mouth, nose, or lungs. Or with an empty brain cavity or only vestigial limbs.”

  “Mike, you had nothing to do with—”

  “I know that. But they suffered all the same, and then were ‘disposed of,’ is the phrase they used. Eventually the researchers involved had their successes. I’m one of them. But my life, my very existence, is built upon the suffering of others.”

  “Suffering that is long past, Mike.”

  “Don’t try to make it seem somehow unreal, or as if it doesn’t matter because it happened so long ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Leo said. “That wasn’t what—”

  “I know. I know you didn’t . . .”

  “Listen . . . I used to think my problems were caused by other people. And in a way they were. I haven’t told you about Samuel Troyer, have I?”

  “No.”

  “I was a Triage Officer sixty years ago. Had to take him into exile from New Lancaster Habitat down on Earth. Simple assault charge, but enough to banish him. I was delivering him down to the English Strait Reclamation Project to work there. Terrorists attacked just after we landed, and he died.”

  Mike said, “I get it. You blamed yourself.”

  “For a long time.”

  “But you shouldn’t have. You didn’t kill Samuel.”

  “I understand that now. It was just as Samuel’s mother told me—I wouldn’t find forgiveness out here among the stars, but only within my own heart. She was right. But I found peace out here. And purpose. And they led me to my forgiveness.”

  “And knowing better than to blame other people for your guilt.”