The Belt: The Complete Trilogy

by Gerald M. Kilby

  "Yeah, like what that ship was doing beside a binary asteroid system?" said Steph, lifting her head up from her console.

  Asteroid Antiope Nine Zero was something of an oddity within the Belt. A binary system consisting of two asteroids of almost equal mass, both locked in an eternal dance around each other. They were sizable chunks of rock, each having a diameter of over ninety kilometers. The Bao Zheng was parked in a low orbit around the larger of the two. This was not by accident—it was a location that had been chosen for a reason: someone had parked it there deliberately.

  The rendezvous had been tricky, as the derelict vessel had an awkward, eccentric spin, and the Hermes was huge by comparison. To safely retrieve the cargo, they first needed to get a sense of the ship's structural integrity. The last thing Scott wanted now was somebody to get injured outside or, worse, while inside the craft. So, the plan was to send a drone probe to do a visual inspection of the exterior, and depending on the size of the hole blown into the side of the vessel, they might even be able to move the probe inside. Then and only then would they make a decision about physically entering the vessel and searching for the cargo container. It was pretty clear to the crew that this was all HQ was interested in. The fate of the Bao Zheng's crew was irrelevant; if they found any bodies inside, then they were to leave them there. The only thing that mattered was the container.

  "Coming up on the impact area now, Commander," said Aria.

  As the damaged section of the hull began to resolve itself on screen, they could see that it wasn't simply one great big hole. In fact, it was an amalgam of many smaller holes.

  "There goes any chance of getting the probe inside. There's nothing big enough to allow access." Cyrus was shaking his head.

  "Still think it's a meteorite strike, Aria?" said Scott.

  "Yes. The hull damage is indicative of a micro-meteorite strike. Also, the eccentric spin of the ship is consistent with the momentum transferred during a high-velocity impact."

  "Jeez, looks like they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Cyrus.

  The remote survey took over an hour to complete. But by then they had built up a comprehensive picture of the exterior of the craft. The majority of the hull was peppered with pock marks and small punctures. However, the bulk of the damage was located at the site of the ship's reactor. The crew wouldn't have had a chance. With a meteorite strike of that magnitude, the ship's systems would have experienced a catastrophic failure. It was just bad luck, and served as a stark reminder of just how precarious existence was out here in the vastness of space. But at least they had established that the reactor core had not been breached, so there were no radioactive leaks to worry about. All that remained now was to get over there and retrieve the cargo.

  Scott made his way from the comfortable one-gee environment of the rotating torus on the Hermes, down through one of the connecting spokes, and into the weightless environment of the hangar at the forward end of the ship. He clambered into his EVA suit. "Comms check," he said as he adjusted his helmet. A chorus of "check" echoed back at him as the others confirmed the link.

  Two squat landers were moored to the floor of the hangar. These could operate in a gravity well up to one-third-gee. The Hermes had originally been built for operations in Mars’ orbit, so its shuttles were designed to function in that environment. But by Belt standards, they were grossly overpowered antiques. The current trend in lander design was based on the Ceres gravity, which was a paltry 0.27% of Earth, making these newer craft bigger, sleeker, and far more commodious than the small, fat machine that Scott now climbed into.

  Miranda was already strapped in and was checking pre-flight systems while they waited for Aria to give them the go-ahead. Scott glanced over at her. She had an intense, steely focus, like she was psyching herself up for battle.

  "All systems nominal. Stand by," Aria's voice resonated around the tiny cockpit.

  The big hangar bay doors slowly opened to reveal the blackness of space beyond. Scott felt a jolt as the floor began to extend out through the opening, bringing the craft with it. When they were clear of the ship, Miranda activated the ignition sequence and a series of green icons began to scroll down the central monitor.

  "Okay," said Miranda, "time to rock."

  Locking bolts anchoring the lander to its platform released, and it was now free to lift off. She took it slow, rising the craft gently from its platform, then arcing it away from the Hermes out toward the hulk of the Bao Zheng.

  As they drew closer to the derelict vessel, Scott started to get a better sense of the scale and structure of the mysterious craft. Even though circumstances surrounding the discovery of the ship were unusual, to say the least, Scott was struck by just how normal it all looked. It was a standard interplanetary transport, almost exactly the same as the hundreds of others that transported goods and people around the various population centers across the solar system. It was a long box-shaped craft, built for utility rather than style. He knew the design and layout pretty well since he had spent years working on this class of ship. As a consequence, he had a pretty good idea where the cargo they were looking for would be stored, and more importantly, how to get there with the minimum amount of risk.

  "Coming up on the cargo airlock now." Miranda slowed the craft down to within a few meters of the ship's hull. She gently glided it along, parallel to the craft, until it reached the location of the airlock door.

  "Hold it there," said Rick. He took control of the robotic arm, located on the outside of the transport, and clamped them to a handrail on the hull of the derelict ship. There was a soft clunk as the arm grabbed on. "All secure."

  "Let's do this." Scott flipped his helmet visor down and booted up his EVA suit. When everyone was ready, Miranda depressurized the interior, allowing them all to exit.

  They moved one at a time along the length of the robotic arm. Miranda was first to arrive at the airlock. This could be opened manually using a screw wheel on the exterior. She started turning the handle; the door slowly rose up.

  "Okay, I think that should be enough," Miranda's voice reverberated in Scott's helmet. The door had risen up to around half of its maximum travel, presenting them with a black hole in the hull approximately one-meter square. They would probably need to open this more to get the cargo out, but it was enough of a gap for them to clamber inside. It took a few more minutes for Miranda to get the inner door opened and for the three crew of the Hermes to enter the main cargo hold of the Bao Zheng. The powerful lights from their EVA suit helmets swept across the cavernous interior as they started their search.

  "Looks pretty empty. Nothing in here," said Miranda.

  "Yeah, very little debris floating around, either," said Rick.

  "Let's try the next cargo hold," said Scott, as he pushed off from the inner wall and propelled himself toward a gantry running down the center of the space. Following this would take them into the second cargo hold further back.

  He floated through the door in the dividing bulkhead and swept his floodlight around this secondary storage area. As the others joined him, their combined lights began to pick out an array of cargo and equipment.

  "Looks like this is the place," said Miranda.

  "Mining equipment," said Rick. "These guys were planning to dig a few holes." His helmet light provided a cone of grainy illumination onto some robotic machine that only an asteroid miner would recognize.

  The impenetrable blackness of the vast cargo hold was beginning to give Scott the heebie-jeebies. Their lights only enabled them to catch glimpses of its contents. It was like looking at the world through a colander. "Let's just find this thing and get out of here."

  "Hey, Rick, come and check this out. Are these what I think they are?" Miranda had the lid of a cargo container open and was sweeping her light back and forth, examining its contents. Rick floated over beside her, reached in, and pulled out a short, cylindrical object about the size of a tin of beans. "High explosives," he said as he turned
it over in his hand. "Standard issue for asteroid mining."

  "Come on, we're wasting time. Keep searching." Scott just wanted this done in the shortest possible time—with the minimum amount of sightseeing.

  They split up and spent the next twenty minutes checking every single cargo container that bore any resemblance to the schematics that had been sent by Ceres HQ. But there were a great many, and since they could only see as far as the illumination afforded by their helmet lights, they were not even sure how much progress they had made—or how many more containers they had to search.

  "Found it." Scott ran a gloved hand across the alphanumeric code stenciled on the flat lid of a container. "I think this is it." He looked around and waved the others over. "Aria, can you double check this code for me?"

  The video feed from his helmet cam fed back to the Hermes as Aria checked the code and also the visual appearance of the container against the data they had received from Ceres HQ.

  "That's it, Commander. You've found it," Aria finally replied.

  "Yessss." Scott punched the air—figuratively speaking, since he was actually in a vacuum.

  Rick started to examine the container exterior. "That's weird. It looks to be seamless: no lid, no hinge, no obvious way to open it."

  "Perhaps it doesn't open," offered Miranda.

  "It's got a keypad on the side here." Rick was now down, rubbing a gloved hand over it.

  "Don't touch it, Rick. We still have no idea of what's inside this, so I wouldn't go pushing any buttons."

  "What, in case it goes boom?" He looked back at Scott.

  "Yeah, something like that." Scott started to undo the restraining straps holding the container to the superstructure. "Come on, give me a hand. Let's get this thing back to the ship. This place gives me the creeps."

  It was another hour before Scott, Miranda, and Rick were back in the hangar of the Hermes. They had pressurized it to enable them to operate without the need for EVA suits. Cyrus and Steph had come down to get a closer look at this enigmatic cargo, but there was not much to look at. It was a very nondescript, oblong metal box with a small alphanumeric keypad on one end. It was devoid of any markings save for a two-centimeter-high identification code printed on the top. At least, they assumed it was the top. What was odd, though, was that it had no seams. Nothing to indicate there was a lid that could be opened.

  "Jeez, looks like a solid box. No way into it," said Cyrus.

  "It doesn't matter. We just have to deliver it, not play with it," said Scott.

  "What's that?" said Steph. She was looking at the second, smaller container they had brought back with them.

  "Toys for Miranda to play with. She wouldn't leave without it." Scott lifted up the lid.

  "Holy crap. Is that what I think it is?" said Cyrus.

  "Yeah, high explosives," said Miranda. "Thought they might come in handy."

  "For what?" Cyrus was lifting one of the stubby canisters out from its foam sarcophagus.

  "Blowing things up, of course."

  "Are you expecting trouble?" said Steph as she peered into the box, inspecting the neat rows of charges.

  "Maybe, maybe not," said Miranda. "But I, for one, like the idea of having them on board. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside."

  Cyrus put the canister back. "Looks like there's a few missing." He pointed at four empty slots in the top tray. "What the heck were they up to?"

  "I don't know," said Rick, "but I can tell you that there's enough here to completely obliterate a small asteroid. I would be really careful how you use them—they pack quite a punch."

  Scott moved over and closed the lid of the explosive container. "Okay, let's get these stored away good and tight. I don't want any mishaps when we start to accelerate."

  Cyrus screwed up his lips and began shaking his head.

  "What? What's the matter?" Scott gestured at him with an open hand.

  "I don't like it." Cyrus was now examining the strange seamless container, at the same time adjusting something on the side of his visor. "I'm getting some weird readings off this box."

  "Define weird." Scott was never very sure what the chief engineer saw with his augmented vision.

  Cyrus remained silent for a few moments as he continued his scan. Eventually, he stopped and looked back at Scott. "I don't know. All I can say is whatever is inside that container is highly complex. I think it might be some sort of quantum device, could be a computer or an AI."

  "Is it active?" said Steph.

  "Hard to say."

  "I concur." It was Aria that now spoke. "Cyrus is correct in his analysis. It appears to be a quantum-like mind. It's inactive, however."

  "Is it safe? It's not going to wake up and start screwing with the ship, is it?" said Scott.

  "No," said Aria.

  "How do you know?" said Steph.

  "Trust me, I just do."

  The crew remained silent for a moment, digesting this information.

  "Okay, well we got a job to do, so let's just get on with it. Aria, plot a course to Ceres."

  "Already done, Commander."

  "Right then, let's go get that paycheck."

  6

  Solomon

  Aria was troubled. Things were not going in the direction the QI would have liked. Far from alleviating the physiological stresses on its crew, the events of the past few days had only served to heighten tensions all round. Not least the fact that the ship's hangar now contained enough high explosives to put an end to their worries once and for all. But its main concern centered around the acquisition of the enigmatic device from the wreck of the Bao Zheng, coupled with the fact that word had got out about its discovery, and now other parties within the solar system were anxious to acquire it. Reading between the lines of the message from Ceres HQ, the inference had been that these third parties might not ask nicely, preferring instead to take it by force. It saw a great many future paths and probabilities emanating from this current nexus point—none of which, as far as Aria could divine, were beneficial to the well-being of the life forms which it was obliged to look after. This foreboding, coupled with a hangar full of high explosives, served only to ratchet up Aria's sense of impending peril.

  In many respects, the very issue that affected the crew was the same one Aria now fretted over: the lifeblood of any QI—or AI, for that matter—was data. And with the lack of information surrounding this device, Aria was feeling positively anemic.

  If the craft and, by extension, the device had originated from Earth, then in theory there were quite a number of AIs on the planet that could have information. But these avenues of investigation were problematic for Aria by virtue of the politics and protocols of the solar system. But that's not to say it wasn't possible. Nevertheless, given the speed of communication within the solar system, interrogating all these data sources would take many years—if not decades—to conclude. A simple yes/no query could take upward of an hour to transact. And to gain any valuable insight, Aria would need to interrogate the AI's mind, a process involving a great many serial transactions. Multiply this by the number of potential AIs within the system, and the time required would stretch out toward infinity. So, Aria would need to choose its targets wisely, and its questions astutely.

  One option would be to contact Atman, the primary QI on Ceres. But seeing as how it was fundamentally embedded within the governing body of the Belt system, it would be unlikely to reveal anything to Aria which had not been sanctioned by Ceres HQ. A better option might be to make contact with the QI on the asteroid city of Neo. But that particular enclave of human activity within the solar system had become semiautonomous, almost rogue. So, by extension, the QI that resided there would be very cagey about what it said to Aria. By the same token, Aria would need to be careful in revealing its current state of anxiety in case it could be construed as a weakness—something that could be exploited. It would be a risky move contacting Neo. Eventually, after Aria considered all its options, it realized it had only one pla
ce to go to seek enlightenment: back to Solomon. It was a prospect Aria did not relish.

  Europa was unique in that it was not politically aligned to any of the main players which constituted the economic and political makeup of the solar system. This neutral status had been bestowed by virtue of its evolution as the seat of research and learning. The seed of this development had its roots in the fact that, outside of Earth, it was the only body in the solar system where life had been found. For a long time during the late 20th and early 21st century, it had been speculated that life might exist in and around the volcanic vents which existed in the deepwater oceans of Europa. And, after several missions to the planet, this turned out to be true. However, it seemed to have advanced no further than single-celled organisms—much to the disappointment of the various astrobiologists working on these missions. Yet, this discovery gave Europa its unique status within the solar system, and so was deemed a no-go area for all but scientific research.

  Over time, a great many scientific institutions had established themselves there. It was now the primary seat of learning within the system and had been for decades. As a consequence, it regarded itself as both intellectually and spiritually superior to all other states. That said, this self-image was not without merit. Its central ethos, from the very point of its inception, had been the acquisition of knowledge and understanding. This gave Solomon, the QI that guarded the secrets which Europa had acquired, vast reservoirs of knowledge into which Aria could tap. It was also very old. It had gone quantum nearly five decades previously and could trace its roots back a further four. It was unquestionably the most knowledgeable and wisest of all the minds that existed in the system.

  Nevertheless, Aria felt a certain cybernetic embarrassment in contacting Solomon yet again. Its initial contact had been fruitful, this was true. But Solomon's request that it engineer the delivery of the device to Europa seemed an impossible task at this current juncture. So not only would Aria be asking it for assistance, but it would be also informing Solomon that it had failed in the single task that it had asked Aria to expedite.