by Steve Alten
Kyle nodded. “GOLEM is part of a technological evolution that will end in either human obsolescence, human transcendence, or human transformation. Just as your microchip implant will eventually lead to genetically enhanced superbeings, one day soon these superintelligent machines will cross the threshold of consciousness. In either case, I don’t think it will matter.”
“Why not?”
“Because, my dear Eisenbraun, evolution always tosses a wild card into the mix, leveling its own Towers of Babel to begin anew. Five hundred million years ago, life was birthed from the hydrothermal vents we now seek to cap for energy. Two hundred and fifty million years later an asteroid struck Gondwana, wiping out ninety percent of the population spike. The dinosaurs ruled for two hundred million years, only to die off in an Ice Age caused by another space rock. Mammals rose in their ashes, then primates and man — until boom, a caldera erupted seventy thousand years ago and destroyed all but a few thousand humans. Seventy thousand years later the empires of modern man are decimated when the oil runs out. Do you see a pattern? The moment life becomes too big to sustain, evolution comes along to knock it over. I am sure our resident Buddhist will corner you soon to deliver her sermon on seeking fulfillment. If you really want to be immortal, forget Dharma and her beliefs, forget Bella Maharaj. Nirvana lies inside this machine, just close your eyes, make a sweet wish and dream.”
As if on cue, the control panel on the cryogenic pod lit up, the test completed.
11
When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than intuition of future truth. In science there is never any error so gross that it won’t one day, from some perspective, appear prophetic.
— JEAN ROSTAND, French biologist and philosopher
Kevin Read slid his right arm around Andria Saxon’s naked torso.
She pulled away and sat up in bed, the calluses on his palm scratching her six-pack abdominal muscles.
“What the hell, Andria? He’s been onboard three days and you’ve turned as cold as that ice sheet over our heads.”
“Will you keep your voice down!?”
“These suites are soundproof.”
“I don’t care. He could be next door, listening.”
“He’s not next door, he’s on duty! This is supposed to be our time together.”
“I know, and I thought I could handle this, but I can’t.” She stood and slid her bronzed sprinter’s legs into her jumpsuit.
“Andria, wait. GOLEM, locate Robert Eisenbraun.”
“Professor Eisenbraun is aboard Submersible Two.”
“See? He’s not even onboard.”
“Who’s he with? GOLEM, who’s piloting Sub Two? It’s not Lara Saints, is it?”
“Yoni Limor is piloting Submersible Two.”
Commander Read shook his head. “I don’t believe it. You’re actually jealous.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then why do you care?”
“She’s manipulative. It annoys me.”
“Did you know he kissed her back at the base?”
“It was a mistake. He thought she was me.”
“Maybe I should kiss Lara by mistake, then you’ll want to be with me again.”
She sat on the edge of Kevin’s bed, feeling listless.
“That was a joke. I was joking.” Kevin sat up, shoving a second pillow behind his head. “Two weeks ago you couldn’t wait to get to Antarctica to spend time together. What happened? Did I do something to offend you?”
“No,” she said, staring out the viewport at the silent darkness.
“Know what I think it is? I think you knew it was over between you and him the day Omega was green-lit. Now that there’s a chance he could go to Europa, you’re not so sure.”
“I already told you, Ike’s not going to Europa.”
“Then why’s he on board? Goddamn it, Andria, tell me!”
“Oh, shit.” Dropping to all fours, she crawled to the control panel on the wall, shutting the drapes as one of the submersibles moved into view, its triangle of lights reflecting off the outer aero glass panel.
Kevin rolled out of bed. “I think you should leave.”
“Kev, I’m sorry.”
“Now, Andria.”
“You really want me to leave?”
“What I want is for you to remember your duty. We’re on a mission that will affect the future of this planet. I’m your CO. That means no secrets. Now tell me, why is Eisenbraun on board?”
She stood, adjusting her top before zipping the jumpsuit. “One of the male crewmen’s psychological profile was red-flagged as a potential sociopath. Ike’s been assigned to evaluate the situation.”
“Christ.” Commander Read sat on the edge of his bed, his mind racing. “Who is it?”
“Ike says he doesn’t know. Kevin, I’m not comfortable talking about this with you-know-who eavesdropping.” She glanced in the direction of the sensory orb glowing blue along the living room ceiling.
Kevin kicked the bedroom door shut. “Get in bed, get undressed again, and tell me everything you know.”
* * *
The two-man submersible banked sharply around Support Arm C, the pilot aiming the vessel’s forward lights once more at Oceanus’s middeck. “Sorry, Eisenbraun. They closed the drapes.”
I leaned forward against the annoying seatbelt harness crossing my sternum, my eyes squinting as they searched the midlevel of the Oceanus hull. “Thanks anyway.”
“One Jew helping another, right?” Yoni Limor’s Israeli accent was as thick as his waist, his three-hundred-pound frame barely squeezing into the pilot’s seat.
As if reading my mind, he said, “I know … I need to lose weight. Designing submersibles does not allow much time for exercise. Amanda says she likes big men, so maybe I am okay, yes? Of course, your creation knew that when it selected her as my mate.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t know? Open your eyes, Dr. Ike-en-stein. It was your monster that initiated, designed, and carried out every phase of this little adventure, including the selection of the six men and six women onboard. These were not random selections, my friend. The question is why? Why us? Was it our résumés or our DNA? Did GOLEM want competence, or did it base its selections on some AI computer dating algorithm it believes equates to human compatibility?”
I held on as Yoni banked the sub away from Oceanus, heading for another pattern of lights in the distance. “Are you saying GOLEM was playing matchmaker when it selected the crew?” The statement seemed preposterous to me.
“It is a working theory, based on observation. Take Lara Saints. Young, brilliant, easy on the eyes. She could have any man at SEA, yes? Only her psychological profile indicated a compatibility with older men.”
“How do you know that?”
Yoni smiled, the expression causing his coffee-brown goatee to twitch. “Before I designed these toys, I was a hacker. What is important here is that your computer selected Donald Bruemmer over younger, and in several cases, far more qualified system engineers to work in the same lab as Lara. Coincidence? Maybe. Then there is your former boss, Monique DeFriend. She is a wild one — perfect for Jason Sloan. Yes, we needed a cryogenist onboard, and yes, Mr. Sloan is certainly qualified, but is it just a coincidence that he is the masochist to Monique’s sadist desires? As for the arboretum Indian girl and the Dutch scientist, they may hate each other now, but for the first eight months these two spent many long nights working in the garden together, and they still sleep together … at least they did last night.”
“Is that it?”
“Not quite.” Yoni paused to wipe condensation from his wire-rimmed glasses. “You haven’t met the Russian physicist, Egor Vasiliev, he’s on Alpha shift. I am reasonably certain he was intended for Dharma Yuan. I cannot be sure, but I think the Chinese woman scared him off with her regression therapy and the whole talking to dead people routine.”
�
��She talks to dead people?”
“She communicates with their souls. I didn’t believe it either, until we had a session. Suffice it to say she convinced me, and I don’t convince easy.”
“What about Andria?”
“Nothing personal, my friend, but your former fiancée apparently likes the all-American testosterone type, even if he was born in Canada. Is she qualified to be Commander Crew-cut’s copilot? You tell me. From what I hear, she hasn’t even earned her pilot wings for the lunar shuttles. But she’s as tough as an Israeli commando, just like Read. Not that you are not.”
“What about you?”
“I was paired with our resident exobiologist, Dr. Amanda Lynn Moss.”
A woman’s angry voice filled the cabin. “Yoni, what the hell? I’ve been waiting ten minutes.”
“Sorry, my dear. I was just showing the new guy around Oceanus. Two minutes.” He winked. “I have a thing for domineering women. Hold on to your seat.”
The submersible accelerated through the dark sea toward a series of lights that had appeared in the distance. As we moved closer I could make out the hull of a second mini-sub. When we got close enough, I could see that it was piloted by Amanda Moss. Below the vessel, undulating away from the seafloor like a bright yellow serpent, was an expanse of flex tubing, as thick as a sewage pipe. One end led back to Oceanus, the other originated at a bell-shaped cap covering the superheated outflow from a hydrothermal vent. Yoni explained that high water temperatures inside the tubing had been causing buoyancy problems, forcing Omega’s submersible teams to anchor the pipeline to the bottom.
Amanda’s voice crackled over the radio again. “Yoni, I need you to grab on to the joint with your sub’s claw so I can secure the anchor’s harness into place.”
“Understood.” The Israeli extended our sub’s mechanical arm, attempting to grip one of the pipeline’s O-rings using the steel and graphite pincer. Securing the joint on the third try, he drew in the slack, allowing the robotic arm from Amanda’s sub to position a heavy harness anchored to the seafloor around the five-foot-in-diameter pipeline.
“First joint secured. Let’s work our way back toward the volcanic vent.”
“Your command, Amanda, is my wish.” Yoni winked at me again, muting the radio. “Let them think they are in charge, it is better this way.”
“Finish your thoughts about GOLEM. Do you really believe the computer selected the Omega crew based on compatibility?”
“At first I did, then I probed a bit deeper. In examining the lineage of the twelve crewmembers, their parents, and grandparents, I found the group’s genealogy spanned nearly every race and heritage in the world.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning GOLEM has assembled a crew possessing an extremely diverse and therefore healthy chromosome pool.”
“For what purpose?”
“For the purpose of creating a permanent human colony on Europa.”
I laughed. The rotund Israeli was a conspiracy theorist.
Yoni frowned. “I see installing a computer chip in your brain does not open your mind to new possibilities.”
“Let’s just say ABE’s bullshit meter is still functioning fine.”
“You created the computer’s protocol — to protect and preserve the human race. If you were selecting the best location within our solar system to establish a new human colony, where would it be? Europa has water. It has internal heat. An energy source. Pack ice for terrestrial living.” Yoni Limor stroked his goatee, his eyes widening behind his spectacle. “You think I am crazy?”
“Certifiable.”
“Maybe that is why you are here? To take the fat Israeli’s place, yes? Go for it, you have my blessing. But do you also have type-O, Rh-negative blood?”
“How did you know my blood type?”
“Type O is a universal donor. The Rh-negative factor is common in fifteen percent of the population. Everyone selected for this mission has both type-O and Rh-negative blood.”
* * *
An hour later, I found myself drinking coffee in the galley with Dr. Amanda Lynn Moss. The scientist smiled when I told her of my conversation with her “compatible” sub pilot.
“Yoni gets very emotional about these things. But you’d have to agree, the odds of all twelve crewmembers possessing the same blood type and Rh factor are too high to be random. So the question becomes why. Why are we really going to Europa?”
“Blood type aside, why do you think you were selected?”
“I am an exobiologist. Exobiology focuses on how life came to be on Earth, specifically the chemical reactions that led to life’s origin.”
“By chemicals, I assume you’re referring to the primordial soup flowing out of those hydrothermal vents we capped last night.”
“Submarine vents don’t make organic compounds, they recycle and decompose them. It’s more likely life originated from Earth’s primitive lakes and lagoons, the shallows being far more conducive for prebiotic reactions to occur. Back in 1953, a University of Chicago graduate student working in a lab sent an electric current through a vat containing a mixture of water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen — essentially the same elixir found in the planet’s bodies of water three-point-five billion years ago. The simulated lightning strike yielded organic compounds including amino acids, the building blocks of life. How these chemicals came to be found on Earth remains a mystery. Some may have arrived in meteors and asteroids, others by comets or cosmic dust. I believe these chemicals will also be found on Europa, and with them life.” She paused, gauging my expression. “What?”
I shook my head, feeling the blood rush from my face. “The mixture of chemicals you just recited … it’s the same ones we used in GOLEM’s biotic algorithm vat.”
12
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work.
I want to achieve it through not dying.
— WOODY ALLEN
“Your first week is over, Professor Eisenbraun. Have you determined whether one of the Beta Squad males possesses a psychological disorder?”
I gazed across the science lab at the spherical entity floating in the vertical column of liquid, my mind still struggling with the absurdity of my predicament. The last seven days had been physically and mentally exhausting, and now that I was about to trade shifts and join Andria and Commander Cock-Block on Alpha Squad, I wondered how I was going to deal with the additional emotional stress.
First, I had to deal with GOLEM.
“The Beta Squad males appear to be functioning within acceptable psychological parameters.”
“Commander Read, Jason Sloan, and Egor Vasiliev are the three Alpha Squad males. Determine the sociopath and report back at once.”
That sounded more like an order than a request, but I let it go. “I’ll do my best.”
I stood to leave, anxious to try out Lara’s bed.
“Professor Eisenbraun, you are one cryogenic booster shot behind schedule.”
“Am I? Guess I’ll have to catch up after my shift with Jason Sloan.”
The surgical lights bloomed bright, revealing a hypodermic needle and an alcohol swab lying on an instrument tray on the operating table.
“What? Now?”
“Adhering to the booster shot schedule ensures proper tissue absorption.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to screw that up.” Cursing under my breath, I trudged over to the surgical suite where the two robotic trunk arms hung from their ceiling mounts over the table, their wheel of surgical instruments resembling two giant Swiss Army knives.
“GOLEM, how soon until you’ve evolved enough neuro-receptors to gain control of these appendages?”
“Twelve months, three days, six hours, seventeen minutes.”
“And then you’ll actually be able to perform surgery?”
“Phase I medical procedures are limited to X-rays, bone-setting, and field dressings. Phase II procedures will be operational in fourteen months and will include obstetric, g
ynecology, and prostate examinations as well as orthopedic and cosmetic surgery.”
“Boob jobs and bunghole inspections … how lovely.” I smiled disarmingly, but the thought of allowing a computer armed with an array of sharp instruments to check my prostate didn’t sit well with me.
“Phase III procedures will be operational in twenty-seven months, sixteen days and will include appendectomies, cardiac repairs, neurosurgery, and dental procedures.”
“Definitely motivates one to brush after every meal.” Unzipping my jumpsuit, I exposed a small section of my left butt cheek. I carefully swabbed the skin with the alcohol pad, then gripped the hypodermic needle in my right hand. “The things I do for love.” Jabbing the muscle, I injected the clear elixir. The pain of the needle subsided, yielding to a wave of nausea.
“Anything else before I puke?”
“Report here tomorrow at oh-five-hundred hours for your next booster shot.”
“You’re a real pain-in-the-ass, you know that?”
“Proctology exams must wait until neuroreceptors have evolved for Phase II procedures.”
“Never mind. By the way, if these appendages of yours haven’t been activated yet, how did you manage to leave the booster shot on the table.”
“The shot was left by Jason Sloan.”
* * *
Cryogenist Jason Sloan was a toothpick-skinny six-footer, with brown shoulder-length hair and hazel eyes that fluttered when he engaged his 167 IQ. Two years younger than me, he clearly exhibited a man-crush on yours truly.
“I’ve been following your progress on ABE every since you received funding from the DoD. Why the defense department? Is ABE considered a weapon?”
“Only if you consider brain farts as the next WMD. My uncle’s a general. He arranged a grant.”
“Nice. What’s the earliest memory you’ve ever accessed? Could you access memories from the day you were born? How about from inside the womb?”
“It’s accessible, but without the cognizance—”
