by Migration
In the leafy upper level of his abode, Masumichi Shikoba had Ormont’s address playing on the wall screen in the living area. At the same time, he was using a viewpad hooked into the visual system of GPT-2D, still aboard the recently docked carrier, to check over the group of close family and other relatives that the lander had brought up. It turned out there were seven rows of seats in the lander, not six as Lois Iles had conservatively guessed, which gave twenty-eight places, or twenty-four available after allowing four for Korshak’s party. Of these, he had filled twenty – not bad at all, considering the instant decisions that they had been forced to make. Eight had declined to go, as Masumichi had assumed some inevitably would. He supposed that he would now have to explain and justify his actions to the Recruitment Board, whom he hadn’t so much as notified, let alone consulted. However, the fact remained that had it not been for his robot, the lander’s entire mission – which Nath Borden, who sat on the Board, had expressly requested Masumichi to take care of – would almost certainly have been aborted. So all in all, he felt that he had a pretty strong case and could stand his ground. In any case, what were they going to do about it now – throw him overboard?
While the carrier was returning to the Aurora, Masumichi had replayed the sequence that GPT-2D had recorded of its extraordinary stunt at the bridge. He’d had no idea that his robots would be capable of such initiative in circumstances so complex and demanding, and he was eager to analyze the associative-matrix audit trail to see what he could make of what had happened. He was beginning to suspect that perhaps he had been underestimating his creations for a long time. It seemed they could be surprisingly resourceful.
“And let’s not forget the new generation that will be appearing and growing up in the years ahead. Aurora is the only world that they will ever know. Their trust in and dependence on the future that we build will be total. We owe every one of those yet unborn a unique debt, now, to make sure of…”
Sonja Taag sat out on the patio of the duplex apartment that she would be sharing with Helmut Goben, and listened to Ormont’s words coming through the open glass door from where Helmut was watching on the screen inside. They were on the topmost level of a structural module called Evergreen, devoted primarily to intensive cultivation, with an upper area of simulated outdoor recreational parkland containing a sprinkling of residences. The apartment looked out at a miniature landscape where streams tumbled into grass-banked ponds, and hiking trails wound their way through trees beneath an artificial, variable-weather sky lit by arc discharge and mirror optics. The richness of light and variety of colors brought together in the confined space produced an intensity unrivaled anywhere on Earth, and with the peculiar curvatures of the underlying geometry resulted in an effect that could have come out of a fairy tale. Yes, Soja thought to herself, the children growing up in such surroundings might be deprived in some ways, as a few people maintained. But they would surely gain in others.
“He’s talking about you, Sonja,” Helmut’s voice called from inside.
“Yes, I heard it.”
Since she was a teacher, children were her special interest. She saw Aurora as a chance to help make real the kind of teaching environment that she had always dreamed of – to uncover and develop the potential that every human mind was capable of and meant for, free from the baggage of defensive politics, institutionalized prejudices, and obligatory deceptions that came with having to survive amid a patchwork of hostile and competing interests as part of Earth’s legacy. What would arrive one day at the planet Hera could represent a leap forward in the advancement of human culture that would take Earth another thousand years.
She leaned back in her chair and gazed over the treetops to where the starfield was visible through a section of roof low down where the sky ended.
To devote one’s life to something meaningful that was bigger than they were, and which would endure for long after they were gone. Wasn’t that what fulfillment in living was all about?
“Our world will see a new system of relationships and values. No more can it be divided between producers and takers. In the environment into which we will be heading, every one of us will depend utterly on the skills and dedication of everyone else. The worth of every individual will be judged not by what they own, or by the means they have acquired to compel others, but by what they can contribute….”
In the graphics laboratory of the observatory located in the Aurora’s Hub section, Lois Iles had routed the audio to the speaker of the terminal where she was working. The main screen on the terminal was showing a reconstruction of an image transmitted from Hera by the probe that had left the old world long ago, before the time of the Conflagration. In a chair at the worktop behind her, Marney Clure, whose exchange she had mediated from Tranth, was using another screen to browse through the archive of images. He had asked to come to the observatory and see the kind of work she did.
Even after enhancement processing, the scenes were of low resolution and poor quality, and much of the instrument data had been corrupted after traveling an immense distance under noisy conditions. To have decoded anything at all that had originated from ancient, partially understood technology was an impressive enough feat in itself. The Sofian test platforms sent ahead in more recent years as part of the Aurora program were programmed to carry on all the way to Hera, but the mission would be well on its way before it could expect to receive anything back from there.
In the meantime, the information available about Hera was restricted to what could be gleaned from orbital observation by the single old-world probe. It indicated a planet that was Earthlike in its physical and chemical makeup, with oceans, a breathable, friendly atmosphere, and climatic zones extending between possibly greater extremes than on Earth. The atmospheric composition and surface appearance confirmed the presence of life, though of what kind and progressed to what degree could not be ascertained. There had been no sign of major artificial works or electronic activity that would suggest an advanced civilization.
“I never realized that anything like this existed,” Clure murmured, keeping his eyes on the screen. He was listening to Ormont, but had been too enthralled by the things he was seeing to stop when the announcement came on. “And this was all achieved just by Sofi. What could the whole world do if it could only learn to live together?”
“A lot,” Lois agreed. “But it’s heading the wrong way. You know how things were in Tranth. People who think the way you do were never heard.”
“Do you really believe things can be different?” Clure asked. “Even Sofi was starting to get divided within itself.”
“Finding out is what Aurora is all about,” Lois replied.
He learned fast, she thought. When she brought him up from Tranth, it had been simply as a duty that she had been assigned. But now she was beginning to appreciate more the qualities that made him stand out, which had attracted attention beyond Tranth. And now he would be able to help build the kind of world for all that he believed in. Ormont had just said that the worth of individuals would be judged not by what they possessed or the power they held over others, but by what they contributed. If Marney Clure’s kind of world became reality in the course of the mission, and if that set the pattern for a new branch of the human race that would one day spread across Hera, then, Lois told herself, she could say that she had already made her contribution to it.
Something was wrong. Andri Lubanov, who was supposed to be Torus’s prime inside intelligence source on Aurora, had said that liftout was six weeks away at least, and possibly longer. Now he had disappeared suddenly, after destroying sensitive records and giving his mistress what was obviously a storyline to delay suspicions, and communications from the ship had gone silent. None of the ground personnel associated with the mission could be raised, shuttle traffic from the bases had ceased, and radar evaluations during the Aurora’s last pass overhead had failed to show the usual pattern of attendant-craft activity in the vicinity. Actor had issued the code Winter Rain w
ithout further delay, and operation Torus was in motion.
Dreese had flown down in a military chopper to accompany the force detailed to occupy the sprawling logistics base at Yaquinta. It was still night, and the column of vehicles had drawn up before the main gates, which stood chained and locked in the illumination of searchlights. Detachments taking other routes had sealed the other entrances around the perimeter. The stipulated five minutes since the issuing of an ultimatum by loudhailer to open up and refrain from offering resistance had elapsed. There had been no response, either directly or by radio, and no sign of movement beyond the fence. Dreese nodded to the commander standing with him beside the open staff car.
“Okay, take it out.”
The commander gave an order, and the cordon of infantry around the gate area opened up to allow passage for the earth mover that had been waiting behind them. It rolled forward into the searchlight glare on its huge wheels, and used its front bucket to demolish the gates in a crash of rending metal.
“Follow on through. Secure all objectives according to plan,” Reese instructed.
“The last links are broken. The ties are cut. There can be no going back to the past. So let us all look as one to the future, and the new life that is about to begin.”
Andri Lubanov listened to Ormont’s final words from a seat in a communications room opening off from the Aurora’s bridge. A screen dominating the room showed a view of the ship’s Hub structure and the base of one of the support booms connecting to the outer Ring. Observing from a place this close to the nerve center of the operation was a privilege earned by his undercover work inside the Sofian Internal Security Office. Ormont held the mission to be permanently in his debt, and would always be a friend. They thought alike.
If Lubanov’s personal views conflicted with the mission’s ideals, he would have to learn to live with them or resolve them, he reflected. There could be no going back now. But whichever way that worked out, from now on he would be able to breathe and sleep easily, free from the threat of revenge vendettas catching up with him from the far side of the world. And the days of double-dealing and deception, which had never left him savoring the best of tastes, were over.
Years ago, back in his own country, he had believed in the martial tradition of duty and honor, but been disillusioned by the realities of experience. From what he had seen of human nature, the time would come when the values that Aurora stood for would have to be defended, and his kind would be needed. The difference this time would be that there was something worth defending.
The view on the screen changed to show Ormont and his two principal senior officers on the raised dais at the forward end of the bridge. Around Lubanov in the communications room, figures turned in their seats, and faces looked up from consoles expectantly. Ormont pushed away the microphone that he had been using and looked to one side.
“Disengage final overrides. Confirm exit vector.”
“Vector confirmed on all, sir.”
“Initiate main and hold.”
“Positive function, holding at intermediate.” It meant they were lifting from orbit. Aurora was straining to go.
“Bring her up to full power.”
There was nobody left in the base, anywhere…. Dreese stood, nonplused, in the staff car outside the main office building as the officer who had gone inside with a squad reappeared at the doors and came over at a crisp pace. “Nothing, sir. It’s deserted.”
Soldiers were breaking open the coverings of what looked like cargo loads, stacked in rows awaiting transfer to the pad area. They were dummies, consisting only of wooden frames, piles of rock and sand, and empty crates. The materiel to be shuttled up was gone. Inside the opened doors of a storage shed to one side, the lights came on to show it cleared out. Beside the driver in the front seats of the car, an adjutant who was talking to an officer with the forward unit looked up from his phone. “It’s the same everywhere. Nobody around the pad area. The control center is empty.”
And then, light coming suddenly from above caused Dreese to look up. A column of white was glowing high overhead, lengthening as he watched, until it extended across half the sky. Around him, the other officers squinted and shielded their eyes as the brightness intensified, revealing the buildings of the base with the gantries and shuttles behind in an eerie, artificial day.
Dreese stared, his hand covering the peak of his cap. And despite himself, a smile spread slowly across his face, and his lips curled back to show his teeth as the realization came to him of what it all meant.
“Go, baby, go!” he breathed. “Good luck, guys!”
PART TWO:
The Void
TWELVE
Sofi’s uniqueness attracted the talented and gifted from far and wide, many of whom, for that reason, had been misfits in the various circumstances that they came from. As a consequence, Sofi became a meeting ground for a multitude of views concerning the principles a society should be based on and how it should be organized to reflect them. Since coercion was anathema to the kinds of people that typified the cultural mix, and its eventual ineffectiveness in any case evident to most, the system that emerged was pluralistic, tolerant, and firm in respecting such freedoms as the right to dissent and individual self-determination.
This social foundation had become established by the time the Aurora project was conceived, and raised the question of how the society-in-miniature that would make up the mission itself was to be structured and organized. Since the answer to this would influence the architecture and functional layout of much of the ship in many ways, it was an issue that had to be addressed in the earlier years, when Sofi’s achievements were already unparalleled anywhere, and its commitment to idealism was at its height.
Disagreements quickly broke out among the mission planners over the philosophy that should govern the ship’s design. Should residential units be zoned together as such, or distributed across areas that mixed different kinds of use? If zoned, should they be segregated by type? To what degree should they be customizable? Would services and amenities be better centralized or localized? At what point would conformity become stifling to the point of provoking antisocial behavior, while at the other extreme, at what point would opportunity for endless variety begin to dissipate energies uselessly in nonsensical competition and displays of status? On more significant scales, what would be the psychological effects of large interior vistas and outside panoramas of stars, compared to the sense of security imparted by more restricted and enclosed spaces? Would giving high visibility to the offices and presence of the Directorate, and the ultimate authority over ship’s affairs that it embodied, serve as a source of reassurance? Or should it be kept discreetly backstage to avoid reminding the inhabitants of so much that had been left behind forever?
Then some began to see the problem as lying not in the choice of which of the contending plans to go with, but in the zealousness that was being shown over wanting to plan everything in the first place. Everyone was trying to promote their vision of the ideal society – and in the process, reflecting the practically universal but seldom-acknowledged human conviction that the world would be a better place if more people were like themselves. Whichever version of utopia was considered, the question arose of what to do about those who didn’t share the ideals that the vision presumed. And for a society that sought to accommodate a spectrum of values embracing the full variability of human nature, this was no small matter. In short, what was to be done about the social dissidents and misfits that would always exist, no matter what the planners came up with?
Proposals for screening prospective migrants against an approved set of psychological and other standards were rejected. Such procedures worked for creating specialized military units or recruiting teams for demanding work such as the space ventures that had taken place in recent years, but Aurora was a one-way ticket and fully self-contained. A choice that turned out to be wrong couldn’t be relieved from duty or transferred out when the tour was over. And beyon
d that, having to set special standards would be equivalent to admitting that the community didn’t reflect the real human condition to begin with, which would have been in conflict with the policy of preserving a broad representation of human diversity. In any case, even with an ideal initial population, aberrants would inevitably be born later, who didn’t conform to the original selection criteria, so the criteria would become irrelevant.
Imposing a mandated order that would brook no dissenters was out of the question. Besides going against every principle that Sofi had been founded on, enforcing conformity over generations would surely destroy the very capacities for creativity and innovation that had made Aurora possible. The descendants who would one day arrive at Hera would need the resourcefulness and abilities to open up and settle an unknown world – faculties that would have been long stifled in a population conditioned to passive obedience and turned into a human sheep pen.
Reasons could always be found for requiring people to live the way others thought they should, in the name of serving a greater common good. Once the “common good” had been identified, then any questioning of it automatically became the mark of the common enemy. In an artificial space habitat, safety and security considerations afforded ready-made justification for sacrificing individual freedom to authoritarian demands. The importance of efficiently managing its limited physical resources provided another. It would have been ironic if, after making such an investment of talent and effort to escape from the oppressive forces that were threatening once again to engulf Earth, the mission found it had, at the end of it all, to resort to precisely such measures in order to survive. Or had it to conclude that the way of life that it had been conceived to preserve wasn’t suitable for exporting into space at all?
