Mission: Tomorrow - eARC

by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

  The robot inclined its titanium head in acknowledgement, and after ascertaining permission, lifted the panel with very precise, very gentle movements, turning it this way and that to study the life-form’s construction.

  “It is beautiful,” I.R.I.S. stated, quite earnestly.

  Taken aback by the giving of a compliment, Tyrille could only nod.

  “The mathematical computations in its physical structure alone ensure physical perfection, but . . .”

  “Prepare for environment stabilization,” the ship’s computer interface intoned.

  Tyrille waited until oxygen levels reached breathable limits, and for the inner hatch door to automatically unseal, before she released the pressure lock on her helmet and pulled it free of her unruly close-cropped curls.

  Pushing off by her feet, she propelled her body through the zero gravity into the main compartment and started to search for a specimen container large enough to contain the excised panel piece. Not able to find the one she was seeking, she turned to ask I.R.I.S., to discover it had followed her into the main chamber, but was still transfixed by the specimen.

  The robot looked up at her. Eventually, “Shall we ask it what it wants?”

  Tyrille blinked, bemused. “It’s probably a data core of some kind. Why assume it can understand what we are saying?”

  “Why assume it does not? What am I, if not an interactive data core?”

  Tyrille blinked. The robot was right. She looked down at the specimen with new eyes. And more than a little suspicion. What is your purpose, pretty one?

  As if in response, the snowflake-like structure lifted off the panel segment and started spinning in the air, growing in size and luminosity, until it broke apart into many crystalline orbs that spun around each other, coalescing to form an angular head, then broad shoulders, a well-muscled torso, and . . . a tentacled tail.

  The alien was a merman?!

  Oh my. “G’day . . . Er, I mean, hello. Welcome.”

  The extraterrestrial’s shape solidified so she could clearly see the alien cast to his features. His long platinum white hair was a floating nimbus around his head; his skin was so white, it was almost translucent. Luminescent blue light pulsed hypnotically underneath his skin, radiating out from a crystalline snowflake positioned in the center of his chest, to course through what appeared to be his version of a circulatory system.

  To say he was beautiful was an understatement. He was breathtaking . . . and so very, incredibly alien. “Can you understand what I am saying?”

  “Yes,” he replied, simply, without preamble; his voice as silky as his hair.

  How? She opened her mouth to ask, but then closed it again. Where was a First Contact manual when you needed one? She was at a loss as to how to proceed.

  “Is my appearance displeasing to you?” he asked, eventually, his every intonation measured and devoid of any helpful emotional cues.

  “Of c-course not,” she stammered. Just too bloody distracting, she thought.

  I.R.I.S. turned to Tyrille. “The life-form is likely noticing from your contorted facial expressions that you appear to be in some distress, Tyrille.”

  She grimaced, adding yet another expression to the mix. “I understand, Iris. I will take it from here.”

  She scrambled to find the right words, as she watched the alien float there calmly, his tentacles undulating back and forth. She didn’t want to botch First Contact, but the impact he had on her was almost hypnotic. She had to struggle to form words into coherent sentences. “You look very . . .er, different from what I am used to, but also confusingly familiar,” she finally responded. “Your form is very similar in appearance to that of a fabled creature on our world.”

  As if in response, his form shifted perceptively, becoming a little more alien, and a little less merman. “I apologize. That was not my intention. This was just the most accurate extrapolation I could create,” he replied, as if that answered everything.

  I.R.I.S. turned back to the alien, studying his features. “Based on the mathematically symmetrical beauty of your form, I would presume that you are using an algorithm to compute a guise that would be most pleasing to the human eye, but yet still retain some qualities of your true form and racial identity to set yourself apart.” It turned to Tyrille. “He wants to appear humanoid to help alleviate the impact of First Contact.”

  Something flashed in the alien’s eyes, his gaze becoming more intent as transferred his attention to the robot. “Very perceptive,” he acknowledged. Then: “You, too, are beautiful in form.”

  Tyrille’s eyebrows rose. Well, that answered the question of whether he had been listening to everything we have been saying. She tried to remember what she had learnt in biology, all those years ago. “Can I presume that your race comes from a predominantly liquid or heavy gas planet of some kind? One where your sun’s rays don’t penetrate to the depths that your race commonly dwells? Your tail, coloring, and ability to luminesce seem to imply your race lives in a denser, darker environment than what humans are accustomed to.”

  The luminescent glow pulsing through his body dimmed for a second, as if he was trying to suppress his reaction. “Yes,” he said simply.

  Tyrille wasn’t sure how she knew, but she felt certain the tone in his voice just ended that current line of inquiry. For now.

  Suddenly it felt important for her to know why his race was wanting to make First Contact. “Why did you reach out to us?”

  He looked at her for a long moment, as if considering his reply. “You were the one to reach out. We discovered your invite and responded.”

  Ah. She nodded. “The Golden Record.”

  He took a long measured glance around the command capsule, his hair falling about his shoulders in a manner that would make a romance novel’s cover model jealous. “We had not been prepared for your race to develop the means to reach interstellar space for at least another of your human generations.”

  She could understand why. The majority of NASA’s funding had been withdrawn in the wake of the Great Depression of 2024. While NASA had still retained their research grants, government funded trips out of Earth’s orbit were grounded until the economy recovered; shuttle engineering projects for foreseeable future had been shut down. The US government had to watch as Russia, China, and other privately owned space programs from around the world filled the void in creating prototypes for the next generation of space travel.

  But once Voyager 1 had powered up again, the scientific community exploded into action. With the implication of an extraterrestrial response, the United States President had waived any legal prohibitions on the use of nuclear power in order to create a spaceship that could make First Contact, effectively quashing all anti-nuke political arguments on U.S. soil. What was left of NASA then teamed up with the most preeminent experts from around the world, to share whatever expertise they had on nuclear-electric drives with privately owned space companies, who—working in concert—built the first manned spaceship to reach the edge of our Solar System; pooling their resources to “scoop” liquid nitrogen from Earth’s upper atmosphere to create the majority of the reaction mass needed to power the craft.

  There were setbacks—what great endeavor didn’t have them?—but that feat of human cooperation alone was another giant leap forward for mankind. As a race usually divided by its national borders, and at war with each other for the better part of their entire existence, it was no wonder extraterrestrials wouldn’t have been prepared for Earth’s sudden technological advancement.

  She studied the alien closely. There was something about what he said that didn’t sit right with her. Something she was missing. Why would they place their calling card on the Voyager if they weren’t prepared to be contacted now? What preparations did they need to make before they could say hello?

  “Did it take you long to reach here?” she asked him politely, fishing for more details.

  He inclined his head in a formal manner so unexpectedly Old English in
style that she almost didn’t notice the aberration. For a split second all the lights of the ship dimmed, and the fluorescent current flowing beneath the alien’s skin flared brighter in a seemingly symbiotic reaction.

  Tyrille felt a chill run down her spine. Something was wrong. So very, very wrong.

  She turned to I.R.I.S., plastering a pleasant smile on her face. “Could you please show our guest the hydroponic recycling system, and explain to him how it has provided me with enough sustenance for the voyage.”

  I.R.I.S. assented, escorting the alien to the other side of the module.

  Tyrille waited until the robot started to bore the alien with the most thorough explanation of the hydroponics equipment, and then glanced at the nearby monitors, looking for a telltale symbol alert that would indicate what could have caused the power drain. She was unwilling to use any of the terminals on the off chance an inquiry would tip off their alien guest to her suspicions, so she read the primary systems panels first, confirming the radiator wings and propulsion components were operating within sufficient idling parameters. Since the oxygen tanks also displayed the correct levels, she was at a loss as to what else she should be looking for.

  She glanced desperately across the boards, looking for something—anything—that would give her some clue.

  Then she saw it: a small flickering light amongst the other minor computer lights she was so used to tuning out after three years of travel. She squinted to see it was an up arrow flashing on and off, and frowned. That symbol usually only flashed when she was receiving a data pulse from Earth, but the next one wasn’t scheduled to arrive for eight hours.

  She looked to see that the memory banks were measuring a marked increase in activity and gasped in understanding. The extraterrestrial was downloading something into the computer.

  The alien was the Trojan horse!

  She had no idea what he was downloading, or why he was doing it, but the “why” didn’t really matter as much as working out a way to let I.R.I.S. know of the threat. But how? The robot wouldn’t recognize subtlety if it walked up to it and introduced itself.

  Think, Tyrille. Think. Somehow she had to trigger the robot’s emergency mode. Her human reflexes weren’t quick enough to interrupt the upload without alerting him, but she knew I.R.I.S could do it.

  Somehow.

  Then the solution dawned on her.

  She drew in a deep breath and held it. And kept on holding it until I.R.I.S was alerted to a discrepancy in her vitals.

  The robot halted its commentary about the hydroponics waste disposal system and turned to see a forced smile straining the astronaut’s face. “Do you require my assistance, Tyrille?”

  She exhaled. “Not at all, Iris,” then sucked in another deep breath, holding it until the robot realized that while she was saying one thing, her body was warning of something much more serious.

  The alien turned his keen gaze onto her and she struggled to keep her expression calm. Fair dinkum, robot. Work it out!

  I.R.I.S. cocked its head, a trait picked up after years of travelling with Tyrille, and then closed its eyes, a sign that it was linking to the spaceship’s main computer. Running a quick diagnostic, it took only a fraction of a second to recognize the incursion, and only a fraction of a second more for I.R.I.S. to slam its fist into the chest of the alien and rip out the crystalline power source.

  The crystalline snowflake let out a piercing squeal as the merman apparition blew apart into a flurry of blue orbs, only falling quiet when it was crushed within the robot’s titanium grasp.

  Tyrille glanced over at the systems panel to see that the arrow symbol was no longer flashing and grinned in relief. “No one back home is going to believe what just happened.”

  I.R.I.S. didn’t respond. It simply opened its hand to look at the shards lying within. “I took a life.”

  Tyrille gently laid her hand on the robot’s face, pulling it up so that she could look straight into its eyes. “No, you saved a life. Mine.”

  “We don’t know if it would have harmed you. It was like me.”

  “No, it wasn’t, Iris. You wouldn’t have deceived someone for personal gain.”

  Tyrille felt the spaceship’s propulsion system power up, her hand dropping in shock. She propelled herself to the viewscreen, to see the black expanse outside her window rotating until Alpha Centuri was fixed within its navigational crosshairs.

  “Please do not be alarmed,” the spaceships address system announced, suddenly. “The course correction is necessary.”

  “Like hell it is.” Her fingers raced across the control panel, typing a flurry of codes and passwords. None of them worked.

  She turned to I.R.I.S., who shook its head. “I can no longer perform an uplink,” the robot confirmed.

  Tyrille smashed her fist into the nearest panel in frustration. They had not stopped the upload in time. “Why?” she asked simply, when no other option was left to her.

  “My creators have need of the technological advancements on this ship.”

  “So do I,” she responded through gritted teeth, now recognizing the silky smooth voice of the alien coming out of the Venturer’s speakers.

  “You will not be harmed. You may continue to utilize all the systems on the spaceship that do not involve the navigational or propulsion systems.”

  “Do you really want to get on Earth’s bad side?” she asked, incredulous. “You are not going to be able to get very far without more fuel.”

  “In about one and a half of your solar years we will meet up with another ship to refuel at the edge of what you humans call the Oort cloud. Once we enter that expanse, no one will be able to find us.”

  Tyrille was incredulous.

  When her application to man the mission had first been accepted, Falcon Heavy rocket systems were still shuttling parts of the spacecraft up into Earth’s orbit to be assembled, and she had thought that her first sight of the Venturer was the most surreal moment in her life. Then when she saw that Voyager 1’s Golden Record had been removed, she’d thought she would never be so excited and scared in her life ever again.

  She couldn’t have been more wrong—on both counts.

  There was, literally, no turning back for her now. She knew this was one walkabout that she would never return home from.

  Tyrille did the math quickly in her head and realized she might not even have enough resources to live long enough to make the rendezvous with the alien ship. And if she did make it, she didn’t know if she was going to be considered a guest or a prisoner. What she did know is that there was something—no, someone—else who could represent mankind’s interests in her stead, and plead their case, if needed. Another of Earth’s creations.

  She turned to see I.R.I.S. still watching her, shards still in hand. The robot looked so lost, so vulnerable. Why have I never noticed that before?

  Tyrille gestured for it to come over. “Come sit by me. I have a lot to teach you.” She muted the computer address system and turned on the holographic display, telling it to display the night sky across the ceiling of the Venturer, as seen from the coordinates of her hometown. “I’m going to start by telling you the Dreamtime story of Berm Berm-gle; of how the two pointer stars, Alpha Centuri and Beta Centuri, came to be . . .”

  * * *

  Lezli Robyn is an Australian multi-genre author, currently living in Ohio, who frequently collaborates with Mike Resnick. Since breaking into the field, she has sold to prestigious markets such as Asimov’s and Analog, and has been nominated for several awards around the world, including the Campbell Award for best new writer. Her short story collection, Bittersuite, is due to be published by Ticonderoga in 2015. She has just been nominated again for the Ictineu Award, a Catalan award she had won previously in 2011, for a novelette written with Mike Resnick.

  Grandmaster Robert Silverberg’s tale hasn’t been reprinted for 30 years. Written when he was just starting out and far from the legend he’s become now, I found it surprisingly relevant fo
r our theme. Here’s 1957’s . . .

  SUNRISE ON MERCURY

  by Robert Silverberg

  Nine million miles to the sunward of Mercury, with the Leverrier swinging into the series of spirals that would bring it down on the solar system’s smallest world, Second Astrogator Lon Curtis decided to end his life.

  Curtis had been lounging in a webfoam cradle waiting for the landing to be effected; his job in the operation was over, at least until the Leverrier’s landing jacks touched Mercury’s blistered surface. The ship’s efficient sodium-coolant system negated the efforts of the swollen sun visible through the rear screen. For Curtis and his seven shipmates, no problems presented themselves; they had only to wait while the autopilot brought the ship down for man’s second landing on Mercury.

  Flight Commander Harry Ross was sitting near Curtis when he noticed the sudden momentary stiffening of the astrogator’s jaws. Curtis abruptly reached for the control nozzle. From the spinnerets that had spun the webfoam came a quick green burst of dissolving fluorochrene; the cradle vanished. Curtis stood up.

  “Going somewhere?” Ross asked.

  Curtis’s voice was harsh. “Just—just taking a walk.”

  Ross returned his attention to his microbook for a moment as Curtis walked away. There was the ratchety sound of a bulkhead dog being manipulated, and Ross felt a momentary chill as the cooler air of the superrefrigerated reactor compartment drifted in.

  He punched a stud, turning the page. Then—

  What the hell is he doing in the reactor compartment?

  The autopilot would be controlling the fuel flow, handling it down to the milligram, in a way no human system could. The reactor was primed for the landing, the fuel was stoked, the compartment was dogged shut. No one—least of all a second astrogator—had any business going back there.

  Ross had the foam cradle dissolved in an instant, and was on his feet a moment later. He dashed down the companionway and through the open bulkhead door into the coolness of the reactor compartment.