The Singularity Trap

by Dennis E. Taylor

  “You’re inviting me to a poker game? I guess you guys are all terrible, but you’re willing to learn from me?” Ivan tried to keep the sarcasm from dripping too heavily.

  “Me? Hell no, I’m warning you off. Do not get involved in Tenn Davies’s poker games. Those guys are sharks. The regulars are about evenly matched, so the money really just sloshes back and forth most of the time. But a fresh piece of chum like you? They’ll strip you to the bone. And they won’t feel the slightest bit bad about it, either.”

  Ivan grinned. “Noted. And thanks. Do you play?”

  “I did, once. Lost half my pay from my first tour. Since then, I’ve made it my mission to steer people clear.”

  “Mmm.” Ivan looked around as a growl escaped his midsection. “Is there food around here that won’t cost me a month’s wages?”

  “There’s a sandwich place spinward a half-segment. They use veat, but their stuff’s not terrible. I could eat, too.”

  Well, vat-grown meat was becoming common on Earth. Given the cost of boosting the real stuff up, it would be even more popular on the station. Ivan took one last look at the giant ships, sighed, and followed Seth.

  Financial Concerns

  Captain Jennings looked up from the tablet in his hand. Lita Generus sat at her station, working through pre-departure diagnostics and carefully not looking his way. Her dark skin made her profile indistinct in the low lighting of the bridge. The other stations, all of which collectively formed a semicircle with the Captain’s Chair as the focus, sat empty, awaiting the arrival of the rest of the bridge crew.

  Jennings took the opportunity to engage in a moment of weakness, rubbing his forehead. He looked up and admired the low glow of the overhead status monitors, readouts showing a healthy, well-prepared ship, ready to go out to chase dreams. Since the ship was at station-keeping with the habitation ring spun up, they were in the hab-ring bridge. The half gee gravity, normally an experience verging on luxury, wasn’t enough today to break his negative mood. He waggled the tablet in his hand. It wasn’t going to get any better if he just kept staring at it. “These are final figures, Ms. Generus?”

  Generus turned to him and nodded. Like most spacers, she kept her hair in a short helmet-cut. Her tight curls were beginning to show gray around the temples, which seemed incongruous next to her unlined, youthful face. “Yes, sir. All numbers confirmed. The last trip was just one insult too many to the budget. Failing some kind of score, this tour will probably be our last.”

  Jennings sat back and stared up at the bulkhead between the monitors and bridge stations. “By which you mean, I assume, that our creditors will call in our debts?”

  “Almost certain, sir. The debenture agreement is pretty clear about when the foreclosure clauses come into effect.”

  “How far ahead do we have to come out in order to avoid that?”

  “Barely more than break-even, really. We’re just below the clause triggers right now.”

  “And, statistically, profitable tours should happen about one in three. We’ve certainly had two very bad ones. We’re due.”

  “You know it doesn’t work that way, sir.”

  Jennings met her eyes with a small smile. “No, but leave me my illusions for the moment, okay?”

  None of this was really a surprise. Decades of experience crewing and then commanding a mining ship had given Jennings a good feel for net returns from a tour. He’d known before they even reached Earth that the last one was a bust. But the audited figures removed any possibility of a reprieve.

  He truly enjoyed captaining a space vessel. But the financial and administrative sides of the job could be soul-sucking. For twenty-five years, he’d been commanding his own ship—his first command had used the old ion engines—but this was the closest he’d come in all that time to losing it all.

  It was an uncertain living, of course. A moderately good strike could keep you going for multiple tours. About a third of the tours earned enough to allow you to break even or come out ahead. It took a string of bad luck, running in the red for several tours in a row, to break you. You’d burn through your reserves, then bet everything you had left on that last throw of the dice…

  And always, that dream of the big one. The strike that would take the worries away forever.

  Jennings imagined the dice cupped in one of his hands. He stared into infinity for several seconds. He was too old to start over. If they took the Astra, he’d be done.

  There had to be options. There were always options.

  “When is bridge staff getting here, Ms. Generus?”

  “They start coming in on the next ferry, sir. They should all be on board by twelve hundred. Dr. Kemp has a couple of physicals to complete, so he’ll be last in.”

  Jennings nodded. “Leave a message with each, please. Status meeting at fifteen hundred. They’ll have time to stow their gear and get cleaned up. I think we have to deal with the financial situation as a priority. Tell them to bring their best ideas.”

  Departure

  And, again, no windows. Ivan was beginning to despair of ever getting a view of the action. Whoever was in charge of designing spaceships didn’t seem to get it.

  The small vessel was filled to capacity with the Mad Astra’s crew. The bridge staff were already on board the Astra, doing whatever start-up preparations real astronauts did.

  Where the space shuttle had been a polished, finished vessel designed with tasteful décor, the ferries that operated around Olympus Station had more of a welded-together go-kart feel. Seats were reminiscent of beach chairs, and bare metal dominated.

  Docking fees being what they were, the captain of the Mad Astra had opted for a parking beacon at a prescribed distance from Olympus Station. The money saved more than made up for the cost of the ferry hired to transport personnel.

  Seth replied to Ivan’s muttered complaint. “You’ll get a better view on the Astra. Shuttles and ferries are built as utilitarian as possible. On long-haul ships, we have to be a lot more aware of human psychological needs.”

  “Say, you seem to know a lot about it. Are you the ship’s shrink or something?”

  Seth laughed. “Sure, yeah, that’s me. That’s why I get paid the big bucks.” He settled more comfortably into his seat. “We have a lot of spare time on the ship. I always bring up a few pets of reading and other media. I can lend you some, if you run out of porn.”

  Ivan chuckled, then thought of the sticks in his luggage, stuffed to the last petabyte with correspondence courses and reference materials in Computer Science, Astronomy and Physics. He was relieved to know he wouldn’t be odd man out. “Thanks. I did bring some educational stuff. I’m taking courses, and I’m looking forward to some chunks of free time.”

  Tennison Davies stuck his head over the back of his chair. “Just don’t forget you’re on Hydroponics duty on the way out, sprout. Me and the boys, we like our grub.”

  “Thanks, Tex, I’ll be sure to corral something for you.”

  Seth laughed out loud, and several of Tennison’s friends snickered. Tennison turned red and looked for a moment as if he would take umbrage. Then he grinned at Ivan. “Touché, sprout. You just tend those plants real good, y’hear?”

  Seth nudged Ivan with an elbow. “Hey, why don’t you ask Tenn who is the only crew member that has managed to ruin prepackaged meals?” There were more laughs, and Seth continued, “Who knows what would happen if we let him near the hydroponics?”

  Tennison made a show of silently laughing at Seth, before sitting down.

  “Maneuvering, fifteen seconds.”

  At the announcement, everyone settled back into their acceleration chairs and made sure they were buckled in properly. They endured the usual several minutes of thrusts and twitches, then a final clunk.

  The P.A. crackled to life. “Docking complete. On behalf of Captain Crash and the surviving crew, thank you for flying Mad Dog Airways. Any chickens on board remain the property of the airl
ine. Don’t trip over the drunk guy on your way out. Have a good flight.”

  Ivan and Seth laughed, and Seth said, “Yeah, flying ferries gets a little boring, I guess.”

  * * *

  Ivan watched the monitor as Olympus Station slowly receded. The Mad Astra accelerated at only one-tenth gee, but it could keep up the thrust for hours. During acceleration, the crew would have gravity along the ship’s axis, and would stick to the on-axis accommodations. According to the captain’s announcement, they would accelerate for four hours, then would shut down the engines and spin up the ship’s hab ring, coasting most of the way to their destination. The trip would take about three weeks.

  Meanwhile, the crew was congregated in the on-axis common room. Aligned with the ship’s acceleration vector, the room allowed them to operate in artificial gravity, albeit the much-lower tenth-gee. It featured the same amenities as the hab-ring common room—coffee and other drink dispensers, auto-washer, food packs and heating unit, and bench tables to sit at. As with all rooms in the ship, the ceiling was painted in a lighter color than the carpet on the floor, to create a psychological impression of up and down.

  Dante Aiello, the first mate, walked in. His stride, in the negligible gravity, resembled the gait from a dream sequence where one step covers twenty feet. Aiello, a doughy-faced middle-aged man, always seemed to wear a slightly surprised expression, as if the normal workings of the universe mystified him.

  He looked around, his lips moving in a not-quite-silent count. Satisfied that everyone was present, he began poking at his tablet.

  “Okay, assignments. Pritchard, Geiger, Todd, you’re on cargo inspection. Haul ass, we’ve got limited time before spin-up.”

  Ivan and the two others jumped up—Ivan jumped too hard and had to do a push-down off the ceiling, to everyone’s amusement—and headed for the cargo bay. As they left the room, Ivan could hear Aiello continuing to hand out jobs.

  * * *

  Several days later, the pace of work hadn’t slackened. Today, Ivan had enjoyed a slightly more technical set of tasks, as the crew unshipped the mining robots and put them through diagnostics and setup.

  Today’s shift had been especially back-breaking for those not used to detail work. Unpacking and test-assembling the mining robots was a finicky, picky duty that required you to hold a cramped position while making minute adjustments using toy-sized tools. Good work for elves or pixies.

  A backward lean made Seth grunt as a vertebra audibly popped. Working his shoulders again he uttered a satisfied sigh as he verified that he’d successfully self-chiropracted.

  Ivan shuddered theatrically. “Jeez, Seth, that makes me cringe.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got a thing in my back that acts up. Lorenza and her stupid mining robots…”

  “Quit’cher bellyaching,” Tenn interjected. “I’ve done tours where some of the robots weren’t working, and we had to do things manually. A little screwdriver work is nothing.”

  Davies seemed to be sparing Ivan, at least for today. Maybe it was because of Ivan’s work on the robots. A normally two-to three-day job had been reduced to barely four hours. By the end of the process, Lorenza had almost completely stopped complaining about the shortcomings of ‘the help’. Ivan grinned. It definitely felt good to be the hero.

  “I am going to sleep like a babe tonight,” he said as they dried off from their showers and dressed.

  “You aren’t all tweaked about the size of the accommodations?”

  Ivan looked askance at Davies. “Is that a thing? Because after The Burrows, this is luxury.”

  Tenn laughed. “Yeah, well, we’ve had a few claustrophobia cases. The problem is, you wake up in the middle of the night, in the dark, in low gravity, with walls close around you, and you’re liable to go into a funk before your brain has caught up. Then you scream in panic, wake the rest of us, and we have to come over and show our appreciation.” He looked at Ivan significantly. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Don’t yell at night. Got it.” Ivan grinned back at the much larger man.

  A couple of the other crew overheard and laughed. Davies gave him an arch look, but no follow-up. Definitely taking it easy, today.

  “Crew to the Common Room. Meeting at 13:20.” Everyone looked up at the P.A. announcement.

  “That’s, uh, unusual. Well, let’s hop to it.” Seth tossed his towel in the laundry basket, followed by the other crew. The laundry mech grabbed the towels as they landed, glaring at each crew member in apparent reproach. Aspasia tossed her towel directly at the mech and grinned at the silent rebuke.

  They all pulled on the standard ship garb—tee shirt, shorts, and slippers—and headed downwheel to the Common Room. The hab ring on the Mad Astra was considerably smaller than a space station wheel, barely a hundred meters diameter at the rim. This made the curve of the floor, even on the outermost level, far more obvious and Coriolis force more of an issue. And heading downwheel increased their weight significantly as their pace added to their rotational velocity. Several of the crew started to sound out of breath as they hustled along.

  Seth looked back. “Say, some of you guys need to spend more time on the treadmills, I think.”

  “Eat me,” Tenn snarled.

  Seth laughed as they arrived at the Common Room. They shuffled in, grabbed coffees from the ever-primed coffee dispenser, and sat down.

  Precisely on time, the captain walked in. He scanned the room and nodded. “I want to talk strategy. As captain, of course, I can make unilateral decisions, but I’d prefer to have everyone involved.”

  He looked around for a moment, inviting questions or comments. No one made a sound.

  “The last couple of tours have not been good to us, and we’ve not achieved break-even. If we fall short this time I’m afraid it will be the last trip for the Mad Astra, at least under my command. All we need is a little more than break-even. I am therefore asking you to approve a potential tour extension of one to three months. I know it’s a hard thing—you’ll effectively be working for free for the extra time. However, if we return empty-handed and the creditors foreclose, you will get back at most a fraction of your share purchase. I will leave you to discuss and ponder, and we will have a vote in a week. Thank you for your time.”

  The captain looked around again, nodded to the crew in general, and walked out. A buzz of conversation immediately rose in the room.

  Ivan hung his head, balled his fists, and fought back tears.

  “Hey, Ivan, what gives?” Seth asked.

  Ivan rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands before answering. “It means I’m effectively making less per month than I was in my previous job. This was supposed to be a step up, not down. And there’s still the chance of losing the share price in the end.”

  “Yeah, trying to provide for a family puts a whole other level of difficulty into the equation. Look, kid, I already mentioned my money just goes into the bank. I can give you a loan against either your share, if you sell out, or future profits if we hit it. No interest, no obligations otherwise.”

  Ivan felt himself tearing up again, but got it under control. “Thanks, Seth. I appreciate it. And I don’t have the luxury of being too proud to accept.”

  He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Tenn had overheard at least part of the exchange. The normally acerbic crewman didn’t comment, though; he met Ivan’s gaze for a moment, then looked away.

  Ivan frowned. It seemed out of character for Tenn to have passed on an easy setup like that. Perhaps there was more there than just a loud-mouth.

  * * *

  Ivan kicked himself expertly up the axial passageway. It was a matter of pride that he could now go from Engineering all the way to the hab ring entry without touching the sides. He glided slowly past the various exits—shortcuts to different zero-gee areas of the ship.

  The Mad Astra was generally egg-shaped, a hundred and fifty meters long, with the fusion nacelles clustered around the
narrow end, and the hab ring forming a five-meter-wide cross section at the widest part of the oval. While spun up, the ring could only be accessed from the corridor that ran down the center of the ship from Engineering to the on-axis Bridge. Though inconvenient from a purely engineering point of view, the artificial gravity that the hab ring provided was essential to human health on long voyages.

  Ivan arrived at the hab ring hatch just as he came within reach of the wall. Another perfect trajectory. Grabbing a handhold, he pulled himself to a smooth stop. He exited through the hatch, feet first, to the walkway encircling the hub, and pulled himself around to the nearest spoke ladder.

  A quick slide down, and he was in the Common Room. Seth waved from a table where he, Tenn, and Dr. Kemp were sitting.

  Ivan no longer felt any surprise at the doctor’s presence. Though nominally an officer, Charles Kemp spent a considerable amount of time mingling with the crew. He claimed the coffee was better.

  “We’ll begin decelerating in two hours, sprout. Pretty soon, you won’t be a virgin.”

  Ivan grinned at Tenn as he headed for the coffee machine. “Assuming we find something worth poking with a stick, of course.”

  Dr. Kemp gave Ivan the stink-eye. “There’s attitude for you. Anyway, Lita told me they’ve already tagged several good targets for investigation, within EVA distance of our projected parking location. We’ve got three weeks of prospecting lined up for our first stop.”

  Everyone looked up as the P.A. crackled. “Hab ring spin-down in ten. Please vacate the hab ring.”

  Ivan’s sigh was echoed by several others. The half-gee in the hab ring was a luxury that would be missed, until they arrived at a location where it was worthwhile spinning back up. He looked down at the still-empty coffee cup he was holding, then handed it to the dishwasher. The mech snatched the cup, gave it a quick wipe and returned it to the rack, then glared at Ivan until he retreated.