by Hylton Smith
Stella had not taken long to join Carvalho in Marineris Central. It mutated from a rumour on Mars to headline news on Earth. There was the predictable criticism from some, over such a leader setting an example of non-matrimonial co-habitation. It was not all from Earth. It was also yet more idiosyncratic fodder for the Symbiants and Axis to digest. When it was obvious to others that Stella was pregnant the ripples receded, at least on Mars.
The tension surrounding the launch of the QSD craft was one which was totally predictable. Analogous in some respects to the design of the parachute, it could only really be tested fully in its intended medium. The parachute developed from multiple disastrous opening failures, to very reliable precision landings on a saddled horse, through design improvements generated by fatalities. This partially explained the crew’s relative body language of excitement, fear and confidence, in varying amplitudes as pre-flight checks registered. Once Dan was hooked up irregularities were harmonised to conformance and it was time. The gathered crowd wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of visuals on special screens. The craft was high enough in the ionosphere to make it difficult to see with the naked eye. The layman’s point of view had been condensed to one of two possibilities – instantaneous disappearance followed by either telemetric success or oblivion.
Dan verified sequence initiation, then parameters locked, and finally but suddenly trajectory confirmed. It was then a different experience for each species within the crew. It was a surreal visual interpretation by the human eye. The Axis seemed to resolve the imagery into frames with frequent blanks. Red had less distortion but ‘sensed’ through his sentinel cell/tiered registry slight displacement of time. They all resisted trying to discuss this as Dan was spewing out values and criteria which were out of specified range then correcting this by declaring conformance. It took 13 minutes to reach the prescribed way point and the craft dropped out of QSD.
The people on Mars greeted the report of success on stage one as a bit of a non-event and some even dispersed.
There was a planned break at the way point. Dan concluded that the flirtation between out of tolerance and conformance was a concern for long travel periods. He described his part of corrective loop modification as something he had heard humans describe. It was more like LSD than QSD; he thought it might be an equally addictive experience. “It must be close to data assimilation Nirvana.”
The break was very short but did give a breathtaking overview of the asteroid belt. It seemed as if they were hovering over a monstrous but silent motorway with millions of differing sized vehicles along thousands of lanes, without any collisions.
The re-engagement of QSD propelled Europa toward them and it arrived in fractionally over twenty-three minutes. While Dan was achieving final data upload and Red was preparing for normal thrust orbit insertion manoeuvres, Jet was asked to keep visual attention on the surface for familiar landmarks in case the conventional electronics had been affected by the journey of the ‘station to the train’. He also asked for timepiece synchronisation repeat checks to compare with those on Mars when they returned.
Separation was achieved and Jet confirmed the terrain for landing corresponded well to expectation. The descent was uneventful and still the only two individuals not to speak were the humans. Evander was preoccupied with Dan’s assertion of problems with long journeys, and ascribed it to better control requirement of generation and amplification uniformity of gravity A waves. It was puzzling to him however as to how such a finite need for precision could ‘almost work perfectly’. He had been confident it either worked or it did not. Yamamoto was still recovering from an introspective comparison. This transposition of over 352 million miles had taken less time than his schoolboy journey from one Tokyo high speed train stop to the other. He would soon revert to norm.
Chapter 25
The Korean Security H.Q. had been flattened but the information coming from Kim was not good. The top official had been in hospital visiting his sick mother at the time of the strike and had subsequently disappeared. It was unlikely that he had the codes on his person, and probable that they had been destroyed but they could not rule out backup at his home, in a secure government deposit facility, or even the possibility that he memorised them. This would be a nervous time and he would be sufficiently shaken to act irrationally. They had to find him. The UN did not disclose details directly to the contributing nations, but their forces knew something was up as they were proceeding unopposed to the Capital city.
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After much trawling for suitable candidates the first choice was Marsupial Dasyurus Viverrinus. The two deciding factors were its potential genetic overlap with the original Axis template, and it had a gestation period of 8-14 days. When Pascal 2 asked if the women thought there would be full cooperation on Earth they both shook their heads. “Pity, could they do the research we need on Earth if we submitted the plan?”
Scillacci was on the verge of laughing this off, when Stella remarked that one of the features of their reproduction was that it was very common for many more young to be conceived, than there was room for them in the pouch. When this was coupled with an important parental involvement with the young, it could be argued as compassionate. “It’s a long shot but worth a try. We would need someone there to espouse this aspect, to allow a few to come here. The converted hydrogen plant would cater for many generations and they would have no predators.”
They would ask Carvalho to consider this. The Axis leader was particularly enthusiastic and this could also be seen as reciprocal help for their massive contribution to Martian and Earth industrial infrastructure.
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The news of the diamond discovery had more than quadrupled the applications for migration, and they had already been excessive. Forged documents had almost become an industry rather than a clandestine operation. Scrutiny had deteriorated even further – the agency responsible was creaking under the weight and it began to get ugly when processing by Mars was slowed by lack of time to discuss individual cases with Earth counterparts. A halt was called by Carvalho until he could recruit additional experienced people in this kind of screening from Earth. There was a labour shortage in every facet of Martian expansion. If they could not avail of these extra personnel he would reserve the right to alter the desired profile of candidacy significantly. Although he knew this would buy a little time he was not prepared for the outcry it actually caused on both planets.
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The descent to Europa had ‘broken the dream’ and they were covering the terrain very carefully on foot. It was not too far to an entrance to the Axis underground city. Once Jet had entered codes and access was available they were confronted with another example of scale the Axis had engineered into this abandoned metropolis. It was much more sophisticated than anything on Mars and was ridiculously large for the seven hundred occupants it used to have. When asked about this Jet’s reply was quite graphic. “At the time we were suffering from the emotional withdrawal from Mars, and we had been given hope that our people in Gliese had made a breakthrough, which could restore our ability to procreate. After scaling up their trials the Gliese Axis found that over 97% of offspring delivered were still-born. It was not an infection or malfunction of the reproductive process alone, it was a case of the embryos having functions missing. The remaining 3% lived as disfigured young for no more than a few days. As you can imagine, during the time we were waiting for schematics to arrive over that distance – more than twenty four years, we had built a city of the future.”
The sadness was absorbed by the whole group. They followed Jet slowly to the nearest message receiver complex and after further authenticity checks he turned and smiled at Yamamoto. “You were absolutely correct Kipchoge; we do have much more detailed information on the data processing breakthrough than we received on Mars, from Epsilon Eridani. There is also Astrometric data here to show.... no, it cannot be true. Excuse me please I cannot..” They could see from the
intense bright yellow colour display that this must be even better news. It was indeed but it was also news, part of which they could have had from current human cosmic databases. The Gliese Axis had summoned up more ‘courage’ than the others to build large radio telescopes and study the Cosmos again. Perhaps their relatively favourable planet ecology and atmosphere had fostered more curiosity than despair compared to their brethren, especially the Martian variety. The readings they had sent were not really a surprise to the others. The gas giants in 55 Cancri had slightly different orbits compared to what they knew three million years ago. The Gliese Axis had not reported this until they were certain that the new orbits were, although eccentric, stable over many cycles. They had felt sufficiently confident that the cataclysmic events during the wormhole opening, and colossal release of energy, must have affected these planetary bodies. The message went on to say something which Earth science could not be certain about. Nexus was still there and had a much steadier orbit than before. It wasn’t possible to be more precise at this stage; they would apply their new data technology to building a ring of massive telescopes, with a radius of two thousand miles and link the output to harmonise the data to simulate a telescope dish of such proportion. If it was described by the Gliese Axis as massive, the others knew it would be big. With the new Epsilon Eridani communication system they would be able to offer more frequent updates. This fantastic news was going to put more strain on Martian staffing of projects and this one could well be about to increase in priority. The Earth database was never accessed by the Axis as it was not set up to compare current information with the instability of three million years ago. Nobody had made the link until now. The destruction of Nexus was an ‘assumed fact’.
The ghost town was very interesting considering the relative time periods the Axis had been on Mars compared to Europa. Although everything was deactivated there was far more sophistication in transport, art, cultivation of geometric shaped plants from Nexus, and everyday maintenance robots which looked more like humans than Axis. All ‘entertainment’ complexes were communal rather than individual. This included computing, libraries, image creation etc. which were annexes of the impressive education establishments. They had steam rooms, fountains and the lighting was automatically dimmed and brightened to simulate day and night. The energy for all this was a mix of nuclear and geothermal sources. Jet wanted to take a couple of library sources of the ‘false dawn’ procreation technical detail and conclusions for Pascal 2, Stella and Scillacci. He thought it might help avoid further disappointment.
They left orbit and returned by the same route. On checking their timepieces there was the anticipated difference with Mars clocks which equated exactly to the time of the trip. The reception back at Marineris Central was much more upbeat than the departure. The news of successful near light-speed travel without physiology tinkering was a very strong card to deliver to Earth.
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North Korea was effectively under occupation by UN forces. The Head of Security was still in hiding and this was the only reason for holding back on announcement of installation of a North Korean temporary military governing body, supported by UN officials. This was not satisfactory, as the people wanted to know what was going on, particularly with the dictator. They had to hold the declaration until all silos contained only disabled warheads, and this was a slow meticulous process. It was nearing completion, but unknown to the comparatively loose new military command structure, one of the maintenance men was, although carrying accreditation, also a zealous supporter of the previous regime. He had agreed to cause a distraction while the heavily disguised Head of Security initiated launch of at least one warhead. The zealot compromised multiple warning circuits and the alarm chorus was deafening. Panic ensued and the man with the codes slipped through. He intended to deliver a message and a warhead to Seoul.
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The information Jet handed to Pascal 2 would require translation by the Symbiant. It did provide highly specific information even if it was on what should be avoided. The most useful part was the research which should have been more thorough on the connectivity of the reproductive organ management to the node control protocols. It stopped short of making guesses at what might have worked. It was strange that this had never been mentioned by either Doc or Mac, especially as the former was a walking encyclopaedia on all things Axis medical. The answer arrived almost as they asked the question. The Mars Axis had consciously programmed out of Doc’s architecture the episode which had finally crushed their hope. There was one other area which could be important. The statistical data showed over a very long period of time, since the proximity of two events, the reproductive organs themselves had changed. The events unsurprisingly, were the radiation sterility era and the ‘age of the sphere’. The organs had reduced in size and component structure. The male organs had virtually disappeared and the accessibility to ‘eggs’ was shrunken in the female and would be obstructive to ‘male swimmers’. The repetitive changing of spheres and carcasses every 555 years did nothing but reinforce this trend.
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Carvalho transmitted on to Cheverry the good news about QSD transport to Europa, but left the Gliese message with the Axis for now. This was purely out of respect for the Axis and to give time for them to digest the fallout from it. The Commander instinctively asked how Earth had taken the news about Sabine’s hybrid box. “I hope your fears over her safety have not materialised.”
The Frenchman found it hard to gauge the mood of the protest lobbies right now as their eye had been taken off the ball by forecasts of crop failures and crippling synthetic food price increases. Carvalho asked if he was prepared to front the Mars request for a limited number of Marsupial Dasyurus Viverrinus. “We’re excited about restoring the Axis procreation potential and these mammals will help significantly. It comes at a good time insofar as we have passed phase one of QSD travel without considering human modification; both Yamamoto and Evander as yet have no side effects. You mention possible food shortages. Another observation on Europa shows the Axis technology has more capabilities in this branch than we thought. They were only on Mars for about three thousand years and the city on Europa makes their Martian achievements, which impressed us, look like a kid’s attempt to build a campsite. I remember when we first invited them to return to Mars they highlighted one of their requests for more variety in their food than during their Martian spell, which was exclusively cellulose. We didn’t realise then that this was for assistance in providing raw material and not technology. They have means on Europa to lower synthetic food costs drastically on Earth. As we have a meritocracy here we haven’t focussed on cost. I see this as a chance to improve relations by helping one another, or am I being naive?”
Cheverry welcomed this as a very positive reminder for certain Earth attitudes of what can be delivered by rational investment off-world. “Thank you Commander, I will get back to you on the Marsupi....., I dislike acronyms but can we make this an exception and refer to them as MDVs?”
Chapter 26
He felt he could handle the adverse reaction his re-classification of migrant standards had received on Earth, but the disquiet on Mars was a concern. The objections were mainly centred on the work/leisure ratio. Compared to when they first arrived most migrants had seen a diminishing amount of time spent with their families. The project lists had increased dramatically and the workers felt they needed an influx of labour, albeit of the right calibre, to restore family life. It was, after all, in a meritocracy, not a case of more work – more financial reward. Carvalho could see the argument and pledged to review the temporary on-hold status. This did carry risk of undesirables squeezing through the net and had the prospect of a ‘policing culture’ arising by default. He stressed this point, and said if it did arise the people should remember that it had been predicted as a possible consequence of relaxed immigration criteria. The waiting list already required more than eighty-eight Colossus trips, and it
was expected to continue to grow.
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The panic in the silo did not prevent a call to Kim Hun-Yeong to apprise him of the multiple alarm warnings and the concern that they might have been deliberately triggered. There was camera evidence of a maintenance man at that control section at the time of the warnings. He was being interviewed as they spoke. “Sir, we cannot get any information from this man, this is behaviour which his superior claims is not normal. The Section Leader believes the various alarms should have had specific intervals related to their functional output and build-up of dangerous conditions. We have initiated checking out all personnel in the silo and all exits are secure. If the Section Head is correct in his assessment, resetting the warning data feeds should indicate they were manually triggered and that would mean they pose no risk in themselves. However if this was deliberate it raises the probability of a saboteur.”
Kim was sufficiently detached from the scenes of panic to consider that there had never been such an incident before and this one was almost immediately after the Security H.Q. had been taken out. He asked his subordinate to save precious time by abandoning interviews and simply herd all personnel into neutral areas. Then the interviews could resume. By this time the saboteur had been able to input the array of codes necessary for opening the silo doors, raising the warheads, setting targets and activation of firing response software. The countdown had started to include detonation parameters. The Section Leader was now relaxed about being ushered into an interview area. Unknown to him the maintenance man had not discriminated in the alarm sections he triggered and some of the functions would be restored before others, thus affecting the saboteur’s intended input.
