by Greig Beck
The dog’s unnatural blue eyes looked deep into Alex’s and Joshua held out a hand and the dog came and sat beneath it. “Lots of stuff.” The boy and dog looked at each other for a moment, then Joshua nodded and turned back to Alex.
“Torben wants to know are you our pack leader. I said yes.”
Alex laughed. “What have you taught him so far?”
Joshua grinned. “He’s smart. I don’t need to teach him anything. He knows what to do.” He looked again at the dog and his grin widened. “He said, this is his pack now, and he’ll protect it.”
Alex looked at the dog. There was such clarity and intelligence in the dog’s eyes that he found it a little unnerving. “Okay, good. That’s his job.” Alex got to his feet. “Now, am I the only one who needs a holiday … somewhere warm?”
* * *
Walter Grey powered down the computers, and went to stand before the seated silver android. Sophia was also powered down and sat pharaoh-like in the chair.
Grey smiled. “I’d call that a successful field test.”
He reached forward to run a hand over the smooth face, and then patted the head. His fingers found a few nicks and abrasions in the silver skin. “We’ll give that armor a touch up, and you’ll be as good as new.”
Walter stood straighter and then turned to the door. “Lights out. Door.” The spotlights shut down and the recessed door slid back for him as he approached, then closed silently after him.
A soft, red glow appeared in the face of the android, and the head rose. Sophia got to her feet and walked to the bank of computer consoles. Her slim hands began working at one of them with lightning speed unlocking password encryptions, opening programs and then accessing data – in a few more seconds she had found what she searched for.
The other screens remained blank and they reflected her featureless image back at her while she rapidly worked at reimagining the telemetry data of the VELA satellite protocols. In another few seconds, she had chosen a suitable optical perspective and began zooming down; further and further.
Her hands rested, and the tiny red lights seemed to stare as she watched Alex, Aimee, and Joshua lying on the grass. Minutes passed as she studied their every nuance, expression, while following their lip movements.
Her hands reached forward again, and she zoomed in a little more, angling carefully this time. Aimee’s face filled the screen, and Sophia paused the feed, and sat immobile before the woman’s face.
After a moment, she tilted her head, seeing her own reflection in the dark screen next to Aimee’s face. Sophia looked from one to the other – Aimee’s features, and then to her own near featureless visage.
“This time, I’m not letting you go,” Sophia said. Then she repeated the phrase several more times until the voice was perfect.
Sophia signed off and went and sat back in the chair. The tiny lights where her eyes should have been slowly dimmed.
CHAPTER 50
Colonel Jack Hammerson closed the file then poured himself a double Jack Daniels, neat. He then opened his drawer to take out a box of long, dark cigars, and hummed as he clipped the end from one, stuck it into the center of his mouth, and lit it.
He blew a long plume of blue smoke into the air, and then rolled the cigar to the corner of his mouth as he got to his feet. He grabbed his glass and walked toward the large armor-plated window that looked out over the USSTRATCOM base parade grounds.
The sky was darkening now, showing the pinpricks of stars in among the countless trillions of miles of black nothingness. In that vastness of space, he knew there were probably things that would take advantage of their benign little blue world if given the chance. This horror had come out of the void and taken them by surprise. This time they got lucky.
He removed his cigar and sipped his whisky, letting it roll around his mouth for a second or two before swallowing the golden liquid down to scald his belly.
He raised the glass. “To all the good men and women lost, who fight to the death for us, and whose names will never be known.” He went to lower the glass but paused. “And to all the luck we can damn well get.”
He sipped again. Jack Hammerson continued to stare up at the night sky. The last of the dark blue velvet had already turned black.
He sighed. We don’t know what’s really out there. And maybe it’s better it stays that way.
EPILOGUE
Russian Space Shuttle Orbiter Buran II, 300 miles above the Belozersky District in Vologda Oblast.
“It’s still with us.”
Commander Sergey Volodin watched the view screen as the shining dot grew larger. He turned in his seat.
“Trajectory?”
Cosmonaut engineer crewmember Valentina Marishnakov looked at her radar and shook her head. “Trajectory unchanged, velocity unchanged, astral body intersection unchanged – collision course confirmed; it will strike us in eleven minutes and twenty-three seconds. Evasive action has failed again.” She turned, her face pale. “We have not been able to outrun it.”
Volodin threw his head back. “Voloch, this damned bit of rock must be magnetic.” He wished he were seated in his Sukhoi jetfighter; he’d give it a burst from the undercarriage canon and shatter it into a million pieces.
“Wait.” Cosmonaut Nikolay Berezik held up a hand. “Roscosmos thinks they have a plan.” He listened to the voice in his earphones from the Russian Space Agency for a few more seconds. He began to nod and smile. He spun to Volodin.
“They believe we can use the robotic arm to bring it onboard.”
Volodin turned and looked at his engineer’s beaming face. He then turned to Valentina, who also nodded and raised a thumb.
She hiked her shoulders. “It’s the lowest risk.”
And doing nothing is suicide. Volodin turned back to his screens.
“Then let’s do it.”
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Many readers ask me about the background of my novels – is the science real or fiction? Where do I get the situations, equipment, characters, or their expertise from? And just how much of any element has a basis in fact?
In the case of cosmic arrivals somehow kick starting or modifying the evolutionary process, there is strong evidence to conclude this may certainly have occurred.
The Effects of Stardust
Life on Earth is shaped by its environment(s) and even tiny alterations in those environments can force creatures to adapt, move away, or die out. Geological forces like volcanoes, glaciers, warming/cooling climates, sea levels rising/dropping, and continental drift play a big part in the physical characteristics of organisms.
But looking further from home we also need to acknowledge the effects of forces beyond our Earth. Could entities and cosmic effects from the stars also have played a part in shaping us? Of course they could!
The most dramatic example of astral interference everyone knows about is the theory of a massive meteorite impact some sixty-six million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. This theory was bolstered by the physical presence of a layer of Iridium laid down in the sedimentary rock. Below this Iridium layer we found dinosaur fossils, and above, there were none. Added to that, Iridium is extremely rare on Earth but found in high concentrations in asteroids.
But there are other theories besides the meteorite impact for the dinosaur extinction and the associated Iridium layer. At Japan’s Spaceguard Association, Tokuhiro Nimura suggested that the rare mineral layer might have been caused by the Earth passing through a molecular cloud – a curtain of death in space that then built up in the atmosphere. It blocked sunlight and so cooled our planet’s surface.
It is possible that, just like smaller-scale population crashes, these off-worldly interactions could be an inherent part of the way ecosystems work. Because all life is interdependent, a small change in one population might create a ripple effect that sends out waves through the entire system. Basically, everything doesn’t need to be initially affected, just some things.
There have been fiv
e mass extinctions in Earth’s history. In the most significant one – 250 million years ago – ninety-six percent of marine species and seventy percent of land species died off. Many theories assert that though local, earthly factors were involved, it is not beyond the realms of possibility to assume that otherworldly effects also played a part.
But there is another theory about falling stardust. That it not only can destroy, but also create.
When cosmic rays collide with molecules in the air they produce showers of particles that could induce mutations in DNA. Many mutations would be aberrant and lead to dead ends, but some may be beneficial and they could amplify variety and make life more diverse.
Panspermia
Panspermia is the name given to the theory that life has been ‘seeded’ through the universe by roving meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and also brought back by our own spacecraft in the form of hyper-resilient micro-organisms.
The theory behind panspermia is that microscopic life forms that can survive the effects of deep space are blasted free when collisions occur between planets, planetoids, moons, and even meteorites. These are ejected into space and can lay dormant until they arrive on a new astral body with ideal conditions. The hibernating organisms then switch on and become active, and from there, growth and evolution can begin to take place.
One piece of supporting evidence is that the emergence of life began on Earth soon after the heavy primordial asteroid bombardment period of Earth that occurred between 4 and 3.8 billion years ago. During this period, scientists believe we endured a very powerful series of meteor showers that could have continued for many millennia. Then we also found that the earliest evidence for life on Earth suggested it was present some 3.83 billion years ago, occurring right at this bombardment time. Was the meteorite shower the ‘seed of life’ Earth was waiting for?
The chemical building blocks for life would have formed shortly after the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. In whatever form, it is likely that this genesis matter may have populated many planets and been shaped by those worlds as much as they shaped them.
Big Bad Bugs
Big bugs are still around today. Just think of the giant burrowing cockroach or the goliath beetle, both reaching several inches in length. Big as they are, these guys would be dwarfed by their ancestors that lived during several of the farthest back prehistoric eras.
The Paleozoic era occurred 542 to 250 million years ago and is separated into six periods of time. The rule of insects occurred during the Carboniferous period (360 to 300 million years ago) and the Permian period (300 to 250 million years ago).
Atmospheric oxygen is the single most limiting factor on insect size. But during the Carboniferous and Permian periods, atmospheric oxygen concentrations were significantly higher than they are today. So bugs grew big, real big. The largest insects lived during the Carboniferous period. It was the time of the dragonfly with over a two-foot wingspan, eighteen-inch mayflies and a millipede that grew to ten feet in length. There was also a creature called a griffenfly (Meganeuropsis permiana) and this airborne meat eater had a twenty-eight inch wingspan and inhabited what is now the central US.
Our oceans were also inhabited by arthropod giants – an ancient sea scorpion (Jaekelopterus rhenaniae) grew to nine feet in length – one and a half times the size of a man! In 2007, Markus Poschmann unearthed a fossilized claw from this massive specimen in a German quarry and the claw alone measured fifteen inches!
These prehistoric insects breathed air that was up to thirty-five percent oxygen, as compared to just twenty-one percent oxygen in the air today. Unlike mammals, insects can absorb air via their exoskeleton’s surface. When oxygen levels were higher, it meant a diffusion-challenged respiratory system could supply sufficient oxygen to meet the metabolic needs of a larger insect.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Advancements
After spending over two decades working in the information-technology sector, I saw many of the new wave advancements come and go (or come and grow). There was the Y2K bug, customer analytics, interconnectivity, Wi-Fi, cloud computing, and on and on. But nothing is matching the new push into deep AI.
The big players like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Baidu are all significantly beefing up their technologists and researchers, and pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the search for the next big breakthrough, advancement, or AI calculation.
And it’s bearing fruit – problems that seemed intractable a few years ago are now being solved. Artificial Learning has boosted Android’s speech recognition and given Skype unbelievable language translation capabilities. There are self-driving cars, air and seaborne drones, and robot dogs that act and walk just like the real thing.
But these rapid advancements are now accelerating at such a pace that what took decades before is now being achieved in a few years. And it is this speed that is causing quite a few of the senior heads of the industry to speak out.
One such industry luminary, Elon Musk, is suggesting builders of the new wave of AI products consider all the implications – financial, physical, and ethical – as they move forward. There are pitfalls for creating something that one day might even replace us.
Consider the three stages of AI evolution as described by Xia Jiantong, director and CEO of Recon Group.
Initial stage is being made-by-humans.
Next stage is copying humans, and,
Final stage is replacing humans.
Today, we are just at the commencement of the made-by-humans stage, and at the pace we are moving we still have a long way to go before we reach true Artificial Intelligence, that will allow humans to be replaced by robots.
However, humans work slower than robots, and as soon as they control the production lines, then something that can work around the clock, and never sleeps, never gets sick, or takes a coffee break, will complete the final two stages of intelligent robotic evolution in the blink of an eye.
At the 2016 World Robot Conference in Beijing, astonishing human-like robots were revealed. One intelligent droid named Jiajia amazingly demonstrated the ability to understand human language, detect facial expressions, and make realistic body movements. Added to that, her synthetic skin was more lifelike than anything that has come before it. She was almost … perfect.
According to media reports, at a counter-terrorism meeting in London, a former UK intelligence officer suggested that by 2025, the US Army will have more combat robots than it will have humans.
Let’s hope they all remember which side they’re on.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Geoff Brown, Amanda AJ Speeding, and Matthew Summers; tireless professionals in the industry – I thank you.
About Greig Beck
Greig Beck grew up across the road from Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia. His early days were spent surfing, sunbaking and reading science fiction on the sand. He then went on to study computer science, immerse himself in the financial-software industry and later received an MBA. Today, Greig spends his days writing, but still finds time to surf at his beloved Bondi Beach. He lives in Sydney, with his wife, son and an enormous German shepherd.
First published 2018 in Momentum by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia 2000
Copyright © Greig Beck 2018
The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
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The Void
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