The Death of the Universe: Ghost Kingdom: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 2)

by Brandon Q Morris

  “Have you tried restarting, Valja?”

  “The computer’s not responding, I told you that.”

  “Then we’ll have to do it manually.”

  “But then it’s all or nothing. The life support system will restart too. The drives... everything.”

  “We’ll use the spacesuits.”

  “That would be wise. But I’m still not sure it’s a good idea. Maybe the disruption will pass soon.”

  “Problems don’t solve themselves, Valja.”

  “The life support system is running, the drives are still braking, it’s just the lights and computer that are blocked.”

  “Very reassuring.”

  “It looks to me like someone’s using our computer,” said Valja. “It’s not switched off. Quite the opposite, it’s running at a hundred percent.”

  “And the lights?”

  “They’re controlled electronically, like our sensors. But there isn’t enough computing capacity available for that at the moment.”

  “But then why are we still getting air?”

  “Life support and drives are separate systems, for good reason.”

  “So we shouldn’t do anything? Are you serious?” Ada asked.

  “Yes, and I think things will normalize again. Completely shutting down the system would create new problems. We still have time before we arrive. If the situation hasn’t normalized in eight hours, we can still choose to restart.”

  Ada sighed. Not to react to a blatant attack didn’t sit well with her at all. But what Valja was saying made sense. They waited.

  Cycle IP 8.0, Gigadyson

  “I have the result, the exact point in time,” said the butler.

  “Excellent,” said Zhenyi, deactivating sleep mode. “When will it be?”

  “The day after tomorrow. The time window is twenty minutes. We need to execute the last manipulation in that time frame.”

  “Oh. The flotilla will be here the day after tomorrow. That won’t be fun.”

  “Ada is contacting us over the radio. She’s furious,” said Kepler. “It seems she had a six-hour computer outage. And not just her, all the other ships, too.”

  “See,” said Zhenyi. “They’ll want to arrest me as quickly as possible. Did you overdo it a bit, Puppy?”

  “I only used a hundred percent of the computing power. But nothing happened to them. I didn’t touch their life support.”

  “Did you have access to it? Could you block their drives as well?” asked Zhenyi.

  “That wouldn’t be a good idea. They’re braking at full power and are heading straight for the station. What would happen if I took away their braking ability?”

  They’d hit the station, and then maybe the Gigadyson. Their plan would fail. They had to buy themselves some time some other way. And they might also need a quantum of luck.

  “Now would be a good time for the Aterae to intervene,” said Zhenyi.

  “What do you mean?” asked Kepler.

  “Did I not tell you? A few days ago they expanded the space between us and the flotilla.”

  “I’m afraid that’s no longer an option. My simulation depends on the current data for this region of space. If the Aterae were to alter the distances, we’d have to restart the calculations from scratch.”

  In the end it was going to be a close call, Kepler realized. Shit!

  Cycle IP 8.1, Gigadyson

  “They’re landing now,” said Valja.

  The picture was very grainy, but they could see some kind of shuttle descending toward the Gigadyson, directly above a maintenance shaft. The Mario was probably going to arrive too late. It was frustrating. Ada wanted to fly faster to reach the control station sooner, but that would have the opposite outcome. To have any chance of catching Zhenyi they had to brake hard.

  “Can you see anyone?” Ada asked. She concentrated on the picture, but despite her efforts, she couldn’t make out any people. They were probably no bigger than a pixel. White, gray and black dots kept appearing, but those were interference. However, as they got closer, the background interference would lessen with every hour of flying time.

  “They’re taking a walk,” said Valja.

  Ada pulled the screen toward her. The shuttle was much sharper now. “Where?”

  “North of the shuttle.”

  It was true. Three dots were visible, bright on the dark background, moving away from the shuttle. Three dots? “There are three of them?” asked Ada.

  “Yes, I was wondering about that, too.”

  “Kepler must have rejoined Zhenyi, but what about the other one?”

  “No idea. Let’s hazard a guess—the Secretary?”

  An interesting idea. Had Kepler been to the Convention to convince the Secretary and bring her back with him? The distance would be about right. Kepler and the Secretary had a good relationship, which had been evident on their last visit to the Convention. But if she believed those two, why hadn’t she called off the hunt?

  “I don’t think so,” said Ada. “She wouldn’t leave us here to stew.”

  “Then the only other possibility is the butler,” said Valja.

  “Maybe. But that makes even less sense to me. Zhenyi could have set one of the robots at the station to automatic mode. Why would she need her butler robot?”

  “To say goodbye to him? She’s known him for quite a long time. I once had a robot pet that I liked a lot.”

  “No, Valja. She sends Kepler to fetch the butler? And then she goes for a walk with him? That doesn’t sound like Zhenyi at all. There must be factors at play here that we’re unaware of.”

  “We’re within firing range,” said Valja. “Shall I ready the railguns?”

  The spaceship had slowed so much that the shots from its weapons would be faster than the ship itself which hadn’t been the case until now. Zhenyi obviously hadn’t done anything decisive yet. So now was their chance to stop her.

  “What are they doing right now?” asked Ada.

  “Two robots are sitting on one of the walls dividing the honeycombs. A third is wandering around in the section next to it. They look bored.”

  “They’re waiting for something.”

  “Or someone.”

  “They’re waiting for the right moment, I bet.”

  “Then we should use the opportunity and shoot them first.”

  “Do you really want to do that, Valja?”

  “I don’t know. No, I don’t want to. Just thinking about the railgun trigger makes me shudder, but isn’t that our job?”

  “On the one hand, yes. But we should also protect the Gigadyson. If we fire the railguns this far away we can’t aim. We’d have to fire at the whole area to be sure we hit all three robots.”

  “Exactly. And that would obviously damage the sphere, too. The railgun shots aren’t powerful enough to bore through thirty meters of material, but if the Gigadyson is already unstable, it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

  “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

  “It would be completely irresponsible to fire the weapons.”

  “I suggest you get that message out to the other ships, Valja.”

  Was it the right decision? Ada couldn’t sleep, even though she desperately needed to. She rolled onto her side and rested her head on both left hands. The deceleration pressed her into the mattress, and she felt as though the entire weight of the fate of the Milky Way was bearing down on her.

  Cycle IP 8.2, Gigadyson

  “The Mario is in orbit directly above us,” said Zhenyi.

  “Why aren’t they shooting? They’re close enough now,” said Kepler. “Not that I want them to, but it stands to reason.”

  Zhenyi had been wondering that, too. Presumably it was because Ada wanted to arrest her, even if that meant they had enough time to finish the manipulation. And maybe Ada didn’t realize that every minute counted now.

  “I’ll extend the curtain,” said the butler. “In twelve minutes we can begin loosening
the material. That’s when our time window opens. We need to be finished in thirty-two minutes.”

  “A shuttle just left Ada’s ship,” said Kepler.

  Zhenyi looked up into the night sky. She had to switch to infrared to find the spacecraft. “They’re approaching damn fast,” she said.

  “The curtain is extended. I can release the dark energy at any time,” said the butler. “But the correct time window opens in ten minutes at the earliest. You’ll have to fend them off till then.”

  What could they do? It was only a shuttle. Ada seemed to assume she’d give herself up. They were coming for her, not for Kepler or the butler, and certainly not for the Arbiter who was with them incognito. Well, they could have her.

  Zhenyi walked around the shuttle. There must be a toolbox on the right-hand side. She needed some kind of tool that she could turn into a thruster. She opened the partition. There! A pneumatic hammer. The device had a tank filled with compressed air. If she damaged it, the gas that leaked out would function like a thruster. Her robot didn’t have a thruster, but she could use this to defy the low gravity of the Gigadyson.

  “Johannes, you were a wonderful companion,” she said. She didn’t want to leave without saying anything. “And you, Puppy, what would I ever have done without you? Thanks so much to you both.”

  “Zhenyi, what are you doing?” asked Kepler. “Didn’t you want us to avoid going off alone?”

  “I’m buying you the time you need. You try to distract Ada.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Please, call Ada on the radio and tell her some story. I just need half a minute.”

  “Okay. But don’t do anything stupid!”

  “No, I promise.” It pained her to lie to Kepler with the last words she would ever say to him. But that was how it had to be. She could depend on him. He would now contact Ada’s shuttle. She would have loved to hear the story he was going to tell her. But she’d never know what it was.

  “Seven more minutes,” said the butler. “But the shuttle will be here in three minutes.”

  Zhenyi struck the air canister valve with her fist. She had to hit it three times before it broke off. The canister rammed into her abdomen, but she didn’t feel any pain. It was working!

  She lifted off. Her body spun around in space. Then she managed to hold the neck of the bottle so that the spinning stopped and she climbed steeply upward. Was she moving fast enough to overcome the gravitational force of the Gigadyson? The bottle would be empty soon. She was no longer accelerating. The Gigadyson was about a kilometer below her. The shuttle with the curtain looked tiny. She couldn’t make out the butler or Kepler anymore.

  It was a gamble. Would Ada land and prevent the butler from finishing their work? If so, then she’d lose twice over. She would float through space alone until she ran out of power, and then she’d die. And the Milky Way would succumb to the flood of dark energy. She felt sorry for Kepler. He would have to live through the demise of the galaxy without her.

  But if she had judged Ada correctly, the shuttle would turn around and come after her—granting the butler the critical minutes.

  Ada would have to come to a decision now. Zhenyi didn’t dare to look down. She didn’t want to see Ada prove her wrong. It wasn’t so bad, dying alone in space. She had billions of stars for company. Zhenyi deactivated her optical sense. The stellar wind stroked her metal skin.

  Something pulled on her leg. A sharp jerk, and then she landed in a dark container.

  “Sorry, Zhenyi, we had to use the garbage collection container,” said Ada. “But you’re safe.”

  A garbage container. It was the most wonderful place she’d ever spent more than three minutes in.

  Cycle IS 2.4, Convention

  They were walking along the footbridge. Three robots and two humans, and in front of them gleamed the Secretary’s pavilion.

  “Why weren’t you paying attention to what the butler was doing on the surface of the Gigadyson instead?” asked Zhenyi.

  “My assignment was to stop you from doing anything idiotic. And casting off alone into space would have been hugely idiotic,” said Ada.

  “Thank you for that,” said Kepler. “I can’t imagine the universe without Zhenyi.”

  “But you can imagine the Milky Way without a Gigadyson?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose we’ll just have to get used to it again.”

  The sphere still hadn’t burst. Or at least they didn’t know if it had.

  The Secretary came toward them.

  “It had to be,” said Zhenyi at once.

  “Don’t say anything. Ada has already sent me her report. You’ve destroyed humanity’s energy source. For that you should actually be disintegrated.”

  Should be? Did that mean the Secretary believed their story?

  “Then what is the condition of the Gigadyson?” Maria asked.

  “We don’t have precise information, it’s too far away,” said Kepler.

  “But according to my simulation, it should still be wavering,” said the butler. “The explosion should follow in 1.5 kilocycles.”

  “Then we won’t see the result for 12,000 kilocycles,” said the Secretary. “I hope the destruction of the Gigadyson will fulfill the intended purpose.”

  “I’d lay my hand in the fire,” said Zhenyi.

  “I must confess, since your latest news I’m not quite so alarmed about the future of humanity.”

  “Our latest news?”

  The Secretary held up a portable screen. “I mean the message you sent me from your ship, about how the gravastar can be used to generate energy. I was skeptical at first, but our physicists have confirmed your theory.”

  “Energy from the gravastar?”

  Zhenyi surreptitiously poked Kepler from behind. “Now don’t play dumb, Kepler. You were the one who presented me with the theory.”

  “Oh yeah,” he said, “of course. The gravastar won’t provide any less energy than the Gigadyson. The false vacuum, that’s right, the reservoir is simply enormous.”

  “Just no less?” asked the secretary. “You promised me double the output of the Gigadyson.”

  “That’s our Johannes—far too humble,” said Zhenyi.

  “But come along, now. I’ve found an ancient Terranian recipe,” said the Secretary, “and to celebrate today, I’m going to open a bottle of genuine Russian vodka. Distilled on Terra, the seller told me.”

  They followed the Secretary. Zhenyi was completely exhausted. She had been expecting to wind up in some prison.

  Ada gave her a nudge. “Why didn’t you say anything about the message?”

  “I must have forgotten.”

  Cycle IY 3.2, Kepler-1229

  It was a balmy night. They had asked Newton to make sure it didn’t rain. The three of them were sitting on a soft lawn. Actually the four of them, because Kepler could sense the thoughts of the Herbae. They had a new hobby, Zhenyi had explained. They dreamed.

  It was a pleasant hobby.

  A white cloth was spread out between them, and on it were a loaf of bread and a slender green bottle of red wine. They took turns drinking from it and breaking off pieces of bread. It was a simple rye bread made from locally harvested grain. It tasted delicious.

  “It’s time,” said the butler.

  The light from the stars would reach this planet at 02:37. The Gigadyson had long since burst, but the news of it couldn’t spread faster than the speed of light.

  The butler had calculated that the spectacle would be visible above the southern horizon. Kepler waited. He counted in his head starting upward from 21. He held Zhenyi’s hand. She was warm. He could feel her pulse in her veins.

  At 61, the first star appeared. It was one of the stars that had been obscured by the Gigadyson—the one closest to them. The giant sphere no longer existed. Someone was slowly pulling aside the gigantic curtain that had obscured the view of the stage until now. Seven more stars were added that night. They toasted each one and
by the end they were drunk.

  In the next few days, months, years, and kilocycles, many more stars would join them. At some point this region of space would no longer be discernible from the rest of the night sky.

  The Gigadyson was history.

  Kepler heard footsteps. He opened his eyes. The morning sun dazzled him, but the silhouette was identifiable by its four arms. If that was Ada, then the woman behind her must be Valja.

  “You’ve got a nice place here,” said Ada.

  “We have, haven’t we?”

  He nudged Zhenyi. “We have visitors, my love.”

  “Oh, and I haven’t even washed and combed,” she said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Ada. “Newton warned us that you were spending the night outside. We watched the collapse of the sphere from his dome.”

  The two women looked relaxed. Valja was wearing a beautiful dress with dark stripes. It suited her perfectly.

  “You could have come and joined us,” said Zhenyi. “Great dress, by the way, Valja!”

  Valentina blushed.

  “Newton is a great host. I think he was a bit sad that you didn’t stay with him,” Ada replied. “But we were there.”

  “And now you’re here,” said Kepler.

  “We’ve come to say goodbye.”

  “Do you have a new contract?”

  “No, Kepler, we’re not accepting any more contracts. We’ve decided to explore the neighboring galaxies. It’s just not a good thing that humanity knows nothing about the surrounding regions of the cosmos. If we’d known more about them, the flood wouldn’t have come as a surprise to us. We want to take a look around out there. No one knows whether the danger has completely passed.”

  “That’s good. But that means we won’t see you for a really long time.”