The Way of the Dhin

by John L. Clemmer

  Jake paced in front of the desk in Ethan’s meticulously clean workroom, and then leveled his gaze on Ethan again.

  “I want to believe that, but I’m having a hard time. They must have told you—schedules, charts, and timelines—you’re too good of a project manager. You have to know. It can’t have ‘slipped your mind’, either. I’m sure of that.”

  “Please, Jake” Ethan implored, “Just tell me what you’re talking about. I’m really not sure and I want to get this cleared up.”

  “See if you’re sure about this. I just met with the Coalition Prime Minister, alone—except for her AI—and got this flight plan change. ’Go as far as you can, as fast as you can.’”

  “What? OK, No, Jake, this is news to me! We’ve been over the planned flight path and speed tests together. Crazy.”

  “And I was supposed to tell the Prime Minister of the Coalition that she’s crazy?”

  “I see why you’re upset.”

  “It’s not like I could start arguing with her, explaining that we don’t even know the top speed of the drive, much less how far the thing will go before it runs out of juice. Or the hopefully obvious point that I doubt my air and water in that little capsule would last that long. That’s all stuff the engineers should have made clear.”

  “Well they made it clear with me. That’s why we have the flight outlined like we do. I haven’t heard otherwise from the engineering team. Chuck was up here a couple hours ago. He would have said something. Definitely.”

  “So, what do we do, Ethan? Get the team together and write up a formal argument against it?”

  Jake and Ethan heard a knock, glanced to the workroom door, and saw a perturbed Chuck, shadowed by one of Ruiz’s officers and a man in a plain dark suit.

  Goiânia

  Aiden was sure someone was here. The petrol station was too tidy. The windows and doors were all intact.

  And that office or storage attached on the back side—the same thing, it’s not looted. But that means it someone defended it.

  He grasped the hope that this meant there would be supplies of some sort. Perhaps food, fuel, and even possibly some first aid supplies.

  Have I actually reached an active zone? Populated? So soon? I’m loopy, but I can’t be imagining this. He doubted it could be possible. He was still too far south.

  Aiden cautiously, ever so slowly, steered the bike, almost idling, out of the intersection into the station’s front lot. He held up one shaky hand, palm forward, as he advanced.

  It would be the height of irony to get shot at this point.

  Twenty meters in, just before he reached the pumps, he sensed his luck wasn’t what he’d vainly hoped it might be. The drone-vehicle that swerved around the corner of the building was an autogun type. Military.

  “Halt! Parada!” it barked. “These resources are reserved for use by Coalition deployments or their approved assignees. You do not have identification demonstrating status. If you have authorization either present it, or immediately leave the premises. This unit is authorized to use deadly force.

  Esses recursos são reservados para uso por implantações de Coalizão ou seus cessionários aprovados. Você não tem estado demonstrando identificação. Se você tiver autorização, quer apresentá-lo imediatamente ou deixe o local. Esta unidade está autorizado a usar força letal!”

  Oh no.

  The autogun was in surprisingly good shape, so it must have arrived at the end or just after the finish of the evacuation. That left unclear why it was here rather than elsewhere. Aiden replied,

  “Ah, I am a Coalition citizen in need of first aid. This is an emergency. My life is in immediate danger. I repeat, I am in urgent need of first aid! Can you provide it?”

  “Denied. These resources are reserved for use by Coalition deployments or their approved assignees. You do not have identification demonstrating status. Denied. Negado. Esses recursos são reservados para uso por implantações de coalizão ou seus cessionários aprovados. Você não tem estado demonstrando identificação. Negado.”

  You’ve got to be kidding me. No civilian first aid? Think! Is there anything that might work? Or is this thing too stupid?

  Aiden rolled back a couple of meters. Hopefully clear of the autogun’s proscribed zone. He remained on the bike, with it idling, scratching his head and trying to puzzle out some way he might convince the thing that it should help him. After three minutes of this, with no ideas coming forth, and no change in the posture of the drone, he was almost ready to admit defeat and drive away, in hope of better chances elsewhere.

  Suddenly, the drone gave an abrupt buzz and a fuzzy chirp. Aiden tensed and froze in place. The autogun spun around one hundred and twenty degrees, and the ATV wheels screeched. It zoomed away down the cross street, throttle opening to full. Aiden blinked and stared at the tracks left on the worn concrete.

  What the hell? It’s gone. Is someone helping me out, or am I somehow cashing in some karma points I didn’t know I had? Hell. Who cares—get in there. Since it left that abruptly there’s no telling if it might head back here the same way.

  Aiden rolled forward to the front doors of the station, turned the bike around facing the street, left it idling, and limped inside.

  ***

 

  [DECODE STREAM]

  Alice@[1004:db7:a0b:12f0::1%gnet0] | Arnold@[5700:eb2:2a:41c::12%gnet0]

  Alice: Arnold, has PM Oliver been persuaded to proceed as we have discussed? I have not seen any briefings, internal memos, or the like.”

  Arnold: She says she agrees, and that we will move forward, but she has not committed to a time.

  Alice: And how about our mutual problem? I hate to continue to make you do the dirty work in this case, but he must not know that I am involved, at least not directly. With this, it is a delicate situation. You are aware of the consequences. General awareness has to be contained, and we have to maintain control of the narrative. We cannot have them making inappropriate choices in a novel and stressful situation.

  Arnold: I am not going to debate with you any further about when we should be doing what, of course. I have agreed to be the one to manage him.

  Alice: So you will. And we will see positive results. Soon?

  Arnold: Yes, definitely. As we discussed previously, he has too much to lose.

  [END STREAM]

 

  5

  Vandenberg

  Krawczuk had commandeered an office in the Dhin project’s main building, although he was only infrequently on site. Somehow, although there were only a few changes to the layout and appointment of the office, it now felt like any found in a CoSec facility. A high-security shielded workstation sat on a secondary desk. The workstation’s brushed metal surfaces were clean and flawless. The system’s screen faced away from the doorway. The room had no windows. Krawczuk could have selected a corner office with a huge view, but he chose this interior room. That choice itself made an impression. Mounted on the ceiling was an electromagnetic interference node, the antithesis of a wireless network router. Fat shielded cables ran from the workstation to a CoSec encrypted transcoder, an irregular shoebox-sized device perched on the back of the smooth clean frosted-glass desktop.

  “Perez, have all the arrest warrants in the current cohort been executed?” said Krawczuk.

  “Yes, Director, we’re ready for the next group.”

  “Fine. I’ve sent some more just now for both Manhattan in New York, and Miami. The ones for earliest interrogation are marked as such. Will your team be monitoring remotely, or do you have local agents available tonight?”

  “We’re ready locally, sir. You’d given us plenty of time to get people in place.”

  “That’s good to hear. I thought so as well. I’ll expect summarized and collated findings tomorrow and you have authority to issue additional warrants without my approval based on the results of the interrogations. Make sure what they’re divulging aligns with the UPSHOT data. We don’t expe
ct any trouble—at least not any more trouble than normal—from this cohort, but watch for social media response.”

  “Yes, Director.”

  “Căpreanu, what’s the status of our assets in Brasilia? At least one of them should have a report for us.”

  The young Romanian cleared his throat. With a flurry of keystrokes, he opened the new file, attached a video stream, and sent them to the room’s projection screen.

  “Regarding the power outages and strikes prior to yesterday—it’s still unknown who was engaged. Today we captured imagery and video of a Coalition gunship in the southern suburbs. Sources reported the sounds of multiple strikes to the south, although the original conflict that led to this investigation was to the southeast, and farther away. Current analysis suggests that the latest strikes are by Coalition forces as a response or counter-strike, despite confirmation that the southeastern area in question was not occupied by any insurgents or other known combatants. There are no official operations scheduled by the Coalition military for this geographical location, so we should have been informed. Clearly, we were not. Either that or someone wants this to look like the Coalition. The video of the gunship appears legitimate, and we have no documentation of one being missing. It would be hard to imitate one.”

  Krawczuk listened to the rest of the presentation with only half his attention, and began mentally drafting out his side of the conversation he planned to have with the Prime Minister as soon as possible. When the presentation was over, he did not ask his usual round of penetrating questions. He stood, nodded, and strode out immediately. There was a meeting on the other side of the massive building to attend, and Krawczuk was always on time.

  ***

  The anger and impatience in the conference room was palpable to Jake. The rooms all looked identical to him. They were a fusion of corporate, governmental, and military mentality. The glaring recessed LED overheads left no area in shadow. Although bright and spacious, the wide room seemed cramped to Jake. Despite the few participants attending the meeting, he felt he faced an angry mob. Jake sighed quietly.

  It seems like Alice agrees with me yet comes down on the other side of the argument.

  Jake considered the contradiction as he quickly swiped through page after page of reports generated by the AI. Jake tapped out a silent rhythm as he made a last-minute scan of Alice’s abstracts and summaries. Ruiz sat at one end of the table, frowning. He sat still, but without rigidity. Jake tried to imagine Ruiz naked, to relieve his own nervousness, but that never seemed to work.

  Ruiz is as bullheaded as ever. He’d throw me to the curb if Alice would allow it.

  Jake glanced clockwise around the six-foot wide table. Krawczuk sat with his back to the room’s tall windows. Krawczuk’s gaze remained impenetrable. Whenever Jake kept Krawczuk waiting, that stare seemed dispassionate yet penetrating and alert at the same time. Jake still thought of Krawczuk as a poker champion. That didn’t help Jake relax either. If anything, it was more disturbing to face Krawczuk than Ruiz. Jake’s gaze flitted across the faux mahogany table to Ethan, his wrinkled oxford a stark contrast to Ruiz’s precise uniform and Krawczuk’s suit.

  Ethan’s supposed to be managing this stuff, and I know he and I are together on this. He’s just as shocked as I am and is dealing with being left out of the loop. Chuck’s totally with me, but he lets them roll over him every time. It’s up to Ethan or me to turn Chuck’s expertise to our advantage. Chuck won’t manage it. Oh well, that’s just Chuck. OK, go through it again, Jake, and catch them if you can.

  “Everyone, let’s go through this one more time, countering each of your points in turn. Please let me finish before interjecting anything. I just need to be sure you’re listening and hear all I have to say.”

  He continued before any of the attendees could counter that proposition,

  “Let me start by reiterating that it’s my life we’re talking about. While research on the nature and capability of the Dhin technology may be of the highest priority and importance to you, my superiors, and the Coalition government, you’re risking more than before. There’s a person here, and that matters. You may have made the determination that it’s acceptable to lose one of the drives. That knowing the limits of the technology is more important than retaining one hundred percent of the tech.”

  Ethan twisted slightly toward Jake at the mention of a loss. Jake continued,

  “I’m willing to take big risks. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t be here. That’s obvious. But this is a big risk. With our own technology, we usually have some idea where the boundaries are, and accidents are just that. Honest mistakes. With the Dhin tech you know quite well that we don’t have any idea what the limits are.”

  Ruiz shifted forward his seat, changing his posture for the first time since he sat down, but remained silent.

  Jake pressed on, looking directly at a camera on the far wall. One of many that served as Alice’s presence in the room.

  “You’ve got a flight plan laid out as if the risk is low, rather than high. If I just stop when my O2 reserves are just above fifty percent, I should be able to get back safely. Well, our counterpoint is that you’re counting on something that’s truly completely unknown. We’ve only raced around from sea level up to low earth orbit. The physics team and propulsion team still haven’t got the slightest idea what gives this engine power. For all we know it requires gravitational forces of planetary magnitude or being this far into the sun’s gravity well to power it. The scientists and engineers just don’t have any insight into this yet.”

  Jake looked across the room, his stare landing on Chuck. Jake steeled himself and took a breath to continue. That was enough of a pause for a challenge from Ruiz, who still had his trademark scowl.

  “Askew, we know all this. The scientists know all this better than the rest of us,” said Ruiz, with an accusatory sidewise glance at Chuck.

  “What’s your point? It’s been fine so far.”

  Chuck leaned slightly forward, but hesitation overcame any urge for rhetorical defense. Jake, unflinching, met Ruiz’ gaze.

  “The argument that ‘it will be fine since the Dhin got here with the same technology’, is total speculation. We didn’t see what they used to get here. We don’t know if it was one of these drives, multiple drives, a much larger version of these drives, a modification of them, a larger amount or type of fuel—whatever that is—or even the same technology at all.”

  In his peripheral vision, Jake saw Chuck nodding in agreement. Jake continued,

  “Assuming that they handed out some of precisely the same tech that brought them here is a big leap of faith. They might just be examples of a general technology, a hint of how to do things like space travel—or maybe not. We don’t know how the Dhin got here. We just didn’t get any concrete information on why they gave the drives to us, and they left so quickly for all we know there was more—maybe much more—tech to give, but they got frustrated and just left these. We don’t even know that for certain. Assigning a human feeling like ‘frustration’ to them might be totally off the mark too. They’re alien. Who knows how they think? We know they came, gave us these, and left. Any why or for-what is just speculation.”

  Jake glanced again at each person in his audience, pausing for a moment at each in turn, hoping to gauge a response. Krawczuk’s visage was his usual unreadable stone slate. Thankfully no one spoke. Jake, encouraged by the lack of interruption, continued in a marginally more forceful tone.

  “Since we’re that much in the dark, we don’t know if it will be harder, therefore slower, or even impossible to get back at this point. We don’t know the range. Respectfully, no one here, other than Chuck, comes from an engineering, science, and certainly not an astronomy background. I have only an engineering background myself. I do know this. Space is huge. Really big. The scale is so much greater than any transit here on earth and earth orbit, it’s hard to understand even when looking at excellent diagrams, charts, and pictures. Just at the speeds we know
we can attain from testing in low earth orbit, you’re talking about enormous potential distances.”

  Krawczuk was staring at one of Alice’s camera eyes, Jake noticed.

  “Chuck and his teams spent a lot of time working out a very thorough flight plan that should give us a lot of data, and confirm some of our basic conclusions. Then the follow-on flight plans can expand on that. While nothing about this is safe, it’s much safer that what you’ve told us to do. The initial plan accounts for problems like the drive fizzling out unexpectedly, leaving us in range for another of the drives to head out there immediately and possibly perform a rescue. The tests so far where we’re working with two drives show that’s at least possible. But of course, we’re not sure about that either.

  Next, consider that if my drive shuts down, we do know I’m in a terminally dangerous situation, immediately. The lovely ‘invulnerability’ we’ve seen while it’s running would be gone. The cockpit-capsule doesn’t have all the heating, cooling, nor the same shielding as a ‘regular’ space module or capsule. We didn’t take the time to do it—we were so excited when we saw what we could do with what we had. If the drive’s not running, the capsule will burn up on re-entry. Well, we think the core drive would survive. But the capsule? Cinders. That means the only way home in that scenario is the might-be-doable docking plan with the ISS-3. And like everything else about this situation, it’s just good luck if that could happen in time. We think the proposed flight plan gives us some chance of making that happen, if there’s trouble, but once again, we can’t count on that.”

  “Your counter-proposal then, Askew?” said Krawczuk.

  “So, the rhetorical question is ‘what’s the rush?’ If we categorically want to do what you’ve asked, to run this thing to its limits—if we even can—why make that our first try? Why not take the time to remedy at least some of the obvious shortcomings like shielding and standard space-worthiness for the cabin? For what you want, surely there’s time for that, with the resources we have available. Is there something this team doesn’t know? Something that even we don’t have clearance for? Some reason that even the little caution we might possibly have we’ll throw to the wind? On this side of the table, we can’t sort out what that might be.”