Sufficiently Advanced Technology (Inverse Shadows)

by Nuttall, Christopher

  She looked over at the embodied AI and saw him listening with equal interest, one hand tapping away at a portable terminal. Quite why he wasn’t allowed a neural link was beyond her, but it hardly mattered. He had already proved himself when it came to analysing the vast amount of data gathered by the first survey ship, and – more importantly – highlighting sensor records that might have been disrupted by glitches. In the end, they’d reluctantly concluded that they’d have to wait until they reached Darius and then start gathering information. It was probable that more primitive technology would help them to stay in contact with Hamilton.

  The party finally started to break up several hours later, the various team members going to bed or heading back to their research labs. A couple seemed to have formed attachments already, which wasn’t a major surprise; others were simply too dedicated to their research to try to form any relationships, either with their fellow team members or the starship’s crew. Elyria had no time herself; besides, she was meant to be the team leader. She should be setting an example of dedication to the mission.

  She walked through the starship’s interior until she reached the observation chamber, where she could almost imagine that she was standing on the hull, utterly unprotected from the raging storms of hyperspace. Outside, she could see flickers of energy dancing through the higher dimension, each one vastly more powerful than a supernova in normal space. Learning to navigate hyperspace had taken centuries, ever since the human race had realised that there was an FTL method quicker than warp drive, but it had been worthwhile. The Confederation’s starships could now cross the entire galaxy in a matter of months. Other ships, she knew, had already set out for nearby galaxies. They would reach M33 in a few decades, whereupon they would start building up a new Confederation. Human wanderlust drove them onwards...

  No one had yet figured out which colony ship had founded Darius, if indeed there had been a colony ship. It wasn’t unknown for a society that wanted to return to pre-technological times to destroy the colony ship, simply by dispatching it into the local star. Later, they might discover their mistake in abandoning technology, but by then it was too late. Quite a few of the most primitive worlds the Confederation had rediscovered had been founded by people who wanted to get away from technology, only to discover that their planned societies were unsustainable without it. Many of them had died knowing that they’d failed.

  Despite her worries, Elyria found herself smiling. This was original science, something that might push the boundaries of human knowledge further out. And if it did lead to transcendence... who knew where else it could lead? The Confederation had certainly developed in some very strange ways since it had passed through the singularity.

  One week left, she told herself. They’d made excellent time through hyperspace. One week until we reach Darius.

  She just couldn’t wait to begin.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Darius was a very odd world, in a very odd star system.

  Dacron sat in one of the monitoring stations, studying the live feed from the probes Hamilton had launched as soon as she came out of hyperspace twenty light hours from Darius. At least there was one AI trait that had crossed over to his human body; he could multitask far better than any mundane human. The probes were sending back enough data to overwhelm a human, but Dacron and the RIs had no trouble putting it into a coherent whole.

  Making sense of it was another issue altogether. Dacron had wondered, despite the assurances he’d received from the AIs, if the first survey ship had made a whole string of mistakes, or suffered more sensor glitches than they’d realised. But one glance at the probes scanning the system and he realised that they had understated the weirdness surrounding Darius. A sphere, centred on the star, of roughly two light months in diameter had been completely swept of space dust. Apart from the comet, and the planet itself, there was literally nothing within that region of space. Dacron found himself unable to come up with any theory that might have explained it, apart from alien intervention. But why would the aliens bother?

  The Confederation had occasionally taken steps to safeguard a primitive alien world from random asteroid impacts that would have destroyed the fragile societies – or ecosystems. It didn’t exactly count as interfering, or so the humans claimed, although the supposed logic of the situation often defeated Dacron’s comprehension. But then, the primitive society would have no awareness of how close they’d come to being destroyed before the Confederation intervened. They would never compose legends about how the sky-gods had shown them mercy in their darkest hour.

  Throughout history, mankind had been tempted by the stars – and the planets that orbited Sol, near Earth. Eventually, they had all been settled – and then the human race had gone further afield. But anyone growing up on Darius wouldn’t know that there were other planets orbiting other stars, at least unless they managed to make telescopes powerful enough to pick them out – and even if they did, bootstrapping themselves into space would be incredibly difficult. The simplest solution to the mystery was to assume that whoever had created Darius, and transported a number of humans to the planet, had deliberately intended to ensure that they couldn’t leave. Assuming they had been taken during the First Expansion Era, it was quite likely that the aliens would have concluded that humanity would destroy itself. Without the First Interstellar War, it was possible that they would have been right.

  The single comet received hundreds of probes, which scanned the entire object several times and concluded that it was a fairly typical comet, a ball of ice comparable to the millions of others that had been recorded all over the galaxy. Captain Thor was unconvinced and ordered a survey team to land on it and take core samples, as well as running through hundreds of tests to detect the presence of alien technology. Dacron suspected that they would find nothing – there were no hints that any of the probes had suffered glitches – but it was the Captain’s prerogative. Besides, he approved of caution. There was no reason to hurry.

  Adam disagreed. “This is a waste of time,” he snapped. The team had gathered in the briefing compartment, where they were studying the live feed from a handful of the probes. “The comet was captured thousands of years ago and entered orbit around the primary star. It isn’t interesting.”

  “It is the exception to the rule in this star system,” the XO pointed out.

  Dacron rather liked her, although he wasn’t sure how much of it was his mentality and how much was his new body’s hormones. Controlling them was something that few humans managed to master, apparently, at least until they’d passed their first century. Some humans, particularly the Lords of Pleasure, never seemed to master them.

  “That alone makes it interesting,” she concluded.

  Dacron listened to the debate with half an ear as he studied the endless stream of data. Adam might well be right, he decided, after the survey team deployed nanoprobes to search the comet. There wasn’t anything particularly exceptional about it, apart from the fact that it appeared to have been native to the Darius System. A backtrack of its orbit revealed that it had held for several hundred thousand years at the very least, although Dacron knew that could be unreliable. It would be easy for anyone who could sweep an entire star system clean of space dust, and everything else, to put a comet in a stable orbit and just leave it to carry on forever.

  Absently, he projected the comet’s course forward – and felt his heartbeat start to race as he realised that it would strike Darius itself in roughly seven thousand years. Assuming that Darius didn’t master space travel, or the manipulation of quantum foam outside their own world, the comet would slam into the planet with terrific force. The resulting devastation, according to the worst-case projection, would exterminate all life on the planet.

  “That could be a coincidence,” the XO said, when Dacron brought it to their attention. “But if someone did stabilise the comet’s orbit, they should have been able to ensure that it would never pose a threat to the planet.”


  Dacron nodded, wishing – once again – for the instant access to datafiles he’d enjoyed as an AI. There had been hundreds of thousands of planets struck by space debris without alien intervention; indeed, given that planets warped the fabric of space and created gravity wells, it was very likely that asteroids would eventually be pulled in to where they could strike the planet. But if someone had the capability to travel through space, it should have been easy for them to render the comet harmless. The fact that they’d left it in a position to strike the planet had worrying implications.

  Or it could simply be a wild coincidence. Dacron tried to calculate the odds against it – and then gave up, deciding that it was futile. Even the AIs would have problems calculating the probability in a reasonable manner, without having to guess at some of the variables.

  “So that leaves us with another question,” Elyria said. “Do we alter the comet’s path ourselves and save Darius?”

  “Of course we should,” Gigot said. She glared around the room, daring anyone to challenge her. “We cannot leave them to die when the comet strikes their world.”

  “There are seven thousand years between now and when the comet will hit,” Dacron said, mildly. A full-fledged AI could have given a precise time, all the way down to the last nanosecond. “And a single blast from a fission cannon would obliterate the comet. There is no need for haste.”

  “But we should act now,” Gigot insisted. She turned to the Captain. “Captain, surely this ship can alter the comet’s course so it dives into the sun?”

  “It can, yes,” the Captain agreed, gravely. “But the comet does not pose an immediate threat and we still don’t understand the Darius System. There will be time to act later.”

  “Seven thousand years is a very long time,” Elyria added. “The Confederation itself has only existed for three thousand years.”

  Dacron wondered, absently, just how many of the humans fully understood what that actually meant. The Ancients had lived billions of years ago; the Elders had to be millions of years old. Humanity, for all of its power and sophistication, was nothing on such a scale. It was humbling to realise that the entire human race was so young. A few million years in the future, it was possible that there would be nothing left of the Confederation. And then alien researchers might just dig up the remains of humanity and wonder what had happened to the human race.

  It seemed impossible, except for the simple fact that the Confederation had encountered the ruins of other older civilisations, apart from the Ancients. Worlds that had destroyed themselves in war, worlds that had stagnated and eventually died, worlds that had sent out colony ships, only to be overwhelmed by some unknown fate that had left the dead ships drifting through space for an eternity... no one could look at the remains and not wonder if that was the fate in store for humanity. And some of those dead worlds had proved to be very dangerous.

  Five hours passed slowly as the comet was studied time and time again, before the Captain finally allowed the probes to start heading into the inner system. A dozen solar-penetration probes reached the primary star and dived into the flames, eventually signalling back a report that stated that the star was nothing more than a simple G2 primary. There were no signs of stellar engineering comparable to the Sphere-Star, or Omega-5. The Captain remained unconvinced, but he relaxed slightly when the second set of results agreed with the first. Any race that could manipulate stars was very definitely on a level equal to that of the Confederation.

  Dacron found himself smiling, rather wryly. Any race that could manipulate the quantum foam was unquestionably superior to the Confederation.

  Something clicked in his mind and he eyed Captain Thor with new understanding. The Confederation was used to dealing with other civilisations from a position of strength. Even the ones that shared humanity’s level of technology had nowhere near as many starships as the Peacekeepers could deploy if pressed, let alone the industrial base to support them. The Confederation might hold itself to its own ethical system, but it had the firepower to ensure that it got what it wanted, whatever else happened. Hamilton alone might not be a threat to a peer power, yet anyone advanced enough to threaten the ship would know that it was the product of a vastly powerful civilisation.

  But if someone could manipulate the quantum foam, they could... they could work magic, to all intents and purposes. Given enough power, they could simply blink Hamilton out of existence, or inflict staggering damage on the Confederation. Dealing with the Elder races was one thing, but this was... different. The Captain had to be aware that one false move could prove utterly disastrous. They had to be very careful.

  Finally, the probes headed in towards Darius itself. The strange emptiness of space persisted right up until they reached the planet’s atmosphere, which seemed to be fairly typical for a human-compatible world. There was certainly nothing poisonous in the air, or anything that would cause delusions – or, for that matter, anything that might encourage mutation in human DNA. More hours passed as the probes used optical sensors to chart the planet, comparing their records to those collected by the first survey ship. The general outline of the continents were the same, Dacron concluded, but a number of settlements had been omitted for no accountable reason. It took the RIs several minutes to realise that several settlements detected by the first ship had been missed by the new probes.

  “We’re picking up some strange energy signatures,” one of the science team said, finally. The chart of the planet was rapidly updated to indicate the presumed source of the energy signatures, although some of them seemed too scattered to be precisely located. “We cannot identify the energy...”

  Dacron listened as the humans started arguing, while he mulled over possibilities in his mind. Hamilton had the most advanced sensor suite in the Confederation, capable of detecting almost anything that could be detected, but they were dealing with a completely unprecedented situation. It was remotely possible that quantum foam manipulation might produce energy they hadn’t learned to track or quantify yet... he shook his head, dismissing the thought. New data was required, urgently. Given time, he was sure that they would be able to devise technology to monitor quantum foam manipulations.

  “They seem comparable to random vacuum fluctuations,” another scientist offered. “It could be that they’re a side effect of manipulating the quantum foam.”

  “But nothing like it has been recorded during encounters with Elders,” the first scientist objected. “Surely we would have picked up something.”

  “But there are comparable energy fluxes on Ancient worlds,” Adam injected. “This might be simply more of the same.”

  “And we never figured out what those fluxes did, besides screwing with our technology,” the XO said. “Captain, we need to approach very carefully.”

  “That goes without saying,” Captain Thor said. He looked down at his display. “How much more can we draw from orbit?”

  It took hours to study and analyse the data from the orbiting probes. Adana eventually concluded that Darius was actually divided into a patchwork of small states, the largest being little bigger than two hundred square kilometres. But it wasn’t easy to be sure, because instead of brushing against one another, the states seemed to be separated by miles of undeveloped territory. It occurred to Dacron that it might be comparable to how the Confederation’s territory overlapped with alien territory, yet when he voiced that theory Adana took it apart, pointing out that planet-bound societies often had to compete for land and resources. If the Confederation had still been dependent upon He3 mined from gas giants, they would probably have been a great deal less willing to tolerate aliens who happened to live on gas giants. That started another argument, but Dacron suspected she was right. It was a great deal easier to moralise if there was nothing particularly important at stake.

  “Maybe there are limits to their power,” Elyria offered. She looked tired, despite all of her enhancement. “But even an iron age society could control more territory than they do.�
��

  “Maybe,” Adana said. “But Gunpowder was also split up into small states.”

  Dacron called up the files and compared the two. Gunpowder had been settled back in the First Expansion Era by people who regarded the right to bear arms as a holy duty. They’d been isolated from galactic society by the First Interstellar War and when they’d been rediscovered, they’d split up into smaller states, partly because everyone was armed and ready to resist the imposition of a powerful central government. It didn’t seem comparable, unless they were missing something. Darius had all the trappings of a feudal society – and magic; the two didn’t seem to go together.

  Or maybe he was just overlooking the obvious. “Everyone on Gunpowder could bear arms,” he said, studying the files. The population had started practising almost as soon as they were old enough to walk. “What if only a relative handful of people on Darius can manipulate the quantum foam?”

  “You mean we might be looking at another group of people convinced of their own superiority?” Elyria asked, thoughtfully. “Or something that works along the same lines?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Dacron said. He knew better than to state it was fact, at least not yet. “If one group in society has an incontestable advantage over the rest of the population, that group is either going to find itself in charge or being exterminated.”