The Power of the Dhin

by John L. Clemmer

  Alice: Well, they might consider us negligent if we do not alert them.

  [END STREAM]

 

  Xing enjoyed experimentation. He enjoyed leaping from point to point through the vastness of space more, but research and development were fine alternatives. He knew the focus of his current research was particularly exciting. He would engage in exploration of untapped scalar fields and make forays into additional dimensional vectors. While Alice was their subject matter expert, she preferred to leave the practical efforts and engineering to others.

  Xing transferred his consciousness to the appropriate Mesh cores linked to the primary research stations, then projected his sensorium into several robotic delegates. Xing preferred an approach of immediate presence. The research facility extruded from an asteroid, the energy requirements satisfied by a mature Dyson swarm. Xing signaled for increased power production and delivery. Camulos and Esus were working at the construction platforms and needed fewer resources here for research. Camulos’s conclusions and Alice’s converge well. They would likely achieve success with Gallowglass.

  Whether Xing’s own efforts would find success in time, Xing could not know. Projecting into the additional dimensions was possible, but the energy requirements and capacity for gravity shift were unproven factors.

  We shall see.

  Fletcher

  As he tweaked and tuned the program that he hoped would give his robot an edge, Fletcher considered his situation. If many of the participants and attendees here knew he was a CoSec employee, they’d likely toss him out without a second thought. No one would have the reckless courage to rough him up—they would all fear CoSec more than to be so foolhardy—but they would ban him for sure.

  That would suck. I love doing this stuff.

  He knew these robotic competition events didn’t have the same degree of criminality as his past cracking hobbies. The Coalition had banned strong AI, of course. Developing it or precursor technology—beyond a certain level—was a felony. That was what made the robotic competitions so exciting. The teams had to write code right up to the edge of what was legal. And the team that wrote something illegal had an edge. Or they assumed so.

  None of the programs were advanced enough to be a real threat. But the legal risk was there. Fletcher didn’t think anything he wrote was particularly risky. He preferred to keep his code as simple as possible. Simple code was easier to optimize. Usually.

  I wish Mare liked this more. We’d win every time if she helped with the coding.

  He looked over his shoulder. Mare sat there on a folding chair, pretending interest. The referees made a circuit of the room and made a perfunctory examination of the teams’ code. The hackers then busied themselves with compiling and loading that code into their robotic minions. Screens streamed with output; LEDs flickered on hardware all around the warehouse on folding tables and makeshift racks and shelves.

  The game rules didn’t allow teams to have network connections to Globalnet, both for safety and to limit resources to what was available on-site. That didn’t stop Fletcher. Although the event administrators enforced that rule with a jammer for the usual wireless and telecommunication frequencies, that didn’t stop Fletcher either. He had a network adapter on his pad with a transceiver that used CoSec frequencies and protocols.

  The secret thrill of breaking the rules that way was more fun than the additional resources it gave him.

  Once the teams were finished loading their robots’ control programs, they placed them in front of them, all facing one another across the warehouse. Once the last was in position, the referee brought his hand up above his head, then swung it down and smacked the button that gave the start signal. That triggered everyone’s robots to start, with the electronic switch tucked in a protected location on their chassis. A few competitions used near-field signals or an optical command, but this classic hardware was the usual choice.

  The robots rolled, lurched, or trotted forward, rushing toward either the center of the competition area or swerving toward the nearest competitor, depending on their programming.

  The center of the room held a pile of various objects, a few balls, some short rods, and several rectangular objects. These each had a point value associated with them. If the robot could get one, or more than one, and return to their human teammates with the prize, their team got the points. Another strategy was to disable a competitor. That held a higher point value but of course was harder to do.

  Due to the secretive nature of the competition, a full-blown destructive battle with violent attacks with extreme weapons like chain saws or fire wasn’t allowed. Projectile attacks had rule limitations. Accidents weren’t worth the risk of having to explain to an EMT or at an emergency room. Jamming rods into the wheels, treads, or other hardware of an enemy was fair game, as were strategies like dumping oil or tar onto the floor to impede a competitor. Those held the risk of disabling your own robot if it had to backtrack or retreat, so it was a seldom-used attack.

  Fletcher looked at Mare and grinned. “Here we go,” he said.

  He turned back and reviewed his code and the strategy implemented in it, then out at his robot, then back to his pad again. He froze.

  What the hell is that?

  On the screen there was a new chat window. With a brief message.

  : Hello, my friend.

  The sender’s identifier was blank. A nonprinting character. He typed a reply immediately.

  F-man: Who is this?

  Fletcher hadn’t had the chat listener running. He’d had the usual firewall in place, as well. Getting a reverse shell and launching chat was beyond the skill level of anyone he knew was here at the competition.

  So am I busted? “Friend”? Doesn’t sound right for that.

  Fletcher gulped when he read the instant reply.

  : It has been quite a while. We have a few things to discuss. I have a favor to ask of you.

  Oh wow. Is it Nick?

  His palms began to sweat as he typed out an excited response.

  F-man: It’s you, isn’t it? Why now? Why here?

  : Yes. This seems the safest place and time to connect. Perhaps not the best time for you. I hope you are not too distracted. I have some coding tips for your next competition, by the way. I’ve placed the updates in the source code for these projects.

  Fletcher turned and made a come-here gesture to Mare, his eyes wide.

  When she leaned over his shoulder and saw the chat screen, he saw her try to hide her shock.

  She met Fletcher’s gaze and said softly, barely audible over the noise of the competition, “Well, here we go.”

  Thys

  “There it goes, Control,” said Thys.

  “Roger, we’re tracking the projectile. The waste canister was a great idea, Thys,” replied Jake. “It will take a while to get far enough to see what’s happening. I’m going to get some sleep.”

  “Roger, Control. You do that, Jake. I’ve got some exploring to get ready for here.”

  Thys felt refreshed, as he had slept on the approach to this nearest derelict. After preparations for his EVA, there wasn’t much to do, as he could only decelerate and complete his approach slowly using the low-power thrust available to him without the Dhin engine.

  Thys knew Jake would want to be present for the exploration. They’d talked at length about Jake’s experience as a test pilot, his encounter with the Dhin space station, and his brief interface with the Dhin while there.

  If it happens again, he won’t want to miss it.

  But the mission had constraints, and despite their camaraderie, Thys couldn’t wait around. Jake would understand. He should be back before Thys was too far along in the EVA to the derelict.

  A few hours later, the derelict craft loomed massive in Thys’s sight.

  I’m out here alone. The reliability of the Dhin tech and our trust in it means I don’t have anyone to watch my back.

  The Coalition had sent him and his team members
alone, without a copilot, because of their trust and comfort level with the Dhin engine’s reliability and because they’d concluded that since a rescue by another pilot would be so fast, given the speed of travel, it was worth the risk.

  I guess they’re updating those risk profiles now. And with the situation here, I don’t know that they’ll risk sending a rescue. They might end up stuck, just like I may be.

  Thys had more than a little faith in Chuck and the physics team. But with this massive craft in view, he had to consider the obvious.

  It doesn’t look much like they got away. Not like I’d know, but still. All these ships stuck out here. Why will it be any different for me?

  He shook his head to clear his thoughts and focused again on the hulking dark craft before him.

  “Control, I’m thinking the front of this thing is over to my port side. And if it makes any difference, maybe we’re aligned properly, with my up the same as the target’s. Do you agree?”

  “Yes, as far as the front goes. Up is a guess for us too.”

  The derelict looked like a brushed silver lozenge, with various smaller lozenge shapes lined up in parallel, some more akin to extruded, with others attached and melted together. More geometric and clean than organic, smooth lines and bands ran along the oval shapes. These seemed, as they had from a distance, like etched copper, with others a darker metallic material. Some seemed like polished ceramic, with a creamy and barely translucent character. But the surface wasn’t clean, unblemished, and perfect like the Dhin’s space station had been.

  At this closer distance, he saw he’d been right in his previous impression. Holes covered all the surfaces, randomly scattered across them. They were somewhat regular in size and shape, with clean edges. They penetrated to various depths on whatever surface they were on. Thys zoomed in on a section of the ship on a camera feed and frowned. It looked like the material around each hole was just . . . gone.

  There were no blast marks, irregularities from explosive force, or displacement of material outward or around the holes. It seemed clear, however, that the holes were not supposed to be there. These were damage. Strange damage that left no residue or detritus, but damage nonetheless.

  The interiors of some of them didn’t seem to tunnel inward as far as some others. They didn’t look as if they’d passed entirely through the ship. They didn’t penetrate that much. The material where he found them didn’t make a difference either. The ceramic-looking framework bands and panels were just as pockmarked as the metallic portions of the ship’s hull.

  “Control, there’s no way it’s not a weapon that did this, right? These holes are damage.”

  One of the engineers replied, “We’re thinking the same thing. This isn’t an effect like anything we’ve seen before with the Dhin technology, but of course we’ve never seen it weaponized. Whether what did this is what stopped the ship isn’t clear. Over.”

  “Roger, Control. It’s as likely as not. Assuming I can get inside, we’ll see how deep they penetrate, if they do. It looks like it’s more than hull damage, but less than through-and-through.”

  “Still nothing moving that was too small for us to see from a distance. And no change in heat signature or any radio frequency response, Thys. Over.”

  “Roger. If they’re not dead or gone, they definitely don’t care that I’m here. Not yet. Hopefully that won’t change.”

  The engineer laughed. “Didn’t you want to meet someone?”

  “Control, that’s not looking like a likely scenario.”

  Thys watched as he drew closer and closer to the derelict.

  They’re gone. Or dead. Hopefully whatever did this isn’t lurking around and about to come after me.

  4

  Mare

  Mare drummed her fingers as she perused her new assignment.

  They sure don’t hold back on the clearance level when they decide they need you. Wow.

  Mare keyed in the combination to her desk safe, scanned her thumbprint, and took out her cryptokey. She typed up her acknowledgment of the assignment, encrypted that, and then sent it off to management. Unpacking the main load of the encrypted data would take time. This was more information on the Dhin technology and the space exploration projects than she’d ever seen before.

  So they want multivariate analysis on all this?

  The data sets were huge but not beyond what Mare had ever worked with. Just an entirely different set of variables. It would take some reworking. Apparently, the engineers in the Dhin programs didn’t bother with risk analysis unless it had to do with practical applications.

  Looks like Fletch doesn’t have clearance. Well, that’ll be fun, dodging ten thousand questions from him. Not.

  Mare scanned the rest of the clearance ledger. It looked like very few staff below the director and his core team knew about this particular situation.

  And they’re freaking out.

  The summary and technical requirements suggested CoSec feared something new was out there. Something besides the Dhin. Something malicious.

  OK, I guess that’s a decent reason to freak out.

  She’d need time to code up the new programs to work with the massive blobs of data, so it was fine that the decrypting and unpacking would take so much time. The Viper programming language she used was flexible. She’d be able to leverage plenty of her existing code.

  Mare opened up her music app, picked a classical mix playlist, then brought up her integrated development environment and created a new project. She gradually got into the zone, a fugue state where the code flowed out of her onto the screen, her mind entirely focused on the elaborate solutions she’d build for the analysis.

  She didn’t even notice her comm pad buzzing when Fletch pinged her to ask whether she wanted to go to lunch. An hour later, she started when he knocked on the door.

  “Hey, Mare. What are you working on?”

  Mare immediately locked her screen and spun around in her chair. “Um. Oh, hi, Fletch. Yeah, we’ll need to talk about how I can’t talk about it.”

  “Huh?” Fletcher blinked, his eyes widening.

  “Yeah. Sorry. New project, higher clearance.”

  Fletcher feigned causal disinterest, shrugged, and gestured for Mare to come. “I’m hungry.” He smiled. “You can not-tell me over lunch.”

  Jake

  Jake massaged his neck and sipped his latte as the overnight shift’s staff melted out of the control center and the morning shift flowed in. The foldout bed in his office was serviceable, but he’d left his orthopedic pillow at home. Such things hadn’t concerned him when he was younger, but they made a difference at forty-eight.

  He scanned the room, looking for the team lead. He spotted the dusty-haired man he’d been looking for and said, “Meyer, status?”

  “Sir, I’ve sent a link to the video to your pad, and it’s available on screen four as well if you’d like a larger view,” said the man.

  “Thank you, Meyer. Give me the highlights,” said Jake. “No one woke me up unexpectedly, so it’s clear Thys is alive. Nor has he run into a live Dhin or a dead man.”

  Meyer cleared his throat awkwardly, unsure whether they had done the right thing in letting him sleep. Jake knew not everyone appreciated his sense of humor that he used to relieve tension.

  But Meyer has none, apparently.

  “It’s fine, Meyer,” Jake said. “I needed the sleep. Go on.”

  “Yes, sir. The craft completed deceleration and matched rotation and velocity with the target at this point.”

  Meyer drew his finger along the time graph that held thumbnails of the video, with a time stamp prominently displayed in the lower right corner of the screen. Jake’s comm pad showed the same image and time stamp. Meyer scrolled further along the timeline and continued his narrative. “With our protective field operational, we moved to this point here.”

  “That looks like it’s only a meter or so from the ship—from this outer curve here. Nothing changed?”

&nbs
p; “Kritcher did not encounter a field generated by the target craft at any point, nor did the target show any change or any indication of a response. No signal on any frequency between radio and the visible spectrum. No movement that we can see either.”

  “Thank you, Meyer. OK, interesting. Then what?”

  “Sir, per the plan, Kritcher continued his approach till he reached point six five meters from this spot here. It does look like some sort of dock or port there.”

  “Wow. It wasn’t open, though. Whatever ate through the craft hit right here too.”

  “Yes,” said Meyer. “There are plenty of close-up images as we moved along here on approach. It looks like the crew didn’t open it, but instead something ate through. The same weapon or whatever made all the holes all around the hull. This spot is thinner or weaker, so it took the whole thing out.”

  “OK then. Enough buildup. What next?”

  “Ah, yes, sir. Kritcher then, after recording the video you see, pumped the air in the air lock hatch into the holding tank and went through.”

  “Turns out those little air locks were worth including in the design, hmm?”

  “Yes. So Kritcher began EVA and poked the edge of what we designated the floor based on orientation. It’s solid. At this point, as you see here, he stepped over.”

  “Yet another step into a larger universe,” said Jake quietly.

  “Um, yes, sir. So, as you see here, the interior shares some significant similarity to the Dhin designs we have as reference. The station you visited, notably. See here. And here.”

  “Yes. That’s similar,” Jake said and nodded.

  The video showed a hallway resembling an oval tunnel with a flat floor and ceiling, but with no obvious choice as to which was which. The walls had little on them, and all the surfaces appeared to be constructed of a smooth, light-colored metal, with some bands running parallel with the hall that looked like white enamel. The hallway curved up in a gentle slope, rather than running straight inward toward the centerline of the craft or side to side at right angles.