Survival--A Novel

by Ben Bova

  “We could all be dead by then,” he muttered to himself.

  “Your speculations are interesting,” said the AI avatar.

  Ignatiev frowned at the image on the screen above his fireplace. “It’s not speculation,” he growled. “It is a conclusion based on observed data.”

  “Alexander Alexandrovich,” said the sweetly smiling face, “your conclusion comes not from the observations, but from your interpretation of the observations.”

  “Three of the probes had power failures.”

  “Temporary failures that were corrected. And three other probes did not.”

  “Those last three didn’t go through the bubble,” he said.

  “They all flew the same trajectory, did they not?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Within a four percent deviation,” the avatar said, unperturbed.

  “But they flew at different times,” Ignatiev pointed out. “The bubble was flowing across their flight paths. The first probe plunged into the heart of it and shut down entirely. For four months! The next two skirted its edges and still suffered power failures.”

  “Temporarily,” said the avatar’s image, still smiling patiently. “And the final three probes? They didn’t encounter any problems at all, did they?”

  “No,” Ignatiev admitted grudgingly. “The bubble must have flowed past by the time they reached the area.”

  “So there should be no problem for us,” the avatar said.

  “You think not?” he responded. “Then why are we beginning to suffer a power shortage?”

  “The inflowing hydrogen is slightly thinner here than it has been,” said the avatar.

  Ignatiev shook his head. “It’s going to get worse. We’re heading into another bubble. I’m sure of it.”

  The AI system said nothing.

  * * *

  Be sure you’re right, then go ahead. Ignatiev had heard that motto many long years ago, when he’d been a child watching adventure tales.

  He spent an intense three weeks mapping the interstellar hydrogen directly ahead of the ship’s position. His worst fears were confirmed. Sagan was entering a sizable bubble where the gas density thinned out to practically nothing: fewer than a dozen hydrogen atoms per cubic meter.

  He checked the specifications of the ship’s fusion generator and confirmed that its requirement for incoming hydrogen was far higher than the bubble could provide. Within a few days we’ll start to experience serious power outages, he realized.

  What to do?

  Despite his disdain for his younger crewmates, despite his loathing of meetings and committees and the kind of groupthink that passed for decision-making, he called a special meeting of the crew.

  “All the ship’s systems will shut down?” cried one of the psychotechs. “All of them?”

  “What will happen to us during the shutdown?” asked a biologist, her voice trembling.

  Calmly, his hands clasped atop the conference tabletop, Ignatiev said, “If my measurements of the bubble are accurate—”

  “If?” Gregorian snapped. “You mean you’re not sure?”

  “Not one hundred percent, no.”

  “Then why are you telling us this? Why have you called this meeting? To frighten us?”

  “Well, he’s certainly frightened me!” said one of the engineers.

  Trying to hold on to his temper, Ignatiev replied, “My measurements are good enough to convince me that we face a serious problem. Very serious. Power output is already declining, and will go down more over the next few days.”

  “How much more?” asked the female biologist.

  Ignatiev hesitated, then decided to give them the worst. “All the ship’s systems could shut down. Like the first of the automated probes. It shut down for four months. Went into hibernation mode. Our shutdown might be even longer.”

  The biologist countered, “But the probe powered up again, didn’t it? It went into hibernation mode but then it came back to normal.”

  With a slow nod, Ignatiev said, “The ship’s systems could survive a hibernation of many months. But we couldn’t. Without electrical power we would not have heat, air or water recycling, lights, stoves for cooking—”

  “You mean we’ll die?” asked Nikki, in the tiny voice of a frightened little girl.

  Ignatiev felt a sudden urge to comfort her, to protect her from the brutal truth. “Unless we take steps,” he said softly.

  “What steps?” Gregorian demanded.

  “We have to change our course. Turn away from this bubble. Move along a path that keeps us in regions of thicker gas.”

  “Alexander Alexandrovich,” came the voice of the AI avatar, “course changes must be approved by mission control.”

  Ignatiev looked up and saw that the avatar’s image had sprung up on each of the conference room’s walls, slightly larger than life. Naturally, he realized. The AI system has been listening to every word we say. The avatar’s image looked slightly different to him: an amalgam of all the twelve separate images the AI system showed to each of the crew members. Sonya’s features were in the image, but blurred, softened, like the face of a relative who resembled her mother strongly.

  “Approved by mission control?” snapped one of the engineers, a rake-thin dark-skinned Malaysian. “It would take six years merely to get a message to them!”

  “We could all be dead by then,” said the redhead sitting beside him.

  Unperturbed, the avatar replied, “Mission protocol includes emergency procedures, but course changes require approval from mission control.”

  Everyone tried to talk at once. Ignatiev closed his eyes and listened to the babble. Almost, he laughed to himself. They would mutiny against the AI system, if they knew how. He saw in his imagination a handful of children trying to rebel against a peg-legged pirate captain.

  At last he put up his hands to silence them. They shut up and looked to him, their expressions ranging from sullen to fearful to self-pitying.

  “Arguments and threats won’t sway the AI program,” he told them. “Only logic.”

  Looking thoroughly nettled, Gregorian said, “So try logic, then.”

  Ignatiev said to the image on the wall screens, “What is the mission protocol’s first priority?”

  The answer came immediately, “To protect the lives of the human crew and cargo.”

  Cargo, Ignatiev grunted to himself. The stupid program thinks of the people in cryonic suspension as cargo.

  Aloud, he said, “Observations show that we are entering a region of very low hydrogen density.”

  Immediately the avatar replied, “That will necessitate reducing power consumption.”

  “Power consumption may be reduced below the levels needed to keep the crew alive,” Ignatiev said.

  For half a heartbeat the AI avatar said nothing. Then, “That is a possibility.”

  “If we change course to remain within the region where hydrogen density is adequate to maintain all the ship’s systems,” Ignatiev said slowly, carefully, “none of the crew’s lives would be endangered.”

  “Not so, Alexander Alexandrovich,” the avatar replied.

  “Not so?”

  “The immediate threat of reduced power availability might be averted by changing course, but once the ship has left its preplanned trajectory toward Gliese 581, how will you navigate toward our destination? Course correction data will take more than twelve years to reach us from Earth. The ship would be wandering through a wilderness, far from its destination. The crew would eventually die of starvation.”

  “We could navigate ourselves,” said Ignatiev. “We wouldn’t need course correction data from mission control.”

  The avatar’s image actually shook her head. “No member of the crew is an accredited astrogator.”

  “I can do it!” Nikki cried. “I monitor the navigation program.”

  With a hint of a smile, the avatar said gently, “Monitoring the astrogation program does not equip you to plot course changes
.”

  Before Nikki or anyone else could object, Ignatiev asked coolly, “So what do you recommend?”

  Again the AI system hesitated before answering, almost a full second. It must be searching every byte of data in its memory, Ignatiev thought.

  At last the avatar responded. “While this ship passes through the region of low fuel density the animate crew should enter cryonic suspension.”

  “Cryosleep?” Gregorian demanded. “For how long?”

  “As long as necessary. The cryonics units can be powered by the ship’s backup fuel cells—”

  The red-haired engineer said, “Why don’t we use the fuel cells to run the ship?”

  Ignatiev shook his head. The kid knows better, he’s just grasping at straws.

  Sure enough, the AI avatar replied patiently, “The fuel cells could power the ship for only a week or less, depending on internal power consumption.”

  Crestfallen, the engineer said, “Yeah. Right.”

  “Cryosleep is the indicated technique for passing through this emergency,” said the AI system.

  Ignatiev asked, “If the fuel cells are used solely for maintaining the cryosleep units’ refrigeration, how long could they last?”

  “Two months,” replied the avatar. “That includes maintaining the cryosleep units already being used by the cargo.”

  “Understood,” said Ignatiev. “And if this region of low fuel density extends for more than two months?”

  Without hesitation, the AI avatar answered, “Power to the cryosleep units will be lost.”

  “And the people in those units?”

  “They will die,” said the avatar, without a flicker of human emotion.

  Gregorian said, “Then we’d better hope that the bubble doesn’t last for more than two months.”

  Ignatiev saw the others nodding, up and down the conference table. They looked genuinely frightened, but they didn’t know what else could be done.

  He thought he did.

  * * *

  The meeting broke up with most of the crew members muttering to one another about sleeping through the emergency.

  “Too bad they don’t have capsules big enough for the two of us,” Gregorian said brashly to Nikki. Ignatiev thought he was trying to show a valor he didn’t truly feel.

  They don’t like the idea of crawling into those capsules and closing the lids over their faces, Ignatiev thought. It scares them. Too much like coffins.

  With Gregorian at her side, Nikki came up to him as he headed for the conference room’s door. Looking troubled, fearful, she asked, “How long … do you have any idea?”

  “Probably not more than two months,” he said, with a certainty he did not actually feel. “Maybe even a little less.”

  Gregorian grasped Nikki’s slim arm. “We’ll take capsules next to each other. I’ll dream of you all the time we’re asleep.”

  Nikki smiled up at him.

  But Ignatiev knew better. In cryosleep you don’t dream. The cold seeps into the brain’s neurons and denatures the chemicals that hold memories. Cryonic sleepers awake without memories, many of them forget how to speak, how to walk, even how to control their bladders and bowels. It was necessary to download a person’s brain patterns into a computer before entering cryosleep, and then restore the memories digitally once the sleeper was awakened.

  The AI system is going to do that for us? Ignatiev scoffed at the idea. That was one of the reasons why the mission required keeping a number of the crew awake during the long flight: to handle the uploading of the memories of the two hundred men and women cryosleeping through the journey once they were awakened at Gliese 581.

  Ignatiev left the conference room and headed toward his quarters. There was much to do: he didn’t entirely trust the AI system’s judgment. Despite its sophistication, it was still a computer program, limited to the data and instructions fed into it.

  So? he asked himself. Aren’t you limited to the data and instructions fed into your brain? Aren’t we all?

  “Professor Ignatiev.”

  Turning, he saw Nikki hurrying up the passageway toward him. For once she was alone, without Gregorian clutching her.

  He made a smile for her. It took an effort.

  Nikki said softly, “I want to thank you.”

  “Thank me?”

  “Vartan told me that he confided in you. That you made him understand…”

  Ignatiev shook his head. “He was blind.”

  “And you helped him to see.”

  Feeling helpless, stupid, he replied, “It was nothing.”

  “No,” Nikki said. “It was everything. He’s asked me to marry him.”

  “People of your generation still marry?”

  “Some of us still believe in a lifetime commitment,” she said.

  A lifetime of two centuries? Ignatiev wondered. That’s some commitment.

  Almost shyly, her eyes lowered, Nikki said, “We’d like you to be at our wedding. Would you be Vartan’s best man?”

  Thunderstruck. “Me? But you … I mean, he…”

  Smiling, she explained, “He’s too frightened of you to ask. It took all his courage for him to ask you about me.”

  And Ignatiev suddenly understood. I must look like an old ogre to him. A tyrant. An intolerant ancient dragon.

  “Tell him to ask me himself,” he said gently.

  “You won’t refuse him?”

  Almost smiling, Ignatiev answered, “No, of course not.”

  Nikki beamed at him. “Thank you!”

  And she turned and raced off down the passageway, leaving Ignatiev standing alone, wondering at how the human mind works.

  * * *

  Once he got back to his own quarters, still slightly stunned at his own softheartedness, Ignatiev called for the AI system.

  “How may I help you, Alexander Alexandrovich?” The image looked like Sonya once again. More than ever, Ignatiev thought.

  “How will the sleepers’ brain scans be uploaded into them once they are awakened?” he asked.

  “The ship’s automated systems will perform that task,” said the imperturbable avatar.

  “No,” said Ignatiev. “Those systems were never meant to operate completely autonomously.”

  “The uploading program is capable of autonomous operation.”

  “It requires human oversight,” he insisted. “Check the mission protocols.”

  “Human oversight is required,” the avatar replied, “except in emergencies where such oversight would not be feasible. In such cases, the system is capable of autonomous operation.”

  “In theory.”

  “In the mission protocols.”

  Ignatiev grinned harshly at the image on the screen above his fireplace. Arguing with the AI system was almost enjoyable; if the problem weren’t so desperate, it might even be fun. Like a chess game. But then he remembered how rarely he managed to beat the AI system’s chess program.

  “I don’t propose to trust my mind, and the minds of the rest of the crew, to an untested collection of bits and bytes.”

  The image seemed almost to smile back at him. “The system has been tested, Alexander Alexandrovich. It was tested quite thoroughly back on Earth. You should read the reports.”

  A hit, he told himself. A very palpable hit. He dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “I will do that.”

  The avatar’s image winked out, replaced by the title page of a scientific paper published several years before Sagan had started out for Gliese 581.

  Ignatiev read the report. Twice. Then he looked up the supporting literature. Yes, he concluded, a total of eleven human beings had been successfully returned to active life by an automated uploading system after being cryonically frozen for several weeks.

  The work had been done in a laboratory on Earth, with whole phalanxes of experts on hand to fix anything that might have gone wrong. The report referenced earlier trials, where things did go wrong and the standby scientific staff was hurriedly pressed into acti
on. But at last those eleven volunteers were frozen after downloading their brain scans, then revived and their electrical patterns uploaded from computers into their brains once again. Automatically. Without human assistance.

  All eleven reported that they felt no different after the experiment than they had before being frozen. Ignatiev wondered at that. It’s too good to be true, he told himself. Too self-serving. How would they know what they felt before being frozen? But that’s what the record showed.

  The scientific literature destroyed his final argument against the AI system. The crew began downloading their brain scans the next day.

  All but Ignatiev.

  He stood by in the scanning center when Nikki downloaded her brain patterns. Gregorian was with her, of course. Ignatiev watched as the Armenian helped her to stretch out on the couch. The automated equipment gently lowered a metal helmet studded with electrodes over her short-cropped hair.

  It was a small compartment, hardly big enough to hold the couch and the banks of instruments lining three of its walls. It felt crowded, stuffy, with the two men standing on either side of the couch and a psychotechnician and the crew’s physician at their elbows.

  Without taking his eyes from the panel of gauges he was monitoring, the psychotech said softly, “The scan will begin in thirty seconds.”

  The physician at his side, looking even chunkier than usual in a white smock, needlessly added, “It’s completely painless.”

  Nikki smiled wanly at Ignatiev. She’s brave, he thought. Then she turned to Gregorian and her smile brightened.

  The two men stood on either side of the scanning couch as the computer’s images of Nikki’s brain patterns flickered on the central display screen. A human mind, on display, Ignatiev thought. Which of those little sparks of light are the love she feels for Gregorian? he wondered. Which one shows what she feels for me?

  The bank of instruments lining the wall made a soft beep.

  “That’s it,” said the psychotech. “The scan is finished.”

  The helmet rose automatically off Nikki’s head and she slowly got up to a sitting position.

  “How do you feel?” Ignatiev asked, reaching out toward her.