The Ouroboros Wave

by Hayashi, Jyouji

  “Ready to fire her up, Cap’n?” said Kameda.

  “You may proceed.”

  Kameda activated the sonar and the laser radar developed specifically for deep-sea use. Thousands of high-efficiency semiconductor laser devices, shielded by pressure-resistant glass, were arrayed along Remora’s hull. Within a limited range their wavelength could be tuned. Electronically switching the array made it possible to judge the density and composition of objects within a certain range of the hull.

  At least that was the theory. In practice, making it work was extremely difficult. Deploying laser radar in the vacuum of space was one thing, trying to get it to work underwater was something different. AADD’s Special Equipment Team had solved the problem by combining sonar and laser radar into one integrated system. Remora’s sonar was a parametric array able to measure the density of the water with precision. In effect, subtracting the sonar data from the radar data—handled by a specialized processing unit—yielded sharp, three-dimensional images of anything outside the hull. We could see fractures in the ice as clearly as if they had been optically imaged. It must have had something to do with the enhancement algorithms—I could even see the way the fractures were arranged in layers. I couldn’t help but admire the sheer artistry of it. “The resolution on this radar is amazing.”

  “The team put a lot of time into it. I don’t like to brag, but what can I say—they’re the best in the solar system at this work.” The captain’s pride in his team’s accomplishment was obvious. Others might not be as impressed, but as a scientist I envied their willingness to accept challenges. I started to wonder—what had I been doing for the last twenty years?

  Suddenly the ice disappeared from the monitor. “We’re in the clear,” said Kameda. We were below 250 meters. Around us stretched an ocean the size of Earth’s moon.

  “Is this where Swordfish was lost?”

  “If you believe the data from the ultrasonic relay buoy,” said Kohara, “it was about twenty kilometers from here.”

  “How long before we arrive?”

  “Oh, I’d say about four hours at our current speed. No point in getting anxious now. Hey, Kameda, I’m starting to feel cold. Maybe it’s the depth. Make us some coffee.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Join us, Doctor? How do you take it?”

  “With milk, if you’ve got any.” The tension eased. Passing safely through the last section of the gateway seemed to have relieved my shipmates.

  “Coffee’s on.” Kameda produced ceramic—in fact they were real porcelain—coffee cups seemingly out of nowhere and filled them with coffee, first mine, then the captain’s. As he poured his own he asked casually, “That’s right, Dr. Kurokawa—I was meaning to ask you. As a scientist, what do you think of all this talk about dragons on Europa?”

  SWORDFISH had been built by AADD’s spacecraft manufacturing group, the giant Ferry Nakaya Ltd., using a typical spacecraft design. The basic assumption was that a submarine was simply a spacecraft with a pressure hull. Swordfish was a shark-shaped vessel fifty meters long—in effect, a submersible spaceship—with propulsion via proton/antiproton annihilation, the same approach used in the latest AADD ships.

  The accretion disk at the center of the Milky Way galaxy was known to produce vertical gas jets. Kali displayed the same phenomenon, and AADD succeeded in using these jets to mass-produce antiprotons. These particles were better suited to energy production than antimatter—that is, antihydrogen—though AADD could produce that as well. Of course, antiprotons were carefully rationed. Output was still limited to a few grams a day.

  The heat produced by the annihilation of protons and antiprotons drove a Sterling-type heat engine that in turn propelled Swordfish through the water. Even in their upper strata, Europa’s waters were close to freezing. This cooling potential boosted the efficiency of the power plant.

  But although Swordfish was advanced as a vehicle, Ferry Nakaya faced a difficult challenge when it came to the ship’s sensing systems. FN’s sensing technology was impressive, but it was designed for outer space, not the deep waters of an icebound ocean. FN was aware of its limitations. The system it developed for Swordfish was designed to function under conditions expected on Europa. Its engineers had access to more than enough data to make the required modifications—or so they thought.

  But they had misjudged the scope of the challenge. The upper and lower layers of Europa’s ocean turned out to have starkly different compositions and densities. The upper reaches were comparatively transparent; dissolved mineral content was low. Under these conditions Swordfish could easily carry out its mission. But as the ship went deeper, conditions quickly changed. The concentration of organic matter and minerals rose, and visibility diminished drastically.

  Under these conditions, the radar that was supposed to serve as the ship’s eyes couldn’t function as designed. The ultrasonic link to the support team on the ice became Swordfish’s only connection to the rest of the mission. Still, the crew continued their explorations. They wanted to collect enough data to upgrade the radar for the next mission.

  And so Swordfish cruised farther from the gateway and deeper into the ocean. Its crew was able to use differential radar data to send low-resolution footage to the surface. However, the radar continued to perform erratically and the images were not very useful.

  Twenty kilometers from the gateway something happened. The ship collided with something organic—and dense.

  “It’s after us! It’s alive!”

  “It’s no use, we can’t outrun it!”

  “Evading—We can’t get away from this thing! No! It’s a dragon!”

  That was the end of the transmission. The final radar image showed something enormous and snakelike, maw agape, immediately behind the submarine. Whatever it was, it did look like a dragon. Analysis verified that it was a real object, not a refraction artifact.

  For AADD, the loss of Swordfish was eclipsed by a bigger danger: the crew’s last transmission. “It’s a dragon!”

  Too much remained a mystery. Their cry for help suggested that Europa might harbor a huge life-form with some degree of intelligence. If this was true, it could turn into a huge headache. Those opposed to terraforming Mars could easily use a dragon on Europa as a weapon against AADD.

  Terraforming was AADD’s primary use for the boundless energy promised by the artificial accretion disk. But an energy distribution system spanning the solar system demanded a complex infrastructure. One element of this infrastructure was a positioning system driven by hundreds of satellites, equipped with atomic clocks and distributed throughout the solar system. Cesium ions, cooled to a Bose-Einstein condensate, gave the clocks unprecedented accuracy.

  The positioning system was only one part of the infrastructure necessary to deliver energy with pinpoint accuracy from Kali to planets, moons, and low-cost long-haul spacecraft throughout the solar system. The development and construction of this infrastructure was enormously expensive. A major portion of the budget was covered by loans secured with future profits from terraformed land sales.

  But many on Earth clung to the belief that microbes native to Mars would someday be discovered beneath its surface. If even a single amoeba came to light there would be urgent demands to halt all terraforming. Those holding this view were in the minority, but they were still a force to be reckoned with. If life was found on Europa, it would indirectly strengthen their position.

  AADD was searching for life on Europa in order to demonstrate that it wasn’t ignoring the possibility of life elsewhere in the solar system. Organic contamination from Earth was widespread throughout the solar system; all of the microbes found on Mars had been proven to have originated elsewhere. AADD hoped to encourage the view that humanity was the only intelligent life-form in the solar system. Proclaiming that Mars was “humanity’s birthright,” AADD wanted to present terraforming as an irreversible act of progress.

  The ground would be cut from under this strategy if intelligent life was discovered on E
uropa. If its hostile environment could harbor such a creature, there might well be life hidden somewhere on Mars. Earth might call for a freeze on terraforming until the absence of such life could be proven—and nothing is more difficult to prove than a negative.

  Terraforming Mars neither benefited nor harmed the people of Earth. The labor as well as the financial and technical resources had been provided almost exclusively by the Martians themselves. AADD could ignore Terran public opinion if it chose to do so, but only at the risk of a highly undesirable deterioration of its relations with Earth.

  AADD hoped to dampen speculation regarding intelligent life on Europa. The probability of finding such life was indeed low, but if Swordfish had done it, AADD needed to establish that fact quickly in order to devise an effective damage control strategy.

  And so, less than twenty-four hours after Swordfish disappeared, we were dispatched to Europa.

  I SIPPED MY COFFEE. “I wouldn’t say the odds of finding a creature like that in these waters are terribly high.” I wasn’t saying this because I hoped it was true. It was my opinion as a scientist. “As an exobiologist, I’d have to assume it’s impossible for a creature big enough to swallow a submarine to be swimming around on Europa. Our geophysical simulations show that there are limits to the energy that a system of hydrothermal vents can put out. It’s hard to believe that vents with enough energy to sustain a large life-form could exist anywhere on a body this size. If there were, we would’ve noticed them by now. But let’s say they exist, just for argument’s sake. How could a large life-form survive out here, so far from a thermal energy source?”

  “You never know until you go.” Kohara increased our speed by a small increment. “Kameda, how’s Salmon?”

  “All systems nominal.”

  “Dr. Kurokawa, are you sure that all we’re obliged to do is release the robot once we reach the location where Swordfish was lost?”

  “Yes, but it’ll take more than two or three days for Salmon to have a look around. This is a pretty big ocean.”

  “And we have to remain on station till it’s finished its survey?”

  “Wasn’t that covered in the contract?” I asked.

  “I don’t remember.” At this, the three of us checked the agreement on our webs. It was foolish to read through a document when you could call it up whenever you needed it.

  “It says here, ‘The officer in charge is free to exercise discretion to preserve the safety of the vessel,’” I read. “It also says something about keeping me out of harm’s way, but that’s the same as preserving the safety of the ship, I guess.”

  “I just wanted to hear you say it,” said Kohara.

  I couldn’t say I was one of AADD’s most distinguished exobiologists, but I did develop Salmon, and that was the reason I was here dealing with a problem that could well blow up into something serious for AADD. In fact, I wasn’t really a pure exobiologist. Rather, I specialized in the potential pitfalls of first contact with an alien civilization.

  The debate over how humanity should respond to contact with an advanced nonhuman species stretched back to the twentieth century. Salmon’s AI was designed as a first step toward a fully functional go-between for humanity in the event of such contact. The AI was equipped with cutting-edge learning algorithms to search for evidence of rule-based behavior—the “common sense” embodied in its programming. If the robot encountered an intelligent life-form, that life-form would become the focus of its learning. Given sufficient exposure to alien behavior, the AI was capable of acquiring the rules governing that behavior and could pass them on to its human handlers, making it possible for humans to acquire tacit alien knowledge, subject, of course, to the limitations of human-designed learning algorithms. The knowledge obtained would permit an estimate of the degree of danger—if any—posed by that alien civilization. The data transmitted by the AI would also make radio or laser communication far more efficient. To prevent the aliens from learning too much about humans, any attempt to dismantle the robot would cause the AI to self-destruct.

  Although Salmon was barely past the basic concept stage, it was the only tool available to investigate whether an intelligent life-form was at large on Europa. Still, there was a reason why we weren’t relying solely on Salmon but were also conducting manned investigations from aboard Remora. AADD had to prove that it was performing a good-faith, unbiased investigation.

  NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY happened as we approached the site of Swordfish’s disappearance, but the moment we arrived things changed. Something scrambled Remora’s radar data; the next instant the display went dark. The same thing happened with Salmon’s radar.

  “Kameda, what did you do?” barked the captain.

  “Nothing. Something’s messing with the lasers.”

  Kohara disengaged the screw, left the cockpit, and came to the rear of the bridge where Kameda and I sat. With the radar out and Remora blind, proceeding any further would be risky. The idling of the diesel engine was barely audible; Remora continued to drift forward under her own inertia.

  Kohara and I stood behind Kameda, peering at his console. Kameda had isolated the radar’s computer from the network, but it still wouldn’t respond to his commands. He ran a detailed trace, showing each execution of the source code in time sequence. “Okay, here it is.”

  “What happened?” asked the captain.

  “The sonar and radar are giving us conflicting data. That’s why the computer couldn’t process the image. The sonar says there’s nothing ahead of us. The radar says we’re facing some sort of huge wall.”

  “A wall?”

  “That’s what the radar’s telling us, Captain.”

  At that moment we felt a slight increase in speed. None of us gave it a thought; it might have been some local current. “Do all the testing you want.” I sighed. “Something always happens when you get the gear out into the field.”

  Kameda turned to look at the captain. “What next?”

  “Reboot the radar. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to try analyzing the error log.”

  Kameda rebooted Salmon’s radar. Now it seemed to work in perfect sync with the sonar. The monitor showed nothing ahead of the ship. “Cap’n, what are the onboard sensors showing? I’m seeing a lot of organic matter. Wow, temperature’s up too—it’s five degrees outside.”

  I ran a diagnostics program I’d developed to analyze Salmon’s sonar data on my web. “I think I know what caused the problem—and why the temperature’s rising.”

  “What do you mean?” said Kohara.

  “Are we moving forward, Captain?”

  “Probably a bit, just our inertia. Why?”

  “We had a wall of organic matter in front of us earlier. It wasn’t returning any echoes because it was absorbing the sonar.” I cursed myself for my carelessness as I rebooted Salmon’s sensing systems. Now there was no disagreement with Remora’s sensors—the ocean ahead was empty. “We’ve gone through some kind of wall, Captain. The radar saw it, but it absorbed the sonar. That’s what confused the system. The acceleration we noticed just now was probably Remora penetrating the wall. Her inertia took us right through it. Swordfish’s dragon metaphor suggests that the object had the same surface characteristics as whatever it was we just passed through. I think we may be in the belly of the beast.”

  “We can’t be inside a dragon. What nonsense,” growled Kohara.

  “Maybe ‘inside’ isn’t the right word. We’re within something connected with Swordfish’s disappearance. A gigantic egg, maybe, or a nest. Or something else entirely. But I’m certain we’re within something.”

  “Then Swordfish should be here too,” said Kameda.

  The captain and I exchanged glances. Kameda was probably right; it would make sense. This might well be some kind of habitat or nest. Then again, it might be a huge collective organism. Maybe it spat Swordfish out, as it might shortly do to us as part of some immune reaction. At this point it was impossible to tell.

  “
Let’s drop Salmon and get the hell out of here,” said Kohara.

  “Cap’n, we can’t just—”

  “—leave, Kameda? You mean without trying to find Swordfish? You’re right, they may be here. But if they are, it means there’s something else here that we need to steer clear of. I don’t see anything we can do to help them. On the contrary—if this creature attacks us, no one can come to our aid. Swordfish and Remora are the only vessels in the solar system that can dive these waters.”

  “I agree with the captain,” I said. “Let’s release Salmon and clear out of here. Once we have a chance to analyze the data, we’ll have a better idea of how to proceed.”

  Kohara seemed relieved to have gotten backup from a scientist. For my part I was glad to hear him talking sense. The last thing AADD needed right now was more fatalities. The danger to Remora was also a danger to AADD. Kameda didn’t bother to argue the point further.

  Kohara increased power to the engine. RPM should have risen immediately, but nothing happened. “What’s the story? Why’s she running so hot?”

  “It looks like something’s blocking the cooling intake. I’ll increase power to the pump.”

  At first this seemed to help, but then the intake jammed again. At length, after alternately increasing and decreasing power to the pump, Kameda managed to clear the line and water started to flow again. The engine began to settle down, though it was still running a bit hot.

  But a still bigger problem awaited us. When Kohara engaged the screw, nothing happened. We were dead in the water.

  “Cap’n, the protection circuit just kicked in.”

  “I was half expecting that.”

  “What’s happening?” I said.