“Do you really think we’ll find something amiss with the transmitter?”
EVA was always carried out with a partner. Chaa was looking at Shocho, waiting for an answer. Shocho couldn’t read his expression; the suit visors were electroplated with reflective gold. But it was clear from Chaa’s voice that he didn’t think this EVA would turn up anything.
“It’s odd. If someone deliberately disabled the comm system, they’d have to physically access the optical module.”
“They’d still need the access codes. I doubt our Terran guests are that sophisticated, which means the blackout must be real. No one’s transmitting.” In other words, they should be looking for answers inside the ship, not out here on the hull.
“Chaa, you realize we’re in a difficult situation right now?”
“I was going to ask you the same question.”
The conversation was taking place between agent programs. Web implants extended their users’ sensorium and facilitated communication. While agent programs didn’t guarantee perfect mutual understanding, Shocho and Chaa had accumulated hundreds of hours working together. Each had an accurate grasp of the other’s capabilities. Still, at this moment neither understood what the other was thinking.
“We should be doing something more productive than checking the comm unit,” Chaa persisted. “We might be at war with Earth already.”
“There isn’t going to be any war. They don’t have a fraction of the ships we do, even without the energy supplies Kali gives us. Even if there’s actual fighting, it won’t last beyond a few limited engagements. That’s hardly a war.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you? It’s no secret the Terrans are building armed spacecraft capable of reaching the outer planets.”
“And how are they going to reach Mars without being detected, much less Jupiter? There are hundreds of unmanned ships shuttling around the solar system with energy transmitted from the accretion disk. We can track those ships to within a few meters. Do you really think an armed Terran spacecraft could conduct offensive operations in that environment?”
“If they’re sufficiently determined there’s no telling what an enemy is capable of.”
Chaa’s use of the term enemy was revealing. He seemed to have already made up his mind. Shocho wished she could see his expression.
“So you think they’ll start a war they can’t win?” They were arguing past each other. She was focused on capabilities; he cared only about intent.
“Your ancestors were Japanese, Shocho. You should know humans don’t always make rational decisions. Organizations can run amok and behave in irrational ways. It’s clear from your history. Japan’s military started the Pacific War even though they knew they didn’t have a chance of winning it. And when it was clear they’d be defeated, it took them two years to summon up the will to end it. What’s rational about a kamikaze attack? History hasn’t ended, and history will always include people who are prepared to start wars they can’t win.”
Chaa was a scholar with a deep understanding of humanity’s past. His insights had frequently proven useful. But his example from Japanese history extended back more than two centuries. Shocho’s ancestral ties to Earth had ended a century ago.
“We learned from the people who preceded us into space. Are you saying Terrans can’t learn from their own history?”
“It’s not a matter of their capacity to be rational. The problem is simple: they hate us.”
SHANTAK I I was a self-propelled observation platform nearly three times farther from the Sun than Neptune. The reason for its placement here, half a light-day from the Sun, was to carry out precise observations of the dwarf galaxy Eingana. The Terran research vessel Discovery had been deployed opposite Shantak II in the same circumsolar orbit. Separated by a full light-day, the two ships would soon begin to share differential data, acting as a titanic laser interferometer.
Dwarf galaxy Eingana was a tiny agglomeration of objects. The Eingana of Australian aboriginal legend was a snake goddess, a creator whose appearance nonetheless often foretold calamity. The dwarf galaxy christened with this name hovered just above the plane of the Milky Way, almost touching it. For its mass, Eingana was inexplicably dark. No existing theory or model fit its observed characteristics, and thus the recently discovered galaxy threatened to upset the prevailing models of stellar and planetary evolution. Astronomers feared and welcomed Eingana as a potential destroyer of paradigms.
Shantak II was two huge spars, five hundred meters long and fifty meters wide, joined at right angles to form a trussed cross. The spars themselves were capable of acting as a laser gravity-wave interferometer. Trusses seventy meters from the apex formed a platform a hundred meters square. At the center was the main power module—a hybrid fusion reactor with fusion pellets ignited by the heat from proton/antiproton annihilation—and another module containing communications and life-support systems. At the corners of the square, perched on the spars, were habitat modules and work spaces for the crew.
Shantak II was a spacecraft, an observatory, and even a factory, as well as being home to fifty AADD crew. Its mission was a joint project with Earth; there were ten Terran scientists aboard. There were no AADD crew on Discovery, reflecting the fact that the project wasn’t truly collaborative. AADD didn’t make an issue of this. There was little of interest they could learn from embedding people on a Terran spacecraft.
At first, the observations went smoothly. But then something happened that changed everything: a man-made communications blackout.
Even at the speed of light, round-trip communication with the inner solar system took a full day—not ideal for an exchange of urgent messages. Most communication was via laser, complicating line-of-sight transmissions passing close to the Sun. The solution was to route most comm traffic through relay stations on the Trojan asteroids. This was how Shantak II and Discovery communicated. The Trojans were also the relay for other research installations throughout the solar system.
The early stages of the project had been marked by tensions between AADD and Earth. But the unprecedented scale and shared scientific promise of the project had gradually dampened any mutual suspicion—not least because as soon as observation commenced it became clear that Eingana was a scientific enigma.
Until the day when transmissions from the rest of the solar system ceased, Shocho had seen for herself how the project was fostering a sense of solidarity that overcame differences between AADD and Earth. That was why the day when the message arrived remained so clear in her memory. She had been with the project leader, Dr. Atwood, in the central lounge. Atwood had a hard time organizing his theories without someone to act as a sounding board.
“Commander Kanda, do you know what our solar system looks like from a distance?”
“No, I can’t say I do. We’re not far out enough for that.”
“Right. Well, you would think that from a distance any planetary system—not just our own—would appear to have a central star orbited by planetary bodies in empty space. But the truth is rather different. In infrared, clouds of asteroids and minor chunks of matter would shine far more brightly than the planets. The solar system, seen from the proper distance, would appear as a series of brightly shining rings surrounding the Sun, with spaces between the rings swept clean by the planets. The interaction of the star with the dust that orbits it creates this sort of phenomenon.
“Given its near-total lack of luminosity, our dwarf galaxy could theoretically be a group of brown dwarfs. But in that case we should be seeing circumstellar dust rings emitting in the infrared. We’re already very familiar with this type of star from observations in our own galaxy. Since Eingana is already colliding with our own galaxy, we should be able to confirm the presence of brown dwarfs—if, in fact, there are any.”
“Maybe there’s no dust?” said Shocho. “That would explain the prevalence of brown dwarfs. Not enough material for bigger stars to form.”
“Good guess, but that doesn’t
get us off the hook. Eingana’s interstellar material is emitting photons in response to light coming from our galaxy. There does, in fact, seem to be a fair amount of such material present. But our theories of star formation suggest that there’s more than enough material for the formation of larger, brighter stars. Our simulations point to the same conclusion.”
“Then maybe you don’t have brown dwarfs after all. Something smaller?” Shocho was speaking from intuition now. “Black holes or something else that can’t easily be observed. If you’re seeing X-rays as well as gravity waves, that would clinch it.”
“We are seeing X-rays. You’re right. Our observations are preliminary, but taking the data at face value, Eingana doesn’t contain a single star. It’s composed entirely of black holes with stellar masses.”
Shocho was no astronomer, but she did have a general knowledge of the subject, and she knew that what Atwood was proposing flew in the face of established theory. No galaxy like the one he was describing had ever been observed.
“A galaxy of black holes?”
“It’s the best-fit conclusion for the data. Hard to believe, though.”
Just then the message came through, addressed to Atwood and Shocho as the senior AADD crewmembers aboard Shantak II:
In view of possible armed conflict with Earth, further comm traffic will be restricted to scientific data, effective immediately.
With this, transmissions to Shantak II from other parts of the solar system ceased completely. The Trojan relay stations ignored Shocho’s requests for confirmation.
It was unsettling. The message was properly formatted and looked genuine. It was sent by the Guardian steering committee, but sending it only to Atwood and Shocho was unusual. A message like this would normally have been copied to all AADD personnel. Shocho had to retransmit the message to the rest of the crew herself.
Even more unsettling, the ten Terran crewmembers did not receive a similar message from Earth. This left them even more anxious than the rest. What would their status be if war broke out?
The Terrans quickly split into two factions. The moderates centered around Dr. Whitley, their African Japanese senior representative. His deputy, Japanese American Maria Teranishi, was the leader of the hard-liners: “AADD must immediately disclose all information in its possession. As U.S. representative on Shantak II, I demand an explanation!”
In fact, Shocho had received nothing more than the one short message from the Guardians. But the Terrans were not convinced.
THE DAYS PASSED and the blackout continued. Oddly, Shantak II continued receiving routine observational data from Discovery. In other words, the relay stations were functioning. The blackout wasn’t due to some technical issue.
Of course, the AADD crew didn’t simply wait passively for matters to be resolved. Using the backup comm system, they attempted to contact both Mars and the Chandrasekhar Space Station in orbit around Uranus in case something was amiss with their main system. The position of the planets in their orbits put Uranus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter in the same relatively narrow angle, making direct transmission possible. But the result was the same for each planet—no response. As might have been expected, the Terran crew had insisted on bringing along their own comm system but were unable to establish contact with Earth, which seemed to baffle them. Apparently the blackout extended throughout solar system.
Dr. Whitley and the other moderates did their best to restrain the hard-liners, but they possessed no inside information to help them make their case. And Dr. Whitley didn’t have the influence of Teranishi, who was also the U.S. representative aboard Shantak II. As time went on, her influence only seemed to grow stronger.
Moderate/hard-line conflicts were not confined to the Terran crew. Opinion was split among the AADD crew for the same reason—the lack of further situation updates. Even the Guardians responsible for shipboard security were divided. The AADD hardline faction was also gradually gaining influence. Still, however much the hard-line factions on both sides might want to take action, they had no concrete ideas about what sort of action to take. Isolated as they were from the rest of the solar system, there was nothing they could do except continue their observations. This only aggravated their frustrations.
The only person aboard Shantak II who seemed unconcerned was Dr. Atwood, the project leader. Atwood was also the youngest crewmember and one of AADD’s group of emerging stars. Though barely out of his teens, he was a genius. His generation knew of the solar system only as a wealthy place. Partially due to this, his sunny outlook didn’t have much impact on the older people around him.
The atmosphere aboard ship was beginning to resemble the twentieth century’s Cold War—all because of one cryptic transmission.
“THERE’S NO SIGN the system has been tampered with. We ought to get back,” said Chaa, without much expectation that Shocho would agree. But she had no objection. If the system hadn’t been tampered with there was no reason for them to be out here.
“Any sabotage that’s not immediately visible,” said Shocho, “would have to have been committed by someone who knows the system in detail.”
“Or maybe there really is a war going on and they’ve blocked all transmissions.”
Without further discussion, they decided to end their EVA. But even before they reached the air lock they had news. The Terrans had barricaded themselves in their quarters.
2
SHOCHO AND CHAA felt the tension emanating from the central lounge as soon as they were out of their suits. The entrance to the west and south modules had been blocked by a webwork of synthetic netting, usually used on space stations to provide hand- and footholds for astronauts during EVA. The Terrans had used it to erect a barricade.
Three of the exits from the central lounge gave access to the modules at the corners of the platform. The east module, which housed the AADD crew, and the north module, which held the observational equipment, had their own entrances. The west module, where the Terrans lived, and the south module, used as a workshop, shared a single entrance leading to separate corridors at right angles. The lounge was used for meetings and events; because there was almost no equipment there, the walls were covered with vegetation adapted to zero G. Each wall was covered with different types and colors of vegetation, offering a floating astronaut many different decorative details to admire.
The Terrans’ barricade stretched across the entrance to the west and south modules. It was anchored to the netting behind the plants, making it difficult to gain access from the side. In the center of the netting was a circular metal hoop, apparently to allow movement in and out. But now it was tightly closed. The message was brutally clear.
“Where the hell did they get this?”
“They must’ve put it together in the workshop during off-hours.”
One of the crew webbed this message to Shocho and Chaa. The Terrans didn’t use these devices. Their society rejected the minor physical alterations needed for a user to make the most of the web’s potential. The result was that most communication with Terrans had to be carried out verbally. This made it hard to know what they were doing aboard ship when they were out of earshot.
“Does this mean they’ve occupied the west and south modules?” asked Shocho.
“They say they’ve appropriated the west module—anyway, those are their assigned living quarters. The south module is supposedly under protective occupation.”
Shocho was momentarily stumped. She had to check the meaning of appropriation and protective occupation. There was also a short message that appeared to be a declaration of some sort from a Terran representative. Shocho wasn’t surprised to see that it had been signed by Maria Teranishi, the Terran number two. In addition to being a scientist and the U.S. representative aboard Shantak II, she held the rank of colonel in the UN Marines, at least according to the signature on the message.
This was the first Shocho and the rest of the AADD crew had heard of Teranishi’s military background. Because of the comm blac
kout her record couldn’t be confirmed, but there was little reason for Teranishi to make false statements, so it was likely true. Her multiple roles—soldier, scientist, and representative for her country’s interests—were not such an unusual combination on Earth.
Teranishi’s declaration was straightforward. “Any assembly of Terran citizens, no matter how small, has the right to protect its lives and property. AADD must respect these rights for all crew on Shantak II. Unfortunately, in the present circumstances AADD has given no credible assurance that such rights will be protected. Furthermore, AADD has provided neither an explanation of this abnormal situation nor any apology. Consequently, and in order to secure for ourselves the minimum degree of basic human rights, we hereby appropriate the west module of Shantak II.”
In effect, Teranishi’s declaration meant that any orders coming from the senior administrator—in this case, Dr. Atwood—would be ignored as far as they applied to the west module and its occupants. Of course, this also meant that no one from the AADD crew would be allowed inside.
The south and west modules of Shantak II were connected to the central lounge by a single hatch; the other two modules were connected to each other only via the central lounge. Airtight hatches were distributed throughout the ship, making it a simple matter to occupy any part of Shantak II by dogging down a single hatch.
The lounge was already accumulating off-duty AADD scientists and Guardians waiting to see how things would develop. The walls of the lounge were studded with handholds for the weightless environment. The waiting AADD crewmembers were clustered around the Terran barricade. If the Terrans were to open the door at their end of the corridor, they would probably be reminded of a circle of vultures staring down a well.
The Ouroboros Wave Page 18
