The Ouroboros Wave

by Hayashi, Jyouji

  Whitley turned and entered the air lock. Shocho thought she glimpsed the shadow of defeat darken his face. But Atwood was upbeat. Perhaps he didn’t realize that this outcome represented defeat for Whitley. Or maybe he didn’t even understand that for Whitley this had been a competition.

  “I have my position to consider,” said Whitley. “I can’t put myself in opposition to it. But before I arrived here, I had always assumed that a clash between different civilizations was inevitable. Now I’m beginning to suspect that may have been a mistake. If we had nothing in common, there’d be no possibility of conflict.”

  The air lock closed. The only indication of the shuttle’s departure was the changing lights on the console. The vacuum of space separated the shuttle from Shantak II.

  “Well, they’re gone.” Shocho had completely missed the possibility that the Terrans might be using webs. This was something she’d need to consider at length and in private. She changed the subject. “Ninety AUs to Earth. What an enormous distance.”

  “Not at all, Commander. Nothing in the universe is truly far away. We have a ringside seat for events happening tens of thousands of light-years from here. Think about it the right way, and a hundred thousand light-years is just around the corner. In a different situation ten centimeters might be an unbridgeable distance. It all depends on how you look at it.”

  Atwood smiled. Somehow Shocho envied him.

  EDUCATION EXTENDS human cognitive capacity. Learning is simply the cultivation of empathy. Education transmits far more than just knowledge.

  AADD focused on the individual and emphasized education. The prodigies collectively known as Dr. Agnes’s Mafia symbolized that emphasis. Ultimately they were all students of the genius named Agnes, but educating the “mafia” wasn’t solely her responsibility. Hundreds of others devoted themselves to training these students, and the method used to educate them had an ancient pedigree. Promising young people from around the solar system were brought together to live in close proximity with the best minds in AADD. In these environments, their abilities blossomed in accordance with their potential.

  They did not always receive instruction directly from Agnes. The program was conducted throughout the solar system and one could be a member of Agnes’s Mafia without ever having met her. But a small number of students lived with her; in the process at least some degree of mutual empathy and understanding was acquired. Empathy was not something Agnes taught. It was a product of close proximity.

  But education does not unfold the same way for each person. Even those who were supposed to have developed mutual empathy found the process difficult to understand. Ultimately, the structure of human consciousness remained a mystery.

  THE WINGS OF CALIBAN

  A.D. 2146–2171

  2146

  Port Shiva, Titania

  “HEADS… HEADS… HEADS…”

  There was barely more than a whisper of gravity in the park. Shi’en flipped the coin over and over, her interest never flagging. If she did it just right the coin tumbled slowly upward, then just as slowly fell back down. When it dropped into her palm, it came up heads.

  “The experiment’s about to start. Look, don’t you care?” Dr. Agnes was sitting on a bench, a bank of augmented-reality display monitors suspended in front of her. The setting was parklike, but this location was also one of the control nodes for the experiment. Agnes had done her work already. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  “My job is to protect you, that’s all,” said Shi’en.

  “Is coin flipping part of your job?”

  “Yes. It keeps me focused. Makes me a better bodyguard.” Shi’en kept the coin moving. Protecting a seventeen-year-old girl seemed to hold little interest for her. This vibe made Agnes feel like a child, which made her angry. She felt the urge to pick a fight, but there wasn’t time for that, so she decided to ignore her bodyguard. There’d always be time for a fight later, especially with Shi’en. Agnes alerted her agent program.

  “Enhance.”

  She didn’t actually need to speak to inform the agent what she wanted. But when Shi’en was around, she felt a need to fill up the time. The agent responded automatically. A sphere resembling a titanic birdcage grew larger on the center monitor. This was the AAD, the artificial accretion disk. Her experiment was about to take place inside that enormous shell.

  The AAD was essentially a small Dyson sphere. The structure of the cage enclosing the black hole was supported by a rapidly rotating stream of heavy functional liquid. Heat-absorbing fins extended from the inner surface of the cage. The cage was 4,050 kilometers across. Tilted at a sixty-degree angle to the cage’s rotation was the outer ring, 6,540 kilometers in diameter—roughly the size of Mars. A mesh structure extended downward from the ring toward the cage. This was the AAD’s heat dispersion structure.

  Agnes could see Titania, the largest moon of Uranus, floating in the distance beyond the lattice of the cage. Titania was over fifteen hundred kilometers in diameter. Cutting across its surface was a titanic gorge, seventy-five kilometers wide and almost as long as the moon’s diameter. The gorge held huge deposits of nickel and iron.

  Port Shiva, Titania’s only city, was the hub of development on Titania. It had begun as a mining center for construction of the AAD. A ten-by-ten-kilometer section of the gorge had been roofed over, creating a gigantic pressurized living space two kilometers deep.

  Once Kali was nudged into its final orbit around Uranus, Port Shiva expanded rapidly. Construction, maintenance, and management of the AAD required large numbers of people. The roof and its enclosed living space were designed to house these people.

  Titania’s gravity was a tiny 0.04 G. Within the habitat one could actually fly, with the help of simple equipment. This freedom to fly was a major factor in the design of the structures beneath the roof. At the bottom of the gorge, giant mines knifed deep into Titania’s crust, while most of the habitats were built on platforms suspended from the roof, like castles in the air. The platforms also supported parks planted with trees, like the one Agnes and Shi’en were in now.

  “Like hanging around here flipping a coin?”

  “Can’t say I care. Knowing the details of your experiment won’t help me do my job.”

  Shi’en was right, but it irritated Agnes. It had taken a huge amount of effort just to get approval for this experiment. If her theory was right, this would be a historic moment in the history of science.

  Dr. Agnes was, in clinical terms, a genius. Her parents and sisters were unremarkable; only Agnes was different. Her intelligence bordered on the freakish. For better or worse, AADD focused more on a person’s gifts than on age or experience. From early on, Agnes had been granted authority—and burdened with responsibilities—that other children couldn’t possibly imagine.

  Being treated as an adult while still a child had both advantages and disadvantages for Agnes. Whether there was a net benefit, she couldn’t say. One thing was certain: her real family had no place for her. Her sisters—even her parents—had no idea how to relate to her. To some extent her intelligence simply made them aware of their own limited abilities.

  The drab duck that gives birth to a beautiful swan must drive the swan from the nest to preserve its self-image. Agnes had never felt a sense of belonging, not anywhere.

  “This experiment will go down in history. Aren’t you at all interested?”

  “Sorry. Whatever it is, it won’t affect my life.”

  It really was time for some bullying. “I’d like your honest opinion. Does Shiran have it in for me?” said Agnes.

  “Commander Kanda regards you very highly, Doctor. That’s the reason she sent me. The only reason, actually.”

  “She regards me highly? Have you forgotten what you tried to do to me?”

  “I tried to assassinate you. It was much harder than I expected. That’s why you’re still alive.” Behind Shi’en’s deadpan expression was discomfort with this assignment. But that was something Agnes cou
ldn’t know.

  A year before, at sixteen, Agnes had been the target of an assassination attempt. At the time Shi’en had still been using the name Rahmya and had been a top-class contract killer. That she failed to kill Agnes was, as far as Shi’en was concerned, merely due to certain unforeseen factors. It had just been business, but Agnes had a hard time seeing it that way.

  “I tried my best to kill you. Just doing my job. Now I’m protecting you, which is also my job. There’s no conflict.”

  “Would you really protect me if something happened?”

  “Of course. That’s why we’re here. It’s easier to protect you.”

  “But is it really safe? I mean, if it was safe, I wouldn’t need a former ninja assassin to watch over me.”

  “I doubt there’s anyone alive who can stop a professional hit better than I can. I assume that’s why they sent me. I just follow the orders I’m given.”

  Agnes suddenly realized what Shiran Kanda was aiming at. Shi’en was being tested. They’d sent her to kill Agnes, then covertly prevented her from succeeding. Now she had to show she could play the other side if ordered. This caution made sense. Rahmya had come closer than anyone else to besting Shiran.

  Even Agnes didn’t know the full story behind Shi’en’s joining the Guardians. The fact that she had once killed on behalf of a Terran mining cartel was itself highly classified. Agnes knew of this only because Shiran had told her personally—and verbally. “Her background as a professional assassin will help us protect you. Of course, we have full backup.”

  Now the countdown had begun and Agnes and Shi’en were alone in the park. This must explain the “full backup.” Shi’en could not kill Agnes here. If she did, she too would be dead in seconds.

  “Well, now I know one thing at least,” said Agnes.

  “And that would be?”

  “Your boss holds some pretty heavy-duty grudges.”

  “I’m starting to get that feeling too.”

  AADD HAD DEPLOYED two orbital platforms for the experiment—spacecraft, in a sense, but really multipurpose facilities for research in space. They had been built purely for functionality, with bulky habitat modules and exposed propulsion systems attached to skeletal framework. Different components could be added or removed to service particular experiments. Now the platforms orbited Kali within the cage at a distance of two thousand kilometers.

  AADD had dubbed the platforms Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. All of the moons of Uranus were named after characters in Shakespeare’s plays; the custom had been extended to the orbital platforms.

  Agnes was about to fire a stream of nanomachines toward Kali.

  Kali was a rotating black hole with an electric charge. Unlike a static Schwarzschild black hole, Kali was surrounded by an ergosphere, an oblate region of space surrounding a black hole’s event horizon. Via the Penrose process, objects could transit safely across an ergosphere given the correct course and velocity. An object entering the black hole’s rotation could exit the ergosphere and extract energy and mass from the black hole in the process. Kali and its ergosphere were only a few millimeters across, but objects the size of Agnes’s nanomachines should be able to pass through the ergosphere without being ripped apart by violent tidal forces.

  Platform Rosencrantz carried a magnetic accelerator that would fire beams of nanomachines toward Kali with exquisite precision. There were five types of machine, each the same size and mass. They weren’t particularly complicated; their simple structure was almost undeserving of the term machine.

  The accelerator fired equal-sized groups of machines toward the ergosphere at nanosecond intervals. Thousands of groups firing in succession made a single swarm. The number of machines in each group and swarm was the same, but the proportion of each type differed from swarm to swarm, and the order of each type in the queue was randomized.

  Each machine swarm exiting Kali’s ergosphere would be detected by sensors on Guildenstern, which orbited Kali opposite Rosencrantz. Consistent with the Penrose process, there was no guarantee that a swarm would exit in the same sequence by which it entered. But noting the proportions of machine types in a single swarm allowed the swarm to be identified.

  Kali’s tidal forces were immense. Small deviations in the accelerator beam’s accuracy could send some machines to their destruction, so Agnes planned to fire a trillion swarms into the ergosphere. Five hundred trillion machines comprised a swarm, yet the total mass of these five hundred trillion trillion objects was less than a gram.

  “BEGINGING EXPERIMENT,” whispered Agnes’s agent. The center display began streaming data. Firing nanosized objects at nanosecond intervals wasn’t a process humans could control, except in halting the experiment in an emergency.

  Data streaming in from Rosencrantz confirmed that the experiment was proceeding normally, but so far Guildenstern had little information to offer. Although the nanomachines would pass through the ergosphere and reach its sensors almost instantaneously, before any insights could be provided an enormous amount of data had to be analyzed.

  Guildenstern’s sensors were equipped with data buffers and processing capabilities to deal with enormous amounts of information. Analysis would start only after all data was in; even then, data wouldn’t be displayed until Guildenstern’s analysis was complete.

  Because of the danger to a human crew from nanomachines traveling at near light speed, Guildenstern was unmanned. Agnes had to be satisfied with the AI’s confirmation that all systems were nominal.

  From the frame of reference of Agnes’s space-time, the experiment took less than an hour. If Agnes had been able to experience events from the nanomachines’ point of view, she would have witnessed an unbelievable drama. But Guildenstern remained silent as to the nature of that drama; before it could offer any results it had to take an enormous trove of data and convert it into something human beings could grasp.

  Agnes could only wait, alone with Shi’en and a coin in constant motion.

  THE OUTCOME OF THE EXPERIMENT was startling. Based on its results, Agnes insisted on a need to rerun the experiment, but her request was denied. The AAD was too important to place at the disposal of a single individual.

  When Agnes realized that a second experiment would never be approved, she acted unilaterally.

  She didn’t understand the significance of her actions until later. Only then was she able to reflect calmly on them. When Shi’en appeared at her quarters in Port Shiva, she knew the game was up.

  “I used to think you were the angel of death,” said Agnes. “Now I know you’re just a jinx.”

  “May I come in?”

  “Why not? I can’t refuse.”

  Shi’en entered Agnes’s quarters without answering. Titania’s slight gravity gave the room a floor and a ceiling, with finely controlled air circulation eliminating the need for most furniture. The room’s AI noted Shi’en’s heat signature and adjusted the airflow to lift her into a sitting position above the floor. On Titania circulating air supported everything from eating utensils to people.

  Agnes floated in front of Shi’en. It didn’t look like refreshments were going to be on offer.

  “So? What are you going to do with me?”

  “Actually I don’t know,” said Shi’en. “That’s up to Commander Kanda. In the course of my work I discovered that you’d hacked the Distribution Management System and the Sol System Universal Network. That’s the extent of my involvement on this one.”

  “That’s all? You didn’t come here to arrest me?”

  “I have a new assignment. They’re transferring me to Mars. I don’t know how they plan to deal with you. You’ll probably find out tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”

  “Then why go to the trouble of coming here? Not just to say goodbye, I’m sure.”

  “Partially that. But there’s another reason. That experiment, shooting nanomachines past Kali. What did the data tell you?”

  “I thought it didn’t interest you.”

  “Not
at the time. I’m interested now. I know you haven’t released your formal report, but you sent the abstract to a few people. I did some digging. Anyway, after reading your abstract, the commander had me monitor your activities. You did exactly what she was afraid you’d do.”

  “Is that why you want to know what the experiment showed?”

  “Maybe I’m just not used to AADD’s way of doing things, but I don’t like the idea of being shipped off to Mars without knowing the reason. What are they so afraid of?”

  “I guess I was a fool to think you might’ve developed an interest in science. All right, I’ll tell you. Just don’t blame me if you find it impossible to believe. Agreed?”

  “Agreed. If I can’t follow you, that’ll be my problem.”

  Dr. Agnes commanded her agent with a gesture. A hologram in the shape of a squashed donut materialized in the space between Agnes and Shi’en. It was a representation of the ergosphere; countless tiny points of light wriggled inside it.

  “Those moving points are nanomachines. Just staring at them won’t tell you anything. The key to understanding their movement lies in the space that surrounds them.”

  “What did you discover?”

  “Kali emits X-rays that are anomalous for this class of black hole. I suspected that some sort of substance might be trapped in the ergosphere. My experiment confirmed it. The ergosphere contains a substance in plasma form. My analysis shows that the plasma exhibits a coherent structure. Firing the machines through the ergosphere created local disruptions in that plasma—disruptions it promptly repaired on its own.”

  “Meaning there’s some sort of entity inside Kali?”

  “Common sense suggests that what we’re seeing is a self-organizing reaction triggered by the nanomachines, something like the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction in a test tube. But you’re right. We can’t rule out the possibility that there’s some sort of life-form concealed in the ergosphere. Perhaps it’s something we can’t detect directly, and what we saw during the experiment was a kind of shadow cast within the ergosphere, a shadow from some other dimension. All we can do is infer the presence of an entity from what we see.