by G. R. Cooper
He called up his game assistant and began typing.
Can a mining ship jump when the mining drone has a full hopper?
The reply came back instantly.
Yes.
He thought some more. He was still too close to the planet. Still too deep in its gravity well to initiate a jump back to base. He typed again.
Can a mining ship maneuver with a mining drone that has a full hopper?
Yes. With difficulty. The additional weight is not factored in the ship’s design, however, and the outside load shifts the center of weight of the ship and creates an offset much like that you’d get from differential thrust. It is not recommended. Autopilot will be unavailable.
He pulled up the system map, then zoomed in on the fourth planet, centered on his position. There was too much around, nothing of which stood out enough as a beacon to let him find the spot again. He could mark his spot on the map, but even if he managed to find another mission back to this unnamed planet, in this unnamed system, there was no guarantee this rock would even exist. Maybe it was created just for this mission and would no longer exist when the mission was over.
Phani stood, moved away from the computer. He went back, leaned over and typed the commands to send the mining drone.
Sighing, he turned and left through the flat’s door, walked downstairs and out of the building into the heavy foot traffic crowding the small street. He weaved through the crowd to an open area, an intersection of several streets. Phani dug into his pocket, pulled out ten rupees and gave it to a tiny, wizened man sitting under an awning near a corner. He received a cigarette and a match in return. Phani put the cigarette gently in his pocket, thought, then bought another. The second he lit, inhaling deeply, then he made his way back to his home, weaving from awning to awning to stay as dry as possible.
At his building’s front door, Phani stopped and leaned back against the door jamb to dry for a bit. He watched the crowd moving through the street like two opposing rivers fighting for the same channel. He smoked. He thought. He pulled the unlit cigarette out of his pocket and put it behind his right ear.
He tried to picture how an offset load in the drone hopper would affect the ship. The center of thrust in a ship was aligned with the center of mass in a ship. Moving the center of mass off of the center of thrust would, should, affect the ship they way a rowboat would be by having one side row harder than the other. It would naturally want to curve in the direction of the added mass.
Phani puffed on the cigarette, pulled the smoke deep into his lungs.
In order to counteract the effect of the lopsided thrust, he thought, he’d need to roll his ship after each thrust, and thrust for an equal amount of time with the load on the other side of the ship. He thought that should result in a weaving but more or less straight line through space.
He stubbed out the cigarette and gave the remainder to a beggar boy. Then he climbed the stairs to his room.
Phani sat at his computer. The drone had mined its fill, was waiting next to the ship, unable to deposit its load into the ship’s hold. Phani had the drone return to its moor, to reconnect to the ship. He ignored and dismissed the warnings about the load. He brought up the maneuvering overlay, a gimbal display showing the ship’s attitude in space; yaw, pitch and roll. He took a deep breath and tapped the keyboard for forward thrust.
The ship moved forward, the gimbal shifted up and to the left. Phani rolled the ship, stopping as close to one hundred and eighty degrees as he could. The space debris that had been displayed at the top of his view screen was now shown at the bottom. He tapped for forward thrust again, hoping it was the same amount as the first.
The gimbal rolled again. It moved to center, then beyond. He rolled and thrust again. And again. And again. The ship now yawed right. Or left. He was completely disoriented; up and down, left and right had become meaningless.
“So quickly?” he asked himself, helplessly.
He rolled the ship again. Hit the thrust lightly, he hoped, to bring the nose back more toward the center. The gimbal moved, but not enough. He thrust again. The nose overshot.
He rolled, then thrust again. The nose dropped; he hadn’t rolled enough.
He brought up the navigation map, zoomed. His course wasn’t true, but he was heading outside of the planetary ring. He thrust again, a little longer than before. The course adjusted, but toward the planet. Panicking, he brought back up the gimbal display, rolled the ship and hit thrust. Held it. The gimbal slewed wildly through center and beyond. He swapped back for the nav map. His course was now outward, almost perpendicular to the ring. His ship was pointing down and away from its direction of movement, crabbing sideways through space. But that wasn’t the problem. At least, that wasn’t the biggest problem.
What caught his eye, what made him forget about his ship, was the course of a very large rock. A shepherd moon. Their courses would intercept. He dumped the cargo in the mining drone’s hopper, hit the autopilot. The engines fired, the ship slewed. Then it hit the moon.
Phani pushed back from his computer table. He reached behind his right ear, pulled out the cigarette and put it in his mouth. Another day with nothing to show for the effort, he thought. He dragged a match along the side of the table, lighting it. Cupping the flame in shaking hands, he lit the cigarette. Unless his luck changed, it would be his last smoke for a while. At least, he thought, I haven’t had to wait through any of the blackouts that still occasionally plagued this part of the city. He logged out, shut down his computer, and sat down on his bedroll. Phani finished smoking, put the cigarette out, and laid out on his back. He stared at the ceiling, listened to the droning of the city. Tomorrow or the next day, his luck had to change. It had to.
Chapter 10
Duncan got home from work on Monday evening. He’d avoided looking at the auction since Saturday. He didn’t want to worry about where the current bid might be; as Clancey had said, it would shoot up with autobids at the end. That should be soon.
He turned on the TV, switched to the local news, and headed to the refrigerator. He took a couple of slices of pizza leftover from the night before, put them in the microwave and started the oven. Pulling a beer from the fridge, he turned, closed the door with his foot, then opened the bottle with a church key hanging from the refrigerator door handle. He took a deep drink, then took the hot pizza out of the oven and to the living room to eat. He watched, but didn’t see, the news, distracted by impatience. He waited for the notification that the auction had ended.
After he’d finished the pizza, and halfway through the weather report, his phone buzzed with an incoming text that was simultaneously displayed across the top of his TV screen. The auction was complete. He switched the TV display to his applets and opened the game app. He switched to the auctions tab, and read the result.
“Holy shit,” he whispered. “Holy shit.”
His phone rang; he put it to his ear without looking away from the TV.
“Holy shit!” said Clancey.
“I know,” breathed Duncan, “Did you have an alert set for my auction?”
“No. This came through as a flash from the game news.” He laughed, then read, “Record setting auction. 25 million credits! You’re famous. Or, would be, except you sold it anonymously.”
“Yeah, don’t tell anyone, ok? I kind of want to keep who I am quiet.”
“Sure, no problem. I’ll tell the guys to keep it quiet, too.” He paused, “Crap, you could convert that out to real currency and get yourself a pretty good used car for that, or a pretty basic new one.”
“I know.”
“What are you going to do with all that money?”
“I’m going shopping. Talk to you later.”
He pulled on his VR helmet and logged into the game.
Duncan walked into the hangar in the space station, then to the sales kiosk. He called up the ship listings, selected merchant/mining class ships, then filtered for price; highest to lowest. He’d done this last night,
fantasy shopping. His what if, wildest-dreams-come-true ship. That ship had been close to eighteen million credits. He started filling out the options again. Two mining drones. Ore refinery. Larger ore hold. Shuttle bay with included shuttle. Two cargo holds. The highest level navigation and scanning systems. The best shielding and cloaking systems. Every option, and every option the best quality. All of that and a full tank of fuel, adding in the ten percent insurance cost, and his account dropped to a little over five million credits. He was still rich, and he had the best merchant clipper in the game.
He left the shopping kiosk and walked through one of the airlocks ringing the large hangar bay.
“Destination?”
“Uhm,” he thought, “my ship?”
The opposite door opened onto the bridge of a ship. His ship. He walked through.
“What would you like to name the ship?” asked Clive.
“I don’t know. I’ll get back to you on that.”
He looked around the bridge. A large seat was in the middle of the room. He sat in it. The front of the room was dominated by a display. It was currently split down the middle, the left side showing the structure of the space station, the right a star field. Ships moved lazily through the stars, arriving and departing the station.
Arranged in a semicircle in front of his seat were several empty stations.
“Clive, can you put some people on the bridge?”
Crewmen appeared, filling the seats at the stations. They all stared intently at their respective screens, occasionally moving as though to adjust their instruments.
“Thanks. Can I see you?”
Another crewman appeared, standing to his left. He was an average sized man, wearing what looked like an unadorned naval uniform.
“Certainly, sir. You can change anything you like about me. My sex, age, race. My name, voice, clothing. I’m entirely customizable. You’ll only be able to see me on the bridge of your ship. All other times I’ll be as you’ve come to know me.”
“Thanks. You’re fine for now. Pull up the navigation map, please.”
One of the crewmen bent over her station, and a navigational display, a top down view of the galaxy, overlaid the now dimmed outside view.
“Pinpoint Eta Bootis.” One of the stars grew brighter. “Zoom in.” He paused. "Again.”
The map now showed an area of space centered on Eta Bootis. Most of the surrounding stars showed, in green lines, jump routes to and from surrounding stars. They had multiple lines. Eta Bootis showed only one. Only one route in, and one route out. That route led to an unnamed system. The unnamed system had two clusters of routes. One cluster led to the group of stars surrounding the space station he was at, marked by a pulsing blue dot. The other cluster surrounded another blue dot.
“What’s that other station?”
“A station just like this one, but that one is used for new players from India.”
“Can I go there?”
“Of course. You can go anywhere. The only cost is fuel and time. You must jump through each intervening system.”
He zoomed in again on the system that looked to be the sole transit between the two clusters. The system that was also the only way in or out of the Eta Bootis system. The jump point in that system was near the fourth planet, represented on the map as a blue, ringed, gas giant. Near the large, green jump point was a flashing red dot.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“The location of your last mission,” responded Clive.
Interesting, thought Duncan. Apparently the pirates recognize the system as a transit chokepoint as well. It’s also pretty far away from either space station.
He plotted a course for the system, then stood, pointed dramatically, laughed and said “Engage!” The ship began pulling away from the station, began moving toward the first jump point.
Duncan turned and walked through the door on the bulkhead at the rear of the bridge.
“Destination?”
“Uh,” he thought, “Captain’s quarters?”
The door opened. He walked through into a good sized room. But for a display on one wall, currently showing the forward view, the room was empty. He assumed he’d have to pay for any furniture or decorations. He took off his wolf’s cowl and dropped it on the floor. He retreated through the door.
“Destination?”
“Hangar.”
The door now opened into a large, industrial looking room. Also bare, but dominated by a wedge nosed rectangle poised expectantly on four short legs, like an attack corgi. He entered it through a door on the side into a small two place cockpit.
“Is this for landing on planets?”
“Yes,” said Clive, “It can be controlled via the ship’s bridge, or flown manually.”
He left the shuttle, began walking toward the interior airlock.
“Clive, how come I have to fly my ship through all of the various jump points, but when I take a mission it gets me there instantly?”
“All of this technology was ‘found’,’’ said Clive, “All of the space stations. All of the means for creating new ships. All of the manufactories. When humans first began exploring space, they found an abandoned station near earth. The short answer to your question is “we don’t know.” We think the energy involved requires a space station for instantaneous transit.”
“In other words,” laughed Duncan, ”it’s because we’re in a game and that’s what’s required for the game. Nobody would take missions if you had to worry about transit time, but owning ships would be even more unbalancing than they already are if they weren’t stupidly expensive and relatively slow.”
“That is also a prevailing theory,” confirmed Clive.
Duncan returned to the bridge, arriving just before the ship reached the jump point. Once that happened, the ship would travel in hyperspace until reaching the final jump point; he had to travel through each intervening jump point, but wouldn’t drop out of hyperspace until the course was run. Unless he was torpedoed.
He checked the ETA.
“Wow,” he muttered. It was an hour away. It would take one third of his fuel.
“Clive, if I’m offline, can you text me if anything happens? Or when we get to the destination?”
“Yes sir.”
“Thanks. Also, as soon as we clear hyperspace, set the cloaking.”
Duncan took off the helmet, got another beer. He drank while reading about the consumables market in game, familiarizing himself with their relative values.
meta 2
how much was the second highest bid?
four million
selling it was a good sign.
but
it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s thinking
long term.
there’s something else we can try.
i’m confident in his candidacy.
you heard what he said
about the singularity.
Chapter 11
the day before
Charlottesville, VA. USA
Duncan spun his cell phone, which lay on the steel mesh table in front of him. As its rotation slowed to a stop, he picked up his pint glass, took a drink.
“Do you want another mimosa?”
“I’m good for now, thanks,” said Anna. She leaned back into her chair. She stretched, sunning herself.
She looked back at him, “How can you tell, in your game, when you’re talking to someone who’s real and someone who isn’t?”
He thought.
“Usually, you can tell just by the way they act.”
“If your asshole guy didn’t have friends to apologize for him, would you have known he was real?” she asked.
“Known?” he responded, “No. But I would have been reasonably sure.” He laughed, “The AI in the game is supposed to be there for fun. A bunch of assholes wouldn’t be fun.”
“Maybe they’d add a few, just to make it seem more real. Which might make it more fun,” she smiled. “Have you heard o
f the singularity?”
“Black holes?”
“Not in this case,” she said. “It refers to when AI will exceed humans in intellectual capability. We talked about it in philosophy class.”
“When did you take a philosophy class?” he asked. Last he heard, she was going to be an organic farmer.
“Last semester. I’m thinking of changing my major to philosophy. I love it.”
He nodded, smiled. This was the fourth possible change of study she’d gone through that he knew of.
They’d known each other a year. He’d rented a beach house last summer with several friends. Shannon was one, and she brought Anna. He remembered first seeing her, getting out of Shannon’s car. Wearing the same awful flip flops laying in front of her chair now. She had also had on what looked like a sleeveless, pink pajama top and a tawdry little miniskirt. Her shoulder length hair had been bleached a horrific off-white. She’d been beautiful.
Now, her hair was cut short. Spiked on top. Back to her natural color, he assumed. Brown. She was still beautiful.
“Anyway,” she continued, ”the singularity is when computers will be smarter than people. Once that happens, they’ll be able to design computers that are even smarter.”
“Computers will design computers?” he asked.
She nodded. “Some folks think it’ll happen within a couple of decades, some think it’ll be sooner.”
“And when it does,” she continued, “how will you be able to tell an AI is an AI? If it’s smarter than a human? And if you can’t, then what’s the difference?”
