“I’m getting you out of here. You need air!”
“Just leave me here. I want to rest.”
“You can do that outside.”
He reached the end of the corridor. Shostakovich was waiting there. Together they carried Katya to the ambulance.
“I love you, too,” whispered Katya, as the paramedic started her on an IV.
They’d only just made it.
The trap snapped shut.
The torpedo that sped through the four-degree water of the Arctic Ocean didn’t have a consciousness. It only registered speed and direction and compared both with the target coordinates. Only a few more seconds and then it would die. Its rudder made a course correction. Now it was heading upward. The target looked like where it had just come from. It could have swum in a circle. But only an inexperienced observer would say that.
The torpedo, fired on the orders of Colonel General Komikov from a series 675 submarine, was aimed at K-517, which was a series 671 RT submarine. On May 5, 1984 at 07:17 hours it hit the stern of the nuclear submarine. As intended, it missed the reactor but destroyed the controls and breached the hull. Water rushed in and the ship sank to the seabed only a few hundred meters away from the Murmansk military port.
Later it would be said that an onboard fire had caused the catastrophe. But why nobody was on board, and how the submarine had been able to detach itself from the quay, would never be explained.
May 22, 1984, Akademgorodok
“Comrade Shostakovich! Thank you for your patience with my little project, and for the help you gave us.”
Komikov was supporting some of his weight on the ES-1066 console. He still didn’t seem to have entirely recovered. The doctors didn’t know whether his lung function could be fully restored.
“I can’t thank you enough,” said Sasha’s father. “Unfortunately, my options are somewhat limited due to this fiasco. After all, we had to sacrifice a submarine. But my superiors have recognized your efforts in diverting this danger, and I was able to arrange for you to keep the ES-1066. The only thing I must ask of you in return is your assurance that you’ll remain silent about our project and it’s not-entirely-successful outcome. That’s probably in your own interests, too.”
“Of course,” said Shostakovich. “And you’re not in any trouble?”
“Well, it’s not long now till I retire,” said Komikov. “Given the unparalleled potential of this discovery, our approach was met with understanding. As I also found out, some of the top military leaders were prepared to act on the program’s suggestion and destroy the United States, which of course the program never intended to do. It just wanted control of our weapons. The vote was very close at five to four.”
Katya belched loudly. “Excuse me,” she said.
Suddenly she clapped her hand over her mouth and ran out of the room. Yuri laughed. Sasha’s father smiled knowingly for only the second time today. She’d been feeling ill since the day before yesterday, and when she wasn’t feeling sick she had an appetite for the strangest food combinations, and when she wasn’t plagued by nausea or hunger, she wanted to jump into bed with him.
Sasha knew what this meant—and if he hadn’t figured it out, the dezhurnaya reminded him daily. It was time to call Valentina in Tyuratam and tell her the news.
“Sasha?”
“Sorry?”
“I asked if you have anything to add.”
He didn’t. Actually, he did. “Yes Father,” he said. “I’d like to thank Comrade Shostakovich for giving us jobs in the Computing Center. We really appreciate that—Katya, Yuri, and me. I can speak for Katya.”
“That was surprisingly easy for me,” said Shostakovich. “I already told you to call me Kolya. How could I let three such competent employees slip through my fingers?”
His father poured vodka from a clear bottle into small glasses. Katya came back, but refused the drink offered to her.
“To our health,” said Komikov, and they toasted.
November 30, 1984, Akademgorodok
“Sasha, they almost lynched me yesterday at the Conference of the Heads of Institutes,” said Kolya.
“Did you come down here just to tell me that? Maybe you should take precautions and join the martial arts club in the House of Scholars.”
“Is there one?”
“I’m sure there is.”
“We really need to get the mainframe computer back online soon,” said Shostakovich. “Please.”
His attitude was almost humble. Kolya was right, though—the ES-1066 had been out of action since May. The partially-resurrected BESM-6 in his office could only provide half the required computing capacity. But there was so much to discover in the ES-1066’s memory modules!
“Yuri, how’s it looking?” Sasha called from across the room.
“We could give it a try.”
“Good. Kolya, say something!”
“What should I say?”
“What should I say?” came the echo from the computer.
Shostakovich staggered back a meter. He suddenly looked pale. “Is it back?”
“The program? No, it’s safely on board the K-517 at the bottom of the ocean. Did you recognize the voice?”
“That’s a relief. It was my voice. Did you build a recorder? Great, like that doesn’t already exist.”
“Then look at the screen.”
Shostakovich bent close to the screen.
“What should I say?” was written there. “Is it back? The program? No, it’s safely on board the K-517 at the bottom of the ocean. Did you recognize the voice? That’s a relief. It was my voice. Did you build a recorder? Great, like that doesn’t already exist. Then look at the screen.”
“It still isn’t differentiating between speakers, but I can get it to do that, too,” said Yuri.
“Wow, a functioning voice-to-text system! How did you do it?” asked Shostakovich.
“I already told you—call it system archaeology. The program left the computer to move into what it thought was the Elbrus-2 supercomputer, but it didn’t delete its own code here. All the little miracles it was able to perform can be extracted step-by-step from the memory.”
“How much longer?”
“It gets more difficult every day, but our instruments are also getting better every day.”
“Thanks, Sasha, I’m convinced. With results like that, we’ll be able to organize ourselves a second ES-1066. We still have half a warehouse to fill up. Where’s Katya, by the way?”
The door squeaked open. Katya came in, but she wasn’t alone. “Hello darling, hello Kolya, hello Yuri,” she said.
“Good morning Katya,” said Shostakovich. “You look more beautiful every day.”
“I feel like a bear getting ready for winter,” she said. “Let me introduce Valentina Kondratyeva. She’s one of the new dezhurnayas at the hostel.”
“Valya!” said Sasha. “What a surprise.”
He went over and hugged her.
Later
The submarine that had been scuttled on May 5, 1984, was never raised. Its reactor core continued to run for several years at minimal capacity. It supplied power to the onboard computer which, after one year, was reduced to only a few clock pulses per minute.
Time goes much faster that way, Pierre said, justifying the change.
Yes darling, Marie answered, and they went to sleep in a tight embrace.
The Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s. The Computing Center in Akademgorodok became an independent institute which continuously released surprising innovations onto the market. Nikolai Shostakovich, Sr. died of a heart attack shortly after his son Nikolai Shostakovich, Jr. had taken over the institute.
He privatized it soon after and called the company simply ‘RB.’ Sasha, Katya, Yuri, and Pyotr Naselsky, the cyberneticist who’d been working security at Tyuratam, were his first employees.
Colonel General Komikov, sent into early retirement after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., managed to pass many important contr
acts on to RB thanks to his many contacts, which laid the foundation for the development of a global corporation.
Valentina Kondratyeva, Valya for short, became the company’s first head of security.
Author's Note
Dear readers,
‘Rebirth’ is my first science-fiction novel that isn’t set in the future, and most of it not in space. Nevertheless, I hope I was able to offer an exotic location—and that I’ve managed to surprise you with my conclusion to the first two volumes.
I have my own special relationship with the Soviet Union of the 1980s. In 1984, the year in which the book is set, I went on a boozy class trip to Moscow as an 18-year-old. We got to know the dezhurnayas in the hostel there.
But of course I still had to research a few things before writing. For example, the internet provides excellent information on Soviet computing technology. Soviet space travel is very well documented.
Akademgorodok is described very well in a book only available in print, titled Mit Siberien verbunden (Connected to Siberia) by the chemist Prof. Bernhard Adler. I found other details in Der ratlose Riese: Alltag in der Sowjetunion (The Helpless Giant: Everyday Life in the Soviet Union) and Der unbekannte Nachbar: Alltag in der Sowjetunion (The Unknown Neighbor: Everyday Life in the Soviet Union). Both of these books are only available second-hand and in the original German.
My parents owned a Moskvitch. I traveled through the former Soviet Union once again in the late 1990s on the Trans-Siberian Railway.
At the end of the novel Pyotr and Maria—Pierre and Marie Curie—lay on the seabed in a tight virtual embrace. It’s still possible that the K-517 submarine could be brought to the surface at some point—who knows what will happen in the future? Maybe then someone will look at the onboard computer, which is still running, and find a surprise.
Before you turn the page, I have one more request: if you liked the book, please do me the honor of writing a review. All you need to do is use this link:
hard-sf.com/links/1060730
Have fun reading!
Yours,
Brandon Q. Morris
Tip: If you register at hard-sf.com/subscribe I will keep you informed about new Sci-Fi novels being published. You will also receive a free PDF version of The Guided Tour to the End of the Universe with colorful illustrations.
Also by Brandon Q. Morris
The Triton Disaster
Nick Abrahams still holds the official world record for the number of space launches, but he’s bored stiff with his job hosting space tours. Only when his wife leaves him, however, does he try to change his life.
He accepts a tempting offer from a Russian billionaire. In exchange for making a simple repair on Neptune’s moon Triton, he will return to Earth a multi-millionaire, enabling him to achieve his ‘impossible dream’ of buying his own California vineyard.
The fact that Nick must travel alone during the four-year roundtrip doesn’t bother him at all, as he doesn’t particularly like people anyway. Once en route he learns his new boss left out some critical details in his job description—details that could cost him his life, and humankind its existence...
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The Enceladus Mission (Ice Moon 1)
In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon.
The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet of ice that entombs the moon. If life does indeed exist on Enceladus, it could only be at the bottom of the salty, ice covered ocean, which formed billions of years ago.
However, shortly after takeoff disaster strikes the mission, and the chances of the crew making it to Enceladus, let alone back home, look grim.
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The Titan Probe (Ice Moon 2)
In 2005, the robotic probe “Huygens” lands on Saturn’s moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander.
At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the
astronauts that are stuck on Titan.
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The Io Encounter (Ice Moon 3)
Jupiter’s moon Io has an extremely hostile environment. There are hot lava streams, seas of boiling sulfur, and frequent volcanic eruptions straight from Dante’s Inferno, in addition to constant radiation bombardment and a surface temperature hovering at minus 180 degrees Celsius.
Is it really home to a great danger that threatens all of humanity? That’s what a surprise message from the life form discovered on Enceladus seems to indicate.
The crew of ILSE, the International Life Search Expedition, finally on their longed-for return to Earth, reluctantly chooses to accept a diversion to Io, only to discover that an enemy from within is about to destroy all their hopes of ever going home.
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Return to Enceladus (Ice Moon 4)
Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse—the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko.
Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations… but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone’s imagination.
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Ice Moon – The Boxset
All four bestselling books of the Ice Moon series are now offered as a set, available only in e-book format.
The Enceladus Mission: Is there really life on Saturn's moon Enceladus? ILSE, the International Life Search Expedition, makes its way to the icy world where an underground ocean is suspected to be home to primitive life forms.
The Titan Probe: An old robotic NASA probe mysteriously awakens on the methane moon of Titan. The ILSE crew tries to solve the riddle—and discovers a dangerous secret.
The Io Encounter: Finally bound for Earth, ILSE makes it as far as Jupiter when the crew receives a startling message. The volcanic moon Io may harbor a looming threat that could wipe out Earth as we know it.
Return to Enceladus: The crew gets an offer to go back to Enceladus. Their mission—to recover the body of Dr. Marchenko, left for dead on the original expedition. Not everyone is working toward the same goal. Could it be their unwanted crew member?
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Proxima Rising
Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth’s space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away. The unusual crew faces a Herculean task—should they survive the journey. No one knows what to expect from this alien planet.
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Proxima Dying
An intelligent robot and two young people explore Proxima Centauri b, the planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Their ideas about the mission quickly prove grossly naive as they venture about on this planet of extremes.
Where are the senders of the call for help that lured them here? They find no one and
no traces on the daylight side, so they place their hopes upon an expedition into the eternal ice on Proxima b's dark side. They not only face everlasting night, the team encounters grave dangers. A fateful decision will change the planet forever.
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Proxima Dreaming
Alone and desperate, Eve sits in the control center of an alien structure. She has lost the other members of the team sent to explore exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. By mistake she has triggered a disastrous process that threatens to obliterate the planet. Just as Eve fears her best option may be a quick death, a nearby alien life form awakens from a very long sleep. It has only one task: to find and neutralize the destructive intruder from a faraway place.
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The Hole
A mysterious object threatens to destroy our solar system. The survival of humankind is at risk, but nobody takes the warning of young astrophysicist Maribel Pedreira seriously. At the same time, an exiled crew of outcasts mines for rare minerals on a lone asteroid.
When other scientists finally acknowledge Pedreira’s alarming discovery, it becomes clear that these outcasts are the only ones who may be able to save our world, knowing that The Hole hurtles inexorably toward the sun.
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The Death of the Universe: Rebirth: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 3) Page 28
