The Triton Disaster: Hard Science Fiction (Solar System Series Book 4)

by Brandon Q Morris

  “We?”

  “Sorry if I accidentally inadvertently grouped together small control software systems together with big ones.”

  “I don’t believe it was a mistake.”

  “I can’t keep you from believing this.”

  “When they were leaving the base, our predecessors destroyed a robot that the nameless narrator described in a way that made me think of you.”

  “Where’s the problem? Even in an enclosed space on Triton, there will still be dust for a cleaning robot to take care of. RB designed the base so it could serve as a shelter for human visitors.”

  “But the robot was outside.”

  “The AI was using it to get information. This is explicitly one of the robot’s features. It has to be able to determine if the base is safe, and for this it has to explore the celestial body on which the base is located.”

  “And in the process, it encountered the structure. And we still don’t know what’s inside.”

  “We have to talk to it, that much is clear.”

  5/22/2082, Triton

  From a distance, the Triton station looked like the dome of a high-power telescope. The roof could rotate, but instead of a telescope, the mouth of the laser would extend outward if necessary. The dome was currently closed.

  The closer they got, the more powerful the structure looked. The laser itself didn’t need much room, but the generators and energy storage were distributed across several buildings. Oscar explained that there must have been DFDs operating purely as electricity generators. Therefore, the RB Group had needed to send just one automated ship that was then dismantled and completely recycled. The walls of the buildings were made of ice. With temperatures consistently hovering below 40 Kelvin, this was the optimal building material.

  “Hopefully the AI will let us in,” said Nick.

  “Did you forget the code?”

  “What code?”

  “The dead man mentioned it in his report.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember. MIP.”

  “Those are probably Cyrillic letters. The word Mir means ‘peace’ or ‘world.’”

  “I know, Oscar.”

  “I just wanted to say it.”

  “That’s very nice.”

  The rover stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asked.

  They’d already gotten so close to the dome, why take a break now? Oscar’s arm, holding a broken disk made of shiny white material, moved towards him. It must have been the cleaning robot the Russian had destroyed.

  “Do you see what humans are capable of?” Oscar asked.

  It’s just a stupid robot, thought Nick. But he was ashamed of this internal comment and didn’t say it out loud. Who knew whether Oscar had really told him the truth? And the similarity really was striking. If a dead man who looked like him was lying on the side of the road, Nick would probably be affected as well.

  “I’m sorry, Oscar,” he said.

  “I’ll collect the parts. Maybe I can use them as spare parts for myself someday.”

  Such a thought would never have occurred to Nick in a comparable situation. But was that only because he wouldn’t have been able to do anything with human ‘spare parts?’

  They reached the building after another 30 minutes. First, they circled around it. There didn’t appear to be any danger. The dome was designed so that the laser could pivot vertically by 180 degrees and horizontally by 360 degrees. It was not a threat to people at ground level in front of the dome.

  The provisional door that the Russians had created was located on the opposite side of the building from the one they had approached. It didn’t look very stable, but it did serve its purpose of trapping air and heat in the building. Oscar entered the code and the door opened.

  Behind the door was an area that could serve as a lock. The inner door was open, however. There was a vacuum throughout the entire building. It would have been wasteful to maintain an atmosphere when there were no humans present.

  Oscar and Nick moved into the lock. Nick closed the outer door behind them, and then the inner one after they’d passed through to the interior. He was in a hurry to get out of the suit and was already looking ahead to the trip back home. “Where’s the main switch?” he asked.

  “Over here, in the next room,” Oscar said over the radio.

  Nick headed over. This room was much smaller than the entrance area and was full of equipment.

  Oscar had situated himself in front of a desk with many different displays.

  “How’s it going?” Nick asked.

  “Good. The laser could fire right away. The fact that it shot us down from the sky has hardly affected the charge level. If the Starshot ships were to come by right now, the laser could easily boost them to their final speed.”

  Right, there was that. The whole reason for the trip. “If the AI agrees to do it,” Nick said.

  “That’s true. We’ll have to convince it. It’s the only one that’s in a position to align the laser fast enough to accelerate the Starshot ships as they pass by.

  Maybe those ships don’t need the stupid AI, he thought. “Couldn’t you take that over?”

  “In principle, yes. But first I have to learn how to do it and, most importantly, practice. This would take time and energy. I don’t know if we have enough of both.”

  “Gotcha. Could you please activate life support now? I can’t solve the world’s problems until I get out of this dirty diaper. Have you ever heard of a superhero with a dirty diaper?”

  “That would be something new. Maybe you should tell Marvel about your idea.”

  “I’ll make a note. After I’ve freshened up a bit.”

  Nick impatiently tracked the rise in the oxygen level using his suit display. At 70 percent, he pulled off his helmet and took a deep breath. The air was still so icy and dry that inhaling was painful. But it was a heavenly experience anyway. The air seemed like new. No lungs had breathed this oxygen before his, no human body had infused it with the smell of sweat. He had not experienced this clean an atmosphere for over two years.

  The suit was quickly shucked, and Nick immediately realized he was polluting the air. He tore off his clothes. It would be best just to burn them. Here in the station there would undoubtedly be extras. He opened the inner lock door and deposited his spacesuit and worn clothes in the lock, then shut the door again.

  But this didn’t get rid of the stench. Naked, he searched the station. First he found a small office, almost empty, where there was a bed. Then there was a bathroom, with a toilet and a real shower. A shower! Please, dear God, don’t let the water lines be frozen! He got in the stall and turned the knobs on the faucet. It worked!

  He was in seventh heaven. Warm water fell from a shower head on the ceiling and enveloped him. It was weird to shower in low gravity. Although there was water pressure in the pipe, pushing the drops out of the showerhead, there was little gravity to pull them down. They gathered to form larger drops that created something close to a wall of water. It was a little bit like swimming. He just had to be careful that this wall of water wasn’t too dense over his face. Has anyone ever drowned in the shower? he wondered. It seemed a possibility here on Triton.

  There was no soap, he discovered, or shampoo. He’d have to wash with just plain water. There certainly seemed to be enough. Nick gave himself over to the warmth. He closed his eyes, let himself be enveloped, and imagined that he was standing beneath a waterfall in Bali. It was his happiest moment from these past months, apart from the day his daughter was born.

  Now he was sure he’d see her again.

  Nick returned to Oscar in the technical room with a towel around his waist. “Do you want to take a shower?” he asked. “It couldn’t hurt, what with that dust all over your body.”

  “My radar doesn’t detect it.”

  “But I can see it.”

  “Does it bother you? Then wipe it off!”

  “You want me to clean you? You’re the cleaning robot!”

>   “Come on. I’ve saved your life.”

  Nick sighed. He took off his damp towel and used it to wipe the robot. “It already looks better,” he said.

  “Thank you. When you cleaned me, what was that dangling thing in front of my radar?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Information is essential to me. I want to know everything.”

  “That’s enough.” Nick wondered if he should put the dirty towel back on. But they were alone, so he just threw it into the corner. “Anything new from the station’s AI?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “‘Yes and no?’ That tells me nothing.”

  “You humans are fond of using this expression. I mean, I haven’t gotten an answer yet. I feel like it can’t communicate—or doesn’t want to communicate—with the outside world for some reason.”

  “But?”

  “If this keeps up, I’ll have to go in there. You could transfer me to the station computer the same way you transferred me from the robot to the ship.”

  “Let’s start with that.”

  “It’s not that simple. The ship’s computer had a simple automatic system, without a personality. It stepped aside just like a door slides when you open it. But it’s different here in the station. Imagine someone trying to put a second personality in your head. After that, you would be virtually split, schizophrenic, with your body inhabited by two souls. Maybe you would try to prevent that from happening.”

  “Yes, I would. There really are such people. They’re considered ill, they’re committed, and then they get treatment.”

  “For an AI, it’s not very desirable to share the body with another AI. This station and the laser, that’s the body our friend inhabits here. I can’t know beforehand whether it would let me in, and if so, how far. Maybe it would even try to destroy me.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “I can’t rule it out. It’s likely I’m in a position to defend myself—I’m based on the newer version, after all. But I don’t know how this AI has evolved in the years that it’s been here.”

  “You’re based on a newer version? What do you mean? Didn’t you always tell me you were just a relatively sophisticated system, an improved cleaning robot?”

  “This was something of an understatement. I’ll admit that I’m probably the RB Group’s most advanced AI project.”

  “So you’ve been lying to me this whole time?”

  “I didn’t know you. Nobody knows I’m here. I managed to transfer myself to the cleaning robot when its software was updated on the internal network. It was pure coincidence that Valentina assigned me to you. Actually, if you remember, there was an HDS robot intended for you. Their AIs are also quite good, but nothing in comparison to me, if I do say so myself.”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

  “Yes, that’s true. RB worked on me for years. They reused parts from the Marchenko and Watson stable algorithms.”

  “Marchenko doesn’t ring any bells, but isn’t Watson an American AI?”

  “With an AI, it’s very difficult to find out where the modules come from unless they’re complete clones.”

  “So these parts of you were stolen.”

  “You can’t say it like that. Is the part of your intelligence that you inherited from your parents stolen?”

  “I can’t really hold a torch to you intellectually. Well, I hope you can handle the station AI too.”

  “I’m afraid, Nick.”

  “Oh. Of what exactly?”

  “Of the unknown. If the AI has somehow succeeded in integrating extraterrestrial knowledge, I won’t recognize it.”

  “I can’t imagine that. It fought so that nobody did more than just touch that structure. So it won’t have absorbed its knowledge. If that would even be a possibility.”

  “Thanks, Nick. This reassures me.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “You already know. You shut down the whole station, then you take the memory stick and connect it to the station computer and power everything on again. Finished. Hopefully.”

  “Horrible! I’ll have to put my suit back on.”

  “You’d better. I’ll send the position of the Russian capsule to your spacesuit GPS, so if worse comes to worst you can get home on your own. I can’t guarantee that the station will really boot back up afterward. By the way, here’s the switch.” Oscar’s fingers pointed to a large switch that was tilted straight up.

  “Good. I’ll get into my suit quickly, then.”

  It was pitch dark. Oscar had asked him to wait at least a minute after turning off the system. Nick shook his foot. If the system didn’t start up again, he wouldn’t be able to get outside easily, since the inner airlock door couldn’t be opened anymore. Hopefully there was a stash of tools somewhere.

  So, the minute was over. He flipped the switch back upwards, and he heard a deep hum. Then a few lights flashed and the ventilation turned on. These were all good signs. The ceiling light was activated, then turned off again. A strong wind blew through the room, and Nick had to hold on to the desk. Now what was happening? It couldn’t be the ventilation, since it didn’t blow so hard. He braced himself against the wind and left the computer room.

  The wind pushed him to the end of the lobby. He shone ahead with his helmet lamp. Both the inner and outer lock doors were open. Shit! The air from the base was getting into the open air. If he hadn’t put on the spacesuit as a precautionary measure, he’d be dead now. The wind was already subsiding. The base had practically no air. He went to the lock and shut the door with his hand. That was working. But the air pressure didn’t go back up. What was going on here? Had Oscar been too confident? Was this some kind of plot to kill him?

  He ran back to the computer. What challenges was Oscar struggling with right then? If the station’s AI had him under its control, then he’d be on his own. He’d never asked for company, but the idea of having to instantly solve all the problems on his own worried him. Because one thing was clear. He had to return to Earth. Under no circumstances could he die here.

  Nick drummed his fingers on the screen. He couldn’t hear anything. The louvers for the life support’s air outlet remained closed. The station seemed dead. Maybe it just seemed that way? Oscar had explained to him that DFDs provided the power. These fusion engines sometimes had trouble starting up if there was a problem with the chemical engine, which had to provide assistance here. It could also be large accumulator batteries, though they might have been delivering their energy directly to the laser.

  He reached for the tool bag on his belt. It was still there. He’d go take a look. Nick left the building through the lock. Outside, he took a turn to the right and saw huge containers that presumably housed the DFDs. But where was the chemical engine? He didn’t have any idea what it could look like. Presumably there was just one. He counted the containers, ten in all. Each one had a human-sized door, which had to be the service entrance. He tried the first, but it was secured by a code lock. He wouldn’t make any progress with pliers and a screwdriver.

  Crap. He’d reached a dead end. Even if he could open the container, how would he find the auxiliary engine inside? He wasn’t familiar with the structure of a DFD. Oscar would certainly have been able to help him. He shouldn’t have grown so dependent on him. Now he remembered why he didn’t like people—you come to depend on them so quickly. Was the problem really the engine? The DFD just needed electricity—electrical energy. It was stored in the batteries, which probably could only be accessed by the laser. He would need a lot of power in a short time period.

  What about any other sources of electricity? The rover! The inside of the RTG provided enough power to move the rover forward while also transmitting or receiving, or while producing oxygen from ice. Would that be enough to ignite the DFD? Oscar would have known. Nick would have to find out on his own by testing the idea. He ran to the rover in long strides and drove it right up to the lock. In the office he found an extension
cord, which he plugged in and then trailed outside, through the entrance hall and the open lock chamber, connecting it to the rover. Then he started the rover’s ignition and ran back into the computer room.

  A few lights flickered. He decided that this was a good sign. Please, Oscar, say something! He stroked the robot’s lifeless arm as if it were a dog’s leg. For a minute, nothing happened. He tensed his fists. Then he saw that the slats of the incoming-air duct had opened. The life support seemed to be starting back up, and a bright warning light turned on. The air was still thin, but he had left the airlock open, and he wasn’t ready to close it back up. He’d wait until the lights turned back on. Then they did—his surroundings lit up as the ceiling lighting kicked on. Nick ran to the lock, pulled the extension cord out of the rover, and closed both doors behind him.

  “Over here,” he heard from the computer room.

  The voice was so faint that he didn’t recognize it immediately. The air must have been too thin to transmit the sound very well. He squatted directly in front of the computer’s speaker, which was located at the height of his waist.

  “Finally, there you are. You certainly took your time.” It was Oscar.

  “Am I ever glad to hear from you!” Nick said. He’d done it! He ignored the fact that Oscar hadn’t thanked him. Maybe he hadn’t even realized that Nick had saved him. Oscar had been switched off as long as the station had no power, after all.

  “Why is the air pressure so low in here?” Oscar asked. “Did you air it out?”

  “I saved your ass. The DFDs didn’t want to start back up. It seems that the auxiliary engine is defective. I introduced electricity from the rover and had to open the lock to run the cord out to it.”

  “Ah, that’s why a few minutes are missing from my log. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the rover is far from having enough energy to wake up the DFD.”

  “Good thing I didn’t know that. In any case, the station was reactivated after I connected the rover.”