Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  There is more rustling. The noise is louder, but still so faint that Eve imagines an object no larger than a cat. Aren’t cats supposed to move on silent paws? Couldn’t whatever is coming toward me be a cute little cat, please?

  Eve takes a few steps forward and then stops again. She should not be careless, just because of the noise. There still could be a hole in front of her. She feels the ground with her foot before each step, even though this makes her look insecure.

  “Watch out,” she yells. “Here I come!” The likelihood of this thing understanding her is rather low. It might not even be able to hear. “You’d better get out of my way!”

  The softer a noise is, the harder it is to localize. She might actually step on the animal, which would then have to defend itself, of course. She had better avoid unnecessary conflict.

  Suddenly a red dot appears in the dark, only four or five meters ahead. Eve stops abruptly. There is also a red dot on her suit jacket. It must have a laser. Whatever it is that faces her can hardly be an animal. Is this thing aiming at her? She spreads her hands to show she is unarmed. The point of light scans her body, jitters around on her chest, moves down, then up again, up to her neck and chin. She closes her eyes and quickly opens them again because she feels dizzy. That damned thing. If it wants to shoot her, she stands no chance anyway. She walks directly toward the red dot. She hopes that this is no trick, that there is no abyss right in front of her!

  The strange object retreats slightly, but not backward. It moves to the side, to the curvature of the pipe. It seems to be climbing the wall. Without hesitation it moves to the ceiling and remains stuck there.

  “Nice trick,” Eve says. Crawling up the smooth tunnel wall doesn’t look very easy. Perhaps it is a kind of maintenance robot especially designed for this. It doesn’t seem to be hostile, merely curious at most. Maybe that will change once she damages something around here. She stands below the object.

  “Come here,” she jokes, as if talking to a pet, “come to Mama.”

  Eve raises her arms. She does not expect what happens next. It follows her invitation and drops down. It lands on her shoulder with ease. She wants to reach for it but isn’t fast enough. She only briefly touches its tail. What is it, anyway? It seems to have the shape of a snake.

  Now it is on the collar of her jacket. The stupid thing is crawling into it! Eve wants to rip off her jacket. The creature slithers across her back and then is in her sleeve. What did she catch here? Eve trembles and suddenly becomes very calm. The snake has wrapped itself around her hand. The red eye looks at her, or at least it appears that way. This is definitely no animal. It is artificial, and its metal skin is warm. She has never seen anything like it, yet it seems familiar.

  “ISU 2,” she suddenly hears a soft voice say. The thing can speak! Eve’s mouth drops open. A sensor unit, a terrestrial product! It must come from Marchenko. Her mind rejoices when she realizes what this means: Marchenko is probably still alive! Did he really survive the collision with the wall? But why is he not contacting her via radio?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Partial mission 1: Generate plan of building. Partial mission 2: Find missing person. Partial mission 2 completed.”

  It is an automaton, a robot with the limited abilities of a weak AI. It looks like it has no online connection with Marchenko. Eve is disappointed.

  “Can you lead me to Marchenko?”

  “Logging partial mission 3: Locating a missing person. Please assign priority.”

  “Marchenko is missing?” Did the ISU express this vaguely—or has she just received more bad news?

  “Current location of person Marchenko unknown.”

  “When were you last in contact?”

  “Twenty-two hours, eight minutes, and seventeen seconds ago.”

  “And where?”

  “Sector 17, room 2FC of the preliminary map, which has not been synchronized with the other sensor units.”

  “There are other ISUs?”

  “Overall, six ISUs are on their way fulfilling partial order 1.”

  “Can you lead me to the location where the contact with Marchenko broke off? Priority 1.”

  “Confirming authorization by Eve. New partial order 1: Joint travel to sector 17. Room 2FC. Reprioritizing partial order 1 to 2.”

  “Where is the route?”

  “Suggesting subject should put ISU 2 down and then follow sensor unit.”

  A good idea. “Are you able to select your path in such a way that survival of the person is the highest priority?”

  “That is part of my basic programming.”

  “Good, because I cannot see obstacles in the dark.”

  “Should ISU 2 execute the implied order?”

  “You are right, yes, turn on the light if you can.”

  The sensor unit does not answer. Instead, it activates a lamp at its front. It is not very bright, but sufficient to avoid holes and other obstacles. Then it says, “According to the preliminary map data, we will leave the area of insufficient illumination in seven minutes.”

  “Good, ISU 2.”

  “Thanks, Eve,” the little robot says. Politeness also seems to be part of its basic programming.

  “What happened to Marchenko?”

  “Current status of person Marchenko is unknown.”

  “I mean earlier, before the contact broke off.”

  “You would like a chronological summary?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I can tell you about the past forty-six hours, seventeen minutes, and thirty-seven seconds.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “In second number seventeen I registered a fall from a slight height. I hit the floor in sector 14, room 1AA. Then I moved 2.21 meters in a northeasterly direction.”

  “Just a moment, I don’t need it told so precisely. I am mostly interested in facts concerning Marchenko.”

  “I understand. Generating a reprioritization of past events.” The ISU takes a short break.

  A reprioritization of past events, Eve thinks, feeling she would sometimes like to be a weak AI. Life could be so simple. Did the ISU really understand what she wanted from it?

  “When I was activated, the person Marchenko was immobile in sector 14, room 0AA. Later he moved through rooms 1AA, 1AB and—”

  Eve impatiently says, “You can leave out the room coordinates. But add descriptions of the rooms.”

  “Understood. Marchenko moved through a technical sector and from there entered a pipe, which first expanded and then ended in a fan assembly. Marchenko caused the fan to be destroyed but was damaged during this.”

  “But did he survive?”

  “Correct. He was busy repairing himself when he sent all ISUs on a search with the already mentioned partial orders. After seventy-two minutes and thirteen seconds the contact broke off.”

  “So you do not know what might have happened to him?”

  “I do not possess that piece of information. But I am very glad to have successfully finished partial order 1.”

  Does its voice express something like pride? Perhaps that is part of the internal reward and motivation system of the AI that allows it to make decisions in the absence of an explicit input.

  “Can you speculate about Marchenko’s current status?”

  “I am able to develop predictions based on probability. Would that fulfill the definition?”

  “That’s perfect. Then I ask you for a prediction.”

  “The contact was interrupted very rapidly. Among possible scenarios, I therefore must rate the one most probable in which Marchenko was destroyed by a violent event.”

  “Couldn’t he have walked into an area with bad reception?”

  “That is unlikely, because contact would have been lost only after increasing connection problems. These did not occur.”

  Sounds logical, Eve admits to herself. She sighs. That was a very short period of hope. She should not have fallen for it to begin with. Now everything feels much
worse.

  “It is not impossible, though,” the ISU adds, almost as if it wanted to comfort her.

  “Are there alternative scenarios to explain the sudden loss of contact?”

  “Yes, though they must be assigned lower probabilities. For instance, Marchenko might consciously reject any contact. In rare cases, strong AIs can develop such personality disorders. Or he is within a Faraday cage that is shielding him. It can also not be excluded that he might have covered a great distance in some unknown way. His body was damaged twice, so that might reduce the range of his radio signals. Finally, he might have run out of energy. All these would match the actual events.”

  ISU 2 seems to have no special talent for raising her hopes. Eve decides that the Faraday cage or the lack of energy will give her the best reason for believing in Marchenko’s survival. Her private probability calculus is disconnected from reality—that’s at least one ability in which she surpasses ISU 2.

  “We will soon reach sector 17. Watch out, there is considerable damage ahead. I have to warn you especially of sharp edges.”

  The pipe curves ahead of them. From there, light shines on the opposite wall. Now she can finally see the shape of ISU 2. The sensor unit looks like a slightly-too-fat serpent. It has no feet and moves like a snake. Marchenko really came up with an interesting design.

  “I notice that this room was not lit during my last inspection.”

  That is an interesting fact, Eve thinks. She leans against the wall and cautiously peers around the corner.

  “Is there anybody here?” she asks the ISU in a whisper. The robot wriggles into the room. She loses sight of it for a few seconds, but then it reappears on her side of the tunnel.

  “Nobody is present,” the sensor unit says. “However, I notice changes.”

  “What kind of changes?”

  “Somebody has started to repair the damage caused by Marchenko.”

  “When?”

  “It must have happened during the past twenty-two hours. I cannot be more precise.”

  At least something still seems to be working down here. That might be a good sign. “That’s good,” she says. “Isn’t it?”

  “The repairs were not done very professionally and stopped in an early stage.”

  Still. Eve considers this a good sign. The building is not completely dead. “Go ahead,” she says.

  The ISU follows her command and wriggles across the building site. Eve is impressed. Marchenko really made a good job of it. Something seems to have gone wrong, though.

  “What happened? Why was Marchenko damaged?”

  “According to the information available to me, this was part of the plan.”

  “Marchenko blew himself up on purpose?”

  “This plan had a success probability of seventy-five percent.”

  “That is an enormous risk. Wasn’t there an alternative?”

  “A detour would have cost us two days.”

  “Two days is an acceptable delay.”

  “Not if finding the missing person Eve has such a high priority.”

  Suddenly Eve is glad she has met ISU 2. Its weak AI tells her Marchenko’s deepest secrets without displaying any emotion.

  “Which goal had the higher priority, your own survival or finding the missing person?” Eve has an idea which answer the sensor unit will give her. And she does not feel bad about snooping on Marchenko’s thoughts this way. She will ask him herself once they meet again. “No, wait,” she says, “I don’t want to hear the answer.”

  “Room 2FC is directly ahead, around the next curve.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “This is the room where the contact ended.”

  “And what will be waiting for us there?”

  “I do not have any information about this.”

  “But you mapped the room, didn’t you?”

  “No, I only assumed there is a room there based on Marchenko’s last position upgrade and that it should be labeled 2FC based on the internal coordinate system.”

  “Good that we clarified that. We should therefore be particularly cautious.”

  “I can confirm this. The reason for the loss of contact might still be in the room.”

  “I would suggest that you crawl ahead and keep out of sight, if possible.”

  The sensor unit waves with its tail and starts crawling. They should have agreed on some kind of signal.

  Eve carefully reaches into her pants pocket and pulls out the universal device. The ISU certainly could stream live video to its display. However, she should have recharged the device beforehand. Why didn’t she think of this earlier?

  Eve is startled when something touches her foot. It is the ISU. “No signs of life in the room,” it says.

  “No machine activity either? Any robots?”

  “Until a few seconds ago, a sensor unit was active there.”

  What a jokester. Eve is glad to have some company again. There seems to be no danger in the room, at least for the moment. She leaves the tunnel. The room is huge and well-lit. Its walls form an octahedron. This reminds her of the honeycombs right away. Six corners, seven fingers, eight corners. She shakes her head. That’s nonsense.

  In the center of the room there are a few scattered cabinets that block her view. She cautiously approaches them, looking to the right and the left, even though the ISU told her there was no danger. She knocks on the rear of one of the cabinets. It is made of metal, painted green, and it sounds hollow. There is an odd, familiar smell in the air. She walks between two of the cabinets in order to reach the center of the room.

  Eve screams and then quickly puts a hand to her mouth. An extraterrestrial seems to be staring straight at her. She is still trembling from the shock, even though now she laughs at herself. It is obvious the alien has been sitting here for a very long time. The creature definitely won’t be able to hurt her. No biological activity, the ISU has claimed. Oh well. Strictly speaking, the ISU is right. Eve sits down in a second chair that is in the opposite corner from the mummified frog. She definitely has to talk to the ISU.

  Sleepiness descends on her like a soft blanket. She tries to resist it. She is amazed at how quickly something has become normal that recently would have frightened her to death—that she sits across from her second corpse today and still does not manage to hold off the inevitable sleep.

  May 5, 19

  The basin I am in must be some kind of coolant container. From above, warm water keeps flowing in, which over time releases its energy outward. I am probably in the lowest part of the building, inside the ice layer. The continual heat output might have melted a part of the ice below us.

  I am not quite sure what is being cooled. The incoming water is slightly radioactive. This might indicate a fission reactor, a safe and long-lasting energy source, but I had expected more from the inhabitants of this planet in terms of technology. They at least managed to evacuate a large portion of the population in spaceships. Or had that only been a nice plan, and they ran out of time in the end? Perhaps we have been too optimistic in interpreting the pictograms.

  My energy problems should be over by tomorrow at the latest. The temperature difference between the warm water on top and the cold layer where I am lying provides the necessary energy supply. So it was lucky after all that I ended up in the coolant container.

  The one thing that worries me is that the inspector deliberately threw me down here. This strongly suggests there is no easy way out. The machine seemed to possess at least a weak AI that might be able to make such decisions. And, from its perspective, I had already caused a lot of damage to the structure.

  One thing I wonder about is why the inspector did not destroy me outright. Does it have a programmed-in restraint that keeps it from using this solution—which would indicate the inhabitants of Proxima b possess a high standard of civilization? Too bad we cannot communicate directly with them.

  Another one of my microprobes returns. They only have minimal equipment, and I have n
o connection with them while they are out there. Now that the energy supply has been secured, their new task is to find a way out of this container, just in case. The probe integrates itself into my body so that I can gain access to the data it has collected. The result is sobering. The probe swam along the outer walls of the container. As I suspected, it has the shape of a hemisphere.

  In the lower third are several drains that are protected by fine mesh grates. From an engineering perspective, it makes sense to keep trash from entering the coolant circuit. Since I myself am part of this trash—with the exception that I am looking for a way out—this becomes a problem. The microprobe thoroughly examined one of the grates. It consists of a steel plate, nine millimeters thick and with numerous tiny holes. Nothing larger than two millimeters in any dimension has a chance to get through.

  However, I fell into the water in one piece. Therefore there must be openings without grates. Obviously, these would not be underwater. I will have to wait for one of the microprobes investigating the water surface.

  Will my nanofabricators enable me to flee? I might move to one of the drains and have the fabricators take me apart atom by atom. Microprobes could then transport me to the other side in tiny portions, where the fabricators would then reassemble me. In theory that should work. I simulate the procedure. Unfortunately there are two problems: First of all, the process would take too long. If Eve has not managed to find water, she would be close to dying of thirst. I have to get out of here as quickly as possible! And second, I have no clue how the transfer of my consciousness would work. I cannot simply cut myself into micro-portions.

  Should I use violence again? I do have ways and means to blow my way out of here. If I electrochemically separate water into hydrogen and oxygen, the mixture only needs a certain concentration and a spark to explode and become water again. Last time this less-than-elegant method only got me halfway to my goal, though. I have to correct myself: I am farther away than ever from my goal of finding Eve, not just concerning the distance.