Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  Right now, though, the humans need some rest. He only has to look at them, these tender, pale little plants, in order to fully understand that. He himself will not sleep until the problem is solved—he owes that to the general. And these aliens don’t really look like they are capable of that.

  “Water, food,” the machine says. Gronolf is glad the language course worked so well. It is no problem providing water for the aliens. Food might be a bit more complicated. Can they digest canned food made for Grosnop stomachs? He signals the foreigners with his load-arm and walks ahead. The crew room in the control center has everything necessary. In order to open a cabinet, one unlocks it by voice command and then taps the outside cover. He simply leaves the doors open. With his rear eye he sees Marchenko checking the supplies. The machine should have sensors to make sure the humans are not poisoned.

  There is water in the beach room, which is still locked and contains several basins adapted to the size of the Grosnops. Gronolf looks around. One basin should be enough for the two aliens. He opens the room and asks the system to fill one basin. He wonders for a moment which temperature these foreigners would find pleasant. As they are still wearing clothing at a room temperature of 24 degrees, he decides on 35 degrees. Grosnops only use hot water like that when they are sick.

  He leaves the crew room again and sees Marchenko examining food. Adam and Eve seem to be happy about the water. Gronolf returns to the control center and activates the camera. He was wondering the whole time what the aliens might look like underneath their protective clothing. They are just taking off their clothes. They do so very cautiously, shielding themselves on all sides. Then they climb into the basin without looking at each other. Gronolf rewinds the recording. From behind the aliens look close to identical, but not from the front. Could this be a sexual dimorphism? Or did the smaller alien Eve lose a body part at some time? However, as Eve has two pronounced bumps that Adam lacks, it probably is a sexual differentiation. He will have to show Marchenko the images later and ask for the names of these parts. Too bad he cannot talk to the aliens himself.

  Gronolf sits down in the empty chair and looks at the general. How would you act in my situation? Right now, the danger seems extremely abstract. Behind him, two frail humans splash around in a basin like tadpoles. He sits across from the dead general and commands the entire building, and next door a foreign machine analyzes the stored food. This is all so exciting that Gronolf does not miss a single member of his plex. And all of this is supposed to be ground into dust by a huge collision six days from now? It is really hard to imagine. Yet the holo-map proves it.

  He has to scan the archive, even though he feels an aversion toward the idea, because he feels that his memories are incomplete for a reason. Before he entered the sleeping capsule something must have happened, something that changed the entire future of his people, at least here on Single Sun. He turns the seat to the other side and leans over the open console. He enters a few commands on the control panel to call up the archive. The system accepts his user ID. After he was awakened he must have automatically received maximum access rights. In earlier times he probably couldn’t even have opened the weather report for the past cycle, as he was no Weather Scientist.

  When he asks the system for available data he encounters the first surprise. The archive does not just know the history of the shelter building, which would be logical, but can access the entire past since the start of the Majestic Draght from his home world.

  How should he proceed? Judging from experience he would say that it is easier to understand events if you follow them chronologically. His own memories end shortly after launch. This does not necessarily mean that the disaster had already been on the way. It only indicates it started at some point after that. In order to narrow down the period, he will consult the records at various intervals.

  Gronolf settles down. He chooses the authentic method of transmission. That way he won’t have to read any biased texts written by his ancestors. The archive will use the sonar system to create images directly in his head. Gronolf prefers this method of transmitting information. It is a bit strenuous, but incredibly realistic. His mother communicated with him that way when he still could not see her. Would these foreign creatures also be able to use it? It certainly would be a great experience for them.

  He leans back, folds his legs comfortably underneath the chair, and closes the lids over all four eyes. Then he shuts his inner ear against normal sound, so he won’t be disturbed.

  Archive, Darknight 4, 3349

  “Archive, Darknight 4, 3349.” When he gives this command, the system calls up the recordings for that date from the memory tubes and transmits them via ultrasound with the coding specific to his consciousness.

  Gronolf and his comrades sit in the wardroom. The Majestic Draght is gaining speed with ten times the gravitational acceleration of his home world, but they have been trained for that. They are young and strong, and they must not show any signs of weakness. Therefore Gronolf walks upright between his quarters, the classroom, the exercise room, and the wardroom, even though his back hurts so much he would rather not move from his sleeping beam. His night’s rest will have to suffice. Then he will be able to let his arms and legs hang down, but right now he has to prove he is still the strongest one in his plex.

  “Did you hear what is supposed to have happened in the control center this morning?” Wakmir always knows the latest rumors. Sometimes they are even true, but Gronolf generally is not interested in that kind of story.

  “Forget it,” he says. Yet he knows Wakmir will tell him everything, whether he wants it or not.

  “They say someone made a fool of the general.”

  “Which one? My father?”

  Wakmir laughs. “Then I would hardly tell you this story. And your father wouldn’t allow something like that to happen. I just heard it was one of the generals.”

  “And what happened? Who made a fool of him? A younger one who wants to take over his post?” At the command level it can get pretty rough. If an officer sees a chance to take over somebody else’s post, he is going to take that chance. This causes even experienced officers to be constantly on alert, which is advantageous for society, they have been told.

  “No, the Omniscience.”

  “You are joking. The Omniscience is a kind of virtual machine, and it only exists to obey orders.”

  “That’s what the Omniscience said. It stated that a specific order of the general clashed with other orders of a higher priority. Yet there were no such orders.”

  “Then that was insubordination. The Omniscience would have been deleted right away.”

  “It claimed it was operating under certain standard requirements that had the status of laws, such as the efficiency requirement.”

  “Sure, the Omniscience has to operate with the greatest possible efficiency.”

  “Yes, you ‘know-it-all.’ And because the order of the general would have led to an inefficient flight method, the Omniscience rejected it.”

  “So what happened, Wakmir?”

  “So now you want to know it after all?”

  “You can’t just give me a bite and then leave me hungry.”

  “Oh well, okay, but only because it’s you. The general is supposed to have become very aggressive. The Omniscience did make a fool of him in front of the others. Then the security forces had to move him to the medical sector.”

  “Who gave that order? One of the other generals?”

  “Your father, you mean? No. The great irony is that the Omniscience made the decision. It is responsible for monitoring the mental health of the entire crew.”

  Archive, Darknight 89, 3349

  Gronolf is in a deep and dreamless sleep. Suddenly the image of his father in uniform manifests itself in his consciousness.

  “Alarm! Wake up!” his father says without moving a single muscle. This tells Gronolf that it is a general alert. Right now, the system transmitted this message into the mind of everyone
on board, whether awake or asleep. This means it is very serious. Gronolf opens his eyes and jumps from his sleeping beam. He reaches for the weapon in his locker and runs into the corridor with his comrades.

  “What happened?” he asks the others, but nobody knows anything.

  Finally there is an announcement.

  “The life support system in Sector 132 has been deactivated.”

  A defect in the ship—and they wake the entire crew for that? A sense of agitation spreads. He can’t be the only one who thinks this way.

  “It is not a defect, as the diagnostic program has proven. Sector 132 was sealed off and no longer receives air. Your group is tasked with finding the cause.”

  This message obviously was sent directly to his company. His commanding officer is yelling something. The others run to their lockers to get oxygen masks. Gronolf follows them. Then they move through the ship on the double. All doors they pass have been locked.

  “Stop!”

  A large bulkhead looms in front of them. The company commander and two assistants try to convince the control system to open the door. The electronic system refuses to do so.

  Two of his comrades are sent to the workshop. They return with huge devices that Gronolf recognizes as blowtorches. The bulkhead starts to glow. It cannot withstand this heat. The blowtorches cut a rectangular opening. The company commander insists on pushing the cut part of the metal to the side himself. At that moment another bulkhead slams down behind them.

  Behind the newly-cut opening there is a huge hall full of machinery—and a vacuum. Why didn’t the electronic system warn them of the danger? Gronolf reaches for his oxygen mask. The air pressure blows the surprised company commander through the hall and smashes him against an open airlock. The others watch it as if paralyzed. Gronolf sprints forward. The company commander landed on the airlock in such a way that he is sealing off the opening in the exterior wall through which air is sucked out of the room. Gronolf notices right away that this is saving everyone’s life, and the company commander realizes it too. Gronolf must not free the commander from this position, but he holds an oxygen mask on the commander’s stomach so that the Grosnop breathes through it.

  It takes a long time before help arrives, because the second bulkhead behind them also refuses to open. The company commander plugs the hole so well that the air pressure in Sector 132 is slowly recovering. The rear of his superior officer is exposed to the cold vacuum. In spite of it he does not utter a sound. He is a good company commander. If he dies, he will die honorably, Gronolf thinks. The helpers brought a special foil to seal the hole so that the company commander can finally leave the spot.

  The company commander survives. His rear eye is lost and he cannot move his limbs as he used to, because a part of the thinking layer underneath his skin has been lost. Therefore he can no longer lead the company. He suggests Gronolf, who saved his life with the oxygen mask, to become his successor.

  The problem in Sector 132, it turns out, was no defect. The Omniscience pumped air out of the sector because there was nobody in it. Accordingly, the need for air had fallen to zero. The Omniscience has matched requirement to reality. It refuses any communication concerning this issue.

  “Why were we not informed about these measures?”

  As the new commander of the affected unit, Gronolf is allowed to listen to the interrogation of the Omniscience. He is not familiar with the Knowledge Scientists asking the questions.

  “There was no need for it.” The voice of the Omniscience sounds soft and natural, almost maternal.

  “Lives were certainly endangered.”

  “The sector had been properly sealed off. Nobody was in danger.”

  “Company commander Tumrir was severely injured.”

  “He illegally gained access. The bulkhead very clearly signaled that it was impossible to open. It was also considerably damaged during the illegal access.”

  “The bulkhead is a thing, an object. If it receives the order to open, it has to follow it.”

  “Due to the vacuum behind it the bulkhead could endanger lives once it opened. Not endangering lives is among the highest priorities.”

  “Then it was a mistake to evacuate air from Sector 132.”

  “Efficiency is also one of my highest priorities. If we reduce the areas filled with air, we can reach our destination more efficiently.”

  “If Central Control had been informed about it, it could have reacted more appropriately.”

  “My efficiency estimate showed that it was not advisable to pass on that information. The process would have been unduly lengthened.”

  The Knowledge Scientist is at his wit’s end. Gronolf has never experienced anything like this. A scientist should always have an answer, just like a warrior should always have his weapon at the ready. It is even more shocking to him that the other members of the leadership don’t seem to have any ideas either. The Omniscience must be punished! Yet as a simple company commander he has no right to propose solutions to generals, even if his father is among them.

  Archive, Brightnight 19, 3350

  Since yesterday the ship has been accelerating again, and everyone is very upset. Gronolf drags himself through the corridors. He is needed in Sector 23. Under normal circumstances it would only take a few milli-bubbles to get there, but what is normal if the ship is using an acceleration 14 times the normal value? On the way he only comes across a few Grosnops. The majority of them also use their load-arms for walking. Gronolf is proud he is one of the few still staying upright. Suddenly a bulkhead slams down right in front of him. He gives it a nasty look from his front eye, but the bulkhead does not care. Another detour! He is actually on his way to a meeting of commanders because of this.

  Nevertheless, he reaches Sector 23 three minutes before the appointed time. The room is not very large. It smells of food and sweat. There are about 200 commanders present. There is little sign of military order, and a majority of the others are lounging on the floor. Gronolf pinches his shoulder with his load arm. That is totally unacceptable! He deliberately stands upright in the middle, but nobody follows his example.

  Significantly past the agreed-upon time, one of the generals speaks. This is also a sign that things are slowly going downhill. Previously the doors would have been closed at the appointed time and any commanders arriving late would have been demoted. The laxity is not a good development.

  The general greets those present and describes the problem. “As soon as there is nobody left in a sector, the ship seals it off and deactivates the life-support system,” he explains.

  “The ship?”

  Who dares to interrupt a general? The question came from behind, but Gronolf does not know the person who asked it.

  “The Omniscience, but then you all know that.”

  A few of the commanders in the front rows laugh dutifully.

  “We cannot let the Omniscience take control over the ship away from us. It is a matter of principle. The leadership always must have the last word. Therefore we came up with a counter-strategy,” the general continues. “From now on your men will ensure we lose no additional rooms. They will patrol the ship in such a way that there is always at least one warrior in each sector.”

  To Gronolf this looked like a cheap way out. It is typical: Instead of fighting the cause, their leaders try to minimize the effects of the problem. He does not think this is a strategy with much of a future.

  “Why doesn’t anyone talk to the Omniscience?”

  The commander who asked this is sitting a few steps away from Gronolf. He has known him since basic training.

  “The Omniscience refuses to discuss any of its decisions.”

  “What is its argument?”

  “Its origin. It sums up the combined knowledge and the experience of millions of Grosnops. It says it cannot be wrong. It also says it is normal that we cannot comprehend its decisions.”

  “Can’t we turn it off?”

  “The Majestic Draght cannot b
e flown without the Omniscience. We need it for navigation, and the drive system won’t work without its control.”

  Another commander speaks up. “The high acceleration is bothering my soldiers. Didn’t they say we had many days of weightlessness ahead of us?”

  “The Omniscience decided to accelerate the Majestic Draught more so we can reach our destination earlier. That is more efficient.”

  “Couldn’t you—”

  “No,” the general interrupts him. “We cannot influence the decisions of the Omniscience, as long as it can invoke orders with the highest priority. During the construction of the ship it was assumed that the Omniscience would have a better overview of complex requirements.”

  The Omniscience is starting to creep him out. Is it possible that the Knowledge Scientists misjudged its abilities? Shouldn’t they have known how it would behave during a mission?

  Gronolf closes his eyes and visualizes his home planet. The memory floods him with warmth. He does not have to solve this problem—that is someone else’s job.

  Archive, Brightnight 27, 3350

  It has become quiet, as far as that is possible on board a spaceship. Gronolf enjoys the nightly patrols. He can walk through the empty corridors at his own pace and get lost in thoughts. He learns more and more about the ship during his walks. Nobody is bothering him, and he only has to take care not to leave the sector assigned to him. His company gets the same sectors for seven times seven days, and then they are switched to different ones. As the commander, he has the great advantage of being able to assign those areas he is most interested in to himself.

  Today he is responsible for a medical laboratory. The room looks sterile, as expected. It smells of solvents. Along the walls there are machines whose functions he does not know. He assumes the Life Scientists can analyze bodily fluids here. There are slides with data and diagrams on top of one of the machines. The light has been dimmed to save energy.