Proxima Trilogy: Part 1-3: Hard Science Fiction

by Brandon Q Morris

  “What now?” Gronolf asks.

  Marchenko walks back to the chair and drops into it. Can a machine be frustrated? It seems that way to Gronolf, even though he could not exactly pinpoint the reason why.

  “Then we really need a ship, after all,” Marchenko says.

  “This is where we left off.”

  Adam asks something Gronolf doesn’t understand. However, he has an idea of what this is all about. Marchenko talks to Adam and then suddenly jumps up, as if recharged with energy.

  “Adam has an idea that might work,” he says. “Marchenko 2, the machine Eve destroyed, also arrived here in a spaceship.”

  “Where is it?” Gronolf asks.

  “One part is at the bottom of the ocean, a journey of several weeks from here.”

  “But there is another part.”

  “Yes. He came down with the lander module, just like we did. Messenger, his spaceship, should still be orbiting the planet.”

  “Can we reach it?”

  “It won’t be easy. Messenger is not designed to land on a planet. And to contact it we need the codes of Marchenko 2.”

  “Which he took with him when he died,” Gronolf conjectures.

  “It is not that easy to extinguish a Marchenko completely,” the machine says and gets up. “I have to start working.”

  May 10, 19, Eve

  “You really want me to revive Marchenko 2?”

  “Of course, that was exactly what I was thinking,” Eve says. Why does Marchenko think she would be against it? Just because she pulled the trigger? They cannot go on without Messenger, so she won’t allow vague fears to interfere.

  The four of them search the place where it had happened. The body of the impostor was splintered into many small fragments. Each splinter could contain parts of his memory and thus each could house sectors of his consciousness. Marchenko thinks they won’t need every single part of the puzzle. They only have to assemble it sufficiently that it can perform basic mental functions.

  “Can’t you simply scan every memory chip for the codes?” she asks while picking up a coin-sized piece of metal.

  “From outside, for another mind, they cannot be recognized as codes. Memory for us does not work like it does in a computer, with fixed storage locations. It is more the tracks of the thoughts that serve as storage. And I don’t know my way around the labyrinth of a foreign mind—that’s why we need him.” Marchenko adds, “Awake and psychologically somewhat stable.”

  “That’ll be a good trick—he never was stable,” is Eve’s somewhat snide but nevertheless accurate observation.

  Half an hour later Marchenko calls them to join him. They have only estimates as to the former weight of Marchenko 2. By now they have collected 35 kilograms of his former body, and Marchenko starts to reassemble the parts.

  “I am not going to give him a specific form, I’ll simply connect the pieces electronically,” he explains.

  Something that looks like a big cookie develops on the floor in front of Eve, and then it begins to resemble a work of art accidentally squashed flat. She watches with fascination. Eve imagines that at some point this mass will once again be imbued with the spark of life she extinguished.

  Suddenly she notices a slight movement. “There, did you see that? Is he waking up again?”

  “No, it must have been some remaining energy discharging,” says Marchenko. “Nothing should happen until I connect him to an electrical power source again.”

  “That’s it,” Marchenko says about ten minutes later. “All of the parts we found have been temporarily connected. Now I am going to hook it up to a power supply.”

  Eve feels like she is watching Dr. Frankenstein during his experiments. Soon electrical energy will change dead matter into living.

  Marchenko signals Gronolf, who types something at a small console.

  “Tokroko-so!” the alien says.

  Marchenko answers him in his language. The words sound harsh to Eve’s ears. Marchenko explained to them that part of the communication works in the ultrasonic range. She knows she and Adam will be unable to learn the aliens’ language without technical aids. Does it really make any sense to accompany Gronolf and the surviving Grosnops to their planet?

  “Okay, I am going to connect him to my vocal center so we can talk.”

  Marchenko’s speakers emit some croaking, chirping, and scratching sounds. Eve leans forward and gives him a worried look.

  “It’s okay,” he says, “just a few initial adjustment problems.”

  Now they hear rattling and hissing. Eve notices Adam is about to laugh just as she hears some heavy breathing. “Is that you, Marchenko?” she asks.

  “I... where am I? Why can’t I see anything? Eve, is that you?” The voice sounds frightened.

  “You are inside your destroyed body,” their real Marchenko says in a completely calm voice.

  “What... what did you do to me?” replies the fake Marchenko 2. The fear is still audible. Eve is impressed by how obvious the differences are.

  “You and only you are responsible for that. Your behavior would have caused our deaths.”

  “I... I don’t know. I can’t remember. Could you get me out of here? Please!” Now Marchenko 2 sounds almost weepy. Is he really unable to remember?

  “We will see. First we need something from you.”

  “You already have everything, what else do you want?”

  “The access codes for Messenger.”

  “The... what? I don’t even know whether those still exist. I haven’t had any contact in a very long time. Let me out of here and we can talk about it.”

  “You are not imprisoned. It’s only that your body no longer exists. Don’t you remember?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. I just saved Adam on the ice sheet. Doesn’t that count for something?”

  Eve is still not sure whether to believe him. About a quarter of his memory units are missing, so he truly might have ‘forgotten’ things.

  “Afterwards you wanted to kill me and Gronolf.”

  “Gronolf? Don’t know that person.”

  Now Marchenko 2 has told the truth, and his voice already sounds much more assertive.

  “The alien you knocked down with no prior warning.”

  “He threatened me with a huge weapon.”

  So he does remember what happened inside this building. Eve nods at Adam and Marchenko. They also seem to have noticed that Marchenko 2 just gave himself away.

  “Will you give us the codes now?”

  “I need at least a bit of light. Give me an eye. It is horrible inside this dark hole.”

  “I know,” the real Marchenko replies, “because you once treated me like this.”

  “But that all happened a long time ago. Don’t be so resentful! Give me eyesight and you will get the codes.”

  “Okay.” Marchenko runs a cable from the hardware fragments on the floor to his own body. “There. Now you see what I see.”

  “Oh, here you are. Turn around.”

  Marchenko chooses to obey his request.

  “All three of you together, how nice... and the giant frog is also here. What a nice family you’ve got.”

  “His name is Gronolf,” Eve says.

  “Hi, Eve darling, I am glad to hear your voice.”

  “I am not at all glad to hear yours.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you that you shot me.”

  Lies, lies, lies. That’s all he ever did was lie to them. Now Eve is annoyed at herself for ever pitying him.

  “Leave Eve alone! And give us the codes,” the real Marchenko says in a menacing voice.

  “Or what?”

  “Or I will pull your plug.”

  “Then you won’t reach Messenger.”

  “Or even better: I could leave you with a tiny bit of energy. And then you would be stuck in your dark hole for all eternity.”

  “You’ve convinced me,” Marchenko 2 says, suddenly affable, “Wait, I will t
ransmit the codes to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t want to check them?”

  “Don’t worry, I will. But not now.” Marchenko calmly removes the two cables that connected the electronic scrap with his body and the wall.

  Eve jerks back. “Did you—”

  “Kill him? No, he is just like before. His internal clock is paused. Time stands still. He is not suffering.”

  “But we promised him light.” Eve’s hands tremble.

  “Did he ever keep his promises?”

  “Still, we are not like that.”

  “We don’t have any time for additional problems. Marchenko 2 is devious, as we all certainly know by now. If we leave him in an active state, no matter how damaged, he will find a way to hurt us. I am sure there are some nano-fabricators crawling around that are programmed to serve him. Even a single one would be enough to gradually rebuild a body. And do we dare let him interfere, just as we are about to solve our main problem? No, Eve, I am sorry, but I won’t do it.”

  She turns around because tears well up in her eyes, and she doesn’t want Marchenko to notice. She has never seen him act so cold. Why isn’t Adam saying anything?

  May 10, 19, Adam

  Adam was surprised that their Marchenko turned off the power to his alter ego without any discussion. He suspects something: Perhaps Marchenko is so merciless because he sees a lot of himself in Marchenko 2. Adam does not know how much the Creator has manipulated the minds of those two. Yet he cannot imagine that the path the evil version took was predetermined from birth. At some point Marchenko 2 must have made a different decision. At that time it might not have been obvious which one would be right and which one wrong. Yet consequently one mind became an impostor, a murderer even, while the other one developed into someone he considers his father.

  Marchenko must know that both of these personality pathways are inside him, especially since meeting his alter ego. Therefore he puts in a great deal of effort to stay on the right side. Adam will have to tell him sometime, that this effort carries some danger of its own. He wonders whether Marchenko will accept this from his son.

  All the doubts Marchenko 2 sowed in his soul have, strangely enough, disappeared during the last few days. It simply doesn’t matter now who did not tell what to whom. Adam really does not want to know it anymore. They have worked together in a way befitting a family, and even the odd giant frog no longer seems to be a stranger, even though he has known him for only a day. The world is crazy.

  “It is working.”

  Adam is startled out of his musing because Marchenko comes from the control center into the crew room.

  “You are in contact with Messenger?” asks Eve, rising from her sleeping beam.

  “Yes. The codes are correct and I have full access.”

  “You still sound concerned, as if we have some big problem.”

  “You are right, Eve. I really should have thought of this earlier. Messenger—or more specifically, the orbital module—cannot land on the planet.”

  “It can’t be that difficult,” Adam says. “Gravity will pull anything down.”

  “True, but what I ought to have said was, ‘The ship can land, but not launch again.’ Marchenko 2 turned his command module into the undersea base. And you know where our command module is.”

  “In the middle of the desert,” Adam says. “But can’t we get it here by remote control?”

  “It is not prepared for a launch. No fuel. I think I even left the door open.”

  “Well, we didn’t think we would ever need it again,” Eve says apologetically.

  “So we have an orbital module that reacts to our calls and would fly us to the spaceship if only we could get on board somehow.”

  “Well summarized, Adam.”

  “I think I have an idea,” Eve says. “Is the onboard computer of the orbital module still working?”

  “Almost perfectly,” Marchenko says. Adam knows what Eve is thinking.

  “Then we can send you on board via radio. There you would have to use the nano-fabricators to create a new body for yourself.”

  “Would there be enough time for it?” Adam asks, giving his sister a skeptical look.

  “The fabricators could already get started, and they have time before you will have to enter the big ship.”

  “Yes, I can do that,” says Marchenko. “I knew we would find a solution. I am going to send an order to the fabricators right away. Then I will explain everything to Gronolf, and afterward you can say goodbye to me.”

  Brightnight 37, 3876

  Gronolf is walking around in the control center. If only he could talk to someone! The foreign machine made a demand he can’t accept—but if he rejects it, he will also have failed.

  Everything had started out so well. The humans found a means of transportation that could take them to the Majestic Draght. This method does not involve a landing on the planet. Instead, Marchenko described a plan that sounds like a scientific fairy tale to Gronolf: The AI wants to transfer to the ship by purely electronic means and then construct a new body on board. The Life Scientists of his people should be interested in this, because if the method could also be applied to biological beings, it would revolutionize travel.

  However, this revolutionary plan deeply distresses Gronolf. He has no choice but to let Marchenko fly alone to the Majestic Draght—and, he must give the AI all access codes. If the alien should solve the problem of the Omniscience, he could claim the spaceship as his own. According to Grosnop law, this would be entirely legal. The Majestic Draght would then be Marchenko’s personal trophy... just as he, Gronolf, could claim it if he were somehow the hero to liberate the ship. Naturally, being a Grosnop, he would then give the ship to his people as custom demands, but can he expect that from a machine?

  Gronolf slowly walks in circles. With each circle he looks into the decayed front eye of the desiccated general. How would you proceed? Which strategy would you employ? Should I take Adam and Eve hostage to force Marchenko to come back? While he just met the humans, these beings have shown themselves to be very reliable so far. They care as much for each other as a Grosnop mother would for her children. They are interested in self-preservation, of course, as that is a biological instinct, but he feels that there is more than that, a sense of responsibility. Is that related to the high developmental level of their civilization? That would be nice, Gronolf thinks, because that would give him a positive view of his own species’ future. The behavior of the leadership group made him doubt whether sophisticated technology always goes hand in hand with a sense of responsibility. Humans seem to be different in that aspect.

  Therefore he decides to trust them. He doesn’t have to tell Marchenko, though, that the AI could theoretically claim the Majestic Draght as his trophy. Gronolf is finally calmed enough to sit down again. He touches the console, locates the humans’ ship, and assigns it the code of a shuttle that crashed a long time ago, during the landings. Then he increases the system privileges of this shuttle so that it can dock in any airlock. Finally he copies the voice signature of the dead general who is sitting across from him. Marchenko has the highly useful ability to imitate any voice input so perfectly that he can fool the best acoustic system. Of course, if the Omniscience blocks all access points he would not stand a chance.

  Gronolf gets up and walks to the crew room, where the humans are waiting for him. When he enters the room they are just performing a strange ceremony: All three are hugging each other. It would look funny if three of his comrades did this. Yet due to their slender shapes and thin arms—only two each, only six in total—it almost looks natural for humans. Saying goodbye seems to be very emotional for them. Drops of water flow from Eve’s eyes. Adam seems to have trouble breathing, because he sniffs and swallows several times.

  Gronolf taps the ground politely with his foot in order to alert the three to his entrance. They turn around and look at him. With humans you can be sure that they are paying attention,
he thinks, and that makes dealing with them easier. However, only being able to scan 180 degrees should make it harder to survive in the wild. Gronolf is really glad he has four eyes.

  “You and your ship now have all the access privileges I can grant from here,” he says.

  Marchenko says something in the human language. He is probably interpreting. “Thanks. Do you have any tips concerning my technical equipment? I can freely modify my body,” he replies.

  “A perfect speech synthesis so you can identify yourself using the general’s voice. And for obstacles which the Omniscience still won’t remove, having a weapon with a good blasting effect would be advisable.”

  “Could you send me the plans of typical door and airlock constructions? I have an idea of how to get past locked doors without attracting attention.”

  Gronolf hesitates for a moment. Now Marchenko wants the ship’s blueprints, too? Of course he is right. If there is a way to open doors without explosions, that would definitely be better. “Certainly,” he says. “But don’t forget the weapon.” He remembers the moment when he tried to storm the life-support control room. His weapon had not been sufficient to save Murnaka’s life.

  “It would be ideal if the weapon could attack several targets at once. The opponents are not taller than you are now and are made of light alloys.” At least this is true if the Omniscience has not changed its tactics. And it would have had no reason to do that.

  “Are there body parts where the targets are especially vulnerable?”

  “No, the Omniscience copied our body structure and distributed all functions across the entire body.”

  “Okay, then I will have to decide according to each situation. I would prefer to avoid an armed conflict.”

  “That might be true,” Gronolf says. “Yet if the Omniscience completely seals off the central shell, entering it will be a great challenge. The outer hull is very sturdy.”

  “I will sneak up to it,” Marchenko says, “and before the Omniscience notices anything, I will already be inside the system.”