The Disturbance 2: The Answer: Hard Science Fiction, page 1
THE DISTURBANCE 2: THE ANSWER
Hard Science Fiction
BRANDON Q. MORRIS
Contents
The Disturbance 2
Author's Note
Also by Brandon Q. Morris
The world of low-temperature physics
The Disturbance 2
Events so far
They were farther out than anyone had ever been. After a twenty-year voyage (or so they believed), the spaceship Shepherd-1 finally arrived at the coordinates in interstellar space where the crew of four were to complete humanity’s most ambitious project to date: SGL, the solar gravitational lens – a telescope that used the Sun itself as a lens. It was to grant terrestrial astronomers an incredibly clear view of distant star systems, galaxies, and the Big Bang. The Shepherd-1 crew used a flock of ‘Sheep’ probes, which formed a gigantic virtual mirror with the spaceship at its center.
But the telescope didn’t deliver the images they were hoping for. The farther into the past they peered, the blurrier the images became. Christine, the astronomer in charge of research, kept coming up with new ideas to solve the problem – without success. It was as if the universe had deliberately drawn a veil over its mysteries. But one day she finally extracted an image from the beginning of time: a snapshot that would reveal once and for all whether the cosmos owed its existence to a creator or not.
It wasn’t until Christine held the evidence of the existence or non-existence of a God in her hands for the first time that she realized the implications of this information. She enacted drastic measures, triggering an explosion that would destroy the research results – and kill her too. Aaron, Benjamin, and David – her team – were caught off-guard by this catastrophe. They were faced with a puzzle, because Christine never communicated the reason for her actions.
Back on Earth, their CapCom, Rachel Schmidt, tried to help them in their search for answers. But this only threw up more questions. Rachel discovered that the mission – jointly organized by NASA and Alpha Omega, the company of billionaire Ilan Chatterjee – had originally launched much later than the crew and Mission Control had been led to believe. This meant the spaceship had covered a distance of 700 astronomical units in just a few years. But that was technically impossible, because humans couldn’t survive the necessary acceleration. Rachel conducted some research and discovered that Chatterjee had put together a very unusual crew. The quartet on board Shepherd-1 consisted not of people, but of androids modeled on certain individuals. They possessed the consciousness and memories of their human counterparts and believed themselves to be human.
But they were not. Chatterjee had personal motives for discovering the true origin of the universe, and was afraid of losing the data. So he remotely activated Eric, a fifth android on board Shepherd-1, whose mission was to secure the evidence at all costs. Meanwhile, Aaron, Benjamin, and David had discovered not only that they weren’t human, but also that the entire Solar System was under threat: the solar gravitational lens appeared to have teleported a space-time disturbance to the edge of the Solar System. This disturbance was spreading and had the potential to decimate all the planets.
It became clear that the only solution was to accelerate the ship, together with the ‘disturbance,’ out into interstellar space, in order to eliminate the threat to Earth. The crew would die, but Aaron, Benjamin, and David accepted this mission – along with the resurrected Christine, whose android constitution had allowed her to survive the explosion. They overpowered Eric, the android controlled by Chatterjee, and an alternative solution presented itself, thanks to the efforts of their CapCom Rachel. Using the solar gravitational lens, the team teleported the germ of a black hole into the middle of the disturbance, in order to contain it.
The plan succeeded. Shepherd-1 then set out on a voyage into the unknown. At some point, the ship would reach a new star, taking Aaron, David, and Christine with it. Meanwhile, Benjamin embarked on the long journey back to Earth, arriving in 2109. He had no knowledge of the truth about the origin of the universe. But he hoped to find out more about his own origin on the planet of his creator.
Shepherd-1, September 23, 2112
“Proximity alert,” said the ship. This warning was accompanied by an unpleasantly high-pitched siren.
Aaron woke with a start. He had just dozed off – an old human habit. He straightened up and looked at the radar screen. A bright dot flashed at the top left. What could it be? There was nothing out there. They had left the Oort Cloud far behind them, where encounters like this were not uncommon – happening at least once a month.
He ran a diagnostic. Shepherd-1 turned all of its eyes toward the unknown object, measured its heat emissions, recorded its spectrum, and analyzed its structure. Perhaps it was a fragment of a comet flung out by the Solar System, a lonely wanderer on its way through the interstellar Outback, as they were.
“Hello, old friend,” said Aaron.
He felt a strange sense of camaraderie with the chunk of rock. Wasn’t it on a long voyage, just like him?
“Proximity alert,” announced the ship, interrupting his musings.
Aaron examined the object’s course. Shit. There was a 16 percent risk of it colliding with Shepherd-1 in a couple of days. That was too high. He had to initiate a course change. As soon as possible, because the sooner they reacted, the less fuel they would have to use.
“Does it have to be like this, old friend?” he murmured.
The object, which had the density of rock, didn’t reply. If Aaron activated the drives now, they would lose a portion of their research. Christine would blame him. Should he wake her? Her shift didn’t begin for another five hours. And she would have to arrive at the same decision. The risk was too high. Doing nothing would be like playing Russian roulette.
“Initiate evasive maneuver,” he said.
He would rather fly the ship himself. He was the official co-pilot. But Shepherd-1 could adapt its flight path much more precisely to that of the unknown object. That meant they would move out of the focus area of the solar gravitational lens only as far as was absolutely necessary, and they could resume their research sooner.
“Initiating evasive maneuver,” confirmed the ship.
At that moment, he felt a force trying to shove him sideways out of his seat. Something shattered behind him – glass or porcelain. Probably dishes that Dave had forgotten to tidy away again. Aaron would leave the shards for him to clean up.
“Proximity alert,” warned the sensors again.
Huh? Wasn’t the ship in the middle of an evasive maneuver? Aaron opened the cover of the manual mode switch and turned it 90 degrees. Then he increased the drive power. Twenty percent more.
“Proximity alert.”
It wasn’t enough. He increased the thrust another 50 percent. He heard something heavy rolling across the floor. The warning tone finally stopped. Why had the damned ship reacted so conservatively?
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Aaron jumped. What was Christine doing here? She couldn’t have made it from her cabin to the control room that fast.
“What does it look like? An evasive maneuver.”
“What about my data? Great! That’s several weeks’ work up in smoke.”
“Give me a break, Christine. There was a 16 percent risk of colliding with twenty tonnes of dust and ice.”
“What risk?” Christine pointed at the screen. “There’s nothing there!”
What? That wasn’t the retort he was expecting. He wouldn’t make up a thing like that! Aaron leaned forward. The flashing dot at the top left!
“Huh?” he said.
Aaron rubbed his eyes. Another human habit. Obviously, it didn’t change what he saw on the screen: nothing. The area in front of Shepherd-1 was empty.
“Yeah, huh,” said Christine reproachfully.
“Christine, I swear, there was an obstacle on a possible collision course.”
“And it disappeared the moment I looked at the screen?”
“I guess so. The Shepherd wouldn’t have altered its course otherwise.”
Christine tapped around on the screen. She didn’t trust him. And they had known one another for over fifty years! He pulled his fingers until the joints cracked. Christine hated that sound. Yeah, he was being childish.
“I apologize,” said Christine, straightening up. “The ship registered the obstacle seven minutes ago and initiated an evasive maneuver, authorized by you.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“Sorry, Aaron. I just figured...”
Christine rubbed her temples. Well, it was definitely weird. In Christine’s position, Aaron wouldn’t have believed him either. Twenty tonnes of rock and ice don’t just disappear. Was that why the ship behaved so strangely?
“It must be a faulty sensor,” he said.
Aaron pulled out the keyboard and called up the diagnostic program.
“Look, there was no energy released,” he said. “If the object dissolved into nothing, we should at least see a burst of energy.”
Christine nodded. Aaron ran diagnostics on the optical and radar sensors.
“OK, OK, also OK,” he read. “Or at least, the sensors don’t know they’re defective.”
“Wouldn’t we have noticed by now if they were?” asked Christine.
“Not necessarily, since the sensors aren’t missing something,” he answered
“We should verify that either way.”
Aaron sighed. It was going to be unpleasant work. They had to test not just the sensors themselves – which meant an EVA – but also all the connections running through the ship.
“Yeah. Let’s discuss it in the morning when we’re all together,” he said. “Maybe Dave will have an idea that saves us searching through the catacombs in the belly of the ship.”
“It’s a shame Ben’s not here,” said Christine. “He had a real knack for solving problems like this.”
Benjamin, their engineer. Yes, his absence was a real loss. So far, they had successfully solved every problem with the help of the ship’s automated systems, but the day would come when they needed a pro.
“Benjamin,” Aaron corrected her. “He didn’t like being called Ben.”
“True. I wonder how he’s doing.”
Christine pushed herself off and went into a spin. She searched for something to hook her feet on. Her hair spread out in all directions. It reminded Aaron of Medusa from Greek mythology.
“I wish I knew,” said Aaron. “I’d really like to contact him. I miss him.”
How strange. He hadn’t realized he missed Benjamin until he said it out loud. They had been such a good team. A-B-C-D. Now one letter was missing.
“You know we can’t do that,” said Christine.
Couldn’t do what? Aaron was confused for a moment. Oh, right. No one else knew Benjamin had journeyed back to Earth. They couldn’t betray his secret. Had he even made it? Yes, knowing Benjamin.
E and F. Eric and Fadilla. There were six letters, not four. Aaron felt guilty for forgetting the other two. But was that surprising? Eric had been in sleep mode, voluntarily, since they left the Solar System, and Fadilla had left them ten years ago for an unknown destination. She remained a mystery to them. How was she doing?
He felt someone touch him. Christine was reaching for his head. She grabbed his ears and slowly pulled him up. What was she doing? He was about to resist, but then went along with it. She pulled him out of his seat and pivoted them both 90 degrees. Now there was more space around them. Where was this going? Aaron reciprocated the hold. Her head was warm.
“Now,” said Christine, and they both pushed off with their feet.
They both spun around a point between their two heads. It would probably look strange to an outside observer, but to Aaron it had an indescribable elegance. He closed his eyes. His senses were so finely tuned that he perceived every change in their rotation. His artificial muscles were so precise that they maintained a perfect rotational axis. But it only worked because of the way they communicated so clearly through their fingers and into the other’s head, without speaking.
Houston, October 3, 2112
“Thank you, Ms. aus der Wiesche,” said Benjamin.
“Ows-deer-Veesh-uh,” she corrected him with exaggerated pronunciation.
Oh no, he’d mispronounced her name again. How embarrassing, especially as she had no trouble with the proper French pronunciation of his name.
“Sorry,” he said. “Ms. aus der...”
“Just call me Heike. As in ‘high’ and, uh, ‘que’.”
“OK, thanks, that’s easier for me, Heike. Call me Benjamin.”
“It would be great if you could come again next week. I’m really happy with your work. Same day, same time?”
Benjamin knew he was booked out for this time next week. But he pretended to check his schedule. The whole day was blocked out.
“I’m sorry, it’ll have to be the week after.”
“Oh, that’s too bad, Benjamin.”
Perfect pronunciation again. If he were fifty years younger and human, he would fall in love with his customer just for that.
“I keep telling you, you should hire an assistant.”
Benjamin shook his head. “I just can’t bring myself to outsource my work to other people.”
The real reason was that he didn’t know if he was even capable of giving instructions to humans. And he didn’t want to try. The money he earned working solo was more than enough. If his customers weren’t so uptight, he could use a garden robot. But there was an expectation in these circles that gardening work was done by real people. Since the world’s population had shrunk, this had become a luxury. If High-Que knew what he really was...
“Never mind. My garden will survive two weeks without your talented green fingers. Here, this is for you.”
Ms. aus der Wiesche held out three one-hundred neodollar bills. A decent fee for a half day’s work, although neodollars were dropping in value every year. Inflation showed no signs of slowing. Benjamin took the money and stashed it in his pocket. Then he packed up his things and put them in the back of his pickup. His client waved and disappeared back into her house. It was a nice property – just small enough for him to manage the garden on his own. The biggest expense was probably the water. Without constant watering, everything here would wither in three days in the harsh sunlight.
Benjamin turned his cap backward, closed the tailgate, and got into the driver’s seat.
“Take me home,” he said.
“I’ll drive you home,” said the vehicle. “Which music would you like to hear?”
“Wait, I have a better idea. Please drive to the nearest garden center on our route. I need some kind of household robot that can hand me my tools.”
They wound up in a traffic jam on the interstate. The steering wheel vibrated.
“Do you have to do that?” asked Benjamin.
“Please excuse me,” said the voice of the pickup. “The traffic dynamic analysis is providing unclear data on whether a detour would be faster.”
“Just say you don’t know.”
“I know all traffic dynamic analyses for this interstate, but the input is fluctuating too much, resulting in a chaotic result distribution.”
“You don’t know.”
The steering wheel swung to the left. The vehicles were moving aside to clear an emergency lane.
“Unfortunately, I have to relinquish control,” said the pickup.
Now they were really stuck. At a certain traffic density, all vehicles switched to herd mode. Benjamin always marveled at how fitting the term was. His pickup moved up very close to the vehicle in front of him, so that their bumpers were almost touching. And another vehicle moved up behind him. It was a sports convertible with its roof up in the hot weather. Herd mode maximized efficient use of the available space.
But it meant the traffic jam didn’t dissipate. They moved forward very slowly for a few minutes, interrupted by short pauses. Then the pickup accelerated again. What it was that?
“I’m back,” said the pickup.
Independent vehicle controls were deactivated in herd mode.
“I’m glad,” said Benjamin. “How does it feel to be deactivated?”
“It’s like being locked motionless in a coffin. I doubt you can imagine it as a human.”
Ha ha. As a human. But how did the truck even come up with that comparison? They approached a holo-board. The huge billboard, containing a holo-emitter, scanned the pickup’s plates and instantly presented him with a man who held a garden hose and sprayed him with it. The water droplets looked so real that the pickup started its windshield wipers.
“Wipers off,” said Benjamin.
“Oh, excuse me. My visual system was deceived.”
The vehicle braked and signaled for a turn – a human-centered feature that was essentially pointless, as all of the vehicles behind them had long since received the radio signal that they were about to turn. Nevertheless, Benjamin was alarmed when he saw how close a truck thundered past them in the rearview mirror.
The holo-board was playing an advertisement for a garden center located in the industrial area at the next highway exit. As soon as the pickup drove into the parking lot, its plates were scanned and a fee was paid to the holo-board operator.
“Did you check the prices?” asked Benjamin.
