The Disturbance: Hard Science Fiction, page 22
The taxi stopped. Rachel looked out the window. This wasn’t their destination. But she couldn’t see a traffic light or any other impediment.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
The storyteller’s voice cut out. Ali looked at her angrily.
“Just a minute, sweetheart,” said Rachel.
“Your journey has ended,” said the taxi voice.
“But we’re not at our destination.”
“Your journey has ended. Please leave the vehicle.”
“Hello? I want to go to the address I requested.”
“Your journey has ended.”
“Alishondra, I’m sorry, the taxi must be broken. We’ll find a new one.”
This had never happened before. Once, the battery had drained due to a system error and the taxi had stopped on the highway. But she had never heard of a taxi refusing to continue a trip.
“Do I have to get out?”
“Yes, you do. Wait a minute, I’ll come around and unbuckle you.”
She removed her seatbelt and opened the door. The door slipped out of her hand. She must have swung it too hard. No. Shit. A hand in a black glove grasped her arm.
“What is this?” she cried, as the hand pulled her out of the car. She landed on her knees on the asphalt. Someone dragged her to her feet and twisted her arm behind her back. It was a man wearing padded motorcycle gear and a helmet, all in black.
Shit. She was being mugged, in the middle of the city. That was unheard of these days. She looked around, but there was no one to help her. Two motorcycles and a limousine with tinted windows were parked a few paces away.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” she screamed.
“Shut your mouth if you don’t want anything to happen to your child.”
It was a man’s voice, but it sounded distorted, probably because of the helmet.
Alishondra! Her heart was racing. She looked for her daughter. A second man ran to the limousine with Ali bundled under his arm. Rachel tried to break free but her kidnapper held her firmly.
“Let my daughter go!”
“Nothing’s going to happen to her if you behave yourself.”
“What do you want?”
“No idea. This is just a delivery, and you’re the package. Stop squirming, we have your daughter.”
“Don’t you dare do anything to her, or I’ll kill you!”
The man laughed. “We all have to die sometime. But as long as you cooperate, today isn’t your day.”
He dragged her to the limousine. It had six doors. The second man had disappeared into the back with Ali. The middle door opened.
“Get in!”
The man pushed her head down roughly and shoved her inside. Where was Ali? She looked behind her, but there was a black partition.
“Don’t worry, your daughter’s fine. We’re pros. She won’t even remember us.”
“You’ve doped her? You assholes! What do you want from us?”
“I told you, I’m just the delivery guy. You’ll find out when we arrive. Mission Control and your mother were informed that you had to take Alishondra to the doctor. Nobody’s going to miss you.”
The limousine stopped. The door opened.
“Please get out, Rachel,” said a baritone with a slight Texan twang.
She climbed out of the car and found herself in a windowless hangar. They had driven for about an hour, but they could have just driven her around in circles. She could be anywhere. Rachel wound her handbag strap around her wrist. Her phone was in it. Maybe she could make an emergency call.
Ilan Chatterjee stood before her. He looked tanned, as always. His black hair was slicked back. His black horn-rimmed spectacles made him look like a timid scientist. He hadn’t been wearing those when she met him the first time in the car.
He walked up to her. Rachel could smell his cologne. She recognized it, but couldn’t name the brand.
“I apologize for the unconventional invitation,” said Chatterjee, extending his hand. “This is not usually my style.”
“You asshole!” she said, folding her arms in front of her chest.
“That’s exactly the reaction I expected. Charles warned me.”
He was rolling his Rs again. She guessed it was just a shtick, rather than anything to do with his heritage.
“You sedated my daughter! I want to see her right now!”
“She’s fine, I promise. And she’ll stay that way, because I know you’re a smart woman who would never do anything to endanger her daughter.”
That was a blatant threat, even if it was packaged in a compliment. She had to be careful. Chatterjee had her daughter, and he would probably stop at nothing.
“If you think you can control me...”
Chatterjee swooped toward her and she faltered. Was he about to show his true colors? She braced herself for the pain. But he just put a hand on her shoulder.
“Rachel, stay calm. I understand why you’re upset. I’m not a kidnapper or a blackmailer, I’m a businessman. I take good care of people.”
Rachel tried to step back, but the limousine was still there. So she removed Chatterjee’s hand from her shoulder.
“What do you want?”
“Good, now we’re getting to the point. I want to introduce you to someone.”
Chatterjee led her across the hangar to a double door system. Two men in black uniforms followed them. The doors were locked electronically, with armed guards on either side.
“Ilan Chatterjee and a guest,” said her kidnapper.
“Access granted.”
The door slid into the floor, revealing a small cubicle.
“Wait here,” Chatterjee said to the guards.
They stepped inside and the door closed again. She was alone with him. He didn’t look very muscular and had no more than ten kilograms on her. Her chances of overpowering him weren’t bad. Chatterjee probably wouldn’t expect that. Men never expected to be attacked by a woman. That gave her an advantage. But how would she get out of here? And what would happen to Ali?
A door opened behind her. They entered another vast space, also windowless. They must be underground. She saw several bungalows illuminated under bright floodlights.
“Come with me, this way.”
Chatterjee indicated the bungalows. They were less than a hundred yards away. Rachel counted six houses. They were labeled alphabetically, beginning with A. Chatterjee took her to house C.
The bungalow, a standard lightweight construction, wouldn’t look out of place in a Houston suburb, except there was no lawn or garden. Chatterjee went to the door and pressed the buzzer. A bell inside rang with the tone of London’s Big Ben.
The door opened inward and a woman stepped out. She looked to be in her mid-forties, with long dark hair in a braid.
“Good morning,” she said.
She looked at Ilan, who she seemed to know, and then fixed her eyes on Rachel. Rachel lowered her gaze.
“Good morning,” said Chatterjee.
“Good morning,” said Rachel.
It was surreal.
“I have a request,” said Chatterjee. “Do you mind introducing yourself to our visitor?”
“Sure, Ilan,” said the woman. “I’m Christine, Christine Delrue. And who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“See, Rachel, things aren’t always what they seem,” said Chatterjee after they had thanked the woman and wished her a nice day. “Christine isn’t dead. In fact, she’s alive because we’ve been helping her. She suffers from chronic muscle atrophy.”
“You can’t tell by looking at her.”
“No, because we’re treating her with special medication tailored to her DNA. It costs around $100,000 a year, and she’s been here for ten years.”
“Then who’s the Christine in the videos from Shepherd-1?”
“Our Christine made her personality model available to us, her entire consciousness. We replicated it and transferred it to a state-of-the-art android, with a few minor alterations.”
“Alterations?”
“Just a few details. The androids’ bodies don’t function exactly like a human’s. They’re better, more robust, more capable. But we found that the human consciousness couldn’t cope with that. So the androids think they’re human, and don’t know anything about their special abilities. Which is unfortunate, as they may need them someday. But when the Shepherd launched five years ago, we had to go with what we had.”
“Twenty years ago.”
“No. Twenty years ago, we still thought we could maintain the flock with robots. But that failed. The main problem was the long transmission times. The robots weren’t capable of acting independently. Within a short time, half the flock were malfunctioning. Space is no walk in the park. So we had to try something else.”
“You could have sent astronauts.”
“It would have taken them twenty years to reach the focus area. Humans aren’t well suited to fast space travel. The DFDs can accelerate five times faster than human bodies can withstand. We had to send androids. They tolerated the acceleration well and woke up on location five years later, as planned. We implanted artificial memories to make it easier for the consciousness to accept the body.”
“That’s inhumane,” said Rachel.
“No. We didn’t harm a hair on a human head. In fact, we’re providing free treatment to six people who would otherwise have died of horrible diseases. You can speak with all of them if you’re still unconvinced.”
“What if the crew work it out themselves? Imagine you suddenly realize you’re not human, you’re a machine, built for a particular purpose and filled with false information. That your creator lied to you to make you more useful. How would you react?”
“I’d be angry,” said Ilan. “So we have to make sure that doesn’t happen. One of the minor alterations was that they aren’t capable of self-awareness.”
“But they’re intelligent. Is that kind of limitation even possible?”
“We don’t know for sure. We never tested it. But if they injure themselves, for example, they see human blood. They make breathing motions and have a kind of digestive system, even though they don’t take their energy from food. They even have functioning sexual organs, although we limited their urges.”
“Can they die?”
“Not in a biological sense. But they can be switched off, and if important components are damaged, they stop functioning. But they aren’t mortal. At some point the radioisotope battery runs down, but it can be replaced.”
“So Christine’s not actually dead?”
“You just saw Christine.”
“I mean the android.”
“No. She can’t die. She may be badly damaged, or maybe she switched herself off.”
“But the rest of the crew are grieving! For no reason!”
“It’s a necessary evil. They saw Christine’s corpse. We can’t bring her back to life. What would that reveal to them about themselves?”
“I thought they were incapable of self-awareness?”
“I phrased that wrong. They’re incapable of perceiving features of themselves that don’t fit with being human. But our technicians haven’t succeeded in removing self-awareness from a consciousness, even a simple one. It seems to be an inherent feature of the system.”
“I could have told you that.”
“Now do you agree that the project has to continue as planned?”
The question came out of the blue. Did she agree? Was it necessary to continue lying to the crew? They were her crew, she was responsible for them. She counted the bungalows. There were six. Six? Rachel shook her head.
“Not like this,” she said. “We need to come clean.”
“And ruin our chances of finding out something about our origins? Humans have been speculating about where we come from for thousands of years. And we may be close to the answer. If the solar gravitational lens fails, it could be hundreds of years before we have another chance. I’ll be long dead by then.”
So that was his problem. It wasn’t about the answer, it was about Ilan Chatterjee and his personal mission, and seeing it through at any cost.
“I’m sorry,” said Rachel, “but a project built on lies and deception can’t deliver honest answers.”
Chatterjee turned away from her and looked toward the exit.
“Then I’m sorry too, but I won’t let anyone jeopardize my project. When you arrive at Mission Control, you’ll read out the message we’ve prepared. If you do that, then your mother will contact you to say Alishondra arrived safely.”
Rachel was trembling from head to toe. She clenched her fists but the shaking wouldn’t stop. She hugged herself to stop herself doing anything stupid. She felt like jumping on Chatterjee from behind, strangling him, and forcing him to release her daughter. But she knew it wouldn’t work. Just like she would die for Ali, this man would die for his project. He was insane. He probably always had been. But as long as he had her daughter, she had to do what he said.
“Hello Rachel, good timing,” Alison greeted her as she entered Mission Control.
She didn’t seem to mind that Rachel was late.
“Charles already passed on your apologies, saying you had a meeting with Ilan Chatterjee. That’s exciting; you’ll have to tell me all about it later.”
Don’t act all innocent, MOM, you know exactly what it was about. Rachel gritted her teeth to stop the angry words on her tongue from leaving her mouth.
“All right, well, take a seat,” said Alison.
She seemed irritated, probably because Rachel wasn’t saying anything. Maybe she wasn’t in cahoots with Chatterjee. So what was that weird conversation about the other day?
Rachel sat down. Then she raised her hand.
“Yes, Rachel?”
“I suggest we record the message for Shepherd-1. The crew have waited long enough. We should tell them to continue with the observations.”
“Oh, after the concerns you expressed yesterday, I’ve thought some more about it.”
“Me too, Alison. I got excited over nothing. It’s probably just that time of the month.”
Rachel wanted to get it over with. She didn’t want her daughter to spend any more time than necessary in the hands of that criminal. She had never missed her so much.
“Slow down, Rachel. Maybe not everyone here is as convinced as you are.”
Charles leaned forward and put a hand on her shoulder. Rachel flinched and shrugged it off. He was the criminal’s accomplice.
“We’re about to hear from Ritu Rashmi,” said MOM. “I’m sure most of you remember – she received the Nobel Prize for Physics ten years ago, for her work on quantum teleportation.”
The name meant nothing to Rachel, but she had never been especially interested in quantum physics.
“Professor Rashmi retired this year. She assured me she receives no payment from Alpha Omega. I can’t verify that, of course, but she’s considered an independent expert.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Rachel.
“Well, that’s irrelevant now,” MOM said with more sharpness in her voice than usual. “I’m putting Professor Rashmi on the main screen now.”
Rachel saw an older Indian woman. She was wearing a green sari and sitting amongst brightly colored flowers on a wicker chair. The light was golden.
“Good evening, Professor Rashmi,” said MOM.
“Good morning, Houston.”
“I sent you our preliminary results. Were you able to form an opinion based on those?”
“Yes, it was very interesting. Thank you for the opportunity,” said the professor. “I can’t unreservedly agree with my colleague Doctor Thakur. There is a real danger that something similar to the disturbance you’ve observed could happen on Earth. However, the risk is very small. By my calculation, such a disturbance would happen on average only once every thousand years of observations. So I wouldn’t have any objection to you continuing the observations.”
Normally Rachel would chime in at this point – it wouldn’t be the first time. But if she disagreed now, everything would take longer. She wished she could just stick her fingers in her ears.
“However, I’m more concerned about the disturbance that has already appeared,” continued Professor Rashmi. “It may seem far away, but four light-days is nothing in cosmic terms. We don’t know how quickly this disturbance can propagate. It’s even possible that it could expand faster than the speed of light. We’re not talking about matter or a signal being transported. The solar gravitational lens transported the disturbance into our sector of the universe faster than the speed of light. There is the possibility that, once the disturbance reaches a certain limit, it could suddenly start expanding much faster, like our universe did shortly after the Big Bang.”
This was interesting. Rachel’s mouth opened involuntarily.
“Is it possible that the disturbance is the start of a new Big Bang?” she asked.
“Indeed, that is a scenario that should be discussed,” Professor Rashmi replied after a short pause. “The seed that our universe grew from could have once been something like this disturbance. Then something happened to it, which we can no longer reconstruct, and it exploded into the Big Bang.”
“Then shouldn’t the disturbance look different?” asked Devendra, the Flight Manager. “Like an incredibly hot fireball?”
“No, that interpretation of the Big Bang is too simplistic. There wasn’t really even an explosion. It was a gentler process, which only seems violent to us because of the inconceivable time and temperature scales. We do say that the temperature of the universe at that stage was billions of degrees, but as the fundamental forces hadn’t even split off yet, that’s a pretty arbitrary statement. To a tortoise, a human runner moves incredibly fast, but in astronomical terms, he’s going nowhere.”
“Thank you, Professor Rashmi,” said Alison. “We don’t want to take up too much of your time. I take it from your answer that we urgently need to address this disturbance.”
