That winter on Earth was unlike any experienced by the living. The number of deaths due to cold and starvation were uncountable. Caught outside the great city complexes people were completely unequipped to survive. The systemic failure was unstoppable. No one could help, they all had their own emergencies to deal with.
Quevera had forbidden the three men and two women that stayed on the farm with him that winter to get comfortable. They always had to split up to sleep. Three in one building, three in another. Quevera hoped that should either group be attacked the other could come to the rescue. It was the most bitter and coldest winter any of them had ever spent. Living off of rations, it wasn't until spring that they could marshal enough strength to do more than the minimum necessary.
That spring as the snows melted Quevera ordered, cajoled and pleaded with the others to put the stash of seeds they had previously found into the ground. None of them even knew how to plant. They weren't sure how deep to plant the seeds. Most of the time they didn't know what seeds they were planting. Luckily some of the planting robots still worked and Quevera's mother had kept a small container garden on their balcony when he was growing up so he knew the rudiments of planting seeds and potatoes.
Each day two of them went out to hunt. Using traps that they had learned to make and set in the TNU meetings, for TNU had actually been a survivalist club, they caught small game such as rabbits and squirrels. One of the men took to the streams either catching the fish by hand or batting them with a large pole. The women began accompanying him and became even more adept at catching the fish. They also gathered berries and fruit where they found them. All those years of housing people in the city complexes had allowed the natural world to make a rich and plentiful return to abundance. They benefited from those years now.
It would be close but with the warm weather and the success they had so far producing food the group was becoming more optimistic that they would survive. At least a bit longer.
Out gathering with Quevera and Agnes one day. Patrice started asking Quevera the questions that had been on her mind since they had left the city.
“Quevera,” said Patrice. “What happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we lived in a civilization that had been advancing, not without some setbacks I admit, but generally improving for hundreds if not thousands of years. And here we are back at the beginning.”
“Well Patrice, I don't admit to having all the answers but it seems that we got too comfortable. Comfortable people don't ask the hard questions. They don't make sure their needs will be taken care of should difficult times arise. They basically put their trust in those that tell them what they want to hear.”
“But what could someone like me do Quevera?”
“Well most people would have urged you to activism through politics. But I think that politics is actually the least effective means to influence the outcome.”
“I don't understand.”
“Consider this hypothesis. Let's say that back when the large cities were turning into the tower complexes people were used to growing just a few vegetables in a container garden on their balcony like my mother. What if they didn't buy into an apartment that didn't have a garden area, just as my mother wouldn't? And I think we've learned recently how valuable that simple experience can be.”
“So you are saying control of our lives would be from what we can do personally more than collectively?”
“Well collective action is important for some things that you couldn't do for yourself. But yes, I think we gave up too much of our personal responsibility to government and others. The development of AIs and their remarkable management capability masked this mistake until it was too late. We are like children that have been spoiled and now our parents have left us on our own.”
“Well I hope we are still here when they get back,” said Agnes ending the conversation.
6
At first, the disaster on Earth seemed to have no effect on the orbiting hotel. But it eventually became more and more clear that the systemic failure on Earth would be causing problems for the hotel in the future.
The hotel was pretty much set for food and water. Much food was grown nearby in a habitat orbiting at one of the moon's Lagrange points. Water was provided from the moon and by asteroid and comet mining. Power was almost free from orbiting powersats. And much of the more technical equipment needed could be obtained from orbiting manufacturers.
But what couldn't be had were customers for the hotel. Already many guests had returned to Earth to be with their families. The hotel occupancy had never been as low. Easton, the hotel manager, knew that the money would run out without that steady supply of guests.
Davy and the others were already acquainted with the hotel even though they hadn't been there very long. Their sponsor, Mr. Easton, was too busy to manage them closely so they had the run of the place. And that meant that everything had to be explored.
They had developed a regular routine for their days. Breakfast in the hotel's dining room. This was followed by a ride on the paternoster elevator, at least a round trip, and some time spent as they went through zero-gravity spinning like mad as their escort had shown them the first day. Of course, she hadn't expected them to make a game of it.
After the spinning game if Stubby hadn't made himself sick they were off to one of the zero-gravity rooms in the central cylinder. They usually tried to choose a room with no one else in it. A room that was at least forty feet across. There they would play the latest game. At one end the wall would project a target. At the same time, the space between the target and the opposite wall would be filled with different three-dimensional holograms. The holo's varied from fantasy monsters, traps and explosives to neutralizing weapons and strength builders. The monsters, traps and the like contributed negative points while the neutralizers and the like contributed positive points. Whoever won the game could choose that afternoon's vid.
The lights dimmed and starting from the wall opposite the target each one of them would push off and try to reach the target without racking up enough negative points for a disqualification. Stubby never made it to the target. He would almost always end up in an awkward tumble which took him into a negative value holo.
Lind was halfway there. She had just launched off one of the six walls that made the room into a kind of hexagonal cylinder. The walls themselves were covered with a material about the thickness of a gym mat but with a kind of textured surface that gave a grip to the gloves and shoes, the kids wore. As she aimed for a place on the opposite wall almost two-thirds of the way to the target she found a goranga monster moving to intercept. It was too late to adjust course, instead, she reached out to the holo and as it adjusted its trajectory to grab her hands she withdrew them and pulled her body into a tuck position that caused the holo to pass beneath her. The monster roared in frustration.
Meanwhile, Davy who had launched at a much greater velocity than Lind found himself trapped in one of the end corners near the target. The problem was that he had a free-floating mine explosive and slither-monster between him and the target. The slither-monster was protecting the wall while the mine was floating somewhat off the wall.
It seemed his only choice was to retreat a bit to a far wall to get an angle to the target. But by the time he finished that maneuver he could see that Lind would beat him to the prize. His only chance was to launch himself just above the obstacles in his path bounce off the wall on the other side of them, down to the opposing wall and back to the target. But to make such a leap he would have to rotate his body first one-hundred-eighty degrees to push off the wall just beyond the mine and slither-monster and somersault in the air so he could land on his feet and immediately make a push for the target.
He launched. The slither-monster turned as he flew just beyond its reach. He hit the wall behind and above the monster and pushed off tucking in such a way that he began his rotation. He untucked and hit feet first on the far wall and allowing his
knees to bend and act as springs he launched to the target and was almost there when he saw Lind fly in front of his face and score.
The lights came up the holos disappeared and Lind was floating in front of him with a big smile.
“That was a great move Davy,” said Lind.
Momentarily upset Davy smiled and said, “Nice game. So what's the vid?”
After lunch, at which Mr. Easton sometimes joined them, they would be off to the vids. In the time the kids had been aboard the hotel the afternoon vid had become less and less crowded. Not paying much attention to the diminishing number of patrons but pleased they could get the seats they wanted the kids never gave it a thought.
But Mr. Easton did.
Merrick Easton had known Davy's mom since childhood. They had once dated for awhile. He had been surprised to hear from her but had agreed to provide a safe refuge for Davy and any others that accompanied him until the present unrest on Earth was over. But now it didn't seem that it would end, or rather it would end badly.
And now the situation on Earth would affect everyone in orbit. Merrick was thinking that maybe Davy and his friends should move on to the Moon which was much more prepared and independent of Earth than those in low Earth orbit.
At lunch one day with the kids he mentioned his idea and said, “So what do you think guys? A trip to the moon sound like fun?”
“I'd like that very much Mr. Easton,” said Davy.
“Sure,” said Stubby.
“It was actually one of our goals to begin with. But what do you think my mom and dad would say?” asked Lind.
“I've sent all your parents a message and am just waiting to hear back.”
“Very well Mr. Easton if it's okay with them.”
The other two nodded in assent.
“Very good kids.”
Merrick called the kids into his office the following week.
“Kids I just wanted to let you know I've received replies from your parents. They approve of our plans. You will be leaving for the Moon day after tomorrow. You'll take the elevator to a Moon shuttle and from there you should be on the Moon in three days. I've contacted someone I know that will meet you there and get you settled in.”
“Thanks Mr. Easton, thanks a lot,” said Davy with a big smile.
Easton took out his AI assistant after the kids left and looked again at the replies to his messages. Only Linda's parents had replied in the affirmative. In the other two cases, there were no replies. In fact, there was no one left to reply.
Davy looked out of the elevator compartment's viewing room to the Earth below. For the first time, he felt like he was actually leaving. Leaving his family and his life there. He was excited to be going but concerned that he wouldn't be coming back.
Anson Phillips was talking to the members of the Advanced Technology Committee on Titan.
“Gentlemen,” he began. “The Aggies have given us a wonderful gift. The secret to extended jumps using the wormhole generator. For those of you interested, you may read the details in my report. For now I will only cover the development in general.
“As you know the problem of extending the jumps has been two-fold. First, there is the seven-point-five light-year limit because of what we suspect is a phase change in spacetime at that distance that does not support human life. At least not all humans although some seem to be immune to the effect.
“Second anytime more energy has been brought to bear on a point in space to make a longer jump the result has been a disruption in spacetime. This disruption is essentially a breakdown in the continuity of spacetime and a resulting breakup that destroys the ship and propagates away destroying everything in its path until it dissipates.
“We still have no solution to the first problem but we do have a workaround. As for the second problem, the Aggies discovered a way to concentrate the necessary energy but not at a point. Essentially instead of firing a bullet of energy, the Aggies use a buckshot of energy. In other words, their method slightly enlarges the area of energy concentration and each quanta of energy is below the threshold necessary to disrupt spacetime but taken together all the quanta of energy are enough to open, or cast as the physicist's say, the far wormhole mouth at a greater distance than ever before.
“Now you may wonder how we can use this newfound capability. We combine the distance that the new method gives to us with a discovery by Elias Mach some time ago which he ascribed to the dragging of spacetime, technically called frame-dragging, by the gravity field of large mass-energies passing through a wormhole.
“Using this General Relativistic effect a spaceship close enough to an existing wormhole can be “dragged” along by the energy and mass passing through that wormhole. Though the ship would be dragged along at a universal rate of speed many times the speed of light, in its own frame of reference it is barely moving and therefore breaks no physical laws. Many liken it to the hyper-inflation period of the early universe where spacetime itself expanded at many times the speed of light.”
“Excuse me Anson,” said one of the committee members. “But if I understand correctly it will be necessary to not only open a long jump wormhole, the 'pilot' wormhole let's call it, but keep it open for some time. The energy requirements will be huge. And even if the energy resources can be found, travel would be restricted to the lanes that were created by these long distant wormholes. Like the old spoke and hub system of airline travel on Earth only certain destinations could be reached quickly and easily.”
“That's all true Joseph. But we don't need to open a ship sized wormhole. Only a wormhole large enough to pass some kind of mass through which should lower the energy requirements.”
“How does that affect the frame-dragging mechanism?”
“Almost no effect except for the need of a ship to be closer to the wormhole dimension than before.”
“So we really can do this?”
“I think so.”
“This is great news after all the awful reports we've been hearing from Earth lately.”
There was general agreement around the table.
The situation on Earth was not improving. What government was left in the tower complexes was in control of a few city blocks at most. And that control was tenuous. Now with another winter approaching any semblance of order might disappear completely.
Outside the tower complexes, hundreds of millions had died the first winter, usually of starvation. The survivors were weak and sick. The struggle was almost over for many of them and most were accepting of their fate.
On the farm only three had survived, Quevera and one other man had been killed by marauders. Luckily Salazar had made his way back and was able to help out. But it was going to be a tougher winter than before because what crops had been harvested were few and the stores were maybe half the previous year. Effort beyond what was absolutely needed to survive was avoided, leaving the survivors in a grim and fragile state of mind.
Sitting outside in the last of the sun of summer Patrice was content. With the warmth on her face, she had cured herself of asking why. She only wanted another day in the sun, a small meal and maybe a conversation about the plants and getting in a late-season crop. Seeing the plants grow, even with all the back-breaking work that went into them, was more rewarding than she had ever known, and more satisfying too.
Patrice was content.
SECOND ONE HUNDRED
Image - © Bruce Rolff
1
5.14.2643
The audio alarms aboard the fusion ship Iapyx sounded. It was an old fashioned warning system but still quite effective when humans were involved. The only problem was that the humans aboard were unconscious. They had been rendered that way by a phenomenon of wormhole travel that had not been encountered before. It was like driving into a wall at sixty miles an hour but with physiological consequences instead of physical.
Dr. Jackson, a physicist and astronomer, was the first to wake from the trauma.
At first, Sheila Jackson thought
she was in her apartment back, where?
Strange I remember my apartment but not where it is.
Except the room was too small to be her apartment and the bed was a single instead of a full and the lights were overhead instead of a lamp beside the bed and ...
Sheila sat up. Where was she? Her mind started racing. She felt almost panicky, she wanted to flee. But where?
Maybe her Emmie would tell her something, where was it? She looked around. There it was on the small table in the corner of the room.
She moved to the table and picked up the device which was like a personal assistant with an Em based AI. (Em standing for emulated brain. She unfolded the Emmie until its screen was large enough.
Sheila said, “Emmie where are we?”
The Emmie was slow to respond which was uncharacteristic.
“Unknown,” is all it said.
Sheila's feeling of panic changed to curiosity, her defining characteristic.
How could my Emmie not know where we are?
“Emmie do a diagnostic level one please.”
While she waited for the results Sheila looked about the room. There was a food processing center next to the table in the corner. The bed was across the room from there and the reading lamp was attached to the wall instead of on the nightstand like in her apartment. There was what looked like a small row of lockers built into the wall at the foot of the bed. They framed a door.
To where?
There was also a door on the remaining wall. Sheila assumed one door led to a bathroom. Where the other one led she didn't know and at the moment didn't want to know.
The Emmie finished the diagnostics and began announcing the results. Sheila interrupted it when it got to memory capacity.
“Emmie, excuse me for interrupting, but what is the start time of the current memory block aggregation?”
By aggregation, Sheila meant the continuous recording of events by the Emmie.
“Memory begins sequencing from oh-three-hundred.”
To the Stars V-1 Page 8