Suppose We

by Geoff Nelder

  They allow me to witness after I’d anchored myself to the ledge as two of them had. The third has a tether. The hatch slides open revealing vermillion clouds scudding by. The flitter rises into the air until the tether is taut. Ah it’s a tube uploading the new lifeform into the atmosphere. If this is happening, say, 100k from the bioscience centre in all directions with these winds there won’t be anywhere not visited on the planet in a few weeks.

  The flitter returns and I arrange for the hatch to remain open while I send sensors into the wild air. They disappear downwind. I’ll pick up their signals for a few minutes before they descend again.

  I am shaken off the ledge. A cave-in below in the ancient Kep subterranean structure had sent shockwaves through the chamber. The shaft is blocked. I have only one way left to go.

  As this is Suppose We Do rather than my own design and build, it is dispensable. CAN is too, but would take longer to rebuild. I do not rate highly the chances of this flat craft surviving long in the tempest without, better though than staying interred.

  I review the data from the sensors. Good news for the humans in that there is now 20% oxygen and 77% nitrogen with water vapour and trace gases making up the rest. Temperatures are all over the place but at the surface mostly above the melting point of water ice and below 323 Kelvin. I don’t have a direct wind speed reading but the Doppler data from the sensors traveling downwind has a mean velocity of 18 metres per second with gusting twice that. I’m uncertain if this craft will survive but what is the worst that can happen? It crashes, disintegrates and Suppose We Do becomes Suppose We Don’t. My brain malfunctions or ceases to exist but it matters not since I am backed up with my parent AI on the mother ship and CAN. It’s better than staying put. Here I go.

  Just a moment. I’ll upload this report in case of catastrophe.

  Signed off: Suppose We Do.

  Date: Earth October 29th 3645 Kepler New 293 days

  “Why have we been woken up?” Penn asked after he’d showered the hiber-gel off himself. The others sat around a nearly-rectangular green block.

  “And who by?” added Delta sipping at what Gaston thought might be a nutrient drink.

  Gaston busied himself dip-testing other liquids and solids they found in grey tubs with the lids that disappeared if you pressed on them and thought the right combination of ideas. Each box needed different concepts. They should have made notes. There was a musty odour in the room as if rain had got in, but then it didn’t smell much different from a hostel dormitory after one night let alone a year or… better check the date.

  Em walked around the perimeter of the trapezoidal underground room.

  “This isn’t the same place we went to sleep in, is it?”

  “I think so,” her hand over her forehead. “It was a darker shade of red, but they can change the hue of these walls. I guess they didn’t want us in the chamber they put me in earlier because of the hole.” She stood, staggered then put out her hand on Gaston’s shoulder to steady herself. “Whoops, I feel dizzy.”

  “My hand has finally healed completely while I slept. As for that other chamber and its roof. Perhaps,” Gaston said, “It was not sufficiently deep. The ceiling was rather thin if you recall.”

  “Yeah, well,” Penn said, checking his laser pistol was still in his kit, “after some chow we’ll explore the tunnel leading off this room. Anyone seen our captors?”

  “If you mean our old Kep,” Em answered, slumped on a box with her head nestled in her arms on the table, “I saw him leaving just as I awoke so I guess that answers who woke us and leaving breakfast. God, I feel bushed.”

  Like the others, Gaston looked at the room exit as if the Kep was about to return. “It answers part of Penn’s first question too. We would not have been brought out of hibernation if the conditions outside were not viable.”

  Em put her arm on Delta’s shoulder. “It’s like a bad hangover from the long sleep. We’ve all got that, eh guys?”

  “Worse than last time. It’s as if two bats are fighting in my skull and a rat’s pushing its way up my guts. Ugh, I’m gonna—” Delta vomited into her breakfast bowl, refilling it.

  “Whoa,” Em said, wrinkling her nose. “Better out than in. At least none of us will throw up carrots again unless Gaston uses GM skills on a local root.”

  Penn laughed. “Yeah, but it won’t be the same spewing up blue ones. You know, I’m not feeling too clever. Science officer, is there anything serious going on with us this time?”

  Gaston reached for the medical kit out of his backpack. “The dose we took was created here from a recipe CAN sent to a nearby lab run jointly by flitters and our friendly Kep. The raw ingredients were pure chemicals but perhaps something different became involved. I hate to think this, but—”

  “Sabotage by some other Keps,” Penn said.

  “Peut être, and yet it would be illogical. If they put a toxin in the hibernation reagent, why not ensure it killed us rather than merely make us ill?”

  Em used Gaston’s mediscan to take her temperature. “Three hundred and eleven. A little high. You, Delta? Um, two degrees more. Gaston, what antipyretics do you carry?”

  “Several, but I will take a blood sample first in case keeping Delta’s temperature high is better to kill off whatever is making her ill.”

  Penn walked up the tunnel a while then returned. “I don’t want to hike too far without you guys. Probably best to stick together while we find out what’s occurring.”

  Delta didn’t look up from the table, but spoke weakly, “You lot go. I’ll keep my implant on and I’m sure as hell not going anywhere.”

  The three looked at each other as if making a decision by telepathy.

  Em took Delta’s temperature again. “I’ll stop with her as long as you two don’t actually go outside and get lost. I expect we’ve lost our GPS satellite marbles. Delta, wouldn’t you be more comfy in the hibernation couch?”

  “No thanks. Nine months in that coffin is enough.”

  Gaston wanted to mention the millennium she’d spent in one but thought better of it. He left his antipyretics and other medkit that might be needed to treat Delta before he returned.

  “The antipyretics is an adapt-paracetamol patch. Just one on her neck if her temperature reaches 313. The green bag contains—”

  “Resus kit. I know the drill. Just don’t take longer than needed for a quick recon. Try and bring our Kep back since it talks best with Delta. Give us a hug.”

  LIVE LOG – SUPPOSE WE DO – AIRBORNE

  It is daytime as I tentatively emerge from the tunnel 103.4km SE of the site of Suppose We and the flitter science base. The human crew remain on the other side of this planet on another continent. They cannot communicate to me, nor Suppose We’s AI - only to the disconnected and probably discombobulated AI versions on their pods and devices.

  Air quality and conditions are viable for humans and me. Wind speed has reduced to 11 m/s so I head upwards three metres and hover, countering the wind: ready to rapid descend if necessary.

  The sky swirls with dark grey stratus with streaks of lilac above cells of scattered cumulus, some black, huge. I see more colours than you humans have named and so more than my AI dictionary has to describe. Millions more, mainly in the ultraviolet, some in the infrared and other frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. If you possessed my senses you’d be in awe and then some.

  The landscape is a smooth plain, desolate. No trees except in the far distance where a range of mountains form the western horizon. Much of the surface is scrubby grassland. Taller vegetation has been swept away with some of the topsoil. The humans might refer to the colour of the sometime sun-dappled plain as coppery although it is littered with artificial building debris including silvery sheets that might have been roofing.

  I have 2,108km flight worth of energy but already the sunlight is recharging my cells. I plan to explore and report before returning to the flitter base to the north.

  I ///++ off kilter! ////
x## lost--- switch+ng to // sp+nning // need reboot butbutbut m++ht crash//+++ || gain altitude//turbulence// clea+ air vortex// reboot-----

  I am aware again. Relief. Expected to be no more. Check status.

  Loose components, but automatic repair systems already at work. I tell nav to stop the spinning and to re-orientate uprightness. Nav has to work too hard, the spinning on the craft’s own axis has stopped but I travel in a circle, carried by a tornado. I let myself drift, spinning inside the black walls of a funnel, lit spasmodically by green lightning. If I were human I’d be spewing up now, my vomit spraying the walls of vortex hell. I continue to spiral upwards, but suddenly I am thrown out and up. After minutes I am through the cloud and up above the tropopause.

  Altitude: 16,411 metres

  From the violence of the troposphere to the stark calm of the stratosphere. Rotating more sedately, I see stars, moons and one of Kepler’s suns. Furthermore, I see tubular spacecraft. I listen, but don’t hail. Flitter talk crackles between them. I say spacecraft because so am I at this altitude. I see more space than atmosphere although when I take input from planetward the view of the perfect curve that fills humans with exhilaration tells me much of the recent events. The hairs on my neck would rise if I’d possessed either.

  Comparing water vapour images from when we approached Kepler with now I see the jet streams are circulating with high index looping, or nearer a straight line than before. This stabilises the weather below as hoped for by the Keps. The atmosphere is denser, and deeper. The glint from the oceans—I am being hailed by the nearest vessel. It is 1.76 km distant. A gold cylinder one metre in diameter and a hundred and three metres long, bristling with antennae and parabolic mesh dishes.

  It requests ID.

  I refer them to the contact I have at the flitter science lab, how I am up in these dizzy heights and how I am concerned that my components might not be sufficiently protected against the freezing temperature and harsh radiation.

  While we fire terahertz signals at each other I close in. They tell me they’re replacing satellites and monitoring the planet. I want to ask if they’re working for Keps or for the flitters, but I don’t want to antagonise them. As I suspected, their systems are completely open. I can hack into them with impunity and cover my tracks. Unlike Earth-based systems that have had to be self-protective for over half a millennium, Keps cannot tell lies and have no need for antiviral or other IT security measures. Flitters followed suit. I am fortunate to be the product of more deviant masters.

  I hack and hijack this craft.

  I am able to modify the quasi-GPS satellites they’ve already launched along with the ones they will in future so that my AI can use them to communicate with the humans.

  Within half a day I am down to 5k above ground and release myself from riding the top of the spacecraft. I’ve programmed it to re-join its companions having tracked them. Interesting mined data too.

  Ah, incoming message from the tube I’ve just released. It knew I was there all along and needs a favour in return. A rogue Kep element has initiated research to kill the new H.NewKep. The flitters have run out of arguments to stop them and cannot use force so ask me and the humans for help. It is in their interests for the bad bacteria to be destroyed with a successful deployment of the modified prion and are not convinced that humans are invading Kepler-20h.

  I cannot solve this problem. It is fortunate I am in a position to offer it to my humans.

  Signed: Suppose We Do

  Date: Earth October 30th 3645 Kepler New 294 days

  Gaston hated leaving Em, especially with Delta suffering worse side effects than the rest of them. He barely kept up with the rapid drifting of Kep and jog of Penn through the tunnels because his mind continually examined other possible treatments for Delta. Perhaps adrenaline for shock, antibiotics for septicaemia, DNA Mod gel, but every treatment carried its own hazards. His neck heated from frustration. Why was he charging through tunnels instead of being back there? Penn and his too-urgent need to see what happened outside. Not just Penn of course, it was the Kep. It had vibrated, nearly jumped up and down with what might have been impatience to get them up and out and it couldn’t tell them why. Now, with Delta incapacitated, it was imperative to get the translator working properly, or even to learn to use the Kep clicks. The sounds they heard were likely just a fraction of what the Keps were emitting.

  Another corner and into a chamber.

  “Look,” Penn said, pointing at a tunnel entrance. “It has your blue plaster strips.”

  Gaston finally smiled. “The entrance to the spiral tower. Has it been blown down, thrown by the winds across the planet, or still standing?”

  “Stop gassing and let’s see.”

  Following inwards and up the spiral ramp, Gaston heard a crackle on his radio. He didn’t expect radio comms with CAN to be working yet, assuming the ionosphere to be too disturbed, but his hopes rose.

  As he reached Penn climbing through his previously created doorway—the Kep already floating outside—Gaston spoke: “CAN, are you receiving me? So many questions.”

  No response. Gaston stepped outside onto splinters and woodchip smelling of a sawmill, relieved to find that in spite of vegetation and building wreckage, the atmosphere was fresh, with a peach tint to the high cirrus clouds. He took in a deep breath then gasped seeing the butterfly flutter past his shoulder out into the enlarged atmosphere. He’d not seen it since he saw it dive into the tower sixty plus weeks ago. Clearly, it had taken shelter, but no Earthly butterfly can live this long. Keplerian butterflies must enjoy a different time scale.

  “Penn look, exit, pursued by a butterfly.”

  “What?”

  Gaston watched its crooked flight heading for one of the few trees still standing.

  After seeing Penn pointing at something in the sky, Gaston took out his own binoculars. A black spot grew larger. He thought it was a bird gliding, heading straight for them.

  A voice burst into Gaston’s implant. ‘This is CAN. I am busy, but another is my proxy.’

  “If that’s a flitter,” Penn said. “it’s twice the size of any I’ve seen so far.”

  “Ha ha. C’est vrai? Penn, I do believe it is the flyer Delta built. Suppose We Do. Alors, where is it going?”

  Gaston’s arm was yanked by Penn so hard they both fell—just in time as the teatray-sized craft flew through the doorway. He turned to look at it. Too late, but he jumped to his feet.

  “It must be homing in on Delta. She’d designed most of its circuits. Come on, Penn. Et tu, Monsieur Kep?”

  The two men ran side by side. The Kep flew faster and came up behind and mostly in-between, but travelled through Gaston’s right and Penn’s left bodies. They both fell, from shock. Gaston had been denied the pleasure of being run through by a Kep until then. Now he had pins and needles, heated, tingling through his right side. Green flashes bounced around inside his head. Enough thought processes were left intact to make him wonder why such an intelligent species were unaware of the effect of such an unnecessary action. Lacking empathy, or it was so out of their experience it didn’t feature on their radar. Once again he told himself to treat different creatures as that—different.

  “No time for day dreaming, Gas. Let’s go.”

  Staggering rather than running, Gaston followed Penn. Even in his traumatised state he wondered how Penn remembered the way back through the maze. Ah, he just made out the glow in the tunnel walls that momentarily lit when something passed through.

  Panting, Gaston caught up with Penn just as they entered their dormitory. Penn held out his left arm to stop Gaston, while stooped as if ready to pounce. The flyer was on top of Delta who lay on one of the long boxes. The Kep bent over Delta’s head clicking furiously. Em knelt beside the box talking rapidly. A pained expression filled her face.

  Gaston walked slowly around Penn and approached the bizarre scene. Delta’s face was composed as if in a deep sleep, or dead. A static buzz came from Suppose We Do. Em an
d the Kep moved backwards a little, and Delta’s body jerked.

  The flyer took off, flew to one side and only then did Em turn to see the men. “Gaston, quick. She was dead, I’m sure of it, but—”

  He rushed forward unslinging his pack. “Absolutement. Why didn’t you use our resus kit?”

  “What do you think bleeped a flat line and told me she was dead?”

  Delta’s eyes opened allowing a flood of relief to wash over everyone. The Kep went pink and even Suppose We Do performed a dance.

  While Em administered to Delta’s recovery, Penn pulled Gaston to one side.

  “What d’you reckon happened here, Gas? Did the Kep already know Suppose We Do was on its way when it seemed to urge us to leave this room?”

  “Oui, and that is why the flyer didn’t stop to greet us outside, and why the Kep was in an inconsiderate haste passing through us in the tunnel.”

  “Consequences, Gas. If our own damned equipment talks more to the enemy than to us, then we can’t tru—”

  “Un moment, Commander, the three of us believe the ancient Kep to be friendly until proven otherwise. And speed was clearly of such an essence chit-chatting with us mere incompetents would have been fatal for Delta. Our companion. Our human companion is saved by two non-human entities and even then you fail to show gratitude.”

  The big man glared his dark green eyes at Gaston. Eyes that centred and sank inside black rings as if he’d not slept for any of those sixty three weeks.

  “The Kep is playing us, Gaston. It needs the H.NewKep to work to get rid of the nasty bacteria on this planet. It was even eating metal, stone, plastic, and killed most of the Keps.” He laughed. “If they knew our history, they’d have called H.NewKep a Trojan horse!”

  Gaston wagged a finger. “That’s a fable not history. Oui, so why does it need us now we have completed our purpose? I would like to think that in spite of species differences, it likes us, as demonstrated by the haste it went to in saving Delta.”