“Light on,” he said.
Nothing happened. That must have been one of Zhenyi’s quirks. They actually suited each other well, as extravagant as their behavior was in other people’s eyes. Kepler got up. There must be a light switch on the wall somewhere. Zhenyi was nuts. He felt his way across the room blindly. His shin bumped into an obstacle, presumably a chair. A sharp pain shot through his consciousness. He wanted to curse, but he couldn’t think of anything suitable. Then his hands finally found the wall. He moved to the right. There was a door frame. He moved his hands up and finally found the switch.
The bedroom was quite small. It contained a bed, an antique-looking wardrobe, and a chair. His things were hung over the chair. They were perfectly folded. But why had the butler put him to bed in here and not in the guest room he usually used? Kepler looked down at himself. The pajamas fit perfectly. But they weren’t the same ones he’d had on the previous night. Maybe those were in the laundry.
Kepler opened the door. The light in the corridor went on automatically. Left or right? He couldn’t remember which way led to the living room. He chose right. After a few meters he went past a door. Was that the living room? He opened the door and had to steady himself on the frame. He had almost plunged into space. The universe spread out before him. But he could still breathe.
Kepler felt in front of him. There was no transparent wall, so it must have been a projection. He looked at the constellations. Up and to the right he could see the spiral of Andromeda. This reproduction must be ancient. The M31 galaxy, Andromeda, had long since merged with the Milky Way. What was Zhenyi’s interest in the past?
He closed the door. A short way along, the corridor ended in another door. He opened it and entered the living room. The butler was sitting on a chair in front of the fireplace and looking into it, as though he was watching a fire. But he must have been in sleep mode.
Kepler cleared his throat. The butler turned to him and eyed him with raised eyebrows. He seemed to find the pajamas unsuitable. But Kepler couldn’t do anything about that just now.
“Good morning, Johannes,” said the butler, standing up. “Shall I prepare breakfast?”
“A steak would be good,” he replied. “No, wait, I will have breakfast. English please.”
A steak would just make him sleepy again. He shouldn’t sleep through the day again, or his body would never get fit.
“Then I must ask for fifteen minutes of your patience,” said the butler.
He bowed and left the living room through a door that Kepler hadn’t even noticed before. Dammit, he’d wanted to ask the butler why he’d spent the night in Zhenyi’s room. Kepler looked around. He wanted to pull up a chair, but then he noticed the fireplace. He knelt in front of it and rummaged in the ashes with his left hand. They were still warm. That was strange. The orb was still there. He pulled it out, shook it, and polished away the ashes.
He inspected the orb, turning it in his fingers. It gleamed metallically and radiated a certain amount of heat. Maybe it was the residual warmth of the ashes, or his own body heat? Metals conduct heat well. He closed his hand around the orb. It fit perfectly in his fist. Kepler closed his eyes. The orb seemed to be vibrating. He opened his hand and examined it. There was nothing there that could vibrate. It must have just been his own heartbeat.
What was the point of this? Was Zhenyi allowing herself a joke with him, leaving him a riddle to pass the time? That wasn’t her style. If she had something to say, she said it. The orb was an encrypted message. But why didn’t she just tell the butler what to convey to Kepler? If it was a level 4 AI, it could also lie if the wrong person questioned it. Zhenyi must not have trusted her own butler, there was no other explanation. But he obviously knew about the orb.
Kepler rubbed the orb in the hope that a genie would materialize, like in fairytales. But it didn’t respond. He pictured Zhenyi. She was the most intelligent woman he’d ever met, and an excellent psychologist. It wasn’t about the message, at least not primarily. It was about him.
“I’ve seen through you, Zhenyi!” he said, and was shocked to hear his own voice. His ex-girlfriend wanted to draw him in. If he occupied himself with the orb, he would develop an interest in whatever secret was concealed in it. And it must be a big, dangerous secret for Zhenyi to have gone to such lengths. She was probably trying to rescue the world again. Gigacycles ago she had already tried to prevent the collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda, because there was a small risk that the sun, along with Terra, would be flung out of the system. No one had taken her seriously, including himself. That had been the reason for their first separation. But in the end nothing happened. Terra was still orbiting in the backyard of the new, now elliptical galaxy.
If the butler had said, “Kepler, come and help my boss rescue the world,” he would have politely declined. But now he that was holding this strange orb in his hand, he couldn’t resist wanting to find out its meaning. Zhenyi was clever.
Kepler sat down at the table with the orb. He held it in both hands and tried to twist it open. But his fingers just slipped. He shook it, but there seemed to be nothing movable inside it. In any case, it wasn’t hollow. He held it right up to his eyes. Maybe there was fine lettering on the surface? But there was nothing. The surface was polished smooth and perfectly round. Perhaps he should observe it under the microscope or cut it open? No, he could always destroy it later.
Kepler yawned. His body was ready to sleep again. He placed the orb on the wooden tabletop and lay his head down next to it. This made the orb look bigger. The tabletop was pleasantly cool. He let go of the orb and it rolled toward him, until it bumped against his nose. He sat back upright and held the orb still.
“The table is a bit uneven,” he said.
No answer. But he was used to being alone, after all. That came from never having any company when traveling. The door on the back wall opened. It was the butler. Who else? Kepler was surprised by the fact that he was surprised. He really must pay more attention to his mental health.
The butler set the breakfast down on the table. The plate was covered, but it smelled tantalizingly of fried eggs and toast. The butler brought a large, white cup and poured tea into it. Kepler observed the surface of the liquid. It appeared to be level.
Wait a minute. He placed the orb on the table again, on the same spot. It rolled in the same direction as before. “Is it possible this table is uneven?” he asked, although the tea had already given him the answer.
“Not at all, no. The table was absolutely precisely manufactured,” said the butler.
“Then why is the ball rolling?” He placed it on the table again, and again it moved toward him.
“Let’s see,” said the butler. He took a napkin from the table, folded it several times and pushed it under the table leg at the corner the orb had rolled toward. “Try it now.”
Kepler placed the orb on the table. It rolled toward him, at just the same speed as before.
“That’s baffling,” said the butler.
“I think so too.”
Kepler stood up and lifted the table with his right hand by the corner under which the butler had put the napkin. Now the tabletop was obviously uneven. The tea slopped over the side of the cup. A pool formed in the saucer. With the other hand he placed the orb back on the table. It rolled toward him. Uphill.
He held the orb and let the table drop. A loud noise. More tea spilled over.
“That was unnecessary,” said the butler.
Kepler sat down. He held the orb in front of his face and observed it from all angles. “What kind of magician’s trick is this?” he asked. “Is there a magnet in the table?”
“Of course not,” replied the butler. “What would be the point of that?”
“To make me... I don’t know.”
Kepler put the orb back on the table and pulled the plate over to it. The orb rolled. It rolled toward the edge of the plate. Without thinking, he held his hand in front of it, but shortly before it reache
d the plate the orb changed direction. It rolled in a curve toward the center of the table, then changed direction again and returned in a double zig-zag.
He pushed the plate to the side again. He’d lost his appetite. “Can you please clear this away?” he asked.
“As you wish.”
Kepler picked up the orb. It looked the same as before. What was it trying to tell him? He put it back down on the table. It began to move diagonally toward the corner.
Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of it? The orb was writing letters on the table! That was how it conveyed messages! He simply had to allow it to follow its course uninterrupted.
“Can you record a video of the top of the table?”
“No problem,” said the butler.
Kepler positioned himself where he could better observe the orb. It really was writing letters. He recognized an F, an O, and an L. At times he had to stop it, because he hadn’t understood the letter. The orb couldn’t stop itself. It was writing in an endless sequence. The text began cryptically, and ended the same way.
“Follow me!” he read. “I have found something that will completely change our lives. Please help me! Do you remember that night in the Vega System? Call the butler by his name, which I told you at the time, then he’ll help you. I’m flying ahead. Maybe I can prevent a catastrophe. The coordinates are...”
Phew. Yes, he remembered the night Zhenyi was talking about, even though it was a few gigacycles ago. They had met to observe the helium flash of the Vega. The universe didn’t offer attractions like that very often, especially not so close to Terra, which was still green at the time—a vast nature reserve.
They had set themselves up on one of the moons of the single, Neptune-sized planet. First they spent days and nights in bed. Then they waited in cryostasis for the big event. The butler had awakened them. Immediately after rising they had fallen all over each other again, still naked. And then Zhenyi had sent the butler away—calling him by his first name.
But Kepler could no longer remember the name. He remembered as though it was yesterday the way he had caressed her entire body. But the name of the butler? Who would have taken any notice of that? Then he remembered Zhenyi had told him breathlessly that he should pay attention to the name. It was vital to her because she... because she... He tried desperately to recall, but his memory failed him. Had he maybe externalized it on Terra? It would take centuries to request a backup.
Strangely, he wasn’t unhappy about this. It meant the buck didn’t stop with him. If he couldn’t remember the butler’s first name, he couldn’t follow Zhenyi. She would manage alone. She had always managed. He would simply stay here until she returned. He was already looking forward to hearing stories of her adventures. Kepler leaned back. Now for a cognac. That would be great.
Puppy. The butler was called Puppy, like Zhenyi’s first dog. At the time, Kepler had almost died laughing over the name, and his girlfriend had been a bit offended. Shit. Why did he have to go and remember the name now? He looked at the butler. If he didn’t know better, he would have taken him to be an elegant Englishman of about 50 years old. The name really didn’t fit.
He could simply forget it again. But the more he tried to suppress it, the more it imprinted itself.
“Puppy, would you please bring me a cognac?”
There, he’d said it. The butler stiffened briefly. Kepler watched him. If this were a bad film, his eyes would suddenly light up red, but nothing of the kind happened. Maybe he hadn’t heard?
“Would you like a particular sort?” asked the butler.
“No, Puppy.”
He’d said it again! What was he thinking? If the butler hadn’t heard him the first time, then he certainly had now. But the butler just nodded. He left the room, returned with a half-filled cognac snifter, and handed it to him. Kepler held it under his nose and swirled the glass. All he could smell was the alcohol vapor. He really didn’t know much about cognac.
“I recommend we take the Mona Lisa to the next Dyson relay and then beam ourselves to the destination,” said the butler.
Kepler spluttered into the tulip-shaped glass. A drop of cognac splashed into his eye. That stuff burned, dammit!
His peace and quiet had come to an end. The butler had correctly understood him. It would be callous now, not to help Zhenyi. That didn’t fit with his self-image. He, Kepler, was not a cruel person. He was a little self-indulgent, but he always helped a friend in need, especially Zhenyi. However, Puppy’s suggestion was not acceptable.
“I can’t leave my body again so soon,” said Kepler. “The gray matter won’t withstand so many transfers in such a short time. And no, I won’t give it up. No one can ask me to do that.”
“But we’ll lose a lot of time,” said the butler, “if we have to take your mortal husk into account.”
“What’s the Mona Lisa? A ninety-fiver? Or even a ninety-sevener?”
He didn’t know anyone who could afford a private ninety-sevener. Although that didn’t mean much, because he didn’t know many people.
“The Mona Lisa is a ninety-niner, of course,” said the butler.
Aha! “Then maybe we won’t lose so much time after all. We just need to wait for the loading cycle of the Dyson sphere. What is the actual destination?” asked Kepler.
“Come, we’ll take a closer look.”
Puppy led him by the arm. They entered the corridor that led to Zhenyi’s bedroom. The butler opened the door Kepler had already tried that morning.
“Our star chart,” said the butler.
“I know.”
The butler looked at him with raised eyebrows. Then he took a few steps into the room.
Kepler held himself steady on the door frame. It still looked as though open space was spread out in front of him. If he took another step, he’d plunge into the depths.
“Well, come on,” said the butler.
Kepler bravely stepped forward. The floor held. The image of the universe changed around him. Apparently the butler was running it in fast-forward. Andromeda approached the Milky Way, in the center of which grew an immense black hole, and then it grew dark around them, as more and more stars were extinguished.
“Current time,” the butler commented. “I’ll zoom in.”
They flew toward the stars. Star clusters and gas clouds raced toward them, enshrouded them, then were left behind. It was a rapid journey that ended in nothing.
“These are the coordinates that Zhenyi transmitted?” asked Kepler.
“Yes.”
“No possibility of an error?”
“No. There’s nothing here.”
“Then we’ll have to abandon the journey,” said Kepler, and turned to leave the room.
The butler held onto him. “No, there’s something here,” he said. “We just can’t see it. But the data from the movement of the stars in this region demonstrates it clearly.”
“I can’t see anything,” said Kepler. But he already knew what the butler meant. The stars in the region were precisely measured. They must be moving in a particular, calculable way.
“Wait, you’ll see it in a moment.”
The stars divided. The butler had obviously started a simulation over the top of reality. One set of stars moved in the direction dictated by reality. The others moved according to the calculation. The difference was obvious.
“An M-class system is missing from the data,” said the butler. “The central star must have about a 0.2 solar mass, by my calculations.”
So, a red dwarf. Almost all of the stars in the Milky Way were red dwarfs. All the more massive and brighter exemplars had long since burnt out and become white dwarfs.
“An unknown system? That’s hard to believe,” said Kepler.
Humanity had already measured and recorded all the stars of the galaxy gigacycles ago. And new stars had long since stopped being born.
“I think so too,” said the butler. “Someone must have deleted this system from the database.”
; “But who would be in a position to do that? There must be a few billion copies.”
“All databases are regularly synchronized with Terra. So the tampering must have happened there.”
“Who’s capable of something like that?”
“A system programmer,” said the butler.
Kepler held his breath. It was impossible. It would mean... No, he couldn’t believe that.
“How many of them are left?” he asked.
“Seven.”
“We have to find out which of them have been on Terra.”
“That’s difficult,” said the butler, “because we don’t know the timing of the change. It could have been up to 200 kilocycles ago. Every system programmer has probably been to Terra in that time.”
“Then we have to find the answer another way,” said Kepler.
“Do you have a suggestion?”
“Yes. We’ll look for the motive. Why was the system deleted? To find that out, we’ll have to go there.”
“Thank you, Johannes. I think that was what Zhenyi wanted you to do.”
Cycle YA7.8, K2-288Bb
The spacesuit Puppy had provided fit him perfectly. He almost felt better in it than in his birthday suit, as the spacesuit enhanced all his movements with artificial muscles. The fact that gravity on K2-288Bb was significantly higher than on Terra wasn’t even noticeable.
But there was also a huge disadvantage. He couldn’t scratch his nose, and right now he had the urgent need to do so. The glass visor was in front of his face. He reached for the lock to open it one more time, but the butler warned against it.
“The airlock will decompress in fifteen seconds.”
His hand jerked back. He was standing alone in the airlock. The butler would follow him after having set the base to standby mode. Kepler scratched between his legs. The suit was thin enough there. He was relieved. It was almost as good as being able to scratch his nose. A flashing red light signaled the air extraction. It was serious now. The light turned off, the airlock cover opened, and it became a little brighter in the chamber.
The Death of the Universe: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 1) Page 3