He put Pierre and Marie Curie into a world they weren’t expecting. It consisted of a foot-wide beam that ran, without beginning or end, a hundred meters above an ocean of lava.
“Shit! What’s this?” cried Marie.
He had managed to surprise them.
Marie swayed back and forth.
Pierre held her arm. “Stay very calm,” he said. “This must be an error.”
“An error? What kind of error?”
“None of this is real, Marie. Remember, we just extracted ourselves from the body. It can only be an error in the matrix.”
The Guardian caused a hot wind to rise from below. The wind carried the heat upwards and caused the beam to wobble.
“Well, it feels very real,” said Marie.
“I know. I’m sure it’ll be over soon.”
No, it wouldn’t. The Guardian let the wind swell into a storm. He wouldn’t give them any peace. A black stone fell at a high speed from the sky into the lava so that the glowing molten rock splashed upwards.
Once again the storm tugged at the beam and finally he managed it—Marie fell.
She reacted with panic, lost control—and that was the moment at which she could no longer avoid opening her consciousness.
The Guardian realized what Marie had done. It was monstrous. He was so shocked that he nearly let her fall into the lava. At the last moment he materialized in the strange world, caught her, and carried her upwards. He placed her back on the beam and drifted away from them, carried by the strong updraft. He didn’t need to beat his wings once.
“There you are,” said Pierre. “It’s about time!” He sounded relieved. He probably didn’t know Marie’s thoughts had betrayed them.
“Thank you for catching me,” said Marie.
She didn’t look at the Guardian. She obviously had a guilty conscience, but was hoping that he hadn’t noticed anything.
“That was a test,” said the angel Guardian in a loud, threatening voice.
“And we didn’t pass it, did we?” asked Pierre.
He didn’t seem at all flustered. Didn’t he know what he, the Guardian, was capable of? He was judge and executioner in one. The integrity of the memory store was the highest priority. “You didn’t pass. I sentence you to death by disintegration of your consciousness.”
This meant that every sliver, every grain, every thought of a consciousness would be divided up so that reconstitution was impossible. And all backups would be destroyed. It wasn’t a painful death, but it was a permanent one. They had both earned it.
“I told you, Marie, you dummy. This isn’t real. Nothing here is real. We’re still in the matrix of the guard station.”
Pierre Curie pulled a black object out of his pocket. The object looked like a gun. The system programmer had given it to him for emergencies. One shot and any virtual object would be destroyed.
Pierre aimed at the Guardian.
“What’s this?” the angel asked.
“I’m going to kill you before you kill us,” explained Pierre Curie. He pulled the trigger.
An invisible bullet flew from the weapon at light speed. It hit the floating angel Guardian in the heart. A trickle of blood ran over its white skin. Then it dissolved in a rain of feathers, and crystals, and fine dust.
“Very impressive,” said Marie. “I’d love to know who programmed that.”
Pierre took Marie by the hand. The virtual lava landscape created by the Guardian disappeared. The laser emitter came into view. They stepped onto a platform and dissolved into light.
Cycle YM6.1, IRS 13
It wasn’t easy creating a moon. Gropius felt like a child in a sandbox, playing with sand molds. Except that his sandbox was ten light-years across. He had been lucky. Here, so close to the center of the Milky Way, the stars were more densely packed than in the outer regions—from which humans originated. Within a radius of ten light-years, he had found seventeen stars that had not yet lost their Kuiper belts.
This was now the fourth system he had harvested. His ship was only a ninety-fiver, but for doing so many short jumps, a ninety-niner wouldn’t have reached its maximum speed anyway. So he had plenty of flight time for thinking and planning. He brought the ship into an orbit ten AUs from the central star. The gas giant orbiting closer in must have once been out here. After the central star had used up its fuel, the system had shrunk to a miniature version of itself.
This was very practical for the task at hand, because it had increased the density of matter in the Kuiper belt. But the composition had also changed. All the lighter components—ice, frozen carbon dioxide, and nitrogen—had been blown out into space when the star had expanded into a red giant. Only rock remained.
Gropius moved through his ship at the speed of light. At the stern, behind the sphere with the dark matter drive, was a construction that at first glance might have appeared to be a pair of extra sails. That was his broom. The similarity wasn’t a coincidence. He had recycled the interstellar sails of an old ship. The nanobots were currently at work strengthening the material. This was a lesson he’d learned from working in the previous systems. Because the belts’ material was heavier than he had first thought, the load had increased faster than expected, and the fabric, an extremely thin layer of nanofibers, had kept tearing. Each time, he had lost material—and therefore time.
He couldn’t let that happen again. The broom—to be precise, a combined broom and net—was getting heavier, and he had to fly slower, but he didn’t have to stop so often for repairs.
The first sail was ready. Gropius let it out to its full extent. It obscured the star and its remaining planets. Looking good! He set a course. The ship would fly in a zig-zag through the Kuiper belt. All he needed to do was to alternate braking and acceleration—the orbital mechanics would take care of the rest.
The nanobots reported that the other three sails were also ready. It was time. Gropius gave the command to start. A huge broom would now sweep up the remnants of ancient times. It was a strange feeling. The trash heap at the edge of this system was created shortly after the birth of the universe, before there were humans. And only now was it being cleaned up, as the cosmos found itself in the last throes of its existence. A stupid coincidence had determined that humans would be its gravediggers and, like in ancient Egypt, would have to climb into the tomb with it. He would not be able to prevent this, even if he proved able to give humanity a grace period in the form of the Rescue Project.
Cycle YN4.4, IRS 13
The broom-net was full. The nanobots were already reporting the first hairline cracks. But Gropius couldn’t simply come to a standstill in space. Everything was moving, and his ship was part of it all. He would have to leave the Kuiper belt for the structure not to be torn apart. Gropius calculated his options. If he braked, he would move inward from his current position. If he accelerated, the ship and its entire load would move outward. The required fuel depended on the ship’s mass. But the belt’s density decreased more quickly on the outside than the inside, and he’d get to safety faster. So he accelerated.
The ship picked up speed and widened its orbit. Gropius watched the load indicator. The point jumped around on the dial. It continued to rise as the ship accelerated, then jumped down again when a new tear momentarily lightened the load. He had been too greedy. He should have left the collection orbit sooner. Another lesson learned, which he would have to apply during the next passage.
Gropius turned off the drive. He should be far enough out now. The ship and the collected chunks of rock drifted weightlessly through space. The load indicator stood at 0. He called up the last value and calculated the mass based on the acceleration. Not bad! He had collected almost ten quintillion tons of rock. That was a third more than in the previous system. So, strengthening the broom had helped. If he repeated this activity six more times, he would have collected a mass equivalent to Earth’s moon. That was the goal. For his attempt to destabilize the black hole in IRS 13 he needed a catalyst that was as h
eavy as Earth’s former moon.
Again he hurried across the outer hull of the ship. He divided himself into more than 300 sub-units. The first time he’d done this he’d been afraid they might not reconstitute themselves completely. But his fears had been unfounded. None of his 300 sub-personalities had resisted, as he thought they might. He needed his 300 individual selves to control the welding beam. Normally ice held the inhomogeneous components of a typical Kuiper belt together, building them into a kind of dirty snowball. But this Kuiper belt contained hardly any ice. So, he had to amalgamate the collected rock another way. To do this, he had integrated more than 300 powerful lasers into the outer hull of the ship.
Each of his sub-selves now controlled one of them. He had 600 eyes that coordinated with each other. It was a lot of fun. First, they brought small chunks into view. One beam shunted them in a particular direction, a second heated the surface on the side facing it, a third pushed another colliding piece into its path, and the chunk grew bit by bit. He was basically playing out the creation of the planets, but under different conditions. Small, almost invisible grains of rock slowly turned into larger ones, which combined with still larger chunks, and these were welded together into celestial bodies big enough to deserve a name, if they hadn’t been quickly fused together with their companions. It all happened soundlessly. Even the laser beams were invisible. His 300 cameras only registered the glowing of the heated surfaces and the apparently chaotic movement of the initial millions, then thousands, and finally twenty remaining bodies.
For the finale, his 300 personalities reunited into one. There were just three large asteroids left. They were so heavy that a single laser pulse was no longer strong enough to move them or melt their surfaces. He used several batteries to concentrate the firepower. But he had to be careful. His work could easily turn from construction into destruction. He didn’t want to annihilate the asteroids—they were supposed to combine into a new moon. He shunted them so skillfully that they all met at almost the same moment and thereby canceled out each other’s momentum.
That was it. With a few corrective pulses he sealed the remaining fissures. Not including the collection phase, he had created in a single day what would previously have taken the universe a megacycle to complete. Humans had truly emancipated themselves and long since surpassed their teacher. It was stupid that they would have to exit the stage along with the rest of the universe. It would be nice if humans could somehow survive the end of the universe, but in principle, this path was closed to them.
Now he just had to set the moon on its course. He brought the ship closer to it and shot a probe containing nanobots onto the surface of the celestial body. The nanomachines would construct a reflector that he would then be able to fire at from the ship with all the laser units. The moon would begin its journey and meet up with nine or ten similar-sized objects in the target system of IRS 13 in a few kilo-years. Gropius just had to be patient.
Cycle ZB2.3, unknown system
The nameless star in front of them possessed about a third of the mass of the sun. That was quite heavy for a red dwarf. Nevertheless, Kepler was disappointed. Since they had started braking in preparation for arriving at the coordinates Zhenyi had given them, he had been hoping for good news, but the butler had kept putting him off. If Zhenyi had sent him here, there had to be a reason.
Kepler spat out the hose and cleared his throat. “Maybe you took a wrong turn at the Dyson sphere,” he said.
“Out of the question,” said the butler. “This is the system my mistress directed us to.”
“That was a joke,” countered Kepler.
“No, it wasn’t a joke. I trust Wang Zhenyi not to do such a thing.”
“I meant my suggestion that you had taken a wrong turn.”
“Oh. Of course, I didn’t take that seriously.”
“But you answered me as though you had taken it seriously, Puppy.”
The butler’s name still sounded funny. He would have to say it aloud more often to get used to it. The butler didn’t answer. Kepler let himself sink back into his jelly bath.
“I suggest you get dressed,” the butler finally said.
“Why?” asked Kepler.
“Surely you don’t want Zhenyi to lay eyes on you in that state, Johannes?”
“There’s no trace of Zhenyi here. The message is already hundreds of cycles old. Surely she’s moved on.”
“But not without leaving us instructions. Look, there are four planets. We need to take a look at them.”
Kepler’s face emerged from the jelly. The solar system displayed on the screen above him was something to behold. It consisted of four rocky planets. Two were about the size of Terra, two were significantly larger. He sighed. The butler was right, of course. They would have to go and see what was going on down there.
“We’ll start with the innermost planet,” said Kepler.
“You will start there,” said the butler.
“What? Am I supposed to do it alone?”
“No. I’ll traipse around the outer planets. You wouldn’t have much joy there with your biological body.”
“Thank you, Puppy.”
There was nothing like a clever AI.
That afternoon the butler served him his first solid meal after his long stint in the jelly bath. Kepler felt like he’d been reborn. His skin was very soft. His joints were mobile like never before. His muscles didn’t seem to have atrophied from lying around for so long. In fact, they were stronger.
“The jelly tub is a real elixir,” Kepler observed.
“Yes, the nanobots in there give even the oldest body a boost.”
Thanks for the compliment, thought Kepler. Same to you. “When do we start?”
“Tomorrow. We’re approaching the innermost planet and we’ll assume an orbit around it. Then we’ll head to the surface in shuttles.”
“I understand.”
Kepler chewed, lost in thought as he scrolled through the on-screen data pertaining to the inner planet. It wouldn’t be a particularly taxing trip. The planet was within the habitable zone. On the surface the average temperature was ten degrees Celsius, but only on the side facing the red dwarf. The planet orbited in a captured rotation. And yet, if she was here at all, Zhenyi wouldn’t have been so stupid as to have gone to the planet’s dark side.
“Do we know anything about this planet?” Kepler asked.
“Nothing at all. There’s nothing in the database. But I’ve been taking constant readings from it in all wavelengths.”
“With what result?”
“No special features. If Zhenyi hadn’t enticed us here, if the system hadn’t been deleted from the database, I would have determined that it wasn’t worth further investigation.”
The butler was honest, as usual. Kepler had formed the same impression. This planet was so stinking normal it almost hurt. Why would someone delete it from the register? There must have been a reason. But there were three other planets that could also have been the target of that action. Or was it about the star itself? Why hadn’t Zhenyi at least given them a few hints? Did she even know any more than they did? And where was she now?
Kepler bit down on a bone. “Ouch,” he said. “That was a bone.”
“I’m sorry, Johannes, but that was a fork. You bit down on the empty fork.”
Kepler held the implement up to his face. He should concentrate better. It wasn’t a good idea to examine strange planets while eating.
Cycle ZB2.4, unknown system
“Twenty meters, nineteen, eighteen...”
Kepler held himself steady on the armrests. A storm shook the rocket. Couldn’t the butler have sought out a more peaceful landing area?
“Nine, eight, seven...”
For the last few minutes the screen had only shown a wall of gray, which was now sprinkled with brown. That must be the dirt thrown up by the propulsion unit. Kepler counted along with the automated system voice. He was nearly there.
“Three, two, on
e... landing.”
His spine received a jolt. The seat hadn’t shielded him quickly enough. Ouch! The air was forced out of him, and he noticed that he’d forgotten to breathe for the last few moments. He really had to concentrate harder. The time spent in his artificial body, in which breathing was pleasant but optional, must be causing these after-effects. Or was it just due to the excitement? He felt his forehead and temples. The skin was coated in cold sweat. That was quite normal, he told himself. He was now in a biological body whose reactions were unpredictable. He had wanted it that way.
Kepler pulled up the radar image on the screen. The landing site was in a hilly landscape that reminded him of HD 40307 g, a favorite photo motif. And that was probably why it was so popular—it showed how indifferent the universe was to humans. HD 40307 g looked wonderfully green and inviting, and yet no one wanted to set foot on the planet because of its murderous gravity.
What surprises await me here, on this planet that has never even had a name? wondered Kepler. Everything looked perfect here on the sensors. The atmosphere near the ground had enough oxygen for him to breathe without any assistance. The gravity was comfortable, the temperatures spring-like. There was obviously a distinctive weather system. Storms like the one he’d just experienced could develop within minutes, but also passed just as quickly.
Like now. It was suddenly completely quiet, as though his thoughts had given the command. He switched from radar to camera image. The hills around the ship were covered in a yellowish-green mass of organic origin. Chartreuse? he wondered absently. They had already detected the turf-like life form from orbit. It was spread over the whole planet. Other celestial bodies had seas of water or lava. This one had an ocean of grass.
The Death of the Universe: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 1) Page 6