Cycle ZN8.4, IRS 13
“G3, pass, I’m free!”
G3 turned around. G7 was standing utterly unnoticed near the opposition’s goal. The goalkeeper seemed to be preoccupied, or at least he wasn’t paying attention to G7. G3 skillfully passed him the stained ball. G7 received it with the inside of his foot, aimed the shot, and—goal!
G3, G5, and G9 put their arms around G7’s neck. G7 had brought the score to 3 to 1! The red shirts celebrated. The team in the blue uniforms, on the other hand, went sullenly back to their own half.
“Halftime!”
The referee blew his whistle. G3 looked at his wristwatch. They’d only played 37 of the 45 minutes. What was going on? He ran to the referee to complain, but then he was shown the message. They had a visitor! Gropius reunited his sub-selves. The 22 soccer robots remained standing on the artificial lawn. Gropius loved soccer, and because it was a team sport, he’d had to build 22 identical robots. He played the referee. He went into the control room in his black shorts and short-sleeved shirt.
It was lucky the AI had called him. There really was a spaceship in the middle of his net! How could anyone be so ignorant? Gropius was irritated. His warning buoys could be seen from five light-years away. Someone must have ignored all the warning signals out of sheer laziness, instead of taking a slight detour. This system was a construction site!
Gropius wrestled internally with himself. He could go back to his soccer match and leave the spaceship to its fate. No one could accuse him of neglecting his responsibilities. But he also felt a bit sorry for the travelers. There were many systems where the builders had simply forgotten to clear away the warning buoys—probably even the majority, as active construction sites could only be found here near the core of the Milky Way, where everything was being prepared for the Rescue Project.
He pulled himself together, sat down in front of the terminal, and called up the ship. After a few minutes he received a reply.
“Hello Gropius!”
Oh no! It was the Curies. He had never liked either of them. They were so... extreme in their views. To them everything was either black or white, friend or foe. Friend? Hmm, Gropius didn’t actually know anyone who would admit to being a friend of the Curies. The fervor with which they had enforced the Rescue Project, in particular, had alienated a lot of people. The majority actually agreed with them, but that was somehow not enough for them. They insisted you had to believe in the Rescue Project.
Gropius didn’t believe in anything except that everything would work out in the end. This attitude had often served him well in the past. So, the visit from the Curies would also have a good outcome in the end. He just didn’t know what that might be.
“The Curies,” he replied. “What a pleasure! What can I do for you?”
The conversation proceeded arduously at first because of the distance, but the Curies’ ship quickly came nearer.
“We’d like to speak to you about something.”
“What’s that?” asked Pierre.
“We’d prefer to speak in person,” added Marie.
Gropius covered the microphone. He was polite enough to sigh only after he was sure the Curies couldn’t hear him.
“Then of course I’ll be glad to receive you,” he lied. “Would you like a bit of entertainment on the side? I’m in the middle of an exciting match.”
Maybe this way he could at least extract a bit of fun out of the unpleasant visit.
“Ah, soccer?”
“You know it?”
“But Gropius, you’re known throughout the Milky Way as the best soccer player.”
And the second best, third best, fourth best, he thought.
“See you on the field?”
“We look forward to being your spectators.”
“This way please,” he said.
“After you,” answered Pierre.
“And what did you want to speak to me about?”
“First, we’re curious about the game,” said Marie.
“It must have been a hundred thousand cycles since we saw a real soccer match,” said Pierre.”
“I have a few rarities, holo recordings from the 21st century. Bayern Dortmund versus Juventus Berlin. We could take a look at them together. Or I could make you a copy.”
“I have to tell you something, Gropius, but please don’t be upset,” said Marie.
He stopped. Was it getting serious now?
“What?” he asked.
“The computer says there were never any teams with those names. I’m afraid you’re in possession of a fake,” said Pierre.
The Curies’ face looked at him with an expression that made him almost believe they were sympathetic. But their nostrils twitched and gave them away.
“I’ve had the holo for twelve megacycles. It’s more or less from the heyday of the universe,” he said stubbornly.
“Shortly after the destruction of Terra? Lots of fakes were made at that time. No one had been interested in the planet for a long time, but then when it disappeared into the giant sun, souvenirs suddenly became popular again.”
“No, I don’t believe that’s true, Marie.”
“And that’s your prerogative,” said Pierre. “We didn’t mean to make you sad.”
But you succeeded in doing so, he thought. That holo, of all things—his favorite vid! He continued walking, lost in gloomy thoughts. Then they reached the soccer field and his face lit up. He’d soon show the Curies he was still the best soccer player in the universe.
“Ah, so this is your dominion,” said Marie.
“Exactly. Just a moment while I slip into the players.”
The soccer players on the artificial lawn all came back to life as though someone had cleared a jam in the flow of time.
“Very nice,” said Pierre.
“Kick off.” The referee blew his whistle.
The blue shirts were up. They created some opportunities, but their striker, Gropius, couldn’t beat the goalkeeper of the same name.
“The reason we’re here...” said Marie.
“Yes?” called G7.
“We wanted to ask you a favor,” Pierre began.
“Always happy to help if I can,” said the blue shirts’ goalkeeper.
“We need you to tow the black hole in IRS 13 to Sagittarius A* for us please. You can do that, right?” asked Marie.
“No problem. I can tow anything anywhere if I have enough time.”
“What about IRS 13 to Sagittarius A*?” asked Pierre.
“10,000 cycles? With the software in the control room that’s no problem. It even works in automatic mode.”
“That’s good,” said Marie.
“But I can’t help you anyway. You know that—the Rescue Project!”
“That’s what it’s about,” said Pierre.
“I don’t understand. If we merge IRS 13 with Sagittarius A*, there’s a danger the black hole will be overloaded. That means it won’t become a quasar, it’ll become something worse.”
“That’s the idea,” said Marie.
“That’s not an ‘idea,’ that’s suicide. No, it’s murder.”
“So you don’t want to help us?”
“No, Pierre, I won’t be turned into a murderer!”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Gropius. Then I suppose that’s just how it will have to be.”
Pierre had spoken again. That was an unusual change in their behavior. But what was more surprising was that the body in which the Curies resided suddenly pulled a black device out of its pocket. The referee, who was closest, recognized it first. It was a gun. The Curies’ right arm aimed at the referee. Their right index finger curled tightly. The referee clasped his chest, then fell to the ground. The arm holding the weapon moved to the left. G7 died from a bullet that tore open his head. Then it was G11’s turn, followed by the blue shirts’ goalkeeper, G13, also blue, G6, G5, and every remaining soccer player. Gropius continued gathering his sub-selves together, but finally only G3 was available to h
im.
“You really are the best soccer player in the world,” said Pierre.
“And the only,” said Marie.
Their finger pulled the trigger one last time. The bullet shredded the brain of the best soccer player in the world. His consciousness, nowhere left to go, expired.
Cycle ZR1.1, Convention
From a distance, you could have mistaken the Convention for a Dyson sphere. Kepler was bored, so he displayed the data from all the long-range sensors on screen. Compared to a Dyson sphere, however, the Convention was quite dark in infrared, as though it enclosed a long-since-expired sun.
The journey was coming to an end. Kepler watched the digits rapidly counting down the light-years. Three cheers for time dilation! To an outside observer, the ship would appear to be moving torturously slowly through space, but for him it went much faster.
He could gradually make out more detail on the surface of the sphere. At 99 percent light speed it wasn’t easy to scan the surroundings. The sensor beams were only slightly faster than the ship. But what now became evident was the immensity of the Convention. Kepler was reminded of its opening, about a megacycle after the destruction of Terra. Humanity was supposed to celebrate the limitless possibilities of this new structure so close to the core of the Milky Way. Gropius, Le Corbusier, all of the well-known architects had collaborated to make it a reality. The Convention encompassed a whole globular star cluster—a mini galaxy, as it were. It had been designed to provide enough room for the quadrillion people that were expected to populate the Milky Way, according to the prognosis of the time.
But nothing came of all that. Humans simply no longer saw any reason to procreate. Yet the Convention was still there. And it had been a fitting place to conclude the Rescue Plan.
Zhenyi’s perfume reached his nose. He turned around.
“Good morning, Johannes!” she said.
Didn’t he know it! She was wearing an elegant pantsuit today, and was perfectly groomed.
“Same to you. Did you sleep well?”
“I kept waking up and couldn’t go back to sleep. Sometimes I miss the sound of your breathing,” she said.
“That’s easily fixed.”
“I know. Give me time, Johannes. I like you, but... there’s a problem.”
“A problem?”
“I don’t want to discuss it now.”
“Okay.”
“I spent the sleepless hours thinking about our arrival at the Convention,” said Zhenyi.
“Yes?”
“You should make contact and request entry. If I lodge the request, I’ll be asked to prove my existence again.”
“I thought of that too. And what if I’ve been deleted from the database?”
“Then we’ll have to think of something else. The Convention sphere is probably quite dilapidated.”
“Are you thinking about the railguns, Zhenyi? Remember what happened after your deployment at the Dyson sphere?”
“There’s no hot star behind the Convention.”
“But the debris could still be dangerous to us.”
“You’ve convinced me, Johannes. I’ll simulate an attack on the Convention sphere, then we’ll know how dangerous it really is. But the best-case scenario would be if you just talk your way through access control.”
It wasn’t one of his strengths, talking his way through things. Kepler started to dread the next day. But if that’s what Zhenyi was expecting of him, he would do his best. Hopefully it would be enough to avert a catastrophe.
Cycle ZR1.2, Convention
A gigantic wall towered in front of the spaceship. From their perspective it looked like a flat plane in space, but that was because of its dimensions. Only yesterday Kepler had seen that this plane was actually the surface of a sphere with a diameter of 80 light-years.
Kepler had ignored all requests from the sphere as they approached. He wanted to initiate contact first, so that he could determine the script of the conversation. But for that, the ship had to get so close to the wall that, if necessary, they could shoot their way through with the railguns. Zhenyi’s simulations had allegedly shown that wasn’t dangerous. He suspected her of deceiving him. He had thought about checking whether there had actually been any simulations carried out on the ship’s computer. But then he decided that kind of spying would be too invasive.
“Johannes Kepler here,” he reported.
He drummed his fingers on the armrest of his seat. Soon it would be decided whether they would be allowed to fly into the Convention the normal way. Their distance from the sphere was still so great that radio messages took half a minute.
“Welcome, Johannes Kepler,” a female voice replied. “Nice to see you again after such a long time.”
He released the breath he’d been holding. His data hadn’t been deleted! “I would like to discuss a few things with the Convention,” he said.
“At present, only Convention Secretary Christopher Columbus is available,” said the voice after the transmission delay.
“Oh... Where are all the others?”
“That information isn’t public. Would you like to speak with Secretary Columbus?”
“Yes please.”
Columbus wasn’t Secretary for no reason—he was a professional bureaucrat. It wouldn’t be easy to persuade him, and he also didn’t have much say. But before they left empty-handed, they should at least try.
“Before I can allow you to fly in, I need to scan your ship,” said the voice of the guard automaton.
“Is that for weapons, drugs, that sort of thing?”
The automaton laughed. It seemed to be at least a level 4 AI. At least it wasn’t cracking any stupid jokes. But if it found the railguns...
“No, Johannes Kepler, we know that you could manufacture such things at any time with nanofabricators. It would be pointless to inspect you for that. But we need to know how many biological signatures are visiting the Convention.”
“I... I’m alone,” said Kepler, “apart from my butler.”
“A robot, I assume?”
“What else?”
“Good. Then you’ll surely have no objection to the scan.”
Shit. Kepler activated the railguns as a precaution. How was he supposed to explain the presence of an unregistered person? They wouldn’t let him in. Hopefully the sphere itself wasn’t armed. Had Zhenyi’s simulations been correct? He’d soon find out.
“Then get on with it,” he said.
He aimed the railguns so they were all pointing at the same spot on the surface of the sphere. Whoever shot first always had an advantage in space. His finger was on the trigger. Kepler took a deep breath. Would he feel it if the sphere apprehended him? What technology was it even using? His thoughts were racing. Would it be better if he just fired now? It would take a minute for the results of the scan to reach the sphere’s AI—there was nothing faster than light. He still had the element of surprise on his side. The fingers on his other hand drummed faster on the armrest.
“Many thanks for your cooperation,” came the voice again. “For safety reasons, I must draw your attention to an anomaly.”
They must have discovered Zhenyi, but didn’t yet know what to do with her. An unregistered biological being was an extremely rare occurrence.
“Some of your ship’s hydrogen tanks are not functional,” said the voice. “You should have them repaired. We can perform this repair in the sphere’s docking yard for a special price. A free fitness check is included. Say your name and ‘Yes I do’ if you want to take advantage of our special offer.”
Kepler removed his hand from the trigger and slumped back in his seat. They had noticed the hydrogen tanks, but not Zhenyi. How had she managed that? His ex-girlfriend always had something up her sleeve. It would have been better if she’d pre-warned him. But he wouldn’t complain, as otherwise she’d once again accuse him of being a wimp.
“Johannes Kepler, ‘Yes, I do,’” he said. Hopefully his account overdraft would cover it!
“You’ve made a good choice. We’ll assign you a docking bay in the inner sphere. The position will be automatically transmitted to your navigation system.”
“Thanks very much,” he said, and ended the connection.
A flashing green light on the screen indicated their next destination. He switched the ship to autopilot. Kepler had never liked docking to a sphere. The ship was huge and reacted very slowly to steering input, and you had to pay special attention to all the spatial dimensions, which overtaxed his powers of imagination. He really didn’t want to damage any more tanks—or the dock, for that matter.
The ship approached the black wall at a rapid speed. He could see it on the radar. The optical image only showed what looked like completely starless space. They could count themselves lucky that there were no other space-traveling species. Otherwise alien ships would constantly be crashing into human spheres, he thought.
Then a square hole appeared before his eyes, through which shone a white light. The opening seemed tiny. No way would the ship fit through that! The autopilot steered them toward it at an alarming pace.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and jumped. It was Zhenyi. Couldn’t she warn him when she was coming into the control room?
“You’re doing that very well,” she said.
Kepler was pleased with the praise. But he felt he was being treated like a child. He was pretty sure he didn’t want that. He adjusted his position in his seat so that the hand slid off his shoulder.
“Sorry,” said Zhenyi. “I’m talking to you like you’re a little child.”
She had read his thoughts and apologized after all! Zhenyi moved away, but her perfume lingered in the air. It put him in a cheerful mood. The ship reached the opening and stuck its nose through. Kepler marveled at the structure of the sphere. It was only a kilometer thick, but enclosed an enormous volume. The design was probably Le Corbusier’s.
Now the inner sphere lay before him, even more miraculous. It was transparent. He could see the two hundred stars of the globular cluster, orbiting at a minimum distance from one another. It was a vision you didn’t see anymore, because all other globular clusters had been extinguished long ago. This one, inside the sphere, would be preserved forever by the human-made structure around it. Or at least until every individual star in it had burned out.
The Death of the Universe: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 1) Page 14