Beyond Kuiper: The Galactic Star Alliance

by Matthew Medney

  Bernard scoffed. “Once the fusion drive is revealed, I hardly believe mission semantics will be big news.”

  “Actually,” William said, “Angie has a point. We shouldn’t gloss over this.”

  Godric nodded agreement.

  Bernard waved off their concerns. “Once Godric’s in the Great Council Hall, facing the assembly, I’m sure he’ll find the right words. This man knows as well as I that there’s a shadow in the sky we cannot ignore—a path to elevated living we must follow. Yes, for me, part of it is clearing my name, for Isaac’s sake, but the much larger part is about leaving the cradle of our solar system, not only to ask new questions, but to find answers to our most ancient question ones. Why we look at the night sky with such longing? And why is that so tied to what makes us human?”

  Godric slapped Bernard on the back. “Could you repeat that? I’d like to take notes because if that doesn’t work, I don’t know what will.”

  Angelika, however, remained displeased. “Inspiring words don’t eliminate the cold, hard facts. Half the world thinks you’re crazy or a liar, the other half thinks you’re both, and we’re seeking funding and wide-spread public approval to chase after aliens. Bernie, they’re going to need—I NEED—to know, what evidence you have. I know you’re still protecting whatever made you crawl out of your six year hole to bring us here, but I won’t be a pawn in your chess game. Your knight, rook, and queen? Yes. We’ll protect you, fight for you, and win for you. But to make our own moves, we need to understand the King’s strategy.”

  Trying to appear as if he’d been cornered, Bernard looked into his wine glass for the longest time, finished it, then opened another bottle before speaking.

  “Voyager 2 worked for one-hundred twenty years, then died within minutes of an antimatter containment failure on Earth. It was a cosmic coincidence everyone knows about. With most deep space hardware abandoned, lost, or out of repair, it’s supposedly all we know, and it should be enough to convince anyone with a basic understanding of probability. But… Angelika’s right. What everyone doesn’t know, is that there were several more coincidences, all detected by the Deep Space Scanner.”

  Angelika slapped the table. “Stop! The Deep Space Scanner’s2 been offline since the war—no logs from 2085 exist.”

  Bernard raised his hand. “I thought so, too, but Space Oasis’ salvage of the Lunar Dark Station3 discovered that one array remained powered. The data core was intact, but too corrupted to read. Given Pegasus’ involvement in the mission, I was able to retrieve a copy of that corrupted data, which I then successfully recovered… with this.”

  He placed his obsidian NanoCube on the table. Candlelight flickering on its surfaces, to Angelika and Godric it looked completely alien and valuable. Bernard’s eyes lingered on William to be sure his expression didn’t give away how much he knew.

  “The array recorded a variety of eerily similar electromagnetic spikes… all in the minutes preceding Voyager’s signal loss. They originated from two locations, on either side of our solar system, both deep in the Kuiper Belt. They were followed by a slight, omnidirectional attenuation in the microwave background. That much might be dismissed as a reading error if the numbers weren’t so specific and equidistant from system center. The odds that the synchronicity of the CERN and the Voyager events was a coincidence are astronomical. Add this, it becomes impossible.”

  Godric’s brain spun wildly. “It could be a shield or a cloaking field.”

  “Or corrupted data misread by wishful sci-fi nerds.” Much as Angelika took them bluntly back to earth, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the NanoCube.

  Bernard picked up on her interest. “These cubes haven’t been wrong yet.”

  As he lifted the cube, he caught a momentary reflection of William’s face. Was it simple concern he saw there or anger at what he likely thought a reckless revelation of their secret. Assuming it was the latter, Bernard, to Angelika’s disappointment, put the cube away.

  “I have suspicions, calculations, probabilities, but no direct signal. No message. There is no proof there are other beings out there. In addition to everything else, this mission is about trust, the same trust any explorer has, that there is something to be found. In any case, we can’t allow ourselves to go backwards.”

  “What if you do find something and it’s hostile?” Angelika asked.

  Bernard gestured at Godric. “That’s why he’s coming.”

  Pouring herself more wine, she conceded with a nod. “Acceptable for now. Next order of business, the implications for our careers; me and my board, Godric and the W.C., Will at Kepler. This will impact all of us, our friends, family, anyone remotely close.”

  Godric spoke in a low tone. “I think we all know full well how unforgiving business, government, and academia can be. And I know we all suspect there are things Bernard still isn’t sharing. But we also know that the importance of this mission trumps all that and more.”

  Bernard already knew where Godric stood on the hard questions. Angelika played skeptic, but was on board. William, a man of pure reason, didn’t often embrace this sort of big question, but, surprisingly, it was he who handed Bernard exactly what he needed to get the group past the last major roadblock.

  “If Ric believes we must move forward, I say we put aside any doubts and get on with it.”

  Bernard had his generals, though wished he could be more open. The NanoCube was necessary for Godric, but the DVD he showed Angelika and William, while seeming, was less than the truth. He would need to explain that to Angelika soon, William shortly after, and Godric couldn’t know. Not until he was on the alien station. He’d need plausible deniability.

  “As for The Nomad, William and Isaac are already working on it. Angelika, they’ll need to head to O.L. to start prototyping. How soon can you get them clearance and a hangar?”

  “Three weeks, minimum. It won’t be easy, but if S.E.A. passes this week, I think I can convince the board to reallocate some funds for a T.S. hanger and a few technicians. Isaac may be an issue. Teens don’t just show up at O.L. I’ll have to create some kind of internship/scholarship competition for him to win.”

  “It’ll pass,” Godric said. “William, think you can have The Nomad ready in two years?”

  “Don’t you know who I am? I can do it in eighteen months,” William said.

  Maybe it was the wine, or they felt particularly cozy in the old college haunt, but they continued for hours ending with nine empty wine bottles and twelve chosen crew.

  1 VHS

  An obsolete, late 20th century audiovisual storage method.

  2 Deep Space Scanner

  A massive multipurpose antenna array that was on the dark side of the moon to minimize electromagnetic interference from Earth for astronomical observation.

  3 Lunar Dark Station

  A United States moonbase located on the dark side of the moon used primarily for alien listening and a communication relay post to mars and deep space. Contact with it was lost in 2072 after the remaining occupants abandoned it. In 2091 a salvage mission was successful by the World Council.

  Nine

  Enduring Governments

  In the stuffy Cambridge lecture hall, even the sleepiest fifteenth cycles raised their heads when someone asked. “Professor Gates, why do you believe the World Council won’t endure?”

  Young minds, drifting off a moment ago, were suddenly alert.

  Professor Dr. Aubree Gates peered through her spectacles at the young man in the second row. The eagerness was commendable, but he was trolling. Gates was famed for her contempt of any who held the Council in undeserved esteem.

  “What is your name?”

  “David.”

  “David, do you know of any governing body in history long-able to maintain control over an intercontinental state containing a diverse population?”

  His attempt to contain an assured smile signaled a prepared answer. “The Chinese, for one, ruled…”

  “Over a f
raction of the world. China, Rome, Carthage, Mayans, Assyria, Alexander, Persia, Huns, Mongols, Spain, Portugal, France, England, Napoleon, and Nazis. All rose; all fell; all bit off more than they could chew.”

  A chewing girl in the eighth row received Gate’s damning glance. When she quickly swallowed her gum, there were chuckles.

  David, meanwhile, tried again. “Isn’t it too presumptuous to talk with certainty about the future?”

  Gates sighed. “Why? The factors influencing an individual may seem random, protean, even chaotic, but the more people act as a group, the more predictable they become. Knowing there are cyclic patterns to collective behavior it’s reasonable to predict how a country will think, act, vote. Understanding the past is the best way to predict the future.”

  Catching a whiff of the wood burning in David’s head, Aubree waited patiently as he formulated his next, utterly predictable question:

  “If that were true, Professor, wouldn’t war be preventable?”

  She paced along the front row. “No. Knowing what will happen doesn’t mean being able, or willing, to change it. For instance, we nearly go extinct, and once things get comfortable again, we act as if they’ll stay that way. War is inevitable. So long as we remain confined to a single world, its limited resources will be depleted and scarcity will lead to conflict. It’s nigh impossible to share when you don’t have enough for yourself. The World Council is a successor to the United Nations, a world-mediating group that inevitably failed to prevent a major war because it was too weak. The W.C. will inevitably create a major war because it’s too strong. Consolidating nuclear stockpiles, not destroying them, has simply provided a single, bigger target. And who exactly decides to use them? And now, since Earth is all one nation, does that allow using them against your own countrymen? Even if it works for a while, given enough time, even a seemingly successful government will succumb to corruption.”

  She looked to David for another question. When all he did was gulp, she went on. “So, to return to your original question before we so delightfully tangented, World War III gave humanity a wakeup call. Having reached unsustainable numbers, we survived three brutal years of conflict, a “light” nuclear exchange, famine, a pandemic, and The Darkness. By the time we came to our senses, two billion were dead. We needed the Council to streamline decisions for rebuilding basic infrastructure. During its first decade, space travel wasn’t an issue due to the deadly radiation belts we created. But now the atmosphere is clear, and most still insist we focus on Earth, accelerating the development of the same planet, with the same limited resources that caused the problem in the first place. As long as we’re stuck here, we’re stuck in the same loop regardless of government.”

  The class was gripped, enchanted, minds soaring and expanding, save for poor David. Having unintentionally become a representative of the ignorant masses, he looked ready to flee, but she had to send a clear message about who the teacher was here.

  “If the World Council should miraculously decide to utilize its unprecedented control of our resources to find or make other Earths, I’ll reconsider its potential for endurance. But, David, don’t expect me to hold my breath.”

  He gulped again and sat. A wide range of emotions scattered across students’ faces: grins, anger, thoughtfulness. Some leaned forward expecting flame from her mouth; others were shocked at her blatant god-complex.

  As it should be.

  Aubree stopped pacing and addressed them all. “This isn’t an easy elective; you all worked hard to qualify. At the same time, very few of you will actually pursue what I teach you. I understand. Recording history is tedious, tiring, thankless, never ends, and doesn’t pay well. Besides, who needs it? After all, there’s this vast, omnipresent oculus beaming data at you in real time making you feel like informed participants in the world. But how many choices do you still make based on preconceptions or information you’ve never verified? How can so many think so differently? What do they know? What do they not? In five, ten, fifty, a hundred years, what will anyone remember of today? What moments will be most crucial to record? Who decides what children learn? How will it affect our laws?

  “This isn’t an academic, abstract sentiment. Humans have done a lot of bad shit, and we work very hard to gloss over it. We’ve also made many beautiful things. History, unflinching, unedited, preserves the good and the bad, telling us what deserves fighting for, and what deserves shame. Is it worth it to be part of that? I think so. To paraphrase Hemmingway, it’s not about becoming superior to one another, it’s about becoming superior to our former selves. Light stuff, really.”

  Mic drop.

  The bell rang. She’d timed that nicely. Some sprang to their feet, but it was those who lingered, rose slowly, or remained seated who passed Aubrey’s litmus test. They’d taken her words seriously; they were the ones to watch.

  “First assignment due Thursday, 500 words or less on What Caused the Demise of the Soviet Union. Since you will need help, my office hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday, 5:00 to 7:00p.m.”

  Smirking a bit, she packed her tote with pens, pencils, phones, data tablets, her journal, and a hard copy of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Feeling watched, she looked up to see an attractive, spectacled girl in a sweater and suede shoes standing before her—one of the lingerers.

  “How can I help you, Ms…?”

  “Deloytah. Amy.” She extended a confident hand.

  Aubree shook it firmly. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Deloytah.”

  “I want to ask about your answer to David’s question… about the W.C.”

  “Go on.”

  There was an expected pause as Amy mustered her courage, then… wait for it…

  “Predicting the growth and collapse of a civilization is one thing, but what about a specific event?”

  “Such as?”

  In three…two…one…

  “You mentioned knowing how a nation would vote. Can you figure out who’d win a specific election?”

  And there it was. To avoid appearing responsive, Aubree smiled inwardly. Amy’s head was in the right place, but they wouldn’t get to the topic for weeks, and she wanted the class to proceed at the same pace.

  “I can provide an excellent estimate of public opinion, based on recurring socioeconomic and geopolitical events in the year before the vote, but candidates are individuals, protean, as I also mentioned, meaning the results can change like the wind.”

  A brief disappointment, was followed by—what? Disbelief, suspicion, annoyance? Before Aubree could figure it out, the girl put on a cheery face.

  “Thank you. See you Thursday, professor.” She bolted.

  Definitely one to watch. No doubt she already knew Aubree had successfully predicted thirteen consecutive UK and eleven US elections before the war—and every W.C. election since. The girl was probably hoping to learn the formula for her secret sauce, but that was classified. It made her valuable and dangerous, providing the leverage she needed to pry certain truths into the light, generally kicking and screaming .

  Packed, she headed out of the hall snapping her fingers to turn off the lights. Surveying a gloomy sky, she opened an umbrella and continued to wonder about Amy.

  Could she be a spy? She wouldn’t be the first or the prettiest. Aubree’s career made The Da Vinci Code look like a library sleepover. But it’d been years since she’d been tasked with uncovering a conspiracy or courted by a foreign nation to influence which party would come to power. Good times.

  Despite climate change, it was a classic English rainy day. Dodging puddles, Aubree headed across the courtyard to her office. The tango of academia was a nice break, but now and again Cambridge offended her. Even its most logical minds took the stone walls and science monuments as supreme and everlasting, denying the obvious.

  All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again.

  Someone said that long ago… on TV? Embarrassing that a historian didn’t recall a source.

  In t
he faculty building, she left her umbrella at the door to dry and headed up the stairs passing glorious portraits of scholars, poets, philosophers, and visionaries. Her assistant, Michael, skipped down to meet her halfway.

  The overeager look meant news. “Professor! Jordan and Askar found more carvings beneath the eucalyptus grove. It makes the map at least 30% larger than we thought. Isn’t it incredible?”

  She made it a point to never appear excited. “Hm. And it corroborates the bracelet.”

  “I KNOW!” Michael was practically bouncing.

  “I’m headed up. I’ll call them back shortly.”

  Michael pivoted to follow her. “There’s more. Kesandu found something related to the Rasputin Case, and there are two messages from the COO of Brighton Printing. He wants to talk about…”

  “I know. The 18th edition of their fifth cycle world history text failed my audit three times. Somehow, it doesn’t bother them to reduce first millennium African history to a single page. Since they refuse to correct it, they can wait to talk in front of the Scholastic Quorum.”

  At which point I hope to learn if their staff is ignorant, racist, or both.

  At the landing, she paused to catch her breath, a reminder of how badly she needed to get back to the gym.

  The beaming Michael hadn’t finished. “One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “An Alex Hamilton stopped by. He said he was from the Smithsonian Archives, but… well, he didn’t seem academic.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “Only that it was important.”

  “Hmph. Probably my callback from budget dispensation. They want me to consult.”

  “Have to run to class. I’ll touch base later.”

  Part of why Aubree hired the always-earnest, often-goofy Michael was the way he absorbed her every word. The devil, and the truth, being in the details, she liked proteges with steel-trap minds. That over-the-top enthusiasm he and other data linkers shared seemed a cosmic tradeoff for their retention capabilities. She watched as he bounded down the stairs.