Space for Evolution

by Zurab Andguladze

  The astronauts entered the tumbledown station in twenty hours; four hours ahead of schedule, but still ten hours behind the deadline. Later, the rescuers described themselves as those who were waiting for punishment and instead had received a most honorable reward: they came to collect the bodies, but found living scientists.

  The scholars had extended their lives because they’d had time to put on spacesuits. This personal spacecraft had enough resources for eight hours, but the scientists had turned off all its systems, with the exception of heating, which worked at minimum power. They connected their oxygen cylinders directly to the reserve oxygen storage. Each scientist had received frostbite of the limbs, and some of them later suffered amputation, but fortunately all of them had escaped death.

  Since this incident, any space expedition had been given an additional twenty hours after the end of the rescue period. During this time, the salvation mission should continue even if the life support systems were destroyed, and the readings of the sensors indicated the death of all members of the group.

  For an interstellar project, given its time frame, twenty hours turned into two hundred days. The wait for a signal from the fifth expedition was supposed to end on an unremarkable day—July 19. The authors of this offer decided to extend this period for another fifteen days, until the great date of August 3; to the day when humanity, in the person of the outstanding pathfinder, Christopher Columbus, set off to discover a new space for evolution.

  So, on the same day, but now in 2492, in the absence of its message, the fifth expedition would be officially declared as lost. At noon, the wait for the signal would stop forever.

  The GPC-5, since it had already received similar orders, informed the youth that they had four more days to send a report.

  “Why did the creators of the SQP so diligently hide this information?” Bame evinced curiosity.

  “Because they logically considered the information insignificant,” Memi started to explain, “As soon as the machines sent the first report on the suitability of this planet to Earth thirty-five years ago, all communicational terms were canceled automatically in that very moment.”

  He looked around, and, making sure that his comrades were still listening to him, Memi continued: “We have also considered that all messages from our planet were on their way to Earth and have never thought about any deadline.”

  “Speaking of these signals, we still do not know whether the previous messages were sent or not. Ultimately, we are not even sure of today’s failure,” Omis reminded them.

  “So, now we have enough time to find out if something is really broken, and to learn the fate of previous sessions,” Arfina uttered, nodding.

  “Well, I think it’s time to sleep. Anyway, we are not going to do anything tonight, as Arfina said.”Memi summed up their council.

  As if expecting to hear this, the youngsters got up and dispersed to their homes, already thinking about the following day.

  Chapter 42

  The next day, Gimi, Guf, Nim and Lomo went to work at the HPP, and the rest of the colonists engaged in planned tasks on the farm and in the residential zone. Memi, Dme, and Fom headed to check the radio channel. After breakfast, the trio gathered around the stairs to the lander.

  “Where do we start?” Memi asked.

  “Let us do what the GPC-5 has advised us,” Dme suggested to his comrades. “I mean, we need to connect two computers into a common network, for example, the GPC-5 with the SOC-5, and see what that will give us.”

  They could connect two or all three computers into a common network only manually, using a special switchboard. Fom gave the order through his screen and the lander’s hatch, reacting to it, first slid slightly out, then its lower edge rose and finally it took on a horizontal position. The repairmen climbed the stairs, turned right and entered the third or techno-compartment, where the SOC-5 was situated. This room gave space both to a warehouse and a workshop.

  Against the wall opposite the door there stood a multi-analyzer—a cube with a side length of one meter and twenty centimeters. In due time, through the window that opened in the ship’s hull, this device had studied the planet. To do this, it had covered its future home with radiation of various natures and frequencies: from radio waves to gamma rays. After processing, the data had been sent to the computers—to the neighboring SOC-5 and to the GPC-5 waiting for it in the energy compartment.

  A multifunctional laser machine had its place in front of the analyzer. Next to it, closer to the entrance, sat a radio unit integrated with a computer. The left partition of this compartment had a desk attached to it, and plastic boxes of various sizes hung from it. They occupied the entire area from the floor to the ceiling. In these boxes, various settings for a lathe, thirty masers, and the same number of screens had been stored earlier.

  Tanks with chemical elements that had previously occupied the entire free space of this compartment had now gone into the barn. On hooks attached to the wall almost near the ceiling lay two rolls of photovoltaic fabric intended for cases when, during especially long hikes, scouts would need to recharge their weapons or UDs.

  The three knew that the box with a schematic image of an electric circuit on its lid contained the computer network switchboard. Fom opened this box, attached it to the wall at eye level, and, together with his companions, set about to study the inner side of its lid, with the real manual switching scheme shown on it.

  “We need to connect these two contacts.” Memi, turn by turn, pointed a finger at the two toggles depicted in the diagram.

  “You are right,” Dme said, and reaching into the box, physically turned on the tumblers, combining two devices: the GPC-5 and the SOC-5.

  After that, Memi gave the GPC-5 a command to check the entire line from the parabolic antenna to the power source. It took a few seconds for the machine to display a short message on their screens: “The signal transmitting channel is damaged. The fiber-optic cable is opaque.”

  For some time, the repairmen silently weighed this information, and then Dme asked the GPC-5, “Why did the SOC-5 not report this?”

  This time, the answer from the machine came after a rather long pause, and it explained nothing: “The SOC-5 does not confirm damage of optical fiber. The reason is unknown.”

  The repairmen looked at each other in bewilderment. No one had ever encountered any inconsistency in the readings of different devices, and now they were constantly faced with it.

  “I think we first need to find out if this cable is really damaged. In this way we can determine which of the computers work correctly, ”Memi finally said. “Where do we begin, from the antenna?” he hesitated, “Or not; it’s probably better to start with the connectors here in the hull.”

  “Yes, let us start from the lower part,” Fom backed him up.

  The young people left the building and headed behind it. The colonists rarely visited this place. From time to time they just cleaned it of vegetation. They had no other business here, or any equipment in position. On this side, in the lander’s hull, there was only a small box with sockets for external communications. Until now, it hadn’t needed any maintenance, either, like a hose stretched on a tap. All forms of communication were functioning normally, at least until the previous night.

  “We-ell,” Fom drawled, looking at the box, when they arrived at the spot, “I see it has been a long time since we inspected this place.”

  “There has been no need to be here often,” Dme reminded him. “So far, the machines have reported that the line has been working perfectly. Although you are right, I think that we cleaned this place about a hundred days ago, and I don’t remember these plants being here.”

  “I wonder what they are. They are not green, like earthly plants, and not orange as are the Neian ones.” Memi expressed his wonder.

  “Maybe they are some kind of hybrid?” Dme suggested. “Well, whatever they are, let the LAI-5 determine their essence. We must continue to carry out our assignment. We have to dis
connect this optic fiber cable and try to find if it has any real damage.”

  From the diagram displayed on their screens, they found out which wire they needed. After that, the young people began to clean the wires, tearing strange shoots from them, which were entwined around the plugs. When they’d finished this work, Fom disconnected the needed plug from its outlet and looked into it.

  The youth peered into the end of the cable hidden in the connector for a few seconds, then raised his head and, with confusion on his face, silently stretched it toward his comrades.

  Memi and Dme curiously gazed inside the tubular part, expecting to see the sparkling end of the optical conductor, with a radius of half a centimeter. Instead, they discovered a flattened lump of dry soil in the plug, covering the fiber with a thin layer. Of course, in this state, the conductor couldn’t transmit a signal.

  “I wonder if this is all the damage, and nothing else,” Fom uttered.

  “To find out, we need to remove the dirt and reconnect this cable to its socket,” Memi answered him.

  “When could this have happened?” Fom asked, as if to himself.

  “On Earth, where everything was checked and double-checked, they could not miss the dirt. There, in space, there is no soil at all. So the dirt could only have got into the plug here,” Dme decided.

  After some thought, he added, “Maybe during the assembly of this line the cable fell into the mud and was clogged up? And the robots, not seeing external damage, just plugged it into its socket?”

  “That is completely logical,” agreed Fom. “The SOC-5 is responsible for checking the channels, but the robots are not.”

  Memi joined the discussion: “Then why did the SOC-5 give us the wrong information? As the GPC-5 told us, the cable actually turned out to be opaque.”

  In reply, his comrades were just sunk in thought. After quite a long silence, Fom said quietly, “With such a line defect, although it seems insignificant, the transmission could never have taken place.”

  His comrades carefully looked at him, and when they comprehended his thought, Memi added, “If this dirt got into the cable from the very first day, then you are right. We need to learn it from the GPC-5.”

  A few second later, the computer informed them that the entire radio line and all its connections had never been disassembled after its first assembly. Having read this message, the young people exchanged knowing glances.

  Dme summarized the occurrence: “Since the other cables are not damaged, let us check only this one. I mean, we have to disconnect it from the antenna, too. Of course, the computer can test it, but I think it is better for us to see its upper patchtip ourselves.”

  “Then I will climb the roof,” Fom said, “while you turn the plate to…” the young man looked at the sky, “to the left, in a westerly direction, because otherwise I will not be able to reach the connectors.”

  The other end of the optical conductor turned out to be clear. As soon as the young people had cleaned the lower patchtip and plugged it into its outlet, the SOC-5 informed them about the successful restoration of the line.

  “That’s all?” Despite having expected precisely this, Dme asked it all the same, mistrustfully. “Now we can communicate with the earthlings?”

  “This time, two computers will monitor the séance,” Memi concluded, instead of an answer.

  “Not only they, but the screens will do it, too,” Fom added.

  “By the way, we still cannot carry a session out,” Memi reminded them. “We must wait for nigh time. Maybe it is worth it to go and try to make the SOC-5 see what is wrong with it. Maybe its malfunction can also be easily fixed?”

  Chapter 43

  The same team—Gimi, Guf, Nim and Lomo—were tuning the connection of the turbine and generator. Mafkona accompanied them, although she didn’t participate in the work. The girl was guarding them with a weapon in her hands, sitting on the bank of the canal, where her comrades sometimes labored knee-deep and sometimes waist-deep in the water.

  If the earthlings had had the opportunity to see this slender, delicate girl, they would say that she had spent the whole summer in the sun and still couldn’t get a tan. The color of the shadow only mixed slightly with the whiteness of her skin. Mafkona had a beautiful oval face, a straight nose, puffy lips and black almond-shaped eyes. Only her short, thick hair bore the imprint of the daily heat—it had lost its sheer black color and faded slightly.

  She had not gotten this post accidentally. Despite her slight physique, her shots almost never missed the mark. The electromagnetic pulse has no mass and, therefore, its shot occurs without recoil, similar to that of the longbow. Because of this, in due time it had made it easier for the colonists, especially for the girls, to master accurate shooting. Now she had a bow, because microwave radiation practically cannot penetrate into water.

  Shortly before noon, the four workers had completed the part of the adjustment that they had to do while in the water. In the course of the construction of the HPP, the colonists had dug a canal through which waste water flowed into the River Quiet. They did this so that this water didn’t wash out the ground from under the turbine supports. Theoretically, through this channel, a predator could get close to the fitters. Because of this, Mafkona sat with her weapon ready. But after the end of the “water” part of the work there remained nothing to protect.

  “You are no longer in the water and do not need protection,” announced Mafkona. “Maybe I can help you with something?”

  “A fifth worker has nothing to do here,” replied Gimi. “As you see, we work in pairs.”

  Mafkona looked around, nodded a couple of times and said, rising from the grass, “Then I will go and help in collecting the beans.”

  “Mafkona,” recalled Guf, “it would be very interesting to know whether there will be a session tonight or not; can you learn this for us?”

  “Yes, it is really interesting how the repairmen are doing. We did not put on our screens so they would not interfere with our work, and you—did you forget yours?”Nim enquired.

  “I have not forgotten. It is just that, since we are on the verge of the source’s efficiency, I decided not to waste energy in the living zone,” the girl explained, and then added, “As to your request, I also want to know how difficult the repair turned out to be, and how long it will last. And then I will come back and tell you about the state of communication with our ancestors.”

  “With our descendants,” Lomo corrected her.

  “Are not we ourselves the descendants of our ancestors?” Mafkona didn’t understand.

  “No, in some sense it is we who are the ancestors of those who now live on Earth,” Lomo explained. “Over the last three hundred years, while we were stored in a rocket in the form of powders, evolution on Earth went on non-stop, though, of course, unnoticeably for them. Our genotypes have already disappeared there—they can be found only in burial places.”

  Mafkona studied him carefully, then nodded and said, “The longbow is here.” The girl laid her weapon on the grass. Then she turned and walked up the slope into the silence of a bright day.

  En route, she thought that she wouldn’t learn anything special from the radio-line repairers. There had to be a way to eliminate this breakdown, just as there had been an additional term for the session. When she arrived at the technical compartment, the equipment would likely be ready for broadcast.

  Chapter 44

  Returning to the lander, Memi, Dme, and Fom began to disassemble the signal processing unit, a device held in a ceramic-metal box measuring thirty by forty and by fifty centimeters. Together with a computer on a rack below, it comprised the SOC-5 itself.

  Dme pulled a screwdriver out of one of the boxes on the wall and unscrewed the eight cover screws. After this, Fom took the freed part and put it on the desk. Looking into the box they saw that a convex lens with a radius of about ten centimeters was blocking access to the internal circuit boards.

  The three of them exchanged glances a
nd Dme said, “Last night, as we agreed, I read about communications equipment and found out that this glass piece was stored elsewhere in a special container until the ship landed on the planet. Maybe we should take it off and put it back in that box? Maybe we need to look for it?”

  “I read about that too, and I think we do not need that container. It was protecting this magnifier during braking, when the ship’s deceleration reached 25g for almost one year; and later while landing. Now we can to just put it on the table,” Fom said, finding an easier solution.

  “We need a piece of fabric so I can hold it while we unfasten it,” Dme said.

  “You are right,” Memi turned to him. “Fetch a piece of cloth and spread it on the lid on the desk. In the meantime, we will start bit by bit.”

  Memi and Dme unscrewed the mounts and carefully released the lens, and then passed it to Fom, who held it with two pieces of woolen fabric. The young man carefully transferred the heavy glass to the table and laid it on the lid of the box, already covered with the fabric.

  Memi removed the thick optical matrix that had been situated under the lens, unclipping it and placing it also on the desk. After that, a board with chips appeared in front of their eyes—actually an almost transparent plank of gray composite material, painted with golden colored rectangles. Below this upper, horizontally-fastened one they saw two similar ones vertically attached to the bottom of the box.

  They carefully examined these boards, hoping to detect something unusual. The parts, made using nano- and superconducting technologies, had an equally intact appearance. The repairers looked at each other questioningly again.

  “We cannot do anything here,” Memi concluded. “There is no visible damage.”

  He had barely uttered these words when they heard the sound of approaching footsteps. A moment later, Mafkonа rushed into the compartment like a gust of wind. She gazed at them. They, in turn, stared at her with curiosity—she had no business here.