Grand Central Arena

by Ryk E. Spoor

  ‘‘You may be right,’’ Simon said reluctantly. ‘‘Mio just showed me a projection of your little horror scenario and I admit, it’s terrifying. Less than one year from the time of authorization to potentially near-total control?’’

  DuQuesne nodded slowly. ‘‘That’s the drawback to near-universal nanotech, controllable AI assistance, and so on. If it turns on you—or someone turns it against you—you’ve got almost no defense.’’

  ‘‘What about you, DuQuesne?’’ Mio said suddenly. ‘‘I hope I am not offending you, but when we first met, Simon asked me to profile you along with the Commander . . . and I was not able to gather much of anything at all. You are a terribly private man. Is it just this issue that makes you interested in this project?’’

  DuQuesne chuckled. Private indeed. ‘‘Actually, I have plenty of reasons of my own. One is just simple curiosity. I want to know what’s out there, and even with longevity treatments I may never know if we can’t get your little gadget working.’’

  ‘‘But currently we have every reason to expect centuries—if not longer—of life. Unmanned probes—’’

  ‘‘—haven’t answered the questions yet, actually,’’ he said with a sardonic grin. ‘‘Here’s a little tidbit of info that I’ve gathered over the past few decades, but it’s not generally known, though undoubtedly thousands or millions know parts of it.

  ‘‘In the past forty years, no less than twelve interstellar probes were launched, using whatever was top of the line in automation and nanodesign at the time. A couple of these were basically backyard fan projects, but most of them got quite a bit of interest and energy backing at their time. By now, more than half of them should have arrived at their destinations and started survey and possibly even nanoconstruction work.

  ‘‘Not a single one of them has been heard from.’’

  There was silence for a moment as Simon and Mio contemplated that fact—and how very unlikely it was for so many advanced probe systems to fail utterly. Then DuQuesne stood. ‘‘Anyway, you feel any better?’’

  Simon looked at him wryly. ‘‘I am not entirely sure that ‘better’ is the proper term, Marc. However, I will say that I do feel less like a mad scientist risking others for the sake of his own vindication. Thank you.’’

  ‘‘Anytime.’’ He walked out, feeling reasonably satisfied. Throwing an AISage like Mio off track took considerable effort and timing; you had to read the personality just like any other person’s, and take into account their own focus. She might—probably would—later on come to the tentative conclusion that he’d evaded discussing other reasons he was interested in the project.

  But not until it was too late for that to make a difference.

  Chapter 7

  Simon floated in the zero-G observation lounge, looking straight ‘‘up’’ along the axis of Kanzaki-Three, staring at the long, slender shape of Holy Grail. The experimental vessel had the look of some delicate sea-dwelling creature, a streamlined torpedo with four exquisitely narrow tendrils—the magnetic guide ribs for its mass-beam drive—trailing far behind it. In a few days, he thought, they would all be on board, and only a few hours after that . . . he would know. One way or another, he would know.

  Or, he admitted to himself and Mio, I may not know, if everything goes perfectly terribly and we explode or disappear.

  Let’s not think on that. Remember, our pilot thinks the risk is hardly worth considering.

  Oh, that’s a comforting thought.

  Mio suddenly notified him that someone else had entered the lounge. Not a member of our crew.

  Simon spun himself slowly and looked down.

  The woman ascending to meet him was of approximately average height, with severely styled brown hair in a short, no-nonsense pageboy cut, slender, well-built, with long, delicate hands that somehow made Simon think of a surgeon, and not a trace of biomods—not even a bit of hair coloring. She brought herself to a stop directly in front of Simon, wobbling a little in the characteristic manner of someone unaccustomed to long periods maneuvering in zero-G. ‘‘Dr. Simon Sandrisson, correct?’’

  ‘‘I am, yes. And you are . . . ?’’

  She stuck out her hand. ‘‘Dr. Laila Canning.’’

  Oh, my. Mio said silently. Profile coming up.

  Simon allowed the information to flow and let it guide his response. ‘‘Dr. Canning! Very nice to meet you. What brings one of the System’s most prominent biologists to Kanzaki-Three?’’

  ‘‘You, of course,’’ Laila Canning responded tartly. ‘‘I’m coming on your expedition.’’

  Simon blinked. ‘‘I beg your pardon?’’

  For answer, Canning opened up a connection. A bearded AISage avatar materialized, extending an encrypted data icon which Mio took; it immediately recognized her private decryption matrix and opened. She played the message to Simon, shielding it from Canning’s AISage.

  The message was from Commander Maginot, and was as short and to the point as every communication the CSF commander ever sent. Dr. Laila Canning was to be added to the crew, based on her own request, and would explain her interest in person. On a backchannel of the message, Maginot had added that Canning was a personal favorite of Dean Stout, one of the SSC members with the most influence. ‘‘I’d really appreciate it if you can accommodate this request,’’ Maginot finished. ‘‘It is up to you in the end, of course, and if you feel it’s not practical, tell her she isn’t coming. I’ll back you. But it’d be much, much easier on me if she goes.’’

  Simon put on his ‘‘friendly professor’’ face. ‘‘Well, I see Saul’s being rather close-mouthed as usual, but quite clear that you’re to come along. Might I ask, Dr. Canning—’’

  ‘‘Laila,’’ she corrected. ‘‘Let’s not waste energy in formalities. Just get to the point—no offense meant, but I like getting to work right away.’’

  ‘‘All right, Laila. Exactly what do you see as your . . . function on Holy Grail?’’

  She gave a quick, chirping laugh, almost like a bird. ‘‘Function? None in the sense that sounds like, Simon. You already have ship functions covered—even, I understand, have someone trained to fly the ship physically.

  ‘‘My interest is in, naturally, the biological sciences. Your reports stated that biological systems appeared to continue functioning normally, yet even the most cursory examination of your data shows that you haven’t any serious basis on which to make that claim. Oh, in very gross and trivial factors, yes. But . . . ’’ Her eyes gave a gleam that echoed Ariane’s when she was talking about flying a ship and risking her life. ‘‘In the details of the operation of biological systems—enzymes, RNA replication, metabolic shifts, all the thousands of different processes—in these areas you have no data at all.’’

  ‘‘Are you saying you think there may be an effect we haven’t seen?’’

  ‘‘I’m certain there must be,’’ Laila said. ‘‘Oh, none that would show up on your crude tests for at least several days—the multivariate trending analysis I’ve done on your released data leaves me sure of that—but in the fine details? You’re having some sort of effect that’s disrupting other systems, physical systems, and biological systems are physical. They may operate very differently, but they’re also exquisitely sensitive in many areas. I intend to be on board to observe, not only whatever laboratory animals I can bring with me, but all of your crew as well—with their permission, of course.’’

  Simon looked at her speculatively. ‘‘You know that we will have to spend several days—instead of several seconds—in the transition space before returning. Do you think any of these effects could be dangerous?’’

  ‘‘Over that period of time?’’ She thought for a moment, and Simon sensed, through Mio, an immense amount of activity surrounding her—more, he thought, than he’d expect from just a woman with an AISage. ‘‘Probably not. My earlier comments perhaps overstated the crudity of your monitoring. You had quite adequate basic monitoring, despite the handicap present
ed by lack of processing power in transition, and your post-transition analyses of the test animals showed no anomalies at all. What I hope to see are very subtle effects, probably toward the end of the transition.’’

  Simon sighed. ‘‘Let me see what I can do. Now that you’ve brought it up, this would actually be very interesting data—as a physicist, if you see subtle variations of biological function, it may give me clues as to the precise nature of any physical-law shifts we are encountering.’’

  He opened a channel. Steve?

  A cadaverous, black-cloaked figure materialized in his mind’s eye: Allerdyne, Steve’s AISage avatar. My Master sleeps. What do you desire of him?

  I want to know if we can move the internal designs around enough to accommodate one more passenger.

  This is within my power to examine. Allerdyne conferred with Carl Edlund and DuQuesne. It will be a challenge, but we believe so.

  Simon smiled. ‘‘You are in luck, Laila.’’

  ‘‘There was a problem?’’

  ‘‘The problem is the way the so-called Sandrisson Drive works,’’ he answered, pointing to the ship and overlaying a diagram. ‘‘There are the coils that have to generate the transition field around the ship—to a very close specification. The problem is that the amount of power to generate the field increases drastically with the size of the vessel, up to a certain point, and Holy Grail is at a particularly steep part of the curve. If we have to make her any larger, we may find that we can’t generate enough power in that space without either waiting much longer, or building her even bigger to give us more power generation—which will, of course, increase the field size needed, and so on. Eventually the curve flattens, but by then I’m building something the size of Kanzaki-Three and putting in an antimatter generator.’’

  Laila blinked. ‘‘Oh my. I had no idea my mere presence could be such a problem.’’

  ‘‘It could have been, but as it turns out, it isn’t.’’ Simon took her hand again and shook it. ‘‘Welcome to the crew of Holy Grail, Laila.’’

  She looked up, and Simon could see a touch of the wonder and eagerness that he felt was necessary in anyone taking this trip. ‘‘Thank you so much, Simon. I know I come across as rather abrupt, and I’m not at all a very social person. But I do very much appreciate the opportunity—and the fact you’re taking some considerable pains to assist me that could probably have been better spent elsewhere.’’ A mischievous grin flickered on her face as she glanced up from under her fringe of hair. ‘‘And that it’s a bit annoying to have political pressure forcing some new passenger on you.’’

  Simon laughed. ‘‘I think it will be less annoying than I might have expected, now. Care to join me at Café Rei? I was thinking of getting dinner, and I wouldn’t mind hearing more about some of your research on Mars xenobiology.’’

  ‘‘My compliments to your AISage’s quick research and update,’’ she said, smiling, ‘‘and I’d be honored.’’

  Simon led the way, taking one last glance at the silver-shining sliver of Holy Grail.

  Chapter 8

  ‘‘Why exactly did we design this experimental ship to be like a giant coffin?’’

  Steve Franceschetti gave her a grave look. ‘‘To save on the costs of burial later, of course,’’ he said in a faux-Transylvanian accent, dark eyes twinkling.

  ‘‘Oh, ha-ha,’’ Ariane said. ‘‘These low ceilings just give me the creeps.’’ She sighed. ‘‘Never mind, I know it has something to do with the energy requirements of the drive getting ridiculous as the ship gets larger.’’ She grinned as she saw Steve—and, via electronic avatar, Simon Sandrisson—wince at her oversimplification. ‘‘And the fact that we had to shoehorn in our biologist at the last minute.’’

  Sorry about that, Laila Canning’s virtual voice said.

  No problem. You know, I haven’t the faintest idea what a shoehorn is or why it’s used to mean ‘‘squeeze stuff in.’’

  Three AISages—Mentor, Darwin (belonging to Laila Canning), and Carl’s Shaina—immediately produced images, descriptions, and linguistic detail. ‘‘Ow! Ow! Too many at once! Thanks very much, but we’re getting close enough to the activation point that I’d better concentrate on the matter at hand. After all, that’s the main reason I’m here.’’

  All systems operational. Onboard AI fully functional. Backups show green. All personnel in prime condition. Nanosupport operational in all personnel, Mentor informed her as she leaned back in the pilot’s position. Projecting probabilities of injury in case of top four risk scenarios.

  The probability graphs showed minimal chances for any crew members; this wasn’t surprising, given that one of the top four scenarios involved impacting with a random bit of space debris upon exiting after transition—something extremely improbable and still most likely to cause no injury. One thing did niggle at her perceptions, though. ‘‘Mentor, why are DuQuesne and Wolfe less likely to be injured than the rest of the crew?’’

  The deeply-resonant pseudo-voice replied, Because examination of the returns of their bio-status monitors reveals, after careful analysis, a 99.78% probability that both of them are augmented to military specifications rather than merely high-risk protection and enhancement.

  That was a bit of a surprise. Not, perhaps, in Gabrielle’s case, because she knew that Gabrielle had served as medical oversight in a couple of the nasty semi-political flare-ups across the Solar System, but why would a power engineer-conceptualizer like DuQuesne . . . She shrugged. It wasn’t her business. The important thing was that the estimated risks—outside of the Unknowns that dominated the actual transition—were well below the acceptable limit determined by the experimental protocols. The greatest risk remained, simply put, the Unknown that had caused three of the probes not to emerge at all.

  According to the test schedule, the Holy Grail would activate the Sandrisson Drive at a range of twenty million kilometers from Kanzaki-Three. This was more than far enough to make it certain that, even if this attempt proved to be just as random in its emergent location as the prior probes, there was essentially no likelihood of impact with anything. If things went anything like they were expected to, of course, no matter which direction Holy Grail went, they’d end up far outside the Solar System.

  Like most vessels with the luxury of advance course planning, Holy Grail was using a simple mass-beam drive which permitted constant (low) acceleration and deceleration along her course. With hundreds of mass-beam accelerators distributed throughout the system, it was easy to get the ‘‘smart’’ nanoparticles accelerated to either provide any direct vector upon impact, or to arrive and come to relative rest (via appropriate use of sunlight) for later use at any point out to about the orbit of Neptune without making any special arrangements outside of scheduling. To use captured mass from the beam required, of course, that Holy Grail have a method to accelerate it, which was provided by the coilgun design that was a part of the mass-beam supports—in essence, the mass-beam magnetic capture field was reversed and used to throw away the mass it had captured. The fusion reactors provided the energy for the acceleration, and backup power was held in multiple superconductor-ring batteries.

  For the higher-speed maneuvers which—everyone hoped—would not be needed, Holy Grail incorporated a fusion pulse rocket, and even some backup chemical rockets. Despite many decades of work, none of the more speculative drive systems—space-imbalance or bias drives, negative matter-based asymmetry, selective radiation differential methods, and so on—had ever been developed to anything workable. In the end analysis, you were still either throwing stuff at high speed out the back, or having someone hit you with a firehose to push you along.

  She checked the status of all the drive systems, which naturally showed all green; if anything was wrong, she’d already have been notified—and probably the difficulty would have been corrected before her sluggish brain had finished realizing there was an issue. Even though nominally she was the commander of the mission, everything was being
handled by the AIs. The status reports, the verifications of authorization, course clearance, flight-projected course and duration . . . all were being exchanged and finalized by entities that existed purely as data structures in a dual-mode semi-quantum computational network. Mentor, as befitted his status as the most highly-capable AISage and as the one assigned to her, would actually handle the flight of the vessel, unless something unforeseen happened.

  She distracted herself from contemplating her essential uselessness by checking on her fellow crewmembers. Steve and his AISage Allerdyne were practically merged into a single individual, overseeing the entire condition of the Holy Grail. Dr. Sandrisson and his own AI companion were focused—unsurprisingly—on the experimental drive coils. She gave a virtual nod as Sandrisson acknowledged her attention with a smile and wave, and then continued her crew check.

  Gabrielle Wolfe caught her wandering scrutiny. Hey there. You feeling about as bored as I am right now? The gentle Southern accent was conveyed perfectly by the silent voice.

  Maybe not really bored, but useless.

  I’m just hoping we both are useless. Because if we need a medical doctor, something just went terribly wrong. Gabrielle’s electronic avatar smiled, identical to the delicately-built blonde in real life. Too bad your job doesn’t allow you to be furiously busy in idleness, like Laila.

  Ariane saw what Gabrielle meant. Laila Canning had made tremendous use of the limited space she’d been given, and revealed in the process the single-minded focus that had made her a biologist as respected in her field as Sandrisson was in physics. Canning was mentally integrated with all eight sets of crew biological monitors, twenty sets of monitors on her array of experimental animals, with no less than three AISages boosting her perceptual and comprehension capabilities to the point that she must be intimately aware of, and able to comprehend and analyze, each and every life sign of all the experimental animals and the human beings on board Holy Grail.