by Peter Wood
***
‘Take it slowly, Thom. Nothing more than 3G till we’re out of range of the K74 surveillance drones.’
The giant engines of the Comet engaged. The images of Attunga and Warrakan dwindled in a section of the display.
The forward view showed a panorama of stars and brilliant Sol.
Chapter 14
Wirrin watched Thom’s control, concentration and competence as he took charge of the most advanced space ship ever built. After Thom had been informed the previous evening that he’d have the opportunity to pilot the Comet for the departure from Attunga, he’d proclaimed that description of the ship, and no-one was going to disagree with him. There might be bigger vessels but their capabilities wouldn’t come anywhere near the Comet.
Wirrin turned to Turaku. This was Comet-Turaku, who’d be part of the Comet for as long as it existed. He looked exactly the same as Attunga-Turaku except for a glowing Comet decal emblazoned on his chest.
‘Why do we have to travel slowly? The K74 drones can’t see us.’
‘Until we have three light seconds of separation they’re capable of detecting the energy signature of high acceleration, and that mustn’t happen.’
‘They can detect us? That’s a change.’
‘Only at accelerations greater than 6G, but they have become more capable recently. Their new drones have much improved scanning equipment.’
‘New drones?’
‘Yes, the first of them arrived six days ago.’
That sounded to Wirrin as if they’d been arriving ever since.
‘Are there many of these new ones out there?’
Turaku gestured to the InfoStation. ‘Bring them up on the display for us. It will only take you a moment to find them.’
With Calen and Gulara standing close behind, Wirrin settled at his InfoStation. It must be under the security section. Whoo! So many possibilities.
Pleased at how effective his new reading skills were in this situation, he rapidly scanned the broad menu and found what he needed. On the big display a representation of Attunga and Warrakan appeared, surrounded at a distance by hundreds of red lights. They couldn’t all be new drones, surely? How to differentiate between the new and the old? After a few more seconds of figuring, the red lights blinked off and were replaced by a smaller number of purple ones. How many? Seventy-three new drones.
‘That took you twenty-three seconds, Wirrin. Close down your station and try again.’
So Turaku wanted to see how fast he could display information did he? Well, there was no searching this time and he could pull the information straight out.
‘Much better – 2.7 seconds.’
Wirrin had an idea, set it going, and grinned at Turaku.
‘Tell me how long it takes this time.’
‘Point four of a second. Well done, setting a trigger like that is excellent for primary actions but with millions of possible actions it’s more efficient to learn the system.’
Millions? Well of course there were, and Wirrin understood exactly what Turaku meant. Learning vast numbers of triggers would take a huge amount of time and any particular trigger in itself might never be needed.
‘How many of the new drones are within two light-seconds distance?’
‘All of them.’
‘That took three seconds. Given our current rate of acceleration, how long before the last of them is out of our three light-second range?’
The result, 106 minutes, involved new information and fifteen seconds of figuring how to put it all together.
‘That’s better. Now figure how long before K74 is out of range.’
This was somewhat similar to the last query and Wirrin managed it in seven seconds.
‘Excellent. How many other existing threats to the Comet can you find?’
Wirrin instantly thought of the big offensive vessel from K74, but Turaku was asking generally.
‘There’s a radiation belt two and a half hours away, less if we increase acceleration, but it’s a low-level threat … And there are three medium-level threats near K74.’
‘What are they?’
That only took an instant as Wirrin already had his attention on them.
‘The offensive K74 ships we saw weeks ago, except there are now three instead of two.’
A scale change with the display showed that two of the ships were moving, but relatively slowly, while the third was moving into deep space at a high velocity. That was interesting. Without being told Wirrin searched and then spluttered, ‘It’s travelling nearly thirty times as fast as we are!’
‘Check its acceleration. That’s a better indication of its capability.’
‘13G.’
No wonder it was making the Comet look like a snail. Well, that would certainly change when the Comet activated full power. Wirrin wondered where the speeding ship was headed.
‘How do I work out where it’s going, Turaku?’
‘Link in to our navigation menu.’
Annoyed with himself for not thinking of the obvious, Wirrin went ahead.
‘It’s not going anywhere!’
‘No, this is its maiden voyage and they’re testing it. Apply your new understanding of the InfoSystem to see how much you can discover about it in the next twenty minutes while I talk to Akama and Sonic.’
Calen and Gulara, obviously curious about what Sonic and Akama wanted, moved off with Turaku. Within moments Wirrin had detailed schematics and specifications.
What a monster this new K74 ship was, nearly 600 metres in length … Capable of 14G acceleration, so it was close to its maximum at the moment. Everything about the ship’s function was there in minute detail. This was too easy. Turaku must be expecting something else, perhaps its history? Its purpose? Maybe tracing where the Comet got all this information from would turn up something.
Search for any database about K74.
Hmm, very interesting. A stream of information coming directly from K74 itself? Wirrin’s ideas kept coming, and as he set them in motion he started to realise all over again how powerful this InfoStation really was.
***
‘What have you got to tell us, Wirrin?’
‘Well for a start that ship is a dud. If they keep running those engines at over eighty per cent like they are now, they’ll eventually collapse.’
‘We knew that. What else have you unearthed?’
‘It’s named after one of that Cadre on K74, and so are the other two ships, and it’s got special stealth equipment and scanning devices to get close enough to Warrakan to find out about our drive engines. It was only completed twenty hours ago and they’ve got plans to build two more, each connected by name with one of the Cadre.’
Akama was surprised.
‘It’s designed for surveillance against Warrakan? That wasn’t in my security report, Turaku.’
‘The surveillance capabilities were mentioned, but not that they were specifically aimed at Warrakan. That’s new information you’ve uncovered, Wirrin, along with the link between the ships and the ruling Cadre.’
Wirrin felt a combination of awkwardness and pleasure at the looks he was receiving.
Akama rested his hand on Wirrin’s head. Again? What did it mean and why didn’t he do it to anyone else?
‘Well done, Wirrin. You’ve already shown that my hunch was correct.’
He removed his hand and smiled at Wirrin’s puzzled look.
‘It was my idea to give you full integration with the information station. Will this new K74 ship be effective in its purpose?’
Wirrin looked to Turaku but he said nothing.
‘It won’t find out anything we don’t want it to. It uses the same equipment as the new drones, just on a bigger scale.’
‘So you believe it will be completely frustrated in its purpose?’
‘I’m certain of it. Attunga and Warrakan have already designed and built new protective facilities to counter anything it can try. We have a huge advantage over K74 because we g
et information about any of their new developments as soon as they implement them.’
‘How can we do that, Wirrin? It seems like we find out whatever we want,’ Calen said, and Burilda was nodding and looking puzzled.
‘Almost everything. Attunga has developed its own surveillance drones to tell us about the activity around K74. They’re like the guardian drones that protect the dolphins at Monkey Mia, except they’re designed for space. They disabled two of the new K74 drones and brought them to Attunga for analysis. Most of the information comes from the AI on K74 though, who’s been communicating with our own AIs for nearly two months.’
‘That AI is still there? Last I heard he was transferring to Attunga.’
‘He agreed to postpone the shift because of all this trouble with the dolphins.’
‘You discovered all this in fifteen minutes?’
‘Um, yes. This InfoStation is amazing.’
‘I’d like you to put a serious effort into learning this system while we’re travelling. Turaku, can you oversee a set of exercises and challenges that will help Wirrin become more proficient with his station?’
‘Done.’
‘Excellent, and I think these early results already warrant installation of a similar system at home on Attunga. Let’s see what happens after twelve hours of application.’
An InfoSystem as powerful as this for his own use? This was as surprising as Thom’s advancement with piloting. Wirrin stared at Akama, excitement stirring at the prospect of special tutoring with Turaku … Twelve hours? That was more than half his waking time.
This was going to be a busy trip.
***
‘Are you ready, Thom? Here it comes.
five … four … three … two … one … turn around!’
They had reached the point at which the Comet would reorient itself so the thrust of the engines could slow the ship in a mirror image of the acceleration of the first half of the trip. It was also the point of maximum speed, and though they’d known all along that it was going to happen, it was still exciting to experience the moment. Wirrin flashed the number dramatically on the display.
‘Whoo! 9726.3 Ksecs. A record for the trip to Earth. The K74 ships couldn’t come anywhere near that.’
Nearly 10,000 kilometres in one second. The idea of it was incredible, especially as the panorama of stars gave no indication of movement at all. The only apparent difference was the increased brightness of the Sun. Well, that would all change when they approached Earth.
‘They could reach almost 7000 Ksecs, Thom, but if they tried to go any faster the engines would conk out.’
‘Weak as wombat water!’
‘Wombat water wouldn’t reach 7000 Ksecs.’
Nothing was as good as the Comet as far as Thom was concerned. He’d been quite disgusted to learn that despite his expectations, the Comet wouldn’t be making a solar system speed record on this trip. That would have to wait. The transporters carrying the initial population to the Titania habitat had, despite their much lower acceleration capability, been able to reach over 10,000 Ksecs because of their much longer acceleration time. The usual record holders were the vessels carrying supplies and personnel to a small scientific research habitat way out at Pluto.
‘We’re slowing down … 9722.8 kilometres per second,’ said Thom.
‘Come on everyone. Just over thirteen hours till we get to Earth. This is the long stretch with not much change so we need to copy Sonic and have a good rest before everything starts happening.’
Calen was right. A glance showed that Sonic was in the logging state he’d informed them would last for at least ten hours in case he didn’t get a chance for a proper rest on Earth. The Comet was under control of the security AI and there were only seven people in the control centre. Everyone else had had the same idea as Sonic.
***
Wirrin stared in utter awe at the display. For the last few minutes no-one had spoken, held as if spellbound by the magnificence of planet Earth.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Calen and Thom in an instinctive need to share the moment, Wirrin wondered how anything could be so beautiful. He’d seen this before, many times, as holo images or virtual reality presentations, but knowing it was real changed things.
There was a call from Sonic who was watching from the water and Calen raced over and dived in with him. Apart from sleep times they’d been together almost the whole trip. Puck and Flute were going to come but Sonic persuaded them to stay and relay information to the Attunga dolphins who were slightly on edge with all the imminent changes.
As far as Wirrin could tell Sonic didn’t seem to be affected by the separation from his pod, but according to Calen that was a case of logic overruling his natural feelings.
‘Home of all dolphins and people. So much water.’
‘Home for AIs too. They started on Earth.’
There was indeed a vast amount of water. With Monkey Mia the destination, the approach aspect at the moment showed a major part of the Pacific Ocean.
‘How long before we reach the water?’
Wirrin smiled at Sonic’s perspective. People would have asked how long before they would land.
As if a spell had been broken people throughout the command centre stirred from their quiet contemplation and went into action.
Wirrin connected with his InfoStation and called to Sonic that it would be another twenty-one minutes.
Thom moved close to the pilot from the security ship to watch his procedure for the final approach into atmosphere and the gravity well of Earth.
The planetary sphere grew to fill the screen, with the features of the Australian continent taking prominence until the familiar aerial view of Shark Bay took over.
Wirrin looked at Akama, standing quiet and staring with rapt attention at the approaching view of his old home country.
Yes, there was his river and range, visible for a while as the Comet slowed more and more in its descent. With precision and apparent ease the ship came to rest in the cradle of the grav-field and everyone looked around with a curious sense of anticipation. The pilot swivelled his seat towards Akama.
‘All secure and ready for debarkation, Honoured One.’
The display switched from landing information to external and everyone took in the buildings of the marine station, the approaching phalanx of vehicles, and most of all the glistening, azure expanse of sky and bay. Everyone moved and just clear of the landing cradle Akama stopped.
Wirrin, walking close behind, bumped into him because at that moment he was staring at the sky. Akama smiled then lifted his head and stared as well. He kept staring, as if he had no intention of moving. Oh, he was stopping to give the Attunga dwellers time to absorb the surroundings. Every single one of them had lifted their head to gaze in wonder at this first step into an environment without walls.
The trio exchanged glances. They’d talked about this, wondering what real sky and open air would be like, but Wirrin knew that for all of them this was more powerful than anything they’d envisioned. Calen laughed and pointed at Wirrin’s head.
‘What?’
‘Your curls are moving. The air’s pushing them.’
They were too. Wirrin was suddenly conscious of the light pressure on his hair. The air was moving without any fan or other device.
‘It’s called wind.’
‘Not quite, Thom. When it’s gentle like this it’s called a breeze.’
Another breath of air lifted Wirrin’s hair and he became the centre of attention as the whole group smiled at the novelty of it.
‘Earth, air, and sea. All around.’
Akama’s mention of the sea set Wirrin looking past the waiting people to the bay and he realised with a jolt just how enormous it was. Stretching as far as he could see it made the big new reaches on Warrakan seem like almost nothing. Akama started to walk again, slowly, and Calen edged closer to Sonic’s transport module, floating on its anti-grav-field, and murmured something. As they a
pproached the welcoming group Wirrin was almost bewildered by the clash between the imperatives telling him to examine everything around and his sense of occasion telling him to focus on the people. A man stepped forward and greeted Akama, welcoming him home and then welcoming the whole group.
‘Honoured One, would you grace us with a short ceremony?’
Akama nodded then pointed to the shoreline.
‘Earth, air and sea … as befits the moment.’ Wirrin forgot, well almost, all the externals vying for his attention. Akama had assumed the mantle of his office, quiet, dignified and powerful. This was the Akama introducing Sonic to eight hundred million people on Attunga, the Akama acknowledging a glorious arc of tribute from every enhanced dolphin.
Wirrin sensed that something major was about to happen. With a single inclusive gesture Akama invited everyone to be part of whatever was to happen at the water’s edge.
In the walk to the water the marine centre people and local leaders gradually mingled with the travellers. Calen was smiling and Wirrin wondered what Sonic had just said to him. Sonic’s head was tilted at an awkward angle, which meant he was surveying everything. He was certainly very active, twisting in every direction, clearly excited. With sudden purpose Sonic manoeuvred his module close to Akama and engaged him in a short conversation. Straining to hear, Wirrin made out something about dolphin friends and the ocean, then watched in surprise when, after a nod from Akama, Calen climbed in with Sonic and the module raced for the water, now only 50 metres away, across the sand and into the shallow water. With a slight lift and a crash of spray it breached a small wave and continued till it came to a dead stop in the deeper water.
What now? With one great leap Sonic sailed into the ocean. The leap was impressive in itself, but from the relatively confined module it was even more so, and worthy of the sudden gasps and exclamations. Calen, standing in the chest-deep water of the module, suddenly raised his arm and Sonic erupted from the water in a truly spectacular parabola of power, speed and motion. The whole gathering stopped in its tracks, watched wonderingly for a moment till Akama moved forward, turned, and with a hand gesture now familiar to Wirrin, drew everyone’s attention.