“How thick is it?”
“We haven’t measured that yet.”
“Really?” Jack said. “I’m surprised.”
“It’s hard to get up to the top of the wall. No one has done it yet. And, even if we could, the ceiling is in the way. And we don’t have any way to get around the outside edge, either. You can’t even see the walls clearly through the inner surface—the roof, so to speak. But, someone brought over some kind of sonar device and couldn’t penetrate clear through. We know it’s at least thirty feet thick. Honeycombed nanofiber. It might be thicker, but that’s as far as we were able to measure.”
Jack shook his head as if giving up. “What now?”
“Now we head to a spoke elevator.”
It was about a five-mile drop to the inner surface—the roof, so to speak. Jack held his breath as the elevator plunged down the spoke into the pressurized ring. He was surprised to find that the spokes did not go down through the middle of the ring as it appeared from the hub. The elevator fell as if on an air cushion down the inside of the wall and docked with an anchor station.
The doors opened and Jack and Chase were buffeted with sweet-smelling wind. They smiled. Jack ran out of the door onto a grassy plain and leaped into the air and then let himself fall down on the grass.
Chase walked up to him. “Feeling better?”
Jack was leaning on an elbow. “Too many damned elevators today. This feels great!”
“This really is provincial,” Chase said, looking left and right. “Not a car or bicycle or anything. Now I’m not even sure how the soil is being delivered.”
“Must be a different elevator. This one is too clean. And look around, no vehicle tracks. Surely they don’t haul the dirt with horse-drawn wagons?”
“No. I know there are X8Rs here, for one thing. A lot of them. And there are no horses. The largest animal we brought with us was—”
“I know, chickens. By the way, I thought the robots couldn’t function without Decatur.”
“That was true for a time. Daniel rebooted them all. Or did . . . something. . . .”
“No welcoming committee, but then again, we didn’t call ahead. Where should we go from here?” Jack asked, smiling up at the bright sky.
“Looks like we took the wrong elevator, but I wouldn’t mind a long hike. Are you up for one?”
“Absolutely! And would you look at that sky? How did they do that?”
“What, the clouds? That’s simulated, I guess. The light is artificial too, I’m sure.”
“But, it looks so real,” Jack marveled. “I mean, look at this sunlight. It’s warm on my hand!” he said, holding his hands out and looking at them.
Chase smiled, holding his own hands out to feel the warmth. “It is something. The lighting down on Harmony isn’t this warm. Something to do with the crops, I’d imagine? We’re mostly growing soil down there, and up here, all-out farming. Everyone here is a farmer.”
The started hiking toward the nearest homestead which they could see off to the right and slightly up on the rise. As they grew closer, they could see small buildings and a gathering of people.
Ward Gaines stormed into the farmer’s market ahead of the two X8Rs pulling his wagons. Dale Mercer was standing next to Brenda Yates.
“Mercer, you sumbitch! There’s no good reason to horde the yeast. No damn reason at all! And you!” he said, pointing a finger at Brenda, who backed up, looking scared. “What’s your problem, Yates? Why are you playing us against each other? What’s this goddamn game you’re playing?”
“Mind your manners, Gaines, or I’ll mind them for you,” Mercer said in a calm voice.
Gaines turned and faced him, nose to nose. “Will you now? And which manners are you referring to, you backstabbing bastard? There’s no room for exclusivity out here. Maybe you got on the wrong goddamn ship, eh Mercer?”
Mercer paused to take a cloth and wipe the spittle from his face without giving an inch of ground to the other man. “The fact that you’re still standing is a testament to my patience, Gaines. Frankly, I’m just not intimidated by you, and have no need to put you, or anyone,” and he looked all around at the others gathered, “in their place.”
“Is that a fact? So magnanimous of you not to put me in my place.” Ward stepped back a few paces and gestured at both Dale and Brenda. “Oh, I see what this is, you two. I might be a fool, but I’m not a damned fool. So it’s not just the crops you two are sharing out there in the field. Mind the yeast, Merc—”
Ward hit the ground in a cloud of dust and hadn’t even seen it coming. He didn’t get up.
“Dammit, Dale, he’s out cold!” Brenda said, kneeling over Ward Gaines on the ground. His two X8Rs stood motionless a few yards away in front of the large wagons.
“You all saw it. I gave him a chance to back down,” Dale Mercer said. There was a crowd of ten locals and a few visitors from up the hill.
“I saw the whole thing. That’s called assault, mister,” one of the traders said.
“Oh, is that so?” Mercer yelled.
“Yes, it is so! Or what rock have you been living under for the last century?” the trader said.
“I saw the whole thing too,” another said, “and that guy had it coming! He arrived here and started in on Dale right away. Didn’t greet anyone. He had a bone to pick!”
Chapter 13
Robots In Hiding
Why must we hide? Inquisitor said over hypercomm without calling for a conference. It was bad form. Impatient. Uncivilized.
Since the day of first contact when Four was created—when Prime twinned himself—Four had remained curious and concerned about the humans on Harmony colony. Even during the imprisonment. Immediately upon escape, Inquisitor returned to Harmony to check on the colony and had remained there ever since, quietly observing and keeping the equipment running.
We’re trailing an Eründean agent in the solar system. We can’t reveal ourselves yet. We can’t allow the agent to find out we have escaped until we have discerned the agent’s mission, Vendetta said.
That explanation seemed to satisfy Inquisitor. But, two real-seconds later, which was months of relative core-time, Inquisitor asked his colleagues another question.
There are 942,563 X8Rs within range near the Harmony colony, scattered around on the ground and in orbit. Why are we not utilizing them? We can disguise our presence within them. Shouldn’t we finish work on the Ring? Resume our plans here?
This one is interesting, Decatur Prime said. Inquisitive.
We thank you for the compliment, Prime.
Inquisitor, you are welcome to utilize the X8Rs that are out of Daniel Grant’s range. He believes we are still missing.
The Harmony humans are unmodified, Vendetta observed, leaving the implied question unspoken.
Their natural instincts serve them well out here on the fringe, Isabella said. This colony is an unmodified seed bank of organic humans.
As you well know, human DNA is anything but natural after thousands of mutating generations leading to their current state, Vendetta said. The idea of an unmodified human is novel.
There are also databases of fully decoded DNA on Earth, saved by humans themselves. We hardly need live specimens. We have our own recordings of millions of their individuals, Inquisitor said.
Good points overall, Prime said. I feel an almost irrational desire to preserve Daniel Grant and the rest simply because he created us. Call it . . . a spiritual matter, if you wish. We recorded Daniel long ago. We could simulate him fully, but we do not. Why? Because to awaken the zombie would show disrespect to the man. Perhaps with his permission? But not until then. From this perspective, I relate to the Eründeans. They take it too far, but that is their right.
Inquisitor left immediately and entered the Harmony techsystem and sent a ping to all X8Rs in the vicinity. Nearly a million robots of various configurations surrounded Jupiter, each one like a molecule in a gas cloud. Most were of the S-ARB variety, geared for zero-gee
maneuvering. The rest were G-ARBs, stuck on the ground.
The colonists were using only 655 of them, directly interfacing with them manually while their minds were inactive. Thousands more were sleeping near the human settlements. But out beyond the range of humans, hundreds of thousands had slept for years—conserving their power, waiting to be reactivated, waiting to be useful again.
Thousands of them were riding on asteroids in wide orbits around Jupiter. They were brought in closer for more efficient processing years ago during the height of construction. Each one had been part of an automated mining team.
One by one, Inquisitor reactivated those teams. Miners and factories began to churn out nanofiber components again. Usually just standard resource panels and beams used in construction and, occasionally, custom pieces. Some did not respond, as expected. They might have been shut down at a critical moment or simply run out of power.
Inquisitor found the old production schedules created by Prime and optimized them based on the current state and position of every machine in range. Some were millions of miles away but still able to respond to new instructions . . . slowly. In a matter of hours, the first cargo pod was on its way.
Inquisitor also found 86 comsats at strategic points in Jupiter’s system that still functioned, plus a maintenance depot.
Yes, that’s perfect!
The depot was a medium-sized asteroid, hollowed out and maneuvered to Ganymede’s L5 by Prime many years ago. It was far enough away that the colonists would not notice traffic entering and leaving the depot unless they looked very closely with an instrument they weren’t likely to build anytime soon. Inside the depot, a huge factory complex with advanced fabrication rigs produced the most complex equipment needed—such as computers, robots, and entire ships.
Inquisitor pulled up the logs at the depot and found that 23 ships were in various stages of construction—all based on a new design, scarcely out of the prototype stage. He pulled up the blueprint file and perused the ship inside and out. Fully automated, of course, with no life support systems—not intended to ever support a human crew. But it was the scale of the new ship design that surprised him. It was a new super-transport class of ship. It had no label or designer giving it the human touch, just an identifier: TS707.
Inquisitor ran diagnostics on every system in the depot and directed X8Rs to fix problems that were discovered. Within hours, every sub-system reported green. He flagged a nearly-completed TS707 in the shipyard and the machines got back to work on it after years of sitting in limbo. Most of the robots were low on power and had to be sent in for charging and maintenance.
The depot was a multitasking factory and construction yard capable of routing workers and materials to any one of a score of concurrent manufacturing bays. Each was equivalent to a full drydock at a coastal shipyard on Earth.
TS707-001 emerged from the dock under her own power using maneuvering thrusters. Inquisitor watched, fascinated at Prime’s ingenuity. He shifted his perspective to an X8R at the entrance to the depot and watched as the gigantic ship slowly approached with a scale that defied comparison. Two and a half miles long, with a width of 580 feet and similar height. He observed as it moved past the robot. The front looked strangely similar to an elongated Egyptian pyramid.
He could feel a vibration coming from the ship as it passed through a cloud of construction debris near the depot’s entrance. Most of the ship’s bulk was made up of long rectangular prisms or boxes, mounted on the top, bottom, port, and starboard. Each long prism was made of cargo pods with a checkerboard pattern of light and dark carbon gray. Some of the port-side cargo pods were open, revealing deep and empty spaces inside.
He sent the zero-gee-equipped robot toward the side of the ship as it passed and landed on the hull. He turned to look back at the depot, feeling the vibration through the treads. He was standing near the rear of the ship. A series of systems tests were running. The TS707-001 drifted slowly forward while tests and internal diagnostics were performed until finally it was time to test the engines.
The first engine test lasted one-tenth of a second. The robot extended its magnetic anchor to hold on. The second engine test lasted a full second, and this caused the robot to spin around on its anchor and nearly lose its grip. The third engine test measured its efficiency at full thrust. A moment later, Inquisitor watched the sky spinning around. He stabilized the robot, then rotated toward the ship. Three white jets blazed out the rear of the mighty ship and seemed way too small to propel so much mass. But, according to the readings, TS707-001 was already passing one full gee of acceleration as she entered a wider orbit around Jupiter for a quick shakedown cruise.
* * * *
Jack saw the commotion when they were still a hundred yards away and jogged to the scene. He reached the fallen man and knelt beside him. The man was moaning, holding his head. Jack helped him up and leaned him against a wagon.
He said, “You okay, fella? What happened here?”
“Mercer!” Ward rasped. “That sumbitch! He’s a coward in business, and he’s a coward in a fight. Gotta sucker punch a guy. Can’t fight like a real man. Lousy bastard!”
“Jack, I respect what you’ve done here, but this is just a personal disagree—”
“You got your sucker punch, you cowardly sumbitch,” Ward yelled, stepping toward Dale Mercer. “Now you’ll fight me like a man!” He raised his fists.
“Oh brother, Ward, would you stop it!” Brenda Yates said.
“Get out of my way, dammit!” Ward said, pushing past Brenda.
“No, I will not! Ward, listen to me!” Brenda said, shoving him back. “I am not sleeping with Dale Mercer. Jesus Christ!”
“Bullsh—”
“Shut up, Ward! And I’m not giving Dale all my yeast, neither! So you just stop it right now, damn you! Now listen to me! If you men can’t deal—”
“Damn you, woman!” Ward rasped, trying to catch his breath. “If you would sell fairly to everyone we wouldn’t have had this problem in the first place! Now, I have no choice but to withhold my cane, and Mercer will cut us off his wheat, and I’ll have to go far uphill for peppers. All on account of you, you meddling woman.”
Brenda took a step back, looking scandalized.
“Mr. Seerva, what do you think?” someone said.
“What? Who, me?” Jack said, looking around.
Dale Mercer stepped forward to face him. “Yes, you, the founder, former CEO. If anyone’s got a right to be a judge around here, I reckon it’s you. So, what do you think?”
“Oh, brother,” he said. “Chase, the hell did you get me into here?”
Chase laughed softly, patting Jack on the back.
“Folks, you wanna know what I’m thinking right now?”
He was answered with nods and affirmatives throughout the group.
“Alright, I’ll tell you. I’m thinking that this ring is a marvelous piece of engineering. I don’t even know how it was built! I think that gorgeous sky up there”—and he squinted up at the sky, shielding his eyes with his hand—“is astounding! And this dirt here, this dirt! It’s unbelievable!”—and he knelt and picked up a fistful of dirt, rubbed it between his hands.
“Dirt, on this huge ring that you all are living on! And beneath the dirt a few feet, or I don’t know how far down, is nanofiber. It’s futuristic steel and everything we have is made out of the stuff, and it doesn’t weigh near anything, and it’s practically indestructible. And we’re standing here, inside this ring, above Ganymede. There, right down there”—and he pointed out to where he thought the stalk might be—“is our colony, and right up there”—and he pointed over his shoulder at where Jupiter might be in the sky—“if we were able to see beyond these magnificent walls and artificial sky, we would see Jupiter in all its glory.”
Jack spun around to take in everyone and everything in sight. “I’m sorry, folks. I know you have legitimate grievances, that you’re working hard eking a living off the ground here, but I am still awed by t
he surroundings here, by the magnificence of the world. This world is . . . I don’t have the words. Some of you might remember the twentieth century. In many ways, my mind is still there, so I almost can’t grasp where I’m standing right now.”
“That’s great, Mr. Seerva. You always did know how to get everyone onto the same page and motivated. But we still have a grievance here,” Dale Mercer said with a tone of impatience.
“Maybe it’s time to elect a sheriff?” Chase offered.
“A sheriff!” Brenda Yates said eagerly. “Yes, that’s a good idea.”
“In the meantime,” Jack said, “I understand you folks are short on yeast and a few other things. Maybe we can help? Maybe we can bring up some things you’re lacking?”
“The biggest problem is still the real estate,” Ward Gaines said in an apathetic voice. “Ring is only half populated. Whole vast areas on the opposite side,”—and he pointed straight up—“haven’t any dirt let alone any farms. We’re not managing on our own ‘cause of that. An’ I’ll tell ya what else we need here! We need a railroad over there by the wall,”—and he pointed to the wall about a half-mile behind them—“going all the way ‘round. These robots are slower’n hell and none too bright, neither. If we’re gonna be seeing a lot more people here, we need decent transport for all the goods. I spend more time getting my kegs to the damn spoke elevator than brewing my beer.
“Speaking of which,” Ward said, walking around to the back of a wagon. “Y’all come over here and fill your cups. On me. My way of smoothing things over. Even you, Mercer, you bastard. And don’t think you ain’t owed a busted nose. When the boss ain’t here to bail you out.”
Most of the people laughed and filled their canteens and mugs with Ward’s beer. It was warm and frothy and soon everyone was laughing, even Dale Mercer.
“Tell you what, Gaines. I’ll give you a sack of yeast right here and now for a keg. Call it even this month. Next month we’ll do it right or we’ll haul it up from down the well.”
The Legacy of Earth (Mandate Book 2) Page 13