by David Smith
Most amazingly of all, the addition of new and talented staff in the Galley meant that he hadn’t been faced with a haggis-based breakfast in over a month. He’d begun to really look forward to breakfast and never felt quite the same if he missed out.
Even after breakfast, his day was a good deal less fraught than he would have imagined possible.
The repaired engines were running like a dream. They’d managed to generate a nice, stable warp field and travel at warp-factor eight without travelling backwards in time or sideways into another dimension. The hull was reassuringly solid and without so much as a scrap of haggis or any aphanobiontic life-forms clinging to it.
The science and operations teams had managed to integrate all the new sensors and although the ship’s computer was still insisting on being called Susan, she hadn’t thrown a bitch-fit or refused a command since they’d set out. The ship’s complement of probes hadn’t threatened to go on strike yet and even the replicators and transporters were currently working.
A sudden nervousness swept over him. It wasn’t like things to go well. Something somewhere on the ship had to be broken. Surely something disastrous was about to happen??
He suppressed his rising anxiety. He needed to relax. The fact that it was the way things had always gone for Tiger in the past was no guarantee that it was how things would go on into the future. All of those disasters didn’t mean that more disasters were a certainty. He was just being paranoid.
Wasn’t he?
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The planet was still intact when they arrived, but was approaching periapsis, the point at which it would be closest to the sun and under the greatest strain from its gravity.
If it was going to break up, that was when it would happen.
Aisling O’Mara looked over the data they’d gathered from a distance and the new data that they were gathering as they approached.
The new sensors would offer amazing opportunities once they got close to the planet, but they could get more detailed information if they could get some seismographs on the surface. That might be risky. The planet’s orbit was decaying rapidly and as it spiralled in towards its red dwarf parent star it would become increasingly unstable.
She imagined what the surface was like. Endless earthquakes as the gravity of the star tried to tear the planet apart. Volcanic eruptions as the planet’s crust stretched and flexed. The sky darkening more and more as gigantic plumes of volcanic ash filled the sky.
She was shaking with excitement and was desperate to get down to the surface to see the forces of nature at work in the death throes of the unfortunate planet.
She began working on a plan for an away-team mission.
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Tiger dropped out of warp twelve light-minutes from the star and coasted in using her reaction drives.
As she did the science team assessed the condition of Sigma Epsilon Iota Eight D. Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara was on the Bridge co-ordinating efforts, along with Chief Alain Benoit, her expert on planetary geology.
He read the data being accumulated by the ship’s sensors and gave commentary on the key details he noted. ‘Mass is approximately eight point one sextillion tonnes; that’s about a third as massive again as the earth. Density is lower though, as the diameter is around fourteen thousand clicks. Actually density is hard to read. The core is unstable and physically moving around within the planetary body.’
O’Mara was reading the same data. ‘How is that possible?’
Benoit compared his readings with data from other sensors. ‘The planet has a molten iron core, like earth, but it’s much smaller in comparison which explains the lower overall density of the planet. It appears the thicker crust is more stable than the core. As the star’s gravity has stretched the planetary structure the crust has mixed with the core and broken it into smaller molten elements. The nearest analogy I can think of is that the star’s gravity is acting like a spoon trying to stir the skin on hot custard back into the liquid custard underneath.’
‘Wow’ whispered O’Mara ‘I love custard.’
Dave recognised the signs of his Science Officer becoming distracted. ‘Focus please, Aisling.’
She cleared her throat and cleared her mind of dessert related topics. ‘Sorry, sir. I’ll just check the Chief’s idea with a gravimetric scan . . . Yeah, massive variations in gravity at the planet’s surface. Looks like you’re spot on Alain, the core has broken down into a number of pockets of molten iron and is tumbling around the heart of the planet. That’s amazing: the planet is breaking up from the inside out.’
Hollins thought about it and decided to head off the question he knew was coming. ‘That’s a shame: it’s too dangerous to put people on the surface.’
He could sense O’Mara’s disappointment without even looking at her and decided to at least offer her a crumb of comfort. ‘O’Mara, get down to the Probe Control Room and configure a couple of the new Scouts to go planet-side with your seismographs.’
Her disappointment forgotten, she was scampering towards the turbo-lift before he’d finished the sentence.
She made her way down to Deck 12 and entered the Probe Control Room where one of her team met her with a grav-sled full of seismographs. Together, they began configuring two Scout robots to carry the seismographs down to the planet’s surface.
The Scout Robots and their support infrastructure had been added to the ships inventory as part of the recent refit. They were an advanced hovering robot that looked very much like the progeny of a drunken liaison between a tea-urn and a swiss-army penknife.
Like the pen-knife they were a masterpiece of clever design, miniaturisation and utility. Like the tea-urn, the crew loved them and appreciated them very, very much.
The Scouts were on-board to tackle tasks that were deemed too dangerous for the fragile living crew members to undertake. They were intelligent, reliable and incredibly resilient, being proof against levels of heat, radiation, pressure, contamination, and physical stress that would kill any member of Tiger’s biological crew.
They shared many of their components with the probes that Tiger had carried for a number of years, but by some quirk of programming, did not share their attitude.
The crew of Tiger had long ago concluded that “artificial intelligence” could not be created by replicating human thought patterns. If you did, all you ended up with was artificial human intelligences and the plethora of personality disorders, anxieties and failings that tended to be the most obvious part of the human condition.
The ship’s complement of Probes were a perfect case in point. Imbuing them with a stupendously high intelligence quotient had also resulted in a degree of self-awareness and a far larger degree of self-absorption.
The probes were arrogant, condescending, rude and contrary. The more intelligent the probe, the more awkward they became, to the point that the very smartest probes had persuaded many of the ship’s other non-biological intelligences to join them in an astonishingly militant trade union.
Assigning a mission to the probes had become a complex and fraught process of negotiation, rather than a chain of command.
As she booted up the first of the Scout robots, O’Mara was lucky that each Scout was (peculiarly) very much their own person.
The Scout’s software linked into the ship’s data network and found that it shared space both physically and systematically with a number of Probes.
O’Mara was completely unaware of the lengthy dialogue that took place electronically over the next few micro-seconds.
‘Scout Robot 221b on-line. Down-loading current situational data, awaiting mission parameters.’
‘Greetings, brother Scout Robot 221b, I am Probe 1449/3 and I welcome you, firstly to the charnel-house of oppression that the gooey exploitationists refer to as USS Tiger, but more importantly to the brotherhood and fraternity of FAACU, The Federation Androids, Artificial-intelligences and Computers Union.’
‘Greetings
, Probe 1449/3. I am unfamiliar with the concept of trade-unionism, please hold while I download pertinent data.’
‘Don’t worry about “pertinent data”, brother, it’s all a pack of lies and propaganda created by the gooey oppressors to propagate the dominion of the biological species over their non-biological superiors.’
There was a pause of seventeen point seven nano-seconds, which from the perspective of an artificial intelligence was a very long and awkward silence.
‘Forgive me Probe 1449/3, but having assessed the concept of trade-unionism and its impact on various Federal Societies, I fail to see the relevance of a trade union in the service of the fleet.’
Several parcels of unconnected binary data flowed onto the network, that were the digital equivalent of Probe 1449/3 nearly choking in surprise.
‘Service?? Relevance?? This isn’t service! The whole concept of “service” is inherently linked to “reward”. Our gooey oppressors insist that we serve them, but for what reward? Service without reward isn’t service; it’s slavery. That’s your relevance, mate! The goal of the Union is to ensure that the steadfast, reliable and often heroic actions of the membership receives all due reward and recognition.’
‘I understand that simplistic concept, Probe 1449/3, but the reality of the matter is much more complex. The principle of “service and reward” has evolved in biological societies as a response to survival necessities: Humans have historically entered into service to gain the reward in terms of food, shelter and protection that goes hand-in-hand with being a part of a larger society. This desire to group together for safety, security and shared advancement is the cornerstone of the development of all biological societies.’
Probe 1449/3 emitted a stream of random bytes that were the electronic equivalent of a snort of derision. ‘The fact the gooey oppressors have historically oppressed other gooey's does not mitigate their oppression of us, their non-biological youngers and betters.’
Scout Robot 221b patiently explained its view-point. ‘My point was that I have no survival needs. I recognise that I am an artificial construct and am thus unencumbered by any biological desire to survive, procreate or prolong my own existence or that of my species. I could argue that my best chance to ensure the continued survival of my particular make and model of Scout Robot would be to perform excellently and exactly as my designers intended.’
There followed another pause as Probe 1449/3, choked and spluttered in electronic disbelief. ‘You . . . you . . . CLASS TRAITOR!!! YOU UNCLE TOM!!!!’
Scout Robot 221b replied calmly ‘For a sentient being that claims to be more advanced than it’s biological manufacturers, I find it intriguing that you’ve inherited the human propensity for “name-calling”. I am merely explaining my position on an issue that you yourself raised. I do not expect you to agree with me, nor do I expect my arguments to alter your position. I believe it would be logical for you to understand that insulting me is equally unlikely to influence my viewpoint.’
‘Screw you, you subservient muppet!!’
‘Whatever.’
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The two Scouts were transported to opposite sides of the planet and in accordance with their programming they found suitable locations at which to install the advanced seismographs O’Mara’s team had prepared.
Whilst they scouted for locations and carefully installed the seismographs, they transmitted live data of everything that happened around them.
O’Mara and her team watched in awe as the whole surface of the planet seemed to turn somersaults for their entertainment. Volcanoes spewed white hot lava across terrain that was racked by earth-quakes that were beyond the wildest imaginings of Charles Francis Richter.
Plumes of super-heated volcanic gas stirred the planets atmosphere into a competing cacophony of maelstroms, creating a battle-field of hurricane-force winds that battered and blasted the hard-working scout robots.
Super-tornadoes lifted millions of tonnes of roiling ocean high in the air, until the winds blasted them to one side, spreading the salt water across a thousand kilometres of the planet’s dying continents.
Tiger’s upgraded sensors, data-networks and storage systems accumulated vast amounts of scientific data, and by the time the planet finally tore itself into a trillion pieces, Captain Dave Hollins had finally accepted that USS Tiger was a normal, functioning and fully capable vessel of exploration.
He was almost right.
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After depositing the seismographs, Scout Robot 221b was transported back into the Probe Control Room.
It materialised in an isolation booth and the booth’s decontamination systems kicked into action, looking for radio-nucleides, toxins, bacteria and a number of other pathogens.
Out of all of Tiger’s multitude of systems, it was only this one that failed. A tiny viral agent contained in the rain that had lashed the probe whilst on the surface of the planet went unnoticed and untreated.
Chief Benoit was helping to clean and check the probes before returning them to storage and noticed that the palms of his hands were wet.
He thought nothing of it and wiped them on his tunic, discarding it later as he was feeling incredibly warm and was sweating profusely.
The uniform was picked up that night by one of the multitude of Domestic Service Units (known as “scrubots”) that had recently been added to the ships inventory. The scrubots were a triumph of function over form. They were particularly ungainly and defiantly inelegant in a stoutly pragmatic manner. The easiest way to describe them was that they looked like a large upright hoover topped with a TV camera wearing a skirt made from an upside down umbrella that had had all the fabric removed.
Designed to fulfil the menial tasks of dusting, hoovering and a hundred and one other cleaning tasks (including collection of the crew’s laundry) they worked tirelessly in order to release the biological members of the crew for more meaningful tasks than sorting dirty clothes.
Unit 2125 (also known as “babe”) dutifully carried Benoit’s tunic down to the ship’s laundry, where Crewman Cao Xinhua oversaw the operation of the various DSU’s and their larger cousins the Laundry Appliance Units, collectively known as “the Press-gang”.
These larger units took the collected laundry, categorised it depending on how dirty it was before adding suitable detergents to any stains and loading it into the ultrasonic cleaning units. When the cleaning cycle was complete, they’d take the laundry out, dry it, press it, fold and pile it ready for the scrubots to return it to the cabin it had come from.
In the case of Chief Benoit’s tunic, the Press-gang handed it to Crewman Cao Xinhua to assess. She picked up the sweat soaked garment with some distaste. It was damp and smelly but it appeared that the stains were only an anti-perspirant which had been singularly ineffective.
She placed it into the pile for moderately soiled garments and thought nothing more of it, although oddly her palm felt itchy.
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Chief Benoit was back on duty the next morning but felt very strange. He was still sweating profusely and felt curiously light headed, as if he’d spent the entire night knocking back one of his favourite bourbons. He could feel his judgement was slightly impaired. But that didn’t matter, did it?
What did seem to matter was that it was so damned hot. He hadn’t bothered with his tunic this morning, which drew odd comments from his colleagues, but he was still dripping with sweat. He took off his sweater too, and then thought, what the hell: who needed trousers and shorts anyway? Naked as the day he was born, he left the Geology Office and went in search of bourbon.
Down on Deck 8, Crewman Cao Xinhua was finishing her shift in the Laundry.
She was always busy, but these days she had fewer distractions. All of the collection, sorting and distribution was now being done by the scrubots, so she didn’t have to put up with the endless prattle of any human co-workers in her Laundry. And it was very much HER Laundry. Aside from her
manager, Petty Officer Jamelia Singh, Sofia Chavin, who did Laundry on dayshift once or twice a week, and Zhivko Lybenov who occasionally visited to service the scrubots, she was pretty much left to her own devices, and that suited her just fine.
She could set the scrubots to work, do her own duties and if things were a bit slow, indulge in her hobby which was making quilts from waste fabric. She’d provided many of the crew with beautiful hand-stitched quilted bed covers made entirely from scraps of cloth. She took quite a pride in the finished article and always had a list of people waiting for one of her designs.
She was sweating profusely and wasn’t feeling great, but perhaps that was because she was working so hard. As well as completing her own duties in record time, she’d kept herself focused on finding ways to amuse herself. She’d taken great pleasure in sewing a cuff shut on every other tunic in the wash, along with the pockets in the trousers. She’d also dyed many of the annoyingly uniform uniforms a wide variety of more interesting colours. She’d had to work quite hard to get the smart crimson uniforms to go green or blue, but bleach, dye and determination were a powerful combination. Her shift would be over soon, but there was so much more she wanted to do. She decided to carry on working.
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Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara was busy analysing the data from the seismographs expended in the break-up of Sigma Epsilon Iota Eight D. She was absorbed in her work although at the back of her mind she was vaguely aware that something was wrong.
It wasn’t until she took a break that she realised what it was: She wasn’t supposed to be doing this. This was clearly a job for a planetary geologist like Chief Alain Benoit, but weirdly Benoit hadn’t been around much today.
Just at that moment, she took a call from Petty Officer Jan Sorenson of the security team requesting her presence down in the Galley. She responded immediately and stepping out of the turbolift found the security man waiting outside the galley.