The First Exoplanet

by T. J. Sedgwick

  This raised some eyebrows and tentative intentions to interrupt. The general signalled Dr King to continue. "I must clarify: what we do not propose is the sharing of FTL drive technology. It should be kept Top Secret. This is going to be a costly, mammoth exercise and sharing in the expense of this mission is one of the advantages of this policy of openness. The Russians in particular have certain expertise that exceeds our own capabilities, especially regarding miniaturized fusion reactors. Ladies and gentlemen, this will be a long-term project to say the least. It is hugely risky with no guarantee of pay off in our lifetimes. As opposed to an opportunity, this could also turn out to carry one of the biggest risks humanity has ever taken. My colleague will explain. I'd like to give the floor over to Professor Kenneth Hawkins, Head of Astrobiologist here at the WGA Research Centre."

  A compact old man in a ruffled grey suit and no tie, with white cropped hair and sharp intelligent eyes, took up position in front of the presentation wall. Professor Hawkins was the foremost authority on evolution and astrobiology in the western world.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, the laws of biology are supported by the laws chemistry which, in turn, are supported by the laws of physics. The laws of physics are universal—they apply on Avendano 185f as much as they do here on Earth. So we believe that if we are confident about life there – and we are confident – then that life will, of course, have followed the theory of evolution by natural selection. Since we now believe that vegetation has evolved on Avendano-185f then there is at least one, and potentially many, biomes full of species."

  Hawkins went on to explain that simple life will inextricably lead to more complex life when uninterrupted by cataclysms. Advanced computer modelling of astrobiology based on first principles was always consistent on this. What was not known was the stage reached in this process of increasing complexity.

  “In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, if complex life has developed then I believe that at the apex of that web of life will sit a predator—the so-called apex predator. The predator has to be superior in some way to outwit its prey and all other competition. The ultimate competitive advantage in the natural world is intelligence, which, given that we no longer operate by Darwinian principles in modern Western societies, may explain the contemporary degeneration in popular culture.” There were a few chuckles around the room—more at Hawkins’ nerdish eccentricity than his sparkling sense of humour. “If an apex predator has given rise to civilisation on Avendano then we need to think carefully about our next move. If such a theoretical predator exists he will have got there by defeating his adversaries. That is how we have become dominant on Earth. With Avendano being a similar planet as our own there would be conflict with humanity were we to meet an apex predator on unfriendly terms. We must tread carefully and go in undetected as a matter of precaution. The modus operandi needs to be – initially, at least – one of stealth.”

  With his conveyance of wisdom seemingly complete, Professor Hawkins abruptly retook his seat and handed the meeting back to the chairman, General Fred McIver.

  “I’d now like to invite our final speaker to the floor. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce our Chief of Design, Adam Chesters, who’s been looking at how we can harness the recent FTL discovery. Over to you, Adam,” said the general.

  Adam Chesters almost sprung out of his seat and bounded with energy to the presentation wall with long strides. The trim, mid-forties engineer with salt and pepper hair wore a blue shirt and trendy horn rimmed glasses. Chesters was head of the space probe design team, part of WGA Space, the civilian Western Global Alliance space agency. Chesters and his team would work with the ship fabrication facility, which was part of the orbiting Citadel space station. He’d started his career when NASA still existed as an entity. That venerable administration was now defunct after the merger with ESA and the national space programmes of a dozen other WGA nations. WGA Space had built a fleet of lunar shuttles and interplanetary probes while leaving asteroid mining, space tourism and commercial satellite launches to free enterprise. Nobody had utilised FTL outside the lab before. Chesters and his team had already been working with the researchers that first demonstrated FTL transit.

  Primary science’s time-to-application was much shorter than it used to be. So far FTL travel had only been demonstrated in the lab over mere metres with miniaturized spacecraft measuring no more than a centimetre across. Slower-Than-Light travel had been achieved up to ten percent the speed of light within the solar system; but no one had yet attempted going to another star system. Theoretically, the energy required to get to even half the speed of light was immense and a large proportion of total global energy output in 2056. The cost would be prohibitive, leaving only FTL technology as a viable option to travel to the stars.

  Chesters continued proceedings. “Thank you, General. Ladies and gentlemen, needless to say that the discovery and subsequent demonstration of FTL travel was a watershed innovation for humanity. As far as we know, no one outside of the WGA has yet managed it. The Russians and the Chinese are estimated to be at least a decade away and we have no intention of sharing with them. We don't have time to explain the theory here today and I am probably not best placed to do that anyway. But suffice to say that the transiting technique uses focused gravitons to create a fold in space-time connecting any two points in the universe … in theory, anyway. It seems that translating to another set of coordinates can be done, but there is some inherent inaccuracy—the cause of which is not understood. The other key challenges are scaling up and cost. It’s clear that the next logical step is to send a probe, or possibly a manned mission, to Avendano. I must say, though, we consider the latter too expensive and risky.”

  General McIver interrupted. “I’m sorry, Adam, but that’s a decision for voting members of the WGA council seated here, not your team.”

  “Sure, I understand, Ok, well I’ll try to stick to the facts. On the FTL probe: yes, can do. Cost grows exponentially with size: no one has yet managed to scale the technology up and apply it to a probe of a useful size. Comms will, of course, take fifteen years via normal radio or laser transmissions—so direct control is out of the question. But our proposal is to equip the probe with a number of tiny micro messenger probes. If the theory is correct, these can harness the main probe’s FTL drive and be catapulted back to Earth using the transiting technique. Of course, this will be a one-way trip back to Sol for the microprobes since they won’t have their own drive. But that’s a moot point anyway, since we only want a flow of data from Avendano. However, the consequence for any probe is that it will need to be fully autonomous, as we cannot feasibly communicate with it over the fifteen light year gap. Put simply, when the probe is in the Avendano system, it can talk to us but we can't talk back. Being able to respond to what it encountered would be the major advantage of a manned mission. However, we do not propose a manned mission at this time. We haven’t even tested the FTL technology with animals let alone humans—it’s simply too unsafe at the moment. This is future work and will take many years.”

  Chesters went on to detail the various designs his team had come up with, the prospective build times and the estimated costs.

  The public school educated, Conservative British Prime Minister, Michael Carlton, was first to respond. “Mr Chairman, if I may.” General McIver signalled to him to go on. “Mr Chesters,” PM Carlton continued, “if I understand you correctly, the price tag for the probe is $1.25 trillion and will take four years to build in orbit. My country will be compelled to contribute fifteen percent of this sum. This is an enormous unbudgeted expense, and fiscal responsibility is top of the agenda in many of our countries right now, including the UK. So what am I going to tell the British people when I’m challenged on what the payoff is?” PM Carlton was from a business background – the former CEO of a large UK-based robotics firm – so return on investment was always a consideration in his world.

  Surprisingly, it was the Spanish PM, Luis Guerra, who answered the question. �
��Michael, I think we could be at a similar stage to Spain and Christopher Columbus before 1492. I know you know your history, his four voyages initiated the Spanish colonization of the New World. I believe my people will want to be part of such an endeavour—even at such cost. This planet is too crowded, depleted and struggling to contain the eleven billion people that have ravished its natural resource base. It seems that planets like Avendano-185f don't come around every week. Let’s not pass up this opportunity to find a second home and secure the future of our civilisation.”

  “Very well put, Luis,” PM Carlton responded, impressed by his European counterpart’s hopefully prophetic reply.

  The discussion went on into the night and through the next day. It covered everything from technology sharing protocol with outside powers, which contractors to let into the fold and how to break the news to the public and press. One key decision was that the Russians and the Chinese would both be offered junior partner status. They would contribute financially and possibly in some technical areas in exchange for access to the probe’s findings. What they would not be given, though, was strategically critical discoveries nor any territorial claim to Avendano if it turned out to be habitable. And there was the rather large outstanding question of getting people there to colonise the place if it did. This would not be a trivial matter. It would be difficult to prevent the Russians and the Chinese sending colony ships there of their own volition. But the one key technology WGA needed to keep monopoly on was the FTL drive. With this, they’d have at least a thirty year lead, assuming the Chinese and Russians could get a colony ship up to half the speed of light over the fifteen light-year journey. The cost penalty for that would be huge too due to the size and energy requirements compared to FTL.

  The manned ship concept was thrown out—it was simply too dangerous and costly for humans to travel FTL without testing. Moreover, with advances in AI routines, it was unnecessary. AI – Artificial Intelligence – programs would be used by the FTL probe to determine how to explore Avendano and what to do when it got there. The probe would be equipped with a landing system to enable touch down on the planet’s surface. A number of drones could then be released to explore further and survey the planet’s surface in more detail than could be achieved from orbit. Microprobe messengers could be transmitted back from either space or the planet’s surface. The FTL drive technology saw no boundaries to space, land, sea or sky.

  The primary FTL probe would be named Santa Maria, after the wooden carrack flagship of Christopher Columbus’ fleet, which sailed to the New World. A backup probe would also be constructed called Pinta, another of Columbus’ ships of discovery.

  February 11, 2056 Downtown, Seattle, WA

  Jenna Perez opened the door to her waterfront apartment in one of the plusher neighbourhoods of Seattle. Her lover and Chief Scientist, Dr Alan King, had been initially surprised at the level of luxury Jenna had afforded on a PA’s salary. She’d explained it away when she told of her divorce settlement from her lawyer ex-husband, Tom. Jenna punched the six-digit PIN into her safe hidden under one of the kitchen cabinets then placed her index finger on the built-in fingerprint reader. The light turned green and the safe bolts wound open with a motorised whir. She removed a seven-inch military issue, ruggedized tablet from the bottom shelf of the safe—old tech, but tried, tested and virtually indestructible.

  Next, she removed a brushed metal cuboid measuring three by six by twelve inches. There were only two features on the otherwise plain metal device. On one edge was an aperture—the USB-8 data port. On the large face of the cuboid was a single, tiny indicator light that was capable of showing several colours. Jenna retrieved a data cable and connected the metallic device to her tablet. The tablet was a standard item for SPETSNAZ – special forces – in the field but the metallic device was something altogether different. Known as the Entangled Quantum Particle transceiver, the device could instantaneously alter the state of counterpart subatomic particles on the other side of the world – or the other side of the universe, it really did not matter to entangled particles. This meant that secure, uninterceptable messages could be sent instantaneously, not at the speed of light, but literally instantaneously. The Russians operationalized this strange phenomenon several years earlier. As Russian intelligence had gleaned, neither the WGA nor the Chinese had managed to do the same. Nobody had yet worked out why it worked, but it did.

  What it meant for SVR agent, Dasha Morozova – a.k.a. Jenna Perez – was that she could transmit her report through the night with no fear of interception. First, though, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service spy would need to get to somewhere isolated. Her transmissions couldn’t be intercepted by the FBI but that didn’t mean her apartment or car were not bugged. This was 2056 and bugs were devilishly difficult to find. Her controller would be pleased that she had managed to find out as much as she had. Her reward would probably be an offer of promotion to a prestigious role once her work was done—but she only longed for money and all of the wonderful things it could buy. She was being richly rewarded and she hoped to retire from the service early to enjoy the fruits of her labour.

  Dasha got out of her self-driving car and strolled into the deserted Belvedere Park. Over the harbour was the glittering skyline of downtown Seattle. The container port of Harbour Island, in between, was a hive of activity at any time of night or day including 8pm on a Friday evening. She followed a woodland path on that crisp February night. The sky was clear and the Avendano sun twinkled somewhere to the east, thirty or so degrees above the horizon of the continental United States. Nobody came to a place like this on a Friday night. The Americans’ obsession with staying on lit pathways when they walked anywhere always struck her as odd in the crime-free safety of modern America. Russia was a different story, but even so Dasha could take care of herself.

  Ever cautious over op-sec, she left the trodden path and moved further into the dense woods of the park. Sitting against the trunk of a hundred-year-old tree, she took out her military issue tablet, connected via a data lead to the EQP transceiver in her oversized handbag. Such handbags seemed to be all the rage these days in the west coast city. Dasha was devoid of real feelings for King, her WGA colleagues or the United States where she had lived for the past six years. Psychologists would have classed her as quite a long way down the psychopathic spectrum of behaviours—charming, manipulative, lacking empathy and ultimately parasitical. She knew how to put her tendencies to good use, and, in turn, the SVR used her in the service of Russia’s agenda; and for this, she was richly rewarded. Everyone had their thing and Dasha Morozova’s was money and the good life. This was the life awaiting her at the end of this assignment. She hoped that would come in her early to mid-forties—still young now that the average life expectancy was ninety-eight for females.

  Once security protocols had been satisfied, the agent started her detailed report to her handler sitting in SVR headquarters in the Yasenevo District of wintery Moscow. Her tablet screen was dark. It was a voice-only conversation using a headset, so she only had to whisper in her native Russian to be heard. Dasha’s memory had been enhanced shortly after being assigned as a field agent. An undetectable recording network made up of thousands of nano-chips linked by Dasha’s own neural pathways had been implanted in her brain. She spoke rapidly and precisely, recalling all she had learned over the past two days of the WGA conference and the twelve days since her last report. Her download was seldom interrupted by her handler—she was a pro and knew what he needed to know and what he did not. Satisfied with her report, he gave her next set of instructions—stay embedded at WGA Research Centre staying close to Dr King. No more contact until the next phase. Dasha had no idea when this would be, so she became a sleeper once more and did what she needed to do to stay Jenna Perez.

  Chapter Two

  June 5, 2056 Alliance Citadel Space Station, Low Earth Orbit

  Adam Chesters floated awkwardly out of the airlock from the pilotless Skylift USV – Unmanned Space V
ehicle – and into the circular entranceway of the Alliance Citadel Space Station. He was the Engineering Chief of the FTL Probe design team and, despite his experience in space vehicle design, it was only his third trip to low Earth orbit. Most of what he and his team did could be accomplished remotely from their facility in Seattle. But this was one of those occasions when it was felt that only face-to-face engagement would do. And, besides, space travel – at least to low Earth orbit – had now plummeted in price and had become almost routine with safety stats following suit. In fact, the single stage to orbit space planes, such as the British Skylift-MkIII, were the key enablers to actually building the station at a palatable cost. With high asset utilisation an important factor in low cost space travel, the Skylift USV quickly started its disengagement procedure in preparation for its next journey.

  Probe Construction Chief Robert Hartmann greeted Chesters with a warm handshake and pat on the back. A tall, trim Dutchman of mixed African-European ethnicity, Hartmann’s smile lit up any room. His seemingly limitless energy and sense of humour made him the ideal guy to lead the fabrication and assembly effort. Hartmann and his team would oversee the construction and testing of Santa Maria and Pinta – the FTL Probe and its backup – on the space station. Although Chesters would continue to be involved during construction, it was time to officially hand over the design. That was what their meeting was about, getting the design from the drawing board to the people who would make it reality.