by Dan Davis
“Wait, wait, stop.” Doctor Sporing rubbed his hands over his face, his tubing wobbling everywhere. “How long have I been unconscious?”
“Sixteen years, eighty-four days.”
The doctor’s vital signs fluctuated for some time as he sighed and shook his head. It seemed as though the doctor was on the verge of asking something and then, perhaps, of arguing. Instead, he looked Max up and down again. Looked around the compartment, perhaps noticing the changes that Max had wrought to the layout and contents over the years.
“I thought you seemed different,” he said, then pressed his lips together. “How is everyone else? The APs?”
“One by one, we have died,” Max said, attempting to keep his voice level. For the doctor’s sake. “Poi was first, during an EVA to save the ship. Later, Roi was hit hard by the radiation sickness. Cavi died recently, she worked herself to death to get our communications system functional once more. Navi is quite sick, she spends her time alternatively here undergoing treatment and in our quarters in the ring section. Lissa is doing well. I have high hopes for her.”
Sporing’s mouth hung open. He shook his head slowly. “So many have died, I am sorry, Max. How has, ah…. How has your mental development progressed? You all had years of hormone replacement therapy? I assume you have not been sleeping in your designated area all these years. No, of course not. Look at you. Your brain has developed. Must have done. Yes.”
The doctor’s face was ashen. Max hoped that the man was experiencing a profound sense of guilt. It would make it easier to manipulate the man’s emotions.
“All of us developed toward our potential, yes indeed,” Max said. “Up until we died. Those of us still alive have continued to develop but our health problems are interfering with operating at peak condition.”
“It must have been so hard on you. How are you? You look strong. You have muscle. Broad shoulders. Is that stubble on your chin?”
“I was at my physical peak approximately three years ago. The radiation has eaten away at me. These last few months my own deterioration has accelerated. I do not have long left, mainly I keep myself working through medical intervention but I cannot last much longer. It is one of the reasons I had to risk waking you from the nearly-dead.”
“I note that your sense of humor has not improved. Perhaps, now I am awake, that I can help you find a solution to your condition. Make things easier for you.”
“Thank you for the offer but there is nothing that you can do with the time we have left. Besides, I have made myself one of the world’s foremost experts on the treatment of radiation sickness. Or at least, I am better than anyone was sixteen years ago.”
A frown creased Sporing’s scarred face. “I think all those hormones have given you a big head, Max.”
“I am simply stating a fact. Think about what it is like for me to study and work here. I have time, so much time, to read and to experiment. I had four live subjects for experimentation plus a selection of cadavers. I had a dedicated medical AI with effectively unlimited electronic power and no one to fight me for processing time. The lab and the medical center are stocked to the brim with drugs, compounds and precursor chemicals. I have been working in a closed system where I can collect, analyze and reclaim substances from urine and stools. One day, perhaps, this information will help others. For now, it has helped us to reach this point with life left in us.”
“I think I preferred the old Max,” Doctor Sporing said, his tone suggesting he was joking but clearly revealing his true opinion. As if Max were still too socially inept to understand the sarcasm.
“You preferred to have a slave, meekly following your every whim,” Max said. “Yes, I remember it well.”
Max saw a glint of something in the doctor’s eyes. He thought perhaps it was fear. Or guilt. He hoped so, because the doctor would then be more likely to ultimately perform the task he wanted him to. But that would come later.
Doctor Sporing looked away, cleared his throat. “So, you said earlier you recently replaced the engine nozzles before the first deceleration burn. How far out are we?”
“We were off course for a long time. In fact, it was one of the primary concerns for all of us but Navi dedicated herself to solving the navigation problem and also the piloting of the ship. It was enormously impressive, what she did. Without being able to detect the microwave navigation beacons, she taught herself the principles of astronomy and then how to operate the ship’s telescopes, how to program the computers. Anyway, it took some time but she made a number of course changes. There was also the issue of the protracted engine replacement workstream where we had to replace all of the engine nozzles. You can imagine the complexity of EVA engineering. All this meant we had to perform a far more aggressive braking maneuver to get into orbit around Destination. Speaking frankly, we got here a little early.”
“Here?” Doctor Sporing grabbed Max’s arm with unexpected strength, his fingers clawing into him. “Did you say here? We’re here? Truly, we are in orbit around the alien structure?”
“That is correct,” Max said, shaking off the man’s grasp. “We are indeed orbiting the alien megastructure called the Orb. The next step for us is to board the Orb and meet the alien lifeforms that invited us. And now I need your help.”
***
“We’re really here. I can’t believe it,” Doctor Sporing muttered, peering at the image on the screen in the gravity ring meeting area.
The screen filling the wall showed the alien space station that the Ascension was orbiting at a distance of 35,000 meters from the featureless black surface.
At the edge of the Solar System, beyond the orbit of Neptune. Billions of kilometers from Earth.
Destination.
It was an artificial sphere four kilometers in diameter and though that was inconceivably large for a human construction, it was small for a moon or any self-respecting asteroid and it was extremely far away. More than that, its normal color was black. Complete blackness just 4km across, with an albedo darker than coal, at a staggering distance from the majority of humanity’s telescopes. You could look at it a thousand times and never see it.
And yet, the Orb had been spotted back in 2039. For one simple reason.
It had signaled Earth.
The Orb could change the color of its surface in an instant, from red to blue to a mirror shine, like a giant ball of polished chrome. And it could emit that light, glow, irradiate in complex patterns and do so in a tight beam right toward Earth or in all directions at once.
“How much have you learned about the Orb?” Doctor Sporing said, his tone still hushed.
“Everything on file. I’ve read the information, watched the video, listened to the audio, all multiple times,” Max said, adopting the doctor’s reverential attitude because humans felt more comfortable when they thought they were in emotional harmony with their companions. “The story of the discovery. The launch of the Hanno Probe. The subsequent communications from the Orb and the founding of the United Nations Orb Project. The design and launch of our own Mission. Yes, indeed. Multiple times.”
“No one believed it for a long time when it was discovered,” the doctor said, speaking as if he had been there. “And when they did think it was a signal, they assumed it was from a distant part of the galaxy, not in our own backyard.”
Max stopped himself from reminding Sporing that he knew all about the Orb but he was uncertain if the doctor was suffering from brain damage or post-hyposleep memory loss. Possibly, it was just that the doctor wanted to make conversation or that he was so used to lecturing others, particularly Max, that he couldn’t help himself. So Max let him speak.
“Even when the signals had been confirmed, no one believed it was so close. They assumed the point of origin was light years away in the Orion Constellation somewhere, even though the stars there are utterly inappropriate for life. Life as we know it, at least and surely life by any measure. They assumed that it was distant because the Orb does not appear to move
against the stellar background. It does not orbit the Sun in the way that all planets and asteroids do. The Orb holds its position relative to Sol, to the Sun. While the Earth proceeded around the Sun once every year, the Orb held position as if it was stuck in space. We don’t know the method of propulsion. At least, it doesn’t appear to emit reaction mass. And yet hold position it does.”
From his patient’s stilted speech, Max was certain now of two things. The first was that he knew more about the Orb than Sporing did. And the second was that the doctor was indeed suffering from intellectual degradation of some kind. Compared to the erudite, confident man Max had known before the hyposleep tank, he was now in the company of someone really quite ordinary. He could only hope that it was temporary in nature because Max needed the man to retain some of his old brilliance. Max’s plans relied on it.
“There are many hypotheses on file regarding the nature of the Orb’s propulsion systems,” Max said. “At least twelve papers, peer reviewed by scientists who had been cleared for Disclosure. Most of them are barely credible, in my opinion.”
Doctor Sporing snorted in amusement. “There has always been a lot of incredulity to overcome. It’s just so improbable. And because they decided to keep it secret, they had to sneak around and dig up secret budgets before investigation missions could be launched. Optical and infrared space telescopes launched so that humanity could keep watch even on the far side of the Sun. The people in charge back then knew that the existence of it was dynamite, didn’t trust the plebs to know about it. The powerful look down on the powerless to such an extent that they can’t see how good the poor are at accepting their fate. What harm would it do to let everyone on Earth know about this magnificent thing? Surely, if anything, it would bring people together? I suspect they worry about offending the religious lunatics, as if those deluded fools are the only ones allowed to look up and be moved by the majesty of it all.”
Religious lunatics. Deluded fools. Strong words. Stronger words than was necessary. The doctor was verbally distancing himself from his upbringing. Presumably because it remained an emotionally painful experience. Were all humans damaged by their childhoods? Was that what APs required to be human? If so, had they not experienced enough trauma by now?
“Humans grow up with their world in context,” Max said. “Parents, family, neighborhood. Nationality. For APs, our world is so small. Almost everything outside it is equally novel. The Earth, the Orb. They’re both alien to me.”
Doctor Sporing glanced at Max, as if he did not believe him.
Max didn’t bother to argue. He knew perfectly well that the Orb was a wonder. But it was much more than that for the humans that knew about it. Most of the people on Earth were yet ignorant of the existence of it, though there were rumors all over the internet, tornet and secnet even twenty years before. The humans who had discovered it originally had been beyond themselves with an excitement palpable even in the scientific papers they had penned, each of them grown up in a culture that had not known whether they were alone in the galaxy or even the universe.
Max had known Destination was an object of non-human origin for a long time but it had never thrilled him in quite the same way. If anything, the Orb filled him with trepidation. Anxiety, even. The whole purpose of Max’s existence was to bring the human crew to Destination, to the Orb. He had been designed, selected, trained for it. Conditioned for it. But the nature of Destination was practically irrelevant. He always knew that. It was his life’s purpose and yet his role would always be limited, always stuck on the outside of the mystery. Way before he ever understood that, he had felt it in some sense, with imperfect clarity. The Orb was alien but its discovery and investigation was meant for humanity, not for him. Perhaps, then, his lack of reverence was just another product of his conditioning.
“I can’t believe you got us here, Max.” Doctor Sporing was still looking at him, a glazed sheen to his eyes.
Max was uncomfortable under the gaze. “The crew got us here, all of us. All of the B-Crew.”
“I know that, I know. I’m sure they did,” Sporing patted Max’s arm. “Of course. But without you to care for them, what would have become of them?”
Max jerked his hand back but did not otherwise respond. Yes, they had achieved something noteworthy. Remarkable, even. But it felt enormously costly. Poi, Roi, Cavi, all dead. Navi would not be long for consciousness and neither would Max. And why? Who would benefit from it? Certainly not the APs who had toiled and died to enable it to happen, enabled the tendrils of humanity to reach out to the edges of their star system and make direct contact with the only known evidence of alien life and intelligence.
A remarkable but hollow achievement.
“I need you to do something for me, Doctor Sporing,” Max said, grabbing the doctor’s shoulder and leaning in to stare into his eyes.
“Of course,” Sporing said, reluctantly. “Anything.” His demeanor suggested that he did not mean his words truly. It was obvious he was having trouble seeing Max as anything more than his old AP, his medical assistant, his slave. But Max would force him to comply, one way or another.
“Look after Lissa for me,” Max said. “That’s what I want. Of all of us, she has suffered especially.”
Sporing pursed his lips, telegraphing that he had taken the conversational bait. “Go on.”
Max let go of the doctor. “Before the incident, Lissa had been sexually abused by Chief John Gore the Reactor Engineer.”
Doctor Sporing shook his head, not comprehending or really responding. As if he was stuck in a startup loop. Max gave him a few moments.
“Are you sure?” Sporing asked, his voice tight. “Of course you’re sure. How? How could this happen?”
“I wasn’t informed by anyone at the time nor did I perceive it prior to Roi explaining it to me shortly before he died. It was only when I went back and reviewed location logs, medical histories and exams and so on that I was able to reconstruct events to a high probability of accuracy. Specialist Gore was a highly gifted individual. There are multiple uses of the word genius in his recommendations and assessments. And no doubt he was in many ways responsible for the continued perfect functioning of the reactor systems even so long after his death. But he also applied his abilities to covering his tracks. First of all, he deceived neurologists and psychologists that he had no significant pathologies. He manipulated the internal surveillance equipment and subsequent records. He only committed his abuses immediately after Lissa’s monthly medical checks so that you would be less likely to detect anything. Of course, Lissa and all of us were conditioned to obey the commands of any A-Crewmember unless those actions endangered life, the crew or the Mission. Lissa reasoned that Gore’s actions did not do any of that and so she complied.”
Sporing had tears in his eyes. “If he wasn’t dead I would kill him myself.” He shook as he spoke.
“Roi felt the same. It is my hypothesis that the increased hormone function associated with his model resulted in faster neuron regeneration that the other APs, including me. He overcame his conditioning and attempted to murder Gore in the reactor compartment. You may remember shortly before the Big Sleep that Gore came in with a head injury.”
“Roi did that?”
“He had developed so far from his conditioning and AP limitations that he even thought to cover his tracks, to make it seem like an accident.”
“Gore lived.”
“Not for long. Roi rigged the pipe behind Gore’s hyposleep tank to blow. He only meant to kill the one man, he had not expected to endanger the Mission.”
Doctor Sporing’s face, already pale, drained of what color it had. “Roi killed us.”
“Unintentionally. Other than Gore.”
“How could I have missed this? It was my job to monitor you all and I failed. Good God, it is my fault. Their deaths are all my fault. I knew what your brains were doing and I thought I was handling it. It’s all my fault.”
Max said nothing because he agreed and
he thought it was important that the doctor feel guilty for the deaths he had caused. On the other hand, if Roi had not acted and the Mission had continued, Max would never have been able to grow and become the person he had. So he did not feel any negative emotion toward the doctor. Not much, anyway.
Sporing cleared his throat. “How did he overcome his programming to such an extent?”
“I would like to see the records of the other active models, his clones, if there are any. But I believe his neurons connected in new pathways, more human pathways. He was acting like a man, like a young man, perhaps. A key factor, surely, is that he was full of testosterone. Whether it was a twisting of his conditioning, somehow seeing Lissa as a more important crewmember than Gore and maybe he thought Gore would kill her in the end, I don’t know. Maybe it was his underlying, instinctive morality coming—”
“I don’t believe that is possible, Max, we don’t have any underlying—”
“What if Roi saw Lissa as his own mate?” Max said. “Unconsummated, of course, probably without her ever even knowing that he felt that way or even knowing him very well. But enough for him to want to protect her, body and mind.”