A Learning Experience

by Christopher Nuttall

  He paused. “You do realise that setting up a lunar base probably contravenes the Outer Space Treaty?”

  “I didn't sign it,” Steve said. “And nor did the aliens.”

  Wilhelm blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “There are thousands of alien races in the galaxy,” Steve said. He learned forward, meeting the younger man's eyes. “As far as we have been able to determine through searching the alien database, the only law that is actually enforced regularly is a ban on genocide. And even that may be a bit iffy.

  “We cannot rely on the aliens blindly accepting our laws when they enter our solar system,” he added, coldly. “The galaxy appears to operate on the principle that might makes right – and they are far mightier than ourselves. If we’re lucky, the best we can hope for is to become a protectorate, just like a newly-discovered tribe of natives in some godforsaken jungle lucky enough not to live near something a more advanced nation wants. If we’re unlucky, we will be enslaved or crushed beneath an alien boot heel. We need to make this work, Markus, before we run out of time. And we cannot rely on the government to do anything other than impede us or smother the effort under countless studies of how to do it quickly.

  “To hell with absurd treaties, to hell with charges of treason. I want to win, I want to safeguard humanity’s future. And the only way to do that is to use this opportunity as ruthlessly as possible.”

  Wilhelm studied him for a long moment. “Very well,” he said, finally. “I will join you.”

  “Excellent,” Steve said. He nodded to Kevin. “My lovely assistant” – Kevin snorted, rudely – “will work with you to determine what would be the most ... productive items to enter the market.”

  “I could advance you a loan now,” Wilhelm offered. “I may not be Bill Gates, but I do have quite a bit of money stashed away.”

  “That would be very helpful,” Kevin said, before Steve could say a word. “We’re sitting on the largest gold mine in human history and we have barely a cent to our names.”

  Wilhelm smiled. “It will be done,” he said. “Can I see one of the aliens?”

  “Our sole captive,” Steve said, standing. “Come with me.”

  “They don’t seem very clever,” Wilhelm observed, as he followed Steve through the alien corridors. “To let you take control of their ship so easily.”

  Kevin smirked. “How many people do you know who use ADMIN as the username and PASSWORD as the password?”

  “Point taken,” Wilhelm said. “Half the problems I handed while I was in the service were caused by someone neglecting basic security precautions. One idiot actually took a USB stick he’d found in the trash into the Pentagon and inserted it into his computer. The Chinese must have laughed their heads off when they realised how it had happened.”

  Steve turned to look at him. “The Chinese?”

  “They’re constantly poking the edge of the electronic fence,” Wilhelm said. “You won’t believe just how much crap they’ve tried to pull, from inserting spyware into almost every computer produced in China to paying officers to obtain passwords and admin permissions for them. There was a whole flurry a few years ago about a remarkably nasty computer worm that might well have come straight from China. We never really got to the bottom of that, no matter what we did.”

  He shrugged. “Or it could be the Russians,” he added. “Asymmetric warfare is their thing.”

  “But it still seems odd for aliens not to notice the dangers.”

  “This race seems to be permanently trapped in the Dark Ages,” Steve said, as they reached the alien’s cabin. The cleaning effort hadn't quite reached this part of the ship; he saw Wilhelm wrinkle his nose as he smelled the decomposing alien meat in the air. “Just like some human groups, for that matter.”

  “True,” Kevin agreed. “You know we used to offer laptops to schoolchildren in Africa? The idea was that they would develop their talents and join the global information age.”

  Wilhelm lifted his eyebrows, but said nothing.

  “We did a survey, a year after we donated the laptops,” Kevin explained. “Only a handful of children ever managed to learn how to use them properly. The remainder were either junked or turned into portable lights for the women who cook. They – the laptops – were just so far outside their experience that they had no idea what to do with them.”

  “And these aliens are the same,” Wilhelm mused. “You know, we could probably sell some crap to the aliens if that’s the case.”

  Steve nodded. “Something to think about, if we live that long,” he agreed. He opened the door to the alien’s room. “Meet ... the alien.”

  He smiled as Wilhelm gasped in shock. It was a familiar reaction by now; men who took the teleporter in their stride found themselves caught short by the mere presence of the alien. A couple who happened to be deathly scared of spiders had recoiled when they’d seen the alien, then had to be given alcohol to calm their nerves. But then, after meeting deadly spiders in Iraq and Afghanistan, the fears were actually somewhat logical.

  “Let me know when you come to an agreement,” Steve said to Kevin, then left the compartment. “I have to check up on Edward.”

  He made his way down to the medical bay, then smiled. In a handful of hours, Mariko had turned it into something more suitable for human use, scrubbing the decks clean and installing a couple of beds she’d had brought up from the ranch. The older kids had helped, captivated by the thought of learning from alien computers and neural interfaces rather than at their desks, along with the rest of the children in the region. He smiled as he saw Edward, lying on one of the beds.

  “I feel fine,” Romford protested. “But she threatened to cuff me to the bed if I tried to leave.”

  “She’s the boss in this sickbay,” Steve said, firmly. “How are you feeling?”

  “Well, I can feel my legs and my groin,” Romford said. “That’s ... very definitely an improvement. And I can actually walk, when she lets me.”

  He paused. “Does she have a sister?”

  “She never talks to her family,” Steve said. He wasn't surprised by the question. If he’d lost the ability to have sex and then regained it, he would have wanted to have sex as soon as possible too. “But there will be other women coming up here.”

  “Or there will be shore leave, I hope,” Romford said. He sat upright, looking down at his hairless chest. “She says the hair will grow back in its own sweet time.”

  “She’s probably right,” Steve said. Romford was certainly sounding a whole lot better. The croak was gone from his voice, for one thing. “What else did she say?”

  “She said he ought to stay in bed,” Mariko’s voice said. Steve turned to see her standing behind him, her hands on her hips. “I know this autodoc is likely to put us all out of business, but I would infinitely prefer to have you lying down until I am absolutely sure it does what it says on the tin.”

  “Yes, boss,” Romford said, reluctantly.

  Mariko caught Steve’s hand and pulled him into the next compartment. “I don’t tell you what to do on the ranch,” she snapped. “Don’t tell me what to do in my sickbay!”

  An angry retort came to Steve’s lips, but he forced it down. “What’s wrong?”

  Mariko sighed. “I checked him carefully,” she said. “I did every test I could think of with the equipment I brought up from the ranch. And you know what I found?”

  Steve shook his head.

  “Perfection,” Mariko said. “His spine has been repaired, several gunshot wounds are no longer detectable, a small problem with his heart has been fixed, even the excess fat he gained since being forced into the residence has been removed. The autodoc did a perfect job, well beyond anything the best surgeon on Earth could do.”

  She sighed. “This thing will put all the surgeons on Earth out of business,” she added. “And there are quite a few other things it can do. Do you realise that we could start producing cancer cures now? Or a modified virus that could destroy AIDS? O
r ... hell, Steve, I want to improve the kids. What sort of mother would I be if I let this opportunity pass me by?”

  “Improve the kids?” Steve asked. “How?”

  “All sorts of little genetic tweaks,” Mariko said. “They’d have perfect eyesight for the rest of their lives. They’d live at least two hundred years with minimal age-related decay. They’d be completely immune to everything from the Common Cold to AIDS. They’d never really put on weight or lose their muscle tone; hell, I think even their mental agility can be modified and improved. And this ... thing just did it! I asked for a list of options and it provided them, almost at once.”

  She looked up at him, plaintively. “Steve, honey, this scares the hell out of me.”

  Steve frowned. He didn't understand. “Why?”

  “One thing you learn as a doctor,” Mariko said, “is that, on average, there are no real differences between different races – different human races, I should say. But with this technology ... it wouldn’t be long until people start creating superhumans, men and women who are smarter, stronger and just plain more capable than the rest of the human race. Or you could start creating slaves, people who really are good for nothing more than grunt labour, people who are always obedient to those they know to be their masters because servitude is engineered into them.

  “This is Pandora’s Box, honey. And once you open it you can't stuff the contents back inside.”

  She hugged him, tightly. “That’s why I’m scared,” she admitted. “This is going to change the world. Everything will change.”

  Steve nodded, hugging her back. Now, he was scared too.

  Chapter Eight

  Lunar Base, The Moon

  “Now this,” Steve declared, “is impressive.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Graham Rochester said. “And glad you decided to look in on us.”

  Steve smiled. Rochester had been a British Army Combat Engineer before being seriously wounded in Afghanistan and sent back to face the tender mercies of the British National Health Service. He’d been as badly crippled as Romford – perhaps worse – and the offer of a new life had been too much for him to refuse. Unlike Romford, he’d decided to become an outright cyborg. One of his arms had been replaced by a cyborg arm that whirred and clicked at inappropriate moments, his eyes had been replaced by sensors and his skin had been coated in a material that allowed him to survive in vacuum. He claimed it was far better than mere humanity.

  “I was taught it was always a bad idea to let subordinates think I didn't care about them,” Steve said. “But you’ve done wonders in a single month.”

  “That’s what the Royal Engineers are for,” Rochester said. “You should see some of the bases we had to put together in Afghanistan at a moment’s notice. Compared to that, this is a snap.”

  Steve nodded, his gaze sweeping across the surface of the moon. It looked oddly dirty, with modified human vehicles and mining tools scattered everywhere. The foundations of Heinlein Colony were under the lunar surface – it would provide additional protection and camouflage for the colony – but enough was visible for him to know that work was proceeding smoothly.

  “We had to set up the living quarters first,” Rochester continued. “Not everyone wanted to become a full cyborg, after all. Once they were done, we started to expand the base and look for sources of raw materials. Once we found ice ...”

  He smirked. “This base is well on the way to becoming self-sustaining,” he added. “So much for NASA’s little fears, right?”

  Steve nodded. As soon as Heinlein Colony was ready to take a small number of settlers, he’d had two of the fabricators and their alien prisoner moved to the settlement, along with half of the supplies the Hordesmen had gathered over the years. Added to the supplies they’d purchased from Earth, Heinlein Colony would definitely be capable of feeding itself indefinitely soon enough, while continuing to expand under the lunar surface.

  “We’ve actually got a couple of people who think we can terraform the moon,” Rochester said, as he led the way through the airlock. “There’s quite a bit of ice at the lunar poles; they think we can use it to create a thin atmosphere, then build up plants on the soil that will eventually thicken the atmosphere to the point humans can breathe normally.”

  Steve shook his head in disbelief. “Really?”

  “Sure,” Rochester said. “It's definitely theoretically possible, but it would also be extremely visible. And we’d have to built up a magnetic field. That’s going to be the real bugger.”

  Steve scowled. One disadvantage of having to keep everything secret was the very real danger of being spotted from Earth. Heinlein Colony was on the far side of the moon, permanently out of sight, but the shuttles and modified tractors they used often went to the near side, where they could be seen. Fortunately, he doubted anyone would believe a word of it unless there were hard recordings of the observation. But who knew what would happen if someone on Earth did observe their presence? Maybe they’d think it was an alien settlement.

  Inside, he couldn't help thinking of the abandoned mines near the ranch in Montana, the ones his father had forbidden him to go near on pain of a thrashing. The tunnels were cut from the lunar rock, carved out with automated tools then left bare and almost unmarked. Someone had carved a handful of corridor references into the crossing points, but nothing else. It would need to be made more hospitable, Steve decided, as they walked down under the lunar surface. Some of the kids would have to be hired to draw or paint pictures for the walls.

  “We’ve set up the barracks in here,” Rochester said, as they paused in front of a solid hatch. “I didn't want to take any risks with our sleeping personnel, so the barracks is actually a self-contained survival room in its own right. Should there be an atmospheric leak outside, the barracks will seal itself.”

  He keyed a switch and the hatch hissed open, revealing another airlock. Steve waited patiently until the first hatch had closed, then smiled as the second hatch opened, allowing him to see into the barracks. It looked, very much, like a military barracks, complete with metal bunk beds and a handful of showers at the far end of the room. The only real difference was the row of laptops on a desk along one wall and the rubber on the ceiling.

  “We had quite a few people bang their heads because they weren't used to the lunar gravity,” Rochester explained. “So we ended up putting rubber on the roof to ensure they wouldn't be seriously hurt. It does help, a little. I’ve insisted that no one gets to actually do any work for at least a week after their arrival, giving them time to get used to conditions here. We had some accidents when we were trying to use the tractors on the moon because they were designed for Earth.”

  He gave Steve a challenging look, as if he expected to face disagreement. Steve merely nodded. Rochester was the man on the spot, after all, and he'd accomplished miracles in barely a month. There was no point in disagreeing with one of his decisions, particularly one that was clearly suited to their current conditions.

  “Morale is generally high,” Rochester said, when it was clear Steve wasn't going to say anything. “The only real complaint comes from the unmarried men, who wish there were more women up here. Most of them are newly rejuvenated and want to put their dicks to work somewhere other than the shower.”

  Steve had to smile. If he’d been in his late seventies and then been returned to his early twenties, he’d start chasing women too. “Have there been any real problems?”

  “No, but there will be,” Rochester said. “So far, the few unmarried girls we have here have earned a lot of attention. But hormones and men and tight conditions are asking for trouble.”

  Steve scowled, remembering some of the stories from Afghanistan. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who had a friend who’d got into trouble with a woman on one of the bigger military bases, one of the places where it was impossible to believe that one was in the middle of a war zone. Despite all the rules and regulations, hundreds of women had been sent home for falling pregnant.
The coldly practical part of him knew that brothels for the troops would have been a great idea, but it wasn't something the government could ever allow. There would have been an outcry from their more progressive factions if they’d tried.

  But Steve didn't have to worry about that, did he?

  Mariko might have a few things to say about it, he thought, a moment later. And so might Jayne.

  “We’ll have to give some thought to starting a brothel,” he said, finally. “But it won’t be as easy as finding veterans and space enthusiasts to work on our colony.”

  “Plenty of desperate young women out there,” Rochester said, as they turned and walked back through the airlock. “And the guys here will behave. I’ve already threatened to tear off the testicles of anyone who sexually harasses one of my people.”