by Marti Ward
Simba particularly liked the game they played with the ball. One of them would take the ball to gray’n’gold and he’d look very excited. He’d then throw it down the corridor and they’d chase it, with gray’n’gold always coming along slowly and last, as if he didn’t know how the game was played. Sometimes they’d bat the ball around a bit until he came… And sometimes he didn’t come at all, but waited till one of them brought the ball back to him, or got distracted onto something else.
Samba caught what she was thinking and dashed off to get the ball. Gray’n’gold picked it up, but then let his hand sink to the ground, still holding the ball. Simba batted at it half-heartedly, wondering what was going on. Gray’n’gold continued to talk. He stood up, walked over to the dome box, and put his hand on it… waving his other hand at them as he talked – he was inviting them to get in there for a big sleep.
No way! If he wanted them in there, well, he could get cold’n’senseless to net them and put them in. She gave a snorting cough, and then both of them went winding around his legs, meowing strongly to give him the message.
They’d stay out, thank you very much!
Chapter Six
P–Tenebra L5 superhighway
Simba
4 July 2076 22:42
Simba started, awaking suddenly with a sense of danger. No, more a sense of differentness – whether danger awaited remained to be seen. Samba opened one eye to look at her – he evidently hadn’t felt anything, other than her own jump into wakefulness.
But then Samba drew himself up to join her, tail questing from side to side as he maintained that state of balance and readiness and alertness that was so much who they were, but so seldom needed in this human-controlled environment. Still, some of those experiences with the white-coat breed were indicative that it was necessary to hone their instinctual skills and critical senses. They’d enjoyed providing the humans with some learning experiences of their own: leading them to expect one thing – then doing precisely the opposite; understanding quite clearly what they wanted – then perversely ignoring them and their little games.
One thing that had changed was that there were now some other aware entities awake in the vicinity. Mice perhaps? But not quite the usual white mouse they were used to glimpsing in previous human environments. That was the cruelest trick of all – allowing them to see and smell those mice, but not to chase them or play with them… But it wasn’t the mice that had awakened her – her awareness of them had grown gradually over the last day or so. And it wasn’t those occasional murmurs in her head, as if there were other cats here wanting to get her attention – or was it their absence that she felt.
It wasn’t the gray’n’gold human either – although she had sensed the buildup of anxiety yesterday, and throughout the night, and the use of the same kind of slow breathing that Simba employed herself. Strange that she had such strong presence from this human and felt his anxiety even now when he was nowhere near – it was deep-seated, instinctual, like needing to comfort a kit.
Gray’n’gold had got into a routine of visiting them morning and afternoon, as he nibbled and drank from those strange white containers he carried, but it seemed she could always sense where he was and when he was coming.
That was part of it – the time felt wrong, the seasons felt wrong… The regular day and night in the human environment was always strange – she hadn’t had a good shed or a good fur ball in far more days than her instincts told her usually marked the passing of the seasons. The human environment was always warm, but never the summer heat, and never the evening cool, or the winter cold. But now she was sensing something different… something very different…
Al
5 July 2076 06:00
They had passed through Tenebra’s orbit again, and it was time for them to send another message drone back to Sol, although the Captain was reluctant to do so. Al had found a route that got a boost from the jovian Praelium, and took advantage of PTL5 to accomplish a quick and cheap adjustment of elliptical. With their change of plans at Tenebra, and their quick getaway from Petra, it had turned out that it was most convenient to head straight to New Eden and spend a few months there while Ardesco came out of occlusion. That was the easy bit. The hard part was trying to keep the Captain on an even keel.
They were currently trying to agree on whether to outfit one of their EmProbes for Ardesco with a full complement of three M-drones. Making this a protracted discussion full of sidetracks had been a deliberate strategy to keep the Captain distracted from his rants about Solar Command, and focused on the kind of problem he liked to solve.
The debate had been raging for days, but with nothing like the temperature that emerged when Solar Command or message drones came up.
The initial question was whether it was worth dispatching another EmProbe with three Volcans to New Eden while Casindra proceeded as per orders to the innermost planet, Ardesco. EMP-T had been directed from PTL4 to New Eden, but was only equipped with two Volcans because it had also carried a message drone – and it wouldn’t reach New Eden for over a year. Al was concerned that the risk was too great, as the level 2 AI on the EMP was not sufficiently powerful to deal with the unknowns in what was, after all, a recently discovered and relatively uncharted system – not to mention being the first and only system other than our own to be overtly explored. Sideris knew they needed to make their decision today as the window was closing.”
But suddenly Al had changed the whole ball game with a suggestion that Casindra proceed to New Eden themselves, which changed the burning question to one of sending an EMP with 3 Volcans to Ardesco. It also raised the question of whether EMP-T should be redirected to Ardesco instead of New Eden.
“It’s better to risk a probe and some drones and amass more data, than it is to risk not getting the data we need, or having to lengthen our journey well beyond our allotted time just to complete a survey that could have been done by probes,” Sideris insisted, homing in on Al’s concern that they return home on time. “In any case, the probes are meant to be disposable, and although I’d like to have more to place strategically as relays, we do have a couple of EmProbes in hand at this point, and a stack of Volcans, because we retrieved the ones we used at Petra – and one way or another we’ll also have the EMP and 2 Volcans from Tenebra at New Eden, or potentially Ardesco. What we are running short of is message drones, particularly at the Gate…”
Al was in partial agreement on this point, and had been waiting for Sideris to raise the message drone issue again. “True! We are effectively allocating EmProbes and Volcans expected to be devoted exclusively to the Tenebra and Petra mission and unavailable for any other purpose – this is a huge advantage arising from our respecifying of those missions. EmProbe EMP-T has reached the Gate at PTL4 and sent off the Tenebra samples, at the same time delaying depleting our supply of message drones at the Gate, but it will face the same risks as it heads to New Eden per our directives. We could lose two if we send another one on ahead to either New Eden or Ardesco as well… Nonetheless, the arguments for sending the Tenebra probe to New Eden do apply to sending one to Ardesco early, and we still have the Petra probes and their Volcans – samples have been recovered and distributed amongst our M-drones along with their analyses.”
Al paused and watched for the Captain’s nod of agreement. “For me the big question is how we allocate our message drones, and I have been exploring the question of coordinating with EMP-G to send message drones to the Gate on their own. I now think we should send an EMP to Ardesco, but we do need to include a message drone. We furthermore need to try sending an unaccompanied message drone direct to EMP-G – Solar Command is already three days beyond expected message arrival even with an unaugmented gated at SJL4, and an extra message drone at the Gate will be essential to maintain any kind of message schedule in the absence of further messages from Sol.”
What Al hadn’t said was that New Eden was the main event, and they really did need six Volcans to properly survey
the planet, plus ideally six to survey Ardesco, for that matter – this would give them only two at Ardesco, four if they diverted EMP-T to Ardesco. That would drag things out a bit and meant they wouldn’t have full simultaneous planetwide coverage of weather phenomena.
Of course, they did have the bigger Valiant scouts as well – Al felt sure the Captain would want to take one of them down to the New Eden surface. It would also be possible for Al to pilot one by remote control. Not much point in conspiring to have them included off profile if they didn’t use them… The Valiants would potentially allow them to speed up their survey of New Eden, although mostly the effect would be to increase their depth of coverage. But the Valiants would be a distraction for another day.
“Agreed,” Sideris responded quickly and unexpectedly. “I think that’s the best compromise of resources against time and risk. You’re right! We haven’t retrieved the last pair of Volcans yet, and if we committed more to the Ardesco pre-survey, we might lack spares we need for New Eden… Please prepare the EmProbe, designating as EMP-A, attaching the two Volcans used on Petra plus one M-drone, and launch when ready! It’s great that you think that EMP-G can bring in a message drone remotely – which also raises the question of whether EMP-A would be able to work with EMP-G to get a message drone safely to the Gate from Ardesco. And yes, please explore redirecting EMP-T to Ardesco, ideally getting it there a bit sooner – within a week of EMP-A if you can. The idea is worth considering, although has its own risks.”
“Probe preparation is complete... VCT2 has been fully charged! VCT1 had both batteries severely damaged in the Petra operation, and these have been replaced and charged.” Al notched up the weights on the heuristics he’d used to make the two Volcan one MD case to the Captain, predicting his capitulation at the apparent compromise, and most impressively matching his preference for retaining the unstressed Volcans. “In relation to sending message drones between EMPs, I should be able to coordinate that through the EMP’s level 2 AI’s wherever I am in system, as long as I have direct or indirect contact with both for at least two minutes each within the preparation window.”
“Noted and logged! Please include all logs up to this discussion and decision in the transmissions to the Gate probe as well as in our next message drone…” Al noted that the Captain was glaring at his avatar again, his features glacial but his temperature rising – but Al was sure he hadn’t done anything wrong. “This is not satisfactory, Al – since the last incoming drone, we have again sent three unacknowledged message drones, and with the one we are due to send today we will again be down to one at the Gate… With one more in the pipeline once you send one off to EMP-G.”
“Acknowledged! For your information: we have one free message drone, MD12, allocated to Casindra and I would propose to deploy it to send back samples from my biomedical experiments. It can be ready for departure within one hour. In addition to that we have the EmProbe designated for New Eden, currently allocated a full complement of three M-drones for returning surface samples. MD6 is being updated with current logs and will be ready for launch on completion.”
Sideris interrupted the report. “Do not send MD6 without my explicit authorization… And do we really need to send MD12 right now? With their limited AI and lack of EM, it is surely best to use them when there are optimal transfer windows. I’m concerned about being totally reliant on wireless comms, and a single relay probe.”
“The reports from New Eden and Ardesco will be sent wirelessly for relay using M-drones from the Gate Probe. The samples will then have to wait till we or the probes get to PTL4. The Gate Probe will be authorized to send off MD6 once logs are updated as per protocol. The drone from SJL4, MD13, is the sole remaining message drone at the Gate and if after we send that we don’t get one back in the specified time, we won’t have one to send. Even sending MD6 today and MD13 after 14 weeks, MD12 would arrive over five months after our next scheduled message drone is due to be sent.”
Sideris was still in glacier mode, but his ears were now becoming quite red. “Exactly! We can’t maintain a schedule that was designed for emergency situations that might arise mid-mission, but in fact has been ongoing since the very beginning. We’ve been in a state of communication blackout since we left, with just one exception. We should have received eight message drones back and have received exactly one – Solar Command has not obeyed protocol and is not properly supporting the mission. Obviously if they don’t send drones back, we are going to run out and can’t maintain an arbitrary schedule, and without extra EmProbes we can’t ferry supplies and samples around the system optimally... From this point on, we need to send things at the optimum time from our perspective not some arbitrary protocol written in the twilight zone. From this point, we will send message drones when we have urgent information to convey, when we have filled the drones with the samples they are meant to carry. Given the time it will take MD12 to get to the Gate, don’t you agree it would be better to have evenly spaced messages rather than one big gap? Obviously, it would be nice to tell them about anticipated delays in advance, the predicted gaps between messages, but that is a luxury we can’t afford.”
Al could see Sideris make an obvious effort to pull himself together and calm down, but he was still hot, bothered and red-eared. He wasn’t sure whether there was a question he needed to answer, or whether the speech had all been rhetorical, but Sideris solved that problem for him by keeping right on going. “Please monitor comms closely for interference; and do consider whether there is a more effective way of employing MD12, which is effectively Casindra’s last general purpose message drone – since the ones attached to EMPs have specific missions associated. Sending it off on a year-long journey to the Gate is pointless given we expect further incoming message drones.”
“On the other hand, we have to get those biological samples to the Gate somehow, and they would take even longer to get back to Sol if we waited till the end of the New Eden mission to send EMP-NE with them. This will give us flexibility: if we do get further timely message drones from Solar Command, we can maintain schedule and get through samples sooner than otherwise; if not, then we can potentially split the difference on the gap and maintain a double latency schedule – perhaps missing a window would even encourage sending back a message drone.” Al was reflecting the Captain’s own argument back at him, but it didn’t seem to have the desired effect of making him calmer.
“Please ensure that sending of message drones is scheduled to even out the gaps and ensure that as much as possible we do maintain an MD at the Gate ready to push through at a moment’s notice, or on a deadman’s schedule. And yes, do organize to send off MD12 on the most efficient schedule that will allow it enough fuel to get through to Sol with the minimum accepted margin of safety.”
“Monitoring of interference and occlusions already constitutes part of my mission specification. Outage predictions due to solar occlusion are included in the trajectory analysis, as are risk factors for message drones at each orbital transfer point...”
“And the risk analysis concludes what?”
“The interim communications from the inner planets were always scheduled to be via wireless relay through the Gate probe, followed by dispatch of their EmProbes with samples. The probability of successful M-drone navigation to PTL4 from New Eden and Ardesco is only moderate and success is likely to be highly dependent on choosing the optimum time to try. There will be periods of radio shadow, and the simple bi-elliptic transfers required by this class of drone will take well over a year even in the optimum window, and can take two years or more in the worst case. The next M-drone will include the year-end biomedical report along with refrigerated blood and tissue samples, and the long transit times would lead to unacceptable deterioration. It should be sent promptly and the present timepoint is close to optimal.”
“Noted! Although I am not convinced those samples are that important, but it will help with the lack of drones at the Gate – and we still have EMP-NE and its drones. Yo
u might log a recommendation about setting up EMP relay stations at Tenebra and PTL3 and 5 as well. Pity we don’t have any spares to drop off while we are here…”
“Acknowledged! We don’t have a spare EmProbe to deploy here, although EMP-T is on course to rendezvous with us at New Eden. It would be possible to redirect EMP-T to PTL5. Unfortunately, we can’t just drop off a radio and some dishes from spare parts, as we would have no way of orienting the dishes correctly, or of keeping the system on station at the Lagrangian.”
“Understood! It’s a recommendation for the future… I certainly don’t want to devote EMP-T to the job. We may need to use it to send back a message, and samples, if something else goes wrong…” Sideris clarified.
“Agreed! We’ve established that we need every resource we have for the Ardesco and New Eden missions. The mission reports will have to wait at times when we are in communications shadow.”
“Maybe not,” Sideris interjected. Given we won’t have a triple alignment of Ardesco, New Eden and PTL4, we will be able to relay via the Ardesco EmProbe. Please make sure it is programmed for relay use. Even EMP-T could be used as a relay while in transit. Please ensure all logs from all sources are routinely shared with all active EmProbes, including redundant relay of unacknowledged packets between probes.”
“Acknowledged!” Al silently inspected his association weightings. He was somewhat disconcerted. Why hadn’t he seen that possibility? This was clear support for the Captain’s position on sending a probe ahead to Ardesco. This virtually solved their transsystem communications problem, even at the outer limits of their mission parameters and expected duration. He was already using an orbiting EmProbe as a message store and relay at the Gate… Why didn’t it occur to him to use the others the same way? He included the recommendation in his log and noted that they could achieve lower risk and more comprehensive coverage of mission goals if further EmProbes were sent through to support the mission.