by Peter Kratky
And, for a moment, for a second, Deblar felt a powerful force coming into her mind. It was a split second. But it was enough.
Back in the room where the rest of the humans were staying, Helen's companions looked at her with attention. Already with clothes and shoes, obtained from a mixture of times that understood more than five thousand years, they expected to hear some good news. She approached him walking slowly and with a slight smile on her face.
“Well?” asked Scott.
“It went better than I expected. They have given us full freedom of action. We can get out of here and go wherever we want.”
“¿And…?”
“Silence!” Helen ordered. “Not another word now. Save those questions for later. Remember: they cannot read our mind, but they can read our ideas expressed. If we access information in our minds and organize it to ask a question, then that question is legible to them. I have been talking to one of them after the meeting, or the trial, or the assembly, or whatever they call it. They have proposed that we go to a planet similar to Earth, with a fairly similar atmospheric pressure and gravity, in which we can live well after a period of adaptation and with the help of some genetic adjustments. Scott, Darrell, Karl, you'll be responsible for each team as we agreed. And don't forget: no matter what happens, we must thank fate, or if someone wants it, a god, that we are finally alive again, and with our memories intact. If the plans could go well, they have gone better than we could ever imagine. Late, but we're here. Alive. And in one piece.”
“I'm just missing a jazz band and it'll be perfect,” commented one of them. Helen looked at him hard.
“Do you know what I'm going to do with your jazz band if you open your mouth again, Karl?”
“No... I mean... Yes, Freyja.”
“Three billion years buried in a biocomputer, and when you wake up, all you think about is jazz.”
“Yes, Freyja.”
“Well, let's move on... First of all, we're alive. These huge birds might not have come back, and we would still be a lot of data on a biocomputer for all eternity, or maybe more. The risk was enormous, and we knew it. We have to thank these vitamin birds for getting us out of there. The Xarwen lab, where they extracted our data, is still intact. I mean, everything's set and ready. And I am sure, convinced, that you will all want to thank our friends, the LauKlars, for saving our asses. We owe them an eternal debt, and we are going to thank them with all our love and brotherly enthusiasm...” Helen smiled slightly trying to hide her feelings, even though she was aware of the difficulty that this entailed. But the LauKlars didn't seem to care much for them, nor did they seem to monitor their thoughts exhaustively. It was better that way. All present nodded and looked at each other with approval. Things were going well. Surprisingly well, though.
“Well then, as far as I know, in what would be the equivalent of a couple of hours or so, they will come after us. If I have understood correctly what they meant by their unit of time. Go on, get ready. This time things will be different...”
Galactic Encyclopedia: the interstellar journey.
... As a general rule, each technologically advanced race ends up, in one way or another, pretending to travel through space to planets of its star system, and later to other stars. The physical laws are the same for everyone, and this entails the rationalization of the problem, its mathematical and physical analysis, the development of theories, and the practical implementation of stellar travel. Many civilizations never manage to reach this last point, perishing before, either because of constant internal conflicts (social, economic, religious), or because of the disappearance of the species due to different causes (diseases, natural disasters, etc.). In some cases one species may disappear or be made a slave to another expansionist militaristic superior that reaches the planet to dominate it...
In these civilizations, given the right conditions and advances, similar theories and ideas are commonly proposed, some of them hypothetically feasible, for interstellar travel. But, although a physical-mathematical model works on paper, this does not imply that it is feasible to create an efficient and reliable engineering system. The only viable solution, at least the only one that has been endorsed by different species in the Galaxy, is the interdimensional bubble. It consists of creating an area of interaction between two complementary universes, creating a bubble of space-time where the ship is housed. The controlled manipulation of the bubble allows the spacecraft to move through space at hyperluminal speeds.
Just as nature creates the same solution for the same problem on different ecosystems and planets (evolutionary convergence), so interstellar ships of different species all have one thing in common: a superstructure surrounding the main spacecraft that is responsible for creating and managing the space-time bubble. These ships are thus easily recognizable as they contain an outer ring or cylinder structure, which allows the creation and manipulation of the bubble, and an interior which keeps the crew and cargo....
The getaway
Ronta was a good pilot. Since childhood his dream was to fly with his wings, as it happened with all LauKlars, and also through the void of space. His dream had come true with one of the best rates of return in his group. He certainly felt very proud of it.
The interstellar voyage was routine, but this did not imply that it was not dangerous. The theoretical basis of the hyperluminal journey consists of a perfect balance between two energies converging and creating a subspace zone of zero level. Level 3 civilizations thus obtain and derive the secret of being able to cross the borders between the stars at hyperluminal velocities. The Xarwen were therefore a level 2 species, advanced but incapable of hyperluminal flight, and humans, level 1. In reality, the ship did not actually move from its place at any time, but it was the interaction of the universe with a complementary universe that generated a bubble of neutral space-time in front of the ship, to close behind.
Ancient theories had postulated the manipulation of the same space-time tissue to travel through the stars. But this, although theoretically feasible, required enormous energy, not too far from that generated in the Big Bang. So much so that the Big Bang itself modeled the fabric of space and time, like a blanket that extends from the top of a bed, and falls into a position, thus remaining forever. As long as there's not enough energy involved. No, the hyperluminal journey involved interacting by opening a gap in the universe towards another complementary universe. A complementary universe is one that has the same structure as another universe but with opposite values. It's something similar to electron and positron. Both are the same particle, but with opposite charges. Joining them together generates a great deal of energy. Similarly, joining a universe with its antiuniverse (another way of calling the complementary universe) corresponding generates an area of zero density and enormous energy. Unlike a universe of opposing charge, an anti-universe is an anti-replica of all universal constants and laws, not just the electrical charge. The interaction generates a vacuum field without interaction of virtual particles. That field surrounds the ship and can travel at hyperluminal velocities. The maximum velocity is not infinite logically, since the displacement involves a modification process of the interaction field.
Ronta was an expert in interuniverse field theory. He must have been, because a pilot cannot be subjected to mere mechanical knowledge of the instruments of a ship. A pilot must understand the principles that allow interstellar travel, because the computer can predict the amplitude of the field of interaction between universes for it to be efficient, but it requires a pilot with advanced mental preparation to get the maximum performance at the lowest energy cost, and of course to prevent any possibility of accident. By accident they mean the uncontrolled mixing of the interaction between the two fields of the two universes, which can lead to an explosion of a huge power.
Ronta arrived in the room where the humans were waiting, and without much enthusiasm, he told them:
“I'm Ronta, pilot of the shuttle, and I'm responsible for your transport. I
have been marked by a world that can be inhabited sixty light years away from where you could live, called Solaria 4. It was formed two and a half billion years ago, and is in the second phase of its development after abandoning the gas belt that formed it. The belt no longer exists of course, but the stars that were generated in its core do.”
“Sorry chick, “Helen commented without enthusiasm. “We are not interested in astronomy, nor when that world was formed.”
“I thought you'd be interested to know.”
“What we're interested in is why you want to take us to that Solaria 4. What's so special about this planet?”
“Solaria 4 is a planet within a group of double stars. It is a planet similar to the Earth, located as its numbering indicates in the fourth orbital position of the main star, Solaria A. It has a very rich native fauna and lots of water. It's a good place to live. We will provide you with everything you need for your survival of course. Since you are primitive beings, you can hunt and gather food.”
“Primitive?” Karl asked. “Do you want me to detail what this primitive can do to your precious neck?”
“Karl, shut the fuck up...” Helen cut. “Tell me... Ronta? Let's see: what chance would we have of living on Earth?”
“On Earth? You mean the Original Planet, the one we orbited? None, certainly,” Ronta replied amusingly, when asked a question whose answer was obvious, and they should already know if they were supposed to be intelligent. Although humanity only exceeded the LauKlars' intelligence concept parameter by a small margin.
“But we are human, and this is our planet,” insisted Scott, who was the closest to Helen.
“It is also our planet of origin,” Ronta said. “We evolved here also after the disappearance of the Xarwen, as they did when you disappeared. According to our tradition, when our technological development began, the Sun had begun to become a red giant. For several thousand years the situation gradually deteriorated. It was then that we developed the hyperluminal reactor, and when we sent the Earth's species to a nearby habitable planet. For each species we try to transport the largest number of specimens, and many have already adapted to the new environment. We call it Novaria, a planet lost in time. We only know about it from our ancient oral history. But it was the first planet inhabited by us after leaving the Original Planet, or Earth as you call it.”
“Noah's ark,” commented one with evident humor. Ronta didn't understand the expression.
“But don't you live in a world? don't you have a capital planet?” another woman asked.” Ronta didn't fully understand the word “capital planet”.
“No. We don't have any fixed planet as a residence or any “capital” planet as you call it. We live mainly on our ships, and yes, we visit and explore diverse worlds, but we do not make them our homes. Raw materials are obtained from asteroids, comets, and gaseous planets. Naturally we also collect the energy of the stars. We colonize worlds, but we do not change anything about them except to locate a research center or a small colony.”
“It's all beautiful,” Helen said. “But it's not what we want. At least not at the moment. We want to go to Earth.”
It's impossible, “insisted Ronta, a little annoyed by the humans' insistence. “Earth is, I repeat, a wasteland. It's dead, except on a microscopic level. It's been a long time since all but a few bacteria have disappeared.”
“No, you don't understand me, my dear bird,” that expression Ronta didn't understand. Bird? He wasn't a bird, he was a LauKlar. “We want to go back to the place where you found the data that stored the information of our natural persons and our minds.”
“And for what purpose?” Ronta didn't understand what humans in that dead zone might want.
“We want to try and find out what we were doing there. How we got to that computer... to that machine. We want to investigate the area. We'll need supplies, food and water.”
“It can't be done,” Ronta responded with growing concern. “We do not have material and resources adapted to human beings for survival on a planet in these conditions, and most importantly, our engineers and archaeologists have already examined the area and analyzed all the information that was there. Oxygen levels are low, you'll have trouble breathing if not with the right equipment. Surfacing means death in a couple of hours from solar radiation. The ozone layer that covered the planet is almost gone. We can live a few hours in that environment, since we adapt evolutionarily to this planet in conditions already very hard in the past, but your bodies will not last long, you come from a world that no longer exists as you knew it. The planet is dead.” Helen looked at him inquisitively.
“Didn't the President say we were free to make our own decisions?”
“I wasn't at the trial, but yes, that's what he said. But....”
“Then take us to the planet, and once there, to the place where you found us.”
“I'll have to talk to my superiors.”
“Then do it. We don't have all day,” Helen responded harshly.
Narhum was surprised. Ronta repeated the request: “They want to go to the planet.”
“Really? What's the point?”
“They want to investigate on their own the area where they were found. And they want supplies to settle in the lab or whatever the Xarwen left there.”
“But there's nothing there of interest. Ancient machinery of the Xarwen civilization, much more advanced than the technology that humanity has ever disposed of, and which cannot comprehend, much less operate. They'll be wasting their time.”
“That's pretty much what I told them, Counselor. I explained to them that the entire area had been analyzed and the surface and what lies below it had been tracked within a radius of 1,000 kilometers. And they want to examine the contents of the Xarwen biocomputers.” Narhum arched what in the human species would have been considered eyebrows.
“Anyway, I understand that their past and themselves have been stored there for millions of years. It is evident that they want to see for themselves the place from which the data of their structures and minds were extracted and examine them. They have the right to recognize the area and see the place, and we are responsible for their well-being, as we have regenerated them. It seems logical that they want to check their origin by themselves, and try to extract some information from the Xarwen and their systems. In short, they want to see where they were found by themselves, and draw their own conclusions. It is a useless task, but at least they will be comforted. So, you have my clearance to take them. Let them go, let them examine the Xarwen biocomputers, let them take the time they want, and when they understand that they are incapable of understanding this technology, they will lose interest, and they’ll be happy to go somewhere where they can spend the rest of their days in comfort. Solaria 4 is the most suitable planet for them without a doubt.
Ronta left the Great Grey Hall, and a few moments later Deblar entered. Her mood was not the best, something that Narhum noticed immediately after a small mental survey. She expected criticism, and of course she was going to receive it.
“Well, they're free now. They can go wherever they want,” Deblar said unconvinced.
“That's right”, Narhum replied. “What did you expect, any other solution from the President? Have you forgotten the thousands of years since we gave ourselves the Fundamental Law for the care of species? They are living beings, like us, and intelligent, at least according to the established standard parameters. We cannot and must not interfere. Regenerate them, give them life again, it was a big mistake. I understand your position in seeking to know all the facts, but recreating an extinct species just to obtain archaeological data seems to me to go too far.” Deblar didn't seem to be affected by the accusation.
“The circumstances were special, as I explained to the Council. The place where the data was found was special. The Xarwen built these structures, these biocomputers, with this human data, for some purpose. It was evident that they wanted to preserve the data of these humans for millions of years, and
it is evident that they took the utmost care to make them safe except for technologically advanced species, capable of discovering the energy field that the laboratory concealed with biocomputers. In other words, the Xarwen wanted only a species with a capacity similar to ours to find that information. Naturally, the finding itself is revolutionary. If we add to that the circumstances, it is doubly revolutionary. The logical step was to obtain that information, process it, and get answers. We didn't get any information. We've got nothing.” Narhum was annoyed by the expression that treated humans as mere sources of information.
“Processing information for answers? We are talking about living beings, not a mathematical problem, or a physical mystery, or ancient documents to be translated from some ancient language. No, we're talking about thinking living beings. We cannot give the same status to a history book or a biocomputer as we can to a living being that is part of history.”
“These people had their chance,” Deblar replied. “They had their time, their part in history, at a given moment four billion years ago. The Xarwen somehow obtained these human samples, and processed them into their biocomputers. End of story. Do they really have the same rights as any living thing? They are not part of this time. In fact, they are living relics of a remote past that became extinct billions of years ago. Human cities disappeared. Their culture, their history, their art, their science, their philosophy, their dogmas, their fears, their religion... Everything is dust today, except for the few samples that we have been able to collect, always very fragmented, stored in what they called “time machines” or “time boxes”. But this is different. The Xarwen did not create a safe to store data; they created a repository of human history, a living species when the Earth was only five billion years old. It's impressive. And, without a doubt, we must go all the way to the end of this story. There are too many questions that deserve to be answered.”