Armageddon

by Craig Alanson

  Basically, what I said, about the Rindhalu having an incentive to prevent the Maxolhx from ransacking Earth, was pure bullshit. But she didn’t know that, because diplomats didn’t think in terms of threat assessment. Eventually, the Three Stooges would puzzle out the truth, or Chotek might explain it to them. But, the happy fantasy that the spiders might be our protectors would keep the Stooges off my back for a while, and that is all I needed.

  “That, is,” she spoke slowly. “An interesting possibility.”

  “It’s only a possibility,” I said with my best ‘aw shucks I am just a simple-minded grunt’ impression. “I know you Commissioners will have a heavy workload before we return to Earth,” I shrugged again. “But it would be useful if you could prepare an evaluation of the situation, for the UN to consider. They have strategists, but they haven’t been out here. You have,” I said with a smile. That was as much sucking–up as I could do without making it insultingly obvious. “The four of you will have a unique perspective to offer,” I added, suppressing my gag reflex.

  “We will have to consider this,” she stared through me, as if her mind was already far away, working on more important things.

  “In the meantime, Commissioner, are we clear to proceed to the candidate wormhole?” We were going there anyway, I asked permission to boost her ego. Doing that had worked with Hans Chotek. Although he had taken many months before he reached the point of planning how to start an alien civil war for us.

  “Yes, I believe so. I will confirm that with my colleagues.” She stood and held out her hand. I shook it, not too firmly and not too long. “Colonel, you have given us much to think about.”

  “Hopefully,” I smiled again, hoping the meeting would end before my fake-smile muscles wore out. “You can do that thinking on the surface of a new world, soon.”

  She left after exchanging way too many parting pleasantries.

  Skippy tells me that, even for a monkey, I am particularly dumb. But, sometimes I think I am pretty damned smart. Skillfully handling the Stooges made me proud of myself.

  I hope it didn’t backfire on me.

  The trip back to our chosen super-duty wormhole was uneventful. We didn’t encounter any ships or threats of any kind along the way, not even long-faded residual jump signatures. Space is big, and the odds of us running into another ship in the vast emptiness of interstellar space are so small Skippy did not bother to calculate them. The danger of stumbling upon another ship was when we were in a star system, or near a relay station or an Elder wormhole. Because the super-duty wormhole had been dormant for a very long time, and no current species even knew it existed, our voyage was lonely and safe, just the way I like it.

  Our voyage to that wormhole was also useless, because when we got there, Skippy smacked me with bad news. “Crap! It didn’t work. This damned thing is useless,” he fumed.

  From the command chair, I looked back at Chotek and the Three Stooges, who had gathered in the corridor. The Stooges were looking at me, and Chotek, with an unfriendly ‘We told you so’ expression on their faces. “We have two of those range extender dinguses,” I reminded Skippy. “Could we try the other one?”

  “No, dumdum, that is not the problem,” he snapped at me. “The range extender device worked perfectly well with the controller module, just like I predicted it would. It worked after, uh, it almost blew up and destroyed the ship. Anyway, the-”

  “Whoa!” I waved my hands. “Can we go back to that last part?”

  “When I said ‘anyway’? What, you didn’t hear me the first time?”

  “You know what I mean, you little shithead. You nearly blew up the ship?”

  “Nearly is such a vague term, Joe,” he tried to weasel out of it.

  “Colonel,” Nagatha broke into the conversation. “Skippy is correct that ‘almost’ and ‘nearly’ are descriptions that lack a necessary scientific precision.”

  “Ok, whatever,” I agreed.

  “The truth is,” she continued, “there was only a seventy-eight percent chance that the ship would have been destroyed or crippled, if Skippy had not contained the unexpected feedback reaction at the last second.”

  I glared at his avatar. “The last second?”

  “Please, Joe,” he scoffed. “I am sure that ‘the last second’ sounds dramatic in your slow monkey time, but in magical Skippy time, I had plenty of-”

  “No, you did not,” Nagatha scolded him. “Skippy, you should not lie to the monkeys like that. Colonel Bishop, the truth is, the feedback came within a femtosecond of tearing the ship apart. For your information, a femtosecond is one thousand attoseconds.”

  “Oh, of course it is,” I was not successful in hiding my ignorance.

  “To explain the situation more usefully,” Nagatha’s voice dripped with scorn. “Skippy was shouting ‘Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit’ to me, and attempting to upload his consciousness into higher spacetime in case the feedback caused the ship to explode.”

  “You traitorous little weasel,” I shook a fist at him.

  “Hey, why can’t you see what truly matters here? The ship did not explode, because I once again demonstrated my extreme awesomeness. And, now I know how to control the Rindhalu range extender’s connection to the controller module. Plus, plus, I wasn’t even able to lie to you about it. So, it’s all good, homeboy. Bonus, when you think about it.”

  “Colonel,” Desai chided me gently from beside the command chair. “Perhaps we could address Skippy’s many failings at a later time?”

  “Ok, fine,” I agreed. “But I am warning you, beer can.”

  “Yeah, I am in big trouble, yadda yadda yadda. Like that is anything new. Well, this is, heh heh, a puzzle for sure.”

  “A puzzle? Like what?”

  “Like, this particular stupid-duty wormhole can’t connect to where we want to go! It can connect to the Greater Magellanic Cloud, and a couple of local star clusters we are not interested in visiting. But it cannot connect itself to the wormholes in any of the dwarf galaxies we want to explore. Stupid thing.”

  “Crap. Why not?”

  “Because, and this is something I just learned about the overall architecture of the wormhole network, there are force lines within the Milky Way that interfere with connections in that direction.”

  “This is not good, Skippy.”

  “No, this is good, you ignorant monkey. Remember back when you asked me to find Elder sites that were not known to any existing species? You said my knowledge of the Elders would allow me to predict where they logically would have built outposts or colonies or whatever.”

  “Yeah, I remember that. I remember you did an awesome job, a job no one else could do.” I praised him, because I also remembered he was very frustrated that some sites he thought logically should have an Elder site were empty and he didn’t know why. He was sensitive about that, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by reminding him of it. Of course, he later realized some of those sites actually did previously have an Elder site, but they had been blown up or pushed into another dimension.

  “I did do an awesome job,” he agreed. “Despite my initial and wholly unwarranted doubts about my own incredible abilities. My point is, back then part of my logic for determining where the Elders would have selected sites for outposts, was based on force lines in the galaxy.”

  “Yeah, I remember that. I also remember you never explained what that means.”

  “It is way too complicated for simple monkey brains, Joe. Anywho, those same force lines apparently partly govern the architecture of the wormhole network. Now that I have that little bit of trivia, the behavior of the wormhole network is beginning to make sense to me. Like, I might be able to understand why the network shifts periodically, and I might eventually even be able to predict future shifts.”

  “Whoooo,” I let out a low whistle. “That would truly be awesome. Does any of this help us with the current problem? Like, how can we get to the Sculptor galaxy?”

  “It solves our c
urrent problem, Joe. Understanding how force lines affect the network allows me to determine which super-duty wormhole might connect to Sculptor. I have good news and bad news.”

  “Ah, crap,” I stole a glance back at the Stooges, and they were glaring at me. “Bad news first, please.”

  “Because of shifts in force lines as the Milky Way rotates, and because it is moving away, there is no wormhole in this sector that can possibly connect to one of our choices, the Carina dwarf galaxy. From what I understand, either we need to wait twelve million years for the Milky Way to rotate enough to bring the force lines back into alignment again-”

  “Twelve million years? I will set a timer on my zPhone and move on, Ok?”

  “Probably a good idea. Or, we would need to build a new super-wormhole. Which, before you ask me a stupid question, I can’t do.”

  “How about we forget about Carina?”

  “In that case, the good news is there is a super-duty wormhole nearby that should connect to the Sculptor dwarf galaxy. And, bonus! Within seven hundred thousand years, the rotation of the Milky Way will cut off access to the wormhole in Sculptor.”

  “Uh,” I was puzzled. “Why is that a bonus?”

  “Because, dumdum, after Sculptor is cut off, the beta site will be totally secure from nasty aliens.”

  “Uh huh. So, all the beta site needs to do is hang on and be quiet for almost a million years, and all their problems will be solved?”

  “Yup. Neat, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah, that is fantastic. I can’t wait to tell the good news to UNEF. They will be thrilled.”

  “Your statement would be more convincing if you hadn’t rolled your eyes.”

  “Sorry about that. Seven hundred thousand years is kind of a long time for monkeys, you know?”

  “Ah,” he sighed. “I suppose you are right.”

  “How far away is this super-duty wormhole we can use?”

  “One jump, Joe. Kind of a short one.” He knew that when I asked ‘how far’ I did not care about absolute distance.

  “Wow. That close?”

  “Close enough that we could fly there without jumping, if we wanted to wait four months.”

  “I think we’ll jump. Why so close? Is this a wormhole cluster?” In some places, wormholes were arranged so a ship could go through a wormhole, and perform only a short jump to get to the next wormhole. There were clusters with as many as seven wormholes, although most clusters had three wormholes. Skippy had told me clusters were tricky to set up, because the network needed to make sure the wormholes did not overlap or damage the underlying spacetime. “Did the Elders need a cluster to travel between dwarf galaxies, by going through the Milky Way?”

  “It is not a cluster the way you think of them, Joe, it was not set up to provide a quick route for transit. These wormholes are close together because they utilize the same force line. Or, they did, way back when the Elders created the network. The force lines have shifted since then as the galaxy rotates, and stars within the galaxy move relative to each other. It’s complicated. We are ready to go when you are.”

  “Nagatha? You concur?”

  “Yes, dear,” she responded cheerfully. “I calculated the jump myself, Skippy only checked my data.”

  “Pilots,” I flashed a thumbs-up to demonstrate my confidence. “Take us out.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Thankfully, the next super-wormhole could connect to the Sculptor dwarf galaxy as Skippy predicted, except establishing that connection was not the type of quick magic the beer can usually worked. Just reactivating the long-dormant wormhole took three days, and Skippy did not fill me with confidence, when he confessed he was having to learn the procedure as he did it. After the super-wormhole was active and stable, he tried four times connect it to Sculptor, without success.

  “Skippy, what is the problem?” I asked him after the fourth failed attempt. When I asked the question, I was in my office and I spoke quietly.

  “The problem? The problem right now is a dumb monkey asking me stupid questions.”

  “Listen, I’m not saying I have a prayer of understanding the technical details, but can you break it down Barney-style for me?”

  “Ah,” he gave a weary sigh. “The real problem is, the stupid network will not give the protocols to me, so I’m having to do everything the hard way and it sucks. The wormhole tries to connect, and just when I think it’s working, the connection fails. There is some factor I don’t know about. This wormhole was originally set up so it connected to the Draco dwarf galaxy, and it’s like it keeps wanting to reconnect there, instead of to Sculptor like we want.”

  A star map was on my laptop display, I adjusted it to show the entire Milky Way galaxy and everything around it. As my fuzzy memory recalled, the Draco and Sculptor dwarf galaxies were on opposite sides of the Milky Way, so how could- Ah, I had to trust the beer can knew what he was doing. “Ok, how about you let it connect to Draco, then?”

  “Um, because we don’t want to go to Draco, duh. Damn, sometimes you are such a freakin’ dimwit that I just want to-”

  “Listen, right now you are trying to do two things at the same time. You are trying to get the wormhole working again, and to create a new connection. Eliminate one step, then. Let it connect to Draco like it wants to. Once you know how to make it do that, sever the connection and adjust it to connect to Sculptor, like we want.”

  “Huh. Hmmm. Holy shit, you may be right. Joe, if this idea works, and anyone learns that I needed a monkey to tell me how to do something so obvious that-”

  “No one is ever going to know, Skippy. I won’t tell anyone.”

  “You would do that for me, dude?”

  “Sure.”

  “Wow, you are truly a good friend. Assuming this idea works, I mean. Otherwise, you are still a dumdum monkey and you should-”

  “Skippy? I am seriously reconsidering whether to tell people about this.”

  “Got it. Trying it now, this is good timing because the wormhole just reset from the last failure. Aaaaaand, wait for it, wait for it- Crap! I am totally humiliated again. It worked. Uh! Not so fast, smart guy! All it did was reconnect to Draco. Ha! The connection is not even stable. You are not so smart now, are- Damn it. The connection is becoming stable.”

  “I will await your glowing praise, Oh Not So Smart One.”

  “You will be waiting a looooong time for that, monkeyboy. Remember your promise.”

  “Oh, Joseph,” Nagatha broke into the conversation. “That was frightfully clever.”

  “Crap!” Skippy exploded. “I forgot about the snooper on the line. Nagatha, do you have to listen in on every conversation?”

  “Only the important ones, dear. The problem you were discussing with Joseph was, as the expression goes, a ‘show-stopper’. I thought it important that I be informed, as I am the ship’s control system.”

  “Yeah, right,” Skippy was thoroughly disgusted. “Like you will ever need to reconfigure a wormhole’s network connection. You just love seeing me humiliated.”

  “I might never need to, as you say, ‘screw with’ a wormhole. However, I do need to understand what to do when unexpected problems occur. Listening to your conversation was quite instructive, and not only because Joseph once again developed an innovative solution to a problem that had stumped a sophisticated AI. It was useful for me to see how you were unable to think of a way around the problem, because that helps me understand my own limitations. After all, Skippy, you programmed me.”

  “Oh,” he replied in a very small voice. “Um, sorry. I guess you did have a legitimate reason for-”

  “Watching you be humiliated was simply a delicious bonus, dear,” Nagatha’s laugh was musical.

  Skippy was fuming mad. “Ooooh, as much as I hate Joe, you are at the top of my-”

  “Nagatha,” I interrupted before they could get into a long shouting match. “I promised Skippy no one would hear about this, so you keep quiet. That’s an order,” I added for Skippy’s be
nefit. “Ok, beer can, the wormhole can connect to Draco. Can you now try resetting it to connect to Sculptor?”

  “Not yet, Joe. What I would like to do is wait for the current connection to stabilize fully, right now we would not want to take the Dutchman through there. Then, I will close it and reopen it to Draco again, to see how quickly the connection can be established and how stable it is. Only then will I try the connection to Sculptor. Before you ask me yet another stupid question, we care about the stability of the connection because once we are way out in Sculptor, we want to be damned sure there is not a problem that prevents us from coming back. The force lines that the network relies on are in the Milky Way, so the connection needs to be solidly anchored here.”

  “Good safety tip,” I agreed. “I will humbly stay out of your way and let you do your awesome thing.”

  Skippy did his awesome thing again. He created a successful connection to the Sculptor dwarf galaxy, a distance of almost three hundred thousand lightyears. That blew my mind. We would go through the wormhole from one event horizon to the other, and to us the distance was almost nothing at all, like passing through a sheet of paper. At one point, the nose and tail of even the new shortened Frankenship version of the Flying Dutchman would be separated by three hundred thousand lightyears. Skippy was right, no way could my poor monkey brain comprehend something like that.

  When he was certain the connection was fully stable, Skippy advised us to go through. Of course the Commissioners had to argue about it, even though that decision had been made way back on Earth. After six hours of delay, probably to demonstrate it was their decision to make, they gave us approval. Skippy opened the wormhole, and Reed took us through. It was probably my imagination, but that time it felt like we traveled a long way, although the timer showed it took no longer than a short transition.

  We had done it. We were outside the Milky Way galaxy, far from the edge of that vast disc of stars. It may have been cowardly of me to think that way, but I felt enormous relief that we were now beyond the grasp of murderous aliens. Yes, it was cowardly of me to feel happy that my own lazy ass was safe, although billions of people on Earth were still at risk. Hey, I’m human. And I’m not staying in the Sculptor dwarf galaxy, not even if we find a prime candidate for a beta site there. The fight wasn’t done with me yet, and I wasn’t done with the fight.