Omnipotence: Book I: Odyssey

by Geoff Gaywood

  “All the more reason why we need to have a sizable chunk of real estate to send down the tube in case they’re coming to pay us a visit,” said Henri.

  Cobus nodded. “There’s nothing coming through this part of the Omega 16 system for a good while, but there’s a big asteroid belt between 16-5 and 16-6,” he said. “We can get a drone out there to select a nice one for us and send it back. I’ll get it launched within twenty-four hours.”

  “Whoa!” said Henri. “Let’s talk mass and composition first. No point in sending a snowball down there.”

  “We won’t have much choice on the composition,” said Cobus; “that’ll be pretty consistent in the asteroid belt. As for mass, I’d say anything upwards of ten million tons would be fine. Nothing could withstand an impact with a mass like that, never mind that it would probably evaporate.”

  “But that’s tiny,” cut in Marcel, “barely a hundred metres cube. Supposing they miss each other?”

  Cobus rolled his eyes. “They’ll both be on the same geodesic,” he said. “Provided the impact takes place after they’ve each gone a couple of million K’s into the tube, it’ll be green alien soup in there.”

  “What’s the practical mass limit on our capability to corral an asteroid?” asked Henri.

  “A hundred million tons, give or take,” was Cobus’ response.

  “Get us one of those then, please,” said Marcel.

  Cobus nodded. “Asseblief,” he muttered.

  Down at the launch area of the Military Operations Centre, work was almost complete on the replacement communications satellite when Henri and Marcel arrived. “We have an additional request from Mission Control,” announced Marcel. “We need to launch a probe with the capacity to survey the solar system at the other end of LDST 2, and we need broad-frequency-range transmitters/receivers on board both to communicate.”

  “You nuts?” said Jianxing. “Who you gonna talk to?”

  “The same entity that was communicating with the satellite you are replacing,” replied Marcel.

  “Well, then you’re gonna need a pretty smart decoder as well,” said Jianxing, “because we ain’t never seen anything like de way it talks.”

  “Just send Mission Control copies of everything you’ve heard from it and leave it to them to figure that out.”

  “OK,” said Jianxing. “Give me twenty minutes and we’ll be ready to launch de satellite.” He turned and cupped a hand to his mouth, “Hey, Carlos! Load a 436 and a dish to match, pointin’ south.” Then he turned back. “You got any more screwy requests?” he asked.

  “Not that I can think of right now,” said Marcel with a frown.

  Henri and Marcel stayed on to watch the launch. The satellite was moved into an airlock on its trolley and reappeared outside on the launch platform a few minutes later. There was a brief pre-flight check, a ten-second countdown, then a little puff of flame and it disappeared almost instantly. They turned to watch its progress along its programmed flightpath for a few minutes, then Henri got up. “I’ve got to talk to Benny,” he said, and left.

  19

  The Test

  Back at the maintenance department, Benny Tromper was admiring his handiwork. Five swords lay before him on his workbench, almost perfect replicas of the original curved sabre taken from Brady after he was cut down by sniper fire in the control centre. As Henri entered, Benny turned to him, beaming with pride. “These should give you Yankees something to think about!” he said.

  Henri was perplexed. “I’m no Yankee,” he said, rather deliberately allowing a trace of his Haitian accent to creep in.

  “Well, I’m almost certain that this one was a Confederacy weapon in the American Civil War,” said Benny, picking up Brady’s sword.

  “An antique? How the hell was that smuggled on board?” said Henri, addressing no one in particular.

  “Search me,” said Benny. “But see that mark? My database says that’s a Confederacy military sabre.”

  “Well, I’ll have to think about that one,” said Henri slowly. “Did Shinji finish with the transmitters?”

  “He’s made them but he’s still testing their emission profiles. Shouldn’t be a problem – they just fit in here, see?” Benny snapped open the handle of one of the swords on the table, and showed Henri the compartment inside. “I’m done,” he said.

  “OK,” said Henri. “Get all six shipped down to Chuck Connolly on the defence platform as soon as they’re complete, please.” He turned to go, then stopped. “Thanks Benny, that’s beautiful work,” he said, putting a hand on the other man’s shoulder.

  As the door closed behind him, Henri called Chuck Connolly on his earphone. “Six fine US cavalry swords will be delivered to you shortly. Please store them securely in my office, then send a detail to the clinic to fetch Aldo Barreto and take him back to the defence platform.”

  “Aldo Barreto? He’s our man in the Wayward 19. You want him back here?”

  “You bet,” said Henri, “and under close supervision.”

  Aldo Barreto was a tall, powerfully built man, sporting a bushy black beard. He had been a commando in the Brazilian army before training as a pilot, where he had excelled in aerial combat. He was recruited by the ISEA as a pilot and then, after several missions, transferred to space defence.

  He was now confused and angry. He wanted to know why he was being kept a prisoner and subjected to the injection of drugs and to humiliating tests without his agreement and without explanation. He was sorry he had lost his temper on a few occasions in the clinic, but felt that his behaviour had not been unreasonable in the circumstances. Now, here he was, under arrest in the defence platform, being treated like a traitor by his colleagues.

  Back in his office, Henri read through the summary of a clinical psychology report on the behaviour of Barreto, Aldo when subjected to visual and verbal stimuli.

  Visual stimulation

  Weaponry (video): intense interest, desire to handle, raised pulse

  Military action (video): as above, intense desire to participate (restraint applied)

  Sadism (video): manic response, shouting, uncontrolled and reckless physical action (restraint applied)

  Spilled blood: pupil dilation, fast respiration and rapid pulse, whining and salivation

  Verbal stimulation

  The words ‘kill’, ‘death’, ‘Pandora’, ‘attack’ induce manic violent behaviour following any of above visual stimuli.

  No symbols or words were identified that caused these behaviours to cease. The patient had to be heavily sedated in all cases.

  “Right,” said Henri to himself, “let’s see if we can control this SOB with Brady’s sabre.” He examined the weapon carefully, noting that the transmitter inside the handle was activated by pushing the finger-guard forward with his thumb. “Chuck,” he mouthed into his earphone, “get yourself and two men down to Barreto’s cell and have his feet manacled to the floor. You can leave his hands free. I’ll see you there in five minutes.” He slid the sabre back into the scabbard that Benny Tromper had made for it, a good replica of the type used by the Confederate cavalry, according to Benny.

  As Henri entered the cell where Barreto was being held, the man leapt to his feet and saluted, stumbling and almost toppling over as the manacles on his feet tightened. Henri returned the salute and motioned him to sit. He laid the sword on the table in front of him, still in its scabbard. Barreto showed no particular interest in it, but started with a vociferous protest about his treatment. Henri lifted a hand to silence him. “Lieutenant Barreto, you have shown a disturbing response to the vaccination you were given, to the point where you have become a potential security risk. It is in your interest as well as ours that we fully understand this response and correct it before you are re-assigned to active duty. Is that clear?”

  “Yessir,” said Barreto, after a brief pause.

  “Good. Now, does this disturb you?” Henri picked up a water glass and smashed it on the table in front of him, then drew a
shard across the back of his hand. A few droplets of crimson appeared on his dark skin. Barreto jumped with surprise and stared at the blood, his eyes wide, nostrils flared, jaw clenched. He looked up at Henri, a silent question in his eyes. Without taking his eyes off him, Henri reached for the scabbard and slowly withdrew the sabre, holding the blade vertically in front of Barreto’s face. Barreto trembled, his eyes on the blade.

  “Ready,” he said in a strange, lingering voice.

  Henri pushed forward the finger-guard. “Attack!” he shouted in his face. Barreto leapt up, lunging for the man seated closest to him, grabbing his leg as he fell and sinking his teeth into it. The man yelped with pain and clubbed Barreto repeatedly over the head with his weapon. Blood began to spread over the floor from his gashed leg, and from Barreto’s feet, as the manacles tore into his ankles.

  “Cease!” shouted Henri, activating the sabre’s transmitter once more.

  Barreto stopped, turned and gazed intently at the sabre held above him, blood dribbling from his mouth.

  “Stand down!” shouted Henri a little more calmly, activating the transmitter again. Barreto’s tense body gradually slackened. He began to moan.

  Henri rose from his chair. “Have him cleaned up, Chuck,” he said, “and get Kinross brought down here.”

  Within an hour Kinross had been collected from the clinic, manacled and subjected to the same harrowing test, with two important differences. Firstly, his tormentor was Chuck Connolly, not Henri, and secondly Chuck was using one of the swords that Benny had made, not the original. The results, however, were practically the same. At their debriefing in Henri’s office afterwards, they carefully reviewed their experiences, and explored options for further tests. After some troubling thoughts Henri approved a slightly modified process to be used on one more of the Wayward 19, to test a wider range of commands.

  At the command meeting held after the completion of the testing, Hannah Cohen was spitting fire. “I want an explanation for all these injuries!” she demanded. “Three of those men will not walk properly for at least three weeks,” she railed, “and possibly never again. What you submitted them to was bestial!”

  Henri sat stone-faced.

  “Well, Colonel Bertin?” said Arlette.

  “I can say with confidence that anyone around this table can now control the Wayward 19. Provided that we all follow appropriate precautions, they no longer represent a threat to this mission. I apologise for the pain that has been inflicted on them, but in a situation as serious as this, with twelve crew members already lost and 10 per cent of the remaining crew representing a lethal threat, I could not cut any corners in containing their potentially malevolent activities.”

  “But you repeated tests that the clinic had already carried out without doing any harm to any of them,” persisted Hannah.

  “Not so,” said Henri. “The critical part of this was controlling the activation and de-activation of these behaviours with the transmitters in the sword handles. Now we have a reliable mechanical on/off switch. The psychological data was vital, but we must be able to manage these people practically. They are all important crew members; we need their skills and their loyalty.”

  “They’d be more use without their limps!” said Hannah ruefully.

  It wasn’t the reaction she intended, but everybody laughed.

  Henri looked around at his colleagues as if to say, “Did I survive?”

  His eyes caught Julia’s. Her head was slightly on one side. Something in her gaze was rather warm.

  20

  Stargazers and Dreamers

  Henri’s search for a concealed base used by the five control centre assailants remained fruitless, and while Prometheus’ video surveillance system had become substantially more reliable, it still revealed nothing remarkable. Any concerns over the control centre massacre and vaccination programme began to subside as the distraction of deep space started to play an ever-increasing part in the crew’s lives.

  Having launched a hurriedly prepared probe into the mouth of LDST 2, and established a communication link as it began to accelerate away to an unknown fate in the Andromeda galaxy, Prometheus began to settle into its slingshot manoeuvre around the colourful gas giant Omega 16-6.

  The huge planet, with its complex patterned blue and orange surface, its vast ring system and nine visible moons, was a mesmerising sight, and provided new and extraordinary discoveries almost hourly. By the time Prometheus had completed the manoeuvre and settled on its course to rendezvous with rocky planet 16-3, communal stargazing had become a way of life.

  Many crew members shunned the entertainment centre with its almost inexhaustible spread of movies and documentaries, educational and vocational programmes, music making, culinary and sporting activities, for watching the galaxy unfold before them through the ship’s high-powered telescope. Few failed to notice that, from their perspective in the Omega 16 solar system, the Milky Way galaxy had assumed an obloid shape, traced through with interconnected star systems astonishingly reminiscent of the neurons in a human brain. Not an original observation by any means, but not easily dismissed when you saw it almost every hour of the day. Numerous groups formed to discuss this concept and attempt to investigate its feasibility. None reached any definitive conclusion, other than that you could not rule out that such a constellation of charged matter could function as a brain, and with a vastly larger capacity than that of any human.

  Nor were such discussions limited to the lower ranks on board. Arlette spent an evening with Marcel, Julia, Hannah and Genes hotly debating the concept.

  “Oh, you’re an incurable romantic, Julia,” Arlette was saying. “A pictorial similarity of an area in space with the neuron structure in a brain can be nothing more than coincidental. It’s no better than trying to read the future with tea leaves.”

  “Well, you’re a faithless automaton,” Julia retorted. “How can you even begin to summarise what is going on between the particles and fields in the centre of a galaxy, which contains incalculably more matter and complexity, lots of which we still do not fully understand, than a brain?”

  “Julia, Julia, dear,” interrupted Hannah in a mildly patronising tone. “Brains work on a microscopic scale with incredibly delicate signals and chemical structures. There is just no comparison with the brutality of stars and their interactions.”

  “I don’t have a problem with the potential intellectual output of galactic systems,” said Genes. “Hell, their complexity never ceases to amaze us. We are constantly making new discoveries about interactive systems you just couldn’t make up, they’re so weird. And I agree with Julia, our understanding of universal physics is still a joke. We don’t know the half of all those particles out there. Who are we to decide that they can’t interact to form a brain? It’s just intellectual arrogance.”

  “Well,” said Marcel, “if our galaxy has a brain, I’d sure as hell like to know what it’s doing with it. Our own planet is descending into chaos, and, modesty apart, we do have a pretty impressive civilisation. Why wouldn’t an omnipotent force intervene and sort out global warming?”

  “Oh, please Marcel, not that old chestnut! If our galaxy has a brain, it should be acting in the interests of the greater good of the galaxy, not its weak and failing components.”

  “Good grief, Julia, you’ve got Nietzsche on the brain. I just don’t buy it that a civilisation as developed as ours can be considered expendable – we’ve found no trace of anything like it in our galaxy or elsewhere and we’ve been looking hard for a long time now. Personally I won’t be hanging around waiting for divine intervention, but if our civilisation is a weak and failing component, what are we doing in this spaceship? We are fighters, we are survivors, we are really important.” Marcel had gone slightly pink in the cheeks.

  “That’s an interesting idea, Julia,” said Arlette. “Just how would you define the greater good of the galaxy?”

  “Survival, power, growth,” said Julia.

  “What sort of
power? Power within the galaxy or outside it?”

  “Both. If you want to maintain your internal power, you have to be able to defeat your external competitors,” responded Julia.

  “Like Andromeda?”

  “Definitely. Our galaxies are heading for a collision, aren’t they? If I were the omnipotent brain of the Milky Way, I’d be seriously worried about Andromeda, especially if it’s carrying out incursions into my territory.” Julia was wearing an expression of mock defiance.

  “Oh, come on,” said Marcel, grinning. “Intergalactic conflict should have got past gunboat diplomacy by now. It will be all about … mmm, how about malign sub-atomic particle species development?”

  Everybody was smiling except Genes. “Whatever the means,” he said, “Julia’s right. The story is always the same. It’s about power. And whether they’re using thought destruction rays or wooden swords, that’s just a detail. Ah actually find it hard to believe that no one, or no thing, is thinking about applying the vast resources of this galaxy to defend its greater interests against a threat that’s been known for aeons. We’re gonna be victims of our own arrogance if we don’t wake up and realise that there’s a lotta brain power out there. We need to get smart and get on-side.”

  Genes’ comments brought a strange silence to the group. They were all suddenly conscious of the vastness and unfathomable complexity of the universe which surrounded them, so cleverly projected onto the walls and ceiling of their dining room. Now, here they were for the first time in human history, knowingly in the vicinity of an alien intelligence.

  “Well,” said Arlette into the silence, “perhaps it is our destiny to find out whether there is such a power, and just how relevant to it our concept of morality is.”

  “Here’s to that!” said Genes. “By the way, Commander, where did this excellent schnapps come from? It tastes like one of those grand old central European brews.”