Magellan

by Scott Baird

  “But imagine the social network of the future, a vast political conversation site, where anyone and everyone can log on and—under their true identity—hold forth on their opinions, fears, ideas, and pronouncements. Hundreds of millions of these data points would be entered every hour. Then the system’s algorithm, in a blind and unbiased way, sorts all the conversations as data. It tallies the number of people for and against, it sorts them by demographics, it weights them however you care to look at it, it analyzes trends. Basically all the political analysis that the media is sort of doing right now, but automated.

  “Through a system like this, which is probably only a year or two away in terms of technology, we could have the global conversation on this topic and come to a decision on whether to reach out to the stars, what to say, where to look, and how to respond to this new age of discovery.”

  “That’s… that’s quite a proposal, Mr. Becker. But there’s a dark side to democracy. It’s the tragedy of the commons and mob rule. Sometimes the whim of the crowd brings about undesirable results, which in this case could be devastating to us all.”

  “Undesirable to whom, Mr. Raymond? Undesirable to you? To the academic elite? To the political regimes in power? Frankly, I’m surprised to hear such a repudiation of real democracy from a man in your position.”

  “But Mr. Becker, if I may—wouldn’t you agree that, in your words, ‘the wrath of extraterrestrial technology’ could be pretty undesirable?”

  “Of course it could. But I trust the human race enough to believe that together we can come up with the best ideas. It’s out there, built on a myriad of human experiences, that truth is found—not in some ivory hall where innovation and free speech is chilled. Maybe I’m just an optimist, but if we can’t trust mankind as a whole to move forward in the right direction, then what are any of us doing here? What are we hoping to accomplish if we can’t have faith in our species, in our own selves?”

  “Maya, I find all of this foolish and frankly rather offensive. If Mr. Becker is so blindly idealistic as to overlook the bulk of history and ignore the misery and injustice that mankind has caused for itself and the environment, well, so be it. But until we know what we’re up against, I think it’s beyond imprudent to start throwing immature, crowdsourced messages out into the cosmos in a kind of ill-advised social experiment. I mean, consider the implications if these supposed extraterrestrials are as dangerous as some of our nation’s enemies are? It could mean the end of mankind, for all we know.”

  “Mr. Raymond, you seem to be projecting your own fears and biases on this extraterrestrial entity that’s out there. It’s almost a Cold War mentality. Why would they be hostile, or paranoid, or vengeful just because some of our earthly regimes have been? There’s nothing in the signals we’ve heard nor in Commander Nelson’s discoveries so far that should lead us to believe we’re in danger.

  “I’m advising caution as much as anybody—it’s my astronaut out there, remember—but taking precautions doesn’t mean acting out of fear. Fear stunts growth and progress. With a little courage, mankind can go a long way.”

  “And that, gentlemen, is all we have time for today, I’m afraid. Viewers can join in the conversation online to keep the debate going until next time, when we’ll hear from a prominent atheist and a Christian commentator whose contrasting viewpoints might just surprise you. Mr. Becker, Mr. Raymond, I want to thank you both for being with us this evening.”

  “Thanks, Maya.”

  “Goodbye.”

  13 – Transmissions at Triton

  Thirty-two months later at Triton, Neptune's largest moon, the Magellan automatically began to slow its approach.

  Inside the stasis box, Nelson was dreaming. He was flying over an ocean of blue water. Over his head, millions of bright stars flew by faster and faster until light filled his view.

  Then there was only a chess board. The black king slid across the squares of its own accord, moving into check. That was wrong, it was nonsense. It couldn't be done. But there it remained, defiant and challenging.

  Then there was a memory, a dream of something that had actually happened prior to Nelson's departure. He was lying on the grass, looking up at the night sky, and Abigail was beside him.

  “What's it all about, Roger?” she murmured. “Why are you really going up there?”

  He smiled. “Exploration. To boldly go. The discovery of what we could only dream of, half a century ago.”

  Abigail smiled back, but shook her head from side to side so that her hair rustled in the grass. “No. That's not it.”

  Nelson looked at her quizzically. “No? Then what is?”

  She stared upward for another moment at the stars. Then her lips parted to let words flow from whatever far-off place it was that her mind and eyes had reached. “You're fighting for significance. You're a tiny speck in that enormous universe up there, and you're looking for man's place in it. You want meaning. Just like everybody else.”

  More water rushed by, and stars, so many stars that Nelson's eyes were filled with them. And then:

  “Follow my voice, Roger.”

  He awoke as the stasis box slid open, and he slowly climbed out, thinking of Abigail. On the screen he could see a forward view of Neptune looming large, and its moon a small circle against the larger mass.

  “Good morning, sir,” Ferdinand said.

  The shivering didn't stop for fifteen minutes this time. It wasn't that his body was particularly cold or incapable of warming itself; Ferdinand’s constant attention had ensured a comfortable temperature both in and outside the stasis box. It was a physical reaction as Nelson's core began generating heat again at a higher level than he had needed to for a few years. He sat and rubbed at his hair with a white towel, blinking and breathing deeply.

  “Go ahead, Ferdinand.”

  “The advance probe at Triton failed on arrival, sir. No survey data has been collected, and we'll have to perform orbital surveys ourselves when we get within range.”

  Nelson sighed. That was a serious setback. “What happened to the probe?”

  “A software error of some kind. Mission Control has not forwarded the diagnostics from the probe.”

  “How much time will it take to locate the source of the signal ourselves?”

  “Between two and eight hours, sir. By orbiting the moon every two hours and allowing for a maximum of four complete orbits, we'll have effectively covered every region of Triton with our sensors.”

  “And how does that affect our window to leave for Eris once we're in orbit around Triton?”

  “Worst-case scenario, we'll miss the window. If we can locate the source sooner than that, you'll have between ten minutes and one hour on Triton to recover the transmitter. Either way, we can't afford any major delays on the surface, or it will complicate the rest of our journey immensely.”

  Nelson slowly nodded. This was exactly why he’d tried so hard to make it off of Titan sooner—he knew from hard experience that once setbacks started stacking up in a mission, it got harder and harder to overcome them and get ahead again. At some point, it would become impossible, and the mission would be compromised. It was up to him, his own ingenuity and pluck, to find a way to get them back on schedule.

  “I've dealt with tight missions before. We’ll see this through.” He stood up to retrieve a set of dry scrubs from the wall locker. “How's it going with the Chinese mission?”

  “Nothing official, sir,” Ferdinand replied. “It is believed they may have arrived at Triton sometime in the last seven days, but there have been no public announcements on their mission status from either the CNSA or NASA. I have not detected any other spacecraft orbiting Triton.”

  “Okay. Any new messages from my wife?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Nothing?” Nelson frowned as he pulled the scrubs on.

  “There are over two hundred dispatches awaiting your attention, but none of them appear to be from your wife. It's possible that I could have made a mi
stake due to mislabeling.”

  Nelson shook his head. “That's real sweet of you, Ferdinand. But you can dial down the patronizing and give it to me straight from now on, okay? If my wife hasn't responded, then that is what it is and I can deal with it.”

  “Yes, sir. There is something else I should bring to your attention.”

  “What is it?”

  “I detected anomalies in the transmission of the sphere's signal, and NASA confirmed it on their end. Momentary variations from the regular tonal pulse the object has been emitting since it began.”

  “What about the other two signals? Did the one from Triton change at all?”

  “No, the anomalies were only found in the signal coming from the object on board, sir. And from NASA's analysis, it appears that at the precise moment of the anomalies, there was a significant rise in your brain activity. This rise was similar to measurements found while dreaming in normal sleep, but that isn't thought to be possible during stasis, since that level of brain activity is entirely suppressed.”

  Nelson rubbed his cheek and pondered this.

  “NASA instructed me to ask you if you remember dreaming at all during your stasis sleep, sir. Were you dreaming?”

  “Yes. I think so. Just... images. I can't remember anything specific.”

  “I'll notify NASA of your response. Thank you, sir.”

  Later, with gloved hands, Nelson opened the box containing Titan's sphere and gently lifted the artifact out. Holding it in one hand, he touched it deliberately with one finger of his other gloved hand. Nothing happened.

  He set the ball on the table surface of his work area and stared at it. Was it humming? He could swear there was a kind of sound echoing just beyond his range of hearing. As he stared harder, the humming seemed to merge into the noise of distant waves crashing against an invisible shore. The sound pulled him closer, and he began to imagine that if he stared harder and listened more closely, the sound would resolve itself into something more concrete and recognizable.

  “Sir? Is everything all right?”

  Nelson started at the sound of Ferdinand's voice and pulled back from the artifact, embarrassed that he had zoned out. Had his heart beat slowed, or had some other bio-metric indicator tipped Ferdinand off to the strange experience? “Fine, Ferdinand. Just trying to figure this thing out.”

  He put the sphere back into its container, not quite willing to repeat his bare-hand experiment without authorization. “Guess I'd better tear into those transmissions from NASA, huh?”

  “We'll be in position to begin the orbital signal scan shortly, sir. It will be fully automated according to the plan I described, so you will be free to process communications for the next hour or two.”

  Nelson went to the cockpit to bring up the comms console. There were two and a half years of log files, status updates, transmissions about the mission parameters, and the occasional note of encouragement from NASA, from adoring schoolchildren, and from government entities all over Earth. They were mostly short text files, but some had multimedia transmissions attached.

  Nelson read over a summary of the ecstatic social reaction to his Titan discovery, and was thrilled to hear that general interest in the American space program was surging to an all-time high, not to mention the elevated level of international scientific discourse surrounding the possibilities that life off-Earth had stimulated. Congress had presented a joint resolution to dramatically increase NASA's funding, and the president was expected to sign it shortly.

  “Hah! How about that, Ferdinand? More budget for our administrative friends. Maybe they'll send me a fruit basket.”

  Ferdinand's reply was immediate. “Unlikely, sir. The cost and logistics of resupply at this range are prohibitive.”

  Nelson grinned, but said nothing. It was the first time his sarcasm had entirely escaped the AI's capacity for human conversation. Take that, Abby, he thought.

  The reminder of his wife's silent reach got him looking through the messages again, hoping something from her might be appended to a NASA communique, or that at least Becker would mention a forthcoming wake-up call from her.

  He scanned past a series of warnings penned by Secretary Stewart. They were wordy and couched in ominous, vaguely threatening terms. They hinted that the Triton probe could have been hacked or sabotaged. As if Nelson could do anything about it now.

  Becker had sent a video not long after the signal anomalies were detected. Nelson opened it to view.

  “Commander Nelson, this is to inform you that at eighteen hundred hours today, just after the Magellan reached a distance of twenty-four astronomical units from Earth, we recorded an anomaly in the Titan object's signal. For thirty-four minutes the signal scrambled and seemed to transmit intermittently in what we think might be a kind of binary code, a series of clicks. These variations only lasted a few seconds each, and after the thirty-four minute mark all anomalies ceased. The signal has remained normal and steady since.

  “We are still looking into this event and attempting to decode the binary clicks, if there is any meaning to be found in them. Whether this has anything to do with you touching the artifact against protocol, I don't know, but Stewart is livid. When you awaken at Triton, please do not perform any further experiments off the books. We need to manage this process very carefully from here on. Thank you.”

  Nelson read several sequential messages that came after the video. Apparently, all attempts to decode the binary clicking had broken down, and NASA eventually decided they had jumped to conclusions prematurely and that there was no binary message, but simple static. A final message from Becker second-guessed that decision, however, and reminded Nelson to report any unusual activity he noticed in hopes that he could help figure out the mystery.

  Typical bureaucratic overthink. Nelson felt himself getting impatient. “Ferdinand, any progress on locking down that signal?”

  “The search is six percent complete, sir.”

  “Well, keep it going. We need to get lucky and nail it early so I can get down there.”

  Nelson got up and returned to the rear area. He approached the sphere, nestled in its container, and stared down at the maddening object. He was not wearing gloves, and his fingers itched to close over the smooth surface of the artifact and wrest its secrets away. He opened the container lid.

  “Sir, can I inquire what you plan to do with the object?”

  “Certainly, you may,” Nelson replied. He put his hand into the box, hovering near the sphere.

  “This isn't part of our protocol, Commander,” Ferdinand gently reminded.

  “No, it's not, Ferdinand. But I am on a mission of discovery, and so far I'm the only person who's discovered anything at all. So I think I'm just going to continue following my gut.”

  “Your gut, sir?”

  “That's what I said. Are you recording?”

  “I record everything, sir.”

  “I hope not everything. But make sure you get this.” He touched the sphere.

  Instantly, the object from Titan lit up as before, glowing with an internal energy response. An audible tone emanated from the container and grew in volume and intensity the longer Nelson held his hand on the object.

  Ocean waves danced before Nelson's eyes, blocking out his view of the Magellan's interior. Then there were stars, and the sound of waves crashing as before. An image of Abigail hovered just behind his eyes, not quite in full view but very present. From his perspective, he seemed to be flying over a vast sheet of water. Then a chess board, the one from his dream, dominated the vision, but it soon dissolved into a field of stars, among which shone three points of light far brighter than the rest.

  “Follow.”

  The word didn't come from Ferdinand. It was in Abigail's voice, but somehow Nelson didn't think it was actually his wife speaking. It would make no sense coming from her. It was more like the orb itself was speaking to him.

  He fell back, startled and breathing heavily.

  “Did you get that,
Ferd?”

  “Yes. Can I inquire what caused the physical reaction you just displayed, sir?”

  “I saw... images. Like in my dream. There was water. And stars.” He slid the container shut with a snap. “It's some kind of vision, Ferdinand. A message. These dreams aren't coming from me. It's the sphere talking to me.”

  “I see.” Ferdinand paused as Nelson stood, staring at the secure container holding the artifact. “A transmission from Director Becker has just arrived, sir.”

  Nelson sat down, blinking rapidly. “Play it.” He knew it would take several hours for Becker to see what Nelson had just done and respond, but the timing of the incoming transmission was still a bit alarming.

  Becker came on the screen looking sober. “Commander Nelson, we've just received word from our intelligence sources that there's been an accident involving the Chinese mission. They never made it to Triton. We're not sure what happened and the Chinese government is still keeping it all under wraps, but apparently a mechanical failure killed all three crew members en route to Neptune.

  “Your mandate, of course, is to continue the mission as planned and recover the second transmitter from Triton. Please use caution, however, especially outside of the Magellan. We have detected—and stopped—several attempts to gain access to mission firmware. Law enforcement agencies are following the leads we gave them, but for now all we can do is exercise caution. We'll keep you posted on the Chinese news updates, and I've already reached out to Abigail to let her know you're safe and on target. Good luck.”

  Nelson shook his head. The mission was certainly on target. But complications seemed to be piling up. He would need to be sharp to stay on top of them all.

  A few hours later, the signal's source was locked, and the Magellan maneuvered into a steady orbit that could cross directly over it every two hours. After a quick prep checklist, Nelson donned his suit and got behind the controls of the lander. Through the cockpit windows, he could see the reflective surface of Triton, mostly in shadow as it revolved at a canted angle around its host planet.