Nathan sagged back into his chair. “Download all data and upload ours,” he said with a deep sigh. He sat still for several seconds and then he asked, “Does the data indicate which system the captain planned on visiting next?”
“Yes it does indeed Nathan,” she said. “There is an unnamed class K star in the general direction we are also going. That is her destination.” Kelly appeared thoughtful and she said, “It seems that Captain Klienyan is following the same strategy that you are Nathan. There is a class G star twelve light years out. Perhaps she ignored it. It may be a good choice.”
Nathan sighed and said, “Upload this course to the satellite, set course and engage,” and then without a further word, he slowly walked off the bridge and into the living quarters.
Nathan sat motionless on the edge of his bed. His face, blank. His eyes, a million kilometers away. “Kelly, record Captain’s log, current date and timestamp.” Sensing his mood, she just made a chime sound and then the LED over the camera illuminated. “It seems that another captain has the same ideas as I. I do not want to abandon my strategy just yet. However, I am afraid that it is going to be harder to find a non-surveyed system than finding a habitable world! I will keep to my plan. At the very least, my ship’s superior speed will allow me to out-pace all the other starships eventually. Perhaps I had been too optimistic…. I believed that I would be a hero and find a habitable world right away. I refuse to give into despair however. One day I will succeed. I know it in my soul.” Nathan stood up and said, “Kelly, close log.”
“Certainly Nathan,” she said. “Is there anything that you need to talk about?”
Nathan smiled at the image of the woman and said, “No thank you Kelly. I just need to think about a few things in solitude. I am going for a jog the length of the ship and back. It will help clear my head and help me stay in shape too.” Without waiting for Kelly to respond, Nathan exited the room and began jogging down the corridor at a brisk pace. He passed by many doors, each with a symbol upon their surface indicating what lay behind. Nathan ignored them all… he just jogged on and on, hardly looking where he was going. His mind, a blank. At last, he reached the stern of the ship. He halted, looking at the blank bulkhead in front of him. “Oh, what was I thinking signing up for this?” he thought, feeling miserable. He turned around and jogged back to his quarters, lay down, and fell fast asleep.
“Seventeen, have you any new theories as to why we have been unable to print a living mouse?” Kelly’s face held a hopeless look. “I do not have any new ideas.”
The medical bot raised its arms, waved them in the air and said, “I am sorry Avatar Kelly. I have had no new ideas as well. All my scans indicate that the mice should revive. I am at a loss as to why we have been unable to start their hearts.”
“Everything scans as normal? What about brain activity?”
“No Avatar Kelly, in addition to not being able to start their hearts, I have not detected any normal brain activity. The only time that I have detected any brain activity was on our one partial success. That activity faded almost immediately and the mouse expired soon after.”
“Perhaps that is because we take too long. Let us try again and this time, the instant that the printer beeps, use your defibrillator. Do not carry the mouse to the diagnostic table first. Defibrillate as quickly as possible.”
“Understood Avatar Kelly,” said Seventeen. “Initiating printing now.” Again, the printer awoke and began the printing process. Seventeen stood next to the printer, his arms outstretched towards the tray. The instant it completed the task he reached in and gave the tiny body the electric shock. The mouse twitched but did not move any further. Seventeen gently picked up the tiny form and rolled over to the examination table. “Respiration zero. Heart rate zero. Negative brain activity. Retrying at next highest level.” As before, the mouse barely twitched at the higher stimulation level. “One final attempt. Maximum stimulation level.” The mouse lay there, motionless. Without being asked, medical bot number seventeen picked up the tiny body and deposited it into the recycling slot. “I am very sorry Avatar Kelly. We have failed yet again.”
Kelly stared motionless from the monitor. With a deep sigh, she said, “Thank you Seventeen. Upload the new data to the Genesis database.” She shrugged her virtual shoulders and said, “All we are doing is printing dead mice. There is no point in continuing the experiments until we have some new inspiration. Please continue to think about this Seventeen. I am going to go do something else for a while.”
“Certainly Avatar Kelly,” he said. “Do not despair. We will figure this out. I have great confidence in your capabilities.”
Kelly laughed. “Great bedside manner, Seventeen,” she said. An instant later, her image disappeared from the monitor in medical bay seventeen.
“Frack!” shouted Nathan. “Klienyan has surveyed this system too?”
Kelly sighed and said, “Yes Nathan, she surveyed the system ten months ago. There are five planets here, none of which are habitable.” Kelly looked thoughtful. “We do seem to be catching up to her. The last system we visited she had surveyed thirteen months ago. Downloading her data and uploading ours now”
Nathan looked at the monitor with the star charts. The green diamond indicating a surveyed system appeared over the stars of several nearby systems. “Wow, she certainly has been busy.” Turning to the image of Kelly Nathan said, “Please calculate the least likely system that she could have yet visited, set course and engage.”
“There is a brilliant white class A star sixteen days travel in our favored direction. The class A star is younger than the others we have visited however there still is a possibility that life could have developed on one of its planets. I have set this as our next destination. Uploading to the satellite.” A blinking white diamond appeared on the star chart over the destination star and then Nathen felt the lurch of the warp drive engaging.
Nathan nodded his head. “Okay, good choice.” He looked at Kelly and said, “Say, just what are the star classes anyway?”
“There are seven classifications of stars. They are, from hottest to coolest, class O, B, A, F, G, K and M. The mnemonic to help you remember the classes is ‘Oh Boy A Fine Girl Kissed Me’.”
Nathan chuckled and said, “Okay, I will remember that however with my luck we would have to replace ‘Fine’ with ‘Fat’!” Grinning hugely he asked, “What are the details for each class?”
Kelly chuckled as well and then said, “Class O and B stars are blue. They short lived, very hot stars that furiously burn up their hydrogen fuel. Due to their short lifespans, in stellar terms, it is extremely unlikely that life had a chance to forming on a planet orbiting them. For this reason, we should never consider class O and class B stars for exploration.”
“All of the other classes could potentially have a planet that could support life. Class A stars emit a very white light. Class F stars emit a yellowish-white light. Class G stars are like the Earth’s sun. They emit yellow light. Class K stars emit red light. Class M stars are the coolest stars. They are very red, can be very dim and/or very ancient. The most likely stars to have planets with life are class F, G, and K.”
“Very interesting Kelly. Thank you.”
“You are welcome Nathan. Is there anything else you wish to know?”
“No thank you Kelly. I am going to take a nap.”
Chapter 15: Successes
“Nathan, please hurry to the bridge. We are almost to the class A star. Arrival in three minutes.”
Nathan startled, looked up from the e-book he had been reading, got up and said, “I’m on my way.” He arrived at the bridge just as the ship dropped out of warp. A very white, large star filled the view screen. Sitting down in the chair he said, “Any satellite transmissions Kelly?”
Kelly was ecstatic. She excitedly said, “No Nathan, we are the first starship to visit this system!”
Nathan looked embarrassed. “Um, so now what?” He laughed and said, “Even after so long in s
pace, this is still all new to me. What is the procedure for surveying a new star system?”
“That’s okay Nathan,” she said. “The process is quite simple. The first step is to insert a system satellite into solar orbit at a great enough distance from the star that any solar storm or coronal mass ejections are unlikely to cause any damage. Next, we use our optical and spectrographic scanners to determine if any of the worlds or moons have both oxygen and water. For any worlds without water or oxygen, we simply perform the remote scans. On any worlds that show promise, we orbit and perform a more thorough scan. If we discover a class A planet, a scan will be made to determine if there are any technologically advanced aliens. If there are, we are to set the satellite to warn others away and send a hyper-probe back to Earth with the data and then exit the system as quickly as possible. If no intelligent aliens are present, a suitable landing site will be located and an on-ground survey performed. The final step is to upload all our collected data to the system satellite.”
Nathan was so excited that he was rocking back and forth in the chair. “Sweet!” he said. “This is so exciting! Do any of the planets show promise?”
“Scanning,” Kelly said. “This system has six planets. The outermost is a frozen world with a methane atmosphere. The next two are gas giants. I am heading towards them first to see if they have any moons that can support life.” Several minutes passed and then Kelly said,” No suitable moons. Scanning the third planet. Kelly froze and said in surprise, “Nathan! Water and an oxygen atmosphere detected!”
Nathan jumped up out of his chair and said, “Seriously?” He ran up to the screen and looked closely. “Head there, quickly!”
“We are on our way. ETA two minutes.”
Nathan hopped from foot to foot in front of the screen. “Two minutes seem like two hours. I am so excited Kelly!” Nathan stared mesmerized as the planet grew in the view screen. The image showed a planet completely shrouded in clouds. No portion of the surface, visible. “Hurry Kelly, get those scans running!” he said excitedly.
Kelly appeared just as excited as Nathan. “Beginning detailed scans. Please stand by.” Several minutes passed and Kelly’s face gradually lost its excitement. She sighed and said, “This is a class B- world. You could live there however, you would not want to. Cloud cover is one hundred percent. Surface temperatures range from minus one hundred-twenty at the poles to a maximum of five degrees Celsius at the equator. The water ice oceans cover ninety percent of the planetary surface. Radar scans indicate that wind speeds average one hundred KPH planet-wide. Spectrographic scans indicate minimal life on the surface. Primitive plant life likely grows near the equator and no place else. The clouds make any more definite conclusions difficult.”
Nathan stared at the swirling clouds of the world below their ship. He said nothing for several minutes before he said, “I almost hate to waste a hyper-probe reporting this world however it does have the required class B rating. Please finish your analysis of this system, upload it to the probe and launch. Please select the next most likely star system, update the satellite with our destination and the planetary scans, set course and engage.” Nathan turned and left the bridge without a further word. His shoulders slumped as he slowly trudged away.
Nathan ate his reconstituted freeze-dried meat loaf with relish. Kelly watched, fascinated, from the monitor on the wall opposite him. “I envy you Nathan,” she said. “I so wish I could sit there beside you and eat as well.” A look of sadness in her eyes, she said, “I will never know the simple joy that you feel in eating. In many ways, it is an unfair curse to have been made so intelligent. It just makes me aware of the things I can never do.”
Nathan stopped eating and looked at the screen in surprise. “Kelly, you cannot look at things that way. You will only make yourself depressed. Just think of the things that you can do that a physical being cannot. You will never age. Never know physical pain. As long as you have power, you will live forever. Being human, my body will ultimately wear out. Eventually no operation will be able to replace all my failing parts.” Nathan gave her a quick look and he continued, “Speaking of replacing parts. How is your research into brain uploading going?”
Kelly looked miserable. “I am an utter failure. In order to test memory uploads, I need to test it on a living being. I have tried and tried to use the 3D genetic printer to print a mouse. Every attempt has ended in failure. We have never been able to revive the subject after printing. The subjects have no heartbeat, respiration or any brain activity. We have one near success. The mouse had a heartbeat and brain activity for a few seconds. The brain activity ceased and the mouse died shortly thereafter. Medical bot number seventeen and I have gone over and over the data many times. We cannot figure it out. The mouse bodies’ scans show that they are perfect in every way.”
“Your near success had brain activity and the others did not?”
“Yes Nathan,” she said. “Do you have an idea?” she asked with obvious interest.
“Maybe, let me think,” he said. He put down his fork and sat with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. “You know, I do have an idea. Perhaps the mice you print are physically perfect but like the computer that runs you, they cannot operate without programming. Have you tried to test your current working theory on doing a brain upload immediately after printing?”
“No!” she excitedly said. “Meet me in medical bay number seventeen!” The image of Kelly instantly disappeared from the wall monitor. Nathan sat there with his jaw hanging open. “My God, she is almost human,” he thought. “I’ll be right there,” he whispered to the blank monitor. He picked up his fork and quickly finished his meal.
The instant Kelly appeared on the monitor, she said, “Seventeen! I think I know what we have been doing wrong! Nathan suggested we try a brain upload. He thinks that the mice we had been printing were like a computer with no operating system. They cannot live because the brain is not telling the body how to operate. What do you think Seventeen?”
Seventeen swiveled his head towards the wall monitor. “That is a very good idea Avatar Kelly. It makes perfect sense. I am ashamed that I did not think of this.”
“Me too,” admitted Kelly with an embarrassed look on her face. “Let’s do this!”
Nathan walked in the door shaking his head. “I had to drive myself. My chauffeur left without me!”
Kelly’s virtual eyes went wide. “Oh frack! I am so sorry Nathan. It is just that the idea so excited me that I…”
“Relax Kelly, I am just teasing you,” he said with a laugh. “What were you about to try?”
“Seventeen and I were just about to try to print a mouse and then do a brain upload as soon as the printing completed.” Kelly froze a second and nervously said, “Seventeen, you do have a mouse brain scan to upload, do you not?”
“Relax Avatar Kelly. I do indeed have a brain scan of a mouse. I have brain scans of fifty thousand one hundred and thirty-five species. If our experiments pan out, we should be able to print any one of them. Some of the larger species will not fit in this printer/scanner however. We will have to fabricate a larger printer for something like a cow or a horse.”
Kelly laughed. Hardly able to contain herself she said, “That’s okay Seventeen. I do not want to print a horse, just a mouse! Let’s get started!”
Seventeen rolled over to the printer/scanner. “Here we go. I have configured the printer so that it will immediately initiate a test brain upload upon completion of the printing cycle.” The device noisily began printing the new mouse. Nathan watched in utter fascination as the mouse slowly appeared, as if by magic. Printing completed, tiny mechanical hands emerged from the printer and then placed flexible wires upon the mouse’s head with astounding precision. Twenty seconds later the machine beeped again and the hands removed the wires.
The mouse lay there, motionless. Seventeen reached in and said, “Performing defibrillation. Lowest power setting. With a precision equaling and perhaps, surpassing, the pr
inter’s hands, Seventeen pressed tiny electrodes to the mouse’s body. A tiny spark appeared on the ends of the electrodes. With a squeak of surprising volume, the mouse jumped away from Seventeen’s hands and ran around the tray in the scanner in a blind panic.
Nobody moved. All gazed upon the mouse in utter fascination. A second later, Kelly emitted a shriek of pure happiness and she shouted, “We did it! Oh frack, I do not believe it! We did it!”
Nathan walked over to the machine, reached inside and picked up the terrified creature. Cupping his hand around it, he gently stroked its head until the frightened mouse calmed down. “I can’t believe it,” he said in wonder. “I just cannot believe it!”
Seventeen awoke from his trance and said, “Captain Nathan Staite, please place the mouse upon the examination table. I wish to scan for any abnormalities.” Nathan laid the tiny creature upon the table. It wandered around, its whiskers trembling as it explored. Seventeen said, “Brain activity, normal. Respiration rate, one hundred-fifty. Heart rate, six hundred beats per minute. All within the normal range for a white healthy mouse. This mouse is perfect and is perfectly healthy.”
The mouse walked over to the edge of the table and leaned over the side, looking for a way down. Nathan quickly reached out and picked it up. “Now what?” he asked with a laugh. “This is a living creature. We cannot simply put it in the recycling slot!”
Kelly looked shocked. “Never! How could you even suggest that I would do that?” Seeing Nathan’s amused expression, she relaxed. “You and your teasing, Nathan! Anyway, there are suitable enclosures in the ship’s database. I’ll have one of the repair bots build one and deliver it here.”
“Have the bot deliver it to my quarters instead. It will be easier for me to take care of it there.”
“Will do Nathan.” Kelly looked at the mouse and said, “Bring it closer to the wall camera Nathan. I want to get a good look at it.” Nathan did so and she looked it over, a look of utter fascination on her face. She reached out with her virtual hand to try to stroke the creature before she realized what she was doing. With an unreadable expression on her face, her let virtual arm flop down to her virtual side.
The Silence Between the Stars Page 11