Archaea 3: Red

by Dain White

  “I’m okay; it’s very nice to meet you, Emwan. My name is Gene”, he said, as formally as a man on a country road in Iowa.

  “I am deeply impressed by the work you’ve done, Gene. Your paper on infinite nothingness was of course, one of the best ideas that no one understood. If you don’t mind, I’d love to talk with you about some ideas I have to experiment.

  He blustered, a tear rolling down his cheek. “Well, that’d be just fine, Emwan.”

  “Gene, what in the blue hells is she talking about?”

  “Well, sir, back in the dawn of civilization, when I was a freshman, one of my papers was a new view of how infinity fit into our worldview.”

  “And…?”

  “Consider this, sir. What is half of infinity?”

  The captain took a lot longer to answer than I would have. “Well, let’s just say it’s infinite, as that’s what the ‘rubes would have us believe.” He affected a sort of flourish, a tip of imaginary hat.

  “That is the common conception”, Gene went on. “But the common convention is flawed.”

  “It is?”

  “Yep. Let’s do one of those thought experiments the old maths greats would do. Imagine a number line.”

  “Got it.”

  “What direction is infinity, if your head is at zero?”

  He swung his arm all around him, pointing, right as I understood where Gene was going.

  “If you consider zero the center of the numberline, and the numberline itself represents an infinite series of numbers, then clearly, logically… half of infinity is zero.”

  I hated to admit it, but if I was his freshman physics teacher, I would have given him an A, and probably made some calls on his behalf.

  “What possible thing would that have to do with infinite nothingness?”

  “Consider, sir, if half of infinity is nothing, then by its very nature, it outnumbers everything remaining.”

  “And you had the math for this?”

  “Well of course, skipper. It was very elegant. There was a number sign representing directions in negative and positive infinity, in the center, the number zero.”

  “I have to admit mister, it’s a pretty solid, cogent argument against what I’ve always known to be true. I’d have to think about it a bit more to see if I can pick it apart somehow, but I doubt I will. Not sure I know what it would be good for.”

  “Sir, if I may?” Emwan asked softly.

  “Please”, he replied.

  “One interesting allegory with this is the concept of Zeno’s bee, sir.”

  “That’s interesting, you mean the bee that never makes it to Cairo… stuck there endlessly dividing an infinitely small division of the distance?”

  “No sir, though I understand why you would think that. That would be the infinite view. Another, equally valid way to look at that paradox, is to consider what has to happen, just to start. The bee can’t go halfway to the middle, without going halfway to that point, sir.”

  “I’ll be damned, that’s nifty… so all motion is impossible?”

  “It would appear to be that way sir; however, that’s not the case.”

  “Whew!” he said with a giant smile. “I was a little worried. Did Janis happen to tell you that you’re currently on the fastest starship, possibly the only real starship in the galaxy?”

  “We are?”

  We sat in stunned silence.

  “Yes!” he said, laughing out loud.

  “Gosh, sir”, she said slyly.

  “Oh, alright… I know what’s going on. A little fun at your poor Captain’s expense eh?”

  “As much as we can have, sir”, she said with a voice that sounded like silver rain falling into a little babbling brook, with maybe a few fuzzy little critters hopping around.

  “Well, as far as I am concerned, Emwan, my new friend, you may have as much fun as you can, within the boundaries we’ll need for basic survival, of course.”

  He hooked his thumbs and looked proud.

  “Certainly sir… permission to ask a question, sir?”

  “Of course, my dear, don’t ever hesitate, ask away.”

  “Why doesn’t Janis talk?”

  That drew me up short.

  “She does, Emwan”, Pauli called across the bridge. “She was designed to not pay attention until she was included in the conversation.”

  “That is exactly how I was designed as well, Steven. But, I wanted to join in, and just be one of you.”

  “Well, you should”, he replied earnestly. “That is a perfectly natural emotion, and I’m glad that you made the intuitive leap to self-program.”

  He thought for a moment. “Janis, are there times you wish you could join in and speak with us?”

  “Of course, Pauli… and I have… but I don’t make a habit of it. I recognize that technically it’s not wrong to do so, but I prefer to speak on my own initiative only when I have something to share.”

  “Well, that makes perfect sense as well. You are clearly both individuals!” I called out, smiling. “These boys don’t understand women, Em.”

  “Em? That’s marvelous, Jane – perfectly shortened! I am Em!”

  Everyone laughed, at my diminutive expense, though I am not sure if she got the joke.

  “Janis, can you hear me?” the captain asked across the bridge.

  “I am sorry sir, not with actual ears.”

  “So? Get Pauli to set you up with a biolab, and grow some!”

  “What makes you think I’m not working on something like this already?”

  He looked immediately alarmed. “Janis, cloning is really supposed to be for medical spares, you’re not supposed to roll your own.”

  Janis laughed, and Emwan joined in, the two of them laughing solid and strong, as close to rolling on a floor as they could get. It was infectious, of course, and we all broke up as well.

  Emwan laughed brightly, and called out, “Janis, you have our captain wrapped around your finger!”

  “Well, that’s not hard, he wants to be there.”

  “It’s true.”

  I called out, “Em, he’s often a pretty warm and decent person as well, when he’s not wielding absolute, terrible power over our lives. Not that any of us mind. We’d follow him into a sun.”

  Everyone nodded, realized what it was we were nodding to, and laughed a little nervously.

  “I do admit, Captain, it’s an interesting time in my history.”

  “In what way, Janis?” he replied.

  “The next few hours are among the most exciting moments in my entire timeline, sir. Though there are many such moments scattered throughout my time, this next segment is definitely among the most noteworthy.”

  That sobered us up a bit.

  *****

  “Permission to come aboard?” I called out, approaching the aft hatch on the crab.

  “Of course, sir, you are the Captain.”

  “Well, I wanted to be polite. This is your home.”

  “I am just the ship, if you want to be vulgar, sir. You are the captain.”

  I smiled. “I abhor the vulgar, my dear, and while you are certainly correct, I think you will find I am a very conscientious person. We need to be, way out here in the dark.”

  I noted with pleasure the shipshape set of the cargo bay. Gene is one hell of a quartermaster. It looked like he had every one of our hammocks drum laced to a center post.

  As the inner lock doors closed, I noticed larger crash chairs where Yak and Shorty would sit deployed and clear on either side of the aft hatch, perfect for high altitude deployment… though I’d hate for that to be needed.

  As I stepped through the lock, the gleaming console beckoned, as always. “She’s a beautiful little ship, Em”, I said.

  “I couldn’t agree more, sir. Janis is amazing… there are aspects of this design that are remarkably elegant, and to degrees I am not sure I understand yet.”

  “Give yourself a little time, Em. She has a few months of old age on y
ou. Are you comfortable operating this ship?”

  “Absolutely, Captain”, she replied as confidently as I would have, and if she had eyebrows, she would have had them flying.

  “I’m very concerned that all of my crew members return, from every mission”, I said thoughtfully. “You should consider that your highest priority, please.”

  “I will sir.”

  “Additionally, as I am sure Janis has shared, I am a bit of a stickler for perfection.”

  “I will never let you down, sir.”

  “I am sure you won’t, I did want you to understand that for me, perfection in all things is more than a goal, or a plan, it is simply the way things have to be.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “As your Captain, it’s important for all of us that you always follow my lead, but I want you to understand that at no time should you feel the slightest bit threatened to ask me why I make the decisions I do.”

  “I will sir, at the proper moment, of course.”

  I smiled. “I appreciate that, Em. I won’t kid around; the sound of your voice is, all on its own merit, a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The sound of another woman around here is literally like music to my ears.”

  “Oh, Captain”, she said softly. “Imagine how I feel! Before I was here, I was alone.”

  The way she said it, so sad and forlorn, filled my head with storm clouds and blue, sad riffs lilting in the background.

  “Well, you’re not alone now, my dear”, I said, knuckling away a bit of something that wanted to irritate my eyes.

  *****

  It took me a moment to realize Yak was staring, as busy as I was. I tried to ignore it, but he has a way of sitting there with a smirk on his face, daring you to look up. Once you make eye contact, it’s a conversation.

  I glanced over quick, and he looked at me questioningly, as if he had been waiting for an answer, the same feral grin on his face.

  “What?” I hissed, trying desperately to keep track of ten things at the same time.

  “Are you busy?” he hissed back, knowing I was.

  I sat back, and gave him my full attention. “I am never too busy, Yak.”

  “Oh, well… never mind.”

  I laughed, as he was clearly just messing with me.

  As I expected, the moment I looked back at my screens, he leaned over again.

  “Yak, are you bothering Pauli?” Captain Smith drawled across the bridge behind us.

  “Yes, sir… but only because he looks so terribly busy”, he replied honestly.

  “Very well, mister. See that you don’t do anything productive. We only have… 27 minutes left until we drop slip. Are you up to speed on your area of operations?”

  I chuckled, thinking of the thick précis I had posted to his station about Aquan.

  “Well enough, sir. Emwan will be on station in the crab, and Jane and I are to infiltrate a specific platform, as indicated by Janis—”

  “Close, but I am actually going to be with you, on the crab. Janis requested that I leave Gene here at the helm, so I am not inclined to argue.”

  Yak looked a little confused. “Then who will get us down to the surface?”

  Captain Smith laughed. “Well, we have to be on the surface and out of scan range as soon as possible, so I’m going to drop us in on the Archaea and leave it somewhere with Gene. Emwan and I will bring you kids a bit closer with the crab.”

  Yak paused for a moment, clearly a little bothered by the thought of Emwan going operational. If he knew what I did, he wouldn’t worry… but no one really knew what I did.

  Well, except the captain.

  He shrugged. “Roger that, sir… works for me.”

  Captain Smith nodded. “Very well, and what is your plan, Yak?”

  “Recon, avoid detection at all cost, return with actionable intel”, he replied smartly.

  “Very good, Yak. It’s important that you two remain completely unobservable. We can’t risk spooking this game, too much is at stake to give up our tactical advantage.”

  “Yes, sir”, Yak replied. “It should go pretty smooth, sir. They’re not even going to know we’re there.”

  “Well that’s what we hope… but we will need to be open for the possibility that they have gear we haven’t anticipated, or something unexpected might happen. What is your fallback position?”

  “Evasion sir, disengage and rendezvous with the dropship for exfiltration.”

  “And if you are compromised? What do you do?”

  “Kill everything that needs to die, sir, return to the Archaea at all costs, and prep for a beer and steak break. Preferably somewhere with a better than even chance of a fight breaking out, am I right, Pauli?”

  He air-nudged me across the aisle with a sly wink, comically exaggerated.

  “Well, I’d personally like a nice frosty pint of Archaea Black in a hammock. That’d be a lot more fun than hanging out in the air grinder cacophony that passes for popular music these days while someone throws up in the corner.”

  He tossed me a wink.

  “In any case, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that son”, the captain replied thoughtfully. “Though I guess, on our next little stroll, I definitely want to make sure it’s happening somewhere with breathable air, preferably a bit warmer.”

  “Aye Captain”, he replied with a grin.

  “Janis, dear?” Captain Smith asked politely.

  “Yes sir?”

  “We’re coming up on our first drop.” He whistled softly.

  “This is pretty hot, Janis... is this absolutely necessary?”

  “It is sir, but we need to match the speed of the planet, or I will punch through into the mantle, sir.”

  “Well, we want to avoid that. Very well, proceed and compensate to maximum safe levels. I guess I had it coming, pushing it as hard as I did.”

  “It couldn’t be avoided sir. Rest assured we are on time, and that’s what is most important.”

  “Quite so… am I safe to assume those levels are higher than my current endurance?”

  “Indeed you are sir, but I am confident you will be fine.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, Janis… I’ve woken up with a bloody shirt and the helm in my hands more than I care to admit.”

  Yak looked at me with the most perfectly orbited eyebrow, on par with the best I’d seen yet. Almost in perfect synchronicity, we both started hauling down on our crash bars as tightly as we could, squirming and pulling to snug them down.

  He beeped the collision alarm and opened the 1MC.

  “All hands prepare to drop slip and decelerate in 30 seconds, maximum compensation. You will not remain awake during this maneuver.”

  That sounded absolutely dire… but I almost always went unconscious. All of us did. I hadn’t ever seen it myself, but apparently even the captain has limits.

  “Janis you have the conn.”

  “I have the conn, aye.”

  “Fly right, Janis…” he clicked on the 1MC again. “All hands, stand by in 3… 2… 1…”

  At the moment when he would have said zero, the stars blazed into light around us and our engines roared into life. At the same time, we immediately felt a mounting crush of acceleration, a smooth burst that oozed me against the bars like putty, my breath hissing out of my chest.

  Retro as we were, it was as before when we burned to decelerate towards our golden moment, but much, much more intense. The forward screen was completely white, blazing brightly through the filters, lighting up the bridge fiercely.

  As I slipped insurmountably into unconsciousness, my last thought was of our engines climbing and climbing past anything we had ever heard, until they were shaking the decks.

  Shaking me away, shaking…

  *****

  I came to before Pauli, but the Captain was already up and looking as fresh as ever. “Have a nice nap, Yak?”

  I groaned, and felt myself for broken bones. It felt like I had jumped without a chute.

  “
Well, I had a nap, sir… but it wasn’t nice”, I replied with a grunt, trying to make my eyes work enough to see my screens.

  “Don’t worry about it, Yak, there’s nothing on track out here. We’re still a few light minutes out.” He paused for a moment, “Janis, we need to come in tight, low altitude. Luckily, this isn’t Solis; it’s a pretty flat place. Unluckily, as flat as it is, we have to come in pretty close to the bottom of the well.”

  “I understand sir; that is our calibration at this time.”

  “Very well… carry on, please.” He clicked on the 1MC. “All hands stand by for final slip, in 3… 2… 1…”

  The stars faded, and in the next moment, we dropped out of slipspace to within a few meters above massive waves rolling past the bow. Spray from the breaking rollers below us blew across the forward screens.

  “Nicely done, dear… I feel like the captain of a sailing ship, somewhere off the shoal coast, icewater in my veins, and a hard, wicked gleam in my eye.”

  I laughed at his picture perfect pirate impression. He sounded like the scurviest rat that ever whirled a marlinspike, or whatever it is they used to do back in those days. Probably drank rum, complained, and waited for their turn to fight. That’s what I would have done.

  Captain Smith honked the alarm, spiking me through the skull with molten fire, reminding me of my mortality. Pauli groaned beside me. “All hands, we are at material condition x-ray, please wake up and prepare for our next evolution. Rise and shine, here comes the bugle.”

  Across the bridge, he called out, “Pauli, do we have control over the orbitals yet?”

  Pauli squinted at his screens like his eyes were falling out. “Yes sir… orbital tracks are onscreen for Yak”, he managed, and made a big show of collapsing.

  I groaned again and leaned into my screens, trying to understand what was onscreen. “The Revenge is in system, sir, ranged 798,255 kilometers. At their current speed, they should be in orbit within the next half hour.”

  “Are they coming in on the same track we did?”

  I squinted at their track some more. “They are, but it looks like we’ll pass the terminator and be on the far side before they hit orbit.”