Dark Secret (2016)

by Edward M. Lerner

  And that I’ll have synthed enough tequila to get me back into a pod.

  DISCORD

  (About twenty-four years later)

  19

  Her head throbbing, hollow with hunger, aching from head to toe as though she had been pounded on by experts, Dana gazed without insight at the nav graphic on the main bridge display. “Only” twenty-four years, but she felt more wretched than she had waking from cold sleep the first time. She would not have believed that possible. Maybe the pods were wearing out. She knew she was.

  None of that mattered. Not on this mission.

  Dana had the pilot’s chair. Antonio stood behind her, leaning, the weight of his forearms squashing her headrest. Blake, looking pale and a bit queasy, had the copilot’s seat. Carlos, coughing tubercularly, but having reached the infirmary under his own power this time, was getting examined by Li. A clatter of plates and cutlery located Rikki in the galley.

  Dana wished Rikki would move faster, at least with some coffee.

  “Okay, Marvin,” Dana said. “I see a star field. The very bright star straight ahead must be our target. What else should I be seeing?”

  “That some of those ‘stars’ move,” the AI said. “There are planets.”

  “We came because of a planet,” Dana said. “Extras aren’t a surprise, are they?”

  “No,” Marvin agreed. “Still, we did not know.”

  “Any signs of life?” Dana asked. “Of intelligence?”

  “Life, to be sure,” Marvin said. “As you know, a planet doesn’t keep free oxygen otherwise. Intelligence, indeterminate. The only detectable RF is noise from the star and one of the gas-giant planets. We remain too distant to see any surface details.”

  “Show us all the orbits,” Antonio said.

  The star field disappeared, displaced by a graphic with six nested bright loops. From innermost to outermost, the colors ran the gamut from purple to red. At this scale the orbits looked like perfect circles, and their differing tilts scarcely registered. A white-orange spark shone at the center.

  “The star first,” Marvin began. “It is about what we expected. Compared to our former sun, this star has ninety-one percent of the mass. It is about nine percent cooler and its radius is about fourteen percent smaller. The star is fifty-one percent as luminous as the sun.

  “As for the planetary system, we now know much more. While decelerating I identified six planets. The orbital determinations are most precise for the innermost planets, but they all should be accurate to within two percent.

  “Closest to the star, its orbit shown in purple, is a world somewhat like Mars before planetary engineering. This world orbits about half an AU from the star.”

  An astronomical unit: the average separation between the Earth and the sun. As a measure of length, the AU was destined for the obscurity of furlongs and cubits. The realization saddened Dana.

  “Not habitable, then, without extensive terraforming,” she said.

  “Quite right,” Marvin said. “Bringing us to the second planet, its orbit shown in blue, at about ninety-one percent of an AU. It has water oceans and an atmosphere with oxygen. This is the world we came for.”

  Blake had shipboard diagnostics running on his console. He looked up from the scrolling text. “Earth-like, then?”

  “So it seems,” Antonio said. “But water…oceans, Marvin? You’re sure? That far from the star, it seems like the water would be…frozen.”

  “I am certain,” Marvin said. “Water vapor would not be this prevalent in the atmosphere without significant liquid water on the surface.”

  “Can we have a look?” Blake asked.

  A tiny disk appeared alongside the blue loop. The only features Dana could make out were white specks at opposite ends. Polar icecaps, she presumed.

  “I cannot yet provide much detail,” Marvin said. It managed to sound apologetic. “When we get closer, we will see better.”

  “It’s dim,” Antonio said. “Apart from the icecaps.”

  Blake nodded. “I suspect that’s a good thing. That means it’s soaking up sunlight.”

  Where was Rikki with some damn food? “Big picture, here,” Dana said. “Is this world habitable, or not?”

  “Habitable, yes,” Marvin said. “It may not be hospitable.”

  “What does that mean?” Rikki called.

  She stood in the hatchway bearing a tray piled high with snacks. With a grin, Blake got up and began handing around plates and drink bulbs.

  Marvin said, “It will be colder on average than on Earth. The air will be dryer than on Earth and thinner than at Earth’s sea level. Still, parts of this world will be friendlier to life than, say, Earth’s deserts and high plateaus.”

  The Earth of some dusty database. Earth now was a charnel house gripped in an ice age.

  Dana turned her attention to coffee. Habitable: that was damned good news.

  “What else do we know about this world?” Rikki asked.

  There was that circumlocution again.

  Their new home needed a name, no matter how uninspired Dana found some of the suggestions. In hindsight, though, setting everyone to talking—arguing—about names hadn’t been her smartest decision.

  She set down the coffee bulb. “Blake can catch you up later. Marvin, go on with the grand tour.”

  “The next world, at a bit over two AU is…”

  Green, yellow, orange, and red: all the outermost worlds were gas giants, the one nearest to the star Saturn-sized and the rest much smaller. Green and yellow showed prominent ring structures; orange and red offered hints of rings. Green and red, at least, had substantial moons. The outer planets ranged from about two AU to about thirteen AU from the star.

  Her headache easing, Dana tried her sandwich. She chewed, oblivious to whatever was between the bread slices, reviewing. An almost sun-like star. Six worlds, one habitable.

  She should be ecstatic. And yet—

  “The separation between blue and green worlds looks wrong to me,” she said. “Too big a gap. Could there be a planet you haven’t spotted?”

  “Possibly,” Marvin said. “Based on the other interplanetary gaps, theory suggests there should be a planet orbiting at about 1.3 AU. But if there were one, I should have spotted it.”

  “An asteroid belt?” Rikki guessed. “Maybe that big gas giant prevented a planet from forming, just as Jupiter seems to have done back home.”

  Marvin said, “If there are asteroids, I could not spot them from this distance.”

  “Not just asteroids. 1.3 AU will be right by…the ice line. There might be very short-period…comets, too.”

  Blake squinted at the graphic. “Comets or asteroids, they would be too damned close. Lots of rock and ice will orbit nearer to our new home than Earth does to Mars. I have to wonder, how often does our future home get slammed?”

  “Is there a significant bombardment risk?” Dana asked Marvin.

  “Insufficient information, Captain. Sorry.”

  Rikki said, “Maybe the planet looks dark because of a recent impact. An asteroid strike would put dust and smoke in the atmosphere.”

  “Same answer,” Marvin said. “I cannot know more until we get closer.”

  Her head once more throbbing, Dana wondered if the human race had a cosmic bull’s-eye on its metaphorical back.

  Not that they had a viable alternative to continuing on their course.

  Dana said, “Let’s get closer and find out.”

  20

  Antonio took refuge on the bridge, relinquishing the copilot’s seat only for food, the toilet, and twice to splash water on his face. He needed order and routine, and as the ship swooped toward the new planetary system, the scurrying of his shipmates denied him both.

  For once, he was not the only one obsessing. Everyone labored till they dropped. Not that there was a reason to rush about, or any suspected harm that might come of a few days’ delay before a closer look—

  There was only the longing to declare t
heir odyssey at an end.

  Most intercom mikes were active across the ship, the better to coordinate, and some half-heard thud brought Antonio shuddering awake. He had no memory of having closed his eyes. Trying to orient himself, he heard grunts and terse directions as Blake and Rikki continued rearranging crates, still digging for a full set of parts for at least one short-range shuttle. He heard tuneless humming and staccato bursts of keystrokes as Carlos reconfigured some of their synth vats. He heard the squeaks and squeals of hinges unused for decades, the captain inspecting her ship. From the central corridor, not via the intercom, he heard a rustle of clothing: by process of elimination, Li. She moved about the ship more than anyone, ostensibly to lend a hand wherever she could be most useful, in practice lobbying for her scheme of planet names.

  He was too clumsy to handle irreplaceable cargo, too impractical to touch the synthesis equipment or to program nanites.

  That left studying the worlds toward which they hurtled. He had terabytes of data, and every few hours, interrupting their deceleration to turn the ship forward, Marvin collected additional close-ups. There was beyond enough information to occupy him for a lifetime.

  He had scans from across the spectrum and plenty of old-fashioned optical imagery. With it he had refined orbital parameters, approximated each planet’s period of rotation, identified several moons, broadened the spectrographic analyses of atmospheres, and even counted sunspots. Numbers, numbers, numbers….

  Alas, numbers had again lost their customary ability to sooth. Perhaps there could be too many numbers.

  Which left him what?

  In college, eons ago, a deep dive into psychology archives had uncovered the diagnosis once made of people like him. Asperger’s Syndrome was a grab bag of eccentricities with no known cause and no treatment, a label that explained nothing and contributed nothing. The term had fallen into disuse.

  He just didn’t behave like most other people, and that was that.

  As activities across the ship became ever more frantic, Antonio set aside numbers for some other security blanket.

  But which? Beyond salt and pepper, salsa and curry, the galley was without condiments. And never again would he encounter a postage stamp: Pacific island, commemorative, nineteenth century, or any other. The daily precipitation for cities across Europe—and he could recite decades of such data—no longer held meaning. And although deep within Earth’s oceans some life would have survived, the GRB would have rendered extinct whole families, orders, classes, maybe entire phyla, of invertebrate animals. He would never know which.

  What remained to count and compare, to categorize and arrange?

  The chatter over the intercom offered inspiration.

  The captain had begun the discussion of place names, but his shipmates had been quick to join in. Not Antonio. He didn’t see the value. Still: many names were being championed, and many naming systems. There were numerous pros and cons that one might consider….

  And so—meandering through an archive about philosophy, one more prescient gift from Neil Hawthorne—Antonio encountered a disquieting pattern.

  *

  Revived by a quick shower and fresh clothes, it hit Rikki: she was starving. Before getting snacks for Blake and herself, before the two of them resumed an uneven contest with the overstuffed cargo hold, she decided to see who else might want a bite to eat. She began with Li and Carlos in the infirmary.

  Rikki would have bet large sums, had money retained any value, that nothing in the new planetary system could infect them. People had more in common with paramecia than with whatever life forms they might encounter here. But no one was willing to bet the human race, and that had left Li dreaming up novel infectious agents against which Carlos might preprogram nanites ahead of time. Just in case.

  The low voices she heard in the infirmary were discussing neither biology nor nanotech.

  Something awkward had transpired between Li and Carlos early in the voyage; for a while, things had been tense. Rikki was certain Dana knew about it, too. But though she and Dana had long been friends, Dana had gone all captain-y on that topic and refused to admit anything.

  Whatever the conflict had been, Li and Carlos must have gotten past it. Way past it.

  Neither saw Rikki standing in the infirmary hatchway.

  “Family and loyalty,” Li said. “That’s what Confucius stood for. His ethical system became the underpinnings of the most populous society on Earth. How can you not like Confucius as a name for our new home world?”

  Li’s words were serious; her body language was a whole other matter. Standing close to Carlos. Leaning in. Touching him lightly on the arm.

  “I think I could be convinced,” Carlos smirked.

  Next: the casual hair toss. Li knew exactly what she was doing. All to enlist Carlos’s support for a planet name?

  Li said, “Isn’t loyalty something to cling to?”

  “I have a suggestion, while grasping something is on your mind.” Carlos did a double-take. “Ah, the fair Mrs. Westford. Do not fear. There’s plenty for two to hold.”

  Eww. And if Blake ever hears you hitting on me, you’ll be holding your own head.

  Rikki couldn’t understand how Carlos had succeeded in marrying once. But three times? It spoke ill of her gender.

  She said, “I’m getting snacks for Blake and me. I dropped by to ask if either of you wanted anything.”

  “No, thanks,” Li said.

  “Another time, perhaps,” Carlos said, with an eyebrow arched.

  “I’ll leave you two to work,” Rikki said. Hint, hint.

  It wasn’t only Carlos whom Li was lobbying. Rikki hadn’t yet gotten a turn, but she knew Li had bent Dana’s ear: that fostering respect for humanity’s accomplishments and preserving the past were as fundamental to their mission as preserving genes.

  Rikki wondered who else had been pitched on Li’s favored planet names. And whether Li would try that flirtatious crap on Blake. And how he would react if Li did.

  Maybe it was time to reclaim the bridge and what passed aboard ship for privacy….

  Rikki found Antonio asleep in the copilot’s seat, head tipped at an awkward angle, his mouth sagging open. Displays scrolled, oblivious to his stupor. Okay, no snack for him. No alone time for her and Blake. She grabbed a blanket from the crew quarters and spread it over Antonio.

  And woke him up.

  “Sorry,” Rikki said. Settling into the pilot’s seat, she got a glimpse of the scrolling text: very dry philosophy. It was not at all what she had expected. “How are you?”

  “All right,” he said, looking guarded. Because he couldn’t distinguish when how are you was or wasn’t meant literally? “I’m taking a break from astronomy.”

  “Fair enough. I’m getting a bite to eat. I came to ask if I could bring you anything.”

  “Not for…me, thanks.”

  She asked, “Any updates about where we’re headed?”

  “Our destination has at least two…moons. Small, maybe four hundred klicks across.”

  “Two moons,” she repeated. “A touch of home. Anything else?”

  “I’ve determined those moons’ orbits.”

  By basic orbital mechanics, knowing those orbits would serve to establish the mass of the planet. Mass plus the planet’s size determined its surface gravity. He could have just volunteered the gravity.

  “Unpleasant, I take it,” she said. “How heavy?”

  “Almost one point four times…standard.”

  Approaching four times the gravity to which she had been born. “Ugh.”

  “Nanites might help build up bone mass.”

  “Yeah. Yet another task for Carlos to take on.” When Li has finished leading him on. “Anything else?”

  “The local day will be about twenty…five hours, fourteen minutes, in standard units. The year is 421.6 local days or…443.3 standard days. We could be traditional and divide the year into twelve months, each of thirty-five local days. In that…case,
I’d suggest five-or seven-day weeks. Or we could use fifteen months, each with four…seven-day weeks. Or twenty-eight months of fifteen days. I guess those would be less months than fortnights.”

  Fortnights? As Antonio rambled on, she guessed that obscure units of measure were yet another of his fixations. And to keep months the same length, there was something about a New Year holiday not falling within a month at all, whether the year had fourteen, fifteen, or twenty-eight of them. And about extending that annual holiday by a leap day in three years out of five. And preserving standard seconds, rather than recalibrate their records and instruments. And….

  Rikki abandoned hope he would ever wind down. “Okay, I’ll be off for my snack.”

  “One other thing. I have a planetary temperature. Call it five degrees…Celsius.”

  And that was the afterthought? Not, whatever they were, fortnights? She said, “Above freezing, if just a little. As you had predicted.”

  “A planetary average. Marvin, does any Earth city have a similar average temperature?”

  “Fargo, North Dakota.”

  “Never heard of Fargo,” Rikki said. Or North Dakota, for that matter. “But that there is a city in such a climate is another data point to say we can settle here.”

  “Marvin has been busy…too. With all the images we’ve collected, I had it assemble a…composite. Cloud cover is averaged out. Marvin, show Rikki the second planet.”

  A mottled, spectral globe appeared between them. Large icecaps surrounded the poles. Gray and brown predominated, with splashes of dark green.

  Leaning closer, she could just make out indistinct threads on the land surface. The twisty features, whatever they were, had to be huge. Mountain ranges? Fault lines to shame the Valles Marineris? Rivers to dwarf the Amazon? The Great Wall of—what did Li propose to call this world? Confucius?

  Rikki resigned herself to more days without answers.

  With a flick of the wrist she signaled for Marvin to spin the image.