Triumph & Defeat (Shaitan Wars Book 4)

by Sudipto Majumdar

  “This way,” indicated Uhuru pointing towards another airlock, which led to the entrance of the covered canyon, which had been the Ka-let home. Benedict noted that the airlock was only a safety feature to isolate various segments of the habitat, because behind the airlock was perfectly breathable air. He also noted that there was now a very convenient elevator to get down to the canyon floor, and the canyon itself was at a comfortable room temperature, pressure. A far cry from those early uncomfortable days when he had worked here.

  “We have lined up the core physics and engineering team for the presentation.” Uhuru added. “We thought that the best place for the presentation would be at the source of the discovery itself.” With those words, Uhuru guided Benedict on a path that should have been familiar to Benedict. It was the path that led to the open door of the gigantic Ka-Let spaceship. Benedict had himself tread that path for a few years long time ago, but things had changed a lot at this facility since then.

  Benedict entered through the familiar entrance to the gigantic Ka-let ship, which he had himself helped open up so many years ago – with a little help from an internet group of enthusiasts. The insides of the ship looked familiar and yet different at the same time, just like the insides of the covered canyon. He realized that he had not been here for a long time, and many changes had occurred in the interim, as humans scoured every conceivable part of this canyon and the ship looking for technologies. The insides of the ship no longer had a bare, corroded look to it. Things had been restored as best and as faithfully as possible, including restoring the original bright colors on the walls. The Ka-Let were a very visual oriented species, in sharp contrast to the Shaitans, and they liked bright colors. That one fact made them far more endearing to the humans than the Shaitans could ever be.

  The Ka-Let were a small species compared to humans. From the mummified bodies recovered in the section of the covered canyon commonly referred as the ‘Tomb’, it was obvious that an adult Ka-Let would stand no taller than the hip height of an adult human, if they were to stand upright in the first place. No one could be sure if they stood upright, although most experts believed that the Ka-Let had the capacity to stand upright, at least for short periods. The closest analog that humans could find to the Ka-Let anatomy was a large Madagascar Lemur.

  Like the Lemur, and most primates like chimps and humans, the Ka-Let had the equivalent of two arms and two legs at the two ends of an elongated torso, similar in proportion to the Lemur. Like the Lemur, those arms and legs were built for climbing, equipped with sharp claws perhaps to clasp the equivalent of trees on their home planet. Those sharp claws were perhaps used in their antiquity probably for digging out the equivalent of grubs from whatever passed as trees on their planet, similar to what the Lemurs do in Madagascar.

  However the comparison to a Lemur could only be carried that far. Beyond a point one had to remember that this was an alien, which had evolved on a completely independent tree of life. One of the most stark reminders that the Ka-Let were aliens, was when one looked at its head, or rather when you looked for a head above the torso and couldn’t find one, because the Ka-let didn’t have one in the traditional sense. The sensory organs of the Ka-let were mounted on stalks that could stretch out far beyond the body. So a diminutive Ka-Let could raise its eye stalks far above the height of a tall human to see from a high perspective that even a human couldn’t achieve.

  Scientists did not have the evolutionary context of the Ka-let, or a picture of the Ka-let home world and their natural habitat, so they could not guess how such long sensory stalks had evolved, but it was certainly an evolutionary advantage to have them compared to us humans, who have their eyes and ears stuck to their head, which also houses our brains. Every time a human soldier has to shoot around the corner, they have to stick their head out and risk getting their brains blown off. The Ka-Let could just expose a tiny eye and keep the rest of its vital organs safely hidden.

  It took a long time for the Xeno-biologists to figure out the internal organs of the Ka-let from those mummified bodies because the soft tissues of the internal organs hadn’t preserved so well, but most agreed that the brain was firmly tucked deep inside the torso of the Ka-Let somewhere close to the center. It was an efficient design, as the signals from the brain could reach all parts of the body best if the brain is centrally located. The Ka-let had multiple orifices on their torso, one at each end of the body and two right in the center. The Xeno-biologists were still debating which ones were their mouth and which were their anus. They didn’t have any clue about their sexual organs, or even if they reproduced sexually.

  There were a few things that the Xeno-biologists were fairly certain about. The Ka-let’s body plan displayed bilateral symmetry, just like us and all vertebrates on Earth i.e. animals with backbones. The two aliens that humans had found till date had shown the two types of symmetry observed on Earth. The Shaitans had displayed radial symmetry like the invertebrates on Earth like the Jellyfish or the Starfish, and the Ka-Let had displayed bilateral symmetry like the vertebrates on Earth, their body plan could be exactly divided along the center into two equal and mirror parts. Evolutionary biologists posited that perhaps these two types of symmetry were the simplest, and hence must be most common around the universe.

  The Ka-let had taken the bilateral symmetry of their body plan to another level altogether. Their arms and their legs were exactly the same size, so they were not only symmetrical vertically like us humans but also symmetrical horizontally if cut into half at the middle. One of the interesting consequence of this was that a Ka-let was probably as comfortable standing on its ‘legs’ as it was standing on its ‘hands’. It probably made no difference to them. The biologists however thought that the Ka-let were more comfortable moving on their fours rather than walking. That is where the Lemur analogy was once again relevant.

  In an example of convergent evolution, the Ka-let who must have evolved in the equivalent of a tree in their home planet, but who also needed to walk on flat surface had probably evolved a gait and placement of arms and legs similar to a Lemur – similar problem had forced evolution to engineer a similar body plan in a different planet on a different star system.

  Unlike humans, the Ka-let had probably never left the trees completely, because they designed their habitat such that it required extensive climbing, which must have come naturally to them. The niches carved into the canyon walls could only be climbed through a ladder or rope, but there had been no indication of any such artefact. So the Ka-let must have casually climbed or scaled the walls to reach there. They had continued the same building plan inside their ship as well.

  The corridors and passageways of the ships were very high even by human standards, even though the Ka-let themselves were very short by human standards. Benedict was a strapping six feet five inches tall and the ceiling of the corridor he was walking, was at least twice that height if not more. The Ka-Let had designed the corridor not just for walking, but also for climbing and scurrying along the walls. It was even more evident when one inspected the texture of the walls. It was not smooth as a human ship, but mimicked the rough texture of the bark of a tree, very easy for a tree climber to climb and move across.

  All along the corridor that Benedict was moving, there were niches high up in the wall that could be reached only by climbing. Humans had installed rope ladders to access those areas. The place where most humans had a problem on the Ka-Let ships were the hatches, which were designed to let in the small Ka-Let and were proportionately low and thin. Uhuru was short and had less of an issue ducking into the hatch that he was leading benedict into, although his portly frame meant that he almost got stuck on the sides. Benedict was fit and didn’t have such an issue with the width of the hatch, but he had to literally crawly into it because of his height.

  Once inside, Benedict could not help but marvel at the huge space the hatch opened up into. He had been here many times, but he managed to feel awestruck every time he came here. It was simp
ly the largest enclosed space inside any kind of ship that Benedict had ever seen, and he had been inside those super ships plying the seas of Earth carrying cargo. Some of those nautical ships being constructed in the twenty second century on Earth, had started rivalling the size and scale of this Ka-let ship, but none had such a large space in a single hall.

  Initially humans had wondered why the Ka-let would waste such an amount of space inside the ship, even if they could make their ships very large. Then they realized that unlike humans, who live in two dimensions mostly, the Ka-Let had not completely given up their arboreal lifestyle, and lived in three dimensions. They had niches all around the wall high up as far as the eye could see. They lived on the entire surface of this roughly spherical hall. In addition, the hall had multiple struts stretching from one surface to the opposite one, acting like pillars to give the entire structure strength and integrity. The Ka-Let used those struts as climbing surface and there was evidence that they lived or worked on those struts as well.

  Still, if one thought like a human, it would be an enormous waste of space. If one however thought like a Ka-Let, then this must represent the kind of open area that they had replicated in the canyon as a living space. It must be very similar to the environment and habitat of their home planet. To the Ka-let this must be how home looks, so it was worth for them, and definitely not a waste of space.

  Uhuru led Benedict to an area which had been covered off with a tent like structure. Benedict smiled. Humans had made a structure within this alien habitat to suit themselves with something they were comfortable with. It was a fairly large tent and Benedict was suitable impressed with its size. It was only after he entered the tent, that he realized why the tent needed to be so big. It covered an area which housed a large machinery that Benedict knew, was one of the fusion reactors of the ship.

  It was a fairly large fusion reactor compared to what the humans used, which was based on the Shaitan technology. Other than the fact that it was a fusion reactor, humans had figured out very little about this reactor, except the fact that it must have a tremendous energy output. It had to be far greater than the nuclear reactors humans used, because the Ka-Let ship had eight such reactors and they had managed to accelerate this huge ship, which was an order of magnitude bigger than the largest human space ship, quickly enough for the Ka-Let to make the journey from Proxima Centauri to the Solar system in just over twenty one years. Eight Human fusion engines would take ten times or more amount of time to accelerate, by comparison a tiny human warship, to cross the same distance.

  “Benedict, I would like you to meet Dr. Ramona French the head of our research on this facility, and the resident expert on Ka-Let fusion technology. Ramona, I am sure I don’t need to introduce you to Benedict Parsons. I am sure you have seen his speeches and memos.” Uhuru introduced Benedict to a middle aged but fairly attractive red head with long hair tied up neatly in a plait. Benedict was surprised by the firm and strong grip of the handshake. A confident and aggressive woman, Benedict surmised, and was strangely turned on by that thought.

  “I didn’t know there were experts in Ka-Let fusion technology! I thought that we didn’t understand Ka-Let fusion technology!” Benedict said with mild sarcasm and a smile.

  “I hope after the presentation, you will have a different opinion of the subject, sir.” Dr. French said in a self-assured manner, ignoring the sarcasm of Benedict’s words. Impressive! Benedict thought. Self-assured and yet not prickly or sensitive. He was starting to get impressed by this woman. He forced himself to tear his attention from the attractive physicist to the rest of the team, who were being introduced by Uhuru.

  After the introductions and the pleasantries had been fulfilled, Dr. French requested everyone to settle down in the plastic chairs placed inside the tent and she started her presentation. Benedict knew that the team must have prepared hard for this presentation because this was their only chance to save their program and their research on Mars. Losing this program would be a blow to most of their careers. Despite this, Dr. French did not show any signs of nervousness or anxiety.

  “I am going to give a traditional holo-presentation, so you can keep your neural interface shut if you so wish.” Dr. French said to Benedict, and he nodded.

  Dr. French switched on the holograph projector and the area in front of the spectators filled with a holographic projection of a schematic diagram of a complex machine. “This is the schematic model of the Ka-let fusion reactor. We are fairly confident that this is a very faithful reproduction of the actual reactor that you see behind me.” Dr. French turned and pointed to the large Ka-Let fusion reactor embedded into the chassis of the Ka-Let ship.

  “As you are aware that most of the equipment on this ship, unlike those outside in the Canyon, had gone through a considerable amount of oxidization process, and consequently a severe amount of degradation. This was obviously because the ship was sealed and held itself airtight all these thousands of years, and for the first few years the ship was functioning and must have regenerated the oxygen consumed. Thus the oxidation process ended only when all the oxygen in the air inside the ship was exhausted, by which time a considerable amount of damage had been done to most structures, especially equipment like this fusion reactor, the construction of which has a significant proportion of metals.” Dr. French opened her presentation.

  Then she gave a mental signal and the holographic image changed subtly. The model of the reactor was the same, but one could make out that it was severely corroded and certain sections were missing. “This was the condition in which we found the reactor behind me, and it was the best preserved of the reactors! Over the years after its discovery, the engineers have painstakingly reconstructed the model of the reactor by referring to the other seven reactors, wherever we found a certain section mission on this one, or by making intelligent guesses where nothing else would work. Once we had reconstructed the reactor, our next challenge was to figure out how it worked.”

  Dr. French took a pause for effect and then continued. “It was obvious to engineers and physicists at one glance that this reactor worked on a completely different principle compared to our current generation of nuclear reactors, which are based on the Shaitan design. In fact this design looks eerily similar to one of the first human designs of fusion reactors made in the 1970s by the Soviets, based on the Tokomak principle. Most of us here agree that when it comes to engineering, the Ka-Let thought process is a lot closer to ours, than that of the Shaitans. In that respect the Ka-Let are a lot less alien than the Shaitans. It is a conjecture, although we don’t have any proof that some of the similarity in the thought process between us and the Ka-Let may be due to the fact that both our species evolved on the surface of a planet powered by the light of a Sun. The Shaitans on the other hand have evolved underground in a sunless world, powered by the heat of the underground.

  “In any case, I digress from my point, which is that this design takes us back to the paradigm along the lines of which human engineers had started thinking 150 years ago – along the lines of the macro engineering, where mechanics and electromagnetism were the primary methods to control the fusion reaction, and computation played very little role in the entire event. This is in sharp contrast with the Shaitan approach to fusion reactor design, which is based on micro cells of fusion where small number of atoms almost at an individual level are tracked by a powerful quantum computer, and are individually managed and fused at the micro level.

  “Both the approaches have their pros and cons. The Shaitan approach, which we eventually adopted after abandoning our own fledgling efforts at fusion reactor has one major advantage – Low thermal emission resulting in a cool reactor, which provides for an extremely reliable and safe reactor. To give you an idea of how safe those reactors are, we have been using the Shaitan design now for many decades on a large number of warships, which have seen many battles. Many of those ships have been hit hard and destroyed as well. Yet in all that time we have not had a single in
stance of catastrophic failure of a fusion reactor, even when one has been hit and damaged in war. These reactors simply produce lower output when some part of the reactor goes wrong, because all micro cells of the reactor are operating independently at fairly low power to create an aggregate output. If the reactor is hit badly, it simply stops operating. There is no scope for it to explode or spew out radiation.

  “The down side of the Shaitan design is something we started realizing and have been acutely aware of, once we looked to scale up the output beyond the original design. When we wanted to deploy the design for Earth based nuclear power plants, where the output requirement is far higher, we realized that the design couldn’t scale up beyond a certain point. The issue lies with the way the Shaitan design fusion reactors are manufactured. They are built layer by micro-layer in a slow and tedious process where one micro layer is deposited over the next build up an every growing sphere.

  “On Earth’s gravity, as the sphere gets larger, it tends to lose its symmetry due to the weight of the sphere itself. In orbital space, where most of our fusion reactors are manufactured, things are a bit easier, but even in space it is hard to keep it perfectly symmetrical beyond a certain diameter because our manufacturing processes are not precise beyond a point.

  “So why is the symmetry of the sphere so important in the Shaitan design of the reactor? It is because the energy generated in the reactor is channeled out and extracted by means of the Helium atoms created during the fusion reaction, which follow certain predefined pathways inside the reactor. These individual atoms of Helium are extremely energetic, and some of the energy is transferred to the walls of those pathways. If the reactor is reasonably symmetrical, then it is not a problem as the entire reactor expands uniformly in all directions due to the heat of operation. If, however, the reactor is not symmetrical then it expands non-uniformly distorting and eventually cracking the reactor.