The Singularity Trap

by Dennis E. Taylor

  Reconfiguration

  Ian Jonquers ran down the hallway, dodging pedestrians, his little brother yelling at him to wait. Ian got to the observation window first. Caleb finally reached the window, too out of breath to berate him.

  The brothers gazed out at the harsh landscape of Mercury while they waited for their mother to catch up. The terrain, stretching to the close horizon, resembled what one would see on Luna. Jagged, black rock, sharp shadows from the almost complete lack of atmosphere, and crater walls rising in the distance to encircle the station presented a picture that would be forbidding to an adult but was business as usual to the two boys.

  The installation, a combination science station and experimental mining facility, was nominally the Mercury North Polar Station, but was commonly known as Vulcan’s Forge. The large semi-permanent population consisted of an equal mix of scientists, industrial mining personnel, and infrastructure staff. And their families as well.

  Emilia Jonquers caught up with her two boys, who would, if history was any judge, have to be peeled away from the window with the promise of ice cream at the mall. The trips to the shopping center had become a standard routine, and everyone knew their part. Even the boys’ complaints would be perfunctory, lasting just long enough to extract the required promise.

  Emilia nodded a greeting to a few familiar faces. The comforting routine of the daily walk was a high point of her day.

  “That’s new. What’s that?” Caleb said, pointing.

  Emilia smiled at Caleb’s vivid imagination. Nothing ever changed out there. All the station work was done underground, out of range of the sun’s heat.

  “I don’t think anything’s new, Caleb. What are you looking at?”

  He pointed again. “The shiny thing.”

  Emilia looked, then did a double take. Something was indeed out there. Like a post, or column. Literally shiny, in the dictionary meaning of the word. And it seemed to be…growing?

  She watched, her hands pressed up against the window. The column was getting larger. And now, a second one began to force its way out of the ground.

  Emilia backed away from the window and reached for her phone. Before she could even decide who to call, let alone actually dial, the building shook. The boys yelled in surprise, and Caleb sat down abruptly.

  She grabbed Caleb under the arms and stood him up. “Come on, you two, we have to get out of this corridor.” Chivvying them along, she marched toward the exit at the end of the connecting tube. The airlock at the end led to the roundabout, which was the central hub of the station. All tunnels and corridors, for five levels, led from the roundabout to every part of the structure.

  As she approached the pressure door, the building began to shake again. At first barely perceptible, the shaking seemed to get stronger moment by moment. Emilia broke into a run, dragging her boys by the hands. Caleb, unable to keep up, began to cry. She held him in the air, easily straight-arming him in the one-third gravity, as she sprinted for the hatch.

  As Emilia rushed through the airlock, there was a crunch and a bang behind her. A sudden wind blew in her face, just as a klaxon started sounding. She stopped and turned, to see the pressure door slam shut from the ceiling. She looked through the porthole on the door. The corridor had buckled halfway along, and one of the view windows had popped out of its frame. A half-dozen people, trapped in the corridor, were being dragged by the escaping air toward the gap.

  One woman looked directly at Emilia, terror plain on her face.

  I know her. She passed that woman most days, going in the opposite direction. They would nod and smile, and occasionally exchange greetings. As Emilia watched, the woman was sucked out through the window, still scrabbling at the floor and walls.

  “What’s happening, Mom? Can I see?” Ian held his hands up, requesting a lift. Beside him, Caleb jumped up and down in a vain attempt to get enough height to see through the porthole.

  Still in shock, Emilia turned and looked around the roundabout. Dozens of stunned faces looked back at her or at each other.

  The klaxon cut off and a voice announced over the P.A., “All personnel to evacuation stations. This is not a drill. All personnel to evacuation stations.”

  Emilia’s eyes widened, and she looked around frantically for any indication of the location of the nearest evacuation station. A red flashing light caught her eye. She turned toward it just as another tremor hit. There was no buildup. One moment the floor was steady; the next, she was being bounced around like popcorn. People screamed; some screams cut off abruptly.

  As soon as the tremors abated, Emilia grabbed her children and sprinted for the flashing light. This time, she put even less care into making sure the boys were feet-down–head-up. She realized, mid-sprint, that she had Caleb by the back of his pants, and was carrying him like a briefcase. Both boys howled in terror, more from picking up their mother’s fear than from any understanding of the situation.

  Yes! The flashing light did, in fact, indicate the location of an evacuation station. Emilia dodged a couple of slower-moving individuals and threw the boys through the door ahead of her. Caleb stopped howling and whooped at the unexpected ride. Twin oofs sounded as the boys landed.

  The station A.I. would determine when the pod should launch. Emilia’s responsibility was limited to strapping herself and her children into acceleration chairs. As she worked, hushing the two boys who were now in full wail, more people poured through the hatch. Sobs and moans dominated, only the occasional person asking questions into the air.

  Another quake struck, this one bigger than any of the previous. A klaxon sounded in the pod and the hatch slammed shut. An artificial voice announced launch in thirty seconds and admonished all passengers to be seated.

  Emilia put her hands to her mouth. There was no way that everyone could have gotten to pods. And she had no idea where her husband was, or if he’d managed to get to safety. She pulled out her phone and glanced at the screen. She was unsurprised to see the NO SIGNAL indicator. Silently, so as not to further frighten the boys, she began to cry.

  The automated escape pod launched right on time, only half full. Once the roundabout had lost atmosphere, the automation had correctly concluded that there would be no more passengers. Emilia held hands with her boys, one on either side of her. Their crying stopped the moment the pod began the launch sequence. Now they lay in their acceleration chairs, fascinated by the experience. Watching them, Emilia felt a wave of melancholy wash over her. They weren’t old enough to remember the trip from Earth, except maybe in bits and snatches. Paradoxically, this would be their first real experience with space travel.

  Emilia turned and stared at the ceiling. Still no word from Bruce. She kept reminding herself that communications would be spotty or non-existent until the emergency was over. And the emergency personnel would rightly place non-essential comms at the bottom of their priority list.

  It took less than twenty minutes to arrive at the space station orbiting Mercury, but they spent almost two hours queued to be unloaded. By the time their turn came, the boys were whiney and starting to display the hyperactivity that came with hunger and boredom. Emilia had run out of threats and bribes, so the sudden activity through the portholes was a welcome distraction. Other passengers were happy to let the boys have the prime view—anything to shut them up. Emilia tried to be offended at the thought, but found she was simply too honest to pull it off. She wanted to kill them, herself.

  As the pod mated with the station airlock, her phone dinged and she pulled it out quickly.

  Message from Bruce showed on the display. He was alive and on board. Emilia blinked back tears.

  * * *

  Ian and Caleb were in their default position, hands and faces pressed to the viewport. Emilia reminded herself for the hundredth time that she should be carrying damp wipes to remove prints.

  The view turned slowly in the opposite direction to the station’s rotation, an image that had the boys gig
gling and making childish jokes. Adults stood behind the children, with a clear view over their heads. The planet Mercury seemed to be undergoing some sort of transformation. Structures could be seen, erupting from the surface at the poles, and different structures around the equator. And these were visible from space. The size required to make that possible simply defied the imagination.

  The Navy, the ISI, and the mining company were all scrambling to accommodate the refugees and to make arrangements for their transport back to Earth. The space station’s resources would be strained, trying to provide for several hundred unexpected visitors. Emilia knew less than half of the population of Vulcan’s Forge had made it out.

  And rumors were flying that Mercury wasn’t the only location of unexpected events. She’d heard whispers that strange things were happening on other planets. So far, though, the rumors had named all the planets, right out to Eris—a physical impossibility, since news from Eris couldn’t have arrived yet. Still, something was going on, and the consensus was that it had something to do with the alien disease and the ship the Navy had been required to nuke.

  Had the disease spread? Or had the aliens arrived, and were they now terraforming planets to their liking?

  Emilia took a deep breath, then turned to look at her husband, who was as enraptured by the view as the two boys. A mining engineer, he was probably now jobless. At another time, she would have been devastated by the thought. Jobs were scarce, and the outlook for the unemployed wasn’t good. But the specter of death—of immediate death—tended to place a different perspective on things.

  Emilia squeezed his hand and went back to watching the planetary changes unfold.

  Waiting for The End

  Kemp and Narang walked slowly along the trail, pausing frequently to enjoy the sights and sounds. Narang took a deep lungful of air, redolent with the smell of cedar, damp leaves, moss, and a tinge of salt air coming up the canyon from Burrard Inlet. She smiled without reservation at the unaccustomed commune with nature.

  “Capilano Park contains one of the few remaining stands of old-growth trees on the entire North Shore,” Kemp said. “I sometimes fantasize about going back in time to the 20th or even 19th century, when there were more trees than people. What must it have been like to look up from the inlet at mountains covered not with residential complexes, but with actual living, breathing forests?”

  “I don’t get nearly enough of this,” Narang said. “This was a good idea.”

  They stopped and watched a cleanup mech zip by, scanning for dropped garbage or unscooped canine deposits. The small wheeled device expertly avoided pedestrians while checking all corners of the path.

  Kemp smiled. “I’ve started thinking in terms of bucket lists. This may all be gone, soon. We might be gone, soon, depending on how the thing plays out. The computer will make a decision when it makes a decision, and there will be no recourse, no appeal.” He sighed and looked up to the sky. “Usually in movies, the final battle is a little more dramatic.”

  “And closer to home.”

  “Mm.”

  Silences between them were comfortable. When one of them did say something it wasn’t an awkward attempt to fill the air with words. As such, each exchange was interesting and appreciated. Almost without realizing it, they found themselves holding hands as they walked through the trees. And that was fine, too.

  They came to the suspension bridge—a construction of rope and wooden planks—stretched 140 meters across the Capilano River.

  Narang stopped so suddenly that she almost skidded. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  Kemp grinned at her. “It’s deliberately designed to look rickety, like the original bridge, but those ropes are reinforced with carbon-fiber, and the planks are backed by a nanotube mesh. You couldn’t take this thing down with a hacksaw.”

  He waved a hand at the bridge. “They completely replaced the old bridge in the mid-21st century when the park was deeded to the municipality. Can’t have liability issues, you know.”

  Narang glanced at him uncertainly, then stepped onto the bridge proper. When it didn’t immediately collapse and plunge them into the gorge, she release her breath and took another step.

  “Good,” Kemp said. “Just don’t break into a jog. The other pedestrians hate that.”

  She chuckled at the mental image, and they walked across the bridge, her hand gripping his perhaps a little more tightly than really required.

  As they stepped off the other end, she glanced sideways at Kemp. “How do you think it’ll happen?”

  “You mean whatever the computer decides to do? Don’t know exactly, but I’m sure it will involve nanites. Best case, we all end up metal. Worst case, we all end up goo.”

  “I’ve never had time for a serious relationship,” Narang said. “Always too focused on my career. Funny, they say those are the things you regret when you’re older.” She gave a rueful snort. “Or when the world is about to end, strangely.”

  “I’m in sort of the same boat. Maybe not driven, as such, but I’ve always loved space. I’ve spent most of my professional life on spaceships. But, y’know, I could call that done, now, and not regret it.”

  They walked for a few more moments, still hand in hand. Then, without a word being spoken, they turned and headed back to Kemp’s house.

  * * *

  The jangling phone jerked Kemp out of a sound sleep. Narang, nuzzled against his arm and shoulder, muttered and turned over.

  Grumbling, he reached for the phone. It was a text from Captain Jennings. With several seconds’ round-trip delay, texts would be the only reasonable way of holding a conversation.

  20 ships have left Lag 4 base. Prob assault force. Looks like they didn’t take advice.

  Dammit!

  Kemp nudged Narang. “Maddie. Wake up.”

  Narang growled at him, but opened one eye. “This better be good.”

  “The Navy has sent an assault force. Looks like they didn’t take your suggestion.”

  “Aw, hell.” Narang grabbed the covers and threw them off, then staggered to the powder room. As she closed the door, she grumbled, “Five minutes.”

  Kemp nodded, although she’d already closed the sliding door, and headed for the main washroom. On the way, he texted the captain. Meet us at Olympus Station.

  When Kemp came out of the washroom, the phone had another text waiting.

  Turn on the news.

  Kemp’s eyebrows went up, and he picked up the remote. It took only moments to find what the captain was referencing—all the news channels, and several non-news channels, were reporting the same thing.

  “Maddie!”

  “Busy!”

  “Don’t care. You have to come out and see this!”

  Narang was out within seconds, wiping her face. She gave Kemp a quizzical look, then turned to the Vid. Her jaw dropped, and she sat on the bed without turning her head.

  Once again, the top story today…

  Several hundred residents of the Mercury North Polar Station are dead, as abrupt and unexplained planet-quakes destroyed or damaged Vulcan’s Forge. All surviving personnel have been successfully evacuated. ISI, the Interplanetary Science Institute, reports that the quakes seem to be strongest at both poles. Scientists have no explanation for this effect. However, it is almost certainly related to the enigmatic structures that seem to be growing out of the very planet, at the poles and at the equator.

  In addition, the Venus Orbital Platform reports the sighting of six gigantic objects at the top of Venus’s cloud layer. Scientists speculate that they are the visible tops of structures stretching up from the surface, as they have no orbital motion and no visible propulsion holding them in place. Asked about the objects, Professor Keeting of the ISI explained, “The visible top of the cloud layer is at around seventy-five kilometers, give or take. So those structures would have to be at the top of a seventy-five-kilometer-tall tower.”

  This statement has been
challenged by Professor Tomlinson of UCLA, who suggests that floating, tethered structures would explain the observations as well. A sufficiently large structure would achieve stability in the same way as floating drilling rigs…

  “That’s got to be Ivan,” Kemp said. Narang shushed him.

  In a possibly related item, several Mars stations have reported increasing Mars-quakes. Whether this is a precursor to the same process as we are seeing on Mercury or Venus is unknown at this time. However, Mars personnel have already started evacuation proceedings as a precautionary measure.

  “Definitely Ivan.” Kemp pointed the remote and started surfing. The news was being repeated on dozens of stations, but they all appeared to be rehashing the same facts. No one was going on the record with any more than the most basic interpretation of events.

  “We could check the internet,” Narang suggested.

  Kemp shook his head. “It’s the guv’mint, it’s the military-industrial complex, it’s the liberals, it’s aliens.” He grinned at her. “They’d actually be correct on that last item.”

  Narang rolled her eyes and headed back to the bathroom.

  * * *

  “It’s a good thing you’re richer than Midas,” Narang said to Kemp as the shuttle snuggled up to the Olympus Station docking port. “The ICDC auditors would be storming my office with torches and pitchforks by now, with all this travel.”

  Kemp smiled. It occurred to him that, even in the short time that he’d been a billionaire, his attitudes toward spending money had changed drastically. The cost of flying up to the station would have once meant skipping his annual vacation; now it was cab fare.

  They climbed out of the traxi and went straight to the Docking Information board, located beside the elevators. Kemp was an old hand at weightless movement, but Narang showed the noob’s tendency to put too much muscle into it. He gave her a few quick pointers, and she corrected immediately.