The Singularity Trap

by Dennis E. Taylor

  The Getting Ahead was listed in Berth 8. Kemp did a quick calculation, then headed for a traxi station.

  In a short time, an automated cart stopped in front of them. They pulled themselves in, snapped the lap restraints into place, and the cart pulled out.

  As they moved along the circumference of the hub, Kemp could see that most people were glued to their phones or tablets. He considered pulling out his phone and surfing, but decided to wait until they were on board the Getting Ahead.

  They got off at Berth 8, and pulled themselves over to the egress point. Kemp identified himself to the attendant A.I. and the door opened.

  They found Captain Jennings in the on-axis bridge. He nodded to them, then turned back to the monitor he’d been watching. “Interesting developments continue,” he said. “It appears that someone is engaged in some kind of planetary engineering.” The captain played with his controls, and the feed was duplicated onto the main bridge monitor.

  Jennings turned off the sound, and gave them a capsule summary. “The Venus structures are now spewing atmosphere into space at greater than escape velocity. The volume is truly mind-boggling. The point, according to the talking heads, appears to be to strip Venus of its atmosphere. They estimate it’ll be done in a few weeks.”

  Narang shook her head in disbelief.

  “A whole planet’s worth of atmosphere? That’s amazing.”

  “Won’t all that gas in interplanetary space create problems for ships?” Kemp asked.

  Jennings nodded. “That occurred to a lot of people, so they did some calculations. It appears that each nozzle, or whatever they are, accelerates the gas either into an orbit that intersects the sun, or a long-period orbit that won’t re-enter the inner system for centuries. The mechanism seems to be taking care to avoid polluting the local area.”

  Kemp began to reply, “I’m not sure if that indicates—” when the monitor flashed up Breaking News and the recorded interview cut to one of the news anchors. The captain quickly restored the sound.

  We have confirmation that some unidentified structures are growing at the poles on Mars, similar but not identical to the Mercury artifacts. There are also indications of crustal movements around the equator, although nothing specific has been identified.

  The monitor cut to images, obviously taken with a phone from a ship’s viewport. They showed structures, large enough to be seen from orbit, pushing their way out of the planet’s crust.

  “Mercury, Venus, and Mars. Assuming there’s a theme to all this, what is he doing?” Kemp scratched his chin, staring at the screen.

  “Perhaps,” Captain Jennings replied, “we’ll get a chance to ask him. Please strap yourselves in, and we can get going.”

  Within ten minutes, the Getting Ahead was outside the Olympus Station slow zone, and the captain began to apply some real thrust.

  The course laid in, and the ship’s A.I. in charge, Jennings turned to his two passengers. “What’s the plan?”

  “We have to get out there and try to convince the Navy’s task force not to attack.”

  “That’s it? As plans go, that really lacks a certain something.”

  “Planning?” Kemp grinned at him.

  “Yes, that.” Jennings shook his head. “Sadly, it’s all we have right now.”

  “So, those oversized nacelles you had installed on the Getting Ahead—I guess it’s time to find out if you got your money’s worth.”

  “Mm, hmm. That’s why I have the hab ring spun down. Better make yourselves comfortable. This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  Jennings was as good as his word. The acceleration was heavy enough to make breathing uncomfortable, but smooth, which told Kemp that the ship’s engines weren’t going flat out. That raised the obvious question of just how much acceleration the Getting Ahead was capable of. Kemp hoped not to have to find out. The current level was quite enough, thanks.

  After several minutes of hell, Jennings reduced acceleration to what felt like about a half gee. He stood and motioned his guests to unbuckle as well.

  “I’ve taken on a full load of fuel, including aux tanks. With just the three of us and no cargo, I can keep us under power all the way to the destination. We won’t bother with the hab ring at all. That will mean sleeping in one of the on-axis bunk rooms, though.” Jennings looked sheepish for a moment. “The return trip will be more leisurely, of necessity. I hope you packed your toothbrushes. And a lot of reading.”

  Defensive Strategy

  Twenty fusion signatures, all approaching on different vectors. All carefully timed so that they would arrive in an almost spherical formation around the location of the last encounter. Ivan could feel the computer’s cool calculations going on in the background: threat analysis, species evaluations, decision trees, all flying past too quickly for him to follow. Ralph didn’t try to explain its ruminations in detail, but it did give him occasional summary images of the analyses and goal weightings. So far, humanity was balanced on a knife edge, not quite belligerent enough to be worth wiping out, and not quite potentially useful enough to be Uploaded. But when the two new balls of nanites were ready, a decision would be made.

  Although Ivan would have preferred a third option, at least Ralph hadn’t settled on Plan A or Plan B yet. For the moment, his family and all of humanity was still safe.

  And now, following those first signatures, six more, from another vector. Drive flame analysis and acceleration indicated something heavy. Ivan’s guess was SSE warships. He’d seen programs on the Vid about their military; they built big—no finesse, no concession to economics or efficiency. Simply massive brute force.

  Well, it was a bonus of a sort, from a Plan B point of view. The UENN and SSE would be competing to see who could blow up Ivan first. And right about now, Ralph would be realizing that all the nanites had gone to Mercury, Venus, and Mars, and there weren’t enough in the two new balls to defend with.

  These incoming groups are from different human cohorts, are they not?

  Different nations, yes.

  I assume their intentions are hostile?

  Probably a safe bet.

  Given the situation, I find their response disappointing.

  A value judgement? You’re getting opinions now?

  An expression indicating that reality falls short of expectations. Am I phrasing it incorrectly?

  No, I guess not. But why would you not expect us to react defensively?

  A more rational species would spend more time gathering facts, evaluating options and risks, determining what is within the range of possibility, before selecting this strategy.

  The worst part was that Ivan couldn’t honestly disagree.

  His attention was drawn to another fusion signature, just leaving Olympus Station. The heat signature and spectrum indicated a larger ship than the observed acceleration allowed. He smiled to himself. That would be Captain Jennings’s hotrod.

  He wondered if the Getting Ahead would make it on time. Or if they’d figured out what he was trying to tell them. Come to think of it, the SSE ships could be used to emphasize the point. Good for Plan A.

  He looked at the two remaining chrome balls, one nacelle from the cruisers floating beside each. Destined for the Earth and the Moon they represented, one way or the other, the end of humanity.

  Come on, Captain Jennings. Put some hustle on.

  Surveil

  The spy drones sent in their views of the construction as they flew through the enemy’s arena.

  Moore and Mandelbaum stood to the right of Captain Harding, who was closely following the activity of his bridge crew. As quickly as Surveil could clean up and integrate the transmissions, they were transferred to tablets.

  Most of the images showed the remains of the Mad Astra and of the two cruisers. The two Navy ships had been stripped down to the point of being junk. They were obviously being used only for construction material. The Astra, on the other hand, seemed to be still s
paceworthy, but with a much reduced size. The skin had been stripped off, the middle chopped out, and the ends stuck together.

  A half-completed radio dish floated in the background, dwarfing the cruisers. In zero gravity, it was gossamer thin, its shape maintained by guy-wires and spring steel segments.

  Moore stared up at the overhead, rubbing his chin. The engines of a mining ship were no match for a Navy vessel, but strip most of the weight away, and what you were left with was essentially a rocket engine with a steering wheel at the front. Moore was no engineer, but a lifetime working with ships had given him some seat-of-the-pants skills. He closed his eyes, moving his lips silently, then snapped his eyes open. “Commodore?”

  Mandelbaum looked up from the tablet she was reading. “Yes?”

  “The civilian ship. Or what’s left of it. It could, in principle, completely outpace any of our vessels. I’m guessing that’s his getaway machine.”

  Mandelbaum frowned at the image on the monitor. “That’s a bit of a stretch, I think. He’d have to remove so much ship…”

  “No environmentals. He doesn’t need them. No oxygen or water, no food. Toss out living quarters, recycling systems—for that matter, every bulkhead and airlock designed to retain an atmosphere. It’s a stripped-down hotrod.”

  Mandelbaum stared at the image, her eyes narrowing. Then she nodded and sat back. “Noted. Thank you, Admiral. Captain, be sure to make the Mad Astra a target.”

  “Sir,” an officer turned from her console to face Captain Harding. “Signals indicates an approaching ship. Other than the SSE warships, I mean.”

  “Distance?”

  “Just under two tenths of an A.U., sir, and closing fast. Decelerating at point-five gee. Back-prop puts departure at Olympus Station.”

  “Got a transponder ID?”

  “Nothing in on-board archives, which probably means it’s pretty new, sir. We’ve queried Earthside, but it’ll be a while for a response.”

  Mandelbaum cut in. “Any possibility this is coincidence? That they’re heading somewhere else?”

  “Coming right down our backsides, ma’am. And decelerating to arrive at the theater with zero relative velocity.”

  “So that’s a no, then.” Mandelbaum turned to Moore. “Any ideas?”

  “To be honest, my best guess would be the former captain of the Mad Astra, and possibly some crew. They don’t seem to be able to get past this whole Pritchard thing.”

  “Why? What are they going to do, take us on?” Mandelbaum frowned and turned to the signals officer. “Could that thing be armed?”

  The officer shook her head. “Transponder details jibe with the silhouette. It’s a miner. Benz-Gilmore 4502, but apparently with some mods. It’s coming in way too hot for a stock 4502.”

  Mandelbaum frowned and shook her head, plainly perplexed by the behavior of civilians. “Fine. Signals, hail them. Demand an explanation, and warn them they’re heading for a possible battle zone. And give me an estimated time to reply.”

  “Light speed delay, one minute twelve each way, ma’am. Plus any time required to format a response, of course.”

  “What about the SSE ships?”

  “They’re about two twenty away, ma’am. Coming in more sedately.”

  Mandelbaum looked up at the tactical screen, and contemplated the images for a few moments. Graphics of the Navy ships, the approaching civilian ship, and the trailing SSE flotilla competed with vector arrows and velocity annotations. The commodore ran a finger up and down the bridge of her nose. “We may already be too late. The activity on Mercury, Venus, and Mars is almost certainly Pritchard’s doing—”

  “Well, no, Commodore,” Moore interjected. “It could also be the Arts that he mentions, although I would find the coincidence of them showing up just as the Uploads gain a foothold a little hard to swallow.”

  “Either way, Admiral, it’s bad for us. Does it change our strategy?”

  “Assuming we take all of Pritchard’s statements at face value, then we will fare worse at the hands of the Arts.”

  “That’s just different degrees of death, Admiral. Neither consequence is acceptable. I think we need to fight the battle that’s in front of us, rather than speculating and paralyzing ourselves.”

  Moore nodded, not responding. He realized that his attitudes had changed since his failure in the previous encounter. Perhaps it was the fact of Pritchard not killing them out of hand; perhaps it was just a chance to think logically through the various alternatives. Moore still wouldn’t call himself a dove by any stretch, but he found himself slightly less attached to the military solution as a first resort.

  He stared into space, hands clasped behind his back, considering the alternatives. Were there no possible outcomes that spared the human race? Or had he simply not thought of one? Moore remembered Sherlock Holmes’s canonical statement that one should eliminate all other alternatives in order to come up with the right answer. The problem, which never seemed to be discussed, was whether you could think of all the alternatives. What if you missed one? What if you simply didn’t have the knowledge to posit the right answer? It was a stance filled with an unstated arrogant belief that one could know all the possible choices.

  Moore turned to glance speculatively at Commodore Mandelbaum. He wondered if she would be flexible enough to try something different, if it presented itself.

  Approach

  “We’ve received a communication from the Navy,” Captain Jennings announced. “Hardly surprising, of course.” He put it up on the bridge monitor. “How shall we respond?”

  Kemp read the missive. “I think we should just be truthful, Captain. There’s no point in trying to outguess and out-finesse. Too many players in this game, right now.” They were painfully aware of the very large SSE vessels approaching behind them. Jennings assured his passengers that he could outrun the warships. Missiles, not so much, but one hoped that even the SSE would hesitate before firing on a civilian vessel.

  “Fine, Dr. Kemp. I will defer to your expertise in this issue. Please compose a response and let me know when it’s ready. Meanwhile, I need a coffee.” Jennings stood and headed for the Captain’s Ready Room.

  “Tea,” Narang said, standing up.

  Kemp stood up as well. There were, after all, priorities.

  * * *

  The three sat around the conference table in the Ready Room. Jennings’s eyes tracked as he read the text on his tablet.

  From: Andrew Jennings, Captain, IMM Getting Ahead.

  CC: Dr. Charles Kemp, Ship’s Doctor

  Dr. Madhur Narang, ICDC

  To: Commodore Rani Mandelbaum, UENN Fleet Command

  We are aware of the nature of your mission, and have a good general idea of Ivan Pritchard’s plans from previous conversations with him. Dr. Narang has relayed the contents of those conversations to the Navy. We are concerned that you are ignoring the proper Game Theory response and are proceeding with a standard Defector move.

  We don’t, of course, know for sure that Pritchard can withstand and/or survive an attack by yourselves. However, everything from his original conversion to current events on several inner-system planets indicates quite clearly that we are dealing with a technology far in advance of our own. In our opinion, we cannot win a straight fight. Therefore, the only option is to offer a Cooperator move and hope that the computer will relent.

  We are, as you know, en route. Celestial mechanics being what it is, we are committed to our destination. Drs. Narang and Kemp have a working relationship with Pritchard. We implore you to hold off and give them an opportunity to negotiate a better result.

  Concerning the trailing SSE warships, we have received no communication from them. They may be taking a wait-and-see attitude, or they may simply be trying to figure out what you’re doing out here. Absent some indication of their motives and plans, I can offer no insight or suggestions.

  A. Jennings, Captain

  Jennings nodd
ed and handed the tablet back to Kemp. “Looks good. Please do the honors.”

  Kemp pressed send. “Now, we wait.”

  * * *

  “Mars has started growing something that looks like the structures on Venus,” Jennings said, looking up from his tablet. “Perhaps they mean to blow off Mars’s atmosphere as well.”

  “Not sure why,” Narang said. “There’s barely an atmosphere to begin with.”

  Jennings shrugged. “Unsurprisingly, the research stations and test colonies have been evacuated. Who knows if something will start growing underfoot at any moment?”

  “And Mercury?”

  “Well, no atmosphere to worry about, so I don’t expect we’ll ever see the same structures. What is growing, so far, is unidentifiable.”

  A ding on the captain’s tablet made them all look up. Jennings swiped at the tablet for a few moments, then his eyes tracked back and forth as he read whatever it was.

  He looked up at his passengers, and Kemp could see it wasn’t good.

  “The Navy has rejected our proposal. They will attack.”

  Kemp rubbed his eyes. “Offering the computer a Cooperator move was a long shot. Maddie admitted that. I guess that’s how the Navy sees it as well.” He looked around at the others. “We’re out of options.”

  “The Navy would have done a risk analysis on the suggestion. They have their equations, as well,” Jennings said.

  “And the equation is every—”

  Narang and Jennings turned to look at Kemp, who had chopped his statement mid-sentence, and was sitting there, staring straight ahead.

  Kemp slowly turned his head. “The equation is everything. It has no ego. Ivan said that. He stressed it.”

  “What?”

  Kemp refocused on Jennings. “We do have options. We’ve been looking at this wrong. We can force the computer to see things our way.”