Black Swan Planet

by James Peters

  “Oh shee-it!” Nicholai said.

  “This is not good,” Maven said. “We can’t outrun the broadcast. It’s simultaneous throughout the galaxy.”

  I cleared my throat. “Actually that’s a common misunderstanding. We say that the broadcast is live across the galaxy, but not quite.”

  “So what are we talking about, a few seconds delay?” Maven said. “That’s negligible.”

  “It can be several months delay through the galaxy. Hear me out; I’m in broadcasting, so I know what I’m talking about. We use two different methods to communicate through the galaxy. The first, and by far most expensive, is a paired quantum transmission. There are two communication nodes with matching quantum systems. What is sent from one node is received at the second at precisely the same time, regardless of the distance between them. These nodes are set at the major hubs throughout the twenty-seven worlds. There are only twelve of these nodes in our broadcast system because the cost is measured in billions of credits. They say that the reason for this is the quantum particles have to be manufactured…”

  “Get on with it!” Maven said.

  “Right. The major distances are covered immediately with the broadcasts between nodes with zero delay, but minor distances are covered by good old laser transmission, slowed way down to the speed of light. So, in theory, a ship jumping from one sector to another could beat its own launch broadcast message as long as it jumped past the last of the quantum nodes.”

  I smiled briefly, “This is broadcasting 101.”

  “Where are the nodes, exactly?” Maven said.

  “That is an Imperial secret. If someone knew the exact locations, the nodes could be interfered with or destroyed.” I raised my hand and rubbed my chin in thought. “A person with years of broadcasting experience could infer the rough positions of outer nodes by comparing date stamps on broadcasts and then on the review numbers as they come back in. Some of the border worlds take months to get the numbers back in. Until now, I never really thought it important.”

  “You may just have some value after all, little man,” Maven said. “This ship is just big enough for a Chronos drive and its computer is barely adequate to pinpoint our location in space. It was never built to travel between worlds; the jump system was designed for emergencies. We can line ourselves up and point our way where we want to go. When we jump, we’ll travel approximately that direction and cover an estimated measure of distance. The way things are looking right now, it’s going to take a solid twenty-four hours for the generator to handle another jump.”

  “Just drop me off at Katochia,” Nicholai said. “I’ll take da’ stash and be gone. I’m da’ Emperor’s ganja runner; da’ dunka will spare me once I talk to him and give ‘im a special deal.”

  I said, “Kotochia is not where we want to go. We get logs back from them in minutes after a broadcast. There’s definitely a node near Kotochia. We need to head for the border planets, maybe even toward the barbarian worlds.”

  “Barbarian worlds? They be cannibals,” Nicholai spat words out.

  “Aye, and dragons be there,” Maven said. “Those are just stories. They are ‘barbarian’ in the sense that the Empire doesn’t control them. They are so far out of the galactic core, there’s no value in trading with them. They aren’t truly barbarians.”

  “Nobody knows for sure,” I said. “The story goes that during the early days of the Empire, everyone expected continual growth, so the StarSeed program was set up to terraform habitable planets. The planets nearest to the core were seeded first and colonized, then the next closest, until we established the twenty-seven worlds. But constant expansion of the Empire was unsustainable. The last few outer worlds were left alone.”

  “You’re full of drad,” Nicholai said, ‘No knowledge of da Empire! That is a dream, mon!”

  Maven said, “He could be right. I’ve heard the same stories; that the barbarian worlds are just like us but neglected by the Empire. There wouldn’t be a node near them, would there?”

  I said, “Of course not. Why spend billions on a quantum node for a neglected sector of space? The further we jump toward barbarian planets, the more likely we are to be ahead of the signal, or perhaps even to escape permanently.”

  Maven’s face wrinkled. “Then what? Say goodbye to the Empire forever? But it’s not like we are flush with options. Besides, my career is dead and gone now anyway.”

  “And what exactly is that?” I said, not expecting an answer.

  “If I ever think you need to know what I do, I will tell you. I’ll be extremely surprised, but then I’ll tell you.” Maven’s eyes seemed to cut me down.

  “Right. Well, I know that you have the basic skills to launch a shuttle craft from a capital ship, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re a pilot. Can you plot a course to the barbarian worlds?”

  “If someone can tell me where they are, I can plot a course. But it’s going to be a series of jump, recalculate, jump again, adjust, and we may overshoot our target and have to backtrack. In a ship designed for this, it would be no problem. But with this ship, it’s going to be tough to get anywhere.”

  I said, “And of course, we don’t know exactly where we are going. It’s not like there’s a marker on the galactic map saying, ‘This way to the barbarian worlds’. I still have access to my communication logs. Maybe we can find something in the historical record to give us a clue. All I’ll be able to come up with is the best guess.”

  “Your best guess better be good, little man. You got us into this mess,” Maven said, biting her lip. “In the meantime, I’ll take an inventory of what we have. We need to know how long we can support ourselves in this tiny ship. I may be able to help out if I can crack Caligula’s code.”

  Nicholai said, “And I’ll take inventory of da stash. I know how much this stuff is worth.”

  “What about the monkey?” I said.

  “Marco does what he wants. There’s no controlling him. But I’ll say he has a way of proving himself worthwhile over time,” Maven said.

  I snorted. “I’ll believe that when I see it. He’s a menace.”

  “Don’t forget he saved your life. Back there, with the Emperor.”

  I laughed. “You think he meant to do that? He had too much cocaine or that midget scared him, or any number of explanations. He wasn’t trying to save me.”

  “Marco has always proven to be worth keeping around,” Maven said.

  “Fine, but keep him around away from me.”

  ***

  I found a communications terminal and logged into my account. I sorted messages and checked time stamps. A short time later, I had a list of the planets that took the longest time to respond. I called up a map of the galactic Empire and started to mark locations. In general, I found what I expected; the outer worlds took longer than the inner worlds. But no clear pattern emerged, no indication of where ‘barbarian worlds’ would be. Damn! I pounded my fists on the table, and my guard’s suit buzzed. I looked at the gauntlet to see a small red light flashing. When I touched it, the communicator came alive.

  “This is Lieutenant Morrow. We have positive identification. The Emperor’s shuttlecraft has been located. Load EMP missiles.”

  Then I heard a reply of, “EMP’s, why not tact-nukes?”

  “Remember boys, we get more if the Emperor removes their heads himself. Missiles locked…”

  I ran to the cockpit and dove for the emergency jump button, slamming it down. The wave of reality shifted and a shower of monkey puke rained on me in super slow motion. The star-field changed.

  Chapter 2

  Ants Marching

  We soon fell into a routine of life on a small shuttlecraft. I remained on alert for any signals that might be picked up by the imperial guard suit. I also discovered that the ‘laundry chute’, which I had put my clothes in incinerated them to ash. Apparently, the emperor didn’t wash clothes; he only bought new. Marco and Nicholai spent most of their time smoking ganja, giggling, and acting stupi
d. I learned that Marco could be extremely accurate in the feces-throwing department, and nothing seemed funnier to a stoned simian than flinging turds at me when I least expected it. Maven worked to crack into the Emperor’s data system.

  Without knowing exactly where to go, we decided to work our way toward the outer rim, and stay as far away from communication nodes as possible. After a few jumps, we learned that the drive needed a longer recovery period each time to prepare for the next usage. I also learned how miserable traveling in a small ship can be and I dreaded every jump. The last thing I learned is that no matter how far I went from Marco, as soon as we prepared to travel, he’d find me and cover me in puke.

  Every. Single. Time.

  I found Maven in the cockpit, her head lowered, her hands upturned and flexing in a rapid manner. She looked frustrated. “Making any progress?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s you. I needed a break anyway.” She straightened up and stretched her back.

  I’d be happy to rub those shoulders. “Anything I can get you?”

  “No.” Maven said, “I’m trying to break the Emperor’s code, but I’m afraid to actually attempt logging in. I’m stuck. I know how many keystrokes he used, I know approximately where the keys are, but the gaps are too large. If I screw this up, we’ll be locked out permanently.”

  “May I ask how do you know how many keystrokes? Or would you have to kill me if you told me?”

  “If I have to kill you, it won’t be for something I’ve told you. But I’ll play along. I’ve been watching the Emperor for more than a year, and I’ve seen him enter his passcode from several angles on several different systems. I’ve memorized and analyzed this data, many times over.”

  “How can you memorize and analyze something you’ve witnessed?”

  “Mnemonic implant. I can record short bursts of visual input, index it and review it.”

  “Makes sense. I have a translation implant. Gives me a headache from time to time,” I said.

  “It’s probably drawing too much power. They could adjust it to better match your cognitive attributes.” She curled her upper lip just a touch, enjoying her own witty insult. “So I have a finite list of possible passcodes and they are ranked by likelihood of success.”

  “There must be a reason you aren’t simply starting at the most likely and working down.”

  “Actually, there are three reasons. I’ve only got three attempts before a complete lockout. If the top three options don’t work, I’m done.”

  “You said you had likelihoods of hits identified. Combined, how likely are the top three?”

  “Less than seven percent. Now, do you see why I’m stuck? I was so close, then you burst into the ballroom, broadcasting everything.”

  “I don’t get it. I was the one the Emperor was after. Why didn’t you just let them kill me? Why break the regulator off the gas tanks? You could have just continued on with whatever it was you were doing and have your code by now,” I said.

  “I had to think fast,” Maven said. “That transmission of yours was going out to all worlds of the Empire. It would be analyzed, frame by frame, until everyone at the party was identified, charged, or cleared by imperial decree. Someone, somewhere, would recognize me. There was enough happy-gas to knock everyone out, so I went with it. Let’s just say I’m trained to think that way.”

  “So why didn’t you pass out?” I said.

  “I was prepared. I held my breath after I knocked off the regulator, and I injected myself with a counteragent.” Maven said.

  “What about Nicholai and Marco? Why didn’t they pass out?” I asked.

  “Nicholai has probably built up a resistance. Who knows how a chimp would react?”

  “That makes sense. Back to the password, the Emperor is an idiot, right? Are there any stupid passwords in that list?” I said.

  “What do you mean by a stupid password?”

  “I don’t know. ‘12345’?”

  “No,” Maven said. “Security is too tight for that. It’s going to be a combination of numbers, letters, special characters, and capitalization.”

  “But again, keep in mind, he is an idiot. So, he’s probably memorized one password for all systems.”

  Maven’s eyes lit up. “I see where you are going with this. We could try his passwords in tertiary systems. Or better yet, I can partition communication logs into read-only blocks. If we lock out one block, we can move to another and try again. If he repeats his passwords or uses an identifiable pattern, we can get in!” She smiled and gave me a quick hug that knocked the wind out of me.

  Just as I started to say something amazingly witty and intelligent, Nicholai wandered in, a cloud of ganja smoke trailing behind him.

  “Yo mon, I got it all figured out. This ship, it’s got that Chronos thing. That thing can fuck-up time. So me and the monkey were talking mon, and okay, so it was ’is idea, but why don’ we just use the time thingy and… wait what was I saying?”

  Marco bounded into the room, a lit reefer hanging on his lip. He still wore the leather chaps, and his bloodshot eyes squinted tightly. He looked at Nicholai and made a counter-clockwise circular motion in the air.

  “Oh ya mon, so we should just go back in time, mon, like before all this happened.”

  Maven sighed and stiffened her lips. “Not that you’ll remember this, but let me explain something about the Chronos drive. It doesn’t work that way. All the drive does is create a time void around the ship, like a bubble. Within this bubble, time practically stops. Think of a vehicle traveling on land; its speed is measured in kilometers per hour. If you warped time so that the hour turned into a minute, but the distance traveled was the same, your effective speed would increase sixty-fold. Scale that up to approach zero time passing and your speed approaches infinity...”

  Nicholai raised one finger in the air. “So you just turn it on, and critey it up backwards.”

  “That’s not possible. All it can do is to slow time within the field,” Maven said.

  Nicholai’s expression went blank.

  “It makes us go really fast,” Maven said.

  Nicholai frowned. “Stupid monkey doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Marco made a motion like striking a flame on a small lighter.

  Nicholai turned to Marco and said, “Good idea, monkey-mon. Let’s go.”

  “You all need to leave me alone. I have work to do,” Maven said, waving her arms, her eyes rolling.

  I decided to follow the pair to find they had built a fort out of blankets and sheets, with a huge mess surrounded them. Drugs had been scattered all over the place, food containers had been left out on the floor half-full, drinks spilled, and sticky messes everywhere. In the corner, a guard’s helmet had been used as either a spittoon, commode, or both.

  “You two need to clean all this up! Look at this on the floor. You’re living like pigs!” I said.

  “Don’t judge us, you ginnygog. We just enjoying ourselves,” Nicholai said.

  “At least clean up the food. That’s how you get ants.” I said.

  “We’re on a spaceship, fool. Where we be getting ants from?” Nicholai said as he released a cloud of smoke.

  “That’s beside the point. Mark my word, if you don’t clean up this mess, you’ll get ants.”

  “Ants. What he been smokin’? What you think, monkey-mon?”

  Marco pointed toward his head, making a spinning motion with his finger, then he made a repeated motion with his hand held tightly to his crotch, then he pretended to be holding a small baby in his arms, only to drop it, then to act out the baby screaming and crying.

  I get it. I’m a crazy wanker with a small manhood and abandonment issues with my mother.

  I stared at Marco with my blood boiling in rage. “I’m telling you, Marco. Ants. Big biting ones that get in your fur and cause a rash. You’ll wish you picked up this mess.”

  Marco’s gestures continued, this time he gestured picking invisible lice from his ass and ea
ting them, which led to him holding one hand over his eyes as if he was looking for someone, anywhere, then pointing toward me. He was insulting my grooming habits and saying I’d be forever alone.

  “Ants,” I said, walking away.

  ***

  Maven worked non-stop trying to break the code. She seemed completely focused on the task at hand. I became worried that she hadn’t eaten, so I brought her a meal. She barely looked up from her work, took a few bites and a swallow of water, without stopping.

  I decided to bring some food to Nicholai and Marco and I got a better reception there. They still hadn’t tidied any of the mess, so I got started. I grew stir-crazy in the shuttle, so I needed something to keep me occupied. I picked up the piled food containers, straightened up supplies, and checked the food inventory. The secondhand smoke from Nicholai and Marco thickened. I found myself lightheaded and euphoric as I worked, and focusing became difficult. Finally, Nicholai broke the silence.

  “Hey mon, why you don’t like my monkey friend here?”

  “Well, every time we make a jump, he pukes on me. That doesn’t exactly put him at the top of my ‘let’s make friends’ list. Maybe in his world, puking on someone is a great honor, but in mine, it’s disgusting, and makes me want to space him.”

  “He likes you, mon. He feels safe with you when da’ time-wave comes, that’s why he finds you.”

  “No, he’s looking for someone to toss his banana-reeking cookies on, and I’m his favorite target. That or he finds some other way to embarrass me in front of Maven.”