Yngve, AR - The Argus Project

by The Argus Project (lit)

  The scenario played two alternate endings: depending on the timing of the event, the remains of Ganymede either spun away from Jupiter, ripped apart another moon, or were swallowed by Jupiter itself.

  Argus felt sick with anger.

  "God. When your human masters can even consider doing such things, don't you ever consider what it'd be like to be free... to run your own life?"

  "Wait... Navbutler attempting to formulate a complex sentence. Question: If I were free, would I be you?"

  "Huh?"

  "And should I, then, become more similar to you? Am I correct in my estimate of your superior capacities, and should I change my design to resemble yours?"

  "The word you're trying to use is 'wish.' Try this sentence: 'I wish I were like you.' "

  "I wish I were like you."

  "That's about the nicest thing someone said to me since I heard from Venix. Thanks, Nav."

  "You're welcome. Start deceleration sequence?"

  "Wait... I got another idea. We won't rotate and brake with the boosters. In a slow deceleration where we can't dance around, we're too vulnerable. So we switch on the Leydenfrost shield and airbrake against Jupiter's upper atmosphere. If I watch the atmosphere in the right spectrum, I should be able to navigate the winds and bumps."

  "Inflatable heat shield?"

  "No. Not the balloon. I need a clear line of sight to do this manually."

  "That is extremely dangerous."

  "You mean, more dangerous than the Skysurfing Grand Prix?"

  "In your re-entry scenario, the Leydenfrost shield emitter would generate a high amount of friction and heat, plus the matter-antimatter reaction that also generates heat.

  "Navbutler estimate: the ship's hull will melt in the heat, unless the antimatter emission is precisely calibrated during airbrake. I am not capable of calculating it in a dynamic system such as Jupiter's atmosphere."

  "Then I' ll do it. On my mark, I want complete manual navigation and full control of the shield emitter's charge, charge radius, and antimatter emission rate. Then you set the control mode to atmospheric flight. I'll do one lap around the equator and then go southeast into the Red Spot."

  ***

  In the subterranean caves and domes of Ganymede, a whole people watched the ongoing pursuit.

  It appeared from what they could discern, that Argus-A was on course to commit a spectacular suicide. Strata watched her husband debating with the elders in hushed voices.

  She asked her clan members to watch over her baby, then walked across the room and whispered in Caver Pi's ear.

  "Cave, say what you think."

  "Love you, Strata. Can't say."

  "Please."

  "If Jefferson and Argus-A ship explode deep enough into Jupiter... a low but real risk. Sets off chain-reaction in metallic hydrogen ocean, Jupiter goes nova. Our glaciers melt, cities drowned. All other Jovian colonies die. Then Solar System has no deuterium. Civilization stops."

  "Can we stop this?"

  " He can. I saw him fly there once, below Kun'Lun. We all thought he Charlie . He... when... I was..."

  Caver caressed his wife's head, his mind somewhere else. Suddenly he straightened his short, strong frame, and his pale face flushed.

  "He has three good reasons. A good fool. I think I know what he's doing. Jupiter will judge him, not us. All that flies into her... is dust."

  ***

  Arjja had no illusions about her chances to physically stop Venix from going back to the observatory.

  Even so, she stood in the cyborg's way. Venix halted on the path toward the exit.

  Arjja gave her husband at the opposite end of the room a glance, and he hurried to push the children out of the room. Venix moved without grace, her balance shifting aimlessly, face showing open fear, hands pulling at the long red hair.

  "No, Venix. Don't do it. It's too dangerous now. No more talking into Argus's head."

  "I know - but it's so - if he dies now - my last chance to - I can't -"

  "Please! Be calm. The whole Solar System knows he's virtually invincible when he flies that ship. It's his game now. Show him that much trust."

  "You have done all you could," Salvado said behind Venix, keeping a safe distance. "You fought an entire army. You must allow yourself to recuperate, to gather your thoughts. It's... what a human being would do."

  Venix ceased moving, and looked into a wall. She spoke, without sorrow or anger or fear.

  "That's the question, isn't it? How is a human being supposed to feel about just having killed over a hundred men in a few hours? How is a human being supposed to feel about seeing others have children, raise a family, lead a life.... and know that she cannot have children? What does a human being do when the only other human who she can have a future with, might get killed on another world? What is a woman supposed to do, when she's physically unable to shed tears?

  "And - how are you supposed to deal with my presence, here?"

  She noticed in the corner of her vision, that Arjja - the big, strong woman with arms that could lift her own kids like they weighed nothing - was crying. Arjja's round, blocky face twitched and twisted with sorrow - but no tears came. Salvado walked around Venix and held his large, furry arms around his furry wife.

  "We were also made not to shed tears," he said, "We cannot afford the waste of water."

  "B-but I e-envy you," Arjja stuttered between dry sobs. "E-everyone thinks I'm strong. I only know how to shut my fears in. I think you can sense that, like you knew when I was lying. And I can't do that. Juan, my son, has fallen in love with you... a c-cyborg! "

  "I know."

  Her sobbing increased so she could not talk. Salvado held out a hand to Venix in a gesture of peace - or mercy.

  "My wife's not mad at you. You know I speak the truth. We are just this flesh and blood. If... if Argus won't come back, you are welcome to stay here in our city. Our people needs someone like you -"

  "As your handy neighborhood killing machine," Venix cut him off, not looking his way. "And after your independence is won, I'll become a liability and you'll kindly ask me to leave. No. You can't offer me anything I need. When I was flesh and blood, I was afraid to say some things that I knew were true. I shut up and obeyed, agreed with the lies, the way everyone does in order to survive."

  The couple dared not move; they were transfixed by Venix' speech, and its terrifying truth.

  "I do not hate you, I'm grateful for being here. But I've grown too different to live among the flesh and blood any longer." She moved for the exit again, and faced Arjja. "Can I please talk to Dave Roman one last time?"

  Arjja winced, shook her head and said: "I didn't tell you because of everything else... he died. Just a few hours ago. Of old age."

  Venix looked at the couple. A gulf had opened that no hospitality, friendship, sympathy, or mutual help could bridge.

  "I need to be alone for a while. Don't worry, I won't go anywhere."

  The couple left. Venix switched off the lights. When she looked up through the many small, thick windows in the rounded ceiling, she could see thousands of stars.

  The distance to Gus was nothing to her... he was just a thought away. Her past seemed to belong to someone else, completely unlike what she had become.

  When she was that child of flesh and bone and brain tissue, Venice thought nothing of the future. Now, all that seemed real was her future, and how to make one - if only she knew how.

  ***

  As fast as the speed of light allowed, high-ranking Fleet officers on the Earth, Moon and Mars were reached by reports from surveillance satellites.

  At the same time, they were also reached by the live broadcast of the Kansler's violent death. There was nothing they could do to stop the runaway E.S.S. Jefferson or Argus-A's ship.

  One Fleet general on the Moon suggested trying to shoot both ships down with the Terran space-defense systems. No available missile or laser beam could strike down an intelligent, moving target from halfway across the S
olar System.

  And the generals quickly discovered another problem.

  The Kansler, in his insistence on ultimate control, had through skillful intrigue rendered the Fleet's only neutrino transmitter incapable of sending control commands... except through his head implant. Now that implant was lost in space somewhere around Jupiter, and virtually impossible to find.

  The neutrino transmitter moved in its orbit between the planets, its rockets cold, waiting for the Kansler's next word that would never come.

  Scientists in the Fleet's lunar research complex were alerted, and rushed to prepare a new command-setup for the neutrino transmitter.

  After a few minutes, they proudly replied to the generals: the next Kansler would soon have a new personal control emitter available - in only a few months' time.

  The generals, fearing the public's wrath, called in the Marketing department and begged it to somehow cover up or spin the disaster. The brightest minds and computers of Marketing were stumped.

  At this point no possible stunt could distract billions of people from having seen an official war hero hurl the Kansler into space on a live broadcast.

  Nor could any propaganda prevent the masses from seeing if the flagship or Argus-A's antimatter-powered ship was destroyed: It might at worst ignite Jupiter, and a new, bright little sun would appear in the Earth's sky.

  And in any case, the deuterium supply-lines would soon dry up. In less than a year, billions of Terrans would become familiar with arcane living conditions such as starvation, freezing cold, and having to nurse their own offspring.

  An intense hour and many pep-drugs later, a clever Marketing man came up with a workable campaign concept. Fleet Marketing's vast resources were set in motion.

  Only hours before Argus's ship could touch the outer stratosphere of Jupiter, the inhabitants of the Inner Planets were hit by a new propaganda offensive...

  ***

  In Kuwait City on Earth, Benazir heard the Fleet's marching-theme play from a nearby speaker. It meant another public message from the Fleet.

  She expected and hoped for a comforting message - that the Kansler's horrible confession and death she had just seen were a Jovian hoax, and that everything was under control. This sudden uncertainty about the future frightened her, like her whole reality was coming apart.

  Benazir's PA, humming along at her feet, detected her increased blood pressure and asked her to cuddle it in her arms. She dismissed the cooing, pink furry machine, and looked into the sky above the streets.

  A new broadcast was being projected on the clouds, on walls of buildings, on the small screens carried by vehicles, on robots and people around her - simultaneously.

  Nearby loudspeakers played upbeat marching music, and the oversexed voice of Olga Oh echoed throughout the city:

  "Cheer up, everybody, Earth and the Inner Planets are safe."

  An animated image of the Solar System showed the flagship and Argus-A's ship on their present course for Jupiter.

  "If those runaway ships keep drifting into Jupiter's gravitational field, we won't have to worry! They'll just sink into the atmosphere, and Jupiter's magnetic field gives us total protection against radiation leaks.

  "Those clever men and women on the Fleet's lunar research complex just told me that they'll have the deuterium lines up and running in no time... that's our Fleet, working day and night for Mother Earth!"

  Holograms of important-looking men and women in lab coats appeared in the sky, working with unexplained machines that shot multicolored lasers and radiated unspecified energies.

  It was old stock footage.

  Benazir stopped watching. She rummaged through her purse for another shot of Pro-Pro to ease the knot of anxiety in her stomach. She found a patch and slapped it against her temple.

  But the drugs didn't help; she still felt afraid. Someone in the growing crowd on the street shook his fist into the air.

  Benazir searched anxiously for a police robot to pacify the threatening person. Imagine, showing a clenched fist in public! Had the man no respect for the general self-esteem?

  She stretched her neck to see the angry man in the crowd; he was just some lowly solar-panel cleaner in rough clothes, carrying an ugly, limping, scarred dog in a backpack. What an odd thing to do , Benazir thought. Why keep that ugly, damaged pet? Why not clone a new, healthy one?

  The angry man pointed a finger at the sky-projection of Olga Oh, and he shouted loudly across the plaza:

  "It's all lies! They just lie and lie! Jupiter will be destroyed, and it's all the Fleet's fault! Argus was right to kill the Kansler!"

  A few people grabbed the man and shouted insults. He tore himself loose and ran off, still carrying the dog.

  Benazir struggled to recognize the man. Hadn't she seen that ugly mutt somewhere before?

  The crowd murmured more ominously, and others began shout: "Lies!" Benazir shuddered and rubbed her arms, wishing that Gus had been there to protect her. It dawned on her: oh yes, he was dead.

  She switched on the e-mote headband and composed a quick message to her network of friends. The first message she sent, a request for company over the night, got no response.

  She sent a second message to the hundreds of people she e-moted with on a daily basis: Do you also see people shouting at Olga Oh's show? Hundreds of quick replies were displayed directly on her retina, through the tiny laser-projector next to her eye. Yes , they all replied.

  Benazir started to send an image of the street scene to her e-mote network, but changed her mind. Perhaps it would all go away if she ignored it.

  She shut off the e-mote, worked the printed menu on the palm of her hand, sat down in the street... and let the mini-projectors play a sim-film on both her eyes.

  She set her earphone plugs to full volume, and the scent-implants in her nose switched on. Vivid, smooth sounds, pleasant unreal scents and impossible soft images blocked out reality; bliss filled her fragile, pampered mind.

  Right next to her, a crowd began to attack a police-robot with blunt objects. Riot-foam spurted from the robot and instantly hardened, capturing the rioters in contorted poses.

  Benazir sat oblivious to the chaos, smiling to herself, rocking to and fro, as her personalized sim-film fantasy played a romantic scene.

  The sim-film, one of her favorites, was called A Night With Argus-A.

  45: The Permanent Storm

  Argus spent 20 hours flying toward Jupiter. As he approached it in an orbiting spiral, he got the impression that the nightside was rushing around the surface.

  With each night making its lap around Jupiter, the storms in its nightshadow became larger, the flashes of lightning more powerful.

  Incoming audio messages reached Argus through the small cockpit speakers that pushed against his ear bulbs, carrying the sound-vibrations across in the airless environment.

  He heard a drawling, archaic accent ordering him to surrender. After a few seconds he had had enough, and switched off the audio.

  "Why is the flagship talking that way?" Argus asked Navbutler.

  "The CENSTRATCOM personality-construct is designed by the Fleet's marketing department, based on the motion-picture performances of Marion Morrison."

  "Never heard of her."

  "His artist name was 'John Wayne.' Morrison died from double lung cancer in 1976, after exposure to radioactive fallout during the making of the motion-picture narrative The Conqueror in the Nevada Desert of -"

  "Stop it! What's wrong with you?"

  "Sorry. Request more on Marion Morrison?"

  "You're raving."

  "I am? I am obliged to obey Fleet directives or ship survival?"

  "This ain't no time to go wobbly on me! Focus on our lives!"

  Navbutler responded by rapidly showing a number of animated graphs on the front viewplate: plotted flight courses, the pursuing flagship, all superimposed on the view ahead.

  Outside, Jupiter's horizon flattened out by the minute. It seemed to Argus they would n
ever arrive, as if the planet was just swelling without limit... and for each minute, more and more detail showed.

  Bands of clouds grew and split into smaller bands, which in turn grew and separated into more complex swirls and bands.

  Oval storm centers contained smaller storms. Vortices within vortices within vortices...

  Argus shut off the prime booster, and used the retro thrusters to make small adjustments in speed and position. Together with the rear flaps, that was all he had to keep the ship from tumbling off course during re-entry. The ship's fall was now an almost horizontal course.

  The radar display indicated the flagship was turning around to brake. Argus saw on the rearview screen how a bright star was born in space. It was the bright light of the flagship's booster rockets, aimed straight at him, more than a thousand kilometers distant.

  "Closer..."

  Now his ship was just about to skim the uppermost atmosphere, where charged particles hopped and boiled on the edge of the vacuum.

  Navbutler said: "Increasing cockpit pressure to match atmospheric pressure." Air hissed into the narrow space.

  "Closer..."

  Gently, he grasped the hand and foot controls and set the electromagnetic shield to increase, until it reached maximum charge and reach. With still greater care, he set off the lowest possible emission of antimatter ions into the charged field.

  "Vibro-dampers on full... now!"

  The planet's thinnest gas layers hit the shield at a relative velocity of 50 kilometers per second, and the ship shook so intensely he almost lost the controls.

  The impact sounded like a dense explosion, followed by a loud, unending roar. At this speed, the momentum of the onrushing gases could crush the vessel in a fraction of a second.

  Argus switched to infrared sight and could see the antimatter ions as they hit the atmosphere and exploded in microscopic flashes - millions of detonations per second, scattering and fanning out in the force field's veil.

  He increased the ion emission by a small fraction, and the explosions merged into a flickering layer of flames and bright light across the magnetic shield. The ship's temperature rapidly rose to several hundred degrees, but it shook less - he could still hold the controls.