Heaven’s Fall

by David S. Goyer

  And while individual Aggregates are usually an assembly of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of smaller, often identical units, don’t assume that we are all the same. Interaction with other beings—especially humans!—results in revised programming and behavior.

  So, while you may see us marching to the same drummer, remember this: Each Aggregate may be hearing a slightly different tune!

  OPENING PARAGRAPHS, MEET THE AGGREGATES ORIENTATION,

  DR. WILLIAM H. “BOB” BAILEY MIDDLE SCHOOL,

  LAS VEGAS, NV, 2031,

  SAVED BY WHIT MURRAY

  AGGREGATE CARBON-143

  CONTEXT: In theory, information moved across the greater Aggregate formations at the speed of thought. An image received by a single unit in Barcelona should, in theory, have been recorded and processed by a random single unit in northern Arizona in one-tenth of a second (Earth-based Aggregates have adopted human measurements for ease of communication).

  In practical terms, however, this time frequently stretched not only to one second, but often to five or even ten seconds—a thousandfold lag! Aggregate Carbon-143/A72 had experienced this so many times she could not retrieve the number (low-priority data was usually overwritten) but never failed to respond with surprise and annoyance.

  Carbon-143 knew the reasons. The priority of the information, as predetermined by the dominant formation’s algorithms. Other traffic in various networks.

  Then there was the final filter: Each descending sub-Aggregate within a formation designated one unit to receive, process, and forward certain types of information.

  NARRATIVE: For the Aggregate formation designated Carbon A72, geographically based at Site A in northern Arizona, Free Nation U.S., unit 143 was tasked with the initial receipt of military operational data (among eleven specific types of information) and assigning its value.

  One of the humans in Carbon-143’s immediate web of contacts once remarked, “Data has to climb a tree,” which, after suitable follow-up research to determine the various meanings of the term tree, Carbon-143 embraced.

  At this moment, monitoring and assigning value to a certain cluster of data, Carbon-143 judged herself to be a small branch far from the main “trunk” of Aggregate Carbon.

  It should not have been the case. Operational military data had, in Carbon-143’s judgment, significant value to the Aggregate.

  But, likely as a result of recent determinations that physical manufacturing was failing to meet assigned quotas, her hierarchy had downgraded operational military data.

  Its value must be level four of five in order to justify Carbon-143’s immediate presentation. Below four, the data would be processed and placed in the queue.

  Carbon-143’s standard algorithms judged the data of 13 April 2013 1144 UDT to be level three: valuable but not critical.

  But Carbon-143, performing her own content analysis, felt a need to override the algorithm and class the data as level five, for immediate relay and response.

  Before taking such a dramatic step, however, she performed one additional review:

  ACTION: The formation’s ability to operate in what its American hosts termed the Indian subcontinent and China had never been established to a level sufficient for operations. As a rule, the Aggregates could only conduct surveillance.

  But when the Free Nation U.S.’s space- and surface-based systems detected the approach of what they named Near-Earth Object Keanu, Aggregate cyberwarfare cells concluded that a visit was likely to the ninety-ninth percentile.

  And that a visit with military potential was in the seventieth percentile.

  Further, the Aggregate’s political cells declared that even if a NEO Keanu–origin visit would necessarily target the Indian subcontinent, a direct military strike against the North American continent, specifically Free Nation U.S., was low probability.

  ANALYSIS: The visit, no matter how “peaceful,” was quickly rated as a potential military strike. So Aggregate defensive cells activated their links to Free Nation U.S. moribund anti-missile systems as a precautionary measure, while offensive units revived surface and subsurface naval systems, a process that took substantially longer, deploying them to the South Atlantic and to the Pacific.

  In accordance with decisions by the affected Aggregates, it was determined that a return to Earth by NEO Keanu entities was not in the best interests of the formation, so offensive means were authorized.

  ADDITIONAL NARRATIVE: Cyberwarfare cell prediction B was correct: On 13 April 2040 UDT, inhabitants of NEO Keanu attempted a visit to the Indian subcontinent instead of an overt strike (though defensive systems remain on alert for the possibility that the NEO Keanu entities plan both a visit and a hostile strike).

  A subsurface naval vessel with a host crew was in position to launch a weapon at the Keanu vehicle, and did so under prior orders from the Aggregate Iron.

  The strike was not direct; the vehicle survived. The units involved have voluntarily restructured themselves and the human hosts have been eradicated.

  CONCLUSION: This vital operational military data was rated no higher than level three because of lack of success.

  Four seconds elapsed from the moment Carbon-143 received the operational military data and reached her conclusion.

  AFTERACTION: Carbon-143 removed herself from the fabrication-assembly facility at Site A, deferring her involvement in the monitoring of mobile-vehicle propulsion quality control, to protests from Carbon-144 and Carbon-145.

  She physically stepped into what another human counterpart would call a “sunny Arizona afternoon,” and approached Carbon-14, her immediate hierarch, to encourage the swift receipt and processing of the Indian strike message.

  Carbon-14 responded: “Tentative agreement, pending response to this query: Why?”

  And Carbon-143 answered, “Failure of the strike increases the probability of a reaction from the Keanu-origin entities. Chance of success—and likely damage to the Project—is now higher.”

  Carbon-14 processed, then responded: “Mathematical probability analysis?”

  Carbon-143 could only respond: “No. Nonstandard emotion-based judgment.”

  “On that basis, this request is denied. Similar requests will result in removal from quality control and data hierarchy and total reprogramming. Persistence could even result in recycling.”

  Carbon-143 returned to her place inside the facility. She was aware of unwanted data—images and sudden surges in her electrosomatic web—that made her momentarily inefficient at her task. It took, in fact, almost twenty seconds for her to return to optimum efficiency.

  She reran the context, analysis, narrative, conclusion, and especially action. The same electrosomatic spike occurred again.

  Her human counterparts would have called it “frustration.”

  It isn’t the flight that kills or even stresses an astronaut. What really gets you is the bullshit they put you through after landing.

  ANONYMOUS ASTRONAUT, 2011

  RACHEL

  Once the initial greetings and introductions were complete, Rachel stood back and let Taj and the rescue team prepare to take Adventure’s crew to Yelahanka’s infirmary.

  “I would like the Sentry and Mr. Toutant inside the rescue truck,” Taj said.

  “Okay,” Rachel said. She was still a bit dazed by the landing and the sight of Taj and Tea—Tea! The pretty, smart, almost socially hopeless woman her father had turned to in his widowerhood . . . to find her here, married to Taj!

  It was one too many shocks.

  In their limited contacts, Rachel had made it clear to ISRO that she would defer to them on where the returnees would be taken, and how, and in what order. But little else.

  “We would rather not advertise the presence of an alien,” Taj added, unnecessarily.

  Now that the euphoria of arrival had passed, the other Adventure travelers se
emed to be as numb as Rachel. Only Yahvi seemed to have any life to her, as she kept looking at the sky and at what must have been, for her, magical distances.

  “Feeling okay?” Rachel said, taking her daughter’s hand.

  “Weird, but okay.”

  Zeds and Toutant climbed into the rescue truck. Even though it had twice the height of the ambulance and Jeep, it seemed to be a bit of a squeeze for the Sentry. Wing Commander Kaushal rode with them.

  Rachel, Pav, and Yahvi boarded the Jeep with Tea and found themselves waiting for Taj.

  Before the convoy could leave the landing site, there had been a scramble of luggage and equipment. The Adventure travelers each had a small bag—toiletries and a change of clothes. (Yahvi had insisted on bringing Sanjay’s bag down from the cabin.) “What is the problem?” Pav said.

  Rachel knew why. “Soyuz landing,” she told her husband. He made a face, but his father nodded. “When I returned from ISS in June 2014, landing in Kazakhstan, many personal items went missing.”

  It was pleasing to Rachel to know that even with the quasi-emergency nature of the landing, Taj would not allow Adventure to be ransacked. Before departing the landing site, he insisted that they seal the hatch. Of course, as with any customs shipment, those seals could be broken by eager parties undaunted by legalities.

  So Taj had encouraged Pav and Toutant to actually lock the hatch.

  “Do you trust these guards?” Pav asked his father, as the Jeep finally started rolling away.

  “They aren’t the usual sort,” Taj said. “We did a special screening.”

  Rachel wondered what that might involve, and how any of that would stop someone from being bribed.

  No matter; she could do nothing but trust Taj and ISRO.

  As they drove through the empty streets of Yelahanka village, she noticed Taj repeatedly glancing over at his son—now a grown man in his thirties.

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Rachel said.

  “Ask what?” Taj said, surprised by the question.

  “All of the things you want to ask him.”

  Taj smiled, a rare event from what Rachel recalled. She knew he must have a thousand things he wanted to know. Surely he wanted to embrace his son, his son’s new wife, and his granddaughter.

  But the streets were narrow and the task of getting to safety had priority. So Taj had to settle for brief eye contact and nervous smiles. Rachel sympathized, even as she and Pav and especially Yahvi craned and looked around like tourists.

  Pav shouted one question to Taj: “What about Mother?”

  “She died ten years ago,” Taj said, likely horrified that he had to deliver the news in this manner. Rachel recalled that Taj had separated from his wife, Amitra, Pav’s mother, shortly before the Brahma mission in 2019. It had been big gossipy news in the astronaut community of the Johnson Space Center, where any “off-nominal” personnel matter was scrutinized like a Dead Sea Scroll. “Ovarian cancer,” Taj said.

  Pav seemed to take the news calmly, even though Rachel knew he had been close to Amitra. Indeed, they had been with each other the fateful day of the Bangalore Scoop. Rachel reached for Pav’s hand.

  Tea hugged him from behind.

  Thinking of Pav’s mother made Rachel think about the humans in her life, pre-Keanu. Not just her father, with whom she’d shared at least one week on the NEO. Or her mother.

  But, well, her friend Amy Meyer . . . the other of the two fourteen-year-olds running around the Johnson Space Center during the flight of Destiny-7, sneaking food and generally making themselves notorious. Did Rachel remember this correctly? Did one of them actually bring pot onto the center grounds?

  Was it her? Or Amy? Not that it mattered now. She found it amusing that, among the many habits and practices of Earth life, HBs had done little with alcohol and almost nothing with recreational drugs. A few of the Houstons had experimented with the “fabrication” of beer and whiskey, and there were probably some who tried the same with marijuana . . . come to think of it, Xavier Toutant once confessed that that had been his business prior to the Houston Scoop. So maybe—

  How had Amy Meyer weathered twenty years? Still the cute girl? Or had life, especially life under Reiver domination, destroyed her?

  And what about Jillianne Dwight, the poor Destiny crew secretary who had had to corral Rachel and Amy during the horrors of that mission—?

  The Jeep jostled as they went over a bump. Before they had all recovered, the convoy reached the base hospital’s emergency entrance. Here all of them, including the giant Sentry, got out, careful to keep clear of the ambulance team removing the injured man.

  A small crowd of officials, military and civilian, was gathering, though they kept a respectful distance, except for a small woman in her sixties. “That is Mrs. Remilla,” Taj said, “director of ISRO Bangalore. If anyone is in charge here, she is.”

  Wing Commander Kaushal reached Taj before Mrs. Remilla could. “Tell Remilla and the others that they can meet the crew inside, not out here. They need checkups.”

  Rachel saw that Sanjay was headed for emergency surgery. The original plans called for Zeds to be taken to a special chamber inside the hospital; it had formerly been used for altitude training for aircraft crews.

  “Rachel Stewart!”

  Her head snapped to the sound of the voice, which was in a strange accent, certainly not Hindi-tinged English. She spotted a face at the back of the clutch of dignitaries . . . dark complexioned, younger, in military fatigues but with no rank.

  “What do you feel being back on Earth?” the shouter said, pushing himself forward and brandishing a phone.

  And he wasn’t alone. Suddenly, like roaches boiling out from under a rug when a light goes on, people were emerging from the alleys between buildings, not just reporter types, but older men, women of all ages, children. It was as if the residents of Yelahanka had been cordoned off in this spot . . . and were now breaking free.

  Responding to Kaushal’s orders, the guards retreated, forming a perimeter around Rachel, Pav, Xavier, Yahvi, and Zeds. Taj and Tea were caught in it, too. The EMTs carrying the stretcher with Sanjay had made it inside, but the crowd had pressed close to the entrance and was almost blocking it.

  “Okay, everybody,” Rachel said. She had anticipated a situation like this. “I guess we can take a few questions, though as you saw, one of our people is injured—”

  Someone shouted, “Who is he?”

  “Sanjay Bhat,” Pav snapped. “Born and raised right here in Bangalore.”

  “Is that your daughter?” “What’s the girl’s name?” “Were you born on Keanu?” Suddenly Yahvi was the target of a barrage of questions.

  Bravely, with only a moment’s glance at her parents, she answered them.

  Rachel noticed Taj making eye contact with Kaushal. The wing commander leaned toward him and said, loud enough for Rachel’s ears, “More guards are on the way. We’ll have this sorted in a few minutes.”

  “I thought everyone had been ordered to stay indoors.”

  “They were.” Kaushal shrugged, as if that explained any of this.

  “What is your mission?” an obvious reporter shouted to Pav.

  “We come in peace,” he said, triggering some laughter. “Seriously, we’re visitors. More than tourists, maybe, but less than . . . space traders.”

  “We want to see our old homes,” Xavier Toutant said, without being asked or noticed. When a follow-up made it clear to the crowd that Xavier’s home was Texas, the crowd reacted as if he had just admitted he was carrying the plague.

  “No one goes to Texas,” one of the reporters said.

  Rachel turned to Taj and Tea. Taj stepped forward.

  “We will discuss the United States and the world political situation the moment we are inside.”

  “To this alien being,” another voice shouted.
“What are your impressions of Earth?”

  Zeds wasn’t reluctant at all, which was a pleasant surprise to Rachel. The Sentry was fluent in English, but she had wondered how he would react to being surrounded by humans in open space. “The sky is very large,” the Sentry said.

  “Rachel Stewart, Rachel Stewart!” It was the original questioner again. “What are your impressions, being back on Earth?” the original voice shouted.

  “Hard to say,” Rachel said. “I was never in Bangalore until today. Has it changed?”

  “Everything’s changed,” a middle-aged woman said.

  So far everything had been peaceful, if you simply ignored the shouts for news-style comments from the crew. The biggest disturbance occurred when the sight of the Sentry caused at least one elderly woman to faint. (She had pointed to Zeds and screamed, “Rakshasa!”—a Hindi word that Rachel did not need translated: “Demon!”)

  In a way, Rachel couldn’t blame them, not even the reporters who had wormed their way into the group, likely tipped off by friends or paid sources. Humans returning to Earth was the story of the year, especially in a year that probably had little in the way of happy news.

  And there was the whole Revenant, back-from-the-dead business. Rachel was surprised that hadn’t been the first question.

  Then she heard a smashing sound—a dropped bottle, perhaps, or a window. Either way, it was a reminder that the situation was not what she had wanted.

  “Kaushal, get them inside!” Taj said.

  The additional guards had arrived—possibly causing the smash—pushing the crowds back and clearing a path to the entrance.

  Inside, Pav officially introduced his father to Mr. Toutant, who insisted on being called Xavier. Rachel noted that Xavier was unusually subdued, offering none of his usual wisecracks. She hoped it was a temporary situation. It wasn’t that she cherished Xavier’s wit, though it had its moments. It was just that with Sanjay injured, Xavier was the team’s all-around engineer.

  Taj quickly arranged for Rachel and the others to have water, at least. After a quick poll of her crew, all of whom still seemed a bit subdued, an offer of food was rejected, for the moment. Rachel’s stomach was still performing regular somersaults, triggered by readjustment to gravity and the variety and intensity of smells, which ranged from curry to mold to automobile exhaust.