Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers

by Rusty Williamson

  "The final state is when a species has not only extracted every fact there is from the vibrating specks, but has also studied these facts to the point where it understands everything that there is to understand. It would know how every fact interacts with every other fact. It would know…” -- Bugs leaned forward to emphasize the next statement -- “… how to fully use all of the knowledge that exists.” Bugs paused again to let that sink in. There was total silence. “This species would have spread its seed on an inter-galactic level. Of course it would have survived far longer than any species conforming to the I-Life/Extinction Probability Chart – in fact, reaching this level is something outside what we currently believe to be possible. This species would at the very least need to exist for hundreds of millions of years.” Bugs paused again, then, “We call this final state of advancement the Omega State.” Bugs straightened up and let his gaze move across the audience from left to right before continuing. “It is difficult to see how any natural species could ever achieve this state. This concludes my talk.”

  The audience was still in shock so the applause didn’t start right away. First one person started clapping, then another. Within a minute, everyone was standing and applauding. It went on for a full two minutes until Bugs again signaled an end. “With this many people, it would not be feasible to open the floor to questions, however, we know you have them, and I would certainly be glad to answer them. I understand that today’s host, Wayne Brittan, has come up with a plan for this which he will tell you about in just a few minutes.”

  As Bugs made his way off stage, Adamarus and Harrington got up to make their way back stage as well. As they stood, they noticed that Woodworth was headed towards them. They waited for Woodworth, and when he arrived, they shook hands and exchanged pleasantries then headed back stage.

  They made their way backstage and entered Bugs’ room without knocking. Adamarus brought Woodworth over to Bugs. “Bugs, may I introduce Professor Floyd Woodworth,” Adamarus said as he indicated the Professor, “Professor, this is Bugs.”

  “Author of ‘Advancement of our Species – A Historical Perspective’?” Bugs asked as he rose from his seat and extended his hand.

  Woodworth interpreted the gesture correctly and stepped forward to “shake” hands, “One work, but endless fame, it seems,” the Professor deadpanned.

  Bugs seemed delighted to meet the professor. “We could only access parts of it on the World Net – it was the first book, or set of books, I should say, that we requested. A masterful work!”

  “Thank you for the kind words.”

  Bugs turned to Adamarus, “Adamarus, it occurs to me that we need a historian!” He looked back at Woodworth, “I can think of no one better!”

  Adamarus jumped in, “An excellent idea! Professor Woodworth, would you consider such a task?”

  Woodworth had been looking back and forth between them. This had caught him totally off guard. “I…I…Well, I’m of course honored.” He tried to collect himself and think about the offer. It was an incredible opportunity, and of course he would jump at it, so why was he hesitating? “And yes. Yes! I could not possibly turn down such an opportunity!”

  “Fantastic!” Bugs said. “Fantastic!” It clasped its manipulators together with a thunderous clank that made everyone jump. “Oh, sorry,” it looked at everyone, “we try very hard to express as much human body language as possible with these avatars, but sometimes it doesn’t work as we expect. But I am delighted. This is perfect.”

  Adamarus had a broad grin – so did Harrington for that matter. Adamarus got the professor’s attention, “We’ll discuss the details…say, tomorrow?”

  Woodworth nodded but seemed preoccupied. He turned back to Bugs, “If you don’t mind me asking, just how do you ‘try to express human body language’? You did not know you would need to do that beforehand and it was instantaneous.”

  Bugs looked at him for a moment then said, “Actually, it was not quite instantaneous. We are very serious about communications. Each avatar has an entire team of Loud assigned to it, one to be the id or self of the avatar, in this case that’s me, and others for different purposes. One monitors everything going on around the avatar and tries to suggest appropriate body language. When you accepted the offer, I was truly delighted and I said, ‘fantastic’ and the hyper-translator translated it almost instantaneously. But from the moment we saw the situation I was in, the database was queried for a like situation. This was found and transmitted to me. In the lower portion of my vision I saw a human clasping his hands together and I mimicked this action.”

  Everyone was amazed at all the behind the scenes effort that had been hidden until now.

  Remembering the Professor’s original reason for being here, Adamarus said, “Actually, the reason Professor Woodworth is here is the sun flare. It was his class that decided the question for my son to ask and your response was unexpected. There was something observed which…”

  Bugs held up both manipulators, “I had forgotten, I had forgotten.” He spread his arms wide, “I am sorry. We have figured that out.”

  “Well, I’m sure glad!” Woodworth beamed. “A month ago my students were still beating me over the head for wasting their one question. What did you find?”

  “Nothing,” Bugs answered. Everyone looked at the robot, smile froze in place.

  Finally Woodworth stammered, “But…but…I don’t understand. Didn’t you just say that you had figured it out?”

  “Yes,” Bugs said this time. “First, I knew our sun had not suffered a solar flare…”

  Adamarus had now seen several translation glitches like this in conversations with Bugs. Next time it happened, he would have to question Bugs about it and see if the problem could be corrected. Something about this and the other times seemed similar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Bugs continued, “Second, when Nero asked the question, he stated ‘about a thousand years ago.’ I queried our database and found nothing occurring near our star that would explain this. However, we observe the universe not in visible light or slower wave lengths as you do, but in Tachyons, which travel faster than light. Later I realized my mistake—that you still used visible light and nothing faster—so I subtracted the time light would take to travel here from our star – 112 years—in order to determine when it occurred at our star, and still found nothing. Then I remembered Nero had said ‘about,’ so I started searching before and after that time and found it. The light from a super nova that occurred 10,798 years ago passed our system 911 years ago and, therefore, passed here 1,023 years ago. The star that exploded was almost perfectly aligned with both our stars so it looked like the light was from our star.”

  Woodworth put his hands on his hips and smiled, “Well, I knew it was going to be something like that.” He turned to Adamarus, “Do you mind if I call Nero and explain this to him?”

  Adamarus said, “No, not at all.”

  “That would be great!” Woodworth said.

  ---

  Two months later it was finally time for the Loud to make the return trip to their system. They promised to return in under 300 years.

  Many farewell celebrations were held. An official trade agreement had been drafted and two of the Loud ships would make the 112 light year journey back to the Loud system where their world was expected to ratify it.

  The third ship would stay behind for another fifty years to help with the migration of people to off-world settlements and with the development of various technologies and resources, including additional food production to account for the population explosion.

  Adamarus’ world had finally settled back to a normal state, or as normal as could be expected now that everyone was around thirty years old and immortal.

  Training and education was the main concern so people could develop, manufacture, service and operate the new technologies the Loud would leave behind and were still handing out via the remaining ship. There was a critical demand for trained people to fi
ll the new positions, occupations and services for the new forms of transportation, the expansion of new off-world settlements, construction of the orbital habitats, the multi-level moon farms and all the new and/or improved technologies blossoming everywhere.

  Adamarus and his family, plus Radin, Leewood, Harrington and Woodworth were on hand for the departure of the two ships. They gathered in the new observation deck of one of the first orbital habitats to be built to watch the ships depart. It was bare inside; no one had even moved in yet.

  There was also an avatar present which Bugs was operating from its ship. “Well, my friends, we’ll be back before you know it.” It bowed slightly, then said, “May probability fold in your favor!” and the avatar went still.

  They watched as the graviton drives, which no one understood yet, engaged and the two ships shimmered and vanished using the phased acceleration technology that no one understood yet.

  Overhead on a large screen, telescopes tracked the ships which had jumped to relativistic speeds almost instantly. They watched until the ships were just dots of light at the highest magnification.

  Adamarus turned to the assembled group, “Well, what are we waiting for? We have an enormous amount of work to do over the next 300 years.” The statement, though absolutely true, brought laughter from the assembled crowd. “Let’s get to it!”

  ---

  Eighteen months later…

  The day it happened, Radin had been in a great mood. He had a new girlfriend and it was looking like a serious relationship. So, at the exact moment that it happened, it was her long legs that his mind had been visualizing.

  Her name was Shannon and he had met her at the SS1 Space Station dry docks during his ship’s last overhaul. She was an engine thrust specialist and he liked to tell her that this was in more ways than one. She was a total sweetheart! He hadn’t seen her in twenty-five days and he couldn’t wait for the planet-side leave they had planned to take together.

  Such were his thoughts as he led the team out of the ship through the coupled airlocks to the rear dome of the new Asper-7 settlement and power station. Behind him were eight technicians and engineers, plus four technician-cast Loud (avatars) and one historian, Woodworth, and Woodworth’s camera team of two. The historic occasion was the activation of their first fusion power station which would produce almost unlimited power and transfer it as needed to all the human worlds and settlements via multi-phased Barca beams.

  What “Barca beams” were only the Loud knew – more Loud magic that no one really understood. Technology based on scientific principles that teams of their scientists slaved day and night to understand but never really did. They were just trying to skip too far ahead – sometimes completely jumping over scientific facts and principals that were the basis of what they were trying to understand – like trying to understand how a train moved without knowing about the engine. They were trying to grasp the hundreds of scientific principals in just years that the Loud had had centuries to digest.

  The new power station and the settlement for the workers that would be needed to maintain the power station were completely empty right now. The complex was located on the seventh moon of the gas giant named Asper – ergo the name Asper-7.

  Leaving the airlock station and entering the open dome, the first thing one’s attention was drawn to was the enormous window on one side of the 500-foot dome. It was hemispheric in shape, starting at the floor it curved up the rounded wall of the dome. Radin didn’t know the specs, but thought that the window must be 100-feet high and 200-feet wide.

  Through the window they could see Asper’s bloated form taking up far too much of the view for comfort. Seen this close, Asper’s pastel cloud bands were startlingly clear, complex and richly textured. This close you could see shadows created by the upper cloud layers and misty beams of sunlight falling deeply into the multiple cloud layers below. It looked very three-dimensional and quite beautiful.

  Also through the window, in front of the gas giant, hung both space ships, Radin’s ship The Bet’ti, looking like an ant next to the Loud’s umbrella ship, both ships utterly dwarfed by the gas giant beyond.

  Radin and his team took the shortest route to the control room entrance which was a walkway that arched up and ran parallel to the huge window. Radin was daydreaming about the wonderful curves of his new girlfriend’s long legs as he traversed the walkway.

  It happened when the precession was about a third of the way across the window walkway. From behind, Radin heard the sound of things falling and hitting the walkway, heard Woodworth exclaim, “What the hell!” and someone else – one of Woodworth’s cameramen—say at almost the same moment, “Bloody hell!”

  The vision of Shannon’s wonderful legs vanished and he swung around.

  The humans behind Radin had also turned around.

  Woodworth and his cameramen had seen it happen because they had been behind the Loud.

  The cause of the exclamations was immediately clear. All four Loud, or rather their avatars, had collapsed and were lying motionless in random odd-looking positions on the floor of the walkway!

  Everyone stared motionless for several seconds. No one knew what to do. Radin didn’t know what to do! This had never happened before. He walked back for a closer look. Glancing up he could see Woodworth and his camera team standing there with their mouths agape, however, they were not looking at the fallen avatars. They were looking out the window. Radin followed their gaze. The Loud ship was no longer there.

  ---

  The ringing of the com unit awoke Adamarus from a sound sleep. He looked at the time – 2:30 AM. Grace was stirring next to him. He took his pillow and placed it gently over her head to muffle the sound and block the light, then leaned the other way and answered the video com just as another ring started. The top opened revealing Leewood’s concerned face on the screen. “Sorry to wake you, Adamarus, but we’ve got some strange things happening. First off, your friend Bugs is back.”

  Bugs wasn’t due back for almost 300 years, Adamarus thought as he cleared his throat and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”

  “The Loud ships have returned.”

  Adamarus just stared at Leewood as he tried to make sense of this. “Have they said why?”

  “They are not answering our inquiries.”

  What the hell, Adamarus thought. “Have we asked any of the Loud avatars if they know anything?”

  “No. We can’t. That’s the other thing…” Leewood looked away for a moment then back. “Forty-seven minutes ago, every Loud avatar currently operational in the solar system – there were thirty-two – simply stopped functioning and just fell to the ground.”

  Adamarus was wide awake now, “Shit.”

  “This happened to all the avatars at the same instant as far as we can tell. Also, at probably the same exact time, the ship which was at Aster-7 – it had just dropped off Radin and a small team to bring the reactor on-line – did one of those ripple and vanish tricks – without any warning—without a word.” Leewood leaned forward, “Several minutes later one of the Deep UV platforms we have at the comet shell pushing comets in system…”

  “Right.” Adamarus said.

  “…reported it had three Loud ships headed in system.”

  Adamarus interrupted, “Three ships?” This was not making sense.

  “Yes, the Deep UV Platform got scan data including video and sent it. Two of the ships are definitely the ones that left here a year and a half ago. The third one we haven’t seen before. We’ve picked up the one that was with Radin – it’s on its way to meet the three ships headed in.”

  Adamarus sat up on the edge of the bed and angled the com unit toward him. “Based on current data, where will the ships meet?”

  “In the same orbit they had before they left.”

  “So…where are the ships now?”

  “ETA is about an hour.”

  “Are you at the control center?”

  �
�Yep.”

  “Okay. I’m on my way.”

  “Good.” On the small screen Leewood leaned forward. “Adamarus, we have to assume the worst – I don’t know what that is, but I’m assembling everyone. We’ll keep trying to hail the Loud ships.”

  ---

  Leewood had been the leader of the original special team, and even though Adamarus outranked him, had more experience and had been the initial Loud contact. Officially, Leewood was still in charge. However, over the years the two had worked so well together that often leadership seemed to bounce between them. Because Adamarus had had more contact with the Loud than anyone else, he was leading the current debate.

  “We must assume for now that they encountered the fourth ship on their way out,” Adamarus said as he paced the conference room, coffee in hand. It was now 3:40 and everyone available was there – eleven people. “And we must assume that the third ship was coming here from their home system.” Everyone agreed with this. “The ship must have had news that compelled Bugs to bring all their ships back here.” He continued, “The Loud ship at Aster-7 suddenly cutting the links to all of the avatars as well as its rapid departure – all I can think is there was some type of disaster. And if you add that to the radio silence,” he paced to the back of his chair and paused there, “perhaps something has happened—news that the new ship brought from home—and perhaps they don’t know what they want to say to us yet. It looks like they have gotten all four ships close enough to use a narrow beam ship-to-ship communication link to talk among themselves privately.” Adamarus pulled out his chair and sat down. “That’s all I can come up with. Anyone else?”

  After several seconds Harrington spoke up, “Given that the new ship is just arriving now, and assuming that they came here as fast as they could, that means that they left the Loud system about sixty years after the other ships left. If something happened, you would think that they would have sent a message. However, my understanding is that the instant message technology they have does not work over long distances.”