“We can't accommodate all those people,” Wisneski said. He had wandered back to the main concourse area, which was now full to overflowing.
“The bastard,” Bruce muttered. It looked like the Transcendents might be uploading more than the agreed numbers.
“Oh wait... don’t be too hasty, they might have just turned the tap off,” Wisneski suggested. Before his eyes, the crowd began to dissipate. Slowly at first, and then with increased speed as the number of people being processed exceeded the number of new arrivals, the crowd dwindled, and then dried up completely as the last stragglers went through.
“We’ll give it a couple of days, then start to upload the MFYers,” Bruce decided. “I get the feeling we need to accelerate the process, or the Transcendents is going to do it for us. If we bring the implementation process forward, then at least we have some control.”
“I agree.”
“Let’s get onto it when I get back from my weekend away,” Bruce added hastily. “If I put it off again, I’ll be in big trouble with Ngaio.”
“OK, I’ll get myself up to Skid and see what’s going on up there.” Wisneski let himself into a side room and activated a micro-wormhole. He would stop by The Farm to ensure the small offworld community who had made the settlement home were behaving themselves, and whilst he was there he could enjoy a few days rest and recreation. He reckoned he deserved it.
Twenty-Eight
“Do you think its OK to go away right now? Isn’t this the critical period in the project implementation?” the new Mrs Harwood asked.
“I didn’t want to risk cancelling our weekend away again, in case you decided to run off with one of your other boyfriends,” Bruce replied playfully and received a whack around the head for his trouble.
The wedding had gone well, but their honeymoon had only been a few short days. He had promised Ngaio he would make it up to her with a trip to her family bach* for a weekend, and then a longer trip, a proper honeymoon, sometime in the future.
His position with the MFY program was a little confusing to everyone except Bruce. Initially, he had agreed to be the elder statesman of the project and had made it quite clear this was going to be the limit of his involvement. He should have known this wasn’t going to work in the long term, and he had eventually been drawn into the management team, mainly as an arbiter. He then became the go-between, with humans on one side and the Transcendents on the other, because he was the only one with a full interface with both. As time went by, it would be fair to say Bruce drove most of the process, since the Transcendents had a light hand on the tiller.
“I don’t think any time is a good time where the project is concerned. There’s always something going on and the more I get involved, the more involved I get. Does that make sense?” Then he added lamely, “It’s not like we had a big overseas holiday planned or anything.”
“You need to remember you aren’t responsible. You’ve done your bit.” Ngaio chided him. She knew what his answer would be. This wasn’t the first time they'd talked about it.
“Yeah, I know. You’re right, but who else is going to take the lead and make sure everything is done properly? I don’t believe any of them are invested in the program and care about getting a successful outcome like I do.”
“You know that’s not entirely true or fair, eh? You’re going to have to learn how to delegate, both on the farm and in relation to Skid, otherwise you’re going to go nuts. Myfair is coming along well. If you teamed him up with the local farm advisor as support, he could quite happily run the farm for a while with input from your old man and mine.”
“I know you’re right. But...”
“No buts!”
At least the Transcendents had allowed him this time away. He could sever all links with the worlds he was connected to, even if only for a few short days. Bruce knew he needed a bit of peace and quiet before the implementation of the last part of the Skidian re-population plan got underway and took up all his time. He also owed it to Ngaio to get some quality time alone with her, because there wouldn’t be many opportunities to do that in the next few months.
The remote bach belonging to the Tauroa family was an ideal spot to get away from it all. The only access was via boat. There was no electricity, no mobile coverage, no radio, or television. The Transcendents were going to cut their feed, which was the icing on the cake. An icon still glowed red in Bruce’s vision: he could make contact if he needed to, but he was determined to make the most of their break.
“I think it will roll out OK. I mean, what can go wrong with hoovering people up a wormhole? Getting people onto trains and buses and then uploading them to Automedon is a great idea.
*bach - holiday home
The entrance is just like any big transport hub. The bit I am really concerned about is when we let all these people loose on the planet, once we download them from Automedon. I can just see the Transcendents opening the flood gates and dumping people anywhere on the surface. We also have no tangible way of making sure they all follow instructions when they get there.”
Ngaio sighed. She might have known Bruce couldn’t really unwind and let things go.
“There seems to be a glitch with the Book manufacturing process too,” Bruce continued. “You’d think a society with the industrial and technological capacity of Skid would be able to iron out any production problems. It sounds like the MPU is having trouble with its scheduling functionality,” he added, “which isn’t a great sign given the MPU manages the environmental infrastructure of Skid. It reminds me of the balls-up it made with the famine.”
Bruce made a mental note to follow this line of thought up and see what could be done about the performance of the MPU. While he wasn’t in contact with the Transcendents, he still had full access to the nodes he used for memory storage and processing. His brain and the environment it operated in had more power than the most powerful computer on this planet, or so the Transcendents had informed him. He might as well put it to good use.
“There must be an MFYer or someone in the group of refugees who has the smarts to review the MPU’s systems and see if there is a way to optimise them,” Bruce mused.
“Don’t you think it that's an issue for the Transcendents, given the MPU was their creation?” Ngaio replied. “They might be upset if you tinker too much, just like you get a bit pissed off if Myfair shows you a better way of completing a job on the farm. Some of his ideas are pretty revolutionary.”
“Their technology is pretty dodgy, you know,” Bruce remarked, “The indigenous Skidians managed to transcend. If they could do that, I can't understand why they couldn't clone some decent bodies to put into storage until they need them. This whole program is being driven by a species who hasn’t developed emotionally at the same pace as their technological development. I mean, why do they need hundreds of millions of bodies now they've Transcended?”
Bruce hadn’t discussed his thoughts extensively with anyone before and a second honeymoon probably wasn’t the best time to have a deep and meaningful discussion about the shortcomings of a bunch of aliens. However, in some ways, the timing was pretty good: the Transcendents had promised not to make contact, so they shouldn't be eavesdropping.
“For the life of me I can’t understand how a species who has developed wormhole technology with the capability of reaching across the galaxy, a species who have been able to transcend (and I am still not a hundred percent sure what transcending even means or how it works), cannot create a few clones to decant back into if things get a bit ugly in the universe. And why do they think they would be safer in a body anyway?” Bruce repeated.
“Do you think they might have stumbled across some of this technology early in their own development? Maybe they lacked the ability to create the vehicle for transcendence, but they had enough smarts to utilise this technology once they found it, and maybe even enhance it?”
“If that’s true, you know what it means? There are, or were, other sentient beings in the universe
who have either moved on, or who have chosen not to communicate with the Transcendents. Maybe for the same reasons the Transcendents never revealed themselves to Skidians, who always considered themselves to be the most sophisticated and advanced society in the universe. Now that’s a scary thought, because if this is true, where are they now? Have they all moved on?”
“I kind of reckon if I transcended, I might want to come back from time to time, but a body for everyone seems a bit of overkill to me. Besides, don’t you think it would be safer to be a data construct than a physical one?”
“Crikey! You know what this might mean? There could be other entities out there watching what we are doing.” This thought made Bruce even more keen to deliver a result. However, he now wondered exactly who he was delivering it for.
“When I tune into the channel I use to communicate with the Transcendents, I often get the sensation there might be another presence in the background. Sometimes it feels like there’s an eavesdropper on the line, like the old party lines we used to have when we were kids, when all the neighbours knew your business.”
Ngaio nodded. She had her own connection with the Transcendents now and understood the sensation Bruce was describing.
“I’m sure there is some other entity lurking in the background, watching what we are doing, and judging us by its own set of rules,” Bruce continued. “Maybe they are keeping an eye on the Transcendents.”
“I wonder what would happen if these original beings came back?”
“What if the Transcendents aren’t who they say they are? The Skidian first people, I mean? What would it mean if they had stumbled on Skid, killed off the original inhabitants, enslaved them, or devastated the population with the introduction of exotic diseases the original Skidians had no resistance to, just like colonists on Earth introduced diseases from the old world to the new? What does this mean for us?” This wasn’t something Bruce had really considered until now and the implications were enormous. “The Transcendents might think they are the only other known sentients in the universe, but I wouldn’t put it past them to keep us in the dark about who they really are.”
“You know, Shelly Shaw reckons that intelligent life is much more common than we know, and the reason we haven’t had much contact with them yet is either we haven’t registered on their radar, or they haven’t stumbled on us yet, or they have, and have simply chosen not to make contact.”
Bruce decided this was a good point to kill off the conversation and grab a few beers from where they had been cooling off in the stream running past the bach, but there was another thing he wanted to talk about.
He had a hankering to jump in the patrol ship the Transcendents had left in orbit for him and do a bit of exploring around the universe to see what was out there. With unusual sensitivity, he decided this probably wasn’t the right time to broach the subject with Ngaio directly, but he could start to warm her up to the idea.
Twenty-Nine
In further news today..
President Chump has announced a new mission to explore the asteroid Automedon, now settled into a stable orbit around Earth. Several previous missions have been mounted, all of which suffered a catastrophic failure at some point during the outbound trip.
The proximity of the asteroid presents a tremendous opportunity for scientists and industrialists. In astronomical terms it is in our back yard, and theoretically is easily accessible to us. As well as hoping to understand the geology of the asteroid, scientists are also intrigued with geometric surface formations, and the processes behind sections of the asteroid to breaking away or ablating. The process has been described as budding, and results in globes of material forming and trailing the asteroid.
There is a suggestion in some parts of the media this activity could be the work of intelligent life and the asteroid could be an observation outpost or forward base for aliens, who are already in secret talks with the United Nations. Experts are largely downplaying these theories and general opinion seems to indicate the formations are the result of natural forces, and the process behind what has been described as budding, the shedding of some of its mass, is caused by the gravitational pull of Earth tearing away some of the asteroid’s loose surface material. It is hoped a successful mission would lay these debates to rest and set the foundation for exploitation of the mineral wealth contained in the asteroid, and act as a stepping stone for more ambitious missions to Mars and the MFY settlements located there.
At an impromptu press conference, the President stated that a successful mission would be “tremendous, a very great, enormous, achievement for American space-faring technology and capability, and greatly significant.”
However, when reminded by reporters that other countries had supplied the key components of the booster rockets, and the mission itself was a combined effort by all the international space agencies, due to Republican de-funding of American space exploration, President Chump responded by declaring this was an example of the kind of fake news which bedevilled his administration. After calling into question the intelligence and integrity of the reporter who made the statement, President Chump ended the press conference by turning off the microphone and striding from the room.
“Look here, Chump, you fluffed your talking points again!” Smith emphasised the last word by thumping his hand on the desk, which made Chump jump in alarm. He still wasn’t used to subordinates like the General telling him what to do and telling him off when he diverged from his script. “This mission is now going to fail because you didn’t stay on topic. Luckily it’s not a manned mission, otherwise you would have the blood of the crew on your hands.” The General knew he was laying it all on a bit thick, but he was trying to make a point to the dumb-ass. He knew he had to continually badger Chump until these messages became ingrained in his tiny little mind and he finally managed to comprehend what was required of him.
‘If you had followed instructions like you were supposed to, we’d have made you look like a hero and you could have bathed in the reflected glory of a successful mission. Now you’re going to have to deal with the fallout caused by the failure of a component which just happens to be one of the few pieces of American-made equipment in the whole structure. Because you have acted like an idiot, we need to teach you another lesson, and one you will never forget.” While the General had created the monster, who had morphed into President Chump, the man still frustrated him in many ways. Dealing with him was like dealing with a spoilt child, who only cared about his own self-gratification.
“What do you mean?” Chump demanded. He hadn’t meant to deviate from the talking points he had spent half the day trying to memorise, but that pesky reporter had annoyed him.
“We’ve found someone who with a bit of plastic surgery and a wig will be able to impersonate you well enough. Someone who will follow instructions.”
“You can’t...”
“Can’t what?”
“You can’t replace me with a double. I’m the elected President of the United States.” It was still a sore point with him. Even though he had won the Electoral College votes, his opposition candidate had received several million more votes than he had. He hated to be reminded of it.
“Mr President, you know very well without our backing you would never have become President. We also have a treasure trove of embarrassing information that you don’t want released into the public domain.” The General paused. “You haven’t forgotten what happened to your predecessor, have you?”
“You don’t mean to tell me…”
“Yes. I do. In the end it was for his own good. Mitchell was mentally fatigued.”
This was news to Chump. It hadn’t occurred to him President Mitchell’s demise had been engineered in the same way his elevation to the Presidency had been managed.
“You can’t do this, I’m the President,” Chump repeated petulantly, pining for his own entourage which General Smith had dismissed from the White House. His spiritual advisor always made him feel good and old te
am which he had decisively led from the front never disagreed with or contradicted him.
“What we give, we can take away, but if you promise to be a good boy, we will let you continue. Now, repeat the talking points for your next rally for me.”
Wisneski strolled through The Farm. On their first visit, Bruce had told him that the settlement was based around a homestead Bruce had built soon after he had come to Skid. He knew Bruce hadn’t physically completed most of the building work himself, though he like to think he had.
Bruce had dreamed up the plans for an idyllic home and started ordering building materials to be delivered to the site, so he could live outside the city. By the time he had made his way out to the site again, the house (still the focal point of the settlement today) and a barn-like structure full of equipment had materialised overnight. It was an early insight into the manufacturing and logistics capability of the Skidian industrial complex.
Over time, a larger settlement had developed around the initial structures, and it was now home to a small population of indoSkidians, who came and went as it suited them, and a small group of offworlders or newSkidians, almost all of whom were connected to the MFY program.
“About time you reported in. Where have you been?” Mitchell demanded. “Some new MFYers have been downloaded and they are being a nuisance. I need you to deal with them.”
Wisneski soon established some of the newcomers had had a few drinks and given Mitch a tough time, and now Mitch expected him to put them in their place. In the old days, Mitch used to be able to deal with pesky people and little tin-pot countries by sending in an aircraft carrier or two to intimidate them. But those days were long gone, and Mitch had to find fresh solutions to deal with people who annoyed him.
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