Twelve Tomorrows - Visionary stories of the near future inspired by today's technologies

by Neal Stephenson

  Someone else might have dismissed this as one of life’s little mysteries, perhaps an act of his subconscious mind, but Terry didn’t. He’d never been religious or had any mystical beliefs, but this strange little incident disturbed his worldview. All of a sudden, the rational, cause-and-effect universe he’d always accepted as a given was no longer quite the same. He began to wonder if there was something out there—if not God, then at least a presence, intangible yet omnipresent—that occasionally manifested itself in subtle ways. It was a startling notion, this line of thought, and after a while it began to obsess him.

  Until then, his teachers considered Terry to be something of a prodigy, a student whose gifts were unusual even for MIT. As the winter semester went along, though, his grades began to slide, his work becoming haphazard and careless. He started skipping classes, sometimes failing to show up for weeks on end. Warnings were given and ignored; classmates became concerned, but Terry rejected their attempts to help him. He told me in his e-mail that he’d begun to suspect that he’d spent his life on a treadmill, pursuing goals that now seemed empty. Terry was questioning the meaning of his existence in a fundamental way.

  One afternoon, during a lecture, Terry got up and left, leaving his pad and t-book on his desk. Everyone assumed that he’d simply gone to the restroom, but he never came back. When his roommate returned to the dorm, he discovered that Terry’s dresser drawers were open, his duffel bag missing.

  With that, Terry Koenig abandoned his former life and disappeared.

  It wasn’t until his parents got a phone call from the dean of students’ office that they found he’d dropped out of MIT. By then, Terry had cleaned out his bank account and ditched his wristband somewhere ...

  probably the Charles River, because its GPS signal ended on the Longfellow Bridge.

  He told no one where he was going, yet he didn’t completely vanish. Over the next three years, I occasionally heard from him. Now and then, I’d find a postcard in my mailbox or receive e-mail sent from a public computer. They came from places as near as Chattanooga or as distant as Vancouver: just a few words, telling me that he’d gotten a temp job as a busboy or a convenience store clerk, or that he was living in a fleabag motel or a homeless shelter.

  At one point he was in a commune in Vermont, cohabitating with a number of other spiritual seekers. He got a girlfriend while he was there; he sent me her picture, a doe-eyed teenager with unwashed hair. Another e-mail attachment was a video: shaky, unfocused images of pale November sunlight filtering through bare tree branches, narrated by Terry’s rambling, hollow voice: Time is dying, and autumn is the face of entropy. He must have been high when he did this, and that alone was disturbing; the old Terry loathed drugs.

  No address or job lasted very long; he’d eventually move on, still searching for something he couldn’t quite define. He never responded to any of the letters or e-mails I sent him, so I don’t know if he even got them, let alone pay attention to my pleas for him to come home and get help.

  This went on for a while, and then I didn’t hear from him again for nearly two years. By then I’d graduated from college, gotten a job in advertising, and pretty much written off Terry as a high school friend who’d gone off the deep end. I had forgotten him almost entirely when I received a handwritten letter from him.

  Terry had joined the Heliotropic Congregation.

  Before the Jove Zephyr tragedy, few people had heard of them. Which isn’t a surprise; fringe cults often don’t make themselves visible until they manifest their weirdness in some public way. I can only speculate about how Terry met them; it’s possible that he might have first heard about the Congregation while living on the commune. In any case, sometime in the last couple of years he’d become a member.

  The Congregation was the creation of Dr. Hermann Sneed, a former NASA astrophysicist who’d lost his job when the space agency was dismantled. Somewhere along the line, Dr. Sneed also lost his mind; he became a practitioner of a system of beliefs that merged loony-tunes mysticism with crackpot pseudoscience—and formed an organization to foster his theories.

  According to Dr. Sneed, the galaxy was inhabited by an unseen super-race that had existed long before humankind. These extraterrestrials, which he called the Heliotropes, possessed technology so advanced that they’d practically become gods. No longer dependent upon corporal bodies, the Heliotropes had sent their transcendental spirits into the cosmos, where they searched for worlds where lesser races had begun to evolve. Because the Heliotropes relied on solar energy, they took up residence near stars, hence their name … which, incidentally, has little to do with its dictionary definition.

  Because the Heliotropes were benign, they were interested in helping emergent races achieve higher states of existence. Yet the Heliotropes did so in subtle and unseen ways; they preferred to operate in secret, unobtrusively guiding individuals whom they considered to be crucial.

  In his letter, Terry told me that he was living in the Congregation’s “spiritual retreat” in South Dakota, where he was assisting Dr. Sneed in his efforts to make contact with the Heliotropes. I’m happy, he said. With my teacher’s help, I’ve found the spiritual clarity that I’ve been searching for all these years. He now understood that what happened on Mass. Ave. was the act of an omniscient force looking out for him, and that he was destined for a role in some great cosmic plan.

  As soon as I received the letter, I got in touch with Terry’s father. His mother had died a year ago, and although his dad was disturbed to learn what had become of his son, he was glad to hear that he was still alive. Terry had invited me to visit him, so we decided to fly to South Dakota and see if we could convince him to leave the cult and come home.

  The Congregation’s spiritual retreat was a four-acre compound about forty miles west of Pierre, a collection of rusting trailer homes and prefab sheds surrounded by a barbed-wire fence; a sixty-foot radio antenna rose from the center of the camp. Terry met us at the gate along with the two other cult members. He was almost unrecognizable; even skinnier than he’d been before, he’d had his hair cut close to the scalp and grown a beard that extended halfway to his chest. Like his escorts, he wore shapeless white pajamas and sandals. Eyeglasses had replaced his i-lenses, and he’d apparently never acquired a new wristband.

  Terry wouldn’t let us come any closer than the gate, and we were only able to speak to him for about fifteen minutes before the other cultists ushered him away. It was obvious that he now belonged to the cult, body and soul. All Terry wanted to talk about was how wonderful his life had become now that he was with “his family” and that we need not worry about him. The eerie, empty smile on his face never disappeared, not even when his father told him that his mother had passed away. His dad was still trying to persuade him to leave the compound, if only for a few minutes, when someone began to pound a drum from somewhere within the circle of trailers. Terry told us that he had to go—it was time for their midday communion, whatever that was—but before he left, I managed to get him to promise that he’d stay in touch, no matter what.

  On the way back to the airport, his father and I discussed the possibility of hiring someone to abduct Terry and deprogram him. I think we would have done it, too, if we’d had the chance. We didn’t know that we’d never see him again; the next time I heard from Terry, he was aboard the Jove Zephyr.

  However, he kept his promise.

  When ConSpace formed a partnership with the Pax Astra to establish helium-3 mining operations in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, the company built two interplanetary freighters to travel back and forth between Earth and Callisto Station. Next to the He-3 aerostats themselves, this was the most expensive part of the operation. The Tycho Brahe and the Medici Explorer were immense vessels, each 185 feet in length and powered by gas-core nuclear engines; a round trip typically took seventeen months.

  At first, this seemed to be an efficient means of getting Jovian He-3 to the tokamaks of Earth, but events conspired to make it otherwis
e. After the Tycho Brahe was lost in the asteroid belt, the Medici Explorer became the sole means of cargo transport between Earth and Jupiter. Then political revolution in the Pax Astra resulted in its democratic government being overthrown and a corrupt monarchy rising in its place; one of Queen Macedonia’s first acts was the annulment of previous contracts with Earth-based corporations, including ConSpace. And finally, the Pax started making claims to Callisto Station and threatened to intercept and board the Medici Explorer if it came near Jupiter again.

  ConSpace originally intended to build two more Brahe-class freighters as the Explorer’s sister ships. Clearly, a faster vessel was needed to make the Jupiter run unmolested. In recent years, the company had been experimenting with interplanetary laser propulsion. A pilot program to send beamships between the moon and the near-Earth asteroid 2010 TK7 had been successful, so it was decided that a new class of freighters would replace the older nuclear spacecraft.

  The Jove Zephyr was the first of its kind. It was 150 feet long, with a dry mass of five metric kilotons, and its principal means of propulsion was a parachute-like solar sail 3,000 square feet in diameter, suspended by carbon-filament cables from the outrigger spars of the freighter’s Y-shaped hull.

  The initial idea was to use laser projectors on the lunar far side to send the beamship straight to Jupiter, but then it was realized that these lasers would be much more powerful if their solar collectors were closer to the sun. So a large powersat was established in a Lagrange-point orbit near Venus. The flight plan called for the Zephyr to depart from Earth orbit, deploy its sail, then orient it at such an angle that the solar wind would carry the vessel on a transfer trajectory to Venus. This would be the longest part of the trip, taking nearly six months to complete, but once the Zephyr reached Venus, it would slingshot around the planet, intercept the powersat’s beam, and then be sent on a high-velocity trip to Jupiter. Once the ship left Venus, the transit time to Callisto would be less than six weeks, provided the launch window occurred during planetary conjunctions between Earth, Venus, and Jupiter.

  The Zephyr had successfully made its maiden voyage already through the asteroid belt too fast for Pax ships to match course with it. Its cargo included the equipment necessary to build another powersat in a Trojan orbit near Jupiter for the return trip. For its second voyage, it was slated to carry passengers along with its four-person crew: eight men and women, recently hired by ConSpace to replace the miners on Callisto Station and who would make the journey in biostasis.

  No one at ConSpace was aware that these replacements belonged to the Heliotropic Congregation, or that Jupiter was not their intended destination.

  Since its inception, the Congregation had attempted to reach the Heliotropes. First they tried telepathy, gathering in circles to clasp hands and project their thoughts to any astral beings who might be listening. When that didn’t work, they purchased a radio transmitter and erected the antenna that stood in the midst of their compound; they used this until the FCC cited them for operating an unlicensed broadcast station and confiscated their equipment. They even went so far as to go out into the prairie, drench the grass with gasoline in a half-mile-diameter symbol of a triangle encompassed by a circle, then set it afire in hopes that it would be seen from space.

  Then Dr. Sneed had a revelation. He had no doubt that the Heliotropes were aware of the Congregation. However, because of their reclusive nature, they wouldn’t reveal themselves unless it was absolutely necessary. Therefore, the Congregation’s only recourse would be to put themselves in a situation where the Heliotropes would be forced to step in and save them.

  To accomplish this, though, the Congregation couldn’t remain on Earth. It would have to travel out to where the Heliotropes lived, there to deliberately place themselves in jeopardy and await salvation.

  The cult’s twelve members agreed—no one ever challenged their leader when he had a revelation—and so they went about formulating a plan and carrying it out. No doubt Terry had a lot to do with this. Who better to come up with a scheme to hijack a spacecraft and send it toward the sun?

  It was surprisingly easy for members of the cult to get hired by ConSpace for employment on Callisto Station. Its distance from Earth deterred most off-world job seekers, and the fact that the outpost was being threatened by the Pax Astra made working there even less desirable. The Congregationalists all submitted applications, each and every one under false names and with phony addresses, credentials, and references. Eight were hired, including both Terry and Dr. Sneed; it was eventually learned that ConSpace’s computer system was hacked and all other applications were deleted. The four who weren’t accepted remained in South Dakota while the others reported to ConSpace’s training facility in Texas. Six weeks later, they caught a shuttle to Earth orbit, where they boarded the Jove Zephyr.

  As passengers, the cult members were supposed to spend the entire trip to Jupiter in hibernation. Yet exactly 180 days after the Zephyr departed from Earth, eight biostasis cells injected their occupants with the drugs that would revive them from their long sleep—Terry had probably reprogrammed the zombie tanks to wake them up earlier than scheduled—and a few minutes later Terry and his companions rose from the tanks and left the hibernation compartment.

  We can only speculate about what occurred next.

  Although no one ever heard from the crew again, I’d like to think that Terry didn’t murder anyone. However, he was doubtless responsible for everything that happened next. No one else would have known how to jettison the sail from its spars, reset the navigation system so that the destination coordinates were now -00.-00.-00, or perform a 180-degree turn and fire the auxiliary engine in a prolonged burst that broke the freighter away from its planned trajectory.

  The ship’s transponder, of course, automatically transmitted telemetry regarding the course change to ConSpace’s deep-space tracking network. Within minutes, the communications specialist on duty sent a message to the wayward freighter, requesting an explanation. When no reply was received, she alerted her supervisor, who checked the data and contacted his superiors, and so on up the line until a lot of people had come to the cold realization that something was seriously wrong with the Jove Zephyr.

  There was no word from the Zephyr for several hours after the course change was detected, then ConSpace received a communiqué from the ship. In a message that was both brief and utterly mad, Dr. Sneed informed the company that the Heliotropic Congregation had taken control of the freighter, that it was now heading directly toward the sun, and that it would remain on this trajectory until he and his people made the Heliotropes reveal themselves by forcing them to rescue their most devoted believers. We will stay in touch as we await the glorious moment of first contact with powers greater than our own, his message said. Open your hearts … a new era is being born.

  It might have been funny if it hadn’t been insane.

  You know how the story ends. Most people do; the Jove Zephyr hijacking dominated the news sites for months, and since then it has become legend. But you don’t know what happened to Terry Koenig.

  It quickly became obvious that any attempt to intercept the freighter before it reached the sun would fail. Even if a rescue vessel had been launched from Evening Star, which was then under construction above Venus, it couldn’t have rendezvoused with the Zephyr; the freighter’s velocity was too high, its trajectory too distant. Station personnel could only watch as the freighter streaked past, a tiny comet hurtling sunward.

  Aboard the Zephyr, though, it seemed as if the Congregation was oblivious to their fate. Judging from the transmissions ConSpace regularly received from the freighter, the cultists were delirious with anticipation; they truly believed that all-knowing, all-powerful aliens would soon swoop in to save them. They sent messages to friends and family, telling them not to worry, that everything would be okay.

  Venus is approximately 67 million miles from the sun; it took the Zephyr nearly three months to cross that distance. As the days bec
ame weeks and the weeks became months, communiqués received from the ship became less enthusiastic, more worrisome. When are the Heliotropes going to show themselves? We’re running out of food. We’re low on water. The compartments are getting warm, and no one is sleeping well. Have you seen anything? Is something coming our way?

  The Zephyr crossed the orbit of Mercury, and still there was no sign of the Heliotropes. By then, the messages had become desperate. The Heliotropes aren’t coming! We have to turn back. Can you send a ship to pick us up? Yet those options were no longer available. The sail had been discarded, and too much fuel had been consumed during the trajectory change for the freighter’s engine to pull it free of the sun’s gravity. Rescue had long since been ruled out.

  The Zephyr was falling into the sun; nothing could change that.

  For a while, there was only silence. When communication finally resumed, it came as text-only messages: Our provisions have run out. We can no longer enter the bridge. The Heliotropes don’t exist. We’ve killed Dr. Sneed, and the rest of us are contemplating suicide. More silence, this time even longer. The Zephyr had almost reached the sun’s corona when a final transmission was received:

  I’m sorry, Matt. I screwed up.

  No one knew who sent it, or what it meant, except me.

  In the end, Terry must have realized how wrong he’d been. He might have even tried to turn the ship around, if he’d been able to enter a bridge that had become a furnace. At some point, though, neither intelligence nor technology can resist the forces of nature. I can only hope that he died before the Jove Zephyr was consumed.