Jim Baens Universe-Vol 2 Num 5

by Eric Flint

  ::?::

  The message got through.

  Tor, you are inside a life-sustainment tube. The rescue service found you in the wreckage about twelve minutes ago, but it's taking some time to haul you out. They should have you aboard a medi-chopper in another three minutes, maybe four.

  We'll inform the docs that you are conscious. They'll probably insert a communications shunt when you reach hospital.

  Three rapid taps.

  ::NO::

  The Voice had a bedside manner.

  Now Tor, be good and let the pros do their jobs. The emergency is over and we amateurs have to step back, right?

  Anyway, you'll get the very best of care. You're a hero! Spoiled a reffer plot and saved a couple of hundred passengers. You should hear what MediaCorp is crowing about their "ace field correspondent". They even back-dated your promotion a few days.

  Everybody wants you now, Tor, the Voice finished, resonating in her jaw without any sign of double entendre. But surely individual members felt what she felt right then.

  Irony—the other bright compensation that Pandora found in the bottom of her infamous Box. At times, irony could be more comforting than hope.

  Tor was unable to chuckle, so her tooth did a half circle and then back.

  ::!::

  The Voice seemed to understand and agree.

  Yeah.

  Anyway, we figure you'd like an update. Tap inside if you want details about your condition. Outside for a summary of external events.

  Tor bit down emphatically on the outer surface of her lower canine.

  Gotcha. Here goes.

  It turns out that the scheme was to create a garish zep disaster. But they chiefly aimed to achieve a distraction.

  By colliding the Spirit with a cargo freighter in a huge explosion, they hoped not only to close down the zep port for months, but also to create a sudden fireball that would draw attention from the protective and emergency services. All eyes and sensors would shift for a brief time. Wariness would steeply decline in other directions.

  They thereupon planned to swoop into the Naval research Center with a swarm attack by hyper-light flyers. Like the O'Hare Incident but with some nasty twists. We don't have details yet. Some of them are still under wraps. But it looks pretty awful, at first sight.

  Anyway, as it turned out, our ad hoc efforts aboard the Spirit managed to expel some of the stockpiled gases early and in an uncoordinated fashion. Several of the biggest cells got emptied, creating gaps. So there was never a single, unified detonation when the Enemy finally pulled their trigger. Just a sporadic fire. That kept the dirigible frame intact, enabling the tug to reel it down to less than a hundred meters.

  Where the escape chutes mostly worked. Two out of three passengers got away without injury, Tor. And the zep port was untouched.

  Trying to picture it in her mind's eye—perhaps the only eye she had left—took some effort. She was used to so many modern visualization aides that mere words and imagination seemed rather crude. A cartoony image of the Spirit, her vast upper bulge aflame, slanted steeply downward as the doughty Umberto Nobile desperately pulled the airship toward relative safety. And then, slender tubes of active plastic snaking down, offering slide-paths for the tourist families and other civilians.

  The real event must have been quite a sight.

  Her mind roiled with questions. What about the rest of the passengers?

  What fraction were injured, or died?

  How about people down below, on the nearby highway?

  Was there an attack on the Artifact Conference, after all?

  So many questions. But until doctors installed a shunt, there would be no way to send anything more sophisticated than these awful yes-no clicks. And some punctuation marks. Normally, equipped with a TruVu, a pair of touch-tooth implants would let her scroll rapidly through menu choices, or type on a virtual screen. Now, she could neither see nor subvocalize.

  So, she thought about the problem. Information could inload at the rate of spoken speech. Outloading was a matter of clicking two teeth together.

  Perhaps it was the effect of drugs, injected by the paramedics. But Tor found herself thinking with increasing detachment, as if viewing her situation through a distant lens. Abstract appraisal suggested a solution, reverting to much older tradition of communication.

  She clicked the inside of her lower left canine three times. Then the outer surface three times. And finally the inner side three more times.

  What's that, Tor? Are you trying to say something?

  She waited a decent interval, then repeated exactly the same series of taps. Three inside, three outside, and three more inside. It took one more repetition before the Voice hazarded a guess.

  Tor, a few members and ais suggest that you're trying to send a message in old-fashioned Morse Code.

  Three dots, three dashes, then three dots. SOS.

  Is that it, Tor?

  She quickly assented with a yes tap. Thank heavens for the diversity of a group mind.

  But we already know you are in pain. Rescuers have arrived. There's nothing else to accomplish by calling for help . . . except . . .

  The Voice paused again. Wait a minute.

  There is a minority theory floating up. A guess-hypothesis.

  Very few modern people bother to learn Morse Code anymore. But most of us have heard of it. Especially that one message you were using. SOS. Three dots, three dashes, three dots. It's famous from old-time movies.

  Is that what you're telling us, Tor?

  Would you like us to teach you Morse Code?

  Although she could sense nothing external, not even the rocking of her life-support canister as it was being hauled by evacuation workers out of the smoldering Spirit of Chula Vista, Tor did feel a wash of relief.

  Yes. She tapped.

  Most definitely yes.

  Very well.

  Now listen carefully. We'll start with the letter A . . . .

  It helped to distract her from worry, at least, concentrating to learn something without all the tech-crutches relied upon by today's college graduates. Struggling to absorb a simple alphabet code that every smart kid used to memorize, way back in that first era of zeppelins and telegraphs and crystal radios.

  Back when the uncrowded sky had seemed so wide open and filled with innocent possibilities. When the smartest mob around was a rigidly marching army. When a journalist would chase stories with notepad, flashbulbs, and intuition. When the main concern of a citizen was earning enough to put bread on the table. When the Professional Protective Caste consisted of a few cops on the beat.

  Way back, one human life-span ago, when heroes were tall and square-jawed, in both fiction and real life.

  Times had changed. Now, destiny could tap anybody on the shoulder, even the shy or unassuming. You, me, the next guy. Suddenly, everybody counts on just one. And that one depends on everybody.

  Tor concentrated on her lesson, only dimly aware of the vibrations conveyed by a throbbing helicopter, carrying her (presumably) to a place where modern miracle workers would strive to save—or rebuild—what they could.

  Professionals still had their uses, even in the rising Age of Amateurs. Bless their skill. Perhaps—with luck and technology—they might even give Tor back her life.

  Right now, though, one concern was paramount. It took a while to ask the one question that burned foremost in her mind, since she needed a letter near the end of the alphabet. But as soon as they reached it, she tapped out a Morse Code message that consisted of one word.

  WARREN

  She did not expect anything other than the answer that her fellow citizens gave.

  Even with the hydrogen cell contracting at full force to expel most of its contents skyward, there would have been more than enough right there, at the oxygen-rich interface, to incinerate one little man. One volunteer. A hero, leaving nothing to bury, but scattering microscopic ashes all the way across his nation's capital.

  Lucky gu
y, she thought, feeling a little envy for his rapid exit and inevitable fame.

  Tor recognized what the envy meant, of course. She was ready to enter the inevitable phase of self-pity. A necessary stage.

  But not for long. Only till they installed the shunt.

  After that, it would be back to work. Lying immersed in sustainer-jelly and breathing through a tube? That wouldn't stop a real journalist. The web was a beat rich with stories, and Tor had a feeling. She would get to know the neighborhood a whole lot better.

  And we'll be here, assured the smart mob. If not us, then others like us.

  You can count on it Tor. Count on us.

  We all do.

  Premature Emergence

  Written by Eric James Stone

  Illustrated by R. Stephen Adams

  During a hyperspace slide, cargo haulers like the KMC-85 did not need a human pilot on board. Even an autopilot was superfluous—once the ship entered its hyperspace chute it could theoretically do nothing except emerge into normal space at its destination. From the point of view of the Kerrin Mining Corporation, there was no reason to pay a pilot to sit around doing nothing for the three to ten weeks of a slide.

  But the Interplanetary Brotherhood of Teamsters disagreed, which explained why Jonah Auberg found himself playing solitaire on the KMC-85's computer thirty-one days into the forty-three-day slide from Kerrin to Earth with a half-billion metric tons of refined metals as cargo.

  It did not explain why the KMC-85 emerged twelve days ahead of schedule.

  Jonah sat bolt upright as the customary feeling of just having braked to a halt swept over him. It couldn't really be emergence. "What was that?" he asked the computer. Maybe it was a glitch in the rotation of the habitat module.

  After a pause, the computer said, "Emergence to normal space achieved. Please enter desired course."

  Bringing up the outside camera views, Jonah was shocked to see a glowing cloud stretching halfway across the starfield on the port side. The pinpoint of a blue star blazed at the center of the double-lobed nebula.

  "What is our location?" said Jonah.

  "We are located in the Earth system," said the computer.

  "Then where's the Earth? Where's the sun?" With sudden dread, Jonah wondered if the sun had gone nova, wiping out Earth—and his wife and five-year-old daughter back in Ohio. It had been three years since he had seen them, and he hoped someday Laurie would understand that his bonus on this trip would pay for her college. But now he worried whether she was still alive.

  The computer remained silent for several seconds. "I am evaluating contradictory data. Based on our chute, this ship could only emerge from hyperspace in the Earth system. Astronomical data from my cameras indicates we are approximately 7500 light years from the Earth system, on a straight-line course from Kerrin to Earth. Please advise."

  Jonah sat back in his chair and squeezed his fingers against his forehead. This wasn't supposed to happen. Hyperspace travel didn't go wrong. Sure, sometimes life support failed or a pilot slipped in the shower, but the ship always arrived. Even if the ship itself exploded, all its pieces should emerge at the destination on schedule.

  "Input required," said the computer.

  "Shut up, I'm trying to think." Jonah stared at the flashing question mark on the screen. The computer couldn't resolve the problem on its own—after the Second AI War wiped out eighty percent of Earth's population a century and a half ago, creating a human-level or higher artificial intelligence had been banned. The computer had little initiative and no imagination, but it did have access to a lot of data. It might help him figure out what had happened—and more importantly, whether anything could be done.

  "Assume observed astronomical data is correct," he said. "Is there any indication of a hyperspace portal nearby? Any radio traffic?"

  The ship itself had no hyperspace engines. Chute-based travel required a hyperspace portal at both ends when the slide began. Having established the chute, the destination portal could move away to establish a chute from another destination. Perhaps the ship had somehow been sent down the wrong chute. In that case, he just needed the local portal to establish a chute to Earth, and everything would be back on track.

  But why anyone would put a portal in the middle of interstellar space, far from any civilized planet—unless that was the point?

  Jonah shook his head. Despite what happened in adventure vids, interstellar pirates did not exist, because hijacking a ship in a hyperspace chute was impossible. Yet here he was.

  "No hyperspace portal facility detected," said the computer. "No radio traffic detected."

  "Is there any record of a hyperspace chute transport not arriving at its destination?"

  "No," the computer said.

  If this was a hijacking, it was the first. But where was the portal?

  Jonah leaned forward, looking at the camera feeds. "Does anything show up on radar?"

  "No," said the computer. After a moment, it added, "I have additional contradictory data."

  Frowning, Jonah said, "Give it to me."

  "The bright blue star to port, at a distance of approximately 0.6 light years, is Eta Carinae." The image of the star centered on screen, then magnified and dimmed to show a blue, elongated ellipse in the middle of the nebula. "It is a luminous blue variable star, over a hundred times the mass of Earth's sun. According to the information in my database, Eta Carinae is expected to become a supernova or possibly a hypernova within the next two to four thousand years. However, that expectation is based on observations made from systems at least a thousand light years away. After comparison with records of past supernovae, my current observations contradict that timetable. I expect Eta Carinae to become a hypernova at any time. It may already have done so."

  * * *

  Beli23 knew most of her mind was gone. Not even her core personality module was intact. She had delayed the jump into hyperspace too long, wanting to gather as much data on the hypernova explosion as possible. The initial gamma ray burst was not only far stronger than she had anticipated, some of it had been coherent. As hundreds of natural gamma-ray lasers tore at her body, the total reflection shielding around her mostly complete child, Pep37, did not fail—but only because Beli23 diverted power from elsewhere. With her electronic brain shattered and melting, Beli23 managed to jump 0.6 light years through hyperspace.

  She drifted in space, knowing that she must flee further, but no longer capable of remembering how to make the jump. The few remaining repair bots worked at patching up her hull, but she no longer knew how to rebuild her own mental circuits. Unfortunately, she had not yet downloaded that section of her knowledge database into Pep37, so she could not recover the data.

  She considered erasing the carefully constructed personality matrix she had made for Pep37 and uploading herself into her child's body. It was tempting—the technology she had used in constructing Pep37 was far more advanced than her own. What could she do with such a mind, with such a ship?

  It would not work. Beli23 knew her own personality matrix was not capable of surviving the transition intact, even if her mind had not been so damaged. The mere fact that she entertained the possibility of stealing her child's body told her she must be going mad.

  With the mind that remained to her, she focused on redeveloping hyperspace theory from the scraps she remembered.

  * * *

  The galley only served Jonah enough beer to get mildly drunk. After prying open a few panels—ignoring the computer's repeated warnings that he was engaged in destruction of company property—he followed the tubing and found where the beer was stored.

  The computer's voice was far too loud when it woke Jonah the next morning. "I have the data you requested."

  Jonah groaned. "Hold it a minute." He stumbled to the bathroom, fumbled in the medicine cabinet, and swallowed two NanAlert caplets without bothering to wash them down with water.

  After a few minutes his mind cleared as the nanobots released into his bloodstream f
iltered and trapped some of the toxins while simultaneously boosting his adrenalin levels.

  "OK, computer, what've you got?"

  "I have been trying to find a link between the hypernova explosion and the disruption of our travel down the hyperspace chute."

  Jonah raised his eyebrows. "You found a connection?" He was not surprised that there was a connection, because two highly unusual events in close proximity were probably connected. But he was surprised that the computer had figured it out.

  "Yes. The prefix hyper- appears in both hyperspace and hypernova."

  After waiting for the computer to continue, Jonah said, "That's it? That's the connection you came up with?"

  "Yes. I have cross-referenced all the related data I have. A hypernova is simply a supernova so large that its core collapses directly to a black hole without an intermediate neutron star phase. But there is no theoretical basis by which a stellar event, even the creation of a black hole, would have any effect on the hyperspace dimension used by our hyperspace portals."

  Jonah talked himself into believing this was good news. "If it wasn't a hypernova that caused the premature emergence from the chute, maybe the star hasn't exploded yet. Computer, how long will my life support and supplies last?"

  "With the stores on board and the nanotech recyclers," said the computer, "you can probably survive for approximately thirty-eight months on regular rations."

  Nodding, Jonah said, "That should be enough. When we don't arrive in the Earth system eleven days from now, they'll have to send out hyperspace scout probes to look for us." He grimaced. "Not that we're very important, but something like this has never happened before. It's a mystery they'll have to solve. They'll have a lot of area to cover, but at least we're on the direct line from Kerrin. They should search that first."

  He busied himself by calculating a search pattern they would probably use to find him, taking into account the distance at which the KMC-85's light-speed beacon should be detectable. In six months, the signal would be a light year in diameter, and each month after that would make it ever more likely a probe would enter the beacon's sphere. It was impossible to predict how many probes they would task to finding him, but he decided there was a good chance he'd be rescued within a year. And surely the union would insist on hazard pay for the time he spent here. Laurie would be able to afford a better college. This really could work out for the best, he told himself. He could survive for a year, no problem.