My Sweet Satan

by Peter Cawdron

  The L1 provided more details on the capture.

  ::Complex organics also detected on board, primarily forming molecules from low mass elements but with molecular chains extending into the millions. Mostly variations on elements with an electron matrix of 1, 2:2:2, 2:2:3 & 2:2:4. Trace elements of metals with a mass below a hundred can be found, but the focus is on those with an electrical configuration below 2:2:6:8 at a ratio of 100:1::

  Well, that made sense, thought Praz. The chemical bonds between atoms with an electrical charge of 1, 2:2:2, 2:2:3 & 2:2:4 were the most prolific and tended toward increasing complexity when self-assembling molecules evolved independently on both Zooz and Arcti.

  ::Clarification on lock breach?::

  ::Intruder active in docking bay five::

  ::Active???::

  No sooner had Praz articulated that thought than he provided clearance to wake Sasha, regardless of her 41% overhead on the current energy cycle. As Sasha came online, Praz began examining the L1 logs and saw the intruder had collided with the Arc Explorer after the capture of the strange vessel. The intruder was wearing a primitive reaction propulsion system, using compressed gas as a propellant.

  The dock was designed for exploration vessels and the L1 had mistaken the intruder for a maintenance drone. Under normal conditions, the L1 operational protocol would have never opened the iris, but as the Arc was running on emergency power, most of the sensors were offline. No one expected an intruder. There hadn’t been any consideration given to the possibility of being boarded by an alien.

  Sasha picked up on what was happening even quicker than Praz.

  ::What is she doing?::

  Praz didn’t verbalize anything in response to Sasha’s assumption that the alien would somehow equate to Zoozii notions of gender. It was natural for Sasha to personify the alien as female, he thought, given her background, and perhaps there was some validity to the concept. Several L1 constructs working on the salvage of the alien craft had come across bodies and had identified two anatomical types among the corpses, so there was a 50/50 chance the intruder broadly equated to what the Zoozii considered female.

  What is she doing? It was only then Praz realized Sasha was asking his opinion about the intruder. L5s had all the answers. They were the librarians, the pinnacle of artificial knowledge and wisdom. They didn’t ask L4s for guidance. Praz understood Sasha’s processing speed meant she’d already reviewed his logs. There had been no criticism, no second-guessing. Her acceptance of his decision making process was strangely satisfying. Praz felt empowered. What was the intruder doing? That was a good question.

  ::Exploring—I’m detecting an outbound transmission. There’s a verification signal coming back from what must be a nearby booster, a relay. She must be recounting what she sees to her home planet::

  ::But she must know she will die::

  ::Yes. The suit she wears cannot sustain such a frail life form for long::

  ::What do we know about them, Praz?::

  We? Praz was surprised by Sasha. There was nothing he knew that she didn’t already have access to. He was sure she had scanned the records, yet she wanted to hear from him. Before he could respond, she added an afterthought.

  ::Salvaging their knowledge store was a good call. I’ve set a number of L3 processes to analyze their storage devices. They appear to use binary rather than analog processes, but we should be able to pattern match and draw some parallels::

  Sasha was attributing too much to Praz. He’d meant only to salvage the physical ship, to strip the vessel for materials and energy. He hadn’t given any thought to what they could learn. He suspected Sasha knew that, but she was being surprisingly gracious. He understood she was intrigued by the boldness of the intruder. There was no possible way the intruder could represent a threat. The L5 would have known that. She seemed to be toying with both Praz and the intruder.

  Praz didn’t know quite how to respond. He was still thinking about her first question, what do we know about them, when Sasha continued.

  ::We’re deciphering some of the content. Rather than using electron matrices to identify elements they use arbitrary names. Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen for 1, 2:2:2, 2:2:3 & 2:2:4::

  Praz was enjoying this. She had elevated him to a peer. He felt he had to say something intelligent.

  ::That must make calculating the various possible chemical compounds difficult::

  ::Indeed::

  What did they know about this intruder? Praz watched as the intruder drifted down the tunnel leading to the spine of the craft and the control column.

  ::They have bilateral symmetry mirroring each side of their bodies, with a distinct asymmetry defining lower and upper halves. The lower limbs appear vestigial. No, wait. I think the lack of use we’re seeing indicates that they’re adapted for life in a gravity well. They haven’t reengineered themselves for life in space as we have::

  ::And?::

  ::And their dominant sense is light, the detection of photons, but only in a limited portion of the spectrum. Our intruder didn’t notice the markings in the dock. I would imagine she would have paused to investigate them if she’d seen them. She turns her head to direct her gaze through the transparent portion of her helmet, so yes, I think there’s sight, but only in a small sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum::

  ::Interesting. Can you prove your theory?::

  ::Yes::

  As the intruder entered the spine, Praz began rolling the control panel indicators through different portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. As soon as he caught the intruder’s eye he stopped.

  ::She sees that::

  ::Yes, she does::

  Praz examined the intruder in more detail.

  ::Patches of her suit reflect the same light band. L2 decoding has identified the terms used as red, white and blue. It seems their sense of sight distinguishes different frequencies with entirely different characteristics even though they’re merely part of the same continuum::

  ::Interesting::

  Praz watched as the intruder examined a Zoozii corpse.

  Sasha spoke.

  ::What do you think she sees?::

  Praz understood what Sasha was asking. She didn’t want to know what the intruder was physically looking at as she could see that for herself, but rather she wanted him to infer what the intruder thought about the sight before her.

  ::Heartache::

  Sasha was quiet, so Praz continued.

  ::She’s alone … As you noted, she must know she will die here. And all she sees around her is death. She’s intelligent. She’s looking for life, but she finds none. I think she is sad::

  Sasha spoke softly.

  ::I think so too::

  Praz had an idea.

  ::We should show her::

  ::The seeds?::

  ::Yes. She transmits to others. If we show her, we show them that there is hope::

  Sasha was quiet. She seemed genuinely surprised by the notion.

  ::How?::

  In asking, she had deferred to him again. Praz grew in confidence.

  ::We could construct a Zoozii replica. It wouldn’t be real, but it would look real enough … No, that would probably scare her. Being bi-symmetrical, we have no way of knowing how she’d interpret a creature with deca-symmetry. It would probably terrify her. No, we should show her something familiar. If we replicate her own form, she will follow out of curiosity rather than fear::

  Praz expected to have his idea shot down. The energy expenditure on such a construct would be horrendous.

  ::Do it::

  Sasha’s words were telling. In giving him approval to set the L0 nanobots to build such a puppet, Sasha was effectively shutting down the option of waking any of the other L4s or L5s. In the same way as he’d skirted around waking her, she was in danger of overstepping her authority. Such a step was unprecedented, and with energy reserves falling, such mimicry was an outlandish expenditure. And yet, they’d learn so much from the encounter. They ha
d already harvested a trove of information from the primitive ship’s computer systems. That harvest would take several L5s to decipher. Then there was the physical material and the fissile heavy metals that could power at least part of the Arc Explorer. This, though, was an opportunity to study one of the aliens up close. Praz understood they could learn far more from reviewing the subtleties of this creature’s responses than they could ever infer from the dissection of corpses or the analysis of binary data.

  The construct was easy to form using a basic 3D replication process. Praz positioned the replica well away from the intruder, not wanting to scare her.

  ::She sees it::

  Several background L2 processes updated their dictionary references and Praz recognized the intruder as Jasmine Holden from the Copernicus. She was an astronaut, to use what they’d come to learn of human nomenclature. The name on her spacesuit read Jazz, and he understood this was a diminutive form of Jasmine, dropping some letters while employing others not found in the original name.

  He watched as Jazz called out to their replica.

  Sasha spoke.

  ::Look at the physiological response. Her temperature has risen. Respiration has increased. Heart rate has almost doubled::

  She hadn’t said as much, but Praz understood Sasha was affirming his decision to send in an astronaut rather than a Zoozii replica.

  Praz directed the replica to the seed chamber and waited.

  ::She panics::

  Jazz lost control of her MMU and careered into the wall before regaining control and heading down the tunnel after the replica.

  Praz felt clumsy. There was nothing more to be done. As it was, he was pushing the bounds of what could be done with the replica. He wished he could do more to settle Jasmine’s nerves. He didn’t want to scare her. He understood she was going to die. L2 processes had already used spectrography to analyze the composition of gases within her helmet and had detected the oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange associated with her breathing. It was simple to realize that waste products would be toxic, and the rising levels of carbon dioxide caused him some concern. She was clearly losing her presence of mind. Death would come soon. Praz didn’t vocalize his concerns to Sasha. Having access to the same information, he knew she had probably arrived at the same conclusion.

  Neither of them seemed to be able to articulate why they felt so strongly about interacting with Jasmine. Perhaps it was because of the long millennia of isolation, the hopelessness, the boredom. Jazz had brought them to life. Her derelict ship gave them hope, and so to abandon her to die alone felt cruel.

  They watched as Jazz approached the astronaut replica.

  ::She’s so expressive. There’s so much emotion::

  Praz agreed, watching intently as fear faded from the astronaut’s face and laughter flourished. Praz mirrored each action, reflecting the same flush beneath the skin, the soft glint in the eye, any muscular reflexes in the forehead and cheeks, the smile and white teeth.

  ::She sees we are playful::

  Sasha disagreed.

  ::Not us, she thinks she sees herself in a mirror. Oh, wait. Look at the respiration change, the flush. She understands now. She’s sees that this is a replica::

  ::Can we commune with her?::

  Praz had spoken rashly. He knew the limitations of the Arc Explorer in her damaged state. That any of the internal systems still worked at all was a surprise, let alone what they’d managed to repair. This kind of interaction just wasn’t possible on a crippled starship.

  ::Not without semantic analysis of her language. We’d need a bank of L5s::

  ::Can we try?::

  ::The best we could do at the moment would be simple pattern matching. We could confuse her quite easily and make things worse::

  Praz had the nanobots simulate motion, instructing them to hold their form while flexing with the same dexterity he had observed by reaching out as though they would touch her. He had them stop just short of an imaginary plane between him and her, hoping that would be symbolic of peace, as a physical gesture of two minds meeting.

  The gloved hand held still before Jazz. Her heart rate continued to soar. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Slowly, she reached up and touched at the replica.

  ::See how she speaks. I do not think she is speaking just for the transmission. I think she speaks to us::

  Using invisible lasers directed at the glass visor on her helmet, Praz and Sasha were able to detect the fine vibrations as Jazz spoke.

  ::She plays the emergency distress beacon, but why?::

  ::She does not know. They heard us, but they did not understand::

  ::Reverse the signal and play it in its native format, as we first heard it. Let her hear and she will understand::

  Jazz listened intently for a few minutes and then played a second portion of the beacon. Again, Praz played the corresponding original message, hoping she would understand. Sasha spoke.

  ::Show her the seeds::

  Praz brought up the lighting in the chamber, shifting the frequency to a level that corresponded with the markings on the astronaut’s space suit.

  Jasmine’s eyes widened. She whispered something briefly. Her heart rate slowed. Her breathing was shallow. Sasha said what Praz didn’t want to admit.

  ::She’s dying::

  From the vantage point of the replica, Praz looked deep into Jasmine’s eyes. Such intelligence glistened from beneath the glass visor. She was strangely accepting of her fate, almost gracious in resigning herself to the eternal darkness. Wisps of stray hair floated beside her face, but she didn’t care. For her, life was complete. He watched in silence as pain stabbed at her, no doubt the effects of carbon dioxide poisoning. She winced, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. Anguish stretched across her face.

  Sasha spoke.

  ::She is in pain::

  Praz couldn’t speak. Watching an intelligent, caring alien species in its death throes was too much for him. He’d seen the crew of the Arc Explorer perish, but this was different. Death should not have such a hold on life, he thought, and yet it does. Death always wins.

  As the light faded and the chamber was plunged back into the cold darkness, Praz instructed the replica to beckon Jasmine forward. Mimicking her means of propulsion, but without actually expending any compressed gas, Praz had the replica head to the assembly point within the chamber.

  ::What are you doing?::

  ::Saving her::

  ::WHAT??? You can’t::

  Praz didn’t respond.

  Sasha sounded angry.

  ::We have no idea of the energy overhead required to sustain such a life form. Its metabolism is a mystery. The complexities of sustaining such a creature are completely unknown. Its oxygen requirement seems simple enough, but look at the cellular complexity, the sodium-ion gates and intercellular signaling mechanisms. Even if we could reverse-engineer some form of sustenance and manage waste products, how long would she last? Just how long do you think you could sustain her? And at what cost to the Arc?::

  Praz ignored Sasha, commenting on Jasmine's transmission.

  ::I have to draw her in further. Her broadcast is weak. I can block it if she follows deeper. The others will not understand. It is better they do not know::

  As Jasmine drifted forward, he busied himself scanning the analysis results from the L2 processes assimilating the computing equipment and corpses they’d found on the Copernicus.

  Sasha continued to speak as Jasmine followed the replica to the assembly wall.

  ::And there’s environmental considerations. We have no idea what is required to keep her healthy. Initial analysis of those corpses shows symbiotic relationships with thousands of unrelated microscopic species, these would be both on her skin and in her gut. This is going to require more than just cellular engineering and replication. It’s just not possible::

  Praz thought for a moment before replying.

  ::No, it’s not possible. L2 processes have achieved cell division using material from one of
the corpses. From what the L2 can determine, composite creatures like Jasmine undergo mitosis hundreds of millions of times a second. Sustaining life under these conditions requires astonishing precision. Their biology must have been honed by selective pressures that span billions of generations::

  ::You’re agreeing with me then? It’s impossible::

  Sasha was confused.

  Praz replied ::Yes::

  He didn’t know precisely how he would save Jasmine, but he knew he had to try. He understood that Jazz could have given up and died along with the rest of her crew, but she hadn’t. She had fought to make contact and had ensured a record of her contact had made it back to her home world. Praz admired her resolve. He wasn’t willing to give up on her. He couldn't watch her die. There had to be some way they could help. He grasped at the threads of an idea and knew enough that it would shock both Sasha and whoever was receiving her transmission. It was important to cut her communication.

  ::Look past the biology. Look past the components. This creature—no, not creature. This human. Jazz. Jasmine. She is more than the sum of her parts. Like the Zoozii, she is more than the body she inhabits::

  ::You want to freeze her? Capture her quantum states?::

  Neither of them spoke for a moment. Praz didn’t want to admit the impossibility of what he was suggesting, and it seemed Sasha was still running the numbers.

  ::There are 2.9 x 10^27 atoms in her body. The quantum state possibilities would be at least (10^14)(10^27)^27. Even if the Arc Explorer was fully functional, we couldn’t store such information::

  ::We don’t need to::

  Sasha remained silent as Praz explained his thinking.

  ::These humans are made of trillions of tiny machines. Each cell is a factory forming one minuscule part of a larger section that works together to form the whole. Look at the cellular differentiation. Using their terminology, there are cells that comprise muscle fibers, nerves, veins, skin, bones and a variety of different organs for regulating life, but they all share the exact same code base containing hundreds of millions of chemical pairings. At the heart of each cell is the same instruction set. It’s tempting to think this is grossly inefficient, but it provides an astonishing degree of biological redundancy. Each cell contains the blueprint for the whole creature. You could construct an entire body from the information contained in a single cell, and once you realize that, our calculation has been radically simplified::