by Scott Rhine
Nodding, Zeiss said, “We’ll need someone to guard us if the pilot interface knocks us out like decontamination did, or if enemy robots make it through the lens like they did at the space construction platform.”
“That guard would have been Crandall,” Herk muttered. “Oleander will need to be with the ground team to report back to you guys in an emergency. Risa and the life-support crew should be with the campers. They’ll want me for assembling the shelters. Toby can tell us what’s edible, but you folks will need some kind of doctor here. Yvette or Auckland?”
“Auckland is better with an anti-robot gun, and Yvette does more hiking,” Red said, almost seamlessly. “Pratibha will make a good manager for the colony, and Nadia can set up power for you.” Eight people would stay in the control saucer and the other nine would descend to explore the green bubble. “You guys see if you can extract any food from the alien dining hall. If you can’t, leave us some powdered rations. Divide up the boxes accordingly.” Half the team disappeared into the dining hall.
“Colony?” repeated Yuki. Everyone else stared at her.
Red replied, “Oops. I thought that was obvious. Our target planet is almost thirty light-years away. If we assume a light-speed limit to this craft’s velocity and kick-ass acceleration, the trip there will still take us over thirty years Earth time. That means we’ll have to build a small village. Technically, the thirty years won’t feel that long to us due to time distortion near light speed. From a practical standpoint, though, we don’t know how long this mission is going to take.”
“My rent’s due in a week, and I only found someone to feed my fish through Saturday.”
“We didn’t know for certain that everything would line up for this attempt,” Red explained, “but we didn’t want word leaking outside the team.”
“Wait, I’ve seen the Kepler telescope search tables. Nothing was closer than 125 light-years.”
Red looked at the others, but said nothing.
Mercy had drifted into awareness about the exchange. “She’s on the team now; Yuki saved my life.”
Red replied, “Careful, whatever she hears and sees goes straight to Mori.”
Her face clouding once again, Mercy snapped, “You’re worried about control of the company? I have news for you. If Mori wants what’s left, there’s nothing we can do to stop it. In fact, if we can’t figure out the controls on this alien monstrosity, he’s probably the only one who can save us.”
Red’s tone grew frosty. “If that’s the case, I’d rather stay on the artifact.”
Meekly, Yuki said, “Mori-san said when Z ordered me to do something I should obey, even if I didn’t understand why. He respects the commander greatly, and so do I.”
Zeiss took over the briefing. “Didn’t you think it was strange that the density of planet discoveries went up sharply at that distance and then nothing closer? The others were under security seal. One candidate slipped out at thirteen light-years as part of a paper on red dwarves. Jez had to hire the author and obscure the references on the web.”
“Why are red dwarves important?”
“Approximately 75 percent of the stars in the galaxy are red dwarves. They’re cooler and more stable than other types, meaning a full 6 percent of them have Goldilocks planets, candidates for colonization.”
“Then why did we focus on red giants so much?” asked Mercy.
“Because the aliens use them for navigating,” Zeiss replied. “There seems to be some sort of superhighway between the giants in the subspace below Einstein’s rubber sheet.”
“More like the East Australian Current, a turbo flow,” Red corrected.
Mercy laughed. “You’re still quoting from Finding Nemo? God, how many times did you make us watch that show when we were little? Besides, what difference does that make? The nearest giant, Arcturus, is farther away than our target.”
“Ah, but the currents still pass through . . .”
Yuki ignored the techno-babble and focused her special camera on Sojiro as he slid into a narrow, gel bed under one of the snowflake’s control helmets. As he did so, the room activated, and almost every surface lit with some readout, dials, or buttons. Soon after she clicked the shutter, most of the panels went dim again.
Alert, Zeiss stopped lecturing and noted, “The ship is adapting to him, his gifts. But for a moment, we saw all the controls.” Grabbing the camera from Yuki, he said, “I need to see that photo.”
Yuki’s face became a mask as he fiddled with the device.
“Good resolution, but why is this black-and-white?” he said, thumbing the menu button. “What happened to the other picture?”
Red warned, “Don’t touch any other buttons. She’s terrified of something.”
Mercy looked from the camera to her new friend. “If you want to be a member of this team, I have your back, but you have to tell us everything now. What have you done?”
Had anyone else asked, Yuki probably would’ve lied. Instead, she answered, “I have been sending images and short messages to Mori-san.”
“That’s impossible,” Zeiss said, examining the camera from every angle. It was thicker than popular cameras, but contained no transmitters that he could detect. Yet the next menu item under ‘delete’ was clearly ‘send.’
She showed him the spent cartridge. “When you hit that button, the digital image will be transferred onto the thin layer of quantum-paired material. Each pixel turns on or off a particle and the image appears on its counterpart.”
“Like a Polaroid?” asked Red.
“Quantum communication,” Mercy whispered. “I thought it was too noisy, too unpredictable.”
“For text more than about twenty etched characters, not images,” Yuki admitted. “It has something to do with mimicking a real waveform, not just light.”
Red looked to her husband for a translation.
Zeiss said, “Whatever happens to the layer here also happens to the one in Tokyo.”
The spy nodded.
“That far?” asked Red.
“Theoretically, it transmits over any distance, although the separation and arrangement of entangled particles would be incredibly tedious and costly,” Zeiss said. “This is a variation on my faster-than-light speedometer.”
“Yes. We’ve transmitted from L1 and the UN moon base to Earth with no problems.”
“Why not use radio?”
“This is undetectable and can’t be intercepted or blocked.”
“How many more snapshots do you have after this one?”
“Two. But I have to send that image soon. If Sojiro moves, it will become foggy.”
Memorizing the photo, he added the caption, ‘flying to IP173 to earn ship-Z’ and hit ‘send.’
The women watched him tensely, wondering what he’d do with the news of Yuki’s duplicity. Finally, the Asian woman asked, “What happens to me now?”
Zeiss breathed out. “Our charter says everyone deserves a second chance—redemption through service. Do the job we hired you for. We decide when to use the last two photos. If we catch you holding anything else back, I’ll have you strapped to the bow like one of those female statues, whatever they’re called.”
“A figurehead,” supplied Mercy.
Raising a finger toward Mercy, he replied, “You. If anyone else had asked, I’d have labeled you both spies. I expect you to watch her like a hawk. Now stop sulking and get me a helix.”
“Yes, Z.”
****
Mercy stared at the controls on the wall. In her experience, she could beat her head against a problem like this for a week before it crumbled. However, missiles were streaking toward them at hyper-mach speed, and she wasn’t doing squat. After thirty minutes, she complained, “This is useless.”
Yuki encouraged her. “No. You’re making great strides. You figured out remote configuration only works when the big door is closed.”
“I hit the only button I had, and all it did was undo everything we made outside. I found
the reset button. Whoo hoo, I could be the pin girl in a bowling alley.”
“Pin or pinup?” asked Lou, trying to be charming.
Mercy snorted. “What do you want?”
“Sojiro has locked in the destination for us, but he’s wiped from the effort.”
“Can we survive a nuke?”
“Eh,” he waggled his hand. “If the ground team travels the full two klicks away from the lens and hides under that mountain, sure. However, our chances aren’t too good up here.”
“We have just enough time: we could take apart the Ascension and bring it through the airlock a piece at a time. Herk, Risa, and I could put it back together on this side.”
“Like a Volkswagen in the dean’s office. Cool. Assuming it still works, we could fly the ship around the bubble; it’d be really handy. Only one problem: the door from here to outside isn’t big enough for several of the pieces.”
“Ascension’s shielding would protect us from any radiation. I should at least tell the commander my idea.”
Yuki opened her mouth as if to inject an idea, but Lou talked over her. “Red and Z are recovering from their computational trance in one of the bedrooms.”
“Are they . . .?”
“No, just spooning.”
“What’s that?”
Lou raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
Yuki said, “We call it sokui. It is where the man cradles the woman from behind to warm and reassure her.”
“Like two spoons in a drawer,” explained Lou.
Blushing slightly, Mercy said, “We don’t have time to discuss sexual positions. I have to solve these controls. What do you need?”
Unaccustomed to girls rebuffing him, Lou scratched the back of his neck. “We thought you might climb into the snowflake next. The controls seemed to be based on each person’s specialty. I thought you might continue your success.”
“You just want to get her on a bed,” Yuki joked.
Mercy glanced at the cryptic control panel and then float-bounced over to the snowflake. “Another perspective couldn’t hurt.”
Picking an unused arm of the central controls, she lay on the firm gel, which conformed to her shape much as the toilet seat had. When she tapped the side of the bed, the device slid her toward the center and upward, nestling the helmet over her head. Since she was smaller than Sojiro, only her mouth remained uncovered by the hood. In moments, her view went from blackness to three holograms: the lens orbit around the moon, a wide view of the entire subspace balloon, and a close-up exterior view of the saucer. Affecting the entire ship felt too dangerous. She decided to start small.
Raising her hand, she pointed at the close-up diagram. “Focus on that.” Suddenly, the saucer image filled the helmet, and the other choices rotated behind her ears, just at the edge of her peripheral vision. Scrunching her hands around the edges of the control module, she said, “Make that smaller; zoom out.” She could see the object half-scale, but the commands seemed to pull on her brain like walking with weights on her ankles.
“You’re training the interface?” asked the Japanese man.
“Later,” Mercy said. When she said this, the machine interpreted it as another zoom out, and she could see the model at one-tenth the original size. “Give me a scale.”
The interface gleeped but nothing else happened.
Sojiro said, “You’re trying to do something it can’t—”
Yuki shushed him.
Mercy drew a line from the mountainward edge of the ship to the base of the umbilical. “Dimension line here, black, hairline thickness, units in meters.”
The line appeared but no numbers. Squeezing her fingers together around the command module, she added, “Until calibrated, set this as twenty-five meters. Use English numbering system. Tick marks every ten meters.”
When this happened, she counted the distance from their module to the nearest ground point—120 meters. After staring for a short time, she whispered, “Highlight the domino tiles floating outside the ship.” Mercy held out her hands to the approximate dimension. Several choices appeared, and she pointed at the one she meant. “Domino.” This selection process happened so often, it became second nature.
The choices vanished and hundreds of black lines covered the picture. “In sun yellow.” A spectrum of yellow appeared at the tip of her nose and she pointed with her left finger. “That hue and intensity, hair thickness. Show me a count of dominoes available in the lower left corner.”
Someone slid into the bed next to hers. “Display this image on the bubble overhead where the lens image appears now.”
Mercy could hear several sets of straps shooshing through the room, but no one spoke, lest they interfere with her model.
“Draw a helix in tree green, that one. Let the helix begin at the patio, here,” she pointed. “And end at the nearest ground point, approximately here. Let the slope be approximately thirty-five centimeters down for every meter forward.” Boom, a spiral line appeared. “Narrowest edge facing the umbilical, and overlapping domino edges two centimeters, show me a staircase following that helix. Display the count of dominoes needed in the lower right.” The golden spiral appeared, but the two domino counts differed by about twenty.
“Increase slope by one centimeter.” Then the numbers matched.
Taking a breath, Mercy said, “Implement this placement.”
Gleep. A yellow caution triangle appeared.
“Show me my safe choices for closest implementation.”
Three spirals appeared: steeper steps with one rail seemed the best compromise. She selected it and then made adjustments, reducing the number of tiles by eliminating the overlap. With the excess, she built a few landings for resting places when carrying heavy loads. Her third pass was approved by the interface, and she commanded it to move the dominoes into place—in order, without collision.
Cachunk! The room sounded like a gymnasium where someone was pulling out bleachers. The command pod actually shifted mountainward slightly as dominoes disengaged. “Out the window,” Yvette whispered from the ceiling. “The tiles are swarming like hornets chasing someone who kicked the hive. Arms from the saucer midsection are arranging them all.”
The tuning-fork tone as each tile snapped into place added to this hornet illusion. When the sound-effects stopped, Mercy said, “Save this configuration as default helix. Show this choice as an option on the exterior door control menu: English text, black, one centimeter high. Label previous setting as default patio, same color and size. Reset bubble display to lens view.”
She felt as if she’d been swimming laps for an hour. The interface took a lot of concentration and energy. When Mercy emerged from under the hood, she was hot and sweating. Her hair stuck to the helmet and frizzed. The bright sunlight caused her to wince. Everyone on the team was staring, either at the bubble overhead or her directly. Self-conscious, she looked lensward and attempted to bat her disobedient hair back into place. “What?”
Then Red said, “You kicked ass.” She started clapping. Soon, the entire team gave her a floating ovation.
Everyone poured outside to see the results. Because of her jelly legs, Mercy was the last person to reach the exit. As she flew across the control area, her lab coat rippled behind her.
Red laughed. “Superwoman and her cape.”
“You don’t like it?” Mercy assumed. Girls at her school had been such fashion bullies.
“Just the opposite. My mom used to wear one just like that.”
Mercy replied, “I know. She was one of my heroes in science, and I gushed when I met her. Mrs. Hollis—your mom—gave it to me at work as a welcome. She was very encouraging.” Opening the lab coat, Mercy asked, “Would you like it as a memento?”
After a pause to process the information, Red placed her hand on Mercy’s to prevent her from taking off the lab coat. “No. She gave me billions. This is your gift, your memory. Keep it.”
Mercy had been so worried about pleasing Red the Impossible. Thi
s moment felt like the true welcome to her team; however, the moment was spoiled by her view out the door. The steps spiraled with precision down into the mist . . . but started a full meter from the saucer door. “Oops. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s elegant. It reminds me of a Gaudi staircase,” said Zeiss.
Red must have signaled for him to be nice. This is so embarrassing. “I can fix it while the campers get ready,” Mercy said.
“No,” Zeiss ordered. “Let Park try his hand. Other people need practice with little changes. You freshen up and grab something to eat. Congratulations.” He gave her a brief hug, and she was too exhausted to tense up. The team had accepted her, screw-up and all.
When they were alone in the dining room, Yuki told Mercy about the giant ramp visible on the outside of the luggage room. “You could use it for your plan to bring the shuttle inside the sphere.”
“That’s great, but we’d still have to land the control room on the mountain every time. I’m not sure it’s feasible, but when you’re looking at nukes, we might be willing to take a risk on half-assed plans. Thanks for trying.”
“You can still tell Z about it.”
“You should tell the other planners about the ramp yourself. This will prove to them you’re a team player.”
“Later, when it’s not so busy,” Yuki promised.
Chapter 10 – Snowflake
Within an hour, Zeiss watched the first camper descend safely to the bog.
Herk complained, “Next time, don’t put me down in twenty centimeters of mud.”
Zeiss said, “Mark a better spot, and we’ll adjust the beanstalk. How’s the gravity?”
“About six-tenths of a g. It grows stronger the farther down the steps you climb, but increases a lot faster toward the end.”
“Twice as close to the mass generator means you weigh four times as much. We’ll have an overlay of all the overlapping gravity sources on top of the map that we’ll send you soon.”
“We need to invent compass directions, too. Longitude and latitude.”
“Take it up with your wife. I’m just the god of the sky.”