The Lifeboat

by Keith Fenwick

In less than two of your Earth hours, the MPU informed Bruce. I’m going slower than usual as I don’t want to give away all of my secrets at this stage.”

  “Couple of hours,” Bruce replied. “Now, something to eat and drink?”

  The general was looking at the touch screen.

  Bruce could tell he was itching to see if he could gain some form of control over the ship. “You have to have the access codes,” Bruce informed him. “You can push any buttons you like, but you can’t get access to the systems without the codes and password – and what’s more, you might have the codes but you still can’t have access unless the controlling software authorises you.”

  This thought brought Bruce up short. He realised the machine was in full control  a state none of them was really used to. The offworlders that is. Something told him to be careful what he wished for. The problem was the MPU seemed to be wired directly into his brain and he had no way of hiding from it.

  “Are you sure?” the general asked.

  “Do you know how far Jupiter is from Earth, young man?” Dr Roach chimed in.

  “A whole lot closer now,” Bruce joked. “About 575 million kilometres away at the moment,” he added, echoing the MPU.

  “Are you trying to tell me we are travelling at 250 million-plus kilometres an hour? I don’t believe it.”

  “How is that possible? Shelly Shaw asked.

  I don’t think anyone on your planet would understand the physics involved, the MPU suggested, perhaps a little unfairly, Bruce thought. Skidian technology wasn’t that much more advanced than humanity’s was. He thought it conceivable, given a bit of a technical assistance, much of the Skidian technology could be readily replicated on Earth.

  Bruce shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea; all I know is the technology works. They also use something called a wormhole for interstellar journeys. Not sure how that works either.”

  Dr Roach raised a speculative eyebrow. “Wormhole? Been reading some science fiction, have we?”

  “Not really my cup of tea,” Bruce replied. “I guess you can do your own calculations based on what time we lifted off and when we located the asteroid?”

  “That we can do.”

  “Can you show us around? Where are the engines? Doctor Roach asked. “This ship hardly seems big enough to be an interplanetary explorer in my view.”

  “By the way, how far away is Skid?”

  Why do these people ask so many questions? the MPU demanded. This kind of behaviour would never be tolerated on Skid!

  Bloody hell! Bruce thought, before he could catch himself. He’s like a spoilt kid. But the MPU seemed to take no notice of the comment.

  Tell them the planet they have identified as Kepler-22b in the Cygnus constellation is Skid. It is not, by the way. I am not entirely sure I trust these people enough yet to tell them exactly where Skid is. They probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.

  “Skid is in the Cygnus constellation; you know it as the planet Kepler-22b.”

  “How long does it take to travel between Kepler and Earth?”

  “I’m not really sure. Several days?” Bruce could see the questions were just going to keep on coming so he asked Myfair to give their guests a tour of the ship to get them out of his hair.

  Bruce was a bit vague on the size of the ship and the number of compartments it held. He had a sense of a further space, like an internal garage, somewhere towards the rear of the ship if that was possible with something spherical in shape. These rough dimensions would place the ship in the size region of a standard four- or five-bedroom, medium-sized house. But surely there must be more to the ship? Surely? He thought had seen a number of rooms on previous trips. Maybe not.

  The control room actually felt quite crowded for the moment. With eight adults and three largish dogs taking up space, the ship suddenly seemed ridiculously small to be cruising across the vast empty spaces of the galaxy in.

  Perception is reality, the MPU told him smugly. I’ll explain it to you one day.

  “Where are the main propulsion units?” the general demanded. “And I know it is armed as well so don’t tell me it isn’t. It just doesn’t feel big enough to me!”

  “I don’t have any idea,” Bruce repeated. “And I don’t think Myfair really knows either.”

  “Where do we sit? And I am busting for a wee,” Sue declared, which made Bruce stop and think about things for a moment.

  Apart from his first trip, when he had been kidnapped, he had not used the toilet or other bathroom facilities while he was aboard, or slept, that he could remember.

  Either Skid was much closer to Earth than he had expected, or the ship moved at incredible speeds. Or possibly there was some kind of suspended animation process going on that didn’t involve caskets and cryogenics.

  Myfair pressed a button, and one of the rooms transformed itself into a toilet which Sue and Shelly quickly disappeared into with a giggle, like a couple of schoolgirls on their first dates.

  The general and Dr Roach huddled together, furiously whispering and gesturing. The doctor seemed to be making calculations on his phone, while the general took snaps of the stars with his own device. Every few minutes they stopped what they were doing and compared notes.

  Bruce rolled his eyes at Myfair, who didn’t respond. He glanced at Leaf and she returned his look with a frown. She seemed about to say something but stopped, so Bruce wondered what was on her mind.

  That left Wisneski who, of all of the people aboard the ship – apart from Bruce himself – appeared to be quite happy and gazed out the windows with an expression of contentment and awe.

  Ten

  Bruce busied himself making a cup of coffee and rolling up an agbar cigarette while everyone else went about their business. He had mislaid his proper smokes somewhere in all the excitement. He ignored the disapproving look of Dr Roach but the general made a puffing motion with his hand. Bruce rolled him one as well and showed him where the agbar was kept – in a little cubbyhole under the command console so he could self-serve when he needed to.

  Then Bruce was at a loss as to what to do with himself. The general and the doctor did not seem to want him involved in their discussion. He had little to offer them intellectually and practically anyway. The two ladies, well the two human ones to be exact, seemed to take a long time about their ablutions, and the two Skidians had retired to another part of the ship. That left Wisneski and the dogs to amuse himself with.

  “Fantastic view,” Bruce commented, rather inanely, to Wisneski. Having seen it all before he was a bit blasé about the images on the screen, the myriad stars and the planets. It actually was quite a sight when you saw it for the first time, and Bruce could understand completely if Wisneski was awestruck by the whole scene.

  “Is it beneath your dignity to speak to us, or something?” Cop asked.

  Or me? the MPU added. It almost felt like the two of them – Cop and the MPU – had been working some kind of childish conspiracy together and decided Bruce needed to give them some love. The MPU was sounding more and more like a spoilt brat with an attitude, which simply could not be as he – oops, it – was a machine.

  “If the cap fits, wear it,” Bruce responded as sharply as he could via the wireless neural link that seemed to connect the three of them.

  “Smart-arse!” the old dog replied.

  “I just have to pinch myself every few minutes to make sure all this is real,” Wisneski declared. “It’s almost too hard to believe, even after all I have seen and heard over the last few months, that all this,” he spread his arms wide, “is actually real and not some well-planned, well-executed hoax.”

  “Is this guy for real?” Cop asked.

  “He hasn’t had the benefit of your extensive intergalactic travel experience,” Bruce retorted, wishing there was some way he could shut the old dog up, to stop the senile old shit from insinuating himself into his mind when he was least wanted. A kill switch would be great to stop both the little voices from echoing in h
is mind and giving him unwanted advice. Was this what people who were bipolar had to live with? Bruce wondered. And if they did, he now had greater sympathy for their plight. He was struggling with two ‘voices’ he knew to be real and some vague images he struggled to comprehend – which he assumed were from the other two dogs, given, as far as he could work out, they seemed to consist of images of various kinds of dog food, woolly chunks of frozen mutton and dog biscuits. But he was not sure how the MPU would take to that idea. There was also a hint of something else at the edge of his consciousness which flickered in and out at times like a dodgy internet connection but Bruce wasn’t sure if he was imagining things.

  I understand you like to keep some things to yourself, Bruce. We couldn’t crack open the deeper recesses of your memory when you first visited Skid.

  Bruce now remembered one of the Skidians telling him as much, and how proud it made him feel at the time that he was such a tough nut to crack. Seemed silly right now, though, and he conjured up an image of himself with what he thought was a sheepish grin on his face which to anyone else would look more like a creepy leer.

  We struggled with you because you didn’t have the implants Skidians receive in the birthing process to connect to so we had to improvise. I still couldn’t get much out of you, which was essentially why you were left alive and are standing here today instead of being terminated once we had sucked your brain dry of as much useful information as we could. I still can’t influence you like I can a Skidian, the MPU explained further. I can turn on and off the ability to pilot the space patrol ship, for example, but I cannot make you do something you do not want to do.

  “What do you mean?” Bruce asked, a little more suspicious of the MPU’s intentions now.

  It means you can turn me on and off. But don’t do it now.

  “Why not?”

  I need to talk to you about …

  “Bruce. Mr Harwood, I mean,” the old doctor interrupted hesitantly.

  “Call me Bruce,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

  “OK, Bruce. We must be coming up on the asteroid soon if what you are telling us about the speed of this craft is correct. Our rough calculations so far show the speed of this vessel is in the ballpark you mentioned earlier. So we were wondering what the plan was to start building the solar sails once we make landfall, er contact.”

  “To be honest I’m buggered if I really know.” Bruce shrugged his shoulders in a very Skidian response to a question he had no idea how to answer.

  “Yeah, how you going to pull this one off, Bruce?” Cop asked.

  “Not really my field, I’m afraid. If I had my way I would have blasted it to pieces. However, you guys have told us that is most certainly not the right thing to do,” he added trying to ignore the old dog. “I’m pretty sure the controlling entity of this ship, which to all intents and purposes is the AI that basically runs Skid, has everything under control.”

  Bruce missed the quick look that passed between General Smith and the doctor. To them the space patrol ship represented a treasure trove of useful technology almost beyond their comprehension and a means of faster than light travel to the stars. What was not immediately obvious to Bruce was that the two men also saw the destruction of the asteroid using the Skidian spaceship as a stepping stone to power and wealth that would come with controlling those technological riches.

  “And it assures me its plan will work. In actual fact, before you had us brought in for interrogation,” Bruce said, having a wee dig, “the MPU had already contacted me to enlist my assistance, for what it’s worth, in knocking this thing out of orbit and onto a new trajectory. Although I don’t for the life of me understand why the MPU hasn’t utilised Myfair instead of me.” ‘At least he understands how to drive this thing and I don’t’, he didn’t add.

  “That’s simply outrageous,” Shelly Shaw interjected, joining their discussion. “You simply can’t casually knock the asteroid into a new orbit; that’s far too risky,” was her opinion. “Anyway, I thought we had agreed on a plan?”

  “Yeah we did, but the MPU is in charge and it has what it thinks is a better idea – not too dissimilar from the one we discussed – and it assures me it isn’t as risky as it sounds,” Bruce explained. “We’re going to drop a couple of manufacturing units on the asteroid, to fabricate two rockets that will be used to send the asteroid on its way. The rockets will remain attached until the asteroid had attained its new and safe orbit, and any risk to Earth or the moon has been avoided.”

  “I’m still not convinced,” Shelly Shaw replied dubiously.

  “We shouldn’t be overly concerned about this as the Skidians do this kind of thing all the time, and their asteroid capture technology is well proven. Most of the raw materials for industrial use on Skid are sourced this way from local asteroid belts,” Bruce added, trying to reassure the group and himself at the same time. “The asteroid will achieve a stable orbit outside the moon. Nice and close for someone to send a manned mission to check it out some time in the near future.”

  “Are you sure nothing can go wrong? The Skidians don’t have a flash record with certain parts of their technology, in some respects, by all accounts.”

  “What do you mean an orbit outside the moon?” demanded the old doctor. “I agree with Dr Shaw – just outside the orbit of the moon is far too close to Earth for comfort.”

  “Well the MPU has this idea that at some point in the near future we might want to exploit the asteroid for the rare earths and metals it is made of, and having it tantalisingly close, or relatively so, will act as encouragement to develop the technology to visit it.”

  “If the Chinese or the Russians don’t get there first,” General Smith muttered.

  “The MPU doesn’t propose to help us with getting there or provide a technological advantage to anyone, but on the other hand we, well you guys, I guess, will have an advantage because you are finding out about the asteroid well ahead of anyone else.”

  “It’s still a potentially dangerous course of action. What happens if the MPU gets its calculations wrong?”

  Bruce had a good retort ready but didn’t deliver it, as by its own admission the MPU had had a few problems with accuracy recently – and further in the past, by the sounds of it.

  Additionally, the reason Bruce was standing where he was, with the people he was with, was after all, because the MPU or one of its subroutines had made a ‘slight’ miscalculation regarding the height of a mountain range it had programed this very space patrol ship to fly over on a routine test of Earth’s air defences, and it had clipped it.

  Bruce felt a little guilty about supporting the MPU in this way. To be honest he didn’t really know what the best option to deal with the asteroid was. He was also pretty sure the MPU had some kind of ulterior motive as he had an inkling the MPU was pursuing its own scheme somehow. Though, he was convinced its agenda didn’t include threatening Earth in any way.

  “Look, she’ll be right,” he continued more confidently than he really felt. “The MPU knows what it is doing, and having such a resource so close to Earth presents a huge opportunity for mankind.”

  “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” the old doctor maintained. “There’s just so much that could go wrong, and we can’t influence the orbit of the asteroid if the calculations aren’t correct.”

  “Come on, Bill,” the general said. “It can’t do too much damage out there. I imagine the boost it would be for the space programme having it so close.”

  Shelly Shaw looked thoughtful for a moment. Bruce could see her visibly wavering between supporting the concept and opposing it, after considering the risks.

  “I think the concept has merit,” she began cautiously. “But what steps are going to be put in place to ensure the asteroid maintains its target orbit and what can we do if the orbit degrades, putting it on a collision course for earth?”

  “This ship won’t be going anywhere until a safe and reliable orbit is achieved,” Bruce replied aft
er being prompted by the MPU.

  Bruce glanced across at Myfair and Leaf, who had suddenly appeared from wherever they had been lurking, for their reaction.

  However, their expressions were inscrutable, as always. More to the point, Bruce wondered, what was he going to do with them when he got back to Earth if the ship was going to be floating about for a while? How would he integrate them into human society if they were never to return to Skid? It didn’t occur to him that assisting the Skidians to integrate into human society was not his responsibility. He didn’t stop to think about it; it was just something he thought he should take on.

  You don’t have to worry about them, the little voice, which was how he imagined the MPU speaking, informed him. Let all the passengers know we are coming up on the asteroid. Once we have come alongside I’ll be landing a team of production drones onto the surface, which will then start mining and manufacturing the rockets to nudge the asteroid into its new orbit.

  “Heads up, people; we should be able to see the asteroid coming into view ahead of us shortly,” Bruce announced.

  There was no sense of deceleration – which any of the passengers could have stopped to question if they thought about it. As the asteroid came alongside, the ship simply slowed down and matched the big lump of rock’s slow spin. The human passengers were all too busy to notice anyway, gazing in awe at the potato-shaped lump coming into view via the monitors, taking pictures of it with their phones. Despite the fact it was a chunk of rock millions of years old it looked remarkably like a big dirty potato. It was even the same colour roughly, a sort of dirty brown with a slight dusting of white in areas that seemed to be in shadow. After a moment, the smattering of white resolved itself into what Bruce took to be ice or snow.

  A sudden puff of dust sprang up as a small package was fired from the ship and hit the surface of the asteroid. It seemed to bounce and was then lost from sight in a puff of regolith as the asteroid slowly rotated. It was quickly followed by another package, then another. These were the self-replicating manufacturing modules or drones the MPU had been talking about, Bruce supposed.