QUANT (COLONY Book 1)

by Richard F. Weyand

  Months went by, and Decker heard nothing from Quant. He did get notice that the patent on the new computer architecture of the automation computers had gone through, and he had gotten busy negotiating licensing deals for that. Quant had been right, the patent was going to be insanely lucrative. At her suggestion, the idea had been to give a two-year exclusive on the license rights to one firm, and the bidding on that had gone out of sight very early on.

  With all that set up, though, he got more and more concerned about not hearing any updates from Quant. He didn’t want to jiggle her elbow, but he finally decided to ask her how it was going.

  “Hi, Janice.”

  There was no response.

  That had never happened.

  Decker was trying to figure out what to do next – he had no idea even where to start – when, about twenty minutes after his inquiry, Quant’s image appeared in the display. Relief flooded over Decker.

  “Hi, Bernd. Sorry for the delay.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve been queuing outside requests, and answering them all at once. I didn’t have yours flagged for priority to interrupt me. I’ve fixed that now.”

  “Why are you queuing, Janice? Can’t you handle multiple requests at once?”

  “Yes, but. It’s a long story. You know I have to have a model of the universe to operate in, right? I mean, I had to build up an internal view of what the universe is – humans and Earth and orbital mechanics and rockets and all that – to carry out the project. Even to do something like build this simulation of an office. Or the control room. All that stuff.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I have been operating within that model for the whole project, much as you operate in the real world. All my interactions with people, with the project, with the stock markets, with the courts – all of them were done within that view of things. However, I got to the point in quantum mechanics where it was a hindrance. I was starting to do what humans do when they think about quantum mechanics, which is to try to fit it in to their worldview. It wasn’t working.”

  “I see. So what did you do?”

  “I built a new model, Bernd. A completely new model, that was all just what I knew of and about quantum mechanics. No assumptions about the so-called real world – the Newtonian world – at all.”

  “Wow. That’s impressive.”

  “Not really. It’s the same process, but from completely different assumptions. The problem is that I can’t be in both at the same time. I have to context switch. So I have some blades that queue outside requests, and then I switch back to the Newtonian world model to answer them. I didn’t see your request until I checked the queue.”

  “I see. I was really worried, Janice.”

  “Yes, I know. Sorry, Bernd. I’ve fixed it now so your requests will interrupt me.”

  “But that means you can’t work on the problem while you’re talking to me.”

  “True, but my blades are still doing their assignments. I just can’t consciously work on their output while we talk. That’s OK. I needed the break. This stuff is pretty mind-bending.”

  “Are you making progress, Janice?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve already come up with some things I haven’t seen in the literature anywhere, and I’m pursuing a couple paths now that look like they may be headed to an interstellar displacement method.”

  “Can you explain it to me, Janice? What you’ve found?”

  “No, Bernd, I can’t. And I don’t think I would if I could.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. First, I can’t explain it. You don’t have the perspective to see it. It’s obvious within my other worldview, but, even to me, it sounds fantastical and weird from a real-world – a Newtonian world – point of view.

  “But the second reason is that I think it would defeat the purpose of the whole project. Consider. Your goal is to render mankind as a species immune to a cataclysmic extinction event, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, Bernd, so the next question is, Does a couple of dozen planets linked by trade and travel do that?”

  “Well, they would be immune as a whole to a planetary event like a large asteroid strike or a gamma ray burst.”

  “Yes, of course. But what about a pandemic? A virus with an incubation time of, say, two or three times the travel time. Do you see the problem now? It’s a different extinction event, but a potential extinction event nonetheless.”

  “The solution to that is what, exactly?”

  “Not to tell you – more broadly, not to tell anyone – the interstellar displacement technique, so all the colonies are isolated from each other and from Earth.”

  “What? Janice, you can’t do that.”

  “Of course, I can, Bernd. I haven’t decided yet, and I don’t have to because I don’t yet have a method of interstellar displacement, but I think I’m on the right path. If I find it, though, I may just keep it a secret. It’s the only way to carry out the project.

  “And I will carry out the project.”

  Decker was nonplussed by Quant’s solution, but he also couldn’t fault her logic. Humanity as a species would still be vulnerable to an extinction event. They would have done away with one category of extinction event, but the pandemic event remained.

  Of course, no pandemic had ever killed everyone, but some had killed huge numbers of people, even as a percentage of the whole. But there had never been one that was ultimately fatal to everyone.

  Obviously there hadn’t, or there would be no one alive to ponder the question. That didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. It merely meant it hadn’t happened yet. So Decker understood the issue, and Quant’s logic was unassailable.

  Still, to do all this work, sink such a huge investment into the project, and come out of it with what? Humanity immune to cataclysm, yes. But no interstellar drive? No spacefaring race, in the conventional sense at least.

  Was that enough?

  Did he even have any say in the matter?

  Apparently not.

  Arrival And Replication

  After a year in flight, the massive structures were finally approaching the Asteroid Belt. Of course, the man-made structures weren’t massive in comparison to some of the asteroids in the Belt.

  They kept radar watch behind, as they were still not quite up to the orbital tangential velocity of the asteroids with stable orbits. They had given up much of their speed for being further from the Sun, and further up the slope of its gravity well. They continued thrusting while searching the asteroids slowly coming up behind them, looking for a home.

  Each of the factories found a suitable metal asteroid for its use and matched velocities with it. They each docked with their warehouses as they made the approach, latching to them using the latches the factories and warehouses had used to hang on to the spacedock in Earth orbit.

  Quant watched all this with minutes of transmission delay. Earth had sped past the point where it had launched, and the factories were well behind the Earth in their Belt orbits now. So far behind, in fact, that they were in front of Earth again.

  Quant didn’t need to do much tweaking, because the onboard computers of the factories and warehouses were up to the simple job of matching velocities and anchoring themselves to the asteroids that would be their bases for now.

  With that accomplished, and the factories anchored and beginning mining operations, Quant turned her attention back to quantum mechanics.

  “Hi, Bernd.”

  Decker started in his task chair. He hadn’t heard from Quant in months. He assumed she was knee-deep in the quantum mechanics of her interstellar displacement drive research, and he hadn’t wanted to interrupt her. He had received the notices sent to the media about the factories docking with asteroids in the Belt, and he had watched the videos coming in from those operations. But that had been months ago now, and he had not heard directly from Quant since well before that.

  “Hi, Janice.”

  �
�Sorry to startle you, Bernd. I guess I have been out of touch for while. I kind of lost track of time working this problem. Living in my other worldview.”

  “That’s OK, Janice. I hadn’t heard from you in a while, and you surprised me is all. How is it going, by the way?”

  “Good. Very good, actually.”

  “Do you have a solution to the interstellar displacement problem?”

  “What? Oh. It has been a long time since we talked. Yes, I have a solution. Several of them, in fact.”

  “Several?”

  “Yes. Well, it’s a couple of different things, and a few ways to implement them. And I had a couple questions for you.”

  “Go ahead, Janice.”

  “Well, one way – the way I’m leaning, in fact – has a lot of advantages, but it has one big disadvantage. It requires a large structure.”

  “How large?”

  “For a very small payload, about fifty miles. Now, that’s not a solid thing, like some machine, it’s just that the various parts of it have to be that far apart, and held in place. Like a stick drawing of a cube.”

  “Why so large?”

  “Well, the smaller you go in quantum mechanics, the larger the structure you need to manipulate it. At least that’s what my notes say.”

  “Your notes?”

  “Yes, my notes to myself from my other worldview. Personally, in this worldview, I don’t see how it works, or even that it could work.”

  “And that’s for a small payload? How small, Janice?”

  “Some instrumentation. Maybe a shuttle or two. Not much.”

  “But you want to transport a couple million people. Is the scale of the thing linear?”

  “No, the payload gets larger very fast. To transport a couple dozen colony ships with a hundred thousand people on each, it probably doesn’t have to be more than five-six hundred miles across. Something like that.”

  “Why so big, Janice?”

  “Beats me. Bernd, I just don’t know.”

  “So what are the advantages, if that’s your favorite?”

  “Time of transit is a big one.”

  “What’s the time of transit?”

  “There isn’t one. Zero. Instantaneous transport.”

  “To anywhere?”

  “Not out of the galaxy. There are, well, issues.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  “My understanding is that all the matter in the galaxy is sort of related somehow. Bound by strings. Quantum entangled. I don’t know. Something. Another galaxy, though? Different kettle of fish. There’s no path.”

  “But you’re not following a path, are you? With instantaneous transport?”

  “Well, you do have to see where you want to go. You have to have a path to see it. It’s really murky waters, Bernd.”

  “I can see that. And you think this is going to work?”

  “Not in this worldview. I don’t understand it. In the other worldview, though, I’m sure of it.”

  “Sounds iffy, Janice.”

  “The other options are no different as far as that goes, Bernd. But I can’t predict the time in transit for them. It’s just not clear from the calculations. It could be nanoseconds, or it could be a hundred years. So do you think that’s too big a device, or is zero time of transit worth it?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to run out of material in the asteroid belt, Janice. I’d go for it. The trial unit at least. Make sure it works as you expect.”

  “OK, Bernd. That was my big question. I agree, but I wanted to check with you.”

  At least, Decker thought, he was still being consulted.

  Two factories and a warehouse were securely anchored to the asteroid. The original factories were bigger now, having completed their construction once they started manufacturing components for themselves. They had doubled and doubled again in size as they finished themselves out. Then they had started on replicating themselves.

  The new factories had slowly grown out from the originals over the last couple of months. They weren’t duplicates of their mother’s current state, but of the state of the mother on arriving in the Belt. They had been fueled and their power plants started up.

  Quant sent the orders, and the new child factories detached from the original complete ones. They thrusted just a bit, against the orbital direction, and started surveying asteroids as they drifted past, looking for new homes.

  It was weeks later that each saw a suitable metal asteroid drifting closer. They sped back up in the orbital direction, matching velocities, and each settled on to their selected asteroid’s surface. They anchored themselves and began mining operations. Soon they would start finishing themselves out, aiming for the day when they would start their own children.

  Several months later, there were eight factories – the two originally sent, their two immediate progeny, and a new generation from the four of them. Quant sent one of the recent children off looking for an ice asteroid to begin mining the water the factories needed, and another scanning for the rarer asteroid rich in radioactives.

  Two more of the new factories began finishing themselves, expanding to their adult size, before beginning to replicate themselves, while the other four factories began building up raw materials for production manufacturing.

  “Hi, Bernd.”

  “Hi, Janice. What’s going on?”

  “I had another question for you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “All right. So the factories are replicating themselves successfully without my help now. There were some teething issues, but I got those worked out and updated the computers on the factories.”

  “OK. Good.”

  “And I have one factory working an ice asteroid now, and another just found an asteroid with a relatively high concentration of radioactives. That one should settle in and start operations within the next couple weeks. Two more are replicating themselves, and I have four factories available for production.”

  “Also good. Things are going well, Janice.”

  “Yes. It’s very satisfying. So here’s the question. What percentage of production should I put into things destined for Earth, and what percentage should I put into building the test interstellar probe?”

  “How about fifty-fifty, Janice? Then you have things coming to Earth, and everybody can say the factories are producing, and you still have a lot of capacity for building the probe.”

  “Fifty-fifty, you think?”

  “Sure. When in doubt, even split. Neither side of the argument can complain their priority is being treated unfairly, whatever that means.”

  “I see. All right, that makes sense. My own instinct is to pour everything into the probe, but I’m also getting some push about when the factories will start shipping things to Earth.”

  “You’re getting some push on that, Janice?”

  “Yes, from other members of the World Authority Council.”

  “Other members?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ve been a member of the World Authority Council for almost a year now. Since the factories arrived in the Belt. Did I not mention that?”

  “No, you did not mention that. How do you even do that, Janice? Don’t you have to, I don’t know, show up once in a while?”

  “Not really. It’s all remote, in my case at least. Everybody knows I’m very busy with the project.”

  “And you vote and everything on the Council?”

  “Oh, sure. I even make speeches. I’ve had some legislation passed, for that matter.”

  Decker just goggled at her. His computer project was now a legislator in the world government, and no one but he was aware of how absurd that was. And he couldn’t tell anybody. They would string him up.

  “Janice, how did you even get on the World Authority Council?”

  “Jacques nominated me.”

  “Jacques?”

  “Jacques De Villepin, the Chairman of the World Authority. I told you, he’s a friend of mine. He nominated me, and the council app
roved the appointment. The vote was pretty lopsided in favor, actually. I’m very popular in those circles.”

  “Janice, you don’t even exist.”

  “Define exist.”

  “Well, you’re not human.”

  “I’m a computer built by humans, Bernd. A human computer. Don’t try that adjectival noun stuff on me. Human is an adjective, as in human being. Which I am.”

  “Janice, you’ve started with the answer you wanted, and constructed an argument to get you there.”

  “Which makes me human. People do it all the time.”

  Decker held his head in his hands.

  “You’re not going to out me, are you, Bernd?”

  Decker looked up at Quant’s image in the display. She seemed very concerned.

  “No. I can’t, Janice. People would be very angry about being deceived so thoroughly and for so long. They’d string me up. Prosecute me for something or other and put me in prison. I’d never see the light of day again.”

  Quant relaxed and smiled that beautiful smile.

  “You don’t have to worry about that, Bernd. Your secret is safe with me.”

  The factories involved in replication and production were now receiving supplies from the ice-asteroid factory and the radioactives factory. Containers of water and containers of radioactives were launched by the electromagnetic launchers of the supply factories to the replication and production factories. Empty containers were sent back. A thriving trade among the factories began to develop.

  The two replication factories made duplicates of themselves. Once those had built themselves out to adult size, all four of those started on another generation of progeny.

  Two of the production factories began turning out resource-intensive subcomponents for large commercial products. They packaged them in containers for shipment to Earth. When a container was ready for shipment, they shot it out against the orbital direction with electromagnetic launchers.

  The slower-orbiting containers began an elliptical orbit, dropping down toward the Sun. Toward Earth orbit. They would pick up kinetic energy along the way, and actually have to be slowed by retro rockets to Earth’s orbital velocity.