GALACTIC SURVEY (COLONY Book 3)

by Richard F. Weyand

  The hyperspace ship was effectively a modified shuttle. They had used the existing large space-capable cargo shuttle design, and modified from there. The hope was the ship would be able to take off from the planet on its own, and return to the planet’s surface, without needing to be lifted to space or retrieved by a cargo shuttle.

  They would have to build the shuttle up from its major assemblies, though, because of the need to incorporate the big extra pieces – the small nuclear power plant and the hyperspace field generator – that weren’t part of the standard shuttle design. The hyperspace ship would also have cargo latches, not unlike the large cargo shuttle it was modeled after.

  The idea was for the hyperspace ship to carry a payload. The first payloads would probably be Radio Direction Finder (RDF) satellites, to search for the first two colonies. They knew approximately where those colonies were from the parallax studies of the passenger container viewscreen recordings done by the astronomy department at the University of Arcadia.

  Determining the exact positions of the colonies would be done with RDF satellites. They knew the colony locations within about fifty light years, and the colonies had been broadcasting radio frequencies for over a century. RDF satellites should be able to see the colonies’ emissions signatures.

  All that ran through his mind as Karl Huenemann watched the big truck back into the loading bay at the hyperspace project facility. Today was a big day. The delivery of the fourth-generation hyperspace field generator.

  The first-generation hyperspace field generator had been the under-cooled device on the first, ill-fated probe. The second-generation device had been the properly cooled device on the second interstellar probe, which they had used to calculate the time relationship between hyperspace and normal space.

  The third-generation hyperspace device had been the modified second-generation device. It was this device, jury-rigged with a ripple drive, that had made the journey to Beacon and back. It had not been possible to modify that device to contain the screw drive. The changes were too complex to be a mere add-on or modification.

  This fourth generation device did include the screw drive. The resonance ripple in the hyperspace field it generated would be helical in shape, and that helix could be rotated to propel the device forward against hyperspace’s energy density. If the helical ripple instead passed along the length of the ship without rotating, you were back to a modified ripple drive.

  Creating the helical resonance ripple had proven a difficult nut to crack, though, and the first iterations of the device on paper had been cumbersome and bulky. Weeks of work by the theoretical people – done while the technicians were modifying the second-generation device into the third-generation device – had resulted in a simpler and more compact design.

  It was the physical implementation of that design that lurked under the tarpaulin on the back of the flatbed truck in the loading dock.

  “OK! Easy,” the dock foreman called out to the overhead crane operator.

  The crane operator slowly took the slack out of the chains until they were tight and he had begun to take the weight of the device off the truck.

  The dock foreman gave the upward gesture. The crane motor growled as it lifted the weight off the truck, the truck’s springs lifting the rear of the truck as the weight was removed. Up the device went until it cleared by about two feet, then the crane operator inched the traveling crane along the tracks toward the waiting frame.

  The frame itself was up on a welded-steel stand. Without the landing gear, which would go on toward the end of assembly, the frame was held up about four feet clear of the floor.

  The hyperspace field generator, minus all its shrouding, was a complicated affair. Ever so slowly it crept out over the frame, dangling from the crane. The technicians waited there, watching the mounting holes in the frame and the device, waving directions to the crane operator. They grabbed the device, rotated it slightly on its chains, and motioned for a slow downward movement.

  The crane operator had a delicate touch, and the hyperspace field generator settled toward the frame over several seconds. Toward the end, technicians were watching the locating pins on the bottom of the device, making sure they lined up with the mating holes in the frame.

  Finally it was down, and technicians hurried to drop bolts through the mounting holes and spin nuts up from the bottom. Once they were in place, they signaled the crane operator, and he lowered the crane enough to put slack in the chains. They disconnected the crane and it soared away.

  The technicians torqued the bolts to spec, then the welders moved in.

  Mikhail Borovsky was standing with Karl Huenemann watching this whole operation.

  “Looking at the parts now, and with the cockpit here, I have a question,” Borovsky said.

  “Go ahead,” Huenemann said.

  “This is the hyperspace field generator with the screw drive, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “But when the screw drive operates, it’s going to rotate the ship, right?” Borovsky asked. “It’s gonna spin the guys in the cockpit.”

  “Yeah. The thing is, the point of the screw drive is to spin the ship, so we can build a big ship, with crew spaces around the outside. We spin it to give them gravity.”

  “Right. I got that. But this is gonna spin this small ship. The crew won’t have gravity. They’ll just be sitting on the axis of the ship, going round and round.”

  “Yeah. But the deal is, if we’re going to build a big ship like that, how much screw does the drive need? What’s the best pitch for the helical ripples? What’s the coupling between the hyperspace field and hyperspace? What torque results on the ship? Lots and lots of questions.

  “If we guess the answers, and we’re wrong, we could build a big ship that’s junk. Unusable. So we try it all out on this little ship, and get some answers first. Then we build the big ship.”

  “Got it. OK. Now it makes sense.”

  Borovsky looked back out at the ship under construction.

  “It’s going to be beautiful,” he said.

  Subassemblies and parts continued to show up over the next several weeks, and the hyperspace ship continued to take shape in the assembly hall of the hyperspace facility next to the Arcadia spaceport.

  Subassemblies and parts started showing up for the second hyperspace ship as well. It mirrored the work on the primary, lagging by a couple of weeks.

  The only question still up in the air was, Where were they going?

  Motivation

  While Karl Huenemann and Mikhail Borovsky were building the hyperspace ships, Chen JieMin continued to view information on racial extinction events, trying to second-guess Janice Quant.

  Why had she hidden the colonies from Earth and each other?

  JieMin had no doubt that hiding the colonies had been Quant’s doing. Once he had figured out that it was a large artificial intelligence driving the project, and Janice Quant had been that AI’s first alias, all roads pointed back to Quant. She was in charge of everything – nothing was beneath her notice or involvement. The colonies could not have been hidden without her. The only reasonable conclusion was that it had been done by her.

  But why?

  The other thing JieMin knew from the four locations they had – Amber, Earthsea, Arcadia, and Earth – was the colonies were far apart from each other and from Earth. Thousands of light-years. Were there no suitable colony planets closer to Earth or to each other? Not even one pair of the four? He doubted that.

  And since Quant controlled everything on the project, either directly or through one of her aliases, she had made that decision as well.

  Again, but why?

  Quant had stated her motives at her inauguration, but had she hidden her real motivation? To put it bluntly, had she lied? Had she learned to lie from her human creator? What else might she have learned from him? JieMin added research on Bernd Decker to the materials he was reviewing, and he continued, day after day, to stare into the
display in his office, watching materials flow past at one-point-seven-five times normal viewing speed.

  Sooner or later, the integration would come.

  Initially, in his research into mass extinction events, JieMin only reviewed journal articles, popular science articles, and other non-fiction sources. He kept seeing occasional references to fictional works as well, however, so he opened up his search to include fiction, and there was a flood of new material.

  He continued to view source materials non-stop all day long, every work day.

  About a month in to viewing materials on racial extinction events, on Janice Quant, and on Bernd Decker, JieMin had his first integration. It wasn’t a huge one. It did not stagger him as the previous couple had. But it did shed a little light on the issues he was facing.

  The descriptions of Bernd Decker noted that he was a brilliant computer designer, and had made a huge fortune on his start-up companies and, later, on licensing his computer designs. They also painted him as honest to a fault, scrupulous in his business transactions, and an honorable and likable person.

  The descriptions of Janice Quant were so similar, they sometimes used the same words. Honest, scrupulous, honorable, likable. It was almost as if Janice Quant were Bernd Decker’s automated alter-ego.

  It seemed the AI Bernd Decker had created learned his style and his morals, and internalized them. JieMin didn’t know. Maybe Decker had programmed the AI that way.

  The other thing that hit JieMin at that same time was that he should be searching on multi-planetary cataclysms as racial extinction events. The bulk of the materials he was reviewing concentrated on single-planet cataclysms. That could not be the motivation for Quant to isolate the colonies from each other.

  JieMin refined his search terms, focusing on multi-planet cataclysms.

  Many more of the materials he viewed now were fiction, especially science fiction, which had considered cataclysmic multi-planet scenarios in detail.

  JieMin had been viewing materials for almost two months before the big integration hit. They were having Sunday dinner, their big meal of the day, early in the afternoon. Had just finished eating, in fact, when it hit JieMin in a flash.

  ChaoLi looked at him and raised an eyebrow as JieMin suddenly stopped talking. He held up a finger to her – his wait a minute signal – and went over to sit in the big armchair in the living room. He scribbled furiously for several minutes.

  JieMin logged into his university account in his heads-up display. Let’s see. Incubation period of infectious diseases. Here it was.

  JieMin scanned down the list. Just as he figured.

  He went back over to the dining room table. ChaoLi and the children had cleared the table, and the children had disappeared off to their rooms. ChaoLi sat at the table with her tea, waiting for him. JieMin sat down with her, and she poured him a cup of tea as well.

  “An integration, JieMin?”

  “Yes. Finally. There was just so much input, most of it pure speculation. Much of it didn’t fit the situation in any good way. But some of it finally snapped into place. I now know why the colonies were located so far apart. I think, anyway.”

  “Time to see Chen Zufu again?”

  “Yes.”

  ChaoLi looked disappointed. They had plans for this afternoon.

  “However, tomorrow will be fine,” he said.

  ChaoLi brightened. She had been afraid the integration would spoil their day.

  “It needs time to settle anyway,” JieMin said.

  JieMin had a couple of aftershocks that afternoon – more minor integrations that refined his earlier vision – but he did not allow that to spoil their time at the beach with the kids.

  JieMin had some research to do before he met with Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu. When he got back to the office Monday morning, he set aside viewing materials and spent the entire day researching things outside his field. History, mostly.

  When he left the office Monday, he was ready.

  When JieMin went down to the lobby of the apartment building – which was also the reception area for visitors – Tuesday morning, the young woman behind the counter did not take him to MinChao’s tearoom. Instead, she led him down the hallway and out a different doorway, which opened directly on the gardens. Several other people were heading the other way through the double doors.

  The clerk led him to the center of the gardens, where MinChao and Jessica waited, seated on pillows on a bamboo mat spread in the center of the gravel walkways.

  “Please have a seat, JieMin,” MinChao said, waving to a pillow opposite the Chen-Jasic family’s senior couple.

  “Thank you, Chen Zufu.”

  JieMin sat on the pillow, and MinChao’s tea girl served them, leaving the tea pot on the low table between them. JieMin, as guest, sipped first.

  “We anticipated the subject of your meeting, you see.”

  “Yes, Chen Zumu. Thank you.”

  Jessica nodded.

  “It has been eight weeks since our last memorable meeting, JieMin. You have results to report now?”

  “Yes, Chen Zumu.”

  MinChao waved a hand for JieMin to continue. JieMin nodded, then took a few minutes to compose his thoughts. MinChao and Jessica were content to wait and sipped their tea.

  “Last time, I reported that I knew why so much of the colony project’s data was hidden. Janice Quant was actually an AI, created and programmed by Bernd Decker, which carried out the colony project. In the course of that, this AI actually became the chairman of the World Authority, and bent the entire Earth government to carrying out the colony project.

  “My task these last two months has been to try and understand why the colonies’ locations were kept secret. With Janice Quant in control, through her aliases, there is no way keeping any record of the colonies’ locations out of the records was done without her knowledge or by accident. It was, therefore deliberate.”

  JieMin looked back and forth between MinChao and Jessica. They nodded.

  “The question then is why. Janice Quant’s own statement on her inauguration as World Authority Chairman was that the colony project was to ‘Set mankind on a more secure footing against a global catastrophe.’

  “I’ve thought about those words a great deal. Janice Quant, like her creator Bernd Decker, was reported by multiple sources to be unusually straightforward and honest. Taking her at her word, then, seems appropriate absent any evidence to the contrary.

  “A planetary catastrophe, however, would be precluded by the existence of the colonies. That could not be the reason to keep the colonies’ locations secret from each other and from Earth.

  “The meaning of the word global can be broader than merely planetary, however. It can also mean all-encompassing, or all-inclusive. Taken in that context, perhaps Janice Quant was referring to an all-encompassing catastrophe. Something that would affect the entire human race, whether on Earth or the colonies.”

  He paused, and again MinChao and Jessica nodded.

  “We understand your logic, JieMin. Go on,” Jessica said.

  JieMin nodded.

  “Researching even broader cataclysms, then, I found them to be of three types. One was pandemic, another was war, and the third is called conquered culture syndrome.

  “Pandemic is a potential global catastrophe, in the all-encompassing sense. Isolated populations on the colonies will both culture and develop immunity to different diseases than each other. The issue is when these colonies then come into contact with each other.

  “History is some guide here. Europeans in the Middle Ages lived in close proximity to their cattle. The barn and the house were often under one roof. Cow pox made the jump to humans, and became smallpox. People living on the American continents did not raise animals so much as hunt them, and, in any case, smallpox did not develop there.

  “When Christopher Columbus landed on Caribbean islands in the 1490s, his men brought smallpox with them. By the time of the founding of the English settlements in Nor
th America over a hundred years later, ninety percent of the pre-Colombian population of North America had died.

  “We could have something similar happen between colonies. Janice Quant would have known that. I think that’s why the colonies and Earth are all three thousand light-years and more apart.”

  “So that we wouldn’t be in contact with each other, JieMin?” MinChao asked.

  “No, Chen Zufu. I think it’s subtler than that. Janice Quant had surely solved the issue of hyperspace travel before moving on to the Lake-Shore Drive. A bit of humor from the AI there, by the way, since she could pick any names for her aliases she wanted to.

  “But I have still not begun to figure out the Lake-Shore Drive. Quant must have figured out hyperspace on her way to that more elegant solution. And she must have known we would eventually figure out hyperspace as well.

  “Now, our recent trip to Beacon with the interstellar probe took one hour for three light-years traveled. Three thousand light-years will take a thousand hours. Call it forty-two days.

  “I checked, and the incubation period for most human diseases is from a day to about three weeks. A three thousand light-year separation means the colonies and Earth are more like six weeks apart from each other in hyperspace.”

  “I see,” Jessica said. “There is no way a ship could get from one location to another while someone on board was infected but still asymptomatic.”

  “Yes, Chen Zumu. Precisely stated. It amounts to a hyperspace quarantine period. And I believe Quant selected three thousand light-years as the minimum separation to ensure that.”

  “What about the other cataclysms, JieMin?”

  “Interstellar war is another possible all-encompassing cataclysm, Chen Zumu. With nuclear weapons launched by two planets, from each to the other, both planets could be destroyed. A war in which all human planets divided into two factions could result in the destruction of everyone, everywhere.”