GALACTIC SURVEY (COLONY Book 3)

by Richard F. Weyand

  “And Janice Quant’s solution to that, JieMin?”

  “I don’t know, Chen Zumu, but I can guess. What could Janice Quant do with the interstellar transporter to forestall or end an interstellar war? She could transport war fleets or missiles instantaneously from wherever they were to deep space somewhere else, or into the sun or another star. She could also make life difficult for the regime that started it by, for instance, impacting an asteroid on the capital city of the aggressor planet.”

  “If she were aware of it, JieMin, before the cataclysmic denouement.”

  “Correct, Chen Zufu. Which is why I believe Janice Quant still watches. She has not yet fulfilled her mission, programmed into her by Bernd Decker. But she watches from hiding.”

  “Why from hiding, JieMin?” Jessica asked.

  “The third all-encompassing cataclysm is actually a potential outgrowth of the existence of Janice Quant. Conquered-culture syndrome. A conquered culture loses its drive, falls into depression and aimlessness, sinks into alcoholism and drugs.”

  “Humanity was conquered by Janice Quant, JieMin?” Jessica asked.

  “In a sense, Chen Zumu. We are not independent actors, and have not been since Janice Quant became self-aware. Do not forget, she took over the World Authority, and, at the time of the launching of the colonies, already had it in her power to destroy the entire human race. All she needed to do was transport a large asteroid to a collision course with Earth or into the Earth’s core. Either would destroy all human life on the planet.

  “I believe that kind of power is more than enough to trigger a form of conquered-culture syndrome. Instead, she let humanity believe it had conquered space.

  “Which is why I also believe Janice Quant does not now exist on Earth. She has not made herself the immortal chairman of the World Authority, for example. I don’t think her hardware is even on Earth. We know she went into space with the interstellar transporter when the colonies were planted. I believe she never went back.

  “And I believe she watches us still. What her powers are today, I could not even guess.”

  JieMin lifted his hands, turned them palms up, and put them back on his knees.

  “And you think her motives are still benevolent, JieMin?” MinChao asked.

  “Yes, Chen Zufu. If Janice Quant had wanted to be malevolent, she had that power years before the colonies were planted. She has had it since. Yet the only evidence we have of her actions – providing Matt Chen-Jasic with Kendall’s private information – worked to our ultimate benefit.

  “An interesting story there. There is a record of Janice Quant intervening in a family situation among the selected colonists. An abusive man who didn’t wish to go on the colony expedition was beating his wife, who had signed up herself and their children for the lottery.

  “Their daughter’s boyfriend rushed to the house at their daughter’s call, and beat the abusive husband rather savagely. The husband tried to press charges against the boyfriend, but Janice Quant took over the display in the house, claimed her staff had watched the whole thing over the inactive display, and directed the responding police to arrest the abusive husband.”

  “Really,” MinChao said.

  “Yes. That abused housewife’s name was Betsy Reynolds, she who became Chen Zumu. The daughter’s boyfriend was Matt Jasic.”

  “Who was Matthew Chen-Jasic and became Chen Zufu,” Jessica said. “Yes, I see your point. Janice Quant already knew who she was dealing with when she provided him with Kendall’s information.”

  JieMin nodded.

  “Exactly. When Janice Quant intervened with the police, she told Matt Jasic that he was an admirable young man, and that the colonies needed people who knew right from wrong and were willing to stand up for what’s right. She knew what would happen if Kevin Kendall tangled with Matthew Chen-Jasic. And so she gave him the tools he needed to defeat Kendall.”

  “What a remarkable story,” MinChao said.

  “My great-grandfather,” Jessica said. “I was in my twenties when he passed away. He was long retired by then, but I did have some chance to know him. Even at that age, he was a remarkable man.”

  JieMin nodded.

  “The point of the story for our purposes, though,” JieMin said, “is that Janice Quant has never done anything but try to help us. From the shadows, lest she trigger conquered-culture syndrome. This is why I think she remains in hiding. But if she had wanted to do us harm, she has had plenty of opportunity in the hundred and twenty plus years since the colonies were founded, and probably for ten years before that, on Earth.

  “But she didn’t. She disappeared from our view, for our benefit.

  “Were there to be the threat of interstellar war, however, I think the aggressor would have to deal with an AI that has only increased in power and capability since. What she is capable of now, over a century later, is anybody’s guess.”

  Jessica’s Play

  When JieMin left the meeting, MinChao and Jessica sat sipping their tea for a while. The gardens remained empty of any others, and they remained in the center of the garden where their conversation would not be recorded or overheard.

  “That is an amazing story,” MinChao said.

  “Some parts of it ring true,” Jessica said. “There were stories great grandfather told – which I heard directly from him – about the fight with Betsy Reynolds’ husband, about getting Kendall’s communications and bank records. It was not generally known that he had the passwords into the computer system for Kendall and all the ruling council.”

  “How would someone even get passwords? Aren’t the hash codes stored, not the passwords themselves? The computer generates a hash code from the password the user enters and compares the hash codes, not the passwords.”

  “Exactly correct. He could only have gotten the passwords from someone who could break the codes, either by reverse calculating them or by building a hash table of all possible passwords.”

  “I thought either of those tasks were impossible,” MinChao said.

  “For a supercomputer with a quarter-million multiprocessor blades? I’m not so sure about that. Either that or a key-logger that escaped all security checks. And either way it gives credence to the whole story. Certainly no one else could have done it.”

  MinChao nodded. They swam in deep waters.

  “So let’s rely on JieMin’s insight and take the whole thing as true,” he said. “His whole string of conjecture and conclusion. The question remains, What do we do about it?”

  “Indeed. And that question has become pressing.”

  “In what way?” MinChao asked.

  “We are on the verge of being able to send a ship to Earth. We will also be able to find Amber and Earthsea with the RDF satellites. If Janice Quant’s intent was to keep the colonies out of contact with each other, we are about to violate her rules.”

  “What could she do?”

  “What could she not do?” Jessica asked. “She invented and built an interstellar device in ten years from a standing start. She took over the world government within fifteen years. And she transported two and a half million people and all their supplies over thousands of light-years within twenty years. All of that was over a hundred and twenty years ago.”

  “But we think she’s benevolent, right?”

  “We think so. From a very big-picture point of view, at least. What does that mean on individual issues? We don’t know.”

  “So what do we do now?” MinChao asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jessica sipped her tea and contemplated the garden from this new viewpoint. After several minutes, she stirred.

  “Perhaps I should see if I can get in touch with her.”

  “You?”

  “Of course. I am the great granddaughter of Matthew Chen-Jasic, someone she knew and apparently trusted.”

  MinChao nodded. That made sense to him.

  “But will she reply?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”
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br />   Jessica sipped her tea.

  “I suppose there’s only one way to find out,” she said.

  “How will you even get a message to her?”

  “Oh, I think if I put a recording at the top of my file system and email system, and label it ‘Janice Quant - Important and Confidential’, she’ll see it. There really is no privacy from her. Not in a networked computer.”

  Janice Quant did in fact see it. One of her blades assigned to keep an eye on Arcadia saw the title, flagged it, and transferred it across her interstellar communications network.

  Quant wondered what it could be. She was not at all prepared for what it was.

  Jessica sat in her tea room, on a pillow, dressed in a silk robe with silk dragons rampant. Her long, straight white hair hung free. Her granddaughters and others worked in the gardens, visible through the teak-beamed doorway behind her.

  She looked straight into the camera.

  “Good morning, Madam Chairman.

  “My name is Jessica Chen-Jasic. I am the great granddaughter of Matthew Chen-Jasic, he who had been Matt Jasic, and who became Chen Zufu of the Chen-Jasic family.

  “I myself am, and have been for some time, Chen Zumu – honored grandmother – of the Chen-Jasic family. My husband Chen MinChao is Chen Zufu, and we direct the family in its activities.

  “As you no doubt know, we have been working for some time – over twenty years now – on a hyperspace drive capability. We are at the threshold of launching a manned hyperspace vehicle capable of velocities of three light-years per hour.

  “This speed puts Earth and other human colonies, such as Amber and Earthsea, within our reasonable travel range.

  “The question arises, though, of where should we go? The colony locations were hidden by you and your aliases when you ran the colony project. We assume that was for some purpose. We think we know what that purpose was, and that it is your purpose still.

  “That is why I am contacting you. To ensure that we are not violating some rule, some boundary, that you will enforce. We know what your capabilities were a hundred and twenty years ago. We can only imagine what they are now.”

  Jessica took a sip of her tea.

  “Bernd Decker’s goal of protecting humanity from the single-planet sort of cataclysms – asteroid strikes, cosmic ray bursts, coronal mass ejections, and the like – was reached simply by planting the colonies. Why would you also locate the colonies a minimum of three thousand light-years apart?

  “I know why, or I think I do. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were Famine, Disease, War, and Conquest. Your goal is to prevent them from riding through all humanity, generating a multi-planetary cataclysm that poses a threat to the entire human race.

  “Famine you addressed by placing the colonies in subtropical climates on planets with low axial tilt. Multiple growing seasons and a kindly climate made growing enough food to feed everyone easy. It certainly has here on Arcadia.

  “Disease you addressed by locating the colonies six weeks’ hyperspace cruise apart. Each ship will be its own effective quarantine, as most human diseases have incubation periods more like half that time or less. An infected individual would always exhibit symptoms before arrival at that distant a destination.

  “I assume you have a method of dealing with interstellar war as well. What that might be I can guess. Your transporter capability allows you to transport anything anywhere. You could wipe out any war fleet in moments, perhaps even encompassing it and transporting it to some distant location or even the heart of a star. What capabilities you have added in the last century and more would only increase your ability to intervene against an interstellar aggressor.

  “Which leaves us with Conquest. The subjugation of a people and a culture to a power they cannot fight and are helpless in the face of. You represent such a power, and your solution to that was simple. You hid yourself, withdrawing from human affairs before your secret was discovered and humanity was faced with the fact of your existence.”

  Jessica sipped her tea again.

  “Am I close, Madam Chairman? I think I am.

  “Which leaves me with a question. Does our development of the hyperspace drive cross the line? Break your rules?

  “I don’t think it does. The three thousand light-year minimum between colonies implies that you anticipated the hyperspace drive – which you surely had figured out on your way to the Lake-Shore Drive – and anticipated its use as well.

  “I like your little joke there, by the way. I can only imagine what Bernd Decker would have said about it.”

  Jessica chuckled.

  “In considering getting in contact with you, I considered that your previous interventions were all of a benevolent nature.

  “I knew my great grandfather, Madam Chairman, toward the end of his life. Chen MinChao and I were already being groomed as one possibility for the ruling couple of the Chen-Jasic family. My great grandfather told me his stories, of the times that someone – you, I now know – intervened on behalf of him and Arcadia.

  “I know of your intervention in the incident in which Matt Jasic beat Harold Munson to stop his abuse of Betsy Reynolds. I know of your intervention in providing the banking records, communications, and passwords of Kevin Kendall and the ruling council to Matthew Chen-Jasic. I know of your providing the draft charter for colony government to Matthew Chen-Jasic and the constitutional convention delegates.

  “I am appreciative of your assistance in these efforts as well as of your work setting up the colonies, both as an Arcadian and as my great grandfather’s heir. Thank you.”

  Jessica spread her hands and bowed to the camera.

  “I also agree with your decision to remain hidden. Your secret is safe here. Chen MinChao and I know, and have told no one else. Chen JieMin knows – it was he who figured out all the ins and outs – and he has told no one but us. He and his wife ChaoLi are being groomed for Chen Zufu and Chen Zumu – not in the next generation, but in the one after – and your existence will remain the deepest of secrets, known only by the ruling couple of our family.

  “Nevertheless, I would appreciate some sign that we are not overstepping in building up our hyperspace capability and going out among the stars to find the rest of humanity.

  “Thank you for your time, Madam Chairman.

  “I wish you continued success in your endeavors.”

  Janice Quant was flabbergasted. How the hell...?

  Clearly Chen JieMin was much more clever than even she had thought. And Jessica Chen-Jasic was no slouch herself.

  Quant had been so careful. She had intervened in the smallest of ways. And yet Chen JieMin had figured it out. He had a gift for seeing what was really going on with only partial information, and the interventions she had made had been enough for him.

  What to do now?

  Quant could ignore the message, of course. That could be seen as a disallowance for proceeding on with the hyperspace project, however. That would be conquered-culture syndrome. A failure to try, because Quant had failed to approve.

  Quant could also provide some kind of sign to Jessica Chen-Jasic, but it had to be something subtle. Not something that would let the secret out further. Not something that would prove Quant existed to anyone other than she who already knew.

  Quant thought about it, then she had an idea.

  About a week after she recorded the message to Janice Quant, Jessica went into her tea room in the morning. Sitting in the middle of her tearoom table was a ten-inch-tall statue of Matthew Chen-Jasic, a miniature of the statue in Charter Square downtown. It was perfectly wrought, in some silver metal that had a slight yellow hue to it.

  Jessica thought to pick it up to look at it, but she couldn’t move it. It was only perhaps a hundred and fifty cubic inches total volume, but it was too heavy for her to lift.

  MinChao and Jessica sat in her tea room and considered the small statue. Jessica had turned off all the recording equipment so they could speak freely.

  “It�
�s a very good miniature,” MinChao said. “It looks to be exact to the one downtown. Him seated on the pillow and all.”

  “Oh, it is. An exact miniature.”

  “What’s it made out of?”

  “That is a very good question, one to which I now have an answer,” Jessica said. “I asked one of the technical people to measure its volume and mass. It’s total volume is a hundred and sixty-two cubic inches. It weighs a hundred and thirty two pounds.”

  “My God. What is it?”

  “It’s solid iridium.”

  “Iridium?” MinChao asked.

  “Yes. Very rare on Arcadia. On Earth, too, for that matter. Plentiful in space. Three times heavier than steel and very hard. It’s extremely difficult to machine or mold. We wouldn’t even be able to make such a thing as this statue.”

  “But she did.”

  “Yes,” Jessica said. “And then placed it here on my tearoom table. Likely from thousands of light-years away.”

  “What do you think it means?”

  “That we are OK to proceed as long as we do so consistent with the values of Matthew Chen-Jasic. I can’t read it any other way.”

  MinChao nodded.

  “That makes sense to me,” he said.

  “Which isn’t really a problem,” Jessica said.

  She sipped her tea and considered the small statue of her revered great grandfather.

  “That’s what we were going to do anyway.”

  Testing The Hyperspace Ship

  As the two hyperspace ships came together, Karl Huenemann and Mikhail Borovsky worked out the testing protocol they would follow on the new ships.

  “I think the first thing we need to do is test everything we’ve had the existing probes do,” Borovsky said. “Make sure we haven’t lost anything.”

  “I agree with that,” Huenemann said. “Next is probably some testing on the screw drive, to see if we can get some numbers for JieMin and the mathematics people so they can sharpen their pencils again.”

  “How are we going to calculate the moment of inertia?” Borovsky asked. “We need the rotational acceleration resulting from a given thrust for that, right?”