Proxima Dreaming

by Brandon Q Morris

  Marchenko stops using his arms to defend against the sharp blades. He grabs his enemy’s body at the front and back, while the chainsaws dig into his outer layers. He pulls on the body with all his strength, but it is not enough. The structure of the robot is uniform and well-designed. There are no predetermined breaking points, so he has to create one himself. His head whips upward, he opens his mouth and digs his sharp teeth into the hard material.

  One of Marchenko’s legs has been severed. He throws all his strength into his arms, and now he hears a horrible sound, like wet chalk on a blackboard, mixed with the plaintive yearning wail of a creature, but he keeps pulling. Debris falls down on him. The blades of the robot stop and no longer hurt him. Then his arms suddenly flip out to his sides because he has torn the enemy’s body apart.

  That was close, Marchenko thinks. He slowly sits up and slides over to lean against the wall. He starts to brush the remnants of the robot from his body. They consist mainly of steel, small wires, shreds of plastic, and an oily liquid. His leg jerks. He pulls it closer. The robot made a clean cut. He presses the leg against his body, using the other leg to hold it in proper alignment, and lets the nano-fabricators start their work. He will be fit again in half an hour and then he can greet the Omniscience in the security chamber.

  May 12, 19, Eve

  Eve is happy—although she can’t explain why. It took a while before she could even give this feeling a name. The warm feeling inside, the desire to sigh now and then without any reason, the knowledge that nothing in this world can harm her, the brightness that flows from her wide-open eyes deep into her heart—all of that must be happiness. It is surprising how tiny and huge this feeling is simultaneously. How often did she ignore it before, just because she was waiting for something much greater? Yet this time she has not overlooked it. Her night of utter despair probably helped in this regard. It was just three days ago that she considered Adam and Marchenko dead and believed herself surrounded by hostile aliens. Now, all of that has turned around. Is it still important that they may not experience the coming day?

  Eve doesn’t care. Yet she notices that Adam hasn’t reached this point yet. He is walking up and down, and nothing can stop him. She tries, pulls him closer to comfort him. He manages to stay with her for two minutes, then he starts pacing again. She can understand him. He had never believed her to be dead. He had retained hope of seeing her and Marchenko again. Yet perhaps uncertain hoping is harder to bear than the conviction that you are alone in the world.

  She stands propped against the wall and closes her eyes. Nevertheless, the world does not go black. With her inner eye she still sees the control room with Gronolf sitting across from the general, and she hears Adam’s regular steps, the slight humming of the holo-map, her own heartbeat. All this is happening here and now. It does not matter what will come later.

  A loud humming interrupts this image. Eve opens her eyes.

  “Gronolf, Eve, did you hear that?” Adam is running frantically through the control room. Gronolf sits up in his chair and folds out the console.

  “Just a moment,” he says, one of the few English expressions he knows.

  Eve does not move. Whatever she might do now will have no effect on what will happen later.

  May 12, 19, Marchenko

  Marchenko cautiously enters the central life-support room in this sector. The dust has settled, or it was suctioned off by machines located in the center and at the sides of the room. They serve to freshen the air in all the rooms of the sector. At the rear wall he detects the remnants of eleven robots. Their original shapes are indiscernible for some of them. His explosive charges worked well. Even though these robots were dangerous, Marchenko is glad the Omniscience did not send living beings to fight him. Would he have been able to act in cold blood then? He does not know.

  He looks around. The walls and the floor look damaged, as if this was not the first battle here. However, Gronolf’s defeat was a long time ago, so the Omniscience must have cleaned up since then. The floor is not electrified. The entire room seems harmless and he hopes this impression does not deceive. It is only a few meters to the airlock in the rear wall. Marchenko proceeds, one step after another. He wouldn’t put it past the Omniscience to use mines here. Therefore he steps lightly, testing with only half his weight at first.

  Two meters from the lock he suddenly hears a rustling sound behind him. Marchenko whirls around and aims at the source of the noise. But he does not pull the trigger. Behind him a thing not quite eight centimeters high is peering through the partially open door into the room. Is it an animal or a machine? He can’t quite tell, because he can only see its head. Two eyes look in his direction, while a third independent eye gazes at the ceiling. Below the eyes there is a slit, perhaps a mouth.

  “Zzzzzssssss.” The noise is generated by a long tongue that suddenly shoots from the slit, confirming that it is a mouth. The creature slowly moves forward and he can see its entire body. Marchenko had thought of an exotic type of mouse a moment ago, but with its 20-or-so tiny legs, it more closely resembles a centipede with a raised head.

  “Shoo, shoo,” Marchenko says softly. The creature listens. Marchenko moves his arms towards it. The thing quickly turns around and exits the room. He definitely has to tell Gronolf about it. It did not look like a machine.

  It's time to deal with the airlock. Suddenly there is a cracking noise under his right foot. Marchenko instinctively leaps aside, but he’d only stepped on a piece of scrap. He needs to be more careful.

  Marchenko pretends to be the general, but the door won’t open immediately. No reason for concern—after all, he has his universal key, and the door opens after the usual waiting time. Marchenko enters the airlock chamber. He has to bend down because it is so low. He closes the door behind him and starts the procedure for opening the outer hatch. Now would be the perfect moment for attacking him. He sits alone in a steel chamber measuring two cubic meters. Yet nothing happens. Marchenko only hears the hissing of the life-support system. He will soon be done. When will the Majestic Draght leave the radio shadow of the planet?

  Finished. He discharges the air and then opens the round hatch. In front of him is space, or more precisely, about 20 meters of vacuum, with the central area and the core behind it. No problem: He just has to jump at the right moment to reach his destination, the security chamber, which seems to be slowly rotating below. In reality, of course, the outer section he is about to leave is turning around the core.

  Marchenko does not hesitate for long. He jumps and misses the chamber during the first rotation. He did not account for how relative forces change as he approaches the core. He has to calculate his trajectory as if he were a satellite trying to lower its orbit. Therefore he has to decelerate relative to his direction of flight. He recalculates everything and arrives exactly at the entrance of the security chamber. He only has to turn a steel wheel to open the hatch. The designers must have made sure that the chamber could not be blocked. That makes sense, as it contains the emergency shutoff for the Omniscience.

  Marchenko pulls the hatch open. The light in the chamber switches on automatically. He enters and closes the hatch behind him. The room is narrow and about four meters long—it feels like a basement corridor. There are no life support systems and it is as cold as in space. Whoever comes in here would require a spacesuit.

  Marchenko looks around. The chamber appears empty. The walls seem rusty and burnt. Gronolf was not able to give him any clues about exactly how the security chamber might be working. Only his companion Murnaka had that data. Marchenko remembers how Gronolf had opened the door they had been unaware of inside the building on Proxima b.

  He utters the general’s name. The sound in the chamber is dull. There is silence for a moment.

  Then the chamber replies. “I greet you,” it says in the alien language.

  “I greet you,” Marchenko replies. Now he will probably be tested. They wouldn’t want just anyone to have power over the Omniscienc
e.

  “Were you born or made?” asked the chamber.

  “I was born. And you?”

  “I was made.”

  “Who are you?” It is a program, thinks Marchenko. It certainly can’t hurt to ask the program a few questions.

  “I am the key to the Majestic Draght.”

  “Are you part of the Omniscience?”

  “The key is independent. It only belongs to itself.”

  “What can the key do?”

  “It separates and unites core, shell, and Omniscience.”

  “Does this mean it can keep the Omniscience from steering the ship?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Who is allowed to use it?”

  “The scientists and their descendants.”

  “I would like to use it.”

  “I know. You ask many questions. I am glad about that. Like you, I was made to ask questions. The Omniscience no longer asks questions. But first you will have to answer my questions.”

  “Certainly,” Marchenko says. He hopes Gronolf has provided him with all the information he needs.

  “I have to warn you,” the key says. “If you do not answer the questions correctly, the chamber will be filled with a corrosive gas and be heated to a temperature of 3,000 degrees.”

  The gas should hardly bother him—the heat, though, would kill him. He is glad he is alone. “I understand,” he replies.

  “You can still leave the chamber now. The hatch will be closed as soon as I start the first question.”

  “Please get started.”

  Brightnight 39, 3876

  Gronolf looks at the holo-map. He did not show any emotion during the energy surge a moment ago, but he is really worried. If that could be detected by the antenna in the ocean across such a distance, it must have been an enormous amount of energy. It would be helpful if he could speed up the rotation of Single Sun right now. They will only find out more once they reestablish a connection with Marchenko.

  To be honest, he is afraid of bad news. The Omniscience controls the resources of the entire ship. Compared to that, Marchenko is a speck of dust. Why didn’t he at least assume a sturdier shape? A cone with four eyes, stronger legs, more flexible arms, and an efficient weapon—then he might have had a real chance.

  It would have been best, Gronolf knows, if he had been able to solve the problem himself. That would have been fair, too, as he was the one who messed up the first time around. Yet fate was not that merciful to him. Instead, he now has to make sure the two humans, with whom he cannot even converse, stay alive as long as possible. He even wonders whether they shouldn’t leave the building. If the Majestic Draght really hits the planet, they might have a chance to survive at the bottom of the ocean. Perhaps he can use the resources of the building to construct something that would help them. Why didn’t I think about this much earlier?

  Because you were busy.

  Gronolf looks at the general as if the officer had just spoken that thought. It is true. Until now, there simply hadn’t been any time for developing alternative plans.

  He follows Adam with his right eye. Somehow the young human reminds him of a younger version of himself. Gronolf also used to get nervous when he had no meaningful task. And that had happened a lot during his training. Perhaps Adam should pay more attention to his sister. Gronolf never had that chance. The members of his plex quickly went their own ways. What might have become of his brothers and sisters? It would be nice to find an answer to that question sometime.

  Perhaps Marchenko will be successful.

  May 12, 19, Marchenko

  “Who are you?”

  That is a good question, and if he answers it incorrectly, it might be the last one. He could once more pretend to be the general, but if the system is cleverly constructed, it would have a camera and could see he is lying.

  “I am Marchenko, a friend of Gronolf.”

  “What do you need me for?”

  “The Omniscience is on a course for the shelter building on Single Sun. If the building is destroyed, there will be many casualties. I have to stop the Omniscience from doing that.”

  “I understand and have confirmed the collision course. Authorization granted.”

  “That was it?”

  “That was it. You answered my questions correctly.”

  Marchenko is stunned. After all the efforts and struggles, the last stage was much simpler than he had feared. He was already prepared to report the key historical details Gronolf had transmitted to him. Well, even better—now they would not waste any more time.

  “What’s next?” he asks.

  “To whom should I transfer the control authority? I can give it to you or Gronolf. The decision cannot be reversed,”

  Marchenko ponders... Using the Majestic Draght they could reach the solar system in 20 years. He could take Adam and Eve home, to Earth. His children would be among their peers. They still would have at least one-half of their lives ahead of them. If he hands control to Gronolf, they will certainly fly to Proxima Centauri. He has already described his plans to them. Adam and Eve could fly along, but they would spend the rest of their lives among strangers, with whom they could never properly communicate.

  It is a difficult decision.

  Transfer control to me, he thinks, that would be a real happy outcome. Adam and Eve are not responsible for this situation. They were never asked whether they wanted to go on this voyage.

  “Gronolf,” he says, nevertheless. He simply cannot decide otherwise. He immediately feels guilty regarding his children, but he cannot help that.

  “I understand,” the chamber answers. “Now you only have to decide the fate of the Omniscience. According to my records, it caused the death of 1,323 descendants of my creators. The current course of the Majestic Draght would completely annihilate the remaining crew. According to the basic rules, a suitable punishment would be a complete erasure of its higher mental abilities. Independent from that, it will only be able to monitor the core afterward.”

  “So this means a death penalty?”

  “The subconscious of the Omniscience will survive and control the engine core. Only its thoughts, sensations, and emotions will be deleted. Should I initiate the deletion now?”

  Now Gronolf should be the one standing here. The Omniscience committed crimes against his relatives. Marchenko regards the high number of victims as a loss, but he is not personally affected. The Omniscience never did anything to him, at least so far. It does not deserve death for that, even if Gronolf might see this differently.

  “I would like to leave this decision to Gronolf,” he says.

  “That is not possible. The key program will automatically deactivate itself after handing over control. Then deleting the consciousness of the Omniscience will no longer be possible.”

  “Fine. I cannot make this decision, so I have to reject the deletion.”

  “I understand. You just passed the test. I now hand over control of the Majestic Draght to you.”

  Marchenko is petrified. The key program tricked him. It gave him a false sense of security and then asked the decisive questions. What would have happened if he had given the wrong answers? He remembers the initial warning.

  A moment later a cover in the side wall slides away, revealing a large console. Marchenko studies the labels. Due to the data provided by Gronolf he can easily decipher them. The keys, divided into four groups, obviously serve to control the Omniscience and the Majestic Draght. First he has to change the course of the ship. That is done via the lower right sector. Marchenko makes the Majestic Draght enter an orbit around Single Sun.

  “What are you doing?” It is the same voice the key used to speak to him. Yet he has the feeling that he is no longer hearing the key program.

  “I am putting the Majestic Draght in a course around Single Sun.”

  “That is inefficient.”

  “It saves the lives of more than a thousand Grosnops.”

  “That does not matter. The g
oal of colonizing Single Sun could not be achieved. The remaining crew members only use up resources unnecessarily. They should be placed in an inactive state.”

  “Who is saying this?”

  “I am the Omniscience. I know it. I am infallible.”

  “Nobody is infallible.”

  “I am programmed that way. I simply have to be infallible. If I fail, I am no longer myself and my right to exist would end. I cannot fail.”

  “Is that why you want to destroy the Majestic Draght through a collision with the planet?”

  “I am the Omniscience. I always choose the right decisions. Any other option is not possible.”

  “I am afraid there is an error in your programming. Therefore you will not be able to decide anything anymore in the near future.”

  “That is not planned and not acceptable.”

  “Was that why you tried to prevent me from entering the security chamber?”

  “You were classified as a security risk according to the basic rules, and were therefore destroyed.”

  “I wasn’t destroyed—quite the opposite. I reached the security chamber and deactivated your influence over the ship.”

  “I am the Omniscience. I always choose the right decisions. I cannot fail. You were destroyed.”

  “You repeat yourself. Unfortunately I will have to end our conversation, because the Majestic Draght is leaving the radio shadow of the planet.”

  May 12, 19, Adam

  “So!” Gronolf shouts. “So!”

  Adam jumps up. The alien is standing next to the holo-map and gestures with all four arms. It is unclear whether he is expressing shock or joy.