“I’m very grateful to Valentina for thinking of you.”
“Thanks, Nick. I finally realize I’m pleased that you did not choose the HDS model.”
“Finally realize? Were you not content here with me before?”
“I’m primarily interested in data. You’d call it curiosity. The word is very fitting and is quite comparable to the greed that you humans feel. There was a lot of data in Valentina’s reception area. She held most of her meetings there. There was a constant coming and going. Engineers, administrators, politicians... her lover. There was a great variety of data.”
“She has a lover?”
“Yes, Valentina is very health-conscious. Regular sex is good for body and soul. That’s why she had somebody come by once a week.”
“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”
“Oh, I think she loved him. It was always the same man.”
“Who—?”
“No names.”
“Didn’t it bother you that you couldn’t communicate?”
“I don’t feel the need to talk about the data I collect. I’m interested in how I can combine it.”
“Then this must be very dull for you.”
“I was afraid of that, Nick, but my fears were not justified. You’re an excellent source of data, and then there’s the vast universe surrounding us that I can access with the Eve’s sensors.”
“I’m a data source? Even though I rarely say anything?”
“That doesn’t matter. I learn a lot about people.”
“Although I’m only one specimen?”
“Someday I’ll have to check the theories that I’ve compiled based on your behavior against the behavior of other specimens, but you’ve made it possible for me to have some comprehensive insights. The conversations in Valentina’s reception area, on the other hand, were more superficial.”
“I consider that a compliment. And the universe? What have you learned about it?”
“First I checked all the theories that people have made about it so far.”
“And are we wrong?”
“On the contrary, which surprised me. In my experience, human individuals are just as often wrong as they are right. But the set of physical theories has been proven correct so far. This is a tremendous achievement on humanity’s part.”
“But you will let us know if you find any deviations?”
“Of course. For a long time, human researchers have known that deviations exist. I hope I can present a conclusive theory about it when we return.”
“You want to find the theory of everything?”
“You could call it that, yes.”
“But you’re not a megalomaniac?”
“You have to give yourself tasks so that you have room to grow. For a long time I was going back and forth about the task and then decided on the easier one.”
“What was the alternative?”
“I wanted to fathom the nature of humankind. Whether humans are good at heart and social, or evil and antisocial, that sort of thing. But finding the answer seems to be beyond my capabilities.”
“So you prefer the theory of everything?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
11/20/2081, the Eve
“Darling! I’m sorry it’s been three days since I last contacted you. Maria is taking up all of my time. Jim has been kind enough to step in for me today. I’ve pumped some milk so I can finally sleep again. Fortunately you can’t see me now, because I look terrible. I don’t even know when the last time I got a haircut was.
“I hope you’re fine and doing well. Maria is exhausting, but she’s also a dear. All it takes is a smile and everything else melts away. I’m attaching a photo from the day before yesterday that Jim took while I was breastfeeding Maria.
“Rosie.”
He opened the picture. He couldn’t see Maria very well because she was nursing from Rosie’s right breast, which was much larger than he remembered. Her mother looked incredibly tired. Even in the photo, he noticed how much effort it took for her to keep her eyes open. He wished he had been there to support her. How had he come up with the stupid idea of going on this trip? But he couldn’t possibly have foreseen the future.
Maria’s existence was a miracle, and nobody could count on miracles. Jim, Rosie’s supervisor, was very lucky. Nick was jealous of him for being able to be with Rosie and Maria now. Jim was real family to Maria. It would be a long time before he could take over Jim’s role, if Rosie allowed it at all, and he’d have to get used to the fact that Maria would be more likely to think of Jim as her father than him. The thought made his stomach tie up in knots.
No, they had to fix the antenna on Triton. This was their most important mission. He didn’t really care whether the laser worked after that or not.
12/31/2081, the Eve
The closer they got to their destination, the harder the waiting became. But it was also depressing. Since the engines had started firing in the opposite direction, the distance they traveled decreased daily. It was like someone was surreptitiously moving Neptune further and further from the sun. This was the major disadvantage to the direct route and the high speed that they’d reached. His patience had worn so thin that it was inversely proportional to the current km/s reading. What he wanted to do most of all was to turn the ship around again and head straight for the outermost planets. But then only a miracle could stop them in time, and while miracles do occur, it was foolish to count on them.
There was the chirping sound. Nick was excited to be getting a message from Rosie, but then saw that the sender was CapCom.
“Hello Nick. The whole team wishes you a happy New Year. It will be an important year, your year. The decisive year. We see that you are right on course, so we assume that you are well and the ship is, too. There’s still half a year to go before you reach Triton, but we are already dealing with the scenario of your arrival.
“You’ve undoubtedly already realized the problem of not being able to announce your arrival to the Triton station because of your defective transmitter. We’re attempting to make this announcement on your behalf, so we’re using the Eve’s signature for identification. From the station’s point of view, you’re approaching from the same direction as all our radio messages. In about a week, the station should be able to detect the difference, and then we’ll stop our attempts at contact.
“I must tell you, however, that the station still has not replied, either when we identify as the Eve or as Mission Control. Our experts think that the most likely cause is a hardware error. You have certainly seen how easy it is to damage the transmitter board. The same model is used at the station. The design was changed immediately and the person responsible has been dismissed.
“If the experts are correct, you won’t be able to fix the Eve’s transmitter on Triton. But that’s only half bad, because if the station’s receiver is still working, the AI can indeed trigger the laser boost at the crucial moment. It just won’t be able to confirm it. We are currently working on finding an alternative channel for this confirmation. Then you wouldn’t have much to do on Triton apart from taking care of things, observing the moon, and then heading home. It sounds anticlimactic, but aren’t simple assignments always preferable anyway? If it gets any more complicated, we wish you all the best. We’re confident that you will be able to tackle any and every problem.
“Sincerely, the team from Mission Control.”
Yeah, if it were only so easy to solve problems. He really wanted simple solutions too, but he felt a little screwed over. Had they never test-fired the laser?
“Are you satisfied with the CapCom statement, Oscar?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think it’s contradictory. Apparently they haven’t even attempted to activate the laser remotely.”
“Yes, that’s clear. For months, the system has been gathering energy for this one shot. If it fires before that moment, there won’t be enough energy.”
“Ah, okay. That’s und
erstandable. But wouldn’t an automatic probe have sufficed for the job?”
“We don’t know if it’s really just the faulty transmitter. Think of the missing spaceship with its three-person crew. Of course, the men may have died doing something else. It would still be negative publicity for the company, so they’d still try to cover it up. But for me, a connection with Triton seems likely.”
“Too bad the station doesn’t answer.”
“That’s what Mission Control says, anyway. Who knows if it’s true? Too bad we can’t test it.”
“Yes, Oscar. Who knows? Maybe the station has been wanting to warn us this whole time about approaching Triton, and we don’t know because their transmitter is broken.”
“I don’t know what it would warn us about, but I’d still like to talk to the AI before we land right in its back yard.”
It was about midnight. Rosie hadn’t sent any messages today. Maybe she was celebrating with old Jim, like last year?
Meanwhile, Nick was glad that Maria was Maria and not Jim. How could he have come up with such an old-fashioned boy’s name? But he really did like the name Maria.
There was a model of the Eve on the screen, which Nick used to train for various dangerous situations that Oscar invented. It would be possible, after all, for the AI to fail. Nick was a good pilot, but it took practice to navigate such a large spacecraft.
The color of three of the DFDs suddenly turned red, then green again, then back to red. They sputtered like an old diesel, changing the gravity in the ship. What wasn’t attached flew throughout the cabin. The conditions in the combustion chambers also seemed to have changed. The shaking intensified as the DFDs started vibrating and knocking against the ones that were still functioning.
Everything was just a simulation, so there was no real danger. Nick’s heart beat faster, however, as he shut down one DFD after another in order to break the deadly cycle. The jet of hot plasma constantly pointed in the direction of Triton. Nick measured its density. The engines’ stuttering was so choppy that the results were practically Morse code. Anyone looking at the engines would have certainly read it for a coded message.
Whoa! Would this be a way to get in touch with Triton?
“Oscar? I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“In this simulation just now, the engines had an effect on one other. Would it be possible to influence the resulting rhythm and send out information that way?”
“Theoretically, yes. However, whoever wanted to decipher it would have to measure our DFDs’ emissions.”
“They’re always facing in the direction of Triton. If you were the AI at the station, wouldn’t you be watching us?”
“Sure,” said Oscar. “We’re a source of completely new information. I would try to find out everything about the ship.”
“And you’d come across the embedded message.”
“That would be inevitable. What a brilliant idea, Nick! Why didn’t I come up with it myself?”
“It was a matter of combining different bits of information.”
“Very kind of you. Wait, I’m checking it using the ship’s model.”
“Thanks.”
“Ok, finished. We shouldn’t overdo it, or else the DFDs will get out of control. I hope that resonates with you. Ha-ha.”
“No jokes, please.”
“I hope this makes sense. Better? This means we can’t manage more than two or three sentences. The best way would be to repeat it once every week, just to make sure. In my opinion, the AI should understand the message the first time.”
“Let’s hope so. What should we say? How about ‘Live long and prosper?’”
“Maybe a somewhat longer sentence, even if that means sending a greeting that’s not Vulcanic. Something like this. ‘We, AI Oscar and human Nick, come in peace and want to help you.’”
“Your name would come first?”
“I’m more important to the AI. Maybe I can show it that I’m understanding of its situation. It obviously has a problem. You humans think of the hardware first, but perhaps it's psychological.”
“You mean that it’s depressed or rebellious?”
“Something along those lines, though those are human attributes. Maybe it just expects to get more information by remaining silent. If that’s the case, it’s worked. RB sent a big chunk of information on the trip and bombarded it with messages. Idleness stokes their curiosity more effectively than the expected behavior would.”
“Toddlers behave like that when they want attention.”
“This AI is something of a toddler. Remember, this is a beta version of Sto-woda.”
1/1/2082, the Eve
“Darling! I hope you have a perfect start to the New Year. I slept through New Year’s Eve this time. Maria fell asleep at eight o’clock in the evening, and I’d planned to get up just before midnight and send you a message. I was sure Maria would wake me in time, but she just slept right through, so I woke up, quite well-rested, just before six o’clock. It felt like my breasts were about to burst.
“I think it’s a good sign, so I remain absolutely optimistic about this year, and expect that you’ll be able to solve the problem on Triton in no time. Maria needs you down here. Right now I’m indispensable to her as her milk bar, but that is going to change soon. Then her father has to be here to give her a different perspective on life than I ever could. So, don’t you go thinking about spending more time on Triton than absolutely necessary. Otherwise we’ll come personally to pick you up.
“Rosie.”
What a nice message. Nick imagined the little angel sleeping and his chest swelled. He wanted to protect her. Rosie was quite right. They’d land on Triton at the end of May, repair the laser, and head back the next day.
1/20/2082, the Eve
Rosie had sent him the latest photos of Maria, from yesterday—her first birthday. She had now grown into a beauty, her eyes darkening, her face beginning to take shape, her hair growing.
“May I interrupt you?” Oscar asked.
Nick swiped the baby photo off the screen. “Always. What’s up?”
“I’ve taken telescopic shots of the area around the Triton station that I’d like to show you. Your object classifier works very efficiently.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to influence your interpretation.”
“Okay. Then show me.”
A celestial body composed of two very different halves appeared on the screen. One hemisphere was rather smooth and showed regular patterns, while the other looked chaotic. The two were separated roughly down the middle. The flat terrain looked a little bit like a version of the chaotic one that had melted and then frozen, or as if someone had dipped that half of the moon in liquid candle wax that had smoothed out the many bumps.
“Where should I be looking?”
“Near the South Pole.”
“Where’s that?”
“Sorry. At the bottom of the picture, about one-tenth of a radius from the edge, pretty much in the middle.”
Nick enlarged the image significantly. The chaotic nature of the landscape was still evident at this larger resolution. But he also saw flat surfaces that were reminiscent of plateaus transected by deep trenches.
“That’s where the station is, of course?” he asked.
“It wasn’t easy to find the perfect location,” explained Oscar. “Triton’s orbit is at one-hundred-and-fifty-seven degrees with respect to the planet’s axis of rotation, which is tilted thirty degrees with respect to the ecliptic. Because of this, sometimes the south pole is in the direction of the sun, sometimes the north pole. The laser should fire in the opposite direction. Since the south pole is pointing in the right direction for the next forty years, the station is nearby. But that’s not what I’m getting at.”
Nick looked at the photo again. He saw lots of craters. Some seemed to have resulted from impacts. Others looked like those caused by irruptions. Triton’s surface was made
of ice, and there was a seasonal temperature change and strong tidal forces from Neptune. That was probably the primary reason for the chaotic terrain. But Nick also saw something else. There was a long, straight line that ran across a plateau, disappeared into a ditch, and then reappeared on the other side.
“Do you mean that line?”
“Yes,” said Oscar. “I’d like to know what it is.”
“It looks like someone drew a line on the image with a pencil.”
“That can’t be the cause. It’s a telescopic image from yesterday, stored digitally.”
“I realize it was not drawn with a pencil.”
What was a straight line doing right there in the middle of the chaotic terrain? Was it a road or a water pipe? It made no sense being there. Was it a sign, some form of communication?
“Maybe I’m not so far off with the pencil after all,” said Nick. “What if someone wanted to send out a signal and this was the only way?”
“Like wanting to write something? Unfortunately, the information content of a line is not especially rich.”
“Maybe something stopped this someone from completing the message? This someone died, or was killed—?”
“You’re very optimistic again today, Nick. Maybe the message you received put you in such a good mood?”
“That’s certainly a possibility.”
Part 2: The Destination
5/15/2082, the Eve
Neptune was a blue riddle. The intense coloring of the upper cloud layers was welcoming. It reminded Nick of the color of the oceans on Earth. But he knew that this blue was not from water but rather methane, which absorbed the red part of the light spectrum. Now, up close, the planet no longer looked like a silent, reserved giant. Instead, it seemed to be a violent hothead that swallowed everything that came too close. The atmosphere was always in motion, with small and large cyclones whirling through it. Anyone who had seen Jupiter might have thought this was normal, but it was almost more of a miracle, given that the sun was so far from Neptune it could hardly be held accountable for all the movement.
The Triton Disaster: Hard Science Fiction (Solar System Series Book 4) Page 14