The Triton Disaster: Hard Science Fiction (Solar System Series Book 4)

by Brandon Q Morris

  “That’s what a laser beam looks like when it’s fired in space,” Vitali said. We were taking him at his word now. Oleg then suggested changing course, and nobody objected. It was clear who must have fired the shot. But we’d save our calculations for later. The station had fired on us without warning. Why hadn’t anybody warned us before we’d left? Did the group really have no idea? We almost talked ourselves to death with these questions. I hate such pointless talk. Then we landed and set forth.

  We reached the station on the same day. The AI refused to speak with us, but it couldn’t do anything about our blowtorch. We managed to force open the airlock. Then Oleg, our IT specialist, examined the memory and found the huge thing embedded in the ice of Triton.

  The station’s AI still did not comment, but this ‘thing’ must be why it had shot us down. Perhaps it didn’t want to share it with us. That was our guess. We were that stupid.

  AIs, Oleg explained, sometimes have motivations that humans can’t understand. They really crave data, so an extraterrestrial building must be the very epitome of paradise for them. We believed him.

  I repaired the lock as best I could. Now it has a code lock: the key is MIP.

  2/20/2080, Triton

  Outside, there was a pathetic little robot that tried to stop us. It looked like a cleaning model but also had a gripper arm. Apparently, the station’s AI has outdoor robots.

  We had not been informed about that either. Vitali smashed it single-handedly with his hammer.

  After that the fight started. Oleg was really pissed that Vitali had destroyed the robot. He had still been trying to read its memory, but Vitali had done a thorough job, as is his way.

  I was in favor of informing Earth as our first priority. But we had no long-distance radio available, just an optical signal. I was sure that after our ship’s disappearance, the group would try to watch Triton using one of the latest optical telescopes. If we could produce a big enough sign, they would send help.

  Vitali did not like the idea, but Oleg supported me. He has a young wife and a little kid waiting for him at home. Vitali and I only have the Cosmonaut Corps. In any case, we equipped an old rover with an electrically-heated plow assembly and drew a line with it.

  Meanwhile, Vitali explored the surroundings and found the cave. We never got to talking about how. I imagine he just followed the robot’s tracks. Surely the station’s AI had made this discovery before us, or else it would not have responded to us so aggressively. Or had it wanted to stop us from entering the cave? I would like to speak with it.

  Then we stayed the night in the tent next to the rover. Vitali was nowhere to be seen by the time we fell asleep.

  2/21/2080, Triton

  Vitali showed up after breakfast. I spilled my coffee from fright as he knocked on the outer wall of the tent. I only have three more servings of that instant coffee. It was a farewell gift from my colleagues at Roskosmos, when I quit to transfer to RB. Vitali actually managed to convince Oleg of his plans to explore the cave. But it wasn’t that hard. Oleg is a science fiction fan and all you have to do is say something about extraterrestrials and he’ll do anything you ask him.

  I, on the other hand, am a fan of the ancient game known as ‘Survival.’ A basic rule is to stay away from anything that goes over your head. Aliens, if they exist, are always going to be over our heads. We can’t handle them. We aren’t even equal among ourselves. I asked God for the strength to survive this mission, which isn’t usually my style. I like to keep him out of the picture until there’s no other way.

  But the cave is really a miracle. First is this huge hall. It would be possible to set up an excellent base here. Methane supplies energy, and the thick layer of ice protects against cosmic radiation. What would the hall look like if it were completely lit up? The RB Group’s underground production facilities, shown to us so proudly, pale in comparison.

  Vitali wanted to convince us to go down to the alien structure that we still knew nothing about apart from the fact that it existed. Oleg was apparently so tired that he was on my side this time. As a computer scientist, he was probably not used to taking long walks. I can walk until I keel over dead. I trained for almost three years with the Russian army.

  We had to leave the rover outside, so we set up the tent in the back of the hall. It was pretty cramped with the three of us, but at least nobody was freezing. Each of us reeked so thoroughly that it wasn’t even possible to tell how bad the others smelled.

  2/22/2080, Triton

  We left the tent where it was, because Vitali promised that the extraterrestrial thing was just a half a day’s walk away. Oleg was thrilled. I didn’t think the cave was all that spectacular, but I did get excited about the section with the stalactites. There were stalagmites and stalactites—I always mix them up—shining in all sorts of colors. They were amazing. “The ones that hang down are stalactites, ‘tites’ like ‘tits.’ That way you’ll remember it,” Vitali explained. Then Oleg laughed for at least fifteen minutes, pronouncing the word ‘stalac-tit’ loudly every time he passed under a stalactite. So stupid. On the other hand, I probably won’t mix up stalagmites and stalactites ever again.

  He tripped into one of those methane pits waiting for idiots like him every few feet. We laughed at him at first, but he started panicking pretty quickly. The liquid methane seemed to be cooling the body much faster than the spacesuit could warm it up. Oleg screamed in pain as we finally pulled him out. After that, our progress was slower because we had to constantly provide encouragement to keep him moving.

  Oleg was whining about his frozen feet the whole time. I thought, can’t he pull himself together? But as we were standing in front of the metal wall, he was very calm. I looked into his helmet. The expression on his face was that of someone whose dream has come true. At this time I was quite skeptical. What would this discovery bring us? It was very different for Vitali. He raved about how much we’d be doing for humanity. That our names would go down in history like those of Armstrong and Aldrin. Popov, Markov, and Fomin. This time I laughed.

  Vitali’s enthusiasm was not dampened when we were unable to open the wall. It was definitely not a door. It may have just been a coincidence that the exit to the cave was here. Maybe the station’s AI had dug it out with their robots to find out more about the extraterrestrial structure.

  “We can’t go any further,” I kept saying. But Vitali didn’t believe me. He had analyzed the wall and found that it was made of ordinary steel.

  “It’s not magic. It’s only steel, and it can’t stop us,” he said.

  This was true, at least in theory. But we didn’t have an endless amount of time. We really should have been taking care of how to get home. We still have to let people on Earth know that we still exist and that we need somebody to come to pick us up and take us home.

  Oleg started by digging through the ice to get past the wall but quickly realized that the wall continued both above and below. Whatever was behind it was well-protected.

  Eventually his strength failed him and he agreed to head back to the tent first. Once we had all returned, I examined his injuries. It didn’t look good. The legs showed severe frostbite up to the knee. I apologized inwardly. Pulling himself together all day must have been ungodly. We gave him strong painkillers and agreed to bring him back to the station the next day. The AI has to help in such cases, since it’s part of the mandated algorithm ethics that RB programmers have to adhere to.

  2/23/2080, Triton

  Oleg and his obsession with extraterrestrials! Vitali actually persuaded him to go down with him another time. The painkillers seemed to be working too well. I warned him that he was in danger of losing his feet entirely if he wasn’t treated, but he wouldn’t listen.

  I refused to have anything to do with the predictable drama. We split up after breakfast. The two headed downwards again. I watched them until they disappeared from the range of my headlight. Even though Oleg needed Vitali’s help over and over, he didn’t turn aro
und. His decision. I crossed the vast hall and then drove to the station with the rover. It was a strange relief to see the starry sky above me again. It wasn’t until I reached the outside that I realized something strange had been clutching at my heart the whole time.

  In the station, I examined the data-storage area that Vitali had accessed, and discovered a terrifying truth. Vitali had hidden from us most of what he had extracted from the AI’s memory. The AI somehow managed to learn something about the contents of the alien object—how, I am not sure, since the AI still won’t speak with me. I was so shocked that I had to sit down. We were very fortunate to have not gotten beyond the metal wall. If we had opened that Pandora’s box, nothing in the solar system would ever be the same as it had been. Why hadn’t Vitali told us about it? And how could I have been so stupid as to have trusted him?

  Now I understood the AI’s decision to shoot down our ship. Most people need to get to the bottom of a mystery, whatever the cost, and any warning about it makes them work with even greater determination. This likely explained Vitali’s motivation. I realized what I had to do. I had to stop my two colleagues from opening Pandora’s box, at any cost. The gate had to remain closed. But I also knew that I couldn’t stop Vitali with words. He’d keep trying until he’d succeeded.

  There was only one way.

  2/24/2080, Triton

  I waited patiently in the tent for Oleg and Vitali. I had to ration my power, so I decided not to follow them any further. Surely Vitali wouldn’t succeed so quickly.

  The two came back late at night, with Oleg on Vitali’s shoulder. Both were very excited, for Vitali had evidently found a way to penetrate into the steel wall. If I understood correctly, he’d designed a primitive, hand-operated drill that the two had used to make a hole about ten centimeters deep.

  Vitali just laughed when I complained that he had kept the most essential information from the AI secret from both me and Oleg. He just thought that I was being a downer. On the other side of the wall, happiness and wealth and honor awaited Mother Russia. Of course, he really meant himself, first and foremost. Oleg was on his side. He wouldn’t let me, an unbeliever, get in the way of his dream of meeting extraterrestrials. This was the point we’d reached. Their self-imposed mission had become a kind of religion. Maybe it would be better to avoid calling assignments ‘missions.’ The word clearly takes things in the wrong direction.

  But am I any better? I believe that I, too, have a job to do. I have to stop Vitali and Oleg from succeeding. It could be as soon as tomorrow. Vitali, on the other hand, claimed that whatever I had found at the station amounted to nothing more than the wild fantasies of an AI gone berserk. The best proof of this was its attempt to kill us. He asked me how I could be stupid enough to trust an AI that has apparently turned against its creator.

  I failed in my attempt to achieve the impossible—to have a reasonable discussion with fanatics. And I couldn’t exempt myself. I’m no better than Oleg and Vitali. I stand just as unforgivingly on the other side. The difference is that I believe the AI and not any fantasies. I saw only one solution. If I destroyed the drill, Vitali would build a new one. If I managed to collapse the cave, he would try to dig a new path to the wall. There was only one way to save Earth. I had to eliminate Vitali from the picture.

  When I realized this, I couldn’t bring myself to face him anymore. I was sure he would be able to see the intention in my eyes. Which would have been fine with me, except it would have made my job a lot more difficult. I had to be careful so that Vitali discovered nothing of my plans. I said goodbye with the pretense of returning to the station and calling Earth for help. Oleg and Vitali were okay with that. They couldn’t go down in the history books if nobody on Earth knew anything about their accomplishments.

  I moved away from the tent towards the exit. As soon as the darkness hid me, I sat down on the ground and waited for the time to come.

  2/25/2080, Triton

  At two o’clock standard time, I crept cautiously back to the tent. Although the near-vacuum in the cave transmitted no noise, the ground over which I moved did. The tarp was so thin that I couldn’t rule out Vitali or Oleg hearing me coming if one of them was awake and keeping an ear pressed to the ground.

  But nothing stirred as I stood in front of the tent. Both must have been asleep. At that moment, I felt no compassion, at least not for Vitali, Oleg, or myself. I only felt sorry for Oleg’s family, who would now have to make do without him forever. I took the knife out of the tool belt, squatted in front of the tent, and pushed the blade slowly into the fabric, just above the ground, with the greatest possible force. Then I pulled the knife to the right, creating a slit about half a meter in length. Nobody would be able to seal it.

  I stepped back about two meters. After about 40 seconds, the hectic movements in the tent started. Body parts were pushing against the tarp. It looked like the tent was very pregnant and about to give birth to an alien. But it was not a birth. Quite the opposite. Two men died there. In complete silence, at least for me. I didn’t consider either of them a friend, but as colleagues it had been our job to watch out for each other’s survival.

  But that had been a different time. The movements stopped after precisely 212 seconds. I timed the duration on my watch. For a moment I considered leaving the two corpses in the tent, but that seemed cowardly, as if I had to spare myself from the sight of them. No. I had caused their deaths and had to assume responsibility for it. First I took out Vitali, then Oleg, and covered both of them with the tent. The cold had hit fast. When I’d dragged Oleg through the tent’s narrow entrance, his body was already quite frozen. But I had finished the job.

  Or not. The last step was missing. I had committed a sin. The God I believed in would forgive me. He would realize that I’d been compelled to do this for a higher purpose. Still, he would demand repentance. First, I thought about using the same technique I’d used with Oleg and Vitali. I would slit my suit with the knife and suffocate. But then I saw Oleg’s burned feet and knew what I had to do. I walked to the back of the cave to the stalagmites. And to the methane holes.

  I took the memory stick with my notes, gripping it tightly in my fist. Maybe someday it could save others from the mistakes we’d made. The RB Group won’t let it get out, and they’ll find some poor sod with nothing to lose and send him—or her, I suppose—on our trail. Hopefully they’ll give that person a clue as to what they’re dealing with. But, some future day, someone will end up standing in front of me, and the memory stick in my outstretched arm might save him. Or at least get him to do the right thing.

  5/21/2082, Triton

  “Delightful,” said Nick. “What an uplifting story.”

  “I was worried it wouldn’t have a positive effect on you. But I assumed you wouldn’t have approved of my leaving out any of the details.”

  “You’re right there, Oscar. Pandora’s box—do you have any idea what that could mean?”

  “According to legend, the father of the gods, Zeus, gave this Pandora a box, with the stipulation that it never be opened. But she didn’t observe this condition and when she opened it she released all the evils that exist in the world today—hardships, illness, and death.”

  “I’ve heard of the myth, but what’s it got to do with the alien installation?”

  “Unfortunately, our Russian doesn’t get concrete here. But he killed his two colleagues as well as himself. So it must have been vitally important to him for the object to remain locked.”

  “Maybe he just went crazy and overreacted. Oleg and Vitali didn’t seem to be especially afraid of the danger.”

  “I would agree with you. People sometimes panic unnecessarily.”

  “But?”

  “The AI. That’s where it all started. When it shot down the Otlitschny.”

  “Maybe it went crazy.”

  “AIs don’t go insane. It must have had a reason.”

  “One of the Russians had suspected that the AI didn’t want to share the discove
ry. Maybe it had invented a story to turn the three men against each other.”

  “No, Nick. This isn’t how AIs think. If it had wanted to kill the people, it could have easily shot them down. But it destroyed their orbiting ship instead. It spared the men, and must have hoped they wouldn’t find the wall.”

  “But why didn’t it speak to them and explain everything?”

  “What are the odds that our predecessors would have responded and acted in the interests of the AI?”

  “I dunno, Oscar. You’re better at figuring these things out than I am. Maybe thirty percent?”

  “It’s twenty-seven percent. Less than a third. When it comes to saving humanity from the evils of Pandora’s box, the probability is far too low. The risk of the box being opened would have been seventy-three percent!”

  “I can’t refute your calculation. But it creeps me out somehow. What if there was a likelihood of ninety-five percent instead?”

  “The AI would have had to kill them anyway. A five percent risk is still too high for the survival of humanity.”

  “You see, that’s what I mean, Oscar. A person would have decided differently at ninety-five percent.”

  “He would have allowed three humans to survive, but there would still be a one in twenty probability that this would have wiped out all of humanity. That’s irresponsible.”

  “And that’s why I hope that AIs won’t be taking over anytime soon.”

  “Don’t worry, Nick, we’re not interested in that. Power is of no value. Only information.”