Orphans of the Helix

by Dan Simmons

  Orphans of the Helix (v1.1)

  Dan Simmons, 1999

  The great spinship translated down from Hawking space into the red-and-white double light of a close binary. While the 684,300 people of the Amoiete Spectrum Helix dreamt on in deep cryogenic sleep, the five AIs in charge of the ship conferred. They had encountered an unusual phenomenon and while four of the five had agreed it important enough to bring the huge spinship out of C-plus Hawking space, there was a lively debate -- continuing for several microseconds -- about what to do next.

  The spinship itself looked beautiful in the distant light of the two stars, white and red light bathing its kilometer-long skin, the starlight flashing on the three thousand environmental deep-sleep pods, the groups of thirty pods on each of the one hundred spin hubs spinning past so quickly that the swing arms were like the blur of great, overlapping fan blades, while the three thousand pods themselves appeared to be a single, flashing gem blazing with red and white light. The Aeneans had adapted the ship so that the hubs of the spinwheels along the long, central shaft of the ship were slanted -- the first thirty spin arms angled back, the second hub angling its longer thirty-pod arms forward, so that the deep-sleep pods themselves passed between each other with only microseconds of separation, coalescing into a solid blur that made the ship under full spin resemble exactly what its name implied -- Helix. An observer watching from some hundreds of kilometers away would see what looked to be a rotating human double DNA helix catching the light from the paired suns.

  All five of the AIs decided that it would be best to call in the spin pods. First the great hubs changed their orientation until the gleaming helix became a series of three thousand slowing carbon-carbon spin arms, each with an ovoid pod visible at its tip through the slowing blur of speed. Then the pod arms stopped and retracted against the long ship, each deep-sleep pod fitting into a concave nesting cusp in the hull like an egg being set carefully into a container.

  The Helix, no longer resembling its name now so much as a long, slender arrow with command centers at the bulbous, triangular head, and the Hawking drive and larger fusion engines bulking at the stern, morphed eight layers of covering over the nested spin arms and pods. All of the AIs voted to decelerate toward the G8 white star under a conservative four hundred gravities and to extend the containment field to class twenty. There was no visible threat in either system of the binary, but the red giant in the more distant system was -- as it should be -- expelling vast amounts of dust and stellar debris. The AI who took the greatest pride in its navigational skills and caution warned that the entry trajectory toward the G8 star should steer very clear of the L1 Roche lobe point because of the massive heliosphere shock waves there, and all five AIs began charting a deceleration course into the G8 system that would avoid the worst of the heliosphere turmoil. The radiation shock waves there could be dealt with easily using even a class-three containment field, but with 684,300 human souls aboard and under their care, none of the AIs would take the slightest chance.

  Their next decision was unanimous and inevitable. Given the reason for the deviation and deceleration into the G8 system, they would have to awaken humans. Saigyô, AI in charge of personnel lists, duty rosters, psychology profiles, and who had made it its business to meet and know each of the 684,300 men, women, and children, took several seconds to review the list before deciding on the nine people to awaken.

  Dem Lia awoke with none of the dull hangover feel of the old-fashioned cryogenic fugue units. She felt rested and fit as she sat up in her deep-sleep creche, the unit arm offering her the traditional glass of orange juice.

  "Emergency?" she said, her voice no more thick or dull than it would have been after a good night's sleep.

  "Nothing threatening the ship or the mission," said Saigyô, the AI. "An anomaly of interest. An old radio transmission from a system which may be a possible source of resupply. There are no problems whatsoever with ship function or life support. Everyone is well. The ship is in no danger."

  "How far are we from the last system we checked?" said Dem Lia, finishing her orange juice and donning her shipsuit with its emerald green stripe on the left arm and turban. Her people had traditionally worn desert robes, each robe the color of the Amoiete Spectrum that the different families had chosen to honor, but robes were impractical for spinship travel where zero g was a frequent environment.

  "Six thousand three hundred light-years," said Saigyô.

  Dem Lia stopped herself from blinking. "How many years since last awakening?" she said softly. "How many years' total voyage ship time? How many years' total voyage time-debt?"

  "Nine ship years and one hundred two time-debt years since last awakening," said Saigyô. "Total voyage ship time, thirty-six years. Total voyage time-debt relative to human space, four hundred and one years, three months, one week, five days."

  Dem Lia rubbed her neck. "How many of us are you awakening?"

  "Nine."

  Dem Lia nodded, quit wasting time chatting with the AI, glanced around only once at the two-hundred-some sealed sarcophagi where her family and friends continued sleeping, and took the main shipline people mover to the command deck, where the other eight would be gathering.

  The Aeneans had followed the Amoiete Spectrum Helix people's request to construct the command deck like the bridge of an ancient torchship or some Old Earth, pre-Hegira seagoing vessel. The deck was oriented one direction to down and Dem Lia was pleased to notice on the ride to the command deck that the ship's containment field held at a steady one gee. The bridge itself was about twenty-five meters across and held command-nexus stations for the various specialists, as well as a central table -- round, of course -- where the awakened were gathering, sipping coffee and making the usual soft jokes about cryogenic deep-sleep dreams. All around the great hemisphere of the command deck, broad windows opened onto space: Dem Lia stood a minute looking at the strange arrangement of the stars, the view back along the seemingly infinite length of the Helix itself where heavy filters dimmed the brilliance of the fusion-flame tail that now reached back eight kilometers toward their destination -- and the binary system itself, one small white star and one red giant, both clearly visible. The windows were not actual windows, of course; their holo pickups could be changed and zoomed or opaqued in an instant, but for now the illusion was perfect.

  Dem Lia turned her attention to the eight people at the table. She had met all of them during the two years of ship training with the Aeneans, but knew none of these individuals well. All had been in the select group of fewer than a thousand chosen for possible awakening during transit. She checked their color-band stripes as they made introductions over coffee.

  Four men, five women. One of the other women was also an emerald green, which meant that Dem Lia did not know if command would fall to her or the younger woman. Of course, consensus would determine that at any rate, but since the emerald green band of the Amoiete Spectrum Helix poem and society stood for resonance with nature, ability to command, comfort with technology, and the preservation of endangered life-forms -- and all 684,300 of the Amoiete refugees could be considered endangered life-forms this far from human space -- it was assumed that in unusual awakenings the greens would be voted into overall command.

  In addition to the other green -- a young, redheaded woman named Res Sandre -- there was: a red-band male, Patek Georg Dem Mio; a young, white-band female named Den Soa whom Dem Lia knew from the diplomacy simulations; an ebony-band male named Jon Mikail Dem Alem; an older yellow-band woman named Oam Rai whom Dem Lia remembered as having excelled at ship system's operations; a white-haired blue-band male named Peter Delen Dem Tae whose primary training would be in psychology; an attractive female violet-band -- almost surely chosen for astronomy
-- named Kem Loi; and an orange male -- their medic, whom Dem Lia had spoken to on several occasions -- Samel Ria Kem AH, known to everyone as Dr. Sam.

  After introductions there was a silence. The group looked out the windows at the binary system, the G8 white star almost lost in the glare of the Helix's, formidable fusion tail.

  Finally the red, Patek Georg, said, "All right, ship. Explain."

  Saigyô's calm voice came over the omnipresent speakers. "We were nearing time to begin a search for earthlike worlds when sensors and astronomy became interested in this system."

  "A binary system?" said Kem Loi, the violet. "Certainly not in the red giant system?" The Amoiete Spectrum Helix people had been very specific about the world they wanted their ship to find for them -- G2 sun, earthlike world at least a 9 on the old Solmev Scale, blue oceans, pleasant temperatures -- paradise, in other words. They had tens of thousands of light-years and thousands of years to hunt. They fully expected to find it.

  "There are no worlds left in the red-giant system," agreed Saigyô the AI affably enough. "We estimate that the system was a G2 yellow-white dwarf star ... "

  "Sol," muttered Peter Delen, the blue, sitting at Dem Lia's right.

  "Yes," said Saigyô. "Much like the Old Earth's sun. We estimate that it became unstable on the main sequence hydrogen-burning stage about three and one half million standard years ago and then expanded to its red giant phase and swallowed any planets that had been in system."

  "How many AU's out does the giant extend?" asked Res Sandre, the other green.

  "Approximately one-point-three," said the AI.

  "And no outer planets?" asked Kem Loi. Violets in the Helix were dedicated to complex structures, chess, the love of the more complex aspects of human relationships, and astronomy. "It would seem that there would be some gas giants or rocky worlds left if it only expanded a bit beyond what would have been Old Earth's or Hyperion's orbit."

  "Maybe the outer worlds were very small planetoids driven away by the constant outgassing of heavy particles," said Patek Georg, the red-band pragmatist.

  "Perhaps no worlds formed here," said Den Soa, the white-band diplomat. Her voice was sad. "At least in that case no life was destroyed when the sun went red giant."

  "Saigyô," said Dem Lia, "why are we decelerating in toward this white star? May we see the specs on it, please?"

  Images, trajectories, and data columns appeared over the table.

  "What is that?" said the older yellow-band woman, Oam Rai.

  "An Ouster forest ring," said Jon Mikail Dem Alem. "All this way. All these years. And some ancient Ouster Hegira seedship beat us to it."

  "Beat us to what?" asked Res Sandre, the other green. "There are no planets in this system are there, Saigyô?"

  "No, ma'am," said the AI.

  "Were you thinking of restocking on their forest ring?" said Dem Lia. The plan had been to avoid any Aenean, Pax, or Ouster worlds or strongholds found along their long voyage away from human space.

  "This orbital forest ring is exceptionally bountiful," said Saigyô the AI, "but our real reason for awakening you and beginning the in-system deceleration is that someone living on or near the ring is transmitting a distress signal on an early Hegemony code band. It is very weak, but we have been picking it up for two hundred and twenty-eight light-years."

  This gave them all pause. The Helix had been launched some eighty years after the Aenean Shared Moment, that pivotal event in human history which had marked the beginning of a new era for most of the human race. Previous to the Shared Moment, the Church-manipulated Pax society had ruled human space for three hundred years. These Ousters would have missed all of Pax history and probably most of the thousand years of Hegemony history that preceded the Pax. In addition to that, the Helix's time-debt added more than four hundred years of travel. If these Ousters had been part of the original Hegira from Old Earth or from the Old Neighborhood Systems in the earliest days of the Hegemony, they may well have been out of touch with the rest of the human race for fifteen hundred standard years or more.

  "Interesting," said Peter Delen Dem Tae, whose blue-band training included profound immersion in psychology and anthropology.

  "Saigyô, play the distress signal, please," said Dem Lia.

  There came a series of static hisses, pops, and whistles with what might have been two words electronically filtered out. The accent was early Hegemony Web English.

  "What does it say?" said Dem Lia. "I can't quite make it out."

  "Help us," said Saigyô. The AI's voice was tinted with an Asian accent and usually sounded slightly amused, but his tone was flat and serious now.

  The nine around the table looked at one another again in silence. Their goal had been to leave human and posthuman Aenean space far behind them, allowing their people, the Amoiete Spectrum Helix culture, to pursue their own goals, to find their own destiny free of Aenean intervention. But Ousters were just another branch of human stock, attempting to determine their own evolutionary path by adapting to space, their Templar allies traveling with them, using their genetic secrets to grow orbital forest rings and even spherical startrees completely surrounding their suns.

  "How many Ousters do you estimate live on the orbital forest ring?" asked Den Soa, who with her white training would probably be their diplomat if and when they made contact.

  "Seven hundred million on the thirty-degree arc we can resolve on this side of the sun," said the AI. "If they have migrated to all or most of the ring, obviously we can estimate a population of several billion."

  "Any sign of Akerataeli or the zeplens?" asked Patek Georg. All of the great forest rings and startree spheres had been collaborative efforts with these two alien races, which had joined forces with the Ousters and Templars during the Fall of the Hegemony.

  "None," said Saigyô "But you might notice this remote view of the ring itself in the center window. We are still sixty-three AU's out from the ring ... this is amplified ten thousand times."

  They all turned to look at the front window where the forest ring seemed only thousands of kilometers away, its green leaves and yellow and brown branches and braided main trunk curving away out of sight, the G8 star blazing beyond.

  "It looks wrong," said Dem Lia.

  "This is the anomaly that added to the urgency of the distress signal and decided us to bring you out of deep sleep," said Saigyô, his voice sounding slightly bemused again. "This orbital forest ring is not of Ouster or Templar bioconstruction."

  Doctor Samel Ria Kem Ali whistled softly. "An alien-built forest ring. But with human-descended Ousters living on it."

  "And there is something else we have found since entering the system," said Saigyô. Suddenly the left window was filled with a view of a machine -- a spacecraft -- so huge and ungainly that it almost defied description. An image of the Helix was superimposed at the bottom of the screen to give scale. The Helix was a kilometer long. The base of this other spacecraft was at least a thousand times as long. The monster was huge and broad, bulbous and ugly, carbon black and insectoidal, bearing the worst features of both organic evolution and industrial manufacture. Centered in the front of it was what appeared to be a steel-toothed maw, a rough opening lined with a seemingly endless series of mandibles and shredding blades and razor-sharp rotors.

  "It looks like God's razor," said Patek Georg Dem Mio, the cool irony undercut slightly by a just-perceptible quaver in his voice.

  "God's razor my ass," said Jon Mikail Dem Alem softly. As an ebony, life support was one of his specialties, and he had grown up tending the huge farms on Vitus-Gray-Balianus B. "That's a threshing machine from hell."

  "Where is it?" Dem Lia started to ask, but already Saigyô had thrown the plot on the holo showing their deceleration trajectory in toward the forest ring. The obscene machine-ship was coming in from above the ecliptic, was some twenty-eight AU's ahead of them, was decelerating rapidly but not nearly as aggressively as the Helix, and was headed directly for the Ouster fore
st ring. The trajectory plot was clear -- at its current rate of deceleration, the machine would directly intercept the ring in nine standard days.

  "This may be the cause of their distress signal," the other green, Res Sandre, said dryly.

  "If it were coming at me or my world, I'd scream so loudly that you'd hear me two hundred and twenty-eight light-years away without a radio," said the young white-band, Den Soa.

  "If we started picking up this weak signal some two hundred twenty-eight light-years ago," said Patek Georg, "it means that either that thing has been decelerating in-system very slowly, or ... "

  "It's been here before," said Dem Lia. She ordered the AI to opaque the windows and to dismiss itself from their company. "Shall we assign roles, duties, priorities, and make initial decisions?" she said softly.

  The other eight around the table nodded soberly.

  To a stranger, to someone outside the Spectrum Helix culture, the next five minutes would have been very hard to follow. Total consensus was reached within the first two minutes, but only a small part of the discussion was through talk. The combination of hand gestures, body language, shorthand phrases, and silent nods that had evolved through four centuries of a culture determined to make decisions through consensus worked well here. These people's parents and grandparents knew the necessity of command structure and discipline -- half a million of their people had died in the short but nasty war with the Pax remnant on Vitus-Gray-Balianus B, and then another hundred thousand when the fleeing Pax vandals came looting through their system some thirty years later. But they were determined to elect command through consensus and thereafter make as many decisions as possible through the same means.

  In the first two minutes, assignments were settled and the subtleties around the duties dealt with.

  Dem Lia was to be in command. Her single vote could override consensus when necessary. The other green, Res Sandre, preferred to monitor propulsion and engineering, working with the reticent AI named Basho to use this time out of Hawking space to good advantage in taking stock.