Stellaris: People of the Stars

by Robert E. Hampson

  As soon as Mace entered the kitchen, she switched on the light. The stranger turned, squinting against the sudden light, and ran right into Sandy’s fist. As the intruder rocked backward, Mace closed quickly and tapped the man behind the ear with the edge of her left hand. The man crumpled to the floor, unconscious, just as she heard the sound of breaking glass from the living room.

  Sandy turned to her, wide-eyed, and yelled “Gas! Get out!” as he dashed toward the bedrooms. Mace saw a flicker of yellow-orange light and understood the situation immediately. The intruder at her feet turned on the “faulty” gas feed and was rigging an “accident” with the stove. The object through the window was probably a backup plan, an incendiary device of some sort, thrown by an accomplice when the lights came on.

  Shipboard fire training came to the fore—there was an unconscious man at her feet. Even though he had set the blaze, there was still an obligation to evacuate him. Even if only to ensure that he stood trial. On the other hand, nothing said she had to be gentle. Cybernetically enhanced arm muscles easily lifted the immobile weight and her enhanced leg muscles took them to the front door in two leaps. She tossed the man out the door. He landed in a heap about ten feet from the front steps. There would probably be broken bones, but that was not her concern.

  She heard more breaking glass—probably more incendiaries. This old tinderbox of a house was going up fast. “Sandy! Mom and Dad!”

  Sandy’s voice called from the back of the house. “I’ve got them! Sending Dad out to you, I’m going to carry Mom.” Smoke was billowing and Mace could see a figure coming toward her, bent over, and holding something against his face. It was her father, holding a scrap of Sandy’s T-shirt over his mouth and nose. Mace guided him out the door and sat him down on the grass beside the still body of the man she threw out the front door. She touched a finger to his throat and received a full medical readout through the cybernetic sensors. Alive but unconscious. Her father was coughing, but a quick touch showed that he, too, was okay.

  Where was Sandy?

  Mace tried to reenter the house but was blocked by fresh tongues of fire. Sandy and Mom were trapped! Sandy was tough; he was bioengineered for adverse space conditions. His toughened skin and tolerance to low-oxygen conditions would even resist the fire, but he needed a way to get their mother out!

  She heard a shout and more breaking glass. The bedroom window! She would have to pry out the security bars, but that wouldn’t be a problem. She ran around the house to the windows outside her mother’s bedroom. The glass was already broken out and Sandy was inside, trying to pry at the bars.

  “Stand back, bro,” Mace called, then jumped up, grabbed the base of the grille with her left hand, and planted her feet firmly on the brick outer wall of the house, the bulk of her body parallel to the ground. With a grunt, she applied force with her enhanced leg and arm, ripped the grille free of the wall and flung it behind her. There was a sound as the grille seemed to hit a soft object. She fell to the ground once the grille was free, but quickly stood up to take her mother, wrapped in a sheet, from her brother. Seeing that Sandy was able to climb out unassisted, she started to unwrap the sheet from her mother.

  “Careful, she was hit by glass.” Sandy put a hand on his sister’s shoulder before she could finish. Mace could see a dark stain on the linen.

  It was blood.

  “Let’s get her into the light.” Mace stood, delicately lifted her mother, carried her to the front yard, and laid her on the grass next to her father.

  “Mel! Melanie! What happened?”

  “It’s okay, Dad. We’ve got her, but I need more light.”

  Sandy shrugged, gesturing toward the burning house. “My stuff’s in there; a bonfire’s not good enough for you?”

  “I’m pretty sure Goon One over there has a flashlight. Grab it.”

  Sandy pulled a flashlight from the arsonist and shined it on their mother. There were several small splinters of glass embedded in her skin, but one large one was embedded in the neck. The blood coming out around the sliver was pulsing. “Damn. It might be in her carotid. Don’t move it.”

  “No, this has to come out. And it needs to be sealed or it will cut further and she’ll bleed out.” She bent over for a closer look while motioning for Sandy to hold back their father. Before she took the flashlight, though, she started to remove the skin-like covering over her left hand, noted that it was torn and melted, and stopped. Her index finger was exposed, its blue crystalline surface and faint lights now clearly visible. She bent her thumb over the palm, then curled her other three fingers over it. A faint whirring sounded and small metallic probes extended from the fingertip.

  “Hold the flashlight right…there.” She leaned forward and dialed up the magnification in her left eye. With her right hand, she grasped the piece of glass and placed her left index fingertip at its base, the probes entering the cut. “One…two…three…” She pulled out the glass and jammed her finger into the wound. There was a flash of light, and the faint smell of burnt meat. “That should hold her for now.”

  The house popped and embers flew out. They could hear sirens and saw flashing lights in the distance. Another pop, another spray of sparks, and the bedroom end of the house collapsed.

  There was a scream from the back yard.

  Sandy and Mace looked at each other. “Goon Two,” they said simultaneously as Sandy hurried around to the source of the scream.

  Mace grabbed her father’s wrist and pulled his hand over to keep pressure on her mother’s still-seeping neck wound. It wasn’t pumping blood, but pressure needed to be maintained for several more minutes. She headed after her brother as the first emergency vehicles arrived—police and fire trucks. She found her brother standing over a man on the ground, his legs trapped under the mangled mess of the security grille she carelessly tossed behind her during the rescue.

  There were spots of fire now burning in the grass, and in a leaf pile about a foot away from the recumbent man. It was Brother Eric. Sandy was standing over him, one foot on his chest, tingers knotted in the collar of his shirt.

  “What, you didn’t expect me to be strong? You thought because I didn’t meet your expectation of a human—that I was bioengineered for low gravity—that I would be weak?” Sandy stood over the intruder, body language signaling anger and rage. “You argue about biological purity, about ‘unaltered’ humans, yet you live with modern medicine, vaccines, gene therapies and corrective surgeries.”

  “He dyes his hair and obviously likes cosmetic surgery just fine,” Mace said.

  “What?” Sandy looked over at Mace, who merely tapped the side of her head beside the left eye.

  “Eh, simple spectrography,” Mace said, dismissively. “Diaminotoluene in the hair means hair color. Probably to cover the gray and change his appearance. Fine scars around the nose and eyes from plastic surgery—either vanity or to fool facial recognition. There’s a scleral scar and artificial lens in his right eye.”

  Sandy practically snarled. “So, correcting your vision and changing your appearance with surgery is okay for you—just not for the people who are trying give mankind a future?”

  “Not ‘people.’ Monsters.” Brother Eric tried to spit in Sandy’s face, but given that he was now being held on the ground by both Mace and Sandy, the spittle just ended up dribbling from his cheek.

  Sandy pulled back a fist to hit the fake minister, but Mace laid her flesh-and-blood hand on her brother’s forearm to prevent the gesture. She shook her head, sadly, and reached out her artificial hand to grasp Erebus firmly by the jaw.

  “A few pounds of pressure, and you’ll have a nasty bruise; ten pounds of pressure and your jaw will dislocate. A few more pounds, and I can break your jaw, but then again, Sandy can do that with his fist, or my father could do it with a steel bar. Fifty pounds of pressure, from my fingers alone, and I could so thoroughly crush your jaw that the doctors could never hope to rebuild it—you’d never speak again, nor chew. You’d take all of y
our meals through a straw.” Mace released her grip and she could see the white, bloodless patches from her fingertips. She patted him on the cheek, none too gently. “On the other hand, it probably wouldn’t silence you, would it?”

  She looked up at the approaching police officer. Sandy and Mace both stood up, and Mace grabbed Erebus by the elbows and pulled him to his feet. She tightened her grip just enough to pinch the nerves so that he wouldn’t fight the handcuffs.

  “It’s not our bodies that make us human, Mr. Erebus. The secret is choice. I choose not to take your life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Not because you are human, Mr. Erebus…but because I am!”

  * * *

  Sandy believed that the people who designed hospital rooms must have had a private glimpse of Hell. Either that, or Limbo. Drab green walls, hushed background noises, and the steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor would lull anyone other than the patient to sleep…or catatonia. Mace had apparently succumbed; she was racked out on the convertible sofa. Their father was reading in the tall-backed reclining chair for ambulatory patients, but his eyes were now closed, and his head was back against the chair. Sandy was seated, simply holding his mother’s hand and waiting patiently.

  Mel Wolfe coughed, and her voice was hoarse. “Sidney? Sandy? Mace?”

  All three were instantly alert, rose, and clustered around the bed. Mace poured some ice water into a cup, placed a straw in it, and held the straw to her mother’s lips. After a few sips, Mel began again. “Sandy and Mace. I’m so sorry. We had no idea what that horrible man planned.”

  “Actually, I do now.” Sidney Wolfe held his head high and looked his son and daughter in the eye. “He had grenades labeled with ‘PCbCorp.’ He wanted to provoke an ‘accident’ and make it look like you two were at fault.” He looked down at the floor. “He wanted an incident to discredit the colony mission and everything it stands for.”

  “You don’t know how much I envy you two,” Mel said. “To finally be brought back together, and now you’re leaving…forever!”

  Sandy and Mace shared a look.

  Sandy cleared his throat. “Actually, it doesn’t have to be forever. If you’re serious, the colony needs engineers and artists. Not this trip, but Mission Two leaves in ten years, and Mission Three five years after that.”

  “They won’t want me. I’m old and a broken-down drunk.”

  “Actually, Dad, you’re as healthy as we are.” Mace spoke up. “When I checked you after pulling you out of the house, I got a nanocyte read-back. When you decided to dry out, the hospital ran a full nanoscrub on you. You’re as healthy as a twenty-year-old, with about the same additional lifespan.” Sidney’s face brightened, and Mel’s expression held a glimmer of hope. “You too, Mom. I spoke to the doctors here, and the risk of reopening the carotid meant they gave you nanocytes, too.”

  Sandy said what they were all thinking: “We’ll be a few years older, but maybe it’s time for a fresh start!”

  Mace knew it was true. Forgive, forget, and start over. It was the human thing to do.

  Securing the Stars

  The Security Implications of Human Culture During Interstellar Flight

  Mike Massa

  Mike Massa has lived an adventurous life, including stints as a Navy SEAL officer, an investment banker, and a technologist. Newly published by Baen Books, he is coauthor on books five and six of the Black Tide Rising apocalyptic thrillers with NYT bestseller John Ringo. When Mike isn’t writing science fiction, he keeps his hand in as a cyber-security researcher, consulted by governments, Fortune 500 companies, and high net worth families on issues of privacy, resilience, and disaster recovery.

  It is the year 2150 and we can finally dispatch the first human interstellar voyage! Skycorp—whose orbital foundries and building yards have been enabled by extreme twenty-first-century drops in the cost to reach high orbitals and L5—has completed the first ship capable of prolonged duration, albeit, slower-than-light (SLT) spaceflight. Intended to reach a rocky exoplanet that has been confirmed to orbit plumb in the middle of the Goldilocks Zone of a G2-type star, only twenty or so light-years away, the ship is ready for the one-way trip.

  It is now just a matter of packing in the pilots, mission specialists and passengers, and then off we go!

  Right?

  Well, maybe. The first successful interstellar mission will owe its success to the culture that humans bring with them for the long trip as it does to the enabling technologies. So, how must space-bound humans evolve their culture for a small group to survive not only the trip, but each other, and ultimately reach their destination to achieve the even longer-term goal of permanent human settlement outside our home star system?

  The technological requirements of the voyage alone are daunting. Until the ship attains a stable orbit above the new planet, every foreseeable item that the crew might possibly need (or the means to make it) must be included at the start, decades or centuries before they arrive. The life support, from enclosing the crew inside a humid and warm gaseous envelope, to the process of recycling food and water efficiently, must be maintained in perfect order without interruption. The propulsion and navigation systems, ditto.

  For this article, let us assume we have surmounted every terrestrial technical challenge presented to our race thus far—the engineering challenges of interstellar flight. The remaining persistent challenge that we face on Earth is the same one we will inevitably import into the spacecraft—us. The human element represents the most challenging component of the mission, which must not only be secured, but assured as well.

  The resilience of our current biosphere creates a buffer that prevents even massive catastrophes from destroying human civilization. This is true because of the vast size of the shared space on our planet as well as the robust supply of needed environmental inputs (breathable gas, water, food, etc.). The planet and its ecological systems are inherently resilient even to extreme shocks. This is precisely the opposite of the environment aboard an interstellar spacecraft.

  Humans are inherently messy, in both a literal and figurative sense. The vagaries of human behavior will introduce variables that must be considered in advance, much like the supply chain that will provision the spacecraft. This is especially true when the shared living and work space of the crew is even more fragile than that of a commercial jetliner. Whether by design, negligence, or an exceptionally unlucky set of circumstances, a single human can put the entire interstellar mission at catastrophic risk.

  Today, humans routinely transport themselves in fragile, technologically advanced aircraft: high-speed, high-altitude passenger planes. To safely reach our destination, we accept extreme incursions into privacy, from electronic imaging, which publicly strips away our clothing, to invasive searches of personal property. Furthermore, passengers and crew have demonstrated their resolve to act in concert, spontaneously, to address individuals that break the shared behavioral compact during a flight. They do this despite the usual ground-side inhibitions against such action because they understand the intrinsically fragile nature of aircraft; therefore, they must temporarily adopt their “travel culture.” How much more adjustment is needed on a spacecraft? Note, the lethal combination of effective vacuum and near absolute zero temperature of the medium traversed by our notional starship makes the conditions outside a modern jetliner during a Los Angeles to New York City hop seem merely dangerous.

  Recognizing the precarious nature of an artificially sustained environment needed by humans during interstellar flight, we can consider the amount of freedoms that may be allowed to the crew and passengers of the spacecraft.

  However, before we can stipulate how humans “must be” to complete an interstellar voyage, we must first identify the risks during such a trip. The greater the specificity that can be achieved, the more confident we can be when describing what we—the planners, designers, and crew of the trip—will need to address before ever leaving Earth’s orbit. Yet, why should we man the ship at all if t
he environment is as perilous as stated above, or if humans are as dangerously messy as presumed?

  There are ongoing exploratory missions in our own solar system. These unmanned efforts demonstrate the degree to which autonomous and semiautonomous spacecraft and landers can operate in hostile environments. That autonomy doesn’t scale well against time and is likely an artifact of the early stage of autonomous-systems engineering in which we find ourselves. Depending on the platform, human supervision and intervention is currently required at intervals ranging from minutes to hours. To assure the success of unmanned systems, especially where human safety is paramount, this interval drops to seconds or continuous, real-time supervision. One example is the employment of lethal force from military systems where our aversion to machines independently making life-or-death determinations is so strong that there are international agreements in place to prevent the deployment of armed autonomous systems. If we were to accept that the ship will carry humans in some form of hibernation, then we would have to accept that machines will be making entirely unsupervised decisions about health and safety for extended periods. This is an example of cultural norms driving applications of technology.

  By 2150, the state of the art will have advanced tremendously. Even if we stipulate the advancements in software engineering, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems make an entirely unsupervised voyage possible. Therefore, it is important to understand the core mission of the colony effort. That objective will be to reduce the existential threat to our race by creating a self-sustained human presence outside our solar system, and possibly outside our immediate neighborhood, which is the spiral arm of the galaxy. Ultimately, our notional interstellar spacecraft will carry humans.

  Therefore, while technical advances in the era leading to human interstellar spaceflight may support unmanned probes, or perhaps support wholly unsupervised spacecraft operation where humans are in some form of suspended animation, it is unlikely that terrestrial culture will allow ship operators to cede human welfare solely to machine intelligence. In this event, we will have to build a ship and a culture that will operate under the direct control and supervision of alert, awake human adults.