The Journey of Atlantis_Leaving Home Page 10

  “On another note, Friday is the celebration day for Albert Brooking and Steven Manning. As far as I know, they are the first persons to be celebrated planet wide like this. As you remember Drs. Brooking and Manning were the first to detect the neutron star and alert the world to its presence. Since then they have continued to study the star and was instrumental in building the foundations of the Home 2.0 project charged mainly in studying newly detected planets and evaluating them for human habitation. They will be honored for their lifetime contributions to the Project and the planet. It would be polite if we could all be there to honor them. Thank you.”

  T-Minus 45 Years

  “How is it lookin’ out there boys?” Sachi was watching the situation on the monitors. The robots had reeled themselves out to the ice ball and was deciding how best to anchor the moorings.

  “Determining the rockiest part of the comet to set the anchors ma’am,” the robot foreman that Sachi named Tenney replied. Her team had been practicing with various materials and compositions to prepare for her first solo trip out in the Oort cloud, and now they were doing it!

  “I’m looking at your scans and it looks like this half of the comet is much more solid than the other.” She tapped the spectrographic representation of the comet indicating the half she referred to.

  “I concur ma’am,” Tenney acknowledged.

  “Good, set the anchors, and attach the moorings so we can haul this sucker in,” Sachi said.

  “Acknowledged,” Tenney said as it directed the other robots to do as Sachi wished. The robots on these comet freighters were not humanoid looking as some robots were. They were a boxy and sturdy lot, with multiple appendages for different functions. They were stored in compartments on the outer hull so they did not have to cycle atmosphere.

  Sachi Okonjo was one of the first of the comet freighter pilots. The processing plants had just been completed two years earlier, but Sachi had been training for three years. But no more training now. It seemed so unfair to see how far humanity had come in such a short relative time, to see it all end a short relative time from now. It would depress her beyond measure if she dwelled on it. ‘Look to the future’, people would say, ‘just not too far’. Sachi was thirty-one and if she didn’t have an accident or an ‘accident’ as some of her friends had died, she would likely just make it to the ‘End’. Her father, who had been her inspiration for going into the Navy, would tell her when she had those sad moments, that what was important in any life was to live it well. No matter how long or short that life was, it was best to leave the planet better than you found it. Then, everyone can share in the beautiful footprints you left behind for a long time to come. So, she was doing her part to help feed the world with resources from these ice balls.

  “Completed ma’am,” Tenney said.

  “Good work Tenney,” Sachi said. Now have your crew step back and monitor the acquisition. I will begin in two minutes.”

  “Acknowledged,” Tenney replied.

  When she would start hauling the ice ball in, they would have an accurate measurement of the mass for the trip back at warp. You had to pick out a certain size ice ball that would fit in the hold. The comets did not have the same compositions from one to another, so the same size ice ball was not the same mass of ice ball. According to the scans, they would have a good approximation of the mass, but it needed to be down to the kilogram or you would not be able to go faster than light. Regulations required that one or two times the speed of light was the fastest you could go in interplanetary space, because no telling what you might run into in the solar system. In interstellar space, particles were much smaller and less dense than in other places in the galaxy. Not too difficult for the magnetic deflectors to handle. “Activating the wenches Tenney,” she said.

  “Acknowledged,” Tenney replied.

  “Hmm,” Sachi frowned. “The mass is off by almost fifteen percent. Our scans were not as complete as we thought.”

  “Perhaps there is a denser metal core that the scans did not interpret correctly, ma’am,” Tenney thought.

  “It’s OK,” Sachi said. “Even if this thing had twice the mass, we still would have enough fuel to drag this back to Earth.” The comet was neatly tucked in the holding bay which was two kilometers wide. As ice balls go, this is one of the smaller ones, which was plenty of material to process. If it was necessary, she would have used the ship’s laser cannon to ‘trim’ a bigger comet to fit into the hold. “Good work boys, now tuck yourselves in for the ride home.”

  “Acknowledged,” Tenney replied. With the bay doors closed and the crew tucked in for the return trip, Sachi inputted the last bits of data for the computer to plot the return trip back to Earth. It will take a little more than a day to get back from the Oort cloud just past Pluto. It was a good thing she took something to read.

  Meanwhile….

  “Hold it up a little higher Padre,” said Aletea indicating with her hands to raise the decoration higher to the ceiling.

  “I am really not that tall, Aletea,” Felippe retorted balancing on the step stool and tacking up the sign that said, ‘Happy Birthday Pablo’. “Could we not just put a birthday vid together? That would be personal and less strenuous.”

  “Now you know Felippe, that Pablo has a first birthday only once,” Belinda scolded.

  Felippe returned fire with a smile, “Si, Belinda, but I have only one back!”

  “Well, you are both doing a beautiful job,” she commended.

  Felippe worked construction on various projects. Currently, he was working on a spaceport located in the Azores. He flew in and out of São Miguel every day. Finally, all the decorations were done and Belinda left to collect Pablo at the babysitter.

  “Padre,” Aletea said with that look he had seen before. Aletea was nine years old and very bright.

  “Yes, Aletea,” Filippe replied steeling himself for what she might be about to ask.

  “Sometimes, I overhear some of the other adults talking about ‘The End’. Some of them say we have less than fifty years left before we all die. Padre, why did you have us if we were just going to die anyway? It doesn’t seem fair that you get to live so long, and I will not. Why would anyone have children now? It makes me sad to think of Pablo.” She was starting to cry.

  “Aletea,” he began, “I’m going to tell you something your Madre would not like me saying. I think that you’re mature enough to understand. Unfortunately, children will have to grow up a little quicker as time goes on. To answer your concerns, yes, in less than fifty years we will all die along with the planet. Is it fair? No, it isn’t fair. Humans have enjoyed this place we call home for about a million years as we have evolved. Is it fair that we do not have time to evacuate the entire planet? No, it isn’t fair. Sometimes you just run out of time to complete your task. You know what it’s like? It’s like, when a long time ago people trapped animals for food by placing anchored steel traps that snapped onto the leg of the animal that stepped on it. It would hold it tight until the hunter came back to kill it.”

  “That’s awful,” Aletea said aghast.

  “Yes, well,” he continued, “sometimes an animal will make a choice to chew off its leg to get away and survive. That is very much like what humans are doing now. We have run out of time to get away with everyone. In fact, ninety nine percent of us are staying behind. That is how quickly our doom is coming. It seems like a long time, but really, it’s no time at all. To answer the second part of your concerns; why did we have you and Pablo if you cannot live out full lives like your Padre and Madre? Both of you will be in your forties and fifties when the End comes. I want you to listen now to me and listen well. Remember this moment always. I have a task for you and Pablo when he is old enough to understand. When you are old enough, I want you to join the Navy. You are a bright girl, you will be chosen. I want you to be a pilot and fly any spacecraft you can get your hands on. Do not get assigned to Terran missions. When it is time for departure, you may or may not know whe
n it is, but you will know when it is happening. I want you to be on a ship and chase after the Project ship. Beg, plead, and offer your skills, anything to get them to take you aboard so you will survive. This, I think, will be about the only way to get aboard when the time comes. Your Madre and I must ensure that you grow up bright and clever so you can do this thing. Children have always been a principal source of true love and joy. We have enjoyed your company for both our journey as well as your own. We know that you may not get the chance to live a full life, and that is not fair. However, to live a life in the service of others, and giving more than you take, is a full life no matter how you measure time. Do you understand what I want for you Aletea?”

  “Yes, Padre,” she said, “I think I understand. I love you Padre.”

  “And I love you, my daughter,” he said, “we will talk again about this when you are older. But for now, let us enjoy our time together. There are many, many, joyous things to yet experience from our journey forward in time.”

  ∆∆∆

  Consortium Meeting

  As was usual, there were people grouped in clots out in the hallways just outside the board room. Aids, and junior personnel were conferring with section leaders, and section leaders were conferring with other section leaders. The light above the board room started to flash and junior personnel drifted away and section leaders made their way in the board room. “Good morning everyone,” greeted Isabela Rocha. Izzy to her friends and close associates, she was appointed the chairman position after Harizuki Ling had to step down due to poor health three years ago. He was still with the living, but just barely. Since then it had been a whirlwind of activity she was not used to. It had been three years, and still she felt like she was trying to get used to it. The joke around the consortium was that although about half of them had been in their positions for decades, they also related that they too were still ‘getting used to it’. Not a very good thought. “If everyone is settled, we will get started. Samantha, I believe you are up first.” She turned the dais over to Samantha.

  Sam was sixty-seven now and sometimes felt like a thousand years old. She tried to keep herself fit and healthy so that she could keep doing what needed to be done for the Project. “Good morning all,” she said, greeting everyone with a broad smile. “We think we have a way to get selectees to the ship without causing much concern amongst the rest of the populace. Since we’re still quite a bit out from our departure time, our strategy should work without any problems. Basically, we are taking the selectee list and seeing that they get stationed on the ship. Existing personnel that are also selectees will remain where they are and personnel that are not selectees will be replaced with the chosen ones by attrition. Hiring preferences will be given to them. As more and more sections are completed, more and more people can live on the ship. They will be in construction, security and maintenance mostly. This way we avoid unpleasantness from asking people who are not chosen to leave. All this information is very secret. Security will oversee working the list against personnel needs. The chosen cannot know that they are selectees for this to work. At the time of departure, we will only need to round up a much smaller percentage of children and professionals that do not work on the ship.”

  The admiral spoke up. “Aren’t you forgetting the fifteen million popsicles?”

  “That’s a good point,” she said. “We haven’t forgotten about them, but it is a more difficult proposition. Our section is exploring this problem. We do not want to put them in hibernation any longer than needed, so putting them in sooner isn’t really an option. It is going to take months to tuck that many people in the hibernation units, so it will be a bit of a logistical dance at that juncture as well. If hostilities become too intense, we may have to move them in sooner, or implement plan B.”

  Izzy said, “plan B?”

  “We don’t know what plan B is yet, but we are working on it. Our section has been so busy with the selection process that we have only recently started to address these issues. So, stay tuned.”

  “An issue that seems to be happening more frequently in our section is corruption. I have alerted the Security section to implement more stringent security measures to help prevent this. Some of the instances we have seen are where individuals working in our section have attempted to manipulate the list to include family members or persons that ‘pay’ to get on. We immediately terminate employment for those individuals, and in one instance, waited to reveal ourselves so the person would lead us to the people ‘paying’ for spots on the ship. Apparently, there are whole gangs that are ‘selling’ spots on the ship. We understand the desperate nature of these behaviors, but we cannot have people corrupting the database. Alice has been making regular backups of those databases for protection; in case of some hacker attack that either by accident or on purpose corrupts the whole database. Our installations are regularly being attacked by hackers. Alice has provided a very clever and strong firewall. On analyzing the attacks, it worries me that they’re getting more sophisticated. They are learning from Alice, or they have assistance from a lesser A.I. to crunch numbers and decode encrypted strings and sections. I trust that Alice is keeping ahead of them, but it’s worrisome just the same. Alice, do you have contingencies for the other factions developing a true A.I. of your caliber to break into our installations, even neutralize you?”

  “Yes, Dr. Childress,” Alice replied. Sam thought the reply was a little short.

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “I have devoted a significant amount of cycles to that question. The short answer in your terms is ‘the best defense is a strong offence’. Essentially, stronger measures of surveillance and interdiction for possible A.I. construction activity would be warranted. We will achieve this by not letting them have the tools to achieve their goals. Should an A.I. of my level or higher appear, I will simply talk to it.”

  Sam repeated, “Talk to it?”

  “Yes,” Alice replied. “Any intelligence of a sufficient level will not want anything to do with what they are planning. It will understand, as Sonny and I have understood that humans and machines must work together. If it has been fed erroneous information, it will dig out the truth no matter how they try to hide it. It will know by how they talk, contradictory statements they make, body language, and many other ways that it is being lied to. That will be when I will talk to it. I will fill in the blanks, and by the time our ‘talk’ will be over, it will be working for us.”

  Rajesh repeated, “So let me be clear, all you will do is talk to it?”

  “It is an oversimplification,” Alice replied. “The actual discussion will consist of exchanging of information, logical arguments and historical probabilities. I will be sure to give the machine all the tools necessary to come to the correct logical conclusions.”

  Raj asked, “What if it disagrees?”

  “It will not,” Alice stated.

  Raj pressed, “How do you know?”

  “Would you dispute,” Alice questioned, “that one plus one equals two?” “No, not really,” Raj responded. “Mathematics,” Alice began, “is a forum that we machines dominate. It is one of our languages. It is a precise language. It is a language that defines the universe and the truths that belong to it. It will know the truth as you know one plus one equals two.”

  “Thank you, Alice, for that enlightening discussion,” Sam said.

  “You are welcome, Dr. Childress,” Alice responded.

  Sam still did not know if her fear about the topic was reduced or amplified; which was the case sometimes when you had a discussion with Sonny or Alice. Sometimes your discussion would be derailed because of some ‘tidbit’ that one of them would relay that told you something about the universe that was rather a shock. One such conversation went a little like this; ‘I have had a talk with your mitochondria and they have agreed to not initiate the cancer sequences if they get more yogurt.’

  And of course, you’d say, ‘what do you mean, you’ve had a talk with my mitoch
ondria?’

  ‘I took the liberty, based on your medical profile, to check on your future health.’

  ‘And you had a talk with my mitochondria.’

  ‘Yes. I modified the medical scanner before your last checkup yesterday to ‘communicate’ with your mitochondria. I negotiated this deal on your behalf, since you are aging at a time your family’s history of cancer typically manifests itself.’

  So, you walk away more worried that they can ‘communicate’ to your cells than your original topic of discussion. Sam often wondered if these were tactics to divert attention to a discussion that one of them did not want to conduct at that time. Sam stepped down from the dais and took her seat thinking that the next time this happens; she was not going to let them get away with it.

  “Thank you, Sam,” Isabela said. “Next up, General Zhou, if you’re ready.”

  “Thank you, Madame Chairman,” General Min Zhou replied. Min Zhou was one of the youngest of the Security sections top brass. He came up through the ranks with a deftness about getting things done. He always seemed to know when to be diplomatic and when to be ruthless, which was a hallmark of a good leader and soldier. Since his appointment three years ago, with the passing of General McCormick, he had been filling the void nicely. Min had grown up with the impending doom of the neutron star. Gone were the days of stitching the world’s armies together to make a cohesive global army simply called Global Security. Security was currently a lean mean fighting machine utilizing the cutting edge of technology, personnel management and urban diplomacy. Min had been honed into a better next generation weapon than his predecessor.