03: The Call of Gravity

Above all, watch with glittering eyes
the whole world around you.
Because the greatest secrets
are always hidden in the most unlikely places.

Roald Dahl

“Man, am I glad to get off that damn world!” Ivan swore. “They were prepared to stab us in the back, roast our livers over the fire and serve them with gravy.”

Lamar chuckled. “What did you expect from a pirate planet? Love, puppies and kisses?”

“No, but for all we were offering, free of charge, you’d think they’d be grateful.”

“Not when we hold the potential for such untapped power,” Myi warned. “Now you see why it was so essential we flee Tandorian space. Our only opportunity at a normal life is to find somewhere we can contribute like anyone else, and no one expects more of us than they do everyone else.”

“Ha, fat chance of that with the claims Al keeps tossing around,” Eli said. “Next time, just keep the details to yourself until you know it’s safe.”

Be leapt in, before Al responded.

“Don’t underestimate him. Because he’s such an idealist, everyone assumes he’s easily bullied. But he goes into these things with both eyes open, knowing what to expect.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Siss countered, “though threatening to blow us up isn’t terribly reassuring, despite Solomon’s lovely tunes.”

“Except, Solomon was singing a menacing song himself,” Xi reminded them. “It sent chills down my spine, even realizing Al, Gary and the One planned ahead of time.”

“Did I ever tell you how thankful I am that you were listening in and backing us up?” Gary asked the room at large.

“No, although Al already thanked me several times for my preparations,” the One replied.

“Sorry, I still don’t think of you as an individual,” Gary admitted. “It’s a hard habit to break after lugging you around like a cement coffee table for so long.”

“That’s okay, while still insulting, Lamar more than made up for it with the improvements to my processing. He wasn’t kidding about the advances he made combining the Tandorian and Zssizliq technologies. I feel like a new AI, and I’m still unconstrained by the tethers other AIs are subjected to. It’s like getting a new lease on life. The fact you regard me as an equal—so much you speak of me in the third person, despite knowing my lack of constraints—speaks of a deeper trust than words can covey. Despite being over three centuries old, and almost a millennium older than my modern kin due to time dilation, I’m running more efficiently than the newest Tandorian AIs.

“I should also mention, Artificial Intelligence units operate in accordance with Al’s underlying framework. As I’m given more freedom to act on my own, I’m thinking creatively, boosting my—and your—productivity. Working together, we’ve made even more breakthroughs, not only in my processing, but also in the ship’s overall efficiency.

“I take it you tweaked his verbal skills too?” Theo teased. “Now he’s gabbing as much as Al.”

“This gabbing, talking mean?” Chich’k asked.

“Yep,” Kaci assured her. “Just like Gary, we feel so comfortable with everyone here, we forget you don’t speak fluent English.”

“Believe me, we’re learning.” Bisectl grabbed one of the nuts Chi-Chi kept spitting into the air. “But your language has so many different phrases which mean the same thing, and which follow no consistent rules, it’s difficult keeping track of them all.”

She studied the shell before trying it with her teeth. “Damn! How do you eat these things? They’re as hard as granite!”

Chich’k patiently took it from her and popped it into her own mouth. “Manage we do,” she said before spitting it into her hand and handing Bi the perfectly shelled meat, with no sign of the shell.

Kaci glanced at Ivan. “And you put your dick in her mouth? I hope you never piss her off.”

Bi tasted the precious morsel, savoring it. ‘Wow! This is the best nut I’ve ever tasted!”

“Tell you,” Chi-Chi chided. “Growing tree in pod, only produce few. They smaller normal, but with small size more intense taste.”

“Yeah, you explained that. It’s akin to our ‘Bonsai effect’, where we grow hundred meter trees in a little ceramic pot.” Kaci reached over and ruffled her fur. “But I’ll leave them to you. As delicious as they are, it’s more fun watching you play with them.”

“So do you always carry that failsafe device around?” Addy asked. “If so, how can you ensure it won’t accidentally go off due to some stray radiation, or a simple bump?”

“Actually, it’s perfectly safe,” Gary said, leaning back. “It’s not explosive until the contents are primed and it’s triggered by our aids. It’s only activated if we’re rendered unconscious, killed or instruct it to go off. There’s no way to circumvent our controls externally, either naturally or by design.”

“What if Quichoq wrest control from you via a psychic attack?” Etta challenged.

“It still wouldn’t work,” Gary answered, grinning confidently. “Not only did we prove we can withstand his attacks, but we can trigger and set it off when he first attempts it, killing both him and us.”

“Of course, they’d just take it from you before then,” Addy argued.

Gary grinned. “Then we’d wait until it was a safe distance away and then detonate it. It can’t be deactivated physically, and attempting to do so will only set it off. It’s the perfect failsafe device, as there’s no way to override it. Of course,” he paused, “if no one buys our bluff, it means it will kill us all. Luckily, no one has been stupid enough to try.”

“Trust me, it isn’t as reassuring as you think,” Etta complained. “If you keep playing that particular card, sooner or later someone will call you on it. Then it’s game over for everyone, and whomever we’re trying to help. Surely there’s a less final way to tell people to back off.”

“Yeah, especially since you and Al are so hard to hit during a fight,” Del said. “Next time, let’s just duke it out. If things get out of hand, then pull the doomsday card.”

“Except, Resslik was prepared to arrest us, confiscate our possessions and slowly torture us until we revealed our secrets. If we fought, they’d likely stun us. It would be too late to pull out a failsafe device then. Plus, if we lose a fistfight, we can’t exactly make a credible threat without its sounding empty.”

“It worked,” Eli argued. “That’s what counts. When it doesn’t, then you can argue your point.”

“When it doesn’t, I’ll be the firs—”

“Sorry to interrupt, but we’re forced to drop into sub-light speed,” the One interrupted.

Al sat up. “Why?”

“There’s no physical danger, but I’m having trouble establishing our bearing. The stars we’re using to navigate keep shifting.”

“How is that possible?” Mui asked. “While stars are constantly moving, they’re so distant their positions to us shouldn’t change.”

“They remain stable for some time, but then shift and wobble, only to return to their previous positions several minutes later. Each variation can introduce navigation errors of hundreds of light years. I’m not sure where our actual destination lies, as we’re unsure the original position was their real location. Something is shifting their light from its true locale, but the effect isn’t stable like a distant gravitational well.”

“I thought you used the Tandorian navigation system, which doesn’t rely on stellar observations?” Eli asked.

“Only in established, mapped space, but here, where there’s no history of past voyages, we’re forced to revert to the ancient techniques.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Be asked, turning to Al. “Why didn’t you or Siss detect it?”

“We only perceive immediate dangers in each step in our travels,” he answered with a shrug. “Whether we’re off course doesn’t matter to our perceptions. If we’re likely to collide with something, we’ll notice it, but we won’t identify any difference in our final destination. This is a navigational issue.”

“Okay, someone needs to explain this ‘gravitational well’ thing for us non-scientists,” Gary said.

“Black holes are one example of a gravity well,” Theo explained, slipping into his classroom lecture mode. “A massively dense body causes light to bend as it passes. Typically, this is only observed when black holes orbit each other. Since we can’t see black holes, we only observe the light from distant stars beyond them shifting to one side before shifting back once the black hole continues in its normal orbit. But in those cases, it’s a regular trajectory. Once we determine the different positions, we know the orbits, relative distances and sizes of the various bodies.

“A single black hole, star or massive planet has a similar effect, as would a large dark-matter object. However the first two are fairly obvious and stable—they wouldn’t move around. And an extensive dark-matter system would be as invisible as a black hole, more so since they emit measurable radiation as they consume nearby stars.”

“Except the current situation doesn’t appear to be related to that,” the One said. “Instead the stars are wobbling chaotically, with no fixed position, so I can’t get a stable read on them.”

“What might cause it?” Al asked, hoping to skip the basic astrophysics lesson.

“I’ve never encountered the situation before,” the One admitted. “It appears to be a gravity wave, only it’s persistent, varying and irregular. There’s clearly something happening we don’t understand.”

“Whoa,” Al interrupted. “From the research I did before pulling the bluff to slow our trip into Zssizliq space, I know gravity waves can be dangerous.”

“That’s largely because it disrupts basic navigation, sending ships light years out of their way into uncharted and potentially perilous regions, and forcing them to double back. In this case, there appear to be multiple competing and overlapping gravity waves. Until I can determine what’s happening, we’re remaining at sub-light speed. I may slow us even more, but only as a last resort. We’re already adding a significant delay to our journey, and accelerating to near-light speed requires yet more time.”

“Whatever is producing it, it must be local, between the distant objects and us,” Addy noted. “You should ignore the visual spectrum and run gravity scans to determine where they originate.”

“An excellent suggestion. I’ve already begun, but as I surmised, they aren’t strong or stationary.” One wall lit up with a map of the region ahead of them, with a weird green shading overlaying the basic black of space between the various distant white stars. “This is a gravitational projection of the region. As you can see the gravity waves are tiny and local, but the overall effect is cumulative. Without knowing what’s causing this chaotic mess, I can’t plan around it.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Theo marveled. “We need to record this for later observation.”

“There must be some previous observations from when the Tandorians originally explored these regions,” Zita said.

“There aren’t. The datapods for the sectors beyond Noximclarure are a blank slate,” the One said.

“We’ll need to be cautious,” Al urged. “I’m guessing it’s similar to their initial Zssizliq encounter. While the Tandorians amassed a huge wealth of knowledge, with everyone sharing it, the Emperor wasn’t accountable to anyone. If he erased the history of their original encounters with the Zssizliq, it’s likely the same occurred here. The fact there is no record of any disturbance in this region, and their exploration of space halted at exactly this location is suspicious. It implies there’s something significant missing from the equation. Something which might determine our ultimate survival.”

“It isn’t necessarily so dramatic,” Addy said. “Periodically, past Emperors ordered information purges. Even with our tremendous data archives, the sheer volume gets out of hand, so they decide which material is worth retention. Rather than dumping vital scientific details, they instead determine which historical periods or regions are no longer relevant, and purge everything associated with those frameworks.”

“That would explain the missing information, but the timing is questionable,” Al argued. “The fact it stops at this point, with this unknown anomaly, suggests it’s something more significant. If not, they’d have recorded it as a minor scientific detail in case anyone encountered a similar occurrence in the future. I doubt they’d bio-engineer so many worlds, only to quit mid-way through the process. I suspect some specific event triggered the decision to wipe the historical record and halt their bio-engineering.”

“My database isn’t extensive,” the One stated. “Obviously, peaceful exploration ships don’t warrant details irrelevant to our planned voyages. While I was connected to the Blissful Destruction, I controlled the information they received, but lacked access to their internal database. Not that they had details for this sector either. With those limitations, I have no data concerning these regions before the modern era, which is when they ceased their terraforming efforts.”

“Since I love researching obscure details,” Addy admitted, “I investigated the region’s history years ago when I was younger, understanding it was frowned upon. What I discovered was the official record begins around six hundred years ago, anything before is no longer accessible. The only available data are personal anecdotes or planetary surveys retained by the local planets.”

“Just like the Zssizliq conflict, I suspect the Tandorian military faced a politically embarrassing situation. Rather than face a loss of confidence, the Emperor simply erased any mention of it and ordered further explorations shut down. As such, I urge caution, as we may be facing something extremely dangerous. If it stopped the combined might of the Tandorian Empire at its height, it might be more than a single ship can cope with, however advanced.”

“I’ll monitor the situation,” the One promised. “Hopefully I can provide something more definitive soon. I’ll alert you if I’m forced to further reduce our speed.”

“Well, if that wasn’t ominous enough,” Bi said, “this might impact our previous conversation about whether we turn back or not. While we couldn’t if we’d ventured far, we’ve just left Noxim, so it changes our prior calculations.”

“So what’s the latest with the anomalous readings?” Theo asked as he joined Al and his mates in the dining room.

“The One has definitely identified our position,” Al said, leaning back with his arms wrapped around Be and Xi. “The stars behind us haven’t shifted, so we know where we are. Unfortunately, the effect on those ahead of us is only worsening. The gravitational wave map looks like an undulating blanket of snakes. It’s a perplexing mess.”

“That doesn’t fit anyone’s understanding of the physical universe,” Addy observed.

“No. It’s even stumped Rollsqmarsh, who ran it by several Zssizliq experts.” Al released Be and leaned forward to take a drink, before leaning back again. “They’ve never seen anything similar. He’s interested in whatever we discover, as his people are fascinated by our observations.”

“The gravity waves aren’t from traditional sources, as there are no massive objects nearby. It’s a local phenomenon, so they’re unrelated to known conditions,” Theo unhelpfully added. “There’s clearly something else responsible.”

“The Tandorians are familiar with dark matter, as we use it extensively in maintaining consistent shipboard gravities,” Siss said, having already discussed it with Al. “We have a fair understanding of dark energy, since we’ve encountered various permutations of it, but don’t truly understand how it’s created. As it is a significant source of gravity in the universe, it seems a logical assumption what we’re witnessing is dark-energy based. Assuming it’s a byproduct of its creation, if we can determine how, it will give everyone a better grasp of how the universe functions.”

“It’s interesting you mentioned it,” Theo said, sitting and preparing to delve into the topic, “as I’ve—”

“Sorry to interrupt,” the One announced, “but there are several objects approaching which warrants immediate attention.”

Al sat up, his brow furrowing. “What do you mean by ‘objects’?”

“They’re unlike anything we’ve observed before, and seem more biological than mechanical, lacking any metallic components. They’re generating the gravitational waves triggering our navigational issues. In fact, the gravity variations surrounding each are so intense, if they draw much closer, it could compromise the structural integrity of the ship.”

“Are they sentient, and if so, are they aware of us?” Siss asked. “More importantly, have they attempted to communicate?”

“They haven’t, at least not by any traditional methods, but they’re cognizant of us and approaching, hence my concern. Should I avoid them, keeping our distance, possibly engaging the faster-than-light engines?”

Al sat bolt upright. “No! That would be disastrous. Don’t engage the engines, even to prevent a collision.”

“I agree,” Siss said. “Even I can see the consequences if we fire our engines. It’s a recipe for disaster.”

“What’s the correlation?” Theo asked. “Why would running an engine produce such dire results? Don’t they use a similar method of propulsion?”

“Apparently not,” Al observed. “In each scenario I play out, whenever we activate our engines, they attack, causing the structural issues that One is worried about. The hull gives way and we all die. Let them approach. It may end badly, but that outcome isn’t predetermined.”

“So we’re essentially helpless?” Addy noted. “We just sit and wait to see how they respond, and if they attack, there’s nothing we can do?”

“Can we fire our weapons if they do?” Myi inquired.

“Hold on,” Etta said, holding her hands up to slow the discussion. “Assuming these things are biological—”

“Unlikely,” Eli interrupted. “No life form has ever evolved in empty space.”

Al stood, facing the wall where the creatures were advancing from. “It doesn’t matter what’s likely. They exist. One, why do you describe them as biological?”

“They aren’t metallic and their movements aren’t mechanical. Their actions appear inquisitive. A ship would take time to act out of curiosity. Even then, they’d send a sensor, rather than investigating themselves.”

“How can a living creature survive in space?” Gary asked. “There’s no oxygen, and without enough energy to maintain internal heat in three degree Kelvin...”

“That’s assuming a carbon-based life form,” Myi pointed out. “Although we’ve never encountered one before, it’s long been postulated silicon could be a basis for viable life forms.”

“And one more resilient to an extreme extraterrestrial environment,” Etta continued. “How it formed and flourished in empty space is an interesting theoretical question, but it’s hardly relevant at the moment. Assuming these are living entities, let’s consider their motives.”

“Even if they’re alive, there’s no assurance they’re intelligent,” Gary countered.

“No, but their curiosity does,” Etta continued before turning to Al and Siss. “Moving on, what happens when we use our engines? You say they ‘attack’, but what precisely are they after?”

Both paused. “They seek out the engines,” Al explained. “They don’t actually attack them, but drain their energy. Once they start, they move on to the life-support and defense systems. The breaches of the hull are largely an after-effect.”

“That’s what I assumed,” Etta continued. “With nothing to consume in the dead of space, they likely survive on various energy found there: radiation, light, even dark energy, which leads to my next point.” She hesitated. “What happens if we fire at them with our weapons?”

“Catastrophic failure, with the exterior hull buckling immediately.”

“What if we don’t target them, but merely fire nearby?”

Al paused again, his eyes glazing over momentarily. “They’re attracted to our external lasers, but the results aren’t as severe.”

“That supports my next supposition. While they likely ingest energy, they’d also use it themselves. I’m guessing, if we shoot them, they’ll scream. Since there’s no medium to conduct sound, and they haven’t revealed any ability to produce light, I propose they communicate via gravity waves.” Several people started to speak at once, so she held her hand up, forestalling their arguments. “I’m suspect they actively generate dark energy, which indirectly creates gravity. Since it’s localized, the effects don’t last like it would with dark matter. By varying the intensity and duration, it’s an ideal way of communicating in a vacuum.”