Chapter 11: Company Town

I slept in later than normal, catching up on my sleep and recovering from the activities of the late night. The cooler contained a premixed bag of scrambled eggs which I cooked in the microwave-like food warmer. It had bits of sausage and cheese and ended up more an omelet than scrambled eggs. A cold bottle of apple juice washed it all down.

After checking with Naomi if it would be ok, I dressed in shorts and a utility shirt instead of my stealth suit. She had said to return here after wrapping up my tour as she had an information update for me. Outside my ‘quarters’ I found another wheeled mule waiting for me. This one had been modified to include a seat and windscreen, so I was able to ride sitting upright and in comfort.

I had brought my goggles as even though it was daylight, the gigantic assembly building still had many areas that were gloomy and dark. We took off at a brisk pace, weaving our way through the busy factory floor. A few minutes later we had arrived back near the eastern end where the tour had paused last night. Changes had occurred while I slept. The fusion stage which I had entered and explored last night was now located at the intersection between the main assembly building’s aisle way and the smaller construction wing where it had been before.

In addition to being in its new location, it was now being loaded with fusion fuel bomblets. From the wing extending to the south emerged a long-sloping conveyor belt. Its upper end was currently attached to the fusion stage at the second level fueling port. As I approached I could see the long chain of fusion bomblets quietly sliding up the conveyor and into the side of the fusion stage. The chain was hundreds of meters long and the far end disappeared into the building to the south.

Ohmu came jogging up. Her appearance this morning was in a dull blue uniform. I smiled when I noticed the letters spelling ACME were printed on her back.

“Ready to resume your tour, John?”

“Sure am, Ma’am,” I said with a hick accent.

We stood and watched as the current stream of loading bomblets ended and the long conveyor machine repositioned itself one level higher. The three large mobile units latched to the base of the fusion stage slowly rotated the stage to align the next staggered fueling port with the loading boom. A new stream of bomblets soon began flowing up the conveyor.

We started today’s tour by heading towards the south wing where the bomblets were emerging. A hundred meters in we came to an area where the individual bomblets were linked into a belt and fed into the loading end of the conveyor. There were thousands of bomblets grouped in clusters along the walls. Each was barrel-shaped and a bit less than a meter high. The diameter of the bomblet barrel was also less than a meter.

The sides of the bomblet were covered with near-vertical copper-colored bars which spiraled around the circumference as they rose. Ohmu explained that they were spiral to impart a stabilizing spin as they were fired out the back of the fusion stage. I stopped thinking of them as bombs and instead as bullets. As I watched the many mobile units grabbing individual bullets and feeding them into the linking machine I noticed something strange. They were detouring on the way and stopping at what looked like a line of gas pumps.

There, robotic arms were inserting a nozzle on a long hose into the top of each fusion bomblet ... err, bullet, and dispensing something inside. After ten seconds or so, the nozzle was removed, and a heavy cap was installed on the bullet.

“What the heck are they filling the fusion bullets with, Ohmu?”

“Diesel fuel. They are ‘fuel’ bomblets after all.”

I smiled and shook my head. Such a smartass. My smile turned to a frown after a dozen seconds had passed with her not amending her ‘joke’ with the correct answer.

When the doubt had risen high enough I dared ask, “Really, diesel fuel?”

“Yes, John, although the bomblets do not ‘burn’ the hydrocarbon fuel as you are probably thinking. Note the ring-shaped tank around the top of the bomblet assembly. This is filled with the highly pressurized hydrocarbon fuel. During launch, when the bomblet is ejected from the bottom of the shield mass on the fusion stage, the ring-shaped tank detaches as the unit passes the rotary valve.

A linear charge detonates and ruptures the tank. This instantly vents the liquid fuel which sprays upward and outward, covering the underside of the shield mass with a thin film of hydrocarbons. Then, a fraction of a second later, the fusion bomblet detonates, releasing its huge thermal pulse. The extreme heat impacts the hydrocarbon film and instantly vaporizes it. This prevents erosion of the shield’s underside while also increasing the thrust imparted on the launch vehicle as the vaporized gasses expand away from the shield.”

I ran the image through my mind until I thought I understood what she was saying. I looked off further south into the bomblet wing. The machinery grew denser and was similar to the fabricators which recently had produced Habu’s spare parts and my temporary crèche. I steered the tour back to the main hall. We moved further west in the main assembly building leaving the fusion stage behind. The next major intersection was the cargo stage area.

The cargo module stood waiting. It was a simple flat-topped cylinder of metal with a diameter of sixteen meters and a height of thirty. I could tell from the welded seams on the outside that it had been constructed in layers. Ohmu began explaining what was inside.

The various layers of the cargo stage contained dozens of refined metals in both solid and powdered form. Tankage sections contained various chemicals and compounds. Others contained isotopically pure hydrogen and boron for the aneutronic fusion reactors and deuterium and helium-three for the standard fusion reactors. Since the interior of the cargo stage was packed full there was really nothing to inspect inside.

The construction area which extended to the north contained the metal working and forming machinery to construct the stage itself. This was fairly standard stuff which I had seen before, so we agreed to skip most of that part of the factory. Ohmu wanted to show me one thing there, though. We walked northward deep into the cargo stage production wing almost a quarter of a kilometer. After passing four cargo module sections in various stages of completion, we came to a fifth. Just the shell frame and a few components were in place.

When I turned to Ohmu to ask what was special about this module she said that it had been started yesterday and was not part of any cargo delivery plans the master A.I. had on schedule. Instead, this module would carry our attack to the enemy if we were ever to the point of launching it. I considered that and reached out and touched the alloy frame.

“Let’s call it the Phoenix, Ohmu.”

We resumed our tour of the main assembly line at the next major intersection to the west of the cargo wing. This was the area where the nosecone segment was refurbished between flights. Ohmu showed me a diagram using the goggle’s overlay of the stage since the actual physical nosecone was currently still in orbit.

The diagram showed a cone-shaped object with a base diameter of sixteen meters and a height of eleven. The upper surface was lumpier than I expected and Ohmu explained that this was because the stage contained the maneuvering thrusters for docking itself and the cargo segment below. The bottom of the cone was a standard ablative heat shield for reentry. The upper part of the stage contained the main processor for the launch vehicle. The interior was where the dozen DETS were located in an overlapping radial arrangement.

The center of the conical lander’s volume housed a large spherical tank of liquid hydrogen. This was the reaction mass for the three magnetoplasmadynamic rocket thrusters. When I asked what those were Ohmu explained that instead of burning the hydrogen with oxygen in a chemical reaction, the hydrogen was expanded to plasma by passing it through almost five hundred megawatts of electrical energy. Then, using powerful magnetic fields, this plasma was used to produce thrust.

She went on to say that humans had once explored thermal rockets using nuclear reactors as a heat source. The DETs aboard the lander filled that role instead so no reactor was required. The three thruster exhaust ports normally faced forwards in space but swiveled around to fire downward along the cone’s outer surface during landing. This allowed the heat shield on the bottom of the nosecone to remain uninterrupted by thrust ports.

The afternoon was spent in my stealth suit touring the mining operation towards the north end of the island. Ohmu had left me on my own for much of the afternoon tour. I had my little hot rod mule for transport. Naomi had constructed a canopy for it that resembled a large cargo crate. This allowed me to drive freely about without the need to worry about satellite coverage. I only had to check my watch when entering or leaving the ‘crate’ cart.

The undersea mine terminal was actually pretty fascinating. It was a combination depot for the repair and maintenance of the underwater mining equipment and receiving port for the ore shipments. The area mined extended nearly a hundred nautical miles to the north and west of the island chain. The ore collected was from seafloor nodules and from larger black smokers.

These were undersea thermal vents where superheated mineral-rich water gushed from below the surface. They created massive stalagmite-like formations where they rose from the seafloor. The submersible mining machines would saw chunks of these deposits off the live smoker formations and float them to the surface with gas bags.

Next, the ore and deposits were brought to the receiving port and processed. There, it was crushed, pulverized, and separated. Some was further purified by electric smelters and rendered into ingots or coils of fine sheet or wire. Others were finely ground into sintering powder. The chemicals and sulfates were sent to the extractors and refined into pure chemicals or compounds.

One part of the receiving port serviced the ocean-going algae harvesters. That biomass was converted into hydrocarbons and other organic chemicals. I’m sure some of it was even used as feedstock for my meals. I toured a few structures where the hydrocarbons were further converted to polymers and plastics. The small harbor on the north end of the island was a busy place. I noted submarines being unloaded and refurbished. They reminded me of the comforts I was missing from my own vessel.

Late in the afternoon, I headed back to my quarters. I found there had been a few improvements while I was out during the day. I now had a full-featured reclining chair and one wall now had a large view screen. My air mattress had been replaced with a real mattress which was covered in silky bedding. There was also a second cooler box with a larger variety of meals and beverages.

I changed out of the stealth suit and slipped on a tee shirt and shorts. I noted that supper was an hour or more away, so I grabbed a bottle of pale beer and sat in the chair enjoying it. The view screen came alive and I saw various camera views of the island and rocket factory.

One window showed a timeline of near events. Tomorrow morning at 9:44 we would be receiving a visitor from space in the form of the currently missing nosecone stage. It had been launched to space over a week ago and after landing, would be quickly refurbished and sent on the next launch.

Naomi spoke up, “John, I have learned much during my recent time integrated into this base and the linked data-net to the master A.I. Are you ready to learn what I have discovered?”

“Have you managed to worm your way into its main processor and cause the master A.I. to fry itself?” I asked flippantly.

“Not yet. I will keep working on that. On the other hand, I have not yet betrayed our presence here either. You should be able to live through the night.” Naomi answered.

“I have learned new data regarding the Assemblage and its plans. First, I have learned the arrival date of the Assemblage ark ship. The ark will travel past this system in the year 3224 or roughly two hundred ninety-three years from now.”

My first thought upon hearing this was that we had ages to prepare. Hell, that was longer than my home country had been a nation back when I still paid taxes. Then, I realized that it had been over three times that length of time since the Earth was attacked. I had been sleeping for much of it.

“At the speed it is traveling, it will transverse the orbital diameter of the major planets in this solar system in just over four days.”

“Is that fast?” I asked. It sounded slow for some reason.

“It is roughly seven hundred and fifty-seven times faster than the Earth travels around the sun.”

Okay ... that was fast, but I still felt it was slow for an interstellar traveler. The door to my quarters opened and Ohmu entered. She smiled at me and with a flash, her ACME uniform image was replaced with that of a bare midriff tee and a short pair of shorts. She went to my bed and sat.

I shook my head when she produced a coloring pen and proceeded to paint each of her non-existent finger and toe nails. My daughter had never grown old enough to do this but I could picture her as a teenager doing something similar in her room.

Naomi continued, “Once the Assemblage ark ship is close enough to the Earth it will begin transmitting its stored mind-data. The distance at which it will begin the transmission will be approximately 4.23 billion kilometers from the Earth. At that distance, the signal delay due to the speed of light limitations will be 14,110 seconds. To simplify, the initial Assemblage transmissions will take just under three hours to reach the Earth.

“The data transmissions will continue during the ark’s passage through this system until it reaches roughly the same distance from the Earth on the other side of the system. Total transmission time will be approximately 376,000 seconds or 4.32 earth days. The estimated total volume of mind-data transmitted will be 27.5 yottabytes.”

Wow, that was one hell of a data plan. I’d never heard of a yottabyte. “What the hell is a yottabyte?”

“A yottabyte is 2 to the 80th power bytes or, in decimal, approximately 1,000 zettabytes, or a trillion terabytes, or a million, trillion megabytes, or a septillion —”

“Okay, I get it! Lots,” I interrupted.

“To continue, this information will be received by a large antenna array just beginning construction in geosynchronous Earth orbit. This orbital array will then relay the mind-data to yet-to-be constructed stations on the Earth’s surface. These surface stations will temporarily store the mind-data in huge data storage structures. They will also be creating biological bodies for the stored mind-data to be downloaded into.”

She paused to give me a chance to catch up. The master A.I. was building the means to receive the transmission from the assemblage as it passed. It was also going to be building surface facilities to implant the mind-data into new bodies it would also be creating.

“I think I understand everything so far. How many aliens are coming? Billions you said?” I asked.

“Within a three-decade period after the initial transmission, over eleven billion assemblage members will be active on your world.”

Jesus! The Earth would go from a current population of maybe hundreds or possibly a few thousand to many billions more than it had ever had even at the height of humanity.

“So, we will go right back to overpopulation, congestion, and pollution?” I asked.

“Yes and no. Yes, there will be an almost instant extreme population. No, there will not be a pollution or overcrowding problem. The Assemblage membership prefers to dwell in arcologies. These are large single structures that have populations ranging from perhaps five to ten million each. The total Assemblage population will thus require roughly only five to ten thousand arcologies depending on size.”

“Only! That sounds like a lot,” I said.

“Not so. Even by limiting the arcologies to only being constructed on land, with the Earth’s surface area of over five hundred million square kilometers, this still allows for one arcology for every fifty thousand square kilometers. Or, if one arcology was centered on that fifty thousand square kilometer area, its nearest neighbor would be built no closer than two hundred and twenty kilometers away.”

Huh. That was surprising. I realized this would leave the bulk of the Earth’s surface undisturbed. But the farms and factories would still take up room ... and the roads probably.

“They could be even more spread out if the arcologies were also constructed in shallow seas or on or under the ocean’s surface. Also, with current advanced technologies, massive farms will not be required to support the population. Additionally, any travel would be by nonpolluting aircraft. Thus, the Earth would tolerate the population quite well.”