Saving proxima, p.33
Saving Proxima, page 33
“And it is on automatic? You don’t have to be here to start the scan?”
“That’s right. I’ve got it set to alert me if anything unexpected comes in. The odds are extremely low that we will detect anything on the first pass, even if something is there. SETI researchers had scanned hundreds of thousands of possible targets and heard mostly nothing until we accidentally picked up the signals from here—and we had to be on the lunar farside to that, with much more sensitive equipment, I might point out,” Rain said.
“Did the SETI searchers look at the constellation you found in the Atlantean temple?” Kopylova was referring to the lone odd piece of astronomical data the team had photographed during their incursion into the burial mounds on the southern continent. Other than the image of the flaring Proxima b, the constellation was the only visible reference to anything astronomical found in their excavations there, so, of course, it piqued Rain’s interest.
“I don’t know and we won’t have any information about that for several years. I made the request by radio in the last batch of updates sent home and you know how long it will take for the signal to get from here to there and then for the data to be sent back. Who knows? I suspect not, or there would have been some sort of news about it a long time before now.”
“How much time do we have?” Mak asked, pausing the back rub to scratch his chin, which did not look all that easy to do through his beard.
“Two hours, give or take,” she said.
“Then we have time for lunch,” Mak said. “I will prepare my famous soup, some pasta, and allow you to try my latest attempt at making kompot. I promise it will be better than the last, and not so bitter. I’m finally getting used to what fruits to use.”
Rain smiled. She had been spending a great deal of time with Mak these last few weeks and enjoying each time more than the last. As she rose to leave, their eyes locked and she knew he felt the same way. She so much wanted to lean in and kiss him through his scratchy beard, but she restrained herself. Rain was all too aware of Mak’s deep love for his long-dead wife and she did not want to rush him. The moments stretched to a few awkward seconds.
“Ah, yes. Lunch,” Mak said, adding a smile to his face. “Perhaps when we return and you examine the data, we will have reason to celebrate with dinner tonight as well.”
“That would be wonderful,” she said as they walked out the door.
* * *
They had just finished the kompot, which was, to Rain’s delight, much better than the last attempt, when the automated alert from the radio telescope came to her ear patch and sounded. They quickly exited Mak’s spartan apartment and hurried across the compound to the observatory.
Rain sat at the console and then looked straight ahead, poring over the processed data being sent to her contacts. Mak quietly stood behind her.
“Oh my God,” said Rain after a few minutes.
“What?” asked Mak.
“There is something there, near the twenty-one-centimeter band, just like the early SETI researchers claimed there might be. Clear as day,” Rain said.
“Is it like what you detected on the Moon? Some sort of radio leakage?”
“No. This is definitely not an analog transmission. The computer ran it through all the algorithms and says it is digital, and highly sophisticated. In fact, so sophisticated that it was almost classified as noise, but not quite.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The more sophisticated, in other words, the more information that is packed into a packet of data, the more random it seems. The encryption algorithms generated by our quantum computers make the signals we send appear to be nearly random. That is why they are not so easily decoded unless you have the key and is the reason we couldn’t figure out how to read the signals coming from Earth in the last half of our trip thanks to whatever Gaines did to the Samaritan’s communications system. This signal is clearly artificial—the computer pegs it with a ninety-seven percent probability.”
“But we can’t read it,” Mak said.
“That’s correct. But, by God, there’s someone else out there and they’re signaling us.”
“Signaling us?”
“Well, maybe not us, but someone here, on Fintidier or nearby. The message has to be directional. It’s too strong to be otherwise—strong enough that if it were omnidirectional, then it would have been seen at Earth a long time ago. The constellation of stars we are looking at is visible from Earth and the signal strength is high enough that the lunar radio telescope would have heard it like someone yelling in a quiet room if it were directed toward Earth or emitted at this strength in all directions. No, whoever this is wants their signal to be heard by the Fintidierians or someone else in this general direction.”
“Do you know from which star the signal comes?”
“Not yet, this hardware isn’t directional enough to pinpoint a specific star, just a general group of them. If there were another telescope on the other side of the planet, then I might be able to triangulate and narrow it down. Of course, the best way will be to send one of the ships to the outer solar system and let them listen from there. That would give enough of a baseline to narrow it down considerably.”
“We need to notify everyone,” said Mak.
Rain rose from her chair and right into Mak’s embrace, which was quickly followed by a very scratchy kiss.
“We must celebrate,” Mak added as he caught his breath.
“I am looking forward to it, but after we tell everyone. Tonight, we will celebrate!” she said, leaning forward to initiate her own kiss.
And celebrate they did, for more reasons than one.
CHAPTER 55
April 13, 2100 (Earth/Proxima timeline)
Proxima b, aka Fintidier
Roy was an aerospace systems engineer. He was trained to design and build things that worked good enough and apply that thing pragmatically as a solution. He thought the hubbub about the three small spots on Earth that had gender-birth issues had a solution. The very large diverse population of humanity was Mother Nature’s very own feedback control loop that was keeping Earth’s numbers growing rather than declining. The solution was most likely, to him, already in place on Earth. And his take on the entire problem was that the Proximans—he was still having trouble saying Fintidierians—had brought this on themselves. He agreed with the ambassador and that economist lady that trade and commerce with Proxima bringing in new genes into the gene pool would be the cure for them. The Emissary was already on the edge of the system and would soon be bringing even more people down. Soon, the Proximans were going to have to start mixing and mingling on a larger scale.
Roy was walking through the greenhouse, observing a row of corn they’d brought from Earth. It was growing well and right next to a row of something the Fintidierians had given them that was orange-brownish and looked like an alien vegetable to him. The three-dimensional hologram of his two-year-old daughter walked beside him. He’d been doing his best to catch up in order with his daughter’s growth since they had managed to get the new data dumps from home. He wouldn’t let himself move ahead, because he didn’t want to miss a moment if he could avoid doing so.
“Good morning, Roy,” Dr. Joey Zimmerman, the botanist and plant expert managing the greenhouse, said. “Want to try one? I did. They are kind of like a cross between a turnip and a beet, if you ask me.”
“Sure, Joe. Why not?” Roy replied.
“She’s getting big now.” Joey looked at the hologram as he pulled one of the ugly stalk-grown, tuber-looking vegetables and handed it to him. “How old is she here?”
“She’s about two and a half at this point.” Roy took the vegetable and rolled it over in his hands, inspecting it. “Of course, she’s got to be nearly ten by now or will be in June.”
“Yeah, that’s tough.” Joey didn’t say much else about it. Then he turned to a row across from them. “Hey, you should try one of these things. They are actually good.”
Roy took a bite of the first vegetable that he’d been given and had to agree that it was nothing to write home about. He followed Joey to the next row of plants that were directly underneath some white lights. The plants looked like thick vines with broad leaves spread across them so plentifully that they reminded him of grapes from Earth. In fact, there were bright red fruits or berries dangling in bunches all along the vine.
“Here, these are great. I’m thinking of seeing if I can ferment them.”
“They are a bit bigger than grapes.” Roy popped a couple of them in his mouth and was surprised by how sweet they were. “Very good.”
“Roy, auld boy, you have an incoming call,” his AI Nigel told him.
“Excuse me a moment, Joe.” Roy stepped a couple of meters away. “Okay, Nigel, let’s have it.”
“Roy, how are you doing today?” Captain Crosby’s face appeared in his virtual view.
“I’m fine, Captain Crosby, how are you?”
“I’ve got something I want you to see up here. I need your expertise for the nav systems. We might have cracked what was done to it. Or, well, we have a new solution,” Crosby said.
“Cindy can’t handle it?”
“Nope, this is a task that I’d like your expert eyes on,” Crosby told him. “There’s an OSAM on the pad ready for launch. It’s waiting for you.”
“Alright,” Roy sighed and swallowed the last bit of sweetness from the red grape things. Maybe they should be called “reds,” he thought. “I’m on my way.”
“Duty calls?” Joey asked.
“Sorry, Joe. I’ve got to go do something on the ship. I’d ask for more berries but microgravity makes me queasy for the first thirty minutes or so.”
* * *
“Isn’t that the Samaritan over there?” Roy pointed out the viewport of the Orbit and Surface Access Module at the starship he’d spent so much time on, against his will. “Why the circuitous route?”
“Look out the other side, Roy.” Bob Roca tossed his head toward the porthole across from them.
“What am I looking fo—holy shit!” Roy’s jaw dropped. “That the Emissary? They’re here already?”
“Yep. Just came to a stop over the complex a few hundred kilometers from the Samaritan. Cap’n wants you to get some spares from there and bring them with you.”
“Jesus, that thing is twice as big as the Samaritan.”
“Yeah, and it was a hell of a lot faster. They say it took them only six years to make the trip. It was like only three years relative to the crew. Can you imagine how much easier that was?” Roca told him.
“Wow,” Roy agreed. He thought about how he was supposed to have been the test engineer for that ship too. He was supposed to have tested the nav system, the engine operation system, and all of the overall ship functions under simulated flight conditions. And then he was going to retire with his wife and maybe start a family.
Roy started to drift back into that depressed-funk state of mind where he pitied himself. He reached down to one of the pockets on his jumpsuit and felt the little holoprojector and thought about his daughter, whom he’d never meet. He thought, briefly, just briefly, that maybe he could convince one of the starships to take him back. If the Emissary took him, he could be home before Samari was twenty, maybe sooner. He’d miss her childhood, but maybe, just maybe, he could get to know her as a young adult.
After several minutes of quietly fantasizing about a way home, or another life in another time, he pulled himself back into the real, more pragmatic world. The ships had come to Proxima for a mission and they were always expected to be a one-way trip. Roy was jarred out of the fantasy by the OSAM locking into the docking ring with a metallic cathunk sound.
“Emissary, this is Samaritan Three. Docking complete. All indicators are in the green and pressure is regulated. Are we clear to ingress?” Roca spoke to the docking control of the larger ship. “Be advised we have Dr. Burbank here to receive the package as planned.”
“Copy that, Samaritan Three. You’re clear to come aboard, Bob.”
“That’s our cue, Roy.” Roca floated past him and tapped a few buttons by the docking hatch. It swished open and the light on the panel above and to the right of the hatch turned red, showing it was open.
“Alright.” Roy unbuckled and floated upward. He gave a kick against his chair, propelling him through the hatch. He and Roca floated into the main corridor of the loading bay and then Roca activated his magnetic shoes, pulling him to a stop on one of the bulkheads where there were two soldiers standing post. Roy followed suit.
“Mr. Roca. Dr. Burbank,” one of the soldiers said. “Come with me, please.”
“Roy, I think you’re gonna like this,” Roca said as the door behind the soldiers opened.
Standing on the other side of the door was Chloe. And beside Chloe was a little girl with long, curly red hair with her head just about at Chloe’s waist. The little girl looked to be about six years old. The two of them were wearing light blue jumpsuits and Chloe had a medical insignia on her shoulder patch.
“Hello, Roy.” Chloe smiled. Roy could see her eyes filling with an expanding tear. He looked down at the little girl beside her. “I’d like you to meet your daughter. Samari, say hi to your father.”
“Hi, Daddy!” The little girl bounced off the floor into Roy’s arms followed by Chloe. The momentum from the two of them nearly knocked him over. Roy pulled them to his chest and squeezed them. Tears grew in his eyes and stuck there, fowling his vision in the microgravity. He didn’t want to let go to wipe at them.
“I have missed you so much!” Roy cried. “But, Chloe . . . how?”
“They needed doctors. And, well, we needed you.”
CHAPTER 56
May 3, 2100 (Earth/Proxima timeline)
Proxima b, aka Fintidier
“Just thought you’d like to know, Dr. Burbank.” Captain Alan Jacobs shut the videos down and turned to Roy and Chloe. Samari was in the backyard playing with one of the Fintidierian boys about her age. Roy had requested some children come to visit the complex and Charles had agreed it would be a good start to public outreach. Roy’s motive was much more selfish: Samari needed a playdate.
“Thank you for showing us this, Captain,” Chloe replied to him and turned to her husband. “They finally caught O’Hearn, the bastard. He slipped up when boarding one of the ships making a run to Mars—his fingerprint tripped an alert and they had him in custody within minutes.”
“Well, they were well funded. O’Hearn, or Gaines, or whoever the hell he really is, he will be in prison the rest of his life for the murder of Thomas Pinkersly and for what he did to your family. Dr. Luce . . . well, he’s been arrested and who knows what the outcome of that will be. And certainly, somebody was pulling his strings. It took a lot of money to pull off what they did,” Jacobs told them.
“We may never know. And you know what?” Roy stood and held out his hand to shake the Space Force captain’s hand. “No hard feelings. You didn’t know me and never met me. Gaines is in prison. Luce, hopefully, will be. We are light-years away and my family is here with me now.”
“That’s a very gracious attitude, Dr. Burbank,” Jacobs said, shaking the offered hand.
“After the long duration of darkness I’ve been wallowing in, this is heaven, Captain Jacobs,” Roy said. Chloe squeezed his arm and slid a little closer to him. “Absolute heaven on, uh, well, Proxima b.”
CHAPTER 57
June 13, 2100 (Earth/Proxima timeline)
Proxima b, aka Fintidier
“There have been three pregnancies, including mine.” Chloe rubbed her stomach, which was just now starting to bulge. “None of them cross-breeding with the Fintidierians, although I suspect that is coming before long. Several of the crew have been getting very cozy with the locals that have started extended stays here.”
“What does Samari think about it?” Dr. Thomaskutty sipped at a glass of the newly minted wine that Dr. Zimmerman was so proud of.
“Well, Sindi, it is what she wanted for her birthday.” Chloe smiled at Roy across the room as he lit the candles on Samari’s cake. There were seven even though Samari had insisted that she was ten. “But the fact that, so far, all the pregnancies are boys . . . well . . . not a big sample space but the odds are starting to be suspicious.”
“Yes. Dr. Kopylova and I have each seen two miscarriages. I don’t recall the last time I even heard of a miscarriage on Earth. What if they were female?” Dr. Thomaskutty said with an ominous tone. “What if?”
“‘What if’ is right.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank Cathe Smith and Dr. Cliff Gooch for their insights into genetics and genetic drift.
We must also give a big shout-out to all the exoplanet scientists out there who are giving us a myriad of new worlds to work and play in. When we were young(er), back before about 1992, there were no confirmed planets outside of our solar system—can you imagine that? When Captains Kirk, Picard, and Janeway were gallivanting around the universe, visiting one habitable planet after the other, the only people who knew such planets existed were the science fiction writers! Well, in all honesty, the astronomers were also pretty sure they existed, but they did not yet have the proof. Now they do. It is a big universe out there, so we better get busy and start exploring it.
—Travis S. Taylor and Les Johnson
Travis S. Taylor, Saving Proxima
