Dreaming of Atmosphere (20 page)

“This just proves to me that you’re making progress. In more than one area of control, too.”

I turned to look at her. She had a mischievous grin on her face. I kissed her, and soon we were consumed with each other’s needs. We made love right there on the med lab bunk. It hurt, but the pain was only telling me I was alive.

23.

I stayed one more night in med lab, for observation Zoe said. We’d already decided that we would still remain apart while we slept, but it did feel good to be able to get close to her once more without fearing that I’d hurt her. I think Zoe forced me to stay in med lab one more night just to keep me to herself, but I was glad for the company. We talked some more about my PTSD, and about the similarities between my last episode and some of the mental trauma I’d faced when I lost some of my squad in the Gossamer System. She couldn’t keep me forever, though, and eventually I was allowed to leave.

My first stop was the mess hall, where I fed myself a hearty breakfast of black meal and coffee. Next I went to my cabin to change out of the medical gown I was still walking around in. It felt good to shower again, I still had small amounts of blood caked and hardened in some places, where the sponge bath I’d been given when I was brought on board and stabilised hadn’t reached. I examined my chest wound while I soaked up the hot water. It was an angry red circle on my breastbone. The synth skin was still repairing, as it was organic and needed to regrow. When I was done showering, I changed into my ship’s jump suit and sauntered up to Maxine’s cabin. She was inside, and welcomed me in.

“I’m back on duty.” I explained.

“Good, we’re going to go over the sling shot in a bit, with Crege and Fel. I wanted you to be there.”

“Want to fill me in on our extra-curricular activities?”

“Yes. Sit.” I did so, “We got two of the three bombs off. The waveguide bomb is taken care of, those scanning nanites gave us the info we needed and I got a package on Argessi Jump Station that could replicate a cage for it. The water tank bomb is gone, too. The cryo-nanites worked a treat. The coupling bomb, the first one we found, was an issue though. We were starting to implement a plan to get it off when we needed to abort and rescue you guys.”

“So two out of three isn’t bad.”

“If we assume there are no more bombs, which I believe there are, Eric says that with the main propulsion waveguide feed protected and the water tanks safe we may be able to rebuild, given extensive dry dock time. The problem is the primary emissions coupler. If that goes, we’re going to take a hell of a long time limping to somewhere that can service us. We’d have to be close to an outpost, or station.”

“Any luck finding more of the charges?”

“A little. Eric thinks they pulled open the starboard ion chamber. We haven’t been able to get in there yet, since we’ve been under thrust for pretty much the entire trip. We’ll have to keep an eye out for an opportunity to open it up. We also haven’t had the chance to get close to the primary ignition coils, or the beamer.”

“You think they’d put a charge in the beamer?”

“Makes sense, they’ll need to make sure we can’t shoot at them when they come to pick up Artemis.” I thought about that, and realised she was right.

“We can get into that from the command deck.”

“Only problem is it’s a little too open. Hard to pull out all the deck head plates and go crawling through the beamer guts with that bitch walking around freely.”

“Won’t need to. I can send my nanites up there to take a peek.”

“You’re a good boy, Donny. I knew there was a reason I keep you around.”

“There’s another thing. Art reacted to finding out about my nano-proliferation rather curiously.”

“Go on.”

“She said ‘This changes a few things’.”

“Curious, indeed.”

“Any idea what she was talking about?”

“Maybe. It’s not good, if it’s what I’m thinking.”

“Tell me.”

She looked thoughtful for a moment. “No.” This caught me off guard.

“What? Why not?”

“I want to talk to her first. Either confirm or deny my suspicions, before I go giving you more stress than you need, right now.”

“Well that’s reassuring, Max.”

“You’re going to have to trust me.” She looked me in the eye, and I could see I was going to get nowhere on this. I did trust her, though. If she said wait, I was willing to wait.

“Okay. I’m going to start scanning the beamer tomorrow, then. Zoe says to rest my NP for at least another ship day.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

A knock at the hatch told us that the others were here. Max called them in and Fel and Crege strode into the cabin. Fel was carrying the AI Core we’d extracted from the wreckage of the Viridian March. He placed it on the conference table.

It is a pleasure to see that you are well, First Mate Seth Donovan.
It said.

“Thank you, Tac. I’m glad you made it out as well.” I smiled at it. Could it see?

“We have a truly marvellous opportunity here,” explained Fel, “I’d like to talk about our latest acquisition, Captain.”

“Very well. What have we got?”

“From my questioning the AI, and from what I know about AI Cores, what we have here is an experimental intelligence construct.”

“Small AI Cores are stupid AI.” Offered Crege. He was blunt, but correct. Artificial Intelligences were only as smart as their architecture allowed them to be. We used several different cores on the Dreaming. We had one in our beamer, for one. Our propulsion system was monitored by another. A few other systems also used AI’s to run them. They were essentially computers that could script their own programs, all we had to do was tell them what parameters we needed and suggest modifications to their plans. All our AIs were small, however. Their processing power was reliant of banks of circuitry, and they needed to be kept cool in order to function. They lacked any real intelligence, they couldn’t learn anything beyond their allotted tasks, and they couldn’t get smarter without adding more processing power.

Large AI’s such as the ones that ran space traffic control near population centres, or that managed planetary infrastructure, ranged from computers the size of small buildings to massive constructs that took up whole city blocks. The Veng AI, for example, is rumoured to be buried deep below the Vengnashi surface in a massive complex. Tac, which was slightly smaller than the AI that controls our life support systems, would only be as intelligent as a child of around ten years old. You could teach it to do one task, and it could handle data, but it would not be able to understand deeper concepts or carry on philosophical debates.

“Normally, yes, I’d agree with you, Crege.” Said Fel’negr, “Except I’ve been interrogating this little gem for a couple of days now. It’s very intelligent.”

“How intelligent?” asked Maxine.

“Very.”

We all eyed the small sphere in the centre of the table.

“Tac,” I asked, “How is it possible that you have more processing power than your size would indicate?”

I am an organic shroud matrix based quantum computer.

“What is an organic shroud matrix?”

A shroud matrix is the concept that allows quantum calculations to take place utilising more than three dimensional architecture. An organic shroud matrix uses class 4 cellular automata to conduct the calculations, sending the genetic instructions through the shroud to expand primary architecture without limiting traditional physical capacity. Heat is also dissipated through the shroud matrix.

“Did you understand any of that?” I asked Fel.

“It uses self-replicating organic processors, much like brain neural networks, only they grow into fourth dimensional space. It’s a tesseract.”

That analogy is correct, Systems Operator Fel’negr.

“Please, Tac, you only need to use our primary names.”

Very well, Fel’negr.

“What are we talking about in mental capacity?” asked Max.

“At the moment, probably an AI that you would find in a decently funded research facility.”

“What do you mean ‘at the moment’?” I asked.

“Well, Tac is fairly young, a decade if I’m correct?”

I have been functional for 9 years, 47 days, 12 hours, 23 minutes and 11 seconds.

“So?”

“It’s getting bigger, Seth.”

“And that means smarter?”

“Correct.”

We all sat back and considered the AI once more. We were silent for some time as that sank in. It was Max who broke the silence.

“So what do we do with it?”

“We keep it.” Stated Fel.

“We sell it to Veng.” Said Crege

“Seth?” asked Max.

“How can we use it?” I looked at Fel.

“We can rig it to the Dreaming’s sensor nexus, and I can run a few internal feeds to it from there. I can even slave a few functions of the systems suite to it.”

“What are the risks?” asked Max.

“Giving that much control to an AI always has risks. I been investigating the presence of brakes in the AI’s principles. I discussed topics such as ethics and loyalty. It appears to be aware of the concepts, and adheres to a reverence to life.”

All life is valuable.
Tac offered.

“Of course, it may also be deceiving me.”

“While we were on the Viridian March it offered to surrender itself to the synthetics in order to improve our chances of escape. It took some logical debating to convince it that we need to save it. I think the brakes are real.”

Brakes in AIs referred to failsafe’s programmed into their thought patterns that limited the way an artificial intelligence considered living beings. In the early days of AI technology, it was one of the main proponents of their development. There were fears that one day the machines would turn on their creators and start a genocidal war against people. Although it is not unheard of for AI’s to malfunction and create havoc and chaos, functional AIs are completely safe, and trusted to perform critical operations. They never become complacent, they never lose focus and they perform consistently. Part of their regular maintenance tracks their performance trends for signs of instability, and the issues are corrected before they become dangerous.

“As a precaution, we do not need to grant operational control to the AI, but it would be an invaluable resource for long range scanning, fire control calculations, power management and shield modulation. It can also offer and consider ideas, much like an additional crew member could.”

“You mean we could talk to it?” asked Max, “Hold a regular conversation?”

“As long as there is source material for it to conduct its own research and education it can be a fantastic problem solver and trouble shooter. Navigation is it’s current forte, according to Tac. The Viridian March was a long range research vessel, apparently it had just returned from a deep space mission when the Esper Monarchy made a grab for it.”

“Tac, I’m going to give you our current navigational plan for our transit through Vengnashi’s gravity well. Please assess it and offer any improvements or considerations.” Commanded Max.

Captain, may I also query Vengnashi local space command?

“What for?”

Local traffic considerations will need to be taking into account in order to formulate an optimal trajectory.

“Only if we get within a hundred thousand kilometres of the planet.”

At what range do you wish the Dreaming of Atmosphere to pass by Vengnashi?

“How close can you get?”

The atmosphere of Vengnashi extends 512 kilometres and 237.46 metres from the planet’s surface. Current safety parameters state that high velocity transit through atmosphere should not be conducted closer than this distance.

Maxine leaned back in the chair, whistling.

“Crege would be honoured to attempt such a passage!” exclaimed our pilot, he was clearly excited.

“Plug it in. Seth, draft me up a traffic request for Vengnashi control.”

24.

Navigating in space is an exercise in complex mathematics and physics. This is especially true when planetary bodies or other heavy mass objects are involved. The slightest deviation of course, such as due to gravitational pull, will throw your ship of target so much that you could end up millions of kilometres further away from your destination. Since the shortest point between two objects is a straight line, the idea is to keep your ship headed pretty much in a single direction the entire time.

When gravitational masses come into consideration, the clever navigator has a chance to cheat this rule of straight lines. Ships underway are either accelerating or de-accelerating for most of the journey, and the quality of their propulsion systems determine how hard that acceleration can go. Swinging within range of a gravity well, such as what we were planning to do with Vengnashi, allowed us to gain even more acceleration than our propulsion would normally be able to achieve. A free push, in other words.

At the speeds we were travelling at, though, we’d be unable to manoeuvre very effectively if we came close to hitting anything in our path. It was for this reason that we sent a request to Vengnashi orbital traffic control for a window of passage. This was not an uncommon practice, it was even a necessity sometimes especially when a planet’s orbit takes it in the path of common system transit routes like between two Jump Gates.

We merely submitted our velocity, mass, size, route and time of arrival. The traffic control AIs would then ensure that local traffic was clear of the route we intended to take, or they would suggest alternative corridors to transit. The real trick of this manoeuvre, however, was that we were attempting a very narrow passage. We would be skirting the upper atmosphere of the planet, and if we miscalculated even the slightest it would mean a fiery death for us all. Why were we risking death and destruction for? The nearness to the gravity well that was Vengnashi would, in theory, enable us to add a portion of the velocity of the planet as it orbits the Harakiwa star to our own. Adding to this, we’ll be utilising the Oberth Effect to gain even more velocity. By firing our own propulsion at maximum burn at the periapse, the closest approach to the planet, we’ll be able to gain the equivalent of nearly nine days of acceleration to our velocity.

Ion drives, which are efficient and provide ample thrust when traversing star systems, don’t have enough thrust to take full advantage of the Oberth manoeuvre we were planning. Instead we’d be using our manoeuvring thrusters. These chemical propellant rockets were added a year ago to enable us to perform high-gee manoeuvres in combat or in atmosphere. Crege had insisted we get the upgrade, and now it was paying off. They couldn’t be used for long, as we were limited by our fuel reserves, but we could trigger a moderate burn that would shave weeks off our journey to the Eridani Jump Gate.

Fel’negr, Crege, Maxine and I all worked furiously throughout the next few days as we neared the terminal point when we would have to adjust our own course to take advantage of the manoeuvre. Tac, who’d since been installed into the ship, was invaluable in performing the complex calculations and sensors analysis we were required to compute. I’d not attempted such a complex move before, but Maxine and the others had. It’s not often when the planets are in position to take advantage of their position. As a result, I took more of a back seat and observed. I was given several calculations to do, merely as an exercise, and they were compared to the answers that Tac had come up with, albeit at a much faster rate. They were gruelling. I got over half of them wrong, but I learnt a lot.

Not only did we have to work out the manoeuvre at the planet, but we also had to adjust the remainder of our course to take its effects into consideration. Our arrival to the Jump Gate would be sooner, and we’d be going a lot faster. We’d be braking for longer or harder. What navigational hazards would we be likely to encounter with the new transit plan? These deliberations went on for hours each day, and got more precise as we neared the cut-off point when we’d either have to go ahead and begin manoeuvring or abort and keep to our straight line approach.

Fel and Crege constructed simulations in the command module for Crege to practice, timing his manoeuvres and adjustments. They simulated crisis events, equipment failure, abort procedures and formulated contingencies. It was inspiring to watch. These guys, along with Maxine, we professional space farers. Although I’d spent most of my life in space, I’d only been a part of command for a few years. Most of my adult life was taken up with my service in the Primacy Star Marine Corps.

When I wasn’t fumbling around with astrophysics and mathematics, I began to scan the beamer weapon system. The weapon itself was mounted on the upper hull, and the bulk of it was situated above the command deck access corridor. One night, I simply brushed my hands across the deck head and fed a swarm of nanites into the maintenance hatch for the system. I then retreated to my cabin and loaded up a schematic for the beamer system into my overlay. As the nanites investigated, I navigated the systems and guided them. It wasn’t long before Maxine’s suspicions were confirmed. There was an explosive charge mounted near the power distribution nexus of the beamer. If it blew, we wouldn’t even be able to run emergency power cables to the weapon. I spent the remainder of the night checking to make sure that there wouldn’t be any chance of the weapon overloading before the nexus was cut. I sent my analysis to Fel, and soon we had an alternative power source connected to the beamer.

We couldn’t just climb in and attach it, as that would run the risk of alerting Art to the fact that we’d been tampering with them. So our plan was to get Tac to simulate a sensor malfunction on the forward sensor array Number 3. Eric and I went EV, cut a section of hull plating away and fed a portable generator directly into a recess near the beamer. My nanites then did the rest, connecting all the power lines to the generator in parallel. If the charge did blow, we’d simply activate the generator and we’d have power to our weapon once more. We could remove the charge later when all this was over.

When we were eight days away from Vengnashi, we reached our terminus point and made the adjustments to our course that would bring us in close to the planet. The time for calculations had passed, now all we could do was follow our path and hope we’d done everything right. We had Tac monitor our trajectories constantly to make sure we didn’t drift or that any dangers arose. The little AI was only happy to comply. Aside from Crege, the rest of us had very little to do after this. Crege was to keep constant watches in the command module, making the constant adjustments to our heading to meet our approach corridor set aside by Vengnashi Control. Duty watches became less frequent, to allow Crege time for rest between course changes.

I used this free time to work on my nano-proliferation training. I had plenty of exercises that I could practice by myself, but I wanted to begin the next stage of my training before we reached the Eridani Jump Gate. I had done most of my training with Fel’negr so far, and his understanding of the principles of nanotechnology were extremely useful. I used Zoe to help me understand the biological aspects that I needed to grasp, and together they started me learning subjects such as molecular architecture, chemistry, quantum mechanics and electronics. I’m not ashamed to admit that I found most of it challenging, and if it weren’t for my interface overlay there’s no way I’d be able to absorb so much information.

We were sitting in my cabin, Zoe, Fel’negr and me, using the ship’s local network to share a few files that described the use of paradigms.

“So, all this information we’ve been schooling you in isn’t for your benefit.” stated Fel.

“It’s for my nanites to learn, right?”

“Yeah, so all that data has been stored by your overlay,” explained Zoe, “You can access it anytime you want, study it, maybe even become proficient in it. But your nanites will use this information to perform the various tasks it needs to do in order to achieve a certain effect.”

“Now that we’ve loaded you up with plenty of science, we can start you on learning paradigms.” said Fel.

“According to this file, paradigms refer to a kind of patterned effect, is that right?”“Yes, they produce a lot of the effects that you’ve already learnt, only they do it in a way that doesn’t require your conscious input. You simply give the command and the paradigm shifts into gear.”

“And they do it better.” Said Zoe.

“Better how?”

“They’ll do things far more efficiently, requiring less drain on your charge, for one.”

Fel stood up and started to rummage around in a bag he’d brought with him. He pulled out one of the rubber balls we’d first used in my earlier sessions. “By now you should be fairly familiar with these. You’ve learned how to direct your nanites to gather information about an object and transmit the data back to you. You’ve learnt how to process that data different ways. I’m fairly confident your nanites now know how to do this task without you thinking about the directions needed to do it. Zoe, if you please?”

Zoe stood up and approached me. She held a handful of electrodes that she started to place around my forehead, on my neck and after zipping down my jump suit she placed a few on my chest as well.

“I’m reading your charge levels. I want you to scan the rubber ball and learn as much as you can about it. You have thirty seconds.”

I did as she requested, and in no time I knew the ball in and out. Zoe recorded the charge usage and nodded to Fel. He pulled out another ball.

“Before we proceed, I’m going to load up the Scan paradigm. This is similar in concept to the scan nanite packages we use for analysis regularly. They’re configured to react to commands given by a computer, but this program I’m sending you is for your nano-proliferation.”

“My overlay says I have it. What should I do with it?”

“You can access it, and it will install automatically. It’s only a small file, so it won’t take up much memory.”

“You have plenty of empty space in your head anyway.” joked Zoe.

“Thanks, guys. You’re real funny.”

“Now, all you have to do is think about activating the scan ability of your nanites and it will start automatically. You won’t have to continue to direct them.”

“Okay, it says it’s ready.”

“Scan this ball, Seth.”

I did as he asked, and no sooner had I thought about beginning the scan ability of my nanites than the information started to flow into me. I was trying to focus on it, when Zoe leant over me and kissed me, hard. Then suddenly she stopped and smiled at me.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“You can stop the scan.” She said.

I looked at the information on my overlay, sure enough the data was packaged in little files for me to access, separated by category. I could access the texture and how it felt, I could read its mass and volume, other physical descriptions about it, and then I could open a chemical break down of its molecules in another folder.

“Wow. That was easy.”

“And as Zoe here just proved, you stopped thinking about what you were doing.”

“I hope you stopped thinking about that, and were thinking about me instead.” she looked at me sternly, but I could see a smile in her eyes.

“It filters the data differently than I would.”

“That’s because someone else designed the paradigm.”

“I see. I like this way better, before I had to just react to the information as it came in, and only as it was being processed by my brain. Now it’s all neatly sorted and packed into parcels for me to access at my leisure.”

“And you used seventy two percent less charge to do so.” declared Zoe.

“Your next stage of training will include loading a few more basic paradigms into your nano-proliferation implant and practicing with them. As you noticed they handle some parts of the process a little differently than you’re used to, so this period will help you adjust.”

“Anything combat related?”

“A Shield Projection paradigm, and an Ionize paradigm.”

“Tell me about the Ionize paradigm.”

Zoe explained it to me. “Do you remember the final moments of the fight on the Viridian March? Right before your black outs started?”

I thought hard. “I remember an electrical arc.”

“That probably saved your life. You polarised several pipes in the crawl space and that sent the arc up into the synthetics. We recovered your charge data from your overlay while you were out, to find out how far gone you were. You were very lucky.”

“You can alter the electrical state of conductors near a target, nothing too precise like when you’ll be remotely controlling electronics…” started Fel.

“I can remotely control electronics?”

“Eventually. You’ll need more training though.”

“Okay, go on…the Ionize paradigm?”

“So you can shift the electrons of a nearby conductor, or pretty much anything really and cause them to arc out at your target. The target will get a nasty shock, nothing fatal, but enough to give you a few good seconds of action before they recover. Hit them again and you can even incapacitate them.”

“Range?”

“Not too far, about ten to fifteen metres. You can also use the same effect to damage electrical devices.”

“What else will I be learning?”