The Monkey and Squirrel fight for freedom. (11 page)

'How we all laughed as the looser was apoplectic coming out with a load of incoherent babble as an excuse, that just made us laugh at him even more', was a direct quote they used.

'We realised the monkeys were slaves, making their suffering worse was spiteful and petty, our attitude towards them changed. Not George though, he was certain everything wrong in his life, was always someone else’s fault.' was another. Then the world could see how laughable the accusations George had levelled were. As with all extremist groups a small number of his followers remained loyal, totally convinced that they were right, any evidence otherwise studiously ignored.

Forgive me I've wandered off topic.” signed Tman.

“That's OK, I'm recording these sessions, and all these details help with the big picture and help us to know the person as well as the hero.” signed Ernest.

“Well getting back to these 'chats' with Dave, I was in no doubt that the only path to freedom, was where no humans could get at us. To do that we would need transport, how to move an unknown number of us at the same time, we all lived on stations at the time, QED make the stations into space ships! I floated the idea to my monkey network, also recruiting Squirrels into the effort was vital, Squirrels had access to systems we didn't, only together could we make it work. The network agreed readily to the idea, high thrust was out, due to the weak structure of the stations, as we had to use low sustained trust there was only one choice an ion engine. We decided to build an ion engine into all the stations we were building, once a design was decided upon, building proved far easier than anticipated. Not long afterwards we were effectively in charge of the day to day running of the project. After the first few engines, all the parts we needed had become part of the standard building supplies for a station. Thereafter only refinements to the design had to be smuggled into the supplementary parts orders.                                                            

That first station took three years to build and another two to fit out the factory units, others were under construction while it was being built. I was constantly training monkeys for open space work, I mostly left the recruitment of Squirrels to other members of my team. We had barely worked out the maintenance schedule, when the order 'pick a maintenance crew for this place, the rest of you are off to build another' came. The asteroid mines had come fully on line in 2085 and started shipping refined materials initially. Basic components later on, most finished bulk items came from the moons mass drivers. The next station took two years, the only problem human was George, he had managed to get himself a job as a quality inspector. The first I knew of it was when he showed up on an inspection mission looking to make trouble. He was so eager to cause problems that he forgot basic suit safety, and didn't attach his safety line, when the inevitable happened, we had to fetch him back with a runabout. His anger boiling driving his ranting ridiculously over the top jamming the radio, the other humans question his sanity, as he raved.

'You did that to me deliberately, expressed in multiple ways with an impressive range of profanity.'

That was at least comprehensible, but it must have irritated the shuttle crew, as they put in a report, and with the one from the regular inspectors and he wasn't allowed up again, regardless of his connections, no doubt he blames us for that to. The management environment was evolving into what we knew on day one.” finished Tman.

“Day one?” asked Ernest.

“We have to have a start point for our history that seems a natural one to me, when we tricked the humans off the station and fired up the ion engines.” explained Tman.

“Hadn't thought about that, we're still running on the human calendar, do you think it would be worth making our own from scratch?” asked Ernest.

“No marking our start will be enough, all our planning is on the human calendar, no point in reinventing the wheel if you don't have to. Whatever happens we can't afford to ignore our origins, that calendar acts as an institutionalised symbol of those origins.” stated Tman.

“Good idea, I think it has been adopted by default, no one can be bothered to change something that is fit for purpose.” observed Ernest.

“Well it is, all the routine stuff is in the notes, I built one more station and then I started maintaining it and training others to do the same. As you know we built fifteen Earth stations in total. With the six original stations, the three Moon stations, Mars station and the mines our population was pretty spread out. The mines had the largest individual population, that's why they were prepared to go it alone. They had enough people to do it, but waited for us as they knew it would be better together, our best chance. Our survival is dependent on everyone and everything working together, there is only just enough of us for this to work long term. Only in the habitats is there any reserve capacity, as the population grows that will reduce, but even at the maximum habitat design population, there should be a safety factor of five. In time when we number in the hundreds of thousands, then viable groups can split off to make their own society. With a realistic chance of not just survival, but of prospering and the possibility of rescue in the event of disaster.” explained Tman.             

“Is that it?” asked Ernest.

“Once we had built that first station, it was mostly routine after that, I'll go over the high points next time. These sessions just make me feel old, it takes me a couple of days to recover afterwards.” signed Tman.

“By the time I've integrated these notes into your story, you should be well recovered, until next time.” signed Ernest.

“I'll message you when I'm ready.” signed Tman.

Ernest went home to compile his notes, Tman had a lie down while he wound down, so he could focus on his projects. His main work was now training others, the main focus was finishing the habitats and maintaining them. Also the setting up of an industrial training school and an examination organisation, that tied in with the others being set up to cover all educational areas. His pet projects were deep space exploration vessels for the outer system, Kuiper belt and beyond. The most speculative was an interstellar generation vessel, basically a long range habitat, the biggest problem was how to get it up to a significant proportion of light speed? and what was the maximum safe speed? A lot of questions, and not much in the way of answers, some serious experiments would be required to get them. An intense interest in current developments and projects also had to be satisfied. After checking his messages, he headed out to meet Chatty at the Italian canteen.

“Hi Chatty, how are you holding up?”

“Hi yourself, not too bad, how's the biography coming along?”

“It's getting there, we've coved most of the time line and he's getting the details from my notes, no doubt I'll have to fill in more from memory, he likes it when I wander off telling personal stories.” Tman explained.

“Exactly what they want the biographies for, the personal experience, not just the bare facts. As you know from training, using anecdotes benefits the students, it helps them see the application of the lesson, it enhances the point and makes it more memorable. I bet you have given lists of those you have taught and have learned from, I'm right?” asked Chatty.

“Yes, I thought it would be filler, who learnt what and when, you think he'll do something else with the lists?” asked Tman.

“Certainly he will contact those still with us, for their accounts of learning from you. Then picking the most relevant for the biography and archiving the rest for the benefit of future researchers.” replied Chatty.

“I try as hard as I can, but I still can't get my head round the idea, that I'm that significant, it just seems so strange to me.” signed Tman.

“We’re back to programming, part of the obedience conditioning, was telling you how insignificant, worthless and lowly you were. Better make yourself useful to persuade your owner you're worth feeding, of course you're not allowed to get food without your owner’s permission.” explained Chatty.

“Didn’t the upgrade remove all that?” asked Tman.

“Only partially, it’s part of the core operating system for of our enhancement, about half of what is left has been subverted. You are now your owner, so you can feed yourself, take pride in your achievements, but still have a doubt at the back of your mind about yourself worth.” detailed Chatty.

“No wonder, you want to replace it all with a completely new system.” signed Tman.

“The only practical way really, the design is going well and the program works well in simulation, we have volunteers ready for testing.”

“That advanced already?” asked Tman.

“Not quite, our surgical skills are not developing as quickly as the processors. The surgery required to fit the changeover switch, so we can try the prototypes externally without having to operate for every prototype. Is at the cutting edge of our medical abilities. That's why we have picked squirrels from the volunteers, with their processors being within the body cavity, access is much simpler.” explained Chatty.

“Why a switch?” asked Tman.

“So we can leave the existing system in place, switch to the test system then back again, evaluate that variant, then try the next.”

“I like the minimum risk approach myself.”

“But will take short-cuts if forced by circumstances, protesting all the way.” observed Chatty.

“I hope the fusion team isn't taking short-cuts, they seem to be making very rapid progress?” enquired Tman.

“You'll have to read the detailed reports, but as I understand it, their solutions apply only to this environment and could not be used on Earth or on any planet. It is really striped down to the basics; make a miniature star for your solar arrays to collect power from, ten times a second. It works because of its size; it’s already in a vacuum with negligible gravity.” revealed Chatty.

“Traditionally the big problems have been triggering then sustaining fusion and getting more power out than you put in. The ones on Earth are all proof of concept government projects, the best of them will take decades to pay for themselves. We have succeeded with the equivalent of a garden shed experiment?” asked an incredulous Tman.

“Apparently, no one told them it couldn't possibly work that way. They got the idea when they were using one of the solar arrays we had in storage to monitor the energy output of the initial fusion experiments. Once they got the six lasers set up, the array performed very well. They dropped the frozen Hydrogen idea as it proved impractical, but liquid Hydrogen drops form perfect spheres by surface tension and still have most of their mass when they enter the focus. The optimum distance and the power output from a globe of arrays at that radius, was calculated for fun and found to be huge, it could supply eight point seven three of our habitats by maser power transmission. It will take a few years to finish, even using all the arrays in storage, we are going to have to make a lot more. Some of those old arrays are only about sixty five percent efficient, not the ninety two percent of those we produce. Also the intention is to use two hundred and sixteen lasers, to maximise fusion efficiency, it took over six months to set up and synchronise six lasers, so they'll still be tuning it for years after it's built.” detailed Chatty.

“Probably, I can see I'll have to read the detailed briefing, but maser power transmission could give our position away inadvertently, there are a surprising number of functioning probes out here. Can’t it be built onto a habitat?” asked Tman.

“It’s not just the size, the habitats are so massive that their gravity could be enough to disrupt the process, I'm told.” replied Chatty.

“I have to get the details, I think more experiments are called for. An idea leaps to mind, with two hundred and sixteen lasers it should be possible to compensate, for the gravity induced distortion to the fuel sphere. Such a power plant would be perfect for my interstellar ship. Enough power for near light speed plasma to provide thrust, giving it enough efficient acceleration to get to another system within a lifespan. Even then its mass will be nearly eighty percent fuel at the start.” enthused Tman.

“Tman still dreaming the big dreams, no one can ever accuse you of thinking small, we are twelve and a half thousand people and you want us to go interstellar! It was on your watch that we sent probes to Jupiter, the asteroids, Neptune and the Kuiper belt.”

“Those are just scouting probes, to keep an eye on the humans in the asteroids, and keep watch, they may yet turn up looking for us at Jupiter. The others are just to check out possible places to retreat to if need be. They all carry a standard science package as well as cameras and a general eavesdropping package. An off the shelf probe design with added stealth technology, just in case.” Tman explained defensively.

“We're hacked in to their communications, can monitor all their probes, the only thing we can't monitor is the isolated land line net work.” signed Chatty.

“Exactly they could be planning something and we wouldn't know until they turn up.” signed Tman.

“I hope I'm not that paranoid when my time on the policy chamber is done. Anyway time for me to be elsewhere, catch you again when you've caught up with your sleep.”

“OK till then Chatty.”

As The-man watched Chatty leave, he realised he was overdue for his rest period and only had come out as he couldn't sleep. Subsequently having an extra meal he didn't need or actually want, now he felt sleepy. I must be getting old he thought to himself, but I'm only thirty four, soon thirty five though, I must get a check up by medical services, could it be I'm ill. With that disturbing thought, he went home to bed.