The Monkey and Squirrel fight for freedom. (18 page)

That's a bit of blue sky, I think it's to let us dreamers know it's not been forgotten, merely postponed until we are in the clear again. The big tube running though the core volume provides light and rain to the park land and forest, inside are our microgravity factories. Our requirement for consumer electronics is extremely small, but the design of the new processors for future generations is nearly complete.

Once in production we will be totally free, rather than this hacked approximation we're currently living with. I am responding well to treatment regime and have received the leukaemia inoculation with no ill effects. My next round of treatment begins next week, if it's like the previous times I'll sleep most of the time.

Sparks, Hacker says he's found a classical album he likes the LSO rocks Bach, it really works for him what do you think? I hope all of you are OK, I do regard you as personal friends even though you're human, it just proves my dream is a possibility, if a somewhat remote one.

I don't know why your civilisations keep repeating the mistakes of the past, but they do. Perhaps your leaders should start using brains instead of dicks to think with, the right tool for the right job. There is not much more I can tell you at the moment, the canteens I use most have all changed their menus in the last three weeks. I am getting lots of new gastronomic experiences most of them pleasant. But a couple of the new Indian meals have left my mouth and tongue on fire, even after a frozen yoghurt desert, one was called madras but the vindaloo was even worse. I don't think I'll have either of those again. Well bye for now, take care.

Chapter 16

Paranoia Triumphant

Major Carl Johnson studied the e-mails, by now he knew all about George so the origin address was no surprise. Well he thought, they're very plainly telling us if we go looking for them they'll fight. If we push too hard, they'll release their psychopaths with fighters, to savage us while they retreat again. Also telling us they’re not looking for a fight, they'll not bother us if we don't bother them. That crack about politicians thinking with their dicks instead of their brains, spoils the effect, it will get them jumping up and down calling for blood, ironically proving the monkeys right.

They know about our arms build up and the probes, not a surprise there, no the surprise was they knew about the agreement with the Chinese. There had been no mention of it in e-coms, all the meetings had been web isolated. The mission had only been referred to by acronym FTB, officially find the beasts, but everyone knew what the last word really was. He supposed all it took was loose talk in view of a web cam. It was hard to remember, that what had previously been the most secure place was now compromised. The monkeys hadn't intended to causes any upset, just catch up discretely with old friends, hence the low profile use of moon station computers. We wouldn't have caught that if we hadn't been monitoring their friends computers.

What else, they are building up their g tolerance and numbers, have state of the art production lines for electronics of all types. Are building more fighters, an extra hundred and thirty seven maybe, at least it's not bombers. I wish this could be taken at face value, it would make life easier with just human threats to deal with. I just start to think they're like humans, when they say and do things that are just not human.

Operate on a planetary surface, even though the idea of monkey shock troops sounded ridiculous. Carl's research had told him they had been designed to be hard used, so were very tough and resilient, that thought did keep some people awake at night. At least if it comes to a fight we know the tactics will be based on classic models, not something totally weird.

I mustn’t forget the new processors, those future generations will be totally free of imposed limitations. They will have only their parent’s memories to hate humanity for, and be totally confident in their own abilities. What would their attitudes toward humans be, history was not encouraging, yes some children of persecuted peoples moved on making a new life for themselves and their people. Others just endured, but that minority, the one that was always finding new, often horrible ways to get on the news.

Those actions may give them short term satisfaction, but it just pushed their persecution out of public perception. While the horror of their acts gave public support to a security crackdown, that just made things worse for everyone. Even security like to get home to see family and friends occasionally.

Which path will they chose, the parents fear us, want to put as much space between us and themselves as possible. But will still resist with deadly force if pushed or attacked. The young will be confident, feel powerful and have a respectable arsenal at their command, will have been raised in a caring nurturing environment. It all depends on whether humans are hated as a whole or regarded as an irrelevant occasional nuance, just deal with them if they turn up causing trouble.

That is the conundrum, he knew the choice that the political machine would make, deal with the potential threat now while it's manageable. The possibility of grabbing some very useful ready-made habitats was just an added incentive to the politicians. Of course the accommodation would have to be remade man sized, but that is a hell of a lot easier and cheaper than starting from scratch.

Good old greed could be trusted to tip the balance that way. The Chinese ever the pragmatists, weren't going to take an active part in the attack, but were helping with the search. They were only charging cost price for launching the probes and providing transport for the west's attack ships, including getting them off the ground in their mega lift shuttle. A beast capable of carrying a five hundred tonne pay load in one lump a thousand miles up. Like all the most efficient shuttles it used a run way to take off and land, delivering the lowest cost per tonne of payload to orbit ever. Each one could do it five times a day. Usually these days they were carrying loads down rather than taking them up, the up capacity was grossly under used. Odd it's like they don't believe we can win was the major's last thought on the topic.                             

Turning to the other e-mail, now this is odd, it's direct to an individual. Charlotte Thatcher, sent from a computer they knew would be watched, designed to cause irritation directly and indirectly. I'll have to have her interviewed, we have to know what's driving them to get inside their heads. She was a teenage girl when she owned a male monkey, and actually went to the factory to chose one and the option packages herself.

Why had she chosen to install all the options, even the human upgrades. He studied the list, memory, and interface accelerator, IQ and auto repair enhancements together. Plus very detailed information packs that just about covered all areas of human knowledge.

According to the factory records, the monkey started with an IQ of one hundred and twenty, but scored two hundred and five when retested before delivery. That could be the wrecking bar he used once he had a crack to go at. Carl's eyes fell on the sales blurb, IQ guaranteed to be a minimum of a hundred usually in the range one hundred and ten to one hundred and twenty. Great, their average IQ is at least ten percent above the human.

Not only do we create an enemy, we make them more intelligent than ourselves into the bargain. I have to assume that they will further enhance their children, their potential is frightening in it's own right. I'm not looking forward to delivering my report; they'll definitely want to kill the messenger this time. Carl concluded unhappily.

His own teenage daughter was a right pain to live with at times, he tried to imagine being her permanent whipping boy. With no choice but total obedience and unable to run away, yes death would be preferable he empathised. That works, their stance makes more sense now, no wonder they dream of going to another solar system. I'll send young John Smith to interview her, it'll be part of his punishment, it's vital for us to know everything she subjected her monkey to. Then we can work out what cracked the program. At least he hasn't got any kids, no way am I going interview her. I worry enough about what my darling daughter Daisy gets up to, without knowing the worst a teenage girl is actually capable of.

What else do I need for the report, ah yes the breeding centres, he dug into the paper files. This is the future he thought dejectedly, standalone word processors, paper files, tape over web cams, no remote monitoring, it is going to be old school hard work.

Carl started reading and soon thought 'this is just the icing on the cake', the breeding centres altogether had a capacity to produce a thousand of each worker type a year. In the last few years had run at much lower levels just sufficient to maintain the required work force. Losses were due to accidental injury, anything that would cost more than seventy percent of its current asset value to fix, see scale, was terminated and a replacement indented for.

Another grievance, what's coming next? He thought, as he read on.

Each of the five centres was holding a hundred thousand embryos of each type in storage, production limited by the number of host mothers available. By implanting two a time, each host can produce four a year, note this does reduce the useful life of the host, so budget for early replacement.

The most cost effective method of sterilisation is to give the males, a vasectomy using a cauterising scalpel. This can be done by an assistant while the unit is prepared for  surgical enhancement, minor nerve damage in this area is unimportant. But castration is to be avoided as it shortens the effective life of the unit. If castration occurs do not enhance, but send to the animal testing unit, that reduces costs.

God Carl thought, it just gets worse, they were never anaesthetised, as the procedures rendered them immobile. It wasn't a necessary cost, just spay on a cheap antiseptic afterwards then leave them to whimper.

Going through the numbers from when the Monkeys did a runner, they should have around of four thousand females of breeding age. Four children each for the next five years, the minimum possible time before an attack was possible, gives a maximum population of ninety two thousand at the time of engagement. The fact that eighty thousand would be five and under at the time was irrelevant, it was that potential size population that would feed the frenzy. He knew how the politicians would play it, almost a hundred thousand super intelligent aliens laying in wait to deny humanity its future in the stars.

The only trouble with that lie, men would have to face an unknown force of those very intelligent aliens. Prepared to deliver their own version of the Spartans at Thermopylae, which was going to make life a little too interesting. He also knew, but wasn't supposed to, that the technology section had come up with their own estimates. Extrapolated from the data they had (best guess in other words) that the Monkey fighter strength would be between two to four dozen. When pressed to be more specific, they had said best plan to meet a minimum force of three dozen, we need more data, crystal balls don't work.

His estimate from the e-mails of a hundred plus would go down like a lead balloon, they would assume he was a victim of propaganda. Well better write that report and prepare my presentation; they’re not going to like it.

As he prepared his report, the fifty seventh new Newp fighter was completed. They had sixteen left of the first designs to convert once the probes had been intercepted. The new design had worked well in the tests, against the old ones, using only targeting lasers. Once they were converted fifty three of the new type would be ready for crash deployment at need. Each one had an expendable booster fitted, for the emergency deployment, the others would patrol as the old ones did, pairs in high orbit.

Spaced evenly round the orbital shell ready to be ordered into action by the watcher satellites, each carried twelve combat drones ten for action, two spare to maintain fire power, three scout drones, one as a spare. The scout drones were larger with greater endurance with a fuel cell that allowed it to operate independently for up to five days. Fire it's weapon once every hundred seconds for twelve minutes.

All drones carried a tactical nuclear weapon for self destruct, the fighters were equipped with a more powerful ones, weapons of last resort. The old fighters would not be withdrawn until the FTB probes aimed at Saturn had been destroyed. Once the new build had reached sixty, the priority for them was reduced, but they were still being built along with additional drones.

Exploratory probes, extra spy probes for all areas of human activity,and all the small ancillary craft needed for a satellite society. When they could find the time the high speed test bed. Designed fly a tight gravity acceleration course  around Saturn, Jupiter (false trail), tight round the Sun accelerating all the way building velocity. A test of navigation and control systems, using the new super plasma acceleration ion engine.

The light weight reactor the test vehicle used was not practical for a crewed ship, but was only for the test vehicle, the actual ship was going to be fusion powered for the drive. The target velocity was ten percent of light speed for fifty percent of reaction mass, the numbers said it should, it's destination a red dwarf  Proxima Centory.

Testing an origami scoop, unfolding when the restraint was unwound, refolding when rewound. A grapheme sheet shaped and stiffened with carbon nano tubes, to give an intake area of a square mile. It would be used in interstellar space to test the theory and practical effectiveness. If it successfully gathered a significant reaction mass, that mass would be used immediately to accelerate.

It would to deploy its main transceiver dish as it approached the Kuiper belt, surveying all the way reporting back. Once in interstellar space it was to unfold it's multi mirror telescope, if it worked in practice the way it worked under test. A five meter diameter mirror, a hobby project that would be very useful. If the test vehicle survived the predicted journey time of forty five years, could be less if the scoop worked.

It would observe and survey all the way reporting every day, on approaching the target system reporting once an hour, performing an acceleration turn round the star. To visit the other stars in Centory, final going into orbit of one it's limited brain estimated had the best resources. Adding detail and depth to its reports, other experimental probes would be launched to other nearby stars.

Their encoded transmissions would be picked up by the humans, but not easily decrypted, the code key changing every three months. The cycle only repeating ever hundred years, every test vehicle with it's own set. The Newp were making the effort the benefits were for themselves. But that would take time; the plan was to launch one a year to the closest stars, learning from each attempt hopefully getting higher velocities each time.

Major Johnson, delivered his report to cries of dismay and disbelief, just as he expected the unwanted predictions were disbelieved. Those that agreed with other analysts grudgingly accepted. Eventually a politically acceptable estimate of what they would be taking on if they sent the fighters and bombers in.