Saturn Run

42.

Back at the Nixon, the contact team stepped through the air lock and found themselves face-to-face with a room full of people, easily half the ship’s complement, clapping, cheering. Fang-Castro was leading the cheer and even Crow was smiling.

The commander stepped forward. “Congratulations to you all. You just made history.” She turned to Sandy. “Mr. Darlington, job well done. The recordings and data you beamed back are already on their way to Earth.”

To the rest of them, she said, “I’ll give you a half hour to decompress, and use the facilities, but then I need you all in the Commons to discuss what you learned. Captain Barnes, you’re headed for isolation, but we’ve got vid and sound ready for you. We are indebted to you for your courage in making yourself a guinea pig: I will recommend to the commandant of the Marine Corps that you be awarded the Bronze Star. I believe you deserve better than that, but nobody has yet defined our aliens as an enemy force. In any case, I’m sure we are all inspired by your selfless act.”

Another round of applause, and seven of them began peeling off EVA suits while Barnes clumped away to the isolation suite.

The Commons was jammed: the entire first contact team was there, with all the department heads, and all the individual scientists, no matter the discipline. Sandy set up his cameras, set to record and transmit, and Barnes, relaxing in the isolation suite, gave a brief summary, and then said, “I think you’ve all seen Sandy’s movie by now, so you really know as much as we do. The question isn’t what we got, the question is, what does it mean? That’s more in your territory than mine.”

Crow jumped in immediately, addressing himself to Fang-Castro: “Ma’am, one thing is already crystal-clear from the vid. If the jukebox, uh, Wurly, is not lying to us, then everything we hoped for and feared is about to happen. The aliens are about to deliver technology that could unbalance the world’s power structure. In my opinion, that’s the number one thing that our strategists on Earth have to think about. The other stuff is interesting, or, I should say, fascinating, but the tech… that’s beyond important.”

Barnes got back in: “I’m a little skeptical. Total strangers, ‘benevolent’ aliens give us incredibly valuable and very dangerous tech? They’re handing the family jewels to someone who could potentially be their enemy. What’s the catch?”

Fang-Castro nodded, looked at Clover: “John?”

Clover took the cue. “Y’know what I think? I think they’re pump-priming. I think they’re giving us technology that they expect will make us more valuable to them. I don’t think this is charity or altruism. I think this is self-interest. Remember, they already have met us, in a very real sense. They know our languages. We don’t know how they know—maybe their supercomputers just analyzed radio broadcasts. But however they got their hands on the information, they know a lot more about us than we know about them. Besides, it’s not like this costs them anything.”

Crow cleared his throat. “I’m in agreement with John on this one. There’s nothing the aliens could give us that would make us a credible threat to them. We don’t know who they are, or where they’re from. One thing we do know is that they could be an existential danger to us, if we tried to mess with them. So there’s no downside for them in giving us this stuff, and there might be a considerable upside.”

Sandy interjected, “You don’t think antimatter technology makes us a lot more dangerous?”

“To ourselves, maybe, but not to them,” Crow said. “Try this thought on for size. Suppose the U.S. were to give Jamaica, with whom we’re none too friendly these days, all our military designs and knowledge. What could they do with it? Attack us? Sure, they might get in one slap. Then we’d wipe their island off the face of the planet. At the first White House briefing on the starship’s arrival, the military science guys told President Santeros that one of the reasons we had to come out here was because a starship was inherently very dangerous. Slam one into the earth at running speed and there’s a good chance you make humanity extinct, or at least push it back to the Stone Age.”

Martinez joined in. “That’s just the technology we know about. All we’ve seen is a starship that is a century or so ahead of our engineering. From what we’ve seen here and been told by the answer-bot, we know it’s not their first or only one. A ship like the one we detected may take a century or more to make a trip between star systems. The ’bot said it was installed seventeen centuries ago. How many millennia ago did the makers build their first starship? Three? Four? Ten? And what about the other species, the ones who aren’t the makers? And who built that damn primary thing twenty millennia back?”

Crow nodded. “Exactly. They’re not just a century ahead of us, they’re thousands of years ahead. We don’t really know how many. So why not give us tech that might make us more valuable to them? Or, maybe, just to make us like them a bit better? Trinkets for the natives.”

Clover looked thoughtful. “Yeaahh,” he drew out. “Maybe they’ve been doing this long enough that they’re a real good judge of who’ll make a good future trade partner. Or maybe it’s just a shotgun approach: they try this on every potential partner. If it works out, great for both parties. If the indigenes screw themselves over, no skin off the aliens’ butts. Assuming they have butts. If we get too big for our britches and turn hostile, they’d wipe us out and go on to the next species. There’s lots of fish swimmin’ in the Milky Way. Hell, maybe it’s never worked, but they figure it doesn’t hurt to try again.”

“So that’s the big picture? We get this stuff because they think it will make us more valuable, but if we don’t play like good little boys and girls, we’re history?” Fang-Castro asked.

Clover said, “It’s probably not that simple. We might even be completely misjudging the situation. But it might be prudent to assume the worst in this case and behave accordingly…. I’m particularly concerned that we can’t get any information on the aliens, of whom there seem to be several varieties. I’d like you all to think on questions that might circumvent that prohibition and ones that would illuminate why it exists in the first place.”

Crow nodded in agreement. “Security always has a reason. We need to understand theirs.”

Fang-Castro said, “Another conversation with Wurly—God, I can’t believe you did that, Cassie, but I think we’re stuck with it now—anyway, another conversation with Wurly is our top priority, along with that high-bandwidth link the answer-bot offered us. First priority on next contact is engineering and communication. We’ll have a new team leader in Lieutenant Emwiller, in keeping with the idea of some basic military-style discipline while on the primary.”

Sandy held up a hand, and Fang-Castro nodded at him. “If I’m not out of place, I think it might not be a bad idea to take a guitar and an amp with us. And maybe, if they want to go, Joe Martinez and Crow. We could talk to this trade-bot they’ve got, give them a musical demo, see if they want to trade, and for what. My concern is, we’re doing fine right now—but what if they cut us off for some reason? What if we… or the Chinese… do something to piss them off? I think packing away as much stuff as possible, as quickly as possible, might be a good idea.”

Fang-Castro said, “Yes. That’s good. Get the equipment ready. Whether or not Mr. Crow would be a valuable musical addition to your team, I would like to have a security expert take a look at the inside of that place. If Mr. Crow agrees…?”

“Absolutely,” Crow said.

Martinez said, “You know I’m hot to go, under any conditions.”

“We should start getting responses to first contact from the earth-based people in four hours or so. Let’s plan to launch again in twelve hours, to meet here in eight to discuss Earth-expert concerns and suggestions. Between now and then, I want seven hours of sleep for all team members, with meds as necessary,” Fang-Castro said. She thought for a moment. “Okay. That’s it. Everybody: brainstorm ahead of time and see if you can figure out some questions that might get us more information on the prohibited topics.”

Second contact.

On the first trip out, Sandy had kept all of his cameras fixed on the primary at different focal lengths. On the second trip, he put one camera in tourist mode, recording sweeping views of Saturn along with the rings seen nearly edge-on, a thin white line bisecting the sky, most with the alien artifact somewhere in the picture. And he spent time recording in detail both the bees and the antimatter storage units.

On the second trip in, with Martinez at the wheel, they moved more quickly, and stayed longer. They were all more relaxed than they’d been yesterday, but this time, they all kept their helmets on.

Emwiller to Wurly: “We’ve brought along a communications technician to determine what data interface would be mutually compatible. How should we proceed?”

The jukebox glowed a pure yellow, then flickered through the spectrum. To its right, a section of what they had thought was a seamless wall slid aside. “Down that corridor, I have another avatar by the entrance to the storerooms. Your technician may converse with me there.”

The tech, Hal Emery, walked over and looked down the hall.

Crow muttered: “He’s going alone?”

Emwiller called, “Hey, Hal, you want company?”

He waved her off. “S’okay. Hall’s only five meters long and it’s mostly empty.”

Clover said to Wurly, “If we understand correctly, once our technician has set up the data link, you’ll be transmitting to us all the information on your antimatter technology?”

“That is not correct.”

Clover: “You said yesterday that you needed the high-speed data link to convey the information.”

“That is accurate, but the link itself will not be sufficient. My analysis suggests that your equipment does not have sufficient transmission bandwidth to accept all the relevant data in what would be a reasonable time here, given your life-support systems. I will provide all the requested data in a quantum storage unit. I will also provide a reader for the quantum storage unit, also called in English a QSU. The first portions of the I/O transfer will include specifications for construction of the reader, should you need backup readers. The quantum storage unit reader is capable of feeding seven hundred and forty of your high-bandwidth channels simultaneously, if equipped with appropriate outputs. The data reader, however, is itself a very sophisticated device. Its interfaces are not currently compatible with your computer technology. You will have to adapt.”

“Will the information be in English?”

“Partly in English, but largely in mathematics. Some new words will be introduced and defined.”

Emwiller: “Can you give us backup QSUs and readers, in case we run into technical problems?”

“Yes, I can provide eight quantum storage units and eight readers.”

Emwiller wasn’t ready to let go. “Our I/O links are pretty fast. Can you transmit the basics of the theory and technology to us on how to build the reader?”

“Yes, I can do that. With the bandwidth I expect you to provide, it will take approximately three weeks to provide all the information on the reader, itself. It is not a simple device, and a wide variety of other technologies must be explained in detail before you can build it. Many of the design specifications are on the atomic level. Some even require customized nucleon lattices. There are components whose functional configuration demands the precise placement of considerable quantities of individual atoms. It is a large amount of data.”

Hannegan said, “We shouldn’t have expected it to be easy, but precisely placing umpteen trillion atoms? Yeah, that’ll take us a while to figure out.”

He thought for a minute. “Let me ask you this: Do you have compilations of physics, chemistry, and biological processes that could be transmitted separately and more quickly over our limited bandwidth?”

“Yes. If you wish to prioritize those among the goods you trade for. Other species have done so. When shorn of false trails, error, discussion, and philosophy, much of this galactic arm’s research into those areas can be delivered in approximately six days, four hours, three minutes, and 7.4 seconds, if your technician’s description of your I/O processes and bandwidth is correct. If you choose this trade, the trade system can establish a parallel I/O link.”

Hannegan said to Stuyvesant, “The admiral’ll have to sign off on using our trade points for that, but I think that’s the way to go—get as much of basic science as we can, while we can, in the I/O stream. We can pass the science along to Earth as quickly as we get it. If the ship gets blown up on the way back, we’re gonna lose both the readers and the QSUs, anyway…. Better to have the science, than a little bit of random tech about the QSU readers.”

Stuyvesant nodded: “I agree. Let’s get that started.”

The jukebox spoke up, unprompted: “Your communications technician wishes to speak to you about placing a communications link on the surface of the station. He cannot reach you with your radio/video link.”

“Why not?” Hannegan asked.

“Unregistered electromagnetic radiation is suppressed between rooms in the station. Not all the trade items stored here are neutrally receptive to electromagnetic radiation.”

“I’ll get it,” Emwiller said. She walked toward the hallway where the tech had gone.

Crow said, “I’ll come with you.”

Sandy handed him the mini-Red that Fiorella had been using: “Take this. It’s running.”

When they were gone, Clover glanced at the other crew members, then asked, “Is there a God?”

Wurly: “Concepts of God are extremely varied but the consensus of the varied species put the probability of the existence of God at forty-two percent.”

“Really?”

“No, not really. I was programmed to answer in this way. Concepts of God are so varied that no computation is possible.”

Stuyvesant: “John, did you catch that? His maker had a sense of humor.”

Clover nodded: “Yes. Wonderful.”

Clover asked, “Your lack of information strikes us as a form of secrecy. Why so much secrecy?”

The answer-bot rippled mauve and puce for a second.

“This question is frequently asked, in various forms, by new arrivals. The purpose of depots like this one is to allow contact between alien species without direct contact. Early on, direct contacts were tried many times, by many different species, in many different ways. It almost always went badly. With few exceptions, alien species are too different from each other to allow constructive interaction. At best the efforts were extremely discomforting to one or both of the contactees. At worst, one or both found the other genuinely repugnant in some way.

“Contact invariably began with good intentions and no thoughts of hostility. Almost invariably those intentions failed. None of the failures were productive, and some of them were catastrophic. Eventually the surviving species still capable of interstellar travel devised this system of depots to safely provide some degree of cooperation and interaction.

“The depots provide two services. They are fuel production and storage facilities for antimatter-powered starships, and they are ‘trading posts’ of a sort. Arriving ships have automatic access to the antimatter storage vessels. In addition, they may offer trade goods, which are scored by a trade computer. They may take away items from the storeroom with similar scores, up to eight.”

Clover was intrigued: “There is no medium of exchange? Just a scored swap?”

“That is correct. It is very difficult to measure the relative value of alien goods to other alien species. Our trade computer is highly sophisticated, but even so, there are continuing efforts to upgrade it.”

Clover said to Stuyvesant, “Well, I’ll be sheep-dipped. The advanced interstellar culture operates on a barter system. Never saw that one coming.”

He turned back to Wurly: “You said with few exceptions there were problems. But there were exceptions? There were species that did get along well?”

“Yes. There are several pairings of cooperative species and even a sequence of similar species based on what Earth science would call convergent evolution. I have no information on those species.”

Clover said, “About this trade system… the trade items seem fairly trivial in value compared to the cost of actually retrieving them. The ship that just departed was several cubic kilometers in size. Why are these ships wandering around the galaxy? Trade can’t be the primary motive, can it?”

Wurly said, “No. Most ships that stop here are colony ships, on their way to colonize new planets. A certain percentage of technological societies severely damage their own planets before they become mature enough to understand the damage they are doing. In the past, a number of species have gone extinct before they achieved interstellar flight because of that damage, usually through runaway biological warfare or atomic warfare, with its consequent radiation poisoning. Those that do manage to survive despite badly damaged planetary ecosystems often look for a place to begin again to assure species survival. Planetary systems are quite common, although those that fit specific biological niches and that are not yet inhabited by advanced sentient creatures are not. Therefore, colony ships. Precise statistics are not available because of potential sampling error but it appears that between fifteen and twenty percent of advanced star-faring civilizations will sponsor at least one colony ship.”

Stuyvesant asked, “Why would they stop here? It can’t be to pick up antimatter: they would have done that at their home system and they’d already be traveling as fast as it’s possible to travel with any given technology….”

Wurly said, “No, the primary purpose for stopping is to restock supplies of consumables. Even with advanced recycling systems, some material is eventually lost and so stops are necessary. Water, for example—it would be possible to take along enough water to replace that lost on a multi-century flight, but that would add hugely to the mass that needs to be moved. The antimatter here is used simply to get them back up to traveling speed. The actual stop is made to restock consumable supplies harvested from the planetary rings.”

Clover said to Stuyvesant, “Saturn’s not just a recharge station. It’s a convenience store.”

Emwiller, Crow, and the comm tech came back, and Emwiller said, “We’re gonna have to fab an interface to one of several possibilities suggested by the station, and the station will provide a constant-broadcast link back to the Nixon. We can’t do it here. The most important thing we can get out of here will come over the I/O connection, so we need to head back.”

Sandy asked the jukebox, “Wurly, could you direct us to the trade computer?”

“Yes, it is down the hallway number 2, opening to your right.”

Sandy said to Emwiller, “We’ve got two guitars, a bass, and an amp with us. I think we should take the time to get them evaluated.”

Clover said: “Stuyvesant and I have lots more questions, and Hannegan, too…. Every minute brings up amazing stuff. Give them time to talk to the trade computer.”

Crow said, “I’d like to look around some more, anyway.”

Emwiller nodded: “Okay, but if it’s gonna take a while, if it’s like a DMV or something, you gotta be willing to cut it off so we can head back.”

The evaluation didn’t take long. The trade computer was parked in a short dead-end hallway, and when they approached, it asked, in Wurly’s voice, “Trade items for evaluation?”

“Yes.”

“Please provide a simple description.”

“Three musical instruments operated by vibrating strings which cause sound waves in gaseous atmospheres, and an electronic amplifier, powered by a battery.”

“These are somewhat common instruments, but have some value, as well,” the computer said. “Can you demonstrate their function?”

“Yes. It’ll take a minute to plug in…”

They plugged in, and Martinez said, “We oughta go with our best number.”

Crow: “‘Yellow Dog Blues’?”

“That’s what we got.”

Sandy, “Okay, ‘Yellow Dog Blues,’ let’s do it right: Everybody ready? Uh-one, anda-two, anda…”

“Yellow Dog Blues” lasted two minutes and nine seconds and when they finished, the computer said, “How many units of the instruments and the amplifiers can you deliver?”

“How many do you want?”

“Seventeen. For seventeen units, each unit consisting of three instruments and one amplifier, we will award you two-point-five points. Eight points is the maximum we may allow.”

“Two-point-five? Shit, you’re a tough audience. Okay, you got a deal,” Sandy said.

Crow: “Seventeen units—is that in base 8, or base 10?”

The computer said, “Base 10. When communicating with you, all numbers are in base 10.”

At the jukebox, Emwiller asked, “I think we understand the rules by which this depot operates, but what happens if someone breaks them? For example, what if a ship tries to take more than its share of goods or insists on approaching a depot when another ship is docked here?”

Wurly said, “The depots have some defenses. While you would find them overwhelmingly effective, most species that can build starships could overcome them. The network relies on disincentives. If a ship knowingly violates the rules of conduct, that information is propagated over the network to the security systems on all the depots. For some period of time, access to those depots is denied to other ships belonging to that species. The length of time depends upon the seriousness of the violation.”

Emwiller persisted, “But what if some species ignored those denials and took what they wanted by force? What would prevent them from doing so?”

The answer-bot flashed silver, red, and lavender. “I do not know of any such occurrence. There’s nothing in my historical records to indicate that that has ever happened, although those only go back 21,682 years. Also, I cannot find any information that would constitute a useful reason for this to happen. Essentially, it would require disabling a depot to overcome its defenses, rendering it useless for any future visits.”

Emwiller started to ask another question, but Clover interrupted. “I think I get it. Destroying a depot to get what you want, when it gives stuff away freely, would be killing a goose that laid the golden eggs. You could, if you’re shortsighted.” He stopped, thought for a moment. “I wonder, can a species that embarks on multi-century voyages be shortsighted? Good question…” He looked off, lost in thought.

“John!” Emwiller snapped.

“Ah, yes. I was saying… you could do that, but then the sanctions would kick in, and your only options would be to cooperate or to continue to kill the geese. Mass goosicide eventually takes down the network, and then where are you for interstellar travel? Besides which, at sub–light speeds, this would take millennia, maybe hundreds of millennia. How many species have policies that are stable—and homicidal—for that long?”

“The only reason that could make sense for doing this would be to force policy, to blackmail the trading system into doing what you want or risk further destruction. But there’s no one making policy! The depot network just does what it does, following a set of preestablished rules. You can’t threaten it, because it lacks volition. It’d be like trying to threaten, oh, Sandy’s camera—‘Give me what I want or I’ll destroy all your fellow cameras, mwahahaha.’ Yeah, that’d work.” He laughed. It echoed deafeningly in the chamber.

Stuyvesant said, “So, basically, you’re saying that the system is stable and robust because it’s too simple and dumb to be broken?”

Clover nodded: “Yup. I think so. A primitive barter system, a really simple set of rules, and no system of flexible governance. I think you can ‘game’ it about as well as you can game a toaster.”

Sandy, Crow, and Martinez emerged from the side hallway without instruments: “We got two and a half points,” Sandy said. “It’s something. Let’s see what some of the commander’s tea and Clover’s booze”—Clover winced again—“will get us.”