Chapter 4: Deliberations, Accidents, And A Visit From Friends
July 2115
International Governmental Cooperation Committee Building
Extrasystem Control Group
#Doctor John Warden, Scientific Liaison from the Planium Device Study Team, has the floor. Doctor, if you could please summarize the latest findings from your group for us?# Athena's avatar motioned to John, who nodded, while everyone else fell silent and listened. The ECG had grown considerably larger since the last time he'd been here a few months ago, and there were a lot of people hanging on his words, human and AI alike. He cleared this throat, queued up his notes in his head via n-link, and began speaking.
"We now know that the Planium Devices are not, as we first feared, weapons of mass destruction on a scale heretofore unknown. Admittedly they could be used as such, as we demonstrated when we disposed of the first one, the one hidden inside Charon, some time ago, but the information we've so far extracted from the computers in the two examples from Arcturus show their primary function is as a transportation system."
Bringing up a detailed diagram of the first device they had made safe by removal of the planium core and were now carefully disassembling in the shared group holo and mindscape, he went over the enormous machine's construction. Data on the device flowed to everyone present. "The primary, or bootstrap, power generator is a fairly impressive fusion plant using a modified stellarator design on the proton-boron aneutronic fuel cycle. It's similar to a number of designs that were among the first successful fusion power units we ourselves use in the mid to late twenty-first century until they were superseded by gravitational confinement systems. The power output of this generator is directly as electricity in copious quantities at very high voltage, which is then applied to the planium core to energize it, and also brings the planium containment and drive systems up to speed."
The holo zoomed in on the fusion plant and showed it deconstructed into an exploded diagram. "There are some interesting design tweaks in the device we never tried, but at this point they're mostly of scientific interest. The construction of the machine is in some ways more impressive than the design of it, as it was made with massive redundancy and very careful thought put into making it as robust and hard-wearing as possible, while also keeping the complexity down as far as could be managed. It's an elegant and well designed system that has gathered considerable praise from our own power system engineers."
As the 3D reconstruction of the alien fusion unit reassembled itself and popped back into place, the whole Device rotated slightly to show another view. "Once the planium core is fully energized, the fusion unit would be idled as it's now not required, but the programming keeps it on standby ready for use. Main power is now provided by the planium acting as a generator and tapping energy from the feedback loop that sustains the core reaction. The output is very high, we estimate in the terawatt range. This is stored in a series of extremely large capacitors that run down both the top and bottom rails here and here." The structure became translucent and showed the various parts in different colors as he talked.
"The main computing array above the fusion plant here also has two redundant backups, one at the base of each rail at these two points. Additionally there is a large section between them that consists of navigational sensors, communications equipment, and secondary power storage. As far as we so far can work out, a ship wanting to use the device for transportation would connect to the comms interface using a quite simple protocol to request a jump to the destination, while within transport range which is on the order of a few dozen kilometers. If the request is honored, which requires the destination to be valid among other parameters, the device fully activates and uses the energized planium core to produce a tunnel or conduit of what could be referred to as FTL-space between it and the matched receiving device, which is activated in turn before transport occurs."
He paused to let everyone absorb the information for a few seconds, then continued, "When the link is established between the two devices, the ship is essentially grabbed by a localized gravity wave, inserted into the FTL corridor, and accelerated down it at high superluminal velocities. The receiving device reverses the process and decelerates the ship to an effective standstill, depositing it at the destination plus or minus a random offset, we suspect to reduce the likelihood of collision with other vessels. As the entirety of the ship, contents included, are simultaneously affected by the heavily altered reference frame of the corridor, no acceleration effects are felt inside the craft, although there is considerable stress involved in entering and leaving the zone of action. Transit time between terminals is on the order of seconds to perhaps a minute at most."
The now mostly disassembled and annotated planium device representation spun in three planes, while his audience watched. "We are still working on a number of the systems which so far we don't completely understand, but we know enough to know most of how it works, and what it's intended to do. Based on the data we've extracted there is a network of these devices scattered throughout much of the galaxy, dating back possibly as much as one point two billion years, plus or minus two hundred and five million. Further dating efforts on this particular unit based on a number of isotope ratio decay products have finally pegged its age at approximately sixteen million years with a high degree of certainty. Dating results on the second exposed unit found at Arcturus show it is much older, approximately five hundred million years. Both are identical, and have identical programming and databases, which raises a number of very intriguing questions."
He looked around to a number of thoughtful expressions, and quite a few people nodding.
"One of those being, who made them? And of course, where are they now? The devices show all the hallmarks of something that's been mass produced, since they're clearly the same design, but the two samples so far dated show they were produced close to half a billion years apart, apparently to a design that was stable as much as twice that long ago. The sheer amount of time involved is staggering. It also suggests that whoever the builders are, they are mostly likely still in existence, since it seems unlikely that they'd have been wandering the galaxy for a billion years or more, then suddenly vanish just before we turn up and start poking around. We are also puzzled as to why so many of them are concealed inside moons or large asteroids, obviously deliberately."
"Is there any information in the computers as to the identity or location of these putative builders?" The query came from the East Pacific Alliance director of technology, one Professor Zac Vroland, a man John knew well from previous contact over the years.
"No." He shook his head. "There is nothing at all we have so far found in the data concerning who designed it, who made it, or where they came from or went. Considering how much other information there is, we find that more than a little suspicious. The military intelligence group have suggested that this information was very deliberately purged, or never included at all, to avoid the device builders being traced should someone do exactly what we are doing. Why, we don't know, but there have been a lot of guesses. Possibly they are merely very private, although that does make one wonder why their very high tech transportation system has an interface that is so simple as to be almost certainly designed to be easy to use by anyone who comes across the network. It may be for reasons of fear, or wishing to avoid contact with other species even while providing what could be considered a public service. Or it might be for any number of other reasons ranging the gamut from benign to malevolent. We simply don't know."
With a thoughtful nod the EPA director sat back in his seat, while John turned back to the holo. "The network, as I said, is scattered widely through the galaxy, but at quite low density. Our stellar survey, up to the Arcturus discovery, only turned up two of the things plus the Charon one in more than fifteen thousand systems so far scanned. They don't appear to be evenly placed, and the data downloaded from the Arcturus devices show that they seem to occur in clusters spanning several hundred light years with large gaps between clusters. The device databases differ in the number of other terminals each one is aware of, about the only differences we've so far found. Correlating the two sources shows a total of two thousand and sixteen devices to date, which may well increase as we repeat the process on the remaining units. We don't expect to find more than perhaps three and a half thousand at most, though."
"That seems like enough to blanket the galaxy fairly effectively," Premier Clarke noted.
"It sounds like a lot, but compared to the total volume of the galaxy, it really isn't," John replied with a shake of his head. "There appear to be large gaps between clusters that can be as much as ten thousand light years or better. With the relatively low estimated top speed of a possible planium FTL drive being no more than twenty light years per day and quite likely less, that would give a transit time of nearly a year from a terminal to a system as far as possible from it. Clearly this isn't impossible, and it must have been achieved at least once by the builders to put the devices into position in the first place, but compared to the speed between terminals it's entirely possible that anyone using them would consider it far more effort than it's worth. We're fairly sure that people would, given access to this network, use it as the simplest and quickest method to get around, and probably not then go too far from a system with a terminal in it." He shrugged a little. "We might be wrong, but it seems plausible."
"I can see the point you're making, but can we be sure aliens would think the same way humans would?"
"We have no way of knowing yet. As and when we meet them we can ask." John grinned briefly as a ripple of laughter went around the room.
"Can any individual terminal link to any other one, Doctor?" another minister asked curiously.
He shook his head yet again. "As far as we know, that's not quite how it works. It appears to act mostly as a hub and spoke system, not a direct point to point one. This explains the Arcturus system, making it a hub. Our system would then be a spoke destination. The device database backs this up, listing a number of similar hubs scattered around, some of them with less terminals, some with more. Systems with two terminals in seem fairly common, which would act as links in a chain."
He brought up a detailed graphic to illustrate the system, a top down map of the galaxy sprouting hundreds of indicators showing the locations of terminals and the routes between them.
"The terminal software appears from some references we've found to come in two main versions as well, type one terminals being able to connect to a single destination at great range, up to several thousand light years, while type two versions can connect to any terminal within a much shorter range of perhaps a couple of hundred light years. There is no difference in hardware that we can discover, only the software. Both of the exposed units were type one, showing that the last people to use them transited the Arcturus system from a significant distance and didn't stop to look around more locally."
Everyone studied the image as he spoke. "This is as far as we've been able to expand the network mapping from the data from a pair of terminals. As we download data from the remaining ones we currently have it's more than likely we'll learn of new routes and systems containing terminals."
#This is a very useful resource if only for telling us exactly which systems are definitely not safe to visit without taking precautions,# Athena observed, making him nod agreement.
"Yes, that's the primary concern we have. The TBT drive is likely to interact very badly with energized planium in such quantities even at considerable range, and despite the current state of the art in shielding. We are working on improving our technology to make that problem go away but it will take some time, several years at least. We feel it's critically important that all the systems we positively identify as possessing a terminal are immediately marked off limit to a distance of at least two light years to avoid catastrophic issues."
He motioned at the slowly revolving holo. "There's a good chance that at least some of those systems may be inhabited, as it's likely that parts of the network are in use even now. Our section of the galaxy seems not to have any currently in operation, luckily, but we can't be sure of the rest of it without checking. That must be done very, very carefully. None of us want to accidentally cause the exact same disaster to some other species that we so nearly had happen here, after all."
Premier Clarke looked troubled as he studied the image. "Do we have any idea which systems might be inhabited, if any?"
"No. We know that the network was in use up until approximately fifty thousand years ago in our region of space, but that's it so far." John pointed at the holo, various systems lighting up as he indicated them. "We've disabled the Arcturus hub and three spoke systems to date, which should help to keep someone accidentally turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. We now know enough to locate the hubs that lead from our cluster, which appears to be very sparsely populated with terminals, to a more densely populated sector. The suspicion is that we're more likely to find other species actively using it as we move in that direction, since there would be a higher likelihood of a terminal being in the system where intelligent life arose and started experimenting with space travel."
"We should probably also disable these two hubs here and here," the EA minister of defense suggested, highlighting a pair of systems nearly a thousand light years away from Sol in opposite directions. "Based on your map, that disconnects this entire section of space from the network to a distance large enough to probably discourage idle planium-using species from wandering past."
"Presuming that the hubs aren't in use, I agree, sir," John nodded. "If they are, we could just remove the type one terminals leading to our sector, I suppose. We don't want to cause problems for anyone using the network, after all. But in self defense, both of ourselves and them, it would be wise to make sure we minimize the possibility of accidental interaction at least until we've perfected shielding good enough to handle large quantities of activated planium."
"Is it likely that someone would actually use planium on a ship like that?" someone else asked with a slightly incredulous air.
"Common sense would say no, but on the other hand if they don't have WIMP technology, they'd be unlikely to realize how dangerous the stuff is," John replied with a shake of his head. "And to be fair, outside some fairly unusual naturally occurring situations you'd be able to get away with it. Even so I wouldn't be surprised to find that anyone using planium FTL drives occasionally lost a ship and never worked out what happened to it."
#However, offset against that there is the problem that the study of planium would inevitably lead to the discovery of WIMP fields, as planium is dark energy and matter bound into a physical form,# Minerva, the IS AI, pointed out. #If a civilization was making extensive use of planium based technology, I can't help thinking that sooner or later they would find out the hard way that planium could easily be destabilized to horrific effect.#
"True. We've discussed that at length over the past decades," John acknowledged. "It's an interesting conundrum. If you start with WIMP technology as we did and accidentally encounter planium the result would vary from what actually happened to the possible extinction of your entire species. If you start with planium you should in theory end up with one variant or other of WIMP theory, and almost certainly also produce an event that could be as bad if not worse. None of us can believe that we're the only ones to ever discover WIMP theory, especially as planium would almost inevitably lead that way. But the problem there is why would you then end up using the damn stuff to base an entire galactic transportation network on?"
He shrugged again. "We don't know. There are still many questions surrounding the things which could take decades to find answers to, if we even can find the answers."
"Maybe anyone using planium just doesn't bother researching it, they just find uses for it?" Professor Vroland commented with a smile.
John sighed, although he was smiling as well. "That would suggest a remarkable lack of curiosity," he pointed out.
"On the other hand, if they did research it and it went horribly wrong, perhaps the survivors, if they were lucky enough to have any, would then ban research in that field entirely."
Looking at the speaker, another EA scientist, John shook his head. "We simply don't have enough information to do more than guess. It's possible we're working on a basis of anthropomorphic thought that isn't shared by an alien species. Perhaps they wouldn't possess curiosity like we do. Or there might be something else at work. Regardless, we have to assume that anyone using this transport network is likely to use planium in some way, which means that their technology and ours are dangerously incompatible. The PDS team feels strongly that we need to restrict access to any system containing a terminal, set up a working group to extremely carefully examine such systems to find out if we do have neighbors who use planium, and also ensure that any such neighbors can't turn up unexpectedly for both our sakes."
"We do know beyond doubt that there are currently space-going aliens less than a hundred light years away, so it's entirely plausible there are more out there," IS Director Anderson put in. "I agree with Doctor Warden. We will update the survey protocols to interdict all known planium device-containing systems immediately and lock them out of the ship navigation databases until further notice."
Premier Clarke called for a vote on the topics discussed, which passed unanimously. "We are agreed. All known systems in the alien transport network will be prohibited destinations. The PDS research team will locate and remove terminals leading into our sector of space, presuming they're not already in use, as a preventative measure. And we will set up a subsidiary of IS to investigate the network beyond our space to locate any current users of it, without making contact, so we can evaluate how much risk we would be at from them, and they from us. Thank you, Doctor Warden, both for your time and your expertise."
"It was, as always, my pleasure, sir," John said, blanking the holo and sitting back.
#The next item on the agenda is the suggested first contact with the alien species that was discovered last year to inhabit the system of the star HD1388. To recap the current information we have on them from cautious and discreet surveillance, they are an insectoid species who refer to themselves as 'Thranx,'# Athena announced.
An image appeared in the holo, showing a roughly one and a half meter tall insect-like creature that looked at first glance to be a hybrid between a praying mantis and a grasshopper, with eight limbs rather than the six of a true insect. It had large compound eyes with thousands of facets, a pair of antennae above and between them, and was standing on four of the eight limbs with the other four holding various items of equipment. Its exoskeleton was a quite attractive deep blue color, and there was something about it that suggested a lively intelligence, although no one present, human or AI, was entirely sure what that was.
#Our probes have been monitoring the HD1388 system for the last six months, listening to their broadcasts and tapping their publicly available data feeds," Athena went on. #From the information gathered so far we have learned a considerable amount about our neighbors. One of the first things we did was build a translation module, as a matter of priority, which was relatively straightforward although their spoken language is sufficiently complex that humans may have trouble speaking it directly.#
Her avatar indicated the representation of the Thranx individual in the holo. #This is an adult male Thranx. The exoskeleton color in males is generally shades of blue, as you can see.# Another one joined the first, this one an attractive light violet color. #This is a female of approximately the same age. Females are normally violet. As they age, the exoskeleton darkens and converges to a deep purple color. Their original life span appears to have been approximately seventy Earth years, but like humans, their current medical technology has radically extended that to two centuries or better, in the last hundred and fifty years. They breed relatively slowly and manage their population well, and are also considerably less prone to internecine warfare than humans have traditionally been, so they appear to have avoided much of the unpleasantness we are still dealing with the repercussions of even today.#
The holo changed to show a blue, white and green planet slowly revolving against a background of stars. As it turned, a thin thread could be made out on the equator, rising from the surface to a point far out in space, with several huge constructions wrapped around it and attached to the other end.
#They are highly intelligent, at least on a par with humanity, and have in some ways an oddly similar background. Their home world is somewhat hotter than Earth was throughout most of our history although it's not that far off what our environment is these days. The atmospheric makeup is nearly identical to Earth's, with only half a percent more oxygen, and two percent more argon, at the expense of nitrogen, although the sea level pressure is somewhat higher at an average of 104 kilo-pascal. The gravity is almost identical as well. Their home world, the name of which in English would translate to 'Hivehom,' is a near twin to Earth, although with the ocean and land proportions almost reversed. There is one large continent with several smaller ones, the largest contiguous land area being roughly the size of North America and Africa combined. The polar ice caps are smaller, and the orbital distance to the primary is on average three percent less than the Earth-Sun distance.#
"It sounds like it would suit us perfectly, and vice versa," the CAS president commented.
Athena nodded, looking at him. #Humans and Thranx could easily share worlds. Both species have similar dietary requirements, breath the same air, thrive in the same general temperature ranges, and evolved under almost identical gravity and solar radiation. They like it somewhat warmer, with higher humidity for the most part, while humans can tolerate considerably lower temperatures without the difficulty the Thranx would have. However there is a wide overlap in ideal environment where both species would feel comfortable. On Earth, the Amazon basin is nearly perfect for them, while on Hivehom there are areas at higher altitude where the temperature, pressure, and humidity are almost identical to southern Europe near the Mediterranean sea.#
"So they're physically compatible at least," General LeBatelier, speaking for the first time, said in a thoughtful tone. "What about intellectually?"
Athena turned to regard him. #They are intelligent, curious, sociable, and highly technologically adept,# she replied. #Their general technological level is somewhat behind ours, although ahead in some fields by one degree or another. They are excellent material engineers. The orbital elevator proves that, as it's been in place for close to a century as far as we can determine, which means they've had a material structurally strong enough to sustain the load and the technology to build the thing for at least that long. That's more than we've had until very recently as far as the material itself goes, although we could possibly have erected something similar that long ago given the right material to make it from. We appear to be further ahead with computing and spintronics, while they seem to have the edge in genetics and some other aspects of biology. And so on.#
She scanned the room full of high ranking scientists and political delegates. #Without actually opening contact with the Thranx we can't be sure how mentally compatible they truly are with us, but the limited data we have so far does suggest to everyone involved in studying them that they are likely to be considerably more so that one would expect from a completely alien species with a different evolutionary path. Even their sense of humor as shown through entertainment broadcasts we've intercepted shows a strangely similar attitude to the concept. The overall consensus is that opening a dialog with them is the next step. And most likely inevitable, as they are close enough to us that sooner or later they'll bump into us anyway.#
"On that subject, considering that they have a functional superluminal drive of their own, why haven't they already run across us?" another EA minister asked.
Minerva glanced at the holo representation of Professor Anderson, who waved for her to go ahead. #As far as we can tell, they began exploring in the opposite direction when they first achieved FTL travel approximately seventy years ago,# she replied as Athena deferred to her. #It seems to be pure chance. They found a number of G2V stars between one hundred and one hundred and eighty light years further in towards the galactic core and would appear to have headed directly towards them in search of compatible colony worlds, rather than our systematic exploration of every star in an expanding sphere. Not having the TBT drive goes a long way towards explaining that, as they wouldn't have the luxury of casually and quickly moving from system to system.#
"But we're easily within their range?"
#Oh, definitely, yes,# she nodded. #Their FTL drive is capable of at least thirty light years per day, or at least the one fitted to the ships we've observed is. References we've located show that the first iteration was only good for about five light years per day at maximum, and generally cruised at half that to conserve fuel. They're rapidly improving it and we project that they'll be up to over a hundred light years per day within a decade. They could reach Sol in a few days now, and could have done it in less than a month at any time in the last eighty years if they'd decided to come this way.#
#We also believe that their ships are far more expensive to build than ours are,# Athena added. #As a result they have a fairly limited number of them at the moment, although they're pretty large for the most part. They're currently using almost all of them for transportation between their colony worlds and Hivehom, with a few scouts exploring further in past those worlds. For reasons we're not sure about they don't seem at present to be interested in coming this way, although that will inevitably change sooner or later.#
"I would like to point out that we have to contact the Thranx," John put in when both AIs stopped talking, causing everyone to look at him. "They are using WIMP technology. It's not the TBT drive, but that posigravity FTL system they've designed still gives off a significant WIMP flux and it's not shielded at all. They may well not know how to shield it as the shielding technology is extremely non-intuitive, and not care in any case since WIMP fields don't really interact with anything. Except planium..."
Premier Clarke sighed audibly. "And they probably don't know about that."
"Unlikely. It's rare, after all, bearing in mind that all of it we've found so far is either the result of some ancient battles as far as we can determine, or in the form of transportation terminals. We know from the initial scans of the Thranx system there's not a trace of planium in it, or in any of the adjacent systems either. The data on their colonies shows they're also free of the stuff. But if they keep exploring in that direction, there's a terminal system only about ninety light years away from their furthest world that they're definitely going to find eventually. And when they do..." He mimed a massive explosion with his hands.
"It won't end well."
"And that's assuming they don't run into a planium-tech civilization either," Professor Vroland remarked in a troubled voice. "That could be a total disaster, and even an interstellar war in the making, depending on what happened."
"I'm forced to agree with Doctor Warden and Professor Vroland, Sir," LeBatelier said after a few seconds of silence in the room. "We have the power to prevent a nasty problem for our neighbors and I think ethically we have to, regardless of our desires for contacting them for other reasons. Even if they don't want to engage in dialog with us for some reason, we need to warn them about planium."
Premier Clarke thought, then nodded. "I agree. That alone is reason enough to contact the Thranx and introduce ourselves. The floor is open to suggestions as to how we proceed."
The next three hours were full of lively and at times loud discussion, mostly free of animosity. The Empire of Texas delegate stormed out half-way through, shouting insults, but that was so common as to be unremarkable and no one really paid any attention. He'd be back sooner or later like he always was and everyone would diplomatically ignore the faux pas, hoping that sooner or later the small but very irritating country would come to its senses.
It hadn't yet, but they lived in hope…
Eventually, Athena called them to order. #All those in favor of establishing contact with the species known as the Thranx using the protocols we have been discussing?# She looked around as they voted. #We have a unanimous vote in favor. Director Anderson, please have your organization work with the CCF to put together a first contact team.#
Anderson nodded, looking a little apprehensive, but interested as well.
"I think we'll take a break at that point, everyone," Premier Clarke said, standing up. "We've covered a lot and I don't know about the rest of you but I'm starving. We'll reconvene for the afternoon session at two. Thank you all for your input."
John stood as well, turning when Zac Vroland stopped next to him. "Sounds like your grandson has started something bizarre again," he commented with a small wry smile, making John chuckle.
"He and his family do seem to have a knack for that sort of thing," he replied. "I'm almost scared to see what they run across next."
"Well, one way or another the next few years should be interesting," Zac laughed. "Come on, I need a beer. I'm buying."
"Fine with me," John smiled, joining his old friend as they left the chamber.
January 2116
9.6 light years from HD1388, primary of Thranx homeworld Hivehom
Onboard IS First Contact Group ship We Come In Peace
#Uh oh.#
"What is it, Gort?" Lieutenant Sayana Takamatsu looked up from her research document, an idle operation of her n-link causing the displayed text to disappear from her sensorium, to stare at the ship's AI avatar. It was the late shift and they were sitting a safe distance from the Thranx home world while waiting for a couple of diplomats to arrive in a courier, having been delayed by some sort of political emergency at home.
#You know that transport ship that left the Hivehom system in this general direction about fourteen hours ago?# Gort said, sounding a little worried. She nodded, remembering the results of the discreet and diffuse network of probes they had in place around the insectoid alien's home system well off the shipping lanes the Thranx seemed to use, keeping an eye on their neighbors.
"Yeah, it was one of the older ones, right?"
#Yes. It looks like it's had a drive failure. The warp bubble popped about four light months away from where we are now. I was tracking it by the spatial distortion it left behind, using a new method the IAP came up with, and there was a surge of WIMP flux about ten minutes ago right on the predicted path of the ship.# He sent her a real time image. #I tasked a couple of probes to have a look. I think their posigravity drive blew out for some reason and took out their main reactor. The ship's intact but their FTL drive isn't happy at all. Looks like the fusion torch is fine, but that would take years to get home if they don't fix the main drive, and I have no idea if they have enough fuel anyway. And we know their older ships don't have FTL comms yet.#
"Crap. That sucks for them," Sayana replied as she studied the imagery. The front of the large vessel had what on the face of it was a wide, flat parabolic dish close to two hundred meters in diameter, which the main body of the craft sat behind in the form of an elongated ovoid nearly four hundred and fifty meters long. At the rear was a triple set of very big fusion drives, which she knew from reading the specifications they'd so far established for this class of ship were enough to give it a good hundred and twenty g of acceleration at maximum output. She wondered if their inertial dampeners were linked into the posigravity drive or were independent. If it was the former, they couldn't possibly run the fusion drive at full power.
Their distant probe zoomed in at a command from her to show the main dish, where the central mechanism that was the heart of the thing generated a gravity field nearly as intense as that of a small star a few hundred meters in front of the ship. This pulled the ship towards it, thereby moving the field, which pulled the ship, and so on. It was a concept she was familiar with as it was how humanity had moved Charon, but the Thranx version was even more powerful and was combined with other techniques to allow it to exceed c, which her own species had never figured out although they had been aware of the theoretical possibility a long time ago.
Not as good as a blink drive, but then it was hard to think of something that would be, and humanity had got lucky with that in the first place. The Thranx drive was still very impressive indeed and had a lot of scope for improvement.
Aside from this one, which looked like someone had kicked it with a size one million boot.
"What the hell happened to that thing?" she asked, staring at the twisted mass of machinery in the middle of the dish.
#My best guess is that they had a positioning error with the posigravity field and it got too close to the emitter,# Gort replied after a moment. He highlighted some of the wreckage. #Looks like gravitational shearing more than anything else. The focused field is in the million-g range at a minimum, which would tear even Thranx alloys like tissue paper. I doubt they can fix that without a shipyard.#
"Any chance their own people will look for them?"
#I'm sure they will, and sooner or later they'll find them, but that might take a while. And if their life support was damaged...# He trailed off.
"Yeah. Fuck. Well, looks like we know who gets to meet us first," she sighed. "Wake the Captain. She needs to know about this, and we need to tell home and get them to get those damn diplomats out here soonest."
Shaking her head, she stood and went for some coffee. It was likely to get very busy shortly.
Day 21 of Year 6935
9.1 light years from Hivehom system
Onboard interstellar transport Rylix
"… and I said, if that's what you think, there's no way I can explain it to you." The speaker waved his antennae in a gesture of amusement. "He looked really confused, tried to argue the point, got even more confused, and then just wandered off. It was hilarious."
His companion gave him a look. "You are one of the weirdest people I've ever met, Leyzen. Are you entirely certain you're… you know… sane?"
Leyzenzuzex snickered, waving a true-hand dismissively. "I'm certain. My clan-mother had me tested."
Hyltrorizex, his companion, looked at him even more dubiously. "I hesitate to suggest that the mere fact that she found that necessary is telling," he said. "However..."
Whatever else he was about to say was lost as an alarm sounded, causing both of them to whirl around and study the displays surrounding them. "Grav generator is fluctuating again," Hyltrorizex said with a click of irritation. "I thought that was fixed in the last service cycle!"
"It was, but this ship is getting old and has had a hard life," Leyzenzuzex replied as he quickly typed a series of diagnostic commands on the main engineering console with all four hands, monitoring the result through his implant and his eyes. "The third-gen drives had an instability issue that no one has ever quite managed to eliminate, too. They work perfectly well almost all of the time but every now and then they get upset and go a tiny bit unstable. We're due for a refit next year to a gen four unit that doesn't have that problem but until then we just have to..." He prodded a control and the alarm stopped, all the posigravity drive instrumentation on the projected interface returning to normal.
"...do that sometimes," he finished triumphantly. "Again, I win. Take that, universe!" He raised both true-hands and crossed them in a gesture of glee
"Yes. Very telling indeed." Hyltrorizex flicked his antennae while Leyzenzuzex whistled amusement. "I can't shake the feeling that your formative years were, just possibly, a bad influence on your development."
"My clan-mother said the same, for some odd reason," Leyzenzuzex replied calmly. "And she blamed my grandfather for encouraging me. I can't see the problem, myself. He's brilliant."
"And someone who a number of people have always considered more than a little off too," his friend said with a sarcastic tilt of his head. "Sure, he was the first superluminal test pilot, but that alone shows a certain lack of common sense, no?"
Leyzenzuzex flicked the comment away with a gesture. "We prefer to think of it as brave and forward looking."
"The Zen family has a reputation that is well deserved," Hyltrorizex said after a long moment, with a whistling sigh through his spiracles. "I am almost ashamed to be from the same hive."
"Don't think like that, Hyltro!" Leyzenzuzex chuckled. "Think of it more like maybe I'll rub off on you and inspire you to greatness! We do share genetics after all."
"That is what I'm worried about," Hyltrorizex muttered, gesturing almost unconsciously with one foot-hand in a motion to ward off bad luck, which caused his colleague to laugh again. A few seconds of work later, he added, "I've logged the report on the engine instability for the attention of the captain. Hopefully that's our glitch for this run. If something goes wrong out here it'll take months for anyone to find us. If they ever do."
"The next refit will add the new FTL comms system which should make this job a lot less boring," Leyzenzuzex pointed out. "We'll be able to keep up with the news from home, and even connect to the Hivenet."
"I am more interested in being able to call for help if we suffer a drive failure light years from home, you idiot," Hyltrorizex sighed. "Keeping up on the latest reality holo is much less important."
"Can't stand those shows. I prefer 'Stellar Exploration Team.'"
"Because you think there are aliens out there."
"Of course there are aliens out there," Leyzenzuzex stated, putting a note of surprise in his voice and gestures. "We can't possibly be alone in the universe."
"If there are aliens, where are they?" His friend looked at him seriously. "Remember the Drafraxetic Life Equation? It shows that if there is other intelligent life out there, we should have detected them by now."
"The Life Equation makes a lot of assumptions and most of the variables are complete unknowns," Leyzenzuzex replied, turning his seat to face the other person. "At the time Drafraxetic came up with it we didn't have the technology to even detect exoplanets directly. We know now that most stars have planets, and that there definitely is life outside the Hivehom system. Look at Willow-wane, it's nearly as prolific from that standpoint as home is. Which is why we settled there in the first place."
"True, but we still haven't seen anything to show that intelligent life exists somewhere else," the other thranx pointed out. "Not even something that might evolve into intelligent life any time in the next few million years. And we also know that FTL travel is possible now, which we didn't in his time, so that also suggests that we should have had visitors at some point. If they existed. Even a slow FTL drive would let a species expand out into large areas of space fairly quickly."
"If they wanted to expand, and if their drive didn't have some sort of problem that restricted their maximum range, and if they were close enough to us to reach us, and if they came up with FTL long enough ago to actually reach us at all, and..." Leyzenzuzex waved a foot-hand. "There are lots of reasons why there could be intelligent aliens out there who we haven't found yet. Just because we haven't found them doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe they're watching us right now and don't want to get involved with more primitive species?" He waved his antenna humorously.
"I doubt that very much." Hyltrorizex looked dubious. "It's more logical to think that they're not there at all."
"The universe is a very big place, Hyltro," Leyzenzuzex retorted. "We've barely scratched the surface. They're out there, somewhere. One day we'll meet them."
"How do we end up having the same conversation every trip?" his companion grumbled, causing him to laugh a little.
"Not much else to talk about." Relaxing on his chair, Leyzenzuzex picked up a portable terminal and resumed reading his latest novel. "Unless you want to discuss the reports of sensor ghosts around Hivehom." He slyly glanced at his friend. "Maybe that's the aliens. They're watching us with sneaky alien probes."
"Or, more likely, there's a glitch in the sensor net," Hyltrorizex replied with a long-suffering sigh. "Or, just possibly, someone is deliberately spreading rumors to troll people."
"Who would ever do something like that?"
"You, for a start. I know you, Leyzen. Your sense of humor is warped at best."
Leyzenzuzex merely made a mildly insulting gesture and kept reading. Both of them were quietly busy with their own tasks for the next few time periods. The engineering room was almost always boring except for occasionally far too exciting moments and they were long used to it. Except for routine instrument checks and logging the results, there was little to do until they arrived at Willow-wane in slightly more than six days.
Which was why when every alarm in the system went off simultaneously they both shrieked in shock, diving for the console and getting tangled up in a mass of arms, legs, and abdomens. "Get off me you idiot!" Hyltrorizex shouted, pushing Leyzenzuzex to the side.
"I'm trying to," he snapped, heaving himself to all sixes, then frantically operating the controls. "Turn those alarms off," he added harshly, "I can hardly think."
"Engineering, we're reading a massive drive fluctuation," the bridge officer on duty said through their implants. "What in the Great Mother's name is going on?"
"We're working on that, sir," Hyltrorizex replied even as he scanned the instruments, ordering the computer to run diagnostics at the same time, and shut down the alarms as well. Beside him Leyzenzuzex was doing the same on another system. Both of them were working as fast as they could. "Looks like another drive destabilization, but the secondary power array has failed completely this time. We're going to need to shut the drive down before..."
There was a horrible sound that made the entire ship vibrate, a lurch like nothing they'd ever experienced before which had both of them on the floor under their chairs again, and the familiar sensation of the warp bubble disappearing only far more violent than usual.
"Oh no," Leyzenzuzex whispered. "That didn't sound good at all."
"We're back in normal space," the bridge officer said loudly over the sound of alarms in the background. "The drive is reading… no, that can't be right." As they picked themselves up for the second time, they could hear voices coming in from all over the ship over the comm network. "We're not getting any sensible result from the drive systems at all. Find out what's wrong, I need to get the captain up here and deal with the damage reports. Any injuries at your end?"
Leyzenzuzex rubbed a bruise on his exoskeleton but after a quick check that it wasn't cracked, glanced at his colleague who shook his head. "We're fine, sir. We'll investigate. Engineering out."
They looked at each other, both of them with their antennae drooping. "I think we're in trouble," he said after a few seconds.
"That sure didn't feel right," Hyltrorizex agreed, poking around in the interface until he found the forward facing inspection optical camera sub-menu. A couple of commands later and they were looking at a holo of the drive emitter in complete dismay.
"Um."
"Yeah. Um. We're not going anywhere with the drive like that," Hyltrorizex stated flatly.
"No, we're not." They exchanged a glance, then started backtracking the logs to work out what had gone wrong and what, if anything, they could do about it.
Nine time periods later they had an answer. "Well, we're definitely not going anywhere soon," Leyzenzuzex sighed, rubbing his true-hands together in worry. "The posigravity drive is scrap."
"What happened to it?" Captain Siltuzixta asked abruptly. He was not at all a happy thranx. None of the people gathered in engineering were. They'd called in all three shifts to go over the problem and seek a solution, and the entire command crew were also present.
"The secondary power feed failed and the surge on the primary caused the pseudo-singularity to wander. The computer tried to compensate immediately, of course, but the amount of power required also shut down the tertiary feed due to overload, leaving the entire system relying on one out of three sources. There wasn't enough power to keep things stable, but there was enough power to keep the drive running until the gravity gradient was so high so close to the emitter it ripped the entire thing to pieces. That shut it down instantly, obviously, and collapsed the warp bubble in an uncontrolled manner," Leyzenzuzex explained, showing them a diagram of the problem in the main holotank as he spoke.
"There was a surge into the main power grid when that happened which also took out the inertics, but luckily the compensation frame didn't decay completely until after we ended up in normal space or it would have pulped everyone from the shear forces," Hyltrorizex added. "That's what caused the jolt. If it had failed that little bit sooner..." He gestured resignation. "None of us would be here to complain about the rough ride. This ship would probably have survived but I can guarantee we wouldn't have made it."
No one looked happy about the idea. Leyzenzuzex himself got palpitations of his spiracles when he considered how things could have gone.
"It would have been quick, if nothing else," one of the other engineers commented, making everyone glare at her.
"Not quite as helpful as it could be," the captain muttered. He returned to inspecting the display, then looked at the one next to it which showed the real time camera view of the destroyed drive. "The big question is can we repair it."
"No." They all looked at Leyzenzuzex who gestured in the negative. "Not a hope. The entire dish is warped slightly, most of the primary emitter is nothing but scrap metal, the rest is missing entirely, and none of the control and stability systems survived. It'll need to be entirely replaced in a shipyard. There's no way we can fix it ourselves."
"You're certain?"
"Yes." He looked at Hyltrorizex, then around at the remaining engineering crew. All of them signified agreement.
"So much for that. What are our options?" The captain looked around at his crew.
"We've got enough consumables to keep us alive for at least four years in standard storage," the second in command, Subcommander Xentinilnu, replied. "I've checked the manifest on the cargo and there is also a large amount of luxury food in it in stasis which would probably keep the crew going for another two decades at least, although we'd be very tired of ixli beans after a few years. Water is not an issue either, we've got all the fuel we'll ever need to power the ship for decades, the secondary reactor is at one hundred percent operational capacity, and no one was seriously injured. Minor cracks in a few exoskeletons, nothing that won't heal. And the medical bay is fully stocked and functional."
"On the other hand, our main drive is wrecked beyond repair, the fusion drives are fully functional and the fuel tanks are nearly full, but the inertics are offline and even if they were working it would take about twenty years to get back to Hivehom even taking relativistic time dilation into account," Hyltrorizex pointed out. "We may be able to at least partially repair the compensators but I don't think we can get them up to specification since several of the subsystems got slagged by the feedback from the drive failure. That would limit us to no more than half our maximum thrust, which would take even longer."
"Is there any likelihood of there being equipment in the cargo that would be usable to repair any of the affected systems?" Captain Siltuzixta inquired.
"The manifest doesn't show anything immediately useful," Xentinilnu replied, making a negative gesture. "The engineering crew would need to go over it in detail to make sure I didn't miss anything but I'm not hopeful."
All twenty-eight of them were silent for a little while, trying to think of what the next step was. "I suppose that when we don't arrive someone's going to come looking for us," Leyzenzuzex finally said.
"Undoubtedly, but that could take a long time, since all they can do is search along our course in the hope they happen to find us," the captain sighed. "Sooner or later someone will find us I'm sure, but we may be in for a long wait."
"Is it better to sit here and wait, or head back?" someone else asked.
"I'm not sure it will make much difference in the end," he replied. "Before we do anything, though, I want a full diagnostic run on every system on this ship. I do not want to find out that we had a failure we missed and something embarrassing ends up killing us. And when we do get back I am going to have very strong words with the company about leaving unreliable drives in operation merely to save credits."
"To be fair I've never heard of this sort of failure happening before," Hyltrorizex commented, lowering his antennae when the captain gave him a hard look. "It was a one in a million chance. At least."
"As the saying goes one in a million chances happen nine times out of ten," Subcommander Xentinilnu quipped.
"One in a million or one in a billion is irrelevant," the captain said after another hard look at his immediate subordinate. "The fact is that it happened, so the chances were in our case one in one. I'm not happy about that."
There was a murmur of agreement. None of them were.
They were still discussing the next steps to take when an alarm went off, causing Hyltrorizex, who was next to the relevant controls, to turn and look at them. Leyzenzuzex watched curiously as his friend's antennae stuck straight up in surprise a moment or two later, then dropped in shock. "What is it?" he asked, causing everyone to stop talking and turn to look.
Hyltrorizex was silent for a moment longer, then he turned to them with the oddest set to his antennae that any of them had ever seen. "There's a ship out there," he said faintly.
"Already?" Captain Siltuzixta looked very surprised, as did all of them. "How did they know we were in trouble? Or find us that fast if they did?"
"It's not one of ours," the engineer said in low tones.
No one said anything at all for a long, worried few seconds.
"Not one of ours?" the captain finally echoed.
Hyltrorizex made a confused gesture. "No. I don't recognize the configuration at all, and the sensors say it's not made of any of the normal alloys. There's no sign of a posigravity drive either although it's giving off a low level WIMP flux, so they're using some form of gravitics." He looked at Leyzenzuzex as he said the next part. "I think that it's an alien ship."
Leyzenzuzex felt both faint and excited, in a mix that made him slightly light headed.
Another alert pinged. Hyltrorizex checked, then added, "We're receiving a video signal from them. Standard ship to ship comms."
Everyone exchanged glances, then the captain, his antenna flicking nervously in a manner that was very unlike his normal stoic nature, said, "Put it through."
Somewhat tentatively Hyltrorizex prodded the correct control. The main holo display lit up with a scene that made them all stare in shock.
"Hello," the creature shown in it said politely, in perfect Low Thranx, while a small computer simulation of an adult of their species in the lower corner of the image performed the gestures that went along with the spoken words. Clearly this was machine translated, and the aliens had done their homework based on what Leyzenzuzex could see. His excitement level was getting to the point that he wasn't sure he'd be able to keep standing.
They were looking at, and talking to, a real, intelligent, alien species!
He desperately hoped they were a friendly, real, intelligent, alien species…
"I am Captain Jacolien Bertels of the ship named We Come In Peace. My species is known as human. We detected your ship has suffered a major drive failure and wish to offer our assistance."
Apparently the answer was yes. Yes, they were.
Everyone looked at each other, then back at the face of what seemed, as incredible as it sounded, to be a sapient and space faring mammal of all things.
Eventually, Captain Siltuzixta took a deep breath, the sound of air through his spiracles the only thing in the room other than the very deep rumble of the fusion generator two hundred meters away, and replied, "Thank you for your offer, Captain. My name is Siltuzixta, captain of the cargo vessel Rylix, and we would be grateful for any assistance you can offer." He paused, then added, "Forgive me if I sound confused. That is mostly because I am very, very confused. We have a lot of questions."
The alien captain moved its face in a way that exposed teeth for a moment, in a gesture that from context generated by the simulated thranx avatar suggested mild amusement. "I don't blame you, Captain," it replied in a good natured tone. "If the situation was reversed I expect I would as well."
"Excuse me for asking, but for my own curiosity are you male or female?" Siltuzixta asked tentatively. "Assuming it's not a breach of protocol to ask and the terms are even relevant."
"I'm female," Captain Jacolien Bertels replied, not sounding offended. "Don't worry, we understand there will be a large number of things you want to learn about us. Ask anything you like, we'll answer as much as we can. Before that, though, is your vessel intact with full life support? We can't detect any hull breaches."
"We're in surprisingly good shape all things considered," Siltuzixta replied after a moment. His antennae showed he was still feeling a sense of disbelief, as they all were. "Although we've got a very long way to go without an FTL drive."
"I think we can help you there," the human captain said calmly. "Would you like to go to your original destination of Willow-wane or back to the Hivehom system?"
Captain Siltuzixta tilted his head a little and looked at the holo representation of the first non-thranx sapient ever discovered. "You appear to know a lot about us," he said slightly suspiciously.
The alien signified deeper amusement. "We've been studying you for some time, Captain," she replied. "In fact, this ship was intended as the first contact vessel between our species and yours. If we hadn't detected your problem we'd have been approaching Hivehom about now, asking to speak to your leaders. But we're not going to ignore a fellow crew in danger. Our ambassadors can tell you more, but please believe me that we mean you no harm and merely wish to open a friendly dialog."
Leyzenzuzex nudged Hyltrorizex. "Told you they were watching," he whispered.
His friend muttered something too quietly to make it out and ignored him with dignity.
Half a day later, after much discussion, and a face to face meeting in the airlock between both captains, the first human ship ever encountered by thranxkind appeared halfway between Hivehom and the largest gas giant in the system, the Rylix in tow. As dozens of inter-system craft quickly arranged themselves at the totally unexpected arrival, a message played on the public traffic control frequency.
"This is Captain Siltuzixta of the cargo vessel Rylix. We have made contact with a friendly alien species who wish only peace. They are unarmed and will comply with all traffic regulations. Their ship has two ambassadors aboard who would like to speak to our government at their earliest convenience."
The message repeated several times. When it stopped, there was a system-wide moment of shock, then everything changed…
GS year 2403.6
Citadel
Private chambers of Asari Councilor Tevos.
"Gone?!"
Tevos stared at the Salarian she was talking to. He nodded soberly.
"Gone. Normal survey of known dormant relays flagged that Relay 314 is no longer in the correct position. Was present last survey ten years ago. No damage to system, so relay not destroyed, but a search outwards to half a light year showed no signs of it. Unknown method used to move it. No eezo traces found."
"How could it be gone?" She shook her head while her informant simply shrugged. "Moving a relay would take an enormous amount of effort, and the last time we know about someone trying, it caused a disaster. And why would anyone move it in the first place?"
"Unknown." The scientist shook his head. "But have heard rumors that one other relay missing from isolated cluster four thousand six hundred light years away from 314. Was detected by Quarian fleet a year ago, hushed up to prevent panic."
"I haven't heard about that," she said, staring at him. He looked a little smug.
"Salarians hear things."
"Yes, you do, don't you?" she muttered, thinking hard. "Who else knows about this?"
"STG only. And you. And me."
"All right. For now, let's keep it that way. The Quarians are right, if we tell people that two relays have mysteriously disappeared, people will get very upset. Upset people are difficult to deal with. Especially if they're upset Turians."
Her contact in the STG nodded with an expression that said he agreed entirely.
"I'm going to have to think about this. Keep me updated if you find out anything else. Your pay will be in the usual account."
"Of course. Thank you." He nodded politely and disconnected, her omnitool going dark as the hologram vanished. Alone in her quarters, Tevos walked to the window and looked out at the Citadel stretching into the distance for a while, then raised her eyes to look at the stars beyond it.
"Who is out there that we don't know about who can move entire relays?" she mused to herself with a slight shiver. For some reason, the mere idea struck a nerve she didn't even know existed up until a few minutes ago.
For now, she couldn't see that there was any sense in making a fuss. Public panic was always annoying to handle and this sort of thing could create rumors that would fuel hysteria. She'd talk to her own government very quietly and see if they had any ideas what, if anything, to do, while hoping that the Turians didn't find out and get all… Turian… about it.
She liked them, she really did, but at times they were such a pain in the ass.
Shaking her head, she turned away from the window and went back to her desk to dig out the one time pad. There were people who needed to know about the current matter.
Thranx Positive Gravity Superluminal Drive, commonly known as the 'Posigravity Drive'
The PGSD system was the ultimate outgrowth of research into gravity manipulation by a consortium of scientists on Hivehom over a period of close to sixty years, mostly funded by the Zex hive who traditionally have produced a larger than common number of physicists and engineers. The Thranx independently discovered and developed a Supersymmetry theory and Grand Unified Theory approximately eighty years before Humanity achieved the same, but took the work in a somewhat different, albeit related, direction. They never stumbled on either the principles behind the TBT drive or WIMP shielding, not having encountered planium which led to the latter until informed of its existence by Humanity in 2115.
However, they mastered gravity manipulation considerably earlier than humans did, and took it to a level that humans did not. While the methods utilized to move the Charon Mass out of the Sol system bear a superficial similarity and some relation to the PGSD system the latter is far more flexible than the former, and unlike the human version, capable of superluminal travel via an intriguing variation on a theoretical method known to Humanity as the Alcubierre Drive. This design was never successfully built, and subsequent studies have shown that in its original form is not practical. There is some doubt to whether it is even possible. However, a variant of the method first proposed by Doctor Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 was derived by the Thranx scientist Ulszenzuzex in Hivehom Year 6812. It took another thirty years to produce the first successful working version, which had a maximum real space velocity of only 3.42 lightyears per day. Even this was enough to kickstart a program of interstellar exploration, which over the next century led to a number of Thranx settlements outside the home system.
By the time of Humanity's first contact with the Thranx during the Rylix incident, state of the art PGSD drives were capable of up to 39.4 light years per day and improving rapidly. It was only due to the warnings about the dangerous interaction between planium and WIMP fields that disaster was prevented in later years...
From 'A Guide to Superluminal Travel Techniques, second edition, Ganymede Technical Publishing PLC, 2143'
