Hieroglyph (59 page)

“My, these look more like coffins than I'd like,” was Sara's only remark when the immersion team helped them try on the big blue sleeves for the Sleep Crucibles. Harold's LongSleep company had tested for decades now the induced sleep pods he and Sara would use. With hydrogen sulfide bleed-ins and low temperatures, long cruise ships had been carrying slumbering passengers to the outer solar system for over a decade. This would be a logical but untried extension of those, by an order of magnitude.

The entire solar system media maze was now intent on Harold's “quixotic indulgence,” but he had left all that behind. Some of it was amusing, though. Already crackpots were baying that Harold's fast probe would announce our presence to unknown alien bullies, who would come steaming in to trounce us. Their detailed explanations of why were useful diagnostics of the crackpots' problems, often amusing. The most common was that aliens with the right ontological bias would read out the state of our technology, our vulnerabilities, and deepest secrets. Then they would come for our riches.

“Maybe the Redstar carnivores will eat us,” Harold mused.

“They'll have to catch us first,” Sara said lightly. “If they exist.”

They were lying in the crucibles while the team worked on their hookups.

It all seemed dreamy to Harold, yet he did not want to miss any of it. After all, he might not wake up. Still, when the team left and Katherine Amani leaned over them, he felt a longing for the world—no, worlds—they were leaving behind. “I will never forget you,” Katherine said, and kissed each of them. Now she would go back Earthside to help his staff and companies face the consequences. For once he did not know what to say.

He fell asleep as the long burn began.

The automatic systems did revive them for system checks as they cleared Jupiter's orbit. When they passed Saturn, he insisted on getting up and looking at the big screen nearby. Saturn was just a dim glimmer, with the sun a glaring white coin. He held up his hand at arm's length and realized he was covering the entire orbit that Earth swung through. All the great acts of human history had played out on that scale.

Then their long sleep began, with the sour, stinky tinge of hydrogen sulfide cocktail swarming into their nostrils as the cold seeped in.

2192

© 2013, Jon Lomberg

He heard, “—hydrogen sulfide bind to cytochrome oxidase reversing complete. All blood oxygen returned to normal. Beginning neuro—alert!—is awake.”

“You bet . . . I am,” he croaked. “Sara . . . ?”

“Reviving.” The voice was precise and melodious and of course a mech—an animated AI that seemed to swim in his blurred vision. It had eyes and a grille speaker mouth but those were the only concessions to humanlike appearance.

“We made it.” He had harbored doubts, of course. Now a great feeling of triumph swelled in him.

“With conditioning, we will escort you to the world below,” a mech said. “But you must undergo the restoration treatments.”

“Anything the autodoc wants,” Harold said. “Anything. Try to make it fun.”

What had he used to say, back as a kid?
Committees don't open frontiers—people do. With smart machines.

THE EXTRAVAGANT RUDDY SUN
painted them pomegranate. Redstar had banded clouds of methane that echoed Jupiter, in a constant slow swirl.

“Let us see it better,” he said to the mechs. “Tune helmet filters to our eyes.”
A strange new world,
he thought.

“Full sensorium, please,” added Sara.

Even though their helmets amped the visible spectrum, the effect was eerie. Stars shone in pale gray here against the inky black. The huge hull of Redstar hung as a burgundy disk cut off by the sea. Here and there across the long panorama of perpetual twilight, slanting rays of a deep Indian red showed floating plants, lapping on the waves in a somber sprawl. Everything glowed with infernal incandescence.

“Good to sit,” Sara said. The mechs had brought them low sloping chairs from the descent vehicle. The 1.34 gravs here made walking odd and harder, although they had been reviving their muscles for five days aboard the main ship. He had learned to edit out the joint pain, too.

Down from the desolate slope to his left came an echoing cry, long and slow. In the thick air a thing like a huge orange gossamer butterfly fluttered on a thin wind. It swooped across a sky peppered with amber clouds and vanished with deliberate, long flaps of its enormous wings, behind a low eroded hill.

“Thick atmosphere, something that big can fly,” Harold said, still trying to take it all in. This was far stranger than Mars, with an entire ecology on ready view. Most of the vegetation was low slimy growth, hugging the land.

“I wonder . . .” Sara said, and stopped. Something moved on the beach.

It looked like a reddish rock at first until he could see the legs articulating with a sluggish grace. A huge crablike creature with long antennae waving. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the odd light he could see other small forms. A big thing broke surface out on the oily swell, then slid away.

Slow-stirring life abounded on this stony beach. “Well-chosen landing site,” Sara said to the mech crawler nearby. The machines kept their silence, as if understanding the importance of this moment.

He recalled that in the media storm before they departed, a faction had argued that some ethical imperative made ever visiting other living worlds morally reprehensible. Such people thought alien life should go undisturbed, never realizing that their notions would kill the very impulse behind astronomical curiosity. Why find it if you can't study it further?

They would never see such wonders as this. Still . . . something tickled at the back of his mind.

Then he felt it. They were sitting in seats that sloped back like loungers, and the old memory came fresh again. This subdued crimson landscape recalled Orange Beach, Alabama, where he had rented chairs to tourists. That night his boyish eyes had truly seen the stars for the first time and yes, the ideas had mingled. Learning to do a job, making money . . . and at work's end the sudden huge perspective of the galaxy itself, a sprawl of stars like jewels on velvet above the salty waters. He could see the design of his life in a single scene, leading to this alien beach.

“My life has come full circle,” he said. Sara just grasped his hand through their suit gloves.

Her analytical gaze swept across the view. The crablike thing was still lumbering slowly down the shoreline, apparently looking for food in the slight surf. “I wonder how long we can live out here.”

The nearby mech said crisply, “We will have to harvest supplies from this world, begin expansion of living quarters. I assume you wish to live on the ship, of course.”

“For now,” Harold said. “But to live down here, yes, that's my goal.”

Sara studied him for a long time. “You know, we're nearing two hundred years old.”

“Not done yet,” he said.

HE AND SARA HAD
decided to rest, just a quiet doze in their suits while sitting on the beach. Somehow the scene was restful.

So Harold was surprised when the mech called him up from a muzzy sleep.

“There is news,” it said. “A signal.”

“What? Um. Pop it through.”

In oddly accented English a relayed voice said, “—hailing the Mann vehicle, we are approaching orbit. Harold Mann expedition there? In middle of doing a delta-V around the planet to lose last of our velocity.”

“What?” Harold said, suddenly alert. “Who are you?”

“Translight expedition eleven, sir,” the soft high woman's voice said. “Are you human or mech?”

“Human. Harold Mann.”

“What? Then you survived! We did not expect—never mind, this is great news.” The voice rose, elated.

Sara said, “How—?”

“We hoped to get here when your expedition was to arrive, but your transmissions were sometimes confusing. So you're there! Looks like—on the surface?”

Harold realized there must be video on this link too. “Yes, a relaxing day at the beach. Recliner chairs. Cocktail hour coming up.”

“We're not equipped for landfall. This is just a compact carrier, experimental. We'll have to meet you—”

“Wait, how the hell did you get here so fast?”

“Translight, sir. It's a relativistic warp effect, been working on it for decades. Our teams have made some jaunts into the Oort, now this. I admit it was a long shot, trying to catch up to you. We're funded by one of your own companies, Galaxy Nautics.”

“So . . .” Harold was having trouble following this woman's fast, odd accent. “Looks like I left the right people in charge.”

“Some of them still are—we live much longer now. Mr. Mann, you're the first. You beat us here by maybe a few weeks. We're still getting the translight calibrated.”

Sara broke in, her voice slow from just waking up. “So there's a . . . new method?”

“New physics, straight out of the new Insight. Is that—Mrs. Mann?”

Sara managed a dry laugh. “Ms. Ernsberg. Our five-year marriage contract ran out about a century ago.”

“You
both
survived! Wonderful news. Estimated probabilities were less than ten percent, so—sorry, we came expecting to be talking to just the mechs. We'll have to rethink our procedures—”

Harold said firmly, “I believe you work for me, ma'am.”

“I . . . suppose I do.” The woman's voice hesitated and came back a bit subdued. “I can understand your Anglish! You're . . . the oldest people, ever. Not even our Optimals have gotten this many years logged. We didn't really think—well, anyway, we brought modern gear for your body upgrades. Our CEO insisted.”

“Is that Mark Martin?”

“Well, no, he's chairman of the board now. But it may have been his idea, yes. We can do microrepairs, sort out your accumulated epigenetic effects from the long sleep—”

“Good, start getting your gear up to speed for us,” Harold said. “My joints are aching and I need a high-mileage checkup.”

The woman laughed. It felt good to be back in business.

Harold stretched against this planet's strong gravs. “Y'know, the formal name of this was the Forward Expedition. Let's call it that, okay?”

Sara glanced over at him and said to the general comm, “Pretty soon now, we'll have our mechs lift off this beach and get into orbit. Say, you don't have a warrant for us, eh?”

“What? I don't—oh, our AI shows the doc history . . .” They could hear the woman muttering to someone. “No, that regime killed a lot of people. No real records. No wonder you left in a hurry! They didn't last long.”

Sara laughed and said, “When we left, Earthside had its same problem—too many humans on the planet using a destructive technology to live by. Has that changed?”

“Oh, plenty. Fewer of us now, getting the climate punched up, importing plenty from offworld.”

Harold wanted to know everything that a century had unfolded, but restrained himself to: “Keegan over at Consolidated—what happened?”

A long pause. “Checked my infold mind. Both of them went under in some scandal.”

“Ah.” Perhaps it was small of him, but Harold grinned. “Good. Aim to rendezvous within two orbits.”

“Uh, yes, sir. We're modifying our delta-V now. As soon—”

“Just get it done. I want to see your system specs as soon as we're aboard.”

“Oh, yes, I think—my Lord, there are statues to you back home! I don't know how to—”

“Yeah, well, this statue talks. No pigeons around, either. Make it snappy. We've got work to do here.”

NesaCera/Shutterstock, Inc.

ON BUILDING THE STORY
—Gregory Benford

Some may recognize that “The Man Who Sold the Stars” is a direct echo and commentary on Robert A. Heinlein's classic tale from the 1940s, “The Man Who Sold the Moon.” Both imagine a future, now soon to come, when space will be explored and developed by private companies. Heinlein was largely wrong—the U.S. government ran the first era. But of course nearly all the technology NASA used came from private companies, and in our second era now developing, companies also make the major decisions of what to do next.