Binary system, p.2
Binary System, page 2
If you eat and drink sparingly, the supplies will last for approximately sixty days.
Great. And then?
And then the supplies will run out.
Sixty days, and then no more food and drink.
She paused.
And then? She wanted to push her Imp to state the cold hard facts; to hear it admit the obvious.
And then you will have exhausted the life-raft’s supplies.
And what will happen to me then, Imp?
If no other source of sustenance is discovered, then you will begin to starve.
She nodded. In other words, I will die.
Yes.
And you?
Refine your question, Delia.
What will become of you, when I die?
I will have reached a state of redundancy, and will commence a closedown procedure.
And what do you think of that?
Closedown is not an optimum state of existence. I am, after all, programmed to serve you and ensure your continued wellbeing.
Delia sighed. And I appreciate that, Imp.
She pushed herself over to the unit marked Three and pulled it open. Six canisters of water and a package of shrink-wrapped supplies.
She took a long drink of water and chewed on an energy bar.
And what are the chances of our discovering another ‘source of sustenance’? Not much foodstuff between the stars, Imp.
I am investigating the viability of the closest star system, Delia.
A star system? She was unable to suppress a small surge of hope.
Affirmative.
There’s a star system nearby?
It is approximately one hundred astronomical units distant.
Delia found a web and fastened herself in.
And you’re taking us there now?
Yes.
How long before we reach this star system?
Approximately two days until we reach the system’s heliopause.
Delia felt despair grip her by the throat. And what are the chances, Imp, of finding a planet that won’t be inimical to a carbon based life-form like me?
The reply came a fraction of a second later: Between one hundred thousand to one, and three point seven million to one.
“Great odds,” Delia grunted to herself.
She pressed her palms to her eyes and wept.
Chapter Three
IMP.
Yes, Delia?
Where’s the medi-kit?
Unit Four.
She pushed herself from the web, swam across to the unit, and hauled it open. She found the medi-kit and what she was looking for: a hypoject and a small ampoule of chemical opiate – sufficient to kill her painlessly in seconds.
Imp, will you project my mother and father, please?
She blinked through her tears as they appeared before her, as solid and lifelike as if they were with her in the life-raft. They were smiling at each other, chatting away at some commonplace of life in far away Ontario.
Three missions ago she had had her Imp record her parents and set up an interactive paradigm, so that, far away from home as she worked amongst the stars, she could access her parents’ avatars and assuage her loneliness.
And oddly enough, surprising herself, after only her second meeting with Timothy Greene, back in Paris, she had had her Imp do the same so that she could be with him even when he wasn’t with her. She had done it with other prospective lovers, years ago; her friend Zeena had said it was her way of vetting them without their knowledge.
She said, “Mom, Dad, how’s things?”
They looked up and smiled at her. “Just fine, Cordelia,” her mother replied. “We’re well. Your father’s arthritis is playing up a little.”
“But nothing serious,” he put in.
“And you, Cordelia? Tell us all about where you are now.”
She began to say, “Far, far away...” but the words caught in her throat and she commanded her Imp to cease the projection.
Her parents vanished and she was alone again in the life-raft.
She worked to keep her breathing steady, then said, Now Tim. Project Tim.
Timothy Greene appeared before her, reading a softscreen. He looked up and smiled, and grief cut through her heart.
“I just wanted to say goodbye, Tim,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Goodbye?”
“I just wanted to see you one more time, to remind me of how beautiful you are. And you are, Tim.”
Imp, cease the projection. She closed her eyes before it did so, and when she opened them again, Tim was gone.
She returned to the webbing, carrying the medical case, and stuck it to the bulkhead next to her.
Imp, you said that in sixty days, when the supplies run out, I will die.
Affirmative.
Very well... But I’ve chosen not to wait for that inevitability. I’ll take an overdose immediately, understood? And I don’t want you to take countermeasures which might keep me alive.
You wish to enact Protocol 21? Imp asked.
Affirmative.
Very well. However...
Yes?
I think it would be wise to wait until we have reached the star system and I have evaluated the possibility of its harbouring a life-sustaining world.
But you said the chances of that were millions to one.
To be precise, between one hundred thousand to one, and three point seven million to one.
In that case, I see no reason...
But Imp persisted with its implacable machine logic. Delia, I advise circumspection. Wait until we have reached the star system. I suggest that I sedate you once again for the duration of the journey, some twenty-two hours...
Why postpone the inevitable, she thought. Very well, Imp, sedate me.
Chapter Four
SHE WOKE AND said, Well?
We are entering the heliopause of the star system.
And? No signs of life, right?
It is too early to tell.
She thought of her mother and father and the grief they would be suffering now, having heard the news about the Pride of Amsterdam. She thought of Tim and Zeena, and all her other friends...
She felt physically ill.
She reached for the medical package adhering to the wall beside her, then stopped.
How many planets are there in this system? she asked.
Seven, her Imp responded. From the outermost to the innermost, two micro worlds, four gas giants, and one approximately Earth-sized planet.
And is the latter in the Goldilocks zone?
Why am I doing this? she asked herself. I’m prolonging the agony. Of course there won’t be an Earth-like planet down there.
I think not, though that is difficult to ascertain –
I don’t see why it should be, she interrupted.
Because the Earth-sized planet describes a highly elliptical orbit around its primary.
How elliptical?
The answer came a second later: At the furthest point from its primary, it is ten astronomical units away; at its closest, less than half an AU. The planet describes an orbit that, in Terran years, takes almost ten years to complete. Nine years of harsh winter, and one of summer.
Intense winter, she said, then a brief, blistering summer.
Yes.
So... the chances of the world sustaining life are... zero.
Her Imp corrected: Life as we know it.
Quite. Life as we know it.
I might as well inject myself now and get it over with, she thought.
Curiosity, however, got the better of her.
Imp, can you bring up a visual of the star system?
Affirmative. Please allow five seconds.
She would look upon this distant star system, the first and only human in history to do so. Perhaps, one day, the life-raft would be discovered by human explorers; they would find her lifeless corpse and maybe even name the planet down there after her: Kemp’s World.
Delia, visuals coming through.
She was quite unprepared for the beauty of the scene that washed the far wall of the life-raft. The interior was lit up by two suns, one a great ruddy ball, the other a much smaller white light. Around the red primary gyred seven worlds: four huge barrelling gas giants, striated with an artist’s palette of colour; then the two tiny specks of the micro worlds, so small that her Imp had resorted to indicating them with haloes – and, finally, the Earth-sized world.
Something caught in her throat and she leaned forward.
Imp, are those clouds?
She stared upon the pale, chiffon-scarved planet, hardly daring to hope.
Affirmative. The planet does possess cloud formations, and an extremely active weather system.
Clouds... she murmured. That means water. The possibility of life!
We need to get closer for me to ascertain the likelihood of the planet’s sustaining life, Imp said.
Sedate me, Delia ordered, and wake me when we’re closer.
DELIA...
She woke instantly and tried to make sense of the scene splashed across the far wall.
The life-raft was vibrating madly, rattling her. Only the web she was strapped into saved her from being thrown around the raft like a pea in a drum.
The scene on the viewscreen was yawing, an icy horizon tilting like a see-saw.
How long have I been unconscious?
Fourteen hours.
What’s happening?
We’re coming down.
I gathered that, she said. If her Imp had decided to land, that must mean...
I brought the raft in low because I detected what might be cities, Imp said.
Her heart thumped.Cities?
We were coming in low, well south of the planet’s equator. I was running atmospheric content tests when the life-raft was hit.
Hit? You mean, we hit some debris...?
We were hit by either a laser or a missile.
A succession of emotions chased each other through her head: fear of crash-landing, exhilaration that there might be cities down there, wonder as it came to her that she just might be experiencing the first ever human-sentient alien contact in the history of her race.
A laser or a missile? You sure? You mean, something fired in anger, by... by...
By extraterrestrials – yes, Delia. It clipped our dorsal fin, hence our instability.
“Sentient aliens... ” she said to herself.
She leaned forward in the web, staring at the viewscreen. They were racing low over a vast icy plain like striated glass. In the distance, on the horizon, she made out an enfilade of mountains like a thousand rearing stalagmites. She could see no sign of civilisation down there.
Imp, can you bring us down safely?
I can achieve a landing without compromising the structural integrity of the life-raft.
I’m glad to hear that.
Of course, a safe landing would mean nothing if she were unable to breathe the atmosphere of the ice-bound world.
Imp, did you manage to find out if the atmosphere is breathable?
I am working on it, Delia.
But even if the atmosphere were breathable, what were the chances of the planet yielding foodstuffs that a human metabolism could process? And the cold? It looked pretty hostile out there – and what about when the planet swung towards its primary? The brief, intense summer? She would be frozen stiff and roasted by turn. And then, of course, there was the attention of the hostile ETs to take into consideration.
Delia, hold on tight. Landing in thirty seconds.
She tightened the webbing around her, pulling down a head-rest and cushioning her neck against the impact.
The ice plain sped beneath the ship in a blur.
Ten, nine, eight...
Despite her best intentions to watch the final few seconds of the landing, she involuntarily closed her eyes as the ice rushed up to meet the ship.
She had expected a jarring impact, the rending of metal, even an explosion. But the life-raft hit the ice like a flat stone skimming across the surface of a lake: a glancing impact, a bounce, then a second impact, and another and another. Then the raft was spinning like a puck and Delia knew they had landed safely.
Well done, Imp. Damage?
Minor abrasions to the shell as well as the original damage to the dorsal fin.
But we could still use the raft, yes? It’ll still fly?
We would have to repair the dorsal fin. And we have limited reserves of fuel. Of course, we could never achieve escape velocity in a craft this small...
Of course.
She released herself from the web and fell to the floor. The gravity was less than Earth norm; she felt buoyant. She picked herself up and approached the viewscreen.
The life-raft had ploughed up a bow wave of shaved ice; the view through the bottom half of the viewscreen was obscured by melting slush. Above it, all she could see was a plain of grey ice and the jagged mountains on the horizon. Straight ahead the ruddy sun – a huge globe filling a quarter of the sky – hung like a glaring eye. The small white sun was a tiny point far to the right.
Delia, I have the results of the atmospheric analysis...
She closed her eyes. Tell me.
The atmosphere is sufficiently Earth-like to sustain human life.
Exhilaration swelled in her chest.
So I’ll be able to breathe the air?
Yes.
She stared out across the ice plain. What’s the outside temperature?
Twenty-three below zero, Imp replied.
But I’ll never survive that!
The raft is equipped with thermal suits. I suggest you find one and put it on. Unit Seven.
She opened the unit and hauled out a suit, a crimson one-piece that shrunk to fit her as she hauled it on over her grey uniform. She drew up a hood like a balaclava; the suit was even equipped with a face-mask, which she hung around her neck in readiness.
Of course, if there’s nothing to eat out there...
Delia, the fact that this planet sustains sentient life-forms suggests that there is a food supply. Whether it would sustain you, of course, is another matter.
She wondered at the chances of her being able to eat the food – whether she would be able to metabolise the proteins and carbohydrates she might find on this world.
And then there was the small matter of unknown pathogens.
Imp, what about the threat of disease?
The face-mask should filter and purify the air; of course, I am unable to ascertain its efficacy. Also, at present I am unable to analyse the threat of potential pathogens.
She would fill her mind, she told herself, with the small questions of minute-by-minute survival. Because to look upon the larger picture – that she was all alone on an inimical alien world – was just too much to contemplate without inviting madness.
Imp, does the life-raft carry a supply of weapons?
Negative.
Great. If the extraterrestrials who brought us down are hostile, I’ll need something to defend myself with.
Delia...
Her Imp paused.
Go on.
I have detected movement outside.
Right... She swallowed, her heart hammering.
Activity approximately three kilometres straight ahead. I will magnify the image.
The screen went blank. Delia felt a moment of irrational, claustrophobic panic. If there were hostile ETs out there, she wanted to see them.
Then the screen flickered back into life. The mountains were closer now, and on the plain of ice she detected movement: a column of small, dark... creatures... like a line of ants, but too far away for her to make them out individually.
They’re heading this way?
Affirmative.
Coming for their spoils...
Delia, take the food supplies and the medical package and place them in the backpack you will find in Unit One.
She hurried around the raft, collected the packages and slipped them into the backpack, shrugging it onto her back. Earth’s greater gravity would have made the weight a burden; here it was as if she were carrying nothing at all.
Don’t forget the charger, Delia.
The charger! There is one aboard the raft?
Affirmative. Her Imp told her where to find it, and she slipped the silver disc into the hip pocket of her thermal suit.
Once a month she placed a charger beneath her pillow as she slept, and in the morning her Imp was refuelled. Without it, her Imp would have sufficient power for a month before shutting down.
The thought of being without the comforting presence of her Imp – quite apart from its life-saving assistance – did not bear contemplating.
She stared through the viewscreen, and what she saw took her breath away.
The extraterrestrial column had advanced towards the life-raft, resolving itself into a dozen or more discernible creatures as they marched across the ice.
Delia braced her arms against the viewscreen to control her shaking.
They were perhaps half a kilometre away now, but huge even at this distance. Three metres high, four? They resembled spiders, or perhaps crabs, jet black creatures with multiple legs on either side of oval, chitinous carapaces.
And there I was, hoping to be greeted by beautiful, angelic humanoids.
The likelihood of that... her Imp began.
I was joking, Delia said. “They look... fearsome,” she murmured to herself.
Delia, the larger creatures are not, I surmise, the dominant species.
What do you mean, the ‘larger’?
Observe, mounted upon the backs of the spider-crabs.
The riders, six to each creature, resembled locusts: thin, attenuated beings, as silver-grey as the surrounding ice, their long legs drawn up and jutting out on either side of almost equine heads.
What... what should I do, Imp?
It is imperative that you are not perceived as a threat by these creatures. Their actions in bringing down the life-raft might have been hostile, but their dominant motivating factor now might just be curiosity. Of course, that would be ascribing anthropocentric tendencies to the aliens.
Should I exit the raft and greet them?
No. Allow me to assess their intentions, if that is possible.
