Imagination Fully Dilated: Science Fiction Part 12

Although there are surprisingly few civilian casualties, it is impossible to say what becomes of Galen Navarek and Thera Mendosa in the ensuing chaos. Several witnesses claim that they are "taken," along with numerous others, by the questing tendrils of the protean blackships. Similar kidnapping reports are logged all over the solar system. In most cases, the victims of this system-wide "rapture" can be identified later: they appear to be KS patients or high-functioning espers, without exception. Where they are taken, and what becomes of them, no one knows for certain. The last enigmatic transmission of the blackships isspoken by the few espers who remain conscious, after suffering ma.s.sive cerebral hemorrhages: NOW WE WILL RETURN THESE NAKED ONES TO THE FLESH.

XIII.

At this juncture, it is difficult to draw any solid conclusion from the available data-although some recent events have given rise to a great deal of speculation.

1. Since the Rapture of April 18th, observers have reported many new additions to the Black Fleet. The alien armada has nearly doubled in size; over a hundred newer, smaller blackships have joined the ranks.

2. Kapteyn's Syndrome has almost completely vanished among the human population. No new infections have been reported since the Three Minutes' War-and even in those previously infected, the disease appears to have gone into remission. All available samples of the bacteria have descended into some kind of permanent hibernation; the crystalline spores will not grow or reproduce themselves even in controlled laboratory conditions. Nerve grafts have been successfully implanted in several former patients, however, and eventually it may be possible for all the survivors to live relatively normally lives.

3. Several of the so-called "Black Speakers" have been gathered at Mars Dome for the past few months, and many of them have been extensively interrogated. Very few have any memory of April 18th, or the things they said and did while under the influence of the Black Fleet.

4. Lieutenant Commander Leiko Juzo will very likely spend the rest of her life afflicted by severe autism; her former personality appears to be irrecoverable. She has shown some savant tendencies, however, which her therapists find encouraging. In recent weeks she has begun painting, producing a whole series of images like the one included here.

Black Speakers respond very powerfully to the images painted by Juzo. When one subject was exposed to the image included in this file, he became very excited, and seemed suddenly to remember a great many thoughts and impressions that he had during his contact with the Fleet.

To quote the interview: "This is what we are, to them. Just a brain, naked, without a body . . . swimming unprotected in the universe."

5. No further data is available on Galen Navarek or Thera Mendosa, both of whom were specifically targeted for this investigation. The only additional information found in recent weeks was produced by the recovery team working on the remains of Navarek's ship, theFinne Ronne .

A few words were found burned into one of the inner hull plates, scored with the tip of a laser pen. After a little careful cleaning, the engineers were able to make them out; Navarek must have written them some time during the construction of the ship.

His message was: "Stephen Crane. The Black Riders, lines 10 and 23."

We have yet to decipher the code.

Dilated

Robert E. Furey

Probes don't fail. Routine maintenance on most probes could be taken care of with semiautonomous AI units. Unheard-of catastrophic failure required an on-site visit; the first probe to bore through to Callisto's ocean had fallen silent moments after completing ice transit. All transmissions stopped, no responses to diagnostic pings. Captain William Jackson piloted a small craft up Jupiter's gravity well toward the anomalous failure.

Pinnacles of dirty ice rose in twisted spires subliming into vacuum. Sharp shadows cut across a global ice sheet, thrown from Jupiter's heaving, polychromatic glow. Ganymede, still in transit across the Jovian disk, waned to a crescent. Watching home recede made Callisto's already inhospitable surface hard promise of the days to come.

The crossing had been accomplished using the force lines of Jupiter's magnetosphere, the largest object in the solar system. But here in proximity to Callisto and Callisto's own gravitation, the shuttle's thrusters were needed for a controlled approach. The small ship's ambient noise shifted from sighing air vents to a m.u.f.fled roar as the chemical impulse engine burst to life with sudden fire.

Ancient ices sizzled away in the near vacuum under the shuttle's onslaught of alt.i.tude thrusters. After a slow deployment of padded legs, the shuttle lowered to a silent and stable landing on the surface.

"Ganymede base, touchdown Anarr Plains Callisto in One . . . mark. We are on the surface, Ganymede.

Out."

Seconds of static filled the lag: "Ah-Roger, Callisto. Sure wish I was getting some out-time, Captain Jackson. I guess we'll be seeing you next time round-ah-out." The voice crackled through the maelstrom of charged s.p.a.ce between the Galilean moons.

"Roger, Ganymede. Next time 'round. Callisto out." Jackson toggled off the audio relay.

Jackson turned to his crewmate. "Aneal, I'd rather get this done as quickly as possible, even if it means sitting out a few days in here until we cross."

Aneal wouldn't care about waiting in a cramped cabin, of course. The s.p.a.ce in the robot's head could simulate virtually anything.

Aneal had chosen a small, naked frame for this mission. Its perfect body, smoothly androgynous, fit perfectly with the copilot's chair. Jackson felt robot crewmembers, and robot citizens in general, often went too far. They were never disinclined to show their innate superiority to their human creators, nor their a.s.sumed caring and parental role.

Their concentrated plasma circuitry brains allowed them to compute-think!-faster and deeper than the final generation of quantum machines. CPC brains had no wires and so a fantastically high connection index. They were small, efficient, and when provided with minimal thermal insulation and energy input, almost immortal. The same brain that sat in Aneal's head today could pilot an interplanetary vessel tomorrow. They could adapt effortlessly to any physical form without any crisis of ego or persona. This directly led to why Jackson hated them.

Their indefatigable airs seemed almost designed to remind humanity of its unspoken yet clear position as subjugate. Political, corporate, and security leaders of three worlds were CPCs. Jackson had decided to leave the "safety and coordination" of the inner system and registered his application for service on the outer frontier.

Jackson had boosted to the Jovian system on a delta, one of the huge mining ships. Primarily a platform for remote cutter and manipulation beams, the delta had Spartan berths, and he'd had time to reflect onjust how much he'd come to resent the machines. They had usurped human patrimony, putting their stamp on every endeavor of importance-often, he suspected, to make humans more dependent. Was he indeed chosen for this mission as "the best of the best," as advertised, even among machines?

Aneal blinked and turned its eyes to Jackson. Sky-blue irises today. Blond hair tumbled to Aneal's shoulders in soft curls. "Of course, William," it said in its beautiful and melodious voice. Aneal swung its legs around the chair and moved away from the control area to the rear working section. Jackson saw it wore a navel.

"I will prepare your excursion suit, William," Aneal said. "And I will carry an extra environmental pack for you in case of unforeseen mechanical failure."

"Thank you, Aneal," he said, running his fingertips over touch pads to toggle the shuttle to sleep mode.

Then, reluctantly, he swung himself to the back of the vessel alongside the robot.

Now they would leave the ship to repair or recover the failed probe. The Callisto initiative represented the final exploitation of the Jovian system; Earth-based controllers and mission commanders on Ganymede had preferred to concentrate on harnessing Io's frantic volcanism and expanding the submarine fleet mapping the frigid, sterile ocean world under Europa's own frozen crust. Callisto's ancient surface ice had held out little to draw interest. Acc.u.mulated resources had permitted this modest push to the outermost of the Galilean moons.

The probe's lift away from the launch platform in Ganymede orbit and climb up Jupiter's gravity well had been flawless. In spite of the intense electromagnetic activity, telemetry during the final approach to Callisto and site selection had fallen well within mission parameters. It was not until after the borehole had been driven through the ice and the mission protocols booted up that the problems began. Severe electronic interference altered the signal, though not in an expected manner. All radio traffic in the Jovian system was subject to electromagnetic interference due to the overwhelming strength of the magnetosphere. This had been different.

The ubiquitous background noise from Jupiter still sat atop whatever other radio transmissions there might be. Callisto's probe signal, however, simply began to fade. Metasignals buried within the transmission code indicated that the probe had not malfunctioned. Something else happened; they came to find out what.

Jackson watched Aneal exit from the small pressure hatch door to step on the surface and walk a short distance from the shuttle. Aneal had shunted all waste heat through the soles of its feet and now left the first imprints in Callistan ice, like a trace on a tropical beach, five toes and the curve of an arch.

"I still think that I could follow the transmission quicker, William." Aneal spoke in the vacuum, perfect mouth forming each word, but Jackson heard its voice over his helmet com.

"Thanks, Aneal, but we'll be here just as long, no matter when we find the probe, since we have to wait for the next time round." Jackson had already voiced this and felt annoyance at having to do it again.

"Besides, I want to be the first person to walk on Callisto."

Aneal smiled. "Of course, William."

Jackson thought that the footprints left behind Aneal were deeper and more defined. The ruddiness of the colors tapered off as the red spot rotated around to Jupiter's night side, now a gaping hole in the starscape.

Jackson hefted the utility pack to his shoulders and followed.* * *

They found the probe hunkered in sharp shadows, footpads fused with the ice softened by retrofiring alt.i.tude thrusters. It had indeed touched down in one of the central craters from the catenae bisecting the Anarr Plains. From the crater's rim Jackson could see the a.n.a.lysis cables snaking away from the experimental package and transmitter to where it had bored through the ice to the slushy salt ocean beneath.

Jackson stared at the puckered hole through which the cables disappeared: "It looks like a textbook deployment." He squatted alongside the probe there in the crater, the awkward excursion suit crackling in the hard vacuum and cold.

Jackson approached the equipment left on the surface. A film coated the unit. Jackson poked a finger at it.

"Look at this." Jackson held up his finger showing the robot a greasy stain on the pad. He swept his finger over the unit again and left a long trace. "It's all over the thing. And a few millimeters deep too I think."

Aneal pinched a sample and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. The robot stared at Jackson as its fingertips circled over each other. "It's wet."

"How is that possible?"

"It is interacting with the electronics in my fingers."

"Alright, stay away from it then. I'll do the work and you watch over my shoulder."

"I think this is clearly why the probe has ceased functioning. I should minimize disruption." Aneal detached and dropped his finger and thumb to the surface.

Jackson opened the utility pack and began a.s.sembling a machine to lift the sensor array through the ice.

The machine would draw directly from the energy field all around them, both melting the ice and pulling the sensor to where they could diagnose the problem. Since it wasn't responding to diagnostic pings, everything would have to be done by hand.

They erected a squat tower over the hole. Jackson lifted the greasy cable and threaded it through the tower's retraction spool. The device began drawing energy from Jupiter's magnetosphere and conducting heat down the data cable. Eventually it would retract the sensor array back through as much as twelve kilometers of ice.

"We've got some time now," Jackson said. "Let's get back to the ship and replace your parts."

Jackson mounted the steps to the pressure hatch. With a knees-bent twist he sidled through the lock and then sealed the door closed. Aneal waited on the surface as the airlock cycled for Jackson, first to exit last to reenter.

The excursion suit had been stowed by the time Aneal joined him. Jackson stepped into his orange flight jumper and tugged it over his shoulders, pulled the zipper closed. "I feel like I got a little frostbitten." He rubbed the back of his hand.

The robot moved like a cat through the shuttle's tight interior. It formed itself to the copilot's chair, laying its arms on the rests. "Perhaps you should see if you have replacements," it said, wiggling its own truncated digits."Humor, Aneal?" Jackson couldn't help but feel the robot's comments came from some feeling of superiority. But that was the way relations went with humanity's new partner.

"Not at all, William. I simply forgot myself." Aneal closed the perfect eyes in its almost cherubic face.

"Well we have a while. Feel free to forget yourself." He settled himself into the pilot's chair and stared over the board lights.

Aneal turned its head toward Jackson.

"Humor, Aneal." He tapped a display. "We have at least a day before the sensor's above ground. I'm going to get some rest now. Pulse a check-in to Ganymede." He crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

Hours later Jackson woke to find his forearm numb and unresponsive, slightly painful. His hand had no sensation and hung horribly. "Aneal." Jackson ma.s.saged his arm to no avail.

The robot uncurled from its chair and approached to examine the arm without touching it. "Perhaps we should abort and immediately drop into a powered rendezvous with Ganymede."

Jackson watched as his hand twitched. He still couldn't feel it.

"I think it's wise to alert Ganymede for a possible medical intervention." The robot's face drew close to Jackson's skin.

"I got nothing here. No feeling." He cupped the deadened hand under the wrist. "We need to abort. Call Ganymede." He rested his arm in his lap and powered up the craft's engines. A control window flickered alive and showed a lock onto force lines in the Jovian magnetosphere. Once aloft the craft would use lock holds with the force lines to accelerate itself downward to base.

Chemical boosters fired and Aneal took the joysticks in hand. The shuttle lifted off of Callisto in a cloud of dust and atomizing volatiles. From the windows the moon quickly turned from a world to a globe in s.p.a.ce. Once force lines engaged, the chemical boosters quieted and the shuttle sped with energy harvested from Jupiter's extravagance.

Jackson's eyes snapped open.

"You were in a coma before we reached Ganymede airs.p.a.ce."

Jackson lay covered on a medical bed, sheets over his arms. Softened lighting, easy on his eyes, reflected from plastic sheets hung from the ceiling around his bed. He turned his head sharply to gaze up at Aneal, who stood over the bed.

"What do you feel?" The robot had clothed itself in an orange crew jumper.

"Fine, I think," Jackson said, trying to sit up. As he rotated, his legs shot over the edge of the mattress.

"d.a.m.n!" He puzzled over his body.

"What do you feel, William?" Aneal asked again with that emotionless Olympian voice.

Someone approached from outside the hanging curtains of plastic sheeting. Dr Vinton's form undulated through the ripples in the plastic.

"Awake, I see," she said."Still kicking, Patty." Jackson gripped handfuls of bedclothes to steady himself.

"You'll have to excuse the facilities, Bill. We haven't used quarantine protocols since Apollo 14." He could see her pulling on a sealed body suit through the plastic. As he watched he could see her clearer, details shifted, as if the plastic stretched tight and smooth.

"So what are you trying to tell me?"

"That you have the dubious distinction of being the first human being ever with an infection of extraterrestrial origin."

"Well eye ee eye ee oh." He rubbed hard at his eyes. Then he froze.

"At least you still have a sense of humor, Bill." She pa.s.sed through an offset double pair of flaps and entered the makeshift quarantine chamber. "What is it, Bill? What's wrong?"

"I can see you," he said, his fingers still covering closed eyelids. "Well not see, but-see." He shook his head rapidly. "Everywhere. All around, above and under me too."

Dr Vinton approached the bed. "Excuse me, Aneal." She tried to move past the robot in the confined area. "Aneal."

"Excuse me, Doctor." It backed away from the bed but Jackson saw what could have been its reluctance to give up that position.

The doctor tapped on his joints and spoke observations to a recorder somewhere. "Your reflexes are extraordinarily rapid. Do you feel that?"

"Anything to do with why I can't quite control my movements?"

"How so?" She took his hand and flexed his fingers.

"Things seem to take off all by themselves when I try to move something, like an arm or a leg." And now that he was thinking about it: "My mind is sharper too. I think I may have eliminated the distortion through that plastic, stretched it from a distance."

"How?" she asked, still probing his muscles and joints with gloved fingers.

"Jesus. I have no idea." He swept his gaze over the room again, taking in new kinds of information.

"Well listen. We found the infective agent." She had released his arm and now stood with her hands on her hips. "It's systemic. There is something that has attached itself to your nerves. All of your myelin is gone and has been replaced by this organism, even on nerves normally without myelin. Your axons and dendrites are wrapped with it.