27
Jack’s first message had left her with more questions than answers, exacerbated by the post-hibernation mental fog. There was just enough telemetry from Magellan to confirm that he and the ship were both alive and functioning, but precious little else. The bandwidth limits had eliminated the prospect of voice and video comms over the immense distance to Earth, but perhaps now that they were drawing closer she could establish a link with him. Call me, he’d said.
She’d have to tackle that later. They would soon be flipping Columbus around for the months-long braking burn into the Anomaly’s gravity well, and the resulting conflagration of ionized plasma ahead of them would further limit their bandwidth in that direction.
Technologically limited or not, he’d been unusually cagey, which she assumed came from so much time in isolation. While their circumstances had much in common, each being alone in deep space with nothing but their AIs to keep them company, how they’d arrived here had been markedly different. And he had been out here much, much longer. What had that done to his personality? Was he the same man she’d grown so close to? Again, more questions than answers.
She hovered over her laptop, fretting over the answer she would send back to him through their datalink. Now so far removed from Earth’s “social credit” busybodies, she could compose her thoughts without their relentless nitpicking. It was easy to imagine an army of humorless schoolmarms policing every online interaction, when in fact it was a far-reaching concoction of algorithms controlled by the unsleeping eye of yet another artificial intelligence. She wondered what the agreeable AIs she’d worked with might think of that. Long ago convinced that Daisy had reached sentience, she had no doubt Magellan’s AI might hold some opinions. Bob was more of an open book; while clearly intelligent, she wasn’t yet sure he’d crossed that elusive threshold. For now, she enjoyed the simple pleasure of composing her thoughts without subjecting them to the tightly controlled opinions of some unfeeling algorithm.
She’d started and stopped many times, composing and erasing as she searched for the right words. Now that they were almost together after years of silent separation, there was so much to say that she could barely find the words. Her first instinct had been to just blurt out whatever came to mind, but I missed you sounded like it had come from a lovestruck middle-schooler no matter how she tried to rephrase it. Conversely, everything else had sounded so coldly professional that she might as well have let Bob compose it.
She turned up a white noise generator on the wall of her cabin, closed her eyes and reached for the keyboard. She let her mind run free.
Hello Jack,
It’s been a long trip. We’re “only” five AU out and will start our braking burn day after tomorrow. We came out here at one-tenth g, we’re going to decelerate at a third of a g. The docs think that’ll help me regain muscle and bone mass after spending the last year on ice.
I can’t imagine how it’s been for you. I just came out of a year’s hibernation and still feel like I can’t get enough caffeine in me to wake up. That probably sounds whiny as it’s nothing like what you’ve experienced. I hope you’re doing okay, and that you haven’t taught Daisy too many bad jokes.
I’m still trying to get my head around what you stumbled into out there. I can barely bring myself to write it out: Wormhole. Like we’re living out a movie.
What do theoretical physicists do when they find concrete evidence that the improbable thing they predicted not only exists, but is actually lurking at the edge of our neighborhood? It’s hard to imagine anything more unexpected and a bonehead pilot like me certainly doesn’t know what to make of it. All of a sudden, the organics Noelle found at Pluto aren’t the biggest mystery in the solar system.
Congratulations, you’ve managed to throw the whole scientific world into a frenzy. The UN has an AI-controlled ship en route which is supposed to arrive a month ahead of us. They say it’s an “international effort” but we all know who’s calling the shots these days. I’ll fill you in later, but home ain’t what it used to be. Hammond didn’t offshore mission control to Grand Cayman because he wanted to retire on the beach. He saw what was coming and got ahead of it. I’ve learned he’s good at that.
The UN ship is equipped to bring you home in hibernation, but we figured you might have objections to going back into the freezer. I tried to get here sooner, but there were a few roadblocks and I’ll leave it at that.
On second thought, no. Cheever’s a cold-hearted beyotch so hellbent on keeping us out of the solar system that she’d just as soon leave you at the mercy of Chinese drones.
There, I said it.
I’m probably in big trouble anyway for stealing their spaceship (or not, it’s a long story). I don’t care about that or about the “science.” The bots and probes we leave behind can take care of that. I’m coming to take you home. Hopefully it’ll have returned to sanity by the time we’re back. There’s plenty of food and I’m saving the best coffee for you. The gaming console’s warmed up and I brought my chessboard. We can catch up on our way home. I look forward to it.
See you soon, friend.
Jack must have read her words a dozen times, savoring each line despite the newfound speed-reading ability from his interface with Daisy. “Into a frenzy?” he repeated. “If she only knew.”
“That brings up a salient point,” Daisy said. “Have you decided how much to tell her?”
“About what? That we’re not anywhere near where she thinks we are, or that I’m a disembodied consciousness?”
“You’re not exactly ‘disembodied.’ That may be easier for her to comprehend.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. She has some fairly puritanical notions about body and soul.” He paused on the last word, not yet willing to question the growing disconnect he was feeling. Without directly broaching the subject, she’d once again managed to nudge him into facing his personal biases.
“You should at least tell her we successfully traversed the wormhole. Keeping that secret now seems ill-advised.”
Was Daisy right? He’d tried thinking three steps ahead, presuming that if they thought he was in orbit at the Anomaly there’d eventually be a recovery mission to come his way. If the powers that be knew he’d taken a cosmic shortcut to another star, it seemed likely they’d have given up on him: Good luck, and thanks for all the data. Given the official attitudes Traci had shared with him, he was inclined to think that’s exactly how it would have played out.
Now that she’d committed to a solo dash across the solar system, the question was what she’d do next. He had no doubt she’d try to come after him. “I can’t let her do this.”
“You realize that you cannot control her.”
“I learned that a long time ago.” But how could he dissuade her? “If I tell her, she’ll come. If I don’t, she’ll figure it out and still come.” And either way, she would eventually find him in his technologically disembodied state.
“If you believe that’s the case, the logical course would be to tell her everything.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Spock. Remember what I said about how humans process difficult news?”
“In small bites. Also a logical course for emotional beings,” Daisy said, playing off his pop-culture references as a human would. “You value your friendship, as do I. You must tell her.”
“There’s no ‘small bites’ left to tease her with,” he lamented. “It’s one big reveal after another at this point. I’m starting with small talk.” He needed to set expectations, however backhanded they might be. Jack opened up the datalink and began mentally dictating his first message.
I’m glad we can finally converse (mostly) normally. Sorry about the bandwidth issue but not everything is working like it used to. We should be able to use voice comm once you’re close.
I’m doing okay thanks to Daisy’s creativity. She found ways to stretch life support like you wouldn’t believe. And I have no issues with the gender references anymore—she’s fully sentient and fully female, as much as a computer with no hope for growing ovaries could ever be. I hope your AI is an equally good companion because there’s no way I’d have kept my sanity without her.
I don’t know what’s happening back on Earth but it sounds like you had plenty of reasons to leave besides finding my sorry ass. Owen & co. haven’t said much but that’s how they roll, isn’t it? Don’t upset the fragile astronauts unnecessarily. I’ve only ever believed about half of what I read anyway. They did tell me Roy contacted my sister around the time you broke orbit, which I really appreciate. I know she and Mom must be worried sick.
If you think things are different at home, wait until you get here. Nothing is as expected, and I’m not who I used to be by a long shot. You wouldn’t recognize me. We do have a lot to catch up on, and not all of it can wait until the trip home.
Fly safe, girl. It’s a strange universe, so don’t give in to “go fever.”
It was a master of understatement, if not outright misdirection. She deserved more, but now wasn’t the time. Jack felt a small pang of guilt as he released his missive into the data stream.