First Interstellar Read online

  “Yes sir, I understand. I do hope Engineer Strombecker that you have replacement parts for my end effectors.”

  With that Jarvis rolled into the dis-assembly room. Replacing his hand effector with a drill unit. He placed one of the explosive bolts removed from the Starway One into a vise. He carefully started drilling out the seal at one end.

  He seemed in slow motion to Strombecker.

  Could a Annie robot feel fear?

  Jarvis finished the drilling and replaced his end effector with one which had an attached screw. Into the drill hole he spun the screw around and around very slowly. After a couple of minutes, he then applied a force to the end cap.

  Pop! The end cap came off. Strombecker winced.

  Jarvis visually inspected the bolt cavity. He turned and called for Strombecker to come in.

  “What is it Jarvis, what have you found?”

  Jarvis only motioned for Strombecker to look into the end of the drilled out bolt. Strombecker looked, there was nothing inside. No explosives.

  “You found nothing?” said Chief Engineer Mann.

  “That's right,” said Strombecker. “There was nothing inside the bolt. No explosive, no explosion. Everything else checked out, the wiring, the signaler.”

  “Did we buy defective bolts?” asked Lindsey.

  “I don't know,” said Mann. “We are checking with our supplier. But I doubt it.”

  “That's right,” said Strombecker. “I pulled some of the bolts in inventory out. I test fired eight of them. They worked. It wouldn't make sense, to me anyway, that we had eight defective bolts on one mission.”

  “That was an expensive test,” said Ajax.

  “I okayed it,” said Mann. “I thought it was necessary. I think there is only one way all the mission bolts would be defective. Someone took working bolts and scuttled them.”

  “Well, that took some guts,” said Ajax. “To drill out explosive bolts and then remove the explosive.”

  “Or someone used a robot,” said Winston, as usual at Ajax's side. “But that would be a mistake, we can run checks on all the company robots and find out which one did the drilling.”

  4

  Starway Shops, as they were called, were the heart of the Starway Corporation's interstellar travel efforts. The “shops” were the largest manufacturing complex off Earth. At two-thousand meters in radius, the doughnut-shaped facility had four levels, each fifty meters wide for a total floor area of two and a half million square meters, comparable to many Earth-based manufacturing plants.

  The facility rotated to provide artificial gravity. One rotation every one point six minutes provided eight-tenths Earth equivalent gravity. The outside floor and the two inner floors were storage and manufacturing. The remaining floor housed the workers, nearly two thousand in number. All floors were protected from the radiation of space and the particles in the solar wind by a thick Em engineered insulation gel.

  Nearby in the same polar orbit around Earth was the food growing facility. Also a doughnut ring-shaped facility of twice as many floors, it was oriented perpendicular to its orbit so that sunlight could continuously enter through the opaque walls that made up the sun-facing side. Walls that with the help of the Em gel also stopped most of the particles in the solar wind.

  At nearly the same size as the manufacturing ring but with twice the floor space it had over one-hundred acres on which to raise food for the manufacturing personnel. Aeroponic gardening (a gardening method where the roots of the plants are available to be misted with water and nutrients) took up more than half of the space and was much more efficient than Earth farming. Cultured meat grown in bio-reactors took up some more of the floor space. The rest was given over to the packing plants, food storage lockers and loading docks.

  A stream of rocket shuttles moved the food from production to consumption in the manufacturing ring each day. They also took personnel from the manufacturing ring where they were lodged to the food production ring where they worked and back.

  A solar power plant completed the major structures of the complex making it almost self-sufficient from the Earth. In the conference room of the manufacturing ring, they were meeting to discuss the problem with the explosive bolts.

  “But I did sir,” said Alex Poro the Corporation's Information Technology Officer. “With Winston's assistance, we ran a complete diagnostic on all the Corporation's robots. We sifted through all the results, I guarantee none of the robots diagnosed had anything to do with drilling those bolts.”

  I wonder about Alex sometimes, thought Ajax.

  Ajax said, “I have no doubt you did a thorough job Alex. But if the bolts weren't defective when we bought them then they had to be tampered with here. And such tampering is extremely dangerous, so it was natural to assume that whoever was responsible would use a robot as a surrogate.”

  “A robot would also be a better choice to do the work,” said Winston.

  Turning to Horace Mann Ajax said, “So what do we do now Horace?”

  “I would say, that if a robot was used and it was not one of ours then it was brought into the Starway shops for just that purpose.”

  “And we have records of all the people, robots, Ems and AIs aboard or brought aboard don't we?”

  “Yes, a very complete record.”

  Somewhat later Horace was reporting his findings to Ajax.

  “Nothing?” asked an incredulous Ajax.

  “I'm afraid so,” said Horace Mann. “I found nothing in the records about robots being brought aboard, used and then deboarded.”

  “People?”

  “Yes I did find several people that have been hired and brought aboard the past few months. But they are still here and there is nothing that specifically points to any one of them.”

  “Well now I am more worried than ever Horace. Our security is such that we can't trace someone who would do something as bold as drill out explosive bolts. We have to correct that.”

  “I agree, both that our security is lax and that we need to increase it. But we didn't know we would be a target of sabotage until now. The truth is we are pretty much an open commons corporation. That buys us a lot of goodwill and good press coverage too.”

  “I know, but the press coverage won't do us any good if we fail to deliver on the Starway because of sabotage.”

  The message had come in through Winston. He started reading the message aloud but Ajax stopped him and asked it to be shown on screen. He unfolded his Annie personal assistant and read:

  Sir, I have thought to send you this message because at one time I admired you. But since you have begun the Starway folly I have changed my mind. The Starway is an uncomfortable memory in my life as it has negatively impacted my family. Therefore I want you to know that it was I that sabotaged the explosive bolts on Starway One. And I will do it again for the next mission and the following mission and so on until you give up this folly.

  - Anonymous -

  Ajax read the message once more before asking Winston for a trace. Winston replied that a trace was impossible as the message had been accompanied by scrubber software that had anonymized the source.

  This guy seems a bit too dramatic for me. Probably unreasonable but gifted. Just unhinged enough to drill out those bolts himself I bet. But courage? Probably not or he would have confronted me at the first opportunity. He would rather endanger everyone around him than be caught. That might be his weakness.

  “Winston, old fellow, it appears our troubles are mounting.”

  5

  The Terran Federation had been established by the old United Nations to extend its influence off Earth into the Solar System. But eventually, a rival federation was established by the smaller outposts of civilization called the Solar Federation. Although in the beginning, the Terran Federation was bigger and better financed, the smaller and more nimble Solar Federation beat it at every turn.

  Eventually, the Terran Federation began to lose its support, especially among smaller entities. Then a majo
r realignment occurred as it appeared the privately financed but Solar Federation supported Star-Way Corporation would finish the laser beam driven pathway to the Centauri System. By the time the Star-Way Corporation failed, the Terran Federation was almost finished too.

  Kenyon Chavis looked around the offices of the Terran Federation. It was getting harder and harder to hide the fact that the Federation was in trouble. Even the rundown look of the office furniture betrayed the fact that the Federation was becoming less and less relevant.

  Kenyon Chavis was the Secretary-General of the Federation but found himself the leader of an organization without material resources so he had to use what was left to leverage its influence. The hidden history of the Terran Federation was the only bludgeon he had to compel those in real power to work to the advantage of the Federation.

  Kenyon was discussing a recent initiative with his second in charge, Amam Majid.

  “Yes Amam, I believe you got a reply from Starway Corporation about our proposal?”

  “Yes I did,” said Amam as he sat in the chair in front of Kenyon's desk. “But I'm afraid it was none too positive.”

  “Well I expected as much. But what did he say?”

  “Mr. Jackson has refused our offer of investment in the Starway. He also states unequivocally that there is no place for the Terran Federation in his enterprise. He therefore rejects the Federation's request to establish Federation outposts along the Starway.”

  “I see,” said Kenyon.

  “Sir if I may ask. Why is Mr. Jackson so opposed to the Federation?”

  “Old wounds I'm afraid. The Jackson family has always been a thorn in the Federation's side and I'm afraid previous administrators of the Federation have returned the favor.”

  “But this is strictly business. Doesn't he know that?”

  “I'm afraid the Jackson's are nothing if not stubborn Amam. He would rather fail than help the Federation. He and his family have always been staunch supporters of the Solar Federation.”

  “Too bad sir. You've tried to bring a new start to the Federation but I guess some old foes such as the Jackson's are unwilling to see that.”

  “Thank you Amam.” Amam rose and left the office.

  Chavis knew now where he and the Federation stood. It didn't matter what Jackson thought. He had a Federation to save and that meant visibility. And visibility for a space Federation meant association with the Starway. So he would just have to change Jackson's mind. Show him how much he needed the Federation.

  Chavis would show Jackson that the Federation still had the power to call the shots. He had missed out on the opportunity to interfere with the first test run of Jackson's light sail. But since then Chavis had learned through a third party that something had gone wrong with that test run. And that if Ajax Jackson hadn't come up with a work-around the test would have been a complete failure and a Federation cruiser might have been needed to save Jackson. The Starway Corporation was looking into the matter as if it were sabotage.

  A saboteur, thought Chavis. If only I could get him to join forces with the Federation, I could bring Jackson to heel. I could force him to compromise with the Federation. I need someone inside Starway Corporation and this saboteur could be very useful if he can follow orders. Then when the next test fails the Federation will offer to help pick up the pieces and we will get all the accolades and the Starway Corporation will owe us.

  6

  The Starway had begun as a dream in the minds of its creators, a way to reach the stars in years instead of lifetimes, something still impossible even with the fastest fusion rockets. The light sails used by the Starway were themselves huge, kilometers across, because of the need to develop a large thrust from the tiny momentum each photon provided. The sails were circular because rotation could be imparted more easily by the edge elements with a framework of guide sails which could pivot to cause the photons to impart momentum at an angle to the plane of the sail. And a rotating sail was more stable. When reflected in the right manner the edge elements could also turn the sail if needed, a trick Winston had figured out.

  Attached to the light sail on a one-kilometer long tether was a payload or spaceship. The payload was either freight or people or in the case of the Centauri mission a specially built fusion ship carrying both people and freight. The Starway Centauri was the largest fusion ship ever built. It had to be, it would carry a hundred crew members and all the tools, food production, construction bots and machinery needed to build a beam laser at the other end of the Starway around the star Centauri A.

  Ajax and Horace Mann were on an inspection tour of the new light sail build. They had taken a corporate fusion ship from the build point orbiting the Earth to the deployment point orbiting the sun in the same orbit as the Earth. They were approaching the sail from the backside.

  “Look at that Horace it's already huge and still only three-fourths complete. And the new coating of graphene whiskers are completely black like a hole in space.”

  “That's because they haven't heated up enough from the sunlight to radiate in the visible yet. But I'll bet they are plenty hot enough in the infrared. The limits to the acceleration of a light sail depend on those whiskers. We can only drive it as fast as it is able to radiate away the excess heat from the beam.”

  They took temperature readings of the backside as their shuttle maneuvered around to the front of the sail.

  “Keep this angle Winston. Put on your eclipse glasses Ajax. One slip up and you could be blinded at this distance.”

  “I know,” said Ajax as he slipped on the glasses.

  Even though only partially finished to thirty kilometers the sail was magnificent in the sunlight. The combination of carbon in all its forms and the nanotube construction had given this sail the record for reflectivity on the beam side and emissivity on the backside. In other words, it was at once the most reflective and most radiative structure in the Solar System.

  “Isn't it amazing Ajax that even with the lightest sail materials ever and the fractal weave we used it will still weigh in at nearly one-hundred ten tons when finished?”

  “Yeah and the fifteen-thousand terawatts of power the free-electron lasers will generate to drive it is mind-boggling too.”

  “It's a big job Ajax. Probably the biggest construction job in human history and you are the one that's going to make it happen.”

  “Thanks Horace, but I owe a lot to you and the other Starway Corporation employees, not to mention all those that came before.”

  While he stared at the huge expanse of the sail and all the construction activity Ajax also thought about all the Jackson's that had come before him. As a family, they had consistently had only two goals. To live free and be useful to others. He felt that this pathway into the wilderness that was the galaxy supported both goals. The freedom to get away from those that would dictate to others, such as the Terran Federation and Earth's AIs, and at the same time give those that desired such a future the means to achieve it.

  “Horace we don't need any more investors. We can make this happen with the resources we have.”

  “You sure Ajax?”

  “Yes, even if I have to fly the mission myself.”

  7

  “They've been used in this way for years,” said Arn Strombecker. “They've driven fusion ships to Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and out into the Kuiper Belt. I don't see any problem with them piloting the next test.”

  “But,” said Horace Mann. “On any mission that amounts to anything they've always been accompanied by an AI. That is the key. The Em's make great pilots I will admit but the AIs are natural mission commanders. They make the cold, hard, facts only decisions when needed. The Em's don't seem to have that capability.”

  “No AIs,” said Ajax. “I don't trust them.”

  “Well that is not exactly logical,” said Mann.

  “Logical or not, they have no place in Starway Corporation and never will as long as I have something to say about it. Earth is an intellectual and spiri
tual wasteland because of the Aggies and their penchant to provide nanny care. Smothering, autocratic and dispiriting is the way I would put it. Nothing worthwhile has come from Earth in hundreds of years. Why? Because people have turned over all initiative to these Aggies, and Artificial General Intelligence surprising to say, shows no initiative beyond what it takes to manage the Earth and its population.

  “And I don't trust something that can change its programming like an Aggie can. Not like I trust Winston or the Em's. I say no, no Aggies here.”

  “What you say is no doubt true Ajax,” said Horace. “But it still doesn't change the fact that allowing the Em's to pilot Starway Two by themselves is a big risk.”

  “I think the risk is manageable,” put in Strombecker. “Remember we can quickly simulate the mission hundreds if not thousands of times before we fly. And we can throw every conceivable failure mode at the Em pilots. I think we can train them to a level beyond what we could expect of human pilots.”

  “I'd say that's optimistic,” said Mann.

  “But doable,” said Ajax. “Also remember this is just a test with well-proscribed boundaries. So there is probably a limited number of failure modes to worry about. And as far as the Centauri flight we'll have plenty of humans aboard to oversee Em pilots. And I won't have to volunteer ever again to be a guinea pig. So I say let's try it.”

  Strombecker had taken responsibility for the Em's training. He would train and send three Em's on the test flight. In that way, the three could crosscheck each other and if need be, vote on the proper course of action to take.

  He and his team of six had put the Ems through over four thousand simulations in the past week. Each scenario had been generated by a mission computer and programmed with all the parameters of the sail and ship. The Ems had responded superbly, never once had the mission been endangered. Strombecker had nothing but confidence in the Ems's ability to fly the Starway Two test mission.