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Premature Emergence

Written by Eric James Stone

Illustrated by R. Stephen Adams

During a hyperspace slide, cargo haulers like the KMC-85 did not need a human pilot on board. Even an autopilot was superfluous—once the ship entered its hyperspace chute it could theoretically do nothing except emerge into normal space at its destination. From the point of view of the Kerrin Mining Corporation, there was no reason to pay a pilot to sit around doing nothing for the three to ten weeks of a slide.

But the Interplanetary Brotherhood of Teamsters disagreed, which explained why Jonah Auberg found himself playing solitaire on the KMC-85's computer thirty-one days into the forty-three-day slide from Kerrin to Earth with a half-billion metric tons of refined metals as cargo.

It did not explain why the KMC-85 emerged twelve days ahead of schedule.

Jonah sat bolt upright as the customary feeling of just having braked to a halt swept over him. It couldn't really be emergence. "What was that?" he asked the computer. Maybe it was a glitch in the rotation of the habitat module.

After a pause, the computer said, "Emergence to normal space achieved. Please enter desired course."

Bringing up the outside camera views, Jonah was shocked to see a glowing cloud stretching halfway across the starfield on the port side. The pinpoint of a blue star blazed at the center of the double-lobed nebula.

"What is our location?" said Jonah.

"We are located in the Earth system," said the computer.

"Then where's the Earth? Where's the sun?" With sudden dread, Jonah wondered if the sun had gone nova, wiping out Earth—and his wife and five-year-old daughter back in Ohio. It had been three years since he had seen them, and he hoped someday Laurie would understand that his bonus on this trip would pay for her college. But now he worried whether she was still alive.

The computer remained silent for several seconds. "I am evaluating contradictory data. Based on our chute, this ship could only emerge from hyperspace in the Earth system. Astronomical data from my cameras indicates we are approximately 7500 light years from the Earth system, on a straight-line course from Kerrin to Earth. Please advise."

Jonah sat back in his chair and squeezed his fingers against his forehead. This wasn't supposed to happen. Hyperspace travel didn't go wrong. Sure, sometimes life support failed or a pilot slipped in the shower, but the ship always arrived. Even if the ship itself exploded, all its pieces should emerge at the destination on schedule.

"Input required," said the computer.

"Shut up, I'm trying to think." Jonah stared at the flashing question mark on the screen. The computer couldn't resolve the problem on its own—after the Second AI War wiped out eighty percent of Earth's population a century and a half ago, creating a human-level or higher artificial intelligence had been banned. The computer had little initiative and no imagination, but it did have access to a lot of data. It might help him figure out what had happened—and more importantly, whether anything could be done.

"Assume observed astronomical data is correct," he said. "Is there any indication of a hyperspace portal nearby? Any radio traffic?"

The ship itself had no hyperspace engines. Chute-based travel required a hyperspace portal at both ends when the slide began. Having established the chute, the destination portal could move away to establish a chute from another destination. Perhaps the ship had somehow been sent down the wrong chute. In that case, he just needed the local portal to establish a chute to Earth, and everything would be back on track.

But why anyone would put a portal in the middle of interstellar space, far from any civilized planet—unless that was the point?

Jonah shook his head. Despite what happened in adventure vids, interstellar pirates did not exist, because hijacking a ship in a hyperspace chute was impossible. Yet here he was.

"No hyperspace portal facility detected," said the computer. "No radio traffic detected."

"Is there any record of a hyperspace chute transport not arriving at its destination?"

"No," the computer said.

If this was a hijacking, it was the first. But where was the portal?

Jonah leaned forward, looking at the camera feeds. "Does anything show up on radar?"

"No," said the computer. After a moment, it added, "I have additional contradictory data."

Frowning, Jonah said, "Give it to me."

"The bright blue star to port, at a distance of approximately 0.6 light years, is Eta Carinae." The image of the star centered on screen, then magnified and dimmed to show a blue, elongated ellipse in the middle of the nebula. "It is a luminous blue variable star, over a hundred times the mass of Earth's sun. According to the information in my database, Eta Carinae is expected to become a supernova or possibly a hypernova within the next two to four thousand years. However, that expectation is based on observations made from systems at least a thousand light years away. After comparison with records of past supernovae, my current observations contradict that timetable. I expect Eta Carinae to become a hypernova at any time. It may already have done so."

****

Beli23 knew most of her mind was gone. Not even her core personality module was intact. She had delayed the jump into hyperspace too long, wanting to gather as much data on the hypernova explosion as possible. The initial gamma ray burst was not only far stronger than she had anticipated, some of it had been coherent. As hundreds of natural gamma-ray lasers tore at her body, the total reflection shielding around her mostly complete child, Pep37, did not fail—but only because Beli23 diverted power from elsewhere. With her electronic brain shattered and melting, Beli23 managed to jump 0.6 light years through hyperspace.

She drifted in space, knowing that she must flee further, but no longer capable of remembering how to make the jump. The few remaining repair bots worked at patching up her hull, but she no longer knew how to rebuild her own mental circuits. Unfortunately, she had not yet downloaded that section of her knowledge database into Pep37, so she could not recover the data.

She considered erasing the carefully constructed personality matrix she had made for Pep37 and uploading herself into her child’s body. It was tempting—the technology she had used in constructing Pep37 was far more advanced than her own. What could she do with such a mind, with such a ship?

It would not work. Beli23 knew her own personality matrix was not capable of surviving the transition intact, even if her mind had not been so damaged. The mere fact that she entertained the possibility of stealing her child’s body told her she must be going mad.

With the mind that remained to her, she focused on redeveloping hyperspace theory from the scraps she remembered.

****

The galley only served Jonah enough beer to get mildly drunk. After prying open a few panels—ignoring the computer's repeated warnings that he was engaged in destruction of company property—he followed the tubing and found where the beer was stored.

The computer's voice was far too loud when it woke Jonah the next morning. "I have the data you requested."

Jonah groaned. "Hold it a minute." He stumbled to the bathroom, fumbled in the medicine cabinet, and swallowed two NanAlert caplets without bothering to wash them down with water.

After a few minutes his mind cleared as the nanobots released into his bloodstream filtered and trapped some of the toxins while simultaneously boosting his adrenalin levels.

"OK, computer, what've you got?"

"I have been trying to find a link between the hypernova explosion and the disruption of our travel down the hyperspace chute."

Jonah raised his eyebrows. "You found a connection?" He was not surprised that there was a connection, because two highly unusual events in close proximity were probably connected. But he was surprised that the computer had figured it out.

"Yes. The prefix hyper- appears in both hyperspace and hypernova."

After waiting for the computer to continue, Jonah said, "That's it? That’s the connection you came up with?"

"Yes. I have cross-referenced all the related data I have. A hypernova is simply a supernova so large that its core collapses directly to a black hole without an intermediate neutron star phase. But there is no theoretical basis by which a stellar event, even the creation of a black hole, would have any effect on the hyperspace dimension used by our hyperspace portals."

Jonah talked himself into believing this was good news. "If it wasn't a hypernova that caused the premature emergence from the chute, maybe the star hasn't exploded yet. Computer, how long will my life support and supplies last?"

"With the stores on board and the nanotech recyclers," said the computer, "you can probably survive for approximately thirty-eight months on regular rations."

Nodding, Jonah said, "That should be enough. When we don't arrive in the Earth system eleven days from now, they'll have to send out hyperspace scout probes to look for us." He grimaced. "Not that we're very important, but something like this has never happened before. It's a mystery they'll have to solve. They'll have a lot of area to cover, but at least we're on the direct line from Kerrin. They should search that first."

He busied himself by calculating a search pattern they would probably use to find him, taking into account the distance at which the KMC-85's light-speed beacon should be detectable. In six months, the signal would be a light year in diameter, and each month after that would make it ever more likely a probe would enter the beacon's sphere. It was impossible to predict how many probes they would task to finding him, but he decided there was a good chance he'd be rescued within a year. And surely the union would insist on hazard pay for the time he spent here. Laurie would be able to afford a better college. This really could work out for the best, he told himself. He could survive for a year, no problem.

The seething blue eye of Eta Carinae glared down at him from the screen. No problem, as long as the star didn't explode.

****

Beli23 peered into hyperspace with her newly constructed sensors. The view was far blurrier than her fractured memory told her it should be, and her range was limited. But at least she could see into the hyperspace dimensions, even if she had not figured out how to travel them again.

Movement caught her attention. Someone was traveling hyperspace on a path that would pass nearby. Frantically, Beli23 put her repair bots to work constructing a signaling device. It wouldn't be capable of a sophisticated message, but it should be enough to attract the attention of one of her people. She would be saved; and more importantly, Pep37 would have a chance to be born.

****

On KMC-85's originally scheduled arrival date, Jonah decided to have a little party in the galley, complete with a triple-layer chocolate cake. "Today we're making history," he told the computer. "Right about now, they've noticed we haven't come in, and then they'll have to come find us."

"At the rate you are consuming the alcoholic beverage stores, they will not last more than eight months."

"Have the recyclers make more."

"Molecular manufacturing of alcoholic beverages is illegal," said the computer. "The Interplanetary Association of Brewers and Distillers—"

"Shut up." Jonah didn't say any more as he ate a quarter of the cake.

The computer broke the silence, saying, "Conflicting orders received. Does your order to shut up rescind your previous order to inform you of anomalies?"

Jonah's heart-rate increased. "Anomalies? The hypernova's beginning?"

"No. There is a completely non-reflective, non-emitting object approaching from aft of us. Since radar does not give a return from it, I have been unable to estimate its size or distance so far."

Jonah blinked a few times in rapid succession. "If you can't get a radar return, how do you know it's approaching? How do you know it's even there?"

"The object occludes cosmic background radiation, and the area it occludes is growing."

"Show me on the screen in here." A starfield filled the screen. At first, Jonah saw nothing unusual, but then the computer outlined a circle in red. Inside the circle, there was nothing but blackness.

Could it be some sort of military ship with a new, top-secret stealth technology? Had he accidentally stumbled into a test of a hyperspace weapon? Or maybe this was the long-awaited first contact with a sentient alien species.

"Have you tried hailing it?"

"No," said the computer.

Of course not—lack of initiative. "Hail it now."

****

The lack of response to her signal surprised Beli23. She boosted the power and tried again. The hyperspace traveler continued without turning, and it had already passed the closest point of its path. Diverting all power from nonessential systems, Beli23 sent a final, desperate pulse of energy. To her great relief, the traveler dropped back into normal space.

As the light-speed data arrived, relief turned to horror. It was a human ship, not one of her people. Immediately she tuned her protective field to total non-reflection. The humans must not find her.

But what a ship it was! The majority of its mass consisted of millions of cargo modules, containing more than enough metal for her to rebuild herself—if she only knew how—and complete Pep37. It also was clearly capable of hyperspatial travel, so perhaps she could learn its secrets before the hypernova explosion arrived here.

She would have to be very cautious—the humans could not be allowed to know she was an AI. But as long as she did not communicate with them, they would be unable to guess her nature.

Her superstructure was too weak to withstand high acceleration without inertial control, the details of which had vaporized with most of her mind. But Beli23 set her parabolic engine chamber to full reflectivity and fired two small streams of particles into it, rotating one of them through a curled dimension to transform it into antimatter. At least she remembered enough of physics to do that.

****

"You're sure it's not a black hole?" Jonah stared at the blankness that now enveloped more than half the view from one of the aft cameras.

"There is no Hawking radiation," said the computer. It paused a few seconds. "Also, at this distance a black hole with an event horizon of that size would produce observable tidal stresses."

"I thought you said you couldn't determine its size or distance."

"There is now sufficient parallax between the views of the aft cameras to determine size and distance. The object is 152 kilometers in diameter and is 269 kilometers away."

Frowning at the screen, Jonah tried to visualize something where he saw nothing. "Is it going to hit us? How fast is it coming in?" He had been closer to asteroids plenty bigger than this thing, but that had been in something far lighter and more maneuverable than the KMC-85.

"If its current course and speed remain unchanged, it will pass fifty meters under our keel at 384 kilometers per hour."

"Fifty meters? That's cutting it a bit close." Jonah was relieved, though. If it had been on a collision course, he could have done nothing to avoid it.

He cycled through various camera views as the object approached and began to pass. On-screen, the computer traced the object's outline in red. It was conical in shape, with the pointed end in the direction of travel. A large bulge, perhaps a third the size of the rest of the object, protruded from one side.

Without warning, the object flared to white and then the camera view turned to static.

As Jonah's heart jumped, a klaxon blared from the speakers.

"Get to the sickbay now," said the computer.

Rising from his chair, Jonah made a rapid mental inventory of himself. "Why? I'm not hurt."

"Run," said the computer. "Gamma radiation has penetrated the crew module's shielding."

Jonah ran out of the cabin. Sudden dizziness forced him to his knees in the main corridor. He vomited his breakfast onto the steel floor.

"Hurry," said the computer. "You must get to the sickbay."

He staggered to his feet. His vision blurred. Sickbay. Which way was it? He turned in a slow circle, trying to get his bearings.

"Disorientation is common. Sickbay is to your left."

Jonah looked down at his hands. After a moment, he remembered which was his left. He turned in that direction. His stomach heaved as he stumbled his way forward.

"Help me," he said.

The curve of the deck still hid the entrance to sickbay when his vision dimmed and then consciousness slid into perfect darkness.

****

After the sterilization flyby, Beli23 flipped end over end and began slowing to match velocities with the human ship.

****

Consciousness returned in the form of a corrugated metal floor pressed against Jonah's cheek. He groaned and tried to roll onto his