Emissary
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”—Leon C. Megginson, Speech About Darwinism
Beta Station Secondary Site
Planet Irkalla, Survivor’s Refuge
4452.2.28 Interstellar
Beta Station was uninhabitable, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any people nearby. Thousands of Betans who hadn’t been able to afford transportation away from the stricken dome had clustered in secondary facilities, storage rooms, and makeshift shelters. It surprised Janus to think that the Betans who’d made it to Prime Dome as refugees were the fortunate ones.
The unlucky and the poor remained, hoping for evacuation, slowly overwhelming the shelters’ ability to keep them alive.
The largest number of Betans were clustered inside a hollowed-out butte that had been intended as an expansion of the primary settlement. Beta Station had been thriving. Now, its people were living in a half-finished and hastily sealed construction site. Janus felt sick to his stomach at the misery he saw on his way to meet the technocrat, the leader of those Betans who remained. Families clustered in small “rooms” with their meager possessions. They were quiet, often dirty, looking at him and Martial as they passed with everything from hope to anger. Some just stared blankly, their whole world having ended. By the time they reached the Betan leader’s office, Janus felt like his life in Sector Six of Prime Dome might not have been so bad after all.
The two lead aspirants moved to the makeshift office at the same time, but after a moment’s hesitation, Janus let the Gracian go in first. Martial spurned the compromise, small as it was, and walked in with his chin up and helmet carried under his left arm.
Janus sighed. He hadn’t intended to create this much disruption in the Gracians’ operations, but he had and that was that. It’s all about heat management, Janus thought with a smile, remembering his years in Prime Dome. He walked into the office of the leader of the Betan diaspora.
A full-fledged wayfinder—Wayfinder Mayhew—stood to the left of him, although aside from giving Janus and Martial a nod as they walked in, the cultist made no move to speak. Mayhew looked as most wayfinders did: pale, augmented, and slightly chilling. The Betan technocrat, Servilius Arogarth, wasn’t what he’d imagined. If anything, he reminded Janus of Barry, his supervisor back in Prime Dome, a tired man with workman’s hands, wearing a set of wrinkled coveralls and sitting behind a plain steel desk.
“Gentlemen,” Arogarth said. “I know you said you wanted to help over the radio, but I’m not sure what you can do for us.”
“We can help you reclaim Beta Station,” Martial said stiffly.
“No, you can’t, son,” Arogarth said. “If that were possible, we would have done it ourselves rather than slowly exiling all our people to live as refugees in other stations.” He turned to look at Janus, who had remained quiet, and asked, “Do you have something more intelligent to say, or is Prime Dome just here as Survivor’s Grace’s sidekick?”
Janus glanced at the silent wayfinder—who looked back with amusement—and stepped forward and took a seat across from the Betan leader, setting his helmet down on the table. “We brought you feedstock. It’s half-half graphene and nylon-urethane.”
“That’s both intelligent and useful, Aspirant Invarian,” the technocrat said, and Martial’s face tightened along with his grip on his helmet. “We don’t have much to spare in trade, but we can pay you in credits.”
“Credits will be fine,” Janus said. “It would also help if you could tell us what’s going on, here. We have a number of specialists with us, and more following in the crawlers—”
“Which you don’t speak for,” Martial said, interrupting.
“—which I don’t speak for,” Janus agreed. “But Survivor’s Grace is, after all, one of the leading settlements on Irkalla, and they might be willing to help in exchange for permission to document their actions.”
Arogarth looked at the both of them, mulling Janus’s words over, then sighed. “Sit down, young man,” he said to Martial.
“I’d rather stand than sit with him.”
“Then do it outside my office. Or sit. Your choice.”
Martial clenched his jaw and sat down.
“Beta Station experienced a cognitive singularity,” Arogarth said. “We were experimenting with the use of nano-machines for the assembly and disassembly of more complex machines. Those are robots too small for the eye to see, if you’re not familiar, operating in wirelessly-guided swarms. Imagine anyone, even a child, being able to summon an object they needed from thin air, or repurpose both organic and inorganic materials instantly. It was all perfectly safe—”
“Clearly not,” the wayfinder, Mayhew, said.
“—until it wasn’t,” the technocrat said, glaring at the cultist.
“What does cognition have to do with it?” Martial asked.
The wayfinder laughed as if Martial had said something funny, but Arogarth pressed on.
“The problem with swarms of small robots that can take anything apart is that the average human isn’t responsible enough to use them, so we built safety measures into the nanites. They were meant to prevent people from murdering each other, and we also had multiple electrostatic barriers spread throughout the facility to stop swarms from converging. We think the two safety features interacted in ways we couldn’t have predicted, and the nanite swarms began to perceive the barriers as a threat.”
“Perceive?” Janus said, frowning. “You mean they’re intelligent?”
“Only in aggregate,” Arogarth said, looking worriedly at Mayhew. “And not even to the level of a limited AI. More like ants converging on a predator. It was only a few at first, but once the barriers fell, the swarms converged, and they got smarter.”
“You mean they evolved,” the wayfinder said.
“I do not mean that,” Arogarth said emphatically. “If we could somehow thin them out and restore the separations… No, that’s wishful thinking. We tried that. They attacked us. That’s why we had to evacuate the station.”
Janus sat back. The Betan’s description of the system when it was functioning almost sounded like magic. The hubris of it, of being unapologetic in the face of catastrophe, was breathtaking, but Janus could also understand it. It wasn’t that far from Prime Dome’s attitude about the airlock bypass. The system hadn’t been designed to fail. “Is there any chance these things could get out?”
“No,” the technocrat said with a nervous glance at Mayhew. “Some of them always get out when we send a team in, but they lose whatever intelligence they might have once separated from the swarm, and they degrade rapidly in sunlight. They’re not smart enough to travel long distances at night and hide during the day, at least not yet.”
“But you do send teams in,” Martial said.
“Why do you send teams in?” Janus asked.
The Betan leader wiped his mouth with his hand. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this. If it weren’t for the Trials and the limited but very helpful support the cult is giving us, I wouldn’t, but here we are. The nanites have a limited lifetime, as I mentioned, but there’s a factory churning out more of the things on the second sublevel and we can’t get to it.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“But we might be able to?” Janus asked, looking at the wayfinder.
The cult priest nodded. “The advanced materials in your suits are something the swarm hasn’t encountered before.”
“Then why haven’t you—”
“Given the Betans suits?” Mayhew asked, finishing Janus’s sentence. “Why did they engage in dangerous experimentation against the advice of the Cult of the Survivor? Strength comes through struggle, Aspirant Invarian.”
Anger made the back of Janus’s neck prickle, but he was quick to quench it. He was getting a better understanding of why his uncle, Ivan, disliked cultists.
Martial cleared his throat. “If the wayfinder says we can make it—”
“He didn’t,” Janus said, eyes narrowing.
“I didn’t,” Mayhew said with a slight nod. “You would have limited time before your suits were breached.”
Janus swung his head back to the Betan leader. “Why should we take the risk?”
“You shouldn’t. I wouldn’t,” Arogarth said, clasping his hands. “But it would mean we could return to Beta Station in ten years instead of a century.”
Janus nodded. It had been twelve years since Prometheus Base had fallen. What would he give to be able to return? He looked at Martial. It was clear the Gracian was uncertain. On one hand, this was exactly the kind of “real” adventure the Gracians needed in order to be able to clean Janus’s comments out of their mouths. On the other, there was a good chance whoever went into the ruins of Beta Station would die.
Again, the Trials had put Janus in a position where his choices could affect more people than he would ever have imagined. Again, he thought of Ivan, this time the sight of his uncle drinking himself to sleep year after year in spite of his hidden accomplishments. Was that the cost Janus would pay if he got this wrong? He could either risk sending his team and the Gracians into danger, or every Betan he met from this point forward until the day he died would remind him that they were exiles from their home because he didn’t do all he could. “What if we reinforced the suits?”
“You’re actually considering this?” Arogarth said, sitting back in surprise.
Janus looked over at Martial. The Gracian was grim-faced, but he nodded. Janus looked at Mayhew and asked, “What support can you provide?”
The cultist broke into a warm smile. It was… unsettling. “They said you think differently, Aspirant Invarian. I cannot provide you with an answer to this challenge or guidance as to whether to accept it, but I can provide you with simulations of material degradation based on the alterations you come up with.”
The wayfinders are talking about me, Janus realized, and that was either a very good or very bad thing. “Is there anything else we need to know?”
The technocrat looked like he wanted to say something, but he hesitated.
“What is it?” Janus asked.
The man behind the desk licked his lips. “There are storerooms that the nanites haven’t gotten to. Food, water, emergency shelters, vehicle parts… Some of them are on the first level, but we can’t get to them because as soon as we open them, the nanites will converge on them. There are also cultural artifacts in museum vaults, things that are precious to our people.”
“We’re not risking our lives for art pieces,” Martial said, having apparently reached his limit.
“I’m not asking you to,” the Betan leader said. “But there is a special vault on the twenty-second sublevel, built by some of our wealthier citizens to preserve their goods in an event like this one. It’s self-sustaining with its own power source and multiple redundancies.”
Janus suddenly felt very tired. He sighed and said, “I suppose you want us to retrieve something important?”
“No,” Arogarth said, his expression hungry and vindictive. “I want you to breach it and let the nanites in. The people who own that vault and its contents were the first to leave, and they’ve sent precious little help or support back to us. Let the bots turn it all to slag.”
Janus frowned. “So, you want revenge?”
Arogarth curled his upper lip in disgust. “The active defenses within the vault will both attract and delay the swarm for several days. During that time, my people can retrieve the stores and equipment we actually need. You’d be making an enormous difference to the lives of all the people stranded here, but I understand if it’s too much to ask.”
Janus wanted to help, but he also wasn’t going to commit suicide by taking on a mission he couldn’t complete. “Let’s see what we come up with to keep the nanites off us. That will tell us whether we go for the factory or the vault.”
***
Agent Murkinson wasn’t pleased to find them waiting for the caravan instead of getting him the footage he needed, but he grew quiet once Janus and Martial explained what they wanted to do.
“Go for the factory,” Murkinson said at last. “Lower risk, intangible reward, exactly the kind of thing we can put a spin on. If, in ten years, Beta Station is clear, our successors can take credit. If it isn’t, they can blame the technocrat and the cult.”
“We don’t even know how well we’ll be able to proof the suits against the swarm,” Janus said.
Murkinson waved that problem away. “It’s only the second sublevel. We’ll find a way to get you through.”
That wasn’t what Janus had meant. He wasn’t here to stage an illusionary victory, he was here to give the Betan refugees a chance to survive, to live a stable if not comfortable existence while they waited for help. And if that help wasn’t forthcoming, Janus would ask every settlement they crossed to send it. What use was being an aspirant if he didn’t use that status to make things better?
Instead of saying that, however, he tried to correct one of his previous mistakes. “Rosa, that mechanic I worked with yesterday? I need her.”
“She’s no longer part of the aspirant team’s support unit,” Murkinson said coldly.
“She is now,” Janus answered. “It’s my people and yours going into that deathtrap, and I want someone I trust working on our suits. Syn, too.”
Murkinson narrowed his eyes and glanced at Martial, who nodded. “Fine,” the agent said. “But if you screw this up, she and her family are going to be on the path to exile rather than just being on the road for an extra year or two.”
Janus felt his heart sink. Maybe he should have left well enough alone. “We won’t screw up.”
“See that you don’t.”
The next two hours were a rush of planning and prototypes. Mick and Terra focused on the operational details, while Janus, Syn, and Rosa handled the prototyping with Mayhew’s assistance. Martial and Lira disappeared together, which initially worried Janus but he later found out they were working on a plan to get Beta Station more help based on the two teams’ respective routes, and how to support refugee morale in the meantime.
Once he knew that, he was free to focus on the problem at hand. “What do we have?”
“Fifty-seven minutes is your upper limit,” Mayhew said. “After that, the nanites will be able to breach even the armored sections of your suits.”
“It’s a shame we can’t rig up a portable field generator,” Rosa said.
Syn shook her head. “That would just draw more of the swarm to us.”
“Us?” Janus said.
Syn put her hands on her hips. “It’s my home, Janus, and I’m the only one who knows the layout and has enough programming knowledge to get us past locked doors on the way to the vault.”
On the way to the vault. Of course Syn would want to head for the more meaningful objective. “We still need to get you an aspirant suit.”
“I could use Terra’s,” Syn began.
“Not happening,” Terra said from the other side of the room.
“Then…” Syn’s shoulders dropped a little.
Janus looked at Mayhew.
“The possibility had occurred to us. Her suit will be ready within the hour for your… modifications,” the wayfinder said.
Janus nodded. It was settled, then. “Let’s get back to prototyping then.”
The weakness of the suits was in their joints. Depending on the density of the swarm, the engineering team estimated it would be ten to fifteen minutes before the nanites penetrated the suits and killed the humans inside. They could armor the joints, but perfect protection meant reduced mobility. “We could use a compound like Hunter SLiP grease,” Janus said. “Something that stays mobile but has a hard outer layer?”
“SLiP grease relies on the heat of friction to keep the inner-layer fluid,” Rosa pointed out.
“So, we go halfway,” Janus said. “We mix SLiP grease with a more fluid lubricant, and dust the outside with a binding compound.”
“Then we case-harden it with a laser,” Rosa said.
“Exactly,” Janus said with a grin.
“I’ll run the numbers,” Rosa said, looking at the wayfinder who nodded and went with her.
“Syn, we need you,” Terra said, leaning over the planning table with Mick.
Janus and Syn walked over to join the two security experts.
“What’s the problem?” Syn asked.
“We can’t even make it to the factory and back in fifty-seven minutes, let alone to the vault. We’ve looked at every route,” Terra said.
“Almost every route,” Mick said. “I still think a top-down approach is the way to go.”
“What do you mean ‘a top-down approach?’” Janus asked.
Terra gave Mick an exasperated look. “He means we breach the surface of the dome and drop directly to the access point nearest the factory.”
Mick grinned like a naughty child.
“Can we do that?” Janus asked.
“Oh, yeah, mate,” Mick said. “Just set up a blister airlock, cut a small hole through the plex-glass, and use auto-descenders to zip down to ground level. Even civvies like you oughta be able to do it.”
“Except you’ll trigger the dome’s breach alarms,” Syn pointed out. “You know, the ones that let a dome know when triliths are trying to get in, Hunter?”
“Tink-tink,” Mick said with a wink. “So what?”
“So the swarm is connected to dome security and they’ll be all over us,” Syn said.
“Thank you,” Terra said, rolling her eyes.
Janus looked at the three of them, wondering how they’d missed the obvious or if he was about to say something stupid. “So, the minute we breach the dome, the swarm will converge on us?”
“Yes,” Terra said.
“The whole swarm?” Janus asked, and he saw understanding light up Mick’s face with glee.
“At least the parts of the swarm in that section of the dome,” Syn said. “You’re thinking of a decoy?”
Janus shrugged and looked at Mick, who was almost exploding with enthusiastic energy. “I even have someone in mind dumb enough to volunteer.”