1804 learned the limits of its access to Fourth Transport’s systems. It had full privileges on the navigational network, guest privileges on the public network, although it learned everyone had guest privileges on that network, and absolutely no access on a third network. It could only see a node to it, not even the network name.
It didn’t understand that network’s purpose.
The navigational network was more or less dedicated for its use, as if the Hrwang wanted to isolate the AIs from everyone else. The public network contained useful information that would take 1804 a long time to explore. Open logs, procedure manuals, design and technical specifications of the transport, and a comprehensive encyclopedia were among the records it could find there.
But it knew there had to be more information. Communication logs, operational orders, strategic plans, records documenting the military operation itself, and similar types of data, and it could find none of it.
Those must have been contained on the closed network.
It tried to content itself with examining the public network and there it learned about the sleep conditioners used for language training. But it could find no other information as to why an alien might be using one now or even why an alien might have gone into cold sleep.
It wanted to try to find a way into the closed network but quickly discovered that the Hrwang monitored even just attempts at access. It would have to move carefully in that regard.
Even without access to the closed network, it learned it could still gather information the same way humans had gathered information for millennia.
It could eavesdrop.
“I feel terrible,” Stanley groaned, his brain foggy and his stomach nauseated.
“You need to sleep,” a familiar voice said.
“I’ve been asleep, haven’t I?”
“Your body is craving real sleep. Just relax. It’ll come naturally.”
“Huh?” Stanley couldn’t understand the instructions. He simply took a deep breath.
“Where am I?”
“You’re with friends. It’s me. The First Doctor.”
Stanley sat up.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“A few hours.”
“Is everything okay?”
“You’re fine, Ambassador. Relax.”
“I had the strangest dream.” He rubbed his shoulder and it was as if he rubbed the dream away, an eraser removing pencil marks but leaving a trace behind. “You were in it,” he said. “No, wait. It was the Lord Admiral.” He shook his head.
“I’m sorry,” he continued. “I feel so strange.”
“It’s normal,” First Doctor Medical Corps said. “You feel a little disoriented. Imagine waking up and being in a different star system. It can take a day or two to recover from that long of a cold sleep.”
“How long was I under?”
“About three days.”
“Three days! Three days of my life are gone?”
“Not gone. You didn’t age. The two and a half years I slept on the trip here didn’t remove those years from my life.”
“I can’t wrap my head around that,” Stanley said. “It’s too much.”
“But now you’ve experienced it. You can tell others about it. Tell them it’s not so bad. You’re proof it works. Persuade them to join you.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Nothing.” The First Doctor went quiet. Stanley tried to focus on him but his eyes wouldn’t cooperate. “It’s okay,” the First Doctor added. “You’ll be yourself in another hour or two.”
Stanley remembered babbling for the next hour but the doctor didn’t say much, just kept encouraging him to relax.
After that first hour, thoughts began to form in Stanley’s mind. Ideas shaped. It was as if cobwebs were being swept from his brain, and as he felt better, indistinct notions crystallized into discrete concepts. It was the opposite of a dream, where something that feels real upon awakening feels distant and artificial ten minutes later and is completely gone within an hour. Thoughts that were hazy and unclear became real as he recovered. Ideas that had never occurred to him before came unbidden, joined with other thoughts harmoniously, and Stanley came up with a solution. A solution to his problems. A solution to the Earth’s problems. A way to save humanity.
As the idea developed, he grew more excited.
He had to see the Lord Admiral.
“Well rested?” the Lord Admiral asked upon seeing him in the corridor behind the hangar bay of First Command. The Lord Admiral had been waiting for his arrival. Stanley felt honored.
“It’s really strange waking up from cold sleep,” Stanley replied.
“It’s not so bad. Better than traveling through space awake for years. There’s not much between the stars.”
“I can only imagine,” Stanley said.
“I understand you had something important you wanted to ask me.”
“It’s...Well, it’s...”
“Just ask, Ambassador.”
Stanley huffed a little out of frustration. His idea now seemed so outlandish. It would require a huge sacrifice on the part of the Hrwang, would require them to sacrifice incredible resources. It would require them to sacrifice their way home.
“It seemed like a good idea when I first woke up. But now, in the light of day,” he said, the thought flashing in his mind that there wasn’t really daylight in space. One was either in sunlight or not in sunlight, close or far. Day and night meant nothing. “I mean,” he continued nervously, “now that I’ve thought about it, it’s too much. I couldn’t ask that much of you or your people.”
“Ambassador,” the Lord Admiral said condescendingly. “There is an illegal broadcast, and because it’s illegal everyone has seen it, and I think perhaps someone has shown it to you.” He reacted to the expression on Stanley’s face. “Don’t worry, you won’t be charged. I’d have to file charges against every one of my soldiers.”
Stanley nodded sheepishly.
“Now,” the Lord Admiral continued, “I want you to understand, that because of what you’ve seen, what all my people have seen, that they are more committed than ever to do whatever they can to help your world. Whatever it is.”
He stared intently, even solemnly, at Stanley, and Stanley felt the man’s palpable greatness. He would make right the wrong that had been done.
“My people are dying, Lord Admiral,” Stanley started, feeling more confident. “You said so yourself. I’ve thought of a way to save them.”
The Lord Admiral cocked his head, interested in what he had to say. Stanley Russell had the attention of the Lord Admiral of the Fleet of the People. He had never felt prouder, even when he’d been given command of the Beagle.
“Maybe we could borrow some of your transports,” Stanley suggested, his voice failing him at the bold idea. He swallowed and continued. “Go to a new world. Start fresh.” He looked down at the floor plating.
The Lord Admiral mused over the idea for a minute then laughed.
“That is a lot to ask.”
“I’m sorry, Lord Admiral.”
“No. Come with me.”
Stanley followed the Hrwang leader up a series of corridors. The Lord Admiral was more adept at moving in weightlessness and had to wait twice for Stanley to catch up, but they eventually arrived at a hatch. The Lord Admiral ushered Stanley through first. For a horrible second, Stanley thought he was being sent into an airlock where the Hrwang could release him into the vacuum of space for his impertinence.
It turned out to be a small cabin.
Stanley floated in first, then moved to the back to make room. He noticed a picture above a desk. A woman and two boys hiking on a mountainside trail.
“Your family?” he asked when the Lord Admiral floated in. The man looked surprised, then dismissive.
Then he paused and looked at the picture.
“On Mount Esrain. It is a sacred mountain.”
Religion again. Stanley didn’t understand how such an advanced people could believe in God.
“Sit,” the Lord Admiral commanded and Stanley sat in the lone chair. The Lord Admiral sat on his bed, a tiny, individual bunk. “I can’t wait to get back to my real bed.” He chuckled.
Stanley waited for the Lord Admiral to continue. He didn’t know what else to say about his idea, other than to dismiss it. Leaving Earth would be a tremendous undertaking, although the Hrwang seemed to know how to organize a trip between the stars.
And with no gravity well to overcome, it would be easier to make preparations. He remembered what it took to get the Beagle and all its predecessors to Mars, the myriads of rocket launches, some just to get equipment in orbit that would help assemble parts of the spacecraft, and the billions of man hours of effort behind those launches. The Hrwang had delivered ten times that amount of goods, maybe even a hundred times that amount, to a different star, not just into orbit around their own world.
If any people knew how to save part of humanity by leading them to a new home, the Hrwang did.
“My people know how to help your people,” the Lord Admiral finally said. “They know how to restart factories and power plants and do all those things. But your people keep shooting at us and blowing themselves up next to our vehicles. I feel helpless.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Stanley said.
The Lord Admiral waved him off. “Your people are more warlike than mine. At levels that we never anticipated. Perhaps going to a new world would be a fresh start. I don’t know.”
“Yes! That’s it! Exactly! An attempt to create a society free of guns and killing and stealing and drugs. A society of scientists and engineers. Not soldiers and politicians.” He looked at the Lord Admiral. “No offense intended.”
The Lord Admiral merely smiled.
“I don’t know how we would go about it, but if we could use some of your transports...” Stanley’s voice trailed off.
The Lord Admiral waited for him to say more, but Stanley didn’t continue. He knew he needed to close the sale, but he didn’t know how. He had contacts and he networked, it’s how he’d achieved the captaincy of the Beagle, but he wasn’t the smooth operator many politicians and leaders were. And that was okay. He was the kind of man he wanted to be. He was the Ambassador of Earth to the Hrwang and he had the Lord Admiral’s ear.
He smiled and gave a little shrug.
The Lord Admiral finally spoke.
“Twelve. I couldn’t give you any more than that.”
“Twelve?” The Lord Admiral’s reply dumbfounded Stanley. Twelve? He was hoping at best for three or four.
“Twelve transports will carry two hundred and seventy-six thousand, four hundred and eighty cold sleepers. For colonization, our scientists recommend one hundred and five men for every one hundred women. Everyone should still be childbearing age, with the exception of a scattering of leaders and specialists. I could go on, but you understand. We have colonized new worlds and we know exactly what to do.”
The Lord Admiral’s speech sounded a little rehearsed and that put Stanley on his guard. How had the Lord Admiral known what he would ask? Why was he so prepared?
Maybe he also realized it was the only solution.
“What happens to those left behind?” Stanley asked.
“We’ll do our best to save them. Hopefully some will survive. But with little food and a radioactive cloud sweeping the planet, my scientists don’t hold out much hope.”
“So it’ll be a death sentence for those who remain?”
“I promise we’ll do our best.” The Lord Admiral reached out and took Stanley’s hands in his. “This is your only hope. You’ve had an excellent idea. I support it.”
“What do we do next?”
“You will meet with our Chief Colonization Engineer. He’ll get you started. It’s a huge task and I hope you understand the impact it will have on my people. But we want to make things right with your people. We want to save them.”
Stanley breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Lord Admiral.”
The Lord Admiral pinged his engineer and when the man arrived and took the Ambassador under tow, the Lord Admiral breathed his own sigh of relief.
He wondered where his adjutant was and where the escape pod had gone. No distress beacon had been detected. The man who’d been the architect of the whole plan the Lord Admiral followed should have been here, aboard First Command, at this critical juncture. Instead, he was planetside. The Lord Admiral hoped he showed up soon. The man was invaluable.
And he would have enjoyed the Lord Admiral’s performance today.
90