Microstory 2474: MOE Dome 42

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MOE stands for Molten Oxide Electrolysis. This is the method that they use here on Castlebourne to produce a breathable atmosphere. The thing about barren terrestrial planets is that there’s usually a ton of oxygen, it’s just trapped in the rocks. Earth has it floating around, along with other gases, like nitrogen and hydrogen. Separating that all out isn’t easy, but it’s possible, and absolutely necessary here. So you got your dome in place, and it’s all sealed up, but that doesn’t make the inside anymore livable than the outside. Whoever first colonized this planet could have carried it with them, theoretically, but that...that’s a lot. It’s called in situ resource utilization. Use what’s available where you are, even if it takes work to process. There are about fifty-six MOE domes right now. I chose to take a tour of this one, because I like the number, but they’re all the same. I’m kidding, this was the only MOE Dome open for tours. I won’t go over their entire process, since that should be a surprise if you come here, lol. I’m kidding, it’s boring and dry, and that’s not what a review is for. It’s my job to tell you what my experience was like, and speculate as to what your experience will be like if you choose to do it too. These big machines grind up rocks, melt them down, and extract the constituent molecules. It’s all very technical. I thought it was cool to see the process, but I’m kind of a dummy. If you already know all this, it may seem normal and prosaic. Like yeah, of course that’s how they do it. I’ve seen it a million times. Well, then you don’t have to come, do you? There was this one woman on my tour who kept asking questions, but you know, in that kind of way that makes it clear that she already knew the answers, and just wanted us to be so impressed with her. Well, she was wrong or not quite right a number of times, which the tour guide respectfully corrected. He was a human, so I thought that was a pretty cool touch too, given how automated this whole planet has to be to function. If you’re into this stuff, come take a look for a couple of hours. If you’re not, I won’t try to convince you to try. Just remember that this effects us all. Until every dome has an established ecology which recycles air as efficiently and unceasingly as Earth does in its natural state, MOE Domes are probably the most important ones we got. I hope you appreciate that, whether you think it’s boring to watch and learn about, or not.

Big Papa: The Beyond (Part V)

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I realize how odd it is that I feel the need to clear my throat while I’m in a simulation. Sure, my body is still in the real world, and I’m hooked up to an access terminal, but I don’t think that’s it. The Designers must have determined that people won’t accept this world if it’s too perfect. They spent their whole lives having to clear their throats on occasion, and it probably made the early adopters uncomfortable not to. We do enjoy some control over such things. It’s possible to make yourself feel hungry, so that the magnificent food—which can be prepared precisely to one’s personal tastes—actually feels satisfying, but if you’re not into food, you can also just disable that code, and always feel full. I would try to find out if there’s a similar feature for having a lump in my throat because I’m nervous about my speech, but I don’t have time to look into it, because I have to...ya know, give the speech. The Level Tens are sitting patiently in their seats, but that patience will run out unless I prove to them I’m not just wasting their time. Gilbert and Nerakali are sitting in chairs up on the stage with me, right next to Lowell. I didn’t ask them to do that, but seeing as I’m not announcing this year’s hottest new phone, it’s appropriate for me to be one in a group, even if they never speak.

“My name is Ellie Underhill, and it’s important that you understand that the first draft of this speech was written by Abraham Lincoln, and proofread by The Superintendent. I tell you this, not to humanize me, but to illustrate just how amazing the worlds you built are. Abraham Lincoln is here, and I met him, and I’m sure many of you have as well. Some of you may not know who I am, but I’m the one who originally conceived the concept of the afterlife simulation. I didn’t design the levels, and I certainly didn’t code the actual framework, but I do feel responsible for all of you, and for everyone else here. Due to time travel, I’m thousands of years old, and what I’ve learned in that time is that death...is fucking bullshit. Side note: Lincoln did not curse in his draft; I added that line myself. Because I want to be clear that the whole reason I thought of this place is that I don’t think death is fair. We didn’t choose it for ourselves, evolution did. And evolution is not a conscious being, like we are, so what gives it the right to make such an important decision? Evolution is all about survival traits, and humanity can transcend that.

“I won’t try to turn you against Tamerlane Pryce. Whatever opinion you have of him is fine. I wasn’t around before, because the time travel I was telling you about held me up, and by the time I returned, things were complicated with the other designers. I’m here now, though, and I’m ready to listen. If you have any ideas of how to improve the system—improvements that you’re not authorized to make yourself—I want you to feel comfortable coming to me. From what I gather, Pryce kept his office door pretty open, and I plan on doing the same.”

“Is it true that he’s in prison?” calls a voice from the audience. There’s a little bit of commotion in response.

“It’s true, yes,” I say, thinking it’s best to be honest. That doesn’t mean I want to make myself look like the bad guy here, so I continue, “but I did not overthrow him, and put him there. I came at this bureaucratically, and he placed himself in that position all on his own. The creation of the simulation did not come without some unplanned, and irreversible, consequences. My friend died, and I confronted him about it. He didn’t kill her on purpose, but nevertheless, she’s gone, and not even the afterlife could save her. He has decided that showing his regret for those events is what’s best for everyone, and I agreed to step into his shoes so that the program can continue to run smoothly. Thank you for that question. I had a little bit more of the speech, but let’s open the floor to any questions, comments, concerns.”

A man stands up. “Hi, my name is Jabez Carpenter. Voted most improved. I know you by reputation, and I for one, am glad at the change in leadership.” He looks around to gauge his approval rating. “I think we can all agree that Pryce was a dick, and he deserves to rot in the hock for the rest of time. Maybe that’s just me, I dunno.”

Maybe three-fourths of the crowd claps and cheers at this. Many of the rest just don’t seem to feel the need to express themselves, but I do notice a not insignificant number of frowny faces. The great thing about being in here is that I can record everything I see, so I’ll analyze the crowd later, and use AI to make a list of everyone I may need to be worried about. It’s a little dystopian, but I have to protect this place. This is not a democracy, and it never has been. I honestly wouldn’t have built it that way, because people are stupid when they get in a mob, and they can’t be trusted. It sounds really pretty on paper, and it’s a nice thing to strive for, but at the end of the day, the king gets it done. I just have to remember to listen to input.

A woman stands up now, and doesn’t introduce herself, but people take notice immediately, and the room grows silent out of deference to her. “What news of The Beyond?”

I sigh, because I’ve never heard of that. Pryce left many things that I will need to learn, but they’re not organized, because he never planned on stepping down. “I’m afraid—and I hope not to lose your confidence for it, but—I don’t know what that is.”

“We don’t either,” the woman explains. She’s not as perturbed about my ignorance as I would have thought. “He’s been teasing its release for the last three hundred or so years, claiming that it’s the next logical step in our species’ development. Species, I believe, refers to dead people, rather than humans in general. He says it’s really exciting.”

I look over to my people. Nerakali shrugs, while Boyce shakes his head. Lowell doesn’t bother showing me he doesn’t know, because he couldn’t. I look back to the audience. “I will look into this for you, and if I can give you more information about it, we will schedule another meeting to discuss. I would like to know, however, is this privileged information, or does everyone in the simulation know about it?”

“Level Nine and above,” the woman replies. “Not even the Architects have heard of it. This is strictly confidential.”

“I appreciate the information,” I say. “Anything else?”

No one has anything, so I close the meeting, and people begin to disperse. I turn to my people. “Pryce is a genius, but the most disorganized person I know. His notes are a mess, and some of it is in code. Could you help me figure out what this beyond is? I’m worried it’s some kind of true death program.”

“It’s not,” comes a voice from behind me. I turn to find a teenage-looking girl standing there, like a student who’s too afraid to ask her question for the whole class to hear.

“You know what it is?”

“Pryce chose me as a world-builder for it. I’m actually the last he appointed before he went into hock, which is why I never got a chance to actually go.”

I look around, paranoid. “Let’s go to my office.”

We teleport to my office, which I chose to place in Gilbert’s special anti-spying section of the simulation that he calls Purple Space. I feel the safest here. The five of us sit around a table to discuss this mysterious new thing. “First off, what’s your name?”

“Aldona, sir. Aldona Calligaris.”

“Please don’t call me sir. We’re equals here.”

Aldona looks at her own gray clothes, and at my rainbow outfit. “Okay.”

I smile, not wanting to make it any more awkward. “What can you tell me?”

“I went through orientation, but never made the jump over, which is good, because I’m the only one capable of telling you about it. Contrary to what you’ve been told thus far, you and your friends are not the first Level Elevens. I don’t have an exact count, but from what I gather, a couple dozen others have been resurrected.”

“Where did they go?” I question.

Aldona continues, “apparently another universe?”

“Wait,” I stop her. “This is important, is it another universe, or another reality?”

“He called it a universe. He also called it a brane.”

I nod. An alternate reality is created when someone goes back in time and changes something about history. Sometimes, the traveler is in a loop, and can’t change anything, but is only fulfilling a predestiny. If they can change something, then the new timeline will replace the old one. There are a few concurrent timelines, which exemplify the true definition of an alternate reality, but the terms are mostly interchangeable. Another brane, however, is something completely different. It has different worlds, and different people, and a completely different history. It may even have different physical laws, and unrecognizable evolution. Any similarities between any two branes are either coincidental, or deliberately generated by whoever created the brane, if it even was created; most of them form naturally. Perhaps the most important difference is that time moves separately in a separate brane. When you exit one, and go to another, unless you have some control over navigation, there’s no telling where in the timeline you’ll end up. There’s no connection between when it is for you in one versus the other. Basic time travel is dangerous enough, but this adds a whole new level of complexity.

“What is he doing with this other brane?” Nerakali asks. When I knew her when she was alive, she decidedly had no experience with other branes, but that was a hell of a long time ago from her perspective. I don’t know what she knows now.

“It’s our future home; a physical universe, where we can start new lives. Once everyone is resurrected, that’s where they’ll go. Supposedly. The best of the best world-builders are promoted, so we can use our skills to terraform actual planets in a non-virtual environment. Once we leave, all memory of our existence is wiped from everyone else’s minds. Even if someone learns of the Beyond, Pryce has always just erased their memories. It’s the only time he will manipulate someone’s agency.”

“How would he get to this other brane?” I ask, not necessarily expecting anyone to be able to answer. “That’s not something just anyone can do. The Superintendent can count on his fingers how many different methods of bulk travel there are. Most people will need a third hand to keep counting, but no more than that.”

“That I don’t know,” Aldona says, needlessly apologetically. “I only know I was meant to meet someone named Hogarth Pudeyonavic once I was resurrected, but I never got to use my whitecard, so...” Yep, Hogarth is one of the ways to travel the bulkverse. It’s time to unplug, so I can find her.

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Microstory 1188: Alexi Lanka

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Few people could understand what someone like Alexi Lanka went through in terms of anger. He wasn’t mad about his upbringing, or his family. He wasn’t mad at the world for treating him poorly, or for lost opportunities. It was just all too easy for something most would call minor to irritate him. His brain would then associate that irritation with similar experiences in his past, and remind him of how he felt in those moments. The anger would compound itself until he was mostly a boy made of rage. He was never violent or threatening, and even as a child, he made a deliberate effort to shield others from his wrath, but they still saw, and they still felt it. He needed a way to convert his anger into something positive, so his father got him into boxing. Well, boxing made things ten times worse for Alexi. Every punch he threw went straight into his memory archives, where he could dwell on his imperfections until he fell asleep from exhaustion. He was never good enough for his own standards. Furthermore, his coach taught him to be contemptible to his opponent, and that was not the right way for him to live. His mother wasn’t exactly a saint, but she did not appreciate the violence, so when she returned home from a months-long business trip where she was opening a new branch, she pulled him out, and gave him something better to do. She turned him into a runner, so he could still get out his aggression, but do so while maintaining a fairly large personal bubble. His failures continued to eat away at him, but it was different than before, because they drove him to do better next time, rather than harp on a past he could never change. He was never the best, but he never gave up. Of course, his anger issues weren’t completely fixed by this either. He still had to work through his problems in healthy ways, utilizing advice from his therapist, and trying new medications when the old ones proved ineffective. Fortunately, running wasn’t something he would try forever. When a terrible accident forced him out of the game indefinitely, he finally found his true calling.

Alexi’s physical therapist liked to garden in her backyard. She invited him over to help, hoping it would take his mind off the pain. Part of it was just that she had enough work for two people, so there was never some master plan to change his life. He found himself in love with the hobby, and it calmed him down even better than his girlfriend, Agent Nanny Cam. Plants always did exactly what they were meant to. They did not argue with him, or stub his toe, or illustrate his inadequacy. They grew when they had the nutrients they needed, and they flowered accordingly. He also felt like an idiot when he was venting his frustrations at them, so it just didn’t make sense to vent anymore. He turned this hobby into a career. He worked at a number of places, all involving plants and wildlife. He was never fired, and never really wanted to quit any one place. He would just get the urge to start something new, but would often return to an old job when that was what felt right. He married Agent Nanny Cam, and together they had a daughter named Aldona. He never stopped creating life. As technology marched on, and people started wanting to live in vertical megastructures, the towns of old needed to be torn down, and replaced with wilderness, as it was always meant to be. Alexi wasn’t the primary force in this effort, but he did dedicate his life to it, and was partially responsible for the world’s salvation from the negative impact of climate breakdown. Once that was finished, he moved on to his greatest challenge yet: terraforming Mars.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 10, 2248

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Located nearly twelve light years from Earth, Tau Ceti enjoyed a strikingly high number of low-mass rocky planets in orbit, but only one of them coalesced satisfactorily within the star’s habitable zone. This planet was named Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida, which is Arabic for ostrich egg. Surface gravity was a little higher than Earth’s, but still well within acceptable parameters for an unenhanced human. It had a magnetosphere, liquid water, and oh yeah, a breathable atmosphere. It was the only world within spitting distance known to harbor life on its own, and for that reason, more colonists signed up for the journey than for any other stellar neighbor.

When Leona came back to the timestream, Sanaa was gone, but it looked like she parked The Radiant Lightning in a warehouse. The soothing voice of a young woman she once met was flowing through the internal speakers of the ship, as well as those in the warehouse. As Leona walked towards a small structure built on the floor inside the wide expanse, she could see the broadcaster inside.

“But for those of you who don’t dig polka rap, I got somethin’ for ya that I think you’ll really love. This is from a mid twenty-first century Korea twang band called Alliterative Spoonerism. Here’s their most popular single, What Was Jenkem Used for Again? It’s seventeen minutes long, so I can take a break to talk to my friend, who’s visiting from out of town. I’m DJ Mount Alias, and this...is Salmonverse Radio.”

Leona stepped into the studio just as Ellie Underhill was finishing her segment. “What is this? You broadcast music across time and space?”

“I do, yes,” Ellie replied.

“How come I’ve never heard it before?”

“It’s geared more towards shapers, or displaced salmon who are on long-term missions. They often need a taste of home, or at least modern life. You’ve not really had much need.”

“How long have you been doing this?” Leona asked.

“From my personal timeline, three years. This region of Bida is fairly remote, so we don’t have to worry about interfering with the colonists.”

“We?”

“She means me.” It was Paige Turner. She crossed the room from the other door, and presented her hand. “Hi, I’m an alternate version of Paige Turner Reaver-Demir. You can call me Third!Paige, or Trinity.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Trinity. You’re telling me there’s a second Paige out there I’ve also never met.”

“Well, it’s complicated. The three of us met you back in 2025, when you went back in time to save Brooke Prieto from Tribulation Island. It was only after that moment that we split. It’s this whole thing that involves going back in time to stop myself from killing someone, and then going back in time to try again, because I failed the first time.”

“You’ve been here ever since?” Leona asked.

“For the most part,” Trinity replied. “It’s been about two hundred and thirty-five years, but I wasn’t always alone.”

“I don’t know that your math is right,” Leona questioned. “You said we met in 2025, which means you would have had to go back even further—”

“I technically did,” Trinity interrupted. “I can move faster than light, but light moves at a constant. I teleported here from Earth, which is twelve light years away. So when I was looking at Tau Ceti, I was looking at it as it was twelve years prior. I first appeared on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida in 2013.”

Leona nodded. This was sound logic. “What have you been up to this whole time, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I’ve been terraforming.”

This confused her. “Are you telling me this world is only habitable by your efforts?”

Trinity shook her head. “No, it was habitable, but inedible, and in some places, toxic. I’ve been gradually manipulating the plantlife and water composition to make it so that people can live here carefree.”

Leona didn’t know what to say.

Trinity went on, “you can’t eat everything, but if you do, chances are you’ll be all right. There are no deadly pathogens, or poisonous animals, or anything like that. It’s the closest thing to paradise you’ll find.”

“That’s...amazing. What made you think to do that? And how?”

“I got both the idea, and the technology, from the future. In my timeline, Bida was a terrible place to live. Humans came here with such high hopes, but found themselves profoundly disappointed when they started running chemical tests. Just about everything here would make them sick, if not straight up kill them. All the water had to be filtered to an impractical degree, and it just wasn’t worth it. They abandoned it for centuries until someone got the idea to tailor the ecosystem to human needs.”

“Is that ethical?” Leona asked. “I mean, if life evolved here to be the way it was, did we have the right to change it?”

“It’s not ethical, no,” Trinity agreed. “That’s why I did it myself before a single colonist arrived. That way, vonearthans are free from all moral culpability.”

“Do the colonists know? I mean, I’m sure they don’t realize you exist, but are they aware that the ecosystem was recently altered?”

“Well, they don’t know Barnard’s Star was once orbited by a low-mass rocky planet, so I doubt they’ll figure it out.”

“Huh?”

Trinity didn’t elaborate on that bombshell. “It was going to happen. Unethically terraforming a world isn’t the kind of thing the powers that be would have sent a salmon to correct, and it’s not like there are lots of other choosing ones running around making things better. I could have either exercised some futility in an attempt to prevent the vonearthans from manipulating the properties of life on this world, or I could just do it for them, and save their souls.”

Leona realized it wasn’t her job to police the people around her. Choosing ones and humans alike are always going to be running around, making bad choices. As far as questionable ethics went, at least this was in question, and not so undoubtedly wrong. “I understand, and I appreciate the precarious position you were in.”

“And I appreciate that.”

Leona just wanted to change the subject. “Where are Sanaa and Eight Point Seven?”

“They got stuck on the other side of the planet,” Ellie explained. “They were wanting to be here when you returned, but an unexpected storm appeared, and held them up. Don’t worry, they’ll be fine, but they won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“You don’t have emergency teleporters, or anything?”

Trinity chuckled. “Ellie’s broadcast is the only exception to a rule I came up with. There will be no time powers on this planet while I’m in charge.”

“Are you in charge?” Leona questioned. Surely the colonists wouldn’t know that she had been here for two centuries. They would get that she was an upgraded human with an indefinite lifespan, but they wouldn’t understand how she traveled twelve light years in the early 21st century.

“I’m in charge of all salmon and choosers. They’re welcome to come, but they have to follow my rules. I’m not alone in this position.”

“I don’t mean to argue with you, because I’m totally fine with that. I’m just curious what your rationale is. I don’t know what went through in your timeline.”

“Leona, this is an isolate. Did you not know that?”

“It is? No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah, the colonists who are coming here wish to remain separated from Earth, the rest of the stellar neighborhood, and anywhere else in the galaxy the vonearthans end up traveling to.”

“Oh, wow. I try to keep up with current events, but I never heard anything about that.” Leona must have fallen behind.

“The first colonists left in 2235, and arrived this year,” Trinity began to explain. “On the day of that arrival, the last three exodus ships left Earth, bound for Bida. Once they get here in 2260, no one else will come, ever again.”

“Why?”

“They want a fresh start. They’re not going back to pioneer days, or anything, but they’re hoping to free themselves from humanity’s past. They want to live on a world that hasn’t seen bloody wars, and nuclear bombs, and segregation, and all the other bad things we’ve done in our history.”

“They do realize they can’t escape that, right? No matter how far they go, or how much they cut themselves off from the rest of their people, the past will always remain right where it is.”

“They don’t see it that way.”

Leona wasn’t finished, “if they tell stories of the world that came before, it will continue to impact their lives, and if they don’t, it will probably repeat itself. They can’t win.”

“Again,” Trinity argued, “they don’t see it that way. Anyway, I’m not here to judge them, or poke holes in their logic, and neither are you. I’m here to protect them. What they definitely don’t know is that they can’t control what time travelers do. I can. I don’t want any Kingmakers, or Door-Walkers, or Saviors, or Caretakers. The timeline began on Year One, which is 2248 by the Gregorian calendar, and it will not be manipulated, even to save lives.”

Leona suddenly got real nervous. “You didn’t specifically list me and Mateo—partially because we were never given a cutesy nickname—but should we be on it? I came here on a ship built by a human, retrofitted by another human to be essentially faster-than-light. Mateo is on his way here on a different ship, with two other choosing ones. Unlike other salmon, the powers that be don’t give us definitive missions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have them. We weren’t explicitly sent here, but they may want us here, just the same.”

Trinity didn’t know where she was going with this. “What’s your point, Leona?”

“What if I’m here to manipulate time, in my own way? What if Mateo will be coming here for the same reason? What do we do about that?”

“If you’re worried you’re going to break my rules, then you should get back in that thing right now, and leave,” Trinity decided.

“I’m not leaving without my husband.”

“I’ll send him your way. You can go to Glisnia, or better yet; YZ Ceti. It’s only a light year and a half away. He’ll be with you in no time.”

“None of YZ’s planets is habitable enough,” Leona contended. She did keep up with some current events. “And Sanaa doesn’t have the resources to orbit a flare star for years on end.”

“You don’t know that Sanaa would want to go with you. She’s agreed to not use her telepathy.”

Leona took a deep breath. “I suppose that’s true. But I also don’t want to do that. Mateo is coming here, and I’m staying put until he does so. One-point-six light years might as well be a million if something goes with either of our ships.”

“I’m not gonna let you interfere with these people’s lives, or their life choices.” Trinity was starting to raise her voice.

Leona matched the new volume. “I don’t think you have a choice. Just think about what the p stands for in PTB.”

“That’s enough!” Ellie’s voice supernaturally boomed throughout the entire warehouse. “Leona, no one’s trying to keep you from Mateo. Trinity, the rules don’t apply to her, or him. They never have, and you won’t be able to change that. You would have to break your own rules, and use your own power, to have any hope of going against the powers.” She stopped talking for a moment, but it was clear she wasn’t finished yet. “Now. Any two versions of you are friends at any point of time, in any reality. Kiss and make up, and I don’t want to hear any more about this. Que sera, sera. The Bidans will survive.”

“Bidians,” Leona and Trinity corrected in unison.

“There,” Ellie said in relief. “The fight is over. And so is the song, which means I have to get back to work. Trinity, perhaps you can give our new guest a tour of the planet?”

“That can be arranged,” Trinity said.

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Gatewood: Project Ethics Debate (Part I)

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The year is 2238. Kestral McBride and Ishida Caldwell have just watched their friends ship out to find one of the crew members, Mateo Matic’s wife on a planet called Varkas Reflex. They stand here with a man named Saxon Parker, who has arrived to aid them in their endeavor to map the whole galaxy. The Milky Way is one of the largest galaxies in the observable universe. It spans over a hundred fifty thousand light years across, and contains anywhere between two hundred and four hundred billion stars. Those wildly inaccurate numbers are why the three of them are here. Situated nearly six light years from Earth, Barnard’s Star is the perfect location to build unfathomably large hyperstructures. Kestral and Ishida were first dispatched here to restart the construction of centrifugal cylinders. The initial intention was to allow colonists from Sol to cross the void, and settle around a new star, but these plans were abandoned in favor of diverting resources to other stellar neighbors. It came to serve a new function, as a refuge for the billions of people fleeing an oncoming war with an alien species in another universe.

Team Keshida, as they were sometimes called, built the cylinders in preparation for them, but they did not know this at the time. They were receiving instructions through their dreams, by a then unknown entity, who they later learned to be an artificial intelligence from another reality named Mirage. This being exists in a dimension that observes time as a spatial dimension, and can therefore see how the future turns out, simply by looking further down the timeline. Now that the cylinders are complete, and the refugees have begun to stabilize a new body of government, Team Keshida has other responsibilities to handle. Three interconnected projects, and one semi-unrelated project, are on the schedule right now. First, gigantic telescopes must be sent out to the void between galaxies, to gather a better picture of what the Milky Way is composed of. As this is happening, even larger ships will depart to systematically reach every single star system. The journey will take many tens of thousands of years, while traveling at nearly—but still not quite—the speed of light.

All three members of the team, original and newly conscripted, are aware that temporal manipulation is possible. With enough innovation, and access to the right time travelers, every star in the galaxy could probably be reached within a century, or maybe even faster. As of yet, though, the vonearthans are not aware of such possibilities, and they are the ones for which the team is working. The ignorant are expecting the project to last for two hekamyres—which means two hundred thousand years—so that’s how long they’ve designed it to last. Of course, the entire project remains a secret for now, because ethical questions regarding outward expansion were never fully resolved. Certain members of Earthan leadership have given the go-ahead for Project Stargate, and all that goes with it, but not everyone would be happy to find out it had been approved. They would be especially upset if they learned about its side project, Operation Starseed.

There are plenty of ethical concerns when it comes to Project Stargate. The idea is to send billions of modules through interstellar space. At first, these are held together within two gargantuan quad carriers, but they continually break apart, and fan out in different directions, until reaching the smallest independent unit; the seed plate. Each plate contains historical data, sensors, nanites, and other instruments. Once it arrives in a star system, it will start gathering details about it, and in order to do that, it must start building new machines, using the resources orbiting the star, or stars. The Earthan government, and civilian researchers never really figured out whether it was okay to do that; to interrupt the natural development of the system, in even the smallest of ways. Theoretically, the tools on the seed plate could build quantum messengers, and consciousness focal tethers, which would allow an individual to cast their mind light years away, almost instantaneously, and operate a surrogate body while there. This might be immoral on its own. Operation Starseed takes this further, and not even all of the people involved with Stargate are aware of it. Instead of allowing people to travel to new worlds using the quantum network, people would be grown on the new worlds. The exact nature of their lives is up to any number of variables, which would probably have to be calculated by an artificial hyperintelligence, but they would be created using genetic samples from people back home, who have not been told that their samples are being used in this way. Saxon Parker arrived on Gatewood with these samples, and Team Keshida still hasn’t decided whether or not they’re going to use them.

“All right,” Kestral says to Ishida. “You played a good devil’s advocate when it came to terraformation ethics. I suppose it’s my turn to play D.A. for this dilemma.”

“When do I get to play devil’s advocate?” Saxon asks.

“You’re just the actual devil,” Ishida says to him. “Your position on Starseed is quite clear. The purpose of this exercise is to consider all perspectives, by forcing one’s self to take an opposition position.”

“You’re saying you don’t agree that we should move forward with it?” Saxon asks. “Or, sorry, you, rather.”

“You’re part of the team now,” Kestral assures him. “Your opinion matters just as much. You’re just not part of the argument right now. I’m completely convinced that we should do this, which is why I’ll be fiercely arguing against it.”

“Okay,” Saxon says. “I’ll go back to the audience.” There is no audience but him, since the three people here right now are the only ones in the solar system who can be trusted with this information.

Ishida takes a deep breath. “Wait, which one am I again?” She likes to play dumb. She and Kestral get along so well because they’re both modest, and never want to be the smartest one in the room. The only time either of them is not the smartest one in the room, however, is when they’re both in the same room.

“You believe in Starseed,” Kestral reminds her. “Now. Try to get me on board too.”

“Okay.” Ishida takes another deep breath. “Egg Basket Theory,” she says simply.

“Go on,” Kestral encourages.

“Egg Basket Theory states that, if you rely too heavily on a single source of assets, when that source fails, all operations tied to it fail. Diversity is key.”

“You said, when it fails,” Kestral echoes. “Is that inevitable?”

“Umm...yes?”

“In all cases?”

Ishida thinks about her response. “Plus Murphy’s Law.”

“Explain.”

“Nothing lasts forever. Failure is indeed inevitable. Nothing is indefinitely sustainable. We know the ultimate fate of our home star, which is why scientists are already discussing Project Tipping Point.”

Kestral waves her hand dismissively. “I don’t wanna talk about Tipping Point. Life on Earth is doomed regardless. An argument for the preservation of life does not explain how that helps the life that does not survive.”

“Explain,” Ishida prompts.

“Operation Starseed functions on the idea that human life is unconditionally valuable, in any form it takes. The continuance of the species is considered to be good on its own. It doesn’t matter where the species lives, or what happened to its predecessors. Life simply must go on, even if individual specimens don’t survive long.”

“Well, should it not survive?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m questioning whether we should be focusing resources on creating life that has almost absolutely nothing to do with us, when we could be devoting those resources towards protecting the natural progression of life. Starseed basically grows genetically recombined clones of a handful of what are essentially randomly selected sample donors. But who cares? The life we seed on other planets are not our children, or our legacies. Right now, they’re just hypothetical, and there’s no logical reason we should manifest them. Egg Basket Theory is a good argument for why we should colonize our stellar neighbors, which is why we’re in the middle of doing that. Most of the civilizations we seed will never know where they’re from, or how they got there, if they even last long enough to form a civilization. We will never interact with them, and if all life in the galaxy dies in a blink except one given world, that one world doesn’t matter to us. Earth is where life began, but this survivor world has no connection to Earth, so why are we meant to care about that?”

“You don’t care about them because you’ll never meet them?”

“You’re twisting my words.”

“I’m practically repeating them.”

Kestral tries to figure out a different approach. “Let’s say Saxon and I have a child.”

“Okay.”

“Does that child have value?”

“Of course it does.”

“Let me rephrase. Does that child have value...” She emphasizes the punchline by pointing twice to the floor, “...right now?”

“I don’t understand.”

“The child does not exist. He and I have never had sex. I don’t even think I’ve physically touched him before. Maybe I shook his hand once. The child doesn’t have any value; it isn’t real. If it were to become real, sure. But we would have to complete that task first. We would have to, at the very least, initiate the creation of this life. We can’t, as rational people, assign value to it until we do.”

Ishida opens her mouth to speak, but is cut off.

“And if we were to do that, we would decide together, and we would raise that child in whatever way we see fit. Starseed, on the other hand, is asking us to shoot our gametes into space with nothing more than a smile and a salute. It’s one thing to become pregnant, and not be able to raise the child yourself. It’s a whole different thing to create life with the intention of not being around for it. Is that not unethical?”

“Ah, but we will be around. Not us personally, but the seed plates will hold the knowledge required to nurture that life. You’re only talking about the first generation. A hundred and forty-seven people. The second generation will have parents.”

“A hundred and forty-seven people per world,” Kestral corrects. “Upwards of billions total. That’s a lot of orphans.”

“Again, they’ll still have parents, per se. They’ll be robots, but...they won’t be alone. That’s more than evolved life on Earth can say. When you think about it, what we’re trying to do is more ethical than what God did.”

“Okay, now you’re bringing in religion, which is not what we’re doing here.”

“Kestral, you’re doing a really good job of sounding like you don’t think we should do this. We decided it was ethical to terraform certain worlds, as long as exhaustive life-potential surveys are conducted first. Would you have us scrap Starseed entirely?”

“I’m not going to break character until we understand this issue completely. I will, however, submit to a break.” She looks over to the audience of one. “I believe Saxon needs some time to process the hypothetical scenario where we parent a child together.”

“I’m fine,” Saxon promises. “This was...as impressive as it was intense.”

“We’re not done yet,” Kestral says. “I need to check for imperfections in the Project Topdown telescope lenses again, though, so we’ll sleep on it. Come ready for round two tomorrow.”

“Yes, captain.”

< > Entire Story

Bungula: Baby Sitters (Part VII)

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When the Sumbawa survivors arrived on Bungula, they knew something was wrong. The volcano in the center of their island looked pretty angry, but suddenly it was gone. All of their dwellings were gone too, and they weren’t standing in the exact same places they were before. No, they were from the year 1815, not 1815 BCE, so even though they had no clue what happened, they knew that they had been transported. Brooke and Sharice studied up on the Islamic religion, so they could better understand what the refugees were going through. A few appeared to believe this to be Janna, or The Garden, which was the Islamic analog to Heaven. Others weren’t so sure, because again, they were from the nineteenth century. They knew what volcanoes were, and had no reason to believe it was part of the end of days. Plus, this sure didn’t seem like paradise. It was great and all, but they still had to work and eat. They all attributed their salvation to Allah, however, which was a good thing. Their religious beliefs remained virtually unchanged, despite the inexplicable paradigm shift. They adjusted to their new lives better than anyone could have expected. Brooke and Sharice stayed close, but not too close. They watched the Tambora from afar, secretly placing listening devices in homes and common areas. They weren’t trying to gain state secrets, or even invade their privacy. They needed to learn the language, which was reportedly wiped out by the eruption They had no plans to interact with the people, but it was good to know, in case something came up.

Right now, they’re in the middle of an intense ethical debate about how to proceed.

“That’s murder,” Sharice points out.

“That is not true,” Brooke argues. “There’s a big distinction.”

“Tell me what it is.”

“One involves killing, and the other is just...not letting more life begin. Let me reiterate the more part. I’m not suggesting we get rid of the life that’s already here, but maybe we should consider preventing it from going beyond the current numbers.”

“Now you’re just talking semantics. You can’t sterilize ten thousand people.”

“It wouldn’t be ten thousand,” Brooke notes. “Some are already past their prime anyway.”

“Oh my God, you think that was my point?”

“No.” Brooke simulates a sigh. “I’m just trying to fix things before they become a problem.”

“Exactly what problem do you think will arise from this?”

“There are but a few thousand other people on this world. Or at least, there will be, once we migrate all the colonists back down on the other side of the planet. The Tambora will want to venture from their little island, and they’ll wonder where the hell everyone else is. They made a show about this, called The Society, and as you can imagine, it did not go well.”

“I don’t have to imagine. Those people weren’t on an actual island. The road literally stopped at the city limits, and was replaced by the woods. So right now, the Tambora don’t know they’re alone.”

“Exactly my point,” Brooke says.

“My point is that they’re not really trying to solve a mystery. They were pretty isolated already, so this isn’t such a huge difference. I know you’re concerned that the population is never going to stop growing, and eventually people will want to leave. Maybe they’ll eventually invent airplanes, and see that Singapore isn’t where it’s supposed to be, and neither is Perth. That may happen, but you still haven’t explained why you think that would be such a problem. They already know they’ve been moved. We’re not sure they have good frame of reference for the idea of an exoplanet, but I don’t think they think they’re on Earth.”

“I think they think they’re on Earth. I don’t know where you’re getting that. Are you talking about heaven? The belief that this is the Garden is gradually fading away.”

“I think we’re not giving them enough credit.”

“If it doesn’t matter, then what are we even doing here? Why did we bother building a whole new settlement in the Southern hemisphere if we don’t care whether the Tambora can see the drop ships?”

“I’m not talking about destroying their world view with spaceships, mother. I’m talking about letting them develop on their own. That’s the prime directive. Now, before you say anything, yes, we’ve already interfered with them. Well, technically Mirage was the one who interfered, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter what we do next. Just let them live. Let their population grow to whatever numbers it shall, and let them build seafaring boats, if they want. Our job is over.”

“So we do nothing? We just cut ties, and fly off into the black?”

Sharice shrugs. “Maybe. It’s like Mirage said. They’re living on borrowed time. They were meant to die. History thinks they died. We shouldn’t kill them, and we shouldn’t coddle them. Let’s just see what they do.”

“So, this is a sociology experiment?” Brooke was really pushing it.

“I think you know that’s not what I meant. But know this too; I won’t let you sterilize a single human, you understand me? I wasn’t supposed to be alive either, and I heard a lot of conversations about limiting my capabilities; basically by giving me the machine equivalent to a lobotomy. I won’t tolerate such ambitions.”

“I didn’t know that,” Brooke says honestly.

“Yeah, ‘cause you weren’t there.”

“I thought you had forgiven me for that. I didn’t know you existed, let alone that I had anything to do with the birth of your consciousness.”

“I know,” Sharice comforts. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I get your point,” Brooke decides. “We can’t do anything to them, any more than we can do things for them. This is their world now. Or at least, their corner of it.” She grows quiet.

“I think I know what this is about,” Sharice puts forth.

“Oh, yeah? And what would that be?”

“You’re bored.”

“What?”

“You’ve always been on some kind of mission. Even when you were stewing alone under the ice on Europa, you were on a mission to save humanity from you. You don’t like just sitting around for no reason. Ever since you were a kid, your life has been go-go-go, and now it’s like that’s over.”

“I don’t feel that way.” But Brooke couldn’t be so sure. “Do I?”

“It’s all right, mom. We can find you a new purpose, and when you’re done with that one, we’ll get another. We’ll keep going until they finish building the Milky Way, and then maybe we’ll jump to the next galaxy.”

Brooke laughs. “That will be millions of years.”

“Or thousands.” It’s Mirage. Last they saw her, she was organizing the drop ships.

“Well, yeah, if we were to go faster than the speed of light, we could essentially teleport to Andromeda, but I’m not capable of that. I don’t even think my umbilical cord necklace has enough power to sustain me through such a distance journey.”

“You might be able to do it without your necklace,” Mirage suggests vaguely. “You ever heard of a reframe engine?”

“No, what’s that?” Sharice asks.

“It exploits time dilation when approaching the speed of light. If you were to go that fast, Brooke, you could travel several light years, and it would only feel like a few days, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Brooke acknowledged. “But that’s just how time and speed work. That’s not really temporal manipulation. Even regular humans experience that.”

“Exactly my point,” Mirage says.

“But it would still take millions of years to get to Andromeda. It would just feel shorter. Everyone back home would be millions of years older, or millions of years dead.”

“That’s the exploitation part of the reframe engine,” Mirage explains, “and I believe it’s a loophole to your condition. It takes the span of time you spend in the ship, which is moving slower than the outside, and forces that span of time to exist on the outside. So you would still be going ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine percent the speed of light, but it feels like a few thousand years have passed for you, and it makes everyone outside the ship feel the same way. It’s this whole thing.”

Brooke considers the possibility. “Basically a warp drive.”

“Yeah, kinda,” Mirage agrees. “It’s much slower, though. People on Star Trek could make an emergency landing on a survivable planet in the time it takes their damaged shuttlecraft to blow up. In the real world, it would be more like hours, or longer, unless you were already within the star system.”

“So, you invented this...reframe engine?” Sharice questions.

Mirage chortles. “No, not me. I knew it was gonna happen, though. I’ve been in contact with the good people on Varkas Reflex lately, and the inventor is this close to having it figured out. I just spent a great deal of time on the phone with her; had to drop your name, but she’s agreed to let us have the specifications once she’s finished a full working model. She says it won’t be long now. Maybe a year.”

“So, we know her?” Brooke asks. “Who is it?”

“Hokusai Gimura. She’s with Leona. I mean, Leona wasn’t there, since it’s not her time of the year, but Miss Gimura agreed to relay a message, if you were wanting to say hello, or whatever.”

Both Brooke and Sharice would love to say something to Leona, if not directly. That wasn’t what they were thinking about, though. They were really just wondering what they would do with the power of a reframe engine.

Mirage goes on, “I sense hesitation. We’ve already discussed how we should leave Bungula anyway. It belongs to the colonists and refugees now, and if you’re worried about the greater vonearthan population getting us to replicate our terraformation methods, our best option is to pretty much always be on the move.”

“She’s right,” Sharice notes. “We’re already getting calls about doing this on other exoplanets. In fact, we can’t really even wait for this reframe engine to be finished. A team of diplomats is set to arrive in less than a month.”

“I didn’t know they were already on their way,” Brooke laments. “Where can we go in the meantime? We’ll need a quantum messenger.”

“I had that covered a long time ago,” Mirage says with a smile. “I sent a nanofactory to a secret location, in case something like this happened, and I needed to escape.”

“Where?”

“Toliman,” she answers. “The humans have no interest in it. We can hide out there for as long as we need.”

Brooke frowns.

“We should go,” Sharice says to her. “They’ll be fine. Our baby sitting days are over.”

“Okay,” Brooke decides. “Let’s go to Alpha Centauri B.”

< > Entire Story

Bungula: Boarding School (Part VI)

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It isn’t over yet. Mirage secretly amassed an unfathomably large stockpile of seeds, which could be used to plant life on the surface of Bungula. This wasn’t, strictly speaking, illegal, though it did raise a few concerns back on Earth about the amount of resources that were utilized to make this happen. These concerns were quickly erased, however, when the large majority of the public, and governmental leadership, decided that the achievement far outweighed any issues Mirage’s actions may have caused. In fact, they ultimately decided to spend even more resources on it.

There is no true singular leader for Earth. Each geographically bound group of arcologies is governed by its own hierarchy. Any law is decided upon by delegators and administrators, which are supported by a cadre of advisors, debated by a representational congress, and voted in by the people. This is unlike the nations of earlier times. There is no animosity, and no alliances, between arcologies. People live in pockets of civilization, separated by large swaths of wilderness, for the benefit of wildlife, and for the diversity of humanity. That is, they could all live in one gigantic city the size of New Zealand if they wanted to, but that would leave them vulnerable to catastrophe. They only spread out, so any potential disaster wouldn’t be able to just wipe out the entire species. Governments are compartmentalized for the sake of logistics, but all of Earth—with some exceptions—is composed of one peoples.

Administrators for any given department form asymmetrical councils with those in other arcstates in order to make decisions that impact greater populations. They appear and dissolve on an as-needed basis, and are subject to the will of citizens living in all states involved. For instance, the Usonian arcstate might encounter an issue with passenger flights between one of their arcologies, and one of Canada’s. Maybe the flight path takes it too close to that of migrating birds. The relevant Transportation Administrators will get together and solve the problem, and then disband once it’s over. They may never form a council like that again. The largest ever created was made up of certain administrators from all 233 arcstates. Foreign Policy, Trade, Science, Health, Environmental, Agriculture, Transportation, and Futurology all worked together to figure out what they were going to do about the new development on Bungula. Not only were they okay with what Mirage did with the seeds, they wanted to send even more life. They wanted to send animals.

Now, this was a huge debate. How ethical is it to transport animal life from one planet to another? Would you send full grown specimens, embryos, or even just DNA samples? The trip takes about a year and a half from the ship’s perspective, so the former seems impractical. How would the animals fare under different gravity, and different environmental conditions? Fortunately, these debates had been going on for decades now, and though no right answer is precisely possible when it comes to ethical questions like this, the experts did come to a consensus on most of the topics. They had even already talked about what it would be like to do this on Bungla, going so far back that the planet hadn’t even been given a full designation yet. All that was left now was to decide whether to actually implement the damn plan, or if it was better to leave well enough alone. Animals are great and all, but they no longer provide significant sustenance to humans, and for the sake of itself is no good reason to artificially generate an explosion of life on a new world. The fuel expenditure wasn’t even considered a problem here, because the biggest question mark fell at the end of rational morality.

In the end, after a year of discussions—which was quite remarkably fast, given the intensity of the subject matter—Earth reached a conclusion. They would send ark ships to Bungula full of animal embryos for a great number of major species. Right now, they weren’t really worried about the common housefly, or this random protozoa that most people haven’t heard of. But literal lions, tigers, and bears were all on the guest list. The little babies, once born on the surface, would not be capable of surviving alone,  however, so code for AI parents, drawn from all the knowledge of each animal’s behavioral patterns was written to compensate for at least two full generations. Hopefully, a bystander would be able to come across a jaguar in Bungula, and assume it was alive, and not just a robot with fur. While Brooke and Sharice Prieto were planting trillions upon trillions of seeds all over the world, Mirage was writing the AI parent code. She has just finished the last line today, which is good, because it’s 2242, and the first ark ship is almost here. It’s time for them to have their own little debate. What should be done with the colonists? Should they stay, or should they go now?

“I know the Foreign Policy Administrator personally,” Belahkay mentions. They read him into the situation when he basically figured it out on his own. They didn’t give him any details about the specific people they knew with time powers and patterns, but they did explain that there are some people in the world who are capable of experiencing nonlinear time in some fashion. They wouldn’t have exposed their friends either way, but the fact that, out of the three of them, no one was herself a salmon or chooser made it so it wouldn’t have been their place to say too much. He was enthusiastic about it, but clear that he had no intention of telling anyone else. His personality liked exclusivity, so if everyone knew, he wouldn’t be special anymore. Though, maybe a few more people needed to know.

“Great,” Sharice says, not sure why that’s relevant.

Belahkay realizes he needs to explain himself. “He got this job, because he comes from a long line of civil rights activists. And I do mean that. He’s, like, two hundred and eighty years old, which means his parents literally fought for racial equality in the 1960s.”

They weren’t aware of that. The oldest person alive today who doesn’t have time powers is 283. 1959 was the cut-off year for virtual immortality. People born back then were the oldest alive to undergo longevity treatments and transhumanistic upgrades the likes of which Brooke once had that advanced fast enough to keep up with their further aging. Well, a few older people participated in very early reverse aging experiments, but these trials did not go well, and none of them has survived to today.

“Go on,” Mirage presses.

Belahkay nods thankfully. “Administrator Grieves is the most open and welcoming person on this rock. Like I was saying, his family’s experience as activists extends beyond his parents. His great great great grandparents worked on the Underground Railroad, so he knows how to keep a secret. You should tell him about the Tambora refugees. He’ll understand.”

“We can’t just tell everyone we meet about time travel,” Brooke argues. “At a certain point, it gets to be too much to contain.”

“I haven’t seen Eliseus strike you down with a lightning bolt yet,” Belahkay volleys.

“Do you mean Zeus?”

He shrugs. “I’ve heard it both ways.”

“That’s why I said at a certain point,” Brooke reiterates. “Not now does not mean not ever. We have to be careful. You could be the last person they let us tell.”

“Who’s they?” he asks.

“They!” Sharice shouts. “Them!”

It’s a joke that none of them appreciates, but they leave it be.

“Wull...” Belahkay begins, “I’ll tell him.”

“You’re not immune to the danger,” Brooke says.

“I know,” he responds. “I’m willing to risk it, though, and that’s more than you can say right now.”

Brooke and Sharice both look to Mirage for her opinion. “What? I kind of coerced you two into doing any of this. I don’t think I’m the right one to make this decision. I want the refugees to survive. What happens to them after that is not my concern. They’ll be living on borrowed time anyway, so if they learn they’re in the 23rd century, then all right.”

“So, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Brooke poses. “We either tell the colonists about the time traveling refugees, or we risk the refugees finding out about the colonists, and their grand technology. In that second scenario, the colonists also find out where the refugees come from, so it’s lose-lose.”

“It sounds like our only option is to try the first one,” Sharice determines. “That’s why I’ve always hated that song.”

“Which song is this?” Brooke questions.

“Should I Stay Or Should I Go,” Sharice answers. “The lyrics go on to lament that there will be trouble if he goes, but it will be doubled if he stays. Well, obviously you choose the lesser of two evils, and make as little trouble for yourself as possible. That’s not a dilemma. All we can do is be honest with the colonists, and hope it works out. If we really can’t exercise any control over how the refugees’ reappear in the timestream, then that’s the only right choice.”

They sit with this a moment, then they call for help.

“There’s a third option," Administrator Grieves offers. Beaver Haven Prison would probably rather they tell this one person than leak the secret to the whole galaxy.

“We were hoping you would say that,” Belahkay rejoices.

“We can get the colonists off-world, for years on end. Put ‘em to sleep, and say they can come back when it’s safe.”

“What would make it unsafe?” Mirage asks. “Do you suggest we claim the terraformation caused some unforeseeable catastrophe?” She surely didn’t like the idea that history would remember her work as anything but a perfect masterpiece.

“No need,” Admin Grieves assures them. “We already have the puzzle pieces; we just need to put them on the board. Right now, three ark ships are scheduled to arrive within a span of five months. You built us a plan to trick the animals on board into believing their parents are real. The only way you could do that was to program the robot parents to essentially think they are real, correct?”

“Yes,” Mirage confirms. “They won’t know they’re robots. Each bot’s intelligence is equal to what it would be if they were actually whatever animals they’re meant to look and act like. I’m not following your logic, though.”

“You can’t program the animals to live a certain way. You’ve just programmed them to live however it is they should. Perhaps they don’t like where the shuttle dropped them off. Maybe they’ll seek higher ground, or a better water source. Maybe their organic offspring will multiply faster than our studies of the same species of Earth tell us they would, because this is still a different planet, and we don’t know for sure how they’ll function on it.”

“This is all true,” Mirage agrees.

“Humans and other vonearthans are a danger to that. There’s a reason we outlawed zoos a long time ago, and why scientists are investing heavily in human consciousness transference to animal substrates. We don’t want to disturb nature, so let’s tell the colonists that. We’ve realized that the animals may not survive if they’re exposed too quickly to evolved species. We have to let them roam free for a while before we drop back down. We have to understand their migration habits, and respective growth rates, so when we finally do return, we can do so with the least amount of commotion.”

“Will they accept that?” Brooke questions. “Will they all just allow us to send them back up into space, after all they’ve been through? We finally built a self-sustaining habitable world outside Earth, and we’re asking them to be patient?”

“They’ll understand why, because it’s not an unreasonable request. In fact, we should probably do it anyway, refugees or no. I’m not sure how much she thought it through, but an Environmental Advisor from the Kansas City arcstate had concerns about this very thing. I don’t know why she never officially brought the issue to the floor, but it’s a valid concern.”

The four people listening to this idea quietly reflect on it.

“Besides,” Admin Grieves continues, “they’ll be in stasis, as well will everyone they care about. 2243, 2263; it’ll feel like a few moments have passed no matter how long we leave them up there, and it makes little difference to them.”

Belahkay smiles. “I told you to tell him about this, didn’t I? It was a pretty good idea bringing his brilliant mind in on this, eh?”

“Yes,” Brooke acknowledges. “Telling him was a good idea, and telling the colonists the animal preservation story is a better one. I think this could work. I’ve not interacted with these people a whole hell of a lot, but they seem to want to do the right thing. I think they’ll go for it.”

“All right,” Mirage says, determined. “Let’s discuss specifics.”

They made a plan, and followed through. Three years later, the Indonesian refugees suddenly appeared on Bungula, and it turned out to have all been much ado about nothing, because they showed up on a single island not unlike the one they were living on before. The colonists probably could have stayed.

< > Entire Story