The six of them followed Novik’s drone into the darkness, stopping just inside the door. The drone slowly raised the room’s lights to reveal the silvery-grey disk, which felt far more ominous and alive than he had in the holo. Jaysn decided it was larger than he expected as he slowly walked around it, trying to reconcile the improbable differences in dimensions depending on how you looked at it. “What the hell are you?” he whispered, half to himself.
The disk sparkled slightly, and colors slowly shifted like a captured aurora, which Jaysn assumed was due to the presence of the different isotopes within its structure, though it made the object seem almost alive to him, almost breathing.
“We’re sure that’s not giving off any radiation?” Amin asked.
“Nothing, aside from normal background levels,” Lev confirmed.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” Amin said, joining Jaysn in walking around the disk, studying it intently.
“Major Wolff,” Tamana said in her usual business-like tone. “You saw the damage back there. Do you think there’s any reasonable way for those men to get to us in the next 24 hours before help arrives?”
“It’s anyone’s guess. I hadn’t counted on the traitors revealing themselves. Obviously, they’ve got the equipment and plenty of explosives to re-dig the tunnel. We could always detonate the other three sets of charges and set them back again, I suppose.”
“I imagine we’ll have to, since your sidearm is the only weapon we have,” Solvig observed.
Wolff shook his head. “It’s all a moot point if that gunship decides to laser through the ice from orbit, breach this chamber from above, and walk over our dead bodies to retrieve this thing.”
Jaysn ran his hands down his cheeks in frustration. “So, basically, beyond maybe slowing them down for a little while, there’s nothing we can do about any of this until help arrives. The best we can do is periodically check the tunnel for signs that they’re getting close and hope we don’t run out of air before we’re either murdered or rescued. Let’s not stress out or waste unnecessary energy on things out of our control.”
Solvig shook her head. “That’s rather cynical, don’t you think, Dr. Katsaros?”
Tamana stepped forward, limping slightly, her face carrying a combination of guilt and pride for leading them into their current predicament. Finally, she resolved herself and stood up a little straighter. “Actually, he’s right. We have a plan. We have nothing to do in the meantime. Let’s keep our minds occupied and try to be productive by going ahead with the mission as planned.” She turned to Wolff. “Major, consider this a formal acceptance of the expedition parameters from my team. We’ll start our survey immediately.”
Jaysn nodded and grinned from ear to ear. “What are your orders, boss?”
“Well, we’re unfortunately short on our equipment, but Dr. Novik has a Class 5 drone with reasonable scanning equipment at his disposal, plus an archive of the data the base has collected to date. Let’s try to build a few working hypotheses around it.” She limped over to the wall and sat on a tool case. “First off, Dr. Amin. The complete lack of radioactive decay is our best indication that we may be dealing with advanced manufacturing. Is there any indication of how that is being accomplished?”
Amin cleared his throat and thought for a minute, moving his face right up next to the artifact to study it more closely. “The lack of radiation, the co-equal balance of the isotopes, and the non-equilibrium are unprecedented. Unless the laws of physics work differently on LT-9, that has to be by some design, but I have no idea how it could theoretically be accomplished.”
“Yet we’re staring at it.” Jaysn thought for a moment. “Is it in a stasis field of some sort? Like a medical suspensor field?”
“I’m no physicist, but I have to believe that would require a tremendous amount of power,” Amin said. “Unless this base is a mini fusion reactor of some sort, I don’t see where it could be coming from.”
“There’s nothing unusual about the base. It’s made out of local rock as near as I can tell,” Novik said as he rolled back toward the entrance where the others stood.
Solvig started in wonder, “So, it really is non-equilibrium without entropy.”
“That may be a premature conjecture, Doctor,” Novik said.
Jaysn smiled, knowing Novik had already formed his own conclusions, but out of respect, was allowing everyone else to share their ideas first. “So, tell us what you found, Lev.”
“External radiation remains at background, but isotope ratios imply daughters are being up-converted to parents. Every time an atom decays, another atom … ‘undecays.’ The cleanest model is a confined neutron flux in a metamaterial lattice managing emissions—engineered non-equilibrium.”
Amin smirked. “It’s performing fusion by itself. Where is it getting the energy to do that?”
“Presumably, from the previous instance,” Novik said calmly.
Jaysn tried to laugh, but it came out shaky. “Turtles all the way down?”
“I am merely reporting an observation, Jaysn,” Novik said.
Amin crossed his arms and continued pacing around the disk. “So, something is initiating and controlling the fusion, regulating the reaction, and trapping and redistributing the power. This is a hunk of uranium, not a machine.” His face went blank. “Or, is it?”
“If it is, it’s centuries, possibly millennia beyond our own technology,” Tamana whispered half to herself.
“But,” Solvig said, taking a deep breath, “there are no markings or controls we can see. That might be significant. Unless its creators see in a different spectrum or sensation we don’t have, it could suggest it’s a straightforward, common device that its user would intuitively understand.”
“Who leaves tools like this just lying around?” Wolff scoffed. “What about that probe idea you started with. What if it’s a test?”
“A test?” Tamana asked.
“Somebody buries it here and waits for someone to come discover it. The device sends back a signal to its owner to alert them that they’ve encountered an advanced race worthy of contacting, or a potential threat that they should destroy.”
“This really isn’t taking our mind off our slow, impending doom the way we’d hoped, is it?” Jaysn frowned.
Tamana cut off the thought. “They are all valid conclusions we would have made despite the circumstances. I will present another one, however. What if it isn’t a weapon, or a tool, or art, or a trap? What if it wasn’t even constructed by a living being?”
Jaysn smiled and snapped his finger. “Excellent thought experiment, and from the biologist, no less. Could it be a simple left-behind construction material, or maybe a by-product of some machine’s natural function?” He made a grandiose gesture with his arms. “Take it away, Lev!”
“Frankly, Jaysn, I resent the implication that you think that if the creator of this artifact were a machine, it would have less concern about ecology or simple aesthetic tidiness and leave something like this behind as detritus. Moreso, that you think I, as a synthetic life form, would have some insight over the rest of you in this behavior.”
“No offense intended, Lev. I realize our species is by far the most destructive and historically less aware of our environment. I merely noted you’re being unusually reserved regarding potential new lines of thought.”
“Because I have been conducting a thorough scan of the artifact, attempting, in what limited capacity we have, to obtain new facts to disprove or reinforce various hypotheses.”
“What have you found, Dr. Novik?” Tamana asked hopefully.
“This drone has an adequate atomic and subatomic scanner, normally used for analyzing soil and rock composition. Using that, I have been able to determine that there may be recurring mathematical patterns in the way the uranium isotopes are connected. Something beyond simple random chance, at least. Perhaps it is a logical result of the process by which the device exists, but then again, perhaps it is a clue to the device itself.”
“Is that so odd, though?” Amin interjected. “After all, if you have a brick of gold, those atoms also arrange in a particular pattern and fashion.”
“This is true, Doctor, and after sufficient study, I suppose I would have a more definite explanation of the nature of the equation, but my intuition tells me that the myriad sequences of recurring, but slightly different patterns are by design and not by nature.”
It was Clarc who rolled her eyes. “Recurring, but not exactly recurring patterns, and you have an intuition about it?”
“Mind you, Doctor, I am taking as large a sample as I can out of over three septillion atoms, using less than optimal sensors, without the benefit of the Phrame network within a minimal timeframe–”
Clarc held up her hands. “I retract the implication!” she said, defeated. “What have you generalized about the patterns within the limited scope of your current abilities?”
“We are dealing with four isotopes, which, if you arrange the ones that are 99% stable in groups of four atoms each, tend to produce large chains of several million stable patterns that are 99% and at least 97% similar, depending on your starting point. Within those chains, certain pairs of atoms always occur; others never occur.”
Clarc’s face lit up, as did Tamana’s. Jaysn stared at them, confused. “That means something to you two?”
Clarc nodded. “You don’t see it? The basic instructions for humans are encoded in four molecules – cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine. These are paired in blocks, always adenine-thymine or cytosine-guanine. Never thymine and guanine. Never adenine and cytosine, and so forth.”
“Okay, you’re talking about DNA. Sorry, I’m an anthropologist.”
“Yes, but it only takes about ten trillion of those sequences to record all of the genetic information of an entire human,” Tamana added, “and much of those sequences, as far as we know, are redundant and common to every living thing on the planet.”
Jaysn stared at the two of them, completely confused. “So, it has something that looks like DNA woven into it. You think this is a uranium-based life form, then?”
Clarc shook him off. “No, a closed system isn’t alive, biologically at least. It doesn’t consume fuel for energy, it doesn’t interact with its environment, it doesn’t seem to have a capacity to reproduce and pass on its traits, so I wouldn’t say it’s a life form the way we understand it.”
Jaysn raised an eyebrow. “Neither does Lev, however. Could it be a computer? Or at least some kind of storage device?”
Solvig perked up slightly. “A seed vault? Some kind of bioarchive?”
“It’s too active,” Lev offered. “The information is constantly changing.”
“A panspermia device, then,” Amin offered. “Maybe it seeds worlds.”
Clarc shook her head. “Good luck getting life to grow on a rock at near absolute zero with no liquid water, and I don’t see any engines or a way for this thing to get out from under a small mountain.”
“Assuming it’s storing data in chains of molecules, Lev, how much information could you store in a hunk of uranium like this?” Jaysn asked.
“Assuming a consistent density, over three septillion atoms make up the artifact. If we assume each atom can theoretically be forced into discrete readable states, then that would be on the order of 10^24 bytes, or a yottabyte,” the servo said without hesitation.
Amin raised an eyebrow. “How much is that? What could you store in one yottabyte?”
“Considerably more than mankind has been able to produce in all of recorded history. Though it would take centuries to read it all with our current technology, even longer to process.”
“That does put a spanner in the works,” Jaysn sighed. “This is quickly becoming pointless without proper tools to study the thing,” Jaysn growled.
Tamana held up a hand. “I realize this is all frustrating, but we need to keep our heads, given our current circumstances. If a proper study can’t be made, let’s at least make a thought exercise out of positing and eliminating a few theories.”
Jaysn smiled. “You’re right, keep ourselves occupied while we’re waiting to find out which way we’re all going to die.”
“Dr. Katsaros, why don’t you go do an atmospheric reading up the tunnel and see if there are any signs they’re trying to dig their way to us from the base?”
“Look, Disha, I’m fine, just trying not to panic here. I’m sorry if it came off as hostile.”
“It’s fine,” Tamana smiled. “Completely understandable.”
“Then why are you punishing me and giving me a timeout up the tunnel?”
“Because yours are the closest charges to the surface, you set them, so you know exactly where they are, and you’re carrying the detonator for your charges if it becomes necessary to blow them.”
Jaysn smirked, gave her a sarcastic salute, and started up the tunnel.
It was darker this time and much colder than earlier. While he barely noticed the downward slope of the passage when moving from the base to the artifact chamber, the climb back had felt incredibly steep. He assumed this to be his imagination, in the same way that the passageway seemed a lot less smooth and much more natural-looking then. After fifteen minutes, at what he considered a decent pace, he reached the last of the lights powered by the generator. He stopped, retracted the light from around his waist, and noted for the first time that he was breathing heavily. He made a mental note to spend more time in the gym and less time in the galley drinking wine, should he survive the next couple of days.
After another dozen or so meters, he began to feel better when a sudden shift in gravity made his stomach feel as if he were falling. He stumbled and caught himself on the wall. Naturally, the gravplates that lined the floor were no longer powered and were gradually failing. Within three hours, there would only be the feeble .18G of the planet’s natural gravity pulling them. He quickly ran a few calculations as to what this would do to the weight of the five-ton artifact and whether it would mean that six of them might actually be able to carry it out when the time came. Unfortunately, the math was eluding him.
One sixth of five tons? It shouldn’t be this difficult. Five divided by six. He knew this, didn’t he? Sure, he’d had a couple of glasses of wine earlier in the evening and since then taken a significant blow to his eardrums when the charges went off, and there was the persistent presence of adrenaline from his imminent death that was probably just now leaving his system. Even if it was exhaustion, he should still be able to figure out six divided by five … or was it five divided by …
In a panic, he flipped on the scanner and cursed himself for not catching on as soon as he realized he was out of breath walking up a hill. The temperature had dropped ten degrees. Air pressure was .7 atmospheres. Methane and nitrogen concentrations were starting to spike. The tunnel wasn’t just losing air. Air was being replaced by boiled-off methane and nitrogen.
“Oh, hell,” he mumbled to himself and ran back toward the others.
By the time he got back to the chamber, his head was beginning to clear only slightly as he was intentionally taking large gulps of clean air. “Guys, we have a problem,” he said, feeling his face flush. “The air was too thin to breathe before I even got to Anita’s waypoint, and it’s getting noticeably colder in the cavern.”
“He’s right,” Novik said. “Atmo processors are working at 100% capacity, but air pressure is slowly dropping.”
Amin went pale. “We spent so much time worried about being murdered or dying during a slow melt, we didn’t stop to think about whether we’d put a fissure in the cave. We just assumed the cavern was still airtight. We must have cracked the ice all the way up to the surface with one of the blasts.”
“So, what do we do? Should we detonate the other charges?” Wolff asked.
Amin shook his head. “There’s no way to know without detailed surveys and computer models. We might seal ourselves off. It has to be a relatively small crack, however. Another explosion could just as easily make things worse.”
“How long do we have?” Tamana said to anyone who might have an answer.
“At the present rate, no more than an hour, possibly 90 minutes,” Novik said, sounding genuinely concerned, even though he was the only one in the party who was not personally at risk.
The room went silent as the six looked around at each other. “That’s it, then,” Solvig said. “We’re out of options and out of time.”
“There are always options,” Wolff said. “We have gravplates, atmo generators, insulation dispensers, and digger drones. We can seal off this chamber or possibly build a structure around ourselves so that the atmo generator could sustain us?”
“In an hour?” Clarc was skeptical.
Wolff threw up his arms. “Well, I’m not going to sit around waiting for death to come for me. I’m at least going to try something.”
“He’s right,” Tamana said. “Wolff, Amin, start disassembling gravplates. Perhaps we can create a door on this side of the archway and utilize the pressure differential and insulation to achieve a seal. Clarc, see if you can use a digger to push or pull the atmo generator in here.” Everyone began moving, and she quickly began pacing the room, inspecting the walls.
“Dr. Tamana,” Novik spoke at last.
“Yes, what is it?” she said, not bothering to hide the frustration.
“The artifact. It’s changing.”
“Changing? How.”
The composition of the outermost edges is changing. Becoming uniform.”
“Uniform?”
“At present, the edge facing us is composed almost entirely of the 234 isotope.”
“What does that mean?”
“Without context, I couldn’t say, but, oddly, this is the first significant change we’ve seen in the artifact.”
“A natural reaction to the change in air pressure?”
“There was no measured response when the engineers pressurized the chamber. It would seem odd that it would react to a gradual change back to its previous state.”
Tamana and Jaysn moved in to inspect the disk while the others busied themselves sealing the chamber door.
“Dr. Novik, look. It’s stopped casting a shadow,” Tamana gasped, shining her work light on it at different angles.
“How is that possible?” Jaysn asked.
“The fermionic structure has changed. It’s almost paradoxical, like the way it has different measurements from different angles.”
Jaysn furrowed his eyebrows. “I just assumed that was some kind of optical illusion. It’s really got two different measurements?”
“It has four now, based on my scans. No classical lensing effect or field model fits what we’re witnessing. An extra-dimensional object is the easiest way to reconcile the discrepancies,” Novik said calmly.
“A four-dimensional object?” Tamana asked.
“Possibly even more than four. It’s likely connected to a power source and possibly other components through these higher dimensions. Something there may be what’s controlling the isotope reactions.”
“What practical purpose is there in building a machine that’s scattered across multiple locations and connected through higher dimensions?” Jaysn asked.
“I have a feeling we don’t want to know,” Tamana said thinly.
There was a low rumble, almost a buzz, throughout the cavern, causing the ground to shift beneath them. Everyone suddenly felt light-headed and began stumbling about.
“Seismic tremor. Approximately magnitude 4,” Novik said calmly.
“Is everyone okay?” Tamana asked the group.
They all stopped and regarded each other for a moment. Jaysn was the first to notice. “There’s a definite breeze in here, blowing up the cavern,” he said softly.
“We’re losing air fast,” Amin shouted, looking around for a way to move the gravplates faster. “We’ve got to seal this room up, fast.”
Jaysn shook his head. “There’s no time.” He looked at Solvig, who was already slumped against the walls, defeated. Tamana stumbled backwards and wiped her brow with her sleeve. Clarc stood, defiantly, arms crossed over her chest. Wolff merely closed his eyes in thought.
Jaysn fell to his knees in defeat and put his face in his hands. He heard Novik’s drone step over toward him, and one metallic arm rested gently on his shoulder. He heard Novik from the drone’s speaker, barely above a whisper. “Your power brings us to birth, Your providence guides our lives, and by Your command we return to dust.”
The disk suddenly lit up with a silver glow. Seconds later, there was only blackness and oblivion.
