Noriama: Chapter 14
Zuri’s fingers itched. It had taken almost an hour for Churji to reach the main computer center in Central Control, then another hour for Sughouri to inspect the systems and wiring to make sure everything was still within proper working order.
“Okay,” Sughouri said at last, “I’m turning the computer on. Zuri, it’s in your hands now.”
Zuri could feel her shoulders relax as, on the screen, Churji’s claw threw the final switch. The feed swung about as all around it, lights began to flicker to life. When Churji turned back to the main screen, the system boot process was spinning past, throwing error after error, the same errors mirrored on Zuri’s personal screen.
“That doesn’t look good,” Victoria muttered.
“Nah, it’s fine,” Sughouri waved a hand. “The system is looking for a bunch of systems and hardware we haven’t turned on, that’s all.”
And likely never would, Zuri noted. No need for waste recyclers or temperature control now.
Finally, the screen flashed blue.
A few seconds later, with only a little prompting from Zuri, the Lemon AI realized there was a new computer system that needed its attention. Leaping down the communication relay, Lemon inserted itself into the Noriama’s database. Piece by piece it sorted through the available data, building its own image of exactly what resided in Noriama’s computers.
A minute later, Zuri sighed. She gripped her chorder to type out her report for her digital voice to recite, but then paused. Keying an alert instead, she drew her teammate’s attention before signing; “I have good news and bad news.”
“Always start with the bad news,” Sughouri’s response, labeled and transcribed by the Croatoan’s AI, popped up on Zuri’s screen. She ignored it, and focused isntead on Sughouri’s hands. “Let me guess. Everything’s wiped?”
“I don’t know,” Zuri answered. “That’s the bad news. None of the login codes Earth gave us are working. The computer is using a different operation handle than we expected. It looks like they upgraded their systems in the half century they were here, if you can believe that.”
Victoria: “I can’t. What sort of bureaucracy did they have here?”
“They must have evolved,” Zuri smirked, “become something more than human.”
Kristiana: “Well, at least there’s a system to be upgraded. I take it that means the whole database hasn’t been wiped, like the station?”
“That’s the good news. I don’t know about the logs or records, but the colony system is intact. Lemon’s found the operating system, and the core functionality of the computer is working fine. Once it figures out how to properly connect, we can run things easily from orbit.”
Kristiana: “That’s great news. But the database is our priority right now. We need logs, history, everything that should be in the black boxes. How long will it take for you to know one way or the other?”
“I don’t know,” Zuri shot Kristiana a look. “Lemon’s doing its best.”
It took almost a day for Lemon to coax the foreign computer system into communicating with the Croatoan. When it was finished, Zuri understood why it had taken so long. She called the team together to explain what Lemon had found.
Sughouri: “Corrupted? What do you mean corrupted?”
“Just what I said,” Zuri looked at each of her teammates in turn. “I’ve been trying every release code and password Earth gave us, and Lemon keeps saying the same thing. The computer systems and hardware of Noriama Colony are working perfectly fine, but all the information contained in it is almost complete garbage.”
Kristiana’s mouth moved, sharp and quick, without signing a translation. Zuri could guess what she had said. After a moment Kristiana signed again: “Was it damaged in some way?”
“That’s the unpleasant bit. As far as I can tell, no. You saw the server banks, there’s been no physical damage at all. That leaves us with two possibilities. First; the computer systems had a massive failure that corrupted its internal databanks. Considering that this is where all the vital system files, programs, algorithms and the like were kept, the colonists wouldn’t have had time to breathe before everything went wrong.”
Victoria: “We know whatever happened wasn’t sudden, though. What’s the second option?”
Zuri scratched her nose before continuing. “I’ll need to run through a lot of code, but it’s possible the data was corrupted on purpose.”
Kristiana: “I don’t like where our assumptions are heading. First the black boxes, then the device on the reactor, now this? I think we’re constructing a very antagonistic picture without the evidence to back it up.”
Sughouri: “Okay, but if the computer’s corrupted, that means the data is still there, right? And you said it was almost complete garbage. Am I right that you don’t think this is hopeless?”
Zuri had strong feelings about hope and the lack thereof. She was not an idealist, nor was she given to flights of fancy, but she was one of a very small number of experts. She was constantly told by other people what wasn’t possible, usually meaning they didn’t know how it was possible. Experience had taught her that whenever anyone said something was impossible, doubt them immediately.
“It depends on how the data was corrupted,” she admitted. “If it was something natural, like an incredibly strong dose of radiation, or magnetic field — strong enough to get through the shielding — then it’s probably hopeless.
Kristiana: “If it wasn’t natural?”
“Then this isn’t corruption, it’s encryption. Whenever we try to make something random, we always use complicated algorythims to mimic randomness. There is some pattern, code, or program that was used to put the data in the state its in now. Depending on the kind of patter this was, a high-end AI algorithm might be able to decrypt it, like a code.”
Victoria: “I take it we don’t have such an algorithm here?”
They did. Zuri took a deep breath before answering.
“Red is pretty well trained in encryption and decryption, but we don’t have infinate computing power. Just using the Croatoan’s CPU means Red won’t be able to do anything in a reasonable time-frame.” She raised her finger before continuing: “But here’s the good news. I’ve managed to crack the Noraiama’s operation system. With a little more time, I can link the Croatoan and Noriama computers together, so we’re running in tandem. Lemon is already running a hardware scan to see what’s still functional and what’s not. So far, it looks like we’ll be able to access the colony’s sensory network. That means internal monitoring and real-time sensor data. Once the systems are linked, I could load a sandbox into their network and use Noriama’s processor to run the decryption algorithm. I might have to re-format their computer to work with ours, but we should be able to get something.”
Victoria: “I didn’t understand most of that, but I heard a lot of ifs. Short story is you can decrypt the computer, right? How long will it take?”
Zuri considered. “At a guess, I’d say anywhere from half a year to five years. And there’s no promise anything I find will be helpful.”
Five years filled the room. As Zuri watched, she could see each of her teammates digest this information, only to find it as unsatisfying as she did. Five years was a long time to wait for anything.
Kristiana: “Well, getting real-time sensor data is a good start, if nothing else. See if you can get us a map first, and then see if you can decrypt Noriama’s database. The more we know about what’s actually down there, the better off we’ll be.”
Sughouri: “What do we do in the meantime?”
Zuri looked away from her teammates. She ignored the transcriptions of what they were saying as they flitted across her screen. The truth of the matter was, she didn’t mind much what they did. She had a job, and she was going to do it.
They’d find something to do, and if it involved her, they’d tell her. Until then, she didn’t need to know.
Kristiana took a deep breath, and exhaled through her mouth. The pain was manageable. She didn’t need to take any pills yet.
It helped that she had something to focus on. Zuri had just finished reactivating Noriama’s sensors, and was reporting to the crew what she had found.
Of course, Kristiana already knew what Zuri had found.
She rarely looked at her screen anymore. Instead, she used her Netter interface to connect directly with the Croatoan database. She didn’t read the information. It wasn’t seeing, exactly. Some Netters were so focused on linking themselves to the electronic world, that they had trained their brains to translate digital information to sensory input. They could ‘see’ through cameras or ‘hear’ through microphones. Kristiana had never bothered. She hadn’t undergone the surgery to adopt new eyes or fingers. She had been interested in whole knew kinds of senses.
The Netter community called it epignognition, or the more colloquial “sense of knowing.” It was an odd sense, hard to explain for those who had not dealt with it themselves. She knew what Sughouri was doing without experiencing it. For some Netters, it was like the kinesthetic sense; knowing where your hands or feet were when you weren’t looking at them. But while the kinesthetic sense was perhaps more closely associated with touch, Epignognition was like seeing without seeing. Sughouri knew exactly what she would see on the screen, without having to open her eyes at all.
She didn’t always know the details, but she could watch the Croatoan’s computer connecting and integrating with Noriama Colony without much difficulty. She could read Victoria’s medical reports before she gave them. She knew exactly how long everyone’s sleep-cycles lasted. She knew which lights were on, and which were off.
But, one of the first things Netters learned was walking around with a brain the size of the World Network was unnerving to most people. As a result, there were new layers of etiquette Netters needed to follow.
One of the first was to never admit to foreknowledge if it was someone’s job to inform you, so Kristiana had waited patiently for Zuri to tell everyone that she was ready to give her report.
Kristiana wasn’t particularly smarter than anyone else; she just learned things early, and so had more time to consider.
“Here,” Zuri’s words drifted across their screens above the KAP floor plan, “is the planned map of Noriama Colony. So far, the floor plan has been perfectly accurate to what we’ve seen in the colony, with the exception of our missing Section D.”
“That’s a big inaccuracy,” Sughouri said. “The colonists must have built Section D somewhere else, too, which means the map is wrong in two spots, at least.”
“And if it’s wrong in two spots, it could be wrong in three, four, or more,” Victoria supplied. “We don’t know how inaccurate it is.”
“Thankfully,” Zuri continued, “With emergency power on, and Lemon running Noriama’s computer, we have access to both the smart-grid and the internal sensor network, here.”
A web of yellow lines spread across half of the map.
“This is the current active power grid. As you can see, it covers most of Sections E through J, and portions of A and B. Here,” and now a series of blue dots scattered themselves over the map, “are the locations of the colony’s power nodes, which help distribute the power to their respective sections. Note how the power reaches these power-nodes but does not pass through? That likely means these nodes are damaged.”
Sughouri spoke up. “So if they’re repaired, we’ll activate more of the power-grid and therefore more of a complete map? Sounds simple enough.”
“It could be a little more complicated than that,” Zuri said as red dots joined their blue kin. “These are the operational sensor-network nodes that collate the information from the colony’s internal sensors, such as thermometers, air-samplers, seismic monitors, and so on.”
“Hmm,” Kristiana said, purposefully sounding as though she had just noticed: “That sensor node outside Section A, it looks like its connected to the power-grid, but not reporting as powered on? That makes me think its been damaged, yes?”
“Probably,” Sughouri answered. “And if the sensor nodes have also been damaged, we won’t be able to get a complete map of the colony.”
“Any sign of our missing section?” Victoria asked.
“Not so far,” Zuri answered. “No available information suggests any construction or part of the colony has extended beyond the Colony’s floor-plan.”
“Do you think they never built it?”
“They must have,” Kristiana interjected. “Each section had its own residential and hydroponic blocks. If the colonists didn’t build Section D, they would have run out of food, water, and air before getting through their first year, never mind not having a place to house twenty colonists.”
“Then there’s been a breakdown somewhere,” Sughouri said. “Here, just out of curiosity…I’m going to overlay where the colonists were supposed to put up all the power and sensor nodes.”
After a brief moment, a small number of green dots joined the others. “What are sensor nodes?” Victoria asked.
“They’re like junction boxes,” Sughouri answered. “Places where all the sensors connect to before connecting to the main network. If one’s broken, all the connected sensors won’t show up. Everything looks good: no real differences in node placement.”
“Okay, so we have a good idea of how accurate the KAP map is for the power-grid and the sensors,” Victoria said, “but we don’t know how accurate it is for the rooms themselves, do we?”
“Not precisely,” Zuri answered. “The power-grid knows what’s plugged into it, and enough of the facilities of the colony use power that we’ll probably be able to make very educated guesses. Beyond that, however, we won’t know for sure until we see for ourselves.”
“Can you get us a video-feed?” Kristiana asked. “I see there are some camera connections. We could certainly use those.”
“Not for a while,” Zuri admitted. “The cameras were put on a locked channel, designed for internal security. Even starting from scratch, I won’t be able to access their feeds, much less communicate with them, unless I re-establish a secure feed which means rebuilding an entire security sub-system for the whole colony, and that could take a very long time.”
Kristiana took a slow breath. A very long time indeed. But they were committed. “Okay, well, first thing’s first. Send this information to Wolf and tell it we want any broken sensors functioning and the power-grid repaired.”
It only took seconds. Kristiana felt the command fly through the computer system to the station’s communication system, down to the planet, and through the attached relay. She ‘saw’ the CHR-3’s report as it shuffled its drones about, and began to fit each one with a repair module.
She read Wolf’s cognitive report along with Zuri. “Wolf is sending the drones to inspect the off-line sensors. If they’re broken, the drones will repair them. If not, they’ll try to find an access hatch or maintenance panel to inspect the power-grid.”
“What about the sensors behind doors and in rooms?” Victoria asked the obvious question.
“It’s ignoring those for now. It wants more information on what it can easily reach before entering unexplored territory.”
A smart AI, Kristiana admitted to herself as she watched the twelve drones carefully make their way through the colony, seeking out the accessible sensors. If she had opened her eyes, she could have seen twelve blips of light on her screen. With her eyes closed, she just knew where they were. This one was moving north, that one east. This one faster than the others, while this one was —
Kristiana’s eyes snapped open. “What happened?”
The others were staring at their screens. Zuri answered first. “I don’t know. We lost contact with one of the drones.”
“Why?”
“Wolf just sent us the Drone’s log,” Sughouri said, long after Kristiana had known. “Let’s see…It wasn’t detecting anything unusual, no uneven ground, no abnormal readings…visual feed looks clear. Its connection to Churji must have broken.”
“How?” Victoria asked. “If there wasn’t anything nearby —”
“Gremlins get into everything,” Sughouri smiled. “Nothing to worry about. Churji has its own repair kit for just such an occasion. It’ll send a drone to fix its friend soon enough.”
“No,” Kristiana said, “It won’t. Wolf just sent another cognitive report. It’s designated the area where the drone vanished as an ‘unknown danger.’ It’s not moving anything near there until it knows what happened.”
“How will it know what happened unless it sends another drone?” Victoria asked.
“It won’t,” Zuri said. “If it did, it risks loosing another, and then another…”
“Wolf is a very cautious AI, isn’t it,” Sughouri scratched her chin.
“Well, we don’t have to be that cautious,” Kristiana said. “Zuri, can you override Wolf and get Churji to move to where the drone vanished?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sughouri interrupted. “It might just be gremlins, sure, but it might not. If there is powerful radiation near that area, that might have fried some of its internal circuitry.”
“I thought the drones were shielded,” Victoria said.
“They are, but nothing’s invulnerable. If there is radiation strong enough to fry a drone, it might fry Churji too. Then we’d be stuck.”
“Wolf might just need to calm down,” Zuri supplied. “If the other drones do their jobs without trouble, it might consider the missing drone a fluke and try sending another. Let’s give it time.”
Kristiana closed her eyes. Time. They had so much of it, and so little seemed to be getting done.
Victoria pushed herself away from the ladder towards the candy cabinet.
That was what Sughouri had called it, and the nickname had stuck. It wasn’t locked, which had surprised Victoria at first, considering the harsh view many countries, nations, and regions had of chemical drugs.
But the chemists on earth had done their job well. These pills and patches weren’t the clumsy sledgehammers of old Earth; these were targeted scalpels, designed to be no more addicting than a warm meal or a refreshing shower. Gentle stimulation of the right spots in the brain, nothing more than you’d get from petting a warm cat or feeling the weight of your friends head on your shoulder.
Of course, that was only part of it. Visual and auditory stimulation came along for the ride; take one pill and you were flying alongside winged unicorns, or swimming through seas of upper-class fish. take another, and you were having conversations with dead philosophers and laughing with supernatural spirits.
All perfectly harmless, they said. Of course, you could still overdose, but you’d likely give up on lifting your arm before you got anywhere near the dangerous dosage.
Victoria pulled open the cabinet and selected three pills. She preferred the pills to books or television. Not that she didn’t enjoy a good story now and then, but the pills felt cleaner. More personal. The trips were hers, not crafted and curated by someone else. She was at once creator and audience, surprising herself with her own inventions.
“Hey, doc, can I speak with you a moment?”
Victoria gripped the cabinet door to turn her body around. “Sure. What’s up?”
But Sughouri was already floating past her, down the ladder, followed by Kristiana. Victoria shared a confused look. Sughouri obviously had something important to discuss with the two of them.
Sughouri took them to the mess-deck, strapping herself in a chair at the table and gesturing for the other two to join her. “I have an official request, and I know you’re not going to like it, but I ask that you hear me out before you say absolutely not.”
Victoria and Kristiana shared another glance. “Of course,” Kristiana said. “What’s your request?”
“With one of the drones damaged and Wolf playing it safe, I think we should consider the fact that I’m going to have to me to go down and fix it. That’s two days to call the elevator back, then a day or more to outfit it for me, then two days to send me down, however long to repair it, then two days to pull be back up, then two more to send the relay back down so Churji has a place to recharge. That’s a massive waste of time, especially considering we don’t know what caused the fault. The other eleven drones might break just as easily.”
“So what are you proposing?” Kristiana asked, her tone cautious.
“I’ve been going over the mission plan regarding outfitting the elevator for a human traveling to Noriama, and I think I can easily modify it to last for an extended period of time. Instead of hopping down then hopping back, why don’t we we drop me in the elevator and I spend my time exploring Noriama instead of twiddling my thumbs on the Croatoan.”
Kristiana choked. “Absolutely not.”
“Hear me out,” Sughouri said, raising her hands. “We don’t know if Zuri is ever going to un-corrupt the database. If she doesn’t, even if she manages to get a real-time map through the colony’s sensors, we’re still going to need a full room-by-room exploration of the entire colony. I mean every room. Right? Without the computer logs, we’ll need to see everything so we can get a good idea of what happened. With the whole colony and the mine to map, that’s going to take months. Now Churji’s a great drone-nexus, and Wolf seems smart enough, but being thorough means being slow.”
“When Zuri gets the full computer system running,” Victoria said, “we can open the doors remotely and that will cut the time down considerably.”
“Even so,” Sughouri shook her head, “over months of activity something’s going to go wrong. Churji’s going to need repairs, or maintenance — or hell, we might find something down there that needs more than a drone’s hands, yeah?”
“It’s far too risky,” Kristiana folded her arms.
“All the immediate dangers are already covered,” Sughouri protested. “No heavy radiation, no toxic spills, no alien life. And what if another drone breaks down? If Churji does at the other end of the colony?”
“I mean its too risky for you,” Kristiana shook her head. “Medically, it’s already a risk sending anyone down to Proxima, considering how unused we are to planetary gravity. As far as helping the CHR-3 out, there’s nothing you could do that it can’t, and more reliably to boot. It was designed that way. It may take longer, yes, but I’d rather we take our time and do it right than risk making a hasty mistake. If you got hurt by a sudden cave in or surge of radiation, we’ll have to call up the elevator, get Victoria down to you, pull you back up…the same delay, but now its your life we’re risking, instead of the drone.”
“Time won’t make Noriama safer.”
“I agree,” Victoria said.
“You do?” Sughouri was almost as surprised as Kristiana.
“It’s a massive acceleration of our schedule, I’ll acknowledge that, but Sughouri’s right that there are few risks that waiting will mitigate.”
“Is that your professional opinion?” Kristiana’s eyes were narrow as they studied Victoria’s face.
“It is.”
Kristiana shook her head. “Okay, so convince me, why does it have to be you?”
“I’ve got the most experience in a suit out of anyone, and I’m an engineer, so I can do any hands-on work down there that needs to happen. The rest of you can do your jobs remote.”
Kristiana pointed. “Victoria can’t. If we find any bodies, she can’t do an autopsy remotely.”
Technically, Churji’s modular kit allowed it to refit itself for both engineering and medical duties. Victoria was practiced in the art of remote medicine, and had once assisted with a heart transplant from another country. It hadn’t been easy, but it was possible.
But she didn’t want to go.
“I think,” she spoke before she knew what she was saying, “I should stay. My job is also to keep everyone sane, and that would be much harder if I’m a couple hundred thousand kilometers away.”
Kristiana looked back and forth between Victoria and Sughouri, and then gave a weary nod: “Victoria, double check the physical prep you need to give Sughouri before she heads down. Sughouri, I want a complete report on how you’re going to turn the elevator into your home base on Proxima. And don’t just copy the mission plan, I want your own assessments and solutions, okay?”
Sughouri gave a firm salute before hopping off her chair and heading for the ladder.
When she was gone, Kristiana turned to Victoria. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Victoria blinked.
“You know as well as I do the immense physical strain she will be under down there. It’ll be bad enough for a few hours, but spending all her time down there? We could be here for years, you think that won’t destroy her body?”
“I’ll be monitoring her medically from up here, and we can always bring her back,” Victoria cocked her head. “You know that. Is there another reason this is bothering you?”
Kristiana opened her mouth, and then closed it. It gave Victoria only a small amount of satisfaction that she had learned to read the placid Netter well enough to recognize the signs.
“I won’t lie,” Kristiana said at last, “I’m worried.”
“Why so?” Victoria could guess, but it was always better to let someone voice their own concerns.
“She might have the most experience, but she’s the only one who’s gone off mission. If she decides to do something on her own down there, we can’t stop her.”
“I understand your concern, and believe me, I share them, but you might want to consider the medical problems with the alternative.”
Kristiana’s brow furrowed. Victoria watched as her commander sorted through the mission plan and protocols before shaking her head in confusion. “What do you mean?”
Victoria reached into her pocket and pulled out the three pills she had taken from the candy cabinet. “These are specially designed chemicals, for the express purpose of keeping our minds active during the ten-year wait we had to get here. Even with all the busy-work and lessons and media we had, they still needed to provide us with these. There is a real and profound psychological strain that comes from sitting on your hands, even if it might seem the wiser or healthier choice.”
“You think Sughouri is suffering from boredom?”
“I think we are floating thousands of kilometers above the planet that might–might — hold all the answers we’ve been sent to find. The fact is, humans don’t do well with purposeful inaction. One of the most reliable causes of stress in life is the belief, whether true or false, that you have no control, that all you can do is sit and wait. Sughouri thinks that she can help, whether by repairing broken machines or exploring the colony, and if we stop her from doing so, it will do measurable damage to her psyche. More so than the physical stress she’ll be under on the planet.”
“Hm.” Kristiana pressed a palm to her forehead. “If there is any sign, and I mean any sign that she isn’t physically fit and able to travel down to Noriama and function there safely, we’re pulling the plug.”
Victoria nodded. “It think that’s best.”
Kristiana smiled. “Speaking of boredom; Zuri’s working on the computer, Sughouri’s going to Noriama; what about you?”
“Oh, I’ve got you three to take care of,” Victoria gave a weak smile. “Don’t need much more than that, do I?”
“If you say so,” Kristiana moved past Victoria and headed for the ladder.
Victoria waited until she was gone before looking back at the pills in her hand. She didn’t know half of the things that her teammates knew about how the colony worked. All three of them had work to do, puzzles to ponder over, plans to make and execute.
She knew about bodies and trauma. She knew about emergencies, and at the moment, she was feeling superfluous.
There was a whole section in her briefing about how to take care of herself. If the other crew members fell ill or succumbed to stress, she could help them. If she fell ill, there was no one well equipped to help her. She needed to be her own doctor, and Victoria knew how hazardous that could be.
Taking a quick breath, she swallowed the first pill.