Greener Grass

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.

The howls of Alex Kovak, however, were certainly audible across the emptiness.

Just moments before, the video feed from his viewpoint was showing the familiar image of the drill head, its machinery grating silently through moon rock.

All it was showing now was blackness.

The crew of the Clonmac glanced at each other, incredulous and frowning. The other surface views had switched into a No feed mode, but Alex’s was just dark.

Wait — what was that?

“There…” said Cash Durand, pointing. The edge of a large orange disc flashed across Alex’s display for a fraction of a second. The feed was clearly working. They were now seeing the whirling flickers of Lalande, the red dwarf star a mere 20 million kilometres away.

Pim Mandal opened his mouth to speak. Before the words came, something inside the Clonmac popped, the walls reverberating with an echo that faded slowly.

No — not inside. Outside, on the structure itself.

And not a pop. More of a crash.

Alex Kovak’s screams continued, his agony becoming clearer by the second. Still trying to understand their situation, nobody else in the crew spoke a word. A moment later, Losar’s artificial voice came in over the top of their colleague’s wails.

“Attention all crew. There has been an accident. Return immediately to the Control and Management Centre. The Clonmac has sustained significant impact damage to the drive ducts. I am assessing our circumstances and will report further.”

* * *

Zhijuan Collins took purposeful strides across the concrete tiles of the plaza, her footsteps avoiding the occasional, tessellated sections of mondo grass that broke up the crisp surface.

Not that the plazas in the Core of Neweire really needed any more green space. Flowering shrubs lined all the pathways. Every building was covered with mosses and vines that followed the sleek, curving shapes of the walls beneath, breathing gently in the cool sunlight.

“ZeeJay…”

The voice behind her was Enzo Hughes. He jogged towards her, beaming and loud, awkwardly dodging other pedestrians in his way. “I haven’t seen you for weeks! How are you doing? I knew you’d be selected for Egress. I assume we’re headed to the same place, right? I can hardly believe both Alex and I made it in too.”

ZeeJay smiled, readying herself to answer at each phrase but not quite getting the chance.

“I see that Cash also made the list. Are you still seeing him? Where is this ‘top room’, anyway? Never been there before. I guess we ride up there…”

Her patient, raised eyebrows finally registered. Enzo laughed. “Sorry. Your turn. How are you, though?”

“I’m fine thanks, Enzo. It’s good to see you. And yes — Egress final preps in the Top Hall. It’s going to be a big gathering. Let’s get up there.”

He launched into an enthusiastic elaboration of his recent work on solar cell materials as they rode a travelator, spiralling in a wide arc up towards the top floor. Light flooded the atrium and brushed over them, filtered through the foliage on the outside of the building. Even the structural interiors of Neweire smelled like a fresh forest, despite their smooth, almost clinically clean surfaces. Air flow technology designed in harmony with the natural environment was a wondrous, if unregarded innovation.

* * *

Alex Kovak’s screams continued to pierce the stillness. The crew, who could not see his physical state, could only imagine the nature of his injuries. For a moment, the cries faded, but then returned in seconds with a fresh peal of agony that made everyone grimace.

Pim Mandal needed answers.

“Losar. What is Alex’s condition?”

Losar answered dispassionately. “Specialist Kovak has sustained damage, but I cannot yet determine how severe. He is moving away from the Clonmac with a relative velocity of approximately 290 metres per second.”

* * *

There must have been two hundred people standing in the Top Hall of the Neweire Chancellery.

“You weren’t wrong,” Enzo sputtered. “I didn’t realise it was going to be this big!”

“Of course. It’s the Top Hall.” ZeeJay tried to sound casual, but the gravity of the occasion began to sink in with the sight of the crowd. Her pulse quickened. “I’m surprised there aren’t more people here,” she lied.

A bald administrator spotted them almost immediately and ushered them past the guests and toward the speaker’s corner. All the other selectees were already here in loose formation, making small-talk. The bald man completed his duties with a whisper in the ear of Yayoi Diaz, the Civil Commander of Neweire, and she stepped up onto the raised stage. The chaotic hum of dozens of conversations faded into silence, and everyone turned to face her. Yayoi spoke with a calmness and authority that captured attention and held it without effort.

“Welcome, friends. While everyone is now aware of the final selectees for our first Egress mission to Lalande Two, today we wish to introduce them to you formally. For those candidates not in the final ten, I remind you: Be patient. Your time will follow soon and your contribution is just as important.

“Come on up, then. Each of you — you know who you are…” she said, looking down at them with a welcoming smile.

Pim Mandal, the Egress Commander, was the first to move, followed by Amina Lawrence. Cash Durand stepped forward next, but Enzo jumped ahead of him as if in competition, greeting him with a grin and a shoulder slap on his way through. The others followed in proximity order, with ZeeJay taking her place in the middle of them.

“Amina Lawrence, solar engineering lead, will be responsible for managing the installation of the solar cells in the Lalande Two beachhead.”

Yayoi’s introductions were flawless. Apart from Pim, whom she obviously knew well, she’d likely met the rest of the team only once or twice before, and then only briefly. Apparently she had made it her business to learn each member of the team by sight, as well as their technical specialty.

“...Enzo Hughes, solar engineering specialist, will carry out those installations and fine-tune the materials collection ready for the fabrication of the generation-2 cells.”

Yayoi Diaz personified everything that was perfect about Neweire, from its town planning and architecture through to its engineered society just shy of a million people. A population that knew nothing of poverty, prejudice or civil unrest, except that which they were taught from history texts.

“… Cash Durand, mining and geothermal lead, will manage the setup of energy sources from below the surface, and the extraction of materials to bootstrap the next phases of fabrication…”

As if to underscore its claim to the perfect society, Neweire was also created with a sense of collective purpose. This distinguished it from earlier versions of similar societies, which evolved into little more than experiments in social nihilism; terraria of sloth and apathy.

“…Alex Kovak, mining and geothermal specialist. His talent will be critical for getting us planted, both literally and figuratively, into the new ground of Lalande Two.”

Not all Neweirens had to be terraforming engineers to contribute to their global purpose, of course. Neweire had its complement of waiters, cleaners, artists and real estate agents too. The Neweire mission to Lalande Two drove them on, but it was the people, with all of their eclectic skills and personalities, that made the community work.

“… Zhijuan Collins, systems assembly and integration, will help the team plan activities and bring all the pieces together, to make the new settlement run like an optimised machine. That will get us there all the quicker.”

* * *

Alex Kovak’s excruciating wails were now punctuated with gasps, as if his shattered body required him to suck in air to relieve the agony.

“Can we move the Clonmac to intercept him?” Pim asked.

ZeeJay and Cash were already busy assessing the damage through the system feeds and external camera mounts. Losar, however, could give a quicker and more succinct account.

“Negative, Commander Mandal. We cannot alter our orbit until the drive ducts have been repaired. The damage is significant. I estimate it will require fabrication of a over a dozen new components and several extended EVAs to complete.”

“What about the boat?” Pim asked. “Can we use that to retrieve Alex?”

He knew the answer before Losar gave it.

“Negative. Specialist Kovak is moving away from us at a relative velocity that is too fast for the Descent-and-Entry vehicle. The only way to recover him would be from the Clonmac itself, after the damage is repaired. I’m sorry to say there is nothing we can do for him at present.”

* * *

Yayoi completed her introductions with a segue to the mission commander.

“… And Pim Mandal, whom you all know. Pim, I understand you’re going to give us a description of the activities for the first Egress team.”

Pim bowed and took a step forward.

“Thank you, Yayoi. Yes. Our tour of duty will be between four and six months, depending on how successful we are with the Lalande Two beachhead, before we start a phased hand-off to the second round of Eggressors. But the very first thing we’ll be doing is setting up water and mineral extractions from this small natural satellite…”

With a tap of the tech band on his wrist, a three-dimensional projection brightened into existence, filling the generous open space above them. At first it showed Lalande Two as the primary focus, with its massive central ‘eye’, tidally locked and facing the red dwarf sun that was the Lalande star. It was an image that everyone was as familiar with as they were their own personal living spaces.

Pim’s hand waving changed the focus of the projection to a tiny moon in orbit around the planet — a grey, desolate, peanut-shaped rock, pock-marked with craters, tumbling slowly over its long axis.

“Our navigation team has nicknamed the satellite ‘Kelpie’. It’s only about 50km in diameter, on average, and you can see it hasn’t attained hydrostatic equilibrium. But telemetry shows that it has a rich concentration of metals and exotics — even richer than Lalande Two itself — as well as a large bolus of water ice just under the surface, which we’ll need for the ongoing fabrication process and for converting to hydrogen fuel.”

Following further gestures, a spindle-shaped spacecraft, its front end dominated by a bulky wheel structure, appeared over the rotating horizon of the peanut moon.

“Because the gravity of Kelpie is weak, the Clonmac can manoeuvre in close. So close, in fact, that we can jump, quite literally, from the Clonmac loading dock onto the surface, using only propulsion suits. We don’t even need the Descent-and-Entry boat to land here.”

The projection changed again, to show an accelerated animation of battery and mining equipment being installed on the surface. Pim continued.

“We’ll set up some solar cells here to get going, although they won’t be nearly as effective as they would be on the surface of Lalande Two because of the eccentricity of Kelpie’s rotation. However, they should be sufficient to power the site for as long as we need it.

“Once it’s up and going, the mining operation should almost run itself. Then, about four weeks later, we’ll migrate from Kelpie down to the planet with our first yields, and use them to bootstrap construction of new equipment, including new fabricators.”

* * *

“IT WON’T STOP… HEL—… HUH—… I CAN’T MAKE IT STOP. PLEASE. PLEASE HELP ME…”

Alex Kovak’s first coherent words since the emergency began were threaded between the sounds of his unrelenting distress. The team, still impotent to his agony, refocussed their thoughts on him.

“Alex, we hear you. Hold on. We’re going to save you.” Pim Mandal spoke with a steadiness to reassure not just Alex, but the rest of the team. As their circumstances became clearer, however, they understood Pim’s promise as an empty one.

“If the pain is so severe, why hasn’t he passed out by now? Gone into shock…?” Enzo’s question was fair, but still it made ZeeJay wince.

Losar responded, as usual, without prejudice.

“I have diagnosed the damage in as much detail as I can from his telemetry feeds. In a case of trauma such as this, a protective, simulated shock response and loss of consciousness is indeed what we would expect. The sympathetic and parasympathetic control pathways in each of your autom bodies are distributed throughout the entire spinal channel unit. However, most of the left side of Specialist Kovak’s body, including the spinal channel below the mid-section, has been severed from his conscious control centre. He appears to be incapable of passing out. This may be a design flaw to address in future iterations of autom body development.”

* * *

Pim closed his visual presentation, took a breath, and spoke directly to the Top Hall audience.

“We are all plainly mortal within our home, Neweire. But I suspect we also take for granted just how comfortable and safe we are here. Exploring beyond our world will be safe too, but only up to a point.

“Our work on Lalande Two, and Kelpie, and the space between, will not be risk-free. Calculating risk is an approximation at best, and cannot account for the all unknowns out there. We won’t be taking the safety and comfort of Neweire with us. But we need to remember: We will be taking our mortality.”

* * *

Losar’s last update had given the crew of the Clonmac a physical description of Alex Kovak’s wounds, allowing them to build a mental image of the cause of his agony through the unfiltered wane and pitch of his howls. Amina did her best to offer another course of action.

“Losar, can you remotely disable the afferent nerve fibre feeds into Alex’s brainstem? I know it that won’t help save him. But at least it might relieve the pain.”

ZeeJay and Cash looked at each other. A few of the others joined in on their collective frown.

Losar was momentarily quiet before responding.

“All automs do have a mechanism for remote interception and control of both afferent and efferent brainstem pathways. There are two issues with this. The first is that I am not authorised to initiate any such intercept. Commander Mandal must provide that authority and be very specific about his instructions.”

Pim inhaled, ready to give his authorisation. Losar continued before he could speak.

“The second concern, however, is that the interfaces for that upstreamed control in Specialist Kovak are providing no diagnostic signal. They too, are likely damaged.”

“Can you try it anyway?” Pim asked.

“To confirm, you wish me to attempt to disable all sensory input to Specialist Kovak’s consciousness?”

“Yes, Losar, I authorise you to do exactly that, immediately.”

Losar went silent again.

Alex Kovak, unfortunately, did not.

Spinning further away from a prospect of rescue, unable to treat himself, moderate his pain or even exhaust himself from it, his cries failed to subside.

“I am unsuccessful with the intercept,” Losar said, at last.

“Keep trying, dammit,” snapped Pim.

* * *

The final trial runs before the Egress mission were rigorous but not without respite, so on a shining afternoon in the week before Egress, Cash enticed ZeeJay away from the Neweire Core. The green hillside was an easy 20-minute transport ride out from the centre, just beyond the local attractions of an entertainment precinct and its expansive sculpture park.

Cash had discovered the spot some months before: A quiet patch behind a stand of low forest trees and flowering shrubs that smelt of orange and cedar, where the ground was covered in a pristine, almost moss-like grass — the kind you could lie on naked if you chose to. The city spread out before them, its shapes blending with the gentle curves of the land and the blankets of foliage that rose with its glorious towers. Between the Core and their vantage point, the River Sionnan arced around the outer structures, including the Tribute Carillon, the bells of which were just audible across the water.

Cash’s eyes followed the distant, tiny sails of pleasure craft on the edge of the river. “Do you think we’re all ready?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, definitely,” said ZeeJay, almost too quickly. “I can’t wait. Can you?”

She turned to face him, beaming. “It’s more than a new world, Cash. It’s going to be a whole new universe!”

Cash giggled at her exuberance. “You do understand that for our tour we’re only going to be installing equipment and digging out lifeless rock…?”

Her eyes were as bright as he’d ever seen them, her smile irrepressible as she spoke.

“Yes. But it’s the real world. We’re finally going into the real world…”

* * *

“Commander Mandal. I am obliged to tell you that there is a diagnostic signal from Specialist Kovak’s consciousness failsafe. It is possible to disable his entire consciousness remotely. However, you must authorise such an action both verbally and manually, and it is likely the result will be irreversible. The active QC film housing his consciousness has limited stability, and by the time we reach his autom his consciousness will not be recoverable.”

Pim looked around at his sullen crew. Amina sobbed quietly into her hands. The commander's summary of Losar’s description was brutal.

“So you can switch off his brain, but I have to make you do it. And he will die.”

“Yes, Commander.”

* * *

Like the rest of the Egress team, ZeeJay emerged groggy and disoriented from the Upstreaming process. For several strange hours, she and the others came to terms with their new automs. The upstream transition should not be difficult, since their new bodies felt and looked just like the originals they were familiar with. Motor and endocrine systems, and sensory feedback were already tuned to their pre-existing QC brains, which were now fully transplanted into their new, paradoxically artificial bodies.

Their automs required no food, only an infrequent re-charge of their micro-fusion fuel cells. They could tolerate greater extremes of temperature, and even the vacuum of space, with their bodies providing dampened or amplified sensory signals — even simulated sensations and behaviours such as breathing, fatigue, and sleep — to allow their minds to process their environment as naturally as possible.

Pain and discomfort were completely real, though.

Pain, being a necessary signal to the mind that ‘something is wrong’, is not a function to be messed around with. Certainly, the gain on that signal could be adjusted to suit the improved ruggedness of artificial skin and joints. But removing it altogether, as seen in the early upstreaming experiments, did not end well, for either the automs or the conscious entities housed within them.

There was much adjusting to do in the first few days on the Clonmac. For most of the crew, the novelty of their new environment wore off quickly as they struggled to get used to the confinement. Tempers frayed as they squeezed past each other, limbs nudging awkwardly whenever someone shifted between monitoring stations, or the fabricators that simmered and rattled during every waking and artificial sleeping hour.

ZeeJay was the exception. While those around her complained about the claustrophobic conditions and the lack of privacy, she went about her tasks with relish. Each time a fabricator spat out a new component, she’d want to handle it — feeling its weight and texture, running her fingers over its edges and corners as if it were a piece of jewellery.

In one cycled break time, Cash found her alone in the vaulted mid-section of the wheel, looking wistfully through thick glass into the enclosure holding the Neweire QC film. It was the first time since they’d upstreamed that ZeeJay appeared anything but inspired.

“I thought I’d find you studying the stars, or looking down at Lalande Two’s mountains and valleys,” he said, gliding towards her in the microgravity. “But here you are, in what may be the dullest part of the ship!”

She smiled at him through sleepy eyes, then turned and put her hand up to the glass.

“Maybe I am still coming to terms with it after all,” she said, looking in again.

That gold-coloured sheet, enclosed in a tabletop-sized block of translucent polycarbonate, was not at all impressive from the ‘outside’. And yet it contained everything she’d ever seen or felt until two days ago. The city of Neweire. The planet upon which it flourished. And even the solar system and galaxy through which they trundled, their time scaled just as acutely and artificially as their space.

“Our ancestors solved the problem of carrying humanity across the universe… by virtualising every detail of the universe itself, embedding us within it, then launching us between the stars as luggage.”

Cash’s eyes narrowed in sarcasm. “Zhijuan Collins, are you missing the comforts of home?”

ZeeJay smirked and placed her hand on his cheek.

“The comforts here are quite enough,” she said, and her face broadened again into joy, as if he had somehow re-triggered her zeal simply by being present. Shoving herself away from the window and swinging her arms around his neck, she pushed him up against the wall behind. They kissed with a vigour that aroused in a way that neither had realised their automs were capable of.

* * *

After three days of mission planning and the fabricators churning out drill components, piping, solar cells and batteries, the Egress team finally set foot on Kelpie. It was the first time any Neweirens had ever touched the surface of another world. The monotonic grey landscape of the moon was far from arresting, however, and knowing the real milestone was still weeks away, Kelpie dampened the enthusiasm of everyone other than ZeeJay.

But the work continued in earnest, and within 18 hours of touchdown, Amina and Enzo had the first solar cells installed. A short time later, Cash and Alex had the drill head and extractors working. The drilling made no sound, but they could feel through their boots the vibrations that shook the surface regolith in resonating patterns around the drill head.

There was nothing wrong fundamentally with any of the team’s efficacy and safety calculations. All mining activity carries inherent risk of course, and such risks are best managed according to the available data for the activity at hand. But even a superior artificial intelligence like Losar can only work in probabilities when there are unknowns.

And so it was that a collection of unknowns conspired against them on their fourth day of Egress. The crew had all returned to the Clonmac, except Alex Kovak, who stayed to monitor the drilling progress. Sensors in the drill head correctly detected when it reached the edge of the water ice.

But the strike coincided with Kelpie moving into a perigee position around Lalande Two when it also approached its nearest point to the Lalande star. The increase in temperature from the starlight was factored into their models, as were the competing gravitational stresses from both the planet and the star. Still, their models failed to predict that those expansive forces would create a new and catastrophic fault line through the crust, weakened by the freshly bored drill route. The escape of sublimating steam took the path of least resistance — straight up.

Alex Kovak felt the rumbling only an instant before the drill head exploded. Fragments of piping tore through his protective suit like tissue paper and sliced into his torso, not quite completely separating his waist from his chest. The force was enough to propel his broken body away from Kelpie at four times its escape velocity.

The drill head itself remained largely intact until it collided with the pion drive ducts of the Clonmac hovering above.

* * *

The first Egress team returned early to Neweire as pitied heroes. Under Losar’s control, their recycled automs were modified and re-tuned for the second team, whose mission was rewritten to be extended disaster recovery. It would be have to be a later team that would finally set foot on the surface of Lalande Two.

Formal enquiries into the accident were extensive, but forgiving. Sympathies were clearly in Pim Mandal’s favour for having to make a horrifying decision, even if was the most merciful.

When the sessions were over, ZeeJay and Cash returned one cool evening to their private spot overlooking the Core of Neweire. Laying back on that soft, natural green carpet, they watched the flowing colours of the sunset fade as the lights of the Core were spun up, outlining the city buildings like sparkling ornaments.

Cash made gentle small-talk about their recent debriefings, avoiding their substance. He talked about Pim Mandal’s noble defence of the team’s behaviour under stress, and of Enzo’s need to fill every moment of pause during the hearings with words, regardless of their relevance. And of Amina Lawrence’s stoicism that crumbled on the last, emotional day of the enquiry.

Finally, he articulated the one point they both knew. For ZeeJay it was a crushing detail; one she couldn’t bear to face.

“They’ve said that, because of what happened, all of us are now ‘exempt’ from future Egress missions. At least, until Lalande Two has a population above settlement threshold. Could be ten years. Could even be twenty.”

ZeeJay said nothing. She just peered skyward, imagining the space above her was the same as that surrounding Lalande Two, Kelpie, and the Clonmac. She could almost feel again its bleakness and the untethered danger of drifting forever into a vast nowhere.

Even worse: The ever-present memory of Alex Kovak’s torment — the horror of that sound that cut its way through her psyche just as distinctly as those super-heated pieces of shrapnel had cut their way through his helpless body.

And then the desperate longing to return to that barren, terrible, real world took hold of her, filling the corners of her eyes until large, perfect droplets rolled down both sides of her face and into the soft grass.