Going Interstellar (7 page)

The redhaired engineer said, “Why don’t we use the fuel cells to run the ship?”

Ignatiev shook his head. The kid
knows
better, he’s just grasping at straws.

Sure enough, the AI avatar replied patiently, “The fuel cells would power the ship for a week or less, depending on internal power consumption.”

Crestfallen, the engineer said, “Yeah. Right.”

“Cryosleep is the indicated technique for passing through this emergency,” said the AI system.

Ignatiev asked, “If the fuel cells are used solely for maintaining the cryosleep units’ refrigeration, how long could they last?”

“Two months,” replied the avatar. “That includes maintaining the cryosleep units already in use by the cargo.”

“Understood,” said Ignatiev. “And if this region of low fuel density extends for more than two months?”

Without hesitation, the AI avatar answered, “Power to the cryosleep units will be lost.”

“And the people in those units?”

“They will die,” said the avatar, without a flicker of human emotion.

Gregorian said, “Then we’d better hope that the bubble doesn’t last for more than two months.”

Ignatiev saw the others nodding, up and down the conference table. They looked genuinely frightened, but they didn’t know what else could be done.

He thought he did.

— 7 —

The meeting broke up with most of the crew members muttering to one another about sleeping through the emergency.

“Too bad they don’t have capsules big enough for the two of us,” Gregorian said brashly to Nikki. He was trying to show a valor he doesn’t truly feel, Ignatiev thought. They don’t like the idea of crawling into those capsules and closing the lids over their faces. It scares them. Too much like coffins.

With Gregorian at her side, Nikki approached him as he headed for the conference room’s door. Looking troubled, fearful, she asked, “How long . . . do you have any idea?”

“Probably not more than two months,” he said, with a certainty he did not actually feel. “Maybe even a little less.”

Gregorian grasped Nikki’s slim arm. “We’ll take capsules next to each other. I’ll dream of you all the time we’re asleep.”

Nikki smiled up at him.

But Ignatiev knew better. In cryosleep you didn’t dream. The cold seeped into the brain’s neurons and denatured the chemicals that hold memories. Cryonic sleepers awoke without memories, many of them forgot how to speak, how to walk, even how to control their bladders and bowels. It was necessary to download a person’s brain patterns into a computer before entering cryosleep, and then restore the memories digitally once the sleeper was awakened.

The AI system is going to do
that
for us? Ignatiev scoffed at the idea. That was one of the reasons why the mission required keeping a number of the crew awake during the long flight: to handle the uploading of the memories of the two hundred men and women cryosleeping through the journey once they were awakened at Gliese 581.

Ignatiev left the conference room and headed toward his quarters. There was much to do: he didn’t entirely trust the AI system’s judgment. Despite its sophistication, it was still a computer program, limited to the data and instructions fed into it.

So? he asked himself. Aren’t you limited to the data and instructions fed into
your
brain? Aren’t we all?

“Dr. Ignatiev.”

Turning, he saw Nikki hurrying up the passageway toward him. For once she was alone, without Gregorian clutching her.

He made a smile for her. It took an effort.

Nikki said softly, “I want to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“Vartan told me that he confided in you. That you made him understand . . .”

Ignatiev shook his head. “He was blind.”

“And you helped him to see.”

Feeling helpless, stupid, he replied, “It was nothing.”

“No,” Nikki said. “It was everything. He’s asked me to marry him.”

“People of your generation still marry?”

“Some of us still believe in a lifetime commitment,” she said.

A lifetime of two centuries? Ignatiev wondered. That’s some commitment.

Almost shyly, her eyes lowered, Nikki said, “We’d like you to be at our wedding. Would you be Vartan’s best man?”

Thunderstruck. “Me? But you . . . I mean, he . . .”

Smiling, she explained, “He’s too frightened of you to ask. It took all his courage for him to ask you about me.”

And Ignatiev suddenly understood. I must look like an old ogre to him. A tyrant. An intolerant ancient dragon.

“Tell him to ask me himself,” he said gently.

“You won’t refuse him?”

Almost smiling, Ignatiev answered, “No, of course not.”

Nikki beamed at him. “Thank you!”

And she turned and raced off down the passageway, leaving Ignatiev standing alone, wondering at the working of the human mind.

— 8 —

Once he got back to his own quarters, and still feeling slightly stunned at his own softheartedness, Ignatiev called for the AI system.

“How may I help you, Alexander Alexandrovich?” The image looked like Sonya once again. More than ever, Ignatiev thought.

“How will the sleepers’ brain scans be uploaded into them once they are awakened?” he asked.

“The ship’s automated systems will perform that task,” said the seemingly imperturbable avatar.

“No,” said Ignatiev. “Those systems were never meant to operate completely autonomously.”

“The uploading program is capable of autonomous operation.”

“It requires human oversight,” he insisted. “Check the mission protocols.”

“Human oversight is required,” the avatar replied, “except in emergencies where such oversight would not be feasible. In such cases, the system is capable of autonomous operation.”

“In theory.”

“In the mission protocols.”

Ignatiev grinned harshly at the image on the screen above his fireplace. Arguing with the AI system was almost enjoyable; if the problem wasn’t so desperate, it might even be fun. Like a chess game. But then he remembered how rarely he managed to beat the AI system’s chess program.

“I don’t propose to trust my mind and the minds of the rest of the crew to an untested collection of bits and bytes.”

The image seemed almost to smile back at him. “The system has been tested, Alexander Alexandrovich. It was tested quite thoroughly back on Earth. You should read the reports.”

A hit, he told himself. A very palpable hit. He dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “I will do that.”

The avatar’s image winked out, replaced by the title page of a scientific paper published several years before
Sagan
had started out for Gliese 581.

Ignatiev read the report. Twice. Then he looked up the supporting literature. Yes, he concluded, a total of eleven human beings had been successfully returned to active life by an automated uploading system after being cryonically frozen for several weeks.

The work had been done in a laboratory on Earth, with whole phalanxes of experts on hand to fix anything that might have gone wrong. The report referenced earlier trials where things
did
go wrong and the standby scientific staff was hurriedly pressed into action. But at last those eleven volunteers were frozen after downloading their brain scans then revived and their electrical patterns uploaded from computers into their brains once again. Automatically. Without human assistance.

All eleven reported that they felt no different after the experiment than they had before being frozen. Ignatiev wondered at that. It’s too good to be true, he told himself. Too self-serving. How would they know what they felt before being frozen? But that’s what the record showed.

The scientific literature destroyed his final argument against the AI system. The crew began downloading their brain scans the next day.

All but Ignatiev.

He stood by in the scanning center when Nikki downloaded her brain patterns. Gregorian was with her, of course. Ignatiev watched as the Armenian helped her to stretch out on the couch. The automated equipment gently lowered a metal helmet studded with electrodes over her short-cropped hair.

It was a small compartment, hardly big enough to hold the couch and the banks of instruments lining three of its walls. It felt crowded, stuffy, with the two men standing on either side of the couch and a psychotechnician and the crew’s physician at their elbows.

Without taking his eyes from the panel of gauges he was monitoring, the psychotech said softly, “The scan will begin in thirty seconds.”

The physician at his side, looking even chunkier than usual in a white smock, needlessly added, “It’s completely painless.”

Nikki smiled wanly at Ignatiev. She’s brave, he thought. Then she turned to Gregorian and her smile brightened.

The two men stood on either side of the scanning couch as the computer’s images of Nikki’s brain patterns flickered on the central display screen. A human mind on display, Ignatiev thought. Which of those little sparks of light are the love she feels for Gregorian? he wondered. Which one shows what she feels for me?

The bank of instruments lining the wall made a soft beep.

“That’s it,” said the psychotech. “The scan is finished.”

The helmet rose automatically off Nikki’s head and she slowly got up to a sitting position.

“How do you feel?” Ignatiev asked, reaching out toward her.

She blinked and shook her head slightly. “Fine. No different.” Then she turned to Gregorian and allowed him to help her to her feet.

“Your turn, Vartan,” said Ignatiev, feeling a slightly malicious pleasure at the flash of alarm that passed over the Armenian’s face.

Once his scan was finished, though, Gregorian sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the couch. He stood and spread out his arms. “Nothing to it!” he exclaimed, grinning at Nikki.

“Now there’s a copy of all your thoughts in the computer,” Nikki said to him.

“And yours,” he replied.

Ignatiev muttered, “Backup storage.” Just what we need he thought; Two copies of
Gregorian’s
brain.

Gesturing to the couch, Nikki said, “It’s your turn now, Dr. Ignatiev.”

He shook his head. “Not yet. There are still several of the crew waiting. I’ll go last, when everyone else is finished.”

Smiling, she said, “Like a father to us all. So protective.”

Ignatiev didn’t feel fatherly. As Gregorian slid his arm around her waist and the two of them walked out of the computer lab, Ignatiev felt like a weary gladiator who was facing an invincible opponent. We who are about to die, he thought.

— 9 —

“Alexander Alexandrovich.”

Ignatiev looked up from the bowl of borscht he had heated in the microwave oven of his kitchen. It was good borscht: beets rich and red, broth steaming. Enjoy it while you can, he told himself. It had taken twice the usual time to heat the borscht adequately.

“Alexander Alexandrovich,” the AI avatar repeated.

Its image stared out at him from the small display screen alongside the microwave. Ignatiev picked up the warm bowl in both his hands and stepped past the counter that served as a room divider and into his sitting room.

The avatar’s image was on the big screen above the fireplace.

“Alexander Alexandrovich,” it said again, “you have not yet downloaded your brain scan.”

“I know that.”

“You are required to do so before you enter cryosleep.”

“
If
I enter cryosleep,” he said.

The avatar was silent for a full heartbeat then said, “All the other crew members have entered cryosleep. You are the only crew member still awake. It is necessary for you to download your—”

“I might not go into cryosleep,” he said to the screen.

“But you must,” said the avatar. There was no emotion in its voice, no panic or even tribulation.

“
Must
I?”

“Incoming fuel levels are dropping precipitously, just as you predicted.”

She’s trying to flatter me, he thought. He had mapped the hydrogen clouds that the ship was sailing through as accurately as he could. The bubble of low fuel density was big, so large that it would take the ship more than two months to get through it, much more than two months.

By the time we get clear of the bubble, all the cryosleepers will be dead.

He was convinced of that.

“Power usage must be curtailed,” said the avatar. “Immediately.”

He nodded and replied, “I know.” He held up the half-finished bowl of borscht. “This will be my last hot meal for a while.”

“For weeks,” said the avatar.

“For months,” he countered. “We’ll be in hibernation mode for more than two months. What do your mission protocols call for when there’s not enough power to maintain the cryosleep units?”

The avatar replied, “Personnel lists have rankings. Available power will be shunted to the highest-ranking members of the cryosleepers. They will be maintained as long as possible.”

“And the others will die.”

“Only if power levels remain too low to maintain them all.”

“And your first priority, protecting the lives of the people aboard?”

“The first priority will be maintained as long as possible. That is why you must enter cryosleep, Alexander Alexandrovich.”

“And if I don’t?”

“All ship’s systems are scheduled to enter hibernation mode. Life support systems will shut down.”

Sitting carefully on the plush couch that faced the fireplace, Ignatiev said, “As I understand mission protocol, life support cannot be shut down as long as a crew member remains active. True?”

“True.” The avatar actually sounded reluctant to admit it, Ignatiev thought. Almost sullen.

“The ship can’t enter hibernation mode as long as I’m on my feet. Also true?”

“Also true,” the image admitted.

He spooned up more borscht. It was cooling quickly. Looking up at the screen on the wall, he said, “Then I will remain awake and active. I will not go into cryosleep.”