Howard Waldrop & A. A. Jackson - Sun Up.pdf - Howard Waldrop & A. A. Jackson - widez2

SUN UP

by A.A. Jackson IV and Howard Waldrop

The robot exploration ship Saenger parked off the huge red sun.

It was now a tiny dot of stellar debris, bathed in light, five million

nine hundred ninety-four thousand myriameters from the star. Its fusion ram

had been silent for some time. It had coasted in on its reaction motors like a

squirrel climbing down a curved treetrunk.

The ship Saenger was partly a prepackaged scientific laboratory, partly

a deep space probe, with sections devoted to smaller launching platforms,

inflatable observatories, assembly shops. The ship Saenger had a present crew

of eighteen working robots. It was an advance research station, sent unmanned

to study this late-phase star. When it reached parking orbit, it sent messages

back to its home world. In a year and a half, the first shipful of scientists

and workers would come, finding the station set up and work underway.

The ship was mainly Saenger, a solid-state intelligence budded off the

giant SSI on the Moon.

Several hours after it docked off the sun, Saenger knew it was going to

die.

There was a neutron star some 34 light-years away from Saenger, and 53

light-years away from the earth. To look at it, you wouldn't think it was any

more than a galactic garbage dump. All you could tell by listening to it was

that it was noisy, full of X-rays, that it rotated, and that it interfered

with everything up and down the wavelengths.

Everything except Snapshot.

Close in to the tiny roaring star, closer than a man could go, were a

series of big chucks of metal that looked like solid debris.

They were arrays of titanium and crystal, vats of liquid nitrogen,

shielding; deep inside were the real workings of Snapshot.

Snapshot was in the business of finding Ken wormholes in the froth of

garbage given off by the star. Down at the Planck length, 10-35 cm, the things

appeared, formed, reappeared, twisted, broke off like steam on hot rocks. At

one end of the wormholes was Snapshot, and at the other was the Universe.

It sent messages from one end, its scanners punching through the

bubbling mass of waves, and it kept track of what went where and who was

talking to whom.

Snapshot's job was like that of a man trying to shoot into the hole of

an invisible Swiss cheese that was turning on three axes at 3300 rpm. And it

had to remember which holes it hit. And do it often.

There were a couple of Snapshots scattered within close range of Earth,

and some further away. All these systems coordinated messages, allowed

instantaneous communication across light-years.

All these communications devices made up Snapshot. Snapshot was one

ten-millionth the function of Plato.

Plato was a solid crystal intelligence grown on the Moon, deep under the

surface. The people who worked with Plato weren't exactly sure how he did

things, but they were finding out every day. Plato came up with the right

answers; he had devised Snapshot, he was giving man the stars a step or two at

a time. He wasn't human, but he had been planned by humans so they could work

with him.

"Plato, this is Saenger."

> < (:)-(:)(:) 666 * CCC XXXXX

"That's being sent. I have an emergency here that will cancel the

project. Please notify the responsible parties."

> < > <--' () ** """ > <

"I don't think so. I'll tell them myself."

"(:)(:) & ' '

"I'll get back to you on that."

(:)

"Holding."

XXXXX PLATO TRANSFER SNAPSHOT re Saenger RUNNING

Doctor Maxell leaned back in her chair. The Snapshot printout was

running and the visuals awaited her attention.

"Uchi," she said, "they'll have to scrub Saenger."

"I heard the bleep," said the slight man. He pulled off his glasses and

rubbed his eyes. "Is Plato ready yet?"

"Let's see it together," she said. "It'll save time when we have to

rerun it for the Committee."

They watched the figures, the graphics, the words. The printout ran into

storage.

"Supernova," said Dr. Maxell.

"Well... first opportunity to see one close up."

"But there goes the manned part of the project. There goes Saenger."

"The Committee will have to decide what comes next."

"You want to tell them or should I?"

"Saenger, this is Dr. Maxell."

"Speaking."

No matter how many times she did it, Sondra never got used to speaking

across light-years with no more delay than through an interoffice system.

"Saenger, the Committee has seen your reports and is scrubbing the

remainder of your mission. The rest of your program will be modified. You're

to record events in and around the star until such time as--your functions

cease."

There was a slight pause.

"Would it be possible to send auxiliary equipment to allow me to leave

this system before the star erupts?"

"I'm afraid not, Saenger. If the forces hold to your maximum predicated

time, there's still no chance of getting a booster to you."

Saenger, like the other robot research stations, was a fusion ram. They

used gigantic boosters to push them to ramming speed. The boosters, like

shuttlecraft, were reusable and were piloted back to launching orbits. Saenger

used its ram to move across vast distances and to slow down. Its ion motors

were useful only for maneuvering and course corrections.

The reaction motors could not bring it to ramming speed.

The booster for its return journey was to be brought out on the first

manned ship which would have come to Saenger.

The manned ship was not coming.

All this was implied in Doctor Maxell's words.

"Would I be of more use if I were to remain functioning throughout the

event?"

"Certainly," she said. "But that's not possible. Check with Plato on the

figures for the shock wave and your stress capabilities."

Slight pause.

"I see. But, it would be even better for scientific research if I

survived the explosion of the star?"

"Of course. But there is nothing you can do. Please stand by for new

programming."

There was another short silence, then:

"You will be checking on my progress, won't you?"

"Yes Saenger, we will."

"Then I shall do the best possible job of information-gathering for

which I am equipped."

"You do that, Saenger. Please do that for us."

In Saenger's first messages, it told them what it saw. The spectroscopy,

X-ray scans, ir, uv and neutrino grids told the same thing: the star was going

to explode.

Saenger reached an optimum figure of one year, two months and some days.

The research ship checked with Plato. The crystal intelligence on the Moon

told him to knock a few months off that.

Plato printed a scenario of the last stages of the 18-solar-mass star.

He sent it to Doctor Maxell. It looked like this:

START--016 CORE IGNITION HELIUM FLARE

OPT. TIME 12 DAYS

STAGE: 16O SHELL IGNITION

DURATION 2.37 DAYS,

CORE COOLING 16O BURNOFF

STAGE: SILICONE CORE IGNITION

DUR. 20 HOURS

STAGE: SILICONE CORE BURNING

DUR. 2.56 DAYS

STAGE: SILICONE SHELL IGNITION

DUR. 8 HOURS

STAGE: CORE CONTRACTION

DUR. 15 HOURS

STAGE: IRON CORE PHOTODISINTEGRATED

--CORE COLLAPSE DUR. 5 h 24 min 18 sec

SUPERNOVA no durational msmnt possible

The same information was sent to. Saenger. With the message from Plato

that the first step of the scenario was less then eleven months away.

Saenger prepared himself for the coming explosion. It sent out small

automatic probes to ring the star at various distances. One of them it sent on

an outward orbit. It was to witness the destruction of Saenger before it, too,

was vaporized by the unloosed energies of the star.

One of the problems they had working with Plato was that he was not

human. So, then, neither were any of the other SSIs budded off Plato. Of which

Saenger was one. Humans had made Plato, had guided it while it evolved its own

brand of sentience.

They had done all they could to guide it along human thought patterns.

But if it went off on some detour which brought results, no matter how alien

the process, they left it to its own means.

It had once asked for some laboratory animals to test to destruction,

and they had said no. Otherwise, they let Plato do as it pleased.

They gave a little, they took a little while the intelligence grew

within its deep tunnels in the Moon. What they eventually got was the best

mind man could ever hope to use, to harness for his own means.

And as Plato had been budded off the earlier, smaller Socrates, they

were preparing a section of Plato for excision. It would be used for even

grander schemes, larger things. Aristotle's pit was being excavated near

Tycho.

That part of Plato concerned with such things was quizzical. It already

knew it was developing larger capacities, and could tackle a few of the

problems for which they would groom Aristotle. In a few years, it knew it

might answer them all, long before the new mass had gained its full capacity.

But nobody asked it, so it didn't mention it.

Not maliciously, though. It had been raised that way.

Thousands of small buds had already been taken off Plato, put in

stations throughout the solar system, used in colonization, formed into the

Snapshot system, used for the brains of exploratory ships.

Saenger was one of those.

"Plato."

"I have a problem."

" ":-& &(')*

"What can I do? Besides that?"

- - - - - - - - -& (:) (:) x @ 1/4 . 7v SQR(X3)

"Then what?"

- - - - - D = RT . x, x, <= - 1

"Do go on."

- - - - - C2; C2 -1/10 r SQR(t)

"Saenger is talking to Plato a lot, Sondra."

"A lot? How much is a lot?"

"I saw some discards yesterday, had Saenger's code on it. Thought they

were from the regular run. But I came across the same thing this morning,

before the Snapshot encoding. So it couldn't have been on regular

transmission."

"And...?" asked Sondra.

"And I ran a capacity trace on it. Saenger used four ten-billionths of

Plato's time this morning. And yesterday, a little less."

She drummed her fingers on the desk. "That's more than ten probes should

have used, even on maintenance schedules. Maybe Plato is as interested as we

are in supernovae?"

"What Saenger gave us was pretty complete. There's not much he could

tell Plato he didn't tell us."

"Want to run it on playback?" asked Sondra.

"I'd rather you asked Saenger yourself," said the man. "Maybe they just

exchanged information and went over capacity."

Sondra Maxell took off her earphones. "Uchi, do you think Saenger knows

it's going to die?"

"Well, it knows what 'ceasing to function' is. Or has a general idea,

anyway. I don't think it has the capacity to understand death. It has nothing

to go by."

"But it's a reasoning being, like Plato. I..." She thought a moment.

"How many of Plato's buds have ceased to function?"

"Just the one, on the Centauri rig."

"And that was quick, sudden, totally unexpected?"

"The crew and the ship wiped out in a couple of nanoseconds. What...?"

"I think, Uchi, that this is the first time one of Plato's children

knows it's going to die. And so does Plato."

"You mean it might be giving Saenger special attention, because of

that?"

"Or Saenger might be demanding it."

Uchi was silent.

"This is going to be something to see," he said, finally.

"Saenger, what have you been talking to Plato about?"

"The mechanics of the shock wave and the flux within the star's loosened

envelope. If you would like, I could printout everything we've discussed."

"That would take months, Saenger."

"No matter then, Dr. Maxwell. I have a question."

"Yes?"

"Could I move further away from this star? The resolution of my

instruments won't be affected up to point 10.7 AU. I could station a probe in

this orbit. I thought you might get a better view and data if I were further

out."

Sondra was quiet. "Saenger," she said, "you know you can't possibly get

away from the shock, no matter how far you move on your ion engines?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"And that you can't get to ramming speed, either?"

"Yes," said Saenger.

"Then why are you trying to move further away?"

"To give you a better view," said the ship. "Plato and I figured the

further away the more chance of getting valuable information I would have. I

could telemeter much more coordinated data through Snapshot. The new

programming is not specific about the distance of the ship, only of the

probes."

Sondra looked at Uchi. "We'll ask the Committee. I don't think there'll

be any real objections. We'll get back to you ASAP."

"Saenger out."

Off that star was black, and the light was so bright on the sunward side

that all Saenger's screens had to be filtered down to No. 3.

The sun still appeared as a red giant in the optics, burning brighter

than when Saenger docked around it. But Saenger had other eyes that saw in

other waves. His neutrino grids saw the round ball of the star and its

photosphere, but deep inside it detected a glowing cone, growing larger and

more open each day, rooted down inside the atmosphere of the sun. The helium

flash was not far away.

Already Plato had revised his figures again. He had little more than

seven months before the star blew like a cosmic steam boiler, giving men the

first close look at an event they had not seen before.

The star would cover the whole sunward sky, its shell would expand,

covering everything for millions of myriameters with the screaming remnants of

its atmosphere.

Saenger had no margin of safety.

He did not have time, or the proper materials, or anything.

He was monitoring himself and his worker robots as he moved outward on

his reaction engines. He had swung out of the orbit as soon as the Committee

had given permission.

His robots moved in and out through the airlocks and the open sides of

the ship.

One of them, using a cutting laser, sawed through its leg and went

whirling away on a puff of soundless force. These robot were never made to

work outside the ship.

If Saenger could have, he would have said the word damn.

"Plato?"

"There's not enough material in the ship unless I cannibalize my

shielding."

> <"

"But that would defeat the whole purpose."

"How could I?"

X (:)& - - - -) (') (- - -

"Hey! Why didn't I think of that!"

&"*()

"But they'll know as soon as I do."

? * (:)(:) & - - -?

"Well..."

"Now he's using his scoops," said Sondra as she monitored the Snapshot

encoding for the day. "What in the hell is going on out there?"

"It's not interfering with the monitoring programs. He's sent out two

more remote monitors. And the activity down there is picking up."

"He's backed off on his use of Plato. Way below normal, in fact. Do you

think we ought to have him dump his grids now?" she asked;

"You're the boss," said Uchi. "I'd get as much information as we could

first. He may find something in those last three minutes we don't know about."

"Has Plato contacted him?" asked Sondra. "Hmmm. Not lately."

"He's cut him loose," she said. "He's on his own."

Howard Waldrop & A. A. Jackson - Sun Up.pdf

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