“A hunch for what answer?” Aki asked.
“In today’s battle, I was sure the Builders would attack us. But they didn’t. They were deflecting a reasonably massive attack, but they didn’t connect our presence to the combat.”
“Maybe they were too busy vaporizing the missiles to consider why we were there,” Igor said.
“Yesterday and today, the Builders faced an attack from a new enemy. Anyone paying attention would associate an unfamiliar attack in the neighborhood with the new ship that was also lurking in the area. We were just outside their attack zone flying at a velocity that matched theirs exactly. How much more blatantly obvious could we be?” Raul glanced at a moving bar on the graph.
“Natalia was not a part of that,” Aki said.
“She’s communicating with the Builders!” Raul tensed and if not for the zero gravity, Aki thought, may have started dancing. Everyone else started paying a lot more attention to Raul’s graphs.
“I encoded Natalia’s internal state and aimed a communication beam at the Builders’ ship. I nearly lost control of my bladder when she got a response on the same frequency.”
“What was the response?” Igor asked.
“That’s what’s crazy. I have no idea. I have no way of communicating with Natalia. The same goes for the Builders’ reply. It’s gibberish. I queried the Phalanx’s computer, but nada. But what’s important is that we got a reply. Natalia and the Builders are similar, and they’re somehow able to understand each other.”
Raul opened a new window on the monitor. The monitor depicted the laser signal being received from the Builders as fluctuating bands. He toggled to a similar screen that showed communication being sent from Natalia to the Builders.
“The patterns look the same. They’ve found a common language. Aki, do you remember the first time you met Natalia?”
“Of course.”
“Do you remember how Natalia reacted when you threatened to flip her switch?”
“She didn’t react at all,” Aki said, the images of the psychedelic colors flashing on the monitors in Raul’s trailer seventeen years prior coming back to her. “I remember you yelling at me to stop, saying she was unable to interact with humans.”
“That’s right. If you have no self-awareness, you, by default, have no understanding of enemies or threats. The idea of somebody taking your life away is a concept that makes no sense. It’s all so similar.”
“Similar to what?” Aida asked.
“To the Builders not understanding that the Phalanx was a part of what was attempting to destroy them. The Builders are programmed to remove any obstacles. They see all the human actions that have happened so far as nothing more than objects in their way, even though we are life-forms engaging in rational actions. They have no concept of self or other. To them, we’re no different than asteroids, comets, or space debris.”
Aki recalled the conversation about capuchin monkeys with Jill Elsevier from that same day at the ETICC. The Builders lacked a theory of mind. “So they have ignored us but are interested in Natalia. I just wish we knew how they are making sense of those strange thought patterns of hers.”
“That I don’t know. But what’s important here is not how they’re doing it but rather that they’re able to do it at all. It may be that they think she’s part of them since they can’t perceive her as a separate individual intelligence,” Raul said. Then he smiled. “The even bigger question here is if they do think that she’s part of them, would they refrain from firing the attack beam if she approached?”
Aki looked around the room and noticed that everybody was staring at her, waiting for an answer. Their departure was scheduled for 10 pm GMT, which meant that Aki had exactly twelve hours to take action, provided she could decide on what action to take. Trying to first contact the UNSDF and explain the situation would take more time than Aki was willing to waste. “Because of what we have been through, we need to decide together. Let’s vote. Do we sit it out and wait for our departure window or do we follow Raul’s hunch and make an approach?”
“Let’s do it,” Igor said without hesitation.
“I’m in too. That’s why we’re here, right?” said Aida, looking less glum than she had all morning.
“Before I give my vote, I have a question,” Joseph said. “Suppose they let us approach without firing on us. Does that mean we’re back to the original plan of the commander, Raul, and I boarding their ship?”
“That’s the only option. Now that the Remora’s lost, contact requires an EVA,” Aki said. Looking into his eyes, she could see that Joseph had no reservations. He even looked energized by the idea.
“Okay. It’s my job to protect you. I go where you go.”
“Then we’re all in,” Aki said.
“We go knock on their door and see what happens,” Raul said. He had not stopped smiling.
“It’s unanimous. The clock is ticking. Let’s get to work.” Aki had chosen her crew because she knew they were willing to go to any lengths to make contact. She had started mentally composing the note to the UNSDF before she had even began polling them.
CHAPTER 4: MIND TO MIND
ACT I: JULY 31, 2041
FLEET HEADQUARTERS GRANTED Aki’s request without hesitation, proving that the UNSDF had written off the Phalanx. The UNSDF further agreed to extend the ship’s departure time by three hours. This allowed more time for boarding, though Aki was concerned that cutting their departure closer would risk her ship being caught in the crossfire of dueling graser charges.
No alarms sounded at the fifteen thousand–kilometer mark. Tension knotted Aki’s body. The ship passed through the ten thousand, five thousand, and then even the one thousand–kilometer mark without any of the security systems warning of an attack by the Builders. The Phalanx approached silently, the two ships linked by nothing but laser communication beams. Hardly any distance was left between them.
The Phalanx brought itself to within five hundred meters of the port side of the Builders’ ship. The enormous reflector extending from the middle of the Torus reminded Aki of a holy chalice. Countless thorn-like spikes on the outside of the reflector pointed toward the center. Igor declared that the mysterious thorns were tiny lasers to ignite the propellant pellets. If Igor was right, tiny granular particles were projected to the center of the reflector and fired on by the lasers in order to cause a nuclear fusion reaction. This would mean that the atoms in the pellets were accelerated to nearly 1 percent the speed of light before bouncing off the hundred-meter wide reflector. Presumably, that pulsing cycle would occur around three hundred times per second.
“If we could get a sample of the materials used to build this reflector, even disregarding its capabilities, there would be massive overnight advances in engineering. I would love to move in for a better look, but it would be suicide to approach that reflector with the engine operating,” Igor said.
Extending through the Torus to the back of the engine was a smooth and seamless gray rod about one hundred meters long. The crew had observed its length decreasing over the past three days. The rod was considered the ship’s fuel supply.
“The nanomachines must be converting that material into fuel pellets, then delivering the pellets to the engine,” Igor said.