“A demonstration of power, maybe? That’s good. If they’re trying to intimidate us, that means they’re planning to talk. Setting up a negotiating position.”
“I don’t think that they did aim,” Pranav said. “About half the Earth is Pacific Ocean. No significance. It’s random.”
“Any casualties?” somebody asked.
Kyle looked at his screens. “None reported. The Pacific is pretty empty.”
The bearded man spoke again. “Angela, over in planetary physics, thinks that it was a remote probe. She says they hit the atmosphere with a blast to ionize it and get a chemical analysis. It’s what she’d do, she says.”
Morgan wasn’t sure why Angela wasn’t willing to speak for herself, but apparently the bearded man served as the speaker for the physics group. “What, they need to hit the planet with a laser to find out what we’re made of?” she asked. “Don’t they have remote sensing?”
“At interstellar distances?” Kyle was thoughtful. “Probably not. No, they would know we’re here, from intercepting our radio broadcasts, so they know that there’s a planet capable of sustaining life. But actually knowing the chemical composition of our atmosphere? That’s pretty hard. Planets are pretty tiny. They could probably tell how massive the planet is and what our orbit is, but atmosphere is hard to detect from a distance of light-years. I know that we’ve certainly tried hard enough. They might not know until they get close enough to probe directly.”
“So, what do we do now?”
Kyle shrugged. “So, they probed. They won’t even know whether their probe beam hit for fifteen minutes. What do we do? Easy.
“Bathroom break.”
Morgan set off to find the restrooms. She could hear several of the others behind her engaging in a spirited argument involving a lot of equations scrawled on place mats, about whether it was possible to analyze a planet’s atmosphere across a distance of several light-years. When she came back, they were still arguing, although the consensus seemed to be building that unless the planet happened to transit in front of its sun, it would be extremely difficult.
Half an hour later, they were all watching Pranav. “We’re getting chatter on the radio,” Pranav said. “They’re talking.”
“What are they saying?”
“Can’t tell yet. Wait for a little more, and maybe the pattern-recognition software will catch something. They seem pretty excited, though. I can tell that much.” Pranav bent over his laptop and began opening windows. “Pattern recognition is beginning to parse it. I think we’re getting it. The gist of it. Chemical analysis, yes.” He looked over toward the physics group. “Seems like you guessed right on that one.”
“But what are they saying?” Morgan asked. The whole room was silent now. “Well?”
“Oxygen,” Pranav said. “They’ve repeated that several times.”
“Yes, of course,” Morgan said. “If they are analyzing the atmosphere, that’s what they’ll find. Oxygen. Nitrogen, too.”
“Oxygen planet,” Pranav said. “And here’s the phrase for, I think, danger. Another one—reverse? Life? Life in reverse? Hold on, here’s a better parsing.” Pranav fell silent, staring at his screen.
“Well? What is it?”
Pranav looked up. “Here’s my best translation: ‘Oxygen planet! Poison!’ That’s it. Oxygen. Poison.” He looked down at his screen. “Imperative tense: ‘Return back.’ ”
“Look,” somebody said. “The screen.” Everybody turned to look up. “They’ve stopped decelerating.”
“That could mean anything,” Kyle said.
“No,” Morgan said. “It means that they’re not stopping. They’re not coming here. They changed their minds.
“It’s the real answer to the Fermi paradox. Why aren’t they here? Why didn’t Earth get colonized millions of years ago? We’re not a zoo; we’re not a nature preserve. The aliens don’t have a prime directive not to interfere with less-developed species. It’s because we’re a poison planet. Nobody else in the neighborhood would want to come here, nobody else could live here—oxygen is poison.”
“It looks like they’re going for a slingshot trajectory around the sun,” somebody said.
“To where?”
“Do we really care?” Pranav asked. “We won.”
“Not us,” Morgan said. “The plants. The plants won it.”
Kyle was looking up at the big screen. “They didn’t even want to talk to us. But now we know it’s possible; we can reverse-engineer their technologies. Someday we’ll visit them.”
“Maybe,” Morgan said. “But you know, their planets will be poison to us.”
“Nevertheless.”
Morgan nodded. “I expect. But just to visit. Like it or not, it looks like our planet has to be our home.”
“Home, sweet poisonous home,” Kyle said. “And we like it that way.”
Grid Princess
By Cheryl Rydbom
Rock, solar panel, dirt. Rock, solar panel, dirt. Rock, solar panel, dying cactus, dirt.
Not even Illume could tag anything interesting in the Gray Zone. As Dani struggled to stay on the dilapidated road and off the knife-edged service rail running beside it, Illume kept pointing out each and every solar panel she passed—each, on its stanchion, identical to the last, all pointing toward the sun, all surrounded by little chain-link enclosures—and with each, Illume offered up the history of the Zone’s solar farm. Well, it occasionally tagged and presented an article about the life cycle of cacti instead.
Even before Sienna’s family emergency had left Dani traveling alone, the idea of camping in the Gray Zone had held a certain salacious terror. Bereft of communication with the outside world and filled with creepy crawlies never to be found east of the Mississippi? It had sounded audacious.
But thirty kilometers in, there was nothing.
And Illume’s battery was low from all the futile searching. Dani tongued the controller bridge to shut down its wildlife scanner just as her beast of a truck hit another pothole. Her tongue slipped, selecting a vid, and her grandmother’s transparent image materialized. Gran smiled while Dani fought with the wheel.
“Halley’s comet’s last visit was when I was in the sixth grade. My class went on an overnight field trip to the observatory.”
Dani blinked furiously to stop the journal’s playback while straining to see through Gran’s watery face.
“Visibility was terrible, but we saw Saturn. My father took me to get hot donuts the next morning. Maybe this pass—”
The journal clicked off just as the truck gave a teeth-jarring bounce. Metal shrieked.
Illume: Warning, interference with the service system will result in prosecution.
Swearing, Dani yanked hard to the right, away from the track, but the beast’s response was wrong, sluggish and rough. It staggered another ten meters before she hit the brakes.
Illume: Warning, no unscheduled stops permitted within twenty meters of federal property.
Her hands shook on the wheel. Had she hit the service rail? She checked her rearview mirror. Nothing but dirt, the track, and little black bits.
Oh, God. Were those bugs?
There were tarantulas in the desert. She’d read about them, seen holos. Nervously, she leaned out the window to get a better look, but Illume’s wildlife scanner didn’t so much as twitch. Relieved, Dani shoved the door open, tumbling out into the sun.
Definitely not bugs. Her left rear tire lay in tatters, pieces littering the road. She almost laughed, which was better than crying.
Illume: Warning, littering will result in prosecution.
“Stupid truck,” she said, miming a kick at it.
The beast didn’t respond, but that’s because it wasn’t her truck. It was Sienna’s, or maybe it was Sienna’s da
d’s. Either way, it wasn’t hers. She hadn’t been the one to convert it to solar packs. She didn’t even own a vehicle, but if she did, it wouldn’t be as old as her grandmother, and it wouldn’t be without an AI.
Blinking away hot tears, she reminded herself that she wasn’t helpless. Sienna had sent her a huge bundle of multimedia how-to files when she’d handed Dani the keys. Dani focused on her lens. Next to the “low battery” icon, the “no connection” icon hovered, as it had, since she’d crossed into the Zone. Her heart stuttered. Illume had cached the bundle, right?
“Illume?” Dani queried. “Search for ‘fix tire.’ ”
After a few seconds, a document opened. She blew out the lungful of air she’d been holding and skimmed the file. She could do this.
All in all, it took more than an hour. The lug nuts were almost rusted to the frame, and the spare was flat, but she managed to change and inflate it. She stretched and surveyed her work. Every muscle in her back ached, but she felt good. The tire was fixed, and she hadn’t panicked—not really—and she hadn’t called for help.
Not that she could have. Not here.
She switched off the air pump and was met by silence. Had she ever been anywhere so desolate? Shivering, she hurried to the front of the truck to disconnect the air pump’s power cable.
A stick cracked and she dropped the hood with a bang, scanning the desert. Nothing. She upped Illume’s magnification and scanned again. Still, a whole lot of nothing.
Her arms broke out in goose bumps.
Watching over her shoulder, she collected the tools she’d strewn about the road.
“Illume,” she asked, “how much farther to San Rafael?”
It overlaid her route on a map of the Zone and then displayed: 100 km, ETA 2134.
Dani swore as she threw the last of the tools into the back. She’d arrive after sunset. Resigned, she climbed back into the cab. What was she even doing here without Sienna? Only crazy outdoorsmen camped in the Zone, and Dani was not that. She wasn’t even an astronomer like the rest of Sienna’s friends.
But she wanted to see the comet since Gran couldn’t.
She cranked the truck.
Nothing happened. She tried again. It clicked, but none of the lights came on.
The gas gauge—which wasn’t really a gas gauge anymore—read “Full”. Hadn’t Sienna said something about the gauge not always being right? Leaning forward, she rapped it with her knuckle.
The needle dropped to E.
She frowned. The solar packs should have been filling the capacitor banks with nice, warm energy the entire time she worked.
“Crap,” she said. Then louder, “Crap.”
She’d disconnected the solar packs from the capacitor banks in order to connect the air pump. She popped the hood, jumped out, and hooked everything back up.
She tried the truck again.
Nothing happened. She chewed on her fingernails, staring at the gauge, while she waited. But even when her nails were nubs, the engine wouldn’t turn over.
Think. But she couldn’t. She was stranded in a desert with no way to call for help. There was nothing. No service stations, no convenience stores, no public outlets. No wireless or comm lines. Even the comsats didn’t bother to point an antenna in this direction. Just rocks, solar panels, and dirt.
Wait. The solar panels.
The closest was only a few meters away, and although that particular one wasn’t as well calibrated as the others, pointing midway between her and the sun, it had easily ten times the power output of the suckers strapped to the roof of the truck. Just a few minutes from it and she’d be on her way.
She climbed into the truck’s bed to dig through Sienna’s tools. There were wire cutters, but while the inverter box could handle the load, there was no HV cable. She’d have to improvise.
The chain-link fence surrounding Dani’s target was locked. A sign hanging above it warned against exactly what she planned to do.
She hefted the cutters anyway, braced for one of Illume’s warnings.
“Hey!” shouted a male voice. “No!”
Dani spun, brandishing the tool.
A man stood, not ten meters away, dressed in shades of dust and leather. He could have stepped out of an old Western vid.
The cutters trembled in her grip.
He took a step toward her, and she panicked. Her feet tangled and she went sprawling. When he took another step, she scrambled, crab-walking backwards.
“Wait! Stop!” He reached into his coat.
She froze. Did he have a weapon?
She tongued the controller bridge until green lines gridded his face and torso. He pulled out a pair of sunglasses, just as Illume displayed: Identity unknown.
Without access to the citizen database, it was unsurprising, but not comforting. Illume then highlighted the stranger’s glasses, flagging them as obsolete.
“If you touch the fence, they’ll lock you up. No questions asked.” He squatted slowly, meeting her at eye level and put them on. “Only thing the feds care about are those panels.”
His glasses pinged her contact lens, sending his “card” as he said, “I’m Gage.”
Dani didn’t respond, instead, pushing to her feet. Maybe she should feel safer, being able to file his identity, but she didn’t.
“I can help,” he said.
She sidestepped him, sliding toward the beast.
He rose. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She bolted for the truck. “Said every serial killer.”
“No, really.” He sounded frustrated. “I want you moving as much as you want to be gone.”
That got her attention. “Why?”
He pocketed the sunglasses. “If you stir up the feds, they’ll sweep the area.”
“And?”
“They don’t like my people.”
“Your people?” Then she wanted to kick herself. Why was she still talking to him?
“Those of us that live in the Zone.” He stopped on the other side of the truck, not quite touching it. “They think we mess with their power farms.”
“And do you?”
A corner of his mouth quirked up and he shrugged. “Not as often as they think we do.”
“Uh-huh.” Dani refused to be charmed by a murderous cowboy. “Well, thanks for the warning.”
“Let me help.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the beast.
She eased a step closer to the cab. “Unless you have a generator in your pocket, there’s nothing you can do. The tank is drained.”
“We need to move your truck.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“These panels aren’t just collecting solar power. They’re absorbing all radiant energy. They’ll drain your packs faster than yours will fill your battery.”
Dani snorted. “That’s not how solar panels work.”
“These aren’t your Daddy’s panels, princess,” he said. “The feds don’t advertise that they’re soaking up all the heat in the desert.”
“I see,” she said out loud, while she thought, He’s going to kill me.
“Watch.” He produced a book of matches and struck one. Fire flared and then burned for a second before it poofed out. “See?”
“Um?”
“The panels sucked up the energy.” He flicked the match away. “Did you feel any wind? The flame extinguished in the direction of that panel.”
She glanced at the closest one, which was humming as it rotated another fraction of a degree toward her truck. “If it’s sucking up radiant heat, why isn’t my skin cold? And how does it affect the energy stored in the capacitors?”
“Look, I’m not an engineer.” Gage shrugged. “You could stay here until you catch a chill, but i
t can’t hurt to move your truck.”
Unless you are trying to lure me into your lair. She groaned at herself. His lair? Out loud, she said, “But it won’t start.”
“We’ll push it. We only need to go a kilometer or so.”
She barked out a skeptical little laugh. “Only a kilometer?”
“There’s a stand of mesquite trees just after the service track curves away from the road. It should be far enough from the panels.”
The battery icon on her lens flashed “0%.”
She swore, ignoring the cowboy, and scrolled through her list of active apps. There was no way it should be out of juice, not when it drew power from both her and the sun.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, just as Illume shut itself down.
“My lens died.” She ground the heel of her thumb into her forehead and tried to think. Sure, even with it working, she couldn’t contact anyone outside of the Zone, but the thought of being without it and without the bundle of info from Sienna…. She swore again.
“Time to move.” Gage put his hat on and moved to the beast’s tailgate. “Put your truck in neutral. You steer.”
“I didn’t agree to anything.”
He shrugged. “Either start pushing or I’m gone. My good deed for the day is about to expire.”
Dani was torn between relief and fear that the crazy cowboy might leave. She was stranded in the Gray Zone with no wireless, and Illume was dead.
What if he left and the beast didn’t restart before the sun went down? What were the chances that someone else would pass by? Someone with a generator?
She took a deep breath. “Fine, we’ll move it.”
The truck began rolling as soon as she popped it into neutral. She hopped back out and pushed with her left arm while keeping a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel. The track drew the beast like a magnet. It was all she could do to lend Gage some muscle while fighting with the wheel.