Eye Record
by James Dick
For future generations
For our children
For my grandchildren
For my own peace of mind
For posterity
—E.C.
*Transcript—TRANCE team meeting, 05/09/2035*
Participants: …………Principal Investigator Dr. Edward Carraway
…………………………….Assistant Mission Manager Janet Bishop
…………………………….LIZARD Instrument Manager Tanesha Waller-Hill
…………………………….Propulsion Manager Jan Sorrell
…………………………….NASA Administrator Drew Murdoch
[14:02:32]
MURDOCH: In your report, you describe the pulses as following specific electromagnetic frequencies. Can you elaborate on that?
CARRAWAY: Yes, ma’am. So, initially, they cycled through the first one-hundred-twenty-nine prime numbers one-hundred-twenty-nine times. Then, the first thirteen numbers of the Fibonacci sequence thirteen times. And after that, they began a series of increasingly complex patterns, but always with an identifiable mathematical formula.
MURDOCH: Across the entire EM spectrum?
BISHOP: As time went on, they rotated through it. Each sequence occurred in different frequencies—visible light, ultraviolet, infrared, X-ray, etcetera.
WALLER-HILL: There are gaps in the emissions, but my team has a theory that those gaps represent dips in the frequencies so low that they simply don’t register on TRANCE’s instruments. They’re indiscernible from ambient radiation.
MURDOCH: And Doctor, you’re convinced you can re-task TRANCE to reach the source and investigate these pulses?
CARRAWAY: I am. I’ll let Jan fill you in on our plan.
SORRELL: The maneuver we have in mind will require all the remaining Delta-V the probe possesses. Once it arrives at 188942, its mission will effectively be at an end. Given the telemetry we’ve received so far, we believe it’s worth the sacrifice.
CARRAWAY: What we’ve seen is unprecedented.
MURDOCH: If you complete the expected maneuver, how long will TRANCE take to reach the asteroid?
CARRAWAY: Five years, four months, six days, give or take a few hours. But we have to start the burn in the next three days to maximize its efficiency, otherwise we won’t be able to reach the intended orbit with enough fuel to decelerate.
MURDOCH: Okay. I have a meeting with the President in an hour. You’ll have my decision by tonight. But personally… I don’t see how we can possibly ignore this.
[14:04:12]
*Transcript—Comms at Mission Control, Applied Physics Laboratory; TRANCE orbital rendezvous with TNO 188942: 01/03/2040*
Voices on Record:.. Principal Investigator Dr. Edward Carraway
………………………………..Assistant Mission Manager Janet Bishop
………………………………..LIZARD Instrument Manager Tanesha Waller-Hill
………………………………..Propulsion Manager Jan Sorrell
[02:04:44]
SORRELL: Matchpoint burn commencing… Ten seconds left in the burn… Five seconds… Burn complete, TRANCE is station-keeping with TNO 188942.
[Applause, cheering]
BISHOP: Pulses holding constant, intervals of one second. Telemetry shows the intensity of bursts continuing to reduce as spacecraft closes distance with source.
CARRAWAY: Like it knows TRANCE is there and is trying not to blind the instruments…
WALLER-HILL: Data shows a downward trend in the intensity of the pulses of half-a-percent per each metre the spacecraft traverses.
BISHOP: Downlink is steady. Receiving video feed.
[5 seconds of silence]
BISHOP: Light-delay is now five hours, twenty minutes. All systems nominal.
SORRELL: Spacecraft is performing expected maneuvers to come within visual range of the emissions’ source. Visual expected within the next thirty seconds.
[25 seconds of silence]
[Murmuring, raised voices from ground controllers]
BISHOP: Oh my God…
CARRAWAY: All right everyone, let’s settle down, settle down. Double-check your data backups and make sure everything’s getting recorded properly. Janet, could you please contact the administrator?
BISHOP: Uh, right, on it… wow.
SORRELL: We’re in the history books now…
[2:07:25]
*NASA Release 40-100: 02/04/2040*
NASA’S TRANCE Spacecraft Discovers Artificial Object on Surface of TNO 188942
NASA’s Trans-Neptunian Celestial Object Explorer (TRANCE) has made an astonishing discovery on the surface of an icy asteroid out beyond the orbit of Neptune. It has found what appears to be a metallic sphere embedded in the ice on the sunward side of Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) 188942.
Following the sudden appearance of regular bursts of electromagnetic radiation from this distant asteroid in 2035, NASA re-tasked the TRANCE spacecraft with intercepting and investigating the source of these emissions. Previously, TRANCE had been conducting an in-depth study of other, similar asteroids closer to the orbit of Neptune. This drastic change in the TRANCE mission profile necessitated the use of all the spacecraft’s remaining fuel, making TNO 188942 the last body TRANCE will ever visit.
The order for the spacecraft to change course was transmitted on September 6th, 2035. There are currently no proposals yet regarding a follow-up to TRANCE’s aborted science campaign.
The object, which the TRANCE team has nicknamed the “Eye,” is sixty centimetres in diameter and composed of a highly reflective metal. The source of the EM emissions is an aperture ten centimetres wide, aimed directly at Earth.
“As TRANCE closed with the Eye,” said Dr. Edward Carraway, Principal Investigator for the TRANCE mission, “the pulses decreased in intensity. Many people on my team, myself included, believe very strongly that the Eye was reacting to the presence of our spacecraft. If the pulses had remained at their original intensity, they would’ve interfered with our instruments too much to take accurate readings from the sphere.”
When asked about the apparently artificial nature of the Eye, Carraway stated, “It’s very clear the Eye is not natural. Electromagnetic emissions aside, laser measurements of the Eye’s curvature show it to be an absolutely perfect sphere. So perfect, in fact, that there is no tool or machine on Earth that could have crafted the object. There simply doesn’t exist a process precise enough to accomplish that.”
TRANCE has begun to study the Eye and its host asteroid, and the preliminary findings are raising more questions by the day. “The Eye seems to have been buried in ice up until very recently,” said TRANCE Assistant Manager Janet Bishop. “In the images from TRANCE’s cameras, we can see the Eye sitting at the centre of a crater with very smooth sides. We believe the water-ice surrounding the Eye boiled away. As to whether this occurred when the Eye first began sending out its pulses or at an earlier date is something we hope to discover.”
TRANCE is managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and was constructed by Lockheed Martin. LIZARD instrument suite is managed by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). MONGO and TUI instrument suites are managed by the European Space Agency (ESA).
*Screenshots of Instant Messaging (IM) exchange between Dr. Edward Carraway and Janet Bishop: 01/07/2040*
Saturday, January 7th, 2040
Ed, we need your help—6:47 p.m.
I’m at a restaurant with my family
6:48 p.m.—What’s the problem?
We’ve lost all telemetry from TRANCE
No downlink or even passive signal
Also, the Eye has stopped pulsing—6:48 p.m.
6:48 p.m.—When did this happen?
Twenty minutes ago
We’re completely dark—6:49 p.m.
Query TRANCE, ask for self-diagnostic
We’ll sit on this overnight.
If there’s no reacquisition by tomorrow night,
then we can panic.
6:51 p.m.—Meantime, I’m going to enjoy my duck 🙂
Duck is gross. Goodnight.
Say hi to the kids for me—6:51 p.m.
6:53 p.m.—Will do. Stay cool
*Article, Escape Velocity Magazine, 04/10/2040*
NASA Declares TRANCE Mission Lost, Manned Follow-On Mission Proposed
By Isaiah Solomon
Following multiple attempts to make contact with the Trans-Neptunian Celestial Body Explorer (TRANCE), NASA has officially declared the space probe lost. The Deep Space Network has been unable to acquire any signal or telemetry downlink from the probe since 6:27 p.m. EST, January 7th, 2040, and there has been no response to any commands sent to the spacecraft. Currently, NASA has no telescopes powerful enough to distinguish such a small object at such a distance from Earth from the background of space, so TRANCE’s physical status cannot be ascertained. The object nicknamed the Eye appears to be inert.
NASA’s contact with TRANCE was severed at the same time the Eye stopped blasting electromagnetic pulses into space. Dr. Edward Carraway, TRANCE’s Principal Investigator, stated, “While we don’t know yet if there’s a correlation between the two events, it’s definitely an avenue we’re exploring.”
Data collected by TRANCE from the supposedly artificial object is currently being analyzed by teams around the world, including some not directly connected to the TRANCE mission. Professor Diane Koch of MIT is leading a materials science study using the spectrographic scans of the Eye’s shell. “There are elements that we recognize,” she told Escape Velocity. “Elements such as carbon, iron, and gold. But the scans suggest there are also elements present that were previously not known to science. The last three months have been exhilarating. I’d give anything to get my hands on a sample of that shell.”
Professor Koch might just get her wish. A major update was announced in a NASA press conference yesterday regarding the development of their new human-rated, nuclear-powered spacecraft. Working in cooperation with the vessel’s design team, Dr. Carraway and TRANCE Assistant Mission Manager, Janet Bishop, have drafted a proposal to send the spacecraft on a mission to retrieve the Eye and bring it to Earth for in-depth study. Such a study would be conducted either on the International Space Station or at Shackleton Base on the moon.
NASA has released no information on whether such a mission is feasible with current technology. There is a strong push from scientists around the world to retrieve the Eye by any possible means, and agencies such as ESA, CSA, and JAXA have also submitted proposals for unmanned retrieval missions.
“TNO 188942 orbits the sun at a distance of four-point-three billion kilometres at perihelion, and four-point-eight billion kilometres at aphelion,” said Dr. Carraway. “That’s a nine-year journey under the best conditions with the best of conventional technology. We believe the nuclear engines on the long-range vessel can shorten that to five years, but even so, it would be the longest, most challenging space voyage yet attempted.” Then laughing, he added, “The good news is, at least the Eye doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.”
*Email from NASA Administrator Bruce Hodgson to Dr. Edward Carraway: 5:24 p.m. 06/23/2041*
Hi Ed,
Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to you regarding your proposal. The President is being very hands-on with this one. He’s worried how it will play in the primaries. I’ve explained to him that his second term (should he get one) will be over long before the mission leaves Earth. His response was, “I’ll still be the one who gets blamed if the shit eventually hits the fan.”
Anyway, the review board will be reaching out in a couple of days, but I wanted to tell you that Arges is a go. Yes, unfortunately the team went with Arges. I know you were pushing for Polyphemus, but the board’s rationale was that watching the media try to pronounce that name would be an absolute circus. Arges seemed safer. I digress.
Anyway, the review board will be reaching out in a couple of days, but I wanted to tell you that Arges is a go. Yes, unfortunately the team went with Arges. I know you were pushing for Polyphemus, but the board’s rationale was that watching the media try to pronounce that name would be an absolute circus. Arges seemed safer. I digress.
You got your wish on the name of the spacecraft itself, though. Then again, my daughter tells me that Hades has always been a popular guy.
Give my love to the family. I hear Heather is going to college this September. Seems like only yesterday you brought her to see TRANCE’s Mission Control. Time flies, don’t it?
God bless,
Bruce
*Letter written by Ophelia Bouchard for her daughter, Madeleine: 13/08/2050 [Translated from French to English by Ophelia Bouchard, 10/07/2069]*
My darling Maddy,
Ever since I was a child, I’ve looked up at the sky and wondered whether humanity was alone in the universe. Ten years ago, that question seemed to be answered. We found a little metal ball on a far away rock in the dark frontier beyond the orbit of Neptune. And yet, this only led to more questions.
Who made this ball?
What is it made of?
When was it buried on that rock?
Where are its makers now?
Why did they make it?
Doubtless, your generation will know more than mine, but if that is so, it is only because I was not there for you when you were little.
When you are old enough to read this and understand it, will you hate me? I hope not, but I will not blame you if you do. A child needs a parent, needs love, and guidance. I hope you can at least understand that what I do now is an act of love. Your generation needs to know everything there is to know about the Eye.
We know now that we are not alone.
We now need to know who our neighbours are.
I am a scientist; I am thrilled by the possibilities the Eye presents. But I am also a mother; I am terrified by the implications the Eye presents. I cannot help feeling as if me and my family have been deposited into the middle of a strange neighbourhood, and I do not yet know who may be our friends, and who may take issue with our arrival.
It may anger you to hear this, but I applied to the Arges mission for you, so that you and I may know what kind of neighbourhood we live in.
I will not lie; this is an exceptionally long and dangerous mission. Well-prepared as we are, there will be challenges we haven’t foreseen. I have the absolute confidence in myself, in my crewmates, and in the machines the engineers have provided to help us carry out our task. We are without fear, and every one of us will move heaven and Earth to accomplish our mission and see our families again.
I love you forever, my baby, and I will see you when I get home.
Forever yours,
Maman
Cape Canaveral, August 13th, 2050
*Transcript—Presidential meeting, Oval Office, Whitehouse: 11/04/2052*
Participants: …………President of the United States Arlene Butcher
…………………………….NASA Administrator Wahid Mohammed
*President Butcher and Administrator Mohammed are watching the televised launch of the Arges mission personnel to the Hades spacecraft. Sections of commentator dialogue are included on the transcript.
[17:35:52]
LAUNCH COMMENTATOR [TV]: And liftoff! We have liftoff of the Arges crew to the Hades spacecraft, on a mission to retrieve the Eye from an asteroid beyond the orbit of Neptune!
[Indistinct chatter, cheers from the television set]
[Television sound muted]
BUTCHER: I want to thank you again for the outstanding effort you put into this project, Wahid.
MOHAMMED: I’ll wait until the crew’s enroute to the Eye to accept any accolades, but I’ll definitely pass your thoughts along to the mission teams.
BUTCHER: Fair enough. You mentioned you wanted to discuss something about the Eye?
MOHAMMED: Yes…
[Sound of papers shuffling]
MOHAMMED: Dr. Carraway asked me to share this with you… if I can just find it…
BUTCHER: How is Carraway?
MOHAMMED: He’s walking again. Uses a cane, though. He denies that the car crash had any impact on his decision to take the teaching job at Johns Hopkins, but I think the stress of his work with APL really slowed his recovery. Nowadays, he keeps up with Eye developments through Koch and her colleagues. And he’s been going through the old data using new techniques—ah, here it is.
BUTCHER: Is this TRANCE data?
MOHAMMED: No. These are measurements taken by LIGO here on Earth during the same period the Eye sent out its initial pulses.
BUTCHER: LIGO…?
MOHAMMED: It’s an observatory that detects gravitational waves using lasers. At some point—not sure when—Carraway became interested in whether or not certain ground-based observatories had picked up any sorts of readings from the Eye at the time of the pulses. LIGO was one of the observatories he reached out to. I don’t think he expected to find anything. Nevertheless…
BUTCHER: I take it these peaks are gravitational waves?
MOHAMMED: Faint ones, yes. And every one of them coincides with a pulse from the Eye.
BUTCHER: What’s the significance of that?
MOHAMMED: Ma’am, gravitational waves are one of the least-understood phenomena in our universe, but everything we know about them to date says that they can only be produced by the most violent of events. The collision of black holes, for instance. And yet these faint waves were created inside our solar system, probably by the Eye.
BUTCHER: Could these waves have destroyed TRANCE?
MOHAMMED: If the waves had any adverse effects on TRANCE, the spacecraft would have experienced them during its journey towards the Eye. Telemetry from the spacecraft at that time shows no structural damage, no interference in its systems.
BUTCHER: Why didn’t LIGO tell anyone about this?
MOHAMMED: The waves were so weak that they didn’t trip LIGO’s detection software. Even if the scientists at the observatory noticed them, they probably dismissed them as vibrations from foot or vehicle traffic around the facility. That kind of interference is something they never figured out how to eliminate entirely.
BUTCHER: So, what could’ve caused the waves?
MOHAMMED: Only a black hole, so far as we know, but if there were a black hole inside the Eye, it would’ve disrupted TRANCE’s trajectory as it drew near the asteroid. The other possibility is that there’s some unknown technology at work that can create gravitational waves at will, and of various strengths. Ma’am, the reason I brought this to you is that, whatever the means these waves are generated, if the Eye can create stronger waves, it could theoretically destroy any object it encountered. It could potentially scour the Earth of life.
BUTCHER: Ah… Are you suggesting we abort the mission?
MOHAMMED: No ma’am, I’m absolutely in favour of studying the Eye, but I suggest that we do so aboard the Hades instead of bringing it back to Earth immediately. And I strongly recommend making the crew aware of this data and the new risks it represents.
BUTCHER: Yes… yes, of course. And give Carraway an official invitation to join the Arges advisory team.
[17:39:17]
*Arges Mission Report #2917, Commander Ophelia Bouchard; 12/05/2057*
Arges Daily Report #2917
Commander Ophelia Bouchard
For: Arges Mission personnel, TRANCE Mission Personnel, NASA Admin., President of the United States.
BEGIN:
Two hours ago, we came within visual range of TNO 188942. Our long-range telescopes achieved a picture with minimal noise and artifacting. The asteroid has not changed since last downloaded images from the TRANCE spacecraft. The Eye is clearly visible and remains inert.
We have not located TRANCE on any of our instruments. No debris has been sighted. No radiation from TRANCE’s nuclear core has been detected. Barring any form of interference from the Eye itself, the most likely explanation is that TRANCE was disabled and knocked off-course by another celestial body. I will be submitting a request to the TRANCE personnel to investigate that possibility.
Ship’s instruments show no sign of any gravitational disturbances near the eye. On my order, we are proceeding with the rendezvous and will intercept TNO 188942 in approximately seven days, six hours.
END.
*Transcript—Arges Mission Extravehicular Activity 34, Eye Retrieval; 17/07/2057*
Participants:………… Commander Ophelia Bouchard
…………………………….Mission Specialist Darcey Easton
…………………………….Mission Specialist Genichiro Onizuka
[09:12:24]
EASTON: I’ve been chipping away at this pedestal beneath the Eye for about an hour now and I don’t think there’s any sort of anchor point or base. Just seems to be natural ice. The Eye’s definitely a self-contained sphere.
ONIZUKA: That’s more than a little eerie. To think that this tiny thing could send such powerful signals across the solar system.
EASTON: You’re telling me.
BOUCHARD: All right, focus up, guys. Genichiro, is the catch-net in place?
ONIZUKA: Catch-net is in place.
EASTON: Won’t do much good if the Eye decides to jump to warp.
BOUCHARD: One more joke and I’m not letting you back in the airlock.
[Laughter]
EASTON: Okay, I’m going to chip at the ice until the Eye’s dislodged—whoa! You guys see that?
BOUCHARD: Yes, I did. Are you all right?
EASTON: I’m fine. What do the shipboard thermal sensors say?
BOUCHARD: Querying… looks like the Eye went from negative-two-seventy Celsius to plus-sixty in half a second.
EASTON: Had to be way more than that. The ice beneath the Eye literally exploded.
BOUCHARD: The ship can only see the sunward side of the Eye.
ONIZUKA: No matter what temperature it was, what we just saw is impossible. There’s no form of solid matter we know of that can conduct that much heat at that speed.
EASTON: And the Eye’s already cooled back down to background temperature, which is, you know, also impossible. Commander… are you sure we should bring this thing on board?
[Five second silence]
BOUCHARD: What’s the status of the Eye?
EASTON: Inert, completely cooled off.
BOUCHARD: Is it floating free from the ice?
EASTON: Yeah… yeah it is. I’m seeing an inch of separation.
ONIZUKA: Like it wants us to take it…
BOUCHARD: Proceed with retrieval, but continue to monitor it. If it changes temperature or presents any other kind of hazard, we’ll abort.
EASTON: That’s assuming we’ll even recognize the hazard it presents…
[09:16:00]
*Arges Mission Report #2978, Mission Specialist Darcey Easton; 20/07/2057*
Arges Daily Report #2978
Specialist Darcey Easton
For: Arges Mission Commander Ophelia Bouchard, TRANCE Mission Personnel, NASA Admin., President of the United States.
BEGIN:
Since its discovery by TRANCE, the Eye’s been a puzzle to us. But since we brought it aboard, it seems like a puzzle that wants to be solved.
For example, take the materials analysis. We tried every cutting, drilling, and dissolving instrument in the lab, but we couldn’t make a scratch in the Eye’s shell. Then, ten minutes after calling it quits, the Eye detaches a one inch by one inch section of metal and drops it on the table.
Prior to that moment, there was no seam or discernible lines around the border of the piece that fell off. There also was no hole beneath the piece either; as soon as it fell, the Eye’s shell was whole again. It shed a piece of its mystery metal the same way a human would shed a flake of skin.
Later, we tried taking electrical measurements to figure out if this thing ran on anything resembling conventional electronics. We spent hours fumbling over the Eye, placing electrodes on the shell, only for them to slide right off. Nothing stuck. Then, again, right after deciding to stop, the Eye spontaneously manufactures a port that perfectly fits one of our standard USB cables.
Now, here’s the part that makes me really nervous. Our onboard computer has enough memory to store one petabyte of data. That’s the equivalent of five-hundred billion pages of printed text. To date, we’ve only used five percent of that storage capacity. When we attempted to download information from the Eye, our computer gave us the following message.
FILE EXCEEDS MEMORY STORAGE LIMIT.
I don’t know what kind of message, program, or lived experience can possibly fill five-hundred billion pages of printed text, but the Eye’s got more than that. How much more is impossible to say; we can’t even unpack a tiny portion of the information stored inside the Eye. Would you like to know something even scarier? There isn’t just one file inside the Eye. There’s two. Why is that scary?
Because that second file wasn’t there when we first accessed the Eye. It only appeared at around 1900 hours last night, at about the same time I lost track of my lab tablet. I remember leaving it on the table in front of the Eye. I tried playing back camera footage from the closed circuit inside the lab, but there’s a half-second dead spot in the feed. In that half second, my tablet disappeared.
The more I think about it, the more I feel like I’m being made a fool of. This Eye gives the appearance of trying to be helpful, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to understand it before the end of the century. We just don’t have the technology or the know-how to crack this device’s secrets. Maybe if we were a more technologically advanced species, the Eye’s assistance would be worth its trouble. Maybe the labs back on Earth will be able to come up with some means to understand it.
Or maybe we weren’t meant to find it yet.
*I’d like to apologize for the hyperbole and unwarranted speculation in Mission Specialist Easton’s last report. We’ve all felt a little frustrated with the Eye recently. I’ll endeavour to restore a sense of professionalism and discipline amongst my crew.
Meantime, we’re still trying to locate the missing tablet.
Bouchard
*Transcript—Emergency Transmission, Hades Spacecraft, Recorded by Arges Mission Commander Ophelia Bouchard; 22/07/2057*
[02:59:14]
BOUCHARD: This is Commander Ophelia Bouchard. Houston, we have a problem. I’m declaring a mission-critical emergency. We have… a member of our crew has disappeared.
Mission Specialist Darcey Easton is not on board the ship, and we are not receiving a signal from his biomonitor. He was working in the Eye laboratory at the time of his disappearance. An internal camera shows a half-second of missing footage. During that half-second, Darcey vanished.
The camera feed shows something else: on the computer Darcey was working on that showed the two files inside the Eye, a new, third file appeared after Darcey disappeared. Our working theory is that… is that he’s somehow inside the Eye. If that’s the case, then it would explain the disappearance of Darcey’s tablet and the TRANCE spacecraft. We didn’t lose either of them. They’re inside the Eye.
There’s another problem as well. The Eye has somehow established a link to our main computer through the USB terminal it created. It shouldn’t be able to do that; the terminals in the laboratory are isolated from the rest of the ship. Nevertheless, it successfully jumped the gap. Our databanks have been copied and downloaded into the lab computers, and from there, the Eye probably took the data. It knows everything about our critical systems and has taken control of spacecraft propulsion. Hades is configuring itself for an orbital maneuver.
All attempts to gain entry to the lab and manually disconnect the Eye have failed. We are locked out of the Eye lab and we have no, I repeat, no control over the ship. The Hades has been hijacked. I’ll send more information as it becomes available.
Bouchard out.
[03:00:48]
*Transcript—Whitehouse Emergency Meeting; 23/07/2057*
Participants:………… President of the United States Victor Forte
…………………………….NASA Administrator Thalia Jackson
…………………………….United States Attorney General Arthur Groben
…………………………….Chief of Space Operations General Matthew McCullough
[05:47:02]
FORTE: Thank you all for coming—where’s Dr. Carraway?
JACKSON: He’s on his way. His plane had an engine failure and had to touch down in New York.
FORTE: Poor man doesn’t have much luck… Now, as I understand it, Hades is on a direct course for Earth?
JACKSON: That’s correct, sir. At present, its course will intersect the atmosphere at an altitude of ninety kilometres. Now, because the ship used all of its fuel to force an encounter with Earth, its velocity relative to our planet will be extreme. It’s unlikely the spacecraft will survive the flyby.
MCCULLOUGH: What kind of damage are you expecting?
JACKSON: We fully expect the habitation ring to melt off. As for damage to the rest of the superstructure, it’s impossible to say.
FORTE: When will this be?
JACKSON: October 14th, 2060.
FORTE: Jesus… that soon?
JACKSON: As I said, the spacecraft used all its fuel.
FORTE: Is there any hope of rescue for the crew?
JACKSON: None, sir. Even if we had a second Hades, it couldn’t carry enough fuel to intercept the first one, collect her crew, divert the ballistic vessel away from Earth, and decelerate before flying past us.
MCCULLOUGH: I’d like to circle back to the question of damage: what do you think is going to happen to the nuclear engine?
JACKSON: Well—
FORTE: Hang on, I thought you said it expended all its nuclear fuel?
JACKSON: It did, sir, but the catalyst for the fuel is enriched uranium. There’s several kilograms of it in the primary engine assembly. It’s a built-in part of the spacecraft.
FORTE: And what happens when that hits the atmosphere?
JACKSON: It depends on whether the housing cracks. On the date when Hades reaches Earth, it will be fly over Spain, France, and England. If the housing cracks, then a significant portion of highly radioactive material could rain down on half of Europe. Casualties will depend on the volume of uranium released and wind direction and speed on the day. Worst-case scenario: up to two-hundred million people could be affected, with clean-up costs of up to three trillion US dollars.
FORTE: Fuck.
MCCULLOUGH: The module containing the engine is detachable, right? Can’t Bouchard’s crew go on an EVA to detach it and push it onto a separate trajectory using a propulsion backpack?
JACKSON: That was the first thing the crew thought of. Unfortunately, it seems they can’t open the ship’s airlocks, and they’re locked out of the storage rooms where their toolkits are held. According to Bouchard, the only systems they have control over are life support, waste management, and food synthesis. They’re trying other workarounds, but she’s not optimistic.
FORTE: Do we have any plan whatsoever?
MCCULLOUGH: We do, sir, and that’s why I requested the Attorney General’s presence at this meeting. As part of our planetary defence initiative in the case a planet-killing asteroid threatened to impact the Earth, the Space Force created a proposal to retrofit an ICBM with a shaped charge for use as a sort of thruster. The explosive force created by the warhead could theoretically push an asteroid off-course. In the case of the Hades, we’d like to do the same: use a shaped charge to divert her.
JACKSON: This would kill the crew.
GROBEN: You want to shoot a missile at our astronauts?
MCCULLOUGH: More specifically, at a team of American, Canadian, French, and Japanese astronauts. Naturally, I assumed there would be legal issues involved.
GROBEN: No shit.
FORTE: I can’t believe we’re discussing this.
MCCULLOUGH: The lives of those astronauts have to be weighed against the potential deaths of millions and the irradiation of half a continent.
FORTE: Thalia, you said it wasn’t likely the spacecraft would survive. How likely is it that the nuclear housing cracks? Not a hundred percent, surely?
JACKSON: … no, sir, but the risk is serious enough—
FORTE: Give me a number.
JACKSON: I can’t speak with any certainty—
FORTE: Just give me a number.
JACKSON: I would have to talk to the propulsion—
FORTE: God dammit, Thalia, I’m ordering you to give me a number!
JACKSON: … seventy percent? But that’s just—
FORTE: Okay… okay, see? We’re not looking at a certainty.
MCCULLOUGH: Sir, those astronauts are going to die anyway! Either they incinerate when the ship hits the atmosphere or, if it survives, starve when the wreckage flies back out into deep space.
FORTE: But we wouldn’t be the ones who killed them.
JACKSON: We’ll wish we had been, if that engine explodes and our allies find out we could’ve prevented the suffering and damage to millions of people—
FORTE: There’s nothing to find out. I’m ordering you both to keep silent on this matter. And make sure no one in either of your departments goes sneaking off to the press, or it’s both your asses on the line. For Chrissakes, I will not be remembered as the President who nuked six of the bravest explorers this planet ever produced.
JACKSON: Five.
FORTE: What?
JACKSON: Five explorers. Easton is still missing.
MCCULLOUGH: That’s something else I think you’ve yet to consider, Mr. President. The Eye orchestrated this. It wants to come to Earth. It seems capable of making things disappear. Who’s to say there’s a limit to the size of object that can disappear?
[05:50:54]
*Letter written by Ophelia Bouchard for her daughter, Madeleine: 01/08/2057 [Translated from French to English by Ophelia Bouchard, 17/07/2069]*
*REDACTED
**I understand why Ophelia requested this letter be excised from the record, and I make no apologies for its absence. It was written at a time when it looked like the Hades and her crew would never see home again. All the crew wrote farewell letters to their families and friends, none of which have been read.
So why would I consider including it? Because the sentiment expressed in every single one of those letters was one of hope. Not a single one of the crew regretted taking part in the mission, even with the apparent loss of Darcey Easton and their own impending deaths. They encouraged their loved ones to keep exploring, keep being curious, and to never regret a life lost in the pursuit of knowledge.
I’d hoped to enclose that sentiment here, especially in light of what came later.
*Transcript—Whitehouse Emergency Meeting; 05/08/2059*
Participants:………… President of the United States Victor Forte
……………………………. NASA Administrator Thalia Jackson
……………………………. United States Attorney General Arthur Groben
……………………………. Chief of Space Operations General Matthew McCullough
……………………………. TRANCE Principal Investigator Dr. Edward Carraway
[01:49:00]
CARRAWAY: I want the record to show that I was opposed to this course of action from the beginning.
FORTE: So you’ve said, many times.
CARRAWAY: It bears repeating.
MCCULLOUGH: Doctor, we’re trying to look to the security of our planet.
CARRAWAY: Up until now, we’ve taken no hostile action against the Eye, a machine which has demonstrated immense power. Attacking it is a terrible idea.
MCCULLOUGH: Doing nothing is even worse.
JACKSON: Mr. President, the Deep Space Network reports that the warhead cluster is ninety seconds from detonation.
CARRAWAY: This is wrong.
FORTE: Enough, Doctor. Have some respect. What’s the light delay?
JACKSON: Light delay is one hour, twenty minutes.
FORTE: Those astronauts have been dead for over an hour, Carraway. It’s already over.
CARRAWAY: That’s if nothing went wrong…
[30 second silence]
JACKSON: One minute until confirmation…
[30 second silence]
JACKSON: Thirty seconds.
[30 second silence]
JACKSON: Detonation confirmed. Telescopes report a flash in the sky at the Hades’ bearing.
[20 second silence]
[Cell phone text notification chimes]
CARRAWAY: Something went wrong.
FORTE: What is it?
CARRAWAY: It’s a message from LIGO. I asked them to keep an eye on their readings and text me if they saw anything. They’re saying they witnessed a small spike on their instruments at the moment the flash reached us.
FORTE: Carraway, what does that mean?
JACKSON: New message coming in from Mission Control…
CARRAWAY: I have a feeling we’re about to find out.
JACKSON: Mr. President, Houston is saying that the flash they observed doesn’t fit expected spectrographic models.
CARRAWAY: Thalia, ask Houston to compare their observations to the flashes of the Eye from twenty years ago.
JACKSON: They just did. The emission patterns are exactly the same.
GROBEN: Are you telling me the Eye swallowed our nukes?
JACKSON: Based on the fact we’ve lost all telemetry from Hades, I’d say it swallowed the ship as well.
[5 second silence]
MCCULLOUGH: We still have time to launch another salvo.
CARRAWAY: For fuck’s sake, General, did you not hear what she just said? It’s time to pack it in. We don’t have a spacecraft guidance system accurate enough to hit something less than a metre in diameter, even if the Eye emitted flashes for the missiles to home in on—which I’m guessing it won’t unless it decides to swallow something else.
FORTE: Would the Eye still be on a course for Earth?
JACKSON: Assuming it conserves its momentum after it swallows something, yes. Its course will have remained unchanged.
FORTE: So… what’s our plan of action? Hey, Carraway, where are you going?
CARRAWAY: Home. I’ll send you my resignation in the morning. I won’t be party to this anymore.
[01:53:04]
*Transcript—Whitehouse Emergency Meeting; 14/10/2060*
Participants:…………. President of the United States Victor Forte
……………………………. NASA Administrator Thalia Jackson
……………………………. Chief of Space Operations General Matthew McCullough
[06:16:06]
FORTE: If the Eye takes no action whatsoever, it’ll burn up in the atmosphere?
JACKSON: More likely, it’ll bounce back into space unharmed. Bouchard and Easton said they couldn’t damage it with any of the tools they had on board.
FORTE: And… if it opens?
JACKSON: Vic… I can’t say for certain anymore.
MCCULLOUGH: How close is it?
JACKSON: Should be passing by the orbit of the moon by now.
MCCULLOUGH: Wonder if we’ll—Jesus!
FORTE: What?
MCCULLOUGH: The moon, it…
[Heavy footfalls]
JACKSON: Oh…
FORTE: I guess we know there’s no limit to what the Eye can—
[Muffled shout]
MCCULLOUGH: What just happened to the sky?!
[06:16:34]
*Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Edward Carraway, 05/07/2069*
I’ve sat in front of a blank page for the last half hour, wondering what to write as the date. We still mark time the way we used to, even though five billion years have elapsed. Our sun is dead, having long since expanded and shed its mantle into a planetary nebula, while its heart collapsed into a white dwarf. I guess some habits outlive the stars themselves.
If Earth had been present during those five billion years, it would’ve been engulfed by the expanding sun and incinerated. Thanks to the Eye, the Earth instead carves a neat swath through the stellar dust as it orbits the white dwarf, and humanity looks up at a sky that is alien. During the day, a tiny blue-white sun shines upon us, minuscule compared to its living self, yet eerily providing the same warmth as before. During the night, we look up into glorious multicoloured clouds, some smooth blue-green curtains like the finest silk, some enormous whorls orange-pink like coral. It’s difficult to quantify the psychological effect this has had on our species. It’s a change that we were not meant to process. In a word, I would describe it as bewildering.
Perhaps terrifying.
The Eye is now on an ejection course out of the solar system. The decision to send it away was not made lightly. Many wanted to study it. But the possibility that it would swallow the Earth again and spit us out a few more billion years—or longer—was something we could not ignore. Currently, the slowly cooling corpse of our sun will keep Earth warm for many aeons to come, certainly long enough for us to eventually find a new home. But if we were to be catapulted, say, another five billion years, the white dwarf might’ve cooled so much that Earth would freeze over and become inhospitable for us.
As it stands, the Earth is back. The moon is back. Hades, Easton, and TRANCE have been returned to us, safe and sound (though not without some death-defying deep space rescuing). Two decades ago, Commander Ophelia Bouchard wrote a letter to her daughter in which she wondered at the nature of the Eye. I believe we can now make some informed guesses as to what it might be, even if we don’t fully understand how an object like the Eye can possibly exist.
It’s long been theorized that when a black hole swallows an object, it “encodes” it inside the gravity well. The information—the object itself—is still technically there. There’s just no way of “decoding” it; of retrieving the bits and pieces and reassembling the object. Black holes, therefore, are the perfect medium for storing information, so long as you have the knowledge and technology to retrieve what you store and reassemble it. The scary part is, there’s no limit to the amount of information that could be stored in a black hole. In theory, the entire universe could be swallowed and encoded.
The gravitational waves generated by the Eye when it opens and closes suggest that a black hole could exist at its centre, though how it is contained, and how it is prevented from consuming the Eye’s shell is, of course, a mystery. But if it does contain a black hole, and if that’s how it removed TRANCE, Hades, the moon, and the Earth from the solar system for five billion years, then the Eye’s nature is as simple as it is mind-boggling. Darcey Easton had the answer all those years ago, when he plugged his computer into the Eye.
The Eye is an information storage device.
Somewhere out there, amongst the stars, there are beings that have learned to use black holes the same way we use a USB key, a compact disk, a pen and paper. Granted, the Eye is a great deal more complex, and exhibits signs of intelligence in the way it reacted to our presence. There are still so many questions left unanswered. Why was the Eye inside that asteroid? What prompted it to activate? Why did it hijack the Hades and encode the Earth and Moon? Why the five-billion-year interval? Did the Eye experience the normal passage of time?
The 100th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing is coming up in a couple weeks. I was born into a world where humanity had stood on another celestial body, a world sundered from the rest of history, a world where we knew for a fact that nothing is impossible. It occurs to me now that future generations will be born under this new sun, this new sky. What will it mean to them? Will it mean the same as the moon landing, that nothing is impossible?
Or will it mean that the universe is not safe, and our home is not inviolate?
My generation already knew that, but it’s one thing to know and another thing to see.
I feel compelled to put something down, if for no other reason than to set the record straight for myself. It’s possible that some nefarious actors may try to distort the facts in the future. Such a thing always happens after momentous events. I’m not impartial, but at the very least, I can impart my own point of view for consideration. I’ve still got the messages, meeting transcripts, and emails. I’ll put something together. I’ll record the story, for my own grandchildren, if no one else.
One small step, indeed.
_______________
James Dick is an actor, author, screenwriter and director, and sometimes Santa’s elf. His stories have appeared in Analog, The School Magazine, and Improbable Press. He lives in Toronto.