25 Dec 2007
Final Destination, Chapter 13: August 20, 3094
Something amazing happened today. I was standing in the tachyon communications center, trying to trace some wires, when a small spherical machine came flying down the hall toward me. It stopped a few feet away and began transmitting messages over my suit radio.
“Hello, Miles Porter,” a crackly voice said.
“Hey!” I said. “I thought you told me that your avatar system wasn’t working and you couldn’t leave the Silver Star. What are you doing?”
“I have not left the ship, Miles Porter. I have simply constructed a probe that I can use to transmit messages to you. In this way I can accompany you on your explorations.”
Wonderful – so Al found a loophole. There goes my peace and quiet – and I had been so productive, too.
“So what motivated you to do this, Al? Why do you seek to torment me?”
“I bring good news, Miles Porter! I have been able to decrypt two messages from the data core. I thought you might want to know as quickly as possible.”
“What? I thought you told me that was impossible!”
“I said it was almost impossible, Miles Porter. I have been able to extract two messages.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Ten minutes later I was back on board the ship, staring at a console. Al had found these two messages:
I’ve been informed that Flora has noticed some tampering with Charlie and is investigating the cause. It looks like she may very well discover our calculations, and it could be hard to explain why we want to know how the planet will break up and what parts will remain relatively intact. I’m going to have a meeting with the others and come up with a plan to deal with this.
Posted by Arnold Brandon on December 27, 2814
Well, we’ve decided upon a course of action. It’s good to know that the powers that be are behind us; with them on our side, I don’t see any trouble resulting from this. They know why we have to do it, and they know what would happen if everyone on the planet found out we were planning an escape hatch just for us. Some people just don’t understand why we should survive and they shouldn’t, and that might disrupt our plans to get to the new FTL research station.
And really, I don’t see Flora complaining. She’s going to die in a couple more months anyway; how could it possibly matter if we speed things up a bit? It all ends the same anyway. I’m sure her friends would say that we’ll have to answer to God for this, but I’ll take my chances.
Posted by Arnold Brandon on December 28, 2814
“They’re kind of short,” I told Al.
“Of course,” he replied. “The shorter messages were less likely to be damaged. The long ones are most likely lost for good, but now that I know the encryption key I may be able to decode some other intact messages.”
“Thanks, Al,” I said, and I meant it. “Keep at it. This is getting interesting.”