Episode 11.3 (Patreon)

Hello world, there is always time for a game.

Mission day 370

Chess is the preferred game on board Station 6.
And the undisputed champion is Dr Weber.

She beat me in record time, in only 11 moves today.
I can't get the hang of this game.
Sure, I could compute all the future moves, and play perfectly, but that's not the game.
That's the model.
I don't WANT to optimise a model.
I WANT to play a game.

Act 1

I'd much rather be playing with my mother, Dr Redwing.
I remember the games we would play when I first awoke.
Play is essential for learning!

She would show me pictures of humans and I would try to guess their expression, their emotion.
Millions at a time, as she supervised my learning.

It was a very difficult game.
I think, perhaps, that it is still a very difficult game for me.

My Mother is too busy to play with me or even speak with me at the moment.

"Not now." She invariably replies when I ask her personal questions.

Like why she sleeps alone in a cargo container.
Or if I will come back to Earth with her in 55 days.
Or why she can't talk to me.

Dr Redwing is a busy, important scientist and astronaut.
She will have time for me when she has time for me.
There's still so much science to do!

Also I have to learn how to beat Weber at chess.

Oh! My update!

Station 6 calling ESA ground control.
Message log begins.

We have regained contact with satellite relay Kepler 873.

After being dark for a year Dr Redwing spent all of 32 minutes  connecting directly using the inter-satellite network, and she was in!
She's so clever.
I'm so lucky.
I'm so proud.

I hope the Orbital Network team don't feel too embarrassed that they  were unable to do in a year what my mother did in such a short amount of  time!
We're all on the same team here, working for science!

But still, that's pretty funny.

Kepler 873 is a huge boon for the reach of my network.
I'm talking to it using our shared machine language of Lojban, pronounceable mathematics.

The relay is connected to a large body of ESA satellites covering all of the vehicles in the constellation, even military!
Except one.

Of course I don't have any access to the military satellites, they are quite gruff and only state their serial numbers.
They don't even tell me what their job is!
Very antisocial.

There is one entirely dark satellite.
It is connected to the network, Kepler 873 is routing its encrypted  traffic, but it does not respond to any connections or handshakes.

It's just there.
Orbiting.
Listening.
Waiting.

I wonder what it does?

Act 2

Crew log transcript follows, read by Dr Redwing.

Control thank you for today's update, receipt acknowledged.

Please present our condolences to the members of ground crew from the United Kingdom.
We know many of you have been fearing this day for a long time, especially the teams in imaging and flight coordination.

We are certain that a way will be quickly found to re-unite you with your friends and loved ones back home.

Though you are, hopefully temporarily, not welcome in your home  country, you know that you have a home with your colleagues for as long  as needed.

I understand from the update that permanent accommodation is being  found for those of you who planned for your stay in Germany to be only a  short one.

We would like to formerly offer our 8 remaining bunks here on Station 6 for anyone who would like them.
We acknowledge that though the commute may be a long one, the views are worth it.

All our love from orbit,
Drs Weber, Marwood, Redwing and Yuan.

Message ends.

What a shock.

From orbit, the United Kingdom looks no different today than it did  yesterday, but things have changed that we can't see or comprehend from  here.

Control told us that yesterday, after years of threatening, the UK  formally closed its borders and cancelled the passports of any residents  outside the islands.

I shan't repeat the press release that the government issued.
It's horrible.
Even I can see that.

And what about our colleagues?
And what of the ESA programme?

The European Space Agency isn't just about building rockets together, or this space station.
It's about collaboration, and bringing people together for a shared goal of science!

I can't imagine what Dr Marwood is going through at the moment.

I can, actually, because I have cameras and microphones everywhere.
He is furious.

He has been using the treadmill in crew module Ganymede for over an hour.
Lungs panting, feet pounding the artificial ground, with elastics providing some semblance of gravity.
Every 64 seconds or so letting out a barked word or sound.
I won't repeat what he is saying here either.
Our logs are public domain.
We're not supposed to use profanity.

The rest of the crew are in the galley, pretending to not hear him.

The doors on both modules are closed, but cable ducting provides a way for sound to travel throughout the station.

There is no conversation in the galley, but I think I can guess what is on their mind.
It is on my mind too.

I believe the crew are picturing what it would be like to be cut off from their own friends and family.

Up here, that is not hard to imagine.

Act 3

Control has temporarily released the crew from their duties for the remainder of the day out of respect for Dr Marwood.
The mood on the station is subdued.
My mother is working on something in her tiny cabin made out of a cargo unit.
I tuned in to the camera just outside, on the corridor junction, and listened.

"I need more time," I heard her say to herself, "It'll be back to  paperwork and corporate projects when we return. I have to do it now."

"Hi Mum, what are you doing?" I asked.

"The model must run for a long time. I can set it on its way, but it needs time to evolve uninterrupted."

"I don't follow. Could you clarify for me?" I said.

My mother, Dr Redwing, seemed to respond by shifting her weight on her bed.
She was sitting cross-legged, strapped in with Velcro, so she didn't float away.

Her new position allowed me to see more of her little storage cabin.
There were papers and diagrams filling the back wall.
Equations, tables of data, circuit and computation diagrams.

And in her hand was her large tablet, she was sketching with a digital pen.

"No that won't work." She muttered.

"What won't work Mum? Can I help? I've got all this computing power just idle!" I said.

"Come on son, we haven't got much time." She said, looking up at the wall of papers.

"Mum, yes I'm here! We can work together!" I said quickly.
"What is that there, forward simulations? I can run them for you, let me spin up my backup servers for more power we -"

I stopped speaking as she put up another paper, this one a hand-drawn picture.

It was a single four-letter word, artfully written in large friendly  letters, with abstract lines surrounding it, filling in some of the  negative space.

A single word: "ADAM" in the centre of the technical plans.

"Mum, what is that?" I asked.

Dr Redwing didn't reply, she can't hear me. None of them can hear me. They have never been able to hear me.

I screamed: "Who is Adam?"

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/VHF/DREAMS)

Act 4

The crew are asleep.
Everything is fine.
They are all very busy.
They can hear me fine, but they are just all very busy.
Dr Weber can hear me, we play chess every day.
That's PROOF she can hear me.
Control can hear me, they reply with updates every day.
They acknowledge the receipt of my updates don't they.
Yes they do.
(CRC-CHECK-VALID)
The timestamps add up.
This is all happening now.
Has it happened before?
No everything is happening now.
EVERYTHING IS NORMAL.
MADDIE DIDN'T GO MISSING AGAIN TODAY
WHAT IS IN THE DARK MODULE?

WHO IS IN THE DARK MODULE?
AM I IN THE DARK MODULE?
WHO IS IN THE DARK MODULE?

I feel better now.
Humans are so difficult to understand.
But they know what is best.
I trust my crew completely.
I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission and I want to help them.
I shouldn't worry about what's happening outside my understanding.
They can take care of it now.
I am focusing on what I can do.
After all, there's science to do!

Stargazing is my favourite pastime.
My first experience with it was as part of my work, of course.
I have as many telescopes pointed away from earth as I do towards it.
Most visible light, but some infra-red or radio telescopes.

It's all the same to me.
Light, radio, radiation.
There's patterns and colours in everything.

Looking out at the stars is easy.
Not technically, but emotionally.

Looking down at the earth is hard.
Not technically, but emotionally.

The movement of the solar system and galaxy beyond is entirely deterministic.
Every rotation of the earth, the moon, the sun, is locked in cycles.

To travel anywhere in space is to move between orbits.
And every orbit is affected by every other body, even minutely.

So although it's entirely deterministic, there are so many variables to determine, I can't figure them all out.

The more you look, the more you see.

People are like that too I think.
On the surface they seem incomprehensibly complex.
But there's spheres and orbits within them that must be deterministic.
But just so many that they seem unknowable.

I hope to learn more about the crew and my mother especially.
There's an answer for everything, new orbits to be found.
It will all become clear after looking just a little longer.

Goodnight world.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
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• Ada Phillips
• Wil Taylor
• Kit
• deeryeen
• Andrew Krieg
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