The infinite future

The infinite future.

Flight to the unknown

The pear tree grew in artificial soil. The nutrients calibrated by computer, which also controlled the synthetic construction of all life sustaining materials for the colony. The pear tree was the visible indicator that all was well with the artificial intelligence that kept everyone and everything alive. Its leaves were checked for colour and vibrancy every six hours, it was that important.

The transparent pod was both a safe haven and a prison. The atmosphere on this planet would not be safe for earth bred humans, for another ten thousand years, changing the atmosphere on a planet was not easy and not fast. Those inside the pod were the pioneers who had a duty to keep the bio-engineering of the project going for those tens of thousands of earth years. By the time they could remove the pod and welcome more settlers to take over; about 150 generations of pioneers will have worked at maintaining and guiding the robots that actually could work outside in the original native gasses. The pioneers were very carefully selected psychologically, they had to be single minded and very resistant to boredom. Experiments had been conducted with total robotic occupation of trial planets, but these all failed due to tiny unforeseen changes, changes that even the best artificial intelligence did not seem capable of overcoming. In one well document disaster they had placed twenty humans in a cryogenic hibernation while the machines took care of day to day activity. The concept being that if a change occurred, that was outside the programmed expectation, then the humans would be activated to deal with the situation. The disaster was that the unexpected change was one that shut down all power, the humans all died. This experiment was not repeated, instead the pioneers were selected trained, prepared to cope with the monotony while staying alert but also with the ability to train their children to do the same without complaint. The planet was fifty five light years from earth, sending and receiving messages took so long that it was pointless to even try. Even the fastest intergalactic space craft took generations to travel this sort of distance. Signal boosters had been built to try and ensure high frequency radio transmissions could be exchanged but the incredible distances made this impossible. So many exploratory ships went out every year, that to keep in electronic contact with them all would have required billions of boosters and in practice very few would ever be used. The space craft bringing the settlers would be launched on a date computed, from original data about the planet, so that it should arrive ten earth years after the pod was dismantled. The launch would happen with no actual communication from the destination. Everyone knew this was a massive gamble. The settlers would be going on a journey that lasted several generations and the chance of arriving at the right destination at the right time had been calculated as being only a one in five chance. The desperation to leave the incredibly over populated earth and give great great grandchildren a chance of life free of the earth problems, made everyone willing to take that risk.

Life under the pod went on, they had all adjusted to the cycle of this planet, roughly 25 hours of sun light followed by 15 hours of darkness. There were no seasons, no changes in length of daylight time, here all was, and still is, a constant. There were a thousand people living under this pod, the number calculated to ensure no genetic problems for children born several generations after the initial arrival. Who each person was allowed to couple with; to produce a further generation, was carefully selected by the main computer system. Within their guild, people could pick and choose who they lived close to, they were free to change partners even change their sexual orientation as they wished but who combined to produce offspring was very carefully controlled. The raising of children, their psychological and intellectual education, was out of human hands. The number of children was subject to very strict protocols. Inside the pod the guild system maintained the command structure, while the pod covered a total of two hundred square miles, made up of a series of interconnected sub pods, Only the guild of decision could travel to every part of it. They lived in the central sub pod, the circle of 10 sub pods spaced round this center, were the homes of the engineering guild, around that in a wider circle were a hundred more sub pods used by the maintenance guild and in a circle out side of this, were two hundred more pods housing the supply and survival guild members. Each pod could be isolated, in case of structural failure. Each was connected to its neighbors in its circle and to both next inner and next outer circle by covered passage ways. These passageways were built with some flexibility since the design engineers had no way of knowing what was the possibility of land movement, over the time spans involved.

The supply and survival guild members had organized their own members into working teams. Each team had 10 members and the work requirement for each day appeared on the team leaders personal screen. The leader then notified the rest of the team of the starting place and the equipment they would need that day. SS guild team twenty five assembled at hydroponic pod six, each had all the equipment to check the nutritional values of the food being produced and the chemical constituents of the liquid the plants lived in. All was normal, dull repetitive but they all carried on without letting their attention wander from the monitors. Sarah, an experienced team member, suddenly called the warning signal “ attention attention anomaly indicated” she made sure all the team were looking at her then said “not drill not test real indication” The team leader, Joe, immediately went to the plant container she was checking. He checked her readings and switched on his communication system, pressed the red emergency button, within three second the computer generated voice was requesting information. “ problem Hydro pod six, plant container five, abnormal readings, nutrition levels down to fifty percent” The central computer then immediately locked into the data stream from this plant and confirmed the readings. “isolate the plant container seal and quarantine, instigate temporary seal of pod restrict access to emergency team only” The team were not shocked, this was just as in the training manuals and was an expected procedure. The isolation doors hissed slightly as they closed, the team double checked the readings for all other plants. At first all was normal then a slight change was detected, if they kept the monitors focused on one aspect and watched the readings, they slowly changed, this was not normal, the readings had not varied for years, not since this sub pod was started up. Joe contacted central command, who immediately sealed all connections to all sub pods that directly connected to Hydro pod six. The isolate and contain protocols were now in place for a circle of sub pods and engineers were on their way, together with a member of the guild of decision. The central computer system was alerting everyone all over the whole sprawling pod, that they had an anomaly and a threat to safety was a possibility.

The team stayed calm, their selected emotional responses and their training ensured no panic, not even anxiety. The constant stream of personal data, heart rate, blood pressure, mental activity, pulse and endorphin released into the blood were highlighted for each member of the team, all remained normal, focused. Monitoring of all surrounding hydro pods was started, the computers instantly compared today's reading with all previous ones. Only hydro 6 showed any deviation from normal. The storage and consumption paths for the food produced from this section were examined, all materials in store or transit was immediately isolated, inspected and destroyed, no risk could be taken. The data from all humans who had consumed product from the suspect area, over the last three weeks, was brought to focus and checked for variation. None was found. Changes were made to the chemical feed supplied to plant container 5 and the effect was watch closely. The other plant containers had their readings rechecked, they had all dropped to fifty percent nutrition. They did not fall further, container three was selected for a test and the chemical feed was removed altogether. The effect was sudden, dramatic and unexpected. The plant screamed, an actual sound a high pitched scream that momentarily stunned the whole team. The central computer recorded the noise and instantly clamped down, raising the isolation level for hydro 6 to complete. Maximum containment, full quarantine, no entry or exit under any circumstances.

The guild of decision member immediately confirmed agreement to the computers actions and began evacuation of all humans from pods surrounding the containment area. The guild of engineers controlled the chemical feed to all the other plants in hydro 6 and these were closed down, the plants all screamed then started shaking, root tendrils that should be shriveling up, erupted from their containers and groped blindly towards the human supply and survival team. A rapid analysis was made, the guild of decision confirmed and within seconds it was accepted that the plants appeared to have become self aware and were seeking humans to feed on. The sub pod was immediately turned into a vacuum, the team died within minutes. The pressure on the exterior of the pod was straining its physical strength. The structural integrity could not be risked, and so a vent to allow the planets native atmosphere in, was opened to the equalize pressure on the outer wall. The vent was closed once all risk to the structure had passed. All seals to the stricken area were reinforced. The engineers rigged extra surveillance to watch the seals while the central command computer was activating every monitoring device left inside the restricted area. The plants appeared to grow in the alien atmosphere, they increased in strength as they fed on the human remains but after an earth week they started to shrivel, as they used up the active part of the atmosphere that had been allowed in and as they drained all the feed from their victims. It was twenty earth weeks before the control system recommended to the decision guild that the air in the affected sub pod be returned to normal. All that was found was dust.

A signal was transmitted to earth to advise the settlers space craft but by the time the message reached earth, the ship had left.