Beyond Humanity

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Hunching in the pew between two of his teammates, Alan and Lynda (who also seemed to be doing their best to disappear), Steve noticed that their seat seemed to be made of the same material as the rest of the building. Scratching at it with his thumbnail it felt slightly pliable. Without a second (or really even a first) thought he removed his sample kit form its pouch.

Taking a scraping of the surface he noticed it was surprisingly easy. The material seemed to melt away as he scraped at it with the probe. As he deposited the material into a hermetically sealable container, he was astounded to see the seat begin to fester and boil at the scraping site. The surface quickly solidified leaving a visible scar where he had damaged it. It was, however, smooth to the touch. He wondered if the process produced heat.

He was ready to scrape again to get a sample of the material in its liquid state when the booming voice shocked him back to reality: "Oppressors. It is lacrctos that you have joined us." What does 'lacrctos' mean? "It is 'good' that you have joined us" seemed most likely, but following the accusatory name calling he wasn't so sure.

The voice continued; "Know that you are only tolerated here, but that little tolerance will be shown to those that break rakostos. Do what you came for. That is all." He wondered if 'that was all' meant that this meeting was over, or that we were not to exceed our mandate in searching this solar system for usable ores. Probably both, but barely qualifying as a senior member of this expedition, he would wait for Katrina or Jason to show him what they want the team to do.

Meanwhile he wondered if taking samples of the furniture qualified as exceeding his mandate. Maybe he had already doomed the entire expedition to failure or worse, but, as he ran his finger along the scar of his intrusion, his mind's eye was inside the sample container cruising over the surface of the material. He wondered if it would prove mineral, organic, or nanotech as he suspected. If it was nanotech, he wondered if it was carbon based like the nanotech industry in terran systems. He wondered if all the H+ structures were comprised of nanobots, or if they were just built by nanobots. He wondered if the transhumans used nanobots to repair their living tissue. He wondered for perhaps the thousandth time if the transhumans even had living human tissue any longer. He knew that the political theorists varied widely on what they could expect to encounter here, and that their ships' Humanist Liaison had spent the trip telling them all kinds of horror stories. The kinds of stories that had stopped frightening him when he was still a child. He wondered why the government still pretended like anyone believed that sort of reactionary propaganda. But thinking about his brother in the marines he realized that, yes, some people still believed what they were told no mater how many times they were lied to.
...

As Katrina and Jason started back down the aisle they were whispering fiercely to each other, their heads close together. The other scientists falling in line behind them could only wait to hear the verdict of this most recent altercation. The mission logs listed Jason as the subordinate, but sometimes it seemed he forgot that.

Once back on the ship Steve headed straight for the lab, not even pausing to see if his superiors had come to a consensus on their immediate course of action. He had his own agenda at that moment.

By the time the ships intercom chimed letting them all know that they would be setting out on their initial scouting pass he had his answer about H+ building methods. The sophistication of the nanotech under his microscope was nothing short of aw inspiring. He knew Katrina would cease listening to his findings as soon as he told her that it was in fact merely carbon based; to common a mineral for her attentions. He suspected Jason would be more receptive to his discovery and the light it may shed on their hosts possible motives for allowing them to visit this system at all.

Steve found Jason and the rest of the geological team in their common room. Coming down the corridor Steve had rehearsed a few introductions into his speech, but as soon as he saw them he just blurted it out: "The Transhumans are going to invade earth!"

Katrina just stared at him as if he were gibbering unintelligibly. Alan and Lynda looked at Steve and then each other and just started laughing. Bertha looked up from her book and asked "What?" But Jason didn't look surprised at all; with a very serious look, he asked: "What makes you think that?"

Steve started to tell them about the sample he took, and Katrina lunged at him nearly taking his head off as she pinned him to the wall.

"If we were in the military, I would have you shot. Do you know that you put our mission in jeopardy? Not to mention all of our lives. You are an idiot Steve. You…"

Jason put his hand on her shoulder and in a slow deliberate voice "What's done is done. We are off the ground again, so whatever offence may have been taken wasn't. Let's hear his theory; we can still have a battle field execution afterwards."

Katrina was still seething as she let Steve's toes touch the ground. She stalked to the other end of the compartment and paced a small circle.

Steve just stood there flustered. The connection to his inner mind and his communication skills were not well enough developed to take such physical confrontation in stride.

Jason stepped closer and in a quiet voice asked Steve what he had found.

"Nanotech" Steve replied. "Technology like I have never seen."

"We knew their technology was advance beyond ours, that's not information worth even your life." Katrina growled.

"No, you don't understand. Not advanced; alien." Steve explained "The nanites in the lab; under the microscope. They are not based in any way on human technology. It can only be alien in origin."

Katrina spat back: "You can't possibly know that!", but Jason just stared at him.

"I think I should tell you all why I was chosen as Katrina's assistant. I am actually here looking for just such evidence that the transhumans are fundamentally evil. 300 years ago when they turned their back on creation we knew it; but we have become weak and lazy since then and their sins look more and more attractive. We are all warned the path of transhumanism leads away from god and away from any hope of transcending this plane of existence, yet still our civilization creeps towards embracing the transhumanist ethos. For the sake of all creation, this must be stopped. If Steve has discovered concrete evidence of alien interference in transhuman "evolution" then we may just have our smoking gun that will prompt League of Planets into action sealing the border and ridding us of this subversive influence once and for all."

Now it was Steve's turn to be dumbstruck. "Well, I don't know about all that. All I found was evidence that H+ society may have an alternate and far superior source of aid. Our being invited here for "exploration and possible trade" can't possibly be true when anything they could get from us would be vastly inferior to what they could make or acquire from their unknown benefactors."

[ July 20, 2006, 07:36: Message edited by: moulderingstump ]

 

Steve's last statement finally caught Katrina's attention and she marched over to him.

"What reason then would they have for permitting us to come if what you say is true? What value can we be to them if they do not need our knowledge and expertise?"

She glared at Steve then at Jason.

"Since we are here I strongly suggest we go about our business. We keep our eyes and ears open and our mouths shut. If Steve is right and they even suspect we suspect them we probably won't live very long.

This appears to be a world still forming and the possibilities are endless. We will do our job." Then she shurgged. "Don't really have much choice. Jason, we agreed to head out towards those volcanoes we saw. Let's go."

 

Jake sat in the pilot's throne, whistling to himself as he headed towards the site specified.

He pushed the 2D viewscreen away from his face and pulled the visot of his pilot's helmet down over his eyes.
The visor contained a screen linked to several cameras on the exterior of the vessel. These cameras allowed him a full 3D view of the landscape and sky, as if he flew through the air sans ship, although thankfully without the physical repercussions of such an event.

The landscape was barren, nothing seemed to grow around here, well, nothing green at any rate. In the distance, a range of mountains loomed, although by the heavy black clouds above them they were more likely to be volcanic than anything else. The sky turned red as he nosed the small craft down toward the volcanoes, and spotted a suitable place to land, if there was such thing on a fire mountain.

"Landing in 5 minutes," he announced over the intercom.

 

When Steve had been asked to join Katrina and the other lead scientists on this first expedition into H+ space since The Secession over two centuries ago he had been flattered and eager, not only to visit the Transhumans (which had always fascinated him), but to work under such a well respected scientist. After spending months in preparation for the mission and more months on the ship he had come to see that Katrina's mineralogical and meteorological prowess had come at the expense of social grace and maybe even a little sanity. So it was disorienting to see Jason may actually be the crazy one.

He was glad of Katrina's single mindedness as it gave him the perfect excuse to grunt his agreement and disappear to prepare his team.

He finds his team gathered around their MALP where they had efficiently congregated after Jake's five minute warning. They were discussing the ramifications of the nanite discovery when Steve told them to drop it and concentrate on the task at hand so they could get back to human space as quickly as possible (he left out the revelation of Jason's "mission").

They were doing the final check when the ship banked hard spilling the MALP's unsecured contents across the airlock. After regaining his feet Steve punched the intercom: "TAKE IT EASY JAKE, YOU JACKASS," he shouted. He could just see the superior smirk on the pilot's face.

Jake's calm voice came back: "Pardon me doctor, but you might want to take it up with the active volcano under us." And Steve felt stupid for what he was sure would not be the last time this trip.

Meanwhile Steve's team had reassembled the equipment which all seemed to be in working order and waited for the go ahead from the bridge to begin cycling the airlock.

--- ---

While waiting for the all clear Steve double checks the seals on his EnviroSuit. It is going to be quite inhospitable out there. He can hear his team breathing in his headset as they test their seals. Stajl says something about irregular pressure and Anna taps his wrist seal before unscrewing and reseating it. After another check Stajl gives the thumbs up.

These men and women are the best at what they do and they have undergone extensive training and psychological screening to ensure that they would not only be able to handle extreme mental and physical stresses, but they would remain a functional team through it all.

There is a jolt as the ship touches down and soon the ready light over the airlock controls winks on and Steve's hud begins feeding him information about the ship's immediate exterior (yep it is inhospitable out there). As Paulo engages the airlock release the ready light begins flashing and the team shuffles excitedly as the hatch pops open revealing a blasted landscape of black and red seen through air thick with heat ripples.

They follow the MALP down the ramp and onto the surface and set about gathering samples of the slag that makes up the volcano. After about 10 minutes the team heads back to the ship with a fully loaded sample bucket. They all know that most of what they gather today will be uniform down to the molecular level, but they have to start somewhere.

Closing the hatch Steve gives Jake the all clear to lift off for the next excavation site.

Steve and his team begin unloading the MALP to the hoppers they will use to transport the specimens to the lab for analysis.

[ August 03, 2006, 00:52: Message edited by: moulderingstump ]

 

Jake didn't waste time sending the team off- having a very active volcano beneath his prized ship was an unpleasant experiance. He made sure they had the correct frequencies to contact him for a pickup, before high-tailing it out of there.

As he settled in for the long flight to the next site, he decided to find some way of keeping himself amused for a while.

He pulled up a folder on his visor, opened it, and felt the speaker insert itself in his ear. When the music began to play he closed the folder again and activated a command that would allow him to leave the throne for a while, as the ship flew itself. He was still connected through his visor, but now he had a measure of freedom.

Leaving the pilot's throne, he moved to the back of the cockpit and began the hunt for the chemical slop that passed for food on long-haul journeys, away from kitchens, chefs, and fresh produce.