The Rift: Hard Science Fiction Read online

  The Rift

  Hard Science Fiction

  Brandon Q. Morris

  Contents

  The Rift

  Author's Note

  Also by Brandon Q. Morris

  The Nothing – A Guided Tour

  Glossary of Acronyms

  Metric to English Conversions

  The Rift

  April 30, 2085, Ceres

  “Prepare for impact.”

  M6 groaned. The warning almost came too late. He had just enough time to bend his knees and press his body against the ground. Almost at once his seismic sensors detected the force of the impact. The meteorite had barely missed him. About 100 meters to the north there must be a new crater. This was his chance!

  M6 forcefully straightened four of his six knees, giving himself momentum that immediately lifted him off the ground. His legs had been pointing toward the south, so he sailed north through space, just above the surface of the dwarf planet. It wasn’t long until he saw the new crater. In order to analyze its composition, M6 shot his laser into the dust cloud that had formed above the crater. Simultaneously, he logged the crater’s structure and measured the temperatures inside it. His positioning jets fired to bring him even closer to the action.

  The impact had almost cost him his life. The meteorite had come in on a very flat trajectory and, due to Ceres’s fast rotation, it had stayed hidden from his instruments for too long, like a cannonball that had been fired just before its target came around a corner. But now that he’d survived the event it had saved him some work. The meteorite had drilled directly into the side of Ahuna Mons, Ceres’s sole cryovolcano. M6 had been planning to drill into the four-kilometer-high mountain starting in the morning, and now the meteorite had laid open its icy interior.

  What M6 observed was fascinating. As if in slow motion, material was flowing into the crater from above, while the lower crater edge was collapsing. The hole from the impact looked like a strange, giant mouth, with secretions running out of its nose and over the upper lip, its lower lip drooping sadly. The spectral analysis of the cloud showed that its composition was a mixture of various salts with ammonia and water ice.

  The energy of the impact had vaporized part of the mountain’s face and melted the rest. Solar radiation striking the crater’s edge was keeping it warmer and thus viscous, while the dark interior of the crater quickly solidified again. M6 recorded everything. In a few weeks, when he contacted Earth again, he would send a summary of his findings for analysis by the scientists at the RB Group. They would probably be overjoyed at all the progress he had made.

  Thanks, killer meteorite, he thought. Then he carefully moved each of his joints. Ceres didn’t have any atmosphere, but he was still standing in the middle of a dust cloud from the impact. Small particles could get into any of the three joints on each of his six legs, thus making him unable to move. That was his worst nightmare, even though he had ways to fix those problems. He hoped that all he would need to do would be to heat up the affected parts of his body from the inside and melt away the interfering particles.

  His body had a radial-symmetric design and was suspended between his six legs by way of flexible joints. M6 had never seen himself from outside his body, but an engineer had once told him that he looked like a giant spider. The comparison didn’t bother him. All that was important to him was that his body was practical and durable. He got energy from a small atomic battery, and from solar panels that looked like giant faceted eyes on his top side, due to the many lenses spread out over the panels. His actual visual organs were situated in the interior of his hard shell. They were sensitive to the whole spectrum from the infrared to the gamma range.

  M6 always had a lot of questions. They would come up in his mind whenever he came across one of Ceres’s secrets. Every answer formed the seed for at least one new question. He didn’t even need the questions that the scientists back on Earth sent him, he had plenty of his own. But there was one question he never asked himself: What is the reason for my existence? Wasn’t it enough that he was here and looking for answers?

  M6 didn’t want any other life. But a nagging fear lurked in the back of his mind. What if there were no more questions? Is that even a real scenario? He didn’t know, and it terrified him. M6 had already calculated how long it would take to fly to another object in the vicinity. Even though the asteroid belt was filled with millions of chunks of rock, a move would not be a simple thing. His propulsion system only gave him enough thrust for powerful jumps, so that he could move around the surface of the dwarf planet and then come back down again. It hadn’t been made for long trips through the vacuum of space. The journey would take years—years in which he would have nothing to do.

  But that was a theoretical and far-distant future. Right now, it wasn’t even clear how this volcano worked. It didn’t seem to have anything in common with the glowing-lava-spewing mountains of Io, Venus, or Earth. Understanding Ahuna Mons was the core objective of his current orders. With his frontmost leg, M6 touched the crater’s edge, the drooping lower lip. The substratum seemed to already be solid enough. He measured minus 40 degrees on the ground. If it had been pure ice, it would have been hard as stone at that temperature. Only the many impurities made it still flow slowly. Due to Ceres’s low gravity, however, it barely moved at all. M6 could advance without fear farther into the chasm created by the meteorite.

  As he inched into the darkness, setting one leg carefully in front of another, he examined the walls of the hole. They had obviously been laid in layers that looked to him like annual growth rings. Maybe he could use them to figure out the true age of the volcano. All that was known before was that, despite its enormous height, it couldn’t be more than about a million years old—otherwise it would have had more craters like this one.

  The individual layers were each approximately 20 to 30 centimeters thick. Their composition was measurably different. They were separated by thin layers of a silicate-like material. M6 scraped off a sample and inserted it into the analyzer located in his abdominal section. The material of the separating layer was identical to the regolith dust that formed a thin layer covering all of Ceres. M6 already sensed new questions forming in his mind. If he analyzed enough layers, he could compile a chronology of the conditions on Ceres in the last thousands of years, much like biologists on Earth determined the earth’s climate from analyzing tree trunks.

  Would the scientists of the RB Group be as interested as he was to have this glimpse into the past? Not all of the questions that he raised were equally well-received by his bosses. Ceres was one of the celestial bodies that the United Nations had declared off-limits for asteroid mining. Only scientific research missions like his were allowed here. But naturally, the RB Group hoped that this restriction would be lifted at some point. If Ceres offered important resources for humankind’s development, its status as a protected area might be reconsidered, and then the RB Group would be the first on site.

  M6 scraped another sample of the separating layer farther toward the interior and analyzed it. Its content of radioactive elements showed that it must be at least a thousand years older than the first sample. How far into the past would the crater allow him to go?

  M6 carefully scrambled farther into the hole. He always kept two legs anchored in the ice, two supporting him at the front, and the third pair tested the subsurface before he shifted his weight. He was making good progress. The laser scanner revealed that the meteorite had buried itself approximately 100 meters deep.

  Just at that moment his two rear legs suddenly broke through the layer of ice. M6 couldn’t react quickly enough. His weight pulled him backward, his front legs losing contact. The top of the hole was too
far away for him to reach. The rear part of his body came to rest against the ice.

  M6 felt the cold. He was upset with himself. He shouldn’t have allowed this to happen! But he didn’t panic. Very calmly he analyzed the situation. His two rear legs had sunk deep into the ice. He didn’t have enough space to move his joints and maneuver so that he could pull his legs out from the ice again. Only the joints were heatable, not the legs themselves, so he also couldn’t free them by melting the ice around them. It was clear what he had to do. He would have to give up those two legs. Following a signal from his mind, the uppermost joint in each of his rear legs separated into two parts, so that the other four legs could now lift his body.

  The damage was minimal. The only thing he regretted was that he would have to abandon exploring the crater for now, because he needed all six legs to do that. That was why he was most upset with himself. With the help of the nanofabricators in his body, he would be able to manufacture new legs. Maybe his bosses would even have a better design for him to implement now. First, however, he would have to obtain the necessary materials. The nanofabricators could assemble any design he gave them, but they would need the right raw materials for the job—in this case, metals. And he already knew where to look. He remembered seeing white spots in the Occator crater two years ago, during his approach to Ceres.

  May 14, 2085, Pomona, Kansas

  “Dad, can I use the truck tonight?”

  Derek McMaster looked up. His daughter’s voice carried down from the second floor through the thin wooden walls into the hallway. He was surprised. She was usually still sleeping at this time of day. She had probably been waiting for signs of life from below.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. When do you need it?” he asked loudly.

  “Seven would be good.”

  “I’ll be back by five. Your mother’s cooking dinner. It’d be nice if we could all eat together.”

  Elizabeth had been home for three days, but they had barely seen her. Either she was squirreled away in her room, supposedly studying, or she was hanging out with friends from earlier years, which is what she was probably planning on doing again tonight. Tomorrow she’d probably be back at her studying.

  “OK, that should work,” she answered.

  “See you later then,” Derek shouted. He opened the front door, stepped out, and closed it behind himself.

  The wooden boards of the porch creaked under his leather boots. It was a good feeling knowing their grown daughter was back at home for a while. He looked out at the garage with its open door. He could see the dollhouse that she used to play with sitting in the corner. At some point, he must have moved it in there.

  Derek pulled his coat tighter around himself. The air was still crisp and chilly. He loved the morning hours. It used to be that a mist had always hung over the fields when he went out in his truck to inspect the crops. But it was too dry for that now—mist only appeared in the winter anymore. The weather report had said it would reach around 86 degrees this afternoon. His daughter would ask him what he meant by that number. She had grown up using the new universally-standard units of measurement, but he was always slipping back into Fahrenheit and miles. Thirty. Always will sound cold to me, he thought.

  The truck was already out of the garage, next to the porch. Its front was splattered with mud. The mud hadn’t been there when he had gotten out of the truck yesterday. It had to have been his daughter’s doing. She had borrowed the truck last night too. But how had she managed to get mud on it? The last rains had been almost three months ago! Derek rubbed the splotches of splattered mud. The mud was dry and crumbled under his fingers. It doesn’t matter, he thought, the main thing is she was having fun. That wasn’t so easy in this godforsaken area. That was one reason she had gone to Kansas City for her studies.

  Derek opened the door of his truck and climbed into the driver’s seat. He sank deeply into the soft cushioning. It smelled like cigarette smoke. His daughter didn’t smoke, so she must’ve had somebody else with her. Does she have a new boyfriend? But that wasn’t really any of his business. He sighed and reached for the key. It was usually left in the ignition, but this time his fingers found nothing but air. Didn’t I tell her she should just leave the key in the ignition? Now he’d have to go back inside.

  But first Derek checked the glove compartment. There was the key, right next to the gun that he always kept there for nostalgic reasons. He stuck the key in the ignition, put his foot on the brake pedal, and turned the key. The motor started humming softly. His truck was powered by hydrogen. Out here that was much more reliable than an electric vehicle because every little tornado inevitably knocked down power lines somewhere. For 30 years, the county had been requesting for the state to run the power lines underground, but that was much too expensive for all these remote, scattered homesteads. Derek had chosen to have an extra hydrogen tank installed at his house so he could be energy independent, and he only needed a fuel truck to visit him once a month to fill up the tank.

  He drove slowly down the access road to Colorado Road. His access road wasn’t paved, so the truck kicked up a dust cloud. His wife used to give him an earful about paving the long access road, but she had been silent about it ever since it had stopped raining as much. He didn’t know whether her silence was because she no longer had to bicycle through puddles when she went to visit her friends, or because she had noticed the farm’s severely shrunken earnings. They didn’t talk to each other much anymore. After his strenuous work in the fields, Derek needed his rest.

  He stopped the truck and got out just before the intersection with Colorado Road. On the left was a small pond. For many years its water had helped to irrigate the fields in the summer. Now the pond was almost dried up. Derek rubbed his temples. There’d been no overnight miracles. The bottom of the pond was still covered by maybe a foot of water. The remains of a dock poked out of the mud. The reeds along the shoreline were all dried up. Ten years ago, he and his daughter had played with the remote-controlled toy boat that she had wished for, right here on this pond. And his wife had always been afraid that their daughter would drown. But that wasn’t a risk anymore.

  Fucking climate change, he thought, and then got mad at himself because he hadn’t ever accepted it as real. Somehow he still hoped that after seven dry summers, a hot and wet one would finally happen again, like before. Three presidents in a row had promised him it would happen. Now he didn’t believe anyone anymore.

  Derek grabbed the door of his truck, opened it, and climbed back in. He turned right on Colorado Road. It was narrow, so he used both lanes. Nobody else drove along here anyway. The neighbors’ farmlands had been taken over by the banks and big corporations a few years ago. He wondered if they were happy in the city. He’d never heard anything from any of them again, even though they had been something like friends before.

  Derek drove on the narrow, straight road. The land was flat and seemed to go on forever. Derek was happy that he had to keep an eye out for potholes and drive around them—it gave him some distraction. After two miles there were a few trees on the right. In passing he spied the Mulligans’ old truck, slowly rusting in front of his eyes, and the wooden house, half in ruins, where they had lived.

  Beyond the small gathering of trees was a narrow bridge across the Appanoose Creek. Derek stopped right in the middle of the bridge. The creek bed was also all dried up. Derek sighed. The grass right along the creek’s edge was still green, but the cornfield that he had been putting a lot of hope in for this season was not receiving any of the moisture. He climbed out and walked to the edge of the field. He looked back at his truck. Nobody could get past his truck on the bridge, but it didn’t matter. He was standing on his own land. Anyone who wanted him to move his truck would have to wait.

  Slowly Derek walked into the cornfield, being careful not to step on the young plants. They were only half as tall as they should have been. He bent over and checked their leaves. They cracked and tore under his fingers. There was nothi
ng more he could do.

  Derek dragged his index and middle fingers over the ground. It was hard and cracked. The earth had become an old man. He dug somewhat deeper with his hand and the clayish soil crumbled between his fingers. It looked terrible. The heat had damaged the topmost layer. He took another step, two steps, three, but the soil was just as bad there too. A long crack ran through the topsoil, as if the world were slowly opening up to devour all of its inhabitants. His fields were in bad shape. He wouldn’t be able to pay for his daughter’s studies anymore. How was he supposed to tell her that?

  Derek walked farther into the field. Now there was no point trying to walk carefully around the plants. It didn’t matter. He started to run. His breathing got heavy, but nevertheless it felt good because it took his mind off the world around him. He was no longer as fit as he had once been. Maybe he should rejoin the Air Force? At least they paid him well. He’d made more working for the Air Force than he earned now, and he’d always been paid on time. But what would he do there at the age of 41? He was well on his way to becoming an old man. If they’d even take him back, they’d just put him in management somewhere, instead of sending him on special assignments like before.

  He missed those days. Some of those assignments he still couldn’t talk about today, not even to his wife. That had never been a problem, he’d never had much need for talking. Sometimes he asked himself why he and his wife were even still together now that their daughter was out of the house. Was it enough that he drove his wife, who hated to drive, into the city and back for doctors’ appointments and she gave him a blow job once a week? But that was probably more contact than some other couples had.