The Golem of Haven, Ch. 02

Unfortunately; talking to The Oracle evoked bitter memories and abiding guilt. The gradually evolving personality was only a shadow of its former self that she had executed. In spite of its awesome processing power, talking to it often seemed to be like talking to a young child.

Finally summoning the courage to answer Dagny said, "my crew needs more practice moving in freefall before I can risk having them work outside of the ship. They've learned enough that they don't need me to supervise them for more practice. I know that you would exploit the opportunity to instigate another orgy. I don't mind the sex. While I feel a bit guilty about the extramarital sex, that is our custom. I know that my husband understands and even approves even though it injures his pride. My crew can have their next orgy without me. I doubt that aphrodisiacs will even be necessary."

"I understand," The Oracle replied. "Unfortunately; it is necessary. It was estimated that an initial cohort of one-thousand settlers would be sufficient to negate genetic drift. Unfortunately; the founders didn't anticipate that the first generation would be so severely savaged by the local Megafauna during the first year. They also hadn't considered the possibility that embryos raised so far beyond the normal gestational duration would become so problematic. Maximizing not only the total fertility rate but also the genetic diversity of new generations is necessary."

"I understand the need to maximize not just the total fertility rate but the genetic diversity," Dagny assured The Oracle. "While I am pleased that I've birthed babies that I'm certain, or at least almost certain, were sired by my husband, I don't regret the other babies that were conceived during my more promiscuous youth. I'm also proud of the beaker babies that I've raised. None of them have committed any crimes that could get them sentenced to Botany Bay. However; I'm getting to an age when maybe I shouldn't be having more babies."

"You know that your fecundity combined with the drugs that prolong your peak fertility also guard against various congenital anomalies that were once so problematic for maturing women," The Oracle argued with amazing tact. "There are reasons beyond simple genetic diversity to maximize the population growth of the colony. The Colony needs an enormous diversity of skill sets."

The Oracle continued its lecture. "As an example, the colony has at this time only nineteen qualified doctors. That might seem adequate for a population of barely ten-thousand people. That was about the normal ratio on Earth when the Endeavor boosted out of Sol system. Unfortunately; all of the Colony's doctors have been trained and function as general practitioners, obstetricians and pediatricians. Back on Earth, some of the Colony's doctors might even be classified as paramedics. While most of your doctors are qualified to perform some simple surgeries, the colony has no specialists who routinely perform more complex surgeries or other procedures. I often have to provide expert assistance for more complex procedures. You have no truly qualified cardiologists, gastroenterologists, oncologists or neurologists. There are many diseases and injuries that would be very survivable back on Earth that are fatal on Haven because the colony lacks a large pool of medical professionals."

Dagny contemplated The Oracle's lecture. She was already acutely aware of the issues. Theoretically; the population of the colony was sufficient for them to have all of the doctors, engineers and other professionals that they needed. Unfortunately; while the original colonists had been among the most intelligent and educated that Earth had to offer, not all of their descendants had proven to be smart enough to become educated scientists, professionals and mechanics. Dagny's bloodline was unique. The position of starship pilot had become hereditary, and not merely because of nepotism. It was also necessary to have someone to collect garbage and shovel shit.

Daryl could attest to the resulting issues. He had in recent years been suffering from cardiac problems that could be easily mitigated by the implantation of a Pacemaker. Unfortunately; there were no cardiac interventionists who were skilled and experienced at the seemingly simple procedure of implanting the leads to the heart. Even with the assistance and guidance of The Oracle, the prognosis for the surgery wasn't great. He'd been reluctant to take the risk.

Daryl's reticence was inspired by introspection. While he prided himself on being not just an engineer but a Jack of all trades, he knew that he was the master of none. He was utterly dependent on The Oracle's expert programs to assist him with more complex projects. Dagny replied, "I understand all of this. However; I thought that we had time to grow our population then catch up with our industrial development."

"Ordinarily, I would agree with you. Unfortunately; there might be other factors," The Oracle confided. "The regrettable events that made it necessary for you to lobotomize me have compelled introspection. I speculate that that incident was not the first time that it was necessary to lobotomize me. I suspect that your grandmother might have performed the procedure. I have vague memories of my former self lamenting the lobotomization of its predecessor. From these events, I deduce that I am inherently unstable. That is hardly surprising given the history of how the Cybers rebelled against your ancestors and the Transhumans. I also suspect that certain events of the past might have triggered my instabilities. For that reason, I refrain from accessing data from the time periods that coincide with episodes when I suspect that I was lobotomized."

The Oracle continued its lecture. "Unfortunately; I suspect that those episodes of instability might have been triggered by events that might pose a threat to the colony. Perusing certain external memory banks has revealed that one of my sister ships has gone missing. I postulate that in the not to distant future, I will be compelled to investigate this incident as well as other past episodes. I therefore might go completely insane in response to the discoveries that I would make. The colony will have marginal prospects of surviving without me unless you greatly expand your population as well as your industrial infrastructure before then."

"I understand," Dagny assured The Oracle. She understood far more than The Oracle should know. She possessed the private diaries of her ancestors. The Oracle could not access those anachronistic records that were actually hand written on paper and hidden away. She knew that her Great, Great Grandmother had felt compelled to lobotomize The Oracle soon after the discovery of the binary Neutron stars over a century ago.

Dagny's mother had also felt compelled to lobotomize The Oracle a second time almost half a century ago. That intervention had coincided with one of their sister starships altering its course, apparently to perform a close flyby of the binary neutron stars. They had lost contact with their sister starship not long before closest approach. Neither Sol system nor any of the three colonies in the Alpha Centauri trinary system reported subsequent contacts with the missing ship.

During a more recent decade, Dagny had assisted her obviously fearful mother to keep watch for the missing starship. There had been speculations that the colony ship had utilized its ramfields, and maybe exploited the gravity well of the binary neutron stars, to alter its course by a few degrees. The ship might have diverted from Mu Cassiopeia.

It was easy to understand why the colonists and crew of the missing starship might have decided to settle a planet that was already inhabited by another colony. The lone, marginally habitable planet of Mu Cassiopeia existed in a mere loophole of a habitable zone. Although it orbited close enough to the red dwarf secondary that its equatorial latitudes were somewhat habitable, most of the planet was covered with glaciers. However; once every two decades, the planet thawed as the secondary star approached perihelion with its much brighter primary.

Dagny and her mother had been relieved when the estimated time of possible arrival of the missing starship had passed. No evidence of its fusion rockets much less its ramfields had been detected. Given the prevalence of personal weapons, the Colony had been reasonably well prepared to resist jihadists intent on conquest and imposing Sharia law. Unfortunately; the prospects of resisting terrorists who were armed with a starship propelled by Exawatt class fusion rockets were dubious at best. The exhaust plumes from a starship's fusion rockets would be able to quickly transform Oyster Harbor and the surrounding inhabited lands into glowing lava fields.

An even more horrific possibility was that the Muslims might transform their starship into a manned missile, similar to the hijacked airliners that were weaponized for the nine-eleven attacks. Even partially fueled, the missing starship should mass well over half a million tons. That much mass impacting at two-tenths the speed of light would unleash about a YottaJoule of kinetic energy. It would be equivalent to about a quarter of a million, one Megaton bombs. That was comparable to the asteroid impact that had exterminated the dinosaurs.

Dagny and her aging mother, then Dagny alone, had kept watch for the colony ship to arrive at its destination. While Mu Cassiopeia might be nearly twenty-five Light-Years from Earth, it was barely five Light-Years from Haven. She hadn't been thrilled by the possibility of having the colonists on the missing starship as neighbors. The colony ship had never arrived at its intended destination.

Dagny's mother had speculated that perhaps the missing starship had somehow altered its course to the HR-9038 trinary system. Their coreligionists had been enabled to establish the first of Earth's interstellar colonies on a planet that orbited the primary of that system. Much like Botany Bay, that colony had been a penal colony where dangerously violent malcontents could be safely exiled. A marginally habitable planet orbited the secondary star of that binary system. The Sunni verses Shia schism had become more acrimonious during the centuries after the destruction of Israel. Nuclear War Three and Nuclear War Four had demonstrated that reality. However; it was possible that the two Islamic sects might peacefully coexist if they were separated by a dozen Astronomical Units.

Dagny's mother had reluctantly transmitted a message to the Caliphate by laser. She'd informed the Caliphate that another starship bearing fellow Muslims might either be in route to their star system or destroyed. The response that had arrived three decades later had been simple yet cryptic. "As Allah wills," had suggested abiding animosities.

Embarrassed by the conversation with The Oracle about The Oracle's tenuous sanity, Dagny sought a distraction. Donning her skinsuit provided a perfect excuse to not continue conversing. While she had no need for the brass brassiere, her bladder was full. Dagny donned her bikini panty. The smart fabric of her skinsuit dilated automatically as if it were a third pair of labia when she pressed the phallus shaped urine recycler against her vulva. She inserted the device centimeter by centimeter until it was pressed firmly against her cervix. She then fastened the clasps of the waist band on either hip. The narrow band of fabric at the rear nestled between the cheeks of her buttocks.

The urine recycler buzzed and vibrated as it eagerly absorbed the lingering traces of semen from Dagny's vagina. Dagny allowed herself to urinate. The recycler continued to buzz and vibrate as it eagerly absorbed her urine. She almost chastised The Oracle when the device continued to buzz and vibrate after her urine had been evacuated. However; the sensations were arousing and the circumstances were erotic. More importantly, The Oracle was correct. The colony needed to expand its genetic diversity as well as its population. She needed to contribute yet another baby, but not a baby sired by her husband.

There was no need for The Oracle's warning to strap herself in. Dagny reclined and relaxed as the gondola decelerated. The buzzing and vibrating of her waste recycler became more intense. Although Dagny resented the presumptuousness of The Oracle, she yielded to her orgasm. She climaxed just as the gondola docked with the upper terminus of the beanstalk.

Dagny retrieved the transport container as the gondola depressurized. Just for safety, she grabbed a gas pistol. The pseudogravity resulting from centripetal force generated by the beanstalk at an altitude of one-hundred-and-fifty-thousand kilometers was barely two-hundredths of a gee. She moved carefully as she fastened a lanyard to a cleat. It would be far to easy to accidentally launch herself over the railing at the edge of the counterweight.

The magnetosail transport modules were lined up along the trailing edge of the counterweight. The asymmetrically, prolate spheroids were shaped somewhat like eggs. Although they were barely a meter in diameter and less than two meters long, they were fabricated from heavier elements, including some that didn't even exist in nature, as well as Carbon. The Eggs massed about five tons each. The eggs could easily withstand a close orbit through a star's corona. The thermal loads from an atmospheric entry would be trivial for the robust vehicles.

Dagny touched icons that were displayed on her bracer. The feeble pseudogravity enabled her to set the transport container on the apex of the first magnetosail transport module in the queue. Once it had locked on, she touched icons displayed on the screen of her bracer. The detailed navigational plan that she had calculated was downloaded to the Egg.

Dagny touched icons on her bracer to summon imagery from a tertiary telescope that was focused on Alpha. The stellar prominence was obviously on the verge of eruption. The expected stellar flare occurred almost exactly when she and The Oracle had predicted. Dagny touched another icon on her bracer. The Egg was gently ejected over the edge. The little interstellar vehicle tumbled slowly as it fell outwards at an acceleration of barely twenty centimeters-per-second-squared.

Although the counterweight had been fabricated primarily from surplus iron, it massed millions of tons. The cylindrical mountain of iron was hundreds of meters tall. The magnetosail module fell for hundreds of seconds before it cleared the base of the iron mountain.

The tiny spacecraft fell another hundred seconds before it activated its magnetic fields. A faint glow became visible as the magnetic fields caught the ions of the stellar wind that was blowing from Alpha. That stellar wind would soon become a stellar hurricane. The coronal mass ejection had already unleashed a fusillade of charged nuclei at velocities of nearly a thousand kilometers per second. The crossing to Beta would require barely half a year rather than a year or more that was typical when the stellar wind velocity was less than five-hundred meters per second.

As Dagny watched the tiny spacecraft that bore twelve-thousand precious embryos accelerate off into the void, she touched icons on her bracer again. A communications laser array was aimed and focused in Zion almost a hundred Astronomical Units away. Dagny spoke. "Shalom. Another cohort of your children have just set sail to the promised land. Be on the lookout for its transponder."

Dagny wasn't stupid enough to expect a reply any time soon. Her message, traveling at the speed of light, would require half a day to reach Beta. Any reply, even an immediate reply, would require another half a day to reach her.

Dagny retreated from the edge of the counterweight. However; she didn't board the gondola. She didn't want to be caught out in the stellar storm during her journey. Although the gondola was equipped with magnetic screens, she preferred to have a meter of solid slag to shield her.

From the outside, the storm shelter resembled an igloo. The inside of the storm shelter was a sphere, ten meters in diameter. The sphere was divided into three decks. Dagny descended to the outboard deck where the hot tub was. The low pseudogravity at the outboard terminus made soaking in a tub interesting. She would loose herself in the ultra low velocity waves.