LITMIR.BIZ

      AUGUST 6,-1 LD

      2124 CE

      … All missions will include the strategic subgoal of testing, sustaining, and proving the viability of a closed community in accordance with Arcological Principals …

      He could hardly believe the day had come. It was his life’s work, but also his life’s dream. And now it had manifested into a finished product—something he could touch and smell and experience. Reggie had been envisioning this day since he was a young man. Standing in front of that crowd all those decades ago, he never believed they were going to give him the green light to fully devote himself to his star.

      But they had. And now, today, everything felt a little more real. Noumenon consisted of more than theories and concepts and schematics. It was ships. And more important, it was people.

      The trip to Iceland had been exhausting. Once he landed, though, adrenaline surged through him. Stepping off the jet into the chilly night, Reggie glanced into the sky and squinted at the moon. For a moment his gut wrenched with longing.

       I could have been up there. Instead …

      Instead indeed. Most of the other teams had stationed their building projects at Lagrange points between the Earth and the moon. All of the ships in the convoys were based on similar designs, and large portions were manufactured in specialty facilities around the world. The assembly of those parts was a unique process to each team, though, and much easier if done off-Earth—plenty of room, no locals complaining about half-constructed ship-cities blocking their view, less gravity to contend with.

      Plus, the team leaders were sent up to inspect the construction on the consortium’s dime. Space flight was a rare thrill for a middle-class citizen. Reggie would never be able to afford a jaunt out of the atmosphere on his own. Space vay-cays were still for billionaires.

      So, why had he turned down his chance to play astronaut?

      For one thing, building in neutral, UN-controlled space meant a waiting list and red tape. There would have been thirty thousand extra procedures and three hundred thousand superfluous man hours.

      But that had been a practical consideration. And while it was certainly a worthwhile one, it probably wouldn’t have been enough to look past the logistical advantage of building the ships in space. So Reggie had proposed another reason.

      An impractical consideration.

      Because when the time came to send the convoy on its way, the best the public could hope for was an instant replay on their implants. A silent movie from space. Who wanted to watch a flock of metal tubs slowly lumber off into the night?

      Each convoy that had left so far had received thirty seconds of air time, then … nothing. It was undignified. It … lacked something. Grandeur. Theatricality. Wonder.

      “It’s boring,” McCloud had said.

      And Reggie had seen it coming.

      The idea of the convoy getting a silent brush-off on launch day had bothered Reggie from the start. More so than the idea of being left on the ground while the other kids got to play in space. This was the grandest, most ambitious, and possibly the most important event in the history of humanity. It needed to be seen as such by the people of Earth; they needed to have a connection to it, to really feel like it belonged to them and wasn’t just some far-off fantasy. The team had to keep the project planet-side as a touchstone for the world.

      Luckily, Nakamura had a friend. An important, well-to-do friend, who owned a large set of plateaus in a small country. And her generosity gave them options. The team could wait their turn, assemble in space and launch away with a whimper—or they could do all of the construction on private land, and give Earth a show. All of the convoy ships were required by the consortium to have the capacity for planet-side takeoff, in case of emergencies, but Convoy Seven was the only one actually testing their liftoff capabilities. “This one we’re calling Mira, sir,” said the consortium agent giving him and Nakamura the tour. His Icelandic accent was rich. “It’s where they’ll live. Think of it as a giant apartment-complex-slash-political-base.”

      Someone might be standing right here when they reach the star, Reggie thought, touching the wall affectionately.

      “Unfortunately the convoy’s AI network was not fully in place for the live-aboard test years,” he continued. “Instead, the residents were exposed to a rudimentary version whose knowledge wasn’t shared between ships and whose learning capacities were very limited. But it’s live and fully operational now. We call it I.C.C.—short for Inter Convoy Computing. Go ahead, give it a shot. It can take verbal commands from anywhere.”

      He cleared his throat. “Uh, hello, I.C.C.”

      “Hello—” its voice carried slight unnatural pauses; the telltale sign of any automated vocal system “—Hello. Reginald Straifer. The First.”

      That sent a little chill down Reggie’s spine. “How do you know who I am?”

      “You left traces of your deoxyribonucleic acid on my bay entrance, alerting me to your arrival, and I have records of your speech patterns.”

      Nakamura leaned in close to explain. She had more gray hair than the last time Reggie had seen her … but then again, so did he. “Each ship has several checkpoints by which the system can identify the individuals aboard. They rely on dropped hair follicles and sloughed skin.”

      “Can it see everything? Everywhere?”

      “Yes, and no,” said the agent. “It has the capacity, but with its current settings the system can only identify who is aboard and the last checkpoint they crossed. Barring that, someone must speak directly to I.C.C. for it to pinpoint that person’s location. It can take control of many of the on-board cameras if instructed to do so, but does not have free access. It must get permission from its primary technicians for that.”

      Interesting. “Nice to meet you, I.C.C.,” Reggie said as they continued forward.

      “And you as well.”

      “Is it all right if I have a moment alone with the computer?”

      Nakamura and the agent shared a look. “What for?” she asked.

      “Oh, come on, you all used to tease me about my PA, but now it’s here—it’s part of the mission. I want to talk to it for a bit.” He forced the heat

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