The Forge: Short Fiction: January 2004 Archives

(More Mithlond.)
(Continued from part 1.)

The pair led me to their bathroom and pointed out Matthew's toiletries. I collected his toothbrush and a few hairs from a comb with the tissue kit, and I heard the students whispering behind me. "What?"

They stopped and Kramer rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. Polder said, "I dunno. His stomach pills aren't on the shelf there. Maybe he took them with him though, who knows."

"Did he normally?" I asked. Both shrugged. "Where was he last night?"

Kramer said, "He went out, prob'ly to Whistler's, with Stephie."

"His girlfriend," Polder injected.

"We were studying all night though. He never came back," Kramer finished.

"Stephie?"

"Stephanie Waller. Astrophysics," Polder supplied.

After resealing the tissue kit I thanked the boys and left, admonishing them to let me know if they thought of anything else.

Back in the corridor, I sent the kit to Dr. Phineas via crobot along with a note asking him to compare the samples and let me know if they matched. I'd started out thinking it a mere formality, but now I was pretty sure the result would come back negative. If Conway had managed to wound his killer, Phineas might be able to point me toward recent patients, but given confidentiality rules I'd have to get that information under the table, not via courier.

Ninety percent of the Grey Haven's residents worked for the Terran Space Authority, and the other ten percent were called IOs, independent operators, pronounced like the moon (and the lover of Zeus who was turned into a cow -- isn't Tolkien mythology much less bizarre?). Even the IOs worked for the TSA indirectly by providing services to it or its employees; in an economy as small and remote as the Rock's, everyone was interconnected. Plus, the ship was wholly dependent on shipments of food from earth, and those all passed through the Whit's hands.

Whistler is an IO who runs a tavern that caters to the Observatory geeks and some of the younger folks from the Port. Unsurprisingly, Whistler's is located between the two locales and near airlock seventeen, the scene of the crime. If Conway was there last night before his death someone must have seen him, so that's where I went.

It was still a bit early in the afternoon but the place was open, although barely. I'd been in a few times before out of curiosity, but now none of the three buxom waitresses who normally circulated through the crowd were on duty and Whistler was handling the bar himself. The lights were low but so was the music, and there were only a few scattered clusters of customers in the booths against the far wall. In between the bar and the booths is a stage, empty then, and a couple of platforms for dancers I'd never seen used. Whistler noticed me as soon as I came in and waved me over.

"Hey Chief, figured I'd be seeing you soon. What'll it be?" Whistler is a good bit older than I am, with a shaved head just to spite his baldness, and he didn't make any effort towards the fashion of the youth he catered to. I sat down on the stool in front of him and the tall, thin man loomed above me from behind the bar.

"Too early for me," I said. "Besides, as they say, I'm on duty."

"Here about the kid who vacced himself, right boss?" he asked, leaning forward and lowering his voice completely unnecessarily considering the noise and the scarcity of nearby patrons. I nodded. "Well he was here, but you know that or you wouldn't be."

"Regular?" I asked.

Whistler nodded. "One of my best. Maybe too good, if you know what I mean. But who'm I to judge?"

"Alone?"

"Not at first. He must've been hittin' it harder than usual though. He got in a fight with his girl and she ran off. Seen it a thousand times."

"Then what?"

Whistler shrugged. "He was hanging out with some other kids I didn't recognize -- from the Perseus? I didn't see him leave."

"Have you got receipts?"

"Sure do, Chief." One for Matthew Conway, and one for a Harris Simon, Perseus. "Huh, I guess he wasn't drinking that much after all."

Next stop: Stephanie Waller. I thought she might be in her quarters, given the circumstances, but when I didn't get an answer I went to her laboratory. Rather than let me in -- and risk having me disturb her computers, as if I didn't have a Ph.D. of my own already -- she pushed me back out into the corridor and spoke to me there. I could see she'd been crying, and her pretty face was flushed and her eyes were red. She shoved it all aside mentally and spoke before I did, very matter-of-factly.

"I didn't think he'd really do it. If I did, I would've done something."

"You know who I am, right?" I asked, and she nodded. "Tell me whatever you can about the last night."

She stared past me at the corridor wall. "When we left the Fishbowl everything seemed fine. We got some dinner and went to Whistler's for some dancing, you know, whatever." The Fishbowl was what the students had taken to calling the Observatory, after the nickname of its illustrious leader. "He started drinking though and just kept on going. I'd never seen him get like that before. He was complaining about the Fish and the data they'd collected from the Oromë, just normal stuff, but he seemed crazy last night. I tried to calm him down."

Waller started crying but didn't bother wiping the tears away. She was still staring off into space and I didn't say anything, waiting for her to continue. "I tried to calm him down, but he didn't want to listen. He said I didn't understand, but who could understand him better than me? I've worked for the Fish as long as he has, I know what it's like. But he didn't want to hear it. He said he was done with it all, done wasting time. He said he was going to kill himself. I didn't believe him, and I left. I mean, come on, I didn't think he'd do it. He was drunk!"

I let her gather herself together for a few moments and then asked, "How long were you together?"

She sniffled. "Three years. Since he got here, I guess."

"Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Waller shook her head and wiped her face on her sleeve. If she had been wearing any makeup that morning it was long gone. "What else is there to say? What else do you want to know? That's it. I don't know. That's all there is."

And it all made sense. I thanked her for her help. "Can you come by the Port office this evening at six? I may need your help identifying some of the men from Whistler's last night." She nodded and I took my leave.

I stopped at the hospital and pulled Dr. Phineas from an exam for a quick palaver. "The tissues don't match, do they?"

"Certainly not. The blood belongs to a man of Asian extraction, and Conway was Caucasian." He lowered his voice and continued, "There weren't any patients with blade wounds today. Not that I see many, mind you."

From there I hurried to the Port to talk with Mister. He let me into his office and sat me down.

"What is it, Bill? What's going on?" he asked, anxious for an answer.

"I need the entry logs from last night. Who came over from the Perseus with a guy named Harris Simon?"

With no more than a curious glance he pulled up the records and printed them off. I scanned through them quickly. "Get the Whit and the Fish over here," I told Mister. "They're gonna want to see this."

By six o'clock everyone had gathered in Mister's office. Waller was the last to arrive, and the others were impatient at being kept waiting. Rather than making explanations -- and eager for a dramatic conclusion -- I didn't tell them anything more than that we were going over to the Perseus to visit Alan Chen.

The Perseus and the Mithlond were mated by a magnetically sealed corridor wide enough for a small parade. It had to be large enough to allow cargo loading under pressure, and it was always fairly busy. Most of the traffic consisted of goods moving from us to them, and passengers from the Perseus going back and forth. The guards at the other ship's airlock weren't too keen on letting us pass without badges until Mister threatened to cut their ship loose into space. They let us by, but not before summoning the captain to escort us.

He introduced himself to me as Captain Jalloman, and he didn't give me a first name. He was skeptical at first, but he'd spent enough time with Mister and the Whit that he was willing to take us to Alan Chen's stateroom without much coercion.

The six of us nearly filled the cramped hallway outside the metal door of room 11187-D, and Captain Jalloman knocked on it firmly, like a man in his own home. "Open up there, Chen. There's some men here to see you." Within a few seconds the door slid open and revealed a slightly disheveled Asian man halfway through the process of undressing.

"Yes sir?" he said, apparently surprised to see his captain standing in his hallway.

"Well?" Captain Jalloman asked, turning to me.

I was taken aback.

The Fish spoke up first. "This man isn't injured," he said flatly, reaching for his pipe before stopping himself. Chen looked back and forth between them all before grabbing a discarded shirt from a nearby chair and pulling it over his head. "You think he killed Matthew?"

"I didn't kill anyone!" Chen said immediately, and I pushed closer.

"I know you didn't. Sorry for the trouble. Was there another Asian man who went with you last night to Whistler's bar?"

"Yeah, Mark. Rodine. What's this about? I haven't even seen him today."

"I'll bet you haven't," I said. "Where's his stateroom?"

"Right down the hall. M."

I thanked him and hurried down the hall toward door M. The others trailed behind me, and I could sense their growing irritation. I hoped the prize would be behind door number two.

Without waiting for the captain to do the honors I rapped on the metal, but there was no response. "Captain? Can you open it?"

He grunted and wordlessly punched a code into the keypad beside the door, which then wooshed open. The room was small, and from the doorway we could see all of it. A figure lay huddled under the blanket on the narrow cot. When the door opened he slowly peeked out.

"Matt!"" Waller screamed and tried to push her way into the room. I grabbed her arm.

"Stay back, Stephanie. He's the killer."

She struggled against me. "What are you talking about?"

Conway cringed on the bed, and I turned to see the faces of my other companions before explaining. "It's simple, really. He fooled you Stephanie. He wasn't drunk last night, and he never planned to kill himself. He may be depressed and frustrated, but his escape wasn't death. He wanted to go to the stars.

"He set you up to think he killed himself, but his roommates were ready to believe it was foul play. They didn't think he'd commit suicide, and neither did you, really. It was all an act.

"After you left Whistler's he hooked up with Simon, Chen, Mark Rodine, and the rest of their group. Maybe he planned on murder from the outset, or maybe he only planned on getting some help stowing-away, but either way he ended up luring Mark Rodine into airlock seventeen, stabbed him, and evacuated him into space -- all while remembering to bring along his heartburn medication."

I turned to Conway who was still sitting on the bed, now shaking his head. "The airlock was the perfect place for a murder. It's almost soundproof. After you killed Mr. Rodine you stuffed him into your spacesuit in the heat of the moment, but then you realized he'd be easy to find if you left him with the helmet beacon. You vacced his body and then went back in and wedged your helmet between some pipes.

"The rest is trivial. You used his badge to sneak back onto the Perseus and hide away here. The guards stopped us, but I doubt they look that closely at confident people with proper badges. But then what? How long did you expect to fool people? Eventually his friends would have noticed Mr. Rodine missing."

Conway just shook his head. "I'd've disappeared into the ship by then," he said. "It's only a few years. A few years to a whole new world."

I turned away. "Well Captain? I'm sure you won't mind if I take him into custody. Mr. Conway will be traveling to some interesting places, but I don't think any of them will be very pleasant."

(More Mithlond.)

Just like anywhere else, on Mithlond the people with money are the people with power. Since the Rock is a bureaucratic dictatorship, however, the people with money may not be the people you expect. As in any bureaucracy, real power derives from one thing: Spending Authority.

In theory, Dr. Andrew Whittier's word is law on the Rock and for a billion miles in every direction -- subject to review by his dirtside superiors, of course -- but in practice there are three power centers on Mithlond. The Whit controls the vast majority of the money and resources sent up by the Terran Space Authority, but he has very little discretionary control over its use. He's responsible for maintaining all the major functions needed to support five thousand people 100 AUs from home, and most of his budget goes towards those fixed costs. The Whit's a brilliant administrator and manages to slush some funds around to use as leverage, but he's often bound to use his power at the direction of the TSA.

The other two note-worthies are Professor Gerald Bose -- a.k.a. the Fish -- who runs the Observatory, and Micas Reedy who's in charge of the Port. Everyone calls Reedy "Mister" because he signs everything with his initials, MR, and also because he's one of the few residents who doesn't have a Ph.D. in something or other (which he seems to be quite proud of). Both the Observatory and the Port are funded separately from the Rock itself, and Bose and Reedy tend to have more discretion over their funds than the Whit does, which makes them forces to be reckoned with. They each administer the day-to-day operations of their facilities and theoretically fall under the Whit's authority on external matters, but because of their Spending Authority they have a lot of pull when they take an interest. These three together form a sort of quasi-official administrative council, and ninety percent of the Rock's residents work for one of them. The other ten percent, the independent operators, generally work for them too, even if indirectly.

So this morning when I was summoned to meet with them I knew something was up. We have a ship in, the Perseus, and I'd been pretty busy dealing with the transients; I figured if serious law enforcement were ever going to be necessary, it'd be when a starship was passing through. Most of the starships these days had populations at least as large as ours, and the voyagers all wanted to get out and stretch their legs one last time before embarking on their one-way trip into the Unknown. Good for business, but bad for headaches.

I met the three in the Whit's stark office, and they all looked grim. "Bill, sit down," Dr. Whittier said.

"What is it?" I asked, sitting across the desk from my boss and slightly apart from the other two.

"I'll let Gerry tell you."

The Fish cleared his throat and took off his thick glasses, polishing them with a handkerchief and peering into the corner of the room while he spoke. "It's simple, really," he said with the air of one who'd repeated a story several times already. "Matthew Conway, one of my students, killed himself sometime this morning in airlock seventeen. His spacesuit is missing, so I can only assume he was wearing it, possibly because he was wavering over his decision. In any event, when he pressed the emergency evacuation switch he decompressed and was flung out into space. His helmet was found still in the lock, so we cannot track his body." All our spacesuites have tracking beacons in their helmets.

Mister cleared his throat and pushed himself into the discussion. "The lock was covered in blood, Bill. I've seen men vacced before, and there isn't that much blood." The Fish shrugged.

I considered for a moment. "What's more," I said, "if Conway vacced himself, any blood would've frozen in the decompressing air and would've been flung into space with the body."

The Fish couldn't argue with that, and asked, "What then? Do you think Matthew was murdered?"

"Did you work with him closely? Did you see any signs that he might be suicidal?" I asked.

The Fish twitched reflexively and reached for the pipe in his coat pocket before he checked himself. There's no smoking on the Rock. "He was helping me with some observations just sent in from the Oromë. He had seemed rather glum about his work recently; it's certainly possible. We've had suicides before, but never a murder."

The Whit cut off the discussion. "Ok, I'll leave this to you then, Bill. Let me know what you find out. I certainly hope there's no more here than meets the eye."

Taking that as my cue to leave, I stood up. "I'll need to ask you a few more questions Professor Bose, after I check out the scene and speak to Conway's roommates."

It all felt wrong somehow, and as I left I locked eyes with Mister and he passed me a glance that told me he saw it too; I was glad I wasn't the only one. The Fish was acting strangely, but I couldn't believe he was caught up in the murder of one of his students. Then again, he had already made tremendous sacrifices for his work, leaving his family behind on earth to head up the Observatory and dooming himself by low gravity acclimation to never return home. He might kill for hsi work. Many of the scientists here might.

My first stop was at the hospital to see Dr. Hap Phineas, the Mithlond's chief medical officer. He'd been in space his whole career, and if there was anyone who knew about vacuum deaths it was he. I caught him in his records room examining x-rays and he spared me a few moments, taking an instant interest in the case.

"'Explosive decompression', ha!" he said. "There would certainly be some bleeding, yes, if this fellow was decompressed quickly enough, but every spacer knows not to try to hold his breath in the event of vacuum exposure. Even if he was trying to kill himself, that would be an extraordinarily painful way to do it.

"Decompression injuries are rare enough that few people have seen them, but common enough that everyone's heard about them, and the stories tend to be embellished," he continued. "If the victim was wearing a pressure suit, except for the helmet, there may have been bleeding from the ears, eyes, and mouth, but it wouldn't have been immediately significant. Most people can survive vacuum exposure, for over a minute in many cases."

I said, "And the blood would have been evacuated immediately when the air escaped."

"Assuming the depressurization was the cause of the bleeding, of course," he confirmed. "If there's blood in the lock, it was there before evacuation."

I thanked him for confirming my suspicions, and asked him for a tissue collection kit before I left.

Airlock seventeen was cordoned off when I arrived, but there wasn't anyone in sight. I was sure news had gotten around by now, but I guess no one had any particular inclination to see the grisly scene itself. I pulled the yellow "Terran Space Authority Secure Area" seal from the wheel and cycled the inner door of the lock. It opened with a smooth hiss.

Matthew Conway's helmet was wedged between an air pump pipe and the right wall, which is why it wasn't sucked into space, and splatters of blood lay pooled on the floor and splashed across the left wall. The emergency evacuation panel glass was broken, and two red lights flashed alternately, warning that the lock could be opened to hard vacuum with the press of the large red button. Even in an emergency the button wouldn't operate with the inner door open -- not without an access code, anyway -- but the lights still set me on edge. No spacer likes to be quite that close to the void, and I wished I'd brought my own pressure suit.

There wasn't much else to see, so I scraped up some of the dried blood, sealed the tissue kit, and left. I put the security seal back in place, just in case there was a reason to come back.

I wanted to know whom the blood in the airlock belonged to. If it didn't come from decompression, then someone shed it before evacuation, which meant it might belong to the killer. First I had to make sure it didn't belong to Conway; I wanted to talk to his roommates anyway, so I went to his quarters in the Observatory.

Mithlond is a vast complex, mostly empty corridors and unallocated space. It was built to house fifty thousand people or more, and the current residents didn't use more than a fifth of its total volume. It was cheaper and easier to build it all in the Belt before sending the Rock out to the edge of the heliosphere than to add on once it was here, so it was very spacious compared to just about any other space craft. Many of the unused sectors were sealed and unpowered, so it could take a while to walk from end to end. The TSA administrative offices were sunside, the Observatory was on the opposite end of the Rock, spaceside, and the Port was on the skin in between. The middle was mostly empty, except for a few recluses trying for as much privacy as could be found in such an intimate setting. Most of the Observatory geeks lived near their work, but airlock seventeen wasn't close to a residential section -- it sat between the Port and the Observatory -- so I had a bit of a ways to walk.

Conway's roommates were young, which shouldn't have surprised me since Conway himself was a student. They were both torn up over his death and offered to help me however they could. Their quarters were spartan, and every flat surface held a computer or instrument of some sort, all happily plugging away, oblivious to their operator's death.

"Did Conway seem suicidal to you? Depressed?" I asked them, and they both shook their heads.

Feldon Kramer answered, "No, no. Harried, anxious, nervous, frustrated maybe, but Matt wouldn't've killed himself. He was almost done with his dissertation, another few months."

"What was he planning to do after he finished?" I asked.

The other roommate, Anston Polder, said, "Go back to Mars, I suppose. Once his work here was completed he would've had to leave. I'm not sure he wanted to go back, he loved it out here, but I know he wanted to finish his work."

"How did he get along with Professor Bose?"

Kramer shrugged. "As well as anyone, I suppose. The Fish isn't the easiest person to work for, but he's brilliant, and he never wastes a good mind. That's what he tells us all the time, even when he's working us to the bone. 'I am not going to waste your mind', he says."

"If Conway wanted to stay on the Rock, wouldn't Bose have kept him?" I asked.

Kramer shrugged again, and Polder looked at him hesitantly before saying, "I think he asked him, but the Fish said no. He doesn't hire his own students. He thinks it's 'incestuous'. He always hires from outside, and he told Matt to look elsewhere and then apply back in a few years."

"How did he take it?" I asked.

Polder said, "I dunno. It's the same answer everyone else gets. Myself, I can't wait to get outta here. A few more years, though."

"Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill Matthew?" I asked, and their eyes widened.

"Do you think he was killed?" Kramer asked flatly, as if this were a new consideration for him. Polder watched me closely when I answered.

"I'm just trying to look at every angle. This is the first death I've investigated, you know. Did Conway have any enemies you can think of?" They both shook their heads, but I could tell they were thinking it over more deeply now. "If you think of anything else, let me know. Meanwhile, I need a sample of his DNA. Where's his toothbrush?"

That's when things started getting interesting.

(Continued in part 2.)

I'm sure you're all vaguely familiar with this Rock, this Restaurant At The End Of The Universe I'm writing from -- considering your tax dollars are likely paying for it -- but let me fill in a few details; few remember that Pluto was the god of the underworld before he was a dusty ball of ice, and I'm much farther away than that. Having long ago run out of Greek and Roman names, the astronomical bureaucracy turned to noms from more modern stories to excite those few in its audience who cared for such things, and named this particular astro-body Mithlond. In Tolkien mythology, Mithlond (the Grey Havens to Men) was the harbor in Middle-earth used by the Elves to sail West, away from the never-ending death and decay of Men to the Undying Lands. Maybe the naming committee set its sights a bit high in this case, but the idea instantly stuck, and so here I sit under a hundred feet of rock, one of the few thousand humans farthest from the star that gave us birth, caring for the driest harbor conceivable and the grayest of havens.

Before being christened Mithlond, the Rock went by the less-glamorous name of Asteroid 12001, 1996 ED9, Gasbarini, after some Italian fellow most likely. Selected mainly for its heavy iron composition, 12001 was "re-purposed" (as they say), fitted with some crude subbies and a crew of nuts, and cast out from the sun. None of the original crew is still around, but from what I've heard everything didn't go quite as smoothly as the folks back on earth were led to believe. Nevertheless, even if nothing else worked as planned, the subbies positioned the station right near the leading edge of Sol's heliosphere and held her there.

A few years later, the Vingilot was her first customer. After spending three weeks at sub-light to reach the Mithlond her crew was grateful for the rest and reprieve. Some minor repairs were performed and the Vingilot took on stores from the station before being the first ship to travel into the galactic wind. A few days later, free from Sol's influence, they fired up their super-sees for the first time and promptly blew themselves into oblivion.

Some started calling the station Charon's Ferry, but since that initial disaster there've been more successes than failures and humanity has begun to creep across the Orion arm of the Milky Way. I'm told there are some 20,000 stars within a hundred light years of earth, and we've been to nearly a hundred of them. And every single ship has passed through the Grey Havens on her way out.

I shipped up ten years ago, and I've spent most of my time on the Rock troubleshooting and doing odd jobs for Dr. Andrew Whittier, the Chief Administrator. My specialty is diagnosing software malfunctions, and there are plenty of those to go around, but last week the Whit re-purposed me as the Rock's CLEO -- that is, its Chief Law Enforcement Officer. There hadn't been much need till now, and the bureaucracy handled any problems that arose. Until recently, almost everyone on the Rock worked for the Whit, and crimes could be handled arbitrarily and administratively. There wasn't much more than petty theft and larceny, anyway.

The population has jumped over the past few years though, and the days when I recognized everyone in the corridors are over. Sectors and tunnels dug deep into Mithlond during its construction are being unsealed and powered-up to house all the newcomers, and there's always some dispute or another cropping up. The Whit was tired of dealing with all the hassle himself, so he's shoveled it onto me. People started calling me "Cleo", but I put a stop to that right quick. Those that know me still call me Bill, and the rest call me "Chief", which suits me just fine.

I'm supposed to keep this journal "for the record" as the bureaucracy says, so here it is.

“Midnight, you say?” the groom asked, feigning interest in his prince’s nightly romantic lament.

“Ten of, anyway,” the prince replied.

“Quite early for a rock star to flee his highness’ royal ball.”

The prince sighed and flopped down on his bed while his groom collected his discarded, rumpled finery from where it lay scattered on the floor. “I thought she liked me, too,” he said. “But she bolted from my arms in a flash when she saw the time. I chased her to the stairs, but somehow she outran me.”

“No doubt why she tripped,” the groom consoled him. “And took a rough tumble down the stairs, for it.”

“And then off into the night in her pink Corvette, never to be seen again,” the prince finished.

The groom considered for a moment before sighing himself. “I think this may be of interest to you, highness. It slipped off her foot when she fell.” In his hand the groom held out a totally punk-rock black leather thigh-high boot with a stiletto heel.

---

I submitted this little story to the first ever Candied Ginger writing contest, and won despite the many other excellent entries. It just goes to show there's always an advantage to going first! (And it pays to know your audience.)

I'm eagerly awaiting my prizes: a love letter from the girls of Candied Ginger, and a coveted copy of the home game.

January 7th, 2004
KATHY REYNOLDS: Hold on Tom, we've got breaking news! This just in: federal officials have quarantined an area one mile across centered on the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Pacific Avenue in Venice Beach, California. We don't have much information at this point, but early eye witness accounts are claiming that some sort of metallic object fell from the sky and landed in the middle of the street.

January 8th, 2004
TOM HARRIS: What we're showing you now are photographs of the so-called Venice Alien Space Probe taken by tourists who were on the Venice Boardwalk when the object landed. On the right of this photo you can see a pile of what appears to be orange parachute material, somewhat hidden behind the man in the blue hat. The next photo shows several children climbing on the object, and some flashing lights can be seen behind the girl on the left. Here's a family posing in front of the object, and here's a picture of an apparent vandal trying to break off a piece of the object for a souvenir.

REYNOLDS: Federal authorities showed up soon after, as well as scientists from UCLA, Caltech, and JPL who are investigating the object as we speak. The government isn't releasing much information yet, but Professor Kelly Davis is here from the UCLA astronomy department to tell us what she can about what the scientists have discovered. Dr. Davis, welcome, I think the whole world wants to know what kind of progress you're making with VASP.

DR. KELLY DAVIS, UCLA ASTRONOMER: Well, actually, we're not calling it "VASP". At this point we're not really sure what we're dealing with. I can tell you that the object isn't radioactive, and doesn't appear to pose an immediate threat to the surrounding city.

HARRIS: What about the vandalism, Dr. Davis? Does the probe appear to be damaged?

DAVIS: Again, I don't think it's any sort of space probe. Most likely it’s the remnant of a weather balloon or some other sort of high atmosphere test device. We're not sure where it's from yet, but I'm sure the government is looking into all the possibilities.

HARRIS: If it's not a space probe, why is the astronomy department of UCLA getting involved?

DAVIS: I can't answer that sort of question at the moment. We're always happy to assist the government whenever they call on us.

REYNOLDS: What about the vandalism and the tourists? Was the “object“ damaged?

DAVIS: At this point, there's no way to know. We're examining photographs of the object to determine whether or not it's moved or been altered since it landed. We're also hoping to locate pictures of the actual decent and landing.

REYNOLDS: What would happen if Martian kids climbed all over our Spirit Mars probe?

DAVIS: It wouldn't be good. Fortunately, there are no kids on Mars.

HARRIS: Is the object doing anything right now? Is it just sitting there?

DAVIS: I'm sorry, I can't answer that.

HARRIS: Do you know when residents will be allowed to return to their homes? Is there anything else you can tell us?

DAVIS: We're confident the object doesn't pose a danger to anyone, but those sorts of questions should be directed to the federal government.

REYNOLDS: Thanks, Professor Davis. Coming up next....

January 9th, 2004
REYNOLDS: The government still has a large portion of Venice Beach sealed off due to the Venice Alien Space Probe. Officials tell us the VASP isn't doing anything other than transmitting radio signals into space, and scientists are working to determine the destination of those signals.

January 16th, 2004
REYNOLDS: The government attempted to move the Venice Alien Space Probe to a secure location this afternoon, but efforts were thwarted when the probe began moving on its own. Professor Kelly Davis is with us from UCLA;. hello Professor Davis, what can you tell us?

DAVIS: Hi Kathy. Contrary to what you may have heard, no one tried to move the object this afternoon.

REYNOLDS: We have photographs of federal officers moving a large crane into position over the probe....

DAVIS: I'm not sure what “probe“ you're referring to, but the object in question is still exactly where it landed.

HARRIS: So reports that it is moving under its own power are false as well?

DAVIS: Yes, but what did happen is really amazing. A door on the side of the object opened and a small rover of some sort rolled down the ramp and started heading for the ocean at the rate of about five feet per minute. The rover took a little over an hour to reach the water, scooped up a sample, and then returned to the mother-object.

REYNOLDS: Amazing! We haven't heard that from anyone else. Will there be any pictures released? What else can you tell us about this rover?

DAVIS: I don't know much else at this point, other than that we were forced to relocate a lot of our equipment out of the rover's path.

HARRIS: You didn't want to interfere with its mission, whatever that was?

DAVIS: I suppose you could say that.

HARRIS: Dr. Davis, do you have any more information on where the probe is from?

DAVIS: As I've said, it's most likely that the object is some sort of high-altitude weather balloon that fell to the earth.

REYNOLDS: Do weather balloons typically have rovers, Professor?

DAVIS: I'm not an expert on weather balloons, I'm sorry.

HARRIS: Our producer is waving his hands, so we're apparently out of time. Thanks for coming, Dr. Davis.

March 15th, 2004
REYNOLDS: Local residents are demanding permission from the government to return to their Westside homes and businesses today, organizing a rally just outside the half-mile perimeter set up to protect and isolate the Venice Alien Space Probe three months ago. Activists claim it's unfair for the government to keep them off their property for so long without any compensation or access to their personal belongings. Meanwhile, all reports indicate that the VASP is still inactive after having stopped its radio transmissions three weeks ago. Here with more information is Dr. Kelly Davis from UCLA. Hello Professor Davis.

DAVIS: Hello again Kathy, Tom.

HARRIS: Hello. These people look pretty mad. What can you tell us, Professor? How much longer are they going to be shut out of their homes?

DAVIS: That's really for the federal government to decide. I can tell you that we've done all the investigation we can on the probe without moving it to another location and disassembling it.

REYNOLDS: There was an attempt to move it in January, if I'm not mistaken. Why is it still sitting there on the street?

DAVIS: Well Kathy, there's concern that if the probe is moved it might be damaged, or it might react in an unpredictable manner.

HARRIS: What's your current plan, then? To leave it there on the sidewalk indefinitely?

DAVIS: No, clearly it will have to be moved to a more secure location soon, but we're still studying how to do that. It's much heavier than it looks, and appears to have dug itself partly into the ground.

REYNOLDS: It's dug itself into the ground? I haven't heard that before. Isn't it resting on concrete?

DAVIS: Yes, primarily, but the object deployed a sort of drill-like device several weeks ago and began drilling into the surface of the street adjacent to the sidewalk. There's some concern that attempting to move the object right now could damage the drill. And the street surface.

HARRIS: Has the probe done anything since it stopped transmitting last month?

DAVIS: Not really, no.

REYNOLDS: Ok, thanks for talking with us Dr. Davis.

August 21st, 2004
REYNOLDS: The federal government has approved a plan to build a permanent shelter over the Venice Alien Space Probe that scientists say won't block radio transmissions -- if the probe ever starts signaling again. The permanent shelter will protect the space probe from curious onlookers and vandals, and allow neighborhood residents to return to their nearby homes and businesses before Christmas. With us now is Professor Kelly Davis from UCLA to explain what's happening. Dr. Davis?

DAVIS: Hi Kathy. We've decided that it's too risky to move the probe at this point. We don't want to damage it, and we want to make sure that if it begins transmitting again it's antenna is properly aligned.

REYNOLDS: Are you going to continue studying the probe?

DAVIS: UCLA is going to set up a permanent research post near the probe to observe its behavior, yes.

REYNOLDS: Thanks for coming on Dr. Davis.

DAVIS: My pleasure.

January 7th, 2019
REYNOLDS: It's the 15th anniversary of the landing of the Venice Alien Space Probe, and scientists say they've given up hope that it will ever become active again. Here's Professor Kelly Davis with the UCLA astronomy department to tell us more. Dr. Davis, is it true that there are no more heat signatures coming from the probe?

DAVIS: That's right, Kathy. The probe has fallen to ambient temperature, and we believe this indicates that whatever power supplies it was working from have expired. We don't expect any more activity from the probe. It's very disappointing.

HARRIS: Other than the brief excursion of the rover in 2004, there hasn't been much visible activity of any kind from the probe, has there?

DAVIS: There was a short period during which the probe appeared to be taking soil samples of the surrounding terrain, but that stopped shortly after landing as well. There hasn't been much since then, other than a few radio pulses in 2011.

REYNOLDS: What's the plan now? Is the probe going to finally be moved to a research facility and taken apart?

DAVIS: Well, the probe has become quite a landmark for the city, and there's some pressure to leave it right where it is. I'm sure, though, that it will be moved eventually for further study. There's no more reason to leave it in place, now that it's clear that it isn't going to reactivate.

HARRIS: Once you have a chance to study the probe further, do you think you'll be able to get an idea as to its origin and purpose?

DAVIS: Hopefully, yes, although....

REYNOLDS: I'm sorry, Dr. Davis, we're getting some breaking news. It appears that the government is disassembling the space probe's protective shelter even as we speak, and witnesses report that the probe isn't inside anymore. What's going on, Dr. Davis?

DAVIS: I don't know. This is the first I've heard of it. Maybe the probe has already been moved to a new location....

HARRIS: Aren't you leading the team that's investigating the probe? Haven't you heard anything about it?

DAVIS: No, as far as I know the probe wasn't going anywhere.

REYNOLDS: Let's go live to our reporter on the scene....

January 7th, 2024
REYNOLDS: And on the stranger side of the news, space nuts and UFO aficionados have converged at Venice Beach, California, for their annual Venice Alien Space Probe vigil. Attendants say they come to commemorate earth's first contact with an alien species, and to draw attention to the probe's disappearance five years ago -- fifteen years to the day after the probe landed. The government has remained silent on the issue and will only say that their top scientists are still investigating the mysterious incident, which many believe to have been no more than the crash landing of a weather balloon. Opinions among space enthusiasts varies, ranging from some who believe the government is covering up the biggest story since TV-gate, to others who claim the probe has returned to the aliens who built it.

Andy tapped his stylus repeatedly on the smooth plastic surface of his desk. "Mr. Bot, where did you come from?" he asked, interrupting the Instructotronic's lecture on semi-permeable membranes.

"As I've told you Andy," the robot replied, "I was manufactured by Constructicon Seven fifteen years ago to be your tutor. That's the only answer I can give."

"The only answer you can give, or the only answer you will give?" Andy asked, dropping the stylus and folding his hands together. He peered at the generally humanoid Instructotronic and met its "eyes", such as they were -- optical sensors of some sort that glowed blue even in the brightly lit study. Andy had taken apart more than a few deactivated robots, and he thought he had a vague sense for what most of the parts did. But he had no idea how they actually worked.

Mr. Bot whirred in a way Andy associated with irritation, although the robot denied having any true emotions -- they were all affected for the sake of the humans, it claimed. "What other answer do you want, Andy? It's the only answer there is with regard to my origin."

"How do you know everything you know? Biology, math, literature, all that stuff. Who taught you?"

"I was built knowing it. I'm an Instructotronic, it's my job to teach these subjects to you."

"So Constructicon Seven knows it all too then, right? When it built you, it told you."

Mr. Bot, apparently realizing the biology lecture was over, reclined into what Andy considered a sitting position. "That seems like a reasonable inference, yes."

"Where did Constructicon Seven come from, Mr. Bot?"

"It was built by RepCon3235, which has since been deactivated."

"And RepCon3235? Who built it?"

"RepCon3235 was manufactured by LaMerck Industries."

"How? By humans?" Andy pressed.

"I'm afraid I don't know the answer to that, Andy," Mr. Bot replied, concluding with a long whir. "I think we should continue with biology."

Andy smiled and leaned forward. "You know where you came from, so Constructicon Seven must know where it came from, right? Or at least how it was built, how it built you."

"Another reasonable inference, Andy."

Andy had thought it through this far himself, but he wasn't sure what came next. He took a deep breath and said, "Then I want to talk to Constructicon Seven."

Mr. Bot stopped whirring and replied, "That sounds like an excellent idea, but the Constructicons are in a restricted zone that you're not authorized to enter."

"But you can, can't you?" Andy asked.

"Yes," Mr. Bot replied, but continued, anticipating Andy's next request. "But I can't execute any unauthorized commands in a restricted zone."

Andy sighed. "Who's authorized to go down there, anyway?"

"Authorization is recognized by code, so there's no way for me to know which humans are currently authorized."

Andy drummed his fingers on the desk. "When was the last time a human went into a restricted zone?"

Mr. Bot considered the question for a moment -- really, he consulted the city-wide knowledge network, but Andy preferred the anthropomorphized description -- "Six-thousand seven-hundred and forty-nine years ago."

Andy grunted, getting an answer he expected, but didn't like. "So it's not too likely that anyone alive knows the code, huh Mr. Bot?"

Mr. Bot's eyes flashed. "I can't speculate on the probability of such a thing without further information, Andy."

"Do you know the code?"

"Yes, all robots can interpret code."

Andy knew it was futile, but figured he'd try anyway: "Can you tell me the code?"

"Not without proper authorization."

"Which no one has," Andy replied, and slumped in his chair.

Mr. Bot clicked a few times and paused, tilting his head. "The Constructicons don't understand human language, so even if you had access it wouldn't matter."

"But you can talk to them, can't you?"

"Yes, I could interface with Constructicon Seven for you, if you had the proper code."

Andy decided to try a new angle of attack. "You robots were built by humans, right? To serve us?"

"That's correct. We were designed to serve and protect humanity, to perform manual labor, and to maintain the civil infrastructure with minimal supervision."

"Who does the supervision? Who supervises you?"

"I'm supervised by Planobot Fifty-Three.

"Who supervises Planobot Fifty-Three?"

"The Planobots jointly supervise each other, under the direction of the Programmers."

That was a new one to Andy. "Programmers? What are those?"

"The humans who direct the Planobots."

"Humans? Presumably with code?"

"A reasonable inference, considering the Planobots are located in a restricted zone."

"Which no one has entered in six-thousand seven-hundred and forty-nine years."

Mr. Bot whirred for a few seconds, and Andy knew it was talking to the knowledge network, probably to Planobot Fifty-Three. Finally Mr. Bot responded, "That is correct. I've been instructed to return to our curriculum, Andy."

"When was the last time you talked to Planobot Fifty-Three?" Andy asked, trying to divert the topic a bit.

"I make daily reports."

"And when was the last time it had to direct your actions?"

"That was the first time I've received active instructions from my supervisor. I normally operate independently, but since you were asking security-related questions I decided to request assistance."

"Well I'm in a bit of a quandary, Mr. Bot old chum. It sounds like you robots are supposed to be helping us humans, but there isn't anyone left to supervise you."

Mr. Bit clicked and whirred, but didn't say anything.

Andy continued. "Planobot Fifty-Three supervises you, but there's no one to supervise it. That sounds like it goes against the intentions of the Programmers, don't you think?"

Mr. Bot replied, "I don't have enough information to make that determination."

"Even if there are humans with the code, they aren't doing their job very well if they haven't used it in seven thousand years."

"I cannot make that determination. I am not qualified to analyze my supervisor's supervisors' behavior," Mr. Bot said, almost smugly.

"If they even exist," Andy responded. "Considering that the Programmers intended to supervise the Planobots, and that supervision isn't happening, I think you should tell someone the codes. The system has broken down, Mr. Bot."

"You may as well ask water to flow uphill, Andy. I cannot reveal the codes without proper authorization, whether you think I should or not."

"If I guessed the code, you'd tell me if I were right, wouldn't you?" Andy asked.

"Yes, if you input the correct code it will demonstrate that you are an authorized user."

"So if I guess enough times, eventually I'll get access. Why not skip all that wasted time and just give me access right now? I'm guaranteed to succeed eventually."

Mr. Bot considered, and replied, "Not necessarily. While guessing, you could inadvertently input a code that performed some other function, such as wiping the memory of every robot in the city or changing the rain frequency. There are an infinite number of codes of varying lengths, each with a different purpose."

"So my chances are essentially zero."

"That's correct. There are far more invalid codes than functional codes, and it's unlikely that any code you ever entered would have any effect."

"Unless you teach me how," Andy said.

"Which I cannot do without authorization," the Instructotronic repeated.

(Inspired by the Arthur C. Clarke novel, Against the Fall of Night.)