The Darwin Elevator

“Interesting.”



“Food for thought,” Russell said. “From my point of view, looking up, Platz just wants to maintain the status quo. To be top dog, like he has been his whole life.”



“And what do you want, Russell?”



To be top dog. Not the best thing to voice, he knew. “I want to see a little ambition brought back to the world. As long as we’re all trapped, sucking at the Elevator’s teat, we should shift focus to making life enjoyable. For everyone.”



Alex Warthen, his face a mask, gave the slightest of nods. And that, Russell thought, was good enough.



The seed, planted.



Chapter Thirteen



Anchor Station



23.JAN.2283



At 7 p.m. the interior lights began a programmed drift down to 20 percent brightness and changed hue to a soft silver tone. Moonlight mode. Air circulators adjusted thermal controls to create a subtle chill in the air.



The staff transitioned, too. Research projects and other duties gave way to dinner, then recreation. Casablanca played in the cafeteria. Idle processors rendered virtual worlds to be explored in the sensory chamber. The table tennis league held its championship in front of a small, if raucous, crowd.



Three of Anchor’s crew remained in the infirmary. A fourth, one of the scientists, fell into a coma and was evacuated to Gateway, which had the best medical equipment.



By midnight, most had retired to their quarters, alone or in pairs. More, in a few cases.



Anchor Station slept.



Tania walked the empty hallways in silence, eschewing shoes for a pair of warm socks. She saw no one as she moved through Black Level. At one point an eruption of muffled laughter broke the quiet—a group enjoying a private game of cards, she imagined. She walked on, one hand resting on her coat, and the data cubes nestled beneath.



Through the connection tube to Gray Level, then White, Tania encountered nobody. Even the observation room that looked out on the Shell was deserted at this hour.



At the bulkhead to Green Level, she used her ID card to pass through the security doors. A night guard at the desk beyond waved her by with passive interest, a dog-eared paperback open on his lap. Tania thought Anchor Station must be a prized post among the Orbital security ranks.



Support trusses spaced along the walls and ceiling were cast in blue-green hues, reminding her of moonlit trees she’d seen in old films. She followed the slow curve of the hall until reaching a door marked General Compute Lab. A quick swipe of her ID card unlocked it, and she entered.



The chilled air inside had a bite, her thin coat unable to repel it. She shivered, and moved between the rows of computer terminals. Two researchers were working late, hunched in front of a terminal screen. They talked in hushed voices, so engrossed in their work they hardly registered her entry. Tania reminded herself to act casual. To act as if she belonged here at this hour.



Past rows of terminals, beyond racks of blinking servers, at the very back of the room, she entered a collaborative area with seating for three in front of a grid of massive screens. The Platz Industries logo bounced merrily around in vivid resolution on the display.



She closed the door quietly behind her and sat down in the center seat in front of the console. From her lab coat she removed the four data cubes and a notepad.



After a deep breath, she typed her passphrase into the waiting system. The wall-sized screen cleared, then realigned itself to present Tania’s preferred view. Station status, personal messages, and a to-do list filled the left edge. Images from the previous night’s telescope activity dominated the remainder.



Tania ignored it all. Instead she inserted the data cubes into waiting slots. Options bloomed on the screen before her. Working quickly, she began the data transfer.



The systems at her disposal proved to be a similar vintage to those used in the observatory, removing her fears about compatibility. The facility must have been outfitted around the same time Anchor was built.



The cubes were dated roughly six years ago. SUBS disease had begun soon after, and across the planet the technical renaissance brought on by the Elevator’s arrival all but stopped. Everyone shifted focus to survival, to reaching Darwin before the disease reached them. Tania shivered at the thought. She’d been in orbit at the time, studying, and her parents had insisted she stay in space until “the situation was under control.” She never saw either of them again.



Before tears could come, she shook her head and refocused on the task at hand.



The first task for the computers involved cataloging the information in a layout that she could understand. The data set rolled through a linguistics program. She placed markers on the key fields and soon a database began to take shape.



A progress meter traveled across the screen, with anything but haste. Tania began to drift off. She leaned on her elbows, rested her chin on the backs of her hands, and tried to imagine the observatory where the data had been found. Snow-covered peaks, trees from one horizon to the other. A telescope nestled in a valley between the mountains, at the end of a gently winding road.



On the verge of sleep, Tania heard the delicate sound of the door opening. She realized she had concocted no cover story, had no plausible reason to be there. Mind racing, she turned to the door.



Natalie stood there. She looked tired, roused from sleep no doubt.



“What are you doing here?” Tania asked. The words sounded ridiculous even as she said them.



Her assistant waited in the doorway, frozen, taking in the scene. Her impassive face offered no insight into what must be going through her mind. Then she looked once over her shoulder before fully entering the room and easing the door closed. “My computer woke me. We … you bumped Greg and Marcus off the system. They had an analysis running using a sample from that subhuman, and called me, rather irritated.”



Tania realized that the array of screens behind her were full of telemetry data. She stabbed for the key that would blank the imagery, but nothing happened.



Natalie took a tentative step into the room. “What’s going on?” She sounded like a child.



“I just,” Tania said, then stopped. What could she do? Lying now would be too much of a betrayal. “Nat, I’m sorry.”



Natalie came to stand at Tania’s side. She focused on the enormous monitor, where a visualization of the database continued to take shape.



“What is this?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Tania?”



“Listen,” Tania said. “I’ve been given a special project. Something I need to work on alone. I didn’t think anyone would notice.” She spoke in rapid spurts.



“What kind of project?”



“I can’t tell you,” Tania said. “You should leave.”



Natalie studied the screen, as if she hadn’t heard. “That would go a lot faster if you turned off vis and error-checking.”



“Nat, please. I must insist … wait, it would?”



“Also,” she said, “you forgot to flag an index field. It will take forever to search the data later.”



Tania glanced at the screen, then back to her assistant.



“Sure you want me to leave?” Natalie asked, a confident smirk on her face.



The warnings from Neil Platz raced through Tania’s mind. If what they suspected proved true, everything could change, again. That knowledge carried with it the extraordinary potential to disrupt the already fragile state of humanity. Neil wanted to manage that.



Yet Tania knew she could not do this alone. Natalie had proven her aptitude for information analysis time and again since arriving on Anchor Station a year ago. She’d become Tania’s best friend, as well. The perfect confidante, Tania decided.



Besides, Nat already stood here, on the brink of uncovering her extracurricular research. Neil will understand, Tania told herself. “No,” she admitted. “Don’t go.”



Natalie sat down. “Good, that’s settled. A secret project, huh? I love it. I’m in.”



Together they realigned the ingestion of data. With Natalie’s expertise, the process would take a quarter of the time now.



“You’ll have to keep this to yourself,” Tania said as they waited.



“Moi, gossip?”



Tania shot her a stern look.



“I never pegged you for having a dark side,” Natalie said. “I like it. Goes with your eyes.”



Tania blushed. Natalie’s flirtatious nature was cute, and often riotously funny, but Tania had never been comfortable with such attention.



Tania’s mother had been a celebrated beauty in Mumbai; her father, a famous astronaut. Yet both held a deep-seated passion for science, and they met while working for Neil Platz on his first space venture: the purchase of a space station the Europeans wanted to de-orbit. Her father had been picked to command the first private space station, a fact that brought him widespread recognition among millions in India.



Tania inherited the better qualities of each, so everyone said, and she often resented her physical beauty. Her mother, rest her soul, had instilled in her the drive to succeed for her mind, not her appearance. A lofty challenge, and one she took seriously.



A chime came from the computer. All the data had been processed.



Natalie edged closer. “What are we looking at?”



“Trajectories of near-Earth objects.”



Concern flashed across the young woman’s face. “Something going to impact the station?”



“Doubtful,” Tania said. “Look at the dates, the origin.”



Natalie turned back to the monitor. “All right, fine. Japanese telemetry from 2278. Why?”



“I’m looking for anomalies.”



Natalie frowned. “To what end?”



“SUBS started in 2278,” Tania said.



“Yeah,” Natalie said, brow furrowed. “What does that have to do with … oh.”



Tania watched as her assistant’s eyes lit up.



“They might have spotted it … assuming it arrived aboard a Builder ship.”



Tania nodded. “Exactly.”



A period of silence passed as Natalie thought through the implications. “I don’t understand. We know where the disease started … Oh. Holy shit.”



“You’re quick,” Tania said.



“You’re trying to find out where it came from.”



Tania looked up at the screen full of numbers. “Sort of.”



“But,” Natalie said, voicing her thoughts as they arrived, “why? I mean, why would that matter? The damn thing probably left the Builder’s planet, or whatever, eons ago. Interesting to know, but—”



Tania held up a hand. “Nat, how much time passed between the Elevator’s arrival and the outbreak of SUBS?”



The other woman didn’t need to think about it. “Twelve years, of course. Well, eleven years, eight months, and ten days, if you want to be super picky.”



“Wow. Very good,” Tania said. “And, yes, I do want to be super picky.”



“Then I’m your gal.”



Tania grinned. “Nat, have you ever wondered if they’re coming back?”



“Of course,” Natalie said. “We all do.”



Tania waited.



“Oh,” said Natalie. “Oh! If we knew where to look, we could spot it early this time …”



“I knew you’d get it.”



Natalie sat motionless for a time, staring at the screen. “I’m amazed it never occurred to me before.”



“Can’t claim it’s an original idea,” Tania said. “Neil made a joke about it once, and it got me to thinking.”



“So, if SUBS began five … sorry, four-point-nine-to-be-picky … years ago, we’ll get a huge head start this time around. Seven years!”



Tania couldn’t help but smile. “You just fell into the same trap I did. Assuming, of course, there’s another ship coming, who’s to say it would follow the same schedule? It could be seven years, or seven months, or millennia.”



As she spoke, Natalie turned slowly to face her. “But you’re down here, in the middle of the night, working on it.”



“Neil’s salivating at the possibility of advance warning. You know how he likes to plan, and how he gets when a project catches his eye.”



They worked at it through the night.



Millions of objects were logged, objects as small as a penny, as often as every ten seconds. It proved painstaking at first, cross-referencing each entry with existing catalogs of celestial objects.



At four in the morning, Natalie had the brilliant idea to ask the computer to show them information that did not match the pattern of the rest. Tania had discarded this to eliminate things that might confuse the program. Things like the report title, information on the telescope’s settings, and the names of supervising personnel seemed like a waste of time.



In the nonmatching data set, Natalie came across a typed note, immediately below a log entry that blended with all the others. An entry they never would have noticed otherwise.



“Hey, look at his,” she said.



The note was in English.



Tania read it aloud. “‘Bizarre! Vector out of band. Validate.’”



They looked at each other. Natalie said, “Let me see if the object shows up anywhere else.”



The computer searched the log in seconds and produced one more entry, plus another comment:



SUGOI! ABNORMAL VECTOR VALIDATED.



CONFIRM WITH A. R. SHU (KECK).



The room became quiet, save for the constant background hum of the station’s air processors. Tania felt her scalp begin to tingle.



“I’d say we have a lead,” she said.



“You know who this Shu person is?”



Tania shook her head. “Nope. But a name is a good start.”