Message in a Bottle

by Starscribe


G5.05: Satellite

Dr. James Irwin was not having a good day. This was, in fact, the worst day of her life.

In the strictest sense, it was also the best day of her life, which did not suggest she was going to have a particularly good future.

She couldn't even have the satisfaction of vocally complaining about it, because everyone else in the world had things nearly as bad as she did. All four of the others were suffering in the same Biosleeves that James had been dumped into. True, not all of them had quite as much to deal with as she did. But she couldn't even find a quiet corner to sulk about it, because Olivia wouldn't let her.

"I want everyone to know what's going on," Major Fischer had said, her voice higher pitched than theirs, but somehow gruffer and more commanding all the same. Maybe it was the way she had cut her mane back, or wore her crisp uniform like she knew what she was doing on four legs. Whatever the reason, even Dr. James Irwin didn't dare question her. She cleaned up the slime leftover from the production of her sleeve, spent over an hour struggling into the weird uniform meant for a quadrupedal body with stumps for hands, and made her way back to Central for their first briefing.

A large conference table had been moved into the center of the room, with cushions spread around it instead of chairs. James made her awkward way to one of the seats, staring around at mirror-perfect copies of herself. Well, except for Major Fischer, who looked a few years younger and had an olive-colored coat and bristle-short mane. Each of the others had their name and position sewn onto their uniform, and James took in each one, since it was the only way to differentiate anyone besides the commander. At least none of the others had ranks—that meant they weren't military either.

Dorothy Born - Xenobiology

Karl Nolan - Political Science

Martin Faraday - Physics

Her own name was sewn onto her uniform, which had blue accents just like Karl's, which indicated the related focus of their disciplines. Martin and Dorothy's both had green for a similar reason.

"What do you do?" Dorothy asked from beside her, staring at James's uniform with the same intensity that James herself had searched it for her title.

"I'm the translator," James answered, her voice sounding identical to Dorothy's, but somehow less confident. "We have me and a negotiator, that must mean we found a civilization. Since we look like this..." She looked down at herself, blushed, then looked back up. "Well, I don't know what it means."

"The handbook doesn't suggest imitating native life," Dorothy said. "There's no reason we would have Biosleeves like this unless they were required. For... some reason. There must be an inherent biological reason for it. Perhaps this planet has unusual gravity, or strange radiation, or... some other factors that would make human life impossible. Until we beat them. Which we will, because we beat everything."

Martin rocked back and forth on her cushion, forelegs wrapped around herself, and muttering. "It isn't a planet, it isn't a planet, it isn't a planet..."

"There could be other reasons," Karl said. Like James, there was something of a nervous skepticism in the way she spoke, as though she were afraid of her own voice. "Political pressure from the native government, in whatever form it takes. Perhaps they're xenophobic, and the Forerunner negotiated an agreement not to create sleeves of any other species."

Major Fischer came in the open doorway. A drone rolled along behind her on a pair of rugged rubber treads, dragging a large metal crate as it went.

"I expect we're about to find out," Dorothy muttered. "Right? You're going to tell us what's going on?"

"Yes," Major Fischer said. There was no cushion at the head of the table, so she remained standing.

Given how much smaller she was, standing was the only way she wouldn't look comedically small compared to the rest of them. Now that she was thinking more clearly, James could detect a difference in smell as well. A very subtle crispness that seemed to suggest youth in a way she couldn't put into words.

"I only want to explain this once. When we're done here, I'll allow a twenty-four-hour rest period, which I expect each of you to use to acquaint yourselves with these new bodies. The translation is pony, by the way. We're called ponies. Pegasus ponies, which is why we have wings. It's all in the file under 'Translation Team Intelligence.'" The metal box resting behind her opened then, hissing with the sound of compressed storage gas as it did. Major Fischer turned around, lifting a bundle in her mouth and setting it on the table. She undid the Velcro with her mouth as well, revealing four standard computation surfaces.

Martin sat up suddenly, reaching for hers with surprising speed. But the major pulled them away. "Not until this meeting is over. I want your full attention."

"I thought I was the translation team," James said, her voice braver than it had been up until that point. "Did something happen to one of them? I'm here to replace someone? Or... am I backup?"

"Neither," the major said. "Translation is well ahead of schedule, and the team is integrated into pony society. They won't need your help. But I can't make sense of her notes about the alien language. We could wait for her to get back, or we could save time by having you go over the reports we get and start teaching us now. You have a week to read everything we have and get up to speed, and I want you teaching the rest of us conversational alien after that."

James opened her mouth to reply, but the major raised a hoof, silencing her before she could. "Wait your turn. We'll go over what I expect of each of you at the end."

There was much to explain. Some things they had suspected, like the complex alien society. James listened, but much of what she heard didn't sink in. The vital information, to her, had already been delivered. She wouldn't be out in the world learning an alien language. She wouldn't get to accomplish her whole reason for living—the whole reason she'd given the last twenty years of her life to study and practice. She would be nothing more than a glorified grade school teacher.

Eventually they got through all the background, and the major got around to explaining their responsibilities. "Dr. Born, I've loaded everything we learned during the first two generations onto your computer. I want to know what the hell killed human Biosleeves. Then you're going to design a Biosleeve that doesn't die." She held up one stumpy hoof again. "The fewer of these sleeves we have to make, the better."

"Understood." Dorothy pulled her computation surface towards her from across the table and started scanning its contents.

"Mr. Nolan, you're our negotiator, and we don't have any negotiating going on right now. I expect you to devote your time to studying everything we've learned about the aliens so far. I want to know what our political avenue will be, once we're ready to introduce ourselves. I also want to know how they'll react if they discover us before we're ready." She shoved the next computation surface in the general direction of Karl’s seat. "You have all of the translation team's notes, along with the observations of the previous generations. I think the former will be more useful to you. Feel free to send your questions directly to the translation team—if you need anything that isn't in the notes, I'm sure she can get it."

"Got it." Karl caught the computation surface as it went sliding by. "I'll let you know what I find."

"Dr. Faraday, I don't really know why the Forerunner made you. Physics seems pointless to me in our situation. But here's everything the satellites have found about our planet, so knock yourself out." She slid the pad over, just as she had with the other. "I expect you to make yourself useful. It's up to you to figure out how to do that."

Martin nodded, though she didn't seem able to form any actual words.

"And I already told you what you'll be up to," Major Fischer said, sliding James the last of the pads. James took it, though she didn't look at its contents like the others had done. Just now, she found it hard to care about what it contained. "Get conversational with the language, then you can teach us. Mr. Nolan is your focus, since she'll be our voice in any negotiation."

"So that's it?" Dorothy asked. "We can go then?"

"Not quite." The major went back to the box, removing another bundle from inside. She set it down on the table in front of them with a heavy metallic thump. The fabric fell open, revealing four threatening-looking metal objects. Rifles of some kind, whose specific designation James didn't know. "As I explained, this planet is dangerous. The natives are more capable than they look. The planet killed two generations of humans before we were even grown. Each of you will reach firearms proficiency D within one week. There is a range, and training materials are available on your computers."

"We're not soldiers," Karl said. "We're here to make contact with the aliens, not fight them. We're not invaders."

"You're going to defend yourselves if attacked," the major said, glaring at each of them. Almost like she wanted them to argue. None of them did. "In one week's time, we'll be leaving Forerunner Base to begin construction of this planet's first city. We'll bring any equipment we need with us, but I expect each of you to be coordinated in your Biosleeves and adjusted to your responsibilities. We haven't fabricated a psychologist, so if you've got any shit to deal with..." Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Martin. "You will deal with it. Is that clear?"

"Good." She rose, turning to go. "I won't be on-base again at any point today, so you're on your own for getting sorted. I trust the best and brightest of the Pioneering Society to get over whatever difficulties you're having with your sleeves." With that she turned, marching right out of control and down the hall deeper into Forerunner Base, with the drone rolling along behind her.

"Well..." Karl said, staring down at the rifles resting on the table between them. "We have an interesting leader, don't we? I hope she knows what she's doing."

"Doesn't matter," Dorothy said, rising to her hooves as well, though she didn't get any further than that. She stared down at the computer, then back at herself, apparently trying to figure out how she would carry it. "We do. Forerunners are dumb as old bricks. I'm sure the previous crews gathered all the data I'll need to put together a Biosleeve safe from the hazards of this planet. Though... it does concern me that they're apparently serious enough to kill our predecessors even when they spent most of their time in this base. We're supposed to be shielded."

Martin went back to rocking back and forth. "Don't understand..." she was muttering now. "And so, the fly stared into the fathomless abyss, contemplating its next landing. But safety never came."

"You think she might be overcooked?" Dorothy asked, not even lowering her voice. "Nonhuman Biosleeves were supposed to be difficult, but... the rest of us are plenty sane. Aren't we?"

Karl shrugged. "Everyone reacts to stress differently. The rest of us have more to worry about than you do, Dr. Born. Let Martin take his time." She turned, so she was mostly facing Martin now. "Forget what the major said, we know you're important. The military always gets its balls out in front of the rest of us, but we know better. I'm sure the Forerunner had good reasons for waking you up."

James rose to her hooves, taking the tablet in her mouth. She didn't care about her dignity really, so she didn't insist on staying upright like Dorothy. She nodded politely to the others, before walking awkwardly down the hallway. I know exactly how you feel, Martin, she thought. But it wasn't like she could climb back into a cryogenics pod and go to sleep—there was no such technology. They hadn't been woken up, they'd been created. Now it was up to them to make that creation mean something.

If we can.

* * *

"Dr. Irwin, can you come here a moment?"

James looked up from where she'd been staring down at her computation surface, staring for so long that the letters had all blended together into one unified, meaningless mess. She hadn't really been reading for at least an hour now. "Yeah, sure." She rose from the top bunk, hopping down to the lower level. As she fell, her wings struggled against the fabric, as though trying to catch her. They looked pitifully small to do something like that, but... the notes she'd been reading suggested that didn't matter. Though there was much information the notes didn’t contain--like the author’s name. Much to her frustration, considering how painfully familiar they sometimes sounded.

She landed on her hooves, maybe a meter away from the speaker. Karl had done a little to change her appearance over the last few days. She had cut her mane short, short enough that it approximated a male human haircut. It was still the same color as everyone else's, and she still wore the same uniform. No one had discovered whatever magical substance Olivia used to dye her coat, and she wasn't sharing. "What's up?"

"Martin has something," Karl said, her voice sounding exactly like James's. There was no getting used to that. "She's been... I don't know if you saw... going a little crazy in there."

James had seen it. The base had male and female bathrooms and showers, though up until now the male shower had been empty and unused. James had intended to use it anyway, in defiance of the Forerunner and its eagerness to make a crew with only a single sample of the alien species. But then Martin had claimed the area as her own domain, and started attaching printouts to the walls, scribbling all over them, and connecting them with string. In only a few days, the bathroom and showers had been so covered as to completely conceal what had originally been set up there.

"Yeah," was all she said. "All that number crunching went somewhere, huh?"

"I'm pretty sure she knew something was wrong from the day she woke up," Karl said. "She just... wanted to be sure, I guess. I don't know. I don't want to be too hard on her, we're all going through the same shit. Well... most of us are." She glanced down the hall. "Martin went to Olivia to call a meeting, but she said it was 'science shit', so we should deal with it. She's too busy setting up for our flight or whatever, so..."

"So let's go." James started walking, past Karl and into the hall. The restrooms weren't much further, with one on each side of the hall for each of the sexes. Not that she'd been in the one on "her" side more than once. "I wasn't happy with how much the military ran our lives last time. If the rest of us don't stick together..."

Karl followed. "Olivia will make sure it's the same way here? Yeah, that's already a work in progress." She lowered her voice, so quiet James had to stop walking and strain her ears to hear. "I checked the gestation pods, they're already working. Next batch of crew is an honest-to-god seal team."

They froze at the same moment, both hearing the same sound. It was another pair of hooves coming down the hall behind them. James tensed all over, fearful of what it might be—but her fear was in vain. It was only Dorothy, wearing only the back half of her uniform and a satchel over her shoulder. Her computation surface was stuck inside it, along with a few glass test-tubes. She smelled like she'd been in the lab for at least a full day. "You talking about what I think you're talking about?"

"Yeah." Karl gestured for her to join them. She did, bringing with her another copy of the same identical scent along with all the smells of the lab. As she flexed her wings, James found herself feeling slightly jealous. She was sick of how confined she felt in her uniform.

"Well, I'm as worried as you are. But at the same time... maybe not so much." She lowered her voice to the same hushed whisper they'd been using. "Forerunner gave the major authority because of the compound of all its different threat-calculations. I bet you one of these vestigial wings that the infeasibility of human crew-members positively dominates that risk calculation."

"You can't know how a Forerunner thinks," Karl argued. "I read the same handbook you did. Its value-system might be public, but it's been learning all this time. It won't be operating the same as a fresh Forerunner right out of the factory."

Dorothy's eyes narrowed. "No offense, but you don't know what you're talking about." She raised one hoof defensively. "Don't even say it. Yeah, I'm not CS, I know I don't either. Dismiss your shallow-minded objections and consider a moment how long mental profiles for this project have been recorded. When I was admitted, the big minds were still negotiating about how the probes would operate. I had a friend on the committee. We got together often. Well, one thing led to another, and... I read some things I shouldn't have. Swore on my grave I'd never tell a soul, but..." She looked up, through the stone roof of the chamber. "Dr. Dorothy Born is as dead as Darwin, and so is my old friend."

"Whatever you're going to say..." Karl looked increasingly annoyed. "You should just say it. Martin is still waiting. If we don't get in there soon, she might decide we don't care and put her discoveries away. It looked pretty interesting, when I saw..."

"Fine, fine." Dorothy grumbled, obviously annoyed she didn't get to tell her story in detail. "Well, long story short on the whole thing is that the probes might know how to adapt other brains, but that isn't what anyone wanted. They're supposed to spread humanity, not some human minds all dressed up to play pretend. Anything they can do to make that happen, they will. So, while Olivia has control over what the Forerunner does now, she'll lose that power the second I find a way to make humans who can live."

"And the rest of us go into their petting zoo," James muttered.

The others both stopped, staring at her. Almost as though they'd forgotten she was there.

"Irrelevant, even if it was true," Dorothy said. "This is bigger than us. We have the power to shape the future of the planet. Well, I do. When I crack this, and I will crack it... I'm going to be the one who decides who the Forerunner makes next. I bet you my other vestigial wing that it would even abandon the fabrication of that stupid pointless military force and make whoever I told it to. So long as they were human and I thought it would work. Why do you think it made a second generation of humans after it had learned that they can't survive here? Well, vanilla humans can’t—"

James cut her off. "Wait. There were two generations before ours? We could've already died here once already?"

Karl shoved past them both, close enough that the automatic sensor on the bathroom door beeped, and the door slid down into the floor. "Could we talk about that later? I already promised Martin I would bring you both for whatever this important thing of hers is, and she didn't look very patient."

Dorothy turned without another word, apparently uninterested in answering the question. James made a mental note to ask the Forerunner about the previous generations as soon as she got a chance alone. They probably didn't make one of me. It couldn't have known that there was a civilization here with a language that would need someone like me. There'd have been no point. It would be old-fashioned astronauts. She told herself that, but she didn't really believe it.

The bathroom was even worse than the last time she'd seen it. Even the floor now had images on it, so many that they all blended together. She leaned in to look at one at random. It depicted the planet from the air all-right, though it was zoomed in on structures apparently made of reflective metal. The image was so far away she couldn't really get a good look at them, but they weren't quite high-resolution enough to make out any meaningful details. James looked away, focusing on the narrow path between images she could walk without disrupting the intense effort Martin had gone to destroying the men’s restroom.

Of all of them, Martin looked as though she had taken her sleeving the worst. She wore only the inner-uniform, though the top half was upside-down and the fastenings were all wrong. Her mane was sweaty and tangled, and her eyes were bloodshot. Streaks of red paint stained her coat near her limbs and around her mouth, and several identical markers had been stuffed haphazardly into the openings of her uniform.

"Alright, Martin," Karl said, her voice higher, with forced cheerfulness. "We're all here. You can explain what you wanted us to know."

"Explain," she repeated, looking between each of them. "Explain. Only three. Where is four?"

"Major Fischer is not coming," Karl said. "Like she told you, remember? She's worrying about the base defenses. You can tell us, and we'll make sure she finds out."

Martin looked as though she was going to cancel the whole thing. She turned away, towards the wall of the showers, where the most intricate-looking mathematics was drawn. They all followed, though only Dorothy looked like she was making any sense of what was written there. Karl's eyes glazed over as much as James's did.

"I started with the satellite photos," Martin said. Her voice still shook, but having a purpose seemed to stop her from losing focus and giving up, because she didn't stop. "Before our first meeting. I saw that we had eighty in the network, which seemed strange given I knew the cameras were meant to orbit at extreme distance to keep their numbers down. What could a planet be made of if it needed eighty satellites? How much land would there be?"

She pointed to one side, where images the size of full sheets had been painstakingly arranged into a roughly round shape, with a large opening in the middle. "This is KOI-087.01,” she said. “The thing Major calls Earth. But it's not Earth. Earth is a planet. This isn't a planet." She pointed to another image, one printed on a single sheet of paper. "I had the computer composite this. There is some CGI to fill in the gaps."

James stared at the image, stared until her eyes had started to water. What she saw was impossible, she knew that just from the basics of astronomy she had been required to learn as part of the SPS. Nothing that large could be any shape but a sphere. What she saw was a thin disk wrapped completely around the perimeter of a tiny red star. There were a few smaller objects as well, flat satellites positioned at various points above the round object. When viewed from the side, she saw a colossal mountain range... so massive that it was distinct even from the satellite image, then solid material several times thicker than the crust, made of a rust-colored metal.

"Impossible," Dorothy said, after a long silence. "This can't exist."

"I thought so too." Martin walked away from them, pacing through the bathroom as she spoke. She didn't seem to care as she stepped all over her images and scribblings. Didn't seem to care if they followed. "So, I ran the numbers. Gravity first... we're experiencing very close to 9.8m/s^2 of gravitational acceleration... but this close to the star, there should be much more. Well... whoever built this thought of that." She stopped in front of a large page, filled with numbers and calculations. James just stared at them, grateful that Martin was explaining them.

"We're spinning. Fast, but not insanely fast. About 422.066km/s. That eats up most of the pull of gravity we should be feeling towards the star, but leaves us with about one Earth gravity."

"Nothing's this strong," Dorothy insisted. "I don't know materials, but I know that. Not nanotubes, not spider webs, nothing."

Martin shrugged. "I don't know what it's made of... but whoever built this thought of that too. There are two satellites, and the speed they're orbiting... they seem to be exerting an attractive pull on the object. Object out there, reduces the strength of the material below us. It's still... still beyond anything..." She sat down suddenly on her haunches, eyes wide. Her voice became a terrified whisper.

"For the numbers. This isn't a planet. Those things living out there..." She held up one hoof. "Things like us. Whatever put them there... could make a Dyson Ring. Everything about this place is artificial." She tapped the wall with one of her hooves. "The minerals we harvest to make our base, thinking we're the powerful invaders with our powerful technology... something an order of magnitude more advanced than we are put it all there."

"Not just that..." Karl sounded almost the same as Martin now. "They filled their world with primitives, and left them here. Was there any sign of an advanced culture in all those satellite photos you took? Could whoever built this thing still be living here?"

A harsh voice came in over the PA, loud and shrill. "We're taking off in ten minutes," the major's voice said. "Everyone report to the hanger. And don't leave anything behind. Ten minutes and we're gone." There was a click, and silence descended again.

They all stared at Martin, waiting for her answer.

"Probably not," she said, looking like she hadn't even heard the message. "But there are some ruins that might be theirs. They're on the other side of the alien country... Equestria, right? Yeah, that. So, we'd have to fly over it. But we could."

"We should get going." Dorothy turned to the door. "Thanks for explaining all that, Martin. I suspect the commander will be more rational about your concerns when she hears there could be serious security threats we haven't considered. Apocalyptic, planet-viability compromising concerns."

"Dyson Ring compromising," Martin corrected, not meeting their eyes.

"Right." Karl followed Dorothy towards the doorway. "I'll explain it for you, Martin. Maybe she'll listen if I can do it before she gets bored."

They left, leaving only James behind with the nervous physicist. Martin didn't seem interested in packing up any of her notes here. It would probably be difficult, given her calculations covered the walls.

"Did you learn anything else?" James asked, once the door shut.

"Lots of things," Martin said. "But mostly I learned that I'm afraid. Whoever could construct a superstructure like this, way out in space... whoever set it orbiting around a red dwarf with its mass perfectly balanced, accelerated it to mitigate gravity... what would a race like that do to us, if they knew we were here?"

"Maybe they're dead," James suggested. "I read Lovecraft when I was younger. In one of his books, humanity had evolved from the worker slime used by the aliens who settled Earth the first time. Maybe they died out, and their workers evolved to intelligence, just like humans did in the story."

"That's worse!" Martin exclaimed, suddenly meeting James's eyes with horror on her face. "Then we have to be afraid of whatever killed them. Do you know how to kill a class two species? Me neither."

"Well, on the bright side..." James began, though at this point she wasn't sure that Martin wouldn't just twist her words into something frightening. "We look like ponies. Maybe if things go bad, we could just blend in. Pretend we were never here. The Forerunner would be screwed, but... at least we'd make it."

"Great."

The PA over their heads beeped again. "Five minutes! Get your asses in here, everyone! Don't make me ask again!"

They didn't.