Читать книгу The SkyReach Prophecies: BOOK 1 - JEFFREY GREY - Страница 5

CHAPTER 4: NANO-BOTS FOR EVERYONE

Later that night at the Grey’s apartment, Dr. Gregory Grey, Ph.D. and the HUB’s most respected expert in Astro-Geology and Planetary Terra-Forming, smiled broadly at his family. “Happy birthday, Olivia and Duncan! How are my favorite children enjoying their special day?”

That was Dr. Grey’s idea of a family joke, since he had no other children, and probably never will. Miranda was fond of saying that having twins was enough parenting for any Mother. Greg Grey agreed.

“Not bad,” replied Olivia with a condescending tone, “considering we had to go school on our birthday.”

“Of course,” nodded Greg wisely. “There should be a law against going to school on your birthday. But let’s try to make up for it with a wonderful dinner and a birthday cake.”

“And don’t forget your birthday presents,” Miranda said, as she entered the living room with two small boxes. They were wrapped in festive paper and bows, one blue and one pink.

The kids practically squealed at the sight of the presents. They ran to their mother, holding out their hands to receive their gifts. Miranda handed the taller, thinner pink box to Olivia, and passed the shorter, fatter blue box to Duncan.

“Your mother made these gifts in her lab,” said Greg, as he beamed proudly at his wife.

Miranda blushed and waved away the compliment and said, “Kids, these are very special gifts - but they are a bit tricky to open.”

Duncan tried to tear off the wrapping on his present, but when he touched the paper his hand went right through it. His fingers appeared on the other side of the box, and the box literally flowed up his arm like an armored gauntlet. Olivia had the same experience - it looked as if her present was a pretty pink glove that magically appeared on her right arm.

“What are these things?” Olivia said wonderingly at the shimmering glove coating her forearm.

“They feel like exo-suits, Mom,” Duncan observed.

“That’s right Duncan,” said Miranda approvingly. “They are very much like exo-suits. But they are the next generation, and a quantum leap forward in N-technology, if I may be so immodest as to say so. These are called Nano-Bots, or N-Bots, and they are much more complex and useful than a standard exo-suit. In addition to being a safety suit that will completely protect you from the conditions of deep space, the N-Bots can provide access to communication links, internet data, and instant control over all the usual environmental systems that you currently access by voice.”

Miranda then walked them through the basic options of the N-Bots. “Your N-Bots are voice-activated, and will only obey your unique voice patterns. I have given each of your N-Bots a name, although you may change them if you wish. Olivia, yours is named MIM, and Duncan’s is named PIP. Go on, say hello to them.”

Olivia looked at her wrist, cleared her throat and whispered, “Hello MIM.”

“Hello, Olivia. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said a lovely young girl’s alto voice, distinctly different but sounding very much like Olivia’s voice. “How may I be of service?”

“Nothing at the moment, MIM,” said Olivia. “Just testing your voice response. Oh, could you please change to another color? Pink isn’t my favorite anymore.”

“I understand, Olivia,” said MIM, who instantly muted the hot pink to a light lavender. “Pink is for little girls, and you’re practically all grown up,” MIM said. Olivia blushed, knowing that she and MIM would be great friends.

With a big grin on his face, Duncan yelled loudly “HELLO PIP!”

“Greetings, Duncan,” PIP stated smoothly in a teenage tenor. “No need to speak so loudly. I can hear perfectly well, even though I don’t have ears.”

“I programmed them with a basic personality,” Miranda confided, “so you would be more comfortable with communicating with them.”

“I think they’re brilliant, Mom,” exclaimed Olivia. Duncan nodded in agreement.

Duncan and Olivia thanked their parents enthusiastically, then played with their N-Bots while Mom and Dad went off to cook dinner.

When dinnertime came, the twins rejoined their parents. They had a fabulous meal with all their favorite foods. Baked chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and hot, fresh rolls. And chocolate ice cream for dessert, of course.

After the family had finished dessert and cleaned off the table, Miranda Grey made an announcement. “Children, we’re going somewhere very special for our holiday this year.”

Every school break, the Grey family was in the habit of visiting one of the other space settlements, like the moon base or the Martian colony. Sometimes they would even go off world to do special research for their Dad’s terra-forming experiments.

“Great, where are we going this time?” asked Olivia, her eyes shining with excitement. Even Duncan looked on with interest - he loved these field trips almost as much as Olivia.

The parents looked at each other, and Gregory Grey said, “We’re going to visit an Iceberg on Mercury,” Greg Grey said mischieviously.

“Huh?” Duncan said. “How could there be an iceberg on Mercury?”

Olivia said, “Duncan is right. There aren’t any icebergs on Mercury. There are no oceans or ice caps like on Earth. There isn’t even any water. The surface temperature is always over 100 degrees Celsius.”

“Well, this really isn’t an iceberg, like on Earth,” Greg explained. “The colony on Mercury is called the BERG, because it is shaped like an iceberg, and because ninety percent of the structure is underground. Here, take a look at the holo-image, and you’ll see what I mean.”

Greg touched a button on his commlink. An image popped up, which appeared to be a blue colored iceberg buried in the ground. It does look like an iceberg, Duncan thought. An iceberg floating in a sea of rock. Only a small building was above ground, while a huge, irregularly shaped structure extended hundreds of feet below the surface. As the image rotated, Olivia could see that there were over a hundred floors, like an office building, inside the BERG. And what’s more, the center of the BERG seemed to be hollow.

“We’re going to the BERG to confirm some interesting data that we extracted from our new acquisition - that satellite we salvaged earlier. We’ve named it the Magellan satellite, by the way. It had some interesting information in its data banks. And we have been asked to consult with our Mercury colony about the long term implications of the data.”

“What kind of data?” Olivia asked.

Greg Grey explained, “Well, we checked the Magellan satellite’s memory banks, and there was a lot of usable data despite the advanced age of the equipment. So far we have decoded a kind of map - a very interesting map that shows the solar system in incredible detail, with all the known planets and moons, and with a few surprises as well.”

Miranda Grey activated their holo-projector. “You are the first citizens of the HUB to see this map,” Miranda said sharply. “We reconstructed this holo-view based on five year’s worth of data. This is all top secret, so no sharing with anyone outside the family.”

An enormous holo-image of the solar system materialized over their heads. The image was a perfect three-dimensional replica of the solar system, like a giant egg of glowing blue light that completely filled the living room. The Sun was in the center, with the planets slowly moving in elliptical orbits around the giant yellow globe. Mercury, small, brown and fast, sped silently near the Sun. Cloud shrouded Venus, all white. The blue marble of Earth, with patches of green and brown. Red Mars, angry in the sky. The asteroid belt, with millions of asteroids separating the inner planets from the outer planets. Striped Jupiter and ringed Saturn, the gas giants in space. And finally dark Neptune and black Uranus, farthest from the Sun. Olivia felt like a giant standing in space, gazing in wonder at the glory of the universe all around her.

Greg continued, “When we downloaded the map from the Magellan satellite, we realized that there were coordinates of other satellite probes embedded in the data. These satellites had apparently been sent out to every corner of the solar system on some unknown mission.”

As Greg was talking, the holo-image exploded with burning red lines erupting from the Earth’s surface. They launched almost simultaneously, circled the Earth a few times, then sped out in different directions around the solar system.

Miranda continued, “More specifically, the coordinates show the flight paths and orbits of these probes. Or, at least where they were supposed to go over thirty-five years ago, when they were launched. Our theory is that these probes were sent out to some of the planets near Earth, to survey them for later scientific study.”

“But what were they looking for?” Duncan asked expectantly, a glimmer of excitement and a faraway look in his eyes.

“We aren’t sure exactly what their purpose was, or what they were searching for,” admitted Greg. “We don’t even know if they were actually launched, since the Magellan satellite was shot into orbit before the probes launched. However, the map does show where the probes were headed - at least the first one.”

As they watched in growing anticipation, one of the fiery trajectory lines finally intersected with the nearest planet, which happened to be....

“Mercury!!” shouted Olivia and Duncan, at the same instant.

“Yes, Mercury,” confirmed Miranda. “That’s why we’re going there.”

“It’s like a treasure map for space explorers,” said Olivia, who was fond of her history lessons about explorers from the 18th century. “We can follow the trajectory line directly to the proposed landing spot on Mercury’s surface.”

“But,” Duncan said, frowning with concentration. “The trajectory isn’t precise enough to tell us where exactly the probe landed, is it Dad?”

“Right you are, Duncan,” Greg said. “But we have a relatively small area to search, based on the computer simulations we’ve run. And our scientific team is still working on the map data. They may supply us with more data after we’ve landed on Mercury.”

“I don’t know,” said Olivia. “In school, Mr. Garrity told how the environmental conditions of a planet destroy man-made objects. Even if the Earthers did launch the probes and they made it to their destinations, there won’t be much left after all this time.”

There was a gleam in Greg’s eye when he said, “Ah, but where’s the fun in that? Just think, Olivia - we can have a real live treasure hunt! Even if there isn’t much to find on Mercury, won’t it make our vacation more fun to follow an authentic treasure map, and to maybe find a buried treasure?”

“It does sound exciting, when you think about it,” said Olivia. She pictured herself leading the Mercury probe expedition, arriving first at the site of the hidden probe, her family following behind. Finally, she thought, a chance to be a Space Explorer!

After a few minutes of excited discussion about the upcoming trip, the children went off to bed. Miranda waited a few moments in silence. Then she pulled out two other boxes, one green and one gray. She handed the gray box to Greg and kept the green one for herself. “I hope these will be scientifically advanced enough to complete our mission,” said Miranda.

Greg smiled tiredly. “They’ll be good enough, Miranda,” he reassured her. “Anyway, we probably won’t even need to use their military functions. We’re just searching for REE’s, not going on a suicide mission.”

“I know,” she said. “But are the children ready for this adventure? I can’t help but think that we’re putting them in terrible danger, bringing them on this trip. I wish we could tell the children more about our plans.”

“You know we can’t,” Greg said. “If we told them what we were really looking for, it would put them in danger. We want the twins to think of our mission as nothing more than a fun treasure hunt. Then they will be less likely to take unnecessary chances to help us. Our best hope is to make this appear as if we’re just on another of our research trips. If the real purpose of our trip is even suspected by the Guild, we’d be done before we start.”

As Miranda nodded silently, a small figure drew back into the shadowy hallway. Wow, thought Duncan. It’s a treasure hunt alright, just not just for long lost probes. What’s a REE? Duncan didn’t know. Maybe this trip would be more fun than usual. He couldn’t wait to tell Olivia.