Far-called

By William Haloupek

"Far-Called by William Haloupek is a hard science fiction novel that pursues so many ‘what-if’ questions that it is as much just pure ‘speculative fiction’ as it is a hard scifi. This blend is what makes this book stand out. If you’re a fan of questioning society and ‘what would happen if’ scenarios, all of which are founded in a great deal of science and research, this is very likely a book that you will enjoy."
-- Rebecca Blain, The Future Fire

It had been a war of attrition. Starting with superior forces, Tzin and his navy could have lost every battle and still won the war. In the comfort of his office, Matej adjusted his dwindling resources, and waited for the computer to generate the new theater of war configuration, in 100x real time. His command ship, the Sudeten, was disabled, in a helpless Keplerian trajectory. All available energy was diverted to life support and defensive countermeasures. Decoys and chaff were deployed, probably to no avail. Since Tzin knew his position and velocity 5 simulated days earlier, he could calculate the new position, if he was aware that the Sudeten was adrift.

Hopefully, he was not. However, he seemed to following a guidance strategy toward an intercept point on the Sudeten’s elliptical orbit, indicating that he did know, or at least suspect.

Tzin’s battle group was led by a dozen fighters, in a planar configuration, perpendicular to the direction of travel. This arrangement was intended to reduce the possibility of friendly fire, and to present a wide target grouping to the enemy. Behind the fighters lay 2 cruisers, 2 destroyers, and Tzin’s command ship, the Zhongzheng.

Location, location, location. If your enemy knows where you are, you’re dead. Stealth was life or death. War was a deadly serious game of counter measures, counter-counter measures, deceit and subterfuge. Winner take all, of what’s left.

Before losing power, Matej was able to nudge his ship into an orbit that would put Jupiter between it and Tzin’s forces. The Sudeten, stripped of its protecting entourage, still had one hope. As Tzin’s fighters navigated their way around Jupiter, they would have to break formation. There would be some confusion as they formed back up on the near side. The formation was spread out over millions of kilometers, and it took several seconds for light speed communications to reach the fighters from the Zhongzheng.

Also on Matej’s side of Jupiter, was Callisto, the outermost of the Galilean moons. Here lay one of Matej’s last operational bases. A mass driver, or coilgun, fed by a gargantuan strip mining machine, and powered by a large nuclear reactor, had been preparing since the beginning or the war, some 3 simulated years earlier. The mining operation had produced millions of tons of rock and ice chunks, each about half a meter in diameter−just the right size for the mass driver to fling into space, at over 200 km/sec. The escape velocity of Callisto was only 2.4 km/sec, and escape from Jupiter at the distance of Callisto’s orbit required another 11.6 km/sec, so the projectiles had plenty of speed to get out of Jupiter’s gravity well and do some damage.

The desperate trap was set. Tzin’s fighters came around Jupiter on all sides, followed by the larger ships in the battle group. The enormous magnetosphere surrounding Jupiter played havoc with communications among Tzin’s forces. The fighters regained their planar formation as the plane approached Callisto, and the mass driver opened fire. Some of Tzin’s ships were visible because they were thrusting. The positions of the others had to be guessed at. Chances of a hit were low, but with millions of projectiles, Matej might get lucky.

It was all about putting ordnance on target. Same as it ever was. Since David slew Goliath, the strength of nations was largely determined by how fast and how accurately they could throw things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Haloupek
• Release date: Dec 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466029354

William Haloupek

William Haloupek Mathematician -- PhD 1992 University of Wisconsin-Madison Astronomy is my hobby. Kind of an obsession at times! I started out in Topology and Analysis at Texas Tech, then went to Wisconsin and switched to Applied Math. Started working on a PhD thesis in General Relativity, then changed to Dynamical Systems, and ended up with a PhD in Differentiability Theory. I'm pretty comfortable with most Math and Classical Physics. Never could understand the Quantum stuff. Elementary Particle Theory makes no sense to me. I also worked as a radar engineer in the missile defense industry for 10 years. After 10 years I can't claim to be a real engineer. I just worked on the mathematical problems the engineers could come up with for me. Still, it gave me an appreciation of the "real world." Other hobbies: genealogy, coin collecting,science fiction, philosophy, hiking.

Book preview

Preface

Many thanks to Doug Bell, Kerry Gans, Kayla Haloupek, Nicole Haloupek, Nancy Robinson Masters, Chuck Quintero and Judee Reel, for reading the book at various stages of development, and making numerous corrections and suggestions for improvement. Any mistakes that remain are, of course, my bads!

To the reader: This book represents hundreds of hours of work, and it’s offered at a pretty low price, so please don’t email free copies to your friends. Instead, I ask you to send them the link, so they can pay the small fee and download it themselves. It’s not just the money. I would really like to see the number of copies sold go up. Thank you.

Another note to the reader: the long surnames may look imposing, but don’t worry. There are no two characters with the same first name, so you don’t have to remember the surnames. They are just decoration!

The main character is named after my great-great-grandfather, Matej Chaloupek (1808-1888), who lived in Bohemia. The e in Matej is supposed to have an accent mark over it. I took that out because it is messed up in some of the ebook formats. Matej rhymes approximately with hot-yay, but the t is a little different.

Dust Jacket Blurb

Our hero is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Mars, in the 35th Century. He witnesses a terrorist act, and gets caught up in a mission to save half a billion people, taking him and his friends all over the solar system. Along the way, he visits a variety of spaceships and stations, and learns about robotics, genealogy, mining, epidemiology, cryptography and bomb making.

In the 35th Century, warfare, disease and famine are still with us. Humanity is exploding toward the stars, in all directions. Each colony is a grand social and biological experiment, with the highest of stakes.

The characters are complex and interesting! They express their opinions on education, politics, science, history and morality. The heroes risk their lives for a great cause, and not all survive.

This is a hard science fiction novel. There are a lot of technical details. It is based on the theory that many fans of science fiction are interested in science. This is not Twilight Zone science fiction, in which strange things happen to people for no reason. There are no dragons, magic spells, or spaceships traveling at warp speed.

It is as much a description of what it might be like to live in the 35th Century as it is a story about some guy and his girlfriend in a spaceship. There is a great deal of technical description, as well as social commentary. Also, plenty of action and adventure!

I don’t adhere to the theory that a novel has to have a simple plot, and every sentence has to contribute to that plot. Life is not like that, and who would want it to be? This book will take you on an interesting journey. Get ready!

Contents

1. War a la mode

2. The ivory cellar

3. Love is a battlefield

4. Leviathan

5. The best minds of my generation

6. Thou should not have been old until thou had been wise

7. First class

8. How then shall we live?

9. The human diaspora

10. Searching again

11. Mine your business

12. Mars rocks

13. Fear and Terror

14. Big man on campus

15. Fields of gold

16. The center cannot hold

17. White room

18. The search for meaning

19. Quarantine

20. All we have become

21. Ancient of days

22. The demerits of meritocracy

23. Field day for the heat

24. What fresh hell is this?

25. Riders on the storm

26. Dionysus

27. Bugs

28. Keeping secrets

29. The fine art of destruction

30. The past is gone

31. The weight of one’s will

32. The deep moans round with many voices

33. A special lack of grace

34. Babylon

35. We happy few

36. The Prince was in his counting house

37. The man behind the curtain

38. Mine data

39. Mission to Earth

40. The Temple of Dionysus

41. Belaying tactics

42. Underworld

43. Fame and fortune and everything that goes with it

44. Consequences have actions

45. Promises to keep

46. Phoebus to Phobos

47. Good violence

48. Chasing the dragon

49. Old friends

50. Blown coverage

51. The raven himself is hoarse

52. Great thrust

53. Afterword

Chapter 1. War a la mode

"This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games."

William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997)

It had been a war of attrition. Starting with superior forces, Tzin and his navy could have lost every battle and still won the war. In the comfort of his office, Matej adjusted his dwindling resources, and waited for the computer to generate the new theater of war configuration, in 100x real time. His command ship, the Sudeten, was disabled, in a helpless Keplerian trajectory. All available energy was diverted to life support and defensive countermeasures. Decoys and chaff were deployed, probably to no avail. Since Tzin knew his position and velocity 5 simulated days earlier, he could calculate the new position, if he was aware that the Sudeten was adrift. Hopefully, he was not. However, he seemed to following a guidance strategy toward an intercept point on the Sudeten’s elliptical orbit, indicating that he did know, or at least suspect.

Tzin’s battle group was led by a dozen fighters, in a planar configuration, perpendicular to the direction of travel. This arrangement was intended to reduce the possibility of friendly fire, and to present a wide target grouping to the enemy. Behind the fighters lay 2 cruisers, 2 destroyers, and Tzin’s command ship, the Zhongzheng.

Location, location, location. If your enemy knows where you are, you’re dead. Stealth was life or death. War was a deadly serious game of counter measures, counter-counter measures, deceit and subterfuge. Winner take all, of what’s left.

Before losing power, Matej was able to nudge his ship into an orbit that would put Jupiter between it and Tzin’s forces. The Sudeten, stripped of its protecting entourage, still had one hope. As Tzin’s fighters navigated their way around Jupiter, they would have to break formation. There would be some confusion as they formed back up on the near side. The formation was spread out over millions of kilometers, and it took several seconds for light speed communications to reach the fighters from the Zhongzheng.

Also on Matej’s side of Jupiter, was Callisto, the outermost of the Galilean moons. Here lay one of Matej’s last operational bases. A mass driver, or coilgun, fed by a gargantuan strip mining machine, and powered by a large nuclear reactor, had been preparing since the beginning or the war, some 3 simulated years earlier. The mining operation had produced millions of tons of rock and ice chunks, each about half a meter in diameter. Just the right size for the mass driver to fling into space, at over 200 km/sec. The escape velocity of Callisto was only 2.4 km/sec, and escape from Jupiter at the distance of Callisto’s orbit required another 11.6 km/sec, so the projectiles had plenty of speed to get out of Jupiter’s gravity well and do some damage.

The desperate trap was set. Tzin’s fighters came around Jupiter on all sides, followed by the larger ships in the battle group. The enormous magnetosphere surrounding Jupiter played havoc with communications among Tzin’s forces. The fighters regained their planar formation as the plane approached Callisto, and the mass driver opened fire. Some of Tzin’s ships were visible because they were thrusting. The positions of the others had to be guessed at. Chances of a hit were low, but with millions of projectiles, Matej might get lucky.

It was all about putting ordnance on target. Same as it ever was. Since David slew Goliath, the strength of nations was largely determined by how fast and how accurately they could throw things.

The strategic phase of the war was over, since the major population centers on both sides were in ruins. The only significant targets remaining were military targets. In a sense, this war could have no real winner. A few of Matej’s stealth colonies still survived, slowly drifting away from the Sol system, cowering in radio silence. In a real war, these would probably also be doomed, as the military victor would have plenty of time to hunt them down, and either invade or destroy them.

The theater of battle was small enough for radar to be useful. Tzin’s fighters used bistatic radar, which relied on beams emitted by the Zhongzheng, reflected off the target, and detected by the fighters. The radar antennas on the fighters were small, and very poor at determining the direction from which a signal was coming. They could determine distance, and recognize different waveforms, but their angular resolution was fuzzy. The Zhongzheng itself had a much more powerful, monostatic radar, as did the Sudeten.

As the mass driver on Callisto began firing, Matej used the radar on the Sudeten to transmit a signal, mimicking the waveform used by the Zhongzheng. He also manipulated the signal to resemble the waveform reflected from one of his own fighters. The hope was that Tzin’s fighter pilots would mistake each other for enemy fighters, and start shooting at each other. The ruse would only last a few seconds, because the Zhongzheng, having monopulse capability, would be able to tell that the bogus transmission was coming from the Sudeten, and would warn the fighters.

In the end, it almost worked. The radar spoof caused about 10 seconds of confusion, but it wasn’t enough. The Sudeten’s radar tracked thousands of decoys sent toward it by the Zhongzheng, but its discrimination algorithm failed to identify the one that was not a decoy, but a nuclear warhead, which looked, on radar, exactly like all the decoys. All were stealthy, almost invisible. Even the rotational dynamics and surface conductivity were identical. The warhead detonated a few hundred meters from the Sudeten’s bridge.

The Sudeten was destroyed, in a spectacular inferno, of which the computer provided a close-up, full color view, and Matej’s cause was lost. Game over.

Nice try, old buddy! You owe me lunch! Tzin’s voice came from a speaker on the edge of Matej’s desk.

No fair, it was played on your computer.

True enough. Tzin was in charge of the HFT project, which owned the only quantum computer on Mars. He was borrowing unused cycles to play his war games. And he usually won!

Chapter 2. The ivory cellar

"… and gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche."

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 1400), Canterbury Tales, the Clerk of Oxenford

The faculty office was antiquated, but comfortable. A worn, gunmetal bluish-gray desk in the center of the room faced the door, sanguinely. A cabinet for pressure suits and oxygen tanks, a few chairs, and metal shelves took up most of the remaining space. There was hardly a place to set a coffee cup that wasn’t already occupied by a small statue, an imitation papyrus scroll, a geometric puzzle, a picture of friends and family, a coin or stamp from some bygone era, or perhaps even another coffee cup. The light green painted brick walls were adorned with fingernail-thick display screens, which cycled through a large collection of decorative images, every minute or two. People, places, abstract images, galaxies–all favorites of the occupant. The desk was littered with maps and army men, with some ancient battle being played out in the space between a keyboard and a lamp. An astute visitor might recognize the Battle of Trafalgar, where the army men played the roles of ships. A yellowed cardstock sign posted on the conspicuously ornate wrought iron door read: Dr Matej 7XW84DH3393127AB0467F9, Historian in some ancient writing style.

The sign had been proudly handwritten by Matej’s father, an amateur calligrapher. It was one of the few pieces of real paper in the office. There were also a half dozen comics, a picture of a bust of Herodotus, and some quotations, each on a colorful aluminum card. Matej always thought that office doors and tombstones ought to represent the personalities of the people behind them.

The sign displayed Matej’s full surname, in the 22-character format that had been in use since the 31st Century. Surnames were unique identifiers, and also served as email addresses. The first 4 characters were random, or chosen by the parents. The next 3 indicated place of birth, a space station called Idaho. The next 7 indicated that he had been born on the 127th day of the year 3393. After that came the first 4 characters of his father’s name, then his mother’s. Of course, personal friends just called him Matej. Acquaintances called him Matej 7X, and students called him Dr. 7X. More formal was Dr. 7XW8. The more formal and specific one wanted to be, the more characters one should use. The use of different parts of the surname allowed for very subtle expressions or respect, disrespect, and a wide variety of sentiments. All 37 allowed characters were taken from Arabic numerals and uppercase Latin and Greek alphabets, and certain letters, like I, O, S and Z, were not used, because they looked like numerals. Much more flexibility was allowed in first names, and other proper nouns, in which combinations of upper and lower case, accent marks and other alphabets were often used.

Many people deplored the lack of privacy imposed by the surname system. Others felt it was compensated by the increased security. With public key cryptography and digital signatures, along with biometric identification, identity theft and other types of fraud were virtually eliminated. In business transactions, buyers and sellers knew exactly who they were dealing with.

In ancient times, email had been more anonymous. Many people had multiple email addresses, and personal identity was not revealed, unless legal action was taken to force the email provider to reveal it. This led to all kinds of problems, but it was valued by some, as what was anachronistically called free speech. In the 35th Century, Earth Council didn’t believe in anonymity (except anonymity for themselves). An individual’s full name was their email address. The only exceptions were certain colonies, which protected personal identity. Outgoing email was identified only as coming from the colony. Incoming emails would find their way to the sender of an outgoing message, if the message was included, and would also be delivered if the full name was given; otherwise they were discarded.

An individual’s DNA sequence, on the other hand, was very private information. An enemy with enough money could have a virus designed to harm only one person, or one family. Everyone, especially if they had enemies, had to be careful to dispose of hair and fingernail clippings. Used tissues and bandages had to be incinerated, and used eating utensils sterilized. It all became routine, but some people had to be more careful than others.

The History Department Complex, University of Mars, occupied a subterranean network of rooms and corridors, from the surface down to more than 300 meters, with about 75 levels. Most of the levels contained one large lecture hall, several smaller classrooms, faculty offices, lounges, restrooms and storage closets. In the center of each level was a branch of the department office. The office was like a building within a building, with its own staircases and hallways. More than a kilometer below the Complex was a nuclear reactor, one of the largest on Mars, which provided power for the city of Zubrin and surrounding metropolitan area.

The privilege of living on a planet was a rare one. Almost all of humanity lived in space stations, with far less living space per person than was available on Mars. The cost of living was high, but so was the salary, and Matej thought that if he could live frugally, he could leave Mars with what would be a small fortune back home. The way the exchange rate was fluctuating, he couldn’t be too sure.

The hallway outside Matej’s office was a bit breezy, at times. It often carried aromas from the nearby cafeteria, fertilizer smells from the surface farms, and a kind of musty, metallic odor that seemed to come from Mars itself. The wind speed and direction depended on a convoluted system of hatches between the underground caverns that had been excavated during the past several centuries. The climate controllers were usually able to keep the wind speed down to a tolerable level. Ultimately, like all weather phenomena, the wind was driven by differential solar heating. The temperature was controlled, close to 24°C, so nobody ever needed extra clothing, unless they were going near the surface.

Of course, Matej wasn’t thinking about that on the first day of classes. It was always exciting to meet students for the first time. Optimism would prevail, at least for a day or two.

It was the start of the second year of a three year postdoc at UM, and Matej was feeling pressure to get some meaningful research done. He had been lucky to get a postdoc appointment at one of the best schools off Earth, but it was only temporary. His prospects in academia depended on getting a lot of research done while he was here. That was the whole point of a postdoc. Without research, he would end up teaching History 101 forever in some backwater school on some nameless asteroid. And he felt that he was already running out of time. In this business, you had to know where you were going at least a year in advance. The ideal scenario would have started with some great insight or revelation, followed by a flurry of journal articles, which would appeal to somebody on a hiring committee at some top notch university.

So the priority this year had to be research.

On the other hand, he had classes to teach. That paid the bills. He thought that teaching was important work, and he still appreciated many of the teachers who had helped and inspired him throughout his education. He wanted to share his passion for history.

Performance in teaching was measured using teaching evaluations, which were forms filled out by the students. They were basically popularity contests. Matej just had to be popular with his students, not generate any complaints, and put most of his energy into research. Just go easy on the grading, and set the bar low. That would make the students and the administration happy. If he had any sense, he would just do the minimum on the teaching aspect of the job, and concentrate on research. But somehow, he never could resist the opportunity to really teach history. He felt that people should want to know about the past. And they should appreciate someone helping them to learn about it. Maybe it was a mistake to think that his students were like him.

The first year had gone by fast, and he had barely had time to keep up with his classes. This time he was teaching two sections of a sophomore level course, 23rd Century Earth History, for the third consecutive semester, so that would be no problem. He already had his lecture notes. Then there was one section of History of Poetry, which was somewhat outside his specialty, and an advanced course called Photography Before the Digital Age. So it looked like Matej had a lot of work before him. Interesting work, though!

The usual barrage of bureaucratic email from the Department Chair, the Dean of the School of Humanities, the Chancellor, etc, cluttered his inbox. Last minute class rosters were in, and the History of Poetry class had 7 students enrolled. It was going to be cancelled if it had less than 6, and Matej probably would have been assigned another section of 23rd Century. Of the 7 students, only 2 were actually history majors, and 3 were grad students. Since this was an undergraduate course, they were probably expecting some easy credit. Or maybe they were just interested in poetry! Matej had asked for the course so that he could learn more about poetry and its historical importance.

Something about preparing lectures, knowing that he was going to have to stand before a class and present, made Matej learn a subject more thoroughly than he would if he just had to take a test on it. Presentation was a great learning tool, for the presenter. Matej liked to have his students give short presentations, as part of the class. That was only possible in a small class like this.

The photography course had 34 enrolled, and about half of them were history majors. There were several seniors, and a few grad students.

The two sections of 23rd Century were filled to capacity, with 112 students in each. Less than half would be attending in person, with the rest monitoring the class online. The students were mostly sophomores and juniors, humanities majors.

Matej scanned down the inbox list, looking for anything that needed immediate attention. There was the usual chatter from various discussion lists. Someone on the MLK-assassination list had a theory involving an unknown gunman on a grassy knoll. That generated a flurry of you’re an idiot posts. So much for decorum in academia.

No new messages from the MEM support group. This related to Matej’s blessing and curse–his unusual memory. It was like a photographic memory, but instead of images, he remembered facts and figures. Especially numbers, or sequences of characters, like surnames. This was a good thing for a historian. Given any date, Matej could usually recall something important or unusual that had happened on that date. He also knew the full surnames of thousands of people, most of whom he didn’t even know, personally. Ironically, he didn’t know the full surnames of some of his closest friends, simply because he had never had any reason to see their surnames.

This skill was often useful, but it could be annoying, for example, if someone held a paper in front of him, with a lot of numbers on it. He involuntarily memorized the whole thing. It caused him to lose focus on the rest of his surroundings. Matej tried to conceal his vulnerability, because some people, back in Idaho, had used it against him. They thought it