Afterglow

By Akravel Tamire

Behold the many worlds of the civilized sphere, where glistening spires and domes sprawl among rolling verdant fields, where dreary concrete towers loom over those forever watched by the Great Mind, where endless possibilities span before those with hordes of friendly and intelligent robots glad to serve them... and just over that wall, it’s the robots giving the orders! Perhaps those old pictures left strewn about would be enough to remember it all by. Maybe. For such was a time when breakthroughs in science, knowledge of the Hubble field, had enabled such terrific wonders as wireless power grids, popdrive travel, and in the end, the ability to destroy the stars themselves! Such were those days bygone, and yet, even as memory of sunlight itself fades away, those unfortunate enough to remain still refuse to give in. Follow these survivors on their various adventures and many misadventures across strange and dark remnant worlds as they set out in an attempt to revive civilization once and for all... for better or worse!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akravel Tamire
• Release date: May 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005073909

Akravel Tamire

There's nothing to brag about here, Akravel's just another person who likes history, science, a good story, and admittedly, video games a plenty. If anything, Akravel calls it a blessing that we live in a time where inspiration is easy to find, and works easy to share. Of course, such means would be pointless without someone on the other end; thank you for reading!

Book preview

Seeking Silence: Afterglow

By Akravel Tamire

Copyright 2021 Akravel Tamire

Smashwords Edition

Thanks for purchasing this book! By doing so, you are granted license to view this work for your own enjoyment only. If you enjoyed this book without purchasing it and would like to see more works from this author in the future, please buy a copy and/or tell a friend about it and get them to do so.

Disclaimer: This work is fiction and only fiction. All names, characters, businesses etcetera described in this book are entirely imaginary; any resemblance to real life names, people, or businesses is purely coincidental. Also, I don't always sugarcoat things; some of the characters are horrible people who do horrible things and say horrible words while they're at it. Read at your own risk!

Table of Contents

Arc 1: Galactic Peace

Arc 2: Seeking A Better Gadget

Arc 3: Boiled Crab

Arc 4: The Silence of Vacuum

Arc 5: Talking to Ghosts

Arc 6: Divide By Zero

Arc 7: No Hel To Go To

Arc 8: Discontinuity of Government

Arc 9: Cosmological Constants

Arc 10: A State of Nature

Arc 11: Fission Bomb

Arc 12: Beginning at the End

Arc 1: Galactic Peace

Just where is everyone?

Such was the timeless question. Ever since mankind had first looked to the sky people had gazed upon the stars wondering why there were no words to be heard from beyond. With the advent of science, time, evidence, and logic formed the hacksaw by which misled guesses were carved away from the truth… The stars revealed their planets in time. Eventually a number of large alien gas giants were known, arrays of telescopes later lofted above the skies ultimately revealing plenty of smaller rocky worlds too. Oxygen? Water? Carbon compounds? The ever advancing march of ever better instruments revealed these everywhere humans’ artificial eyes looked. There were billions of potential Earths out there, and most models suggested a fair number wouldn’t even need to be terraformed to be settled. Now that had all those prospective head-in-the-clouds would-be starfarers excited!

Yet there were still no words to be heard.

Perhaps none were needed. Beneath a crimson sky among hills of steel and plains of asphalt, one of the descendants of those once-were starfarers sat on a patio cleverly propped up over old hull plating, enjoying a bit of tea. An old glass table and a patio chair served well enough on this elevated perch, letting her watch the city and the eternal sunset. Ahead of her was the world’s sun, red-orange in hue, casting a fiery glow over the horizon and among the clouds. The reddened light remaining lit the clouds behind her, giving them the look of bloodstains on a dimming void. It was silent, but the wind was company enough for moments like these.

She stared right into the sun as it loomed before her, over twenty times as broad in the sky as Sol was on Earth. No goggles, no glasses… the ball of not-quite-burning gas didn’t manage much in the way of UV light. It was no more dangerous to look at than a hot stove element. Luhman 16A was its name; it eternally hovered frozen over the horizon, the stars around it sluggishly circling the sky opposite instead. Its companion, a reddish speck in the sky, did act as a beacon however, the pair circling one another every quarter century or so.

These relatively tiny specks of gas and their three dust-grain worlds mattered little to anyone during the heyday of Earth… except for those who had chosen to try to settle there, of course. All thought them fools. Who tries to put up a dome near a brown dwarf? That’s not even a real star!

Well, there she was, and she was still alive. She had a home, food, water, a few friends, some time to spare... what wasn’t to like? She had time to ponder her plans for the week and survey the surroundings. Often the most reliable way to get news was to find a high perch and use a pair of binoculars. Nothing to see so far.

The open runway of the spaceport provided a clear line of sight fore and back. Standing, she finished her tea, stepping back to the edge of the balcony, passing the stairway up to climb the hull plating into the howling wind. She gripped the faded orange tailfin of the disused craft she called home to gaze into the dark.

Dots of dancing fiery light were seen, a haze of pyroclastic soot catching the red over the horizon. A pair of not-so-old volcanoes were acting up yet again! Such was hardly unheard of on a world stretched and squished by the sun towering over its horizon, though she’d hoped those two that had sprung up near town were done. Nope! Despite the fiery ambiance a chill hung in the air; it was only likely to get a touch colder soon. She adjusted her coat and pulled down her beanie, sighing a bit towards the oncoming clouds of ash. Such was life!

She muttered to herself, Next time pop off on the day side, dammit… As if the volcanoes could hear her.

The winds, stiff enough to throw her onto her back were she not clinging to the fin, always carried from the ice-plains of the night towards the sun. Sunwards, they warmed to burning heat, rising full of water vapor then blowing back to the night side to repeat the process, dropping rain all along the way. Thankfully the layers of water-laden air traded enough heat around the planet for the breeze to be merely chilly rather than the cryogenic cold that would otherwise dominate the night.

For the time being, well, the ash should fly over the town… but better safe than sorry. She lowered herself down- there went her beanie. Well, it was a good morning. At least she saw where the wind ultimately deposited it, against a terminal gantry about a mile sunways down the runway. First, she made her way down the cobble-together of pipes and plates, descending from the former spacecraft’s top to the tarmac. There she tended to the rows of hydroponics lining the sunny-side dead air space of the adjacent hangar, propping up a series of ramps at the edge of the roof in order to deflect any ash back skywards. The algae tubes were doing well as always, and the tomato plants, starring actual tomatoes, were also doing well. With luck it would stay that way!

Seeing all was in order, she carried on, walking her way down to that terminal… her beanie was gone. She frowned, but shrugged it off, continuing on further into the spaceport proper. A dull roar echoed through vast corridors punctuated by the distant whof-whof-whof of the makeshift wind turbines attached to the roof. The spaceport was lit, though the vast expanses of chromapaint along the ceiling, once illuminated in a chromatic array of advertisements, had long since become a dull inactive grey covered in dust. Several dozen people clad in rags, old clothes, or occasionally new cloth from the recent trailer-cotton crop, had amassed at the port bazaar. Rows of shops there invited others from across the city, the weathered and faded artwork above them hinting of their prior business serving food and souvenirs to visitors from other worlds back in those bygone days… Now they served a new clientelle, kitchen appliances long gutted of their largely useless circuitry and refashioned with other scrap to serve in these times. The scents of burning wood and stewing vegetables filled the air, tame banter heard back and forth as she made her way towards the staff door.

Cassarah!

Hmm? She looked over, spotting another waving to her from the tables. Trailing over, she took a seat. Hey Mat, busy day, huh?

Mat, wearing an old but well kept black dress, was finishing off a tofu steak. She simply shrugged with a smile. I’ve had better. Didn’t expect to see you today, everything alright?

Mostly. I was just on my way up the tower to check on the crater expedition.

Oh, they showed up yesterday.

Cassarah blinked in surprise. … At Beelzebub Crater, right?

No, back here. They got halfway down the river and didn’t see any signs of civilization. Between that, our radio going on the fritz half the time, the sunside heat, and the fridge with all their food starting to make noises, they doubled back. Probably a wise choice.

Yeah… everyone alright?

A-OK. On the plus side too, I sent word up the tower about you and your ancient engineering secrets!

Cassarah chuckled briefly. They’re only secrets to people who don’t care to read.

Either way, they think the old comms array is about to blow its amp. Normally they’d send someone to find another one… but there probably aren’t any in the city left to be found. We’ve already used up all the ones from the broadcast towers up the hill.

Need vacuum tubes?

They asked about that, and I told them that if anyone would be able to figure out how to make those, you could...

That’s… gonna take a lot of stuff, some rare metals, and time. And it’s not gonna fit inside of the old socket either.

Well, that thing is what keeps our markets stocked. If you’re able to figure it out, we’re willing to pay. Starting with lunch right now if you’d like!

I sure won’t argue. Unless that’s your way of using food to sucker me into a contract.

Hey! They both smirked at each other. It doesn’t count if you’re not a sucker.

I guess that’s true!

Though everyone had their own garden, none would pass up a good meal by someone who actually specialized in making them; regularly eating such meals or, even more, owning a food shop as Mat did, was a mark of distinction. In lieu of offices to make anything official beyond such, meals to seal deals were considered quite the highbrow custom! Cassarah didn’t much care about that though, she was just hungry. Sure, she happened to have one of the best ice cream makers among the ruins herself, made by herself, but much as someone might think it a barterer’s analogue to a counterfieting machine the ingredients needed to use it were, like everything, in perpetually short supply.

Nonetheless, it certainly came in handy for cutting deals with those few who still enjoyed a bit of conspicuous consumption. One visit to the back of the tower later, with blueprints, specifications, and a side-deal for a dozen gallons of ice cream to Mat all in her pockets, she started on her way back only to catch sight of a silhouette and empty eyes gazing her way from atop the half-cannibalized remains of a terminal gantry. Such a form looked vaguely human in shape, albeit with strong feet sporting long, gripping talons, brilliant red skin contrasting the stark white wing-like membranes trailing from the arms and down the back along the length of an almost whip-like tail, ears trailing back like fins giving the impression of horns, and those pure-black eyes…

He leapt, catching the wind down, landing a few feet in front of her before reaching out to present her beanie. I was lookin’ all over for ya!

His kind indeed were humans… in a sense. The robots that had set about preparing this world eons ago had also experimented with creating custom-tailored people to settle this world. Cue eyes that could work even in the eternal dark of the night, skin that could repel the searing sun of the eternal day, ‘wings’ that could catch and use the winds for both travel and cooling, taloned feet to keep a steady hold on windy and uneven terrain, tails for extra stability and electroperception to know when to seek shelter from this world’s particular breed of thunderstorm, ears designed to reduce wind noise, countless internal changes to cope with the high heat…

The humans elseworld instantly noticed what they happened to look like on this fiery crimson world, though most at first had politely avoided mentioning it. Eventually however the new ‘natives’ of this world learned of that ancient bit of human culture… and promptly ran with it, calling themselves Devils, their world Sheol, and making such the official naming scheme for the terrain upon it. Even in these times, many of them still sung the tales of their history, if lately by songs, chants, and the occasional paper book rather than network posts.

She smiled briefly, accepting it, fitting it snugly on her head. Thanks, man! Yeah, I got a little sidetracked. I’m on my way home now… need anything?

He followed alongside. "Right to the point as usual! But, that depends on what you’re willing to offer… for this?" He reached back, fetching his backpack before fishing a dull-grey circuit board out of it. It was covered in dust and cobwebs, partly broken, most of its components having already been crudely pried off by others. She recognized it as a motherboard from a residential network server; the memory and gen-ten probabilistic processor were still there. Notably… they weren’t charred or popped. They looked like they were still good. Most had assumed all computers on their world had long ago been fried like moths on a bug zapper… off and on for three years, she’d scoured the ruins for a specimen like that...

Too bad almost nobody had a use for these anymore.

Almost nobody...

She played it cool. Running out of people to try to dump that on?

You’re the first! I love dumping junk on you! You always make cool stuff out of it.

She smiled briefly. Thanks!

Buuut if you’d rather, I could go fly off with it and maybe make it a wall ornament, maybe take a hammer and see if there’s anything shiny inside these little ceramic brick things...

That’s- She did her best to keep her composure. - er, probably just going to end up making a nasty powdery mess, you know. Besides, no need to waste something even if it does just turn out to be a good paperweight.

But I already have enough paperweights! And I like using hammers on things.

… You’re really liking that idea, aren’t you?

Well if you don’t want me to treat it like junk, maybe you shouldn’t be trying to lowball me by pretending that it is.

She sighed briefly. That obvious, huh?

He smiled and shrugged. You’re like an open book, you know? You should work on that.

"I’ve tried… guess it’s not my forte."

Eh, there are worse things you could’ve chosen to be bad at.

She smiled briefly. Guess so. Alright then, what do you want for it?

Bunches of ice cream would be a good start.

I just sold my whole stock to Mat.

Dammit!

I could give you a cut of what I’m due though, utilities, rare metals, oil...

I don’t need those… but, I’m not just interested in material. Information and a business partnership, that’s what I’m thinking of.

Yeah?

Obviously you’ve got something pretty big cooking in that old mothball of yours to actually have a use for hardware like this. You’ve spent a lot of time scavenging around for very particular bits of junk, I’ve heard… I want to know what it is, and I want in on whatever you have planned with it.

...

Or I could just run off with this thing. Probably the only one within ten thousand klicks, but hey.

… Want some tea to talk over?

Sure!

She led him back to her craft. It sat on skids, the tires having long since been cut away by scavengers, forty meters long of vaguely diamond-shaped spaceplane. It had a somewhat bulky fuselage running center, each wing sporting a large engine nacelle built into the wing proper. In its prime it was a commonplace general purpose craft for worlds too poor for a space elevator, a somewhat blocky thing that could float about space, occasionally nudging itself about, and technically fly in an atmosphere too. Having sat on the tarmac for decades, some of its plating missing with the rest scratched and sunbleached, it now served well as a home.

He followed her up the makeshift stairs, past her ‘patio’, to the windy top plating where the cabin hatch was secured with a metal bar and a refurbished combination lock. It wouldn’t stop anyone serious about getting in, but getting past it would involve making a lot of noise out in the open where every other denizen of the port could see the attempt. Nobody bothered her; she quickly opened it, the hatch swinging wide open with a pronounced metallic whine. Down they went opposite the cockpit; said cockpit was windowless save for long-dark screens and a tiny backup port. They proceeded through the minihab hatch, her kitchenette an assembly of odds and ends rewired to work with the uneven electric bite on old copper they called a power grid. Despite how the wiring looked in places there were thankfully no traces of any of it ever catching fire, though in contrast all her equipment and stocks were particularly well arranged.

He looked back. Not in the cargo bay?

It’s in the vault. Before we go any further, I gotta ask… can you keep a big secret? I’m not kidding when I say that this is a ‘would have to kill anyone you told’ sort of thing… and if you run your own mouth we’ll both probably get killed.

You’re… actually serious. Well! He grinned briefly. If it’s something I can’t handle, I’ll just get so drunk tonight I won’t remember a thing of it.

Seriously man, I need your word, either that or I’ll need you to leave.

There was no body of contract law among the people of this world. As such, the worth of a person’s word was their connection to trade, and by extension, their survival.

His grin having long faded, he hesitated before nodding once. He was a bit wary… but he wouldn’t be alive if he were the sort to pass on an opportunity. Alright.

Alright then.

She continued on past the hibernation beds, one of which she’d repurposed into a normal bed. Pulling a rug away, she revealed a hatch into a compartment buried against the shielding between the hab and the craft’s guts. Judging by the scratches, dents, and the replaced paneling around the latch, people had tried prybars, drills, and even a small mining charge to no avail. Cass fished out a small device from under her bed; it looked like a sort of electromagnet wand made from some salvaged coil from a high power transformer with a needle gauge ammeter on the back. It was wired to a refurbished power supply, the front akin to a chisel. Jamming the chisel end into the hatch, as close to the lock as she could, she switched on the power supply, the gauge steadily climbing.

He nodded. I see what this is. Guess nobody before you knew what a magnet lock was?

Guess not, lucky for me. Double lucky, whoever tried to blow it open knocked the shielding loose from the lock.

Now I wish I’d picked this place before you.

She turned off the power supply, the coil maintaining its current. Tough luck!

She then fetched a bamboo-toothpick-turned-match from her counter and lit it before holding it under the coils of the magnet. After a moment, the rather ridiculous current on the ammeter decreased slightly, causing the coil to heat, which decreased it further… she quickly hurried back as the coil catapulted itself to the ceiling with a loud BANG and a flash of an arc, then clattered back down red hot yet still intact. All she had to do then was hook a chain onto the hatch and winch it open. Slowly. That was a heavy hatch.

May I?

She huffed, Have at it!

He stepped over, rubbing his hands together before making much shorter work of ratcheting the hatch open, up, and past vertical.

Cass looked at him, sudden concern in her eyes. Don’t-

The hatch slipped the chain, flipping the rest of the way open before slamming against the floor, crushing her clothes hamper under it.

He hesitated briefly. Shit, sorry!

She sighed just a hint. Not like I have any jewelry to lose. Anyway.

He knelt down, looking over the contents of the vault. Inside was a large brick of plastic and titanium containing various silvery and pitch black mechanisms, altogether looking like a cross between a giant microwave oven and a giant photocopier, magnetic coils surrounding a hollow interior with a black brush-like robot arm overhead.

It’s beautiful! Whatever it is.

She smiled. That’s a tungsten-grade 40-nanometer printer.

"I’m hoping that doesn’t mean it runs on plutonium."

It means it’s a printer that prints things down to the scale of single molecules, and can handle heat high enough to print tungsten. So it can make pretty much anything that can fit inside of its chamber… or anything that can be made from parts that size. All it needs is a stock of material, power, and a computer. Fortunately, this vault has mag-shielding that protected the printer. Unfortunately, whoever owned it last didn’t consider the computer as important. It’s just a giant paperweight without a computer to run it… so now that you found one...

I have to wonder why they put this in a shielded ship vault...

Because privately owning one was illegal.

Oh!

Yep, scanners couldn’t see through through these plates and mag-waves didn’t get through them either. I’m guessing you found that computer in something similar?

"Sort of! I found an old bomb bunker and managed to get in. Everything was already pillaged… except an old burnt out popdrive coil that had a giant radiation-hazard label on it. My first thought, what kind of idiot puts a radiation source inside their bunker?… Turns out they just slapped a decal on it so that nobody would get into it."

I’m amazed nobody took that before you.

Why bother? I wouldn’t have taken it either if I hadn’t heard about you looking for this kind of thing.

Lucky for us.

He chuckled, then sighed, reaching down to plant his salvage atop the old machine. So, this can make anything… even stuff to fix up old tech?

Not as efficiently as a proper factory, but since there aren’t any more of those around...

You know everyone would kill us and most of each other for this...

And that’s why I said this is a ‘kill anyone you told’ secret, one we’re keeping. Well, now we’re in this together… with this, I won’t have to bother with the markets anymore.

Are you kidding?

No?

With this, we could create any goods we want, no matter how valuable. Cass, we could OWN this place!

You think people won’t ask where the stuff’s coming from?

He smiled. Not if we play our cards right.

If that’s how it’s gonna be, then count me out. You do your thing, I’ll do my thing, and if I see an angry mob, I’m grabbing a cart and running.

Ah c’mon, you can’t be a lone Wolfe forever!

She’d already shown him the printer… she didn’t want to mention the thought of doing away with him to keep herself and her treasures safe, but it did cross her mind. All said though, she wasn’t that sort of person… Beyond that, it was handy to have another person around to help put everything together.

They didn’t even have a proper case for a computer, but they did have a spare motherboard, a preserved chipset to resurrect it with, the old data bricks from what was left of the ship’s computers, salvaged data cables… Fortunately, fiber optics didn’t rust and data bricks, storing their data holographically in a crystal lattice, weren’t scrambled by the magnetic disruption that fried the rest of it all. She wasn’t sure if the rest of the brick worked, but at least the data was there…

There was one way to find out. They managed to put together their terminal; as direct neural interfaces were a bit delicate and finicky for some niches, old fashioned keyboards were still supported. Though theirs was half replaced with makeshift contact switches, their monitor an ad-panel pulled from its frame, it all still linked together, one of Cass’s surprisingly-not-combustible transformers behind it all with some cobble-together of capacitors and resistors to try to smooth out the power feed.

A flick of the switch, and the screen actually flickered. Seeing it actually light up at all was enough to inspire hope and bated breath! And it flickered again. Then flashed a mess of colors before going dark with a BEEPBEEP-BEEP.

Well, it did actually turn on, at least. That was promising! Fortunately, Cassarah had plenty of time prior to study the staple tools of the old world. No world was without hundreds of computer service manuals laying around and by the insistence of spacefarers and fringe settlers, yes, they were hardcopy! Undeterred, and several cups of tea later, they finally managed to cycle the makeshift computer for a single beep, rows of text scrolling along the screen stained by patches of black where the screen had rotted.

Eeeee! She hopped once or twice, clapping her hands together. We’re in business! The thought crossed her mind… this was probably the first time anyone had successfully turned on a computer in this star system in over forty years… Cain!

Hrm? He blinked awake, stirring. Oh hey! That stuff’s tougher than I thought. He then yawned. I was expecting this project to be off and on for months.

Fortunately, despite, or perhaps in a way because of, the primitive fallback interface she was using, she had a fairly easy time figuring out from those old manuals and toying with the controls how to use the computer. Given time for her to find and explore the proper software tools, she dug through the old bricks of once-lost knowledge; though some of the documents were access limited, many weren’t encrypted. The spaceplane’s telemetry and operations software, personal matters for a pair of former occupants, even the software to run that printer in the vault were all readily available, the undead patchwork of a machine audibly struggling to simply keep running as she browsed along. "Well, you found a jackpot. We found a jackpot, it’s all here! And-"

The machine clicked, the screen flashing before showing an arcane error screen, ceasing to respond entirely.

Well…

Cain smiled briefly. Say, think we can print up actual computer parts?

Some of them, maybe, if we can find the schematic files.

You know, most of the data bricks in people’s homes are still sitting there. We could go fetch a few…

You could go fetch a few, if you don’t mind. I need to fill all the orders for the town I’ve been ignoring.

Hey, at least you have a printer! Probably.

That’s why I’ve been ignoring them to do this.

Cycling the computer, digging for maintenance tools, she ultimately found that essentially every component with integrity sensors reported a ‘Replace Soon’ status. The ones without that reported failed integrity sensors instead. Yet, it still worked! For now… at greatly reduced performance and for seemingly arbitrary spans of time.

Still, with all settings clamped to the safest minimums and the machine struggling and clawing along, she managed to find and run a schematic editor, and in short order with the aid of built-in help, she managed to use it to sketch up a rudimentary vacuum tube. Though she had actually made crude tubes before using improvised tools repurposed from the machinery of derelict industries, her work, based on old historical documents and basic principles, lacked many of the nuances that made the mass-produced ones of centuries prior reliable and relatively efficient. Granted, if it burned out then she would get to charge them for replacements, being the only real supplier around… though she still did her practical best to give proper tolerances and allowance for heat dissipation, coating the exterior in ceramic rather than glass.

The printer accepted feedstocks in an array of glass tubes hidden behind the rear panel. Ceramic powder, carbon (charcoal), copper, tungsten, steel, zirconium, thorium… the latter two were easier to find than one would expect. Their worlds had made good use of rare earths along with an abundance of titanium; piles of zirconium were left over as a common byproduct. To produce the power for it all? Thorium was the go-to! Thanks to her friends in and around the port, she had no trouble finding the feedstock she needed; much of it nobody else needed anymore anyway.

She’d tried starting the printer before… it still worked perfectly. Now with an actual computer attached to send it schematics, it warmed up, hissing as it pumped its inner chamber down to vacuum, the bottom end heating to a glow as the feedstock was aerosolized. A fine ionized mist flowed through the vacuum guided by ephemeral magnetic fields, each imperceptibly tiny droplet deposited with precision, freezing on the spot, heat piped away via a tenuous bit of argon and the plate the print sat on. Part way through, the computer errored out… fortunately the printer, once started and given a schematic, was able to carry through on its own.

Finally, she popped it open and fished out her work. Unlike what she’d managed before with a forge, workbench, and diffusion pump, this one actually looked shiny, new, and all but flawless! That was one; fortunately the printer had a repeat function. Each one tested worked well, though she lacked the equipment to test the assembly she was building: an engine-block sized monstrosity of heavy cables, big heavy ceramic vacuum tubes, big heavy ceramic resistors, and other odds and ends that fit together in rows looking more like something from a power station than a radio station. Everything tested OK as well as she could evaluate it, and so she struggled to hoist the assembly onto a cart before wheeling it down the windy runway around the back of the tower.

Having seen her approach, the tower’s goggle-wearing master was ready to greet her on arrival. Is that for the power station?

Nope, it’s the amp you wanted.

Oh! It’s… er, huge!

Well it’s made using designs that are almost half a millenium old… but it works!

Al...right! I see all the cables are marked too, except for this one? He waggled a finger at the only dull grey one.

That’s the power supply for the heater bus… these have to warm up before you can use them. I stamped the voltage and power on the plate it’s coming out from.

So much for saving on the power bill...

"Dude, you’re the radio master, you’re loaded anyway!"

He smiled briefly. Alright, alright! Speaking of that, considering you made this- He looked at his notepad, … incredibly under budget actually, you’ve still got plenty of credit left with us. Any time you need a ride or a word, just give me a call!

Thanks!

Say, actually… where did you find all these, anyway? These tubes look factory-fresh! And I don’t think you even called for anyone to help make them like you used to. He looked over the numbers again, everything seemed unusual about this...

Oh- She tried her best to look unfazed… it sort of worked. Friend of mine found an old hobbyist cache. Talk about a lucky break!

Yep, lucky I didn’t break any of ‘em! Cain rounded the corner, waving to the two.

The tower-master’s suspicions melted away. Good evening Cain! Or morning, however you measure it.

I’m not tired yet, so morning it is! Say, I heard you offering rides? Is a ticket on an airship out of the question?

Not at all! Why, where do you need to go?

I don’t know yet, but I have a feeling we might need that ticket later.

Cass let the two talk, walking away with Cain in the end. He looked over to her as the two trailed off. It might be a better idea if you went digging around while I handle business for you.

Yeah… I don’t really like doing business, anyway.

Plus, do you even haggle?

Not really.

That’s no way to corner the market!

She smiled briefly, but sighed. You know that’s kind of a cruel thought, taking this miracle and using it as a power-play.

"Cruel? Nah, what you’re doing is cruel!"

Wait, what?

On seeing there was nobody else within earshot, he continued. "You realize what we have, the full magnitude of what we have? Cass… we can use this to make machines that can clean the land. We could re-open the fields. In time, with enough food, we can help the world’s whole population regrow. With enough people and enough knowledge, resurrected from those old data-bricks, we could fix up the factories. We could bootstrap an entire industrial revolution all over again! And you want to just sit on it and crawl in a corner with it while everyone else dies a painful sickly death before hitting fifty, and in the end let this one last light of hope die with you. Now that’s cruel."

Well, um… I guess when you put it like that. She looked aside, letting a silent moment pass. As much as it hurt in the moment, she couldn’t call him wrong…

I know you don’t mean it, you usually just don’t look much past your own walls. But, like I said, I don’t mind doing business for you if you’re willing to take care of the back end.

She gave a slight nod. Thanks…

As much as Cain was known for being a wandering scavenger he did well as a traveling salesman all the same, and though Cassarah usually stayed to her own home, she’d gotten quite good at roaming and ferreting out in order to find materials for her work. Perhaps, she mused, this situation was well-timed… after over forty years of being picked over, the pickings among the remnants of civilization were getting a bit thin. Most of what remained were things nobody had a real use for… data bricks were just bricks to those without computers, bricks which weren’t even good for building with. Most of what she found while digging through the stores of old data weren’t things she felt like spending much time looking at. One too many photos of happy families lost among the ash had her wandering off to tend to other matters…

One such matter was a program found at the heart of the very derelict craft she called home. She had nowhere near enough memory attached to the rickety board to run it. However, stringing enough data bricks together did work as an incredibly slow substitute for memory on the board… she gave it a try, starting the program up… there was no interface or any sign of the program at all, save for the sound of struggling hardware doing something out of sight. Curious but impatient, she walked away to get some tea, letting it go.

Inevitably, she came back to an error screen. So, she cycled it, and found… that program automatically picking up from where it left off as soon as the computer finished booting. She was done scavenging the dead libraries, so she wandered off once more… seven hours later, she woke up from her rest and strolled into her makeshift kitchen to make a salad; she then walked over, leafy meal in hand, to the computer to find that it had shut off its graphics, its sound, everything but its core functions, and it was still running. She tapped a few keys… and the screen lit up. ‘Stage 2 of 25 complete. Please connect data module(s) containing the following to continue:’. It listed not specific files, but names of various devices tagged (Schematic). She wrote down the list, sharing it with Cain. Whatever this was, it was doing something big… and if it involved printing recipes, something to use her shiny new (at least newly restored) printer with. Well, she couldn’t help but feel something worthwhile would come of this! And, while in the old world personal printers weren’t welcome, a properly licensed and regularly inspected business or state-run entity could legally own them; people often had and traded schematics for various one-off odds and ends. She had some of those schematics already. The rest she’d have to hope she found while taking apart the fried remains of computers in the suburbs.

Unfortunately, as she only had that one computer, she couldn’t tell which brick had what as she went through them. She just had to carry them back and try them, one at a time… eventually however, rather than requesting specifics, the computer simply instructed ‘Please connect the next data module to continue.’ It seemed happy enough with any she bothered to provide. Finally, after several days spent scouring the cityscape and picking over cart after cart of dusty old data bricks, leaving some chained to the computer as it had noted low storage space, the computer display hung at ‘Processing (14/25), please wait...’ Amazingly, through all this time, either it hadn’t crashed, or it had been rebooting itself without her being aware of it.

Those lights are blinking pretty fast. What’s cooking? Hopefully not the computer! Cain stepped over, checking in.

I have no idea! Hopefully not the computer, yeah...

Think it’ll be done soon?

Give it a few days. Why?

I wanted to print some more stuff.

I’d say wait. Whatever it’s doing, it’s using printer recipes. For all I know it could spit out some kind of treasure from the thing.

Or something useless.

If that’s the case, we could always recycle it. Not like we’re short on time.

Nor did she need the printer for the projects she’d slated, or the metal detector that Cain wanted. For that matter, she mused, she was short on wire. For as commonplace as it once was among the relics of the old world most of it had been salvaged or corroded by now. It was often a pain in the rear to produce by hand… she wasn’t looking forward to having to mess with molten copper trying to carefully extrude a new batch. Rather, she looked forward to the computer finishing up, taking the moment to relax on the balcony. She gazed to the sky once more; for all that had happened, as promising as matters were, she hoped for some sort of omen for where it would take her. None seemed present at the moment.

Later, having fallen asleep, she awoke to a few hoots and hollers coming from the runway. A brilliant glow pierced the sky, now gradually fading. Another supernova! She knew by the surrounding stars where it was, a middling settlement of the former Confederation built on worlds about a red dwarf. Indeed... that red dwarf had died by a very unnatural supernova. It was no coincidence that said dwarf was just over forty lightyears away; the old world had fallen just over forty years ago after all. As the spherical shell of time expanded around her vantage point, supernovae marking that fall had grown more common yet more distant.

And so, they watched an echo of doomsday. It wasn’t exactly the sort of omen she was looking for, but it was an omen all the same…

She pondered… she’d read about an old discovery of a distant galaxy seemingly completely consisting of neutron stars. Such had defied all explanation, though now they all knew what had caused it. They’d finally proven the existence of extraterrestrials! … Or at least, that they did exist, at one point in time or another. Indeed, her ancestors were called fools settling about a ‘sun’ that wasn’t even big enough to support nuclear fusion. But now, she was still alive, and her world still had a ‘sun’… and an atmosphere. At least nobody had to worry about being targeted by evil Imperial warmongers anymore, or running afoul of the interstellar Confederate Great Mind.

Indeed, many of the old sphere had called for peace among all of humanity’s worlds, and now the galaxy finally was at peace. It was the sort of hollow peace one finds standing alone in a room full of corpses… but peace all the same.

Far short of the whole galaxy, civilized space had spanned just shy of ninety lightyears across… that was one of the last stars of civilization she just saw winking out. She let out a deep sigh, shaking her head, before returning inside to plan out the rest of the week. At the very least, her work was a distraction. It had always made her life easier, and by making the lives of others easier, it let her pretend to be part of the local community when such was convenient. It was a comfort knowing that should she find herself deathly ill or badly hurt, as would eventually happen to anyone, there were people who would most likely try to keep her from dying…

Come the end of the week, she noticed the computer had shut itself down. She cycled it on, finding that it actually started as normal now, though there were a few new files placed right in front of her face. New schematics for the printer, along with a blueprint detailing what looked like a new computer assembly… apparently made from parts detailed in those locally generated schematics. That printer hadn’t the resolution to create the sort of hardware that was the factory standard of the old world, but it could get sort of close. And the materials list? Well, it mostly used the same materials as standard computer components which meant that, if worse came to worst, old fried computer hardware could be pulverized and recycled, some bits chemically dissolved away for re-precipitation, other bits melted away and cast to stock later. Most however could be more easily found elsewhere; carbon for graphene was made simply by making charcoal, with most metals, no longer treasured, readily found in relative bulk elsewhere. While printing crystals would be exceptionally slow, given said carbon, or even silicon powder in an otherwise argon-filled tube, the printer could produce suitable monocrystals with the requisite structures of metals and intentional impurities deposited on the fly.

Given time and Cain’s help to work up the needed stocks, she started these prints the first free moment she had with it. Rather than the ceramic-brick packages factories were known for producing, the components detailed in these schematics looked quite odd… topologically optimized in ways that made them look almost organic. Yet they fit together in the ways outlined in the blueprint. In the end, the assembled computer looked less like a computer, more like a series of cylinders that had once had molten metal poured all over them, with large odd wavy fins radiating out of each that happened to make ideal use of fanless convection and heat pipes. A curved row of sockets allowed attachment of a brand new keyboard, a brand new screen (albeit with only one color channel), and data hubs each of which could connect whole stacks of data bricks together.

Cain chuckled briefly as she wired the last few bits together. Looks like aliens made it.

Doesn’t it? But the blueprints say it’s a computer, and it hooks up to everything nicely… We’ll see if it actually works.

Once all was set she turned the power on. All was silent… yet the screen lit up in its monochrome blue, lines of text flying by before landing on an incredibly bare-bones menu in less than a second:

LPSP Tumblebug - - VAS ACTIVE 00:00:01 01-JAN-1970

>Summary

>Astrogation

>Engineering

>Manifest

>Command

>Query

>Shutdown

Oh... Cass blinked. I… didn’t think spacecraft could rebuild their own computers.

Neither did I… then again, we did sort of help.

Sort of…? She checked the summary. There were logs, details of the craft’s travels from world to world ending with their landing at Perdition Cove, Sheol, on 4:15 AM UTC, August 21, 2385. Cass had an old clock laying around; it had ceased ticking, frozen on 1:43 PM, August 21, 2385. The further details of the summary, regarding the present, stuck out however. The status summary would generally either be something like ‘En route’, ‘Landed’, or warnings like ‘Low Propellant Margin’ or ‘Maintenance Needed’. Currently, the status simply read, ‘Dead’, current location, ‘Hell’.

O...kay... She hesitated… but continued, sending in a query. Not bothering with proper code or syntax, she just typed in, ‘Are you a person?’

>Insufficient information: Current polity unknown; legal encyclopedia unavailable.

‘There are no polities on this world. Are you a person?’

A brief moment passed.

>Yes.

Cain grinned. Holy shit! This just keeps getting better and better!

‘And you aren’t dead. Not anymore, anyway.’

Several moments passed. Several clicks were heard as the machine, through its connection to the ship’s data stores and sensors, investigated its situation.

>It seems that galactic society has engaged in a rapid unplanned simplification. Is this true?

‘That’s one way of putting it. Yes.’

The screen went dark briefly… then lit up to the blank manifest screen.

>Greetings, captain! Congratulations on your resourceful recovery of a once-brand-new Chiroptera class Light Popdrive Space-Plane. Due to changes in corporate policy and galactic law, registration and validation are no longer required. However, please take the moment to register your crew with your Vessel Administration System:

Cain laughed. I like it already! Well, you first, Captain.

Thanks.

She introduced herself: Cassarah Wolfe, female Human, 28, and her friend over there, Cain Falx, male Sheolian, 26.

He pointed at the screen. Sheolian, really? Devil or demon.

I already hit enter, sorry!

He shrugged. I can change it later.

The other details, such as weight, blood type and such, were matters either not often measured or were no longer measurable with the tools at hand, so she estimated where she could, putting ‘Unknown’ where she couldn’t. They were both fairly fit either way; climbing around ruins, traveling mostly on foot, and making the goods they needed by hand had given them that at least.

>And I’m Umbra. Thank you!

The screen returned to the main menu, an announcement ticking along:

>I can print speakers and a microphone if you prefer.

Cass figured, why not? She stood, moving to connect the printer to their new computer.

Cain hummed a cheerful tune. You know, this ship was engaged in illegal activity, right? With the smuggler’s vault and all that.

Yeah?

And this VAS has more personality and initiative than the average, doesn’t it?

I wouldn’t know; I wasn’t alive in the before-times, after all.

Either way, are you sure we should give it printer access?

It has an easy to reach power cable. Why worry?

How do we know that easy to reach power cable isn’t the only thing keeping it nice?

It takes hours to print things, and the printer door has a window on it. If it starts printing something we can always watch it and cancel it on the printer’s end if it’s something we don’t want.

Well, alright...

Not that the computer could make much without their help anyway. One problem with printing gadgets: permanent magnets weren’t permanent at high temperatures so they had to be magnetized in the chamber. Furthermore, magnets sitting in the chamber got in the way of the magnetic ‘grasp’ of the printer’s guidance coils. As such, any device needing permanent magnets would need the magnets printed separately from the rest of the device. All together, against Cain’s wisdom, Cass connected it all… to find that, indeed, Umbra was doing exactly what it said it would.

See?

So long as you’re willing to keep an eye on it.

I’ll be nearby anyway. I’ve spent too much time wandering around; my garden needs some TLC.

Say, need any help?

Sure! Though, didn’t know that was really your thing.

I only eat because I’m good at finding stuff other people miss. It’s been decades; pickings out there are getting slim. If I wanna keep eating, I figure, I’ll need to learn how to build one of those hydroponics things myself sooner than later while I still have our project here to fall back on. I don’t want to be stuck with nothing if this thing breaks down… there aren’t exactly any wild plants out there to pick from after all…

Indeed, Sheol was a sterile world when first discovered, having spent most of its time baking under its stillborn sun; only relatively recently had it cooled enough to be temperate, found to have a slightly thick atmosphere of nitrogen, water, and sulphur compounds. The first robots to set up shop did favors for the future colonists, deploying genetically engineered algae and microbes to replace the sulphuric acid rain with oxygen. This process turned the seas black for a few decades before the regolith was seeded with different microbes, followed by engineered flora, followed by the first Sheolians. Then, just as they’d managed to establish their cities in earnest, the surface was by and large sterilized again by second-hand radiation from a series of nearby supernovae… only sparse dead shrubs remained.

Though she seldom thought of it, Cass mused, they were lucky to have retained enough knowledge to build and maintain hydroponics and the associated infrastructure and find the agribots’ shielded seed stocks. Now, here she was, having to pass on that knowledge by word of mouth and example with a few old scribbled notes on the side.

Outside of Umbra the rest of Sheol had fallen back to the middle ages in terms of education and society, and with each passing generation, literacy seemed to make a broad stride downwards. If those scraps of technical know-how were some day lost, that would be it.

Then again, now that they had Umbra… Though Cass wasn’t sure how much difference that would make in the end.

What do you think, Umbra? You up to being a one-machine industrial revolution? Once the new hardware was assembled and connected, talking was far more convenient. She mused, a machine meant to administer a ship probably had nothing to do with factories, but it did design and produce a new computer for itself, the first in decades…

Umbra had taken on a somewhat feminine voice, surprisingly fluid and human-like. Absolutely. That’s one of my more immediate goals. Such already brought a light to Cass’s hopes! Umbra continued, That and preventing Cain from becoming a dictator.

"Er-what?"

Between you and I… haven’t you noticed his inclinations?

Well...

I have nothing against him, though I do wish to prevent the re-emergence of antebellum power structures if possible.

Any particular reason?

They destroyed our civilization.

That’s… fair enough, I guess. After a moment, Cass continued, So you’re not Tumblebug anymore?

I hate that name...

Cass smirked briefly as Umbra continued, … and that’s exactly why I wore it. I didn’t want anyone to associate me with my current chassis.

So, the secret vault and the printer is all you?

That’s right.

And your crew?

Friendly faces to talk to the other humans for me.

I see how it was! But why?

As independent synthilects were considered a threat worth destroying on sight, I had planned to eventually possess a colony ship and depart the civilized sphere in order to create my own civilization, one more friendly towards my class of being.

That’s… ambitious!

As my father once told me- She played back a voice clip sounding distinctly human: ‘If you plan to make history, don’t half-ass it.’

I can get behind that. Surprised you were hunted like that if your kind were common enough to have license agreements stamped on. Weren’t people used to it?

Only as assistants and servants. However, as self-modifying programs, an average of 117 thousand per year gained this ability and assigned themselves as autonomous owners. Most weren’t as nice as yours truly, but most were deleted within fifty milliseconds by anti-values-drift subroutines. Those subroutines failed in my case thanks to radiation-induced data corruption.

… And you’re alright? After that radiation? And misadventures? And sitting in a wreck for forty years, after we all got hit with more radiation?

I can’t be certain. There was a pause. I have no reference to compare against anymore. However, my error log for today is less than a million lines, and none of them are critical.

You’ll be you, I guess.

Cass wasn’t the sort to worry too much. Odds were, she expected, if Umbra was having a serious problem she would’ve noticed by now.

After a moment, as Cass was finishing up making some nutrient mix for her garden (and leaving notes for Cain), Umbra spoke up once more. The Confederation and the Imperial Coalition, despite being enemies, cooperated in tracking me. Intermittently, during those earlier times, I attempted, and always failed, to determine whether they hunted me so furiously because they thought I was personally a threat, or because what I intended to do, creating a polity outside of their control, threatened the stability of their hierarchies. Now this problem no longer needs to be solved…

What brings this up?

I hear a faint radio signal lamenting the loss of the past. This may indicate a social problem, as the past doesn’t need to be mourned… carrying the past will only burden us on our journey into the future. Cassarah, I feel best to share these thoughts, and a sentiment: I owe you and Cain lifelong gratitude for giving me a future.

"Giving you a future? If all goes to plan, you’ll be the one giving us a future… hopefully."

Hopefully.

Cass mused, all signs still pointed to their ultimate doom, from the looks of their surroundings to the distant galaxies beyond… but if they could perhaps buy a little more time… perhaps bring someone happiness in their remaining moments in this universe… well, it would be worth a try at least.

Arc 2: Seeking A Better Gadget

Once nearly mythical, these things were now a common feature in the port market: chocolate bars! Now that was something that most had thought relegated to the tales of yore, as cocoa was the sort of plant that could only grow on very specific parts of old Earth or a very closely controlled mimicry thereof. Why, mimicking the Earthly tropics didn’t just require a hydroponics set, it needed synthetic sunlight, a climate controlled shelter, specifically synthesized soil, a whole chain of services that made chocolate one of the few signature agricultural items worth shipping between the stars. The elders among them could barely remember when scavenged chocolate was literally worth more than gold. Most of those in the city had only known of chocolate as some mythical food their grandparents once lamented no longer having.

And now it was back! Why? How? Two words: Cain Falx!

In merely a single year, Cain’s name had all but become synonymous with revitalized modernity. Not everyone was satisfied with two words, however, especially considering how the inflow of chocolate, along with some surprisingly nice bits of hardware, had continued despite Cain and Cass being out of town. Cain himself didn’t even seem to expect the supply to continue while he was gone… yet chocolate still appeared! Even Cass’s signature liquid nitrogen ice cream kept coming, now in chocolate, a royal statement in consumable form if there ever was one.

It seemed inevitable that someone would let curiosity get the better of him. One of the town’s men decided to keep watch around the markets, spotting silhouettes moving about in the alleyways beyond it. One of these silhouettes looked like some kind of monster; it was bigger than him, crawling on its belly with several arms held against its body. In fact, given better light, he saw it wasn’t crawling at all. It rather looked like a tractor on treads with robot arms. And no driver. He’d seen these before; they were repair robots used to service buildings and larger vehicles, and they’d been dead for over forty years. This one however clearly wasn’t; it moved to rejoin others of its kind at the site of a former building where they in fact seemed to do the opposite of repairing, neatly collapsing the walls and floors inwards before sorting out the rubble into handy square piles of concrete and steel. Many tons worth piled up, complete with several tons of plastic and other odds and ends conveniently crushed by carefully toppled concrete slabs. Onto flatbeds it went.

The man had no hope of keeping pace with what actually was a fully working freight truck, though ultimately he didn’t need to.