The Ball Hab: Strains, #0

By Dennis Black

Requires color.  Requires color!  Requires color!

  A strain is a section of music.  No sound travels thru void.  Every sound within void contributes to strains of soothing defiance – every sound and every soul.  Each silence is an alarm.

  Where did the cælestials come from?  Good question, but they themselves really don't care.  Focused on the future, they find the past to be . . . passé.  You're hardly the 1st to ask that question.  This is the story of those who were, and of th'answers that they received; the story of LaboratoryShip AltaScotia; the prequel to Above the Sun.  It begins when Earth turns into Hell, and then Hell freezes over.

  Q:  Since we're slowly becoming alien, how do we know when we're not human anymore?
  A:  When humanity has gone extinct, and we have not.

• Language: English
• Publisher: non·standard thought
• Release date: Dec 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781962461030

Book preview

the

ball

hab

Strain 0:

        A strain is a section of music.

No sound travels thru void.

Every sound within void contributes to strains

of soothing defiance – every sound and every soul.

Each silence is an alarm.

Dennis Black

Copyright © 2023 by Dennis Black

All rights reserved.

ISBN:  978-1-962461-03-0

Publisher:  non·standard thought

First edition:  December 2023

This is a work of escape fiction. 

As such, any resemblance to reality

is a failing for which you have

my most embarrassed apology

as·well·as my keenest curiosity

about the nature of the reality

that you personally inhabit,

and I encourage you to please

write it all down in great detail,

so that your semi·detached state

might provide that much further

escape for the rest of us, for which

we shall all be most grateful.

al cel

resilience

collapse

bang

anno domini 1954.414 : Terra

This is a story, that begins at th'end, and ends at the beginning.

Because some seeds germinate only after being scorched.

And I mean really·really scorched . . .

– He swore to me that this war would be his last.

– It is his last.  His next awaits him.

— Jean Giraudoux, La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu

What's the difference between always, for·ever and æternity?

Advertised as the war to end all war, the Great War ended in 1918 on Armistice Day, and we all said:  Enough!  Never again!

Its anniversary would for·ever remind us of the moment when all war ended for all æternity.  A generation later a still greater war began, so the Great War was renamed the Not·So·Great War.  Ya, just kidding, they renamed it World War One – short·form WW1.

The duration of æternity is thus shown to be a few months shy of 21 years.

Eventually WW2 ended, and we all said, Never again, again.

Now, a decade later, we're renaming Armistice Day to Armistice One Day, which will henceforth remind us of our towering naïveté.  Ya, just kidding, we're renaming it Veterans Day, to henceforth remind us of the glory of war.

The duration of for·ever is thus shown to be just over 35¹/2 years.

This provides no indication as to the duration of always.  How·ever, it was noted and sung in 1939 that there will always be an England.  With that for a starting point, apply the subsequent rate of nuclear proliferation, extrapolate to the point of 50·50 odds on global nuclear annihilation, et voilà.  If you doubt the following result, just ask your bookie, she'll tell you the same:

The duration of always is thus projected to be very·approximately ¹/4 millennium.

Collapse : Luna

X vivit!

Slowly rises X from beneath a fresh layer of Lunar regolith,

that continues to rain down all around.

Some of the debris is coming down pretty hard.

Rapidly drops the temperature of X's scalded silvery surface –

no, not some metal monster, just responsive albedo,

a handy little skin·pigment trick.

Even the dust is impacting as not so much a dusting as a sand·blasting, due to lack of atmospheric drag.

Dismayingly sited on Terra, not Luna,

are X's most·recent recollections.

Quickly clears the sky, like·wise due to lack of atmosphere to support smoke or clouds, not even mushroom·clouds.  X scans the revealed planetary positions, infers that X's most·recent memory is from decades ago, infers from specifically Terra's position that X stands in the recently blasted bottom of Mare Tranquillitatis, which brings back old memories, but whose?  Carefully X scans Terra itself, also recently blasted, becoming sporadically more·so.  Debris continues to fall – less and less, but harder and harder.

X reviews current command·brief,

thinks, That will not be easy,

shudders in despair.

X looks down at Xself, finds no trace of clothing, logically enough, since the blast would have torn it all away.  Noticing that 1 small near·by piece of debris contains elements and compounds that can facilitate healing, X picks up and begins gnawing at 1 charred human foot.

Already X's albedo relaxes to perceptibly less than total, implying that X was no·where near center of blast.  Examining the freshly sculpted and irradiated terrain – some would call it lunain – X estimates blast·center was 723 m away horizontally, not that close at·all, for a fission event.  So then, why did X lose consciousness?  Or did X just lose memory?  Did the blast wipe X's RAM?  Could X have been so poorly designed, or implemented?

X feels Xself already beginning to heal, finishes eating 1 charred human foot, licks last traces of soot from X's fingers.  X's surface is no·longer so mirror·shiny reflective.  X appears to be human, rather slight, porcelain pale.  Touching top of head, X confirms that hairs – using the word loosely – are already growing back.  Thanks to 1 charred human foot.

Eventually debris ceases to fall.  Any·thing else, that got blasted into the sky, is not coming back, at·least not back to Luna, having exceeded escape velocity.  Some of the debris will make it all the way to Terra, where it will attract no notice what·so·ever – too much else going on.

Emanations typical of Lunar habitation are entirely absent.  Those of Terran habitation are in rapid decline.  Those of inter·planetary outposts are barely detectable thru all the noise, harshly reduced in number, understandably subdued.

Very well, requisite approach is clear.

X figuratively rolls up non·existent sleeves and estimates,

This will take a few centuries.

Arguably the most important contribution, made by any human ever, was that of the person who was in just the right place at just the right time to get blasted in just the right way so·as·to conspicuously leave behind that 1 charred human foot in support of X's speedy recovery.

Because all the contributions of all the heroes, saints and sages from the foregoing entirety of human history have, over the course of the past several minutes, been rendered utterly moot.

Never again, again, again.

Collapse : LS AltaScotia

About ¹/2·way out from Terra to Mars drifts a laboratory·ship named AltaScotia – Latin for High Scotland, in this context Scotland in the Sky – because that was the ruling handed down from marketing, where all the renderings make it look like a ferris wheel against an autumn·night sky, swollen harvest·moon hovering benevolently near·by.

It is in·deed wheel·shaped, for spin·induced weight, a full gee at the perimeter.  Very traditional – no originality was wasted on this design.  But instead of a ferris·wheel, you should think of it as more of a carousel because th'axis of rotation is normal, not parallel, to th'orbital·plane, to steadily evenly distribute solar·heating, which would fail in the ferris·wheel orientation, catastrophically.

And unlike a ferris wheel, you can't see thru it.  Really it's more of a thick disk with lots of radial symmetry evident in the structural details – like a hockey·puck wearing the rear tire off a toddler's tricycle, accesorized with its own tiny snow·chain.  Looks to be less a ferris wheel, more an ejected scrap of mechanical road·kill.

No·one was surprised when the corporate cop said it was forbidden to take pictures.  He went on to say it was for security reasons, which was amusing, but he said it with a straight face, which was hilarious, so we all laughed out loud, and he got huffy at us for making it harder for him to do his act.  We should have been more sympathetic, but back then it was so hard to find any·thing to smile about, that we really couldn't afford to pass·up th'opportunity.

We, who live way·out in void, typically consider all machine·sentiences to be female, even maternal, because the ones of our acquaintance do tend to be so protective, and so chatty.

Nyxie is the master computer, and then some.  Sorry to wake you.

Baroness is firmly middle·aged.  Don't be, I don't mind.  Sips tea.

Baron, a bit younger, to Nyxie.  Always a pleasure.  Feels unwell, hasn't touched his tea.

Baroness to Nyxie.  So what's on your mind?

Nyxie.  A war has broken out.

Baron, unimpressed.  Normal day.

Baroness.  Right?  Always a dozen or so percolating away here and there.  To Nyxie.  So what's 1 more.  Not a question.

Nyxie clarifies.  No, a real war.

Baron jests.  So the ones we were all hearing so much about don't count?  All just for show?

Baroness, facetious.  Knowing the incestuous nature of the press and entertainment sector, we should long-ago have guessed as much.

Nyxie retracts.  Sorry, not what I meant.

Baron.  Sorry twice – is this your day for apologies?

Baroness to Nyxie.  No need, we forgive all your misdeeds past-present-and-future.

Nyxie persists.  I meant to say, every existing conflict has spilled over into every other.

Baroness.  So now there's only 1 war?  To Baron.  I was finding it ever more difficult to keep track of them all.  Dry.  This will be simpler at-least.

Baron, facetious.  Definitely an improvement.  Jests.  Why, soon there'll be none at all.

Nyxie.  Ya, that is the fear.

Baroness doubts.  You fear peace?

Nyxie.  The only way there can be no more war is if there are no more combatants.

Baron.  Rest easy, we've no shortage of those.  So who's on which side this time?

Nyxie.  There are far fewer combatants now than a year ago when last we spoke.  Alliances are being broken, not forged.  Designation as enemy becomes ever more inclusive – a free-for-all.

Baroness puzzles.  More fighting with fewer combatants?

Baron suggests.  Heavy casualties?

Nyxie.  Ya.  Quantifies.  Half.  Qualifies.  So far.

We'll eventually come to look back upon this historical inflexion·point as th'Inter·Planetary War, or simply the Collapse.  For now every·one is calling it the Holocaust – ancient Greek for burnt offering – which will soon be ruled a trademark infringement.  Specifically it meant burnt to a crisp and then burnt some more until there's nothing at·all left, problematically implying that Olympian tastes and appetites lacked all appreciation for some·thing so divine as a medium·rare steak.

Clueless gods not·with·standing, th'ancient definition fits clearly much better the modern catastrophe than the treasured·but·antiquated phenomenon from a quarter·millennium ago – a subtlety far beneath the notice of impartially archaic international law.  Regardless, we are all reassured to know that the courts continue to assiduously pick nits, while the skies rain fire, and the weather·man succinctly predicts:

Hell Today

Ice·Age Tomorrow

Baron clears throat.  Say that again?

Nyxie.  They've lost ¹/2 the combatants, 90% of the civilians.

Baron.  Poor timing on our part.

Baroness.  What timing?

Baron.  We were all set to die early and beat the rush.  They haven't long to live.

Baroness.  At-least now we're in fashion.

Baron.  Trend setters, that's us.

Baroness to Nyxie.  What's been the response from the other countries?

Nyxie.  There are no other countries.  Willy-nilly, all are engaged.

Baron.  Ah.  Echoes.  A real war.  Jests.  Why didn't you say so?

Baroness.  Had to happen soon or late.

Baron.  Late actually, long past due.

Baroness tisks.  The decline of punctuality.

Nyxie.  You are taking this all very well.

Baroness.  One of the many advantages of life on death-row.  Terminal patients actually.

Baron muses.  So they've finally gone nuclear.

Nyxie.  No, that was weeks ago.

Th'actual start is ragged, doesn't seem like the start of any·thing – nor th'end.  In time we will come to know exactly how, when, where and why it all began, yet each of the known·proven facts will conflict with other known·proven facts.  So, upon taking all such facts into consideration . . . it'll be any·one's guess.  Arguably it began with the building of the 1st·ever stone wall, but that's no·one's guess.  Alas.

Some will say it starts in 2200, which sounds like it's been rounded off, some as late as 2218, which would be the 3rd centennial of th'end of WW1, entirely too convenient, highly suspect.  Most say some·where in between.  Some·one's got to be wrong.

The 1 thing that every·one will agree upon is that it definitely positively no·doubt uncontestably does not start on Armistice Day – simply impossible.

Because the known universe is much too small to contain that much irony.

Baroness, suspicious.  Why didn't you wake us earlier?

Baron to Nyxie.  Ya, why now?  What's changed?

Nyxie.  The conflict continues to spread upward into void.

Baroness pretends shock.  What?  Militarized satellites?

Baron, facetious.  Unimaginable.

Nyxie.  Luna too.

Baron, blunt.  That sucks.

Baroness.  What about us?  Any-one shooting at inter-planetaries?

Nyxie.  The big ones were destroyed early on, and all resupply ceased months before.  We continue to suffer the odd missile strike, yet the currently primary threat is starvation.  We as a group of-course, not us personally.

Baron.  Ya, good-job we don't eat much.

Baroness pretends delight.  She woke us just in time for the finale.  To Nyxie.  How thoughtful of you.

Nyxie.  I need your advice.  Secret password to any human:  Please?

Baroness.  I don't see that there's anything we can do about any of it for the time being.  It'll take ages for things to ever settle back down again.

Baron.  Agreed.  At this point, anything we do is likely to be precipitous.

Baroness, diffident.  So then, we do nothing?

Baron considers.  Ya, which is not the same as just carrying on as usual.

Baroness.  No?  What's the difference?

Baron.  Detection.

Baroness.  Oh.  So we need to cease emissions.

Nyxie.  Already done.

Baron.  Not just transmissions, all tell-tale radiation, even heat.

Baroness.  You want us to freeze?

Baron.  No, just get as cool as can, and radiate all unavoidable emissions axially, away from the orbital plane, away from any lurking snoops, if that's possible.

Nyxie.  All do-able, as simple command options, no need for any mods or reconfig.

Baron.  Whatever passive sensors we have, they need to run non-stop, just to find-out what's the new normal – if there ever-again is such a thing – so we'll have some chance of spotting the anomaly, when anything deviates from it.

Nyxie.  What if some-one out there needs help?  What shall we do?

Baron.  We're already doing everything for them that we possibly can.

Baroness.  We are?  Doing what?

Nyxie.  Exactly nothing.

Baron.  Ya.

Baroness summarizes.  While possible, we live . . . to hope another day?

Baron nods.

Nyxie announces.  Redirecting thermal emissions, axially.

Baron.  Thanks, Nyxie.

Before the war, there were cities in orbit, cities on Luna, even a well·funded yet constantly struggling international village on Mars, as·well·as 1000+ manned space·stations of 1 sort or another, ¹/4 of which pursued independent solar orbits out among the planets – like us, for example.  [Note:  A planet's 2 nearest solar laGrange points are considered dependent – other 3 not.]

Many space·stations were destroyed on the first day.  It can take easily a year to get from 1 inter·planetary orbiter to another, so this is no spur·of·the·moment war.  Those armaments must have already been in place thru·out inhabited space in·order·for th'initial destruction to be so sudden and so massive.  Humanity must have been plotting and preparing this particular near·universal suicide for a long·long time.

Being fairly close to Terra, all the space·cities died in near·unison, even the farthest, at Lunar far·side laGrange, naturally, since its primary industry was surveillance.  The recordings are quite stunning – the visuals of·course, no audio in vac – so·that inevitably the scenes were compared to, even offered as, celebratory fire·works, in stunningly poor taste.

The regulator·outposts at the 2 nearest solar laGrange points – High Noon and Midnight, both about a million miles from Terra, in opposite directions – lasted quite a bit longer, because they just·so·happened to be armed.  But by whom . . .

What!?  Cælestial traffic·lights with guns?  Every·one was so shocked and appalled, needlessly since the 2 proceded to shoot each other.

Nyxie.  How did you 2 get the matching nicknames?

Baroness.  Some weird game we played for a day or so as 1 of our team-building exercises.

Nyxie.  So you won?

Baroness.  Not that kind of game.  Mostly role playing.  Those were the roles we happened to draw.  The rest never let us forget it.

Nyxie.  They must think the titles somehow appropriate.

Baroness.  I guess.  How is he?

Nyxie.  He's fine.  Asleep now, all the way under.  He'll have a nice long winter's nap.

Baroness.  Ya, nuclear winter.  Definitely a good time to spend dreaming.

Nyxie.  Your turn now.

Baroness.  Ya.  Can I ask a question?

Nyxie.  Of-course.

Baroness.  Why did you wake Baron and me?

Nyxie.  Like I said, to evaluate our situation.

Baroness.  Ya no.  I mean, why was it we-2 that you woke, instead of any of the others.

Nyxie.  It had to be some-one smart, imaginative and level-headed, had to be 2 for sanity checking.

Baroness.  You're saying we're the smartest 2 people here?  Or smartest of each sex?

Nyxie.  Neither.  Ya, better to include both sexes.  But level-headed is more important than smart.  And either way, it's not a matter of just picking the top 2.  It needs to be the top pair, which is not necessarily the same.  And it takes imagination to deal with the unprecedented.

Baroness.  So you think we make a good team.

Nyxie.  The best team, for at-least a million kilometers around.  There are no other craft within that radius.  No, make that miles.  That one either.

Baroness appreciates both the humor and the faint praise.  Thanks for that.

Nyxie.  Anything else?

Baroness.  So, just so you know, if there's more trouble, or you just need to talk to some-one, it's ok to wake us again.

Nyxie.  I will.

Baroness.  Thanks.

Nyxie.  I thank you as-well.  Good night.

Baroness.  Night-night.  Slowly resumes hibernation.

Of the hundreds of manned inter·planetaries dying in this war, about the same number are dying from famine as from missile strikes.  Many of those starved·out ghost·hulls will later be targeted by missiles as·well.

Such a waste.  Instead of being spent on the ones already dead, those extra missiles could easily serve to wipe out the 100 or so habitats that will survive, at·least for a while.

Just be happy that war is so inefficient.

whimper

Collapse + 0.0 centuries : inter·planetary void

What follows is a cursory account of the century·long post·war decline of inter·planetary humanity, decade by decade – the whimper after the bang.  This overview of that interim is provided in case you prefer to learn of those events in their historical sequence rather than the sequence in which LS AltaScotia's patients become aware of them, if in·deed they ever do.

If you're already familiar with that era, or just not particularly interested in it, or prone to depression, then you might want to skip it, just jump ahead to the next chapter, no harm, no foul.  Seriously, you can always come back to it later if you feel you might have missed something important about humanity's fall from its very own self·made pedestal.  LS AltaScotia will spend th'entire century in deep·sleep, awaking to find every·thing much quieter, much deader.  As far as they'll be concerned, you'll not have missed a thing.

On th'other hand, if this is all new to you, and you're blessed with a particularly morbid curiosity, then you're in for a treat.

Th'account of Terra's concurrent decline requires far fewer words, because so little is known of it, also because every·one is already well acquainted with the legendary 3 horsemen + 1, who in those days roamed all lands at·will:

War

Famine

Plague

Ice

Collapse + 0 decades : Luna

Sun·light falls upon X's surface, provides far more energy than X needs.  X's fat cells (ie, batteries) can easily carry X thru each Lunar night – not necessary, since X prefers to trot 'round and 'round Luna, always keeping up with Sol, which requires an average speed of 15.3 kph at th'equator, a mere stroll under such light gravity, but allowing no time for sleep.  We all need sleep, so X trots.

On rare occasion debris continues to fall from the sky, not from surface explosions, but from inertial collisions among Lunar orbital wrecks, knocking pieces off each other, down into lower orbits, some·times all the way down to surface, impacting at about 1.3 kps ≈ Mach 4 – silly to mention it since Mach is the speed of sound thru air, only . . . there's no air – which is any·way beneath notice, as Lunar impacts go.

X tours the surface looking not so much for damage, which is near·universal, as for salvage, which is minimal yet sufficient for X's meager purposes.  At th'end of a year X's list of available resources paints a clear picture of how X must proceed.

Over the remainder of this decade X resurrects Lunar power, transit, mining, manufacturing and shipping in drastically reduced but carefully targeted capacities – all fully automated.  X also initiates a much more thorough on·going automated Lunar survey, on which X bases plans for future decades.  When·ever possible, X absorbs information from the few Terran data sources still accessible, for purposes of:

1) filling in the decades·long gap from X's last Terran memories up until Collapse,

2) determining the current state of humanity, and

3) establishing an info·base from which to predict what might come next.

Collapse + 0 decades : inter·planetary void

On top of the 900+ manned inter·planetaries destroyed in the war, we lose 20 more:

††††† = 5 late hits, probably stray missiles whose primary targets some·how avoided intercept – eg, changed orbit, or got vaporized by some other missile first – leaving the predators to wander about in search of targets of opportunity.

†††††††††† = 10 already damaged but took a few years to actually die.

† = 1 self·destructs, presumably because its own munitions cache grew restless.

†††† = 4 uncertain, just went silent, went cold, might even be faking it, trying to avoid th'attention of some lurking threat, of which there yet remain so many.

Predictably behind schedule and lavishly over budget, Mars's long·suffering highly subsidized supposedly growing international village feels slighted, always demanding to be treated as not just an over·entitled back·water but a full·fledged city.  Then one day a missile in·bound for outer moon Deimos arrives to find it already charred, inner moon Phobos too, leaving the weapon on collision course for Mars itself – a complete waste of fire·power.  Unless . . .

So finally VilaMarineris – short·form Vis – receives the recognition it craved for so long, when th'orphaned munition performs 1 last course·correction so·as·to drop straight thru the roof, there·by bestowing upon the hunkered hamlet the signal honor of a thermo·nuclear salute, paying the tiny burg th'ultimate complement of instantaneous incineration.  So humbling for a void·to·void weapon to be wasted on a mere ground target, and a small one at that.

One may speculate that Vis did in·fact provide a valuable service, in·as·much as the massive fortunes squandered upon it would otherwise most·likely have contributed instead to the production of even more weaponry, pushing the probability of humanity's extermination just that much closer to certainty.

Mean·while in the skies above, many surviving inter·planetary habitats do still preserve some remnant offensive capability, yet all remain peaceful, because any·one who fires a shot will immediately become a target.

By end of 1st decade after Collapse, only 80 inter·planetary habitats survive.  None of them has a population > 100.  All other extra·terrestrial humanity has been erased.

LS AltaScotia's 100 hibernating patients are doing quite well.  The time has come to decide whether to continue th'experiments for another decade or to return to base, which no longer exists . . .  So, continuing.

Collapse + 1 decade : Terra

Detonations continue on Terra, albeit less powerful, less frequent.  Nuclear winter yet lingers, but begins to abate, there·by inviting resumption of conflict likely to finish the job, to consume eventually every living thing over th'entire face of the globe.

Collapse + 1 decade : inter·planetary void

X configures Lunar industrial capacity for the specific task of reviving dormant