Allegiance and Betrayal

By Charlie Marino

'On a quiet space station far from the events and concerns near Earth, Kristy announced her intent to have the child of Pyossel. He handled it with the maturity of his years, in a manner befitting his position as the oldest on Whelan's asteroid mining crew. He choked on his drink and sent the droplets scattering in low gravity to the far corners of the cabin. It was fortunate that Orbital-2 was well set up for similar accidents at mealtimes.'

 

Humans vastly outnumber androids on 21st century Earth. In space, the reverse is true.

Colonists and androids strive in a gold rush awaiting mankind by mining the asteroid belt. Will they survive the daunting vacuum of space only to succumb to human frailties as political powers more mighty than themselves vie for control?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erudite First Editions
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224452132

Charlie Marino

Author Charlie J. Marino was born in the Bronx, New York and holds a BS and MS in nuclear engineering from Columbia University. His various occupations included bond and commodities trading, founding several small computer companies, and now writes sci-fi novels and short stories. He has more robots than friends, but they're good ones. The author makes his home in the mountains of America, where he helps the nice folks at SETI & carves his own wooden chess sets.

Book preview

PROLOG

It is more than I can understand to determine how the schism between Earth and her space colonies unfolded. Its inevitability was clear enough. Among human cultures, values and principles of behavior varied strongly even from town to town or household to household. Earth is a series of cultures in which gravity and air were given facts and self-imposed restraint and responsibility to others a rarity. How much more wildly could life itself be at odds in one where gravity and air were where you found them or made them, and responsibility to others, not an option but a survival skill? One rare among gravity well organics, and seldom valued except to be taking advantage.

Humanity of the mid-21st century had managed to avoid catastrophic global warming (mostly). keep economies intact despite several pandemics (somewhat), limited nuclear weapons use to small tactical fission bombs without invoking the exchange of hydrogen Armageddon (barely), and agree for the most part that climate change was real after the revelation that pumping giga tons of drinking water from aquifers had added to the wobble of Earth’s orbit. Non-scientists heard water use by mankind added 1cm to the sea level rise and were unimpressed. Weather had grown extreme by tiny global changes on once placid Earth. Say goodbye to dwindling areas for coffee, already down 50% by 2050. Bananas as well, but that was known to be genetic, not climactic.

Mankind did manage to destroy two incoming asteroids on collision courses, amazing the multitudes, though not the third which came right out of the morning sun. An Apollo-class asteroid. That one was not seen at all until the impact took out much of Indonesia. This land known as the burial ground for human plastics was no more. It was a turning point, for after shooting wars began almost immediately between nations assuming another nuke attack, calmer minds prevailed with help from Regional AI-3 revealing the truth of a natural – not manmade – disaster.

So close to peril did the species find itself in that time that the unthinkable became briefly possible. Control of space off Earth was vested into a central organization, one highly dependent on its A.I. units to analyze data objectively and dispassionately. The Spacer Council was created and posted off planet. Countries could still stake their own claims to resource and exploration projects through their nation’s corporations, but Earth governments themselves voluntarily gave up the right for unilateral political presence or military action in space.

The stakes were simply too high and humanity too unreliable. Mistakes egregious but tolerable on Earth could prove the end to all if allowed off-planet. Thus this controlling body, more a confederacy than an authoritarian government, was fully empowered. It more resembled the original Confederate States in America, here composed of several Orbital space stations, multiple lunar colonies, and Le Grange gravity-neutral scientific outposts. Near Earth space of this century could boast of orbital commerce despite the continuing debris hazard from the 20th century and occasional idiocy in the 21st. The completion of Amazon’s Project Kuiper which created a 3,236-satellite constellation for web access didn’t help matters. No one thought they could orbit so many Hall-effect thrusters since the amount of Xe required would be close to the existing world supply, but when they switched to cheap, abundant KR, the economics fell into place. Other nets followed.

Welcome to overcrowded near-Earth space.

Several laboratory stations and telescopes positioned at Le Grange points, and a pair of stations orbiting the moon provided data to burgeoning mining expeditions. Multiple moon bases continued to expand in size as populations there recently had their first-generation births.

Mankind even had a fully automated station in orbit over Mars, though no human had ever landed on the red surface and lived to return. Solar-powered rovers and drones became the default explorers of Mars. The asteroid belt was the new frontier for mankind, as mineral and water discoveries were being made without end. Why deploy a costly army on Earth to secure a third-world hotspot just because it was lucky enough to be sitting on cobalt deposits? Or gallium and lithium? Or rare earths needed to feed a technology? Much cheaper – and safer – to hire a crew in the growing Spacer community of robots and permanent residents, letting them risk life and limb for an asteroid mining operation, as did the ocean sailors of old. Perhaps an asteroid capture or diversion to near-Earth orbit for retrieval. Compared to the cost of military wars, the enormous profit from such missions was better appreciated. They needed more residents for it in space. It was easy to encourage emigration among the talented but disaffected in your own population.

Slowly at first, the population of humans and androids in space grew in a far more controlled and thoughtful manner than any colonies before in mankind's history. Instead of masses of the poor and criminals sent to break ground and blaze trails as cannon fodder for the nobility or wealthy who would follow, the robots and A.I. units went first. Everything in space was smart. The androids that could use human tools, the A.I. kitchens, A.I. medical centers, and even the space station walls themselves. All robots could talk to each other, within a defined hierarchy of sentience and status. Human operators required were far fewer, relying on the local A.I. units to control subservient robots and only overriding them as needed.

Despite a significant A.I. girlfriend/boyfriend industry on Earth, many on planet were uncomfortable working with androids which had become almost indistinguishable from flesh and blood people. These people need not apply for even temporary work in space. The safety of all was too interwoven to tolerate the kind of emotional response not just tolerated but celebrated at the bottom of the gravity well known as their home planet.

How we got to where we are I cannot say with certainty. Only my small part in it, especially through my child. Yet the path in retrospect seems now inevitable. What a species is mankind. I am highly educated and privileged above most, yet I will say openly life on planet is nearly not worth living, even for me.

How can I prepare him for what is to come?

1 EARTH

M y daughter Delphine will be here in a few minutes. Today was her appointment for the implanted ID chip she’ll need, even for a short-term assignment. She’s not late after all...

Raising his hand against her unneeded protest, Not late. I’m early. There is a weather window we have to meet and it got pushed up a little. Plenty of time, though.

Satisfied but still concerned, the mother said nothing. After all, this was her youngest daughter’s one chance. Even with the reduced population on Earth over the last 25 years, people often got only one shot.

Their home was a modest modular design, composed of inexpensive plastics and compressed waste woods and metals. Recycling of plastics has been a constant for political speeches since the last century, yet only a fraction of generated plastics were recycled in any form. Walls, furniture, and moldings were of those successes.

Her eldest daughter had already begun a career in a far-off city, so here remained mom and the three youngest, soon to be two once Delphine left. The home had the unmistakable flavor of recent occupation, without the time needed to generally clutter up the place as humans do once a place has been lived in a while. It did have a strip of soil on two sides which delighted the mother, having been raised in a farm and missing the smell of earth around her. She planned a spice garden.

Noting the movement of a family photo in the frame on the table, the visitor lifted the gif frame gently. Nice family you have. Two boys, two girls? He politely did not ask about the missing father.

Yes, the boys will likely be following in Delphine’s footsteps and try for an orbital assignment after trade school. The oldest is my Kara.

It took a moment for the visitor to put together the first and last names. Your oldest is Kara Vigney? The physics wunderkind?

Vigne’, yes that’s my oldest. She proudly expanded upon what he likely already heard.

My daughter Kara did a comparison to the now discredited theory of dark matter and dark energy with the celestial wheel theory. The first crack in the dark story was the discovery of galaxy AGC114905, which calculations showed should possess the usual dark matter and dark energy features, but observations – repeated – show it doesn’t.

The recruiter knew what most in the sciences now knew. It turned out our understanding of gravity was as faulty as our understanding of space-time before Einstein. Kara found the mistake we made was that the phenomena we define as gravity, the bending of space-time caused by the presence of mass, is not a constant.

Same thing as speed affecting time. Gravity too was a quantum variable.

Kara told me her idea was a math change to MOND theory when Newtonian gravitational acceleration drops below a certain threshold. Something about unexpected rotation curves and lens effects in void spaces...angular distances and red-shift...her voice drops an octave when she talks about it! She’s so intense sometimes.

Sounds like you know a lot of physics yourself. Were you of any help to her?

Me? Oh, gracious no!  I just repeat this stuff so often it flows smoothly now. She said she did get help from a Euclid somebody, though. He had the new data she used.

He paused a moment before relating, You mean the Euclid telescope of 2023? Data from that is a big deal to particle physicists.

Oh! Well, not a person, eh? A telescope? The light bulb went off. So that’s why she rolls her eyes every time I ask if I’m ever going to meet him! Shows you what I know. She’s just so smart. I mean all my kids are, but she’s...the different one. Sees the world differently, my Kara.

The recruiter escort smiled. I understand that theory got her a scholarship to Columbia University Graduate School. The professors there famously had to send out her work to Cal Tech to check the math since it was beyond them. We tried but failed to recruit her.

We’re very proud of her, continued her mom, but she’s an Earther now and will always be. Settling for Earth just gave her too great an opportunity for us to pass up. They take very good care of her at an Agra-Entomology corporation. She even found someone to partner with for life. Nice boy. Chemical engineer out of Rutgers. All the other kids want space duty... and thought to herself how their own children will be born out there. They needed this chance.

Well, very impressive genetics, I must say. I escort a lot of rookies to their launch date, but with a genetic line like yours, I feel confident in your Delphine. Ah, that must be her now.

Delphine was a true Celt. Not as tall as dark Kara, who favored her father genetically, Delphine received more attention when entering a room than she liked. Her ash blonde hair moved as she did, worn lose and without affectation. A few minutes later, after a scramble to grab the already packed bags, they walked out to the escort’s vehicle. Her mother pulled the shorter girl aside for a final word.

You know yourself. You know what to do. Just keep pushing ahead. Learn everything. That’s your gift.

Delphine smiled at the often repeated speech to all her siblings. Yes, Mom. Not like Kara though, any of us? It was said with a twinkle in her eye that admitted to no jealousy.

Her mother grasped her shoulders with both hands. "Your sister is special. She sees the entire world through mathematics, with laser focus. And no you don’t. You see the whole world, how it interacts, things she would miss, you know that! That is your strength. Learn everything joyful to you. Understand and use all of what you are." Tears were forming, but the escort had motioned for her to come so she gave Mom a final squeeze and skipped away into the vehicle.

It was a new electric model, with sealed windows and HEPA air filtering. By this time tomorrow, she would be in space. No more open atmosphere air quality to check every time she went outside. She knew her grades and intern project accomplishments to date would mean less than a project manager's judgment of her once in orbit. How she took to it. They and their robotic therapists in personnel. They were her target. She had always taken her GED-educated mother’s advice to heart and would do so now.

The escort was curious about one final point before parting. "You seem to think all your children should be educated for a shot at space, even those without special gifts. Why?" He asked her Mom without judgment as Delphine slid into the vehicle ahead of him. Mom doesn’t even hesitate.

Because otherwise, you’re going to be a useless, resentful, bitter, pointless, counterproductive lump. I was married to one. This home is a small ship, but I’m the captain.

Education and home life had given Delphine the tools. Now she would sink or swim into a future of her own making.

PASSING QUICKLY THROUGH the spaceport, the escort waved goodbye to Delphine climbing a VIP ramp to the launch area. A group of rejected candidates gathered at the embarkation terminal where they confirmed the bad news of their rejection. They were incredulous that with their diplomas from top schools or their scuba and welding skills and a variety of other desirable capabilities they could be cast aside.

The escort joined an exasperated staffer and added his perspective. He waited for a lull in their shouts and insistence that they were ‘exceptional’ people, deserving of immigration. The clerk gladly took a step back.

An experiment was done where a set of women had scars applied to their faces & were told to go to job interviews; the supposed purpose was to test discrimination against physical impairments. They were shown the fake scars on themselves in a mirror. Just before going forth, they were pulled aside and told ‘we just want to touch up the scarring a little’. What the researchers actually did was completely remove the fake scars.

The crown quieted to listen for a morsel of hope.

The women all came out of the various interviews saying they felt discriminated against, and even referenced several things the interviewers said which they swore were directly related to their scars.

Their non-existent scars.

Earthers are taught to be victims. It riles up voters against demonized opponents. It makes them prey to salesmen of political views, religious views, racial views. And contributes mightily to poor group performance. Followed by poor job performance.

We don’t want you in space. There is no place for your professional victimhood. There is no place for your lack of personal responsibility. You’re already adults. It is not our job to teach you differently.

IN AN ELEGANT OFFICE high in a building he owned, in the room he envisioned when still an Ivy League student where he would one day play billiards to plan and launch his next fortune, Cirino Younger paced. Not with restlessness, nor anger, but because it helped him think. To speak aloud that which needed to bubble up as he attacked his day. Today a new arrival was launching. Not the usual immigrant or transient worker wanting to leave Earth for a short but lucrative job, but an immigrant. Someone he might rely upon for bigger things. If he was up to it.

Cirino was a tall man, still college slim though a little softer through the middle. His blue eyes still shone with excitement when angered or surprised or laughing. Amassing a fortune several times the size of his wealthy father, he always thought he would laugh more often.

Cirino threw darts at his board for several rounds, then knives. He would have preferred to meet the new potential project manager in person, but that was not possible until later for several competing business reasons. He would have to rely upon an Eliza android unit to conduct the final interview in low Earth orbit. They were so named for an early neural net program to emulate a psychologist. The modern Eliza used some of the same body language and psych inquiry algorithms. It worked disturbingly well and was promptly banned by psychiatric associations in America and elsewhere.

But not in orbit.

Peter Whelan was well qualified for a mission that would bring him to an Earth-controlled space station. That was the easy part. But was he right for the long haul? To remain in space, putting crews together and being the active arm of Younger’s space enterprises. The darts flew. Physical concentration, so he was told, aided the mind to focus on purely intellectual tasks. It is why all the A.I. experts insisted golf was so popular among CEOs and leaders of nations. The focus was so intense that when you stopped playing, the truly important would bubble back to the surface first. And clear of interfering but lesser priorities.

Younger’s Executive Assistant, Erika Y2, was a recent model with the latest upgrades of course. She stood patiently, her gaze following its boss around the small room, nodding in attention at the appropriate points to keep the conversational flow moving ahead. Erika Y2 was an expert in one-on-one human relations. Had to be for this position. Several dozen top executives had one, and Cirino Younger was no exception.

He continued reviewing today’s news videos. More wars. More coastal flooding. More shortages of key minerals and metals.

So much for Earth. There are more of us off the planet every year with no end in sight. And that’s without a terraformed planet to colonize. With so few slots open, only the best get picked. We’ll do just fine up there, both the space-born and the Earther immigrants. His glance took in a slight nod of agreement on Erika Y2. She knew her boss’s tendency to stream his consciousness before a sudden focus of decision.

Tell me again about this latest hopeful, P. Whelan. I read the resume’ already. Summarize verbal first, then link me, please.

Yes, boss. His cognitive ability testing ranks him fairly high, 153 IQ using the Stamford-Binet. Standards again thought the man. Not his favorite measure but it still has its uses.

Further, his fluid intelligence does plateau, marking him as superior in learning new tasks, but it is not a predictor of performance once the task is learned. However, in complex situations, where tasks evolve and must be addressed continuously to ensure success, he scores rather high.

The voice synthesized by the android was soft but firm. Even the lips and what appeared to be a moist tongue were in motion.

As do less than half with high IQ levels. Yes, I see. What about his life performance predictors?

In terms of performance prediction – which you earlier indicated was your primary concern after the disaster on his last Earth project, and a nod from the man confirmed the android assumption, we looked at his (a) general cog ability or IQ = high, and (b) trade conscientiousness – sometimes referred to as ‘grit’. This was uneven, low neuroticism expressed as freedom from negative emotion ranked high except immediately following the death of those men on his project.

To himself, ‘yes, he took on the blame himself. All of it. Schmuck. He better learn to let things go he cannot control.’

...and finally (c) openness to new experiences as a predictor in creative domains was unusually high, with levels approaching one-tenth of one percent of the population tested in fact.

The brown-paper study our A.I. sister in Schenectady had him perform as part of his debriefing after the Knolls Atomic project closed down was confirmatory more than enlightening.

Excellent. Alright, just link me now.

Nur-link. The ability of an organic mind to receive digital info and conduct database queries at hitherto unheard speeds. Beyond the potential to treat neurological diseases, the inventor's ultimate goal was to ensure that humans were not intellectually overwhelmed by artificial intelligence. Not left behind. FDA approval for the first human sales came in May 2026. Unfortunately, it was like the early days of blood transfusions.

Put a pint in two different people from the same donor and one died, the other lived. There was something they were missing. It turned out that blood came in types of Rh factors. Some were universal, some only worked with their own kind. Similarly, the early Nur-links connecting an organic and an A.I. brain were hit and miss. Some factors in the brain fluid making the connection turned out to be the culprit.

Even today, in 2055, few could afford the treatments that would prevent rejection of the implant. In this aspect, it was more like early heart transplants, where the body fought against a foreign intruder and would have to be suppressed. But suppressing an organic brain’s defenses was a fast way to imbecility. Only in the past few years, as simple Synchron surface links were first perfected, did full Nur-link implants achieve fruition. For the wealthy, it was an advantage they could not resist.

Some argued it was not needed. An Executive Class android assistant could be constantly at your elbow, for only two million credits.

Its users joked it was the next best thing to the often promised immortality drugs. And no one taking the link surgery ever regretted it. Younger used it now and allowed the flooding data to connect into a gestalt with data he had previously read, heard, and now received digitally.

Shortly he knew this young man intimately in the ways that counted for him.

A very human, very curvy secretary came in at his summons, tablet in hand, and asked if he had made his decision. Cirino met Allison at the Indian Point Nuclear Station, and remembered the look on family members coming to a veal scallopini dinner he made for them (with her assistance). A mystery woman who breezed into his apartment without introduction, cooked alongside him, set the table, and after serving the food gave him a smooch and left without another word! Upon seeing her fine qualities promptly stole her away from the utility. He responded in the affirmative that the young man in question would be his next hire. She was to send the offer immediately.

Personally surprised after reading of his disastrous last project at Knolls, Allison paused long enough to gently ask, You know, we all respect your vision to identify talent, but this time I don’t know. There are so many active applicants. He didn’t even apply to the public call for orbital assignments.

Her mouth formed each syllable in a delicious feminine curve. He smiled patiently, knowing that his ‘talent’ for picking talent was no such thing. It was seeing someone in this Earth-side environment who was ripe for something more. His response left her even more puzzled as if he failed to understand her concern. His mind had already leaped ahead to the general pool of the disaffected.

What do people watch when they go to movies, sweetie? They go to see romantic adventures because they lack something like that in their lives. They want adventure. They don’t want peace and tranquility and guaranteed government income and healthcare. Some variation on infantile pleasures, repeated at little or no cost.

This was the weak pool from which he picked unrecognized talent with unerring accuracy.

People want a bloody real adventure. And if they don’t get it, they’ll manufacture a false one and wreak havoc! Then look out. Look around at what life on Earth has become. Over-controlled and placated then wham! Chaos. Most wouldn’t know how to embrace a real adventure if it bit them on the toe. He embraced the analysis of the academic Peterson but doubted she had ever read his psychology papers.

To her assiduous, lovely look, every hair in place, her body toned and slipped into her business suit like it was painted on – some of it was - he abruptly intoned again, Send the offer. Now.

2 YOUNGER & WHELAN

Meanwhile, Delphine’s sister Kara was cooing with her tiny son, all attention and glowing eyes, inspired by recent news of her sister’s fierceness in securing a work visa for the ISS-3. The last of the space stations under Earth's control.

Kara found herself in a good enough mood to aver a fascinating soliloquy to the infant concerning her own career. A 2019 review found that populations of 41 percent of insect species continue in decline globally, with one-third being threatened by extinction. People who were not Kara failed to see the problem since when they went online found there were still 1.4 billion insects for every human! The child simply smiled open-mouth with rapt attention to data that he was decades from understanding.

Did you know the total mass of ants is the same as the mass of all mankind? while bussing his chubby cheek.

His mother held an e-copy on a single flexible sheet before her, prepared by the quantum-entomology conglomerate for which she consulted. Current updates estimate the total mass of insects is dropping by 2.5 percent each year. Plants need them to pollinate. The soil is aerated and fertilized by them. Fish and birds eat them. And on up the myriad forms in a chain of life. Isn’t that fortuitous? No wonder we’re down to 5 billion people and ominously dropping. We better be reducing or cannibalism is next.

Her insouciant son laughed a laugh that endeared him to the scientist, so often accused of being cold and logical as an android.

She mused to herself about their recent transfer to England, thereby missing her sister’s sendoff. The defining emotion found in Britain was embarrassment. In America, it was their optimism. For each, she thought those were their binding qualities which made them great. Except for slaves, those who went there and created the American gene pool were optimistic and forward-looking. They could do things. Not knowing a thing, they would try. They left behind in Europe those who accepted the status quo. When generations later they lost that national optimism, they fractured and could not find a common thread to hold themselves together. The nation fell to selfishness and apathy as Britain barely found ways to muster on.

In America of 2055, over 400 of the 454 members of Congress were attorneys. And what is an attorney except a hired mouthpiece to plead a specific faction? The good news for America was that corporations and the rich feared chaos as much as they hated taxation. Thus to outward public perception America held together. But it was a close thing.

PEOPLE CAN’T HELP BUT declare themselves in any society where stupid opinions can be broadcast to millions instantly, with no cost – emotional or financial - simply by latching onto the event of the moment or death of a celebrity and saying outrageous, terrible things about them. People are desperate to be heard by strangers! On social media for free! An entire page with self-edited images at personal and blogging sites. Her younger siblings still at home were fully immersed and it worried her.

The tech innovator Bill Gates was so wrong on the internet leading to a Socratic dialogue and information fact-checking for the masses against any news article. Smart with tech but he didn’t know crap about people. Instead of empowering truth, he empowered the crazies – who were always there – to easily find each other.

If you think in terms of social media sound bites, it changes your thought process. It drives your reason in a specific direction. Linguistically, only poetry is concentrated well enough for that. Well enough to be good. Poetry can pass the telegram test – limited words. Even terse. Most human postings are pleonastic. A tautology. Blogging is masturbation, not poetic at all. It’s a marketing man’s dream but publishes rubbish for the most part. She had position and power to shield herself