|
A tiny spacecraft - the object barely qualifying as a speck in these vast corridors - is on approach, utterly out-sized by the awesome spectacle still 750 million kilometres ahead. A long abandoned 'magnetic mining' satellite - relic from the heyday of galactic 'plunder' - briefly transits the larger sun, emanating a series of spiralling fan-shaped fields, visibly outlined by the attracted wavelike pulses of ion emissions, pumping relentlessly from the green star's distended photosphere. And, falling steadily behind, a dead planet shows the scars from countless millennia of eccentricity - at every perihelion, flung mercilessly through the savage fires of its expanding primary. For a time, the magnetic tendrils of the satellite's spiralling fields had swept its path free of ionizing plasma. Crossing inside the satellite's orbit, the smaller and vastly more manoeuvrable craft 'falls' inward, or 'downwards', towards its rendezvous with a single, abstract point in space - the bottom, its point of departure - and where, for those on board, floors become ceilings, and falling slips magically over into ...'ascent'. _____________________________ It is not always the case that "what goes down, must come up". But, out here, it is by far the preferred option. Failure to 'come up' again is terminal, a fact so noteworthy as to be graced with a name - "The Djinn of Standstill" - that none who aspire to live, and to remain so, should ever forget it. The Djinn of Standstill. It has quite a ring to it. Of something incorruptible - an immense divinity, sealed away within the timeless, contemplative fabrics that mortals take as reality. Standstill, of course, is a concept having no meaning out here, in these frameless voids. Instead, the term has been appropriated, to vividly describe the condition of "...being at the mercy of a gravitational attraction". Of not 'staying on the move', whether through incompetence, or a lack of nerve. To imagine that thrusters can compensate for botched calculation, will only add 'injury to insult'. A ships real motive power is ...outside. And, since gravitational objects are either glaringly large, or ponderously massive, there are few extenuating circumstances to excuse an error of such unforgiving magnitude. The Djinn of Standstill, like some ruthless demiurge of creation, lives - although 'lurks' is better - at the infinity of virtual intersections known, collectively, as "Standstill". To place yourself, through a fatal conspiracy of location and velocity, at "Standstill", is to trespass within his jurisdictions, a crime of grievous disrespect, and one he unfailingly punishes with death. So, for an officer to turn to his commander, and announce, "Sir, we are at Standstill..." is nothing short of eulogy, and there are few who would expect a miracle. _____________________________ The spacecraft, gaining momentum, and subjected to a mesh of conflicting attractions, has crossed a threshold, entering domains where the influence and command of the "Djinn" are undisputed. Traversing the emptiness ahead, and guarding the approaches to the narrow portals of perihelion, are scattered the lethal, and infinitely dense, perforations ...of "Standstill". The ship, of course, is amply commissioned with retrofits - a multitude of safeguards against the deceptions and manoeuvring of the Djinn, for he is always on the move, growing steadily stronger in one place, while sliding into a brief, but stringent existence elsewhere. To 'calculate valid trajectory', however, is one thing. To actually foresee danger, and steer safe passage as a matter of instinct, quite another, and the ship, despite a bristling array of detectors and strategy neurals, must always await the arrival of 'real' data. A computer, outplayed, will perform no better, or worse, the next time, than the time after that - defeat is merely a 'listed option', an outcome of no special importance. Its never makes 'decisions', but 'conditional responses open to the arrival of contrary information' (a strategy that humans would find as nerve-racking and risky as baiting a bear in case it turned out to be a bunny).It lacks what we might call 'commitment' and many is the time, in the midst of crisis, when it will coolly announce, "...correction...", and then attempt a change of horses based purely on statistics. It cannot 'rise to the occasion', 'defend its honour', or "...do this one for Billy!!..." Honour roll, maybe. Though, sadly, never 'on a roll'. ______________________________ So, it might seem, in the afterglow of success, that entrusting your life to a computer was really "a triumph of humanity over adversity". Or, some such thing. But, it would be, surely, harder to find such words were the aftermath one to tragedy, or disaster. This undertaking requires a rare combination of expertise and flair; a responsibility entrusted only to the most respected and capable of humans. Here, it is the 2nd officer, his unwavering gaze fixed on the stream of numbers tumbling across his screens, and instincts tuned - beyond the squalls and maelstroms upon which livelihood they depend -- for the fainter, and shiftless signals ...of energy doldrums ...the dwindling beacons ...of Standstill.
|