The Spiteful (Learning.2)

AN: It's been a while, but I'm updating this project again! This chapter's been in the works for way too long.
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The scanning device was impressive. It was an advanced one, for sure. Gravitometers, densitometry, material analysis, multi-spectrum photography, everything. It was decked out to the nines, just sitting in the middle of this library. 

Carefully, with gloved hands, I picked up one of the artifacts on the dray next to the scanner. I delicately set it down.

At least, I was pretending to be careful. I knew from my own studies of my artifact that these things were as close to indestructible as possible. But by pretending to be this circumspect, I could be touching it longer, feeling the sensation. I touched it. Then let go. Then touched it again.

I could feel it. These ideas were alien to me, completely different from what my artifact had given me..

“This was the one Barret located first, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“Yes,” Noel responded, her voice clinical. The scientist was kind of cute- not in the artificial kind of way, the sort you saw after someone had a round in a New You facility- but in a natural way. “Artifact Alpha. It was kept in Constellation’s archives as a curiosity, found here on Jemison in 2310.”

I carefully adjusted the first artifact, holding it over the scanner.

“Convex edge first,” I said. She nodded, and pressed a few buttons on her terminal. It slowly scanned the engravings and markings along the edges. I moved it steadily, holding it as carefully as possible. The entire time, I was analyzing my own mind, poring over what I knew and what I didn’t. What knowledge touching the artifact granted me. And when I figured it out, I was surprised.

Unlike my own artifact… This wasn't about grav drives at all. This was genetics. Studies, sequencing, neural hardware. I understood, intrinsically, how the flora and fauna of Jemison- something I’d been wondering about earlier- had been tweaked, altered for human habitation. How they’d been made resistant to Jemison’s native pests. How the algaes in the lakes had been tweaked to develop more oxygen. Xenobiology.

“... Mister Gannon?”

“Sorry.” I said, turning it over. “Concave edge next.” I turned it over in my hand, and she scanned as I considered the ramifications.

Was this stuff people knew? It was in my head at least partially, in the form of stuff people had actually done. Design work for the hardware, programming work for the software. If I was touching this artifact, and somebody pushed a genetic sequencer into my lap, I’d know how to use it. I understood almost all the alien life humanity had ever found- all the life we’d located in the Settled Systems… but as far as I thought, as much as I reached, I couldn’t think of any life we hadn’t found. This artifact wasn’t giving me anything that hadn’t yet been discovered by humanity. If I thought of a handful of star systems, I knew which worlds had life. But if I thought about a system we hadn’t been to, hadn’t explored… nothing.

“We’re done with Artifact Aleph.” I said, setting it on the cotton blanket. “Next one.”

“Artifact Beta. Located on Ka’Zaal by Amundsen Barrett in 2328.” Noel said. I picked it up-

The mind. Sparks of neurons traveling up and down the spine. Dozens of disparate, disconnected connectomes. I could almost feel- see- my own mind forming new linkages, understanding new details coming from nowhere. I learned years of study on the interactions within the human brain- what little we knew.. The actual technology that I suddenly understood was vague and sparse- scanners, neural chips, the basics of sentient AI adapters and modulators. The latter was a little startling to suddenly understand- It wasn’t just the restricted sort of information, but the outright banned. If I didn’t have the information fed to me, I’d wonder why it was connected with knowledge of human neurology; The adapters had been designed and derived from human brains. Surgically, at first.

I tried not to shudder as I held it over the scanner as well. While Noel and I took pictures and records of the artifact, I considered what I’d found out.

Each artifact is giving me something new. New knowledge, pored into my head. Just like the first one, touching it gives me a little more… but after I touched it the first time, I kept more. Even now, as the three are set aside, I had whole reams of data pushing through my head. Stuff I hadn’t known before.

Barrett had touched these, too. He’d had the vision as well. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling like he’d gained something. He had the same hunger for more, like I had. Like the Starborn had. But it wasn’t quite the same. The way the Artifact’s data had shifted through my mind was filtered by too many formations, oriented through my own thoughts and perspective on the world. And that meant Barrett got something different. I may have gotten technical data, which meant…

Artifact Beta was why Barrett was so convincing.

“Vree?” Noel asks. I looked away from the artifact. “Something wrong?”

“No, sorry. A little scatterbrained.” I said, setting Beta aside. 

“Artifact Gamma.” She says, and I picked it back up. Its touch wasn’t doing much for me anymore, but I knew now because I had been in contact with it enough to entrench the information. “Located on Vectera by Gannon Vree in 2330.”

“And?” I asked.

“And official property of Gannon Vree, lent to Constellation for study purposes.” She adds. I nod approvingly as we scan it as well.

After this much time with it, just touching it didn’t seem to help as much as it used to. I either built up a resistance, or I’d already sort of learned everything it had to give me. We finished the scans, photography, all the rest of the busywork for Constellation’s files.

“So, you told Walter you had a theory?” She asked.

“Yeah. These things- the artifact I found at least- was found with a large Caelumite formation. Was that true for Alpha and Beta?”

“Beta, yes. We can’t confirm for Alpha.” She says.

“Regardless, caelumite forms as a response to gravity and the magnetic field of large planetary bodies,” I said. “That’s the modern theory, anyway. But here’s the thing… Was Vectera big enough for that?”

“I… I don’t believe so.” Noel says, her eyebrows meeting. She tapped on her datapad, browsing Jemison’s net. “I’m not a specialist in astrogeology, but… Hm. This is fascinating.”

“For Vectera, at least, the magnetic field didn’t come from the moon itself. It’s one of the closest orbiting bodies to the gas giant, Anselon. And Anselon’s got one hell of an EM field.”

“... Which explains the Caelumite formation.”

“Not entirely. It explains exactly half of it,” I said. I began to arrange the artifacts, touching them for a moment. The first one I’d touched had given me portions of the puzzle… and I already sort of knew the science. “The other half is the gravity. Vectera isn’t large enough for a strong enough gravity field for caleumite to form, which is why it had gone overlooked for so long. It had more than enough charge, but… I think the Artifact was responsible.”

“I suppose, but they don’t have a way to generate energy. They could theoretically store it in the form of a- a naturally occurring graviton loop or something, but where would it get the power?” Noel says, frowning. “How could they have done anything?”

“Well… Like I said, Anselon had one hell of an EM field.” I said.

“It’s a pretty theory, but how can we confirm-” She pauses, as she notices exactly what I’m grabbing. “Wait. Gannon, what are you doing?”

I grinned, holding up both clamps. “Their shape and design implies they might make some kind of rounded, torus shape.” I added. “Like a Grav Drive. While I was able to make an anomaly with just one… let’s see what happens if we use three!”

I clamp both the positive and negative ends of the electrical kit to the first artifact.

“Wait!” She calls-

I crank up the dial- and the artifact begins to spark. I feel the gravity around me surge, and the scanner flickers.

A roiling, curving particle of light curves along the inner edge of Gamma, shooting toward Beta It catches the charge, curving it even further- into Alpha, and back into Gamma. The circle begins to gleam. Light lenses. I take a step back, even as I feel my hair getting pulled toward it. Noel takes a step back as well, almost hiding behind her desk.

I can see the charge growing.

The artifacts… unlatch. Segments from each of the artifacts disconnect from one another. They’re hovering, rotating in place. Invisibly aligned with one another, as if locked in place by strands of… Of something. Gravity? Electromagnetism? I’m not sure. I just know they’re hovering in a pocket of complete vacuum, a small anomaly- a spark where gravitons themselves are decaying into the visual spectrum.

I just glance at the readouts from the scanner they’re sitting on… and slap the emergency shutoff on the power source.

The artifacts continue to hover, levitating, pulling power from Jemison’s magnetic field.

“Hypothesis confirmed. Not only are they graviton loop-drive related, they’re also part of a full set.” I drawl. “Think we can extrapolate how many missing pieces, from the shape these are in?”

Noel’s eyes bug out of her head as she turns from me to the floating, levitating artifacts.

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On the display, I could see a huge, older gentleman. He had some cybernetics making up his shoulder, a polymer-based reconstruction of a joint that had been brutalized beyond mundane therapy. I wasn’t sure why he still had it, especially considering how well-funded Constellation was. There were a few corporations in New Atlantis alone who had the advanced surgical hardware and cloning systems, and I was sure Constellation could afford the procedures.

“Vladimir!” Noel called. “This is Gannon. Gannon, Vladimir Sall. He’s up on the Eye.”

“Nice to meet you. The Eye. That’s your satellite, right?” I asked.

“Yes, that’s right!” He called- he was one of those men who sounded like he was laughing with every sentence. Despite myself, I already liked him. “LO-868 Deep Space Telescope, once we fixed it up.”

“Just optics?”

“Of course not. It has all of the modern devices. Optical telescopes, Gravitational detection, and quite a lot of computer hardware.” Vladimir responded. “Quite useful to cross reference with the astronomical databases and the analytical AI.”

“Perfect. Noel and I have had some theories about how to find some of those artifacts Barrett has been talking about.”

“Oh? Very interesting, that. You think you can do what we have failed to do so far, yes?”

“Yeah.” I responded. “Here’s what we’ve got. They’re just theories… but it’ll help us cut out the chaff.”

I sent him our search parameters, along with the reasoning for it. I was relatively sure that the strong magnetosphere- or formerly-strong, in some cases- were important aspects to the hint to where these artifacts could be found.

We had other hints, of course. The artifacts gave off a distinct kind of energy, and now that Constellation had three samples of it, we knew there was a specific kind of wavelength to track down. With just two, they’d found a lot of false positives. With the third Artifact and my theory, we could cut down the false positives even more.

“Hm. This does seem very sound. Are you an astrophysicist?”

“I dabble,” I responded. “The numbers match up. Do we have enough server time to figure it out?”

“We don’t need to rent any time, my friend. There are servers aboard the Eye.” Sall responded.

That was good news. From what I knew about these satellites, they’d have to alternate between churning through a lot of data, and carefully comparing its results with what they could scan.

“If this works,” Noel added from behind me, “We’ll have a real way to scan for these artifacts. We won’t simply have to leave it up to luck and Barrett’s intuition.”

“Yes, quite exciting, isn’t it?” Vladimir responded. 

I thought about it.

I had time. My deal with old Moneybags meant I wouldn’t have access to the Frontier, so he probably assumed I had no way to get into space. But he didn’t know I had the pieces of the grav drive hidden away by the spaceport. I knew where Jemison’s reclamation facilities were.

And, unknown to anyone, even Vasco, I had the Starborn’s technology.

It’d take time for the Eye to find the next artfiact… and I needed time to build myself a starship.

“Yeah.” I said, a real smile on my face. “I am excited.”