Sneak Peek; draft 2, scene 1, of Seven Planets (forthcoming novel)

A job where nothing happens and no one cares, Dr. Elias Vorn thought to himself as he walked down the curved corridor, which glinted with frost like shattered glass. Elias had long ceased to notice, along with the constant creaking of the station.

Even the lukewarm mug of synthetic coffee had become routine. The galley machinery needed parts, which he’d requested ten months ago. The Military Science Division and the Solar Concord were not known for efficiency or promptness. At least he’d finally received from upgrades for Echo-9, his AI.

He sat down at his workstation in the main lab. The viewport set in the outside wall was cracked. That could be a cause for alarm, except that the powers-that-be at the Division assured him it was not a danger, followed by an explanation of triple-paned sapphire glass with armor shields that would deploy in less than a quarter of a second in an emergency.

At least the view of icy, windy, blue Neptune was always beautiful.

The screen came alive as he sat down. He laid his datapad on top of a stack of others and set the mug down. He noted that the surface of the planet was -210 degrees, as it had been every single day of his exile here on the Neptune Orbital Observatory 9 (creatively known as NOO-9). Graphs and lines of information scrolled by as he made notes. When he finished his observations of the planet, he’d do the same for moons and the faint rings. When he finished, he’d send a report weekly back to the Science Division with readings, minor anomalies, and his interpretive comments. Day after day, the same thing, except for the occasional storm or asteroid collision with ring debris. He suspected no one read them. The Solar Concorde had many more pressing concerns.

He was an expert at processing and interpreting data. Yet here he was, rotting on a distance observatory despite his stellar career. Doctorate from the prestigious Solar Concord academy, specializing in interstellar signals and cosmic phenomena. Groundbreaking papers on pulsar frequencies, his star rose as he worked alongside Dr. Mara Kael on his creation, the Helios Project—

A flickering of the lights in the lab interrupted his reverie. The lights steadied, then all the display screen went out and came back on. His station reset to its initial screen,

“Damn,” he said aloud. “Echo-9! What just happened?”

There was a long pause. “Station power grid dropped below nominal levels. Cause unknown.”

“That’s helpful,” Elias said as he returned his display to the monitoring feeds. “Keep be informed.”

Probably another decaying equipment failure, although nothing like that had happened before. He glanced over at the interstellar signal display and frowned. A pulse had appeared momentarily, then disappeared.

He shrugged. A technical team was supposed to arrive over a year ago to assess and repair the station. Maybe the Solar Concorde would wait so long that he’d die here during a catastrophic failure. He hated politics. And politicians.

“The bane of serious scientific research…” he said, the last words dying on his lips.

An image of his trial flashed in his mind. He’d been cleared of charges of fraud, but his sloppiness had ruined his career. He’d caused a probe to crash into part of the Lunar Array.

And so here he was, exiled for busy work that meant nothing.

He called up data from Triton Relay Station, orbiting at another LaGrange Point, also his responsibility. There was a settlement on Triton itself, but it was only a mining station for water ice, nitrogen, and methane. It was eventually considered a perfect station as a gateway for missions to the Kuiper Belt, and a refueling and staging base for interstellar probes. Elias doubted that would ever happen now, as the Solar Concord had turned its attention inward to power politics and getting as many resources of its seven colonies as possible.

The relay station showed nominal on all systems with nothing—wait.

He leaned into the display. A fluctuation in the power grid of the relay station had occurred. He checked the time stamp. It was the same as the fluctuation here an NOO-7.

“Echo-9, compare the power grid timeline on the TRS with the one here. Note similarities and possible causes.”

“Yes, Dr. Vorn. Working on it.”

He sat back and waited. Echo-9’s processing had become quite slow over the last two years. It possessed one of the earlier quantum processing systems, and it was quite old. The new system he had received this week should help once he installed it.

They’d promised it to him within months of his arrival.

His mind drifted back. He shouldn’t complain. It was his own fault. He’d been so excited about his project and its possibilities. He so wanted to be the one to detect habitable exoplanets. Him. One of the darlings of the scientific community, failed to read data dispassionately, as a scientist must.

“Ah, how the mighty have fallen,” Oli Renn, his former mentee, had said to him after the trial. Renn had discovered the neglected data and reported Elias to the Science Division for fraud.

I was so full of hubris. Thought I could do no wrong. Thought—

“Stop it,” Elias said aloud. I’ve been over it and over it—

“Ceasing the analysis, Dr. Vorn.”

Elias sat up. “No, no, Echo-9, I wasn’t talking to you. Continue analysis.”

“Yes, Dr. Vorn.”

The screen came alive with a voice, startling Elias and causing him to spill his coffee on his jumpsuit. The image of a face—old, wild-haired, with eyes darting about. “They’re watching from out there. The…the Kuiper Belt. Yes. Has to be it.” the man croaked.

It was Dr. Halen, the previous scientist stationed on NOO-9 before Elias took over the post.

“Echo-9! What the hell is this?”

The AI’s smooth, quasi-male voice answered. “Apologies, Dr. Vorn. It is a log entry recorded by Dr. Halen, recorded on April 6, 2218, after he—“

“I don’t care. Stop it.”

“Yes, Dr. Vorn.”

He really needed to install that upgrade for Echo-9. He—

A thought came to him. “Echo-9?”

“Yes, Dr. Vorn?”

“Was that log connected to your analysis of the power grid anomaly?”

“I do not—I do not…working…”

Wow, Elias thought. Could AI’s develop dementia? I suppose if their systems are corrupt, they might not be able to make connections—

“Apologies, Dr. Vorn. I am not sure about log entry. I may have accidentally accessed it because Dr. Halen spent a lot of time analyzing cosmic signals from beyond the solar system in his last few months. It is one of the reasons why they replaced him with you because of your—“

“Stop!”

The AI stopped speaking abruptly. The word was that Halen had gone mad from being alone on the station for over ten years.

“Keep analyzing the anomalies, and check with Triton mining to see if they experienced anything similar.”

“Yes, Dr. Vorn.”

Elias shook his head and stood. It’s so boring here that I get interested in the rantings of a madman.