Oct 11th, 2336
"Potential anomaly detected," the information alerted his mind. Normally, Janice was unobtrusive. Information was just there. You wanted to know the time, you merely remembered it. Same for the minutes of an ongoing council meeting or anything. You wanted to make a change, for instance, lower the gravity near you, simply think about it. It was no different than moving a finger or winking. But when she, - Skodj always thought of that great expanse of data and simulated intelligence he didn't remotely understand as a she rather than an it, like his father did – needed your attention, the message flowed without warning into your mind. Skodj always found it a bit jarring. But in this case, he had no one to blame but himself. He had instructed Janice to alert him if any of the exploration probes, some launched almost two centuries ago, reported anything.
His mother Orla had been a probe launcher both before and after his birth. Combined with tales of his father's wanderlust, he had developed a strong interest in them. Especially in the dream of them discovering something interesting. This data was largely only looked at by Janice but all information was available to any colonists that asked for it.
He thought, not for the first time, that he was suited to be a lone hermit out in the fringe asteroids. If there was anything out there, he wanted to know about it.
He thought, and a partition formed behind him walling him into a small side room alone. Reluctantly, he added a door belatedly. A half-recliner rose almost underneath him, and he sat back into it.
Data appeared on the flat wall in front of him. Skodj stared blankly at the bank of endlessly changing information flowing across the surface. It was, of course, too much for anyone to make sense of this data from nearly 4 million probes milling about the solar system, and well beyond. He waited for Janice to refine the feed and thought: 45 probes a day for 220 years all sent in random directions at random accelerations, exploring the universe with virtually no investment in human involvement.
Amrita's pregnancy still made him avoid the group whenever justifiable. Two more weeks, and he would transform into a very supportive father. And once his daughter could communicate, he would become the best dad ever.
He had grown frustrated with crafting his art, his ethereal poetry sculptures, which were ending up dull or juvenile when he managed to finish one at all. So he had been spending most of his time daydreaming.
There were two main philosophies in forming a pod. Either people of very like temperament, attitudes, and ideals chose each other, the better to foster a harmonious environment. Or one bonded with members possessing very different mentalities, skills, desires, and wills. The idea that they could rise to whatever challenge arose as one of them would likely know what to do. This was the mindset of Skodj, but when one of the three females was pregnant, he envisioned a life on the other path. However, this was when the ever-patient and jovial Marn shined.
While his strengths would come into play later, Marn, Katja, and Linda were wonderful with infants. Skodj loved his children, but he was best once they were old enough to think and learn. He loved to teach. He took pride that his family knew more about the history of the Earth than most UIC citizens. His father had lived through the First Collapse and escaped to...
Janice had isolated the probe. There was no urgency. Space was vast, and events unfolded very slowly, even with probes traveling very near the speed of light. Data on the display now moved much slower, and as it was now reporting the experiences of a single probe, much more understandable.
This probe was designated EDG-11. He recorded the name, in a mental note. He sat up, "EDG" would make it one of his mother's probes. Her 11th launch. He looked at the display, "damn it was moving slow." His mother had once tried to explain to him the art of randomness. He'd lost all but the basic idea. It was just barely into the Oort Cloud. The ass end of the solar system, he thought.
As Skodj stared at the multicolored letters floating in the air at various distances from the wall, he struggled to make sense of the data. He mentally pulled, and the information flowed across the back of his eyes as well. He noticed that the temperature was just a few degrees above absolute zero, and there was no gravity detected. The only force he could think of that could generate heat in this environment was pressure.
Just when he thought the report wasn't interesting, he noticed the velocity - 1.64 million meters per second. That realization hit him like a lightning bolt; no natural object could move that fast and survive in orbit. Janice chimed in to confirm that the speed was needed for the object to maintain a one-year orbit.
However, Skodj had a moment of skepticism. "You know what else has a one-year orbit," he said to himself, "We do because we're locked to the Earth. Why would something out there be locked to the Earth? It makes no sense - it has to be some kind of sensor echo."
Despite his initial excitement, he became certain that it was a sensor glitch. However a very long shot was still a chance.
"Damn," he thought. "It's a sensor glitch." It was fun while it lasted.
"Janice, is there any chance of getting a photo?"
"The more random events, the better," Janice thought in a sing-song tone. After the briefest of pauses, "It will take a couple of days to determine whether it is an orbit or a straight line, and then significant time to overcome our initial velocity and intersect it. Somewhere in the vicinity of two months. You still want it?"
"Yes, please." The time delay was 7 1/2 hours to even tell the probe to change its course.
In theory, a Grabber could go from Near Light Speed (NLS) to standstill in zero-time. Realistically, however, even with inertial suppression, the forces involved would tear the probe apart. Janice had no presence there. Its influence was limited to relaying commands and viewing data. It had no direct influence and could make no modifications to the systems. Getting close was going to require time and patience. A lot of effort for a sensor glitch. He pushed the event from his mind.