Mar 28, 2354
Richard became aware of his mistake as soon as he exited the room. He could have easily avoided interacting with the inhabitants. Everything he needed could be materialized from within these three rooms, except for the consoles of the sphere itself. He could have even managed that from here if he had been willing to use an AI other than Mushkin, but his stubbornness got the best of him. These three rooms were home now, not the sphere, and it was unpleasant to witness strangers milling around. Triple-R - he needed to come up with a great name before that stuck - now had a population of 22, with 4 more reported inbound - not including Iea.
After extracting the desired data, Richard turned to leave, only to come face-to-face with a diminutive young Indian man who appeared too youthful to be an Immortal. Richard attempted to evade him like a quarterback evading a tackle, finally making it to the other side of the room and proceeding down the corridor.
Prof. Rajeev Desai was practically racing to keep up with Richard's strides, considering the stark contrast in their leg lengths. Multiple holographic charts fluttered around him, frantically adjusting to his sporadic shifts in direction.
"We have evidence that the systems operate on base six, indicated by the presence of six distinct characters," he explained.
Despite the allure of interest in his voice, Richard chose to disregard him, making unexpected turns to shake him off. "And you expect me to believe that you managed to decipher them in the five months we were gone?" Richard retorted, cynically.
"No, but we have made significant progress. This glyph here, resembling a lowercase 'i' crossing a tilde, symbolizes 0. We determined this because, in any space-related database, zero is the most frequently used number, represented by this glyph. Moving forward, these two glyphs — one reminiscent of a squishy eyeball and the other resembling a backward curled seven — signify one and two. Since it's a trinary system, these translate into digits when looked at from the trits perspective, which is base three. We haven't established which glyph stands for which number, but this information exceeds what you guys figured out independently," he added, winking at Richard's befuddled expression.
"I'm growing impatient waiting for your real request," Richard said tersely.
"I beg your pardon?" Raj replied, taken aback.
"You're sharing this not because of my proficiency in computers. You need something from me. If you insist on wasting my time, be straightforward about what you're trying to solicit. I have a pregnant wife who requires my attention, and in case you weren’t aware, I'd prefer to keep people at a distance," Richard clarified.
"Apologies, I tend to be roundabout in my approach. It's a habit. I need St. Sere's insights on this. It’s been suggested that you're friends with him," Raj elaborated.
Richard halted in his tracks and burst into laughter. "You believed them?" he asked, laughing again. "Magnus enjoys my wife's company; he barely tolerates me."
Oblivious or uncaring of the drama implicit in that statement Raj continued, "Well, maybe your wife could persuade him. I need him to review this urgently, but presently he's preoccupied with the gravity trough."
"Gravity trough?" Richard asked, curiosity piqued.
"Ever wonder how an almost weightless object can exceed five and a half a percent of light speed without flying off into space?" Raj asked.
This question was indeed part of their initial planning process for the trip, but Richard was resistant to encouraging further conversation with Raj, so he elected to shrug instead.
"The object's entire orbit is nested within a gravity groove," Raj revealed.
Reacting to this information, Richard halted once more. "The entire orbit?" he muttered, starting to perform the calculations in his head. "That's..."
"52.6 trillion meters!" Raj completed for him.
"That's more than half a light-year. Regardless of their advancement, it seems impossible. We'd need upward of 80 trillion gravity manipulators, with an innumerable amount of AI units coordinating them," Richard contemplated aloud.
"Yet here we stand, firmly grounded and not spiraling off into space. In India, we have an adage, 'it exists, therefore it is.' That must explain his fixation on this," Raj explained.
"And we would require more programmable matter than we've manufactured ever, just to create the interconnections between them," Richard continued to converse with himself. "Boy, I hope we never encounter these beings," he concluded, addressing Raj.
"On the contrary, I'm eager to meet them," Raj retorted.
Richard eyed him skeptically.
"So, could you or your wife persuade him to spare an hour to review my research?”
Richard left him with an ambiguous answer, "The proof is in the pudding," and ambled off without further explanation.
Richard was tempted to shoot up a couple of levels despite knowing that it would not make a difference. They all had beacons in case they got lost or trapped anywhere, so anyone could easily locate them. "I might as well be back at the colonies," he mumbled to himself.
As he strolled along, Richard found himself grousing about his current predicament. He simply wanted to escape humanity and explore the stars alone. But now, he had a wife, two kids, and an increasing number of roommates, and it all felt too suffocating. However, he couldn't ignore the fact that he loved his family deeply. As he thought about it, he realized that he could spend the rest of his immortal life searching, but he'd never find anything that could rival the technological impossibility they were currently inhabiting.
He ventured onwards, musing on his lot as the corridors of the sphere draw him deeper into their embrace. Maybe solitude in the stars wasn't the treasure trove he thought it would be. Perhaps the true marvel, the real impossibility worth exploring, was right here, living and breathing—the extraordinary family and the ever-growing throng making up their celestial village.
With a flicker of resignation, Richard addressed the unseen tendrils of programmable intention to carry this message to Raj: "Talk to my wife and get her interested. If it stumps her and she talks to the Great Dane, Magnus will move heaven and hell to one up her," setting in motion a potential intellectual domino effect that he hoped would capture the attention of the enigmatic Magnus St. Sere. All while leaving him out of the whole matter.