Terminal Dispatch by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Permuted
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

WHEN WE WERE DONE SPEAKING WITH Richelle, we went to the commissary cel and ate together. Vie and Wil were feeling more hopeful, and they asked animated questions about the workforce capsules, which they hadn’t known about. But when Wil looked around and asked where Thius was, things turned sour. I told them what the homestead had told me. Their faces fell, the bubble of optimism popped, and the fatigue we’d all been keeping at bay crashed over us.

Wil took it especially hard. Thius had a special fondness for him and, though he never would have admitted it, Wil had grown attached to the dog.

Wil and Vie retreated to their habitation cels, but I didn’t think I’d be able to rest. I decided to go back to the functional cel my father had set up for my training. I loaded in a few modules about terraforming and began studying. I especially wanted to learn more about the workforce capsules.

Terraforming is more complex than anyone without augments should have to deal with, Dayr. If I had augments, I could have downloaded everything I needed and been on to other things in a few hours. As it was, I was in there well into the night and still only had the highest altitude understanding.

Capsules, I was reminded, are the synth arks that are sent to populate planets with workers for the first human inhabitants. During Stage Two terraforming, Stage Five workforce capsules are launched. The workforce capsules travel cheap and slow, using propellant that won’t get them anywhere near light speeds. There’s no hurry; the synths don’t mind spending generations in transit, confined to their ships. They’re engineered to enjoy it. Which is why workforce capsules have nickie drives. Humans only use them for short distance travel, in jump ships. But they’re cheaper and good enough for long-hauling synths. Because they’re only synths.

Terraforming is in Stage Three when the capsules arrive. With the help of the planet’s curator, inevitably a Feremite, the capsules land in strategic locations around the planet. There are generally between four and fourteen capsules, depending on the size of the planet, and they burrow in at sites near future cities. The synths don’t emerge. If things go according to plan, they have a celebration of thanks for the successful journey and then go into hibernation chambers to wait for the colonists’ arrival. If adjustments are needed, the Stage Three curator works with Telesis to fix whatever is wrong with the capsule. Sometimes a weird culture develops in transit and the curator has to engineer and shepherd a whole new generation of synths, ones that will function reliably when the colonists arrive. In rare cases, the synth population of a capsule will be deemed unfit even to raise subsequent generations, and the whole capsule will be scuttled.

Thalinraya’s eight capsules had arrived several hundred years prior to us, but they weren’t scheduled to emerge until Stage Five. I knew where they were, but I’d never expected to see them. Now we had to visit a capsule to get the nickies we’d need for our jump ship.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.