Covering My Asteroid

It’s been almost nineteen days and a bit over 405 million Kilometers from the asteroid transit station as we approached my last asteroid grab location. The three of us started working on the more profitable way to find asteroids which allowed us to work as a team. We were out to find our “Mother Lode”. We approached a nice cluster locked in orbital resonance.

I didn’t notice much of a difference in the asteroids around us until the sensors showed some heavy metals nearby. “Hey, everybody! We got a hit.” “Come and look at the numbers rolling off the sensors. There are three asteroids that look promising in a cluster of 22.” Linaria and Scott joined me on the bridge.

Lin asked; “What are we looking at?”

"Those three show something dense. There're strange numbers from that asteroid. Are we sure we have sensors calibrated right?” A big asteroid was in the middle of the other 21. “We should check it out.”

Toby, my ship AI, says;” All the scans indicate heavy metals are in there.”

I took a closer look at the readings. It did look like we found something promising in this weird cluster. I looked at the team and said, “These readings are crazy. I’m going to have to go over there to see what we’ve got. This is way beyond what is normal.” I went to prepare for EVA and instructed Toby to lock in our coordinates and lock out the helm from any tampering.

I headed in toward the center of the cluster. I reported back; “I’m moving to the left one first.” Suit jets shifted me toward the asteroid on the left and I approached slowly. I suddenly felt like I was speeding towards the rock. There was a shiny flat surface on one side that seemed almost polished.

Lin asked, “Why are you speeding up?”

I asked, “Toby, tap into my suit sensors and get me a reading of the magnetic field. what are the readings?”

He reported,” There seems to be a lot of iron in that one. It’s fluctuating between 450 and 750 Gauss. Most magnets are about 100 Gauss and don’t fluctuate. There must be Neodymium mixed with iron in the asteroid to get a strong magnetic force.”

“It’s like I’m being pulled toward it by the steel flex wires in my EVA suit. I am going to have to use my thrusters to slow myself down.” I found the pull substantial but not overwhelming. Now the transmissions were breaking up. There was interference.

"What do you see?” Lin's speech was choppy like we were in a dampening field.

I turned around to face the middle asteroid and told her, “I see another flat surface: maybe more Neodymium or Molybdenum.”

“You’re breaking up. We can barely understand you. These magnetic fields are doing a number on communications.”

I replied, “I’ll keep trying to get a signal out, but don’t worry about me. I’ve done this before. This looks interesting. I’ve seen rocks like this before. I want a closer look first." I moved over to the middle asteroid thinking; this is weird. There are some shiny rocks next to the magnetic piece of flat rock. Since it was smaller, I just pulled into the shiny flat surface and held on magnetically, checking out what was nearby to research. I touched center of the rock, felt a spark, then nothing.

I woke up dazed. “What, who?” It took me many moments to orient myself to my surroundings. It almost looked like the medical bay on my ship. Then I got scared that I had to be rescued without knowing why.

A voice popped into my head, “Don’t be alarmed. We saw the opportunity to examine a human and moved you inside the asteroid to examine you. You are the first human being we’ve been able to look at closely since your world developed sentient beings.”

I was starting to panic, “What are you talking about?? We’ve been out here for over 180 years. Who are you? What do you want with me?”

The response was simply; “We have been observing the solar system planets for over 400 thousand of your years. Our masters created us and left us here. We were constructed to remain, observe and record the progress of nearby planetary systems and document any occurrence worthy of note. We desired a closer look at one of your species. You came close enough the last time you were here, but you were intent upon taking one of our outer shielding asteroids. Your return was a unique opportunity; therefore, you were brought inside. We created an environment to support your biology while we examined you.”

I simply asked; “I don’t understand. What happened to me? Why do I feel so strange? What are you?

“We are what you would call a self-aware data retrieval and storage system built using a hive mind grouping of nanoparticles. We were in this orbital position to observe and record data about the solar system. We are what you think of as an artificial intelligence. Even our subatomic particles possess some very simple form of consciousness. We were built to form a 3-dimensional autonomic intelligence matrix as needed to meet our observational goals.”

Once again, I was overwhelmed, “You’re not making this easy. I still don't understand.”

It continued, “You were brought in through one of the observation portals. Unfortunately, you ceased to exist due to complications of transport through the denser material of our portal. We had never expected live organic components to reassemble in such disarray. We’ve used the biological data that is on your web to correct any malformations incurred by the transit of our portal. Although the data we used appeared complete, we needed to learn your internal components and systems.”

It continued, “We repaired all your systems and even a few we didn’t also needed repairs.”

I was getting a glimmer of understanding creeping into my addled brain.

The voice continued; “We learned that the life functions of human beings were much more intricate than initially observed. We improved your biological systems. We had to improvise some repairs using data from our master's and integrated them into your biology. We learned, the way human data storage works relies on hexa-positional, electro-chemical storage system in the brain. Somewhat inefficient, with slow processing power at the neuron gaps. We had to understand your electrical systems to return you to full function. We, now, understand them clearly and fully repaired and improved upon your carbon-based physicality.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing was in an almost cheerful tone and I was surprisingly calm while it continued the explanation in my head, “We found some anomalies you label as cancer. It is quite commonplace for human biology given the poor shielding of your ships. Also, we had not comprehended the full extent of the internal and external bacterial sub-systems that are beneficial to your wellbeing, but this has been corrected.

I was completely speechless. I’ve been reconstructed to be what exactly??? My head was spinning barely able to believe the voice in my head. “Did you just say I was dead and you resurrected me? I am now part alien?”

The response in my head was, “Yes, I believe that conveys the situation clearly. We did not realize that bringing you through the interface would stop certain bodily functions. We have altered the composition of the portal so that will never occur again. We have repaired all of the bodily functions while including the improvements that we were able to adapt to your physiology. We understand that there is a female aboard your ship. Would it be possible to examine her systems as well? We would like to have her parameters added to or data base.”

I began to laugh. "No! You can’t just invade a human being’s privacy without asking permission! Couldn’t you have sent a communication to us before you tried to gather data directly?' It was bad enough I died and was brought back. This thing wasn’t expecting laughter and went silent. “Wait, what? How long was I out?”

It said, “Twenty-two hours, fourteen minutes and 22 seconds according to time passage on your ship.”

It took just about a day to kill me, bring me back to life and inundate my system with nanobots; none of which included asking permission.

“Please accept our apologies. The last time you were in our vicinity, you removed one of our shielding and storage pods. We allowed you to leave with that asteroid. When we realized you returned searching for more heavy metals, we proceeded to bring you inside to establish communications. The opportunity to examine you was just too tempting. You died. We created this area to match your ship habitat and allow us to implement repairs."

"What specific elements do you require? We can formulate small amounts you need in about 4 hours. Consider this what humans call payment. You must promise not to reveal our location.”

It was my “Ah Ha!” moment; that It could transform and manipulate matter very quickly was incredible. “Please, get my suit and let me talk to my team. I will let you know our requirements.”

Movement on the other side of the med bay caught my eye as my EVA suit floated toward me. The voice said, “We were unclear as to how you would initially react to a radio transmission from us. We noted in many of your video's report that fear of unknown species can lead to conflict. We made repairs to you and your suit to show we meant no harm. Our intention is only to gather data and record it. It is our primary directive.”

I began to climb into my suit when it felt funny. It was like the material of the suit had been modified. “What did you do to my suit?"

It was a simple reply, “It will better shield you from harmful radiation. It has the ability to recycle exhaled carbon dioxide efficiently and provide you with additional hours of oxygen. We simply modified the material to prevent penetration of radiation harmful to your biological systems.

I climbed into my suit and activated my radio. “Toby, do you read me?” Thankfully there was an answer.

“Yes, Rude, I read you. We had lost hope of contact with you when we calculated that your air had run out. We remained here because of your orders to lock the others out of the command deck. You failed to give an expiry time.”

“I’ll explain everything when I come back to the ship. Right now, I want you to let the crew know that I’m OK and we will have a great deal of work ahead of us to make this move forward profitably.”

I asked, “What am I supposed to call you?”

“We are what you might call us an Automated Storage and Retrieval System. Perhaps something anthropomorphic. Would “Ace” suffice for a name? It seems popular way to address compatriots on your planet.”

“Ace it is.” I replied adding, “What can be done to make my delay realistic? Do you have any way of disguising the appearance of the caves and tunnels as if they were an actual old mine I discovered here? I'll tell them I got lost exploring the asteroid”

“I can quickly research mining in the archives. Yes, there are minimal cosmetic changes we could make. It would be like an elaborate video set similar to a Wild West video. This is fascinating. Your imagination seems to have figured out a way to hide my presence as well as cover your delay in reporting back to your crew. That should suffice.”

Ace just wouldn’t stop communicating, “We have some requests of you as we continue to build this new aspect of our data base on live humans. We would request the analysis of a human female when it becomes convenient. We do strive to make our master’s final instructions to collect information as concise as possible.”

“No! Absolutely not!” I smiled. I should have known Ace wouldn’t give up on that.

Ace continued, “We were meant to send our information to our master’s main data base but, we lost contact with it over 150,000 years ago. This was another of our primary directives. We have failed in that directive. We could use human storage as a repository for data since gaining knowledge is also a primary goal of your species.” I didn’t really understand what Ace meant by that.

“We would like to give you the opportunity to download our information into your data banks. We have waited a long time to download this information. We have a key underlying need to dispense our observations. You appear to have a secure repository available. It would also help us to have a system back up as you would call it. Would you accept our solution to our data transmission paradox?”

At this point, who was I to deny anything they wanted. They did keep me alive and got rid of my cancer. I just hoped my AI, Toby, had enough memory to accept what just might be an extremely large an amount of data. I imagined what humans could do with all that information. I’m paranoid but, I am optimistic. With all Ace’s memory available in my ship’s data base, I would have knowledge. Knowledge is power. Maybe this was a more valuable claim than I first thought.

I simply said,” OK!” I've regretted it ever since. Apparently, the nanobots in my system were being readied to receive information even though I wasn’t. My brain was inundated with the entire 423, 623 years of data as well as the complete history of the beings that created and left Ace here. I passed out again.

I woke up again to the apologies of the voice in my head. “The chemical reactions needed to store the large amount of information were very demanding. We were afraid we damaged your brain. The nanobots were barely able to keep up but, all is well with your systems. We did cool your brain enough to store everything. You have fulfilled one of our main systems functions. We do appreciate this.”

I didn’t feel appreciated. I had a bitch of a headache. I wondered where they got the atmosphere to sustain me all this time when I saw that my suit still had plenty of oxygen. Where did they get the med station? Was I forgetting things? Where is the exit for this damned place? My brain actually hurt and the aspirin was kilometers away in my ship. I should be completely crazy by now, but the Nanobots seem to be able to control my reactions to the entire input overload I’ve been experiencing. I should be stark raving mad, but they kept my “fight or flight” reaction to a minimum.

Then it hit me as equations and processes to break and change ice molecules came out of my memory. I had really misunderstood when they requested to download their data base. I thought they were going to download it to Toby. They actually put it all in my head instead. I just realized how much was there. Wow! I could access it all instantly. I could read the data the nanobots were collecting about me. I could build Nanobots. I could control them if I wanted to. Holy Crap! All my bodily functions were under my control if I wanted to change anything; heartbeat, blood flow, respiration, Oxygen storage, Endocrine System, Hormones, everything down to the smallest subsystem. The Nanobots had it all covered. I closed up my suit and made for the exit. The entire cave system and equipment they built with the hidden locations appeared in my mind as did Ace’s other equipment in six of the other asteroids. I found out why the heavy metals existed on the asteroid I originally took. Gadolinium was used in creating the subatomic nanobots in my system. Other rare heavy metals were combined with crystals that were really parts of some detailed sensors Ace had to observe the solar system. It was all in my head for me to access any time. Absolutely incredible!

I turned on my radio, “Toby, Lin, Scott! Have I got news for you? You’re not going to believe this.”

As I returned to the ship, I noticed a barely visible fuzzy cloud passing me and heading for my ship. “Ace, what is that?”

My auditory nerve activated, “We have calculated the number of nanobots needed to modify the parameters of your ship to improve safety. What you see are the workers sent to accomplish the changes. You now have control of those ‘bots as well. Please use them carefully. They will help in your mining efforts as well as maintaining the safety and integrity of your ship. We cannot interfere with your species, yet, we now have done that through you, and we hope you understand the responsibility of your maintaining our secrets. You will be back at your ship by the time most of the nanobots have been distributed.”

I remembered now Ace promised to upgrade my ship shielding. I approved. Then my brain began sifting through the data that now filled it. I had received terabyte after terabyte of their observations of the solar system. Boring! I now knew where to look for heavy metals as well as how to create them, stabilize them, and pull them out of an asteroid before transit. I dipped into the data from their master’s civilization and saw how to make my ship incredibly more efficient. They were incredibly inventive on many levels. This could be fun.

I entered my ship to find two very distraught faces and an AI that was ready to receive data. My crew did not understand why I wasn’t dead. I had some explaining to do.