In the footsteps of Dickens, or McCall Smith or someone.

I'm reading 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith (the author of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series). In the foreword he explains that the novel was written in episodes for publication in The Scotsman. Charles Dickens did the same.

So I thought if it's good enough for one of our greatest novelists and the very enjoyable Mr McCall Smith it's good enough for me. I have got an unfinished novel (who hasn't) and I have decided to publish it here a chapter at a time.

Well it's your own fault, you clicked on the link!

I have always been fatally attracted to Science Fiction. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, and I try and control the urge. But I'm afraid the novel is, well, SciFi. It's often said that Science Fiction is always about the present, just presented as a sort of allegory. If you read any older stuff, it becomes obvious that it is true. And much of it dates rather badly. I used to think Star Trek was just great, now it looks just pathetic.

A problem with writing Science Fiction now, is that the pace of progress is so fast that anything a writer can dream up is soon passed by reality. And I have suspicion that in the not to distant future technology will solve every problem almost as soon as it occurs. Which will be great, but does not make for a very interesting novel. So one is obliged to invent constraints to give the story some texture.

Modern Sci Fi writers often write in a rather obscure way. As you progress through the novel the technology becomes clearer and the attitudes more obvious. But it takes a bit of perseverance to get into the period and place. And like a lot of genres, Science Fiction has its conventions, a regular reader will understand the references and codes.

Compared with cutting edge stuff, my novel is rather homespun. I have tried to write a Science Fiction novel for people who do not like Science Fiction. When I think about it, that's rather a foolish notion, after all if you don't like it, you are vanishingly unlikely to buy a novel about it. But it's half finished now so I might as well carry on.

I hope you enjoy it, and please try it out - even if you don't like Science Fiction!

Star Treader

Prologue

I2I.4  Robotics.

Most of the machines you will encounter on the Star Treader have, at least, some rudimentary intelligence. This ranges from simple load bearers that are programmed to take materials from one point to another, without colliding with each other or ship personnel up to the primary ship computer, code name: VERA. Since its early development, Artificial Intelligence has been a problematic area for mankind. it is all to easy to regard these machines as fellow personalities,  merely limited in certain aspects of their nature. They are not.

At their most basic levels they will interpret their instructions in a very literal sense. More complex systems have usually been programmed by other machines. Their reasoning, while logical, rapid and very comprehensive, lacks any element of human intuition. In certain fields this will make them liable to error, sometimes on a massive scale. It also sets a limit on their usefulness in situations requiring judgement. Very large machines (e.g. VERA) will have safeguards hard wired into their operating systems.

The hyper intelligent systems required for gravity wave navigation (e.g. T3) are not able to be constrained in this way. Limits thus imposed would render them unable to perform their task of setting routes through interstellar gravity waves. (This enables ships to 'short cut' distances between the stars without exceeding light speed). Therefore, to avoid the danger of these systems becoming difficult to control, they are isolated from any physical contact with the ship. They are thought to be unaware of any presence on board, other than themselves. Their directions for navigation are relayed to a team of Drivers who interpret them and guide the ship on its course.

A careful sense of perspective is required when dealing with any Artificial Intelligence. Even in its lowliest manifestation.

Star Treader Handbook. Chapter I4 Section 5

Chapter 1 – Plastic problems

The Star Treader was in deep space, riding the gravity waves that rippled across the galaxy. She traversed the great caverns of empty space between the stars. They were far, far away from the civilised core of worlds that formed the hub of the Empire, in a dangerous, deserted place. Earth colonies were rare at the Rim of the Empire and rumours of Aliens were a constant feature of the bar room gossip. Like all unknown territories, Man had peopled the Rim with dark monsters of his own imagining.

Sam Cooke the Senior Commercial Officer of the Star Treader had other worries. He was peering into the flat screen inlaid into his desk and idly fiddling with the keyboard. Rows of numbers, all too familiar to him, scrolled across the screen. He sighed and sucked the end of his stylus.

“Star Chart, Vera." He said. Vera the Ship's Computer whose ears were everywhere, responded instantly to her name and a three dimensional star chart appeared above the desk top beside the screen. Tiny lights sparkled in a black cube a metre square. Sam Cooke stared into the dark.

“Show me the class four colonies, Vera.” Then, as an afterthought, “And the class five.”

A disembodied female voice of impossible perfection spoke.

“Class four colonies are in red. Class five colonies are in blue.”

Gentle and sincere but with a quiet authority it was mother, sister, lover, wife all in one. So much a part of ship board life that it was no more noticeable than the taste of the air they breathed.

A few of the tiny lights turned red and blue. Not many and far apart. A green spot marked the ship's position. Sam pressed some keys and threads of light joined the ship to various red points. He stared again at the flat screen. He must have done this twenty times before. The numbers had not changed.

This stuff's so old' He thought. Fifty years some of it. A class four colony ought to be a good market for plastic. Even a class five would be OK. A lower price probably, hut still saleable.  Class three or above and the stuff is nearly worthless, they can make all they need. Class six and below, they won't have the technology to use it. It should be easy. Near the core it would be easy. But out here! Anything can happen. Colonies can progress a lot in fifty years. Or regress. Or disappear completely.'

Sam looked again at the cost line on his screen. The cost of deceleration alone. Plus getting into orbit and extra payments to the landside crew. Anything less than Four hundred a tonne and we will lose money.'

And he had six cubic hectares of the stuff. It had looked like a good deal when he had bartered the smelting machines for these plastic granules. The ship's gold reserves were good and the profit on the granules should be high.  In any case large gold transactions were unwise in these parts. Stories of ships carrying large consignments of gold tended to attract unwelcome attention. Unlike Aliens, Privateers were more than just bar room gossip.

He decided to make another attempt to involve Vera in the problem.

"Vera, Some of this information is very old. How far do you think the colony, on Beta seven will have progressed?'I He tried to sound casual.

“That is a matter for human Judgement. I could not possibly comment.” The voice was distinctly icy. Matra 3 class computers were notoriously touchy about that sort of thing. He tried again.

"Vera, what about the topography, what's the chance of natural oil being discovered?"

“The information I have is insufficient to make an estimate Sam." She still sounded a bit huffy, he would try again later. He could not put off a decision indefinitely. There was a board meeting scheduled next Friday and the Managing Commander would want an answer. There was talk from the Engineers about a major refit and they would need gold to pay the bill. Rather a lot of gold if the rumours his wife had heard were to be believed.

Rica was in a good position to hear the engineering gossip. She worked as a Driver in the primary control centre. A member of an elite corps. The Drivers interpreted the complex navigation information from the ships second, far more sinister computer known simply as T3. It was this intense artificial intelligence that enabled the Star Treader to plot a course through the gravity waves of space, rather in the way that a boring machine might travel through the body of a planet while above slower surface vehicles travelled a longer but more obvious route. Unfortunately such formidable intelligence has its dangers. T3 machines are isolated from all ship controls. The information they provide is read by the drivers. And T3s live out a lonely existence unaware that their metal carapaces are host to a swarm of biological life.

There was frightening talk among the Drivers; a two hour time slip on their last short trip. God knows how much on this long haul between the stars. Sam leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, and stared unseeing at the wall. Rica's gamin face swept into his mind and smaller more pressing worries displaced vague concerns about a catastrophic time slip. Rica wanted a baby.

She was thirty five. A life could be extended to almost two hundred years, But a woman's instinct was as it had been since women first walked the Earth, and her instincts told her it was time. Sam was much older and although men seemed to be able to reproduce into their dotage, he had doubts.

'It's not the age difference,' he thought. 'Or even the other kids. After all I never see them. It's the Ship. More than the Ship it's this life. This is no place to raise a family.' Again he sighed. He had been born in a colony under a yellow sun. He had played under open skies and bathed in salt seas. On their small farm he had, what seemed to him, an idyllic childhood. The war had made him a Void Rider, it was now all he knew. But he did not love it and sometimes dreamed quietly of that yellow sun.

Rica was different. Born to the Void, her family were high in the ships hierarchy. Now she too had taken the mantle of aristocrat and was a Driver. Sam always felt a little uneasy in the company of her friends from the corps. He had the suspicion that their easy confidence implied a disdain for
Commercials in general and himself in particular. His own intimates tended to be of rather a lower status, easier going type. But Rica did not share or even understand his concerns. As she said:

“Darling how can there be a problem? Our child will have everything it needs.  There's the park, and the farm, and the lake. It's almost two hundred hectares. That's more country side than most colony city kids would ever see.  Not only that but look at Randolph's family, they’re strong and healthy, well adjusted.” And so on.

'It was all true,' thought Sam. 'But a child should know that the country does not naturally curve upward over his head, following the outline of a hull. It might be far away, and difficult to see through the clouds, but the land above your head should simply not be there. They should know that animals bite and insects sting and that the air could be too hot or too cold. That it rained in the day, and - that Vera was not always there to save you.'

But would Rica desert the Ship that had been her life and join him on a colony world? From Space Ship Driver, Rider of the Void, Star Treader, to farmers wife. He doubted it. Very much.

To be continued