The Oort Federation: To the Stars

Kuiper Belt-Ogden Enterprises

KUIPER BELT—OGDEN ENTERPRISESThe Ogden Enterprises Complex was a multi-story revolving cylinder and counterweight that had become the standard form for space habitats throughout the Solar System. Halfway between the inner and outer edges of the Kuiper Belt, it rotated in a plane normal to a vector from Sol to OS Prime. Dr. Jackson Fredricks shared office space with Daphne and Kimberly, taking up the tethered cylinder’s entire domed end. Although the space was open, it was divided by partial walls defining each office. The four-kilometer diamond-fiber rope between the cylinder and counterweight connected to a nearly invisible harness attached to the dome’s base. The dome was constructed of a transparent, radiation-absorbing polymer with two polarizing layers whose alignment was governed by the intensity of incoming visible radiation—the brighter the light, the more the dome polarized. The outer and inner layers were coated with a nearly transparent palladium hydride molecular film, and the space between the layers was filled with a transparent, radiation-absorbing, amorphous polymer. Like OS Prime, each cylinder section had eight windows.

Below the domed office space that Fredricks, Daphne, and Kimberly shared, several levels of lab and research space and even more layers of portal docking facilities comprised the rest of the cylinder. The rotating structure was in the middle of a twenty-kilometer-wide swarm of upload facilities and stasis holding matrixes filling thousands of cubic kilometers of the Kuiper Belt. Each upload facility was connected by portal to a remote location either on Earth or somewhere in the occupied Solar System as well as to the central complex. Automated equipment processed remote uploads, cataloged them, and vectored them to stasis locations within the complex. Fewer than a hundred people, all uploads, operated the entire Kuiper Belt operation.

Daphne and eDaphne ran the business side, occasionally consulting with Thorpe or Braxton. Kimberly and eKim handled publicity, media, and system-wide promotional efforts. For Kimberly’s additional liaison activities, Chairman Butler and President Fulton were just a door away from her desk.

Fredricks looked away from the report he was reading on his holodisplay as Dale stepped through a portal into his office.

“You’re needed in Lab Four, Dr. Fredricks,” Dale said. Despite their close relationship, all five original flesh-and-blood team members and their uploads still referred to him as Dr. Fredricks.

Fredricks lifted his eyes. “And you had to come here to tell me?”

Dale grinned. “Please come with me. You’ll see.”

Fredricks walked with Dale to the door through which Dale had entered. “Lab four,” he said.

The portal mechanism automatically set the destination to the proper location. Fredricks and Dale stepped into Lab Four. Two lab techs looked up and nodded. One walked to a Link display and gestured for Fredricks and Dale to join her. The display showed a DNA sequence in graphical form.

“That’s Max,” Fredricks said, recognizing the pattern. “He was the first upload I ever did.”

The tech nodded, looking very professional in her white lab smock. She pulled up another display. “And this is…”

“Max’s upload?” Fredricks said, beginning to see where this was going.

The tech nodded. “We worked with several colleagues to create a standard feline microbiome. As you can imagine, sequencing the DNAs for the microbes that make up this microbiome was a lengthy task. But we have it fully sequenced in our database now. We have meticulously followed your protocol applying it to the Nanocosm descriptors for both the microbiome and the feline DNA. The Nanocosm generated the overall plan from our descriptors, programmed the nanobots, located the raw materials, which we had nearby, and set up the portals for the nanobots. Before we proceeded, we thought you should be present. After all, it’s your work.”

“Thank you,” Fredricks said, “but I could not have done it without you guys.”

“Let’s start the process,” she said to her lab partner.

A covered glass tank on the lab table about the size of a medium-size fish tank filled with a cloudy liquid. Both techs set and then continued to monitor parameters on a control panel.

“This used to take several hours, but we got it down to about fifteen minutes,” the male tech said. “This is the first time we have used such a complex subject.” He turned to look at Fredricks. “By complex, I don’t mean just Max himself, but Max and the complete feline microbiome.” He grinned. “As you well know, only about fifty percent of Max is Max. The rest—well, you know more about that than I do.”

Fredricks watched the tank intently, wondering what he would actually see. Seventeen minutes later, the tank drained. Inside stood a bedraggled tabby cat, unrecognizable because of its soaking wetness. Several thin wires were attached to its skull.

“Download takes about five minutes,” the female tech said, initiating a process from the panel.

Five minutes later, the cat lay down in the tank and commenced licking itself, trying to remove the soaking wetness. Robotic manipulators extracted the wires and then used a blow-dryer to speed the hair-drying process. A few minutes later, the cat stood, stretched, and looked through the glass sides. When it saw Fredricks, it jumped out of the tank and into his arms, purring softly.

Now, what do we do with two Maxes? Fredricks thought. Did we do the right thing? How do we distinguish between you and Max? Fredricks sighed and spoke aloud to the tabby. “What am I going to call you? Something close to your original name. We’ll let you be your own self and build your own life.”

Fredricks and Dale stepped back through the portal to his office.

“Daphne,” Fredricks said as he sat at his desk.

Daphne opened his door and peeked in. The tabby jumped off Fredrick’s desk and leaped into Daphne’s arms.

“Max,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

“Daphne,” Fredricks said, “meet Maxter.”