The Transhuman Comedy

This week's entry is inspired by "The Search on Glacialis Luna," by Paul Gibson, cover no. 550 on this page.

Beta Comae Berenices had risen, but that only made conditions worse, Gib thought. Under the yellow sunlight, vapor steamed out of the open holes in the ice, cloaking the surface in a thick fog. Outcroppings of magnetite thrust jaggedly out of the pack ice and spoofed the scanner on Gib's airscout with false leads. Every kilometer, Unité observation towers stood on three spindly legs, but the sensors running around the circumeference of each tower's circular top deck had been designed for warmer planets and gave unreliable data.

Even if the impediments magically disappeared, the odds were high (p = 0.91, the airscout's Bayesian system guessed) the artifact had impacted too hard and smashed against a magnetite pillar or plunged through the pack ice into the sea below. This was a fool's errand. Gib slowed the airscout and left it hovering while his mouth contorted and he shook his head at the futility of the search. He turned the stick and upped the throttle to head for home.

"Monsieur Pauli asks that you continue the search," the airscout said in its cheery alto voice. "He will continue to pay you 125% of expenses, plus time spent."

Gib hovered again. M. Pauli knew the odds were against finding the artifact, but if he were willing to spend more money--

--The artifact must be worth a lot.

"I'll be glad to keep searching," Gib said. He pushed the airscout forward at low speed and tasked every spare cpu cycle on stripping magnetite ghosts from the scanner data.

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