Welcome Home, Orpheus

“I can’t put a finger on it, but something is off. Call it a hunch, a sixth sense—something is out of place.”

“Pete, NASA doesn’t exactly operate on hunches.”

“Alright, call it an intuition, a subconscious analysis of accumulated information—whatever, something is wrong.”

“Look, it’s been a long flight. The longest in human history. But since we are almost done, since we are landing in forty hours, and especially since you are the First Pilot – I suggest you stop freaking out, OK? Sure, anxiety kicks in, thoughts are swirling. How it’s gonna be back there, what’s changed?”

“It's not our first long-distance mission, Cap.”

“It kinda is. Thirteen years! Heck, I might be nervous myself.”

Silence fell again. I glanced around. Everybody looked distracted.

We gathered in the ship’s lobby. The last couple of days we spent decorating it, getting ready for the New Year’s Eve. A special one—the last on Orpheus. Christmas lights, garlands. A bonsai spruce—proudly cultivated by the ship’s Biologist Shuqin. Muffled lights and Christmas songs.

Cozy and lovely, yet uneasiness hangs over the round table like a dense, but impalpable mist. The question was whether there were monsters lurking inside.

“Cora?” Captain broke the silence.

“Yes, Sir?” Orpheus’s AI response came through dynamics.

“Any deviations?”

“Nothing.”

“Enough classic fuel for safe landing?”

“Absolutely.”

“Course clear?”

“Totally.”

“Keep me posted.”

“What bothers me”— Klaus, the ship’s Technician joined in—“is how great everything is at home.”

“That is what bothers you? That everything is alright at home?”

“Not just alright, Sir. It’s always great, perfect, impeccable. On vid messages, Erna is smiling every damn second, dressed like some walking detergent commercial. And kids—you ever seen kids whose greatest happiness is to go to school every day, and recite yet another speech they prepared for class?”

“They always know it by heart too,”— added Andrey, our Geologist. “Mine has read me the ten-page essay on War and Peace yesterday. He looked right into the camera the whole time. What do they have there, a freaking teleprompter?”

“Perhaps there are major improvements in education? Breaking cognitive methodology, new ways to teach?” Our Physician Leticia suggested.

“Letty, come on. I look at my kid, and I am scared. I don’t recognize him anymore. I hardly recognize anyone there. Like Stepford Wives or something.”

Others nodded in agreement. I felt the same, hundred percent. Thirteen years dreaming of home, folks, family—and I find myself reluctant to land tomorrow. I am dreading homecoming.

“And nobody gets sick or injured. Never. Always in perfect health, not a cold, nothing.” Astrophysicist Wanxing joined in. “Not a moment of bad mood, or apathy, or any fluctuations at all. I mean, these are kids, teenagers. When did they become the most mood-stable persons on Earth?”

“No acne.” Krystyna, second Technician. “I have been vid-calling with my niece for a decade; she literally went from ten to twenty with a skin of Kardashian.”

“It’s the way they stare at you.” Chemist Chiara remarked. “And they sit still and just talk and look at you. There are no gestures. You know, we Italians are known for extensive gesticulation, yet there is nothing. My granny, ten years ago and now—it is just not her.”

“Look, Crew,”— Cap wasn’t going to give up easily —“it’s just overall flight fatigue is getting to us, is all. But think about it—tomorrow we are going to land lovely, celebrate in a family circle, tell them tales of Pluto, and hold their jaws so that they don’t hit the floor too hard. Sounds good?”

Nobody replied. Everyone sat silently, sipping drinks and contemplating the situation. IT Officer Kiran was on his not-pad, likely attempting to outscore Cora in Starcraft again. My co-pilot, Arina, biting her fingernails. She hasn’t been speaking to Earth since her parents died in a car accident, more than seven years ago. Shu, the Biologist, was observing the annual photo stands. But I didn’t see our Ecologist...

“Cora, where is Zahra?”— Captain had the same thought.

“Ms. Zahra is measuring Earth’s current albedo.”

“Gee. On New Year’s Eve? Couldn’t it wait?”

“According to Ms. Zahra, the answer appears to be no, Sir.”

“Just ask her to get here before we drink all the champagne.”

“Done.”

“See? Zahra doesn’t seem to share your worries and hunches, for one. And Shu, come to the table, will you? Your attraction to those photos is quite touching, but did you know that we can give you copies to take home?”

Shuqin has been gazing at the annual family photo stands for an hour now. Every year, on December 31st, we decorated these stands. Each crew member gets a photo from Earth, either from family or friends. We print them out and stick them on a panel. Put some paper snowflakes around. Initially, it was an Earth Command Center initiative, later—a cherished tradition for the Orpheus crew. However, as time went on, our visits to the stands became less frequent. I actually caught myself trying not to look at all.

“Shu? Champagne?”

“It is just something... is off-kilter, and I can’t tell what”—mumbled our Biologist, ignoring the invitation.

The tension of Captain James became almost tangible. No wonder—his whole crew was slowly going insane together.

“Before we reached Pluto, it was different.”— Klaus muttered. —“Erna and I even had quarrels over vid convos. It was quite an experience, arguing passionately over a three-hour delay.”

“It surely was different before Pluto.”— I backed him up. —“I recall it was hardly possible to wait until the next vid message from Earth. Each one like a tiny thread through the whole Solar System. Me on one side, Emily on the other. And now? Let’s face it—I am avoiding checking the message log. I am hiding from my wife. Hell, whatever is on the other side of this thread now—I can’t convince myself it is still her.”

“Remember the Earth Command Center before Pluto?”— Wanxing adds. —“Always on our backs, as if we haven’t checked this, haven’t gathered that. Nothing but constant irritation. And afterwards? Everything is perfect, flawless. A couple of times I haven’t submitted any data at all—guess what I’ve got from ECC? Looks marvelous; keep it up.”

“So,”— Captain taunted —“are you upset ECC is treating us with respect now?”

“I am saying, this is a perfect, ideal journey. A textbook journey, the one which you aim for but which never happens.”

“Wan, ten billion people honored us to do this for a reason. And I assure you—this reason had something to do with competence and ability to perform tasks very damn fine! So, maybe we just did?”

“And what about these vid convos, Cap?” Klaus kept insisting.

“Seems to be up your alley, Letty?”

“Well,”— Letitia proceeded. —“On one hand, long trips have a cumulative effect. And ours—it is unprecedented; in my field of study, we couldn’t even imagine what the repercussions of twelve people in enclosed confines drifting through space for years might be.”

“See!”— Cap jubilated —“I am telling you, it ain’t your 18-month round to Mars; ain’t a weekend on the ISS. Space fever is messing with you guys.”

Maybe Captain was right. Maybe it got to us after all? Despite the regular recovery and balanced diet. Orpheus is a great ship—quite spacious, not short of auxiliaries: gym, library, cinema, even a dance floor and cafeteria with dozens of swap-style sets included. And still, it is a ship: closed and finite, and beyond the walls it is very black and very cold for very long—an that, of course, gets to you despite anything. Maybe tomorrow, when the hatches open and I step on the ground, embrace Emily and the kids, it will all dissipate in sunlight?

“And what’s on the other hand?” Arina asked.

“Sorry?” 

“Letty, you said, ‘On one hand, there is all this.’ What’s on the other?”

There was a pause before Letitia raised her head and muttered quietly,

“On the other hand, I have nightmares after vid-phoning my family.”

Captain had enough.

“Crew, do you register the situation? It’s just one day left—can we hold on with these imposter family stories? Is anyone seeing twins in blue dresses strolling around the ship yet?”

“That’s it!” Shu shouted so suddenly, we’ve all jumped a little.

“That’s it, don’t you see?”

Whatever she was referring to, we haven’t.

“Look at the photos; come close; look. You check them separately; it seems alright. Familiar faces, homely surroundings. But you take a step back and see them as a whole, as we apply them to our collages, and you can’t help but feel something is off. You can’t articulate, but you know, right?”

She got that right.

“So, Shu? What’s that?”

“Come here, come. Look here, Andrey, it’s yours, isn’t it? Look at the carpet here, in the background. Memorize the pattern. Now let’s move five years forward.” We move five stands to the right. “Same room, same carpet. Check the pattern.”

We do. And we see too.

“It’s the little details, the textures, the forms—shifting slightly, so that we can’t determine what’s different but comprehend nevertheless. And this is what influences us the more we look at the stands.”

“When you brought up that movie, Captain, with the twins, it just clicked—there was the same trick with the carpet they used, the pattern shifting from shot to shot.”

Now, James didn’t retort. His family photos were also here, and they also had some carpets and curtains at home.

That’s when Kiran announced:

“I think I might know what we are dealing with. As we were leaving Earth thirteen years ago, a lot was going on with AI development. One of the fields just on the start was image and video generation.”

I did recall something similar, although not in detail, as literally every second I had was used for training, studying, and preparing for the Orpheus Mission. I hardly had time to check my messenger, let alone dig into hot IT topics.

“If I remember correct,”— Kiran went on, —“the flags of AI-generated images were bizarre patterns, unnatural lights, eerie facial features… Sounds familiar?”

“So, are we implying that photos and vid messages we’ve received from Earth for the last who-knows-how-many years were made by… computer?”

“Not just any computer, Captain. If the development went at pace that was projected at the time, current AI would be quite powerful.”

“Just how powerful?”

“Well, Cora would be like a toddler to it.”

“And what would we be like to it?”

“I don’t know... bacteria, I guess.”

“Prokaryotes.” Shu adds gracefully.

“But if our families... if the messages we kept getting are artificial, what are the other communications? Is anything genuine?” I never minded asking the awkward questions.

“My guess is as good as yours, Pete.”

“Makes sense.”— mumbled Andrey. —“That’s why the ECC is always happy. There is no ECC. Nobody cares anymore.”

And then everybody talked at once.

“Then why keep the communication at all? Why not cut us off?”

“Maybe it needs us back?”

“Why would you need dozen of bacteria back?”

“Maybe it sees us as a potential threat? Humans left alive?”

“And what could we possibly do to the supercomputers that wiped out humanity?”

“Anyway, it is a possibility we might still harm it, and AI doesn’t gamble. It’s not human, remember? Entirely rational.”

“So it lures us back to do what? To imprison? To execute?”

“Kiran? Why would it want us back?”

“Whatever the reason is, it has to be purely logical. AI can’t develop emotions; that’s one thing neural networks can’t do.”

“Crew?” Captain rumbled. “Let’s not wormhole to such drastic conclusions, alright? I will get ECC on the line right now, and we will clear this up.”

And that’s when the ship’s Ecologist, Zahra, came rushing in.

“Captain. I—“ she was out of breath.

“Look who decided to show up. Don’t worry, we still have this champagne.”

“I have measured Earth’s albedo!”

“Terrific. If you don’t mind, we have a couple of burning issues to address.”

Zahra just went on.

“I expected it to be extremely low, it was 0.30 when we left, so considering the rate global warming progressed at, we would’ve been at 0.15 by now, and—“

“Zahra, really, I know you wouldn’t believe it, but there appears to be more important issues on the table than global warming, so—“

“Captain, it’s 0.05!”

Wanxing and Andrey both gasped. I didn’t like that gasp.

“Even if both poles melted down completely, it still wouldn’t be even close. But the best part is, poles look about the same now as they did when we left.”

Zahra quickly presented two photos on her vidpad. It was like finding ten differences, except I don’t think anybody would find one.

“So, your measuring shows ice has melted, and your photos show they haven’t? In other words,—“

“In other words, something else is causing extremely low albedo, not the melted ice. Something is absorbing the sunlight at an extreme rate.”

There was another minute of such a silence. I thought I heard the ship’s fission reactors.

Captain was the first to brace himself.

“Cora, get ECC on the line.”

As soon as the huge conference screen flipped in place, the glowing head of ECC Director was staring at us, grinning widely. There it was, staring and grinning. As on cue, we took a step back from that grinning… face? And just watched in silence. Well, the line was crossed: before today, each of us nurtured some hope that it is, indeed, the flight fever, that everything is going to be alright. We haven’t talked about it out loud, I guess, not to make it real, by telling. We hoped it would go away as soon as we were home. It didn’t. And now the strange, cold entity glanced at us and grinned.

Captain still ventured:

“Orpheus to Earth. Landing as planned? Over.”

In a few minutes, a response came:

“Earth to Orpheus. Landing as planned. Welcome home.”

“Cora, kill the transmission.” And the display went black.

“Klaus, Krys, can you guys still get old-fashioned radio antennas out?”

“Certainly.”

“Do it.”

Ten minutes later, we were trying to catch any broadcasts. Any at all. It was just void. Radio silence.

“Cora, how long until geostationary?”

“Two minutes.”

“Alternate the course. Maintain geostationary until further command.”

“Affirmative.”

Thrusters came to life, altering the course accordingly.

“Let’s get to the observation dome.”

We started to run simultaneously. As if only there, with our unbiased eyes, we would finally see the answers.

The observation dome was located in the lower part of the ship. We got there in three minutes.

“Cora, lower the shields. Open the blinds.”

And here it is. Our beloved Earth, the Blue Marble.

Except it wasn’t as blue as I recalled. As if it took some darker tint all over.

And as we’ve circled along the geostationary, peering into the planet with our powerful optics, passing again and again our native cities, we saw nothing but the alien, dark surface.

“I think that solves it. There are no people left.” Chiara said finally.

“What is it you see?” James demanded.

“It’s not what we see. It’s what we don’t. It is the thirty-first of December, remember? New Year. Have you guys spotted a single firework? A spark?”

Then Wanxing added, “I think I know what caused the albedo to drop.”

Zahra nodded: “Solar panels. The whole planet is covered by them.”

A cosmic silence fell in the room.

Cora was the one to break it this time.

“Incoming transmission from Earth. Tag: Annual photos. Should I transmit it directly to the local vid screen?”

“Go on.” accepted Captain.

The screen slid in place and glowed. It was an annual photo, alright.

Just one this year: all families together, holding a giant banner that said “HAPPY NEW YEAR, ORPHEUS”. As it glowed brighter, I could make out the details. The staring gazes, the eerie grins. This time, everybody could tell for sure that it was AI-generated.

Because Arina’s dead parents were there too, staring and grinning just fine.

I guess Kiran was wrong, and AI had been able to develop an emotional framework after all. Because, I swear, I could see its nasty, malevolent smirk, deep inside those damn neural networks, lurking below, waiting on us to run out of supplies and ideas.

“Let’s go back to lobby” James said wearily. “It’s a New Year after all.”