|
|
|
|
The Signal Lamp |
Deep in the Perseus rift, the relativistic explorer I'm Leaving You To Find My Fortune decelerated into a promising system, GD 80008751, with a G8 v star, which they named Gripler. The Bias Drive ship had a high toposophic Artificial Intelligence, but had left its only microwormhole link behind at the previous new colony six light years back, now named Station Stanley.
While the crew were activating the nanoconstructor swarm to build the solar power collector array from asteroid material near the star, the empty 'My Fortune (apparently having been implicated in a memetic complex scandal at Fons Luminis and fearing the wrath of the Sun Emperor) unexpectedly accelerated away into the outer system and destroyed itself by diving into the largest superjovian.
The crew and colonists were now marooned with nearly all the bootstrap kit still in boxes on the first planet, and with no AI to control its use most of it was worthless. Above the North Stellar pole the power collector array continued to spread out like a thin parachute, with the constructing swarm incorporating itself into the fabric to provide active control and operate the vents that permitted high speed solar storm winds to pass through when necessary.
After a while enough energy had been accumulated to send UV laser distress signals to Station Stanley on the icy worlds of the Brown Dwarf GD80007657. Unfortunately the signals were not detected, as the sensitive interferometer detectors required for laser communication had not been built there yet.
The cryocyborg colonists at Stanley were presently surprised to see the nearby star Gripler blinking a message in binary code at them, describing the plight of the 'My Fortune expedition. Extending the light-collecting parachute until it covered the whole disk of the star as seen from Stanley, the marooned crew used the solar storm facility to open and close the myriad vents in the million kilometre wide sheet and send their desperate message.
The Gripler Binary Signal Lamp is now a standard emergency signalling procedure in these circumstances.
