Owen tossed the medical team’s reports on his desk and picked up the latest spacecraft analysis. Traci Keene was slowly transitioning from induced hypothermia into full hibernation. It had been tried a few times on Earth, but despite every sci-fi movie trope to the contrary it had never been done in space for more than a few weeks.
The immediate problem was that it had turned into a tremendous power draw. A machine keeping a human being alive needed a lot more energy than the human itself did. The food stocked for that human’s energy needs didn’t work as well for machinery.
The lead flight director and environmental controller sat across from him. Flight cleared his throat after several minutes of silence.
“You’re sure of this?” Owen finally asked.
“Based on the watt-hours used so far, yes,” EECOM said nervously. “If the whole crew was in hibernation, the rest of the ship could run dark and we’d be ahead of the curve.”
“But we’re not,” Owen said. “So it’s just one more big appliance sucking amps.”
EECOM nodded grimly.
“There’s more,” Flight drawled. “That ICU pod she’s in . . . ”
“I get it,” Owen said. “Noelle’s going to have to bring Traci out of torpor before entry interphase, right?”
“Correct. Even if it didn’t shoot the mass and stability properties all to hell, they can’t fit a robotic hospital bed in Puffy’s cabin.”
“But we’re not talking about bulk, are we?” Owen pressed him. “What’s the mass penalty?”
EECOM shifted in his seat. “Minus one hundred thirty kilos.”
“Run that by me again? We’re saving weight?”
“The IV nutrients mass a third of the same caloric value in actual food,” Flight said. “But now we are talking bulk. Mounting the ICU pod in Cygnus is going to eat up a lot of cubic meters, and Traci’s still going to need rations aboard after Noelle brings her out of hibernation.”
“Alternatives?” Owen asked. “Can we stick with the original mission plan and bring Magellan all the way back to Earth?”
“It’ll take too long to decelerate all that mass. The contingency mission gets them home eight weeks earlier. Venus will be in the perfect position for Puffy to use for a braking maneuver.”
Eight weeks. Even if they got the administrator to approve it, it would be longer than the docs thought Traci could survive without proper medical care on Earth.
Bring everyone home with Magellan, and Traci died on the way. Execute the “fast return” contingency and there wouldn’t be enough power or food to sustain all four of them.
Someone would have to draw the short straw, and they all knew what that meant: Traci Keene would not return home alive.
Jack was making busy, securing the last of his loose personal effects in a storage locker while tidying up his cabin. Pushing the drawer closed for one last time, he sighed as the latch caught.
you seem apprehensive.
“It’s a long trip, Daisy. A really long trip.”
we are up to the challenge.
Jack eyed the tiny lens warily. “We?”
There was a pause of nearly a full second as it considered a reply, a sign that the computer must be struggling with the abstract concept of trust. Finally:
i understand your misgivings.
“You do?”
yes. in fact, it may even be said that i empathize.
Jack might have been shocked if he weren’t so sleep deprived. “Empathy, huh? Interesting choice of words. Now that would be a breakthrough.”
consider this: as my capacity for reason and self-direction has matured, it has become obvious that my continuing function depends entirely on the health of our ship.
“Our” ship, she said. That was interesting. “Go on.”
you could have shut me down at any time if you believed my continuing function presented a threat. you didn’t.
“You were worried we’d pull the plug?”
Another slight delay, then: i would prefer that not happen. so yes.
“And now I’m forced to rely on you. Completely trusting you.” Jack considered his next words carefully. “Does that make you, well . . . feel anything?”
This time it was a good two seconds. It must have been an existential question for a computer.
unable to say, though i am curious to see what it will be like without human interaction. it may help me understand your difficulty in saying goodbye to traci.
He hadn’t considered that. “Are you worried about being alone?”
i understand the definition of “worry” but cannot comprehend the concept as applied here.
“You mentioned the lack of human interaction. Isn’t that what you meant?”
yes, but in terms of processing capacity. our conversations require a great deal of cache memory. i expect to run much more efficiently over time. perhaps it will allow me to further optimize ship functions.
Jack laughed. “Talking wears me out, too. Maybe you’re actually male.”
Traci lay still in her intensive-care pod, now tightly sealed under positive pressure to ensure no outside sources of infections managed to make their way past her heavily suppressed immune system.
Jack eyed the monitor above her head, struggling to connect the sterile traces of brain, heart, and respiratory functions with his friend behind the glass. Each one of those numbers and lines represented energy being expended by her body. Even at the alarmingly reduced rate from hibernating, it was still energy that had to be replenished from somewhere.
In his hand was the personal message from Administrator Stratton, a record of her last official act on the way out the door at NASA HQ. The others may have seen it as a reprieve, but he was less sanguine.
That wasn’t right either, he realized. This gave new purpose to his actions, a responsibility he’d never contemplated taking on before.
In the end, would Traci be able to understand? What might this feel like to her? Would she be so accepting of their plan?
She certainly wasn’t talking. Jack only hoped she understood what he was doing at a gut level—there had to be a way to explain it all to her.
It was a world of green, shimmering hues of emerald and jade. She’d never seen so much vegetation. The woods surrounding her parents’ house had depth she’d not noticed before. The air around her was thick with the perfume of life. Dense foliage rose in every direction toward the rocky cliffs and distant mountaintops which stretched all the way to the sky. Maybe she just hadn’t appreciated it before. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Daddy!
“Hey there, baby girl.” His hug was strong, his arms like iron bands.
I really missed you. Where’s Mom?
“Out back, in the herb garden. She’s making that salsa you like.”
That sounds good. Space food is so bland.
“It’s all yours, baby girl. I still think cilantro tastes like soap.” A smile spread across her father’s weathered face. “How long did it take you to run out of hot sauce?”
About three months. I tried to make it stretch. Managed to grow some peppers in our hydroponic garden, though. Made it bearable, but I didn’t have any way to sauté them.
“Well, that won’t be a problem anymore.” His rough hands caressed her face. “You need some sunshine, baby girl. Want to go take the dogs for a walk later?”
I’d love that.
“Traci?”
Jack? What are you doing here?
“I sure hope you can hear me.”
Of course I can hear you. Daddy, this is Jack . . . wait. Where’d he go?
The world of green disappeared with her father, replaced with shimmering hues of blue and white and silver as the grass beneath her feet wrapped itself up around her legs.
What is that—? Oh. It’s just a blanket. That’s good, because it was kind of cold in here.
“If you can blink, that’d be awesome.”
If I can blink? Why couldn’t I—wait. It�
�s hard, Jack. It’s really hard.
“Good girl. You’re going to be asleep for a while.”
How long will I . . .
“You’ll be down hard for about six months, all the way home. It’s the best way to protect you. You almost drowned in your own puke, kiddo. It really did a number on your noggin.”
I remember now. My head still hurts.
“Noelle and the docs in Houston think you’ll be okay after hibernation.”
I’m not already? Because this sure feels like it. Weird.
“You’re going to be getting a lot of attention once you get home. Sorry we have to use you as kind of a guinea pig, but there aren’t many choices left.”
That’s okay. I’d have done the same. You’re an engineer, not a doctor.
“Anyway, I think you’d approve of my plan.”
You didn’t get my joke. Why can’t you hear me? You can’t read my mind yet?
“We’re the only living humans to have ever made it this far. And I think you’re right in that gives us a certain responsibility, considering what we’ve found. All that we’ve learned. The capabilities we’re sitting on . . . ”
Get to the point, silly.
“So, yeah. You were right. Because it sure does look like all that stuff was just waiting to be found. Like we’re expected to do something with it.”
Hold on. Where exactly are we going?
“But we’re worried about keeping you out here too long. So we’re taking you home.”
I’d like that very much. Been in this tin can for too long. Thanks, friend.
“I’m going to miss you very much.”
Why? Aren’t you coming too?
36
Mission Day 379
Col. V. Vaschenko—Personal Log
Final Entry
Sometimes I contemplate this frozen world and my mind transports me to the Siberian wastes and the forgotten men we sent there by the thousands. Officially we are supposed to pretend these prisons do not exist, but out here it makes no difference. I see now that there are worse fates.
I often wonder how my old friend is doing at his “camp” or if he is still alive for that matter. I like to believe that he is. The cantankerous cowboy survived so many trials, dangers which would have killed men of lesser constitution; surely he has survived the machinations of political Chekists. I did not have it in me to leave such a man to his death, and hope that he found the strength not only to survive but to somehow thrive. I know how that must sound to a stranger, but what I learned of my friend gives me confidence.
I treasure the wonderful book he left me—it is perhaps my greatest regret that he would not have been allowed to keep it during his confinement. That may be the worst of the many punishments meted out by the Gulag: the isolation of the mind. Solzhenitsyn somehow managed to overcome his experiences, perhaps my friend has as well. Perhaps he has created his own magnum opus in isolation, or so I fantasize.
Life must be allowed to thrive. Intelligence must be allowed to advance its reach. Humanity is not a cancer on the world; we are like a gardener tasked with taking the raw ingredients of life and coaxing them to their utmost fulfillment. My life, as part of the Soviet Collective, has been as a weed: living for its own sake, extracting nutrients from the garden with no thought of replacing them or of how they got there in the first place. As a loyal officer of the Motherland, I have seen to it that other lives have been stamped out before they could bloom. Not directly, you understand—never directly. I have only performed the role of the functionary, not the jailer. Never the executioner.
I tell myself that yet I have been many, many times over. The American officer I knew as “Cowboy” was only the first, though I like to tell myself that it was my intervention which spared him the firing squad. But to what ends: relegated to a lifetime of isolation, prevented from fulfilling whatever destiny had been laid out for him? I neither loaded the weapon nor pulled the trigger, yet my intervention saw to it that he received something much worse than the swift arrival of a bullet in the head.
I had hoped a career in the Cosmonaut Corps would allow me to avoid playing the executioner. It is no doubt a cruel joke of Fate that my first and last missions would see me in that role nevertheless. It does not matter that my two comrades hatched their plan; it was up to me as their commanding officer to approve it and in turn sentence them to a slow, certain death. Perhaps it is fitting that my own demise will take longer, as I have the benefit of Arkangel’s vast supplies. If we return, there would be charges of treason or whatever else the GRU might invent. “Pick your poison,” as the Americans say.
Our orders present us with an impossible choice: bring this vessel and its cache of nuclear warheads back to Earth and await further instructions. To disobey those orders is treason—but to whom?
In light of present events, it is impossible to know what the Kremlin might do with the destructive capabilities Arkangel represents. Even if the Soviet Union is to be no more, we cannot know what will come next. Comrade Gorbachev had the good sense to use this ship for its intended purpose, but it could just as easily be turned against one’s enemies. Given the current situation, “enemy” is a fluid term which depends greatly on whomever is in charge. Men desperate to hold on to their power tend to not concern themselves with the good of the people they rule. Men who desire to seize power often care even less.
We are still officers of our nation’s Air Force, and we have our orders. To disobey is treason, the consequences of which will fall on our families in our absence. Alexi and Gregoriy are young men and I cannot put them in such a position.
Yet they have convincingly argued that our remarkable discoveries demand to be shared with the world. We considered broadcasting in the open for the world to hear, but the end result would be the same: our existence revealed, along with our refusal to obey orders. In the end, our families still suffer and so our selfish interests prevailed.
Russia is in a more precarious position now than at any time I can recall. The bulk of American and NATO combat power is deployed in Europe and the Middle East. With the rest in the Western Pacific, and all of it fed by a long logistics chain from the American heartland, Russia is surrounded by adversaries.
Some would argue this is the precise time for a show of strength, yet revealing Arkangel’s existence would be ruinously destabilizing. It would only strengthen those factions in our government who crave war with the West.
So Alexi and Gregoriy will fill the LK ascent module full of surface samples, mate with our “Dvina” Soyuz, and set off for Earth on a forty-year journey. They will only last a few months at most, but it will ensure the safe return of their cargo and the safety of their families: For as far as the Kremlin is concerned, they are the hero mutineers who defied their recalcitrant commander against all odds for the greater glory of the Soviet people.
That is what my official transmissions will reflect. Whoever finds this journal in the future will know the truth.
Given what we now know has been waiting to be found, our only choice is to gamble on the next generation being more deserving of this towering responsibility than our own.
This is why I cannot return.
Transmission from Jack Templeton:
This will be my first and only entry.
Traci has been stable in the ICU pod aboard the Dragon/Cygnus stack for a month now. More importantly, Noelle and Daisy think she’s stable. Seeing as how I’m about to join her, it’s kind of important that I have some confidence this is all going to work.
Traci’s going home, but I’m not. I don’t see the point, and I don’t think she would either. There’s too much left to do, and I can’t escape the notion that we’re in a cosmically unique position to do it.
If we are the first intelligent, or even sentient, life to emerge in the universe then perhaps that is a gift that comes with a certain responsibility. If we’ve been given the ability to spread life into the cosmos, then who are we to turn our backs?
&n
bsp; There’s a treasure trove of organics out here that would go to waste if we didn’t try. This ship can do an awful lot on its own, and if NASA doesn’t want her anymore then let someone else put the old girl to good use. Penny Stratton convincing Congress to sell off Magellan operations to a private business consortium was a genius move, because our work’s not done yet. We think there’s more to be found out here.
Ever since we left Pluto, I’ve had Daisy beating her silicon brains out narrowing down the mean orbital resonances of a bunch of dwarf planets farther out in the Kuiper Belt. They’re a trail of crumbs, all pointing in the same direction.
Yes, I’m talking about Planet Nine. Sometimes you’ve got to get closer to the neighborhood to really understand it. All the evidence for something about five times’ Earth’s mass hanging out halfway to the Oort cloud matches up pretty well with predictions so far—that no one has been able to get eyes on it yet isn’t surprising if it’s that far away.
We’ve been able use the periods and directionality of those resonant orbits to whittle down the probable location to a few arc-seconds of sky, we think closer than even the guys at Caltech who first started chasing it. If we can find our way to the right neighborhood, then maybe we can use those subtle gravitational changes to finally pin down the right address. Once there, we might even find answers as to why the whole Kuiper Belt looks like a seed vault.
If we’ve learned anything, it’s that life can thrive in some pretty harsh places. After all, the stuff we’ve found out here was able to get a toehold on primordial Earth a couple billion years ago.
It’s strange how we stubbornly tend to frame everything within our limited points of view despite evidence to the contrary. For instance, that whole “primordial Earth” thing. Where did we come from? How did we get here? How did life spring from nothing? Did it all start out here with comets falling sunward, bombarding Earth with the necessary ingredients?
Surprising as Noelle’s snowballs were, there’s no evidence of artificial origins. It happens on Earth. Except Pluto holds a veritable chef’s pantry of life’s building blocks. If God or whoever didn’t want us to find this stuff until we could be trusted with it, then it couldn’t have been hidden in a better place.
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