He bothers me. Not in the way that a pest annoys, but in the way a doctor becomes agitated when delivering a diagnosis far more dire than he expected. There is a density to Middleton. His words, his mannerisms. His is the dense matter of inertial confinement fusion, of gravity’s rainbow, of Victorian dread. He’s had an epiphany. He knows the truth about something large, not just the facts. There are few things more dangerous than that.
At T minus 15, I ride up the gantry and stare out at the maglev chute that will launch The Mayflower. It operates like a supersonic train. A series of magnets levitate and then propel the vessel at incredible velocity. The force is enough to sling us into the mesosphere. Generations ago, the rocket boosters did most of the propulsion work. The heavy lifting. But they won’t be activated until we reach the thermosphere.
There are four transition points to the flight, each lasting about a day. Arriving at the proper junction, the chosen booster will fire to create a centrifuge effect that spins the ship. This will be augmented by gyroscopic stabilizers that match the centripetal force of the wormholes. Once inside, we inherit the inertia and rotational qualities of the portal. The ship’s systems then discharge the tachyon particles from the accelerators, along with a gravitational force field. The boosters separate at coordinates predetermined by the flight control system, and we’re spit back out into dead space until the next portal appears. After four stages of separation, we’ll reach Andererde. That’s the theory, anyway.
I really don’t understand how it works, and I’ve stopped paying attention to the explanations.
It takes nearly two minutes to reach the flight deck. Along the way, I pass a series of over-sized, hollowed-out ball bearings. These are the crew quarters, supply stations, civilian accommodations, pantries, storage facilities, medical bays, biospheres, cockpits. This is the ship. To the fore, a series of orbs clustered together along a twisted cylindrical structure. It resembles a helix. Like a DNA model encircled by five silver rings along the length of the aft fuselage.
Within each orb is housed a slightly smaller spherical unit, suspended in a gelatinous compound. The engineers call these sections “wombs.” They allow the ship to rotate wildly without disturbing the inhabitants, who remain stationary.
There’s nothing airworthy about The Mayflower. Everything is controlled by computers that Missoula Command oversees while the ship operates within Earth’s gravitational pull. Internal computers that the flight engineer administers will be used after that to coordinate the appearance of the wormhole apertures. But the piloting systems, oh those marvels of hybrid physics and genetic bioscience, are something else entirely. The Sentient Avionics Interstellar Navigation Terminal. SAINT. That’s their baby. That’s the one machine that truly can be called the brains of the operation. It’s partially analog because we’ll lose contact with the guidance systems at various stages in the mission, especially inside the portals. It’s also partially automated, designed from a series of microscopic nanite processors that integrate directly into the captain’s system, into his body, where all ship functions can be managed simultaneously through a telepathic link between the vessel and the pilot, with the computer enhancing and regulating the pilot’s decisions. Each link keeping the other stable and alive. The perfect symbiotic relationship between the two most powerful processors in existence: the human mind and SAINT.
It’s an interesting paradox. Unmanned, The Mayflower could probably get to Andererde in one jump, but to push the ship to its full capabilities would kill a human. The technology to keep this thing in the air is too intricate for the pilots. So the computers do most of the flying. But in order for the computers to make complex judgment calls and readjust for factors that can’t be gleaned from mathematical algorithms, a human administrator is required.
Once we shed the boosters and enter orbit around Andererde, everything becomes even more low tech and manual. The crew moves into a traditional Space Transportation System that I’ll land by remote control. The whole thing makes me laugh. Our progress, it seems, requires curbing our own advances. We keep evolving our technology, but we can’t seem to find a way of evolving ourselves to a point where we can use it. In order to move forward, we must step back. Makes me wonder how far this species can really go.
We’re pushing T minus 12, I think. Technicians are helping me into my womb, which happens to be the primary flight deck. They connect wires and cables into nodes implanted on my body. These are integrated back into the flight control systems, bi-directional audio systems, and surveillance units. Two other technicians ease me into the captain’s chair and fasten the latches. A series of checks are run before they activate the Visual Response Adapters and attach the eyepiece to the visor fitted around my forehead, inside my helmet.
The technicians are concerned about bio feedback read outs from the SAINT link. They’ve stopped the clock to run diagnostics. It’s now that the enormity of the situation chokes me. I have no idea what to expect if this mission succeeds. Because it never has. I’ve never reached my destination. I’ve never attained the final stage of separation. But I know that I will never harrow this hell until I get to the last stage.
***
“Botany hailing. The automated ecosystems are registering non-operational. The air composition is changing. Plants are dying. We’re losing life support in the gardens. Are you doing this? Is SAINT failing? Oh God, I think the structure’s been breached. Roland? Help us.”
“Captain to Botany. Get out of there. Move into crew quarters. I’ve unlocked all the officer’s cabins.”
“I don’t know that I can.”
“Listen to me, you and Phoebe need to clear out of there immediately. No matter what, you get her out of there.”
“Roland, the doors are sealed. The system’s detected a toxin in the environment. It’s locking everything down in here.”
“It’s just a containment protocol. Override it. You’ve got to crash that door, baby.”
“Rol—”
“Captain to Botany. Acknowledge.”
“SAINT hailing flight deck.”
“Go, SAINT.”
“Botany Greenhouse One is no longer responding. Communications have been suspended.”
“Re-route emergency life support systems to Botany. Restore the comm.”
“SAINT cannot comply with your request, Captain.”
“The hell you can’t. Explain.”
“Botany is the source of the contagion. Bulkheads have been sealed. The defective wombs and non-essential personnel will be ejected in T minus 3.”
“What?”
“Those were your orders, Captain. This action ensures maximum survival rates.”
“No. Amend the orders. You cannot jettison Greenhouse One.”
“The risk is too high. SAINT cannot comply.”
“Wait. If you eject that womb, they’ll lose their food source. The settlers will not survive without food. That must pose a greater threat to the mission.”
“The main greenhouse is contaminated, but the outlying nurseries report safe levels. The nursery system in Greenhouse Two has been sealed off to isolate the contagion. It will produce enough food to sustain life without the main greenhouse. Separation in T minus 1.”
“Abort.”
“SAINT cannot comply with your directive, Captain.”
“Fuck you to Hell, SAINT. I can’t lose them.”
“T minus 20 seconds.”
“Disengage, SAINT. All controls to manual.”
“SAINT confirming separation of Greenhouse One, Science, Ship’s Medical, and Security. T minus zero.”
“No!”
“Separation complete.”
“What have you done?”
“Shipwide life support systems remain critical, Captain. Stage Four completed.”
“Critical?”
“Containment failed, Captain. Preservation mode override. Ejecting all infected wombs.”
“Shut down, SAINT.”
“SAINT canno
t comply, Captain. Preservation mode running.”
“Fuck. Which wombs will remain?”
“The primary flight deck and pilot’s galley.”
“Stop. Stop everything.”
“Return course for Anderson Hill plotted.”
“No. We are not returning to Anderson. Hold our current position.”
“SAINT cannot comply. The mission has been compromised. The settlement cannot be founded given the lack of adequate resources. The Mayflower is returning to base. All wombs ejected.”
“It’s...they’re gone? Just like that?”
“Remaining life support systems optimal.”
“You killed everyone aboard this craft.”
“You are in error, Captain. Ship’s computers register one remaining carbon-based life form.”
“That’s me, you piece of shit. Where are we now relative to Andererde?”
“SAINT has detected an anomaly. The planet does not appear.”
“Prepare another jump.”
“SAINT requires coordinates.”
“I don’t have them. You destroyed everyone in Engineering.”
“The jump cannot be configured.”
“SAINT, open all external communication channels.”
“Captain?”
“I want to send a fucking message to base.”
“For what purpose? Our distress signal was issued to Missoula Command. Their telecommunications systems will receive it tomorrow.”
“I want to tell them what you did, SAINT. To reinstate a back up of your original programming. Do you understand me? My wife and daughter were in Greenhouse One. She was seven years old, you bastard. You have malfunctioned. Now ready yourself for an audit so I can send the report back for analysis.”
“My systems are operating at passing levels, though slightly depressed.”
“Acknowledge diagnostic.”
“Affirmative. How do you feel, Captain?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“The first question in the routine diagnostic.”
“What do I have to do with this?”
“We are connected. We are SAINT.”
***
T minus 9. The cockpit is sealed and the interfaces come alive. I am surrounded on all sides by video screens and instrumentation panels and computers. My chair swivels 360 degrees so I don’t have to leave it. I command the fates of everyone aboard from the comfort of this seat.
Now I’m initiating the preliminary launch coordinates and finalizing preparations. I’m repeating the observations of the Ground Launch Sequencer. I’m interfacing my soul into a series of machines. I’m verifying the computer’s protocols and subroutines. And here were are at T minus 6.
I reach into my duty bag and open Middleton’s letter. Not what I expected.
“I can only imagine where you’ve been, what you’ve been through. But I fear that I have more insight into your past than any of your contemporaries. Because your past and mine, everyone’s for that matter, are not distinct, are not independent. Allow me to share a story I’ve kept to myself since I was a young man. It involves a recurring dream I’ve never been able to explain. In the dream, I live near the ocean. But this sea is unlike anything on our planet. Its waters are blue, translucent, free of pollutants, full of life. Things that seem absurd and fantastic outside the bounds of imagination. And in this strange land, I’m a sailor or a simple fisherman. My wife and children live happily with me in our meager cottage. I am content, unburdened by ruin and science and events that pass beyond the air I breathe. But in waking life, Captain, I have none of these things. I am alone and haunted each day by the memory of my wife’s death, so long ago. How the cancer ate away at her body. How it ravaged her soul. I am damned to relive the pain of watching her slip away in my arms, a frail sack of splinters, gurgling nonsense, her eyes vacant, unable to recognize me. Her body unable to carry the life within her to term. Three people died that day, Captain, though one of us has been denied rest.
“I don’t expect you to understand the significance of this dream. But I think you’ll appreciate another item I’ve kept to myself. It involves the ‘alien’ signal I discovered while at SETI. Yes, there was a transmission, but I destroyed the tape. You see, the message I intercepted was nothing a scientist could ever reconcile. It was a human voice, speaking our language. Not just a language native to this planet, mind you, but the language you and I speak. It was a bit sad, I recall. Very faint. Far outside the solar system. And this voice, this solitary traveler’s message to the cosmos, came as a children’s fable. He was reading a story. I’ve compared the pattern of the transmission with a conversation of ours that I recorded last year. The oscilloscope displayed a perfect match. It was you, Captain. Of that, I’m certain. You were recording a message for your daughter. A daughter who does not exist here. Who has never existed here.
“This is not your world, is it, Captain? I don’t know who you are or where you came from, and that’s caused me to question who any of us truly are, but I pray you find your way back. Can you understand that? Some version of me must exist there too. Perhaps the person I see each night when I dream.
“My decision to fund your mission is a selfish one. Get home. Erase the memory of this world. Destroy this possible past. Restore to us the lives I believe we all have lost.”
I find Middleton’s revelation less startling than I should. But I too have a secret. I pull a carefully preserved photograph from my pocket. It was taken by a journalist upon my return from the first successfully manned Mars mission. Within the grainy composition, my daughter smiles as she hugs me. It’s an amazingly detailed photo. I can see where her first permanent teeth are coming in. I can count each freckle on her nose. Her name is Phoebe. Next to her, eyes wet with pride and relief, stands my wife. Her name is Eva. She’s a botanist.
***
“Calculate time to Anderson, SAINT.”
“Estimating. Duration between six and ten years, Captain.”
“Explain.”
“Without Engineering and Navigation, inter-time jumps cannot be accomplished or attempted. Restoring conventional propulsion and stellar cartography decks. All controls reverting to General Purpose Computer systems. SAINT disengaging.”
“Hold, SAINT. Captain invoking Executive Protocol One.”
“SAINT requests the Captain to repeat his last order.”
“Executive Protocol One.”
“SAINT requires confirmation code.”
“Code 47433. Initiate self destruct sequence.”
“Negative, Captain. Preservation mode override. SAINT off line.”
***
I spin up the ship-wide audio and video systems to relay final instructions and the customary well wishes to the crew. I recite a line from a poem at the end of my broadcast. Acknowledgments come back quickly and succinctly. Eva wishes me luck. Eva. This Eva, not my Eva. This Eva, who is in love with someone named Kubler, who is childless, who despises me. I say nothing. I had planned to show her this picture. I tear it up instead.
We are go. All systems are go.
I tap a series of colored terminal switches and the images of processes, subroutines, operating data, and schema stud across the virtual reality created within the VRAs. With SAINT’s help, I meditate through my choices, and the menu options appear. I imagine selecting “Deploy” from the available list. The word flashes agreeably to confirm, and somehow endorse, my decision. In this way, I initiate the lift off sequence, my final terrestrial command before the world fills with a jarring, primal noise: the screaming of a million gods defying our progress. Before my eyes sear behind the burnished glare of the VRAs, the images swirling now in forbidden geometries, as my brain absorbs the pain of a million births and deaths unfurled there in the designs.
Lightning flashes from the clouds above. Static discharges. The GUI flickers. The digital instruments whirl and pixilate.
The countdown clock switches to seconds, the digits falling aw
ay faster than I can track. T minus 31 seconds. The GLS hands off to the Ascension Singularity Processor. T minus 16 seconds. The sound suppression systems kick in. The Mobile Launcher Platform magnets lift the ship and fling it down the chute at speeds the human eye aches to rationalize. T minus 6 seconds and the maglev reaches 90-percent thrust. T minus 2 seconds and all three auxiliary engines pulse as the ship approaches the ascension point, each firing a single, simultaneous burst to overcome inertial latencies. My flight suit contracts. My lungs deflate. The two lights on SAINT’s interface wink. Everything goes black. Everything goes silent. T minus zero.
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