Old Man's Time

by William S. Fletcher

  Chapter 2

  The screen in front of the old man came on and at once displayed a map of hundreds of stars and planets, one of which was marked by blinking rings that resembled an old compass rose. Starting at this point there was a green line that connected many stars and planets. Furthest on the right was an orange ring, not too dissimilar from a weapon’s sight, with its crosshairs almost dead centre on a blinking point. It was not a straight line, by any means, for engineers back on earth had calculated it to be more fuel efficient to gather pace by sling-shotting the ship around some 97 selected stars and planets that were not too far off their desired course.

  It was only really during these manoeuvres that the pilot’s presence on the bridge was required. The scientists back home, using the gravitational values obtained from spectral analyses using earth’s most advanced satellites, had calculated the approaches. And while the old man had found these values to be astonishingly accurate, some fine-tuning by him upon seeing the actual gravitational pull on his ship had been required. More fine-tuning the further away from earth they had travelled. But he had managed: With every approach to one of these targeted stars and planets they had made use of the gravitational pull to gather pace and to alter course towards the next turning point. But that last turning point had been three years back or so. They had almost reached their final destination. Indeed, the old man had to zoom in on it; a planet officially coined apla31beta but unofficially referred to as ‘Destiny’ amongst the optimists and ‘Last Hope’ among those more pessimistically inclined. The old man had started out calling it ‘Destiny’ like the other mostly young people embarking towards a new life, a new chance, but with time passing away so had his optimism and more recently he had caught himself several times referring to it as his ‘Last Stop’.

  He would have to wake the others soon. The pilot was to consult with the expedition leader as to where to put the ship down once the most ideal site for a new colony had been determined. Earth was suffering from overcrowding, there were a dozen vicious wars fought at any moment. Wars over resources such as oil, food and more recently water. So far the developed countries had escaped the worst of it, money could go a long way. But it was only a question of time. It was generally accepted that Earth as it was could not continue to support a population anywhere near its current size. Or at least, that was the Earth that the old man had known many years ago. He had no way of knowing what it was like now; He didn’t even want to think about it. The more forward looking, more importantly even, pessimistic scientists and politicians on Earth had long ago come to the conclusion that for humanity to survive a new home would have to be found. Alpha31beta was the closest habitable planet to earth. It had been an expedition long in the planning and only made viable after the perfection of cryolockers. A tremendous amount of fuel resources was gathered and laid aside for the more than 400-year-long journey.

  400 years, had it really been that long? 400 years since they had left Earth but not 400 years for the old man. Their ship had a compliment of 400 people, a combination of engineers, scientists, farmers and artists, but among them were also 40 pilots; Pilots who had been given a free ticket to a new chance of life. Well, almost free, they had to each give 10 years of their lives to pilot the ship before waking the next pilot who would then place them back into cryoport. 10 years of their lives wasn’t so dear a price to pay to escape the suffering on earth. And indeed there had been no shortcoming of volunteers. Most pilots were in their late 20’s to early 30’s and so would still have a chance of a decent life on their new planet.

  And so it should have been for the old man too. He had been awoken as planned. No anomalies had occurred and the previous pilot reported that everything was proceeding according to plan. And that for the love of god he was happy that his time was up. Oh, how he was looking forward to getting some deep sleep.

  It wasn’t to spare the remaining pilots their 10 years that the old man decided not to wake any of them. He didn’t care about that. Everyone who had signed on had known what it entailed. No, it was because the old man had learned to like being alone. Sure, he had also longed for the relief from boredom. After the excitement of being in command of Earth’s most advanced and only interstellar traveller, had worn off after the first few months A boredom so mind numbingly intense that he had decided against all protocols to thaw one of the dogs on board, all sheep dogs intended to help grow the sheep flock. But with time the old man had learned to appreciate the independence that silence brought. With time the old man had noticed that he missed conversation less and less and if he wanted to talk to someone there was always his dog. For entertainment he had his books, an almost unlimited supply of humanity’s stories and novels saved on the computer’s main frame; designed to be the basement of what new culture would develop on ‘Destiny’. He’d gotten so used to being alone, to having his thoughts to himself, to being allowed to be his own master of time that towards the end of his shift he dreaded having to go to sleep only to be reawoken to become part of a buzzing emerging colony.

  He had made it as far as the cryolocker of the next man scheduled to start his shift on that day. A man named Mark Kawoski. The old man hadn’t liked the look of him. There was nothing wrong with the man per se. He had moderately long curly black hair and what the old man took to be a confident and, with some wishful thinking on his part, an even competent expression on his face. No, there was nothing wrong with the man at all, but something stopped the old man from initializing the thawing process. He had already raised his arm to reach out for the panel when he abruptly turned away and started walking off, only turning around once to call for Mud. The two of them could continue on for a while longer yet, there was no rush. A while had turned into some 50 years and some five dogs after Mud but he could not delay waking the people any longer. They had reached their destination. With the utmost reluctance but a small satisfying sense of accomplishment, “he had got them there after all”, the old man leaned forward and on his pilot’s console firstly initialized the approach sequence and secondly the thawing process for the entire crew. Now all he could do, all that remained for him to do was to wait for the expedition leader and the command crew to come to the bridge, to come to his bridge. It was the end of all he had come to know and cherish.

  It was only around 20 minutes or so before he could hear a great many excited sounding voices muffled yet by the door to the bridge. He braced himself for what he expected to be an overwhelming noise, but it never came. Expedition leader Sarah McAllistair, her hair auburn almost golden (just as he remembered her from embarkation) stepped through the door, followed by around 20 members of her crew. Upon seeing a grey-haired old man sitting in the pilot’s chair with a Border Collie curled up around his legs, all the chitchat stopped and everyone stood still gawking at the old man with dropped chins.

  The old man felt his anxiety rising; he didn’t like, no, hated being the centre of everyone’s attention.

  “What is going on here?” demanded McAllistair to know.

  The old man was trying to clear his throat and to compose an answer when her eyes fell upon the star map.

  Forgetting about the old man for the moment, she gasped: “We have actually made it, I can’t believe it. We’ve reached ‘Destiny’.”

  She quickly took her seat in the commander’s chair and zoomed in on the representation of alpha31beta. By now, no one, except for the old man and McAllistair, could contain themselves anymore. People were embracing, tears in their eyes; some even sank to their knees and were thanking God for delivering them safely.

  A man whose face the old man had last looked upon some 40 years ago, though then with an intensity of thought that made forgetting it ever an impossibility, approached him tentatively.

  In a stammering voice Mark Kawoski said into a silent room, for all the attention was back on the old man now: “Is that you? Can it be? Is it really you…”

  The old man heard his name being spoken for the first time in 50 years
but it almost didn’t register with him. The insignificance of names when you were all alone brought a smile to his face.

  “Damn it, it is you.” And before he knew it, Mark Kawoski was giving him a big hug. After what seemed to be an eternity even for an old man, Mark let go of him and turned to look around the bridge. However, he was only greeted with blank stares of bewilderment. “Don’t you get it?” said Kawoski, and raising his voice: “This son of a bitch didn’t wake me when his turn was up, he just kept going. I owe this guy 10 years of my life and I’m not the only one here.” The four other pilots who had not been woken understood, came over and shook the old man’s hand one by one. Mark, waiting his turn once more, exclaimed: “But why? Why didn’t you wake me?”

  The old man didn’t know how to answer. He could hardly say that he preferred to be alone now, could he? Not in a room full of people.

  Luckily McAllistair, who seemed to have some notion of the old man’s discomfort, interrupted them and said with authority in her voice: “It hardly matters now; What matters is that we have reached ‘Destiny’.”

  With a well meant smile she turned towards the old man, still seated in the pilot’s chair: “This is where your work is done and ours begins.” Turning back to her crew, she gave a series of quick commands: “First of all, we need to get started with our detailed scan of Destiny. I want geological, hydro and weather survey results ASAP”, and taking a deep breath: “Let’s find ourselves a home.”

  Crewmembers took seats at their respective stations and soon measurements began scrolling over every single screen on the bridge. For a moment, the old man considered staying to help find them the most suitable location for their new home, but he had had a home for the last 50 years; a home that was designed to be disassembled to provide the initial building blocks for a new colony.

  The old man got up from his chair unnoticed and walked off the bridge followed by his dog, not having spoken a single word. At the door, he turned around in time to see Mark Kawoski slide into what had been his seat for the last 50 years.

  Chapter 3

  The old man and his dog were in the hold containing the animals when Sarah McAllistair found them some hours later. There had been an unforeseen development. McAllistair explained to the old man that they were not the first to reach alpha31beta. It turned out that an expedition leaving earth some 150 years after them, making use of all the newly developed technologies, had reached the planet within 30 years of leaving. They had been building their colony for the last 250 years; it had grown from its modest beginnings to over 50000 people. 50000 people who were prospering with what seemed an almost unlimited supply of available farmland and resources. The old man didn’t know what to do with this information and so kept quiet. McAllistair seemed to take his silence as a sign of encouragement to express her feelings: “They have offered to take us all in. It will certainly make things easier.”

  She seemed a bit despondent to the old man. He remembered the enthusiasm she had shown for the chance to start anew; the chance to rebuilt. And now she had reached their destination only to find out that she had been overtaken, and that her skills were now superfluous. Instead of being pioneers, they would now be the charity cases of a society by now far more advanced, a society that had not been asleep for the last 400 years.

  The thought of this filled the old man with pure ice-cold dread. He already felt out of place in a crew made up of his own people. McAllistair seemed to know how he felt, but her next sentence still surprised the old man:

  “You know we wouldn’t need the spaceship anymore. The people on alpha31beta have promised to provide us with everything we need in exchange for sharing our breeding stocks of animals with them.”

  Chapter 4

  The old man sat in his pilot’s chair and punched a new course into the console. It didn’t even matter where, he never intended to reach anywhere. The old man was content. Curled around his feet, resting comfortably, was a muddy coloured Kelpie to keep him all the company he needed.

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