Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel

by Michael D. O'Brien

  “Right, but let’s keep our wits about us, for heaven’s sakes.”

  Stron took a long sip from his flask and said something guttural that sounded like: “Ufollisutstanswellneronekinseeettinknonswiznstrongnernefererelquintasthermzilf.”

  “What?” I demanded, because I feared that my co-conspirator might be going daft.

  “I said, ‘Of folys that stande so well in their owne conceyt that they thinke none so wyse, stronge, fayre, nor eloquent, as they are themselves’.”

  “Say that again, in English, please.”

  “That was English”, he snapped. His chest began to heave with irritation, and he took another sip. I noted that his hair was all askew, as if he had gone to extra trouble this morning before the mirror, as if he regularly messed up his hair to make himself look more eccentric.

  He swallowed his whiskey and said, slowly, emphatically, as if explaining something simple to a mentally deficient child: “I said: ‘Of fools that stand so well in their own conceit that they think there are none so wise, so strong, and so fair as they are themselves’.”

  “I see. And that’s what you think of me?”

  “Naw!” he barked. “I was referring to the powers that be on this ship of fools. It was a quotation. It was a literary quote from a famous text in our native language.”

  “Your native language.”

  “It’s a line written by a bonny Scotsman named Alexander Barclay, who in 1509 translated into English the all-time classic and best-seller, The Ship of Fools.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  “The original was written by a Swiss German living in Basel, a fellow named Sebastian Brandt. It was published in 1494 as Narrenschiff, and then translated into Latin under the title Stultifera Navis. Translations into several European languages followed, and more have appeared ever since.”

  “Ship of Fools—any inference intended?”

  “Inference and implication heartily intended. It’s an allegorical satire, you see. It tells the tale of a vessel populated by the deranged, the silly, or the simply stupid who, as they sail aimlessly along, get themselves into all kinds of trouble, all of it their own making. No captain, no pilot, just a gabble of goosey egoists and nincompoops absorbed in their own petty theories and desires. The Renaissance produced a ton of fables and paintings using that motif. Brandt’s was the best, of course.”

  “And does the story end well?”

  “Only if the reader pays attention.”

  “It was a warning, then?”

  “Right. Or a mirror, methinks. The ship crisscrossed the rivers and canals of Europe with its pathetic cargo of lunatics, searching for a fool’s paradise—the origin of our modern expression. Some writers and artists were merely mocking the follies of man, but some were mocking the Church, because it was supposed to be the ark of salvation, you see, and in those days it wasn’t doing a good job. Dis-edifying, one might say.”

  Without asking, I took the flask from Stron’s hand and had a swig for myself.

  “Which approach did Brandt take?”

  “He was a theologian, and a loyal one”, said Stron, grabbing the flask from me. “His was true satire, because he wanted to point out how men deceive themselves, with the objective of making people better.”

  “And Barclay?”

  “A godly Scotsman, he made a faithful translation, very witty in its own right.”

  “And you, Stron, are you a godly Scotsman?”

  My abruptness took him aback for a moment. He scowled at me with one eye as he thought about my question.

  “Naw”, he replied. “Naw, I am not. But equally, Neil, equally—or more than equally—I do not worship in the new church of our times.”

  Failing to grasp what he meant, I said, “Well, whatever remains of the church is scattered and pretty much underground in our times.”

  “The new church I refer to is thriving above-ground and controls nearly everything. And do you know what it worships?”

  “No.”

  “It worships humanity and no other. Which means it worships some men at the expense of other men. It’s Narcissus adoring his own image. And, as you should know, this new god demands an enormous number of sacrificial victims.”

  I shook my head dubiously.

  His brash tone and exaggerated accent went down to the minimum: “The missing children, Neil, the missing children! Why are they missing in untold numbers, eh?”

  “Yes, but that’s anti-religion.”

  “And thus it succumbs to the worst religious impulses of all. Back on Earth, didn’t you ever cast a casual glance beyond the borders of your computer screen or your antiquarian books? Have you cast a probing glance along the streets and avenues of this ship?”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said to Larson? And what I said in Stockholm? Don’t you think I’ve been taking a good look around?”

  “Yes, in a way. And you’ve concluded that some things are not right. You’ve been brave and bold about it too, and canny when you need to be. That’s why I’m with you in this. But I don’t think you really understand how dark it can get.”

  “Maybe I don’t, Stron.” I frowned, sinking into my own thoughts, my own confusions.

  “Well”, he muttered, staring at the floor, “the next move is theirs.”

  Day 2408:

  I awoke this morning to find that DSI had moved quickly.

  First, a flood of new visual presentations of our destination appeared in all the panorama rooms on the four main concourses. These were also available for viewing on personal maxes. The three stars are now visible “to the naked eye” (the true-scale digital images) as small orbs: two golden spheres and a smaller red coal.

  The Kosmos has deployed more robot telescopes, coasting in formation like minnows beside a whale, an array spanning about ten kilometers on each side of the ship, triangulating on the Alpha Centauri system. The close-ups reveal massive solar flares on the two larger suns, shooting hundreds of thousands of kilometers out from their surfaces. The new telescopic images of AC-B’s five planets are gripping, but AC-A’s eighteen planets are even more stunning, displaying a wide variety of sizes and colors. It is now confirmed that among them only Planet 7 has an Earth-like environment.

  There are many distinct features visible: moving weather patterns, clouds, storms, an atmosphere like that of our home planet. The spectrographs indicate a higher degree of oxygen and lower carbon dioxide. No large volcanoes, only a few small ones ringing tectonic plates, producing relatively low atmospheric pollution. There are oceans, and they are water. There are four main continents and five lesser ones; the latter are island masses larger than Australia. The land / sea ratio is different from Earth’s: there is more land on AC-A-7, though the seas may be deeper than ours. Due to our distance, depth readings are unreliable.

  The land masses appear to be covered with botanical life, unless all that luscious green is colored dust. A desert belt girds the equator, no more than 25% the size of our own desert belt back home. The polar ice caps are smaller too, which indicates a warm, moderate global climate, with fewer extremes. The planet has three small moons (all smaller than our moon). They are barren and cratered, colors respectively bright white, pale brown, and gray.

  The audio commentary to these son et lumière presentations informed us that, so far, we have received no signals of any kind from AC-A-7. Its night side displays not a single light of human habitation.

  It was difficult not to be distracted and enthralled by the presentations. Even as I watched them, a little scene from my childhood arose spontaneously in my mind’s eye, though at first I did not understand why.

  My mother was painting a piñata. She laid a wide brush stroke of crimson red onto the hardened white paper. Beside it, she painted a wide swath of yellow, without touching the red. Immediately, the crimson changed before my eyes: it now seemed orange.

  Then it hit me: optics involves psychological interpretation, perceptual subjectivity. Similarly, in a ship wh
ere little seems to be happening, where everything is ordinary and tending to become banal, a single voice cries out that a man is missing. This is a stark assault upon consciousness, a stroke of brilliant color. Then, if there suddenly appears all around it other strokes of color that are much more brilliant, the significance of a missing janitor dwindles. The context has changed everything. Clever, clever DSI.

  The second response was a tenderly expressed letter sent via max mail to everyone on board. Both Stron and Xue told me that theirs arrived about six o’clock this morning. Even I received one. It read as follows:

  To all staff and passengers of the Kosmos:

  Many of you will have seen the unauthorized hand-out sheet distributed yesterday by Dr. Neil de Hoyos. In it, he expressed his concern that a crew member of the ship was missing. The executive staff of the mission to AC-A-7 wish to reassure you that the person he refers to is not missing. The objective reality is that this is a figment of Dr. Hoyos’ imagination. While we believe him to be sincere, the allegations he makes are directly related to ongoing problems he has had with his personal health. For the past few months, he has been receiving medical treatment for his condition, which involves disorders in his brain chemistry that result in severe depression and occasional eruptions of delusional behavior. With regret, we must inform you that the distribution of yesterday’s hand-out was one such episode.

  Dr. de Hoyos is one of the most respected scientists of our times. His accomplishments in physics have earned him two Nobel Prizes as well as many other honors from the human community. He well deserves these honors. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the subject of his private physical and mental difficulties must become public knowledge. The executive committee, after much discussion, and with hesitation, concluded that it would be beneficial for the good of the mission to share this information with you, in order to reassure you that there is no need for concern regarding the allegations, for they are entirely the product of Dr. Hoyos’ imagination.

  As he continues to undergo treatment, he will participate as usual in the normal routine of onboard life. We encourage you to exercise every effort at kindness and patience toward him personally, for this great man is ever worthy of our respect.

  Sincerely,

  [signed]

  Dr. Karl Skinner, Director, Department of Social Infrastructure

  Dr. Elif Larson, Deputy Director

  I had just completed a second reading of this masterful bit of troubleshooting, when a knock came upon my door, and my two gendarmes appeared. They explained that they had a mandate to accompany me to the Concourse B medical clinic. What in tarnation is a “mandate”! I’m getting really sick of this kind of verbal sludge. Couldn’t they just say “order”? I went along with them, docile as a lamb. Were they about to have me incarcerated and heavily drugged? Possibly, but I took some comfort in the fact that DSI’s smooth letter indicated otherwise.

  As it turned out, they had been sent to conduct me to see my personal physician. Pia was waiting for us at the clinic, looking cool and professionally distanced from me. Had they got to her too? She explained to me, without losing eye contact, that a change in my medication had been “mandated” and that the pharmacy had already sent it to her. She turned away to a dispensary shelf, and began to prepare my new pill. The gendarmes stood aside, but did not depart; apparently, they would make sure I took my medicine like a man.

  Pia handed me a tiny polyplast pill cup, and another of water.

  “Here we are, Dr. Hoyos”, she said in the deadpan tone of a detached physician.

  I tossed both pill and water down my throat, wondering what would happen next.

  The gendarmes cordially said good-bye to Pia, whom they addressed as “Dr. Sidotra”, told me I could go about my business as I wished, and then they departed.

  “Dr. Hoyos,” she said, making my heart sink with the formality of it, “you’ll be feeling a lot better within days.”

  “Uh, thank you, Dr. Sidotra. Can you tell me what this new pill is? What is it going to do to me?”

  She turned away from me and penciled something on a scrap of paper.

  She said: “It’s something that will help you with your mood swings. It will also help you stay on an even keel.”

  She handed me the paper, on which was written: Placebo. Meet me deck C 2100 hrs. Munch alcove. “Thanks”, I mumbled, and left.

  For the better part of what remained of the morning, I shuffled along Concourse C, feeling somewhat depressed in a natural sort of way, but basically still my good old self. I inspected every art alcove on that deck, wondering what on earth a Munch alcove was. “Munch” as in “chew”? Would we meet beneath a painting or sculpture of a mouth? Or had she misspelled a word? Finally, I found it by looking a bit closer at the label beneath a painting of a distressed man with wide open mouth under a writhing, bloody-looking sky. Its title was The Scream. It was by an artist named Edvard Munch, interestingly a Norwegian like Elif Larson. Was this Pia’s sly humor at work?

  Nothing much happened for the remainder of the day. Whenever I ventured forth from my room for meals, the people I encountered in line were invariably kind, patient, and respectful, though they kept their distance. Most did not engage in eye contact, and others passed me in the hallway as if I didn’t exist.

  At 9 P.M., I went downstairs to C and along the concourse to the alcove, where I found that Pia had already arrived, pretending nervously to inspect the painting with avid aesthetic interest.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Neil, Neil”, she said as she came forward and took my hands. “I’m so sorry about that awful scene in the clinic. I had to do it.”

  “You gave me a placebo, your note said.”

  “Yes. Thankfully, the enforcers didn’t see what I was doing at the dispensary table. They’re supposed to stand watch while you take your pill every morning. After a few days, I think, when they’re convinced you’re a docile patient, they’ll leave it all to me.”

  “What were they trying to give me?”

  “A double dose of your previous anti-psychotic medicine, plus some added ingredients to spike your irrational behavior.”

  “Pia, thank you. Thank you for taking this risk.”

  “Now, we need to discuss the appropriate behavior that results from this medication. When you come to the clinic in the mornings, I want you to walk a little more slowly each time and look a little more distracted.”

  “You mean I should seem sort of not there?”

  “Yes, but not too much at first. Day by day, can you become increasingly more apathetic and inappropriate?”

  “I’m always inappropriate.”

  “You should say odd things out of the blue, not really connected to what’s being discussed, as if your mind is elsewhere than involved in what’s in front of you. You don’t have to behave like you’re insane, just disconnected. Can you remember that?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’ll be acting like a competent servant of the system, and I’ll be somewhat cold to you. It means nothing.”

  “I know that, sweetie”, I smiled and kissed her on the cheek. She gently pushed me away.

  “Neil, we must never—I mean never—presume that in public offices or private rooms there isn’t an audio device picking up what we say. I’ve had a pretty good look at this alcove and there’s nothing I can see that indicates surveillance. If there is something here, well, then the whole thing’s shot anyway.” She scowled at the ceiling and walls. “But I think we do have some hopes.”

  “What hopes—and to what end?” I asked gloomily.

  “I can’t explain that now. What I can tell you is that the Med exec has sent down a memo telling me to keep an eye on you for any symptoms of suicidal thoughts. That worries me.”

  “Me too. A nice clean suicide would solve all their problems.”

  “I want you to do something else for me. Will you please go swimming tonight at 0100 hours? If you see that there are more than one or
two people in the pool, just go back to your room and wait. Return to the pool an hour later. If there’s only one other person there besides yourself, then you can go in.”

  “Uh, Pia, have you considered that swimming in the middle of the night is kind of a counterproductive strategy? Drowning is a nice clean way to go, suicidally I mean.”

  “You’re not going to drown. Not while I can do anything about it. Please, just do as I ask.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “With my life, lady.”

  “Okay, then, here goes conspiracy number two.”

  Day 2409:

  Dutifully, I arose at half past midnight, donned my shorts and T-shirt, slung a towel around my shoulders, and went out for a swim. I avoided the elevator, thinking that this would be a typical surveillance hot spot, ideal for overhearing conversations. Maybe they had installed botfly larva here or a tapeworm head. Perhaps not, but I felt that over-caution was the best approach. Descending the stairs to level D and making the long trek to the recreation complex on that floor took about half an hour, so I arrived somewhat later than I had planned. Gazing through the pool windows, I saw that there was only one other person present. The doors whisked aside at my command, and I entered.

  The man in the pool was doing laps. I sat on the edge with my feet dangling in the water and watched him go from one end to the other. He did not seem to notice my presence, which is usual with these strong, silent types. I had no idea why Pia had asked me to come here at this time, and thought that she would soon arrive. Doubtless, we would talk in relative privacy and plan a few more evasionary tactics. If she did not appear at the end of the hour, I would go back to my room and try to get some sleep.

  Stripping off my shirt, I eased into the shallow end, where I floated and paddled about for a while, keeping my eye on the other swimmer. It was unlikely he would be a suicide assister, but a lot of improbable things had happened during the voyage, and I didn’t want any unpleasant surprises. I was very tired, and feeling some nervous strain as well. After a few lateral paddle-laps, I pulled my flagging body out of the water and sat on the edge, catching my breath and dabbling my feet.