Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel

by Michael D. O'Brien

Dariush handed me a slip of paper. On it was written a mixture of numbers and letters. I smiled, recognizing a quirky algorithm Xue and I had worked on in our youth.

  “This is from Ao-li?”

  “Yes, it is his door code. He asks that you retrieve his most favored book—the one you have discussed with him. He asks also that you bring this book and a sculpture of a deer to your room.”

  “My room is hardly a safe place to keep them. Why does he want me to do it?”

  “He did not say. He mentioned, however, that he is currently embroiled in a controversy with fellow committee members and with other committees involved in the examinations of the towers and the temple ship.”

  “Did he explain what the trouble was?”

  “He believes they are pressing for discoveries in a hasty manner. Our time is running out, you see. Departure is thirty-two days from now. Under the laws that govern the expedition, all personnel must return to Earth, since debriefings will be extensive when we arrive there. It is hoped that the findings and papers written by the scientific teams, with no member excepted, will generate the global funding for a second expedition. Xue argues that what we have already discovered will ensure a second expedition.”

  “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  “Several teams are desperate to have a major discovery to bring back to Earth.”

  “We have tons of major discoveries!”

  “Yes, but they want a gem to cap their crowns. They want to power the ship. Our own mobile generators have been unable to do so—only the very simple hydraulics in the towers respond.”

  “Power the ship? You mean they want to make it fly?”

  “No, that is still in the realm of the fantastic. For now, they hope to reenergize the circuit systems, including functions as simple as the original lighting and as complex as the glass tablet in the command center, which they believe is a computer screen. If it is such, it could give them potential access to digital archives they think are embedded somewhere on board. This may enable them to extend the wings, analyze the bronze hands’ relationship to the wings, test the gyroscopes’ relationship to the command center, and activate many other functions.”

  “Have they figured out how to access the original power source?”

  “Not yet. And this may be a blessing, since the forces within the reactor, though dormant, could prove to be more idiosyncratic than we suppose. Dr. Xue is arguing for extreme caution.”

  “And so he should! It’s bad science—very bad science—to tinker with powers like that, not knowing how they really work.”

  “Xue believes that the ship’s propulsion and internal energy both came from the reactor, but how it was done he doesn’t know. Neither do the nuclear physicists know. The latter are convinced that there was a bi-level system, one for propulsion and a secondary mini-reactor for powering the ship’s internal systems.”

  “On what do they base their conviction?”

  “There does appear to be a second component on top of the main reactor, less than a tenth its size. It has three small orifices on the side facing the front of the ship. The holes are presently sealed with the anti-radioactive veneer. They are aligned with three holes in the bulkhead. In the opinion of the nuclear physicists and technicians, they were apertures through which power cables once ran.”

  “That’s jumping to a big conclusion when we’re dealing with nuclear power.”

  “They are desperate to make a tremendous achievement.”

  He checked his wristwatch. “Neil, I must go. I am behind in my translations, and the shuttle departs half an hour from now.”

  We bid each other farewell. I went directly to Xue’s room, retrieved his Bible and his iron deer, patted the little poet on the head, and returned to my own room.

  If Xue really had been thinking straight, he would have asked Paul to retrieve them for safekeeping.

  Day 404:

  A DSI agent was standing in the hallway when I left my room this morning. He didn’t say a word, but he followed me to the cafeteria, and after I had my breakfast, he followed me back. Then I led him on a merry chase, zigging and zagging in a random pattern throughout the maze of deck B, all the while getting ever closer to street 22. By the time, I arrived there, I had turned so many corners that his guard was lowered, and he was lagging half a block behind. I turned onto 22 and hobble-hoofed at my top speed to the KC elevator, typed in the code as fast as I could, and stepped inside. I didn’t look back. The doors closed and I went up. I don’t know if he spotted me.

  Paul ushered me into the bedroom of their apartment. Pia was lying on the bed, eyes closed, looking serene, if a little drawn. The baby rested under her right arm, swaddled and flawless, her large black eyes regarding me with total consciousness.

  I knelt down beside the bed and kissed the baby’s forehead. She began to cry, waking up Pia.

  Pia and Paul let me hold her. I had never experienced this in my life, not even long ago in our village. The grandmothers had always monopolized that sort of thing, and my paternal instinct was entirely latent then.

  Now it blossomed—flooded, actually. I was in love. I was totally in love.

  “Do you like her, Neil?” Pia asked.

  I nodded up and down in the affirmative.

  When I was able to speak, I whispered, “Katherine Teresa.”

  For the longest time, I gazed enraptured at her little face as she gazed back at me. Finally, Paul the knight-prince tapped my shoulder and said that the baby needed to nurse now; it was time for me to go. I gave the princess back to her mother and babbled inept congratulations to her parents. We concluded with handshakes, hugs, and final kisses.

  On my way back downstairs, I kept thinking, O mankind, why, why are you so blind, when you can have this!

  RETURN

  “Say quick”, quoth he, “I bid thee say—

  What manner of man art thou?”

  —Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

  Days no longer have meaning. I write to preserve my sanity.

  Why do I preserve my sanity? After all that has happened, am I still sane?

  Is there hope beyond the end of all possible hope? Is this the animal spark within us that keeps us going when the worst occurs—and beyond the worst—darker than the mouth of the blood-devourer?

  I did not mean to do it. It did not begin that way.

  It began with an accident.

  No, it began with a lie.

  *

  I will try to remember how it was.

  The day after I visited baby Katherine, Dariush unexpectedly returned to the Kosmos. He found me in my room and insisted that we go for a walk, in order to talk privately.

  He said, “Neil, I am disturbed. I have completed translation of a scanned codex in the central tower. It is a bronze plaque embedded in the wall above the sphere.”

  “What does it say?” I asked.

  Without answering, he slowed his pace, and we turned aside into the next art alcove we came to. There he read to me from a sheet of paper:

  To you who come to us from the stars,

  We open wide the path between the plentiful lakes.

  Pass over the low bridge between waters and know it as the high road.

  Our god welcomes you unto the household of his light

  In this heaven in the heavens.

  Three towers are his eyes, the light of his glory shines forth from them.

  Our heavens-ship sleeps until you come,

  And though we are gone, we give it unto you

  In honor of your light, be it soon or in ages hence.

  We are lords of the thirteen of the star in the west,

  Which the towers will show you.

  We are lords of the eighteen of the star that is nigh,

  Which is three flames of the Lord of the Night-gods.

  Open the gate in the wall and behold.

  Open the eyes in the towers to the flame of the Lord of the Night
-gods.

  His day-star in full strength will give power to the ship,

  So you may know its greatness and rise up on it,

  As we once rode the arrow of the gods.

  Dariush frowned and met my eyes.

  “Interesting”, I said.

  “They are inviting visitors from other worlds to share in their glory and power. Their power is their glory, you see.”

  “And you find this disturbing? I wouldn’t read too much into the poem, if I were you. It’s just more of their myths.”

  “It is telling us to do exactly what Xue is warning the other scientists not to do. I am worried.”

  “The only thing that disturbs me is bad science, Dariush. Blind methodology—that’s what we should be worried about.”

  “Neil, there is a profound unease in my soul. It is like the day we visited the beautiful valley. I blessed the water of the little lake, and then there rose up within me the ancient voices of terror and despair. Do you remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “The feeling is the same. Something is wrong, but I do not know what it is. I believe we should not so quickly obey these instructions from the past. They were evil men.”

  “But proud of their accomplishments and eager to display them.”

  “Yes, proud. I ask myself, in the darkness of their pride, were other spirits moving?”

  This was theology. I did not trust it.

  “What does Xue think?” I asked.

  “From his perspective, he is adamant that we must learn more about the optics and the operations of the ship before exposing it to the full power of the. . .”

  “Of the eyes of the god.”

  “They are more than eyes. As you know, they are a brilliant invention entwined with a most odious mythology. The myths have no power over us spiritually, but the inventions may yet have power. Moreover, Neil, man has not ceased to be vulnerable to falsehoods.”

  “Falsehoods? Why would they lie to us? They wanted us to admire them extravagantly, maybe even to bow down in awe before their memory.”

  “Perhaps”, he frowned, dropping his eyes in private thought for a moment. “Perhaps. I hope that is the nature of their evil, and no more.”

  “Well, it’s not your responsibility. I suppose once the committees read this, they’ll make their own decision.”

  “I will refrain from submitting the document. I fear it would only be an added incentive for them to proceed thoughtlessly.”

  *

  But Dariush had not considered other factors. He had auto-translated the hieroglyphics through the main computer, and this meant that someone, at some point, might read the document. And it was read. Then it went out of his hands and into the hands of the blind.

  Human motivation is subtle. The blind cannot “see” their own blindness. And I am no different in this than any other man. I cannot now piece together exactly how it came to pass that the authorities obeyed the instructions from the old lords of the night. Perhaps there were whisperings in their own ears. Perhaps it was only the whisper of ambition. I wonder in retrospect if they lusted for that gemstone, the ultimate discovery, because they felt certain it would eclipse the harm they had done during the voyage—murder and injustice in other forms. Did they think that a court of inquiry back on Earth would overlook their crimes and call them misdemeanors in the face of such a tremendous accomplishment? I do not know what went on inside their minds. I know only that DSI gave the final permission.

  It was, I think, a week or so before our scheduled departure from Nova that the announcement was made. The media proclaimed that we were on the verge of a great breakthrough, a triumph to bring back to Earth.

  I tried to contact Xue, but he had not returned to his room since the last time I saw him. He sent me no messages—or none that got through. My max-mail to him went unanswered. Dariush was also absent from the ship.

  In the panorama presentations, interviews with the heads of committees were broadcast simultaneously with images of the towers, the cliff face, and the ship itself, silently waiting. Of all the committee members who spoke, only Xue was absent. The document Dariush had translated was narrated and extolled. The incentive was in place, adding fuel to the other reasons, spoken and unspoken.

  The procedure was described in advance. The spheres in the three towers would be elevated before dawn of the next day. They would remain covered until noon. The plugs would be removed from the “eyes” of the mural on the cliff face. When the sun’s azimuth and altitude were optimum, the spheres would be uncovered and their prisms would configure optical beams to enter the temple and strike the cone at the ship’s nose, passing through more triune holes and prisms until they struck the three small orifices of the mini-reactor in the rear of the vessel, melting the black veneer and contacting the devices within. The concentrated solar power would activate the mini-reactor, and the ship would awaken.

  The next morning, after a sleepless night, I got up early and made my way to the panorama hall on my deck. A few people were present, watching the live programming that had already begun. For the most part, these were maintenance staff, since a majority of the scientists were down in the valley and temple, as close to the ship as they could get.

  I watched the raising of the hydraulic columns in split-screen, the left shot taken from within one of the towers and the right from an observation point about a hundred meters distance from it. Then the camera cut to a wide pan of all three towers, clearly visible in the pale light of dawn. The central one lacked its upper walls, and so its sphere was poised erect on its supporting rod, exposed but hooded. Since the two other towers higher on the mountains had retained much of their upper walls, the light beams would be directed from the spheres through their circular windows.

  A short experiment was made with the last of the faint starlight in the west. Three miniscule beams shot through valley and hit the mural’s eyes, which were protected by a steel plate; the beams burned pinholes in it. The spheres were re-hooded. A hover platform was elevated to the face of the deity, and technicians removed the plate and then extracted the stone plugs from the eyes. A close-up view showed an optics man placing the plugs on the floor of the platform. It descended to the ground before the open gate, and the technicians went inside the temple. The sun broke over the mountain tops, and then we waited.

  Interviews with technicians in the towers and the ship’s aft section continued throughout the morning. Shortly before noon, the main screen switched to the area immediately around the ship. There seemed to be about a hundred specialists milling this way and that or entering and leaving the portal at midship. Then came an interview with a nuclear physicist standing in front of the reactors. Pointing to the great black mammoth and its little appendage perched on top, he explained that the ship’s designers had prudently separated the energy functions of propulsion and inboard power; they had done so in order to ensure that life support systems and other internal functions would not cease in the event of a shut-down or accident in the major reactor. In a few minutes from now, he enthused, we would observe the ingenious process by which the “aliens” had either regenerated or augmented their core fuel. They had probably used a similar method during their flight across the stars, and had adapted their optics for on-ground solar generation after they had made their base on this planet.

  Now the panorama screen divided into four panels side by side. On the left was the wide scan of the three towers. Next, the cliff face, with a close-up of the winged god staring out over the valley. Then, the temple’s innermost chamber, with a view of the ship’s nose and people still milling about, talking animatedly and checking instruments. The excitement was high. Finally, the screen on the right, the interior of the rear section, where the nuclear physicists had gathered, staring at the reactor or smiling at the camera.

  Suddenly, there appeared a commotion by the portal entry on the third screen. I looked closely. It was Xue struggling his way up the ramp, and then head to head with a sci
entist who stood at the portal with his arm held out to prohibit entry. Xue was shouting at him. I heard a few words such as “fission” and “isotopes” before military men ran up the ramp and hustled him down to the chamber floor and out of sight. I wondered what Xue had been trying to do, and where he had been taken.

  The countdown began: Five minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes.

  The narrator was at the one minute mark when I saw on the screen a figure run out of the temple gate and leap onto the hover platform. He jerked its control lever and rose at high speed, just as the narrator began, “ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

  The camera zoomed for a close-up. It was Xue. He bent and picked up something in his hand. He was holding a stone plug and frantically trying to pack it into the central eye.

  “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  Simultaneously, the spheres in the towers were uncovered, and three beams shot across the valley, the central one horizontal and aiming for the middle eye, the other two converging. It all happened at lightspeed, but I saw it as if in slow motion. I leaped to my feet just as a beam hit Xue’s right hand.

  “No!” I yelled. “Ao-li, no!”

  There was a flash, and his hand burst into flames. He flinched but did not waver. He was using both hands now, and with whatever muscle or bone power was left to him, he still tried to block the beam’s entrance. But it was too late. The other two beams were inside.

  Xue jerked backward as his arms exploded; then he spun as the beam struck the side of his head. He toppled off the platform and hit the stone pavement far below.

  Now all four screens displayed the progress of the beams: across the valley, through the eyes, through the temple, converging on the nose cone, through the midsection of the ship, through the three little bulkhead holes. They were now burning their way through the black veneer on the mini-reactor.

  All four screens went white for a micro-second, and then they went black.

  I stood there staring at the blank wall. Panting, my mouth wide open in a silent yell of protest, I was desperate to know what had happened, desperate to save Xue, even though he was beyond all help.