Escape to the Stars!

by Glenn L Erickson

  Chapter 10: Confrontation at the Space Elevator

  The final touches were being made to GenStar One. Both habitats were up to full speed and the huge engines were installed. The fueling process was on-going and would be done in a few months.

  Potential colonists from around the world had gathered at secured locations, far from public view, and given training in ship-board life. This included familiarization with systems in their residences and damage-control training for fire, breaches, and other emergencies.

  The ship’s crew was already aboard and they were wringing out the last of the shipyard’s punch-lists. Contractors responsible for the habitability aspects of the residential areas were painting and outfitting each residence per the desires of the eventual occupants.

  The farms had been established early on to supply food for the workers building the ships. They also regulated the carbon-dioxide levels and returned clean oxygen to the air. A few tweaks in the make-up of the crops being grown had allowed nearly all food shipments for the workers to cease. Many of the animals aboard had been born there and had never set foot upon Earth.

  The species that seemed to adapt most readily were the fish and other aquatic species. The lack of predation had allowed their numbers to grow far more rapidly than expected. As a result, fish of some sort was on the menu more often than had been anticipated.

  No predators or any of the larger aquatic and land-based creatures were included as live specimens. DNA samples for all species had been included in frozen storage in case they were needed on the planets the humans decided to colonize.

  To keep many of those aboard happy, most of the animals living aboard were there simply to provide wool, hair, milk and eggs. Few of them, other than the chickens, would actually be used for meat. It was planned that the animals’ manure would help fertilize the farms, and the grazers would eat the stubble and chaff in the fields after harvests. The pigs would recycle left-over food and spoilage. Chickens were aboard in a wide variety, along with careful additions of other egg-laying birds.

  After years of trial-and-error, synthetic meat had finally been brought to a point that most people didn’t know the difference. That, and soy-based substitutes helped to supplement the cravings of the carnivores among the workers and crew. Synthetic meat was often used for the ground-meat based items like lunch meats and sausages.

  Vast amounts of natural elements need to keep the farms’ soil in balance were stored under vacuum in the spider-webbing of framework between the habitats. Stores of other raw materials that couldn’t be derived from waste products or recycling were also stored in vacuum.

  As soon as the habitats had been spun-up, the farmers and fisheries specialists were brought aboard to ply their trades. They helped to start-up and monitor the progress of the farms and supervised the livestock breeding programs. Sometime during this period, a few rats managed to sneak aboard in a sealed shipping container. To eliminate them, a steep bounty was awarded to anyone that turned in the bodies. A lively after-hours hunt soon had the rats eliminated.

  As more of the crew took over, the contractors gradually withdrew. Some of the contractors had tried to hide in seldom-accessed areas but they were eventually discovered and escorted off the ship. There were sad reports of crew-members finding the remains of people, including once an entire family that had stowed away in shipping containers.

  Museums and other facilities around the world had supplied GenStar One with selections from their collections. Many of these were packed away in secured areas, while others were sequestered in secure glass-and-steel displays for the enjoyment of the passengers and crew.

  Alexi was one of the fortunate few from her home town of Petropavlovsk. She was trained in genetics and was slated to work in the animal-husbandry field to detect and correct any errors that crept into the gene-pool. She had been faced with the choice of accepting the invitation to become a colonist, or to stay and marry Pieter. Her parents and Pieter had both urged her to become a colonist. She and Pieter spent one last weekend together before she was whisked away to St. Petersburg to begin training for shipboard life.

  The year spent in St. Petersburg was so intense that she seldom had time to reconsider her decision or to miss her family. They exchanged messages from time to time, but personal contact was discouraged. She missed her family but understood that, once she was aboard ship, she would never actually see them again except in messages.

  The hardest part of her existence was saying goodbye to the fellow candidates that failed the testing and had to leave the program. She never learned their fate as none of them ever tried to contact anyone still in the program. Eventually, she had the small cubical all to herself. Sometimes the memories of her roommates’ faces and shared dreams crashed in on her in moments of despair.

  The day finally arrived when she and the rest of her group were scheduled to leave for the ship. As she had packed her meager belongings, Alexi reflected on her life-choices once again. There was no chance of her changing her mind now and returning to Pieter; he had married a couple of weeks earlier. While she was happy for him, she had cried herself to sleep that night.

  Alexi sat in the lobby of the station with the people that remained from her group, waiting for the train to arrive. As she looked out through the windows, her view was taken up by the waving signs of the protestors camped outside the fence surrounding the station. She could read many of the signs they held aloft and was saddened by the sentiments revealed there. Some were pleas to take their children and others condemned them for fleeing a sinking ship. Many religious people were praying for their safety. Candles by the thousands burned night and day, stuck through the mesh of the fence or placed in colorful holders on the ground.

  The train hissed to a stop and the doors popped in and then to one side. Porters stepped out and urged them to board quickly. As she stepped past an older man on her left, she saw a flash of what looked like anger flicker in his face. She turned to look back as she was herded along but failed to spot him again. Facing forward again, she allowed the throng to move her along until she was left alone in a car that was completely devoid of people.

  Alexi placed her small bag on the shelf over a seat and settled near a window. The train began to move almost immediately. The scenery began to move by faster and faster until it was merely a blur. Only things quite a distance away remained in focus. She was distracted by the sound of the door of the car hissing closed. She glanced that way in time to see the old man she had seen earlier taking a seat near the door.

  She turned back to the window and let the incident fade. Her reveries were soon interrupted by a person sitting down beside her. Startled, she gasped and turned to find that it was the old man. She started to get up in panic when the man raised both hands, palms outward.

  He jumped up and backed away, holding his hands, palms forward towards her. “Please. I’m sorry I startled you. I suppose I should have asked before sitting here.” He looked down as if deciding whether to go on, then glanced up and said “May I speak with you for moment?”

  Her heart was still pounding out of her chest but she hesitated long enough to take a second, closer look at the man’s face. He was pleading with her with his eyes.

  Swallowing hard, she asked “What can I do for you?”

  The man sagged visibly and sat in another seat facing her. A tear rolled down one cheek unnoticed. He sniffed and then wiped the tears away with the back of a shaking hand. “My granddaughter looked a lot like you. You startled me back at the station.”

  Her heart-rate slowing, Alexi leaned forward and patted the man’s hand. “You startled me too. No harm done.”

  The man nodded distractedly. Then he straightened perceptibly and said “When I saw you enter the train, I was reminded of the reason why she died.” He stumbled to a stop and fresh tears ran down his cheeks. Sniffing mightily, he cleared his throat and added “She was the light of my life. Her p
arents, my son and daughter-in-law, died in a traffic accident and she was badly injured. I spent every day at her bedside, encouraging her to struggle to survive. It took nearly a year but she recovered enough to come home.” He stopped there and cried silently. Alexi was gripped by his narrative and stayed quiet.

  He finally turned back to her and said “She was killed by a careless driver as she drove her wheelchair across the street on her way to school. The driver didn’t stop. He left to die at the side of the road.” His face scrunched up in unrelieved anger and frustration. He stood up with his hands clenched at his sides, visibly shaking with long-repressed rage. “He drove off and left her to DIE!”

  Alexi was taken aback by the intensity of his reaction. She feared for her own safety, wondering if his grief would drive him to harm her. She cowered back against the window. The man overcame his rage with visible difficulty and then realized Alexi’s reaction and fear. He dropped to his knees before her, pleading with her to forgive him. “I’m sorry miss. I guess I am still too upset about it.” He stopped then with his head bowed, shaking visibly with emotion.

  After taking a moment to gather her frightened wits about her, she laid a hand on the man’s shoulder only to feel him tense. The reaction only lasted a moment and the man sagged and said. “Marsha used to try and comfort me that way when I remembered my son’s death.” He was quiet for a while and then slowly struggled to his feet, all the while keeping his eyes averted. “I’m sorry to have imposed on you like this. I had to see if you weren’t really my Marsha come back to haunt me.”

  He pushed to his feet and stood swaying slightly with motion of the train. He glanced at her briefly and said quietly “I will leave you alone now.” He turned away and then glanced back and said quietly “Thank you for allowing me to vent my anger and frustration Miss.” He then hurried away, leaving Alexi concerned and confused. The suddenness and intensity of the event left her breathless and frightened. Alexi never saw the old man again.

  The rest of the trip to Malaysia was uneventful. It was nearing dawn as the train began to slow down from nearly 300kph. The sky was a gorgeous pale blue with tints of pink as the lights of the Space Elevator came into view. She tipped her head back to look through the sky-view windows of the car. The nearly-invisible thread of the carbon nanotube cable was faintly lighted by the rising sun.

  As she watched, a brilliant flash at the base of the cable highlighted the departure of a Climber. It rose rapidly, benefitting from the development of compact fusion reactors. It had only gone a short ways before sunlight glinted from a reflective part of the climber.

  Her view was blocked as the train coasted into the tunnel under the anchor-station and gently slowed to a stop. A platform came into view with throngs of people waiting. She retrieved her bag and headed towards the door at the center of the car. She was greeted by a harried young man with a pad. He scanned her implant and the pad beeped. He glanced at the message displayed and pointed her towards a tunnel with flashing green lights over the entrance.

  Looking around, she shrugged and then walked towards the indicated tunnel and stepped aboard a slide-walk. It hurried her along the dim tunnel for a minute before slowing enough to allow her to step off. She emerged from the tunnel into a vast rotunda of confusion and noise. Momentarily overwhelmed, Alexi stopped and then lingered near a planter to avoid the press of bodies. A sudden burst of chanting in a strange language drew the attention of everyone and then several blue-uniformed security officers seemed to appear from everywhere, heading towards the disturbance.

  One voice rose over the chanting to declare “We too are human! We too have the right to exist! No one should be able to declare us unworthy to continue the Human species.” The voice became incoherent as the security forces confronted the protesters and the situation devolved into a general free-for-all. The sounds of struggle were magnified in the relative silence of the rotunda as non-combatants sought shelter wherever they could.

  Alexi peered from behind the planter to watch as the security forces used stun-batons to subdue the protestors. The speaker was a huge, shaggy man that had grabbed a security officer in each hand and was using their bodies to bat away the attempts of the rest of the squad to subdue him. Alexi was impressed by the man’s great strength and persistence.

  The overwhelming odds finally overcame the man and he was brought down. As he was bound and dragged away, he continued to bellow his defiance and struggle against his bonds and captors. Alexi was secretly pleased to see that the security officers were staying just out the man’s reach, with many of them sporting black eyes and bloodied noses. A couple of them were limping.

  As the altercation ended, those that had witnessed it moved out of hiding and began to speculate loudly about the incident. Alexi picked up her small bag and headed towards the information kiosk to get directions. A young security officer heard her ask for directions and volunteered to guide her towards the embarkation point.

  She was acutely aware that the young man found her attractive but she hadn’t the heart to identify herself to him. It was when she headed towards the entrance to the area reserved for colonists that the young man flushed and turned away. She tried to thank him and he looked back, but he just looked at her blankly and turned away. Puzzled and hurt by his reaction, she sighed and turned towards the sentries standing to either side of the entrance. They scanned her implanted ID chip and waved her through. She stepped into the relative quiet of the special lounge and was greeted by a petite young woman.

  “Welcome to Malaysia.” She scanned Alexi’s implant and directed her to a portal. “You need to hurry. Your group is supposed to leave on the next Climber.” She led Alexi towards the doorway and stood at the entrance to ensure she actually joined her group. Alexi walked hesitantly into the adjoining room and was greeted by yet another young woman with a harried look. Spotting Alexi, she waved her over and scanned her implant yet again. Assured that she was supposed to be there, the woman smiled and said “Good! You are that last one!” She then looked at Alexi directly and added quietly “I don’t think I would have the courage to do what you are doing.” Shuddering slightly, she added “Leave the Earth forever, aboard a ship that has never actually flown yet! No way!” Then she smiled brightly and added “I am glad that you are brave enough though!”

  Alexi returned the smile, though with less enthusiasm. She switched her bag to her other hand and walked aboard the platform for the Climber, and into the future.