From Earth, the communication is not so frequent. At first, we carried on conversations despite the minute-scale and then hour-scale time lag. When the distance caused the time lag to become days and weeks, the update frequency slowed accordingly. Now that the time lag is measured in years, we are lucky to get an update more than once per month.
Today’s update brought news that the Alpha Centauri colony had reached a milestone—one hundred thousand people now lived there. This was enough for them to declare that humanity had a new second home and was finally out of the cradle—and eliminated the risk associated with being a one-planet species.
We also learned that another possible Earthlike planet had been discovered around a star only about five more light-years from Earth than our destination. No one had announced plans to go there, but it was only a matter of time. We also learned that at least two more groups announced plans to follow us. They might launch within the decade, meaning that they might arrive in my lifetime—when I am in my eighties. Even with life extension technology, that was up there. I wonder what they’ll find when they arrive. Will I still be alive? My children? Or will we all be dead, killed by some alien plague? Best not to dwell on the negative.
By the end of the day, it became clear that this was not just another boring, uneventful day. And that was unfortunate.
Deputy Chief Engineer Jeremiah outright slugged Captain Tsuda in the mess hall at supper. We all knew Jeremiah and Tsuda didn’t like each other. That became apparent on a previous shift during their frequent shouting matches that had resulted in Jeremiah being reprimanded and, supposedly, swapped in cryosleep for Deputy Chief Engineer Marsee for the remaining awake shifts. That happened last shift, but, as is I supposed inevitable, the wakeup schedule wasn’t changed for this shift and both Jeremiah and Tsuda were again awakened at the same time to serve together.
Jeremiah didn’t just slug Tsuda, he knocked out his two front teeth and gave him a concussion. After that, Jeremiah ran to the Propulsion Engineering room and barricaded himself in by shorting out the control circuit on the access door. We had a crazed engineer on the loose. Aboard a starship, a crazy engineer is a scary thing indeed.
The alert went off, just like it did in my simulation earlier in the day, but everyone knew that this time it was not a drill. Amid the scurrying of crew to their duty stations, I managed to speak briefly with my wife, Maria, just as she arrived in the medlab. Maria and I spent most of our time awake with each other and I knew she was, until now, just as bored with her days as me.
“Manny, they are bringing in the captain. I’ll let you know how he is as soon as I check him out. Don’t worry about me. Someone needs to keep Jeremiah from hurting anyone else.”
Until this moment, being second in command of the crew during a shift was more ceremonial than anything else. With nothing happening, Captain Tsuda and I really didn’t have much to do and neither of us, as civilians, were big on formality or protocol. But now, as Maria just reminded me, it was up to me to figure out what to do with Jeremiah and secure the ship.
“Maria, you take care of the captain and get him back on his feet as soon as possible. I’ll see what I can do about Jeremiah,” I said, getting my sea legs as acting captain. I surveyed the room and the expectant faces staring at me. This was definitely different from the simulation.
“Kearan, you and Francesca get the stun guns and come with me to Engineering. We need to talk Jeremiah out of there before he does something else stupid,” I said as I moved toward the exit and the corridor that would take us to where Jeremiah was holed up.
When we arrived, we were met by Jeremiah’s supervisor, Emory Vulpetti. Vulpetti’s face said it all—we had a big problem.
“Emory, I’m glad you’re here. What can you tell me about Jeremiah and what he’s up to?” I asked.
“Take a look,” said Vulpetti as he handed me his tablet computer. On the screen was a live video feed of Engineering that showed Jeremiah busily adjusting one of the control panels. He seemed frantic.
“Do you know what he’s doing?” I asked.
“I can tell you exactly what he’s doing. My tablet can monitor every workstation in Engineering, including this one. He’s trying to lower the antimatter radiation shields.”
“Does he want the ship to explode?”
“Apparently not. He just wants to kill all of us. The shields he’s lowering are those that shield the living areas of the ship from the radiation produced during the matter/antimatter annihilation. When matter and its antiparticle collide, they cancel each other out and release energy—that’s what propels and powers the ship. The energy is in the form of charged and uncharged pions, neutrinos, and gamma rays. The bottom line is that without the shielding, we’ll all be fried and die from the radiation. Quickly.”
“Can you stop him?”
“Not unless I get in there. All I can do is watch unless I’m at the controls. He’s locked out my remote access to this workstation.”
“Well, dammit, let’s find a way to get you in there. Kearan, you and Francesca help Emory get that door open while I try to talk sense into Jeremiah.”
I reached down and activated my comm, hoping that either Jeremiah would listen to reason or that I could distract him long enough for us to figure out how to get in there and stop him. When I spoke, Jeremiah looked up at the room’s camera.
“Jeremiah. This is Manuel. It looks like you’re having a bad day. Let’s talk about this and not make it any worse, okay?”
“Manuel, just go away. I’ve had enough of you, of Captain Tsuda and all the rest. What the hell are we doing out here anyway? We’re bringing all our bullshit from Earth and spreading it to the stars, that’s what. We’re not worth it. We’re not worth saving. One of these days the people on Earth will finally destroy each other and then it’ll be over. Hopefully someone on Centauri will see the light like me and stop the cancer from spreading there too. I’m going to do my part. You, me—we’re done. You just don’t know it yet.”
Jeremiah was truly over the edge and at this moment I desperately wanted Maria to be here. She’s the trained counselor, not me. If anyone can talk Jeremiah off the ledge, it will be her. I cut off my comm with Jeremiah and paged Maria.
“Maria, get over here now. Jeremiah is about to flood the ship with radiation and you’re the only one with the training to keep him from killing us all.”
“I’ve got the captain stabilized. Natalie can take over and not miss a beat. I’m on my way,” she replied.
“Emory, is there any place on the ship that would be safe from the radiation if the shields go down?” I asked.
“Only one. The cryostorage chamber where we keep all the embryos. They are extremely fragile and highly susceptible to radiation damage, so the chamber has a ton, literally, of extra shielding,” he said.
In my mind I visualized the cryostorage chamber and the freezers there. It wasn’t very big. Big enough for perhaps five or six people, but no more. And there would be no room for supplies. Not good.
“Will any of the spacesuits provide shielding from the radiation? They’re good enough for going outside to make repairs and be exposed to cosmic rays.”
“No good whatsoever. The flux of annihilation byproducts is huge. Against that, the spacesuits are useless.”
“What about the cryosleep chamber? Can we put everyone to sleep in there until we get this mess sorted out?”
“There’s not enough shielding. All the sleepers will be fried just like us.”
I looked up just as Maria rounded the corner. Thank God. Maybe she could talk Jeremiah out of killing us all.
“I’ve been listening. You left your comm open,” she said, looking at the screen as Jeremiah continued to tweak various controls on the panel in front of him.
“Jeremiah, this is Doctor Delance. I’d like to speak with you,” she said in her calm and professional voice as she looked anxiously at the screen.
“I figured they would call you. Maria, I like
you. But you’re ultimately no better than the rest of us. Selfish and evil at your core. We’re parasites on the galaxy. We almost destroyed the Earth and we will do the same no matter where we go. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to die like everyone else,” Jeremiah said, looking up at the screen and taking a brief pause from his suicidal efforts.
While Maria engaged Jeremiah, Emory motioned me to one side.
“Manuel, you need to get to the cryostorage chamber with my tablet. From it you can monitor and control just about every system on the ship. You can make sure we stay on course for 82 G. Eridani. That’s your expertise. You can make sure the ship gets there even if we can’t. Just in case,” Emory said as forced his tablet into my hands.
“I thought you said he’d locked you out?” I asked.
“And why can only one person do a lock out?”
“Safety measure. We’ll fix it later. Right now, he only locked me out of the remote control for the antimatter flow and shielding. With this we can still access propulsion and navigation. From what I can tell, we’ve only got another two minutes before the shields go down. You’ll have to go now.”
“But I can’t. You need to go, not me. You’re the chief engineer. You can keep the ship running better than me.”
“No, I can’t. The ship is mostly automated. The crew is supposed to be the redundant system. The ‘safe’ backup in case the automated systems fail. The ship is running fine. The only thing that might need tweaking is the trajectory. You know that. With the distances involved, even a small calculation error on one end can end up being billions of kilometers worth of error on the other and we can’t afford that. That’s your expertise, not mine. I know you’re in charge with the captain out of commission but quit arguing with me and go now.”
I looked at Maria. I looked at her because she was the most important thing in the universe to me at that moment and I didn’t know what to do.
She looked back, her brown eyes becoming glassy, and said, “I’m not having any luck with Jeremiah. You need to do as the chief says and go. We’ve got to save the embryos and the mission. Manny, go now.”
I grabbed the tablet and left. That was the last time I saw my beloved Maria and any of the crew alive.
For two days I was alone, “safe” among the frozen embryos in the most heavily shielded part of the ship. Everyone else died. Most within minutes of the shielding going down; others took a little longer. I forced myself to watch, knowing that what I did in the time I had left could make the difference between life or death for you, the ship’s most precious cargo. Though there was no food, there was enough water and air in the cryostorage chamber to sustain me a few days—long enough for the system to perform automatic reset and restore the radiation shielding.
I took the bodies, placed them in the airlock, and spaced them. That’s what I would have wanted, and I had to assume the same for everyone else.
I checked and rechecked all the ship’s automated systems, our trajectory, and the systems needed to land and build the first habitat upon arrival at 82 G. Eridani. Unless something else catastrophic happens, you should be safe and become the first generation of humans born there.
The nanobots—nannies, as the crew liked to call them—are programmed to take care of all your physical needs after you are removed from the incubators. They can feed you, change your diapers, and patch you up as you learn to toddle and have the inevitable childhood injuries. But they can’t nurture you. They can’t hold you, look in your eyes, or teach you how to talk. They can’t nurture you. We hoped to parent you, to be your real nannies, as you grew to be the first generation in our new home. I’m the only adult left that can guide you. Can I do what needs to be done?
Can Manny be your daddy and your nanny? I mused as I found a way to chuckle at the wordplay and smiled, despite the circumstances.
The way I see it, there are three options. Option one: Put myself in cryosleep, trust the automated systems, and wake up upon arrival. Option two: Stay awake for the four years remaining. Option three really isn’t an option. I refuse to let Jeremiah win by killing myself or putting you at risk. I’m afraid to put myself in cryosleep; what if something happens when I am asleep? But I’m also afraid I’ll go crazy if I try to remain awake, alone, for the rest of the trip.
Whatever happens, please know that life is good. You are good. And don’t let the Jeremiahs of the world tell you otherwise.
ANGELA (AGE 25)
Our colony on New Hope—that’s what we decided to call our world—was thriving. All the original embryos were now adults and reproducing the old-fashioned way. Nanny, no, Manny—I really should call him by his given name—was with us until last year. He helped us at every step, but his age really started catching up with him. I was with him when he died, and it was just before then that he shared his diary with us and I learned about his beloved wife. I was thirteen when we learned his real name and some of the story about the disaster that overcame the original crew during their journey here. He never told us that the crew was murdered. He never once mentioned his wife. All he would say was there was a radiation leak and everyone else died. I guess the memory was just too painful.
I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be on the ship, alone, for four years. He must have been so lonely. I think we are what kept him sane. He willed himself to live for us, though we were nothing more than tiny embryonic dots in freezers. We all cried.
We now have a town, our first elected government, and a thriving farm-based economy. The 3-D printers are turning out just about anything we need to have and we’re mostly healthy. The pterodactyls, as we’re calling the native birds, are pretty smart. Once they learned that we could, and would, fight back, they mostly steer clear of us and our growing community. We haven’t seen any signs of emergent intelligent life—at least, not yet.
Caleb and I decided to name our first child Maria.
She was born just before we received word that the next colony ship was to arrive within the year. All of us were excited to learn that people from Earth, people born on Earth, would soon be here among us. We have so many questions that Manny wouldn’t answer and that can’t be answered by looking at library texts and films. So many questions. I hope they don’t mind.
Those Left Behind
Robert E. Hampson
Robert E. Hampson, PhD, turns science fiction into science. With over thirty-five years’ experience in neuroscience from animals to humans, he recently led a team which demonstrated the first neural prosthetic to restore human memory using the brain’s own neural codes. He has advised more than a dozen SF/F writers, as well as game developers and TV writers via the National Academy of Science’s Science and Entertainment Exchange. Dr. Hampson writes both fiction and nonfiction for SF/F audiences, ranging from military SF to Zombie Apocalypse. Some of his work previously appeared under the pseudonym “Tedd Roberts.”
Melisande “Mace” Wolfe blinked and checked her time display. Sixteen thirty-two. The shuttle to Midland Spaceport was at eighteen hundred, and there was an hourly Tube to F’burg. She adjusted her chrono to groundside time. After six hours of transit, it would be near midnight Universal Solar, but 6:00 p.m. Central time when she arrived at her parent’s house in Fredericksburg, Texas.
It was only eight years since she’d left, but she was amused at how Groundsiders still set their time by position of the sun in the sky. She’d spent most of those years using the sun as a fixed navigational point, not a timekeeper.
She lifted her arm and read the message on the cuff display: “Agreed, then. One last Thanksgiving with the parents. Bring earplugs and plate armor. —Sandy”
Earplugs and plate armor. It was hard to tell if that was a warning or humor, but it fit Mace’s last memory of her father screaming and throwing a half-full beer bottle in her direction as she left the house for the last time. Mace—never Milly or Missy—and her big brother Alexander, whom Mace affectionately called “Sandy,” graduated college at the same time and they threw
a celebratory party that ended badly. Mace left that night, abandoning most of her belongings in the process; she heard that Sandy had packed and left the next morning.
Although three years younger, Mace caught up with Sandy in college by taking—and honoring in—an extra load of courses most semesters in both high school and college. It hadn’t helped at home, though; nothing Mace or Sandy did ever seemed to please their father. She supposed there was a time when Sidney Wolfe loved his family, but that time was long gone. Holidays were a particular strain, given that half the time Mom wasn’t even there. Melanie Wolfe had been an on-again, off-again mother, spending weeks to months at a time pursuing “her arts”—which usually meant performance gigs, bed hopping, artist communes, “trial separations,” and periodic stints in drug rehab. The four of them hadn’t spent any time together since the graduation party.
Mace lifted her go-bag and secured the snapstrap to the socket on her left shoulder. The weight was negligible; Mace still didn’t have much in the way of belongings. That was not due to change at any time in the future, either. She noted that there was still time for dinner at the station before the shuttle. Boarding wouldn’t happen prior to fifteen minutes until departure, and long lines at security were a groundside affectation. Mace would flash her PCbCorp ID and walk on board. Yeah, best to eat now—Sandy promised to cook tomorrow, but the fridge wasn’t likely to contain much except beer tonight when he arrived.
Mace could see the shuttle unloading across from her seat at the station restaurant. She supposed it was a rather cruel joke to the newcomers; they were unlikely to want food after the docking maneuvers or their first few moments in the rotating habitat. In fact, she could see some newbies among the people returning to Gilster Station. The veterans had a stiff-necked manner, slowly rotating their whole bodies instead of turning their heads; well-informed newbies bought collars that provided only limited rotation at the neck, and she could see a few of those. That guy, though…no collar, wide eyes, he’s going to look around, I’ll bet! Sure enough, the passenger turned his head to look around. Almost as soon as he did so, he fell and started puking. Rotational gravity was like that. The human vestibular system could adapt to any motion, but novices didn’t take into account that in the constant angular momentum used to simulate gravity in a rotating space station, turning your head quickly meant your brain thought you were suddenly accelerating sideways. You learned to avoid sudden turns, wore one of the restrictor collars, or you got an interrupter implant like Mace. There were other treatments, too, but they required extensive physiological modifications.
Stellaris- People of the Stars Page 23