He Without Sin

by Hyde, Ed

  Well, the downtime portion of the voyage was certainly interesting if not a little disconcerting. It was not exactly what I was expecting either. A touch of reality can “explain” or “describe” what words cannot. Hmm… how would one verbally describe what just happened to someone else? Mental sticky note to self: Get down and talk to medical about downtime. The vets could help too, no doubt.

  According to the ship’s clock, that was a long night’s sleep if there ever was one. I feel more-or-less normal now except for the impression that I’m inside a large transparent pillow. It’s strangely pleasant to move about. I could get used to this feeling.

  Ha, there’s the note I put up before I went under, per Vanessa’s instruction. Ok, self, I will be careful! Set timer, relax. What did Tom mean about the lab work he volunteered for? Not sure about his long term direction.

  And why so cryptic? I remember…

  We used to have a wagon. On the nearby street there was a hill. How many times did I roll down that hill? Tom would watch for traffic, but there was little to none most days.

  Where was the traffic? It’s hard to understand. We wouldn’t last a minute out there now.

  Boy, you had to be careful turning the wagon. It would go two-wheels and over on you in a heartbeat if you weren’t careful!

  Tom found an empty box. Not a big one, not small either, just big enough for him to scrunch into. I didn’t understand but helped him up the hill and held the wagon.

  Whatcha doin’ bud? And there goes Tom careening wildly down the hill in the wagon, in the box. He is in the fetal position, not looking out, not steering, the flaps of the box only revealing momentary glimpses of his back. Of course the wagon veers off the straight downhill line and eventually the speed and arc of his path send him tumbling, box and all, over the curb and finally to rest on a lawn. Mom is going to kill me and him, if he’s not already dead. I run down. He’s not moving but has come to rest on his back outside the box. His eyes are closed; he is smiling. He opens his eyes but remains quiet and still for a few moments more and then says, “Yes.” That was it. Yes.

  He went again and again. The box was torn and battered to shreds before he was done. How he wasn’t maimed or run over I’ll never know. I’ll always wonder. But one thing’s for sure, he has always had some weird ideas about confinement and space. Back to the womb issues? I wonder about that too.

  I feel more human now. Time to do a run-through of the comms systems and logs. There’s not much for me to log aboard ship, really. The ship takes care of herself. If there were any minor problems during the voyage so far, they would be automatically recorded in the issues files or taken care of by the self-healing systems. If there were any major malfunctions, no worries, we would already be scattered atoms across a broad swath of the galaxy or perhaps frozen chunks spiraling into the nearest star.

  ______

  I feel a little unsteady but am able to make my way out of my quarters and through the narrow passageway.

  “Hey Grigor. What do you know?”

  Grigor is the stocky and muscular tech who takes care of many of the systems aboard. He will have ground duties as well—as will most of us—and will be needed on the surface to set up and maintain a functioning base camp. He is, as we all are to some degree, a jack of all trades. There are not enough of us to have many specialists. Grigor is only approaching mid-life but his blond hair is already disappearing.

  His rugged demeanor is matched by his facial appearance. Unlike so many who have opted for a sedentary existence, Grigor is a man who welcomes physical sports and rough play. The rougher the better as evidenced by a broken tooth and one or two other facial scars. The cut on his lower lip must have been painful.

  “Hey J-man. Anything to report?”

  “Nope. Waking up and checking status. You alright? Anything I should know?”

  “All quiet. I was sick as a dog earlier but it passed like a summer shower. See you in the exercise room.”

  Exercise room? A puzzled look from me as I try to think what he means.

  “You know, the meeting room wherein our superiors will exercise their jaws,” Grigor explains with the help of an unflattering facial caricature.

  Everyone’s a comic.

  “Hey, check in with me later, I want to make sure everyone’s data links and logins are up to speed. Bring your genie.”

  “Eh? What’s that? Bring what?”

  I hold up my new comms device. “Model Gni—genie.”

  “You got it, mate. It’s with me ever ‘n’ always.”

  I’m feeling more sure of myself now—steadier on my feet. I move along, toward the next work station.

  Here’s the one I want to spend more time with. She is a professional, make no mistake, but there is something else too. There is a softness and depth that I would like to understand better.

  “Would you like to take a look?” It’s really a clear image; the optics are spectacular.”

  “Oh, hi Carol. You sound chipper. I’m still a bit shaky. What do you see out there? Anything interesting?”

  “It’s all interesting, Jason, to me anyway. And you have here a chance to look using some of the best equipment I’ve ever run across.” I hesitate to answer, only because I’ve seen plenty of deep space before, as have most people. “You’re not interrupting me,” she adds. “I’ve already done my checks and verifications.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  She is right about the optics. The flat console screen is small and doesn’t hold a candle to the view through the binocular telescope. I get a little vertigo tingle in the first seconds of viewing. “What am I looking at, exactly?”

  “It’s trained on one of my verification objects, but you can move it wherever. I’ll be right back.”

  I look and slowly but surely become accustomed to the image before me. The image is captivating and I am temporarily lost in the universe. I am entranced by the incredible dynamic range of vision in space. From 100% saturation when looking at unfiltered starlight—not generally done by the way, but it looks like Carol has opted for an unfiltered view—to absolute zero input when peering into the vast blackness in between. High sensitivity instruments can detect even single photons but the eye cannot. For us, the “empty” space is truly visibly empty and the blackest of black. And yet it has depth and volume. Empty space seems to me to be something. Something like a cloudy crystal with tiny imperfections scattered throughout. It must be that the brain, tuned by evolution for survival and procreation, must try to fit sensory input to an internal map of reality as a first-pass processing step. It is then up to the intellect to test and accept or challenge and modify the mapping. The interaction between the evolutionary and intellectual assessment is likely the source of my fascination.

  But it is more than this. It is the sheer volume of space that is imputed by the brain when this raw perception is processed. It is the unfathomable and unending depth of the universe that so mesmerizes me. At times like this I feel the urge to look deep, and deeper, trying to grasp the immensity, to feel part of it, to feel at home.

  “Jason, you OK?”

  “Huh? Yeah, I’m fine,” I say as I move away from the telescope rubbing my eyes.

  “You were absolutely motionless. I thought maybe you weren’t quite with the living yet.”

  “No I’m fine. You are right about the optics. I got a little lost in there.”

  “Do you have a minute? Try the mag function and tell me what you think. Wait; let me get you pointed in a safe direction.”

  She moves close and leans in front of me making a quick adjustment while eyeing the small screen. She smells good. Another something to get lost in? Maybe. Love the hair. She keeps it sort of short, but it’s full and wavy. It’s the kind that looks messy, but you know it’s not. It’s a “look” and I like it.

  “There, that should be safe. Take a look and don’t touch anything. Tell me what you see.”

  I look. “What am I looking for exactly?”

 
; “Nothing in particular. Just look and tell me what you see.”

  “Stars and nothing. This thing really brings out the colors of the stars.”

  “Some of the objects aren’t stars, but never mind. And forget the colors, but try to remember the image as best you can. OK, close your eyes a second.” I do. She adjusts something. “Look and tell me again.”

  “Is this a test? All right, it looks like you moved the scope. I don’t see the same objects,” I pause as I make the air quotes gesture while still looking through the instrument, “as before.”

  “What about the density of stars in your field of view? Do you notice anything?”

  “Density? Looks about the same to me.”

  “Close ‘em again.” I feel her move in and make another adjustment. “Last time—take a third look. Note and describe the density.”

  “Well, it looks like you moved the scope to another new position. Star density looks roughly the same. But who’s counting?”

  “Jason, sit back now. No, it’s not a test. But, your conclusions are both right and wrong. The direction of the scope did not change at all for any of the three views, but the magnification did.” She enabled a grid overlay on the screen. “You were first looking at the view that you can see here now on the full screen. For the second view you were looking at the smaller field here,” pointing at the central square of the grid overlay. “And the third time you were looking at the central field of the second view. So each time you were looking in the same direction but at a higher and higher magnification.”

  “No kidding. Nice system, but what are you getting at with the density?”

  “Here, look at the first view again on the screen. Look at the central area. It looks mostly black and empty with these few visible objects, yes?” I nod and she flips to the second view. “Doesn’t look empty anymore, does it? In fact, you described the object density,” she makes the air quotes, winking, “as basically the same as the first view. The same relationship holds for the central area of the second view as well—basically empty until we look closer as we did in the third view.”

  “Yes, very interesting.” A moment of silence extends to a few seconds. “Is there anything else I am missing?”

  She laughs and smiles, “No, no, nothing you are missing. It’s just me. Maybe I need to get away from this thing for a while, but I think the fractal nature of the views is incredible. It doesn’t mean anything else. The closer you look, the basic view doesn’t change. Visible object density, at least for our limited equipment, is insensitive to scale. Isn’t that something?”

  “Ok, I think I see what you mean. Very nice. Let me think about it a while.”

  I don’t want to stay on a technical subject, but can’t seem to think of any way to segue into to a non-work topic.

  “I do have a question, although you may be the wrong person to ask. We learned that artificial gravity is created by spinning the ship along its axis. How come the image in the scope is stable?”

  Carol smiles gently, “You are still groggy. The scope can compensate for spin but that’s not what’s happening. You also learned, or should have, that shipboard gravity is maintained using a hybrid system—we are not rotating but are either accelerating or decelerating at a constant rate. I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know which at the moment. Probably decelerating.”

  “Right. Hybrid. Thanks,” I said. She’s right, I am still groggy. “We are decelerating, by the way. What happens when we are surfing?”

  “Surfing? Oh, you mean riding gravity waves. That’s the longest part of the trip in distance, but we are all under during that portion of the journey anyway so… Nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing. No artificial gravity is required or even makes sense, if I understand the physics of it.”

  “Right. Sounds correct. I really should know these things but there is just too much to learn it seems. At some point you have to deal with the details that you must, and let the rest go.” I better bail out of this before I really say something stupid. “I should be getting along. See you at the meeting?”

  Her eyes narrow and her demeanor cools a bit as she answers yes.

  “Thanks for the demo Carol, I really did like it and am interested in that sort of thing. If you ever want to get bored, I’ll show you what I do sometime. How I ended up in that department I’ll never know. Please be ready later to verify your links and logins with me,” I said as I leave her area to continue my rounds.

  Too busy to log anything in here until now; all the official logs are initiated. No glitches from launch through now. The first of the ship’s accumulated data successfully archived, all the automatic dumps worked without a hitch. The system is working. A couple hundred packets out of tens of thousands had retries, but eventually all made it through. Don’t know what that was about, probably a normal amount of redundancy failure due to noise.

  The official records of the meetings so far are part of mission history but I haven’t had a moment to put any comments in my notes until now. David welcomed everyone aboard and discussed the mission again—mostly review. He emphasized the primary goals which I can summarize and paraphrase as:

  --Safely travel to our assigned planetary destination

  --Gather detailed information about it and its star system from orbit

  --Establish a presence on the surface for the purpose of acquiring necessary raw materials to ensure a safe return home

  --Sample and document the extant environment and biota as completely as possible concurrent with the above procurement activities

  --Evaluate the findings from the above steps and determine the correlation factor with the desired evolutionary development vis-à-vis the status and predictions from the previous visit(s), if any

  --Depending on the correlation value, intervention may be indicated, the degree of which is left to the discretion of the Commander, within the guidelines specified by the Academy

  --Safely return ship and crew to origin

  There were some questions about ground based duties, mainly from the women—and Grigor. We were assured that at some point everyone, and he is making the assumption for now that there will be no surprises regarding habitability, would be assigned to ground duties, excepting the power and helm teams, and that individual flexibility would be key; he is not prepared to make assignments until later. I could sense Grigor’s irritation at possibly having to work at something outside his comfort zone. Too soon to worry, I say. For myself, I am looking forward to ground duty. It can’t get much more interesting than this—a new world to explore!

  I find it distasteful that Brachus seems to cozy up to David much of the time; in meetings he seems to make a point of sitting right next to him. And his constant nodding and grinning when David makes statements—it’s all getting to me. I’m not sure why it bothers me so much, but shouldn’t he be trying to become more integrated with the rest of the crew, not just with his cronies and his boss? Maybe he is, and it’s me that’s on the outside. Could be. But the nodding—I watched and David takes no notice of it, so it must be directed at the rest of us saying ‘Look at me, David and I are in agreement’ or some such childish notion.

  Then there was wave downtime. Whew! The techs back home really should set up a simulator for that one; there are no words. Strange dreams. Feeling of being lost, not in space, but in time. Ha, and that’s appropriate for sure. From a conscious perceptual point of view it’s the shortest leg of the journey; from a distance point of view it’s the longest; from a time point of view, it’s a poser! It’s hard to explain downtime.

  Did a quick physical tour after waking, once I had my wits about me again. David says his transmissions are successful; he is happy. That’s all good for me, less to do in this phase of the outbound journey. Vanessa says Doc’s data is archiving OK too.

  Prepped everyone for linking up their genies and biometrics. Would like to stay ahead of the game if possible.

  Shipboard

 
Dr. Gleshert looks at me steadily and without expression. “Shut up and be still.” I shut up and am still. There is no fooling around with Gleshert. He is a smallish man and solidly built. There is a permanent cowlick on the crown of his head. Seems like he could do something about it, but I’m not going to be the one to bring it up. Rumor has it that Grigor coined the Doc’s nickname, GlassHeart, aptly reflecting his brittle personality, at least when he is working. “Don’t mess up these tests; you’re not getting out of here until I am happy.”

  “Could be a while then,” I foolishly say, knowing immediately it was a mistake. I suffer through another silent stare during which he doesn’t move until, I assume, he feels certain that I am not going to speak again. Behind him, Nurse Vanessa is busy with something. She apparently knows what’s going on because she looks right at me with a slight smile and shakes her head. I saw her wear some flashy jewelry back at the Academy, but there is no trace of it now. No rings, nothing.

  “I meant to tell you earlier that I saw your family not long ago,” he says while continuing to check me over, performing routine tests as he does for the entire crew periodically. “You are very lucky. I have no family to speak of, only an ex and we won’t speak of her either.”

  I see a spark of fire in his eyes—torch or dagger?

  Doc continues, “I cannot tell you about their individual results but I think it would be safe and proper to say that there were no glitches; they are now part of the same longevity plan that you are.”

  I smile and nod, silently thanking him for sharing that information.

  “You know that, even though they are on the same program, there can be no guarantees?” I nod yes. “We can do a lot, but we can’t do everything. It’s always been that way and will always be that way.”

  I just listen as he continues, “In the case of serious trauma resulting from an accident, for example, there is a limited window. Within that window, we can do miracles but…”