He Without Sin

by Hyde, Ed

  He stops speaking and moving and looks at me steadily again. “You may speak now,” he says, with a tight little smile and a bemused shake of his head.

  “Why are you telling me this? About the accidents and trauma; is there something I need to know?”

  “Nothing you need to know. I am simply managing expectations. I will go over this same topic with everyone who has family in the program. There will be a general meeting at the end of the mission where you will hear it again. Not to mention at mission debriefing. It’s important.”

  “So how does it all work Doc? I mean chemically or genetically or whatever? I know we enjoy incredibly long life spans compared to the untreated, but what is really going on?” I ask as I get back into my clothes.

  “Every single person in the program gets telomeric treatments. Crews on these long and deep missions get additional consideration. You might call it a hybrid treatment program in which we do everything possible to minimize the effects of aging. It can’t be stopped altogether, but we can sure stretch it out.”

  “Hybrid.” I say, mostly to myself.

  “Yes, hybrid. Is there a problem?”

  “No, not at all. It’s just that ‘hybrid’ seems to be a popular concept lately. So besides the telomeric part of it, what else?”

  Gleshert looks at me pityingly and says, “We don’t have the time for any more of this right now. I am a busy man.”

  “You can just say if you don’t know,” I say, making the mistake that he would understand that I was joking around. He didn’t.

  “You’re done, for now. Get out and take your questions with you.”

  “One last thing. Grigor says we are all in danger from high energy photons and particles out here. He says it’s common knowledge that they are damaging our health no matter what the Academy says. Is that…”

  “Grigor needs to stick to what he knows,” interrupts the doc. “You’re done. Goodbye.”

  “Don’t make him mad. I have to work here,” says Vanessa playfully as I am leaving. Tracy brushes past me, entering as I leave. She looks me over and then I notice that she and Vanessa share some sort of look. What was that all about?

  ______

  I return to my quarters. Up ‘til now I have been struggling with the exact procedure to adopt to archive my personal records. Meeting transcripts, digital messages, status reports and the like, both open and encrypted, are included automatically in the archive, and I want to be able to add information of my own. I know enough about the ship’s systems now that a decision is easy. I will use the required protocol for all official data and will add a separate private channel. Let’s just call it a hybrid system and get with the program. That’s funny stuff. It’s somehow satisfying to be self-amused, no? With this setup I’ll have a way to indulge myself with a personal log or diary, as well as a way to send private messages. Who will read the personal stuff besides me, perhaps, someday? I don’t know. That doesn’t matter. The writing helps me collect my thoughts and clear my thinking for the next day or task.

  The ship’s communication is primarily one-way, depending on the length of the voyage. In our case, we have planned for no incoming data packets from home for the bulk of the mission. It may be possible to communicate with ships or outposts during the mission depending on their distance, but as far as I know, we are not expecting to be near enough to any to even think about it.

  For outgoing communication, we do continuously send routine data toward home. The stream is highly redundant and for sure will eventually arrive, but at our planned distance it’s a long time in transit. One transmission from the field before we head back will be different. All the accumulated data up to that point is archived and encapsulated in a pod. The pod is then accelerated using the exact same system that will be used on the ship itself. The acceleration is sufficient that the pod and, later, the ship too, can use gravity waves to reduce transit time. The pod will make it home only just before we do, assuming that neither of us runs into any major problems along the way. If one is lost, the other contains the data. If both are lost, well…

  It’s true, the on-board QEQ entanglement transceiver is distance-independent and instantaneous but it is for very short messages indeed. It is generally used in emergency situations only to send out an SOS or maybe an SOS with location, although adding the location data means the message length is at or near the upper limit of today’s technology.

  The archive scheduler software is set to accumulate, store, and transmit data from the ship as well as all the other inputs periodically. Doc has his own system for medical records but even his makes it to the scheduler, encoded. I’m using both my genie and the console in my quarters to run a performance test for all sources and formats.

  David surprised me earlier when I asked about genetic broadcast seeding, an area of interest to me and one of the automated functions of the ship itself.

  “Already done,” he said. “The carriers’ release is triggered by the ship’s position. The only way we know about it is if something goes wrong, or if we deliberately pull the ship’s data. The target systems are already chosen and the mixes are preloaded. There may be a couple still to go, but I believe most have already been sent on their way.”

  I try not to look at David’s mouth. He has a habit of working his tongue and pushing out his lower lip, then sort of pursing his lips as a kind of reset action before the cycle repeats. It’s evident he doesn’t know he’s doing it when he’s listening or thinking.

  I ask, “Isn’t seeding this way a giant waste of resources? It seems to me that the vast majority of the specimens will be lost or frozen or burnt up.”

  “Yes and no. This method has been shown to be a very effective way to seed arable tracts. How in the world could it otherwise be done that would be more cost effective? Yes, the bulk of the seed material is lost but any that does reach an environment that is or will soon become appropriate has a high likelihood of surviving.”

  He adds, “The mixes are released and scattered spherically if and when each of the carriers reaches a star system. We know from past results that if there is a planet orbiting and if it is even remotely suited for life, a portion of the seeds will end up safely on the surface, be it liquid, solid or gas. And if the conditions are suitable, then the basic genetic template will be in place and the rest, as they say, is history. Literally.”

  David smiled at this last comment, apparently amusing himself. I’m not the only one self-amused.

  My silence signaled my interest and he continued, “The target systems will be periodically scanned using remote sensing to see if and when a significant signature of life is detected on any of the planets. The most promising ones then become destinations for missions like ours. But you know all this already, or should.”

  “No, not really,” I reply. David’s expression changed to one of puzzlement. “I mean, it’s one thing to hear about it, but another thing to live it. I suspect that training will prove to be no substitute for the real thing. Look at surfing—I mean downtime. Nothing prepped me for that, really.”

  David gives me a look that suggests I said something important. “Yes Jason, you are quite right about that. By the end of this mission you will be an expert on this business. We all will.”

  That was one of the few conversations I’ve had with David not counting abortive, largely meaningless and uncomfortable small talk. Other than occasional encounters in passing, I haven’t seen him since the Welcome Aboard meeting before launch when he gave the brief “Our Mission” speech. He has been generally genial and polite, aside from the infrequent sharp retort, but I am still not getting any positive person-to-person connection with him. He must be focused on big issues and his other direct reports. It still surprises me though, as we seem to have similar interests and he does have a technical background. One has to take what one can get, I guess, and even that is one step at a time; we will see if our relationship develops further. What he says about past missions intrigues me. I need to dig th
rough our database for those old mission summaries.

  I still can’t wrap my head around the timing of messages and events as they relate to the family back home. Mark tells me to forget it—you have no chance to figure it out at all during acceleration and deceleration, and when we are ground-based we’ll be too busy to worry about it.

  “Treat the mission like a separate history from the folks back home,” he says. “They will have a history during the time you are gone; you will have lived through the mission history. But if you try to line them up and figure out what they were doing at a certain time in your history, forget it. I’m not sure if it even makes sense to think about that sort of thing.”

  Mark answered Grigor’s concern about damage from being out here in space, but Grigor didn’t buy it. I hope he, Grigor, is wrong about this one. Mark says, in his grouchy way, that we are not out in space, we are inside this ship. And that’s the difference. He went into some gobbledygook about how the needle shape coupled with our high speed through the interstellar medium combine to protect the interior from any charged particles, and that the skin of the ship itself is active and takes care of the neutral particles and high energy photons. They all provide energy that we can harness, apparently. ‘Kind of a hybrid system,’ I say, smirking, but nobody gets me. Grigor said it doesn’t work, it can’t. But Mark wouldn’t budge and said it does work but it doesn’t work perfectly; we are getting no more dangerous exposure than we would back home on solid ground. Grigor responded with a sigh and his ‘people believe what they want to believe’ eye roll. I said that the explanation sounds logical and besides didn’t we learn that the doc could detect damage and take measures to reverse it?

  I’ve had a chance to corner Gleshert when he wasn’t busy. What a difference—seems like another guy entirely, not GlassHeart at all. He let me know the answer to my earlier question. I appreciate that he didn’t forget me. He says the additional treatment for deep mission members slows the metabolism in two stages. One is a light stage where we can still function and the second is a more profound depression of functionality for downtime. I made a simplistic analogy but he’s says call it what you want, the effect is to keep us from operating at a high metabolic rate when none is necessary.

  I’m very curious about the return launch system and Mark seems to know but he put me off for now. Note to self: Corner him before this is all over.

  First Look

  “Ok, if you can stay with me here I’ve just got a few points and I need to get through them quickly. My memory’s good, but it’s short.” Groans from the crew. Mark continues, “We’ve gathered all the data we can from up here. You’ve all had a peek out—inviting-looking, isn’t it? There is just the one moon, relatively large compared to planet diameter, similar to home, and no doubt will be an impressive sight from the ground. We’ve dropped several probes after making some initial observations, which I will cover in a minute. The environment is actually perfect. Well, let’s not say perfect, but it’s as good as anywhere I’ve seen and about as good as anyone could hope to expect this far from home.

  “First, livability. Atmosphere, clean and rich. Whatever that plant life is, it’s doing its job. No toxins detected at significant levels. It’ll take some getting used to the pressure and density, but I don’t think anyone will have a serious problem. Water, tons of it. This means accessible hydrogen. Lots of water in the atmosphere too. And because it’s a rocky world with a G main sequence star, we have confirmed the overall makeup of the crust is what we expected and closely matches the data from our predecessors’ records. Here’s a treat, we’ve got silicon galore and right on the surface—thank you, water and weather. Metals and other rarer elements will need to be mined and processed. But there is no shortage. None at all. Carbon galore too, in many of the usual natural forms. Easy pickins.

  “Gravity. Again nothing dramatic but it will take some getting used to.

  “Temperature. Pick your poison. As expected there is a whole range. I think we will primarily all be working in the equatorial regions except when we have to go after some specific resources that are less accessible.

  “Next, fauna…”

  Brachus interrupts, “Mark, what about processing? Any progress in that area?”

  “I’m getting there, I’m getting there. That’s covered in the next round if you can hold out.” Mark’s comments are received with a chuckle by most, but not Brachus.

  “What about the processing of special compounds and alloys? Can you report on the availability of resources to make the specials?”

  Mark now responds to Brachus without the addition of a humorous affect, “Look, everything we need is here. We will be able to set up a fabrication facility and a processing facility. Your team will have to feed in the resources, I’ll handle the processing.”

  “Can we move on please,” David says, indicating that Mark return to his prepared agenda. I notice Carol looking at me. There is no discernible expression on her face. She turns her attention back to the front.

  “Sure. Now, where was I? Oh yes, we don’t have good solid indications of land-based life other than plants, but the presence of a large amount of carbonates says that something is going on in the ocean.”

  Mark flips through several graphics summarizing the data acquired to date.

  “I think I spotted evidence of migratory behavior on land. Not really my field. Our image recognition algorithms flagged one or two areas that look suspicious. Possibly some interesting land-based animal life there and David may have something more to say about that later,” Mark says, pausing, looking at David for feedback. He gets none and continues.

  “For sure the environment is suitable for land and sea populations. I may want to stay here myself when this is all over.” Mark briefly puts up a goofy graphic of himself lounging in an exotic location, drink in hand, and a flower in his straw hat. “And last, we find no trace whatsoever of electromagnetic signaling in any part of the spectrum.”

  Brachus looks at his genie communicator, gets up and walks out of the meeting without a word. David apparently thinks nothing of it and indicates this is a good time for a short break if anyone needs one. I use these few minutes to lean over to Carol and ask what’s up.

  “What do you mean?” she asks back.

  “You know, the look you gave me.”

  “I gave no ‘look’ but was wondering if you noticed Wesley’s odd questions. As if he wasn’t following Mark at all.”

  “He probably wasn’t following. He’s a ground guy; probably can’t wait to get to work,” I say, although I don’t know why I ought to make excuses for him.

  “He’s got something up his sleeve. I don’t trust him.”

  Mark runs a sequence of surface images while people shuffle about. David signals his desire to get things moving; the members of the crew turn their attention back to the front of the room and Mark starts in again.

  “Alright. Here is where we are going to call home for quite a stretch. If you look at this mountainous region,” as he circles an area on the current image, “and we zoom in a bit, you can see this area that is enclosed in sort of a triangle.”

  “Huh? Hold up Mark. Triangle?” says David.

  “You may have to squint a bit and have a good imagination like me, but if I trace three lines here through these valleys you can see they form a triangle. There are plenty of spots inside here that we can use. First and foremost, we will be exquisitely isolated from whatever populations,” again with a meaningful look at David, “may or may not be down there. Secondly, as you can see if I zoom out a bit, we will have nearby access to practically unlimited water and silicon, not to mention the other mineral resources that will be found in the mountains themselves—several outcroppings have already been identified. There are numerous other sites around the globe to pick up the other needed elements, minerals and compounds.

  “David, I will leave it up to you to review possible locations for the bio work; I sent you the obvious potentials. There
are any number of options, and we have good ground images to go by. Or I will be happy to go over them with you if you’d prefer.”

  “Yes, I want to go over that part together, but not here, not now. We’ll reserve final judgment on those until after on-site inspections. I will get with you separately. But we do need to talk about another issue right now. If there are no questions for Mark…? Thanks Mark.”

  This is as good a time as any for me to ask, “David if I may just ask the group…” and I get a nod to go ahead. “Thanks. Most of you have already responded to my comms link request and to those who have—thank you. I’ve returned a verification packet to each of you just before we sat down here. However, there are a couple null responses that need to be cleared up before any landing.”

  “Who?” asks David.

  “There’s Grigor, for one…”

  “Check again, mate. You’ll find you’re wrong about that,”

  interjects Grigor, without any hesitation and bristling slightly, looking at me, then David.

  I do a quick refresh on my communicator and confirm his statement. “Ok, you are right—thanks. Verification on its way.”

  “No worries, J-man.”

  “Then, there are a couple from the ground team that I have not heard from,” I continue, nodding towards both Tracy and Lester. Brachus has still not returned to the meeting, and I see Tracy making a few short keystrokes.

  David again chimes in, “How many and who? You mean the whole team?”

  “No, just the three. I mean, both Lester and Tracy, along with Wesley. They were included on the general request, but nothing yet. I’m sure there are a lot of preparations before landing, but this is one thing that’s got to be done.”

  Tracy says, to David, “I can’t speak for the others, but I’m not sure I received any link or login request. Jason said it was coming, but I haven’t seen it.” David nods and looks at me but does not speak. I see his mouth working, repeating the same movements over and over. “And I think Wes has some reservations about having to link anyway,” she adds.