June 2040
From A Short History Of the Old Order (Freeman Press, 2040)
… and if you think that was a waste, consider Project Daedalus.
This was the first big space thing after L-5. Now L-5 worked out all right, because it was practical. But Daedalus (named from a Greek god who could fly)—that was a clear-cut case of throwing money down the rat-hole.
These scientists in 2016 talked the bourgeoisie into paying for a trip to another star! It was going to take over a hundred years—but the scientists were going to have babies along the way, and train them to be scientists (whether they wanted to or not!).
They were going to use all the old H-bombs for fuel—as if we might not need the fuel some day right here on Earth. What if L-5 decided they didn’t like us, and shut off the power beam?
Daedalus was supposed to be a spaceship almost a kilometer long! Most of it was manufactured in space, from Moon stuff, but a lot of it—the most expensive part, you bet—had to be boosted from Earth.
They almost got it built, but then came the Breakup and the People’s Revolution. No way in hell the People were going to let them have those H-bombs, not sitting right over our heads like that.
So we left the H-bombs in Helsinki and, the space freaks went back to doing what they’re supposed to do. Every year they petition to get those H-bombs, but every year the Will of the People says no.
That spaceship is still up there, a sky trillion dollar boondoggle. As a monument to bourgeoisie folly, it’s worse than the Pyramids!!
February 2075
“So the Scylla probe is just a ruse, to get the fuel—”
“Oh no, not really.” She slid a blue-covered folder to him. “We’re still going to Scylla. Scoop up a few megatons of degenerate antimatter. And a similar amount of degenerate matter from Charybdis.
“We don’t plan a generation ship, Charlie. The hydrogen fuel will get us out there; once there, it’ll power the magnetic bottles to hold the real fuel.”
“Total annihilation of matter,” Charlie said.
“That’s right. Em-cee-squared to the ninth decimal place. We aren’t talking about centuries to get to 61 Cygni. Nine years, there and back.”
“The groundhogs aren’t going to like it. All the bad feeling about the original Daedalus—”
“Fuzz the groundhogs. We’ll do everything we said we’d do with their precious H-bombs: go out to Scylla, get some antimatter, and bring it back. Just taking a long way back.”
“You don’t want to just tell them that’s what we’re going to do? No skin off …”
She shook her head and laughed again, this time a little bitterly. “You didn’t read the editorial in People post this morning, did you?”
“I was too busy.”
“So am I, boy; too busy for that drik. One of my staff brought it in, though.”
“It’s about Daedalus?”
“No … it concerns 61 Cygni. How the crazy scientists want to let those boogers know there’s life on Earth.”
“They’ll come make people-burgers out of us.”
“Something like that.”
Over three thousand people sat on the hillside, a “natural” amphitheatre fashioned of moon dirt and Earth grass. There was an incredible din, everyone talking at once: Dr. Bemis had just told them about the 61 Cygni expedition.
On about the tenth “Quiet, please,” Bemis was able to continue. “So you can see why we didn’t simply broadcast this meeting. Earth would pick it up. Likewise, there are no groundhog media on L-5 right now. They were rotated back to Earth and the shuttle with their replacements needed repairs at the Cape. The other two shuttles are here.
“So I’m asking all of you—and all of your brethren who had to stay at their jobs—to keep secret the biggest thing since Isabella hocked her jewels. Until we lift.”
“Now Dr. Leventhal, who’s chief of our social sciences section, wants to talk to you about selecting the crew.”
Charlie hated public speaking. In this setting, he felt like a Christian on the way to being cat food. He smoothed out his damp notes on the podium.
“Uh, basic problem.” A thousand people asked him to speak up. He adjusted the microphone.
“The basic problem is, we have space for about a thousand people. Probably more than one out of four want to go.”
Loud murmur of assent. “And we don’t want to be despotic about choosing … but I’ve set up certain guidelines, and Dr. Bemis agrees with them.
“Nobody should plan on going if he or she needs sophisticated medical care, obviously. Same toke, few very old people will be considered.”
Almost inaudibly, Abigail said, “Sixty-four isn’t very old, Charlie. I’m going.” She hadn’t said anything earlier.
He continued, looking at Bemis. “Second, we must leave behind those people who are absolutely necessary for the maintenance of L-5. Including the power station.” She smiled at him.
“We don’t want to split up mating pairs, not for, well, nine years plus … but neither will we take children.” He waited for the commotion to die down. “On this mission, children are baggage. You’ll have to find foster parents for them. Maybe they’ll go on the next trip.
“Because we can’t afford baggage. We don’t know what’s waiting for us at 61 Cygni—a thousand people sounds like a lot, but it isn’t. Not when you consider that we need a cross-section of all human knowledge, all human abilities. It may turn out that a person who can sing madrigals will be more important than a plasma physicist. No way of knowing ahead of time.”
The four thousand people did manage to keep it secret, not so much out of strength of character as from a deep-seated paranoia about Earth and Earthlings.
And Senator Connors’ Tricentennial actually came to their aid.
Although there was “One World,” ruled by “The Will of the People,” some regions had more clout than others, and nationalism was by no means dead. This was one factor.
Another factor was the way the groundhogs felt about the thermonuclear bombs stockpiled in Helsinki. All antiques: mostly a century or more old. The scientists said they were perfectly safe, but you know how that goes.
The bombs still technically belonged to the countries that had surrendered them, nine out of ten split between North America and Russia. The tenth remaining was divided among forty-two other countries. They all got together every few years to argue about what to do with the damned things. Everybody wanted to get rid of them in some useful way, but nobody wanted to put up the capital.
Charlie Leventhal’s proposal was simple. L-5 would provide bankroll, materials, and personnel. On a barren rock in the Norwegian Sea they would take apart the old bombs, one at a time, and turn them into uniform fuel capsules for the Daedalus craft.
The Scylla/Charybdis probe would be timed to honor both the major spacefaring countries. Renamed the John F. Kennedy, it would leave Earth orbit on America’s Tricentennial. The craft would accelerate halfway to the double star system at one gee, then flip and slow down at the same rate. It would use a magnetic scoop to gather antimatter from Scylla. On May Day, 2077, it would again be renamed, being the Leonid I. Brezhnev for the return trip. For safety’s sake, the antimatter would be delivered to a lunar research station, near Farside. L-5 scientists claimed that harnessing the energy from total annihilation of matter would make a heaven on Earth.
Most people doubted that, but looked forward to the fireworks.
January 2076
“The hell with that!” Charlie was livid. “I—I just won’t do it. Won’t!”
“You’re the only one—”
“That’s not true, Ab, you know it.” Charlie paced from wall to wall of her office cubicle. “There are dozens of people who can run L-5. Better than I can.”
“Not better, Charlie.”
He stopped in front of her desk, leaned over. “Come on, Ab. There’s only one logical person to stay behind and run things. Not only has she proven herself in the po
sition, but she’s too old to—”
“That kind of drik I don’t have to listen to.”
“Now, Ab ...”
“No, you listen to me. I was an infant when we started building Daedalus; worked on it as a girl and a young woman.
“I could take you out there in a shuttle and show you the rivets that I put in, myself. A half-century ago.”
“That’s my—”
“I earned my ticket, Charlie.” Her voice softened.
“Age is a factor, yes. This is only the first trip of many—and when it comes back, I will be too old. You’ll just be in your prime … and with over twenty years of experience as Coordinator, I don’t doubt they’ll make you captain of the next—“
“I don’t want to be captain. I don’t want to be Coordinator. I just want to go!”
“You and three thousand other people.”
“And of the thousand that don’t want to go, or can’t, there isn’t one person who could serve as Coordinator? I could name you—”
“That’s not the point. There’s no one on L-5 who has anywhere near the influence, the connections, you have on Earth. No one who understands groundhogs as well.”
“That’s racism, Ab. Groundhogs are just like you and me.”
“Some of them. I don’t see you going Earthside every chance you can get … what, you like the view up here? You like living in a can?”
He didn’t have a ready answer for that. Ab continued: “Whoever’s Coordinator is going to have to do some tall explaining, trying to keep things smooth between L-5 and Earth. That’s been your life’s work, Charlie. And you’re also known and respected here. You’re the only logical choice.”
“I’m not arguing with your logic.”
“I know.” Neither of them had to mention the document, signed by Charlie, among others, that gave Dr. Bemis final authority in selecting the crew for Daedalus/Kennedy/Brezhnev. “Try not to hate me too much, Charlie. I have to do what’s best for my people. All of my people.”
Charlie glared at her for a long moment and left.
June 2076
From Fax & Pix, 4 June 2076:
SPACE FARM LEAVES FOR STARS NEXT MONTH
1. The John F. Kennedy, that goes to Scylla/Charybdis next month, is like a little L-5 with bombs up its tail (see pix up left, up right).
A. The trip’s twenty months. They could either take a few people and fill the thing up with food, air, and water—or take a lot of people inside a closed ecology, like L-5.
B. They could’ve gotten by with only a couple hundred people, to run the farms and stuff. But almost all the space freaks wanted to go. They’re used to living that way, anyhow (and they never get to go anyplace).
C. When they get back, the farms will be used as a starter for L-4, like L-5 but smaller at first, and on the other side of the Moon (pic down left).
2. For other Tricentennial fax & pix, see bacover.
July 2076
Charlie was just finishing up a week on Earth the day the John F. Kennedy was launched. Tired of being interviewed, he slipped away from the media lounge at the Cape shuttleport. His white clearance card got him out onto the landing strip alone.
The midnight shuttle was being fueled at the far end of the strip, gleaming pink-white in the last light from the setting sun. Its image twisted and danced in the shimmering heat that radiated from the tarmac. The smell of the soft tar was indelibly associated in his mind with leave-taking, relief.
He walked to the middle of the strip and checked his watch. Five minutes. He lit a cigarette and threw it away. He rechecked his mental calculations: the flight would start low in the southwest. He blocked out the sun with a raised hand. What would 150 bombs per second look like? For the media they were called fuel capsules. The people who had carefully assembled them and gently lifted them to orbit and installed them in the tanks, they called them bombs. Ten times the brightness of a full moon, they had said. On L-5 you weren’t supposed to look toward it without a dark filter.
No warm-up: it suddenly appeared, an impossibly brilliant rainbow speck just over the horizon. It gleamed for several minutes, then dimmed slightly with a haze, and slipped away.
Most of the United States wouldn’t see it until it came around again, some two hours later, turning night into day, competing with local pyrotechnic displays. Then every couple of hours after that, Charlie would see it once more, then get on the shuttle. And finally stop having to call it by the name of a dead politician.
September 2076
There was a quiet celebration on L-5 when Daedalus reached the mid-point of its journey, flipped, and started decelerating. The progress report from its crew characterized the journey as “uneventful.” At that time they were going nearly two tenths of the speed of light. The laser beam that carried communications was redshifted from blue light down to orange; the message that turnaround had been successful took two weeks to travel from Daedalus to L-5.
They announced a slight course change. They had analyzed the polarization of light from Scylla/Charybdis as their phase angle increased, and were pretty sure the system was surrounded by flat rings of debris, like Saturn. They would “come in low” to avoid collision.
January 2077
Daedalus had been sending back recognizable pictures of the Scylla/Charybdis system for three weeks. They finally had one that was dramatic enough for groundhog consumption.
Charlie set the holo cube on his desk and pushed it around with his finger, marvelling.
“This is incredible. How did they do it?”
“It’s a montage, of course.” Johnny had been one of the youngest adults left behind: heart murmur, trick knees, a surfeit of astrophysicists.
“The two stars are a strobe snapshot in infrared. Sort of. Some ten or twenty thousand exposures taken as the ship orbited around the system, then sorted out and enhanced.” He pointed, but it wasn’t much help, since Charlie was looking at the cube from a different angle.
“The lamina of fire where the atmospheres touch, that was taken in ultraviolet. Shows more fine structure that way.”
“The rings were easy. Fairly long exposures in visible light. Gives the star background, too.”
A light tap on the door and an assistant stuck his head in. “Have a second, Doctor?”
“Sure.”
“Somebody from a Russian May Day committee is on the phone. She wants to know whether they’ve changed the name of the ship to Brezhnev yet.”
“Yeah. Tell her we decided on ‘Leon Trotsky’ instead, though.”
He nodded seriously. “‘Okay.” He started to close the door.
“Wait!” Charlie rubbed his eyes. “Tell her, uh… the ship doesn’t have a commemorative name while it’s in orbit there. They’ll rechristen it just before the start of the return trip.”
“Is that true?” Johnny asked.
“I don’t know. Who cares? In another couple of months they won’t want it named after anybody.” He and Ab had worked out a plan—admittedly rather shaky—to protect L-5 from the groundhogs’ wrath: nobody on the satellite knew ahead of time that the ship was headed for 61 Cygni. It was a decision the crew arrived at on the way to Scylla Charybdis; they modified the drive system to accept matter-antimatter destruction while they were orbiting the double star. L-5 would first hear of the mutinous plan via a transmission sent as Daedalus left Scylla/Charybdis. They’d be a month on their way by the time the message got to Earth.
It was pretty transparent, but at least they had been careful that no record of Daedalus’ true mission be left on L-5. Three thousand people did know the truth, though, and any competent engineer or physical scientist would suspect it.
Ab had felt that, although there was a better than even chance they would be exposed, surely the groundhogs couldn’t stay angry for 23 years—even if they were unimpressed by the antimatter and other wonders….
Besides, Charlie thought, it’s not their worry anymore.
As it turned out, the crew
of Daedalus would have bigger things to worry about.
June 2077
The Russians had their May Day celebration—Charlie watched it on TV and winced every time they mentioned the good ship Leonid I. Brezhnev—and then things settled back down to normal. Charlie and three thousand others waited nervously for the “surprise” message. It came in early June, as expected, scrambled in a data channel. But it didn’t say what it was supposed to:
“This is Abigail Bemis, to Charles Leventhal.
“Charlie, we have real trouble. The ship has been damaged, hit in the stern by a good chunk of something. It punched right through the main drive reflector. Destroyed a set of control sensors and one attitude jet.
“As far as we can tell, the situation is stable. We’re maintaining acceleration at just a tiny fraction under one gee. But we can’t steer, and we can’t shut off the main drive.
“We didn’t have any trouble with ring debris when we were orbiting since we were inside Roche’s limit. Coming in, as you know, we’d managed to take advantage of natural divisions in the rings. We tried the same going back, but it was a slower, more complicated process, since we mass so goddamn much now. We must have picked up a piece from the fringe of one of the outer rings.
“If we could turn off the drive, we might have a chance at fixing it. But the work pods can’t keep up with the ship, not at one gee. The radiation down there would fry the operator in seconds, anyway.
“We’re working on it. If you have any ideas, let us know. It occurs to me that this puts you in the clear. We were headed back to Earth, but got clobbered. Will send a transmission to that effect on the regular comm channel. This message is strictly burn-before reading.
“End it.”
It worked perfectly, as far as getting Charlie and L-5 off the hook and the drama of the situation precipitated a level of interest in space travel unheard-of since the 1960’s.
They even had a hero. A volunteer had gone down in a heavily shielded work pod, lowered on a cable, to take a look at the situation. She’d sent back clear pictures of the damage, before the cable snapped.
Tricentennial Page 2