Stellaris: People of the Stars

by Robert E. Hampson

  My wife, Maria, is far busier than me. She’s one of the ten doctors on board cross-trained in clinical mental health counseling. Flight rules say that one medical doctor must be awake during each one-year shift in the ten-year crew-rotation cycle. Twenty crew members are awake for a year, then asleep for nine years while the next group of twenty takes their turn. And then the cycle repeats. Each of the twenty must check in with the mental health counselor for at least one hour each week. Some take more time, but none can get away with less. Flight Rules. And the rules say that seeing the counselor is as important as meeting the daily two-hour exercise requirement. No exceptions.

  Most days she says it isn’t much different than being a counselor at home; better, in fact. The crew was selected partly based on passing a rigorous mental health exam—something the average client back on Earth didn’t have to do. But she didn’t share any details with me. She is a professional, after all.

  Neither Maria’s parents nor mine truly understood why we decided to leave Earth, leave them, on a one-way trip to a newly discovered planet circling a star so far away that it would take years just to send a message one way. They both wanted grandchildren, which we plan to have, by the way, but the children won’t be seeing their grandparents in person—just photos and videos. We plan to have ours as part of the first generation born when we arrive planetside. It is this part they didn’t understand. Why would we leave them? Leave Earth? We tried to explain, but how do you explain something that calls to your soul when you look at the stars. We finally gave up and just told them we loved them.

  I’m avoiding naming the planet since we, the colonists, haven’t decided yet. The nomenclature used by the astronomers is too cumbersome and impersonal. With tens of thousands of exoplanets now known, they are mainly being numbered and given letter designations associated with the star they circle and their estimated similarity to Earth. B.O.R.I.N.G. Since we’re the ones who will live there and no one from home can tell us what to call our new world, we decided to name it after we arrive. If Earth doesn’t like it, well, then they don’t have to like it!

  The living area on the ship is pretty big, all things considered. Maria and I have our own quarters that we’ll have to clean up when we go to cryosleep, so the next couple awake can use them during their cycle. By the time we are next awake, nine other couples will have, hopefully, done the same. I imagine we’ll see new dents in the walls and some new stains here and there, but the ship is made to be durable and resilient.

  We have a galley (the food is actually pretty good), an exercise room, a medlab, and a media room. Then there are the functional areas of the ship like the control room and Engineering. And the cryosleep chambers. Most people avoid looking at this part of the ship because it gives them the creeps. Even though we know our friends and crewmates are just asleep, they look dead. And that’s disconcerting. Maria told me that’s normal.

  The good news is that we have only two more months until we go into cryosleep for nine years. I cannot imagine being awake for the full thirty-five-year trip.

  We’re encouraged to keep a diary and I try to keep mine current, but since not much happens in a given day, I’m lucky to record something once each week. I hope this isn’t getting too redundant.

  ANGELA (AGE 11)

  This morning we helped Nanny birth some animals called cats. It was just like on the videos. Two months ago, we took some tiny glass trays from the cooler and placed them in the animal womb. They weren’t much to look at—just tiny dots in some sort of gel. Each day from then until today, we paraded through the birthing room and looked at the ultrasound display to see the tiny embryos develop. They went from tiny dots to miniature creatures in what seemed like no time at all. And today they were expelled from the wombs into the padded trays we’d set up to catch them.

  After we cleaned off all the gunk, a few of us got to hold them. I was one of the lucky few because I think Nanny likes me. Their tiny eyes were hardly open and they just wanted to curl up in my palms. They are so cute!

  Nanny says we are going to allow a few of them to reproduce naturally so us older kids can see what that’s like. Of course, we had to watch the human reproduction videos (again!) while all this was going on. Yuck. Why would anyone want to go through all that when the artificial wombs make it so clean and painless? Nanny said we were all born just like the cats but from the artificial human womb, not the animal one. But Nanny said the artificial wombs could only be used for us. Nanny said we would have to reproduce the “natural” way. Personally, I’d rather not.

  There is something I don’t understand about this whole reproduction thing. We came from the little dishes and the artificial womb, but who put us there? Though it’s gross, I can understand having a mother and being born the natural way. But we weren’t. We were little dots like the cats, which means that someone had to put us there. Who? Was it Nanny? I guess it could have been, but where did Nanny get the dots?

  MANUEL (YEAR ELEVEN; SECOND AWAKE CYCLE)

  The boredom is beginning to take its toll. Even I am getting antsy.

  This is my second time to be awake and the middle of the eleventh year of our thirty-five-year journey and there is still nothing for me to do.

  Don’t get me wrong. Having nothing to do should be considered a good thing. It means that the ship’s antimatter propulsion system is working as it should and that we’re still headed toward our new home—an Earthlike planet circling 82 G. Eridani. The new planet-finder telescopes orbiting out near Pluto said that it is roughly the same mass as the Earth and that it is located at about the same relative position within the stellar habitable zone to give it temperatures that are approximately Earthlike. Even better, spectroscopy confirmed that it has an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere in about the same proportion as the Earth. This last bit of news was what sealed the deal with the Interstellar Exploration Board. An oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere means there is life. Life requires a certain kind of planetary stability that seems to be rare in the universe. We finally had another target for sending people. We’re still debating what to name it.

  So, here we are. Two hundred colonists, zipping through the interstellar medium at a significant fraction of the speed of light, on a one-way trip to a new world that we are to make our new home and a new home for humanity. The success of the colony around Alpha Centauri buoyed the whole interstellar colonization effort and it seemed that a new ship was heading off to Centauri every year. But we want something new and different. We want to go where no one is already homesteading and tame an entirely new world. It sounds exciting. And I am sure it will be—after we arrive. In the meantime, here I am, awake for an entire year, bored out of my mind.

  Maria usually doesn’t talk about her counseling sessions, except in the most general terms, given patient confidentiality and all that, but the last few days she’s shared with me that there is a conflict brewing between two of the crew. She won’t say who, but I get the sense that it is close to reaching a boiling point. So much so that she is recommending that one of them not be awakened from stasis with us on our next cycle. She doesn’t want this to come across as punishment, but more of a conflict resolution approach. I assume she’ll bring it up with the captain. These kinds of decisions are made by him. At least she’s had something new to think about.

  Sometimes I feel guilty about complaining when I’m bored; the very idea of being on an interstellar starship still gives me goosebumps. Stored in the cargo bay is all the equipment we will need to build a self-sustaining colony: graphene-based housing that can be erected in hours to provide safe shelter from storms as strong as hurricanes; farm equipment, seeds, and frozen livestock embryos; several flyers and ground vehicles; a digital library that contains the sum total of human knowledge at the time of our departure; state-of-the-art chemical labs to synthesize just about any medicine or fuel we can possibly need; multiple robodocs programmed to cure just about any known disease and provide first aid for even the most critical accidents; and 3-D pr
inters capable of making replacement parts for just about everything we have on the ship, including themselves.

  Most importantly, for the long-term survival of the colony, we have ten thousand human embryos in cold storage and the artificial wombs needed for their gestation. Two hundred people, one hundred “breeding pairs”—if you will excuse my bluntness, that’s not what the company calls us, but it’s what we all know and consider ourselves to be—simply isn’t enough to maintain genetic diversity. Even if we fornicated like rabbits, we’re still limited to the good, old-fashioned nine-month human gestation period, and that means there are only so many children one hundred couples can have. And not all the children made the usual way will survive. Nor will all the original crew. Accidents are inevitable and, well, being human, so is premature death. Hence the embryos and the gene-editing system that will allow the creation of even more diverse artificially created embryos after we arrive.

  The gene-editing system will enable us to create offspring that are optimized for the new planet from the cells of the original colonists and the first generation born from cold storage. There is only so much you can learn from remote sensing a planet that is tens of light-years distant. Once we arrive and assess the local environment, we can program the next generation of children to thrive in the new environment and not be hampered by our optimized adaptations to Earth—off in a distant corner of the universe.

  By the way, I mentioned stasis. They put us to sleep and awaken us periodically to take turns being the crew of the ship for two reasons. The first is that no matter how good the automated system, there is no substitute for humans in the loop should something go wrong. Having people awake and available at all times is a vital part of mitigating the risk for the voyage. The second is that we don’t want to sleep our lives away. You see, unlike the sci-fi vids, cryosleep doesn’t stop us from aging. It just keeps us alive for the journey in such a way that we don’t consume too many resources like food and air. We will age. I was twenty-seven when we left, and I will think I am thirty-one years old when we arrive because that will be the number of years I will have been “awake” since birth.

  Biologically, I will be over sixty years old. Thank goodness for recent advances in life extension.

  ANGELA (AGE 13)

  Yesterday was Birthday One and we had a big party. Nanny said that the day the first group of us were born was the happiest in memory. Thirteen Earth-years ago, the first fifty of us were removed from the artificial wombs and put in Nanny’s care. Fifty. I cannot even begin to imagine what it was like shepherding fifty babies, and then toddlers, around the house. But then I remembered that eight of the first group died, leaving just forty-two. Nanny doesn’t like to talk about that and has never told us exactly what happened to them.

  Just six months after Birthday One was Birthday Two, and then Birthday Three, and so on. Fortunately, those of us born first could help with the youngest ones, otherwise poor Nanny would have been completely overwhelmed. The housebots helped a lot, but, thinking back on it, Nanny did always look tired.

  Sibby and I left the party early with Caleb and Thomas so we could talk about what happens next. Don’t get me wrong, I think Caleb is cute, and we’ve snuck off before to be alone together and, well, you know, but that’s not why we left early today. Even though we knew Nanny would be listening, we didn’t want all the other kids to hear us talking. At the beginning of the birthday party, Nanny told all of us that shared Birthday One to be ready for a meeting tonight. A very important meeting. That’s all. When we heard this, the four of us looked at each other and knew we had to get away and talk. We think we know what’s coming. I’m both excited and scared.

  We gathered in the hydroponics lab near the orange tree with the ripest fruit so we could snack while we talked. I am always hungry these days and oranges are simply the best snack in the house. At least to me. Sibby likes kiwi fruit and Thomas can’t seem to eat enough nuts.

  Caleb, always eager to take charge and lead whatever discussion he happens to be in, which is one of the qualities that attracts me to him, grabbed an orange with one hand and began talking just after we sat down near the tree.

  “I think we’re going to be told we need to pair off and start reproducing,” he said with a deadpan and very serious face. Like he was discussing the outcome of the chess tournament we had last month. I am NOT a good chess player.

  “You wish,” retorted Sibby.

  “Seriously, I think that’s what it has to be. We are all able to, you know, and Nanny often talks about the need to get our population up.” Caleb tried to look serious as he made his point, and he might have actually believed what he was saying, but I was skeptical.

  “Caleb, that’s all you’ve talked about for weeks and I think your fantasy is starting to cloud your judgment,” said Sibby, grinning. It was hard to tell if she was teasing Caleb or serious. She knew Caleb and I had a thing for each other, and she might be a bit jealous.

  “If you guys can get sex off your minds for a few minutes, then I will tell you what I think this is all about,” said Thomas. Thomas was our thinker. He was generally kind of quiet, never the one to take charge like Caleb, but not one that was easily pushed around either. He was the kind of guy you wanted on your team during the survival tournaments Nanny had us play each week. He always had good ideas of how to survive whatever surprise Nanny had prepared for us in the game. He was smart—and a survivor.

  “The floor is yours,” I said, trying to deflect the conversation away from embarrassing stuff like me and Caleb.

  “I think Nanny is going to tell us we can go outside,” Thomas said with authority. He looked at each of us with anticipation in his eyes, eager to see how we might react to his thesis.

  “Outside? Do you really think so? It crossed my mind as a possibility, but, well, Nanny has been so adamant in saying we’re not ready for so long, it just seemed impossible,” I said. I really wanted to go outside and explore, finally, but, at the same time, I found the thought to be terrifying. Being outside under an open sky, in real sunshine, walking among the plants and avoiding the huge birds flying overhead is…dangerous.

  “I agree,” said Sibby. “That has to be it. According to the library and all we’ve learned about human physiology, we’re almost fully mature. Back on Earth, there were entire societies that considered age twelve to be the age one became an adult.”

  “And the age where people got married and began raising their own children,” added Caleb.

  Sibby looked at him with a smirk and said, “You just don’t give up, do you?”

  Caleb, his face betraying perhaps a little embarrassment, looked down and began peeling his orange.

  “Actually, Caleb might be partially correct. If we are allowed to go outside, it will be difficult for Nanny to keep up with all of us and, well, you know, things might happen. But that’s not the primary reason for the meeting. The reason must be that we’re ready to go out and do what we’ve been training to do. Create a village, start farming, and establish a colony.” Thomas spoke with authority, like he had inside information or something.

  “Do you think we’ll find the original colonists?” asked Sibby, voicing the question we’d all been wondering about for years. It was a question that Nanny steadfastly refused to discuss.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. According to the records, there were two hundred original colonists and they must be somewhere. Why not out there?” Thomas didn’t sound as sure of himself as he had previously. What happened to the original colonists had been the stuff of speculation and scary nighttime stories told by the older of us to the younger for as long as I could remember.

  “Angela.”

  It was Nanny, calling me on the ship’s speaker.

  “You and the others need to rejoin the party to help clean up,” Nanny said.

  “We’ll be right there,” I replied, looking for agreement from the others. They nodded.

  “Good. And don’t worry; your questions, all of them, wi
ll be answered in tonight’s meeting. I promise.”

  This caused us to do a doubletake, exchanging glances nearly simultaneously. All our questions would be answered? All? Finally?

  MANUEL (YEAR THIRTY-ONE; FOURTH AWAKE CYCLE)

  Today began just like every other day—not much happened. Sure, I checked the star charts, performed the weekly systems check, and, as the nominal second in command, I decided to run one of the Doomsday scenarios, ostensibly to keep everyone’s emergency training up to date. My real reason was to give them, and me, something to do that was out of the ordinary. A way to pass what was otherwise yet another boring day. It didn’t work. Sure, everyone went to their stations and pretended to be engaged with the scenario the computer cooked up—one in which we hit a small asteroid, causing major damage to the life-support systems and threatening to shut down the power system. But they knew it was a drill and it wasn’t sufficiently different from one we’d run on the last shift. They did everything perfectly and averted a “catastrophic containment failure” of the power system. Translation: The crew avoided having the ship blow up with their customary expertise and efficiency. This was, after all, a ship crewed with the best and brightest from throughout the solar system.

  Midday, we had some excitement. We received a new data dump from Earth. At these distances, two-way communication of any sort was simply impossible. Our distance from home was now measured in light-years—meaning that any message we or they send will take years to reach its destination, making a conversation impossible. Instead, our ship’s computer sends weekly status reports back to Earth using the ship’s optical communications laser. By the time the laser light reaches Sol, the beam has diverged considerably but not so much that the kilometer-scale receiver can’t get enough of the signal to understand it. Communication across large distances was like that. On each side, you needed either a large antenna array or a lot of power. Earth had both, so they could broadcast using extremely powerful solar-pumped lasers or receive using antennas that were hundreds of kilometers across. We had power, thanks to the antimatter system that drove the ship, but our receiver was limited in size. It worked, but with ever-worsening performance as our distance from home increased.