Stellaris: People of the Stars

by Robert E. Hampson

  “The goal has been to keep most of The Exodus crew asleep, while rotating only one of five sets of crewmen.” Harold’s glasses slipped a bit down his nose.

  “Yes, but that will be practicable only if we can extend that time to months, not days. The process is expensive and rotating the crew every day or two would be cost-prohibitive, not to mention potentially dangerous. We don’t know the long-term effects of repeated application.”

  Harold pushed his glasses back up to nose bridge. “Essentially, The Exodus crew would be volunteer subjects for that experiment.”

  Ginny’s stomach turned. “I guess so.” She cleared her throat. “But right now, the technology is in its infancy. It’s not ready for The Exodus yet.”

  “Granted, but say it would be. Say we could keep them asleep for eighty percent of the year, thawing them out for their ten-week stint. How long would a twenty-something last on The Exodus?”

  “It’s hard to say, Mr. Juniper. We don’t know at what rate they would age during such a lengthy sleep. We can’t really extrapolate from the data we have; we can only speculate.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “It’s not good enough for me!” Ginny protested. “I’m a scientist, not a seer.”

  “Give me a guess, with whatever assumptions you need.”

  Ginny mulled that over for a moment. “Okay, if we make the assumption that while asleep, aging drops to maybe twenty percent of normal—I don’t think it could be zero, as much as we’d like it to be—with five teams rotating, eighty percent of the year the crew would age at that rate, making an effective aging rate over the year of thirty-six percent. Let’s call it a third. Given a crewmember in his or her twenties, with an estimated remaining lifespan of sixty years—take off another twenty for child-rearing on the other end, so more like forty years—the process could add eighty years, so call it a hundred twenty years on the ship.”

  Harold chewed his lower lip. “So, we’d need to get up to four percent the speed of light to make Proxima b and still have time to raise the colonists from birth?” Harold sighed. “I’ve heard that two percent may be achievable soon, but four percent is still pretty far off.”

  Ginny nodded. “What about three percent? Maybe even two point five percent? I’ve heard rumors about one team on Lunar A looking into bio-wombs that might be close, and another on Lunar E talking about brain and spinal cord transplants into robotic bodies like they’re ready to try it with humans. Is it more than rumors?”

  Narrowing his eyes, Harold stared. “Where have you heard that?” He looked around guardedly and lowered his voice. “Off the record, yes. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

  Ginny nodded. “Three percent would mean about a hundred-forty-year voyage. A hundred seventy years at two point five percent. With bio-wombs and cyborg parents raising children at the other end and—” Ginny raised a finger for emphasis “—since it’s not in any of my areas of expertise, the radical assumption that those brains don’t deteriorate like they would have in their human bodies, the crew would recover another twenty years of service, or sixty years with my team’s theoretical future solution, for a total of a hundred eighty years.”

  Harold pursed his lips, deep in thought. “So, two point five percent would work.”

  “Begging your pardon, but why are you asking me? I’m essentially an intern, here on a lunar year abroad fellowship. Why not ask my team lead?”

  “I did. Your name came up for more specific answers.”

  Ginny stared, taken aback. While she’d certainly done her best to help advance the team toward success, she didn’t think of herself as a critical member. “I don’t understand.”

  “I was led to believe it was your idea to study lobsters in ice?”

  “Yes. It seemed a natural for cryobiosis.”

  “And that led to experimentation with ice inhibitors to prevent tissue damage, which allowed you to induce a hypothermic state for longer than an hour or two.” Harold leaned forward. “The success of the team is largely due to your efforts, Ms. Grant. Which brings me to the other reason I asked you here today. How would you like to stay here after graduating next week?”

  * * *

  “I knew it!” Helen Grant whined, her face bloated like soft cheese left out overnight. “I knew you were never coming back to us. Your father should never have let you take STEM!”

  “Calm down, Mom. It’s not forever. I’m doing good work here, and they like me. I can’t tell you what I’m working on, but if we can take it to the next stage, it will be big. Trust me.”

  “I don’t care how big it is. I just want you to forget all this nonsense and come home. We weren’t made to go to the stars.”

  Grimacing, Ginny muttered through gritted teeth, “It’s what I want. Can’t you just be happy for me?” She knew it wouldn’t happen.

  Her father zizzed into view. “You’re coming home for your graduation, at least?”

  Ginny sighed. “No.”

  Her mother burst out crying and zizzed away. Ginny couldn’t see her anymore, but her sobbing continued as a continuous backbeat of sadness. Aaron looked at her. “We don’t even get to see you graduate from the school that’s been bleeding us dry for years?”

  Ginny refused to rise to the bait. “The school has a graduation ceremony for us here on the Moon. There’s a lot of fellows up here.”

  Aaron cringed and shook his head. “The Moon. We can’t…we can’t…the Moon…you know we can’t.” He looked away long enough to do something to his face that looked suspiciously like wiping something away, but when he turned back to his daughter, there was no evidence he’d shed a single tear.

  Ginny’s heart clenched. “There’s a live holo-feed. I’ll send you the information. It will be like you’re here.”

  This time, she zizzed off the v-call herself, with the full knowledge that it might be the last conversation she’d ever have with her parents.

  * * *

  “Surprise!” Ginny wasn’t surprised to see her friend sporting a scraggly brown beard, or even the mostly blond peach fuzz on his upper lip, but she was indeed surprised to see him on the other side of her apartment door on the Moon.

  Stumbling backward to yank the door open, she nearly fell over. She imagined she made quite the impression, with her anime-shocked face and elephantlike grace.

  Robert lunged forward and caught her before she fell, leaving her bent backward much like a dancer whose partner just dipped her. For a moment, she thought he’d kiss her, and she’d have to tell him—again—that it would never work between an Earther and a Moonie. Instead, she reached a hand up to tug playfully on his beard. “I v-called you just a couple weeks ago, and you were clean-shaven.”

  “Crazy, huh? Turns out I can grow a full beard in ten days. Who knew?” He righted Ginny and stepped back, looking her up and down. “You look great, Red! Your v-calls only go neck up. If I’d known, I’d have insisted you go at least waist up.”

  Ginny blushed, trying to ignore the underlying romantic interest in that statement. “Thanks. I liked the physical training I had to go through to get here, so I’ve kept it up. Why are you here? How are you here?”

  “Virgin Galactic has shuttles, you know.”

  “Yeah, expensive shuttles.”

  “That look on your face when you saw me was worth a few month’s wages.”

  Ginny frowned at him. “A few months?”

  “Come on, I haven’t seen you in five years!” He shook his head side to side in disbelief.

  “We v-call every week or two!”

  “Not the same, babe.” Robert smiled broadly, lighting up his face.

  Ginny felt a little dizzy. He really was cute, so much so that she realized she’d forgotten to chide him for using a term of endearment better suited to his girlfriend.

  “Besides,” he added, “I figured it would be hard to celebrate your promotion a world away. Cryonics team! That’s what you’ve always wanted! Congrats, Red!” He moved in to
hug her.

  Flinching ahead of what she knew would be an awkward situation, Ginny relaxed and let him hug her. Unexpectedly, she found the embrace comforting. The hug went on too long for her comfort, though, and she squirmed away, stepping back. “Let’s celebrate, then. Dinner. I’m starving. You’re buying, moneybags.”

  They talked through dinner, and Ginny found she’d been experiencing a lack of laughter. Funny how she hadn’t noticed until now. The waitstaff kept giving them significant looks, only swooping in to refill their wine glasses during slight lulls in the boisterous conversation.

  “So, is The Exodus ever going to launch, Red? Since you came up here, it’s been delayed, what, twice?” Robert cocked a questioning eyebrow, took a large bite and chewed slowly, clearly giving her time to answer.

  It took her a moment to decide what to say. “That’s classified, Rob. I don’t want to have to kill you, so you’ll have to wait to hear it on the news. How’s my Mom doing?” She stuffed a large bite into her own mouth, chewing slowly. His turn.

  “You know Feffers. Making trouble wherever they can.”

  Ginny stopped chewing. She’d seen the news; Feffers had upped their game, actively sabotaging scientific progress whenever possible. There were reports of protester mobs preventing shuttle launches, critical research disappearing from company servers, even space-based facility bombings. Were her parents involved in any of that?

  Robert swallowed quickly. “Relax; they’ve never been arrested, so far as I know.”

  Ginny said, “Good,” around a mouthful of food. Classy.

  “But they’re not quiet about their beliefs. Your mother started a support group for what she calls ‘abandoned families’—it’s called Mothers Against Space Travel.”

  Ginny choked. “MAST?”

  “Yup. And the MASTers—yes, they actually call themselves that—are growing. Big enough that the government is starting to pander to them.”

  “So long as we get regular supplies shuttled up here.” Ginny shrugged.

  Robert stared at her apparent callousness.

  “What? The work we’re doing up here is important, Rob. For all of us. It goes way beyond government. This is all for humanity. They need to get on board.”

  “Calm down, Red. I agree with you. But you must agree they’ve got a valid grievance. In your mother’s eyes, your drive to go to space means she’ll probably never see her grandchildren, if you ever provide any. Since you’re an only child, your parents’ entire genetic investment is tied up in you, and you’re taking it away from Earth. You can see where they’d feel a bit betrayed.”

  “Betrayed? Betrayed?” Ginny’s voice shrilled too much to go unnoticed. A waiter rushed over with the wine bottle, and Ginny clapped her mouth shut. After the waiter left, she lowered her voice. “If anyone should feel betrayed—”

  “I know, babe.”

  There. He did it again. Ginny was too steamed to say anything, knowing it would come out more sharply than she intended, but she’d have to discuss it with him at some point. She took a few calming breaths. “They’ve never understood me, Rob.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Ginny squeezed her eyes shut. “I haven’t spoken to them since graduation, you know. I just…can’t.”

  Clinking his glass on hers, Robert said cheerily, “Hey, we’re celebrating, remember?”

  Ginny sighed and let out a long breath. “You’re right. Thanks so much for coming up. It really means a lot to me. How long before you go back?”

  Robert grinned. “That’s the other thing we’re celebrating, babe. I got a job here on the Moon.”

  * * *

  “Did you hear? JeffGate works! The Exodus launches this year!”

  Ginny jumped out of the way of the screaming teen in an orange unibody careening down the hallway. Smacking against the wall with bone-shaking force, she bounced back and stared after him. The Jeffrey Gate works? The ever-elusive wormhole in space actually works? The implication was staggering.

  Stepping through the door into the cryonics lab, Ginny stopped dead in her tracks. Sally Valencia, the director of Lunar C, stood there, waiting for her.

  “Let’s talk.” She headed directly to her office and took a seat, waiting for Ginny.

  After a deep breath, Ginny strode in, closing the door behind her, and settled into her chair. “What can I do for you, Sally?”

  “I imagine you’ve heard about the JeffGate?”

  “I did.”

  “And you understand what it means for your department?”

  Ginny cocked her head but said nothing. All the work she’d been doing for the last five years was unnecessary if the Jeffrey Gate worked. A controllable wormhole meant that The Exodus could make the trip in a fraction of the time that would be needed at their target of 2.5 percent of light speed. She knew they were working on the Jeffrey Gate, but like the multiple failures of variations of the Alcubierre warp drive, she didn’t pay too much attention to it, since it was more fiction than science.

  “I can guess.”

  “Well, then,” Sally said simply. “You know what to do then. How many do you need to continue the research? I’m told you’re close. The technology might still be useful.”

  Need? How many of the 152 people on her payroll were needed? Her first instinct was to blurt out, “All of them,” but she bit back that retort and decided to give it a bit more thought.

  Sally rose. “Get back to me this afternoon. I have several more unpleasant conversations to have this morning.” She breezed out, leaving Ginny in her chair, stunned.

  The rest of the morning was a bloodbath, personnel-wise. Ginny heard rumors of entire departments disappearing in the JeffGate wake; at least she still had a department.

  If she wanted it.

  She wasn’t sure she did, any more. Her entire life since The Exodus was announced had been carefully aimed at space. She so wanted to be a part of the brand-spanking-new space culture that she’d willingly abandoned her own parents to get there.

  Just like her father had said she’d do.

  She’d bet her career on cryonics and lost. It seemed a safe bet back then. There were documented cases of people being revived from hypothermia-induced suspended animation. There was even a man, Mitsutaka Uchikoshi, who essentially hibernated for twenty-four days. It stood to reason that if it could be controlled, it could be extended to forty weeks, maybe even more.

  Ginny’s cryobiosis team never came close to forty weeks, but they did successfully replicate Uchikoshi’s twenty-four days repeatedly—at least, with pigs—even pushing it to thirty days before she left for the cryonics team. Her new team was more speculative, riskier, definitely more science-fictiony, but the potential rewards were massive if they succeeded. Long-term sleeper ships could take as long as they needed to go dozens, maybe hundreds of light-years away, waking up its occupants at the end, fresh as daises, their full lives still ahead of them.

  Yes, it was less likely to work than cryobiosis, but it was still far more grounded in real science than the Alcubierre warp drive or the Jeffrey Gate.

  Except, apparently, it wasn’t.

  With a weary sigh, Ginny v-called Sally with her staff recommendations and her resignation.

  * * *

  “I’m glad you came, Gin.” Robert’s disarming smile invited her in to his apartment more than the door swinging open beside him. Garlic wafted from his kitchen, stinging her nose, which she immediately wrinkled.

  “What is that smell?” She stepped through the door, shutting it behind her, and followed Rob to the kitchen.

  “My grandmother’s famous garlic chicken soup. She says it cures anything. With a dozen bulbs—not cloves, bulbs—it’ll cure your taste buds, guaranteed. Anything else is debatable, but it’s worked for me pretty well so far. Colds, flu, herpes—”

  Ginny looked up at him sharply.

  “I’m kidding. I don’t know about that last one.”

  “What about crushed dreams?”

&nbs
p; Robert didn’t answer, just gathered her into a tight hug. “I heard about the cuts. I’m so sorry. I’m surprised they’d cut you loose, to be honest. You’re the Golden Girl.”

  Ginny relaxed into him, resting her head on his hard chest. “They didn’t. I did.”

  Robert broke the embrace, but still held her shoulders. “Really? Why?”

  Ginny sniffed, trying to hold back what she knew would be a flood of tears. How to explain to him that she felt like her entire life had been wasted? How to convey just how crushed she felt, how invalidated. “Maybe my parents were right. Maybe I should have tried to Fix Earth First.”

  “No,” Robert said emphatically. “No, you don’t.” He guided her over to his sofa but didn’t take his hands off her. He sat down and allowed her to nestle into him. “You’re not a Feffer, never were, never will be. What you did was right, for you, for all of us. You didn’t fail.”

  “Yes, I did. We never really figured out cryobiosis, much less cryonics.”

  “Sure you did. You brought back pigs after a month, didn’t you?”

  “Pigs. Not humans. Too many ethical hoops to jump through.”

  “I heard Lunar E had done it with humans.”

  Ginny glared. “You know the E means ‘experimental,’ right? Not ‘ethics.’ In fact, if you believe the stories, their supposed volunteers may not be.” She sniffed again. “More likely they were being punished.”

  “But they still did it?”

  “I’m not debating this tonight, Rob. That’s not the point. They weren’t my team.”

  “But they were using your research, and it worked, Gin! That’s the point. Think about it. Ignore the ethics.”

  Ginny folded her arms over her chest, taking Robert’s along for the ride. “I suppose.”

  “Exactly,” Robert whispered into her ear. “See? You’re a success, just like I always told you.”

  Ginny twisted around so she could see him. “You always know what to say to make me feel better.” She smiled but didn’t turn back around.

  They stared at one another, saying nothing. Ginny heard her heartbeat pound in her ears. She saw her reflection in Robert’s eyes, not a mirror image, but the way he saw her, and what she saw was beautiful, not the nerdy redhead she saw in her mirror, but a goddess incapable of wrongdoing, destined for greater things.