Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (3 page)

*

The “hotel” contained a facsimile floor of the ship, with sample rooms, our new homes. We were encouraged to familiarize ourselves with all the amenities in them, but I refrained from doing so, since I wanted to be surprised. However, I learned at a briefing session that there would be one cabin per person. Claustrophobia in a sealed container, no matter how large the container, could wreak havoc on the mission. People need both public and private space, indoors and outdoors. I picked up through conversations in the hotel restaurant that the rooms are small but comfortable, like ocean-liner cabins for second-class passengers. I wondered if
everyone
would go second class.

*

This evening, all the voyageurs were instructed to attend a “special” briefing session held in the conference hall. Gathered together as one body, we were first informed of something we already knew and had been reminded of during the previous year: Unmanned probes had been sent out to the mystery planet, which is usual with space exploration. They had been launched eight years ago, at the time when the
Kosmos
was well along in its construction. However, we were now told, almost as an afterthought, that they and subsequent unmanned probes would not arrive at the planet ahead of us. They had not been powered by the advanced propulsion system that would drive the
Kosmos
. They were, in a word,
slow
.

There was a good deal of rumbling in the audience when we heard this, because we had presumed (with blind trust) that the authorities had done things properly. We had assumed they already knew a great deal about the planet. As it turns out, they know nothing much at all, only that it is situated in the HZ—the habitable zone “likely to be hospitable to life”. Earth’s best instruments confirmed that it was certainly
there
, orbiting around AC-A, and gave a general idea of its size and behavior as a satellite to its sun, but little more than that. Readings of the light coming from the planet give early indications of a significant spectrum “edge”, which theorists believe may be a biosignature in its atmosphere (if there is an atmosphere). Of course, theorists abound and are not infrequently proven wrong, scientists though they be.

We now understood that the images we had thought were high-resolution telescope photos, which we had pored over so thirstily, were computer-enhanced pixel clots and artists’ renditions. The facts, in fact, were conjectures. The announcement was hastily followed by a torrent of highly technical data, stirring speeches, psychological manipulation, and no real explanation. There was much emphasis on the delights of being surprised. As I listened, I fumed quietly to myself and thought that nineteen years of one’s life was a lot to invest in a surprise that might turn out to be a dead rock or, alternatively, a fulfillment of the worst fantasies produced by the entertainment industry. I realized, as well, that my own excitement over the cosmic quest had dulled my scientific instincts, my healthy skepticism, my habitual need to know more before making a big leap. I too had relished the element of surprise.

With only a few days remaining until the launch, people can still back out, but I doubt that anyone will do so. Our anger smolders into vague disgruntlement, fading out under the lure of adventure, the feeling that regardless of our blindness we are still pioneers of a kind unprecedented in the history of mankind. I must admit that this is also the case with me. What do I have to lose?

Nevertheless, my suspicious nature has analyzed the situation downward and backward through the layers of propaganda. I may never know the truth of the matter, but I think what happened is this: The political situation on Earth is getting darker and messier than it has been for the past century of relative calm. Controlled, imposed serenity will take you only so far, considering the volatile nature of human beings. Global authorities
need
this expedition, since it is just the kind of marvel that will pull the eyes of mankind away from our troubles. The length of the round-trip journey is ideally suited, politically and socially, to give our rulers enough time—nineteen years onboard relativity time, longer by Earth measure—in which to tighten the lid on the steaming pressure cooker.

I would add to this another factor. Apparently, the two trillionaires are in their eighties. And that means they will probably not live long enough, or remain in sufficient control of their mental faculties, to derive any pleasure from the project. My guess is that they threatened to withdraw their funding if the voyage was delayed beyond their lifetimes.

After giving the situation some thought, I feel sure that if the authorities had been forthright from the beginning I still would have agreed to be part of the expedition. It’s the manipulation that really irritates me.

I should also mention that little bags of psyche candy were tossed into the audience. Skeptical at first, then masterfully flattered, then hooked, most of us extended our sweaty palms toward our global caregivers. Among the treats they offered was the announcement that there will be no internal surveillance during the expedition. It took some moments for this to register in the hundreds of brains present in the audience. Then for the faces to change from blank to puzzled. Lack of surveillance was unthinkable.

Here is a sample of the flattering explanation: “You are the most intelligent and responsible scientists in the world, and thus from the moment of departure until your return to planet Earth, there will be no need for social infrastructure security measures.”

*

Tempting as it is, I will refrain from sarcasm. To be perpetually observed is as basic to the natural order as breathing without thinking about it, or in more alert moments, to feeling the wind on one’s cheek. It is simply background. One strains to imagine that there was a time in mankind’s history when the worst sort of surveillance you might suffer from was a bad-tempered neighbor peeking through the curtains of his house in order to keep tabs on your comings and goings, as fuel for gossip. But we of a later age have been born into the culture of omnipresent inspection by invisible authority. All lives are examined lives.

I think it unlikely that during the voyage we will be entirely without the presence of the pests I like to call “botflies” and “tapeworms”. Mankind is not supposed to know about these instruments of the State. The former, like the botfly larva, burrows deep into walls and lives on the flesh of one’s privacy, so to speak. I regularly repaint the interior walls of my home with a latex magnetic mixture that confuses signals. The tapeworms are another matter. They look like semitransparent insects, about one inch long. They fly around your home. They fly around everywhere as a matter of fact. Several years ago, when I first noticed them and learned that they are impossible to catch by hand or by manual fly-swatter, I quietly—very quietly—invented a little solar-generated gismo that I keep on my back porch, exposed to the elements. It looks exactly like a twirly weather vane. It is not a weather vane. It’s a killer of bio-electronic parasites. Some mornings I find the porch littered with their corpses.

They have dwindled in number recently, sometimes disappearing for a week at a time, but always followed by an infestation. I once examined a sample under a microscope. The thing is simplicity at its most brilliant: nanotechnology, of course, with strands of larger carbon fiber. It’s a flexible semi-opaque tube, looking disturbingly like a tapeworm, but with bulbous head, eyes, and gossamer wings. Its organs are microcircuits powered by photosynthesis; its head is a vidcam nodule; the thorax is the transmitter. There’s no inkling about where the transmissions go or who monitors them. How on earth anyone could keep track of the millions (perhaps billions) of images sent in to their home base, I can’t begin to guess. Maybe they have a computer-filtering system to catch troublesome behavior profiles and flag audio words.

I suppose there must be countless tapeworm casualties on any given day throughout the world, as they are swallowed by birds or smashed during thunderstorms, etc. On the other hand, maybe there aren’t many of them after all, and only a few are sent out to keep an eye on problematic individuals. So far, no human beings have paid me a surprise visit in order to find out why there are so many casualties around my place. I designed my little swat machine with—how shall I put it?—with astute integration of engineering and visual aesthetics. I am very, very clever. I should say, rather, that I try to learn from my mistakes.

*

The night before we were to board the ship, there was a farewell banquet in the hotel’s grand ballroom. I was placed at the head table with thirty other dignitaries, including a number of heads of state, nabobs, and potentates. My reputation was but one of numerous entities exhaustively displayed, filmed, and photographed. I declined to give an interview. Thankfully, I had not been asked to deliver a speech for this historic moment. Others did this quite ably. There were many speeches. Wine flowed, tears flowed. Later, a band swelled with its overtures, and a dance began. At that point, I went back to my hotel room for a well-earned rest.

The next morning a rapid transit train—a soundless floater—took us all out into the desert. On the way there, I discovered that the ship was
five
miles away, which confirmed that the
Kosmos
was larger than the biggest ocean liner ever built. According to specs, she is 1.0 kilometer long, 0.25 kilometer wide at midriff, and 60 meters high. As we approached her, I saw that there were no windows, no angles, no external protuberances; she was as smooth as an ivory egg. The hull’s metal was not, strictly speaking, a metal. It was a new alloy of some kind. The ship sat snugly in its nest, the latter a monumental gridwork of spars composed of another kind of super-hard alloy, extending a few meters beyond both ends of the
Kosmos
. It was hard to tell which was the bow and which was the stern because the craft was perfectly symmetrical, without defining features.

We exited the train onto a platform that stretched the full length of the ship. Despite the size of this promenade, it was crowded with media people and state dignitaries come to wave good-bye. Fortunately, badly dressed elderly gentlemen do not attract the eyes of roving reporters, and thus I was able to board without anyone recognizing me. There were ten wide gangways leading into the underbelly of this elegant whale. Our ramp was midway along the length of the body. Crossing over, we entered a spacious lobby and were met by crew members in dark blue uniforms. On the breast of each was a logo badge, three illuminated stars above the ship’s name. I noted in passing that the name was stitched on uniforms in a variety of alphabets; presumably, this had been predetermined according to the native language of each passenger and his assigned greeter. There were a lot of languages being used in the lobby. My official greeter’s badge was in the Roman alphabet, and he engaged me in Spanish.

“Dr. de Hoyos, the captain and crew welcomes you aboard the
Kosmos
. It is an honor to meet you, sir.”

“This thing sure is big”, I said, gazing about the lobby and shaking my head in amazement. He looked confused for a second or two, then conducted me via an elevator upward to Concourse B, the floor on which I would be living. We exited into a long, long hallway, eighteen feet wide, with countless numbered doors along both sides. My room was situated nearer to what I presumed was the stern, about a third of the way back, numbered B-124. My guide typed the access code onto a digital keypad embedded in the wall, informing me that it was my date of birth. I could change the code to anything I liked, he said; just check the procedure in the Manual, which I would find in my desk drawer. The door whispered open, disappearing sideways into the wall. With that, I entered my own little room, my home for the next nineteen years.

Tomorrow is departure day.

*

Next morning
:

After the final passenger was locked inside, the ramp doors were closed and hermetically sealed, their joints practically invisible.

As I said, the
Kosmos
rests on a cradle that is as long and as high as the ship itself. Both bird and nest must escape the force of gravity. The cradle will be powered by forty-eight anti-matter engines, with an assist from the anti-gravity devices that were developed in the decade after I won my second Nobel. Anti-gravity alone is not sufficient to overcome Earth’s pull on a ship this massive, but when it is combined with the thrust of anti-matter, we will be lifted without undue violence through the Earth’s atmosphere until we are free. The ascent will be felt as 1.5 times Earth’s gravity, and thus we will be subject to some temporary discomfort during the process. Once we are in orbit, the cradle’s engines and anti-gravity will be turned off, and the ship’s internal gravity simultaneously activated, restoring our sense of onboard normality at 1 EG, earth gravity. The cradle will then uncouple from the ship, and remain in permanent orbit as the axial skeleton for one of the new space stations scheduled to be built during the next two decades.

After separation, the
Kosmos
will be maneuvered into position by stellar navigators, with bursts from its four anti-matter engines. Then we will begin to move forward into infinity, accelerating steadily throughout a five-month process that will take us to 56.7% of lightspeed, our maximum velocity. Apparently, we will begin the journey by passing through the plane of our solar system. Doubtless this is for the visual drama, to be broadcast back to Earth. Since Alpha Centauri and the Centaurus constellation are 60.8 degrees below our orbital plane, we must change course before we reach the orbit of Neptune, thus avoiding the rather congested Kuiper Belt—which, with eighty to a hundred thousand objects, each exceeding 100 km in diameter, is no small traffic hazard.

The ship is vibrating. I hear the faint rumble of the engines.

Day 3 of Voyage, outward bound
:

I will dispense with the standard day / month / year references, those signposts that we pounded into infinity as if into solid ground. Such references would be precise only “back there”. Of course, Einstein-Minkowski’s theory of the space-time continuum has been amply verified by numerous experiments during the past century. And thus the onboard clocks present two reliable readings side by side: (a) Earth time, Greenwich, calibrated to the hour of our departure, and (b) ship time. Lift-off was arbitrarily established as Day 1, 00:01 hours.