Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel (7 page)

Also, there is Dr. Maria Kempton of Sydney University, whom I first met in a lounge one evening when I was feeling shiftless. She initiated the conversation, asked if I was Dr. Hoyos the physicist. Inwardly I sighed, since I am not dedicated to my reputation. A lively irrational discussion with a real child would have been so much more rewarding, but, alas, children are entirely absent from our little venture, and are a somewhat endangered species back on our home planet.

Kempton is in her early sixties, but it took no stretch of the imagination to see that she had once been a lovely young woman. She opened the exchange by mentioning that we have something in common because we are both lapsed members of Mensa.

“You have lapsed?” I exclaimed with feigned shock.

“Yes, long ago. High IQs don’t guarantee that you remember to keep your membership renewal up to date.”

I knew why I had once been a member—I had been badgered into it by Xue for reasons of prestige—but I was curious to know her reason and asked why she had joined the elite brain club.

“Well, I was very young”, she said with a thoughtful look. “It was pride in the beginning. And loneliness. The desire to find people with whom I could discuss things without them wondering if I was a dysfunctional, masculinized gnome.”

“Which you very obviously are not”, I replied with a little bow, dropping my cowboy accent, since I quickly realized she is one of those totally honest people you meet from time to time.

“Thank you, Dr. Hoyos.”

“Please call me Neil.”

“Neil. I’m Maria.”

I asked about her area of expertise. Microbiology, she informed me, then launched into an intriguing conjecture about what kind of life we may find on our destination planet, that is, if we find any life. It is possible, she says, though by no means certain. However, AC-A-7 is in the Habitable Zone, is about the same size as Earth, about the same distance from AC-A as Earth is from our sun; moreover, AC-A is only a little larger than our sun. These “abouts” and “littles” represent immense distances and quantities, and thus we can only hope to find life there.

“Even if we do”, she added, “the planet could be millions of years younger or older than ours, and whatever life it may have could be either extremely primitive or dying out in its end phase.”

“Then there’s the various sorts of ionizing radiation”, I added, “which we have no way of measuring at this point.”

“Mmmm, yes, the gamma rays and x-rays, you mean. Without sufficient shield, I suppose that would put an end to things pretty quick.”

“They’d never get started, actually.”

An enjoyable conversation. It concluded with her showing me photographs of her grandchildren. Yes, she has more than one. Apparently, she and her husband had three children, since Australia was the last state to sign the one-child global policy accords. Each of their children married and produced a single legal child, for a total of three! She’s a very lucky woman. A strange joy took hold of me as I examined those bright shining faces. This was followed by a cordial goodbye on both our parts, and an agreement to talk again if we should happen to bump into each other.

As I said, there is a great deal to interest me on board, everything from the hydroponics garden (they have a good selection of vegetables, succulent vine fruits, and vividly colored flowers), to the arboretum (a wide selection of trees from every continent), to chess games in the commons, aerobics tracks around the ship on all four concourses, flights of stairs, sports and exercise rooms, and libraries.

(Note to myself: I really, really must read the Manual more carefully. I recently discovered that indexed under ship’s services are the libraries, more than I had stumbled upon during my first exploration of the concourses. Taking a peek into one of them, I had assumed they were all the same: digital, “oak”-lined, full of arm chairs and fake fireplaces burning fake logs, visually appealing but lacking any tactile books. Today, however, while roving through deck A, I stumbled upon the single actual library, containing close to twenty thousand volumes, intelligently selected.)

Despite the myriad choices that lend themselves to keeping one active and interested, this does not consume so much of my day that I am deprived of an opportunity to make voice records in my e-diary. But I notice that I’ve lately been skipping days at a time. This written journal suffers even more from such lapses. Does consciousness change with the alteration of space-time? I would expect so, but it is not really measurable. Maybe the anorexia of the journal entries is no more than a case of my wrist muscles squeaking their little protests. “Stop writing all the time, Neil”, they say. “Just enjoy life.” My ankle hurts more than usual; I’m not sure why. I’ll make an appointment with a doctor. There are plenty on board. Hmmm, now whom should I choose? Or do they choose for us? Guess I’ll find out.

Day 121
:

It turns out that they do indeed assign specific lists of potential patients to specific doctors. It would be interesting to check out the lists, to see who got who, and try to figure out why. I think they keep this information confidential since it would encourage musical chairs and create logistical havoc, human beings being what we are. My physician is a young East-Indian lady, Dr. Pia Sidotra. She’s a specialist in tropical medicine, infectious diseases, and toxicity (industrial / chemical accidents). Graduate in General Medicine from Mumbai University, surgery from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, tropical medicine at Djakarta U.

During our first consultation, I tried to keep my defensive force-field up. I don’t automatically trust doctors. I especially don’t trust young, brilliant, women doctors. First of all, they are professionals in highly prestigious positions, which implies that they have successfully navigated the world we live in, and are almost certainly very pleasant creations of the government, full of clone thoughts regarding basic human questions. In my experience, they have issues to work out. It may be said, to their credit, that they have to strain to be detached, even though practitioners in their field generally treat humans like bio-mechanisms. But ladies can slip into caring too much, and thus they tend to overcompensate by becoming harder than men. They are also so thorough and good at what they do that in the end it’s just easier to die than to endure all the trouble and testing they like to put a person through. Give me liberty or give me death, I say.

In any event, that was my attitude when we shook hands and began the consultation. She surprised me, however, by initiating a battery of oral health questions, using a pencil on paper on clipboard on knee.

“That’s antiquarian of you”, I opined. “One might go so far as to say anachronistic. I hope you approve of anesthetic for surgeries.”

“In extreme cases”, she said, with a small smile.

“Well, I’m a really extreme case.”

“I can see you are.” She paused and glanced down at her clipboard. “Dr. Hoyos, we’ve received no transmissions from your HUMVS here at the medical center. Of course, it’s your choice to wear one or not, but according to medical law, I have to inquire about it, to make sure you haven’t lost the transmitter without realizing it.”

“I just decided not to use it.”

She made a check mark on her paper.

“Test done?” I asked. “Did I pass?”

“I need to take your vital signs first.”

After she had wrapped a pressure band around my arm and tapped a button to take the readings, I asked her if she had chosen to have a humvee implant or patch for herself.

“Neither”, she replied quietly, without taking her eyes off my beeping graphs.

“May I ask why not?”

“I’ve always been concerned about the long-range effects of wave transmissions on living cells—only as an amateur interest, you understand. Perhaps an overly suspicious one.”

“I’ve been concerned too, for other reasons.”

“Physics?”

“No, philosophical—only an amateur interest, you understand—combined with general ornerariness.” Again she smiled.

“Would you like to know your vital signs results?”

“Just a summation, please.”

“You’re a very healthy man for your age. How do you keep fit?”

“I attribute it to fresh air, fresh water, natural and illegal foods, minimal electronic wave exposure, certain criminal activities that harm no one but myself, and so forth.”

“Excellent”, she said.

She hadn’t tripped over the words
illegal
and
criminal
. This was one unusual doctor.

“And how about exercise?” she asked.

“Only mental. Theoretical physics keeps a guy on his toes.”

And so it went. Our conversation, which had begun so stiffly, became free-form banter. She told me that, much as she admired my achievements in science, reading theoretical physics had always shut down her higher brain functions. I reassured her that this was probably true for most of mankind. She mentioned that she likes the novels of Charles Dickens and Indian love songs. I told her that I once saw a Bollywood film, but the love song put me to sleep after thirty minutes of uninterrupted passionate chanting.

By now, I realized she was something of an anomaly: an authentically charming person, humorous, sensitive, definitely not a clone-thinker. Her eyes sparkled, and she waggled her head a little whenever she made a joke. Later, on the way back to my room, I suddenly burst out laughing when I got one of her subtler ones.

I should mention that she told me my right wrist may need no more than a little rest and penetrating muscle cream, but she has also scheduled more extensive tests. My ankle interested her a lot: the scar, the limp, the neurological damage, the story that goes with it. In the telling, I tried not to embellish.

“You were lucky”, she said.

“I had a good dog.”

“Was his name Lucky?”

“No, his name was Rusty.”

“A good pal.”

“The best.”

“Without Rusty, the history of the human race would have turned out quite differently.”

“Aw, shucks, Ma’am, you exaggerate my importance”, I drawled.

“Shucks, Dr. Hoyos, I don’t think I do.”

If I’d had a Stetson hat, I would have popped it onto my head and squinted into the sunset. When you’re sixty-eight years old, you can get away with being coy, shuffling in the direction of a mild playfulness without alarming beautiful young women. They just see Dad, and chuckle.

Day 137
:

With pen in my left-hand fingers, I’m scratching this explanatory note. Right wrist diagnosed with median neuropathy—carpal tunnel syndrome. I needed surgery. It’s done. Hand and wrist in cast. (Attached digital photo, self-made with left hand. Sorry for blur.)

Dr. Sidotra asked me if I want her to open up my ankle and do some tinkering with a team of neurologists. I said no. Told her I like my limp, it gives me character.

Day 153
:

The ship is now cruising at maximum velocity. We are slightly above half-lightspeed. This will put us in the neighborhood of the sister stars around nine years from now. Some time will be lost in deceleration, which begins five months out from our destination.

Day 204
:

Feels good to be writing again. Not much to write home about. I’ve read a lot of books since my last entry (see attached list). Some loss of the finer mind / brain / motor control in the fingers. Pia says it will return with practice. I don’t want to waste paper, so make do by scribbling with the stylus on the
max
’s imprint tablet. Seems to work well, since there is some improvement as long as I keep sending messages along the neuron paths, waking up the little fellows in my wrist and hand, one by one.

Day 206
:

I woke from a strong dream last night. In it, I was as old as I am now. An elderly woman—an East Indian woman—was seated beside me. We were on the afterdeck of a wooden houseboat, holding hands and watching birds flying over a lake. There was lapping water, floating water lilies perfuming the air, a slight breeze. A soaring mountain range rose above the far shore. The woman turned to me, and I saw that there was great love in her face, a beautiful face, her eyes wise and innocent. I was in love with her. In the dream, it seemed that I had loved her a long time.

She said, “You know me, Neil.”

I answered, “Yes, but what is your name?”

When I awoke, the feeling of love burned quietly inside me, lingering a little. It has been such a long time since I felt anything like that. Tears started running down my cheeks. I put a stop to it quickly.

Day 291
:

Rereading this journal some months after the above entry, I discovered that I had a similar dream on the flight from America to Africa. (See entry, 13 October, 2097, Earth base—Africa.) So, two dreams about an Indian lady, one of them occurring before I met Pia. The women in the dreams didn’t look like Pia grown old, nor was there the sense of Pia-ness. Though I am fond of the few Indians I have met during my life, I have no exceptional attraction to them. Well, there was one, that girl I met at college, though it came to nothing. What was her name? Raina or Ryka, if I recall correctly. No, it was Raissa.

Obviously my subconscious is sending me oddly consistent cryptic messages. I am feeling my old age, am approaching the crest beyond which is precipitous decline. Yet I remain lonely for what might have been, for a family of my own, for a legacy of human lives to bequeath to the future. A torch hurled across the abyss of time. Too late for all that. Emotionally, dreams can suffice for reality. About the objective future, well, we must leave that to the future archivist, if there be a future for our sad little island-universe race.

I don’t feel much like writing. The visual screen shows no change outside the “window”. It’s beautiful, but static; the channel never changes. Only AC-A-7 has changed. It is closer but still a blur.

The human mind is stimulated by change, motivated by meeting the challenge of novelty or threat or pleasure, rewarded with the sensations of being instrumental in altering environments, and will persevere in this as long as there is some degree of perceivable progress. People turn to knitting baby booties, doing crossword puzzles, collecting rare coins; they may even make an effort to understand E=mc
²
or to study the genetic adaptations of cacti, but in all cases, they need to see some fruit of their labors.