Iase shook his head, as if surprised of his own words, “instead, on that day I saw a respected man seriously talking about space and rockets. In an instant, beautiful distant planets ceased to be just a childish dream. It appeared to be an “adult”, serious business. Maybe right now it sounds in high-flown manner but in reality that day turned to be a moment that determined my life. I had chosen this specialty exactly then.”
Iase smiled at her, “If you still are awaiting it, this is the answer to your old question. It was then, when, yet without full understanding, I felt that I must join this enterprise because it leads to those beautiful planets, to new places with their unexplored but still welcoming expanses. The absolute seriousness showed by the person, who has highest competency in my eyes, made my mind to do everything, to apply all of my abilities for this great plan to achieve its goal ..."
Iase paused for about a minute, hanging his head. Then he looked directly at the objective again and continued, "In those days, I seriously asked Mikheil what I need to do to participate in sending ships to extrasolar planets."
“A fellow villager said that the fastest way is to become a craftsman assembling the interstellar ship with my own hands. I don’t know, maybe he just joked, I haven’t met him since then, but anyway, I sincerely took his words as a program of action.”
Having finished this sentence, Iase exhaled loudly and said, "Oh! I think I have told and shown everything that I wanted. If I missed something - so be it, but at least now you know the time and circumstances when stars had finally "poisoned" me. Now I’m not sure if my “film” was worthy of your waiting... Anyway, I have nothing more to say on this topic, and you’ll know about my other desires as soon as I get home,” with these words Iase bent down to the lens and kissed it.
The recording ended but widow still heard the voice of her late husband. Grief raised its head with renewed vigor. In response, Veana remembered her victory over the death of her love and made chimera of sorrow return to its black den.
Chapter 9
Viktor Utvac left the Oslo branch of the international radio engineering corporation, Union Wave, and went to the Fiord Café, directly opposite his workplace on Stenersgata Boulevard. When he’d crossed the street and entered the bar, he morphed into a client. At first glance, the change looked insignificant, but who knows what separates life and death?
Even so, forty years had passed since the first expedition had departed to the Eridanus constellation and then, within a ten-year interval, three more ships had headed to the Cancer, Andromeda, and Herdsman constellations. Now the fifth expedition was about to go to Corona Borealis.
Viktor, a man in his early forties, had an average stature, soft features, and straw-colored hair that already begun to give way to bald patches. Entering the cafe, he spoke almost from the doorway: “Hi Sarah. I hope a cold beer isn’t a problem in this place?”
“Hi, Vic. I’ll see what I can do.” The bartender, a plump, dyed blonde of about forty, smiled broadly.
She turned to the freezer and took out a half-liter glass mug that immediately clouded over. The woman filled it with a cold, honey-colored liquid and smoothly pushed it across the glossy surface of the counter.
“How is the cosmos doing?” She accompanied the mug with the question.
The man sat down and sipped his beer. “As before,” he replied with a grin.
“Vic, honestly, I have wanted to ask you something for a long time,” she said, gazing at him uncertainly.
“Go ahead. Why are you acting like we just met?” Victor replied encouragingly.
“Although it may be tactless…” the woman still hesitated. “Well, since I’ve spoken, I must say it to the end.”
In response, the man only nodded.
At this time only one customer was attending the bar. A fat and almost completely bald man in his fifties, he had donned a bar-code-colored T-shirt and completely faded jeans. In front of him on the counter, a glass of whiskey stood with pieces of almost-melted ice floating in it.
The pretty large café housed twenty now-unoccupied tables. Apparently its visitors had dispersed after their lunch break, and weren’t going to return until working hours had ended. Thick chocolate curtains covered the glass walls of the establishment, supposedly to help the air conditioner fight the hot midday sun. However, the two hadn’t yet managed to completely defeat the stuffiness.
“Victor,” the hostess said, finally getting down to business. “You’ve mentioned this several times, and I myself have heard so, that your late uncle’s DNA will fly away with this fifth expedition. I’ve always wondered, on which side was he your relative, maternal, or paternal? Again, I hope I’m not being too impertinent.”
“Sarah, stop apologizing. You just asked a simple question; I see no problem in answering it.” He quickly glanced at the other man and then, taking a few sips, almost drained his mug. “Iason Azgo wasn’t a man of my blood. He was the husband of my aunt, Veana. But, as she says, Iase was my relative in the noblest way: in the line of love,” he finished his detailed explanation with a smile.
“Oh!” Sarah exclaimed. “Your aunt is absolutely right! It really is the noblest kinship in the world! Excellent! How she is doing, I mean, your Aunt Veana?”
In response, Victor thought hard at first, and then nodded several times. Finally, he spoke: “It’s difficult to say what’s happening in her soul today. Her forty-year wait is coming to an end. Soon Iason’s dream will really come true…She never married again. I think now she’s experiencing mixed emotions—joy and sadness simultaneously.”
Saying this, he hung his head.
They were silent for a while. Then Sarah smiled and said, “I’m sure you’re taking special care in tuning the instruments for this rocket.”
Victor shook his head and replied with a grin, “To stimulate special zeal, there is a boss, a salary, and a chance for promotion. Kinship alone, from whatever side it may occur, isn’t enough."
The bartender snorted and nodded. “A purely engineering-based approach.”
As she spoke, Victor twirled his index finger at his already empty tankard, indicating that he needed another one. Sarah poured him the next mug and placed it in front of him.
Meanwhile, Victor, still grinning, enquired, “Is that all you wanted to ask me?”
“What do you mean? It’s still a personal, family matter, and how can I just ask about it without permission?” the bartender wondered.
“Okay, it is personal, but isn’t it always better to ask me directly, than tittle-tattle somewhere else?” He chuckled and took a long gulp of beer.
“What are you talking about, Victor, what tittle-tattle?” Sarah flared up, taken aback. “When and with whom did I gossip with about you? When—”
“Okay, okay, Sarah, I’m kidding,” Victor interrupted her and raised his hand in reconciliation. “I just wanted to say that if you want to know more, don’t hesitate to ask me. I can tell you whatever you want to know, unless, of course, it concerns classified information,” he said as he tried to calm her down, realizing that he had been rather impolite to her through simple negligence.
The bartender thought for a short while and then changed the subject. Perhaps Victor’s efforts really had worked, or she’d decided that she shouldn’t fight with a client.
“If you’ve offer me this," she said, already smiling, "I’ll take advantage of your generosity and ask one more thing.”
The man simply made an inviting gesture with his right hand.
“Victor, the money from taxpayers like me has created this rocket, and I want to know whether that spending will bring me some benefit. Will only future generations benefit from this project? Is it completely useless in the present? Once again I apologize. After all, you work for them, and…”
As she was speaking, Victor markedly reduced the amount of liquid in his new vessel, and after that interrupted her too rapidly, “No problem, no problem. The project has already lasted for over half a century, and i
t’s natural that people will ask similar questions from time to time. Not every taxpayer likes to invest in a business when even our rather distant descendants won’t see the results.”
“When did I say I disliked it? I just asked if there is any benefit from this project for me now,” Sarah clarified.
Victor pretended to believe in her idle curiosity and simply answered her question: “Your benefits are technical innovations that were developed for this enterprise and then applied in everyday life.”
“Honestly, I can’t remember that I or any of my friends used anything from this project at home or at work,” she said, after thinking over Victor’s words a little.
“Yes, you’re right, it’s hard to find,” Victor nodded. “How can you see the efficiency and safety gains in a nuclear power plant, from the knowledge obtained while developing rocket engines for the interstellar craft?”
“Of course,” another participant entered the conversation, the man in the barcode-striped T-shirt. He nodded at Victor with a smile.
The engineer nodded back; then he drank his beer and continued to speak: “Also, you can’t use the robots they’d designed at home, because of the incredible expense involved in obtaining one. But the programs developed for them have incomparably improved our household appliances.”
“Are these robots smart enough to create a colony and raise children?” The other visitor said dubiously, still without introducing himself.
“They’re just correctly programmed for countless situations arising during the construction of buildings, hunting, raising children, farming, and so on. They will act the same way as a machine capable of defeating the world chess champion, through logical analysis of countless moves and unexpected situations. Although the software of these robots is incomparably more diverse,” Victor responded, ignoring his bad manners.
“So are they kinda like artificial people? The ones we see in films?”
Victor shook his head, frowned, mused for a while and then said, “No, they don’t even look human. They’re just machines. And any tadpole is smarter than the most expensive machine. The tadpole has goals in its life: not to be eaten, to grow, to reproduce; what goals can a machine pursue? To have a goal, you need a heart, liver, glands, genitals… Why should we install these organs in a robot? It would be nonsense. To get such an ‘android,’ it is enough for a man and a woman to lie in the same bed together, ha-ha-ha!”
He took another sip and added, this time without laughing, “Consciousness is not some kind of software, which can be installed on a piece of hardware called the brain. It is the sum of all the systems in the human body. Thus, robots are just machines, albeit very complex, but still they are unconscious, and what is more, they can’t be a person in principle because they will never have the inner organs that arouse our strivings and wishes.”
As he said this, he simultaneously drew the woman’s attention to the emptiness in his tankard. The bartender took another cold mug from the freezer.
“It would be interesting to know more,” said the man in the barcode T-shirt, smiling wryly. “Why are they so sure that in the new place there will be no one but animals?”
“They figured it out,” Victor said, the winner of the third mug, with some overconfidence.
“Really?”
“Easy,” Victor confirmed nonchalantly. “The number of reasoning creatures on Earth, that is, only one, ha-ha, was divided into the number of species that have ever existed on this planet, say, a hundred million.”
Having said this, he took a paper napkin from the counter and, wiping his lips dry, resumed his explanation, “After that, two hundred thousand years: the age of modern man was divided into three and a half billion—the time during which life has existed here. And in the end, they multiplied these two fractions together.”
“And what did the result tell us?” the man asked.
“This may be mathematically imprecise, but you will understand me: the emergence of thinking beings is much less likely than the number of suitable planets in the galaxy. So, according to these calculations, not even once in every single galaxy can a rational species arise,” Victor answered, with a meaningful appearance and a slightly blurred look.
“So it turns out that we won’t meet anyone on an alien world,” Sarah concluded.
In response, Victor finally drained his vessel in one gulp and said, “From this point of view, we’re now acting like those first humans who, having arisen in Africa, scattered all over the Earth, which at that time was devoid of intelligent beings.”
“What do you mean?” the man in the barcode T-shirt asked.
“We’re also going to scatter all over a galaxy not yet inhabited by intelligent beings!" Victor announced solemnly.
At that moment, a new visitor entered the cafe and the interlocutors turned their attention to him.
Chapter 10
The newcomer, a tall, athletic man of about thirty-five with black, curly hair, approached the counter, greeted everyone, and turned to Victor.
“It’s good that I met you here—I was about to call you.”
“What’s the matter, Ole? Aren’t you tired of me at work yet?” Victor grinned sarcastically.
Ole looked more closely at his colleague’s flaccid features, his half-closed eyelids, and said with mild disappointment, “I see you haven’t wasted any time.”
“Why? Something happened?” Victor inquired absently.
Ole began his story, continuing to look doubtfully at his partner, “What happened... in short, after you left, the boss came and announced that the communication center has to be ready by Monday morning.” He spoke with growing dismay, and then addressed Sarah: "Please give me some orange juice."
The woman nodded and turned to the shelf behind her, where all kinds of bottles, a coffee maker, a microwave, and a juicer were at her disposal. She put three oranges in the last one and made it buzz.
For a while Victor watched her, and then, without turning his head, asked Ole, “Does he have a new job for us?”
“Yes, and we should be happy. If you remember,” he smiled ironically, “the SQP will soon stop working with us; the expedition is almost ready to set off.”
“I don’t see any difficulties. The device is ready. We only need to test the simulation of the lander’s entry into the atmosphere. It’s easy for us to do this tomorrow. Isn’t tomorrow Saturday?" Victor asked calmly.
“It’s not entirely so simple,” Ole said, morosely. “I promised Linda that we would spend the weekend at the lake. We have to do the test today.”
Victor thought for a while, then, concentrating, replied “Man, I’m really tired and I’ve drank three beers. I was going to go to watch football. Linda will understand…after all, it’s not your fault that the boss gave us a rush order.”
Ole looked at him thoughtfully again. Then he glanced sideways at the barcoded man and at the hostess, who were listening to their conversation without even hiding it. Then he picked up the glass intended for him, sipped, put it down on the counter, and took Victor by the elbow.
“Let’s step aside, I’ll tell you something,” he offered, and then, turning to their ‘audience,’ he uttered with a polite smile, “Sorry.”
Both the hostess and the guest nodded, albeit unhappily.
“Vic,” Ole whispered immediately, as soon as they had moved a sufficient distance from the bar. “You don’t have to do anything. You just need to be present according to the protocol. I wouldn’t have wanted to spoil your plan for the semifinals, but as you yourself know, the rules state the final test should be carried out in the presence of at least two engineers. I understand that you’ve been looking forward to the stadium all day, but for this favor, I’ll be your slave any time!”
Victor thought deeply. He wanted to go to the stadium; before that he wanted to have one more beer—but instead, the alcohol helped him to grasp that love was the most important thing in life, and compared to it both the football and the beer were nothing.<
br />
He sighed heavily, showing to his colleague the immensity of his sacrifice, and grumbled, “Well, let’s see what the possession of such a slave will bring me.”
In addition, he consoled himself with a reminder that there was no guarantee the team wouldn’t ruin his mood that night.
Chapter 11
Victor left the bar and crossed the street again, this time in the opposite direction and in the company of his colleague. There he entered the building and said, “Good morning,” with a wry smile to the man whom he called ‘the goalkeeper’ behind his back. The security guard responded with something like a grin.
Having gone down to the minus one level, the engineers turned on the lighting and air conditioning there. Then each of them robed himself in a white sterile overall and put on a gauze cap and a mask made of the same fabric.
With their preparations complete, the engineers headed for the equipment, separated from the rest of the room by a transparent plexiglass wall. At the last second Victor stopped, turned to the refrigerator that stood opposite the partition, and took out a bottle of sparkling mineral water.
“What are you doing?” Ole was taken aback. “Do you want to bring this bottle to the test bench? Even if it wasn’t forbidden, you’ve drunk so much beer—why do you also need water?”
“Out of habit, or maybe my body just has a peculiarity. Regardless of the form in which I drink alcohol, it always makes me thirsty.” Victor explained reluctantly.
“But you really can’t bring water or anything like that in there,” his colleague reminded him again, frowning at the plexiglass wall.
“Don’t tell me that bullshit!” Victor grimaced. “Or are you saying that we can’t do what we are going to do? Have you forgotten where you just fetched me from?”
Ole hesitated for a moment, but then, seeing the impatience on his friend’s face, he said conciliatorily,“ Just, when you’re drinking, don’t approach the equipment.”
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