by Wil C. Fry
Hope
By Wil C. Fry IV
(Begun in 1995, in Cabot, Arkansas; Finished in 1998, in Gravel Ridge, Arkansas)
A novel of the human race's first attempt at expansion
beyond the boundaries of the Solar System.
I - The First Chapter
Gliding smoothly through the emptiness that was interstellar space, Nadyozhda (Hope) was almost as silent as the vacuum itself. The mighty banks of rocket engines were quiet now, and as cold as they would ever be. The motors on the radio antennae made no sound, leaving the monstrous apparatus pointing forlornly at Earth. Months had passed since any messages had been received. The armored covers on the hundreds of portholes remained in place; the hangar bay doors, the cargo bay doors and all of the airlocks were closed tightly.
* * *
Without warning, an airlock door began to open, sliding back into a hidden recess in the skin of the Nadyozhda. The door was small, and no light came from inside so that any casual observer would not have noticed the movement. Then a remote-controlled repair mechanism clambered out of the airlock, its exterior lights coming to life at the same time. The machine was large enough to accommodate up to four humans for days at a time, but against the immensity of the Nadyozhda, it was only a pinprick of light. This time, as at most times, the repair craft was empty of human presence, receiving its instructions from the great repair control computer inside the mother ship.
Slowly, inevitably the machine moved along the surface of the 'Hope', like a flea on some large bald creature. Then it stopped, its spotlights locked onto a certain section of the mother ship's hull. For about an hour, the efficient craft worked at repairing the damaged outer skin, and then slowly found its way back to the nearest airlock door. Seconds after the last appendage had withdrawn into the safety of the airlock, the door returned from the hidden niche in which it had been resting, to make the outer skin smooth again.
* * *
Somewhere else in space; somewhere else in time: Objects composed of rocks, minerals and ice, and moving at tremendous speeds had collided. Fragments had broken away, spinning off into interstellar space at unimaginable velocities. Most fragments had been captured by the gravity wells of large, established heavenly bodies. Many of the giant gas planets had rings of these fragments, interlaced with free-floating ice structures, the rings being tiny miniatures of the asteroid belts that surround many stars. Most of the fragments found their fate here, trapped by gravity.
Others, by far the minority, had plummeted off into deep space, propelled only by the initial force of collision, but without deceleration. Perhaps after hundreds or thousands of years, these lonely remnants of would-be planets would be trapped by some far distant star or planet. Others would persist in their independent wandering.
As fate would have it, one of these chunks of debris from an ancient collision of planetoids, as it hurtled through the void, found that its path intersected that of something much larger, and much more capable.
The surprised computers on board the 'Hope' registered a blip on their radar screens that was quickly identified by spectral analysis as an asteroid fragment. Without hesitation, another door - much smaller than the airlock door, slid open, revealing a minute portion of the craft's survival-defense system. A blindingly bright ruby light leapt from the side of the colossal space ship, precisely into the heart of the swiftly moving rock. The shard of planetary material, a few yards in diameter, suddenly began to experience terrific heat, increasing too rapidly to radiate off into space, or even to spread evenly through the boulder. Within seconds, the heated material at the center of the rock had expanded too much for the infrastructure to hold together, and the quickly closing blip split into a thousand different ones.
Instantly, the computer calculated the trajectories of the two tiny pieces that could still puncture the hull, and bringing another laser into action, the two pebbles were soon incinerated. The Nadyozhda sped on, hoping to enter the Banard's Star System within seventy more years.
* * *
That was about the extent of the action on the exterior of the mile-long vessel, coasting inexorably on toward the target, set on its course some eighty years before. Inside, there was more action, but still it was quiet. The artificial intelligence kept track of the humans who were so delicately kept alive in their cryogenic tanks. In five different bays of a hundred tanks each, the human crew lay in suspended animation. Low hums, along with an occasional click, or hiss, or thud, emanated from the delicate machinery, the expensive computer systems, and the ugly, methodical science robots that kept the equipment in good repair.
* * *
Many trillions of miles behind the Nadyozhda, the Sol System was in a somewhat controlled chaos. Revolting asteroid miners had successfully blockaded the major spacelanes between the inner and outer planets. Battered nitrogen miners on Titan and other moons were desperately trying to slip past the Belt where millions of Venusian and Martian farmers struggled with low-yield harvests, due to nitrogen-poor soils. Thousands of prisoners on Phobos had carried through on insurrection threats and were holding off Solar Patrol shuttles.
Earth had been wracked with war for ten years running, and nervous generals in orbiting missile stations alternately extended and retracted threats of nuclear assault. Six overcrowded cities on Luna's surface and seventeen packed space cities in Earth or Luna orbit struggled to control organized crime, government corruption and sabotage attempts.
Smaller domed or underground cities on Ganymede, Callisto, Europa, Io, Titan, Rhea, and other outer gas giant moons struggled but survived, continuing to trade among themselves, steadily recycling oxygen, while drawing more from chemical solutions available nearby. Their advanced hydroponic farms and strict rationing laws enabled them to stay alive, while new cultures were being established, unique among the Jovian moons and very different from that of Earth.
The frozen scientific outpost of Pluto had lost communication with the rest of the Solar System when the last comet had rushed through.
* * *
Time continued to pass, as it always had. Planets with their moons in tow continued to circle their respective suns, people were born and people died, and the combined information of the human race outran all abilities to contain or digest it.
Then, one million three hundred and seven thousand hours after the departure of the Nadyozhda, something new happened. When the radar systems on board noted that Banard's Star was only twelve light days away (still nine months away in travel time), the computers sent new messages to the cryogenic bays. Starting with Bay #1, the hissing and clicking increased greatly as temperatures began equalizing and probes and sensors began to detect life signs. The atmospheric pressure in the rooms began increasing toward human-normal.
The robot caretakers of the cryogenic tanks, not realizing that their duties would be coming to an end soon, went from tank to tank, slowly pulling each one from its slot in the wall, allowing the human occupants time to thaw and then awaken. Warm air from vents in the wall blew across the crew, as special liquid chemical solutions were sprayed over them, assisting in the defrosting process and making it less painful.
As predicted many years before, the women began to recover from this frozen state before the men, moving their limbs stiffly and slowly at first as the life-giving fluids of the body started flowing again. One by one their eyes began opening, blinking as rapidly as possible, trying to focus on anything. After several hours of blinking, focusing, breathing, stretching, swallowing, and anything else that seemed to help, the first woman sat up groggily from the place where she had lain for 149 years and 3 months.
Still wondering where she was, her eyes focused on the strange looking form next to her tank. "Thirsty?" it queried in a metallic voi
ce. After she realized it must be a robot, she tried to remember what it was that the robot had said.
Again, the polite machine said, "Thirsty?" It took a few seconds for her to decipher what that series of sounds meant and even longer to formulate a reply.
Shaking her head just a little bit, she opened her mouth and said, "Yes."
With a low hum, the robot's servo-motors cut in and a mechanical arm reached toward the woman, a bottle of water clutched gently in its pincers. When the woman's fingers were wrapped firmly on the plastic, she managed, "Thank you," and the robot's arm returned to its side.
While she sipped slowly at the cool, fresh water, the robot rolled away from her tank. The woman's eyes tried to follow the machine, struggling to focus, and suddenly realized that other women all around her were struggling to sit up, and the robots were attending all of the humans. As she continued to drink, she realized with a start that all of the other women now sitting up were naked. A few seconds later it dawned on her that she too was unclothed. A very faint memory slipped into her conscious mind; all of them climbing into the cryogenic tanks, completely nude. It was necessary, the scientist had told her. Dangerous things happened when the skin froze onto clothing. Like the woman in Kiev, she thought.
Setting the water bottle down on the edge of her tank, she tried to pull herself out. It was a struggle for her to recall the movements required for such a task. Finally, she pulled herself up over the edge and set her feet down, standing groggily in the aisle between her tank and the one to her left. Holding tightly to the handhold welded on the side of her tank, she looked around Bay #1A. A glowing sign on the wall to her right said "DRESSING ROOM". After taking a deep breath, Elizabeth Novgorod stepped carefully toward the door, and suddenly memories began flooding her mind.
* * *
On the other side of the wall, behind the head of Elizabeth's tank, was Bay #1B, in which the men were acting in much the same way as the women, stretching, breathing deeply, blinking and trying to orient themselves. One by one, they groped their way to their own dressing room, on the average half an hour behind the women. Whenever one of the humans passed through the dressing room door, a faithful robot made its way to the abandoned tank/bed. After quickly vacuuming the inside of any left-over moisture or dust particles, the robot closed the transparent cover, rechecked the switches and then carefully pushed each empty tank back into the slot in the wall.
In the dressing room were small lockers, each with a full name at the top, followed by a twelve-digit identification number and a somewhat faded photograph of the proper member of the human crew. Simple benches ran in front of these lockers, and all around the room. At one side of each dressing room was a shower facility with full-body air dryers.
One of the first men into the dressing room was Petr Novgorod, the chaplain of the crew. About six-foot-one and very slender, he stood in front of the locker, reading the name and number and glancing at the photograph of himself. Funny how those freeze machines screwed up your thinking, he mused. One could really embarrass oneself in front of these other people. Fortunately, he could remember from his childhood that it was the wise man who held his tongue while the fool blurted out his folly. That was from the Bible. Suddenly it snapped into place! He was a seminary student - no wait; he had graduated - and there it was! He was the Chaplain (actually one of five co-chaplains) of the 500-person crew on mankind's first interstellar voyage.
When he looked again at his name on the locker's label, and saw "Novgorod", he suddenly remembered that he was a newlywed. Where was Elizabeth? Had she survived the trip? Had she remembered him yet? On and on the unanswered questions popped into his mind, and then he smiled to himself, remembering their recent honeymoon in New Italy. No, it wasn't recent, he reminded himself; it was 150 years ago!
Shaking his head at the awe of it all, he headed for the shower. Minutes later, completely dry, he walked out of the shower cubicle, and stopped at the ID machine, on a pole in the center of the room. Pressing his thumb onto the print scanner, he said, "Petr Novgorod."
A small voice said, "Recognition complete," and the locking mechanism on his locker clicked. He then stepped over to his locker and swung the door open. This action produced a very faint cloud of dust, which the long-dormant air conditioning system soon whisked away. Another ghost-like collection of airborne particles arose as he shook out the jumpsuit and undergarments that he found inside. As he slowly put them on, with other groggy and naked men stumbling into the room all the while, he found that his clothes were somewhat loose. That reminded him that he hadn't eaten since August of AD - what was it? - 2165.
After carefully slipping his shoes on, he began looking for the other door.
* * *
Freeze Bay #1 had been fully emptied and all of its previous occupants were eating in their cafeteria before Bay #2 began its "unloading" process. Each bay took up to three hours to empty, and another forty minutes or so were required for the dressing room and shower facilities to be vacated. Then, the robots went through, making sure nothing was left out of place. All in all, just under 25 hours passed before the last man of Bay #5 had entered the #5 dining area, and the last cryogenic bays were locked up.
The ship was on five time zones, each separated from the others by about five hours. This put the Nadyozhda on a 25-hour clock, and in this way, all necessary stations could be fully occupied around the clock, without anyone losing unnecessary sleep. It was now Monday, November 3, 2314 AD, and mankind's greatest mission to date was ready to commence. Within hours of waking up from the long sleep, each member of the human crew would begin to fulfill his or her duties and prepare to colonize whatever suitable planets they found.
The fantastic little robots of each bay finished their prescribed duties and made their way to the refurbishing station where both robot and human mechanics waited to rebuild and reprogram the simple machines for other duties.
The Freeze Bays would remain empty and locked until the ship's commanding counsels decided that the star system they had explored was unsuitable, and the command was given to move on to the next most-likely star. Of course, the Bays containing the livestock were still active, keeping the cows, chicken, pigs, sheep, goats, dogs, mice, earthworms, etc. intact until just before landing.
* * *
The Nadyozhda, for all its technological marvels, miniaturization, and automation, could still have been designed more efficiently. There were service corridors tucked away in the walls, many of which were probably unnecessary, and definitely took up a lot of unseen space. They were traversed at regular intervals by squat automatons covered on every side with arms, tools, and other appendages, keeping the maintenance of the ship out of the sight of the humans.
There were many rooms in the ship that could have been smaller, arranged more efficiently, or eliminated altogether, but these had not been considerations of the harried engineers who designed the ship. As problems around the Solar System had escalated, the governments of the nations and planets had put somewhat unrealistic deadlines into effect, making efficiency nearly impossible. With most of the funding coming from Earth, as usual, the project had proceeded at breakneck speed. Because the human race could only afford one try, safety was the main concern. Every component of the ship had several back-ups, and even more possibilities were contained in the cargo bay.
For ten years, the project had continued, in orbit around the moon, with all the planetary governments working together. Nearly all the building materials came from Luna and the Asteroid Belt, while the fuel came from the outer giants, and the manpower coming from Earth. The more powerful nations on Earth, combined as the Terran Federation, cooperated with the Lunar Confederacy, Independent Mars, J.U.M. (Jovian United Moons), Titan and the other outer satellites, while Venus remained aloof, still operating as a neutral nation of Earth, only an honorary member of the Terran Federation.
For ten years, wars had subsided, business had run smoothly, and millions of people came together to put mankind'
s last hope into action. The mile long spaceship had taken shape there in Lunar orbit, as hundreds of spaceships and dozens of space stations clustered nearby. An entirely new city came into existence, made of thousands of home and business modules, all with corresponding airlocks.
For several reasons, the powers-that-be had decided to divide the crew into five separate, independent crews. Each crew had been chosen separately and trained separately, then assembled together at Astropolis II, the nearest established space city to the construction site. Each crew had a Captain, a chaplain, several scientists and engineers, and nearly equal compliments of many other professions. They had all taken basic courses in construction, agriculture, hydroponics, medicine, computer programming, mechanical repair, cockpit instrumentation, and even piloting. No one was taking a chance that some minor catastrophe would throw the whole project down the drain. If one person or even dozens of people died in some kind of space accident, there would be others to replace them. Every contingency had been thought of, discussed in detail, programmed into each crew member's on-board PC, and added into the main computer system of the ship. All of the crew had been given tours through holographic models of the ship, so they would be familiar with the location of each compartment. They had sampled food cooked by robots, they had used zero-G latrines, they had worn space suits on actual EVAs and moonwalks, and they had read, studied, practiced, simulated, exercised, missed sleep, and studied some more until the 500 crew members were ready to be frozen into their cryogenic tanks for a long time.
