Hope (Nadyozhda)

by Wil C. Fry

  His son, a very cynical brat until his father's death, took up the work, to create the propulsion system, first working from his father's notes, then discarding them completely. When the Nadyozhda project began to take place, He was pressured to finish before the mission began, but nothing inhibits genius like deadlines.

  * * *

  Production on the starship had not been rushed until the end, but had never had significant delays. The politicians involved knew that the financial backing could not last forever. Taxpayers would eventually decide that the project was the proverbial rat hole, where the government could pour all their money, with no responsibility. The conglomerate corporations that were funding huge sections of the construction were getting wary. And things in general were getting shaky. The Luna Confederacy had survived a minor civil war, and bought Phobos from the Martian Government to use as a prison, equipping it with an artificial gravity field of 11/2 g's and a small atmosphere.

  The Hope's cargo bays were slowly filled with farming supplies (solar powered tractors, hoes, rakes shovels, vacuum-packed seeds), construction equipment, mining tools, land rovers, and an enormous amount of backup supply for the trip. Her shuttles and scouting probes were stowed in the hangar bays, after being rigorously tested and revised. The collision-protection system was tested and proven more than satisfactory. Ten colonists, two from each crew, volunteered and tested the hibernation tanks, feeling fine after a month in cryostasis. The M.C.C. reported that the ship was ready and could commence fueling one month before the scheduled launch date.

  Small chemical-powered tugs pulled the immense vessel to a new Lunar orbit, far from the now permanent construction station, newly dubbed "Hope City". (The inhabitants, most of them having had a part in the building of the Nadyozhda, intended to sell surplus food to Earth in return for materials to continue building starships.) Once the first starship was fully pressurized and fueled, the Abe Lincoln and the Teddy Roosevelt shuttled the five crews over, one crew at a time.

  Minutes after they were locked in their cryostasis tanks, the longevity treatment installed in the ship's medi-labs, Scott Hayford went on board one last time to initiate the launch sequence. His small space Jeep floated near one of the forward airlocks, tethered by a thin line. News vans from several holo-networks were orbiting at a safe distance, the news crews all trying to get their telephoto lenses in place, to capture the most historic event of their generation, perhaps the most monumental moment in the history of the human race. The leaders of all the human governments were making glorious speeches (some of them prerecorded) all over the Solar System, each making their part in the expensive venture seem the most worthwhile and the most prestigious. The fact was, without the intense cooperation of all these governments, it is certain that mankind would not have sent the Nadyozhda when they did.

  With all this fanfare, something unexpected happened. The tether line that held Scott's Jeep to the immense starship came loose. Or maybe he just hadn't latched it properly. Whatever the case, the Jeep began to drift away from the Hope, and the Launch Coordinator began sending distress signals to Scott Hayford. These messages were never given the satisfaction of a reply. Suddenly, the Jeep's retrorockets began to fire, pushing it farther and farther from the Hope. An aide to the Launch Coordinator suggested that perhaps Scott had finished and had reentered his Jeep unseen by those observing the event. After all, the Jeep was just a flea against the behemoth-sized outlines of the majestic starship. The aide put his name on the unemployment listings the next day.

  Then, right at the appointed time, the enormous banks of reactor-powered rocket motors began to fire, the heat and radiation exhaust shooting out for miles behind the Nadyozhda. The Confederate nation of Luna immediately launched two nuclear powered police ships, and the Terran Solar Patrol sent all six of theirs that were in the area, not far behind. The effort was futile. The M.C.C. piloted her ship as perfectly as planned and picked up momentum rapidly as the ship headed for interstellar space. The outposts near Jupiter and Saturn were notified, but were impotent. By the time the Hope cleared the asteroid belt and fell into Jupiter's gravity well, her speed was too great to be matched. The star ship was traveling faster than any human craft ever had. News correspondents on the Jovian satellites covered the "slingshot" maneuver as the interstellar craft plummeted almost straight into Jupiter, using the added acceleration of the fall to sling her toward Saturn. Saturn was soon passed on the opposite side, and the mission was underway.

  Within weeks, Pluto's orbit was passed, and still the ship picked up speed. All communication with the M.C.C. indicated that Scott was not aboard ship and that the mission was going fine. Every hour, the gap between transmissions was longer, as the distance increased.

  In the media, Scott was called a pirate, a glory-hound, and other things (it was even stipulated that he committed suicide by one network, which had followed the path of his Jeep until it crashed on the far side of Luna), but his image soon faded from their screens. Back home they still had the famines to worry about.

  * * *

  The crews aboard the Nadyozhda, still nine months from the Banard's Star System, took their time about getting to work. Even before they were awakened by the M.C.C., all the clocks in the ship had been activated and divided into five time zones. Each time zone was four hours and 48 minutes apart from the next one. So, for example, the Captain from Crew #1 would get to his office at 08:00 by his clock. When his watch showed 12:48, the Captain from Crew #2 would get there, their shifts overlapping. Then #1 would take his lunch break. He would leave his office for the day when his watch showed 17:00. If, however, he stayed late for some reason, at 17:36, he would see the Captain from Crew #3 coming to give #2 his lunch. To inhabitants of Terra, it seems difficult, but they had already been living on this type of schedule for six months before the launch, in order to grow accustomed.

  Hope had launched two of her scout probes while the crew was still in cryostasis, letting them get ahead of her, so they could send back information to chew on before the ship entered the System. The human crew had approximately nine months to prepare for their arrival in the alien solar system, the first humans ever to do so.

  Each cabin's onboard PC had been sent a 28-page news synopsis from the M.C.C., compiled from her transmissions received during the trip. Upon turning on their PC for the first time, each crew member saw a flashing notice on the screen, advising them to read the bulletin when possible, and to enjoy their first day of being awake.

  After their first meal, Petr pulled a piece of laminated paper from the pocket of his jumpsuit. It was hard to imagine that this paper had lain inside this jumpsuit for so long. The paper had a diagram of the ship on one side, in a very tiny scale. On the other side was a larger scale diagram of the living quarters section, just forward of the hangar bays. On this diagram was a highlighted path from the cafeteria to his cabin. He had put it in his pocket before entering cryostasis, knowing that there would be some temporary memory loss upon awakening.

  When Elizabeth saw what he was looking at, she grinned and put her arm around him. "My dear, senile husband, if you can't remember how to get there, you could follow me."

  Petr looked up into her eyes. They were laughing at him. Smiling wryly, he answered her, "Elizabeth, what else have we forgotten during our sleep?"

  "Petr, Petr! You naughty man! Follow me to the cabin and let us remember."

  Minutes later, the Novgorods were in their cabin, checking everything. There was one bed, just large enough to be termed "mini-queen size", a small desk with the PC and drawers under their bed for changes of clothes and other personal items. There was a small door between the bed and the desk that led to the small bathroom they shared with the next cabin.

  After a few minutes of newlywed-type romanticism, Petr sat at the desk, and began scanning news, reading the most interesting items to his wife, who was looking through their personal possessions. This is what she heard:

  "Well, we were right dear; the Venusia
n colonies finally declared their independence from Terra, right after we left...There was a war, for two weeks, until the Treaty of 2166. Venus and Terra join to form the Solar Federation and the Solar Patrol - I guess that's some kind of Space Police

  "Wow! By 2200, Mars had a population of over 50 million, in a dozen cities and thousands of settlements. Their atmosphere must be getting better. 'Mars is financially independent.'

  "Mars and Ceres form a joint republic... Ceres has a population of over 5 million, with artificial 1/2-g of course... They trade minerals for food, still buying fuel from J.U.M.

  "Terra tops 13 billion in 2223, and surface wars continue. They've started populating the oceans, it seems, with both surface and underwater colonies....

  "Population in Terran orbit exceeds 25 million... Wow! I wonder if our colonies will produce such great numbers....

  "Mars-Ceres joins the Solar Federation in 2247, still importing more from J.U.M. than from Terra... All the other outer moons form their own nation: The "Outer Satellites Republic", or OSR, and then join the Federation with J.U.M. in 2252... J.U.M.'s population is over 10 million, and OSR has nearly 4 million..."

  Elizabeth joined him and began looking over his shoulder. They read about the revolt of the asteroid miners - not including those working out of Ceres - and the Phobos insurrection, and the famine on Ganymede. The outpost of Pluto was recovered after 15 months of silence, the eight survivors were made heroes.

  The last transmission received, which was now more than six years old, showed the Solar Federation encompassing all the populations of the Solar System, except that of the Phobos Confederacy and the "Fifth Planet's New Republic", which is what the asteroid mining companies now called their new nation. Venus and Mars could combine their populations to total one billion, and the orbiting stations around the four inner planets boasted another combined billion. Earth's last war had given some population relief, bringing her total down to 12 billion. Adding Phobos, the FPNR, J.U.M., and OSR (now including Pluto) claimed another half billion.

  After a light supper and a short Bible study, the Novgorods re-consummated their 150-year-old marriage and then went to sleep. Even then, other Freeze Bays were continuing to thaw, on other time zones.

  * * *

  The next morning, Petr awoke to hear a quaint beeping noise. Looking up at the screen of his PC, he saw the message alert signal. Rolling out of bed, careful not to disturb his sleeping wife, he sat down at the desk and touched the screen with a fingertip. The message appeared, reading like this:

  The Captain (Crew #1) requests the presence of his executive officers in Meeting Room 2 at 1200 hours today. Please bring any pertinent information that you wish to brief the others on. Don't be late. This means YOU!

  Captain Cochran

  Petr stored the message for his wife - she was also a member of the executive board - and touched menu icons on the screen until he had the general "road map" for the ship. He downsized the map until it would fit on two pages, and printed. Twenty-five seconds later, the paper stopped moving, but Petr was in the shower. Within five minutes, he was showered, shaved, dressed, and stepping out the door, map in hand.

  The Nadyozhda was just less than one mile in length, about 5,000 feet, with the radar in the bow, and the rocket engines at the stern. It was 750 feet deep at the largest bulge - the cargo bay - and at the same place it was almost 1,000 feet wide. From the power plant all the way to the control room, was one corridor through the exact center of the vessel, only five feet wide at the power plant, enlarging to twelve feet in width at the cargo bay, and only narrowing again at the bow. It was this passageway that Petr found, and followed all the way to the power plant.

  There, he found a young engineer from Crew #5 looking over all the dials and readouts, having been awake only a few hours. The ship's computer had of course already turned the ship to allow the proper amount of deceleration as they entered the new solar system. Petr glanced around, noted the door to the Chief Engineer's Office, then headed back toward the front of the ship, leaving the muted roar of the rockets behind him. Without stopping, he noted the Recycler, where the ship's air and the humans' waste was treated, and made into useful substances.

  When he got to the first Cargo Bay entrance, he entered, letting the door slide closed behind him. He found himself in one of the intersecting passageways. The Cargo Bay was really a series of Bays. Near the core or center of the ship, where he stood, there were a lot of closets, or storage rooms, for smaller items. The seeds, tiny replacement parts for all the larger machines, space suits, oxygen masks, and other things were on shelves, in cabinets, or in boxes. Petr followed the branching passageway past the storage for these smaller items, through an open airlock into the section for larger items. Here he found spare tires on racks, shovels and other tools wrapped together tightly, and fastened to the floors. Here also were the smaller vehicles, the land rovers for two people and extra battery packs for them, the jet backpacks for EVAs, and small boats. Through a large, double airlock, he found himself in one of the three large Bays. There was one on each side of the ship, and one at the bottom, each with its own set of giant doors. He was in the Port side Bay, and could see large 20-man boats, 15-man land rovers - able to operate in a complete vacuum, large crates containing dismantled mining machinery, and the solar powered tractors and other large farm equipment. There were also, he remembered, many fruit trees suspended in cryostasis, as well as many farm animals. Satisfied, he walked back toward the central passageway.

  A little further down the main walkway, Petr saw the hangar bay doors. To enter the double airlock there, he was required to give his thumbprint on a screen, and say his name into the voice identity scanner. Only the members of the executive counsel and the one hangar boss from each crew had their identities recorded here, since at least one of them had to be present when the doors were unlocked. Petr stepped through the portal into the largest single room in the entire Nadyozhda.

  While the cargo bays constituted the largest section of the ship, they were actually several rooms, dozens in fact. But the Hangar Bay was one single, cavernous hollow in the center of the ship, about 800 feet long, 600 feet high, and 850 feet wide. From where Petr stood, on a catwalk, he could see all of the auxiliary craft that the mother ship possessed. He knew that the Nadyozhda had several gravity field generators, the main one being for the entire ship, holding the crew at an easy 7/8 g. But here in the hangar bays, only the catwalks had that luxury. The rest of the space was held at zero-g, to keep the smaller craft from buffeting one another during the trip. Of course, they could have been carefully attached to the walls, thus requiring more heavy machinery, or each one snugly tucked into its own chamber, like the lifeboats on the Daniel Boone I, the passenger liner that ran the Terra-Mars-Venus circuit once every month. But with the advent of the artificial gravity fields, more efficient use could be made of hangar space. Now, not only were the walls, floors and ceilings of the hangar bay able to store extra craft, but every cubic yard. Slender but strong catwalks ran through the largest on-board hangar facility ever made, imitating a spider's web in their intricacy.

  Everywhere that there was room, a ship was tethered to a catwalk. Nearer to the doors were the tiny automatic space probes, two of which had already been launched. Then there were the dozen or so modified Jeeps, used to inspect or repair the hull of the mother ship, or even the other auxiliary craft. Next were the small shuttles, ten of them, which resembled compact sports cars in relation to the shuttles of earlier space exploration. These had first been used to patrol the surface of Luna, and then in the exploration of the outer satellites, and the newest model as of 2165 had been included in the repertoire of the Nadyozhda. Able to be flown by only one man, they could hold up to five, and a few days' worth of provisions; they were meant for short range observation, and were very fast and comfortable. And finally, closer to where Petr walked the catwalk, were the five full-size shuttles. These could transport up to forty people at one time, or enormou
s amounts of cargo, with wings for an atmospheric landing, or retrorockets for a straight vacuum landing. All of these craft floated serenely in their zero-g environment, which Petr was tempted to experience by stepping over the rail. But he wanted to tour the rest of the ship before his meeting at 12:00.

  He wandered back through the living quarters area, greeting a few other people in passing, most of whom he only recognized faintly. 'Well,' he thought, 'if they are from my Crew, I'll know them well enough very soon indeed.'

  He looked in briefly at the cryogenic storage areas, where now only animals slept. It looked very cold and lonely to him in there, but he was grateful for the technology that had allowed him to make the 150-year voyage and still be only 32 years old.

  Without deviating too much from the central walkway, he noted that his map showed the living quarters to be slightly longer than the hangar area, about 900 feet, and about the same height, but narrower. He knew though that there had to be enough room for five hundred people to avoid being claustrophobic. What if the cryostasis machines went down? And what if there were no suitable planets in Banard's Star System? There had to be enough room.