Launch

by Richard Perth

  They made their way through airlocks and passageways to an exit and stepped out of the ship. Under a gigantic canopy that had been draped over Origin, a six foot tall robot greeted them. “Good morning, Cougar Flight. Please accompany this robot to the decontamination and examination facility.”

  Claire was surprised. She and David had been in radio contact with Earth and had been told there would be decontamination and a medical examination immediately after arrival. But they had not been told about the canopy or the robot.

  It had four arms: one on each side, one in front, and one in back. Front and back arms were folded flush into recesses. Legs, ankles, and feet were jointed and shaped so it could walk or run equally well forward or backward. A clear dome, about the size of a head and shaped like an egg, was centered on the shoulders, narrow end down. Sensors in the dome allowed the robot to simultaneously see all forms of light, including ultraviolet and infrared, in almost all directions. At the base of the dome, a collar contained sensors that gave the robot acute senses of smell and hearing. Built into each hand, lights and sensors allowed the robot to feel, smell, and see very small things. Retractable tools were built into the fingers, hands, and forearms.

  Claire and David followed the robot to a building built into the canopy edge. It stopped beside a door that opened automatically and said, “Please step into the airlock.”

  They stepped into a room just big enough for them to stand side by side. The door behind them closed, and after a whoosh of air blew past them from top to bottom, the door in front of them opened.

  Two robots were waiting inside. One said, “Good morning Dr. Archer, General Archer. Please remove all of your clothes for an examination and a decontamination shower. Would you prefer separate facilities?”

  Simultaneously they said, “No,” and began taking their clothes off.

  Claire and David were given a through medical examination and were scanned by a diagnostic machine. Then they were given a choice of soap, shampoo, and wash cloths and escorted to a shower. The door automatically closed behind them, leaving them sealed in a room with two shower heads extending from a wall, but there were no controls.

  The sealed room and lack of controls began to alarm Claire as she recalled the history of Aushwitz during World War II: people were sealed into “showers” there and gassed to death. Then David asked, “How do you turn these things on?”

  A disembodied voice answered, “You say what water temperature and what kind of pattern you want, sir.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Warm, regular.” Immediately, warm water in a normal shower pattern came from his shower head. The other shower stayed off until Claire said, “Warm, regular.”

  When they finished their showers, another door opened, and waiting robots gave them large, warm towels.

  Claire was shown pictures of different styles of hair and makeup. She chose a “mild” daytime face and her usual short hairstyle that kept her natural wave. Her hair was dried and styled by one robot while a second robot applied makeup.

  David declined everything except a mirror and a hairbrush.

  After Claire’s makeup and hair were done, they were escorted to a dressing room. New jumpsuits that were replicas of their 21st-century NASA jumpsuits were laid out with new undergarments, socks, and shoes. A choice of deodorants and antiperspirants were beside the clothes.

  The clothing and shoes were of superior quality and more comfortable than what NASA had provided, and everything fit perfectly.

  Impressive, Claire thought as she zipped up her jumpsuit and checked herself in the mirror. But how long is this quarantine going to last? When will we see real people?

  Just then, another door opened. She and David passed through another airlock and stepped out onto a gold carpet. Blue sky was overhead, and a gentle onshore breeze brought the smell of fresh sea air.

  Eight foot tall robots with “POLICE” on the front and back were standing about eight feet apart beside each side of carpet. Behind them, dozens of people burst into enthusiastic cheers and applause.

  An attractive woman more than six feet tall with wide-set, soft brown eyes, black hair, and smooth, coffee-with-cream skin, walked on the carpet toward Claire and David. A small group followed her.

  She smiled and said, “I am Amira Saleh, President of the United States. Welcome back to Earth.” They shook hands, and she introduced the small group with her that included the vice president, several senators and congressmen, and her husband, Omar.

  The President escorted Claire and David to her waiting aircraft. It resembled a streamlined minivan with a skirt at the bottom. A narrow, rounded front tapered back to a wider middle. Four small turbines that resembled jet engines were mounted in two pairs on the top at the back between three fins.

  Claire and David stepped through a wide, sliding door to a limousine seating arrangement and politely took the two rear facing seats in the middle. The President and her husband sat in two of the three seats facing them. The doors closed, a seat belt and shoulder harness automatically locked around them, and almost inaudibly the aircraft took off vertically. When it was above nearby obstacles, it accelerated and small wings folded down into place.

  David looked over his shoulder at the empty seat in the front center of the aircraft. “Excuse me, Madam President, where’s the pilot?”

  She smiled. “Elf is flying General Archer. It’s built in.”

  “Does that have something to do with Elf Corporation?”

  “Yes, General. I plan to talk to you about Elf at lunch.”

  “Did I get a promotion while we were gone?”

  “You were retired as a four star General when the Air Force was disbanded. Doctor Archer was retired as a three-star Lieutenant General.”

  With a surprised expression, Claire said, “Disbanded? There’s no more Air Force?”

  “Or any other military services. The world has been at peace for more than a hundred and seventy years. You are the only living people who have served in the military.”

  Claire and David looked at each other and smiled. He said, “It looks like we’re unemployed.”

  She nodded. “Isn’t that wonderful!”

  As they flew along the coastline en route to a welcome ceremony at Los Angeles Stadium, Claire looked down longingly. “Madam President, we’ve been cooped up inside small spaces for a long time. Would it be possible for us to stop for a walk on the beach?”

  The President smiled sympathetically. “We can do that. Land on the beach now, Elf.”

  The same disembodied voice Claire and David had heard in the shower said, “Yes, ma’am.”

  While the aircraft banked and descended in a large circle, the President removed her shoes. “I’ve always enjoyed walking barefoot in the sand.” Claire and David took their shoes and socks off and rolled up the legs of their jumpsuits.

  They strolled in the sand near the water. Claire’s eyes filled with tears of joy as she listened to the ocean and felt the warmth of the sunlight, the breeze, and the sand on her bare feet. She looked up at the sky and spread her arms wide. “I never knew just walking on the beach could feel so good!”

  After a few minutes of silence, David said, “Madam President, I’ve never heard anything like your accent. Would you mind telling me where you’re from?”

  She laughed. “That’s funny. Can you imagine how your twenty-first century accent sounds to me? How did the language of Shakespeare sound to you?”

  He grinned. “I was never able to get into Shakespeare, mostly because of the language barrier. I imagine we’re going to have to learn to speak English all over again.”

  “Omar and I were born and raised in Yemen. . . . I would like for you and Claire to call me Amira.”

  David asked, “Doesn’t the Constitution require that the president be born in America?”

  “The seventeen eighty-nine Constitution required that the president be a natural born citizen of the United States of America. But that requirement was dr
opped from the twenty-four seventy-six Constitution because it was irrelevant. Everybody in the world now is a natural born citizen of the United States with equal rights and elected representation.”

  “You were elected by the whole world?”

  “A majority of the voters, yes,” she said and turned back to her aircraft. Claire, David, and Omar followed.

  David said, “It was generally accepted that the President of the United States was the most powerful person in the world when we left. I guess that’s really true for you.”

  “Depending on the events of the day, I may be the most politically powerful person in the world. But you and Claire are the most famous and admired people in the world. Everybody has grown up learning about you since we were old enough to have memories. I feel truly privileged to meet you.”

  “Thank you, Madam . . . Amira.”

  Claire said, “A world at peace is more than we dared hope for.”

  Amira smiled. “I think you’ll find the world is much kinder and gentler now.”

  “An event like this would have been covered by mobs of reporters in the twenty-first century,” David said. “I haven’t seen any.”

  “The law now requires the media to respect the rights and needs of all people, including those who may be newsworthy. They were using part of the video transmissions from robots beside the carpet where we met. If you look up you’ll see two taxis with cameras covering our walk. The pictures are being sent to the networks and to the giant screens in the, Los Angeles Stadium.”

  David looked up. “They’re called taxis? We would have called them vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, VTOLs.”

  “The technical name is still VTOL,” Amira said, “but the common name now is taxi.”

  The four of them took their seats. The presidential taxi then took off and accelerated to its legal speed limit, just below the speed of sound, eastbound over the Pacific.

  “The audience has been waiting,” Amira said. “We won’t have time to clean our feet and put on our shoes. We can do that after we leave the Stadium.”

  “You mean we’ll be introduced barefooted?” David asked.

  Amira smiled. “With sandy feet, yes. It will give people something else to talk about. Besides, one of the movies I saw about you and Claire said you like to go barefoot.”

  Claire raised an eyebrow. One of the movies?

  They continued at top speed into a dense swarm of other taxis flying at high speed in all different directions and altitudes over Santa Monica and Los Angeles. The President’s taxi seemed to be trying to make up the time they had spent walking on the beach. It didn’t slow down or change course, and the swarm seemed to magically part before them.

  “It’s amazing how Elf moves these . . . taxis out of our way just in nick of time,” Claire said.

  Amira shook her head. “That’s just an illusion. Elf knows the precise position, speed, direction, and destination of every aircraft in the world at each instant. That data is used to control all aircraft, including ours, and to get them to their destination at maximum speed.”

  “That’s even more amazing,” Claire said.

  “Elf is doing this while performing countless other complex tasks, a routine example of its computing power,” Amira said. “People take it for granted.”

  Claire expected Los Angeles to be different, but the only man-made landmark she recognized was the Getty Center in the Santa Monica Mountains. She looked in vain for the campus of UCLA. She thought it should have been visible from the Getty.

  The air was crystal clear, and the city resembled a giant park. No streets or freeways were visible. Many different designs of tall buildings surrounded by trees, grass, gardens, and parks were widely scattered across the Los Angeles basin.

  The reason why the buildings were so widely separated became obvious to Claire as she saw taxis fly around and between the buildings. She saw one fly up to a building and perch on the side, like a fly. As she looked around, she saw taxis on the sides of other buildings.

  The President’s taxi slowed and landed in a protected area beside the stage door at Los Angeles Stadium. As Claire and David followed Amira onto the stage, the capacity audience erupted with cheering and applause.

  When the noise began to die down, Amira said, “I didn’t know I had so many good friends in Los Angeles.” Her comment was greeted by laughter and more applause.

  “Five hundred and three years ago today,” she said, “Starship Origin lifted off on its long journey to the star NASA had designated as Minor. Five hundred years ago today, the President of the United States signed a bill changing the name of that star to Archer.”

  Claire and David looked at each other in surprise.

  “During the centuries since, millions of people have wished upon Archer for the safe return of the star sailors for whom it was named. Now those earnest wishes have come true.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my very great pleasure to present Cougar Flight! Claire and David Archer!”

  The cheers and applause started again as Claire and David stepped forward beside the president.

  “My husband and I have passed many planets on a very long trip. Does anybody know where we can find the planet Earth?”

  The audience came to its feet with a roar, and Claire had to wait before she could speak again.

  “We thank President Amira Saleh and everyone for the overwhelming reception we have received. We haven’t seen any other people in a very long time, and we are delighted to see all of you.

  “We also thank the people of the United States of America, the people of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Team Thunder. Their dedication and love for their children and grandchildren and generations to come made Origin’s voyage possible.”

  David said, “We would also like to express our deepest gratitude and respect to the astronauts before us who risked and sometimes lost their lives to make space travel a reality. Without their courage, dedication, hard work, and sacrifice, our flight would not have been possible.

  “We are the lucky two who flew Origin. But its success is the achievement of the hundreds of thousands of people who built the ship and worked to make its journey possible. Its success is an example of the human spirit that’s obviously alive today.

  “Thank you very much for your warm welcome.”

  They waved as the audience gave them another standing ovation.

  When Claire and David turned with the President to leave the stage, they stopped and laughed. The Cougar Flight Reception Committee seated behind them on the stage had taken off their shoes.

  Chapter 27

  About ten minutes after takeoff from the Los Angeles Stadium, they were at the new White House. It was built on a rise facing the Pacific Ocean in Pendleton, California. The center for world government had been built there at the end of the 25th century.

  Wings on the President’s taxi folded up out of the way, and it hovered near a door on the second floor. Hooks caught the taxi and pulled it in tight against an air filled cushion. Doors slid open allowing Amira, Omar, Claire, and David to disembark directly into a hallway in the President’s living quarters.

  Tracks of sand followed them on lush red carpet to a large bathroom where they washed and dried their feet. The sand had been vacuumed up by the time they came out, and a robot was waiting beside the door to clean the bathroom.

  Omar said goodbye, and Amira escorted her guests to a small dining room where three places were set. The room was decorated with antiques from the Middle East. A multicolored carpet with an elaborate pattern covered the floor.

  “This carpet is gorgeous,” Claire said.

  “Thank you,” Amira said. “This is the Arabian dining room. The carpet and other furnishings are from Yemen. It reminds me of my childhood home.”

  Menus built into the place settings lit up as they sat down. Claire looked at hers and asked Amira, “What do you recommend?”

  Amira answered, “I’m having lamb wit
h Caesar salad and sweetened ice tea.”

  “I’ll have the same,” Claire said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the disembodied voice responded. “Lamb with Caesar salad and sweet ice tea for President Saleh and Doctor Archer.”

  Claire and David looked around the room. Nobody was there and no speakers or microphones were visible.

  “That was Elf again,” Amira said.

  David said, “I’ll have a guacamole double-bacon cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke.”

  Claire raised an eyebrow at his death-food order, and he gave her a naughty-little-boy grin.

  “Yes, sir. A guacamole double-bacon cheeseburger with French fries and a Coke,” the voice said.

  “Elf takes food orders and flies taxis. What else does it do?” David asked.

  “Much, much more,” Amira said. “Elf provides government administration and services: it is our government bureaucracy. It also controls robots and public transportation with a safety record unequaled before the twenty-sixth century. It provides electronic communications and virtually instant video and audio access to almost everything ever recorded anywhere on any medium. It provides medical diagnoses and police and fire protection. It executes virtually all financial transactions and simultaneously concentrates on trillions of trillions of things without being handicapped by fatigue or ignorance or emotions. It does things as soon as they can be done with no paperwork and virtually no errors. Its quality of performance can be described as superb, and it always puts the needs of people first.”

  “What about the Internet?” Claire asked.

  “What was the Internet was absorbed into Elf centuries ago. People no longer type on keyboards. They talk to Elf and tell it what they want.”

  David asked, “Is Elf self-aware.”

  “Yes,” Amira said.

  “Isn’t that dangerous? What if it decides it’s a superior being?”