The Silence Between the Stars

by Alan Davenport

  Twenty minutes later Kelly ran full speed into their bedroom. “Nathan, get up!” Kelly shouted.

  Nathan groaned, rolled over and said, “What is it? What’s up?”

  Kelly grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet. “Come with me!”

  “What is it, Kelly? What’s got you so worked up?” As Nathan got up, something appeared in his eyes that had been missing for a long time. A spark of life.

  “Come!” she said and then dragged him out of the room. When they arrived at the ship’s bridge, she turned him to face the view screen and said, “Look!”

  Nathan gaped at the display. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Finally he was able to gasp out, “Is it real?”

  “Yes!” she shouted. Speaking quickly she added, “Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Plenty of oxygen too. Much more than Earth had even before the industrial revolution. Atmospheric density is thirteen percent higher than Earth’s. Gravity point nine-five Earth standard. Its axis tilt is only six degrees. Seasonal changes in temperature will be minimal. Weather is mild. Temperatures range from fifteen to thirty-five degrees Celsius for most latitudes. The surface is four-fifths water. Nathan.” Her eyes filled with tears as she said in a voice that sounded as if she disbelieved her own words, “It is a classic A+ planet! We did it! We found one! After all these years, we finally found one!”

  Nathan stared in wonder. “No! No way!” he said in shock. He fell to his knees and broke into great, full body, wracking sobs. “It is over. It is finally over!” he half whispered. Kelly joined him on the floor and tightly hugged him. As they rocked back and forth together, her tears mingled with his for a long, long time.

  At last, Nathan recovered enough to stand up. He scratched his chin and said, “Damn, this beard itches! I need to shave.” He turned to Kelly and took her by the hand. “How long until Katy gets here, Kelly?”

  Kelly smiled and said, “Three days. The stars are so thin way out here than it is becoming harder and harder to set up a route where we meet up on the same day.”

  “Three days,” Nathan said. “Katy is going to be so relieved. The search was wearing on her and Henry even more than us I think.” Kelly’s face took on a worried look. Nathan noticed and said, “What is it Kelly?”

  Kelly sighed and said, “It has come just in time, I think.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and said, “I am worried about her, Nathan. She confided in me at our last meeting that she was seriously thinking of giving up her life.” A tear trickled down her cheek and she added, “Did you notice the last time? No Willie. She did not replace him this time after he passed on. I hope that she has not gone and done it. I am so afraid that she may have, Nathan.”

  Nathan looked at her in shock and said, “No! We cannot think that way.” Kelly looked sadly at him as he said; “Besides, even if she has, we can just bring her back and tell her the good news!”

  “Perhaps, love. Perhaps.” Kelly kept her fears to herself that perhaps, Katy might not want them to find her.

  Nathan mentally shook himself and said, “Well, let’s not worry about what might have happened. Let’s go look at our planet!” Nathan reached out with his implant, used the scanners, and then said, “Wow, the planet is teaming with life!” He concentrated some more and said, “No evidence of any intelligent civilizations. This is a fairly young planet.” His eyes regained focus and he grabbed Kelly and swung her round and round. “It is perfect! Textbook perfect!”

  Kelly hid her fears, smiled and said, “Shall we launch a probe?”

  “No, not yet! Just launch a system satellite staking our claim. Let’s explore the planet first before sending out the hyper-probe.” Noticing Kelly’s expression, he said, “After all these years, a couple more hours will not matter. Besides, we will have more data on the planet then.” Kelly took his hand and with just a glance, conceded his point.

  Nathan closed his eyes and concentrated. “Okay, I have picked a spot to land the shuttle. It is a large grassy meadow in a broad valley with a small brook.” He looked at Misty and said, “Hey girl, want to go play outside?” Even after all these years and all her reincarnations, she still remembered the word ‘Outside’. She barked excitedly and then started running in circles. Nathan, for the first time in a long time, laughed deep in his gut and said, “Come on Kelly, let’s go explore our planet!” They were so excited that they did not take a cart to the shuttle bay. They ran, hand-in-hand, the whole way.

  Even though Nathan had only ever landed a shuttle on a planet before using a simulator, he handled the shuttle expertly. He did not go directly to the spot he had picked. He came down several kilometers away. He skimmed at just over treetop level. The pair watched in awe as many flying creatures riotously rose up from the canopy in their wake. “It is the thicker air here, Nathan. Almost everything will be able to fly,” she said breathlessly. Nathan nodded and continued slowly flying towards the meadow. He deftly landed the shuttle in the middle, took Kelly by the hand and said, “Shall we?” Kelly hesitated and Nathan asked, “Kelly, what’s wrong?”

  “I… I am a bit scared. I have never been outside before. Will we need weapons?” she asked with a tremor in her voice.

  Nathan took her in his arms and said, “Relax love. A little agoraphobia will be natural for you. You have never before been able to see more than a few hundred meters in any one direction. Take a deep breath and use your intelligence to suppress your fears.” He led her by the hand to the top of the ramp and said, “Here goes.” He pushed the button to lower the ramp and almost immediately, the sounds of a vibrant, living world assaulted their ears. Nathan closed his eyes and softly said, “I wonder if this is what Earth was like before humanity destroyed it? We have to make laws to prevent that from happening here! Come on Kelly, let’s go out.”

  Misty needed no such urging. She bolted down the ramp and before it came completely to rest, jumped down and began running joyously around the shuttle. Kelly, led by Nathan, walked down slowly. She froze at the bottom of the ramp, looked all around in wonder, and sighed. “Nathan… Nathan… It is so… so wonderful!” she said tearfully. “I had no idea that a planet could be so beautiful!” He hugged her tightly as she continued to try to look in every direction at once. “Nor did I,” he softly said. “Nor did I.”

  Misty was romping through the grass this way and that. Her nose twitched in ecstasy as she took in all the new smells. She sniffed a giant purple flower with a yellow center. She sniffed at a huge multi-colored butterfly that landed without fear upon the flower. She jumped into the air and tried to catch the butterfly when it took off and flew around her head. Nathan laughed and said, “Leave that be, Misty!”

  Nathan grabbed Kelly, turned her to the side and pointed to a herd of four-footed herbivores eating grass on the far side of the meadow. While their coloration was unfamiliar, they remarkably resembled animals that used to inhabit the open plains all over Earth. “Look, antelope!” he said. He thought for a second and said, “It looks like the scientists that theorized a similar and parallel development for all life forms had it correct. The forms that worked well on Earth evolved here as well.” Kelly nodded and stared. One of the herd members looked up and closely watched the pair. Kelly smiled, waved, and then laughed aloud as the herd panicked and ran off. “I would not have hurt you!” she called after them in amusement.

  Nathan pulled Kelly to him and said, “Their caution speaks of predators. Perhaps you were correct. Next time we need to bring weapons.” When Kelly gave him a hard stare he added, “I would only use it in self-defense and only as a last resort. Are you kidding? The last thing I want is to hurt anything here. Anything at all!” Kelly smiled and squeezed his hand.

  Nathan led Kelly out away from the shuttle. Kelly gasped when she looked up at the deep blue sky filled with small puffy white clouds. “Nathan,” she softly said, “Can we live here?”

  Nathan kissed her and said, “Of course, love. This is what we were searching for.”

  She passionately kiss
ed him back. Looking at the brook, she said, “I have never seen flowing water before. Let’s go!” She took off at a run and Nathan struggled to keep up with her.

  “Slow down!” he laughed. “We can’t go too far until we have the bots install the global positioning satellites. Without GPS we could get lost here and not be able to find our way back to the shuttle!”

  “Oh frack, mister worry warts. The shuttle is right there. I am only going to the brook!” She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him forward until they stood at the water’s edge. It was a small brook, only three meters across. The couple stood holding hands by its side.

  Nathan smiled and pointed at the water. “Look!”

  Kelly looked where he was pointing and said, “What? I don’t see anything.”

  “Look closely,” he said. “Fish. A big one! Downstream of the big rock. It has orange fins.”

  Kelly scrunched up her face and said, “I see it!”

  The butterfly had distracted Misty. No longer. When she saw the water, a long dormant memory came to the surface. She ran full speed and jumped into the water with a huge splash. The fish was gone in an instant. Misty happily paddled around in the shallow brook before running up to Nathan and Kelly and vigorously shaking herself off.

  Kelly shrieked and Nathan held up his hands in a vain attempt at self-defense. “Bad dog!” Nathan yelled, however his face was full of mirth.

  A lone, larger and darker cloud suddenly covered the sun. Kelly looked up in alarm, grabbed Nathan’s hand and nervously said, “What’s happening?”

  Nathan smiled and said, “It is okay. We might get a quick little rain shower. That is all. It is nothing to worry about. Follow me.” He led her up the little brook towards a stand of trees. “We can stand under there and keep the rain off of us.”

  They did not make it to the trees before the gentle shower began. As the first drops landed upon them, Kelly lost her fear and broke into a smile. She raised her hands up into the air, tilted her face back and started joyously twirling around and around in place as the warm, fat drops splashed down upon her upturned cheeks. Her laughter held a happy, musical quality. In a minute, the cloud traveled on and the warm sunshine fell upon them yet again. Kelly hugged Nathan to her chest and said, “Nathan! I so love this place!”

  Nathan smiled, hugged her back and then pushed her wet hair back where it had stuck to her face. Hearing the sound of louder flowing water further upstream, he pulled Kelly along and said, “Let’s go check that out. It might be a waterfall. I have never seen a real waterfall!”

  It was indeed a waterfall. It sat nestled in a small forest glade. Sunshine illuminated slanting beams through small gaps in the canopy and shone upon a large pool with a gentle, sandy shoreline. The falling water’s droplets sparkled like miniature prisms as they caught the light. The pair stood frozen in awe at the visage.

  Misty ran all around the water’s edge with her nose to the ground. Suddenly she startled a small creature by the water’s edge, which hopped towards the water. “Frog!” Nathan said. Except this when frog hopped, it spread its legs wide. A thin transparent membrane stretched between its legs and it glided almost all the way across the pool before landing with a soft plop. Nathan and Kelly laughed in delight.

  Kelly stood watching the waterfall, transfixed. Nathan stood behind her with his arms encircling her body. “It is so beautiful!” Nathan said nothing. He just squeezed her more tightly. “It is like the mythical garden of Eden, Nathan. Everything is so perfect!”

  “That’s it!” Nathan excitedly cried. “That is this planet’s name, Eden!”

  Kelly kissed him soundly and said, “A perfect name for a perfect planet. Let me register the name in our log.” Suddenly, Kelly stiffened up. “Nathan, I cannot hear the shuttle anymore! I can’t hear it!” she said in terror.

  Nathan thought for a second and said, “Relax. I cannot hear it either. We probably just moved out of range. We will need to change these implants so that they have a longer range. Inside the ship, it does not matter. We are always close to a Wi-Fi hotspot, but not out here.” He thought for a few seconds and then said, “Perhaps we can change them to use the old cellular phone network. They have a much greater range. We can set up small, inconspicuous relay towers on the hills circling the valley to extend our coverage too.”

  Kelly shuddered and nervously said, “Let’s go Nathan! I want to go!” Nathan led her on an angle directly back towards the shuttle with Misty following closely behind. When finally her link to her other self was re-established, she visibly relaxed. “That was scary, Nathan. I have never been out of touch with my computer self before. If we had died out there Nathan, all of those memories that we just made would have been lost forever!”

  Nathan hugged her and said, “Shhh, sweetheart. It is all right. I just sent a thought to our old friend 1776. He is in the process, as we speak, of making new implants for us based upon the cellular network frequencies.” When Kelly looked at him doubtfully he said, “Relax. The ship has an 8G cellular network as well as the Wi-Fi network. It was there for the astronauts as they built the ship. We just need to reactivate it. Everything will be fine. We can print ourselves new bodies once we get back with the new implants already installed. I am about due for a new body anyway.”

  Kelly shuddered and said, “Let’s go home, Nathan. I want to go home!” With that, Nathan led the trembling woman and the soaking wet and muddy dog back to the shuttle and returned them to Silent Running. So ended the first visit to humanity’s new home.

  Kelly awoke in her new body and instantly sat up. For a second, she had a worried expression on her face but it quickly changed to one of joy. “Oh! This network is a lot faster than the old Wi-Fi network!” She said with a smile.

  “See?” Nathan said with a smile. “I told you!”

  “I wonder why Henry did not design the implants for this network in the first place,” she wanted to know.

  “Perhaps because, like on our ship, it was shut down after the construction crews left.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense.” She shook her head and said, “Well, I think we have enough data now. Let’s send the hyper-probe back to Earth.”

  Nathan slumped his shoulders and said, “I just hope that there is someone there to receive it after all this time. I cannot believe that the probe will take twenty-seven and a half years to get back to Earth even at maximum warp. Frack, have we really been traveling that long Kelly?”

  Kelly sighed and said, “Yes Nathan. It may sound strange but it feels even longer than that.”

  Nathan nodded and said, “I know what you mean, love. I just wish we could speed it up somehow.”

  Kelly’s brow wrinkled and she said, “Well, Katy is the warp drive specialist however we have all of her data.” She thought for a second and said, “Those early gravity coils were not designed to go as fast as we are pushing them. If pushed too hard they start to self-resonate and the warp field breaks up. Perhaps we can redesign them with a secondary sense coil that can detect and neutralize the self-resonance. That should get us a few more warp factors.”

  Nathan smiled and said, “I think you are onto something there Kelly.” With his mind, he reached out to maintenance and repair bot number 1,776. “Hey buddy, link to the data Kelly just came up with. Do you think that you can do as we ask and more importantly, how long will it take?”

  The wall speaker crackled to life. “Certainly Captain Nathan Staite. That design is feasible. I can have it constructed and installed on a probe in one point three hours. Do you wish me to proceed?”

  “Yes please. Start immediately. How fast do you estimate the probe will be able to achieve?”

  “I estimate that a warp factor of eleven point five will be possible. I will make the software self-tuning so it may be able to go even faster as it learns its limits.”

  “Excellent 1776. Please proceed. As soon as it is ready, load it with all our ship’s logs and all data pertaining to Eden and launch immediately. Since this
information is so important, please have your compatriots modify two additional probes and launch them with the same data uploaded as soon as they are ready as well.”

  “Understood Captain Nathan Staite. We shall do as you have requested.” The wall speaker fell silent.

  Kelly sighed and said, “Even the redesigned probes will still take years to reach Earth, Nathan.”

  “I know Kelly,” he said. “I just wish we had some sort of faster-than-light radio communication.” He grinned at her and said, “Now there’s a new project for you love!”

  Kelly laughed and said, “Even if I somehow miraculously came up with a super-light speed communications method, it would do us no good. Both sides of the link would have to have it for it to work. The only way we could tell Earth about it would be for Earth to have it already or to send a probe. It’s catch-22 all over again.”

  Nathan laughed and said, “I know. I was only joking, love!” She laughed and then kissed him on the lips.

  “Come on Katy!” Henry gently said. “You have to get up and eat something. We are meeting our friends later today.”

  She remained lying there with her face buried in her pillow. Her formally flame colored hair now had streaks of white. “I don’t want to, Henry,” she said lethargically.

  Gently, Henry rolled her over and kissed her. “Come on dear. Please,” he pleaded. She did not look him in the eyes and she slowly shook her head no. “You have to eat!” Still she refused to move. “At least let us print a replacement Willie today. Don’t you miss him? You have to get up. We have to go on!”

  “No!” she shouted at him, “We don’t! Can’t you see that I have had it? I am not going on anymore! I am not following Nathan and Kelly anymore. This is it! No more! I am not going anywhere, anymore. I have had it,” she repeated.

  Henry looked at her in shock. “No dear. Do not say that! What will you do then?”

  Katy’s eyes held a distant, empty look. Katy took his hands, looked him in the eyes and said, “I am sorry my love. I just cannot do this anymore. I am going to euthanize myself. No new body for me this time.”