Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book

by Walker Percy

  One-man-three-women teams seemed to get along best. In a post-Christian and post-feminist era, it appeared that women generally accept a polygamous relationship, given a reasonable respect for their persons and professional skills, while men were at the least less bored and at the most quite pleased. Women, it seemed, were different from men after all, not worse or better, but different. In the event of pair-bonding between man and woman, the two surplus women seemed content with a relationship, not necessarily homosexual, with each other. The sole man was enjoined, however, to treat all three women with loving and impartial care insofar as he was able. The men in the sealed-environment experiments readily agreed and by and large succeeded.

  The captain was a native of Rye, New York, of Dutch descent, and named after a Roman emperor: Marcus Aurelius Schuyler. Thirty-two years old, once a history major at Harvard, he changed course, graduated from the Air Force Academy, and went to M.I.T. for astronomy. A somewhat wayward, wintry, and sardonic man, as wintry as his namesake—he was the sort who could sit in Robinson Hall listening to a lecture on the Battle of Verdun, gaze out the window at the tender green of the spring trees, suddenly reach a decision, close his book, and walk away forever, head for Colorado to fly. His consciousness was reflected and folded in upon itself. Though he might appear as stolid and as steady as one of the old astronauts or a commercial airline pilot—even a little dumb—in fact he was very much conscious of doing just that: playing the unflappable captain. It was his complex way to make the untoward odd decision and to take pleasure both in savoring the very oddness of it and in sticking to it. For example, after the launch of the shuttle to the orbital platform from which he would depart in the starship Copernicus 4, the shuttle crossed the Northeast coastline some hundred miles up and rising. Looking down through the clouds, he could just make out Long Island nuzzling into the continent like a great whale. There, just off its nose and in a sheltered cove, his thirty-foot ketch Andrea, he knew, was bobbing gently at her mooring. His pleasure came from not looking down again and in not thinking that he would never see it, the boat Andrea, or her, the woman Andrea, again.

  Why did he volunteer for the mission? Because it was both the odd and the necessary thing to do and the pleasure came from it being both. Though he took as dark a view of the human condition as the Emperor, like the Emperor he also took his pleasure in acting well even though he knew it probably would not avail and that things would end badly. Like the early twentieth-century psychologist Freud, he believed that there is no end to the mischief and hatred which men harbor deep in themselves and unknown to themselves and no end to their capacity to deceive themselves and that though they loved life, they probably loved death more and in the end thanatos would likely win over eros. He and his fellowmen, he knew, loved themselves and war too well and nothing short of a miracle would save them and he did not believe in miracles. But he volunteered nonetheless, or rather because he didn’t believe. He was like a Christian who had lost his faith in everything but the Fall of man. In another time he might have said that earthlings were like the Gadarene swine, who were possessed by demons and were rushing headlong to destruction.

  So why not try for Barnard’s Star’s planet for this very reason, that even if there were an ETI there, he could not imagine what it could tell a human that would help the earth four hundred years from now.

  Neither the captain nor his superiors were hopeful about the earth’s prospects. Indeed, he had been given secret orders that in the event of a catastrophe on earth during his voyage, he had permission either to request sanctuary on Barnard’s Star’s planet or to colonize it. Surely, one man and three young women had at least as good a chance of starting a new race as Adam and Eve.

  And why was he chosen from the thousands of volunteers? Perhaps because of the very complexity and reflectedness of his character: that he knew how to perform as coolly as the most stolid astronaut, and had also this odd “humanistic” background, a history major who specialized in the old twentieth century. So, with only the vaguest notion that somehow a scientist and pilot with a “humanistic” background might somehow be able to get along with three women for eighteen years—or for the next fifty years—and with an intelligent being on Barnard P1, NASA chose him. His father being Governor of New York didn’t hurt him either.

  The crew members were:

  Tiffany, a tall blond astrophysicist-psychotherapist, from Cal Tech, age 27. In her vita she listed her hobbies: cross-country skiing, wok cooking, “giving and receiving strokes in a creative stroke field.”

  Kimberly, a petite brunette linguist-semioticist from Bloomington, Indiana, age 22, the youngest but also the best and the brightest in her field, who, if anyone could, could decipher the code from the ETI on Barnard P1. She liked, besides semiotics: walking in the autumn woods, reading the Vedas in the original Sanskrit, gazing into firelight with a kindred spirit.

  The third crew member was the medical officer, Dr. Jane Smith of Nashville, age 23. The oddity about her was that she had been married, listed no hobbies, and put herself down as a Methodist. Hers was old Tennessee Scotch-Irish stock. “You must be the last Methodist in Tennessee,” said the Captain, thinking to make a pleasantry. Her smile was thin. The rumor was that, competent though she was, and brilliant though her contributions to hypothermic hibernation were, her “religious preference” had not hurt her with NASA. The Christian minority was as loud as it was small, as shrill as it was shrinking. Affirmative action for minorities in the space program had been sustained by the Supreme Court. The last mission to Pluto had been manned by a black and Hispanic crew who had not been heard from. Some bad jokes were told. So the present mission was manned by three women and one WASPP (White Anglo-Saxon Post-Protestant) male. Jane Smith had graduated from Vanderbilt, taken her residency in aerospace medicine, and contributed valuable papers on hypothermic hibernation techniques. Her discovery was that both the tissue damage and the discomfort (excruciating pain, if the truth be known) of the hibernation cycle could be minimized by the injection of an endomorph (already known as the Smith-Bowers endomorph). Indeed, the usual cramps and bends of the thaw were replaced by a mild euphoria, as if one had been awakened from a pleasant dream. (“You look just like Scarlett O’Hara waking up,” said the Captain, a student of old twentieth-century culture, to Kimberly the first time she came out of the deep freeze.)

  In a word, the Captain suspected Jane might have exaggerated her Methodism in her application, for had she not also signed the “sexual access” form?—that is, the consent agreement by which she contracted to make herself, “her person,” available for “the biological and social objectives” of the mission, which objectives also included “the emotional needs” of her fellow crew members. (Let it be added quickly that the Captain had to sign the same contract. This was no seraglio.)

  The shifts were arranged so that the Captain took his watches with successive partners or second officers. The shifts were of six months’ duration: two astronauts in hibernation, the other two “awake,” that is, alternating eight-hour watches, with an hour or so overlap to allow for scientific experiments and whatever social interaction or “stroke field” might seem appropriate. Thus, in a three-year period, each crew member would have spent six months “awake” with each other crew member.

  Then there were the “simul-dehibes”—that is, periods of simultaneous dehibernation when all four crew members were “awake” for a period of one month annually, at which time the progress of the mission could be assessed, scientific and group-interaction experiments performed, and just plain socializing could take place, e.g., bridge, Scrabble, Monopoly, books read aloud, playlets performed, video-stereo-hologram tapes played, dancing in place. For a while, earth TV could be watched, for about a month into the mission—but as the ramjet accelerated, the TV action slowed in a Doppler effect, so that in old reruns of M*A*S*H, a favorite, Hawkeye and the nurses spoke in ever lower and more sepulchral tones and moved like dream figures walking in glue.

/>   An open and free sexuality was programmed, based on Prescott’s statistical analysis of pre-industrial societies and his conclusion that, in those societies in which sexual activity and the pleasures of the body are not repressed, theft, violence, war, and religion are minimal. Whereas, in those societies in which infants are disciplined and adults are inhibited, there tends to be a high incidence of murder, war, and belief in a supernatural being. Hugging and touch were encouraged even during routine scientific experiments.

  The starship was therefore equipped with a nursery. The project planners had two goals in mind: one, to devise a mini-society in which affection was lavished freely between adults and upon children; and two: just in case Homo sapiens sapiens had been destroyed on earth, then at least a tiny remnant would have survived, either as refugees on Barnard P1 or as colonists elsewhere, or perhaps even to return to earth.

  The worst case: the earth five hundred years later, blasted and depopulated but perhaps habitable, and Copernicus 4 returning, limping home with four middle-aged astronauts and x number of children ranging from one to seventeen years old.

  Even in the worst case, life might not only survive but prevail and multiply and once again fill the earth, with a new variety of Homo sapiens sapiens, an affectionate, hugging, promiscuous, peaceful breed. (Genetic inbreeding was something to worry about, but the most exhaustive genetic studies of the four ruled out all known pathogenic genes.)

  SCENE: Three days after launch from orbital platform and one week before the first hibernation.

  The crew: taking their ease for the first time since the rigors of launch, instrument check, adjusting the hydrogen scoop, counting hydrogen atoms, calibrating the engine. The steady Bussard acceleration is mild, scarcely more noticeable than the slight heavy-footedness one feels in a swift elevator.

  It was like moving into a new house. Furniture is placed, beds are made, the kitchen stocked, and the folks sit down in the living room, exhausted but relaxed, to have a look around, to savor their new dwelling.

  The four are sitting at their consoles in the command module. It is hardly larger than a big bathroom. From the command module a good-sized tube, not unlike the tunnel in the old B-52, leads aft to rec-room-gym, to hibe units (which look like Sears’ Best freezers) and bedrooms (smaller than an Amtrak roomette: here intimacy need not be encouraged, it is obligatory), nursery and supply rooms, and finally the engine.

  The four chairs in command are comfortable, can tilt, vibrate, or swivel to face each other or the computer displays.

  For some reason, no one looks directly at anyone else—except Jane Smith, who—perhaps because she is flight surgeon—gazes curiously from one to the other:

  Tiffany: sprawled, long-legged and handsome in her jumpsuit, yawns and stretches more perhaps than she needs to.

  Kimberly: frowning, preoccupied, a book open in her lap (volume 15 of The Complete Works of B. F. Skinner), chewing on a fingernail for all the world as if she were sitting in the library of the Indiana University.

  Jane Smith: watching them, taking note of the angle at which the chairs are swiveled and toward whom, which leg is crossed, etc. She is smiling slightly. She and the Captain have the first six-month watch—that is, they will alternate eight-hour watches for six months while the other two hibernate.

  Notice the Captain.

  He is every inch the professional, lounging at his ease the way a professional does after doing his thing and doing it well, a bit weary after the hundreds of items on the checklist, after cranking up the ramjet, a bit red-eyed and unshaven, eyes half-closed, rocking just enough in his chair to flex his neck while he massages it gently. But wait. Is he as simple as that? You would perhaps notice, as Jane Smith does (that is why she is smiling) that he is complex and somewhat folded upon himself. Which is to say not only that he is lounging at his ease, which is what one would expect, but that he is quite conscious of doing so and of how he does it. Would he be lounging in quite the same way, massaging his neck in quite the same way, if the women were not present? Indeed, he is first-rate at his job, but he is also something like jetliner Captain Dean Martin in an Airport movie who has just made a successful landing of a disabled 747—while three stewardesses watch. That, too, is a pleasure for Deano the actor sitting in his mockup jet. But Captain Schuyler has the best of both worlds: he is a real pilot but he is also a good actor, which is to say he knows how to do what he does and also how to do it with an actor’s calculated effect. He is aware of his effect on the women.

  Accelerating toward the speed of light as he exits his world, he was never more successfully and triumphantly in his world.

  The eyes are important. The women make a point of watching him while not appearing to, except Jane Smith. He makes a point of not watching them, while appearing watchable.

  Can it be said of him what the Apostle John wrote in his first letter, that he had the best of this world even as he left it, the pride of life and the lust of the eyes?

  Hardly, not lust exactly, in the current meaning, but lust rather in the Old English sense of lysten, to please or take delight. Because lust is a craving and lysten is a taking and giving of delight. Delight in the three women. He wished to delight them in return. A twofold delight in playing out the role of Captain, doing his job, and lounging at his ease, and the added aesthetic delight of consciously doing so in the way the women would expect, and so as a preliminary stratagem, a male display, in what would surely be a complex courtship.

  The stratagem is partially successful. It “works” with Tiffany and Kimberly in the way it is calculated to, just as the sight of weary Deano, collar unbuttoned, tie loosened, massaging his neck in the 747, worked with the stewardesses. In this case, “working” means that they are attracted to him for reasons which he knows about but they don’t. But it doesn’t work with Jane Smith because she knows what he is doing: hence the ironic smile through her eyes. But wait. Does it not work for this very reason? That he knows that his little ruse will not succeed with her and that she will know that he knows that it won’t. At any rate, the encounter between the Captain and Dr. Jane Smith is of a different order of complexity.

  Years pass. Kimberly and Tiffany were impregnated three times outward bound. Dr. Jane Smith refused sex on the first watch with the Captain. Her excuse: Somebody has to run the nursery. Her second excuse: We’re not married. Her third excuse: I’m married to someone else.

  THE CAPTAIN: But we’re a year into the flight. Your husband is 123 years old, or dead.

  DR. JANE SMITH: We can’t be sure.

  THE CAPTAIN: But you signed the sexual access form.

  DR. JANE SMITH: I lied.

  THE CAPTAIN: Don’t you like me?

  DR. JANE SMITH: Very much.

  THE CAPTAIN: I like you very much. More than the others.

  DR. JANE SMITH: I know—though you seem to like them well enough.

  THE CAPTAIN: Good God. You’re jealous.

  DR. JANE SMITH: Yes.

  THE CAPTAIN: This is the first day of our second six-month watch together. Are we going to do crosswords and Great Books again? I love you.

  DR. JANE SMITH: I know. Marry me.

  THE CAPTAIN: Marry you! Why? How?

  DR. JANE SMITH: You’re the captain. The captain of a ship can—

  THE CAPTAIN: The captain of a ship cannot marry himself.

  DR. JANE SMITH: Who says? You stand there, say the words, then move over here, give the response.

  THE CAPTAIN: What words? I don’t have the book.

  DR. JANE SMITH: I do.

  THE CAPTAIN: Good Lord. What about the others?

  DR. JANE SMITH: Don’t tell them.

  So they were married. Dr. Jane Smith conceived and delivered herself of a son. She baptized him, not by pouring, sprinkling, or immersion—what with zero gravity—but with a squirt from the drinking tube.

  The names of the first seven children were Krishna, Vishnu, Indira (out of Kimberly), Anna Freud, Oppie, Irene-Curie (out of Tiffany
) and John (out of Dr. Jane Smith).

  The “message” from Barnard’s Star turned out to be a false alarm, a non-message. It was no more than an interference effect from the powerful magnetic fields of the two Barnard planets, producing a complex pulsar transmission in the radio frequencies—much like two metronomes set at different speeds. Thus, where a single pulsar would go tick-tick-tick, this “message” went something like tock-tick-tock-tick-tick-tick-tock, a non-message fiendishly close to a message.

  Barnard’s two planets were dead. They were also without oxygen and water and hence not colonizable.

  More ominous than the bad news from Barnard was the bad news from home. Even as the ramjet approached the speed of light, it should have been overtaken by a few messages from earth. But after five years starship time—ninety years earth time—the messages ceased altogether.

  Nevertheless, the crew took comfort. Any number of technical things could have gone wrong. After the disappointment at Barnard, everyone secretly looked forward to the return voyage after the great swing around the star when they should be running into a regular blizzard of outgoing messages from earth.

  But earth was silent. Even after repeated queries: JPL, do you read? Do you read? Respond on any or all of designated frequencies—and even after five years of allowing for responses: silence.

  Everyone knew what had happened. The Richardson survey, from his The Statistics of Deadly Quarrels, had proved all too reliable. The only unknown quantity was the magnitude of the final war. Was it an M10—the end of human life on the planet? an M9? an M5?

  The long voyage home was like a dream. Five more children were born. Carl Jung out of Tiffany, Siddhartha and Chomsky out of Kimberly, Sarah and Mary Ann out of Dr. Jane Smith.

  Other than the begetting, the care and feeding of infants, the education of children and teens, the adults were mostly silent—silent, until, as the starship neared earth, there came the inevitable speculation: