New Earth

by Ben Bova

  “But we’ve seen nothing about such flooding on the news vids,” said Harmon Meek, springing to his feet.

  The team’s astrobiologist, Meek was a scarecrow of a man, tall and almost painfully thin, all bones and gangling limbs. He was dressed almost formally, in a starched white shirt and a dark brown ascot, no less, with neatly creased trousers of charcoal gray. His thick mop of sandy blond hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a brush in eighty years; his eyebrows were so pale they were almost invisible, and the cold blue eyes beneath them looked terribly perplexed.

  “I’m afraid the vids were edited by the IAA,” Jordan said.

  “Nonsense!” Meek snapped. “I don’t believe you.”

  Jordan smiled wanly at the astrobiologist, so full of righteous indignation. He commanded the communications system to show Ionescu’s message.

  Meek sank back into his chair and the team watched the message from Earth, with its scenes of devastation, in shocked silence.

  “That’s Volgograd,” said Tanya Verishkova, in a choked whisper. “Flooded.”

  “Look at the refugees.”

  “Miles of ’em.”

  “So that’s the situation,” Jordan said, once the images winked off. “It doesn’t change our circumstances, really. But it means that when we leave, there won’t be a backup team to take over from us, or on its way.”

  Geoffrey Hazzard, the astronautical engineer and nominal captain of their ship, muttered, “Just like Apollo.”

  “What do you mean?” Elyse Rudaki asked.

  Hazzard was an African-American from Pennsylvania, tall and rangy, his skin the color of mocha, his long-jawed face slightly horsy-looking, although his dark eyes were large and expressive.

  “The first missions to the Moon,” he explained. “They put a dozen men on the Moon inside of a few years, then stopped altogether. It was more than half a century before anybody went back.”

  “Well,” Jordan said, trying to put up as good a face as possible, “we all knew we’d be pioneers in exploring New Earth. Now we’re even more so.”

  From his seat beside Elyse, Brandon gave out a bitter laugh. “Pioneers, are we? We’re all outcasts, that’s what we are.”

  “Outcasts, is it?” Thornberry snapped.

  Pointing to the wall-screen displays of the news vids from Earth, Brandon said, “Outcasts. Gone and forgotten. Twelve people, sent to explore a planet—a whole world! Just the twelve of us.”

  Mildly, Jordan said to his brother, “Bran, we’re merely the first twelve to be sent here. There will be others, you know. In time.”

  “You think so.”

  “Sooner or later. There’s got to be.”

  Thornberry said, “We’ve got robots, remotely controlled roving vehicles, all sorts of sensors and satellites. There’s more than just the twelve of us.”

  “Think about it,” Brandon replied, almost sneering. “Think about what we’re doing. We’ve spent eighty years getting here. Eighty years. We’re supposed to explore this planet for at least five years. Then we head back to Earth, another eighty years.”

  “But we haven’t aged,” Elyse said.

  “What of it? When we get back home, damned near two hundred years will have passed. Two hundred years! We’ll be strangers in our own world. We’re already strangers. Outcasts.”

  As mildly as he could manage, Jordan said, “No one forced you to join this mission, Bran. We’re all volunteers. We all knew the risks.”

  “Oh, sure, volunteers,” Brandon retorted. “I volunteered because my department head made it clear that if I didn’t I wouldn’t get tenure; I’d be an assistant professor for another ten years or more.”

  “I volunteered willingly,” said Elyse. “I considered it an honor.”

  “Very noble of you,” Brandon muttered.

  “Come to think of it,” Thornberry said, rubbing his jaw, “the university’s president didn’t ask me if I wanted this mission. He told me I was the only man on the faculty who could do the job.”

  “Well, that’s quite an honor,” Jordan said.

  “Maybe,” Thornberry replied, drawing out the word. “But I got the impression that what he meant was that I was the only man on the faculty that he could spare.”

  “You see?” Brandon said. “We’re expendables. Outcasts.”

  “Who’s an outcast?” Meek demanded angrily. “I’m certainly not.”

  “Aren’t you?” Brandon countered. “We’ve thrown away everything we knew back on Earth to take part in this mission, this fool’s errand. When we get back to Earth—if we get back—we’ll be strangers in our own world.”

  Jordan started to say, “Bran, why don’t you—”

  But Brandon plowed on, “Don’t you see? They picked us for this mission because we’re expendable. If we don’t get back it’ll be no loss to anyone.”

  “Expendable?” Meek snapped. “I’m not expendable. Young man, I’ll have you know that I was selected over the top people in the field of astrobiology. The very top.”

  Brandon gave Meek a condescending smile. “Are you married?”

  “I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything.”

  “You’re single. Lifelong bachelor, aren’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Any dependents?”

  Frowning, Meek replied, “No direct family, no. I have a couple of distant cousins.”

  “I don’t have any direct family, either,” said Brandon. “Except for my big brother, here.”

  Thornberry, with his curious little smile, said, “You know, Brandon me lad, you didn’t have to come on this jaunt. You could’ve said no.”

  “That’s not true,” Brandon said, with some heat. “I wasn’t really given a choice. Were you?”

  Seeing their tempers rising, Jordan said, “I think we’ve beaten this subject into the ground, don’t you?”

  But Meek was nettled. “Now look here, Dr. Kell. You may think lightly of yourself, but I regard us—all of us, including your brother—as the cream of the crop. The absolute cream.”

  “Especially yourself,” Brandon sneered.

  “Now that’s enough,” Jordan said firmly. “We are here and we have a job to do. It’s a big job, a huge job, and it’s the most important mission human beings have ever undertaken. Enough said. The subject is closed.”

  Brandon glared at his brother, then finally shrugged, grudgingly. Meek still looked nettled.

  Jordan commanded the display screen to resume showing the planet below them. Enough of eight-year-old newscasts and messages of regret, he told himself.

  The wardroom fell silent as the twelve of them stared at the planet sliding past on the wall screen.

  “It looks so much like home,” Elyse breathed.

  “Yes, doesn’t it,” said Jordan.

  EXAMINATION

  For long moments the twelve of them stared silently at the display screen and its view of New Earth sliding slowly below them.

  Then Hazzard hauled himself to his feet. “I’d better go check out the ship’s systems.”

  “The ship’s perfectly fine,” said Thornberry. “The automated safety program would’ve alerted us if anything was amiss.”

  Hazzard nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know, but after eighty years I oughtta scan the screens. Automated maintenance and self-repair are okay, but I’ll feel better if I take a look for myself.”

  As Hazzard went to the wardroom hatch, the team’s physician, Nara Yamaguchi, looked at her wristwatch and announced, “It’s three minutes before ten A.M., ship time. If we start the physical exams immediately, we can get them finished before dinnertime.”

  Her announcement was greeted by moans and grumbles. But Jordan said, “Dr. Yamaguchi has the responsibility of checking our physical conditions. Let’s cooperate with her, please.”

  Yamaguchi made a stiff little bow to Jordan and said, with an almost impish grin, “Mr. Kell, you are first on my list.”

  Rank hath its privileges, Jordan repeat
ed to himself.

  Yamaguchi was a stubby, chubby young Japanese physician, a specialist in internal medicine. Her face was round, with a snub nose and eyes almost the color of bronze. Her hair was dull brown, chopped short in pageboy style. She was no beauty, yet she radiated intelligence and good humor, and she had the reputation of being an excellent diagnostician.

  Jordan followed her down the passageway to the ship’s small infirmary: little more than an examination table, a desk bearing a trio of display screens, and diagnostic scanners built into two of the walls and the ceiling. There were a couple of cubicles with beds in the next compartment, he remembered. Sitting on the examination table, Jordan removed his belt and shoes.

  “Anything metal in your pockets?” Yamaguchi asked.

  Jordan pulled the phone from his shirt pocket and handed it to the physician, who placed it on her desk. Funny, he thought. This instrument links me with the ship’s communications system, it’s a computer, a camera, a personal entertainment system, and a lot more, yet we still call it nothing more than a phone. The old name hangs on, despite all its varied functions.

  Yamaguchi instructed, “All right, just lie back and let the scanners go over you.”

  Jordan looked up at the softly glowing light panels of the ceiling and listened to the soft hum of the machines behind them. He knew his body was being probed by X-rays, sculpted magnetic fields, positrons, and neutrinos. All in little more than the blink of an eye.

  “It’s a pretty soft life I’ve got,” Yamaguchi said as she sat at her desk, studying her readout screens. “The scanners do all the work, the computer makes the analysis, and I take the credit.”

  “We’re a healthy bunch,” Jordan said. “Youngish … well, no one past middle age, physically. All of us are healthy. Or at least we were when we went into cryosleep.”

  “Maybe too healthy,” Yamaguchi said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Four women, eight men. It could cause problems.”

  Jordan felt surprised. He hadn’t felt any interest in sex since Miriam died. And the others … “The psych team passed on the arrangement,” he said.

  “They won’t be stuck here for five years.”

  “Do you think there might be problems?”

  “Probably not with Dr. Meek; he’s accustomed to bachelorhood. I don’t know about you, though.”

  Jordan blinked with surprise. “I’ll be all right,” he said.

  “Sure you will,” she replied, with a mischievous grin. “Your brother seems to have paired up with Rudaki, and Verishkova followed Thornberry around all through our training classes like a puppy dog.”

  “I didn’t realize,” Jordan admitted.

  “That leaves Hazzard, Zadar, de Falla, Longyear,” Yamaguchi ticked off on her fingers. “All young and physically fit. I’ll bet even I start to look good to them before very long.”

  “There’s Trish Wanamaker.”

  Yamaguchi nodded. “I can always put saltpeter in the drinking water.”

  “Seriously?” Jordan gasped.

  She laughed. “We have much more effective medications. But I hope I won’t have to use them.”

  Jordan nodded, wondering what would happen if the need to calm down some of the men arose.

  Yamaguchi returned her attention to her display screens. “You can sit up now.”

  “Passed with flying colors?” Jordan asked as he bent down to reach for his shoes.

  “Almost,” Yamaguchi replied, peering at the readouts. She looked up at Jordan. “You’ve lost the pigmentation in your hair.”

  “Yes. A bit disconcerting.”

  “It’s not a problem, except cosmetically. But it is kind of strange.”

  “I think it looks rather distinguished.”

  Yamaguchi smiled minimally, but then she turned back to the screens. “There is something that concerns me, though.”

  The virus, Jordan thought. It’s still detectable.

  He got to his feet, pulled on his belt, and took his phone from Yamaguchi’s desktop. The physician was intently studying her computer screens.

  “You were exposed to a bioengineered virus when you were in India,” Yamaguchi said, her eyes still on the screens.

  Jordan sagged back onto the exam table. “The biowar,” he said. “There were lots of gengineered bugs in the air.”

  Yamaguchi nodded, then finally looked up at Jordan. “This one’s nestled in your small intestine.”

  “It’s harmless,” said Jordan, with a confidence he did not truly feel. “The medics back on Earth concluded that it’s dormant and will remain so.”

  “For how long?”

  “Indefinitely, they told me.”

  Yamaguchi said nothing, but her face had tightened into a concerned mask.

  “After all,” said Jordan, “I passed all the physical exams Earthside. They allowed me on this mission.”

  Pointing at the central computer screen, Yamaguchi said, “Your record shows that your wife died of a similar virus.”

  Jordan felt his face flame red.

  “Her immune system had already been compromised by a different infection,” he explained. “Mine wasn’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Yamaguchi.

  “I’m really in fine health,” Jordan insisted.

  “Yes, so the scans show,” Yamaguchi admitted. “But your little hitchhiker worries me.”

  “It’s dormant,” Jordan repeated.

  “For how long?” Yamaguchi asked again.

  “It’s been several years—not counting our time in cryosleep.”

  “Cryogenic temperature didn’t harm it,” the physician muttered. “According to your file, the medical team back on Earth was hoping that the virus wouldn’t survive freezing.”

  With a sardonic little smile, Jordan replied, “They used me and my hitchhiker for an experiment—to see what long-term cryonic immersion would do to the virus.”

  “Didn’t bother it a bit,” Yamaguchi murmured.

  “Look, we have all sorts of bacteria and viruses in our bodies constantly, don’t we? Most of them don’t affect us at all. Some of them are even beneficial, aren’t they?”

  “This one isn’t. It was designed to kill people.”

  Like it killed Miriam, Jordan admitted silently. Aloud, he said, “Well, it hasn’t killed me.”

  Yamaguchi didn’t reply, but the expression on her face said, Not yet.

  “So what do you want to do, send me home?”

  Yamaguchi almost laughed at the absurdity of that. “No,” she said. “As long as you’re asymptomatic there’s nothing we can do. Except…”

  “Except?”

  “Let me study the literature and see how much I can learn about these engineered viruses. Maybe there’s some way to destroy them.”

  “Perhaps they have a built-in limit to their life spans,” Jordan suggested.

  Yamaguchi shook her head hard enough to make her hair swish back and forth. “No, no, no. They’re not nanomachines, with off-switches built into them. They’re viruses, alive but dormant. Not even stem-cell therapy can deal with them.”

  “Perhaps nanomachines?” Jordan suggested.

  With a nod, Yamaguchi said, “Specifically designed to attack the virus and nothing else. That could work—if we had the nanotech facilities aboard ship.”

  “Which we don’t,” Jordan said.

  “We can’t. Safety regulations. We can’t run the risk of having nanomachines infecting the ship.”

  “Yet they use nanotechnology on the Moon. Out in the Asteroid Belt.”

  “But not on Earth,” Yamaguchi said. “And not on this ship.”

  “I suppose not,” Jordan sighed. “I’ll just have to live with the virus, the way I have been.”

  Yamaguchi said, “I want to check you on a weekly basis. Make certain your little bugs are remaining dormant. And in the meantime I’ll see if there’s anything in the ship’s medical library that might help us get rid of them.”

&nb
sp; “I’d appreciate that,” said Jordan. And he remembered Miriam’s final days. The pain. The unbearable pain.

  BROTHERS

  When Jordan returned to the wardroom, most of the men and women were still there, sitting around the tables, deep in conversations.

  “Who wants to be next?” Jordan asked.

  They all looked up at him, standing just inside the hatch.

  Geoffrey Hazzard, back from the command center, got to his feet. “Might’s well get it over with.”

  As he brushed past Jordan and stepped out into the passageway, most of the others got to their feet, as well.

  “I suppose we should get to our quarters and settle in a bit,” said Harmon Meek.

  “I know it’s a bit daft,” said Thornberry as he headed for the hatch, “but I feel like I need a nap.”

  Meek looked down his nose at the beefy engineer. “That’s ridiculous. You’ve been sleeping for eighty years, man.”

  “Yes. A bit of strange, isn’t it?”

  Brandon started to leave too, but Jordan touched his sleeve to hold him back. “Wait a moment, Bran, will you?”

  With a glance at Elyse, who looked back over her shoulder at him, Brandon leaned his rump on the edge of the nearest table. Jordan waited until Elyse and the others left the wardroom, then turned to his younger brother.

  “Bran, do you really feel so … so … alienated?”

  “Alienated?”

  “What you said earlier, about us being outcasts, expendables.”

  Brandon didn’t reply. Jordan looked into his brother’s light bluish gray eyes and thought, It’s almost like looking into a mirror. A very flattering mirror.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  Brandon turned away slightly, but he answered, “It’s true, isn’t it? None of us are the best and brightest of their professions, are we? I’m certainly not. There are a dozen planetary astronomers who are better than I: better reputations, recognized leaders in the field. I’m just an also-ran.”

  “But the IAA picked you for this mission! Of all the people in the field they picked you.”

  “Because I’m expendable,” Brandon repeated stubbornly. “Because nobody’s going to miss me for a century or two.”

  Shaking his head, Jordan countered, “But the honor of taking part in the first human mission to another star! Surely—”