Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel

by Michael D. O'Brien

  I clear my throat and say, “Do you like those old writers?”

  He looks up and stares at me. There are tears in his eyes.

  “I see you’re reading Shakespeare”, I say. “I haven’t read any myself, but I hear he’s pretty good.”

  “Leave me alone”, he murmurs irritably.

  “What?”

  “Why can’t people leave me alone?” he seethes with great intensity, as if I have offended him personally.

  Offended myself, I give the same back to him:

  “My apologies!” I growl in a tone that would have withered a cactus. You arrogant, rude little twit, I silently add.

  He abruptly leaves the room, taking the book with him.

  I assess what I’ve seen during the short encounter: young, handsome, intelligent, literate, contemptuous, and wearing a very fine suit of clothes and real leather shoes. Obviously a successful human being, lacking nothing. His every quality exudes superiority. I doubt he ever had to struggle to get where he is.

  Wanting to find a name for the object of my resentment, I go to a computer terminal and check through the Kosmos’ personnel site. I have only a face to go by, but I find him soon enough. He’s the nephew of the President of the World Federation.

  Sample 5: I’m in the middle of my aerobics hike, choosing deck B on this particular day. One circuit of the ship equals 2.5 kilometers. I try to do three circuits daily in order to keep the old heart pumping and the muscle tone (such as it is) at survival level.

  As I pass one of the wide staircases leading up to Concourse A, I am astonished to see what I take to be a hard-boiled egg bouncing down the steps, all by itself. It hits the hallway floor and rolls across to the opposite wall, bounces, and comes to a stop at my feet. It’s a golf ball.

  From the direction of the stairwell erupt high-pitched shrieks, or yelps, and down comes a scurrying black cyclone of fur that could be a cat or a dog or a squirrel. It’s a dog, barking unstoppably at a decibel level guaranteed to wreak havoc with the human nervous system.

  The animal is spinning in circles, trying to get its miniature canine jaws around the golf ball and not having much luck. The ball keeps spewing out of its mouth, covered in slobber, ricocheting back and forth across the hallway.

  “Feedo! Feedo!” comes a semi-human screech from above. I look up and see an apparition, a very old man coming down the stairs, holding tight to the railing, taking one step at a time. He is carrying a golf club over his shoulder. He is wearing white tennis shoes, white mini shorts, and a fluorescent orange muscle shirt, on which is stamped an image of the Kosmos and the words:

  Raydon Aerospace Technologies

  The 22nd Century is OURS!

  Out of breath, he stares at me with bulging eyes.

  “Help me, help me!” he pleads.

  “How can I help you?” I ask, genuinely perplexed by this request.

  “Feedo needs to catch the ball and bring it to me. You have to get it into his mouth.”

  “Oh”, I nod, and kneel down to grab the golf ball. The dog lunges, and I capture it, then insert the ball into its mouth. The shrill barking ceases, and the tail wags so hard it became a blur.

  “Thanks, buddy”, says the man with what I now, belatedly, recognize as a California accent. “You’re a great guy!”

  “Well, I’ll be on my way now.”

  “No, no, you have to bring Feedo upstairs to my place. Would you do that for me? I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “No payment necessary. I’ll carry Feedo up for you.”

  “Hey, you’re too good t’be true, boy.”

  Yeah, right. Well, he’s old and fragile, I tell myself. I’ll be like that someday.

  I could describe in greater detail the monologue that follows, but would rather not. I’ve been writing these samplings for two hours now; I’m tired, I’m old, and I’m feeling real cranky at the moment.

  The elderly gentleman is Mr. Don Gunn. He’s the founder and majority shareholder of Raydon Aerospace. He’s one of the two trillionaires on board, his wife being the other. They occupy a suite in the forward region of Concourse A. He likes to play golf in the cross street that borders his living space. His dog was named by his wife, whose name is Ray, short for Raydawn. The dog’s name is “Fideaux”. Don explains to me during our ascent to his floor that this is a very clever pun on the old doggie name, Fido. “It’s French”, he tells me, then adds that he calls his pet Fee-dough because he has made a lot of money in his life. He gleefully asks if I see how it’s not just one pun but two? I tell him that I do see. Actually, I spot three but don’t bother.

  Finally, we arrive at his suite, where we are met at the open door by a Filipino manservant, who takes Feedo from me with a long-suffering expression, and stands back as Don enters his home. As an afterthought, Don invites me in for a drink. I politely decline. A quick glance through the doorway tells me that the entry hall is floored with marble and the palatial living room has wall-to-wall carpet, luxurious couches, easy chairs, and lamps, as well as a huge vidscreen in a corner, before which sits a tiny, mauve-haired lady who appears to be in a trance—watching a soap opera. There is also a soaring stone fireplace, burning what I’m pretty sure are real logs. I smell genuine wood smoke. I also smell what I think is beef-steak frying on a kitchen stove somewhere within. I begin to salivate.

  Exercising a bit of moral fiber, I wish him well with his golf game and beat a dignified, though hasty, retreat.

  Day 2191:

  Sixth anniversary. Ho-hum. More revelry in the hallways. What a happy bunch we are.

  Yesterday we passed the “advance probes” that were sent out to Alpha Centauri many years ago. I presume that we will soon launch our own array of telescopes, which will fly in formation with the ship and give us even better triangulation, with superior composite photos of our destination.

  I tried to swim in the afternoon, but the pool was too crowded. Had a nap instead, then returned to the inland sea just before midnight. A couple of other crawlers were present—strong, silent types. We didn’t get in each other’s way.

  Day 2222:

  I like the mathematical beauty of this day. On a whim, this morning I decided to begin my approach to Stron McKie, to let him know we’re inside a laboratory rat maze. I’ve held back from doing so until now because I suspected that, first, he would fly into a rage and, second, he would storm about the ship creating havoc in his attempt to galvanize an organized protest, probably under his very own leadership. William Wallace with a sword and a rant, losing all credibility and, if he is intemperate enough, giving away clues that could lead to Dwayne. More worrisome, his general slash-and-burn approach to human relations would disable any effective revolt. I am working on my own plans in this regard.

  We met over lunch at the end of a long, long vacant table in the cafeteria.

  “I think you’d enjoy this novel”, I said as I handed him my e-book reader, with some alluring text of Billy Budd on the screen.

  “I don’t read friction”, he said, not extending his hand to take my offering.

  “Fiction, not friction.”

  “I say friction, not fiction. I never read the stuff and I never will. I don’t like being force-fed somebody else’s subconscious fears and desires.”

  “This one’s pretty good”, I countered. “If you read it as a non-fiction account, I think you’ll find it interesting. It’s about what can happen when things go wrong on a long voyage.”

  “Well, stop nipping my hide, and hand it over.”

  As he was tapping page buttons and reading a few lines, I whispered my news to him, hoping that no one could electronically overhear us. How pleasantly surprised I was to discover that Stron did not fly into a rage. He looked up and scowled with pleasure.

  “I figured that out during the first six months”, he growled.

  Taken aback, I exclaimed, “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “What good would that have accomplished, laddie? Did you bring a set of m
icrosockets in your baggage? Do you know how to reprogram that box of beasties?”

  “I’m afraid not. But you might have warned me. I would have guarded my words, watched what I dictated into the max.”

  “Stopped singing in the shower?”

  “Yes, that too.”

  “And by breaking your pattern, getting all secretive, you would have drawn their beady little eyes in your direction.”

  “Maybe so. But tell me, what have you done about it?”

  He picked a piece of “bacon” rind off his plate and began to chew it with relish, his eyes twinkling as he examined my face.

  “I have my ways.”

  “Such as?”

  “I know enough about the max to insert a sound recording that plays at random. I add to it from time to time. I sing ballads in my inimitable voice, recite the collected works of Bobby Burns in dialect, read long extracts from my books, which would numb the mind of anyone listening in. Business as usual, you see.”

  “Do you keep private records on the max?”

  “You mean my fantasies and moonshine recipes? Nay, lad, I’m not that stupid.”

  “No diary?”

  “Just a completely boring one. I mention you in it a few times.”

  “Yeah, I jotted down a few boring notes about you in my journal.”

  “I recorded only the worst things”, he laughed. “The cowboy boots, the twang, the pathetic limp. I also preen my own cultural camouflage, the kilt and sporran, the longing for haggis and my bagpipe, my filthy moods, my petty jealousies. Just enough to let them think we’re idiosyncratic, silly, old scientists who are so naive we wouldn’t ever suspect what they’re doing.”

  “We are silly, old, idiosyncratic scientists.”

  “So we are. However, we’re a bit more than that, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I think so. In any event, there’s somebody I know who can do some deep fixing on your max.”

  “Would it cost me anything?”

  “Feeling tight-fisted today?”

  “No, no, I just like to know the price of things.”

  “He does it without charge, on principle. He’s young, and he’s an undiscovered genius.”

  “Sounds like a good lad. Does he drink?”

  “Yup.”

  “I’ll pay him.”

  Thus, this evening while Stron and I played chess in the lounge on deck C, gathering onlookers and spicing the air with Scottish epithets, Dwayne quietly did his work.

  Day 2235:

  Today we made a little experiment. Dwayne and I decided to drop by Stron’s room without warning. On the way there, Dwayne told me that two weeks ago when he arrived in Stron’s room to do the job, he had found a polyplast flask sitting on the max with a note under it: To the Mysterious Stranger, with thanks.

  “It was very good whiskey”, he added.

  We knocked on Stron’s door and heard a muffled grunt from within. The door disappeared, revealing the interior of the highland castle in all its disheveled glory and the master himself sitting at his desk, looking surprised that someone other than service personnel had come calling. Considering his temperament, we may indeed have been his first real visitors. He wasn’t very welcoming, but after some whispered appeal to the “revolt” he did agree to admit us.

  When we were inside, he barked: “Shut yerself, y’damn door!” Which it did.

  While Xue’s room is pin-neat, Stron’s is situated at the other end of the spectrum of human habitation. It is a squirrel’s nest. It is not only messy, it is obsessively messy. Pathologically messy. I won’t even attempt a coherent description of what I saw, because the room was not coherent. There was a clay mug full of dry heather stalks that had scattered their seeds or petals over everything, as well as sports trophies topped by silver curling stones. There were photos of humans, dogs, moors, and constellations beaded to the four walls. And I must not fail to mention the ingenious jerry-built alcohol distillery he has running inside a lockable closet, very small but productive apparatus, judging by the number of polyplast bottles he has stored there, each filled with an amber fluid.

  “Who are you?” he demanded of Dwayne.

  “The Mysterious Stranger”, the latter mumbled.

  Grumbling to himself, Stron cleared books, papers, and less enlightened debris off the bed and bade us sit down.

  The three of us discussed our plan, and then we set it in motion:

  First, Dwayne deactivated Stron’s new privacy codes. With me sitting beside him, Stron then keyed in my e-address and voice-maxed a message to me. He said: “Neil, this is Stron McKie. I’ve been thinking. Sometimes I wonder if they monitor our rooms and our files. Am I losing my mind, or is there something in it? If they are peeking on us, I dinna like it. I have a mind to make a stink.”

  He signed off and let Dwayne take over. When the privacy was reactivated, we shared a chuckle, and then Dwayne and I went straightway back to my room. There, he deactivated my privacy code, and I checked my inbox. Stron’s message blurted through the room.

  I clicked reply and said: “Stron. I can’t imagine why they would do such a thing. It’s all in your imagination. Time to cut back on the whiskey, lad.”

  I signed off, and Dwayne reactivated the privacy.

  Day 2236:

  Very interesting. This morning, less than twenty-four hours after our experiment began, I received mail in my inbox, a text message. (See attached print-out):

  Dr. de Hoyos,

  We have not yet had the pleasure to meet.

  As a member of the organizing committee for the Kosmos’ educational, cultural, and scientific enrichment programs, I have been asked to contact you with a request which we hope you will find of interest. As you know, due to the length of the voyage, the factors of psychological atmosphere and morale are a constant challenge in onboard life, in a reduced environmental habitat that is unique as a psychological / social configuration. Of course, these are normal components in a great venture such as ours. Though I have so far observed an excellent attitude among us all, there is, as can be expected, the potential for unhealthy tendencies to lethargy and withdrawal in individuals.

  For this reason, the committee continues to offer a variety of programs that will generate interest and motivation, including our regular public lecture series. You will recall that you honored us by delivering the inaugural lecture six years ago. It was a resounding success, stimulating much thought and discussion for months afterward. The ship’s archivist informs me that the recording of your talk continues to be regularly accessed. I wish to thank you again for your generous agreement to give that brilliant and moving presentation.

  Since that time, we have completed two-thirds of the outbound stage of the journey. The committee would therefore be most grateful if you would consider giving another public lecture, on any topic of your preference. If this request meets with your approval, I would be pleased to discuss the details of time and venue at your earliest convenience.

  Could we meet tomorrow, say at 1000 hours?

  With cordial best wishes,

  Dr. Elif Larson, PhD, DSoc, DG/GK

  Deputy Director, Department of Social Infrastructure

  I sent a reply, telling the man I’d be happy to accept his invitation and would appear promptly at 1000 hours at his office door, if he wouldn’t mind sending me the physical address.

  Within five minutes I received his answer:

  Delighted.

  Concourse C, DSI annex, Room 712.

  See you then.

  Best.

  I did a quick search on the max. Eight thousand-plus articles on the life and times of Elif Larson. He is a Norwegian, just over forty years of age. Adjunct professor at a number of Nordic universities, founder of an Institute in New York City devoted to his theories. Often a speaker at conferences on “the deaggressivization of humankind”. Winner of prestigious awards too numerous to mention. A successful facilitator of group well-being in global conflict situations. He specializes i
n a field that he made “famous” (I never heard of it), called “Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft Kinesiology”.

  I looked it up. Gemeinschaft is a term for a form of community determined by local geographical proximity (one’s village, one’s neighborhood, one’s family). Gesellschaft is a community formed by selectivity: choosing one’s relationships from broad geographical and social resources, according to personal preferences. This distinctly urban practice has become the global norm.

  He’s a social worker.

  Day 2237:

  Oh boy. Oh my. Oh, what a slick operator—a genius in his own right. Let me describe my meeting with him.

  Promptly at ten o’clock this morning, I presented myself before the doors of Gemeinschaft / Gesellschaft Kinesiology in Outer Space. Peering through the transparent barrier, I waved at a young woman typing merrily at her desk. She spotted me, said something inaudible into her max, and the double doors divided, permitting me entrance. As she hurried around the desk to greet me, any reticence I might have felt was dissolved by her friendly face and the enthusiastic hand-pumping she gave me.

  “Dr. de Hoyos, it’s an honor, sir, an honor! Please come this way; Dr. Larson is expecting you.”

  In the inner sanctum, Dr. Larson arose from behind his desk as a benevolent force of nature. He was a huge man, by which I mean unusually burly, though not fat. His face was a boy’s, glossy, handsome, and smiling, his countenance aged only by a receding hairline and the token crows-feet at the edges of his bright, warm eyes. He looked like somebody’s worldly-wise but kindly uncle standing duty at the barbeque in the back yard. The heartiness of his massive handshake nearly crushed my liver-spotted old claw. All told, this was a fellow well designed to disarm the most antagonistic of clients.