by John Skipp
The only music was some soft harmony in the background that we would have to really pay attention to in order to hear, but that’s okay. I didn’t care about that.
Darrell was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that had a bunch of splotches in different colors splattered on it. There’s a circle surrounding them, and almost nobody would recognize it was the image of bacteria growing in a petri dish.
Although we didn’t deliberately match clothing, I’m wearing jeans and a blouse with a faint image of dolphins leaping out of the water.
We both wore our jobs.
Darrell deferred to me when the waitress asked about wine. I ordered red for a change, a nice five-year old French Merlot.
When we’d arrived at the restaurant, I could see he was excited. His eyes were bright, and he was bursting with … well, something. I knew he wanted to do this right, though, and I didn’t press him for anything until we had our wine glasses ready to toast.
“To you and your big surprise,” I said.
He grinned and we clinked glasses. The wine was very smooth, and I wondered why I don’t drink red more often.
Darrell licked his lips, and seemed to be taking a long time, so I finally said, “Well, are you going to tell me?”
I reached out and touched his hand.
He nodded and put his glass on the table, then leaned closer.
“I’ve been asked to join the Starcraft team.”
That’s the last thing I was expecting. At first I wasn’t sure I heard him right.
“Why? There won’t be any results coming back to Earth for … actually I’m not sure how long. But not any time soon, right?”
“It’s not to analyze results.” He took another sip of his wine and then added, “They want me to go.”
“Go?”
It was like he was speaking dolphin-ese or something. It didn’t make any sense.
“To a planet called Gliese 163c. It’s been known for decades now and was recently bumped up to be number four on the list of planets that could support life.”
I didn’t know what to say about this. I’m sure my mouth was hanging open in disbelief or shock or astonishment or some other stupid thing. I certainly felt all of those things. Darrell sensed me feeling lost and added more details.
“They told me the news first thing this morning. It’s amazing, Barb! This planet is in the Goldilocks Zone, so it’s not too hot and not too cold. If it were any closer to its sun, the water would evaporate. If it were any farther out, it would freeze. Instead, it’s just right. The surface is covered with a massive ocean, and they told me a shit-load of other technical stuff, but the bottom line is that they think there’s likely some kind of life there. Possibly microbiological, and that’s why they want me to go.”
He paused and I could tell the worst was yet to come.
“It’s 50 light years away.”
And there it was.
I don’t know much about spaceships that go to those faraway stars. The Starcraft ships only started leaving Earth a few years ago. Have there been five of them now? Six? I don’t know.
What I do know is that if it’s 50 light years away, Darrell will be gone for the next century.
And I’ll be here, alone.
What was I supposed to say to that? I couldn’t help the tears that started to fall from my eyes.
Darrell came around and knelt next to me.
“Oh, babe, I’m so sorry.”
He held me to him, but I had trouble holding him in return. My mind was on fire. How was this even possible in my perfect life?
“Can I go with you?” I somehow blurt out.
I cried on his shoulder, and I have no clue if the other people eating their dinners noticed or cared about what was happening.
“No,” he said. “I asked, but the extra weight of adding partners for all the crew member … it’s too much.”
Finally, after what seemed like forever, I hugged Darrell back. I squeezed him and pulled him to me, as if I could stop him from leaving with the force of my puny arms. I grabbed his face and kissed him. I didn’t know when he would be actually leaving, but I felt like this might be the last perfect kiss.
Later, we were back in our seats and I finished off my wine, then poured more.
“You won’t age,” I said.
He didn’t want to talk about that part of things. That got me angry.
“You’re 32 now, same as me. What happens?”
He spoke softly.
“If I understand it right, it takes the ion thrusters about two years to get the ship close to the speed of light, then the trip there takes 50 years, then two years to slow down at the other end. The mission will stay there for one year.”
I waited. He knew the math already. The longer he avoided telling me, the madder I got.
He finally blurted it out.
“On Earth, 109 years will pass. Our spaceship will be spending most of that time at relativistic velocities, so only nine years will pass for me.”
I only knew as much as the next lay person on how this stuff works. It felt wrong to me that by going so fast, they age slower. I know it won’t feel to them like time is slowing down, but those are the rules. Einstein set everything in motion for this more than a century ago. How it works? Who knows.
“I’ll be dead when you get back,” I whispered. “And you’ll be 41.”
He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to.
Darrell (Outbound):
It’s been a month now, and the ship is accelerating at 0.03c now. That’s one-thirtieth the speed of light for those of us (like me) who don’t know crap about this. There’s a monitor in the main recreation section of the ship that tells me that number and also tells me our relativistic factor is now 1.00045. For every second we fly, a tiny bit more than a second passes on Earth.
By the time we reach our cruising speed in 23 months, our speed will be .9996c and our relativistic factor will be 35.35887. We will travel to the Gliese 163 system in what feels like no time at all, but everyone on Earth will be aging like crazy.
Including Barb.
I felt so heart-broken when the ship took off. Even though it’s been a few months since I broke the news to her, it was so hard to leave.
But how could I turn the opportunity down? It’s the chance of a lifetime.
I worried that it would be boring, but so far so good. The acceleration makes the ship feel as if it has near-Earth gravity, there’s lots of room to wander around, and there’s a dozen other people going along for the flight, so I’m not lonely.
Well, except for bedtime, when I pull the covers over me and think of Barb.
Best not to dwell on that.
Everyone on board is a scientist of one sort or another, half men and half women. I wonder if that was deliberate, and I’ve been meaning to check the other Starcraft teams to see if it’s the same.
It would make sense. None of our partners will be there to greet us with open arms when we return.
When we left, they told us not to bring photographs of our loved ones, letters, or memories of any kind. Psychologically, it makes it worse. We need to try to forget them.
So, I have no photos of Barb. I regret that now. I want to see her. Sometimes I think I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.
Darrell (Inbound):
Earth fills the wall of the projection room. It’s hard to believe we’re almost back home. Harder still to believe more than a century has passed there since we blasted off.
It’s like time travel. To me, it’s as if it’s only been a few years. The time dilation didn’t feel like anything. Instead, it feels like somehow the Earth has sped up its rotation and everyone there aged prematurely, dropping off one by one …
I looked at the view of our home planet with Elli. The ship didn’t have the image projected while we were far away, but it’s back now, so we’re trying to find what’s different from when we left. My hand slid over to hers and grasped it. I loved holding her hand. Somehow
it showed the strength of our relationship.
Over the past few years, we’ve grown so close, and it makes me once again thank whatever gods decided I should be on this mission.
“Do you see anything?”
We were both staring at North America, because we know that the best.
“Is California different?” I asked.
I could feel her shrug. “Don’t know,” she whispered. “Maybe.”
We could have asked the Machine, of course, but where’s the fun in that?
Elli thought Florida looked a little thinner, but it looked the same to me.
“Who cares?” I asked suddenly. “We’re almost home!”
Elli jumped up into my arms and wrapped her legs around me. She kissed me long and hard, and I loved every second of it.
“Still six months till we arrive,” she said when we broke the kiss. “But it feels like home already.”
Those six months went crazy fast. There wasn’t a lot to do work-wise, because we’d all filed our reports from Gliese 163c long ago. The long and short of it: we couldn’t identify any form of life at all. It was a completely wasted trip.
Well, that’s not exactly fair, is it? It’s the nature of science to propose a theory and then run experiments that either support the theory or disprove it. Science wins either way.
The working theory of life on Gliese 163c was disproved, but that’s still valuable information. It just doesn’t quite feel like it.
Elli is a physicist, specializing in testing gravity fluctuations. No matter how often she’s explained that in detail to me, I’m still not sure I get it. That’s okay. I get her.
After a few months, the ship had braked enough to remove all relativistic effects and we could see Earth with the naked eye.
Then it seemed like the blink of an eye and we were home.
We got taught some basic history lessons during the last month. There were still 51 states, the two political parties still traded the White House, and although there were lots of small changes, there was nothing enormous. We could have slipped to ground without the lessons and not have been out of place.
I felt a little disappointed with the lack of change, but neither could I decide what differences I would have really liked to see.
After leaving the ship, we were quarantined, the same as the eleven other Starcraft ships that made it home before us.
None of them found life anywhere.
I was placed in a kind of quarantine, which seemed ridiculous. How could I be contagious if there wasn’t as much as a virus on Gliese 163c?
It was after a week in quarantine that the message arrived that changed everything.
People no longer used e-mail, not exactly, but some kind of thought-transmission process accomplished pretty much exactly the same thing. The difference was that I sensed the message in my mind, clear as a bell, rather than on a computer monitor.
Dearest Darrell,
If you’re sensing this, you’re about to make me the happiest woman alive. Yes, alive!
When you left, I was so unhappy. I missed you terribly and thought my life no longer worth living. I somehow trudged along toward the rest of my unsatisfactory life. I continued my work on dolphins, of course, but it was like the spark of life had left me.
Then, everything changed.
Has anyone told you about stasis yet? It’s a technology that allows people to be, well, I suppose paralyzed is the best word. I’d say “frozen” but there’s nothing cold involved. Our bodies are just stopped.
Of course I jumped at the chance to volunteer and I was one of the first test subjects. I had myself stopped until three months ago.
And, other than some minor side effects, I’m here, waiting for you, wanting you so much … and I hope you still want me too.
I know you expected I’d be dead. Far from it. I’m here, I’m still young like you, and I want us to spend the rest of our time together.
Miracles do happen.
Please contact me when you are ready.
With all my love, Barb.
Barb?
Barb?
My mind went numb, I think. I sat and stared into infinity, not knowing what to think.
“You were supposed to be dead,” I said.
I’d steeled myself to know without a doubt she’d be gone. That’s what the psychologists told me to do, because there was no chance she’d be alive. People didn’t live to be 140 years old.
But, she cheated death.
I stumbled to the bathroom and threw up into the toilet. The acidic taste in my mouth somehow felt deserved.
I cleaned myself up and then went back to the bedroom portion of my quarters to lie down. I closed my eyes and pulled at the threads of memory I had for Barb. It was such a long time ago.
I remembered how we met, at the Scripps Research Institute. She was just joining the staff and going through orientation. Her eyes were wide and taking it all in. I was passing her group, and I think I fell in love with her the minute I saw her.
She had that amazing smile she always wore for me, beautiful blonde hair, and her eyes … that’s what always got me.
They could see into my soul.
Our first date was one of the singular most perfect days of my life. We danced and laughed and ate … and then we made love.
From then, every day was a new adventure, and my mind seemed to want to show every one of them to me, so that the memories were all mashed together into a giant chaos of love.
I’d destroyed all that.
Elli was my life now.
But how could I abandon Barb after she’d risked her life in stasis just to be with me?
I knew I had to see her, no matter where it led me.
Barb:
He’s actually coming to see me.
Everything is going to work out after all. I was so happy to get the virtual invitation to get together, I almost just glossed over the fact that it was all done telepathically. At least that’s what it feels like to me.
I know the geeks have some weird scientific way it works, quantum neuro-whatever, but it feels to me like Darrell reached out with his mind and mentally slipped an invitation into my mind.
Who cares how it happens, as long as it did happen.
And there he was, walking up the sidewalk to my apartment.
My heart was racing, and I knew I was breathing hard. God, I missed him so much …
When the door opened and he stood there, I could see the shock in his face.
“Hi.”
My voice was almost non-existent, only a wisp of a whisper.
“It’s really you,” he said.
Then we ran the few steps that separated us and melted into each other’s arms. It felt like the past ten years (or the past century) hadn’t interrupted our love.
I wanted to kiss him, but he just held my cheeks and stared into my eyes.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “They told me you’d be …”
“I know. The stasis engineers told me you’d have trouble believing I’m here. Nowadays, it’s nothing special. People stop their clocks whenever they want, but for me it was, well, it was new.”
He just continued to look into my eyes.
“I love you,” I said.
He looked like he was going to cry. I didn’t understand because we were finally back together. I wanted to kiss Darrell, but the expression on his face held me back.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just confused.”
“It’s me, Darrell.”
“I know. I just … I found somebody else.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
Darrell looked exactly the same as the last time I saw him. He had thick dark hair, strong features that were almost craggy, and a deep voice that just carried me away. Those weren’t the words I expected to hear, though.
I stepped back and wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me. I’d been so concerned about our relationship,
our love, our future, that I never considered Darrell might not imagine himself in that picture.
Somebody else.
“Who is she?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters.” Then he added, “Tell me what you’ve been doing.”
So I led him to the couch, and we sat down, side by side. I poured us each a glass of wine. Merlot, like we shared the day he told me he was going to leave. Somehow, I thought it would be like the other bookend, bracketing the time we were apart.
I felt like guzzling the whole bottle.
We talked. I told him about how I was back studying. My understanding of marine biology was a century out of date, but I was a fast learner and I hoped to be useful again one day.
One day, one day, one day.
“You mentioned there were minor side effects to the stasis. What were they?”
I avoided the question. “Nothing much. We can talk about that sometime. Not now. What about you?” I asked. “What are you planning on doing?”
He took a minute and then said bluntly, “I have no clue. I’d always expected to be busy working on follow-up from my trip. Categorizing the new life forms, researching their DNA … but there’s nothing to do now.”
We both sipped our wine.
“I still want our life together,” I said. “I understand about the other girl, of course. It makes total sense you’d find somebody. But, I want you back.”
He took a deep breath and nodded. Then he locked eyes with me, and then he leaned over and kissed me. It was one of the most memorable kisses of my life, soft and sweet and then turning to passion and love.
Darrell spent the night with me, and I hugged him in bed as I slept. I refused to ever lose him again.
Darrell:
How could I have not chosen to be with Barb? No matter that I love Elli today and Barb is more a series of wonderful memories, the fact is that she sacrificed everything for me. Being a guinea pig for stasis must have been a stunning risk for her.
