Going Interstellar

by Les Johnson

  Jeri told me later that Lucy had suggested to Calkin that I be included on the flight. “It won’t cost anything,” Lucy had told him, “and I’d enjoy the company.”

  “I take it he said no.”

  “He laughed at her. Told her that her designers had done a pretty good job, but they’d overlooked some social requirements. And it would be a good idea if she didn’t bring it up again.”

  They set Morris up in a temporary office, and Calkin immediately called him to a meeting. I got tied into the phone line so I could make myself useful and pick up any calls that came in. Several did. Two were looking for a Dr. Brosnan, apparently the previous occupant. I informed the other callers that Morris would get in touch shortly. And I spent my time listening to NPR. They were playing something from Rachmaninoff, The First Symphony, I think, and if I needed anything to intensify my somber mood, that did it.

  I’m not sure how long I was left alone, literally in the dark, without access even to a visual system. When the symphony concluded, I tried other stations, found nothing, and went into sleep mode.

  There’s an advantage to that: When I sleep, there’s no sense of time passing. None whatever. I come out of it occasionally to answer a phone or something, and then go back under. At length, I was awakened when the office door opened.

  Calkin was talking: “—I don’t like the idea, Morris. Even if Sara gets through it okay, if she gets out there and back, bringing the goddam Coraggio home with her, I’m still going to take heat. Why spend all that money on the Bantams if Sara could do the job?”

  “Listen, Denny.” Morris sounded deadly serious: “It’s safer this way. If it turns out there’s a defect with the Bantams, and you’ve used them twice, there will be a problem. You’re safe with Sara. If it were to happen again, God forbid, at least nobody can blame us for repeating the same screw-up.”

  I heard them come in. Somebody sighed. The door closed and chairs squeaked. “Damn it,” said Calkin, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”

  Right. It was all about him.

  “It’s your call, Denny. But I need to know soon. If we’re going back to Sara, we’ll have to make a few adjustments. And I’ll also want to run her through the simulations again. It’s not quite the same vehicle she took out to the asteroid belt.”

  “I know.”

  The door opened. I heard a woman’s voice. “Mr. Calkin, we need you down in the conference room.”

  “All right, Judy. I’ll be right there.” He sounded annoyed. When the door closed he took a deep breath. “What frustrates me, Morris,” he said, “is that no matter what we do here, even if we bring the Coraggio back and find out it was a blown terminal or something, the project’s dead. The truth is, GSI is dead. Probably NASA along with it. They’ve finally got this program running with a dozen countries cooperating, the world looks better than it has in two centuries, and they’re going to let everything fall apart. I’m not saying we’re the reason things have improved, but we’ve become a symbol.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Morris, “things may have gotten better, but everyone’s still broke, still paying for old mistakes.”

  When Calkin left, Morris tied me into the system, and I could see again. He looked harried. “You heard everything?” he asked.

  “Yes. I got the assignment, right?”

  “You did.”

  “Thanks, Morris.”

  He lowered himself into his chair and stared at the speaker, which was set beside a lamp on his desk. Sometimes he tended to confuse it with me. “You know, Sara,” he said, “I’ve given my entire life to this organization. We were so close, and now it’s all coming apart. The same politicians who made promises—” He stopped cold. Shrugged. Took a deep breath. “Since I was a kid, I wanted to see us really go somewhere. Not just the Moon or Mars. But out there—” He waved a hand listlessly at the ceiling.

  “Morris,” I said, “what will you do?”

  “What can I do? I can’t very well walk to Barnard’s Star.”

  “No, I mean, what will you do? If the organization folds, what will happen to you?”

  “Oh, it won’t fold. Not completely. It’ll be like it was, like we’ve been, during the sixty years since Apollo. We’ll be taking hardware into orbit. Fixing telescopes. Carrying people to the station.”

  “Will you stay with it?”

  “No.” As if in pain, he clenched his teeth. “To start with, I don’t think they’d want to keep me. Despite the assurances. Even if they did, I couldn’t stand coming in here every day and thinking about what might have been.”

  “I’m sorry, Morris.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Jeri contacted me. “Congratulations,” she said. “I hear you’re making the big flight.”

  “Yes.” The Moon, visible in the window, was especially bright that night. I didn’t know what to say to Jeri.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll survive.”

  “I wish they’d let us both go.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “I guess not.”

  “When you get out there, say hello to Lucy for me.”

  “Okay.”

  She went silent. Voices murmured outside in the hallway. Somewhere a door opened and closed.

  “You know what makes it especially painful, Sara? No matter how this turns out, these idiots won’t be going anywhere. Ever. It’s over.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “If I were you, when they put me in the Excelsior—”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d keep going.”

  Morris came in early next morning. He looked good: bright and happy and maybe ten years younger. He said hello and moments later a technician walked in.

  Morris looked at the speaker. At me. “You’re due in the simulator in twenty minutes,” he said.

  I received a quick course in robot management. Four robots would be on board. They had six limbs, equipped with magnets to let them cling to surfaces in zero gee. They were programmed to perform basic maintenance and repair chores on the VR-2s. “They’re flexible,” I was told. “If you need something done they’re not already programmed for, just give them instructions.”

  There’d been a fair number of changes in the VR-2 since I’d taken the Coraggio around the block. They downloaded data. Then they started setting situations and directing me to respond. Fuel-line breakdown. Main tabulator providing suspect information. Solar flare on its way. I made course adjustments, connected with an asteroid, and locked it into the grappler. I ran the scopes and sensors. Emergencies kept coming. The magnetic mirrors became misaligned, the plasma flow went unstable, and we had a port-scope malfunction. I had to search through the Kuiper Belt for the Coraggio. When I found it, half my scanners went down and I had to maneuver alongside without their help. Seat of the pants, you might say.

  And the Coraggio had problems of its own. I sent the robots over, reestablished her power, disconnected Lucy, who’d become unresponsive, and installed an automated system to bring the ship home.

  On the return flight, I had to adjust the scanners and the environment and also compensate for problems in one of the heat sinks. I experienced a port-side thruster breakdown and had to diagnose strange noises in the number-two engine.

  In the end, the techs updated my software. Then they walked off and I went back to watching news shows. The conversations were still primarily about us. The preponderance of opinion—or at least the loudest voices—wanted us shut down. The Eagle Project, according to detractors, was a program without a point. Moreover, we were entering an election cycle, and we’d become an anchor around the neck of every incumbent politician who’d supported us.

  Finally, Morris showed up. “Very good,” he said. “You passed.” He was delighted. “We should go have a drink.”

  It was his favorite joke. “Morris,” I told him, “I’d have a drink with you anytime. And I can suggest how we might make it possible.” I started to outline the kind of
adaptation I’d need to enjoy a rum and Coke, but his eyes rolled.

  “When you get home, Sara,” he said, “I’ll see what I can do.” He sat down at his desk. “Meantime, be careful out there.”

  “I will.”

  “Good. We’ll be moving you up to the Excelsior this evening.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sara?”

  “Yes, Morris?”

  “Make something happen.”

  AI’s aren’t supposed to feel psychological pressure. In fact, the technical experts argue it can’t happen. AI’s are very good at simulating human emotions. It’s supposed to be part of the overall illusion. But only crazy people buy into the notion that we are truly conscious. I’ve had debates with Morris, who pretends to believe I’m really there, that I’m actually a thoughtful entity. That, when his daughter Erika was severely injured in a car crash last year, I felt genuinely sorry. But he doesn’t. Not really. And I have to confess the attitude is irritating.

  I mean, that’s the whole point of having an AI, really. Any sufficiently advanced software package can run climate control and remind the boss that he has an appointment with one of the supervisors in twenty minutes. Or can oversee the operations of a VR-2 in deep space.

  But like everybody else, Morris wanted more. He wanted a reliable confederate, someone he could talk to, confide in. I won’t go so far as to say he wanted a friend, but there were times it felt that way. And it was frustrating to know that, down deep, he didn’t realize I really was there when he needed me.

  They took me to the Excelsior and made the insertion. I was just getting my bearings when a call came in from Calkin: “Okay, Sara. Go out there and do it. Bring her home.” His pale gray features managed a smile but it didn’t look convincing.

  “I’ll try, Dr. Calkin.”

  “I guess that’s about all we can ask. You have enough hydrogen for the round trip. More than enough. We loaded you up pretty well since you may be out there a while looking for Lucy. You ready to go?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “When do I leave?”

  “They tell me it’ll be about fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.”

  A technician was standing by, waiting for us to finish.

  “Good luck.” He half-raised his right fist in a give-’em-hell gesture. It was the first time he’d spoken to me as if I were actually there. He looked at me momentarily, and I sensed something in his blue eyes. Fear, probably. Uncertainty. Then he lowered the fist and blinked off.

  I didn’t actually get a look at the Excelsior until I’d been set up inside. It was a duplicate, of course, of the Coraggio. But I hadn’t actually seen it before that afternoon. The VR-2 has an awkward appearance. It consists primarily of a hull with three massive heat sinks running almost its entire length, a pair of exhaust tubes, and two fusion-powered drive units. Its prow resembles a large block with rounded edges. This was the shield, designed to protect the vehicle from rocks and dust. The grapplers are housed inside the shield. They’re used to catch and secure an asteroid, which becomes the source of hydrogen and propellants for the fusion drive; they also provide more security against stray particles. When you’re moving at thousands of miles per second, even a bit of dust can sting.

  (I should mention that, at the time when Lucy went missing, nobody had yet gotten to a thousand miles per second, though the Coraggio had reached eight hundred sixty-five per second.)

  Morris liked to remind me that running a simulation is nothing like experiencing the real thing. He has that exactly right, though probably not in the way he meant. He was thinking of the pressures generated by acceleration or course changes. But I think he was missing something. It’s true that, on board a ship, I have no sense of movement other than the incoming data. But I feel an enormous difference when I’m actually in the pilot’s seat, so to speak: I can feel the power of the engines.

  It’s psychological. Of course that shouldn’t be happening since everyone assures me I don’t have a psychological function.

  The Excelsior was located about a mile from the space station Liberty, silhouetted against a curving rim of white clouds. It was the first time I’d been in orbit since my Coraggio flight. When I’d gotten back on that occasion, a voice from the station had said Welcome home, and I’d thought how great it was. Everyone had been so excited. They’d extracted me from the ship and taken me down to the space center for a celebration. I even got to say a few words about how proud I was, what an honor it had been, and so on.

  Then they moved me to Huntsville, and I started answering phones and seeing to the air conditioning.

  I’ve often thought that humans are fortunate in having a mobile capability. It provides the option to get up and walk out.

  “Excelsior. This is Liberty. Launch in ten minutes.”

  “Roger that,” I said. I love being able to talk like an astronaut.

  I started the engines. Checked all systems. And waited.

  Finally: “Excelsior, clear to go.”

  I set the clocks at midnight, eased away from the space station, turned onto my heading, took a final look at my energy levels, and began to accelerate. I didn’t feel any effects, of course. But I remembered Morris’s comment when I took out the Coraggio last year: “You literally roared out of town, baby.”

  “Liberty,” I said, “this is Excelsior. Under way.”

  “Copy that, Sara.”

  I didn’t know who was manning the ops desk in the space station, but I decided I liked him.

  I was accelerating at almost twice the rate I’d used on my previous mission. By the end of the first hour, the Excelsior had reached eighteen miles per second.

  Even though there were no human passengers, the ship did have a cockpit. Two chairs were positioned for use by a pilot and whoever else might be along. In my experience, they’d been used exclusively by technicians. I tried to imagine Morris in one of them, enduring that acceleration. And, coincidentally, while that was running through my mind, he called.

  “How you doing, Sara?”

  “I’m good, boss. Wish you were with me.”

  “In a way, I am. I assume you’ve had no problems?”

  “Negative. Not a thing.”

  “Okay. Have a big time.”

  “I plan to.” Neither of us knew quite what to say. I’d be gone for at least four months and I wanted to tell him I’d miss him. But the world was listening, and I didn’t want to give everybody a laugh line. Not at Morris’s expense, anyhow. I thought about asking who was answering the phones now that I was gone, but I let it go.

  ***

  At about 0300 I passed the Moon. At 0829 I hit five million mph. Liberty called, wanting to know about fuel consumption. We were doing better than anticipated.

  There was a delay of about a minute. Then they were back: “Excelsior, you are go for Starbright.”

  Starbright was the name they’d given Minetka. They had a tendency to overstate things when they named projects. “Copy that,” I said.

  I thought they were finished, but a few minutes later the voice returned: “Be advised solar activity is currently higher than normal. It is expected to increase over the next few hours, but it shouldn’t present a problem for you.”

  Nothing more was scheduled until midnight the following day. Until then we’d continue to accelerate. Then I’d shut the engines down and we’d go into cruise mode for two months. When the Excelsior got within range of Minetka/Starbright, I’d need another two days to brake.

  I ran a second systems check. That was unnecessary really; an alarm would alert me to any likely problem. But I was a captain again and I enjoyed the role, which I played to the hilt.

  I would have liked to wander around the Excelsior in uniform, soliciting reports from my crew the way they did in the science fiction films. And welcome a few passengers on board. Glad you chose Brightstar Transport, ladies and gentlemen. We hope you enjoy the trip. Beverages will be served as soon as we reach cruisi
ng speed . . . in another day and a half.

  Actually, there wouldn’t have been much space available for visitors.

  Later that first evening, Liberty called again. It was Morris. “How you doing, Sara?”

  “Need a chess partner, Morris.” Actually he didn’t play chess. But he understood.

  I was pretty sure Calkin frowned on Morris’s inclination to talk informally with me. He undoubtedly saw it as a character flaw, a weakness. It was something lower-level employees do, and Calkin would have thought that Morris was demeaning himself, or maybe worse if he was actually listening to our exchanges.

  I had to wait almost four minutes for his response. “Mary’s coming for the weekend, with Adam and Mike.” His wife and kids. Erika had fought her way back after the accident, and had returned to college. “We’ll be looking for a place.” I wondered whether he’d be buying, since NASA’s future was so uncertain. “When we get settled, we’ll have you over. Make a party of it.” That was the kind of remark guaranteed to get him in trouble with Calkin. He’d think Morris was losing his mind.

  “Adam will want something on the beach,” I said. The time delay meant nothing to me, of course. But I could imagine Morris, hooked up from his office (where it was close to noon), trying to keep the conversation coherent.

  Standard operating procedure required me to check in twice daily. I complied, informing Liberty each time that everything was on schedule.

  I was still accelerating on the second day when I passed the orbit of Mars. The Excelsior had gone seventy-two million miles when, at midnight of Day 2, I finally shut the drive down and we went into cruise mode.

  I could have put everything on automatic and gone to sleep at that point, waking when we got into the vicinity of Minetka, or when we received a transmission, either from Liberty or, if we were very lucky, from Lucy. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Even though I took no pleasure in being alone in that ship, I knew I would not get there again, and I could not rationalize throwing my chance away. The day would come when I would wish very much to come back, to live again in the Excelsior’s cockpit, riding through the night. So I stayed awake. I asked Liberty to forward some radio programs, which they did. They knew I enjoyed the talk shows, so they kept me well-supplied with them. I even heard my own voice talking with the space station. “Everything on schedule.” “All systems five by.” “Saw an asteroid today.” Nothing very exciting.