Racers of the Night: Science Fiction Stories by Brad R. Torgersen

by Brad R Torgersen

  I asked Kevin why we have gravity on the Osprey when all the videos I saw in school told me that there was no gravity in space. Kevin says it’s because the nuclear motor at the back of the ship is pushing us constantly towards Delta Pavonis, and this makes our bodies press down against the deck. Not as much as on Earth. Yet. But a little more each day. Until we get up to a full gee—Kevin’s word for it.

  I said before that the Osprey is taller than a skyscraper. It’s like a building on the inside too, with decks instead of floors. The Intra-Ship Transit is like elevators—if you’ve ever ridden an elevator that goes a mile high, and back. Everything runs on electricity from the nuclear motor, which takes a lot of gas to work. Cassie said most of the ship is actually one giant fuel tank. We’re supposed to have enough to take us all the way, with gas to spare.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 78

  I’m sorry I missed a few days. I’ve not been feeling very well, and Cassie let me stay in bed today, rather than go out and help with chores. Cassie doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with me, she just says I’m homesick. Maybe she is right? A few days ago I had a really good dream about going to the park and playing with my kite. The sky was bright blue and there were pretty white clouds, and all three of us—Mama, me, and Papa—were running across the green grass and laughing, just like we used to do back home. When I woke up, I wanted so badly to be with Mama and Papa at the park, I cried. And I cried some more. And I kept crying. Enough so that Kevin got worried, but Cassie said it was normal, and would pass.

  Meanwhile I have the day to rest.

  The Earth is very, very far away now. Kevin can still find it using the computers and the telescopes that are outside on the ship’s skin—what Kevin calls the hull. But if the Earth was huge on the first day, now it’s a little ball not much bigger than a pea. Kevin has to tell the computers to magnify a bunch of times for us to see home with any detail.

  Cassie says she can’t wait to see our new home. The planet the astronomers found at Delta Pavonis is supposed to have lots of water and lots of plants. Weeds and bushes and trees and forests. Or at least that’s what the astronomers think. When I look at the fuzzy pictures Kevin showed me, I wonder if that’s how the Earth looked a long time ago? Kevin thinks maybe so, though the new planet doesn’t have big continents like Earth does. Just hundreds of smaller green and brown blotches—big islands, covered in forests. All over the world. And clouds. Half the planet is white in any given image. Cassie thinks it must rain a lot.

  Though, I sure hope there are a few sunny days too. I’ve been looking at the pictures again, while I’m in bed, and wondering what it will be like to fly a kite in the new sky.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 149

  Mama and Papa have been asleep for almost half a year. Some days I miss them so much that I want to tell Kevin and Cassie to go down to the medical bay and wake them up. Because I can’t stand it anymore. But I don’t. I know Kevin and Cassie will just say no.

  I think Kevin and Cassie are a good team. I think maybe this is why they got married before we left Earth?

  I asked Cassie if she’s going to have a baby soon.

  Cassie laughed, and said she already has four babies.

  Me, Leah, Molly, and Kroger.

  I told her that it was my birthday in another month and that 8 years old is way too old to be a baby!

  Cassie just laughed some more. But I don’t think she was being mean. Cassie has kind eyes and kind hands. She gives me hugs when she can tell I miss Mama and Papa. Cassie is soft and warm and reminds me of Mama, but younger.

  Kevin’s got all four of us kids going up to the gymnasium now. He says that even though the nuclear motor gives us gravity for awhile, there will come a time in the middle of the journey when we’ll have to turn the motor off and coast for a great distance. Otherwise we’ll have used too much fuel, and won’t have enough left to stop ourselves when we get to Delta Pavonis.

  So we have to get used to using the gym, because when there is no gravity the gym will be the only thing that keeps us from getting weak, and unable to do things.

  Kroger shows off in the gym. Taller than me, with muscles. He thinks he is so tough. He especially makes fun of me when I use the treadmills, because my stomach jiggles and I get sweaty faster than anyone else. I almost hit him for it, but Mama always said never to hit other boys who hadn’t hit me first, so I just told Kroger to shut up and leave me alone.

  Molly laughs when Kroger makes fun of me, so I told her to shut up too.

  Cassie told us all—over and over again—to be nice and to learn to work together. But it doesn’t seem to be doing much good. Wherever Leah is, Molly is not. And Kroger spends more time with Molly these days. Which is okay. I like spending time with Leah. She has trouble on the treadmill too, though not as much as me. I don’t think Molly teases Leah the way Kroger teases me, but I don’t think Molly and Leah are friends.

  Kevin says if Leah and I both work hard on the treadmill, and also on our stretches and our hand-weight exercises, then we’ll both get in better shape. Then the gym won’t be so hard for us anymore.

  Leah and I have made a promise to each other, that we will get so good at the gym that nobody will ever make fun of either one of us again.

  Leah is my best friend.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 288

  Kevin had to go outside for our first repair. The Osprey has what Cassie calls articulated space suits, so that there isn’t any time wasted changing the air pressure between the inside of the ship, and when someone has to take a suit outside to work on something that’s broken. The suit also has motors in the joints, for strength. Kevin looked like a big insect, with balls at his elbows and shoulders and knees. He smiled at me through the window on his helmet, then went out the airlock using strong magnets on his hands and boots to keep him from falling off the ship.

  I asked Cassie what was wrong.

  Cassie told me not to worry. It was nothing serious.

  But Kevin was out there for a very long time, and Cassie had to keep getting additional instructions from Earth, which she spoke to Kevin over the microphone in the Osprey’s control room. I kept trying to ask Cassie what was the matter, but she shewed me away and asked me to please not bother her while she was trying to help Kevin with a very important problem.

  That hurt my feelings. I am smart. I can help!

  Cassie told me I wasn't old enough to help.

  I told her that someday I will be the best-trained person on the ship. I know I will. Better than anyone. I will know how to run and repair every single part of the Osprey.

  And then Kroger will be sorry. He’s smart like me, but he’s also kind of lazy too. He doesn’t like learning to work with the computers the way I do. He has been spending more and more time goofing off on the Intra-Ship Transit, or having tantrums in the gym when he thinks no one is around.

  Once, after I snuck up to the gym door, I heard Kroger saying bad words and slamming his foot into one of the big rubber exercise balls over and over and over again. He was saying his papa’s name in between the bad words. I am not sure Kroger likes his papa very much? From what I heard, I don’t think so.

  I can’t imagine ever saying those things about my Papa.

  I went somewhere else until Kroger was done.

  One thing’s for sure. Kevin was right. The more I use the gym, the easier it gets. And my stomach isn’t jiggling so much anymore. Though Molly still tells me I am fat.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 440

  I’m going to be ten years old soon.

  It seems like such a long time since we left home.

  This morning I went down to the medical bay and looked at Mama and Papa through the glass of their stasis bed. They don’t move, and they don’t breathe, though their eyes and mouths are closed like they’re sleeping. I wonder very much if they are having dreams? I hope so. I hope they are having the kind of dreams I’ve been having lately. About Earth. About where we used
to live.

  There have been messages from Uncle Burt and Aunt Filly, and Gramma too. They say they miss us all very much and are very sad that we were chosen to leave Earth. Because they know this means they’ll never see us again. But they are proud of us too, because all our names are going to be in the history books. The first people to live on a world belonging to a star other than the Sun.

  Cassie says this audio journal might wind up being more than just a memento for Mama and Papa when they wake up. She thinks that historians will some day listen to it, to learn what it was like growing up on the long flight to Delta Pavonis. That makes me nervous. I don’t know what I want to say to the future. Which is why it’s been a week since my last entry. I have to make myself only think about my parents, when I talk. I put a picture of them on the wallvid in my cabin and I imagine that they’re talking to me over breakfast.

  I wish there was a way for them to tell me what’s on their minds right now, the way I’ve been telling my journal what’s on mine.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 576

  Something hit the Osprey yesterday.

  Not a big thing, otherwise Cassie says we’d all be dead. In fact she thinks it was very, very small. But this far from Earth there are a lot of pieces of rock and dust all traveling very fast. There’s a giant mushroom-shaped shield at the front of the Osprey that’s designed to protect us while we’re moving towards Delta Pavonis. It absorbs all the small pieces that get in our way. The piece that hit us was coming at an angle, from the side. Dumb luck, Kevin said. But it was serious enough that both Kevin and Cassie had to put suits on and go outside to fix the hole.

  I’ve studied the electronic blueprints of the Osprey. The part of the ship we all move around in, is actually a very narrow column that runs up and down the center. Outside of that is a wide, hollow tube. And that’s where all the fuel is kept: in the tube, between us and outer space. Liquid-slush isotope, Kevin calls it. Very cold. But if there’s a hole in the hull it means some of the fuel might sublimate, which is what Cassie calls it when the liquid-slush turns immediately to gas and goes out the hole.

  When Cassie and Kevin came back inside, they were exhausted. All four of us kids helped them get their suits off and made them food and coffee in the galley. Cassie’s hands were shaking so badly that she almost dropped her cup. She said the hole had been a lot bigger than they’d expected, and that they’d had to burrow through the fuel to find the thing that hit us, so that it didn’t contaminate the isotope. Then they had trouble sealing the hole from the outside. Despite the fact that we have lots of extra hull panels stored on the outside, just in case something like this happened.

  Kevin said they finally got it fixed. But he looked scared.

  I asked him why.

  He said that if the thing that hit us—a rock the size of a softball—had been any bigger, or going any faster, it might have penetrated all the way through to the center. And then we’d have had a real problem. Somebody could have even been hurt, or killed.

  Leah wanted to know why we don’t just turn on the deflectors.

  That made Cassie smile. She said deflectors only exist in movies and on shows. Real astronauts can’t flip a switch and be safe. Real astronauts have to always be ready for the worst.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 888

  It’s triple-eight day.

  Kevin and Cassie said that means it’s a holiday for us. No work. Just play. Though I am getting kind of tired of video games and puzzle contests with the others. So I decided to build a kite. Even though there are no parks to fly it in. I spent all day on it, using some plastic sheeting and thin, hollow tubes from the ship’s stores. It’s a big one, with a tail. When we get to where we’re going, I think it will fly well. Until then, I am going to just keep it under my bunk in my cabin.

  I went down to look at my parents again.

  It’s as if no time has passed for them at all.

  I can definitely tell time’s passed for me.

  I’m a lot taller than I was when I came onboard, and not nearly so round. I’ll be eleven in a few months. Kevin has pulled me aside a couple of times to warn me—man to man—that things are going to start changing soon. I think Cassie gave Leah the same talk. Leah and I rode the Intra-Ship Transit up to the big room just under the bow shield—where we can be alone when we want—and we talked about it. We both agree, it’s got something to do with making babies.

  The birds and the bees, my Papa would call it.

  I didn’t believe my Papa when he told me about the birds and the bees the first time. But now that I am a little older, I think I am starting to believe him. Enough so that I wonder if Kevin and Cassie do the birds and the bees when they are in their cabin together. Is it fun? I wonder.

  Speaking of birds and bees, Leah is getting very curious about our new planet. Will there be animals? Kevin seems sure that there will be. Cassie disagrees, and thinks that if there are animals, they might only be in the water. Or they might be microscopic, like the cells Cassie has shown me under the medical lab computer scope.

  The astronomers think Delta Pavonis is older than the Sun. So old that Delta Pavonis is just starting to move into its red giant phase. I asked Cassie what that means and she said that all stars burn hydrogen, a lot like the motor for the Osprey, but when a star is very old, it runs out of hydrogen and starts to change.

  Like me and Leah, I guess. We’re going to change too.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 1,000

  I can’t believe it’s been one thousand Earth days since we left home.

  And yet we’re still so far away from Delta Pavonis that it still looks just like all the other stars in space. No bigger. We know which one it is because it’s the star our navigational computer keeps track of every second of every day. We’re aimed right at it. Though Cassie said we’re not going in a straight line. We’re actually following a curved line, because Delta Pavonis and Earth are moving relative to each other. Where Delta Pavonis was when we left home is not where Delta Pavonis is now. And it won’t be where it is now in six months, and not in six years, and not in sixty years. So the computer has to constantly watch, and make small adjustments in our course.

  Kevin took me down to the big maintenance bay that has all the space suits and other equipment in it. There are small vehicles and tools and things lined up neatly in racks, or in rows on the walls. He told me he’s making it my job to check the maintenance bay every day, and to make sure everything is in its place. So that when I turn 12 he can assign me to the job of Maintenance Bay Chief.

  I told Kevin I didn’t know we had rank on the Osprey.

  Kevin said that Maintenance Bay Chief was a very big, very important job, and that I was the right man for it. Which made me feel very proud. So proud that I went down to the medical bay and told Mama and Papa.

  I know they can’t hear me. They look like they’re frozen in time. But I think Papa especially would be glad for me. I am growing up.

  Though I wonder if Kroger is growing up?

  We’ve been having fights lately. Not kicking or hitting. But yelling and name-calling. Nasty words. Cassie has sent us to our separate cabins several times. She yelled at us during the last one. Probably the first time I can ever remember Cassie getting that mad. I think she is tired of Kroger and I not getting along. But I don’t know what to do? I can’t make Kroger like me. And at this point I don’t even want to try. It would be too much work. I think Kroger will always hate me. I talk wrong, walk wrong, think wrong, my breath smells wrong, everything about me, Kroger doesn’t like. What am I supposed to do about that?

  But we’re all stuck with each other.

  So Kevin tries to keep Kroger and I working on different stuff in different places. Otherwise he’s afraid things might get serious. Though what he means by serious I am not sure.

  Audio Journal Transcript: Day 1,500

  Being Maintenance Bay Chief is a lot of work. Not only do I have to inventory everything and check the inv
entory against lists, I have to pull all the parts out on a schedule and check them to make sure they work. Big parts. Small parts. In-between parts. Anything that might break, has to be inspected. And Kevin’s slowly been showing me how to do this, so that I can make sure that all of the space suits and maneuvering units are in order, along with all of the winches and one-man extravehicular sleds. Everything we need any time someone has to go outside, especially to fix something.

  It made me nervous, at first.

  But Kevin’s been very patient about showing me.

  He says it’s one of the most important jobs.

  Right up there with Nuclear Reactor Chief.

  Which is Molly’s job.

  Cassie says that in a couple of years, we will each rotate jobs. And then, in a couple of years after that, we’ll rotate again. And so on. Until each of us—all of the kids—have learned how to do essentially everything on the Osprey that needs doing. In case the adults get sick or hurt or even killed, and we have to run things. Maybe even all the way to the end of the trip.

  Kevin thinks the estimate of 80 Earth years, one-way travel time, is still more or less accurate. I told Kevin that I didn’t want to be an old man by the time we got to our new planet. I also told him that I thought it wasn’t fair for them to keep four kids awake, just to train them to do all the jobs, so that the adults could sleep peacefully in stasis.

  Kevin laughed, and reminded me that just like when we switch jobs, people would be switching in and out of stasis too. Like taking turns. So that if everything went as planned, by the time each of us arrived at the new planet, we’d be roughly the same age, biologically. Which made me think for a minute. Do I want to be the same age as my parents when they wake up? That idea seems very strange to me. Will I still know them like I knew them when we left Earth? Will they know me? I couldn’t get this question out of my head today, so as always, I went down to the medical bay and I looked at the rows and rows of stasis beds, and I thought about how different everything is becoming as I get older.