Resplendent

by Stephen Baxter

  So the cycles of air, water and solids would have to be maintained with something close to a hundred per cent efficiency. The sealing of the Ship against leakages was vital, and so nano-machines laboured to knit together the hull. The control of trace contaminants and pests would have to be ferociously tight: more swarms of nano-bots were sent scurrying in pursuit of flakes of hair and skin.

  Not only that, the Ship’s design had been hastily thrown together, and the vessel wasn’t even completed on launch. The construction had been a hurried project anyhow, and the shaving-off of those final ten or twelve days of preparation time, as the Coalition fleet sneaked up in the dark, had made a significant difference. So the crew laboured to complete the ship’s systems in flight.

  The most significant difficulty, Rusel believed, was the sudden upping of the design targets. A thousand-year cruise, the nominal design envelope, was one thing. Now it was estimated that, cruising at about half lightspeed, it would take Ship Three fifty times as long to reach Canis Major. Even relativistic time dilation would only make a difference of a few per cent to the subjective duration. As a consequence the tolerances on the Ship’s systems were tightened by orders of magnitude.

  There was yet another goal in all this rebuilding. A key lesson of ecosynthesis was that the smaller the biosphere, the more conscious control it would require. The Ship was a much smaller environment than a Port Sol habitat, and that presented problems of stability; the ecological system was poorly buffered and would always be prone to collapse. It was clear that this small, tight biosphere would always have to be consciously managed if it were to survive.

  That was manageable as long as the first crew, educated on Port Sol, were in command. But to ensure this in the long term the Ship’s essential systems were to be simplified and automated as far as possible, to reduce the skill level required to maintain them. They couldn’t foresee all that might befall the Ship, and so they were trying to ‘future-proof’ the project, in Andres’s jargon: to reduce the crew to the status of non-productive payload.

  As Diluc put it with grim humour, ‘We can’t allow civilisation to fall in here.’

  Despite the horror of Port Sol, the hard work, and the daunting timescale Andres had set - which Rusel suspected nobody believed anyhow - the rhythms of human life continued.

  Diluc found a new partner, a plump, cheerful woman of about thirty called Tila. Diluc and Tila had both left lovers behind on Port Sol, and Tila had been forced to give up a child. Now they seemed to be finding comfort with each other. Diluc was somewhat put out when they were both hauled into Andres’s small private office to be quizzed about their relationship, but Andres, after much consulting of genetic maps, approved their continuing liaison.

  Rusel was pleased for his brother, but he found Tila a puzzle. Most of the selected crew had been without offspring, back on Port Sol; few people with children, knowing they would have to leave them behind, had even offered themselves for selection. But Tila had abandoned a child. He saw no sign of this loss in her face, her manner; perhaps her new relationship with Diluc, and even the prospect of more children with him in the future, was enough to comfort her. He wondered what was going on inside her head, though.

  As for Rusel, his social contacts were restricted to work. He found himself being subtly favoured by Captain Andres, along with a number of others of the Ship’s senior technicians. There was no formal hierarchy on the Ship - no command structure below Andres herself. But this group of a dozen or so, a meritocracy selected purely by proven achievement, began to coalesce into a kind of governing council of the Ship.

  That was about as much social life as Rusel wanted. Otherwise he just worked himself to the point of exhaustion, and slept. The complex mass of emotions lodged inside him - agony over the loss of Lora, the shock of seeing his home destroyed, the shame of living on - showed no signs of breaking up. None of this affected his contributions to the Ship, he believed. He was split in two, split between inside and out, and he doubted he would ever heal. In fact he didn’t really want to heal. One day he would die, as so many others had, as Lora probably had; one day he would atone for his sin of survival in death.

  Meanwhile there was always the Ship. He slowly widened the scope of his work, and began to develop a feel for the Ship as a whole. As the systems embedded, it was as if the Ship was slowly coming alive, and he learned to listen to the rhythm of its pumps, feel the sighing of its circulating air.

  Though Andres continued to use the fanciful name she had given it, Rusel and everybody else thought of it as they always had: as Ship Three - or, increasingly, just the Ship.

  Almost a year after Jupiter, Andres called her ’council’ of twelve together in the amphitheatre at the base of the Ship. This big chamber had been stripped of its acceleration couches, and the dozen or so of them sat on temporary chairs in the middle of an empty grey-white floor.

  Andres told them she wanted to discuss a little anthropology.

  In her characteristic manner she marched around the room, looming over her crew. ‘We’ve had a good year, for which I thank you. Our work on the Ship isn’t completed - in a sense it never will be completed - but I’m now satisfied that Mayflower will survive the voyage. If we fail in our mission, it won’t be the technology that betrays us, but the people. And that’s what we’ve got to start thinking about now.’

  Mayflower was a generation starship, she said. By now mankind had millennia of experience of launching such ships. ‘And as far as we know, every last one of them has failed. And why? Because of the people.

  ‘The most basic factor is population control. You’d think that would be simple enough! The Ship is an environment of a fixed size. As long as every parent sires one kid, on average, the population ought to stay stable. But by far the most common causes of mission loss are population crashes, in which the number of crew falls below the level of a viable gene pool and then shuffles off to extinction - or, more spectacularly, explosions in which too many people eat their way to the hull of their ship and then destroy each other in the resulting wars.’

  Diluc said dryly, ‘Maybe that proves it’s just a dumb idea. The scale of the journey is just too big for us poor saps to manage.’

  Andres gazed at him challengingly. ‘A bit late to say that now, Diluc!’

  ‘Of course it’s not just numbers but our population’s genetic health that we have to think about,’ pointed out Ruul. This lanky, serious man was the Ship’s senior geneticist. ‘We’ve already started, of course. All of us went through genetic screening before we were selected. There are only two hundred of us, but we’re as genetically diverse a sample of Port Sol’s population as possible. We should avoid the founder effect - none of us has a genetically transmitted disease to be spread through the population - and, provided we exert some kind of control over breeding partnerships, we should be able to avoid genetic drift, where defective copies of a gene cluster.’

  Diluc looked faintly disgusted. “‘Control over breeding partnerships”? What kind of language is that?’

  Andres snapped, ‘The kind of language we’re going to have to embrace if we’re to survive. We must control reproductive strategies. Remember, on this Ship the purpose of having children is not for the joy of it or similar primate rewards, but to maintain the crew’s population levels and genetic health, and thereby to see through our mission.’ She eyed Diluc. ‘Oh, I’m not against comfort. I was human once! But we are going to have to separate companionship needs from breeding requirements.’ She glanced around. ‘I’m sure you are all smart enough to have figured that out for yourselves. But even this isn’t enough, if the mission objectives are to be ensured.’

  Diluc said, ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘Of course not. This is a desperately small universe. We will always rely on the Ship’s systems, and mistakes or deviances will be punished by catastrophe - for as long as the mission lasts. Non-modified human lifespans average out at around a century; we just haven’t evolved to think further. B
ut a century is but a moment for our mission. We must future-proof; I’ve said it over and over. And to do that we will need a continuity of memory, purpose and control far beyond the century-long horizons of our transients.’

  Transients: it was the first time Rusel had heard her use that word.

  He thought he saw where all this was leading. He said carefully, ‘Port Sol was not a normal human society. With respect. Because it had you pharaohs at its heart.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said approvingly, her small face expressionless. ‘And that is the key.’ She lifted her hand before her face and studied it. ‘Two centuries ago the Qax Governor made me ageless. Well, I served the Qax - but my deeper purpose was always to serve mankind. I fled Earth, with others, to escape the Qax. Port Sol was always a refuge for the undying. Now I have had to flee Sol system itself to escape my fellow human beings. But I continue to serve mankind. And it is the continuity I provide, a continuity that transcends human timescales, that will enable this mission to succeed, where even Michael Poole failed.’

  Diluc pulled a face. ‘What do you want from us - to worship you as a god?’

  There were gasps; you didn’t speak to a pharaoh like that. But Andres seemed unfazed. ‘A god? No - though a little awe from you wouldn’t come amiss, Diluc. And anyhow, it probably won’t be me. Remember, it wasn’t a human agency that gave me my anti-ageing treatments, but the Qax . . .’

  The Qax’s own body architecture had nothing in common with humanity’s. They were technically advanced, but their medicinal manipulation of their human subjects was always crude.

  ‘The success rate was only ever some forty per cent,’ Andres said. She inspected her hand, pulling at slack skin. ‘Oh, I would dearly love to live through this mission, all fifty millennia of it, and see it through to its conclusion. But I fear that’s unlikely to happen.’ She gazed around at them. ‘I can’t do this alone; that’s the bottom line. I will need help.’

  Diluc suddenly saw it, and his mouth dropped open. ‘You aren’t serious.’

  ‘I’m afraid so. It is necessary for the good of the mission that some of the people in this room do not die.’

  Ruul the geneticist unfolded his tall frame from his chair. ‘We believe it’s possible. We have the Qax technology.’ Without drama, he held up a yellow pill.

  There was a long silence.

  Andres smiled coldly. ‘This is no privilege. We can’t afford to die. We must remember, while everybody else forgets.

  ‘And we must manage. We must achieve total social control - control over every significant aspect of our crew’s lives - and we must govern their children’s lives just as tightly, as far as we can see ahead. Society has to be as rigid as the bulkheads which contain it. Oh, we can give the crew freedom within limits! But we need to enforce social arrangements in which conflict is reduced to negligible, appropriate skill levels kept up - and, most importantly, a duty of maintenance of the Ship is hammered home into every individual at birth. That is why a long-lived elite must ensure perfect continuity and complete control.’

  Rusel said, ‘Elite? And what about the rights of those you call the transients? We pharaohs would be taking away all meaningful choice from them - and their children, and their children’s children.’

  ‘Rights? Rights?’ She loomed over him. ‘Rusel, a transient’s only purpose is to live, reproduce and die in an orderly fashion, thus preserving her genes to the far future. There is no room on this Ship for democracy, no space for love! A transient is just a conduit for her genes. She has no rights, any more than a bit of pipe that carries water from source to sink. Surely you thought this through. When we get to Canis Major, when we find a world to live on, when again we have an environment of surplus - then we can talk about rights. But in the meantime we will control.’ Her expression was complex. ‘But you must see that we will control through love.’

  Diluc gaped. ‘Love?’

  ‘The Qax technology was based on genetic manipulation. We pharaohs were promised that our gift would be passed on to our children. And we had those children! But we pharaohs rarely bred true. I once had a child myself. She did not survive.’ She hesitated, just for a second. Then she went on, ‘But by now there are genes for immortality, or at least longevity, scattered through the human population - even among you. Do you see now why we had to build these arks - why we couldn’t flee and abandon you, or just take frozen zygotes or eggs?’ She spread her hands wide. ‘Because you are my children, and I love you.’

  Nobody moved. Rusel thought he could see tears in her stony eyes. She is grotesque, he thought.

  Diluc said carefully, ‘Pharaoh, would I be able to bring Tila with me? And our children, if we have them?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said gently. ‘Tila doesn’t qualify. Besides, the social structure simply wouldn’t be sustainable if—’

  ‘Then count me out.’ Diluc stood up.

  She nodded. ‘I’m sure you won’t be the only one. Believe me, this is no gift I’m offering you. Longevity is a heavy burden.’

  Diluc turned to Rusel. ‘Brother, are you coming with me?’

  Rusel closed his eyes. The thought of his eventual death had actually been a comfort to him - a healing of his inner wounds, a lifting of the guilt he knew he would carry throughout his life. Now even the prospect of death was being taken away, to be replaced by nothing but an indefinite extension of duty. But he had to take it on, he saw. As Lora herself had told him, he had to live on, like a machine, and fulfil his function. That was why he was here; only that way could he atone.

  He looked up at Diluc. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  Complex emotions crossed his brother’s face: anger, despair, perhaps a kind of thwarted love. He turned and left the room.

  Andres behaved as if Diluc had never existed.

  ‘We will always have to combat cultural drift,’ she said. ‘It is the blight of the generation starship. Already we have some pregnancies; soon we will have the first children, who will live and die knowing nothing but this Ship. And in a few generations - well, you can guess the rest. First you forget where you’re going. Then you forget you’re going anywhere. Then you forget you’re on a damn ship, and start to think the vessel is the whole universe. And so forth! Soon nothing is left but a rotten apple full of worms, falling through the void. Even the great engineer Michael Poole suffered this; a fifteen-hundred-year generation starship he designed - the first Great Northern - barely limped home. Oh, every so often you might have a glorious moment as some cannibalistic savage climbs the decks and peers out in awe at the stars, but that’s no consolation for the loss of the mission.

  ‘Well, not this time. You engineers will know we’re almost at the end of our GUTdrive cruise phase; the propellant ice is almost exhausted. And that means the Ship’s hull is exposed.’ She clapped her hands - and, to more gasps from the crew, the amphitheatre’s floor suddenly turned transparent.

  Rusel was seated over a floor of stars; something inside him cringed.

  Andres smiled at their reaction. ‘Soon we will leave the plane of the Galaxy, and what a sight that will be. In a transparent hull our crew will never be able to forget they are on a Ship. There will be no conceptual breakthroughs on my watch!’

  IV

  With the ice exhausted, the Ship’s banks of engines were shut down. From now on a dark matter ramjet would provide a comparatively gentle but enduring thrust.

  Dark matter constituted most of the universe’s store of mass, with ‘light matter’ - the stuff of bodies and ships and stars - a mere trace. The key advantage of dark matter for the Ship’s mission planners was that it was found in thick quantities far beyond the visible disc of the Galaxy, and would be a plentiful fuel source throughout the voyage. But dark matter interacted with its light counterpart only through gravity. So now invisible wings of gravitational force unfolded ahead of the Ship. Spanning thousands of kilometres, these acted as a scoop to draw dark matter into the hollow centre of the torus-shaped Ship. There, conc
entrated, much of it was annihilated and induced to give up its mass-energy, which in turn drove a residuum out of the Ship as reaction mass.

  Thus the Ship ploughed on into the dark.

  Once again the Ship was rebuilt. The acceleration provided by the dark matter ramjet was much lower than the ice rockets, and so the Ship was spun about its axis, to provide artificial gravity through centrifugal force. It was an ancient solution and a crude one - but it worked, and ought to require little maintenance in the future.

  The spin-up was itself a spectacular milestone, a great swivelling as floors became walls and walls became ceilings. The transparent floor of the acceleration-couch amphitheatre became a wall full of stars, whose cool emptiness Rusel grew to like.

  Meanwhile the new ‘Elders’, the ten of them who had accepted Andres’s challenge, began their course of treatment. The procedure was administered by geneticist Ruul and a woman called Selur, the Ship’s senior doctor. The medics took the process slowly enough to catch any adverse reactions, or so they hoped. For Rusel it was painless enough, just injections and tablets, and he tried not to think about the alien nano-probes embedding themselves in his system, cleaning out ageing toxins, repairing cellular damage, rewiring his very genome.