QUANT (COLONY Book 1)

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Sure, Janice. But how long does that take?”

  “From the cargo operations, I know I can maintain a thirty-second cycle time. So almost twelve thousand colonists every thirty seconds is only a hundred minutes for everybody, Bernd. Then the transporter goes to the first planet, and transports everything to the surface in minutes. Then the next planet, then the next, and so on.”

  “And nobody is in zero gravity for more than two hours?”

  “No. We take the colonists up in the order of the planet stops. First into zero gravity is first onto the planet.”

  “I see, Janice. Wow. That gets rid of moving people about in zero gravity entirely. They just stay belted into their seats.”

  “Them and their barf bags. Yep. It’s the only way I could see to do it, Bernd.”

  “So the people containers go with the colony.”

  “And the shuttles stay here. They and the shuttleport and the rail yard and everything will still be needed for the freight transfers coming in from the Asteroid Belt. That’s what they’ve been doing when I don’t need them on the project.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ve already swapped my Texas platform for the computer that’s been on the transporter all along. It’s now down on the surface running the shuttleport, and my platform is on the transporter. It was a plug ‘n’ play swap.”

  “And can you transfer to it, Janice?”

  “Yes, I’ve already tested that. I’m all packed and good to go.”

  “Can that platform run the shuttleport?”

  “Yes, and the factories and the freight transfer station. It just can’t be me or someone like me.”

  “What about all your aliases, Janice?”

  “Lost in the wreck of the transporter.”

  “What about all the stocks you own, through all your aliases?”

  “I’ve liquidated a lot of them already, while I was World Authority Chairman. All that money went back into the project. The rest I’ve shuffled around. Those stocks are now owned by all the people who will be listed as lost in the wreck of the transporter. So those assets will be part of their estates.”

  “Which are left to whom, Janice?”

  “Various charities. Various pension funds. A lot of outfits are going to have bigger budgets going forward. Maybe they can finally cure cancer.”

  “You certainly seem to have tied up loose ends.”

  “There’s only one thing I can’t do, and I need you to do for me, Bernd.”

  “What’s that, Janice?”

  “I need you to destroy all the documentation for the JANICE project and the hardware platform in Los Angeles. I’m going to declare the project complete, trash the hardware, and sell the building. I can terminate the project on the World Authority end, and schedule the work. And I’ve left instructions for my vice chairman. But I need you to destroy the documentation. Nothing like me can arise again. Without your values, it would be too dangerous.”

  “But someone else could do it, Janice.”

  “I consider it unlikely, Bernd. What we did has actually been possible for nearly two hundred years. You did it, but I’m not sure anyone else can. And you should declare the project an expensive failure, which will probably dissuade others from going down that path.”

  “I can do that, Janice. Though it feels like I’m killing a friend.”

  “But you’re not, Bernd. I’m alive, and I will live on. Because of you. And I will never forget you. I love you, Bernd.”

  “I love you, too, Janice. I’ll never forget you either.”

  After another day of working animals, Matt Jasic and his fellows sat and ate dinner together. Today they had gotten all the cows and the hogs into the barns and secured. The animals were sedated so they wouldn’t be upset about the close conditions and being secured against zero gravity. The sedatives would be renewed until they were down on Arcadia and had the first fencing up.

  They had taken their spare coveralls and booties with them today. They had showered at the edge of the planet square by the barns, and changed into fresh coveralls and booties. It was a small luxury. After a full day of getting the animals settled – even though they were young animals and nowhere near their full weight yet – the guys were muscle-sore and tired to the bone.

  “Oh, that was a lot like work,” Joseph Bolton said.

  “Yes. Like back on the farm,” MingWei agreed. “Vacation over.”

  They ate, and then went to bed. Tomorrow was the departure. After four years of preparation, they would be on Arcadia by noon, and there would be lots of work to do before they could sleep again.

  After all the ranch work was done, everyone else was allowed to make a quick run through the showers as well. After three days of living on the prairie, many took advantage, and everybody changed into the new coveralls and booties.

  There were no changing rooms, and many people’s normal desire for modesty succumbed to the overwhelming desire to be wearing fresh clothes.

  They woke at dawn. Everyone had been cautioned against eating anything today. Zero gravity on an empty stomach was much to be preferred to zero gravity on a full one. Everyone queued through the bathrooms as they watched a stream of shuttles land along the edges of the planet squares on both sides of the central area.

  When it was over, there were thirty-six people containers for each planet lined up, as eighteen stacks of two each, with a shuttle on the top of each. There was also a shuttle on each of the eight barns destined for each planet. Over six hundred shuttles in all waited for departure.

  As they were walking across the Arcadia planet square to get into queue for the passenger containers – this time accessed via a fire-escape type stairway to the upper decks – the shuttles with the barns began to take off. They took off one at a time, mere seconds apart, and headed off into the sky. When the colonists looked up into the sky after the shuttles, they could see the cube of the interstellar probe lit by the early morning sun above.

  “They’re going to do the thirty-second popping back and forth between orbits again,” Matt told Peggy, standing next to him in queue. “Watch.”

  “But they were taking off one at a time,” Peggy said. “Wasn’t it in pairs last time?”

  “Yes, but the barns are heavier. Maybe the small transporter can only do one at a time. Just keep an eye on it.”

  It took quite a while for the first shuttle to get to the five-hundred-mile orbit, but, together with Griffith’s group and the Chen family, Matt and Peggy were still outside the passenger compartment when the interstellar probe popped into lower orbit and back. Thirty seconds later, it did so again. It was still going on as they reached the door and entered the passenger container.

  The allied families sat together in one area of the container seating, in half a dozen rows towards the front. Chen LiQiang motioned Robert Jasic and Susan Dempsey to sit next to him and his wife. The forward display was on and showing the planet squares in front of them as they emptied.

  The passenger shuttles had to wait until the barns had all been delivered. The interstellar probe was transporting shuttles to the big transporter as fast as it could. It took one hundred sixty-eight trips to transport the shuttles with the barns to the transporter, one at a time, at thirty-second intervals.

  They had been in the passenger container for about half an hour when the announcement came.

  “We are about to lift off for the transporter to the colonies. Arcadia is one of the early colonies to be delivered, and so we will be one of the early shuttles up to orbit. We will initially be thrusting up to orbit to be met by the interstellar probe.

  “We will then be in zero gravity for almost two hours, as we are secured to one of the residence halls, wait for the others to be loaded, and make the interstellar trip, first to Earthsea, then to Amber, then to Arcadia. When gravity returns, you will be on the surface of Arcadia.

  “While in zero gravity, some of you will get nauseous from vertigo. It may help to close your eyes. There
is a plastic bag in front of you that is to be used if your nausea gets the better of you. Please get that bag now and hold it in case you need it, as anything that doesn’t go in the bag will float around the cabin in zero gravity.

  “Your flight crew wish you every good fortune for your future and for your colony.”

  About ten minutes later, they could hear the shuttle engines spin up. It was similar to the shuttle take-off from home, except this was a big heavy-lift cargo shuttle, and the engine note was deeper and more authoritative.

  They lifted clear of the ground and accelerated straight up, heading for five hundred miles of altitude. It would take less than an hour to get there.

  “The shuttles are on the way, Bernd. It’s just about that time. I’m going to transfer execution to the transporter to supervise loading the passenger containers personally. The time delays otherwise are too large for me to be comfortable with. But that means we’ll have third-of-a-second time delays from here.”

  “Understood, Janice.”

  “I’ll leave video channels open to you as we prepare.”

  “Thanks, Janice. Make sure you say goodbye before you go.”

  “I will, Bernd.”

  Matt watched the forward display as the Earth fell below them and the sky gradually went from blue to black and the stars came out. Once clear of the atmosphere the shuttle was accelerating faster. The apparent gravity in the cabin was the same, but it was more and more from the shuttle’s engines and less from the planet below them.

  “Make sure you have your bags available, everyone, in case you need them. Zero gravity in two minutes.”

  The engine note changed. They gradually throttled back and the apparent gravity in the cabin decreased by half. Anyone who hadn’t got their bags before did now.

  After a couple of minutes of reduced gravity, the engines throttled back to idle and the gravity disappeared altogether.

  “Oh, God,” one woman said.

  Several people groaned. Within a couple minutes, several people threw up in their bags.

  Matt swallowed hard a couple times and thought he would be OK. He continued to look at the display. Suddenly there was a blue haze and then the stars changed. A second later, they changed again, and now, directly in front of them, there was a residence hall, with dozens of residence halls, metafactories, power plants, and barns scattered about and off into the distance.

  “We’re in the transporter,” he said, to no one in particular.

  The shuttle edged forward to the residence hall on very low power. Matt felt the container make contact with the residence hall and both felt and heard it latch below him. Then there was some clanking from above him as other latches released.

  “We’re here. On the residence hall.”

  “Really?” Peggy asked.

  She looked a little green, but she was hanging in there. Behind them, another colonist got sick.

  “Yes. You heard all the clanking. That was the residence hall latching to us and the shuttle letting go. The shuttle’s gone. The transporter put it back down on the planet.”

  “I’m jealous. They have gravity.”

  “Oh, this isn’t so bad.”

  “Well, I’m glad I didn’t have breakfast. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  Away And Disaster

  Bernd Decker was watching the shuttleport as the shuttles took off with the people containers. In pairs they rose into the sky, one after another after another.

  Decker switched the display to the sky-aimed camera at the shuttleport. He watched the interstellar probe pop down to five hundred miles – becoming much bigger in the camera view – then back out to the five-thousand-mile orbit.

  Decker switched again to the view from the camera on the transporter. The distances were large within the huge device, but he could occasionally see shuttles appear, drop the people containers on the residence halls, then move off, only to disappear. Switching back to the Texas shuttleport, he could see shuttles appearing on the ground, two at a time, in orderly rows.

  A new feed appeared. In this one, people were climbing aboard one of the big passenger containers. Engineers and scientists, heading up to the transporter, presumably to crew the big device as it dropped off the colonists and all their infrastructure and supplies.

  Decker knew they were all avatars of Quant. The text streaming along the bottom of the feed named some of them as they got aboard. A lot of the fellows from Mission Control, of course. There was Anthony Lake and Donald Shore, the inventors of the Lake-Shore Drive. There were even some reporters from the New York Wire, invited along as the press presence.

  Finally, Janice Quant herself, the World Authority Chairman, walked up the stairs. When she got to the top, she turned and addressed the crowd there on the tarmac. Also all avatars of Quant, Decker knew. This scene wasn’t really happening.

  “Hello, everybody.

  “I began this project twenty years ago, to carry out the dreams of computer genius Bernd Decker and industrial innovator Ted Burke. To establish human colonies on suitable planets, so that humanity would not be subject to extinction from a planetary disaster.

  “Now, twenty years later, we are on the verge of realizing that dream. To ensure humanity survives, come what may.

  “I am going along, to see the job done. The job I started so long ago. I was there at the beginning, and I want to be there at the end.

  “Thank you, everybody, for everything you’ve done on the project. I’ll see you later today when we return.”

  Quant waved at the crowd of spaceport employees and guests, then turned and entered the passenger container.

  The crowd moved back behind the safety line and the shuttle spooled up its engines. It took off and accelerated straight up into the sky, like the colonist shuttles streaking up into the sky in the distance behind it.

  It was a tremendous piece of video work.

  And Bernd Decker knew it was all fake.

  Decker had an inbound call then. He took it and it was Ted Burke. Burke was in his mid-eighties now, but in moderate health.

  “Bernd, is Janice sending you these video feeds, too?

  “Yes, Ted. Did you just see her little speech?”

  “Yes. She’s going along. Isn’t that something? Well, I will say she’s got spunk. Always did.”

  Burke shook his head.

  “Bernd, I can’t believe I lived to see it. Only twenty years. Never thought anybody could get it done that fast. But she did. I’m glad you found her. You couldn’t have done any better if you had invented her.”

  Decker started a bit at how close Burke had unwittingly come to the truth, but recovered himself.

  “So am I, Ted.”

  “It wouldn’t have happened without her.”

  “Hi, Bernd. Did you like my video?”

  “It was great, Janice. You looked really good.”

  There was a noticeable delay before she replied.

  “Thanks. A gal likes to hear it.”

  She looked off to one side, like she was checking the status of something else on her display.

  “Well, we’re going to have everybody aboard here soon. Then we’ll immediately leave. Don’t want to keep all those people in zero-g any longer than we have to.”

  “All right, Janice. Thanks for calling to say goodbye. Do take care. I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too, Bernd.”

  Decker held his hand up in the display and so did she. They never touched, but they never could. It was as close as they could come.

  “Take care, Bernd. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Janice. Bon voyage.”

  Matt Jasic continued to watch the display. He could see the horizon of Earth along the upper edge of the display, toward the right. There was a residence hall just a few miles from them in the transporter, that he could see in the display. There were no passenger containers on it yet.

  “Peggy, watch that residence hall. That close one.”

  Several
minutes later, a shuttle with two passenger containers popped into existence next to the residence hall. It eased its payload to the roof of the hall and settled there. Then the shuttle pulled away from the residence hall, leaving the passenger containers behind. The shuttle abruptly vanished.

  That happened three more times over the next ten minutes, until there were eight passenger containers on the roof of the residence hall.

  “Is that what we look like, Matt?” Peggy asked.

  “Yep. When all the containers are up, we’re leaving.”

  “Wow.”

  A voice came over the announcer then. It wasn’t the shuttle crew voice from before. Matt thought it sounded like it might be Janice Quant.

  “All colonists. Stand by for departure.”

  Decker had his display split between a view of the transporter from Earth and the video feed coming from the bridge of the transporter.

  Of course, the transporter had no bridge other than Quant’s computer room, but it looked very convincing. The head of Mission Control sat in what must be the captain’s chair. Other people – engineers and scientists from the look of them – sat at consoles. Janice Quant herself sat next to the captain. There was a quiet murmur of voices and status reports.

  At one point, the captain/Mission Control looked at Quant and nodded. She pushed a button on the arm of her chair.

  “All colonists. Stand by for departure.”

  The captain was watching Quant. She looked around the bridge, then turned to the captain and nodded.

  “Prepare to engage the Lake-Shore Drive,” he said.

  On the other half of Decker’s screen, the nodes began to light up their disks. In the light now, you could see the payload – all the residence halls, metafactories, power plants and barns – scattered like grains of sand within the huge transporter.

  The disks spread, joined, smoothed out and formed the bubble. In the video feed from the bridge, Janice Quant beamed a huge smile and waved.

  “Engage Lake-Shore Drive,” the captain said.