Confrontation

by William Hayashi

  Soon his entire team was involved in several discussions about the systems and how the two ships differed in design and implementation. The discussion continued well into the night, long after the coverage of Svoboda became nothing more than rehashed footage and interviews, the television providing background noise.

  * * *

  “You were on your best behavior, Vasily,” Sophia complimented.

  “What, you thought I wouldn’t be able to handle some idiotic media parasites? Even I am not so stupid as to bite the hand that feeds us,” came Colonel Levkov’s surly reply.

  “But remember, once we return we’re all going to be quite wealthy, being interviewed all the time,” Xavier added.

  “Is that all you can think about, Xavier? Money?” Gina asked with disdain.

  “Not all,” Xavier said, leering at his fellow countrywoman.

  “Not if you were the last man on this mission. Je ne chie pas où je mange,” she replied.

  “What did she say?” Vasily asked.

  “She was reminding Xavier that she doesn’t shit where she eats,” Sophia translated, sending everyone, even Xavier, into laugh.

  Interesting, Vasily thought. “Okay, enough fun and games. We’re going to perform a full systems check. I want to get done soon enough so we can all get a good night’s rest, it’s been a long day.”

  “Aye, aye, captain,” Chux said, unbuckling from his seat to begin his examination of the propulsion systems readouts. The rest of the crew dispersed to do their post-departure inspections, and ensure the ship was configured to begin their long trip through space.

  Levkov began the long checklist of sensor readings from all the compartments of the ship, the sealed storage containers, and temperature and radiation readings from outside of Svoboda.

  “Stand by for full acceleration,” he announced as the computer began to increase thrust once the ship was aligned with the destination point.

  Chux was monitoring the engine readouts as the computer automatically compared the fuel consumption and thrust ratios to the endless simulation runs recorded before they had departed.

  Sophia was running tests on the air purification systems, including the algae tank that did triple duty as oxygen producer, CO2 scrubber and stage-two wastewater filtration. At first, engineers had tried to figure out how to configure the spacecraft for growing food stocks during the mission. Unfortunately, the amount of space needed, given the chemicals and fertilizer necessary for a completely hydroponic operation, simply made the proposal impractical. So all their food was brought along, freeze-dried, frozen or simply stored in air-tight storage containers.

  Because of the later departure time and the distance the Earth had traveled since the Jove spacecraft had left, the paths of the two vehicles were not very close, but did converge at their destination. The realities of celestial navigation being what they were, sending a spacecraft to any of body in the solar system was a case of interplanetary Kentucky windage, aiming for the point where the destination body would be when the spacecraft arrived. Aiming directly toward the body, even the moon where it was at the time of launch from Earth, would result in a complete miss, flying out into interplanetary space forever. The Svoboda and Jove mission control specialists hoped that there would be nothing that caused the colony to alter its orbit around the sun, since both spacecraft had a finite amount of fuel for their journeys.

  For this reason alone, everyone at NASA and Star City dreamed of obtaining the gravitational drive the separatists had developed in the sixties. It was the one invention that would completely open space exploration to the rest of the solar system, and revolutionize man’s reach away from Earth.

  This was why so much money was spent to send the two missions to the separatists; even such a long shot was not too big to take a chance on. Scientists studying the nature of gravity, including Martin Harris, were no closer to duplicating the feat of the colonists.

  Harris, because of the navel security clearance he held, was not an active participant in the scientific collective, but an analyst for the U.S. government. His job was to advance America’s research in the fundamental forces of the universe and to try to ferret out whether or not anyone else had made breakthroughs in the field.

  Other scientists were creating their own detectors, configured to try to measure gravity waves passing through the Earth. There was even a project on the drawing board that would orbit three satellites around the sun, to try to capture fluctuations in the sun’s gravity field and the resulting distortion waves emanating from the star. But not a single researcher was any closer to duplicating Christopher Wright’s discovery. In fact, no one on Earth was even certain whose discovery it was, even though the FBI had dissected the lives of every single colonist whose name appeared in the roll call sent back to Earth. Some analysts speculated on who might have been the source of the discovery, but since that original list was a who’s who of black scientists, engineers and researchers in so many disciplines, it was impossible to do more than guess. There were no smoking guns left behind pointing to aborted research in gravity by any member of the colony. In almost every case investigated, what U.S. authorities did uncover was a black man or woman who had suffered bigotry or racist slights in their work. Those experiences drove them to collectively create and perform at levels unparalleled in the history of man.

  This was the result of America’s ingrained racism. This was what America’s legacy of bigotry produced, not the cowed race begging for crumbs from the white man’s table, but a race that told America to take the second-class life offered to most anyone nonwhite and choke on it.

  No one had forgotten the message scrawled large on the outpost’s inside wall when the SEALs entered it behind drawn guns: Whitey Go Home.

  The folly of sending armed men to the moon was never lost on the collective governments of Earth, as was the insulting disdain of the scrawled message ingrained on the collective conscious of an entire planet. And now, the mission planners of the Svoboda/EU expedition were revisiting that folly by secretly arming the Svoboda spacecraft, graphically illustrating the insanity of a human collective that respected nothing but the threat of, or use of, violence.

  Even the Jove mission had its own deceits. Installing John in the crew under an assumed identity further proved that Earthly man was a creature incapable of being an honest broker in any situation whatsoever.

  An institutionally racist United States of America hadn’t learned its lesson. Instead of working to level a playing field that deprived them of technological marvels that would change the course of humanity, the existing white majority doubled down on the same behavior that spawned the colony to which they were traveling, hat in hand, to beg for scraps from the table.

  Meanwhile, the collective members of the human race throughout the solar system were impatiently waiting for what came next.

  Chapter 21

  RIDE CAPTAIN RIDE

  The Earth watched with an oxymoronic bored excitement as both missions flew through interplanetary space. Having two such missions traveling to the colony at once made for constant speculation about what they would find once they arrived, and who would come up with the brass ring of contact first.

  The crews of both Jove and Svoboda were fortunate to have experienced no system failures while in transit. Despite the myriad scientific experiments and astronomic observations scheduled, both crews were lulled into a dull sameness, but had to remain vigilant as a simple matter of survival.

  Fan clubs and social networking sites sprang up for both missions as well as for each of the crew members. Both missions had access to the Internet, making it easy to enjoy the celebrity of their position. Nearly everyone on Jove recorded interviews or lectures for transmission back to Earth and for posting on NASA’s web site and others. In the case of Susan Roscoe, several lectures on the responsibilities of the mission, specifically the importance of a solid groundin
g in science and math, were posted to the M.I.T. web site, garnering several million views.

  The only astronaut who refused to do any kind of publicity at all was Colonel Levkov, but that in no way dissuaded his gaining a huge fan base around the world. He returned no email messages to anyone except those from mission control in Star City, and he did no video interviews with any of the media. Even John, in his assumed identity and wearing phony glasses, participated in several group interviews with no one on Earth the wiser, proving the efficacy of GST’s hastily created, but comprehensive background.

  Both spacecraft were in the deceleration phase of their flight, engines aimed toward their destination, making direct observation of the colony somewhat difficult.

  Colonel Levkov was in constant contact with Svoboda’s mission control, which was also monitoring the progress of Jove. He had already reduced Svoboda’s velocity twice to ensure that the Jove mission arrived at the colony before they would. According to the latest data, Jove was thirty-five days away from matching orbit with the colony. Svoboda was now scheduled to arrive four days later. Many had argued that the speed advantage of the Russian/EU spacecraft should have been capitalized on, arriving first and stealing the march of the NASA mission. But those who had the final word were quite willing to let the Jove contingent arrive and try their hand contacting the separatists first.

  As the weeks went by the Jove crew grew close, but no real liaisons were apparent. As much as Bianca liked to tease John, so far that was as far as it went. At night their conversation often consisted of speculation about the colony and its inhabitants.

  Susan had a database of research on the members of the colony. Most of the crew had taken to reviewing the terabytes of information collected by the FBI on the colony’s members. Several investigators were convinced that the most likely of the colony’s originators were its eldest members.

  One line of investigation uncovered four members who were friends in high school, but once they had graduated they all had gone their separate ways; one had even joined the navy. There was nothing further uncovered in that investigation, especially when it was discovered that two of the four dropped out of school, one because of health reasons, and disappeared. Another colonist was a top chemist, originally from Dow Chemicals; again investigators couldn’t figure out exactly how he had joined the community. Trying to investigate the colonists was like trying to solve thousands of criminal cold cases decades old, but the U.S. government had spent billions trying to gain some clue as to the identity of the community’s ringleader at its inception, hoping to gather insight into how their initial discoveries were made, and by whom.

  Most of the files reviewed showed that nearly every colonist experienced prejudicial treatment in schools, jobs and military postings. In far too many cases the subject’s brilliance or performance went either unnoticed until after they were gone, or the credit for their work had been coopted by someone else, usually someone white. Several of the cases were obvious, even the ones dating back to the sixties, but as the timeline marched forward it was more and more obvious that the colony was populated by the brightest minds of America.

  Inevitably the discussions among crew members turned to the slights those who were black had experienced in the course of their lives. Susan, Harriet, Judith and Chester were more than happy to discuss their experiences. The one thing they all described in common was the need, throughout their lives, to do twice the work to garner half the credit a white man or woman would have received for the same effort. But the four were quick to admit that their training at NASA was remarkably free of the kind of institutional prejudices found elsewhere. Susan was able to relate stories about incidents at M.I.T. that illustrated the built-in slights against blacks, against women, and especially those unique to her being a black woman. The crew was enthralled with Susan’s recollections of being sequestered underground in Shelter 14 serving on the President’s commission originally tasked with formulating the preparations for a possible asteroid strike on Earth; then, once discovered, what to do about the people living on the back side of the moon.

  One of her stories told of when the military, the research staff, and the commission members at Shelter 14 woke up one morning to find “white” and “colored” signs posted at the water fountains outside the cafeteria. She described leading the strike that brought the commission’s work to a halt until the president showed up and they had a mini summit on race. Susan expressed her admiration for President Bender for dealing with the issue head-on. She was convinced that the prestige and publicity of her serving on the commission with such distinction was the principal reason she was finally offered the department head position at M.I.T.

  Harriet described her experiences in the navy, sending the group into paroxysms of laughter telling of her prowess as a fighter pilot. In far too many simulated combat sorties at the navy strike fighter tactics Instructor program known as Top Gun, new trainees, already versed in combat tactics, were sent out against her while she flew a Russian MIG. They were completely dominated, and in most cases shot down, by her before they landed and found out she was a woman—a black woman. She wasn’t bitter about the crappy treatment, slights and sideways insults because when they got in the sky it was always apparent who was the top gun in combat.

  Curious, Chester asked her if she was angry at the treatment she got from the naval fliers, especially the good ol’ white boys.

  She simply replied, “What do you think?”

  “Okay then, are you still angry now?” he prodded.

  “I’m flying the most advanced spacecraft built by NASA, I’m combat qualified in fixed and rotary aircraft in the air force, and up until this mission, I kept all my certs current. There isn’t anyone in the air force or the navy with qualifications equal to mine. I think as a psychologist you might want to ask all those white boys how they felt being so obviously outclassed, out-trained and second best in any combat simulation against me.

  “I earned my way here, and yes, I put up with boatloads of shit along the way, but I am the best. So, no, I’m not angry any more. One of the main reasons I let go of my anger was I didn’t want it to rub off on my kids. I’ve been honest with them about what it’s like out there, but my husband and I have made sure they get the best possible education we can provide, and we take no shit from anyone else about our kids.”

  “What do you mean?” John asked.

  “Like if either of my children is given short shrift because they’re black. In programs in school, for example, they’re both in high school, my daughter is learning Japanese and my son Chinese, and they each play more than one musical instrument. We didn’t make them do this, they learned to love mastering so many diverse subjects early because we made sure that they had teachers who were excited about teaching,” Harriet explained. “Don’t get me wrong, they can be just as moody as any other teenagers, just as stubborn too, but they’re too excited to learn to pout for long. Maybe moving around the country several times was hard on them as far as making and keeping up with friends, but damned if they can’t text on their smart phones faster than I can type on a regular keyboard!”

  “It sounds like you did a great job with them,” said Susan.

  “Probably so, but there was a measure of luck too. I didn’t marry someone just interested in sports and beer. He was the one who talked me into leaving the navy and joining the air force, and he’s always getting one kid or the other into some special learning or hands-on program the air force offers children of their enlisted.”

  “What did he think about your piloting this mission?” asked Rachel, who had a daughter of her own.

  “He was all for it. They all were. I video conference with them almost every other night. Their schoolmates are all jealous of them because of all the publicity, but according to my husband, they’re handling it very well,” she replied. “How about your daughter?”

  “At first she wouldn’t t
alk to me about the mission and my being gone for so long,” said Rachel. “She was worried I wouldn’t be coming back; probably still is. But I talk to her every Sunday night, even though the comm lag is getting to be a real pain in the ass, and we email each other all the time.”

  Susan asked how everyone else was getting on with their communications, and if the lag was dissuading them from talking in real time. For the most part, they expressed how sending email or just a quick video were the most popular methods of keeping in touch with those on Earth.

  They were talking about the people they left behind when John suddenly asked, “Hey, wait a minute! Are we sending any message ahead of us, letting the colony know we come in peace?”

  Susan and Bianca both laughed. Susan gave an “after you” gesture to Bianca to explain.

  “We get within a few weeks of arriving and you all are just wondering about this now?” she said, as a couple of the others chuckled. “Of course we’re sending out a hail, and the computer is monitoring the likely frequencies we expect they might use to respond to us.”

  “What’s it saying?” John asked.

  “Just that we are seeking contact, nothing more,” Bianca explained.

  “The objective is to open any channel of communication,” Susan added.

  “Whose face and voice are we sending?” Chester asked.

  “Mine,” Susan replied. “I would think that would be obvious.”

  “Um, yeah. I wonder how much of Earth’s news they monitor? If they do then they probably know all about us. Even to the extent of our specialties, too,” said David.

  “What? That you’re a botanist?” said Phyllis. “Or that I’m an engineer? I’d be very surprised that they cared. If they’re interested in us at all, I’m thinking they’d be looking to contact Susan or Bianca for all the obvious reasons.”