by Roy Claflin
taken away. He heard the ship creak and shudder, then all was perfectly silent. He checked the readouts, then looked back up through the dome.
The ship was turning. The stars through the dome were slowly moving to the side. He watched them, elated, looking from the dome to the cockpit windows all around him. The stars were all moving.
And then, after a half-hour of slow turning, the ship shook again, and the stars were still. Looking up through the dome, he knew that he was looking back towards Earth, or at least in that general direction. He had no idea which of those stars was his Sun. There were star charts in the ship’s library, but he didn’t really know how to read them, and he was fairly certain they’d do him no good way out here anyway. These were different stars.
Jonathan checked the readouts again. The engines hadn’t yet started back up, and this was the part of the journey that was most troubling for the scientists. While the engines were designed for this, they knew that there was a remote possibility that they wouldn’t start again. If that happened, the ship would eventually lose power, and the air would eventually become toxic without the scrubbers. The ship would drift at its current breakneck speed, possibly smashing into the distant planet Jonathan was supposed to be going to, though it was more likely the ship would drift forever.
Jonathan waited, and finally the engines started, first with jarring, hesitant pulses, then the full-on burn they were designed for. The engines were now facing the direction of travel, and were working to slow the ship down. For the rest of the journey, the Elishama would be decelerating at the same rate it had been accelerating. This meant that Jonathan had his gravity back, along with the unchanging stars through the windows.
After checking his readouts, he was satisfied that the ship was operating normally, so he unstrapped himself and went back to the living quarters to eat lunch.
On Sydney Station, Jonathan met with some of the highest-ranking Church officials he’d even heard of. They explained his mission, which involved travelling to one of the solar systems nearest neighboring stars, to a planet that had been confirmed to contain life, possibly intelligent life. It was made clear to Jonathan that he would be venturing out farther than any human before him, and that his mission was of the utmost importance to the future of human society. They were sending him alone, because the Church trusted him, and him alone, to carry out the mission.
Jonathan felt nothing but honored.
The ship’s library had many books, but most were not very interesting. He’d watched all the old movies, and listened to all the music. He’d heard every sermon dozens of times. The days seemed harder and harder to get through. After five years, he was beginning to lose faith in the mission.
He’d ignored his exercise routine. He didn’t bathe. He didn’t groom. His face in the mirror was haggard and unkempt. He took the mirror down and stowed it. He didn’t sleep when he was supposed to, and ate very little.
The stars never changed. There were no asteroids, no comets, although the scientists had told him to expect them. He would occasionally switch on the radio and get nothing but popping static. He looked through space in every direction for proof of life, of something living. There was nothing.
He talked to God, through the radio and toward the bulkhead, but He never answered.
Several times Jonathan crawled through the access tunnels back to the engine and payload compartments. There was no room to explore back there, but it was a welcomed change of scenery. He studied the payload as best he could, all the while thinking about what the scientists said these things would do to that planet he was going to.
“We fear man has lost his way.” Father Lowell wore a suit instead of the robes. By trade he was a professor, and held a prestigious post in the hierarchy of the New Church. “You must understand that it is only by God’s own influence that we have survived this long. Followers of pure science would attribute our survival to the marvels of nature and biology, and nothing more. The old religions would tell us that God is merely testing us.”
“Is God testing us?” Jonathan asked, though he felt like he knew the answer.
“No, my son.” Father Lowell put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. “He protects us, because we are all He has. We are not only His children. We are His legacy. We are His works of art, if you like.”
Jonathan nodded. There were no windows on Sydney Station, for fear that the constant spinning would disorient its inhabitants. Instead, there were high-resolution vid-screens mounted on the walls, displaying a static but pleasing view of the Earth.
“This new planet contains the seeds of a new civilization,” Father Lowell said. “Given time, there may well be creatures on that planet worthy of God’s attention.”
“And He would abandon us.”
“He would,” Father Lowell said. “Why wouldn’t He? We’ve been on the brink of extinction for centuries. That’s not much of a legacy, I think you’d agree. We were given pieces of Him once we attained the proper amount of intelligence. There is no reason to think He would not start again somewhere else, with another species.” Father Lowell stared at the vid-screen. “He would indeed abandon us.”
Jonathan waited a moment, then broke the silence. “This planet, it has life on it. Wouldn’t God be angry at us for destroying it?”
“Life ends. It’s what He expects. Think of His pride at our accomplishment. At your accomplishment. Your victory.”
Jonathan nodded, and smiled.
The ship’s countdown timers were approaching zero again.
Jonathan was nearing the end of his journey. With the ship facing backwards, he had no idea how close he was. His anxiety grew by the minute. He’d had the radio on for several days, sweeping the frequencies, even transmitting occasional greetings, but he received no reply, and heard no sounds except for the popping static.
He wanted there to be life on that planet. He wanted them to be intelligent, to have radios and space travel and language and art and music. He wanted desperately to hear another voice, no matter how alien. He’d even shaved and cleaned up, in anticipation of a meeting. God would be pleased with whoever was down there, he was sure, and maybe He would abandon the human race. Jonathan was not among the human race anymore. He’d never again be among the human race.
The alarm sounded. The computer’s polite voice asked him to strap himself in. Jonathan ignored the voice, and instead stood at the windows. He could still see nothing.
Eventually he made his way to his chair, and had just enough time to fasten his restraints before the ship’s engines stopped. He was again plunged into weightlessness, and the ship was silent, except for the static on the radio. He felt movement as the ship made small course adjustments. The stars were moving again.
And soon light flooded the cockpit as one incredibly bright star came into view. Jonathan looked away, noticed that strange green tint to the light as it fell on the floor and the consoles. The ship continued to turn, and soon the star was out of view.
There it was. A planet, a brown rock below him. The ship steadied, and Jonathan felt safe to remove his restraints. He floated away from his chair and towards the windows. The ship had started to roll, very slowly, so the planet seemed to move across the windows of the cockpit. He studied the planet’s surface, but saw nothing that looked like civilization. There was no green, nothing that looked like water or ice. It did not even appear to have an atmosphere, though Jonathan wasn’t sure what that would look like anyway.
It looked like a massive, dead rock.
When Jonathan left Sydney Station on board the Elishama, he was sent off with great fanfare, and much secrecy. There was no media coverage, and Jonathan was forbidden to talk about any of it. The New Church had control of most of the world’s media outlets anyway, and all of the world’s telescopes. No one on Earth knew about Jonathan’s mission.
The Elishama undocked from Sydney Station and drifted out to a safe distance. In the minutes between leaving Sydney and the first pulsing bursts from the engi
nes that would shoot him out of the Solar System, Jonathan got a good view of the whole station. On the other side, he spotted the steel skeleton of another ship, the same size and shape of the Elishama. Next to it was a second steel skeleton, thought this one was not nearly as completed, but it was clearly beginning to take the same shape as the first.
Work appeared to be starting on a third as well.
Jonathan was sure this was the wrong planet. This dead-looking rock may have been orbiting the same star as the planet he was supposed to go to, but this wasn’t it. There was no life here. The Church would never send him to a rock with no life. Still, he had no way of knowing for sure. But there wasn’t enough fuel to reach another planet anyway.
He checked the readouts. The ship was supposed to insert itself into orbit around the planet and make three complete revolutions, which it was in the process of doing. On the fourth orbit, the ship would begin sending its payload down to the surface in a carefully calculated pattern, ensuring widespread coverage and maximizing the destruction.
Jonathan didn’t want that to happen. This planet wasn’t worth it. He felt sick with disappointment.
He drifted through the cockpit and down into the living quarters, then opened the hatch into the access tunnels. He knew, just inside
