Chapter 12
2086 ~ Interstellar space
More than six years had passed since the Exodus left Earth orbit. Since then, the starship had first traveled inward for the slingshot by the sun, before it passed through the solar system at 10 percent of light speed on its way toward Nemesis. Four years into the journey, they had received a final signal, before Earth went absolutely quiet. That had been just hours after the projected impact by Devastator, and considering the time it took for the transmission to reach them, it would have been recorded some time before or after the impact itself. No one would ever know what happened to their home world, now that it had gone quiet.
The Exodus had continued its journey, undisturbed, through the vast emptiness of space beyond the solar system, following the carefully plotted course through the Oort Cloud. Reaching the twin star of the sun, the starship had made a second slingshot, before finally reaching cruise velocity. The fusion rocket had been spent when accelerating toward the sun, and after two slingshot maneuvers the starship now floated through space at more than a quarter of light speed, on a steady course toward Aurora. Before it reached its destination, the magnetic sails, now stowed in the nose of the ship, would fold out and give it the deceleration it would need in order to enter an orbit around the new world.
Tina Hammer hadn’t been around for any of this, having been deep in Sleep since before the first gravity assist by the sun. Waking had been a terrible experience, from which she was still recovering, and she could understand perfectly well why something had to be done about the process. It had been three days, and still she felt feverish. The price you pay for survival, she thought to herself. She’d been through rough times before though, so she knew it would pass. In a couple of weeks, the guinea pigs, as she’d come to think of them, would be revived the second time around. She would have to steel herself for that. She knew that if they were physically damaged by being subjected to cryo sleep twice, she would have a nasty task ahead of her. She could hope for the best, but in the worst-case scenario, she would have to be quick and ruthless. That would be the only way to save the rest of the crew and passengers of the Exodus from the same fate. There simply weren’t enough cryo cells to let everyone sleep through the entire journey, which had always been deemed the safest option. That had been the plan all along, and the ship had even been outfitted with ten extra cells just to have spares in case of a failure. They had also thought these could be used for parts, in case an emergency repair had to be done. In such a case, the repairs could have been performed by the maintenance robots, or bots as they were called among the inhabitants on the Exodus. But even the best laid plans cannot predict every conceivable event, and when a shuttle filled with children was launched up from the wreckage of a civil war, the commander of the Exodus, Admiral Greg Hamilton, had conceded to try every effort to save everyone on board. The responsibility for making sure this didn’t cause them injury—or worse—all had fallen on Tina, and she would have to deal with the consequences if their method failed.
For the next two weeks, Tina got up to speed with what had happened so far, reading and studying about the trip and going over the news from Earth until it went silent. Although the thought of what would most likely have happened back on Earth saddened her, she’d accepted it and dealt with all that a long time ago. Humanity was now right here on this ship, and would continue to live on and prosper once they settled in on their new home. Having no family to leave behind back on Earth probably helped her establish such perspective. She also spent considerable time reviewing the data from the last waking of the guinea pigs. Although there was nothing spectacular or remarkable about these data, she knew she’d have to make thorough comparisons, and she needed to know exactly how to spot anomalies that might indicate that something was wrong, and separate those from variations that would be considered normal. There were fifteen others awake at the time, but none of them were initiated into this; they were computer technicians and life-support technicians, and a few scientists, such as Karin Svensson, the ESA astronomer. Tina needed to make sure that her decisions were correct, or she’d endanger the entire ship and all of its inhabitants. In Selection, she’d studied medicine, so she had already familiarized herself with the terminology, and if she could only find the key data that would indicate anomalies, this task should be something she could perform with a level of certainty.
When the day came, Tina had prepared herself for whatever would come. She would start by reviving one, then go through all the tests and evaluate the data she got, and at last compare it to the data from the last time that person was awake. It was a tedious process, and would most likely take the entire day. If there was something wrong, and that proved to be serious enough, she would make sure that when she revived the next person that would be the first thing to look for. In all, she would have to wake up at least three people to be certain. If there was a system to it, a recognizable pattern, she would execute her contingency plan. She would fake a small radioactive leak, and give everyone awake, including the scientists and technicians an iodine pill that had the side effect of putting them sound asleep, and then she would inject a lethal dose of morphine. Instead of reviving the others, she would let them sleep. That would minimize the losses to only those who’d actually been woken twice. All this would be properly logged, and she would finish a report that would document everything that had been done, the findings that she had made, and how all of this had been done to ensure the survival of as many as possible. Then she would check the settings for each and every cryo cell, so that no others would be woken before the ship reached Aurora. In the end, she would inject the last dose into her own vein. That wasn’t part of the plan she’d discussed with Admiral Hamilton, but there were some things that shouldn’t be discussed with anyone. She would share the fate of those she had condemned, that much she would decide for herself.
The first person to wake up from cryo sleep was a young administrative assistant. Her name was Tori Peters, a blonde around thirty, although with her shaven head and distorted features from the agony of waking, Tina thought she looked at least forty. As she tried to comfort her while she sobbed and shivered, she quickly took blood and skin samples for testing. Then, after about an hour, Tori calmed and, although feverish and somewhat disoriented, she was able to take care of herself, so Tina went back to the lab to get the samples analyzed. That would take hours, so as soon as she had placed the samples in the appropriate slots, she went to get Tori a cup of nice Darjeeling tea.
“D ... did it feel like this for you as well?” she asked. Tina just smiled at her while she nodded.
“I d … didn’t remember how bad it was … But I … guess it was the same the last time …” Her teeth rattled and she shivered hard. Tina didn’t know whether she should get to know the guinea pigs, or whether it would be wise to avoid them just in case. After a moment of hesitation, she decided that she couldn’t get all the data she needed just from samples. The psychological effects might not show if she didn’t try to get to know them. Her conversations with the ship’s psychologist, Kenneth Taylor, had made her realize that even if the physical samples turned up nothing, there might be damage that only a close examination of the psychological state of those who were woken would expose, such as certain brain damages. There might be long-term effects that would take years to expose, but that was something that Taylor had thought could be mended with the proper treatment, so it shouldn’t condemn anyone to death. Tina decided to get to know them as well as possible. She knew she would be able to perform her duties if need be; it was something her military background had taught her. To save many lives, you sometimes had to make sacrifices. And the personal pain you felt when you knew those who would be sacrificed, or even when you had to make the hard decisions of who would live and who would die, was just as much a part of the sacrifice.
“Waking up from this is probably the worst thing I’ve ever been through,” she said quietly. “But it heals, just give it time.” Sh
e smiled reassuringly, while Tori sipped her tea. She had difficulty holding the cup steady, and spilled hot tea over her fingers, so Tina took the cup from her hands and held it carefully up to her lips. Tori smiled faintly and gave her a grateful look. As she finished her tea, Tina left her alone for a while and went back to the lab to wait for the first round of results.
Three days later, she had woken four people, and still she had found nothing to indicate that waking more than once had any lasting effects, other than the short-term agony and distress experienced by the process itself. As she went over the results one final time, she let out a breath of relief. She then took out her tablet to start filing her report. She now felt certain they could get everyone on board safely to Aurora. Eventually her report would be publicly known, and everyone would know what would have happened in the event waking more than once had been deemed dangerous. There would be a lot of questions, she knew that. But in the end, she also knew the hard truth of it all. Her primary goal had been to get everyone safely to the new world, and so far it had been a success.
2192 ~ Interstellar space
It had been more than a century since the Exodus left Earth with its more than sixteen hundred inhabitants, but decades still remained. Kenneth Taylor had been awake for almost a year now, and still had more than a year left until he was to be put back to Sleep. He had worried about the possible danger of multiple Sleep cycles, but studying Tina Hammer’s report from her investigation a century ago had reassured him that the only effects were the possible psychological trauma experienced during the waking process. And several scientists were working on designing a better way. As one scientist would finish part of the research necessary, another would pick up when the first went back to Sleep. Kenneth was one of those, and his main propositions for those who followed would be to create an environment that made the subjects feel like they were waking up in the morning, from natural sleep. Others would research the possibility of using a cocktail of various drugs to induce a feeling of well-being, postponing consciousness until the worst physical effects had subsided, and so on. Having extensive research experience, he felt they were making better progress than what he was used to from his own career back on Earth. He supposed that was due to the ability to work with very little distraction for a two-year period, and then leave the work for someone else, who would then go at it with a new perspective and new energy. This made everyone work faster individually, as the time limit was fixed. At the same time, the many heads working on the same problem ensured that every angle was covered, which provided a quality rarely found in Earth-based science. As a matter of fact, Kenneth thought they had accidentally discovered an entirely different way of conducting science, which felt deeply satisfying. In a few cycles, the research phase would come to an end, and the engineers and technicians would take over. He was curious as to how they would be able to use the insights gained from all those years of research to tweak the waking process into something better. He shrugged. There was nothing else to do but wait and see how it would be once they reached Aurora.
Even though his task at hand occupied his mind most of the time, there were times when he'd put his research aside, and contemplate something that had bothered him ever since they left Earth orbit. It would creep up from the back of his mind; a mystery he couldn't seem to solve properly, and once it came over him, he couldn't shake the feeling, even now. Back on Earth there had been a lot of arrests, both before and after launch. So many people had been revealed as having been part of a conspiracy connected to Project Exodus. Even the director, Senator Buchanan, had been one of the conspirators, and rumors had it there might even be conspirators on board. In the early days, there was talk of sabotage, but now that they had travelled so far, he for one didn’t believe that anymore. There had to be something else, but what? And the thing that really made him wonder was the fact that no one, as far as he knew, had been arrested aboard the Exodus. If the director had been involved, surely there had to be someone on the Exodus itself.
Having mused over the possibilities during this past year, privately, of course, since such matters weren’t discussed openly, he had come to his own conclusion that there was no plan to disrupt or sabotage anything. What purpose would be served at this point? But his presence on the ship was puzzling. In Andrews’s America, he wouldn’t normally have stood a chance of being among the few selected for such a journey as this. Even though he’d never been vocal when it came to his political views, in a society governed by the fear of real and imagined enemies, he knew it was naïve to think that he’d escaped being monitored by the ever-present eyes and ears of the government. And, that being the case, why would someone with views contrary to the current administration’s be selected? The only possible answer he could envision was that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that critical voices and dissidents were allowed on board. The goal of that might actually be to make sure the values and principles that had been gradually torn apart after Mars and Seattle would be brought back to life on the new world. That would surely have meant that even more people in the security services, the FBI, and the project had to be involved. And it definitely had to mean that someone close to Havelar, who had been appointed by the president to become acting governor as soon as they established themselves on Aurora, would have to be involved too, in order to divert attention from such people even after the starship left Earth. But who? It was impossible to know for sure. Besides, he had already decided to leave these things be for the time being. After all, if he was right, someone was protecting him and others, to make sure they made it safely to the new world. And what if he did discover who that someone was? If he dug too deeply into this, he might end up helping those who would rather see the new world populated with obedient conformists; to build a world in the image of Havelar and Andrews. No, he would keep his thoughts to himself. He would do as he’d done for so many years back on Earth; observe and keep his mouth shut.
The alarm sounded throughout the ship, loud enough to hear, but not so loud that people would be unable to focus or concentrate on their immediate tasks. Kenneth Taylor started as he heard the sound, and immediately left the lounge compartment where he’d been relaxing after having too large a dinner with a couple of the others. He quickly ran over to the console by the door and saw that this was something he should stay out of. There were already technicians working on the problem, and although the maintenance bots were capable of dealing with all sorts of situations, he felt more reassured knowing there were actual humans around who had the insight and knowledge to handle this.
The door closed automatically as he stood there; a safety precaution in case of a hull breach. That way, if they lost one compartment the others would hold, and losses would be minimized. He sat down again, took out his tablet, and logged on to the open comms channel, where he could follow the crisis as it unfolded. In deep space there was very little that could interfere with the starship, but one of the things they had occasionally seen were meteors. He had no idea where they came from, or whether they orbited some distant star or were rogues such as the planet that had hit Mars. But they were out there, and in this instance, it seemed the ship had come too close to a meteor tail, where microscopic pieces of debris had hit the ship. Although the pieces were small, the speed of both the comet and the Exodus meant they hit with tremendous force, causing damages much larger than their size would imply. According to one of the technicians, speaking rapidly as she checked the status of each and every compartment, there were two breached hulls, the thing they feared the most. The lesser damages would be taken care of by the bots, with no need for human intervention. However, there was a fist-sized hole in the stowed magnetic sail, which would require one of the human technicians to inspect it before deciding what to do with it. Normally that would be an easy fix by the bots, but there was a danger of damaging the sail even more, so a human would have to make a decision whether to leave it as it was or to attempt a repair.
Kenneth listened i
ntently as he followed the progress of the men and women working the problem, and as helpless as he was, locked in his sealed compartment with no way to be of any assistance, he knew the technicians were capable and resourceful. Half an hour later, one of them was space walking outside, tethered to the ship by a long wire. He had to get past several cargo compartments before he could access the shield behind which the magnetic sail was stowed. But just as he located the hole, the wire that tethered him got stuck. He could see that the hole was bigger than they had thought, and that it needed immediate repair, otherwise it would widen and the entire sail would be jeopardized. Without the magnetic sail, the ship would be unable to decelerate enough to enter Aurora orbit, and they risked overshooting the planet, with no way to turn the starship around. The technician discussed it with the on-board team for maybe a minute, and it was decided he had to perform a manual repair as soon as possible. Indeed, this was a perilous situation, made more so because the technician had to unhook himself from the tether in order to reach and repair the hole. He had to be sure to maintain physical contact with the ship at all times, or risk being adrift in space with no hope of rescue. There would be no second chances, should he slip or lose his grip. Kenneth's eyes were fixed on his screen, watching the technician slowly and very carefully proceed, creeping along the ship’s hull toward the hole. When he reached it, he immediately started repairing the damage with spares he’d carried along in a bag fixed to his EVA suit.
“All right, it’s done. Returning to airlock,” Kenneth heard the technician say. He let out a relieved breath. The danger was passed, and unless there were more incidents like this one, they should be safe until they reached Aurora. Just as he was about to put his tablet away, he heard loud, excited voices on the speaker, and he looked at his tablet again. It seemed the technician had forgotten to latch onto the wire again, and had slipped as he was creeping along the hull toward the airlock. Now he was floating away from the ship, and fast.
“We’ll get you, Vinnie. Just hang on,” he heard someone say. There was a moment of silence, before he heard the technician, Vinnie, again.
“Forget it, guys. You won’t get to me in time. I’m already a hundred meters out. In thirty seconds, it’ll be more than two hundred. It’s going too fast. I don’t want you to risk it.” Kenneth thought he understood what Vinnie was talking about. He was caught up in an outward motion and gaining speed. There was no way that the others would get a wire to him, simply because the wire would soon be moving slower than he was. He was lost, and he knew it. The amazing thing was that he was so calm about it, Kenneth thought. He wondered whether it was heroism or fatalism. But whatever it was, somehow, in a bizarre way, he thought the dying man’s acceptance of his fate was admirable.
2202 ~ Interstellar space
Secured to the outside of one of the cargo compartments, there were four large containers. They were insulated and deftly hidden from anyone inspecting the ship, either manually or using the bots. A decade ago, there had been an incident, in which one man had died, where the starship had gotten too close to a meteor tail. The hole that the now-deceased technician had repaired had been on the outer layer of the forward compartment, where the magnetic sail was stowed. The four containers were located right behind where the hole had been, and the technician had actually been crawling across them, without noticing the oddness of having containers secured to the outside, instead of having them safely stowed within the ordinary cargo containers. Thomas Dunn shook his head at the thought. Of course, the technician had probably been too busy to notice, or too busy to report the thing. Whatever the reason, the containers remained hidden.
Besides being out of sight, the containers officially weren’t even on board. They were nowhere to be found on the cargo manifest, and just a few people knew they were even there. Even fewer knew what they contained. Even Thomas, having been part of smuggling them on board, didn’t know exactly what they held, but he could think of a few things, and none of them were pleasant. His primary suspicion was that they held weapons. There were weapons on board, of course. No one knew what to expect once they reached Aurora, but if there was some sort of animal life there, the weapons might be necessary, both for protection and for hunting. But Thomas suspected the containers held far worse weapons than rifles and handguns. If Havelar and his cronies were to establish their domain, they would need a sufficient armory, and back on Earth there was a range of weapons that would be able to perform such a role. So, although there might be other possibilities, weapons were what he thought most likely.
He knew the area where the containers were hidden well, because he’d been out there once before, just a few days ago. He had been nervous, knowing that one wrong step would result in the same fate that had befallen the poor technician. But he’d done what he intended to, and got safely back without anyone noticing. And now he had a tracker placed on each of the containers, which would allow him to know exactly where they landed, once they were safely down on Aurora. Even if Havelar managed to put them all safely down, there would be a slight chance that one of them could be stolen away. He didn’t yet know how, but as always, he prepared to improvise. It had worked well so far.