Chapter 9

It didn’t feel like anything was happening. If not for the hangar slowly receding from view, it would have been impossible to tell whether the ship had lifted off the earth. Robin displayed a window on the front screen of how the ship was moving. Things like acceleration, velocity, and altitude from the sea level. There were other pieces of information displayed on the screen, but their effect on the progress of the ship was inconsequential.

“Anti-Radiation field activated.”

“Feels anticlimactic, maybe we should disable the Anti-Acceleration field. Feel those Gs a little.” My comment got the bridge smiling. Of course I was joking, there was no way I wanted to feel any acceleration on my body. Other than the one necessary for proper body functions. I popped a mint into my mouth to calm my queasy stomach.

“Gravity set to 1G.”

I felt my body settled back into the seat. Apparently, I had somehow drifted up during the escape from earth’s gravity. We weren’t clear yet, but the earth’s gravity was so low as to be negligible. The earth was finally looking like the rough sphere it was. The displayed information changed as Robin started realigning the ship to point to the Moon.

After a minute, the earth disappeared and the Moon finally came into view. It was a pretty sight. And it was utterly boring to look at. I just didn’t get all the hype with it was, Mars might be better. But just barely. When I had first presented the idea of traversing the Solar System, the Moon was not a destination in the expedition. They had whined a lot. Some even started asking for a revolution or two around the Earth. A glare from me shut down talk of revolution for good. In return for their quick response, I let them have the Moon.

It wasn’t a sweet victory for them either. More than half the crew were not interested in the Moon at all. It had nothing to offer for an exploratory crew such as ours. Its resources were depleted, and it was fully claimed by the League of Nations. It was completely and utterly uninteresting. The only reason we were stopping by the Moon, was sightseeing. That and nothing else. There were supposed to be amenities on par with those found on the most luxurious places on earth. But that had never been a selling point for me.

“Can someone tell me again why we are going to this desolate resource-starved gravity-less piece of rock?” I asked the Bridge when it started to feel like I might actually decide to skip it altogether.

“To give the crew time to acclimate to the ship in space.” Mũsango said. “I, for one, would like to test drive it. This is the fastest ship in existence.”

“Theoretically. It has yet to achieve those speeds.” Pon reminded her.

“The prototypes proved it was possible.” Mũsango was not letting Pon dampen her mood.

“0.1c is not the same as 0.9c. You should know that.”

“Besides, you are not getting control of the ship until we depart for Jupiter.” Cindy joined the conversation. “You can have your fun there.”

“But that is days away.” He whined like a baby denied its toy.

“It is only, what? Two days?”

“That is forever when you can travel at the speed of light.”

“You haven’t yet traveled at that speed.”

“And the anticipation is killing me. I might die before I even get to control this thing.” She was a lost cause, and further arguing her would only give the crew headaches. The high would wear off soon enough.

“Cruising speed set. Estimated time to Moon orbit: 6 minutes.”

As Robin was announcing to the bridge, on the display the speed was shown to have been set to a target of 0.003335c. Roughly, a thousand kilometers per second. Which was also displayed right next to the speed in relation to light.

“Attention crew. This is Mativo speaking. We have successfully set course for The Moon. Those intend on visiting it, arrival will be in six minutes. Mativo out.”

“Accelerating. Cruising speed attained.”

It had taken less than a second to accelerate to that speed. Given that accelerating to the speed of light would also take less than a second, it really shouldn’t have surprised me. But I was surprised.

“To give the crew time to rest,” Chantel, the ship’s Communications Officer, said.

“What?” Several people asked at the same time. I had been about to ask the same, but they out spoke me. And that allowed me to figure out what Chantel was talking about.

“The actual answer to Mativo’s question. Not that yours was wrong.” The last part was directed at Mũsango. “We have all been awake for more than eighteen hours. We are due for some shut eye time.”

“You are right. Some might have taken naps in the waiting room, but the twelve hours before departure had been brutal for all.” Mũsango agreed with her.

“I’ve said this before and I’m going to say it again this is very anticlimactic!” And I wasn’t lying. The Anti-Acceleration field meant that we hadn’t felt the acceleration of the ship at all. And the stars were barely moving across the Bridge Display. The only thing showing any substantial change in size was our destination, the Moon. It was quickly filling up the Bridge Display.

“Can you imagine if this was our maximum velocity? How long would it take to move between the planets? How long would the whole expedition take?” Kalũki asked from her station. And the answer was simple, if we adjusted the time we spent at each destination, we could finish the expedition in roughly the same amount of time.

“I don’t think it would affect the overall trip that much.” Matt started explaining to her. “Take the trip to Jupiter as an example, with our projected top velocity it would take us roughly more than half an hour. At our current velocity that becomes three hundred hours. That’s roughly fourteen days. Given we are planning to spend more than a month around Jupiter, we can easily lean our schedule and depart for Saturn at the allotted time.”

“Then why aren’t other companies or nations making this journey?” Kalũki asked.

“Where have you been?” Mũsango asked her in disbelief.

“Wh—”

But Mũsango continued. “Other than us, everyone else takes weeks to get to Mars at its closest. It would take us minutes.”

As they continued their arguments, I got from my seat and stretched, popping a few joints in the process. I stepped off the Command platform and moved to the Bridge Display. I felt a little nervous as I approached it, even though I knew that it was a screen and behind it was more than a meter separating me from space, it still felt like I was walking to edge of nothing. That I could just walk off it.

When I reached it, I stood there just staring out. Trying to get used to it. Even this close, it still looked real. Like I was actually staring into space itself. I placed my hand on it to get a sense of where the Display was at before pressing my head against it, trying to look as far down as I could.

“What are you doing?” Cindy asked. When no one answered, I turned around only to find them staring at me.

I pointed to the edge of the Display and said, “Trying to see if I can see the outside of the ship from here.” I waited to see who would bite. Kalũki, Mũsango and Pon immediately rose from their seats and went to the Bridge Display. I started laughing when Matt too got from his seat.

“What?” Chantel asked, looking from me to Cindy to the Bridge Display, like we were sharing a joke she was not privy too. Cindy shook her head. And Chantel focused all her attention on me.

“I don’t see anything. Only space,” Mũsango finally said.

“Of course, you don’t. It’s a screen. It doesn’t matter where you are, as long as you are seeing the whole screen then you are seeing everything the screen can show you.” I paused to get a laugh out. “We would have to turn the cameras to be able to see the ship itself.”

“You are evil.” Matt said as he got back to his seat.

“That’s where you are wrong Matt, this is not what makes me evil.”

“Then what does?” Mũsango asked as she looked at the Command Platform, having returned to her seat and turned it around, the spectacularity of the approaching celestial body having worn off already.

I smiled at her as I settled back on my seat, “Stick with me and you’ll find out.”

 

…[ ANDREW ]…

Andrew had spent the whole duration of the departure in his crew quarters, like most of the crew had. The hours leading to departure had been exhausting, and Andrew truly appreciated what the simulations had put them through. If not for them, he wasn’t sure he would have made it through without collapsing of exhaustion. He had been tempted to just lay in bed the hour leading to the departure. But the anticipation and anxiousness of all the things that could go wrong kept him awake long enough. Until the Commander, Mativo, announced the six minutes to the Moon. Knowing that the ship would spend six hours orbiting the Moon without anyone allowed out, he settled down for a nap. The six-hour orbit was to allow the crew to get some needed rest time from the rigorous departure.

When he woke up, the digital clock in his quarters showed that around five hours had passed. They were nearing the time when the first shuttles would be allowed to descend to the Moon. He hastily made his way to the adjacent bathroom to clean up. It still baffled him how his bathroom on the ship was way better than the one they had back on Earth. It had everything; from a bathtub, to a shower, a sink with a mirror, a medicine and sanitary cabinet, a flush toilet, and was still spacious enough not to feel cramped. It was too spacious.

He decided on a quick warm shower and donned clean uniform before moving to the living room. It was the largest room in the crew quarters, covering close to half the area. The whole crew quarters had a square layout with the bedroom and bathroom using up the remaining floor space. It had a work desk on one side opposite the door, with a desktop computer on it. Mounted on the wall was a large TV screen, easily over hundred centimeters diagonally. And in front of it, a three-seat sofa. The walls, floor and ceiling were the dull white of the rest of the ship, with the furniture being different shades of grey. There had been different color schemes to choose from for the furniture, Andrew had settled on the least eye interruptive scheme he could find while still offering contrast.

He switched on the desktop and send a request for a communication channel with his family. As he waited, he switched on the TV to see what was on offer. The ship had lots of entertainment media in store. It also received and stored news broadcasts from the major broadcast stations in all the human colonies. There was also the option to request anything currently not on the ship’s storage network. They must have spent sweet money for this, Andrew thought as he settled on one of the news channel. They were talking about the departure and the speculated expedition path they would follow. Watching the ship steadily lift off the Earth and soar to the stars, with nothing more than a barely audible hum, was exhalating.

A ping from the desktop alerted him that a channel had been established. He spent the next half hour chatting with the whole family. He said his goodbyes when he got the alert in his Communication Device, Comms in short, that his shuttle to the Moon would be leaving in twenty minutes. He quickly tidied up his quarters before leaving for the Shuttle Bay in the lower decks.

When he reached the Shuttle Bay deck with minutes to spare, he found the other twenty crew scheduled for departure to the Moon surface all ready. They were holding chatter amongst themselves. The shuttles had the same look as the ship itself, but were more streamlined. They had elongated noses and a tapering tail. Their overall design screamed made for plowing through an atmosphere.

“Hi, Alison.” He greeted one of the people as he approached near their shuttle. She was tallish, taller than Mativo, but Andrew couldn’t tell more than that. Red hair, and a slightly freckled face. She worked in the Kitchen Deck and it showed.

“Thought you weren’t going to make it.” She was in a group of five, two males, two females, and the last one Andrew wasn’t sure.

“I told you I have an important meeting with a former colleague of mine. I wouldn’t dream of missing it.”

“So you aren’t going for sightseeing?” one of the males asked.

“The Moon is…”

Alison laughed before replying, “Yeah, yeah. You one of those who don’t think there is anything to see.”

“It’s not that there is nothing to see on the Moon, it’s just …” Andrew didn’t want to finish that sentence. It’s not that it was bad to have an opinion on the Moon, he just didn’t like arguments. Which this topic had proved to be prone to.

“I think the word you are looking for is boring,” their shuttle pilot for this trip said as he joined them. Andrew thought his name had been Jack. Or was it Jake? And he did emphasize the boring part. He moved straight for his seat and started the shuttle up. “Come on people, we don’t have all day.”

Andrew took a seat somewhere in the middle of the shuttle. It maintained the theme of the ship, and had a total of twelve seats, two columns of six seats each. There was also a cargo hold on the back. Other than the two front seats, all the others could be moved about to create more room for cargo. They were rated at a carrying capacity of ten thousand kilograms. That was enough material to build five of them with. Assuming there was no waste material.

The Shuttle Bay doors slid open and the two shuttles were off to the Moon. It still amazed Andrew how the ship’s Gravity Device was able to hold on to the air within the Shuttle Bay with the doors open. He understood the physics behind it, but still, it was amazing.

Andrew still felt bad for not qualifying to be a shuttle pilot. All crew had taken the qualification test but less than a third had actually passed well enough to be licensed as shuttle pilots. Of course, Andrew could still pilot a shuttle, only if most of the crew were incapable of doing so. Of their research team, only Jacy, Mbithe and Mativo had qualified as shuttle pilots. In fact, the whole crew had trained and taken qualification tests for all but the senior positions in the ship. Only five had qualified for more than ninety percent of the positions, Jacy been one of them, the little midget. And only two had passed all qualification tests. Andrew had qualified for a respectable seventy-eight percent of the positions.

One of the reasons the crew had been so against the Moon stopover became apparent when they landed. They had to don their spacesuits, a laborious activity on its own and vacuum the shuttle, a time consuming process. After what felt like ten minutes, they finally made it to one of the air-gates to the Capital Colony. One of ten such colonies on the Moon, each accommodating an average of around twenty thousand humans at any given time.

After going through Admission, Andrew followed Alison as she quickly led him to the League of Nations Luna Research Institute, otherwise known as LeNaLRI. While she seemed comfortable with the Moon’s less than ideal gravity, he was a lumbering mess. Sometimes going so far up that she had to pull him back down. One of the areas he had not fared so well in training rearing its ugly head. She immediately left right after depositing him at its doors, off to the business that had brought her to the Moon. He was planning to meet with Dr. Anatoly, one of the few lead researchers in the field of nanotechnology. He hesitantly made it inside, heading to the receptionist’s desk.

“Hi, Dr. Simmons. Dr. Anatoly is expecting you. Head this way, Room 26.” The receptionist didn’t even give him time to say anything before he was herded away.

“Thank you.” He told her, but she had already gone back to whatever she had been doing.

He followed the hallway she had directed him at, with airlocks opening and closing every twenty meters or so as he approached them. By the fifth airlock, he finally saw Room 26. He pressed the announce button and the door opened after a few seconds. It closed behind him after he walked in.

“Ah! My colleague, you made it.” Dr. Anatoly finished up on what he had been reading on the pamphlet, placing it on his desk, screen down. “How does finally stepping off the Earth feel like?”

“Actually, I was fine until I came on the Moon. The low gravity is not agreeing with me.” Andrew took a seat Dr. Anatoly had gestured at.

“Should you be on this expedition then? All places you visit will be low gravity, no?”

“I can work just fine; doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it all the time.”

“The price we pay for gaining knowledge of the universe’s secrets.” He leaned forward, resting his hands on his desk. “Let’s talk secrets.”

They talked for hours on a lot of topics. From the topic that had brought Andrew to the Moon, nanos, to other emerging fields such as cryogenics, biological immortality, and even the hot new topic, biological brain preservation. It was talked in hush hush conversations. Only a few companies were working on it, and they were actively stealing from and sabotaging each other. Andrew knew a lot more than Dr. Anatoly, but he kept that to himself. Maybe Dr. Anatoly was doing the same. That was the nature of it. They soon moved onto more personal topics, talk of wives and children, and others that Andrew was uncomfortable with. An alert on his Comms for the hour-mark to departure saved him from scarring things he might have heard. He bid his goodbyes, and quickly left the LeNaLRI building. He had gained a lot, and also learnt things he wished he hadn’t. A shiver ran through his whole body as he made it to the air-gate.

It didn’t take long before the others joined him. Alison was carrying two boxes, and she wasn’t the only one. One of her boxes was marked live which meant that it contained animals, the other one could have been anything. But given that most food plants didn’t require special care while moving through vacuum for short periods, it wasn’t that far-fetched to assume that everything she had was Kitchen Deck related.

“What do you have there?” He pointed to the live-marked box.

“These beauties proliferate like crazy. In three months, these four will turn into hundred. And their meat is tender and juicy. Trust me, it’s the best you have ever tasted.” She didn’t even say what they were.

Andrew went to ask what they actually were, but the pilot asked them to prepare for moving to the shuttle. They closed their visors and prepared their suits. Soon, they were let out into the Moon atmosphere. They made it to the shuttle with no issues and began the process of pressuring it. And then removing their suits as the shuttle flew back to the ship. By the time he remembered, he was already back to his quarters. He decided to pay the Farm Deck a visit at least once during the trip.

He settled down on his desk, and began recording everything he had learnt from Dr. Anatoly. He would peruse it later and do more research of his own. He could have carried a recording device, but Dr. Anatoly would have noticed and that would have ruined their relationship. By the time he was done, he was tired all over again. He took another quick shower and went to bed. By the time he woke up, less than twenty-four hours would be remaining before their departure to Jupiter.