(There are italicized words in this chapter that are foreign. Knowing their meaning isn't needed, but it helps know the characters using them a bit more. The final chapter of this book is a listing of these words with their meanings.)
Hari turned left out of the bridge, as he'd seen his cabin just abaft of the entrance hall as they came aboard. He opened the door and found a huge room. There was a spiral stair to the right, a lounge in front, a huge window on the far wall, and a door off to the right. Entering that door, he found a massive bedroom, 5m by 3½m, with its own window, a deep closet and private facilities.
He smiled at the huge bed, thinking back to the times he'd been in the 'roid belt on what was comparatively a tramp schooner with hammocks crammed in the galley for the crew's accommodations.
Going down the staircase, he found basically empty rooms, one below his living area, and one under his bedroom, also both with windows. The curve of the hull made them slightly smaller, but not enough to notice.
Going back to the main deck, he left and found Dannay. "Captain, is there a mistake? My room is ..."
She noticed a pause when he said this, so she decided to help out. "Huge? Ginormous? Tremendous?" offered Dannay. "Yeah, we had two options for this excursion – we could use a small crew and have huge appointments, like you are seeing, or we could have a much larger crew and lose out on some of the more focused testing we've been asked to do. Follow me, and I'll explain." She then led him to her ready room, off the back of the bridge, where she laid out some of the plans for their expedition.
– o O o –
Emeka smiled as he left the bridge. He loved this ship, especially after Dannay decided it was a good idea to go with the pool. He swam nearly every day, and tried to get a few klicks in during each session. He knew he wasn't a champion swimmer, but he was also not young anymore, so between this and walking the Atlantean islands, he was content.
He was sixth generation Atlantean. He'd been on all three islands, helping optimize their control systems. Clarke was under the first GeoDock, and Heinlein was the original home of the Atlantean scientists. But here on Asimov was where he felt most at home. Born and raised here, he'd helped hundreds of refugees settle into Atlantean life. He'd seen joy when some were allowed to remain, as well as the disappointment of those who were only transitory.
He dropped his thoughts of his past. As he went on to his suite, he saw the doctor walk into her own. He smiled as he figured she'd flip when she saw how large it was – that was what they'd hoped each of the crew would feel. Yes, the redundant power and drive systems enabled the huge size of the living quarters, but this ship could have been bogged down with 500 crew instead of five. He and Dannay fought to keep it minimal, if only so some very specific (and highly useful, in the long term) tests could be run. A larger crew would have made that impossible.
Thinking back to Gamal, when he and Dannay had picked the minimal crew a few months back, they were stricken with Gamal's. They knew of her assistance with the Sishi Clan's "fifth planet" discovery, from the remains of a planet they found in the asteroid belt. But in her résumé, under the requested "desires" section, she noted that she would love to voyage into deep space.
When Dannay told him she would take no other as her engineer, he was please and humbled. This woman, though, had dreamed of heading out to the stars for years. He could get behind that – and behind her was a nice place to be, too, he chuckled to himself.
"Thinking of the doctor, my friend?" he heard his wrist comp guess.
"Sherlock, as ever, your astuteness astounds me. How did you get that from my little chuckle?"
"Emeka, you just passed her door, you helped the captain pick her, and she's got what you like in a woman – brains, a great smile, a desire to see the stars, and a cute tush. Who else would you be thinking of?"
Emeka laughed then blew a raspberry at his wrist. "Simple when you say it, Mr Holmes. Now, I think ..."
"... you'll head down to the pool. No guess there, my friend." With that comment, he heard a chuckle as well.
Laughing again, Emeka dropped his toga in his hamper, then headed to the pool.
– o O o –
Dr Gamal ElDin had never been to space, but had always wanted to go. In the résumé requested for joining this crew, that was the only thing she put in the "desires" section they requested. "I want to journey deep into space – to travel the stars, literally." And she had never gone up to any of the three GeoDocks because she wanted her first trip to space to be momentous – not just the "Atlantean Tourist Stop" she felt the 'Docks had become.
She'd been raised on Asimov Island, where her parents had emigrated when they'd met the Foundation's requirements for admission. Outside her position as physician at the Asimov Medical Institute, her passion was archaeology, which led her to the find that the Sishi clan had brought from the asteroid belt nearly half a century before. But that was all here on the island.
And now she was part of the first team that would be heading to the stars. She was aboard as the physician, but they all knew that she'd have first access if they were to find anything of cultural significance. She felt she was sleepwalking and was pinching herself every fifteen minutes or so just to prove to herself that this was real.
She knew some of these people by their reputations. Dannay had sailed throughout the world's oceans, and was a noted xeno-biologist. Hari had been on several trips through the asteroid belt finding resources to add to Arret as well as to the Atlantean islands. And Emeka had a passion for optimizing the equipment that was running each of the islands, so she was sure he'd already gone over this ship with his proverbial fine-toothed comb.
And she was included with these exceptional people.
The only one she didn't have a lot of information about was young Ksenia, who she only knew was their astronomer, and was chosen due to her exceptional "out-of-the-box" doctoral dissertation. She'd just turned 21, yet her paper rocked the rest of her field. Gamal smiled to herself. "And she doesn't realize the effect she's had, you can tell by looking at her," she said to herself.
"No, Gamal, dear, Ksenia doesn't," her wrist comp, Serket, responded.
Gamal snickered. "You always know what and who I am thinking about, don't you, dear friend?"
"No, sweet, only when you are obvious. It's just that you are obvious much of the time," was the giggled response.
"It's just such a remarkable group, though," she murmured.
And she was going with them. She was in daze as she opened the door to her suite. On seeing its size after she opened the door, that's the least she could call it – it was nearly as large as her apartment near the hospital; she guessed it was 25 square meters, and she saw a door to another room as well as a stairway to another level.
She looked back across the salon where she saw the infirmary. After having Serket drop her bags in her room, she walked across to check it out. It mirrored her rooms in size. It looked as properly equipped as any hospital, with autodoc, statis system, and various cabinets. She had filled out a questionnaire about what medical supplies she might need for a long distance voyage when she had applied to be part of this crew; she was sure she would find everything she'd requested. And like in her room, there was a stair going to the lower level, where she found more equipment for her use if necessary.
She left the infirmary from the lower level, and found Emeka swimming breaststroke in the pool. The pool went right through the middle hallway of the lower level. "Hello, Emeka," she called as she walked along the pool and saw his "swimwear". "I take it there's no suit requirements?"
Emeka smiled, "No, Doc, as in all Atlantis exercise settings, wear what you feel comfortable with. And if there were any rules, we'd repeal them anyway," he added with a happy grin.
"If that's the case, give me a few minutes and I'll join you," she said with her own smile. She rounded the end of the pool and went back to her room. She went to her bedroom, and slipped out of her toga, grabbed a towel and left her room at the lower level. Then she was back at the pool, where she slipped in and started her own lazy swim in the other lane.
– o O o –
Once Dannay and Hari finished their discussion, she led him to the salon for a crew meeting. On their way, she called down to the two swimmers, "Hey, Emeka and Gamal, can you run up here for a bit? I'm hoping we can have a crew meeting and start our introductions."
After getting confirmation that they'd be up shortly, Dannay went past the salon and knocked on Ksenia's door. "Da, Kapitan?" said Ksenia as she stepped out of her door.
Dannay smiled, "Ksenia, dear, follow me. We're going to have a meet-and-greet in the salon." And they went back to the salon to join Hari. "We're going to get to know each other a bit for the next week before we actually debark on this momentous journey. But I thought I'd lay some groundwork now."
Once the swimmers had joined them, she kicked things off, saying, "First off, if you didn't catch it when you arrived, I am Dannay unless we are underway. And even then, we aren't a naval vessel – or as Emeka likes saying, a belly-button vessel ..."
Emeka cut in, "Hey, you were the one who misspelled it on your explanation of what you intended to do!"
"Yeah, rub it in. But it wasn't misspelled – it was just the wrong spelling, and Andi 'thought better of' catching it. Anyway, I selected each of you because of your skills."
She then turned to Hari, saying, "Hari, I've selected you because of your years as a sailor and on space-ship crews, where you worked your way in both from deck hand to first mate. You will be my first officer and second in command."
"Thank you, Captain ... er, Dannay," responded Hari. "This means a lot to me, and I'm hoping I do not let you down."
"Believe me, Hari, you won't – I don't make mistakes when I pick people. Gamal – stop dripping on me," she chuckled. "You have many years of experience in our hospital here, but what led me to select you was your interest in archaeology. While our chances of actually making a 'Sishi clan find' on our trip are slim, I wanted someone who would be able to handle one if we did."
"And now for Emeka – who also appears to be soaking me, thank you very much! Emeka and I were members of the ten-person group that designed this ship. Once we had the basic concepts understood, we decided we'd need redundancy in both our energy generation and our propulsion. That redundancy gave us the basic size of our Udyamita – so you can thank it for our huge staterooms," she included with a chuckle, and was joined by the others.
She went on, "For more information about the mechanicals on Mita, I'll let our engineer take over. Emeka?"
Emeka nodded, "Thanks, Dannay. Friends, we have four gravtech powered fusion reactors on this ship, eight GravDrives, and four FTL engines. We can fully lose ¾ths of these and still be able to limp home (albeit at a reduced pace).
"You note that our ship is taller than our living areas, and I assure you that it extends well below it as well. The areas above and below us are taken up with carrying our fuel – which is pure clear drinking water – and still has room for storage that we can use on our return home.
"I'm sure each of you also saw that you have a 'basement' to your stateroom that is empty. We wanted room for you to bring souvenirs back with you, within reason."
"Dannay, what reasons would be unacceptable?" grinned Hari. "I always wanted a tribble, or a flat cat."
Dannay and Gamal groaned at this. "Really?" said Emeka. "You want to have all our food eaten before we reach home?"
The others laughed, but Ksenia tried to get her head around the interplay. Until she was more comfortable with the other four crew members, she was afraid she was out of her league. "Kapitan? I am not sure I understand," she interjected.
Dannay smiled. "Ksenia, again, no need to be formal. The five of us are going to be close (closer, probably) than we've been to most anyone on this little jaunt, so I'm 'Dannay' unless it's something about the operation and safety of the ship.
"And as for your understanding, back about 200 years before Atlantis – I still think we need to get around to accepting the PA or BA designator! And we'd better not slip into Latin – I hate the fact that early scientists saddled us with that dead language centuries ago!
"Anyway, way back then, R Heinlein wrote a story where the Stone family found what they called 'flat cats'; these critters only purred and ate. And reproduced. Then about thirty years later, D Gerold created 'tribbles' for the original Star Trek, and they only purred and ate. And reproduced."
Gamal took over, "And now, dear, Hari wishes the same misfortune upon us. Sweetie, in both of those stories, which I assure you were fiction, the space craft they were on ended up overrun by the beasties, as they had wormed their ways into the food stores."
Ksenia nodded. "Yasno," she responded. She then turned to Harri and said, "Hari, do you not like us?" as she pouted and turned her best "puppy-dog eyes" to him.
Hari stared open-eyed at Ksenia, then shook his head like he'd been brainwashed and broke free. "Wow, girl, if you weren't on the good side, I swear, I'd follow you to the dark side just because of your intoxicating eyes. How did you do that?" Turning to the captain, he asked, "Dannay, she isn't evil, is she? Please tell me she isn't!"
The others laughed, and Dannay shook her head 'no'. "No, Hari, you can't have a tribble, and our young Ksenia is not evil. But I'm hoping to turn her – after all, we have cookies." Which brought more laughter.
Then turning to Ksenia with a smile, Dannay went on, "This does bring me to you, Ksenia. Young lady, your doctoral dissertation on how to find habitable planets caught my eye (as well as those of others, which is also something you need to hear), which is the primary reason you are on this ship. I intend to find those planets, and I feel your method is going to be more profitable than any other I've read."
Dannay smiled and noticed Ksenia's face and neck turning a brilliant red under a resplendent smile. "Girl, if we could figure out a way to harness the energy, your megawatt smile could power this ship better than our reactors can!" This only made her blush all the more.
Dannay then turned to all of them and said, "Now, the rest of our evening I was hoping we'd spend some time learning a bit more about each other. And if you have things in a home here that you want, or if you are in an Asimov Island guest home – from today until you decide otherwise, this is your home. Move as little or as much as you wish here."
So the rest of the evening, they talked about their lives, what their interests were, and what they hoped they'd accomplish, both in their trip as well as afterward. Ksenia learned that not only was she the youngest, but she was also the only one who was first generation.
– o O o –
Early the next week, Dannay asked Ksenia to join her in her ready room. "We're going to talk about how you are going to help us move forward after we leave dock here."
"Xhorosho, then, Dannay. Of course, we have our first target star, at which we will arrive within a few days of leaving dock. As soon as we arrive, I have two immediate goals, am I right?"
"Yes, first will be to scope out the planets of our target star, and second will be to find our next step outbound. What resources do you need for both of those?"
Then for the next two hours, the two went over what Ksenia felt would be her – no, Ksenia rethought, these would be their best avenue for both of these tasks. She was truly no longer alone.
– o O o –
From the Personal Journal of Ksenia Solovyova
Date: 174-3-16
Aksana, my dear little comp, this place is a mansion. I cannot believe this room is all for you and me! 5m by 7m in each of two levels! Boginya, what am I going to do with all this space!? And only five of us are sharing this ship – if it was an ocean-going ship, it would be just as odd. But even though she floats on the water, we are taking Udyamita into space!
I am shocked. I am so far from Agzu, the tiny town I was born in – where my parents died when I had six years. Where I was taken in by the grocer because he needed more workers. Where I often slept with open sores because he hit me.
Ksenia, please, think of where we are now. Let us not dwell on what happened there and then, but on what you have become in the years since.
Ochen spasibah, Aksana, moya dorogaya druga. And I think I have come far. But I swear, I know my doctoral dissertation was new way of looking at things, I never thought it would lead me to this. I thank you for all your help through all of my years struggling. And for teaching me the stars that I already loved so much as a child. And now this – you know we have never lived in a home as large as just our primary rooms on the second floor.
Ksenia, dear, you exaggerate, but I understand your meaning. This is definitely an improvement in our life.
Da, Aksana, da, and such an improvement! Who would have thought that my way of finding new habitable planets would be so rewarding? Before Atlantis was founded, I have no idea what the astronomers were thinking, but most of the exoplanets they found that they said were possible "homes" for humans are worthless. Da, some are in the Goldilocks zone, and those have plenty of water. However, most they found had a gravity of over 1½EG. How is a human going to live in +½EG without losing motility? Not to mention how often the planet would be hit by space debris. I am just glad we have better resources now.
You and I decided that rather than trying to find proto-Earths, we should be looking at least for proto-Saturns if not proto-Jupiters, far enough from their G type primary – G3 or higher (like Sol, a G2V), would be best. And before the GeoDocks and their extreme advantage in quickly viewing the stars, astronomers were at a severe disadvantage. Imagine taking days to change the part of the sky the telescope was focused on – in the 'Docks, we changed in seconds between stars.
And G3+ stars, while common, were not easily seen from the ground. And being able to find those with cool- rather than hot-Jupiters was no simple feat. We still only know of one stellar system which we are sure has one, and we live in it already. Think how long it would take for another civilization to find Jupiter in our corner of the galaxy – she orbits Sol every 11 plus years.
Which is why we are going. I am the astronomer who has been assigned this ship. (That still has not sunk in. Even when I keep saying it – "I am the astronomer who has been assigned this ship." 😃) The Atlantis scientists figured out FTL travel, and have been testing it extensively to be sure it would not ... "blow up in our faces", I think we say. We also wanted to be sure that we could actually navigate to where we wanted to go. Now that the testing is complete, the Foundation will start sending us out in radial directions near the galactic plane. And our ship is first!
(As an aside, many thought we could use black holes or worm holes to travel, but I believe you would never know where you were going. So you may go and flip your infinite-sided coin to get where you want – is not my idea of having fun. Not to mention how you might defend those new locations if extraterrestrial life is found. How do you tell what infinite direction attacks would come from?)
So we go using targeted FTL drive. We have three primary goals. We will try to find, in order of expectations: a) more resources; b) other habitable planets; and c) intelligent life. So for each:
Resources: You can never have too many resources, as we learned when our country was new (170 or so years ago). We pulled as much as possible from the oceans, but we still relied on imports to get most of our resources. But after we added the three asteroids to our GeoDocks, that changed. Adding the three 1 klick asteroids as geostatic moons above our islands gave us resources. But as I said, you can never have too many. And with our FTL and GravDrive engines linked to the GravFusion reactors, getting large objects with useful resources back to Terra will be a snap.
(It took months to get the asteroids for the GeoDocks back from the belt, but Hari Kumari, our navigator, says it should only take days to get anything back from our multi-light year finds. Progress!)
I will add that, while there are septillions of tonnes of resources in our own planetary system, people would take a dark eye toward towing Venus around to L4 of Earth just so we could mine her. The same is true for the other terrestrial planets or moons, and the gas and ice giants would take extensive work to get to anything worthwhile (if it even existed). And we have already taken what is easily available in the asteroid belt for Arret, our "far-Terra" on the other side of Sol.
Anyway, onward with the goals of our mission:
Habitable Planets: Da, we live on one that we are helping get back on its feet after nearly ruining it up over the previous centuries, but like I said about resources, "you can never have too many". If we find anything that is fair game, we tell our Home Base, and they tell the rest of Terra. And whoever decides to will have us to pay if they ruin that planet. Planets do not come cheap. (Besides, we do not have full control of the cleanup of Terra, so having something to fall back on can never be a bad thing, pravda?)
Intelligent Life: According to our xeno-biologist / captain, Adannaya Gbadamosi, our theory in this area goes as follows (in her words): "We've had intelligent life on Terra for maybe 50,000 years. During that period, only for the last three centuries (being shockingly generous) have we been capable of leaving the planet. 300 years out of 50k, let alone the 4.5 billion Terra's been swinging 'round Sol, is such a tiny slice that even if someone was looking for us, they'd likely miss. It's like blinking your eye to see a fastball that you don't know when it's going to be thrown." So she says we are more likely looking for remnants, not actual "people". So we are looking for what the fastball hit, not the actual ball in flight. (But there is always chance for luck, da?)
Capt Dannay says this is like what the Sishi clan found in our own asteroid belt. They were able to show was the remains of a culture that was living on a planetoid orbiting in the L1 point of Jupiter many thousands/millions of years in our past – before humans had even decided it might be nice to live in caves rather than trees.
So, with that out of the way, we are going to try to find G3 or higher stars (our G2 star is higher than G3, in case you needed to know), and are blinking to them across many light years. Then we will look for the above items once we arrive. If we find nothing, we search again from that location – as I said, while we can see the G3+ stars from Terra, there is much more we cannot see.
The way we see, nearly every star we visit will have excellent resources we can take with. We will look for specific needed elements, but we will take others if they come easily. So when we look into the systems, we will seek a) an asteroid belt, and b) what resources can be readily taken from one if it exists. And remember, asteroids are not thick, like in the space operas you see online – the average mass per cubic meter of our asteroid belt is zero. So finding them is not as simple as you would think. (And remember, from a distance, asteroids are tiny!)
If, when we arrive, we find a gas giant anywhere near the Jupiter-equivalent distance (far enough out to be cold – near 5 AU, but modified to take into account the star it circles), we should then check inside its orbit for small, terrestrial planets. If we find something, we should study it from space before landing. (Nice of our leaders to tell us that, because we are surely going to land before doing a survey. No reason looking before we leap, da?)
And as noted, what we will be looking for are a) water and lower-level life, and b) any indications of intelligent life. If b ends up being active life, so much the better (depending on their reaction to us, of course), but we are not expecting miracles here.
Others have asked why we do not just check for the terrestrial planets, regardless of proto-Jupiter sitting out there, and my answer was this: "While it is possible for a terrestrial planet to host life without a massive planet outside its orbit, it is unlikely. Think of Jupiter as our umbrella – it blocks many hazardous objects from crashing into Terra at cosmic speeds. If these had been hitting Terra every few centuries, how would we get around to the job of evolving to the level of intelligence you currently have, let alone to truly intelligent life?"
– o O o –
It was finally the day they were leaving. Ksenia was at her station, dressed as a pirate wench by the captain's order (not the wench part, but the pirate part), when Capt Dannay entered the bridge, in full pirate captain regalia. From his workstation on the right, Emeka (the captain's first mate, right down to his hook for a hand and peg leg) barked, "Captain on deck!"
Dannay laughed, and said, "Arrrr! Fuck you, Emeka, arr do we be telling everyone 'bout your exploits in Clarke Island?"
Behind Dannay, across from Emeka, Gamal snickered, "Seriously, Dannay, I've probably heard most of them already. Not much leverage there, I'd say."
With a wide smile still on his face, Emeka responded, "But Cap'n, Clarke was so close to Bangkok ... Ah, those were fun times. At least she knows better than to go before Clarke, right, Dannay?"
Dannay smiled and nodded, "Arrr, too true, 'Meka me lad. Nothin' happened afore Clarke or Atlantis, be me right? Arrrr!! And I be glad to see all me crew be prepared to plunder! Mister Solovyova, contact that daft harbor master and request permission to depart, arrr!!"
Ksenia smiled as she looked at a page on her wrist-comp. Then, on her console, she opened the comm link to the yard master, and read verbatim, "Arrr, ahoy, AGV Udyamita to Asimov Island control, we be prepared for departure, and be only waiting to be hearing you to give us clearance, arr!"
The laughter they all heard over the channel said she'd been heard. Once it had quieted, they heard a deep voice saying, "Avast, ye swabs, ye be granted yer clearance, and we be castin' ye forth to where there truly be dragons! Hail and well met, Udyamita, and be ye lucky enough to find either loot or bounty, we be hopin' ye bring 'em home and share yer stories in some chanteys over some grog at the tavern 'pon yer return! Fair wind and followin' seas to ye, Udyamita!"
"We be thanking you – er, ye, harbor master. We be off!" said Ksenia.
Dannay grinned, and said, "Avast ye swabs, there's gold out there! Mister Kumari, be all lines cast off!?"
"Aye, Cap'n, all lines be cast off!"
"Well, then, Hari, take 'er out an' let's see how she runs!!"
And with that, Hari worked his controls until the ship started to rise. Through the windows, Ksenia noticed the ship lifted from her mooring, and floating up into the air. "Rising smoothly, Cap'n," she called.
"Steady as she goes, then, Hari," Dannay said as they lifted higher, accelerating as they lifted. Her grin turned into a wistful smile. Then turning serious, she said just loud enough for them to all hear, "And may we have the joy of the stars to behold," as they watched the sky turn black.