Going Interstellar (collection)

In the zero gee of the Photrek Courser’s midcourse glide, this push sent him arrowing down the broad keel-way of the ship, the trussed sections moving past him like a cubist tunnel of groined vaults. Speeding past dozens of module access doors, he did not start grazing his fingertips against the ceiling until he was within twenty meters of the midship array. As he began to slow, he also started a slow rotation into a feet-first attitude.

Having had almost a year of practice, Harrod timed the transition almost perfectly: the plane of his body was parallel with the ceiling as he slowed into a leisurely drift and reached out to grab the hatch-ring of the access tube. He tugged to a stop, and oriented himself; the impression that the access hatchway was in the ceiling was suddenly gone. The visual sense of up/down quickly recalibrated: now, there was no perceivable difference between the ceiling, floor, and bulkhead. He opened the hatch manually and towed himself inside.

Once in the array’s dim control suite, he strapped himself into the lead operator’s chair and assessed the equipment’s status. The sensors themselves were continuing the routine he’d initiated two weeks ago; the computer—its blue flickers ghostly in the inky suite—was still grinding through the reams of data they’d gathered on what was to be their new home.

Still at seven light years distance, the Courser’s sensors were straining to get anything useful at all. To make matters worse, the midship array was primarily a communications cluster: the main sensor array at the bow was unavailable. Photrek Courser’s current segment of travel had brought her within half a light year of a brown dwarf, increasing the densities of both available volatiles and useless dust. Consequently, the Courser’s best array was fully committed to detecting and eliminating navigational hazards while the ram scoop replenished a little hydrogen. Even more important were the sparse amounts of oxygen they gathered: the hydroponics had not functioned as well as hoped. The ninety-nine percent closed bioloop of the life-support system had proven to be more like a ninety-six percent closed bioloop, so any oxygen was a very welcome addition to their resources. But with the main array committed to these crucial tasks, Harrod’s long-range planetographic data-gathering had been unavoidably retasked to the secondary, midship array.

The good news from these sensors was that a bit of new data had finally emerged from the spectral minutiae. The bad news was that the data were not particularly encouraging. At least, Harrod reflected, Bikrut was not around to receive the report: his next awakening was still some years off.

The computer was now able to construct a graphic of the system’s six planets, but the one in the second, habitable orbit was flagged red. A small world with a thick atmosphere, the greatest fears regarding its suitability had been the possibilities that the atmosphere was comprised of lethal gases or that its proximity to the primary would produce a runaway greenhouse effect.

Unfortunately, according to the data, the news was worse than either alternative—because it indicated that both conditions existed. The atmosphere was largely carbon dioxide, with a heavy mix of sulfur compounds, and a planetside equatorial temperature of about 290 degrees centigrade, plus or minus thirty degrees.

So now all their hopes centered on the rather scant possibility that the smallish gas giant in the third position would have a suitable satellite. However, at this distance, even the main arrays of the Photrek Courser would have been unable to acquire reliable data on a moon. Perhaps its mass and period could be discerned, if they were very lucky. But the typical profusion of satellites about a gas giant made gravimetric, and therefore orbital, data suspect, so focused observation upon any one of those worldlets would remain impossible until they got considerably closer.

Harrod turned off the computer and stared at the dim, orange-lit controls. Now the debates would begin: with the first vat-born crewmen to be decanted within the decade, the old plans for a small generation of helots had to be revisited. Although originally envisioned as the first settlement wave, there was clearly need of a contingency plan if it turned out that there were no habitable moons. In that case, there would be no need for settlers, but an urgent need for a workforce which could ready the ship for a further voyage to another promising star. So, what mix of ready embryos should be fertilized for the autowombs and ultimately, the growth-acceleration vats? Would the Exodate need strong backs or strong brains?

Harrod looked out the small porthole at the stars, and marveled at them: they were so sure in their places, so serene in their existence.

So unlike humans.

— 8 —

66th Year of the Sixth Exodate