Going Interstellar (collection)

Goss felt the weight of the AI’s latest pronouncement as if it were a blanket made of lead. They were headed toward an uninhabitable star system and he had to decide whether or not to change course back to a star system that the commander had decided was unsuitable—for some as-yet unknown reason. There was not enough fuel to go anywhere else.

“Please explain in more detail the fuel situation.”

In response, the AI projected a graphical representation of the ship’s trajectory toward Tau Ceti, showing how its antimatter reserves would be depleted in the propulsive maneuver that would send them back there and into orbit around one of its planets. It then flashed a series of potential trajectories that would change the course of the ship to any number of nearby stars and the fuel required to both change course and to stop at the new destination. In each case, the ship ran out of fuel before it could slow and enter into any other planetary orbit.

“Can you tell me why we didn’t remain at either our primary or secondary targets?” Goss asked, thinking that perhaps both worlds were inhospitable for life, causing the captain to push for yet another possible destination. But why had he killed Herndon?

“Commander Vasquez did not log an explanation for rejecting either planetary destination. The orbital assessments were completed as planned and both worlds were found to be habitable by humans. Neither showed any evidence of intelligent life.”

Goss was stunned. They’d passed up two habitable planets in two different solar systems. Now they were approaching a third that was uninhabitable and they didn’t have enough fuel to try a fourth alternative. The commander had killed his first officer, for some unknown reason, and they’d all been asleep for nearly two thousand years. Hello. What the hell is going on?

Goss rose from the command chair, feeling totally uncomfortable with the burden that was now on his shoulders. Looking around the eerily quiet room, he felt painfully alone. For a moment, he seriously considered returning to the comfort of his VR-induced dream world.

He, and every member of the crew, had preprogrammed into the computer system their general wishes for the type of virtual reality scenarios they’d wanted to experience during the long voyage. The liquigel and the regular neuromuscular stimulation that went with it had kept their bodies alive and in peak condition while they slept. The VR scenarios had done the same for their minds and right now Goss wished he were one of the crew, blissfully unaware of the impending crisis, living out some extended adventure in a dream-like stupor. But it was a fleeting thought. He’d always preferred reality to the VR sims—that was one of the reasons he’d volunteered for the trip to Epsilon Eridani. Goss had to get away from the existential existence that was slowly creeping across the Earth and sapping the lifeblood out of the people there.

Now that’s a thought. I wonder what’s happening back on Earth? I’ll check on that after I’ve figured out what to do and what prompted Vasquez to commit murder.

“Did you record the murder of First Officer Herndon and what led up to it?” Goss asked the AI.

“Yes. Would you like to view the recording?”

“Play it.”

The images of the local stellar coordinates and potential ship trajectories blinked off, and were replaced by a holographic representation of the control room, the same room in which Goss was now standing, only this time it was occupied by both Vasquez and Herndon. In the bottom right corner was the clock displaying both ship time, taking into account the time dilation effects from traveling at a substantial fraction of the speed of light, and Earth time. Goss was momentarily fixated on the clock, not yet paying attention to what Vasquez and Herndon were saying.

When this conversation was taking place, nine hundred years had passed on Earth. And these events happened over one thousand years ago. Goss held his breath while he thought about his friends, his brothers and sisters, and all that he knew—now probably totally forgotten by anyone and everyone at home.

Vasquez’s angry voice roared out of the hologram.

“Herndon! We can’t do it. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m forty-eight years old and outside of VR, with good medical care, I might live to be a hundred. But down there it will be a hard life these next fifty years. How could we have been so stupid as to think we could come to a primitive world and build a new civilization?”