Aurona, page 8
A few weeks of computer winnowing yielded his intended quota: six hundred of the most promising responders. Although the chaff had been separated, the most arduous part of the process now lay ahead: the personal interviews. He figured on three weeks of at least ten-to-twelve-hour days to skim off the cream of the crop.
An army of well-paid security guards and a forest of cameras would watch for the inevitable crackpots. The plainclothes agents were posted outside his penthouse door, in all the elevators, discreetly lining the downstairs marble foyer and blending in with the crowds outside in the street. Everyone was scanned for weapons before they entered his private elevator and were confronted at the slightest suspicion. Young and hopeful, they soon filled the waiting room of his newly renovated penthouse suite.
Attitude, aptitude, and heart: he carefully made his decisions. Along with a lot of genuine surprises, a few diamonds-in-the-rough and two polished gems lay at the bottom of his winnowing screen, people of exceptional character. Three hundred and fifty people would make up his team. It was a nice, round, manageable number, and nearly the limit the big starship could accommodate. Reading between the lines, it was quite obvious that Grandpa wanted him to start a colony. With this in mind, he carefully balanced out the genders with a slight advantage to the number of men. He knew firsthand the rigors and dangers of exploration from his years of working with the Star Flyers and explorers at IFA.
After a warm handshake, each new crewmember stepped onto the slow turntable inside Fabri Tech’s total body scanner. Sensors penetrated their clothing and recorded their actual body contours to measure them for a precisely fitting uniform. Adam issued each crewmember a wrist programmer, and just before they slipped on the flexible, rubbery strap, he programmed it with an individually coded and encrypted number. Secrecy was top priority. At a certain time at the end of the week, they’d be alerted to the location of their final rendezvous with a silent, running display on their screens.
As for Adam, although the arduous selection process was over, an even more trying time lay ahead. He had to settle all his own Earthly affairs in just five days.
Friday night. The long-anticipated hour had finally come. All over town, in hotels, movies and restaurants, a sudden, urgent series of wrist vibrations sent the crew scuttling into corners to shield their softly glowing screens from prying eyes.
The moving, encrypted words scrolled by: “Congratulations and welcome aboard,” Adam’s message began. “Say your good-byes…. Get some sleep if you can…. Final instructions to rendezvous will come … at precisely four in morning … on these wrist screens…. Come in secret and cover your trail…. Adam.
He was up at two. Everything was ready. The keys to his empty penthouse were in an envelope and he dropped it at the security guard’s station as he went by. That was it. The skyscraper “the Aerie” had been donated to G&A and everything he’d inherited was now in capable and extremely grateful hands. He’d carefully saved the small hip pack he was wearing since he was a child and it contained only a few treasured items: the three discs and holo-viewer, the two keys to the starship, a photo of himself with his parents and Grandpa, his favorite diploma, and a toothbrush.
Alone on the windswept street, he paused outside the Aerie to take in the beautiful building. Tears suddenly brimmed in his eyes. It had been a bittersweet time in his life, full of excitement and learning, yet marred with long empty holes of loneliness. He squared his shoulders and took a long, cleansing breath.
Public transportation was predictably sporadic at that hour and he ended up running the last three blocks to an abandoned warehouse near the docks. He glanced nervously at his programmer as he ducked inside. “Quarter to four,” he puffed. “Still have a minute or two to get into uniform before I send out the final signal.” As he flipped on the lights, he had to smile. “Max, Max, Max! Wow, an excellent job! The uniforms look great and they’re exactly what I asked for!” The crew from Fabri Tech had all the uniforms labeled and arranged alphabetically, hanging neatly on long racks. He brushed down a row, feeling the incredibly slippery slate blue material.
Finding his name, he impulsively stripped naked on the spot, pulled up the internal underwear, and zipped on the one-piece garment. The low-rise boots felt like he was walking on air. “Lookin’ good, man,” he strutted. “Fits like I was born in it!” As he glanced around the room for a mirror, he nodded in satisfaction at the hundreds of boxes of provisions now filling the warehouse and cramming the huge, portable walk-in superfridge: quite a change from a few days ago. No matter, plenty of help would arrive shortly to load it all into the starship. He held up his transmitter watch and counted down the seconds.
“Precisely four!” He punched out the signal. “There! No backing out now!!”
A few blocks away, a pair of scarred, trembling hands held up one of Adam’s rubbery wrist screens. A single bulb dangled from the ceiling over the man’s head, swinging slowly back and forth in the predawn darkness. The sound of the small beep summoned four figures out of the shadows to squint at the moving words. They rudely jostled each other to see.
“Well, well, transmission received,” a gravelly voice sneered. “And it’s a lot closer than we thought.”
“But-but how could it be in there?” a higher voice interrupted, sounding incredulous. “That dump’s been condemned for years!”
“Shut up, you boob!” another voice answered. “This guy’s smart. Too smart! You guys’ll hafta be smarter, hear me? We’ll bide our time, and when his guard is down we move! Now grab your stuff and let’s get going!”
Adam looked down, shaking his head. At his feet, looking like relics from the past, lay his rumpled, discarded clothes and threadbare hip pack. “Hmm,” he mused, “this’ll never do, not now! I gotta look the part!” Walking up and down the long aisles of supplies, he selected a slim attaché case and carefully laid his few personal belongings into it. Gathering up his old clothes and hip pack, he impulsively stuffed them into the warehouse’s ancient furnace. He slammed it shut with a decidedly loud bang.
“Helloooo!” A voice echoed behind him. “Anybody here?”
He collected himself and sauntered casually around the corner just as another figure entered and then another. “Hi,” he called out. “Wow, that was quick! Where do you guys live, down the hall?” He chuckled along with the trio. “Hey, since you’re the first ones here, help me tell the others what to do as they arrive.” He pointed down the aisles. “Tell them the uniforms are over there, arranged alphabetically, the forklifts and dollies are parked over there, and they’re to be all loaded immediately with the supplies that are located over there. Once everyone’s in uniform and the trucks are loaded, including what’s in the super fridge, we’ll open those big doors over there to get into the inner courtyard. Got it?”
Grinning, they nodded and eagerly flew to work. Within twenty minutes, the place was swarming with people climbing into uniforms in every available corner. At Adam’s request and surprisingly without a single exception, they all eagerly tossed their old clothes into the furnace, sending the flames high. This final act was cathartic and symbolic, but also practical: there’d be absolutely no trace of their rendezvous.
Adam directed the progress, carefully orchestrating their movements with smiles and hand signals, lining up the heavily laden supply trucks near the warehouse doors. Fighting a sudden wave of nausea, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Doors,” he mused. He found his heart was suddenly pounding. He stood quietly to the side, contemplating, his hand on his chin. “In ten minutes these rickety old warehouse doors should open to reveal….” He stood on his toes to clean a spot on the dirty glass. “T-to reveal what? It’s too dark yet. Grandpa, all I can say is that the ship had better be out there in the courtyard! If it isn’t, my name is mud!”
Almost time to leave. He took a breath, turned around, and raised his hands. “Okay, all of you,” he called out. “Let’s see: line up fourteen deep in twenty-five rows.” As they scuffed around, laughing and sorting themselves out, he stepped onto a box. “That’s right, you guessed it. There should be three hundred and fifty of you geniuses!”
When they’d settled down to a murmur, a small voice called out hesitantly from the back of the crowd. “Ah, sir. T-there’s three hundred and fifty-one, sir.”
Silence fell. A tall figure walked hesitantly toward the front, holding onto someone else’s hand. Adam squinted. Who was this? Someone he hadn’t interviewed? He leaned way out to the side to see a young boy coming toward him. A pert face smiled back warmly.
“Please explain yourself? Your name?”
The man looked apologetic, but spoke firmly. “My name’s Jon, sir, and this is Todd. He’s, ah, very friendly,” he offered lamely. “He’s my little brother, sir, and he’s got Down syndrome.”
“Yes, I can see that. Please continue?”
“Um, well, I’m his guardian. Our mom died in childbirth, Dad took off for parts unknown, and we’ve got no other relatives. We’d both like to come on this mission, but if you say no we’ll … we’ll understand.”
The crew leaned toward each other whispering in hushed tones. Nobody had counted on this development!
“Jon,” Adam murmured, trying to think. “Jon, Jon … yes, I remember you now. You really know your code! One of the best programmers in the business!” He hesitated a moment; the man was to play a vital role in the mission and couldn’t be replaced. He was smart, too. He’d played his cards right and had waited until the last second to drop his bombshell. He smiled, sighed, then dropped to one knee and held out his arms. “Okay,” he said softly. “Help the kid up here onto the box next to me. He’s too short. He won’t be able to see.”
The crowd broke into enthusiastic applause as he rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Todd’s eager, pixyish eyes seemed to be mirroring his own. Yes, he was an explorer, too! Not a person objected to Todd’s presence; they were all taken in by his cheerful spontaneous ways.
“I’ve chosen well,” Adam began, and meant it. A murmur of approval riffled through the crowd and smiles broke out everywhere. “Inside the right pockets of your immaculately tailored uniforms you’ll find your specific tailored orders. Your position and rank have been determined by me on the basis of your aptitude.” He turned to Todd, giving him a snappy salute. “Todd, there are two very petite young ladies in the back who would be delighted to share one of their three extra uniforms with you. Their size two should translate well. As for your specific, tailored orders, Todd? You’re to be Jon’s shadow. Stick to him like glue! Understand?”
The boy laughed delightedly, nodding his head vehemently.
“Okay! On my signal, we’ll take exactly fifteen minutes to load the cargo, get inside, and strap in!”
Light had begun to filter weakly through the dirty, broken windows behind him, silhouetting his rangy young form. He checked his watch and then delivered his own calculated bombshell. “As you see, dawn’s coming and we’ve gotta be out of here, pronto!” He took a long breath and began. “According to our flight schedule, about fifteen minutes after takeoff we’ll be outside the moon’s orbit and accelerating… hard! Next, Mars! For you number crunchers out there, I’ll give you a few simple math problems: right now, Mars is at its perihelion, or about 34 million miles from the Earth. Shortly, this ship will have reached about a 16th of light speed, or about 40 million miles an hour. Hmm, think hard now: Mars is 34 million miles away, so it should take a bit over an hour to get there. Right? Had enough math yet? Well, Jupiter’s next, about 450 million miles from Mars! We’ll have ramped up to a bit more than 1/3 of light speed by then, or over 250 million miles an hour.”
“Whoa!” A hand shot up amidst the sea of shocked faces.
He nodded, curtly. “Yes?”
“Sir!” The voice sounded incredulous. “That’s impossible! Those numbers don’t make any sense! Plus, we’d be crushed to bits!”
He smiled and continued resolutely. “In less than a month, at 9 billion miles from the Earth, we’ll be leaving the solar system! Still accelerating, mind you, and approaching light speed!” He was beginning to sound deranged. Another hand shot up.
“In what, sir?” A woman quavered. “Nothing can travel that fast, not to mention the forces of….”
Smiling, he cut her off politely with a finger to his lips. The crowd fell to an expectant silence. “You’ll be sleeping by that time,” he answered quietly. “The combined forces of impenetrable shields, a powerful internal antigrav system, and massive thrust from nuclear fusion will be whisking your suspended atoms through a wormhole and out of this galaxy in just six months.”
Eyes blinked. Jaws dropped. Heads shook. Their leader had spoken firmly, with authority. Adam checked his watch once again. “Ready?”
“Y-yes, sir?” they answered shakily.
On his signal, two men slid the wide doors open to the inner courtyard. Except for a few old tires, tons of rubbish and a few startled rats, the immense field was….
EMPTY!
He grimaced, then glanced furtively over his shoulder at the crew. Their necks were craning as they intently searched the big courtyard. A murmur of unrest swept the room: this was too much! Todd was looking, too, and slid off the box to run out into the field, his short legs churning up puffs of dirt. Apologizing profusely, Jon broke ranks and chased his brother out into the soft morning light.
Adam turned slowly to face the crew. “Anyone want to back out?” he challenged, reaching slowly into his attaché case. “It’s now or never….”
No one dared to move or speak; uncertain, they played along.
His heart was pounding loudly in his ears. “Grandpa,” he breathed, “Please, Grandpa….” Doing his best to keep his emotions in check, he braced his feet on the box and raised the two glowing keys over his head, twisting them in the air in a memorized sequence of moves. There, the remote signal had been sent. He puffed out his cheeks with a short breath and waited trembling, staring at the empty courtyard.
There was a faint sound of machinery, like a distant turbine winding up. An eerie fog appeared, beginning to swirl and coalesce into a titanic, amorphous shape. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a starship like no other began to solidify, slowly darkening the field like an immense eclipse, blotting out the first bright rays of dawn!
Out in the middle of the field, Jon and Todd fell to their knees and bent way back, their jaws gaping as they looked over their heads. In the warehouse, most of the crew leaned on each other for support.
Soft spheres of light started to glow under the colossal, smooth disc, bathing the field with an intensifying brilliance. Out of nowhere, an outline suddenly traced a hatch and a cargo hold appeared, lowering from an apparently seamless hull! The body of the ship seemed to have almost a SKIN that healed over, concealing its openings!
That was the final straw: with a loud cry, Todd cowered behind Jon’s back. Was that enormous thing an animal? Was it alive? The boy’s terrified whimpers shook Adam out of his trance and he came to, shouting out instructions.
“Okay! The dawn’s coming! Cargo in! People in! Doors shut! Ship gone! That’s it! That’s all!” He clapped his hands. “Move it! And don’t worry about tying any of the cargo down, the internal artificial gravity system’s fully automatic!”
Three men stopped cold, rope in hand and mid-lash, glancing at him in astonishment. He grinned disarmingly and shrugged, returning the incredulous stares of his three new resident physicists. “Hey, I don’t get it either!” he yelled. “This thing doesn’t have ‘Made on Earth’ stamped on the bottom! On the other hand, it did come with tons of instructions, and you’ll get to see them all later. Anything happening inside the shell of the ship is supposed to be completely independent of the outside, and vice versa!”
They glowered at him speechlessly, screwing up their faces.
“Hey, I got the equivalent of three doctorates before I was fourteen! I can’t figure it out either!”
They rolled their eyes at each other for a fleeting moment, then shrugged and joined the running throng, their immaculate white lab coats flapping along behind them, their uniformed, slate blue legs churning. Todd fell in right at their heels, busily shooing them along, with Jon in turn chasing him. Laughing to himself, Adam watched them all go. Who was supposed to be whose shadow, anyway?
His stomach growled loudly and reminded him of a last, important note. He looked up, shouting out a final order. “Hey! Food! Don’t forget all the fridge stuff! It’s super-frozen in those big Cryotanks over there!”
Huddled in a dark corner of the warehouse, a small group conversed in hushed tones. Although four of them were wearing official uniforms and were handpicked by Adam as crewmembers, the fifth was nearly undistinguishable in the shadows; a long, black cloak with a floppy, hooded cowl covered his features. They helped him scramble into a crate, then lowered the lid and picked up the box. Nodding to each other, they trotted out into the dawn, blending in seamlessly with the running crew.
It was amazing. Nothing was left behind. Not a trace. The trucks and forklifts were driven back inside the warehouse, the doors shut and locked and in just forty-five minutes they were sitting nervously in their assigned seats with every buckle secure. Adam settled into his commander’s chair, listening closely to some synthe-voiced instructions coming in through his ear inserts. He knew the entire journey had been preprogrammed into the grand craft’s incredible memory; he’d watched the demo on the holodiscs. The saucer’s entire trillion-petaflop assembly of amorphous chips was about the size of his body, including both the compact, supercooled optical cubes and miniature holo-relays.
