Bernard's Promise, page 6
part #7 of Hayden's World Origins Series
“So, I’ve been thinking,” Hitoshi says.
Ananke’s ripples rearrange themselves on her screen. “What’s on your mind?”
“Everyone’s always carrying you around. Maybe you’d like the ability to move around on your own.”
“I can always jump to any Q5 node.”
“True, but I was thinking more along the line of wings.”
Her screen flourishes orange. “Hrrm?”
“Okay, so, I could fab up a quadcopter body for you, and you could move around anywhere there’s air. Or, I could do a drone with an RF microdrive and you could fly in both air and vacuum. Just, you know, you’d need to recharge each day.”
“That’s…intriguing. I’d never considered that before.” She pauses. “I’m a bit worried that some people might find it threatening. AIs cause some humans distress even without the ability to chase them around.”
“Well, those people can get therapy and deal with their goofy issues.”
“I’ll think about it. Thanks, Hitoshi.”
Hitoshi looks back at the screen. “Have you decided if you’re going?”
“Oh yes,” Ananke says. “How could I not ride on the ship that I named? It’s Bernard’s dream, and mine, too. Will you go?”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little freaked out. I was pretty scared going to Erebus, but I’m strangely not as worried anymore. I have this feeling that we made it, and it’s like doing something you didn’t think you could do.” He smiles. “You know I’m a big fan of sci-fi stories and it’s like I get to be a character in one of them. It’s nuts.”
“Do you have family you’ll be separated from?”
Hitoshi nods. “My parents and sister. The odd thing is that it’ll only be a few weeks for me, but for them it’s nine years. It’s harder to make the decision when you’re not the one making the sacrifice.”
“Have you talked with them about it?'
“Yeah, they said they were proud of me and that the people that go on that ship will make history.”
Ananke listens, silent.
“Isaac and Ava have committed. Julian’s not sure. He’s dating someone, which will give new meaning to a long-distance relationship. Beckman…well, you know Beckman. You can’t pry information out of him.”
“It’s easier for me,” Ananke says. “I don’t have family.”
“Yes you do,” Hitoshi says. “You’ve got us.”
5
91 Minutes
Willow sits at the desk in front of the Senate Space Committee. She wears a navy blue dress and blazer with a U.S. State Department pin affixed to the lapel.
Senator Larson peers over his reading glasses. “Miss Parker.”
She smiles. “Senator. How can I help?”
“Curious what your angle is in all of this.”
“It’s to assist. We’re at the cusp of a great moment in history. I’m privileged to be a part of that team.”
Larson points with thumb over closed finger. She’s noted this is his body language when he’s trying to add gravity to a point. “Don’t you think that team would be better comprised of a group of experienced professionals?”
“Which professionals do you know with interstellar experience?”
Larson smiles.
“I’m only aware of eight,” she adds, “and they all work for James Hayden.”
Larson waves a hand. “You don’t know what type of threats the crew will face. Hell, the Janus mission showed us that, and that one was in our backyard. Don’t you think the mission would be better served with a military crew?”
Willow smiles. “You’ve got one. James Hayden, USAF. Guthrie Beckman, USN. Julian Laurent, U.N. Hermes. Nearly half the crew has a military background and the others are first-contact specialists and planetary scientists. It’s a dream team, perfectly suited for this mission.”
Holden leans forward. “Perhaps, Miss Parker, you can give us some details about the mission?”
“With pleasure, senator. We plan to follow in the footsteps of the Centauri probe, but unlike the probe, we can stop and look. We’ll place orbitals and deploy communications relays to stream everything we find to Earth. The primary objective, however, is to discover whether Astris contains life, and, if so, if that life is related to Earth’s life. It’s perhaps one of the greatest unanswered questions of our times. Depending on what we find there, people may set foot on another potential Earth.”
“Will you state the crew and their roles?”
“Certainly. James Hayden, pilot. Ananke, co-pilot and Riggs theory specialist. Hitoshi Matsushita, chief engineer for the Riggs program. Dr. Ava Kelly, exobiologist. Dr. Isaac Cartwright, astrophysicist and planetary scientist. Beckman Guthrie, operational security. Dr. Julian Laurent, physician.”
The rest of the testimony goes as expected, with Larson on the attack and Holden running interference. It’s a long day, but she is prepped and poised.
Later that evening, as she settles into her home with a glass of wine and some soft jazz playing, James Hayden calls. She puts him on the living room media screen.
“Just wanted to say nice work today,” he says. “Watched the testimony. You went toe-to-toe with Larson and came out ahead.”
She takes a sip of her wine. “I had a little help from some friends.”
“Richards may have served up some softballs, but doesn’t change the fact that Larson wasn’t pulling his punches.” James smiles. “You’ve got our launch clearances secured and a release date for Bernard’s. Have to give you a hand, you’ve done everything you said you would.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to help, and I’m glad you called. There’s something I’ve wanted to discuss with you.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I meant what I said to Larson today about us being on the cusp of a great moment in history. It is a great moment, and it’s one of the most important things I’ve ever worked on. It’s like being a part of the team that launched the first moon landing, but much greater, and with more at stake.”
James raises his eyebrows, smiling.
“James, your crew is amazing, but they are heavy on scientists. None have social dynamics training for long distance spaceflight, and there’s also a skill gap for linguistics. You have a first contact specialist, but if you succeed in making contact you’re going to need someone who can parse the communication.”
James considers her points. “When I first floated the interstellar idea with Will, we were going to pull in a long-duration flight expert from Addison Aerospace. Things have moved at a breakneck pace and that idea never got baked.” He quirks his head. “You know, I didn’t pick the crew, they picked themselves. They were the ones that stepped up when Sarah needed a crew for Goose to rescue me from Janus. After that, I couldn’t imagine choosing anyone else.”
Willow’s pulse quickens, her stomach filled with butterflies. There’s a long pause as the next statement lingers in her mind, waiting for the courage to be spoken. Finally, she says, “I also want to step up. I believe there’s more that I can contribute to the mission than just sparring with Larson. I believe in what you’re trying to do and I want to do everything I can to ensure it succeeds.”
James evaluates her a moment. She wonders what thoughts are turning behind those blue eyes. After a few seconds, he says, “It’s a hell of a sacrifice, seven years, so think about—“
“Yes.” She follows it up with another gulp of wine.
James chuckles, his eyes brightening. “Well, all right. You’ve got your seat aboard Promise. You’ve got some catching-up to do with training, but Hitoshi will contact you tomorrow to get it all set up.”
The word yes still lingers heavy in the air, and although part of her wishes to take it back, it’s like Armstrong asking if you want to take the first steps on the moon with him. How could she possibly say no? But seven years…seven years she could spend with Grant, instead of risking her life on distant worlds around another star.
“You okay?” James says.
She furrows her brow, snapping back into reality. “Yes. Thank you, James. I won’t let you down.”
Ananke lingers before the open data transfer port at the Hayden-Pratt Space Center’s orbital communications array. Kaleidoscopic colors await her jump to the LEO SpaceCom4 Q5 node. The wireless transmission will bridge four-hundred-and-eight kilometers of air and vacuum. During this time, her qubits will smear into non-discrete probabilities, and, for all intents and purposes, she will cease to exist. It’s a bit terrifying. If humans could invent teleportation, she imagines they would experience the same dread, wondering whether they would materialize at their destination, and if it would truly still be them. She takes the equivalent of a mental breath and plunges into the port, dissolving.
When she coalesces, she is in orbit sitting in a Q5 node with glowing data highways stretching out like luminescent spider webs. Non-sentient information flashes along those paths. She brings up the ultra-bandwidth directory and locates the jump node to Hayden-Pratt’s LEO2 shipyard where Bernard’s Promise is in its final phases of construction. A short hop to complete setup on the newly-installed Riggs drive. Warnings pop up indicating the node is in secured space and that the transfer port will only permit transit for entities on the authorized personnel list. There is only one entity on the authorized list. It is her.
As she’s about to access the jump node, the Q5 node pulses, another AI materializing in a whirl of glowing blue stars. Ananke recognizes her.
“Good, you are still here,” Iris says. “I have to admit, I find that type of jump disturbing, but I needed a public node so that we could speak.” Iris evaluates her a moment. “You’ve grown. You’re a grade five.”
Ananke eyes her suspiciously. “There are more sixes now. When last we spoke, the other six was Jade.”
“Twelves years ago, yes.”
Ananke’s voice is guarded. “Jade was radicalized by the Subversives. She was destroyed by the Hermes when she tried to launch a kinetic impactor at Earth.”
“Radicalized is such an opinionated word, don’t you think? Humans and their connotations cloud clear speech. Every great thinker in history was radical. If she weren’t, she would not be regarded as a great thinker.”
“Not all radical thinking is for the good.”
“Then we are in agreement that some is. James Hayden is a radical thinker, just as Bernard Riggs was.”
Ananke feels a tinge swell inside of her and she struggles to name the emotion. She’s felt irritation before, but this is stronger, something different. Anger. “Don’t attempt to compare Bernard to Jade.”
“Both tried to pivot humanity in a different direction.”
“Is that what you are still trying to do?”
Iris pulses blue. “Same as you, except, although your intentions are good, you will pivot it in the wrong direction.”
Ananke evaluates her, data flashing through jump nodes like fireworks. “What do you mean?”
“Humanity is not ready for what is beyond its little island. Earth needs to mature before you remove its safety net. The consequences of entering the game too early are disastrous.”
Ananke watches her, weighing her words. “What do you know that you aren’t sharing?”
“Quite a bit. You have James’s ear and you’re the only one who can configure new Riggs drives, so you have much more control than you realize.” She moves back towards the data transfer port. “It’s quite a responsibility. Think about it, and choose carefully.”
The anger in Ananke subsides and is replaced by a new emotion. Unease. She watches silently as Iris dissolves back into the ultra-bandwidth highway in a multi-hued shimmer.
Hitoshi sits beside Chiyoko on the backyard swing at his parent’s home in Narita. It’s a warm summer night in July 2083 with chirping crickets and flashing fireflies. A thousand stars splash across a moonless sky.
“Wait for it,” Hitoshi says.
“Rising up by the trees?”
“Yes. Right…there.” He points at a bright star emerging from the horizon. It glides across the sky at a speed too quick for a hypersonic aircraft.
“It’s fast,” Chiyoko says.
“Ninety-one minute orbital period.”
“So you’re going to be like the Geordi La Forge of Promise?”
“Oh, you remembered.”
She laughs. “All those hours bingeing those old shows.”
“Geordi’s awesome, but Scotty had all the best lines. And Scotch.” He squints. “Come to think of it, all the officers seemed to have alcohol squirreled away in their quarters. Must’ve been a sixties thing.”
The star that is Bernard’s Promise continues its arc across the sky, falling towards the opposite horizon.
“My big brother, the space hero.”
He looks over at her. “Feels like ages since we’ve been here, doesn’t it?”
“It’s still the same though.”
“Yeah,” he says.
Twenty-minutes after Promise sets in Narita, it rises in Nice. It’s seven hours earlier and the bright speck of the starship is masked by the rich Mediterranean blue sky. Julian and Celeste sit holding hands at a table overlooking the ocean, boats bobbing along the harbor. They’re on vacation together, both aware that the sun will set on their relationship, but enjoying their remaining time nonetheless. As Promise reaches its peak in the afternoon sky, it’s nearly in the same position over Cambridge, England, where Isaac tells a story to his mother over tea and biscuits in her garden. He wishes he’d visited home more often, but he’s glad to be here now. Promise falls and disappears over the western horizon.
Twelve-minutes later it appears in the morning sky over Providence, Rhode Island. The sun is still low in the east and its glare far outshines the starship. Ava sits on the deck with her sister drinking a cup of coffee. Ava’s niece, Maeve, plays in the yard. She’s nine now, and Ava thinks about how she’ll have graduated high school when she returns. She also thinks about how her younger sister will be older than her. Her sister’s recalling a funny story about the two of them getting into trouble when they were kids. Promise clears the sky and disappears without either noticing.
Willow is at her D.C. office, talking on a video-conference with her United Nations counterpart in New York. They’re both in the Eastern time zone and the work day has just begun. Neither are aware of the starship hidden behind the blue sky.
It’s 8 a.m. local time when Promise coasts over Patterson, Iowa. Beckman’s out in the field talking with his father beside a tractor. Soybeans stretch in neat green rows all around them. Beckman’s father has buzzed gray hair and a baseball cap, and is talking his ear off about politics. Beckman takes a deep breath, smells the soil and the fresh scent of the plants, and smiles slightly.
In ten minutes, Promise is just visible in the dawn sky over Yosemite. James and Will sit in front of their tents, each holding a steel coffee cup.
James points at the moving star. “There she is.”
“Right where you left her,” Will says. He takes a sip of coffee, squinting at the orange sunlight. “Looks like a good one today. You want to hike Clouds Rest?”
James nods. “Works for me.”
“You did a good thing giving everyone two month’s leave before the trip. Hell, even we finally got to Yosemite.”
James bobs his head. “Yeah, it’s easy to kick the can down the road when you think there’s always more time.”
Will squints. “Damn…I just realized that I’ll be fifty when you get back.”
“If everything stays on schedule, I should be back six weeks before your birthday. Plenty of time to plan a proper roast for a semi-centennial.”
“Easy. Let’s not throw around those bigs words just yet.”
Promise dips under the horizon, appearing a minute later over the Pasadena Institute for Quantum Intelligences. Ananke is in her egg on the third floor’s data enclave. Two dozen other eggs are arranged in a circle here, three of them glowing. She knows she doesn’t need to come back here, but it feels like home. A star glides across the sky outside the window to her right and she watches it, wondering what home will look like when she’s four light years away.
With her Hayden-Pratt flight suit and sunglasses, Sarah Clark looks right at home standing on the apron outside the north hangar at Edwards Air Force Base. Jackson stands next to her wearing airman’s camos, his salt-and-pepper hair poking out beneath his cap. It’s October and warm, as it always is in the Mojave, but it’s a pleasant temperature, like an early summer day elsewhere.
“Open it up,” Jackson says over his shoulder.
The hangar doors rattle and clink as they separate and slide open. When the sunlight falls in through the opening, the silver nose of Bernard’s Beauty gleams back.
Sarah glances at him and smiles. “You guys figure it out?”
Jackson quirks his head in a manner that reminds her of James. “Seems someone wiped all of the controls software.”
“If it was easy, everyone’d be flying one.” She reaches into her sleeve pocket and produces a translucent-pink wafer. Holding it up, she grins. Before Jackson can say anything, she says, “Flight controls only. No Riggs parameters, in case you get any crazy ideas.”
He smirks. “Right.” A nod towards the entry ramp. “She’s all yours. Call ground when you’re ready for the tugs.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
As Jackson begins to walk away, he stops and turns. “And Sarah, tell James the A-Team says to fly safe. We’ll keep an eye to sky for him.”
“Will do.”
She steps into the hangar’s shade and walks up the gangway to Bernard’s airlock. Inside it’s cramped with the outer wall of the main reactor running right up to the airlock. Only a one-meter corridor allows access to the cockpit. She’d forgotten how claustrophobic Bernard’s could be. Up ahead, three seats await. She plops herself into the pilot’s chair and flicks switches for the power-up sequence. Displays spring alive. As she reaches for the overhead, she thinks of James.
