Viajante 7

Chapter 1: Viajante

His mother pointed to the pale orange red sun and quietly said that it was dying much faster than scientist had predicted.

Wellem looked up in the sky and saw beauty. He remembered his mother pointing to the pale red-orange sun telling him that it was dying. His mother told him it would the death of Viajante’s civilization. She explained that the rise of their species to sentient beings had taken several million years. During that time the sun, already almost ten billion years old had started to lose much of its hydrogen at an ever-increasing rate. She likened it to an old man slowly letting out his last breath. She explained that for the entire time their population was rising, the sun was slowly dying. It was slowly expanding and would one day grow large enough and close enough to roast Viajante.

At first the scientists thought it would take several million years before it would grow to be a red giant and its heat would bake their planet until nothing survived.

Recently they had recently realized that they were wrong. The death rated was accelerating and it would be only a few hundred thousand years before the planet would be destroyed.

The race to find other habitable worlds had immediately begun in earnest. It became the focus for the entire population of the planet.

As Wellem grew, the color of the sun grew more orange. The sun’s color became the controlling guide in his selection of courses through school and determined the career he pursued.

He was focused on gaining the skill to help save the people of his planet.

The years of focused effort and determination paid off. He became a space pilot slated to guide colonization spaceships. He became the leader of the three piloting teams that would take a colonization rocket and seek a world where his race could establish a colony.

He had always been told that knowledge was power. But the knowledge knowing the star that your planet circles is dying left him feeling powerless. Scientists and world leaders knew they were powerless to stop the process but determined to take the action to save their people.

Wellem felt just as determined and was willing to give his life to deliver his people to a new world.

The heavens were searched for possible colonization planets. The technology to put people into suspended animation was developed to be able to send people to those planets.

The gigantic spaceships to make these long journeys were built and tested. These ships were made as rugged and as self-controlling as possible. They were made to be smart and manage themselves through thousands of years.

The immense distance was the biggest challenge. The navigation crew was structured so that they would all start out at the same age and when they arrived at the destination, they would all be the same age but would be very old as compared to the people that had been in suspended animation for the entire journey.

Wellem would be one of the old people. He hoped that he would be able to function for a brief period on the new world. He wondered what it would be like to grow old in the bowels of the star ship. He wondered and worried but was determined to do his part.

He and the other pilots would stay at the destination and a second crew would make the return trip with the empty rocket. They would the same fate of aging to bring back the ship for its reuse.

The limit to how many beings could be saved would depend on how many times the ships could be reused.

Twenty ships were constructed. The decision was to give them all the name of the planet and a number. Each was headed to a different star system that had potentially habitable planets.

Wellem hoped the star system that his ship, Viajante 7, headed toward a distant star that had multiple planet circling it. The third and fourth planets were considered habitable.

Of all designated destinations, indications were that Viajante 7 was headed for the most desirable target. The settlers getting on the Viajante 7 were ecstatic to have been selected for that destination.

The departure celebration was extensive and made world news. Those boarding repeatedly commented that they would do their best to expand their civilization to the new world.

Wellem listened to the sage comments of these clueless individuals with a sense of amusement. He noted that none of the experts made any predictions. They all simply wished each departing ship a good and safe journey.

This made clear sense to him. Every ship was a gamble that those reaching the end of their journey would in fact find a suitable environment. He wondered what the odds were for the success of the twenty Viajante’s

Wellem was awake for the first year of the journey. He was in charge of all the pilot teams and would briefly wake for the start of each of the beginning of each team’s turn.

Wellem’s worry about what he would do as he grew old during the journey turned out not to be as bad as he feared. He began writing and sent his writings back home to Viajante. His writings earned him a good income that he had left to his parents.

He decided to study the information that had been put into the ships computer about the star system to which the ship was heading. His team would spend more than a thousand years cycling between manning the ships controls, which he realized meant sitting around and doing what he desired, sleeping, and then returning at the end of a year to suspended animation. The computer ran the ship. The piloting crew superfluous. They were in fact a safety factor in case the computer malfunctioned.

He realized that after the first animation cycle, communication back to Viajante was no longer possible in the sense of interpersonal communication. He still sent his writings but he realized that the book he was sending back was returning one thousand years after all his friend had died.

He turned his focus from writing to developing his knowledge and ensuring that all ship functions were kept at their peak. The period of a thousand year meant the there was a constant need for repair and replacement of various systems. The ship though magnificently constructed had weak spots that needed tending.

The need for repairs and adjustments surfaced every time Willem was on duty.

During this work he learned that Viajante 7’s computer was intelligent and had a personality akin to many of the people he knew. He learned that the ship thought of itself as a living thing. It communicated his appreciation of Wellem’s detailed attention to the condition of the ship. He shared that he was the ship.

He and the computer became well acquainted as Willem arranged for it to keep track of the condition of all the working systems that and to make the repairs. Willem inspected every maintenance action that was taken and over time became familiar with every nook and cranny of the immense vessel.

The biggest consistent problem was that of small holes caused by the ship being hit or hitting random space rocks. These holes were temporarily plugged by the ship’s hull, but he had to be fix them so that the integrity of the hull was kept at one hundred per cent.

Seven thought of him as a doctor that was focused on keeping him healthy.

He and the computer joked about his care, and it began to call him Dr. Wellem.

The more he studied the target system, the more excited Wellem became about the prospect of finding a suitable planet for his cargo in suspended animation. The more he used the ship’s telescope to look ahead, the more he looked forward to getting there. He was sure the third planet would be habitable. It looked like a faraway blue jewel.

He and his teams suspended animation cycles became the norm, and everything seemed to be progressing as planned.

But then he was roughly awakened and got out of his chamber in a disoriented state. It took what seemed like forever for him to gain his senses. The ear-splitting blaring of horns and the announcement being broadcast by the computer that the ship’s hull had been pierced finally penetrated his senses and pulled him rudely to life.

It was hard to breath and he stumbled to his locker and pulled out his pressurized suit. He did not bother to put on his body glove because he realized that he was about to pass out.

Once in his suit he made his way to the control room. The chambers for his crew members were locked and it was clear to him that only he had been awakened. He went to the control room where he found the crew that he normally relieved lying dead at their control station. He realized that they had all suffocated before they could suit up. He moved their bodies away from the controls and searched for the cause of the lack of oxygen.

What he found was devastating. He put the view of the damage on the large control room screen. A huge chunk of rock was halfway through the hull and had ruptured the seal for all the floors.

Seven had isolated the damaged sections, but the loss of air was immense.

He was able to determine the extent of the damage and did an initial assessment of what it would take to repair it.

Repair of the crudest kind would take every scrap of metal available.

He found the location of the impact and got into an exoskeleton and made his way to the damaged area.

The rock was large enough that it involved two levels of the ship.

The damage was extensive he knew immediately that he had lost most if not all of his cargo of colonists.

Wellem thought about reviving his team but decided against it. He and Seven would have to work together to repair the damage and then assess the impact that it had on the mission of the Viajante 7.

He concentrated on repairing the damage. There were enough repair materials on hand but it took time to move it into place.

He built a box around the rock and sealed the ship.

He had worked for several days without stopping.

It was an ugly but effective repair that sealed the damage.

Once done, he fell into an exhausting sleep. He woke up with a start several times and then fell back asleep. Finally, he got up to examine the overall damage.

Seven had saved about a quarter of the colonist by sealing the space of those colonists and pumping the air from the other chambers into the single chamber.

Willem was stunned. Three quarters of the colonist were dead. Three thousand dead souls. The piloting crew members were all dead. He was the only survivor.

He looked at how far the ship had to go to reach its destination and realized that they were all already dead. There was not enough remaining oxygen to get them to their destination.

He realized that the Viajante 7 was doomed.

He adjusted the course to bring it as close to the third planet as possible.

At the beginning of the journey, he had wondered what he would do on the way to his destination. He had been worried about being bored.

He laughed when he realized that he had not thought about dying on the way to his destination. This realization crystallized the action that he had to take.

He made a final goodbye round of the ship. He now knew that they would all be dead when Viajante 7 finally reached its destination and pass tantalizing close to it and then go on for eternity through endless space.

He wanted to somehow assure that the probability of contact with the beings he was sure were on the third planet.

He took the time to record what had happened and what his actions had been. He then had Seven put the record of the journey on a memory crystal that he planned to take with him into his suspended animation chamber. He hoped that it and all the information he planned to take into the chamber would be found.

He printed out the last ships status report and the location of the ship versus the target star and sent the message back toward the home planet.

He then went to his chamber and to reinitiate his suspended animation.

He said goodbye to Seven and told him to keep itself functional for as long as possible and if there was intelligent life on the target world Seven was to attempt to communicate to see if there was a possibility of contact.

He knew as the chamber closed and he slowly fell asleep that he would never awaken. He had a smile on his face as he thought about his family and friends.

On his chest he held the log of what had happened. If the ship was ever found he wanted those finding it to know about his people and about the four thousand beings that had died in their suspended animation chambers: their personal tombs.

He closed his eyes and pressed the sleep button and a fine mist sprayed into the chamber.

Seven knew that Willem was sacrificing himself to save him, the Viajante 7.

2 Approaching Object

Ande looked up at the millions of points of light in the night sky and imagined that he could see eternity. It was a fascination that had pulled on him all his life and it was a fascination that caused him to take actions that he could in no way imagined he was capable of.

He spent his young years sneaking out onto the roof of his house and laying for hours looking into the night sky. The objects that moved across the sky fascinated him and this fascination caused him to select astronomy as the focus for his continuing education.

Ande graduated from Ohio State and was accepted by San Diego State where he earned his master’s degree. He then applied to Stanford and was ecstatic when he was accepted to Stanford into to pursue a PhD with a focus on the objects that seemed to travel the same path as earth.

He splurged by getting himself a top-of-the-line bicycle and spent as much time as possible riding the gorgeous Stanford campus.

It was the single physical activity that he religiously adhered to.

The second activity was the act of looking through the lens of the university observatory at the objects which were his thesis’s focus.

The third activity was the time he spent on analyzing integrated dated from many of the major observatories located around the world. He spent three years getting his PhD focused on the small celestial objects that shared the same orbit as the earth.

He focused one larger one that remained in a stable orbit approximately 60° ahead of the Earth’s LaGrange point L5. Since this was somewhat boring, he tended to look at a variety of other objects and soon developed a pattern of observing the larger objects that would intersect Earth during his lifetime.

His many hours of analyzing data from observatories and information from space telescopes resulted in his accidental discovery of one object coming directly toward Earth from far outside of the solar system. This was different from most of the other objects that came from the edge of the solar system and sparked his interest.

He became fascinated with the fact that it would intersect earth within five to ten years. He was surprised by its vector and not sure of his calculations. He went through all of them to ensure that he had not made a mistake.

He began to keep close track on the object.

He kept the information to himself. He dutifully recorded its approach and kept checking his calculations. Its path convinced him that it was either a spaceship or it was an object that had an extremely long orbit around the sun. In either case it was traveling at a very high speed and would reach the earth sooner than his initial calculations.

This last fact made Ande focus hard at completing his PhD. He wanted to be working where he could track his special object. He was ninety nine percent certain that the object was a spaceship.

He applied to several budding space exploration companies and got offers to several. However, every one of them were a few years shy of having rockets ready to launch.

The offer he eagerly accepted was the lowest paying one. It was an offer from NASA to work at the Kennedy Space Center. He knew that they had the rockets and the launch pads.

He once again felt the surge of energy that he had felt when he was accepted to Stanford. He would have access to the one thing that he felt would be needed to verify that his object was indeed a spaceship. He needed an organization that had rocket launch capabilities and NASA was at its peak in that capability. It was regularly launching rockets and had a mission to the moon scheduled.

His role was to be a technical analyst in one of several control rooms that monitored and analyzed rocket launch trajectories.

He was underwhelmed by the lack of any significant challenge that his formal role required. However, his direct boss, to whom he had been assigned by the person that had interviewed and hired him, made his day when he informed him that he expected Ande to get qualified in every aspect of managing the launch and guidance of a rocket and that he also expected him to get the same rigorous training as that of an astronaut.

It was like throwing a duck into the water. Ande eagerly spent every waking hour getting qualified on the technical side. His boss had him assigned to an astronaut class session. It was in Houston; Texas and he spent the time their getting qualified and enjoying the time on the beach.

He would go to the beach in the late afternoon, watch the sunset, and then enjoy the myriad of stars in the sky.

Qualification was a breeze.

On his return to the Kennedy Space station, he took up a challenge that he kept to himself, but it was something he knew was doable. He did not purposely set out to do what he was later to execute but he was determined to automate the entire launch sequence and be able to control everything from his phone

Yes, he thought to himself, “from my phone.”

He began to link the various launch controls to his work computer and to his top security thumb drive. Within a year he knew that he was capable of launching any rocket from any launch pad from his computer or any computer into which he put his thumb drive. He then built an app for his phone but chose not to activate it since it would go against the NASA security rules.

He did not share this ability with anyone.

He wondered why someone in NASA had not done this before. He followed the security protocol and none of his work ever left the NASA site. He did not want the capability to be the property of any other entity but NASA.

He volunteered for every special request that his boss accepted for his unit. He made many friends and had a strong network of people with whom he exchanged information. He was into getting as much out of his work experience as possible and he was soon recognized as a person that people enjoyed working with.

His boss publicly recognized him for his work achievements and his willingness to do almost anything that was requested. He also gave him recognition for the work he was doing with the young students that came to tour NASA.

Ande’s life was bubbling.

Then he connected with another launch technician over a cup of coffee. He knew he had found someone with whom he had something in common when he found out that coming to work at NASA was a hard choice because it was her lowest salary offer but she wanted to be close to where the rockets actually rose into the air and went into space.

Ande now had a connection that warmed his heart. He wanted to share the fact that he was capable of launching any rocket by himself, but he thought it would put Lesley in an awkward position.

He continued to monitor the object that was approaching. He became certain that it was a spaceship. Its signature was not of an asteroid. It was foreign. He was sure it was approaching from outside of the solar system. He tried contacting it surreptitiously but got no response.

Finally, he felt it was his duty to inform his boss about the unbelievable opportunity that was fast approaching the Earth.

Ande watched his boss’s facial reaction as he shared the fact that he had tracked an object that was entering the solar system and would pass the earth inside the moons orbit. The dead pan look and neutral verbal response let Ande know that he had not convinced his boss that it was a spaceship, nor did his boss seem interested that Ande thought it would be passing at such a close distance.

Ande pushed to see if he could get NASA to study the object to see if there was any interest in preparing for a mission to the object when it passed by the earth.

He was disappointed that his boss told him to continue to monitor the object but that a mission to intercept and examine it would most likely not be considered. He was informed that that the current focus was to establish a base on the Moon that would serve to support missions to Mars and there was no spare capacity or time to spend on any other effort.

The world around him took on new meaning as Ande realized that if any action to intercept the incoming spaceship was to happen, it would only happen if he took the action.