Going Interstellar Read Free Page A

other protective clothing.
    These were “Goldilocks worlds,” so-called because they were neither too hot (like Venus) nor too cold (like Mars); they had atmospheres with enough, but not too much, oxygen; they were “just right” for sustaining life. It was toward the second of these worlds that the New Madrid was sent with colonists who would settle there and build a new home for humanity.
    Goss had volunteered for the journey. He was fed up with the crowded cities of Earth and found the Moon and Mars colonies, with their cramped below-ground living areas, simply too dark and unforgiving for his tastes. The idea of being a pioneer, of having the chance to build a new world or die trying, was just the sort of challenge for which he had longed his entire life.
    Are we there yet? If not, then why was I awakened? He tried to keep these thoughts at bay as he walked down the long, curved corridor toward the control room.
    Midway there, he stopped to look out one of the windows that the engineers had been so loath to include. Dangerous, they’d argued. Maybe so, but the view was worth it. Before him was the majesty of the New Madrid ; home to thousands of colonists eager for a new beginning. He gazed back along the hull at the central core of the starship, which housed its antimatter power plant and propulsion system as well as many of the supplies they would need once their new home was reached. His eyes drifted out from the core along one of the many half-kilometer-long spokes that supported the habitation ring in which he had spent who knows how many years in hibernation.
    Without a decent fixed reference point, it was virtually impossible to discern that the ring was completing one rotation every minute—though he felt the comfortable one-half gravity acceleration caused by the slow spin as he walked through the ship. Humans evolved in a one gravity environment on Earth but scientists had determined that only half that was needed to maintain their health in deep space. And since one can’t tell the difference between acceleration caused by gravity and acceleration caused by spinning, the engineers had found a way to provide the “gravity” people needed to keep them healthy in deep space—spin the ship.
    He continued past the window and down the corridor toward the control room. There, he opened the door, expecting to be greeted by Commander Vasquez’s booming voice. Instead, there was only silence and the steady hum of the circulation system keeping the breathable air moving throughout the ship.
    The room was empty.
    The commander’s chair was vacant as were the duty stations for the ship’s command crew. The room seemed somehow unreal to Goss. It isn’t supposed to be like this.
    He entered, approached the commander’s chair and sat in it, pulling the console on the mechanical arm forward so he could see what it had to say. One word was flashing on the display panel as he pulled it into view.
    ALERT
    Recalling his training, Goss activated the ship’s Artificial Intelligence by speaking the command phrase, “Command Authorization Substitute Five Zero Three.”
    “Five Zero Three recognized,” came the reply from the ship’s speaker system.
    Goss was relieved to hear the AI’s voice. Maybe now he could find out what was going on.
    The AI was programmed with a voice that sounded, except for its rather stilted diction, completely human. Studies had shown that people reacted more favorably if the computer at least sounded human. Gone were the monotone computer-generated voices that had preceded it.
    “Five Zero Three, do you require a status?” asked the AI program, following procedure.
    “Yes, please provide our location, navigation history, and overall ship status.”
    A holographic projection appeared above the navigation console in the middle of the room. At the center was Sol, the Earth’s star, and around it were the nearest star systems stretching out to a distance of about fifteen light years. As