Voyage to Alpha Centauri: A Novel Read Free Page B

Kosmos will bear a known 677 people from our home planet to planet Alpha Centauri A-7, our closest neighbor in the galaxy, just next door, a mere 4.37 light-years away. (See attached list, names, and positions of all personnel.)
    *
    Well, here we are at last. Theory metamorphosed into solid fact. I recall the day I stood before a microphone in the concert hall in Stockholm, to deliver my acceptance speech of a Nobel Prize for Physics. It was, in fact, my second Nobel Prize, a distinction that has rarely occurred in the history of the Foundation. My previous award had been shared with another physicist, but this one was for me alone, specifically for my work in the dynamics of anti-matter enhancement and catalyzed fusion power. It was all on paper, but interstellar flight was now no longer unthinkable. The “mechanics” were within the range of human capacity, and I had mapped it out. I was forty-seven years old at the time.
    I remember clearing my throat, adjusting my eye glasses, and shuffling my papers as the audience waited. I paused, feeling the ache in my ankle, recalling for a moment my vulnerable humanity. Throughout most of my life, I had lived with it and not given it much thought, regretting only that I had cut too deep with the knife and severed things that should never be severed—tendons, nerve connections. Perhaps the wound had also saved my life. Then, for no reason whatsoever, none at least that I might have articulated for the attending king, the scientists, and other dignitaries, I saw myself as a small boy dancing in the desert, yearning upward, and ringing a bell.
    *
    The “hotel” contained a facsimile floor of the ship, with sample rooms, our new homes. We were encouraged to familiarize ourselves with all the amenities in them, but I refrained from doing so, since I wanted to be surprised. However, I learned at a briefing session that there would be one cabin per person. Claustrophobia in a sealed container, no matter how large the container, could wreak havoc on the mission. People need both public and private space, indoors and outdoors. I picked up through conversations in the hotel restaurant that the rooms are small but comfortable, like ocean-liner cabins for second-class passengers. I wondered if everyone would go second class.
    *
    This evening, all the voyageurs were instructed to attend a “special” briefing session held in the conference hall. Gathered together as one body, we were first informed of something we already knew and had been reminded of during the previous year: Unmanned probes had been sent out to the mystery planet, which is usual with space exploration. They had been launched eight years ago, at the time when the Kosmos was well along in its construction. However, we were now told, almost as an afterthought, that they and subsequent unmanned probes would not arrive at the planet ahead of us. They had not been powered by the advanced propulsion system that would drive the Kosmos . They were, in a word, slow .
    There was a good deal of rumbling in the audience when we heard this, because we had presumed (with blind trust) that the authorities had done things properly. We had assumed they already knew a great deal about the planet. As it turns out, they know nothing much at all, only that it is situated in the HZ—the habitable zone “likely to be hospitable to life”. Earth’s best instruments confirmed that it was certainly there , orbiting around AC-A, and gave a general idea of its size and behavior as a satellite to its sun, but little more than that. Readings of the light coming from the planet give early indications of a significant spectrum “edge”, which theorists believe may be a biosignature in its atmosphere (if there is an atmosphere). Of course, theorists abound and are not infrequently proven wrong, scientists though they be.
    We now understood that the images we had thought were high-resolution telescope photos, which we had pored over so thirstily,