CHAPTER 22
The Samaritan—Proxima System
It took the better part of two months to prepare the Samaritan, the Terran crew, and the Fintidierian crew for the trip to rendezvous with the Pioneer. There had been lots of fanfare, live press debates, and even a few riots across the planet, but in the end the Fintidierians couldn’t bring themselves to let the ship full of women from Earth go unaided. Of course, the Terrans were going to make a rescue attempt with or without the Fintidierians, but diplomatically, a joint mission was a much better solution for everyone involved.
After a month of debate, followed by those two months of preparation and training, the time for departure had finally arrived. It was now or never, at least according to the press, who claimed that was what the Terran astronavigational experts were saying. While anyone who was a student of even Fintidierian-level (Newtonian on Earth) mechanics would know that as long as there was enough fuel and propulsive effect, there was no “now or never” point.
It wasn’t orbital mechanics that was the limiting factor. The people in the know, Terrans and Fintidierians alike, understood that the Pioneer was likely damaged with failing life-support systems and every moment wasted was another moment that something else could go astray.
The entire contingent of scientists and engineers from Earth, along with some of the greatest minds and most industrious individuals from Fintidier, had gathered to design, build, and test a deployable and attachable-in-space rig to dock the Samaritan to the Pioneer in such a way as to allow for the former to propel the latter home to Proxima b.
Teams started planning and training from day one while the politicians debated and the activists rioted. Then followed a complete month of shuttle runs up to orbit and back down to the planet, until the Samaritan was stuffed full of life-support supplies as well as the components for the mooring. They had left orbit under conventional thruster power. Three weeks of slowly thrusting away from Proxima b into a safe location to engage the main engine had led the ship and its complement to that moment. It was time for the main engine to be activated.
Graggyon Oo’ortava, “Grag” to his friends, was strapped into the cryobed gee couch that had been assigned to him and was patiently waiting for the Samara Drive countdown to reach zero. He wriggled slightly against the restraints in anticipation of the main drive propulsion to kick in. After many trips up and down to orbit and then three weeks in space, Grag had become pretty much accustomed to space travel—or so he thought. The occasional periods when engines were turned off and microgravity took hold, well, he still wasn’t sure that his stomach agreed with him that he had become so accustomed. None of that would matter much longer—once the main drive fired, the cryobed would close and he would be cycled into sleep for two months.
“…but that didn’t work either,” the face on the screen in front of him continued. It was his friend and mentor, Dr. Sentell. “We’ve tried every antiviral approach known on Earth and nothing seems to have any impact on this thing. I don’t know how the Atlanteans put this virus together and it is giving us a hell of a time tearing it apart.”
Grag listened to the frustration in his friend’s voice as he continued playing back the message. The countdown clock in the corner of his screen showed thirty-one seconds to drive initiation.
“You’ve really been missed in the lab, Grag,” Sentell continued. “Yoko says you were the only person buffering us from Filip’s constant questions and pontifications. Mostly his questions. His endless questions. But then again, you always have plenty of questions too. I do hate that we’re gonna miss skiezel season in the spring, but you have to do what is right for you, my good man. Nobody here blames you, and we’re all very proud of you!”
Grag thought of fishing and working in the lab with the fertility team. It had been amazing work and they had made major strides in solving the crisis for all Fintidierians. But once Grag had caught wind of the possibility of traveling out into space with the Terrans, he asked his friend to put in a word for him to go. Dr. Chris had done that. The fertility science team had requested that Grag be included in the mission, then the secretary general of Fintidier got behind it as well. Grag had become somewhat of an intermediary between the Terrans and the Fintidierians, even though that had never been his intention.
“All hands, all hands,” a voice sounded over the ship’s speakers. “Prepare for main Samara Drive initiation in five, four, three, two, one…initiating.”
Grag suddenly felt his weight increasing as he was pressed into the bed. He watched the flight-dynamics screen in front of him show the force loading based on Terran gravity multiples. Once the loading hit two-point-one gravities, or gees as the Terrans called it, Grag felt almost suffocated by the weight of his own chest. His thin bodysuit felt like a weighted blanket pressing down on him. He understood then why they had been forced to have physical fitness training every morning since the team had been chosen. He focused his mind on breathing and putting the extra weight on his chest out of his mind as he had been trained to do. That helped only a little. He simply had to trust physics and the fact that the Terrans were spacefarers, and accept all this as standard procedure. The Terrans did this all the time.
He started the message playback from where it had been interrupted at drive initiation. There were brief images and goodbyes from Polkingham, Yoko, Chris, and even Filip. His family and friends had messages there as well, but it was the main message from Dr. Chris that he was most interested in. He continued the playback.
“Look at you, my friend,” Sentell said. “Grag! You are a star voyager, an astronaut, years, probably decades before your people would have been ready for it. You will return to Fintidier as a hero, a celebrity among your people, you know. You will be too big and famous for us to go fishing anymore. Not that we will have had time for it with the fertility research and our ketchup side gig. By the way, I will keep the ball rolling on that. Your Uncle Thevinier has offered to manage the day-to-day tomato crop gardening. I sent him some seeds and videos of how to grow and harvest tomatoes. By the time summer rolls around we should have enough for a warehouse full of ketchup. Your mother has taken on finding all of the kitchen components and cooks we need, at least for our first run at this. Oh, and Thevinier even says one of your cousins has a chain of produce stands where we can sell the product. I know the Terrans will want as much as we can make. Hopefully, the Fintidierians will like it as much as you and will also want more than we can make.”
Grag laughed lightly but then realized that had been a bad idea. At two times his normal bodyweight, even laughing was proving to be painful. Dr. Chris continued for several more minutes describing daily tasks, the virus research, and about how rich they were going to be once Grag returned. He even made a joke about exploiting the astronaut thing on the ketchup bottles—although Grag wasn’t exactly sure if that had been a joke, or if Chris had been serious. Sometimes, even after all the time the two had spent together, it was hard for Grag to tell exactly what Chris meant, especially when he was using Terran humor.
He was suddenly distracted by a slight burning sensation in his right wrist. He looked down by moving his eyes and could see a blue liquid coursing through the intravenous tube there. The screen showing his vital signs became more visible as the lid to the cryobed slowly closed down over him with a hissing sound filling the bed chamber. Grag could vaguely feel the whirring vibration of a linear actuator retracting the lid. Feeling that and knowing what it was, somehow was reassuring to him. It was something he understood.
“Heart rate is fifty-one, blood pressure is one hundred ten over sixty-seven,” he whispered faintly. His eyelids were starting to get extremely heavy, and he was starting to feel cold. It wasn’t so much a bone-chilling cold as much as a slow, deep coldness that sapped him of all of his energy. He almost panicked, as if he were dying, but Grag remembered from the quick training course on the cryosleep chambers that this would be normal. He forced his eyes open one last time as the video from Sentell was ending.
“…and look at it this way, buddy, you get to meet all those new women first. And you’ll have almost a year up there with them to get to know them. Come back…we’ll be rich…women…Good luck…and…fish for…beer…”
Grag could no longer follow the coherence of what his great friend and mentor was saying. He finally exhaled a long, slow breath, giving in to the lifeless feeling, and drifted into the cold, calm blackness of cryosleep.