Viajante 7

1

Viajante

Wellem knew that this planet’s home star known as Viajante was one of the older stars in the Universe. His mother pointed to the pale orange sun and quietly said that it was dying much faster than scientist had predicted. He asked how long it would be before it died. She replied they thought it would be a few hundred thousand years but before it died it would continue to grow and in about ten thousand years the star would broil Viajante.

Wellem looked up in the sky and saw beauty. He remembered his mother pointing to the pale orange sun telling him that it was dying. His mother told him it would be 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.

She let him know that at first the scientists thought it would take several million years before it would grow to be a large enough red giant to the point its heat would bake their planet until nothing survived.

She clarified that more recently they had realized that they were wrong. The death rate that they thought was stable 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 seemed to grow larger, and the red seemed to loom ominously across the sky.

The dying sun became the controlling guide in his selection of courses through school and determined the career he pursued.

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

The years of intense 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 was 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. They developed the technology to put people into suspended animation so they would 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 maintain 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. They would take turns being in suspended animation 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 suffer 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.

The star system that his ship, Viajante 7, was assigned had multiple planets circling it. The third and fourth planets were considered habitable. He hoped that was the case but would only be able to know when the ship almost got to its destination.

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 that would all go out at about the same time.

Wellem was awake for the first year of the journey. He was designate as the Viajante Captain, and his role was to be awake when each team signed off and the new team logged in.

That meant that he would definitely be the oldest of all the crew members when they arrived at their destination.

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. He realized that the piloting crew was superfluous. They were in fact a safety factor in case the computer malfunctioned.

He realized that after the first suspended 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 family and friends had died. He hoped the material was still of interest and his descents would be benefiting from and income the writings might generate.

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 that there was a constant need for repair and replacement of various systems. The ship though magnificently constructed began to show its weak spots that needed tending.

Willem focused on the repairs and adjustments every time he was on duty. He also assigned repairs to the oncoming team as part of his transition duties.

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 his intelligence was the ship.

He and the computer became well acquainted as Willem arranged for it to keep track of the condition of all the control systems for all aspects of the ship and then to make the repairs that it could and to identify those that needed to be done by one of the operating teams.

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 or one of the team members 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.

The animation cycles became the norm that all of them had learned to optimize. Everything seemed to be progressing as planned.

But then he was 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 by their blue color 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