Visions of the Future (53 page)

“Yabbut,” Charley demurred, “the guys can donate sperm and the women can accept them.”

“No question,” Randy answered. “But realize that we can take only five hundred people on board and with all of the personnel needs—carpenters and plumbers and electricians, farmers, and mechanics—we’re not going to be able to take a whole helluva lot of medical personnel. Now remember that we’re landing on an unknown planet. We don’t know what the health hazards will be. Do you really want to divert the medical personnel and equipment in order to maintain a sperm bank and deal with artificial insemination?”

Charley thought about it. “No. You’re right.” Unanimous show of hands. Hep’s note.

“Okay,” Adam said, “any more ideas?”

Silence. Adam went on, “We can add more categories later if any bright ideas occur. Meanwhile, between now and when Ed and Zoe find us a landing place, all of you scrutinize the personnel in your companies and start identifying possible pilgrims.”

Hep looked at Ed. “Are you making any progress in finding us a home?’

Ed said, “I think so. It’ll be about six months before we’re satisfied that the theory is sound. I’ll report back then.”

“And then what?” Blake asked.

“Then Zoe and I prove it. That’ll probably take about a year before you get the results.”

“Can’t you give us progress reports by radio?” Judy asked.

Adam entered the discussion. “Not a good idea, on the off-chance that someone might pick up the signal and track it. Encoding won’t help.”

“So,” said Bryan, “Six months up and six months back before we hear anything?”

“Something like that. If you don’t hear from us after eighteen months, punt.”

Time: Two months later

Place: The living area of the same house

Adam and Hep were sitting on a comfortable couch trying to remember the lyrics of a long-ago ballad. They weren’t making much progress because the lyrics of 2050 ballads didn’t make much sense. The coin of the language had progressed beyond the tweets and twats of the 2025’s and devolved into what appeared to be animal grunts. “I think it starts with ‘sklch’,” Adam opined.

“Yeah,” Hep agreed. “But what does that get us? What could it mean?”

Adam shrugged helplessly.

Ivar interrupted them. “Lark, Ed, and Zoe are here.”

The visitors came in on his heels.

Ed said, “We’ve got a preliminary report.”

Adam and Hep looked up in surprise. “So soon? We weren’t expecting a report for another few months.”

The trio selected a group of easy chairs and Zoe explained. “We’re still in the theory-tinkering stage, but the climate is changing faster, the ozone layer and the forests are depleting faster, and the extinction rate is rising faster than we expected. Plus the religious thugs look like they’re getting close to producing a nuclear weapon. It appears that they’re getting the raw materials from Pakistan.”

Lark added, “They’re probably only five years away from starting a nuclear holocaust. We’d better do some things simultaneously.”

“Like what?” Hep inquired.

“Like building a couple of spaceships,” Ed answered. “I need one to get within range of our destination and Zoe will need a small one to do some close-in exploration. You can order the small one from one of our companies and Lark can find an excuse to order the other one to be built at another of our companies.” He opened a large portfolio and drew out some drawings. They all walked over to a center table. Ed carefully laid and smoothed the drawings. “These are the specs.”

The older couple inspected them. “The larger ship has two thrusters,” Hep observed. “Why?”

Zoe grinned. “To get us to our destination and get us back. Unless you want us to stay there and phone home.”

Adam said, “I’ll think about it.”

Hep said, “If your destination is close enough so that you can get there and back in a year, how come nobody’s found it.”

“Look, Mom, the government rocketeers have studied and inspected everything there is that might possibly be habitable. They picked the best available spot, but even if Mars proves habitable, if we try to land there we’ll not only get into a war with the settlers, but with every other voyager who tries to colonize the place. We can’t win a war. We don’t have and can’t get the firepower.”

“You still haven’t answered the question,” Hep pointed out.

Lark entered the discussion. “Near the end of the last century, some astronomers in Hawaii, on the basis of celestial observations, asserted that one of the physical constants wasn’t so constant after all. The change wasn’t very great, but any change was a shock. This observation was greeted with boos and catcalls by the astronomy establishment. Then in 2011, a couple of Australians made similar observations and came to the same conclusion. Their findings were received with the same skepticism.

“Now fast forward to about a year ago. A Georgian astrophysicist, Viktor Marashenko, figured that with two sets of astronomers coming to the same conclusions, they might just be on to something. And he started to wonder what conditions in the universe might cause physical laws to require reinterpretation. He came up with a theory, which he called Marashenko’s Exceptions. But not wanting to ruin his fine reputation, he decided to bounce the theory off someone he respected before letting the rest of the world know about it. He sent his paper to me.”

“Why you?” Adam asked.

Lark actually blushed. “Viktor was in the States for a conference a few years ago—before I met Ed, of course—and, well, uh, we had a couple of rolls in the hay. Nothing serious. But we’ve kept in touch.”

Hep didn’t quite succeed in keeping a straight face.

“Anyway,” Lark went on, “Viktor was a dissident in Georgia. He did not like the government and, what’s more to the point, the government did not like him. Just after he sent the manuscript to me, he fell out of a tenth floor window. I think a more accurate term might be ‘defenestrated’. He was killed instantly. The government mourned the loss of this great scientist.

“Viktor’s paper was never published. I’m the only one who’s seen it. The theory, as he laid it out, seems plausible. And it
might
just
might
give Ed and Zoe what they need to find a planet no one else has found.”

“Can you give us a hint?” Adam asked.

“I don’t think we have time for a course in physics,” Lark said, “but in a nutshell: Kepler’s three Laws relate to planetary motion. According to Kepler, if any object has the same orbit as another object of equal mass, this is an unstable configuration and it won’t last long. Viktor’s paper postulates that under certain rare circumstances, the configuration
will
be stable.”
1

“Hold it, a minute,” Jenny interrupted, “Are you saying that some obscure Georgian astronomer claimed that it’s okay to break Kepler’s Laws?”

Lark laughed. “Physical laws don’t get broken. They’re not like laws passed by some Earth-bound legislature. Physical laws are based on observation. What is is what is. What changes is our interpretation of the laws. Kepler stated his laws based on his observations. His explanation of why the planets behaved in that manner was way off base. Later astronomers corrected his explanations, but the laws didn’t change. Then along came Newton. He didn’t describe how gravity worked just because he got clunked on the head by an apple. His explanation didn’t break a physical law. It just reinterpreted the earlier explanations. Then came Einstein and another reinterpretation.”

“So you’re saying…” Hep trailed off.

“I’m saying that Viktor may have a further, valid reinterpretation. It’s a very very long long shot. But those circumstances might exist here. There may be another planet tagging along after us. If that’s true, I can’t now explain why no one has found it. Zoe and Ed may find the explanation.”

Zoe added, “Long shot that it may be, I don’t think we have a choice. If those government idiots somehow do get into space and they do manage to land somewhere, with the people they’re putting on board, they’ll just destroy that planet, move on to another planet again and again until they’ve destroyed the entire universe.”

Ed stuck his oar in. “Let’s get back to practicalities. The Earth revolves counter clockwise around the sun. In order to find a trailing planet, we’d have to circle the sun clockwise in order to intercept it. When we spot a planet, we’ll stop and get as much information as we can from a spectrometer and a photometer. Then I’ll keep hovering while Zoe takes the scooter and goes in for a closer inspection.”

Adam asked, “How much time do we have to get the ships built?”

“As close to four months from now as you can manage,” Ed replied.

“We can get the shells built quickly in the States by one of your aircraft companies,” Hep said.

Adam nodded. “It’s a simple order for the smaller craft. For Ed’s ship, they can be told that it’s for an amusement park we intend to build in Thailand.”

“Won’t they wonder why you’re building an amusement park with Armageddon closing in?” Zoe wondered.

“Since when has commerce allowed facts to muddy its quest for gold?” Adam snorted. “We can get the shells delivered to an intermediate point and from there brought here. While all that is going on, we can have the interiors fabricated and installed when the shells arrive. We might make it in four months.”

Ed was worried. “Won’t that leave a visible trail to our island?”

Hep shook her head. “As far as the US vendor is concerned, the intermediate destination is the final destination. We’ll have native sailors tow the things in our direction but won’t give them the final coordinates until the last minute. They’ll unload, wrestle the shells to the staging area, then get in their craft and sail toward home.”

Adam laughed. “Pity the ship will sink before they get there.”

Time: Four months later

Place: The conference room and in space

The entire family was seated at the table. Adam was in a self-congratulatory mood. “We got those suckers built a week ahead of time. Your companies helped a little.” He stood up and took a bow. Hep smacked him on the behind.

“When are Ed and Zoe going to take off?” Judy wanted to know.

Zoe responded, “As soon as you rubberneckers finish looking the ships over.”

“You mean today?” asked Randy.

“Everything’s done,” Ed said. “What would we be waiting for?”

“Well,” Judy said, “it might be nice if you told us what you plan to do.”

Ed gave a quick synopsis. “We fire a humongous rocket to send us clockwise in our orbit. Then we use one of the on-board thrusters to give us a push. We keep going until we encounter another planet.”

“As in
if
you encounter another planet,” Bryan was skeptical.

“You got a better idea?” Zoe asked.

Bryan shook his head and looked glum.

Ed continued, “We’ll stay as close to the found planet as we can, as long as we can, getting as much information as our instruments will give us. Then I’ll hover over the planet while Zoe takes the scooter in close and gets whatever else can be found. The scooter is equipped with a booster rocket which we hope will allow her to get back to me. Once she docks, we fire our last booster, and happily settle into our normal orbit.”

“What if Zoe isn’t able to dock?” Charley asked.

“Then,” said Zoe, “I won’t be so damn happy. I suppose I’ll land and see if the planet can support me. If it can, I’ll just wait for the rest of you guys to catch up.”

The family contemplated this. It was not a comfortable contemplation.

Finally Hep asked the group, “Would you like to see the ships?”

That’s just what they would like. They trooped over to the staging area and poked around.

“What’s that on the computer screen?” Blake asked.

“Reading material,” Zoe replied. Blake took a look and scrolled down.

“Jesus,” Blake said, “you’ve got enough books here to stock an old time library.”

Zoe gave him the fish eye. “We’re going to be in this thing for a whole year. This isn’t a general research mission. We won’t have a helluva lot to do until we find the planet. Then we work like crazy for, at most, a couple of days and head home, spending maybe a month writing up notes and analyzing whatever information we manage to bring back. We can’t play Twenty Questions for the whole dead time.”