Story
Chapters for my story, written at random. Some are complete scenes, others fragments.
Dream
I am Darius Tiley – patriotic American, multi-billionaire entrepreneur – and I had a dream: a dream of traveling to a world orbiting another star and seeing strange and wonderful things
Determined to bring this into reality, I reached out and found others who shared my dream: seven other similarly reclusive business people who were spaceflight enthusiasts, transhumanists and libertarians. We shared a collective disdain for much of humanity – and certainly the cumbersome governmental systems in charge of a society that was enduring various forms of social and environmental collapse. Incidentally, a major factor that spurred me to action was the hyperbolic and autocratic response of governments to the 2020 pandemic, which shut down entire industries, devastated economies and was a disturbing reminder of the power they ultimately held over their citizens, despite the illusion of democracy.
We were thus determined to go our own way with this ambition, legally or otherwise, and would keep our collective ambition secret; out of public view. The ignorant masses would no doubt be incited to panic and violent action if they learned of our project, not to mention the authorities who would legislate to impede our progress.
I formulated what was objectively the most audacious plan of all: to develop a privately-funded interstellar spaceship that would enable a small crew – including myself – to travel to and explore a detected exoplanet in another star system.
The Octet, as we eight refered to ourselves, agreed to my proposal; I would be the first to embark on condition that I invest the majority of my portion of our collective wealth in developing the project. The others remaining behind would hibernate for periods during my absence, awaiting my radioed report and hopeful return so the next phase of our long-term colonization plans might begin. The initial mission would essentially be a scouting party.
I dubbed the program “Project LISSA: Long Interstellar Sleeper Starship Ark.” I also chose a name for the ship: Emissary – in the hope that we would encounter other sapient lifeforms.
Being a lifelong member of the Latter Day Saints – more familiarly known as Mormons – I consulted with my Ward’s Elders. They took the issue to the Church’s highest authorities, who registered their approval after much debate, and contributed funding. We are not adverse to the concept of other worlds and saw the expedition as a future opportunity for emigration, given our history of religious persecution.
To develop the necessary technologies in enabling us to leave Earth, I initiated the process of covertly recruiting the best and brightest experts in the relevant fields that our vast collective wealth could buy, from the aerospace industry, government agencies and universities. With a generous salary offered, and the intriguing nature of the secretive project, most were willing to accept,and sign non-disclosure agreements. I wished to avoid publicity for as long as possible.
To remain loyal for the long term – to continue working for us over decades – they, and perhaps their descendants, would need to be guaranteed long-term security for themselves and their immediate families in the event of social unrest. We humans, however, are not good at taking the long-term perspective, so this was another issue that added uncertainty to the mission. I had to hope that faith and loyalty would override other factors.
Finally, I needed a crew: not people who were only merely qualified, but ones who would share my dream as well, who were restless and dissatisfied with their lives. Who were willing to hurl themselves into the great dark towards an unknown destination.
Summons
My chosen crew were carefully selected. Not only for having the requisite skills, they also shared a discontentment with their lives, a restlessness that would perhaps make such a daunting voyage as I proposed that more appealing.
Cosmonaut Sergei Konstantinov looked out of the private business jet’s narrow window on which he was one of six passengers over a turquoise-blue ocean. He was not sure of his location, but judging by the water’s vivid color and intensely bright sun overhead he seemed to be somewhere in the tropics.
Around eighteen hours had elapsed since they departed Moscow, and a week since he received the envelope in the mail at his Star City apartment. Within, on delicate washi paper – a refreshingly old-fashioned alternative to a generic email – was a handwritten invitation in English to a meeting for a mysterious assignment.
Your presence is requested for a space mission proposal. If you wish to respond, please be at Sheremetyevo Airport in time for the scheduled flight. Your international passport will be needed; pack for at least a week’s travel.
His longtime cosmonaut friend and selection compatriot, Yuri Zolotyov, also turned up at Tsiolkovskaya Station with a similar invitation and interest piqued. They took the train into Moscow and on the Metro to Sheremetyevo Airport, where a private jet awaited them.
Enroute the jet stopped at Charles de Gaulle Airport to collect Jean-Pierre Verdier of ESA, then Miami Airport where Selena Flores and Kathy Colquhoun – both of NASA – boarded. All but Selena were previously known to him, so the flight had been a reunion also, albeit a muted one. All were now at least into middle age, born in the 1970s; Jean-Pierre just over a decade earlier.
Sergei sipped on his vivid orange-and-yellow Caribbean sunrise cocktail as he waited with the other candidates in the cavernous lounge room of the spacious house that was journey’s end after a landing at Maurice Bishop International Airport on Grenada, then transferral by yacht to the mountainous island on which the house stood; an emerald jewel in a turquoise sea. All slept long into the next day before being summoned for an immaculately-presented and delicious seafoodbuffet dinner. Everyone was quiet and pensive, awaiting the arrival of their host.
A huge 85-inch, 8K OLED TV mounted over the fireplace provided a central focus for the minimalistically-decorated room; displaying an ever-changing gallery of planets and galaxy photos. The home’s pastel-toned decor subtly echoed the vibrant tropical colors outside.
An older man and woman – brown-skinned, of evident Caribbean ethnicity – attended them with quiet efficiency. An air of familiarity between the pair suggested that they were married.
The visitors were dressed in the clothing provided for them by the similarly-clad couple: leather loafers, lightweight cream-coloured chino trousers and polo cotton shirts. By the look and feel of the clothing, it was of high quality. Each shirt was of a different color: emerald-green for Sergei; blue for Yuri; purple for Jean-Pierre; orange for Kathy and rose-pink for Selena. A hexagonal patch was sewn onto the left breast pocket of each: white-rimmed with a black background and a star in each of six corners, five of the stars the same colors as the shirts, the sixth star grey. In the center was a stylized representation of what looked intriguingly like a starship, long and narrow with an engine nozzle at one end, a wide wedge-shaped radiator, central habitation modules and two successively wider disks at its front, viewed edge-on.
Sergei studied his companions, thinking of what they had told him about themselves.
Blond-haired, blue-eyed Yuri he of course knew already. A Russian Soyuz flight engineer to Sergei’s pilot, he flew on the same Expedition to the International Space Station as Sergei, and, like Sergei, no space flights since. Their careers seemed to be moribund.
Jean-Pierre, of the European Space Agency, gruff no-nonsense manner and piercing violet-blue eyes, also launched on the same mission as a physician and was still such, but also had not been assigned to any subsequent flight. Likewise with blond, amber-eyed Kathy, who was part of a visiting mission on the Space Shuttle; she had then endured a messy divorce and was estranged from her ex-husband and adult daughter. And not yet known to him was Selena, who was what the Americans describe as being of Hispanic ancestry: curly dark brown hair, similarly dark eyes and light brown skin. Sergei himself had the straight black hair, golden-toned skin and epicanthic hazel-green eyes that indicated his partial Central Asian ancestry from his maternal grandmother.
Darius Tiley entered the room. Dressed like everyone else here, his grey polo shirt matched his eye color. He was tall with reddish-brown hair and a commanding aura that compelled attention.
There was little publically-available information about him, Sergei had found, after futile Internet searches. Unlike some entrepreneurs of his generation, Darius seemed to prefer keeping a low profile. A point of interest he had gleaned from one brief biography was that Darius was a member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, more colloquially known as Mormons.
Darius gestured at the TV with a remote he was holding, and the starry vista onscreen was replaced with a computer-rendered illustration of a long, spindly starship. “This will be our ride to another world,” he told them.
The five did not initially respond, wondering if he was serious. Evidently expecting their reactions, he assured them: “Plans for designing and constructing this starship are privately funded and underway.”
“Why is this the first we’ve heard of such a mission?” asked Kathy sceptically.
“The mission is not government-approved or funded; I have no wish for such entities’ involvement.
“Civilization as we know it is in the process of collapse,” he continued dramatically. “The cost of dealing with natural disasters, pandemics and climate change is unsustainable, and increasing civil unrest is adding to the chaos. There willl ultimately be almost nowhere on Earth that is safe, aside from a few refuges for some.”
Sergei recalled reading about survivalist-minded wealthy preparing bunkers in various locations for such an eventuality.
“I, however, want to go even further and seek refuge off world, on an exoplanet in a nearby star system.”
“But going there, or anywhere outside our solar system will take centuries,” objected Jean-Pierre.
“Yes, we are still, of course, limited to the known laws of physics,” Darius agreed. “But hibernation technology is being developed that may enable us to cross the vast distances involved, though it will – like the mission overall – will be an experiment, a test mission with no guarantee of our survival.”
“What is the target world?” Kathy wanted to know.
“A potentially habitable, even Earth-like, planet in the in the Pisces constellation, around twenty-five light years away,” replied Darius. On the TV, a computer-generated image zoomed in on the star system in question. “Detected by none other than Selena here –” the woman mentioned looked surprised, her brown skin flushing a little.
“That is why you have recruited me, Mr Tiley,” she realised. He nodded in affirmation and continued.
“As I noted, design and construction of the starship is already underway, though it will be at least five years yet before completion and testing for mission readiness. Hopefully this time might be shortened. You all, in the meantime, will live and train together as a crew.”
“How is starship propelled?” asked Yuri.
“Interstellar propulsion is from an external source: a laser-propelled light sail. The laser array is positioned at the L4 Lagrange point ahead of Earth’s orbit. In-system propulsion is from a fission-fragment rocket, powered by a thorium-based reactor drive.
“More dauntingly, current power generation technology will only allow the ship to reach up to eight percent of light speed after seventeen years’ acceleration at thirty percent of Earth’s gravity – still a tremendous speed in human terms, but the voyage will take three hundred and forty-four years to get there, including the acceleration and deceleration times.” He paused to let that sobering fact sink in.
“With no guarantee of there being anything at its end? Why should we think of going?” Jean-Pierre asked, but Sergei thought he did not sound overly hostile to the proposal.
“For myself – it is the grandest adventure ever, a chance to start pushing our species outward. On Earth we are stagnating, going mad as we turn inward, fighting and bickering over trivia. I want to go somewhere, get away from all this –” he waved his hand vaguely, trying to articulate his frustration and vision. “Perhaps others will be inspired to follow us … in any case, I will need you all to commit to a decision before this project goes any further. The tablets you will each find provided in your rooms give more details of the mission.”
He stood, flicking the TV screen back to a rendering of the starship. “I will meet you all again for breakfast tomorrow. The rest of this day is free time.” He inclined his head briefly and left the room.
2:15 PM 9/01/2022
Decision
Having arisen early, Sergei ambled along the island’s pristine beach, digging his bare toes into the fine white sand. One day to decide. For us all to commit to leaving this Earth, maybe forever.
Endless rows of waves lapped the shore in a gentle susurrus, forming from the turquoise and lapis lazuli depths beyond. Vivid green palm tree leaves rustled in the breeze, and the rising sun blazed in an azure sky, brighter and higher than he was accustomed to in his Moscow home. The intense tropical colours of the paradisaical landscape here were almost surreal.
I may – will – never see this, or my home, again, if I decide to go. No guarantee the technology will keep us alive – and even if we return, who knows what this world will be like in three hundred – no, nearly seven hundred there and back! – or so years.
And yet, what else is there for me? Despite all our grand plans, Russia’s space program is going nowhere – we spend more time, too much time, looking back at past glories. I will not fly again for a long time, if ever, and I’ll just spend the rest of my life at a desk.
He sensed that a deeper part of him had already decided. We will all miss Earth greatly, but perhaps we might be able to return. If technology advanced, and society held together, a future starship could follow them to the exoplanet in less time. I would not bet on that, though.
He had perused the user’s guide stored on the tablet he found in his room: a hyperlinked document giving a broad overview of the project and technology involved. It was not highly technically detailed, presumably for security reasons; but aimed more at laypeople or casual readers.
“I will go,” Sergei said to Darius as the group gathered for breakfast. Darius looked at him and smiled slightly.
“Excellent!” Darius exclaimed.
“And I,” added Yuri. Sergei had expected his longtime friend would come to the same decision; he was as similarly discontent and restless as Sergei.
Selena, Kathy and Jean-Pierre each gave their assent. Perhaps they secretly believed the mission would never eventuate in reality, or could not truly comprehend such a vast span of time away; Sergei himself felt such when deciding.
Incomplete; 2:14 PM 9/01/2022
Target
“Selena will now describe our target world,” said Darius, after they had finished most of their lunch. Holding her tablet, the astrobiologist moved to stand near the wall-mounted TV. Its screen displayed the stylised dots and lines of a constellation, wirelessly mirroring the image on her tablet.
“The candidate star, 107 Piscium, is located around twenty-four-point-eight light years away. It is a K1V-class star, a little cooler and oranger than our G-class Sun. The target planet – the second of four orbiting the star – has a mass similar to Earth, and spectroscopic analysis has detected photosynthetic chemicals. Its atmosphere has a chemical composition like our world’s: an unstable combination of methane and oxygen, which is one of Earth’s particular life signs. We are unable to take an actual image of the world as it is still too far away for this with our telescopes’ current resolution – and a debris disc has made previous detection difficult – but it definitely supports life of some sort, and is not hostile to us. There are no indications of an advanced civilization, however, such as leakage of radio signals – no technosignatures.”
“So we only find out if we live there when we get there,” noted Sergei.
“Yes – but that, like the rest of the mission, is a gamble I am prepared to take,” said Darius. “Worst-case scenario, we can return to Earth, albeit half-a-millennium into the future.”
“Assuming laser array still works.” Darius simply nodded in reply and did not emphasize his point further.
Incomplete; 2:14 PM 9/01/2022
Bunker
In which Russian oligarch, Mikhail Dmitrivich Zhilaev, Михаил Дмитпийевич Жилаев, visits the Bunker that has been constructed for the Octet – of whom he is one – to hibernate in. It is located at Mount Yamantau, within a forest in the Ural Mountains – “Yamantau is notable as the subject of claims by the United States that a secret extensive bunker complex of the Russian government or Russian Armed Forces is contained within the mountain, similar to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.”
A car pulled up to the gates barring the forest road leading into the secretive compound beyond. The military guard who stepped out to challenge the visitors immediately realised the large black SUV did not belong to a military or government official. A driver and one backseat passenger were visible behind the tinted windows. The driver’s window rolled smoothly down, and the man – who, with blond crew-cut hair, had a distinctively ex-military appearance – said, “Mikhail Dmitriivich Zhilaev wishes to visit his assets. He has a permit pass.”
The guard immediately recognised the immensely wealthy and reclusive oligarch in the rear seat and hastily stepped back, waving the car through.
Incomplete; 4:56 AM 25/06/2022
4:56 AM Saturday, 25 June 2022