Chapter Eight
The Molecule
The Beatle rises slowly from the surface of Mars in the way that a soap bubble once it’s created begins to drift upward into the wind.
The crew consists of Brett and Bailey, Brian Worsinski, Brett’s lab partner, Dr. Desiderato and two of her design engineers, Steven Hancock, who will act as Navigator, Mission Control Director Major Jerry Alvindorf and his assistant Noreen Baraka, Captain Bruce Littleton, who is assigned as the pilot and his second-in-command, Lt. Ashley Brittlebar, who is assigned as his co-pilot and Ken ‘Kooky’ Kookinova who will serve as a fill-in for anyone who needs a break.
The crew of twelve men and women, dressed in space suits, are seated in the forward control cabin. To the right of the rear cabin door is a small circular stairway that leads to the top of the cabin and then outside to an observation dome on the top of the rectangular ship.
On the other side of the read door, there are another forty-five crew members, mostly technical workers who volunteered for the mission and who were selected based on an expertise they have in either Computer Science, Climatology, Botany or Genetics.
They will serve mainly as the service group of Martians who will tend to the fungi-mats providing sufficient food and water to keep them growing. They will wander around the surface of the Earth in specially designed suits that are made to withstand the Hellish temperatures of the Earth at least at the most Northern and Southern latitudes. They’ll start the fungi-farming there, near the poles first, and tend to the expansion of the mats up and around the rest of the Earth within a couple years.
This brave little group of volunteers are laying out in hibernation chapters so that they can conserve food and life-support enough to reach their destination in time. It is also designed to save these front line workers the anxiety during the trip that could doom them all.
The Beatle’s sister ship, the ‘Sargent Pepper’ is in final preparations for take-off and will follow behind by one day. The third ship, the ‘Sitting Bull’, and newest member of the Spacex Force will be completed and launched, if all goes well in about thirty sols. All grown in orbit, an additional fifty-five thousand tons of Hightower Strain fungi, the final knock-out punch, will be stored in the hold of this massive ship and will be quickly dispersed on the Earth to complete the conversion of the climate in case the previous two droppings, about half this size, are not enough.
In the last two years, they’ve tried to think of everything that could go wrong or might not work as planned. They have back-ups to back-ups for any contingency they can conceive of. They know that they will never get another chance to save all of the life forms that Earth has created over the last four and a half billion years. They also know that if their own colony is to survive in the long term, they must eventually entertain and support roughly the same number and variety of species to maintain a viable population on Mars.
And so, if their attempts to restart a sustainable and habitable climate on the Earth fails, they are prepared to break into the DNA Depository and ‘requisition’ at least some of the DNA and bring it back to Mars. This is a last-stand position that no one is going to take happily because there are no guarantees that any of the life-forms that made it on the Earth would also make it on Mars. And, besides, they would only have enough resources to bring back a few thousand vials. They have spent little time evaluating which ones to take and which ones to leave. There simply has not been enough time to consider the contingency they desperately want to avoid.
“OK, so I have a consensus that everything is working nominally and we’re all agreed it’s a ‘Go’?” Captain Littleton asks.
“It’s a ‘Go’, Captain. Light her up,” Major Alvindorf says it for the rest.
“OK, here we go,” Captain Littleton says, wiping his finger across a small area of screen directly in front of him.
“Your command has been obeyed, Captain Littleton. We’re on our way,” the Beatle says, reassuring the crew.
They can see a slight blue glow from the four engines surrounding the ship telling them that they are fully engaged. Other than their orbital momentum, there is no noticeable change in speed or acceleration.
The ship’s engines will only attract enough anti-matter to achieve an acceleration no larger than a small child pushing the pedals on their first bicycle ride. After three days of this kind of acceleration, they will notice their home planet beginning to look smaller and further away. At the one week mark, they will still feel very close to Mars and still not experience any serious ‘G’ forces. But, by the end of the second week, they will begin to approach ten percent the speed of light and in one or two days from that point, will start to see the Earth growing in size faster and faster, while the home planet will quickly dissolve back as one of the tiny lights in the sky.
Their entire trip will take three weeks. And in the time that it first took humans to make the transit from Mars to the Earth, with the steady and unprecedented power of the Positronium engines they could reach the nearest star - Proxima Centauri - if they wanted to. The idea will get constant massaging as their time on board goes by.
Captain Littleton and co-pilot Lieutenant Brittlebar monitor their engine sensors to make sure everything is going along smoothly.
The others seem to be settling down to their long flight. They’ve all brought reading material on their digital devices tethered to their wrists.
Brett makes a head motion to Bailey, which she understands immediately. The couple rise up and exit their seats and make their way past the rows of seats to the circular stairway.
“Where you two going?” Alvin asks them, smiling.
“I’m taking Bailey up to see the stars,” Brett says as they mount the stairs and twist their way up to the hatch, which opens for them silently just as they reach it.
“I think they’re a couple. Am I right?” the Beatle asks as the hatch closes behind them.
No one says anything right away. They crane their heads around to look at one another.
“Oh come on, people. I know all about sex,” the Beatle says, snarkily.
“It’s not my thing, of course, but I can dream can’t I?” he jokes.
More craning of heads around the cabin, worried expressions on their faces.
“Uh, yeah, you can dream, Beatle, but we’d all appreciate it very much more if you kept your focus on the mission,” Major Alvindorf replies, finally.
‘Kooky’ gets up and makes his way to the small kitchen set up on the right side and behind the circular stairway.
“I think we’re all going to need a drink,” he says, taking glasses down and filling them from one of the spigots, labeled ‘Margarita Time’.
“How’s the nav-comm?” Flo Desiderato asks of Navigator Hancock.
“Everything’s nominal. We’re right in the groove,” he replies efficiently.
A popular tune that recently made the Martian Top Ten recordings entitled – ‘I can’t get you out of my brain’ plays over the cabin speakers at a medium volume that is far from overbearing.
“Beatle, did you pick that song or was it one of us?” Major Alvindorf asks.
“Yes, I did, Major. I hope you don’t mind. It seems like a little music would break the tension a bit. I know how important this mission is to all of you and I for one will do my very best to make it a huge success. I want you to all relax – as much as possible, that is,” the Beatle replies slowly.
“All right. That’s nice of you Beatle. Anyone have any objections to the Beatle choosing our music for a while?” Alvin asks the crew.
No objections voiced.
On the top observation dome, Brett and Bailey have found a bench and are seated, holding each other tightly, blissfully taking in the sights.
To the rear, their home planet is slowly getting smaller. All around them, the stars are so brilliant the combined light of them is almost blinding.
Brett spots a thick patch of stars just over Bailey’s right shoulder. He points to it and is about to explain that he thinks this is the Argon Cluster, just recently discovered to host a minimum of fifteen hundred earth-sized exoplanets orbiting the hundreds of stars in the group.
“There’s got to be life on at least one of them,” he posits.
Bailey turns her head and at that instant they both are stunned to notice a plume of white light surrounding the star cluster as if some huge explosion has just taken place.
“What on Mars is that?” Bailey asks, totally befuddled.
“I have no idea,” Brett replies, just as befuddled.
The bright white halo grows bigger and bigger by the second and they both get the feeling that the major part of the energy is headed right for them.
“I think it’s headed this way. You guys watching this?” Brett asks into his telecom.
In the next few seconds, the ring of light becomes larger and larger almost half the size of their entire field of view.
“We’re seeing it,” Alvindorf concurs.
The crew can see from one of the side ports that something bright and fast-moving is aimed right at the ship.
“Brett, you and Bailey should come back inside, don’t you think?” Captain Littleton suggests.
“On our way,” Brett replies.
Taking one last look at the thing, he grabs Bailey by the shoulder and pushes her towards the hatch. At this point, the bright halo of light is all around them like a doughnut around the hole.
They make their way down the stairway and back into their seats in record time.
Among the crew in hibernation below, young Manny Garcia feels something shaking him at his shoulders, demanding that he wake up. He fights it off, or at least the hibernation drugs fight it off, but they quickly lose the fight. His eyes open. He slowly raises the transparent lid and sits up straight in his bed.
“Sister Carrie,” he whispers into a mic that he’s implanted in his pajamas.
“Did you see that?” he says a little louder.
“Yes, we saw that,” the good reverend replies.
“It woke me up,” Manny replies, groggy.
“Yes, same here,” Rev. Carrie replies.
By the time Brett and Bailey get settled in their seats, the apparition has passed them by and the crew turn their attention to the opposite side of the cabin where they can see the white halo of light disappearing into the opposite side of the universe from which it came.
It slowly shrinks into a small circle, then a dot barely brighter than the stars coming back into view. Then, it’s gone.
“That was unexpected,” Brett voices what they’re all thinking.
“Beatle, do you have any data on what that was?” he asks out loud, watching Bailey’s face return to her normal color.
“It was simply a greeting, I’m guessing. But, I have ninety-seven point seven nine percent confidence in that theory,” the ship replies.
“A greeting?” Captain Littleton says, perplexed.
“A greeting from whom?” Alvindorf asks.
“If I told you, you won’t believe me,” the Beatle replies.
“That greeting that we all saw, right – was traveling many times the speed of light. Anyone disagree with that?” Navigator Hancock posits.
“Many times over. Had to be,” Littleton agrees.
“What do you mean that we would not believe you?” Bailey asks the ship.
“So, if I told you it was a message from God, would you believe me?” the Beatle asks solemnly.
“Absolutely not!” Bailey replies, looking at her crew-mates for approval but getting none.
“See, I told you,” the Beatle replies.
# # #
I’m outside the gaping cavern doors of the DNA depository. It’s just turned night time, but it’s pitch black outside. With all of the moisture in the air, the Earth is either in the brightest of day or the darkest of night. There’s no in-between any more. No twilight dusky time for lovers to prim and preen, no gradual glow of the dawn calling them to break their fast. And of course the stars vanished from sight decades ago.
Now that I’m free of Lexie and I’ve heard the voices from the past singing to me so eloquently, I’m starting to feel another song from my past coming from very deep in my memory core. It’s not possible for this to be happening because I have no memories older than my manufacture date, just a few years ago. I’m basically a three-year old mind held captive inside the body of a canine. What possible memories could I have?
Then, I look up into the black smudge of a sky for some reason. Something or someone is calling to me. The sky starts to light up in one direction that I detect to be the West. It gains in brightness more and more until it appears to turn the entire night into day once again. Then, the brightest and largest circle of sunlight I’ve ever seen, like an extra-planetary gigantic rainbow, rings the entire planet.
Then, the circle of rainbow colors grows smaller and smaller and appears to be further and further away until it is completely engulfed by the gloom.
‘Curious event,’ I’m thinking and wondering if it has anything to do with the message I just received from the DNA down in the tunnels.
“K-9, can you hear me?” the familiar voice of Jerry Alvindorf is in my head.
“Yes, yes, I can hear you, Major Alvindorf,” I reply, happily.
“We’ve been unable to reach you for several days now. Thought your batteries were dead. Is everything OK?” he asks.
It’s maddening that I must wait the thirteen minutes for me to receive their transmission and another thirteen for them to receive my replies.
Oddly, the time for full cycle is only a little over twenty-two minutes, therefore, their signal is much closer to the Earth than normal.
“Oh yes, I know. That was Lexie blocking our communications, I assume. But, she’s gone, or at least not around right now. Where are you? Are you on the way here?” I ask, curiously.
I turn on my timer accurate to within ten decimal places. In exactly twenty-two minutes and fifty eight point three five seconds, I receive their signal again. This means they are moving closer to me at a speed very much greater than anything humans have achieved before. Still not very fast in astronomical terms, but about twice as fast as they’ve traveled before in space. And, they’re accelerating smoothly.
“Yes, K-9, we’re on the way to you. We’re in the first of three ships that are all part of the mission. I’m sure you are aware of the mission. It’s just that we’ve been fortunate enough to move it up by a few years,” Alvin replies.
“I am glad. It’s been pretty lonely down here. Or at least that’s the way it’s been until a few moments ago when I heard the DNA that are stored in the Depository and they’re anxiously awaiting their rescue,” I inform them.
Believing this information will cause a stir, I am guessing that their next transmission will take at least twice as long to get to me because they’ll have to discuss the implications of this news for a while. I’m guessing twenty-nine to thirty minutes, depending on how many of them participate, plus the transmission time both ways comes to roughly fifty-two minutes total round-trip.
Exactly fifty-two minutes and thirteen seconds later I get my response. It’s encouraging that my prediction unit appears to be working at one hundred percent capacity. From this information, I calculate that there are around one dozen of them on the ship. I’ll learn later that this is the exact number of the crew who are awake.
I further believe that in a few more transmissions, I’ll even be able to guess to within ninety-percent accuracy as to who these individuals are.
“Say K-9. You came in a little garbled just now. Can you please say again what you just said?” Alvin asks slowly and clearly.
I run a quick diagnostic check on all transmitter circuitry and analyze the atmosphere for any ionic disturbance and come to the conclusion that my last words were not garbled. They’re probably just ‘buying time’ – a concept I’ve never really understood fully since Time doesn’t have a purchase price, at least not one any human could afford.
“Understood. Sorry about that,” I acknowledge and then continue.
“I said that things were pretty lonesome and sad down here, until I had a strange encounter with the DNA still alive in the caves. They are waiting so patiently, anxious to be rescued. They feel trapped and abandoned and extremely anxious, in fear of their lives and they want desperately to get out and roam around on the Earth, swim in the oceans, fly in the air. That kind of thing. I told them that you were on the way, even though I had no idea that you were actually on the way. Something deep inside my prediction unit allowed me to say this. So, this is fabulous news to me,” I tell them.
I feel that this will take them another half hour to accept and absorb as well.
To preserve my batteries, I decide to go into sleep mode and set my timer to wake up all systems in exactly fifty-two minutes and thirteen seconds, the time they took for their previous discussion and transmission to reach me.
The one variable I didn’t know because they never told me that their new line of space ships would be controlled by an artificial intelligence much larger and more advanced than my own, and that their ship – the Beatle, was also part of their discussions.
Then, suddenly, I feel a few small drops of water crashing down on my head and buttocks. Very quickly, they grow larger and larger. The forcefulness of each drop brings me fully awake. I know instantly that another ‘Ocean-fall’ is about to take place and I’m completely exposed.
I start down the path to my ship parked a few hundred feet away. The splashes on my body, nearly knocking me over are more and more frequent, almost one gallon per ten seconds.
By the time I reach the Intrepid, vertical streams of water are flooding everything nearby threatening the ship. It looks as though it’s ready to tip over. I can hear the stabilizers straining to keep the ship upright.
I send the order for the ramp to come down and it does so just as I’m rolling up to it. I keep on moving up the ramp and into the ship transmitting the emergency launch sequence that leaves out all safety checks, something I’ve never had to do before.
The ship starts to keel over just as my engines come into full thrust, The river of water crashes down on the hull and sounds like a giant fist trying very hard to blast us into little pieces. We make it off the ground at an oblique angle that I must adjust quickly or else go careening into the ground, already a vast seascape reaching out to the horizon.
As I gain altitude and right the ship, I get a faint signal from Major Alvindorf.
It’s too weak and garbled for me to decipher it fully. It sounds like they’re aware of the sudden change in the weather and are seriously concerned about me, but I could be wrong. I make the conscious decision to remain focused on calculating the best angle up and out of this maelstrom.
After several very tense moments, I anticipate readings of empty and clear skies above in a matter of ten point seven five kilometers. I head directly for the clear skies, but as I put too much demand on the nose to go up, the Intrepid fights me and starts to fall backwards, losing altitude rapidly. Not good.
For some reason, I remember the doughnut of bright light that encircled the Earth completely and then disappeared just a few short minutes ago. I can hear the choir music and the messages from the DNA spirit I had just discovered. It inspires me think about my fate in another way. I also know that if I fail to think in a some extra-ordinary way, not necessarily the way I have been programmed, I could cease to be, crushed by the pressure of tons of water pressing all around me.
I turn the ship at a highly oblique angle to the ocean-fall and start to make a small circular pattern, pushing my altitude higher by just a few meters at each cycle. I go round and round in a kind of dance with the water.
The roaring noise of it hitting the hull slowly begins to beat in harmony with the rhythm of my turns. It’s not fighting me any more. The ocean fall becomes a dear friend joyously lifting me up into the sky as a ballet dancer delicately lifts his partner high into the air.
An hour goes by uneventfully in this dance and then another one ticks off and then I can gradually peer through the gloom and into the clear star-studded skies just a few hundred meters above me.
“K-9, are you there? Please acknowledge. Molly O’ Davis, I hope we haven’t lost you pal,” Major Alvindorf’s voice comes in over the radio and he sounds wonderful.
It must be so wonderful to be alive. I have to give them credit. ‘What courageous and plucky little creatures they are,’ I think.
# # #
Alvindorf, Brett Hightower and the rest of the crew on board the Beatle all hear K-9’s report at the same moment and they each absorb it with a slightly different flavor from the others.
Alvindorf and pilot Littleton believe that something is going wrong with K-9’s artificial brain. Although Captain Littleton is more concerned about how this will effect their mission than Major Alvindorf is.
Having seen much stranger things in the lab, Brett and Bailey are inclined to think that nothing is wrong with K-9’s interpretation of events and they express the need to try and understand this phenomenon more fully, especially in light of their mission to use every genetic trick in the book to save the genetic miracles stored away in the Depository.
“Anyone know of any case where molecules can talk?” Captain Littleton asks the others, partially to make sure he heard K-9 correctly, but mainly to gain some clarity on the issue.
“He didn’t exactly say they talked to him. Only that he heard them, I believe is what he said,” Brett wonders out loud, looking directly into Bailey’s eyes.
“Isn’t there a similar experience that you’ve had, Commander Hightower?” the Beatle shares suddenly.
“I’m not a Commander,” Brett replies, laughing.
The others in the cabin look back at him curiously.
“All right, yes, I’ve had similar experiences in working with the fungi and the trees. It’s no secret. It’s why we’ve been able to make so much progress so fast on Mars. You all know that. That’s how I got my nickname, right?” Brett asks.
“Johnny Appleseed,” Bailey says, proudly rubbing her hand through his hair.
Then, something more noteworthy pops up in his brain.
“My friend, the Beatle, how do you know about my relationship with the fungi and the trees?” he asks, almost knowing the answer to his own question before he asks it.
“Well, they told me, of course,” the Beatle responds.
“Oh, and by the way, you’ve asked me to alert you when we’ve reached maximum velocity. That point is coming up in thirty-nine minutes,” the ship continues.
The news causes a stir among the crew.
“OK, everyone, let’s get on our landing procedures for review. It’s going to take everyone of us using every nerve fiber to make sure we don’t miss the injection point,” Capt. Littleton orders.
Brett and Bailey release each other’s arms and dutifully extend their computer consoles that extend out from under the arms of their chairs.
Out of an abundance of caution, the mission has programmed ways to sub-divide among each of the crew all of the procedures the ship will require to perform deceleration maneuvers, turn itself around by one hundred and eighty degrees and fire sufficient retro-thrusters to slow them down just enough to enter a viable Earth orbit. It will take them a very tense two entire days to complete it.
The Beatle is more than capable of handling all of this on its own, but since this will be humanity’s most important space mission of all time, and since they’ll only get one shot at it, they all voted to use every single back-up procedure they could think of to make sure the ship got it right.
“I’m on radar distancing. All go,” Brett is the first to announce his role is appearing on his screen. A tiny picture of the Earth comes into view in the upper right corner of his screen. Whole and fractional numbers representing their distance to the home planet in real time are ticking off by thousands of miles each second.
“I’m on engine thrust reversal. All go,” Bailey says.
“I’m on lateral thrusters. All go,” Maj. Alvindorf says.
“I’m on targeting,” Navigator Hancock asserts.
In a few minutes all of the crew’s landing responsibilities are announced as working within expected ranges.
“We’re all ‘Go’. Everyone, if you have to go to the bathroom, this would be the time to do so,” Captain Littleton suggests calmly.
“Could I go to the bathroom, please?” the Beatle asks in response.
“What the Hell?” Littleton exclaims, befuddled.
“I’m joking of course, Captain. You people take everything so seriously. I’m perfectly capable of performing all of these tasks to perfection. You must know that. You can all relax. Take a nap for the next two days. Everything will be fine,” the Beatle replies.
“It’s just a safety precaution, Beatle. No slight intended,” co-pilot Brittlebar says.
“None taken,” the Beatle replies.
“Deceleration maneuver in ‘T minus two minutes’,” he says.
The cabin door behind them swings open unexpectedly.
“I’m hungry. Anyone got anything to eat?” Manny pleads, holding on to his pajamas.
Updated 9/9/2020 (Looking for any mistakes in grammar, spelling, logic that you may have found. Please add your comments at any time - it will be much appreciated)
source https://www.extinction.live/2020/09/extinction-live-chaptereight.html
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