Music on The Galactic Voyager

Music on the

Galactic Voyager

Kay Hemlock Brown

Copyright © 2015, by Kay Hemlock Brown

Published at Smashwords

Contents

Prologue

Year 20: School Days

Year 23: A Wedding and a Planet

Year 28: A Disappointment

Year 31: Changes

Year 70: A New Generation

Year 72: Helen Finds her Feet

Year 72: A Concert is Planned

Year 72: The Collegeum

Year 72: Traveling

Year 73: Mission to A Star

Year 74: Planning for the Mission

Year 74: Launching the Cutter

Year 75: The Planet

Year 76: Checkup

Year 77: The Twins Tour The Ship

Year 77: Cutter Gamma Arrives

Year 78: Fears of Mortality

Year 78: The Planet

Year 79: Melanie Settles In

Year 80: Helen is Removed from the Vat

Year 100: Helen is Revived

Year 100: Project Helen

Year 101: Obstacles

Year 102: A Long Voyage

Year 102: Arrival

Author’s Note

Prologue

Helen had already presented the classical portion of her concert, playing the violin, the synthesizer, and singing. When Helen reappeared after the brief intermission, she had changed her clothes.

It was the same auditorium, the same audience, but there was somehow a more intimate feeling. She wore a brief denim skirt, and a heavy plaid shirt; her tightly curling blonde hair was braided and hung down her back in a thick rope, but the loose short hairs that invariably escaped the braid surrounded her head like a faint halo.

She had come out with only a small guitar, bowed to the audience briefly, and sat on the stool. Crossing her knees, she rested the guitar on her leg, tuned it a little, and adjusted the smaller microphone to the guitar.

This second half, I want to sing you a few of the folk songs I have learned from around the Earth. Most people on our home planet do not have the privilege of traveling widely. Having made money as a young girl by—well, in various ways—I had the means to travel. I learned many songs, in addition to those that my mother taught me. Many of these, you young people must learn, and you must teach your children. Here is a song from the Navaho people, of a young man for his girl.

It was a simple song, one that made the audience smile, with an even simpler accompaniment. Then Helen sang a Korean Lullaby that had become popular when she was a teenager. There followed songs from India, Russia, the Ukraine, Ireland, Finland, Israel, Egypt, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Canada, Scotland, Mexico, Japan, New Zealand, and China. There were songs of African slaves in the US. Helen was almost a different person; the songs were living things, with their own life, and Helen seemed to come alive only when she described their backgrounds, and what they meant to her.

The audience was very quiet in this second half. Gone was the brilliance and the virtuosity. Gone was Helen the goddess. These songs she sang now made everyone feel that they could sing the songs themselves. She sang them simply, with feeling. Some of the songs, such as the Irish love song she sang towards the end, were beautiful songs, not as easy as the others she sang. But those were the exceptions. Most of the songs were simple ones, simply sung. Sometimes they were about injustice, sometimes about the destruction of war, sometimes they were about jealousy and murder. A very few were about being a child, and the wonder of it.

This last song is about a country. It is about a country called Earth. You see, said Helen, we only know to go forward. To us, on this ship, to breathe is to go forward. But it doesn’t mean that we do not love our mother, the Earth. There was a pin-drop silence, and Helen wondered whether she was going where angels feared to tread. "Perhaps we love her most, because we have left her behind. This song is a plea for harmony and understanding. It says, there is more that we have in common, than what is different between us.

"I want to send you back to your homes with this thought: we’re all made of the stuff of our planet. We are Earth dust, flying though space. When I was on Earth, when I was young, the songs of my people, the songs of the origins of my parents, the songs of Norway, and Sweden and Finland; it seemed to me that these were especially important to me! But I learned all these other songs, because I loved music. But now, I look back, and I see clearly, that all people of Earth are my people, are our people. They are all my songs!" Applause started softly, in a corner of the room, but soon it was taken up by everyone. Perhaps not all of them understood the emotions she was trying to communicate, but they applauded because she had made them love her. She was the Earth Woman, and she was all that was left of Earth, that they could think of as a memory of Home.

Year 20: School Days

Puppies

The little clearing was surrounded by tall trees, green and healthy. Soft daylight filtered down through the leaves, on two young girls playing in the clearing, watching the antics of a litter of puppies. They were about eleven years old, and dressed in colorful loose tunics and knitted pants with elastic cuffs, reminiscent of a bygone era.

That’s the one I like the best, said one of them, pointing. She had pleasant, rounded smiling features and softly curving lips, and her medium-blonde hair fell straight to a little past her shoulders. Her voice was soft and musical. Her grey eyes were startlingly clear, something her companion was too young to appreciate.

Her companion was a classic redhead, with dark curly red hair tied back in two pigtails, and a rash of golden freckles across her nose and her cheeks.

Me too, said she, quickly, nodding. He’s the smart one. Their voices sounded very much alike; they had grown up together, and influenced each other’s speech.

Funny how we like the smart ones, said the blond.

Well, said the other one, after a little thought, "I like them all!"

The blond sighed. She smiled at one of the pups who came over to her and wagged its tail. They were presently joined by the mother of the pups, a large healthy Collie, who had taken the opportunity afforded by the free babysitting to run a few private errands. She greeted the girls with a soft bark, and settled down. She was still nursing the pups, all six of them healthy, and she could only take brief breaks from them.

Okay, said the redhead, come along, Cass; back to work.

School

Work was a circle of computers in another clearing a short distance away. It was school; they were writing. The teaching scholar was a young woman of about nineteen, who was going round the circle of students, talking to each in turn. She did look a little unhappy, and the two friends exchanged glances; when Jeannie was unhappy everything was liable to be a mess.

A soft chime sounded from the computers, and Jeannie finished her round. Cass and her redheaded friend Alison knew how bright Jeannie was. Sometimes, though, she kept her impatience under control only with great effort. She never actually lost her temper, and she was never abrupt with the two girls, but they could see her seethe sometimes when talking to their companions, even if a harsh word never escaped her lips.

They stayed where they were for the mathematics lesson with Charlie, a middle-aged man with curly brown hair and a wonderful sense of humor. In addition to mathematics, he often regaled them with stories. To their surprise, Charlie declared that they were finished with math for the week, temporarily. We’ve done a little extra all week, he said, so that we can have a little fun today! He had brought with him a little machine that played music. He played with the controls, and energetic music wafted out. It was rhythmic music, which made them want to dance.

"What is it?" Alison asked, wide-eyed. Charlie grinned, and motioned for them to keep dancing.

A few minutes’ walk from the little chain of clearings that served as classrooms, behind a line of trees, one abruptly came upon a door in a wall. Through the door, one entered a stairway that seemed to curve up gradually, into the sky. If you went far enough, you came to a bench, facing which was a window, heavily armored with a transparent material. And one could look out into black night of space. For this was an enormous space-faring vessel.

The Galactic Voyager: Its People

The first twenty years had been uneventful. Once out of the solar system, even on a constantly accelerating ship there was nothing except the vastness of space. Only the nuclear furnaces of the ship kept it warm for the inhabitants. A number of children had been born, including Jeannie, born to one of the ship’s nurses, Susan Hamer, of a father whose identity Susan never revealed. Susan was a highly intelligent woman. She adored her child, and watched with pleasure as Jeannie Hamer grew up to be a wonderful writer and poet, the pride and joy of her teachers. Charlie, who had gone on board as a young mathematician with a brand-new PhD at twenty-five, had become a mellow man, a kind of uncle to many of Jeannie’s generation. There were others, young folk of both sexes, who had never known Earth, never seen its skies except in videos lovingly kept in the data banks. There was Julian, also a poet; Vanessa, an athlete and a painter; Greg, skilled at mathematics and computer science; twin girls Mary and Martha, who had specialized in science and now taught chemistry and biology. There were many more, and then there was Cass—Cassiopeia—born to a couple who had married on the ship: The Co-Pilot and Assistant Chief of Operations, Laura Hutchinson, and the head of the medical service, Jonathan Holt. Alison was the child of one of the service staff, Elizabeth McClintock of food services, who had also been a champion swimmer, and Ben Warren, the Assistant Chief of Security. The girls had been born only days apart.

Chief Hutchinson had asked to have her baby in the public delivery room. While she had been there, she had become friends with Lizzie McClintock, and even after the little infants had been taken to their homes, their mothers had often met off-duty, so that the girls had grown up together. Laura, in spite of a strong inclination to be reclusive and to enjoy the privileges of her station, had followed the principles she had been taught as a child: it was important that those highest in rank should cling to privilege as little as possible. She had to set an example to others in the governing elite.

What started as a matter of principle had soon become a matter of choice. Laura recognized the innate admirable qualities of Lizzie. There was an aristocratic bearing in the woman, in spite of her being nothing but a cook. It was a quality that came not from aloofness or pride, but from something that was revealed in the way she carried herself, the confidence she exuded, the way others looked to her for leadership.

Alison had inherited not only her mother’s flaming hair, but also her dignity and her intelligence. Ben, too, was intelligent in his own way, though so far there had been no call for any great creativity in the security department.

The Weekend

Life on board the Galaxy, as it was called by its inmates, was organized in weeks. While the seven-day week was clearly an arbitrary choice, the project designers had decided to leave the week the way it was.

Cass and Allie often spent the weekend together, one night with the Chief and her family, one night with Lizzie and Ben. With the Chief, there was usually tennis on Saturday morning—the chief was also the tennis champion of her age-group, an unbelievably persistent and fierce competitor.

Afterwards there was usually a picnic lunch, and after that, movies, late in the afternoon. Sentimental Doc Holt always sighed heavily as he watched, wiping the occasional tear from his eye. The girls knew that Chief Laura was equally moved by the sights of Earth, but of course she would not allow herself to show her feelings. She always declared that it was important to be honest in how you showed your feelings, but somehow it seemed not to apply to her. She was full of principles, only some of which she actually practised.

This time, they had played singles, until the Chief had beaten them all, and then the Chief and Doc Holt had challenged the girls. Doc Holt was as bad as the Chief was good, and the girls soon had the Chief trying to play them by herself, to the embarrassment of poor Doc, around whom the Chief ran, getting both his balls and hers. But the girls had grown up watching the Chief, and could play quite well. Cass was serving to her mother, who was in the ad court.

Okay, I’m going to serve really slow and wide, said Cass softly to Allie.

Gotcha. That meant the Chief could tip the ball at a sharp angle along the net, or send it down the line. It meant leaving a hole in the defense, but they had done it before.

Cass served just as slow and as wide as she had promised, and her mother whipped the ball backhand with heavy top spin at a sharp angle. Cass ran to cover, while Allie reached out with her left hand and popped the ball right at the doctor. In spite of the Chief’s cry, Take it, Jon, for Chrissake! the good doctor panicked, and hit the ball into the net. The girls hooted with laughter as he leaned on the net, glaring at them with mock venom. Cass called out thanks to him, which made her mother even angrier.

Serving to her father, Cass was sure of a point. It was a nice serve, giving him plenty of room to respond. She was very fond of her Dad, and hated to ace him. He returned the ball straight back to her surprisingly firmly, but Allie poached, volleying the ball at the foot of the Chief. Miraculously she picked it up and put it over the net, but Allie put it away easily.

The girls won the match in two sets, making the Chief furious. The longer it went on, the harder she fought, but luck was with the girls, and in the end she hugged them fiercely in congratulation. Cass Holt, of course, was the apple of her father’s eye, and she could do no wrong. He picked her right off the floor, making her squeal. Over on the next court Stu Walters and Zak Rundgren were playing, and she would have very much preferred to keep her feet on the court while being hugged by her Dad. She sighed. Dad was Dad; he wasn’t the intellectual type when it came to her. Allie’s grin only made it worse.

Back in the house, they showered together, as always. They toweled themselves dry, and dressed in ‘Earth clothes,’ or the kind of clothes they saw Earth girls wearing in the videos: jeans and T-shirts.

The movie they watched was The Sound of Music, a favorite of the Doctor’s. He had talked about it for weeks, and they had finally gotten it. The movies were circulated on disks, which were made with archival data. The archives were on slow media, not suitable for viewing directly. After all, the ship had only early 21st century technology, not ultra-futuristic technology they saw on so many Science Fiction videos. The database contained nearly every movie that had ever been made, but was not part of the active data, unlike the encyclopedias and other texts that were available in an instant anywhere on the ship.

The children had been given a detailed background of the facts surrounding the movie, the invasion of Austria by the Nazis, the legend of the Von Trapp Family Singers, and so forth. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

"Oh, I wish there were seven of us! I wish!" cried Allie, hugging herself, her eyes glowing. She wasn’t a demonstrative child, but the movie had connected with some hidden need in her.

Cass was singing, The hills are alive . . . and the girls held hands and waltzed around, dreamy-eyed. The Holts owned a music record of all the songs from the movie, and the girls put it on now, and listened intently.

I had forgotten how sentimental an eleven-year-old could be, Laura said to her husband, as the two of them worked on dinner.

It’s good for them, he said, smiling.

They’re singing along, can you hear them? Laura asked, looking up at her husband with a smile. She enjoyed these Saturday afternoon cooking sessions far more than she would admit.

The girls were, indeed, singing along.

The project designers, the people who had conceived the Galactic Voyager mission, had planned, for the most part, a balanced curriculum for the children on board the Galaxy, but music had somehow not been a part of it. Indeed there was plenty of recorded music on board, and movies, and musicals. What was absent were musical instruments, singing, performance. There was the perfection of the best music performed by the best ensembles on Earth, but evidently there had been a belief that the spacefarers would have no need to play music themselves. Why bother, when the best was available at the touch of a button?

After supper, which was wonderful, the girls set out for the Warren-McClintock home.

Mom, said Alison excitedly, "we watched The Sound of Music! It was fantastic!"

Oh yes, said Lizzie, I remember that one. She began to sing The Lonely Goatherd, and the girls stared at her in wonder, and joined in. They knew it perfectly. The look in her mother’s eyes made her seem young and dreamy-eyed to Alison, almost beautiful. She was not accustomed to thinking of her as pretty, though she loved her mother very much!

After a few card games, they turned in. The next day they would go on a picnic, which the girls would prepare themselves, and hopefully they would meet up with some of their friends.

Planet Sighted?

In the control room, on Monday morning, Chief Laura and The Old Man, Captain Wes Montgomery, watched the view screen.

It’s an interesting system, Jim Kelly the astronomer was saying, but I don’t really expect to see a planet.

After two decades—subjective time—of empty space, the Galaxy was approaching its first star system. While the event had been anticipated by the scientific personnel from the very beginning, everything possible had been done to arrange for the shipboard civilian population to be distracted from it. The desire to find a habitable planet was so intense among the colonists, that the ship administration—understandably—feared the let-down that would follow a disappointment. In the early days, there had been chronic space-watchers, who were in the habit of looking out the observation windows on every segment, every free moment. But about a decade ago most of them seemed to have given up.

So this is not where the planets were seen? the Captain rumbled.

Planets weren’t really seen, Captain, Jim replied. There’s only indirect evidence.

The Captain shook his head slowly. He was sixty, now, and he feared that he would die without seeing a single planet. The trajectory of the ship had been designed to pass near as many likely systems as possible, rather than to intersect any particular system that had been confirmed to possess an Earth-type planet.

This was a G2-type star, with a gas giant that might become a star eventually. The telescopes showed the stars clearly, but all the scanning had revealed no Earth-type planets.

We’re approaching a planet! someone was yelling some days later, as the girls looked up from the puppies. It was one of their friends, Jeremy Staples, a few years older than they, a big, bouncy childish fellow. Aren’t we? Cass, your Mom must have told you! Come on, tell me! Soon there was a group of four boys surrounding them, looking curiously at Cass.

Now, Cass knew that they were approaching a star system, but there had been no talk of a planet. She had been told not to mention it to her friends, not so much to keep it secret as to keep to a minimum just such speculation as Jeremy was indulging in. The position of the ship was depicted on the main display which was near the public meeting area, if anyone bothered to go look.

We’re approaching a star, Cass said calmly; nobody said anything about a planet!

"But there’s gotta be a planet, Jeremy said, stubbornly, and nothing they told him would make him change his mind. You’re lying, and they told you to lie, I know it!"

Cass went red. Alison punched Jeremy in the arm.

Take that back, Jerry, she said, her voice quiet but menacing.

The puppies were lined up watching them from inside their little pen, barking in their squeaky little voices. Cass doesn’t lie, and her mother doesn’t make her lie, either.

Jerry shoved Allie, and she winced; boys never cared where they shoved you. She punched him again, and this time she made it hurt. He glared, and moved clumsily to shove her back, but she danced out of reach. They shouted imprecations at each other, but the other boys hauled him away, and Alison glared at Jeremy until he was out of sight.

Cass sniffed, feeling her eyes tearing up.

Call your Mom, Allie advised. Cass shook her head. "Okay, then I will," declared Allie, her jaw set.

She dialed the bridge, and an orderly took the call.

Bridge here.

Is the Chief there?

Who’s this?

Tell her it’s Allie Warren.

There was an indistinct conference, and the Chief came on the line.

Allie?

Chief Hutchinson, somebody just said that we were approaching a planet, and accused Cass of lying! They said that Cass had been told to lie.

What? Who said we were approaching a planet?

Jeremy Staples. And he said Cass knew, but wasn’t telling!

The Chief sighed.

A little later, a female ensign came into the school area, and called Cass and Allie out, while their Chemistry instructor looked on worriedly.

Who is this boy, and what did he say? asked the ensign, a smart young woman who looked Malay—Indonesian or Filipino. Cass told her the details, with a shrug. After a few more softly-spoken inquiries, the young woman left them to their lessons. Shortly afterwards, a message came over the Public Address system.

The Chief addressed the ship at large. She explained that they were approaching a star, but there was no planet. From this vantage, we can study the system with virtually no distortion, she said, and there is no planet. If there were, it could not sustain life. We’re going to swing past the system without slowing down very much. We’ll be passing it for a year, and there will be all the time in the world to study it at close range.

And so the Galaxy passed the first star on its journey.

A Group of Heroes Returns

Several months later, once they were safely out of the near vicinity of the star, Cass and Allie stood with a large group of kids their age, staring out the window. In various places on the ship, other groups of children and adults watched enormous monitors. The view was split; one half showed five tiny red figures, and one larger orange one, making their way along a walkway attached to the outside of the ship’s hull. The other half showed one or another of the figures close up, according to the fancy of a young lady who was in charge of the remote-controlled camera.

They’re at the airlock! Run!

There was a general scramble on the part of the kids to see the heroes as they came through one of the airlocks situated near the hub of the Voyager. Gravity there was minuscule, and the girls who had worn skirts were shyly tucking them between their legs. The airlock door opened and there stood two girls, still in their airtight pressure suits, with only their helmets off, beaming at their audience. They panted with excitement as they made way for the boys behind them, and the enormous man who stood behind them all.

"It was incredible! said the taller girl, a rather fragile-looking brunette with bright, excited eyes. It was awesome!"

Where is it? Is there a lot of stuff?

The boys have it!

Here; its right here, said one of the boys, maneuvering an enormous mesh bag of packages into the hallway. He spotted a friend down the hall and grinned and waved.

For several minutes it was all confusion and excitement, as the five who had done the extra-vehicular activity answered numerous questions from their host of young admirers.

Every individual who had left earth on board the Voyager had been allotted a quota of belongings he or she could bring on the trip. However, many of the less delicate and essential things had been wrapped in tough plastic, and secured in minimally-protected containers outside the hull. There they remained, at the mercy of every speck of space dust, and the blistering cold of space. There had been several attempts to improve the protection of these storage areas with different combinations of foil and plastic over the years, and now those aboard would be eager to know the condition of everything that remained in the external containers. The kids had been sent out with new materials to repair the abraded protection. Each of the young people had very specific lists of items to retrieve from the storage, and they had taken out with them some more items to be stored. One of the boys had used a video camera to record what was visible, and interested parties were planning what they would do when the next group of young folk went out on EVA.

The Spacewalk, as it was called, had become a tradition on board ship. Every young person who arrived at the age of 21 was eligible to go out on a spacewalk, to bring back from the storage-containers the numbered packages that his or her parents might have brought with them in anticipation of their children attaining adulthood. There were a variety of things in storage: clothes, books, memorabilia, sewing-machines, data devices, the silly things for which there was no space inside the pressurized hull. In principle, all unwanted stuff from inside the ship would be carried out to the bins, too, but the volume of outgoing traffic seemed a lot less than it should be!

For days, the EVA team had rehearsed the activity with Pete Barrows, the large black spaceman who was the EVA specialist. Pete was perfect for the job, having taken almost a hundred young people out on their celebratory spacewalk over the years, without a single serious accident. It’s not routine. It never will be routine, he told them every time. Even if you don’t make a mistake, something could come by undetected and finish you off! During each spacewalk, a crew of four kept watch at different places on the extremities of the pressurized area, with motion detectors searching all around the ship for incoming space debris that could injure or kill the spacewalkers. There were automatic lasers that could vaporize small, slow-moving objects, and a metal deflector mounted on the nose of the ship, since the direction of highest probability was from dead ahead. Still, there was ultimately no defense against fast, heavy space debris from any other direction.

But once the tradition was started, every kid wanted to go on spacewalk as soon as he or she was twenty-one, despite the anxiety of their parents. For a week they would be celebrities.

Year 23: A Wedding and a Planet

The Wedding

Using the gravitational energy of the star, the Galaxy shot out to the next system with increased speed. On board, life settled down to the slow pace of inter-star travel. All the excitement came from within, children being born, young people coming together to form families. When Jeannie married Greg, Cass and Allie were chosen as bridesmaids, and Jeremy and his friend Rasheed were groomsmen. Beautiful clothes were designed and executed by the experts on board, including Jeannie and Greg themselves. Jeannie was a wizard with clothes, and so was Greg, and they made the dresses for the girls, with Cass and Allie willingly helping them.

On the days leading up to the rehearsal for the wedding, and the wedding itself, Jeremy had eyes only for Cass, and she could see it. She didn’t know what to do; Cass did not particularly like Jeremy. Not because of the little incident about the planet, but simply because Jeremy was such a baby.

Somehow, that evening, Jeremy got Cass seemingly alone. Allie was close by, but seeing what Jeremy wanted, Allie waited out of sight. Jeremy spoke to Cass with the urgency and the earnestness of a young man in love. He was around seventeen, and the girls were around fifteen; too young to be in a serious relationship, but not too young to understand what it was all about. Cass looked up into his eyes, and her color was high, and Allie thought, her heart like lead, that Cass would succumb to the romance of the day. Allie was too far away to hear, and she cursed.

Cass seemed on the point of tears. But gently, softly, she turned him away. She shook her head, she spoke eloquently, and Jeremy stooped to let Cass kiss him on the cheek. Allie faded into the potted plants, out of sight, as Jeremy walked away, his head hanging dejectedly.

Another Planet

Then, unexpectedly, a few years later, the astronomy team told the Chief and the Captain that they had found a planet on their trajectory. It’s right on our present travel path, the astronomer said excitedly, showing them the view from above the galactic plane.

How do you know? It’s years away!

The Captain was now completely grey, a mature 65, while the Chief was in her early fifties. She was still in wonderful shape, still played tennis, and was, if possible, even sharper than she had been at thirty-five, when Cass had been born.

It’s a whole system, the astronomer said. There were three of them, all come in to make the presentation to the Captain, all of them agitated. There’s a clearly visible gas giant, and . . . he gave the floor to his assistant, a youngster of around twenty, one of Cass and Allie’s friends, Sita Chawla, who had joined the astronomy team just a couple of months earlier. It was she who had seen the signs of the possibly suitable planet.

It seems to be an earth-type planet—or nearly so, Sita said, some six years in our future.

"This could be it!" said Jim, unable to control his excitement.

"What do you mean, it?"

Possibly the end of the mission! If all goes well, the ship need never leave this star!

Year 28: A Disappointment

Over the next several years, the ship went into high gear. The procedure when approaching a planet was complex; an enormous amount of long-range study would first be done, with probes sent ahead to sample the surface and the atmosphere, sending back the information that the colonization experts needed. Would it need to be altered to support Earth-standard life? Was there indigenous life? Was the radiation from the star tolerable? Was the climate hostile?

Meanwhile, Cass and Alison had graduated from the Academy, and had been taken into employment. Cass had been accepted into the Culture and Recreation Service, and Alison had been invited into engineering: Life-Support and Bio-Resources. Both girls were excellent students, and had stood out even among their naturally intelligent peer-group.

Cass had grown into a gracious, charming girl with the ability to command trust and respect inherited from both parents, and an additional measure of persuasiveness all her own. Culture and Recreation was a crucial service, since shipboard life depended on the intelligence and sensitivity of the C-R team. Cass was a natural leader, and C-R was pleased that Cass had chosen to work with them.

Alison was one the most promising biologists and chemists in her class, as well as one of the most serious about life-support and its challenges. Identifying her as one of the most important members of her generation, L-S & B-R had snapped her up before she could get ideas about other things she might want to do. That group maintained the forests in each segment, and watched over all the human activities that could impinge on the well-being of the ship as a single complex organism. After she finished her training, she would be sent on a tour of the ship, to gain first-hand experience of all the segments.

In anticipation of possible Planetfall, education became more structured, and specialty fields were taught to the young folks in the university. As the young folk began to study planetary science, the entire ship community was encouraged to become more technologically sophisticated. The pressure spiraled up and up, and some of them snapped. Then, to make matters worse, it was seen that the planet was uninhabitable. It was small and Earth-like superficially, in terms of its composition, but too close to the star. The decision was made to swing by the star, but not lose any energy slowing down.

The Hippie Commune

The first inkling the leadership got that something was not quite right was that the Hippies began recruiting.

The Hippies were a group that had emerged very early on the voyage. They had demanded that the ship abandon all technology, except the minimum required to run the ship and maintain life-support. In particular, they utterly rejected the use of computers in education.

It’s technology that got the Earth into the bind it is in, said their leader David Braun. It’s coal, and steam, and gasoline, and uranium, and computers that dug the grave of the Earth! Look at these children, glued to their screens! Do you want to destroy them, too?

At first, there were only six of them, constantly pestering the schools, demanding that the children be released into their care. They were all highly-educated people, quite capable of teaching the younger children, and, indeed, several of them were teachers. A few of them had quit from their jobs in education, the medical services or life-support. Then a few couples had joined them, with their children, and they had moved into a corner of the artificial forest that had been planted in the segments, which were what the enormous cylinders were called. The forest served as the classroom for the ship, as well as a secondary oxygen source—the primary source was the vats of algae that renewed the air supply. So now there was a hippie ‘commune’ less than a mile from the school that Cass and Allie had attended, where the Hippies lived and had their school.

Several years before, Allie and Cass had crept into the commune, and made friends with some of the young people there. The two friends saw how they had planted some interesting crops, including cotton and vegetables, raised sheep and goats, and the girls had found that the Hippies ate surprisingly well, a vegetarian diet with no synthetics at all. They wore homespun clothing woven on looms they had made themselves. But now there were aggressive elements among them, and the heavy recruiting had brought a mixture of types who knew little about the complexity of natural living. Surprisingly, there were many scientifically trained people in the little group, who were desperately trying to educate the others. Whereas when Allie and Cass had first visited them they had been open and welcoming, this weekend when they visited the commune, they encountered some unfamiliar faces that were hostile. The girls had to pose as Hippies from another commune for their own safety. Luckily, they had worn woolen skirts they had been given as gifts from an earlier visit. With some difficulty they found their friends.

They think any outsider is a spy, said Art, their friend inside the commune. Art’s father Brian was an art teacher for their school, and had always been one of their leaders, but one who was more moderate. Though he was as suspicious of technology as any of them, he was friendly towards non-Hippies, and against isolationism.

We’d better go home, then, Cass said.

Suddenly, they were quiet. There seemed to be a big argument going on in the commune’s main social area, a long clearing in which they had their communal meals. Let’s go see, said Allie, ever curious. She was now a tall, strong girl with thick, curly red hair that she wore in a tight braid, at the moment covered in a scarf. Art struggled to keep up with her, to run interference for them, while Cass followed more reluctantly.

It’s the computers that are most dangerous, someone was saying, with great conviction. "It’s just too easy to introduce propaganda to the kids. Every little thing, every piece of information has a pro-technology bias! The kids are constantly learning the official line, and learning it as if it was incontrovertible truth!"

Yes, Ron, we know that. But we need the system to keep the ship running!

Yes, and you know what? asked someone else. "As long as that thing controls the ship, we will never make Planetfall. Never! See, as soon as we find a planet, the thing knows that it loses control! See how it steered away from the last system? It’s picked up so much goddamn speed, we’ll never slow down enough to find anything ever again! Just look through the viewport! See that streaking? We’re going almost at the speed of light!"

Joe, said another patient voice, "you need the computer system to slow the ship down. You need it whatever happens. We’re not against the computer system. We’re against technology in daily life. There’s a difference!"

The talk went on and on. They want to sabotage the computer, Allie said in a quiet whisper.

No, they’re not! exclaimed Art, softly. Are they? They listened some more. Yes, they are, said Cass, finally.

Art looked at her. What are you going to do?

Cass shook her head. It’s up to you, she told him. "If I tell—anyone—about this, she said, indicating the discussion with her hand, things will get worse! At least now they can’t accuse the authorities of being hostile."

It was true; the Hippies had only been reproached for being disruptive, not reporting for work, etc. They had not yet been asked to disband, or accused of being subversive or terrorist.

Art looked worried. He was a handsome lad of about twenty-one, with dark brown hair and blue eyes, thoughtful and with wisdom beyond his years. Wait here for me, he said quietly, and slipped into the crowd that was arguing. People looked back to see who was pushing through, and made way for him. If anyone could talk the hotheads out of this mad plan, it was he. The younger folk of the commune looked up to Art as an honest, level-headed fellow. He worked hard for the good of the commune and the ship, and had been a leader of a number of projects.

Ron and Joe want to sabotage the computer system! said Rebecca, one of the women whom the girls and Art liked the best. Art’s parents were nowhere in sight.

The entire system? Art exclaimed, as if surprised.

Well, everything that has nothing to do with essential sub-systems. It can be done!

But . . . explain this to me, said Art, red-faced. Why sabotage the system?

Because the ship will never let them find a planet, Joe said firmly.

Art looked at Joe, and realized he was sincere. Joe truly believed that the Ship controlled their lives and their destiny. It was a kind of paranoia that was only too easy to slip into, in the situation in which they found themselves.

The problem, Art sighed, is that those kinds of decisions are taken by the crew alone. We aren’t involved in them.

Of course not!

Who will support me, if I go to the Chief and request that two of us from the commune should be allowed to sit in on policy decisions?

Art Wins a Say in Governance for Civilians

It was a bold idea. Thus far, the ship had been run as a military vessel, under control from Earth. They were far from Earth control in actual fact, since the mother world could not respond to requests for guidance in a timely manner in any crisis. But the authority rested in the hands of the Captain and the Chief, with advice from a very small committee. Thirty years into the voyage, surely there had to be some degree of democracy in the way the ship was governed? Many of those living now had been born aboard the space vessel without any choice in the matter, and could hardly be expected to subscribe to a dictatorship. The very computer education system that the Hippies despised, described democracy as the ideal in government, didn’t it? But that wasn’t what they had!

The girls felt hands on their shoulders, and turned to see Art’s father, Brian. His eyes shone with pleasure at seeing the girls, especially Cass, who was a favorite of his. He gave her a fatherly hug, and then his face filled with concern at the racket his son was trying to calm.

Art was very persuasive. He asked for one last chance at negotiation, and a group to go with him. Cleverly, he asked for one of the newcomers to be one of them. In the end, a group of five was decided upon, two of the original leaders, Virginia Baker and Caroline Napoli, and Joe, David Braun, and Art.

What if it doesn’t work? asked Joe, suspiciously.

We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, Art said, firmly.

David nodded. He was a mirthless, austere man, but a generally peaceful one. He had based the commune on passive resistance, and deplored the violent tendencies of the new recruits.

The girls were quietly spirited away. This was no time for outsiders to be found in the commune.

Cass sighed as Alison massaged her neck and back as she lay in bed. It was the weekend again, but the girls had long since moved into their own apartments, though one of them was never used. To the ship, they were just close friends. No one, not even their parents, or Cass’s siblings, knew they were more than that. Unable to face her parents that night, Cass had returned home with Alison. I hope it works, she said, looking miserable.

He’s pretty convincing, Alison agreed. And I know you like him!

Oh, stop, Cass said, smiling. There’s no need to be jealous!

It was Alison’s turn to sigh. I don’t think I am, she said softly, crouched over her friend, her hands kneading the muscles along Cass’s spine. I’ll look after you both.

At least, it’s safe on the ship, Cass said. There isn’t the lawlessness and violence there was on Earth.

So far, Alison said.

Art had called the Chief that very night, and she had taken his call. With most of the commune listening, he had asked for a meeting with her, and to their surprise, been granted one. What about nine o’clock tomorrow, Saturday morning, in the assembly hall?

It was a good neutral place, intended for meetings large and small. Art had accepted on behalf of his group.

Cass’s phone rang. Allie rolled out of view with long practice.

Hello?

Cass, sweetheart, something has come up. We’ll have to cancel the tennis; this is important.

Oh. Is breakfast off, too?

Hmm. I don’t suppose so; come over, and bring Alison.

What is it? What’s the problem? Cass asked, stumbling over the words. She hated to deceive her mother.

It’s the Hippies, Cass. Actually, it might help to have you there.

Her mother knew that Cass was well-liked and trusted among the Hippies. She had been appointed the director of recreation when the former director had died. Her mother quickly explained about the call from Art, and the concerns of the Hippies.

Mom? I have to confess something, Cass said quickly. Alison had climbed off her, and they had put on wraps. The ship’s temperature was lowered at night, and it was ‘Fall,’ and it was a cool 50° F at night.

What have you been up to?

We snuck off to the commune this afternoon, and we were there when the subject came up.

Good heavens!

It’s perfectly safe, Mom. I can’t tell you any more, but I’d take them seriously.

You’d definitely better be there, then.

The Meeting

Doc Holt greeted Alison with his usual smile and hug, and Annie and Ted waved a greeting. Otherwise, breakfast was a glum affair.

The Chief was unreasonably nervous about the Hippies. She had been wise in her decision to leave them alone; the instincts of the military and security types had been to clamp down on them firmly. Alison’s father, Ben Warren, had initially sided with them, saying, pick them up and throw them in irons. But he had quickly realized that it was bad policy. In the best of times, people hate not to have some control over their lives, Laura. In space, it’s worse. They must feel as though they’ve been kidnaped.

Whose side are you on, anyway?

On yours, of course! But think, for a minute. Put yourself in their place! And the Chief had listened.

Now Annie and Ted were quizzing Cass.

What were they planning, sis?

I can’t tell you that, said Cass, mopping up the remains of her pancake syrup. She had thought she was too upset to eat, but had put away three pancakes. Annie and Ted sat on either side of Alison, their hero. She was the segment champion in Judo, adored by all the younger kids. Even many of the youths of the commune were into the sport, and were Alison’s friends.

Alison was fond of Ted and Annie in a vague kind of way, bringing them the occasional gift that found its way into their section from the more distant parts of the ship. The various parts of the ship had been made deliberately difficult to access from each other, to give the illusion of spaciousness. There were little subcultures everywhere, with their own preferred styles of recorded music, their own cuisine and their own clothes. The Temperate Segment contained the large temperate forest, with a colder coniferous section. There was a large segment that contained a rain forest and a bit of desert, and another segment designed to depict island cultures, and so on. As a result, a little Japanese doll was a wonderful gift over in the mainly European and North American Temperate segment.

Right on time, the two groups converged on the Assembly Hall. The Chief and the Captain, the leaders of the computer team, the navigation team and the geophysics team came from the Ship side, while Art and his group of five had been invited to bring a few more with them. Many of the Hippies had never met the Chief, and were taken aback at how unprepossessing she was. She was a stout woman with a rather severe face, her eyes intelligent and intense, but not without humor. The Captain sat next to her, looking thoughtful. The doctor sat some distance away, trying to look pleasant but uninvolved. Cass sat by herself on one side, her head bowed.

The Chief introduced everyone she had brought with her, and David Braun introduced his party, consisting of the original five members of the negotiating team, and five more.

Let’s begin, the Chief said. I know your group has a generally anti-technology bias, but more than that I can’t claim to know. Would one of you lay out your concerns, for the record? We’ll tape the meeting, so that everyone can have access to what transpired. That way, none of us can be misquoted.

We prefer to simply write down what was said, Chief Hutchinson, said David Braun, quietly. The Chief inclined her head, but said that she preferred to tape the meeting for herself.

David Braun began to quickly outline their position. The Chief nodded intermittently, as she took notes. Then Art took up the story, explaining their suspicions about the aborted Planetfall.

It was very publicly announced why we were doing what we did, said the Chief, scanning the faces of the Hippies. What more could we have done?

Joe burst out that he did not believe a word of it. There was a planet. There had to have been a planet! The ship had hidden the planet from them.

That brought the discussion to a temporary halt. Sita, one of the younger astronomers, explained that there simply had been no usable planet. They were still close enough to view the star on the telescopes. Joe was invited to go to the observation station and see for himself. With great difficulty, Joe and Ron were persuaded to follow the young woman to the telescopes, so they could see directly with the optics, untouched by electronic enhancement.

It took a long time for the astronomer to convince the suspicious Hippies that they had been shown all the evidence. The young woman had confidently asked the marine who had escorted them to stay outside the entrance. He had glanced at the two men and back at her, clearly communicating his doubt. She had gone to him and spoken quietly.

It’s all right; I think I’m safe with them!

The marine looked her over. He thought she had that irrational belief in logic that led scientists to make reckless assumptions. At any rate, it was not her safety that was his main responsibility, though he did feel some worry that the men would hurt her in their madness.

It’s the equipment, miss. These fellows have been talking about sabotage. We have files on both of them. Her eyes widened with realization.

We’ll have to take the risk, she said quietly, her voice unsteady. I think they’ll listen if they’re not being covered by weapons.

The only weapon the marine carried was a dart-gun; anything else could destroy irreplaceable electronics.

He nodded. They went into where the men stood, watching the door suspiciously. The girl and the marine realized that they were close to panic. They must think that security wanted to trap them and incarcerate them.

The girl walked right up to them and asked if they would harm her. They laughed, the slightly hysterical laughter that hid relief. No, they said, they had nothing to gain from hurting people. She turned to the marine and said he could leave them alone. But her eyes said: wait outside the door.

Now, an hour later, they were still not quite convinced, and the girl was on the point of frustrated tears. She blinked at them helplessly.

"How do we know that the planet is no good? How do we know we’re not looking at an altered video? Or maybe your computer is programmed to hide planets! What if even you don’t know that? What if you see only what you’re supposed to see?"

"No, sir, look, this is an old-time optical telescope, see? These wires only run a little motor, to keep it aimed! I swear; this instrument cannot lie!"

The younger man looked in the eyepiece once more, and she felt hope rise in her breast. It had been her dream for years to play a role in defusing the tension between the Hippies and the Ship. Now she might be on the brink of a breakthrough. They trusted her, but they suspected she might be duped by the mysterious system that they suspected of having subverted the entire mission, a kind of HAL 9000.

Suddenly the man shrank back.

What was that? he gasped. Something came right at me!

She laughed. That’s just some space debris, she said, and presently the man smiled with her. Suddenly she knew a better tack to take. Look, see the haze around the star? They nodded, looking through the sighting telescope. Well, that thing extends as far around the star as the orbit of Jupiter, around Sol—you know what I mean?

Yeah, said the older one, I know Jupiter. So it’s a real big haze. And . . .?

Well, that haze contains many dangerous particles that make the planet uninhabitable. It’s just not within our capability to establish a colony there; the ship would be damaged even on the way in!

How can you tell? asked the younger one, but there was no heart now in his skepticism.

She grinned. Lots of reasons, but . . . I think you believe me now, don’t you!

She felt a pang of sympathy as they hung their heads. Life in space was simply not suited to some of her generation. It must be torture to live inside this space-can, only seeing videos of old Earth, never to set foot on a planet except in their dreams. For her, it was a dull ache, one that she barely had time for. But for these, to find a planet was like an all-consuming madness.

"At least, we can talk to you, said the older one, mumbling. He was not much older than she herself, perhaps in his mid-twenties. Some of the folks in education . . . they’re too smart to talk to ordinary people."

It was true. The director of education and the other leaders were a rather inflexible lot, and did not suffer fools gladly. I know what you mean, she confessed.

Do they listen to you? they asked her.

No, she laughed, they’ve been experts since before we were born, after all; they knew all the latest theories of education when the ship left orbit! I’m nobody; I just do the planet-spotting. The computer can do that automatically, but . . . you know how it is! One of us is always looking; it isn’t just you Hippies who want Planetfall, you can be sure!

They gave her a long look, and when they finally smiled, she knew that at least on one point both parties agreed.

Meanwhile, the Chief was engaged in intense discussion with the Hippies. This confrontation had been brewing for decades, and Cass and Allie watched with fascination, not at the hostility of the encounter—it was not really hostile—but at the willingness of both parties to listen. She constantly reminded herself that all who had been chosen had been of superior intelligence, and of above average empathy. The close quarters of a space vessel required people with superior interpersonal skills. And as she listened to Caroline and Virginia speak eloquently against the computer-based education system, she began to see their point of view.

But think of the savings in manpower, the savings in effort! How much faster they can learn! The computer knows precisely what to tell them next, based on their response! And it does it in a second, automatically! Think of the capacity of the machine! A human being can never remember so much!

"Worthless! It’s all worthless! What our children need to know, we can teach them. Sure, a few need to know all that science! You need a few engineers, a few doctors. But why should every little child learn all this mathematics? All this physics, this chemistry? Would you make computers of us all?"

"But Ms. Baker, this is our world, now. It may be decades more before there’s Planetfall. We need to make sure that, when you and I are too feeble to do the technical work the ship depends on, that there will be people, ready trained, to take over. This is the largest vessel ever built, the most sophisticated, and you do not prepare to keep it running by learning to knit, let me assure you."

"No. You must not make our children slaves to the computer. You must not do that."

There was such force in the woman’s words that the talk stopped. She was trembling. She got to her feet. Chief Hutchinson, to you, the schooling of the children is a mere convenience. To you, this whole enterprise is simply a kind of factory, to keep this ship running efficiently until the remnants of its passengers and crew can be spilled onto some habitable planet. But what will they be when they get there? Her voice vibrated with passion. No one noticed the young astronomer return with her new friends. What culture will they take with them to that innocent planet? The culture of computers, of cars, of pollution, of bombs, of guns, of dammed rivers, drowned valleys, poisoned seas?

Suddenly, Caroline clutched her chest, and Doc Jonathan was hurrying over. Alison had called for help in a split second, and Caroline was soon on a stretcher, wired to a monitor.

When Caroline had been certified out of trouble and sent home with a friend, the rest of the group sat, looking stunned. Gradually they began to talk, first of Caroline and her commitment, for which the Chief grudgingly admitted admiration. But neither side would give in. Long after her daughter and the rest of her family had individually decided that compromise was necessary, the Chief kept insisting that The Ship could not afford anything less than the prescribed regimen of education for all. It had to be the computer curriculum. Within that curriculum there was some room for variety, but every child had to have the basis of a technological education. Finally, Art stood up.

We’ve come here under a sort of truce, he said quietly. "It’s clear that we have irreconcilable differences. We are not willing to compromise on the education issue. We’re a significant portion of the population of the ship, and we already have opted out of your education system. If you don’t recognize this as legitimate, we shall continue the way we have been. We shall provide an alternative to your computer education. But we must have one thing. You have to have non-technical representation on whatever committee makes the decisions about how the ship is run. You can’t simply run it like a military vessel. Many of us were born here, and of course, did not swear allegiance to the cause of the ship, did not sign any agreement. We are here involuntarily, born, as it were, to a kind of technological slavery. It is time you stood behind your principles of democracy, and began some kind of representative government. It cannot do any harm! There should have been provision for such a thing! There must have been some kind of agreement that would serve as a basis for a planetary government! Okay, well, we may as well consider that the Ship is a planet! If you don’t do this, you will have violent rebellion on your hands. And none of us want to see violence. Please consider carefully what you will do." And he sat.