Proxima B

“Boys, let it alone!” he said, but another big guy motioned for silence.

“So, big man… If you can’t save yourself, how could you save mankind?”

As soon as the man uttered these words, Michael swung around abruptly, hitting him with his violent fist right in the face, which made him almost fall off the stool.

A fight broke out among the five men and Michael. Kick after kick, punch after punch, Michael could do nothing but watch that show that was nothing short of poor while the remaining people were about to leave that place hastily. Apparently, Michael was doomed, since he was fighting alone against five petty thugs. Instead, he made it. He hurled the stool at two of them, who were floored and left lying stunned on the ground. Then he floored two other men by hurling two glasses at them right in the face. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the four men that he had hit moving in front with difficulty towards the exit of the pub. There was still another man and that is the first who had hit him. Given that Michael was hardly lucid anymore, the man choked him out, which made his head slam against the counter, stunning him.

“Here is your mission!” he exclaimed. He was convinced that he had knocked Michael out. So, he could walk towards the exit and join his accomplices. But the ex-Marine got back to his feet, all of a sudden; he grabbed one of the wooden cues and used it to hit the man’s neck from behind. The man felt he was attacked, so he tried to set himself free by kicking back at Michael that was therefore obliged to ease the grip. As they faced each other, Michael used one of his knees to break the cue into two pieces, whose ends were now pointed.

“Let’s go, son of a bitch, come close!” Michael mumbled through split lips. He pointed the sharp cue at the colored man.

He was about to attack him, when the man stopped him.

“NO! DON’T MOVE! OKAY!”

He was still speaking when he beckoned the four other men to leave. Finally, he said, “Let’s quit… He’s mad…”

The five men left the place, leaving Michael, who was holding what remained of the cue in his hand, and Sten, who had watched everything without saying a word, alone. Michael threw the pieces of wood on the floor once they were alone. Then he turned to the counterman. Disorder was all around.

“Sorry, Sten, sorry…”

While he was trying to apologize for what he had done, he put one hundred dollars on the counter, trying to repair the damage done in the pub. They glanced at each other one more time, and then Michael left the premises.

San Diego, California.

Amelia was in her now familiar operating theater with her team. She was struggling with yet another case of acute myocarditis in a relatively young patient. Unfortunately, it was a rather widespread pathology caused by Polytected Heartimus virus that had been gripping the global population, especially the people aged between 20 and 35, for almost ten years. According to scientists, the strain of the virus came from inadequate hygiene in most of the citizens. Thankfully, this pathology could be treated with a heart surgery that, however, most of the times could not keep the virus from spreading. That morning it was more difficult than usual for the doctor to work due to lack of concentration.

“Doctor, is anything okay?” Sady asked her. Sady was the third member of her team.

“Yes, it is, Sady. I’m only a bit tired… We’re almost done. Open the fourth arm,” Amelia answered.

Jenny kept on looking at her friend. She knew her well and she knew that there was something odd about her.

After about fifteen minutes, the surgery was successful as usual. Amelia took off her surgical mask and left the room without saying anything beneath the gazes of the rest of the members of the team.

Once she was in the corridor, she heard someone calling her from behind.

“Wait, Amelia!”

It was Jenny, who was walking fast. Finally, she caught up with her.

“Is anything okay?” the woman asked her.

“Yes, everything is okay…,” Amelia answered in a tone that sounded anything but sincere.

“I know you too well not to see that there is something wrong with you,” the woman made it clear. Then she kept on saying, “What about going grabbing something tonight?”

Amelia waited a few seconds before answering. Then she said, “Well, I don’t know…” Her tone was a bit undecided.

“It’ll be good for you to go out for a while,” her friend kept on saying.

“That’s okay. I am picking you up at 9 o’ clock if you don’t mind,” she said.

“Very good! See you tonight!”

The two friends said their goodbyes. Amelia started to walk through the hallway to reach her room.

That same evening the two friends met at one of the most fashionable Chinese restaurants in San Diego. They were sitting facing each other while having sushi and spring rolls.

“…Many more young people than older people will be going under the knife,” Jenny said before sipping some white wine, and then she looked at Amelia. “You were telling me about the lecture,” she kept on saying.

The woman’s expression changed as soon as she heard her colleague utter that sentence and she, too, drank a little white wine to take the edge off.

“So, who is that famous doctor that should hold that lecture?” Jenny asked once again.

“Actually, I lied to you…,” Amelia answered.

“What do you mean?” her friend asked her straightaway.

“It wasn’t an Australian doctor’s lecture, but the lecture of the American government in collaboration with NASA!”

Jenny frowned.

“You lost me, Amelia…,” she said.

“In short, a mission to take some groups of people on another planet beyond the Solar System in order to colonize it,” Amelia said.

Once these words were uttered, Amelia felt like she had just set herself free from a burden. Jenny did not say anything for a few seconds.

“Many professionals are being recruited. I have been selected as surgeon in order to start a new medical center on Proxima B!” the doctor added while Jenny kept on looking at her.

“Well, hell, Amelia, this is a fantastic piece of news!” her friend exclaimed suddenly. Then she added, “That’s why you’ve been so mysterious in these last days… And why haven’t you said anything about it before?”

“Well, actually, only Mr. McKenzie knew about it. And now you know it too,” Amelia pointed out while starting eating some pieces of fish again. Her gaze was still a bit lost anyway.

“I don’t know what the problem is,” Jenny wondered.

“I still haven’t decided whether to accept or not, and I have to do that in four days from today,” Amelia revealed. “Then,” she concluded, “I’ll have to appear before the seat of New NASA Corporate in Washington again.”

Jenny stopped a little longer this time. The two women had been friends for a long time, and Jenny had always agreed to be Amelia’s vice without ever holding anything against her. However, this could be the right occasion to take over from Amelia as the person in charge of the head of the team, far be it from her to rub her friend’s nose in it.

“If I had such a chance, I wouldn’t let it pass me by, not at all,” Jenny pointed out almost sarcastically. Her tone caught Amelia’s attention.

“The fact is that you’ll have to change your life totally, you know… I shall leave Earth forever, I shall abandon…,” she answered.

Jenny interrupted her friend abruptly, asking him, “What? What should you abandon?”

“Don’t you know that we are like sisters and that I always tell you what I think in a heartbeat? It’s a unique chance, Amelia! You’ll be a woman that’ll make history! Your nearest and dearest are not so many, apart from me and Thomas.”

Amelia pondered those words for a while. Jenny put the glass of wine on the table and put her hand on her friend’s hand.

“I’ve always admired you, Amelia. For everything. And you know it. But you don’t know how much envious I am of you right now... but this feeling is overwhelmed by the fondness and the respect that lead me to tell you to just accept this mission. There’s a reason why you have been chosen: because you’re the best! You have to go! You should go!”

While Amelia was listening to Jenny’s words, she put her other hand on her friend’s hand and indulged in a sincere smile.

Chicago, Illinois.

It was late March and the evening in Chicago was pretty fresh for that period. Jerry was in his bedroom and, even though it was way after 9:00, he had not had his supper yet. His mother’s voice resounded through the corridor of the flat on the seventh floor of the building on Albany Ave, recalling his name.

“Mom, I told you I’m not hungry!” the boy answered, shouting at her for the umpteenth time, which rendered him almost impatient.

Jerry was lying on his three-quarter bed while turning a letter over and over in his hand. It was a special letter for him. He had written it after the lecture in Washington and it had to be handed over to Isabel. When? How? He did not know it yet. He read it again, for the umpteenth time, looking for the slightest mistake, but his attention was seemingly distorted by other thoughts at that moment, namely the project called For the benefit of all! in which he had decided to take part. He still could not believe what had been proposed to him during the lecture. He had not showed any hesitation, since that mission was a chance that he or any other young biologist that was passionate about astronomy as well could not let pass by. There were two other issues to deal with, though, namely his mother and Isabel. He had not had the opportunity (or, rather, he had not been brave enough) to tell his mother, Francesca, about his decision; she thought that her son had gone in Washington for an internship that the University of Chicago had organized. His days were going by and maybe the time to broach the subject with his mother had come. As for Isabel, he had arranged to ask her on a date after work so that he could deliver the letter to her and tell her anything. Or at least that was his plan. But first he had to face his mother. Finally, he plucked up his courage and left his room. He knew that she used to take her seat in the armchair and watch one of her favorite TV series after suppertime. He walked through the tiny hallway and saw her sitting there. She was calm and relaxed. The right moment to tell her everything had come.

“Mother,” he said in a thin voice, as if he did not want to disturb her.

The woman did not even answer him at first, since she was focused on watching how the first episode of the TV series was going on, but Jerry did not give up.

“Mom!”

This time the woman could hear her name clearly; she turned to Jerry.

“Oh, finally you’re here! Your supper is in the microwave oven,” she said while she went back to watching the TV series on the Smart TV screen.

“Mom, I didn’t go out for lunch, but to tell you something important,” he said.

Jerry could barely speak, but that was the right moment to speak. The woman kept on not looking at him. She glimpsed in passing and she could only say, “When the episode is over we will talk about it. Okay?”

Jerry did not like to be ignored. He could not really bear it, especially if it was his mother that did it whenever they needed to talk about something important. And it was just then that Jerry did something that he had not done before. He picked up the TV remote control and turned off the television. The sudden silence in the sitting room was something strange. Seeing the monitor of the device overwhelmed his mother for a while. Jerry was still standing next to the sofa. The remote control was still in his hand. Suddenly his mother came round.

“Are you out of your mind? Turn on the TV immediately!” she yelled as if she were pretty hysterical.

“I can’t do that, mom. I need to speak to you!” Jerry tried to explain, but the woman got off her armchair in order to take over the remote control that he was holding.

“Give me that remote control!” she shouted at her son.

He took two steps back.

“MOM, LISTEN TO ME! I NEED TO SPEAK TO YOU!” he yelled back resolutely.

Those words made her stop suddenly. She stared at her son.

Jerry did the same and leaned the remote control on the sofa. He was sure he had succeeded in catching his mother’s attention.

“What’s so important, huh?” she asked him quite angrily.

“I need to tell you about my future,” Jerry answered. His tone was getting more and more resolute.

His mother did not say anything. She was ready to listen to her son’s words.

“I know that what I’m telling you may seem absurd to you, but you must believe me when I tell you that it is true,” he said to her.

Hearing these words, the woman began to get suspicious, but Jerry did not care about it too much and continued by confessing, “I lied to you when I told you about my trip to Washington. No internship was organized. No University had organized anything. Nobody said anything. What was organized was a special lecture by the U.S. Government in collaboration with NASA.”

“What are you…?”

“Please, mom, let me speak,” he interrupted her firmly. He meant to keep on talking. “I was offered a position as a biologist in their mission in order to colonize a new planet called Proxima B!”

The woman’s eyes got weird; they revealed fear and amazement.

“That means that I’ll have to leave. I can’t return to Earth anymore,” Jerry kept on saying.

Uttering those words made him feel like dying, but he had finally succeeded in telling her mother everything.

“Just so, mom,” he concluded, leaving her speechless. After a few seconds, she looked for some place to sit and could not say anything for some more time.

“Jerry, do you realize what you’re saying to me?” she asked him in a tone that was quite worried.

“Mom…,” Jerry tried to go on, but she resumed asking him, “Should I stay here all alone?”

“Mom, it’s not like that,” he tried to clear himself. Then he kept on saying, “If all goes as planned, a second voyage is already projected. On that occasion the first colonizers’ relatives are going to be taken there. So, you’re going to be there, too.”

Francesca looked straight into her son’s eyes. Jerry did not know how to interpret that gaze.

“As you know, life is expected to be not so good on Earth. There are too many people on this planet and I have to regard myself as lucky not to have caught any disease. We’re being offered the opportunity to change our lives completely, you know…” Jerry tried to insist, but his mother looked more and more upset by what she was hearing.

“It’s all so absurd… How shall we get through? How long will the voyage last? Who’ll let me know if you’re alive?”

Francesca, like any other mother, bothered about her son.

“I don’t know yet, but we’ll be told everything before leaving,” Jerry answered her, trying to reassure her. He approached her, put his hands on her cheeks as a token of his fondness and kept on saying to her,

“Mom, I’ve always done what I’d been told by you. I only ask that you let me do what feels right to me this time. I must accept this mission. It’s too much important for me.”

After hearing these words, she looked up and, after a few seconds, she hugged him and burst into tears.

Chapter 3 – The training

2099, 28 October. MATER 1, 522 miles above the Earth, 4:00 PM.

J

ust above the third generation modular space station called ISS (International Space Station), three enormous spaceships were about to be finished. Dozens of men were working non-stop inside them within what looked like a genuine yard.

“Come on, guys! We don’t have all the time in the world!” a young foreman shouted at two workers whose task was to set some weird capsules inside a passageway that was placed on the ship’s lower side.

“Oh no! It’s slipping!” one of the two laborers exclaimed, bringing the capsule as if it were only a refrigerator. The capsule slipped and fell to the deck, but, luckily, it was undamaged.

The foreman arrived in a flash, his eyes were angry, and then he said,

“You idiots! How many times have I told you to pay attention to how you handle this kind of things? Thank goodness it didn’t rupture. Come on! Get back to work immediately!”

The two laborers stood silent at first, but then they picked up the capsule immediately and brought it back to the agreed place.

“Excellent! It should be okay!” one of them said after leaning the burden. They took a breath. They did not even have time to rest a bit. They were called to muster by the foreman.

At the same moment, some people led by the foreman Alejandro Fring appeared in the passageway. Mr. Fring was a man of South-American origin that would be responsible for the work on the MATER 2.

“Good, General, this is the cryostasis compartment,” the man told Arthur Stone who was behind him. The General was there with his staff, which included politicians and founders of the project. They were just touring before being finally transferred onboard.

“Good morning, General!” the three men in the passageway said to Arthur with one voice as soon as they saw him appearing with his men and the foreman.

“Rest, boys!” Mr. Stone exclaimed and he came up to one of the capsules that had already been installed.

“So, these are the cryogenic capsules… I thought they were bigger,” he pointed out. The foreman, Alejandro, did not hesitate and answered, “They were bigger, actually, but technicians have succeeded in dealing with some issues concerning the liquid nitrogen containment, and so we have succeeded in recovering space within the whole surface.”

“Fine. Let’s go on!” Arthur told him. He looked around and came back to the passageway leading to the ship’s other sections together with his men. The three workers were left to their work.

“He was General Arthur Stone, wasn’t he? It is he who’s going to lead the expedition on board the ship,” one of the two laborers said emotionally.

“I’d rather it were Mr. Ross. I don’t like Stone because of his mindset that isn’t comfortable at all,” the other man replied.

“What can you know about that? He was the one who solved the conflict with India in 2089! He’s just a great man!” the first laborer said. He sympathized for General Arthur Stone.

“It may be so, but this guy is full of himself, which does not let him be someone to trust,” the other laborer pointed out.

“Shut up, slackers! Let’s get back to work!” the foreman shouted at them. Then the three guys resumed their work.

In the meantime, on another floor, Alejandro and the few men reached what looked like an artificial botanical garden. Every kind of plants and thousands of trees stretched over dozens of feet. Even an artificial stream flowed among the trees and the whole thing was lit by hundreds of lamps that re-created the light of the sun on the ceiling.

“Gentlemen, this one is called `The Cathedral´. Its name comes from the shape of the roof, which is precisely the shape of the roof of a cathedral, and it extends throughout the whole surface. Six hundred twenty-one miles of forest! There are thousands of plant species. This is going to be the ship’s green lung!” the foreman stated under the stunned gazes of all of us.

“Are there any animals in this special greenhouse, too?” one of the members of the group asked the foreman.

“No, Sir, there are no animals here. We won’t transport any live animals on this ship, but only their data in the form of DNA,” Alejandro answered firmly.

“How do you get the energy you need to supply it all?” General Stone asked in a tone that was curious and pleased at the same time.

“In order to answer your question, General, we have to move to another point on board the ship. Please, follow me!” Mr. Fling said.

Then he led the group to the lower zone in the ship. A few minutes later they reached the engine compartment in whose middle a metal column with some particular ports by which a blue light was given off could be noticed.

“This is the engine compartment, gentlemen! Eighty percent of the energy needed for supplying our ship comes from here! The remaining part comes straight from the sun and the cosmic radiations captured by means of special panels covering the outer side of the spacecraft,” the foreman explained. Mr. Stone was listening to those words, and was intrigued by the blue light that was given off by some particular ports with which the metal column in the middle of the huge passageway was equipped.

“What happens in here, Mr. Fring?” Mr. Stone asked him.

“What happens there is a nuclear reaction, Mr. Stone,” Alejandro replied, and his answer aroused the astonishment of all those who were there, including General Stone himself.

“Nuclear? Isn’t it dangerous to have a nuclear reactor on board the ship? Don’t you consider the risks?” Mr. Stone thundered.

“Well, if it were a matter of hot nuclear fission, it would be dangerous, but we produce energy through cold fusion. So, you have nothing to worry about. It is safe and clean. According to our calculations, it would supply the ship with enough energy to last one hundred years or maybe even more,” Mr. Fring reassured us.

“I see,” Arthur asserted. He stared at the nuclear reactor, thoughtful.

“What kind of technology do its engines use?” one of the founders asked Alejandro.

“That’s a good question,” he pointed out.

He moved a little farther and came up to a control unit, he pressed some buttons and let some holograms appear; they depicted its own engines.

“The engines of all three motherships exploit ionized plasma that is accelerated in order to generate the thrust. Such engines are hundreds of times more efficient than the chemical ones, namely the traditional ones. But that’s not all. We’re talking about engines that don’t pollute at all and with no moving parts. They are accelerating the ship to eight-tenths of the speed of light and are arresting it by means of nonstop progressive braking maneuvers. During their flight maneuvers, the pilots are helped by “LISA”. As it was said, gentlemen, the cream of the crop!” Alejandro stated proudly.

“LISA? Who is LISA?” the founder asked him. His curiosity was to its maximum extent.

“I am the artificial intelligence that is helping the members of the expedition throughout the mission. I am collaborating with them in order to let their travel be less stressful and more comfortable. I was named after my programmer Lisa Fletcher, who died prematurely last year. General Stone, it will be a pleasure to serve under your command!” the onboard female voice said, leaving all the men astonished, including Arthur.

“As I said, gentlemen, the cream of the crop!” Alejandro concluded.

Then he smiled with satisfaction.

2100, 21 March. Denver, Colorado.

It had been a long time since the Rocky Mountain National Park had ceased to exist. It had happened just when this beautiful landscape had been chosen as an integral part of the project called For the benefit of all! It was just in these mountains and in these woods that New NASA Corporate in cooperation with the U.S. Government had arranged to build a base that would serve as a sort of subsidiary of the headquarters in Washington D.C. It was a rather secluded spot and not everyone could easily reach it unless one had some precise permissions. According to the schedule of the government agency, this area would have served as a place where to train all those who would take part in the project and get them ready to it. The whole structure was composed of five big cube-shaped establishments intended for doctors, chemists, engineers, biologists, pilots and soldiers, a bigger multi-story building that looked like a hotel and served as an accommodation for guests, and finally, at the entrance, a smaller building that served as both a reception point and other accommodations for several administrative offices. The whole thing, which also included a small airstrip that was intended for medium-size aircraft, was surrounded by a wire fencing that circled its perimeter.