Launch: Chapter 5

  Eighteen months ago…

  

  “Markus... you have to go,” Hugh stated a little distantly, looking deep into the night sky.

  “Why would I?  I mean… I only applied because you did, and only on the wild chance that we might both win a spot.  I never had any intention of going if you weren’t.  It was always your idea, your dream… not mine,” Markus answered.  They hadn’t talked about it much since it happened, but a few days earlier the results of the lottery for the New Horizon wildcard spots had been announced.  Markus had won a spot, but Hugh had not.

  The two were on their annual retreat to northeastern Alberta.  The purpose of their trips had changed over the years but whatever their motivation was today, it had become an unbroken tradition between them for almost thirty years now.  This was a sad anniversary though; last year's trip had been when Hugh had originally explained what the New Horizon mission was all about.  He was excited about the first secular G.S.S. and its straight forward mission of establishing a permanent off-world colony in another star system.  At first Markus was dubious though, about either of them entering the lottery at all.

  There had come to be a distinct stigma surrounding the previous G.S.S. missions, a stigma of which Hugh was acutely aware.   After all, the only two previous missions were religious refugee ships seeking to escape from the secular and rational world which Earth had become.  Hugh had tried to explain how the New Horizon mission was something wildly different after attending a talk given by Master Sadhika Sengupta, one of the famous four principles involved in the project.  He described how moved he had been by how raw and boundless her passion for the project seemed to be.  Hugh insisted that while the previous G.S.S. missions were about escape and denial, this one was instead about exploration and discovery, about creating a concentration of all of the best which humanity had to offer, and then spreading it out into the galaxy.  This way she’d explained, humanity could be expanded and cultivated.  Most importantly though, it could be preserved.

  “I don’t get it, why would I go?  I mean, I only applied to minimize the risk of having to see you go without me, on the wild chance that I would get selected as well if you were.  Why would I go now only to watch you stay?  Why would I do that?  It doesn’t make any sense.  Besides, you’re not the only person I'd be leaving behind.”

  “I sure hope you’re not talking about Amber…”   Hugh muttered reservedly.

  “Really?  Still?   Let it go…”

  “Hey, I’m just parroting back to you what you’ve said to me… You complain to me about her way more than anything I ever say about her!” Hugh insisted.  “She’s bad for you…” he added pointedly.

  “It hasn’t been like that for a while… I think she’s finally really accepted that I’m never going to want anything more with her.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that before…” Hugh scoffed.   He had, it was a very old argument between them.  Hugh had always seen Amber as a negative influence in his life, mostly because he tended to be the first person Markus would complain to when she was being difficult.   “Well… still, who else are you worried about leaving behind?  Your brother has his own family to worry about... your mother has your brother for support, I really don’t see what’s keeping you here on Earth…”

  "Gravity..." Markus sighed heavily, and then laid back down on his back.  He meant it as a half-hearted joke but his answer landed more poignantly than he'd intended it to.  Lying on his sleeping bag, he contemplated the clear night sky and all the lights which he could see.  Some of the larger satellites could occasionally be seen slowly making their way across the sky, and right now he could see the somewhat brighter light which was unmistakably Orbital One out towards the southern horizon.  This was all set against the majestic background of a dark sky littered with stars too numerous to count.  They always timed their trip to coincide with the new moon, to get the darkest skies possible.  The absence of light pollution in the region was one of the reasons why the two loved this spot so much, and what kept them coming back year after year.  It wasn’t the area itself, it was the kind of place it was.

  So much of the world was absolutely lousy with light pollution but here up north, far away from any city lights, it was a great place to find truly dark skies.  It always seemed worth it to find their way back up here every year, if only for the view.  Over their head, back dropping the nearer satellites, planets, and stars hung the majestic and expansive Milky Way Galaxy, stretching almost from horizon to horizon.

  The air was sweet and warm, even at night, but that would soon change with the seasons.  Markus and Hugh always came out at the end of summer, before the beginning of the new school year.  They were both university professors and this trip always gave them the chance to recharge somewhat, and mentally prepare for the school year to start all over again.

  Hugh had been lying down on his back on top of his sleeping bag as well, but he now propped himself up on one elbow with his fist under the side of his head as he turned to face Markus.  “Do you know how many people applied for the wildcard positions on New Horizon?”

  “Well over a million…” Markus reflected, his eyebrows rising somewhat at the thought.

  “That’s right.  Over a million people who all wanted the chance that you’ve been offered.  Fifty spots, that’s all that were available in the lottery, the other fifty positions were filled by the best people they could find anywhere in the system for the specific jobs and positions on the ship.”

  “That’s right,” Markus answered back, “and when I decline a spot, some other very lucky, and very qualified person will take my place instead.  They drew an extra hundred names specifically to replace dropouts.”

  Hugh looked down, sadly.  “I’d give anything for the chance you’ve been offered.   Don’t you understand what an insult it is to me, to all the others but especially to me, if you decline?  You have the chance to be part of something… that is unparalleled in all of history!   You have the opportunity to rub shoulders with the best and brightest this planet has to offer, the chance to be a part of maybe the most important thing that human beings have ever done in the entirety of their history, what all of that history has ultimately been leading up to!  My god Markus!  If you walk away from that… I’ll never be able to forgive you.”

  Markus returned to lying on his back so he wouldn’t have to look in his friend’s eyes and see the hurt and concern in them.   Truth is, he’d never really considered the prospect of joining the mission at all, certainly not by himself.  He had always secretly assumed that neither of them would win a spot and that while his friend would be disappointed about it for a time, life would go on and he would get over it like so many other things.  If he had been worried about anything, it was the prospect of Hugh alone winning a spot.  He certainly thought that going together would be fun, and it wasn’t just being able to continue hanging out with his friend.  The idea was undeniably appealing in its own way.  He enjoyed space travel in general after all and at his age he viewed joining the New Horizon mission as something akin to early retirement.  Maybe he thought, he dismissed the idea of going on his own too quickly, too out of hand perhaps.  Maybe there was indeed an argument to be made in favour of going by himself after all.   He’d have to investigate.

  “It’s not Amber, you know… or anyone else for that matter.  Maybe once upon a time she may have had that kind of hold over me, but not anymore… not in a long time.  Actually, I think it’s you!  I kind of liked the idea of us going together.  When I found out that I’d won a spot but you hadn’t, I… I really just assumed I wasn’t going without really thinking about it at all.  I never seriously considered going alone… not really.”

  “Well, then… consider it!  Then go.”

  “I will consider it Hugh.  I won’t say either way at this point, but… but I promise I’ll give it some real thought.”

  The two got into their respective sleeping bags and continued to look up into the vast and expansive sky which was completely unobstructed from horizon to horizon to horizon.

  “What are you teaching this year?” Hugh asked.

  “Oh, well let’s see… intro Microbiology of course, Cellular Metabolism, Gene Expression, and a lab in DNA Transcription.   This year I think I’ll have the lab class’ final project be to make something glow in the dark, I’m hoping someone will tackle a midsized rodent like a… guinea pig or something.”  They both had a good laugh at the prospect, imagining the result.  “How bout you?”

  “Oh, The usual,” Hugh replied, “a few first year intro history courses and I still have some grad students working on the Nuclear Tragedy, but I’m more looking forward to presenting Perspectives on the Great War, The Long Nineteenth Century, and of course, Utopia and Terror in the Twentieth Century.”

  “Your favourite,” Markus chuckled.

  “That’s right!”  Hugh replied half defiantly, half proudly.  The atrocities of the twentieth century were one of Hugh’s academic specialties along with the Nuclear Tragedy of the twenty first.  His interests in these particularly dark chapters in relatively recent human history were part of what made Hugh a particularly interesting and unique person.  Markus greatly appreciated the novelty of Hugh`s view of things, and that it was often different from his own.

  Markus had sat in on his classes from time to time.   He had a strong interest in history, but for himself it was amateurish, more of a hobby subject.  What he’d learned about it had sometimes puzzled him though.  He didn’t doubt the evidence or the narrative of what happened during that dark century, especially during the Great Wars, but he had trouble resolving that the tame and timid humanity he knew today could be the same humanity who had organized death marches and genocides, who had engaged in mechanized killing and the utter obliteration of entire cities and nations, whether with conventional weapons or atomic ones.

  “Hugh, do you ever wonder…” Markus asked tentatively, “if we really deserve to be spreading out into the galaxy?  I mean… as a species.  Do you really think that the universe is ultimately better off for us?  You’re the history prof specializing in military history; you know what we humans are really like when you strip us of all of our creature comforts… when you really stress us.  We can be so brutal and nasty… murderous even, highly irrational and unstable… so destructive.  Do you really think these things are good for the galaxy to be proliferated with?”

  “I do.  Well…” he sighted heavily, “I believe we at least deserve the chance to try.  I think we’ve earned that over the last couple centuries.  Yes we have our demons… but we also have so much potential to be so much more than that, to do so much more than that.   Yes we have a brutal history but truthfully things like the Great War and the Nuclear Tragedy are the exceptions in history instead of being the norm.

  “Humans are a paradox.  We are capable of such beautiful artistry; we’re smart enough to figure out how to do science and wise enough to trust what it tells us.  Tragedies like those only occur when we let the worst of us lead us, and I really think it means something that in almost a hundred and twenty years since the Nuclear Tragedy, not a single life has been lost as a result of inter-state warfare.   I believe we’ve turned a corner in our long history.”  When he paused his speaking, the silence was filled by the omnipresent crickets and rustling of the grasses which also filled the air with their scent.

  “Yes we have our demons to wrestle with, but without them I suspect… I suspect we’d lose at least as much as we’d gain.  How boring humans would be if they weren’t tortured so?  How grey and inartistic that world would look like… what it’s coming to look like. Yes Markus, over the last couple centuries, and especially over the last hundred and twenty years, I believe we have earned a right to try.  Whether we succeed or not… well, that’s up to us isn’t it?  It’ll depend on whether or not we’re ready, and whether or not we deserve to thrive out there.  So we’ll see…”

  “Yes we will…”