Launch: Chapter 9

  Casual acquaintances didn’t interest Markus much since he found the frivolity of small talk incredibly taxing.  He was much more at home with a select few meaningful relationships. The kind that are so rare he could count on his fingers how many he’d had in his whole life, although he would need both hands.  In contrast, he’d also had about as many simple acquaintances, relationships of no real value to him that he nonetheless dutifully maintained for one reason or another.  Unfortunately for him, most of his family fell into this latter category.  Their familial link forever tied them together for better or worse, and he felt as though he basically owed each of them a ‘life task’ on that basis alone, but these relationships did not penetrate for him the way his close friendships did.

  Markus couldn’t bring himself to blame any of these people for the situation, nor did he particularly regard it as a problem.  The absence of those kinds of connections in his own family had led him to seek out a new small family for himself, with people he had much more in common with, but without any sort of blood relationship.  He supposed it was simply a question of shared interest.

  Markus had always lived somewhat in his own head, off in his own world, and always with a look in his eyes which indicated he was looking somewhere past what he saw, and was trying to put the pieces together and really understand what he was seeing.  Meanwhile his family more practically occupied themselves with more earthly matters of work, having a family, or if they felt the call, public service. He simply had very little overlapping interest with them.  It wasn’t anyone else’s fault; it was simply the way it was.   His own mother was a perfect example.

  A few months ago, after finally deciding to accept the spot he’d won on the New Horizon, Markus had taken his mother out to lunch at her favorite restaurant to break the news to her, and they were halfway through their entrées after having had appetizers.   They usually wouldn’t have bothered with the appetizers, but Markus was stalling, and time was now definitely running out for him to finally get to the point.  The diner was busy, full of professionals either on business lunches or simply refueling before returning to work.  There wasn’t much distinctive about the place, some tacky decorations on the wall… some sports he didn’t care much about on the monitors.

    They were in Vancouver’s downtown core near the headquarters for Bowland Power Systems, and it had only taken Markus about twenty minutes in a roadpod to get there from the university’s peninsula grounds.  Transit was free and the fastest option in the city, but today he’d paid the extra charge for a roadpod to give himself the chance to make some private calls in the comfort of his own vehicle.

  He still wasn’t very sure how he should play this.  ‘Come on Markus, now or never…It’s why you’re here,’ he told himself.  Try as he might, he couldn’t imagine any way of presenting the news to his mother that wouldn’t immediately make it seem like bad news.   “I have good news Mom.”  He realized after speaking that his tone hadn’t matched his words.  He made it sound like he needed to tell her that one of them was dying.

  “Well…” she eyed him suspiciously, putting down her fork.  “It sure doesn’t sound like good news from your tone.”  As much as they didn’t share, they had always shared a keen sense for other people’s expressions and body language.  Sometimes it was almost like a sixth sense, but it was nothing that any keen observer couldn’t be trained to observe deliberately.  For them it was just a natural talent that ran in the family.  It had probably played a part in his original fascination with psychology, the minor he’d chosen in University to compliment his major in Synthetic Genetics.  He looked away and silently chastised himself for being so transparent.

  “I’m sorry… you’re right.”   He resumed her gaze.  “Well, sort of.  The thing is, it’s good for me, but I suspect you’re not going to feel the same way about it.”

  “How are we doing here?” the bubbly male server asked, seeming to emerge out of nowhere and naturally at the most inopportune time.

  “Not now, Amra,” his mother snapped, almost before he could finish asking.  The poor young man slinked away.  His mother ate here often which explained her knowing him by name; it was her naturally acerbic nature and often unforgiveable bluntness which explained the rudeness.HerhhhhhkH

  “Well then out with it boy, it can’t be that bad if it’s good for you.”  She took another bite of her salad.

  Markus bit his lip.  ‘You say that now…’ he thought.  “Have you heard about the New Horizon mission?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it in the news, the new generational ship…”  She stopped eating and paused, put her fork down, reached for her wine, and finished the almost full glass all at once.

  “Oh Markus…”

  “Yes Mom… that’s right.  I applied for one of their wildcard spots along with Hugh, and well… I was accepted!”  He shrugged his shoulders and put his palms up as if to say ‘who knew!?’ or, ‘I never imagined it’d actually happen!’ while forcing an unconvincing smile.

  “Oh Markus…”  She put her forehead in her palms, propped up by her elbows on the table and slowly shook her head side to side.  “You couldn’t!  I mean, how could you?  Those horrible cult ships spreading that ridiculous religious nonsense across the galaxy?  How could you?  What could possibly compel you to-”

  “Oh no Mom, don’t worry about that part, this one is very different, believe me!  It was Hugh’s idea originally, you should know him well enough to know that he’d never go for something like that!  Not with his parents having gone on the Mormon one and everything…  No, no they’re, we are going to be the first secular ship to launch.  Our best and brightest are going this time, to go start an entirely different kind of colony.  It’s…” he sighed and leaned back in his chair.  He could tell he wasn’t getting through to her.  “It’s a reimagining of the whole concept.”  He was still waiting for her to realize what her greatest objections would be.  “It’s a very important mission…” he muttered as he slowly bled conviction.  His sudden burst of enthusiasm gave way to sheepishness.

  “But… what, what about all the people you are going to leave behind!?  Are you just going to abandon us!?  Me!?  What about your brother?  What about Zoro, and Dao, and Sufi!?  What about Amber!?  What will this do to her!?”  She was fighting back tears.  So far she was winning the battle, but she would ultimately lose the war.  His mother had always misunderstood his relationship with Amber.  To this day she had some notion of them eventually getting together officially and starting a family, despite both of them insisting they had no such intentions.   She liked Amber and that’s why she wanted to see them together.  Certainly she liked her more than she liked Hugh; she had somehow gotten the impression that he was a bad influence on Markus.  This was a profound irony given the disproportionate influence Markus had had in Hugh’s breaking away from his parent’s religion as opposed to the other way around.

  “No Mom, no…” he tried to reason, “look, it’s not like I’m going to just vanish or something, I can stay in touch with you and the rest of Earth by laser comm,” he paused, then added: “it’ll just be an increasingly long lag time the further away we get from Earth.”   A few moments later his mother suddenly looked directly at him through wet eyes that had yet to burst.

  He could hardly blame her.   From her perspective she was simply going to lose him, and it was not the first time she had lost a child.   Markus had once had a sister Cornelia who had been four years older than him.  When Markus was eight months old though, there was an accident at Bowland Power Systems.  Cornelia had wandered off from the office into the research complex, and on the one day a new employee had neglected to secure the door to the test chamber she found her way into an unshielded section during a test of a prototype fusion reactor.  She took a heavy dose of neutron radiation and a couple months later the first tumors started forming.

  Their parents had hoped that the exposure had been minimal but there was no way to know.  All they could do was regularly take her to the hospital to have her blood screened for cancer markers and have regular full body scans to watch for abnormalities.  It took a couple months, but when they came they formed all over her body and there was no way to cure her; she had taken as heavy a dose of radiation as they’d feared.   She was treated, and her decline was slowed but after that first doctor’s visit when they learned her ultimate prognosis, nothing in their household would ever be the same.

  She died several months later, and naturally it devastated their parents.  Fortunately their relationship was strong and they were able to get each other through the tragedy together.  They embraced Markus anew and eventually even decided to have another child, his younger brother Brakus.  Markus was not so lucky though.  It just so happened that all through his most formative first and second years before his parents rebounded; he had been steeped in misery and emotional distance.  

  While many could have bounced back from this without much effect, Markus unfortunately also had a natural predisposition towards being a rather shy person who was generally avoidant of social interaction.  In his early childhood environment, the family focus was entirely and exclusively on Cornelia and when attention was paid to him, those who did were upset and distraught over his sibling’s struggles.  Even in infancy he was able to perceive this emotional climate and be sharply affected by it.  That naturally avoidant disposition hardened as a result into a mental stumbling block which he would spend the rest of his life tripping over in one way or another.   It was the feeling he spent his whole life reacting to.

  Markus grew up socially insecure, and this made him focus on particular individual relationships with people whom he learned he could trust.  This searching was also the same force which later matured into his academic interests, which continued to revolve around that singular question; what made a person who they were, and why did they behave the way they did?  He wanted above all to understand what made himself the way he was.

  His mother had been worried about the idea of losing another child which is how she ultimately perceived the news she was now receiving.  But then her expression shifted as she switched perspectives and came to realize what it ultimately meant.

  “Oh Markus, I hadn’t even thought about that part!  You’re going to die out there, in deep space!  I’ll never get to see any grandchildren that you’ll have…  You’re going to live the rest of your life out there and then just… just die!  Why would you do that to yourself, what about everything you’re leaving behind here on Earth??”  At that his mother put her head back on her hands and started sobbing softly to herself.   She was trying not to make a scene, and Markus was grateful for it, though she wasn’t the dramatic wailing sort in any case.  She was a strong and proud woman; she had always been.

  Markus looked down at his food in disappointment and pushed some vegetables around with his fork; he had eaten the steak first and had now lost his appetite for the steamed vegetables and french fries which had come with it.  He had been here before, where it seemed he was confronted with the conjunction of an unstoppable force and an immovable object; his guilt facing off against his passions.

  A bit later his mother had for the most part composed herself, and they returned to slowly finishing their meals in relative silence, each considering the implications of the brief exchange that had just occurred between them.  He knew that she would never understand, and that she would always feel as though him leaving were some sort of personal insult to her.  In a way, he realized that she was probably right.   At its’ essence, his decision was a fundamental rejection of the world she had brought him into.  She had given him this world, and now he was handing it back to her.

  

  An hour later they were standing outside the restaurant, about to go their own separate ways.  His mother was still glum, but had long since stoically composed herself.  It was the dead of winter, though in Vancouver it never really got that cold and it was still well above freezing.  The air was heavy with the nearby ocean; wet and salty air occasionally blew past them in gusts, blowing through their coats and up their nose.  His mother demanded a hug and while they embraced she said: “Serves me right I guess.   I raised you to have a mind of your own.   Maybe I knew you needed it given how controlling I can be.”  She pulled away and put her gloved hand on his rosy cheek.   “I don’t want you to go, son.  I know you’ll do what you think is right though.   I wanted you to go into the family business too for all the good it did me.  I hated the idea of you going into science instead of engineering at the time, and that didn’t turn out so bad did it?”  She was understating.  He knew how proud she was of him and his position as a tenured professor of genetics at the university, and as a well-known and respected person in his field.

  “Like I said Mom, I’ll be out of physical reach, but I won’t be out of touch, not by a long shot.  Twenty years ago I probably would have agreed with you, but I feel I’ve accomplished all my terrestrial goals.  Yes there are other things I could do, but… something about this just feels right.   It’s scary of course, and there are many risks and unknowns, but somehow… somehow it just feels right.  It feels like a calling.  So many people applied and out of all of them, it was me who was selected.  Neither of us believes in fate, but I almost feel like I owe it to all the people who applied and lost… like Hugh.”

  “Do what you believe in son, always.  But please reconsider, for me.  You can’t ever undo this choice, and… and I don’t want you to go.”

  “I know Mom, I know…”