Launch: Chapter 17

  Markus stood in the hallway nearby his room studying a map of the ship that he’d summoned upon one of the larger general purpose display monitors.  He was still trying to get a feel for the layout of the habitat ring.   Schematics were one thing, but being able to actually navigate yourself in the physical space was sadly another thing entirely.  He was doing some exploring of the ship ahead of the wildcard orientation later this afternoon, and noting that the arboretum was nearby he figured that being on his list, it was as good a next stop as any.  He well understood the necessity of an arboretum on any long duration space flight, but each arboretum was a different work of art, and he usually found them quite impressive.

  The arboretum’s plant life served to scrub the carbon dioxide from the air and provide fresh oxygen, carrying this ancient relationship between plant and animal out into space with them.   This was their primary, indispensable function.  But having these arboretums onboard for long distance voyages also allowed food to be grown on the way, as well as giving people a place to feel more at home in an ancestral sense.  Generational starships had to be especially closed and integrated systems with virtually zero waste.  For example, all human waste was recycled into water and fertilizer for the arboretum gardens, as well as raw material for the creation of synthetic meats.   Projects such as these simply couldn’t be done any other way.  Beyond these purely practical needs, the psychological value of having a genuine green space as a sanctuary from the emptiness of actual space, was absolutely invaluable.

  “Wowwww…” Markus uttered as the doors to the arboretum slid open.  This was on a scale, both in size and majesty which he had never imagined, let alone seen in person before.  It was positively huge!  It occupied a full third of the ship’s habitat ring with the middle decks taken out, making it the largest open space on the entire ship.  It was encased in some clear material which looked like glass (but couldn’t be), with the only opaque walls being the ones adjacent to the rest of the habitat ring, and the grounds covered in black fertile soil.

  There were trees which must have been well over twenty meters tall!  He’d never seen such large trees in space, but then again he’d never seen an arboretum big enough to house them; the space stations only had a great many smaller arboretums.  Walking in, Markus immediately had a visceral sense of familiarity and nostalgia.  The types of plants in an arboretum didn’t matter much since each plant had an engineered strain specialized for arboretum use.  As a result arboretums had become works of art, with some horticultural architects devoting their whole careers to creating one contained beautiful green space after another.  They usually had a theme, and Markus was brought nearly to tears to be able to immediately recognize this one’s.  It was a forest just like he was familiar with back home… the great coastal temperate rainforests of British Columbia.

  Markus felt at home in a way that was so overwhelming it surprised him.  Growing up in Vancouver, this was the environment one found anywhere they went outside the major urban area.  Some people who lived in the lower mainland complained about how much it rained and how frequently the sky was overcast but what they got for it was this, the cool humid jungles of the north.

  Most of the forests in the northern hemisphere were typical arboreal forests, which consisted of endless evergreen trees for kilometers and kilometers, all occasionally renewed by great fires.  This landscape dominated much of northern Europe, Asia, and North America.  While special and beautiful in their own way, in comparison to this temperate rainforest the regular arboreal forests could seem positively barren and lifeless.  Much like jungles in more equatorial regions, it was rich with life from soil to canopy, with every possible niche exploited.

  It was an artificial environment though, and if one was as familiar with the real thing as Markus was, certain differences were obvious if looked for.  Mixed in with the Spruces, Firs, and Cedars, there were also some leafy trees like Aspen and Birch.  Below the trees was dense underbrush covered with ferns and lichens.  The place was positively thick with emerald green life, to the point that the very air appeared to glow green.  Leading from the doorway, there was a path which disappeared into the woods.  On either side of the path the earth was littered with needles, mosses, leaves, twigs and fallen trees in mid-decay.  They must have started this arboretum years ago, just after initial construction began.  He started down the path, not sure where it might take him, or what he might find.

  

  As he progressed along the path, every once in a while Markus would come upon something which simply didn’t seem to belong for one reason or another.  At one point he saw a collection of banana palms, which seemed completely out of place in this kind of forest, but you had to be right in front of them in order to see that they were there at all.  This is what he found over and over and he imagined that it was probably the intended effect of the winding pathway.  He was particularly relieved to see the coffee shrubs when he came across them.

  Every once in a while there was a side path which branched off of the main one into the forest, presumably to another hidden oasis or farm.  After an absolutely captivating twenty minute stroll he almost forgot that he was in space at all, that is until he looked up and saw the central engine section of the ship with the other side of the outer ring behind it, all back dropped by what from this angle was a gibbous Earth.  To look up and see this sight peeking through the dense canopy, it suddenly became very hard to forget exactly where he was.

  He couldn’t resist taking his PANE glasses out and taking an image of the view and sending it to Hugh.   Markus had opted not to use his contact lenses today, and instead was carrying the equivalent glasses around in his pocket.  They were less expensive than the state of the art PANE contact lenses but had far greater functionality.  The PANE looked very much like the glasses people used to wear before poor vision became part of the standard genetic screening.  It had two eye pieces which by Brainchip command, could go from perfectly transparent, to a soft heads up display overlaid on top of one’s environment, to totally opaque.  On the inside of the lens, the user could see and use the same home interface they used on any device synched to their PAN.  It housed within it an ultra-high definition camera as opposed to the relatively low definition camera which could be fitted into the contact lenses.

  Much like the scrolls, images could be displayed on either side of the screens.  One could also have the image displayed on only one opaque lens with the other lens transparent to the outside world, or displayed on the top half of both lenses, or even just in the top corner of one eye.  One could use whatever display configuration they wished with a single thought directed towards their PANEs with their Brainchip.   Between the eye pieces there was a digital camera and microphone which could be used to take images, sound recordings, or video, which Markus was doing now.

  Continuing to make his way through the forest, he would occasionally come across park benches which he noted as spots which might quickly become one his favorites on the whole ship.  As he rounded a corner, he found somebody sitting on one of the benches.  He hadn’t seen anyone else in the arboretum on his walk so far but he’d written that off to the fact that everyone else seemed so busy getting ready for the launch.  He figured that they probably imagined (and they were right) that there would be plenty of time afterwards for rest and relaxation.  That didn’t explain why he wasn’t running into more wildcard crew like himself though, he considered.

  After a brief moment Markus realized that it was Kim In-Su sitting there, looking up to the sky and tapping a pencil softly against his angular chin with an old fashioned paper notebook opened on his lap.  His straight jet black hair came down below his ears, but not so low as his sharp jawline.   He was dressed in a light blue button up shirt with the top couple buttons left undone, on top of tan cargo pants.   “Mr. Kim!?” Markus exclaimed autonomically in surprise.  In-Su squinted ever so slightly as he scrutinized this intruder of his peace.

  “Yes?” he softly responded.

  “Oh, um… nothing really.  I’m sorry I was just… surprised to find you here, I hadn’t come across anyone else yet.”   This explanation somehow seemed to satisfy him.  He closed his book and turned his full, penetrating attention to Markus.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “Um… of what?”

  “My garden.” In-Su replied as he waved his hand in the general direction of… all around them.

  “You did this?” Markus asked as he cautiously moved toward him, more than a little intimidated.

  “Not personally, nor physically no, but I did design this place, yes.”

  “Well in that case, thank you very much.”  In-Su’s expression revealed inquisitiveness, allowing him to ask a question without speaking.  “I mean, it’s so beautiful; it’s just like home…  I’m from British Columbia.”

  “Hmm, homesick already are we?”

  “Oh no, no… no.” he finally uttered decidedly.  “Um, may I?”   Markus gestured to the other side of the bench.  In-Su declined and instead got up and motioned for him to follow.

  “I was actually inspired by the temperate rainforests of my Korean homeland, but I did study all the temperate rainforest zones and drew heavily from the western North American incarnation as well.”  There were several moments of silence as they made their way through the forest without speaking, instead absorbing the beauty of the space together.  Though it looked much the same, there was hardly a fraction of the animal and insect life compared to the natural forest Markus was familiar with.  There were some to be found, but only those that were absolutely necessary for the life cycles of the plants which were brought here.  They were much harder to control, and one certainly didn’t want an insect infestation on the rest of the ship.  That could spell disaster.  “Did you notice the name on the placard at the door?”

  “Uh, no.  Sorry.” Markus admitted, embarrassed.

  “Hmmm…” In-Su uttered, seemingly disappointed.  “It read ‘Neil Sagan Memorial Arboretum.”

  “Ohhh…” muttered Markus, suddenly putting all of the pieces together.  Of course he had heard of the accident, and had been familiar with Sagan’s work long before that.

  “This place is where he lives now.  His body was incorporated into the soil.  Somehow… none of us could bear to not take him with us in some form or another.”

  “I see.”

  “I assume that Kirsten informed you of the life debt that you owe by accepting a position on the New Horizon?”

  “Indeed she did.”  He had been aware of the policy long before that though.

  “Sadhika, Wiremu, and I wrote that policy after the accident.  We unofficially call it Sagan’s Law.  We all agreed that nobody belonged here, who was not willing to make the same sacrifice that he was, and that to be unwilling to do so would be to dishonour his sacrifice.”

  “That… makes a lot of sense to me.”  Markus wasn’t quite sure what was bringing this conversation about; he felt as though he were along for the ride in it.  He got the impression that In-Su had things he needed to say, and that whoever had found him there would have heard him say them.

  “I’d known Neil for decades before I ever met Sadhika or Wii, and long before anyone had ever dreamed of the New Horizon.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  I suspect that in some sense Neil was born with the dream of the New Horizon.  Are you familiar with his work?”

  “Oh yes!” Markus answered with genuine enthusiasm.  “In fact he has been something of a role model for me, especially when I was a professor.  I understood and greatly appreciated what kind of change he was always trying to make in people when he reached out publicly.  I… I always tried to accomplish the same thing, but of course I never met with much success…”

  “Neither did he… but I suspect that was neither of your faults.”

  Markus nodded, and then shook his head.  “Well, actually he worked on me.  He spoke with such a passion, the kind of passion I’d never heard before and… and have rarely heard since.”

  “Yes… we were soul mates he and I, and I have never been quite so close to anyone else in my life.”   He looked down for the first time.   “I will forever miss him.”  He looked up again, at Markus.  “He shared his brilliance with me, and I shared my soul with him.  We were both made more complete for it.  He is gone now, but this ship, this journey, this launch, is his legacy.  This is his dream, and he is the original dreamer of it.”

  They continued to walk in silence through the dense forest, only the sight above their heads betraying their true location. “This is your first time in the arboretum?”
 “That’s right.”

  “Then I shall have to show you the best part.”  In-Su pulled a small scroll out of the side pocket of his right pants leg.  He pulled it apart and tapped at it for a second or two, and in response the sky completely changed.

  A beautiful clear blue flashed across the previously transparent ceiling of the arboretum, and then against the blue background came the sun.  It was obviously artificial but Markus could feel warmth from it, and the illusion of the sun being up in the sky was almost complete.  It was this light which would feed the arboretum plants and power their indispensable photosynthesis.  Without a deliberate effort to press the illusion, there was no longer any obvious way for his senses to betray the fact that he was not back on Earth, strolling through his beloved coastal rainforest on a perfectly clear and sunny day.