Chasing Stars: Chapter 3

  Markus tugged at his cuff linked shirt sleeve.  The expensive material and precise fit had never felt comfortable to him.  

  “Stop fussing.” Molly scolded him as she adjusted his bowtie.  “You look great.  In fact you clean up pretty well,” she said with a wink.  Her instinct had been to wear a sexy red dress to show off for him, but after being reminded that they were trying to downplay her presence she opted for a more conservative black cocktail dress which was still going to set her apart in the crowd.  There wasn’t much they could do about that.

  He sometimes wondered about her.  As a sexim she was made to be accommodating and flattering, so whenever she did something in the back of his brain made him wonder how much of it was out of genuine affection and how much was merely automation.  He could never really know, but for that matter neither could she.

  They had just arrived at the front reception for the party.  The ballroom was well lit and had the gaudy gold trim to everything which existed more to display wealth than to provide any kind of pleasing aesthetic.   He grew up in this world of wealth but so hated it.  He had never quite figured out what about it made him so uncomfortable.  Perhaps it was the posturing; the façade everyone put on.   Whatever the faults of his work friends, they were at least genuine.  Now he waded through a sea of passive aggression and pretense over status.

  Lucas noticed Markus and made his way over.  Markus could see the expression in his older brother change from relief and delight at his brother’s appearance to disappointment as he realized who the woman at his side was.

  “I see you’ve brought your, um… girlfriend,” he observed icily.  “Sorry,” he offered, still a polite man at his core, “is that what I should call you?” he asked her.

  “Good to see you again as well Lucas.”  They had met on several other more private social occasions when Markus had brought her along.  

  “You too Molly, it’s just um… it’s just not a great night, you know?  I’m sure Markus has told you what this is all about?”   Lucas seemed unhappy and concerned, but was rubbing his chin as he regarded them the same way Markus tended to do when he was vexed; he at least didn’t seem overtly angry.

  “Don’t worry, we’re not here to make a scene,” Markus reassured him.  “We have every intention of avoiding making any of this about us.”

  “That’s good,” Lucas responded flatly.  “Guess that’s all I can really hope for at this point.”

  Molly’s smile flattened, with one corner of her mouth upturned in mild anxiety.

  “In any case,” Lucas continued, seemingly giving up on trying to control the situation and instead doing his best to lightening up, “try to enjoy yourselves.   Sadhika should be giving her presentation soon and she’s always entertaining.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Markus said.  Most super wealthy and successful people didn’t hold much interest for Markus.   He’d met enough of them to know they didn’t tend to offer much on a personal level but Sadhika had always seemed different to him, at least from afar.  She was somehow the opposite of everything he’d come to expect from people of her standing.  The more powerful she became, the more humble she seemed to get.  She was obviously still wildly proud of what she’d accomplished, but she’d either developed or had always had, the understanding that she didn’t get where she had alone.  He’d seen her describe in an interview that she felt some urgency to make her power and resources count for something, that she’d long ago passed any quality-of-life concerns which ever more wealth could improve upon.

  Markus held the same disdain for aimless accumulation of wealth, but never developed that urgency to do something meaningful with what he had.  He wondered if her having earned her wealth made the difference.  Maybe it was just how astronomically wealthier she was.  Well, used to be, he reminded himself.  Once the wealthiest person in the world, now here she was relegated to begging.  He realized he found it more pathetic the more he thought about it.

  It was obvious that the beginning of the presentation was imminent, so Markus and Molly grabbed drinks and found a good place to stand and watch.  Sadhika shortly took the stage.

   

  “Hello everyone!  My name, if you didn’t know,” she winked and the crowd chuckled.  Every person on the planet knew her name.  “is Sadhika Manjula Sengupta, and I used to be the richest person in the world.”  The crowd of wealthy socialites cheered sarcastically.

  “I know, I know,” she said, raising her hands in admission.”  “I know this is a worst-case scenario nightmare for most of you,” she gently teased back in her understated Indian accent.

  “I am here on stage tonight, to answer for you in person the only question I’m usually ever asked about the project.”

  “Why!” someone in the crowd yelled.

  Sadhika pointed to them.  “Yes, exactly.  Why.   Why would I drain all of my resources for this single project?”

  Sadhika narrowed one eye briefly, and the screen behind her revealed a live feed of a large vessel in orbit.  

  The ship on the screen had a long cylinder along the centre of it.  Suspended from it by long narrow struts was a large, wide, thick ring slowly rotating around the inner structure.  All along the length of the long inner section were spherical storage tanks in rings of four from stem to stern.  At the rear were 4 modest rocket bells.

  “This, is the Generational Star Ship New Horizon.”  With another wince of one eye, the image then shifted to a schematic diagram of the ship.  “Four next generation ion engines coupled to the new ‘New Horizon’ class reactor courtesy of Bowland Power Systems, will get us to thirteen percent of light speed in just twenty years of continuous burn.”  Some murmurs rumbled through the crowd.  Markus looked around and listened but just sensed an incredulity.  It wasn’t that the math didn’t work, it just seemed crazy to them to expect to be able to pull all of this off without cataclysmic error.  “Those storage tanks you see around the central part of the ship store all of the fuel and gases we’ll need along the way.”

  A wince and the image shifted to show just a schematic of the outer ring, which then separated at the top and unrolled to lay flat.  “Only half of the habitat ring is living space for the crew of a hundred and fifty,” she explained.  “One full quarter of the ring is dedicated to our arboretum, the forest lungs on the ship which will keep us not just in fresh air, but also produce along the way.   Another full quarter of the ring is dedicated to our persistent archives which contain, what we consider to be the sum total of all human knowledge.

  “The target,” she winced and the ship reassembled itself, then reverted to the live feed.  The image expanded out to show their solar system in relation to nearby stars.  “Is Sigma Draconis.”  The image then narrowed down onto another star’s planetary system.   “Sigma Draconis is a main sequence G type star like ours, but eighteen point seven light year away.  It’s second planet,” the image narrowed down onto a simulation of the target planet, “we believe to be very much like Earth in any way we can tell from here at this point.

  “We will spend twenty years burning up to speed, then a hundred and ten years in cruise before turning around, and burning another twenty years to slow down again.”

  “Can you believe this shit?” Markus asked of the dark-skinned man beside him.  

  “Tell me about it.  Damned idealistic fools if you ask me…” the man grumped with folded arms.

  Sadhika continued on stage.  “Honestly I could go on for hours talking excitedly about every detail of this mission and everything we’ve done to prepare, but more importantly we have a very special announcement for all of you tonight,” Sadhika continued, “something to further encourage you to help our cause, so I’m now going to bring up our ship’s captain to explain.”

  The man beside Markus smiled at him and approached the stage.  Markus’s heart sank first, followed by his head.  Molly did her best to stifle a pitifully sympathetic laugh as she pulled him into a hug.

  “This is Wiremu Tynes,” Sadhika offered as Wiremu joined her on the stage.  “Some of you may have heard of him, but for those who haven’t he’s one of the most decorated officers in Peacekeeper history, and has seen just about every kind of ship and every kind of incident there is to be seen out there in space, haven’t you Wii?”

  “Well I don’t know about any of that,” he dismissed, “but look.  There’s a raffle.  If you donate more than a standard Vancouver basic payment, you’ll be entered into the draw.  The winner gets to come with us.”  He was a gruff man.  He struck Markus as the hard skinned but friendly underneath type.

  Some uncomfortable grumbling and shifting came from the crowd.  Wiremu put up his hand.  “Not to worry, only if you want to,” he clarified with that same wide smile, and the relief of tension allowed the crowd’s anxiety to switch to mirth.

  “You should donate,” Molly suggested to him.  Her eyes were somewhere else, like she was lost in daydream as she said it.   

  “You’re into this?” Markus asked with some surprise.

  “No.  I mean yes, but I mean… you might win.”

  “Trying to get rid of me?” he teased her.

  “No.  No, something else…” she looked away, seemingly trying to find a thought she couldn’t quite put a finger on.

  “Of course,” Wiremu continued on stage, “we can’t just let anyone on the ship.  You can go yourself, or sell the seat if you like, but it will be pending a thorough checkout by our people, so to be clear you would be winning nominating rights for our last open spot, not a right to fill it.  I hope that is clear.  Are there any questions?”

  “Why didn’t you hollow out asteroids like the Mormon mission?” someone from the crowd asked.   The one previous generational starship which had been launched twelve years ago by a breakaway sect of the religion, who brought a heavily edited and censored version of New Horizon’s archives to preserve their beliefs and culture.  Their drive plume could still be spotted with telescopes, but they had severed all contact with Earth soon after their departure. 

  By comparison the previous starship mission was somewhat crude.  Instead of a purpose-built ship, they used a drone excavation fleet to hollow out the interior of a captured asteroid and bolt a lot of off the shelf ion engines onto the back and pair them with a lot of off the shelf fusion cores.

  “We… did consider that,” Wiremu looked back at Sadhika.  This wasn’t his domain, but he was happy to answer if there was no objection from her.  “But we wanted to have more control.  We wanted to design something purely purpose built from the first weld.  We thought with all the unknowns we were going to face even in the best-case scenario, the more things we could be deliberate about, the better.  Plus, I mean…” he turned around to look at the image of the ship in space, “just look at it!  I’ve never had the privilege of commanding such a vessel.  Nothing like it has ever existed!”

   “Will drugs be available on the ship?” someone called out and some of the crowd laughed.  “It’s a long time with nothing to do once you’re out there!”

  “That’s uh… not really up to us,” Wiremu answered with a chuckle.  “That will be up to the governing structure on the ship.   Our genetic transcoders can recreate any plants we have on file and we’ll have a sophisticated chemistry lab, but…   Oh hell, let’s just say probably!”

  The crowd held up their drinks and cheered as Sadhika and Wiremu laughed.

  “How do you know for sure the planet is habitable?” someone else in the crowd asked.

  “Yes,” Sadhika said, “great question.  For that I should bring up our mission’ all things astronomical expert Sasha Tyson.   She is the lead scientist on the mission; Sasha come on up here.”

  Polite applause welcomed her to the stage.  “The short answer is… we don’t,” she conceded.  She was a woman somewhat on the large side.  She wasn’t overweight; she had a broad heavy set stature, a sturdy woman nearly two meters tall.  She had olive skin and brown hair pulled tightly into a very serious bun.   Streaks of grey could be seen coming from her temples back into the whirl of the bun.  She had the air of physical confidence usually only substantial men of her stature had.  Markus found it something of a novelty and he wondered if she played rugby or something.   

  “We do know a lot thought,” she continued.  “We know that there is free oxygen in the atmosphere, and that the only mechanism we know of that can produce this is the existence of plant life which is perpetually replacing the oxygen as it’s being destroyed by solar radiation.  After over a century of trying to figure out other ways this could happen, we haven’t found any.  That’s the best we’ve got,” she shrugged.  The crowd grew quiet.  

  “And it’s even worse than that to be honest,” she continued, laughing at herself over the absurdity of what she was saying.  “That says nothing about whether or not the life there is digestible to us of course, or whether or not earth plants can grow in its soil, or whether or not there are exotic diseases there, or whether or not they’ll even be genetically similar enough to us to be able to infect us.  Bottom line is, we won’t know if we can survive there until we land and try, but that’s kind of the point.”

  “What if you get there and you can tell from orbit that you can’t survive there?”

  “Well, we have contingencies.  We have production facilities on the ship that will allow us to replenish our raw material reserves and head back,” Sasha answered.  “More likely though, in that unlikely scenario, we would spend some time in orbit and conduct a detailed survey of the planet and system and send the data back to Earth to at least not waste the opportunity.  In the process we would be looking for alternative targets to divert to instead of returning to Earth.”

  “You’d really look for an alternative target rather than return to Earth?”

  “The reality is,” Sadhika explained, “that to our descendants who arrive at this new planet, Earth would be as distant and alien a destination as any other.  We can’t really control what they would do in that eventuality, all we can do is ensure that they would have options.”

  The elderly woman who originally asked the question seemed satisfied with their answer, if still in disbelief at them attempting something so fanciful.

  “We are happy to answer any questions you may have,” Sadhika affirmed.  “In fact, we love nothing more than talking about our project and if there are any concerns you have that we haven’t thought about we would be delighted to discover them so we can plan for them.  But you don’t have to convince us that this is a crazy proposition, I mean we know!  We put our chances at what,” she looked at the others on stage with her, “one in twenty?”

  “At best,” Wiremu said.

  ‘At least.’ Sasha insisted and Wiremu shrugged.

  Sadhika looked out at the crowd.  “This isn’t something I really expect any of you to understand, but we aren’t doing this because we believe it will be successful.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe it can be.  Believing the impossible can be done is how I got here in the first place.  We are doing this, we are taking this chance, because it needs to be done, because someone needs to try; because it might be possible.”

   

  “Well, that certainly made it sound like the most elaborate and expensive death cult of all time,” Lucas said to his brother after the presentation.  He took a drink of scotch from his glass before continuing.   “And that Sasha Tyson… well, she certainly knows how to work a crowd doesn’t she?”  He was being sarcastic, but the woman had had a certain blunt enthusiasm which Markus appreciated.  He could understand why others could find it off putting though.  Most people tended to live in very shielded bubbles around their head, and people with dispositions like that had the habit of bursting them.

  “I think it’s noble,” Molly stated quietly but with certainty.

  “Noble?” Markus asked.

  “Yeah, I mean… they’ll never know if it works or not.  Look at them,” she pointed over to the table where Sadhika, Wiremu, and Sasha were sitting.  “They’re all middle aged at best.  They said it’s a hundred and fifty year mission.  They’ll be lucky to make it to the end of the first burn.  All this effort, all this expense… for a dream they’ll not only never see realized themselves, but will never even get to find out if it was successful or not!”

  “Makes you wonder why…” Markus said as he started to wonder himself. 

  Lucas seemed to ignore Markus’ musings.  “Right, well, in any case, hopefully this raffle they’ve come up with puts them well over the top of what they owe us.”  A woman in the crowd called to Lucas and he left to go speak with her.

  “You should make a donation to get a raffle ticket,” Molly urged.

  “You said that before, I thought you were joking.”

  “I guess I was,” she conceded.  “But now I’m not.”

  “What’s changed?

  “I find myself wondering what would make someone choose to commit to a dream they’ll never get to see realized?” Molly asked with a thousand-yard stare.

  “I don’t know.” Markus answered.  He also found it hard to imagine.

  “Well I think it’s worth finding out.”

  “Alright then, let’s find out.”  He took her hand and led her over to the table where the mission founders were sitting.   “May we join you?” he asked.  He noticed as over a fraction of a second the four seated at the table recognized Molly, recognized what she was, looked at each other, and then acknowledged amongst themselves that they weren’t going to say anything about it.  He was used to it, and it was better than any other possible reaction he’d observed.

  “Of course, of course,” Sadhika said while gesturing to the empty seats.  “This is Kim In-su, the fourth member of our little team here.”  

  Markus could tell they’d worked together for years by the ease they seemed to have with each other, and the rich unspoken communication between them which he observed only snippets of.  He nodded to acknowledge the older Asian man as they sat down.  He was almost as famous as Sadhika but for entirely different reasons.  While Sadhika had revolutionized the synthetic biology industry and made her fortune selling related hardware, Kim In-su was one of the most renowned contemporary writers in the world, famous for everything from poetry to novels, and in several languages.  What connection he had to them and what purpose he served on their team, Markus had no idea. 

  “I was wondering…” Molly started, “why.”  The four chuckled.  “Not why the mission-“

  “Though that’s my next question.” Markus playfully interjected.  It didn’t land with them as well as he’d hoped though; their attention was held rather firmly by Molly.

  “I’m wondering why you individually would choose to go.  Why you would permanently commit the rest of your life to a cause that you not only won’t be able to see realized, but won’t even get to find out if it all works out in the end or not?”

  “Two answers,” Sadhika smiled.  She had the slight early touches of an alcohol slur.  “As for the first, it’s really the kind of thing you either get or you don’t.  The words are, ‘to be part of something bigger than myself, to serve a purpose greater than my own’.  But if they don’t mean anything to you, if that sentiment doesn’t resonate something in your bones, then I can’t explain it in a way that will make you understand.   In-su might have better luck doing that with his poetry!”  She laughed as she put a hand on In-su’s shoulder, who only smiled and took a sip of his drink.

  “But you’ll never get to see it,” Molly reiterated

  “No, but I’ll have done it.” Sadhika retorted with electricity in her eyes.

  This left Markus to fall deeply into his thoughts, but Molly was still quite engaged.   “And the other?” she asked.  “You said there were two answers?”

  “The other thing is we’re cheating,” Wiremu said gruffly.

  Molly tilted her head and gave an expression which was half confusion, half entirely charmed by him regardless.  She then offered her expression to the others seated around the table.

  “We had ourselves simulated,” Sasha explained.

  “Oh?”   Molly was surprised.

  “All four of us have been simulated and they’re in storage on the ship,” she added.   “They’ll be activated once we arrive at Haven.”

  “Haven?” Markus woke up to ask when they named the planet.

  “It’s… not anything official,” Sadhika clarified.  “We started referring to it as a haven like, as in a haven in the distant void and it just kind of stuck.”

  “Simulated hunh?” Molly asked, fully aware that they were aware she was a sim.   “That’s fun.  And you think that this will allow you to be there in a sort of way when it all goes down?”

  Sadhika shrugged.  It seemed unclear to her whether or not the simulant was preparing to take offence at the notion.

  “Well, I guess that’s the best you meat bags can really hope for isn’t it?” she mused to disarm the table as she popped the cherry from her drink into her mouth.

  Everyone laughed and seemed to decide they liked her.

  “We know they’re not us of course,” Wiremu said.  “We know they are only simulations of who we are today, and that as we age and further mature on the ship we’ll become different from what they’ll wake up as and grow to be.”

  “I think that is most appropriate anyways,” In-su volunteered.  “From their perspective they will go from launch to arrival in the blink of an eye.  They are the lucky ones, they get to live what we wish more than anything we could.”

  “Just ego then?” Molly asked.  “Pure wish fulfillment?”

  “It is more than that we must admit,” In-su answered.  “They are to be the living embodiment of the spirit of the mission.   When the arrival comes, a century and a half of politics will have happened on the ship.  Everyone onboard will have been born in space.  They may forget why they need to land, they will likely have lost some essential spirit that we are launching with.  We hope our recreations will be able to remind them of things they forget.”

  “More human than human,” Molly parroted the marketing phrase of the simulators.

  “Indeed,” In-su responded with a raised eyebrow.

   

  As they left the table, Markus led Molly to the donation table.  Looking towards the target light at the terminal behind the volunteers, it flashed green to acknowledge his ping, which in this case carried the instructions to transfer the month’s worth of basic he’d recovered from the company earlier today plus one dollar into the pot, and the large animation of a thermometer bumped up a small notch.  It was nearly halfway at this point, and it looked like they were going to hit their thirty million target after all.  He imagined the others were probably donating much more at a time.

  His brother grabbed his arm firmly and spun him around.  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lucas angrily asked.

  “Obviously I’m donating, and hopefully I win the spot!”  He was just screwing with his brother, but somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, the idea had established the tiniest of beach heads.

  “You’re a fucking idiot.”  His tone denoted resignation more than anger.  “I assume I can expect you in again tomorrow morning to cash in more stock for this?”  He was clearly annoyed with his little brother but had apparently decided to lean more towards teasing.

  Markus just shrugged with a devious smile.  Lucas moved off to continue schmoozing, and Molly excused herself to the rest room.  He noticed Sadhika get up from the table as she took a vid call on a scroll and headed out to the balcony.  Markus followed her out, but respectfully stood far enough away so as not to overhear her conversation other than to know when it had ended.  He leaned over the balcony and looked out over the city from sixty or so floors up.  He thought about all of the people down there just living their lives.  Then he thought about all of the people who had long since lived their lives.  The uncounted multitudes of previous generations now long gone, their only legacy us still being here. 

  He had spent a lot of time reflecting on why people were the way they were, what made normal people different from him.  He’d realized a long time ago that humans come into the world seeking nothing more than to absorb their culture and fill an appropriate role.  Usually that went exactly as it should, so many ants going about their busy drone lives.  Like so many others, when he’d become philosophical, when he’d learned enough to critique his culture and where he came from as a being he wanted to shake everyone he saw on the street and scream at them until they understood the horror of it all as he did.  

  But also like so many others he came to understand that pointing out the absurdities of existence served only to distress those uninterested in it.  He came to realize that he was the anomaly, he was the outlier, that his ‘awakening’ was actually the unnatural state of affairs and not the other way around.  He came to see it as a heavy burden, a weight of knowledge he and some others had to bear so that all of the other worker ants could just go about their business unawares.  He’d never genuinely resolved this, only resigned to it.  He’d never found himself able to deeply care about anything since.

  Sadhika ended her call, and similarly looked out over the city.  Markus suspected she was thinking similar thoughts as he did.

  “I donated,” he said, trying not to startle her with his unannounced presence as he approached her.  “One month’s basic plus a dollar.”

  “Hoping to join us now are you?” Sadhika smiled at him.  It was a different kind of smile here outside alone with him, one with a hint of suggestion which he hadn’t anticipated.  She turned around and leaned back against the railings with her hands out to her sides, arching her back over the railing.

  “I’m not sure.”  He turned to look at all the glass and lights of the nighttime Vancouver skyline.   “Ninety-nine percent just to annoy my brother,” he admitted with a mischievous smile.

  “Oh so you’re that brother,” Sadhika said with a roll of her eyes.  “I have a brother like that.  Huge pain in my ass.  You can only imagine what he thought of me ‘pissing away my entire fortune’ as he put it.”

  “You have all this careful screening for every participant of the mission, maximum control over all aspects of everything that goes out there, and in the eleventh hour you parachute in some rich asshole to spin the whole mix?” Markus asked.

  “Indeed, who ever said capitalism wasn’t alive and well in our supposed socialist utopia?”

  Markus chuckled.  “Still, it’s pretty extreme though.” he said a little more seriously.  “Do you ever think about the people who come after you?   The ones who have to live and die on your ship through no choice of their own, utterly devoid of any meaningful choices in their lives?”

  “Tell me about the other one percent,” she asked, turning to look out at the world with him instead of answering his question.  Markus made a mental note of her evading the question.

  “What?”

  “You said ninety-nine percent to piss off your brother.  Tell me about the other one percent.”

  Markus didn’t know what to say at first.  Eventually he just repeated her words that were still gnawing at his consciousness.   “To be part of something bigger than myself, to serve a greater purpose than my own.  You said you either felt that in your bones or you didn’t, that it can’t be explained.”

  “And you feel it.”  Her speech was much softer now, perhaps she’d sensed he was more vulnerable than she’d imagined and was adjusting.

  “I feel… like nothing means anything.  I’ve felt that way for a long time.  I suppose that one percent is curiosity if it’s possible for something like your mission to matter, for anything to really mean something.”

  “Hmm…”

  “I’ve felt the absence of something worth caring about my whole life.  It’s always weighed on me.  The way you speak about the mission…” Markus shook his head as he looked out over the city, “made me wonder if maybe you’ve found it.   Something worth caring about, that is.”

  “I can’t say I relate.  I’ve always been driven, always cared.  I’ve cared about too much really, my great regrets are the things I’ve had to let fall by the wayside in favour of things I cared about even more.”  

  “Then you’re lucky,” Markus stated wistfully. 

  “It’s not luck Markus.  You don’t think meaning and purpose just drop out of the sky, do you?” Sadhika asked.   “That it just finds you?  You can’t really think that if you have any real sense of self-determination at all.  I don’t know about you, but myself I’d balk at any purpose coming looking for me.  Real meaning, real purpose with teeth is something you have to choose to attach your destiny to.  Meaning only exists in as much as we construct it for ourselves.  That’s what’s brave about living a real life Markus, knowing that it’s all for nothing, knowing that nothing means anything, but doing it anyways; building for the sake of building, for the satisfaction of having built something instead of just satisfying some cosmic purpose not your own.  How dreary a fate that would be.”

  “Real life, hunh?” Molly interrupted.  Markus felt like he’d been caught despite not having been doing anything wrong.  She had that innocent look which Markus still could never tell whether it was genuine innocence or if she was just waiting for him to incriminate himself.

  “I assure you I didn’t mean real as in biological versus synthetic,” Sadhika attempted to explain.  “The kind of real I’m talking about I imagine would be the same for both of us.”

  “I don’t think we have much in common,” Molly answered somewhat icily.  Markus figured she was jealous, and that he was in for a lot of smoothing over later tonight.

  Sadhika’s gaze at Molly lingered as though not sure if wise to continue.  “You’re a Maggie King, right?”

  “I was modelled after Maggie King, yes.”  Molly answered defensively.

  Sadhika held up her hands.  “I meant no offence.  All I mean is that if you’re here, then you’ve clearly transitioned, or are at leas are in the process of doing so.  That presents you with the same dilemma Markus and I face.  You’ve been given a life, more than likely a life much longer lasting than myself or Markus here.  You’ve also now been given freedom to live it as you wish.  What we can and can’t do with life and freedom, how to construct meaning out of meaninglessness, how to make your life one worth having been lived, how to bridge the gulfs between our needs and our means, these things will haunt you now as much they haunt us, and as I said, likely for far longer.”

  Sadhika finished the rest of the liquid in her glass and turned to head back in.  “Thank you for the donation Markus.  And Molly, I wish you only the best on your journey,” she had started slurring her words more.  Maybe she was more drunk than Markus had thought.

   

  Back inside, the thermometer graphic had reached the top, and everyone was in a pretty good mood as they started the raffle draw.  They had a big drum with a hand crank at the front with the names of everyone who had donated enough.  Sadhika was cranking the drum with enthusiasm as she called Lucas on stage.  

  “Come on Bowland, this is all for you anyways,” she teased as the crowd encouraged him ever more loudly.  He held up his hands in the standard ‘okay, okay…’ gesture and made his way up to the stage.  Sadhika stopped the drum, released the clasp, and opened the door.  She held her arm out to Lucas in invitation, while performing a comical impression of a game show prize girl.

  Lucas reached in, rooted around, then pulled out a paper.  “And the winner is…” he didn’t answer when he read the name, instead he just let his jaw go slack.  Sadhika looked over and read the name.  She nearly doubled over in laughter, then took the paper from him and announced: “Markus Bowland, congratulations!”

  Markus put his head down and rubbed his temples with his thumb and middle finger.   ‘Well that happened…’ he thought.

  Lucas came down from the stage to join Markus and Molly as Sadhika explained that they were done for the evening, but that everyone was more than welcome to stick around and enjoy their last fancy party on Earth with them.

  “Obviously you’re not going.”  Lucas informed Markus.

  “Obviously…”   Markus wasn’t as certain as he tried to seem, but he definitely wanted to maintain that front for the rest of the evening. “Maybe I could sell it.  I bet it would go for quite a bit on the open market.”

  Lucas gave him a look that suggested he had some small doubt about Markus’ sincerity, but pushed past it, and continued to schmooze.  No doubt he was going to try to entice people to continue to donate since it went directly into Bowland Power Systems’ revenue.

  “It wouldn’t be crazy for you to go,” Molly softly suggested once he left.

   “Yes it would,” he argued.  “I mean that’s never stopped me before,” he chuckled, “but yeah.   It would be crazy.  This whole mission is crazy.  I get devoting my life to something if I found the right thing, but to throw it away on this… this crap shoot,” he said, gesturing to the mission founders with a bit of a head shake.

  “Maybe it loses all meaning if you get to know the outcome.”  
 “What?”

  “I don’t know, but… maybe that’s the point.”

  “What do you mean?” Markus insisted with some frustration.

  “I don’t know Markus, okay!?”  Her agitation was sudden and sharp.  Half the room turned to take notice before losing interest again.  “But maybe that’s the point…”

  “Hey, okay.   Okay.  Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out, okay?”  She was pouting, not for attention, it’s just how she got when she’d absorbed too much to process, and needed time to resolve her experiences.  Markus sometimes forgot that there was sometimes a disconnect between what each of them found easy and hard.

   

  Quite soon the crowd started gradually dissipating until all that was left were the four mission founders around a table with Lucas.  Markus and Molly were putting their coats on and getting ready to leave themselves as they approached the table to say goodbye to everyone.   In-su’s demeanor had changed and was now scrutinizing Markus very carefully.  The scrutiny was so careful it made him wonder how long In-su had been scrutinizing him before he’d noticed.  The man was looking at him as though he were evaluating what order he chose to eat the items in his lunch on the third of March in the fourth grade.   It made him quite uncomfortable but he tried to ignore it.

  “So your brother tells us you won’t be joining us?” Sadhika asked.

  “My brother likes to speak for me,” Markus answered dryly.

  “So not out of the question?” she followed up.

  Markus rubbed his chin as he looked over at Lucas and then back at Sadhika.  He just shrugged and smiled.  Lucas was not amused but remained professional.  “Well it looks like you’ve got your wad, what was the final count?”

  “Thirty-eight point seven mil.” Lucas answered.  “Not bad for a night’s work.”

  “Then I guess you’re all square then.”

  “Speaking of which Markus,” Sadhika said, “Your brother will be part of the team overseeing the startup and shake down of the reactor in a couple days.   I’ve invited him to tour the New Horizon beforehand; you should join us.”  Sadhika was still holding her liquor relatively well, but was clearly making a concerted effort to play innocent.  “You should have a chance to see what you’re hoping to sell to the highest bidder.”

  Markus looked at Lucas with a ‘really?’ look.  Lucas shrugged.  “Thank you.   I think I will.  I don’t get up to orbit nearly enough anyways.  I assume my invitation includes a plus one?”  Sadhika looked at Molly clutching Markus’ right arm and he saw her realize he meant his simulant girlfriend.  She looked back at him and with a subtle kind of smile he couldn’t quite identify and only barely registered.

  “Of course.”