Arrival: Epilogue

  “We did it… we really did it.”

  The madness had finally settled.  It had now been a few weeks since the terms upon which the two colony sites would co-exist had finally been agreed to, and so far the peace was holding without any indication that old conflicts would re-emerge.  Some were inclined to think that the hard part was over, but it could also be said that the truly hard part was still what lay ahead of them.  The suffering and hardship of the long journey was over; the conflict which erupted as a result, was likewise now over.  Now all that was left was the work.  It wasn’t glamorous, and it wasn’t exciting, but it was what they were here to do, what all the rest was ultimately in service of, the ability to work hard towards a goal.  Now all that was left for them to do was build a civilization.

  Now it was just the work, constructing buildings, establishing industry, cultivating science and art.  The nature of the mission had shifted again, no longer about enduring, no longer about winning; now it was only about building.  Now was the time for work which one could be proud of, which one could step back from and appreciate as the products of one’s efforts.  Now was the time for accomplishments which were one’s own, instead of having to concentrate on fulfilling the wishes and instructions of long dead figures.

  The four simulants were taking a full day off for the first time in their entire existence.   Now that all of the humans had a sense of their tasks and were feeling somewhat situated, all four felt the need to take a long moment to breathe, process, and appreciate everything that had happened.  There was also a tacit understanding that going forward they would likely see less and less of each other as they moved on to their long term positions.

  They’d settled on a lunchtime picnic by the sea in the same spot from which they had first seen the ocean, beyond the jungle where the tall grass gave way to some rockier terrain.  They’d lain down a blanket and unpacked the lunch they’d prepared for themselves.   Included with their lunch were a few select bottles of wine from a small reserve the original Neil Sagan had stashed onboard for just such an occasion.  

  “So how many wound up staying on the ship?” Wiremu asked.

  “A hundred and forty-five,” Neil answered as he popped the cork on the bottle and smelled it.  “Sixty-three seniors, seventy-one children, and the eleven adults we were able recruit to stay on the ship and help out with running the breeding lab and parenting the children.”

  “That leaves us only fifty-nine humans on the surface,” In-Su lamented.  “It’s not much… especially with them split between the two different colonies.  It’s a pretty silly situation, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it’s silly!” Sadhika answered.  “It’s utterly ridiculous!” she further affirmed.  “But… it’s what was necessary to keep and maintain the peace,” she shrugged, “so it’s what had to be done.”

  “It’s enough,” Wiremu offered as he held out his glass for Neil to fill.  “It’ll make development slow going at first, but within a couple decades the adult population will more than double, and it’ll triple again at least just a few decades after that.  It’ll work… as long as we can keep up with our food and water supply, and keep up with infrastructure construction.  We supremely lucked out with the near zero failure rate bringing down the rest of the drone landers.”

  “We have a fighting chance.” Neil stated as he finished pouring Sadhika’s glass and then moved the bottle to fill In-Su’s.  “That’s all we ever really asked for in the first place, isn’t it?”   The others nodded.  “There’s a way, there’s a chance… it’s possible.  It’s not guaranteed, it could still all go horribly wrong, but… there’s a chance.   I’ll take a chance over the alternative any day of the week.”

  “Well at least we shouldn’t have any more political problems now that everyone finally seems to be content with having us lead them,” Wiremu observed.  The simulants had collectively decided that it would be best for Wiremu to lead Asari’s camp after Sadhika had volunteered to lead Halley’s.

  “Unless we have to go to war,” Sadhika dryly stated with a feigned sternness which made the others laugh.  She held up her glass and offered a toast.  “To the end of one journey… and to the beginning of another.”

  “To the journey,” Wiremu agreed.

  “To all journeys,” In-Su added.

  Neil smiled and held up his glass.  “To success,” he said, “and to the opportunity to further succeed.”

  All four clinked each other’s glasses and took a drink.  They savoured the moment.  All four had the strong sense of being at a crossroads.  There was a strong sense that today and at this moment, one story was finally concluding, just as a new one was dawning.  All of human history on Earth had narrated them to this point in space and time, and now human history on Haven was beginning on the very first page.   It was a new beginning; they had reached the horizon, and they had found a new one to strive for.  All four reflected on this as they listened to the waves crashing against the cliffs not too far away, and relished the sunshine on their face and the salty smell of the seaside air.

  “We really owe a debt to those adults who volunteered to stay up on the ship long term,” In-Su noted.  “After all that time stuck on the ship, only to now volunteer to stay on it forever…” he added while shaking his head at the thought.

  “They all volunteered,” Neil said with a shrug.  “I think they were the ones who to varying degrees were afraid to come down in the first place.  It may be hard for us to imagine, but after spending their whole lives within the confines of the ship, the idea of a planet surface’s wide openness could easily scare the hell out of some people.  It’s like a… reverse claustrophobia.”

  “It’s kind of sad…” Sadhika thought out loud.

  “I agree, but it is what it is,” Neil replied with another shrug.  “We should be happy for them that we now have an essential role for them up there.  We should just be happy that they are indeed so willing to be there as opposed to anyone being resentful of having to be.”

  “What will become of the ship long-term?” In-Su asked.  “I mean, when we’ve done all the artificial birthing we intended to and there’s no reason to keep anyone up there any longer.”

  “Well that raises an interesting question…” Sadhika answered.  “Do we really want to completely abandon the ship at some point in the future?  It’s certainly capable of sustaining a small population as long as the hydrogen fuel holds out for the fusion core… but long term the systems will inevitably have to break down one by one no matter how well they’re built.”

  “Well at a certain point there’s not much left we can do with it,” Wiremu answered.   “You’re the ones who tell me there’s essentially no chance of us developing our own space flight level of technological sophistication before the shuttles finally become unusable.  That means that if we keep a permanent presence on the ship then at some point they’ll inevitably be stranded up there.   And like Sadhika said, if we try to use the ship indefinitely it will finally break down at some point.”

  “Boy, it breaks my heart to think of us losing space capability…” Neil commented.   “Given the probability though… as much as it does break my heart, I think that once we don’t need New Horizon’s facilities anymore the only responsible thing to do would be to abandon it.   We should put everything into a safe powered down mode and boost it up into a high enough orbit that it can last up there on its own for millennia.  It would be… our lasting monument, to ourselves, to our progenitors, and to all of the humans who got us here and helped us establish a presence on the surface.”

  “A monument,” In-Su repeated, “I like that.” 

  “And maybe most importantly,” Neil added, “it’ll always be the brightest object in the night sky.  It would always forbid every future generation from forgetting where they came from, and why it’s so important to find their way back.  It’d be an invaluable reminder for them of… some very important things.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, and that it’ll inspire distant members of the new astronomical society you’re founding,” Sadhika said with a smile.

  The satellites in their orbital network could function as remotely operated astronomical observatories, but their capabilities were limited and the system was usually preoccupied with its primary intended functions.  Also available to him as long as the system held up, was remote operation of the New Horizons’ four telescope interferometric array, but someday that system too would inevitably go offline.  As a result, Neil had already drawn up plans to build a series of different terrestrial astronomical observatories in order to capture all of the light which penetrated Haven’s atmosphere.  He was anxious to study the new alien star system he found himself in and was sometimes positively giddy at the thought of everything that was out there just waiting to be discovered.  So far he was only discovering that planning was the easy part, and that the hard part was going to be figuring out how to build from scratch all of the high precision technology and equipment he would need.

  In-Su had already begun work on what would become the Squiddy Research Institute, a program focused on studying all aspects of the seemingly quite intelligent animals they’d run into.  The primary focus was to unearth as much of their history as possible, and to definitively determine what caused their apparent civilizational collapse.   Although Sadhika had suggested that it was due to the brain parasite she had discovered, a lot of work still had to be done to confirm her hypothesis.  In-Su was also still convinced that he would be able to develop some kind of rudimentary communication with the squiddies, but all of the sims found themselves curious about what could happen if the creatures were cured of their parasites, and what aid they might be able to provide them in being restored to their previous capabilities using the sophisticated genetic technologies they’d brought with them to Haven.

  Fortunately, all parties readily agreed that whether they were able to help them or not, the squiddies were there first and that needed to be respected.  Everyone agreed that an active effort should be made to avoid displacing the squiddies from where they already lived.  Detailed analysis of the planet using the orbiting satellite network’s ground penetrating radar system had revealed that the underground caverns which suggested their presence were extensive in a neighboring continent where they seemed to be centred, but were less extensive on adjacent continents such as the one the simulants were currently lunching on.  It meant that there was a lot of the planet’s territory declared off limits for colonization, but it also left a lot of territory still open for future human expansion.  Either way, it would be a long time before anyone was thinking about expanding beyond the existing two colony sites, which were already overextending them as it was. 

  “You know, I remember Kim In-Su…” In-Su observed, “and I’m not him.  But I couldn’t tell you… if it’s because I’m a simulant, or because I’ve lived through things which he never did.  Is it being a simulant that makes me not him, or is it just the same way in which… none of us are really the same person from one day to the next, the way each moment of experience changes us and updates who we are in some infinitesimal yet not insignificant way?”

  “Yeah… we’re ultimately nothing more than the sum of our experiences are we?” Wiremu offered.   “Everything else aside, different experiences… different person I guess,” he concluded with a shrug.

  “In some ways we’re always the same person,” Neil offered, “but in other ways we’re continually changing into somebody different aren’t we?”

  “It’s almost like at one point,” Sadhika observed, “we made way too big a deal of our physical form changing, and attributed to it all of the change we observed in ourselves… but now we’re realizing more and more that it’s just the kind of perpetual change that any being goes through as it is continually changed by its experiences.”

   “So if it’s more our different experiences which make us distinct from our progenitors in essence, as opposed to our physical nature…” Neil asked with a subtly pained expression on his face, “then how is anyone ever really the same person over time?” he asked the others.  “What is… what is the actual self which seems to underwrite every successive incarnation over time?”

  “Maybe there isn’t one…” Sadhika distantly remarked.  “I mean, the clones demonstrated pretty definitively that the genome certainly can’t be thought of as the source of that deeper self you’re talking about.”

  “No, I think you got it exactly right Sadhika,” In-Su commented, “whether you really meant to or not.  The idea that there is no self centering it all is in fact an ancient one, and an idea I take very seriously.  Everything about our experience of the world is calibrated to create the illusion that there is a ‘self’, that there is a ‘there’ there, somewhere in our heads.  But I believe it is just an artifact which arises as a result of the way the human brain processes sensory information.  The sense of self, the sense that we are some kind of eternal spiritual being which resides in the centre of our heads, and which listens through our ears, sees through our eyes, smells through our nose, and feels through our skin, is just an illusion.  It’s an illusion which is the product of the brain unifying all of those senses together so that they can be processed simultaneously and compared against each other.   It’s the same system which gives rise to phenomenological consciousness itself, as a kind of… operating system which allows integrated simultaneous processing of multiple streams of information; a system which is also used to recall memories, and allows humans to project different possible future outcomes of present situations.”

  “If I recall correctly, through cell division humans continually recycle most of their physical material over time…” Neil reflected.  “So it can’t even be said that the continuation of physical self is a self which is preserved over time… so if it’s not the physical that’s ever preserved, and the mind is continually changing and evolving… you must be right In-Su, there’s really nothing left is there?”

  “It is only identity which is preserved…” In-Su offered.

  “What do you mean?” Sadhika asked.

  “Multiple incarnations of the same identity,” he answered.  “Kim In-Su is a shared identity, not any particular embodiment of it.   Kim In-Su is not any particular instance of me, nor of my human progenitor.  Instead, there are an infinite number of both of us, which exist at every single indivisible point in time of both of our existences; each is a discrete entity which all collectively contribute to a global and incorporated entity which is Kim In-Su.  There is the idea of Kim In-Su, and an infinite number of different incarnations of him, each of which are distinct, but which all share an equal claim on the identity.”

  “That’s what makes the now so important…” Sadhika responded in reflection on a conversation she’d had with Halley a while ago.  “The now is characterized by our embodiment of just one of those incarnations amongst an infinite number of variations.  The passage of time could be thought of as the perpetual shift from a past incarnation of Sadhika Sengupta into the next, into the one which exists in the present.  Now is when we have the power to change who we become in every successive incarnation.”

  “I’d have to agree.” In-Su said.

  “It’s quite a thought…” Neil offered as he processed the metaphysical suggestion.

  “Oh, the vast emptiness!” Wiremu exclaimed, not really following the conversation and instead quoting something nobody had seen or heard in hundreds of years, and entirely for his own amusement’s sake.   He’d overdramatically held up his hands to the sky as he said it, and then slyly shook his empty wine glass at Neil, thus completing the reference.  Obligingly, Neil picked up the wine bottle and filled his captain’s glass before doing the same for his other two friends and then himself.