The First
A weird combination of advances in thermal fusion phased propulsion and cryogenic nanotechnology made it possible for Man to reach the stars, not men, but a Man, me! I was the lucky one shooting towards the edge of the solar system. The guy who would spend the next 200 years sleeping the sleep of the dead, waiting to be pulled back into the realm of reality called now.
The computer chimed, “You’ve Got Mail,” with that cutesy familiar female voice. (I know, I know, but I set it up the messaging system that way on purpose. My own internal joke.)
I hit the accept button and an old guy appeared on the screen. It might not be appropriate to call the President of the United States ‘Old guy’ but that’s what he is, let’s be honest here. The President started talking, his prepared remarks had been prepared months ago, I’m sure. Politicians never missed a golden opportunity to brag about what they had done for society and how they were responsible for making history.
I listened to him drone on about me doing something everyone wished they could do. How I would be the first person to visit the stars. Yada yada, yada. I laughed out loud when he said I would rank up there with Columbus, Magellan, and Armstrong. I mean that was going over the top a little don’t you think. All I do is sleep for 200 years and wake up at a new planet. Or not wake up, in which case it doesn’t really matter and screw em all.
I sent my pre-prepared statement thanking everyone for the opportunity to risk my life. Then promised to do my best for God and country, and finished it with a P.S. asking them to tell Maggie that I loved her. That should keep them confused for a while, there is no Maggie, and never was. I just like the idea of driving them crazy trying to figure it out.
I sat there while the computer processed the check off lists for the dozenth time. I knew it would be a few more hours before it got to me and another couple of hours before I was under. Let’s say six hours, tops. No way could a message get to earth and they answer back in that time. So that was it then, no more communications with humans.
Two hundred years from now I’d pop out orbiting some cold heartless stone circling a strange star. Or at least we assumed it might be lifeless just like they assumed I’d wake up.
They’d studied the thing for years. It was the right distance from the right kind of star. The planet had the correct mass with a medium moon, signs of water, etc. Everything you needed for life, but still it was in doubt. They’d called it X37N at first; the computers had found it and cataloged it before we humans even got involved in the process. People wanted to name it New Terra or Terra Nova, some boring thing like that. But the first thing I did when I got there was going to be to rename it something else. Some obscure word that made thirteen year old boys snicker every time they said it.
At Twenty Eight light years, it was relatively close. No signs of industry, no radio waves, a rather pristine atmosphere. But a lot could happen in two hundred and twenty eight years (28 years for light/info to travel to us, 200 years for me to travel there). Look at us, in the early 1700’s the British Navy was chasing Blackbeard around the Carolinas with muzzle loaded blunder busses, two hundred and twenty eight years later we’re dropping atomic bombs from 20,000 feet .
What I’m saying is, there was no telling what I was getting myself into. But there never is with things like this, that’s why they call it an adventure.
The computer beeped three times and a green light flashed an intermittent beat. It mesmerized me for a second, but then went off and stayed off and I was able to break my mind away and return to day dreaming.
My mind drifted back to a particular famous news correspondent, Geneva was a rare combo, beautiful, smart, and willing. She had finagled an interview somehow, it came down from the top, ‘You will do this’. So I did, I was never so thankful for an order in my life.
We met in an upscale high priced bar, not my kind of place, but she was buying. I watched all the men forget to close their mouths when she walked in sexy as hell and all the women, well let’s just say that if looks could kill, she’d have been dead a hundred years before she was born. It didn’t seem to bother her in the least. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that walk as she sauntered over to my table, her hips making figures eights as they swished back and forth.
A devastating smile and flirty eyes completed the job. A man could get lost and forget about god and country just looking into those eyes. I could see why she was so good at her job; she must have had politicians begging to tell her their secrets.
We spent a few minutes getting to know each other before she led right into the interview part.
“So why did you volunteer for this mission,” She asked, taking out a small notebook and pen and then looking at me with those flirty eyes.
What was I going to do tell her the truth? Are you crazy? I couldn’t tell her that every space jokey had to volunteer because if you didn’t, you couldn’t stay a space jokey for long. Instead I told her about god and country. She looked at me like she knew I was lying, but shrugged her shoulder as if she decided not to push it, yet!
“So what most excites you about this?” She asked, staring at me with a look that dared for me to lie to her again.
I couldn’t thing of a plausible lie, and the truth would make her laugh at me, a thought that could shrivel a man’s insides. Instead I shrugged my shoulders and said “I don’t know”.
She shook her head and then put the pad and pen on the table before reaching over and holding my hand. “Let’s put the interview on hold for now, everything off the record and treat this like a first date,” she said in the whispery voice she has.
So we spent an enjoyable few hours getting to know each other before heading back to my place for three days of unbelievable physical activity. We were lying in bed after a particularly stressful few hours, both of us trying to catch our breath and our bearings.
“Tell me a secret about yourself, something no one else knows, and I’ll tell you everything,” I blurted out without thinking.
She was quiet for a long time and then said, “I wanted to be the last women you slept with before you went to the stars. I wanted to know that long after I am dead, you might think of me,” She said, a pretty blush filled her face and gorgeous chest. She turned her head to hide her eyes. God women a cute when they are embarrassed.
I smiled and assured her it was OK. (I was hoping for a rematch).
My hands slipped behind my head as I stared at the ceiling.
“I want to be first, to do something no one else has done, or as Capt Kirk used to say, ‘To go where no man has gone before’. I want to be the guy who names things, Lovell got to do it on the back side of the moon, Cook, Columbus, Magellan. I want to do the same but there’s not a lot of opportunity around here.”
I smiled and looked over to see if she was laughing. She’d turned on her side her eyes focused on me like a laser, trying to read me. I don’t know if she had fallen into her Journalist mode, but I felt OK enough to go on.
Trying to lighten the mood I offered to name a mountain range after her, The Geneva Range I’d call it, somewhere with a lot of seismic activity. She laughed which led to a renewed wrestling match.
.o0o.
I continued to sit there, metaphorically twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the computer to finish up the ship checks and get started on me. The time seemed to drag on and on. I just wanted to get it over with, go to sleep and wake up, or not. The waiting was killing me. It’d been eighteen months of waiting since I had been selected and these last few were dragging.
I don’t think I got across to Geneva just how important it was to be the first, to leave my footprints all over history. Nothing else mattered to me. I didn’t mind the idea of dying, as long as I got to be the first one there.
The idea of being able to launch the seeding program was pretty neat also. It sent shivers though my guts. The thought of playing god and turning some barren rock into an Eden made me feel complete somehow, like I would be able to fulfill my destiny. Plus I got to name things, what could be cooler than that.
The green lighted started flashing again followed by a gentle beep.
“Ship’s checks are complete. Please prepare for personnel preparations,” The computer’s female voice cooed.
This was my final chance to ‘Never mind’ and go home. It’d take a couple of years to slow down, turn around and get home, but we could do it. Once I was under, there was no going back. It was the final goodbye.
I made my way over to the slumber couch, or as I called it, The Coffin. Hooked up the tubes and the computer did its thing. Two hours later it was time, I didn’t slow play it, said the magic words and immediately started to drift out.
Waking up was easier than I expected, no different than any other morning. I was a little stiff, but knew immediately where I was and why. My eyes shot to the digital clock above the hatch. Two hundred and three years. My heart began racing, I couldn’t get out of that coffin fast enough. I popped the tube connections off and crawled out.
I had to grab a bulkhead to steady myself, but finally made it to the command couch, wishing for the thousandth time that there was some kind of window.
“Computer, please bring up a visual of the planet,” I said, my voice shaking through my dry throat. The head-up video display squiggled into focus showing a blue planet with white puffy clouds. Odd shaped continents broke up the huge seas. My heart was about ready to jump out of my chest at the strange new world below me. Everything I needed.
“You have mail,” The computer said with a bit of an attitude. Had it become sentient over the last two centuries?
“Display.”
A beautiful young woman with blond hair and luscious green eyes replaced the planet on the video. I breathed a sigh of relief, humans hadn’t changed, and obviously hadn’t killed themselves, granted the signal had must have left earth twenty eight years ago, but if they had gone this long that was great. It was sort of nice to know that they remembered.
“Congratulations, Mr. Sinclair. Your arrival at Terra Nova is truly remarkable and to be commended.”
That’s it? It seemed awfully short for a one way message. I shook my head but didn’t bother replying, my transmitting equipment was nowhere near powerful enough to reach back to earth.
I returned to studying the planet below me. It took me all of two minutes to fall totally and completely in love with it. I had only…
“You’ve got mail”
Jesus, more congratulations, couldn’t they let a guy work. “Display.”
The pretty woman came on the screen again. “Mr. Sinclair? Are you there?” She said, her eyebrows rising.
…….”Oh crap,” I mumbled under my breath, a sick funny feeling made my insides turn to Jell-O. “Oh crap,” I said again, my mind searching for an explanation.
“Computer respond – ‘Who are you?’ Send”
Three second later the young woman smiled and said “I’m Geneva Sinclair, your great great granddaughter, welcome to Terra Nova.”
I almost lost control of my insides. That would have been a real heroic moment, huh? I couldn’t get my mind around what was going on. My hands started shaking and it took everything I had not to lean over and upchuck two hundred years of bile.
“They let me be the one to greet you. We’ve been looking forward to this for so long. It’s so wonderful to know that you have been successfully revived,” she said with a smile that was a dead ringer for her great great grandmother.
“But…. How? …. I mean…… when…..”
She continued to smile that fricken smile as she said “We got here about a hundred and twenty years ago, worm holes, My grandfather made the trip in about two weeks.” She said, like it was not big deal, crushing a man’s dreams in one simple sentence. No big deal.
“But… Everything, you’ve explored the whole planet?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Oh yes, Everything’s been mapped and cataloged, new people are arriving almost every week now. The place keeps growing faster and faster. But we didn’t forget about you. Grandfather made sure of that. In fact I went to John Sinclair Jr. High School. That was neat. Don’t you think?
The End
