2350

Days were passing, and the two scientists were spending all the hours of the day

together. If it was not recreation, they would discuss about the future of humans and

whether the solution really was to colonize. With the help of their friends, they started

to do the math for possible interstellar travel. As time went by, the thrill of the idea

and the problems they managed to bypass made the idea seem more and more

plausible. Even Jain joined dynamically in the idea of deep space. Perhaps a gamble

with the stars would pay off. For many years, the world had known of habitable

planets in close proximity to Earth. Was it the time to colonize another solar system?

The technologies that would be required for this trip could also be used to transfer

people to Mars safely and even help the Earth recover. It could be a win-win bet.

They began referencing their research as “Project Gaia.”

2352

The cities were governed by a table of superintendents, one from each city, who held

most of their conferences through the web. Since the cities were working as intended

and there was very little that depended on humans, the role of the superintendent

had become undesirable and unimportant. Most of the budget requests were focused

on roads in the snow toward the surface, mainly for research and rarely for

recreation. The costs were low and usually granted. In some cases, bubbles of voids

were found in the snow, and the request for their use would be filled. These and

others like them were projects that were approved by the superintendent of the dome

city that would control it. It was very rare that they had to give a joint approval for

something. The missiles to space were a good example. Alex gathered all the dome

cities’ superintendents to ask for a joint budget for Project Gaia to begin its

realization.

Seeing the huge group of people watching him on their monitors, Alex took a

deep breath and began. “Hello, everyone. I will proceed directly to the subject at

hand. Since our ancient history, when humans were faced with infertile land, drought,

or any other life-threatening situation, they would migrate. They would travel vast

distances for their time and colonize uninhabited areas or fight to take the areas from

others. This practice has ensured our continuous survival for millennia.” He left a

couple of seconds of silence, then continued. “Now we are facing the same issue.

Our world is dead, and it will stay dead for perhaps thousands of years. Our air will

remain unbreathable and the soil uncultivatable. Our seas have frozen, and under

the ice, there is almost nothing that survived the increase of acidity. We speculate

that the way things are going, we will not survive long enough to see the Earth as it

once was. Our dome cities are in near 100 percent efficiency. But it is not 100

percent, and even if it was, error and accidents are draining supplies and energy,

making it continuously harder to extend our survival indefinitely. Together with the

risk of Apostasis, rendering more of us unable to take part in social actions, it

becomes clear that our solution is space. Project Gaia wants to ensure the

continuation of our species in space. Not just Mars. Mars will have its own problems

of sustaining a large population. Our goal should be set on deep space. There is a

known system, about forty light-years from Earth, called Solis. Its existence is a near

miracle. It is a system that seems to be engineered to sustain life. It is centered

around a small star, a fraction of our own, but a very stable star with a projected

lifespan that will outlive almost everything else in the universe. It has many planets in

close proximity to it, and four of them are in the habitable zone. A system like that

could be fully colonized, and it gives us four chances of survival.”

One of the superintendents rudely interrupted the speech. “Are we seriously

discussing about an actual ark away from here?”

“I am, yes!” said Alex with charm and confidence. “We have detected oxygen

on Solis’s four planets, which tells us a lot of things. Since oxygen bonds easily with

other elements, it’s a good indication of life. Finding it on four different planets of the

same system, however, increases the chances that photosynthesis is taking place on

them. It’s very unlikely that an intelligent civilization is calling those planets home

because there is no evidence of any electromagnetic signals emitted from the

system. It might sound impossible, but a migration such as this would have one and

only one difficulty to overcome: the distance. We have made the first estimations,

and it is clear that the challenge of covering that distance is smaller than the

challenges we face here on Earth or the challenges we will be facing on Mars. Our

team is hereby requesting the necessary resources for achieving the goal of reaching

the stars and continuing our species’s survival into the universe. This funding will not

only allow us to travel into space, but the technologies that we will develop for the

travel will revolutionize life here on Earth and allow a safer migration to Mars in the

future. Additionally, our communications will allow us to exchange information so the

developments from Solis will be shared with Earth.”

“What would the costs be?” asked one superintendent.

“The research for the spaceship would require a team of over two thousand

people. The manufacturing of the ship itself would need materials we currently do not

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

have. We will need to mine them, which means that another five hundred people are

estimated to be required to work on that.”

“For how long?” he continued.

“We estimate about thirty years until completion,” said Alex.

“So, you want twenty-five hundred people to work for you, for thirty years, on

a project that will be shot into space,” said another superintendent.

Alex was prepared for this, so he almost arrogantly answered, “Our people

are wasting their lives behind screens, playing games. We have become lazy and

purposeless. I am proposing a plan that will put many out of us into action. Many who

are currently waiting for something to happen will rally to a cause such as this. The

technologies we will create will not be ‘shot into space.’ Just the prototype will. The

rest will stay here to be further upgraded and provide solutions to problems of the

future.”

“I am beginning to like this idea,” said Semreh, the superintendent from Abuja

who knew Alex from before. “I am proposing volunteer recruiting only. Would that

work, Alex?”

“That would work great,” said Alex.

The project got the green light, and the volunteers, just as Alex had predicted,

came in abundance. After the details of the project became public, tens of thousands

of applications for every job, ideas and solutions to all the problems started raining

down. Now Alex had all the power and funding he needed to make the project a

reality.

2353

Abuja

Alex entered a room with Jain and eight other people inside. “Hello, everyone,” he

said while walking to his seat. “It is nice to see all of you in person here.”

“Nice to be here … kinda,” said Gakuto.

“Why kinda?” asked Alex with a smile. It was obvious that Gakuto was joking

to break the ice.

“Well, I had to leave my plants unintended.”

“I am sorry to hear that. I hope someone will take care of them. Now, the

reasons we are all here in person,” said Alex with energy in his voice. “We have split

the project in certain aspects that are of high importance. The team gathered here is

composed of people of many different departments, all of whom will be joining the

expedition. We need to know each other well, since we will act as leaders upon

arrival at the Solis system. The entirety of the project will be supervised by myself

and the construction of the Hera, by Jain.”

“So, we go with Hera?” said Juuda. who was a close friend of Jain and Alex.

“Yes. Hera! From the goddess whose breastmilk got spilled in the sky,

creating the galaxy.”

“I like it,” said Gakuto.

“You will like this more,” said Alex. “We are estimating a three-thousand-year

trip, and the plan is to get there sleeping. However, even in drug-induced hibernation,

our bodies will require nutrition. This is where you come in, Gakuto.”

“Say no more! I got it covered. Not yet, but I will figure it out,” said Gakuto

with his permanently excited attitude.

“I am sure you will. There will be more problems to tackle, and the team in

this room will be in charge of solving them. You can apply for as many people as you

need, and I will make sure that we have the necessary help to complete the project.

Is everything understood so far?”

Heads nodded throughout the room. Only Gakuto’s voice was in the air. “Yes,

sir!” His energy was enough for everyone.

“So, Steve, you will be head of engineering. Your main tasks will be solving

the issues with large-body detection and avoidance as well as dust and small-particle

collisions.”

Steve looked seriously toward Alex. “There are many ways we can work on

that. More important will be the AI which will drive those systems, since we will all be

sleeping, and the shielding from cosmic radiation.”

Alex smiled like he was not expecting such a good answer. “That’s exactly

right. Margaret here is the leading authority on computing and artificial intelligence.

She will work with you on this project. Together with Hypatia, you will work on

shielding the Hera from anything space has to throw at us. You have a nearly

unlimited resource for this to work but not unlimited time.”

“I have seen the timetables, and I think we should be able to solve those

problems in time,” said Steve with confidence.

“Moving on to the next problem, we need to shield all possible life on those

planets from our microbes.”

“I think this is my field too,” interrupted Gakuto.

“I too think this is going to fall on your department, Gakuto,” said Jain

“Do I have to do everything?” Gakuto said while smiling toward Konoya, the

psychiatrist of the group.

“Hypatia, you will also be tasked to lead the team that will figure out the

maneuvers that the ship will need to do to decelerate upon arrival.”

“I have actually begun working on it since I got the briefing of the project. It is

less complex than you might think,” said Hypatia.

“Happy to hear that. Now let’s go to the three probably hardest problems we

will face. We need a way of adapting to the different gravity forces. We don’t know

which of the system’s planets we will be landing on yet, so we need to be prepared

for anything. Galen, you are the doctor of the group. You program nanobots to deal

with all sorts of conditions of the human body. I am guessing that you are the best-

suited person for this job.”

Galen was skeptical. “We have used nano-enhancements before to increase

strength or stamina on humans, but the experiments were at their infancy. Controlling

that with our minds might be a very hard task. I will work on it for a while and update

you about the direction we will be taking.”

“Sounds promising enough,” said Alex. “I will add to this that we need a way

of combating the lack of gravity on the ship and the probable births that will take

place. Babies and kids will need a full G worth to grow their bones strong and

healthy.”

Most nodded their heads in understanding.

“This will be a hard one to work on,” said Steve.

“We could forbid childbirth during the trip,” said Jain, “but the benefits of this

research will be crucial for many other aspects of our technological innovation and

needs for this expedition.”

“As Jain explained, there are many scenarios, and technology like that would

be key to solving other problems which might occur,” added Alex. “We will finally

need an energy source to power all those functions of the ship.”

The team got their assignments and began immediately working on the

project.