“My name is Athanasia,” the machine replies in voice format.
“Happy to meet you,” he responds in kind. “Call me Ayak.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Traveller 1960,” Athanasia laments.
“Why not?” he asks, disappointed.
“I’m very sorry, that’s the protocol of our system, no flirting is allowed between human and machine.”
“Oh, okay.”
Svenson suddenly thinks to himself: this might be a long journey.
He checks to see if he has any signs of fatigue, but there are none. His eyes aren’t sore, there is no headache, he isn’t drowsy, he isn’t yawning. And there’s still no hunger or thirst. His skin isn’t itchy. He’s neither hot nor cold.
It’s good to feel more connected to the computer seemingly in control of his life, although Svenson knows that Athanasia is probably just a chatbot, a kind of persona for the operating system. But he’s unsure about the extent to which she might be alive.
Every time he glances outside and sees something beautiful or majestic in the deep distance, a warm sentiment suffuses his being. Celestial mechanics rule everywhere: behind, in front, above and below.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AYAK, with time at his disposal, wants to watch the “Dark Force” programme on his console. As the spacecraft moves away from the Sun at a prodigious speed, he goes on a time travel trip in his mind. The programme he’s selected is about the rise of nation states after the gradual decline and fall of the Roman Emperor, right up to World War 2.
The section about the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima is a heart-breaker, almost as shocking, in its naked fury, as the holocaust.
But his heart is warmed when the programme traces how the UN was formed soon after that in 1948. It was a new insurance policy for the human race following the Dark Force.
It struck Svenson that the further back you travelled in time, the more chaos there was. The raw gore and cruelty of the Roman Empire was shocking for someone born in the Space Age to contemplate.
It was only through leaps of consciousness that progress happened, when illumination is provided by new ideas, values, technologies or inventions. He regarded the establishment of his organisation in 1948 as one such moment.
After watching the history of war, he opens a glove compartment under the dashboard. It contains a travel eye mask, a compact first aid kit, a pocket New Testament from Gideons International (Outer Space Division), a little tin of travel mints, a hair brush and some lemon scented wet wipes.
He wipes his face, brushes his hair and pops a mini mint into his mouth. Perhaps because he’s so comfortable, he isn’t inclined to unstrap himself and try weightlessness just yet. Instead, he slips the blindfold over his eyes and soon falls into a slumber.
When Svenson awakes, he finds himself in exactly the same state of mind. Even though he still doesn’t know his destination, he’s content just to travel on.
“Athanasia, please activate the Nav Control Panel,” he says.
“Certainly, Traveller 1960,” she replies, keeping her formal tone.
The traveller checks the view through the rear porthole. The red planet is the nearest object behind the spaceship, looming big in the field of vision. Either he’s been asleep for weeks, if not months, or the Monarch has accelerated substantially.
He consults his Flight Plan. It shows the vessel is midway between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. A message flashes across the monitor: “Asteroid Belt up ahead!”
He checks some other readings.
Distance from Mars: 1 million miles
Distance to Jupiter’s orbital path: 110 million miles
“Athanasia, please clarify the warning on my screen.”
“Do not be overly concerned, 1960.”
“But aren’t there millions of asteroids and pieces of space rubble up ahead?”
“Certainly, but it’s not a problem.”
“That’s easy for you to say. As a machine, you don’t bleed. But the thought of being hit by a rock the size of a hill, or small mountain, isn’t exactly reassuring to me.”
The computer plays some recorded laughter sounds. Ayak is taken aback, thinking the machine is laughing at him.
“All the objects in the asteroid disc are thinly distributed,” the computer states with a friendly chuckle. “Accordingly, the probability of a collision is extremely low. To be more precise, it’s virtually non-existent. The Monarch is expected to cruise safely through this outer zone of the Inner Solar System, the home of Earth, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Jupiter.”
Relieved, the diplomat resolves to stay awake when they get closer to Jupiter. He wants to see the giant planet close-up.
“Athanasia, ensure I’m awake when we get near Jupiter.”
“I sense your excitement rising, 1960, as indicated by your increased pulse rate.”
Ayak is still getting used to being observed so intimately by a computer programme. Is nothing private anymore?
“I have set the on-board alarm to coincide with the optimal distance from Jupiter as we fly past.”
Svenson notices a few tiny beads of condensation on the outside of the windscreen.
“Cosmic background temperature here is minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit,” Athanasia explains, as if she’s reading her passenger’s mind. “Jupiter is a cold planet; space is getting even colder as we approach.”
“Why is it getting so cold?”
“There isn’t enough gas in the empty space outside us now to generate any heat. Would you like me to increase the interior temperature for you, 1960?”
“No, it’s okay, I’m fine inside.”
“In general, surface temperatures of the planets decrease with increasing distance from the Sun,” the computer says. “The outside temperature will continue to fall from now on.”
This is a worry to Svenson. He starts to feel some anxiety about getting so far away from the Sun and its life-giving heat. Mentally, however, he’s still in a good space. In fact, it’s the strangest experience to find that he has so much mental energy without the need for any refreshments (other than the occasional mini mint). And no water needed!
The traveller is ready to do more thinking. He knows he has to stay focused. He doesn’t want to think about what strange worlds which might lie beyond Jupiter in the colder Outer Solar System. He wonders if he’ll experience separation anxiety on a cosmic scale.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE MONARCH CONTINUES its smooth voyage through cold, monochrome space. Svenson thinks about how serene the surrounding cosmos seems, with its orbiting planets and mathematical forces, especially gravity, which is holding everything together. Earth is now only a faint blue dot in the porthole behind him.
A few minutes later, Ayak notices a service that’s available on the menu of options: “Live streaming from Hubble Space Telescope – Eye of the Universe.”
Wow! How cool! he thinks to himself. It contains a catalogue of space pictures, including an album of the Great Spiral Nebula, a whirlpool galaxy, with an incandescent centre and spiralling arms scattered with red and white stars and plumes of gases, glowing with a million lights.
Ayak remembers clearly the first time he saw the “Pale Blue Dot” image of Earth from four billion miles away, snapped by Voyager 1. Hanging in the deep, dark vastness of space, the blue planet had shrunk to a mere point of light.
There was even some material on the programme showing a black hole, millions of light years away, swallowing a star, ripping it to shreds.
“Voyager 1 is travelling in interstellar space at about 17 kms per second,” Athanasia announces. “That means the probe travels about 325 million miles in a year. Voyager 1 is the first machine made on Earth to explore the space in our galaxy between star systems.”