Why did he volunteer for the mission? Because it was both the odd and the necessary thing to do and the pleasure came from it being both. Though he took as dark a view of the human condition as the Emperor, like the Emperor he also took his pleasure in acting well even though he knew it probably would not avail and that things would end badly. Like the early twentieth-century psychologist Freud, he believed that there is no end to the mischief and hatred which men harbor deep in themselves and unknown to themselves and no end to their capacity to deceive themselves and that though they loved life, they probably loved death more and in the end thanatos would likely win over eros. He and his fellowmen, he knew, loved themselves and war too well and nothing short of a miracle would save them and he did not believe in miracles. But he volunteered nonetheless, or rather because he didn’t believe. He was like a Christian who had lost his faith in everything but the Fall of man. In another time he might have said that earthlings were like the Gadarene swine, who were possessed by demons and were rushing headlong to destruction.
So why not try for Barnard’s Star’s planet for this very reason, that even if there were an ETI there, he could not imagine what it could tell a human that would help the earth four hundred years from now.
Neither the captain nor his superiors were hopeful about the earth’s prospects. Indeed, he had been given secret orders that in the event of a catastrophe on earth during his voyage, he had permission either to request sanctuary on Barnard’s Star’s planet or to colonize it. Surely, one man and three young women had at least as good a chance of starting a new race as Adam and Eve.
And why was he chosen from the thousands of volunteers? Perhaps because of the very complexity and reflectedness of his character: that he knew how to perform as coolly as the most stolid astronaut, and had also this odd “humanistic” background, a history major who specialized in the old twentieth century. So, with only the vaguest notion that somehow a scientist and pilot with a “humanistic” background might somehow be able to get along with three women for eighteen years — or for the next fifty years — and with an intelligent being on Barnard P1, NASA chose him. His father being Governor of New York didn’t hurt him either.
The crew members were:
Tiffany, a tall blond astrophysicist-psychotherapist, from Cal Tech, age 27. In her vita she listed her hobbies: cross-country skiing, wok cooking, “giving and receiving strokes in a creative stroke field.”
Kimberly, a petite brunette linguist-semioticist from Bloomington, Indiana, age 22, the youngest but also the best and the brightest in her field, who, if anyone could, could decipher the code from the ETI on Barnard P1. She liked, besides semiotics: walking in the autumn woods, reading the Vedas in the original Sanskrit, gazing into firelight with a kindred spirit.
The third crew member was the medical officer, Dr. Jane Smith of Nashville, age 23. The oddity about her was that she had been married, listed no hobbies, and put herself down as a Methodist. Hers was old Tennessee Scotch-Irish stock. “You must be the last Methodist in Tennessee,” said the Captain, thinking to make a pleasantry. Her smile was thin. The rumor was that, competent though she was, and brilliant though her contributions to hypothermic hibernation were, her “religious preference” had not hurt her with NASA. The Christian minority was as loud as it was small, as shrill as it was shrinking. Affirmative action for minorities in the space program had been sustained by the Supreme Court. The last mission to Pluto had been manned by a black and Hispanic crew who had not been heard from. Some bad jokes were told. So the present mission was manned by three women and one WASPP (White Anglo-Saxon Post-Protestant) male. Jane Smith had graduated from Vanderbilt, taken her residency in aerospace medicine, and contributed valuable papers on hypothermic hibernation techniques. Her discovery was that both the tissue damage and the discomfort (excruciating pain, if the truth be known) of the hibernation cycle could be minimized by the injection of an endomorph (already known as the Smith-Bowers endomorph). Indeed, the usual cramps and bends of the thaw were replaced by a mild euphoria, as if one had been awakened from a pleasant dream. (“You look just like Scarlett O’Hara waking up,” said the Captain, a student of old twentieth-century culture, to Kimberly the first time she came out of the deep freeze.)
In a word, the Captain suspected Jane might have exaggerated her Methodism in her application, for had she not also signed the “sexual access” form? — that is, the consent agreement by which she contracted to make herself, “her person,” available for “the biological and social objectives” of the mission, which objectives also included “the emotional needs” of her fellow crew members. (Let it be added quickly that the Captain had to sign the same contract. This was no seraglio.)
The shifts were arranged so that the Captain took his watches with successive partners or second officers. The shifts were of six months’ duration: two astronauts in hibernation, the other two “awake,” that is, alternating eight-hour watches, with an hour or so overlap to allow for scientific experiments and whatever social interaction or “stroke field” might seem appropriate. Thus, in a three-year period, each crew member would have spent six months “awake” with each other crew member.
Then there were the “simul-dehibes”—that is, periods of simultaneous dehibernation when all four crew members were “awake” for a period of one month annually, at which time the progress of the mission could be assessed, scientific and group-interaction experiments performed, and just plain socializing could take place, e.g., bridge, Scrabble, Monopoly, books read aloud, playlets performed, video-stereo-hologram tapes played, dancing in place. For a while, earth TV could be watched, for about a month into the mission — but as the ramjet accelerated, the TV action slowed in a Doppler effect, so that in old reruns of M*A*S*H, a favorite, Hawkeye and the nurses spoke in ever lower and more sepulchral tones and moved like dream figures walking in glue.
An open and free sexuality was programmed, based on Prescott’s statistical analysis of pre-industrial societies and his conclusion that, in those societies in which sexual activity and the pleasures of the body are not repressed, theft, violence, war, and religion are minimal. Whereas, in those societies in which infants are disciplined and adults are inhibited, there tends to be a high incidence of murder, war, and belief in a supernatural being. Hugging and touch were encouraged even during routine scientific experiments.
The starship was therefore equipped with a nursery. The project planners had two goals in mind: one, to devise a mini-society in which affection was lavished freely between adults and upon children; and two: just in case Homo sapiens sapiens had been destroyed on earth, then at least a tiny remnant would have survived, either as refugees on Barnard P1 or as colonists elsewhere, or perhaps even to return to earth.
The worst case: the earth five hundred years later, blasted and depopulated but perhaps habitable, and Copernicus 4 returning, limping home with four middle-aged astronauts and x number of children ranging from one to seventeen years old.
Even in the worst case, life might not only survive but prevail and multiply and once again fill the earth, with a new variety of Homo sapiens sapiens, an affectionate, hugging, promiscuous, peaceful breed. (Genetic inbreeding was something to worry about, but the most exhaustive genetic studies of the four ruled out all known pathogenic genes.)