Excerpt
The New Ark stretched out before him, mile upon mile. Approaching in the antigrav shuttle, Jimmy marveled at the size. His small form, dwarfed by the magnificent structure, made him realize as if for the first time his own insignificance.

Before passing the test that brought him here, the instructors had gone over every aspect of the ship, and the mission that had spawned the need for its construction. He repeated these details to himself now, by rote:



“The New Ark was constructed over the last twenty years using dwindling Earth resources, as well as those from the Lunar Colony, Mars and asteroid belt mines. Millions of tons of every kind of metal and technologies to house a new society were used. The New Ark Colony mission will take at least five generations to reach its destination, the nearest known planet with no signs of intelligent life , but that can support the human race. . .”



“Shuttle sixteen,” a voice came over the comms. “You are cleared to dock at Bay 2. Welcome to the New Ark.”

Snapped back into the present moment and out of the reverie of his own memories, Jimmy looked up and out the window of the shuttle again. He realized they had closed the distance with the New Ark, which now appeared as a giant wall of darkened, hulking mass, broken only by the rows of lights in its spinning gravity rings and along the fuselage. The massive ship now cast its shadow completely over the diminutive shuttle and the frail occupants inside, blotting out the Sun and the stars yet farther beyond.

The door to Bay 2 opened as they approached, allowing the shuttle to be swallowed whole.

Once fully docked, Jimmy and his escort, a short, stocky man named Lieutenant Wilson, would exit into zero-g. It would then be their responsibility to float to the racks containing the maglock boots which were mandatory to be worn in all parts of the New Ark except the areas inside the spinning habitat rings, which would have their own artificial gravity based on the force of their spinning.

Although it had been explained to him time and again how humanity had accepted the presence, and the gifts, of another race called the Reticulans, Jimmy had not yet understood precisely why these Star People, as he liked to call them, would share no more of their knowledge of the universe. The Star People clearly had more advanced knowledge and technology than the one hundred antigrav shuttles they had given in an act of friendship, and which had been used as much as possible in the building of the New Ark.

Beyond the limits of what they had already shared, the Star People remained the biggest mystery ever to face the human race. They had arrived over fifty-five years earlier. Or rather, not arrived, as Jimmy’s parents had told him since he was young, but had at last revealed themselves. For they had been on Earth and had been coming and going from it even before history began on the planet. Only so recently had they made their presence, and their highly advanced technology, known to the world.

Why they did this still remained a matter of great debate, and proved a touchy subject even for his teachers and mentors in the program he’d been a part of for two years. Again, Jimmy reviewed the teachers’ words in his head:



“The Reticulans revealed themselves to all nations of Earth on March 2, 2246. They confirmed they’d known about us all along and had made multiple visits here, even using their highly advanced technology to dwell among us for long periods of time without our knowledge. Why hide for so long only to reveal themselves now? Because as they have told us, and our top scientists and thinkers have not found a reason to doubt them, our planet is now under direct threat of asteroid strikes that are to come in the near future.

“The Reticulans believe in life and creation. We have our disagreements with them on many other points, but on this we see eye-to-eye. They don’t believe in interfering in others’ affairs, but their belief in the sanctity of life, especially intelligent life, won out this time, and so they decided to help.”



Behind the shuttle, the bay doors at last closed, sealing them off from the vacuum of space. Jimmy and Wilson got out of their belt harnesses, and the pilots flipped the visors of their helmets down, allowing an airtight seal within so that they could use their limited suit oxygen as the passengers disembarked.

The two passengers then made sure of their own suits, and the co-pilot swiped a finger on his screen. The pressure inside the antigrav shuttle equalized with the docking bay. When that process had completed, the exit door flashed green for ‘go’ three times.

Wilson floated up and punched the pad next to the door; the exit door opened. “This way, kid. Let’s get those boots and get you to your room.”

Jimmy followed Wilson out and then the pilots shut the shuttle doors behind the pair.

Pushing off the side of the shuttle gently and not with too much pressure, Jimmy launched through the zero-g bay, neatly catching himself by a handle near the edge of the grav boot locker. Just as he’d practiced back on Earth.

“It’s stuffy in this suit,” Jimmy moaned.

Wilson landed on the other side of the locker. Then he flashed his suit ID—hidden in the suit’s left palm—and reading it, the locker opened with an audible click.

“Just a bit longer. Once we attach the magboots to the suit boots, we can walk over to the airlock,” Wilson said. “It’s just like we practiced groundside.”

Holding onto a handle with one hand, Jimmy reached into the locker and removed two magboot extensions, one for each foot, for his suit size. With the same hand he bent down and one by one, clicked the extensions into place beneath the soles of his suit boots, remaining careful all the time to not lose one or both extensions in the zero-g. He didn’t want to have to chase it around the bay, delaying the shuttle departure and himself, and generally getting humiliated as well. According to the protocol he’d learned in the program, he would next report to the deckmaster station and then the quartermaster station, then settle into his room until the deckmaster on duty called into each room via holovid to keep the daily roll count.

Having slid both extensions on, Jimmy put his feet to the nearest surface. Once close enough, the high-powered magnets, charged electrically to maintain their strength, clamped down against the metal under them with a ‘thunk’ he felt more than heard. In Jimmy’s case the surface he now stood on just happened to be the wall and not the floor.

Jimmy stood straight, allowing the magboots to do their job, and smirked inside his suit visor at the oddity of it. He looked over to Wilson, who having done this before, had put his feet properly on the correct surface. Wilson’s face, at a right angle to Jimmy now so it appeared he was the one standing on the wall and not Jimmy, betrayed amusement. But then it just as quickly tightened up again.

“Stop goofing around. Feet on the floor, just like we taught.”

Jimmy, while still holding one of the handles near the locker, walked down the wall. The magboots went thunk, thunk, thunk as their movement echoed inside the air of his suit. He put his feet finally on the correct surface and faced Wilson, who motioned him toward the airlock, the next step.

When they reached the airlock, Wilson left-palmed the panel and then they walked in together. The door then closed behind them on its own.

“Shuttle sixteen,” Wilson called over the general comms channel so Jimmy heard him through his suit. “We are clear of the bay.”

“Roger, dodger,” the shuttle pilot responded. “Control, we are good to go. Payload delivered.”

Jimmy couldn’t hear the response from control, he had no need to know regardless, but he did see the shuttle bay doors opening again through the window in the airlock door behind him. Just then, the hiss of air entering the airlock told him that the repressurization and reoxygenation process had begun.

As he waited for the airlock to repressurize and equalize with the interior of the ship, his mind drifted back to his years of training in the program once again. He might have been accepted on his first attempt at the application test, and into engineering cadet school no less, but even if he’d failed he would have had five more years to pass until his age would have kept him out of the program. Once he got closer to the age of majority, it would be too late. As such, there were also many older children than he in the program. But he felt glad he got in because then he would have more moments to learn, like this one:



“Class,” one of his favorite instructors and mentors, Mr. Ed Ivers, had begun one day. “This mission is going to require you to be familiar with both normal Earth gravity and less than normal gravity. For the purposes of this lecture we will call normal gravity 1G or 1G force.

“Can anyone tell me the effects of excessive G force on the human body?”

A hand shot up. One of Jimmy’s classmates named Sandra spoke up before Ivers could react. “Lightheadedness, feelings of intense pressure and if it’s too much, you get knocked out.”

“Very good, Sandra, and can anyone tell me what might happen to your body when the G force is reduced greatly below 1G for long periods?”

This time, Jimmy raised his hand and Ivers called on him.

“Loss of bone mass and muscle. Your organs will eventually cease to function,” Jimmy answered, then added, “It takes a long time, though, like months or years. No one really knows exactly because it’s different for different people.”

“Very true, Jimmy”



Back on the New Ark, the airlock door chimed and a green light came on around it, replacing the orange light that had been there before.

“Deckmaster,” Wilson called out over general comms, “Conrad Wilson and cadet Radinski reporting.”

“This is specialist Anders” a woman’s voice returned. “Airlock is repressurized. You can proceed to the tram station, out the door and to your left, follow the yellow light line.”

“On our way,” Wilson confirmed.

Wilson went through the open airlock door to the corridors of the New Ark. Jimmy thunk, thunk, thunked his steps behind him, his magboot extensions sticking him firmly to the smooth metal floor as they entered the hallway beyond.

Once they were both in the hall, the brightness of the interior overwhelmed Jimmy’s vision for a moment until his eyes adjusted. When they did, he made out the guides to different sections of the ship on the walls and floor, each represented by one of four lit and colored lines that pointed either left or right from this section and sometimes both. At the moment, the yellow line flashed on the left of where he looked, and remained solid on the right. Arrows within the line also pointed left to their destination, the way to the deckmaster station and the tram station that would be just past it. Other lines pointed to more areas. White and right for the bridge. Red and left for the engine room. Both left and right, but blue, for the cryosleep chambers. None of the others flashed as he looked, only yellow.

Nothing in his training program had fascinated him so much as the cryosleep chambers. As he followed Wilson to the nearest tram station, he hoped he might catch a glimpse of one of them as they rode the tram. Instructor Ivers had once given the most engaging and awe-inspiring lecture on cryosleep and how it was to be used on the New Ark:



“All along the inside of the New Ark fuselage, which the four habitat rings revolve around, and which holds the bridge at one end, the engines at the other, along there, fifty thousand cryosleep chambers are placed. If you are lucky, when you board the New Ark, you may catch a glimpse of them as you take the tram to your assigned habitat ring.

“Using a combination of subzero temperatures, specialized fluids, and AI monitoring, cryostasis can be achieved, prolonging the life of a human by several decades at least. The first human to achieve cryostasis and be successfully revived, remained in cryosleep for nine years. Class, if you’ve done your reading, what was her name?”

A moment of hesitation came, then Tommy Lawrence blurted out: “Alison McAllister.”

“Dr. Alison McAllister,” Ivers corrected. “Thank you, Tommy.”



Wilson piped up over the suit comms. “Still there, kid? Once I get you to the deckmaster, I go my own way. You got quiet for a minute.”

“Still here,” Jimmy answered. “Just thinking.”

They walked on. At one point, the yellow line they followed turned sharply to the right down a cross corridor. They followed.

In a couple of yards they at last reached the deckmaster station. AI had advanced so much by the time the Reticulans had revealed themselves that an AI or robot could perform most any job a human could. Unfortunately, that left humans with so little to do that idleness had then bred unrest, and finally war. In order to prevent wars over AI in the future, accords were reached between nations and markets that any AI or robots used should be limited to those occupations which were the most hazardous, to sports or games, or to exceptional circumstances. Jimmy had more than once heard it said that humanity was outgrowing itself, and simply biology could not keep up with the rate of change in computer sciences. Eventually, one had to win out, and because biology had been around longer, it seemed the obvious choice.

As such, when they reached the deckmaster station, a real human being, Specialist Anders, turned in her form fitting chair to greet them. Young and well rounded, her auburn hair had been cut into a bob. Her pristine, gray uniform had not a spot on it. Although she would be wearing magboots of some kind, she still needed to remain strapped in to the station to avoid too much floating as she worked.

When she met eyes with Wilson, she tapped the air in front of her and a holographic, three-dimensional map of the ship appeared.

She twisted her fingers in the air to turn the image. This gave Wilson and Jimmy a better view.

“Lieutenant Wilson, your quarters are Habitat Ring One. You won’t need the tram, they are just around the corner.” She twirled her fingers in the air and the map moved. A white line demonstrated where Wilson was to go.

Wilson looked down to Jimmy then. “This is where we part ways. Stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy answered. He watched Conrad Wilson clomp off down the hall in his magbooted suit in the direction he’d been pointed.

Jimmy turned back to the deckmaster. “Engineering cadet James Radinski, reporting.”

“Cadet, you are quartered in Habitat Ring Four,” Anders responded. “You are to wait here for the next tram arrival and then board. There will be other cadets on your tram. Have you met many of the others yet?”

“Only the hundred from my class,” Jimmy replied.

“You sound like you’re Midwestern. Former United States?” Anders asked.

“What they still call Michigan, Ohio after that. That’s right. They told me there were fifty-two states before the Star People showed up.”

“Fifty-two, like a deck of cards,” Anders mused. “Of course, it’s all one now. One world, one government, been that way since before I was even born. Hard to imagine what it was like before, back over half a century ago.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jimmy said, not knowing what else to comment on that.

A whooshing sound and the platform nearby lighting up announced the arrival of the tram on its track just beyond the deckmaster station. Jimmy proceeded through the automated glass doors, then he boarded the tram and took a look around.

The inside reminded him of an old-time picture of a city bus from two hundred years ago, except every angle inside had been rounded and smoothed. And the seats in this tram, as in most any Earth transportation he’d ever seen, would adjust to his body once he sat down. The fluid inside, filled with nano robots just for this purpose, would determine the best way to support him. It may have still been zero-g in the tram car, but the forces involved in any movement could still knock you around some.

All the seats faced either side of the tram, and none faced forward or backward. The layout left no room for aisles and no seats faced into the center, all looked out the side windows from a central area. Only three seats were filled out of more than twenty. Unlike the deckmaster station, it appeared the entire tram had been automated.

“Palm in and have a seat,” a girl’s voice came through his suit comms. Jimmy gave a start and looked around to see who the voice belonged to.

He caught sight of her across the way. A brown-skinned Indian girl with a red diamond on her forehead looked up at him from her seat.. Her walnut-colored eyes blinked innocently at him from inside of her suit helmet.

“I’m Indirasmitha,” she said, and then patted the seat next to her. Jimmy could not be sure, but he imagined she must be at least two years older than he. The suit flattened her features so much it would have been easier to tell her age if they’d met in anything approaching normal dress.

Jimmy flashed his left palm to the door frame without looking away from her. He knew he’d moved his ID into the general direction of the scanner, close enough at least, when the door chimed over his suit comms, and the tram answered, “James Radinski, welcome,” in a soothing female voice. He then clomped his way over to Indirasmitha’s row and sat down next to her.

“Indirasmitha is a long name,” he said.

“You can call me Indra; everybody does,” came her reply.



Just then, Jimmy’s vision blurred. The world began to lose focus, dissolve and completely leave him. Static flowed through his vision, a crackle of sound and then it all broke apart. But not before he remembered. . .