BUT FOR THAT TEARFUL KISS

Journey to Alpha Centauri

by Bent Lorentzen

The great dark ship hurls through the lonely halls of space toward Alpha Centauri at just over point nine the speed of light. An occasional purplish glow cavorts far behind as its propulsion stream of short-lived massive bosons mix with an occasional cloud of hydrogen. A fundamental interaction, some might call it. Were anyone to look at just the right spot at the right moment with the right instrument, they'd find a light-bending gravity well shaped like a teardrop. But who is there to look?

The US-Japan ship has trekked for over five years with its precious cargo of three hybereggs toward the binary system near a red dwarf. A mere 4.37 lightyear jaunt. Inside each of two hybereggs sleeps a young couple entwined among a profusion of biofeedback hardwiring, metabolic stabilizing, anti-atrophy IV feeds and waste fluid catheters. The ship's computer, the latest BM PhotonQuantaSystem1008-T, monitors its precious human cargo and a third hyberegg containing the variant gene pool of some 100,000 human eggs and billions of sperm, DNA templates to reproduce a biosphere replete with several thousand genetically variant vertebrates, several million invertebrates, plants and even bacteria.

Responding to the crew's monitored neurobiochemistry, the computer feeds them VDR (virtual dream realities) of making love in the hot sand with the warm wash of waves nearby as perhaps a Paul Simon melody plays, or something by Chopin, Schubert, the Beatles, Enya or the latest by DatArythmia. Or perhaps just a cathartic hand-in-hand walk through a crowded shopping mall.

Rarely did a signal from Earth reach the ship. What would be the point? Though scheduled to arrive at the Alpha Centauri system's mysterious Earth-sized planet after a journey of nearly six years for the crew members, back on Earth many decades would have lapsed. At least, according to Einstein.

So no one on the ship knew about World War Three in 6/6/2066. An old conflict erupted for one last time. Armageddon at its worst. The most silent of wars. Outside some insidious lab deep in the desert, a drone rose with its deadly cargo. The crew went back inside, notified their fearful shepherd, who blessed their deed, as it was written so shall it be, and blessed also their coming sinful reward. They then boarded a hovership to Beirut's bordellos for one last addictive fling at life's debaucheries. The drone rose to the specified jetstream altitude and intentionally burst. Fragments of nucleic acids dropped like mist into a globe-circling wind. Bits of genetic codes spread like wildfire throughout the world.

As the sleeping crew members experienced a virtual reality of leviathan songs from the deep blue seas and purple mountains majesties between fruited plains with bridges over troubled waters, whale carcasses on earth began to rot in the hot sun along every beach. Even sea birds lay dead over the still hulks. Not even bacteria could finish the decomposition that had begun in every remaining jungle, every city, every Lunar and Mars outpost. If scientists could look microscopically at the last decaying cells of earthly existence they might have found the engineered opportunistic naked virus that acted with vector interest on all life, but it would have been too late. Even as the final, one celled creatures expired their last, the host virus perished into its constituent molecules awaiting only oxidation and ionizing radiation to complete the task.

Not a single plant, not a mosquito, not even those humans who sealed themselves within hermetic shelters survived. By the time the Center for Disease Control raised an alarm, every facet of human existence had been adulterated. Of course, the ship hurling toward Alpha Centauri was spared.

Everything on Earth died, except a few strange creatures kilometers beneath the sea evolving among some sulfuric cauldrons. Perhaps in a few million years, these underpinnings of life would rise to a beach and begin again the perilous Darwinian journey of chance toward humanity.

Probability not very likely!

As the last NASA/NIPPON tech at Lunar Control watched despondently the automated news broadcasts of life's demise from the multimedia theater of his NetChip implant, he sent a wrathful message to the great ship hurrying toward Alpha Centauri's three suns. To hell with the four lovers and hundred thousand future humans in that frozen gene pool! The signal stretched toward the ship like a wraith at exactly the speed of light through a vacuum. And bent a few fundamental theories to boot.

Within the ship sleeps the philosopher, the poet, the scientist, and the navigator. Inside also, in a much deeper sleep, rest all other characteristics that make human life so uniquely possible. The ship's mission is to establish a colony on B-Terra in its odd orbit around Centauri A and to populate it with a healthy mix of humanity through generations of in-vitro fertilization. And with the gene pool and DNA templates, recreate the lush forests and farms, and pestilence, so essential to human survival.

***

Paul, the poet, awakens. Pulses of red light have interfered with a dream. Slowly, he blinks an eye and a holo tells him the relative date.

Why? he mouths silently. This is premature.

Being urged by the unsettling pulses of light coming from the console not far from the clear hyberegg he shares with his wife, the still-sleeping navigator, it takes him several hours to painfully disconnect from wires and tubes.

The long effort proves overwhelming. Fatigue thickens over his mind, and he slowly settles into the sensual cradle and warmth of Io's body. When he wakes up, later, much later, it will all be okay.

He barely feels now even her heartbeat, but notices that his own beats too fast, too nervously. And a fear grows. Should he not awaken her? Protect her?

From what?

He struggles to raise his head.

Io looks so lovely, her bronzed skin glistening, and the mounds of her breasts rising and falling every several minutes. Years have passed since they'd last made love. Sure, in VDR mode they'd reached healthy orgasm many hundreds of times.

But months ought to remain before this awakening sequence, in conjunction with the mission's deceleration phase.

So much better to lie back and sleep. Forget about that annoying pattern of light.

The thickness grows. At the last moment, he bends down and kisses Io's enchanting face. His lips linger on hers as on fine wine. He kisses a little deeper, certain hormones having suddenly surged through his body, but it is all now becoming a dream.

***

Io opens an eye.

And is startled by the thickness of him.

She wonders if this is a dream. But there is too much thickness. It is that which sparks her awake in slow painful increments.

There should not be a blinking light, she tries to say, but can't. Somewhere, from so many NASA/NIPPON disasters, she knows about remote controlled destruct. It is meant to protect a populated area. But not here, deep in space.

Tiredness. Sleep.

Paul, I love you, she tries to say, but can only cry dry tears where a shout is needed.

Must get up. Paul, no, don't push me. Paul, love, help me up. Why can't you understand?

She can only bite his tongue, his blood's iron flavor evoking an autonomic response from her body, helping her to . . . awaken . . . and begin disconnecting.

She exerts every gram of her strength to push him aside, every motion taking hours. So like struggling out of a long hot bath. Gasping for air, she crawls like a fish out of water to the navigation seat and whispers a scream.

***

Dreamily, Paul listens as the computer asks her to repeat; to confirm her voice recognition pattern. But she has collapsed and the blinking light has not gone out. Knowing not what is wrong, but that something is, he pushes himself seated, feels the lightheadedness from the S-grav, and creeps like a fish out of water to his beloved.

Wake up, he tries to shout.

The blinking light continues unaltered. His disconnection from hybersleep has been too sudden. He crumbles over her still form. With only the warped stars outside and the pulsing red light giving disturbing illumination to his failing sight, he musters a single tear to tell her of his love. A tear that slowly curls around his nose, and finding little gravity to continue, stops on his lips. There to desiccate into the elements of an antediluvian creative sea. But his lips tremulously part one last time in vain to kiss. Thus the tear breaks loose and falls into her open mouth.

***

Its flavor sparks old meanings from the poignant past. His tears are indelibly imprinted in her memory; its chemistry inalienably tied to her existence from ancient seas.

Her eyes flutter open. And she says more firmly, "Abort destruct signal. I am Commander Io Loran. Abort destruct signal."

***

Arduous centuries later, when the colonists on B-Terra can begin to celebrate their existence, the song Paul started to write on a dreary dark day in deep space memorialized the event. Much of the song can be skipped. Who'd understand metaphors and similes relevant to a glassy cave system within a volcanic planet orbiting oddly around an orange sun? Or the two other suns -- one so tiny – dancing nearby, casting unearthly shadows upon the toxic surface above slowly becoming viable with seas, mud and a life-sustaining atmosphere?

Except the refrain:

But for that tearful kiss,

Who'd know what was amiss?

And life would be a miss . . .