“Now Dr. Leventhal, who’s chief of our social sciences section, wants to talk to you about selecting the crew.”
Charlie hated public speaking. In this setting, he felt like a Christian on the way to being cat food. He smoothed out his damp notes on the podium.
“Uh, basic problem.” A thousand people asked him to speak up. He adjusted the microphone.
“The basic problem is, we have space for about a thousand people. Probably more than one out of four want to go.”
Loud murmur of assent. “And we don’t want to be despotic about choosing . . . but I’ve set up certain guidelines, and Dr. Bemis agrees with them.
“Nobody should plan on going if he or she needs sophisticated medical care, obviously. Same toke, few very old people will be considered.”
Almost inaudibly, Abigail said, “Sixty-four isn’t very old, Charlie. I’m going.” She hadn’t said anything earlier.
He continued, looking at Bemis. “Second, we must leave behind those people who are absolutely necessary for the maintenance of L-5. Including the power station.” She smiled at him.
“We don’t want to split up mating pairs, not for, well, nine years plus . . . but neither will we take children.” He waited for the commotion to die down. “On this mission, children are baggage. You’ll have to find foster parents for them. Maybe they’ll go on the next trip.
“Because we can’t afford baggage. We don’t know what’s waiting for us at 61 Cygni – a thousand people sounds like a lot, but it isn’t. Not when you consider that we need a cross-section of all human knowledge, all human abilities. It may turn out that a person who can sing madrigals will be more important than a plasma physicist. No way of knowing ahead of time.”
The four thousand people did manage to keep it secret, not so much out of strength of character as from a deep-seated paranoia about Earth and Earthlings.
And Senator Connors’ Tricentennial actually came to their aid.
Although there was “One World,” ruled by “The Will of the People,” some regions had more clout than others, and nationalism was by no means dead. This was one factor.
Another factor was the way the groundhogs felt about the thermonuclear bombs stockpiled in Helsinki. All antiques: mostly a century or more old. The scientists said they were perfectly safe, but you know how that goes.
The bombs still technically belonged to the countries that had surrendered them, nine out of ten split between North America and Russia. The tenth remaining was divided among forty-two other countries. They all got together every few years to argue about what to do with the damned things. Everybody wanted to get rid of them in some useful way, but nobody wanted to put up the capital.
Charlie Leventhal’s proposal was simple. L-5 would provide bankroll, materials, and personnel. On a barren rock in the Norwegian Sea they would take apart the old bombs, one at a time, and turn them into uniform fuel capsules for the Daedalus craft.
The Scylla/Charybdis probe would be timed to honor both the major spacefaring countries. Renamed the John F. Kennedy, it would leave Earth orbit on America’s Tricentennial. The craft would accelerate halfway to the double star system at one gee, then flip and slow down at the same rate. It would use a magnetic scoop to gather antimatter from Scylla. On May Day, 2077, it would again be renamed, being the Leonid 1. Brezhnev for the return trip. For safety’s sake, the antimatter would be delivered to a lunar research station, near Farside. L-5 scientists claimed that harnessing the energy from total annihilation of matter would make a heaven on Earth.
Most people doubted that, but looked forward to the fireworks.
January 2076
“The hell with that!” Charlie was livid. “I – I just won’t do it. Won’t!”
“You’re the only one-”
“That’s not true, Ab, you know it.” Charlie paced from wall to wall of her office cubicle. “There are dozens of people who can run L-5. Better than I can.”
“Not better, Charlie.”
He stopped in front of her desk, leaned over. “Come on, Ab. There’s only one logical person to stay behind and run things. Not only has she proven herself in the position, but she’s too old to-“