Journey to Kyron - The Journey Begins
The Arrival | Chapter 1 - Part 1
In the vastness of space, a tiny rock made of silicates, carbon, and trace amounts of iron was swept along by its own inertia. It had maintained the same speed for several thousand years, ever since it broke off a larger rock when it collided with an even larger one. With nothing to slow it down, it hurled along until bang. It collided with the wall of a speeding metallic cylinder. Within moments, a swarm of tiny robots appeared beside the fist-sized hole and, clinging magnetically to the ship wall, cleaned the edges of the hole with lasers. They proceeded to patch it up with molten metal that quickly solidified in the subzero temperature, trapping the rock inside forevermore. The robots paused briefly, then, sensing the next puncture, moved off like a stream of ants on a mission.
The cylinder was connected in a ring to several others, all enormous, housing fully self-contained ecosystems. Each one rotated on its axis, counter-balancing each other in a stable cluster as they zoomed through space.
Their destination was a planet orbiting a star on an outer branch of the Milky Way. Their origin was Earth.
Vessel Antipodes, the year 2968
Josinda stared at the image covering the top half of the front wall, giving the illusion that she was looking directly out at the star Pollus, and not inside a massive cylinder that held her bare feet to the floor with its spin.
There was a tiny black dot in front of the yellow circle that was noticeably larger than it had been at this time yesterday.
She brought her focus back to the pencil-thin extension emerging from her forearm console and held it just above the tooth cleaning powder stain on her chest, keeping the oval blotch out of the shot. She pasted a smile on her face. “Look at this, friends.” She spoke the words, knowing full well that the only people that would click on her video were her brother and best friend. Undeterred, she kept recording the screen. Everyone said persistence was key. Did it matter that there was a flight path view available to everyone at the click of a button? That anyone could come to the bridge if they so desired?
No, this was the hot topic, and she had to capitalize. All anyone was talking about was the Arrival. She took a deep breath and spoke with forced confidence. “That spot was no bigger than a pinhead yesterday, and now it’s as large as a pea. By tomorrow, it’ll be like a cherry, and by next week, we could be right up alongside the Planet Kyron!”
“Not very original metaphors,” came the captain’s voice from beside her.
“Dad!” She stopped the recording and glared at him. “I’m trying to capture the mome— What’s wrong?”
“Jos.” He turned a broad expanse of torso towards her, and she could see beads of sweat combining to form rivulets that trickled down his temples and into his strawberry blond, gray-flecked beard, despite the cool temperature of the huge room. “Can you get out of here, please? This is not the time.”
Her eyes opened wide. “What do you mean? It’s Kyron’s passage. And what about the deceleration. Isn’t that starting today?”
“You need to stop this,” he said. “You’re not making something…” He exhaled.
“What?” Her arms were crossed in front of her chest. “Something useful?”
“That’s not what I mean.” His attention was dragging away and over to the closest desk console as he spoke. “Can you just do that somewhere else please?”
“Why? What’s going on?” She leaned forward to follow his line of view.
But he wasn’t listening. He had placed his hand on the human navigator’s shoulder and was speaking urgently into her ear. Josinda looked at the other technicians scurrying about the vast hall, some talking to each other and some their forcons, their arms raised up close to their mouths, although the devices could hear well enough that it was an unnecessary action. Which explained why others seemed to be talking to themselves, their mouths opening in small, deliberate movements while their eyes flicked up and down from the floor to the navigation screen and back again.
Josinda let her focus travel back down to the projection from her forcon and she silently touched record. She took a few steps away from her father’s tense figure and began to speak quietly.
“As far as I understand, what’s supposed to happen here is that the ships should flip 180 degrees so that we’re facing back out into space. The engines will keep firing at full power, which will slow our progress enough to come comfortably into orbit, before they power down to hold us there. Is that about right, AiLa?”
Her AI companion spoke calmly. “That is correct. Would you like to see a simulation of the deceleration protocol?”
“No, that’s fine. I can paste it into the edit later, thank you,” replied Josinda. “But can you tell me why the bridge crew is in a mild panic?”
She directed the video feed across at her father, who was now in conversation with his silver-haired co-captain, gesticulating between the navigator’s console and the giant screen. The two captains paused, clearly listening to a conversation happening on one of the interconnected ships, their forearms hovering just below face level.
“Well, why isn’t it happening?” cried Alfa, her hand sweeping through the short waves that rose from her head for the tenth time since she’d joined her husband. “You gave the order, right?”
“Of course I bloody gave the order. Would you stop asking ridiculous questions?”
Alfa’s forehead creased but she didn’t rise to the provocation. She’d lived and worked with Yrwin long enough to recognize when stress was driving. Josinda kept the recording close up on her mother’s face to film her reaction.
AiLa spoke. “The heightened emotion in the room is a result of the failure of the navigation systems to initiate the deceleration protocol.”
Josinda’s breath caught in her throat. She slammed the recording arm closed and shuffled even further away from the captains. “Will we crash into the planet if we don’t slow down?” she whispered into her arm.
“The probability of a collision with Kyron is 0.002%,” came the response.
“Oh.” She straightened, reaching down to scratch a bare thigh under the yellow t-shirt that hung lower than her comfy blue shorts. “That sounds reasonable. So what? We’ll shoot off into space and come back around?” Her naked toes stretched wide and gripped the floor.
“The vessels would continue on the current trajectory for a further seven hours before impact with the star Pollus.”
Josinda looked at the transparent material of her forcon, feeling a calming impulse come through her wrist in response to the adrenaline spike that had certainly just occurred within her. “Huh. And um, what’s the probability of that?”
“One hundred per cent.” AiLa’s voice was as level as ever.
“Right,” said Josinda, her eyes still glued to her parents and the growing group of technicians around them. She imagined that their forcons would be pulsing like crazy to keep them all calm and in control.
The human navigator, Tola, sat staring at her console, her lips moving through an unending series of commands and questions. “So…” A sick feeling was seeding at the base of Josinda’s stomach. “Why aren’t we slowing down?”
“I don’t have access to that information,” replied AiLa.
“How can that be? Aren’t you controlling this whole ship?”
“That is correct. But my mind is separated into components. Your personal companion can only share information what you can access.”
“Of course.” She shuddered. “Seven hundred true years in space could all end in a fiery date with the very star we’ve been targeting. And no one’s losing it out in the vessel because…”
“The population is unaware of the current situation.”
“Hm. They might be interested in something like that,” said Josinda. Her opposite hand crept up and she reopened the camera extension and focused back on the leadership team.
“Can we get him on the phone now?” Alfa was saying.
The woman beside her glanced up from her forcon with desperation in her eyes. “Still no answer.”
Alfa sighed. “We’d better prepare a comm for Earth.” The light from the star in the giant screen reflected off the accumulating moisture in her eyes.
Josinda shifted the view across to Yrwin and Tola, who were speaking quietly, their heads seeming to move closer and closer to the 3D images of spheres on the console before them.
Suddenly, her father stood up straight and gripped Alfa’s hand. “It just might work.” He caught sight of Josinda, inching back towards them, her sharp features transfixed by the images being transmitted to her forearm. She looked up to see his narrowed eyes connect with that of the camera arm. “For posterity?” she said weakly.
“Out.”
He watched the messy knot of black hair until it disappeared behind the sliding door at the other end of the bridge before adding. “AiLa, can you restrict her access for the time being, please?”
“Understood.”
His wife’s hand squeezed his gently. “What’s the plan?” she asked, combing her fingers up through her hair again.
He instinctively held his forcon close to his mouth so the captains on the adjoining vessels could hear in real time, taking a deep breath before speaking. “We split up.”
Hi!
This is the true reason I came to Substack. This book has been in progress for at least 15 years. It’s gone from a hobby to a passion project to an obsession to a complete manuscript, printed, edited, and polished. And then left in the archives of my computers and emails, never forgotten, but never good enough to share. Twice.
Here I go again. I started here with a plan to write 20 posts to get some more practice and hopefully build up a little audience. Last week I sent my 29th post and today the 66th subscriber signed up to receive Interested in Things in their inbox.
I love this story and I believe in it and I hope I can do justice to the seed of an idea that popped into my head one day while walking down Chapel St all those years ago. What if people really went to another planet? What would that entail?
So, I’m ready to try again, this time in public. Let’s see where it goes. Thanks so much if you read this far. Let me know what you think it would take for humans to get to a planet outside our solar system, really. Any good ideas might get incorporated into this new draft.
Excellent opening. It's a fun read, and the stakes couldn't be higher for the people on board. I love that you share this as you progress with the rewrite. It's no easy task! It's clear you love the story, and it shows. That's what I love about Substack; it encourages sharing and writing more openly, which otherwise would be a very solitary endeavour, and it still is, for the most part.
Calling all SF-inclined readers to join the Journey to Kyron.
That's a great first instalment - I really enjoyed it. I especially love your opening paragraph with the meteoroid. It has a lovely visual quality to it, like the opening scene in the movie version.
I have a similar 'arrival' story, although there are noticeable differences to yours (mine is a little influenced by Shakespeare's Tempest) - first, it's the Centauri system and it's already long-since inhabited, so the natives know everything about humans, and second, the ship has engines at both ends (with the rotating habitat in the middle), so they don't need to flip over to decelerate. If I remember correctly that's partly based on Project Daedalus (fusion powered).
I do, however, think this is one of the most important stories for human history. If it doesn't happen then humanity will not last very long, in the grand scheme of things. If it does happen, then it will only do so if those who are already out there allow it to happen. And that means humanity will have to change its ways quite drastically... Until that time, it's quarantine. For simple and understandable purposes of self-defence.