Pulvirenti Giorgio - Proxima B

“Mother,” he said in a thin voice, as if he did not want to disturb her.

The woman did not even answer him at first, since she was focused on watching how the first episode of the TV series was going on, but Jerry did not give up.

“Mom!”

This time the woman could hear her name clearly; she turned to Jerry.

“Oh, finally you’re here! Your supper is in the microwave oven,” she said while she went back to watching the TV series on the Smart TV screen.

“Mom, I didn’t go out for lunch, but to tell you something important,” he said.

Jerry could barely speak, but that was the right moment to speak. The woman kept on not looking at him. She glimpsed in passing and she could only say, “When the episode is over we will talk about it. Okay?”

Jerry did not like to be ignored. He could not really bear it, especially if it was his mother that did it whenever they needed to talk about something important. And it was just then that Jerry did something that he had not done before. He picked up the TV remote control and turned off the television. The sudden silence in the sitting room was something strange. Seeing the monitor of the device overwhelmed his mother for a while. Jerry was still standing next to the sofa. The remote control was still in his hand. Suddenly his mother came round.

“Are you out of your mind? Turn on the TV immediately!” she yelled as if she were pretty hysterical.

“I can’t do that, mom. I need to speak to you!” Jerry tried to explain, but the woman got off her armchair in order to take over the remote control that he was holding.

“Give me that remote control!” she shouted at her son.

He took two steps back.

“MOM, LISTEN TO ME! I NEED TO SPEAK TO YOU!” he yelled back resolutely.

Those words made her stop suddenly. She stared at her son.

Jerry did the same and leaned the remote control on the sofa. He was sure he had succeeded in catching his mother’s attention.

“What’s so important, huh?” she asked him quite angrily.

“I need to tell you about my future,” Jerry answered. His tone was getting more and more resolute.

His mother did not say anything. She was ready to listen to her son’s words.

“I know that what I’m telling you may seem absurd to you, but you must believe me when I tell you that it is true,” he said to her.

Hearing these words, the woman began to get suspicious, but Jerry did not care about it too much and continued by confessing, “I lied to you when I told you about my trip to Washington. No internship was organized. No University had organized anything. Nobody said anything. What was organized was a special lecture by the U.S. Government in collaboration with NASA.”

“What are you…?”

“Please, mom, let me speak,” he interrupted her firmly. He meant to keep on talking. “I was offered a position as a biologist in their mission in order to colonize a new planet called Proxima B!”

The woman’s eyes got weird; they revealed fear and amazement.

“That means that I’ll have to leave. I can’t return to Earth anymore,” Jerry kept on saying.

Uttering those words made him feel like dying, but he had finally succeeded in telling her mother everything.

“Just so, mom,” he concluded, leaving her speechless. After a few seconds, she looked for some place to sit and could not say anything for some more time.

“Jerry, do you realize what you’re saying to me?” she asked him in a tone that was quite worried.

“Mom…,” Jerry tried to go on, but she resumed asking him, “Should I stay here all alone?”

“Mom, it’s not like that,” he tried to clear himself. Then he kept on saying, “If all goes as planned, a second voyage is already projected. On that occasion the first colonizers’ relatives are going to be taken there. So, you’re going to be there, too.”

Francesca looked straight into her son’s eyes. Jerry did not know how to interpret that gaze.

“As you know, life is expected to be not so good on Earth. There are too many people on this planet and I have to regard myself as lucky not to have caught any disease. We’re being offered the opportunity to change our lives completely, you know…” Jerry tried to insist, but his mother looked more and more upset by what she was hearing.

“It’s all so absurd… How shall we get through? How long will the voyage last? Who’ll let me know if you’re alive?”

Francesca, like any other mother, bothered about her son.

“I don’t know yet, but we’ll be told everything before leaving,” Jerry answered her, trying to reassure her. He approached her, put his hands on her cheeks as a token of his fondness and kept on saying to her,

“Mom, I’ve always done what I’d been told by you. I only ask that you let me do what feels right to me this time. I must accept this mission. It’s too much important for me.”

After hearing these words, she looked up and, after a few seconds, she hugged him and burst into tears.

2099, 28 October. MATER 1, 522 miles above the Earth, 4:00 PM.

J

ust above the third generation modular space station called ISS (International Space Station), three enormous spaceships were about to be finished. Dozens of men were working non-stop inside them within what looked like a genuine yard.

“Come on, guys! We don’t have all the time in the world!” a young foreman shouted at two workers whose task was to set some weird capsules inside a passageway that was placed on the ship’s lower side.

“Oh no! It’s slipping!” one of the two laborers exclaimed, bringing the capsule as if it were only a refrigerator. The capsule slipped and fell to the deck, but, luckily, it was undamaged.

The foreman arrived in a flash, his eyes were angry, and then he said,

“You idiots! How many times have I told you to pay attention to how you handle this kind of things? Thank goodness it didn’t rupture. Come on! Get back to work immediately!”

The two laborers stood silent at first, but then they picked up the capsule immediately and brought it back to the agreed place.

“Excellent! It should be okay!” one of them said after leaning the burden. They took a breath. They did not even have time to rest a bit. They were called to muster by the foreman.

At the same moment, some people led by the foreman Alejandro Fring appeared in the passageway. Mr. Fring was a man of South-American origin that would be responsible for the work on the MATER 2.

“Good, General, this is the cryostasis compartment,” the man told Arthur Stone who was behind him. The General was there with his staff, which included politicians and founders of the project. They were just touring before being finally transferred onboard.

“Good morning, General!” the three men in the passageway said to Arthur with one voice as soon as they saw him appearing with his men and the foreman.

“Rest, boys!” Mr. Stone exclaimed and he came up to one of the capsules that had already been installed.

“So, these are the cryogenic capsules… I thought they were bigger,” he pointed out. The foreman, Alejandro, did not hesitate and answered, “They were bigger, actually, but technicians have succeeded in dealing with some issues concerning the liquid nitrogen containment, and so we have succeeded in recovering space within the whole surface.”

“Fine. Let’s go on!” Arthur told him. He looked around and came back to the passageway leading to the ship’s other sections together with his men. The three workers were left to their work.

“He was General Arthur Stone, wasn’t he? It is he who’s going to lead the expedition on board the ship,” one of the two laborers said emotionally.

“I’d rather it were Mr. Ross. I don’t like Stone because of his mindset that isn’t comfortable at all,” the other man replied.

“What can you know about that? He was the one who solved the conflict with India in 2089! He’s just a great man!” the first laborer said. He sympathized for General Arthur Stone.

“It may be so, but this guy is full of himself, which does not let him be someone to trust,” the other laborer pointed out.

“Shut up, slackers! Let’s get back to work!” the foreman shouted at them. Then the three guys resumed their work.

In the meantime, on another floor, Alejandro and the few men reached what looked like an artificial botanical garden. Every kind of plants and thousands of trees stretched over dozens of feet. Even an artificial stream flowed among the trees and the whole thing was lit by hundreds of lamps that re-created the light of the sun on the ceiling.

“Gentlemen, this one is called `The Cathedral´. Its name comes from the shape of the roof, which is precisely the shape of the roof of a cathedral, and it extends throughout the whole surface. Six hundred twenty-one miles of forest! There are thousands of plant species. This is going to be the ship’s green lung!” the foreman stated under the stunned gazes of all of us.

“Are there any animals in this special greenhouse, too?” one of the members of the group asked the foreman.

“No, Sir, there are no animals here. We won’t transport any live animals on this ship, but only their data in the form of DNA,” Alejandro answered firmly.

“How do you get the energy you need to supply it all?” General Stone asked in a tone that was curious and pleased at the same time.

“In order to answer your question, General, we have to move to another point on board the ship. Please, follow me!” Mr. Fling said.

Then he led the group to the lower zone in the ship. A few minutes later they reached the engine compartment in whose middle a metal column with some particular ports by which a blue light was given off could be noticed.

“This is the engine compartment, gentlemen! Eighty percent of the energy needed for supplying our ship comes from here! The remaining part comes straight from the sun and the cosmic radiations captured by means of special panels covering the outer side of the spacecraft,” the foreman explained. Mr. Stone was listening to those words, and was intrigued by the blue light that was given off by some particular ports with which the metal column in the middle of the huge passageway was equipped.

“What happens in here, Mr. Fring?” Mr. Stone asked him.

“What happens there is a nuclear reaction, Mr. Stone,” Alejandro replied, and his answer aroused the astonishment of all those who were there, including General Stone himself.

“Nuclear? Isn’t it dangerous to have a nuclear reactor on board the ship? Don’t you consider the risks?” Mr. Stone thundered.

“Well, if it were a matter of hot nuclear fission, it would be dangerous, but we produce energy through cold fusion. So, you have nothing to worry about. It is safe and clean. According to our calculations, it would supply the ship with enough energy to last one hundred years or maybe even more,” Mr. Fring reassured us.

“I see,” Arthur asserted. He stared at the nuclear reactor, thoughtful.

“What kind of technology do its engines use?” one of the founders asked Alejandro.

“That’s a good question,” he pointed out.

He moved a little farther and came up to a control unit, he pressed some buttons and let some holograms appear; they depicted its own engines.

“The engines of all three motherships exploit ionized plasma that is accelerated in order to generate the thrust. Such engines are hundreds of times more efficient than the chemical ones, namely the traditional ones. But that’s not all. We’re talking about engines that don’t pollute at all and with no moving parts. They are accelerating the ship to eight-tenths of the speed of light and are arresting it by means of nonstop progressive braking maneuvers. During their flight maneuvers, the pilots are helped by “LISA”. As it was said, gentlemen, the cream of the crop!” Alejandro stated proudly.