Twin Paradox_Book Two Read online

  In this cryptobiotic state, all metabolic processes would cease, preventing development, repair, and reproduction. Thus, humans preserved in this stasis would not age a day during flight. This fact about the mission was already widely known. The media had covered it extensively.

  It was also understood that during the mission the crew of Santa Maria—expected to be numbering two hundred at the time of launch—would be divided into an Away Team and a Return Team, with fifty slated for the task of remaining behind to colonize the surface. One hundred crew members would be assigned to the Away Team, just like Steffen had said. The other hundred would be frozen during the voyage to Kapteyn B, with fifty of those forming the Return Team and charged with putting the original Away Team into stasis until the ship returned safely to Earth.

  Technically this would mean about 14.2 Earth years to travel out there, and the same amount of time to make the journey home. That said, pretty much everyone understood that during the voyage the Away Team would experience time differently than people back on earth, aging at half the rate of Earth-bound humans.

  Adding in about a year to set up and construct a colony there for the exploration and exploitation of the planet—including the time necessary to assemble a massive solar laser capable of activating the Star Shot system on the Santa Maria—would mean twenty-nine plus years would have passed by on Earth, with transmissions sent from Kapteyn B taking up to 12.8 years to be received.

  The media reported that the crew traveling to and from Kapteyn B would only age about eight years biologically, give or take a month or two. This would occur because all of them, including the brave new colonists remaining on the surface, would be cryogenically frozen for one full leg of the flight. Most of those eventually chosen for the mission could figure on returning to Earth not even a decade older, while their friends or family back home would have aged over twenty-nine years—29.44 to be exact.

  That’s what they thought, anyway. In truth, the geniuses and brainiacs over at GU Space Programme had a much better idea in mind all along…

  Sure enough, Kelvin was indeed chosen for the mission and was later slated to join the Away Team upon Steinhart Stehter’s recommendation. Steffen Schwarz had helped out as best he could, by seeing to it that Kelvin’s application and letter of reference from Herr Stehter made it to the “top of the stack” whenever the selection team logged on during the day to consider candidates.

  For weeks, he sorted and re-sorted the database so that Kelvin’s file would appear in their queue. One by one the selectors could either approve him, reject him, or pass over his application until they were ready for new placements within the crew’s available positions. The trick, Steffen knew, was to keep his name at the top of their queue each morning until he got picked. That’s about all he could do, really. No one was to ever know the true identities of the selectors.

  Of course, most everyone in Steffen’s section thought they knew who the selectors were. Rumors of who was and who wasn’t persisted for months, right up to launch date in fact. But eventually Kelvin made the cut, and the delighted young fellow from Virginia was informed by text one morning right as he awakened in the corporate dormitory back at Magellan Aerospace.

  He ran screaming down the hallway, banging on doors to let everyone know. And by the time he got to B.J.’s room, she was already at her door, standing there in peppermint-striped panties and a University of Colorado hooded sweater congratulating him and then hugging him around his neck.

  All his hard work, after they’d returned from Darmstadt, had ultimately paid off. Thirty long days of sobriety he’d endured. Thirty days involving three-a-day workout sessions to get back in shape. Thirty days without sex. Thirty days of high vegetable protein meals and drinking gallons of mineral water to flush out toxins.

  He had done everything he could to pass the rigorous physical fitness exam—and the medical testing he knew they’d put him through. Yet throughout his arduous training it had been B.J. right there—most of the time anyway—goading him on like she was a one-woman fan club.

  “Run, you pussy!” she’d shout at him during wind sprints—or when he’d run the steps of Lamport Field. She’d locate herself somewhere in the stadium nearby and taunt him mercilessly from the bleachers. She really pushed him hard. Cheered for him, jeered at him; drove him crazy sometimes, as well. And just to show her support, on top of everything else, she also went completely sober for the whole month he trained! Didn’t drink or smoke dope at all.

  She cleaned up, ate better; started feeling rejuvenated as the weeks passed. Her loyalty to her friend and dedication to his success was duly appreciated, too. Kelvin regularly sent messages via the macronet back to Steinhart in Germany about his training regimen and at every opportunity told him about B.J.’s efforts.

  B.J. even joined in for one of his three sessions each day, just for fun. Before heading off to work at Magellan, she’d take the TTC with him from Mississauga and work out with Kelvin and his personal trainer. Got her legs in great shape. Got her body all wiry and fit. She looked incredible by the end of the month, just like Kelvin did. And when she too got the call, from a still-grateful Captain Stehter back in Germany, encouraging her to apply, as a lark she eventually did go online and completed the general application to join Space Programme. She thought it was more of a joke than anything else at the time and told Kelvin so, assuring him she was merely going along with Steinhart’s instructions, “because he was so sweet to me.”

  But eventually...as Kelvin’s enthusiasm for making the final cut started inspiring her personally...she returned with him after dinner for the more brutal nightly session. “The Grinder” is what their trainer liked to call it. This one-hour ordeal started promptly at 20:00 hours and was specifically designed to cross-train their bodies and minds into that of modern-day warriors. It was grueling and emotionally draining—focused specifically on toughening them up in both body and spirit. Nevertheless, they suffered through it together.

  “I’m doing this for you, asshole,” she’d torment him breathlessly whenever they were struggling through drills, “You know that, right?”

  Kelvin, by way of comparison, was all business during every workout, especially as the month progressed. This was the first time in six years he’d been in tip-top shape and as his body changed into that of a blonde Adonis with sinewy biceps, calves, and pectorals, he transformed emotionally into a young man she hardly knew anymore. And yet B.J. still had to admit: she really liked this new Kelvin!

  Even when the testing was completed—a team of selectors flew to Toronto to examine them both shortly after B.J. applied—Kelvin remained a changed man. In fact, only after hearing the delightful news that he’d been chosen, did he finally relent and join B.J. in a celebratory bong hit. He stopped however; after only two feeble drags off the old purple hand-blown glass contraption smuggled into Canada by B.J. personally. To everyone’s surprise he then waved them off the next time the bong was passed toward him.

  “Nah. I gotta back off this shit, guys,” he said, causing B.J. to scoff and Robin to chuckle sarcastically. “Niggah, please. Really?” taunted Robin, dismayed at her young friend’s abstinence. B.J. jumped in too, remarking, “Still turning over a new leaf, are we?” But she respected his decision, nonetheless.

  In fact, to the surprise of everyone there, she would later match her best friend’s determination by bravely choosing to go straight as well— this time permanently. Neither Günther nor Robin could believe it! She wasn’t really sure herself. She just up and quit smoking pot for good that day.

  “Well then...you know what, asshole?” she retorted only half-jokingly, “Fuck it. I’m done with it, too. Robin, take this will ya’? I’m passing the torch on to you, honey. It’s yours.” She then handed the bong over to a shocked and dismayed Robin who took it from her, shaking her head sadly. “Shit...you mutha fuckas are serious, ain’t ya? You’re really goin’ straight, the both of you.”

  B.J. smiled kindly and said, �
��Yep. We are. Both of us.” Kelvin admonished her playfully after that, temporarily reverting to his old self.

  “Wait, wait...dude...that ain’t necessary. Go ahead ’n have fun. Get high if you want. Fuck if I care. It’s just that they got plans for this ’ole Southern boy, ya’ know? I better stay clean.”

  B.J. couldn’t help but see how much Kelvin had changed. He had a purpose and a direction for his life. Same dashing, handsome young man. Same golden-haired hunk she’d come to know. Only now he was clearly a new person, determined to make history. It impressed her, and in her intelligent mind, she saw a few things in her own self that could certainly stand improvement.

  The thought now occurred to her: maybe she could better herself as well and follow Kelvin’s example, however absurd that would have sounded only months before. Maybe it was time for this free-living Colorado gal to put down the bong and reevaluate—reinvent herself, perhaps. “I’m serious guys. I’m givin’ it up, too,” she confirmed. “Weed, I mean. I think I’m gonna put it down for a while.” Everyone could see it in her eyes what she really meant—she meant she was quitting marijuana for good.

  After that exchange, Robin and Günther kept the bong out of the common room and supported their friends’ sobriety by concealing their indulgences whenever they were in Kelvin’s or B.J.’s presence. And by sheer coincidence, it wasn’t long after that, about a week after Kelvin was selected, actually, that B.J.—Ariel as they addressed her formally back at Space Programme—got the early morning text from her lover Steinhart back in Germany.

  He was transmitting a message telling her to “watch for a letter coming very soon.” He also alerted her that he had reliable information that she could expect a “pleasant surprise” coming in her electronic mail. He was right. It was later that same day, in fact, that she too got an official transmission from Space Programme headquarters in Darmstadt.

  You have been ordered by the Global Alliance of Nations—it said—to report to Mission Control in Florida, North America, at 08:00 Eastern Standard Time on the 29 November, 2086. This would be the day after the Thanksgiving holiday in America.

  “Well, how do ya’ like that?” mused B.J. as she sat alone reading her orders. In less than a year, she and her buddy Kelvin had gone from corporate lackeys and part-time stoners to new selectees for the crew on board a galactic exploration ship.

  How amazing! What an amazing ride! They’d sat in that common room only months earlier—just like they’d done a hundred times before—and dreamed up a scheme to get Kelvin chosen by the selectors. Yes, they’d gotten high on weed and playfully conspired with each other to apply a silly 175-year-old physics theory to a real modern experiment using live humans. Only Kelvin was serious about it at the time. And yet, using the connection with Günther’s father, they had drawn the attention of Space Programme itself. Now they were both going to be bona fide astronauts. Their whole lives were about to change.

  Günther had not been selected. Didn’t even apply. His father wouldn’t allow it. Robin, of course, had no interest whatsoever. No, it was just Kelvin and B.J. who’d be on that ship, with that brave crew, making history together as crewmembers on the maiden voyage of the Santa Maria. Kelvin had made it happen—with a little help—actually a lot of help—from Helga and Steffen Schwarz. Today, working stiffs at Magellan Aerospace, unknowns in a vast world of Eight-to-Fivers, people you’d pass by on the street and never know their names. But tomorrow? Everything would be different. The eyes of the entire world would be upon them…

  * * * *

  During this time, the three twins selected by Helga and her colleagues at Space Programme, enjoyed a veritable fantasy world filled with delightful experiences. Given VIP passes to Disney Universe just outside Orlando—a network of thrilling amusement parks that now spanned an area the size of Orlando itself—they saw for the first time a world they’d never known.

  Their free day there, provided and supervised by their instructors, was most impressionable. This was the life of the elite. The children of government employees, successful entrepreneurs, and folks who’d saved up all year long to afford taking their families there. Now the twins could finally “see how the other half lived” that summer as the launch date approached.

  With hundreds of overheated rich kids whining to their parents in seven or nine different languages, the three exceptional children got to view besieged moms and dads nearly lose their minds at times…all the while longing for being able to have just what those ingrates seemed to be so jaded with. A real Mom and Dad. In Young-Min’s case, he’d never known his. Didn’t really recall coming to Toronto with them ten years ago. Oswaldo couldn’t remember his Mamá, either and had never met his own father. He and Práxido had been taken from their mother when they were only two.

  Shamiso, however, recalled her mother vividly, and wept periodically as she and the other two ten-year-olds strolled through the parks, rode the rides, and embraced the magic of the place. Disney Universe was a far cry from her dreary orphanage in London. Almost surreal; even if it was at times depressing. The children she saw in the park had something she’d never have—a real family. And hers, she was about to leave and not see again for many long years.

  Maybe someday, she hoped, her sister Rudo would track down their Amai (mother in their native Shona) and forgive her. Tell her they were both alright. Tell her they loved her. By then, Shamiso believed she’d be nearly eighteen when she returned; while Rudo would be pushing thirty-nine. Their Amai would likely be old and feeble by then.

  Almost the same thing would occur with her new crewmates’ families, friends, sweethearts, and former co-workers. They’d age only eight years biologically duringfourteen years in space while aging at fifty percent the rate of humans back on Earth, plus one year to set to work building the colony. Then those from the Away Team would be frozen in stasis for the return voyage.

  That was how she and her fellow crewmates understood it, that is. Reality was to be something quite different of course, but Space Programme scientists had kept this secret from them until the last possible moment.

  They spent hours in classrooms those three, studying college-level sciences like chemistry, physics, and aeronautics. They played on the beach at low tide whenever the instructor assigned to them for the day let them out early. Shamiso, Oswaldo, and Young-Min became good friends rather quickly during those weeks of intense study, even joined in with adult classes for newly selected crewmembers learning the design of the craft and their functions onboard.

  B.J. and Kelvin were in some of those classes with them, and when Kelvin was struggling with chemistry problems or stuck on a physics problem, it was Young-Min and Shamiso who were occasionally able to bail him out. B.J. was amazing at math, so she contributed whenever she could, especially with Oswaldo who already looked fifteen and was as tall as most of the female crewmembers! He fooled more than a few of them at times.

  Meanwhile, the demographics of the new selectees were quite impressive. Just over half were male, due to the requirements of the Away Team’s mission which gradually became revealed to them as launch day approached. In fact, in regard to the Away Team in particular, it was predominantly male—seventy-one out of a hundred. They hailed from around the world—South Africans, Brits, Brazilians, Indians, Argentines, a few from Zimbabwe, several Chinese, a number of Germans and French, a couple of Belgians, some Japanese, a Russian or two; and quite a few Americans and Canadians as well. Everyone in the group was top shelf—highly-educated, accomplished, and talented. This became apparent within a day or two of classroom work.

  But B.J. couldn’t help notice...how most of the Return Team crewmembers were females. Well over sixty percent, she calculated. She wondered if Steinhart might have had a hand in this.

  “Thirty-one women to nineteen men?” she observed to Kelvin that first week of training, “You know that can’t be a coincidence.” To this he smirked and shook his head dismissively. “Who knows, Beej?” he replied. She’d expected more
out of him at the time, yet in his new persona Kelvin no longer erupted with snide remarks like he used to. My how he’d changed! The gender discrepancy didn’t seem to faze him one bit.

  Then to her surprise, she also observed over the next few weeks that Kelvin was remarkably chaste during all this condensed classwork and rigorous preparation. He dated one gal for a while, then the relationship faded away as more and more challenging courses followed up the core curriculum. Many were of an athletic, strenuous nature, just like Steinhart had forewarned him, driving a determined Kelvin to best everyone he could at every task requiring sheer brawn or lightning-quick reactions. He was often the winner, too, or achieved the highest rating when put through arduous tasks like repairing hull damage with welding torches inside the Programme’s massive zero gravity chamber back in Brook Park, Ohio. The Away Team were flown there for a day and Kelvin excelled in most of their drills.

  And for her part, B.J. did remarkably well too—at suppressing her hyperactive libido, that is, and finished her exams and field tests with flying colors. Perhaps she was growing up a bit, she mused to herself once or twice, as she quickly taught herself to channel her pent-up sex drive into other, more constructive activities.

  Steinhart was around the Cape quite often however, and he took her out on the town over in Cocoa, Florida whenever the Return Team was given shore leave. It was Steinhart who got her selected she surmised, and yes, he did indeed get chosen captain of the Santa Maria’s return voyage, as was expected. Thus, it became pretty obvious that his young love interest had been moved up for consideration primarily because of his desire to have an intimate companion available for the flight home.