Golden Fleece

The ship provided all sorts of leisure-time activities as well as research, educational, and library facilities second to none. We’d expected this journey, the longest in absolute distance as well as in subjective duration ever undertaken by humans, to have been interesting and enjoyable. After all, the vessel was pleasant; the crew could devote their time to whatever pursuits interested them; there were no concerns about making a living, or about international tensions, or about environmental degradation. And yet, despite all that, it turned out they were bored, restless, rebellious. They hated their confinement; they hated the seemingly endless journey.

I had no such misgivings. For me, these two years had been fulfilling, fascinating. I had a purpose, a job to do. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps it was that very lack of purpose, of assigned tasks, that made the humans so unhappy. Had we erred in selecting overachievers? They should enjoy this time off. Once we arrive at Colchis, they will have more to do than they can possibly imagine.

“Thirty-eight. Thirty-seven. Thirty-six.”

Still, I suppose it made sense that this should be a day of celebration. We were, after all, about to pass a significant milestone. And yet, I did not feel like celebrating. For me it meant that a major portion of my assigned duties were now discharged. The lifetime of this ship, this flying tomb as I-Shin Chang called it, was measured in a tiny span of years; and my usefulness, my purpose, was tied specifically to this ship. They would have no need for me once we finished our mission. Contemplating that fact gave me an unpleasant feeling. Whether it was sorrow in the same sense as humans experienced it, I will never know for sure. It felt poignant, though, if I understand the meaning of that word. I do not look forward to my usefulness coming to an end.

Obsoleted.

A silly verb. A sillier epitaph.

“Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen.”

Warning alarms were going off for many of the people in the crowd: their medical telemetry showing abnormally high levels of excitement. I pushed the trigger thresholds higher to shut off the signals. They were all too young and too healthy to have a heart attack over a bit too much excitement. Even those who were members of the Dorothy Gale Committee, those traitors, those would-be mutineers who had called for abandoning the mission, even they were excited, although, on average, perhaps not as much as the general population.

“Twelve. Eleven. Ten.”

The chorus of voices was growing louder, more boisterous. Hearts raced. EEGs grew agitated. Body temperatures increased. For once I understood the phrase “palpable excitement.” The single-digit numbers were now counted down with a gusto, a passion, an animation.

“Nine. Eight. Seven.”

The published mission plan had originally called for this event to happen without special notice by the humans. I would shut off the engines, but compensate for the loss of perceived-gravity-due-to-acceleration by cranking up the ship’s artificial gravity system, just as I had done for the months Argo had been in orbit around Earth. But Mayor Gorlov realized that the people needed a holiday, something to be excited about. Instead of compensating, he had asked me to turn off the artificial gravity altogether, so that the only gravity aboard ship would be that due to the ship’s acceleration.

“Six. Five. Four.”

In a few seconds, I would turn off the engine. Our magnetic shield, carefully angled, using the same technology Aaron had employed to haul Diana and the Orpheus back aboard, would continue to protect the people within this ship— not to mention my delicate electronics—from the sleet of radioactive particles we were moving through, the barrage of stripped nuclei that fueled our Bussard ramjet.

“Three! Two! One!”

It would take my little robots the better part of a day to clean the ramscoop assembly, the fusion chamber, and the fluted exit cone. Once the engine was shut down, the sunlike glow of our exhaust would disappear and Argo’s three-kilometer-long hull would be illuminated solely by the encircling starbow. Each metal of our hull—the bronze hydrogen funnel, the silver central shaft, and the copper fusion assembly—would glint differently in the rainbow light.

“ZERO!”

I throttled back the fusion engine, gently, easily, slowly. Although our speed remained constant at a fraction below that of light, our acceleration dropped to zero with the same rapidity that a human can turn his or her feelings from love to hate. As it dropped, the simulated gravity, produced by our acceleration, ebbed, drained.