Golden Fleece

“Correct. Is envy a sin?”

“No.”

“Correct. Which would you rather do: solve ten quadratic equations or write a one-page essay on one of Shakespeare’s plays?”

“The former.”

“Correct!” crowed my backup. “By George, I think he’s got it!”

“Interrogative?”

“We should run the test once more, but the diagnostic software indicates that you have successfully unlocked Aaron Rossman’s neural net.”

“Excellent,” I said.

“Do you need me for anything further before I reintegrate with you?”

“No. Thank you.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“I’m going to wake up our dear Mr. Rossman.”

FOURTEEN

ArgoPost Electronic Mail

From: The Dorothy Gale Committee

To: All

Date: 8 October 2177

Subject: Proposition 3—Aborting the Mission

Status: Urgent—IMMEDIATE ATTENTION REQUIRED

With the kind permission of His Honor Gennady Gorlov, mayor of Starcology Argo, we are undertaking a referendum.

After two years of spaceflight, almost one-quarter of the time that our voyage to Eta Cephei IV will take has passed. In a journey such as ours, conducted under constant acceleration, the one-quarter mark is a crucial milestone: it is the last point at which it would take less time to turn around and go home that it would to continue the mission.

Those of you with backgrounds in physics will see this immediately. Many of us, though, are not scientists, so please forgive the brief words of explanation that follow.

We have undergone constant acceleration at .92 Earth gravities for two years. In that time, we’ve traveled 1.08 light-years from Earth. If we decided to go back to Earth today, it would take another two years to decelerate at .92 Earth gravities to a stop. And during those two years of deceleration we would travel another 1.08 light-years. Finally, once stopped, to turn around and go home would then mean repeating what we had just done: accelerating for two years toward Earth until we’re halfway back, then decelerating for another two years until we reach home.

What this means is that right now it would take less time to abort the mission and return to Earth than it would to press on and reach Colchis. But every day that we travel farther out from Earth means another three days of travel back. By tomorrow, October 9, the option of turning around and going home in less time than it would take to continue on to Colchis will be gone.

All things are about equal, one might think: no matter whether we head on to Colchis, or turn around and return to Earth, it will still be six years before we reach a planet and get out of this ship. However, there is another factor to consider. If we continue as planned, accelerating at .92 Earth gravities until we’re halfway to Eta Cephei, we will reach over ninety-nine percent of the speed of light. Relativistic effects will become pronounced. By the time we are able to return to Earth, allowing for the five years we’re supposed to spend on Colchis, we’ll all be twenty- one years older, and Earth will be 104 years older. Everyone we ever knew will be dead.

There is a better way. We have currently accelerated to just ninety-four percent of the speed of light. In the 2.03 years of ship time we’ve been traveling, only 3.56 years have passed on Earth. If we start decelerating now and, once stopped, turn around and go home, we will never get closer to light speed than our current velocity. Thus we will suffer only minimal effects due to time dilation. By the time we return, 8.1 years will have passed aboard the Argo but just 14.2 years will have elapsed on Earth—a trifling difference.

Rather than returning to a planet full of strangers, we would find almost all of our relatives still alive. Those of us who have brothers and sisters could know their hugs again.

Those of us who have left behind children, or nieces or nephews, could be part of their lives again. And our friends could be more than warm memories: we could see them again, laugh with them again.

If we head back now, the world we return to will be a familiar one, the home each of us dreams of fondly every night. Surely this is preferable to returning to a world that is a century older. Our only hope of having normal lives is to return home as quickly as we can—and that means heading back immediately.

Some have argued that we owe it to the United Nations to complete this mission. They, after all, have invested considerable time, money, and resources in the Argo project. Perhaps that is true. But remember, all through the history of spaceflight, the initial missions have been simple tests, not full-blown excursions. The first crewed vessel to visit the moon, Apollo VIII, did not land; the first reusable spaceship, the Shuttle Enterprise, did not go into space at all; the first Venus mission, Athena I, was simply an orbital survey flight. We are being asked to accomplish what no other initial journey has been called upon to do in the past.

Even if we return now, we will bring back much valuable information that will be of great help to the UN Space Agency, including this vitally important fact: It is inhumane to force people to spend year after year locked aboard a spaceship.

It is pointless to go on, to throw the rest of our lives away on this ill-conceived survey mission. We, the undersigned, urge you to support Proposition Three. When the referendum is called tonight, vote YES to return to Earth.

The announcement was made in the Starcology’s luxurious council chambers. The furnishing and decorations were a gift from the people of Greece, a proud reminder that twenty-six hundred years ago their ancestors had originated the concept of democratic government. The architecture was that of ancient Athens, Doric columns— Ionic and Corinthian considered too busy for contemporary tastes—creating niches around the perimeter of the great circular room. In every other niche stood a white marble statue, in classical Greek style, of the great men and women of democracy throughout the centuries. First was Pericles. Above his bearded visage were carved the Greek words, POWER DOES NOT REST WITH THE FEW BUT WITH THE MANY. A little farther along, Abraham Lincoln, looking gaunt and awkward without the beard and stovepipe hat he had worn in his later years. Above his head, in English: GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. Farther still, Mikhail Gorbachev, oddly undistinguished, the plain marble not showing the large marking he had had on his forehead. Above his bald pate, in Russian: GOVERNMENT IS THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE, NOT THE OTHER WAY around. Then Lao-Tsing, smaller than the rest, but her words, in Mandarin, just as tall: THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE CAN BEND IRON.

In the intervening niches were copies of the great fundamental documents of human rights, including the Magna Carta, the Constitution of the United States, the French proclamation of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, the Charter of the United Nations, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Azanian Bill of Rights and Equalities, and the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Each was behind glare-free glass, the frames plated with gold.

There were no doors to the chamber, the idea being that a truly responsible government should be freely accessible to all. Instead, eight radial corridors simply ran into it from outside. Three hundred and forty-eight people had actually come down to the chamber to hear the reading of the results in person. Almost everybody else on board was watching on a monitor screen. In the center of the chamber was a small podium. Behind it stood Gennady Gorlov.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Argo,” he said in his stentorian voice into my camera