He had scans from across the spectrum and plenty of old-fashioned optical imagery. With it he had refined orbital parameters, approximated each planet’s period of rotation, identified several moons, broadened the spectrographic analyses of atmospheres, and even counted sunspots. Numbers, numbers, numbers….
Alas, numbers had again lost their customary ability to sooth. Perhaps there could be too many numbers.
Which left him what?
In college, eons ago, a deep dive into psychology archives had uncovered the diagnosis once made of people like him. Asperger’s Syndrome was a grab bag of eccentricities with no known cause and no treatment, a label that explained nothing and contributed nothing. The term had fallen into disuse.
He just didn’t behave like most other people, and that was that.
As activities across the ship became ever more frantic, Antonio set aside numbers for some other security blanket.
But which? Beyond salt and pepper, salsa and curry, the galley was without condiments. And never again would he encounter a postage stamp: Pacific island, commemorative, nineteenth century, or any other. The daily precipitation for cities across Europe—and he could recite decades of such data—no longer held meaning. And although deep within Earth’s oceans some life would have survived, the GRB would have rendered extinct whole families, orders, classes, maybe entire phyla, of invertebrate animals. He would never know which.
What remained to count and compare, to categorize and arrange?
The chatter over the intercom offered inspiration.
The captain had begun the discussion of place names, but his shipmates had been quick to join in. Not Antonio. He didn’t see the value. Still: many names were being championed, and many naming systems. There were numerous pros and cons that one might consider….
And so—meandering through an archive about philosophy, one more prescient gift from Neil Hawthorne—Antonio encountered a disquieting pattern.
*
Revived by a quick shower and fresh clothes, it hit Rikki: she was starving. Before getting snacks for Blake and herself, before the two of them resumed an uneven contest with the overstuffed cargo hold, she decided to see who else might want a bite to eat. She began with Li and Carlos in the infirmary.
Rikki would have bet large sums, had money retained any value, that nothing in the new planetary system could infect them. People had more in common with paramecia than with whatever life forms they might encounter here. But no one was willing to bet the human race, and that had left Li dreaming up novel infectious agents against which Carlos might preprogram nanites ahead of time. Just in case.
The low voices she heard in the infirmary were discussing neither biology nor nanotech.
Something awkward had transpired between Li and Carlos early in the voyage; for a while, things had been tense. Rikki was certain Dana knew about it, too. But though she and Dana had long been friends, Dana had gone all captain-y on that topic and refused to admit anything.
Whatever the conflict had been, Li and Carlos must have gotten past it. Way past it.
Neither saw Rikki standing in the infirmary hatchway.
“Family and loyalty,” Li said. “That’s what Confucius stood for. His ethical system became the underpinnings of the most populous society on Earth. How can you not like Confucius as a name for our new home world?”
Li’s words were serious; her body language was a whole other matter. Standing close to Carlos. Leaning in. Touching him lightly on the arm.
“I think I could be convinced,” Carlos smirked.
Next: the casual hair toss. Li knew exactly what she was doing. All to enlist Carlos’s support for a planet name?
Li said, “Isn’t loyalty something to cling to?”
“I have a suggestion, while grasping something is on your mind.” Carlos did a double-take. “Ah, the fair Mrs. Westford. Do not fear. There’s plenty for two to hold.”
Eww. And if Blake ever hears you hitting on me, you’ll be holding your own head.
Rikki couldn’t understand how Carlos had succeeded in marrying once. But three times? It spoke ill of her gender.
She said, “I’m getting snacks for Blake and me. I dropped by to ask if either of you wanted anything.”
“No, thanks,” Li said.
“Another time, perhaps,” Carlos said, with an eyebrow arched.
“I’ll leave you two to work,” Rikki said. Hint, hint.
It wasn’t only Carlos whom Li was lobbying. Rikki hadn’t yet gotten a turn, but she knew Li had bent Dana’s ear: that fostering respect for humanity’s accomplishments and preserving the past were as fundamental to their mission as preserving genes.
Rikki wondered who else had been pitched on Li’s favored planet names. And whether Li would try that flirtatious crap on Blake. And how he would react if Li did.
Maybe it was time to reclaim the bridge and what passed aboard ship for privacy….
Rikki found Antonio asleep in the copilot’s seat, head tipped at an awkward angle, his mouth sagging open. Displays scrolled, oblivious to his stupor. Okay, no snack for him. No alone time for her and Blake. She grabbed a blanket from the crew quarters and spread it over Antonio.
And woke him up.
“Sorry,” Rikki said. Settling into the pilot’s seat, she got a glimpse of the scrolling text: very dry philosophy. It was not at all what she had expected. “How are you?”
“All right,” he said, looking guarded. Because he couldn’t distinguish when how are you was or wasn’t meant literally? “I’m taking a break from astronomy.”
“Fair enough. I’m getting a bite to eat. I came to ask if I could bring you anything.”
“Not for…me, thanks.”
She asked, “Any updates about where we’re headed?”
“Our destination has at least two…moons. Small, maybe four hundred klicks across.”
“Two moons,” she repeated. “A touch of home. Anything else?”
“I’ve determined those moons’ orbits.”
By basic orbital mechanics, knowing those orbits would serve to establish the mass of the planet. Mass plus the planet’s size determined its surface gravity. He could have just volunteered the gravity.
“Unpleasant, I take it,” she said. “How heavy?”
“Almost one point four times…standard.”
Approaching four times
