The Alpha Project: Book One

  It was Gitangali who called over to them to join her in the almost wanton luxury of a hot shower. All four of them stood naked under the one shower head and soaped each other liberally, four young persons, one male, enjoying an experience almost unique in many light years of isolation in space and time. The nearest equivalent was the H3 team, splashing and cavorting about in the central pond, laughing and enjoying the sheer pleasure of just being alive, unfettered, wet, warm and happy. The team in the medical centre had likewise discovered the one installed shower but it was too small to take more than one at a time and so they were, at the same time, queuing up naked in a short, animated queue, relaxed and laughing. For a brief moment in time, Alpha Four was a happy ship.

  Desmond led Amelie by the hand back into the astrodome and they sat naked together on one of the couches there, just gazing up at the heavens above them.

  “Des, it’s just so beautiful!” She snuggled up against him, at peace with herself now, her guilt pushed aside for the time being, for the first time since they had been awakened, at peace. Deeply and warmly aware of her young womanhood, no longer a virgin, yet not ready to rejoin him in the consummation of their relationship. Just happy, just contented.

  The observatory, hydroponicum, accommodation and medical centre rotated silently at the ends of their spokes, providing the artificial gravity needed to keep their bodies healthy and the ship rotated in turn about the swirling, cloud-covered planet that should have been their home. They were innocent and ignorant of the future that lay before them. For just one standard day, the young would-be colonists enjoyed simply being alive.

  Matthias and Martha called a conference in the observatory.

  With all twenty-one of them, it was almost crowded to capacity. Martha had insisted that they all wear their standard-issue fleeces so that each was now uniquely identifiable by the individual tag embroidered over their left breast pocket. Matthias, with the L1 tag and the blue, not green fleece, stood up and raised his hands. They all fell silent, watching him with a certain respectful anxiety. Martha went to stand beside him so that they overlooked their little flock together.

  They had fallen silent, waiting. He cast his gaze over his young crew, wondering at their innocence

  “Before we begin” he said “I want us all to remember that one of us is no longer here. I want to remind you that Manny sacrificed his life so that Martha, Gitangali, Dana, Amelie and Desmond might live. It was the act of a true saint – Manny was a true saint in every sense of the meaning. His inspiration will live with us forever and his example will inspire us through the suffering and toils that inevitably will be our lot in the months and years to come.

  They had fallen into apprehensive silence. Only Desmond recalled Manny’s last words to him in the airlock before climbing out on to the glacier and he kept his own council.

  “I want to call you my children” said Matthias, spreading out his hands to embrace them with a gesture, “as you call me ‘Father’ and Martha, ‘Mother.’ My children, the life ahead of us will not be easy. The path we must travel together will require much self-discipline and we will all have to suffer if we are to survive. Mother and I have prayed together and sought God’s wisdom to overcome the trials which He has put before us. It amounts to this. We have no choice but to take the ship on to the next destination and seek our home there. The planet P2 is uninhabitable. Even if we could gain a foothold on it, the future for us and our descendants would be one of endurance in the face of bleakly hostile elements. We owe it to ourselves, to God and to our children and their children for generations to come to make the right decisions and to set out on the right path. It will be a difficult and onerous path and it will require all our strength of spirit to keep to it but we must not fail. It is the only way forward for us. We will experience want and deprivation. The days and nights will be long. There will be times when our spirits will be put to the severest of tests and we will weaken. We have only the example of Saint Manny to guide us and the history which we can take from our ancestors, their struggles recorded in our archives, to inform us.

  We will need all God’s help”. His eyes swept over them and all who met his gaze looked down. Desmond came the nearest to staring him out. “Let us Pray!” he intoned. “Let us pray for the endurance and the strength to endure. Let us pray that the example of Saint Manny will give us that endurance. Let us Pray!”

  When they had finished praying, which Martha had led in a version of the Lord’s Prayer, Matthias took up a piece of paper and addressed them. “Children, there are just 19 of you, 21 including Mother and me. I have had to organise us so please pay careful attention to what I am saying. Seven of us have to hibernate at any one time because we do not have enough cubicles for all due to the fire.” He looked around and over them but he couldn’t immediately pick out Amelie in the anonymity of their fleeces, perhaps just as well, he mused. “Each of us will be able to sleep for one third of the journey, which is a little more than twelve years. M1, M2, M3, F1, F2, F3 and F4 will take the first turn. You will need to tidy up your things and prepare to hibernate at 12.00 hours tomorrow.”

  He paused as they started a buzz of muted conversation but then raised his hands to quieten them down. “There’s plenty of time for discussion later. When the time comes, I will hibernate with the second group, M5, M6, M7, M8, M9, and M10 and on the last stage of the journey, Mother will hibernate with F5, F6, F7, F8, F9 and F10.

  Those of us who are not hibernating will form up into two teams and we will rotate our activity base around the ship so that we all get as much variation as we can. I will lead Team One which will comprise my hibernation group and Mother will lead Team Two which is her hibernation group. Team one will stay here for the first standard month and team two will occupy the hydroponicum. We will go there as soon as we have dispersed from this congregation.

  But we won’t be able to start on the journey until we have made enough sorties down to the planet to take on water for the fusion drives. I will be organising that straight away.”

  As soon as he had finished speaking, the ‘children’ erupted into a babble of conversation. He looked around for a minute or two to see how they were taking it, then took Martha by the arm and led her back to their room.

  “I hope we can enforce it!”

  “They seemed to accept it, Matthias. Nobody argued with you.”

  “Not yet, but I have no doubt that they will, soon enough.”

  “It cannot have been lost on them that we are segregating the sexes.”

  “They will have to accept it. They must conform. It is the only way we can enforce God’s Will.”

  “Amen to that, Matthias!”

  There was a knock on the door. It had come sooner than he had expected. “Father, will you come and speak with us again. We have something to ask?”

  “Who is we?”

  “All of us, Father. Will you come?”

  Matthias returned to his flock and bade them sit down so that he was able to overlook them. A young man called Dane acted as spokesman. “Father, what it is…” he hesitated, looking around at the others, some of whom were giving encouraging nods and smiles “…we wonder why you have segregated us as males from females.”

  “That should be obvious” he said with as stern a countenance as he could muster. “On this journey we will be short of food and long on spare time. There will be nothing to spare and this could be a time of great temptation. Mother and I well know the temptations of the flesh, believe me. We want to spare you the stress of that and segregating you seems to be the kindest way of achieving it. God is giving us a great test. We must not fail him, that would be a sin and the punishment for failure inevitably would lead to death. Death by starvation. God knows that you have fertile bodies and you are physically ready for marriage but we cannot allow that, we cannot support the extra demands of children. When we reach our destination then He will give you His blessing and y
ou shall go forth to create a new colony and you shall enjoy the fruits of His bounty and His generosity, you shall be fruitful and multiply according to His law.”

  Matthias paused, allowing his words to sink in before adding. “But until then…” he stared balefully over them, slowly looking to see if any would make eye contact with him – none dared, he noted with relief and a certain inner satisfaction. “Until then, the lusts of the flesh are forbidden. Fornication is a sin. On His behalf it will fall to me to punish any of you who fail, and I will not flinch from my duty should that become necessary. But come, now” he lifted his voice into a lilt, “God will be your guide and your spirit. We must pray for the strength that only He can bring you! Let us pray!”

  He looked sternly over them until all heads were bowed in supplication. “Oh Lord our God” he brayed, “hear the supplications of these, Your servants. Grant them the strength and moral fibre to keep their hearts and their bodies clean and pure, grant them the purity of spirit and the strength to endure the trials and tribulations that you may ask them to bear. Give them that strength and purpose. Let Your Will be their staff and their power! Amen!”

  He allowed a meaningful silence to draw out for long seconds then repeated quietly “Amen!” and this time they murmured “Amen” in response.

  Matthias returned to his room and dropped the latch on the door. Martha had undressed and gone to lie down in the bed with the duvet pulled over her. Suddenly he was tired, the stress of giving them such powerful leadership had exhausted him. He pulled off his fleece and lay down beside her, their naked bodies touched and he felt a familiar warm surge begin to flow in his body, in spite of his fatigue. He rolled over to face her, let her arms go around him, in turn put his around her body, still vibrant even though they were older now. They kissed, gently and lovingly. He felt her hand on his penis which had, of its own volition come up erect. He sighed, for an instant saw in his mind their fleece-covered flock and then gave himself up to lovemaking.

  Chapter 7

  Matthias travelled up in the elevator with Moses. Moses was obviously Afro-Caribbean in origin, only eighteen years old and yet built with the physique that is symbolic of his race.

  “I’m glad to be with you again, Father!” He smiled with dazzling white teeth in the shining blackness of his countenance. In every way, he was physically and (given selection to the project) genetically perfect. Moses had been his pilot on his previous excursion to P2 and aboard the shuttle already was Renate, the Brazilian technogeek who was the expedition’s computer engineer. Furious with his name, which he regarded as effeminate and therefore personally offensive given his (very) straight sexual orientation (another, if ‘hidden’ selection criterion of the expedition) so that he asked everybody to call him ‘Hack’ in recognition that he had been chosen on the basis of phenomenal and socially destructive capabilities with the internet. It was rumoured that Alpha Four was seen as a way simply to get him off the planet and as far away from terrestrial computer networks as it was possible to go.

  They helmeted up and made their way into the shuttle bay, went in through the airlock and joined Hack in readiness for departure. The vehicle was already humming with activated systems and Mozart’s Requiem as it floated from out of the cockpit to greet them.

  “Ho there Hack!” Moses slapped him on the shoulder and the slightly built Brazilian clapped his friend across his ample shoulders in returned greeting. But he spoke to Matthias. “Father, the vehicle is at your command. Just give me a course!”

  He climbed into the copilot’s seat and Moses leaned in between them, over the back of the seats.

  “Can you put her down somewhere where water might actually be present as a liquid?”

  “Anticipating your orders, Father, I can put her down just by an active caldera that seems to be melting stuff so much that there are live surface streams to be tapped into.”

  Matthias was faintly astonished. He looked approvingly at his crew. “Take me there!”

  The shuttle bay doors were already open. Hack took her out with his usual cautious touch on the controls and S1 manoeuvered delicately clear of Alpha Four on steam drive. As soon as he was clear, he took off his headphones and mike, handed them to Moses. “Yo, man! Inspire me!”

  Moses vaulted over the seat back into place, leaned towards Matthias and said “Better strap in tight Father. One thing I know about Manny, ‘cos we were at training school together,” he looked Matthias squarely in the face and chuckled. “That boy was no saint, that I can promise you!”

  He flew the shuttle as though it was a stunt plane. As soon as they broke atmosphere enough to get bite on the flying surfaces, he did everything except stand her on her nose (which technically would have been irrecoverable, even with the enormous power available in the fusion drive). Matthias fought the rising urge to vomit in much the same way as Hack fought to stop himself being thrown about the cabin and rendered a bloody pulp, regretting the bravado that had prevented him strapping in to a spare seat back in the cabin. Eventually, a chuckling Moses levelled off and set her on to autopilot. “Landfall in a few minutes now Father. We should be able to pump tanks full in no time at all. Might even have time for a hot thermal bath if you want!”

  “Moses, if the Good Lord thought I needed a bath, there’s a perfectly good one back on the ship!” Matthias retorted, thinking to himself that that was a pretty good comeback in the circumstances. “Just make sure we get the water!”

  S1 landed on it’s downthrusters with its feet in half a metre of hot water. They didn’t even have to get out of their seats. The umbilical dropped into the shallow pool and all the tanks were filled in a matter of minutes. Moses took off even before everything was fully retracted and almost before he knew it, they were back home and pumping the precious liquid into Alpha Four’s storage tanks. Matthias decided to sit out the remaining four trips by going into S2 on the pretence of using the on-board computer to run some preplanning scenarios via Com1 which had a direct interface with the shuttles.

  Thus it was that three hours later they found him fast asleep in the pilot’s seat with the computer on-screen waiting for an input from him. Moses reached across and cancelled the command, dropping into the copilot’s place. Hack, leaned over from behind and prodded him in the neck with a long and very bony finger. Matthias jerked awake, the dream which had involved ranks of green-clad and exceptionally nubile young women evaporating into a sudden, uncomfortable awareness of his surroundings and his companions.

  Moses giggled. “Happy landings, Father!”

  Matthias shook his head, awakening with a sudden ominous apprehension somewhere surfacing in his mind. “Hi, boys. What’s happening?”

  “Tanks are all full to the brim. Shuttle’s squared away and everything’s absolutely hunky-dory. All objectives achieved, hey, Hack?”

  “Sure thing Captain! Anything I can get you onscreen?” he offered. Matthias said nothing, then blushed with profound embarrassment as the screen came live to reveal four naked young women giggling together as a shower cascaded over their heads. His startled, bolting eyes took in jutting breasts, proud nipples with water streaming from their tips, glistening and incredibly beautiful torsos, wet hair cascading over smooth shoulders, parted lips alive with atavistic and barely-suppressed yearning for everything that he knew they would yearn for and need. He closed his eyes, blinked and opened them again.

  “Turn it off!” he commanded. Hack grinned and dropped the image to a small window in the corner of the screen, leaving the sound of breathing, running water and barely suppressed giggling to emerge from the sound system. Matthias angrily hit the ‘off’ button and came eye to eye with both of them.

  “You are insulting the Lord. You are insulting the memory of Saint Manny. How dare you!”

  Moses and Hack were completely unabashed. “Oh, come on Dad!” Hack grinned lopsidedly. “We’re all men in here, aren’t we. I think we’ve got a lot
to discuss, don’t you Moses?”

  Moses giggled as the screen reactivated and three more windows popped up on screen to join the first. Each was of Matthias and Martha in their room, taken from different perspectives. He could hear his own laboured breathing and Martha’s gasps of delight as they humped and heaved under the covers. Hack giggled. “All men of the world, hey! Only question is, which world?”

  Matthias slumped back into the seat. “Please, turn it off!”

  Hack giggled and reached across, switched off the screen but left the sound running. Moses took up the lead. “It’s like this Dad. Father! You’re the leader. You and Mother. Only she’ll do anything you say, so basically, it’s you we want to deal with.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “Well, certainly not what you two had planned for us all. Life’s too short. You must feel that even more than we do?”

  “Father, we aren’t stupid. We can follow your logic clearly enough. In fact I did most of the analysis long before you even got around to asking Com1. He gave you my figures, which are spot on accurate, by the way. So we broadly agree with your conclusions. It’s the detail that we need to discuss.”

  “Detail?”

  “How you think you can contain a shipload of hot eighteen year olds with absolutely nothing sensible to do except wait for the ship to go to another planet.”