Coiper Belt. Valery Konstantinovich Bulygin
have been assigned that task on Earth.
Powerful passing shields approached the Eris satellite and started work. The diameter of the main well should be more than 3 km, and the depth of 5 km (this is for the main ship). The other nine will be smaller.
It has been six months. The wells are ready. Tunnels have been tunneled between the wells to communicate with other ships. Tunnels were also pierced to the surface of the satellite for the output of various equipment (telescopes, radio telescopes, etc.).
The meeting of representatives of all ships decided to hold on the network. It was necessary to listen to the report on the work done, to put the task in the future.
Dysnomia’s choice was not accidental. Outside the solar system, the flight will be at a speed of 30,000km/s. This is about a tenth of the speed of light. You cannot go faster; the power of the engines will not allow it. At this speed, interstellar gas and dust will simply destroy the ship.
It was decided to hide the ships in the satellite of Eris and under the protection of the surface to fly into deep space. All the bombardment will have to surface the satellite, and it, pushed by our engines will fly like a comet or an asteroid.
Fuel supply takes place on Eris. There is a lot of frozen methane. On Eris itself, a methane processing station was installed in the fuel we needed. The shuttles are constantly plying between Eris and Dysnomia. Ships are able to recycle any useful substance into fuel. In the first stage, this is enough.
Scan looked at the stellar environment for a long time. Somewhere out there, our Sun is far away. It is still visible; after all, we are still in the solar system. True behind the Coiper Belt is the Oort cloud, but there will be no more planets, only stones and chunks of ice. Then the black emptiness and the cold. It is hard to be aware of uncertainty. While living on Earth, Scan was engaged in mountaineering. More than once, he climbed undefeated peaks. There was clarity. You know the route. You have pictures from space, weather forecasts. In any unforeseeable case, a rescue team will come to the rescue. In addition, here? Who is coming to the rescue? The route is conditional.
Chapter 4
(Conversation in a biological laboratory)
//Martha is a researcher, Arkady is the head of the laboratory, Ryuken is the second employee. //
– Even when biological institutions were on Earth, they set the task of human survival in space, – Arkady said.
– Man is a very gentle creature, adapted to live in greenhouse conditions. For a comfortable life, he needs a very narrow range of temperature, humidity, pressure, light, radiation level, noise level, etc. Gravity on Earth has made man who he is. The first inhabitants of the colonies on the Moon felt at once less gravity. The load on the bones was reduced and the human skeleton had to be artificially loaded in order to avoid major changes. In weightlessness, a person also cannot stay long.
Such a woman in Cosmos cannot squeeze, especially in the far. On bases in the solar system arranged conditions similar to Earth, but all this is difficult. Small malfunctions in life support led to big problems. With relatively “calm” life in the solar system somehow managed to find a balance, but we are now flying to the distant Cosmos. Whether we like it or not, a person needs to change and change very much.
– What decision did they come to? – Martha asked.
– The decision was unusual, – Arkady said.
– The most important thing that Man has is his brain. It is what sets one person apart from another. All other parts of the body provide brain function. Vision – gives information to the environment, hearing – the ability to hear sounds, hands – to perform appropriate functions, legs – to move, etc.
– And what changes in the human body are we able to make? – Ryuken asked.
– Almost everything, – Arkady replied.
– If we want to survive in the far Cosmos, we cannot do without basic changes. The biggest problem is that it is not a technical problem, but a moral one. We on Earth have long learned to replace the hand of the person who lost it in an accident or accident. Installed artificial with many sensors. Yes, she worked like a native. How to look at such an artificial hand to a man? Does he see it as his own? If you change everything? Is the man ready for this?
This applies not to one person, but to the whole community. I think we need a long transition. It is better to start with small children. They perceive all changes less painfully. It will take 30—50 years and it will become the norm.
– In addition, what will change drastically? – Martha asked.
– Everything, – Arcady answered without hesitation.
Unfortunately everything. Whether we like it or not. Otherwise, we cannot survive. Yes, we will leave some of the migrants unchanged. Enormous efforts will have to be made to ensure them. All this will be done in the hope that at the place of arrival there will be similar conditions for life, as on Earth. It will certainly be an incredible success. Then in a new place, we can (if possible) adjust the environment to ourselves. You should not count on it.
– Well, what about love, feelings, – Martha asked.
– It is more complicated than that, – Arkady said.
– This is how our world on Earth was arranged. Nature is so disposed, a man is born, lives, dies. To procreate, you had to produce the same kind. Women started from men, gave birth to children, raised them, parents died, and children continued the path of parents. That is the way it is on Earth. There are two individuals: male and female (mostly). It might not have been that way. Nature has “forced” people to reproduce. Came up with a simple method – the male sex should gravitate to the female. Everything was provided for. The female sex draws attention to itself; the male sex (having a sexual attraction) is looking for opportunities to connect with the female. A woman chooses a whiter partner than a strong, intelligent, and beautiful. Why? Nature wants to continue the family, but the successors must be strong and healthy, otherwise in a difficult world the weak do not survive. There would be no sexual attraction; there would be no continuation of the human race. Hence the love, attraction, the cell of society – the family. Well, how further we will develop I can hardly imagine. If a person has only the brain left alive, and the rest of the other parts are artificial? Will such a man want to snuggle up to a woman, pet her, feel the warmth of her body, her aura? It is very hard to imagine that we are going to have to give up on this. Perhaps everything will move to another form of communication. I do not see how else you can survive in Space. We do not have a lot of choice.
That is how we will fly to the destination of two species. One species is gentle, fragile. The other is with artificial organs (except the brain), which is less whimsical to the environment, which will be able to carry loads ten times more than a biological person, for whom the temperature range will be comfortable not from -30 to 30 degrees, but somewhere -100 to 100 degrees. The composition of the air is a little critical and gravity too.
Chapter 5
– Commander, there is important information from navigators, – Ivan said.
– Something important? – Scan asked.
– Yes, – the deputy replied.
– You are very much asked to come to the navigation department. There was some tension in the department. The faces of the staff were focused and agitated.
– Commander, – the head of the department said. We have very important information. For several months, our navigators scanned the near space. According to our observations and calculations, it turns out that some objects are approaching us. There are 80 or 100 of them. All of them fly together and apparently, their speed slows down synchronously. It cannot be asteroids or comets.
– Did