Mission
Control launched John Warnock Stansfire toward 82 e Eridani in 2104.
Expected arrival: 2507.
John didn’t mind the anticipated 403-year trip. Like most Earth
people, he had undergone the Chuang treatment to extend his lifetime to
an estimated 200,000 years.
Stephanie Perlman, his longtime lover, had
objected.
“Why would you want to leave me?”
John had
shrugged. “It’s only for 800 years or so. We have all the
time in the world.”
“But I need
you with me now.”
“I’m sorry,
Stephanie. I have to do this.”
“Why?
What are you going to do, cooped up alone on a starship for 800 years?”
“I intend to
use the time to gain wisdom.”
“Well, you
certainly need more of that.”
That had been
their last conversation.
On launch
day, John strode out onto the observation deck of the UN starship
Aristoteles, and gazed out upon his new domain. He wore robes of
crimson, which he felt were appropriate for a philosopher-king.
For
twenty-four years, he thought about epistemology. He developed
several interesting new insights, and carefully recorded them. For
the next seventeen years, he concentrated on formal logic. He
found it elementary, and gained no new insight there, except to see how
illogical most writing of the past had been. For fifty-nine years
after that, he thought about ethics. One morning, he stood on the
observation deck and observed, “The basis of ethical action must be
found in the principle of benevolence.”
A chime
sounded. The ship’s AI said, “We are receiving a communication
from another ship.”
John raised
one eyebrow. This might be interesting. He went to the
command module and fired up the comm equipment.
The face of a
man with dark rings under his eyes appeared, sweaty, gasping for breath.
“Aristoteles, come in.”
“This is
Aristoteles,” said John evenly, “John Stansfire, commanding.”
“Thank God!”
said the man. “Listen, my name’s Bussereau, Philippe Bussereau,
piloting starship Long Shot. There are three of us—me, my wife
Louise, and Nicolas, our kid. We’ve had a meteor strike. Can
we come on board long enough to get some air and make repairs?”
John thought
about it. “I suppose so. How far out are you?”
“We’re about
one light-second away from you. 363 million meters, closing at
100,000 meters per second.”
The ship
docked and John came down in his crimson robes to greet the newcomers.
They stumbled out of his airlock coughing and gasping. The man was
big and dark-haired—Philippe, he had said. The woman, Louise, was
small and blonde. The child, Nicolas, a boy of about eight,
collapsed onto the deck as he left the airlock. His skin was pale,
his fingers blue under the nails.
“Oxygen,” said Philippe, “Can you give my boy oxygen?”
“I didn’t
realize you were in need of immediate help. Wait here, and I will
bring oxygen.”
He was back
two minutes later with a tank-and-mask device. Philippe snatched
it from him and applied it to Nicolas. The boy’s eyes fluttered.
“Oh, thank God,” said Louise.
John nodded.
“You may use any of the tools you like,” he said. “I have no
engineering skills myself, so I won’t be able to assist you.”
“No problem,”
said Philippe, “We’ll handle it.”
The repairs
went on for two days. On the third day, Philippe found John on the
observation deck.
“I don’t think we can get the main drive working again,” he said, “Just
the auxiliaries, and we’re two light-years from the nearest system with
a beacon and emergency supplies.”
“They have
planted exosolar worlds with beacons and emergency supplies?” asked
John.
“Sure,” said
Philippe, “Thirty years ago, when FTL travel came along.”
“Ah,” said
John. “This is, of course, a slower-than-light ship.”
“Well, so are
we, for the moment. Could you possibly take enough of a side trip
to drop us off? The system is 3SX-942, a red dwarf, M5 with
emission lines.”
John had his
schedule for the trip very carefully worked out. This would throw
a major disruption into it. At the speed he was traveling, two
light-years would take him eighty years out of his way.
“I don’t think it’s possible,” he said. “I would not have enough
fuel left to get to my destination.”
“Oh, you can
refuel there. It’s not a problem.”
“Refuel,
yes.” John thought for a minute. This should be, he thought, a
problem easily solved by a philosopher-king. Then the
solution came to him, as simple and elegant as all truly brilliant
solutions are. “Get your woman and your boy and go into your ship.
Tell them to strap down.”
“Right!”
Philippe hurried away.
John went to
the control room. He waited until the other ship’s hatch was
sealed, then activated the Aristoteles’s grasping arm. He plucked
the much smaller ship away from the surface of his own and gave it a
full-power throw toward 3SX 942.
Philippe came
on the screen. “Stansfire! What the hell are you doing?
You’re stranding us!”
“I’m sorry, I
can’t hear you. I’m having comm problems,” said John. He cut the
voice and video link, leaned back in his chair, and sighed.
John strode
out onto the observation deck. After years of thought, he had just
come to the conclusion that ethical behavior could only come from a
positive and life-affirming mental orientation.
He closed his
eyes and tilted his head back. He held his arms out in a wide embrace. He tried to project a feeling of all-encompassing
benevolence out into the universe.
Barton Paul Levenson
...has credits in over twenty speculative fiction publications, both
in print and online. The list of his stories includes (among
others) "The Horror in the Monkey Squeezing Room"
(ScienceFictionFantasyHorror.com, 2005), "The Physics of Space Beer..."
(Maelstrom, 1999), and "Twenty Peasants" (Marion Zimmer Bradley's
Fantasy Magazine, 1991).
About this story, he says:
"I wrote this story to explore an attitude of mine which I hope to do
without as much as possible: one of moral hypocrisy. The
protagonist is one who believes that proper intent is acceptable instead
of proper action, or rather than as a spur to proper action. We
are all, perhaps, hypocrites to one extent or another, so I can't say
this is entirely from an opposing point of view, but it's from a point
of view I at least want to oppose. The protagonist is also
an atheist, whereas I am a born-again Christian. Please do not
misunderstand me. I am not saying he is a hypocrite because he is
an atheist. I know many atheists who are not hypocrites. I
am a former atheist myself. But I do believe the protagonist's
exact point of view requires him to believe that no one is present to
check up on him."