Orphans of Apollo - S1 E11
September 2055
From the ashes of forgotten space dreams, a new era of exploration begins.
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Previously: Larsson managed to get Isaac and Ling out of the UK before the authorities caught up with them. Now we rejoin the story in 2055.
The smell of coffee drifted lazily up the stairs, meeting Lana halfway as she descended, still not fully awake.
“Morning sleepyhead,” said her Mum as Lana shuffled into the kitchen.
She plonked herself down at the kitchen table.
“You look nice. Where are you off to?” She asked.
“Oh, just to meet a friend, then I have a lunch date with a very handsome gentleman.”
“So you’re going to meet Dad for lunch then?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” said her Mum cheerfully, shrugging her shoulders.
Lana rolled her eyes as her Mum set a cup of coffee down in front of her.
“And what do you have planned today, my princess?”
“I’m not six years old Mum,” Lana protested.
“You will always be my little girl.”
“I’m going to meet Jessica downtown and hang out for a bit.”
“That’s nice. You guys haven’t really seen much of each other recently, have you?”
“No, I guess not. It’s been a while.” Lana sighed.
“I remember when you were little, she would always be round here. Then when you girls had annoyed Logan enough, you would disappear off to her house.”
“I think she is still jealous of me having a place in the Foundation. She has never been the same after her application was rejected during the last year of high school. It’s a shame her parents didn’t find out about it when you and Dad did.” Her Mum looked away and busied herself with the breakfast dishes. “She could have applied when she was much younger like me, rather than waiting for applications to open again. I think the selection process is much easier for younger kids. I don’t even remember doing any tests as such.”
“Yes, you’re probably right,” said her Mum, sounding as if her mind was in another place.
“It’s strange though. I don’t know of any new students who joined after they reopened applications.”
“Why do you think Jessica’s parents didn’t see if she could get a place when I did? They must have found out about it from the school, same as you did.”
“I guess…” Ayako glanced up at the clock. “Shoot, is that the time? I’ve got to run. Have a good day sweetie. Remind Logan when you see him, we are going to see Grandpa this evening.” She downed the rest of her coffee and hurried out the door.
An hour or so later, Lana left the house and strolled the short distance to the end of the street, where it intersected with Forest Av. From there it was twenty minutes or so walk into downtown Palo Alto. She could have called a pool car, but Lana was in a reflective mood and decided to let her mind wander as she walked down the tree-lined streets of idyllic affluent suburbia. She reminded herself of how lucky and privileged she was. Something her parents often encouraged her to do. She had been born into a safe country that whilst not unaffected by the ravages of climate change, at least had the resources in the main to deal with them. There was no war or famine. On top of all this, she had been born into a family that, through hard work, was more than comfortable financially. Her parents seemed genuinely happy together and were well respected members of the community.
To top all of this, when she was seven, her parents had learned through her school of a program just started by a billionaire businessman and visionary. He vehemently believed humanity should be settling the solar system, and he was going to use his vast resources to kick start it. To that end, he wanted to recruit children who were interested in STEM and help develop them to be amongst humanity’s first colonists. Lana and her twin brother, Logan, had been lucky to be accepted.
Throughout their childhood, they had spent most of their school holidays in Lompoc, California, where Christian Larsson had based his organisation, which he was now calling the Foundation for the Advancement of Space Settlement (FASS). They would spend time doing extra classes, but it wasn’t like being at school. They got exposure to a wide range of subject their peers could only dream of, mainly science and engineering focused, but also things like celestial navigation, leadership theory and micro-sociology. It wasn’t all class room study either, there was adventure training and visits to NASA facilities.
When they got to the age of sixteen came the cream on top that everyone looked forward to. They would be put through flight training. A private pilot licence, followed by their commercial pilot licence when they were eighteen. This was no ordinary civilian flight training programme. Sure, they would start out learning in the same small two seat electric training aircraft every normal student pilot would fly. They would then progress to flying twin-engine aircraft, aerobatic aircraft and even small jets. To cap this, they would finally graduate to ex-military jet trainers such as the T-7 Red Hawk. All this under the close supervision of mainly ex Air Force or Navy flight instructors. They keep telling the students we want you to get the most varied flying experience on as many different types of aircraft as you can. It was like a mini test pilot school. Now the older students such as Lana were checked out in most of the aircraft types the FASS had at its facility right on Lompoc airfield. They were even encouraged to take them out and go flying whenever their schedule allowed. After all, these are perishable skills we are teaching you. They must be maintained, the instructors would say.
There was a downside to this amazing opportunity. As she got older, Lana found it harder and harder to relate to her friends back home. When you came back after the holidays and told your friends you had been to see rocket launch, done some scuba diving and flown a spacecraft simulator with a former astronaut, other children quickly found it hard to relate and the inevitable jealousy set in.
As the students came from all over the world, the children developed a worldly outlook and maturity beyond their years. This also served to isolate them from their pears at regular school. This had worried Lana’s parents, especially her Mum who had tried as hard as possible to have a normal “home” life for the children. But no matter how hard she tried, it could never be the same as for other kids.
Her watch buzzed, braking Lana’s daydream. It was a message from Jessica’s assistant. She would meet her at Heritage Park, next to the Palo Alto History Museum. Why was she using her AI to organise a meeting with her oldest friend? This was only the sort of thing a bot-head would do, and Jess hated them.
Anyway, Lana had half expected that is where Jess would suggest they meet. It had been a favourite spot of theirs to hang out when they were younger. Lana’s father enjoyed teaching his children about the history of Palo Alto and Silicon Valley and the impact it had had on the world. “Just look at all the great companies which had been founded here.” Sometimes they would take a walk past the Hewlett Packard Garage, only one block away. Glenn Meyer had a gift for imparting knowledge and inspiring others. It was perhaps inevitable he would end up lecturing at Stanford after his time in industry.
Jess’s father was also a Silicon Valley second generation native, and although his tours around the Valley’s historic sights did not match those of Glenn Meyer, he would often also take the girls and sometimes Logan when Glenn was busy. As they grew older and gained their independence, the girls would sometimes come to Heritage Park to hang out.
Lana approached the benches in the corner of the park from behind. There was an older lady sat talking to a yappy little dog, a young couple were sitting with their backs to the street. The girl had bright blue hair, but there was no sign of Jess. Lana walked past the couple toward the middle of the grass area. She heard a giggle from the girl and fought the urge to turn around.
“Lana!” came a familiar voice. She turned around.
“Jess?” Lana was only just able to contain a look of horror.
If you know someone you think would enjoy “Orphans of Apollo” or any of the other writing in “Explorations” please share this publication with them.
I hope you enjoyed the latest episode of “Orphans of Apollo”. We’ll be staying in the “present day” of 2055 for the next few weeks. I mentioned last week I was thinking about taking an intermission and I have now decided this is what I will do. There will be another four or so episodes before we get to a point where I think a break fits in well.
Over the last few weeks I have not had a chance to write any behind-the-scenes posts. When I was previously doing these, I realised how much I enjoyed doing the research and writing them. So I would like to take a few weeks to make sure I can put these out as well. I also saw a Substack note from
asking why it is so hard to inspire people today. I, for one, had no problem with this when I was a kid, devouring science and aerospace media. As I said in my response, one reason I write science fiction is a hope that in a small way, maybe someone reading it will be inspired to find out more about the science behind a particular part of the story. Writing the non-fiction behind-the-scenes posts has been my way to try to facilitate this further. They also may (hopefully) appeal to a different audience, which may not necessarily want to read the fiction. They are, therefore, an important part of what I am trying to build. Going forward, they might not be every week, but they will still keep coming and possibly get more in-depth.I believe there is something of a fiction-reality-fiction-reality cycle and its contribution to scientific exploration is possibly not fully appreciated by those who dismiss science fiction as fanciful. Young people grow up consuming science fiction written by their forebears. This inspires them to make the future envisioned technologies a reality. They may not quite get there, but they push the frontier forward. This, in turn, inspires the next generation of writers whose writing inspires the next generation of scientists and engineers. The power of fiction cannot be understated.
Thanks for reading,
Alex