Orphans of Apollo - S1 E4
September 2055
From the ashes of forgotten space dreams, a new era of exploration begins.
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Previously: as the Meyers left the foundation they appeared to be tailed. Lana’s parents managed to conceal their concerns.
Christian Larsson walked into his corner office on the fourth floor of the FAAS headquarters. From the floor to ceiling glass windows he had an unimpeded view out across the airfield. Below and to his right he could see one of the Foundation’s training aircraft. He watched impassively as it left its parking space and headed for the parallel taxiway.
He felt the vibration of an incoming call from the watch on his left wrist. Looking at the incoming caller, he touched the option to take the call on the large screen opposite his desk. Knowing this was a confidential call, his AI assistant automatically heavily tinted the outside windows and those to the corridor, then locked the door. The screen flicked on to show Tyler Mott, the ex Secret Service Agent who was Larsson’s head of security. He was sitting at his desk in the building's basement.
“We just intercepted another one, Sir. They picked up the Meyer’s car shortly after they left. Same as before, the agents stopped them but couldn’t find anything. No weapons or anything else suspicious. All they could do was issue an infringement for inappropriate manual driving.”
“And you’re sure there are no others?”
“We have a car ahead of the Meyers which is keeping an eye on them.”
“Ok, just keep it discreet. Any indication the Meyer’s or any of the other students noticed they were being tailed when they left?”
“No Sir. And I have no reports of anything suspicious from the agents motoring the students’ homes.”
“Ok good, but these harassment attempts are definitely getting more persistent. I only hope the location of our students’ homes have not been compromised.” Larsson rubbed his temples.
“There is always a chance sir, but as far as I’m aware, the locations are all safe and we intend to keep it that way.”
“Very well, brief your teams to be extra vigilant. I think we need to be prepared for an attempted attack or kidnapping. I sense that harassing us is probably not enough for them now. They may wish to make their point in a more forceful manner. Keep me informed.”
“Yes, sir.”
The connection dropped and the screen went blank. Larsson’s AI assistant waited a short period before gradually the windows became fully transparent again.
He exhaled slowly, swivelling his chair to look out the window once more. Larsson sat deep in thought for a moment before he called out, “Connect me with Connor O’ Sullivan.”
A small round head-shot of Connor O’ Sullivan appeared on the large screen with the word “calling” underneath. A few seconds later he answered.
“Hi Christian,” he said out of the corner of his eye, still focused on what was on the other screen in front of him.
“Do you have any progress to update me on the Lunar Analogue?” asked Larsson.
“Could be better,” replied O’ Sullivan, still engrossed in what he was doing.
“Tell me more.”
“Well, the Italians don’t have a problem with it. The French are coming round to the idea,” he shifted his gaze briefly to Larsson, “but nobody is happy about the method of delivery for the crew.”
“What about fabrication?”
“That’s actually going well. They started fabricating last week after the final design was approved. Unless anything unforeseen comes up, all the components of the base will be ready for shipping to Antarctica next summer. In fact, we might even be able to send some down later this summer and get a head start. It’s September now so they are just coming into spring of course. It’s all well understood engineering. I don’t see any problems coming up.”
Larsson sat back in his chair, the leather creaking softly.
“I want to bring the Lunar analogue forward.”
“Sure, as I said I don’t think there will be any problems during construction, even if there are we have all of the next Antarctic summer to sort it out. The base will be ready for them the following year. The first crew can head down as soon as they resume flights at the beginning of the summer.”
Larsson glanced up. “Make this a confidential call.” He waited a moment before addressing O’ Sullivan again.
“I want to bring it forward to the next Antarctic summer.”
For the first time in the conversation Connor O’ Sullivan looked up from the screen he had been preoccupied with and stared straight into the camera, his eyes wide.
“You can’t be serious. That’s impossible. It’s impossible on so many different levels.”
O’ Sullivan’s previous relaxed demeanour gave way to mild panic. He sat up straight in his chair.
“I mean even if we could get the base constructed, the kids have got to finish their Antarctic survival training, they haven’t even done all the other training they need to do to operate the base systems and drive the rovers. When are we supposed to do all of that? They’ve all just left to go back to college.”
He began talking so fast his words began to run into each other.
“We’ve only just got a tacit agreement for Concordia Station to act as an emergency fall back and provide search and rescue in the event of any accident. They really don’t like your idea of pushing them out the back of a plane to get them there. I haven’t even started to try to convince them of that.”
“This entire program has to be expedited, it’s not just the Lunar analogue,” said Larsson calmly.
“We are getting more and more harassment, which can only be True Genesis. Right now, the Federal Government does not really pay any attention to our activities, and I have done my best to keep it that way. If someone could prove to them what is actually going on here, we’d be shut down overnight. Even worse than that certain members of True Genesis are extreme, I wouldn’t put it past them to try to actually take out or kidnap some of our students. If something like that happens, this whole thing could be for nothing. I will not let that happen.”
O’ Sullivan leaned back in his chair and seemed to relax.
“So just supposing we could construct the base this summer, we could finish all the students’ training over our summer and they would be ready to go one year from now. We would probably have to pull them from a month or two of college. I’m not sure how that will go down.”
“We’ll pull them completely,” said Larsson. “Finishing their training for the analogue will not take all year. The rest of the time could be spent getting the first crew ready for their flight, so they can launch as soon as possible after they get back from Antarctica.”
“Hang on a second, that’s going a little too far, don’t you think?”
“Connor, I told you, if we do not step it up a few gears, we are in danger of this whole thing collapsing around us. I’m really worried for the younger ones, they really are still kids. What will happen to them if this organisation gets shut down? We need to get our first cohort flying as soon as possible. If we are going to establish a colony, we have to think about minimum viable population.”
“It’s risky.”
“We have to balance the risk. Sure, we are going to accelerate their training. There is a risk they might not be one hundred per cent ready, but they will be ready enough. That is less of a risk than just continuing at our present pace.” Larsson leaned forward, his eyes intense.
O’ Sullivan realised there was no way he was going to change his boss’s mind. He might even be right. At the end of the day it was his programme. Without him, none of this would exist. O’ Sullivan knew though as head of training it was going to be up to him to get them as ready as possible. He sighed.
“We had better start talking about crew assignments then.”
“Yes, how do you propose we do it?”
“Well, we have nineteen kids left in the first cohort.”
“They’re not kids anymore Connor, they’re in their early twenties and quite capable young adults.”
“Yes, I know, sorry. It’s just we’ve been involved with them since they were babies. Like being a parent, it’s hard sometimes to accept that they have grown up and are young adults.”
“I know what you mean,” agreed Larsson. “But you have to look past that.”
“In all seriousness, though, you know that a human brain does not fully develop until the age of twenty-five. The last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, the part that is associated with decision-making, the ability to plan ahead and think about the consequences of one’s actions. That’s why armies like to recruit and train soldiers young, so they can send them off to fight before they are fully able to think about the consequence of their actions. Makes it easier to get someone to kill.”
“I am aware of that. Besides, we have been nurturing them since they were babies. With the help of their biological parents we have raised them in the best possible environment.”
“I agree. All I’m saying is don’t lose sight of the fact that accelerating the program like this is a lot to put on young shoulders.” O’ Sullivan’s eyes softened.
“Point taken,” said Larsson. “So, back to crew assignments.”
“Ok, well I’m just thinking on fly here, but the Lunar Analogue base has six births. To make the exercise worthwhile and to allow us to evaluate their performance, they really need to be there for a few months. That means over next summer we can have twelve of them go through the analogue. From those twelve, we can select our first crew.”
“In that case, I want you to have a look through all of their files and come up with some recommendations for crew assignments. We’ll review them together. Did you see the reports on the latest Apollo Lunar Lander sim sessions?”
“Not yet, sorry Christian, I’ve been too busy.”
“I was really impressed with Lana’s performance. She is really turning out to be one of the stars of this program. Academically she’s strong, she’s a good pilot, and she makes good decisions. She just lacks confidence. I think if we put her in command of one of the analogue crews, it could really help her to build her confidence.”
“She definitely has a lot of potential. Let me review the files and I’ll come up with some recommendations and we can go through them.”
“Sounds good,” said Larsson, and cut the connection.
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 episode 4. There won’t be a behind-the-scenes post this week as I have been spending some time revising and also writing some scenes which I left out of the original first draft of “Orphans of Apollo”. It was always my intention to go back and flesh things out, but as these scenes are coming up soon, I needed to get on with it.
I know I’m a bit late but we started watching “Foundation” this week. I have not read the Asimov books - there’s some more to add to the list. It would be interesting to know anyone’s thoughts on the series. No spoilers please.
Thanks for reading,
Alex